More on Bob's innanities
More on Bob's innanities
Bob’s Transcendental Proof for God
As soon as the atheist says he wants to resolve this Battle Royale in a rational way, he has lost. Here’s why:
God exists because of the impossibility of the alternative. Unbelievers require theists to provide evidence for God which is not circular, which does not beg the question, that is, they insist that we do not assume that which we should try to prove. They claim that faith puts theists at a disadvantage, because we trust in God.
Analogous: Bob begins by making a claim that atheism is an irrational position. He’s made this claim a number of times without supporting it. In this case he appears to make a stab at supporting his claim and begins by making an equally irrational and unsupported statement. God exists because of the impossibility of the alternative. This is Bob’s presupposition and is not supported by anything other than his say-so. Let’s observe as Bob flails away at atheism:
Bob: Contrariwise, they claim that they reject faith, and constrain themselves to the laws of logic and reason. Atheists claim that only evidence based upon logic and reason is valid. But how do atheists validate that claim? They cannot. For [BA10-9] if atheists attempt to justify “logic and reason” by logic and reason, then they have based their entire godless worldview on circular reasoning; and we find that rational atheism is an impossibility. And if they cannot defend the foundation of their worldview by logic or reason, they leave themselves only with the illogical and irrational, which accounts for arguments actually offered by atheists.
Analogous: Bob should stick with defining theism because his definitions of atheism are woefully lacking in substance. Here is a corrected version of the atheist’s epistemology relative to theism.
1. No human is born with knowledge of a god or gods. All such knowledge must be taught and learned rather than being self-evident or a matter of instinctual or of being internalized into the psyche from birth. Thus atheism is the default condition at birth.
2. Most humans display an amazing penchant for filling in the gaps in their knowledge with whatever sounds plausible and appears to have some social functionality, thus religious expression is exactly what you’d expect to see in an evolutionary paradigm and is both predicted and explained anthropologically as an evolutionary path towards sophistication and cultural complexity. Humans evolve socially via trial and error.
3. Atheists view all religions as pagan and make no distinction between number of deities worshipped. The pseudo-comparison of monotheism and polytheism are all Judeo/Christian distinctions that have no valid basis outside of the theistic epistemology. The atheist considering theistic claims is not obligated to do so from within the theist’s ontological epistemic.
4. The atheist has observed that knowledge of and understanding are the first prerequisites in establishing any belief or religious presupposition. The atheist holds that the mind begins tabula rosa and must be equipped to tackle the questions of his existence. Thus logic and reason are observed to be the primary tools for the acquisition of knowledge, facts and truth. So the atheist does not begin with anything other than those tools he has observed to be evident as NECESSARY to all human endeavors.
5. Any theist who claims this methodology is circular must justify how he came to this claim outside of logic and reason. If he cannot, then he has no basis to accuse those who come to a different conclusion on the matter of his god using those same natural tools. Any theist who claims to have the ability to acquire knowledge and reason in addition to logic and reason must demonstrate the veracity of this claim, both logically, reasonably and epistemologically.
Bob: To justify logic apart from circular reasoning, you must seek the foundation of logic outside of logic itself.
Analogous: Man is the originator and foundation of logic and reason. The function of these tools have proven themselves to be extremely efficient in the acquisition of knowledge about man’s existence. They have not, however, been very user friendly in assisting the theist in demonstrating the veracity of his knowledge claims about an existent god. Thus we have the motive for Bob’s disparagement of logic and reason as circular and requiring a foundation other than man. Before Bob can convince us that logic and reason are founded in ~man, he is obligated to support his claim that ~man exists. Assuming it is not equivalent to supporting the assumption. The atheist has no problem with Bob assuming such claims for the sake of argument. Sometimes the atheist will join Bob in the assumption to demonstrate the lack of cogency and logic associated with such assumption. But Bob appears to be confused about the difference between assumption and uncontested fact. Thus he begins by declaring the non-existence of his god to be an impossibility without supporting that claim. This positive claim requires some positive substantiation.
Bob: Thus we learn that, apart from belief in God, nothing can be truly knowable. If an honest and consistent atheist could actually exist, he would not claim that atheism is defensible by logic, since logic itself is indefensible by logic apart from circular reasoning.
Analogous: Bob appears to be quite confused. The existence of logic is not in question here. Bob’s unsupported assertions continue to accrue at an alarming rate without one iota of supporting evidence to back them up. This has been Bob’s strategy from argument one. He makes totally off the wall assertions, and imagines that they are automatically self-evident if they are made in conjunction with other unwarranted claims. All I figure is that Bob is convinced his arguments are sound. But each postulate does not stand on its own nor do all of them taken together lead us to the conclusions he appears to imagine have been justified. None of Bob’s conclusions follow from his postulates. In this case Bob states:
1. Using logic to assess the claims of theism is circular because one must assume logic is a valid method for assessing those claims.
2. Bob assumes the non-existence of his god is an impossibility, thus
3. Conclusion: Without Bob’s god, logic would not exist.
Does everyone see the missing and obvious flaws in Bob’s argument? His entire dismissal of logic is based on Bob’s unsupported assertion of the impossibility of his god’s non-existence. If anyone is guilty of circular reasoning here it is Bob.
Bob: Therefore on the one hand, if the atheist claims to know anything at all, he unwittingly has shown that atheism (the alternative to God) is an impossibility, because apart from God, nothing is knowable, as demonstrated in this paragraph.
Analogous: As Bob continues to flail away at this logical fallacy of circular reasoning, while erroneously and intentionally accusing the atheist of that which Bob has demonstrated a talent for, Bob is digging himself into a deeper hole. Perhaps before all is said and done, Bob will proceed to bury himself as fastidiously as he has his arguments for his god.
Bob: On the other hand, as a last ditch attempt to consistently defend atheism, the atheist may claim to be a no-nothing, that is, to know nothing at all, because by atheism, actual knowledge is impossible.
Analogous: And Bob shovels the first load of dirt down upon his own head. One wonders what Bob means by “actual knowledge”? I’m sure we better check his redefinition of knowledge because there’s likely to be another theistic redirect hiding in the bushes. At this point we should remind Bob that theism has proven itself to be extremely impoverished in supplying us any actual knowledge about the world in which we live. We should also remind Bob that appealing to his god, who’s mysterious ways and unknown purposes are beyond man’s ability to comprehend, does not provide Bob with any foundational support for his assertions. We can also point to the religious record, Bob’s bible, as his source of knowledge, and easily demonstrate from that record that Bob’s depiction of his god is completely arbitrary and contradictory to the message conveyed in that book. I would also remind Bob that there are theists on this very forum who are quite honest in their assessment of this alleged knowledge Bob alludes to that derails logic, or I should say, pre-empts logic as the sole domain of his god. These theists readily admit the abysmal religious record and the obvious contradictory statements in the bible compared to Bob’s definition of this god. We can only conclude that Bob’s fundamentalism has so clouded his judgment that any argument he proffers must be taken with a high degree of suspicion as originating from a skewed presupposition that undermines Bob’s credibility.
Bob: Popular atheism is moving in this general direction. When this happens, we theists point out that the pinnacle achievement of atheism is ignorance. As I have said, every observation provides direct evidence for God while atheism struggles to account for anything whatsoever.
Analogous: And Bob imagines that his “say-so” is gospel truth, of course. :^D
Bob: The honest thinker who wants to work out a systematic atheistic worldview will find that without God, the only things that are possible are nothing and ignorance (the lack of knowledge). Apart from God, nothing can be known or justified, not microevolution nor heliocentricity, not a wit of logic nor even a half-wit. No certainty can exist without Him who is the foundation of truth, and those who love truth, love Him. (Dr. Greg Bahnsen successfully used the transcendental proof for God while debating a leading atheist, Dr. Gordon Stein, at the University of California at Irvine.)
Analogous: The honest thinker, something Bob would be quite unfamiliar with, (unless he now plans to redefine “honest”), will not begin with such an incredibly unsupportable assumption in search for truth. If he does, he is neither honest nor going to discover truth. Perhaps Bob would like to explain how man conquered Small Pox apart from his god. I could name a zillion achievements man has accomplished apart from Bob’s god, so these claims are so totally dishonest. The honest thinker will begin to recognize how woefully much man has yet to discover about his universe, and that is all. The honest thinker will give credit where credit is due and not waste on whit of his intellect trying to discover truth from an epistemology that damns itself by claiming to derive its truth from revelation, inspiration and biblical interpretation. The honest thinker will quickly see through this sham and move on to the real world where men are not spoon fed bits of data that have been sifted through a Christian sieve straining out all grains of truth to justify the existence of the non-existent.
Bob: A fundamental difference between God and logic is that logic is a system of thought that attempts to rationally justify ideas, and as an idea itself, logic must somehow be justifiable, or found to be illogical.
Analogous: Then Bob should immediately justify his misguided attempts to use logic to support his assumptions that he has continually failed to provide any evidence for. The fact that logic has proven to be imminently successful in providing man guidance in his rational investigations is more than adequate justification. Perhaps Bob should illuminate us as to how belief in his god can adequately guide our scientific endeavors?
Bob: God is not a system of thought that needs to be justified. He is an actual being. And while the existence of logic apart from God is self-contradictory as just demonstrated in BA10-9, there exists no contradiction in the existence of the rational God whose very mind and thoughts provide the foundation for logic itself. And while we cannot see God, as we cannot see hope or love, the Bible defines “faith” as accepting “the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Analogous: We also cannot see logic but we can see the results of it. When stood beside theism, logic looms like a mountain beside a molehill. Perhaps Bob can believe his bald assertions will move that mountain, or claim it in the name of his unproven god, but Bob’s track record thusfar does not encourage us to entertain any hopes for Bob’s success. Again, looking back over history, we can also see the results of theism and they do not lend themselves to the idea that theism is a very logical epistemic methodology for securing man’s successful existence. There are too many illogical and contradictory claims made in Bob’s bible to suggest his god, if he has a logical bone in his being, ever appeals to the logical in his dealings with man.
Bob: In giving my first eight lines of evidence (except for the epistemological part of [BA10-7]) I assume that atheists often use logic and reason (imitating Christians) even though they cannot logically defend doing so in their own godless worldview.
Analogous: Bob must have had too much coffee this morning. His “say-so” is not equivalent to evidence. His first eight lines of undeniable ignorance, to the contrary notwithstanding, leave Christian logic somewhat lacking as a methodology worthy of being imitated by the atheist.
Bob: But without a foundation for logic, I also realize that their intellectual discipline allows them to treat all evidence illogically, since they have no ultimate commitment to reason, not even to logic itself, and certainly not to truth or morality.
Analogous: Such statements as these are so totally illogical. How a person can utter them as though they are the epitome of logic is incredulous. Man and his universe are the foundations of logic. Bob’s god has no place in the formulae and Bob has continually failed to carve him out one. Survival of the fittest Bob, remember that.
Bob: So, in an atheist’s attempt to win a debate, there is nothing inherently inconsistent or wrong with lying, cheating, or quitting in an attempt to spoil the endeavor (which I will not let Zakath do);
Analogous: Ha! Shall I count the number of lies, redefinitions, redirects, unsupported assertions, equivocations and innumerable fallacies Bob has applied in this debate? It has been my experience that the theist will stop at nothing in defending his fairytale. That’s why a cautious atheist must not allow these quacks to impose any assumption, redirect any argumentation, redefine any term or equivocate any concept. And they will utilize all of them, sometimes in the same paragraph.
Bob: for there is no ultimate reason for honesty, no absolute commitment to truth, and no foundation for an unwavering determination to be logical. Word games, contradictions, unresponsiveness, slight of hand, obfuscation, misstatements, and ignoring arguments all can be used as consistent with atheism in order to attempt to win the debate, and in actual practice, such deception is the strength of the atheist’s ability to persuade.
Analogous: Oh my…Bob has incorporated every single one of these tactics in his arguments. The audacity to accuse atheists of such tactics is amazing. And this is your typical theist. He will incite to riot, use biblical interpretation to justify murder and persecution of Jews, witches, homosexuals, and any other group or person that challenges his worldview. Theism has proven itself in this area if no other. I’m surprised Bob hasn’t appealed to this as evidence for the existence of his sky daddy. The more I contest theism the more I come to detest this mind rotting influence that passes itself off as truth and twists the attitudes of otherwise decent people into attitudes of false piousness, arrogance, impunity, deceptiveness, and ignorance while encouraging demonizing, persecution, violence and bloodletting to accomplish the goals of its diseased mouth pieces.
Bob: Yet surely, God either exists or does not exist. (Ahh, see, there I go again! I said “surely!” I’ve used logic here, which a theist can use with certainty, whereas the atheist cannot absolutely defend even such simple logic.) The atheist worldview is dysfunctional, and they can only operate by borrowing the certainty that is possible with God.
Analogous: Bob imagines, in his demented world, that the use of words automatically makes them true. And that’s Bob’s degree of logic for you, so take it for what it’s worth. Surely, if Bob’s god existed, Bob would have some evidence other than his appeal to ignorance, gap filling, and outright lying. That is dysfunctional argumentation.
Bob: By the way, that is an insight we can find in Christ’s statement that, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26), by which He was not claiming that square circles could be drawn, nor defending any irrationality, but that all things knowable or doable, especially evident in the matter of salvation itself, are only possible because of God.
Analogous: Oh, you mean like walking on water, turning water into wine, raising three day old corpses, commanding storms to cease, feeding thousands from a basket of seven loaves and two fishes…that sort of natural logically anticipated accomplishments?
Bob: In contrast to atheism, my theistic worldview is functional, because I recognize that logic and reason do exist, that they are absolutes, and that they are possible because they flow from the mind of God.
Analogous: Prove that your god exists beyond your wishful thinking first Bob. The hundred thousand or so words you’ve strung together as a compendium of arguments with this goal in mind have not done so. Join me in the ring Bob. I can assure you I won’t quite. You cannot overpower me with sheer numbers of words. I can refute every single one of your arguments and present counter arguments that you had better not ignore. If you drop one ball with me I will embarrass you until you pick it up and respond. If you tell one single lie I will declare victory because you will have conclusively demonstrated that being a Christian isn’t worth squat in the morals department. If you make an assertion you better support it with more than your say-so. This appeal to absolutes is a good example.
Bob: Logic exists and can only exist as a consequence of the rational thoughts in the mind of God. God is non-contradictory, truthful, logical, reasonable, and knowledgeable, and there is no other epistemological basis upon which we can absolutely defend truth, logic, reason, and knowledge.
Analogous: Try me Bob. I’ll rub your nose in another basis for logic until you plead for air. Your god doesn’t exist, no mind, no reason, no truth, completely contradictory, illogical and ignorant theistic imaginary creation by primitive man with centuries of stacking one illogical assumption on top of another. Join me in the ring Bob and I’ll pull your house of cards down upon your head.
Bob: Popular atheism has come to accept that it rejects absolute morality.
Analogous: And popular theism has had centuries to demonstrate it beyond their hypocritical claims and have failed miserably. That’s why atheism is vastly improving in the popularity department and Bob and his cohorts are running scared.
Bob: As mankind corporately continues to think through these matters, given enough time, popular atheism will also come to accept that atheism also rejects absolute truth, logic, reason, math, and science.
Bob: Is this an example of Bob’s amazing predictive abilities derived from his theism?
Bob: Again: the pinnacle achievement of atheism is ignorance.
Analogous: Uh…no, the pinnacle achievement from atheism is absence of belief in Bob’s, or anyone else’s, god. But, in reality, this is actually the pinnacle of achievement directly attributable to Bob’s god and Bob’s lack of convincing argumentation. If Bob could establish the existence of his god, atheism would dry up and go away. So one has to wonder why a deity with the acclaimed attributes Bob has assigned must resort to “hide-and-seek as its methodology of dealing with man. Bob has failed to address such questions. One would also have to wonder why Bob’s god has chosen to reveal certain aspects of itself, allegedly to prophets and patriarchs from among primitive men who resided in a war-like group of semi-nomadic people living during the bronze age. One must wonder about the attributes of such an entity that has allowed his existence to devolve into three competing world religions. One has to wonder why such an entity, having allegedly demonstrated the ability to communicate with man, would choose to do so only with a select few, rather than all men in all generations. This would eliminate the existence of these contradictory religions, denominational splits, and render the concept of hell negligible. Religion wouldn’t even be necessary nor would biblical interpretation that leads to so much justification for evil and suffering. Rather than worry about what atheists believe Bob should be focusing on these inherent problems in his worldview. He has failed miserably and utterly to justify these immediately obvious contradictions that elide along side his definition of this god of his.
Bob: We find examples of this in the early rounds of this debate and in the life of Bertrand Russell. Zakath readily talks about morality, and admits that he does not believe in absolute morality (although he recoils from the ramifications), whereas he is more hesitant to talk about truth, and posts 2a to 4b show that his intuition tells him that an atheist should resist defending even the existence of truth. While Zakath consciously acknowledges that atheism disallows absolute morality, only subconsciously does he fear that atheism also disallows truth, logic, and reason. So like most atheists, Zakath has yet to embrace the intellectual, though amoral, ramifications of atheism. Apart from a righteous God, as Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason rightly observed, no such thing as absolute morality can exist; and conversely, if Zakath admitted the existence of absolute morality, he would thereby concede the existence of God. What atheists disdain most about God is absolute right and wrong (because they pridefully rebel against His moral constraints, desiring immorality with impunity).
Analogous: Aside from failing to support his assertions of absolute morality, Bob has yet to apologize for why this god doesn’t equip those of his believers with the ability to resist evil themselves? What advantage is gained in accepting the existence of Bob’s god and his claims of absolute morality? Christians will readily admit they can easily succumb to temptation and commit acts of evil that would make the devil blush. So Bob’s claims of absolute morality are worthless. Even if we allowed them, (which I don’t), this would not make the world one degree safer or healthier for humanity. Bob’s god has demonstrated an amazing penchant for non-interference. He allows man to do as he pleases. Before a “right” or “wrong” can be established as absolute and from such a being as Bob’s god, Bob must provide evidence that his god enforces these absolutes. Then Bob must establish this god’s standards as righteous and qualify them as being above man’s capability to arrive at on his own. Bob must show us that purchasing a moral compass from his god will steer us safely through this life. Bob cannot do this. He can’t refer to his holy book and he can’t refer to historical precedent, so all Bob is left with is all we’ve seen through out this debate: Bob’s “say-so”. When is Bob going to get with the program and start arguing for the existence of his god instead of just assuming it and making specious claims from that assumption?
Thusfar, in this round, Bob’s evidence for the existence of his god consists entirely of attacking a straw man caricature of atheism. That’s it! All this is evidence for, in reality, is Bob’s extremist attitude towards people who don’t share his views and opinions on theism. That’s all Bob has successfully demonstrated; that Bob doesn’t like atheists, along with a large congregation of other people he pigeon-holes and demonizes on a regular basis. Who cares what Bob does or doesn’t like? Bob has wasted a valuable opportunity to present long awaited evidence for the actual existence of his otherwise make believe deity. He has disappointed theist and atheist alike with these irrelevant rants about atheism. Atheism is nothing more or less than an absence of belief in a god or gods. Bob should have focused on the reasons for this absence of belief and used his time wisely to address those absences. Instead Bob has chosen to make a number of ridiculous assumptions about atheists, without evidence, and lodge his complaints as though his complaints entail an argument for the existence of his god. They do not! Bob has vested his professional and public integrity into this debate and has committed a huge number of fallacies, erroneous assumptions, flat out misinformation, equivocations, arguments from ignorance and lies. Bob should know, or be made aware, that the internet has the capacity of reaching a broader audience than his radio program.
Bob doesn’t like me because I’m an atheist. I don’t care too much for Bob either, not so much because of his misguided beliefs, but because he is such a lousy example of them. There are a multitude of good, well meaning, sincere theists who make a sincere effort to practice what they preach. Bob’s version of theism diminishes all Christians across the board.
If The America of the 21st century is to move beyond the experimental stage, the Bob's of this generation must be exposed for their divisive and destructive motives. America is vastly moving towards a multi-cultured, multi-racial nation of human beings seeking a better life for themselves and their progeny. I hope those who follow the Bob's and their proclamations of "righteousness" stop long enough to consider that Bob's standards of righteousness all float on an ocean of human blood, misery and enslavement of the mind. And Bob's sister religions of Judaism and Islam fare no better when critically examined. It's time for a god-free America!
