Atheism is a delusion - I'm not just saying this, I'm serious!

[Emuse]

Nobody claims that evolution is unguided.  Non random selection is the guide.

As you say, we shouldn't ignore details just because they don't fit with our beliefs.

To be guided implies an intended purpose, a plan, or a course set in advance. As in guided missiles, guided tours, or the guides on a fishing rod. Few people,  not even young earth creationists, deny that there are genetic errors or that natural selection can alter organisms over time.

A question for you, Emuse: Why do organisms evolve?

-Keith

"Guided" does not entail purpose.  A twig in a flowing stream has no option but to follow the course of the river so is guided by the flow of the river in terms of where it ends up.  But this doesn't mean that the river is intelligent or that there is some purpose behind what is happening to the twig.  We would obviously be concluding falsely if we decided that someone intended the twig to be against some particular rock because it was guided there non randomly by the flow of the river.  Things evolve as the result of genetic changes that are selected non randomly.

Glad you decided to engage.  You were starting to appear extremely rude.

[Emuse]

Here is the problem in terms of the reasoning.

P1. If X happens for a purpose then X is guided.
P2. X happens for a purpose.
C. Therefore, X is guided.

I think we can all agree with this argument.  The problem is that there is a temptation to do the following...

P1. If X happens for a purpose then X is guided.
P2. X is guided.
C. Therefore, X happens for a purpose.

P2 now affirms the consequent and the argument is now logically fallacious.  We would need the entailment relation at P1 to work both ways to give us ...

P1.  If X is guided then X happens for a purpose.

We could then use "P2. X is guided" non fallaciously.  But P1 is now unsound because we can give examples of how being guided non randomly doesn't require an intelligent guide such as the example of the stick in the river.

[bdsimon]

It (atheism) only requires skepticism toward theistic claims because it is recognised (by the atheist) that the evidence offered in support of theistic claims can be interpreted in more than one way.

This is a rather modest claim for atheism that leaves one in the possible position of identifying certain Christians as atheists.

[Keith_]

Selective acceptance and rejection of evidence to preserve what one wants to believe is an indicator for self deception. Examples that come to mind are "free will is an illusion", "our consciousness is an illusion", and "the evidence of design in nature is an illusion". Another example from science includes seeing entropy rule the natural in everything with one exception - evolution is unguided. Really? Does that seem likely? This is only reasonable if you circularly presuppose that it must be so.

How about dismissing the need for a supernatural cause for space time matter and energy exploding into existence? Infinite universes? There is no actual evidence whatsoever supporting that conclusion, but those who want to believe in material infinities embrace the idea anyway. 

And our longing for spirituality and something greater than us? This evolved? How could such an unproductive thing be selected over something that works ( on natural is). This idea can't be believed without the presupposition that it must have happened that way. Talk about leaps of faith!

How could a quantum event occur when there is nowhere and no-when for the occurrence There is no actual evidence to support this belief either. And believing God would not allow suffering? That's not the biblical God. It seems only atheists think they are as smart as a god, and that nothing is hidden from them. Why? Circular reasoning- a god that doesn't exist knows less than you, and has no hidden reasons for anything.

It looks to me as though being an atheist requires some serious evidence denial and nearly all (maybe even all) atheist arguments start and end with the assumption of atheism - this is circular reasoning. Of course evevidence for God doesn't exist if you assume it is impossible. As I said in the subject line, and I'm not just saying this for effect, atheism looks to me like a mass delusion. Have you read /r/atheism lately? Wow.

Does this pattern of atheist self-deception only look like a powerful apologetic case to me?

-Keith

It (atheism) only requires skepticism toward theistic claims because it is recognised (by the atheist) that the evidence offered in support of theistic claims can be interpreted in more than one way.

This is not how I see skepticism being applied by the atheists I interact with.  Virtually without exception the pattern of skepticism I see atheists apply is highly selective in what is allowed.  In my experience atheist views show very high levels of skepticism toward ideas and evidence that contradicts the presupposition that God cannot possibly exist, and show little or no skepticism when ideas or evidence confirm their presuppositions. A good example of the latter is accepting ideas such as the existence of physical infinities and explaining away fine tuning postulating that it was a product of infinite multiverses - even though there is no scientific data to substantiate the existence of even one other universe.

When was the last time you heard an atheists on this forum agree that any apologetic argument was sound and had merit? 

There are quite a few main stream academic findings showing that the universe is finely tuned to support life. Does this evidence support the idea that the universe may have been designed? If you say no, on what actual evidence do you base this ?

-Keith

[Keith_]

Emuse,
I have limited time and cannot respond to all your posts right now. I have to get in at least 8 hours of work today.  How about prioritizing your points?
-Keith

[R3]

Keith, sometimes it's hard to believe you were an atheist once haha, will get to the OP after work, but it gave me a chuckle  .

[pat1911]

Selective acceptance and rejection of evidence to preserve what one wants to believe is an indicator for self deception. Examples that come to mind are "free will is an illusion", "our consciousness is an illusion", and "the evidence of design in nature is an illusion". Another example from science includes seeing entropy rule the natural in everything with one exception - evolution is unguided. Really? Does that seem likely? This is only reasonable if you circularly presuppose that it must be so.

How about dismissing the need for a supernatural cause for space time matter and energy exploding into existence? Infinite universes? There is no actual evidence whatsoever supporting that conclusion, but those who want to believe in material infinities embrace the idea anyway. 

And our longing for spirituality and something greater than us? This evolved? How could such an unproductive thing be selected over something that works ( on natural is). This idea can't be believed without the presupposition that it must have happened that way. Talk about leaps of faith!

How could a quantum event occur when there is nowhere and no-when for the occurrence There is no actual evidence to support this belief either. And believing God would not allow suffering? That's not the biblical God. It seems only atheists think they are as smart as a god, and that nothing is hidden from them. Why? Circular reasoning- a god that doesn't exist knows less than you, and has no hidden reasons for anything.

It looks to me as though being an atheist requires some serious evidence denial and nearly all (maybe even all) atheist arguments start and end with the assumption of atheism - this is circular reasoning. Of course evevidence for God doesn't exist if you assume it is impossible. As I said in the subject line, and I'm not just saying this for effect, atheism looks to me like a mass delusion. Have you read /r/atheism lately? Wow.

Does this pattern of atheist self-deception only look like a powerful apologetic case to me?

-Keith

I agree with you. You have to believe in some really whack s**t to be a real atheist. Often they are two busy hating on us and bashing us to see that their own beliefs are pretty much magic. Why does something exist? Just cause...... Magic!!!!
Good luck being bashed on this thread, I agree with you though. You got a friend in me....

[Moot]

Selective acceptance and rejection of evidence to preserve what one wants to believe is an indicator for self deception. Examples that come to mind are "free will is an illusion", "our consciousness is an illusion", and "the evidence of design in nature is an illusion". Another example from science includes seeing entropy rule the natural in everything with one exception - evolution is unguided. Really? Does that seem likely? This is only reasonable if you circularly presuppose that it must be so.

How about dismissing the need for a supernatural cause for space time matter and energy exploding into existence? Infinite universes? There is no actual evidence whatsoever supporting that conclusion, but those who want to believe in material infinities embrace the idea anyway. 

And our longing for spirituality and something greater than us? This evolved? How could such an unproductive thing be selected over something that works ( on natural is). This idea can't be believed without the presupposition that it must have happened that way. Talk about leaps of faith!

How could a quantum event occur when there is nowhere and no-when for the occurrence There is no actual evidence to support this belief either. And believing God would not allow suffering? That's not the biblical God. It seems only atheists think they are as smart as a god, and that nothing is hidden from them. Why? Circular reasoning- a god that doesn't exist knows less than you, and has no hidden reasons for anything.

It looks to me as though being an atheist requires some serious evidence denial and nearly all (maybe even all) atheist arguments start and end with the assumption of atheism - this is circular reasoning. Of course evevidence for God doesn't exist if you assume it is impossible. As I said in the subject line, and I'm not just saying this for effect, atheism looks to me like a mass delusion. Have you read /r/atheism lately? Wow.

Does this pattern of atheist self-deception only look like a powerful apologetic case to me?

-Keith

New Theism FTW!

[Hawke123]

There's something clearly wrong with saying you adhere to an "ism" based only on you not being convinced of the arguments for another "ism". 

"Isms" have NEVER been about merely "lacking belief" or "just not being convinced".

"Isms" are ALWAYS about positive affirmations of some kind.  Thus, there is a burden of proof for BOTH SIDES when two opposing "isms" clash.

[kravarnik]

There's something clearly wrong with saying you adhere to an "ism" based only on you not being convinced of the arguments for another "ism". 

"Isms" have NEVER been about merely "lacking belief" or "just not being convinced".

"Isms" are ALWAYS about positive affirmations of some kind.  Thus, there is a burden of proof for BOTH SIDES when two opposing "isms" clash.

What's more ironic is that they'd require "evidence" to believe theism, but they believe atheism on the basis of lack of evidence. That's a freaking logical conundrum.

if you ask them "are YECers justified to believe YEC, due to not being convinced by evidence for evolution?" They'd say no.

If you ask them "is one justified to believe supernatural creation of life on Earth, due to not being convinced by evidence for natural creation of life on Earth?" They'd say no.


However, they believe their atheism, because theism fails to convince them. Go figure.

[Moot]

Pretty much everything I dislike about the New Atheism is present in this thread from Christians. If Christianity ever had a moral highground over the new atheism, it's gone... at least on this forum.

[searcherman]

When you don't specify a specific world view, and just say "atheist", it just seems like you can stuff a straw man as full as you want.

[Language-Gamer]

It is quite obvious that many atheists are intelligent and lucid people who think very deeply about the nature of reality by incorporating as much available data as they can into their conclusions.

Citation needed.

[kravarnik]

Pretty much everything I dislike about the New Atheism is present in this thread from Christians. If Christianity ever had a moral highground over the new atheism, it's gone... at least on this forum.

I consider this an insult. POLICE! FIRE THIS MAN FROM HIS JOB!


EDIT: Oh, I just thought of this awesome comeback:

if we were as bad as the new atheists, then you wouldn't be doing this, but would be rebuking us just in a sentence, or two. It would have costed you less effort, actually, than writing this kind of post here.

[searcherman]

It is quite obvious that many atheists are intelligent and lucid people who think very deeply about the nature of reality by incorporating as much available data as they can into their conclusions.

Citation needed.

There are plenty secularists online that are not deluded. I can find links if you feel a Google search parameter is too difficult.