Another response to another stupid Atheist

think you need re-read the rebuttals to your logical argument. I think that p2 has been disproven conclusively because your argument essentially rules out any disbelief in anything if applied consistently. = No, the argument states that a disbelief is a belief of a sort, and thats self defeating. So you could believe that aliens do not exist for instance, after having conclusive evidence for the position, but you could not lack a belief in Aliens. This is just..yet another strawman attack against the argument. One's a positive position, the other's a negative. So, if he wishes to believe this about the Anti-Atheistic Argument....oh well, still wrong here, and they still haven't figured it out.

This is getting a little tiresome, so won't keep this up much longer.


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In all fairness, most of the "rebuttals" have invoked a subjective opinion, when I was arguing against Objective positions. Thats merely wishful thinking, so none have really been sucessfully rebutted.

Your logical argument, particularly p2, have been successfully rebutted. - No, not at all, again...see above. It is getting quite tiresome having to explain my position over and over again to you.

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a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,

Nope, doesn't look like we're following a lie at all.

God doesn't lie because he says he doesn't lie. Hm - convincing!


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What word did you just use there? Know.

Now let me show you something that passes all logic, linguistical analysis, and Hermeneutics, as well as Exegesisical studies - Proverbs 1:7 - The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. When the Bible lays claims to the word fear, it does not mean to cower before the Lord. It means rather to respect the Lord our God. If we know ANYTHING, then we know God, because God is knowledge here.

Begging the question.


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No, because what I'm doing is using the Bible + the law of identity to prove it is so.

I'd seriously like you to find one area, just one area of any area of life that the Bible does not cover.

Genetic engineering.

Atheists (Psychos) bow to a lower Level than ever before, as if that were possible :)

I haven't proposed the idea of God yet.

All my argument demonstrates is that Atheism is false, and by default, God must exist.

Theology is that area of study. We're not at that stage at this point. If you'd like, I'll discuss this.

Do you have proof that there is not a tooth fairy? What evidence would you have?

We could test to see if Santa Claus existed. All we need do is look around at the North Pole for him. We have yet to find him....though if Santa Claus exists, since he is Material, he would be a contingent belief. We have spotted no evidence that he might exist at the North Pole.

We could also test for Invisible Pink Unicorns. Though, these would be logically impossible to exist, because if they are invisible and have infrared rays to the extent that we can see that they're pink, then they're not invisible. Thats much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So they must not be real, because they are illogical.
We could test for Pink Unicorns, but since we have yet to see a Pink Unicorn, by default, we can throw them out due to lack of evidential support.

The problem with God is that we do have evidential support for his existence. Since the beginning of time, Ancient cultures, nearly side by side in existence have been declaring that there was a God who created the heavens and the Earth. It has only been 200 years ago that people have started proclaiming that we descended from a common ancestry of some sorts (a la Darwin). However, since its illogical to claim that things change in a Permanence, as does Evolution state that its claim must imply that it has permanently changed from one being to another since the beginning of time, we can declare that Evolution is also illogical and false. By default, creation exists to be known, since the only two options are Creation or Not Created (Evolution) (Law of Excluded Middle once again). Again you will declare this is not Science, but it is in fact Science...its Origin Science! This is a legitimate field of study despite the mistakes of the moderns Scientists.

The next question we must ask is how this God interacts with his creation. It could be a Deistic God, in which God created the earth and then abandoned it. However, since the Anthropological argument demonstrates that Morals are Universal to all of mankind, we can state that life has a purpose of some sort as well that comes along with knowing the good from the bad. The next argument that demonstrates Deism false is the Moral Design Argument, and this indicates that the only logical God available to us is a Theistic God of some sorts. This would eliminate Buddhism, and several other religions that do not include a God.

The next area of study is how many Gods there are. Polytheism and Monotheism are the only two options here. Now, theres an argument, I'm trying to recall what it is, but if Polytheism is correct, we must notate that All would be One. A chair would be a pencil, and their essence would also be the same. Pantheism is self defeating and false as self evidently defined above. A Polytheism with a finite universe could also be possible...though unlikely. We can use Ockham's Razor, the Principle of Parsimony to state that we need only One God here, or we can use the Law of Identity to state that any God described would have to equal only one God in nature, since they're all infinite and immaterial by nature (with the refutation of Pantheism). In other words, if there were an alleged 2nd God, it would in fact be the first God, since they'd have to be identical by nature..essence and existence!

Now, we have three different Monotheistic religions of wide concern here. The most popular are Judaism, the Muslims, and the Christians.

To narrow it down a bit further, we of course need to see what each one incorporates. Judaism involves two holy books (we must know what the holy books state in order to know what God we're serving....otherwise, what are we really serving here?). The Torah and the Talmud. The Muslims use the Koran. And the Christians use the Bible.

The problem with the Koran is many. It states, ""If you have any doubt regarding what is revealed to you from your Lord, then ask those who read the previous scripture" (Sura 10:94). " This is a problem. It states that the Koran must be compared to the "previous scriptures" (its also notated that the word Gospel is also used as a comparison within the Koran as well) otherwise known as the Bible. The Koran thoroughly contradicts the Bible! The Koran explicity denies the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thats also a further problem since we have accounts of Josephus to argue against that as well, and the Muslims have nothing to go by here. Thats enough, but we can go further to demonstrate how the Koran is not a holy book. A second problem is in regards to whether or not Muhammad is a prophet or not. This centers around the Child of Promise within the Old Testament. If Isaac is the Child of Promise (which he is, as can be demonstrated per Genesis 16, where Abraham agrees to take Hagar as his concubine, and she bears Ishmael, who would need to be the child of promise in order for Muhammad to be a prophet. He was not, according to Genesis 17. Further, God promised a child through Sarah, not Hagar (Genesis 17-18), and in due time God fulfilled His promise. "And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him-whom Sarah bore to him-isaac." (Genesis 21:1-3) Muhammad therefore is not a prophet! Furthermore, we have in the Suras - (Sura 19:54; compare Sura 37:83-109 with Genesis 22:1-19) that the Koran teaches that Ishmael was the child of promise. This is false. And by the way, since the Muslims had the Koran in 700 A.D., they bear the burden of proof, despite their little just-so story about Gabriel and such. The Koran also confuses the mother of Jesus Mary with Myriam, the sister of Moses! This gets into a whole slew of Historical problems.

We are left with the Christians and the Jews. This one's a bit tougher to analyze. Some will say that the Jews were first, and that therefore the Christians bear the burden of proof, but this could hardly be correct. All throughout the Bible, it is stated that the Bible is first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles. The Messianic Jews in which the Bible talks about here are still in existence today. We have no discrepancy between this issue, because the Jews are included within the Bible. The only recourse that the Jews have to take is to argue that Jesus was not the Messiah. This presents a problem to them due to the fact that the Tanakh used by the Jews is exactly identical to the prophecies mentioned in the Old Testament. Its further complicated by the fact that the Talmud mentions Jesus, and that Jesus performed miracles and such, but that Jesus was basically a sorcerer (mind you written 500 years after the New Testament). The Talmud is filled with all different kinds of Mystical and Magical events that are unsupported by any real evidence. Thus, the Orthodox Jews attempt was to primarily ignore 2000 years of history, and try to stay "traditional" instead of following the purpose for what the Old Testament's true intent actually was in the first place. But again, God did not command us to follow Religion. Nowhere is it mentioned within the Old Testament that we are to follow the traditions of mankind, and as a matter of fact, it states that we are NOT to do so here. Also, the Orthodox Jews by definition are unsaved, because of the fact that (and I've been to a Messianic Jewish church a few times, so thats how I actually know this) in Leviticus and Deutoronomy, it says that sin must be forgiven by blood, or by a sacrifice of some sort. The ultimate sacrifice for mankind was Jesus Christ, so the Christians are saved, and the Jews are not. Not to mention, as a side bad, the Christians truly analyze every little thing to see if its correct or not. I can attest that Luke was not lying when he said he thoroughly checked all of the evidence to see if it was true, and came to the conclusion that Jesus Christ was who he proclaimed to be....the one and only true Son of God and our Messiah .
Now....call me silly, but does the above argument amke sense? Yes..I'd say it flows pretty well.

What do the Psychos think? We'll take a look at Psychotic Atheistic response no. 1 -

Heethun666 - However, since its illogical to claim that things change in a Permanence, as does Evolution state that its claim must imply that it has permanently changed from one being to another since the beginning of time, we can declare that Evolution is also illogical and false. By default, creation exists to be known, since the only two options are Creation or Not Created (Evolution) (Law of Excluded Middle once again). Again you will declare this is not Science, but it is in fact Science...its Origin Science! This is a legitimate field of study despite the mistakes of the moderns Scientists. - Apparently, the response to this....well, just check it out below, its quite hilarious.

I'm going to ignore that you use a circular reasoning by using the bible to support believing the christian fairy tales in it and just ask, what does 'change in a permanence mean? - Who's using the Bible to believe a fairy tale? A fairy tale by definition, is something that doesn't have actual grounds of Historical accuracy, somewhat like Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs or the Science Fiction of Evolution/Big Bang Theory. Obviously, the Bible has plenty of evidence...and the Psychos have no basis for their claim here. If anything, the fairy tale accusation belongs on the other side...for their wishful thinking fallacy here. And um, speaking of circular reasoning.......how about the circular reasoning that the Bible just can't be true after I've demonstrated how it can be true.......
Just because we can't be certain how things began doesn't mean we have to believe that it was created by some single guy in the sky. (Sky daddy, right? Who said it was a "guy"? It was a spirit, an infinite and immaterial being. Wow, no wonder they don't believe in God. They can't even get the initial beliefs right.) And just becuause dirty ancient sheep hearders wrote a book saying that they were right doesn't make them right. (well, I don't know many dirty ancient sheep hearders who wrote anything in the Bible, but it appears, you have committed the fallacy of Chronological snobbery here....not so good....)
I believe that man evolved a need for simple explanations for things that baffled him and that religion is a result of that. (Wow, and how might this "evolution" have taken place? I think you should stick to the Aliens from outer space coming down to plant the seed argument. That sounds more coherent than this. Especially with EVERYBODY all at the same time proposing this concept. Again...circular reasoning who?) Hopefully we will evolve past that need. (Perhaps you will also agree on how old the Earth is...I suppose that keeps "evolving" as well, right?) The world will be a much more peaceful place if and when we do. - So you are not certain but are certain that they evolved (Psycho alert). Alright! Way to go, for not knowing how things began, you sure do know alot about how they began. This is self defeating nonsense...but great for a laugh.

Yeah, gotta love the Atheists......they at least make for some great entertainment. Their arguments are useless nonsense...but hey, it could be worse, right? They could be Hitler's predecessors or something crazy like that (a.k.a. the world will be a much more peaceful place without religion). I shall say then, we should get rid of Evolution :). Its just as much a religion. Psychos!

The Anti-Atheistic Argument

P1: Atheists claim that they have no belief in God.

P2: In order to have no belief in God, a belief in God could not be known to exist.

P3: Since a belief in God is known to exist, then the Atheistic position is a Theistic position that is against a belief in God or not a position at all to assess.

C: If its a Theism that is Against Theism, then its self defeating and false. If its not a position in regards to religion, we need not be concerned about it since it does not exist.

On the Loose!

Thats right guys, I'm back and fighting stronger than ever for our Savior! I've been debating against some of the big dogs at CARM's discussion board.

A Priori Knowledge and the ability to Prove God's existence

This is part two to the Ravi Zecharias website. This is on A Priori knowledge, and how it assists us in proving the Existence of God. Hope you enjoy this one :). Thanks for your patience in regards to my limited posting time as of late (I have been hard at work with internet debating..I should have several of these debates posted soon on the site, and its some very VERY good news for the Young Earth Creation Science position :).

God bless,

Casey Powell

Writing 2:
Mr. Zecharias,
First off, I'd like to state that I think your writings are truly inspiring and that I think your resources are awesome on your site. I was reading on your paper regarding A Priori knowledge, in that most of what we do not know is not gained through A Priori knowledge. I am in a similar boat, but...somewhat different than your approach. I think A Priori knowledge does not need to be proven. BUT, I do think that it CAN be proven through deductive reasoning. What I do not believe is that inductive reasoning is possible without the use of deductive reasoning to provide its foundation. In other words, we'd have to deny all foundations, which would provide us with a foundation of nonfoundation...not possible in any regards. So if this is not possible, then Pragmatism is not possible. If pragmatisms is not possible, there goes a HUGE tenet of Atheism, since Science, Experience and Nonfoudationalism are now out the window as the foundation of our knowledge base. However, the only way we can derive an accurate knowledge base of reality is to use cause and effect. When we actually derive this as a crucial element to noting how we gain knowledge in the first place, we can deductively arrive at conclusions that can be traced to a foundation, or foundationalism itself (i.e. the laws of logic). Now, I have never been one too afraid to examine the truth of ANYTHING. I have always gone with a notion that if it is possible, then it potentially can follow that it is true if given enough evidence. However, stacking the deck here is a problem I find too often when we consider what proves a certain thing. Simple, to prove something, we must have logic, i.e. a priori reasoning, and evidence, i.e. a posteriori reasoning. These are the only two ways that we can make sense out of anything in the world. To conclude that anything can be known through habit and custom is relevant to an extent that it can show us a practicality of our everyday experiences. In other words, we can use evidence of people who have experienced God through their daily habits and customs to come to a conclusion of God alone...and this would be fine. However, why stop here? Why not expand our minds to Moral conclusions? Axiology firmly supports the necessity of Objective Morality, so a cause and effect for this would be God. And this, having been established deductively, which takes precedence over Axiology itself, would then lead us to a conclusion that God exists, and is necessary for Morality....i.e. the Moral argument for the Existence of God. The Anthropological Argument proves that these things are necessarily true, through the soundness of its argument. Any sound argument is of course a true argument, and thus can be now framed within the framework of an A Priori Necessity. In other words, A Priori/Intuition deals with the Origin of Knowledge. Any A Priori premise can be established, but unless followed through to its conclusion is henceforth proven false. And the only arguments that can do this in defining the existence of God, and the knowledge we have of him is Christianity. Sound arguments with no counter, simply entail Silence as Acceptance as a necesssary premise. Now, how further can we take proof to demonstrate the existence of God? Young Earth Creation Science is a well documented fact. In fact, there is more evidence for this Science than anything else we have out there. It is the most overlooked of all of the arguments, but in fact, settles the arguments that all Christians have been debating all along. With the acceptance of Natural Selection, Variation, and Speciation as all being the byproduct of God's creation, delivered to Mr. Edward Blythe, have we any reason to doubt these essential Scientific conclusions? No. All we have to doubt would in essence be that of the Naturalistic Hypothesis of Evolution itself, which is an Argument from Silence. We can not prove a negative, henceforth, it is unprovable, and can be demonstrated to be false through the reasoning of providing sound arguments for the existence of God. Since to provide proof of God, we would therefore have to state that I deny what is necessarily absolutely proven to be true, we have no argument and the premise is nonsense. As such, we can further continue along the Cause and Effect chain through the utmost of priority, naturally established throughout all of humankind (as humans can all be demonstrated to prioritize something, why can this not be applied to knowledge? Inherently, it is.) Knowledge henceforth not being dependent upon the mind can be demonstrated to be true through the proof of Direct Realism as a base, and the demonstrating that Metaphysical Realism is true. Direct Realism can be proven as such: homepage.ntu.edu.tw/.../200612winter/ Perceptual%20Phenomenology%20and%20the%20Problem%20of%20Perception.doc. Very important to establish this. Now to state that we can not know things a priori is simply nonsense, for this one thing would have to be known a priori in order to make sense out of the subject actually knowing what a priori knowledge is to begin with. And any attempt to put a limit to our knowledge, whether positive or negative, can not be utilized, in which case we may know the totality of what can be known in this lifetime, but of course, this does not entail that we know all things (i.e., we can only speculate about what heaven consists of, we can't actually know anything about it except for what the Bible tells us regarding its existence). As such, we need never appeal to a god of the gaps. If something can be explained in regards to the nature of God, we should have no problem demonstrating how God is involved within the process through the use of deductive reasoning. However, it is necessary to first question the existence of God in order to establish an Analytical relationship between our A Priori knowledge and Deductive and Inductive Reasoning. We may derive our foundational knowledge through a proof for that foundational knowledge, which should only seek to confirm what we already knew to be the case. Is this circular you may wonder? Well, not at all, if what we presume to be the case turns out to be the case, this should not be circular as knowledge would not depend upon the subject, but rather the subject coming to terms with this knowledge. We must also have objective standards on which to evaluate our evidence (i.e. sources, Philosophical bases, Epistemological proofs). It is well documented that everyone will use the laws of logic, and that this is a universal principle which must be come to terms with. One can never start with our environment and expect to move to its first cause, nay, for this would entail an infinite regress of effects to an unknown cause, and would violate the principle of cause and effect. Inductive Reasoning shall be thought of to be self defeating on its own, for Inductive Reasoning IS a first cause of sorts, and can not be known but through deductive reasoning. Hence, we must start with a logical assumption that is not self defeating and work from there as a starting point. Hence in order to make sense of this Inductive Reasoning, Empiricism could never work to establish its foundational knowledge, neither Kant's Gap between our minds and reality hypothesis (for this conclusion must also be reached through the start of reality...i.e. at least the mind is realized to be real). Which is to be valued then more highly, that of Evidence or Logic? Evidence on its own can not speak, and as such, we can demonstrate that logic would take priority over the evidence presented. However, no Logic entails no evidence to be possible, but this conclusion must also be recognized as a logical statement, and can not be possible, and as such is false. Hence, we are stuck with only logic, lest we can demonstrate Skeptical Liberalism, Pantheism and Idealism to be true in fashion. Liberalism, as such, entails we are given a free choice to decide which axioms perhaps to start with. None of this is ingrained, nor anything given intrinsic value of worth, and the implications and inferences we draw are therefore worthless as such the demonstrations to show it. One must be clever enough to ask, if this in itself is not an inference of sorts and if one is compelled to say no, his statement fails, and the axiom may be rejected. Of course, one may be compelled to respond with, well, thats fine, but I'm more focused on the Externalistic modes of Experience, and in interreacting with people, as I perceive this to be the truth of life, though we can most certainly demonstrate this to be a red herring of sorts, and quite ambiguous as to what the meaning might be. As such, a stupified silence must be entailed next, lest the person put absolutely no emphasis on his reasoning capabilities at all, which to that extent would be drawn from his reasoning capabilities and must be enacted to be false. If a person insists therefore to draw from his argument that he may use his reasoning capabilities in order to demonstrate a rejection of his reasoning capabilities, this must again be demonstrated to be self-defeating and false. No reasonable objection to our hypothesis as such may be made from this stance. If one insists on Idealism, it must be rejected as Idealism entails a concrete standard by which to base its conclusion that we must turn all concretes into conceptual instances. When presented with this, it can be demonstrated false by entailing that concrete knowledge is necessary. For one to claim that concrete knowledge is not necessary would then to claim at least that one concrete as necessarily true. The only position that may be established is that of nothing necessarily true, but can one truly conceive of that which is nothing? If nothing were to exist, we would never come to know about this, and such, nothing is necessarily true would be demonstrated to be necessarily false. One may then respond with Pantheism, that everything is all the same. Again, the initial premise having already failed, we may reject this with no need to move on any further. One may point to a genetic fallacy being the reason for our direct realism, but nay, for a genetic fallacy may never tell us the truth of a situation. The origin of belief can be demonstrated to be necessarily separate from the origin of a thing, as such belief is a conceptual and a thing is a concrete, there is a necessary dichotomy, yet not entailing that of a mutually exclusive condition. To state that nothing conceptual is truly real would therefore entail a necessary conceptual in and of itself, and a skeptic has now run out of options for debate on this matter. One other matter of debate regarding a starting point however is whether there is a universally solid only one starting point to be dealt with? To answer yes to this would entail this be the one starting point to deal with, whatever that may be. One must start with a belief, not perception, lest he may actually conceive of his perception, in which case, the conception entails a self defeating notion as the base of our knowledge. If one feel compelled to move to this point of direct perception as a starting point, we may then infer of those who have hallucinations and such to reconsider this decision. As such...one may only start with a Direct Reality of substances. No other position is possible. But I digress, how may we perform the magnificence of this proof of God you may wonder? First a consideration of God is all one may need to prove God. Has not everyone since the beginning of time considered there to be a God? This again through a conceptual basis of reality may demonstrate an idea to be concrete. As such, any concrete idea must correspond to reality, as only a concrete idea may entail the truth of any given situation. Teleological Arguments, Moral Arguments, Ontological Arguments, Cosmological Arguments and many numerous other arguments for God's existence from St. Thomas Aquinas himself need be the final cut to any skeptical position on our issue, with the rebuttal of the contraries as necessarily all one need in order to prove God's existence. The question may remain, can one truly hold to these positions that he claims to have? Is he simply living a denial of reality? Of course, the answer of yes must apply to both of these distinctions. A solid worldview must take precedence before one may consider evidence of any kind. Evidence may not be forced into one's worldview, but instead must be forced into a true worldview of things. Once one has established a correct Epistemological premise to start from, one may progress with enough necessary evidence to consider all things of God's existence. In other words, one may be thoroughly convinced through proof and evidence of God's nature through a starting point of logic. A rational inference and a rational inquiry of discernment are all but one needs to establish this firm foundational truth. As such, one may be compelled to hold to this one truth with universal extent, no matter how far fetched to the ignorance of others to his position. In one truth may be found all one needs for all other truths. In like manner, all other truths must point to the one truth, and that one truth being God. One need only a shallow mind, which must be established through reason to begin with and a hardened heart, which at least demonstrates a compelling to follow Satan in the beginning, but at least a demonstration of some sort taking place may lead us to believe that there is hope for that one individual in coming to terms with the actual Truth...the Truth with a capital T. One need only know one thing in order to know God. That being, "Knowledge begins with God." Once one knows this one thing, he is well on the way to knowing God, and since knowledge entails a trust, one must be absolutely ignorant to not know God (as can be demonstrated to be false). I know nothing is self defeating, as we would know that one thing (as demonstrated before, the acknowledgement of nothing is impossible). A natural inclination in everyone's heart (i.e. heart and cognitive functions) to follow God must be recognized as our ministerial focus. Our minds are predisposed to truth, in this I mean all minds are predisposed to truth. One mind may not be thought of to be not thinking of a truth of sorts. And any truth is a truth of God, thereby conclusively proving God's existence. For the consciousness shall always be consious (eliminating a notion of a tabula rasa). We always know, we never do not know. In like manner, a liar could only conclude otherwise. For "8 The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception." Psalm 14:8

Interracting with the Atheistic Worldview

This is part one of the letters I have sent to Ravi Zecharias. Each of these are original letters sent out, and address important issues for Christian Ministry Outreach. I hope you enjoy the writing.

God bless,

Casey Powell

Mr. Zecharias,
I have been hard at work critiquing viewpoints from an Atheistic point of view. I hope you enjoy my article here:
Atheism is a belief that does not allow for any intrinsic value of anything. It is a position that is completely devoid of content, meaning or usefulness. A natural problem I find with Atheism is for some reason, Atheism will not allow the value of necessary Axiological Truths. If Axiology, which is the study of morality and values as they pertain to individuals in society, as to whether they are more or less instilled within us or not. Atheism/Existentialism/Postmodernism/Skepticism fail on account of these principles alone from the Moorean Philosophy(named from Thomas Moore himself). Its interesting against the wishes of one gentleman who promoted the belief that Theism was the philosophically default position, I decided to actually tackle this Atheism itself by accepting its principles to see where I could go from there. No. 1, from both the Atheistic and Christian perspectives, growth is necessary and inevitable within humankind. The only question to the growth condition itself is whether the value that we attribute things is based upon us or if they are based upon society, or if they are ultimately based upon our morality itself, naturally instilled within us. We know these as basically moral relativism and moral objectivism. I have been told in the past we can not prove moral objectivism, but again, I contend, it IS possible to prove just about anything that is rationally sound. Fundamentally there are three principles we ascribe to values: "One is to say that a thing is "intrinsic" means merely that the question of a thing that possesses it and in what degree it possesses it depends solely on the intrinsic nature of the thing in question." This prevents those to say, well that has no intrinsic value in itself or to me. This established by Thomas Moore is the Supervenience Principle. A second principle states that something has value if and only if it is in the same value in complete isolation, known as the Isolation Principle. The final principle is the Necessity Principle, which states that something has value if it exists whenever and wherever it may exist, it still maintains that value as necessary. The only position possible here for the Atheist is to state that Nothing Came from Something, and that we therefore are in charge of creating whatever morals are intrinsically necessary for our own survival. Where then, did the Atheistic position come from one must ask? Of what value may we ascribe it? If nothing came from something, it also violates the Necessity Principle of Axiomatic functionality. Another position that Atheism may take is Anti-Essentialism, otherwise known as, no principles are essential to humankind. Again, this principle asserts enough to rid itself of importance, and essential becomes the Anti-Essentialism of Atheism. In other words, Relativism must be asserted in all manners in order for Atheism to exist, but then, what is Atheism relative to one is compelled to ask? If values are not necessary, then what gives value to the non-necessity? Of course from the Atheistic mindset, they can simply go back and refer to Evolution. Thanks to British Naturalist Charles Darwin, this little trap seems to be the only alternative. One must ask how can values evolve? Again, when we speak of values, we must speak of the principles inherent to their property. Again, the fundamental principle of Supervenience is violated, as Evolution can not account for the fact that the thing-in-itself is necessary to have some sort of initial inherent value in itself. Erego, Evolution becomes impossible to describe this scenario, and we have eliminated excuses from the Atheistic hypothesis. From the Philosophical standpoint, Atheism is simply meaningless in value, but attempts to prescribe this same value to everything including Truth. However, one may not forget that Atheism is halted by its own premises here. Given we accept this principle as true, we shall move forward to more inherent problems with the natural structure of pure Atheism. The first problem is, the structure that Atheism attempts to attribute is that of no structure at all. If it is the case that Atheism has no structure, then one is justified in claiming that Atheists are Theists. Again, tell an Atheist that they are Theists, we will know that this will not go over very well. But in effect, the Atheist simply chooses to not care correct? We have enough to overcome the Atheistic position with that one stance, but the second premise is, who cares? Why care? Whats to care about? How do we know what to care about? When do we care about things? Of course, we all play their little skeptical games as Christians, so we're very familiar with these tactics. The second strategy of the Atheistic mentality to avoid having to answer to a Creator is simply, question everything. If one is to question everything, he must be consistent by questioning why he is questioning everything. If he comes to an answer on this question, then the answer becomes enough so that not everything is questionable. The Atheist's next tactic is to question and doubt the answer obtained. To do this would then be to attempt to resolve an answer by resorting to another answer of a sort, that of questioning. So again, he has undercut his very motives for acting. Actual infinity would be declared possible by the Atheist, in which case he allows for infinite regresses to occur, and that only potentiality and probability are possible. We may know this tactic utilized frequently from David Hume in his Enquiry of Human Understanding. Of course, the Atheist has no problem contradicting himself when you mildly point out to him that he'd have to be certain of this in order for it to be possible. He would assert that you're begging the question. How do we get around this tactic then? Well, we must keep in mind that the position itself is ad hoc. So it is not disingenius and insincere for a Theist to point out that an Atheist may not assert the begging the question fallacy here. To assert this would then mean that the Atheistic points become moot from here on out. Of course, if the Atheist now accepts this premise that he doesn't care, then he has to explain why this point has any inherent meaning in order for him to care about it at all (recall, the Atheist is not at all interested in trying to convert you to Atheism, simply just to hassle and ridicule). Any kind of hassling and ridicule may fundamentally be reverted against itself by proclaiming, "well at least you do this one positive quality in itself." So, again, we are demonstrating that fundamental position that one may not prove a negative of any sort. Again, the Atheist would be hardpressed for an answer besides, well, now I'm doing it and its okay. This is very self-righteous behavior and any Christian would be able to identify this as well. However, instead of actually judging him to be self-righteous, why not undertake a different tactic here. We should demonstrate to him that his own behavior can not be justified. If someone jumps off of a bridge, since this is a bad thing, and you jump afterwards, would this be okay? If the Atheist is not insane, he will say no. However, if we are dealing with one who likes to increasingly play the Nihilism game, we may not be so fortunate here. One may feel its okay or it depends or whatever I feel like doing is right is an appropriate answer here. Again, the value system is what we are attempting to focus on here, and this is the main thing that the Atheist overlooks. So we need to always relate it back to the value system of the Atheist here, notifying to ourselves that since we do live in an Objective Reality, the morality of each of our beings is within us (even a sociopath can be led to have values...absolute insanity is impossible). The Atheist seems to want to follow the path of the negative, or simply is confused as to which path to follow, and really doesn't care one way or the other. Its also possible to have an Individualist on your hands, but this of course can easily be demonstrated false as to show that if everyone was an Individualist, we would be collectively individual, and thats nonsense. Back to getting the Atheistic value system built up. To get an Atheist to care is very difficult, but ultimately can be done when we look at the fickleness within the very nature of the Atheistic morality system. We can add that an Atheist would believe that morals are different for each person, and constitute a different value for each person. Again, note the easy refutation of this position, since if morals are different for each person, he is now stating that this one thing must be similar about morality to each person. This alone is enough to refute moral relativism. We have a new problem here though that many Christians take for granted as obvious truth that the Atheist does not see as obvious due to his obfuscations. The value of the system and how it belong within the Atheist may not be understood as to how it works. It can be demonstrated here that if value relativism were possible, then it would be dependent upon the individual and not the thing-in-itself. If we are to state that the individual is the only thing of worth (again, collective individuality, but we can demonstrate another issue regarding this here) it may not be wise to simply ask, well think about something of value to you (again, this would revert to proving his position). If I am the only thing of value, then there's a problem because how would I know that I'm the only thing of value? What about knowledge in itself? This would have to carry a stronger value. The only response is that he may then say, "I know nothing." But its very self-evident that we can point out to the Atheist that he at least knows that one thing, giving its intrinsic worth at least what he proclaims here. At this point, the Atheist may wake up and smell the roses and proclaim, "Okay, so thats great, but it really doesn't matter what you believe since its all the same." To this, he has violated the principle of Necessity. Each one of those words would necessarily carry a different value since they are all different words, and therefore different things-in-themselves. One may then be compelled to state that they're just words being asserted, but again, if they are just words being asserted, we may ask him how he had that idea in the first place to come up with this statement. If he has stated that he had no abstract ideas to conform this to, we must demonstrate that he must have abstact ideas to conform even the idea that there are no abstract ideas. This is not difficult to do. As Mortimer Adler proclaims, "We are therefore, obliged to ask them whether we are able to apprehend what is common to two or more entities [e.g. the category "dog" is common to both an Airedale and a poodle], or apprehend the respects in which they are the same. If their answer to this question is negative, they have again completely undercut their own explanation of the meaning of common names as applicable to two or more items indifferently (i.e., with respect to some point in which they are not different). If we caannot apprehend any respect in which two or more items are the same we cannot apply one and the same name to them indifferently.
The only alternative left open to them is an affirmative answer to the question: Are we able to apprehend what is common to two or more entities, or apprehend respects in which they are the same?
If they give that affirmative answer, because they must either give it or admit that they have no explanation to offer, then the giving of that answer is tantamount to a refutation of their original position. (Adler, TPM, 44, 45)." The Atheist here may be compelled to again question the nature of argumentation. He may state, "well, we don't really start from axioms and get to truth in the first place. There is no truth except for that which can be perceived." One must wonder how the Atheist can avoid this stance at all. If he is stating that our words can not describe anything, then he's undercut his position by describing the claim. If he is trying to undercut his thinking process, then he must think to derive such a method, which self destructs. If he is inferring or implying that he is not stating anything, then the statement inferrred would be that he is stating at least that one thing. Usually when the Atheist affirms that we have no truth except for that which can be perceived, its not always wise to go with the standard, if everything is perception and thats objectively true, everything is not perception and thats objectively false. The Atheistic position would note a dichotomy between knowledge and metaknowledge. If we are to combine this dichotomy so that the Atheist may note this is a false distinction, the Atheist must be made aware of this position. The Atheistic heart is not willing to see this distinction, so again, its about opening the will of the unbeliever to seek the truth (which we are naturally inclined to do). One must therefore note that his will to believe this distinction can infer a type of metaknowledge and knowledge packed into one thing here. Another response from the Atheist to this might be they are mutually exclusive from his will. To this, respond by asking him why he'd be willing to believe that at all. This is where we usually get word games from the Atheist on the word belief. Belief is something that the Atheistic system of thought would simply take for granted based on what the individual believes, as distinctively the passionate position towards a love for Jesus Christ can be somewhat differentiated only insofar as on relies on self and the other of course God incarnate. This could be to state that the Atheist may have the systematic thinking that, if I believe it it is so, or if Society believes it it is so, such as the thinking refuted by Greg Koukl and Peter Kreeft referring to I Say Relativism and Society Says Relatiivsm. Of course, pointing out several factors from the Nazi community may be enough to explain this to the Atheist and to conform to your point as well taken. We can also ask him if he's ever made a mistake that he regrets in his life and the affirmative yes would be sufficient (and of course whether or not his teacher has ever misled him to get something wrong on a test before to refute the Society Says Relativism). This is just enough to open the door to our next point. To this, a drastic answer must take place to shift the Atheistic worldview (remember it is just a worldview based around the individual so we are talking about the same thing here as to what they person believes) to where we need it to be, since the Atheist may be a bit flustered if we are to simply write him off here. He may claim, I have no belief. Of course the natural response is to ask how he has this belief in the first place, but a better response could most certainly ensue. The Atheist is usually looking for something a bit more here. We can in fact ask him if he knows that George Washington ever existed as an example. If he says no here, then we need only point to the Principle of Sufficient Reasoning and present evidence to the Atheist. This is enough to get him to think otherwise on this point. By now you've got the Atheist wondering, if I can be wrong, and Society can be wrong, can anybody be right? The answer to this of course that it is a necessity by virtue that he ask the question. A forteriori is simply a claim used here, but if we wish to break this down, its necessary by virtue that he as well as ourselves know what the word Right means in the first place. It is impossible to affirm existence without something of its essence to come along with it. Now mind you, the Atheistic Metaphysical position is a bit misconstrued here. His position is more of a pick and choose what is relevant to the topic at hand, since again nothing is more important than himself here. We have two responses to this. First of all, how did you come into existence in the first place? Naturally he will begin to think about his essence. But again, existence precedes essence in the form of mankind for the Atheist. This may not be enough, insofar as all we have done essentially is to get the Atheist to acknowledge that some form of essence exists. But where? Again, we know the answer is God, but the Atheist is not ready to accept this conclusion yet. It is still dependent upon I, and not God yet. God is created in the image of mankind as the Atheist affirms. To affirm the position otherwise that God create mankind, it need only be demonstrated that we do a few several things. First of all, we must demonstrate to him that Solipsism is false. The existence of any other human being is fine to explain this away, but we still have yet another problem. The idea of free will! Believe it or not, the Atheist believes in free will to a maximal extent, to an unnecessarily extreme extent. Or he may affirm Determinism to an unnecessarily extreme extent. We must be quick to point out that this is a false dilemma which ever position he affirms to be the case and demonstrate that he must choose determinism in order for it to work, in which case it would be false, and that in order for him to affirm liberalism, there must be that predetermined position to accept the conclusion to begin with, else there is nothing to accept. This rids us of most of the problems of Anti-Essentialism, and we can now get the Atheist to see the significance of of Fundamental Principles within his framework. Again though, the Tabula Rasa is still a question mark for the Atheist. The Tabula Rasa must first be demonstrated false before we can proceed, else he realizes none of the above can work. The Principle of Consciousness, which states that the conscious mind must always be conscious of something is enough to do away with the Tabula Rasa. Of course, we must also point out that understanding can not be developed by the Tabula Rasa, since this is a Metaphysical item which must therefore be acclimated to the Physical being's mind. If we can not use understanding to come up with the Tabula Rasa, then the idea of the Tabula Rasa is nonexistent, and therefore, the position vanishes along with it, leaving us only with a possibility that pre-instilled items exist Metaphysically for mankind. The only thing we have to worry is he now believes it all comes down to him. If his belief is that it all comes down to him, we must answer that a predetermined belief must be settled first (Metaphysical Principle, nonbeing can not create being), which would then get rid of his Subjective Reality, if this is applicable to see a fully developed Objective Reality independent of himself and that this his belief not enough in itself. Thus Individualism has been thwarted. Now we are to the point that an Atheist may start to see Universals, though this may be a bit foreign to him at first. From here, the cause and effect principle is enough for him to land on the path of the Thomistic arguments for God, and this is enough in itself to prove the existence of God. The solid foundation has been asserted, and we have at least opened the Atheist up to a possibility of God's existence. With this stated, we have completely reconstructed the belief system inherent to the Atheist to where he is now able to see that the mind is predisposed to the truth. The rest is up to the correct guidance and information which can be provided by the Christian himself. While Atheism may be a difficult position to overcome after accepting its premises as true (even though they are false) it is a doable job. We of course can use the usual demonstration of showing how the brain in a vat argument is self defeating and he is well on his way to recovery. Atheism as a position is most certainly not a position that is easy to handle. The position primarily dictates that its position is there is no position. Thus Atheism of course seemingly contradicts itself (to which the Atheist then tries to overcome the 2nd principle of noncontradiction by stating that its only a paradoxical condition, but we must also demonstrate that paradoxes are still demonstratively false from a logical perspective). The difficulty with Atheism is getting the adherents to trust the truth. Once we can open up the heart in order to seek God, from there, the position vanishes and the concern for anything anti-Theistic goes away as well. Of course, since the law of necessity as it pertains to values must concern the truth is necessarily a positive thing, we must therefore have no fear of it conforming the Atheists heart. The truth shall set him free, to where the position of at least Theism can be asserted Philosophically and Theologically as a default. Words in themselves have no meaning to the Atheist. Its our jobs as Christians to demonstrate therefore that words do have inherent meaning that naturally conform to the thing-in-itself. I certainly hope this examination has been as helpful to you as it has been for me. :).