# How would pre-Darwinian atheists... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2005, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856 "2005-06-11T14:49:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/41 "2005-06-13T16:37:42Z")
> [@Martin Wolf](#): > > Does the word “watchmaker” ring any bells? Yes it does. And if I’d said anything about a cosmological argument, it might even be broadly applicable. ---
**Author:** ![Walton\_Firm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Walton\_Firm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walton_Firm)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/42 "2005-06-13T16:46:17Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Yes it does. And if I’d said anything about a cosmological argument, it might even be broadly applicable. You didn’t, the OP did. At least, I assume that’s why he specified a “pre-Darwinian atheist”, rather than a pre-Darwinian fishmonger or a pre-Darwinian hoofsmith. In fact, you had not posted anything in this thread at all before the post of mine that drew your ire, so how could it have been directed at you? I haven’t been here as long as you have, but I believe that it is customary around here to let the OP determine the subject of the thread, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/43 "2005-06-13T16:50:01Z")
Ire? What ire? I merely challenged your premise with a premise of my own. It did mean that I was angry with you. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/44 "2005-06-13T19:17:28Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I’m saying that it is absurd to ask for a cite for a premise. Peano used five of them. Dio now has an opportunity to ask for a cite for each. I accept Peano’s axioms as being self-evident and necessary. The possibilty that “God” exists is not remotely-self evident and more importantly it is demonstrably _im_possible for God to exist unnecessarily. Possibility is contingent upon necessity. If you can’t prove God is necessary, you can’t prove God is possible. In fact, the discussion of “possibility” is really just an end around the lack of demonstrable necessity. If you _can_ prove God is necessary you prove not only that God is possible but that God, in fact, exists. “Possibility” in this discussion is a space filler for existence itself. Because there is no possibility of God without the existence of God, to assume possibility is to assume your own conclusion, i.e to assume existence itself. The first thing that needs to be demonstrated is necessity. Possibility is not a given but is precisely what needs to be proven. ---
**Author:** ![Walton\_Firm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/45deac/32.png) [@Walton\_Firm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walton_Firm)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/45 "2005-06-13T20:16:51Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Ire? What ire? I merely challenged your premise with a premise of my own. It did [not?] mean that I was angry with you. Fair enough, except that I still don’t quite see how your response-premise is relevant to the discussion. Or, for that matter, how your post #10 was an answer to my post #9 in the first place. Obviously, if our protagonist (the OP’s pre-Darwinian atheist) can be convinced of the existence of God, then she is no longer an atheist and the OP’s question no longer applies to her. So let’s assume, for the sake of the argument, that our atheist has in fact been exposed to all of the various God-proofs that are available to her, and that she remains unconvinced. I am aware that, to you, it is incomprehensible that anybody could be confronted with the self-evident truth of the Ontological Proof, and not be convinced. However, the truth is that the vast majority of atheists, now and in the past, have managed this feat. So can we just assume that this particular atheist is one of those people? If you have something to add to this specific discussion, as opposed to a generic can-God’s-existence-be-proven debate, could you please spell it out in a bit more detail? As opposed to us having to either read your mind, or draw it out of you over the course of a few dozen posts… ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/46 "2005-06-13T20:21:38Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Possibility is contingent upon necessity. I don’t follow this. Given A and B as undefined variables, it is possible but not necessary that A\>B. No? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/47 "2005-06-13T21:45:34Z")
In the MOA, necessity is typically built into the definition of “God,” so it’s not an undefined variable. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/48 "2005-06-13T21:58:54Z")
Nitpick #1 How were the Essenes Christian? They were a _Jewish_ sect. Nitpick #2 My memory could be faulty, or the family tree may have been rearranged, but I seem to recall Anthropology 101 teaching that hominids and austalopithicenes evolved from a common ancestor rather than hominids evolving from australopithicenes. Re OP How much preDarwin? If it’s after the discovery that pi does not equal three, that the world isn’t flat, and that the earth orbits the sun, use those facts to poke holes in the Bible. Science has already shown the Bible to be in error (or at least to contain parables which are not factually true), why accept the Biblical account of the origins of life and the human race? [brainless chuckling] **Jayjay** said “homo”[/brainless chuckling] ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/49 "2005-06-13T22:24:16Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Science has already shown the Bible to be in error (or at least to contain parables which are not factually true), why accept the Biblical account of the origins of life and the human race? Nothin’ in the OP about the Bible, Doc. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2005, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/50 "2005-06-13T22:34:05Z")
> [@Hoodoo Ulove](#): > > Nothin’ in the OP about the Bible, Doc. Oops. Is it too late to change my answer? Just point out several things that were previously considered great mysteries but had been explained by science. Then say that logic leads you to conclude that God didn’t do it, and that science shall one day find the answer. ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2005, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856/51 "2005-06-15T16:09:05Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I. If you can’t prove God is necessary, you can’t prove God is possible. . . Because there is no possibility of God without the existence of God, to assume possibility is to assume your own conclusion, i.e to assume existence itself. > > The first thing that needs to be demonstrated is necessity. Possibility is not a given but is precisely what needs to be proven. **Liberal** , this is, to my eye, a pretty cogent attack on the MOA. I think this thread is moribund enough that no one could call a response a hijack. If you think you’ve responded adequately elsewhere, a cite would shut me up for a while. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-pre-darwinian-atheists/307856.md?page=2)