Dr. Alvin Plantinga Sums Up Why Atheism, Naturalism, Materialism, Etc... Are So Pitiable They Contradict Most Tenets of Basic Logic

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

It's a very elementary argument, but it's potent. In fact were all materialists to realize how thin, fragile and dishonest their intellectual foundations are, they would immediately dip into nihilistic solipsism. Sadly, most of them do not have the courage and honesty for that .

[Epicurean]

Is this a serious argument? If so it's unbelievably thin.

No, we don't know anything for certain. To know something to be absolutely true is at a level far beyond what we operate on, I would say on the level of a god.

All that science and logical thinking is about is finding things that don't contradict and act as if they were true until something comes up that contradicts it. If nothing that contradicts a specific "fact" ever comes up, a logical person still would say nothing about the absolute truthfulness of this "fact".

[MathiasOfAthens]

Is this a serious argument? If so it's unbelievably thin.

No, we don't know anything for certain. To know something to be absolutely true is at a level far beyond what we operate on, I would say on the level of a god.

All that science and logical thinking is about is finding things that don't contradict and act as if they were true until something comes up that contradicts it. If nothing that contradicts a specific "fact" ever comes up, a logical person still would say nothing about the absolute truthfulness of this "fact".

God has spoken to all the believers though thats how believers know god exist because god has spoken to them. They're not crazy though. Clearly you dont need to be a god to know god exist because god speaks to everyone.

[Yosemite]

Is this a serious argument? If so it's unbelievably thin.

No, we don't know anything for certain. To know something to be absolutely true is at a level far beyond what we operate on, I would say on the level of a god.

All that science and logical thinking is about is finding things that don't contradict and act as if they were true until something comes up that contradicts it. If nothing that contradicts a specific "fact" ever comes up, a logical person still would say nothing about the absolute truthfulness of this "fact".

why are there atheists then? shouldn't they all be agnostics

[Phier]

why are there atheists then? shouldn't they all be agnostics

This has been said most likely over 100 times in the last year in this forum, but almost all atheists, the thinking variety, even the most outspoken, admit there is a possibility of a god, we just believe it to be such a low probability that it can be discounted.

[Taliesyn]

Is this a serious argument? If so it's unbelievably thin.

No, we don't know anything for certain. To know something to be absolutely true is at a level far beyond what we operate on, I would say on the level of a god.

All that science and logical thinking is about is finding things that don't contradict and act as if they were true until something comes up that contradicts it. If nothing that contradicts a specific "fact" ever comes up, a logical person still would say nothing about the absolute truthfulness of this "fact".

A typical unthinking answer of standard atheist style.

Is it really too hard for you to figure out that your statement,

"we don't know anything for certain"

, is itself an affirmation of knowledge which you appear to be certain of?
Duh!

Why are atheists immune to logic?

And you continue in this self contradiction as if nothing were amiss,

"All that science and logical thinking is about is finding things that don't contradict"

Um right, so seeing that we cannot know anything for certain how can we then know for certain that things contradict or not?

Duh!

Let me put it this way, see if you get it - you have to assume the law of non contradiction in order to disprove it!!

You cannot prove anything at all if you don not assume this law is absolute - which constitutes certain knowledge! If nothing can be proved then your atheism sucks big time cause you have no certain knowledge upon which to base it!!!!

Or to quote someone much smarter than the average internet atheist,

“Anyone who denies the Law of Noncontradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned” -(Avicenna, Medieval Persian scholar)

Sheesh, atheism - an intellectual black hole of galactic proportions. No light escapes from it.

[Stívarðr Reynitré]

There is no truth until God has been revealed...God has yet to be revealed, thus there is no truth.

Jesus said that ONLY the Son KNEW the Father.

I believe that the OT God was not the NT God...but Jesus was the great advocate that pointed us away from a vengeful, almost petty God.

[Phier]

First three minutes were good.

At minute 3 the full blown retard starts. He gets some asinine 50-50 probability of our beliefs being true and taking that to mean that if you believe in evolution then you can't trust your own cognitive faculties because the probability of you being correct is low.

Apparently intelligence can't be really evolved I guess....

You could tell he was having a hard time trying to explain his idea because he starts out so clearly and then starts struggle in his own argument which is based on a completely idiotic suppositions about evolution, obviously ignoring or completely not understanding the idea of natural selection.

Edit: Looking this guy up, and his resume being what I'd expect, apparently when someone else tried to point this out his response was....

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it... Clearly there are any number of belief-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour.

*sigh*

Apparently only God gives us the ability to understand that we don't want to be eaten.....

This is interesting because he has no problem giving Paul intent (to be eaten) so he WANTS to be eaten but is just too stupid TO be eaten and does just the opposite of what it would take to be eaten. So natural selection gives intent that is separated from outcome. Interestingly if you gave his Paul enough of these backwards thoughts how could you tell his actions from a true intelligence? The end result would be the same, and we would have an evolved intelligence who acted intelligently based on rather stupid intent.

[Tankbuster]

First three minutes were good.

At minute 3 the full blown retard starts. He gets some asinine 50-50 probability of our beliefs being true and taking that to mean that if you believe in evolution then you can't trust your own cognitive faculties because the probability of you being correct is low.

Apparently intelligence can't be really evolved I guess....

You could tell he was having a hard time trying to explain his idea because he starts out so clearly and then starts struggle in his own argument which is based on a completely idiotic suppositions about evolution, obviously ignoring or completely not understanding the idea of natural selection.

Pretty much.

It's interesting that proponents of this argument never specify why, if the conscious beliefs of these alien creatures are simply guesswork and with a 50/50 chance of being true, they have a consciousness at all. And since whatever belief they have, it apparently doesn't influence their behaviour at all (since the crux of the argument is that even if you have a false belief, it won't matter), why even bother to form beliefs at all?

A similar attack can be launched against the sense of the world we perceive through our eyes. Why should my eyes accurately reflect what goes on before them, to my conscious mind? It doesn't matter whether I see the gaping canyon right in front of me, what matters is simply that I happen to pick another way whenever there is one.
How I'm supposed to change path consistently when an obstacle arises without accurate visual information, is apparently not discussed, just as it's not discussed how these alien creatures manage to pick the correct survival strategies with all the bad information stored inside of them.
It seems obvious to me that consciousness evolved because -apparently- it's either necessary for solving complex problems and making long-term plans, or it's a byproduct.

It's certainly possible that consciousness and having accurate beliefs is actually unneeded, because the brain knows exactly what it's going to do without intervention of the conscious mind. And the beliefs we do feel we have are simply a way of keeping the conscious part of the brain occupied even though it really has no influence on actual mechanics whatsoever. An internal matrix for your conscious mind, if you will.
Why this whole thing would then evolve to the complex consciousness we feel now, I really can't imagine. And it doesn't seem like we should worry about the possibility of an internal matrix any more than we should about an external matrix.

As with many arguments aimed against naturalism, the attack can be directed against just about any aspect of cognition, or sensory experience, or consciousness itself, in a materialistic worldview. And an argument that attacks everything, counterintuitivally, attacks nothing.

[Phier]

Why this whole thing would then evolve to the complex consciousness we feel now, I really can't imagine.

But thats the sneaky part of his argument.

We know we are intelligent, we know we are conscious of our surroundings. Claiming we are not is the stuff of sophomore philosophy students while high. Being we know this, his whole apologetic point would be we should reject evolution in favor of divine 'power' when it comes to our consciousness.

His argument is if A can't be true (according to his oddly twisted thought process) then by default you will have to embrace B of designed intelligence, which in his case B would have to be God. Its even more clever in a way that he used an alien species for his first example. One B might be the idea that aliens somehow modified us from apes into thinking beings, this has been the stuff of science fiction for 40 years, one book I read called it 'Uplifting'. The issue though is that if aliens did us, who did the aliens? The answer would always point to God (which would remove the need for the aliens).

[OccidentisVir]

First three minutes were good.

At minute 3 the full blown retard starts. He gets some asinine 50-50 probability of our beliefs being true and taking that to mean that if you believe in evolution then you can't trust your own cognitive faculties because the probability of you being correct is low.

It is not asinine. We are faced with two possibilities:
1. Belief is justified.
2. Belief is not justified.

If one cannot know if one's beliefs, given the premises of materialism, are justified, it follows that we must consider option 2 to be just as likely as option 1. Now since reasoning combines many beliefs, the total probability of a belief resulting from an act of reasoning being true is of the form:

P(reasoning is true) = 0.50^n

Where n is the number of beliefs involved in the act of reasoning. So it follows that the probability of any belief being true is either less than or equal to 50 percent.

[Phier]

It is not asinine. We are faced with two possibilities:
1. Belief is justified.
2. Belief is not justified.

If one cannot know if one's beliefs, given the premises of materialism, are justified, it follows that we must consider option 2 to be just as likely as option 1. Now since reasoning combines many beliefs, the total probability of a belief resulting from an act of reasoning being true is of the form:

P(reasoning is true) = 0.50^n

Where n is the number of beliefs involved in the act of reasoning. So it follows that the probability of any belief being true is either less than or equal to 50 percent.

[Jack04]

If one cannot know if one's beliefs, given the premises of materialism, are justified, it follows that we must consider option 2 to be just as likely as option 1. Now since reasoning combines many beliefs, the total probability of a belief resulting from an act of reasoning being true is of the form:

P(reasoning is true) = 0.50^n

Where n is the number of beliefs involved in the act of reasoning. So it follows that the probability of any belief being true is either less than or equal to 50 percent.

Not sure about that. We must consider that there is a non-zero possibility of option 2 being correct. It need not be 50/50. Importantly, our understanding of a materialistic universe arises from a growing base of knowledge about the nature of our evidence gleaned through (to all intents and purposes) trial and error. That knowledge may be incomplete, but it has developed far beyond the point where it is merely 50/50. These are not just random assertions (beliefs), they are considered theories. The fact that the argument manages to entirely ignore this fact is what makes it so laughable in my eyes.

Edit: ... and there are plentiful evolutionary reasons for us to understand the results of simple trial and error.

[OccidentisVir]

Not sure about that. We must consider that there is a non-zero possibility of option 2 being correct. It need not be 50/50.

If we have two mutually exclusive options where one must be correct and we have no more reason to suppose one is true rather than the other, we must then assume they are equally probable.

Importantly, our understanding of a materialistic universe arises from a growing base of knowledge about the nature of our evidence gleaned through (to all intents and purposes) trial and error.

If we assume that humans are solely products of material evolutionary forces, we can claim that these forces produce behaviors which have survival and reproductive advantage; however, we cannot claim that these forces will necessarily produce true beliefs. So long as a creature acts in a way that leads to survival and reproduction, it is irrelevant what it believes.

Plantinga's point is that the combination of materialism and naturalism undercut all beliefs, including scientific ones.

That knowledge may be incomplete, but it has developed far beyond the point where it is merely 50/50. These are not just random assertions (beliefs), they are considered theories. The fact that the argument manages to entirely ignore this fact is what makes it so laughable in my eyes.

What do you mean by "these"? Plantinga is not denying evolution or any other scientific theory; rather he is claiming that materialism and naturalism do not provide a sufficient ground for supposing our beliefs, including beliefs about gravity, evolution, space, etc, are true.

[Helm]

I believe that the OT God was not the NT God...but Jesus was the great advocate that pointed us away from a vengeful, almost petty God.

I think you would like Gnostic Christianity, they believed the exact same thing.

[basics]

" Jesus said that ONLY the Son KNEW the Father. I believe that the OT God was not the NT God...but Jesus was the great advocate that pointed us away from a vengeful, almost petty God."

esaciar,

Yet Jesus on replying to members of the Sanhedrin said to them that if they had believed Moses, they would have believed Him, because before Moses was I AM. On saying this they immediately set out to get Him, why? Because He was saying that He was God. They went ballistic when they heard His words, tearing their clothes etc etc.

The New Testament reveals what was hidden in the Old, meaning that God was the same in both Testaments and is still the same. What made a difference was that by the crucifixion the Old could be replaced by the New which it was but nonetheless the nations rather than accepting the Gospel of the New, preferred to stay under the Old.

Even in religiosity every single religion on this planet is still under the Old Covenant, why? Because Jesus Christ who is the Shepherd of His flock and only His flock, does not know or recognise them any more than they do Him. That being the case they are still under sentence of death whereas His flock are no longer under any sentence.

The wrath of God hasn't changed against sin and cannot, Paul making that quite clear in Romans, stripping all excuses away from under men and women who persist on denying that they have any. It is because God is not petty that we have an assurance of constancy from all that He says and delivers.

[DimeBagHo]

I think his argument goes like this: (1) A naturalistic evolutionary account of psychology only gives us reason to think that beliefs will be successful (in the sense that they tend to get belief-holders to act in ways that enhance survival and reproduction); (2) but a naturalistic evolutionary account does not give us reason to think that beliefs will be true (presumably in the sense of representing the world the way it is); (3) so we have no reason to think that our beliefs, including our beliefs in naturalism and evolution, are true.

There are two obvious problems with this argument. First, under a pragmatic theory of truth there is no difference between a successful belief and a true belief so this argument doesn't even get off the ground. Second, the argument relies on a claim that reliability (the tendency of beliefs to represent the world the way it is) and adaptivity (the tendency of beliefs to cause successful behaviour) are not only analytically unrelated (i.e. pragmatism is false) but causally unrelated. In other words he thinks it is just as easy to get successful action with systematically false beliefs as it is to get successful action with systematically true beliefs. At first glance this claim is implausible and he provides no argument to support it here.

In fact this seems like a much bigger problem for theists than for atheists. It is hard to imagine how a cognitive system could develop through natural selection without managing to accurately represent the world at least some of the time, but it is very easy to imagine how an omniscient creator could just rig a cognitive system so that it typically produced successful action without ever producing true beliefs.

[Playfishpaste]

I don't see how this argument doesn't go through for dualists or idealists as well as materialists. (Although I'm glad to see discussion of the EAAN going on in here!)

as to the argument itself, a lot of people (like sharon street) think it fails with respect to naturalism since cognitive faculties are just computational on many naturalisms, and so it's very difficult for a brain to have false beliefs given sufficient evolutionary stimuli.

[Jack04]

Were this about our beliefs when we first fell out of the womb, he may have a point. Between then and now, however, we've had rather a long time learning what works and what doesn't.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I think his argument goes like this: (1) A naturalistic evolutionary account of psychology only gives us reason to think that beliefs will be successful (in the sense that they tend to get belief-holders to act in ways that enhance survival and reproduction); (2) but a naturalistic evolutionary account does not give us reason to think that beliefs will be true (presumably in the sense of representing the world the way it is); (3) so we have no reason to think that our beliefs, including our beliefs in naturalism and evolution, are true.

There are two obvious problems with this argument. First, under a pragmatic theory of truth there is no difference between a successful belief and a true belief so this argument doesn't even get off the ground. Second, the argument relies on a claim that reliability (the tendency of beliefs to represent the world the way it is) and adaptivity (the tendency of beliefs to cause successful behaviour) are not only analytically unrelated (i.e. pragmatism is false) but causally unrelated. In other words he thinks it is just as easy to get successful action with systematically false beliefs as it is to get successful action with systematically true beliefs. At first glance this claim is implausible and he provides no argument to support it here.

In fact this seems like a much bigger problem for theists than for atheists. It is hard to imagine how a cognitive system could develop through natural selection without managing to accurately represent the world at least some of the time, but it is very easy to imagine how an omniscient creator could just rig a cognitive system so that it typically produced successful action without ever producing true beliefs.

I had a reply ready for your post today, which voices the best counter-argument, but then RL as always sidetracked me rather epically. I'll elaborate better later.