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They simply handwave away the possibility of any form of being/existence that is not squarely within the purview of one specific tool: science. That tool has significant methodological constraints, like observability, repeatability, testability, etc. There are others, and they can be presented in a variety of ways.
I mean, I'm left asking, "Who cares," in return? Like, does the diversity of Christianity and the fact that there are a bunch of disparate groups somehow change things?
What exactly do you mean by "science"? Is it the bunch of institutions and traditions known as "science"? In this case there are obviously things beyond its purview and you won't find many (any?) people who'd deny it here. This could explain the lack of mockery you find so puzzling.
Or do you use "science" more generally to mean pursuit of understanding through the examination of experience and use of reason to build models with explanatory and predictive power? In this case, what would atheists need to do so you'd get off their back about handwaving the possibility? Do they need to write long soulful posts about how they can never know the eldritch truth beyond the limits of their experience? The problem is that seems super irrelevant and a waste of time. Why would you expect people who don't see any reason to believe in your religion to pay tribute to it?
Sure, maybe a guy who had an ecstatic vision of Jesus and the angels really got into contact with the incomprehensible Divine and he knows the good stuff, but what does this have to do with me? If I got directly blasted with the holy light, I'd likely join him as a fellow devout co-religionist. But I haven't, so best I can do is conclude that people can be very strongly affected by trippy hallucinations.
Your hypothetical God created a universe in which salvation is conditioned on faith in him, following some precepts, performing rituals, whatever. Then he put people in this world made it look really mechanistic and explainable by reason from the inside, creating strong incentives for using reason as a primary tool of understanding what's going on. He didn't elaborate and left. Very chad of him, but what am I supposed to do about any of this?
Maybe instead of trying to restart obsolete flamewars on Internet forums, you could use the direct line to God you seem to have access to, and humbly ask Him to be less cruel to those less fortunate than you, those who are trapped in this vast soulless machine? Tell him to grant us eyes and deliver us from our beastly idiocy.
Nah, basic engagement with metaphysics would probably be sufficient.
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That's how belief works, right? As far as I can tell, even the religious cannot actually prove that the gods of others don't exist, they take it on faith. Facts about the supernatural or morality seem unobservable, as far as I can tell. Though maybe I'm engaging in the same thing right now.
It sounds like your problem is with materialism, not atheism, because science is fairly broad and accepting of materialist explanations for anything. Existing paradigms can and will be changed as new materialism-based evidence comes in.
I don't see how the inversion does anything for you. In this scenario, people would be blaming Christianity at large for...something that only a portion of its variants did?
When atheists attacked religion, they were going after (for the most part) beliefs that are central to those faiths. It doesn't matter if you are a progressive American church or a conservative Ghana church, the belief in the existence of God is the same.
But you're not doing the same. You're not arguing against atheism's core belief (the idea that there is no god), you're arguing that they were wrong because they enabled a worldview you see as wrong. Or, if you want to say you want to see more criticism, then you should reframe your question to be about that, because then we could have a discussion about the role of New Atheism in facilitating the spread of social progressivism.
Christianity and atheism have truth values that stand independent of whatever they engendered. In a world where, for example, Islam was destroyed online by a diverse set of Christians, only to be replaced by something worse, I would argue that attacking Christianity's truth value would be wrong.
I think mistaking methodological constraints for a metaphysical theory is pretty darn near to the core belief for most atheists.
If your argument is that atheists don't believe in the existence of non-material things (i.e things that cannot be explained solely by materialism), then...okay? It's not any different that a religious person saying "Atheists believe that god can't exist, so they can't know!"
I would point to the strength of the assumptions being made by either party and note that the atheist's is far weaker. The atheist does not assert the existence and many details of a god or gods, which the religious tend to do.
And ultimately, this much more an issue to the religious person than the atheist. If you want, we can all be super strict and say "well, we can't discount the existence of that which is not wholly materialist in nature". But if you were at all fair in applying your skepticism, the religious come out in shambles when they assert a 100 things and none can be proven as they claim can be.
Nope, not an argument about the object level. About the meta level.
Are you saying that I'm engaging at the metal level, or that I'm engaging at the object level and I should be at the meta level? Or are atheists at the meta level?
You're engaging at the object level and you should be at the meta level.
...How? Your claim is that atheists aren't held to account for conflating science's constraints with reality's constraints. I'm arguing that while this may be true, that's not much a rebuttal. Seems to be about the object-level.
What is the meta-level discussion here?
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