Atheistic Chestnuts Refuted (an ongoing series) [Archive]

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IAmZamzam

12-07-2009, 02:10 AM

INTRODUCTION TO THESE ARTICLES

One of the most common, nay trite, obnoxious attitudes found among some of the more outspoken atheists of the world (and believe me, there are many more such attitudes) is a sometimes unspoken yet ever blatant notion that theism is not only false but also primitive and obsolete—or at the very, very least that theistic arguments are. To the average atheistic scholar or spokesperson for atheism whom I’ve read, terms like “stilted” and “refuted ages ago” are automatically used in application to theistic arguments synonymously with the idea that there has ever been any commonly expressed counter-argument to the contrary at all. Many circles in many intellectual fields and topics have their gripes with perceived recurring fallacious arguments from people with opposing beliefs (hence a large part of the reason I’m writing the articles you’re reading now) yet off the top of my head I can’t think of any other group of people in the world except atheists (at least as far as religious debate is concerned) among whom there can so often be found this haughty, overconfident, elitist attitude that the existence of long held expression of disagreement from their side necessarily equates to the sheer, antediluvian obsolescence of the arguments on the side of anyone who disagrees with them--that the mere existence of a rebuttal of theirs has automatically settled a matter once and for all.

Perhaps that is part of the reason why among so many of those who argue for atheism there is such a shocking and appalling amount of (usually unprovoked) savage obloquy and immature mockery. A lot of atheists appear to have, on some level, a delusion that there is some intellectual or philosophical food chain that they have taken a rightful place atop, and when you threaten the notion by demonstrating how supremely easily their “ages old refutations” to those “outdated” theistic arguments can themselves be refuted, these atheists will appropriately resort to the savagery of an animal in response.

Even among the nicer, more mature and tolerant atheists who do not share these holier-than-thou attitudes and tendency to mockery and insults in place of arguments, there are still far too many people who hold to the common massive ignorant prejudice that religion is not only inherently anti-intellectual but also unsupportable or defensible by any kind of arguments or reasoning, even of an invalid or incorrect kind--or at the very least that the contrary is unnatural. Too many of the nonreligious people of the world (not only the kind of atheists I’ve been talking about—indeed, not only atheists at all) have an “us and them” mentality where we theists must always, by definition, take things on blind faith alone or else we wouldn’t and couldn’t have any faith at all, whereas they are the only people really and sincerely using their cognitive faculties in these matters. No other group of people on earth—at least so far as I know—has the brazenness to brand themselves and themselves alone “freethinkers”, as though if anyone ever disagrees with them then it must be a result or indication of the disagreeing party automatically not having thought for themselves in order to arrive at the conclusion of their beliefs.

It’s high time that somebody knocked these people off their imaginary pedestal. After all, the common arguments and counter-arguments of atheists are just about as old as those “obsolete”, “refuted” ones we theists use, and much more easily refuted for real, though you’ll never catch me dismissing these atheistic clichés and calling theism more modern or right-thinking just because there are and have always been rebuttals to their arguments. All I’m showing here is that the common atheistic arguments and counter-arguments are nevertheless not only every bit as hackneyed to our eyes as the common theistic arguments are to theirs but also certainly far, far, far too faulty to result in the matter being rightfully automatically presumed to be settled in favor of the atheists, let alone “settled ages ago”.

I’m not doing all this entirely for that admittedly possibly far too personal or shallow reason, though: I’m also writing these articles (1) to have a reference point that I can just link to whenever necessary rather than have to continue to have to give the same rebuttals over and over and over again in the infinitely predictable rinse-lather-repeat arguments I always get into with atheists, and (2) so that I can offer my arguments as a possible resource for fellow theists who are themselves arguing against the atheistic chestnuts under rebuttal.

ARTICLE #1: SHATTERING THE M.A.R.N.A.’S

M.A.R.N.A. is a little acronym I’ve coined. It stands for a “Misfired Atheistic Ricochet Non-Argument”. The M.A.R.N.A.’s are those all but inevitable responses to some of the more common arguments for God’s existence (cosmological, teleological) which extremely weakly attempt to turn the tables of God or on the theist by saying that the same line of thinking in the cosmological or teleological arguments in question must be applied to God Himself if the reasoning is carried to its logical conclusion, and therefore this somehow defeats the arguments. They try to ricochet our own arguments back on us, but the attempts inevitably misfire (and sometimes even backfire) quite drastically—hence the titular acronym.

The Cosmological M.A.R.N.A.—the attempt to ricochet the cosmological or “first cause” argument for God’s existence back on God or on the theist—is one of the most commonly heard staples of atheistic argumentation, and it always goes like this: “If God created the world, what created God? If you’re willing to say that nothing did, then why not save a step in the process and say that nothing created the universe? Adding God to the equation solves nothing; it just adds one more mystery that may as well be removed since it doesn’t bring any actual resolution.” Teleological M.A.R.N.A.’s—the ones in response to teleological or “design” arguments for God’s existence, including the argument from natural law—likewise aver that if we theists proposing our teleological arguments follow the course of our own logic then we must conclude that God must have His own designer or be subject to some higher law of His own.

The reason I call these things M.A.R.N.A.’s and not just M.A.R.’s (which I admit would make for a niftier acronym, at least assuming the plural) is because these “counter-arguments” are not arguments at all but mere evasions, a variation of the age-old cop-out of answering a question with another question. They pretend to really address the issue when they’re really only creating a diversion which itself doesn’t bring any actual resolution. An ironic thing about the M.A.R.N.A.’s is that (as the people positing them often themselves state) they contain the point that one can always just ask, “How did that get here, and okay but how did that get here?, etc.” which is fruitless, when in fact this exactly what they, not we, are doing. The M.A.R.N.A.’s are supposed to be demonstrating that people who pose the theistic arguments under rebuttal by the M.A.R.N.A.'s are overcomplicating things to an impractical and pointless degree, and yet those theistic arguments are simply bringing up and possibly answering legitimate questions over things we directly know about and can easily speculate about and which naturally spark man’s curiosity, whereas the M.A.R.N.A.’s are just pointless excursions into the kind of unnecessary further steps in the thinking processes involved which they purport to be refuting the necessity of and teaching us to avoid. The positers of the M.A.R.N.A.'s are the ones overcomplicating the issue, by adding steps to the existing argument merely over a purely hypothetical “what if?”. ****ing ironies of ****ing ironies!

Not that these things are the M.A.R.N.A.’s only fatal flaws. We’ve just scratched the surface. A more major problem—perhaps the most major—is that were what the M.A.R.N.A.’s conjecture about (God having His own designer or originator, or Himself being subject to a higher law) to turn out to be true, then as a result the M.A.R.N.A.’s would disprove themselves automatically just on principle, since a designer must exist before it can have its own designer, an originator must be there in the first place before it can have its own originator, and an entity being subject to a chain of natural law means that the entity is real. The mere fact of a thing’s existence precedes the presence or absence of particular characteristics about that thing such as its having its own designer or originator. Therefore if God did turn out to have any of the aforementioned characteristics, that would be proof positive that atheism is wrong. The only thing that could be disproven by it for theists is certain traits of His commonly believed about Him. You can’t say that we theists haven’t “solved” anything by positing God as a solution when the only question the whole thing was supposed to be a solution to in the first place—the thing the debate is actually about—is whether He exists at all.

But the M.A.R.N.A.’s can’t even successfully establish in the first place their premise that if cosmological or teleological arguments for His existence are to be believed then God would have to have His own originator or etc., for that would necessarily entail extremely fundamental logical contradictions. God, if He exists, is an immaterial, or nonphysical, entity. Supernatural. How could He not be? What the atheists positing the M.A.R.N.A.’s are saying, then, is that an nonphysical thing can be subject to being part of the same chain of physical causation that it itself supposedly started; that theoretical evidence of design observed inside the world is somehow an indication of design for something outside the world; that a train of natural law can conceivably not have to end before reaching a supernatural entity. These are very simple, very basic contradictions.

Even if God did have His own cause, it would have to be a nonphysical cause since He is a nonphysical being, and therefore the cause would not be subject to the same long, linear chain of physical causation of the cosmos He made, this chain being what the theistic cosmological argument is referring to in the first place. Were a supernatural being like God to be subject to law (as if there were any reason why He should have to be), it would not be the chain of natural law to which the teleological argument from natural law points but instead His own unique, isolated supernatural law. And the idea of applying the same line of thinking behind teleological arguments for God’s existence to arrive at the conclusion that He must have had His own designer is complete nonsense anyway. Such teleology is drawn from observation and experience, like any other inductive argument about anything. Therefore to “apply our own logic” to God when we’re forming or proposing a teleological argument would be impossible, inherently absurd nonsense unless the person proposing the argument somehow has a prophetic direct observation of and experience with God which the rest of us lack. We have no direct observation and means of possible teleological analysis for God Himself as we do for the world He made, and some of the characteristics referred to in teleological arguments (mechanism in nature, for instance) would be patently absurd if applied singularly and solely to a living entity like God.

Nor do the ****ing flaws in the premise behind the M.A.R.N.A.’s end even there either! Because we still haven’t yet got around to the well known fact that God, if He exists, is omnitemporal. Indeed, He must be, since time is a part of that interconnected physical web/chain of causation we call the material cosmos and therefore not something a nonphysical being would be subject to. Time = physical. God = nonphysical. The idea of God having His own cause or designer therefore becomes inherently absurd: in order to be subject to causation or design something must first be subject to the linear progression of time, since only there can the natural dichotomy of cause and effect apply. The world is subject to time but God transcends it, so of course the former indicates the existence of a designer and a first cause whereas the latter could not possibly entail any such thing. (Besides, it makes no sense to say that something is a part of a chain of events or web of design that it itself created. To speak of that is to propose the impossible idea of self-causation.)

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