| Dialog on the Existence of God - by G.
Brady Lenardos and Agnostic Australian
Round 9 From Agnostic Australian 07/12/05 Brady wrote: The conclusion follows from the premises if and only if the form of the argument is valid and for no other reason. Yes, but if I do not accept the premises then your argument is irrelevant. Consider this hypothetical argument: if your holy books are true then atheism is false; your holy books are true; therefore atheism is false. This is a valid form of argument but it uses a premise that obviously I do not accept! If the disputed premise is removed from this argument, the result is not formally valid: if your holy books are true then atheism is false; therefore atheism is false. This is how it is with your arguments: you begin with non sequiturs, you try to sneak in additional premises (by informal fallacies) that I do not accept, you appeal to the formal validity of the final arguments and then you fault me for rejecting these arguments, which I do because I did not agree to those premises that you added and without these premises your arguments are fallacies of propositional logic. Look, even circular arguments are formally valid. Surely you don't find circular arguments convincing, do you? If you want to convince me, you'll need to base your arguments on premises that I accept. Consider the example of Augustine, who wrote to Maximin, an Arian, "I must not press the authority of Nicea against you, nor you that of Ariminum against me; I do not acknowledge the one, as you do not the other; but let us come to ground that is common to both - the testimony of the Holy Scriptures." Brady wrote: That is why we recognize a division between formal and informal fallacies. You seem to be taking the line that informal fallacies are not really fallacies at all, or that informal fallacies are of a lesser severity than formal fallacies and that your arguments might still be considered at least somewhat plausible. Why else this obsession with the purported formal validity of your arguments? In
any case, the formal validity of an argument is a very weak condition
since it requires nothing more than syntactic validity, without semantic
interpretation. For example, any argument with the form if P then
Q; P; therefore Q (modus ponens) is
formally valid, including this argument: if
square triangles taste yellow then the present king of France is bald;
square triangles taste yellow; therefore the present king of France is
bald. Thus, the formal validity of an argument is no indication of its relevance
or even coherence. Since your arguments employ words that you intend to bear semantic significance ("god", "knowledge", ...) and not merely to serve as symbolic placeholders ("P", "Q", ...) the formal validity of your arguments is irrelevant if you are equivocating with these words. Any equivocation may be resolved by distinction with subscripts, in which case your argument is a formal fallacy of the form if P then Q; R; therefore ~P: if the atheistic worldview is true then knowledge1 does not exist; knowledge2 exists; therefore the atheistic worldview is false. Brady wrote: It seems quite clear that if all atheistic cosmologies ultimately deny knowledge, then if there is any argument, then some sort of theism is affirmed. Okay, aside from the equivocation I mentioned last time, this argument is a fallacy of bifurcation. In round 2 you defined nine possible "cosmologies": Naturism, Negationism, Pantheism, Panentheism, Dualism, Godism, Deism, Theism and Subjectivism. Even if all atheistic "cosmologies" (i.e. all variants of Naturism and Negationism) are false (which you have not demonstrated), this is no proof that theism is true, let alone your variant of theism. Without this bifurcation, your argument (in round 4) "every argument is an argument for the existence of God" is a fallacy of affirming the consequent: "the" theistic worldview entails a coherent and consistent epistemology (in which arguments and knowledge subsist); a coherent and consistent epistemology exists (because knowledge exists); therefore "the" theistic worldview is true. Thus, following your modus operandi, you commit a formal fallacy (affirming the consequent), you sneak in the premise "either some sort of atheism is true or some sort of theism is true" (by the fallacy of bifurcation), and you present this formally valid argument (assuming the equivocation of "knowledge" is resolved by identification) which is, nevertheless, entirely irrelevant: either some sort of atheism is true or some sort of theism is true; if some sort of atheism is true then knowledge does not exist; knowledge exists; therefore some sort of theism is true. Hence, I challenge you to support your assertion that "every argument is an argument for the existence of God" without bifurcation. If you cannot then I believe I am justified in my claiming that you are here affirming the consequent. Brady wrote: What I mean by knowledge is our understanding of words, concepts and ideas that are independent or transcendent from deterministic necessity. There are several problems with this definition and your uses of it. Firstly, you have lost your way. You were trying to show that the atheistic worldview is inconsistent by proving that "knowledge" exists and also that "knowledge" does not exist in the atheistic worldview. You still need to prove these using the same definition of "knowledge" in each case. Yet your proof that "knowledge" exists accepts universal negative statements as articles of "knowledge", while your "proof" that "knowledge" does not exist in the atheistic worldview involves "indeterminism" or "human souls" created by "god". If you cannot resolve this equivocation then your argument utterly fails and I shall be on my way. Secondly, it seems that "knowledge" must be determined, otherwise in what sense are the objects of "knowledge" known? It appears that you have embedded a contradiction in your definition of "knowledge". Thirdly, the concept of "indeterminism" is not without dispute (and thirty years' war) in your religion. After all, your holy books indicate that "god" determines everything, including the thoughts of people: (Ecclesiastes 9) I thought long and hard about all this and saw that God controls the actions of wise and righteous people, even their love and their hate. No one knows anything about what lies ahead. (Ephesians 1) All things are done according to God's plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in union with Christ because of his own purpose, based on what he had decided from the very beginning. (Ezekiel
14) If any prophets are deceived into giving a false answer, it is
because I, the Lord, have deceived them. I will remove them from the
people of Israel. (Isaiah 55) "My thoughts," says the Lord, "are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways and thoughts above yours. [...] So also will be the word that I speak - it will not fail to do what I plan for it; it will do everything I send it to do. (John 12) And
so they were not able to believe, because Isaiah also said, "God has
blinded their eyes and closed their minds, so that their eyes would not
see, and their minds would not understand, and they would not turn to me,
says God, for me to heal them." (Lamentations
3) The will of the Lord alone is always carried out. Good and evil
alike take place at his command. (Romans 9) So then, God has mercy on anyone he wishes, and he makes stubborn anyone he wishes. But one of you will say to me, "If this is so, how can God find fault with anyone? Who can resist God's will?" But who are you, my friend, to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, "Why did you make me like this?" After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes, and to make two pots from the same lump of clay, one for special occasions and the other for ordinary use. (2 Thessalonians 2) And so God sends the power of error to work in them so that they believe what is false. Now,
belief in this capricious creator who controls your thoughts rather
destroys any hope of holding a coherent and consistent epistemology in the
theistic worldview. How do you know you are not deceived by the true
"god" to believe in a false "god"? How do you know the
true "god" does not distort your perception of the world? How do
you know the true "god" has not tricked you into accepting the
validity of modus ponens and that, in fact, modus ponens is not valid? How
do you know this? In the theistic worldview you can know nothing without making the same assumptions that atheists make. You assume the rules of deductive inference. You assume the proposition of correspondence. You assume tomorrow will be like today. You make all the assumptions that atheists make - and more - but you pretend that you make no assumptions at all. To
this point you have spoken of "the theistic worldview" as an
actual reality, instead of reasoning from the elementary principles we
share, and you have invoked gratis whatever assumptions are implicit
within that appellation. This places me at a distinct rhetorical
disadvantage since "the theistic worldview" carries a greater
number of latent propositions than "the atheistic worldview" by
virtue of its arbitrarily complex "god" who guarantees whatever
you like. This is evident in your conflation of "a world created to
be known" with all manner of epistemological principles that you take
for granted. Yet you offer no proof that "god" does indeed
guarantee these principles. Further, these verses taken from your holy
books show that the theistic worldview does not, in fact, entail these
principles and that some people are specifically blinded and deceived by
"god". Now, of course, you will suppose that you are neither
blinded nor deceived, but on what basis? Hence,
I shall now turn the tables and speak of "the atheistic
worldview" as an actual reality: in the atheistic worldview the
proposition of correspondence necessarily obtains precisely because there
are no "gods" to distort the perceptions of atheists; whatever
an atheist observes must correspond to reality. Furthermore, in your worldview, "god" is not the only one screwing with your mind: (2
Corinthians 4) For if the gospel we preach is hidden, it is hidden only
from those who are being lost. They do not believe, because their minds
have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world. He keeps them
from seeing the light shining on them, the light that comes from the Good
News about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. (2 Corinthians 11) Those men are not true apostles - they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ. Well, no wonder! Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light! (Ephesians
2) At that time you followed the world's evil way; you obeyed the ruler
of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people
who disobey God. (1
John 5) We know that we belong to God even though the whole world is
under the rule of the Evil One. (Luke
8) The seeds that fell along the path stand for those who hear; but the
Devil comes and takes the message away from their hearts in order to keep
them from believing and being saved. (1 Peter 5) Be alert, be on watch! Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. (1
Thessalonians 2) We wanted to return to you. I myself tried to go back
more than once, but Satan would not let us. In
fact, examining these verses, the "devil" and "god"
seem indistinguishable! The principal "element" of your
worldview is this "devil-god" who screws with your mind. Fourthly,
supposing the atheistic worldview is deterministic, of what relevance is
your indeterministic definition of "knowledge"? By the same
token, I could define "knowledge" as "our understanding of
words, concepts and ideas that are independent of the devil-god's
meddling". Thereby, the theistic worldview is shown to have no
possible "knowledge"! Am I wrong? It is easy to prove. Please,
show how you can get to "knowledge" (by this definition) from
the "elements" of your worldview! If the atheistic
worldview is deterministic then using your indeterministic definition in
this context is a category mistake. It
reminds me of a fundamentalist preacher I once heard waxing
rhetorical against Islam because Muslims do not have a divine redeemer who
died for their sins, and against Buddhism because Buddha was "just a
philosopher" and did not claim to be "god"! In each case
the preacher injected his presuppositions (the need for a perfect
sacrifice, the need for divine revelation, ...) into the opposing
worldviews and then decided that those worldviews were inconsistent or
incomplete. There seems little hope that fundamentalists will ever understand other worldviews from the perspectives of those worldviews. As the joke goes: how many fundamentalists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one; he holds the lightbulb and the whole world revolves around him! Brady wrote: It is the same person, just more detail, therefore no equivocation. It may be that two John Smiths live at 100 Main St. where one of these John Smiths drives a Ford truck. Whenever you talk of "John Smith" you must note specifically which one of these you intend and until you demonstrate that you are talking of the same John Smith every time, it is equivocation to state that a given John Smith lives at 100 Main St. and then to state that this same John Smith drives a Ford truck. Now consider this analogy in the context of this discussion. Each "John Smith" is a candidate worldview - one John Smith for atheism and one John Smith for theism (certainly there are more possibilities than this, but let's keep it simple). Let's say that any given John Smith "lives at 100 Main St." if and only if the several principles of epistemology in the corresponding worldview must have some unifying origin. Suppose, momentarily, that the several principles that form any given epistemology must have some unifying origin, as you say. That is, let's suppose that each John Smith lives at 100 Main St. according to the analogy. Now, under this assumption, the unifying origin in the atheistic worldview need not necessarily be a personal, theistic (and genocidal!) creator "devil-god" any more than the corresponding "John Smith" need necessarily drive a Ford truck, even though one of the John Smiths at 100 Main St. does drive a Ford truck. To say that you have demonstrated a creator "devil-god" merely by virtue of showing the need of a unifying origin (which you have not shown, by the way) is equivocation. In terms of the analogy: even if you have proved that a given John Smith lives at 100 Main St. then that's all that you've proved and not a bit more. Brady wrote: All these things flow from the elements of the theistic cosmology. We were created to know, the world was created to be known. These are the ways we know. They are innate. How do you know these are the ways to know? How do you know the "devil-god" infused your soul with modus ponens? How do you know modus ponens is not your sinful nature in rebellion against the true "god"? How do you know you are not blinded by the "devil-god"? How do you know your observations correspond to reality? How do you recognize causal relationships? What causes sonoluminescence? How do you know tomorrow will be like today? How do you know the "devil-god" will not make the sun stand still? How do you know what is animate? Is fire animate? Is a virus animate? Is penicillin animate? How do you know anything when the "devil-god" may have deceived you? I have much more to write but this is enough for now; I will leave your other comments until you answer these questions. Kind regards, Agnostic Australian
From Brady 8/04/05 Brady wrote: The
conclusion follows from the premises if and only if the form of the
argument is valid and for no other reason. AA responded: Yes,
but if I do not accept the premises then your argument is irrelevant.
Consider this hypothetical argument: if your holy books are true then
atheism is false; your holy books are true; therefore atheism is false.
This is a valid form of argument but it uses a premise that obviously I do
not accept! If the disputed premise is removed from this argument, the
result is not formally valid. No, the argument is
formally valid in your example. You just don’t consider the premise true
or the conclusion true. The truth or falsity of the premises has nothing
to do with the formal validity of the argument. In fact you can have
premises that mean nothing at all and still have a valid formal argument.
You can also have premises that are completely and utterly false and still
have a formally valid argument. Formal validity refers only to the
“form,” not to the substance. For instance, if circles are square,
then grapes are oranges. Circles are square. Therefore, grapes are
oranges. This is a formally valid argument. The form is modus ponens. The
premises are false and the conclusion is false, but the form is valid. You
don’t remove a premise because you don’t like it or disagree with it.
If you can show that it is false, then the argument falls. Not
“accepting a premise” does not make it false, especially as in our
case where it has been shown that there are no elements in the atheistic
cosmology that allows it to get to knowledge and there has been no counter
argument that demonstrates that there are elements in the atheistic
cosmology that do allow us to get to knowledge. “I don’t like it,”
is not a logical defense. AA continues: If
you want to convince me, you'll need to base your arguments on premises
that I accept. I am really not
concerned if you accept the premises or not. I am concerned with the truth
of the premises and the valid form of a deductive argument and if the
conclusions are cogent in inductive arguments. I would hope that you would
do the rational thing and accept true premises and valid conclusions. But
I won’t hold my breath. But let’s see what
we disagree with at this point. This might be helpful to us and our
readers. First let’s pull
apart our conditional syllogism apart and see where we stand. 1)
If
any atheist cosmology is true, then we can’t get to knowledge (i.e.
there is no knowledge). This
conclusion is based on two detailed arguments. The first concerns the
eastern atheistic cosmology that says that God does not exist, and neither
does the universe. I think we can agree that if nothing exists, there can
be no knowledge. The
second argument shows from the elements of the western atheistic cosmology
all you get is naturalistic mechanistic determinism. This cosmology says
that all that exists is nature (our universe, i.e. matter, energy, time,
space and the laws of physics). There is nothing but matter in motion;
there are more complex compositions of matter and less complex
compositions of matter; but, everything is just matter in motion following
the laws of physics, as it has to. Therefore, we can not determine if
there is anything animate or sentient; because every so-called
“thought’ we have is nothing more than a necessarily predetermined
product of the mechanistically determined nature of the universe. Given
these elements, there is no will and no free thought. Every so-called
“thought” was determined at the moment of the big bang; and therefore,
is no thought at all. If
you disagree with these conclusions, please show how the elements of the
western atheistic cosmology get us to knowledge. If you don’t want to
accept either of these cosmologies, then at least admit the conclusions I
have stated about these cosmologies do follow from their elements. 2) Knowledge exists. We have already written a little on this topic. You didn’t seem to want to dispute this. Let me know if you changed your mind. You will see that this premise is the negation of the consequent in the first premise. 3)
Conclusion:
Therefore, the atheistic cosmologies are false. (via Modus Tolens) AA wrote: You
seem to be taking the line that informal fallacies are not really
fallacies at all, or that informal fallacies are of a lesser severity than
formal fallacies and that your arguments might still be considered at
least somewhat plausible. Why else this obsession with the purported formal
validity of your arguments? What are you talking
about? The science of logic makes the distinction. The reason I keep
insisting that this argument is formally valid is because it is and you
keep saying it isn’t, despite you inability to show a formal fallacy.
Neither, have you shown an informal fallacy. So far, all you have done is
say, that you don’t like it. AA wrote: In
any case, the formal validity of an argument is a very weak condition
since it requires nothing more than syntactic validity, without semantic
interpretation. For example, any argument with the form if P then Q; P;
therefore Q (modus ponens) is formally valid, including this argument: if
square triangles taste yellow then the present king of So, does that
mean that the formal invalidity of your argument is an indication
of its relevance and coherence? Are you nuts? Do you have any training in
logic or are you just making this stuff up? A deductive argument MUST have
formal validity or it falls. So, a valid argument is the first,
necessary step to a true conclusion, whereas a formally invalid
argument is necessarily doomed. You must recognize this, or you wouldn’t
try so hard to avoid admitting the obvious validity of the argument. AA continues: Since
your arguments employ words that you intend to bear semantic significance
("god", "knowledge", ...) and not merely to serve as
symbolic placeholders ("P", "Q", ...) the formal
validity of your arguments is irrelevant if you are equivocating with
these words. Any equivocation may be resolved by distinction with
subscripts, in which case your argument is a formal fallacy of the form if
P then Q; R; therefore ~P: if the atheistic worldview is true then
knowledge1 does not exist; knowledge2 exists;
therefore the atheistic worldview is false. So far, you have never
shown an equivocation in anything I have written, here is your chance to
try again: Show where I have ever used two definitions of Knowledge. And
please make your use of definitions based on the logical “OR” and not
the logical “ I mean the same thing
by “knowledge” in both places. In fact I am willing to use the
definition instead of the term, here we go: 1)
If any atheist cosmology is
true, then we can’t get to an understanding of words, concepts and ideas
that is independent or transcendent from deterministic necessity (i.e.
there is no knowledge). 2)
We can get to an
understanding of words, concepts and ideas that is independent or
transcendent from deterministic necessity (i.e. there is knowledge). 3)
Conclusion: Therefore, the
atheistic cosmologies are false. Now, even you must see
there is no equivocation in the above. That is what I have always said and
always meant. Brady wrote: What
I mean by knowledge is our understanding of words, concepts and ideas that
are independent or transcendent from deterministic necessity. AA Responded: There
are several problems with this definition and your uses of it. Firstly,
you have lost your way. You were trying to show that the atheistic
worldview is inconsistent by proving that "knowledge" exists and
also that "knowledge" does not exist in the atheistic
worldview. You still need to prove these using the same definition
of "knowledge" in each case. Yet your proof that
"knowledge" exists accepts universal negative statements as
articles of "knowledge", while your "proof" that
"knowledge" does not exist in the atheistic worldview involves
"indeterminism" or "human souls" created by
"god". If you cannot resolve this equivocation then your
argument utterly fails and I shall be on my way. I am beginning to
think that you have no clue what “equivocation” means. You have not
shown an equivocation. As for “proving that I am using the same
definition, I think my above syllogism rids us of that “problem.”
Regarding the rest, it real doesn’t make much sense. Have you not
heard of direct AND indirect derivations? Both are valid and both use
different ways of determining true statements. So, what’s the problem?
Do you think because one argument uses an indirect derivation that all
arguments must use an indirect derivation? Or do you think that two
arguments must incorporate each other to come to a valid and sound
conclusion? None of this is necessary. You are just grasping at straws,
because the logic is against you. AA continues: Secondly,
it seems that "knowledge" must be determined; otherwise in what
sense are the objects of "knowledge" known? It appears that you
have embedded a contradiction in your definition of "knowledge". This makes no sense.
If knowledge is determined, how can you tell the difference between
knowledge and non-knowledge? If knowledge is determined, the “thought”
that you are “thinking” is nothing more than atoms bouncing around in
your head the way they must according to the laws of physics, just like
the atoms bouncing around in a rock. There is no difference. If knowledge
is determined, you could not have thought anything different than you did;
you could have written nothing other than you did. If knowledge is
determined, everything you write to me in the next post is also
determined, and you can do nothing else. If knowledge is determined, there
is no understanding or meaning, because both of these terms implies
something other than mere matter in motion. Matter in motion doesn’t
understand; it just reacts as it must according to the laws of physics. Here you have done one
of two things; you have either redefined “knowledge” to where if the
definition is true, it is meaningless (this is called self-stultification)
or you have added a hidden premise, a bit of magic that allows us to
understand and makes our thinking other than matter in motion. Of course
you could be committing both fallacies. Personally, I think you are. AA wrote: Thirdly, the concept of "indeterminism" is not without dispute (and thirty years' war) in your religion. After all, your holy books indicate that "god" determines everything, including the thoughts of people. (Ecclesiastes
9) I thought long and hard about all this and saw that God controls the
actions of wise and righteous people, even their love and their hate. No
one knows anything about what lies ahead. (Ephesians
1) All things are done according to God's plan and decision; and God
chose us to be his own people in union with Christ because of his own
purpose, based on what he had decided from the very beginning… AA, either you are
ignorant of the doctrine of predestination or you are intentionally
setting up a straw man argument. There are three points to the doctrine of
predestination, you have given just one of them and ignored the other two.
Here are all three: 1)
God decrees all things that
come about. 2)
Man freely chooses what he
wants and is morally responsible for those choices. 3)
There is concurrence. I think you could
easily find examples of the second point in the Bible on virtually any
page, so, I won’t go into that one. The third point I will
point out one in Genesis. Here we find the story of Joseph, who is sold
into slavery by his jealous brothers. Years later, a famine comes along
and Joseph’s former family is forced to go to Here we see
concurrence. Man’s evil intent and God’s plan being worked out as he
had predestined it. Did Joe’s brothers have free will, yes! Did God
predestine this event, yes! Do we know exactly how this all works, no. But
we do know that the Bible recognizes both free will and predestination,
and shows that they work in concert. But this is a rabbit
trail; it is a brazen attempt at the fallacy of Tu quoque or the “You
Too!” fallacy. But, even if the Bible supported your assertion, you
would still have the same problem as you did before. You still cannot show
that given the atheistic cosmology you can get to knowledge. AA wrote: In
the theistic worldview you can know nothing without making the same
assumptions that atheists make. You assume the rules of deductive
inference. You assume the proposition of correspondence. You assume
tomorrow will be like today. You make all the assumptions that atheists
make - and more - but you pretend that you make no assumptions at
all. I totally agree that
both atheists and theists hold to these presuppositions. The difference
is, if the atheist cosmology is right, you can never know that these
presuppositions are true, because if the atheistic cosmology is true, you
can never “know” anything. Simply because the atheist holds to these
presuppositions and his cosmology, doesn’t mean that the contradiction
between his cosmology and the presuppostions doesn’t exist. I have never
denied the atheists adherence to these presuppositions. I have only
affirmed the necessary disjunct between knowledge and his cosmology. You
haven’t shown the two do not contradict after nine rounds of debate. Of
course, if you could, that would end the debate. But here we are, and I
get the feeling that you will not solve the contradiction in your next
response, or the next one, or the next one… You have tried everything
else: you have denied cosmology, redefined epistemology, tried to divert
the subject by attacking theism, tried to lessen the impact with a Tu quoque fallacy, and
slaughter the meaning of “equivocation” every chance you got, but you
have never shown that there is no contradiction. That is the only defeater
to my argument. What you need to do is real simple. But you have a big
problem. Your problem is that I have already shown that the atheistic
cosmology does not have the needed elements to get to knowledge. Maybe in the next
round you could try showing that there is no contradiction between
atheistic cosmology and knowledge. If not, admit the point and we are
done. Please do one or the other. We will all be looking for your answer. AA wrote:
To
this point you have spoken of "the theistic worldview" as an
actual reality, instead of reasoning from the elementary principles we
share, and you have invoked gratis whatever assumptions are implicit
within that appellation. This places me at a distinct rhetorical
disadvantage since "the theistic worldview" carries a greater
number of latent propositions than "the atheistic worldview" by
virtue of its arbitrarily complex "god" who guarantees whatever
you like. This is evident in your conflation of "a world created to
be known" with all manner of epistemological principles that you take
for granted. Yet you offer no proof that "god" does indeed
guarantee these principles. Further, these verses taken from your holy
books show that the theistic worldview does not, in fact, entail these
principles and that some people are specifically blinded and deceived by
"god". Now, of course, you will suppose that you are neither
blinded nor deceived, but on what basis? All I have stated is
that if knowledge exists it is consistent with the theistic cosmology and
contradicts the atheist’s cosmology. Both are true. Here, once again,
you try to get around the question at hand. To win the argument all you
have to do is show that the atheistic cosmology has the elements to get to
knowledge. Once you do that, it won’t matter what the theistic cosmology
says. But, of course, you can’t do that, so we play this little game ad
infinitum, ad nauseum. Please don’t think you are fooling anyone. If you
could have shown the elements in the atheistic cosmology that could get us
to knowledge, you surely would have done it some time ago and would have
ended this all, claiming a huge victory. But, you have not, because you
can not! AA wrote:
Hence,
I shall now turn the tables and speak of "the atheistic
worldview" as an actual reality: in the atheistic worldview the
proposition of correspondence necessarily obtains precisely because there
are no "gods" to distort the perceptions of atheists; whatever
an atheist observes must correspond to reality. “Perceptions?”
Please show the elements in the atheistic worldview that get you to
perceptions and an understanding of the term “propositions.” If you
don’t have those elements, this is a bunch of nonsense. You can’t even
get to “animate” with the elements of the atheistic cosmology. And if
you can’t get to animate, you surely can’t get to “sentient.” If
you can’t get to sentient, you won’t be able to get to quantifiable
and qualifable “perceptions.” As for the atheist’s
observations necessarily corresponding to reality, even you don’t
believe that. When an atheist observes a reed in a pond and the reed looks
bent, does that observation correspond to reality? Is the reed truly bent
or is that an optical illusion? In
other words, isn’t it the case that his observation does not correspond
to reality? You and I know that it is more likely than not that the
observation is faulty. That it does not correspond to reality. When an
atheist looks up at night and sees the full moon, then lifts his hand and
holds out his thumb, does he not see that his thumb blocks out the entire
moon? Should he not conclude from this observation that his thumb is
larger than the moon? Or should he understand that his observation does
not correspond with reality and needs to be tempered with knowledge of
distance, optics and physics? The truth of the matter is that observations
and perceptions fall into the category of the synthetic, and synthetic
statements never reach necessity or certainty, but are always merely
possible or probable. This is philosophy 101. Surely, when you see David
Copperfield levitate a woman, even you reject that your perception must correspond to reality; you know it’s a magic show! But this is not all,
how can our atheist do geometry? Since our atheist will never observe a
perfectly straight line or a perfect circle or square, geometry could
never correspond to reality. He also will never observe or experience the
number “2” or “5,” So, mathematics seems to be out of the realm of
reality. You see, your naïve empiricism destroys knowledge. If you want to speak
of the atheistic worldview as actual reality that is fine, you still have
to admit that atheism’s cosmology still does not have the elements to
get you to knowledge. You haven’t solved the problem; you have just
continued to advance the contradiction: you say you know perceptions
correspond to reality, but your cosmology, if true, denies you know
anything. AA wrote:
Fourthly,
supposing the atheistic worldview is deterministic, of what relevance is
your indeterministic definition of "knowledge"? By the same
token, I could define "knowledge" as "our understanding of
words, concepts and ideas that are independent of the devil-god's
meddling". Thereby, the theistic worldview is shown to have no
possible "knowledge"! Am I wrong? It is easy to prove. Please,
show how you can get to "knowledge" (by this definition) from
the "elements" of your worldview! Well, you are right
about one thing here, the atheistic worldview is deterministic and if it
is true, then my definition of knowledge would not have meaning, of course
there would be no meaning to anything at all: no meaning at all, no
understanding at all, and no knowledge at all. That is the point of my
argument. If knowledge is determined by matter controlled mind states, it
could not be other than it is. And when the matter changed, the knowledge
would necessarily change to adapt to the new configuration of matter. What
we call “knowledge” in this case is not thought out conclusions, but
mechanical responses necessarily trigger by matter as it follows the
necessary patterns of the laws of physics. At this point, matter would
make you be an atheist or agnostic and matter would make me be a
Christian, and there could be nothing we could do abut it. There is no
argument you could make that would change me and none that I could make
that would change you. When the matter changed configuration, then you
would become a Christian and I an atheist. And there is nothing that
either of us could do about it. Is this what you really want to call
knowledge? I always know when an
opponent is utterly failing; he usually turns to pejoratives, as you have
begun to do in your last few posts. Those who are winning the argument
have no need for such nonsense. Are you wrong? Yes! If you want to attempt
an indirect derivation the proper assumption would be: knowledge
is our understanding of words, concepts and ideas that are independent of
indeterminism. Of course, if you stated it this way, it would be
utterly stupid. That is because within indeterminism is the necessary
concept of independence. So you would be saying that knowledge
is our understanding of words, concepts and ideas that are independent of
being independent. This of course would make it a self stultifying
contradiction. In regards to the rest
of your post: You still don’t get it. It doesn’t matter which God I
believe in. If all atheist cosmologies are shown to be false, some form of
non-atheism (i.e. some sort of theism) must be true: via disjunctive
syllogism. We are dealing with an excluded middle here, there are no other
options. 1.
theism or atheism 2.
not atheism 3.
therefore, theism (1,2,
disjunctive) Unless
you can show that the atheist cosmology can get us to knowledge and that
my critique showing it is impossible to get to knowledge with an atheistic
cosmology is wrong, atheism is necessarily false. Therefore, some sort of
theism is true. |