Justify the belief that gods do not exist.

[wiploc]

Some people believe that gods do not exist. (One can call this position "atheism" or "strong atheism" or "anti-theist perversion," anything you want. But we aren't going to argue terminology in this thread. Clarity is good, so you can explain what you personally mean by "atheist," but you shouldn't suggest that other usages are inferior.)

This thread is to make a list of arguments, of reasons to believe that theism is false.

And we can discuss the soundness of those arguments.

I'll start:

1. The Parable of the Pawnbroker.
(I'll just post titles here, so as not to take too much space at the top of each thread.)

2. Presumptive Falsity of Outrageous Claims.



Feel free to add to this list.

[Danmark]

Seriously? I was merely trying to rebut the assertion that theism's being far more complicated than naturalism should be granted as some sort of uncontroversial premise. It's not. (But that hardly makes my reference to Swinburne and some others an argument ad populum!)

No, that is not what you wrote. You wrote:

4. Without derailing the thread, I should mention that God is held by many sophisticated thinkers (Richard Swinburne among others) to be the simplest possible cosmological hypothesis.

Instead of actually making an argument, instead of doing the actual analysis, you simply referenced a 'sophisticated thinker' who, according to you, claims that 'God' is the simplest possible cosmological hypothesis. This is not an argument, but an appeal to authority; that is, an 'authority' you claim to be an authority.

However, I do concede the idea "God did it" is indeed simplistic, simplistic in the absolute. It is so simplistic in fact that it has no explanatory power.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 571 by Danmark]

"God" isn't simple at all.
Conscious? Incredibly complicated.
Does he happen to be omnipotent or just very powerful? That's not simple.

(and I've heard Swinburne give poor arguments like "how are we to believe that all eletrons behave the same")

"God did it" is simple to understand (if you've been raised in human society)

//

Also, if you think the Universe includes time, and time is sufficient for the Universe, then obviously the Universe has always existed forever the same way it's existed everywhere. Doesn't mean it has to have infinite history.

Once again, there's been no good reason given to look for a cause, and there are reasons given that we shouldn't look / should expect not to find one.
Cause is a human concept that requires a perceived arrow of time and a clear change in energy - not an objective concept and certainly not prescriptive.

[wiploc]

Having said that, NO ONE knows if a god or gods exist.

With some gods, we do know.

Take, for instance, the standard Christian god. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and yet he coexists with evil. That is a logical contradiction, so we know that god doesn't exist.

Consider too, the god who is omnipotent but cannot defeat iron chariots, or the god who is merciful but punishes infinitely, or the god who is perfectly just but who punishes people for doing evil when they had no knowledge of good and evil. Consider the god who can be seen but who cannot be seen.

No god matching any of those descriptions can exist.

Never heard it described quite like this, thank you! I can borrow this?

Certainly.

Sometimes you will get resistance that amounts to saying that we don't know that because we don't know anything. My response has been to point out that we do not adopt such radical skepticism in the rest of our lives. If we did, we wouldn't know where our homes were, whether we liked ice cream, whether we were in love, whether we expected to be killed next time we went outside. "You don't even know whether you just made an argument."

So, clearly, people adopt radical skepticism just to avoid admitting knowing religious things, not for other purposes. It is special pleading.

[Divine Insight]

We observe sentience even in ourselves as we experience our sensations and thoughts of those sensations in our consciousness. Sentience is easy to explain compared to consciousness.

I agree sentience is easy to explain.

Consciousness emerged when our brains developed to contain some 100 billion neurons, each with 1000 connections. Just as two atoms of hydrogen can be combined with one of oxygen to produce a substance that is unlike either of it's constituents, the enormous physical complexity of the human brain produces thought.

This part I'm not so sure about. Thoughts do not constitute experience. You even suggested as much in your first statement quoted at the top of this post "we experience our sensations and thoughts of those sensations in our consciousness."

We experience our thoughts in our "consciousness". If our "consciousness" is the experience of thoughts then the question becomes, "What is it that is having this experience?"

If we are having this experience, and we are nothing more than the stuff we are made of, and we are made of the stuff of the universe, then this points to pantheism where "All is Experience". And "god" (if we want to call it that) is the thing that is having an experience, and that would also be us. So in this sense we have evidence for the existence of a 'god' but at the very same time we also have direct evidence that we are this 'god' that is having an experience.

And that is the essence of pantheism. In a very real way if the secular materialists are right, then pantheism is also true. Because something is having an experience, and if material (which is all we are) is having an experience, then clearly it's the material that is capable of having an experience. And therefore that material itself must be an entity that is capable of having an experience.

But clearly this points entirely to a pantheistic view of 'god' and not to the idea of a God which is entirely separate from us.

~~~~~

In fact, if we stop and think about this for a moment, a God that is totally separate from us increases the problem beyond belief. Not only would that God need to be able to have an experience, but so would each and everyone one of us individually.

Separating 'god' from us necessarily also separates us from each other. So then we end up with billions of individual entities all having individual experiences and ironically this would place us in a situation where we are basically the same as this separate 'god' anyway.

If we can each have an individual experience without the need for 'god' then we must necessarily be a totally separate entity from 'god' in our own right.

In fact, Christianity takes this to the extreme because Christianity teaches that a human 'soul' or 'spirit' can be separated from God entirely. This would certainly be true if a human entity is cast into a state of eternal damnation that is separated from God. In that case a human must be an entity capable of having an experience in its own right without the need for any 'god' at all.

So actually pantheism is the only possibly solution to the spiritual problem. Religions like Christianity are necessarily out.

I'm not convinced that pure secular materialism even has a valid place at all. Because it really can't answer the question, "What is it that is having an experience?"

It can't say that it's just the complexity of the brain that is "having an experience". What sense does it make to say that complexity is having an experience?

What makes far more sense is to say that the thing that has become complex is having an experience, but that wouldn't be the brain, that would be the stuff the brain is made of, (i.e. the fundamental stuff of the universe" energy/matter)

And that ultimately suggests pantheism. We are all nothing more than energy/matter having an experience, and it must follow then that this energy/matter is then 'god' (i.e. the ultimate entity that is having an experience.)

[Danmark]

We observe sentience even in ourselves as we experience our sensations and thoughts of those sensations in our consciousness. Sentience is easy to explain compared to consciousness.

I agree sentience is easy to explain.

Consciousness emerged when our brains developed to contain some 100 billion neurons, each with 1000 connections. Just as two atoms of hydrogen can be combined with one of oxygen to produce a substance that is unlike either of it's constituents, the enormous physical complexity of the human brain produces thought.

This part I'm not so sure about. Thoughts do not constitute experience. You even suggested as much in your first statement quoted at the top of this post "we experience our sensations and thoughts of those sensations in our consciousness."

We experience our thoughts in our "consciousness". If our "consciousness" is the experience of thoughts then the question becomes, "What is it that is having this experience?"

In a word, memory. We've got neurons to burn. I kill them by the millions every night. What is difficult to comprehend for many is the sheer enormity of 100 billion neurons, each with 1000 or more connections. This complex creates a mind of incredible complexity. The little bit we are conscious of is a tiny fraction of what is going on in our unconscious. It is so profound, unfathomable, powerful and mysterious we mistake it for God. There is no reason to posit some speculative spirit world. One only need recall and explore one's own dream world to be amazed and impressed by what is going on in there, below the surface of our consciousness.

If our minds were spirits, why do we need sleep? Why do we get drunk? Why do chemicals and traumas affect the mind? Because the mind has a physical basis that is heir to the thousand natural shocks of the flesh.

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 572 by Jashwell]

What is a simpler and less helpful explanation of natural events than "God did it?"
You might as well call the explanation 'X,' or say 'it's a mystery.'

No matter what question you pose, the answer is simple and entirely unhelpful:

"God did it."
"God understands what we do not."
"It's in the hands of God."

ad nauseum ...

The 'God' explanation is good only for comforting the incurious.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 576 by Danmark]

Simplicity in terms of parsimony is different to simplicity to understand.
It is simple to understand "a magic man did magic" but may not be parsimonious.

The simpler one is the one with the fewer assumptions - a self contained Universe may be less simple to understand, but it is still simpler as a concept than a Universe + a God (at least prima facie)

[Divine Insight]

If our minds were spirits, why do we need sleep?

Our physical bodies need sleep. Not our minds.

Why do we get drunk?

Our physical bodies get drunk, and that includes our physical brain.

Why do chemicals and traumas affect the mind?

They don't. They affect the brain, not the mind.

Because the mind has a physical basis that is heir to the thousand natural shocks of the flesh.

The mind experiences the physical universe via the portal of the physical brain.

Pantheism doesn't deny that physical brain. What it denies is that we are are what the physical brain has "described" as our ego (our personality, etc.)

What we actually are is the entity that is having this experience. We can control the experiences that we have to some degree by the choices we make. In other words, if you get drunk that was a choice you obviously made.

Of course, this physical world also contains many experiences and conditions that don't appear to have been the result of choice. But that's ok, the mind being spirit does not require that the mind cannot play a risky game.

Einstein did not like the idea of a "God who plays dice" but it may actually be the case that God is the greatest gambler to ever exist.

When we chose to become incarnate in this physical amusement park we accepted the gamble and the risks of losing control of what we might experience.

But the bottom line is that YOU are the one who is having the experience. (where the YOU here is any individual portal of experience)

If you get drunk then YOU are the one who has that experience.

If you become mentally ill, then YOU are the one who has that experience.

If you become a saintly person, then YOU are the one who has that experience.

If you become a demonic person, then YOU are the one who has that experience.

It's always YOU.

You are not defined by the experiences that you have. You are simply the entity that is having experiences.

Do you have control over the experiences you have? Well surely you do at least to some degree. (i.e. don't drink and you'll be pretty much guaranteed not to experience being drunk). With some exceptions of course.

[Danmark]

If our minds were spirits, why do we need sleep?

Our physical bodies need sleep. Not our minds.

Why do we get drunk?

Our physical bodies get drunk, and that includes our physical brain.

Why do chemicals and traumas affect the mind?

They don't. They affect the brain, not the mind.

Because the mind has a physical basis that is heir to the thousand natural shocks of the flesh.

The mind experiences the physical universe via the portal of the physical brain.

This is the very point. The physical brain is physically affected and this causes changes in the mind. Yes, the mind itself is not directly affected. The brain is affected and since the mind is a projection of the brain, the mind is indirectly affected.

For example, if the body got tired, and not the brain, we wouldn't need to sleep. we'd only have to lie down and relax. We do not fully understand it, but for some reason the brain needs sleep, it needs to go into unconsciousness, even though the mind remains very active. All I can suppose is that the physicality of the brain requires rest just like the muscles do. Without sleep the mind does not function well.

There is nothing, no evidence I've ever seen, that suggests the mind is not a projection or effect of the physical brain. There is no reason to speculate on some mystical 'spirit' to explain mind.

[Divine Insight]

This is the very point. The physical brain is physically affected and this causes changes in the mind. Yes, the mind itself is not directly affected. The brain is affected and since the mind is a projection of the brain, the mind is indirectly affected.

Your assumption here is that "mind" is a projection of the brain. But that still doesn't explain what it is that is having an experience? Is the projector having an experience or is it the projection that is having an experience?

What is it that is having an experience?

For example, if the body got tired, and not the brain, we wouldn't need to sleep. we'd only have to lie down and relax. We do not fully understand it, but for some reason the brain needs sleep, it needs to go into unconsciousness, even though the mind remains very active. All I can suppose is that the physicality of the brain requires rest just like the muscles do. Without sleep the mind does not function well.

But the brain is actually quite active during sleep, at least during REM sleep. Why would a tried brain bother "dreaming" when it's supposed to be asleep?

And why are those dreams "conscious" to us during sleep, but not always after we have reawakened? I've had dreams that I only remember vague parts of after I wake up. Ironically if I think about them I can remember more of them. And even more surprising sometimes I'll actually remember more intricate parts of the dream later in the day that I could not willfully remember right after waking up from the dream.

There is nothing, no evidence I've ever seen, that suggests the mind is not a projection or effect of the physical brain. There is no reason to speculate on some mystical 'spirit' to explain mind.

Well, I still have a problem with what it is that is having an experience.

Can you be more specific about that?

Is the brain (i.e. the projector) having the experience? If so then you are basically saying that the energy/matter that makes up the brain is having an experience.

Or is the projection having an experience? And what does that even mean? How can the projection have an experience?

What is it that is actually having an experience?

To talk about a brain "projecting" mind doesn't mean anything to me. That sounds just as mystical and magical as any idea of spirituality.

I still ask, "What is it exactly that is having this experience?"

Until you can nail that down and explain exactly what it is that is having an experience then I just don't understand what you are trying to say.

I'm not trying to be difficult. I just don't understand how you can dismiss 'mind' by simply stating that it's a 'projection' of the brain. What exactly does that mean? And what is it that is experiencing this 'projection'?