Foundations for Atheism

[Cris]

C7,

what caused the big bang? how could something come from nothing? it is a physical impossibility.

Either we must accept that quantum events do indeed show that something can come from nothing or we agree that there was something that existed before the big bang. The favored theory to date that has been resurrected recently is the cyclic universe. This implies that everything that exists is part of an infinite paradigm, and something has to be infinite otherwise nothing could have begun.

 

[Michael]

Prince_James, I think if you really want to “understand” what I think then just substitute the word leprechaun into your argument.
Think of reasons why you don’t believe in leprechauns and there’s your answers. I expect that soon you’ll find we actually see eye to eye on the matter.

Also, you probably don’t believe in the millions of Shinto gods the Japanese worshiped. You dismiss their very existence without really even giving them a thought. Now, just use that VERY SAME REASONING and do away with this 1 last God and you're there mate. Done and done.



SO, really this is about you coming up with your own answers – that’s the only way you can understand atheism. It just doesn’t work like Xianity/Judaism/Islam (believe this and don’t think). Atheism is actually the opposite. You actually have to think – I know, I know, it can hurt the first few times but once you start to exercise your thoughts you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them

So, with all this in mind, why don’t you tell me why atheists believe the way they do.

 

[scorpius]

It is clearly evident that a great deal of people here at Sciforums are Atheists, and seeing as many profess to be rational defenders of these theological viewpoint, I'd like to see rational, well-thoughout out, logical defenses of this viewpoint by those who profess it as truth.

I dont see atheism as truth,just a lack of belief in any fantasy figures./gods
atheism is not theological viepoint..

which god are you reffering to btw?
www.godchecker.com

So please, Atheists, assert the reasons for your disbelief in the notion of God, so long, of course, as they fit the "rational, well-thought out, logical defenses of the viewpoint", and not "lolz god suxs", or "grr, I hate God!".

was born and raised that way.

I see no reason to hate something I dont believe exists.

I hate evil done in the name of god,be it xian.,Muslim or any other ..see
www.evilbible.com

atheism is a way more logical way to live as it forces you to THINK for yourself,rely on your self except just blindly following the crowd of usualy deluded brainwashed fanatical morrons.

as they say;
give man a fish and he will eat for a day,give man religion and he'll starve while praying for food

 

[Tyler]

y cannot be 'x' and 'not x' simultaneously. these are concepts which have yet to be proven false, and that is what i mean by logic. if the universe is an effect (and i posit that it is), then it has a cause

Like you said, we'll get to the math bit soon.
But on this I'm not really disagreeing that it must have some cause. Just that there is absolutely no necessity to believe we have any idea what the nature of this cause is. You're right, we do know a bit about the universe, but we've been wrong so many times before on issues of our own planet's nature. When we had as much knowledge about earth as we currently do about the universe we still thought it was only a few thousand years old (or any of the other of cornicopia of myths).

because i don't believe that god is anything more than an abstract concept--i dislike using the word 'god', in fact, because it conveys the wrong message.

If all your saying is that the world follows an order - then why would you ever dream of putting the word god in there? It's enough to say "there's an order".

i am saying that there are, in fact, rules that the universe follows. that cannot be broken. i call these rules 'logic'. math, logic classes, etc., are what we can gather about these rules through studying the universe.

That is a huuuuuuuge claim. Whether or not the logical foundations are a priori or a posteriori has been heavily, heavily debated as long as humans beings have thought of the question. In fact, most modern points of view (since the positivists died out in the 30s) say that it is not through study of the universe that we gather this information.

As for, that there are rules the universe follows - again, we don't know that. There might be odd glitches, there might be rules that are counter-logical, we really really don't know that yet. If you're just saying it's your belief that everything in the universe follows logical rules - then super duper. But don't go claiming that it's necessarily true, because we really don't know.

I'm doing masters work in logic right now, and I assure you that if anyone's on your side about logical foundations - it's me. But it is one of the "topic-of-the-decade" big debates in logic whether or not physical laws actually follow it. At the very least, what you seem to be saying is far from a given.

again--disproving math is not disproving logic.

No one said we disproved math. What we disproved was the completeness of math. That is, we've shown that logical axioms are not enough to learn everything about it. So yes, we have proven that FOL and SOL have an inherent lacking to them. (Whether or not it's possible to overcome this issue is another hotly debated item).

math is highly synthesized

Dude, seriously. You're spitting out these comments like there isn't a 2400 years long debate with no resolve about the question.

when you can find for me something, in universe, that actively contradicts logic

That I can't do (I'm no physicist). What I can tell you is that is not necessary. I can show you something that is extra-logical (outside logic). If you really want I'll try and find that equation (which holds in math as well as in the physical world) but that cannot come from logic. It's about 14 pages long and I still don't understand a chunk of it, but it's there.

If you already know your shit about logic - it's the '73 response in a paper called something like "Peano-Dedekin Arithmetic and deficiency according to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem".

but when you find merely that mathematicians have been working based on erroneous assumptions

That's not what I said at all.

 

[Tyler]

Cris
First of all - how are you, I haven't spoken to you in ages!
Second...
I am humbly ignorant of almost all things physics.
So I gotta ask, in the infinitely recurring universe theory - is there any debate (or inclusion of the debate) of what the cardinality of this infinite is?

 

[Prince_James]

KennyJC:

Not at all. Science is the only way to find crumbs of what information we can, but we'll die without getting close to knowing. Religion is just for the impatient who want to cram it all into their lifetime, even if deep down they know they are stabbing in the dark.

So basically you think the drive to religion is the impetus to the summa of all knowledge, which is ultimately impossible to attain to?

fadingCaptain:

If you wish to call the big bang god then by all means consider me a theist. This is, of course, stretching the term to point of it being meaningless. It is the same way many prominent scientists muddy the waters by invoking 'god' when they simply mean 'universe' (see einstein, hawking, etc.). It is the problem I have with pantheism. It is a godless religion and how ridiculous is that?

Pantheism isn't technically a religion, but yes, even philosophical Pantheists such as myself will fully affirm that Pantheism is Atheism with a warped conception of God. I've been shopping around for a more suitable term to replace GOd, in fact, as it really isn't a very accurate term.

So, if Aristotle (whom I deeply respect) wishes to believe there was a first cause to the universe, and he wishes to call this cause 'god'....I can only politely request he simply things and refer to the universe as the universe. For if there was an event that started it all, surely it was not apart from the universe...but only in a different form!

This may be best, yes, but at the same time, Aristotle conceived the causal relationships as not working in infinite regress, hence the need for a prime unmoved mover.


spidergoat:

It's an unplanned cascade of complexity driven by it's own internal structure.

So an example of emergent behaviour?

wesmorris:

So you're saying you're in charge of the limits of categorization for me? Who decides on what it is or isn't? There is no case to be made that a hybridized applorange is an apple, nor that it is an orange, when it contains the essence of either? If so, then because you say it should be dissallowed, it should be? Is that what's logical?

Yes. It is what's logical. As an applorange is neither apple, nor orange, but a mixture of both, and hence neither, specifically as the mixture is incapable of being seperated. It is not akin to saltwater, where salt and water, once mixed, can be seperated anew, but rather a whole new entity, indivisible.

What about the higher dimensional view of the fruit, wherein you stand in grid (v,w,x,y,z,t) and see an apple, but standing at (v+100,w,x,y,z,t) you see an orange?

My answer:

1. Any shift in dimension would speak of a shift in the actuality of the thing. Example: 4th dimensional movement (time) changes things dramatically.

2. Higher dimensions have no proof of actually existing physically.

Oh and do I get to taste it to infer the difference? How do I know my tastbuds are working correctly? What criteria am I allowed by which to make the determination? What if I'm retarded and every roundish fruit is an apple?

You may taste it if you so please, but the true determination ought to be based in genetics. Retardation also does not warp reality, but speaks of an incapacity to perceive reality without extreme deficienicies due to flaws in brain chemicals and structure. And as to taste bud malfunction? Unless one has a foundation for mistrusting one's taste buds (such as in the case that a type of food has now taken on a radically different taste) then one can, in general, trust them, although some foods taste similar to one another, and thus one cannot determine such foods solely on that level.

So the premise of the thread is that god is logical?

The best theological theories that have been postulated for God's existence have been rooted in logic. Aristotle's, Anselm's, et cetera.

Please then provide an argument that supports god as a logical thing. As I specified earlier, it is not logically defensible. It's assumption. All assumption is logically indefensible. I would posit however, that some assumptions are reasonably defensible.

See these arguments for God's existence as proposed by theologians:

Cosmological
Ontological (including your boy Godel's)
Teleloglocal (Mixed in with the Anthropic Principle perhaps)
Mathematic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arguments_for_the_existence_of_God

Huh? How so?

No, it doesn't.

Logic transforms inputs into outputs. GIGO, bitches. Hehe.

GIGO?

And the notion of first principles - the axioms of logic - are irrefutable. The Law of Identity, Non-Contradiction, et cetera, are impossible to demonstrate as being wrong.

valich:

I'm sorry that I didn't have enough time to read all the postings on this thread, but a wise man once said, "The more you learn, the more you know how much yo do not know." I am at that point in my life. I have learned enough to know how much out there there is to learn and how much that I do not know. But unfortunately - or fortunately? - I know enough now that religions do not give me the answers to what I want to know; but scienctific inquiry - repeated experiments to establish theories and facts that others can also do to prove the same results - does.

And does science say God does not exist?

 

[Tyler]

The best theological theories that have been postulated for God's existence have been rooted in logic. Aristotle's, Anselm's, et cetera.

Okay, seriously. How do people actually bring themselves to say "Anselm made a logical arguement!" First off, if you read it you immediatly note that it's faulty. On top of that, there have been a thousand logic books which directly use Anselm's arguement as an exame of an invalid arguement. It is literally the "textbook bad arguement". It is logically invalid and unsound. (So is Aristotle's by the way, but not nearly as blatantly as Anselm. Plus, he's Aristotle, so we forgive him)

Ontological (including your boy Godel's)

Godel's has been proven invalid. A million times over. Again, textbook case.

Mathematic

Duuuuuuuuuude! Dude! Come onnnnn. These things have been proven to be invalid.! Cantor seriously lacked some of the tools of set theory. He was VERY bright and made HUGE leaps forward - but he was still very wrong in many areas!!!

Come on man, you gotta do better than this.
You're basically arguing that slavery is okay because it's obviously a fact that black people are genetically lower than whites.

Well, no. People once thought that was true. Now it's a very basic fact that the premise of that arguement is wrong. Just like all of the arguements you've shown have very provably wrong premises.

 

[Prince_James]

Michael:

Prince_James, I think if you really want to “understand” what I think then just substitute the word leprechaun into your argument.
Think of reasons why you don’t believe in leprechauns and there’s your answers. I expect that soon you’ll find we actually see eye to eye on the matter.

Leprechauns do not have 2,500 years of theological thinking to atleast somewhat back up the notion.

Also, you probably don’t believe in the millions of Shinto gods the Japanese worshiped. You dismiss their very existence without really even giving them a thought. Now, just use that VERY SAME REASONING and do away with this 1 last God and you're there mate. Done and done.

You're assuming I'm actually a Theist, which I am not.

SO, really this is about you coming up with your own answers – that’s the only way you can understand atheism. It just doesn’t work like Xianity/Judaism/Islam (believe this and don’t think). Atheism is actually the opposite. You actually have to think – I know, I know, it can hurt the first few times but once you start to exercise your thoughts you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them

Ignoring the condescension, I'd argue that it seems the bulk of the people here are -not- thinking and Atheistic. As I've noticed throughout Sciforums, but specifically here in Religion, the Atheists tend to simply insult the Theists (and the Theists are just idiots) and provide no strong evidence against the belief in God.

scorpius:

I dont see atheism as truth,just a lack of belief in any fantasy figures./gods
atheism is not theological viepoint..

which god are you reffering to btw?
www.godchecker.com

Atheism is chiefly rooted in the disbelief in God, no? And things related to God are considered theological, yes? Atheism is then a theological viewpoint, nay?

And the God I am refering to is the God of the 2,500 year old tradition of Western philosophical theological thought. I made this post before.

was born and raised that way.

Kind of religious, no?

I hate evil done in the name of god,be it xian.,Muslim or any other ..see
www.evilbible.com

atheism is a way more logical way to live as it forces you to THINK for yourself,rely on your self except just blindly following the crowd of usualy deluded brainwashed fanatical morrons.

Religion and theology are two different things.

 

[Tyler]

Leprechauns do not have 2,500 years of theological thinking to atleast somewhat back up the notion.

And this is where the axe falls.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever under logic that the notion of god gets more credibility than leprechauns because more people believe it. In fact, it is one of the often quoted "logical fallacies" to do what you're doing right now. This is where faith comes into play and logic disappears.

And, in fact, leprechauns have many hundreds of years of belief behind them.

 

[Tyler]

Atheism is chiefly rooted in the disbelief in God, no? And things related to God are considered theological, yes? Atheism is then a theological viewpoint, nay?

You've completely missed the point everyone's trying to make to you.
No, atheism is not rooted in "disbelief". It is rooted in "lack of belief". I don't disbelieve god exists. I have no idea. I just chose to not yet believe from lack of any evidence. Just as I don't believe in invisible manta rays under mars (I made two long replies to your reply to me, sciforums for some reason deleted them and I'm way too lazy to retype them), I have no more proof of god than invisible, extra-logical manta rays.

I don't disbelieve that there's a planet far far away with another guy named Tyler who loves hockey and plays guitar. I just have no reason to believe it, so I don't. It may be true, who knows?

A theological viewpoint is one which claims to know the nature or possible nature of god. I make no such claim. Quite the opposite, I lay down arms and admit I know nothing.

 

[Prince_James]

Tyler:

Okay, seriously. How do people actually bring themselves to say "Anselm made a logical arguement!" First off, if you read it you immediatly note that it's faulty. On top of that, there have been a thousand logic books which directly use Anselm's arguement as an exame of an invalid arguement. It is literally the "textbook bad arguement". It is logically invalid and unsound. (So is Aristotle's by the way, but not nearly as blatantly as Anselm. Plus, he's Aristotle, so we forgive him)

For 500 years it went unchallenged as an invalid argument and, ontop of that, many have used it (Descartes, Leibniz, Godel, et cetera) to base their own arguments off of. Moreover, if one can defend existence as an attribute that is superior to non-existence, the argument stands as relatively valid.

Godel's has been proven invalid. A million times over. Again, textbook case.

Assuming Godel's foundations of omniscience and rationality of God could be demonstrated to be so, his argument would very much stand as valid.

Duuuuuuuuuude! Dude! Come onnnnn. These things have been proven to be invalid.! Cantor seriously lacked some of the tools of set theory. He was VERY bright and made HUGE leaps forward - but he was still very wrong in many areas!!!

I'm actually only attempting to expose some of the people here to theories which, even if you might come to think them invalid, are atleast attempts todeal with such things on a logical basis and demonstrate a potential for God to be proven.

Come on man, you gotta do better than this.
You're basically arguing that slavery is okay because it's obviously a fact that black people are genetically lower than whites.

How the heck do you get -that- from my statements?

Well, no. People once thought that was true. Now it's a very basic fact that the premise of that arguement is wrong. Just like all of the arguements you've shown have very provably wrong premises.

It not so simply cut and dry.

 

[Tyler]

For 500 years it went unchallenged as an invalid argument and, ontop of that, many have used it (Descartes, Leibniz, Godel, et cetera) to base their own arguments off of. Moreover, if one can defend existence as an attribute that is superior to non-existence, the argument stands as relatively valid.

You're simply saying something that's not true. There is a great long history of disproving Anselm's arguement. And it is a circular arguement. In fact, I believe there's one famous letter from Russell to Cantor where Russell says "you do realize the ontological arguement is circular?" and Cantor replies "yes, but isn't it pretty?"

And no, under no condition does the arguement stand as valid. It assumes in it's premise the conclusion, that is invalid - absolutely no doubt. Logic (as a formal thing) completely names it invalid. If your beef is with logic, fine thats another debate. But for the love of god, Anselm's arguement is the prototypical invalid arguement!

Assuming Godel's foundations of omniscience and rationality of God could be demonstrated to be so, his argument would very much stand as valid.

Yeah, that's the issue. Godel assumes stuff that his conclusion makes. You can't do that. It's called invalid. That's why a thousand people have a thousand times used it in textbooks and logic classes. It's as stereotypical as the "All men are mortal, Socrates is a man..." example.

I'm actually only attempting to expose some of the people here to theories which, even if you might come to think them invalid, are atleast attempts todeal with such things on a logical basis and demonstrate a potential for God to be proven.

Why? You might as well tell them arguements for why the earth is flat. Super, they were once arguements, now we know they're invalid. They're done, leave 'em.

How the heck do you get -that- from my statements?

You're backing up your claim by quoting arguements that have been proven (and there is no room for debate on this, Anselm and the ontological arguement have been proven mathematically and FOL-terms to be invalid).

I'll put it this way - it's a theorem in FOL that if Anselm's system holds, all claims can be derived. That's saying - if Anselm's right, then EVERYTHING is true.

 

[Cris]

Tyler,

Hi again.

So I gotta ask, in the infinitely recurring universe theory - is there any debate (or inclusion of the debate) of what the cardinality of this infinite is?

The question doesn't make sense, infinity isn't a numerical quantity. It is a condition that has no boundary.

 

[Tyler]

there are still, in mathematics, functional different cardinalities of infinite.
aleph0({|N}) and aleph1({|R}) being the most wide-known examples.

this is my question - is does it have any aplication in the universe debate?

 

[Mystech]

I don't believe in God for the same reason that I don't believe the stuff down in the pseudoscience board. There's just not enough evidence of any sort for me to lend any sort of provisional agreement to the idea - and you've got to admit the people who buy into it big time do seem just a little scary!

When you think about it we're all kind of atheistic - there's just one more God that I don't believe in when compared to a Christian, and I don't see anyone demanding to know why most Americans don't accept Vishnu or follow the teachings of the Buddha. It all boils down to a lot of very old and convoluted story telling surrounded by a lot of hubris and sanctimonious individuals who think they've got a hotline to the truth even if they can't prove it in any way, except maybe to themselves through loud repetitious chanting.

 

[Cris]

Prince,

Leprechauns do not have 2,500 years of theological thinking to atleast somewhat back up the notion.

A fantasy is a fantasy no matter how long it has been around. You are arguing the logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum. The fact that a false idea lasts a long time in no way makes it more truthful because of the passage of time.

Ignoring the condescension, I'd argue that it seems the bulk of the people here are -not- thinking and Atheistic. As I've noticed throughout Sciforums, but specifically here in Religion, the Atheists tend to simply insult the Theists (and the Theists are just idiots) and provide no strong evidence against the belief in God.

There are a few gems of debates in past threads. But mostly this is a place for ordinary people to explore their own perspectives and attempt to put those ideas into words. There are few real philosophers here.

 

[Cris]

Tyler,

Umm well disbelief is the same thing as lack of belief. You've confused "disbelief that a god exists" with "belief that a god does not exist".

Prince's statement is essentially correct - atheism is primarily a disbelief in gods.

 

[dr. cello]

If all your saying is that the world follows an order - then why would you ever dream of putting the word god in there? It's enough to say "there's an order".

point. it is almost certainly a leftover of my rejection of the christian faith. i never could make the leap from proving that there's 'a god' to proving the christian god, but that's neither here nor there. as i said, i'm reluctant to use the word god for this reason.

No one said we disproved math. What we disproved was the completeness of math. That is, we've shown that logical axioms are not enough to learn everything about it.

i seem to be having troubles communicating my point. i didn't mean that 'math is disproven', but that theories within were shown incorrect. haven't our axioms been reformulated before? that is the problem with axioms, as i understand it.

Dude, seriously. You're spitting out these comments like there isn't a 2400 years long debate with no resolve about the question.

a lot of math is done 'by convention'. my math experience is limited, i'll admit, but when i call it 'synthesized' i mean that math is not something which is necessarily intended to correspond with natural law perfectly. it's primarily abstractions and theories. my point was that showing that an aspect of math is wrong doesn't necessarily mean that logic can be defied.

That I can't do (I'm no physicist). What I can tell you is that is not necessary. I can show you something that is extra-logical (outside logic). If you really want I'll try and find that equation (which holds in math as well as in the physical world) but that cannot come from logic. It's about 14 pages long and I still don't understand a chunk of it, but it's there.

sure, link me.

 

[SkinWalker]

Atheists, assert the reasons for your disbelief in the notion of God,

One doesn't need a reason for disbelief. If that were so, then you could ask for my reasons for not believing in bigfoot, esp, psychic surgery, the sorcery of the Azande, or the tarot card reader down the street. Not to mention santa claus, the easter bunny and the tooth fairy.

One needs a reason for belief. Not much of one, apparently, but a reason none the less.

 

[Tyler]

dr. cello
First off - thank you. In so many years at sciforums, so few people have ever said "good point". My first return here in a while has not been all for nothing.

point. it is almost certainly a leftover of my rejection of the christian faith. i never could make the leap from proving that there's 'a god' to proving the christian god, but that's neither here nor there. as i said, i'm reluctant to use the word god for this reason.

It's hard to say what I think the point is, though. Many mathematicians and logicians have conveyed some mystic point as well. I never understood till I got as deep into math as I have (and there is oh so much more!), but there is a specific and unlimited beauty to it that really creates a mystic sense. I think 'god' is a murky word simply because it too often leads to other suggestions.

i seem to be having troubles communicating my point. i didn't mean that 'math is disproven', but that theories within were shown incorrect. haven't our axioms been reformulated before? that is the problem with axioms, as i understand it.

Theories being shown wrong isn't really the issue I'm communicating though. I'm saying math cannot be derived (purely). Neither is it seen for experiment. It's a weird little monster. All we know is there's some other binding force to math (and logic) than simple axioms.

a lot of math is done 'by convention'. my math experience is limited, i'll admit, but when i call it 'synthesized' i mean that math is not something which is necessarily intended to correspond with natural law perfectly. it's primarily abstractions and theories. my point was that showing that an aspect of math is wrong doesn't necessarily mean that logic can be defied.

Ah, again the idea of math not corresponding to reality is a really shakey debate. Lots of people argue Euclidian geometry is essentially useless outside of for practical, small areas where it can be used. That is, we don't really need to know as much Euclidean geometry as we do.

sure, link me.

I may have to type it out, I'm not sure I can find it online. I'll check but I may have to PM it to you in a couple days if this thread is down.

If I seem like all I'm doing is asserting a couple mathematicians debates - it's because I'm not nearly learned enough in math or logic to be able to hold debate at that level.