weltschmerz

Hello,

If you felt that your friend needed help, would you be honest with them and tell them that they need help?

Thanks,

~ Alexander

JCS

I don't know you so calling you friend is a stretch, but what the hell. You need help, hope you start feeling better soon.

kennethamy

[QUOTE=weltschmerz;4727406]But you misunderstand what a presumption is. The presumption of atheism no more implies that atheism is true, than the presumption of innocence (in a murder trial) implies that the accused is innocent. The prosecuting lawyer must presume the accused is innocent although he may believe the accused is guilty as hell, and is going to prove he is. In law, the presumption of innocence is a procedural position not a substantive one. It is the position that the prosecution has to "go forward" to show that the accused is guilty, not that the defendant has to "go forward" to show that he is innocent. And the presumption of atheism is also procedural. It is that the theist must "go forward" to show that atheism is false, because it is the theist who has made the substantive claim, and it is the theist who, therefore, assumes the burden of proof. I think you may be confusing "presumption" with "assumption". The presumption of atheism does not assume that atheism is true. If it did, it would beg the question. But it doesn't.

Alf

I must admit that I am amazed.

Christians assume there is a god and they claim that us atheists know there is a god we simply deny this knowledge for some obscure reason.

Now, how am I supposed to know that there is a god? Presumably because the evidence is overwhelming, right? So where is this evidence? Christians say that it is all around us but the evidence of sun, moon, stars, us, etc are just evidence of those things. Unless they have a clear indication that they were created by some creator they cannot constitute evidence of any creator. So where is this indication? What is it about a sun that compels us to think that a god must have created it and not the simple rules of gravity as science indicates? What is it about us that compels us to think that we must have been created by god and not evolved as science indicates?

When we ask these questions, the christians just shrug and have no idea what we are asking and then they have the nerve to tell us that we are willfully lying to hide from the truth? From where did they get this arrogance?

Alf

Gawen

To presume something is to take it for granted (sometimes with a clear justification) or to assume/suppose without proof but with confidence. This is not the atheists position, but a theists position. Because we're using the word "presume" in a religious sense, it is just a different word for "faith". And this will take us back to the tired and worn out and false argument that atheism takes more faith than theism.

bd-from-kg

weltschmerz:

You say:

Now I don’t know what you mean by “willfully”, but if this is to make any sense at all you have to be saying that (as a result of this “willful suppression”, presumably) we are not conscious of our knowledge of God.

In that case your mission (if you should choose to accept it) is to remind us of this “knowledge”. How you should go about this depends on what you think the nature of this “knowledge” is.

For example, perhaps you think that this knowledge is based on publicly available evidence and/or reasoning of some kind. In that case you could simply remind us what this evidence and reasoning is. But here’s the thing: the same methodological question arises as to the appropriate way to evaluate this evidence. That is, in coming to our conclusion (based on this evidence) that God exists, should we have started from a presumption of atheism? In other words, the original question presents itself, and is really unaffected by your hypothesis that we already, in some sense, “know” that God exists.

The other possibility is that you think that our knowledge is based on some sort of “internal evidence” – perhaps the sort of thing that Plantinga, following Calvin, calls a “sensus divinatus”. The problem here is that it’s hard to see how anything of that sort could produce knowledge (as opposed to mere belief) that God exists. Anything that seems like a sensus divinatus could be of natural origin of the ordinary sort, or of natural origin of an exotic kind (for example, perhaps it was implanted in us by a race of aliens from Arcturus), or of a supernatural origin other than God (Satan, perhaps, or some supernatural being with a sense of humor, or one with some unknown reasons for providing us with it). In other words, beliefs that “spring up out of the blue” for no discernible reason are highly suspect, to say the least, and in no way constitute “proof”, or even compelling evidence, that their contents are true. Since knowledge means, among other things, justified belief, it’s hard to see how a belief of this kind could constitute knowledge, since it doesn’t seem to be justified in any intelligible sense.

There’s also the inconvenient fact that not everyone seems to be equipped with an SD or anything like it. It’s not just us garden-variety atheists who don’t have (or are not aware of having) any such thing, but famous religious leaders such as Buddha seem to have lacked it as well. In fact, Paul himself seems to have been unaware of any such faculty, since he says, not that men know of God’s existence directly via something like a sensus divinatus, but rather that “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made. So they are without excuse…”

So unless you seriously intend to defend this SD nonsense, why don’t you just remind us what the evidence and reasoning are through which we “know” that God exists? Or, if you want to stick to the original subject, why not discuss what methodological approach is appropriate in evaluating this evidence (supposing FTSOA that it actually exists)?

In short, the “all men know that God exists” claim, besides being a show-stopper, is a red herring. It’s completely irrelevant. The discussion can proceed nicely without reference to it.

kennethamy

The presumption of innocence does not take the innocence of the accused for granted.

Gawen

We're not talking law either.

kennethamy

What makes you think that "presumption" means something different in "presumption of atheism", than, in "presumption of innocence"? Flew's explanation of it (and it is his idea) makes exactly that analogy.

kennethamy

What makes you think that "presumption" means something different in "presumption of atheism", than, in "presumption of innocence"? Flew's explanation of it (and it is his idea) makes exactly that analogy. After all, "assumption" and "presumption" are different words, and, presumably have different meanings. What makes you think they mean the same?