1 of 1- Due_Kindheartedness
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Two common atheist arguments I can't answer
How do I respond to these
Me: <anything from the first five ways>
Atheist: Because you are using a philosophical argument, you have only proved that God exists as a concept. You need evidence from physics to prove that God exists in reality.
Me: If there is no God then life is meaningless.
Atheist: You can create your own meaning.
- DanielCC
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Re: Two common atheist arguments I can't answer
Tomislav Ostojich wrote:
How do I respond to these
Me: <anything from the first five ways>
Atheist: Because you are using a philosophical argument, you have only proved that God exists as a concept. You need evidence from physics to prove that God exists in reality.
This is one of the most demented objections I have ever encountered. If we take that line of reasoning the objects appealed to in the arguments e.g. matches, chairs, paint-brushes, pretty much any entity with causal powers, would also be concepts, in which case 'Hello Idealism, my old friend'.
More specifically it would appear to commit one to an austere verificationism, which would rule out most scientific realist reasoning about unobservables (that one postulates entities based on the causal roles they play).
Me: If there is no God then life is meaningless.
Atheist: You can create your own meaning.
True but this is just Nietzsche's Myth to Live One's Life By. No meaning is to be considered objectively more worthy or correct than any other. So no objective moral plaints from Sartre and Camus when one decides its more meaningful to join the SS than le Resistance.
Last edited by DanielCC (11/19/2018 11:09 am)
- Ouros
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Re: Two common atheist arguments I can't answer
Pretty much what Daniel already said. I would also ask "Where's the evidence for your proposition: "I need evidence from physics to prove that God exists"?"
They would probably argue that it's irrational to say the opposite, but rationality is a normative matter, and normativity can't come from science. Just old self-defeating,bad empiricism. Nothing new under the sun.
Anyway, from my experience, those typicals r/atheism's type don't care about what you can say, for they have too much heavy-loaded anti-metaphysical background.
- RomanJoe
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Re: Two common atheist arguments I can't answer
Ask them what evidence from physics can they provide to support the proposition that all true knowledge is that which comes from physics.
Also why do they suppose that your metaphysics is merely conceptual while theirs tracks reality?
Last edited by RomanJoe (11/19/2018 3:10 pm)
- ClassicalLiberal.Theist
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Re: Two common atheist arguments I can't answer
How do I respond to these
Me: <anything from the first five ways>
Atheist: Because you are using a philosophical argument, you have only proved that God exists as a concept. You need evidence from physics to prove that God exists in reality.
Philosophical arguements are based on logic. Most of scientific interpretation, relies on logic. If you can not use logic to prove things, then most of science goes in the gutter. For example, the Big Bang. We haven't observed the universes beginning, be we logically deduced from the expansion of the universe, that it had a beginning. If the atheist is going to say, that the only way to prove something, is through strict empiricism and not logic, most of science is gone. You can not even verify if something is true without logic, even if you observed it. Also, you can not even coherently make that claim. The proposition "philosophical arguements don't prove anything real" is not an empirical claim. It is self refuting.
How do I respond to these
Me: If there is no God then life is meaningless.
Atheist: You can create your own meaning.
It is hard to say, if you can even create your own meaning. For instance, people who make new years resolutions, often don't stick with them, because it is incredibly difficult to create your own meaning. But even if you could, there is no logical reason to suggest that the meaning you create for yourself is better, or more "true", then the one created by someone else. Meaning, really, just becomes an illusion. It is like subjective morality. No ones created meaning or moral prejudices, holds any more validity, then another. I would imagine, that even if you created your own meaning, you would be left with a sense of dissatisfaction. True meaning, I would say, is discovered by man, not created.
Last edited by ClassicalLiberal.Theist (12/03/2018 10:11 pm)
- ForumUser
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Re: Two common atheist arguments I can't answer
Me: <anything from the first five ways>
Atheist: Because you are using a philosophical argument, you have only proved that God exists as a concept. You need evidence from physics to prove that God exists in reality.
I find this objection incoherent: What does he mean by "evidence from physics"? You must define your terms to have an argument. Because I define 'physics' to mean 'our mathematical models to describe observed reality', the phrase "evidence from physics" is meaningless. So he hasn't actually said anything here.
Moreover and again, what does "exists as a concept" mean? Something either exists or it doesn't: 'exists' is defined here to mean "can be identified in reality". Hence "exists as a concept" is also a meaningless phrase.
You must ask your friend to think and speak more carefully.
Me: If there is no God then life is meaningless.
Atheist: You can create your own meaning.
More of the same -- what is meant by 'meaning'? But if what is meant is, "there is no ultimate purpose to any action after all human actions have finished", then this argument is not relevant to God's existence.