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Reason and religious Apologetic

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Religious Apologists such as Christians Apologist aim to present a rational basis for faith using Reason. They attempt to use philosophical arguments, scientific investigation, rhetorical persuasion, etc, to defend their faith and prove the existence of God.

An example would be the cosmological argument of God as the First Cause or Uncaused Cause. Or the ontological argument that the very concept of God demands that there is an actual existent God. Or the moral argument that if there are any real morals, then there must be an absolute from which they are derived. Or the transcendental argument that all our abilities to think and reason require the existence of God.

Are they legitimate arguments? And I'm just curious - How does one refute the argument of God as the Uncaused First Cause? I don't understand how Occam's Razor can be used against such an argument.

Edited by The Individual
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None of the arguments are legitimate.

Reject the "Uncaused First Cause" by learning how to understand the Law of Causality. All actions (causes) are enacted by something that acts. First the nouns exist, then the verbs. A First Cause requires a First Causer, and then refute God as if he had been presented without the obfuscatory cloud of causation language: as a contradiction of the Law of Identity.

The newly minted Dr. Diana Hsieh has podcasts on this topic at her Rationally Selfish Radio thing. http://feeds.feedburner.com/rsr

Episodes 3, 6, and 9 specifically are on this topic.

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Or the ontological argument that the very concept of God demands that there is an actual existent God.

That is the most hilarious of "arguments". The trick is that it turns existence into a property that can be assigned to anything you imagine, and is easily refuted by pointing out that existence can't be a property - it just is. Or you could use the "perfect island" example.

Or the moral argument that if there are any real morals, then there must be an absolute from which they are derived.

This is true. The absolute, in this case, is the alternative of life or death. The fact that living things face this ultimate choice creates values and goals, and goal-directed action. Morality tells you how to achieve those goals and further those values.

Or the transcendental argument that all our abilities to think and reason require the existence of God.

Another ridiculous argument, basically saying that because I can claim to imagine a perfectly logical being, and assert that that being put part of its nature into us, therefore knowledge would not be possible without that being. Just point out the impossibility of such a perfect being. This is also like the ontological argument, attempting to poof God into existence by presuming he can exist.

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So, religious Apologists aren't that rational after all? It seems all their arguments do not hold.

And, is an understanding of theology a requisite or useful in the discussion of God's existence/non-existence?

My Christian friend is very contemptuous of Richard Dawkins because Dawkins claims there is nothing in theology that can be taken seriously.

"It is not often that a professor admits to poor scholarship, but that is what Richard Dawkins has done (letter, 17 September). Had I received an essay from a first-year undergraduate in which he admitted not having studied the position of his opponent, I would have insisted on it being rewritten. What is even more remarkable is that Dawkins seems unaware that the positivist account of science, which forms the main plank of his argument, is thoroughly discredited." - Reverend Dr David Heywood (Lecturer in Pastoral Theology, Ripon College, Cuddesdon Oxfordshire) in a reply letter to Richard Dawkins, http://richarddawkins.net/article,1698,n,n

What is the Objectivist's view to all these and of Dawkins? (By the way, the Reverend is not my Christian friend)

Edited by The Individual
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So, religious Apologists aren't that rational after all? It seems all their arguments do not hold.

And, is an understanding of theology a requisite or useful in the discussion of God's existence/non-existence?

My Christian friend is very contemptuous of Richard Dawkins because Dawkins claims there is nothing in theology that can be taken seriously.

"It is not often that a professor admits to poor scholarship, but that is what Richard Dawkins has done (letter, 17 September). Had I received an essay from a first-year undergraduate in which he admitted not having studied the position of his opponent, I would have insisted on it being rewritten. What is even more remarkable is that Dawkins seems unaware that the positivist account of science, which forms the main plank of his argument, is thoroughly discredited." - Reverend Dr David Heywood (Lecturer in Pastoral Theology, Ripon College, Cuddesdon Oxfordshire) in a reply letter to Richard Dawkins, http://richarddawkins.net/article,1698,n,n

What is the Objectivist's view to all these and of Dawkins? (By the way, the Reverend is not my Christian friend)

Interesting that the link you posted is on Dawkins' site. He's certainly willing to post a letter that claims to debunk him. (It is below his reply in the link.)

Dawkins has two major problems from the standpoint of Objectivism: He is an altruist and his epistemology needs work; he seems to be following the Popperian model of never being 100% certain, but rather being 99.9999999% certain and then calling it good.

I give him points for attempting to justify his ethics off of scientific data--even if the attempt is bungled (and in part he is conflating the correct definition of altruism with the common misuse of the word). (Objectivists derive rational egoism from a similar process of looking at what man is and what life is.) The other New Atheists (Hitchens, Dennet, and especially Sam Harris) seem to just pull their ethics out of thin air. In Harris's favor, he has actually pointed out that altruism followed to its logical conclusion means you are morally remiss if you have a TV while children are starving in Africa. And even worse if its a big screen. But he is still an altruist and never justified it in anything of his that I read.

Edited by Steve D'Ippolito
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The argument that God is the first cause who himself is uncaused seems the most reasonable to me. Though I would be more interested in where one goes from there than in refuting the argument. This view of God doesn't seem to lead to any of the traditional views about God ( i.e. Christianity). In fact it seems like more of the philosophers God than the theologians.

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Knowing the inside of a specific religion is not needed to refute it out of hand. I know a great deal about Judism, and I still hear in arguements with religious Jews the statement "You don't know enough about Judism to be able to refute it". Now imagine if I was oblidged to gain a similar level of knowledge in every single other religion on earth before I could refute them. That's just silly.

To refute religion, any religion, it's enough that you know that they are not based on evidence. Therefor religions can never be proved, and they go to great lengths to prevent themselves being disproved. Whenever a religion makes a specific verifiable claim, and science debunks this claim, the religionists are completely unphased by this and carry on following their religion.

Something this arbitrary does not require you to waste your life studying aspects of it before dismissing it.

Edited by Soth
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Something this arbitrary does not require you to waste your life studying aspects of it before dismissing it.

Indeed. And something presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Why should the attributes of any particular god be of interest to me when there is no evidence for the existence of any god of any kind?

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That is the most hilarious of "arguments". The trick is that it turns existence into a property that can be assigned to anything you imagine, and is easily refuted by pointing out that existence can't be a property - it just is. Or you could use the "perfect island" example.

Or, better still: "The very concept of the perfect man implies that he is married to you. Therefore, honey, I am the perfect man!"

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"The study of theology as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and admits of no conclusion. Not any thing can be studied as a science without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing." - Thomas Paine.

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