The reason it's logically impossible to reason with 'these people'

As as follow-up to the previous post, the reason it's logically impossible to reason with 'these people' is that were they to honestly engage the issue, that honest engagement would compel them to acknowledge that atheism is false. Notice, I I didn't say that honest engagement with the issue would compel them to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is God -- that's a further issue, that cannot be addressed until first acknowledging that there is a Creator-God.

In the prior post, I presented the exchange, such as it is, of (the ever polite) Victor Reppert attempting to reason with JDHuey.

In this post, I'm give you mean ol' me, who has no need to be polite to liars, and worse than liars. In this post, copied verbatim from what I posted on Reppert's blog, I give you, once again, the proof that atheism is false ... as demonstrarted by those very logical entailments that JDHuey denies that anyone has ever shown.

some liar:"Nobody on this blog has ever shown that there are any logical entailments resulting from God not existing. People here state that they have, but they are mistaken."

Now, understand this: his assertion of false (it is, in fact, a lie). Many people, including Reppert (and me) have shown that there are propositions logically entailed by denying the reality of God, and have shown that these logical entailments are false.

VR:"The entailments would have to be ..."

You're trying to reason with someone who will lie to your face? This fellow has been posting here for months: it is not ignorace that explains how he comes to say that no one on this blog has ever shown that there are any logical entailments of God's non-existence. And it clearly isn't stupidity that explains his saying it. The only option left is that he is speaking from a stance of dishonesty. And, due to the particular nature of the subject matter, his lying isn't *merely* lying, he's engaging in intellectual dishonesty (aka: intellectual hypocrisy).

VR:"The entailments would have to be from the fact that mental states are not fundamental to the universe. This doesn't entail theism directly, though it does rule out the philosophies of mind that most atheists hold. Nagel would be an exception."

Your first sentence is not false, but it it incomplete; and your second sentence, the conclusion based on it, is false.

There are no such things as "mental states" if there are no such things as minds. So, if atheism were the truth about the nature of reality, then it is not *simply* that it is a "fact that mental states are not fundamental to the universe", but rather that it is a fact that there is no *mind* who is "fundamental to the universe" (and, after all, that's just a restatement of Western-style materialistic atheism).

And, if it is a fact that there is no mind who is "fundamental to the universe", then it is also a fact, as it is a logical entailment of the previous (alleged) fact, that agent freedom is not "fundamental to the universe". That is, Western-style materialistic atheism directly entails absolute mechanical physicalist/materialistic determinism. (Any non-materialistic atheism also entails determinism; for the determinism isn't "in" the matter, it's in the denial that there is a mind who is fundamental to reality),

So, if atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then *every* event and state-change that may occur in reality is mechanically determined by prior events and states.

Now, if *every* event and state-change is mechanically determined by prior events and states, then there are no such things as agents; for the single most salient fact about an 'agent' is that he is not wholly determined: neither by the mechanical results of prior events and states, nor by "random" (i.e. "uncaused") events and states.

Or, to limit the scope of our investigation to "the universe", as you have done: if atheism is the truth about what is "fundamental to the universe", then *every* event and state-change of "the universe" is mechanically determined by prior physical events and states.

Again, if *every* event and state-change is mechanically determined by prior physical events and states, then there are no such things as agents, as in the above more general demonstration.

But, *we* are agents. We *all* know that we are agents: so, when that intellectual hypocrite with whom VR was attempting to reason, or any of the others, demands that someone "prove" that we are agents, claiming that this isn't a self-evident fact, then you know that you're dealing with someone who will assert that 0=1 if that suits his purpose: that is, not a mere liar, but a an intellectually dishonest person, an intellectual hypocrite.

Notwithstanding that, we can, as it turns out, prove that we are agents, using the method of proof by contradiction (which is the method I am presently using to prove that God is).

For, if we are not agents, then we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states. That's just a restatement of the definition of non-agency.

Now, if we are we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states, then we do not, and cannot, engage in acts reasoning. For, when engaging in an act of reasoning, the proper movement from 'A' to 'B' is not determined by any prior event or state (whether physical/material or not), but rather is demanded by the logical relationship obtaining between 'A' and 'B'. Gentle Reader will notice that I didn't say that the movement from 'A' to 'B' is determined by the logical relationship: this is because, as we are agents, as we are indeed free, we are free to refuse to make the movement demanded by logic-and-reason: that is, we are free to engage in intellectual dishonesty.

But, if we are not agents, that is, if we are wholly deternimed by prior events and states, then while the words, "If 'A' then 'B'; 'A', therefore, 'B'" might come out our mouths, there was on our part no decision to say it, and there was no prior act of reasoning behind our saying it. If one says it, he says it because prior events and states determined that the words come out his mouth. It could as well have been the words "If 'A' then 'B'; 'A', therefore, 'tomato'" that came out one's mouth.

But, the foregoing demonstrates an act of reasoning (and valid reasoning, at that, however much the intellectual hypocrites deny it). So, since we *can* reason, it is necessarily true that we are agents, that we are free, that we are not wholly determined by prior events and states.

So, as we have seen, one of the logical entailments of God-denial is affirmation of the assertion that we are not agents. And, as we have seen, another of the logical entailments of God-denial is affirmation of the assertion that we cannot engage in acts reasoning.

Another logical entailment of God-denial is that we cannot know any truths. The proof of this is as above, and I'm not going to walk the reader through it again. This is to say that we cannot know anything. And thus, we cannot speak the truth; nor can we lie, that is we cannot choose to speak what we know, or reasonably ought to know, to be untrue. Certainly, words may come out of our mouths that an agent, if one existed, may recognize are being true or false. But, if God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality, then there are no agents, and *we* cannot recognize the words coming out our mouths as being true or false, nor as having any meaning whatsoever.

The ultimate logical entailment of God-denial is that we ourselves don't even exist. I've walked through the reasoning behind that statement before; and I'm not going to do it again here (moveover, Gentle Reader is intelligent enough to see that it follows from the above).

When a so-called atheist says something like, and tries to convince you to believe that, "The self is an illusion", while his statement is internally incoherent (and is, indeed, self-refuting), he *is* generally trying his best to express this ultimate logical entailment of God-denial. That is, if there is no God, then there is no you!.

But, the proposition that you are not is false, and you *know* that it is false. Therefore, as the proposition that you are not is logically entailed by the proposition that God is not, it logically follows that the falsehood of the entailment proves the falsehood of initial premise: that is, the proposition that God is not is false, and you *know* that it is false. And, if the proposition that God is not is false, then the contrary proposition, that God is, is true; and you *know* that it is true.

Therefor: no man has any excuse for continuing to deny the reality of God. All men who continue to refuse to affirm the reality of God -- both 'atheists' and 'agnostics' -- are doing so because they *choose* to be intellectually dishonest on this matter. And, since this is the most fundamental question about the nature of reality, and of ourselves, it follows that no one should ever trust that any of them are telling the truth about anything. Certainly, they *may* tell the truth about some matter that doesn't immediately seem related to the ultimate question, but it is irrational of you to trust that they are doing so, for you *know* that they willingly lie about this question behind all other questions.


that liar, again:"If God does not exist then the world is exactly like it is. We simply have no need for that hypothesis."

If God is not, then there are no such things as hypotheses.

If God is not, then it is no lie (*) if I assert that JDHuey kidnaps and then rapes and murders babies, and then eats the corpses to hide the evidence. If God is not, then were I to assert this thing, that is simply "the world [being] exactly like it is".

(*) In this context, even actually making such a statement is not a lie at all, even had I not made it clear that I'm not making any such statement, for it would have been made to demonstrate the point of what is entailed by the lying fool's assertion that God is not.

And, there is one last thing I wish to add -- JDHuey's (ahem) refutation of the above arguement: "llion, Or it could be the case that I and the others are simply correct and you are wrong (and perhaps delusional)."

Recall: his assertion with which we started was that no one on that blog had ever shown that there are any logical entailments of denying the reality of God. Even had his claim been true that no one ever had, in the series of posts copied above, I had shown some of the logical entailments of denying the reality of God.

And his response was to demonstrate that his initial assertion of there having been no logical entailments of atheism ever presented on the blog really means, "I will never so much as consider any of the logical entailments of asserting atheism is the truth about the nature of reality".

It's logically impossible to reason with such people -- they already *know* the truth of the matter; the problem is that they will not acknowledge the truth.