So it's pretty late tonight. I had to make a Walgreens run to pick up some ibuprofen. I stopped to get chocolate milk while I was there, and I was (and am) pretty tired, so errors in my perception were especially drawn-out and noticeable. After looking for some time at the different kinds of flavored milk beverages available, I turned my head towards another section of the refrigerator, and for a split second, I could not at all comprehend its contents. I was so focused on chocolate milk that when I was confronted with a non-dairy product I almost attempted to assume that it was just strange looking milk. I very quickly realized, however, that the section contained novelty microwaveable snacks (or something, I actually don't remember, haha).

It got me thinking about how, even when we are level-headed, we make the same mistake on a different scale. I heard about a Mormon who converted to Christianity aright, and when he looked through his old missionary KJV he noticed that he had highlighted several verses which seemed to agree with his previous view when taken alone, but the surrounding verses which disagreed with Mormonism were not highlighted, and he thought it was as if he had never even noticed them before. He just glossed over them because he didn't understand them. I hope I am able to discover areas in my life where I do this and correct those areas; I think it's likely something that everyone does to some extent.

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But, towards my earlier promises, I want to do some work here on apologetics. Like I said, I have some "logical proofs" (which are really not proofs in the formal sense), that the external world exists and is knowable, (but they aren't really even that as much as they are practical demonstrations that we are incapable of completely abandoning the notion that the external world exists, is knowable, and is logical). I'll put these out there as food for thought, but I want to stress that I haven't fully blogged the epistemological groundwork needed to make sense of these yet (in an absolute sense. They might make sense to you without me explaining it, but some hot-shot atheist out there is gonna think he can beat me up for lack of a discussion).

To clarify in advance, when I say "know", I mean, "have absolutely justified knowledge, and absolutely know the absolute justification for it". The question may come, "what if a perfectly reasoned argument refuted the thing you know?", and the answer is, "that is impossible." It would be the same as asking "what if A = Not A?"

Here's the first one. It's a modified version of the classic "Sye Ten Bruggencate" proof. It's not my favorite, but it's fun to think about:

Context: The atheist says, "It is impossible to know absolute truth", which is to say, "it is impossible to know the real qualities of reality".  

Premise: Reality exists outside of us, even if we can't know it.  

Body: Is the assertion of the atheist absolutely true? Since reality exists, the answer to this question exists as a quality of reality (even if you may not know the answer). If you say "yes", then the answer is inconsistent with the context statement, because it is an absolute truth which you know. If you say "no", then the statement "it is impossible to know..." is outside the realm of things which are absolutely true, and so it is not consistent with reality, and so it is false. Neither "yes" or "no" is a valid answer. The most consistent answer for an atheist to give is, "I don't know". However, you haven't escaped the problem by answering this way, because a thing is either absolutely true or it isn't. So you refusing to answer the question doesn't negate the fact that an answer exists

One of the common objections I've heard to this is "You snuck in absolutes". Since atheists tend to deal in "confidences" rather than "absolutes", they are in a strange place demanding freedom to claim logical coherence, because logic deals exclusively in absolutes ("A = A" is a common logical assertion, "A = maybe A" is not). That's why the common objection from atheists, "you snuck in absolutes" is a ridiculous objection similar to, "you snuck in logic".

And here's the second one. The format for this one was requested by an atheist in a discussion some time ago. We had discussed for long enough that he had finally admitted "solipsism is an unanswerable problem", with the implication 'unanswerable within his worldview'.

I. Presuppose a perceivable, uniform external reality
II. In order for a worldview to be correct, it should allow for I
III. Uniformity cannot be in chaos (by definition) 

P1. Presuppose Atheism
P2. Solipsism follows from P1
P3. Chaos is characteristic of solipsism P2
P4. Apply III to P3: P1 does not allow for I
C. P1 is wrong (II and P4) 

Clarifications:
"I" is implied by something you've said ('we do science without solving the problem of solipsism'). 

"III" is a logical law 

"P3" references a functional chaos -- The definition of "chaos" I'm working with is, 'unknowable and unpredictable'. For example, there is no knowable pattern to the contents of a set of random numbers, and so the random numbers are unpredictable. In the same way, solipsism says that the world is unknowable and (since it is unknowable, it is also) unpredictable.

It's worth noting that I didn't write the possibility that "I or II is wrong" into "C". The reason for this was: 

P1. "Right and wrong" pertain to adherence to a rule
P2. Rules depend on uniformity
C. Without uniformity, judgments about right and wrong are impossible 

So basically, the fact that we're using "proofs" and "demonstrations" of right and wrong requires that we already accepted "I" and "III", and we implicitly apply "II" when we judge proofs offered by others. 

Here's the third one. This one is mostly just for fun. I don't know how well it would survive scrutiny.

Premise: Reality doesn't exist outside of me.

Body: My existence in time requires me to perceive that I have some faculties (be they thought or perception.) For lack of an external reality, my subjective faculties are functional without reference to an external reality. For example, I have subjectively determined that a certain type of sensory data constitutes hunger, and hunger is alleviated by biscuits. If I perceive that I am hungry, and then I "subjectively presuppose" that I have a biscuit, my hunger will only go away if my biscuit presupposition is functional.  

Now, if I find that I am unable to presuppose a functional biscuit, then we may draw two conclusions. First, that my senses are operating independent from my reasoning faculties. That is to say, my senses are external to "me", and whatever data they present to me is produced outside of my reasoning faculties. Second, that my reasoning faculties do not govern my senses, but rather are limited by them. Hereby I might conclude that something exists outside of myself (my senses exist outside of myself).

Now then, like I said before, the epistemological framework hasn't been fully laid on my blog yet. Simply pointing out problems in atheist thinking isn't enough. We have to present a functioning alternative. I started that in my defense before my long pause on the blog, but I hope to polish it up a bit more.

Last thing. I connected atheism to solipsism explicitly above without much discussion about the relationship, and I know that some people out there cling to the notion that "atheism" does not necessitate "solipsism"; and they support this by saying things like "atheists can be Buddhists, or spiritists, or anything that doesn't include a nominal god". First of all, the statement removes clarity from the discussion: I have never met a Buddhist or spiritist who called himself an atheist, (they call themselves Buddhists or spiritists), but I've met several secular Darwinists who did. Second, even if they did call themselves atheists, it doesn't matter, because their worldviews also eventually lead to absurdity (and thus resolve to solipsism).  Finally, the statement is philosophically lazy; in short, atheism removes ultimate foundations such that knowledge (in the sense I defined above) is impossible, leaving only conjecture without justification.

"Thanks for the encouragement :)"