Rusting Car Bumper

You are almost there. The problem is that theists do not believe for all the highly ordered and abstract reasons that are bantered about in these debates.

If the atheist were to thouroughly and obvioulsy trash the theist all the believers reading and viewing would not stop believing. That is why these debates are generally a waste of time.

DC

Randy X

Thats not necessarily true.There are plenty of laughs to go around, so its not all in vain

Regards

Normal

Wow, that's a big dose of special pleading.

Everyone's belief system involves circular reasoning. EVERYONE! Atheists, theists, and agnostics all revovle around the axiom:

What I believe is true.

theghostinthemachine

Bull. You would say the exact same thing about any theistic argument. 90% of the comments on these boards are the typical drivel from atheists - "We have refuted this..." "Another argument that is foolish..." "Wishful thinking..." Very little actual content.


I have not heard one atheist in my life present a argument for why atheism is a prima facie truth, and yet almost every atheist I have spoken with seems to think it to be true.

<snip>

theghostinthemachine

Another load of bull. My feeling in arguing with atheists over the years is that there are only two results:

1. The atheist acts as if atheism is a prima facie truth and then argues from this assumed fact. And while they are at it, they build straw man arguments.

2. The atheist, even though they have lost the argument, will continue to argue until they get the last word thus declaring a victory.

I think atheists argue because they know God exists and are too arrogant and prideful to accept the facts. I find it interesting that anyone could be so irrational.

Of course the above is a over-generalization. The truth is, I have met atheists who are smart, and then I have met some like yourself, who are either being ignorant, or being stupid.

Deke

I suppose, but a profound difference in the way two people approach "belief" is the notion of presupposition.

Suppose you and I, Normal, are wandering the Sahara desert, and we come upon a metallic black box half buried in the sand. What can we say about the box upon visual inspection? It's black, it's a box, it's metallic, and it's in the desert, half buried in the sand in front of us. The 'tools' we used to make such an assessment were our eyes, and brains.

If asked, "How did this box get here?", neither of us would be in much of a position to offer a meaningful answer. Any answer we came up with other than, "we don't know", would be largely speculation.

Now suppose you have a tape measure in your satchel. After a few measurements, we can say a little more about the box than before. It's 2 feet by 2 feet square, it's a cube. With a new tool, we were able to say more about the box - but we still can offer little about its origins.

The heat and wind have blurred my mind a little, but I finally remember that I have a portable x-ray device in my camel bag. We take it out and investigate the box. A few x-rays reveals much about the box. Inside we can detect the presence of a metallic plate, upon which is inscribed the words, "Property of the US Air Force". Now we're on to something. We know the box is hollow, and that it is the property of the US Air Force, or at least the plate inside is.

More tools, and we get a more likely answer to the question of the box's origin. We both surmise it likely fell out of the UASF cargo planes that come and go from the base nearby.

The more we investigate the box, and the more tools we have at our disposal, the more we're likely to gain accurate information about the box.

Suppose instead, we had few tools, beyond your tape measure. After a while, the sun and wind might get to us both, and we start inventing ideas about the boxes origin. You believe it was dropped from the back of a camel that was part of a travelling circus that entertains in the area. I believe it is a monolith, similar to the 2001 Space Odyssey thingy, and that it possesses unknown powers. We invent and concoct, and reinvent - and eventually, we forget that we started with ideas that were completely fabricated in out minds - your circus story becomes real to you as you imagine more and more detail about the box and its involvement in the circus. My monolith story branches into a million different sci-fi ideas about the box.

Now, in both cases, the one where we had tools, and the one where we didn't, you're right, we were each under the 'belief' that what we knew about the box was true. With tools, we believed the box to be the property of the UASF. Without tools, you believed it to be a circus box, and I believed it to be an eerie extra-terrestrial monolith.

Is there an 'actual' truth about the box? Perhaps the metal plate with the UASF Property words was misleading, and it's only the metal plate that is the military property...the box may indeed be my monolith, or your circus box, and aliens put the plate inside, or the ringmaster did.

But what is more likely? Is it more likely that the box has at least "something" to do with the USAF? Or is it more likely that our imaginations hit upon the right answer?

When considering whether or not "what I believe" is true or not, I must check my beliefs against as much objectively obtained information as I can obtain.

I think this is why many non-theists dislike theistic explanations and views - they sure resemble made up stories that are presumed true because no one can remember them not being true.

MHO,

Deke

theghostinthemachine

I see, lets just assume from the start that belief is irrational (we will forget that you are singleing out existential beliefs), and then go from there. Copuld you explain to me again why atheist is a prima facie truth?


Yes, and I guess you will surrender your belief that you were not created five minutes ago complete with memories, or that life is not just an illuision. Would you really like to talk about begging the question?

"Let's assume that belief is initially wrong. Now of course the theist has offered no evidence, and only accepts God because they begged the question. God does not exist because there is no evidence for his existence."

You are the one begging the question. Would you care to offer a argument for why epistemological belief requires evidence first?

Are you somehow free from presuppositions?

Normal

Deke, that was an awesome allegory of metaphysical naturalism.

:notworthy

theghostinthemachine

You of course could tell this to the late Greg Bahnsen who whipped several of your boys into shape. Or Shandon Guthrie who whooped one of your boys. But let me guess...it was just that the atheist did not present their arguments as well as the theists in these debates, not that the theists arguments were better. In other words, all we ever get from atheists is, "We are right, you are wrong, that will not change, but lets debate. If you present your arguments better, it is not because they are better, because we have already established that they are not..."

Sorry, but this thread has nothing but ad hom attacks on theists.

streamline

Huh. I would? And you know this how..?

Typical drivel from atheists...hmmm...sort of like your snide and whiny response strikes me as typical fare of the pedantic brand of theist? As for very little actual content -- have you been reading the posts on this forum? You know, the other 10%. There would seem to be plenty of well-thought and articulate content here to challenge any honest theist. I do hope you jump into that fray, and defend your God in his Heaven (and the ghost in your machine) with all the substantive content of which you are clearly capable.

To be honest, I am not sure you have heard many atheists, period. At least, I am not sure you know the difference between hearing and listening. I don't think there are many of the godless sort who assert such a stance as "prima facie." I certainly do not. I suspect that you will find that the majority of atheists start out with the same necessary assumptions (necessary, that is, if we are to have a coherent discussion at all) as you, only we clean our hands of that extra one, the one you so eloquently defended. You know, the God assumption. We tend to find that after some investigation, this particular assumption is just plain bull.