Atheists claim they don’t believe in miracles—that miracles are for religious people—but I beg to differ. Atheists believe in miracles too, although they do not involve a divine being. How so? Atheists believe something came into existence from nothing, out of nowhere, entirely uncaused. They believe life came from non-life, that the rational came from the non-rational, that order came from chaos, and specified information came from randomness. Those are some serious miracles, and require a lot more faith than belief in an intelligent and powerful God who created the universe from nothing, life from non-life, and ordered the universe with specified information! As Norm Geisler says, I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist!
July 10, 2009
Thinking to Believe 
July 10, 2009 at 8:34 am
“Atheists believe something came into existence from nothing, out of nowhere, entirely uncaused.”
No, we don’t.
“They believe life came from non-life”
Sure do. And the science supports it.
But then again, you believe that life came from magically altered mud.
“and specified information came from randomness.”
No we don’t. Randomness isn’t all there is. There’s a little thing called ‘natural selection’ that is not natural.
“Those are some serious miracles”
Define the word ‘miracle’.
“And require a lot more faith than belief in an intelligent and powerful God”
No, they don’t. In fact, they require no faith at all.
Sorry, but it seems your post is entirely wrong.
Try again though. You’re not a bad writer.
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July 10, 2009 at 9:52 am
Some atheists believe that the material universe (time, space, energy, and matter) has always existed, and that the Big Bang was merely a change in form; but this is purely speculative and has not (so far) been demonstrated scientifically.
That life came from non-life, or even could have come from non-life, also has not (so far) been demonstrated scientifically.
That specified complexity can emerge from the combination of chance (randomness) and necessity (natural selection) has not (so far) been demonstrated scientifically, either.
A miracle is any real event that cannot be entirely explained by natural causes.
All knowledge requires faith of some kind. We trust our senses to be generally reliable, but recognize that they are not infallible. We trust teachers, researchers, and authors to be honest about the information that they convey to us, and usually they are; but not always.
As J. P. Moreland’s new book points out, naturalism cannot adequately account for six key aspects of human persons: consciousness, free will, rationality, the unified self, intrinsic value, and moral absolutes. That “an intelligent and powerful God” exists, and made humans in His image, accounts for these attributes quite well.
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July 10, 2009 at 10:04 am
Maybe not a bad writer of fiction, Morse, but a bad writer in the sense of a lack of fact-checking. To a scientist such as myself, this is egregious, dishonest and unforgivable. If I made such bald-faced assertions, my career would be over for good.
For example, none of the so-called subjects he claims are ‘miracles’ are miracles at all, since none violate the way nature works. Abiogenesis does not violate anything we know about chemistry (the chemistry of life isn’t even special in any way) and we have a very good idea about how life arose from non-life backed up by quite a body of laboratory work. See Jack Szostak’s papers, for example.
Or ‘the rational came from the non-rational’. What does that even mean? If he’s talking about how the mind evolved, this is also well understood. Read Steven Pinker’s “How the Mind Works”, an excellent read. We don’t understand it all, but we know more than enough to know that no magic is involved.
Or that ‘order came from chaos’. Physicist Vic Stenger deals with this in his book “God: The Failed Hypothesis”. If he’s referring to the second law of thermodynamics, it does not preclude local order so long as the total entropy of the universe increases, which it is doing. The universe at the moment of the Big Bang was indeed at maximal disorder, but the expansion of the universe resulted in lower disorder even though the total entropy is still increasing.
Or ‘specified information came from randomness’. Morse has already pointed out that natural selection has a key word in it – selection. That is about as far from random as you can get. Yes, mutations are random, but this only provides the variation from which fitter individuals are selected. Gene copying events occur quite often (there are quite a few copies of different genes in our own genome – we have 11 copies of the NANOG gene, for instance, with most being deactivated by mutations), and mutations in these copies can produce new products. The blood clotting cascade and the bacterium flagella, for example, are known to have be produced from gene copying events with subsequent mutation and selection. Richard Dawkins wrote an excellent monograph on how information in a genome can and does increase. Parroting William Dembski’s thoroughly debunked dodgy nonsense (which simply amounts to claiming that genes cannot randomly produce anything useful to the organism – exactly what evolution says as well) isn’t impressive.
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July 10, 2009 at 10:18 am
Garbage. Where have you been for the last 50 years? This is nothing more than an argument from ignorance. If God is the source of all these things, then you must know how God generated these things, right? No?
The mind is an emergent phenomenon and it is what the brain does. We do not understand fully the nature of the mind, but it is well-demonstrated to be an evolutionary phenomenon. One can not have a mind without the brain, and the structures of the brain are under genetic control. Anything under genetic control is alterable by evolution. Read the aforementioned book by Steven Pinker. Some of the attributes listed are simply what the mind does. Others are non sequiturs.
I would say as well that free will does not exist, at least not in the classical sense. The neurosciences have pretty much killed it. How does free will explain, for instance, that if I ask you to raise a finger your motor cortex is activated before your decision making regions of the brain?
Moral absolutes? There is no such thing. Morality is easily shown to change with time. Even the definition of murder has changed drastically over the last few thousand years. What we call morality is again an evolutionary behavior trait. As a consequence of utilizing a social survival strategy, the ability to generate heuristic rules greasing the gears of tribal living were inevitable. Without them, social living is impossible.
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July 10, 2009 at 10:21 am
I figured this post would draw out Morsec0de and Shamelessly Atheit, but I didn’t figure it would be so soon! I’ll read your comments and post some responses as soon as I am able.
Jason
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July 13, 2009 at 4:44 am
Into the breach dear friends!
As far as I was aware, you cannot argue for an eternal universe (as it decays to minimal atoms/molecules) so therefore it must have a beginning
Out of nothing comes nothing.
Abiogenesis defies a law of biology “Life begets life” – you cannot have life from non-life. (possibly heavily paraphrased)
That you can argue requires belief that your brain is capable of said arguments as there is no reason that your brain works or that it will even be able to do the same thing tomorrow based on random molecular make-up.
Also, there are lots of problems with an atheits worldview that you have to take on “faith” such as obligate symbiosis (where one organism requires another for survival) especially when this symbiosis is mutually obligate.
(and all this from an intelligent but not expert brain!) 🙂
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July 13, 2009 at 6:41 am
“As far as I was aware, you cannot argue for an eternal universe”
So you’ve found a way around the fact that it seems like matter can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed?
“based on random molecular make-up”
No one is arguing that the molecular make-up is random. There aren’t only two options: random or magic man done it.
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July 13, 2009 at 7:46 am
The problem with an eternal universe is (I believe) entropy and so if it was eternal, then there should be no planets/suns/moons etc. as the matter would spread out evenly throughout space. Plus since matter can not be created/destroyed, excluding Acts of God, atheits have problems.
Since you only give 2 options, and I’ll re-phrase it for you – Random or God, I’ll go for God since random would imply I cannot rely on my own senses to observe reality.
I advise looking at articles and debates by Dr. William Lane Craig. One particular article is “Does God Exist?” http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5507 where he argues that God does exist.
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July 13, 2009 at 8:29 am
“then there should be no planets/suns/moons etc. as the matter would spread out evenly throughout space.”
So? That doesn’t make the universe not-eternal. It just makes it uninteresting at a certain point.
“Since you only give 2 options”
No. I said that there aren’t only two options. Do yourself a favor and study ‘natural selection’. Natural selection is not random.
“I advise looking at articles and debates by Dr. William Lane Craig”
I have, and he’s not convincing.
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July 13, 2009 at 8:50 am
“No one is arguing that the molecular make-up is random. There aren’t only two options: random or magic man done it.”
You said two arguments. – I agree that natural selection is not random and have no problem with it.
If the universe is eternal, then it has been around for an infinite amount of time. If it has been around for infinite time then the energy will have reached equilibrium. It has not, therefore we can deduce that there is not, in fact, an infinite amount of time prior to now. Given this, the universe must have a beginning.
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July 13, 2009 at 8:52 am
“If it has been around for infinite time then the energy will have reached equilibrium.”
Why make that assumption? We have no idea what the universe was like before the big bang. To make any assumption, to say it must have been this way or it must have been that way, is wrong.
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July 13, 2009 at 9:47 am
Then you cannot make the assumption matter cannot be created. According to the Law of Energy Conservation, the entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium increases over time approaching maximum value at equilibrium. Based upon the evidence we now have, this precludes material infinity.
The only thing that can happen with energy in a closed system is a change in form. It can neither be created nor destroyed in a closed system. It says nothing about how the system got there. If the physical properties of the Universe cannot create energy, and if the Universe had a beginning, then something else had to create it. This “something else” cannot be part of the Universe.
1) Energy is not created by natural means.
2) Energy exists.
3) Energy is created by something immaterial.
Against this, you argue it is mistaken to make this “assumption” because we have no idea what the Universe was like before the Big Bang (BB). Granting that for sake of argument, then it is equally mistaken to assume matter cannot be created. For the Universe prior to the BB may have contained “properties” which allowed the creation of matter.
All of this, however, is speculative. Based upon what we now know, we have not reached equilibrium. This, at the very least, strongly implies the beginning of the Universe; that matter/energy was created by some unknown immaterial force.
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July 13, 2009 at 10:37 am
“Then you cannot make the assumption matter cannot be created.”
I don’t. I look at the way things are now, and there’s no reason to assume that it has been different. It certainly might have been, but there’s yet to be any good reason to assume that it was.
“1) Energy is not created by natural means.
2) Energy exists.
3) Energy is created by something immaterial.”
Yet another MASSIVE assumption: you assume that things that are unnatural exist. And yet there’s no good evidence.
It makes much more sense to say Energy cannot be created, energy exists, thus energy must have always existed.
End of story.
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July 13, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Yes, you do. Here’s what you said:
You have to assume that in order to make cogent your reply to Scott’s assertion about entropy. If you don’t assume the impossibility of the creation of energy, then Scott’s point stands.
This shows you didn’t understand what I wrote. These points were preceded by the following:
1, 2 & 3 logically follow from this conditional. I assume nothing. Your objection, then, is that the Universe has a beginning. That is a legitimate objection, but it then forces you to engage “the way things are now” and answer the entropy objection.
An objective scientist understands there is no known physical mechanism for creating matter/energy. S/he also understands that if the Universe is a closed system, entropy, at the very least, raises a strong objection to an infinite Universe. And so we have the conditional: If the Universe is finite, some other non-physical mechanism created the Universe. That’s not a “massive” assumption. That’s standard logic.
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July 13, 2009 at 12:39 pm
“You have to assume that”
No, that’s what the evidence shows. There’s no assumption about it.
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July 13, 2009 at 12:55 pm
You wrote, “the fact it SEEMS [emphasis added] like matter can neither be created nor destroyed…”
Sounds like an assumption to me, but have it your way. You’e still not addressing entropy.
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July 13, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Atheists believe something came into existence from nothing, out of nowhere, entirely uncaused.
Causation only occurs within the universe. Asking what caused the universe is a nonsense question.
They believe life came from non-life, that the rational came from the non-rational, that order came from chaos, and specified information came from randomness.
You must be a liberal extremist. They believe that you need an intelligent agent designing and running things (government) to bring order. But conservatives understand that free markets, without any overarching intelligent agent, result in what APPEARS to be design far better than any actual designer could do. Adam Smith calls this the “invisible hand.”
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July 13, 2009 at 3:53 pm
They believe life came from non-life, that the rational came from the non-rational, that order came from chaos, and specified information came from randomness. Those are some serious miracles
Yes, conservatives believe these things, but they’re not “miracles.” Adam Smith referred to this as the “invisible hand”:
Many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention… By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
What this means is that “random forces” cause selection, creating order out of chaos more effectively than if there were an intelligent designer. It only appears that there’s an invisible hand; if you’re believing that free markets have a secret magician controlling things, you’re mistaken and you’re reading Smith far too literally.
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July 15, 2009 at 2:34 am
Arthur, to me, the argument that you have this “invisible hand” is flawed for two reasons.
It is commonly known that order tends to chaos, and chaos does not tend to order.
Also, the analogy is wrong as “free market” is not random. It is based on supply/demand.
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July 15, 2009 at 11:39 am
Morsecode,
You denied that atheists believe something came into existence from nothing, out of nowhere, entirely uncaused. You are right, if by your objection you mean not all atheists believe that. Indeed, some hold to an eternal universe. But those who take the scientific and philosophical evidence seriously, however, have abandoned that line of thought, and are stuck having to believe precisely what I stated.
Science does not support the idea that life came from non-life. Philosophical materialism may require that, but scientists have not proven it. Indeed, the more they study the origin of life, the more impossible it seems.
Even natural selection is not orderly in the strictest sense. It will vary depending on the environment. Besides, when you add genetic drift into the mix, the outcomes are still random. As Gould said, if you rewound the tape of evolution and played it again, you would not get the same results.
I am using the word “miracle” loosely, as a way of expressing that which defies ordinary naturalistic explanation. It has no theistic overtones.
As for Scott’s point about entropy, I don’t think you grasp the argument. If the universe was eternal, then logically speaking the universe would have reached a state of universal heat death an eternity ago. And yet it hasn’t, ergo the universe is not eternal. You try to escape this conclusion, apparently by appealing to a multiverse of some sort. Not only is there no scientific support for such a thing (and some scientists even consider it unscientific), but the multiverse itself would be subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and the same problem emerges. If there is a multiverse, and if the multiverse is eternal, then all of the universes within the multiverse would have reached universal heat death an eternity ago. So postulating a multiverse doesn’t help you.
Jason
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July 15, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Shamelessly Atheist,
Why think a miracle is a “violation” of nature? Who says nature has to function in any particular way? After all, what we call the laws of physics are just inductive observations about how the universe normally operates.
Scientists do not have a good idea of how life arose. Sure, they have conceptual theories about how it could have occurred, but none of them have been demonstrated in the lab. As Leslie Orgel said, to demonstrate that life could have arisen from non-life without the aid of intelligence, one must show how it is chemically plausible, not just logically plausible. Indeed, it was Orgel himself who described the likelihood of RNA forming by chance as a “miracle.”
Consider the admissions of the following respected scientists who work in this field:
Biochemist, Klaus Dose, admitted that 30 years of OOL research has led to “a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.”
Franklin M. Harold, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University wrote the following concerning the origin of life: “I do not mean to disparage serious scholars who are doing their level best to crack the hardest nut of all. Quite the contrary: I would argue that, if our purpose is to understand life, the origin of life is the most consequential question in all of biology. It holds the key to understanding the relationship between the living and the inanimate, the quick and the dead. Each new bit of evidence strengthens our belief that organisms obey the laws of chemistry and physics; and scientific investigations have turned up no traces of a vital force to nurture the wellspring of life. We assume, then, that cells are material systems that arose by some sort of evolutionary process four billion years ago here on earth (or conceivably, someplace else). I share this premise, but feel obliged to note that, in the absence of evidence as to how this came about (or even of a plausible hypothesis), this explanation is merely a belief–a leap of faith. … Of all the gaps in our understanding of life, this one is the widest. Until we bridge it, we cannot lay to rest lingering doubts as to whether science has read nature’s book of biology correctly.”
Leslie Orgel writes, “The precise events giving rise to the RNA world remain unclear. As we have seen, investigators have proposed many hypotheses, but evidence in favor of each of them is fragmentary at best. The full details of how the RNA world, and life, emerged may not be revealed in the near future.”
Robert Shapiro wrote, :Walter Gilbert proposed that life began with an “RNA World.” Life started when an RNA molecule that could copy itself was formed, by chance, in a pool of its own building blocks. Unfortunately, a half century of chemical experiments have demonstrated that nature has no inclination to prepare RNA, or even the building blocks (nucleotides) that must be linked together to form RNA.”
And again, Shapiro on the state of origin of life research: “We shall see that the adherents of the best known theory [soup theory, RNA world] have not responded to increasing adverse evidence by questioning the validity of their beliefs, in the best scientific tradition; rather, they have chosen to hold it as a truth beyond question, thereby enshrining it as mythology. In response, many alternative explanations have introduced even greater elements of mythology, until finally, science has been abandoned entirely in substance, though retained in name.”
Jason
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July 15, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Shamelessly Atheist,
How can you say the mind is “well-demonstrated to be an evolutionary phenomenon,” when at the same time you say “we do not understand fully the nature of the mind.” How can you demonstrate something so well for which you understand so little?
I would dispute the notion that neuroscience has killed the idea of free will. Besides, even if there were legitimate challenges offered by neuroscience, it cannot in itself kill all of the other independent reasons for affirming it. Those would have to be shown fallacious as well before one is justified in abandoning a prima facie intuition like free will.
You tried to undermine free will by pointing out that if you ask me to raise a finger, my motor cortex is activated before my decision making regions of the brain are activated. And what if it was? How would that undermine free will and support physical determinism? It seems to do the opposite. If the act takes place before the decision is made in the brain, then what caused the decision and the subsequent movement of the finger? Apparently, it wasn’t the physicality of the brain! This seems to argue against materialism and determinism, and for the mind and free will.
Your position on morality is untenable. This is not the time or place to offer a refutation of moral relativism, so I won’t do so. Let me just say that the moral intuition of objective moral values is so strong that the majority of even atheist philosophers subscribe to it. Think what rejecting this notion entails. It would entail the claim that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with torturing a baby for fun, or raping a woman. While those acts may be personally or socially disadvantageous, the concern is a practical one, not a moral one. Indeed, in some societies, rape may be a good thing. After all, we can imagine a society in which women rebel against men, refusing to have sex with them. If the men do not force women to have sex with them and bear children, the society would die out. In such a circumstance, rape would be practically advantageous. On moral relativism, there is no basis on which to object. One must subscribe to moral absolutism for that. Are you prepared to admit, then, that the person who rapes a woman, or who tortures a baby for fun, has not really done anything wrong, but merely done something socially disadvantageous?
Jason
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July 15, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Arthur,
Why think causation only occurs within the universe? That assumes that the principle of causation is a wholly physical principle. I’ve addressed this issue with you three times in the past, notably in the comments section of https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing/#comments:
“I fail to see why you think causation only applies in the temporal world. It is a metaphysical principle, not a physical one (although it has clear application to the physical world). You seem to presume that causation requires temporality. But something can have causal priority without being temporally prior to its effect. I believe it was Hume who gave the analogy of an eternal ball resting on an eternal cushion. The relationship of the ball to the pillow would form a concave depression in the pillow. So what is the cause of the depression? It would be ridiculous to think it had no cause merely because it exists timelessly. Surely the ball is the cause of the depression, and yet the cause is not temporally prior to its effect. So there can be causal relations even outside time [logical causal relations, not temporal causal relations]. In the case of God, I don’t think there were any cause and effect relations until the act of creation. That was the first instance of God’s causal activity. Indeed, God’s causal activity formed the boundary of time.”
As for your comments about free markets, the liberal/conservative divide has nothing to do with order, but efficiency and productivity (since both have order). Furthermore, whether markets are created top-down or bottom-up, it is intelligent, rational, ordering agents who form them.
Jason
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July 16, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Bulls-eye! Superb, Jason!
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July 26, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I’ll quote myself, on a post about some recent experimentation on quantum entanglement and other issues:
“One thing though that has been lost in the shuffle: the disproof of the narrowest definition of Theism. We can’t prove that the Universe wasn’t created. We can prove that if a creator (or Creator) existed, then only Deism is consistent with the facts. That such a Creator certainly can’t be Omniscient – for as an observer, the Creator would cause the collapse of wave-functions that we know remain indeterminate. We can show that any Divine Intervention would require things to be quite different, and outside existing physical laws.
It’s possible to postulate such an Entity, one who can do anything, outside all physical bounds, but such an Entity would be utterly ineffable, and completely outside our understanding in even the smallest respect. If He can do anything whatsoever then there’s no point in saying that anything is cause or anything is effect. The Invisible Pink Unicorn does the lot.
Maybe so. And maybe you who are reading this blog only came into existence a microsecond ago, complete with memories and a whole physical Universe to exist in. I can’t prove you didn’t, and neither can you. All you have to do is to suspend all physical laws, which the Invisible Pink Unicorn has to be able to do in order to intervene in even the smallest way.
To me, a really impressive Deity would be one who sets the ball rolling, then gets out of the way, hoping and expecting that after the requisite eons of cooking, that the recipe will be a success. Perhaps not the first time He’s done it, either. Making Friends, as I’ll explain later.
Do I think that there is a “soul”, a non-material component to existence? I really don’t know. I hope there is, but hoping and wishing is not the same as believing. I certainly think it’s possible, given what we know now. If it exists though, it should be possible to detect it. Perhaps not in the OOBE experiments I mentioned before, but in other ways. And if it is indetectable, then it may as well be said not to exist. Or to be exactly as real as the Invisible Pink Unicorn (mhhhnbs).”
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July 27, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Zoe, none of what you write engages Jason’s post nor does it interact with subsequent dialog.
Nobody here argues God can do anything. In fact, I know of no serious scholar who affirms that position.
To argue such an “Entity” is ineffable is self-defeating. If you have no knowledge whatsoever about the Entity, you have no basis for making any claim about it. One cannot legitimately claim this is not that without some knowledge of that.
If the Universe is created, then it was created by an eternal, immaterial cause. Further, Shandon Guthrie and William Craig argue persuasively in favor of personal causation. These things are not “ineffable.”
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July 28, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Zoe,
In principle, science is incapable of proving or disproving anything about spiritual beings. As for God acting, why couldn’t He act in the universe? If He created the universe, surely He can interact with it. Indeed, many theologians understand God to be the sustainer of the universe in being. He is intimately connected with the operations of the universe. Whether God is involved in the universe is a matter for philosophers and theologians to work out. Specifically, we must look at reports of miracles and purported messages from the Creator to see if God interacts with the universe.
I think you misunderstand the nature of physical laws. They have no ontological reality. They are mere observations about how the physical universe normally behaves. They are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are not laws in the strict sense, and if the universe operated differently, no “law” would be broken. We would simply be observing different physical behavior.
As for the soul, we know it exists by introspection. There are things that can be said of the mind that are not applicable to the brain, and thus they cannot be identical. They are two different kinds of entities, even though they work in conjunction with one another.
Jason
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August 11, 2013 at 6:55 am
If you atheists are so smart and know-it-alls then why do your best debaters get their butts handed to them by William Lane Craig when they debate him? Go see for yourself on the internet how he destroys the atheist beliefs!
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August 11, 2013 at 9:17 am
We prefer to rely on facts rather than beliefs.
Once Theists can agree amongst themselves on how many gods there are, what their names are, etc, then we can debate.
I’ve asked several Christians how many gods exist – including all the angels, archangels, baals, demons, thrones, powers etc etc and never got a straight answer.
We know there’s more than one god – the first commandment says “thou shall have no other god before me”, so obviously other gods are around, or it wouldn’t be be necessary. OK, so how many? What are they? Get your own story straight before coming to us.
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November 13, 2013 at 3:56 pm
Zoe,
The fact-belief dichotomy is a false one. First, the standard definition of knowledge is “justified true beliefs.” So you are using “belief” in a non-standard way. Secondly, theists are also relying on facts when we form our arguments for theism. The real dichotomy is between facts and presuppositions, since our presuppositions often dictate how we will interpret the facts.
When it comes to atheism, all we have to demonstrate that your worldview is wrong is to demonstrate the existence of at least one God. And it wouldn’t matter much, when it comes to the worldview question, whether we know anything else about this God or gods other than the fact that he/they exist. That alone would be enough to falsify atheism. Once you are a supernaturalist or theist of some sort, then you address the further questions about the nature and identity of the God/gods. That’s a second order question.
Do you really think that the inability to number the angels would count against theism?
As for the first commandment, it does not mean there are truly other gods beside Yahweh. But Yahweh recognized the existence of many so-called gods, and was instructing the Israelites not to worship any of them. This is made clear from prophets like Isaiah, who makes it clear that the Jewish belief was not that they were only to worship one of many gods, but that Yahweh was the only God who exists.
Jason
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November 13, 2013 at 7:48 pm
“When it comes to atheism, all we have to demonstrate that your worldview is wrong is to demonstrate the existence of at least one God.”
True. So…. demonstrate away.
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November 14, 2013 at 1:47 pm
Zoe,
Is that the only statement you care to respond to?
I’ve offered a number of theistic arguments on various posts on my blog, as well as my website. I’m not about to rehash them all right here. Instead, how about you present some arguments for atheism instead? I hear a lot of attacks on theism from atheists, but I rarely hear atheists trying to defend their own position. Showing why someone else’s argument is wrong does not automatically make your view right. That requires separate argumentation.
Jason
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November 14, 2013 at 7:16 pm
One step at a time. There’s a lot to this, it’s easy to get derailed.
“When it comes to atheism, all we have to demonstrate that your worldview is wrong is to demonstrate the existence of at least one God.”
So, as I said, demonstrate away. Failure to do so won’t prove that there’s no gods, but will show that belief in one particular one is no more justified than belief in any of the others – for example, Santa Claus.
Then we can argue about belief in Santa, and whether it’s possible to prove Santa doesn’t exist, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. If it’s not possible, then we can say that atheism can’t be proven either. All we can do is show constraints on a deity’s characteristics, and whether it would be useful to believe in Santa or not.
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November 18, 2013 at 1:09 pm
Zoe,
Atheism is the belief that God does not exist. One needs reasons for thinking that God does not exist to make that conclusion. If you do not meet your burden of proof to demonstrate the truth of that proposition, and all you are doing is showing that theists have not met their burden of proof to demonstrate God’s existence, then your atheism is not justified. At best you can claim to be agnostic. Atheism requires evidence just like theism does.
If, as you say, atheism cannot be proven, then atheism is not a rational position to hold. It can only be a rational position if there are reasons for holding to it.
Anybody who thinks that there is no more justification for believing in one god versus another isn’t aware of the debate. While it could be true that no gods exist, the fact of the matter is that when it comes to evidence, lots of evidence has been put forth for theism. The same cannot be said of other so-called gods. So if we are talking about levels of justification, one has much more justification for believing in a theistic God versus Thor. BTW, Santa Clause is not a god!
Of course it’s possible to prove that Santa doesn’t exist. See https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/belief-in-god-is-not-akin-to-belief-in-santa/
Jason
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November 18, 2013 at 7:31 pm
Indeed, when it comes to Santa’s existence, not only are there no good reasons that favor his existence, but there is plenty of evidence against his existence. Same with Zeus, or any other god.
If YWHW exists. we’d expect evidence of talking snakes, resurrections from the dead, Unicorns etc. Same with any other god.
We have even more evidence that the Earth doesn’t rest on pillars, nor are stars affixed to a firmament. It can be argued that such things are “metaphorical”, but one can argue with the same justification that so are elves and reindeer. We have objective proof that gifts are given to children, do we not?
Santa moves in mysterious ways incomprehensible to Man. At least he doesn’t claim to have covered the whole earth with water, or stopped the Sun in its tracks, both of which are even more physically impossible.
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November 18, 2013 at 7:37 pm
“Christmas stories simply say that Santa delivers presents made by Elves at the North Pole… It is likely that naughty children get nothing and nice children get toys… We Santaists must be different from the scientists in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the speed of Santa’s sleigh, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity with our understanding.”
As opposed to…
“Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters… It is likely that the stars are fastened to the firmament like globes of fire, to shed light at night… We Christians must be different from the (natural) philosophers in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity with our understanding.”
– Martin Luther, Luther’s Works. Vol. 1. Lectures on Genesis, ed. Janoslaw Pelikan, Concordia Pub. House, St. Louis, Missouri, 1958, pp. 30, 42, 43.
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November 18, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Note – I’m not saying I’ve proved gods don’t exist. I’ve provided strong evidence though that we are no more justified in saying they exist than saying Santa Claus exists.
It has been argued that religion should be encouraged for the good of society – that a belief in Heaven and Hell, and an omniscient judge who sees all is necessary to keep the evil in line. Hence the distrust of atheists, who have no such reason for behaving well.
“He knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good…”
Santaism has all the virtues and vices of the “prosperity Gospel”, where material wealth is a sign of the gods’ favour. This encourages good behaviour. However,, it also means that the wealthy, however evil, are seen as good, and the poor, no matter how good, are seen as evil.
Having rewards and punishments delayed till after death conveniently avoids that problem, but does mean there will be many “believers” in name only who think it’s all a scam, and take advantage. I needn’t go into the long list of megachurch pastors who have been caught.
Atheists though are often “good for goodness sake”. Because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of reward or punishment.
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November 22, 2013 at 1:38 am
Zoe,
To link theism with Zeus and Santa Clause is either disingenuous in the extreme, or evidences a lack of familiarity with the literature. There are lots of rational, historical, and empirical arguments on behalf of theism (and Christian theism in particular). Where are the arguments, either past or present, for Zeus’ existence, of Santa’s existence? And it doesn’t matter whether you ultimately find theistic arguments persuasive. The point is that arguments are not being made, and in many cases, cannot even be made for these other beings. Theism is not comparable to them in the least.
You can’t compare the possible actions of God and Santa. Santa is a finite creature subject to the laws of physics, whereas God is an infinite being who is not subject to the laws of physics. So while physics can be used to disprove a claim about what a finite man is possible of doing, the same cannot be said of the being who created physics. The being who created physical reality can surely do things with physical reality that us finite creatures are incapable of doing.
I find it ironic that when I challenge you to defend your atheism, you don’t. Neither do you show why the arguments for theism are false. Instead, you go on and on about Santa Clause. You say “I’ve provided strong evidence though that we are no more justified in saying they exist than saying Santa Claus exists.” No, you haven’t. You haven’t provided any evidence whatsoever. You’ve only thrown out assertions that all religious claims are the same, etc. – assertions that are not justified. Why don’t you start by interacting with the basic arguments for theism? These arguments are logically sound, so the only question is whether or not their premises are true. Please tell me, for example, which premise of the kalam cosmological argument is in error, and why. If you reject this argument, surely you must have a good reason.
Anybody who argues that religion should be encouraged for the good of society is a pragmatist, and not concerned about the truth. The only reason to believe anything is because we have good reason to believe it is true, not because of its pragmatic value.
The prosperity gospel is not Christian, so…..
Jason
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