They See Concepts As Transcendent
Over and over again I see believers talk about concepts as if they exist outside of the mind that conceptualizes them. Morals, meaning, purpose, values, emotions, and the like are most often understood by the secular as constructs created as part of the function of the brain. Without sufficiently intelligent creatures to come up with this stuff, they don’t exist.
I think, to the theist, the concepts are still conceptualized by a mind, but not our minds. They come from the same mind they believe created everything--God’s. For this reason they are understood to be eternal and unchanging because that’s how they see their deity. Concepts that are eternal and unchanging exist whether or not humans or any temporary mind exists and can rightly be seen as being more real than even the universe itself.
I thought believers talk about concepts as if they exist outside of the mind that conceptualizes them, but now I think I was mistaken. I wasn’t considering the mind I don’t believe in. I'm not saying that it's rational or justified, it's just where they are coming from.
They Like Telling Others How They Feel And What They Believe
Christians continue to equate disbelief in God with hate for God. Why do they only confuse these terms in regards to God? They never tell someone who hates ISIS that they don't believe in ISIS. They never tell me I hate Superman because I consider him fictional.
They Like Pretending To Have It Both Ways
Most apologists say God has free will yet does no wrong then say if God made a world without evil he would have to have made us without free will. Using their own reasoning about God, their claim about his inability to make a free, all-good humanity is untrue.
A Christian apologist told me that physical constants and the uniformity of natural laws are evidence for God. A Christian apologist told me that the "constants" varying and natural laws losing their uniformity, what they call miracles, are evidence for God. Imagine if an atheist presented them a similarly structured argument: if x, then God doesn't exist; if not x, then God doesn't exist. How many do you think would accept such an argument?
Well it's unfortunate I think that most apologists will never spot the mistake of the truth of a proposition and its falsehood being able to both be evidence for god. That is incidentally exactly the problem that Popper had with psycho analysis. It didn't matter what the outcome, it would be rationalised and explained after the fact through psycho analysis.
ReplyDeleteThat is why I am not a fan of things like fine tuning or the cosmological argument. It doesn't matter what the science of the day says or even if it is overturned, it will always be evidence for god. If the universe was infinite in time and space they would say an infinite cause is required. Because it is not they say something must have started it. They often see this self sealing nature of their arguments as virtuous.
Agreed on the fine tuning and cosmological argument. Its the two arguments that I detest the most as they are both based on a presuppositions in effect. Yet when you point that out, they say no its not a presupposition. Eventually even if you get them to agree that the God can be any God, they will say in the next sentence but we know God is actually this God.
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