Round 3

From Agnostic Australian 5/17/05

Hello Brady. 

Brady wrote: I think we can isolate 4 main points that you address in your post. 

I was hoping for (1) your definition of CCE; (2) your choice of AG, DG or HG (or something else); (3) proof that this provides CCE; and (4) your answer to my question "Do you?". 

Brady wrote: Actually "naturism" has several meanings. When used as a cosmology it means that nature is all that exists. Naturalism is a complete worldview of which naturism is the cosmology. 

Okay. 

Brady wrote: Here are actually nine possible cosmologies and an example of their followers: 

Okay. You are theistic. I am not theistic. 

I am happy to use your definitions. 

Kind regards, 

Australian Agnostic

From Brady 5/17/05

Hello AA,

I thought if we get some of the things we could probably easily agree on out of the way it would get us farther along on the things we will disagree on. I will try to move faster. I will leave the AG, DG, or HG question for next time as that will take up some space.

Let me go back to one of the point you brought up in your previous post:

Brady wrote: What makes it true is the inability of any atheist to show (via deductive derivation) that their cosmology has the elements to support an epistemology.

AA responded: Argumentum ad ignorantium.

Well, it would be argumentum ad ignorantium, if I was saying something like, “If they can’t prove that ghosts don’t exist, then they do.” But, that is something very different than what I am taking about. You see argumentum ad ignorantium draws a conclusion based on what you don’t know, rather than what you do know. I guess the term that might be a little vague in my statement is “inability.” This term can be taken in a contingent or an absolute sense. For intense, I would be unable to win the Master tournament in Golf this year. I don’t play golf and those other guys that do play would tromp me at that game. But had I spent many years playing and practicing golf I may have had the ability to actually win the tournament. My ability or inability is contingent on my practicing the game. So, if I meant in my above statement that since no atheist has as of yet been able to show that their cosmology has the elements to support an epistemology 9but it’s possible that someone could), you would be right, that this is argumentum ad ignorantium. But that is not what I mean by “inability.” I mean inability in the absolute sense; in the same sense that a person is unable to draw a two dimensional square-circle. Now, with the atheist and his problem with cosmology and epistemology the problem is the same as the square-circle, not the golfer. Whereas the golfer can go out and work at his game, atheist can’t go out and find the needed elements and add them to his cosmology. This is because the elements needed to give him the ability to get to an epistemology would change his cosmology from atheist to non-atheist.

Concluding, since the way I am using “inability” is absolute and not contingent, the assertion of argumentum ad ignorantium is false.

This brings me back to my assertion that if atheism in any form is true, then there is no real knowledge. If there is real knowledge, then atheism in any form is false. You will notice that this also eliminates any possible agnostic position too.

You may want to take a look at Russ Manion’s paper:

 http://home.earthlink.net/~gbl111/knowledge.htm

It deals with this topic at greater length.

At the risk of going too long, I will answer the question you brought up:

Brady wrote in a previous post: Here lies the problem, if effects are not like their causes, and your perceptions are caused by the world around you, what makes you think that your perceptions (effects) are anything like the world around you (causes)?

AA responded: I don't. Do you?

Yes I do. From an atheist view, there is no answer for the above reason. From a theist view, there is. Part of the theist cosmology is that God created a world meant to be known and created creatures meant to know it. These elements of our cosmology allow us to get to an epistemology that is coherent and cohesive.

Regards,