I get your point. I am an atheist too. But I guess you go to scientific to put arguments why God literally does not exist. Yes, as you said, science is always a good statement/proof against secularism. You put a good example, the evolution theory.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of things in our life that don't need depend on the science but it is also important in belief: law, ethics, democracy, moral, etc... These are abstract and complex concepts and I do not think they depend on "God" or something higher in Cosmos.
For example: respect each other in society is a good example of coliving. If I hurt, robb, or even kill you I get punished by a court (the justice representation in the order) but me as a atheist I will not say "God will punish you" because I do not believe it.

This also depends of free will. Are we truly free to take our own decisions in the Cosmos? Is something observing us out there?
Yes every human it himself and it's consequences. There is not true predetermined context. Also, I do not believe in abstract term as "Haven" and "hell". Those are even metaphors. Probably you can even think your life is a "hell" when you do not know what a hell is.

How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? The answer, if we are just a bunch of chemicals, is that we can’t. — Franz Liszt

That's not at all obvious.

If you say ‘science and logic are illusions’ then you’ve come to that conclusion using logic (and likely science as well) which is absurd!
I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe. — Franz Liszt

You can't conclude anything from a paradox. As you yourself just acknowledged, you have undermined your own reasoning. Any further conclusion that you make on the basis of invalid reasoning will be invalid.

I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe.
This goes against my instincts, but from a philosophical standpoint, science and logic are kind of dependent on this to be true — Franz Liszt

You want to say that science and logic depend on the reliability of our cognitive abilities. I would object that you implicitly assume said reliability whenever you embark on any cognitive task, such as putting together this argument. You can't withhold this assumption without undermining your argument.

But let's grant your requirement for the sake of an argument. Why is supernatural design the only answer to this requirement? If you are a product of design, it is still an open question whether you were designed with reliable cognitive abilities or not. So you have to assume that you are a product of design, and that you were designed for reliable cognitive abilities. But as long as you are helping yourself to assumptions, wouldn't it be more parsimonious to assume just that our cognitive abilities are reliable?

Theism is manifestly delusional. How do you get a-theism as delusion?

If we are just loads of chemicals grouped together through a random procces, — Franz Liszt

Abiogenesis, the creation of living organisms from non-living matter, as it is currently understood does not involve chemicals grouped together through a random process. This is currently being discussed in another thread on this forum:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10328/the-origin-of-the-first-living-cell-with-or-without-evolution/p1

How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? — Franz Liszt

Our current understanding is that all living organisms on earth evolved out of primitive single-celled organisms through the action of natural selection and other mechanisms. One way of looking at this is that everything about us has evolved to keep us alive in this world until we can reproduce. That includes our central nervous system and our mental processes. Our minds were built specifically to allow us to navigate through the reality we find ourselves in.

This goes against my instincts, but from a philosophical standpoint, science and logic are kind of dependent on this to be true.
I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe. — Franz Liszt

I can relate. I too was indoctrinated into a theistic worldview by my back-to-the-bible fundamentalist religion. But, upon reaching the age of reason, I began to ask embarrassing questions. Since no satisfactory answers were forthcoming, I eventually rejected scriptural Theism. But I also asked embarrassing questions about the Materialistic model offered by modern science. So, for a while, I became an undecided, yet still searching Agnostic. Apparently Atheists simply abandoned the search for any "higher truth" (than Science) long ago. The "delusion" of Atheism is that it has found a plausible answer to the "hard" questions of "God, the Universe, and Everything".

Ironically and paradoxically, modern Science has never reached the final truth on anything. It's always evolving into newer Theories of Everything to replace the old TOE. For example, the quest for a fundamental "atom" of reality, has led scientists down the yellow brick road to a magic world in the clouds, made of amorphous "fields" of mathematical probabilities. Like the "elusive butterfly of love", the higher truths remain just beyond our grasp.

Nevertheless, in my old age, I am comfortable with my own personal philosophical worldview, that I call Enformationism. I won't go into the technical details here, but the relevant point is that it's neither Theistic nor Atheistic, but Deistic. It's based on the philosophical axiom that a First Cause (your higher truth?) is logically necessary to explain the subsequent series of causes & effects since the hypothetical Big Bang beginning. But, it provides no thus-saith-the-lord assurances to assuage the doubts raised by our limited understanding of how & why the world exists and works as it does, in a progressive & orderly fashion. So, Science will continue to pursue mundane truths, while Philosophy fecklessly attempts to net the "higher truths", fluttering just out of reach. How do your instincts feel about that kind of open-ended paradigm of contingent truth? :cool:

God, the Universe, and Everything Else
https://youtu.be/-IbIzCwb1xQ

“The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is...42!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Introduction to Enformationism
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page80.html

We believe that we are just biological animals or just chemicals grouped together through evolution. However, I think that this might be a scientific and logical fallacy. — Franz Liszt

I think so, also. At issue is the nature of valid reasoning. This is not something that evolutionary theory deals with, let alone explains. Nor is it something found in the theories of physics and chemistry.

What happened, historically, is that it is presumed that the scientific account superseded the previous religious and philosophical accounts, which were interwoven. Plainly the Biblical accounts are religious mythology, and whatever truth they convey is symbolic. But the broader Christian philosophy contains a great deal more than just religious mythology, as it incorporated the best traditions of philosophy from the ancient world. This was already a highly sophisticated and insightful tradition, and that particular baby was arguably thrown out with the bathwater of Biblical literalism.

But due to the cultural dynamics, it seems necessary to make a choice between two apparently irreconcilable visions - the religious, or the scientific. You're either a sensible, scientific person, or a superstitious religious person. That is the way popular culture depicts it.

(There were and are also schools of thought that tried to accomodate both, like Bergson and Tielhard du Chardin although they have very little visibility in current culture. Theistic evolution is a reasonable attitude, in my view, although not to be confused with 'intelligent design'.)

In any case, the seat of the paradox you're sensing is expressed in a form called 'the argument from reason'. From the Wiki entry on same, a snippet from C S Lewis who advocated this argument:

One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the naturalistic worldview].... The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.... Unless Reason is an absolute--all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.

The argument is that the laws of rational inference cannot be reduced to or explained in terms of material or physical interactions, because they belong to a different level.

Support: Reasoning requires insight into logical relations. A process of reasoning (P therefore Q) is rational only if the reasoner sees that Q follows from, or is supported by, P, and accepts Q on that basis. Thus, reasoning is trustworthy (or "valid", as Lewis sometimes says) only if it involves a special kind of causality, namely, rational insight into logical implication or evidential support. If a bit of reasoning can be fully explained by nonrational causes, such as fibers firing in the brain or a bump on the head, then the reasoning is not reliable, and cannot yield knowledge.

So, it's a question of the relationship of logical necessity and physical causation. I think the argument is saying that if everything is determined by physical causation - which is what physicalism presumes - then logical necessity has no real warrant. Furthermore, I think it's a valid argument, although I don't think it 'proves' the existence of God, as many of its advocates want to argue. But at least it opens the door to the possibility, which is all I think philosophy can do.

How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? — Franz Liszt

Science is a combination of logic and observation. It's all built on assumptions about the value of deduction and inference.

No logic at all is required to doubt those fundamental assumptions, and when we do, we may find ourselves trying to come up with scaffolding to support them.

Placing God as that scaffolding is just another way of saying that don't know what accounts for our confidence.

Placing God as that scaffolding is just another way of saying that don't know what accounts for our confidence. — frank

Yep, and it is a great example of the fallacy from incredulity in action. Which is - "I can't think of any other explanation for the world therefore God. Or Aliens... or...."

f we are just loads of chemicals grouped together through a random procces, then everything we experience may well be wrong. How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? The answer, if we are just a bunch of chemicals, is that we can’t. Using this logic, science is just an illusion, so is logic. However, we have used science and logic to come to these conclusions, which becomes a paradox. — Franz Liszt

If your thinking is so loose then no wonder you are confused. But having said that - I don't know who you are but what you have done here is build a standard Christian apologist argument as per William Lane Craig. This what a cunning apologist might do if he or she were to blunder onto this site.

Why not try this to steel man the effort - atheism is self-refuting because if all we are is matter behaving to random forces, then logic can't make sense because it has no foundation for making meaning. Logical argument falls down if we don't have God and a guarantor for all meaning, goodness and truth.

You can’t conclude anything from a paradox

This is quite literally my entire point. The person who says that we are just a bunch of chemicals is making a claim that leads to a paradox.
Of course you can’t ‘conclude’ anything, but that’s a misleading way to think about it.
In this situation, to make the claim ‘we are just a bunch of chemicals’ leads to a paradox, which we logically wish to avoid. In this case, as the paradox follows modal logic, we just have to invalidate the first claim. So I would say that the only way to avoid the paradox is to say that we are not just a bunch of chemicals.

However the ‘paradox’ I presented brings up a key issue: we need to assume that we are right for our logic to be true.
We will always have to grapple with this, or else that too will lead to a paradox, so we need to avoid it too. I suggested that the best way to avoid it is to just say that we are intelligently designed by (or with) a all truthful [thing?]. However, I might be assuming something, so please suggest what an alternative answer could be.

There’s not much I can do to convince you that I am not a Christian apologist, but you’ll have to take my word on it that I am not. In any case, what I presented above does not point to Christianity in the slightest, let alone ‘God’.

Thank you for the steel man, however the very last thing you say, I disagree with. I do not think we have to be so quick as to say ‘God’ but I guess it can depend on how you define said ‘God’. What I suggested is that the best (or most rational) conclusion is that we are designed by an all truthful [thing?]. This means that this creator designed evolution, and so in some way shape or form involves in some sort of divine intervention.
I am beginning to think that I took too far a assumption based off of some other responses I have received. If we need our logic to be true, is there another explanation you can think of?

I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe. — Franz Liszt

If we don't even know whether or not we can know anything, we nevertheless cannot help but act as though we believed one way or the other (either that we can gain knowledge, or not), by either trying to figure things out, or not. To not try would guarantee that we will not figure things out, so if we want to figure things out if it should be possible, but we don't know whether or not it's possible, the best bet is to try, rather than just to give up out the gate.

But there are two different kinds of "giving up out the gate": one is to assume that knowledge is impossible, but the other is to assume that it is guaranteed. The first is to assume that there are questions that cannot be answered; the latter is to assume that there are answers that must not be questioned.

So if you're starting from a place of such uncertainty that you're not even certain about uncertainty, the practical solution is to start by avoiding the assumptions of either unquestionable answer or unanswerable questions, and try to figure out to the best of your ability what is more or less true, keeping in mind always that any answer might be wrong, but that that doesn't mean that every answer has to be wrong[/i].

The person who says that we are just a bunch of chemicals is making a claim that leads to a paradox. — Franz Liszt

Hi. I think the issue here is this questionable portrait of the atheist. I'm an atheist , and I think such a statement is silly. One way to think about a certain type of atheist is as an agnostic who is pretty sure that the gods from all the holy books are figments of the human imagination. This kind of atheist doesn't have to deny something like consciousness or identity or what-have-you, or reduce mind to matter. This atheist doesn't have to have a theory about how it all got here, etc., or of what humans really are if they aren't just a 'bunch of chemicals'. They just don't find the god-stories plausible when taken literally. And they are OK with not having all the answers that a theologian might offer.

I am grateful for this reply. This Enformationism is rather interesting and I will attempt to think about it more.

Thank you for your comment. I, an atheist, am aware that we do not have a single set of views, however my mere point was that the person who makes the claim that I was mentioning, is wrong. That’s all :)

I appreciate your politeness. Sorry if implied that you weren't an atheist despite your saying so more than once. I probably read into your ambivalence.

IMO, we tend to hide our ignorance from ourselves in the smoke of language. I like philosophy for trying to make us aware of this strange stuff that comes out of our mouths.

You can’t conclude anything from a paradox

This is quite literally my entire point. The person who says that we are just a bunch of chemicals is making a claim that leads to a paradox. — Franz Liszt

I guess you didn't read anything after this sentence.

You want to say that science and logic depend on the reliability of our cognitive abilities. I would object that you implicitly assume said reliability whenever you embark on any cognitive task, such as putting together this argument. You can't withhold this assumption without undermining your argument.

But let's grant your requirement for the sake of an argument. Why is supernatural design the only answer to this requirement? If you are a product of design, it is still an open question whether you were designed with reliable cognitive abilities or not. So you have to assume that you are a product of design, and that you were designed for reliable cognitive abilities. But as long as you are helping yourself to assumptions, wouldn't it be more parsimonious to assume just that our cognitive abilities are reliable? — SophistiCat

The argument, which is very badly put by the OP, is that if you seek to *explain* reason in terms of naturalism or evolutionary development, then this devalues the sovereignty of reason. Reason is sovereign because it is capable of revealing truths, not on account of it being the outcome of physical causation or evolutionary adaptation, which is a near-universal assumption.

In any case, what I presented above does not point to Christianity in the slightest, let alone ‘God’. — Franz Liszt

Actually the argument you presented is known as a presuppositional argument for God and is used by apologists almost word for word. I just polished it up for you. I don't mind if you are an apologist or an atheist. I just thought it was amusing.

am beginning to think that I took too far a assumption based off of some other responses I have received. If we need our logic to be true, is there another explanation you can think of? — Franz Liszt

There are so many responses possible, I simply don't have the energy to go through them. A few brief comments are as follows.

Firstly, the idea of God has no explanatory power. When someone says 'God did it' this is exactly the same as saying the Magic Man did it or Aliens did it. Aliens are probably more plausible since thousands of people claim abduction experiences and we know there are other planets. (BTW I do not have reason to believe in aliens).

Incidentally, if someone says - "I can't think of any other explanation other than God did it" - that is a logical fallacy called the fallacy of incredulity. There are lots of things we can't explain, running to the supernatural - whether it be Brahman or Osiris - is lazy and retrograde. When humans couldn't explain diseases (not all that long ago and still the case in some countries) we thought sicknesses were caused by evil magic, witches and demons.

Secondly, the believer in God has to demonstrate that reason or meaning is impossible without a God or Magic Man as a starting premise. This can't be done. It's just a claim made.

The big one is this. You need to establish God exists before it can be a candidate explanation for anything. You can’t just say the only reason logic makes since is because God exits. This is no more meaningful than saying the only reason meaning exists is because the Hindu creator Brahma exists. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Additionally, there is no explanation of just how God or Brahma might be responsible for the existence of meaning. This unsatisfying argument, like most uses of God has, as I already stated above, no explanatory power. In almost every instance where God is offered as an explanation you could swap God for the word magic and it would serve the same function in any argument.

The argument, which is very badly put by the OP, is that if you seek to *explain* reason in terms of naturalism or evolutionary development, then this devalues the sovereignty of reason. Reason is sovereign because it is capable of revealing truths, not on account of it being the outcome of physical causation or evolutionary adaptation, which is a near-universal assumption. — Wayfarer

No, that's not the OP argument, that's just one of your favorite refrains. The OP denies that reason can be explained in terms of naturalism. He says that if naturalism is true, then we can't have confidence in our ability to reason, which in turn undermines all our beliefs, including beliefs about science and logic. Therefore, our ability to reason has to be put into the explanation "by hand" - God's hand.

This is a species of a skeptical argument, articulated among others (though without the non sequitur conclusion) by Darwin himself. A more elaborate version was later put forward by Plantinga (EAAN).

I was just trying to answer the first thing you were saying, is that bad? :meh:

My point is that we need to be designed by something that has all truth for our logic to be correct. The word ‘God’ can imply other things. The reasons it cannot be aliens is because we would have to know they are all truthful too, but then they would need something all truthful. We cannot have infinite regression, so it’s more logical to say that we were designed by a all truthful [thing?].
Sorry if I have made a mistake or misinterpreted your comment.

"Atheism is delusional"

I guess that depends on how you define atheism. To me it's about criticizing blind faith and bad religion.

Ironically Jesus Christ never advocated for blind faith. He told people to believe in him because of his miracles. He also denied being God. When he quoted the bible he used Jewish scriptures and not the book we have now. And lastly he never described the church as we have in its current form.

In my town there is a man with brain damage. He now believes he is a motorcycle. He goes around town on his bicycle making motorcycle noises. Every freakin' day. What you believe is true, at least for you.

In Daoism we believe that the ultimate truth cannot be defined. That is why some people think the Dao De Jing is beautiful poetry and others think it's as nonsensical as the Law of Murphy. I simply don't remember it. :P

Delusion denotes persistent belief that a demonstable falsehood is true.

Atheism (however defined) is not a demonstrable falsehood.

And science, Franz, is defeasible, fallible, approximative, and incomplete; the only "illusion" is scientism which denies science's indispensable gaps & limits. Thus, your thesis (OP) makes no sense.

As for logic being an "illusion" ... :roll:

(Btw, I self-identify as a freethinker, but when pressed I'll often cop to 'anti-theist atheist'.)

I was just trying to answer the first thing you were saying, is that bad? — Franz Liszt

Replying to one sentence taken out of context (only to repeat what you already said several times) is pointless and misleading. If you are not interested in a conversation, then don't bother responding.

Delusion denotes persistent belief that a demonstable falsehood is true.

Atheism (however defined) is not a demonstrable falsehood.

And science, Franz, is defeasible, fallible, approximative, and incomplete; the only "illusion" is scientism which denies science's inescapable gaps & limits. Thus, your thesis (OP) makes no sense.

As for logic being an "illusion" ... :roll:

(Btw, I self-identify as a freethinker, but when pressed I'll often cop to 'anti-theist atheist'.) — 180 Proof

:clap: :up:

I applaud your overall outlook/approach to reality but if I'm not mistaken, despite the high regard for logic in philosophy, all that's been going on in philosophy since logic came into its own with Aristotle is disproof of belief systems, hypotheses, theories via refutation. I daresay there's not even one philosophical position that has been proved conclusively. In other words, logic seems to function more like a weapon designed for assault and is rather ineffective as defensive armor; very few ideas have ever run the gauntlet of logic and lived to tell the tale so to speak. This is not logic's fault of course for under the right circumstances, it can furnish irrefutable proofs but these are few and far between and that only if one is charitable enough to relax the rules.

Perhaps what I want to say is that logic is very much the MVP but its teammates are hopeless and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Having logic on our side since antiquity has made no difference to humanity's collection of truths but it's saving grace has been/is/will be its wondrous ability to, in a manner of speaking, apprehend, put on trial, execute and bury for good falsehoods assuming people are in their senses which may not always be the case.

We cannot have infinite regression, so it’s more logical to say that we were designed by a all truthful [thing?]. — Franz Liszt

You fail to demonstrate a couple of key things and address none of my points. Until you can demonstrate god or that the world can't have been the product of natural processes, you can't really proceed. It sounds more like you are making an assumption based on the fallacy from incredulity - that it can't possibly be any other way than you think.

The reasons it cannot be aliens is because we would have to know they are all truthful too, but then they would need something all truthful. — Franz Liszt

Demonstrate how you come to this conclusion. For Aliens how can you demonstrate that all of life and with it all illusions of causality and meaning as we know it are not just the product of an advanced laboratory?

My point is that we need to be designed by something that has all truth for our logic to be correct. — Franz Liszt

To me this is a strange thought. Why should our logic be perfectly correct? Humans just reason in a certain way, and we can examine the way we reason and seemingly do it more carefully. Why be attached to perfect certainty, perfect logic in the first place? Perhaps these concepts (taken as absolutes) are just residues of monotheism in the first place. The big bearded father in the sky fades away like the Cheshire Cat, and his last residue is metaphysics (the a priori, Forms, etc.)

IMO, studying philosophy (which involves some emotional work, no doubt) leads (some at least) to make peace with a fuzzier view of the world. It's annoying when people mention Wittgenstein, but I'll do it anyway and say that studyingthat kind of language-demystifying philosophy really does dissolve some knots and confusions. It's not at all that certain questions are answered but rather their sloppiness and non-centrality is made visible.

For instance, if you are only hypothesizing about some abstract god who isn't the dude in the bible that gives us all eternal life, then what does it matter? It would clarify things for me and maybe for you to figure out whether this is trivial metaphysics or a genuine religious crisis. Is this issue important because you fear hellfire? Or do you have the philosophical itch for Certainty and a Reason? (I have been interested in mind-matter blah-blah off and on, but in the end it just seems dead to me...with no practical-emotional relevance, a form of chess but without the clarity of its rules.)

To me this is a strange thought. Why should our logic be perfectly correct? — norm

It's not strange, it is a venerable academic argument. He may not know it but he is referring to the Logical Absolutes (I think Aristotle first articulated these) which it is argued are true, above and beyond human minds.

These are the laws of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle which allow us to have reason, maths, science. They are necessary presuppositions to have any kind of communication or thought.

There is a vast scholarship that addresses this notion and these axioms are used by some Christians and Islamic apologists to show that atheism is delusional (hence the title from the OP) because to them it is clear that only the mind of God can make these laws true. Kant expresses similar ideas in his Transcendental Argument, ripped off by many to make the point that God is a necessary precondition for our world to be intelligible.

In other words, we have the presuppositions of the laws of logic (which we all need to make) but it is said we need a 4th presupposition - that a God exists - for the first three to work.

My response above is that things that do not exist cannot be the cause of other things. If you want to show that God is the cause of something (logical absolutes or creation) you need to demonstrate that God is real. I doubt it can ever be done - a Nobel and Templeton prize, a fortune and everlasting fame awaits anyone who can do this.

So if God explains logic or meaning, you need to demonstrate 2 things. 1 that God exists and 2 how exactly God is responsible for them.

How do we know that meaning or logic are not a product of the natural universe? This would also need to be demonstrated.

It's not strange, it is a venerable academic argument. He may not know it but he is referring to the Logical Absolutes (I think Aristotle first articulated these) which it is argued are true, above and beyond human minds.

These are the laws of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle which allow us to have reason, maths, science. They are necessary presuppositions to have any kind of communication or thought. — Tom Storm

I'm aware of those, and if that's he meant then it's not such a strange thought, though I agree it's not obvious to get from these to some god.

Still, I'm not fond of the 'law' metaphor. I view it more empirically and grammatical. Every thing is identical with itself because that's how 'identical' is used. I don't see any deeper meaning. We learnt he language of the tribe. We can use it to get things done, but the meaning is not 'in us' or present to some inner eye, even if these metaphors have been useful.

It's a bit of a digression, but I'd generalize this point by suggesting that nothing is immediate. There is no corner stone, no deep structure that bears all of the weight and has independent significance (semantic holism, basically, is where I'm coming from...it's all subject to the Monet-effect and only makes sense at a distance, against a background.)

If there were a god, it would be overwhelmingly obvious that there is a god.

And then, indeed, atheism would be delusional.

Hence, the existence of atheists who are not otherwise obviously delusional mitigates against the existence of god...