No Science, No Logic and No Morality: Atheism.

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Okay, all right, so we're further into the reason rally now, and I met Matthew Matthew's from New York, and he is the co -president of the vice president of the

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Society of Cornell Cornell okay, so you came all the way down for the reason rally yeah, yeah, I mean I've family around here

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But yeah, so it's kind of I mean it becomes a little bit complicated you can talk about brain states

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It's causing mental states and that might make some sense I personally think that it's I guess what

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I'm getting at is this is that we have as foundations here. We're stardust. We're apes. We're cosmically broccoli

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Your brain is fizzing uh -huh right and why should anybody say we need to fight for this kind of brain fizz

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Versus over here a person is fizzing this way. Why why is one brain fizz more? That's why I brought up the well in terms of resolving disputes

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That's one question in terms of why within one framework. I would believe anything at all again I think that it's a result of a combination of evolved social instincts

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It could it could have evolved the other way it could have evolved in a different way And it does evolve rationality another social species so evolution could have brought us to irrationality as the norm

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You were talking about morality not rationality. I'm talking with that information and the fizz going on in your brain

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So over here, we have here's if I use your foundations. I take atheism say Dawkins naturalistic materialism, and I look out across right now

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I see a Bunch of bags of biological stuff that are fizzing chemically

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Thoughts that say reason reason and they say we should all hold to the same kind of reasoning and everything else going on over here

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But that's the foundations as a Christian. I look at over here These are not just this is not just stardust or not just bags of stuff the made me a mongo day

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Everyone here has value and dignity We can we should fight for universal laws and changing invariant laws of logic because this world is not just matter emotion there are immaterial aspects to our being

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Things that you're saying seem to represent a hunger for an absolute foundation on which to base reason

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I'm saying you don't have any philosophical justification for either science logic You don't have any kind of a bit an absolute basis, that's correct

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I mean ever since I mean, well you you believe you do but you're wrong Well, no, I I actually I actually can demonstrate to you even by your own reason right now

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The God that I you and I both know exists because you're reasoning according to the

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Christian worldview You're acting as though their nature is uniform, but you can't justify that given your atheism

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No, but I I take the uncertainty as being a being a basic Uncertainty so only if I wanted to claim that I was capable of having

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Assertions, yeah, I would I need to Are you certain about that?

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Um, that's an interesting point Earlier say that it's objectively true that there's a

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Yes, okay, so that's totally Statements yeah, yeah, absolutely certain

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I can have no certainty No, no, I didn't say I didn't say I was absolutely certain. Well, I'm sorry.

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No, so just I so you can have certainty when you have in terms of a a self -contained logical system

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So, do you know that there's a distinction between analytic and synthetic proposition? But you told me that laws of logic are just results of chemicals going on in our brain.

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That's an interesting question um, so for example mathematics is It's an interesting philosophical question of why mathematics works so well and why

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Matthew is that you're living right now Standing on a Christian view of reality and how you're living but you're denying it with your atheism

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You're fighting for things like uniformity in nature laws of logic and morality, but you have no justification given your atheism

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Oh, well, I mean Christian Christian, you know Intellectual theology was developed on a basis of platonic and Aristotelian Roman philosophy

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So I mean that know that that's that's me. That's a thought authoritarian claim. That's not

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Well, I mean in terms of my basic epistemological and ontological positions. I am what are you rational?

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I am more I Am a scientific realist. I believe that That Synthetic assertions about the universe are always

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Always open to to revision through further evidence. So I don't believe

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Logical logic are analytical. So are they universal are they universal? Laws of logic are a self -contained system of propositions.

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Should I should I be listening to you right now looking for inconsistencies or no? Because you and I don't share the same brain

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Uh -huh. So how are you this this appeal you're making to these universal laws of logic?

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How does that leave from your brain to mine? You don't share the same brain? How is that a universal truth? Well, we actually have very similar brains, but we don't share the same brain you're fizzing atheistic thoughts right now

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I'm fizzing Christian theistic thoughts, but you're a turn to appeal to universal laws of logic by given atheism.

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All you are is matter in motion I don't understand. Where's the universal law of logic when

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I touch it That's an interesting question. Um, the thing is that there's no reason to believe that You know

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Unusually intelligent apes that evolved on it on one planet in the universe should have the hardware to be able to solve

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You know the basic questions of the universe So trying to appeal to me as a scientific

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Rationalist to try to answer all of the basic and deep philosophical questions about the universe.

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Well, you're Not realistic. Well Matthew the thing is though is you're living as though these laws of logic are universal and unchanging and necessary But you have no justification for your appeal to them.

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No Right, so you're you're fighting for logic, which you can't justify as a Christian. I have a basis for logic and science and morality

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Yeah, so you're really just one well again, you don't have a problem fallacious things in your worldview No, I don't believe that.

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I don't justify universal I don't I don't think that you can have any ultimate justification for anything.

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So you can't call what I said just fallacious Ah within the framework that I'm operating on I am calling it gracious I am

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NOT saying that it has any kind of Necessarial are fallacious things are fallacious things allowed in your worldview or not allowed

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They are just fallacious are they allowed or not allowed So if I make the assertion that a that an argument is correct

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Right, the word correct has meaning within a self -contained logical system And so within that system by definition of this logical correct

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But that's part of what it's the meaning of the meaning of the word correct a logical system that you're referring to Matthew Does that exist only in your mind or is that universal?

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I think that that's related to the question of why things like mathematics work and I don't know

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I'm not a philosopher, but you live as though they are important. I Do you do math as you as you do?

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No, I Yes, you do logic as if you do know So that's interesting question.

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No, I don't think so. I mean basically I think that you can have Operating assumptions

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That you can then work under without making any kind of without making a strong claim right for their

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That statement right now that you just made that I have a necessary foundation or was it just random

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I could have died. Yeah, I'd ten minutes ago. I mean that I don't see do you have any justification for the laws of logic?

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You don't have ultimate justification. So don't use them No, I reject the idea that you have to have ultimate justification to do it so you would have to live in the world

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With no justification no ultimate justification for logic. No ultimate justification. That's right formity in nature

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No ultimate justification for morality. So the difference though that is that you

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I am saying that We all have to live in that world and that you are just basically telling yourself a story

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That allows yourself to believe that you do have an old man You and I you mentioned a moment ago

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You don't have certainty Christians do can have certainty about things that God has revealed We have what's called a revelation of his demology, right?

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And so we can know things for certain because God ultimately Enters into world history and he tells us right in your world view

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You're reduced to absurdity in your reasoning and your science within your world view. You are asserting that ultimate foundations are possible

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Necessary and you're living like they are but you reject on your creators. No, I'm not living like they are because I I am

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Except that I can operate under You know operational hypothesis

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It's not faith because I don't claim to be certain about it I would have to be certain you have a Matthew Do you know that tomorrow is going to be like today with nature being uniform?

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No, no, that's human There's no inferential basis for There's no answer for in Yeah, I mean lots of people have tried to do you know why do you know how a

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Christian would answer the uniformity of nature It's uniform because God makes because God has revealed himself and he carries the universe along That's why science is all built upon a creationist view of reality

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Yeah, I just think that any particular person who claims to have had access to revelation is probably deluded or lying

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Well, that's that's a claim, but it's okay to be deluded and lying in your world view or stardust The word okay is a moral claim.

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I'm just saying that it's probably wrong probably wrong, but could be right. Absolutely Okay, so there's no certainty.

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No absurdities are allowed I don't know what you mean by that. Well, you said it could be either way.

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Yeah, so absurdities could be allowed I don't know what you mean by that. It could be it could be okay to just be absurd and live absurd

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Well, I'm not going to stop you Right. I'm asking Matthew. Yeah Is that an intelligent way to live?

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That's a value judgment and I already said within my value system I do think that having as accurate views as possible is important.

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Okay, well, I'll ask you one more question and I'll let you go the uniformity in nature It's necessary to do science.

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It's necessary to do all that we just did it's desirable if you if you desire to have accurate Well, we can't do science if we don't have

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Rationally intelligible you you you can do science you can you can have an operating assumption that the universe is uniform right and The the fact that it has worked so well so far is certainly evidence to believe that it is

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I mean, it could be that a hundred light -years from now It know yeah, you're right and that it does not provide it and that's why it doesn't provide an absolute foundation

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Because there's no answer to Hume. That's right The interesting thing is is that you're living in the same world

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I am appealing to the uniformity, but you have only blind faith Except that it's not faith because I'm not certain

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Yeah, I say I have a just I think that I have a rational justification for believing in uniformity because as I said science works

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Quite right. That's in Bertrand Russell would say to that you're begging the question because you're using the past uniformity in nature

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That's right. Well, that's not Bertrand Russell. That's Hume Russell Yeah, but that is what

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Hume's argument Would say to what you're saying he answered you he said the person that appeals to past uniformity justify the future is arguing vicious

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No, that's that's right. And so what's that? What's that? How do you know what that means is that you can't be certain?

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No, but that doesn't mean that you can't have it Justification he said well, well what but at that time in philosophy

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I mean what they were arguing about was this idea of whether or not you could create this this ultimate

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Just this ultimate foundation on which to base reality because well only if you're operating I think that this is basically a hangover from a religious world.

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Yeah, I mean, it's part of Right now you're standing here. Yeah, right You're living assuming the uniformity in nature every moment of your life this entire conversation is assumed

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Yes, you haven't thought you're just gonna pull it away to the sky. Oh, yeah. No, how come how come you never thought that well?

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Because our brains evolved in an environment where gravity For the justification for gravity holding you down now

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Well what I can't what there is not in Hume showed this is any kind of an ultimate Well, right and then there's all but there's all kinds of non -biblical to it and I don't think any of them make sense