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.

[wiploc]

[Replying to post 227 by otseng]

This is assuming that Thor and Yahweh are equivalent. But, this is not the case.
I'm curious how they are different.

Yahweh is eternal, all-powerful, holy, creator, redeemer, transcendent, and many other attributes. To my knowledge, Thor is none of these.

Which of those make Jehovah more likely than Thor?

[instantc]

But, in your previous post you said that 'God created the universe' is the theistic explanation.

In their minds yes. But that only goes to show how theists think (or fail to think)

Because it's not an explanation. It's just a guess. A stab in the dark. That's far from an explanation.

Now you contradict your previous take by saying that God is not even an explanation, let alone the explanation.

There is no contradiction. I hold that it is indeed true that postulating any unknown magical source or entity is not an explanation. On the contrary it's the same as saying, "I give up. I have no explanation, therefore it must be magic".

Magic is not an explanation. If you see a magician do a magic trick and you cannot explain how the trick was done, then you do not have an explanation, all you can say is, 'It sure looks like magic to me" And magic itself implies that there is no explanation. That's what magic is. An event that cannot be explained. If you can explain it, then it's no longer magic.

So if I say that the "best explanation" for the universe is that it is magic, all I'm really saying is that I see no possible explanation for it at all. That's certainly a valid stance to take. But it's hardly an "explanation".

Moreover it would be extremely arrogant and absurd for anyone to claim that this magic was being done by a particular magician that they believe to know something about.

Yet this is precisely what religious people try to do.

Before I go deeper into this, were early scientists not justified in positing gravity to explain the movements of physical objects because they could not explain gravity itself?

That's different. In that case they were giving a name to a motion that they could not explain. But they could observe the motion. It's not even claimed to be an explanation. On the contrary it's merely claimed to be an observation. In fact, when Isaac Newton first discovered a very precise mathematical description of this motion caused by "gravity" he was still quite embarrassed about the fact that he could not explain it. All he could do is describe it.

So in this case gravity is more like the universe, not a God. Gravity is what we observe, it's not an explanation of a cause.

And besides "gravity" is still not fully understood today. We certainly have a far better description of this observation of motion today with General Relativity. And we can even pretend that it explains things better in terms of an imagined fabric of spacetime. This brings it far closer to an intuitive understanding. But let's face it, does anyone truly understand this idea of a fabric of spacetime? I don't think so. In fact, I know we don't. Instead scientists are still proposing the idea of subatomic particles called gravitons to explain gravity.

If we discover the graviton then we will finally have an explanation for gravity. And that explanation may also help to better define what we mean by a "fabric of spacetime". Will we need to have an explanation for the graviton? Well, actually I would suggest that we already do have an explanation for it. But even though we have an explanation for it, we don't yet have evidence that it actually exists. Here's a case where we have an explanation for something before we have even found evidence for it. That's exactly the opposite of postulating the existence of a God that we have no explanation for.

In fact, this is what we have done for the Higgs field. We had an explanation for it before we actually found evidence for it. That's was one of the greatest achievements in science. Although it's by far not the first time this has happened.

Were the cave men not justified in positing a wandering mountain lion in order to explain the paw prints in their caves because they did not have an explanation as to where the lion came from?

You are not being consistent here. There are several things wrong with your analogy here. To begin with, if the caveman looked at the paw print and concluded that it was too unique regular and repeatedly found to have been a random accident, that would have been a correct conclusion. If he then postuated that whatever caused it must also be too unique to have been a random accident that too would have been correct. A mountain lion is not a random accident. It's the product of evolution by natural selection taking place over millions of years. That's far from a random accident. So the caveman would have been right to conclude that the paw print came from some living creature.

Secondly, if a caveman had never seen a mountain lion before it is extremely unlikely that he would have postulated that a mountain lion exists. Instead he could probably be imagining all sorts of different animals. In fact, he might even imagine that some totally abstract "boogieman" had made the tracks.

He would have no reason to actually believe that the "boogieman" exists anymore than we have a reason to believe that "God" exists. In fact, when he finally discovered that the tracks were being made by a mountain lion instead of his imagined "boogieman" it would probably be quite a relief. And then he would just think to himself, "Oh it was just a mountain lion". And that would be a sensible explanation.

If we need an explanation for every explanation, then we need explanations for the explanations of explanations as well, and we will never have an explanation for anything.

If you accept that line of thinking then you must conclude that there are no explanation for anything. Therefore this would bring into question you continued claim that something has a "Best Explanation".

What you are arguing for now is the idea that nothing can even be an explanation ever. And that the whole concept of "explanation" is a bogus concept to begin with.

Again, I will grant you that this is a valid position to take. However, when you take that position you are not arguing for the "Best Explanation" for anything. Instead all you are doing is throwing your hands up in the air and proclaiming, "It's all magic to me!". And that's the same as proclaiming that you can't even imagine any explanation for it at all. None. And so you end up postulating not only magic, but even an imagined magician to boot. And then you have exhibit the absolute inconsistency of proclaiming that this is not only an explanation but you proclaim that it is the Best Explanation. When in truth, this is really nothing more than a confession on your part that you can't even imagine an explanation at all so you've just given up entirely.

The problem with that line of thinking is that at that point you appear to have fooled yourself into believing that your surrender to the problem constitutes the "Best Explanation" possible and then you act like everyone else should accept this too.

But that's absurd. Other people are willing to accept that intermediary understandings of things are the stepping stone that get you to a "Better Understanding". And so they strive to continue to "Better" then "Understanding", whereas you appear to have just given up and are running around screaming, "Magic is the Best Explanation!".

But magic isn't an explanation. On the contrary, it's a confession that you have no explanation at all and you give up. The only thing left for you to do at this point is wait until the magician appears and then ask him to explain how he did all his magical tricks. Ironically if that day ever came he would probably say to you in return, "If you had paid attention to science you would have learned how all the tricks are done my child."

Again, I am not sure whether you disagree with the general principle or its specific application to God, please specify.

I don't see where there is anything productive in just giving up on trying to understand things by tossing your hands in the air and saying "The Best Explanation is that the boogieman did it!" All that is doing is proclaiming that you are convinced that no explanations can ever be had for anything.

Every explanation that has been given by science is an explanation of observation. It's not necessarily an ultimate answer to the "why" of everything.

Just as I had pointed out avove, Isaac Newton's "Gravity" was not an explanation of gravity at all. On the contrary it was just a refined description of motions that we associate with the idea of "Gravity". However, even in that respect it was very useful because it suddenly demonstrated that the "Gravity" we feel here on earth also runs the entire solar system. And that did result in an explanation of why the solar system behaves the way it does. We didn't need to have a full explanation of gravity to understand that Gravity is what causes the motions of the planet.

Now you might start screaming here again proclaiming that we are using gravity as an explanation for the motion of the solar system whilst we don't fully have an explanation for gravity. And this is no different from using God as an explanation for the universe when we don't' have an explanation for God. But that's anywhere near the same.

To begin with, we are observing "gravity" to be a real and measurable motion, and effect in the physical universe. We don't have that kind of measurable observation for any imagined "God". So we aren't just making gravity up for not good reason.

Secondly, even Isaac Newton did have some explanation for gravity. He explained that gravity is "caused" by the presence of mass. His mathematical equations for gravity clearly placed the amount of gravity associated with an object with the mass of that object. So Issac Newton made progress in our understanding of gravity. Now we understand that gravity is associated with massive objects and is even entirely dependent upon the mass of these objects in a very precise mathematical way.

So this was a major leap forward in our understanding of gravity (an observable phenomenon). How in the world does that relate to your claim that arbitrarily postulating that a magician magically created the universe is a "Best Explanation" for anything?

Albert Einstein stood on the shoulders of Isaac Newton and showed more details concerning how massive objects warp a mathematically describable fabric of spacetime. In the process he also discovered "Time Dilation", yet another measurable and observable phenomenon in the universe.

These kinds of explanations result in learning more about the nature of reality.

Where does the guess that a magical magician created the universe lead?

And what does that "explain"?

Also, how would that be any different from saying "Faeries did it is the best explanation"? Now, all of a sudden you have faeries being the "best explanation".

How is this relevant to my argument? I haven't made any assertions as to what the best explanation is. Faeries, gods take your pick. All I am saying is that in order for us to recognize something as the best explanation, we don't need to have an explanation of that explanation. Therefore the question 'who created fairies?' is irrelevant to the question whether or not fairies are the best explanation for the universe.

But what is it that you are recognizing as the "Best Explanation"?

Unexplained Magic?

It seem to me that you are simply saying that if we simply throw our hands up in the air and scream "Magic!", that amounts to the "Best Explanation" we can offer and no further explanation is required.

If I'm going to go that route then why not save a step?

Instead of throwing my hands up in the air and saying. "It's magic and therefore there must be a magician behind it all". Why don't I instead just say, "It's magic and it's so magical that it doesn't even require a magician behind it all"

Requiring that magic has to have a magician behind it is actually belittling magic.

That's basically demanding that magic has an "explanation" (i.e. the magician is the explanation for magic)

You're not gaining anything by proclaiming that magic is the "Best Explanation" for anything. On the contrary, to resort to accepting magic is the same as confessing that there is no "explanation" (because that's what magic is. Magic is that which has no explanation)

When scientists posit quarks to explain the quantum phenomenon, it is natural to ask for an explanation for the quarks, but that does not mean that positing quarks was not justified.

That's different. That's more like the case of gravity. Not at all like what you are doing with the universe and God.

In short, with the universe and God, what you are really doing is just tossing up your hands saying, "I see no explanation for the universe, therefore I posit that the 'best explanation' for the universe is a magical God who also has no explanation.

In other words, what you are actually saying is that there is no explanation for anything. That's a valid position to take, but if you're going to take that position then at least own up to it and quit pretending that it represents the "Best Explanation". On the contrary, it's a total surrender to the idea that there can be "No Explanation at All"

And at that point you can just say "It must be magic" and forget entirely about postulating the existence of a magician because that postulate right there is just yet another attempt to explain the magic.

If you truly want to posit "magic" as being the ultimate source of reality then join the secular atheists because their "magical material world" doesn't even require a magician as an explanation. Save yourself a step.

Demanding that there must be a magician behind the magic is to do nothing more than demand that the magic itself has an explanation.

And of course, if you actually found this magician you would indeed expect it to have an explanation as well.

If you were willing to accept magic without an explanation, then you would have no need to posit the magician.

From what I can gather, you don't present any objection to the principle that we don't need an explanation of an explanation in order to recognize something as the best explanation, and consequently when assessing whether creation by a personal agent is the best explanation for the existence of the universe, it is irrelevant to consider an explanation for the hypothesized creator.

Your main complaint no seems to be that the God-explanation is not properly substantiated nor grounded in evidence. I don't have any arguments there.

[Artie]

I have no idea what you are referring to here. How does your analogy correlate with the universe?

Here is a good explanation how time is seen in Einstein's Theory of Relativity http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/What%20is%20Time.htm

[instantc]

... If I'm going to go that route then why not save a step?

Instead of throwing my hands up in the air and saying. "It's magic and therefore there must be a magician behind it all". Why don't I instead just say, "It's magic and it's so magical that it doesn't even require a magician behind it all" ...

Well written, the reason I'm not going to go deeper into your post is because most of it is clearly not addressed to me. For example, you ask why magic should require a magician, why cannot it be just magic? In essence, if I understand you correctly, you are asking that if we are going to go with an absurdity, who's to decide which absurdity we should pick. That's a good question and a tenable objection, I have no problem with that. I simply wanted to weed out the one terrible objection that you kept repeating in many of your posts.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 227 by otseng]

This is assuming that Thor and Yahweh are equivalent. But, this is not the case.
I'm curious how they are different.

Yahweh is eternal, all-powerful, holy, creator, redeemer, transcendent, and many other attributes. To my knowledge, Thor is none of these.

Which of those make Jehovah more likely than Thor?

I would say that, since Thor is supposed to be the author of thunder by throwing his hammer around, and we know know that thunder is not made thusly, that Thor has been disproved. However, knowing how thunder happens does not disprove Jehovah.

Indeed, knowing exactly how the laws of nature work does not disprove the idea of Jehovah, since (at least in one description of Him) He's the one who invented the laws by which things work. One would expect, then, if the description of Jehovah is the accurate description of God, that the laws of nature would eventually be decipherable to us. At least, in one version.

Doesn't prove that He exists, of course, but it does make Him 'more likely than Thor."

[FarWanderer]

Indeed, knowing exactly how the laws of nature work does not disprove the idea of Jehovah, since (at least in one description of Him) He's the one who invented the laws by which things work. One would expect, then, if the description of Jehovah is the accurate description of God, that the laws of nature would eventually be decipherable to us. At least, in one version.

Why would we expect that?

[Divine Insight]

... If I'm going to go that route then why not save a step?

Instead of throwing my hands up in the air and saying. "It's magic and therefore there must be a magician behind it all". Why don't I instead just say, "It's magic and it's so magical that it doesn't even require a magician behind it all" ...

Well written, the reason I'm not going to go deeper into your post is because most of it is clearly not addressed to me. For example, you ask why magic should require a magician, why cannot it be just magic? In essence, if I understand you correctly, you are asking that if we are going to go with an absurdity, who's to decide which absurdity we should pick. That's a good question and a tenable objection, I have no problem with that.

That is exactly right. I'm glad to see that you have recognized this and agree. That certainly hints an some progress in communication.

However, what you say next appears to totally miss the point:

I simply wanted to weed out the one terrible objection that you kept repeating in many of your posts.

You aren't being consistent.

I was objecting to your claim that something was the "Best Explanation".

You just recognize that the point I'm trying to makes is that when you realize that something is absurd you clearly do not have an explanation at all.

Therefore what I was objecting to was your claim that a creator of the universe would be the "Best Explanation" when in fact, it's really nothing more than someone's personal subjective favorite absurdity.

Not only do they have no explanation for why a creator would need to exist, but they are even trying to rationalize this jump to absurdity.

How so?

Well, basically what they are saying is, "It must have been magic". And then they are trying to place some sort of "explanation" on top of that by demanding that the only way magic can be justified is if it is explained by a magician who had performed the magic. So they go the extra step to propose that there must have been a creator magician thinking naively that this would then explain how there could be magic.

So they aren't even admitting to themselves that their original conclusion was already a jump to absurdities and it was never an explanation at all.

~~~~

So in other words, if they want to claim that they feel it's the "Best Absurdity" to believe that there was a creator magician, then I can't object. In fact, I would basically agree with this with one caveat:

I too recognize that the existence of physical reality is absurd. It's absurd no matter what. It's also magic no matter what. The mere fact that anything exists at all is magic (i.e. totally unexplainable in terms of anything logical)

Therefore magic exist.

Now the question becomes, "Does magic need a magician behind it?" That a good question, but it seem to be a circular one because even if the magic had a magician behind it then that magician would already be magical so how did the magician come to be if not from previous magic that had no magician?

In other words, proposing a magician doesn't help.

Magic is already nothing more than a confession that we can't understand how anything can exist. Proposing a magician behind the magic doesn't really help matters. All that does is bring us right back to the fact that we can't accept magic. (i.e. we can't except anything that doesn't have an rational explanation).

Proposing that there is a magician behind the magic gives us a false sense that we have "explained" the magic, when in fact, we haven't. All we've done is refuse to accept it by trying to explain it away with an imaginary magician.

Finally if we're going to consider absurdities we basically have three to chose from, not just two.

1. A pure materialistic magical existence (i.e. no magician at all) This is secularism.

2. A magical reality that was created by a totally separate magician (i.e. a creator God who created a reality that is somehow separate from itself)

Or we could have the third possibility which isn't address nearly enough in the western world:

3. A magical reality where the magician is the reality. The magician has simple transformed itself to become reality. This magician is all that exists and we are it, "Tat t'vam asi". This is the idea behind the Eastern Mysticism.

All three of these are equally absurd. None of them has a leg up on the other in terms of pure philosophy.

~~~~~

However, when we actually bring specific religions into the picture that changes dramatically. For example #2 proposes that the magician is separate from us. Greek mythology then goes on to describe this magician as Zeus, and company. We then go on to reject Greek Mythology, not because #2 is just as absurd as anything else, but we reject Greek Mythology because of the further absurdities and contradictions that it places on what the God magician must be like.

Almost everyone in today's modern world has rejected Greek mythology as being so unlikely as to not even be worthy of serious consideration.

I personally reject Hebrew mythology for precisely the same reason that I reject Greek mythology. It simply requires that the magician be unbelievably ignorant, unwise, and immoral.

In fact, on purely philosophical grounds I tend to reject the idea of a separate magician altogether. It seems to me to be the most absurd of the three.

So even accepting absurdities it seem to me that either 1 or 3 are more likely than 2. Number 2 seems to be the most absurd of all.

But none of these qualifies as an explanation must less a "Best Explanation"

Many secularists argue that #1 is actually the "Most likely Absurdity". They often point to Occam's Razor to justify the idea that magic without a magician is a "simpler explanation". But I would be the first to object to that too. Because #1 is not an explanation for anything and therefore claiming that Occam's Razor can even be applied is nonsense.

So in my mind, we can't decide between these 3 absurdities. Even I can't rule out #2 the popular western religious philosophies. But it seems to me that if there is a magician at all #3 seem to be the lease absurd because at least its saying that are this magician.

After all why would a hypothetical magician be interested in creating beings that are totally separate from him yet still totally dependent upon him for their existence. That doesn't even sound like they are very separate anyway.

It seems to me that if we are going to grant the existence of a magician, then #3 makes more sense. We are this magician playing some sort of game on itself.

But I can't rule out #1 either and this is why I am ultimately agnostic.

But none of these amounts to a "Best Explanation". They are all equally absurd.

[dianaiad]

Indeed, knowing exactly how the laws of nature work does not disprove the idea of Jehovah, since (at least in one description of Him) He's the one who invented the laws by which things work. One would expect, then, if the description of Jehovah is the accurate description of God, that the laws of nature would eventually be decipherable to us. At least, in one version.

Why would we expect that?

We have found that the laws of nature are consistent. That is, thunder is not caused by a clap of air coming together after lightning passes through it on one day, and by a giant clapping his hands the next.

We find that gravity pretty much always works and water finds its own level...flows downhill.

We find that all sorts of things are fairly dependable, and we can identify and describe these things.

Ok, if God exists, AND He created the laws of nature, then the consistency of those laws (and our ability, so far, to decipher and understand many of them) tells us that we should be able to understand the rest of 'em. Eventually. The description of God that I use, that is, the Creator of all things, has created laws that we can and do decipher and use.

Let me try this:

Things are as they are.
If God exists, then they are as they are because He intended them that way.
We can and do understand many physical laws, which remain (for the most part) consistent.
Therefore we are intended to be able to understand them.


if He doesn't, then of course there is nobody to care if we do or not.

[Divine Insight]

Ok, if God exists, AND He created the laws of nature, then the consistency of those laws (and our ability, so far, to decipher and understand many of them) tells us that we should be able to understand the rest of 'em. Eventually. The description of God that I use, that is, the Creator of all things, has created laws that we can and do decipher and use.

Why would this same God then falsely claim through the Bible that everyone is responsible for their own actions and never bother to mention mental illnesses?

Why would this God then play silly games pretending to cast demons out of people when in fact there are no such things as evil demons possessing people? In fact, if there actually were such things as evil demons possessing people then those people wouldn't be responsible for having been possessed by evil demons anyway?

Why wouldn't this God's son have taught people about germs, bacteria, and viruses, instead of playing ignorant and claiming instead things like God feeds the birds which we ll know is clearly false?

As far as I'm concerned if there exists a God who actually knows how the universe works that clearly rules out the Biblical God and Jesus as being his son. Because neither the Biblical God nor Jesus had a clue about how the universe works. Apparently they were just as ignorant of reality as the men who wrote about them.

[dianaiad]

Ok, if God exists, AND He created the laws of nature, then the consistency of those laws (and our ability, so far, to decipher and understand many of them) tells us that we should be able to understand the rest of 'em. Eventually. The description of God that I use, that is, the Creator of all things, has created laws that we can and do decipher and use.

Why would this same God then falsely claim through the Bible that everyone is responsible for their own actions and never bother to mention mental illnesses?

God didn't write the bible. People did. If they didn't know about mental illnesses they couldn't write about it any more than they could write about quantum theory and the Horsehead nebula.

It doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. It means that folks didn't know about the role of chemistry in the brain.

Why would this God then play silly games pretending to cast demons out of people when in fact there are no such things as evil demons possessing people?

Whoa. Those are two entirely different things.

In fact, if there actually were such things as evil demons possessing people then those people wouldn't be responsible for having been possessed by evil demons anyway?

Generally not...hence the whole idea behind casting them out.

Why wouldn't this God's son have taught people about germs, bacteria, and viruses, instead of playing ignorant and claiming instead things like God feeds the birds which we ll know is clearly false?

If God created all things, then He created the food for the birds. So He feeds the birds the way He feeds us.

Just sayin'....

As far as I'm concerned if there exists a God who actually knows how the universe works that clearly rules out the Biblical God and Jesus as being his son. Because neither the Biblical God nor Jesus had a clue about how the universe works. Apparently they were just as ignorant of reality as the men who wrote about them.

Or they weren't telling us and They are expecting us to do our own work in this matter. Which we are doing.


Obviously, should God exist, He knows the score; He wrote it.