Do You *Really* Want a Damascus Road Experience?

 I've stated this before --

It's clear, from the typical atheistic demand for evidence of the reality of God, coupled with a total inability to define what they themselves would accept as being such evidence, intersected with their consistent refusal to engage in good-faith discussion when a "theist" attempts to provide evidence even in such a situation, that what the too-typical atheists are demanding is that God must be a Cosmic Soul Rapist before they will acknowledge him.  While almost none of them will put it this bluntly, the underlying and hidden premise from which they are operating is: "If God exists, then he wouldn't allow me to deny that he exists".

Just now, the thought comes to me --

At a less absolutist level, the not quite so rabid internet atheist is saying, "Unless God grants me a 'Damascus Road' experience, comparable to that of Paul, I will not believe in nor worship him" ... even as they overlook how that experience took over Paul's life and ultimately led to his unjust execution.

Things every Atheist cultist says

Dean's World: Things every Atheist cultist says

Teletubbieworld

Shadow to Light: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Argument From Evil: Toothless and Useless --

The modern day atheist movement has only one argument to support atheism – The Argument From Evil. ...

The Argument from Evil boils down to this: If there is a God, we should all be Teletubbie-like creatures living in a Teletubbie-like world. Since we are not Teletubbie-like creatures living in a Teletubbie-like world, there is no God.

... From my perspective, this world, with all its evil, is better that a Teletubbie-like world.

So we are left wondering – Is the Argument from Evil the atheist’s way of expressing his/her desire to be a Teletubbie?

1) Moral evil -- wickedness -- results from wicked choices that moral agents freely make. So, what the childish so-called atheists are childishly insisting is that either:
1a) no one be *free* to make wicked choices -- yet, when they're not railing against God for allowing other people to make wicked choices, they're railing against him for forbidding certain acts (especially odd or perverse uses of the sexual organs) as wicked choices;
1b) or, moral agents be free to make wicked choices, but that the choices must have no evil consequences -- in effect, they're demanding that God make the world be irrational, by severing the link between cause-and-effect;

2) Natural evil -- injurious events that "just happen", without a moral component -- results from the fact of change: it is logically impossible for God to make a world in which change occurs and yet no change has any consequence for any other element in the world. Sure, God could have created a static world -- a *dead* world -- but *we* couldn't live in it. So, with regard to natural evil, what the childish so-called atheists are childishly insisting is that either:
2a) God place us in a world in which nothing ever changes, that is, a *dead* world;
2b) or, God place us in a world in which change does occur, but that no change ever have unwelcome consequences -- in effect, they're demanding that God make the world be irrational, by severing the link between cause-and-effect.

So, what it comes down to is that the 'atheists' are insisting that God can create only a world in which either --
a) there are no moral agents -- i.e. a non-rational world;
b) there are no causes -- i.e. an irrational world, in which events occur but don't cause consequences;
c) there are no events at all -- i.e. a static or dead world;

Implications!

In a recent post on Victor Reppert's blog, Bob Prokop explodes the common atheistic talking point that critical thinking leads one to embrace atheism --

"I'm curious what you think would be an acceptable demonstration of the claim that critical thinking leads to atheism. (I do think this is true, but I am wondering what you think would demonstrate it to you, and others.)"

It's not gonna happen, because there is simply no conceivable way that honest, critical thinking will ever lead to atheism.

Atheism demands that one close one's mind to the illogic of something coming from nothing (or else one has to redefine "nothing" to the point where it is actually "something").

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means there is no objective morality, that good and evil are nothing more than subjective judgements of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

Atheism demands that one ignore the fact that 99.9 percent of humanity since the Dawn of Time have believed in, worshiped, and prayed to God (or to gods). Atheists are required to think their tiny minority are "right" and the overwhelming majority of people are "wrong" about the most important of all imaginable questions.

Atheists must insist that all questions can be reduced to matters of empirical evidence and "science" - that art, literature, history, music, architecture, personal experience, all are somehow defective or fundamentally lacking, not quite worthy of trust, ultimately to be (negatively) evaluated against the one-and-only objective standard given the atheist seal of approval.

Atheists must never, ever allow themselves to realize that atheism means that everything is meaningless, that in the end of ends it does not matter what kind of life one leads, or even whether one is or is not an atheist - because a single microsecond after one's death, it is all as though it never happened, so who cares?

Atheists must never face up to the inevitable implication of materialism that individual identity does not really exist - that we are simply complex bundles of matter and energy, which, if its configuration is somehow altered or destroyed, becomes something else.

Atheists must believe that our noblest traits, our highest aspirations, our sublimest thoughts, are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a soulless meat machine, of no greater significance than combustion or sublimation. The love I feel for my family is simply a Darwinian survival mechanism.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Atheism is the very negtion of critical thinking. To the contrary, a case can be made for its being perilously close to insanity

Exactly!

Both the affirmation of the reality of God and the denial of the reality of God are statements about the very nature of reality, of truth, of reason, of morality, of meaning, of love, of beauty, of personhood, of agency, and of our individual selves (and of much else, besides; that list is not exhaustive). The question of the reality of God is the First Question, because everything else follows from the answer to that question.

At the very least, every one of the demands and entailments of God-denial that Mr Prokop lists ought to give one pause regarding one's God-denial if one really is engaging in critical thinking; and some of them are sufficient to demonstrate the falsity of God-denial. Thus, if one really is engaging in critical thinking, then one simply will not continue to deny the reality of God. So, far from critical thinkng leading a person to atheism, in truth it leads one away.

Consider just a few of the above entailments of atheism --

Atheists must never, ever allow themselves to realize that atheism means that everything is meaningless, that in the end of ends it does not matter what kind of life one leads, or even whether one is or is not an atheist - because a single microsecond after one's death, it is all as though it never happened, so who cares?

This is one of the logical entailments of God-denial that ought to cause one to seriously doubt that God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality. That is, this entailment itself doesn't show that God-denial is false (though other entailments do), but it does show that very few human beings -- including one's own atheistic-professing self -- are actually capable of *really* believing that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that *everything* -- including atheism itself -- is meaningless. No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that it doesn't matter in the least what a person believes about the nature of reality. No one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes that it doesn't matter in the least how a person conducts his life.

Now, of course, the fact that no one -- including every self-professed atheist -- really believes this particular logically inescapable entailment of God-denial does not in itself prove that God-denial is the false view of reality. But it does expose a very serious cognitive dissonance involved in attempting to assert that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality -- if one doesn't believe the logically inescapable entailments of a proposition which one asserts, then one either doesn't really understand the proposition or one doesn't really believe the proposition in the first place. If one asserts that 1+1=2 and yet denies that 2+1=3, then one either does not understand what one is talking about, or one doesn't really believe what one has asserted.

It's a curiosity: atheism is odd, and possibly unique, in this regard -- atheism is a world-view the truth of which matters not in the least were it actually the truth about the nature of reality; the question of the truth of atheism matters only if atheism is not true.

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means there is no objective morality, that good and evil are nothing more than subjective judgements of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

This is another of the logical entailments of God-denial that ought to cause one to seriously doubt that God-denial is the truth about the nature of reality -- even the people who explicitly and publically assert that there is no such thing as objective-and-transcendent morality continuously demonstrate by their own behavior that they don't really believe what they have asserted!

Consider just one common example of their behavior belying their assertions --

Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') is on very public record of affirming the logical entailment of atheism that there are no such things as 'right' and 'wrong', that is, that there is no such thing as transcendent morality, and of affirming this as a logical entailment of atheism. Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') is *also* on very public record of asserting that this or that (e.g. rearing one's child as a Christian; being a "creationist"; punishing criminals because they have chosen to be criminals; being sexually jealous of one's spouse; and on and on) is 'wrong'. Richard Dawkins (along with many other famous 'atheists') constantly asserts that there is no "way things ought to be" ... and also constanly asserts that this or that "ought not be" -- this is a blatant self-contradiction: either he (and they) does not really believe the former assertion, or does not really believe the latter assertion(s).


Now, consider this immediate topic in light of the prior one.

Suppose it really is the case that there are no such things as 'right' and 'wrong', that is, that there is no such thing as transcendent morality. And after all, this really is a logically inescapable entailment of atheism.

And, suppose it really is the case that that *everything* really is ultimately and utterly meaningless, and thus it doesn't matter in the least how one conducts one's life. And after all, this really is a logically inescapable entailment of atheism.

Now, suppose those two propositions simultaneously -- for, after all, if atheism really is the truth about the nature of reality, then both propositions are true.

Does one now see how it is that so many 'atheists' constantly seek to shape public opinion by means of asserting self-contradictions?

Atheism demands that one overlook the fact that atheism necessarily means [that all our thoughts/judgements/conclusions are nothing more than the output] of a mind that one can't actually trust to make such judgements.

Atheists must believe that our noblest traits, our highest aspirations, our sublimest thoughts, are nothing more than electrical impulses and chemical reactions in a soulless meat machine, of no greater significance than combustion or sublimation. The love I feel for my family is simply a Darwinian survival mechanism.

If atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then you cannot reason -- you cannot *know* anything ... including that you cannot know anything ... and including knowing that atheism is the truth about the nature of reality.

Everything that is coheres, and it cohers in God, and God alone: to deny the reality of God is to deny the coherence of reality. This doubtless explains why 'atheists' so readily retreat into irrationality as a means to protect their God-denial from rational critical evaluation -- contrary to their constant self-promotion, they are not committed to reason/rationality, but merely to refusing to acknowledge God.

Atheists must never face up to the inevitable implication of materialism that individual identity does not really exist - that we are simply complex bundles of matter and energy, which, if its configuration is somehow altered or destroyed, becomes something else.

This is one of the logically inescapable entailments of God-denial which shows it to be absurd, and thus shows it to be false, and thus shows its denial to be true.

When one encounters a God-denier saying such things as "Consciousness is an illusion" or "The 'self' is an illusion" or "There is no such thing as 'free-will'", that isn't just some blow-hard blowing hard (however much that 'atheists' tend to be blow-hards). These claims and other such claims are logically inescapable entailments of atheism.

And when one encounters a God-denier saying something like, "Well, I am an 'atheist', and *I* don't believe that consciousness is an illusion", then one simply is dealing with a blow-hard -- what this or that 'atheist' is willing to affirm does not alter the set of propositions which are logical entailments of atheism.

When one denies the reality of God, then logically and inescapably one has also denied the reality of one's own self: but this is absurd. Since one *knows* that it is absurd to deny the reality of one's own self, and since this absurd denial is logically entailed by the denial of the reality of God, then one *knows* that the initial or grounding absurdity is in the denial of the reality of God.

This is why I say that every 'atheist', as an 'atheist', is intellectually dishonest. This isn't just me being "mean"; this is me "following the logic where it leads" -- atheism is absurd (and thus is false); atheism entails obvious absurdities (and thus is seen obviously to be false); not a single one of the 'atheists' one will ever encounter has any rationally exculpating excuse for continuing to ignore the absurdity of God-denial; that is, every single 'atheist' one will ever encounter asserts the absurdity of God-denial knowing it to be absurd, and thus knowing it to be false.

As the Apostle Paul wrote 2000 years ago: men are without excuse in denying (and failing to love-and-worship) God. Pace Bertrand Russell, men do not deny the reality of God because they have "insufficient evidence". Rather, they deny the reality of God because they refuse to acknowledge the truth they already know.

It really is that simple

I've quoted this before, and no doubt I'll quote it again (to make, once again, the same point I'm going to here) -- From 'The Demon-Haunted World' by Carl Sagan --

Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe.

*The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow.

As the above quote demonstrates to those willing to think about it, the God-deniers don't scoff at the possibility of miracles for any principled reasons, but only because as they have chosen to deny God, they must perforce deny all things connected in any way with God (*).

What is the difference between the claim that "once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street" and the claim that an iron axe-head, rare and expensive in the time and place, which had flown off the handle into a body of water, was seen to float to the surface to be retrieved by the people who needed it?

Well, one minor difference is that no one claims ever to have witnessed the former -- and, in fact, the sort of persons who assert that it *could* happen simultaneously assert that the possibility of it actually happening is so vanishingly small as to be non-existent -- whereas the latter is claimed to have been witnessed, and that claim is recorded in a certain famous "bronze age religious text".

But the major difference, the difference that makes all the difference in the world, is that the former, should it ever be witnessed to occur, would be utterly meaningless, caused by nothing and for no reason and signifying nothing (**); whereas the latter not only had a cause, but had a personal cause, was the result of a deliberate act, and signifies, among other things, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".

What is the difference between the claim that at some point in the far distant past, mere undifferentiated and unorganized chemicals became living entities, and the claim to have witnessed the death of a person and then later to have seen that very person alive?

Well, one minor difference is that no one claims ever to have witnessed the former -- and, in fact, the sort of persons who assert that it *did* happen simultaneously assert that the possibility of it happening again is so vanishingly small as to be non-existent -- and further, such an occurrence is contrary to what we believe we understand about "the Laws of Nature", whereas the latter is claimed to have been witnessed, and while such an occurrence is not commonly witnessed, it is not contrary to what we believe we understand about "the Laws of Nature".

But the major difference, the difference that makes all the difference in the world, is that the former, while asserted to have happened, and asserted to be one of the ultimate causes of our existing, is intrinsically utterly meaningless, being something that "just happened", for no reason, and given what 'Science!' has become of late, no cause; whereas the latter not only had a cause, but had a personal cause, was the result of a deliberate and reasoned act, and signifies, at the very least, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".


Now, my point is that God-deniers do not denigrate the possibility of miracles and claims to have witnessed miracles out of any high-minded principles. And they certainly don't do it because miracles "break the Laws of Nature", as they like to accuse. For, as the Sagan quote makes clear to anyone willing to see, in the end the God-deniers deny that there even are any such things as "Laws of Nature".

No, the reason -- the *only* reason -- that the God-deniers denigrate the possibility of miracles and claims to have witnessed miracles is because, by definition, a miracle is the result of a deliberate and reasoned act of God, and signifies, at the very least, the lordship of God over "the Laws of Nature".

God-deniers don't hate miracles because they "fuckin' love science", as so many of them are wont to claim when they imagine that 'science' may be a handy stick for beating God, but because they hate God; it really is that simple.



(*) which is why, in the end, they always end up denying that they themselves, and you also, of course, even exist.

(**) well, it does signify the denial that there even *are* any "Laws of Nature"

It's logically impossible to reason with these people

The 'these people' with whom it is logically impossible to reason being the so-called atheists one encounters on the internet. And the 'when' of it is *whenever* the topic is clearly seen as related to God, or "religion", or the logical implications of denying the reality of the Creator-God.

Consider this exchange --

Ilíon: "While there are certainly 'atheists' who are *generally* honest, no 'atheist' is honest with respect the very question that defines them.

Even if there were no positive arguments for the reality of God, the obvious inescapable logical entailments of denying God prove that atheism is false. SInce there is no excluded middle, as "God is not" is false, then "God is" is true.

There is no way around this."

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

The AFR is flawed and certainly not obvious. Everything we know about how the mind works indicates that it is derived solely from our embodied selves - there are no ghosts in the machine."

Victor Reppert: "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."

Victor Reppert: "In fact, one atheist on this site defended a Nagel-type atheist position, and two of his fellow atheists suspected him of being a Christian in disguise."

JDHuey: "This is the rub. I do not remember that anyone on this blog has really demonstrated that a mental process as envisioned by an atheist philosophy of mind has been ruled out. It has been asserted many times but never demostrated.

The arguments put forward by Searle are hardly convincing. In fact, when I read books that cover research in consciousnes by people like Stanislas Dehaene or Antonio Damasio, it becomes evident that a lot of the objections by Searle are based on faulty conceptions of how the brain works.

Even you seem to have a faulty concept of a 'brain state'. It seems to me that you use that term as if the brain were a static system that transitions from one state to another. But the brain is a continuously dynamic system with massively interacting networks. You can say that the brain is in a state of paying attention or is asleep or is aroused or is calm but those states are processes not configurations."

Victor Reppert: "Perhaps I can put this as follows. Suppose I say that I can build a cat out of legos. I mean a real cat, not something that looks like a cat. And, I have lots of legos, and can put those legos into many interesting configurations. Perhaps they even function dynamically, as opposed to statically. It seems to me that no matter how complex these lego-formations are, it won't produce a cat, simply because there is a fundamental difference in kind between legos and cats.

It seems to me that no matter how much detail you use to specify the state of the brain, so long as you don't fudge categories, no mental state is entailed by all the physical state-descriptions. The physical always leaves the mental underdetermined. Now we can project the mental into the physical, but then we are going to need a mind to do the projecting, and so we aren't really going from the physical to the mental in the required way."

JDHuey: "The problem is not that Legos are not like cats but that Legos are not like atoms. A cat is not the same kind of thing as an atom but it is composed of atoms.

If you have something that can serve the same function as an atom and you configure them into the same visual and functional configuration that we call a 'cat'. And the results looks like a cat and acts in all ways like a cat, then in what way is it not a cat?"

This "dialogue" could continue forever, and while JDHuey will certainly contradict himself (increasingly so as it continues), he will *never* admit to anything. He will make all manner of assertions (never backing them up) that are false, but need to be true for atheism to be the truth about the nature of reality, demanding Victor Reppert prove them false, and never admitting when Reppert has done so.

It is logically impossible to reason with people who do that sort of thing.

New Geico Commercial: 'When you're an [X], you [y]. It's what you do.'

Victor Reppert: Organized Disrespect

Victor Reppert: "John [Loftus], do you actually read your combox? When I got into the David Wood discussion, I was called intellectually dishonest, a Liar-4-Jezus, and then we get this gem ...

And you complain about Ilion???? I didn't think it was possible to make Ilion look like Miss Manners, but I see it done every day on Debunking Christianity"

Ilíon: Surely, you've seen the new Geico commercial: "When you're an 'atheist', you lie. It's what you do."

====
By the way, "the David Wood discussion" to which Mr Reppert refers is the (ahem) discussion on Loftus' blog about this video -- it's a moving video, as they say.

As Michael ('Shadow to Light') says on the page to which I linked

When someone becomes a Christian, what sets the stage is the following intuitive insight: There is something very wrong with me; I need to change.

When someone becomes an atheist, what sets the stage if the following intuitive insight: There is something very wrong with them; they need to be stopped.

'So what?'

Michael, at the 'Shadow to Light' blog, has a recent post discussing Sean Carroll's argument (ahem!) that 'Science!' and "religion" are "incompatible". Michael and the commenter TFBW note that "So what?" may be an appropriate response to the claims or arguments (ahem!) of the God-haters.

In fact, the "So what?" response is appropriate to *any* normative assertion made by those who deny that moral duties and expectations are real (or "objective" as people like to say), transcendent and universally binding.

I've discussed the "So what?" response at various times and places; here I'll try to present my ideas on this in an easy-to-follow way.

Consider the following hypothetical exchange, wherein the hypothetical Christian is, for the sake of argument, adopting the hypothetical atheist’s presumptions and the logical entailments thereof -- which include (but is not limited to) the statements that:
1) there are no real, universal, binding, transcendent moral obligations or duties;
2) we cease to exist - as though we had never been - when we die;
3) ultimately, *all* things will cease to exist;
n) ergo, nothing really matters.

Atheist (or Moral Relativist): "Christianity is false."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, Christianity presents a false view about "God", and about man, and about the universe, and about man's place in the universe."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, people shouldn't believe -- and certainly shouldn't teach others to believe -- things that are false!"

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "But, it's *wrong* to try to covince people to believe things one knows to be false."

Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "Well, it's not good, for the individual nor for society, when people believe things that are false."

(pseudo-)Christian: "So what? ... Still, you have convinced me -- with your mere assertion -- that Christianity is false. But, you know what? I'm going to keep trying to convince people that it's true."

Atheist (or M.R): "But, but, but ... that woud be lying!"

(pseudo-)Christian: "So what?"

Atheist (or M.R): "But, it's *wrong* to lie. It's *wrong* to try to covince people to believe things one knows to be false."

(pseudo-)Christian: "You've already asserted that, and again I respond: So what?"


I expect that Gentle Reader is experienced enough, and a clear enough thinker, to be able to extend this hypothetical exchange indefinitely and in other directions, such that I need not belabor it.

But, notice this: atheism (or even merely moral relativism) is a curious worldview -- whether it is the truth about the nature of reality, and of God, and of ourselves matters *only* if it is not the truth about the nature of reality, and of God, and of ourselves. Is that *any* other worldview that matters only if it doesn't matter?

Notice another very important thing, not just from my hypothetical exchange (which, of course, I scripted), but also from your own experiences with so-called 'atheists' -- atheists' arguments against Judeo-Christianity, to the limited extent that they ever actually attempt to present an argument, *always* implicitly assume the very thing they (and the logic of their position) are adamant to deny (*): that there are real, universal, binding, transcendent moral obligations or duties, including, but not limited to:
1) it is *wrong* to lie;
2) it is *wrong* to reason or argue on the basis of what one knows, or at least believes, to be false;
3) it is *wrong* to decline or refuse to investigate, to the best of one's abilities, whether one's premises are sound;
3a) it is *wrong* to decline or refuse to learn, to the best of one's abilities, and adopt, a true view of the nature of reality;
4) it really does *matter*, not just now, but also after one has died and lo longer even exists, whether one lives one's life in accordance with what is true about the nature of reality;

(*) especially when these claims are deployed against their position of denial of God and of morality.

How ‘Science!’ works!

Im-a-fool-and-don’t-you-forget-it! wrote at Victor Reppert’s blog -- "Illion [sic] shows again that he has absolutely no idea what kind of physical laws are entailed by relativity and quantum mechanics. There actually IS a difference between "science" and feats of "magic" that have never, and will never occur. These things are not entailed by any physical law. They are nothing more than stories concocted by people like you who don't have a clue, but just want to justify an imaginary God."

From 'The Demon-Haunted World' by Carl Sagan

"Consider this claim: as I walk along, time -as measured by my wristwatch or my ageing process -slows down. Also, I shrink in the direction of motion. Also, I get more massive. Who has ever witnessed such a thing? It's easy to dismiss it out of hand. Here's another: matter and antimatter are all the time, throughout the universe, being created from nothing. Here's a third: once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street. They're all absurd! But the first is a statement of special relativity, and the other two are consequences of quantum mechanics (vacuum fluctuations and barrier tunnelling,* they're called). Like it or not, that's the way the world is. If you insist it's ridiculous, you'll be forever closed to some of the major findings on the rules that govern the Universe.

*The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much longer than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow."

Ah!

So, if one were to assert that at any time my "car [might] spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of [the] garage and be found the next morning on the street", with the caveat that any actual occurrence of the assertedly possible event is so improbable as to be effectively a non-existent possibility ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed the Risen Christ to *intentionally* walk through a locked door, damaging neither door nor self, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

So, if one were to assert that at any time all the oxygen molecules in the auditorium might spontaneously gather themselves into the upper corners of the room (this was an example assertion by one of my professors as an illustration of what QM “tells us”), thus leaving all the humans in the room lacking for the oxygen necessary to sustain their lives, with the caveat that any actual occurrence of the assertedly possible event is so improbable as to be effectively a non-existent possibility ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed a certain usefully-shaped collection of (primarily) iron atoms rise to the surface of a body of water into which it had fallen, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

So, if one were to assert that, contrary to all experience, and contrary to all scientific and medical findings to date, non-living chemicals can spontaneously arrange themselves into living organisms ... well, that's 'Science!' On the other hand, if one were to assert (and record) that one had actually witnessed a collection of once-living molecules walking around, eating, breathing, and talking to other collections of ambulatory molecules well after one knew that collection of molecules to have been dead, and one attributed this socking-and-totally-unexpected development to the sovereign power of the Being who created molecules and living organisms in the first place, well, that's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

I think we all see how ‘Science!’ - and ‘I-pretend-to-be-rational’ -- operates.

Michael Shermer’s Inadvertent Argument for Christianity

I don't think much of Mr Gilson's blog-name, for it:
1) implicitly assumes a favorite Evangelical Atheist article of faith;
2) and thus implies that *other* Christians don't normally employ valid reasoning when it comes to thinking about the faith.

Tom Gilson: Michael Shermer’s Inadvertent Argument for Christianity

Just two examples

Here are just two recent examples illustrating the fact that the various elements of the leftist coalition will *never* be satisfied, and will *never* leave you alone ... until you bow to their god (who is themselves).

Doughy Dispute: Atheist Group Threatens Lawsuit Over Church Discount

Host a same-sex wedding on your property or pay a $13,000 fine

Moreover, *you*, Mr and Mrs America, enable this leftist cultural warefare against your own future, because you implicitly accept their premises and you constantly give way to their cynical hypocrisy.


edit:
Here is 'the Gay Patriot' commenting on the $13,000 fine for declining to host a "gay" "wedding" -- Wedding Cake Fascists Strike Again


My point with my comments to Nick below is to agree with him (and possibly extend what he means) that these continuously out-cropping outrages are not really about "religionus liberty", but are, rather, far more basic than that: the real issue is freedom of association ... concerning which the "conservatives" surredered to the leftists 60 years ago (which is before I and most of you were even born).

On Sam Harris' denial of free-will

Two posts by 'K T Cat' concerning Sam Harris' recent "ghastly pamphlet" denying the reality (*) of free-will --

You Have No Free Will. Vote Democrat. Isn't it odd that any practical implication of scientism is *always* "more leftism!" and/or "more atheism!" Why, one might almost begin to believe that the "science" is just the tail being wagged by the atheistic/leftist dog.

Raising Children Without Free Will

(*) though, of course, his denial of human freedom, and especially his attempt to convince you that you are not free, is but an affirmation of the freedom of the will after all.

Stupid 'Atheist' Tricks VI

The blogger ‘Shadow to Light’ has a recent post concerning just how weak-vaporous are Jerry Coyne’s “powerful arguments for atheism”. I have some comments --

Shadow to Light: "This [the sixth "argument"] is a nonsense question. We inquire about the origin of something if we have reason to think that thing came into existence. Treating God as if He is supposed to be one more thing that is part of contingent reality means you have not seriously considered the question of God’s existence, which is probably why this is a favorite argument among the pre-teens and young teens."

Also, as an "argument", it is blatant straw-manning and question-begging built upon an equivocation. Consider it again --

Jerry Coyne: "6. Who made God? Secularism provides the best explanation for the idea of God, for we have ample reason to think (and in fact have often witnessed) that gods are created by the human mind."

The equivocation: no "idea of God" is God himself. Conceptions of 'god' may or may not be accurate -- they may or may not actually refer to the actual God -- but even accurate conceptions of God are incomplete. And none of them is God himself: no more than is one's understanding of one's father one's father himself.

The strawman: as 'Shadow to Light' notes, "[t]reating [the Biblical Judeo-Christian conception of the Creator-]God as if He is supposed to be one more thing that is part of contingent reality means you have not seriously considered the question [and arguments] of God’s existence"

This strawman contains another equivocation -- Coyne is treating the Biblical Judeo-Christian conception of the Creator-God -- the uncreated/non-contingent Necessary Being who is the "ground of all being", who is "being itself" -- as being logically equivalent to any of the various the pagan conceptions of their gods, all of whom were conceived as being contingent, all of whom were conceived either as having been born of some pre-existing deity, or as having spontaneously "arisen" from some pre-existing state of affairs.

It is a favorite strawman of atheists to knock down Zeus and then triumphantly proclaim that they have knocked down The Ancient of Days.

The question-begging: by equivocating between conceptions of God and God himself, this atheist "argument" begs the question whether the term 'God' refers to anything other than this or that conception of 'god'. That is, this "argument" *begins* with the assumption that the terms 'God' and 'god' refer ever and only to ideas and never to what those ideas are believed to concern. So, of course, by *assuming* that the Judeo-Christian use of the term 'God' refers *only* to the Judeo-Christian concept of what God is like, and never to God Himself, he is able to "conclude" that God is merely an idea "created by the human mind."

Well, d'oh!

Keep in mind, Gentle Reader -- this is the *best* that the militant God-haters (and would-be murderers of his people) can do.

PZ Myers is spot on

Shadow to Light: Does Richard Dawkins Defend Pedophilia? -- “... PZ Myers is spot on when he observes that Dawkins['] position on pedophilia “sounds like something out of NAMBLA.””

Where was ol’ PZ ten years ago? Somehow, I can’t quite seem to squech the suspicion that there’s a reason he’s admitting this *now*, rather than then. In case Gentle Reader is unaware of it, the Gnu Atheists are presenty going through a period of self-cannibalization ... as is inevitable with groups of humans who insist upon denying reality and actual morality in favor of a contrary-to-reality "morality" that is based upon nothing more than political force and compulsion.

“Dawkins is clearly try to cast pedophiles as the victims. Am I wrong?”

It's of a piece with his false worldview and false anthropology -- which he admits, in public writing, that he himself doesn't even believe.

“Adult hang-ups?? Let’s get this straight. Some old man exploits some situation where he decides to touch, grab, and handle the genitals of a young child. If you think that is not just wrong, but very wrong, it’s because you have an “adult-hang-up.” And it is your “adult hang-up” that keeps you from understanding that since the child was not violently raped, nothing truly bad actually happened. In fact, what’s truly bad is that you have over-reacted because of your “adult hang-up.””

That's "liberalism" (i.e. "soft leftism") for you -- the immoral/criminal aggressor is always "the real victim", and the more so the more immoral and perverted the act, whereas those who dare to judge/condemn the act are the "real" aggressors.

This topsy-turvy black-is-white mindset is on display everywhere the leftists are actively working to overthrow traditional social understandings and norms. For example, not only can a "gay" person not help his/her sexual attractions (which belief is at least plausible, whether or not it's true in fact), but is helpless to resist expressing those attractions, and thus deserves sympathy (*) and *approval*. Meanwhile, if *you* disapprove of the public flaunting of and expressing of those attractions, you're a vile "homophobe" -- who *can* choose to be otherwise -- who deserves public censure and condemnation, and political/legal prosecution.

(*) that is, not sympathy in the sense of pity for suffering from a psycho-sexual abnormality, borne of an understanding of one's own broken nature, but sympathy in the sense of fawning celebration.

Make no mistake, in just a few short years, the leftist-atheist alliance will be giving the expression of pedophilia the same treatment they are currently giving the expression of same-sex attraction -- and *you* will be the vile, immoral criminal for trying to protect children from sexual predators.

Stupid 'Atheist' Tricks III

I suspect that I could make a new "Stupid 'Atheist' Tricks" post every day from the raw material provided by the 'atheists' who infest Michael Egnor's blog and not run the risk of exhausting the vein. Mind you, Gentle Reader, I'm not saying that any of these 'atheists' are themselves stupid. No, no, no: it's the tricks that are stupid; the 'atheists' are just intellectually dishonest.

Consider this recently unearthed gem, concerning a video to which Michael Egnor had linked --

troy: "Apart from the gullible and the demented, does anyone take that huckster still seriously?"

Ilíon: "We all know what you mean, troy. *Everything* about Dawkins, and especially that [prissy] sissy accent he uses, is hucksterish and quite annoying."

troy: "No, obviously I meant that huckster WLC. Except lining his own pockets at the expense of the gullible and demented, and making the insecure believers feel a little better about their superstitions, what do know now that we wouldn't have known without his 'scholarship'?"

And that, boys and girls, is atheistic "reasoning" in a nutshell.

Why is Willian Lane Craig a "huckster", who is "lining his own pockets at the expense of the gullible and demented"? Why is it that all he does is "making the insecure believers feel a little better about their superstitions"? Why is it that it is questionable there is anything we "know now that we wouldn't have known without his 'scholarship'"?

Why? One reason, and only one reason -- because he kicks atheistic butt, using logic they cannot counter; you know, logic, which 'atheists' like to imagine that they own, or even invented.

Why is it that Christians are "gullible and demented", who hold to "superstitions", rather than to ralional beliefs? Why is it that Christians are "insecure believers [who need someone to make them] feel a little better about their superstitions"?

Why? One reason, and only one reason -- because, in utter contrast to atheism, Christianity can be supported by evidence and logical reasoning ... and, because, moreover, even if evidence-and-logical-reason were to falsify Christianty, it remains forever the case that logical reasoning falsifies atheism.

This "projectile reasoning", as I call it -- this psychological "projection" having nothing to do with actually reasoning -- is how 'atheists' tend to "reason" about "religion", especially Christianity (*), and their own God-hatred.

Which is to say, they do not reason, for, they do the very opposite of reason. And this little example I've shown above really is standard-issue "reasoning" amongst the 'atheists' one will encounter on the internet or in real life.

(*) And really, other than Judaism, what other religion does *any* member of a Western society really care about?


BUT, let's play pretend -- let us pretend that some 'atheist', perhaps even this 'troy' (who brings disrepute to a noble name), has shown that WLC is a "huckster"; further, let us even pretend that some 'atheist', perhaps even this 'troy', has falsified Christianity, and thereby shown it to be a "superstitions" (which would, of course, seem to entail that Christians are "gullible and demented" "insecure believers [who need someone to make them] feel a little better about their superstitions).

NOW, having pretended the truth of these things that 'troy' asserts (but *never* even attempts to demonstrate), allow me to ask you: So, what?

Do you not get it? On top of his claims-of-fact, this so-called atheist is asserting moral claims -- he is asserting that there is an objective-and-transcendent moral reality, knowable to human beings, and to which we are obligated to conform ourselves.

As the old saying goes: what the Hell?! Where did that come from?

Scientism, subtle and not

Shadow to Light: Steven Pinker’s Subtle Attack on Science -- concerning some not-subtle scientism

At the same time, the author of the linked piece (do read it) is likely engaging in a subtle, and unconscious, scientism himself (*). The very way he has titled the piece is indicative of scientism -- consider, were Pinker's misrepresention of reality an attempt to convince people that human use of such tools as, say, hammers, were proof that materialism/atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, would anyone, except in jest, title a take-down of his fallacious reasoning something like "Steven Pinker’s Subtle Attack on Hammers"?

Modern science, like a hammer, is a tool. It can be very useful when and where its use is applicabile; but outside that very limited sphere of applicability it is a positive hindrance … like trying to use a hammer to drive a screw. Modern science is a tool, and it's really not all that important, fot its use cannot help, and its misuse hinders, with regard to the things humans really care about.

People who consistently think in terms of there even being a possibility that any person could "attack science" aren't thinking about science, but rather about 'Science!'

(*) And, after all, most people in our scientistic culture do engage in scientism without realizing it or intending to.

Euler on 'Freethinkers'

Vox Day: quotes Leonhard Euler and adds comments --

As Aristotle did before him, in his Defense of the Divine Revelation against the Objections of the Freethinkers the brilliant mathematician Leonhard Euler observed that there are people who are simply incapable of being reached by reason:

"The freethinkers have yet to produce any objections that have not long been refuted most thoroughly. But since they are not motivated by the love of truth, and since they have an entirely different point of view, we should not be surprised that the best refutations count for nothing and that the weakest and most ridiculous reasoning, which has so often been shown to be baseless, is continuously repeated. If these people maintained the slightest rigor, the slightest taste for the truth, it would be quite easy to steer them away from their errors; but their tendency towards stubbornness makes this completely impossible."

It makes no difference if one calls them rabbits, r-selected, freethinkers, scientists, credentialists, or "people whom one cannot instruct". What they are, in their core, are the lovers of lies, the haters of truth, and they can never be convinced by any knowledge or logical argument because they will literally be damned before they will question, let alone abandon, the dogma instilled in them by their warren.

It is no surprise that the fact that Man's greatest geniuses anticipated them and described them with utter contempt doesn't even give them a moment's pause.

And, by the by, this same applies to most of my "critics" (such as one sees at Victor Reppert's blog (*) ... or a Panda's Thumb, when I still cared enough about "evolution" to criticize evolutionism) -- they are "lovers of lies [and] haters of truth" and they'll be damned if they are ever going to admit that I have reasoned soundly and said the truth.


==============
(*) Consider this, just from today --

Karl Grant:

llion, Have I ever criticized you for rudeness? I don't think so.

Ilíon:

Here ... if you wish, you can wade through the Google results to see whether you have "ever criticized [me] for rudeness" (*). I have more interesting ways to spend my time.

But recall: you spread false tales about me and on the basis of your false assertion about me, call me a hypocrite.

(*) My point has not been that some people have "criticized [me] for rudeness" (**), it is that some people lie about me (and about themselves) and the[n] criticize, in the sense of 'condemn', me on the basis of those lies.

(**) Here is someone merely criticizing me for "rudeness". His criticism is unfounded, it appears to be based on two misrepresentations:
1) that he didn't quite grasp in context what I'd written that he was immediately criticizing;
2) that he had background false knowledge about my "rudeness" based on the lies you people tell about me.

Here is my response to him ... quite opposite what someone who believed your (plural) lies about me would expect, and in fact, quite opposite how you liars would generally respond.

Karl Grant:

Well, somebody has a persecution complex. And no, I did not spread lies about you since you did advocate and defend the of destroying Mecca, a city full of innocent people in a country that is our ally, while at the same time labeling Bob an apologist for mass murder.

I've explained numerous times how it is that 'Bob' -- who calls me demonic *simply* for opposing the leftist slavery he desires to impose on you and me ... and to call that slavery 'Christianity' -- is, in fact, an apologist for mass-murder.

Also, isn't it just like this sort to accuse one of having a "persecution complex" when one objects to the lies they spread about one?

Ilíon:

liars almost always double-down: "Well, somebody has a persecution complex. And no, I did not spread lies about you since you did advocate and defend the of destroying Mecca, a city full of innocent people in a country that is our ally ..."

To quote a great thinker [Ilíon: that is, I'm quoting Karl Grant himself from just a few posts prior], one for the ages, "How stupid can you get?"

I did nothing of the sort, and Karl Grant is a liar.

Even in isolation, no honest person can take the post to which he links as me advocating or defending the nuclear destruction of Mecca.

Moreover, just six posts later in that thread, I said this "Who needs to nuke Mecca to destroy the Kaaba? A barrage of cruise missiles [w]ould do the trick."

And I further said this: "Nevertheless, dest[ro]ying the Kaaba would lead to tens of millions of deaths world-wide, as Moslems begin to slaughter one another."

Any sane, rational, honest person can see that Karl Grant is a liar.

Any sane, rational, honest person can see that while I believe that destroying the Kaaba would be the quickest way to destroy Islam as an existential threat to the West (and indeed to all cultures ... and to all human beings ... in the world), I also recognize and caution that destroying the Kaaba would lead to convulsions in the House of Submission and to the deaths of untold millions of human beings.

======
And, for the record, while Saudi Arabia may have signed treaties with the United States, they are never our allies; their treaties with us are simply taqiyya and hudna in action. And, by their own Moslem "reasoning" [I should have written 'Islamic', rather than 'Moslem'], no denizen of Mecca is innocent; for in rejecting Christianity (and in persecuting Christians) they actively wage war against God, and therefore Christians have the moral obligation to kill them whenever and however possible.

How fortunate for Moslems that Christianity is not Islam.

Karl Grant:

I rest my case.

In other words, it doesn't *matter* to him in the least that I've shown him not only to have been wrong in what he had asserted about me (a couple of years ago), but actively lying in asserting it yet again. For, after all, he does not love the truth.

For atheism is not just about God

Shadow to Light: Misanthropic atheism -- "Look, now are finally getting to the point where I can see the fundamental flaws of atheism. For atheism is not just about God, but about ourselves."

Exactly! Atheism *starts* with the denial that God is -- this is definitional -- but it *ends* with the denial that we ourselves are.

Moral realism and anti-realism

Michael Egnor: Moral realism and anti-realism --

... If morality is an adaptive strategy, then morality is not real. It is a delusion. I think that Baggett is right. This debate will come down to classical theists (Christians mainly) vrs. atheists. Moral realists vrs. anti-realists.

I think that the prime motivating ideology of modern atheism is moral anti-realism anyway, so at least the debate will move in an honest direction.

New atheism has always been about morality, not science. Scientism is a tactic, not a motive, for atheist evangelism.

There's a first

This is something you don't see every day (and something I don't think I've ever seen) -- BenYachov arguing rationally

(h/t to Victor Reppert)