Hello SoliDeoGloria,
You said:
The first thing this thread does from a Christian prospective is downplay the role that faith plays in this issue (Eph.2:8-9 Heb.11:1)...
And the first thing you manage in your above reply is a complete evasion of nearly 3/4 of my preceding post (you know, the parts about your characterization of "evangelical atheists"?); instead you choose to argue an issue I never presented.
*sigh*
Just the same, in reply to your first vague assessment, I ask:
How so? I made reference to issues of faith many times in the OP, acknowledging it's role in theistic beliefs.
...but being as how I am all for Christian Apologetics (1Pet.3:15) and firmly believe that faith is not dependant on ignorance (2Tim.2:15), I am happy to play along.
It was not I that suggested that faith was "dependent
on ignorance". But neither would it be unfair to observe that many of faith
willingly reject
any knowledge that they deem as conflicting with - or contradictory to - their understanding or their faith.
As Paul notes in Titus 1, "
...the knowledge of the Truth..." is "
...a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life..." [as promised by God]). Faith-based rationales and motivations borne of wishful thinking are
not especially conducive to discernment of fact, or to open inquiry.
Faith is easy, and many can claim "
knowledge of the Truth"; even or despite lacking capacities to read, write, or astutely evaluate foundational claims and concepts for themselves.
Ignorance certainly isn't
requisite to faith, but neither is challenge to personalized faith especially encouraged, invited, or welcomed either.
I advocate
reason. I don't waste effort "
downplaying the role of faith" in religious beliefs. Your piety is yours - and yours alone - to claim or master as you see fit. Whatever level, degree, or brand of faith you espouse is of no interest or consequence to me, nor is it of any question in the points I choose to offer within this thread.
From a Christian Theistic worldview, what I believe would probably do the most damage would be to absolutely disprove the first principle of causality. This would take not only a philosophical but also a scientific approach that would have to be absolutely exhaustive. From what I have read, the best attempts are nothing more than sidestepping and turn out not to be disproofs for causality at all. Some of the most noted Atheists/Agnostics (David Hume, etc.) have attempted and failed due to mere human limitations.
Your lent caveat ("
From a Christian Theistic worldview") - while candid - certainly does limit the scope of what such a perspective might constitute as "damaging" disproof. The "Cosmological argument" (or as you qualify it, "
the first principle of causality"), is an argument
for (or
favoring) the existence of [a] god. It proposes
no methodology for falsification of that "logical proof", which goes somewhat like this:
1)
If something exists...then "something else" must have caused that first something to exist.
2) Nothing can cause itself into existence.
3) A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4) Therefore, there must be a first cause.
Rhetorical conclusion: What could possibly exist before the universe existed, to "cause it
" into existence? Only [a] god."
Seems to make sense at first glance, doesn't it...at least if you
don't bother to think too much beyond that simplistic conclusion; to ask more questions; or to illustrate the flaws/errors of the given premises themselves.
If space/time the cosmos) is
infinite (a cyclical continuum - instead of a linear progression), does it then
require a "first cause"? If no
causation is required, then no "god explanation" is
necessary.
If the cosmos (spacetime) is
finite (with a beginning
and end), then there is a point in which spacetime
is (or
was) non-existent. "Cause" (or causation) is itself a
temporal concept (of time) - an instigating event (or "thing") that produces a result...over some measure of
time. If there is no time, there is
no existent cause (nor any need of one).
[The question and nature of cosmological spacetime (as being either
finite or
infinite) remains unanswered and incomplete by science today, as both possibilities have their supporters and detractors. This is
not to be confused with Big Bang theory, per se...as most cosmologists (and within other related fields of study) retain an overwhelming
consensus in
support of that predominantly-held understanding (considering that the Bang has been evidentially demonstrated "backwards" in spacetime to the first few
millionths of a second, it's hard to argue against it ;-)).
We already know (in fact) that sometimes, some
things can and do come from "nothing" (ex nihilo). Subatomic particles pop into and out of existence as virtual particles; unpredictable manifestations of a time-energy uncertainty principle. [Go ask a qualified quantum field theorist for expert details on this phenomena]. In essence, there is no attributable "cause" to either their temporary existence, or disappearance into non-existence. Does this phenomena
prove that a god therefore exists...or that a god is completely
unnecessary as a logical explanation of (first) cause and effect?
When you think about it for just a bit, the "first cause" argument is demonstrably flawed (by extant fact); presents no empirical or evidential "proof" (of an existent god), just an "either/or" rhetorical proposition; nor does it outline any methodology of/for "disproof".
As you might suggest, it's a matter of
faith to accept the "first cause" conclusion as some compelling logical fact, or existential "Truth".
Lucky me - as I am not bound by faith to believe or accept anything so tenuous, or failing in compelling conclusion.
To reiterate once more, I have lent ernest, honest, and qualified answer
here to the inevitable religious evangelist's query of "
What would it take for you to believe in God?".
It would again seem that my question of "
What would it take for you to not believe in God?" remains beyond any similarly qualified response on your part, excepting:
Besides that, I would probably have to die and find out that there is no God.
You wouldn't know. You'd never know. You'd just be dead. The dead know nothing, feel nothing, and retain nothing.
Ecclesiastes 9:10
Now
that, I can believe. ;-)
To dismiss theirs and other's interest in faith os 'emotional rather logically based' is rather unfair and condescending.
