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]

Without religion, are there really any immoral people? Don't atheists complain about religionists claiming that others are immoral? Without religionists to claim that people are immoral, can people still be immoral without religionists saying that they are immoral?

I don't see this as a difficult problem. We've evolved as a species that has survived because of its social quality; that is, cooperation for productivity and ultimately survival. We even see this in other social animals.

There is no need to invoke God or religion to recognize that certain behaviors that may give advantage to an individual are destructive to the larger society. Theft, lying, assault, rape, murder, anything that ruptures or threatens the rearing of young; all of these things disrupt society, threaten its stability and render it vulnerable to outside forces of nature including competing tribes.

Religion is only necessary to promote very specific religion oriented 'morals' that are not universal but directly related to the specific idiosyncracies of each religion. Examples of these are found in the Levitical laws that are not much followed today; rules about food preparation, fabrics, fields, raising cattle, discrimination against women and homosexuals.

Religion also promotes fundamental values that are universal; values that prevent dysfunction in society. Societies' laws develop in conjunction with religion, independently of religion and even despite religious concerns.

[Artie]

Here's another example. What gives me rights over my children? Force? No. It's that I was part of procreating them. I don't have any rights over any other children because I did not procreate them. What if I demonstrate force over other children? Will that give me rights over them? No.

Evolution and natural selection automatically selected for behaviours that encouraged well-being and survival and made us a social species. We call behaviours encouraging well-being and survival right and good and moral. So you have the right to behave in such a manner that your children are most likely to survive and produce more children. If you don't do that, they might be taken from you. You also have the right to adopt or run an orphanage and take care of other children if you increase their well-being and chances of surviving and procreating. Those rights are based on instincts like the survival instinct which evolution and natural selection evolved.

[Artie]

It's not really my burden in this thread to argue for God. This whole topic came up because of the atheists' assertion that there is zero evidence for God.

1. Atheists in general don't assert that there is zero evidence for God they just don't believe in gods.

Here are some examples of atheists in this thread that believe there is zero evidence for God:

So, are you claiming there is zero evidence that has been presented by theists for the existence of God?

I believe that, yes.

Then I still maintain, “There is no evidence that a god or gods exist.�

You seem to be very confused about the various distinctions.

An atheist is a person who says he doesn't believe in gods.
An agnostic is a person who says he doesn't have enough knowledge to say whether gods exist or not. He says nothing about what he believes.
An agnostic atheist is a person who says that he doesn't have enough knowledge to say whether gods exist or not and he also doesn't believe in gods.
Based on your quotes alone these people would just be rationalists. Rationalists believe in logic, reason, common sense and evidence.

If KenRU had said "There is no evidence that a god or gods exist, I don't have enough knowledge either way so I can't say if gods exist or not but I don't believe they do" he would be saying that he was a rationalist and an agnostic atheist.

[Artie]

But, I do not really think it avoids the issue of what caused the universe, whether it is a block or not.

There was no cause of the universe. The universe isn't an event or effect of anything. The universe contains zero energy. You can't cause or produce zero energy.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 826 by otseng]

The whole point is that causality is resultant from the second law of thermodynamics.

Literally, the only reason we perceive causality is because entropy at the big bang is much lower. And the block Universe would have an entropy gradient, not just a piecewise or a dirac delta-style entropy/time.
(If there is a mirror Universe in the past beyond the big bang; it would have entropy in reverse, and reversed causality. Potentially could also explain baryonic asymmetry.)

Causality is a human concept that does not necessarily apply, it is descriptive and not prescriptive.

Even if you wanted to take it as 'metaphysical' fact from nothing more than intuition; you would also need to take cause THEN effect as fact on the same grounds. Hence, the beginning of time CANNOT be caused, as the beginning of time cannot be preceded.


And on the note of morality, it has nothing to do with a god at all.
Firstly you're assuming that God can explain or be a basis for an objective morality. Please give your own precise definition of objective morality, and explain why a God has anything to do with the matter at all.

Secondly, even if you couldn't have objective morality, so what?

And lastly, there are better objective moral systems than a theistic one. For instance - assuming God explains or is a basis for morality, why would any amount of superhuman power be necessary for the existence of objective morality?

[Artie]

Without religion, are there really any immoral people?

Yes, without religion we would still be following the Golden Rule because we evolved to live in social groups and the behaviour the Golden Rule describes was naturally selected for because it enhanced chances of survival. We all have a survival instinct so we want to survive. We would still call people who didn't follow the Golden Rule and other moral codes immoral regardless of the existence of religions. Religions just provide more incentive for people to follow the moral codes.

Of course your rules aren't objective. The definition of objective is "the state or quality of being true even outside of a subject's individual biases, interpretations, feelings, and imaginings. A proposition is generally considered objectively true (to have objective truth) when its truth conditions are met and are "bias-free"; that is, existing without biases caused by, feelings, ideas, etc. of a sentient subject."

Actually the rules are bias-free. The rules has no feelings, no ideas, and is not sentient. From the viewpoint of the posters on this forum, the rules are always true no matter what the circumstance or what people think they should be.

Of course not. You made them so they are per definition subjective. Now, if they had been produced by an automatic process such as evolution that has no feelings or ideas etc and is not a sentient subject they would be "objectively" true.

[Artie]

I'm just applying what is objective to human morality. If human morality is "true even outside of a subject's individual biases, interpretations, feelings, and imaginings", then what can account for it?

Evolution.

Yes, I claim it comes from God. You might then ask where does God's morality come from?

The moral codes evolved as a result of living together in groups, as we grew bigger brains and got more intelligent we understood that certain behaviours enhanced our chances of survival so we formulated them in words in for example the Golden Rule and created justice systems and religions to encourage people to follow these codes. God's morality came from evolution via us.

[Artie]

Murder leads to non-survival (death) so we call murder immoral.

Murder does not lead to the death of the murderer, just the victims. So, the murderer survives through natural selection. So, evolution favors the murderers. Why would then murder be immoral and not moral from an evolutionary point of view?

It leads to the direct death of one person. It also has a negative influence on the society as a whole, it creates fear among others since they might be the next victim and therefore reduces the stability and survivability of the whole society. Because of this others might even take matters into their own hands to avoid becoming the next victim and might detain or even kill the first murderer. Thus in a social context among people with a survival instinct murder automatically becomes immoral.

[Artie]

Then the principle of causality is not important?

"Causality (also referred to as causation[1]) is the relation between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is understood as a physical consequence of the first." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality In the Block Universe causality is important but the Block Universe itself isn't an event or effect.

As I mentioned earlier, this sounds like special pleading to me. Things inside the universe obey the principle of causality, but the universe itself does not.

You are doing the special pleading. Special pleading "involves someone attempting to cite something as an exception to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exception." Wikipedia. Cause and effect require time. Time exists as far as we know only within the universe. This is the "generally accepted rule, principle, etc." Can you justify time existed "before" or "outside" the universe?

[otseng]

I don't see this as a difficult problem. We've evolved as a species that has survived because of its social quality; that is, cooperation for productivity and ultimately survival. We even see this in other social animals.

Are you implying that other social animals have a moral system? Is there any morality involved when one animal kills another? Is morality involved when animals do not cooperate? Do animals even have a concept of good or evil?

BTW, contrary to what Divine Insight claims, I never said that atheists have no moral system.