Technically, the burden of proof is on the claim that there is a god, but absence of evidence does not necessarily imply evidence of absence. To maintain the assertion that there is no god without confirmation exhibits as much faith as believing in god in the absence of proof. On that note, about a month ago I went to a “forum” (“Bullshit Convention” would be a better term, as I’ll explain in a moment) on the subject of the existence of god. Two cognitive scientists and two physicists each presented their ideas on the subject. The reason it was a Carnival of Bullshit is because the participants on both fields were operating on entirely the wrong level to address the question. You see, god is a social phenomenon. Belief in god comes from participation in ritual, and when I say ritual I’m not just talking about organized prayer services, although that is a part of it. Rituals of all kinds foster belief in god, on both large and small scales, but the essential point is that people feel a sense of community and percieve it as something supernatural.
So, when it comes to the arguments these four otherwise intelligent people put forward, they’re bullshit. Complete and utter bubkis (that’s yiddish for “nothing”). The cognitive scientists will first assume they can reason this out based solely on logic. This is bullshit. Then they will tell you that the only “real” argument against god is the argument from evil (god is all powerful and all good, so evil should not exist). This is more bullshit. Then, they’ll say that a very complicated device called a consistency proof that you need a PhD to understand eliminates said argument. This is jargonized bullshit. The physics professors at least were honest, as the gist of their presentations hovered around, “really, physics says nothing about god.” They still looked very silly trying, but there you are. Honestly, the whole ordeal made my brain hurt.
If you happen to be wandering around a bookstore or library in 20 years, look for my book detailing why there is no god. I should have it sorted by then.
Oh, and just because I, as a thinking person, feel offended by some of the arguments presented in the Bullshit Showcase I went to, I give you now a few of them and why they too are bullshit.
The ontological argument is simple. Basically, it says that because I can concieve of an entity that is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, that such an entity is SO good it becomes necessarily existing. This is clearly bullshit. The underlying idea is that god is so perfect in every respect that for god to fail at existing would detract from god’s perfection. Well, get this: if god doesn’t exist, god cannot “fail” at anything, because god isn’t there to shake your hand, much less do something as profound as failing to exist. In other words, this argument assumes the existence of god before it even begins, because god has to be there in the first place in order to act to preserve his/her/its own existence. Bullshit, QED.
The moral argument states that without god, there is no reason to abide by any scheme of ethics governing one’s behavior. Be careful, the argument isn’t saying that there aren’t atheistic ethics, only that god is the impetus to be ethical. This is bullshit. Community is the impetus to be ethical. You abide by the standards of your society because you have a sense of community. This is where sociology comes in, because god is a social phenomenon. It was said during that sorry excuse for an intelligent discussion (by one of the cognitive scientists) that the only secular answer to “why be ethical?” is “because otherwise you’ll get in trouble.” Unbeknownst to the speaker, that is exactly what is going on here. Break the norms of expected behavior in any society and there are negative consequences, legal or otherwise. What prevents rampant deviation is that we all internalize the behavior of conforming to society’s norms. Therefore, the moral argument is bullshit.
The design argument is the most bullshitish of all. This one is 10 pounds of bullshit in a 5 pound bag. The design argument says that the universe (or alternately, the human mind) is so complicated, so sensitive to certain initial conditions that it must have been the creation of an intelligent being. Now, obviously if you find a watch on a table you can assume someone made that watch, it didn’t slowly emerge from geological trends. So obviously someone or something made the universe, right? WRONG. This hellacious fallacy is also known as the anthropic principle, which is essentially a comment on how well tailored the universe is towards life as we know it. Yes, it is true that even slight alterations in certain fundamental constants would prevent complex biochemical concoctions or even the formation of fusion-powered stars and their planets. However, if the constants were different, it just means life would take a radically different form, perhaps not even based on matter and energy, and then those creatures would be speculating on how the universe is so uniquely tailored to life as they know it. There is no reason to assume or conclude that this particular configuration of the universe is special in any way. What’s more, simulations like cellular automata prove that ridiculously complicated and ordered systems can arise from randomness governed by simple rules. Thus, the design argument is pure and unadulterated BULLSHIT.
P.S. I wonder if I can get away with saying “bullshit” one more time?
