The Problem with Atheists
Atheists ostensibly reject superstitious fairy-tales and religious beliefs because they are logically impossible/unknowable and unverifiable and unfalsifiable and categorically outside the scope of scientific exploration.
However, a surprising number self-described atheists believe in other obviously false concepts without question.
Below are just a few examples of faith based beliefs held by many atheists.
- Free-Will
This is often defended as "an essential prerequisite to human happiness" the exact same way that religious people try say that religion is "an essential prerequisite to human happiness".
You will also hear the very common "we can't possibly know therefore I choose to believe". This is exactly the same as the theist that argues for "god in the gaps".
The fact that Free-Will is logically impossible and unverifiable and unfalsifiable and categorically outside the scope of scientific exploration is dismissed out-of-hand.
- Objective Reality
This is often defended as "an essential prerequisite to human sanity" the exact same way that religious people try say that religion is "an essential prerequisite to human morality".
The fact that Objective Reality is logically unknowable and unverifiable and unfalsifiable and categorically outside the scope of scientific exploration is dismissed out-of-hand.
- Infinity
Phrases get tossed around like, "infinite potential" and "infinite possibilities" and "the infinite cosmos". Max Planck has shown that our reality is NOT infinitely divisible, and we can extrapolate logically that human potential may be "unknown" but it is certainly not "unbounded".
The fact that Infinity is logically impossible and unverifiable and unfalsifiable and categorically outside the scope of scientific exploration is dismissed out-of-hand.
Free will is always an interesting discussion. Whenever we choose to do something, something has inevitably influenced us to choose in that particular way. This begs the question of whether or not free will is ever possible.
When it comes to objective reality, no matter how hard we try, we simply cannot perceive objectively, it is beyond our capability. What's more, our perceptions constantly change which means that for us, our reality also constantly changes.
Infinite, or infinity is a word often used. I myself have used it. How do you define something you can't define? How can you define the limits without knowing the limits? I feel like infinity is an invitation to explore the potential, to open the mind and thought to a topic, and to recognize that we that *in order to know something new, we cannot limit ourselves to that which we already know. *
I'm interested in reading more about:
Max Planck has shown that our reality is NOT infinitely divisible. Do you have a reference I can look at?(IFF) an action is free from all previous influences (THEN) it is necessarily indistinguishable from random noise (not willed or intentional).
Every statement made by humans is necessarily contaminated with sample bias and motivated by emotion and colored by opinion (not objective).
Anything truly infinite would necessarily obliterate everything else in existence.
When you hear this, you may stop and think, “Surely, if I have a length, then I half it, and I repeat this over and over, I will be able to get to something smaller.” However, this is an occasion where physics doesn’t allow something that mathematics does. For example, think about moving faster than the speed of light. On paper you could apply a force to a mass and accelerate it up and past the speed of light, but we know that in nature that just is not physically possible because the mass of the object (and thus, the energy needed to speed it up) goes towards infinity—both keep growing without any limit. So what we can do on paper, we can’t do in reality. LINK
I agree, no action really can be free from any influence and if it were possible, well then, it would by its very essence be completely random. It's a nice and tidy way to explain things!
I want to think about this more:
Anything truly infinite would necessarily obliterate everything else in existence.And, thank you for the link!
Thanks for getting back to me with that.