# Atheism does not work... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2006, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571 "2006-12-02T04:31:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/101 "2006-12-04T02:18:36Z")
[QUOTE=Stratocaster] [Quote=lowbrass] Why do we have to assume anything? Why do we have to take anything on faith? What’s wrong with the answer “I don’t know”? [/quote] Feel free. [/quote] Not much of an answer. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/102 "2006-12-04T03:51:12Z")
[QUOTE=lowbrass] Not much of an answer. :dubious: [/QUOTE] In as much as he is indicating tacit approval of the impossibility of a logical response to a faith-held belief, I think that is as good and honest a response as you’re liable to get from a believer. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/103 "2006-12-04T04:03:02Z")
I’m very confused. A. The universe, or the processes that lead to the creation of any universe (say, branes rubbing up against each other or a local bubble of reality coming into being in the giant multiverse – whatever caused the big bang) are eternal. B. The processes that led to our universe are not eternal. God set in motion the processes that led to our universe. God is eternal. I’m seeing people in this thread saying that A is ridiculous while in the next breath saying that B makes sense and is the only logical conclusion. Either way it’s turtles all the way down – it **has** to be. Somewhere in the chain you run into a wall. Now, someone explain why or how going through the labor of poofing God the creator from out of left field helps outside of making you feel fuzzy and warm when you go to bed. Also, where may I reach him/her/it? Does he have an e-mail address? I have a long list of complaints that I think he would be interested in seeing – lots of shoddy craftmanship, really. > [@Handsome\_Dick](#): > > According the Occam’s Razor, the beginning of the universe shouldn’t even come into equation as of yet. It seems as though the universe is expanding quickly enough for us to not receive the first light waves - inductive logic creates hypotheses, not theories. Occam’s Razor definitely doesn’t say we shouldn’t study the big bang. All it says is that given two models with equal evidence you rely on the one with the least assumptions and extra entities. I wouldn’t bring it up if you fancy the idea of God. We **are** receiving the radiation from the last scattering – that’s what the microwave background radiation is, after all. The microwave background radiation is everywhere and has been mapped extensively and fulfills the predictions made by the current big bang model. It is uniform throughout all of space and just by itself is a huge neon sign pointing towards the big bang. There are lots of other neat things about the big bang model too, like its prediction and mathematical bookkeeping of the ratios and amounts of various light elements, like helium-4 and deuterium. Or the distribution and ages of galaxies and their formations. I already mentioned the red shifting. There are any number of other things; entire libraries and all that. > [@](#): > > Also, though: Big Bang theory IS currently being questioned by the recent validation of dark matter. Cite? Dark matter has been known to exist for decades; the recent observations of the bullet clusters will help fine tune what we know about dark matter and may clarify one group’s former pet hypothesis over the other guy’s, but it has nothing to do with the credibility of the big bang theory. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/104 "2006-12-04T05:24:22Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] so Aquinas’ proof doesn’t prove God but it does prove a God equivalent. Thanks for clearing that up. So I guess according to Aqinas the best than can be done is [/QUOTE] No a god equivalent - some god, not necessarily having anything to do with our god, or Earth. Perhaps this god cares about some other people, and they’ve gone to heaven, and we’re here until got gets around to cleaning up after the party. We can pray to oh god somewhere sometime, if you ever get around to visiting please answer my prayers. That’s sure uplifting. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/105 "2006-12-04T05:26:04Z")
Or god **s**. Let’s not insult the pantheists, here. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/106 "2006-12-04T05:52:33Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] Or god **s**. Let’s not insult the pantheists, here. 😉 [/QUOTE] Well, in post #90 I did mention Aton, Vishnu, Thor, Zeus, and those were intended to be merely representative. It all reminds of of the Deist prayer as revealed by UCLA Professor Eugen Weber. > [@](#): > > Oh God, if there is one, save my soul, if I have one. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/107 "2006-12-04T08:49:11Z")
I hate philosophy. _Hate_, with the gamma bursts of a billion pulsars. The field is choked with arcane, convoluted language that ultimately says very little of worth. And yet, somehow I find myself reading bits of the works of Aquinas and Aristotle in an effort to bring down this First Mover nonsense. Well, here we go. > [@Siris (the blog post about Aquinas' First Way)](#): > > Aquinas’s argument has, I think, the following general structure: > > A. Some things are moved. (this is #1) > B. Every thing moved is moved by another. (this is #2=#7) [Corollary: nothing may move itself] > C. Either there is a first mover or nothing is moved by another. (this is #9) > D. There is a first mover. (from A, B, & C; this is #10) > > … > > While there are views that would question A (Humean views of causality, for instance, don’t allow for an act/potency distinction, which is essential to the Aristotelian notion of ‘motion’), clearly the premises that most need support are B and C. Sentences 2-7 are devoted to supporting B. Nor do I think it makes much sense to deny B; that would be like saying that something can change from potential to actual without there being anything actual that makes the change possible–in other words, giving up B in its Aristotelian sense is a fairly serious price to pay for rejecting the argument. So, if you accept A and B, then C logically follows from that, and D from C (in conjunction with the simple observation that the universe is not static). I know nothing of Hume and don’t really care to go down that path, so I’ll leave A alone. This leaves me with B: nothing may move itself. What, then, was Aristotle’s argument, exactly? I found this [webpage](http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/PhilRel/Aristotle.htm) that seems to be part of a university philosophy course: > [@Aristotle article](#): > > From his considerations of the nature of motion in Physics, in Book 8, Aristotle concludes that there must be a logically first unmoved mover in order to explain all other motion. In Physics 8.1, he argues that motion is eternal. Motion cannot begin without the prior existence of something to impart motion in another thing, so that there will always be something in motion, since something at rest cannot cause motion in another thing. In addition, if motion were not eternal, then time would not have always existed, since time is the measure of motion; but, according to Aristotle, no one would be willing to say that time has not always been in existence. Nor can motion cease, since to do so something must cause it to cease, but then the thing that caused motion to cease would require something to cause its cessation and the process would continue ad infinitum. Aristotle concludes, “That there never was a time when there was not motion, and never will be a time when there will not be motion” (252b 6-8). In other words, motion is eternal because motion cannot spring forth from nothing. Something must be the source of motion. Time is eternal because it measures motion. If all motion ceased, then time would cease as well. But motion cannot cease because something must cause it to cease, and something must cause that to cease etc. Therefore, there must be an unmoved mover that is the source of all motion, and that is eternal. I wonder what Aristotle would make of modern physics, in which it is said that time did not exist before the Big Bang, and may potentially end with the [heat death of the universe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death) – heat death being a state in which entropy has reached its maximum and the universe is completely uniform and dead. And if there is an unmoving mover, why not an unmoving stopper? I suppose that role could be filled by Satan or some other great destroyer, but let’s not get sidetracked. > [@](#): > > Aristotle also objects to the idea that motion may have begun self-caused; he points out that, in those things in which motion is said to be “self-caused,” in fact, there is a part of the thing that is already in motion and imparts motion to the whole. Self-caused means that motion is not imparted from without but from some part of the whole that is already in motion. In such cases, the motion of the part that moves the other parts of a things requires a mover. In other words, things that appear to be self-moving actually have some part that was moving to begin with, so that ultimately something else set it in motion. So basically Aristotle says that nothing can move itself, because that would ultimately require that movement springs from nothing. This all leads to what I feel are unanswered questions: Why must motion have a cause? Aristotle argues that the eternal unmoved mover set all else in motion, because nothing can move itself because motion must have a source because motion is eternal. That seems awfully damn circular to me. Why must time have always existed? Modern physics suggests that time may indeed have a beginning and end, as I stated earlier. If I am willing to say that time has not always existed and may not continue to exist, contrary to Aristotle’s statement, does that destroy the basis of his argument? Why can’t motion cease? This part of the argument seems utterly stupid, even more than the rest. Hell, plenty of religions have some sort of end times scenario in which one could argue that motion ceases. An unmoving stopper is neither more nor less plausible than an unmoving mover. Again, does an unmoving stopper do that much damage to the argument? Aquinas seems to have a different take on why nothing can move itself. I found a different, but only slightly less baffling translation, [here](http://www.diafrica.org/nigeriaop/kenny/Nature/NATURE13.htm): > [@](#): > > Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e., that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is moved is moved by another. I honestly don’t know what the hell that means. Is he saying that a thing cannot have the potential to become two different things? That’s clearly false. I can ignite wood to make a fire; under one set of conditions I create ash and under a different set of conditions I create charcoal. I can carve it into a duck, I can make methanol, I can bury it and maybe it will turn to stone in a few hundred thousand years. Maybe he’s saying that once a potential has been realized and motion has occurred, other potentials, especially opposing potentials, are locked out. That’s true in some cases, but not all. Instead of wood, let’s consider the chunk of bronze mentioned by Aristotle in my link. Bronze can become a statue. Yeah, but I can melt the statue back into a chunk of bronze too. I can take a statue of Demeter, representing the harvest and fertility, and transform it into a statue of Ares, representing war, or of Hades, representing death. Maybe it means something else altogether? Fuck if I know. In any case, I don’t see how it then follows that a thing cannot move itself, or alternatively that something cannot be created from nothing. Quantum theory predicts that under certain conditions a matter/antimatter pair of particles – say, an electron and positron - may appear where none were before. This is more a case of energy spontaneously changing into matter than of matter springing forth from nothing, but even so it would seem to contradict the idea that a thing cannot move itself. Therefore, I don’t think it’s proven that nothing may move itself. As this is the B premise of Aquinas’ syllogism, it is also not proven that there must be a First Mover. ---
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/108 "2006-12-04T10:03:46Z")
[QUOTE=RedFury] In as much as he is indicating tacit approval of the impossibility of a logical response to a faith-held belief, I think that is as good and honest a response as you’re liable to get from a believer. [/QUOTE] I suppose I was hoping for an admission that this: > [@Stratocaster](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by Captain Carrot > > But what you say applies only to things in the universe that we have encountered. We have no evidence either way to conclude that the universe itself, as a whole, was or was not created by itself or an external force. We don’t know of any laws that really apply to the entire universe, just objects within it. And IIRC, most if not all of the scientific laws we have discovered break down near the Big Bang. > > Yep, I suppose that’s true. So are you suggesting we take it on faith that there is some physical explanation, one that blows away our current understanding of how the physical universe works? Or do we assume that our understanding of the “causality” of the universe is correct, which means that there must be an unmoved mover? The latter seems more satisfying to me, but of course that doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. is a false dichotomy - that Captain Carrot is correct in that we _don’t know_ what laws might apply to the universe as a whole, from outside the universe, and that a bifurcation between “taking it on faith that there is a physical explanation” and “assuming there is an unmoved mover” is not warranted. The correct answer is “none of the above” - we do not know at this time. I would _hope_ that a believer could give better than a 2-word answer. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/109 "2006-12-04T10:19:30Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Not if free will is free. If it was “moved” by some other mover then the action was predetermined and not free. [/QUOTE] I suppose that could be true. But free will is at least influenced by other movers, right? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/110 "2006-12-04T10:23:19Z")
[QUOTE=Anduril] Neither do we know that it could NOT “behave” thusly. [/quote] Yes, but we do have an understanding now of how it behaves. So if you want to take it on faith that there’s some heretofore unknown physical property that would explain this, fine. That’s certainly possible. It’s just not consistent with our current understanding of the “causality” of the universe. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/111 "2006-12-04T10:26:05Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] so Aquinas’ proof doesn’t prove God but it does prove a God equivalent. Thanks for clearing that up. [/QUOTE] Are you under the impression that I’m arguing logically for the existence of a Christian God? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/112 "2006-12-04T11:27:59Z")
[QUOTE=lowbrass] is a false dichotomy - that Captain Carrot is correct in that we _don’t know_ what laws might apply to the universe as a whole, from outside the universe, and that a bifurcation between “taking it on faith that there is a physical explanation” and “assuming there is an unmoved mover” is not warranted. The correct answer is “none of the above” - we do not know at this time. I would _hope_ that a believer could give better than a 2-word answer. [/QUOTE] Perhaps you can read my answers throughout the thread. I don’t think I’ve held my cards to my vest, and I believe I have allowed for the possibility that there is some physical circumstance that we don’t understand–one that would initially at least appear to contradict our understanding of the linearity of cause and effect in our universe. I certainly don’t know. I do know that an unmoved mover is more logical–for me–in the context of what we currently understand about cause and effect in the universe. But perhaps we don’t understand all we need to, for sure. But an unmoved mover is certainly a logical conclusion, one that some refuse to grant, even in a form that does not demand a particular type of a God (others clearly do acknowledge this as a logical possibility, even if they don’t feel it likely). I find that form of orthodoxy interesting. What more would you like? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/113 "2006-12-04T11:31:15Z")
Let me word it differently, as a question: Do you (anyone) take it on faith that we will ultimately find a physical explanation that will negate the logical conclusion of an unmoved mover? Or do you feel that the syllogism that concludes in the unmoved movers is a non sequitur, even without any other physical explanation? Or something else? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/114 "2006-12-04T12:24:59Z")
[QUOTE=Stratocaster] I suppose that could be true. But free will is at least influenced by other movers, right? [/QUOTE] \*\*PC \*\* has a point. Even if free will is affected partially by outside forces, that suggests there’s a kernel of “true” free will in there, which would by definition be an unmoved mover. That it then goes on to be influenced by outside things doesn’t mean it was caused by outside things. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/115 "2006-12-04T13:41:00Z")
[QUOTE=Stratocaster] I suppose that could be true. But free will is at least influenced by other movers, right? [/QUOTE] You’re slicing away influences but claiming that influences remain. Keep slicing away the influences and if nothing remains then we do not have free will. If we don’t have free will then we are meat computers and a lot of religious thinking goes down the drain. If we do have free will then we contain an unmoved mover. We are god equivalents. That deflates the impressiveness of the idea of there being one great unmoved mover. ---
**Author:** ![spazattak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@spazattak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazattak)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/116 "2006-12-04T16:16:27Z")
How can that which has no goal, not achieve that non-goal? How can the ascertain of a lack of belief lead to failure? What does atheism have to do with science, or the creation of the world? > [@](#): > > The existence of something is comprehensible only if it has an explanation. What does this have to do with atheism? ---
**Author:** ![lowbrass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dc4da7/32.png) [@lowbrass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lowbrass)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/117 "2006-12-04T20:41:17Z")
[QUOTE=Stratocaster] Let me word it differently, as a question: Do you (anyone) take it on faith that we will ultimately find a physical explanation that will negate the logical conclusion of an unmoved mover? Or do you feel that the syllogism that concludes in the unmoved movers is a non sequitur, even without any other physical explanation? Or something else? [/QUOTE] I guess what’s still bothering me about your responses is that several of us have pointed out that while cause and effect apply _within_ this universe, that we have no evidence that they apply to the universe _as a whole_. The concept of time breaks down at the big bang, and does not extend beyond it. You continue to refer to a “logical conclusion” that the universe must have a creator, without acknowledging what we’re saying. The logic that every effect must have a cause is dependent on time. If time is absent, that logic does not apply. I suppose it’s o.k. if you disagree, but could you at least acknowledge the point? Let’s break this down: What you are really saying is that there had to be something that happened _before_ the big bang. This is something that has come up in countless discussions, and to borrow a response that others have used many times, asking what happened before the big bang is like asking “What is north of the North Pole?” We simply don’t know what, if anything, is outside of our universe. It could be God, it could be another universe, it could be a WalMart, or it could be a purple chicken. Besides which, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there _is_ a realm outside of our universe that is eternal (I don’t care for this “unmoved mover” philosophical jargon). That still in no way proves that this thing is God. So even if it _were_ a valid point, it doesn’t invalidate atheism. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/118 "2006-12-05T00:24:02Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] You’re slicing away influences but claiming that influences remain. Keep slicing away the influences and if nothing remains then we do not have free will. If we don’t have free will then we are meat computers and a lot of religious thinking goes down the drain. If we do have free will then we contain an unmoved mover. We are god equivalents. That deflates the impressiveness of the idea of there being one great unmoved mover. [/QUOTE] I don’t think so. Not if all those exercising free will were created (in an earthly sense). They don’t get to exercise free will except that some movement created the circumstance. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/119 "2006-12-05T00:27:35Z")
[QUOTE=lowbrass] I guess what’s still bothering me about your responses is that several of us have pointed out that while cause and effect apply _within_ this universe, that we have no evidence that they apply to the universe _as a whole_. The concept of time breaks down at the big bang, and does not extend beyond it. You continue to refer to a “logical conclusion” that the universe must have a creator, without acknowledging what we’re saying. [/quote] Tell me what you mean by “time breaks down,” please. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2006, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571/120 "2006-12-05T01:47:20Z")
[QUOTE=Stratocaster] I don’t think so. Not if all those exercising free will were created (in an earthly sense). They don’t get to exercise free will except that some movement created the circumstance. [/QUOTE] So you don’t believe humans have free will? Kinda takes a big chunk out of religious morality don’t you think? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism-does-not-work/382571.md?page=7)