Atheist Talking Points
All rational thought and logic must, of necessity, be based upon something. It cannot be based on chaotic random principles, or there would never be an orderly thought procession. It cannot be based upon variable principles, or the logic would not be consistent. It cannot be based on principles obscured by complexity, or logic could not be understood. Logic must be – and is – based on principles of magnificent consistency, simplicity and clarity. Moreover, they are persistently universal.
Because of the consistency, logic works always and everywhere, within the confines of our universe. Because of the simplicity, logic builds directly from these basic principles without need for a still more basic set of principles to prop it up. And because of the clarity of these principles, logic can be easily understood without the confusion of complexity.
The FIRST PRINCIPLES are those that cannot be reduced any further to more basic concepts. They are fundamental. And they cannot be proven by any more basic principles, because there are none to use in the proof. So they are “seen” to be true by inspection; they are “obviously” true; they are “intuitively” true.
To restate that which was said before, without the fundamental “truths”, logic cannot exist. Logic must be based upon something simple, consistent, and clear. Yet there are those that reject the first principles. Rejecting them would have the effect of eliminating “rational” logic, and replacing it with a non-rational substitute. For example, Nietzsche rejected the first principles and developed an antirational philosophy. But any antirational philosophy must be considered fantasy by true rationalists.
Since rationalism depends entirely upon the validity of logic, it also then depends upon the validity of the first principles. This is especially true of empiricism, which depends on the principle of cause and effect, and the principle of non-contradiction. Were these not valid, empiricism would never have come into being.
So science, at least empirical science, is totally dependent upon the continuing validity and consistency across the universe of the first principles of logic and rational thought.
And so, science is based upon a set of unproven, and unprovable principles, that are known to be true only by intuition. Thus, if science is thought to be valid, then intuition is also assumed to be valid.
Last, if intuition is valid, then transcendence exists – because intuition is transcendent.
For more
information, see FIRST PRINCIPLES.