(Snip)
> The atheists view is self-refuting. If fundamentally there is
> no personality and all is "particles", the the atheist's assertion
> itself is just "particles". How does an atheist derive personality
> from the "impersonal", intelligence from the "uinintelligent" and
> meaning from "particles"?
>
> If all is matter and indeed "the brain secretes thought like the liver
> secretes bile", then what is the essential difference between thought
> and bile? Why should the atheists thought=bile be preferred to the
> theists thought=bile?
>
> Indeed, it seems to me that if the materialist's assertion that
> "matter is all" is true, then the assertion itself is just matter.
> But then so would the opposite assertion "matter is not all" be also
> matter. However in that case an assertion and its opposite, would at
> the most fundamental level be equivalent. But if something and its
> opposite are both equivalent they must both be false. It seems the
> only way out of this dilemma is to maintain a non-material external
> category of meaning that can decide which assertion is true and which
> is false. But in that case the assertion "matter is all" is false,
> anyway.
>
> Is there a philosopher in the house? <g>
Don't make the mistake of equating atheism and materialism. You *may* be
able to show that all materialists are atheists, but it definitely is not
true that all atheists are materialists.
Materialism: A claim that there is just one kind of "stuff" in existence,
and that that "stuff" is material. (Opposed to idealism, which is the
view that there is just one kind of "stuff" in existence, and that that
"stuff" is ideas. Also opposed to dualism, which claims that there are
two kinds of "stuff" -- matter and ideas.)
Atheism: The view that there is no god or transcendent being.
For the rest of your post, I have to think about it for a bit. My initial
reaction is that you've gotten your conclusion too easily -- I suspect
that it would be possible to show that there are faults in your argument
whichwould render the argument invalid.
Lloyd Eby
leby@nova.umuc.edu