Atheism and rationality

[Juice]

Would you agree that you have an irrational disbelief in fairies?

First, do you agree that which is arrived at rationally means that which is arrived at by the means of adhering to the principles of logic? Second, do you have a valid argument for the existence of fairies to present?

[Psychic Missile]

First, do you agree that which is arrived at rationally means that which is arrived at by the means of adhering to the principles of logic? Second, do you have a valid argument for the existence of fairies to present?

1. Yes.
2. No, just like theists don't have a valid argument for the existence of God. You can not prove the absence of fairies, so you must withhold intellectual assent of fairies, and thus you must have an irrational disbelief in fairies (assuming your argument about atheists being irrational is true).

[bertatberts]

Which is fundamentally what I’m driving at. If the atheistic position is arrived at merely by withholding intellectual assent to the conclusion God exists, then atheism is not, strictly speaking, arrived at rationally,

Well duh! We are all born tabula rasa, so technically atheist from birth, or if you like non-theist, we are either inculcated/indoctrinated into theism or for the lucky ones, allowed to grow up naturally, it is only through study and critically thinking, do we either shake of the indoctrination, ( if we were subjected to it, that is) or come to the understanding that belief in god/gods is irrational.

if we understand that which is arrived at rationally to mean that which is arrived at by the means of adhering to the principles of logic. In light of this, the only way an atheist can say he has arrived at his position rationally is to present a valid argument against the existence of God. Atheists would have more credibility making the claim their position is rational if they spent more time presenting positive arguments for their position rather than sitting back and sniping theistic arguments.

Cue the complaint, "bbbut it's hard to prove a negative"

I've yet to come across an atheist that is or was sniping theistic arguments as you called it, usually the arguments, are from a logical, intelligible and coherent basis.

From all that I have experienced in my life, there is no way to prove that god/gods exists and there is no way to prove that no god/gods exists. But we can show that the claims made by believers are inconsistent or flat out false. All that we can do is address the claims of the believers, their dogma, and their “sacred” writings. Taking them, point by point and case by case to show that they have no merit is the only sort of way to address the validity of their god/gods. There are literally countless claims about god/gods and spiritual crap. Even when you can demonstrate convincingly that a religious claim is false, they can just fabricate a million more. Arguing against religious nonsense is a never ending struggle against the tide of superstitious twaddle that can be whatever the believer wishes it to be.

There is not one microbe of evidence that any god/gods exist.
God/gods can't explain all that exists because god/gods cannot be explained. merely swapping one problem for another.
Theists do not explain any mechanism or process whereby a god/gods created everything. It is merely an appeal to magic.
Faith is necessarily based on belief in unprovable and un-knowable things. thus is generally indistinguishable from gullibility. Trust and faith, as human concepts however are normally based on experience and reason.
God/gods or anything that exists outside the realm of natural reality is necessarily un-knowable, unintelligible and incoherent.
The argument that god/gods cannot be proven, not to exist is irrelevant when one considers that to do so requires that the concept of a supernatural god/gods be intelligible and coherent, which they are not. It is therefore irrational to believe in something that is supernatural.

The burden of proof however does and will always remain with the positive claimant. Only things that exist can leave evidence. From this we can derive that conclusive proof can only come from the person that claims that a thing exists.

[Tassman]

Which is fundamentally what I’m driving at. If the atheistic position is arrived at merely by withholding intellectual assent to the conclusion God exists, then atheism is not, strictly speaking, arrived at rationally, if we understand that which is arrived at rationally to mean that which is arrived at by the means of adhering to the principles of logic. In light of this, the only way an atheist can say he has arrived at his position rationally is to present a valid argument against the existence of God. Atheists would have more credibility making the claim their position is rational if they spent more time presenting positive arguments for their position rather than sitting back and sniping theistic arguments.

An atheist is “withholding intellectual assent to the conclusion god exists” because such conclusion as "god exists" cannot be rationally arrived at. Even an argument which has faultless logic will result in a incorrect conclusion if it is based on a premise that has not, or cannot, be experimentally verified. And this is the case with a supernatural entity like a deity.

[Juice]

1. Yes.
2. No, just like theists don't have a valid argument for the existence of God. You can not prove the absence of fairies, so you must withhold intellectual assent of fairies, and thus you must have an irrational disbelief in fairies (assuming your argument about atheists being irrational is true).

But there apparently are valid arguments for the existence of God. Cogent enough to convince even the staunchest atheist scholars to move from atheism to theism – Antony Flew comes to mind. So the claim that “theists don't have a valid argument for the existence of God” would appear to be without merit.

Under my paradigm of caliming that one has arrived at one's position rationally one does not need to prove the absence of fairies (nor necessarily prove the absence of God) for one to claim that one has arrived at one's position rationally. To arrive one's position rationally, under my paradigm, one only need to demonstrate that one has arrived at one's position by building a valid argument, in favour of one's position, that adheres to the principles of logic. Not merely withhold intellectual assent to the valid arguments against one's position.

[Juice]

All that we can do is address the claims of the believers, their dogma, and their “sacred” writings.

But there are more than merely claims, dogma, etc. There are valid arguments in favour of the theistic position. If all you can do is withhold intellectual assent, then in my opinion you cannot claim that you have arrived at your position rationally.

[Juice]

An atheist is “withholding intellectual assent to the conclusion god exists” because such conclusion as "god exists" cannot be rationally arrived at.

Patently false.

Even an argument which has faultless logic will result in a incorrect conclusion if it is based on a premise that has not, or cannot, be experimentally verified.

Okay, experimentally verify the premise that: Even an argument which has faultless logic will result in a incorrect conclusion if it is based on a premise that has not, or cannot, be experimentally verified.

Ready, set, go...

[ZackMartin]

Hello Juice,

According to the link you provided to wiki (who in turn cites B.H. Slater), - “ Others, such as David Lewis, have objected to paraconsistent logic on the ground that it is simply impossible for a statement and its negation to be jointly true. A related objection is that “negation” in paraconsistent logic is not really negation; it is merely a subcontrary-forming operator.”

I think this just demonstrates my point - there are real fundamental disagreements in logic, and its not clear how to resolve them. Paraconsistent logic has its adherents, and also those who doubt it. From your comments so far, you sound closer to a doubter than an advocate. Some people believe logic is a clear discipline, with universally agreed principles and methods; but I think, as one learns more about the immense variety of contrary opinions in the field of logic, the tangle of numerous competing formalisms, one's confidence in logic may decline.

My point was not that it is necessary for everyone to agree that they are self evident.

I think, if people reject the idea that a proposition is self-evident, that is prima facie evidence that it isn't self-evident. An example of a genuinely self-evident proposition is "1+1=2", since all adult human beings, who are of sound mind, and who are being honest about their own beliefs, will agree that it is correct. The law of the excluded middle, and the law of non-contradiction, don't receive that unanimous agreement, so I would not count them among the self-evident.

But on what rational grounds should they make that “jump” to objectivity?

Well, one ought to be consistent, unless one has good reasons not to be. If one believes that ethics must be subjective because it has certain properties, then upon it being demonstrated that rationality shares the same properties, then one should either accept rationality as subjective too, or reject the idea that anything having those properties is subjective; but if they reject the later idea, they've lost their justification for believing ethics is subjective. If you look at atheist materialists, I think most of them, when given a choice between objective ethics and subjective rationality, would, however grudgingly, choose the former over the later. (BTW, saying "one ought to be consistent, unless one has good reasons not to be" is not an endorsement of the law of non-contradiction. LNC says true contradictions are *never* allowed; you can reject the absolute prohibition of LNC, while accepting weaker rules that allow contradictions to be true some of the time, but not all the time.)

All your argument would succeed in accomplishing is to show that both logic and ethics are subjective to varying degrees. What those degrees are remains a mystery at this point. You’ll need to show that the degree to which there is subjectivity in logic is at least the same as the degree of subjectivity in ethics to make your argument even begin to work. Which you have conceded is in absolute terms not the case. You bear the burden here and have a tremendous hill to climb. It is not enough simply to establish that there is subjectivity in logic or merely assert the degree of disagreement in logic is equivalent to ethics.

I'm not sure whether it makes sense to talk about "degrees of subjectivity". Either it is objective or it is subjective, I'm not sure if there is any space in between. I spoke of a "flavour of subjectivity", but the flavour of subjectivity is not the same thing as subjectivity, and it is completely compatible with the reality of objectivity - like a deceiving appearance. Maybe you are suggesting that the flavour is stronger in degree in ethics than it is in rationality. I don't agree with that. I think, if it appears that way, it could be because the controversies of ethics are of clear practical relevance, so the average person will have opinions on them, while it takes an inclination towards philosophy or mathematics to find interest in the controversies of logic. But among those who have a well-rounded understanding of the field, I would say that the controversies in logic are just as big as those in ethics.

If you concede that the “flavour of subjectivity” (existence of apparently insoluble radical disagreements) is not convincing evidence of subjectivity why argue it and would I accept it?

I have never sought to use it as evidence of subjectivity. But many other people think it is convincing evidence of subjectivity, so by finding it in rationality, I undermine their argument for subjectivity in ethics (unless they want to go ultra-postmodern on us and deny the objectivity of rationality; if that is their choice, there is not much else that I can say.) It's a reductio ad absurdum against ethical subjectivity; to succeed, an reductio ad absurdum doesn't need to end in a contradiction, it can simply end in a conclusion which you have good reason to believe your interlocutor will be unable to accept.

Further, this “unified whole” you speak of, what is it? Can you objectively establish its existence?

Can you objectively establish the existence of ethics? Can you objectively establish the existence of rationality? If you can, then you have objectively established the existence of the whole composed of ethics plus rationality; the only question then is whether this whole is unified, a whole composed of two deeply connected things working in tandem, or is it a whole of two completely unrelated things arbitrarily squished together. But that is a question about the nature of the whole, not a question about its existence.

The “False” in False Analogy is a bit of a misnomer. It isn’t so much “false” per se as it is weak. It is weak because there seem to be very few similarities between ethics and logic. And the one similarity you seem to have grasped onto (i.e. the existence of subjectivity evidenced by the existence of unsolvable disagreements) is disputed.

Some similarities: 1) both are systems of valuation (as positive or negative - good/evil, rational/irrational); 2) both are systems of obligation and prohibition (ethics "do this and don't do that", rationality "believe this and don't believe that"); 3) rationality tells you to believe different things in different circumstances (depending on the different evidence available in different situations) - the same belief might be rational to believe when presented with one set of possible evidence, and irrational given a different set; but then ethics tells you to do different things in different situations too (is shooting someone in the head wrong? depends on the circumstances: if it's a random passerby, yes. if the random passerby has a gun and is shooting people at random, no.) 4) You mentioned the existence of unsolvable disagreements, 5) but another similarity is the existence of near universal agreements - almost everyone agrees that killing innocent people for fun is wrong, and almost everyone agrees that "1+1=2". 6) Another is the fact that in both rationality and ethics, people will often agree on the conclusion but disagree on the premises. Everyone agrees that murder is wrong, but different people give widely different explanations of why. Everyone agrees that "1+1=2", but mathematicians can fill many volumes with arguments over what is the best way to prove that. So I've grasped on to way more than just one similarity here.

You complain the similarities are too few, while I think they are extensive - but how many similarities must exist for you to agree an analogy is strong rather than weak? Where does one draw the line? I think I've counted six, is that enough? Not enough? How many would be enough then? Name a number. I can think of some more.

Despite your complaints about modus ponens and attempts to strengthen your argument by muddying the water, you were more than happy to use modus ponens earlier. Or did you not realize you were using it?

I know what modus ponens is, thank you very much. There are two extremes - "This principle is always correct" and "This principle is always wrong". Then there is the middle-ground, "Well, it seems to work most of the time, but there is a lot we don't know about it, so we can't say for sure whether it will work in every case, especially not unusual cases we haven't even thought of yet." So I agree on a practical level, that modus ponens is useful, and of course I use it; but I'm hesitant to declare it a principle of universal applicability, because I don't know that for sure. There are many cases in which I feel comfortable using it, but how can I say for sure that in some strange cases which right now I might not even be able to conceive of, it might not be correct? (Actually, in some logics you can't use modus ponens; it doesn't work in LP, for instance.)

When you said “correct,” I understood you to mean valid. You do agree modus ponens is valid don’t you? You must, you used it.

What does "valid" mean? Correct in all cases? Correct in most cases? Correct in some cases? If someone believed that modus ponens was correct in 99.999% of cases, and wrong in the other 0.001% of cases, they'd be justified in using modus ponens a lot, and maybe even justified in not being on the lookout for those rare cases. But they don't agree that it is correct, in the sense that someone who believes it to be correct 100% of the time means by "correct". But my confidence in modus ponens is greater than my confidence in the law of the excluded middle or the law of non-contradiction.

How do you know that which you think is rational is in fact rational when the rationality of that thing is not so self evident?

To call yourself rational, do you need 100% confidence in your own rationality? Do you need a set of perfect rules that always work? Or can you get by with a bag of tricks that seem to work most of the time, but you wouldn't be surprised if some of them were less than perfect?

If you truly subscribe to no mechanism(s) for establishing that which is rational then you have no way of objectively demonstrating your beliefs rational.

I don't subscribe to no mechanisms. I believe there are many potential mechanisms available. But I don't need to make an exhaustive list ahead of time, and nor do I need to make a final decision on the validity of any individual one either.

When you engage in discourse with someone, you try to find some principles you share in common, and see what you can build off those. You don't need irrefutable proof that those principles are perfectly correct, for all people, for all places, for all time and for all eternity. You just need some temporary agreement on them to continue. Now, if you want to believe they are perfectly correct and perfectly universal, you can, but you don't have to believe that to move forward.

Regards, Zack

[bertatberts]

Which is fundamentally what I’m driving at. If the atheistic position is arrived at merely by withholding intellectual assent to the conclusion God exists, then atheism is not, strictly speaking, arrived at rationally

Well duh! We are all born tabula rasa, so technically atheist from birth, or if you like non-theist, we are either inculcated/indoctrinated into theism or for the lucky ones, allowed to grow up naturally, it is only through study and critically thinking, do we either shake of the indoctrination, ( if we were subjected to it, that is) or come to the understanding that belief in god/gods is irrational.

if we understand that which is arrived at rationally to mean that which is arrived at by the means of adhering to the principles of logic. In light of this, the only way an atheist can say he has arrived at his position rationally is to present a valid argument against the existence of God. Atheists would have more credibility making the claim their position is rational if they spent more time presenting positive arguments for their position rather than sitting back and sniping theistic arguments.

Cue the complaint, "bbbut it's hard to prove a negative"

I've yet to come across an atheist that is or was sniping theistic arguments as you called it, usually the arguments, are from a logical, intelligible and coherent basis.

From all that I have experienced in my life, there is no way to prove that god/gods exists and there is no way to prove that no god/gods exists. But we can show that the claims made by believers are inconsistent or flat out false. All that we can do is address the claims of the believers, their dogma, and their “sacred” writings. Taking them, point by point and case by case to show that they have no merit is the only sort of way to address the validity of their god/gods. There are literally countless claims about god/gods and spiritual crap. Even when you can demonstrate convincingly that a religious claim is false, they can just fabricate a million more. Arguing against religious nonsense is a never ending struggle against the tide of superstitious twaddle that can be whatever the believer wishes it to be.

There is not one microbe of evidence that any god/gods exist.
God/gods can't explain all that exists because god/gods cannot be explained. merely swapping one problem for another.
Theists do not explain any mechanism or process whereby a god/gods created everything. It is merely an appeal to magic.
Faith is necessarily based on belief in unprovable and un-knowable things. thus is generally indistinguishable from gullibility. Trust and faith, as human concepts however are normally based on experience and reason.
God/gods or anything that exists outside the realm of natural reality is necessarily un-knowable, unintelligible and incoherent.
The argument that god/gods cannot be proven, not to exist is irrelevant when one considers that to do so requires that the concept of a supernatural god/gods be intelligible and coherent, which they are not. It is therefore irrational to believe in something that is supernatural.

The burden of proof however does and will always remain with the positive claimant. Only things that exist can leave evidence. From this we can derive that conclusive proof can only come from the person that claims that a thing exists.

But there are more than merely claims, dogma, etc. There are valid arguments in favour of the theistic position. If all you can do is withhold intellectual assent, then in my opinion you cannot claim that you have arrived at your position rationally.[

Wow one line out of the entire post, simply to argue the same thing that was covered above. it appears that you are deliberately being ignorant, As you're simply repeating yourself I will do the same "We are all born tabula rasa, so technically atheist from birth, or if you like non-theist, we are either inculcated/indoctrinated into theism or for the lucky ones, allowed to grow up naturally, it is only through study and critically thinking, do we either shake of the indoctrination, ( if we were subjected to it, that is) or come to the understanding that belief in god/gods is irrational. Thus this means we have arrived at our conclusions rationally, via critical thought and logic, as Tassman stated we "withholding intellectual assent to the conclusion god exists because such conclusion as "god exists" cannot be rationally arrived at." I had thought I made that quite clear in my post however as you disregarded 99%. all you could do was repeat yourself. I've coloured the parts you may have missed and even bolded the one line you took to reply to.

[Juice]

Hey Zack,

Don't think of me as against you as much as trying to help you hone your argument. If it is a valid argument for theism - good. But I'm not sure it is yet.

I think this just demonstrates my point - there are real fundamental disagreements in logic, and its not clear how to resolve them. Paraconsistent logic has its adherents, and also those who doubt it. From your comments so far, you sound closer to a doubter than an advocate. Some people believe logic is a clear discipline, with universally agreed principles and methods; but I think, as one learns more about the immense variety of contrary opinions in the field of logic, the tangle of numerous competing formalisms, one's confidence in logic may decline.

Technically the disagreement appears to be over what it means to “negate.” But this is neither here nor there at this point. My confidence in logic is limited, it always has been. I’ve said from my very first post and my last that logic is merely the best known mechanism (implying not complete and not perfect, just the best we have) and cannot answer every question. I’m happy to concede there is a degree of subjectivity in logic in so far as at least there is disagreement over systems and whether some laws hold in all cases.

Well, one ought to be consistent, unless one has good reasons not to be. If one believes that ethics must be subjective because it has certain properties, then upon it being demonstrated that rationality shares the same properties, then one should either accept rationality as subjective too, or reject the idea that anything having those properties is subjective; but if they reject the later idea, they've lost their justification for believing ethics is subjective. If you look at atheist materialists, I think most of them, when given a choice between objective ethics and subjective rationality, would, however grudgingly, choose the former over the later. (BTW, saying "one ought to be consistent, unless one has good reasons not to be" is not an endorsement of the law of non-contradiction. LNC says true contradictions are *never* allowed; you can reject the absolute prohibition of LNC, while accepting weaker rules that allow contradictions to be true some of the time, but not all the time.)

I agree with being consistent. And we’ll say for the sake of further argument that subjectivity exists in both ethics and logic. In fact, to make things easier for you let’s say there is substantially more subjectivity in logic than in ethics.

Now, how do you make the one-two step from them both being subjective to them both being objective? This is where things get fuzzy because as far as I can see all this accomplishes is forcing your opponent to question their own bias. But maybe that is all you are trying to accomplish? That one-two step needs more fleshing out.

Can you objectively establish the existence of ethics? Can you objectively establish the existence of rationality? If you can, then you have objectively established the existence of the whole composed of ethics plus rationality; the only question then is whether this whole is unified, a whole composed of two deeply connected things working in tandem, or is it a whole of two completely unrelated things arbitrarily squished together. But that is a question about the nature of the whole, not a question about its existence.

Touche. You’ve reminded how irrational the atheist position can be. I felt uneasy asking you to establish the existence of the “unified whole” in the first place. I suspect we might disagree on the nature of that “unified whole” though.

Some similarities: 1) both are systems of valuation (as positive or negative - good/evil, rational/irrational); 2) both are systems of obligation and prohibition (ethics "do this and don't do that", rationality "believe this and don't believe that"); 3) rationality tells you to believe different things in different circumstances (depending on the different evidence available in different situations) - the same belief might be rational to believe when presented with one set of possible evidence, and irrational given a different set; but then ethics tells you to do different things in different situations too (is shooting someone in the head wrong? depends on the circumstances: if it's a random passerby, yes. if the random passerby has a gun and is shooting people at random, no.) 4) You mentioned the existence of unsolvable disagreements, 5) but another similarity is the existence of near universal agreements - almost everyone agrees that killing innocent people for fun is wrong, and almost everyone agrees that "1+1=2". 6) Another is the fact that in both rationality and ethics, people will often agree on the conclusion but disagree on the premises. Everyone agrees that murder is wrong, but different people give widely different explanations of why. Everyone agrees that "1+1=2", but mathematicians can fill many volumes with arguments over what is the best way to prove that. So I've grasped on to way more than just one similarity here.

These similarities are weak. I’ll explain why I think so.

1. Agreed to an extent. However, what is ethical is contingent upon what is rational. On this I’m sure we agree. So although they are both systems of valuation so to speak they are not strictly speaking mutually exclusive systems. This makes it rather absurd to argue by analogy as though they are wholly separate systems.
2. I would disagree that rationality is a system of obligation and prohibition so to speak in the same sense ethics is. Ethics tell us what is right and wrong action and we are obligated to comply or we face tangible consequence. Rationality tells us what is and is not rational thinking. There is no tangible consequence, in the same sense as ethics, to irrational thinking. So in actuality this appears to bring up a meaningful difference.
3. Is a spin off of (2)
4. Agreed.
5. This seems rather week to count as a similarity. There are near universal agreements among creationists and near universal agreements among Evolutionists. Would that be a cogent argument for similarity between creation and evolution? I don’t know, I’m not convinced on this one.
6. This seems to be another spin off as well from (5).


Now that I think about it, perhaps a stronger way for you to argue would be to argue that ethics are contigent upon rationality and because rationality is largely objective so is ethics. What do you think?

You complain the similarities are too few, while I think they are extensive - but how many similarities must exist for you to agree an analogy is strong rather than weak? Where does one draw the line? I think I've counted six, is that enough? Not enough? How many would be enough then? Name a number. I can think of some more.

I’ve counted maybe two and that grants that we treat ethics and logic as mutually exclusive systems when I don't believe they are. But therein lies the inherent difficulty with arguing by analogy anyway. There is no set number, there is no objective way to make the argument stick. One hopes it is cogent enough to convince someone. It has rhetorical value to be sure. But not much more. Which is why I said earlier I think there are better ways of arguing for the objectivity of ethics if this your end goal.

I know what modus ponens is, thank you very much. There are two extremes - "This principle is always correct" and "This principle is always wrong". Then there is the middle-ground, "Well, it seems to work most of the time, but there is a lot we don't know about it, so we can't say for sure whether it will work in every case, especially not unusual cases we haven't even thought of yet." So I agree on a practical level, that modus ponens is useful, and of course I use it; but I'm hesitant to declare it a principle of universal applicability, because I don't know that for sure. There are many cases in which I feel comfortable using it, but how can I say for sure that in some strange cases which right now I might not even be able to conceive of, it might not be correct? (Actually, in some logics you can't use modus ponens; it doesn't work in LP, for instance.)
What does "valid" mean? Correct in all cases? Correct in most cases? Correct in some cases? If someone believed that modus ponens was correct in 99.999% of cases, and wrong in the other 0.001% of cases, they'd be justified in using modus ponens a lot, and maybe even justified in not being on the lookout for those rare cases. But they don't agree that it is correct, in the sense that someone who believes it to be correct 100% of the time means by "correct". But my confidence in modus ponens is greater than my confidence in the law of the excluded middle or the law of non-contradiction.

Let's cut through the bull here Zack. Setting aside these yet to be discovered “strange cases” for a moment, you do concede your confidence in modus ponens as one of our places to at least start looking at what is and is not rational is strong enough for you to trust it enough to use it, do you not?

To call yourself rational, do you need 100% confidence in your own rationality? Do you need a set of perfect rules that always work? Or can you get by with a bag of tricks that seem to work most of the time, but you wouldn't be surprised if some of them were less than perfect?

C’mon Zack. You don’t really believe logic is merely “a bag of tricks” do you? I don’t expect anything constructed by man, such as logic, to be perfect. We do the best we can with what we have.

I don't subscribe to no mechanisms. I believe there are many potential mechanisms available. But I don't need to make an exhaustive list ahead of time, and nor do I need to make a final decision on the validity of any individual one either.

When you engage in discourse with someone, you try to find some principles you share in common, and see what you can build off those. You don't need irrefutable proof that those principles are perfectly correct, for all people, for all places, for all time and for all eternity. You just need some temporary agreement on them to continue. Now, if you want to believe they are perfectly correct and perfectly universal, you can, but you don't have to believe that to move forward.

So can we agree that modus ponens at least is a good place to start?

Cheers.

[Juice]

Wow...[blah, blah, blah]...

Bert, it’s just that no one except Tassman takes you seriously on this forum. You lost all credibility with me when you started a thread attempting to argue Jesus did not exist here.

Further, you haven’t addressed my argument and haven't shown you are capable of understanding it anyway. There is nothing to respond to.

[bertatberts]

Bert, it’s just that no one except Tassman takes you seriously on this forum. You lost all credibility with me when you started a thread attempting to argue Jesus did not exist here.

I don't care what you think about me, but you have shown your true colours here, because you're being dishonest, the title of that thread clearly states "There is no evidence for a biblical Jesus" I have never stated that Jesus never existed. It has be reiterated hundreds of times on that thread but you Christians don't seem to get it.

Further, you haven’t addressed my argument and haven't shown you are capable of understanding it anyway. There is nothing to respond to.

<Sarcasm>

Of course I haven't!

This is a fair warning to those sarcastically impaired the preceding text was written in jest.

You seem to think god has been shown to exist, but which one? if you don't wish to respond, then that is your prerogative, I'll just take it you aren't able too.
I would rather converse with someone who wishes to have an honest debate, anyway.

[Juice]

I don't care what you think about me, but you have shown your true colours here, because you're being dishonest, the title of that thread clearly states "There is no evidence for a biblical Jesus" I have never stated that Jesus never existed. It has be reiterated hundreds of times on that thread but you Christians don't seem to get it.

After tons of evidence was given to you by Rational Gaze your response in post #5 was, and I quote, “there is nothing in your post that suggest a biblical person called jesus existed. Sorry”

Now I confess I haven’t read the entire thread (it is after all over 200 pages) and maybe at some point you conceded that the Jesus spoken of in the NT did in fact exist. Here’s your chance to gain back some credibility with me, Bert. Did Jesus exist? Yes or no?

<Sarcasm>

Of course I haven't!

This is a fair warning to those sarcastically impaired the preceding text was written in jest.

You seem to think god has been shown to exist, but which one? if you don't wish to respond, then that is your prerogative, I'll just take it you aren't able too.
I would rather converse with someone who wishes to have an honest debate, anyway.

Okay, let's explore your reasoning here, Bert. Let’s say for the sake of argument, Bert, I can’t show you which God exists. Are you going to argue it logically follows from there that God does not exist, Bert?

[pancreasman]

...

Okay, let's explore your reasoning here, Bert. Let’s say for the sake of argument, Bert, I can’t show you which God exists. Are you going to argue it logically follows from there that God does not exist, Bert?

You know, I couldn't help it. Reading that sentence I couldn't help picturing a theological discussion between Ernie and Bert.

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[Psychic Missile]

But there apparently are valid arguments for the existence of God. Cogent enough to convince even the staunchest atheist scholars to move from atheism to theism – Antony Flew comes to mind. So the claim that “theists don't have a valid argument for the existence of God” would appear to be without merit.

Under my paradigm of caliming that one has arrived at one's position rationally one does not need to prove the absence of fairies (nor necessarily prove the absence of God) for one to claim that one has arrived at one's position rationally. To arrive one's position rationally, under my paradigm, one only need to demonstrate that one has arrived at one's position by building a valid argument, in favour of one's position, that adheres to the principles of logic. Not merely withhold intellectual assent to the valid arguments against one's position.

You're saying that if an argument convinces someone it must be valid. That doesn't see ridiculous to you?

What is your valid argument in favor of your position that fairies don't exist? I think you mean that there must be a counterargument to a valid argument. The issue then would be whether there are valid arguments for theism, not whether there are valid atheist counterarguments.