Do Atheists Exist?

This post is to move a discussion from Sandbox(4) at Entropy’s request.

Over on the Sandbox(4) thread, fifthmonarchyman made two statements that I disagree with:

“I’ve argued repeatedly that humans are hardwired to believe in God.”

“Everyone knows that God exists….”

As my handle indicates, I prefer to lurk.  The novelty of being told that I don’t exist overcame my good sense, so I joined the conversation.

For the record, I am what is called a weak atheist or negative atheist.  The Wikipedia page describes my position reasonably well:

Negative atheism, also called weak atheism and soft atheism, is any type of atheism where a person does not believe in the existence of any deities but does not explicitly assert that there are none. Positive atheism, also called strong atheism and hard atheism, is the form of atheism that additionally asserts that no deities exist.”

I do exist, so fifthmonarchyman’s claims are disproved.  For some reason he doesn’t agree, hence this thread.

Added In Edit by Alan Fox 16.48 CET 11th January, 2018

This thread is designated as an extension of Noyau. This means only basic rules apply. The “good faith” rule, the “accusations of dishonesty” rule do not apply in this thread.

1,409 thoughts on “Do Atheists Exist?

  1. fifthmonarchyman: I suppose. It’s a assumption that is necessary rather than optional.

    peace

    Why is the particular assumption necessary, what if God wasn’t the only justification for knowledge?

  2. fifth:

    Apparently it is just too hard for your garden variety atheist to live and let live when it comes to our what people think about God.

    Thank God for the first amendment.

    We’re just criticizing your beliefs, fifth. No one is denying your right to hold them.
    You’re free to believe whatever stupid crap you want, whether it be presuppositional Christianity, Zoroastrianism, or Scientology.

    Knock yourself out. And if you’re offended by our laughter, remind yourself what the first amendment says about freedom of speech.

  3. newton: The Bible consists of the Words of Truth . That is not the truth?

    Right,

    The Bible testifies to the truth and it’s true because God speaks through it but it does not contain all “Truth”. and it’s certainly not Truth incarnate.

    That designation belongs to Christ alone

    quote:
    and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
    (Joh 5:38-39)
    end quote;

    peace

  4. newton: Why is the particular assumption necessary

    It’s necessary in my worldview because my worldview begins with a God who speaks to us. In my worldview God is the thing that justifies knowledge.

    quote;

    The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
    (Pro 1:7a)

    end quote:

    newton: what if God wasn’t the only justification for knowledge?

    Then I guess there would be another justification for knowledge.

    Not a lot would change except atheists would have a sufficient answer to the question “how do you know stuff given your worldview?”

    I suppose there might be other implications as well but I haven’t spent a lot of time exploring that because it doesn’t seem very likely to me that a sufficient justification will ever be given.

    peace

  5. fifth:

    It’s necessary in my worldview because my worldview begins with a God who speaks to us. In my worldview God is the thing that justifies knowledge.

    You’re supposed to tell us why it’s necessary period, not why it’s necessary in your worldview. The whole point is to justify the necessity of the assumption that leads to your worldview. If you’ve already assumed the worldview, why bother with a justification that depends on that very worldview?

    Damn, fifth. You’re terrible at this stuff.

  6. keiths: You’re supposed to tell us why it’s necessary period, not why it’s necessary in your worldview. The whole point is to justify the necessity of the assumption that leads to your worldview. If you’ve already assumed the worldview, why bother with a justification that depends on that very worldview?

    Except that that’s the very thing that FMM cannot do. The entire point of presuppositionalism is to presuppose the Christian worldview and declare epistemic superiority over all other worldviews by mere fiat.

  7. Kantian Naturalist: The entire point of presuppositionalism is to presuppose the Christian worldview and declare epistemic superiority over all other worldviews by mere fiat.

    au contraire

    I’m not declaring epistemic superiority by mere fiat.

    I’m giving you every opportunity to demonstrate epistemic parity by simply offering a justification for knowledge in your worldview.

    It’s even possible that you can demonstrate epistemic superiority for your worldview if your justification is shone to be superior to mine in some way.

    You have already granted that God can offer justification for knowledge. That much is a done deal.

    So of course my worldview has “epistemic superiority” here in this thread but only in the sense that it has an agreed upon justification for knowledge and yours does not as of yet.

    peace

  8. KN,

    Except that that’s the very thing that FMM cannot do. The entire point of presuppositionalism is to presuppose the Christian worldview and declare epistemic superiority over all other worldviews by mere fiat.

    It’s not quite that simple. Fifth doesn’t start by assuming the truth of the Christian worldview. Instead, he does the following:

    1. He asks how knowledge and reasoning are possible.

    2. He decides (erroneously) that the truth of the Christian worldview is the only possible basis for knowledge and reasoning, and that the truth of any other worldview would lead only to absurdity.

    3. Since he thinks the choice is between Christianity or absurdity, he chooses Christianity.

    4. He therefore presupposes the truth of the Christian worldview.

    Note that step 2 takes place before the assumption of the Christian worldview. Fifth’s mistake — a rather boneheaded one — was to assume the Christian worldview in order to complete step 2:

    It’s necessary in my worldview because my worldview begins with a God who speaks to us. In my worldview God is the thing that justifies knowledge.

    I commented:

    You’re supposed to tell us why it’s necessary period, not why it’s necessary in your worldview. The whole point is to justify the necessity of the assumption that leads to your worldview. If you’ve already assumed the worldview, why bother with a justification that depends on that very worldview?

    Note that the justification he’s seeking in step 2 is not justification in the usual sense. He can’t actually establish that Christianity is true; he only hopes to establish that the choice is between Christianity or absurdity.

  9. Kantian Naturalist: The whole point is to justify the necessity of the assumption that leads to your worldview.

    An assumption did not lead me to adopt my worldview.
    Regeneration led me to adopt to my worldview.

    peace

  10. If the question were not “how is knowledge justified in your worldview?” (which I think is a nonsensical question) but something rather like “what do you think about what knowing is, and how is your understanding of knowing informed by empirical science?”, that’s a question I could sink my little teeth into. But those are, importantly, quite different questions.

    For one thing, the first question seems to be asking for a foundation for knowledge: something known upon which all the rest of knowledge rests. The second question can be happily answered in an anti-foundationalist mode: our basic ways of engaging with the world can augmented and refined into techniques of empirical science, which in turn can be used to construct testable models of the causal underpinnings and historical origins of our basic ways of engaging with the world.

  11. fifthmonarchyman: An assumption did not lead me to adopt my worldview.
    Regeneration led me to adopt to my worldview.

    peace

    Glad to see you admit that rationality has nothing to do with why you hold the beliefs that you do.

  12. Kantian Naturalist: The second question can be happily answered in an anti-foundationalist mode:

    Perhaps it could. but that would of course be totally irrelevant to this discussion.

    peace

  13. Fifth,

    An assumption did not lead me to adopt my worldview.
    Regeneration led me to adopt to my worldview.

    The comment you’re replying to is from me, not KN.

    And I wasn’t talking about what led you to adopt the Christian worldview. The answer to that is obvious — indoctrination.

    I was talking about what logically leads to your worldview, and that is the erroneous belief that knowledge and reason are not possible if Christianity is not true.

  14. keiths,

    Fair enough, sure. I’ve not seen FMM make the point in terms of “Christianity or absurdity” but there are presuppositionalists who do. Yet none of them really make an argument that the only alternative to Christianity is absurdity. It’s just an assumption. And what is asserted without argument can be dismissed without argument.

    If one really wanted to argue that naturalism leads to absurdity, one could do worse than Plantinga’s EAAN. But that argument is quite dreadful — without a doubt, one of the very worst arguments I’ve ever seen produced by a professional philosopher.

  15. Kantian Naturalist: Glad to see you admit that rationality has nothing to do with why you hold the beliefs that you do.

    My worldview is certainly rational but I did not come by it by setting myself up as a dispassionate God like authority on what is to be accepted and what is to be rejected as I look at the world.

    Worldviews are much more basic than that. They are the framework by which we decide what counts as rational and what is seen as nonsense.

    peace

  16. KN,

    Fair enough, sure. I’ve not seen FMM make the point in terms of “Christianity or absurdity” but there are presuppositionalists who do.

    Fifth does it too. Here, for example:

    The choice seems to be God or absurdity

  17. fifthmonarchyman: Perhaps it could. but that would of course be totally irrelevant to this discussion.

    It would be irrelevant to the discussion that you insist on having. But the question that you insist on asking is one that I find to be, quite literally, incoherent nonsense.

  18. KN,

    Yet none of them really make an argument that the only alternative to Christianity is absurdity.

    Fifth does. It’s a poor argument, but at least he tries. Remember all that nonsense about how incarnation was necessary to bridge the “ontological gap” between God and us?

    ETA: Here’s a sample:

    Think about the difficulty we would have in revealing ourselves to a nonhuman creature. It’s very difficult to explain to the nuances of our experience to someone from another culture just imagine how tough it would be to communicate comprehensively and inerrantly to a dolphin or an AI.

    Now imagine the gap that would be between a finite localized temporal physical creature and an infinite omnipotent atemporal nonphyisical diety

  19. Kantian Naturalist: Yet none of them really make an argument that the only alternative to Christianity is absurdity. It’s just an assumption.

    It’s an assumption that seems to garner support when the other side claims that the law of non-contradiction is somehow optional

    😉

    peace

  20. fifthmonarchyman: It’s an assumption that seems to garner support when the other side claims that the law of non-contradiction is somehow optional

    😉

    peace

    If you had taken the time to read any of the links I’ve posted over the years about paraconsistent logics, you would know that you’re engaging in a strawperson caricature. As it is, all you’re doing is displaying how proud you are of your ignorance.

  21. Kantian Naturalist: But the question that you insist on asking is one that I find to be, quite literally, incoherent nonsense.

    That does not surprise me in the slightest.

    When the law of non-contradiction is abandoned it’s hard to see how you would not find everything to be literally incoherent nonsense.

    peace

  22. fifthmonarchyman: That does not surprise me in the slightest.

    When the law of non-contradiction is abandoned it’s hard to see how you would not find everything to be literally incoherent nonsense.

    peace

    OK, it’s clear now that you’re far too emotionally immature to be capable of arguing in good faith. Have fun annoying the rest of TSZ — I’m done with you.

  23. fifthmonarchyman: The Bible testifies to the truth and it’s true because God speaks through it but it does not contain all “Truth”. and it’s certainly not Truth incarnate.

    Never said anything about incarnate truth or all truth or the necessity of putting truth in quotes.

    If the statements in the Bible are true, it is the truth. Pretty simple

  24. Kantian Naturalist: If you had taken the time to read any of the links I’ve posted over the years about paraconsistent logics, you would know that you’re engaging in a strawperson caricature

    LOL

    Are you claiming that a paraconsistent logic applies in our universe?

    If so doesn’t that also mean that a paraconsistent logic does not apply in our universe?

    peace

  25. Kantian Naturalist: OK, it’s clear now that you’re far too emotionally immature to be capable of arguing in good faith.

    It’s not emotionally immature to expect you to abide by the decisions you make.

    You are the one who claimed that the law of non-contradiction was not universally binding.

    If someone claims with a strait face that a square circle is a rational idea but “How do you know stuff?” is a nonsensical question they can expect a little mockery.

    It’s certainly nothing personal. Just a little tease in a thread that is well past it’s shelf-life

    peace

  26. KN,

    If one really wanted to argue that naturalism leads to absurdity, one could do worse than Plantinga’s EAAN. But that argument is quite dreadful — without a doubt, one of the very worst arguments I’ve ever seen produced by a professional philosopher.

    Whoa! You’ve certainly changed your tune on that topic. Here’s what you wrote about the EAAN in 2013:

    Anyway, it’s a really cool little argument, and it’s not immediately clear what’s wrong with it — and I thought it might be worth discussing, given how influential it is.

  27. newton: If the statements in the Bible are true, it is the truth. Pretty simple

    Not exactly

    The statement “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” is the truth. It’s found in a book that contains true statements.

    Do you see the difference?

    I might also add that since the bible contains only true statements we can say that the bible is true.

    peace

  28. fifthmonarchyman: It’s necessary in my worldview because my worldview begins with a God who speaks to us. In my worldview God is the thing that justifies knowledge.

    Right , you know that God exists , that knowledge is justified by God. So far no presupposition needed.

    You do need a presupposition that the only satisfactory justifications of knowledge available involve the Christian God. It seems God is silent on that matter

    You also said the presuppositions are like postulates, unprovable but necessary.

    Why is the unprovable rejection of any other justification as unsatisfactory necessary for your worldview?

    The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;

    An apple a day keeps the doctor away

    Then I guess there would be another justification for knowledge.
    Not a lot would change except atheists would have a sufficient answer to the question “how do you know stuff given your worldview?”

    Since it is necessary for your worldview that unprovable presupposition the no other justification is sufficient and why would anyone expect you to find any justification as sufficient? It is pointless as defined by your presupposition. You have prejudged / presupposed every response as insufficient though it is unprovable.

    I suppose there might be other implications as well but I haven’t spent a lot of time exploring that because it doesn’t seem very likely to me that a sufficient justification will ever be given

    Seems to me Fifth,the only useful reason I can see for your presupposition is to keep you from considering other justifications by dismissing them out of hand even though you have no way to know that is true.

    To complete the circle

    Where have I gone wrong?

    peace

  29. Shouldn’t this discussion have ended after a few atheists wrote something on the lines of “I think, therefore I am”?

  30. Erik:
    Kantian Naturalist,

    And what in particular makes you think now that it’s dreadful?

    The premises of the argument beg the question in a very subtle way. Plantinga intends the EAAN to show that naturalism is self-undermining because naturalism can’t accommodate concepts like meaning and truth. But he fails in that because he doesn’t begin with how naturalists themselves explain what meaning and truth are.

  31. KN, to Erik:

    The premises of the argument beg the question in a very subtle way. Plantinga intends the EAAN to show that naturalism is self-undermining because naturalism can’t accommodate concepts like meaning and truth. But he fails in that because he doesn’t begin with how naturalists themselves explain what meaning and truth are.

    The EAAN isn’t an argument against the possibility of meaning or truth given naturalism.

    The argument is that selection will favor adaptive beliefs, which are those that help us survive and reproduce. Since false beliefs can nevertheless be adaptive, Plantinga argues that we cannot trust our cognitive machinery — including when it leads us to accept naturalism and evolutionary theory. Thus he sees the combination of naturalism and evolutionary theory as self-defeating.

  32. keiths: The argument is that selection will favor adaptive beliefs, which are those that help us survive and reproduce. Since false beliefs can nevertheless be adaptive, Plantinga argues that we cannot trust our cognitive machinery — including when it leads us to accept naturalism and evolutionary theory. Thus he sees the combination of naturalism and evolutionary theory as self-defeating.

    Yup. This is what it really is about.

    It fails, actually, in very evident ways. Not subtle failures at all. However, it’s very hard for those who love the piece of shit to understand the problems, despite the problems being so obvious. Once you start dismantling the bullshit, the whole edifice collapses. The apologists and lovers-of-the-crap, however, adapt their vocabulary to the objections, but fail to see that the argument collapsed. They still thinks it’s all right. Nobody knows how changing the vocabulary, but keeping to the mistakes, would save the evolutionary bullshit against naturalism. Well, they think they know, but cannot articulate it without going back to their mistaken notions.

    Oh, but I can see why Kantian would think it’s about accommodating truth and meaning. When corralled, apologists mix the EAAN with other pieces of bullshit against physicalism (which they call materialism and mistake for naturalism). So they go for the concepts imagining that they’re non-physical, making a whole other mess on top of the EAAN, trying desperately to hide its many problems under a pile of crap.

  33. fifthmonarchyman: I’d hope you would.

    I won’t.

    But anyone who is reading his posts could certainly do so.

    Why would anyone do that? You can read his posts if you want to. You don’t want to.

  34. PopoHummel: Why would anyone do that?

    Politeness perhaps,

    They know I would be grateful and if keiths is interested in talking to me he would be grateful as well.

    Sometimes niceness is it’s own reward

    peace

  35. newton: Why is the unprovable rejection of any other justification as unsatisfactory necessary for your worldview?

    It’s not, as I have said several times I only assume that no other satisfactory justification is available.

    That is why I ask the question.

    newton: Since it is necessary for your worldview that unprovable presupposition the no other justification is sufficient

    Again——– it’s not necessary for my worldview. and it’s not a presupposition it’s an assumption based on the fact that no satisfactory answer has been given despite tons of opportunity.

    It’s not unlike the assumption that Darwinists have that miracles are not necessary to account the diversity of life. It’s just a tentative assumption based on what we know as of now.

    newton: It is pointless as defined by your presupposition.

    Again it’s not a presupposition it’s an assumption.

    The only presupposition I have that I’m aware of is that the Christian God exists. And that unique fact is both revealed knowledge and necessary presupposition.

    It’s not called presuppositionalism because I want to have lots of presupositions. It’s called presuppositionalism because I would like to identity and eliminate as many presuppositions as possible with out sacrificing rationality.

    newton: Where have I gone wrong?

    You are confusing a tentative assumption for a presupposition. I really have no idea why this is the case.

    normally you are really on the ball 😉

    peace

  36. keiths: The argument is that selection will favor adaptive beliefs, which are those that help us survive and reproduce. Since false beliefs can nevertheless be adaptive, Plantinga argues that we cannot trust our cognitive machinery — including when it leads us to accept naturalism and evolutionary theory. Thus he sees the combination of naturalism and evolutionary theory as self-defeating.

    Here’s the bit that I find deeply objectionable: “false beliefs can nevertheless be adaptive.”

    First objection: what is the status of this “can”? Does this mean that we can conceive of false beliefs that are adaptive? If so, then the “can” is one of logical possibility. But that’s hardly an objection to naturalism, since the naturalist does not insist that the link between true beliefs and adaptive behavior is logically or nomologically necessary. Plantinga offers a plethora of fantastic scenarios under which veridicality of belief and adaptiveness of behavior can be teased apart. But such fantastic scenarios need not trouble the naturalist.

    Second objection: in order to show that naturalism is self-undermining, Plantinga would need to begin with how the naturalist herself understands “true belief”. This he does not do. He does not begin from the naturalist’s own starting-point, which would involve showing how the empirical sciences — esp. cognitive science and neuroscience — lead to a revision in our understanding of what “true belief” is. One cannot mount an objection to naturalism by beginning with what the ordinary folk on the street or philosopher in the armchair think about the nature of truth. And because truth cannot be neatly severed from meaning — meaningless sentences being neither true or false — the view has to begin with how naturalists understand meaning or (to use a philosophical term) content.

    It is, of course, an open question as to whether content can be naturalized. And even among naturalists there are a variety of options, from Dretske’s naturalization of content in terms of information processing and Millikan’s naturalization of content in terms of proper functioning due to past natural selection. I have recently started taking a serious interest in recent work by Dan Hutto and Erik Myin, who object that content cannot be naturalized in a simplistic way (see here and here), though they do think of content in terms of shared socio-cultural practices.

    Third objection: Plantinga talks somewhat blithely about “adaptive behavior,” but I cannot tell how well he understands evolutionary theory. It’s at least arguable that he doesn’t really understand what it means to call behavior “adaptive”.

    If (as seems plausible to me) beliefs require language, then we need a more explanatorily basic notion to capture what does the work of “true belief” in non-linguistic animals.

    A philosophically sophisticated naturalist may very well say that the fundamental notion isn’t “true belief” but rather cognitive adequacy. A cognitive state is a state of a system that plays a functional role in information processing. These states are representations. A cognitive system is a system consisting of such states. (Yes, we do have to get into what “information processing” means, but one thing at a time.)

    A cognitive system is adequate if the representations guide actions that allow the organism to achieve a sub-optimal but satisficing grip on its affordances, such that the organism can satisfy its needs and achieve its goals.

    Correspondingly, “true belief” are then understood as semantically encoded cognitively adequate representations. But once we have a conception of “true belief” that is acceptable to philosophically sophisticated naturalists, “true belief” and “adaptive behavior” aren’t going to come apart as Plantinga wants them to. And so the EAAN can’t get off the ground.

  37. Kantian Naturalist: But he fails in that because he doesn’t begin with how naturalists themselves explain what meaning and truth are.

    So naturalists operate under a special peculiar definition of meaning and truth and evolution is capable of accommodating meaning and truth when they are defined in that very special way?

    I’m sure that Plantinga would reply that that is Ok just as long as you don’t claim that evolution is capable of accommodating truth and meaning as the rest of the world understands it.

    Then he might bemoan the fact that once we abandon a common language all communication becomes impossible.

    peace

  38. Entropy: Shouldn’t this discussion have ended after a few atheists wrote something on the lines of “I think, therefore I am”?

    No because I would simply reply

    “How do you know that?”

    and then the merry-go-round would start up again 😉

    peace

  39. KN,

    As you know, I’m no fan of Plantinga or his argument. I was just pointing out your mischaracterization of it.

    Plantinga isn’t trying to show that “naturalism can’t accommodate concepts like meaning and truth”. He allows for those and assumes them (at least arguendo). His argument is that since selection doesn’t favor true beliefs per se, we have no reason to trust that the deliverances of our cognitive faculties, including naturalism and evolutionary theory, are true.

    More later.

  40. Kantian Naturalist: Here’s the bit that I find deeply objectionable: “false beliefs can nevertheless be adaptive.”

    I don’t have a problem with that.

    “The earth is a sphere” is false, but very useful.
    The gas laws are false for real gases, but very useful.
    Kepler’s laws are false but very useful.

    My problem with the EAAN, is that Plantinga is presupposing a theistic view of truth. And that’s where the question begging begins.

  41. keiths: Plantinga isn’t trying to show that “naturalism can’t accommodate concepts like meaning and truth”. He allows for those and assumes them (at least arguendo). His argument is that since selection doesn’t favor true beliefs per se, we have no reason to trust that the deliverances of our cognitive faculties, including naturalism and evolutionary theory, are true.

    Yes, that’s what he says. My point is that naturalists are no intellectual obligation to accept how Plantinga sets the stage. There is no difficulty in naturalists showing that, if we draw on cognitive science and evolutionary theory, selection does favor true beliefs.

    Better put: selection will tend towards the elimination of organisms with cognitive systems that don’t allow those organisms to satisfy their needs and achieve their goals. So the cognitive system does indeed have to be reliable in the sense of being just-good-enough.

  42. fifthmonarchyman: So naturalists operate under a special peculiar definition of meaning and truth and evolution is capable of accommodating meaning and truth when they are defined in that very special way?

    No.

    We don’t have definitions of “meaning” and “truth”. Arguments about them are never settled. And theists are no better at this than are naturalists.

  43. Neil Rickert: My problem with the EAAN, is that Plantinga is presupposing a theistic view of truth. And that’s where the question begging begins.

    As you know, my own view is that the correspondence theory of truth can be (mostly) naturalized and rendered in pragmatic terms. But I don’t know if we’d get much value out of trying to hash out this very subtle difference between our respective views.

  44. KN,

    Yes, that’s what he says. My point is that naturalists are no intellectual obligation to accept how Plantinga sets the stage.

    You mistakenly thought that Plantinga was trying, through the EAAN, to show that meaning and truth were impossible under naturalism. That isn’t what he’s trying to do.

    If we’re going to discuss the argument, let’s discuss the actual argument.

  45. fifthmonarchyman: No because I would simply reply

    “How do you know that?”

    Oh, but there’s a tiny detail: I could not care less what you’d say. The point would be made, and that’s it.

    Let’s not forget that no matter how clear and powerful the answers any of us might give you, you have rhetorical tactics and a commitment to rejecting them without giving any of them the slightest thoughtful consideration.

  46. Neil Rickert: We don’t have definitions of “meaning” and “truth”. Arguments about them are never settled.

    KN seems to think naturalists do have definitions and those definitions directly conflict with the ones the rest of us use.

    peace

  47. keiths: You mistakenly thought that Plantinga was trying, through the EAAN, to show that meaning and truth were impossible under naturalism. That isn’t what he’s trying to do.

    If we’re going to discuss the argument, let’s discuss the actual argument.

    I never said that Plantinga thought truth and meaning were impossible under naturalism. I said that Plantinga doesn’t begin with how the naturalist herself understands what truth and meaning are. That’s why he thinks that adaptive behavior and true belief can be teased apart in the way that makes the EAAN work. If one were to begin with how a philosophically sophisticated naturalist would explain the nature of truth and belief, then there’s just no worry about the reliability of our cognitive capacities.

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