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.

[Divine Insight]

So the only way that science would ever accept this claim would be to confess that science is all wrong and has no clue whatsoever about the physical universe. And why would they do that?

There is one main thing that I think is wrong with cosmology -- the assumption of the principle of mediocrity. If this assumption is incorrect, it would totally up end current cosmology.

That is an utterly absurd claim if I ever heard one. Cosmology does not stand alone.

The science of stellar nucleosynthesis is a guaranteed experimentally confirmed fact.

Not only do we understand stellar nucleosynthesis so well that it has enabled us to understand the physics of our own sun perfectly. But we have also used the knowledge of these processes to build nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors. Now it is true that stars are running from fusion caused by their gravity, and nuclear reactors are running from fission which is the reverse process, but it's still the same physics either way. This is understood and proven to be fact via technology that it is truly absurd to even remotely question it.

Moreover, I don't know if you are aware of this or not but when scientists were studying neutrinos they discovered that they were getting the wrong types of neutrinos from the sun based upon the known physics of nucleosynthesis. So they immediately called the physicists who study nucleosynthesis of the sun on the carpet and told them that they had to be wrong. So the nuclear physicists went back to the drawing board and rechecked their whole "theory of nucleosynthsis scouring it for possible errors but they finally came back and said that it cannot be wrong unless all of known physics up to this point is also wrong. They were that certain of their results.

As it turned out it was soon discovered that neutrinos can actually change their flavor or type spontaneously and were actually doing this between the time they had been created in the sun and were detected on the earth. This spontaneous change was also then confirmed in laboratory experiments in particle accelerators.

So the idea that scientists are mistaken about nucleosysthesis is so extremely unlikely that it's not a rational suggestion.

I also can't believe that you would offer something this far-fetched to support an ancient mythological religion about a demigod that a God supposedly had crucified to pay for the sins of men. If anything should be brought into question superstitious myths like those are certainly the myths worth questioning.

Moreover, just think about it. There are just as many people in this world today who believe that some illiterate prophet was inspired by God to "correct" these absurd myths by writing the Qur'an and then the prophet himself flew off to heaven on flying horse.

I mean, these are the types of myths that these ancient religious superstitions have generated. And trust me, to people outside of Christianity the idea of zombies being shaken out of their graves and physically climbing out of them and walking around only to float off to heaven afterward is every bit as silly as some guy riding a flying horse to heaven. And in Christianity Jesus wasn't the only zombie to have done this. The myth claims that many saints were jostled from their graves like this.

You expect me to believe that these ancient myths are "rational" whilst our modern understanding of nuclear reactions is wrong?

I simply can't believe the lengths people will go to in order to support these religions. It's absolutely amazing. And you need to realized too that from my perspective the Christians aren't asking people to believe anything any less bizarre than the Muslims are.

It's just unreal that people are so willing to trash serious science to support truly absurd ancient myths. Myths that were clearly written by immoral male-chauvinistic men.

If people today acted like the Hebrews in the Old Testament they would be called "The Taliban" or maybe even "ISIS".

And keep in mind that it was the GOD of the Old Testament who supposed commanded men to act like that.

Do you honestly support the idea that GOD is as crazy and immoral as the Taliban or ISIS? Those groups are only doing the kinds of things that the Old Testament God commanded then men should do. Kill the heathens and keep the women oppressed!

That is the God that you are defending even if through Jesus. It's the same mythology no matter how you twist it. No matter how much "good" Jesus might have tried to add to the mix, no amount of "good" could erase the immorality of the Old Testament.

And the very idea that a God would have his own corrupt priests crucify his son and then demand that all humans take responsibility for that horrific immoral act in order to redeem their own immorality is so far beyond absurd that it's just not even remotely respectable.

That's all I know to say.

Why people continue to defend these ancient barbaric religions is beyond me.

[Divine Insight]

If Jesus didn't write a guide to salvation then there isn't one.

Why would it need to be written down? Are we to dismiss someone because they did not write anything down?

Are you kidding me?

Jesus was supposed to be "The Word Made Flesh". Are you telling me that "The Word" doesn't know the importance of writing things down. Do you honestly expect me to believe that an all-wise intelligent God would figure that undependable and highly questionable belated rumors should suffice?

We're supposed to remain civil on these boards, but it's seriously hard to do that when people are suggesting that we should believe that an all-wise supremely intelligent God should demand that we believe in absolutely absurd hearsay rumors lest we'll be damned.

You've seriously got to be kidding me if you claim to believe that.

God curses Eve with greatly multiplied pain and sorrow in childbirth as a punishment. So why didn't Eve simply say to God, 'Fine I won't have any children then"?

Women know full well ahead of time now that there will be pain in childbirth, but they still go through with it.

And do you believe that they are being "punished" by a God?

I think it's far more reasonable to believe that it's just a "poor design" by evolution.

In fact, if a God purposefully designed (or cursed) childbirth to be painful, they I could never respect him. As far as I'm concerned that would be absolutely disgusting behavior on his part. Only a sadist could enjoy inflicting needless pain on people for his own enjoyment.

A Creator God, should at the very least have respect for the act of procreation. A Creator God who uses the very act of procreation as a weapon of punishment has lost any possibility of ever obtaining any respect from me, much less "love".

This is the problem with these Abrahamic myths. You need to believe that God is a jerk just to believe in these absurd religions. It's crazy.

The biggest thing that I find so scary is not that these religions themselves exist, but that so many people seem to think they they represent sanity and even "divinity".

And keep in mind that the Taliban and ISIS believe that everything they are doing is totally inline with this same mythological God. And they have the Old Testament on their side. They even have Jesus on their side! Because Jesus himself proclaimed "No one jot nor on tittle shall pass from law until heaven and earth pass".

Hey is Jesus spoke the truth, then if you see someone worshiping another God you are indeed supposed to kill them, their families, their pets or livestock and burn their dwellings to the ground. And even kill the village from whence they came!

"No one jot nor one tittle shall pass from law!"

The Taliban and ISIS have Jesus on their side!

The Christians are the ones who are refusing to keep the laws of the OT.

Do you really think we need to be supporting these ancient myths?

[instantc]

And the very idea that a God would have his own corrupt priests crucify his son and then demand that all humans take responsibility for that horrific immoral act in order to redeem their own immorality is so far beyond absurd that it's just not even remotely respectable.

That's all I know to say.

You forgot to add "in my subjective taste of morality" to the end, didn't you?

If so, then this akin to saying "Chocolate ice cream tastes so terrible that it is beyond me how anyone can eat it!". You do realize how pointless thing that is to mention to anyone, don't you? Why make a fuzz of your distaste towards ice cream, as long as other people are liking it? It's not like you could convince them to dispose their taste for chocolate ice cream, that would be silly, right?

I suspect that you, just like I, do realize that your concerns are objectively valid, but for the thrill of it, you keep insisting that objective morals don't exist, and nobody can prove you wrong because morality cannot be put in a test tube.

[FarWanderer]

[Replying to post 452 by otseng]

Please either retract your claim that the universe's beginning is evidence that Christianity is true, or accept that science saying stars existed before the earth is evidence that Christianity is false.

You mean you don't want to hear my argument of why I believe the earth existed before the stars did?

On the contrary, I'd love to hear it.

Still waiting.

[FarWanderer]

And the very idea that a God would have his own corrupt priests crucify his son and then demand that all humans take responsibility for that horrific immoral act in order to redeem their own immorality is so far beyond absurd that it's just not even remotely respectable.

That's all I know to say.

You forgot to add "in my subjective taste of morality" to the end, didn't you?

If so, then this akin to saying "Chocolate ice cream tastes so terrible that it is beyond me how anyone can eat it!". You do realize how pointless thing that is to mention to anyone, don't you? Why make a fuzz of your distaste towards ice cream, as long as other people are liking it? It's not like you could convince them to dispose their taste for chocolate ice cream, that would be silly, right?

I suspect that you, just like I, do realize that your concerns are objectively valid, but for the thrill of it, you keep insisting that objective morals don't exist, and nobody can prove you wrong because morality cannot be put in a test tube.

Subjective moral judgments are still moral judgments. The whole point of subjective morality is that you care what people do to each other. Ice cream preference is a completely different issue from moral preference.

[Divine Insight]

And the very idea that a God would have his own corrupt priests crucify his son and then demand that all humans take responsibility for that horrific immoral act in order to redeem their own immorality is so far beyond absurd that it's just not even remotely respectable.

That's all I know to say.

You forgot to add "in my subjective taste of morality" to the end, didn't you?

If so, then this akin to saying "Chocolate ice cream tastes so terrible that it is beyond me how anyone can eat it!". You do realize how pointless thing that is to mention to anyone, don't you? Why make a fuzz of your distaste towards ice cream, as long as other people are liking it? It's not like you could convince them to dispose their taste for chocolate ice cream, that would be silly, right?

I suspect that you, just like I, do realize that your concerns are objectively valid, but for the thrill of it, you keep insisting that objective morals don't exist, and nobody can prove you wrong because morality cannot be put in a test tube.

You aren't even remotely close to being on the same page I'm on.

I'm not concerned with the concept of "objective morality". That's your obsession, not mine.

My point is that if this God seems immoral to me, then for me it's an immoral God. It's that simple.

I couldn't care less about any "objective morality". If the Biblical God is real and he defines "objective morality" then I disagree with HIS objective morality.

And if you stop and think about it that's absurd. How in the world could I possibly feel that a supposedly all-righteous objectively moral God is behaving like a sick demented pig?

That is itself absurd. I would be rejecting God because this God appears to be "immoral" to me. Therefore if this God cast me into a pit of damnation for merely disagreeing with him all he would have achieved is to prove me right.

You can't have a God casting people into damnation because they don't see the God as being moral. That's utterly absurd.

So I don't even need to worry about any concept of "objective morality". If the God appears to be immoral to me then it can't be an objectively all-righteous moral God. Period.

You can't have a supposedly all-righteous God who appears to be a sick demented puppy to anyone. If anyone is going to reject righteousness and all that is good, then they better at least be in agreement that this is what they are doing. Otherwise they can hardly be said to be 'evil'. At worst they could be said to be mentally ill. But a God who can supposedly HEAL people of illnesses shouldn't be casting people into damnation for being mentally ill when he can simply cure them.

This religion is basically demanding that I "lower" my moral standards just to accept that their disgusting God who appears to be extremely immoral to me, is actually "righteous".

The religion couldn't get any more absurd than this.

And how many times to I need to post the obvious TRUTH on these forums before people acknowledge this TRUTH: The behavior of the ancient Hebrews (as commanded by the Biblical God) is no different from the behaviors we see in people like the Taliban and ISIS. Yet every Christian thinks that the Taliban and ISIS are disgustingly evil.

Well duh?

They are only doing precisely what the God of the Old Testament told the ancient Hebrews to do.

So I'm not anywhere near alone in acknowledging that the God of the Old Testament is disgusting and immoral. And Christians are actually in agreement with me whether they realize it or not. Take Jesus and the New Testament out of their religion and they would flush the Old Testament down the toilet faster than you can say "Islam".

[instantc]

And the very idea that a God would have his own corrupt priests crucify his son and then demand that all humans take responsibility for that horrific immoral act in order to redeem their own immorality is so far beyond absurd that it's just not even remotely respectable.

That's all I know to say.

You forgot to add "in my subjective taste of morality" to the end, didn't you?

If so, then this akin to saying "Chocolate ice cream tastes so terrible that it is beyond me how anyone can eat it!". You do realize how pointless thing that is to mention to anyone, don't you? Why make a fuzz of your distaste towards ice cream, as long as other people are liking it? It's not like you could convince them to dispose their taste for chocolate ice cream, that would be silly, right?

I suspect that you, just like I, do realize that your concerns are objectively valid, but for the thrill of it, you keep insisting that objective morals don't exist, and nobody can prove you wrong because morality cannot be put in a test tube.

Subjective moral judgments are still moral judgments.

But, that's the whole point, isn't it? Subjective moral judgment is an oxymoron. Why judge each other, if we acknowledge that my morality is just essentially different from yours? It does not seem to make any sense. If someone makes illogical conclusions, I am going to notify them. But, if logic was essentially different for everybody, then there wouldn't be any point in complaining that your conclusion does not correspond to my logical faculties.

Meaningful judgment presupposes that whatever is subject to judgment transcends our personal taste, at least to some extent.

To say that something seems utterly absurd to you, implies that it is absurd on an objective level. Otherwise it would be akin to saying that it seems utterly absurd to you that someone can like chocolate ice cream. The absurdity immediately evaporates when we realize that we don't all share the same taste of ice cream.

[FarWanderer]

And the very idea that a God would have his own corrupt priests crucify his son and then demand that all humans take responsibility for that horrific immoral act in order to redeem their own immorality is so far beyond absurd that it's just not even remotely respectable.

That's all I know to say.

You forgot to add "in my subjective taste of morality" to the end, didn't you?

If so, then this akin to saying "Chocolate ice cream tastes so terrible that it is beyond me how anyone can eat it!". You do realize how pointless thing that is to mention to anyone, don't you? Why make a fuzz of your distaste towards ice cream, as long as other people are liking it? It's not like you could convince them to dispose their taste for chocolate ice cream, that would be silly, right?

I suspect that you, just like I, do realize that your concerns are objectively valid, but for the thrill of it, you keep insisting that objective morals don't exist, and nobody can prove you wrong because morality cannot be put in a test tube.

Subjective moral judgments are still moral judgments.

But, that's the whole point, isn't it? Subjective moral judgment is an oxymoron. Why judge each other, if we acknowledge that my morality is just essentially different from yours?

Not having a clear reason to do something doesn't make it an oxymoron.

As for why judge people, it's because we share a degree of commonality with them: both parties are human and thus the potential for moral agreement exists to that extent.

It does not seem to make any sense. If someone makes illogical conclusions, I am going to notify them. But, if logic was essentially different for everybody, then there wouldn't be any point in complaining that your conclusion does not correspond to my logical faculties.

Logic is different for everyone- at least in the sense that people work off of different axioms. For example, some people refuse to entertain the idea that infinite regresses are possible. That's an axiom. Another axiom would be the assumed validity of induction (for the purpose of doing science). Axioms are something you "can't put in a test tube". What is universal (objective) about logic are the rules in which conclusions are built from axiomatic premises.

Morality is the subset of logic that deals with value axioms. That means the rules for it workexactly the same as other logic. Namely, it requires axioms before objective judgments about it are even possible. Axioms like "human happiness is valuable" or "humans must be treated as ends rather than means to an end" or "value is measured in self-awareness".

From value axioms, you can reasonably and objectively discuss what actions and behaviors best conform or conflict with them. But without value axioms, the very idea of "objective morality" is formless.

The other aspect of the issue is when you run into someone who has a very different set of moral axioms from yourself. To deal with this, the only choice is emotional appeal, which is a fact that does not bother me. I don't think it would necessarily be meaningless to show some really awful holocaust pictures to a Nazi and say "isn't this wrong?". You might stir something in him. Like I mentioned above, we all have the fact in common that we are human and maybe that commonality can be tapped into for the purpose of emotional persuasion.

Meaningful judgment presupposes that whatever is subject to judgment transcends our personal taste, at least to some extent.

It presupposes a potential for mutual understanding.

To say that something seems utterly absurd to you, implies that it is absurd on an objective level.

If there's a "to me" in there, the speaker is going out of his way precisely for the purpose of denying that implication.

Not that Divine Insight did so in the post referred.

Otherwise it would be akin to saying that it seems utterly absurd to you that someone can like chocolate ice cream. The absurdity immediately evaporates when we realize that we don't all share the same taste of ice cream.

The person might not be fully convinced that everyone who says they like chocolate ice cream genuinely like it. In which case, talking about how it's absurd that anyone would like chocolate ice cream is an attempt to get people to realize their own repressed negative feelings towards chocolate ice cream.

[Divine Insight]

But, that's the whole point, isn't it? Subjective moral judgment is an oxymoron. Why judge each other, if we acknowledge that my morality is just essentially different from yours? It does not seem to make any sense.

Why judge anyone anyway?

Since when is morality about judging other people?

I judge no one. I don't need to judge others in order to have my own standard of morality. I live in a world full of wild animals. If a wild animal is doing dangerous things and I need to protect myself or my family from that wild animal then I'll take the necessary actions to protect myself. But I don't need to "judge" the animal as being immoral.

People are just animals. They are great apes. Sure they and think and appear to have free will, but do they really? If I disapprove of the "morality" of someone else, I'm not saying that their morality is absolutely wrong in any objective sense. I'm simply saying that I disapprove of their actions. Therefore, to me, it is immoral.

That's all I need to do. I don't need to pass any judgement on them or anything.

When I say that the God of Hebrew mythology is "immoral" IMHO, all I'm saying is that I see no reason to believe that the mythology is true. Especially if they are going to claim that their mythological God represents "absolute morality". So I reject their mythology as being nothing more than man-made fables. I'm not even remotely passing any judgements on any actual Gods.

Having said that I will go further and suggest that if their mythological God were real then I would disagree with what it beliefs to be "objective morality". In fact, Instantc, that's actually a huge problem in theology. If there exists some "objective morality" that even God himself must measure up to, then God cannot be the source of this objective morality because he, himself, must conform to this objective morality that must exist even above him. On the other hand, if he's the one who decides what is moral then his morality is indeed subjective to his own whims and therefore I disagree with his subjective morality.

If someone makes illogical conclusions, I am going to notify them. But, if logic was essentially different for everybody, then there wouldn't be any point in complaining that your conclusion does not correspond to my logical faculties.

If you're going to complain about someone's logic then you better know logic inside and out. Logic is nothing more than a human convention. It does not exist objectively anymore than morality does. All logic amounts to is an agreed upon means of reasoning. Moreover, all logical reasoning must necessarily begin with unprovable axioms. Therefore all the logical reasoning based upon those unprovable axiom is just as unprovable as the axioms it's based upon.

Take mathematics for example and ask the question "Do parallel lines ever meet?" Is there a concrete absolute objective logical answer to this question? The answer is clearly no. And the reason there is no concrete objective answer is because we can arbitrarily choose different unprovable axioms upon which to base our geometry. In Euclidean geometry the answer is "No" parallel lines never meet, but in spherical geometry the answer is "Yes" all parallel lines eventually meet. There there is no absolute logical conclusion. The logical conclusion depends entirely on which premises a person chooses to believe in the first place.

Meaningful judgment presupposes that whatever is subject to judgment transcends our personal taste, at least to some extent.

Who cares about judgment? What does judgement have to do with morality? You are making a connection there that doesn't need to be made.

You and I are worlds apart on that one. I don't even consider any need to "judge" someone based upon morality. It's certainly not my place to judge them. And even if it was my place then my judgement itself would be subjective and not objective.

But if you demand that morality must be "judged" then I can see why you would need to imagine an absolute objective judge in order to have an objective morality. In fact, having an objective judge is what would make morality objective. This is probably why Otseng recognizes that without an objective God-judge there can be no such thing as objective morality. And I totally agree.

If you equate morality to judgement then you need to have an objective judge in order to have objective morality.

To say that something seems utterly absurd to you, implies that it is absurd on an objective level. Otherwise it would be akin to saying that it seems utterly absurd to you that someone can like chocolate ice cream. The absurdity immediately evaporates when we realize that we don't all share the same taste of ice cream.

Forget about ice cream. Stick with the actions of people. Just rephrase your statement as follows:

Otherwise it would be akin to saying that it seems utterly absurd to you that someone can like molesting a child. The absurdity immediately evaporates when we realize that we don't all share the same taste when it comes to molesting children.

How is this any different from people's subjective tastes concerning chocolate ice cream?

For me it seems utterly absurd (from my subjective view) that anyone would condone molesting a child, much less actually enjoy doing it.

And by the way, the Biblical God condoned the molestation of Children when ordering his faithful followers to commit genocide on heathen cultures, he instructed them to save the virgin little heathen girls and take them as slaves.

Do you agree with the Biblical God's views that it's ok to molest the children of heathens after you have brutally killed their parents?

[instantc]

Logic is different for everyone- at least in the sense that people work off of different axioms.

Are you saying that logic is fundamentally subjective in the sense that there doesn't exist any logical statement that can be said to be objectively true?

For example, some people refuse to entertain the idea that infinite regresses are possible. That's an axiom. Another axiom would be the assumed validity of induction (for the purpose of doing science). Axioms are something you "can't put in a test tube". What is universal (objective) about logic are the rules in which conclusions are built from axiomatic premises.

Just because there are disagreements about logical conclusions does not mean that logic is different for everyone. Is the law of non-contradiction not objectively true in your view?

Morality is the subset of logic that deals with value axioms. That means the rules for it workexactly the same as other logic.

I like this approach.

To say that something seems utterly absurd to you, implies that it is absurd on an objective level.

If there's a "to me" in there, the speaker is going out of his way precisely for the purpose of denying that implication.

I think you are confusing something here. To say that it seems to me that the earth is in fact round, does not mean that the earth's roundness is somehow my subjective opinion that varies from person to person. "It seems to me" simply indicates that this appears to me to in fact be the case. It's an indication of some level of uncertainty, not an indication of a subjective opinion.

The person might not be fully convinced that everyone who says they like chocolate ice cream genuinely like it. In which case, talking about how it's absurd that anyone would like chocolate ice cream is an attempt to get people to realize their own repressed negative feelings towards chocolate ice cream.

That does not make it absurd for someone to dislike chocolate ice cream.