The Logical Atheist

"We cannot think [therefore, or say] anything unlogical...." --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Prolific atheist celebrity Matt Dillahunty -- who has done many videos on logic, reason, and certainty -- thinks the problem with the laws of logic is that it they not axiomatic -- self-evidently true -- and cannot be validated because you have to use them in the very attempt to refute them. I guess he thinks that involves circular reasoning or question-begging. Most generally, he thinks logic (along with reason) is no demonstrable. Here's how he puts it in a YouTube video : There are people who believe that reason is in fact absolute. I used to be one of them. Even as an atheist I would argue that the only absolutes are identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle. And now I recognize that while this is a reasonable position to hold, that all of the evidence shows that these things are inviolate and absolute, we have no way of demonstrating that be...

When I say I know X, I mean -- and I think most people would agree -- that I have a fair degree of confidence that X is the case and that this conviction is justified.* (It's always fair to ask why someone is confident.) But what does it mean to say, "I believe (in) X"? That seems to be a mushier claim. I'd like to try to sort this out. Let's start by acknowledging that many words have multiple senses. There is no platonic realm where we can look for the true  definition of words. Language is a living social institution, and words "move" over time. (I recommend linguist John McWhorter's enjoyable book Words on the Move: Why English Won't - and Can't - Sit Still [Like, Literally] .) From the time of Samuel Johnson, dictionaries were descriptive, not prescriptive. They showed how words were commonly used, but not how they ought to be used. (Of course, if you want to communicate with other people, you'll want to infer prescription fr...

Updated May 15, 2020 Of course, you can't prove negative -- usually. Proof applies to existence, and the nonexistent is nothing, an absence that can leave no trace. Thus the idea of direct proof of nonexistence makes no sense. However, might we have indirect ways of (in effect) proving that something does not exist. Why not? Someone charged with a murder could prove he did not do it (at least not personally) by demonstrating that he was somewhere else at the time; he had an alibi. He's hasn't directly proved the negative -- I did not kill the victim -- but by proving a relevant positive -- I was somewhere else -- that logically conflicts with the negative, he has indirectly proved he did not  commit the murder. Yet some negatives are disproved all the time -- even by atheists who say you can never prove a negative. When a theist presents, say, the first-cause argument for God, the atheist will most likely reply, "That argument is not good (or bad or specious); t...

Aristotle (385-323 BCE) At least some members of the New Atheists embrace skepticism in a general way to explain why they 1) reject belief in God exists and 2) also reject belief in the nonexistence or impossibility of God. So they endorse negative atheism, but not positive atheism. This is ironic because some theologians have embraced skepticism to explain why they believe in God. The atheists I have in mind say that our fallibility demonstrates that reason, although it usually works, is "limited" or is not "absolute." These are suspect terms though. Reason is of course limited in the sense that everything is limited: to exist is to exist as something specific, and to exist as something specific is to have a limited number of attributes. A is A means that A is limited to being A and cannot also be not-A (at the same time and in the same respect). This is hardly a controversial point. See Aristotle for details. As for reason not being absolute, this brin...

Benedict de Spinoza Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677),  Ethics , Appendix to Part One, "Concerning God" : All such [misconceptions about God or nature] spring from the notion commonly entertained, that all things in nature act as men themselves act, namely, with an end in view. It is accepted as certain, that God himself directs all things to a definite goal (for it is said that God made all things for man, and man that he might worship him). I will, therefore, consider this opinion, asking first, why it obtains general credence, and why all men are naturally so prone to adopt it? secondly, I will point out its falsity; and, lastly, I will show how it has given rise to prejudices about good and bad, right and wrong, praise and blame, order and confusion, beauty and ugliness, and the like….  [J]udging from the means which [human beings] are accustomed to prepare for themselves, they are bound to believe in some ruler or rulers of the universe endowed with h...

Contrary to what many people think, the intellectuals known as the New Atheists pull their punches in their case against theism. Indeed, because they promote a philosophically watered-down version of atheism, they are way too easy on religious believers. While engaged in a worthwhile cause, they go about it in a weak and self-subverting way. How so? By giving undeserved credit to their religious opponents. They could pull the rug right out from under them, but they don’t do it. Too bad. Here’s a typical example: in an interview with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Ron Reagan said this about his lack of belief in God: “You show me evidence, I’ll reconsider, but in the absence of evidence I do not believe.” You can find similar statements from the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Matt Dillahunty,* Aron Ra,** and many others, all of whom I respect. Dawkins, a biologist, for example, writes, in The God Delusion , “The existence of God is a sc...

Evidentialist atheists often conflate the concepts evidence and good evidence. But I see a world of difference between saying, "You offer no evidence for your belief" and "You offer no good evidence for your belief."It's an important distinction. First off, is it really true that theists offer no evidence whatever? In "Defensor Fidei," Roderick T. Long, an Aristotle and Wittgenstein scholar at Auburn University, says this not usually the case. Theists and atheists clearly use the word faith in different senses, which impedes the conversation. Long writes: It seems to me that what the word [ faith ] means in ordinary language is not belief that goes beyond the evidence, but rather belief that goes beyond one’s personal experience. To someone of skeptical tendencies these might of course come to the same thing, but for most of us they do not. My belief that Stonehenge exists is not based on personal experience (nor on demonstrative deduction therefrom),...