emotional

Show them the Bible contradictions. I've been there. They'll harmonise the contradictions. Tell them about the factual evidence of evolution, with a nice gleaning from Talk.Origins. I've seen it. They'll bring you their own refutations, with competing articles from True.Origin or some such. Bring them the Argument from Evil, Incompatible Properties, Nonbelief, Confusion - the whole lot. I've done that. They'll simply reinterpret the evidence as being for the existence of God.

Trying to convert theists to atheism by using evidence alone is like trying to install Linux applications on a Windows operating system. They keep reinterpreting the evidence to fit their skewed worldview. Tell them how Evil disproves God, they'll tell you how Evil proves Him. No! You need to change the whole operating system if deconversion is to be successful. Change the whole set of presuppositions. Change the underlying worldview. Argue by presupposition first, by evidence second.

All the evidence in the world won't convince theists their religion is false and their God does not exist. They already know, in their heart of hearts, that their religion is false and their God does not exist. They're just suppressing this knowledge under their theistic presuppositions. The problem for theists isn't lack of evidence, it's lack of submission to the implications of the evidence. They don't need evidence, they need to depart of their erroneous thinking.

The core of the presuppositional argument for naturalism is that Nature, and not Scripture, should be the standard of all epistemic judgement. They must be led to believe that, when the Bible speaks about a solid sky (firmament), then the Bible is not the Word of God - and not that, according to their scriptural presuppositions, the Bible does not mean a solid sky. They must be led to leave that if Nature features the lion eating the lamb, then this is absolute proof that the omnibenevolent God does not exist. They must submit to the ultimate authority of Natural Fact and judge all of God's alleged Words according to it.

"There is no philosophical strategy that has ever worked, except this one: to challenge the credulous in terms of the revelation of Nature... by what standard can man know anything truly? By Nature, and only by Nature." - Devnet the Naturalistic Presuppositionalist

For more about my Presuppositional Argument, see here:
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/presuppositional.htm" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/presuppositional.htm</a>

Starboy

devnet, I agree. The conflict between religion and science is primarily one between the “authority of nature” vs. the “authority of the supernatural”. The foundation of the world we live in today is based on accepting natural explanations over the supernatural. The basis of religion is the acceptance of supernatural explanations over natural explanations (i.e. the resurrection). It is a throwback to first century thinking. To me it is obvious that religion is grossly out of step with the world today, yet on this board I have seen many fine examples of first century thinking. It is baffling, hopeless and fascinating.

Starboy

ManM

I suppose we should interpret the evidence to fit your skewed worldview?

callmejay

Disbelieving in God (and many other stances) based on logic require certain assumptions, which we often don't even think about. First, there is the assumption that a contradiction makes an argument false. I'm sure some people disagree with this. Zen koans come to mind, as well as the whole wave-particle contradiction in quantum theory. Then there is the assumption that we can trust (at least to some extent) our senses and instruments. There is also the assumption -- and this one is crucial and not provable -- that just because something has always been this way, it will continue to do so. For example, just because gravity has always followed a particular formula, how do we really KNOW it will continue to do so, and not, for example, switch directions. Then there are assumptions like Occam's razor, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

If your opponent doesn't agree with your assumptions, logic really isn't going to help.

ManM

I propose that we rename "Occam's Razor" to "Occam's Principle of Limited Imagination".

Corona688

You just hate him 'cause he makes so much sense.

ManM

Corona688,
Actually, it doesn't really make any sense. I understand that simplicity is desirable because it is easy to deal with, but I think it requires quite a stretch to claim that the simple answer is always the true answer.

Zadok001

I don't use the Razor principle that way. I use to to ELIMINATE possibilities, not confirm specific ones. For example, I could come up with an exceedingly convoluted and unlikely scenario to explain gravity involving 16 inbred Gods and their various pets, but the Razor lets us basically disregard that possibility. At least, that's my methodology.

ManM

Zadok001,
In other words, you are saying that the complexity of an answer disqualifies it from being true. Correlating complexity and truth is good for pragmatic reasons, however, that does not mean a correlation between the two actually exists.

Valmorian

It's a matter of necessity. There's no need to presuppose new entities when the existing ones will do.

If you see a glass of spilled milk, do you presume a ghost came along and knocked it over? Do you presume space aliens came down and wanted to test the viscosity of milk?

Are those as likely?