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]

[Replying to post 328 by otseng]

Could you justify the belief that Thor does not exist?
I'm not talking about that old fashioned belief that only kids thought about Thor, i.e. that he was a physical man with a literal hammer who would fight a literal ouroboros known as Jormangundr at the end of the world.
I'm talking about what the writers really meant, a non-physical spiritual agent whose hammer represented justice and fought evil (represented by Jormangundr, hence the use of a snake).

... see my point?

Exactly.

It's the same sort of religious mythology of a God who is all powerful. Knows what you are thinking. Will see that justice is administered in the end, and can easily be angered if you don't behave yourself. Let's not take it so literally!

Let's give it the same fair abstract non-literal leeway we give Yahweh and Santa Claus.

He knows when you are sleeping.
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
so be good for goodness sake!

All these religions aren't all that different from Santa Claus.

In fact, we can make up the same excuses for Santa Claus as we make up for Yahweh.

He's invisible and only reveals himself to those select few that he chooses to.

He only delivers gifts to the few righteous children who truly deserve them. If Santa Claus never visited your house it's probably because you either don't believe in him, or you have done bad things and don't deserve any gifts.

All these religions are just Santa Claus fairytales. None of them have a leg up on Santa Claus.

[Divine Insight]

Fine. Just answer the question:

"Why should the unexplained speculation that the universe was created by a creator be accepted as the 'best explanation' for the universe?"

I'll await your reply.

In my last post I urged you to back up your posts with quotes, instead of making up claims and attributing them to me. I will not continue this conversation, until you show me a quote where I have claimed that a creator should be accepted as the best explanation for the universe. Can you do that?

I never said that you made this claim. But you did propose the hypothetical claim:

It appears that our conversation started clear back on page 21 with your post #208 in this thread: I copy and pasted it below highlighting in red your claim:

Edited, to reconsider.

It does appear that you are suggesting that you do not hold that a conscious designer would not need a designer itself. But in that case, then you have an infinite regression that hasn't gotten you anywhere at all.

It is true that 'everything has a creator' would imply an infinite regression of explanations. However, 'the universe has a creator' does not, as far as I can see, imply such a regression. It simply implies that the universe has a creator, and whether or not that creator has a creator is another issue completely. It is a fundamental principle in philosophy of science that we don't need to consider the explanation of an explanation in order to recognize it as the best explanation for something. Therefore, if a personal creator is the best explanation for the universe, it is wholly irrelevant whether or not we have an explanation for that explanation.

This is a hypothetical offered by you. You offered this up.

My question to you is what would make this claim the "Best Explanation".

I don't personally care whether you hold this claim to be true or not. That's totally irrelevant. You introduced it as a hypothetical.

I suggested that this claim doesn't not offer an explanation for anything. So then I ask how could it be the "Best Explanation"?

I also suggested that the "explanation" most often given for this claim is that the universe appears to be intelligently designed. Then I showed how this explanation fails to be the best explanation, because if the universe needs a designer because it appears to be intelligently designed, then a creator who would need to be far more intelligent than the universe would surely need to have a designer even more so.

You flatly refused my objection. I basically asked "Who created the creator then?" And you objected to my question proclaiming that it's irrelevant which I say is utter nonsense. If this claim is said to be the "Best Explanation" then it had better be an explanation to begin with. Only then can we judge that explanation to decide whether or not it's better than some other explanation.

But you flatly refused to even acknowledge that it needs to be an explanation at all. Period.

You tried to evade the very reason that this claim is typically proposed.

I'm still asking you what the "reasoning" is behind this claim. I don't care whether you personally hold this claim to be true or not. That's irrelevant. You were arguing that my objection and question "Who then created the creator?" was irrelevant and misplaced.

I say baloney.

If the "explanation" being offered is that the universe appears to be too intelligently designed to have a creator, then proposing that it had a creator who is infinitely more intelligently designed than the universe, then it's automatically follows that this creator must have also had an intelligent designer for the same reasoning.

You rejected that. And you even rejected that there has to be a reason at all associated with this claim.

I say that's nonsense. You can't call it the "Best Explanation" and then turn around and claim that it offers no explanation at all.

If it is supposed to be an explanation it needs to at least be an explanation itself.

So what is the explanation for why their needs to be a creator?

Tell me that FIRST, only then can I evaluate whether or not is amounts to a "Best Explanation".

So I don't care whether you personally support this claim or not. If you can't even offer what it is that it is supposed to be explaining then you can't back this up even as a hypothetical that you aren't personally aren't interested in supporting.

I never said that this was your personal view or claim. You were the one who decided to argue for this claim. If you don't see any reason to believe it, then why did you even bring it up.

Also why are you arguing that it's the "Best Explanation" if you don't even support it? Why would you not support something that you are arguing amounts to the "Best Explanation" of something?

I don't know why you bought this whole thing up if you don't even support it yourself.

But is someone says to me that a creator is the "Best Explanation" for the existence of a universe I expect them to offer reasons for why they believe this to be the case. And if they give the standard reason that most often accompanies this claim, they my very next question is indeed going to be, "Then who created this highly intelligent creator?"

Because that is the very REASON they are claiming that this explanation holds: The universe is supposedly too intelligently designed it must have had an intelligent creator.

Well, duh?

If this creator is so intelligently designed himself, then who created him?

That's a totally fair question. And the reasoning behind this claim demands that it be asked, and answered.

Yet you are trying to claim that it's an irrelevant question and that the creator does not need to be "explained" even though the very reason being proposed to explain the universe would clearly apply to this intelligent creator as well.

It's an empty circular argument that doesn't explain anything.

And whether you personally hold it to be true, or whether you just proposed it as a hypothetical for argument sake you are still responsible for your claims associated with it.

[instantc]

Fine. Just answer the question:

"Why should the unexplained speculation that the universe was created by a creator be accepted as the 'best explanation' for the universe?"

I'll await your reply.

In my last post I urged you to back up your posts with quotes, instead of making up claims and attributing them to me. I will not continue this conversation, until you show me a quote where I have claimed that a creator should be accepted as the best explanation for the universe. Can you do that?

I never said that you made this claim.

This is rich DI, considering that in the very last post you wrote to me you said the following.

Your argument that a "Creator" represents the "Best Explanation" for the universe is simply a bogus argument.

As far as I can see, you make up claims, falsely put words in my mouth and then in the next post deny having done any of that. That is a very dishonest way of debating, isn't it?

[Divine Insight]

Fine. Just answer the question:

"Why should the unexplained speculation that the universe was created by a creator be accepted as the 'best explanation' for the universe?"

I'll await your reply.

In my last post I urged you to back up your posts with quotes, instead of making up claims and attributing them to me. I will not continue this conversation, until you show me a quote where I have claimed that a creator should be accepted as the best explanation for the universe. Can you do that?

I never said that you made this claim.

This is rich DI, considering that in the very last post you wrote to me you said the following.

Your argument that a "Creator" represents the "Best Explanation" for the universe is simply a bogus argument.

As far as I can see, you make up claims, falsely put words in my mouth and then in the next post deny having done any of that. That is a very dishonest way of debating, isn't it?

That is precisely what you were arguing for whether you accept this claim or not. You were clearly arguing for it as a hypothetical. I never claimed that this was your personal position. That's up to you to make that claim.

Obviously you recognize that my objections to this claim are valid and now you're trying to distance yourself from it. I don't care about that.

All I am arguing is that, if anyone at all, makes the claim that a "creator" is the best argument for the existence of a universe, they need to back that up with reasons. And when they give their reasons I'm prepared to challenge them.

I'm not saying anything about you personally. I'm talking purely about the logic of these claims. I don't care who makes them.

You made the claim that my return question, "Who created the creator then?" was an irrelevant question, and I think I've made a rock solid case that this is indeed the very next question that would make sense to ask. It's not irrelevant at all, as you had claimed.

[Artie]

You're sort of correct. Yes, we don't know the exact nature of the creator. It could be whatever deity. But, nobody is really offering an alien as a possible explanation.

Why would your "creator" have to be a deity? Would all hyper-intelligent trans-dimensional aliens be deities in your eyes?

The absence of knowing something and postulating a supernatural cause, is just as wise as man creating Poseidon to blame for tidal waves.

True, if there was an acceptable naturalistic explanation. We have naturalistic explanations for tidal waves, so there's no need for Poseidon. In the case of the origin of the universe, we have no acceptable naturalistic explanations.

We have a lot of different theories and if one of them is shown to be correct we will have no need for your god either. What will you do then?

[instantc]

That is precisely what you were arguing for whether you accept this claim or not. You were clearly arguing for it as a hypothetical. I never claimed that this was your personal position. That's up to you to make that claim.

Obviously you recognize that my objections to this claim are valid and now you're trying to distance yourself from it. I don't care about that.

All I am arguing is that, if anyone at all, makes the claim that a "creator" is the best argument for the existence of a universe, they need to back that up with reasons.

So let me get this right, I said that hypothetically, if someone provided good reasons to believe that a creator is the best explanation for the universe, then X would follow. You challange this by saying that nobody has provided such reasons? That DI, in effect, amounts to an acceptance of my argument. If that is the only thing you are saying now, then there is no disagreement here. I readily accept that no such reasons have been provided in this thread.

[KenRU]

[Replying to otseng]

Or the wishful thinking is that there could be no supernatural cause.
These are equal in believability based upon what?

You're sort of correct. Yes, we don't know the exact nature of the creator. It could be whatever deity. But, nobody is really offering an alien as a possible explanation.
I thought Scientology did?

True, if there was an acceptable naturalistic explanation. We have naturalistic explanations for tidal waves, so there's no need for Poseidon. In the case of the origin of the universe, we have no acceptable naturalistic explanations. I'll even go further. If the God hypothesis is correct, I will make the prediction that there will never be an acceptable scientific explanation for the origin of the universe.
So the absence of a natural explanation justifies a supernatural explanation?

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 328 by otseng]

Yes, Thor and Yahweh are considered gods. But, I already demonstrated that they do not share the same properties. So, just because they are gods, does not automatically mean that both do not exist.
And how do we know these properties? From man. So, again: the god with the more creative and powerful history is more believable/credible? Or are you arguing that the holy books are proof of god's existence?

"Or are you arguing that all that matters is which ever one has a more creative origin story? Or all that matters is which story provides said deity with more powers?"
Neither.
Then how do you justify that properties matter?

Creativity has no bearing on truth.
I'm glad we agree on this. Please explain how the properties of the gods matter then.

[Divine Insight]

So let me get this right, I said that hypothetically, if someone provided good reasons to believe that a creator is the best explanation for the universe, then X would follow. You challange this by saying that nobody has provided such reasons? That DI, in effect, amounts to an acceptance of my argument. If that is the only thing you are saying now, then there is no disagreement here. I readily accept that no such reasons have been provided in this thread.

I did not challenge this by saying that nobody has provided such reasons.

I challenged this by stating that the reasons typically given for such an argument is that the universe appears to be intelligently designed therefore they conclude that it must have had an intelligent designer, and I challenge THAT reasoning.

You then argued that my challenge to that particular reasoning was irrelevant which was absolute nonsense.

You then tried to distance yourself from that reasoning. I say, fine. But if you want to distance yourself from that reasoning then you must providing alternative reasoning which you have failed to do.

~~~~~

In short, where is there any value in your hypothetical?

Your hypothetical proclaims that someone has "good Reasons" for something but then you flatly refuse to address the very concept of what constitutes "good reasons"

My rebuttal argument to your absurd hypothetical is simply the following:

Anyone claiming to have "Best Reasons" for something had better have some reasoning to offer. If they refuse to address their reasoning then they can hardly claim to have the "Best Reasons" for anything.

It's that simple.

[instantc]

So let me get this right, I said that hypothetically, if someone provided good reasons to believe that a creator is the best explanation for the universe, then X would follow. You challange this by saying that nobody has provided such reasons? That DI, in effect, amounts to an acceptance of my argument. If that is the only thing you are saying now, then there is no disagreement here. I readily accept that no such reasons have been provided in this thread.

I did not challenge this by saying that nobody has provided such reasons.

I challenged this by stating that the reasons typically given for such an argument is that the universe appears to be intelligently designed therefore they conclude that it must have had an intelligent designer, and I challenge THAT reasoning.

You then argued that my challenge to that particular reasoning was irrelevant which was absolute nonsense.

Yes, because you "challenged" it by asking "who created God?". The answer to that question has no bearing on the above creationist reasoning.