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The Inane Beliefs of Atheists/Materialists

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1. Climate Alarmism – why do Atheists/Materialists think they can recognize and understand true climate facts and extrapolate them into valid theories about the future of Earth’s climate? Do they not realize all of their mental processes have no top-down, supernatural control/override authority? They think whatever happenstance chemical interactions cause them to think, and believe whatever chance forces cause them to believe. Under such a paradigm, they believe what they do about the climate for exactly the same reason non-believers hold their non-alarmist views: chemical interactions have caused such beliefs. “Facts” and “truths” are nothing more than sensations that unintelligent, undirected physical processes cause us to attach to particular thoughts. They might eat some particular ingredient or smell something and a chaotic cascade change their mind about the climate. Why bother worrying about something one has no capacity to meaningfully understand in any significant way?

2. Globalism – why do A/M’s promote a global society? Do they expect to be able to coerce the enormously chaotic chemical interactions and physics that drive humanity into a particular, preferable pattern of behavior? I guess it makes sense that atheistic materialists who think a massively chaotic system like climate can be controlled into preferred future outcomes also think humanity can be homogenized into thought and behavior patterns to produce preferred global society outcomes. It makes sense because, under atheistic matieralism, A/M’s can be programmed by chemistry and physics to believe and say any inane nonsense whatsoever by chance physical interactions. In light of how happenstance chemical interactions generate beliefs and views and attach the sensation of “fact” or “truth” to them, how can any A/M hold that globalism would be any better in any way for humanity? They have no means by which to meaningfully reach such a conclusion.

3. Progressivism – Why do they advance and promote such concepts as “rights” for various subcategories of the human population, when surely they realize that no such rights exist under atheistic materialism – at least, they do not exist as anything other than feelings attached to thoughts. Under A/M, nobody possesses any “metaphysical” or “supernatural” or “natural” rights; they exist as physical sensations driven by happenstance chemical interactions. If these interactions happen to drive a person or a culture to kill or torture or enslave certain sub-groups, so what? That’s just nature at work, the ongoing drive of chemistry and physics. That’s just part of the evolutionary process. Since “rights” are just sensations, an abused group has no more claim to any “right” than their abusers, who have the sensation of a right to commit the abuse. A proclaimed “right” to “equality” or “healthcare” cannot be logically claimed by atheistic materialists to be superior to the “rights” of those who prefer inequality, or prefer not to provide healthcare or anything else some group wants.

Comments
Can someone please give me the synopsis of the "climate change issue", as I have not been following it at all... Just need to basics who claims what and why...pleaseJ-Mac
January 21, 2017
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Computers require intelligently designed software to operate (digital coding). Humans likewise require software to operate (chemical coding). We know the source of computer software, but we can only guess the source of human software. I think it is God based on what I believe to be reasonable faith. A/mats say nature based on what they believe to be reasonable faith. Both are faith-based beliefs. We just have faith in different things. I in God. A/mats in nature. Whose faith is more reasonable? Depends on who you ask. There are brilliant minds on both sides, so intelligence and logic are certainly not the determining factors.Truth Will Set You Free
January 21, 2017
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1. Climate Alarmism – why do Atheists/Materialists think they can recognize and understand true climate facts and extrapolate them into valid theories about the future of Earth’s climate?
Do you have any reason for thinking that only a/mats are warning about AGW or is this just another piece of anti-science propaganda? Is there something in the Bible I missed which makes it blasphemous to suggest that human activities could have a cumulative adverse effect on the Earth's climate?
2. Globalism – why do A/M’s promote a global society?
Again, what make you think it's only a/mats "promoting" global society? I would point out the North Koreas is about as a/mat a society, in your terms, as you'll find on this planet and they've done just about everything they can to isolate themselves from the outside world. The reality is that globalization is happening inexorably whether we like it or not, what with the Internet, telecoms, international trade and the ease of global travel. I've often thought that if you were able to transport someone from the year 1017 forward in time to today they would probably be horrified and terrified by what we take for granted and be desperate to get back to their own era. The same would probably be true if one of us were transported forward to the year 3017. Supposing we found that humans had become a Borg-like society in which everyone was permanently plugged into a vast Matrix-like AI network. Would you like that?
3. Progressivism – Why do they advance and promote such concepts as “rights” for various subcategories of the human population, when surely they realize that no such rights exist under atheistic materialism – at least, they do not exist as anything other than feelings attached to thoughts
What's so hard to understand about the idea that rights - or moral codes - are what people can agree amongst themselves by a process of inter-subjective agreement should be the case? Why do you think that only a God is entitled or able to decide these things? And apparently, I also need to point out, yet again, that you and just about everyone else here is accusing a/mats of committing the fallacy of the single cause, defined in Wikipedia as follows:
The fallacy of the single cause, also known as complex cause, causal oversimplification, causal reductionism, and reduction fallacy,[1] is a fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes. It can be logically reduced to: X occurred after Y. Therefore, Y caused X (although A,B,C...etc. also caused X.)[1] Causal oversimplification is a specific kind of false dilemma where conjoint possibilities are ignored. In other words, the possible causes are assumed to be "A or B or C" when "A and B and C" or "A and B and not C" (etc.) are not taken into consideration.
Yes, a human being can be described as a bag of water and chemicals but no one claims that is all they are, any more than describing a computer as a box of silicon, glass, metals and plastics is an exhaustive explanation of everything a computer is and can do. There are many more things involved in making a human being or a computer what they are. A/mats know that just as well as you do. We just don't see any reason to think a god is one of them.Seversky
January 21, 2017
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No matter how hard it is to deny, we have to do so. Appearances to the contrary, it’s no easier a trick for conscious thoughts to be about stuff than for nonconscious thoughts—brain circuits—to be about stuff.
Unless, of course, consciousness is "other." Rosenberg cannot brook that possibility. What do you do with people who deny the sun's existence when they can see it right up there in the sky? In this case, the "sun" is the primary, unavoidable and intractable fact about themselves.mike1962
January 21, 2017
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William J Murray: Do they [the Atheists/Materialists] not realize all of their mental processes have no top-down, supernatural control/override authority? They think whatever happenstance chemical interactions cause them to think, and believe whatever chance forces cause them to believe.
There is no basis whatsoever for rational debate with atheists/materialists. How can one engage those who hold that happenstance chemical reactions direct thoughts? Or worse ... that thoughts are not about anything.
... when consciousness assures us that we have thoughts about stuff, it has to be wrong ... Physics has ruled out the existence of clumps of matter of the required sort. There are just fermions and bosons and combinations of them. None of that stuff is just, all by itself, about any other stuff. There is nothing in the whole universe—including, of course, all the neurons in your brain—that just by its nature or composition can do this job of being about some other clump of matter... These neurons are just a clump of matter. They are not intrinsically about your mom. They don’t look like your mom. They are not like a picture of her. They can’t be interpreted or decoded by some other part of your brain into a picture or description of your mom. There is nothing that distinguishes them from any other reinforced synaptically connected neurons in your brain, except their history of being wired up as a result of early-childhood development and firing regularly under the same circumstances throughout your life. None of these sets of circuits are about anything. And the combination of them can’t be either. The small sets of specialized input/output circuits that respond to your mom’s face, as well as the large set that responds to your mom, are no different from millions of other such sets in your brain, except in one way: they respond to a distinct electrical input with a distinct electrical output. That’s all packages of neural circuits do in the rat and the sea slug. That’s why they are not about anything. Piling up a lot of neural circuits that are not about anything at all can’t turn them into a thought about stuff out there in the world. [Rosenberg]
Or even worse ... that no person exists.
FOR SOLID EVOLUTIONARY REASONS, WE’VE BEEN tricked into looking at life from the inside. Without scientism, we look at life from the inside, from the first-person POV (OMG, you don’t know what a POV is?—a “point of view”). The first person is the subject, the audience, the viewer of subjective experience, the self in the mind. Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion. Even after scientism convinces us, we’ll continue to stick with the first person. But at least we’ll know that it’s another illusion of introspection and we’ll stop taking it seriously. We’ll give up all the answers to the persistent questions about free will, the self, the soul, and the meaning of life that the illusion generates. The physical facts fix all the facts. The mind is the brain. It has to be physical and it can’t be anything else, since thinking, feeling, and perceiving are physical process—in particular, input/output processes—going on in the brain. We can be sure of a great deal about how the brain works because the physical facts fix all the facts about the brain. The fact that the mind is the brain guarantees that there is no free will. It rules out any purposes or designs organizing our actions or our lives. It excludes the very possibility of enduring persons, selves, or souls that exist after death or for that matter while we live. ... BUT INTROSPECTION is making you respond, “It can’t be an illusion.” It may grant that the brain is so fantastically complex that it can navigate the world even while looking through the rearview mirror. And for all it knows, maybe conscious acts of will are not what cause the body to move. Maybe the brain stores information in neural circuits that aren’t really about stuff. But surely, the thoughts I am conscious of right now have to be about something. These conscious thoughts aren’t just input/output circuits, empty of content. I can be tricked by the movies into the illusion of motion. But introspection can’t be tricked into the illusion that its thoughts are about stuff, even if the thoughts are illusory. Right now, I am thinking about the problem of how conscious thought can be about stuff. Introspection is telling me, firsthand, exactly what I am thinking about. How can anyone deny that? No matter how hard it is to deny, we have to do so. Appearances to the contrary, it’s no easier a trick for conscious thoughts to be about stuff than for nonconscious thoughts—brain circuits—to be about stuff. [Rosenberg]
Origenes
January 21, 2017
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A number of good questions raised here in the OP. I will give them my best shot at it (this is going to sound harsh so I apologize in advance and therefore don't read if you're squeamish):
Climate Alarmism – why do Atheists/Materialists think they can recognize and understand true climate facts and extrapolate them into valid theories about the future of Earth’s climate?
They are shallow, ignorant, downright stupid, drugged, blinded by lust and/or basically incapable and unwilling to understand their own beliefs which they profess and want to force on society. Or more simply and kindly - they either can't (don't have the brainpower) or don't want to recognize and understand this obvious fact.
Do they not realize all of their mental processes have no top-down, supernatural control/override authority?
Some do, but dishonestly ignore it. Others don't for reasons of stupidity and bad education. Virtually none will ever admit this or have any argument against it.
Why bother worrying about something one has no capacity to meaningfully understand in any significant way?
Their goal seems to be to steal, unjustly and illogically, all the benefits of the theistic worldview, while at the same time retaining the excitement and egoism of being the bold rebel against God. It's an addiction to moral liberation for most.
Globalism – why do A/M’s promote a global society?
A lot can be said here, but basically misery loves company. The rebels against a divine order need an army of support. It's "all of us" against God. "Everybody's doing it" - populism. If you can force the whole world to live by your laws, all the better. A restless conscience seeks comfort from friends. They search for meaning (which power over others gives), while denying that there is any real meaning.
Do they expect to be able to coerce the enormously chaotic chemical interactions and physics that drive humanity into a particular, preferable pattern of behavior?
As above, they dishonestly ignore this contradiction. Instead, they co-opt the attitude of the moral prophet and reformer. Like everything they do and think, this is totally irrational. But that doesn't stop them. Is it rational to shed tears about the fate of a squirrel caught in a trap and yet gleefully promote late term abortion of human children? Obviously, no. Again as above, stupid, blind - I forgot to add, in many cases, clinically insane ... etc. Thus the hardships and frustration of anyone (like ourselves) who take on the challenge of trying to discuss anything with these A/Ms. There are people in mental institutions who are more logical, coherent and rational. This is not something to laugh at but to feel compassion and sorrow for them.
If these interactions happen to drive a person or a culture to kill or torture or enslave certain sub-groups, so what?
Many feel threatened - by God, by rational society, by their own conscience - many things. So, they use moral outrage, illogically, to claim they're more noble, more caring, more progressive, more morally sensitive - than anyone else. Of course, that's just huge egoism talking again - echoing in the void of their spiritually deadened souls. We hear it so often. Instead of calmly answering this question about murder and torture, they'll get angry and attack. A more cold-hearted guy like Zachriel, who came close to believing his own nonsense, would say that evolution caused us to "prefer" not to torture. He was too dishonest to admit that "preferring to torture and murder" is also perfectly acceptable in the evolutionary view. He couldn't quite handle that much. In the A/M view there are no rights, no freedoms, no responsibilities. We read a rare philosopher last week here who admitted all of that, but then went on to cover it up and deny it in the end (writing an article to educate people is a contradiction to the A/M view that he admitted). The unfortunate thing (among many) is that this argument is the nuclear option against atheism. There's really nothing - zero, to say when encountering it. To even start defending, arguing, using reason and logic to uphold atheistic materialism is to be self-refuting. In the end, there's nothing that can be said. That's evolutionary nihilism. Everything is nothing.Silver Asiatic
January 21, 2017
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Spot on, WJM.Truth Will Set You Free
January 21, 2017
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However, it’s my view that it is important to point out such issues.
WJM, I fully agree. Andrewasauber
January 21, 2017
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asauber @1: I agree that most A/M's on the street just haven't really considered how they come to their beliefs nor considered the lack of foundation for any such beliefs if A/M is true. However, it's my view that it is important to point out such issues. I've found that there are reasonable A/M's who have never been sufficiently informed or properly challenged.William J Murray
January 21, 2017
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Why bother worrying about something one has no capacity to meaningfully understand in any significant way?
The indoctrinated prog on the street might actually worry about it, because they are too dumb to think their way to an assessment of the evidence, or in this case the lack thereof. The prog in leadership doesn't worry about it, because the climate scare story is the means to the end. That's why people like Al Gore still get afternoon massages in their climate-controlled beachfront mansions, while dumb prog on the internet stares at colored squiggly lines. Andrewasauber
January 21, 2017
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