Play Trap the Atheist (The atheist delusion)

by dhw, Thursday, December 06, 2012, 08:57 (4372 days ago) @ hyjyljyj

Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Sorry I didn't recognize the quote, but it's six years since I wrote the brief guide, and I assumed you were referring to something written on the forum.
 
hyjyljyj: Assumption 1: Nobody knows.
[...] 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.-I agree 100%.-Hyjyljyj: Assumption 2: Nobody can know.
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.-I don't think it's a matter of looking inside their brain ... as you say, lots of people (of totally different faiths) sincerely believe that they DO know ... but of finding information universally acknowledged as being objectively true. This could only happen if, as you say later, God actually existed and revealed himself, but he would have to reveal himself to us all if subjective belief were to become objective knowledge.-I shan't repeat what you say about the origin of life and the nature of consciousness, because again I agree with you 100%. This is an argument that makes atheism impossible for me. The problem of course is the alternative: belief in any kind of eternal and universal self-aware intelligence, let alone in a personal, loving father figure, seems as irrational to me as belief in chance assembling the mechanisms you have described. You rightly in my view apply Occam's razor to the chance argument, and I find myself forced to do the same with the designer argument. If we can't believe that our own life and intelligence could arise through chance, how can we believe in an un-designed creator who would have to be infinitely more powerful and more intelligent than his creations (bearing in mind that he can create at least one universe). Too complex by far. David ... our resident theist ... falls back on Aquinas's "first cause" argument, but for me that is an intellectual cop-out: the divine version is no more and no less unlikely than a "first cause" energy that is unselfconscious but in its zillions of movements and variations through eternity and infinity has come up with a chance combination that gave rise to us.
 
You finish by saying: "I do reserve the right to use certain cogent arguments in discussions with atheists to shake up their own rigid belief system." You will probably have gathered that I wrote the brief guide, and started this forum, initially because I was so appalled by the arrogance and sheer irrationality that led Dawkins to talk of The God Delusion. Of course not all atheists are as deluded as he is about their own faith, just as not all theists turn into murderous fundamentalists. -I get the feeling from your post that you and I are sitting together on what David calls the picket fence, and I warmly welcome your company. (I sometimes get lonely up here!) I'd also like to echo David's comments under "Climate change" ... it's a pleasure to read your well argued posts. But as I look out of my study window at cold, wet Somerset (England), I do envy you your Florida sunshine.