Sesshoumaru

To embrace Atheism is to abandon rationality. Man cannot exist in a world without God. How can one explain logic, natural law, and the creation of the univerce without the existance of God? It is impossible to prove these things without God. I challenge any atheist to disprove me on any one of the afore mentioned points. Please no ad hominem attacks.

Thank you sincerely,
Sesshoumaru

diana

I challenge you to prove them. So far, you have only so many assertions.

Until you do prove your positive claim, we are rationally justified in our atheism, the default position.

d

NonHomogenized

I don't accept your assertions. Please provide evidence which justifies each of the following assertions.

Assertion (1): To embrace atheism is to abandon rationality.
Assertion (2): Man cannot exist in a world without god.
Assertion (3): It is impossible to prove logic, natural law, and the creation of the universe without god.

The evidence for each assertion should be on a par with how ordinary/extraordinary the claim is (ie ordinary claims would require ordinary evidence [claim; there is milk in my fridge. this claim requires no further evidence; I have milk in my fridge, and know many people who have milk in their fridges. It is a perfectly ordinary thing to be the case.], whereas extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence).

Please note that additional assertions will not serve as said evidence.

Jobar

We will not insult you personally- it's against our rules here, and is pointless to boot. However, your arguments are empty and senseless, and unless you manage to answer NonHomogenized's objections we will just ignore you. Will you come back and try to support your statements, or are you just another drive-by preacher?

Conchobar

Originally posted by Sesshoumaru

To embrace Atheism is to abandon rationality.

I challenge you here. Atheism is merely NOT believing in the existence of God. First there is no evidence at all of god. God is not even defined. God is invisible, inaudible, intangible, immeasurable by any method. It makes more sense to be a sceptic about god until someone, somewhere provides a shred of evidence. To postulate a god without any evidence or reason is to abandon rationality. You have it backwards.

Man cannot exist in a world without God.

That is a wild claim without evidence. Since there is no evidence for God, how do you know we are not already existing in a world without God. I am living and breathing. And I have never seen a god at work anywhere. Certainly inventing and believing in gods is not necessary for our existence. Apart from that, if God exists, he hides so perfectly that he has no effect on us.

How can one explain logic, natural law, and the creation of the univerce without the existance of God?

Easy. Logic is a human brain mechanism. We now know the circuits, mainly in the frontal lobe, orbito-frontal gyri with connections to several other associatiion areas. It lights up when we solve a problem with logical analysis. Natural law is just the properties of matter and energy. As we perceive and codify these properties including behavioural, we call it Natural Law. The Creation of the Universe if it did start sometime is unknown. We have some evidence that it began in one spot 13.4 billlion years ago and expanded to its present form based on physical properties. There is no evidence that a God uttered magic words and made it happen. There no evidence that the Universe was conjured.

It is impossible to prove these things without God. I challenge any atheist to disprove me on any one of the afore mentioned points.

I just did that in my above paragraphs. The only think I cannot give a definitive answer is what caused the Big Bang. I am honest, unlike you. I simply say "I don't know." You create an imaginary humanoid cosmic deity and claim without any evidence that this invented deity made the universe.

Please no ad hominem attacks.

If you need me to show powerful evidence for biological evolution, cognition being exclusively a brain function, I will be happy to post that for you. But science is complex and needs explanation, unlike the simple minded ideas of religion, simple but wrong.

Thank you sincerely,
Sesshoumaru

Your welcome, but I will argue from scientific and rational positions, and debunk superstition and mythology rather aggressively, as long as you know that ahead of time.

Conchobar

Lobstrosity

Could you possibly explain how it's possible to "prove" these things with God? Personally, I think it's impossible to prove anything with God simply because your reasoning is always circular. First you assume that a being (aka God) exists who can create or do X. You then say that X exists and hence God must exist. That isn't a proof.

Inconnu

How could one explain a Jumbo Jets flight to ancient Egyptans? You couldnt at the time, but you can now. God is a place holder in the human psyche waiting to be filled with facts.

diana

If you can now explain a Jumbo Jet's flight to "ancient" Egyptians, you could have done the same thing then--had you known. Whether they're in the present or past, they're still "ancient" and have the same knowledge base either way.

Isn't this a fancy way of saying, "God is the explanation for things we don't yet understand?" If so, it's already been said more concisely: God of the Gaps.

This is no argument for a God, though. It's merely testament to man's egotistical need to think he has the answers when he does not.

d

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Sesshoumaru :

You know, I'm a bit leery about commenting on your post. I have a feeling you're not going to respond to anyone. That is, I suspect you're a post-and-run kind of person. So far, you haven't responded to any of your commentators.

Oh well. I'll take a stab, anyway, even though I doubt you'll respond. It is illegitimate to reason from the fact "hypothesis H explains experience E" to the fact "hypothesis H is true." It's just Affirming the Consequent. You say God would explain x, y, and z, but fail to show that only God would explain x, y, and z. Further, to posit God as such an explanation is an egregious violation of Ockham's Razor. Look it up.

SRB

I would say that truths of logic are necessary truths; they could not have been anything other than they are. To explain them would be to say why they are true rather than false when they might have been false. Since they cannot possibly have been false there can be no such explanation, not even a theistic one.

As for natural laws and the origin of the universe, I have no one particular preferred explanation for them. I’m still undecided there. There are plenty of possible explanations that are no less plausible than some sort of theistic explanation. Maybe it is simply a brute fact that the natural laws are as they are and maybe the universe came to exist uncaused. Alternatively, maybe the natural laws and universe were caused to exist by some sort of natural process that preceded the universe as we know it. Alternatively, perhaps the natural laws and universe were caused to be as they are by something or someone who isn't God. God is usually defined as an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good person who created the universe and rules over it. One can conceive of infinitely many causes and creators other than God. Maybe there is some sort of impersonal creative force; maybe there is a creator who is not all-powerful; maybe there are several creators who are morally defective, etc, etc, etc.

So I would say that it is incoherent to explain a truth of logic. Truths of logic are as they are and have no explanation. As for the origin of the universe and natural laws, alternative nontheistic explanations abound. Since it has not been shown that some sort of theistic explanation is better than all of these, there is no support for the existence of God here.

SRB