Why atheism doesn't make any sense

You have not stated anything about this. What is this truth that you are referring to? I would also like to see where there is consciousness separate from brain chemistry.

This is not the case at all. The "grounds", if external, are processed by the physiology of your brain. When you read, say, CS Lewis' arguments, it's not his independent grounds but rather the neurologic processes of vision and cognition in your own brain that make it a grounds of any sort.

What you are missing is the very point of Lewis' argument. If "truth" is simply brain chemistry because that is what causes "beliefs" to occur, then we could not assess truth as being valid separate from the causal chemical determiners of our beliefs. However, we certainly can assess "truth value" as distinct from what our brain chemistry causes us to believe. In other words, there is a kind of interaction between the "rational" and the physiological where the rational can veto the physiological when our brain chemistry throws up "false flags," incoherent or dubious information.

If this interplay did not exist then we would simply be biologically determined to accept all beliefs because of their exclusively neuro-chemical causal origin.

No you are bending the entire definition of truth. Truth is NOT biological. It's inaccurate to label the brain chemistry some type of truth. This is clever word play at it's finest but says nothing to back up the argument. How is a chemical process a truth? So since you are easily misled how about we change this around a little.

Is eating required to maintain life? In other words do you have to consume food to continue living? Can you live without ever eating food? So would you imply that food is the truth for life? No, that is absurd. Food in no way equals life. But your argument is stating that such a case would be a truth. It's not. The process of eating food would be the truth. Therefore the process of brain chemistry at work is the truth.

Beliefs have nothing to do with truth, nor brain chemistry. Beliefs are just thoughts that are either adhered to or rejected. There can also be a neutral position as well but rarely is it ever. Most cases of neutral standing on a position is of an unknown. But that is besides the point. Brain chemistry does not determine if something is valid, invalid, subjective or objective. It is simply the brain processing the information that streams in from the sense organs.

The datum that reaches the brain is perfect and uncorrupted. It follows later during the classification or categorization of the datum where the flaws can happen. Neurons firing care nothing for truth. Their actions are nothing other than a cell at work.

Your argument fails on levels. Firstly, you offer no compelling reasons why consciousness cannot come out of a universe. There's no reason to believe that the process of evolution would preclude consciousness: I'll use the term Sentience.

Here's another tidbit for the OP'er to consider:

I believe our sentience has allowed us to explore. As you move further away from humans, you find corollaries of human behavior that resides in us still, that have proven successful evolutionarily throughout time, and are maintained, and you also see hints of where our sentience comes from. That's why we see a degree of self-awareness in chimpanzees but not at all in ants -- yet hierarchal structuring of both societies have similarities. Are there offshoots? Yes, nature is not perfect, and never has it been claimed it is, and what do we see? An imperfect nature, with a lot of starts and stops, successes and failures.

We have evolved a sense of survival, it is evident in almost every animal, and the methods to which we go to survive get more complex as -- surprise! -- the higher towards sentience you go. At the same time, we also see vestiges of self-sacrifice for the greater good, just like a lowly bee will sting an invader and die, for the greater good of the hive.

Also, why would god create mankind out of dust, give him sentience, a special place in the universe, and then give animals such similar abilities-just at a lower "wattage"?

Yet more confusion, making it seem as though we evolved our characteristics from animals similar to us, who share 99.9% of our DNA, instead of humans being qualitatively different. Why would a god do this, particularly when the bible says man will have dominion over all beasts? What is more likely, that god purposely made these similarities so to confuse and confound us, or the story was set down within the limited parameters of knowledge of the natural world that existed at the time?





Speaking of illogical are we?




Try this thought experiment -
We know that the universe exists. We can see no evidence for its non-existence either in the past or the future. We can see that the universe changes its form over time. The logical implication is that the universe has always existed in some form and will always exist in some form. Of course nature and natural forces may have always existed. Natural law is (by all evidence) eternal and uncreated. Now, in anticipation of your objection that this cannot possibly be, I need only point out that your own beliefs already presume the existence of something that is "eternal and uncreated." You call that thing "god(s)." So it appears that you cannot have any consistent argument against something being "eternal and uncreated" since you already accept that possibility explicitly.

Assume instead that the universe came into existence. As we are natural creatures, we are incapable of seeing supernatural phenomena and thus are logically limited to natural explanations. Theories exist which strive to fit observable phenomena into a framework not contradicted by observations. These theories have proved adjustable to a large number of further observations. The logical implication is that theory will continue to be adjusted as more observations arise needing to be reconciled with extant theory.

Assume instead that an observation will occur that cannot be reconciled with any natural theory thus proving a supernatural realm. Assume further that this supernatural realm is directly controlled by a God. God is, by definition, an immortal, supernatural being. He exists in an immaterial, eternal realm given charge over immaterial, immortal souls. The logical implication is that such a being would consider material, temporal existence irrelevant. A supernatural being responsible for creation of the natural universe would, after having finished the action of creation, also become irrelevant and could then without repercussion cease to exist.

These statements are logically consistent. Those looking for evidence of supernatural beings in logic would more profitably consider looking elsewhere.

You are creating this creator in your image, not as it might be. Is time and eternity a human term or does this imagined god live beyond its concept. It might have invented time, time to create this universe, that had a begining and may well have an end.

Atheism fails to recognise man need to search for a meaning, is it inconceivable that when we think we see an engineers footprints, we cant make proposals. Distinguish, please, from dogmatic faith and a healthy search for, IT,it that made those footprints.

Actually, I'm not the one creating an image of any "creator". That is purely the realm of religions whereby various gods are assigned attributes that are typically very human-like.
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More to the point, the questions in your first paragraph beg the question regarding testing claims for consistency. I think you're attributing the concept of an "incomprehensible nature" to god and then proceeding to add any number of human attributes to "it". All of this really begs the question: "If you cannot understand him, then how do you understand what he expects of you"?

This is a good example of a self-contradictory assertion, although you may not see it that way. Religions assert the various human attributes of god and not the anthropomorphic ones-- they assert he is perfection and then assign to him emotions like love, jealousy, anger, vengeance, and so on. Each of those attributes by definition assumes some lack or need that is required to be satisfied. This will not do in your argument, because it immediately defuses your claim that he is in some way eternally perfect. Now I don't force you into this paradox, you step into it wholeheartedly. I would suggest that you might better try to make the case that because god cannot experience sin and such "human experience", he needed to do it by proxy through mankind [though why god requires to satisfy this need also fatally flaws that argument, in my opinion].

You're the one assigning human attributes to this god. It's a limit on his nature. Think about it. He exists as a god of love and mercy and you shove him into a human timeline and a human paradigm.

You're making him angry and emotive. Who's basing their conception of god on his/her own philosophical presuppositions? Me? Are you sure?



Atheism clearly does not fail to recognize mans need to search for a meaning. What does that even mean? Do you think that anyone can find "meaning" in the supernatural?

I think your argument for belief in the supernatural can be resolved by describing one of the various dynamics that motivates religious beliefs: The deep seated fear of dying, fear of the unknown and a desire to experience our lives. Perhaps not everyone shares those feeling, perhaps not everyone can. The best way to ameliorate the idea of such injustice and to improving the world is to actively be involved in making this world the kind of world it should be. The onus is on us, not a father in the sky.

There does not need to be a god for there to be a purpose or "meaning" in life. One's purpose in life may be incremental and limited but may be of considerable consequence, both in the present and to posterity. Now that the universe has achieved sentience (assuming we are the only sentient beings), we may be that which defines purposefulness within existence. So it certainly does matter, and the answers will be interesting to seek and to find.

People chose what their theistic beliefs are for many reasons, but rarely do they apply very hard standards to those reasons. They tend to be cultural (i.e., you grew up in a social environment that preferred one belief over another), or anecdotal (you believe in certain events that for you define a specific belief, like a Hindu may have examples of "reincarnation" whereas a Catholic will "see visions of Mary", etc.), or there is simply a resonance in the belief system you select. And of course, I'll even include the possibility (but not probability) that one selects a belief because they actually do hear directly from the Supreme Being.

But the struggle over the spiritual questions -- in fact, pondering all great mysteries -- is the real thing that sets us above the animals. Perhaps in the end, sentient life is the universe's way of trying to understand itself. But I consider that a noble struggle, and don't diminish it in any way. I applaud it and it makes me feel good about the human condition. And hell, what is more courageous than saying, "I want to know the truth?" (wherever it leads).