So one of the commenters on Fr. Z's site today made mention of a melee on Richard Dawkins' site. One of the commenters there wrote:
I know he was commenting on a message from a Christian, but if we consider the position of atheists, I could offer the same comment. He also spoke of circular arguments, but those are pretty much what the atheists offer, as well.
The one interesting thing about atheism is the refusal of its practitioners to comprehend that they, too, are exercising faith. Their faith is in opposition to ours, but they can offer no more proof than we can. They simply pretend, because they scoff at faith.
Great post, and I think that the only key to recovering sanity in our philosophy is to always remember this one, basic truth: For every rational, thinking human being on earth, your axiomatic principles precede reasoning and your philosophical worldview. You can't endlessly appeal to greater and greater and more and more proof, eventually, you've had enough evidence and enough argument to make basic assumptions that help you reason. Nobody who lacks an axiomatic principle to reason off of, a fixed point, will ever be able to encounter or reason to any truth at all. This is why there are circular, vapid, nebulous responses, because we don't realize the parameters of our own mind and how human reason works. Here is the proof that we can offer in the face of the atheist: atheism is self-defeating because if God does not exist, neither does the human person or all of the highest divine thinking of man. We can wager the human being and the existence of rational thought at all against the existence of God, and many philosophers have done this in various ways, showing that atheism defeats the human person and in a stalemate of evidence the only rational choice is theism. I expanded upon this argument many times in my own blog.
ReplyDeleteGod bless Bill, welcome to the Church by the way :) glad you finally made it in, 'late to the table' and all!
Jonathan, We cannot expect rational thought from people who are taught nothing of logic and reason in the schools. Sadly, I am not sure that the Catholic schools are much better than others in this regard.
ReplyDeleteI pray for your journey to confirmation to be shorter than was my own. Pray the Rosary, every day, it will help you to remain focused.