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Showing posts from May 5, 2020

Dogmatic Atheism?

If the word  dogma  denotes a set of first principles that cannot be questioned, then not all dogmas are bad. For good or ill, the word is a pejorative for many people, although it's all right for some religious folks. But atheists ought to realize they have a dogma too. No, not in the sense that the theists think. The atheists's dogma is -- or should be -- logic. The laws of logic -- Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle -- are first principles that cannot be questioned -- without question-begging. Any argument against them would have to employ them if it was to qualify as an argument. (This is true of the senses also. You have to use sensory evidence in trying to make a case against sensory evidence.) Therefore, the laws are self-evident axioms, which means they cannot be rationally questioned. It also means they cannot be proved because they are what make the idea proof  coherent and possible. Any attempt to show that these laws -- A is A; nothing can be both A and