It's Iimi!: atheism

Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts

Monday, February 19, 2024

It’s Iimi! What’s The Matter With Matter?

TFTD: They Revile What They Do Not Understand

But these people revile what they do not understand and are destroyed by what they know by nature like irrational animals. (Jude 1:10)

A couple of days before Christmas, I was involved in a combox discussion on the issues over the satanic counter to the Nativity Scene in Florida. My own thesis was that the putting up a “religious” display with the intent of protesting religious displays was a self-contradiction. What struck me was a comment from one of the atheists. It was a tu quoque claim that the Bible was full of contradictions. Today, there seems to be a lot of atheists on Facebook and in the comboxes bashing Christianity over Neil deGrasse Tyson and his tweet in celebration of the December 25th birthday of Sir Isaac Newton (the actual tweet struck me as being more pathetic than offensive, apparently trying to imply Newton was more important than Christ).

Basically, the theme is that Christians are stupid for believing in God while blaming Christianity and religion in general for every crime in the history of humanity (denying the role of the atheistic ideology in the worst atrocities of the 20th century). These things are pretty tiresome, and fairly frustrating. The bashing is basically illogical and factually wrong. They would actually be easy to refute—if people took the time to listen and investigate whether what they say is true.

Ven. Fulton J. Sheen expressed things very well when he wrote:

“There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church—which is, of course, quite a different thing.” (Radio Replies vol. 1)

Ven. Archbishop Sheen makes a good point. The Catholic Church is not really hated for what she teaches, but for what people think she teaches, and when people run afoul of the Church teachings, we are told that these teachings were made out of hatred of women, of people with same sex attraction, of divorced people, the poor, the rich, sexuality etc., simply because we have a teaching on the morality of certain actions.

People don’t even ask what we teach, let alone why we teach it. People assume that the worst possible portrayals of the Church in history are true, never realizing that even in past centuries there were people with ideologies and axes to grind who had no problems denigrating the Church to build up their own agendas. Because they know nothing of Catholic teaching and history, but assume the Church is capable of the worst, they assume that the horror stories they hear must be true and done out of sheer malice—never mind facts and the context of the times.

Sometimes I wish people couldn’t post on a subject online unless they could demonstrate they understood what they were bashing.

But we shouldn’t expect that. Our Lord did warn us that we could expect hatred from the world if we sought to be faithful to Him:

¹⁸“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. ¹⁹If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. ²⁰Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. ²¹And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is they have no excuse for their sin. ²³Whoever hates me also hates my Father. ²⁴If I had not done works among them that no one else ever did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵But in order that the word written in their law might be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without cause.’ (John 15:18-25)

So we endure hatred and try to reach out to the person of good will who wants to learn the truth, praying for all of them.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

TFTD: Funny How They Want it Both Ways...

In the article, "Apology for student who says teacher questioned his refusal to stand during pledge,” we see an interesting thing. An eleven year old atheist refuses to stand for the pledge of allegiance because of the phrase “Under God.” In addition, news stories report that a banner in the classroom which read, “Prayer Changes Things,” is going to be removed. It is acknowledged that he doesn’t have to stand because the pledge is a violation of his beliefs.

But isn’t it funny that when an atheist encounters something he or she does not want to do, everyone has to respect his or her rights, but when a Christian encounters something he or she finds offensive, there is no right to opt out (which is the religious oppression by the Obama administration in a nutshell).

Basically, this is a mindset that says atheism and non-Christian beliefs have the right to refuse having anything to do with Christian beliefs, but the reverse is not true. That’s the whole reason for the current kulturkampf in America. People can tell Christianity it has to change to accommodate non-Christians, but you can’t tell non-Christians that they have to accommodate the Christians. When the non-Christians demand equal time with Christians, that’s considered OK, but when the Christians demand equal time with the non-Christians, that’s a violation of the establishment clause.

I’m not particularly offended by the antics of an 11 year old atheist. He’s young and one prays he finds the truth later in life. But let’s cut the crap on saying it’s being neutral when the country says we have to accommodate a non-believer and when the country refuses to accommodate a believer. There is a difference between believers practicing their faith in public and giving into demands of non-believers to put up countering professions as a means of saying, “We reject this!” I don’t object when a non-Christian group wants to publicly commemorate their beliefs in public, and I won’t interfere or demand that a Christian display be set up right next to it. But treat us the same way.

Otherwise, what you have isn’t justice . . . it’s arbitrariness.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Fallacious Thinking on Religious Indifferentism

I came across a claim on a gaming forum this morning. Basically the context is the poster was making a statement that there are no absolute values, and that all religious values are equally valid or invalid. This claim said there were no more or less value to the "myths" of traditional religion than there were to his/her own. Ordinarily, I would write it off as a fallacy not worth bothering with, but the truth is, many people do think this way.

The basic view of indifferentism that is expressed today is given in two views:

So long as you're trying to do good, what you believe doesn't matter.
There's no more proof for the belief in God than for the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Both of these views start with the same fallacy: Begging the Question, which assumes to be proved true that which actually needs to be proven. So if a person wants to claim that Christianity is no more or no less valid than Pastafarianism or other belief, that's not something that is already proved. That's something that needs to be proven before they can move on to making their conclusion.

See, a person who thinks that all religions are manmade constructs or a person who thinks that all religions that make you feel good are good enough doesn't answer the question of how they know their belief. How does the person who thinks all religions are a construct of human beings know that none of them have any supernatural basis? They don't. They are making an assumption that no religion can have a supernatural basis.

Likewise, the person who thinks it doesn't matter what religion a person holds as long as the religion makes a person happy. If God exists, then if He establishes a way to follow Him, then it matters very much whether or not one follows that way.

Unfortunately many people make a decision on the universal validity or invalidity of religion based on their perception of what suits their worldview. The atheist presupposes that no religion can be true. The religiously indifferent presupposes that religion is nothing more than "being nice to each other." What is not asked is: What if my presupposition isn't true?

A few months ago I wrote on Pascal's Wager. I think it makes sense that people of good will consider the consequences of backing the wrong horse when it comes to seeking to follow the truth. If atheism is irrelevant if true and dangerous if false, then it makes a lot more sense to investigate the claims of religion to see if they are true then it does to investigate the claims of atheism.

The person of good will can't just stop in thinking "this is close enough." The search for truth is ongoing . . . eliminating false ideas, going deeper into true ones and trying to live by the truth. The person who holds to a worldview should consider why he or she holds that worldview . . . even the Christian. If God exists, and is not some indifferent architect, then what one does in relation to Him does matter.

That's why we can't presume that God does not exist or is indifferent and we can stop searching for the truth.

Fallacious Thinking on Religious Indifferentism

The basic view of indifferentism that is expressed today is given in two views:

So long as you're trying to do good, what you believe doesn't matter.
There's no more proof for the belief in God than for the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

That's why we can't presume that God does not exist or is indifferent and we can stop searching for the truth.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Thoughts on the Pope's Second Interview

Thus far, the mainstream media seems to pay little attention (as of yet) to the Pope's second interview -- probably because there wasn't much to misrepresent. A few commentators on the Internet seem to have missed the point however, either implying or accusing that the Pope is guilty of outright relativism.

That's understandable though. A few statements in there initially gave me a WTF? kind of reaction, almost looking as if the Pope took a relativist view of truth, when he said:

" Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place."

Rereading the interview, I don't think that is a correct interpretation.

What the Pope is talking about is that all individuals are obligated to seek out the truth. See, a lot of people take an argument from silence approach to conscience -- "I don't feel anything wrong so it must be OK."

But that isn't conscience. Conscience says "I must do X" or "I must not do Y." Conscience can be wrongly informed, yes. But the erroneous conscience still commands the person who does not know better.

But too many people are willing to rationalize away their conscience out of fear, expedience, ambition or other reasons. But what if Germans in Nazi Germany had heeded this when they were told to do evil? What if the woman considering abortion listened to her conscience instead of her fear?

The Pope is speaking to an atheist, not to a practicing Catholic. The atheist does not have an understanding of the complete truth as Catholics do. He can't say, "listen to the Church," because they don't recognize the authority of the Church. But he can appeal to the conscience because that is at least a common point of reference.

But the thing is, conscience requires one to seek and follow the truth. The man or woman who does not seek out whether they err are doing wrong. The person who, through no fault of their own, does not realize the importance of Christianity won't be condemned for that. But he or she will be judged if they refuse to seek out what is true.

As Catholics we should understand this, and not bash the Pope for trying to help an atheist begin to see his obligations.

Thoughts on the Pope's Second Interview

That's understandable though. A few statements in there initially gave me a WTF? kind of reaction, almost looking as if the Pope took a relativist view of truth, when he said:

" Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place."

Rereading the interview, I don't think that is a correct interpretation.

As Catholics we should understand this, and not bash the Pope for trying to help an atheist begin to see his obligations.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Underlying Assumptions

Occasionally I encounter materialist atheists who demand physical proof for the existence of God. Such demands are what is known as a categorical error. Science belongs to the category of the natural... that which can be observed and studied and tested. The category of the natural involves the entire physical universe.

The problem is, if something has existence in a way that goes beyond physical existence -- what we call supernatural -- then trying to apply the principles of the natural universe to studying the supernatural is using a tool which is entirely unsuited for the task. It would be like using a microscope to try to study the stars.

Atheists of this type make some underlying assumptions that they do not question. But the problem is, they make arguments using these assumptions but the underlying assumptions need to be proven before their questions can be considered justified.

Some of the assumptions are:

1) The supernatural does not exist
2) If God exists there must be physical evidence for that existence.
3) Belief in the supernatural comes from pre scientific superstition
4) Science has eliminated the need to believe in God

Others exist, but these are some of the basic ones.

The problem is, when the atheist demands physical proof of God's existence, they are effectively making a universal negative claim about reality. The onus of proof is on them for making that claim, but being a universal negative, it is impossible to prove.

This is where you get ridiculous statements like "the burden of proof is on the person making the more extraordinary claim," or "since you can't prove a negative, the burden of proof is on the person making the positive claim."

It is always the person making an argument who has the burden of proof, so the atheist making these statements is guilty of shifting the burden of proof. He or she makes an assertion and then, instead of proving it, demands it be disproved.

Such a tactic tends to be used on the Internet against believers who the atheist believes is not skilled in argument. When that particular believer lacks the skills to refute the challenge, the atheist then declares victory for "disproving" Christianity.

But he hasn't. Refuting a weak opponent doesn't automatically mean the case for Christianity is weak. It could just means the weak opponent does not know his faith well enough to understand a complex philosophical attack against it.

Conclusion

Once you can see the big picture, you can see this kind of attack is unquestioned assumptions that need to be proven combined with shoddy tactics used to confuse and intimidate the opponent and make observers think the atheist has proven a point he has not proven.

Unfortunately, the Internet being what it is, attention spans are short. Usually the best you can do is make your case -- politely -- in the hopes of reaching people of good will and encouraging them to consider what the truth is.

As an afterwards, I'd like to point out that not all atheists use these dishonest tactics. Nor is it limited to atheism. I've seen fundamentalist anti Catholics behave similarly, as well as radical traditionalists bash other Catholics.

The basic flaws in all cases are:

1) unquestioned assumptions used as a basis even though the opponents believe it to be false.
2) attempts to shift burden of proof
3) tries to make defeat of unskilled opponents into refutation of position.

The basic counters are:
1) don't let the false assumption go unquestioned.
2) don't let the opponent shift the burden of proof onto you when he made the assertion
3) study what you believe so as not to be an unskilled opponent.

Underlying Assumptions

Some of the assumptions are:

Others exist, but these are some of the basic ones.

Conclusion

The basic flaws in all cases are:

Monday, September 2, 2013

TFTD: Did They Ever Consider There Might Be an Answer?

Pathetic Little Straw Man

I find it interesting to see what people share on Facebook when it comes to hostility towards Christianity. It's not just that their arguments against Christianity lack any semblance of reason and logic. It's also the case that the Christianity they attack has very little to do with what Christianity teaches. I don't know if it merely reflects their ignorance or whether it indicates a dishonest "quote mining" in order to make Christianity look bad, but either way, one does not refute Christianity through an uninformed misrepresentation of what it teaches.

The current piece of bad reasoning running around Facebook is a quote from a blogger named Amanda Marcotte which a Facebook group has been sharing:

Atheist are routinely asked how people will know not to rape and murder without religion telling them not to do it, especially a religion that backs up the orders with threats of hell. Believers, listen to me carefully when I say this: When you use this argument, you terrify atheists. We hear you saying that the only thing standing between you and Ted Bundy is a flimsy belief in a supernatural being made up by pre-literate people trying to figure out where the rain came from. This is not very reassuring if you’re trying to argue from a position of moral superiority.

What we see here is a straw man argument. This is not what Christianity argues. What Christian philosophers have said is that with no moral absolutes, anything is permissible (I've dealt with the illogic of the claim that there are no moral absolutes in an earlier article). It then challenges the person who rejects the fact that values come from a source above us to explain how moral norms can be binding.

Morality can come from one of the following:

Something above the human level (such as God and Natural Law)
Something at the human level (such as society)
Something below the human level (such as instinct)

The problem is, if morality does not come from something above us, it really cannot bind. If morality comes from society, then it is people who follow what values society holds that are good and those who oppose societal values are bad. This means that in a society which embraces segregation, Bull Connor was a moral person and Martin Luther King Jr. was an immoral person. If we get our values from society, then to condemn the values of another society merely becomes a case of "pushing your values on others."

But the opposite is true. We recognize that often it is the moral person who challenges the values of society, and that some societies behave in an immoral manner. We could not condemn the values of the Third Reich or apartheid era South Africa unless moral values come from outside society.

Likewise that it comes from instinct does not work. Sometimes morality tells us to do something which goes against the instinct, such as dying rather than to do what one thinks is wrong. Instinct guides us towards satisfying physical needs, but sometimes we need to suppress instincts for a greater good, for example suppressing one's survival instinct by putting oneself at risk to save another.

So the point that Ms. Marcotte misrepresents is actually the demand to justify the source of morality if one denies the existence of God. Since neither instinct nor society can explain binding moral values, if one wants to claim binding moral values and deny the existence of God such a person has to give an explanation for something above the human level which can demand we follow these moral values.

Informed Christians don't deny that atheists can have proper moral values. The existence of an atheist who seeks to do what is right is no challenge to Christian belief. What the Christian notes is the atheist is being foolish in insisting on those moral norms they personally follow while ignoring those they disagree with instead of investigating why these norms are binding to begin with.

The atheist who refuses to consider a source above humanity in considering moral obligations is being as reasonable as a person who refuses to consider matter as a factor in the study of physics.

Pathetic Little Straw Man

The current piece of bad reasoning running around Facebook is a quote from a blogger named Amanda Marcotte which a Facebook group has been sharing:

Atheist are routinely asked how people will know not to rape and murder without religion telling them not to do it, especially a religion that backs up the orders with threats of hell. Believers, listen to me carefully when I say this: When you use this argument, you terrify atheists. We hear you saying that the only thing standing between you and Ted Bundy is a flimsy belief in a supernatural being made up by pre-literate people trying to figure out where the rain came from. This is not very reassuring if you’re trying to argue from a position of moral superiority.

Morality can come from one of the following:

Something above the human level (such as God and Natural Law)
Something at the human level (such as society)
Something below the human level (such as instinct)

The atheist who refuses to consider a source above humanity in considering moral obligations is being as reasonable as a person who refuses to consider matter as a factor in the study of physics.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

God, Invisible Pink Unicorns and Flying Spaghetti Monsters

I had a drive-by atheist come by the other day anonymously posting a comment on a post I wrote over a year ago. There was nothing especially brilliant about what he said. Essentially it boiled down to "Prove God exists," while making use of the Argument from Silence and the Shifting the Burden of Proof.

Such drive-by trolling indicates a certain type of thinking:

It presumes anything which exists has a physical existence.
If one can't prove a physical existence of a thing, it isn't true.

This is where we get the concepts of the "Invisible Pink Unicorn" and "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" invoked by some atheists as a mockery of the belief in God. (It's essentially a rehashing of Bertrand Russell's Tea Cup).

There is a problem with such materialist beliefs. Let's use the following exercise to demonstrate it:

Think of your hair color.
Are you aware of your hair color?
Are you aware of being aware of your hair color?
Prove that your thought in #3 exists.

This is the problem with materialistic atheism in a nutshell: In order to attack the belief in God, they have to make use of special pleading (exempting themselves from the standard they demand others follow). Anything which is not material is denied to exist. A counter example is used. The response is to try to explain away the counter example as not mattering.

The end result of this is to recognize some important facts. Science is entirely limited to the physical realm of things which are observable in some way. That's good for what it can do. However, it becomes useless in determining something beyond the scope of the physical realm. If such a thing exists, the fact that science cannot detect it indicates a limitation of science, not a delusion in thinking it exists.

This doesn't mean "Science is useless." Instead it means we use science for dealing with the material world and with material causes, and recognize that to try to use it in dealing with the supernatural is just as effective as using a microscope for astronomy.

Let's consider a historical example (For a more detailed view of this example, see my previous article here). Prior to 1492 [Let's leave aside all the other claims of who "really" discovered America as a distraction], the belief of Columbus was one could sail West to get to China. His critics claimed he underestimated the size of the Pacific Ocean and one couldn't carry enough food to reach China from Europe.

At this time, a European speculating that a land mass existed between Europe and Asia would not be able to prove it scientifically… but that doesn't change the fact that the Americas existed. The hypothetical European who used materialistic views to demand proof that such a continent existed, could argue that there was no evidence and since there was no evidence, it was more reasonable to assume such a land mass did not exist.

The point is: Lack of physical knowledge of a thing does not mean there is no reason to believe it exists.

I want to offer a caveat however. I am not saying we are free to therefore believe anything. Reason is still important, and we should not merely go and accept Tertullian's maxim of "I believe because it is absurd." There are good reasons not to believe in the ancient Greek gods for example and those reasons do not deny the existence of one God. Philosophical Knowledge, Logic and revelation from one who has knowledge are all valid forms of knowledge.

Philosophical knowledge and reasoning can tell us some things about a thing that does not have physical existence (such as Justice for example), and revelation can tell us of the existence of a thing we cannot verify: If Native Americans came to Europe in 1492, they would have been witnesses to the existence to something a member of Renaissance Europe could not verify on his own.

So to conclude, it is unreasonable to demand physical proof as the only kind of proof until it can be proven that only things with a physical existence do exist.

Pages

Monday, February 19, 2024

It's Iimi! Useful Idiots

Monday, January 15, 2024

It's Iimi! Set Up To Fail?!

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

It’s Iimi! What’s The Matter With Matter?

Friday, December 26, 2014

TFTD: They Revile What They Do Not Understand

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Thoughts on (Lack of) Separation of Church and State in Modern America

Saturday, October 25, 2014

TFTD: Funny How They Want it Both Ways...

Friday, August 22, 2014

Fallacious Thinking on Religious Indifferentism

Fallacious Thinking on Religious Indifferentism

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Thoughts on the Pope's Second Interview

Thoughts on the Pope's Second Interview

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Underlying Assumptions

Underlying Assumptions

Monday, September 2, 2013

TFTD: Did They Ever Consider There Might Be an Answer?

TFTD: Did They Ever Consider There Might Be an Answer?

Monday, January 7, 2013

Pathetic Little Straw Man

Pathetic Little Straw Man

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

God, Invisible Pink Unicorns and Flying Spaghetti Monsters