Is The New Atheist Literature Intellectually Frivolous?

[Outrider]

Aristotle has a cosmological argument for why there is a universe.

And like every Cosmological argument, it's special pleading - the universe had to come from something, therefore I will posit something that didn't have to come from nothing, but that's not allowed to be the universe because reasons.

The New Atheists don't so ultimately their position is to say it just is or to just ignore the problem.

The New Atheists say 'we don't know', in the main. Some of them are a little more hopeful and say 'we don't know yet'. 'Science' currently has one or two promising hypotheses that work mathematically, but more evidence is needed.

Krauss tries to make science into a cosmological argument but can't. But even that is slightly better than Hawking who although not strictly a new atheist, the bloke who argued the death of philosophy and it's replacement with science. I believe Feser attacked Krauss for claiming that science is atheistic and since science describes the truth atheism is somehow the truth.

That argument sort of falls down given that it's not what Krauss says, it's just a pompous straw man.
Krauss says he thinks it's easier to be an atheist as a scientist, and a scientist as an atheist, but the doesn't say either is necessary.

That sort of argument is the sort I have countered by substituting the phrase science with Brobat toilet cleaner. Feser makes a similar argument......You see great minds think alike.

And, like you, his best arguments are against the things that no-one has said.

O.

[Outrider]

When I first read your post about Modern philosophers I thought ''Modernity fallacy'' and ''so what'' almost simultaneously.

And the, because you were so disinterested, you stayed way after curfew to continue to not care at great length about it all...

O.

[Outrider]

I've no objection to using science to explore the cosmos of the material. It's just the failure of material or nature to explain it's own providence without transgressing it's own rules. Feser i'm sure puts that more succinctly than me though.

Which is one of the reasons that scientific findings are only ever, and for the foreseeable future will only ever, be provisional.

All you need to do to justify anything else is put forward an alternative method for reliably deducing anything about reality. Absolute logic worked for Descartes, but he ran out at 'Cogito Ergo Sum'.

I know you're allergic to the word 'methodology', but it's your only way forward. Give us a viable alternative, or continue to have the unsubstantiable claims dismissed as assertions.

O.

[Outrider]

Unmoved mover and uncaused cause of course.

Why? Why can't reality be infinite?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Explain the methodology for theology then, Vlad. Given that you have given up either justifying the use of Aristotle, or currently anyone else in Feser's list.

Any methodology? After all this time. The hundred, if not thousands, if asks? Going to ignore the questions again? Or will it be talk about something else entirely? Or more lying?
You are Clinton Richard Dawkins, making theists look like lint with all intelligence extracted, and I claim my five pieces of silver.

Aristotle has a cosmological argument for why there is a universe.
The New Atheists don't so ultimately their position is to say it just is or to just ignore the problem. Krauss tries to make science into a cosmological argument but can't. But even that is slightly better than Hawking who although not strictly a new atheist, the bloke who argued the death of philosophy and it's replacement with science. I believe Feser attacked Krauss for claiming that science is atheistic and since science describes the truth atheism is somehow the truth. That sort of argument is the sort I have countered by substituting the phrase science with Brobat toilet cleaner. Feser makes a similar argument......You see great minds think alike.

Woo ,nearly an argument  . When  you say Aristotle had an argument, on you go son, on me head,what is it? Tell me why it wasn't take seriously enough? You know the thing you have been asked about by me, on this thread, 7 times,if not more? Go on, you have taken the tinybabysteps, keep going! Otherwise we just end in Kant 46, Hume 127.

Make your argument, don't hand wave about it, same applies to you and Feser, on you go....
itwasn

Unmoved mover and uncaused cause of course.

And they called it special pleading, even though it made no sense, Tell them all please that it isn't  fair, Even though Vlad said Dawkins and came in his pants'

But here is the point Sane.
If we dismiss the cosmological argument we are left with material being it's own uncaused cause.

[Nearly Sane]

Or dunno, as opposed special pleading, special pleading , special pleading.

[Outrider]

But here is the point Sane. If we dismiss the cosmological argument we are left with material being it's own uncaused cause.

No, we're left with material outside of time where the concept of 'cause' is meaningless. You, like Aristotle, are stuck inside a paradigm where your entire vocabulary is predicated on the constant movement through time, but the evidence suggests time is a function of the universe, not the broader reality outside it.

O.

[Nearly Sane]

You make the claim, still not even a concept of what evidence would be! How terribly sad!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Or dunno, as opposed special pleading, special pleading , special pleading.

I don't know if ''dunno'' is an argument so you may not actually be mounting any challenge of any sort.

[Nearly Sane]

Or dunno, as opposed special pleading, special pleading , special pleading.

I don't know if ''dunno'' is an argument so you may not actually be mounting any challenge of any sort.

Did I say it was an argument? Ohdear,no, Vlad, off lying again. Why do you like so much?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But here is the point Sane. If we dismiss the cosmological argument we are left with material being it's own uncaused cause.

No, we're left with material outside of time where the concept of 'cause' is meaningless.

I think God is often described thus.
However the problem of why something rather than nothing still haunts the existence of your material.

The Scientific/Stenger answer of course is that nothing is unstable(sic) but something is. How does a change from instability to stability happen without time.......and for that matter how is it NOT an unmoved mover or Not an Uncaused cause?

[Outrider]

I think God is often described thus.

No, God is described as non-material, and is ascribed a conscious will which this isn't, because consciousness as we understand it requires time in order for the stream of awareness to move and pass.

However the problem of why something rather than nothing still haunts the existence of your material.

No, you have to explain what reason you have to think there's a 'why' in the first place.

The Scientific/Stenger answer of course is that nothing is unstable(sic) but something is. How does a change from instability to stability happen without time.......

That's a really interesting question that scientists are working on even as we speak.

...and for that matter how is it NOT an unmoved mover or Not an Uncaused cause?

It may turn out to be, but it's not definitionally so - there is no reason at the moment to presume there's an 'unmoved mover', there's no reason to presume reality is not infinite in scope.

O.

[Nearly Sane]

But here is the point Sane. If we dismiss the cosmological argument we are left with material being it's own uncaused cause.

No, we're left with material outside of time where the concept of 'cause' is meaningless.

I think God is often described thus.
However the problem of why something rather than nothing still haunts the existence of your material.

The Scientific/Stenger answer of course is that nothing is unstable(sic) but something is. How does a change from instability to stability happen without time.......and for that matter how is it NOT an unmoved mover or Not an Uncaused cause?

Except all of that would apply to all of your position without the cover of special pleading, again,  in which case your position is based on saying this applies except when it doesn't. Given that is logically unsound, your position isn't even a mince keech.

[jeremyp]

Aristotle has a cosmological argument for why there is a universe.
The New Atheists don't so ultimately their position is to say it just is or to just ignore the problem.

No that is precisely the tactic that theists use when asked to explain why there is a god.

I believe Feser attacked Krauss for claiming that science is atheistic

It's an indisputable fact that science is atheistic. Look through any scientific text book and you'll notice that there is a distinct absence of God in any of the theories and laws.

and since science describes the truth atheism is somehow the truth. That sort of argument is the sort I have countered by substituting the phrase science with Brobat toilet cleaner. Feser makes a similar argument......You see great minds think alike.

You both make idiotic facile arguments, it's true.

As do you a methodology has no intentionality.

What are you talking about? Nobody said methodology has intentionality. Science is atheistic in that, to do it successfully, you have to assume there are no gods behind the scenes turning the wheels. Hence it is "without God" ... atheistic.

Portraying science as atheistic is a category error and equivalent of not even wrong.

Ah the fallacy of the category error. Shut up with your stupid categories.

[Red Giant]

Feser has made it clear that New atheists try to explain the whole cosmos of material using scientific ideas.

Can't say I've come across any New Atheists trying to explain the universe.  Only theologians think they can do that.

He has exposed Krauss for suggesting that only physics supplies answers but states that science only answers questions of science.

Indeed.  Those are the only questions that have answers.  The other questions can't be answered because there's no way of knowing if you're right or not.  56 philosophers will give you 56 different gaseous effusions and you can given them all the "serious" consideration you like, and it will all be a total waste of time because you won't be any the wiser.  Though I suppose you can give yourself a pat on the back for your intellectualism.

Shaker's sig is exactly right.  If a philosopher can't answer that question, what sort of consideration can you give him that can be called "serious"?  How will you evaluate him?

[Shaker]

JeremyP said (correctly): "You'll probably find that most modern philosophers are atheists."

Vlad replied: "Yes but so few are New Atheists [sic]."

I'm still waiting for Vlad to explain the difference.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Shaker,

I'm still waiting for Vlad to explain the difference.

Google new atheist, you will receive thousands of hits, your hero amongst them.

By comparison, read any post by Nearlysane.

Mostly your new atheist wallows in the shallow end, he does not want to engage, rather like Floo's "the Biblical deity is evil".

Gonnagle.

[Shaker]

Still not seeing anything different with regard to what atheists are saying now compared to what some of them were saying hundreds, in fact thousands of years ago. "New Atheism" strikes me as no more than a lazy, thoughtless journalistic stereotype to refer collectively to a small group of individuals who happened to publish books at around the same time.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Shaker,

Fair enough, I see a difference you don't, to add, I like the new atheist, they have put a torch under the arse of organised religion.

Gonnagle.

[Nearly Sane]

Thinking about it much of the 'new atheism' is seen as effected because of 9/11. Was that an example of new or old theism?

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

Thinking about it much of the 'new atheism' is seen as effected because of 9/11.

What do you mean by effected?

I first started seeing this new atheism way back in 2006, Dawkins Root of all Evil programme, which if I remember correctly his fellow Oxford atheists ( just atheists ) distanced themselves from the programme.

Was that an example of new or old theism?

New, well if you want to point a finger.

Gonnagle.

[Nearly Sane]

If we take at least 3 of the 4 fabled horsemen o the athiocalypse, Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins, Al explicitly refer to 9/11 as a trigger event. And one that saw them despite the caricature sometimes presented, concentrate a lot more on Islam, particularly in the case of Harris and Hitchens than Christianity.


Perhaps it is this idea of the facilitation of mad beliefs by semi-sensible, in comparison, views, that marks out 'new atheism' but it is Haunted by the idea that religion flies people into buildings. The show of the Twin Towers made many worry about the geopolitics of religion (to connect the postings elsewhere of Prof D and Outrider). The undertone of actual apocalyptic ranting by the Christian right in the U.S. adds to the infernal cocktail of lunatic hatred. In some aspects I think that pulled both Hitchens and Harris into into a love of the nut job right wing and their neo liberalism and its hatreds.


Need to cut this short just now will pick up later.

[wigginhall]

I think that one of the most well-known philosophers who defended atheism in recent times, has been J. L. Mackie, especially his book, 'The Miracle of Theism', which is quite a witty title.   But he is not (presumably) a New Atheist, since he died in the 80s, and he was not the flamboyant type.

I noticed that the first sentence in his book, 'Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong', is 'There are no objective values', which made me laugh. 

Also, he wrote a famous article, 'Evil and Omnipotence', which is online, and he wrote this 60 years ago!  This is Old Atheism. 

http://www.ditext.com/mackie/evil.html

[Shaker]

I think that one of the most well-known philosophers who defended atheism in recent times, has been J. L. Mackie, especially his book, 'The Miracle of Theism', which is quite a witty title.

A nod to Hume there - excellent book.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think God is often described thus.

No, God is described as non-material, and is ascribed a conscious will which this isn't, because consciousness as we understand it requires time in order for the stream of awareness to move and pass.

However the problem of why something rather than nothing still haunts the existence of your material.

No, you have to explain what reason you have to think there's a 'why' in the first place.

The Scientific/Stenger answer of course is that nothing is unstable(sic) but something is. How does a change from instability to stability happen without time.......

That's a really interesting question that scientists are working on even as we speak.

...and for that matter how is it NOT an unmoved mover or Not an Uncaused cause?

It may turn out to be, but it's not definitionally so - there is no reason at the moment to presume there's an 'unmoved mover', there's no reason to presume reality is not infinite in scope.

O.

God is described as being out of time.

Material which is out of time? How is that therefore related to Material which is in time where causation is all?

In terms of consciousness all is required is awareness of oneself surely. I notice you have had to coin the phrase 'a stream of awareness' for your argument to work. I think you are touting a theory of consciousness.

I'm glad in your closing statements you concede the possibility of an ''uncreated'' ......that is aristotelean.

You are however left with this mysterious material which is outside of time. It is i'm afraid definitionally uncreated but you are so reluctant to face up to this. If it remains the uncreated out of time it has no obvious relationship to time and is a red Herring.

That effectively leaves us with material in time and if that was not created then it must be uncreated and that too is Aristotelian.

Any other argument is avoidance of that.