Inconsistencies within atheistic evolution

This is true. Symbols are not the reality.The problem is that we can never really directly experience the reality. We certainly can't talk about it, because the minute we try to, we're talking about symbols.So why bother? Yes, there's a reality there. But let's not act like we know anything about it, because we don't. We only have models of increasing accuracy. That's all we'll ever likely have.The problem is that Grace is making specific things, like A=A or "Thou Shalt not Kill" out to be not symbolic statements, but actual fundamental properties of reality. Yes, there's a logic to the universe. It's not, however, the logic we can talk about. Where she's coming up with these "universal, invariant" laws of morality is anybody's guess. It's obvious to the most casual observer that the "laws" of morality humans follow are infinitely variable, and not even close to universal. This is true. You're rarely hear atheists talking about good and evil, because that's a pretty simplistic way to look at the universe. You do, when I do it to you. As it is said, you can't rape the willing. Morals aren't just statements about what we will or won't do. They also statements about what we're willing to have done to you. The reason that there's obviously no absolute morality is that for any moral "absolute" you can think of, there's exceptions that you will find morally acceptable."Thou shalt not kill": what if they're going to kill you?"Thou shalt not steal": not even to save your family from starvation?And isn't taxation a kind of stealing? The person you're doing it to. That's who. Then you act differently than other people. It's the consensus's descision whether or not you stay a part of it, however. Yet, atheists largely act morally. In fact if the prison population is any indication, atheists act morally to a greater degree than those who believe in god. So clearly you're wrong.

lol...sidelined
Of course...I can still go "through" the sphere in a straight line.

Basic predicate logic is a formalisation of the concepts of "and", "or", "not" etc. which allows us to deal with them on a purely syntactic level. These concepts may be useful but they are purely semantic, not referring to any "real" entity. The Earth exists - but there is no thing you can point to and say that that that is "and".
So "and" really is just a concept - if there is nobody to think of it it does not exist in any sense.It follows from this that logic itself is not a thing, like the Earth.Now you can argue that the semantic concepts underlying 2=2 are true even if we were to reassign the meaning of one or more symbols to mean something else. But where does that get you ? It still doesn't get you a fundamental law of reality any more than redefining "=" to mean "less than" means that "2=3" becomes a fundamental law of reality. And it certainly doesn't make any sort of argument for the existence of a God which is what grace2u is trying to do.IF you want to discuss morality then we can start a different thread, but at this stage I can point out that a general agreement on the basics of moality does not mean that there is an "absolute morality". And that there certainly are good reasons why the sort of selfish "morality" you talk about is NOT universal. Humans are a social species, relying on cooperative effort. So we need some sort of morality to have a working society - and pure selfishness simply will not work. Given that fact, there is really not much of an argument for a God here, either.

Thanks Milagros...
I think that this is a pretty good summary of the points I am making. I think most unbiased observers would agree with what you are saying. This is common knowledge and doesn't require a degree in physics,engineering,theology or mathematics to understand. It demonstrates in the simplest terms that atheism must deny the realities of the world in which we live in order to give an account for its philosophy. While atheism would certainly not argue that we don't exist(most atheists would not at least), they would be quick to argue that universal invariant truths do not exist, an equally absurd debate, for in doing this they would render the debate itself meaningless. Perhaps in other words,if they are correct science at a minimum would be impossible."Christe eleison"[This message has been edited by grace2u, 11-17-2003]

No you can't. The statement was "on the surface".

Interesting Grace2U, you simply ignored all the points made regarding your conjectures. That seems to indicate that you either didn't understand them or don't know what to say next. Care to discuss those points?

Please elaborate more. These kinds of unspecified (hopeful)allegations hurt your cause more than help it. I don't quite follow you on this one. I have not claimed that all mathematical operations are commutative. There might be operations where you can not arbitrarily swap values (cross product is not commutative) or similar situations, but these are defined to be non-commutative, they are different operations all together. Sorry, but I think you are grasping for straws on this one. BTW, I think that you would be hard pressed to find a mathemetician willing to say that in some mathematical equation describing reality , 4+5!=5+4, or that 4x5!=5x4. I apologize if I sound arrogant. Please understand it is not my intention to do this. I am willing to at least examine and listen to the other side of the argument.Take care..."Christe eleison"

Most of what is being said is repetitive(yes on my own points as well). I have tried to answer as many as time allows me to. Are there any specific posts you would like for me to address? I am in the process of trying to put together a moral formal argument(with concepts used more explicitly defined) which I think will provide a better ground for this discussion.

The difference is that "earth" symbolizes a material object, whereas, as PaulK pointed out, "and," "or," "not," etc... do not refer to any such object. Logical syntax doesn't symbolize an objective reality, it symbolizes relationships among objects. Relationships are abstracted from among those objects and abstractions are not objectively real. Actually, this is only true within Euclidean geometry. In hyperbolic geometry the shortest distance between two points is a curved geodesic. This actually makes a good illustration. Geometries are basically logical systems -- they have their own axioms and theorems. But, like logic, geometrical "laws" are only valid within their relative system, and do not necessarily refer to an objective reality. Sure, they are crafted to express relationships we abstract from among objects, but relationships do not exist objectively. They are instead formed in our minds among categories of our experience. Balderdash. Good and evil exist as concepts just as much as the concepts of "beautiful" and "ugly" or "delicious" and "disgusting." Who's to say what's beautiful? I am to say. So are you. So is everyone else. So it is with right and wrong. Nonsense. You exist in a society that has decided to codify its areas of moral agreement into law. You are always free to feel that its "right" to steal or murder because no one but you can control your thoughts, yet no matter what you think, in this country you are not free to engage in those actions. You are free to disagree, but if you take certain actions society has sufficient power to take consequent actions upon you. Because it violates another individual's rights. It does not exist as an objective characteristic of reality. Objective properties are those that can be observed consistently and repeatedly returning the same values apart from an individual's personal beliefs, values, etc. Things like mass, distance, etc. are objective properties since they can be measured and no matter who does the measuring a consistent value will result. This is not the case with morality. Some people observe "rightness" in certain events, others observe wrongness in the same events. The morality they observe is dependent upon their own personal beliefs and values. It isn't wrong in an objective sense, nor does it need to be in order for us to codify the commonality in our individual values into a system of governance.Tell me this, why would it be necessary to codify our moral agreements into laws if moral values were somehow woven into the fabric of objective reality? We don't need to codify other objective facts like "The earth exists" or "Water molecules are two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen." Why do we have to vote to codify what you think are objective facts, but not these others?

There are three major problems with your argument that need to be addressed.Firstly you need to refute the concept that the laws of logic are semantic rules, true by definition. Since your argment relies on assuming that this is false it needs to be addressed.Secondly you need to support your assertion that atheists do not belive in universal truths. Since in my encounters with Presuppositionalists I have seen them endorse the strongly relativist coherence theory of truth as a central part of the Presuppositionalist argument, while atheists in general do not it would be difficult to argue that it is the atheists who have the problem.Thirdly you need to provide your account of the truth of logic and show that the truth of logic is contingent on the existence of God. This faces a fundamental difficulty - any such account must rely on the truth of logic and therefore falls prey to self-contradiction. If the laws of logic are the universal rules you claim that they are then they must be necessary truths, and their existence is therefore as consistent with atheism as theism.To claim that atheism must "deny the realities of the world we live in" while your argument faces such serious problems, any one of which - if correct - would have your argument denying a reality of the world we live in - is at this point in the discussion arrogance.Indeed seeing that this thread has reached 69 posts even as I write this, without even one of the "inconsistencies" alleged in the original post having been shown to be a real problem it would seem that you have little to crow about.

Fair enough...Allow me to address your points. I don't think I stated they are not "semantic rules"(perhaps I did and just don't know what your definition of a semantic rule is), I have stated however that they are NOT merely conventional rules(this is probably the same thing as what are calling a semantic rule).Allow me to explain yet again: Conventional as I am using it implies something based on or in accordance with general agreement, use, or practice. By this definition anything can be conventional if a group decides it to be. A group of philosophers from an insane asylum could postulate that simple implication theorems are not true such as ~(~P)=P. This would have no bearing on the true validity of the concept in question however. It is true that they are described by men, however in existence there are these "truths or laws" which man continues to discover. I can boldly state that the implication ~(~P) = P is true in an absolute(universal and invariant) sense. It is universal-meaning it is the same everywhere, it is invariant-meaning it will not change.To establish my argument, I have repeatedly shown that the necessary condition of my claims are valid. In other words, if the laws of logic are not laws and they are conventional the universe is irrational. This can not be the case, that is the universe be irrational, since science at a minimum is possible. I have also provided the sufficient conditions of my argument. That the laws of logic are the same everywhere and are unchanging. That they are in fact laws. We could postulate that they will at sometime change, but this would be as irrational as saying that matter will suddenly change. The uniformity of nature concepts are not argued against by most atheists, yet the concepts absolute truths are (such as laws of logic and laws of morality). I would not argue against the validity of the laws of logic, uniformity of nature or against the existence of the laws of morality. In all honesty, I can not perceive how any one looking at the evidence in an unbiased way would do otherwise. Again, I have in this thread numerous times provided both necessary and sufficient conditions for these claims. The statement atheists believe in universal truths or absolute truths is a false statement since it destroys the meaning of atheist. This is so because atheism is by definition the denial of the existence of any god or gods. In order to demonstrate this concept, I would have to ask you to explain where this truth could possibly come from in a universe void of god. You could say they are conventions (agreeing with my statement that atheism can not account for universal truths). Most atheists do this, including you(if you are an atheist) from what I can tell, although you seem to suggest that there are universal truths at times(please clarify this). You could say no, they are not conventional they are universal and invariant. As you would try to explain where they come from, you would begin to paint a picture of a type of god. At a minimum one could contend that the universal truth in and of itself is a type of god. When individuals say Christ is the Truth, they are in essence saying this. It is not the only component or characteristic of God, but it is one piece of the picture(revealed theology paints the complete picture). If you contend to be an atheist and agree that absolute truths can exist, please at least begin to explain what they are and where they came from. Then, if you can do this, explain to me how this is not a contradiction to atheism. Are they not diametrically opposed to one another? From the impossibility of the contrary. This has been demonstrated repeatedly. If the laws of logic are absolute truths, and atheism can not make sense with them being just that, theism is reasoned to be valid from the impossibility of the contrary (btw, these statements are partly taken from various theistic philosophers, they are not entirely my own). There are other arguments that can be made as well, but for the sake of this discussion I maintain the impossibility of the contrary argument to be sufficient and valid. Not only is it true that atheism can not coexist with absolute truths, but Christianity gives an extremely reasonable explanation as to where they come from. They reflect the character, nature, glory and holiness of God. This is not a mere speculation, it is evidenced as well. Where is YOUR evidence for whatever explanation you might have for the existence of absolute truths (if you contend they do exist).Again, my apologies if I sound arrogant. I do believe however that I have made these points over and over in a conversational manner in the 10-15 replies I have made. I have yet to see any of the points I have made rebutted in any convincing way. Therefore, my claim stands. In my humble opinion, atheism denies the realities of the world. It suppresses the truth (again, theistic philosophers quote Paul in this same way). It borrows from the theistic interpretation at times, denies it when it is convenient.Thanks for your replies Paul..."Christe Eleison"

grace2uIam just bumping here to see if you are working on the definitions I asked for in post #54? I can see you are busy and I thought I caught a hint of you working on something in one of your posts.If so I will try to be more patient.

Grace2U, how about getting off the to P or ~P for a bit? You have gone on about the idea of absolute morality a number of times. It has been pointed out that there doesn't seem to be any such thing that different people have different ideas of the details of what is moral. Could you demonstrate what is "absolutely moral" and why it is?

I think this discussion would be a lot more fruitful if you backed off some of the claims you're having trouble supporting, namely the existence of "universal, invariant" laws of morality and logic and thought.After all atheists do believe in universal, invariant laws - the laws of physics. It'd be best if you concentrated on these, and asked how atheists account for those laws, at least. The rest of what you term "laws" aren't really central to your argument, so the question of whether or not they're universal and invariant - which they're not - is made irrelevant. But they're not everywhere. They're only the same everywhere that humans are. Surely you don't think "universal among humans" is the same as "universal"? Why must universal truth, or the laws of physics anyway, stem from a god? That's a non-sequitor. Why do they have to come from anywhere? In fact we can turn the question around: where does your God come from? How does your model account for the existence of God? If we found Christianity to be reasonable, we wouldn't be atheists, would we? See, we're saying the same thing about you. You say that the laws of morality, logic, and thought are universal and invariant. We observe that in reality, morals are local and variant. We observe that logic is only as universal as the human mind. We observe that the possibility of thought is boundless, not invariant. Who's denying reality here?

Thanks for your patience...(Various dictionaries on the web referenced, while words can have different meanings, the definitions I've listed pretty much represent my own definitions as well as what I think the consensus would be)1) god.
a. any supernatural being perceived to be controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force
b. the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in monotheistic religionsWhen I refer to the Christian God I simply refer to the following as defined through revealed theology:
The Supreme Being; the eternal and infinite Spirit, the
Creator, and the Sovereign of the universe; Jehovah.2) universe.
a. the whole collection of existing things both physical and metaphysical, material and non-material3)logic
This is used in many different contexts within this post. Where used, I have tried to be clear in what manner I am using the word in.Implies such things as:
a. reasoned and reasonable judgment
b. sound practical judgmentI think websters definition is pretty clear in other contexts...c. The science or art of exact reasoning, or of pure and
formal thought, or of the laws according to which the
processes of pure thinking should be conducted; the
science of the formation and application of general
notions; the science of generalization, judgment,
classification, reasoning, and systematic arrangement;
correct reasoning.Ok, you can fire away now...."Christe eleison"