Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational

[pe7erpark3r]

@Indrid-Cold as always a very clever reply my friend. I like the monkeys singing in that music video, they seem to be very happy :joy:

You are very right, and I must admit, I never read Sartre. And indeed, my endeavor here is rather philosophical than religious, for the God of the philosophers has little to do with the God of religion.

But it still seems like a good starting point for a conversation doesn't it?

[Indrid Cold]

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

But it still seems like a good starting point for a conversation doesn't it?

I always love the way you bring these religious ideas to site that's 90% a rat-up-a-drainpipe hook-up zone.

[pe7erpark3r]

@Indrid-Cold said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

But it still seems like a good starting point for a conversation doesn't it?

I always love the way you bring these religious ideas to site that's 90% a rat-up-a-drainpipe hook-up zone.

:grin: Gutter philosophy, I like it! Thank you :heart:

[Zack Williamson]

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

Atheism assumes that God is not real, and claims to be entirely rational. But that second part about, being entirely rational, can be proven to be wrong, simply by thinking it through just once:

@petrapark3r As far as I know Atheists are more intelligent and smart than theists. I'm not saying this without any reliable source. I have included those sources for you. A new paper published in frontiers in psychology which describes belief in god is associated with lower scores on IQ test
Source 1
Source2
If atheism was irrational, their followers should have lower IQ than that of theists

So lets assume there is no God. Then the universe at some point just popped into existence right? Of course not. That wouldn't make any sense now would it?

There are so many theories other than bigbang one. Nobody exactly knows how universe came into existence.

Some scientest might throw in, that the universe itself might be a fluctuation of a quantum field, or simply one of many universes popping out of whatever they pop out.

And of course they could be right, and of course my question to them remains the same: Then did this something that the universe popped out of just suddenly pop into existence? Of course not, that wouldn't make any sense either.

Lets assume god created the universe according to bible's genesis, God needed 6 days to create the universe but he did rest on 7th day though. What kind of almighty creator needs rest ? One more thing, a day is the time needed for Earth to complete one rotation on its axis. So how days passed if Earth and Sun were not created yet? How did he measured this time?

Then this must mean, that this nature (or space or quantum field or whatever unfathomable thing the universe popped out of) has always been there, has always existed, eternally. Existence itself must be eternal then, if it wasn't created by an eternal God. Think it through well. There is no third option, so much is for sure...

Now lets construct an example, that is able to make us see the problem here properly: Imagine you borrowed a bike from your friend. And this friend had borrowed it from another friend. And this guy again borrowed it. And so on and so forth. The bike was given from one person to the next. Reaching back through history, through time.

If everything must have a cause, then God
must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the
same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said,
"Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that. There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other
hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning
is really due to the poverty of our imagination.

Let's not complicate things by assuming there was a big bang for the sake of the example though. Let's just assume that this universe itself is eternal and not the quantum field it popped out of.

So since the universe is eternal (and the bike symbolizes existence itself), this chain stretches into the past, without end... It is equally eternal. Now, answer this question: Why is there a bike? How can it always be borrowed, if there is no original owner?

This can be answered with cause-effect reasoning. A cause-effect relationship is a relationship in which one event (the cause) makes another event happen (the effect). One cause can have several effects. Assuming again god created this universe, universe is the product of him. Every product like a house, is the work of an agent therefore the world which is a product, must have an agent or creator who is called god. But we know this inference is inconclusive, because the one of the premise 'the world is a product' is doubtful. How is it proved that the world is a product? It can't be said that the world is a product because it has parts. Wherever we perceive anything being produced, the producer or the agent is found to work on the material with his limbs. God is said to be bodiless. How can he then work on matter to produce the world?

[pe7erpark3r]

@Urfi said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

@petrapark3r As far as I know Atheists are more intelligent and smart than theists. I'm not saying this without any reliable source. I have included those sources for you. A new paper published in frontiers in psychology which describes belief in god is associated with lower scores on IQ test
Source 1
Source2
If atheism was irrational, their followers should have lower IQ than that of theists

I too always assumed that in this day and age there would be more intelligent people on the side of the atheists than of the theists. Thank you for giving me some data :smile: . However in all the millenia before us, this was not the case, and there is no reason to assume, that it must be in the future. Also, most people have not thought this one here through properly, most people haven't really understood it. Heck most people haven't even heard of it. (It is the cosmological way to God according to Thomas of Aquinus). I wonder if those numbers would still be the same if everyone had understood these things... But yeah, it is no proof.

There are so many theories other than bigbang one. Nobody exactly knows how universe came into existence.

And as you should have seen, I was not assuming that they know. But let me add, that there is a consensus about the big bang. There is almost no scientist who doesn't agree with this theory. The question they are not sure about is what was before (and what before even means, since time seems to have begun with the big bang).

Lets assume god created the universe according to bible's genesis, God needed 6 days to create the universe but he did rest on 7th day though. What kind of almighty creator needs rest ? One more thing, a day is the time needed for Earth to complete one rotation on its axis. So how days passed if Earth and Sun were not created yet? How did he measured this time?

Why would you even assume, that I'd take the bible literally? That indeed would be a lack of intelligence (sorry to everyone who does) for the following reason: Genesis actually contains two accounts of how the earth was created (see my post for further info).

If everything must have a cause, then God
must have a cause.

Reason has to conclude that there must be one thing that has no cause...

If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God

...which is either God or the world.

, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the
same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said,
"Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that.

Yes it is. Because what can be its own cause? What in the world could be its own reason? Can the world really be its own reason? Wouldn't this make the world godly?

Even if you would disagree with what those questions imply, this is still a bit more than just an elephant on a turtoise.

There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause;

There is absolutely any reason to assume that there should be nothing and no reason at all to assume that the world could have come into being without a cause or without even the possibility of coming into being. Things don't just happen. That idea is more than just irrational...

nor, on the other
hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning
is really due to the poverty of our imagination.

You are right, you can assume that the world is eternal. And yes, it is due to our inability to understand the nature of this one first reason. It will forever remain non-understandable to us, for this is how reason works. And this is the definition of the word irrational: it makes no sense to our reason (latin: ratio).

Which is exactly the point of the argument I am making.

And it is not a question of who is more intelligent. Every atheist will agree that this conundrum is indeed irrational, once she understands what I am talking about. It's just like with mathematics: you have to agree that 1+2 = 2. Before you understood it, you might not have agreed, but once you understand it, you have no choice.

And I mean what should they do about it? They have two irrational choices, believe in God or an eternal irrational world. Of course they'd chose what their peers chose: atheism...

This can be answered with cause-effect reasoning. A cause-effect relationship is a relationship in which one event (the cause) makes another event happen (the effect). One cause can have several effects. Assuming again god created this universe, universe is the product of him. Every product like a house, is the work of an agent therefore the world which is a product, must have an agent or creator who is called god. But we know this inference is inconclusive, because the one of the premise 'the world is a product' is doubtful. How is it proved that the world is a product? It can't be said that the world is a product because it has parts. Wherever we perceive anything being produced, the producer or the agent is found to work on the material with his limbs.

We don't have to bring the idea of product into this. The world is a causal thing. Look out the window. Everything happens for a reason. Trees grow, because a seed once fell into the gorund and the sun gives its energy. The argument has nothing to do with wether the world is a product or not. Causality is enough, and causality is real.

God is said to be bodiless. How can he then work on matter to produce the world?

Yeah, God is also irrational. We cannot understand how he could work on matter. Just as we cannot understand a world that created itself or has no reason.

[WtfJudith]

@petrapark3r hi, I only came here to point out that “Pet” in French means fart.

G’dday (:

[pe7erpark3r]

@WtfJudith said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

@petrapark3r hi, I only came here to point out that “Pet” in French means fart.

G’dday (:

This must be one long brain fart of mine then :joy:

[What is this]

@petrapark3r What you just tried to do is "prove" that atheism is irrational by using irrational claims yourself though.. Difference between science and religion is that science actually does something regarding to that question while religion stayed the same ever since, not moving at all in any direction.
I would rather use and follow logical arguments and be called atheist instead of believing in words and book that human wrote back in the days when the level of knowledge and evidence was at its lowest and rational ignorance was at the highest.
To me, it seems that you're questioning science as a whole and trying to prove that there is God. There are different types of scientists today, they have different hypothesis and they work hard to either conclude if they are true or false, on the other hand, what do religious people do? On every "who, what, when, where, why" they will say: "it was God and it shouldn't be questioned" and that's it. - complete ignorance and disrespect to science, the same science that made this world a better place with all the innovations and changes.
Science works with things that look irrational at first and through different actions it finds explanations and evidence for it, while religion is built on irrationality and follows it fully while neglecting every counterevidence that can be tested in space and time. If God exists, who created him? I guess another God. I respect religious people and their opinions, as long as they don't try to neglect science and use theories that science works with just to claim that scientists don't know anything and that they are irrational.

[pe7erpark3r]

@What-is-this said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

@petrapark3r What you just tried to do is "prove" that atheism is irrational by using irrational claims yourself though..

Well no, I used rational claims.

Difference between science and religion is that science actually does something regarding to that question while religion stayed the same ever since, not moving at all in any direction.
I would rather use and follow logical arguments and be called atheist instead of believing in words and book that human wrote back in the days when the level of knowledge and evidence was at its lowest and rational ignorance was at the highest.

I too very much prefer to follow logical arguments than simply believing words in a book – or a science journal for that matter. I mean even the most well known scientific journals tend to tell you these days that your sexual identity is completely unrelated to your biology. And that is just nonsense.

To me, it seems that you're questioning science as a whole and trying to prove that there is God. There are different types of scientists today, they have different hypothesis and they work hard to either conclude if they are true or false, on the other hand, what do religious people do? On every "who, what, when, where, why" they will say: "it was God and it shouldn't be questioned" and that's it. - complete ignorance and disrespect to science, the same science that made this world a better place with all the innovations and changes.

You know I'm glad that you have brought this up. The scientific method in its essence as experiment, deduction and its reliance on reason was developed in its beginning in catholic (and anglican) universities. This is no wonder since the catholic church has always always argumented, that faith must go along with reason, and that you can indeed reason about the world and reason about faith.

Science does neither prove nor disprove that there is a God. This question is simply outside of its domain. You on the other hand are contradicting rationality by conflating science with atheism. You don't know its boundaries and its focus on the natural world.

Science works with things that look irrational at first and through different actions it finds explanations and evidence for it, while religion is built on irrationality and follows it fully while neglecting every counterevidence that can be tested in space and time.

As I said before the teaching of the catholic church was always built on rationality. Of course science is a process, which means you'll need to get closer and closer to the truth, step by step, so you cannot expect people from 2000 years ago to have known what we know today. And of course many catholics failed to think rationally, as do many atheists (and of course religious people) today. Thinking rationally is quite the demanding task and not everybody is capable of it sadly. But the scientific process is entirely rational and that is why I love science!

If God exists, who created him? I guess another God.

It is funny, because that is kind of my argument, but turned around. If the world exists, who created it? The world itself? Is the world its own cause?

I respect religious people and their opinions, as long as they don't try to neglect science and use theories that science works with just to claim that scientists don't know anything and that they are irrational.

I did not claim that scientists are irrational, I claimed that atheism is irrational. Please stop conflating science with atheism, those are 2 different things.

Actually I do claim that many scientists are irrational. But the really good ones are in fact not, be they atheists or not... Einstein for example did believe in God. You might know one of his famous quotes:

"God doesn't throw dice"

(meaning there is no such thing as chance)

[Zack Williamson]

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

@Urfi said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

@petrapark3r As far as I know Atheists are more intelligent and smart than theists. I'm not saying this without any reliable source. I have included those sources for you. A new paper published in frontiers in psychology which describes belief in god is associated with lower scores on IQ test
Source 1
Source2
If atheism was irrational, their followers should have lower IQ than that of theists

I too always assumed that in this day and age there would be more intelligent people on the side of the atheists than of the theists.

Thank you for giving me some data :smile: .

No problem at all :)

However in all the millenia before us, this was not the case, and there is no reason to assume, that it must be in the future. Also, most people have not thought this one here through properly, most people haven't really understood it. Heck most people haven't even heard of it. (It is the cosmological way to God according to Thomas of Aquinus).

Many of theists assume atheists have never read bible or any philosopher's argument. But they are wrong 100%. Unlike theism, atheism is never based on instincts. They have risen above it. Coming to your question, I can even write an essay on St. Thomas Aquinus. I studied western and Indian philosophy 3 years ago. I'm recalling it :). Summa Theologica was work of Aquinus. He elaborated five proofs for the existence of God in his work. Also, writing St. before his name would be more respectful

I wonder if those numbers would still be the same if everyone had understood these things... But yeah, it is no proof.

It does not make any sense because you have just a mindset.

There are so many theories other than bigbang one. Nobody exactly knows how universe came into existence.

And as you should have seen, I was not assuming that they know. But let me add, that there is a consensus about the big bang. There is almost no scientist who doesn't agree with this theory. The question they are not sure about is what was before (and what before even means, since time seems to have begun with the big bang).

Lets assume god created the universe according to bible's genesis, God needed 6 days to create the universe but he did rest on 7th day though. What kind of almighty creator needs rest ? One more thing, a day is the time needed for Earth to complete one rotation on its axis. So how days passed if Earth and Sun were not created yet? How did he measured this time?

Why would you even assume, that I'd take the bible literally? That indeed would be a lack of intelligence (sorry to everyone who does)

Here you are being hypocrite. Why should we assume universe without god's existence ? An assumption is called supposition or Guess. An intelligent man would always write both guesses.

1. Assuming God didn't create the universe - You assumed this one
2. Assuming God created the universe - I assumed this one.

for the following reason: Genesis actually contains two accounts of how the earth was created (see my post for further info).

I saw your post about genesis but it couldn't answer my questions. He completed his work in 7 days and did rest for one day. What kind of rest did the almighty creator want ? Your genesis was unable to elaborate anything about planets. How did he count 7 days without knowing anything about day and night ?

If everything must have a cause, then God
must have a cause.

Reason has to conclude that there must be one thing that has no cause...

This chain will never end up because one thing too should have a cause

If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God

...which is either God or the world.

, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the
same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said,
"Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that.

Yes it is. Because what can be its own cause?

What in the world could be its own reason?
Can the world really be its own reason?

Surely it cannot be the reason of itself.

Wouldn't this make the world godly?

If he was the root cause of all things, we couldn't perceive daily that many objects like houses, pots etc ain't produced by God. We observe that many human beings like masons and even lower animals like ants and bees act together harmoniously to build objects like palaces, ant-hills and hives. This doesn't make world godly

Even if you would disagree with what those questions imply, this is still a bit more than just an elephant on a turtoise.

Again, this chain will never end up.

There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause;

There is absolutely any reason to assume that there should be nothing and no reason at all to assume that the world could have come into being without a cause or without even the possibility of coming into being. Things don't just happen. That idea is more than just irrational...

nor, on the other
hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning
is really due to the poverty of our imagination.

You are right, you can assume that the world is eternal. And yes, it is due to our inability to understand the nature of this one first reason. It will forever remain non-understandable to us, for this is how reason works. And this is the definition of the word irrational: it makes no sense to our reason (latin: ratio).

Which is exactly the point of the argument I am making.

And it is not a question of who is more intelligent. Every atheist will agree that this conundrum is indeed irrational, once she understands what I am talking about. It's just like with mathematics: you have to agree that 1+2 = 2. Before you understood it, you might not have agreed, but once you understand it, you have no choice.

And I mean what should they do about it? They have two irrational choices, believe in God or an eternal irrational world. Of course they'd chose what their peers chose: atheism...

They have choice of perception which you never included

This can be answered with cause-effect reasoning. A cause-effect relationship is a relationship in which one event (the cause) makes another event happen (the effect). One cause can have several effects. Assuming again god created this universe, universe is the product of him. Every product like a house, is the work of an agent therefore the world which is a product, must have an agent or creator who is called god. But we know this inference is inconclusive, because the one of the premise 'the world is a product' is doubtful. How is it proved that the world is a product? It can't be said that the world is a product because it has parts. Wherever we perceive anything being produced, the producer or the agent is found to work on the material with his limbs.

We don't have to bring the idea of product into this. The world is a causal thing. Look out the window. Everything happens for a reason. Trees grow, because a seed once fell into the gorund and the sun gives its energy. The argument has nothing to do with wether the world is a product or not. Causality is enough, and causality is real.

Whether*
We have to bring this one as well. An Indian theist branch 'Nyaya' holds this argument of cause-effect reasoning for proving the existence of God.

God is said to be bodiless. How can he then work on matter to produce the world?

Yeah, God is also irrational. We cannot understand how he could work on matter. Just as we cannot understand a world that created itself or has no reason.

At least we can trust on our perception because it is the only reliable source remained. It can elaborate who created this universe.

My logic allows me to write some prepositions-

1. Everyhting has a creator
2. God is that creator
   Illogical conclusion- God does not have a creator (it fails because it violates its own premise here )

[pe7erpark3r]

@Urfi said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

Many of theists assume atheists have never read bible or any philosopher's argument. But they are wrong 100%. Unlike theism, atheism is never based on instincts. They have risen above it. Coming to your question, I can even write an essay on St. Thomas Aquinus. I studied western and Indian philosophy 3 years ago. I'm recalling it :). Summa Theologica was work of Aquinus. He elaborated five proofs for the existence of God in his work. Also, writing St. before his name would be more respectful

Indeed it would have been, thank you for reminding me :smile:

Actually most atheists at least in the west have no philosophical education, they are normal people just like those who go to church often don't really understand theology. But I assume it is different in india (assuming that is where you are from).

I wonder if those numbers would still be the same if everyone had understood these things... But yeah, it is no proof.
It does not make any sense because you have just a mindset.

I'm just wondering if it would be different, that's all. I mean education does influence opinion :shrug:

Lets assume god created the universe according to bible's genesis, God needed 6 days to create the universe but he did rest on 7th day though. What kind of almighty creator needs rest ? One more thing, a day is the time needed for Earth to complete one rotation on its axis. So how days passed if Earth and Sun were not created yet? How did he measured this time?

Why would you even assume, that I'd take the bible literally? That indeed would be a lack of intelligence (sorry to everyone who does)

Here you are being hypocrite. Why should we assume universe without god's existence ? An assumption is called supposition or Guess. An intelligent man would always write both guesses.

1. Assuming God didn't create the universe - You assumed this one
2. Assuming God created the universe - I assumed this one.

I don't understand why you mention this here. I was saying that taking the bible literally in this sense (assuming God created the world in 7 earth days) would be a lack of intelligence, or maybe a lazyness of thinking, on my part, since taking it literally in this sense is already contradictory because of the existence of two contradicting generation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

for the following reason: Genesis actually contains two accounts of how the earth was created (see my post for further info).

I saw your post about genesis but it couldn't answer my questions. He completed his work in 7 days and did rest for one day. What kind of rest did the almighty creator want ? Your genesis was unable to elaborate anything about planets. How did he count 7 days without knowing anything about day and night ?

What I meant by not reading Genesis literally is that I don't take the 7 days to be literal days of any kind. I take these as symbolic. For example the fact, that the first thing that God creates is light. This doesn't make any sense from a scientific viewpoint, and the people who lived back then had the same IQ level as us (if we believe the scientific consensus on human development). It must have been obvious even to them, that the sun is in fact the origin of light. Actually there are enough ancient texts that show that people did in fact understand this. So why in the world would God create light before the sun or the stars?

The answer is, that this is the light of reason, of understanding, of truth. If you want to understand where I'm coming from I recommend Dr. Jordan Peterson's lecturs on the psychological significance of the bible.

This in turn means, that also the other days are to be understand symbolically. It shows how God ordered everything, not just the things he created but also the time. All of Genesis speaks about God's relation to His creation and specifically His relation to us and our relation to Him and our relation to creation. God orders our life according to the order of days. This is what it is about.

The sabbath is the holy day, it is the day of service to the Lord. It is on this day, that we pray most, and that we rest. And God does enjoy this love we bring Him on the seventh day. And if you enjoy something you can really relax.

So as you can see, all of Genesis is really about the relationship between God and us. Not about how the earth was created in a literal sense.

If everything must have a cause, then God
must have a cause.

Reason has to conclude that there must be one thing that has no cause...

This chain will never end up because one thing too should have a cause

This is the central question. Every element in the chain has the one element before it as cause, as reason for being there. But what reason does the whole chain have? There is no rational answer to this question. This is the point of the whole argument.

If God is not the root cause of the chain, then the chain is endless. But saying that the chain is endless does not absolve it from needing a cause to exist in the first place. Human reason demands this, we cannot think any other way. So if the chain was indeed endless (which is the only alternative to God being the root cause) then it would not make sense to reason, it would be irrational.

What in the world could be its own reason?
Can the world really be its own reason?

Surely it cannot be the reason of itself.

Wouldn't this make the world godly?

If he was the root cause of all things, we couldn't perceive daily that many objects like houses, pots etc ain't produced by God.

By what argument do you assume, that if God was the root cause, there could not be any houses?

We observe that many human beings like masons and even lower animals like ants and bees act together harmoniously to build objects like palaces, ant-hills and hives. This doesn't make world godly

Ants are not their own reason, they are there because of evolution (assuming evolution theory is correct). The harmony has developed. But everything in nature has a reason that is before it. Everything is caused. If the world however is not caused it must be its own reason. This is what could give it a godly nature.

Even if you would disagree with what those questions imply, this is still a bit more than just an elephant on a turtoise.

Again, this chain will never end up.

The point is that God is his own reason and his own cause and since this is not understandable to our mind, He is irrational.

However to say this about the world (being its own reason and being its own cause), which is the only alternative, sounds quite strange. And it means the world would be non-understandable, irrational.

There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause;

There is absolutely any reason to assume that there should be nothing and no reason at all to assume that the world could have come into being without a cause or without even the possibility of coming into being. Things don't just happen. That idea is more than just irrational...

nor, on the other
hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning
is really due to the poverty of our imagination.

You are right, you can assume that the world is eternal. And yes, it is due to our inability to understand the nature of this one first reason. It will forever remain non-understandable to us, for this is how reason works. And this is the definition of the word irrational: it makes no sense to our reason (latin: ratio).

Which is exactly the point of the argument I am making.

And it is not a question of who is more intelligent. Every atheist will agree that this conundrum is indeed irrational, once she understands what I am talking about. It's just like with mathematics: you have to agree that 1+2 = 2. Before you understood it, you might not have agreed, but once you understand it, you have no choice.

And I mean what should they do about it? They have two irrational choices, believe in God or an eternal irrational world. Of course they'd chose what their peers chose: atheism...

They have choice of perception which you never included

What do you mean by this?

I concede that there is a third choice: Agnosticism. Which means not believing that there is a God but saying you cannot know. In my opinion this is actually the only real alternative to believing that God exists.

This can be answered with cause-effect reasoning. A cause-effect relationship is a relationship in which one event (the cause) makes another event happen (the effect). One cause can have several effects. Assuming again god created this universe, universe is the product of him. Every product like a house, is the work of an agent therefore the world which is a product, must have an agent or creator who is called god. But we know this inference is inconclusive, because the one of the premise 'the world is a product' is doubtful. How is it proved that the world is a product? It can't be said that the world is a product because it has parts. Wherever we perceive anything being produced, the producer or the agent is found to work on the material with his limbs.

We don't have to bring the idea of product into this. The world is a causal thing. Look out the window. Everything happens for a reason. Trees grow, because a seed once fell into the gorund and the sun gives its energy. The argument has nothing to do with wether the world is a product or not. Causality is enough, and causality is real.

We have to bring this one as well. An Indian theist branch 'Nyaya' holds this argument of cause-effect reasoning for proving the existence of God.

I do agree it is worth considering. But I do not understand why it is necessary to consider it in the context of above argument. Please elaborate.

God is said to be bodiless. How can he then work on matter to produce the world?

Yeah, God is also irrational. We cannot understand how he could work on matter. Just as we cannot understand a world that created itself or has no reason.

At least we can trust on our perception because it is the only reliable source remained. It can elaborate who created this universe.

Perception is a funny thing and there could be said a lot about wether it is trustworthy or not. But lets assume we can rely on it. As you can see causality is an observable thing. It is the basis for my argument. Thus from this basis I concluded toward the reason for existence.

My logic allows me to write some prepositions-

1. Everyhting has a creator
2. God is that creator
   Illogical conclusion- God does not have a creator (it fails because it violates its own premise here )

Yes, the fact that God is His own reason, is not understandable by our rational minds. And neither is a causal chain without any reason for existing. There simply is no rational answer to the question of why there is anything.

[offender woman mj]

@petrapark3r hey

[pe7erpark3r]

@offender-woman-mj hey

[pe7erpark3r]

@Urfi said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

@petrapark3r As far as I know Atheists are more intelligent and smart than theists. I'm not saying this without any reliable source. I have included those sources for you. A new paper published in frontiers in psychology which describes belief in god is associated with lower scores on IQ test
Source 1
Source2
If atheism was irrational, their followers should have lower IQ than that of theists

@Urfi said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

Here you are being hypocrite. Why should we assume universe without god's existence ? An assumption is called supposition or Guess. An intelligent man would always write both guesses.

1. Assuming God didn't create the universe - You assumed this one
2. Assuming God created the universe - I assumed this one.

I did not write both assumptions, because the goal of my article was to show that the atheistic viewpoint (not the atheistic person) was irrational. Why do I have to include the other possibility in my article to be intelligent?

I have been thinking about what you wrote and realized something I thought I had to tell you. A truly intelligent man, would only heed arguments in a rational discussion. And you have now for the second time brought up intelligence or IQ. IQ is not an argument. And neither is a degree in philosophy. They both are ways of showcasing some form of authority. Please refrain from doing so, because it brings the danger that (truly intelligent) people might assume, you have no real arguments. However you clearly do have real arguments.

I don't see as of yet one that was able to prove my argument or my assumptions wrong (assuming I did understand them properly), but you clearly have interesting arguments to consider.

[Zack Williamson]

@petrapark3r said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

I don't understand why you mention this here. I was saying that taking the bible literally in this sense (assuming God created the world in 7 earth days) would be a lack of intelligence, or maybe a laziness of thinking, on my part, since taking it literally in this sense is already contradictory because of the existence of two contradicting generation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

I agree on it. I mentioned it because I messed up some paragraphs earlier.

What I meant by not reading Genesis literally is that I don't take the 7 days to be literal days of any kind. I take these as symbolic. For example the fact, that the first thing that God creates is light. This doesn't make any sense from a scientific viewpoint, and the people who lived back then had the same IQ level as us (if we believe the scientific consensus on human development). It must have been obvious even to them, that the sun is in fact the origin of light. Actually there are enough ancient texts that show that people did in fact understand this. So why in the world would God create light before the sun or the stars?

I suppose our and their IQ’s were same but we cannot know the exact time without checking a clock. For an example, it is 09:00 PM in my country. I would like to sleep sleep at 12.00 AM. I will be unable to know the exact time 12.00 PM without having a clock or a PDA. Today I am talking with some virtual friends, the time will be spent up very swiftly. When I was attending the lecture in college, I wanted my time to spend quick. Assuming sun is not made yet but light has been made I may sleep at 12.30AM or even 2.00 AM. Thus, their 1 day was not exactly of 24 hours , it could be 22 hours or 26 hours. It will make creation dubious further. Therefore it cannot be definitely said that he completed his work in 7 days. Perhaps more than that or even lesser than that.

you didnt refute me you avoided me

I never avoided you. I disproved first argument of god in-apparently. Now I would write apparently.

Why is there a bike? How can it always be borrowed, if there is no original owner?

Bike was borrowed by A to B, B to C. A bought it from a showroom or a shop. This shopkeeper bought the bike form manufacturer. E, F, G, H A.K.A. laborers and some machines manufactured it together. Human created the bike and human created the God. I will explain how human created the God ahead.
Now everyone will ask

1. Who made the first humans ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’. ? -If Adam and Eve were the root causes or root cause of all things, they could birth the ants or plants together.
2. Who created universe ? - I would elaborate materialism for it. It is more rational than assuming an invisible, unheard, unseen man in start of the chain.

The answer is, that this is the light of reason, of understanding, of truth. If you want to understand where I'm coming from I recommend Dr. Jordan Peterson's lectures on the psychological significance of the bible.

Bible was interpreted by different people. Their interpretation conflicts themselves so does that mean Bible is not a reliable source of christian theism ?

This in turn means, that also the other days are to be understand symbolically.

Again, interpretation of Bible in different way by anyone doesnt make any sense.

It shows how God ordered everything, not just the things he created but also the time.

That’s what you say but he never created the time. I was reading on Wikipedia today and pressed ctrl+F and typed ‘time’ but surprising thing was I could not find any sentence related to time and relation of God’. I want a reliable source for it. This was the article -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative

All of Genesis speaks about God's relation to His creation and specifically His relation to us and our relation to Him and our relation to creation. God orders our life according to the order of days. This is what it is about.
The sabbath is the holy day, it is the day of service to the Lord. It is on this day, that we pray most, and that we rest. And God does enjoy this love we bring Him on the seventh day. And if you enjoy something you can really relax.

Then almighty creator is not God he is just a human. A banker or a teacher works for 6 days and rests on 7th day (which is Sunday). An omnipotence, perfect entity like him should never be tired. Also, this reminds me of some ancient Mughal kings. Those kings enjoy in their harem after defeating other kings with audacity. Aren’t those three persons exactly same (1. A Banker, 2. The God, 3. A Medieval King) ?

What do you mean by this?

I meant perception is the most reliable source of knowledge after inference. You never included we can perceive the five elements but God is so far from our senses. God is not perceived. If perception is the only reliable source of knowledge, we can rationally assert only the reality of perceptible objects. God, heaven, hell and any unperceived law cannot be believed in, because they are all beyond perception.
Material objects are the only objects whose existence can be perceived and whose reality can be asserted. Matter is made of five elements. Not only non-living material objects but also living organisms, like plants, animal bodies, are composed of these five elements, by the combination of which they are produces and to which they are reduced on death

I concede that there is a third choice: Agnosticism.
And what about materialistic agnostic atheism ?
Which means not believing that there is a God but saying you cannot know. In my opinion this is actually the only real alternative to believing that God exists.
You defined the very correct definition of agnosticism but atheism is also an alternative to theism.

The point is that God is his own reason and his own cause and since this is not understandable to our mind, He is irrational.

God is the reason and human is its cause. God cannot be his own reason. Moreover I elaborate this point.
 
'Heaven' and 'Hell' are the inventions of the priests whose professional interest lies in coaxing, threatening and making people perform the rituals or prayers. Enlightened men will always refuse to be duped by them. Not only in the old era but also in this one, priests scare everyone away. Religion and God are based mainly upon fear. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.

I verified it with my own perception. I remembered when I used to believe in God just because I was told by my parents. I was just 9 yo in that moment. I wanted to entered the temple but the hindu priest of temple prohibited me to enter in it. People believe in caste-ism here but it was not an issue for me because I come in an upper level caste. He told me to give him some fruits or money. When I argued with him that temple is for everyone either he is miser or poor or rich, he cursed me and said I will go to hell because I didnt make happy my God.

However to say this about the world (being its own reason and being its own cause), which is the only alternative, sounds quite strange. And it means the world would be non-understandable, irrational.

The material elements produce the world, and the supposition of a creator is unnecessary. The objection may be raised: Can the material elements by themselves give rise to this wonderful world ? We find that even the production of an object like an earthen jar requires, in addition to clay which is its material cause, a potter who the efficient cause that shapes the material into the desired form. The five elements supply only the material cause of the world. Do we not require an efficient cause, like God, as the shaper and designer who turns the material elements into this wonderful world • ? In reply, we state that the material elements themselves have got each its fixed nature. It is by the natures and laws inherent in them that they combine together to form this world. There is thus no necessity for God. There is no proof that the objects of the world are the products of any design. They can be explained more reasonably as the fortuitous products of the elements.
This theory tries to explain the world only by nature, it is sometimes called naturalism. It is also called mechanism because it denies the existence of conscious purpose behind the world and explains it as a mere mechanical or fortuitous combination of elements. This theory on the whole may also be called positivism, because it believes only in positive facts or observable phenomena.

By what argument do you assume, that if God was the root cause, there could not be any houses?

I assumed by cosmological argument.
Also genesis 1:1 tells us that, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”
While extolling the glory of Jesus, the apostle Paul says this about Him, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17 ESV).

[paperbox]

@petrapark3r i'd like to preface with: being atheist does not mean you think god does not it exist, it means you are not convinced of the existence of a god, there is still a possibility that one or many exist. What someone thinks is a "god" is really up to opinion. Saying that a god has to exist for a universe to exist is a bold claim. You can't say that "the universe cant just exist without something making it". How did "god" come to exist then, before the universe? There are some questions we just can't answer, and shouldn't pretend to know the answers to. Atheism is simply admitting that you do not know all the answers, and that you are not sure or unsure that a god does exist.

[pe7erpark3r]

@Electrifying-Guy said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

Assuming sun is not made yet but light has been made I may sleep at 12.30AM or even 2.00 AM. Thus, their 1 day was not exactly of 24 hours , it could be 22 hours or 26 hours. It will make creation dubious further. Therefore it cannot be definitely said that he completed his work in 7 days. Perhaps more than that or even lesser than that.

1. A wrong interpretation is and stays wrong, no matter how many people believe in it. There have been lots of heresies in the history of the christianity. None of them are correct. No the bible alone is not a reliable source of the true christian doctrine. You need to have the Holy Spirit to interpret the bible correctly and you need to be united to the true apostolic church.
2. I have proven to you that the literal intepretation of Genisis is complete nonsense
3. I don't agree with this literal interpretation

And yet you keep bringing it up. And you think refuting your own nonsensical interpretation of the bible is an argument...

Worse than this, my original line of thought is completely philosophical in nature. Bringing a up the bible is out of context, and cannot be called an argument.

I will answer some of your other points later...

[pe7erpark3r]

@Electrifying-Guy said in [Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational]

I meant perception is the most reliable source of knowledge after inference. You never included we can perceive the five elements but God is so far from our senses. God is not perceived. If perception is the only reliable source of knowledge, we can rationally assert only the reality of perceptible objects. God, heaven, hell and any unperceived law cannot be believed in, because they are all beyond perception.
Material objects are the only objects whose existence can be perceived and whose reality can be asserted. Matter is made of five elements. Not only non-living material objects but also living organisms, like plants, animal bodies, are composed of these five elements, by the combination of which they are produces and to which they are reduced on death

If you call only perceivable things real, then you have got a problem because you shouldn't be using a device that sends non-perceivable signals through the air. Develish device eh?

If you only allow measurable things (the focus of science) and say anything that cannot be measured is not real, then you are an atheist.

If you allow deduction / inference from the perceivable things, then you can deduce, as I did, that the atheistic viewpoint is irrational.

If you remain with the perceivable things and simply say you cannot perceive the origin of the universe and thus you don't know, you are agnostic.

And what about materialistic agnostic atheism ?

There is no such thing as agnoistic atheism. Those two are contradictory, for atheism means believing you know that there is no God while agnosticism is believing you don't know that there is no God.

'Heaven' and 'Hell' are the inventions of the priests whose professional interest lies in coaxing, threatening and making people perform the rituals or prayers. Enlightened men will always refuse to be duped by them. Not only in the old era but also in this one, priests scare everyone away. Religion and God are based mainly upon fear. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.

You propably don't know, but atheism in the form of communism has brought much more cruelty and fear. In fact communism had many times the number of victims that nazi germany did.

By this historic fact I conclude that fear, cruelty and evil are part of human nature and cannot be layed at the feet of religion.

It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts.

Science was developed in catholic universities. Science is not anti-christian. Also "science" just like IQ is not an argument.

Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.

Science cannot help you get over your fears. Fears are human. Religion on the other hand seems to be able to actually make you overcome your fears. This might be a bit counterintuitive but christianity is the only religion that gains followers by conversion in this day and age. This is even more incredible since we have the greatest persecution (and murder) of christians in all of human history today. And in the places where christianity is persecuted the most it grows the fastest. Freaky right?

But of course I concede this has nothing to do with the philosophical argument of wether God is the first cause or not.

[pe7erpark3r]

@paperbox said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

@petrapark3r i'd like to preface with: being atheist does not mean you think god does not it exist, it means you are not convinced of the existence of a god, there is still a possibility that one or many exist. What someone thinks is a "god" is really up to opinion. Saying that a god has to exist for a universe to exist is a bold claim. You can't say that "the universe cant just exist without something making it". How did "god" come to exist then, before the universe? There are some questions we just can't answer, and shouldn't pretend to know the answers to. Atheism is simply admitting that you do not know all the answers, and that you are not sure or unsure that a god does exist.

It might be the case that this is called "atheism" in common parlance, but the real name of what you describe is "agnosticism" and I as a former agnostic acknowledge its validity (it is logically valid, but I no longer believe it is true). However I do believe in God now and you might be interested in why. But that is a topic for another day.

[pe7erpark3r]

@Electrifying-Guy said in Fact check with Pet: Why atheism is irrational:

Why is there a bike? How can it always be borrowed, if there is no original owner?

Bike was borrowed by A to B, B to C. A bought it from a showroom or a shop. This shopkeeper bought the bike form manufacturer. E, F, G, H A.K.A. laborers and some machines manufactured it together. Human created the bike and human created the God. I will explain how human created the God ahead.

Absolutely true, the bike is there because there was a manufacturer. This is exactly my point.

In my analogy the bike stands for existence itself, which you have been given by your parents, which they have been given by their ancestors, which they have been given by the chain of evolution, which has been given its existence by the materials, which have been given their existence when they were formed in a star... anyways, you have a chain of things that have existence. Where does the existence come from?

Now everyone will ask

1. Who made the first humans ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’. ? -If Adam and Eve were the root causes or root cause of all things, they could birth the ants or plants together.
2. Who created universe ? - I would elaborate materialism for it. It is more rational than assuming an invisible, unheard, unseen man in start of the chain.

Materialism gave things existence? You mean the universe itself gave the chain its existence? Whats the reason for the chain to exist?

You have no rational answer. That is the point of the argument I made. Whichever answer you give, may it be God or may it be an eternal chain, the answer is irrational = non understandable to our reason (reason = lat. ratio).

And the answer God is not more irrational than the other irrational answer.

In fact the answer God could actually be said to be more rational because it has the advantage, that if you say "God" is the reason, then the world would be rational in itself. If "the world" was the answer, then this world that you say is the reason for its own existence would be irrational.