The Moral Implications of Belief in an Afterlife

If someone truly believes that life continues after death, how would this affect his choices and actions in life? We die, but our lives go on somewhere else. In fact, this “somewhere else” is characterized as a supremely better place. Believers actually want to go to this “somewhere else” they imagine awaiting them beyond the grave.

There’s a profound, unmistakable contrast between a worldview which does not indulge fantasies about an afterlife, and those which do. Obviously there’s the orientation towards facts to be consider: a worldview informed by facts which we discover by looking outward at reality and identify by means of an objective process, will recognize that life is biological in nature and that consciousness is an attribute of some biological organism, and consequently find no evidence for the notion that consciousness survives the death of an organism possessing it.

The Futility of the Apologetic Appeal to “Revelation”

A visitor commenting on my blog For Jonathan has asked me to comment on statements made by Christian apologist Jonathan Bradford towards the end of this item: Debate: Defending Christian Epistemology against an Objectivist. In the statements found there, Jonathan makes it clear that he appeals to “revelation” as the source of his religious knowledge.

For example, Jonathan declares that “Christian epistemology” is:

an epistemology based upon the foundation of divine revelation from the omniscient, omnipotent, infallible source of all knowledge.

I have to say, ever since learning about rational epistemology, I’ve always found it deeply puzzling when thinkers suppose that epistemology and “revelation” can go together. Christians claim revelation as a source for their knowledge.

At a Loss for Words: Rick Warden's Latest Comment

On occasion some of my readers have criticized my blog entries for being too lengthy, that I am too wordy, that I apparently have too much to say. It is true, I do have a lot to say, and I can’t sit on it. I cannot stand still and just watch what’s happening to the world I’m living in and do nothing. The old adage has it that the pen is mightier than the sword, and much of history supports this view. I'm doing my best to do my small part.

So it might come as a surprise to my readers when I am struck with a loss for words. This does not happen often for me, but it did happen this evening, at least temporarily, when I opened my e-mail and saw a comment posting from Rick Warden on his own blog entry saying something that was so bizarrely false that I really did lose my voice for a few moments.

A Reply to Matthias on Subjectivism and the Believer

This is the sixth and final installment in my interaction with a comment which Matthias McMahon of Choosing Hats posted on my blog Confessions of a Vantillian Subjectivist. In this entry, I explore the question of how subjectivism may express itself in the believer’s worldview affirmations. My original blog entry explains how subjectivism in metaphysics is indispensable to the Christian worldview: it affirms the existence of a conscious subject which creates its own objects, zaps physical things into being, alters their identity, controls their actions, etc., all by an act of will. Thus in terms of the subject-object relationship according to such teachings, the subject of consciousness holds metaphysical primacy over its objects. In previous interactions with Matthias’ comment in this series of blog entries, I have explored this matter further and cited additional evidence to confirm this observation of Christian metaphysics.

Of course, subjectivism in metaphysics leads to subjectivism in epistemology. Man’s knowledge needs a source of inputs informing it. How does he acquire these inputs? The objective approach is the epistemological model by which man looks outward at the facts of reality which exist and are what they are independent of his conscious activity. The task of consciousness in this case is to perceive, identify and integrate the facts he discovers by looking outward. This approach is called objective because it rests explicitly on and is guided by the recognition that the objects of consciousness exist and are what they are independent of conscious activity. In terms of the subject-object relationship, then, the objects of consciousness hold metaphysical primacy.

But, as has been indicated so far, and as we shall see confirmed below, the believer does not acquire input for his god-beliefs by looking outward at the world. When we look outward at the world, we do not find any gods or consciousnesses which can zap physical things into existence or alter the identity of objects by an act of will. On the contrary, to find these things, the believer must look inward, consulting the contents of his imagination, his preferences, his wishing, his emotions, etc., and calling it “revelation.” In such a way we find that subjectivism in metaphysics necessitates subjectivism in epistemology.

Below I will explore how subjectivism can manifest itself in the believer’s worldview claims, survey various expressions of subjectivism, and highlight examples from the Christian bible which both model and encourage subjectivism in the believer’s own interaction with reality.

A Reply to Matthias on "Analogous Knowledge"

I continue now with my reply to Matthias McMahon. In the present installment, I explore some of the premises and implications of the Christian view that man’s knowledge is somehow “analogous” to the “knowledge” which the Christian god is said to have. Drawing on some points which I have made in previous responses to Matthias (see here and here for example), I focus on two major areas: namely the issue of metaphysical primacy (i.e., as it pertains to the relationship between the subject of consciousness and its objects) and the nature of conceptual identification.

In my blog Confessions of a Vantillian Subjectivst, I noted that “there are fundamental qualitative differences between man’s knowledge and the Christian god’s so-called ‘knowledge,’” focusing on the antithetical nature of their respective subject-object relationships (namely the primacy of existence in the case of man, and the primacy of consciousness in the case of the Christian god, given Christianity’s descriptions of it).

In essence, I argued that

(a) since man is neither omniscient nor infallible, he needs a means of gathering and validating his knowledge, and since the objects of his knowledge are not creations of his conscious activity or conform to his conscious intensions, he need to look outward at the world to acquire knowledge of these objects, which means that the method by which he acquires and validates his knowledge must be objective in nature (e.g., not based on his emotions, preferences, likes or dislikes, wishes, commands, imagination, dreams, etc.), and 

(b) since the Christian god is supposed to be both omniscient and infallible, it would not need any means of gathering and validating knowledge, and since the objects of its “knowledge” are supposed to be creations of its conscious activity and conform to its conscious intensions, it would not need to look outward for the content of its “knowledge”

there is therefore no analogous relationship between human knowers and the objects of their knowledge of them on the one hand, and the Christian god and the objects of its “knowledge” of them.

A Reply to Matthias on Objective Knowledge vs. the Subjectivism of Theism

This is the fourth installment of a series of replies I’ve been writing in response to a comment (yes, I know, just one comment) posted on my blog Confessions of a Vantillian Subjectivist by Matthias McMahon of the blog Choosing Hats. While I realize that four rather long posts in reply to a single comment left on one of my older blog entries may seem to some as a bit “over the top,” I caution readers not to think I’m finished with this yet. There will be more – at least one, maybe two... who knows! As I read Matthias’ comment and examined the surrounding issues, so many important points have come to mind, and what better than to develop them and share them with my readers here at my blog?

In the present entry I take up the portion of Matthias’ comment where he sought to explain the varying degrees of knowledge between different knowers in an attempt to defend the view that man’s knowledge is somehow “analogous” to the “knowledge” Christianity claims its god possesses. In my blog Confessions of a Vantillian Subjectivist, I argued essentially that, given the objectivity of man’s proper knowledge (acquired and validated by means of looking outward at reality) as opposed to the overt subjectivism which Christianity attributes to its god (whose objects of “knowledge” are products of its own “thinking” – instancing the looking inward model of “knowing”), there can be nothing either metaphysically or epistemologically analogous between the two.

This is because there can at root be nothing analogous between

(a) knowing by means of looking outward at objects which exist independent of one’s conscious activity, discovering them as objects which are not already pre-known, examining them by perceptual means, and identifying and integrating them by means of concepts (which condense a limitless categories of data into a single unit so that man can retain it, given the finite nature of his consciousness); and 

(b) “knowing” objects by means of looking inward at the contents of one’s own consciousness (which is already omniscient – i.e., already knows everything and thus cannot learn more), creating objects from that internal content by means of some type of conscious activity which we have never observed and can only imagine, retaining the ability to alter the identity of those objects at any time by a similar act of will, and lacking any need to condense entire categories of data into single units in order to retain it in consciousness, etc.

I hope to bring out some of the implications of this fundamental antithesis between how man knows and what could only be the case for the Christian god given Christianity’s descriptions of it, in the following interaction with Matthias’ comments.

A Reply to Matthias on Holy Inference vs. Reason: How Do We Know What’s Inside the Box?

In this post I continue my interaction with Matthias’ comment on my blog Confessions of a Vantillian Subjectivist, a comment that provides abundant opportunity for me to make some very important points. I have already posted one new entry interacting with Matthias’ comment here: A Reply to Matthias on Philosophical Starting Points. More will be forthcoming soon.

In the present entry, I explore the implications of some statements which Matthias made in his comment regarding epistemology – specifically regarding how believers “conceive of how reality must be in light of how God is.” In my exploration of this, I propose a test scenario in which we find sealed box on our doorstep with no indication of what is inside it. The question is: Do we discover its contents by looking inward (e.g., considering what “must be” in the box “in light of how God is” – which I dub “holy inference”), or by looking outward at the facts of reality (i.e., in this case, by opening the box to discover its contents)?

A Reply to Matthias on Philosophical Starting Points

Matthias McMahon (“McFormtist”) of Choosing Hats recently posted a two-part comment on my 2006 blog entry Confessions of a Vantillian Subjectivist. In this series of entries, beginning with this one, I address his points and objections. I suggest that readers familiarize themselves first with the older blog before reading my responses to Matthias. I re-read my entry prior to writing this response, and I still agree wholeheartedly with everything I stated in it.

In the present entry, the discussion focuses on starting points. In his comment Matthias indicated what Christians take to be their starting point, and I will contrast this with Objectivism’s starting point after defining relevant criteria which a worldview’s starting point must meet in order to be a proper starting point. I explain how Objectivism’s starting point (the axiom ‘existence exists’) in fact meets all of these criteria, and we will see how the starting point attributed by Matthias to the Christian worldview fails to meet same these criteria. Then it will be shown how Christians must in fact assume the truth of Objectivism’s starting point while taking it completely for granted.

So onwards and upwards, as they say.

A Reply to Matthias on Imagination and Its Role in Theism

A visitor to my blog named Matthias recently posted several comments to various blogs of mine. Posting under the moniker McFormtist, this is apparently Matthias McMahon of the Choosing Hats blog. Since Chris Bolt’s departure from that blog and absence from the comments sections of my blog (and pretty much elsewhere so far as I can tell), it is nice to see one of CH’s crew over here at IP asking questions and participating in discussions. I welcome Matthias’s inquiry and find his friendly tone refreshing.

Matthias has posted comments inquiring on various aspects of my critique of theism on the following blog entries of mine:

Three Steps Proving that Theism Cannot Be True 

A Proof that the Christian God Does Not Exist 

Confessions of a Vantillians Subjectivist

The following is a reply to Matthias’s 15 Jan. comment to my blog A Proof that the Christian God Does Not Exist.

Warden's Persisting Failure to Integrate

Over on his blog, Christian apologist Rick Warden posted a new comment summing up his case for his claim that the Objectivist concept of metaphysical primacy is “flawed.”

Spinning Out of Orbit: Rick Warden Lost in the Outer Limits

Rick Warden has posted yet another attempt to dismantle my argument. And like all the others, it falls flat on its face at the very sounding of the starting shot.

Previous attempts by Warden to refute the argument from metaphysical primacy against theism can be found here:

A Refutation of Dawson Bethrick's Central Argument Against Theism 

Bethrick’s Refined Primacy Argument Against God Refuted 

Metaphysical Primacy, Timeless Truth and Atheist Presuppositionalism

To date, my blog entries defending my argument can be found here:

Rick Warden’s Ill-fated Effort to Refute the Argument from Metaphysical Primacy

Three Steps Proving that Theism Cannot Be True 

The Vindication of My Argument Against Theism from Rick Warden's Ill-fated Maneuvers

Warden’s “Addenda” regarding the Nature of Truth

And now, in the present entry, I am posting a fifth installment, again exposing Warden’s errors and misunderstandings (or rather, disunderstandings).

Warden’s “Addenda” regarding the Nature of Truth

Note: The following is an elaboration on some comments which I recently posted here.

 

*     *     *

 

Since I posted a vindication of my three-step case against theism in defense against Rick Warden’s ill-fated attempts to refute it, he has added a post-script to his attempted refutation regarding the nature of truth that my argument applies.

In this “Addenda” as he titles this section, Warden helps to make clear the stark contrast between the theistic view of truth and the view of truth which my case against theism incorporates. Warden mistakenly assumes that, since the conception of the nature of truth which my case incorporates has anti-theistic implications, my case therefore begs the question. On the contrary, what Warden fails to grasp is the fact that my case constitutes an application of the objective theory of truth to a particular area of inquiry, demonstrating those implications in that particular area of inquiry explicitly. Thus my case constitutes an application of a general truth to a specific matter. In classical logic this is known as deduction - the drawing of specific conclusions from at least one general premise.

The case against theism which I presented in my blog consists of three distinct syllogisms, the last of which drawing the conclusion “Therefore theism is incompatible with the primacy of existence metaphysics and consequently cannot be true.” At no point in any of the three syllogisms does the affirmation “theism is not true” figure as a premise. On the contrary, my conclusion is drawn as an implication from the premises which are stated in the three syllogisms respectively. Therefore, I emphatically deny the charge of begging the question given the standard deductive model which my case follows.

The Vindication of My Argument Against Theism from Rick Warden's Ill-fated Maneuvers

Rick Warden has attempted another refutation of my argument. He already tried once and failed (see here). Then, after seeing that his attempted refutation of my argument failed, Warden requested “a summary of the specific premises and logical syntax of the argument,” which can only serve as an admission that when he attempted his initial refutation, he did so without knowing what my argument’s premises are. I recommend that Warden adopt the policy of “look before you leap.” It might save him some skinned knees.

Three Steps Proving that Theism Cannot Be True

In the comments section of my previous blog entry, Christian apologist Rick Warden of Templestream Blog has requested that I produce “a summary of the specific premises and logical syntax of the argument” which I employ against theism.

Curiously, Warden’s request comes after he posted a blog of his own in which he attempted to refute my argument. Warden’s methodology seems logically reversed; one would hope that Warden would already be familiar with my argument’s premises before publishing his attempts to refute it. Perhaps Warden has simply “presupposed” that my argument is unsound and, eager to act on this presupposition, didn’t bother to check the facts from the beginning. Needless to say, this would explain a lot.

Below I present three steps sealing the conclusion that theism cannot be true. Step 1 is a proof that truth as such rests exclusively on the primacy of existence metaphysics (this is the reason why we often hear the undeniably true retort, “wishing doesn’t make it so”). Step 2 is a proof that theism assumes the primacy of consciousness metaphysics (think of the claim that a god created the universe by speaking, that it governs human history by its “counsel,” that it “controls whatsoever comes to pass,” etc.). Step 3, drawing from the previous two Steps, is a proof that theism therefore cannot be true.

Rick Warden’s Ill-fated Effort to Refute the Argument from Metaphysical Primacy

Precisely one year ago today, on November 25, 2012, Rick Warden of the Templestream blog posted a blog entry titled A Refutation of Dawson Bethrick's Central Argument Against Theism. In this blog entry, Warden set out to achieve what the title suggests: he attempted to refute the argument from metaphysical primacy.

You see, Warden really wants his god to be real, and he wants his god-beliefs to be true. And like every good Christian, he wants everyone else to believe likewise and submit. Unfortunately, his zeal to vindicate his god-beliefs has clouded his critical faculties to a devastating degree.

Examining Stefan's Presuppositionalism

StefanMach (to whom I shall again refer as Stefan going forward) has left a series of comments responding to my blog A Reply to Stefan on Induction and Deduction. Stefan is clearly sympathetic to presuppositionalism, though he seems to be wary of Greg Bahnsen, which is curious in itself.

Below I reply to Stefan’s comments.

For Jonathan

Over on my blog Before the Beginning: The Problem of Divine Lonesomeness, internet apologist Jonathan Bradford (whose expert execution of presuppositional apologetics can be observed here) left a comment recently in which he asked me for “a detailed explanation of what a ‘consciousness’ is.”

He claims to have had interactions with Objectivists and gave the following statement:

I've never really received a satisfactory, rigorous definition of the concept as used by Objectivists.

In response to this, I explained:

The concept ‘consciousness’ is an axiomatic concept. Part of what this means is that it is conceptually irreducible and thus cannot be defined in terms of more fundamental concepts. So if you’ve been talking with Objectivists and they are not giving you a definition of ‘consciousness’ in terms of more fundamental concepts, that’s why. The same is the case with the concept ‘existence’ and those denoting sensations. These concepts are defined ostensively – essentially by pointing to those things which they denote. Axiomatic concepts are the most fundamental concepts; there are no concepts that are more fundamental than these. They are conceptually irreducible.

A Reply to Stefan on Induction and Deduction

On my blog Sye Ten Bruggencate vs. the Absolute Laws of Logic which I posted back in July, a visitor posting under the moniker StefanMach (to whom I will refer as Stefan henceforth) recently left a comment about the relationship between induction and deduction and presuppositionalism.

Specifically Stefan inquired about the consequences induction has for deductive conclusions given the view that “inductive argument conclusions are classified as either strong or weak and can never be classified as true or false.”

This is topical given that deductive arguments attempt to draw conclusions from at least one premise which, as a generalization, must be the conclusion of an inductive inference. Thus if an inductive inference can only produce a conclusion that is at best “strong” (as opposed to “weak”), then any attempt to draw a conclusion by means of deduction from an inductive conclusion would necessarily inherit the tentativeness already present in the inductive conclusion. Consequently, how can any deductive conclusion be accepted as reliably true or certain?

The Moral Code of Life

In its most general sense, morality is a code which guides one’s choices and actions.

Consequently there are two basic codes available to man, both mutually opposed to one another.

They are:

the moral code of life vs. the code of death.

Let us explore what distinguishes these two mutually opposed codes.

An Examination of the Ontological Argument

In my previous entry, Twerking for Jesus, I mentioned that I would be posting a new entry examining the ontological argument for the existence of a god more closely. So here it is.