On What Philosophical Atheism Is
Hello?
I think there are many discussions about religion in this forum. Some members suggest versions of atheism. This forum is a philosophy forum. I will suggest a philosophical version of atheism here.
Philosophy is at least about arguments. Philosophy is, at least, closely related to arguments, anyway. Philosophical versions of atheism should be, at least, suggested with arguments. All good arguments are valid arguments. All valid arguments are whose conclusions necessarily follow from their premises.
Here's an example:
Premise 1. If there is no scientific explanation about God, then there is no reason to believe in God.
Premise 2. There is no scientific explanation about God.
Conclusion. There is no reason to believe in God.
You might cast a doubt on premise 2. Here's an example of the defense of premise 2:
Premise 3. All scientific explanations are about nature.
Premise 4. All scientific explanations are not about God.
Premise 5. No scientific explanations about nature is about God.
Conclusion 2. There is no scientific explanation about God.
You might suspect whether premise 4 is true, and so on and on. Offense and defense, and offense and defense...
These are processes of which atheism is offered and defended and discussed. Got it???
I think there are many discussions about religion in this forum. Some members suggest versions of atheism. This forum is a philosophy forum. I will suggest a philosophical version of atheism here.
Philosophy is at least about arguments. Philosophy is, at least, closely related to arguments, anyway. Philosophical versions of atheism should be, at least, suggested with arguments. All good arguments are valid arguments. All valid arguments are whose conclusions necessarily follow from their premises.
Here's an example:
Premise 1. If there is no scientific explanation about God, then there is no reason to believe in God.
Premise 2. There is no scientific explanation about God.
Conclusion. There is no reason to believe in God.
You might cast a doubt on premise 2. Here's an example of the defense of premise 2:
Premise 3. All scientific explanations are about nature.
Premise 4. All scientific explanations are not about God.
Premise 5. No scientific explanations about nature is about God.
Conclusion 2. There is no scientific explanation about God.
You might suspect whether premise 4 is true, and so on and on. Offense and defense, and offense and defense...
These are processes of which atheism is offered and defended and discussed. Got it???
Comments (44)
I don't think this holds. There's no scientific explanation for why the Sun's corona is hotter than its surface, but we have reasons to believe that it is.
Premise 4 begs the question.
Quoting Michael
That's your opinion. Go ahead!
Quoting Michael
You think so.
There is no scientific explanation about the OP, therefore there is no reason to believe in the OP.
Quoting Mariner
Maybe there is.
You are not acquainted with science, then, if you think "Maybe there is" is a scientific argument.
Quoting Noblosh
What makes you think so???
belief: confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof
That's saying you don't need science to believe. But you say there's no reason for belief without scientific explanation, so you limit rationality to science and don't give any reason yourself for why you do that.
Michael also challenged that view of yours but you just dismissed what he said as an opinion, instead of addressing it.
What if I don't agree with your definition of belief???
Suppose that there are scientific explanations about unicorns, and unicorns actually don't exist. Then, there is a reason to believe the existence of unicorns, but the belief is false.
An interesting discussion may ensue if you observe that there is no scientific explanation for this either.
I think logic is part of science. Logic is included in science.
You may believe so, but you have no scientific explanation for your belief. It is, therefore, false.
Many logicians support that logic is part of science. Philosophers of science do so.
Ad populam or ad authoritatem is not a scientific explanation.
Nullius in verba.
By 'logic' I meant formal logic with natural deduction, such as first-order predicate logic.
That is still no scientific explanation as to why we should believe in logic (or care for it anyhow).
I just claim that logic is part of science. You don't have to worship logic in Sunday school.
As a scientist, I don't place any weight on unsupported claims.
Many logicians support the claim that logic is part of science.
So what?
Many theists support the claim that God exists.
Are you withdrawing your criterion, from the OP, regarding how a scientific explanation is a requirement for a true belief?
Scientific explanations provide reasons to believe. Theists' claims about God do not provide reasons to believe the existence of God.
Suppose that there is a scientific explanation about unicorns, but actually unicorns don't exist. Then, although there is a reason to believe the existence of unicorns, the belief about the existence of unicorns is false.
Logic is a scientific discipline. Theism is not a scientific discipline.
Yes, and I don't agree that philosophic arguments about god are about God. I think these arguments conflate the search for the absolute/universal/god, with a search for God.
Are you withdrawing your criterion, from the OP, regarding how a scientific explanation is a requirement for a true belief?
So far, I haven't seen any scientific explanation for the belief that logic is part of science.
You misunderstood.
The argument in OP is about 'reason to believe'. The conclusion is 'there is no reason to believe in God'.
'Reason to believe' is not the same matter as 'truth value'. Atheism is by definition not about the truth/falsity of the existence of God, but about the rationality/irrationality of belief in God.
The list of logicians who support the claim that logic is part of science includes: Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, Willard Van Orman Quine, and so many others.
However, science is not, at least not yet, perfect. In fact, as of principle, science is fallible. It never claims anything definitively, only provisionally. It is in this small space - that of scientific fallibility - that possibilities, ghosts, angels, even God himself, multiply.
Then the theist is free to use the cosmological argument and others like it to support their conclusion that there is a God.
Cosmological arguments include scientific concepts such as 'causality'. However, it does not follow that cosmological arguments provide reasons for theism.
You said that logic counts as science. Therefore, if one has a logical explanation for something then one has a scientific explanation for that thing. The cosmological argument provides a logical explanation for God. Therefore the cosmological argument provides a scientific explanation for God.
Clearly you can't make up your mind about whether or not logic is science. When it suits you, it seems to be that you only count the empirical to be scientific, but when it doesn't you also include pure reason.
Logical explanations are scientific explanations. However, cosmological arguments are excluded in logical explanations. Wrong arguments are excluded in logical explanations.
Hmmm... nope, no scientific explanation here either.
It ought to be easy.
How come no one thought of that before, eh?
The list of philosophers who support the claim that cosmological arguments are wrong includes: Immanuel Kant, Alvin Plantinga, Elliott Sober, and many others.
There's also a thread on here about the idea of philosophy being stupid. This is a prime example.
The idea that there's any more weight to an argument like this simply because it's systematic in form is extremely stupid.
Here's a valid argument for that:
Premise 1: If an argument contains the phrase "scientific explanation," then it's stupid.
Premise 2: Your argument contains the phrase "scientific explanation."
Conclusion: Therefore your argument is stupid.
Yes, my argument above is very stupid. That's just the point.
(And I'm an atheist by the way, so I'm not criticizing your post because I have a problem with the semantic content.)
Really? I am not trying to be mean, but you just listed a theist who came up with the modal ontological argument and believes we are justified in believing in God for other reasons. Unless you we can use his authority on various issues, I don't see how listing him helps your case.
Then:
Quoting some logician
I think this is a very nice point, but I would say science is a problem only for a certain sort of theism.
Here's a story: I recently had a used copy of Kant's first Critique with the occasional "I hate you Kant!" "Idiot!" etc. written in the margin by a frustrated undergraduate. This commentary was not related to, say, fathoming the transcendental unity of apperception--it wasn't related to Kant being hard. It was where Kant makes fun of the man who claims to know that God exists, and a few other places. (I wondered if these folks would hate Kierkegaard too.)
We all know Kant's deal--to set limits to reason and leave room for faith. But there is a certain sort of young Christian--I can't make claims about anyone else--who claims to know that God exists, that the Bible is His word, that Jesus is our saviour, and so on. I was raised a Roman Catholic and we never talked like this. It was always faith, not knowledge. You could talk intelligibly about a person's faith being tested, and so on.
So I would say that science is only an issue for you if see your religion as a matter of knowledge rather than faith. (Whether that's a recent or regional or denominational phenomenon, I can't speak to.) And not just knowledge by acquaintance--however your religion comes down on whether you can "know God" directly--but propositional knowledge. If you see your religion this way, you see it as on par with science, in competition with it, and these are the people, I believe, who see science--correctly!--as a threat.
On the other hand, @TheMadFool seems to be right about the broader cultural point, that the expansion of science in the last several centuries puts endeavors such as religion and philosophy both back on their heels, but mainly as matter of cultural prestige or something.
This does not follow. You must show that only a "scientific" explanation is a reason to believe in something. There are other reasons for believing in God that are not "strictly scientific", like personal experience, theological demonstrations, etc. God, by definition, is usually thought to be supernatural, or "transcendent" and cannot be studied "scientifically" - to demand that God be subjected to "scientific" inquiry is to sneak in a naturalism of sorts, a naturalism that may be defensible but certainly has not been defended here.
It's also not clear what "science" even is. It's a buzzword - everyone apparently "knows" what science is, but as soon as you actually ask them what the hell science is it's never quite straightforward or clear. Probably because there is no self-evidently obvious definition of science.
Here is the worm in the middle of your rotten apple. I can't think of any reason, at least any reason you've presented, why this might be true.
Quoting Chany
Yeah, what he said.