A actual link might help?

Looking forward to this one!!!

I can't decide. Should I bring popcorn? Or a bazooka? Both??? I'm so confused!!!!

@Foghorn Knowing 180 bring a dictionary,a censor for expletives/ad hom and some amphetamines to stay awake from all the repetition and boring writing style.
More popcorn!?

Boring writing style??? Hey, whoever this number guy is he'd better stay off my turf!! I've got a brand to protect you know. He can have the expletives I guess.

@Foghorn Lol!

Here's the link to what we're supposed to be discussing.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11201/debate-the-logic-of-atheism

I drifted off to dreamland a few times while reading 3017’s opening post but from the bits I picked up he is accusing 180 of possessing an “Einsteinian grudge” against the color red.

Why did Einstein hate red?

I believe his main point is that the atheists lacks the necessary sense/understanding to see the truth of gods existence like a theist does.
Also some kind of equivalence between theistic and atheistic reasoning.
Very verbose though. Difficult to read

I anticipate a lot of unnecessary and distracting aggravating text formatting on the one hand, and a none-too-gradual devolution into "name-calling" on the other. :down:

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This is why a moderator is necessary. To keep those two things from derailing the discussion like every other time. Without one we are into the same old shit as before.

One of those things will be moderated, but not the other...

I can’t tell which one your disdain is for lol
Probably a good thing.

Atheism: disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

Should be replaced with....

Atheism: The belief that human reason is qualified to generate meaningful statements on subjects the scale of gods.

Theism: The belief that holy books and personal experience are qualified to generate meaningful statements on subjects the scale of gods.

Both sides share an agreement that human beings are capable, by some method or another, of generating meaningful statements on subjects the scale of gods. If that assumption can't be proven, then the entire debate collapses under it's own weight.

I see a very interesting argument emerging from the debate between 3017amen and 180 Proof. Foghorn beat me to it, all I can offer is my own two cents.

1. If theists can prove theism then, there are arguments to prove theism. [that's what debates are]

2. All arguments for theism (except one which I'll get to later) have been thoroughly refuted by atheists [true]

3. If 2 (above) is true then, there are no arguments to prove theism.

Ergo,

4. There are no arguments to prove theism [2, 3 MP]

Hence,

5. Theists can't prove theism [1, 4 MT]

What are the options for theists?

One immediately comes to mind:

God moves in a mysterious way — William Cowper

That god moves in mysterious ways means one and only one thing:

6. God is uber-rational [God's rational but at a level that our own rationality can't process.]

7. If God's uber-rational then, there's no point arguing about God

Ergo,

8. There's no point arguing about God

Show's over folks!

The theistic argument I said I would talk about later: The Ontological Argument (St. Anselm)

Well, that opening post is... embarrassing.

180's reply is about all that one could do with such a poor opening - try again, 3017.

Well, that opening post is... embarrassing. — Banno

I have to agree. The first post should be a statement of one's own position! For all the learned philosophical arguments rallied to assault a dictionary definition of atheism, I still don't know why 3017 is a Christian Existentialist.

180's reply is about all that one could do with such a poor opening - try again, 3017. — Banno

I actually disagree. 180's opening shouldn't have been diverted by a weak opening by 3017, but should have just made out his case as if he had gone first. Otherwise, we just reach an immediate impasse and the discussion just ends with a whimper.

Assuming 180 has a substantive claim that Atheism is a logically supportable position, I'm not left with any basis from his post that he is correct. If, though, his point is that 3017 didn't make his point and he's willing to leave it at that, then I'm left agnostic to this issue, with one side making a failed effort at his position and the other refusing to engage.

Assuming 180 has a substantive claim that Atheism is a logically supportable position — Hanover

First, let us prove that logic is relevant to such enormous questions so far beyond human scale. Until such proof is provided, all sides of the debate lack credibility, and the debate collapses under it's own weight.

As example, imagine two religious people having a debate about competing interpretations of Bible verses which are describing God. Until the Bible is shown to be a credible authority on the subject of gods, such debates are fun, but essentially meaningless.

A collapse of the theism vs. atheism debate is not automatically a bad thing. It could be just another step in a credible investigation which is making progress. As example, should we discover that hammers are not a good tool for fixing broken windows, that would be progress. Having discarded the hammer we can now turn our attention elsewhere.

If both theism and atheism are discarded, we are left with nothing. It's typically assumed this is a failure, but that's not necessarily true. A state of conceptual nothing actually matches the nature of the vast majority of reality pretty well. This would seem to matter for those who wish for their philosophy to be based on observation of reality.

As you like. I don't see that 180 is obliged to do 3017's thinking for him.

Assuming I came to the debate not knowing whether to vote for Atheism or Theism and today is election day, who do I vote for based upon the respective positions submitted by our candidates?

Be the smart one! Abstain!

@Hanover The debate should be more free-flowing. Let 180 make his case for. And 3017 against. Let them do it piecemeal,and if one is slower than the other so be it. The other can catch up. It doesn't have to be staccato or post for post.
Pretty slow and a very poor response from 180 to respond. 3017s opening post was not ideal,but I get the gist. 180 said nothing.

I think that we should listen to both positions and judge the arguments fairly. The debate has barely started, and I wish to learn from it. Part of the problem which I see is that the debate position is framed in the proving of the negative, or of arguing against atheism, as the position of there being no God, or of it being illogical. This will depend upon a specific viewpoint of atheism, because there may be variations of atheism. So, this means that Amen has potentially put himself in the position of refuting any form of atheism. He may have set himself a task of lifelong philosophy.

However, as I have interacted with Amen and Proof, I wish to give both a full hearing, because they are probably approaching the hardest question in philosophy.

Assuming I came to the debate not knowing whether to vote for Atheism or Theism and today is election day, who do I vote for based upon the respective positions submitted by our candidates? — Hanover

A vote could be based on which speaker is the most articulate, explains their position the most clearly etc. We could vote for a particular writer based on our opinion of their writing skill.

But in order to get us to read them in the first place, we'd first have to see a debate which doesn't just recycle what's already been said 10 billion times.

From the debate thread...

The following definition, I thought, was agreed to by both of us:

Atheism: disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

That's the dictionary definition of atheism, written by people who work at dictionary companies, not by anyone who understands atheism in the real world.

Atheism is not a lack of belief. It is instead a belief in an authority other than the authorities referenced by theism. Atheism is not a negation, it's a competing assertion. Thus...

1) Both positions bear the burden of proving the qualifications of their chosen authority for the task at hand.

2) Neither can do so.

3) Debate collapses.

@Foghorn I think the debate centres around can you disprove human eternity by so called logic or pure rationality? The answer is obviously no.
Even staunch militant atheists like Richard Dawkins accept you cannot logically disprove the existence of God.

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