Why I am not an atheist.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I had to look up the word. But after a very brief perusal of the concept I could probably be fit into that straight-jacket if it comes in a large. <s>



John

My mistake, then. I though that was what you were hinting at in your OP.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

In its simplest sense, it's the error of using finite means to believe you can make judgments about absolutes. For instance, a living cell, circumscribed by its cell-membrane, experiences nothing until what is experienced has passed through the transforming membrane of the cell.

Take the eyeball as a cell. There is no human being alive, nor has there ever been, who has direct experience of what exists outside the membrane that makes up the eye. Once an electromagnetic vibration passes through the membrane of the eye to find itself on the retina, all semblance to what the electromagnetic vibration was outside the eye has disappeared in the unity of the electromagnetic vibration and the retina.

A science minded person might say that scientists can measure the electromagnetic wavelength with measuring devices of their own device. And yet every single solitary measuring device will be subject to the same principle as the eyeball. Of course it will, since the eye itself is merely a contrived theory about what to do with electromagnetic waves. An eyeball is a measuring device with no more metaphysical veracity than any other device devised by a scientist.



John

So what's your point?

 

[MikeF]

The cause of God is like the cause of purple. Some people receive the exact same stimuli that cause some to experience God without they themselves experiencing God. In this sense we could speak of those who are "God blind" within the same legitimate scientific framework we might speak of someone being color blind.
John

And here is your fatal error. We can detect and evaluate the wavelength of light labeled "purple". We investigate and evaluate whether a particular individual can perceive this wavelength. In contrast there is no external phenomena to attribute to your imagined entity. As a matter of fact, you have conveniently placed it behind an impermeable membrane. A membrane you have yet to establish.

So no, it's a ridiculously false analogy.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And I have no idea why? So we're in a pickle. <s>



John

You write a lot but seem to say very little.
It's all very vague, very abstract and clouded in unclear metaphors.

I suggest to write more to the point.

If this is how you wrote your book, I'ld be in great pains by page 2.

 

[Moses_UK]

In a book I authored twenty-years ago, I pointed out that a successful argument against Darwinism and scientific materialism in general demands that the arguer step outside the circumscription of the principles and ideas that make Darwinism and scientific materialism appear to be viable in the first place. Darwinism and scientific materialism can be seen to be false from root to branch so long as the wrong-headed conceptualism in which they sprouted is doused with a good dose of the weed-killer known as truth.

In that spirit, rather than go point-by-point through Evangelicalhumanist's list (and discussion) for why he's an atheist, it seems more propitious to cut to the chase concerning Evangelicalhumanist's list since every element suffers from the same fundamental conceptual error.



John

Dear John, as a Christian am intrigued to know why you believe in the doctrines?

 

[ppp]

When you look at a little red corvette do you always remind yourself she's not red? <s>


John

I don't need to remind myself of something I don't think in the first place, John. I don't think that a car I see contains red. I don't think that a rock I stub my toe on contains pain. I don't think that dust contains sneezes.

You are operating from a false assumption, John.

 

[ppp]

Dear John, as a Christian am intrigued to know why you believe in the doctrines?

Weren't you Muslim the other day? We Quickie conversion?

 

[PureX]

If you could disprove the theory of evolution you would be hailed as one who has done more for both religion and science than anyone, ever..

By far the greatest scientist of all time.

Your self published book somehow is not doing that.

You don't seem to understand that the theory of evolution has never been proven. Science cannot prove nor disprove our theories of reality. It can only determine that they function, or do not function, within the physical parameters within which we test them. And relative functionality is proof of nothing other than relative functionality.

What this thread seems to be referring to, however, is something a bit different. That is the fact that the "objective reality" that atheists seem to imagine and profess to be the holy grail and the be-all and end-all of existence, and the reason that they just cannot accept the possibility of God in any real way, is in fact, a fiction they have generated in their minds, that they can never experience, know, or otherwise comprehend. A limitation that they are for the most part unwilling and/or unable to accept.

 

[Moses_UK]

The reasons why Atheists exist and nonbelief are due to the Christians misinterpreting their religion and creating stories about Jesus which are factually inaccurate and absurd. Jesus was a Man and the bible is flawed so Athiest with a rational mind cant digest the doctrines anymore and decide that all other religions are the same.

 

[Moses_UK]

Weren't you Muslim the other day? We Quickie conversion?

no, no, am asking him as a christian

 

[ppp]

no, no, am asking him as a christian

Your participles are dangling.

 

[John D. Brey]

You'd have to use unscientific and philosophical analogies since I'm pretty simple minded for lack of a better word.

Are you saying using "earthly" concepts, ideas, and so forth to determine spiritual realities such as god's existence?

Somewhat like saying god does not exist because I don't see it with my naked eye?

To your last statement, yes.

Ironically, St. Paul claimed precisely, in chapter one of Romans, that what we see with our naked eyes reveals God. I'm taking up that paradoxical subject in another thread, The Science of God.


John

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I don't really understand why one should need to get rid of biological rules to make room for other forces

 

[ppp]

The reasons why Atheists exist and nonbelief are due to the Christians misinterpreting their religion and creating stories about Jesus which are factually inaccurate and absurd.

That's incorrect. My being an atheist has nothing to do with the details of Christianity or Jesus. I don't believe that God or Allah exist because nether Christians nor Muslims, respectively, have demonstrated that either being exist. Until that foundational claim has been established, the absurdities and inaccuracies of Muslim and Christian doctrines are irrelevant.

 

[Audie]

You don't seem to understand that the theory of evolution has never been proven. Science cannot prove nor disprove our theories of reality. It can only determine that they function, or do not function, within the physical parameters within which we test them. And relative functionality is proof of nothing other than relative functionality.

What this thread seems to be referring to, however, is something a bit different. That is the fact that the "objective reality" that atheists seem to imagine and profess to be the holy grail and the be-all and end-all of existence, and the reason that they just cannot accept the possibility of God in any real way, is in fact, a fiction they have generated in their minds, that they can never experience, know, or otherwise comprehend. A limitation that they are for the most part unwilling and/or unable to accept.

I'm sure you would not intend quite such an insult,
but for me not to know that theories don't
get proven, nor does anything else in science -

Well, it would require severe brain injury.

Vaguely amusing is your naive projecting of you faults
onto others, in this case your brlief in God- fiction made into
someone else's fiction issue, and limited intellect.

Which come to think of it, you also made up that stupid
thing about me not grasping the idea about proof, which
with your doubling down on insults now looks deliberat
and with malice..
Shame on you.

 

[MikeF]

The reasons why Atheists exist and nonbelief are due to the Christians misinterpreting their religion and creating stories about Jesus which are factually inaccurate and absurd. Jesus was a Man and the bible is flawed so Athiest with a rational mind cant digest the doctrines anymore and decide that all other religions are the same.

It is beyond Christianity. It begins with the animism of our earliest ancestors and the observation that as the number of people in groups increases, as the base of knowledge of the society improves, we see an evolution of religious thought to adapt to these changes in society. All beliefs are included in the analysis including shamanism, polytheism, deism, etc. One must look at all religious beliefs and consider all the variables that contribute to religious belief, including psychological and social variables, in order to draw informed conclusions. You are tasked not simply with reconciling the discrepancies in one religious text, but with the differences among and between all religions.

 

[icehorse]

Could you break that down to an example I could address? Or quote the particulars of the statement that make you think that's the case?

John

I'm going to put only so much time into this because I'm not convinced you're totally operating in good faith on this thread. But, fwiw, in reference to your post #13 I find (paragraph numbers below):

para 1 - to over generalize. A few people might behave the way you describe, but the community would not.
para 2 - same
para 3 - not even sure what you're saying here.
para 4 - Seems like a strawman, do you have any concrete examples?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

To your last statement, yes.

Ironically, St. Paul claimed precisely, in chapter one of Romans, that what we see with our naked eyes reveals God. I'm taking up that paradoxical subject in another thread, The Science of God.


John

That would be an assumption, though. Saying "what I see reveals god" doesn't make it so. If it were, people who do not believe in god would come to the same conclusion (say god, and so forth) without preconditioned reasoning, no?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

In the true sense that there's nothing like the experience of color anywhere in the universe except in a brain, so too, and ironically, God doesn't exist anywhere in the universe except in a human brain. The brain that believes "color" exists "out there" while arguing that God doesn't, is living in an illusion from which it's incapable of freeing itself.

You are really missing something important, because you insist upon equating our subjective experience with reality, and at the same trying to prove that the two can't be reconciled. But I do not believe this to be so.

Consider a flower -- let's make it one that I perceive as purple. I'm going to make a lot of observations about this:

• I say "I perceive as purple" because you have brought up the fact that this is only my own perception, and I have no idea what you perceive. Also you mention the colour-blind, who could not distinguish that purple from brown. But I put it to you, that for all those (the very large majority) who are not colour-blind, if you simply ask them (no prompting, now!) what colour is the flower, they will all respond "purple." So already we know something is happening.
• We know that bees (among other insects) perceive that flower quite differently, because they are seeing in a different section of the spectrum than we are. And we also know, if we adjust our cameras to "see" in that same spectral section, we can get an idea of what the bee sees -- and it really is quite different from what we see.
• We know that neither I, you nor the bee can see what we need to when there is insufficient light. Under moonlight or other dim light, for example, the bee doesn't see the flower's hints as to where the nectar is, nor can we identify the colour -- we see it just as the colour-blind individual does.
• We know that what we see -- and what the bee sees -- is a consequence of light being reflected and not reflected from that flower, and that it is that reflected light that we see. Everything reflects and absorbs different combinations of wavelengths, and that is what gives us the perceptions, subjective as they might be, that we have. Same for the bee.
• Both you, I and the bee, though we may have different goals with respect to this flower, are all able, using only the radiation that the flower reflects/absorbs, to obtain our individual objectives with respect to that flower. Me, to decorate my table, you to woo someone, the bee to collect nectar --------- and the flower! to get the bee to help it reproduce, and you and I and the birds and animals and winds to spread its seeds to where there will be an opportunity for its genes to live on and reproduce again!

AND ALL OF THAT describes the actual reality. Not my subjective reality, nor yours, nor the bee's, nor the birds' and animals' that distribute seeds subjective realities either. But the one thing that it does admit of is this: that there is a flower, and there is a light spectrum that it reflects/absorbs -- and that is the reality. And, of course, that there are also you, me, the bees birds and animals, to perceive it -- each in our own way.

 

[Audie]

You are really missing something important, because you insist upon equating our subjective experience with reality, and at the same trying to prove that the two can't be reconciled. But I do not believe this to be so.

Consider a flower -- let's make it one that I perceive as purple. I'm going to make a lot of observations about this:

• I say "I perceive as purple" because you have brought up the fact that this is only my own perception, and I have no idea what you perceive. Also you mention the colour-blind, who could not distinguish that purple from brown. But I put it to you, that for all those (the very large majority) who are not colour-blind, if you simply ask them (no prompting, now!) what colour is the flower, they will all respond "purple." So already we know something is happening.
• We know that bees (among other insects) perceive that flower quite differently, because they are seeing in a different section of the spectrum than we are. And we also know, if we adjust our cameras to "see" in that same spectral section, we can get an idea of what the bee sees -- and it really is quite different from what we see.
• We know that neither I, you nor the bee can see what we need to when there is insufficient light. Under moonlight or other dim light, for example, the bee doesn't see the flower's hints as to where the nectar is, nor can we identify the colour -- we see it just as the colour-blind individual does.
• We know that what we see -- and what the bee sees -- is a consequence of light being reflected and not reflected from that flower, and that it is that reflected light that we see. Everything reflects and absorbs different combinations of wavelengths, and that is what gives us the perceptions, subjective as they might be, that we have. Same for the bee.
• Both you, I and the bee, though we may have different goals with respect to this flower, are all able, using only the radiation that the flower reflects/absorbs, to obtain our individual objectives with respect to that flower. Me, to decorate my table, you to woo someone, the bee to collect nectar --------- and the flower! to get the bee to help it reproduce, and you and I and the birds and animals and winds to spread its seeds to where there will be an opportunity for its genes to live on and reproduce again!

AND ALL OF THAT describes the actual reality. Not my subjective reality, nor yours, nor the bee's, nor the birds' and animals' that distribute seeds subjective realities either. But the one thing that it does admit of is this: that there is a flower, and there is a light spectrum that it reflects/absorbs -- and that is the reality. And, of course, that there are also you, me, the bees birds and animals, to perceive it -- each in our own way.

White flowers actually have colors and patterns invisible to our eyes.