Atheism :: circularity

The atheistic worldview holds that we are able to (a) use our senses to gather data about the universe, and (b) use our human reason to discover truth based on the input of our senses. Is there a problem with this system?

(a) We have no way of verifying the input of our senses except by the use of our senses. This is circular.

(b) We have no way to verify that our reasoning produces valid results except to examine the results using human reasoning. This is also circular.

Appealing to the fact that our experience agrees with that of others doesn't solve these problems because we have to use our senses and reasoning to communicate with each other and to process the information we communicate.

Do theists have the same problem?

Christian theists --- moi, for example --- hold that outside of the closed system of the material universe there is another entity, whom we refer to as God, whose nature provides our senses and reasoning with a foundation from outside of the closed system. Human reasoning can be grounded on something external to the material universe and can therefore be able to produce valid results.

Atheism :: the coherence of logical thought

Someone might object that human senses and reasoning are obviously valid because they agree with the functioning of the universe. I release a baseball and it falls and hits the ground. Cosmologists predict the location of Mars, and astronomers look through their telescopes and --- gee! --- there it is.
To an atheist, the human mind is not the product of design, but of random material processes operating over huge stretches of time according to the drive for survival. The questions must be asked: (1) why would a material universe give rise to non-material minds at all, and (2) why should we assume that these minds would function in a logical manner that comports with the physical behavior of the universe?

As to (1), there are plenty of creatures out there far more successful at survival than humans who can hardly have much in the way of a mind. Sharks have just enough brain to run their muscles, and they're pretty effective at surviving. Ditto for cockroaches. There are lots more examples. In fact it has been said that advanced intelligence conveys much of an adaptive benefit, we would expect to see a lot more of it. Out of all the billions of species out there, however, we can only be sure of one that has advanced intelligence: the one that is reading this web page right now.

As to (2), a quote from the ubiquitous C. S. Lewis.

When logic says a thing must be so, Nature always agrees. No one can suppose that this can be due to a happy coincidence. A great many people think that it is due to the fact that Nature produced the mind. But on the assumption that Nature is herself mindless this provides no explanation. To be the result of a series of mindless events is one thing: to be a kind of plan or true account of the laws according to which those mindless events arose is quite another. Thus the Gulf Stream produces all sorts of results: for instance, the temperature of the Irish Sea. What it does not produce is maps of the Gulf Stream. But if logic, as we find it operative in our own minds, is really a result of mindless nature, then it is a result as improbable as that. The laws whereby logic obliges us to think turn out to be the laws according to which every event in space and time must happen. The man who thinks this an ordinary or probable result does not really understand. It is as if cabbages, in addition to resulting from the laws of botany also gave lectures in that subject: or as if, when I knocked out my pipe, the ashes arranged themselves into letters which read: ‘We are the ashes of a knocked-out pipe.’ But if the validity of knowledge cannot be explained that way, and if perpetual happy coincidence throughout the whole of recorded time is out of the question, then surely we must seek the real explanation elsewhere.
[C.S. Lewis “De Futilitate” [1967] in Lesley Walmsley (ed.), C.S. Lewis Essay Collection: Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories (London: HarperCollins, 2002), pp. 267-8.]

That Baked Bean Recipe I Promised Lori

Lori, here's that recipe I promised you a week ago. Sorry for the delay :-
I can cook at last count three things: those perennial greats lasagne and chili, and the bean recipe below. [Typical male.]

1 20-oz can pork and beans in tomato sauce
1 20-oz can five-bean mix
1 20-oz can red kidney beans
1/2 pound bacon
2 large white onions
1/2 cup vinegar
1 cup brown sugar

Drain the beans and dump them into a baking dish.
Chop up the bacon and onions and fry them until the bacon is crisp.
Mix the vinegar, sugar and fried bacon and onions and cook them in a frying pan for 20 minutes: then pour everything over the beans and bake it all for 1 hour at 300.
Better reheated the next day after being refrigerated overnight.

Gordon Ramsay, look out. BTW, unlike Gordon (see this page), I don't scream obscenities while cooking.