The Confutation of Atheism - Atheism & Medical Malpractice

When Steve Hays was still with us on the Earth, he spent a great deal of time interacting with atheists of more than one caliber.  Some were more well spoken than others. John R. Loftus was, for a time, one of them - until he packed up his goodies & decided to put Steve & the rest of Triablogue’s Rational Response Squad on notice that they were, & presumably still are, on his personal ignore list. Others included his stoolies & other Village Atheists who are working at or a tick or two above the Skeptics Annotated Version of the Bible & who think themselves far more clever than they really are, not infrequently to the point that they just parrot one another & engage in sloganeering.  Those of the category of people whom Steve had in mind when he published his Rules of Engagement.  

Some commenters are like tape-recorders with prerecorded objections. When we make the effort to respond to their objection, they simply push the rewind button, then replay their original objection. But that's not intellectually acceptable…

Then there's the kind of commenter who keeps moving the goal post. He raises an objection. We refute his objection. Then he changes the subject by raising another objection. But if, every time his objection is refuted, that has no impact on his position, and he just wheels out another objection, then he's not giving us his real reasons, since they make no difference to his position. He's arguing for the sake of being argumentative.

The people he had in mind are the same sort of people who appear from time to time to turn the combox into their own personal universe where they dictate reality to their opposition & at times their own, as if they are the only adults in the room.  To paraphrase something Steve’s RoE, “Such behavior is intellectually & morally unacceptable.” The combox exists for reasoned, principled agreement &/or disagreement & honest dialogue.  It isn’t a place for guests to drone on & on & use as their personal despotic throne as if they are the one(s) who own the place.

I say that, because, as I remember my time at Triablogue over a decade ago, I am struck by the number of atheological arguments from Village Atheists & other characters whose response to a range of issues ranging from the existence & attributes of God to whether or not paranormal/supernatural events really happen or have happened conduce to “I’m just really skeptical about this,” or “I find this to be really, really improbable.” Consequently, they do a math equation in their minds in order to determine how probability/improbability of the event or events in question. 

That sort of thinking is the sort of wooly thinking that can result in a medical malpractice lawsuit.  How so? In short, skepticism isn’t an evidentiary argument. 

Why? The answer is in the definition of a delusion.  A delusion is a fixed false belief based on an inaccurate interpretation of an external reality despite evidence to the contrary.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know & understand that the correct diagnosis of a delusion/delusional disorder ultimately runs through an evidentiary argument that overwhelms the patient’s errant beliefs.   

Imagine you see bright lights in your house at 0430 AM. The lights are off, & you’re sitting on your couch eating a quick snack before going back to bed. The lights move as if the Atraxi from Doctor Who are probing your house in order to find Prisoner Zero.  

You checked, there was no special effects crew. 

There are no Extraterrestrials with a scout ship who were hovering in your back yard between the Redwood & your back porch, and your house is surrounded by woods on the two sides from which pranksters (or space aliens) & their SFX Department could pull off the sort of thing required to send light through your back porch sunroom & into your kitchen-den family room & into the basement stairwell that runs through the center of your house. 

In addition, have dreams as vivid as walking next door to your neighbors’ home.  They are as sharp and colorful as the Wizard of Oz in UHD 3D, & you start hearing voices that sound like angels and people you know.   In addition, even though you have a health locus of control of a ten & are notorious for reminding physicians who think they are your rulers of that fact, you, in an effort to do your due diligence relative to your mental health, talk to a psychologist or psychiatrist.  

However, he or she is a Village Atheist who sits there, listens to you, and then diagnoses you with a delusional disorder or schizophrenia because his or her commitment to metaphysical naturalism outweighs his or her obligation to produce an evidentiary argument to prove to you that these supernatural events did not happen.  In your therapist’s mind, there must be a naturalistic explanation.  Instead, of producing an evidentiary argument, he thinks this is all really improbable, so he does some math in his head and dismisses you, & his or her philosophical argument conduces to trying to talk you into believing his point of view based on his or her skepticism (or that of others) & his or her personal improbability table.  Perhaps he or she even writes you a prescription and tries to talk you into signing up for more intensive therapy that will help cure you of your delusion.

The next night, as you go to bed, a white window as large as a TV screen opens appears for 5 or 6 seconds & looks like the sort of window generated by an empty old-fashioned film projector. You see it, & you go to sleep knowing what your psychiatrist/psychologist did was medical malpractice and he is the deluded one. He diagnosed you based on a math equation, not actual evidence. Instead of confronting you with evidence, this trusted medical professional replaced proper diagnostic practice with his or her skepticism. 

Pay attention to the number of Village Atheists who talk about logic & reason, crowing about how enlightened they are, asserting that there is little if any evidence for the existence of God, who at times engage in psychobabble & accuse or all but accuse theists in general, & Christians (& other Co-Religionists) in particular, of living out a delusion - when the truth of the matter is that at least part of their argumentation about the existence or non-existence of God conduces to “Skepticism!” - as if skepticism (probabilistic argumentation) is all it takes to dismiss or refute argumentation for the existence of a personal being with an infinite, immutable mind.  

In my personal experience, that has been the case when discussing the argument for the existence of such a mind based on numbers & the number system - the same number system they deploy in their personal actuarial table as a means to dismiss us plebians who believe in the existence of God & who at times accuse us of being deluded about the existence of a personal being who is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable with respect to its being, wisdom, power, authority, justice, holiness, goodness, & truth. 

I’ll talk about that in a later post.  Until then, may the LORD bless you & keep you, & “Go & sin no more.”