Patrickatheism

If God exists, atheism is false. Thus atheism is dependent upon the truth of whether or not God exists.

Imagine a world in which it is true that God exists and it is also the case that atheism is true.

This is the world of Patrickatheism.

762 thoughts on “Patrickatheism

  1. fifthmonarchyman:
    The problem is they continually goad folks into producing evidence for a strawman God that they claim for them is a meaningless term and then they act as if the Christian has somehow failed in his duty if he has not joined in the lunacy.

    I don’t believe that is a fair characterization. I, for one, am not trying to put words in your mouth. If you have evidence supporting the existence of your (currently ill-defined) god, I’d be very interested in seeing it.

    In fact every conversation eventually evolves into this sort of meaningless taunting but ridiculous challenge.

    When you make a claim in a venue named The Skeptical Zone you should expect to be asked to support it. It would be ridiculous to think otherwise.

    Alternatively, you could stop making baseless claims and attempting to use them in your arguments.

  2. Patrick: keiths has taken you through this at least a couple of times.You admit that, as a fallible human, you could believe that you know something by means of revelation but be wrong.That means that, logically, you could be wrong about every experience of revelation you’ve ever had.

    It doesn’t matter if you posit an omnipotent god, your human fallibility means that you can never know if any of your revelations are actually real.

    So even if a god exists and reveals something to you, you can’t be sure that it’s a real revelation.

    Right. As I tried putting it yesterday, if God has created me as a fallible being, then He would be contradicting Himself if He were to reveal something to me in such a way that I could not be mistaken about it.

  3. Patrick: It doesn’t matter if you posit an omnipotent god, your human fallibility means that you can never know if any of your revelations are actually real.

    So even if a god exists and reveals something to you, you can’t be sure that it’s a real revelation.

    Can’t be said enough times.

    Presuppositional apologists imagine that by believing in a particular set of axioms (truth of Christianity…etc) they have thereby escaped from the epistemic uncertainty that applies to every other human being.

    Don’t know if he’s still around but there was a pressuper radio host, Gene Cook, who when a caller pressed him on the question “But how do you know these revelations are from God?” replied curtly “I just do.”

  4. Kantian Naturalist: The tension between “the God of the philosophers” and “the God of the Bible” can’t be dismissed by fiat, even if one thinks that reason and faith can be reconciled.

    Googling this I found an article in Fesser’s blog:

    http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com.es/2010/10/god-man-and-classical-theism.html

    Is this what a sophisticated theologian does for a living? Because dismissing passages of the Bible that contradict your view on God as “metaphorical” and keeping the rest seems like a double question begging to me: first, in assuming that God must be the classical one and second, that the bible must be true even if it conflicts with his preconceived definition of God.

    And there’s no mention of Jesus…

  5. Kantian Naturalist: Presumably God is a being

    Why would you presume that?

    Kantian Naturalist: But reason is not a being. Reasoning is something that we do. It’s an activity, not a thing.

    Do you have a “reason” for believing this?

    Kantian Naturalist: You do realize that your Bible means nothing to me, right?

    I post scripture for lurkers those who are interested because I know it will not return void.

    Then again It’s possible that even now God will choose to reveal himself to you. who knows

    Kantian Naturalist: I’m not judging God, since there isn’t one. I’m judging you for the errors in your reasoning.

    you have already conceded that reason and logic (ie god) exist. You just claim that he is not worthy to be called God.

    Sounds like judging to me

    peace

  6. fifthmonarchyman: Why would you presume that?

    Do you have a “reason” for believing this?

    I post scripture for lurkers those who are interested because I know it will not return void.

    Then again It’s possible that even now God will choose to reveal himself to you. who knows

    you have already conceded that reason and logic (ie god) exist. You just claim that he is not worthy to be called God.

    Sounds like judging to me

    peace

    And you’re going on ignore.

  7. Kantian Naturalist: Presuppositionalism does convey that impression. But it’s a Real Thing.

    Presuppositionalism is a Real Thing just like Reason is a Real Thing. 🙂

    But God is No Thing. Surely an atheist could agree to that!

  8. Patrick: The default is “We don’t know (yet).” That’s a challenge, not a defeat.

    You claim you don’t know (yet), but that assumes that you know that you don’t know. And knowing that one does not know, is not ignorance. But one must know, in order to know that one does not know. So knowledge comes first. Do you claim that knowledge is the default?

  9. Patrick: That does not follow from anything I’ve written.

    Sure it does. How else are definitions constructed? It’s simple logic, really.

  10. Patrick: When you make a claim in a venue named The Skeptical Zone you should expect to be asked to support it.

    The so called skeptics here at the skeptical zone (yeah right) can constantly being seen running for the hills.

    Some are even intent on defining atheism in such a way that even if God exists atheism can still be true. IOW, the existence of God would not falsify atheism.

    Then they ask for definitions of God and objective empirical evidence of God.

    LoL.

  11. Mung: The so called skeptics here at the skeptical zone (yeah right) can constantly being seen running for the hills.

    Some are even intent on defining atheism in such a way that even if God exists atheism can still be true. IOW, the existence of God would not falsify atheism.

    Then they ask for definitions of God and objective empirical evidence of God.

    LoL.

    What a killer argument Mung! Let’s see:

    Definitions of god for you atheists!

    1.- The classical theistic God
    2.- The personalist God of the Bible
    3.- Krishna
    4.- Peanut butter

    Ha! Now you can’t claim none of these gods exist
    Check mate atheists!

  12. Patrick: That’s an unreasonable request when you have yet to demonstrate the same for yours.

    You don’t win by default.

    I have demonstrated that God can serve as a foundation for knowledge. God can reveal stuff so that I know it.

    To argue otherwise is to posit that knowledge is impossible.
    Because if it is possible surely an omnipotent God can do it.

    peace

  13. Patrick: Recognize that logic and reason have no need of gods.

    God is logic and reason,

    Of course God has no need of anything besides himself. The term for that is aseity

    peace

  14. newton: We cannot determine that revelation is true, we can only judge the likelihood. the jump from likelihood to truth requires the leap of faith.

    Of course knowledge does not require certainty but it does not require a leap of faith either

    Faith in the Christian sense is merely the proper response to a God who has shone himself faithful.

    Like when a wife has faith that her devoted husband actually loves her.

    peace

  15. Patrick: It doesn’t matter if you posit an omnipotent god, your human fallibility means that you can never know if any of your revelations are actually real.

    Again knowledge does not require certainty if it did all knowledge would be impossible.

    I don’t need to be infallible to know stuff

    Since you concede that knowledge is possible your objection is groundless.

    peace

  16. On a different topic related to atheism, (sorry for the hijack): I’ve been thinking about a statistic my daughter mentioned to me recently. It was that while there has been a drop in the percentage of Americans who call themselves “believers” it’s still a very high number (something like 80% of millenials IIRC).

    We have all also heard (something I’ve been very sympathetic with) the complaint that open atheists cannot be elected to any high (or medium) office in the U.S. City Council or State Representative in a Northeastern or Northwestern state is all they can aspire to. I’ve also heard that most Americans will say that they would vote for a member of (the hated) Muslim religion before they would vote for any atheist.

    That kind of discrimination seems bad to me. But I’ve been wondering if it’s true. Consider the current presidential election. Trump obviously has no interest in religion, and doesn’t make any pretense. I have only recently learned that Bernie Sanders has a Jewish background, but he seems not to practice: he, too, seems to me likely to be an atheist, and I believe the that vast majority of his supporters couldn’t care less. Clinton was raised Methodist, but she doesn’t play the Xianity card very much either. I’m guessing most people recognize that she’s largely uninterested.

    Even (the extremely popular) Obama, who, admittedly, sometimes tries to come off as a Southern preacher, is at the least very non-sectarian. Of course, he’d never openly deny a belief in God, but I’m guessing that if somebody made him talk about it, he’d be extremely vanilla. Hardly like the testifyin’ bunch here.

    So I’m wondering what people think about this. I mean, I guess it’s bad to have to hide one’s views on this (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell). But it’s not the end of the world if it’s not atheism, but just blabbing about it that is a bar to public office. I agree that it would be better were that not the case, but it doesn’t seem awful to me.

    I’d be interested in hearing what y’all think….

  17. walto,

    I wonder if in the primaries, while touring the bible belt, candidates put more emphasis on their religiosity

  18. walto: I’d be interested in hearing what y’all think….

    I honestly think that atheism and for lack of a better word “confident Christianity” are equally objectionable to the electorate in the US. The voters generally don’t like folks who stir things up when it comes to something as personal as religious faith.

    I think it’s no coincidence that two of the most unpopular presidents in my lifetime (Carter and Bush the younger) also happen to be two of the most vocal about their faith.

    However both of those guys were milk toast kittens when compared to the Bible thumpers I hang with.

    peace

  19. I would bet that an atheist who believed that life and the universe were designed by an intelligence not necessarily God could be elected.

    I mean, the designer of life and the universe could be just about anybody, couldn’t it be?

    Glen Davidson

  20. GlenDavidson: I would bet that an atheist who believed that life and the universe were designed by an intelligence not necessarily God could be elected.

    I think the electorate’s problem with atheists is more about the perceived denial of any moral authority above themselves.

    If an atheist could make a convincing case that they consistently place something other than themselves in the position of moral authority they could be elected

    but then again that would make them practical theists IMO

    quote:

    Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.

    end quote:

    Martin Luther

    peace

    peace

  21. fifthmonarchyman:

    That’s an unreasonable request when you have yet to demonstrate the same for yours.

    You don’t win by default.

    I have demonstrated that God can serve as a foundation for knowledge. God can reveal stuff so that I know it.

    No, even an omnipotent god cannot because, as you admit, you are fallible. You could be wrong about everything you think has been revealed to you.

    To argue otherwise is to posit that knowledge is impossible.
    Because if it is possible surely an omnipotent God can do it.

    But it’s not possible. That’s the whole point you keep ignoring. You are fallible. You cannot reliably distinguish between a god actually revealing something to you and a false belief that a god revealed something to you. You have no mechanism for doing so.

  22. fifthmonarchyman:

    It doesn’t matter if you posit an omnipotent god, your human fallibility means that you can never know if any of your revelations are actually real.

    Again knowledge does not require certainty if it did all knowledge would be impossible.

    The issue is that you are claiming what you believe to be revelation as knowledge. You have no way of distinguishing between an actual revelation and your belief that you’ve had a revelation. It is logically possible that everything you claim as revelation is simply your own mistaken beliefs.

    Without a mechanism for distinguishing between the two, there is no reason to accept that what you claim as “knowledge” is actually true.

  23. Patrick: You have no mechanism for doing so.

    More specifically, you have no way of knowing whether or not you have an infallible mechanism for distinguishing true or false revelations.

  24. Patrick: No, even an omnipotent god cannot because, as you admit, you are fallible.

    The word you’re looking for is omniscient. knowing everything. So yes, with God, knowledge is possible. So, given the extent to which an atheist knows anything at all, they can thank God. 🙂

    It’s rather amusing to me, at least, when atheists claim to know that fifth can’t know what he claims to know. Like they have some inside track to the truth.

  25. walto, I don’t think I’ve ever voted for a politician based on their religion. I can’t say the same would be true though of the populace at large.

  26. Mung: The word you’re looking for is omniscient. knowing everything.

    No, I definitely mean omnipotent. fifthmonarchyman’s claim is “I claim that God can reveal something in such a way so that a person can know it . Do you deny this? If so why?”

    I responded with:

    keiths has taken you through this at least a couple of times. You admit that, as a fallible human, you could believe that you know something by means of revelation but be wrong. That means that, logically, you could be wrong about every experience of revelation you’ve ever had.

    It doesn’t matter if you posit an omnipotent god, your human fallibility means that you can never know if any of your revelations are actually real.

    So even if a god exists and reveals something to you, you can’t be sure that it’s a real revelation.

    fifthmonarchyman is, in effect, claiming that his god can create a square circle by granting infallibility to a fallible human.

  27. Patrick: fifthmonarchyman is, in effect, claiming that his god can create a square circle by granting infallibility to a fallible human.

    Christians also claim that mortality will put on immortality.

    And creating a square circle is not the same as turning a square into a circle.

  28. Mung: It’s rather amusing to me, at least, when atheists claim to know that fifth can’t know what he claims to know. Like they have some inside track to the truth.

    I would say atheists would have inside track to the claim that atheists know his version of God exists.

  29. fifthmonarchyman: Of course knowledge does not require certainty but it does not require a leap of faith either

    Then revelation is not necessary for knowledge. This seems contrary to your thesis.

    Certainty requires a leap of faith

    Faith in the Christian sense is merely the proper response to a God who has shone himself faithful.

    To have faith one must have faith that God is faithful. Got it

    Like when a wife has faith that her devoted husband actually loves her.

    If she knows he is devoted by definition he loves her. Faith requires doubt, revelation requires no faith. That is why you claim atheists know your God exists

  30. fifthmonarchyman: I think it’s no coincidence that two of the most unpopular presidents in my lifetime (Carter and Bush the younger) also happen to be two of the most vocal about their faith.

    Bush was plenty popular before the Iraq war went south.Carter had a bad economy

  31. Patrick: The issue is that you are claiming what you believe to be revelation as knowledge. You have no way of distinguishing between an actual revelation and your belief that you’ve had a revelation. It is logically possible that everything you claim as revelation is simply your own mistaken beliefs.

    Without a mechanism for distinguishing between the two, there is no reason to accept that what you claim as “knowledge” is actually true.

    Right. More precisely, it’s not that the presuppositionalist needs to be infallible about the content of the revelation, but that she needs an infallible criterion for distinguishing revelations from (let’s say, for example) psychotic episodes or spontaneous false beliefs.

    If that criterion functions infallibly, then it would seem we have the logical contradiction — God has granted an infallible criterion to a being that He created as fallible, so God has contradicted Himself. (This does not by itself impugn God’s rationality; it means only that God is not limited by the law of non-contradiction. And indeed, why should He be? Maybe God is a dialetheist!)

    But if the criterion functions fallibly, then even if it were generally reliable for distinguishing between revelation and non-revelations, there would always be the possibility that any particular ostensive revelation might not be a genuine revelation.

    That is all assuming that we have some idea of what a revelation would be like. In fact, I’m pretty sure that no one in this discussion has articulated what a revelation is, the sort of structure it has, its formal and material conditions, and so on. No phenomenology of revelation has been described at any point here, so we’re really just using “revelation” as a flatus vocis.

  32. Patrick: No, even an omnipotent god cannot because, as you admit, you are fallible. You could be wrong about everything you think has been revealed to you.

    Could you be wrong about everything you think you know?
    If so does that mean you can’t know anything? Please don’t just skip these questions like you often do

    Please think about it for a minute and give actual answers
    human fallibility does not mean knowledge is impossible.

    Come on man use your head I know you don’t believe that you can’t know anything at all.

    peace

  33. newton: Bush was plenty popular before the Iraq war went south.Carter had a bad economy

    No one who is outside the American religious mainstream has ever been elected or nominated for president. Not many for Senator or Congressman.

    Jews and people of Jewish descent have fared poorly in presidential races. Obama spent a lot of time denying he is a Muslim.

    No atheist or agnostic gets close.

  34. newton: Bush was plenty popular before the Iraq war went south.Carter had a bad economy

    I agree, But when folks who claim the be Christian make bad decisions it’s often blamed on their faith.

    I think that the general opinion is that Carter’s Christianity made him weak and Bush’s Christianity made him see the world in black and white with no nuance.

    I tend to think they were just normal men who made mistakes.

  35. petrushka: No one who is outside the American religious mainstream has ever been elected or nominated for president.

    Has anyone outside the religious mainstream of any country been elected or nominated for president?

    I think that all things being equal people tend to trust people who they think are like them.

    peace

  36. Kantian Naturalist: In fact, I’m pretty sure that no one in this discussion has articulated what a revelation is

    This is not difficult

    Revelation is simply one person communicating with another

    When I tell you that I drive a ford pickup truck I have revealed to you that I drive a pickup truck.

    When I show you that I’m angry I have revealed to you that I am angry.

    When I report that more than 50% of pharmaceutical studies could not be replicated I am revealing that information to you.

    There is nothing spooky or unearthly about revelation it’s simply communication

    peace

  37. Kantian Naturalist: More precisely, it’s not that the presuppositionalist needs to be infallible about the content of the revelation, but that she needs an infallible criterion for distinguishing revelations from (let’s say, for example) psychotic episodes or spontaneous false beliefs.

    why??

    It’s not about me being able to infallibly distinguish between a message and noise

    It’s about God being able to infallibly send a message in such a way that it is univocal and unambiguous.

    If God is omnipotent he can do this.

    peace

  38. KN, are you now defending philosophical skepticism? One cannot be justified in knowing without having defeated all conceivable skeptical alternatives?

    How is being fallible a defeater to having a justified true belief. If it is, then none of us could know anything, given that we are all fallible. Yet we do know things.

  39. Mung:
    KN, are you now defending philosophical skepticism? One cannot be justified in knowing without having defeated all conceivable skeptical alternatives?

    How is being fallible a defeater to having a justified true belief. If it is, then none of us could know anything, given that we are all fallible. Yet we do know things.

    No, I’m still opposed to Cartesian skepticism on pragmatist grounds. But here’s the thing: justification is a social practice. (As indeed is linguistic meaning.)

    I’m both an epistemic holist (about justification) and a semantic holist (about meaning). Both forms of holism require historically evolving, contingent, and open-ended social practices devoid of any cognitive privilege, mythical Givenness, or any claim that could only made intelligible if we have access to some perspective that transcends all of life, history, and becoming.

    (This is a way of collecting all at once what I’ve learned from Hegel, Nietzsche, Peirce, and Sellars.)

    My chief objection to any appeal to revelation for epistemology is that it is a private experience.

    I cannot know what God had revealed to you. I cannot know if you are sincere when you report that had a revelation. I cannot know if you had a genuine revelation or if you’re schizophrenic. I cannot confirm or verify your claim that you’ve had a revelation, and many of the purported revelations that people claimed to have had over the millennia all conflict with one another.

    None of the intersubjective constraints or check-and-balances that we bring to bear against each other in our ordinary perceptual and practical dealings can be applied to revelation. Nor is there way of verifying, testing, or confirming which reports of revelation are veridical and which ones are not.

    That’s not to say that revelation never takes place or doesn’t play some important role in the lives of some people. It is to say that revelation cannot do the epistemological work that presuppositionalists require of it.

  40. Kantian Naturalist: If that criterion functions infallibly, then it would seem we have the logical contradiction — God has granted an infallible criterion to a being that He created as fallible, so God has contradicted Himself. (This does not by itself impugn God’s rationality; it means only that God is not limited by the law of non-contradiction. And indeed, why should He be? Maybe God is a dialetheist!)

    But if the criterion functions fallibly, then even if it were generally reliable for distinguishing between revelation and non-revelations, there would always be the possibility that any particular ostensive revelation might not be a genuine revelation.

    I see this as the major misunderstanding here of my position.

    Instead of focusing on the receiver of information presupositionalism focuses on the information source/ transmitter. As such it flips the problem of epistemological justification on it’s head.

    It simply does not matter the condition of the receiver if the information source/ transmitter is God and he chooses to communicate .

    An omnipotent God can do what ever it takes to make sure his message is received.

    He can fix the receiver if he needs to (sanctification)
    He can build an entirely new one if he needs to. (regeneration)
    He can fuse himself with the receiver so that the receiver and the transmitter are one and the same (union with Christ)

    He can take over the entire process if he needs to so that he acts as transmitter message and receiver. (monergism)

    peace

  41. fifthmonarchyman: It’s about God being able to infallibly send a message in such a way that it is univocal and unambiguous.

    If God is omnipotent he can do this.

    Can he? That’s the question.

    Or, rather, there are two questions on the table: (1) does divine omnipotence entail that God can do everything that is logically possible, or can God also do things that are logically impossible? [We know that God can suspend the laws of physics if He should chose to — that’s what miracles are — but can He suspend the laws of logic simply by choosing to?] and (2) are contradictions logically possible or logically impossible?

    For if God can only do what is logically possible, but contradictions are logically possible, then His actions can be contradictory.

    But if God can only do what is logically possible, and contradictions are logically impossible, then God cannot infallibly send a message to a fallible creature, just because messages need a sender and receiver, and even if the sender is infallible, the receiver is not.

    If you want to maintain that God can infallibly transmit a message to a fallible creature, you will have to say either that God has the power to do things that are logically impossible or that contradictions are logically possible.

  42. Kantian Naturalist: My chief objection to any appeal to revelation for epistemology is that it is a private experience.

    this is simply incorrect,

    Revelation is not ever a private experience. There are always at least two persons involved and usually many more

    quote:
    knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.
    (2Pe 1:20)
    end quote:

    peace

  43. Kantian Naturalist: If you want to maintain that God can infallibly transmit a message to a fallible creature, you will have to say either that God has the power to do things that are logically impossible or that contradictions are logically possible.

    Let’s camp on that.

    Say God wanted to reveal to you that you are not God.
    Are you saying that he could not possibly ever do this?

    Or better yet say God wanted to reveal to you that logically impossible things are not possible.

    Are you saying that he could never ever do that?

    peace

  44. fifthmonarchyman:
    I agree, But when folks who claim the be Christian make bad decisions it’s often blamed on their faith.

    All high ranking politicians claim to be Christians, a majority of the voting public claims to be Christians, it seems to me the Christians are doing a lot of the blaming.

    I think that the general opinion is that Carter’s Christianity made him weak and Bush’s Christianity made him see the world in black and white with no nuance.

    Actually Carter’s Christianity made him stronger when it came to human rights, his Christian opponents claimed the US shouldn’t put human rights as a priority over National Security, a policy Bush adopted as well.

    The main criticism of Bush was he was a dupe to the ideological views of those neoconservatives who surrounded him. He was a good guy but in over his head. Look at his call not to blame all Muslims.

    I tend to think they were just normal men who made mistakes.

    Normal men do not run for the Presidency

  45. newton: If she knows he is devoted by definition he loves her.

    Yes that is correct. Does she require faith to know he is devoted to her?

    newton: Faith requires doubt, revelation requires no faith. That is why you claim atheists know your God exists

    no I claim that atheists know God exists because God has revealed it.
    And also because they demonstrate that they know God exists every time they use logic or appeal to truth

    peace

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