Are the laws of logic universal or conventional? The atheist can not say that the law of logic are universal for he has no way of knowing that. The best he can say is that said laws seem to hold, for now. So the atheist's entire system of "rational" thought rests on laws and conditions that may or may not be ultimately true.
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Logic is inviolate. Its rules cannot be wrong because they have no relation to anything physical, nor to any observation. They simply are . It's like maths. 1+1 will never equal anything other than 2 because that is how the rules are defined.
So the atheist's entire system of "rational" thought rests on laws and conditions that may or may not be ultimately true.
Unfortunately, radical skepticism and denial of inductive knowledge applies to all knowledge, not just to atheists. Unless Lion is a Hindu, whose philosophy allows for this sort of solipsism, his argument wipes out the validity of his own religion, too.
I don't think this is really fundie; there's a deep philosophical point he is making, and to brush it off as "no, logic always works everywhere" is eminently practical -- and I agree in practice -- but it's missing a deeper point. Now, the theist cannot say those laws are universal, either.
"La, la, la, your arguments might seem to demolish mine, but they might be false five seconds from now. Ha, stalemate!"
Although it is true that nobody can really know if laws of logic are true, there hasn't been, in the whole of recorded history, a case of logic being wrong. It is the best system available.
They're getting so very close.
I'll take "nothing we have observed contradicts it, despite centuries of observation, so we might as well go with it" over "in order to believe this we have to disregard apparently universal laws that, to our knowledge, have never been broken" any day of the week.
How can God, if he exists, know that logic, his reason, or his perceptions are true? How does he know, for example, that there are no other gods?
In other words, if it existed, even god could be a solipsist.
The general rule in science is that old ideas must be discarded when new data which invalidates them becomes known. However, there is such a thing as being certain to within a reasonable margin of error. Of course, when you do that, you have to be able to define what the margin is and why it is reasonable. So don't try and apply it to religion: Doing so will only make you sad.
At least it's better than letting your "entire system of 'rational' thought" rest on some ancient book that has been debunked and refuted time and time again.
The fact that knowledge can and will change over time, is the very foundation of the Scientific Method, stupid.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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