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.

[otseng]

Then what was god's origin?

God had no origin. The Biblical concept of God is that He is eternal.

[otseng]

[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.

[Divine Insight]

Are you saying gravity is antimatter?

It's not antimatter, but it may have actually come from the energy of antimatter.

Gravity would be a form of negative energy in a sense. But only with respect to the universe as a whole. It wouldn't be the same thing as the type of "negative" energy that science talk about to create wormholes. In fact, that's really a form of "negative pressure" in a sense but that's a whole other issue.

"Recent measurements (c. 2001) by a number of ground-based and balloon-based experiments, including MAT/TOCO, Boomerang, Maxima, and DASI, have shown that the brightest spots are about 1 degree across. Thus the universe was known to be flat to within about 15% accuracy prior to the WMAP results. WMAP has confirmed this result with very high accuracy and precision. We now know (as of 2013) that the universe is flat with only a 0.4% margin of error."
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html

Yes, but you're talking about the large scale universe there. That wouldn't' have anything to do with how gravity might play a roll in the creation of matter. If we want to discuss gravity as being a part of the creation process then we need to speak about gravity on a quantum scale. At this point we don't currently have a quantum theory of gravity, but we clearly can't dismiss it at these scales either. In fact, scientists are working very hard to come up with a quantum theory of gravity precisely because it can't be left out on these small scales.

For antimatter and matter, yes, I agree it's a two-way street. But, I believe what you are claiming is that the universe arose not of antimatter and matter, but gravity and matter.

Well, actually I have reasons to believe that both are true. In the beginning of the Big Bang we have reasons to believe that matter and antimatter were created in equal parts. The question then arises "Where did the antimatter go? Why didn't the whole universe just annihilate itself? Scientists don't have an answer for where antimatter went.

However, at that time there may not have been any such thing as "gravity". Gravity may have come into being at the same time that the antimatter disappeared. It's quite possible there there may be a link between the disappearance of antimatter and the appearance of gravity. In fact, this may have occurred at the end of inflation. The quantum fields that had previously been behaving as antimatter particles could have transformed to become the "Higgs field". Is so, then suddenly all the matter particles would become massive (when prior to this they weren't) and they gravitational fields they produce would also come into being.

In this way the energy of gravitational fields may very well be the same anti-energy that made up antimatter.

I'll grant that there is a lot of speculation here on my part, but it's all being speculated within the framework of known science and no additional magic is required.

So yes, it's quite possible that gravity is a remnant of the antimatter. In fact this would actually make sense mathematically since the matter/antimatter content of the universe would have had to have been in perfect balance. If the antimatter converted into gravity then gravity too would be in perfect balance with matter yielding a sum of "zero energy" when everything is accounted for.

It's almost too perfect of a hypothesis not to be true.

I should publish the idea.

[otseng]

OK, we can discuss this after the problem of evil and the problems of the Bible.

What problem of evil are you talking about?

Wiploc raised it in post 8:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 596#672596

Let's get this "Problem of Evil" out of the way right now since it seems to paramount to you.

It's not that it's paramount to me. But, it's widely recognized as the biggest challenge to Christianity. Since it's such a large issue, I'm going to save it for later.

[otseng]

The fact that the Universe began to exist doesn't mean that it had to begin somewhere or at some time or from something - there weren't any of those things.

Are you referring to Hawking's imaginary time?

If you imagine a film - it's of finite length. But does playing the first frame of the film coincide with the film reel beginning to exist?

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

[Divine Insight]

Let's get this "Problem of Evil" out of the way right now since it seems to paramount to you.

It's not that it's paramount to me. But, it's widely recognized as the biggest challenge to Christianity. Since it's such a large issue, I'm going to save it for later.

I agree that it is a huge problem for Christianity. Not one that can easily be dismissed by far.

But still, it's not a problem for secularists at all. So in terms of justifying a belief that gods do not exist, why should a secularist need to even address the "Problem of Evil" at all?

There is no problem of evil in a secular world.

That only becomes a problem when you postulate the existence of a God.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 265 by otseng]

I'm referring to any beginning of time hypothesis.

The analogy is probably best left for another time, here's another way of putting something similar:

Could a film exist eternally (without cause or origin)?
If so, could the frames of the film, when subjectively inspected, still be perceived as moments?
If so, could the perceived flow between frames, when subjectively inspected, be perceived as time passing?

If so, then we have our own little eternal Universe - that still had a beginning of time - but no cause or origin. (I'm not suggesting it's literally a film though)

[wiploc]

There are three possible explanations for the cause of something.
1. Natural law/process
2. Chance
3. Intentional design

If 1 and 2 are ruled out, then it’s logical that 3 is a solution.

Is that a rule, a natural law, that those are the three choices?

If you know of another explanation for the cause of something, I'd be curious to know it.

I don't claim to know anything about how things work in the chaos of a singularity. I'm glad that the rules turn out to be so simple and predictable.

Would that rule still work in a singularity, where the rules are suspended?

Well, we can then classify it as a miracle since we can never understand it, even in principle.

Anything we don't understand is magic? How convenient for the theists.

[wiploc]

Then what was god's origin?

God had no origin. The Biblical concept of God is that He is eternal.

But didn't you just say that the universe began a finite time ago? If time has only run for a finite time, how can a god be eternal?

[Divine Insight]

There are three possible explanations for the cause of something.
1. Natural law/process
2. Chance
3. Intentional design

If 1 and 2 are ruled out, then it’s logical that 3 is a solution.

I would agree with this. But I see no reason to rule out either 1 or 2. In fact, insofar as I can tell both of these have already been ruled-in in our current world by observation. So why should we be so quick to rule them out when considering how the world began?