Inconsistencies within atheistic evolution

Exactly what realities are you talking about? To the contrary; it's grounded on the least assumptions. In fact it's grounded on only one assumption that could be said to be un-proven: that naturalistic methodology is the best way to find out about the universe we live in. It's not necessary for logic to exist in order to use it. In fact I'm not sure that you can say that logic exists - certainly it doesn't exist outside of our heads. Nonetheless, it's our heads we're using to examine the universe, therefore a logic that only exists in our heads is sufficient.But you gloss over the number one problem: if we're going to put God in our science, then it's imparative for you to prove that God exists in the first place.

Then they don't exist, do they? They're just in our heads. I mean, does English exist? You keep acting like logic is some fundamental property of the universe. It's no such thing. Logic is just a very rigid language. On the other hand, uniformity of matter isn't something we assume, it's something we observe. Nope, it's just language. Logic has no more existence than English exists. It also requires that language exists, and that we speak the same one. Do you therefore argue for the independant existence of English? If not, how do you explain the discrepancy? Pretend I don't. Pretend I've never heard of this God of yours. Now why don't you tell me what evidence you feel can be explained only by God? I don't agree that any of those exist. Morality is a human creation - even when we say it comes from God. Logic is language. So back up - what reason is there to believe in your God? (What exactly is your God, anyway?)

Only if you expand the definition of "metaphysical" so broadly as to render the term meaningless.

Message 9 at your convinience, Grace.

No. I'm claiming that if it can't be proven to exist through naturalist methodology, then we can't know if it exists or not. The scientific method is the best and only way we have to know what we know. Like what? This is what I keep asking you, and you keep saying things like "morality and logic" but neither of those are universal. Oh, sure, you say they are, but you're wrong. If logic were universal, then why would it be incomplete? After all there's an infinite number of statements you can logically derive that cannot be true, and an infinite number of true statements that cannot be logicall derived. The very incompleteness of logic is evidence that it exists only in our head. To the contrary - the rules that cultures follow when they develop language are universal and invariant. All cultures follow the same rules to develop the rules of their languages.Yet, this doesn't mean that the deep grammar of language has independant metaphysical reality. It just means that all humans process language in the same way. So too with logic and morality. And that would be a logically valid system, because the axioms of any logical system are arbitrary. You really don't know much about logic, do you? What laws of morality? So, circumcision and spanking are universally wrong? Any sort of discipline is morally incorrect? Christianity is on the decline, dude. If you want to use numbers or growth as evidence, then you've proved the existence of Allah, not Yahweh. Atheism changed my life. Buddism changes lives. All the religions you think are false have changed peoples lives. Why should I accept your account over theirs, or over my own? Yup. You don't know any logic.If I can provide one counterexample each for your "evidence", then I disprove your statements. Having done so, we can conlude that your arguments are insufficient to prove god. You've totally misunderstood me. Logic and morality exist. They exist because we say they do, not because they flow from god or have an independant existance.As a matter of fact, your culture says that a number of acts are "ok" that other cultures find abhorrent. Eating meat, for instance. If there's only one morality, then how do you know you have the right one? Morality is defined by a consensus of personal decisions about what we're all willing to have done to us. How can it be an a priori assumption when in fact it was the evidence that convinced me to stop believing in god?The fact that I'm using logic here is no more significant that the fact that I'm using English. They're both as real. They're both as invariant. I just don't understand how you can observe the great variety of moral codes among human cultures and somehow conclude that they're "invariant". Variance is the very condition of human morality.

How would you know what an absolute truth is?

Look, we're just not going to accept this as a given. There aren't universal laws of morality. If you think it's an "observed reality", you're just mistaken.You need to defend this proposition! Not so. The laws of physics are apparently absolute. Not the ones we know, of course, but the ones that run the universe. It's irrational because it stems from an irrational premise, that is, your #1. Once you've successfully argued that there's anything approaching a fixed, universal morality, then we can proceed. But as your entire argument rests on that, you're going to have to start by defending it.

This is true. Symbols are not the reality.The problem is that we can never really directly experience the reality. We certainly can't talk about it, because the minute we try to, we're talking about symbols.So why bother? Yes, there's a reality there. But let's not act like we know anything about it, because we don't. We only have models of increasing accuracy. That's all we'll ever likely have.The problem is that Grace is making specific things, like A=A or "Thou Shalt not Kill" out to be not symbolic statements, but actual fundamental properties of reality. Yes, there's a logic to the universe. It's not, however, the logic we can talk about. Where she's coming up with these "universal, invariant" laws of morality is anybody's guess. It's obvious to the most casual observer that the "laws" of morality humans follow are infinitely variable, and not even close to universal. This is true. You're rarely hear atheists talking about good and evil, because that's a pretty simplistic way to look at the universe. You do, when I do it to you. As it is said, you can't rape the willing. Morals aren't just statements about what we will or won't do. They also statements about what we're willing to have done to you. The reason that there's obviously no absolute morality is that for any moral "absolute" you can think of, there's exceptions that you will find morally acceptable."Thou shalt not kill": what if they're going to kill you?"Thou shalt not steal": not even to save your family from starvation?And isn't taxation a kind of stealing? The person you're doing it to. That's who. Then you act differently than other people. It's the consensus's descision whether or not you stay a part of it, however. Yet, atheists largely act morally. In fact if the prison population is any indication, atheists act morally to a greater degree than those who believe in god. So clearly you're wrong.

I think this discussion would be a lot more fruitful if you backed off some of the claims you're having trouble supporting, namely the existence of "universal, invariant" laws of morality and logic and thought.After all atheists do believe in universal, invariant laws - the laws of physics. It'd be best if you concentrated on these, and asked how atheists account for those laws, at least. The rest of what you term "laws" aren't really central to your argument, so the question of whether or not they're universal and invariant - which they're not - is made irrelevant. But they're not everywhere. They're only the same everywhere that humans are. Surely you don't think "universal among humans" is the same as "universal"? Why must universal truth, or the laws of physics anyway, stem from a god? That's a non-sequitor. Why do they have to come from anywhere? In fact we can turn the question around: where does your God come from? How does your model account for the existence of God? If we found Christianity to be reasonable, we wouldn't be atheists, would we? See, we're saying the same thing about you. You say that the laws of morality, logic, and thought are universal and invariant. We observe that in reality, morals are local and variant. We observe that logic is only as universal as the human mind. We observe that the possibility of thought is boundless, not invariant. Who's denying reality here?

Grace? Am I talking to myself, here?

Why wouldn't they? We literally have no idea what kind of universes can exist. It's only speculation that the laws of physics could be any different than they are. So the fact that they're the way they are is not significant. But there don't have to be laws of reason in order for us to both reason together. After all we have the same kind of brain, don't you think? There's no reason that the "laws of reason" (good luck trying to enumerate those) have to be a property of the whole damn universe for us both to have reason. They simply have to be universal to the human condition, which they are. Did you ask any astrophysicists?Look, the laws of logic or whatever don't have to be truly universal for all observers to see the same thing. They just have to be universal among observers. No, it behaves the way it does. We as observers label it "orderly", because all observers we're aware of - humans - label the same quality as "orderly". That's not a universal quality. It's a shared human experience. Yes! Very true. In addition to absolute truths there has to be a vehicle for their transmission. You've postulated the existence of invariant laws of morality, for one thing. So what are they? And more important, how do you know you know what they are?The existence of God may be enough to account for the existence of absolutes, but it doesn't begin to account for how you know what the absolutes are. What's your evidence? Remember deduction from your premises doesn't count as evidence. Only observation. What observations do you make that suggest an infinite god? What kind of observation could you make?And why isn't "they're eternal" enough explanation for the laws of physics? Isn't that a double standard? Why can God be eternal, but not the laws of physics? Because God does not act in the world. That's basically it. There's no observations made of God. There's no physical evidence. What there is are a bunch of contradictory religions that all claim to have the same amount of evidence. They can't all be right. None of them can support their statements with evidence. So why assume any of them are?The only god that's believable and consistent with the evidence is a god who is either powerless or immoral, and why bother with such gods? Neither one of them would be able to create a universe. None of them are correct, though. They all rely on circular reasoning, assuming the consequent, or other logical fallacies. Yet, atheism is the most consistent with the evidence. This is not a universe in which a powerful, moral god lives. I realize that. However philosophy isn't needed here. You're proposing the existence of an entity that would leave tell-tale evidence of his existence. Since no such evidence can be found we can statistically conclude that a powerful, moral god doesn't exist. Then why don't all cultures have the same morals? If they're "unchanging", then why do they change?[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 11-18-2003]

Um, so is grey white or black? By your universal law of thought, it must be one or the other.In a multi-valent universe, you can't exclude the middle. Bi-valent logic is insufficient to model the universe. How does your law of excluded middle deal with a quantum superposition, after all?[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 11-18-2003]

I don't think such a god would, though - creation being generally a morally positive act, after all.