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]

People once "explained" disease as possession by demons and droughts as punishment for disobeying gods. What was the value of those "explanations?"

Excellent point.

In fact, it wasn't a very good explanation even in its day. It failed miserably to explain why seemingly perfectly decent and devout people would fall prey to these "punishments".

So as an "explanation" it actually failed miserably.

Today's modern "explanation" of disease and natural disasters makes perfect sense why decent people can be inflicted by these things. And of course this explanation also resulted in producing cures and preventions that actually work. Clearly attempts to be "obedient" to the Gods was not working anyway. Decent people were being "punished" for no apparent reasons. It probably caused them to believe that something they had done unintentionally had ticked off the God. When in truth we know that neither disease nor natural disasters have anything at all to do with how people have morally conducted themselves.

You've illustrated a very great point here!

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 301 by Divine Insight]

Or maybe we are just being run in a computer simulation of the universe and disease and disasters are just the programmers inserting code to see how we react to a given circumstance to better understand the psychology of the world they live in?

[otseng]

With that in mind, I am content not to have an opinion on the subject of whether the universe began.

Yet you claim to know that it did.

Such a claim should be based on either your personal knowledge or a consensus of the experts.

How do you justify your claim?

How old do you believe is the universe?

[otseng]

Good. Then what evidence is there that gods do not exist?

Fine.

The evidence: the gods who would produce evidence if they existed do not in fact produce evidence.

The argument:
a) The gods who would produce evidence if they existed do not in fact produce evidence. Therefore they are reasonably believed not to exist.
b) The gods who would not produce evidence even if they did exist are also (because of occam's razor) reasonably believed not to exist.
Therefore, gods in general are reasonably believed not to exist.

I would take issue that this is actually evidence. I would also take issue that there is no evidence for the existence of God.

But, let's go with your reasoning. If I just produce one evidence for God, would it disprove your claim of justification for atheism?

[otseng]

The Christian has to explain why he has made the exception because claiming that one god exists is a positive claim.

Sure, I think Christians definitely do need to provide evidence and arguments for their beliefs.

The strong atheist needn't explain or justify anything.

This, I disagree with. If this is true, the whole point of this thread is moot.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 304 by otseng]

If we knew it was evidence for God, then obviously.
Otherwise, the issue is showing that it is.

(For instance, "the beauty of a sunset" is not in fact evidence of a god, despite the claims of many)

[otseng]

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

That, I've never heard of.

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.

It would then be purely conjecture at this point then to say gravity had a role to play at the moment of the origin of the universe.

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.

Yes, valid questions. Another question is why did it only happen once in the history of our universe?

In fact, this may have occurred at the end of inflation.

Well, speaking of inflation. I'm quite skeptical of that as well.

You mentioned earlier that "magic" is not an explanation. I see cosmic inflation theory as naturalistic magic. We don't know how to solve the horizon problem, so let's invent the inflationary theory. Do we actually know what caused the inflation to start or to stop? Do we know why it only occurred once?

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.

Depends on what you mean by magic. If no supernatural element is required, sure. But, if it eliminates hand-waving, I disagree.

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.

Yes, I see what you are saying. This would be an explanation why the first law of thermo would not be violated during the origin of the universe. However, the trick would be to demonstrate that anti-matter is equivalent to gravitational energy.

[otseng]

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.

Of course. I would even go further. In a secular world, there is no concept of objective evil.

[otseng]

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.

Convenient that naturalism fails to explain the origin of the universe and that theism can account for its origin? It certainly is.

[otseng]

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?

God is also transcendent. God is not bound by our universe, either in space or time.

Eternality of God does not mean of infinite time previous in our spacetime. Rather, God is outside of our time. So, from our perspective, God is eternal.