anewaphorist

As an atheist, I have many reasons for denying the existence of God. However, one of the more defensible, philosophic arguments I maintain is known as the presumption of atheism, a sobriquet given it by English philosopher Tony Flew in his essay of the same title.

Although many philosophers have argued against the existence of God, I believe (as Flew did) that it is not necessary to do so in order to establish the rationality of atheism. Because of the nature of theism, we ought to all be atheists until presented with strong evidence or sound arguments for theism, even if we do not possess any such evidence or arguments for atheism. Now there are two forms of atheism as a result of the presumption of atheism: strong atheism and weak atheism.

I have no doubt you have heard the position of the weak atheists: that theirs is the default position because he who asserts must prove. Theists obviously make the positive claim that God exists, whereas weak atheists merely withhold their assent from the claim. The theist, thus, bears the burden of proof. Since he who asserts must prove, the weak atheist will be justified in his atheism unless the theist can offer a sound argument or strong evidence for God's existence.

The other position is the presumption of strong atheism, who asserts that God does not exist. The strong atheist reformulates the presumption of atheism argument. He or she does not point to the tentativeness of their position as a reason precluding an argument but rather points to the ordinary nature of their position as fulfilling this role. Strong atheism does not go beyond our experiences; it coheres with our observations of the world around us. Theism, however, makes extraordinary claims about a heavenly realm, spiritual beings, and the resurrection of the dead. Since these claims are extraordinary and do not fit with out everyday experiences, they are to be disbelieved except in the face of a sound argument or extraordinary evidence for the existence of God.

Now, I outline these two rudimentary and logical arguments for atheism to see if anyone can disprove either the strong or weak atheist with sound logic or evidence against their claims. I am not asking for sound logic or evidence in regards to proving the existence of God; we all know such rationality does not pervade religion. But I will be very impressed if someone can refute either of the two positions without reverting to one of the typical cop-outs (i.e., "God is above all logic," "Logic is man-made," etc...).

Trocisp

One can very easily refute weak atheism.

Weak atheism posits that there is no god, because Occam's Razor dictates that the simpler answer is that naturally occurring phenomena can more easily be explained by logic than the supernatural.

The point at which all physical laws break down is 5 or so seconds after the big bang (pre-baryogensis). Since there is no applicable logic, there must be a God.





Not that I believe that. If I was ever presented with hard evidence of a God, I'd accept him or her, them or it, however, until them... it's Occam's Razor for me... There's no evidence of God, so why believe in him or her, them or it?


No evidence for unicorns, why believe in them? What makes God different from Unicorns? The fact that he or she, them or it has supernatural powers? Wouldn't that make it harder to believe?


To each their own.

dj Dozhe

opiate of the masses.

Hashishi

I'd argue that most 'believers' or 'theists' are pantheists at heart and that established religion and all religious doctrine is an abstraction thereof. How then to refute either argument? This is God: it is omnipresent; the summary existence and experience thereof from the material to the immaterial is God and is therefore self-evident. Theological argument would be entirely redundant if such emphasis weren't placed on the doctrinal intricacies of established religion (i.e. an anthrocentric super-entity)

I don't offer this position without evidence, either: the most 'primitive' or 'untouched' peoples discovered in modern times ascribe to pantheistic spirituality; the dreamtime of the indigenous peoples of Australia and Native American spirituality, to name but two. Theism, as we debate it, it is for the Semites and it is from my perspective a redundant topic.

__________________

Trocisp

Actually, both Aboriginal American and Australian (as well as Amazonian aboriginals, not to be confused with "amazonian women-tribe") peoples have, more or less, structured belief systems.

Not nearly so structured as the Catholic or Christian churches in general, however, there are doctorines.


And, I'll say as I've said before, refer to my signature. "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Hashishi

That wasn't my point. Before I clarify, I do understand this is a huge generalisation, but hey?

The further spiritual beliefs are from 'civilisation' the more pantheistic they become. Succinctly put, all religion is an abstraction of a pure, pantheistic world view.

nornerator

I'm not sure if you are joking or not. But the "logic" presented is a non-sequitur, that is, it doesn't make sense. Basically you are saying "Since A is not explainable at present moment, god must exist" Not a very good argument because the two are not related in any way what-so-ever.

In addition to this, our physical laws can account for time much smaller than a second after the big bang. They break down close to the point of explosion. This has nothing to do with evidence for god. All this says is that our physical laws are not perfect, which should be obvious since we do not actually know what causes gravity, how can we expect the rest of our physical laws to be 100% perfect. Only time and research can improve our physical laws.

Trocisp

You obviously have a sore misunderstanding of physics.

We do, in fact, understand what gravity is. It's the curvature of space-time. As evidenced by the deeper you go into a gravity well the slower time moves (GPS satellites clocks tick 38 nanoseconds faster per day than equal clocks on earth).

I, if you noticed, didn't say that I would refute it with solid evidence, nor did I say I that it was a correct rebuttle. I just said I could. There's a very, very big difference, nornerator.

nornerator

We do not understand the cause of gravity. We know how to measure it and roughly understand how it interacts with objects but unlike the other forces; Strong, Weak, and Electromagnetic we do not have a particle that carries this force. Although I am not a physics major I have a fairly good conceptual understanding of physics. The idea in the standard model is that different subatomic particles interact with a theoretical particle called the Higgs Boson and this is what causes the forces to precipitate. Gravity does not have a particle, there have not been any observed gravitons. We do not understand gravity at the fundamental level like we do the other forces. This is the entire basis for coming up with a unified theory of physics. We have not successfully merged Relativity with Quantum Mechanics, this is a very large area of study.

So yes, we understand how to measure gravity on very large scales and it works rather nicely, however because we do not understand gravity fundamentally we have not been able to measure it on the quantum scale.

Our understanding of gravity lags behind the rest of physics.

Trocisp

Read this.

I'm a fan of the General Relativity explanation.

First, you have to link Space and Time, SpaceTime. Simple enough, all the dimensions exist together (up/down, left/right, forward/backward, +time/-time).

Now that you have a single, larger object, you can better understand gravity. Think of a trampoline, if you had a person standing in the middle and rolled a ball around him or her. That action is much the same as the Earth orbiting through curved space-time around the sun. Or, the moon orbiting through curved SpaceTime around the sun.






It's not a particle, but an actual curvature of the "Fabric" of the universe itself.