Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
Critiquing the Kalam Cosmological Argument
https://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2014/11/critiquing-kalam...
That is inaccurate, the big bang theory starts with time and matter (hydrogen) already existing.
Someone did not read the memo that our explorations have gone only back to when what we consider the observable universe started with a singularity. We do not know what came before that singularity.
But Nyarlathotep, because of a sloppy definition by the scientific community when the initial findings were released to the public, theistic claims will never let it go. It is the only thing they can hang on to, despite it's obvious failings.
@GabrielSerafin: That’s like asking for objective evidence that logic is true. Since you cannot give me objective evidence that logic is true, does this mean that logic is a myth? Far from it.
WTF are you talking about? Logic is demonstrably true. It gives us real, reliable and predictable results. Please demonstrate anything comparable coming from your God. Logic has flown people to the moon. Religion has flown them into buildings. LOGIC IS DEMONSTRABLE - GOD IS A MURDEROUS BASTARD - JUST READ THE BIBLE.
Logic is demonstrably True. God is not. Prove me wrong.
Sheldon said:
“GabrielSerafin will be telling us any minute that we have ignored or rejected the evidence.”
Yes. It’s like explaining an algebraic equation to someone who respond that they don’t believe in algebra.
Sheldon said:
“So no then, you cannot demonstrate any objective evidence for any deity.”
Again, that’s like asking for objective evidence that logic is true. Science cannot prove logic to be true because it assumes and requires logic in order for science to work. There is no scientific test you could possibly use to prove that logic is true. Yet reason demand that logic is true. And the way you prove that logic is true is through deductive reasoning. Thus -logic- is the key.
A simple but powerful demonstration of how things can be proved through mere logic is a coat hanging on a wall:
Even though you do not physically see the hook sustaining your coat on the wall, your mind can observe it clearly without any doubt through the sheer use of logic; reason demands that a hook exists on the wall behind the coat.
Likewise the logical evidence that a shoe-maker exists is a shoe; reason demands this to be true. Thus the logical evidence that there is a Rational Creator of the earth and all of the systems that make up the rationally comprehensible cosmos, is the earth and cosmos itself. And the proof that atheism is a psychological condition is that atheists will try to argue that logic is not evidence, even though there are Five Logical Proofs for the existence of God.
The five proofs are five air-tight logical equations that reach the exact same conclusion: The First Logical Proof of God’s existence is known as the Argument from Motion. The Second is the Argument from Efficient Causes. The Third is the Argument from Reduction of Possibility and Necessity. The Fourth is the Argument from Gradation of Being; and the The Fifth is the Argument from Design.
The proof that atheism is a negative emotional psychological reaction is that the response one will get from the atheist to the logical equations will be a slew of haughty dismissive and usually insulting attacks involving mockery. This is because the frustration of not being able to refute the logical equations turns into an automatic dismissal resorting to simply making statements like “that argument has been refuted” and “that’s a stupid argument”.
It is a pitiful state of being to miss the purpose of existence. Being that the rationality of man itself has the purpose of knowing His Creator, to deny the Creator is the ultimate act of self-frustration. The mind of man is made for Truth, and the will of man is made for Goodness and Love; since God is the Source of Truth and Goodness and Love itself, Man was made for God; thus man needs God, just like like lungs need oxygen. It is imperative to realize this, because death is the moment of separation, when the soul of man either unites with God outside of time and space in eternity, or descends into the abyss; the spiritual nightmare of eternal darkness separation from the source of goodness, truth and love.
Cognostic said:
Logic is demonstrably true. It gives us real, reliable and predictable results.
Yes. This is correct.
The problem with atheism is that it is a psychological attempt to build an emotional safe-space where the concept of God is kept out. Thus the reason why atheism leads to so much anger and depression, and in the end despair and fear of what follows. The good news is that God is real, and that you are made for happiness and eternal life. The bad news is that evil is real, and wicked spirits exist, and Hell is a consequence. Your existence is much more incredible than you can possibly imagine as an atheist. The fact that you exist is an incredible impossibility by the standards of an atheist. Yet here you are.
@Gabriel Re: "Thus the reason why atheism leads to so much anger and depression, and in the end despair and fear of what follows."
ROFLMAO.... Bwaaaaa-haaaaa-haaaa!.... *curled up in fetal position*... Bwaaaaaa-haaaa-haaaa-haaaa!.... Ow.... *deep breath*... My tummy!... *deeeep breath*..... *snicker-snortle*.... *rapid breathing*.... *another deeeep breath*.... *slow exhale*.... *snortle*.... Oh, wow... *wiping tears from eyes*.... *slowly sitting up*... Pheeeew.... Damn.... *cough-cough*... *taking sip of water*... Oh, dear lord, Gabriel, you should really consider a career in stand-up comedy. That was awesome!
Oh, and thank GOD you came along with that today, by the way. Yep. I mean, before reading that statement of yours, my atheism had me so depressed and in despair that I was contemplating ending it all and saying goodbye to this cruel cruel world. Then I read your post, and it reminded me that humor like yours is what makes life worth living. Congratulations, good sir! You helped save an atheist life today!... *grin*...
@Gabriel Re: "...reason demands that a hook exists on the wall behind the coat."
Hook?.... *puzzled look*... A HOOK?... *scratching head in bewilderment*... Dammit! Why didn't I think of that??? All these years I've been using a piece of chewed bubblegum to hang my jacket on the wall, and I could have been using a hook?.... *shaking head in disgust at self*.... Fuck!...
(Edit to add)... Hey, Gabe, just a little friendly observation for you. While your cute little coat hook analogy may appear incredibly impressive, convincing, and reasonable to individuals who are already predisposed to believe in your fairy tale, I'm afraid you will need to up your game a bit around here... *chuckle*...
No it isn't at all, you are pedalling unevidenced irrational superstition, not algebra, and again we can objectively measure the validity of algebraic formulae. You have already admitted you can demonstrate no objective evidence for any deity, so these puerile analogies are just reinforcing that fact.
Science assumes NOTHING,that is axiomatic, and the efficacy of logic can be objectively measured in it's results, as of course can science. Likewise we can objectively measure the validity of religious claims in the bible and koran, and they have been shown more often than not to be risible nonsense.
I can only assume you're either trolling with your coat analogy, or are off your tits on some strong hallucinogenics. Either way it is demonstrably moronic nonsense. We have objective evidence that coats, like all else, cannot defy gravity without assistance.
So you can show your deity's designs for the cosmos then, as we can show designs for shoes? You can show the factories, and the machinery your deity used to create the cosmos then, as we can show those that make shoes? Of course you can't, this is a woeful variation of Paley's Watchmaker fallacy, and just as fallacious. Design is inferred from objective evidence as I indicated above for shoes, and with one other axiomatic fact, designed and created items are NEVER evidenced to occur naturally.
These both use a special pleading fallacy that creates a rule, then immediately breaks that rule to exempt a deity. So much for "airtight logic", as nothing can be asserted as rational if it contains known logical fallacies
This starts with pure unevidenced assumption, then uses a second unevidenced assumption that contradicts all the evidence we have for cause and effect, since every single cause we can explain is a physical natural one, this risible argument ends yet again, with pure unevidenced assumption, and a begging the question fallacy. Again it is irrational by definition if it contains known logical fallacies.
I'm laughing too hard to offer any objection to this woo woo BS.Anyone who finds such risible nonsense compelling is not offering cogent arguments, they've closed their minds absolutely to all rational objections to their superstitious beliefs
Just when I thought I couldn't laugh any harder, seriously "thing look designed" so they are? We know for an objective fact that all life evolved. What's more this argument defeats itself as it asserts everything is designed, thus nothing can look otherwise, so the idea things look designed would be nonsensical with no un-designed things to compare them against. How the hell can something look designed, if there is no other way for anything to look? The last part is again pure unevidenced assumption, I might as well claim garden fairies did it.
Well they deserve to be derided and mocked by anyone using them in the 21st century to be sure, but they are not merely dismissed, they are manifestly irrational unevidenced assumptions, that you laughably tried to tout as airtight logical equations. I don't think you know what airtight, logical or equation mean.
Atheism is simply the absence or lack of belief in any deity or deities. if you can't get that right you're wasting everyone's time.
Only a theist could fail to see the stupidity of lying to atheists about atheism. I have to hope you're trolling here, as the alternative is pretty sad.
The bad news is you're delusional, the good news is this is a reversible condition, all you need is an open mind, some objectivity, and the ability to think rationally and exercise some critical thinking to examine your risible unevidenced superstitious beliefs.
@GabrielSerafin believes it is possible for something to be created out of nothing. So why does he assume a coat must be hung on anything? Inconsistent "logic".
@GabrielSerafin
"Likewise the logical evidence that a shoe-maker exists is a shoe; reason demands this to be true."
No, the rational reason why we can deduce that a shoe was created is that we have previous examples. If I am walking along a beach and discover a shoe, I know from my memory what a shoe is and that is was created.
"Rational Creator of the earth" You don't get to smuggle your god in as a creator. To do that you must first prove the universe was created. And then that there is something capable of doing the creating. You don't get to assert existence is a creation without evidence. You certainly don't get to insert your god and call it the creator without first proving there is such a thing. Stop being so elementary. You should have learned this in Sunday School 101. The cosmological argument gets you no place near a god.
That is troubling, for many reasons. The simplest I can think of is: maybe the coat is glued to the wall. So this hook you told us your mind can observe...clearly might not even exist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess I didn't get that memo. Could you please tell this atheist, what the standards of an atheist are?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will you be posting these equations?
GS, you wrote, “A simple but powerful demonstration of how things can be proved through mere logic is a coat hanging on a wall: Even though you do not physically see the hook sustaining your coat on the wall, your mind can observe it clearly without any doubt through the sheer use of logic; reason demands that a hook exists on the wall behind the coat.”
That’s a rather shoddy attempt at a correlation. We have demonstrable evidence that hooks exist. Try again.
As a side note , notice his (or her) pseudonym? Against some biblical related name... Really, why are they so keen to put religion in everything?
Also PMed
@ GabrielSerafin (a.k.a. WhineyAssBabyAfraidToAnswerOneQuestion)
Here it is again showing you each time I asked.
Once …
Twice …
Thrice …
Three times. And you are still so damned afraid to answer. Typical Religious Absolutist.
And here is what I posted about your crappy, shitty piece of septic flotsam you call an MP3 file.
rmfr
Sheldon said: we can objectively measure the validity of religious claims in the Bible
The Bible gives us the answers to why we exist, thus it often uses figurative and allegorical language.
Sheldon said:
I can only assume you're either trolling with your coat analogy
The coat analogy may seem simplistic but it makes a powerful point about logic and the demands it makes on reason. The “hook” holding up the coat is necessary thus even though it cannot be seen with the eye it is revealed through reason.
So you can show your deity's designs for the cosmos then, as we can show designs for shoes?
Yes. The three qualities of function, purpose and design are the hallmarks of a rational source. You need not see a shoe factory or the shoe-maker in order for reason to demand one. Think about it; if you find something on a beach, how can you tell if it was rationally sourced? You don’t need to find a label that says “Made in China” in order to know that it is rationally made. Just look for the three hallmarks.
designed and created items are NEVER evidenced to occur naturally.
This is not true. if you look closely, everywhere you look you can identify the three hallmarks of a rational source. In fact you yourself are made up of functional systems that have specific purpose by design. For example. Your stomach is designed to process food, just as the small exit in your rear end is designed as a gutter hole which you use everyday. The force behind evolution is rationality.
These both use a special pleading fallacy that creates a rule, then immediately breaks that rule to exempt a deity.
I think the word “deity is creating a mental block for you, which then leads you to attempt to formulate an argument against a rational source at all costs, simply to counter the concept of a “deity”, instead of letting logic reach its rational conclusion. The consequence of arguing against the logic is a psychological complex that channels a subconscious frustration, being that fighting logic creates a mental tension that seeks an outlet. Thus a hatred of religion and anything “God” is The common symptom.
One needs to realize that “God” is simply the word to describe the Rational Source behind our rational cosmos. Thus the reason why every civilization since the dawn of humanity has reasoned a “Creator” and has had a name for Him—the “Him” alludes to that necessary rational source.
The key for letting the logic flow toward its rational conclusion is to be psychologically open to the reality of the rational source. When someone is not psychologically prepared, they try to force the mind against logic by claiming that the universe with all of its systems and laws simply “bubbled up” accidentally, even though such logic is an impossibility. Logic, like harmony, is not accidental. And to argue that it is simply begins to unmask the psychology of atheism, which is not grounded in reason, but in psychology and emotion. Thus the typical insults, anger and haughtiness and declarations of intellectual superiority are the predictable symptoms. Studies made about the psychology of atheism have unmasked the emotional roots—but that’s another thread.
I’m not here to torment you, but to let you know that you have a purpose; you were made for eternal happiness and eternal life, and that source of happiness and life is God. This universe and your existence is much more incredible than you can possibly imagine. The Logos of the universe created you for a specific purpose.
Smells like presuppositional apologetics.
@GabrielSerafin
But I'd really like to see those logical equations you mentioned GabrielSerafin.
GabrielSerafin's total use of logic is to make baseless unevidenced claims that he is invoking rational arguments for a deity he can neither explain nor evidence. He doesn't address any criticisms of his arguments that point out they're irrational, he doesn't even acknowledge them beyond making yet more baseless unevidenced claims that those objections come from people who are denying or rejecting logic. Like another theist whose username I forget on here, I get the sense he thinks he can invoke his own logic.
His use of the cosmological argument is a point in case. By invoking an argument that makes assumption about the characteristics of the very cause (deity) it argues for, it using a begging the question fallacy. Just as by creating an unevidenced rule that everything must have a cause, including a universe that originated outside of space and time, then immediately using unevidenced definitions of a cause, it is using a special pleading fallacy.
Of course he rolled right passed these two objections, ignored them completely, and instead used an ad hominem fallacy to make an unevidenced claim that my objections were a flaw in me and my ability to understand his "logic".
@Gabriel Re: "The coat analogy may seem simplistic but it makes a powerful point about logic and the demands it makes on reason. The “hook” holding up the coat is necessary thus even though it cannot be seen with the eye it is revealed through reason." (And everything else in that post.)
...*shaking head*...Tsk-tsk-tsk... What a shame. You either totally missed or totally ignored my friendly words of advice about stepping up your game around here. (My guess is you ignored it.) Oh, well. At least I tried... *shrugging shoulders*...
Attachments
Attach Image/Video?:
The bible makes claims about our origins and the origins of all life and the universe, these can be objectively tested against reality, and it's claims as well as being entirely unsupported by any objective evidence, are entirely at odds with all the objective evidence science has amassed.
No it doesn't, as Cyber pointed out we can objectively evidence the existence of hooks and their purpose. Your analogy is puerile nonsense sorry.
Those don't evidence design at all, we can show factories making shoes, we can show designs for shoes, and we can show people making those designs. All you have done is repeat your unevidenced claim for design, and add two new unevidenced claims of function, & purpose.
What objective evidence can you demonstrate that the function of anything includes an external (deity's) purpose, or design? You are back to where you started with an unevidenced claim.
You have also simply repeated Paley's Watchmaker fallacy at the end, we know things (like shoes and watches) are made and designed because we have objective evidence of that fact, (see example of shoes above), and because they never occur in nature, a point you seem determined to ignore, and for fairly obvious reasons as well. Your claim for a deity can demonstrate nothing remotely comparable to that objective evidence.
Well that's a demonstrable lie, to avoid addressing the rational objections I made to your arguments, arguments which cannot be asserted as rational by definition, as they used two known common logical fallacies; and of course it is axiomatic that no one need create any argument against your unevidenced superstition, or it's unevidenced claims. the claim a deity exists and designed everything carries a burden of proof, and you have failed again to offer anything beyond bare assertion to support it.
You clearly have no concept of how logic works, if you think that simply typing the work logic after any claim or argument, will somehow lend the claim some rational gravitas. It's sad you don't know how risible and vapid this is. As this quote above from you shows, because you offer (again) a completely unevidenced claim, and simply tack the words rational & logic onto it, as if this vapid rhetoric means something.
it is axiomatic that the key to being rational is for your reasoning and arguments to adhere to the strict principles contained within logic, it is in the dictionary definition of the word ffs; and despite the fact you keep ignoring this point.....NOTHING can be asserted as rational if it contains known logical fallacies, and you have use these repeatedly, as I have pointed out.
Rubbish, you're lying, please demonstrate some peer reviewed research to support this risible rhetoric.
You're here to preach and sermonise, and to that end make endless unevidenced and irrational claims. We've seen it all before, and your spiel is no less irrational, unevidenced, or vapid than all the rest, that is axiomatic. Sorry if this fact offends you, but I am not going to respect ideas and claims presented without any supporting objective evidence, and touted as rationally sound when they cannot be because they use known logical fallacies, fallacies that you have used and yet repeatedly refuse to address. as if that will somehow make those objections to your rhetoric any less valid.
Now that's arrogant, you are actually claiming to know what I imagine, and it is a demonstrably risible to claim the universe becomes more incredible just because you blindly twist all the facts we learn about it into validating your unevidenced belief in a deity from a bronze age superstition, making the rather unimaginative assertion to every question "goddidit" with no evidence to support it, or with any explanatory powers behind it. That strikes me as particularly unimaginative. The universe is more incredible than YOU can possibly imagine, because your imagination has been sacrificed to blind belief in a fictional deity.
Oh, and hitting the disagree button once to everyone who calls you on your unevidenced rhetoric on here is fucking hilarious as well. Especially since you have no rational cogent answer to the points they raise against your religious rhetoric.
Some of the things GabrielSerafin has failed to address in this thread.
1) The special pleading fallacy, and the begging the question fallacy in the cosmological argument he cited.
2) Nyarl's request he demonstrate the logical formulae he claimed supported his belief a (fictional) deity created everything.
3) The fact he cannot produce any objective evidence for any deity.
4) The fact that his endless claims to using rational arguments are unsupported, and refuted by the logical fallacies contained in them.
5) His misrepresentation of atheism, and atheists.
6) The fact that we can objectively design, and that we never see examples of those things we evidence as designed occurring in nature.
7) The research or any links to it he claimed showed atheism was derived from an emotionally unstable position.(my favourite)
There must be more, I invite you all to add to the list as a bit of light relief from his tedious proselytising.
Pages