For many years I have had to endure hearing the same ten or twenty odd arguments from atheists ad infinitum. I do not hold this limited and repetitive repertoire itself against the atheists who use it since they think that these staples work and therefore they should stick to them, and I have no doubt that they view the equally narrow range of common theistic argumentation in much the same way. But I grow weary of repeating myself and thought it useful to lay out all my thoughts at once so that, from now on, all I have to do is just refer people to one article instead of just repeating myself for a thousandth time. I have endeavored to do that with this essay. I don’t expect it to cause anyone to change their mind about anything but it does say a lot of things that desperately need to be said, and which I hope I won’t have to say again. If I end up sounding too caustic or opinionated then I apologize and assure you that it is the mere byproduct of the weariness out of which this article has been written—that same weariness that I’m trying to lay to rest.
I should warn you now that before I can actually get to the clichés of atheism itself there are a number of other clichés related to the subject which must be addressed first since they always seem to pop up anyway.
PRELIMINARIES AND PEEVES
The issue that always seems to come up right off the bat is that of who between theists and atheists carries some assumed burden of proof. Which is funny in a way because I wasn’t even aware that unprovable issues had burdens of proof. You’d think the whole question would be kind of a moot point. Some atheists, while remaining unaware of what I thought would be such an obvious irony as that, nevertheless are able to recognize that since every negative is also a positive and vice versa (disbelief in X=belief in not-X, so disbelief in theism=belief in atheism) therefore they can’t, as many other atheists claim, place the burden of proof squarely on us for being “the positive claimant”, due to their being just as much positive claimants as we are. (That is, they recognize this when they’re not shifting their ground at their convenience between the burden of proof going to “the positive claimant”, “the one introducing the claim”, or “the one making the ‘extraordinary’ claim”.) So instead they try to escape a shared burden of proof by redefining “atheism” as a “lack of belief” in deity.
“Lack of belief”. Now there’s an awkward phrase if ever I’ve heard one. Let me explain it to you. These folks, you see, have decided to call people who have never heard of God and supposedly don’t know about Him atheists too. Just for the sake of argument let’s go along with this for a moment, even though the regular, self-aware kind of atheists seem to be the only people in the world who ever use the term that way at all. Let us call the regular atheism (disbelief in God, whom one has heard of) atheism A, and mere ignorance of God atheism B. The argument in question is that since default position atheism B belongs to category AB along with atheism A, that means that AB (atheism itself) is the default position. (You may need to read that sentence a few times before you can penetrate the incoherence I’m describing.) And therefore we theists have the burden of proof since we’re the ones introducing our claim (when before it was about who was making the positive claim, mind you). Well I’m sorry folks, but AB is not the default (if any of it is), only B. To refer to the whole category of AB as the default is like calling children “men” since as yet they’re neither men nor women and then using this new application of the label in an argument about men vs. women. After all, a child is a non-woman, right? In any event none of the atheism B folks have any bearing on this issue anyway. Forget about them. They’re not the ones in this debate, they have nothing to do with this debate, they’re just being introduced out of nowhere as a non-sequitur or desperate diversion.
Or is the burden of proof, again, on the one with the “extraordinary” claim instead? It’s apparently whatever an atheist needs it to be, actually, but that is not the point. The defense they keep citing during any given fifteen minutes when they’re currently saying it’s the person making the extraordinary claim who has the burden of proof goes, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” That adage might have something to it in and of itself but in this context it presupposes that it’s simply a given that theism is somehow more “extraordinary” than atheism—whatever that’s even supposed to mean. It does seem to me that “extraordinary” is necessarily a very subjective word. And as for my own subjective notions I personally cannot see what makes the idea of the universe having an entity who created it any more extraordinary than ideas like an entire universe spontaneously generating out of nowhere as alchemists thought maggots did from meat, a universe spawning itself (impossible, as nothing can create itself: something has to exist first before it can perform creation or any other action), or even a plethora of entire universes (or perhaps an infinitude) existing to explain how this universe could be the way it is without having been designed that way. Apparently all “extraordinary” means here is “in reference to an outside, supernatural factor”. Or to boil it down a little more, “theistic”.
Similarly, these atheists are always trying to appeal to Ockham’s Razor (the principle that the simpler explanation is to be preferred) to support their beliefs. The rule was always meant to be only a last resort to fall back on in case no other means of determining fact is plausible or applicable, but apparently a lot of people find that part easy to forget. Believe it or not, I actually have my doubts about Ockham’s Razor itself, as a razor is not the best instrument for truly dissecting something so as to see the whole story before you. You see, life teaches that things are always more complex than they appear, not less, and thus to make a point of erring on the side of simplicity seems to me erroneous indeed. But again, there may be something to this rule too all the same—certainly as a rule of convenience for scientists at least. People say that it works for scientists in their studies and I’m sure it does but you must remember that pretending that certain numbers exist even though they are known to be imaginary also works for mathematicians in their studies.
Leave scientific methods and “the scientific method” to the scientists; their only place in matters of the abstract and physically unprovable is either woeful misapplication or grievous pretentiousness, or even as a narrowing of the mind. In any event all of these arguments I have just mentioned are merely excuses to dismiss an argument on some other ground than its own merits anyway.
Let’s get something else out of the way quick: let us please have no more of this nonsense about, “We’re all atheists: I just happen to believe in one fewer god than you do.” I’m apolitical and maybe even anti-political but you never hear me say to conservatives or progressives or Green party people, “Everyone is anti-political; I just happen to believe in the validity of one fewer political philosophy than you do.” Nobody says that, and why? Because it’s asinine, no matter how nonliterally it may be meant. I mean, by such logic we may as well go ahead and define all people as nihilists as well: we all believe in only one more philosophy or value system than the nihilists, don’t we? If the point is merely a call for tolerance or understanding or empathy or identification then I’m sure there are much better, simpler ways to make such a point which are more cogent.
Furthermore, I would appreciate it if atheists kindly stopped using the term “freethinkers” synonymously with “nontheists” or “the nonreligious”, because it is elitist bull which, intentionally or not, implicates that everyone who happens to disagree with their own position is automatically coming to a different conclusion because they’re not thinking freely. To call only your own group The Freethinkers is to insult every dissenting group in the world just on general principles. How do you suppose the Democrats would feel if the Republican Party suddenly changed its name to The Freethinking Party, or vice versa? Apply the golden rule.
I would also like for atheists and other nontheists to stop using “skepticism” to mean “believing in something only when you think there’s evidence for it”, because that is not what the word means, has never been what it meant, and if theists defined our own position that way then I’m sure you would be very offended. Again the golden rule is key here. Disbelief is just disbelief: whatever reasons or criteria may or may not have led to it is an entirely separate issue from what the thing itself is, and thus these reasons or criteria must not be simply presumed in the very definition of the position. It’s almost as haughty and closed-minded in its implications as the “freethinker” label.
And along the same lines, kindly stop referring to arguments for God’s existence as “dead” or “obsolete”, or even “primitive”, just because you happen to disagree with them and other atheists have expressed a similar disagreement in the past. It’s yet another bit of pure elitist arrogance or insouciance—that underlying insistence that oneself must certainly be right that makes my skin crawl. The common arguments for atheism are every bit as ancient as the ones for theism (and, as I will presently demonstrate, God willing, a lot less viable) and you probably wouldn’t want us talking the same way about them, so once again, golden rule. That also goes for referring to religion as “superstition”.
And let us hear no more of these childish (nay, infantile) analogies that atheists like to use as comparisons for God, religion, “proving a negative” , etc.. Santa Claus, “the flying spaghetti monster”, leprechauns in the attic, fairy tales, the “celestial teapot”, invisible pink unicorns, grow up! Even if one leaves aside the utter puerility of all this hackneyed mockery the insult and snobbery involved is still too egregious to ignore. Whether there are any intellectual grounds for these comparisons or not there certainly are no ethical grounds, although some atheists still defend the appeals to ridicule with the claim that anyone who believes the “absurd” things we do deserves to be mocked ruthlessly; and thus do they demonstrate a sense of justice that is no better or more mature than their sense of humor. Whether you’re right or wrong about the point you make, you’re never going to make any point about anything productively by associating the contrary viewpoint with a flying spaghetti monster. Get over yourselves. Sheesh. If you don’t take our views seriously then why are you even bothering to discuss them at all?
Besides, you can’t have it both ways: atheists are constantly admitting to me that science frequently goes against common sense and that it should be valued over logical reasoning itself. Which as good a reason as I’ve ever heard not to make science such an ultimate priority. Indeed, I couldn’t have thought of a better one myself if my very life depended on it.
Finally, let us all, theist and nontheist alike, stop using the word “faith” in this nebulous emotional/intuitive sense which is so often alleged to be opposed to reason. The misconception has become so common now amongst both believers and disbelievers that even some dictionaries are starting to include it as one alternate meaning of the word. “Faith” was never actually intended to mean anything remotely different in a religious context than it means in every non-religious one: “trust”.
“I trust him.”
“I have faith in him.”
“I have faith that God will set things right.”
“I trust that God will set things right.”
And if you know anything about trust then you know that it is not an inherently irrational thing, although it of course can be irrational in certain circumstances, or when formed for certain reasons, or held in such a way. Inversely, trusting can also sometimes be the only rational thing to do: it all depends on the particulars.
Finally, there’s “negative atheism”, although I don’t see any good reason why it shouldn’t be considered a form of agnosticism. This is the idea that one cannot believe in God since one cannot get a coherent definition of “God” in the first place. Of course in such a circumstance one just as much cannot disbelieve in Him either.
Negative “atheism” is based mostly on a confusion between what something is and what it is like. Every dictionary I’ve ever seen defines “God” the same way every theist I’ve ever met would more or less agree on: “the creator and ruler of the universe”. Beyond that it’s all what kind of God you’re talking about, not who God Himself is in the first place. Differing accounts of a human being (let’s name him Kevin) may place him as a good man or a wretch, a person who gets involved with other people from behind the scenes or a person who does not get involved at all, or even by some accounts nothing more than someone’s imaginary friend. But none of this changes the fact that it’s still Kevin we’re talking about, does it, and not anyone else? If Kevin is real then he won’t be a different person altogether if someone’s idea of what kind of person he is turns out to be false. Always remember: what something is and what it is like are not the same thing.
Negative “atheism” is perhaps proof like no other of how utterly obsessed with words the atheistic zeitgeist is, even at the behest of, or in the denial or willful ignorance of, a word’s very well known meaning. But I needed to get the issue out of the way lest everything that follows be perhaps seen as tainted by its absence.
WHY I LEFT ATHEISM, AND WHY IT KEEPS LOOKING LESS AND LESS LIKE I’LL COME BACK
Oh, yes, I was an atheist, and I was pretty hardcore about it too. And I know you atheists are sitting there thinking, “Whoa boy, another one of these, ‘You know, I used to be just like you…’ stories. Here it comes. What was it, a sudden warm feeling in your stomach or something?” No, it wasn’t. In fact, there isn’t much of a story as such to tell at all. The simple fact is that I left atheism because I couldn’t stand continuing to make myself overlook the flaws in its arguments and reasoning, just as you atheists keep accusing us of deliberately overlooking the “flaws” in theism.
More than anything, it was, ironically enough, reading Nietzsche that did it. Though only incidentally. When I read his book Beyond Good and Evil (or tried to: I never really finished it) I came away thinking that it was a lot of dreck unworthy of completion but that it did at least serve to put one single interesting thought in my head. (For that reason perhaps it could be said to have actually succeed more than most philosophy I’ve read in my life, so I suppose I should give the devil his due.) On retrospect, I was probably just misreading Nietzsche but the thought he evoked in me started a chain reaction of cogitation which eventually led me back to belief in God. That idea was (or so it seemed to me at the time) that there are no absolutes in this world, no infallibles to fall back on, nothing etched in stone. If not chaos, then at least unmitigated changeability.
I wondered. Was it true? There didn’t seem very much in life that was certain, that I knew. Time and again I had learned the hard way that in this world there are always exceptions, x-factors, complications. Surprises and frustrations yet to be revealed. So I got to thinking, is there anything we can really fall back on and be sure it’s true? I thought, and I thought, and I eventually came up with one thing and one thing only: we have the laws of the universe. Even in my state of uncertainty I couldn’t deny the infallibility and regularity of those. And all this called to my attention something I hadn’t really thought about all that much before.
Kurt Vonnegut—himself an atheist as I then was—once tried to write a book for children, a complete guide to the world and everything in it. But he had to cease his efforts because he got stuck on how to answer the question, “Why doesn’t everybody just fall off the top of the world?” He realized that the word “gravity” is not an explanation for anything at all, it’s just a word. And because of this one stumbling block he could never finish that book. I was equally stumped and didn’t know if I could ever finish formulating my view of the world. Because not only could I not figure out how these unique absolutes we call physical “laws” or “forces” or “properties” or what have you could be there at all, I didn’t even know what they were in the first place.
It occurred to me quickly enough that no one else did either, including scientists. Indeed, they seemed almost content not to know. Which was fine, but in that case, I thought, they may as well be referring to other unknowns—even religious ones—for all the difference it made. In ancient times, I ruminated, when someone dropped a rock to the ground and it got hurled down by something unseen, they might have said that it was a “spirit” carrying it to the ground. Now we say it’s a “force”. What makes the latter term have any more meaning than the former, let alone any more likelihood of being accurate?? Were “the forces of nature” just the modern day “gods”, a substitute of one nebulous term for another so as to water it down and remove the elements of life and supernature from it to suit one’s own ends?
Perhaps if I could think of some possible way to define the terms myself, I reckoned? One by one the traditional methods of definition failed me. One couldn’t just lump all the laws into a known whole as a subset; we’re not classifying a species here, we’re talking about a nobody-knows-what. Definition by synonyms was no good either, because all the terms I saw used synonymously with “force” were just as meaningless or ambiguous as the word itself was. We don’t know the things’ existential nature. To define them operationally…Ah! Now I had hit on something. Define them operationally…now that I could do. They were the things that formed an ordered foundation for the world, organizing, configuring, regulating. They were the Structurers, the Setters, the foundational guiding principles. The patterns by which it all happens. But how and why? Pattern, structure, and organization are things we have no precedent for believing to just spring up by themselves.
Well before I had this revelation I had already noticed myself repeatedly finding atheistic debaters and writers to frequently overlook what I thought of as the obvious, more genuine refutations when arguing with theists, and go with much worse or more easily contested alternatives instead. And the more and more I read, the more and more I noticed this. I had noticed it, most of all, in the pathetic responses invariably given to the teleological argument from natural law for God’s existence, an argument which it seemed I was now drawing toward on my own by accident. Suddenly everything fit in place: the real reason those other atheists weren’t making the “better” counter-arguments that I would have made myself is because mine weren’t really that much better at all. The real reason I was noticing more and more flaws in the usual atheistic arguments was not because the atheists posing them were unskilled, or that they failed to present their position as best they could: they were simply wrong in the first place. Why else would the argument from natural law (and to a lesser extent, teleological arguments in general) be the one they have the very most embarrassingly terrible answers to when natural (and mathematical) law seems to have been the key all along!
I shan’t recount for you how I got from to this deistic position back to Islam. I have done it elsewhere, it is difficult to summarize in the first place, and it’s nothing to our point at the moment. I shall, however, explain to you now just why those uniquely poor counter-arguments I spoke of don’t work. For some reason there doesn’t seem to be a single one of them I can think of which does not come more or less straight out of agnostic Bertrand Russell’s famous essay Why I Am Not a Christian (an article that was really about theism and hardly says anything about Christianity at all). This includes even the most common, most ludicrous, and most insulting and presumptuous one of them all, which in Russell’s own words goes:
The whole idea that natural laws imply a lawgiver is due to a confusion between natural and human laws. Human laws are behests commanding you to behave a certain way, in which you may choose to behave, or you may choose not to behave; but natural laws are a description of how things do in fact behave, and being a mere description of what they in fact do, you cannot argue that there must be somebody who told them to do that...
Yes, this actually is the most common counter-argument against the argument from natural law that I’ve ever seen, this insult to the intelligence of the theist that he’s somehow getting “law” as in “human-made, enforced social rule” and “law” in the purely scientific (non)sense mixed up! Just because some of us happen to be using the word “lawgiver” when we make the argument. Who could ever actually make that mistake? Maybe someone who has English as a third language, I suppose. This straw man claim of an equivocation fallacy does not need further elaboration, save to express my awe at hearing anyone say that the mere fact of something being a description entails that the thing being described cannot be said to have a purpose. There’s more:
Because even supposing that there were, you are then faced with the question "Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others?" If you say that he did it simply from his own good pleasure, and without any reason, you then find that there is something which is not subject to law, and so your train of natural law is interrupted. If you say, as more orthodox theologians do, that in all the laws which God issues he had a reason for giving those laws rather than others—the reason, of course, being to create the best universe, although you would never think it to look at it—if there were a reason for the laws which God gave, then God himself was subject to law, and therefore you do not get any advantage by introducing God as an intermediary. You really have a law outside and anterior to the divine edicts, and God does not serve your purpose, because he is not the ultimate lawgiver.
How could a supernatural being possibly ever be subject to natural law? Only natural things follow natural law. Hence the term “natural law”. Duh. Even if God were subject to His own law of some sort, it would have to be a supernatural law, and the existence of supernatural laws are not demonstrably evident and undeniable in our common experience as natural ones are. And since when does God having motives—motives which Russell merely presumes and dictates—somehow prove He’s subject to law too? Motives are motives. Having a reason to make a particular choice when you’re just as capable of making another one instead is a sign of not being compelled to do so by a higher outside “force”.
Nowadays we explain the law of gravitation in a somewhat complicated fashion that Einstein has introduced [wherein] you no longer have the sort of natural law that you had in the Newtonian system, where, for some reason that nobody could understand, nature behaved in a uniform fashion. We now find that a great many things we thought were natural laws are really human conventions… On the other hand, where you can get down to any knowledge of what atoms actually do, you will find they are much less subject to law than people thought, and that the laws at which you arrive…are statistical averages such as would emerge from the laws of chance; and that makes this whole business of natural law much less impressive than it formerly was.
Can you see what he’s doing here? You see it, don’t you? He’s just explaining one kind of law (physical) by referring it to another kind of law (mathematical) in order to explain the whole of law. He is, in short, taking exactly the same approach he derided when discussing cosmological arguments for God’s existence in the very same essay I’ve been quoting, and so I would respond in turn with his very own quip:
It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that.
Even now, almost eighty-four years later, it is these same terrible answers of Russell’s that atheists have been parroting nonstop ever since. They haven’t improved on it, or even bothered to change it, one bit. For instance, the “if God is the cause of natural law then He must also be subject to some law of His own” evasion may be the worst argument of its kind yet unfortunately it’s not the only one by any means. There seems to be an entire trend atheists have made out of attempting weakly to stand all the common arguments for God’s existence on their own head. They say that if God created the cosmos then something must have created God. They say that if God designed the world then He must have had His own designer. They say that we’re not following our own logic.
Never mind that all our common experience does teach us all that the causer and the caused, the designer and the designed, are always different, have different characteristics, and may even work in different ways. Never mind that God, if He exists, is a supernatural being and therefore a train of natural law must necessarily end before reaching Him, as I’ve already pointed out. Never mind that likewise a nonphysical being that creates the physical cosmos obviously could not possibly be part of the same chain of physical causation Himself. Never mind that even if God did have His own creator, designer, or higher law, that still wouldn’t change the fact of His existing in the first place, which if you’ll remember is supposed to be the subject at hand. And never mind that God is very likely outside of the confines of time anyway and therefore, by corollary, outside of the confines of causation.
Here’s the low down: if you’re going to say that the laws of nature are the be-all and end-all, and if the most explanatory, full, coherent definition you can give of them is that they are regular patterns (which we already knew), and if you’re going to say that the universe operates solely because of these laws and therefore there’s no designer behind them, then what you’re basically saying is, “The world is operated by patterns. We define these patterns as descriptions of patterns. And because of these patterns there couldn’t have been a pattern-maker behind it all. Because there are these patterns, you see.”
Me, I’d much rather assume that when something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. I can’t prove it but what else am I to think? When I see pattern, structure, organization, and intricacy, not to mention unusually commonly agreed upon aesthetic appeal—in short, all the usual marks of human works like art—I don’t wonder how artists can somehow always incorporate the way the very cosmos works into their own most natural, intuitive, instinctive creative processes (especially considering that the cop-out non-explanation “laws of nature” predated so many of these artists). I wonder how such an obvious work of art could possibly not have an Artist. Experience can be the mother of illusion, I admit, but when it comes to identifying things by all their common marks it really does make for the obvious, natural, and generally most reasonable and accurate criterion.
Last edited by IAmZamzam; 12-12-2010 at 08:06 PM.
Reason: Getting the order right and fixing some typos
Peace be to any prophets I may have mentioned above. Praised and exalted be my Maker, if I have mentioned Him. (Come to think of it praise Him anyway.)
If atheists ever seemed to provide a good case for disbelief in God, then God willing I would consider weighing it against my own reasons for belief in Him. However, not only is there a very good reason for believing a cosmic designer of some sort exists that no one can give a better answer to than claptrap parroted from Bertrand Russell, not one single argument for atheism exists which necessitates much consideration. At least, none that I’ve ever heard. In fact, almost all the ones I do hear seem to fall into three categories:
1. Circular appeals to material evidence (or lack thereof).
2. “Incompatible properties” arguments that define God in a particular way more complex than the real, universal definition (and never with precisely the same set of presumed characteristics between any two such arguments, you’ll notice), and then make extremely illogical claims that the characteristics the atheists themselves have set forth somehow can’t all coexist with each other.
3. Transparent appeal to probability fallacies, usually just masking the mere question, “Why would God do that/not do that?” in order to make it seem like an actual argument about anything. As though we human beings could ever even know for certain why other human beings, or even our very own selves, do anything they do!
Let’s go through these three things one by one, shall we?
CIRCULAR APPEALS TO MATERIAL EVIDENCE
Believe it or not, a lot of people disbelieve in God and any number of other things that are similarly by definition outside of the purpose, nature, and scope of scientific inquiry and research, because there is no scientific evidence for these things existing. How such blatant question-begging as this can ever escape anyone’s attention I have no idea.
Let me explain: since science is the study of nature, it can tell us nothing of supernature one way or the other any more than theological theories could be scientific theories, or a mathematical formula prove something in linguistics, or an expedition to dig up a place on earth prove whether or not something is buried on a faraway planet. Thus, when you say that you don’t believe in something that just by definition science could never confirm or disconfirm because science doesn’t confirm it, you’re going in a vicious circle in a way that astounded me even as an atheist. The same goes for this philosophy of trusting only the senses. You’ll hear that one a lot too even though it is riddled by the same circularity: disbelieving that there could ever be anything outside of the realm of the senses because such things are not to be found inside the realm of the senses. (Besides, you can’t see, smell, touch, taste, or hear the very thoughts that lead you to your conclusion, so the argument is self-refuting anyway.)
Some people deny that there is anything outside the realm of science—and then in the same breath denounce Creationist science as being pseudo-science because things like God are outside the realm of science. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you about the Creationist science thing. But you can’t have it both ways. If Creationism is pseudo-science due to it bringing the supernatural into science when science’s realm does not extend to the supernatural, then neither is it valid for you to claim that nothing is outside the realm of science, or that you’re permitted to disbelieve in the supernatural because of its lack of natural evidence.
Let me get in one last word on that nonsense about science having “explained” with the undefined gibberish “force/law” what “was previously thought to have been explained by religious belief”. Consider this on top of everything else I’ve said: it is, again, for a very good reason that science keeps itself secular, but all the same there is nothing remarkable about something that starts with secular premises coming to a secular conclusion. Indeed, one would even think it pretty much inevitable.
“INCOMPATIBLE PROPERTIES” ARGUMENTS
These are the arguments for atheism in which people pick and choose which characteristics go into defining a particular conception of what God happens to be like, make the usual confusion between that and who God actually is in the first place, and then go to town on their own straw man with one ridiculous claim of inconsistency after another after another.
Let me repeat: in order to be God, He just has to be the creator of the universe and have power over it. That’s it. Everything else is just differing beliefs about God, not questions of His very existence. Although certain things like intelligence can easily enough be inferred about Him.
The most popular of the “incompatible properties” arguments, and the most utterly inexplicably difficult to countless theists through the ages, is the argument from evil/suffering. You know, “Evil/suffering exists so either God doesn’t or He isn’t good.” I’d hardly consider it a good idea to deliberately leave open a possibility, however unsavory, which grants God’s existence when you’re arguing against God’s existence. The only thing that really baffles me, though, is the question of exactly what’s supposed to be so baffling. I mean, I’ve hardly heard a better textbook example of an equivocation fallacy in my life. Nowhere else in the world outside of this one particular argument is goodness defined so naively and simplistically as a total unwillingness to ever allow any discomfort of any kind ever occur to anyone, for any reason, on any occasion, period. Nothing in our own experience suggests this. As far as I know, nothing in any culture’s moral code does either, nor any individual moral sensibility more well-developed than that of a three-year-old. It is a unique, baseless, oversimplified passivist redefinition of goodness done strictly for the purposes of forming an argument like this. And as for evil, certainly allowing evil to exist at all does not make one evil oneself. Indeed, if evil did not exist at all then what meaning would the concept of goodness even have in the first place?
But it seldom does any good to explain these things because both those atheists proposing the argument and those theists bothered by it are equally likely to be driven more by emotions intellectualized into the illusion of reason than with reason itself or even fact. Or that’s what their behavior always suggests to me, anyway, given their tone and the way they keep replying with emotional appeals about specific examples of evil or suffering instead of allowing themselves to look at the big picture. All the same, I had to at least try, because otherwise this particular atheistic argument would be that elephant in the living room that everyone’s pretending isn’t there.
All this brings us to another, related subjective judgment disguised as objective argumentation: the “perfection vs. creation” argument. The idea that a perfect God would not create an imperfect world. Once again I ask, are we actually talking about whether God exists or not here? Because at worst the argument could still indicate that He does exist and isn’t “perfect”. You’re probably getting tired of my putting words in quotation marks by now but with these matters it keeps becoming a necessity. Perfection is a subjective trait just by definition: it means the total fulfillment of or adherence to a standard. So I ask you, who made that standard? If we made it ourselves then of course it’s just a personal judgment call and not a matter of objective fact. If the standard is God’s own then you’re not only going beyond the mere issue of His existence or nonexistence, you’re also now the one introducing the claim. Doesn’t that mean that the bogus burden of proof is on you now? Or is it suddenly on the “positive” claimant or the person with the “extraordinary” claim again?
You may find things like disproportion in nature or the wearing down of closed systems to be signs that the world is not designed: I find them to be, if anything, signs that it was. In fact, if the world’s structures were never-ending and all utterly set to stiff, exact proportions then it might well look more like it may have been an accident along the lines of what I believe used to be called “mechanistic materialism”, sort of in the same way that a constant melody too repetitive and unchanging can hardly be called music at all, or clockwork dancers be said to truly dance. Art isn’t art without flourish and flair, a design not a design (or at least not an obvious one) without variation and intricacy and maybe even some negative space.
And then we have the argument from free will. That one goes like this: “If God exists and knows everything then He knows what will happen before it happens, and therefore He isn’t truly free, so God either isn’t free, doesn’t know everything, or doesn’t exist.” Are these people really so desperate to come up with actual claims against God existing at all that they can’t avoid including the possibility of His existence in their own arguments against it every single time? And the whole thing is just built on one more of those puzzlingly-considered-puzzling clichés from history, that somehow we or God cannot have any free will just because God already knows what we’re going to do. Even if you assume what is very unlikely, that God is not omnitemporal and therefore subject to our past-present-future division in the first place, the argument still makes no sense whatsoever. Knowing something is going to happen is not the same thing as causing it to happen, nor does it entail that. Being aware of the mortality of all humans does not make any single human genocidal and suicidal. Knowing that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning does not mean that we’re all spinning the earth in its orbit ourselves with some subconscious telekinesis. Knowing and doing are two different things. This is very rudimentary. Even if you add to the equation the power to stop something from happening, even that is still not the same thing as making it happen. Merely having an option isn’t the same thing as necessarily exercising it.
I think you’re starting to get the general idea by now: omnipotence vs. omniscience, freedom vs. perfection, goodness vs. power…none of these things has anything more to do with God’s existence instead of God’s nature than does Tyson vs. Holyfield. Unless, that is, one such argument happens to be “creation vs. dominion”, and I’ve yet to see that one. As such, it would be as unnecessary as it would be long-winded to go through every single one of these “incompatible properties” fiascos. I think I’ve already covered the really big clichés among them anyway in addition to the aforementioned central flaw universal to it all, and by now the reader should be starting to see the pattern.
APPEALS TO PROBABILITY
Finally, a lot of atheistic arguments go along the lines of things like the following:
* “If God existed then He could make everyone know He exists.”
* “If God existed then He wouldn’t have made a world that thrives so much on violence when He could have just made every creature photosynthetic and the weather pretty much always sunny.”
* “If God existed then He could have made us understand Him better.”
* “If God existed then He wouldn’t run and hide. He’d just let us see Him.”
* “If God existed then he could prevent me from making another post at this message board. If I make one, that proves He doesn’t exist.” (Yes, I have actually seen this one. No joke.)
All of it can be summed up by, “God could do X if He existed, but he doesn’t do X, so He doesn’t exist.” Yet another classic textbook demonstration of a fallacy, this time the appeal to probability, which could be roughly defined as the “if something can happen, therefore it will” fallacy. Things don’t happen that can happen all the time, and why they don’t is a separate issue altogether. To debunk the existence of someone what you would have to do instead is show that they’re not doing something it is literally inherently impossible that they wouldn’t do if they were real. Really, what seems to be at the heart of virtually all atheistic arguments (not just these appeals to probability) is the mere act of demanding that God make His motives known to you or else you won’t believe in Him.
I have, to be sure, left out from my list one remaining major category of arguments for atheism, and it is perhaps the most common one of all. These are the arguments that are really just insultingly poorly disguised arguments against a specific theistic religion or religious mindset, like those arguments from scripture to disprove God’s existence. (Indeed, some famous atheists like Richard Carrier have said that they actually became atheists in the first place because of reading the Bible.) This kind of straw man does not merit any refutation, and if you want to see examples of it galore for yourself, just go to an atheistic website at random and look around. You’ll have enough reading material for the whole day. Maybe the whole week.
Tell me, why is it that atheists themselves are the people who discuss and argue about the real subject of God’s existence itself least often even if they consider it the biggest bee in their bonnet? Perhaps they just have something against celestial teapots.
Last edited by IAmZamzam; 12-12-2010 at 04:43 AM.
Reason: Getting order right, fixing typos
Peace be to any prophets I may have mentioned above. Praised and exalted be my Maker, if I have mentioned Him. (Come to think of it praise Him anyway.)
Uh, Tilmeez? You have these backwards. The second half is first and the first half second.
Peace be to any prophets I may have mentioned above. Praised and exalted be my Maker, if I have mentioned Him. (Come to think of it praise Him anyway.)
Peace be to any prophets I may have mentioned above. Praised and exalted be my Maker, if I have mentioned Him. (Come to think of it praise Him anyway.)
that does pretty much covers my four day stay on one famous atheist forum that plus their excessive use of profanity and constant intellectual bullying if I can call it that..
Text without context is pretext If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him
That is quite a bit of text. Won't go over the whole thing, but will cover a few highlights.
format_quote Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman
Which is funny in a way because I wasn’t even aware that unprovable issues had burdens of proof.
You are on to something here. It can neither be proved or disproved (which is why those analogies you are so offended by are so often used - lots of other things can not be disproved and they are things we'd never consider believing in).
since every negative is also a positive and vice versa (disbelief in X=belief in not-X, so disbelief in theism=belief in atheism) therefore they can’t, as many other atheists claim, place the burden of proof squarely on us for being “the positive claimant”
That would go for somebody who said "there is absolutely no way no how 100% impossible there could be a God". I have yet to meet such a person. Most atheists are just not convinced by the claims of theists. Maybe with more impressive evidence/reasoning they may be convinced, but based on what they've seen so far they reject the idea. Most theists seem very sure about what they believe, even 100% certain I've been told by many. Most atheists don't claim to know with certainty how the universe came to be. Most theists do claim to know this. That is why they have the burden of proof.
And as for my own subjective notions I personally cannot see what makes the idea of the universe having an entity who created it any more extraordinary
Perhaps not. But how many theists end with just that? We usually go on to hear stories about super powers, resurections, prophets, holy books, miracles, etc. If "God" is just "some guy that created the universe and has power over it" as you say, I really don't think many atheists will much care. I certainly wouldn't.
On the other hand, they will care if you go on to tell people that they should consider themselves subservient and worship this God and do what they claim it/they/he/she wants. The "bee in the bonnet" as you put it comes out when holier than thou people try to tell atheists how to live, that there can be no good without God (ie, that atheists must be inferior morally), that various arbitrary things like homosexuality, nudism, eating pork, whatever are abominations, etc. It is the tribalism, group think and authoritarianism in religion that I and many others take issue with. That and that its sometimes down right odd and counter productive: kissing a stone, eating a cracker and thinking it magically turns into a man-god, etc, obsessively repeating the same words over and over wasting much of one's day when one could be doing something productive for society, etc.
Let’s get something else out of the way quick: let us please have no more of this nonsense about, “We’re all atheists: I just happen to believe in one fewer god than you do.”
I'm not sure you understand what is being said by this and why it is being said so often. It is said to try to show theists what it is like to be atheist. We feel about Allah the same way you feel about Zeus. Having you think about Zeus shifts your paradigm if only for a moment so you can relate to where we are coming from.
Furthermore, I would appreciate it if atheists kindly stopped using the term “freethinkers” synonymously with “nontheists” or “the nonreligious”, because it is elitist bull
Yes, that would be. But try not to confuse one encouraging "free thinking" with one claiming it is exclusive to atheists or the nonreligious. It would certainly include people who are religious but think for themselves, consider ideas for themselves and don't blindly follow dogma. It would *NOT* however include the large number of theists who *DO* blindly follow dogma without thinking for themselves. I once spoke with a Catholic gentleman who when I asked him what he thought about something replied "I'm not sure. What does the Pope say about it? What's his view? Whatever he says is what I believe". Rarely do you see it that explicit but you run into this kind of mentality with a LOT of religious people. This I think is why you have the problem from those outside religion that you complain about above.
For example, ask somebody WHY they oppose homosexual marriage for example and sometimes you'll get reasoned arguments but more often you'll get something like "because marriage is between one man and one woman and because God (the church claiming to speak for God) says so!".
This kind of blind reference to authority for one's views occurs outside the religious context as well (you can see it in the highly polarized US political parties somewhat) and I would also encourage free thought there. It is shocking how many dittoheads people like Glen Beck have following their every word like a modern day political prophet, people who will vote in ways directly against their own interests only because they have blindly bought into political ideology. Free Thinkers will look at these issues and have their own ideas. They will not always support democrats, not always support republicans, they will think for themselves.
I would also like for atheists and other nontheists to stop using “skepticism” to mean “believing in something only when you think there’s evidence for it”
I don't really want to squabble over semantics. How do you wish to define skepticism? And what word do you use for what you've quoted above?
And let us hear no more of these childish (nay, infantile) analogies that atheists like to use as comparisons for God, religion, “proving a negative” , etc.. Santa Claus, “the flying spaghetti monster”, leprechauns in the attic, fairy tales, the “celestial teapot”, invisible pink unicorns, grow up!
That's fair. Instead we should talk about Zeus and Thor maybe. But I sense that often theists will get offended at that too, leaving little other way to make the point the analogies you reference are designed to make. I think a lot of people just get upset that others don't believe as they do and it really doesn't matter what analogy is used.
You make your point well though, so from now on I'll stop talking about the analogies you reference and instead talk about zeus and thor or udetectable space aliens if they will suffice for the point being made.
Sheesh. If you don’t take our views seriously then why are you even bothering to discuss them at all?
Some civility seems applicable from both sides of this I'd like to note. I've seen you and your ilk speaking with aggressive and beligerent tones in this very forum. If you want respect, you'll have to give the same. I'll try if you will.
Please do understand that atheists are attacked, called infidels, imoral, etc a lot. So some of this is backlash. As muslims who are also frequently attacked and disrespected (called "terrorists" etc) I think you may be able to relate to this impulse. It should be resisted, but folks are only human.
It is also true that many of us atheists actually *DO* find many religious beliefs ridiculus. We sometimes snicker etc. It can be hard to remember that people actually truly believe some of this stuff (take that eucharist example again) and hold it dear. Sometimes we also snicker at people who talk about other things we find ridiculus like alien abductions, reptillians, ghosts, or some guy that think's he's Napoleon. This snickering at things we find ridiculous is by no means limited to atheists. Again, folks should do better but sometimes don't; folks are only human.
Finally, let us all, theist and nontheist alike, stop using the word “faith” in this nebulous emotional/intuitive sense which is so often alleged to be opposed to reason.
Again, I'd rather not squabble over semantics. If you don't want to use the word "Faith" then what word would you rather use for this?
As for your "arguments for atheism", none are required. Just like no argument is required to not be convinced there is anything to astrology. Most "atheist arguments" are just intellectual exercises. They really only gain traction when a theist makes specific claims which can then be examined, checked for coherency and discussed.
And if you define God as just "a being that created and has power over the universe" I don't think any atheist argument will be very strong, since we have no way of knowing if such a being exists or not. I see no reason to believe one does but it wouldn't shock me or take much to convince me otherwise. It WOULD shock and surprise me to learn that this being is also supernatural, interferes in human affairs, performs miracles, demands I worship him, tortures those who don't worship him, writes books, sends prophets, wants me to eat certain things, have sex with certain people only, etc. But you're not making any such claim for your conception of God here. You've set the bar so low for theism that not only do I not have any arguments against it, I wouldn't even care to oppose it. All I can say is maybe, maybe not. Why should we care?
Last edited by Pygoscelis; 12-12-2010 at 07:01 AM.
You are on to something here. It can neither be proved or disproved (which is why those analogies you are so offended by are so often used - lots of other things can not be disproved and they are things we'd never consider believing in).
We’ve been over and over this, Pygoscelis, and I’m not going over it with you again.
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
That would go for somebody who said "there is absolutely no way no how 100% impossible there could be a God". I have yet to meet such a person. Most atheists are just not convinced by the claims of theists. Maybe with more impressive evidence/reasoning they may be convinced, but based on what they've seen so far they reject the idea. Most theists seem very sure about what they believe, even 100% certain I've been told by many. Most atheists don't claim to know with certainty how the universe came to be. Most theists do claim to know this. That is why they have the burden of proof.
You just said I was onto something about there being no burden of proof!
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
Perhaps not. But how many theists end with just that? We usually go on to hear stories about super powers, resurections, prophets, holy books, miracles, etc. If "God" is just "some guy that created the universe and has power over it" as you say, I really don't think many atheists will much care. I certainly wouldn't.
Believe me, a very great many of them do. Some of them even crusade against “the mental illness known as religious belief”.
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
On the other hand, they will care if you go on to tell people that they should consider themselves subservient and worship this God and do what they claim it/they/he/she wants. The "bee in the bonnet" as you put it comes out when holier than thou people try to tell atheists how to live, that there can be no good without God (ie, that atheists must be inferior morally), that various arbitrary things like homosexuality, nudism, eating pork, whatever are abominations, etc. It is the tribalism, group think and authoritarianism in religion that I and many others take issue with. That and that its sometimes down right odd and counter productive: kissing a stone, eating a cracker and thinking it magically turns into a man-god, etc, obsessively repeating the same words over and over wasting much of one's day when one could be doing something productive for society, etc.
If you want to gripe about specific religious beliefs, do it in a more relevant thread.
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
I'm not sure you understand what is being said by this and why it is being said so often. It is said to try to show theists what it is like to be atheist. We feel about Allah the same way you feel about Zeus. Having you think about Zeus shifts your paradigm if only for a moment so you can relate to where we are coming from.
format_quote Originally Posted by YahyaSulaiman
If the point is merely a call for tolerance or understanding or empathy or identification then I’m sure there are much better, simpler ways to make such a point which are more cogent.
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
Yes, that would be. But try not to confuse one encouraging "free thinking" with one claiming it is exclusive to atheists or the nonreligious.
For the nine billionth time, REFERRING TO YOURSELVES AS “THE FREETHINKERS” AMOUNTS TO THE SAME AS DEFINING YOUR OWN POSITION SOLELY THAT WAY.
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
I don't really want to squabble over semantics. How do you wish to define skepticism?
I’ve already defined it in the other thread. Are you not absorbing anything I’ve ever said? Do you just have a weak memory?
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
And what word do you use for what you've quoted above?
I suppose that would be more like the real definition of “freethinker”—assuming, of course, that one takes into account that it is just as possible to arrive at once conclusion that way as another, and therefore no one group of people should brand themselves so snootily with the word.
format_quote Originally Posted by Pygoscelis
That's fair. Instead we should talk about Zeus and Thor maybe. But I sense that often theists will get offended at that too, leaving little other way to make the point the analogies you reference are designed to make. I think a lot of people just get upset that others don't believe as they do and it really doesn't matter what analogy is used.
You think it doesn’t matter if our god is compared to Santa Claus?? This is another thing we’ve been over and over and over again.
You make your point well though, so from now on I'll stop talking about the analogies you reference and instead talk about zeus and thor or udetectable space aliens if they will suffice for the point being made.
Stick with the aliens if you must use something.
Some civility seems applicable from both sides of this I'd like to note. I've seen you and your ilk speaking with aggressive and beligerent tones in this very forum. If you want respect, you'll have to give the same. I'll try if you will.
Very well.
Please do understand that atheists are attacked, called infidels, imoral, etc a lot. So some of this is backlash. As muslims who are also frequently attacked and disrespected (called "terrorists" etc) I think you may be able to relate to this impulse. It should be resisted, but folks are only human.
I’m not interested in whether someone is an “infidel”; I care about how they conduct themselves. And at least Muslim writers generally do more than make fun of non-Muslims, whereas it is extremely difficult to find an atheistic writer as mature and compassionate and unemotional as, say, Michael Martin.
It is also true that many of us atheists actually *DO* find many religious beliefs ridiculus. We sometimes snicker etc. It can be hard to remember that people actually truly believe some of this stuff (take that eucharist example again) and hold it dear. Sometimes we also snicker at people who talk about other things we find ridiculus like alien abductions, reptillians, ghosts, or some guy that think's he's Napoleon. This snickering at things we find ridiculous is by no means limited to atheists. Again, folks should do better but sometimes don't; folks are only human.
If there were less snickering even amongst the most “professional “ writers and spokespeople then at least I could forgive it. As it is, snickering is the one, greatest hallmark of atheistic expression and always has been, even to ancient times. In fact, most of the writings you’ll see are just ill-disguised snickers. These people need to grow up already.
Again, I'd rather not squabble over semantics. If you don't want to use the word "Faith" then what word would you rather use for this?
I’m not at all sure what they even intend by it but apparently it’s something more like “intuition”.
As for your "arguments for atheism", none are required. Just like no argument is required to not be convinced there is anything to astrology. Most "atheist arguments" are just intellectual exercises. They really only gain traction when a theist makes specific claims which can then be examined, checked for coherency and discussed.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. If anything doesn’t need any arguments then it’s weak agnosticism. Atheism takes a specific position like everything else, and tries to argue for it. No sane human being considers disbelief in anything to be the default position and I’ve already gone over that “lack of belief” B.S.
And if you define God as just "a being that created and has power over the universe" I don't think any atheist argument will be very strong, since we have no way of knowing if such a being exists or not. I see no reason to believe one does but it wouldn't shock me or take much to convince me otherwise. It WOULD shock and surprise me to learn that this being is also supernatural, interferes in human affairs, performs miracles, demands I worship him, tortures those who don't worship him, writes books, sends prophets, wants me to eat certain things, have sex with certain people only, etc.
Why would that shock you?
But you're not making any such claim for your conception of God here. You've set the bar so low for theism that not only do I not have any arguments against it, I wouldn't even care to oppose it. All I can say is maybe, maybe not. Why should we care?
You’ve spent an awful lot of time in rebuttal for someone who allegedly doesn’t care. It’s no use going over specific characteristics of a being when you haven’t yet got past the being’s very existence.
I find it awfully curious that you don’t have any problem with the universe being created or ruled, only with it happening to be any human being’s idea of God behind it all. Are you sure you’re really an atheist?? Are you sure that your disdain for all group thinking hasn't caused you to automatically reject anything that involves it as if it's necessarily false?
Last edited by IAmZamzam; 12-12-2010 at 03:22 PM.
Peace be to any prophets I may have mentioned above. Praised and exalted be my Maker, if I have mentioned Him. (Come to think of it praise Him anyway.)
And [even] if We opened to them a gate from the heaven and they continued therein to ascend, They would say, "Our eyes have only been dazzled. Rather, we are a people affected by magic." (15:14-15)
You just said I was onto something about there being no burden of proof!
lol good catch. You did the exact same thing.
Believe me, a very great many of them do. Some of them even crusade against “the mental illness known as religious belief”.
I don't think many of them are doing it over mere deism. I think they consider it mental illness when it leads people to do odd and counter productive things (just like other mental illness does) such as kissing stones or eating crackers thinking its a man-god or repeating words over and over, or hearing voices or talking to open space, etc.
For the nine billionth time, REFERRING TO YOURSELVES AS “THE FREETHINKERS” AMOUNTS TO THE SAME AS DEFINING YOUR OWN POSITION SOLELY THAT WAY.
Not sure why you are saying this in response to what you quoted from me. I just agreed with you. I pointed out what Free Thinkers actually are and why I think you encounter so many people linking lack of free thought to religion. There is more to it than arrogant self promotion.
I’ve already defined it in the other thread. Are you not absorbing anything I’ve ever said? Do you just have a weak memory?
No, I don't recall your personal definition of this word. You are complaining about how people use a word and yet not defining it here. I don't particularly care to make a special effort to look it up in your other post when you speak with such disrespect.
I suppose that would be more like the real definition of “freethinker”—assuming, of course, that one takes into account that it is just as possible to arrive at once conclusion that way as another, and therefore no one group of people should brand themselves so snootily with the word.
Perhaps. Did you skip over my responses or did you read how I defined Free Thinker above? It does include anybody regardless of their conclusion. It is about how they get there.
You think it doesn’t matter if our god is compared to Santa Claus?? This is another thing we’ve been over and over and over again.
If it offends your sensibilities is one thing. If it is an apt analogy without equivalent is another. The Santa Claus analgoy works on many levels which is why it gets used so often. Both have stories and are culturally engrained. Both have rituals (stockings, cookies, etc). Both have reward/punishment (though Santa just gives coal instead of sending you to hell and cares more if you are good than if you beleive in him), etc.
I think it may be the best analogy that people (mostly in the west) can truly relate to in the sense of breaking away from a belief that was accepted on authority. As children most of us believed in Santa (most of us did not believe in space aliens). Theists have already gone through the experience of apostacy with regard to Santa, so they can relate to what it is like for an ex-christian or ex-muslim apostate as they lose belief.
It would be nice if that could be said using a less offensive analogy, but I can't think of one that is as apt. Come to think of it though , these children honestly and truly believe in Santa. Is snickering at their belief and calling it purile not just as rude as doing that with yours?
And at least Muslim writers generally do more than make fun of non-Muslims, whereas it is extremely difficult to find an atheistic writer as mature and compassionate and unemotional as, say, Michael Martin.
I have never heard of Michael Martin. Perhaps Islam and Atheism suffer from the same negative media bias. You've probably heard of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, but have you read Michael Shermer? There's a Michael for a Michael
As it is, snickering is the one, greatest hallmark of atheistic expression and always has been, even to ancient times. In fact, most of the writings you’ll see are just ill-disguised snickers. These people need to grow up already.
That's about as fair as saying that "violence, dominance and the supression of infidels are the greatest hallmarks of the religious, and that most of the religious writings you'll see are just ill-disguised calls to dominance and supression of infidels. These people need to grow up already".
Atheism takes a specific position like everything else, and tries to argue for it. No sane human being considers disbelief in anything to be the default position and I’ve already gone over that “lack of belief” B.S.
You did go over that "lack of belief BS", but that doesn't change what atheism is. Atheism is the opposite of theism (hence the word a-theism). It is people who do not believe. I have yet to meet a single atheist (and I know many atheists) who is 100% certain that there can no way no how be a God. Atheists are people who are simply not convinced that there is, just like they are not convinced that there is anything to astrology. I disbelieve in God. I also disbelieve in astrology. That doesn't mean I need some argument or another, and as you put up above it also doesn't put any "burden of proof" on me to do so. To use the alien analogy as you suggested, I also don't believe there are aliens surveying the earth in cloaked space ships. I disbelieve in alien abductions. Does that mean I need arguments against alien abductions or can I just say I'm not convinced, and call myself one who doesn't believe?
Why would that shock you?
For a myriad of reasons but you limited this thread to a deistic rendition of God, so you took all those reasons away for the purposes of this thread.
You’ve spent an awful lot of time in rebuttal for someone who allegedly doesn’t care.
I don't think of it as rebuttal. I think of this as discussion, not argument. I thought this thread may benefit from the point of view of the group you are putting under analysis.
It’s no use going over specific characteristics of a being when you haven’t yet got past the being’s very existence.
Sure there is. Going over what people actually believe says a lot about their psychology and sociology. If people believe that their god is a kind and generous and benevolent being and follow him on those grounds, that says something very different than if people believe in a celestial North Korea with a bloodthirsty dictator and then support him on those grounds. If people view their lives as a merely test or a waiting room that says something about how they are apt to behave. If people believe that they are God's "chosen people" or that God gave them ownership of particular land they will act accordingly, and they may displace the folks already living there causing global tension to last decades. You don't have to buy in to any of these peoples' beliefs to see how it effects them, and by extension you.
As I said in my first post in this thread, atheists are not likely to get too riled up with a deistic presentation of God. It is the tribalism, authoritarianism and group think that riles them; The billboards that question if there can be good without God; The anger generated by merely admitting one is an atheist or refusing to answer what their "religion" is; The requests for special rules and modifications to society based on religion; Tax free churches; Manipulative religious "leaders"; politicians with "faith based" initiatives or politicians with bans on homosexual marriage or abortion or contraceptives based on religion, etc. But that all comes with more than just deism. So none of it is applicable to God as you've defined him/her/it/them here, so no argument is really needed from atheists here (just some clarification).
Are you sure you’re really an atheist?
Since atheism is not believing in God(s), it depends entirely on how people define "God(s)" I suppose. The way that you've defined it here seems to include people who believe we live in a computer simulation, like in the Matrix movie. If somebody believed that would that make them theistic? I don't really have any reason to believe that, though it seems more likely to me than the Abrahamic religions. So I guess yes, even with your definition I would qualify as atheist.
Last edited by Pygoscelis; 12-12-2010 at 06:00 PM.
I don't think many of them are doing it over mere deism. I think they consider it mental illness when it leads people to do odd and counter productive things (just like other mental illness does) such as kissing stones or eating crackers thinking its a man-god or repeating words over and over, or hearing voices or talking to open space, etc.
As the old saying goes, those who dance are always considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
If it offends your sensibilities is one thing. If it is an apt analogy without equivalent is another. The Santa Claus analgoy works on many levels which is why it gets used so often. Both have stories and are culturally engrained. Both have rituals (stockings, cookies, etc). Both have reward/punishment (though Santa just gives coal instead of sending you to hell and cares more if you are good than if you beleive in him), etc.
I think it may be the best analogy that people (mostly in the west) can truly relate to in the sense of breaking away from a belief that was accepted on authority. As children most of us believed in Santa (most of us did not believe in space aliens). Theists have already gone through the experience of apostacy with regard to Santa, so they can relate to what it is like for an ex-christian or ex-muslim apostate as they lose belief.
It would be nice if that could be said using a less offensive analogy, but I can't think of one that is as apt. Come to think of it though , these children honestly and truly believe in Santa. Is snickering at their belief and calling it purile not just as rude as doing that with yours?
If I were talking to a child it would be. The key difference you overlook is that Santa Claus is a deliberate lie which no one professing it to their children actually believes in. Nevertheless, if I thought that the analogy were really and truly about all those things you mentioned then I wouldn't be quite so offended. But usually it is just method #313 of scoffing at religion and calling it bruja-stick waving primitive nonsense, in effect if not also in intent (and usually, I think, in intent, at least partially). If you actually think that anyone in history has ever compared another person’s beliefs to a magical teapot and been the least bit serious about it, and that anything else they might say is equally likely to be considered an insult, you need to shake yourself out of it.
I have never heard of Michael Martin.
He’s one of the very few atheistic writers who actually does something other than point and laugh. He still suffers from some of the other problems I have described above but at least he behaves like a grown-up and acts like he actually regards philosophical argument as an intellectual matter. That is EXTREMELY rare.
Perhaps Islam and Atheism suffer from the same negative media bias. You've probably heard of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, but have you read Michael Shermer? There's a Michael for a Michael
Media my fanny. Do you think I know of these writers only from hearsay? I read them for years. And yes, I’ve heard of Michael Shermer. I’ve been thinking of starting a thread on his “Will E.T. Look Like Us?” debate with Richard Dawkins but I haven’t yet decided if it is anything more than a waste of time.
That's about as fair as saying that "violence, dominance and the supression of infidels are the greatest hallmarks of the religious, and that most of the religious writings you'll see are just ill-disguised calls to dominance and supression of infidels. These people need to grow up already".
I was speaking of the so-called scholars and nothing more. If Islamic spokespeople went around routinely comparing other people’s beliefs to celestial teapots then you might have a case.
You did go over that "lack of belief BS", but that doesn't change what atheism is. Atheism is the opposite of theism (hence the word a-theism). It is people who do not believe. I have yet to meet a single atheist (and I know many atheists) who is 100% certain that there can no way no how be a God. Atheists are people who are simply not convinced that there is, just like they are not convinced that there is anything to astrology. I disbelieve in God. I also disbelieve in astrology. That doesn't mean I need some argument or another, and as you put up above it also doesn't put any "burden of proof" on me to do so. To use the alien analogy as you suggested, I also don't believe there are aliens surveying the earth in cloaked space ships. I disbelieve in alien abductions. Does that mean I need arguments against alien abductions or can I just say I'm not convinced, and call myself one who doesn't believe?
It means that unless you have specific reason not to think that these aliens exist you should call yourself an agnostic on the matter and not assume that they don’t as though it were the automatic starting position. If you do have reason to disbelieve, fine, disbelieve, but don’t use some semantic ambiguity in the term “alien nonbeliever” as leverage to put your own position ahead just because everyone technically starts out as a DIFFERENT KIND OF nonbeliever in aliens. It’s not about words.
Sure there is. Going over what people actually believe says a lot about their psychology and sociology. If people believe that their god is a kind and generous and benevolent being and follow him on those grounds, that says something very different than if people believe in a celestial North Korea with a bloodthirsty dictator and then support him on those grounds. If people view their lives as a merely test or a waiting room that says something about how they are apt to behave. If people believe that they are God's "chosen people" or that God gave them ownership of particular land they will act accordingly, and they may displace the folks already living there causing global tension to last decades. You don't have to buy in to any of these peoples' beliefs to see how it effects them, and by extension you.
As I said in my first post in this thread, atheists are not likely to get too riled up with a deistic presentation of God. It is the tribalism, authoritarianism and group think that riles them; The billboards that question if there can be good without God; The anger generated by merely admitting one is an atheist or refusing to answer what their "religion" is; The requests for special rules and modifications to society based on religion; Tax free churches; Manipulative religious "leaders"; politicians with "faith based" initiatives or politicians with bans on homosexual marriage or abortion or contraceptives based on religion, etc. But that all comes with more than just deism. So none of it is applicable to God as you've defined him/her/it/them here, so no argument is really needed from atheists here (just some clarification).
So you confess that the anger is about specific practitioners and not the practice itself? You can’t duck around this by saying that it stands to reason that the practice probably makes people behave a certain way, especially if you don’t want others saying that atheism makes people act a certain way. And don’t try to get around that with the fact that atheism isn’t a practice: you know very well what the point is. It is disturbingly hypocritical to have a problem with theism but not deism. There is no excuse to have no problem with a belief other than its happening to involve group thinking. Nor with “tribalism”, a word I’m getting tired of hearing you throw at everything and everyone that you happen to disagree with like it’s some all-purpose form of contemptuous expression. Groups can be right or wrong, and truth trumps. The only consideration anyone should ever put into anything is whether or not they think it is true: not what effect it has on people’s personalities according to some pop psychology stereotype, not what effect it has supposedly had on history, not whether it leads to any of their pet peeves. Truth is the only thing that matters, and if you really care about it then you shouldn’t care if belief in God is theistic or deistic, only with whether it is a correct belief, and whether theists or deists have the situation more right if it is.
Since atheism is not believing in God(s), it depends entirely on how people define "God(s)" I suppose. The way that you've defined it here seems to include people who believe we live in a computer simulation, like in the Matrix movie. If somebody believed that would that make them theistic?
If there were a supernatural programmer, outside of the chain of physical causation? Yes, it would. Unless they were a deist. A very odd example at that, but it counts.
I don't really have any reason to believe that, though it seems more likely to me than the Abrahamic religions.
Why? Because it involves science?
Last edited by IAmZamzam; 12-12-2010 at 06:35 PM.
Peace be to any prophets I may have mentioned above. Praised and exalted be my Maker, if I have mentioned Him. (Come to think of it praise Him anyway.)
Ack, I can't reread it at all without always noticing more typos to fix. It drives me crazy. I'm sorry the article was so rushed, I just wanted to get it over with.
Peace be to any prophets I may have mentioned above. Praised and exalted be my Maker, if I have mentioned Him. (Come to think of it praise Him anyway.)
Ack, I can't reread it at all without always noticing more typos to fix. It drives me crazy. I'm sorry the article was so rushed, I just wanted to get it over with.
content is what matters only petty fools will fault someone for misspelling or syntax.. This isn't English class. What you have written is excellent, give yourself due credit for that!
all the best
Text without context is pretext If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him
As the old saying goes, those who dance are always considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
Fair enough. But that would seem to apply to everybody we consider insane for any reason. Perhaps they all simply know something we don't, and hear music we can't.
The key difference you overlook is that Santa Claus is a deliberate lie
which no one professing it to their children actually believes in.
Don't see why that should matter. I suppose it makes it more nefarious.
Nevertheless, if I thought that the analogy were really and truly about all those things you mentioned then I wouldn't be quite so offended.
Well good, because I see no other valid reason to use it. And I agree that it should not be used to berate people.
He’s one of the very few atheistic writers who actually does something other than point and laugh.
He's an atheist writer? I thought you were refering to muslim writers. So then you realize that not all atheists are out to mock you? From your previous post it seemed otherwise.
acts like he actually regards philosophical argument as an intellectual matter. That is EXTREMELY rare.
It isn't rare at all. I'm doing it right here. Maybe you should visit an atheist board other than the overly aggressive ones like Dawkins' that lily went to. I visit freeratio.org sometimes and have for longer than I've visited here (it is actually how I originally found this place - somebody from here actually went over there and mentioned here) and I've seen hundreds of discussions and don't recall ever seeing anybody outright mock anybody for their honestly held beliefs.
I’ve been thinking of starting a thread on his “Will E.T. Look Like Us?” debate with Richard Dawkins but I haven’t yet decided if it is anything more than a waste of time.
That could be interesting. Shermer has written a number of very interesting books. You have read them? Do you consider Shermer as out to mock people? He really isn't. For that, read Hitchens. He is.
If Islamic spokespeople went around routinely comparing other people’s beliefs to celestial teapots then you might have a case.
How is comparing somebody's beliefs to a tea pot any more disrespectful than outright telling people they deserve to suffer in hell for not believing as they do? The former may be kind of goofy, but the latter is hostile. As atheists we're used to it so we tend to roll with it, but as soon as religious people start saying atheists are the insensitive ones, I think it should be mentioned.
It means that unless you have specific reason not to think that these aliens exist you should call yourself an agnostic on the matter and not assume that they don’t as though it were the automatic starting position.
Here you are making all those far out analogies like flying spaghetti monsters relevant to the discussion. Just because something is possible, doesn't make it probable, or even reasonable or plausible. Not believing in space alien conspiracies is very much the automatic starting position, and without some very good evidence to the contrary, most of us will stay in that position.
If you do have reason to disbelieve, fine, disbelieve, but don’t use some semantic ambiguity in the term “alien nonbeliever” as leverage to put your own position ahead
Ahead of what? This isn't a competition.
Saying there are different kinds of atheism is like saying there are different kinds of bald.
Either you do or you do not believe. If you do not believe, you are a non-believer. A non-believer in God(s) is an atheist. Simple as that.
Whether one's being an atheist is rational or not, due to what they have experienced is an entirely different matter. If an atheist has encountered evidence that should convince them there is a god and they remain an atheist that may make them irrational, but it doesn't make them any more atheist than they already were. It doesn't put them in a different position with regard to lacking belief than the guy who didn't see this evidence.
So you confess
What an odd choice of word. You make it sound like I've been hiding something. I haven't.
that the anger is about specific practitioners and not the practice itself?
The anger is mostly about specific practices and beliefs yes.
You can’t duck around this by saying that it stands to reason that the practice probably makes people behave a certain way,
You can if the dogma, scripture or prophet explicitly tell them to behave a certain way.
especially if you don’t want others saying that atheism makes people act a certain way.
There is no prophet, holy book, or dogma to atheism so that just doesn't work. Atheism is not a belief system. It is the lack of one single belief. It doesn't tell anybody to do or believe anything.
Atheism can't be examined for what it encourages people to do, because it doesn't encourage anything. You can't tell much at all about an atheist by simply learning she's an atheist. You need more information on what she actually does believe, instead of just what she lacks belief in. She may be a humanist. She may be a nihilist. She may be a humanitarian, or she may be the oppsite. She may be a vegetarian, or she may be a cannibal. She may be a very prim and proper conservative or she may be a nudist. She may be a lesbian or a homophobe. No way to tell by just knowing she's an atheist. In contrast, you can tell quite a bit about a muslim just by learning she is a muslim. There are things you can be pretty sure she does (or doesn't do) and opinions you can be pretty sure she holds.
It is disturbingly hypocritical to have a problem with theism but not deism.
What do you mean by this? Deism is a form of theism (the form lacking all the additional claims and demands)
There is no excuse to have no problem with a belief other than its happening to involve group thinking. Nor with “tribalism”,
There is if you oppose group thinking and tribalism. Which I do.
a word I’m getting tired of hearing you throw at everything and everyone that you happen to disagree with like it’s some all-purpose form of contemptuous expression.
It isn't all purpose. It has a very specific meaning. It is "Us" vs "Them" mentality. It is agreeing with something or supporting someone against someone else simply because you identify with them and consider them on your "team". It is a major barrier to free thinking. And I can't help it if people decide to engage in it so frequently around here. It tends to be common from all sides in religious forums, as well as in political forums. Rational discussion is not a competition and we don't have to "take sides" and join camps.
I do not come to forums to fight for some team in some sort of competition. I come for intellectual exercise and to exchange and explore ideas. The less defensive and the less distraction by personal attacks and the freer the exchange the better I like it. So yes, tribalism does annoy me and I do tend to point it out where I see it. Same with straw man attacks (putting words in other peoples' mouths to attack them) and ad homs. You and I have managed pretty well to keep all of these out of this thread, which is why I have engaged you as thoroughly as I have in these posts.
The only consideration anyone should ever put into anything is whether or not they think it is true: not what effect it has on people’s personalities
We can consider both. Zionists believe that God told them Israel is theirs and theirs alone and that they should displace the Palestinians. We don't just care about if God actually told them this (you and I both conclude he didn't), we also go on to consider the implications of the belief.
The catholic church believes that God forbids contraception and has spread this belief through Africa. I don't really care if a God actually does oppose contraception (maybe I'm wrong and one does). I only care about the disease and death this belief has caused.
If there were a supernatural programmer, outside of the chain of physical causation? Yes, it would.
You just changed your definition of God. You previously left out the requirement that he must be supernatural and that he must be outside the chain of causation. Perhaps you should edit this into your OP if you plan to use it elsewhere?
Why? Because it involves science?
Because it doesn't involve the supernatural. I am a materialist (not all atheists are - so this is really moot to the thread).
Last edited by Pygoscelis; 12-13-2010 at 03:36 AM.
Ack, I can't reread it at all without always noticing more typos to fix. It drives me crazy. I'm sorry the article was so rushed, I just wanted to get it over with.
I don't think it really matters if you have a few typos so long as your thoughts are clearly presented.
I haven't read all the atheist literature, and so am no expert in atheist philosophy and on the arguments on the disproving of god. I only know about my own views on the existence of god, and would argue for them until persuaded otherwise (I never argue for my atheist stance merely for the sake of perpetuating it). All I know is that I won't simply read the Bible or the Quran and instantly become a believer. Nor would the words of any preaching religious person (who is generally, in his mental capacities, no wealthier than I am) reveal god's glory to me. All I require to accept god is empirical certainty. Even if I have not seen him, then at least give me some certainty that he is present, so that I would know him just like I know that some distant galaxy exists out there in the universe some millions of light-years away, even though I have not actually seen it in person.
Thus far, nothing that religious people or their books have shown to me have convinced me of God's existence -- and especially not in the way they describe him. I feel that ultimately what religious people ask me requires too many assumptions about the natural world; too much about the world is just taken for granted in their minds, because they simply take it as a given out of their religious books.
too much about the world is just taken for granted in their minds, because they simply take it as a given out of their religious books.
I can also say this exact same thing about atheists: I feel that ultimately what atheistic people ask me requires too many assumptions about the natural world; too much about the world is just taken for granted in their minds, because they simply take it as a given out of their philosophy books.
(I almost said "science books", but I retracted because I remember that science books does not and can never explain about the origin of life and the cause of everything, so there).
That is one major difference between atheism as opposed to Islam or Christianity: Atheism makes no comment on anything besides the existence of God(s). The Big Bang theory is not from atheism. Neither is abiogenesis. Neither is evolution. These are all scientific theories, consistent with but not required by atheism. The views of various philosophers throughout the ages are also sometimes consistent with atheism, but not required by it.
You can be atheist and reject all of the above theories and philosophies. Islam and Christianity on the other hand have very specific dogma that you must subscribe to to be a Muslim or a Christian.
Conceptually, theism, just like atheism, makes no comment on anything besides the existence of God(s). But this very minimal sort of religion (can we even call it religion?), that the OP arguing for hardly exists in the real world. Nearly all theists merge their beliefs together into joint dogma, creation stories, and rituals, usually involving holy texts and prophets and adopting a group identity ("Christian", "Jew", "Muslim", "Hindu", etc). This is not so for atheists. There are some such groupings, such as "Humanists" and the cult of Ayn Rand, but these are not the norm.
Last edited by Pygoscelis; 12-15-2010 at 03:55 PM.
That is one major difference between atheism as opposed to Islam or Christianity: Atheism makes no comment on anything besides the existence of God(s). The Big Bang theory is not from atheism. Neither is abiogenesis. Neither is evolution. These are all scientific theories, consistent with but not required by atheism. The views of various philosophers throughout the ages are also sometimes consistent with atheism, but not required by it.
You can be atheist and reject all of the above theories and philosophies. Islam and Christianity on the other hand have very specific dogma that you must subscribe to to be a Muslim or a Christian.
Your right - Atheism is meaningless and irrelvent - Its odd how atheists spend so much time on religious forums. It ultimatley has nothing to offer to the world unlike religion but atheists still like to show that it does - people like Dawkins, sam harris and co - these guys give out the wrong signals of atheism or they actually want it to be a replacemnet to religion.
Last edited by Zafran; 12-15-2010 at 03:51 PM.
Do you think the pious don't sin?
They merely:
Veiled themselves and didn't flaunt it
Sought forgiveness and didn't persist
Took ownership of it and don't justify it
And acted with excellence after they had erred - Ibn al-Qayyim
I think vocal atheists are merely anti-theists, most atheists probably don't care about religion and are apathetic (or negative) towards religion and carry on doing whatever they want.
Your right - Atheism is meaningless and irrelvent - Its odd how atheists spend so much time on religious forums. It ultimatley has nothing to offer to the world unlike religion but atheists still like to show that it does - people like Dawkins, sam harris and co - these guys give out the wrong signals of atheism or they actually want it to be a replacemnet to religion.
I agree that atheism iitself is no replacement for religion. There is actually a lively debate amongst atheists right now: If not religion, then what? Religion does offer certain things such as a sense of community, comfort from various fears (ie, fear of death etc), answers to the unanswerable, a sense of cosmic justice (that people who do wrong will pay for it even if we can't make them), etc. Most of this can be found outside of religion, but it doesn't come in one ready made package and it isn't always as comfortable, and I think that is a major reason why faith is so attractive to people.
Uncertainty and admitting ignorance can be uncomfortable. It takes a certain sort of humility to accept the limitations of our knowledge and admit that there are some things that we simply do not (and perhaps can never) know. And it can be uncomfortable to realize that we have to build our own justice and that sometimes bad things do happen to good people for no fair reason. The world can be harsh (all the more reason to help each other out). It can be tempting to lean on religion as a crutch against this, which is fine and can be good, so long as that crutch doesn't become a weapon, and doesn't create hostile divisions, and so long as people don't rely on it to such an extent that they fail to create justice and address problems for themselves (instead of relying on the gods).
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