Christian Atheists

[BaalChatzaf]

Spin it any way you like, you don't prove a positive by disproving a negative.

Empirically.

1 - 1 = 0

(but last I looked you claimed to be agnostic - a 'maybe believer' - NOT atheist,

so how does that match your criticisms of god and religion? At least show the convictions of your courage.)

Yes you do. p implies q is logically equivalent to not q implies not p. Indirect proof (or proof by reductio ad falsi) is a s valid as positive direct proof. The way one disproves the existence of something is to show that the assumption of existence leads to a contradiction. That is how we prove there is no rational number whose square is 2.

A contradiction is false. So you prove something is false if it logically implies a contradiction.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

"Basic human need"? Food, clothes, shelter, sex. I need ten women to keep barefoot and pregnant.

--Brant

here I'd go along with a "positive" right

[Brant Gaede]

"Law evolving towards objectivity is yet another matter. Where is that happening?"

Is there another purpose for these forums?

The only part of what you said I agree with is "morality is self control".

How are our conversations impacting actual law?

--Brant

I wish you'd get deeper into your disagreements with my post; I'm not trying to win an argument, especially by default

[anthony]

Spin it any way you like, you don't prove a positive by disproving a negative.

Empirically.

1 - 1 = 0

(but last I looked you claimed to be agnostic - a 'maybe believer' - NOT atheist,

so how does that match your criticisms of god and religion? At least show the convictions of your courage.)

Yes you do. p implies q is logically equivalent to not q implies not p. Indirect proof (or proof by reductio ad falsi) is a s valid as positive direct proof. The way one disproves the existence of something is to show that the assumption of existence leads to a contradiction. That is how we prove there is no rational number whose square is 2.

A contradiction is false. So you prove something is false if it logically implies a contradiction.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The crux of this is the attempt Angela is making to identify an existent by means of a non-existent.

"Secular" - like "atheist" - identifies what one is not, and no more than that.

Creating a positive out of a negative is a contradiction in itself, not so?

[Brant Gaede]

Spin it any way you like, you don't prove a positive by disproving a negative.

Empirically.

1 - 1 = 0

(but last I looked you claimed to be agnostic - a 'maybe believer' - NOT atheist,

so how does that match your criticisms of god and religion? At least show the convictions of your courage.)

Yes you do. p implies q is logically equivalent to not q implies not p. Indirect proof (or proof by reductio ad falsi) is a s valid as positive direct proof. The way one disproves the existence of something is to show that the assumption of existence leads to a contradiction. That is how we prove there is no rational number whose square is 2.

A contradiction is false. So you prove something is false if it logically implies a contradiction.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The crux of this is the attempt Xray is making to identify an existent by means of a non-existent.

"Secular" - like atheist - identifies what one is not, and no more than that.

Creating a positive out of a negative is a contradiction in itself, not so?

If you multiply two negatives . . .

Not a contradiction if it can be done. Let's say you impart positive energy into a relationship but the other party takes that and indulges himself destructively at your expense--that's negative from positive. Because of this the justice system becomes involved for there are rights' violations going on. The justice system is negative energy. Government is negative energy. The rights' violations are stopped. Thus, a positive from a negative.

--Brant

too much theorizing going on

[anthony]

Spin it any way you like, you don't prove a positive by disproving a negative.

Empirically.

1 - 1 = 0

(but last I looked you claimed to be agnostic - a 'maybe believer' - NOT atheist,

so how does that match your criticisms of god and religion? At least show the convictions of your courage.)

Yes you do. p implies q is logically equivalent to not q implies not p. Indirect proof (or proof by reductio ad falsi) is a s valid as positive direct proof. The way one disproves the existence of something is to show that the assumption of existence leads to a contradiction. That is how we prove there is no rational number whose square is 2.

A contradiction is false. So you prove something is false if it logically implies a contradiction.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The crux of this is the attempt Xray is making to identify an existent by means of a non-existent.

"Secular" - like atheist - identifies what one is not, and no more than that.

Creating a positive out of a negative is a contradiction in itself, not so?

If you multiply two negatives . . .

Not a contradiction if it can be done. Let's say you impart positive energy into a relationship but the other party takes that and indulges himself destructively at your expense--that's negative from positive. Because of this the justice system becomes involved for there are rights' violations going on. The justice system is negative energy. Government is negative energy. The rights' violations are stopped. Thus, a positive from a negative.

--Brant

too much theorizing going on

Mm-yes. I sorta get that, except that it doesn't apply at the level of identification.

Still trying to find what this elusive thing called 'secular philosophy' means.

For all I know, it could be being nice to people and eating vegetarian.

[Brant Gaede]

If I have to be a veggie they can take this "secular" crap and shove it! "Nice"?--I'll try to work with that. I might need some therapy.

--Brant

[Xray]

I'm an agnostic for epistemological reasons: for one cannot claim knowledge either way.

That's Skepticism, qua philosophy. I've heard a Christian use that very argument - and apart from

the onus of proof thing - what separates him from you?

What separates me from a Christian is the rejection of basing an ethics on non-knowledge, i. e. on a premise ("God's will") which is not supported by any evidence.

[anthony]

I'm an agnostic for epistemological reasons: for one cannot claim knowledge either way.

That's Skepticism, qua philosophy. I've heard a Christian use that very argument - and apart from

the onus of proof thing - what separates him from you?

What separates me from a Christian is the rejection of basing an ethics on non-knowledge, i. e. on a premise ("God's will") which is not supported by any evidence.

Therefore, rejecting "God's Will"-as-ethical-base, you as agnostic could accept the premise of "God", alone?

[Xray]

Therefore, rejecting "God's Will"-as-ethical-base, you as agnostic could accept the premise of "God", alone?

Accepting the god premise would raise the question of the "why" of it all. Of this god's 'motive', so to speak.

In ancient times, thinkers already checked the premises of an omnipotent and a benevolent god and found both to be incompatible.

For if god is posited as omnipotent, then this deity cannot be benevolent, for surely an omnipotent god could have constructed a far better world than the one we have, where earthquakes and other catastrophies have accompanied mankind since the beginnnng.

On the other hand, if god is posited as benevolent, then this deity cannot be omnipotent, for surely a benevolent god would do everything in its power to stop catastrophies, but since nothing of that kind has ever happened, it allows the inference that this benvolent god must be pretty helpless.

So all it takes are some simple contradictions to flush down the drain two premises that have formed the pillars of god concepts in various religions: 'omnipotence' plus 'benevolence'.

There exists of course also critcism of such god concepts as being too 'anthropomorphic', but the more 'vague' a god concept becomes, the more Occam's razor can be used (at least this it the experience that I have made in discussions with persons whose faith is unconstrained by religious dogma).

But the unsolvable mystery remains of why there is something rather than nothing. That's why I'm an agnostic.

[Brant Gaede]

Y

But the unsolvable mystery remains of why there is something rather than nothing. That's why I'm an agnostic.

Because nothing is nothing and something is something. The actual question should be: Why this something instead of another something? We address this question with scientific inquiry. The "unsolvable mystery" is a contradiction. That's why it's not solvable. You are inhabiting a semantical trap. It's that old epistemology regina of yours.

--Brant

welcome to the real world

[BaalChatzaf]

Y

But the unsolvable mystery remains of why there is something rather than nothing. That's why I'm an agnostic.

Because nothing is nothing and something is something. The actual question should be: Why this something instead of another something? We address this question with scientific inquiry. The "unsolvable mystery" is a contradiction. That's why it's not solvable. You are inhabiting a semantical trap. It's that old epistemology regina of yours.

--Brant

welcome to the real world

Everything is something or other.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[anthony]

An agnostic is a theist/deist in waiting, as far as I can see: "one day, it might

all be revealed to me, so til then better to not risk anything and commit myself". But

much better to be wrong - to take a stand, one way or the other. The Universe won't notice the difference, or give a damn, but I will.

[Brant Gaede]

An agnostic is a theist/deist in waiting, as far as I can see: "one day, it might

all be revealed to me, so til then better to not risk anything and commit myself". But

much better to be wrong - to take a stand, one way or the other. The Universe won't notice the difference, or give a damn, but I will.

I'm not "waiting." 50 years ago I wasn't waiting to find out if the moon was made of green cheese, I was waiting to find out what it was made of. But there was a moon out there. I don't see an old white man with a beard up in the clouds and I'm not waiting to see HIM. If I did see him I'd be waiting to find out WTF was going on.

--Brant

I'm not an agnostic and I'm not waiting to be one

[Guyau]

. . .

While I was working on my first degree, likely about 1967, there was a debate at my campus between the famous Christian atheist Thomas Altizer* and James Pike.* I do not recall the debate anymore. I remember their personalities. Altizer was definitely the more intellectual and scholarly. I do remember one smiling thing. It was something my first philosophy professor, who was sitting near me, uttered under his breath. He was a Thomist. (He was native of Rumania, I think, he had been educated [putting it mildly] in Europe, had lived under the Nazis, and had escaped from the Communists; he lectured with a heavy accent and was an unforgettable character.) Pike had said at one point “I’m not an expert on Aquinas.” My professor uttered under his breath, “That’s pretty obvious.”

I see now my unforgettable first philosophy professor was from Hungary. One of his colleagues remarked “No one ever accused Francis Kovach of temporizing or equivocating.” Got that right.

It was second semester of freshman year. His was an honors section for Introduction to Philosophy. Kovach’s lectures were a systematic exposition. You always knew where you were in one big outline of being and human knowledge. His speech was very hard for us to understand at times. We would ask him to repeat a word. When we still couldn’t get it, he would write it on the board. That did not always help, as his handwriting was a scrawl.

There were two essay exams in the semester. In advance he gave the students a list of things on which he had lectured, from which the exam topic would be selected. At the exam, each student was given one of the topics he or she was required to write on. Then the student was allowed to choose any other topic from the list for writing a second essay in the exam. Somehow we knew that what was to be written was a repetition of what had been in the lectures, the more exactly repeated, the better. So we tended to study for the exams together, comparing our class notes. I liked it. You learned something, even if you disagreed with it.

We also wrote a term paper on any topic of philosophy we pleased. This was the place for saying what you yourself think. That was my first philosophy paper. It was titled “Change and Consciousness in the Experience of Time.” The really big reason I remember those days in that class was that it was there for the first time I was shown the vast power of reason, as able to fathom any problem, as able to comprehend all the world, not only within science, but in every realm of human reflection. It was in the following summer and fall that I read Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

[Brant Gaede]

We also wrote a term paper on any topic of philosophy we pleased. This was the place for saying what you yourself think. That was my first philosophy paper. It was titled “Change and Consciousness in the Experience of Time.” The really big reason I remember those days in that class was that it was there for the first time I was shown the vast power of reason, as able to fathom any problem, as able to comprehend all the world, not only within science, but in every realm of human reflection. It was in the following summer and fall that I read Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

Youth juice. When I was that age I comprehended too much with too little data. Works best for physics and least for applied philosophy. Sort of an education universal.

--Brant

but luckily we continue to learn, but what's vital is how we structure our brains early on including in college

[Xray]

But the unsolvable mystery remains of why there is something rather than nothing. That's why I'm an agnostic.

Because nothing is nothing and something is something. The actual question should be: Why this something instead of another something? We address this question with scientific inquiry. The "unsolvable mystery" is a contradiction.

You think it can be solved?

[Brant Gaede]

But the unsolvable mystery remains of why there is something rather than nothing. That's why I'm an agnostic.

Because nothing is nothing and something is something. The actual question should be: Why this something instead of another something? We address this question with scientific inquiry. The "unsolvable mystery" is a contradiction.

You think it can be solved?

Actually, no. I only solved your "unsolvable."

--Brant

and left with my own--kicking the can down the road

[anthony]

"Why something instead of nothing?" Dunno. Next question please.

(it did come to me in a dream once, but...)

Seriously, this is the ultimate in "loaded" questions, because it smuggles in two premises -

The "why" presupposes a purpose - and purpose implies a Prime Mover, a Creator.

Isn't this a kind of reversed causality: that the universe exists in order for there to exist Earth;

that Earth exists to support life; that life exists for there to be mankind?

(Like the 'purpose' of bananas is to feed monkeys, etc etc.)

So, since we figured each of us is too important to exist without purpose, we had to invent one.

Pure subjectivism - "the vain and presumptuous desire" to MATTER, in the great scheme of things -

when the great scheme of things doesn't even 'know' we each exist.

From which evolved false philosophies, 1. our 'purpose' must be to worship a Deity - or,

2. to serve fellow man. Both ignoring that man - the only being who can identify and pursue

'purpose' - has to find his own, individual by individual.

[BaalChatzaf]

"Why something instead of nothing?" Dunno. Next question please.

(it did come to me in a dream once, but...)

Seriously, this is the ultimate in "loaded" questions, because it smuggles in two premises -

The "why" presupposes a purpose - and purpose implies a Prime Mover, a Creator.

Isn't this a kind of reversed causality: that the universe exists in order for there to exist Earth;

that Earth exists to support life; that life exists for there to be mankind?

(Like the 'purpose' of bananas is to feed monkeys, etc etc.)

So, since we figured each of us is too important to exist without purpose, we had to invent one.

Pure subjectivism - "the vain and presumptuous desire" to MATTER, in the great scheme of things -

when the great scheme of things doesn't even 'know' we each exist.

From which evolved false philosophies, 1. our 'purpose' must be to worship a Deity - or,

2. to serve fellow man. Both ignoring that man - the only being who can identify and pursue

'purpose' - has to find his own, individual by individual.

Why sometimes means how as in how does it come to be that... .

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

"Why something instead of nothing?" Dunno. Next question please.

(it did come to me in a dream once, but...)

Seriously, this is the ultimate in "loaded" questions, because it smuggles in two premises -

The "why" presupposes a purpose - and purpose implies a Prime Mover, a Creator.

Isn't this a kind of reversed causality: that the universe exists in order for there to exist Earth;

that Earth exists to support life; that life exists for there to be mankind?

(Like the 'purpose' of bananas is to feed monkeys, etc etc.)

So, since we figured each of us is too important to exist without purpose, we had to invent one.

Pure subjectivism - "the vain and presumptuous desire" to MATTER, in the great scheme of things -

when the great scheme of things doesn't even 'know' we each exist.

From which evolved false philosophies, 1. our 'purpose' must be to worship a Deity - or,

2. to serve fellow man. Both ignoring that man - the only being who can identify and pursue

'purpose' - has to find his own, individual by individual.

Why sometimes means how as in how does it come to be that... .

Ba'al Chatzaf

Exactly. "Why" questions can also address causality, not ony goal-directedness ('purpose').

[anthony]

"Why something instead of nothing?" Dunno. Next question please.

(it did come to me in a dream once, but...)

Seriously, this is the ultimate in "loaded" questions, because it smuggles in two premises -

The "why" presupposes a purpose - and purpose implies a Prime Mover, a Creator.

Isn't this a kind of reversed causality: that the universe exists in order for there to exist Earth;

that Earth exists to support life; that life exists for there to be mankind?

(Like the 'purpose' of bananas is to feed monkeys, etc etc.)

So, since we figured each of us is too important to exist without purpose, we had to invent one.

Pure subjectivism - "the vain and presumptuous desire" to MATTER, in the great scheme of things -

when the great scheme of things doesn't even 'know' we each exist.

From which evolved false philosophies, 1. our 'purpose' must be to worship a Deity - or,

2. to serve fellow man. Both ignoring that man - the only being who can identify and pursue

'purpose' - has to find his own, individual by individual.

Why sometimes means how as in how does it come to be that... .

Ba'al Chatzaf

Exactly. "Why" questions can also address causality, not ony goal-directedness ('purpose').

Very neat. You guys are switching context. You do know this topic is all about agnosticism, atheism and

creation-ism? We all accept evolution, right? (Everything else is in the hands of physicists now.)

But this is not referring to science or causality.

No, I submit that the question as phrased, is equally "why?" AND "how?" (did-existence-come-to-exist) Implying a

Creator- and a purpose - whichever way you put it.

Xray was expressing uncertainty about atheism, with - "the unsolvable mystery ...of why [how?] there is something

rather than nothing." Hers is a metaphysical doubt, not a scientific one, self-evidently. Otherwise it would be 'solvable'.

[BaalChatzaf]

There is nothing purposeful about natural biological evolution. Genetic variation is primarily a chance event. Selection is the result of the underlying physical processes.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[anthony]

There is nothing purposeful about natural biological evolution. Genetic variation is primarily a chance event. Selection is the result of the underlying physical processes.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Quite right, which hasn't stopped mankind from making up his own 'purposes', all along.

It's what I've been trying to say.

Actually, for a layman to get his head around near-infinite "physical processes" of natural selection

and mutations - occuring over aeons - nearly all of which ended up on the scrap-heap, it's not so

surprising that his acceptance of 'what we have, is what was purposely created by God' is the simpler

answer for him. I mean, why strain yourself at understanding it all, when there is one easy solution

given to you on a plate?

[Brant Gaede]

There is nothing purposeful about natural biological evolution. Genetic variation is primarily a chance event. Selection is the result of the underlying physical processes.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Quite right, which hasn't stopped mankind from making up his own 'purposes', all along.

It's what I've been trying to say.

Actually, for a layman to get his head around near-infinite "physical processes" of natural selection

and mutations - occuring over aeons - nearly all of which ended up on the scrap-heap, it's not so

surprising that his acceptance of 'what we have, is what was purposely created by God' is the simpler

answer for him. I mean, why strain yourself at understanding it all, when there is one easy solution

given to you on a plate?

Created by God is the same as created by reality, but hoi polloi take it literally and others do not realize that reality itself creates nothing since it is simply an over-arching concept for that within reality which is responsible. In any case, whether you are religious (God) or secular (reality), "created by God" is merely shorthand connoting either a lot of thinking and knowledge or not.

--Brant