Play Trap the Atheist (The atheist delusion)

by hyjyljyj , Wednesday, December 05, 2012, 14:52 (4373 days ago) @ dhw

Sorry, I thought the Category being called The atheist delusion constituted reference. It's on the page after "Intro" called page 1.-Quote: "Since nobody knows and nobody can know, it seems to me as blinkered to insist on the truth of the design theory as it is to insist on the truth of the chance theory."-Assumption 1: Nobody knows.
T/F: As nearly 100% true as possible to determine. Although somebody MIGHT know without telling us, all the arguments of those who have claimed to know in the past and present--both theist and atheist--have been unsatisfying to say the least, expecting us to just take it on "faith", which I define as belief without knowledge.-Assumption 2: Nobody can know.
T/F: Uncertain. I remain agnostic on that epistemological point, since we don't really KNOW with any degree of certainty--we believe based on observation but don't KNOW--whether someone else CAN know, either now or in the future. We can't look inside their brain. Logically, if we stipulate for the purpose of discussion that the word "God" has some agreed-upon meaning, and if there were this so-called supernatural, personal God who is omnipotent, he (for lack of a better pronoun) COULD by definition prepare this or that person's or persons' mind to handle seeing him and then reveal himself to them, and then that person or persons would know definitively. But that could very well occur without our knowing about it, so we would remain agnostic. Also, right now, BEFORE any so-called "revelation" has occurred, it COULD be possible for someone to know there's a personal God--their mind could be prepared to receieve that knowledge--without their (or our) knowing that it's ready to receive it. (I think it highly unlikely, but not categorically impossible.) Then once he revealed himself, that would also have invalidated Assumption 1.-If there was an Assumption 3, that there was an insistence on the truth of the design theory in my original post, then that would be false and indeed a blinkered approach. I do look around and perceive what looks to be inescapable, undeniable evidence of design by direct observation, as remarked by Einstein, Paine, et al., but that does not rise to the level of proof, so I do not insist on the truth of the design theory; I merely find it almost infinitely more plausible than the idea that random chance is responsible. Even a single virus with no nucleus is comprised of an intricate chain of proteins that needed to be assembled in a certain exact order from amino acids that were also assembled in a certain exact order to function properly, via the actions of other proteins called enzymes, each of which is also so complicated that it defies the imagination WORSE, more ABSURDLY, to assume it came about by happenstance than to posit a designer. Occam's Razor seems to slice right through the argument for random chance. -Even more convincing, for me, is the phenomenon of consciousness: where that could have ever come from except from other consciousness, is a question no committed atheist has ever approached answering cogently or satisfactorily, IMHO. Inorganic, dead matter just suddenly jumping up and becoming organic matter, then suddenly acquiring out of thin air the quality we call "life", then haphazardly leaping forth and becoming AWARE of itself, just seems a more ridiculous fairy tale, requiring more profound faith in the unknowable, than anything found in the Bible.-Therefore it seems reasonable that every single person who ever lived or ever will live is actually agnostic about the origins of life and the universe, whether they acknowledge it or not. -Thinking is certainly one of the brain's purposes to which we put it (if we're thinkers, that is); my query to the hypothetical atheist was that since it was not specifically DESIGNED for any specific purpose, but rather just accidentally showed up by pure chance, how can you trust the accuracy or veracity of anything it comes up with? It would be like spilling your milk and trusting that the shape of the spill represented an accurate map of London, then following that "map" to attempt to get someplace. You will no doubt recognize this example from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. While I am of no religious faith whatsoever and certainly not a Christian (I was raised Catholic but never believed an ounce of it after about age 13), and reject Lewis's arguments for irrational faith, I do reserve the right to use certain cogent arguments in discussions with atheists to shake up their own rigid belief system.