Ask The Atheist Guy

In My Humble Opinion
82

Oh, BTW, the point that because I do not have a scientific understanding of something means that the God explanation is therefore correct, is a little silly. Early man didn’t understand eclipses, therefore it was caused by angry sun gods? There will be a lot we will NEVER know or understand. That doesn’t prove anything.It doesn’t prove that there is NOT a scientific explanation.

The atheist position, however, is also a statement of faith. Scientific explanations may just be HOW God causes things to be.

83

The only time this bothers me is when it’s somebody I care about, and who cares about me. For example, my sister has very strong Christian beliefs. She truly believes that I, her little sister, am heading towards being doomed to hell if I don’t find the faith she has found. This causes her a lot of pain because, well, she loves me. And since I love her, it hurts me to cause her pain.

But that doesn’t mean I can be untrue to myself and my beliefs (or lack thereof.) I have considered lying to her, but that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Besides, if I did that, she’d always be dragging me to church.

Plus, it kind of causes me pain to think that my sister, who is a wonderful person, has enslaved herself to a god who would torture her little sister for all eternity. Why in the world would you even WANT to believe that? Isn’t that a god worth shunning?

In general, my sister and I avoid the topic whenever possible. It’s the only tense aspect of our relationship.

84

Ahem.

The purpose of this thread is not for believers and agnostics to TELL atheists what we believe, it is to ASK us what we believe. If you want to start another thread about why atheism is stupid, feel free.

Now, aliens and religion.

Aliens would not disprove theism, or even neccesarily Christianity. CS Lewis imagined that many planets have intelligent life on them just like Earth. But just because those beings were intelligent does not mean that they were in need of redemption. Perhaps it was just EARTH that fell into sin and needed divine intervention in the form of Jesus to save us? Maybe the Martians never rebelled against God? Imagine that each planet has a viceroy, an “angel” of some kind. Well, the viceroy of Earth turned out to be a big jerk named Satan. See the space trilogy for the rest of it, “Out of the Silent Planet”, “Perelandra” and “That Hideous Strength”. It is entirely possible for religion to survive contact with aliens. It might disprove various specific religious doctrines, but most religions would carry on with only minor adjustments.

Now, back to Xanakis.

Why must we be agnostic about whether God created the universe? I brought up Occam’s Razor because theorizing that “God” created the universe adds absolutely nothing to our understanding of how the universe was created.

The universe was mysteriously created in mysterious ways for mysterious reasons. We don’t understand how and why it happened, and it may be that the laws of physics will prohibit us from ever understanding. So saying “I don’t know” is a valid response. But this is not agnosticism, in the sense of suspending judgement. Saying “I don’t know” does not mean that we must therefore entertain theistic explanations, because those theistic explanations are NOT explanations, merely complications that add no information.

Like I said, we might as well be agnostic about whether “Zqrks” caused the universe to be created. I don’t know what “Zqrks” is, or what properties it might have, or if it exists, because I just made it up. It is a word with no consequences that explains nothing. So we are not agnostic about “Zqrks”, rather we say that we don’t believe in “Zqrks”. Hypothesizing about “Zqrks” is a complete waste of time and a distraction, since it is a meaningless word.

85

jumpining in here, I was “officially” an atheist at 13 and haven’t been swayed in the slightest since making the realization.

No proof for God exists anywhere as good necessarily exists elsewhere, in an other-worldy supernatural dimension, which, given its intrinsic inconceivability does not exist.

I find it amusing to see believers equivocate God with nature, making broad statements, “God is everywhere.” and other such nonsense.

No purpose, other than ephemeral equanimity, does God serve.

Not only is it absurd, but IMHO, offensive and irresponsible.

Lolo

86

Sorry, but I’ve already studied it and placed it in the same bin of “junk knowledge”, right next to “Creation Science” and horoscopes.

What makes you assume I haven’t? For the record, I spent several years studying the major religions of the world, so I think I’m fairly qualified in this area.

Only inasmuch as an omnipotent invisible pink unicorn is.

You throw out a lot of arguments without anything substantive to back them up, xanakis. Lucky for you this thread isn’t in Great Debates…

87

Even though I am not a follower of any religion, I’m still baffled as to why anybody would not believe in God.

Atheists: What is your answer to the supposed ultimate question, “Why does anything exist”? Not just matter, space, time, the laws of physics etc., but the intangible things such as concepts, feelings, conciousness.

You’re saying that the universe just is, for no reason? That an unthinking machine somehow summoned itself into existence? It’s so obviously absurd that I don’t understand why people believe it. Clearly, a miracle was necessary for anything at all to exist, and mustn’t that miracle be referred to as “God”? This doesn’t necessarily mean that human beings are, in the grand scheme of things, significant, but you’ve got to admit that something strange is going on.

Didn’t someone say “I don’t agree with atheists, but I admire their faith”? Amen.

88

This question presupposes that there is a reason why everything exists. Although I amire the curiosity of humans in that we attempt to answer such questions, if there is a reason, I don’t think we’ve found it yet. See my signature, please.

This argument presupposes the belief that there was a time when there was nothing, i.e., the universe didn’t exist. Most atheists and agnostics would disagree with you on this point, because all we have now are theories of the origins of the universe. I tend to look at these Big Bang (and other) theories as our best guesses at this particular point in history. Personally, I don’t believe any of them are capital-‘T’ true, including the story in the Bible.

The progress of science and technology has a way of dispelling comfortable illusions about our world (think of the “spiritual” battles in unraveling the human genetic code). Although we may never find the answers to these big questions, I think that too many people find too many holes in religious beliefs for us to ever stop looking for the answers in a scientific fashion. I think that to a certain extent, finding answers in religion stunts scientific curiosity…one can not believe truthfully in God and still be reasearching the origins of the universe, can one?

89

Lemur866 said something to the effect of “where is it written that everything will be able to be understood?” I will let him pick it up from there.

My question: If I am an atheist and I say “Oh God” when I’m coming, to what am I referring?

90

aramis said:

I would expect that the religious response to this would be that Jesus (or Mohammed or whoever) was sent to Earth by God in order to spread his message. The message was spread by the followers of the prophet by means of the Holy Books (Bible, Koran etc).

Eventually the message reached Australia and North America - it didn’t have to be instantaneous.

The problem with ETs is that there is no way we on Earth could spread the message across the whole Universe so each planet would need their own “Jesus”.

Other problems also arise with ETs for example:

  • the idea that “God created man in his own image”. There is no reason to suppose that ETs will look like us.

  • the idea that Islam, for example, is the only true religion and everyone else is an infidel. Here on this rather small planet we’ve got a whole number of religions each of which believes they are the only true religion. Its unlikely that the ETs are devout Muslims or devout Christians or Jews or whatever. We’ve got a whole stack of “true” religions and we’re just one small planet.

aramis also said:

Put “Natural Theology” into google and you will find that there are a number of these “proofs”.

DSeid touched on one of these “proofs”. The Argument from Moral Obligation ie that we seem to inherently know the difference between right and wrong.

What stops you from mugging an old lady for money (assuming you were poor)?

Its not just the law of the land, its more than that. Its because you have an inbuilt “moral code”. Where did that code come from?

Even those people who do mug old ladies for money generally know that they are doing wrong. Its just that they are the kind of people who are able to override their moral code and these kind of people are (thankfully) very rare.

This is just one of the proofs. There’s a number of others.

I stress that I am not trying to convince you that these proofs are right. Im just trying to show you that such proofs exist.

I’m not convinced by them myself but I acknowledge that they are proofs. You can’t just ignore them and hope they’ll go away.

And they do not rely on faith.

Lemur866 said:

This is because you are thinking about this in the wrong way.

The Universe was not necessarily created just for us. Just because the idea of God adds nothing to your understanding of the creation of the Universe, in no way, detracts from the possibility that He exists.

Remember we are dealing here with concepts about which none of us really has a clue. We only have beliefs.

We are talking about an entity which is capable of creating a Universe. The idea of creating a Universe seems pretty awesome to us down here on our little planet but maybe on the macro-scale - the scale on which God operates, it aint such a big thing.

Again I point you to Natural Theology - there are certain phenomena (of which the intrinsic “moral code” is one) which are not explainable by current science.

Current science cannot even prove one way or the other whether such a moral code exists - we have to rely on our instincts to acknowledge it.

The idea of relying on instincts goes against all the laws of scientific experimentation. Is it therefore completely null and void when discussing human nature? But then, if so, where do such instincts come from?

I don’t mean the instinct to eat food or the instinct to have sex, I mean the instinct to do right. To even know what “right” is as opposed to “wrong”.

You seem to be saying that if we replace the word “God” with the word “Zqrks” then that clarifies the argument but it doesn’t.

I don’t care what you call it, you can call it “Ethel” if you like. We are talking about the concept not the human given name of that concept.

rjung, I dont understand why you can’t see that there is some (admittedly flawed) evidence for God. But there is NO evidence AT ALL (flawed or otherwise) for Invisible Pink Unicorns. Whether you or I are convinced by that evidence is immaterial. The evidence still exists.

Bring it on.

91

Here’s one link about Natural Theology and a more fun one.

92

Xanakis, I don’t supposed it’s ever occured to you that atheists may be familiar with the arguments of Natural Theology, and find them wanting?

93

Xanakis,

Actually, I am convinced that there are scientific reasons and explanations for moral codes and my sense of right and wrong. Read some evolutionary psychology writings, or Steven Pinker’s “How the Mind Works” … our mores make selection sense.

But I nevertheless “believe” that there are absolutes. And IF one accepts that belief, then some God-concept follows. While one doesn’t have to accept that assumption, I think most atheist DO believe in Right and Wrong, and thus DO believe in the absolute moral code that exists no matter what we say,and just choose to ignore what logically follows. They are reacting to the image of God-on-the-throne, or God-who-gives-a-hoot …, or presume a God that is understandable.

So I ask the atheists … do you believe in absolute moral right and wrong? Is Bin-Laden wrong? (for example) Was Hitler? Or is there no moral code that is universally true?

94

But wait, Xanakis. You say that if Jesus only came to Earth then the aliens would never have a chance to become Christians, and that would be unfair. But if we discover these aliens then, duh, we can tell them the Good News about Jesus Christ and how he died for everyone in the universe.

It is no more unfair that the aborigines having to wait 1,700 years to hear about Jesus Christ. The aliens just have to wait for humans to invent spaceships and then they can become christians. Nothing unfair about it. Assuming there are aliens, and assuming we ever do contact them.

95

I skimmed over some of the Natural Theology pages cited but chose not to invest a lot of time reading them because most of their arguments seem to be pretty old. If someone can provide a link that gives decent synopses of some of these arguments, I’ll be willing to read them. I will however talk abut a few.

The Argument From Design, aka the 2001 Principle. First, our ability to determine what has been and has not been designed is pretty weak. The classic example used in the AFD is “If you were walking on the beach and saw a watch in the sand, you’d know immediately that it was the product of designed.” While that’s probably true, the reason we’d know that is that it resembles something whose design we’re already familiar with. I found it ironic however that the conclusion we are hoped to draw from that example is that the entire world or universe is itself the product of design, so the sand the watch was lying in would itself have been the product of design and the watch would thus have no special distinction other than have been designed and made by humans.

In the article that describes the 2001 principle, much is made of the fact that the on-screen characters and the audience accept without much doubt that the monolith is of alien manufacture based solely on its appearance. This is just plain mistaken. Using events in a movie as a significant part of a serious argument puts the author on pretty shaky ground but I’ll try to take it as given. In our first sight of the monolith, it appears overnight. If the proto-humans had grown up with it in their midst, they would not have seen it as at all out of the ordinary. The sudden appearance was what made it appear out of the ordinary, not anything inherent in it. There are plenty of naturally occurring objects that have smooth faces and sharp edges.

Later, when we see it (or another) on the moon, it’s pretty clear from the film that quite a bit of time has passed since it was first detected and no conclusions have been drawn about its origins. There’s probably been a lot of speculation but no conclusions. I don’t remember how much evidence was cited in the movie but in the short story The Sentinel that served as its basis, there was quite a lot more evidence provided than it was more than just a big black domino. The characters had very good reason to recognize it as alien. The audience did so because we accepted their judgment and besides, that’s what we paid to see.

After all that we come to the real heart of the argument, the human body and mind are extremely complex and so must (according to the argument) have been designed by some intelligent agent. Attacking the worst flaw in this argument is like shooting fish in a barrel but here goes. If something designed us (and/or our world), it must itself be very complex and so must itself have been designed and so on ad infinitum. This reminds me of George Carlin’s old routine where the guy we think of as god isn’t really god, he’s only the western regional marketing manager, there’s another god over him. Granting the argument a little more respect, there is ample evidence that humans did indeed evolve here along with the rest of Earth’s life forms. Dragging in some outside agent adds nothing.

The moral rules argument This argument presupposes that there is no other plausible argument for why we behave morally and that’s a pretty big presumption. I would counter that there are very reasonable, and perfectly reasonable reasons for such behavior that don’t require and divine commandment. In the evolutionary sense, we all endeavor to achieve the continuation of a our genes (our selfish genes per Dawkins). First choice is of course to reproduce ourself, but other ways to achieve the same goal to lesser degrees are to help our siblings do so, or our cousins, or our tribe mates, or any other human. In other words, in the absence of direct competition for resource between humans, cooperation is to the benefit of all. It’s pretty well established that behavior is attributable at least in part to genetic factors. If our ancestors survived by cooperation, cooperation with other humans is a basic part of our mind.

The Just Right Universe The Anthropic Principle is the easiest counter to this argument. I’m not going to go into detail but just the fact that there is a plausible counter argument is IMHO enough to remove this argument from contention as a proof. It might be reasonably counted as a piece of evidence working toward a circumstanial case but not more than that.

In conclusion, while each of these is an argument that is used to support of the god hypothesis, none of them or the underlying thesis can reasonably be counted as even slightly convincing evidence. So far, I’ve yet to see anything that I’d consider evidence so let’s hear some if there is any.

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That’s the earliest conceivable point at which the vast majority of the African population could have even heard about Jesus. Before 1850, and the invention of the gin & tonic, European christians couldn’t go more than 10 - 20 miles inland on the Dark Continent, because they would immediately die of malaria. Even assuming a few lost but physically hearth souls, and even assuming Egyptian coptics did a good bit of spreading knowledge up north, most of sub-Saharan Africa was completely ignorant of God until at least 1850. (And probably closer to 1880 for most of them, even later for many.) The way I understand Christiantiy, you needed to know about Jesus to be saved. And yet God was willing to let 2000 years worth of Africans – generations and generations of people – be doomed to eternal damnation, even after he had offered salvation to the jews and europeans, merely because travel was difficult. Even were he to exist, that’s no God worth worshipping.

–Cliffy

97

xanakis:

In the first place, proofs such as you mention are mental exercises. They certainly are not evidence. In the second place, you are basing your proof on faith, in that you are simply positing that something (inbuilt moral code) exists and could not have arisen without external intervention, and working from there. It’s the same, old, tired argument that we constantly hear (but there must be a God, or else how did <whatever> happen?) - you’ve just changed the <whatever>.

In other words, “I know this exists because, well, I just know it”. Another stale antique that has been refuted times beyond counting.

Science admittedly does not have the answers to all questions, not even all questions about the physical universe. This does NOT constitute evidence for God.

BZZZZT. Try again. Please provide the evidence for God that you keep insisting you have. Or please admit that you don’t, in fact, have any such evidence.
DSeid:

I am not Most Atheists, nor do I speak for Most Atheists. But I, for one, do NOT believe in an absolute moral code in any real sense of the word. I think it’s utter balderdash. Nor do most atheists and agnostics that I know. There are certain behavior modes that are prerequisite to the formation of civilization, and therefore no civilization exists without them, but that isn’t the same thing at all. Certainly the concept that I would consider to be the closest to a ‘moral absolute’ is not and has not been followed by countless millions of other human beings.

Please note that this does NOT mean that I have no sense of right and wrong. Simply that I do not believe there is some universal moral absolute Right and Wrong.

98

I second redtail’s discussion of morality.

–Cliffy

99

Where does morality come from? Does all true morality have to be imposed from some supernatural sorce?

I disagree. Our default morality simply comes from our evolutionary history. For millions of years animals have struggled to survive and reproduce, and as animals we have inherited all sorts of behaviors that that are attempts at helping us to survive and reproduce.

This is what creates what I would call a “Pleistocene Morality”. This is the morality of our early ancestors. It involves helping members of your family, being generous and sharing food, fighting off strangers, being nice to attractive members of the opposite sex, loving and caring for children. This is the sort of morality that even a dog can understand, and I believe it is instinctual for human beings except for a few sociopaths.

But, there is a more sophisticated sort of morality. This is the morality that we can agree to as part of a social contract. This morality is essentially a bunch of “If-Then” statements. If we allow private property, then such-and-such effects follow. If we want the effects, then we must create the rule that provides the effects. Without private property, then almost all economic development becomes impossible since humans won’t work hard for other humans except their family and friends from the Pleistocene morality.

I believe that moral decisions set for in, say, the US constitution are of this sort. If we allow religious freedom, then we achieve the postive benefit of avoiding religious strife. There is nothing intrinsicly moral about religious freedom, but reason allows us to choose it in order to reap the rewards. Same thing with rules against theft, murder, etc. These are things that are allowed under a Pleistocene morality (kill strangers and take their stuff, protect friends and family and share with them), but must be disallowed if we are to have a complex civilization.

I don’t see any sort of moral rules that must be imposed by some supernatural or extra-natural source. Basic morality is provided by evolution, sophisticated morality is provided by reason.

100

cliffy:

Of course most Africans would not have heard about Jesus but I am not, in any way, defending Christianity or any other religion. I am talking purely about the existence of God. And African tribes had their own ideas about God long before Western countries began to influence them, as did South American cultures, as did every other culture on the planet.

In fact, this is another one of the “proofs” for a God - the fact that all cultures from all over the world have always had some kind of notion of a “God”. Can you name a single atheist culture that has ever existed anywhere in the world?

Please understand I was merely giving what I thought would be the “religious” response to the question posed not my own belief.

aramis:

Obviously there are counter-arguments to all the so-called “proofs” of the existence of God.

This is my whole point - there are arguments for and there are arguments against.

Neither side of the argument demolishes the other. Therefore it is impossible to justifiably place your belief one way or the other.

For example:

You say that there is ample evidence that we evolved here on Earth and that there is no need to bring a supernatural creature into the equation.

ok, so we evolved here on Earth but where did the Earth come from?

It evolved with the Universe right?

OK so where did the Universe come from?

There’s only two options:

  1. The Universe has always existed for infinity, there was no first cause.

  2. The Universe came into being at a particular place and time, it was created. If it was created then there must have been a creator.

So that is two options on the table and we have no evidence which could help us decide conclusively to pick one option over the other.

Therefore we have to be agnostic, any other position requires a leap of faith.

Another example:

The Moral Rules Argument - I admire Dawkins a lot, Ive read Selfish Gene etc but Ive been meaning to have a run-in with him for some time now. One day Im going to seek him out and tell him a few plain truths.

One thing that annoys me about him (along with many “sceptics”) is the arrogance they seem to exhibit. They can sometimes give the impression that they know all the answers when they patently know no such thing.

Genes can help explain a lot about animal behaviour on this planet. Humans live and they die but their genes are immortal.

Animals often co-operate with each other in order to accomplish a particular goal, such as Hyenas co-operating to kill a Wildebeest. One Hyena cannot kill a Wildebeest but a whole pack can. So we can see the purpose of co-operation here.

However, my rational mind tells me that I could probably get away with killing a few old people in order to take their money. Hey, I would become richer and if I thought I could do it without getting caught, whats the problem? Whats stopping me?

The “co-operation” argument isn’t valid here.

Something else is stopping me.

My sense of moral “right”.

The argument that Lemur866 advances is that our human reason is what stops me from doing things like this.

Well, sorry, but my human reason tells me that if I can kill and get richer and not get caught then that is what I should do.

So, in a way, by not killing I’m acting against my reason.

Again, please let me stress that I am not defending religion. I am just not ready to make the leap of faith required to make me an atheist.

To me, the jump from agnostic to atheist is the same as the jump from agnostic to believer. I wouldn’t rule out me making such a jump one way or the other one day but it could as easily be one way as the other. They’re both the same.

In fact, if anything, the older I get and the more I learn about the world and humanity, the more I wonder.

101

There is a common logical fallacy made by believers in creation. It goes like this, “The universe was created, so it must have a creator.” The flaw here is in insistence on the word created, a word which in common usage implies the presence a creator. Similarly, they also often refer to the universe as a creation, as in “all creation.”

In reality though, the only thing we can reasonably say about the universe is that it exists; it is more properly a thing, not a creation. Call it a thing and the creation argument sounds pretty weak. Call it a creation and you have a circular argument.

We could also just as correctly say that it came into existence for reasons unknown. Perhaps a random quantum fluctuation started the whole thing. I read a book on string theory recently that talked about this stuff and it was largely over my head, but it seems that a reasonable answer might lie down that road. That adds another option to your list of possible beginnings and there are probably others some of which we may not have even thought of yet.

Not all arguments are of equal validity. An argument that accounts for the existence of the universe using known physical processes, even if they’re only partially understood, has more validity than one that requires the intentional participation of an otherwise mythical being. It is not necessary to demolish the alternate in order to be more valid.

Bringing in a deity forces upon you the anarchy of religion. Unless you posit a creator who kicked things off 15 or so billion years ago and then got out of the way, you must ascribe at least some properties to this being. If it takes observable actions in our universe, then there are things we can say about it, however vague.

So what can we say about it? In the absence of scientifically valid evidence regarding such a being, we can come to no conclusions whatsoever and must fall back on witness’ statements. You might very well argue that the variety of such statements is itself evidence. How then do we evaluate those statements for validity? It’s obvious to all of us that humans make mistakes so we can reasonably surmise that some of the statements about the deity are incorrect (or can we? divine inspiration and all that.) Anyway, was Joseph Smith correct, or Jim Jones, or Yoshua Ben Yoseph (aka Jesus), or Pat Robertson, or Muhammed, or any of the rest.

Were they all correct and just seeing a single facet of something larger? That makes no sense since some of the things they concluded were contradictory. I think we can rule that out. So which religion should we choose?

My strictly personal take on this is that if many people describe the same thing differently, I can conclude that a) One is right and all the others are wrong, or b) they’re all wrong. In the god question, I see the latter as more reasonable and so probably right. Having settled that to my satisfaction, the next step is “well, maybe there is is one but it hasn’t communicated a message to a single person on Earth who has been able to let the rest of us know.” If that’s true, it’s a piss-poor god. This is a simplification of the argument so don’t bother to critique it.

Actually no. Earth is not alive and it doesn’t reproduce so it cannot evolve. Its physical form changed somewhat over its existence.

A digression: I’m trying to be cautious with words here but it’s late and I’ll probablyu slip up somewhere along the line. In principle, the planet we call Earth earned that name somewhere in the past as a result of numerous smaller, unnamed bodies coming together gravitationally and forming our little world. It didn’t actually ever begin to exist in the normal sense. For that matter, nothing ever begins to exist, barring some energy to mater conversions that happen under extreme conditions. The watch I’m wearing never began to exist, certainly not the day it came out of the Seiko factory. At one time it was a collection of rocks, only their shapes changed at the factory. I have to be careful this way because words like that can be misinterpreted. If I were to say “when Earth began” or “in Earth’s lifetime”, those kind of phrases feed the creation fire.

You call it morals, I call it a behavioral inhibition that has been encoded into your genes because that kind of behavior would detrimental to the continuation of the species, even if it helped you personally.

There is a pretty big difference actually. The jump to believer forces you to make a lot of other jumps as well as I touched on above. So which view of god to you go with? Do you just take the easy way and choose the one your family had? That’s taking a big chance, what if you get it wrong and the Hare Krishnas were right? Vishnu is gonna be pissed at you! :slight_smile: Wow, my first smily ever!