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]

....a self-existent universe is less believable and more fantastic than a self-existent creator.

I echo KenRU's question. What is your basis and reasoning for this opinion?

We know the universe exists.
We do not know a 'self-existent creator' exists.

Agreed, except in the context of this discussion your first statement should read "We know a self-existent universe exists" – in which case your argument would immediately collapse.

I don't understand your logic for this conclusion. If by 'self existent' you mean a universe that always was, I don't see any problem. Don't you make this same statement, but call it 'God?'

That's really the core of the problem with all of these efforts to explain the existence of God by pure logic. In one way or another these attempts come down to the circular "Everything has a cause except God and God needs no cause, he has always been." This is just label switching, only worse, because inherent in this claim is that this God has additional qualities which require additional assumptions.

The same statement, but without the label switch:
""Everything has a cause except the universe and it needs no cause; it has always been." The advantage of this definition is parsimony; it does not require additional qualifications, definitions, proofs and assumptions based on nothing but speculation and wishful thinking.
Essentially this failed attempt is nothing more than "Proof of God by definition."

[Danmark]

A few points here:

1. God's being more complex than natural laws does not follow from his being less than completely defined or understood. (Besides, if the history of science teaches us anything, it's that we don't understand natural laws nearly as well as we think we do.)

2. Even given the premise of God's greater complexity, there is no reason to think that a more complex entity is less likely to exist than a simpler entity. Right now I'm looking at my computer and thinking about a solid gold sphere, five feet in diameter, which sits in my garage. I just checked, and sure enough, the far more complex computer exists while the far simpler solid gold sphere does not. Remember, the principle of parsimony is to not multiply entities beyond necessity. The existence of a contingent universe needs an explanation beyond itself, especially for those who demand scientific rather than metaphysical explanations.

3. As long as we're discussing definitions: I mentioned that "under no definition of naturalism is the natural universe itself sentient." If you agree, then the burden of proof for your side of this debate is to show just how a non-sentient universe managed to bring forth sentience – let alone intelligence, moral awareness, etc.

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.

1. The alleged 'God' is not allegedly 'more complex;' the problem is that 'he' is an unobserved assumption requiring additional unobserved and speculative assumptions re: 'his' qualities.

2. See answer to #1.

3. It is agreed that there is no evidence the universe is sentient. If it were, I might have to concede it meets the definition of an orthodox god of theism.

4. Is an example the propaganda tool, the testimonial and the ad populum fallacy.
What's more, Swinburne's argument is both unclear and disputed.

At the outset Swinburne expressed dissatisfaction with traditional deductive arguments to the existence of God because their premises themselves were in dispute. He had written:

Since the premisses are not common items of knowledge to those who argue about religion, they do not form a suitable jumping-off ground for such argument. What are clearly of interest to people in an age of religious skepticism are arguments to the existence (or nonexistence) of God in which the premises are known to be true by people of all theistic or atheistic persuasions. (p. 6) [italics mine]

Swinburne's very definitions of good C-inductive and P-inductive arguments rest on this condition. The promise seems to be that the argument to follow will be based on such indisputable premises. But Swinburne fails in this promise with respect to a number of major premises, as well as many minor ones.

http://infidels.org/library/modern/gabe ... burne.html

Wikipedia has a summary that is more succinct:
"While Swinburne presents many arguments to advance the belief that God exists, he argues that God is a being whose existence is not logically necessary (see modal logic), but metaphysically necessary in a way he defines in his The Christian God. "

[instantc]

....a self-existent universe is less believable and more fantastic than a self-existent creator.

I echo KenRU's question. What is your basis and reasoning for this opinion?

We know the universe exists.
We do not know a 'self-existent creator' exists.

Agreed, except in the context of this discussion your first statement should read "We know a self-existent universe exists" – in which case your argument would immediately collapse.

I don't understand your logic for this conclusion. If by 'self existent' you mean a universe that always was, I don't see any problem. Don't you make this same statement, but call it 'God?'

That's really the core of the problem with all of these efforts to explain the existence of God by pure logic. In one way or another these attempts come down to the circular "Everything has a cause except God and God needs no cause, he has always been." This is just label switching, only worse, because inherent in this claim is that this God has additional qualities which require additional assumptions.

The same statement, but without the label switch:
""Everything has a cause except the universe and it needs no cause; it has always been." The advantage of this definition is parsimony; it does not require additional qualifications, definitions, proofs and assumptions based on nothing but speculation and wishful thinking.
Essentially this failed attempt is nothing more than "Proof of God by definition."

The idea that the universe cannot be eternal, but God can, rests on a group of philosophical Hilbert's Hotel -type of arguments.

[Fundagelico]

Gravity and God are nowhere near the same.

Gravity began as an observation of behavior. The name "Gravity" actually labels that observed behavior.

That's news to me. I always thought gravity was the theoretical label for what caused and explained the behavior. Talk about nowhere near the same...

In what way would propositions that a "God" exists be even remotely similar?

What "observations" are you calling "God"? And why did you choose that label. What do you mean by "God" beyond the observations that you are calling "God"?

You need to be very specific here.

No, I really don't, because I never suggested that God (or gravity, for that matter) is directly observable. I understand gravity to be a hypothesis to explain observations. And in that respect if no other, God and gravity are analogous.

Gravity began as a label for the simple observation that most things fall to the earth and are heavy to pick up. In fact, some things actually floated up into the air and were originally believed to be example from gravity and having some other property. We now know that nothing is exempt from gravity and things that rise do so for other reasons, such as being lighter than the atmosphere.

When Isaac Newton came along he discovered a very rigorous mathematical description of "Gravity" (a description of an observation). And he even went much further and recognized that his same behavior is observed to be the mechanism that drives the paths of the planets. He also showed by his mathematical relationships that gravity is a property of mass. So he's beginning to take it beyond a mere observation of motion and recognizing that it has something to do with mass.

Albert Einstein then came along and blew our understanding of gravity through the roof. He explained how mass creates gravity by warping a field of "spacetime". And once again he showed very rigorous mathematical equations that describe this relationship. You can even say that he took it beyond the mere descriptive to the prescriptive indeed.

Look, this is all very interesting and informative and pedantic, but mostly a red herring. If gravity is nothing but an observation, there would be no way for Newton to enhance our understanding of it, nor for Einstein's understanding of it to blow Newton's through the roof. With observations, what you see is quite literally what you get. This is why I say gravity is a theory, not an observation. It's an explanation for why massive objects behave the way they do. And if history has anything to say about it, our current understanding will very likely change drastically in the future.

By the way, we actually do know what caused gravity to begin its operation in the universe. Einstein's General Relativity tells us exactly what causes gravity to operate.

Ahh, so now at last we know for certain, is that it? All the brilliant scientists from previous generations thought they had it figured out, and they sounded about as confident as you... but they were just ignorant, right?

Uh-huh.

[Deidre32]

There is no objective proof that god/gods exist. Atheists don't need to prove that something isn't there, that a deity doesn't exist. Having said that, NO ONE knows if a god or gods exist. All religions are just guessing...competing with one another as to who is right.

[Fundagelico]

1. The alleged 'God' is not allegedly 'more complex;' the problem is that 'he' is an unobserved assumption requiring additional unobserved and speculative assumptions re: 'his' qualities.

I suppose there is some truth to this. For most proposed explanations, it seems the explanandum is observable while the explanans is not. So we witness various phenomena (like massive bodies behaving in mathematically precise and predictable ways, or the diversity of life on earth, or the temporality and contingency of the universe) and devise theories (gravity, evolution, God) to explain them. No one to my knowledge has seen a graviton or a universal common ancestor, just as no one this side of death has seen God.

3. It is agreed that there is no evidence the universe is sentient. If it were, I might have to concede it meets the definition of an orthodox god of theism.

More like "...the definition of pantheism." Meanwhile, you and I are sentient even if the universe is not. Given that there is no evidence that the universe is sentient, and given that the universe is all that exists, how would you explain sentience?

4. Is an example the propaganda tool, the testimonial and the ad populum fallacy.
What's more, Swinburne's argument is both unclear and disputed.

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!)

So, to build an effective argument based on the principle of parsimony, you have to first demonstrate that theism is truly more complicated than naturalism. This is not a simple matter of "adding" God to whatever naturalistic theory you may have in mind. Theism has no need to postulate an infinitely (or near-infinitely) complicated "multiverse," for one example, to diminish the probability that the universe was fine-tuned by an intelligent agent. To the contrary, an actual infinity of universes would be (arguably at least) much more complicated than a single creator with infinite but mostly reserved power. Nor, evidently, is your favorite theory of abiogenesis any less complicated than the theory that God directly created life on earth. Etc.

At the outset Swinburne expressed dissatisfaction with traditional deductive arguments to the existence of God because their premises themselves were in dispute. He had written:

Since the premisses are not common items of knowledge to those who argue about religion, they do not form a suitable jumping-off ground for such argument. What are clearly of interest to people in an age of religious skepticism are arguments to the existence (or nonexistence) of God in which the premises are known to be true by people of all theistic or atheistic persuasions. (p. 6) [italics mine]

Swinburne's very definitions of good C-inductive and P-inductive arguments rest on this condition. The promise seems to be that the argument to follow will be based on such indisputable premises. But Swinburne fails in this promise with respect to a number of major premises, as well as many minor ones.

http://infidels.org/library/modern/gabe ... burne.html

Wikipedia has a summary that is more succinct:
"While Swinburne presents many arguments to advance the belief that God exists, he argues that God is a being whose existence is not logically necessary (see modal logic), but metaphysically necessary in a way he defines in his The Christian God. "

I don't get the point of all this. If you honestly think appealing to Swinburne is a fallacy, why bother to answer it by appealing to... Gabe Czobel??

[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.

[Divine Insight]

Look, this is all very interesting and informative and pedantic, but mostly a red herring. If gravity is nothing but an observation, there would be no way for Newton to enhance our understanding of it, nor for Einstein's understanding of it to blow Newton's through the roof. With observations, what you see is quite literally what you get. This is why I say gravity is a theory, not an observation. It's an explanation for why massive objects behave the way they do. And if history has anything to say about it, our current understanding will very likely change drastically in the future.

Gravity has never been anything other than an observation of a particular way in which our universe behaves. That's all it has ever been. Our understanding of why the universe behaves in the way we call "gravity" has certainly become deeper over the years.

And as far as our current understanding of gravity changing drastically in the future, that is highly unlikely. Our understanding may indeed become deeper as we learn even more, but it will never change "drastically" because gravity has never been anything more than an observation of a particularity property of behavior that our universe exhibits. And that isn't likely to change unless the universe itself starts behaving dramatically different.

Clearly, your "understanding" of science is not based upon science, but instead it must necessarily be some sort of metaphysical philosophical view. If you are thinking of "gravity" as being some sort of thing that is something other than a behavioral property of our universe, then you aren't thinking of gravity scientifically.

You are trying to make a "ghost" out of gravity. It's no wonder that you then view it as being no different from a "god".

Gravity is not an entity. It's simply a particular behavior of the universe. That's all it is, and that's all it has ever been treated as in modern science. Although it may be true that in antiquity science and metaphysics weren't so clearly distinct.

In ancient times Aristotle spoke in terms of a "Prime Mover". Today we see this as simply being inertia. Gravity too, at some point may have been seen as an action of gods, but now it is recognized to simply be a property of the universe.

If you think gravity is anything more than this, then you are actually making a "God" out of "gravity. So it's no wonder that you see no difference between these two concepts.

~~~~

By the way if you are claiming that God is analogous with Gravity then you are necessarily claiming that God is nothing other than a property of the universe.

That wouldn't be much of a God.

[Deidre32]

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?

[Danmark]

1. The alleged 'God' is not allegedly 'more complex;' the problem is that 'he' is an unobserved assumption requiring additional unobserved and speculative assumptions re: 'his' qualities.

I suppose there is some truth to this. For most proposed explanations, it seems the explanandum is observable while the explanans is not. So we witness various phenomena (like massive bodies behaving in mathematically precise and predictable ways, or the diversity of life on earth, or the temporality and contingency of the universe) and devise theories (gravity, evolution, God) to explain them. No one to my knowledge has seen a graviton or a universal common ancestor, just as no one this side of death has seen God.

3. It is agreed that there is no evidence the universe is sentient. If it were, I might have to concede it meets the definition of an orthodox god of theism.

More like "...the definition of pantheism." Meanwhile, you and I are sentient even if the universe is not. Given that there is no evidence that the universe is sentient, and given that the universe is all that exists, how would you explain sentience?

Re: 1, We observe the effects of gravity. We observe the effects and products of evolution. We observe the results of aging on the human body, even tho' we do not 'see' the 'agitron.'

We do not observe anything that requires the postulation of a god.

Re: 3, We observe sentience. We do not need to 'explain' it, tho' that is not a difficult task.
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. 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.