Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote (kevinmillerxi @ Mar. 25 2011,06:52) | My thought process: If what we refer to as reason is nothing but the product of chance + necessity, then the outcome of our reasoning process couldn't be anything more than the same--a product of chance plus necessity. Therefore, the things we refer to as thoughts and arguments are of no more consequence than than the process in our body that manufactures insulin. I'm not saying that's how I think. I just see it as the logical consequence of an atheistic point of view. Put another way: If chance + necessity are the only forces at work in the universe shaping life and everything else we see around us (another way of saying random mutation plus natural selection), you can't sneak anything else in and pretend that the thoughts in your brain are a product of anything that would give them significance beyond what you ascribe to them. So why give credence to them? Why feel passionately about them?
I guess my point is, I hear a lot of people espousing an atheistic point of view but very people actually living out the logical consequences of that point of view. Even Will Provine, who has done as good a job as any of following things through to their logical conclusions, does not seem to live according to his espoused worldview.
But I'm off topic. This thread is supposed to be about hell. |
So in other words "atheists are hypocrites because they don't live up to Kevin Miller's straw man of what atheism/a naturalistic world view is". Gotcha. Well it's nice to know you "argue" in good faith, Kevvo. Oh wait, "Expelled", no you don't.
Shall we take it step by step:
1) "If what we refer to as reason is nothing but the product of chance + necessity"
STRAW MAN
Simply no one claims this. It is not the result of evolutionary biology, nor a scientific understanding of the universe. You have a) simply failed to understand what you have read (if you have read anything, which I sincerely doubt, you are simply regurgitating creationist tropes) and b) tiresomely misrepresented the position of your opponents (what's new Kevvo?).
Just to take a tiny example from evolutionary biology alone, what about drift? Adaptation is not the only force at work in changing allele frequencies. There are, of course, many other examples. You also ignore history, your argument relies on everything springing to life (be it an organism or an argument) on equal footing ex nihilo. You are ignoring the ratcheting effect of history/development/evolution, again for either an argument, a process or an organism.
There is also an unstated claim here, i.e. your assumption that a natural process (or set of processes) is insufficient to produce (or examine) the universe. That is, in itself a very bold (and unsubstantiated and refuted) claim. What you fail to understand is the burden of proof here rests on you and your fellow theists/supernaturalists. You are claiming that some form of supernatural process is at work in the universe, more than that, that a supernatural process is required to understand and examine the universe.
Without evidence, and let's be exceedingly blunt, you have no evidence, why should anyone take such a claim seriously? You forget that you are not arguing against people who claim the polar opposite (i.e. that nothing other than natural processes can be at work as a matter of faith or belief, but that no evidence that any such supernatural processes are at work has yet been discovered, and until it is, we can only work with what we have evidence for. Forgive me if I doubt you can grasp the distinction). Your misrepresentations of other people's arguments are not binding on them. Your lack of knowledge and understanding do not constitute evidence. Sorry.
There's also more than a shred of "the argument from personal incredulity" underpinning your straw man here. More of that later.
2) "then the outcome of our reasoning process couldn't be anything more than the same--a product of chance plus necessity"
NON SEQUITUR AND DERIVED FROM IGNORANCE
This does not follow from the above. It relies on the (erroneous) assumption that simple processes cannot give rise to more complex ones. It simply ignores emergent phenomena, feedback, hysteresis, all of neuroscience, in fact anything we understand about the physical functions of cognition, stimulus and response in all organisms from archea to zebras. If no emergent phenomena existed, if we couldn't (for example) demonstrate greater complexity emerging from simple systems, then you *might* have a point, but we can, so you don't.
It's also a derivative of your "How can that be? WAH!" argument from personal incredulity which underpins a lot of this drivel. Pro-tip: if you don't understand it, it doesn't follow that no one else does. Pro-tip 2: any argument that can be refuted by the fact that water freezes is a very stupid argument. Forgive me if I cannot be bothered to explain why that is the case and why it is relevant here. Do your own homework.
3) "Therefore, the things we refer to as thoughts and arguments are of no more consequence than than the process in our body that manufactures insulin."
NON SEQUITUR AND INCOHERENT
So because thoughts and arguments derive from natural process they are of no more "consequence" (a weasel word if I ever saw one) than some random piece of non-cognitive biology. Even if this was true, and it isn't, so what? Hint: Even you don't think with you pancreas. Since you {cough} "expand" on this below, I'll eviscerate it there.
4) "If chance + necessity are the only forces at work in the universe shaping life and everything else we see around us (another way of saying random mutation plus natural selection), you can't sneak anything else in and pretend that the thoughts in your brain are a product of anything that would give them significance beyond what you ascribe to them. So why give credence to them? Why feel passionately about them?"
NON SEQUITUR AND INCOHERENT
"Significance", "consequence", "feel", "credence", "passion"? You are profoundly confused. There are two mix ups here (at least.
a) Passion/feeling/emotions: We are organisms that have evolved complex, multilevel brains and endocrine systems. Our feelings and emotions "reduce" to surges of hormones and neurotransmitters etc. Your sense that there is even a coherent "self" behind your eyes somewhere is as much an illusion constructed by multiple brain processes as the orientation of the images you see is. So what? Because some cognitive process is "reduced" to other "simpler" processes it somehow robs itself of meaning? This is utterly incoherent. It doesn't even begin to follow from "natural processes made X therefore X has no more significance than Y". You are trying to argue against a welter of barely related/unrelated items and messing your pants in the process.
The fact that I get a surge of oxytocin when I hug my wife or son and that is part of a chain of neurochemical events that causes me to feel something I call "love" or "happiness" in no way invalidates that feeling. The complaint here is the erroneous one of the Romantic poets, the one that claimed that Newton explaining the rainbow robbed it of its beauty. It's utter arse gravy. It is still more than possible to be fully human, to appreciate the superficial wonder of an emotion, to lose oneself unthinkingly in the moment whilst understanding the phenomena that underpin it and appreciating their beauty. The fact that we can attach some subjective thought to something does not invalidate that subjective thought in any sense.
XKCD today does the job:
b) Naive relativism: Why is my surge of oxytocin more "significant" or "of more consequence" than a surge of (to use your example) insulin. Significant in what way? Of what consequence? If I am a diabetic the extent and timing of my surge of insulin might decide whether I live or die, I'd say that was of some consequence. These weasel words you are using are dependent on context, without context one cannot ascribe priority. This is an appeal to common prejudice on your part, it's not logic, it's rhetoric, and shallow, puerile, transparent rhetoric at that. It could only convince something with the intellectual gifts of a yoghurt.
Also, when it comes to understanding the world around me I tend to use the neurons in my brain, not the Islets of Langerhans in my pancreas. I'm not sure what organs and cells you use to think with, I have my doubts they are part of the central nervous system, but you should really try to shift the foundation of your cognition from your fundament.
c) Trustworthiness of naturally derived thoughts: They're not all trustworthy.
Sorry, is this a surprise?
To paraphrase the great Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction: "Trial and error, motherfucker? Do you know it?". Ok so it isn't all trial and error (see 1) for examples of why, there's a bit more to it....understatement of the decade!) but it's an easy place to start.
If I believe I am being delicately sodomised by a purple space goat, an unpleasant thought I assure you, I can check that thought. I can match it to sensory input, I can match it to previous experience and the previous experiences of others to some extent. None of these processes are perfect, but they don't need to be. I need to achieve some level of confidence in my thoughts, practical or pragmatic certainty not absolute certainty. I feel no sensation of being sodomised by a purple space goat, I can't see any space goat in the mirror, there are no goaty noises and I'm fully dressed. Couple all that to the well documented distribution of goats in our solar system (all earth bound), their colour, their habits and the fact that it doesn't appear to be the case that a rash of purple space goat sodomy has broken out nation wide, and I can pretty confidently assume that that thought was an untrustworthy one.
The subtext here is that you are asking for something no one can provide: absolute epistemological certainty. Even faith and revelation as described in one tedious theological tract after another (and I've read 'em) cannot deliver this. It can only deliver the appearance of this to an individual, which, I hope I don't have to point out to you, is a different thing. It could all be pixies underneath, but in the absence of any reliable evidence for it all being pixies underneath I feel confident in discounting that possibility until some evidence comes up.
And again, your whine...sorry "argument" here ignores what I have been referring to as "history".
d) Significance beyond "mere" subjectivity:
History, socialisation, culture, development, experience, these are all just words to you aren't they Kevvo? People do not spring into existence from nothing fully formed. As mentioned in 1) they have history. Even if that history is merely the accumulation of biological "accidents" (and it so isn't). As we gain a growing understanding of embryology, for example, we learn how developments in utero can have profound effects on the adult. The experiences of a young infant can, to some extent, determine the subjective preferences of the adult. What we have is a welter of disparate, sometimes conflicting, sometimes reinforcing influences from many myriad sources. This will give rise to a plethora of conflicting/reinforcing (subjective) senses and impulses. Why one specific subjective impulse or sense can be prioritised over another is a very specific question, not one uninformed by reason, but one that requires a greater understanding of the relevant, specific context of that impulse or sense. We're not a blank slate.
5) "I guess my point is, I hear a lot of people espousing an atheistic point of view but very people actually living out the logical consequences of that point of view."
NON SEQUITUR AND ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM
Since you a) demonstrably do not understand any "atheistic point of view", and b) demonstrably have not represented any "atheistic point of view" beyond your straw man version of one, then this is self-refuting. It's the old "if you were really an atheist you'd be out raping and pillaging" argument made slightly more polite...emphasis on "sightly". It doesn't address the arguments made by atheists (and there are a variety), it seeks only to avoid any arguments by directing attention away from the argument and to the supposed characteristics of your fictional straw atheist. It is a classic argumentum ad hominem, argument at the person not the argument. Note that this is different from abuse. I and other give you abuse, not argumenta ad homines. You are a moron because your arguments are palpable horseshit, your arguments are not horseshit because you are a palpable moron. Forgive me again if I lack any faith in you grasping that distinction.
Worse than that, your "argument" (I hate to dignify it so) implies that what keeps you from "living the logical consequences of an atheistic point of view", whatever they might be, is the belief in a magic man in the sky who watches you masturbate. Sorry Kevvo, but if all that keeps you on the straight and narrow is unthinking fear of punishment...hell if you will (gosh, relevance!)...then you can keep your religion and all that goes with it. Atheism doesn't equate to, or advocate, amorality or immorality.
Your "argument" here also doesn't even slightly follow from what precedes it, and borders on incoherence. Atheism is not a world view or a system of beliefs, or a religion. It is a simple philosophical position on a specific claim or set of claims. You claim the Christian god exists, ascribe to him certain attributes, make certain claims about him. I (and others) go and look for evidence for that claim and find it isn't there. We look at the "evidence" you put up and find it to be identical to the "evidence" you reject for other deities. Hence we simply do not believe your claim to have been demonstrated. Hell*, most of the arguments you do make might lead one to some vague deism at best, they certainly apply no more concretely to your specific deity than, say, the Sikh deity.
What we find is EXACTLY the same special pleading and drivel that we find when someone claims that Thor exists (for example). The only reason you reject Thor is because, like a cushion, you bear the imprint of the biggest arse that sat on you. You adhere to the religion of your society and environment for some reason (and more power to you, it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket) and reject other religions because, well, they are OTHER religions, and therefore "untrue". You can see through the transparent tissue of nonsense supporting them, perhaps, but for reasons beknownst only to you, don't see the self same problems with your own religious claims. I won't give you credit for a rational analysis of other faiths because I seriously doubt, based on your drivel, that you have even bothered to emerge from a fundamentalist basement to squint at the sunlight, let alone pursued an open minded study of world religions. I'd be happy to be wrong about this, but I'll bet I'm not.
Sorry, wasn't I nice enough for you to pay attention? Hmmmm I wonder, would I be nice if you stopped lying and bullshitting (the two are not equivalent)?
So to close, in the immortal words of the prophet Mohammed: "Fuck off you toilet"**
I thank you.
Louis
* Oooops, I seem to keep doing that.
** Couldn't resist. I'm a bad, bad bunny. I'm off for a spanking.
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Bye.
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