An unusually steep hill for naturalism to climb

Andre: "The lot commentating here? Not one iota….." They can't. They really don't want to go insane. CannuckianYankee

Clown fish wrote in response to me:

Provide some hard, observable, testable evidence that “God-did-it” is a better explanation than nat/mat and you might convince me. A good start would be to propose the nature of the designer (e.g.., material, immaterial, interdimentional…), propose possible mechanisms that the designer used to realize his design. Propose whether or not the designer is constrained by physical laws or is not bound by them. Once you have set the possible framework, you can start designing experiments/observations to test these hypotheses. Once you have compiled some testing data you can modify your original hypotheses to better reflect the data. Wash, rinse, repeat.

OK. I will play along with your game, but it is really obvious to me that you do not mean what you say. I know this because there already is abundant evidence that "God-did-it" is a superior answer. The FACT that you choose to not recognize this evidence as evidence is part of your blindness. To humor you I will try. I will present a very simple argument. Before I do it, I will outline my strategy so even a committed materialist can follow it. My strategy will be to prove that my opponent actually believes my position on a key assumption that invalidates his argument and supports mine. Since even my opponent takes this position on this key assumption, my conclusion is better. 1. First premise is that clown fish believes that clown fish has free will. Support of first premise Because he makes the statement: "...you might convince me." This indicates to me that clown fish is open to the suggestion that I might choose to present a series of abstract statements that he could evaluate ( not react to... but evaluate ) that would convince ( cause him to voluntarily change the state of his mind ) to my position. His openness to him being able to change his mind sounds an awful lot to me like he believes in free will. Second support of first premise.Someone who believes they have no free will can never be sure about any conclusion, because he may simply be stating something that is wrong, but is part of his conditioning. clown fish seems awfully sure of his position on materialism, so again, it seems he believes he has free will. Third support of first premise - clown fish makes no indication that he believes clown fish's free will is illusory. 2. Second premise: Free will can at best be illusory only under nat/mat. Why? Because no matter how complex of conglomerate you make of unintelligent particles responding to unguided forces, you can not come up with the ability of said conglomerate to exercise a will. Any perceived exercise of will must be illusory. 3. Third premise - free will is possible under ID because the intelligent being can grant free will to his created beings. 4. Conclusion 1 - clown fish seems to support the idea that the free will he believes he has is non-illusory free will, and nat/mat does not allow for non-illusory free will. THUS clown fish seems to provide evidence that id ( that is able to explain the existence of free will ) is a better explanation than nat/mat which excludes the possibility of non illusory free will. 5. Conclusion 2 - since my evidence that id is better than nat/mat stems from clown fish supporting the idea of free will. and clown fish is an opponent who has stated that nat/mat is better, clown fish must be in error. I must assume that clown fish unknowingly supports the idea that ID is a better explanation ( because it can possibly explain the observations ) than nat/mat ( which excludes the observations ). QED JDH

DaveS So you agree with Thomas then? Good. Andre

Andre, I don't know where you're going with this. Are you disputing that there is such a thing as human nature? For example that people are capable of suffering? In any case, I can't "quantify" all of human nature in a blog comment. Here's what I'm referring to:

The second thesis constituting the core of natural law moral theory is the claim that standards of morality are in some sense derived from, or entailed by, the nature of the world and the nature of human beings. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, identifies the rational nature of human beings as that which defines moral law: "the rule and measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of human acts" (Aquinas, ST I-II, Q.90, A.I). On this common view, since human beings are by nature rational beings, it is morally appropriate that they should behave in a way that conforms to their rational nature. Thus, Aquinas derives the moral law from the nature of human beings (thus, "natural law").

daveS

CannuckianYankee Like I said Eric Harris is the only atheist I know that lived consistently with his subjective moral values. The lot commentating here? Not one iota..... Andre

DaveS YOU spoke about the nature of human beings please quantify it. Andre

Andre,

DaveS What is the nature of human beings is a very simple question.

It is? I don't believe there is a short answer, in any case.

Also I did not say that thought is material only that it may be bothersome when you take it to its conclusion?

I don't think that I find the topic bothersome. daveS

Andre @ 15: "The only atheist I know that lived according to the atheistic worldview was Eric Harris." "Isnt america supposed to be the land of the free? how come, If im free, I cant deprive some f***ing dumbs*** from his possessions If he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his f***ing van in plain sight in the middle of f***ing nowhere on a fri-f***ing-day night? Natural selection. F***er should be shot." Eric Harris I suppose Eric Harris believed, his thoughts were "subjectively good." And then we get this drivel: CF @ 20: "I am not sure what specific atheist claims you are talking about but the one that I have heard goes along the line of, if God is all good and loving, why does he allow children to suffer, to get cancer, to be abused, etc. This is spoken from the perspective that my subjective moral values tell me that children suffering is not subjectively good." CannuckianYankee

DaveS What is the nature of human beings is a very simple question. Also I did not say that thought is material only that it may be bothersome when you take it to its conclusion? Andre

Andre,

The natural moral law follows from the nature of humans? What is the nature of humans?

That's kind of a broad question, isn't it? Here's one example: humans are capable of suffering.

I guess you don’t like giving those non material processes too much thought? Perhaps where it may lead you is bothersome?

Eh? I don't regard human thought as a material process, and that would certainly be involved in the "discovery" of natural moral law. daveS

JDH: "How about the world and all that is in it was created by an intelligent being who granted onto us, (among other things ), the gift of consciousness, understanding and free will. To be consistent Seversky must answer, “Nat/mat is better than that explanation”" Provide some hard, observable, testable evidence that "God-did-it" is a better explanation than nat/mat and you might convince me. A good start would be to propose the nature of the designer (e.g.., material, immaterial, interdimentional...), propose possible mechanisms that the designer used to realize his design. Propose whether or not the designer is constrained by physical laws or is not bound by them. Once you have set the possible framework, you can start designing experiments/observations to test these hypotheses. Once you have compiled some testing data you can modify your original hypotheses to better reflect the data. Wash, rinse, repeat. clown fish

DaveS The natural moral law follows from the nature of humans? What is the nature of humans? I guess you don't like giving those non material processes too much thought? Perhaps where it may lead you is bothersome? Andre

Andre,

Where does this non material thing like natural moral law come from if material processes are not involved?

Well, I said that material processes may not be all that is involved in the discovery of natural moral law. Which is not to say material processes are not involved whatsoever. Anyway, it is claimed that the natural moral law follows from the nature of humans and of the world. daveS

DaveS Where does this non material thing like natural moral law come from if material processes are not involved? Andre

Andre,

DaveS Again morality can’t emerge from non morality regardless of the mechanism because material processes hold no power over non material ones.

Well, I'm not assuming that material processes are all that is involved. I stated above that the natural moral law is supposed to be accessible to human reason, which I'm not claiming is a material process. daveS

DaveS Again morality can't emerge from non morality regardless of the mechanism because material processes hold no power over non material ones. Do you think morality is made of any material Dave? Let me ask you when you speak of reason what do you ground it in? What is your objective standard? Andre

Seversky:

I get that a lot of people don’t like the nat/mat approach but the reality is that, so far, no one has come up with anything better.

Me: Here is something I propose is better than the nat/mat view. How about the world and all that is in it was created by an intelligent being who granted onto us, (among other things ), the gift of consciousness, understanding and free will. To be consistent Seversky must answer, "Nat/mat is better than that explanation" Me: WHY? What makes nat/mat better? Why should I believe nat/mat when it is internally contradictory? In other words, Why is it not better to believe something that is hard to believe ( ID ) over something which is impossible(nat/mat)? Or is Seversky just too blind to understand the inherent contradictions in nat/mat that render it impossible.. JDH

Andre,

DaveS morality cannot evolve from non-morality Darwinian mechanisms can only work with matter, it has no power over that, which are not made of atoms.

The natural moral law is supposed to be accessible to humans through reason. Correct? I'm not saying anything about evolution or atoms.

You are aware that an opinion is known as an intentional state right? Intentional states are not made of matter.

Yes, I agree that opinions are not made of matter. daveS

DaveS morality cannot evolve from non- morality Darwinian mechanisms can only work with matter, it has no power over that, which are not made of atoms. You are aware that an opinion is known as an intentional state right? Intentional states are not made of matter. Andre

DaveS Subjective moral values are mere opinions on matters.

In the view I described above, they are "mere opinions" that have been shaped by thousands of years of human experience, so I wouldn't dismiss them so quickly. In fact, one could argue that they would ultimately converge to natural moral law, which is supposed to be objective. Atheists are not precluded from accepting the existence of natural moral law. daveS

DaveS Subjective moral values are mere opinions on matters. There is no such thing as a subjective good kill or a subjective bad kill..... This world and it's hippie leftists have all gone mad.... Might as well call for the killing of old people according to Clown fish, it will be subjectivly good... less clutter more food, less expenses on medical bills for burdened families. Andre

or related note, Richard Dawkins himself admitted that it would be 'intolerable' for him to live as if his atheistic worldview were true and to live as if he did not actually exist as a real person.

Who wrote Richard Dawkins's new book? - October 28, 2006 Excerpt: Dawkins: What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don't feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do.,,, Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views? Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/10/who_wrote_richard_dawkinss_new002783.html also see Faith and Science - Dr. Raymond Bohlin - video - (2015) (48:46 minute mark) https://youtu.be/vTIp1kgSqzU?t=2552

As to atheists being psychopaths:

The Heretic – Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? – March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3

This psychopathic characteristic inherent to the atheistic philosophy is born out empirically, in that people who do not believe in a soul tend to be more psychopathic than the majority of normal people in America who do believe in a soul.

A scientific case for conceptual dualism: The problem of consciousness and the opposing domains hypothesis. - Anthony I. Jack - 2013 Excerpt page 18:  we predicted that psychopaths would not be able to perceive the problem of consciousness.,, In a series of five experiments (Jack, in preparation), we found a highly replicable and robust negative correlation (r~-0.34) between belief in dualism and the primary psychopathic trait of callous affect7. Page 24: Clearly these findings fit well with the hypothesis (Robbins and Jack, 2006) that psychopaths can’t see the problem of consciousness8. Taking these finding together with other work on dehumanization and the anti-social effects of denying the soul and free will, they present a powerful picture. When we see persons, that is, when we see others as fellow humans, then our percept is of something essentially non-physical nature. This feature of our psychology appears to be relevant to a number of other philosophical issues, including the tension between utilitarian principles and deontological concerns about harming persons (Jack et al., accepted), the question of whether God exists (Jack et al., under review-b), and the problem of free will9. http://tonyjack.org/files/2013%20Jack%20A%20scientific%20case%20for%20conceptual%20dualism%20%281%29.pdf Why Don't Psychopaths Believe in Dualism? The Role of Opposing Brain Networks Anthony Jack (Case Western Reserve University, Cognitive Science, Cleveland, OH In a theoretical paper linking the attribution of phenomenal consciousness to moral cognition, Robbins and Jack (Philosophical Studies, 2006) predicted that psychopaths would not perceive the problem of consciousness. New experimental evidence is presented which supports this claim: in a group of undergraduates it was found that support for a naturalistic view of the mind is positively correlated with the primary psychopathic trait of callousness. http://www.sonoran-sunsets.com/goinggreen.html

Of note: Anthony Jack himself is a physicalist. In trying to develop a physical theory of consciousness he proposes that for most people the problem of consciousness, the appearance of dualism, is caused by different brain networks used for thinking about mechanisms (ie how the brain works) and for understanding social situations (ie how people feel). According to Jack, it isn’t a natural gap but a gap due to brain physiology and psychopaths lack social thinking (are callous) so they don’t see the problem. Of related note:

“, I maintain that whatever else faith may be, it cannot be a delusion. The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best-kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health - preface “In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.” - Professor Andrew Sims former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists - Is Faith Delusion?: Why religion is good for your health – page 100 https://books.google.com/books?id=PREdCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false Knowledge of the afterlife deters suicide. Lessons From the Light by Kenneth Ring and Evelyn Elsaesser p.257-258: As far as I know, the first clinician to make use of NDE material in this context was a New York psychologist named John McDonagh. In 1979, he presented a paper at a psychological convention that described his success with several suicidal patients using a device he called “NDE bibliotherapy.” His “technique” was actually little more than having his patients read some relevant passages from Raymond Moody’s book, Reflections on Life after Life, after which the therapist and his patient would discuss its implications for the latter’s own situation. McDonagh reports that such an approach was generally quite successful not only in reducing suicidal thoughts but also in preventing the deed altogether. … Since McDonagh’s pioneering efforts, other clinicians knowledgeable about the NDE who have had the opportunity to counsel suicidal patients have also reported similar success. Perhaps the most notable of these therapists is Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist now at the University of Virginia, whose specialty as a clinician has been suicidology. He is also the author of a classic paper on NDEs and suicide which the specialist may wish to consult for its therapeutic implications. (14) Quite apart from the clinicians who have developed this form of what we might call “NDE-assisted therapy,” I can draw upon my own personal experience here to provide additional evidence of how the NDE has helped to deter suicide. The following case,,, http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/video-lecture-by-john-lennox-explains.html Lack of ultimate meaning in life associated with alcohol abuse, drug addiction and other mental health problems - August 2015 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150813092911.htm

also of note:

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” George MacDonald - Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood - 1892

Evidence to that effect

Scientific evidence that we do indeed have an eternal soul (Elaboration on Talbott's question “What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?”)– video 2016 https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1116313858381546/?type=2&theater

bornagain77

Andre: "For the last time and read carefully… when something is subjective it is neither right or wrong, nor is it good or bad it is just an opinion." Things can be subjectively right or wrong (good or bad) because right and wrong (good and bad) are themselves subjective. Killing someone can be subjectively good or subjectively bad, depending on the circumstances. Cutting someone with a knife can be subjectively good or subjectively bad depending on the circumstances. "And from your answer you agree then you don’t live your worldview." Sure I do. "You do live if justice is real if they break into your house and steal all your belongings and the perpetrators are caught you will demand justice." True. But that wasn't your claim. You said that atheists live as if justice is real. Which is not true. We all live hoping that justice is real, but knowing full well that it does not always exist. Those are two very different things. "Lastly atheists bemoan evil all the time, they can’t reconcile evil with a good God it is one of their major points you intellectually dishonest person!" Maybe this is because you are not listening carefully to what atheists say. I am not sure what specific atheist claims you are talking about but the one that I have heard goes along the line of, if God is all good and loving, why does he allow children to suffer, to get cancer, to be abused, etc. This is spoken from the perspective that my subjective moral values tell me that children suffering is not subjectively good. As I said, evil and sin are theistic constructs. clown fish

Andre,

Atheists live as if objective morality is true.

Well, I don't know that atheists are forbidden to believe in objective morality. I accept that there are objectively true facts about the universe, so perhaps there are objective moral truths as well. However, I don't know that I can defend any such moral truths beyond simply asserting they are such, so I will take the "subjectivist" position here. I might differ with some of the others here in that I don't claim to live as if objective morality is true. I live according to a moral system which humans have devised and refined over the millennia. Perhaps it has objective components, perhaps not.

Atheists live as if justice is real. Atheists live as if good and evil exist.

Yes, well I do, anyway. But I don't see that real things necessarily have to be objective. I understand the concepts of justice, good, and evil from a human perspective, from within our (possible subjective) moral system. Would those things still exist if there were no minds in the universe to think about them? That's the criterion I'm using for "objective". I don't know. daveS

Clown fish: Born-again is wrong.

Just you saying it doesn't make it so.

Clown fish: Again, Seversky can correct me if I am misinterpreting him, but he used a five step argument very similar to Bornagain’s to demonstrate that the conclusion from a logically consistent argument is not always valid.

And in order to demonstrate his unremarkable claim, Seversky used a ("obviously") false premise. Well ... no one claims that reasoning based on false premises leads to valid conclusions. Origenes

Clown fish For the last time and read carefully... when something is subjective it is neither right or wrong, nor is it good or bad it is just an opinion. And from your answer you agree then you don't live your worldview. You do live if justice is real if they break into your house and steal all your belongings and the perpetrators are caught you will demand justice. Lastly atheists bemoan evil all the time, they can't reconcile evil with a good God it is one of their major points you intellectually dishonest person! Andre

Andre: "Atheists live as if objective morality is true." Agreed. But we are smart enough to know that this is not true. "Atheists live as if justice is real." Nobody lives as if justice is real. "Atheists live as if good and evil exist." No, we live as if there are things that are right and wrong according to our subjective morality. We leave evil and sin to the theists. "i>Matter of fact it is atheists themselves that bemoan the fact that evil is real and a reason God does not exist. Afterall why would a good God allow it?" I am sure that some atheists have used the word evil, but it does not mean that they believe that evil exists. Any more than an evolutionist thinks that life was designed when they talk about the "design" of the heart. We are all guilty of sloppy grammar and word choices. clown fish

DaveS The premise is true here is why. Atheists live as if objective morality is true. Atheists live as if justice is real. Atheists live as if good and evil exist. Matter of fact it is atheists themselves that bemoan the fact that evil is real and a reason God does not exist Afterall why would a good God allow it? The only atheist I know that lived according to the atheistic worldview was Eric Harris. Andre

Origenes,

Bornagain’s second premise “Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview” still stands.

Do you believe this premise is true? It's not at all clear to me that it is true. daveS

On the incoherence and amorality of evolutionary materialist scientism (and by extension of fellow traveller views that are built to fit with it). F/N: For a start-point for alternative, try the Derek Smith two-tier controller cybernetic loop model. Here on too, on worldview building. kairosfocus

Origenes: "So you are saying that Seversky’s “alternative argument” is invalid, since it is “obvious” that many Christians live consistently with their world view — which contradicts Seversky’s second premise. Okay, got it." I thought that Seversky made it clear with his last line: "A valid argument is not necessarily a true argument." "How does that work? Bornagain’s second premise “Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview” still stands." Born-again is wrong. "How did it help Seversky’s case that he came up with the obviously false claim that the same is true for Christians? The last time I checked, one doesn’t typically refute a true claim with a false claim." Again, Seversky can correct me if I am misinterpreting him, but he used a five step argument very similar to Bornagain's to demonstrate that the conclusion from a logically consistent argument is not always valid. clown fish

BA77

Said the illusion by no will of its own.

Absolutely brilliant, and if Seversky, Clown fish or Aleta would disagree, they will contradict their worldview and affirm the conclusion that atheism is false, the predicament of the atheist! What to do what to do? Andre

Moreover, as Nancy Pearcey alluded to in her ‘Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself’ article, given the materialistic premises of Darwinian evolution, not only are our observations of reality itself held to be illusory, but even our sense of self, i.e. the belief that we really exist as real persons, which is the most sure thing we can know about reality, becomes illusory too. In what I consider to be a shining example of poetic justice, in their claim that God is not really a real person but is merely an illusion, the naturalist also ends up claiming that he himself is not really a real person but is merely an illusion.,,,

"that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick - "The Astonishing Hypothesis" 1994 “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. Per NY Times Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? – video 37:51 minute mark Quote: “You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren’t any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That’s why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, “You know, I’m not really here”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion… what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s

Thus, given materialistic premises, people become illusions whose observations of reality are illusory. And why in blue blazes should anyone trust what illusions having illusions say about reality? Finally, this unconstrained ‘illusory’ nature inherent to naturalism/materialism becomes even more acute when atheists try to explain the origin and sustaining of the universe, i.e. the origin, fine-tuning, and quantum wave collapse of the universe.

WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Infinity – Max Tegmark – January 2014 and Feb. 2015 Excerpt: Physics is all about predicting the future from the past, but inflation seems to sabotage this: when we try to predict the probability that something particular will happen, inflation always gives the same useless answer: infinity divided by infinity. The problem is that whatever experiment you make, inflation predicts that there will be infinitely many copies of you far away in our infinite space, obtaining each physically possible outcome, and despite years of tooth-grinding in the cosmology community, no consensus has emerged on how to extract sensible answers from these infinities. So strictly speaking, we physicists are no longer able to predict anything at all! http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/02/20/infinity-ruining-physics/#.VOsRyS7cBCA Why Most Atheists Believe in Pink Unicorns – May 2014 Excerpt: Given an infinite amount of time, anything that is logically possible(11) will eventually happen. So, given an infinite number of universes being created in (presumably) an infinite amount of time, you are not only guaranteed to get your universe but every other possible universe. This means that every conceivable universe exists, from ones that consist of nothing but a giant black hole, to ones that are just like ours and where someone just like you is reading a blog post just like this, except it’s titled: “Why most atheists believe in blue unicorns.” By now I’m sure you know where I’m going with this, but I’ll say it anyway. Since we know that horses are possible, and that pink animals are possible, and that horned animals are possible, then there is no logical reason why pink unicorns are not possible entities. Ergo, if infinite universes exist, then pink unicorns must necessarily exist. For an atheist to appeal to multiverse theory to deny the need of a designer infers that he believes in that theory more than a theistically suggestive single universe. And to believe in the multiverse means that one is saddled with everything that goes with it, like pink unicorns. In fact, they not only believe in pink unicorns, but that someone just like them is riding on one at this very moment, and who believes that elephants, giraffes, and zebra are merely childish fairytales. Postscript While it may be amusing to imagine atheists riding pink unicorns, it should be noted that the belief in them does not logically invalidate atheism. There theoretically could be multiple universes and there theoretically could be pink unicorns. However, there is a more substantial problem for the atheist if he wants to believe in them and he wants to remain an atheist. Since, as I said, anything can happen in the realm of infinities, one of those possibilities is the production of a being of vast intelligence and power. Such a being would be as a god to those like us, and could perhaps breach the boundaries of the multiverse to, in fact, be a “god” to this universe. This being might even have the means to create its own universe and embody the very description of the God of Christianity (or any other religion that the atheist otherwise rejects). It seems the atheist, in affirming the multiverse in order to avoid the problem of fine-tuning, finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. The further irony is that somewhere, in the great wide world of infinities, the atheist’s doppelganger is going to war against an army of theists riding on the horns of a great pink beast known to his tribesman as “The Saddlehorn Dilemma.” https://pspruett.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/why-most-atheists-believe-in-pink-unicorns/ Fine Tuning, Pink Unicorns, and The Triune God – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1145151962164402/?type=2&theater Too many worlds – Philip Ball – Feb. 17, 2015 Excerpt:,,, You measure the path of an electron, and in this world it seems to go this way, but in another world it went that way. That requires a parallel, identical apparatus for the electron to traverse. More – it requires a parallel you to measure it. Once begun, this process of fabrication has no end: you have to build an entire parallel universe around that one electron, identical in all respects except where the electron went. You avoid the complication of wavefunction collapse, but at the expense of making another universe.,,, http://aeon.co/magazine/science/is-the-many-worlds-hypothesis-just-a-fantasy/

Thus, basically, without God, everything within the atheistic/naturalistic worldview, (i.e. sense of self. observation of reality, even reality itself), collapses into self refuting, unrestrained, flights of fantasies and imagination. Verse, Video and Music:

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from Death as the “Theory of Everything” – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1143437869002478/?type=2&theater Hillsong United – Taya Smith – Touch The Sky – Acoustic Cover – Live – HD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyl34fHQi3U

bornagain77

Excellent responses vividbleau and Origenes. To expand on my comment at 2.

"Said the illusion by no will of its own."

Darwinian evolution, and atheism/naturalism in general, are built entirely upon a framework of illusions and fantasy. First off, in regards to Intelligent Design, atheists hold that the design we pervasively see in life is merely an illusion, i.e. merely an 'appearance of design',

"Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning." Richard Dawkins - "The Blind Watchmaker" - 1986 - page 21 quoted from this video - Michael Behe - Life Reeks Of Design - 2010 – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdh-YcNYThY

Moreover, Richards Dawkins is far from the only prominent atheist who seems to be afflicted with this mental illness of seeing the 'illusion of design' pervasively throughout life. The well known atheist Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, seems to have been particularly haunted by this illusion of seeing design everywhere he looked in molecular biology:

"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." Francis Crick - What Mad Pursuit "Organisms appear as if they had been designed to perform in an astonishingly efficient way, and the human mind therefore finds it hard to accept that there need be no Designer to achieve this" Francis Crick - What Mad Pursuit - p. 30

Moreover, all Darwinian claims that unguided material processes can build this 'appearance of design' in biology, that atheists themselves are seeing, rest on 'undisciplined imagination'. In fact, that is one of the main themes of many of Michael Behe's talks:

"Grand Darwinian claims rest on undisciplined imagination" Dr. Michael Behe - 29:24 mark of following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s6XAXjiyRfM#t=1762s

Indeed Franklin M. Harold, whom I believe is an atheist, calls Darwinian explanations 'a variety of wishful speculations'.

",,,we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations." Franklin M. Harold,* 2001. The way of the cell: molecules, organisms and the order of life, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 205. *Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Colorado State University, USA

Thus, since atheists themselves are seeing the 'illusion of design', and yet they have no experimental evidence that unguided material processes can produce this illusion of design, then of course the ID advocate would be well justified in saying that the design they are seeing is real and that these atheists are not really suffering from a mental illness after all but they are in fact 'naturally detecting design' because of the inherent 'image of God' that they have within themselves. Moreover, although reliable ‘observation’ of reality is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method itself,,,

Steps of the Scientific Method Observation/Research Hypothesis Prediction Experimentation Conclusion http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/scientific_method.html

,,, Although reliable ‘observation’ of reality is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method, materialism undermines this cornerstone. Given materialistic premises, not only are our interpretations of reality held to be somewhat flawed, but even our perceptions/observations of reality itself are held to be untrustworthy and thus ‘illusory’ given materialistic premises.

Why Atheism is Nonsense Pt.5 – “Naturalism is a Self-defeating Idea”video Excerpt: “Since we are creatures of natural selection, we cannot totally trust our senses. Evolution only passes on traits that help a species survive, and not concerned with preserving traits that tell a species what is actually true about life.” Richard Dawkins – quoted from “The God Delusion” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff-5rsrDRGM Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? – Video – 9:59 minute mark Quote: “fitness does depend on reality as it is, yes.,,, Fitness is not the same thing as reality as it is, and it is fitness, and not reality as it is, that figures centrally in the equations of evolution. So, in my lab, we have run hundreds of thousands of evolutionary game simulations with lots of different randomly chosen worlds and organisms that compete for resources in those worlds. Some of the organisms see all of the reality. Others see just part of the reality. And some see none of the reality. Only fitness. Who wins? Well I hate to break it to you but perception of reality goes extinct. In almost every simulation, organisms that see none of reality, but are just tuned to fitness, drive to extinction that perceive reality as it is. So the bottom line is, evolution does not favor veridical, or accurate perceptions. Those (accurate) perceptions of reality go extinct. Now this is a bit stunning. How can it be that not seeing the world accurately gives us a survival advantage?” https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY?t=601 Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself – Nancy Pearcey – March 8, 2015 Excerpt: Steven Pinker writes, “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false. To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion — and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value. So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself.,,, Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality. The reason so few atheists and materialists seem to recognize the problem is that, like Darwin, they apply their skepticism selectively. They apply it to undercut only ideas they reject, especially ideas about God. They make a tacit exception for their own worldview commitments. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar094171.html also see Plantinga’s ‘evolutionary argument against naturalism’

One sidenote to ‘reliable observation’ of reality. Completely contrary to materialistic premises, conscious observation, far from being illusory, is experimentally found to be far more integral to reality than materialism had ever predicted.

New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It – June 3, 2015 Excerpt: The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html

bornagain77

Clown Fish: I don’t think that he was trying to conclude that Christians cannot live consistently with their world view. It is obvious that many do.

So you are saying that Seversky's "alternative argument" is invalid, since it is "obvious" that many Christians live consistently with their world view — which contradicts Seversky's second premise. Okay, got it.

Clown Fish: He was just trying to draw attention to the manipulative inanity of Bornagain77’s logic.

How does that work? Bornagain's second premise "Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview" still stands. How did it help Seversky's case that he came up with the obviously false claim that the same is true for Christians? The last time I checked, one doesn't typically refute a true claim with a false claim. ----- Bornagain @2 :) Origenes

Vividbleu, I don't want to speak for Seversky, but I don't think that he was trying to conclude that Christians cannot live consistently with their world view. It is obvious that many do. He was just trying to draw attention to the manipulative inanity of Bornagain77's logic. clown fish

Seversky "Christians are unable to live consistently with their worldview." This reflects a total misunderstanding of the Christian worldview.The Christian worldview is that all have sinned and have fallen short and as believers we continue to sin and continue to fall short every day ( actually pretty much every breath)of our lives. Vivid vividbleau

bornagain77 @ 4

Existential Argument against Atheism – November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false.

... or, alternatively: 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Christians are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an Christian worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If Christianity is a delusion then Christianity cannot be true. Conclusion: Christianity is false. A valid argument is not necessarily a true argument. Seversky

further notes:

Human consciousness is much more than mere brain activity, - Mark Vernon - 18 June 2011 However, "If you think the brain is a machine then you are committed to saying that composing a sublime poem is as involuntary an activity as having an epileptic fit. ...the nature of consciousness being a tremendous mystery." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/17/human-consciousness-brain-activity Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let's Dump Methodological Naturalism - Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: "Epistemology -- how we know -- and ontology -- what exists -- are both affected by methodological naturalism (MN). If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won't include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn't write your email to me. Physics did, and informed (the illusion of) you of that event after the fact. "That's crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then -- to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse -- i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss -- we haven't the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world -- such as your email, a real pattern -- we must refer to you as a unique agent.,,, some feature of "intelligence" must be irreducible to physics, because otherwise we're back to physics versus physics, and there's nothing for SETI to look for.",,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set090071.html

And although Dr. Nelson alluded to writing an e-mail, (i.e. creating information), to tie his ‘personal agent’ argument into intelligent design, Dr. Nelson’s ‘personal agent’ argument can easily be amended to any action that ‘you’, as a personal agent, choose to take:

“You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed the illusion of you of that event after the fact.” “You didn’t open the door. Physics did, and informed the illusion of you of that event after the fact.” “You didn’t raise your hand. Physics did, and informed the illusion you of that event after the fact.” “You didn’t etc.. etc.. etc… Physics did, and informed the illusion of you of that event after the fact.”

Dr. Craig Hazen, in the following video at the 12:26 minute mark, relates how he performed, for an audience full of academics at a college, a ‘miracle’ simply by raising his arm,,

The Intersection of Science and Religion – Craig Hazen, PhD – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xVByFjV0qlE#t=746s

What should be needless to say, if raising your arm is enough to refute your supposedly ‘scientific’ worldview of atheistic materialism/naturalism, then perhaps it is time for you to seriously consider getting a new scientific worldview?

The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3 Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: Even materialists often admit that, in practice, it is impossible for humans to live any other way. One philosopher jokes that if people deny free will, then when ordering at a restaurant they should say, "Just bring me whatever the laws of nature have determined I will get." An especially clear example is Galen Strawson, a philosopher who states with great bravado, "The impossibility of free will ... can be proved with complete certainty." Yet in an interview, Strawson admits that, in practice, no one accepts his deterministic view. "To be honest, I can't really accept it myself," he says. "I can't really live with this fact from day to day. Can you, really?",,, In What Science Offers the Humanities, Edward Slingerland, identifies himself as an unabashed materialist and reductionist. Slingerland argues that Darwinian materialism leads logically to the conclusion that humans are robots -- that our sense of having a will or self or consciousness is an illusion. Yet, he admits, it is an illusion we find impossible to shake. No one "can help acting like and at some level really feeling that he or she is free." We are "constitutionally incapable of experiencing ourselves and other conspecifics [humans] as robots." One section in his book is even titled "We Are Robots Designed Not to Believe That We Are Robots.",,, When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine -- a "big bag of skin full of biomolecules" interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, "When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, ... see that they are machines." Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: "That is not how I treat them.... I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis." Certainly if what counts as "rational" is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks's worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn't. Brooks ends by saying, "I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs." He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/

bornagain77

a few notes:

Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf Dr. Robert C. Koons — "The Waning of Materialism" - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZLHKlwue20 The Waning of Materialism Edited by Robert C. Koons and George Bealer Description: Twenty-three philosophers examine the doctrine of materialism and find it wanting. The case against materialism comprises arguments from conscious experience, from the unity and identity of the person, from intentionality, mental causation, and knowledge. The contributors include leaders in the fields of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, who respond ably to the most recent versions and defenses of materialism. The modal arguments of Kripke and Chalmers, Jackson’s knowledge argument, Kim’s exclusion problem, and Burge’s anti-individualism all play a part in the building of a powerful cumulative case against the materialist research program. Several papers address the implications of contemporary brain and cognitive research (the psychophysics of color perception, blindsight, and the effects of commissurotomies), adding a posteriori arguments to the classical a priori critique of reductionism. All of the current versions of materialism–reductive and non-reductive, functionalist, eliminativist, and new wave materialism–come under sustained and trenchant attack. http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Metaphysics/?view=usa&ci=9780199556199 The Threat to the Scientific Method that Explains the Spate of Fraudulent Science Publications - Calvin Beisner | Jul 23, 2014 Excerpt: such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed, and as I pointed out in two of my talks,, science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview. http://townhall.com/columnists/calvinbeisner/2014/07/23/the-threat-to-the-scientific-method-that-explains-the-spate-of-fraudulent-science-publications-n1865201/page/full Several other resources backing up this claim are available, such as Thomas Woods, Stanley Jaki, David Linberg, Edward Grant, J.L. Heilbron, and Christopher Dawson. The truth about science and religion By Terry Scambray - August 14, 2014 Excerpt: In 1925 the renowned philosopher and mathematician, Alfred North Whitehead speaking to scholars at Harvard said that science originated in Christian Europe in the 13th century. Whitehead pointed out that science arose from “the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher”, from which it follows that human minds created in that image are capable of understanding nature. The audience, assuming that science and Christianity are enemies, was astonished. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/the_truth_about_science_and_religion.html Theism compared to Materialism/Naturalism - a comparative overview of the major predictions of each philosophy – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1139512636061668/?type=2&theater

bornagain77

"I get that a lot of people don’t like the nat/mat approach but the reality is that, so far, no one has come up with anything better." Said the illusion by no will of its own. bornagain77

I'm betting that philosopher Barry Loewer has even less of an idea of what a "nonphysical fundamental ontology" might be (if it can be said to "be" at all) than naturalists have of a naturalist/materialist account of consciousness. I get that a lot of people don't like the nat/mat approach but the reality is that, so far, no one has come up with anything better. Seversky