Atheism does not work...

Great Debates
1

…a philosophical argument on why it is rational to accept the possibility of a creator.

I am agnostic and I have had more than a few heated debated with some athiest collegues of mine. I am a person is is constantly fascinated by the universe around us. Most athiests seem to think that there is no explanation for the universe, that its existence is just a brute fact, or that the universe can be fully explainded scientifically.

The existence of something is comprehensible only if it has an explanation. By the definition of intelligibility, the universe must be unintelliglbe or have an explantion. If we are constantly searching for an answer or explanation to the question of why the universe exists, The nature or a rational person would be to seek an explantion for the universe.
There are two possible explanations for the universe:

  1. A scientific explantion
  2. The aregument that the universe is abrute fact and it exists out of necessity.

In order for there to be a true scientific explantion of the universe, there would have to be an obserivation of the intial physical conditions of the universe and then the application of laws that would explain the universe as it is today. An athiest will postulate that the universe is governed by natural laws. But if the universe is made of certain circumstances and laws, there cannot be any conditions, laws out side it. So there is no possibel way for there to be an independent set of intitial physical conditions which are needed to have a scientific explanation. Therefore science cannot explain the universe.
Another argument is that the universe is essetial, its exist beucase it must and there is no answer to the question why?. But, the universe consists of objects that could have not existed or been extremely different from what they are now, (like the chair you’re sitting on or the moon) All of those objects existed beucase of a set of circumstances in the Big Bang. If the Big Bang had somehow functioned differently its possible that none of us could have existed. So if its possible that parts of the universe could not have existed, than couldn’t the universe itself have not exiseted? The universe is non-essential.
So, since the universe cannot be explained scientifically and it is non-essential, the only other possible explanation is a creator. So, a rational person who is seeking an explanation should accept the fact that it is possible there is a God.

Thoughts?

2

[cough]athEIst[/cough]

3

I E dyslexia is a condition, not a crime.

(Boy, there’s one in every crowd. Except on the Board, where there’s about eight thousand.)

4

You lost me at “I”.

5

First, most atheists don’t deny there is a possibility of a God (depending on the definition of God), they just haven’t been convinced of the actual existence of such an entity. See An Introduction to Atheism.

Second, if the Universe exists because it was created by God, how come the questions your raise don’t just get shifted to God? God would then become the new thing that is either unintelligible or must have some explanation. (God’s God, I suppose. And God’s Grand-God, and His Great-Grand-God, and so on…)

6

I’m usually the first to jump all over people’s spelling and grammatical errors, but here I’ll just ask, “why is the invention of a supernatural being necessary for any of the universe to make sense?” It’s not empty for us atheists, it’s just not peopled by Zeus or Shiva or Jesus or whatever mythical being you ascribe to.

7

That is not in any sense true.

8

Are we now to expect having these sorts of areguments explainded at us ad nauseum in GD by an endless stream of guests? Is this part of some kind of organized effort? Why now? Did the midterms cause some grave disturbance in the amateur apologists’ Force or something?

9

Hey, this is the place for “long-running discussions”; questions with actual answers are over there.

10

Firstly, reasonably plausible hypotheses for the physical laws that appear to govern the universe have been proposed and tested. That not every ‘i’ has been dotted or ‘t’ crossed does not mean that there is no scientific explanation for the universe.

Secondly, the universe does not, strictly speaking, require an explanation. It, or something that to our senses has the properties of a universe, clearly exists. It has not yet winked out of existence due to anyone’s failure to provide an adequate reason for its existence.

Thirdly, some sort of God is always a possibility. Currently, however, it would appear that there is no testable hypothesis that could verify the existence of such a figure, thus that possibility is a vanishingly small one. Furthermore, if you are going to argue that there must be a creator of some sort simply because current scientific explanations for the history and behavior of the universe are lacking in some way, how do you explain the creator itself, for which there is essentially no scientific evidence whatever? In addition, who created the creator, and the creator’s creator, and so on? Personally, I prefer to stop at what is actually observed (the universe), but you are welcome to go as far back in the chain as you like. I’m curious, however, why you would stop at the immediate creator?

Lastly, assuming that there was such a creator, what, precisely, changes about things? I presume that what you are leading up to is that we are supposed to worship this creator for some reason, right? Is that the case, and if so, why?

11

He is God almighty and all that but, well…he’s not very good at handling money. Help a brother out!

12

Absent the which, we are apparently happy to accept “short-running, but frequently repeated discussions,” and even “drive-by posts copied and pasted by nimrods who have no intention of sticking around to have their asses handed to them.” :cool:

13

Moderator’s Note: Remember, everyone, no personal insults in Great Debates. If you find a thread to be just too unbearably jejune or whatever just…don’t post to it.

14

Sorry about the “nimrods” bit. :smack:

15

“does not work” in comparison with WHAT?

My sister is most vehemently not an atheist and I think her code has ceased to compile. I’m an escaped mental patient, anarchist, and social revolutionary (albeit of the cautious conservatively radical type when it comes to structure), and as a Christian she looks a shitload more mainstream, but she’s scaring the shit out of me lately. I’m afraid I’m going to read about her in the national media, that she’s chained my niece to the radiator and tried to drive demons out of her by jabbing her with hatpins and spraying her with Lemon Pledge or something.

I myself am not atheist. I have reached theistic conclusions. Do I think the perspectives I hold are superior to those I understand other people to hold? Well duh…who doesn’t? And yet as a general rule the most perceptive, intelligent, rational, and emotionally honest folks are far more likely to be atheists than to be theistic. You’re about to ask the obvious question, aren’t you? It’s a parabola. The overwhelming majority of religious Believers are sheep, buying a badly wrapped inconsistent unfulfilling nonexplanatory bag of recycled bullshit expressed as meaningless phrases and lousy metaphorical ideological constructs…to get out of that, you first have to cast it into doubt, and it does not stand up worth a damn to doubt…then, on your own, you explore everything and reach your own conclusions. For some of us, the conclusions we end up reaching bear such a compelling resonance with some of what we know was once said by some of the founders of one or more of the world’s religions that we end up feeling that the overwhelming majority of the followers of those religions may be mindlessly parroting phrases but that the folks who originated them may have understood almost exactly what we understand.

Including, perhaps, all the way back to the first person to put a word like “God” to a concept for which, outside of religion, there’s no sufficient word.

Or perhaps not. I’ve spoken with many atheists who are cognizant in the same way but just don’t feel compelled as I do to identify quite so strongly with the insights and observations made by historical and legendary people who used words like “God”.

Which makes for a great and thoroughly interesting discussion, and it’s a discussion with someone who comprehends the overwhelmingly large and important part of what is central to what I believe. Far far more, way beyond, what I am able to establish rapport-wise, with the average theistic person.

In large part that’s because in our culture (and this may in fact be far less so outside of the heavily theistic USA) you just don’t run into atheists very often who don’t do their own independent thinking. Whereas the vastly overwhelming majority of theistic folk are sheep following other sheep, regurgitating phrases verbatim and unable to express any of it in their own words from their own experience.

Atheism seems to work just fine. In the final analysis the differentiation between theistic person and atheist lies mostly in terms chosen and the absence or presence of a felt affinity for historical theistic or atheistic thinkers and the words they used.

16

First, I think you are identifying hard atheists there, previously long winded arguments have convinced me that a soft atheist=agnostic.

Now for the OP.

Of course is possible, The big problem for me is that it is irrelevant in this particular universe. Long story short: all the ones before that proposed that as a justification for a creator have not been able to show which one they are talking about. Or even if what the energy field or force we are left with (in some explanations) is something we would bother to worship or ask for help.

I don’t think we should concern ourselves too much by believing or not, only to realize that the best current evidence shows that if there is a creator out there, we are not important to him/her/it/them. Once I realized we are barely making a living in the outskirts of where the real action is happening in the universe, like the stuff that is going on close to the center of our galaxy, I got the impression that if there is a creator it will be surprised to find that we are here at all.

17

Episcopalian, eh? “In the name of the membership chairman at the country club I insist you leave this child forthwith!” JAB! SPRITZ!

18

Naah. Southern-Baptist ultrafundamentalist offshoot. Everyone’s going to hell but them. Unlike the traditional Southern Baptist she doesn’t harbor the same doubts “…and I’m not even sure all of us are gonna make it”. Nope, they’re the chosen people. Except my niece, who is at risk of going to hell. No, not for those reasons, get your minds out of the sewer. Because she’s contemplating enrolling in a northern college. Where northern liberals can corrupt her mind. (Oh, and because she’s got a Jewish boyfriend, that’s also way bad news).

19

Risk? Sorry, she’s bought a one-way ticket.

20

Depends what you mean by “the universe”. By “the universe”, do you mean “all that exists”? If so, then one can say, “All that exists, exists”. This is a truism. Therefore the existence of the universe is a truism.

On the other hand, if by “the universe”, you mean “this particular space-time continuum that we inhabit”, then no, most atheists believe that there may be an explanation, but that the explanation is currently unknown to us. I don’t understand physics very well, but didn’t Stephen Hawking observe that there would have to be an “information barrier” at the big bang, and that it would be mathematically impossible for any realm outside our space-time continuum to affect events within it? But my understanding was that physicists are now considering how it might be possible.

What I don’t understand is why you can’t accept the answer, “I don’t know”. Simply inventing a being with mystical properties and calling it “God” doesn’t shed any light on the problem.

As pointed out, this is false. I can observe that a thing exists without necessarily having an explanation for it. Men knew the sun existed before they knew it was a giant ball of burning gas. Isaac Newton observed that gravity existed before he knew what caused it.

By extension, this is also false.

Why?

Why not?

That doesn’t make sense.

I suppose that’s true.

You haven’t demonstrated that the universe cannot be explained scientifically. You are confusing “can be explained” with “was caused or preceded by some event”. Perhaps the universe has no cause; that doesn’t mean it can’t be explained. Or perhaps it was caused, but the cause is currently unknown to us. “isn’t explained” is not synonymous with “can’t be explained”.

Define “God”.