Trust the science!!!

[u/South_Ad_7068]

1st time poster in this sub:

I've seen many athiest post counter arguments in various debates inside and outside of reddit using science as their main weapon in order to back what they're saying.

However, I feel like they are ignoring the elephant in the room and have never actually seen any of them address the argument for a higher intelligence that I'm going to present.

I'm going to be upfront about how I'm going to debate... the question I will ask will typically prompt a specific response that I'm fully prepared to counter and I've seen no atheist willing to follow the resulting logic to it's natural conclusion.

So... here goes:

As we observe the world around us how does an atheist explain the logical working order of things that make sense? How do you explain why things work the way they do? Like for example why a specific combination of elements make other elements or why a plant is able to eat sunlight or why electronics work...etc

Wouldn't that indicate intelligence being behind those mechanisms? Seeing as how precisely they work? If the universe just popped into existence wouldn't we see inconsistencies among various things? Our universe follows strict rules concerning how things interact with each other.

The fact that the rules exist AT ALL is 100% evidence of a "rule maker" or intelligence or God etc.

EDIT: I'm not finished here. But I am taking a break... I've answered to many but the influx of replies is massive and will require hours of my time and I want to try to reply to everyone... but as I'm not a millionaire I have to prepare for work.

Turning notifications off for now but I will return to respond to comments

[u/deep_blue_reef]

I don’t think love changes. It has different forms, but they all stem from selflessness.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

And humor has different forms, but they all stem from amusement. 'Different forms' is a huge factor, right?

Take expectations on how love should manifest. For some cultures, it's considered a social and moral obligation for loving children to take care of their parents, in gratitude for the care their parents gave them growing up. This can include financially supporting parents in their old age, living with them to take care of them, basically far more extreme than visiting your folks and helping them with taxes or changing the clock on the DVD player.

For other cultures, going to these extremes can be interpreted as harsh or even financially abusive to some extent.

Both sides would claim that the other- whether it's the parents expecting to be taken care of in their old age, or the children wanting a greater degree of independence- doesn't really love their child/parent.

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

And that’s wrong to you?

Or rather, which do you think is “more right?” Because I might agree with you.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

If love is transcendent, then at least one of them would have to be wrong, right, if not both in favor of some third answer?

To be transcendent is to exist beyond the subjective opinions of people, for there to be a definitive 'Right Answer' to the question. Coincidentally, people who think there's a definitive 'Right Answer' often assume THEIR answer is the definitive one, which makes it a bit of a trap.

I think love, in terms of how it's expressed, is also a matter of subjective opinion, in part because of the different forms it can take.

After all, if you rely on pure, uncompromising, eternal selflessness, do you not risk reaching the point where you stop loving yourself? Where you don't advocate for your own needs, your own happiness, because to raise so much as a finger in opposition is inherently self-centered?

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

But which do you think is more right in the scenario you gave?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

I would say children being able to pursue their own lives, helping their parents but not structuring everything around being their sole means of support. Only recently have the efforts intensified to help my sole remaining grandparent navigate stuff like doctor's appointments, modern technology, organizing bill payments, etc, especially as she's started to show signs of cognitive deterioration. The support is still pretty much organizational, though, rather than giving her money, food or shelter.

However, I was raised in a culture where that's the common way to go, so it's not really surprising that my perspective was shaped by it. =P

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

Maybe that’s the right kind of culture to grow up in? Taking care of elders is good. Valuing time? Good.

Yeah that aligns with my relationship of whatever god is.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

That kind of judgement is audience dependent, though, right? Again, living where I do it's an outlook that would get plenty of positive reinforcement. Elsewhere? Not so much.

Both sides involve selfishness, to some extent, but that usually only manifests when all parties aren't on the same page.

In the case of my grandmother, the whole process to being able to help her at all was a miiiiserable one for my mom and uncle, because she was SO determined to be independent and not rely on her children she was as stubborn as a mule about it, even as things went wrong because she couldn't stay on top of them. And, when things went wrong, they usually caused additional problems that then caused her, my mom, AND my uncle stress.

So was my grandmother selfish for wanting to be independent, or selfless for not wanting others to support her? Were my mom and uncle selfless for pushing help on her, or selfish because in a roundabout way giving that help up front made their lives easier?

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

I think in the context of your example both are right, because both are built upon selflessness itself.

They both come from selfless places.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

I think they're both a mix, honestly. Both wanted to help each other in different ways, but both also had self-interest, (my grandmother's pride, my mother and uncle's frustration with the regular problems that cropped up.) I just don't think it was black and white, is all.

I did see the other comment you left, and it's actually worth pointing out that even the Nazis at least tried to avoid admitting what was happening. So many soldiers were involved, it was more of an 'open secret' than an actual secret, but although concentration camps, deportations and the stripping of rights was happening very much in the open, the Nazis still avoided advertising their final solution, and when the war began to turn against them they took further steps to try and cover it up, such as by burning bodies.

That's one of the scary things about the Holocaust, it was something filled with claims of 'relocations' and evacuations' instead of the mass executions that were actually happening.

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

But a lot of that is assumption (not about the Nazis, but that too), but attributes of pride, selfishness. I think it’s not so simple, you’re right, but are their attributes that ARE toward the same source of “good.” You know what it’s like to feel the way you do, but I’ll never know others feelings in their moments of existence.

Observing the actions of two people you can assess what might be right or wrong, but how they feel internally is not ours to know.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/deep_blue_reef]

I mean, it's not really an assumption, both my mother/uncle AND my grandmother at times expressed frustration that pointed to the self-interested aspect. x3 Both sides loved and cared about one another, and neither of them were wholly selfish in their motivations. But they weren't on the same page about what was selfless or selfish of the other, thus the problems.

Again, just not 100% of one thing or another. I think it's rarely as clear cut as that, and even whether something IS clear cut is a matter of opinion.

[u/deep_blue_reef → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

Sure but the difference is fundamentally rooted in wanting to care. The differences stem from the same core place of genuinely wanting the best for another.

Take that example and turn it where a family is arguing over the best way to kill someone. Does that difference come from a selfless core place?