Please define "an atheist". Please also explain how, by the definition of atheism or "an atheist", you can lump all "atheists" together in any way apart from that they do not believe in gods.

You didn't answer the question. Here it is again as a reminder.

Are you saying that we should assume without questioning that human reason is qualified to deliver meaningful credible statements on any subject? — Jake — Jake

My post was supposed to be an answer to the question. If I asked you "which is better at golf - mathematics or the capital of Spain", you could not answer me in any way other than to explain that my question doesn't make any sense. That is what I have tried to do. Your comparison of reason and religious textbooks, as to which has authority to speak on a subject is nonsensical, its not a question that can be answered, only one whose incoherence can be discussed.

Reason is a habit or method of thinking. Religious texts are a collection historical/instructional propositions. The two are not even the same sort of thing, they cannot be compared any more than mathematics and the capital of Spain, can be compared for which is best at golf.

'Authority', in the sense your using it, means to have the correct (or at least a meaningful) answer. Reason does not 'have' answers, it is a method of thinking. Two people thinking reasonably can still arrive at two different answers.

Being the best does not automatically equal being qualified. — Jake

I didn't mention being qualified in the absolute, I said it is the closest. A judgement made by reason. The same as you did with the twelve year old and the four year old. They may neither understand particle physics, but that does not mean they are equal, one will likely give a better account than the other.

You still are not challenging your chosen authority, but are instead focusing exclusively on defending it's superiority, just as all ideologists do. A person of reason would challenge all proposed authorities in an even handed manner with no dog in the fight. — Jake

What makes you think I haven't already done this. Are you so arrogant as to presume that the fact I haven't come up with the same answer as you is conclusive evidence that I mustn't have carried out the same calculation?

You have no proven authority which can be used to dismiss the proposed authority of religious texts, at least in regards to the largest of questions. — Jake

You previously claimed that reason was an appropriate method for determining the authority or otherwise of sources. How else are you concluding that 'reason' and 'religious texts' are equally qualified to speak on matters pertaining to the existence of God. You presumably reached that conclusion by reason, and so must have reached the conclusion that 'reason' was he qualified authority in that matter (though how did you reach that conclusion?).

If you can use reason to determine that religion and reason are both qualified in the this matter, then why cannot I use reason to determine that they are not?

even the most respected commentators in the God debate typically don't even question the "exists or not" paradigm which the God debate is built upon. It's entirely possible that the question itself is so flawed (ignoring the nature of reality) that any argument for or against in response to such a question is rendered meaningless. Such a possibility at least merits investigation, but pretty much nobody ever bothers. This is the system you are basing atheism upon. — Jake

Actually, the paradigm is frequently questioned.

"I think an almost unbelievable amount of false philosophy has arisen through not realizing what 'existence' means."

Bertrand Russell, Logic and Knowledge. Essays (a famous atheist).

Your arrogance in thinking your insights unique lets you down. Try reading more.

All your argument seems to consist of is that propositions based on reason have so far failed to convince a large enough majority of people that we should hold the belief that there is no God.

What you have failed to yet provide is any argument as to why reason's failure to convince enough people has any bearing on it qualification to be used to address the issues.

You still are not challenging your chosen authority, but are instead focusing exclusively on defending it's superiority, just as all ideologists do. — Jake

That is what you are doing.

they are assuming, without proof, that logic and reason have infinite ability, are able to meaningfully analyze anything in all of reality.

It's an unwarranted leap from...

Reason is useful for very many things.

to...

Reason is useful for everything. — Jake

Is there another means to “analyze” reality, meaningfully or otherwise?

You haven’t shown anyone reasoning or making the claim that reason is useful for everything. You also need to show the error in reasoning that reason is useful for everything.

Has anyone actually made that claim, though? That reason is useful for "everything"? Or that that logic and reason have "infinite ability"? Or are able to meaningfully analyse "anything in all of reality"?

Or did he pluck it out of thin air?

I’m not sure. If anyone has, and Jake can show the error in this reasoning, and also show a refusal of this person or persons to accept their error and adopt the corrected reasoning, then Jake will have made his case for ideology, in my opinion.

I have little hope that he’ll be successful.

I’m not sure. If anyone has, and Jake can show the error in this reasoning, and also show a refusal of this person or persons to accept their error and adopt the corrected reasoning, then Jake will have made his case for ideology, in my opinion.

I have little hope that he’ll be successful. — praxis

I think that you, me, and Isaac are of one mind on that.

Your comparison of reason and religious textbooks, as to which has authority to speak on a subject is nonsensical, its not a question that can be answered, only one whose incoherence can be discussed. — Isaac

When religious people seek answers, they turn to their holy book.

When atheist people seek answers, they turn to reason.

Each party references something which they believe will deliver useful information.

If I have to explain that, if I have to explain it 99 times, then I'm essentially in the same position as when a Jehovah's Witness knocks on my door. Engagement is pointless.

You haven’t shown anyone reasoning or making the claim that reason is useful for everything. — praxis

God is typically a proposal about the most fundamental nature of all reality. The proposal has the biggest scope of any proposal.

What's happening here is that all of you are atheist ideologists who perceive the threat to the glorious self flattering personal image you have created out of atheism, and so you are engaging the usual atheist dodges.

None of you have even attempted to prove the qualifications of the methodology which your entire perspective depends upon, because you know you can't. So rather than simply admit that (as most theists would honestly do) you're trying to flood the zone with as much pointless clutter as you can, hoping to bore me away, so you can get back to your fantasy superiority.

It's worked.

What makes you think I haven't already done this. — Isaac

Show us, link to the thread where you challenge the qualifications of human reason for the largest of questions. You can't. Because you never did any such thing, and probably never even considered it was necessary until this thread.

I'm sorry guys, but you're all frauds, so I'm bailing. You win. Adios.

When religious people seek answers, they turn to their holy book.

When atheist people seek answers, they turn to reason. — Jake

When religious people seek answers, they turn to their holy book. - and reason which they use to understand the meaning of the words there and how they apply to the questions.

When atheist people seek answers, they turn to reason - just reason, nothing else.

Reason is an absolutely necessary part of both consultations. The only difference is that religious people add a source of information atheists do not consider sound.

Pre apprehension sounds a lot like Kierkegaard's concept of appropriation. He explains that the subject appropriates truth directly in existence.

Religion encounters difficulty when the existing subject is negated through the dialectic movement into objectivity and speculation. This is where understanding commences, where the truth of understanding is posited through speculative system. Yet all speculative knowledge is merely an approximation, so that, objectively, we are only capable of apprehending relative and contingent truth. Only the existing subject stands in relation to absolute truth (God) through the religious commitment.

Religion is a dialectical halt, stopping with the existing subject in the inwardness of faith and the passion of appropriation. This is what makes religion such a tricky category, viz. by having its reality in the inwardness of the existing subject, its direct communication is rendered impossible. Since all speculation communicates directly, every speculative system, even mighty modern science, moves in the opposite direction, towards objectivity and away from religion.

Probably explains why classic religious documents have the tendency of being vague and cryptic. Like the finger pointing at the moon, religious texts are attempting to assist the existing subject into a direct relation with the absolute and be forgotten. But the religious texts have no inherent value. The absolute does not exist imminently as religious text, so that to relate oneself to the absolute by worshiping the text is simply idolatry.

The religious person's faith depends on his letting go of objective understanding, on grasping and cultivating his socratic ignorance towards the uncertainty of objectivity. The skepticism of Socratic ignorance is the opposite of modern skepticism because it exposes the unreliability of speculation and repels objectivity.

You haven’t shown anyone reasoning or making the claim that reason is useful for everything.
— praxis

God is typically a proposal about the most fundamental nature of all reality. The proposal has the biggest scope of any proposal. — Jake

No, wrong again. The claim (it’s not a proposal) is that God exists and she created us, etc, etc. There are few if any claims about the fundamental nature of God himself, for instance, such as how God came to exist. If God created us, who created God? If God is everything then is it essentially nothing? All sorts of questions about the fundamental nature of reality are unaddressed by the religions that I know of.

It could be that we all exist in a simulation, for example, including God, and in the simulation, everything in the Bible and all other religious doctrine is actually true. In the simulation there’s a heaven and a hell for Christians, a Nirvana for Buddhists, a Valhalla for some pagans, whatever floats an individual's religious boat, so to say. In the simulation, even atheism could be true. Upon death, the atheists would simply be deleted from the simulation rather than placing them into an afterlife simulation. None of the religions in the simulation, though all of them concurrently true, would be making a claim about this more fundamental reality that is running the simulation.

You need to understand that religion doesn’t need to make claims about “the most fundamental nature of all reality,” and its claims don’t need to be true, they only need to be meaningful.

What's happening here is that all of you are atheist ideologists who perceive the threat to the glorious self-flattering personal image you have created out of atheism, and so you are engaging the usual atheist dodges. — Jake

I just proposed a metaphysics that not only theorizes how the 'father in the sky' religion could be true, but that ALL religions, as well as atheism, could be true, and there are thousands of religions in the world. Sometimes I amaze even myself, speaking of self-flattery.

None of you have even attempted to prove the qualifications of the methodology which your entire perspective depends upon, because you know you can't. — Jake

I assume you mean that none of us have attempted to prove the efficacy of using reason to formulate proposals about "the most fundamental nature of all reality," which is a proposal that has "the biggest scope of any proposal."

I just proposed a proposal that encompasses all religious claims, and I did it with reason. So you tell me, does this prove the efficacy of using reason to formulate proposals about oh-so MEANINGFUL stuff?

Faith and proof are opposites, hence the merit of religion is nullified when proof is necessary for apprehending truth. It is the classic battle of reason vs faith.

The atheist relies on direct proof to determine truth objectively, so the atheist belief lies primaliy in the proof (qua reason and methodology), and the truth merely becomes an incidental byproduct. It is reason and method that cause the dialectical movement from existinging subjectivity into objective understanding. Yet reason and method are infinite. So instead of stopping at faith as an existing subject with an attitude of socratic ignorance concerning objectivity, the atheist, regarding subjectivity as untrue (because unprovable), increasingly forgets what it is to exist as he gets gets lost in speculation.

Where is Jake's argument for the authority of reason which he relies upon for his criticism? I must have missed it.