![\"Leonardo\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2015\/09\/Leonardo.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPortrait of Leonardo da Vinci (a polymath) by Francesco Melzi (1493-1570)<\/span> [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a>]<\/p>\n This exchange occurred in the combox for my post,\u00a0<\/a>Clarifications\u00a0re:\u00a0Atheist\u00a0\u201cReductio\u201d\u00a0Paper<\/a>. My opponent\u2019s (JD Eveland\u2019s<\/a>) words will be in blue<\/span>. He has very impressive credentials<\/a>: a Ph.D. and various professorships. He claims to be a \u201cpolymath\u201d<\/a> too: which means a great genius, with expertise in many fields. This title\u00a0has been applied to men like Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, and Isaac Newton. <\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m honored to have been able to talk at all with such a distinguished man (I truly am). Of course, when we started talking, I didn\u2019t know any of this about him (I did know that many active atheists and agnostics online have advanced degrees and are very sharp).\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n What I have been known for, these past 19 years online, is engaging in lots of honest dialogues (over 700 posted through the years), where I present all of my opponent\u2019s words (in a given discussion of one broad or specific topic) \u00a0and interact with them. I have written three books (one <\/a>\/ two<\/a> \/ three<\/a>) that are entirely or mostly of this nature. Readers can then exercise their own critical faculties in judging relative merits of the arguments. This is the beauty of dialogue, and why I love it so much as a teaching tool. Free speech and exchange of ideas are\u00a0wonderful things.<\/span><\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n 1. Philosophy and religion (non-empirical ways of knowledge) generally ascertain knowledge non-empirically (DUH!!!).Therefore, your \u201cargument\u201d is a non sequitur<\/em><\/a>. All it establishes is that science operates with the methodology and presuppositions of scientific method, which no one denied in the first<\/em> place. It can\u2019t speak to non-empiricism because it is outside of its purview.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It seems that not one atheist or agnostic in a hundred understands this basic, fundamental, elementary fact of epistemology and reality, but assuredly there are some. I\u2019ve met them here.<\/span><\/p>\n 2. I have not argued that the Christian God necessarily follows<\/em> if we reject the fathomless irrationality of atheism \/ agnosticism, so your point on that score is also a non sequitur<\/em>. I have asserted that it is reasonable (and requires no more faith) to posit God as an alternative explanation of the origins of things. But that is only the \u201cbare\u201d philosophical \/ deist-type \/ Humean God. The Christian \/ biblical God has to be proven by any number of other arguments.<\/span><\/p>\n You gave it the old college try; you just have to present some arguments that are not non sequiturs<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n Wrong again, Dave. Philosophy (if not religion) may be \u201cnon-empirical\u201d in the sense that there aren\u2019t experiments that can be set up to test particular propositions, but it is expected at least to follow the general rules of logic and discourse. It is also expected not to blatantly contradict empirically verifiable propositions. Non-experimental methods aren\u2019t a license to just throw any old thought up against the wall and see if you can convince people that it\u2019s sticking.<\/span><\/p>\n And I would also observe that the article also covertly attempts to get around your second assertion (which is in fact correct). By failing to make this point explicitly in the article, you leave a wide space within which you may hope that the non-analytical will be persuaded that if there is any difficulty to be found with some atheist propositions, the only alternative is traditional Christianity. It would be more intellectually honest to be clear about what you have and have not either refuted or verified.<\/span><\/p>\n 1st paragraph: you seem to be laboring under the illusion that we disagree about much more than is actually the case. I have no reply to this portion because I essentially agree with it.<\/span><\/p>\n 2nd paragraph: I fail to see what more I need to say by way of clarification. I have massively done that here. The paper is about the necessity of faith on all sides, and universal acceptance of as-yet-unproven and unprovable (?) axioms.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t recall saying anywhere in the clarification or in the original paper anything along the lines of \u201cthe only alternative is traditional Christianity.\u201d Perhaps you can kindly direct me to any such statement of mine (documentation is always a helpful thing). If it can be found, I\u2019ll retract it, because it is not what I believe, and I must have had a momentary lapse of reason<\/a> if I stated that.<\/span><\/p>\n Glancing at the original paper, I do find the following assertion: \u201cthe Christian must reject it [atheism], since we believe (very unlike the Atomist) that irrational and non-rational beliefs are untrue and unworthy of anyone\u2019s allegiance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Disbelieving in X<\/em>\u00a0is not the same as belief in\u00a0Y<\/em>. Here (and throughout the paper) I was asserting that atheists exercised faith just as Christians do (on a very fundamental or presuppositional level), but also that atheist faith is ultimately irrational and should be rejected as such.<\/span><\/p>\n Thus I was arguing that X<\/em>\u00a0is unworthy of belief. I give few if any positive reasons for acceptance of Y<\/em>. Of course I do that in many other places, seeing that I am a Christian \/ Catholic apologist. I have 1500 posts online and 49 published books<\/a>.\u00a0But somehow you have this notion that I either argued (or mistakenly believed) that rejection of X<\/em>\u00a0is logically and automatically an acceptance of Y<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n And that is apparently because Christians are routinely (among atheists and agnostics) thought to be very illogical and \u201cunscientific\u201d people, who would routinely make such elementary mistakes in logic.\u00a0Some Christians are that way; the majority (at least of thinking \/ educated ones) are not. I<\/em> am not<\/em>. If you desire constructive discussion with me, the sooner you figure out that I think logically (agree or disagree with me), the better for good and mutually enjoyable discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The paper doesn\u2019t assume or require belief that Christianity is correct, but I do, personally, as a Catholic. One can critique one view without necessarily having another, though I think it is better to have an alternative at least in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n Just because a proposition is an \u201calternative\u201d to a somewhat questionable proposition says nothing whatever about its \u201ctruth\u201d. There are at least as many silly alternative propositions as there are silly main propositions. Putting something forward as an \u201calternative\u201d without offering at least some evidence for its having greater validity than the original is not much of a contribution to any public discourse.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The issue is not whether or not there are non-immediately-verifiable propositions underlying any world view; of course there are. The issue is how they are handled in the future. Non-theist propositions are all subject to review and change; theist propositions are in principle not subject to empirical review. The moment that you assert propositions that are not subject to refutation, you\u2019ve placed yourself outside the sphere of rational discourse.<\/span><\/p>\n Sure, you can believe that if you are also willing to classify all non-empirical philosophical thought as \u201coutside the sphere of rational discourse.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0That is patently ridiculous, and most people, whether they believe in God or not, see it for what it is.<\/span><\/p>\n This is sort of a religion made out of empiricism, or what C. S. Lewis relentlessly critiqued as \u201cscientism\u201d<\/a>: the belief that only science can reliably answer all relevant questions about anything.<\/span><\/p>\n Any rational belief (including Christians ones) is or should be subject to refutation, but that\u2019s not the same as saying (as you seem to say) that all rational refutation is of an empirical nature. You appear to imply the latter by stating, \u201ctheist propositions are in principle not subject to empirical review.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I concur that we probably agree on quite a lot. I think that we continue to disagree on the nature of science. I would agree that there are questions about which science has little to say, but that doesn\u2019t mean that in principle science might not have something to say down the road.<\/span><\/p>\n If I\u2019m not wholly deluded, I see the point of your article to be that both science and religion deal with propositions that are not immediately subject to empirical tests \u2013 what you term \u201cfaith propositions\u201d. True enough. But you then seem to suggest that these are equivalent, and that is not\u00a0<\/em>so. Untested scientific propositions may be used as axioms, but if evidence emerges that they are not correct, they can be discarded without fundamental change to the scientific worldview. The shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric universe was accomplished without rejecting astronomy as an idea. On the other hand, rejection of a religious axiom (such as the existence of a God) entails the rejection of the whole approach.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the difference. I am not currently a \u201cbeliever\u201d in God as generally understood, particularly the Christian view. Yet I can easily describe empirical evidence that would cause me to revise my ideas and change. Could you do the same? Is there any evidence that might be adduced that would cause you to revise your faith propositions? The difference between my \u201cfaith\u201d and yours is that mine interacts with the world, while yours exists independent from the world. To obscure this difference by labeling both approaches as \u201cfaith-based\u201d seems a bit disingenuous.<\/span><\/p>\n The characterization in your last paragraph is quite unfair and untrue.<\/span><\/p>\n There are a number of things that could theoretically dissuade someone of Christianity, because it is belief based in part (importantly so) on empirical evidence of observation and miracle (the latter not being arbitrarily ruled out as impossible from the outset<\/em>). Here are some:<\/span><\/p>\n 1) Producing the verifiable bones of Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n 2) Proving that His resurrection was an elaborate hoax.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nLet\u2019s assume for a bit that there is some element of \u201cfaith\u201d in accepting the notion of a non-theistic universe, analogous to the faith exercised in accepting a theistic universe. There still remain two critical differences that render this equivalence false. First, there is the question of how to deal with disconfirming evidence. The non-theist has no difficulty incorporating new information into his worldview; the theist, by contrast, must deny such evidence if it turns out to disconfirm some particular article of faith deemed necessary. Second, even if one agrees to call all the uncertainties in the universe \u201cGod\u201d, there is no necessary segue to acceptance of the details of the Catholic\/Christian \u201cGod\u201d as necessary and valid. Something other than the inherent uncertainty of cosmological questions would be necessary to establish the Christian \u201cGod\u201d as the only legitimate way of filling in the cosmological holes.<\/span>
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