The belief in the non-existence in God isn’t based on logical proof, probability or plain old common sense – belief and disbelief in God are intuitive – because there just isn’t any logical proof, empirical evidence, or probable basis for asserting God doesn’t exist. Atheists who try argue that they require no evidence to support their disbelief, rely on the Latin maxim: ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non que negat, meaning (“the burden of proof rests on who asserts, not on who denies,”). But this just shows their ignorance: this is a legal maxim not a law of logic. The absence of proof isn’t proof of absence. In logic, the burden of proof always lies with whoever asserts the proposition, whether the proposition is positive or negative. Atheism rests on a proposition that cannot be logically proved, i.e. God doesn’t exist – so it’s just another faith-based belief system.
This is why atheist philosopher Antony Flew, (who has since rejected his atheist faith and is now a supporter of ID theory!) tried to redefine atheism to include agnosticism precisely to circumvent the irrationality of atheism. But his defintion was rejected by atheist and theist philosophers alike – atheism means the rejection of God/Gods – anything less just isn’t atheism.
There are numerous logical arguments for God existence, including Exodus 3:14: ego sum qui sum (I am who am) – a form of the ontological argument - but none of the arguments(ontological cosmological or argument by design) prove God’s existence. The best argument for God’s existence isn’t rational, it’s Pascal’s beautiful maxim: “The heart has its reasons which reason does not know” — which is also the only sensible argument for disbelief in God.
It is intellectually dishonest to pretend that atheism has any more logical, scientific or moral foundation than theism, both are faith-based belief systems, and anyone who would claim otherwise is either a fool or a fraud.
stefi
amica
rob
pietro amico
Mike
3 August, 2008 at 3:24 pm
This is ultimately illogical and hackneyed. Atheism does not “believe” in “non-God” in the same manner the theist “believes” in “God”.
And yes, the burden of proof lies with the claimant. But only the theist is making a claim. The atheist is merely refuting something which he did not bring to the table in the first place. That’s all atheism is. We do not pretend to be able to prove the non-existence of God.
I feel like you theists are willfully ignorant on these matters. I mean , how many times do we have to refute these same ideas about faith in science being on par with faith in God? It’s so weak.
steph
3 August, 2008 at 4:20 pm
@ Mike
Even though you’ve clearly never studied logic, you “feel” qualified to criticize my logic. Doesn’t that just prove the point about frauds and fools?
FYI, what I have said is logical, and contrary to what you might believe in your cult, atheism rests on the proposition that God does not exist, in just the same way that theism rest on the proposition that God exists. So you just show how profoundly ignorant you are when you say that the atheist isn’t making a claim: yes he most defintely is! It’s the agnostic who makes no claim whether God exists, not the atheist.
And as there is no scientific evidence for the non-existence of God and faith in God is more open to corrobative evidence than faith in the non-existence of God, science doesn’t support atheism.
Jack
3 August, 2008 at 4:54 pm
The reason you can’t appreciate that atheism is not a claim of special knowledge is that as a theist you presuppose the existence of a god.
Atheism is a conclusion reached by those of us unconvinced by the “evidence” presented by theists arguing for the existence of their gods. In other words, theists can offer no objective, credible or conclusive proof that their particular god exists. In light of that, atheists see no reason to agree with their beliefs.
Faith in a god is an illogical concept. What logic convinces you that out of all the possible gods mankind has invented throughout history your god is the “real” one? If there was a proper logical argument that established the presence of gods there would be no need for faith. If evidence existed that proved one god in particular existed faith would be unnecessary.
I disagree with your presupposition that gods exist and I disagree with your opinion as to what atheism represents. You haven’t presented any argument in support of the existence of gods that hasn’t been refuted before, nor do you present any reason to suppose that your god is any more likely to exist than any other.
steph
3 August, 2008 at 6:10 pm
@ Jack
No, I understand atheism very well: I’m very well read on the subject, have a doctorate in law, and I’m a senior lawyer, so I understand logic and rhetoric too.
If you reverse what you said it makes as much sense:
“I disagree with your presupposition that gods exist”
I didn’t forward that proposition. Re-read the post.
“and I disagree with your opinion as to what atheism represents.”
Then you’re redefining atheism into something that it’s not.
“You haven’t presented any argument in support of the existence of gods that hasn’t been refuted before”,
I haven’t presented any argument for God’s existence, I said that the logical proofs, of which there are many, are not proof of God’s existence.
“nor do you present any reason to suppose that your god is any more likely to exist than any other.”
Actually I did. It is the same argument your cult uses to suppose that God doesn’t exist: intuition and faith.
If you re-read the post, you’ll see I’m not arguing that your faith-based belief system is less credible than mine, what I am arguing is that there is no credibility in any atheist claiming that their faith based belief in the non-existence of God has any more logical or empirical validity than my faith- based belief that he does exist. And if you’re honest, you’d have to concede the point.
antireptilian
4 August, 2008 at 3:49 am
Quite simply,
Belief is a theism, whether you believe in God, Or you do not believe in God.
Perhaps Mike is a little confused. I think if he believes that the burden of proof lies with the claimant, then he has to prove that God does not exist. If that is the case, he is in exactly the same boat as the creationist. He has to prove a belief, which by definition, means a theism.
Jack is also a little confused. It seems as if he is one of the rabid Humanist types that, after a period of programming, repeat the lesson without thought, or listening. Try thinking for a change Jack.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 7:59 am
@ Antireptilian
Theism is the belief in God. Atheism is disbelief in the existence of God or gods. So you’re absolute right, the atheist is asserting the non-existence of God, and the burden on proof lies with him to prove that assertion because in logic the burden of proof always lies with the proposition.
There are plenty of atheists, who are honest and intelligent enough to admit that atheism is founded on faith, and they are content with that — that’s why they chose to be atheists and not agnostics – but it is the wiki-educated atheist cultists, who are every bit as dogmatic and anti-intellectual as 7-day creationists, who can’t accept that their “truth” is not supported by reason or science and that their faith-based belief is no more valid than the faith-based belief of a theist.
olifreke
4 August, 2008 at 8:02 am
The use of a loaded words like ‘faith’ and ‘belief system’ reveals an agenda, and a desire to agitate.
Another way of writing your headline would be:
“Atheists have faith that there’s no God”
Unfortunately for you, the word ‘faith’ has religious connotations, espcially when discussing God, so the concepts contained in the words in your headline conflict and are therefore meaningless.
Likewise you’ve tellingly used the words ‘belief system’ to describe atheism. Atheism is simply not a belief system. A belief system requires, amongst other things: a god to believe in, a set of proscribed rituals, an postiion of influence within the society it finds itself in (especially in regards morality), a ranking system of power and authority (a ‘Pope’ at top), a dogmatic set of supernatural beliefs that defy natural law, etc, etc…
Athesim has virtually none of those things and just can’t be defined as ‘belief system’, no matter how mmany times (you) religious nuts repeat it.
So, for all your wide-eyed defence against the atheists you set out to annoy (“But I’m just an innocent lawyer who’s studied logic and rhetoric”), your real agenda is embarrasingly obvious.
And fails to do anything other than convince us of your belief in God, which is great for you, but…have you considered Odin? He’s a pretty cool god!
Joe Stankowski
4 August, 2008 at 8:15 am
Just a couple thoughts to throw into the mix…
* Do atheists really need to prove the non-existence of something they have no logical reason to search for in the first place?
* What would happen to this argument if you replaced the word “God” with:
love?
the toothfairy?
electricity?
black holes?
dinosaurs?
treadmills?
lima beans?
steph
4 August, 2008 at 8:36 am
@ oilfreke
I agree “Atheists have faith that there’s no God”, it is the sole basis for disbelief in the existence of God.
Unfortunately for you the word faith means what it means, so semantically invalid arguments just make you look like a fool. The title is meaningful and until such time as an atheist can prove the proposition: God does not exist – atheism is and will remain a faith-based belief system!
The atheist belief system is comprised of then on existence of God, existence and the universe. They have their own creation myths and superstitions.
My agenda is to prove that it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that atheism has any more logical, scientific or moral foundation than theism, and that both are faith-based belief systems. I have succeeded!
You’ve helped show that the atheists who object to that truism are usually anti-intellectual religious fascist, who can’t accept that other people’s religious beliefs might be equally valid to their own irrational faith.
antireptilian
4 August, 2008 at 8:37 am
Olifreke
I for one cannot agree. What is faith? Faith is quite simply putting trust in a concept. It requires no particular ritualistic or social attitude.
I a child believes in Santa, he may put out the sherry and a few mince pies, but these are only rules associated with his belief, usually requirements to obtain something. In this case, Gifts.
The child may grow to realise that Santa does not exist, and change his belief. He now has faith in his concept, and will not follow the “rituals” associated with Santa. This “not following” becomes ritualistic in itself.
I am not religious, as the truth is beyond my grasp at this stage in time. For me, this means that my mind is still open to facts that may emerge in time. I hold no faith, concept or dogma one way or the other.
To say that faith is a one way street is simplistic. Anyway, the etymology of atheist from the Greek “atheos”, meaning to deny the gods or be godless, indicates a belief system and hence, a theism.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 8:43 am
@ Joe
There is a logical need to prove any proposition. Theism whether right or wrong offers a better explanation to existence than atheism has ever managed but that’s no reason to accept theism. The agnostic position is a logically valid one, but the point of being an atheists is to go further and actually assert that God doesn’t exist. There is nothing wrong with atheism as a faith-based belief system but it’s not a rational one.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 8:51 am
@ antireptilian
Exactly. Agnosticism is the superior intellectual position but like atheists, I choose faith over reason.
randy Johnson
4 August, 2008 at 9:06 am
What it all boils down to is that I can’t prove God doesn’t exist and you can’t prove that He does. On that basis, both are faith-based.
It’s just that my faith is true and yours isn’t.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 9:26 am
@ Randy
“What it all boils down to is that I can’t prove God doesn’t exist and you can’t prove that He does. On that basis, both are faith-based.”
Exactly!
“It’s just that my faith is true and yours isn’t.”
Of course you’re entitled to believe that, I’m equally certain of my faith, but I allow for the possibilty that I’m wrong.
heather
4 August, 2008 at 11:00 am
Well said Steph.
heather
4 August, 2008 at 11:14 am
But atheism is a faith!
martin
4 August, 2008 at 12:32 pm
You can be a theist and be open to the accusation of being a fool. If you’re an atheist you remove all doubt.
benthedu
4 August, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I agree.
Book Suggestion: The Reason for God by Tim Keller
totaltransformation
4 August, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I didn’t know you are a theist Steph.
wolf redboy
4 August, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Listen, all I know is that you’re hot. God or no god. And we can all agree on this.
Some may want to not say one way or another, even though it’s clearly evident you’re hot.
I’m just saying. This is logical. And that’s the real reason everyone is getting so heated.
“Listen Carl,” Freud told his young disciple, “You’re going to get a lot of flack for backing me up on this one. But the reason everyone is acting so neurotic is because they’re repressing the basic fact that is staring everyone right in the face. You’re going to have to stand with me through the bulwark and the tide of mud that the masses will throw at you.”
Cult or no cult, shard of big bang or no shard, god in everything or no thing, you’re just really hot. Really, really hot.
That’s what we should be focusing on. That’s what I’m focusing on. How can I not. She’s really hot.
Rob
4 August, 2008 at 4:11 pm
@ Steph
“Agnosticism is the superior intellectual position”
Yeah because Georges Lemaître’s Big Bang Theory has pretty much rendered Atheism obsolete, it’s a dying religion because unless you believe that time doesn’t exist or the universe came into existence ex nihilo nihil fit (by fucking magic) you have to accept that it has a cause that has no cause and isn’t bound by the physical world – which sounds a lot like God to me. So the poor old atheist is stumped, he can’t deny the supernatural and he can’t offer any real alternative, the agnostic can. He can say he doesn’t know what caused the universe.
Rob
4 August, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Martin
Is God an atheist?
Will Entrekin
4 August, 2008 at 4:27 pm
“Theism is the belief in God. Atheism is disbelief in the existence of God or gods. So you’re absolute right, the atheist is asserting the non-existence of God, and the burden on proof lies with him to prove that assertion because in logic the burden of proof always lies with the proposition.”
I don’t think so. Atheism isn’t a disbelief so much as a lack of belief, and there’s a very subtle but still distinct difference there. In fact, it’s in the word itself; in Latin, a means without, or lacking; amoral, atypical, et cetera. (I know you know that, being a lawyer).
If theism is belief in god, atheism is the lack of it (not disbelief in god, as you state). Like heat and light–cold is the absence of heat, darkness the absence of light. Atheism doesn’t assert there is no god so much as it simply lacks the assertion there is. Most atheists I know don’t believe there is no god but rather simply don’t believe in god. So really it’s not a proposition so much as a lack of one.
Rob
4 August, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Will
“Atheism isn’t a disbelief so much as a lack of belief, and there’s a very subtle but still distinct difference there.”
The word Atheism is defined as the rejection of the existence of God or gods and the prefix a in ancient bubble is a negative prefix, which in atheos meant rejection of the gods. When Socrates went up before the senate on a charge of atheos, he wasn’t charged with lack of belief, he was charged with rejecting the gods. Nice try though.
Rodibidably
4 August, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I’m guessing you’re a christian, but I could be wrong. But for the sake of argument, let’s picture a typical United States fundamentalist christian. One of the 80 million (give or take) that does not believe in evolution, and does believe that the earth is, roughly, 6500 years old.
They are absolutely convinced that buddist, hindus, muslims, scientologist, catholics, etc re all wrong. No “maybes”. Just wrong.
They are also convinced that THEY are 100% correct.
They believe that man walked with dinosaurs, that noah floated around the globe for 40 days with millions of animals sharing the boat, and some woman roughly 2000 years ago never had sex, but gave birth to a deity.
They “know” as strongly as you or I “know” that tomorrow morning the sun WILL rise in the east and tomorrow evening it will set in the west. There is no doubt in their minds that they are wrong, just as there is no doubt in my mind (and I assume yours) that the sun will in fact be in the sky tomorrow throughout the day (and yes, I know it could be cloudy where ever you are at, but just because a cloud stops you from seeing the sun, does not mean that it is not there).
In reality though there is a ridiculously small chance that the sun will not in fact rise tomorrow.
There is the chance that tonight while I sleep a meteor could crash into the earth stopping it’s rotation on it’s axis. If this happened, the “other” side of the earth would be in constant day time, and “this” side would be in constant night.
There is a chance that scientists have miscalculated the amount of nuclear fuel in the sun, and it could finish expending the last of it’s energy some time tonight. Once this happens, the nuclear reaction in it’s core will stop, it will cease to make any more light, and 8 minutes later the earth will get the last bit of sunlight ever.
I’m sure if I wanted to spend more time, I could come up with a few other “examples” to show that the sun might not rise tomorrow, but you get the idea (I hope).
Admittedly, the chances of these scenarios happening are infinitesimally small, but they do exist. There is no possible reason to expect them, to plan for them (at least not for another 5 billions years for the “running out of fuel” one), or to even take them seriously, even though they COULD happen.
From the perspective of an atheist (or at least in my perspective and that of many other atheists I know, I won’t presume to speak for all atheists), the possibility that god exists, is so remote as to be completely irrelevant in daily life, and can therefor be treated as if it is a 0% chance.
As an atheist, I agree that we can not scientifically 100% DISPROVE the existance of god, just like we can not disprove 100% the existance of the tooth fairy, or santa, or the flying spaghetti monster, or tiny invisible elves living in our refrigerators.
But when looking at the world around us, and the universe at large, we see that EVERYTHING can be explained solely by science, and there is no NEED for god.
Since by definition anything that could create the universe must be more complex than the universe the existance of this divine, supernatural, ultimately complex deity would be an extraordinary claim.
Atheists, by and large, are skeptical of all claims, and even more so with extraordinary claims. The saying “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” comes to mind here.
Since there is no need for a divinity to explain what we can see in the universe, and the claim of a deity is an extraordinary one, and there is no scientifically verifiable evidence of a deity, the skeptical, rational approach is to assume that there is no “god” until evidence comes to light to change that view.
While this does not “prove” atheism is correct, or that deism is “false”, it is how I and many other atheist look at the subject. It is also, in my view, the simplest explanation (and as I have mentioned before Occam’s Razor is an idea that I try to follow, since it generally leads down the right path).
Rodibidably
4 August, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Also to Rob, who has refered to atheism as a religion in at least one of his comments:
First of all, I’d argue that a much more common defintion of religion would be:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
Atheism rejects all claims of “creation of a superhuman agency or agencies” and has no “devotional and ritual observances” or “moral code governing the conduct of human affairs”.
The definition I have posted here is from that link above, and is the FIRST defintion given, and I think the most commonly accepted defintion.
If you remove the supernatural aspect of the religion, than ANY club or ground would be a religion. The religion of democrats or republican. The reglion of NAMBLA (well, some of there members may overlap with the catholic church). The religion of people who follow the Atlanta Braves, or the Washington Nationals. Etc, etc, etc, you get the point…
—–
The next question I would have for you is how many religions do you concider yourself to have?
Are you an Amuslim?
Are you an AJew?
Or an AScientologist?
If you concider yourself to be all of those RELIGIONS, then I’m all of those that you are, plus one more Achristian (or whatever religion you call yourself)…
antireptilian
4 August, 2008 at 5:11 pm
“But when looking at the world around us, and the universe at large, we see that EVERYTHING can be explained solely by science, and there is no NEED for god.”
Nonsense, Science is as restricted as human imagination. Science once taught that the world was flat, and rested on the back of giant turtles. If you are going to use science as the only basis for your calculation, you might as well give up now.
Typical left brain thinking will not find the all answers for you. Try another aspect of human ingenuity… imagination.
lifeinthesack
4 August, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Steph, can I just say that you are my new personal hero? You are, regardless of the differences in the belief systems we choose to engage in. I love seeing logical thought processes articulated. You didn’t miss a beat with any of these arguments.
It’s funny how many atheists try to hide behind the logic of agnosticism (which is actually far closer to having “no beliefs” than atheism, Will Entrekin) while simultaneously rejecting the strengths of that position.
Maybe our education system should put more focus on critical thinking skills. Direct quote from your blog:
“Atheism rests on a proposition that cannot be logically proved, i.e. God doesn’t exist – so it’s just another faith-based belief system…This is why atheist philosopher Antony Flew…tried to redefine atheism to include agnosticism precisely to circumvent the irrationality of atheism. But his defintion was rejected by atheist and theist philosophers alike – atheism means the rejection of God/Gods – ANYTHING LESS JUST ISN’T ATHEISM.” [emph. added]
How many commentors completely overlooked this passage, I’ve seen atleast two.
And to Olifreke, no agitation equals no debate, and where’s the point in that?
Rob, you rock as well, my friend. I’m off to explore both of your pages further. Thanks for the great discussion folks!
vonrum
4 August, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Steph, you make a strong case for something that has long been felt though rarely synthesized into extended argument. This has especially been observed by people of faith when they view the fervor of those who label themselves atheists. In fact it has been commented by not a few Christians that they could use some of the zeal that their opponents display.
Thanks for your post.
vonRum
Samuel Laurence Guzmán
4 August, 2008 at 5:45 pm
The whole issue comes down to presuppositions. Atheists do not allow for the possibility of even the idea of God, and they would go to the death before they did. They exclude God from their system without evidence to the contrary, and any evidence given is immediately written off as unscientific. After all, they have already concluded that even the idea of God is unscientific. They say, “becuase I cannot see it, it must not exist.” If they were truly interested in Science and logical, open minded observation, they would allow all things to be possible until proven otherwise.
A true atheist, though, categorically rejects even the idea of a God, and therefore betrays his willfull and unscientific rejection of God’s authority. The issue is not one of evidence. It is one of shaking one’s fist in God’s face and using science as an excuse to do so.
thethyme
4 August, 2008 at 6:15 pm
So this leaves the argument in a stalemate?
Agnosticism leaves that either side does not know. There is no evidence for the existence or non-existence. If you knew God(s) existed you would not need faith, faith would be meaningless you would have actual knowledge with that knowledge provide evidence that could end agnosticism and atheism in one blow, so here is what we are left.
Each side can honestly only begin with I don’t know if God(s) exist……..
The circle goes on
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:16 pm
@ Rodibidably
Your probability argument suffers from one very serious flaw: you have no idea what the probability of God’s existence is. I could reverse your statement and it would makes as much sense: “the possibility that no god exists, is so remote as to be completely irrelevant in daily life, and can therefore be treated as if it is a 0% chance.
“Since there is no need for a divinity to explain what we can see in the universe,
There is no rational explanation for the Big Bang Theory that doesn’t rely on the existence of God – that doesn’t prove his existence but if you apply Occam’s Razor, theism is more reasonable than atheism. And atheists who accept the Big Bang Theory, accept the supernatural, so atheism meets the definition of religion but cult is probably better.
“there is no scientifically verifiable evidence of a deity, the skeptical, rational approach is to assume that there is no “god” until evidence comes to light to change that view.”
If you’re a male, do you have scientifically verifiable evidence of the female orgasm? It’s not rational to assume the non-existence of God.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:28 pm
@ lifeinthesack
Thanks
“It’s funny how many atheists try to hide behind the logic of agnosticism (which is actually far closer to having “no beliefs” than atheism, Will Entrekin) while simultaneously rejecting the strengths of that position.”
I couldn’t agree more, agnosticism poses a far greater intellectual challenge to theism and in the end I think it’s the superior logical position but like Pascal, I believe “The heart has its reasons which reason does not know” – not a rational argument, but an honest one.
“Maybe our education system should put more focus on critical thinking skills”
Definitely!
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:32 pm
@ thethyme
“Each side can honestly only begin with I don’t know if God(s) exist”
Absolutely!
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Thanks heather.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:37 pm
@ wolf redboy
I get the impression you’re more interested in my smoking body than my mind?
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:40 pm
@ totaltransformation
Rationally I’m an agnostic, intuitively I’m a theist. I trust intuition more.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:42 pm
@ Martin
But that could be reversed.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:43 pm
@ benthedu
Thanks, I’ll try and get a copy.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:46 pm
@ antireptilian 27
Good point.
Will Entrekin
4 August, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Not really, Rob. Atheos, in early ancient Greek, simply meant “godless”; it wasn’t until the 5th century BCE that it came to mean “denying god.”
What steph is talking about in this post is “strong atheism,” but there are other derivations. Just look it up on Wikipedia:
“Most recently, there has been a push in certain philosophical circles to redefine atheism as the “absence of belief in deities”, rather than as a belief in its own right; this definition has become popular in atheist communities, though its mainstream usage has been limited.”
And:
“A variety of categories have been proposed to try to distinguish the different forms of atheism, most of which treat atheism as “absence of belief in deities” in order to explore the varieties of this nontheism.”
So, no, my point still holds.
Rodibidably
4 August, 2008 at 6:50 pm
antireptilian,
“Nonsense, Science is as restricted as human imagination. Science once taught that the world was flat, and rested on the back of giant turtles. If you are going to use science as the only basis for your calculation, you might as well give up now.”
We may not have all the answers yet due to the limitations of our “human imagination”, but we are looking for them. Instead of giving up and saying “god did it”, or things are a certain way because a book written by primitive bronze age men says something, we look for the evidence to support our hypotheses, and refine them when necessary.
Samuel,
“do not allow for the possibility of even the idea of God, and they would go to the death before they did.”
Perhaps you did not read my post. Perhaps you’ve never read Richard Dawkins. Perhaps you’ve never actually talked to an atheist before. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that. But Dawkins, who is probably the most outspoken atheist alive acknowledges that there is a change that god does exist (he puts it at 5% at least in some quotes, I’d personally put it lower than that myself). If the most vocal atheist on the planet admits a chance, I’m unsure how you can stand by your claim, but don’t bother to let pesky little things like facts get in your way, you wouldn’t want to do something different and think for yourself.
Steph,
“Your probability argument suffers from one very serious flaw: you have no idea what the probability of God’s existence is.”
Based on the evidence I have seen (read, studied, etc) the probability is QUITE low. Dawkins puts it at 5%, I think he is being generous.
I spent many years trying to believe in religion and god. I was “raised” catholic, went to a protestant school, a jewish school, read the koran, the bible (twice), and a few books on eastern religions. In all of my attempts to find religion (because I thought I was “supposed” to believe, and did not understand why I did not) I never saw any evidence that any of them were onto anything more basic than some very good ideas, interspersed with some horrific ideas.
Religion has much to offer for some people, and can do great for them. It also is the source of some of the largest divisions in humanity.
But whether you find solace in it or not, there is no evidence to support any of them as being “true”.
“could reverse your statement and it would makes as much sense”
Yes the statement alone WOULD make sense I agree. However there is evidence for things like evolution, gravity, the big bang, etc. There is none for any specific religion being “true”, or even for the abstract concept of a god (or gods).
I’m sure you’ll say that the fact we are here is the evidence. That something exists rather than nothing proves that it was created. However then you go down the well of “what created the creator” and are left with the same “problem” that you’ll claim big bang proponents have (i.e. something coming from nothing).
I’m not saying science has all the answers yet. I am saying that science it LOOKING for the answers, and even if we don’t find them, there is no reason to give up and say “god did it”, without EVIDENCE that in fact “god did it”.
“There is no rational explanation for the Big Bang Theory that doesn’t rely on the existence of God “
I’d suggest you read a bit more, there are MANY “rational explanation(s) for the Big Bang Theory that don’t rely on the existence of God”.
As a starting point, I’d suggest Steven Hawkin’s “A Brief History of Time” and “The Universe In A Nutshell”.
“that doesn’t prove his existence but if you apply Occam’s Razor, theism is more reasonable than atheism”
Actually a supernatural explanation would be a much more extraordinary claim than a natural one, by virtue of being supernatural. If something can not be explained by physical laws of the universe (laws we know or laws we don’t yet know), then BY IT:S VERY NATURE, it’s automatically more complex, and thus fails the Occam’s Razor test.
“And atheists who accept the Big Bang Theory, accept the supernatural, so atheism meets the definition of religion.”
I’m assuming here that you’re unaware of the latest theories on the big bang, which are far to complex to explain in a short summary here, so again, I’ll suggest you start with Hawkins, and then check out more information on the subject before you continue to fight against something you obviously have little information on at the present.
“If you’re a male, do you have scientifically verifiable evidence of the female orgasm?”
While I have never experienced one myself, I do trust my wife implicitly. If she tells me that they exist, I’m willing to take her word on this subject. This does not mean I’d be willing to kill (or die) over such a trivial bit on information though.
“It’s not rational to assume the non-existence of God”
If it rational to assume the non-existence of invisible fairies in my fridge that turn the light on and off when I close the door?
How about multiple god (i.e. hinduism, roman, greek, egyptian, etc)?
How about lord zenu dropping alien life forms into volcanoes millions of years ago to be reborn out of clams and then somehow this all leads to Tom Cruise?
Or Santa Claus, vampires, dragons, elves, trolls, etc?
Without the evidence to support the idea, the ONLY rational approach is to treat the claim with skepticism.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 6:53 pm
@ vonRum
Thanks, that’s my observation too.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 7:12 pm
@ Rodibidably
But I couldn’t care less what probability you place on God’s existence, that’s your personal belief – and a faith-based one at that. You have no evidence that supports the proposition that God does not exist, and can’t know the probability of God’s existence. Dawkins, who is a very poor philosopher, had to concede that.
Also, if you understood the big bang theory, you understand that the universe has a cause and that cause has no other cause but itself, it would come into existence from nothing, it would have always existed. Only things that have a beginning need to have a cause. The Big Bang Theory doesn’t prove God’s existence but it proves the supernatural origins of the universe.
BTW Can you try and use a bit more brevity in your comments and post to each person you’re replying to separately, otherwise readers will just skip your comments.
JG
4 August, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Interesting post, Steph, and I agree with your main point that both atheism and theism require a leap of faith. It’s a point I’ve made many times to friends of mine who describe themselves as atheists.
I’ve spent very little time thinking about the existence of a god. I generally say I believe but in truth I swing between believing and doubting at different times in my life.
I do know I’ll never be part of an organised religion though. The other thing that always makes me wonder is why people believe in a particular God (usually the same one their parents believed in and the majority in their country believe in!). As someone else asked, why not Odin or Zeus? You can say intuition but that kind of ends the discussion, and not on a very satisfying note!
Right.. late night ramble over, I’m off to bed.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 7:29 pm
@ Will
The word Atheism comes from the Greek atheos, meaning godless, but the prefix ‘a’ before the noun theism literally denotes the opposite of theism. Hence the dictionary definition (Collins English Dictionary): “rejection of belief in God or gods.” If you want to redefine the word atheism to mean agnosticism that it your prerogative but that re-defining a word doesn’t say much for atheism.
Please re-read the original post.
Jimbo Wales’ blog isn’t an authority or credible source on ancient Greek or atheism.
honewatson
4 August, 2008 at 8:06 pm
The burden of proof is on us to prove that Xenu doesn’t exist.
Until that time the Scientologist views are valid and the comparisons of Tom Cruise to Jesus Christ are completely justified.
Tom will save us from Xenu.
If you say otherwise the Scientologist lawyers may sue you.
Will Entrekin
4 August, 2008 at 8:42 pm
@Steph: I don’t need to re-read; I got it the first time and didn’t think it was extraordinarily lucid then, either. I think it’s rather hubristic to attempt to define other people’s philosophies. I think most atheists would say that they lack a belief system altogether, and I think it’s extremely presumptive on your part to try to argue otherwise. You can argue your beliefs all you like, but I’d advise avoiding others’.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 8:44 pm
@ honewatson
Yes, atheist disbelief is God is no more logically valid than Scientology’s belief in Xenu.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 9:12 pm
@ Will
Atheism means the rejection of belief in God or gods, it does not mean the lack of belief in the existence of God or Gods, Flew was rightly castigated for redefining atheism as agnosticism to evade an illogical position. This has already been pointed out to you several times. If you refuse to use the proper defintion of atheism, you’ve already conceded the point.
steph
4 August, 2008 at 9:42 pm
@ JG
Why theism not polytheism? I prey to Maria Magdalena and St. Micheal, but I only intuitive believe in one God. It might not be a satisfactory answer but it’s the only one I’ve got. I can’t disprove the existence of several gods.
mscot
4 August, 2008 at 10:41 pm
No person has ever experienced “nothing” so the atheist belief that there is nothing after death is just like claiming that there is life after death. The only difference is that people have claimed to have experienced life after death and then returned. (ie. Near death experiences). It is impossible for someone to have a near death experience and return to describe the experience of nothing. This is because “nothing” has never been experienced and therefore seems less likely to exist than”something” which we all know exists.
The existence of several gods may be the description of several facets of the everything that is God.
Will Entrekin
4 August, 2008 at 11:33 pm
There is no “proper definition” of atheism. That’s the problem.
“Yes, atheist disbelief is God is no more logically valid than Scientology’s belief in Xenu.”
Even if atheism were belief that god does not exist, that belief would still be more logical and rational than Scientology’s belief in Xenu or a Christian’s belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. What’s more logical: that life evolved on its own or that an unseen and undefined patriarchal deity created the universe? What’s more logical: that we are on our own and it is up to us to be good people, or that a Jewish rabbi turned into a zombie to save us from our sins?
Anyway, I’m done. You’re obviously not interested in reason, just controversy. Cheers.
Joshua
4 August, 2008 at 11:48 pm
It may be worth noting that there is a distinction between weak and strong atheism:
Source: http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html
tiddwaylll
5 August, 2008 at 12:10 am
I really do not see a point in all of you guy’s arguments (let the flaming begin).
All human endeavors in reason and truth and logic is but a emulation of our perception. It is irrefutable that our minds are only physically capable of computing and storing an amount of information that approaches the Planck limits. And thats the theoretical limit, we are pretty far from that of course.
So whatever faith, atheism or theism that you either “believe” in or whether it is part of one system or not, is entirely based upon the minuscule perception we can have of the universe. Absolutely no authority can be taken on who is more right.
Its like the familiar example of the 2D spider you draw on a piece of paper, who can never (ever ever ever) understand or even wonder or extrapolate or philosophize about the existence (or non existence) of a 3D world just so near above him, sooooo near, just like so freaking close…
After the above gobbledygook that I just wrote, which now I don’t understand myself, my point is this : Why care? Why do we keep doing this thing which has been done so many times, so many a debate spoken, discussed, so many a human lives murdered and so much misery bloomed.
I personally think its because we are scared shitless of the unknown. So scared that we create hallucinations of all kinds that we are possibly capable of creating.
This is perhaps just agnosticism. And as Steph says, after many years of being an atheist, now I am more rationally agnostic but when I am in a foxhole (or in the shower), I am kinda theist on the Buddhist side.
And after all these debates and discussions and books, we finally arrive at the conclusion that there is only one religion that intelligent beings undeniably worship, and that is Economics.
(I sound very corny, forgive me, its just a boring Tuesday afternoon.)
honewatson
5 August, 2008 at 12:45 am
Most people now days are not interested in claiming some kind of faith whether it be atheism or whatever else floats your boat.
People who claim to be this religion or that generally pay lip service to their faith.
The real religion and faith today is consumerism which is all intoxicating.
The majority of people in the western world follow consumerism unquestioningly, unconsciously and habitually.
The faith is in satisfaction, contentment, and salvation in consumption – of material items, information, and personal entertainment.
There is no logic to consumerism, only faith and emotional anchors created by media bombardment.
The distance between consumerism and theism/atheism is light years.
People truly passionate about theism and atheism are in a small minority.
Being an agnostic I gain no additional satisfaction in my superior intellectual position. Then again I’m more of a consumerist than an agnostic based on my behavior patterns and daily thoughts.
Much more satisfaction can be gained in grilled free range meat, coffee, sex, cigars, climate change denial, and other politically incorrect things in the vast amount of choices available to you in consumerism.
cabsplace
5 August, 2008 at 1:10 am
Steph,
This is a fabulous post…your logic is clearly undeniable. I’m impressed with your thinking and the clarity with which you communicate it in print. (I knew I should have gone to law school!) I would add to the comments, but anything I might add would only echo sentiments already spoken here. For now, I’m content to just say, “Well said!” I will definitely be reading your blog regulary. Would you mind if I put you on my blogroll?
DrM
5 August, 2008 at 1:50 am
Fantastic post. I’ve delivered too many babies to take such the pessimism and pseudo-intellectualism of atheism seriously, not to mention the antics of charlatans like Dawkins, Harris, Condell etc. Its the end result of European nihilism and materialism. A people who believe that knowledge is acquired only through external observation(a monstrous lie) are left internally blind and corrupt.
antireptilian
5 August, 2008 at 3:31 am
Rodibidably
Without understanding and bottoming out every aspect of the entire universe, you cannot form an opinion on spirituality.
These old Bronze Age texts you speak of hold some remarkable sciences within. The Maya had 24 calendars, The Veda’s and Purana’s speak of Vimanas (flying vehicles) and contain flight manuals for such things. The Norse Edda, the Dagda all contain esoteric and Gnostic knowledge and speak of enlightened ages long before this one. The modern sciences you refer too that are the be all and end all are only a few hundred years old. They cannot even in this heady age, build a pyramid.
Indeed, some of the ancient texts had great understandings that we are well short of today.
The trouble with most people is the Ego. They are the centre of the universe, their knowledge is absolute. To even have a chance at rational observance, you must make like the philosophers and remove yourself from ties to the world and observe without opinion.
Chris | Martial Development
5 August, 2008 at 4:02 am
I read recently,
When atheists like Dawkins can discuss the God of Spinoza rather than debunking the God of Veggie Tales, perhaps they will deserve our careful attention.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 4:06 am
@ Wil
“What’s more logical: that life evolved on its own or that an unseen and undefined patriarchal deity created the universe?”
Niether! As neither can be proved.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 4:09 am
@ mscot
That’s a good point, existence can be logically proved, but nothing can’t.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 4:19 am
@ Joshua
Weak atheism is logical fallacy because the definition of atheism is the rejection of the existence of God or gods. The term weak and strong atheism aren’t used in philosophy for that reason. It’s based on Flew attempt to redefine the word atheism and turn atheism into agnosticism.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 4:22 am
@ cabsplace
Thank you
steph
5 August, 2008 at 4:24 am
@ Dr M
I agree, that’s why I trust intuition more. I think instinctively we al do whether we care to admit it or not.
martin
5 August, 2008 at 6:46 am
steph
re 38 in response to 17
How can it be reversed? Whether there is a god or not, theism has an obvious innate human and/or historical rationale whereas atheism cannot even be considered as remotely valid (at present) for even the most blinkered scientific mind.
And for all those ‘atheists’ who would point to the ‘philosophy’ of Richard Dawkins as a tool for the ‘atheist’ viewpoint, I would ask you not to embarrass yourself even further.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 7:19 am
@ Martin
“theism has an obvious innate human and/or historical rationale whereas atheism cannot even be considered as remotely valid (at present) for even the most blinkered scientific mind.”
Good point, but if instinctively believe God exists how can I fault someone who instinctively believes he doesn’t?
I completely agree with you about Dawkins.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 7:29 am
@ tiddwaylll
A good point but the debate isn’t about whether God exists, it about the basis for belief that he does or doesn’t, and I think that debate is important because often what is presented as rational is irrational.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 7:37 am
@ Chris
“When atheists like Dawkins can discuss the God of Spinoza rather than debunking the God of Veggie Tales, perhaps they will deserve our careful attention”
Exactly.
Rob
5 August, 2008 at 8:53 am
Martin
Having the power to create the universe doesn’t mean he’s bright. He might be a mental midget who created the universe like some toddler trying to make a castle out of paper mache, with no self-awareness. We call him God but he might be an atheist with supernatural powers – only they wouldn’t be supernatural to him. To a dog his owner might as well be God.
Rob
5 August, 2008 at 9:23 am
Samuel
“A true atheist, though, categorically rejects even the idea of a God, and therefore betrays his willfull and unscientific rejection of God’s authority. The issue is not one of evidence.”
Absolutely spot on.
Rob
5 August, 2008 at 9:35 am
Will
“Even if atheism were belief that god does not exist [which it is] that belief would still be more logical and rational than Scientology’s belief in Xenu or a Christian’s belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.”
You reckorn? Then logically prove God doesn’t exist!
Ric
5 August, 2008 at 9:46 am
On belief, by the immortal Crash Davis:
Well, I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman’s back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
Rob
5 August, 2008 at 10:12 am
Ric
I believe in God, don’t always agree with him though.
Will Entrekin
5 August, 2008 at 1:18 pm
@Rob: as Steph pointed out in her post, absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence, and one cannot prove the nonexistence of something, only the existence of something.
It’s interesting you assumed my position before asking. I wouldn’t attempt to prove that god doesn’t exist. Like I just said, such is impossible.
On the other hand, I believe I can prove that god does exist.
For varying definition of both words, of course.
Follow my blog and it might surprise you.
martin
5 August, 2008 at 2:51 pm
rob
I like your ‘lateral’ style.
But sooner or later the owner of the owner of the owner of the owner of the owner of the dog must either be a theist or believe in magic.
God may indeed be an atheist with supernatural powers but he will also be a dog with an owner.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 2:57 pm
@ Wil
Rob has pointed out the absurdity of you claiming a logical defence for a position, which you can’t logically arrive at. You’ve said that the belief that God does not exist is more logical and rational than the Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus. If that statement is true, you can logically prove that God doesn’t exist because if you can’t, then it isn’t any more logical and rational than the Christian’s belief in the resurrection of Jesus.
Also, as there are eye-witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, and none of the non-existence of God, there is more evidence (no matter how unreliable) of the resurrection of Jesus than there is of the non-existence of God.
I can prove that a four sided triangle doesn’t exist.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 3:14 pm
@ Rob
The mental midget argument is good but intuitively I know he isn’t, that’s why I can’t believe in the Roman pantheon of the fallible sociopaths, degenerates, misfits and sluts.
George Carty
5 August, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Don’t aggressive atheists like Dawkins risk driving theist evolutionists into the creationist camp?
The Exterminator
5 August, 2008 at 4:22 pm
OK, Steph, imagine the following dialogue.
Debater A: [Assertion]
Debater B: Do you have any evidence for your assertion?
Debater A: No.
Debater B: Then why should I believe it?
Debater A: Because I said it.
Debater B: Well, that’s not evidence.
Debater A: Well, do you have any evidence that my assertion is wrong?
Debater B: I didn’t make the assertion. I’m merely asking you to support it with evidence. If you can’t, then it would be illogical for me to accept that assertion, since, in your presentation, it has no basis other than itself.
Are you Debater A or Debater B?
lifeinthesack
5 August, 2008 at 4:26 pm
as a spiritually unaffiliated individual of the evolutionist “camp,” so long as we are looking at something other than a literal interpretation of the bible (the religious text I know the most about), I dont see how rock hard PROOF of evolution, the big bang theory, etc could ever negate the possibility that there is some unseen intelligent life-force(s) that allowed any of it to begin in the first place. Personally, I think I intuitively feel 50/50 about it all. For me, either a) there is some higher life-force that helped bring about my existence that i can dierectly interact with on some level (such as prayer), or b) the nature of existence/reality is far more complex than we could EVER grasp.
Either way, it sure is fun mucking around out here and trying to figure out as much as we can about these things. And to anyone who says “what’s the point” of this dialogue, it’s not “is there or is there not someone/thing out there to believe in” but rather (read carefully Wil), exposing the reality that Atheism defined as the belief that there is no god(s)/goddess(es) is JUST as ILLOGICAL as belief that there IS god(s) and/or goddess(es).
and to Wil
while language is a living thing and therefore forever changing, the mainstream definition reigns supreme until it is no longer mainstream. Therefore, even by your own wording, your point does not stand as you admitted that the “weak” version is not included in the mainstream definition.
I think most of the excitement is due to the fact that atheists, people who view themselves as logical are used to interacting with illogical theists. And so they assume the presence of illogical thought, responding without aknowledging the fact that there has yet to have been identified a single hole in Steph’s Logic (that’s right, with a capital “L”).
Will Entrekin
5 August, 2008 at 4:32 pm
“as there are eye-witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, and none of the non-existence of God,”
How can there be eye-witness accounts of non-existence?
This is what I mean; you obviously haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.
“responding without a[c]knowledging the fact that there has yet to have been identified a single hole in Steph’s Logic ”
That’s because Steph has, and is using, no logic. One can’t identify holes in something that isn’t there to begin with.
PhillyChief
5 August, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Steph’s logic hinges on a definition for atheism which wasn’t written by an atheist and isn’t generally accepted by atheists. Will was very kind by calling such a tactic hubris, I call it a “straw man” argument, something someone who claims to be an expert in logic should know all too well, so either Steph was being deceptive in her claims of experience in logic or deceptive in her argument by using a pedestrian fallacy as the basis for her argument.
I agree with the earlier statement “Each side can honestly only begin with I don’t know if God(s) exist”. Surprisingly, Steph did too, but then said, “Rationally I’m an agnostic, intuitively I’m a theist. I trust intuition more.” That is a contradiction, for in that statement intuition serves as knowledge; therefore, she does think she knows that her god exists for her intuition tells her so.
Deception and contradiction. Nice work, counselor.
John Evo
5 August, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Lifeinthesack said: Personally, I think I intuitively feel 50/50 about it all.
This is where you (and Steph) run into problems. Why is it 50/50? Because you made up the odds. No other reason.
So if there is some non-biblical-literalist god (the others we can set the probability at an effective zero) then what are the “true” odds? I have no idea. Neither do you. However, we can make the following claims – In all of the evidence thus far gathered by empirical means, not an iota of it yet points to god-like causal effect.
So I can be an effective atheist and, without knowing what number to assign it, I can say that the odds are astronomical that I’m wrong. At least up until this date, when viewing all available evidence. It is completely fair for me to say “based on all available evidence – there is no god. If you have additional evidence that you’ve been holding out or just discovered, pass it along and we’ll have a look”. It is not comparable to say, “since there is no evidence precluding a god, I will not claim there is no such thing and I will hold out hope that there is”. Whatever the odds, they highly favor the first position over the second.
I suppose if we ever find a prime mover then the next step will be working on the explanation of how this thing exists, how it creates, etc. In the meantime, why spend time debating for a “possible” god? Why not live as if there is none? That’s what an atheist does. If Steph insists this is indicative of fools or frauds, then I think she should turn her intellectual guns on most of the brightest people on the planet.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 7:05 pm
@ PhillyChief
If refer back to the posts and comments, you would see that your argument has already been dealt with. The definition of atheism isn’t in dispute, the one given is the academically accepted one, it the one in the Collins English dictionary and the one of Russell and Dawkins. Atheists are those who reject God existence. This is what this post is about: atheism, not agnosticism. If you favour agnosticism because it is a rationally superior to atheism, fine I agree with you agnosticism is, but it is not atheism. End.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 7:13 pm
@ Exterminator
B obviously!
steph
5 August, 2008 at 7:21 pm
@ George
Yes, there is defintely that risk, Dawkins brings evolution theory into disrepute and makes agnosticism seem more attractive. We live in the time of theism and agnosticism, atheism is intellectual uninteresting and uninspiring by comparison.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 7:42 pm
@ Wil
Lol
No, there can’t be eyewitness accounts of non-existence. The non-existence of God cannot be proved logically or empirically, so disbelief in God isn’t a rational position. On the other hand the existence of God is open to being proved logically and empirically.
The Exterminator
5 August, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Stephi:
Since you selected B, you share the view of many atheists. We’ve chosen to be Debater B, as well.
You may choose to call that view whatever you’d like. Most of us heathens opt to call it “atheism.” We do not believe in anything unsupportable by evidence — even the non-existence of gods. However, as myriad atheists have pointed out in books and essays and posts on this topic, and as Evo has pointed out above, we choose to live our lives as if there were no gods because we have no reason to believe that there are.
That’s not a faith position. It’s the default. And it’s one that atheists share with a smart woman who is very well read on the subject of atheism, and who has a doctorate in law, and is a senior lawyer, and understands logic and rhetoric, too. Maybe Ric can introduce you to her, sometime.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 8:00 pm
@ lifeinthesack
Thanks.
There is a strong tendency towards dogmatism and anti-intellectualism in atheism now, it’s a lot like Christian fundamentalism.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 8:21 pm
@ John Evo
I couldn’t care less what probability you place on God’s existence, that’s your personal belief – and a faith-based one at that. You have no evidence that supports the proposition that God does not exist, and can’t know the probability of God’s existence. Dawkins, who is a very poor philosopher, had to concede that.
Also, if you understood the big bang theory, you understand that the universe has a cause and that cause has no other cause but itself, it would come into existence from nothing, it would have always existed. Only things that have a beginning need to have a cause. The Big Bang Theory doesn’t prove God’s existence but it proves the supernatural origins of the universe.
That was my answer @ 44 to the same logically flawed argument put @42. I don’t mind you disagreeing with me but please read through the previous comments first, so you don’t repeat the same points, especially when they have been rebutted.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 8:29 pm
@ Exterminator
Atheism is a rejection of the existence of God, I have no objection to the argument of any atheist who argues in the absence of evidence proving the existence of God, I will choose to believe that God doesn’t exist. But I do object to the fraudulent claim that this position is a logical one. The logical position would be the agnostic one. The atheist position is based on nothing more than faith that God doesn’t exist in the absence of proof that he does.
Rob
5 August, 2008 at 8:47 pm
@ Martin 76
Absolutely brilliant, and cheers mate
@ Doc M.
“A people who believe that knowledge is acquired only through external observation(a monstrous lie) are left internally blind and corrupt.”
Well said. Like Hamlet said “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.
Rob
5 August, 2008 at 9:00 pm
life in the sack
Cheers, right back at ya.
“And so they assume the presence of illogical thought, responding without aknowledging the fact that there has yet to have been identified a single hole in Steph’s Logic (that’s right, with a capital “L”).”
Excellent point.
heather
5 August, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I agree with lifeinthesack, no one has found any flaw in Steph’s logic.
The Exterminator
5 August, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Steph:
You’re insisting on making up your own definitions, or pulling them out of books not written by the people to whom the definitions refer. You’ve got thousands of atheists who don’t define themselves the way you do. I assume you’d agree that members of a group — rather than you — have the right to define who they consider themselves to be and what their views are.
steph
5 August, 2008 at 11:20 pm
@ Exterminator
Sorry but I couldn’t care less how you and others define your cult. If you enter a philosophical debate you have to argue on the defined terms. I have given the definition used in Collins English dictionary, academia and historically by atheists and theists alike.
Your defintion is a semantic fraud, not only is it not the common usage or academically accepted term, it encompasses agnosticism, which is a rejection of the irrationality of atheism. If we used your defintion, agnosticism would be tautologous with atheism.
And as I have never suggested that agnosticism is a faith-based belief system. Your defintion is completely irrelevant to this argument. So if you want to defend atheism from the charge of being a faith-based belief system feel free to do so, but don’t try and redefine the term to include agnosticism.
The Exterminator
6 August, 2008 at 12:03 am
Steph:
Well, you’re going to arbitrarily pick Collins English Dictionary and insist that it has the one and only correct definition for a term?
Where do you think the compilers of Collins English Dictionary get the definitions for its words? Um … from common usage. As words slowly but surely change their meanings, or develop new meanings, or as new words are added to the language, all dictionaries are updated. Yes, Collins and the OED and the Random House Unabridged and the American Heritage and a few other well-respected lexicons may disagree briefly — or even for decades — about the precise definitions of altered or new terms. But that’s why dictionary publishers have editorial panels.
Following your argument, we might as well all go back to Samuel Johnson’s dictionary of 1755 or Noah Webster’s of 1828, and just lock the language in.
That’s a very ignorant argument on your part, Steph, and far beneath your intelligence.
lwtc247
6 August, 2008 at 12:41 am
Excellent post by Stef and follow-up discussion.
Faith is necessary because of the lack of physical manifestations of what can be directly attributable as God. E.g. God standing in front of you.
Contemplation of the physical Universe and all its amazing interactions (a more ‘indirect’ route to god) can be the basis of faith, or at the very least, it can nourish faith.
You don’t need faith in things which are directly observable, e.g. Democrats.
One major thing people fall foul of is people look for physical attributes of God himself. It’s understandable in a way because man’s ability to think draws upon physicality, and it’s a major part of our being. But it is an erroneous folly. Anthropomorphism of God is similar. Rob’s question “Is God an atheist” is nice but is guilty of the same thing. Concepts of atheism is a limited human construct. Unlike us, the question of atheism simply isn’t relevant to God.
You have to realise man cannot understand God. I respect agnostics because God cannot be proved logically. Logic, great as it is, lies within the realm of the physical universe. God isn’t bound by Logic. God created aspects of physicality which appear to follow logic. It’s just a pity agnostics can’t take that leap of faith.
What we see here from ‘atheist’ commentators here, is a morphing of classical atheism into neo-atheism. They try to re-classify atheism because they know what Stef says is true. Atheism requires faith. But it faith which they ridicule theists for. So they still reject God, do all they can to avoid the counterargument ‘prove God doesn’t exist’ (which reveals they are holding faith) saying things like ‘God doesn’t factor into life’. Creation of life, the Universe and so necessarily yields a shrug of the shoulders. How dreadful their predicament is. They are fooling themselves, desperate not to listen to the heart. Better to mock then be mocked. No faith here Gov, innit right Trev? Yeah that’s right Reg, no faith here.
steph
6 August, 2008 at 7:07 am
@ lwtc
Thanks. Atheists who adopt agnostic position and try and wrap them in atheist clothes, rather that acknowledge that belief in the non-existence God is a faith have abandoned atheism as an intellectual position. It’s the intellectual equivalent of pissing in a bottle and trying to selling it as Champagne.
steph
6 August, 2008 at 7:20 am
@ Exterminator
lol
So you have no argument against the charge that atheism (as defined in Collins, academic debate, and by atheists and theists) is a faith-based belief system.
The Exterminator
6 August, 2008 at 9:26 am
Steph:
I have no argument against any flawed definitions. Why bother?
steph
6 August, 2008 at 10:00 am
@ Exterminator
My definition of atheism is the one given in Collins English Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, Webster's Dictionary and Encyclopedia Britannica, and used in academic debate by atheists and theists alike, i.e. it's the common usage and academically accepted one.So you have just acknowledged that you have no argument against the charge that atheism is a faith-based belief system.
heather
6 August, 2008 at 10:20 am
Steph…
rothflmbo
That’s a great analogy.
The Exterminator
6 August, 2008 at 10:45 am
Steph:
I haven’t acknowledged anything. Although I do acknowledge that your dictionaries don’t include the definition for “atheism” that I, and most other thinking atheists, use.
So if you want to play lexicographical games, rather than philosophical ones, I will acknowledge that your flawed definition of “atheism” — which has little to do with actual atheism as it is understood today — is the definition of a faith-based system.
Therefore, Steph, if you want to put quotation marks around “atheism,” and cite the specific definition you’re using, you’ve got yourself a bang-up argument here.
On the other hand, under my perhaps flawed definition of “giraffe,” that animal is a mammal with a trunk, floppy ears, and tusks, which weighs more than any other land creature, and shrinks to incredibly small size when looked at through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Which would be another stupid way of looking at a giraffe. Or atheism, for that matter.
steph
6 August, 2008 at 11:41 am
@ Exterminator
You have acknowledged twice that you have no argument against the charge that atheism is a faith-based belief system, using the semantically and philosophical accepted defintion of atheism found in the Oxford English and Collins English dictionaries.
Your cult’s re-defintion has no validity in philosophy, the English language or in addressing the argument that the belief in the non-existence of God is predicated on faith. You have acknowledged that. End.
martin
6 August, 2008 at 11:49 am
Good god (no pun intended) its all out war. Look, at the end of the day all Steph is saying is that atheism is not an intellectually valid position and this is correct. Having a belief of non existence that is based on zero evidence (whether physical, social or historical) is not a good starting point for a sensible debate (see Richard Dawkins).
You can instinctively believe that in all likelihood there is no god but please accept you’re still an agnostic if you have absolutely nothing to back up your argument.
Theism has a rationale (however tenuously you view the ‘evidence’). Atheism though, at present, is merely the refuge of an agnostic with an agenda……….
The Exterminator
6 August, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Steph:
What a ridiculous argument you make. But, hey, go ahead and take your self-awarded points and log them into your god’s record book. I don’t think you’ve been an effective real-life advocate for your position, though, since it’s all based on spit and polish, semantic nonsense, and your own assertions.
And when you get a chance, turn your binoculars around so they’re facing the right way.
andershb
6 August, 2008 at 1:57 pm
@Steph
Please define what you mean by the term faith
Rob
6 August, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Exterminator,
Her argument is beyond reproach and proves that atheism is just another faith based belief system.
And you’ve proved that atheism is illogical and intellectually moribund. Now shut up, you’re boring.
Rob
6 August, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Martin
“Theism has a rationale (however tenuously you view the ‘evidence’). Atheism though, at present, is merely the refuge of an agnostic with an agenda”
The agenda is nihilism.
steph
6 August, 2008 at 2:48 pm
@ Martin
Well put.
steph
6 August, 2008 at 2:54 pm
@ andershb
Faith is belief in the absence of proof.
andershb
6 August, 2008 at 4:14 pm
@Steph
So it is merely your faith based believe system which keeps you from believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?? (assuming of course you don’t believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster)
steph
6 August, 2008 at 6:22 pm
@ andershb
Answer already given @51 and @78.
lwtc247
6 August, 2008 at 9:29 pm
^^ Agrees with Heather 104
The very concept of God destroys the possibility of multiple Gods. If you don’t think so, you don’t understand the concept.
mscot
7 August, 2008 at 2:43 am
Many of you are speaking of evidence as if somehow there is proof that anything beyond ourselves exists. If the atheist believes in the axioms of his/her religion which is science, then on the quantum physics level none of us truly exist as separate entities. We are all just batches of subatomic particles with no separation. it could be argued then that God is the only thing that exists. I wonder if he believes that we exist.
lwtc247
7 August, 2008 at 3:06 am
Don’t equate science with atheists. That’s obnoxious and I’m sick of it being hijacked by disbelievers. I’m a scientist and I believe in God. You are trying to sell science for something it’s not in much the same way atheist here are trying to spin atheism.
andershb
7 August, 2008 at 6:39 am
@Steph
OK. I didn’t manage to clarify my point. That is my weak communication skills – sorry.
Exchange the Flying Spaghetti Monster with something which doesn’t remotely resembles a God like thing.
Lets say we had a society claiming that there are pink elephants too small to see for any telescope, of course breathing acids and tolerating extreme temperatures, walking the surface of the planet Jupiter. Would you then claim that it is also only your faith which keeps you from not believing in these creatures?
andershb
7 August, 2008 at 6:52 am
@Steph
Can we please agree that it is not your intuition which makes you believe in a God?
-Or that we will have to redefine intuition to be something inherited. After all, had you been brought up in India with Hindu parents your “intuition” would have let you to be a Hindu and had you been brought up with my parents in my surroundings it would have let you to be an atheist or agnostic.
andershb
7 August, 2008 at 6:59 am
@mscot @117
I think that is a slippery slope argument. Put 10 atheists together and you will have 10 different definitions of what science is. Also, there is plenty of religious people who accept science with no constraints.
That however also underscores the point; that it is not what people allegedly believe in, but how they acts on it.
steph
7 August, 2008 at 8:07 am
@ andershb
Your repeating questions asked and answered in earlier comments several times before.
There is no rational explanation for the Big Bang Theory that doesn’t rely on the existence of God, and there is no rational or empirical evidence to disbelieve in God. But that doesn’t prove his existence, it just proves that it is irrational to disbelieve in God. If I was a rationalist, I would be an agnosticism but like Pascal I believe in intuition. My belief in the existence of God is intuitive, just as the atheist’s disbelief in God is intuitive.
mscot
7 August, 2008 at 8:35 am
@ lwct247
I did not equate science with atheism, I just said that it it the religion of atheists. i believe in science also but not so much that I believe there is no truth beyond what can be scientifically proven.
Anders
7 August, 2008 at 8:49 am
@Steph
Maybe I do, but you keep not answering the questions
[mod edit: the question has been answered several times before.]Introducing God just introduces the question where did God come from? But you must know that, and it makes me wonder why you are even promoting that argument??
I agree; the big bang is in no way any complete answer to anything. There is no reason where the universe has not always been here and that the big bang is just one out of many.
To me being an atheist merely means that I acknowledge that there is a whole lot of things I cannot know anything about, and a lot of other things we can only make reasonable assumptions about.
Evidence may any day become so convincing that there is a God (or some sort of supernatural agent) that I would change position and become a believer in whatever that may be. Walking on water or coming back from death, or making G.W. Bush a benefit for human kind would be a good start.
What would convince you that there was no God?
steph
7 August, 2008 at 9:32 am
@ Anders
Everything that has a beginning has a cause, but God doesn’t have a beginning.
See comment @ 21.
Whilst I believe in The Big Bang Theory, I accept it is just a theory, it is supported by empirical evidence but it is by no means proved, and I agree alternative theories exist, like the universe was created in 7 Days by a creator.
But returning to the point, Atheism is an irrational faith based belief-system. This doesn’t make it wrong but it’s no more logically valid than theism.
"What would convince you that there was no God?"Intuition.
Anders
7 August, 2008 at 10:44 am
I called myself an agnostic until Richard Dawkins made me realize that I would then also have to accept the remote possibility of the Spaghetti Monster or Pink Elephants and whatever else people may invent. It would be a position that would render a lot of psychology useless.
It is a curious thing that when I look around on your many other posts I will sometimes agree, sometimes not, but I always understands and appreciate your points loud and clear. Here, it is clear that you either ignore my questions or that I am really really bad at stating my point. As when you ignore that I just suggested that there is no reason to believe that there has ever been a beginning. It doesn’t matter however, if we cannot imagine a beginning, it might as well be due to lack of imagination, for example a misunderstanding of the concept of time.
As understanding is usually sort of mutual, this is not a one way critique.
You have extended the meaning of intuition to mean something we could make a pretty safe assumption about before we were even born.
Your have defined faith to include a situation where my faith can be changed by external factors and your faith can be changed by “intuition”.
I never contended that Atheism is more logical than theism. This is outside the realm of logic and hence one cannot be more logic than the other.
Anyway, thanks for a very good blog, and, honestly, thanks for trying to make me understand your perception.
steph
7 August, 2008 at 12:56 pm
@ Anders
I really haven’t ignored your questions, they all been addressed in previous comments, and frankly they don’t address the argument that Atheism is a faith-based belief system.
Also before criticising my definition of faith, it is the universally accepted one, even Dawkins defines faith as “belief without evidence”. His claim that the existence of God is less probable than the non-existence of God is faith. He admits that he has no idea what the probability of the existence or non-existence of God is. He has no empirical evidence or rational basis for believing that God doesn’t exist. His belief in the non-existence of God is predicated on pure faith.
Russell’s Teapot has no reason to exist and offers no explanation for the existence of the universe but God does. God offers a logical explanation for the existence of the universe and is compatible with the known empirical evidence. Atheism offers no such explanations: it rests on unknowns, as pointed out by Martin, but still claims God doesn’t exist.
I have no problem with atheism as a faith but I do have a problem with atheists fraudulently claiming that atheism isn’t a faith-based belief system.
Anders
7 August, 2008 at 1:45 pm
@Steph
As I read it, you are basing this on the first cause argument. This is a argument neither Russell, Dawkins or I (no comparison intended) will acknowledge.
If I were to eat the presuppersition of the first cause argument, you, having read at least Dawkins, also knows that the implementation of a God only leave us with even bigger problems in Dawkins and Russells point of view.
Yes, I know that you for some reason don’t feel that God requires a reason.
You are right in that I could be interpreted as if I didn’t agreed with your deffinition of faith. I do -though I don’t think you can jump to the conclusions that you do – but I guess this of course again because you don’t like Russell’s teapot and I do. By this I guess we reach an end where we can agree to disagree?
Except for the question of intuition of course…
At the end of the day it is probably also much more interesting to know how this God then affect your life – if “she/he/it” matters at all – but that should probably be another blog post.
Rob
7 August, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Anders
Lets have it right, Russell failed to refute the cosmological argument, he said that “If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause,” but the first premise of the cosmological argument isn’t everything has a cause, it’s whatever has a beginning has a cause. Russell couldn’t refute that and he also said “There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all,” which is complete bollocks!
Russell can’t claim that the world doesn’t need a beginning but God does. So his argument that God would need a cause is a logical fallacy.
The weakness of the cosmological argument is that it doesn’t prove the first cause is God.
martin
7 August, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Theism has a valid rationale, Russell’s teapot does not. Period. I love how atheists resort to a form of pseudo ridicule to argue their almost obvious agenda.
I also love how they introduce the writings and thoughts and theories of well known atheists. Are you not capable of your own intuitive reasoning? Someone like Dawkins may be articulate and persuasive but he is also a man who takes an invalid comparitive theory (teapot) and spins it to his own agenda in his relentless quest to vilify (arguably justifiably) ‘religion’.
None of this is intellectually valid. The teapot cannot be compared to theism. Dawkins’ ‘religion’ is not compatible with the teapot and neither has it ANYTHING to do with theism.
So just how any of this nonsense promotes and justifies an atheist viewpoint is beyond me. Maybe those who claim to be atheist should just wait for science to come to their rescue instead of inventing ‘evidence’ where, at present, absolutely none exits.
One day we may all be atheists. It may be a long wait and it may never happen. But telling me you can run when I can see you have no legs is not going to convince anyone.
Try again. Or be an agnostic who intuitively disbelieves in God. You just might be worth a listen.
lwtc247
8 August, 2008 at 12:10 am
@ Anders (124) and all
“Introducing God just introduces the question where did God come from?” – It’s sad you didn’t read or understand my earlier post. The term you used ‘coming from’ does not an cannot apply to the concept of God. Underlying ‘coming from’ is the notion of Gods absense from somethere. It also suggests the need for God to be created. Absence of God and creation of God are human perceptions contained within the sphere of physicality and limitedness and they simply have no meaning when applied to God.
God is beyond anything you or I would/could/will EVER imagine. God is ALL powerful. The MOST mercyful. etc
We cannot even contemplate those attributes properly merely some wonderful flavour of God which should soften the heart.
Show me the most mercyful thing you’ve ever seen or could ever think about and then raise that level of mercy an infinite number of infinities more. Do this peocedure again, then again and so on. Keep going, never stop becasue God isn’t limited. Even that doesn’t scratch the surface of Gods mercy.
Let’s look at ALL powerful statement. We may well visualise God snapping his fingers and when he does so, his will is done. This is nuts! As if God has to make “decisions”. The word decisions only has any meaning to us becase we visualise the same process we as humans do when we make decisions. That obviously is meaningless when it comes to God. And as if God has to do some physical act like snapping his fingers to make things change (as though things weren’t good enough before oe what have you). If you don’t like the clicking fingers depiction, then what do you do ? God thinks something so that his will is done? as if God has a mind, as if he has to critically assess and analyse a situation.
When God is anthropromorphised by people, then people latch onto flawed questions and concepts and end up disbelieving God on silly questions utterly irrelevant to God.
Some then ask If God is Akbar (great) why does he allow all this suffering. You are asking a man to explain God. A man that can only explain in terms of ‘actions’ and human perceptions of logic and physics.
If anything, the harder one thinks about God the more one realises His magnificence and how hopeless it is for us to get into the ‘mind’ of God. Thinking about God so hard reveals the true nature of the leap of faith and that is to believe in that which we can never fully understand but we know is the Ultimate of everything. We believe or follow humans who show qualities we like. So it should be just as easy if not easier to submit to that with is flawless and leads to the path of success.
But I would say there is proof of God. As a Muslim I see that proof being the the Quran. The thing from God with no flaw. Read about the science of the humble bee and remember, this was nearly 1400 years ago. Then try embryology and so forth. Try getting you hands on works by Dr Maurice Bucaile (a.s.a. Dr Maurice Bucaille) on Science in the Quran. Then count how many times sea is mentioned compared to land. Find the ratios of those numbers and what do you get? Do the same thing for Man and Woman. But I like the bee. Don’t forget, almost 1400 years ago.
May God help you towards enlightenment.
George Carty
8 August, 2008 at 2:39 am
I disagree that atheists always have a nihilistic ulterior motive – Friedrich Nietzche’s “Übermensch” philosophy was an attempt to retain atheism while avoiding the trap of nihilism…
lwtc247
8 August, 2008 at 3:26 am
@ Anders 126. You go on about “spaghetti monsters” or other “things that humans might invent” and yet you don’t even understand the meaning and implication of your own words.
God isn’t an invention, unlike the spag. monster with its polyphonic overtones of ridicule. You can (or should be able to see) quite clearly that a spag monster or whatever other ‘funny’ term you come up is a limited thing.
“To me being an atheist merely means that I acknowledge that there is a whole lot of things I cannot know anything about” – but that isn’t the definition of an atheist. That’s an agnostic. Admit it. Therefore as an agnostic you can’t disprove God either. I’m afraid To be convinced of any of Dawkins non-scientific work is the sign of a rather stunted or lazy intellect.
“that there is no reason to believe that there has ever been a beginning.” – then you reject what the vast majority of scientists, theists agnostics and atheists think then i.e. that the big bang was the beginning. Although the BB it has some major flaws as pointed out by some fine minds, it’s generally accepted.
“It doesn’t matter however, if we cannot imagine a beginning, it might as well be due to lack of imagination, for example a misunderstanding of the concept of time.” – Why can’t you adopt a similar approach to God? What arrogance lies within you to seal off at least acknowledgement that God may exist in the same way you are willing to entertain the purely scant notion there wasn’t a beginning.
“I never contended that Atheism is more logical than theism.” – but you offered no proof. Show us the math (or philosophy) dear boy. You will not be able to because your rejection of God demands faith he doesn’t exist. Your stuck in a loop.
@ Rob(129) reveals the same flaw when he references Russell saying “If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause” God isn’t a thing. God is forced to abide by things. Russell falls face down flat in his own limitedness thinking that God is subjects to the same models Russell things he has a handle on. It’s laughable. Really it is.
@ martin(130) It may by subconscious in most {yet I suspect conscious in the some} but what the atheists try to do and we’ve seen it here many times, is to stick a flawed concept of God onto people. Once they’ve done that then if your clever enough (most atheists I know aren’t because they proved their dumbness in not scrutinizing what their hero’s like Dawkins said) you can pursue that unnoticed flaw to try and ‘prove’ (at least cause major doubt) in the existence of God. It’s all about sowing doubt. That is their game. They are seriously worried about themselves getting onto the backfoot and having to try and disprove God because they are sure to fall foul of the same methodology should an antagonist decide to employ it.
Rob
8 August, 2008 at 7:36 am
@George
Nietzsche was a nihilist, he believed existence, humanity and morality are meaningless. In “Thus Spake Zarathustra”, he says humanity is a waste of fucking space that needs to be conquered (not a direct quote) and that God was an antidote to nihilism but in the atheistic universe the Übermensch would be an antidote to nihilism and humanity.
Rob
8 August, 2008 at 8:03 am
lwtc
Russell concedes existence without beginning, which destroys his argument because anything that doesn’t have a beginning can’t be finite. So he conceded the existence of infinity and infinite existence has no need of an external cause.
Anders
8 August, 2008 at 9:21 am
@lwtc247 @133
I have to emphatically emphasize that no ridicule was intended by bringing the spaghetti monster to the plate.
If you for the sake of argument eat my preposition that the first cause/cosmological argument is invalid, you will maybe agree that this makes teapots, pink elephants and spaghetti monsters a very reasonable question.
Notice, this is not in regard to whether God exist or not, it is only in regard to the rationale promoted by discussion so far:
Steph’s claim: Atheism is a FAITH based believe system
My response: If it is faith, it is also faith NOT to believe in unseeable teapots etc.
Steph’s claim: No, because the teapots servers no purpose in accordance to the first cause argument
My response: OK! Then our disagreement rest on the first cause argument
If you still think that I am trying to ridicule anyone, we should cease the discussion because nothing good will come from it. I find these discussions intriguing, not because I expect you or anyone else to change their perception of the supernatural, but because it offers me a mean for better understanding of other people’s line of thought.
What is your incentive for going into this discussion?
Anders
8 August, 2008 at 9:44 am
@Rob @129
Russell isn’t saying that the world doesn’t need a beginning but God does. He is saying that if he has to eat the preposition that everything must have a cause, then so must God.
Anders
8 August, 2008 at 10:16 am
@Rob @134
In all fairness Nietzsche several times specifically rejected nihilism.
martin
8 August, 2008 at 10:26 am
Anders
You have twisted Steph’s words to fit your argument. Of course it would be faith to both believe or refute Russell’s teapot. Steph did not state otherwise. She merely pointed out that the teapot and God are not valid comparitive tools for discussion unless you also propose that the teapot is the ‘first cause’. Because you state that for argument sake, we accept the first cause invalid, how can you then enter into a meaningful discussion about a ‘teapot’ when in the same comparitive theory, we cannot discuss God either as a first cause. I’m sure Steph is many things but to claim she has said something she didn’t in response to a post she has yet to see (and of which you have changed the criteria) is a bit of a stretch to say the least.
Indeed you are right that ultimately the disagreement rests on the first cause argument but if you can’t understand the flaw in Russell’s teapot (whether you agree or disagree with that flaw) then how can a discussion about the first cause argument be entered into.
I dont think you’re ridiculing anyone but I do believe you have a strange way of putting your point across. I, on the other hand, think I can put across an argument that I think makes sense. It doesn’t make me more correct than you are about the issue but I am very open to the counter argument or any flaws in my own.
Look at Russell’s teapot again and let us know if you accept anything about the counter argument.
steph
8 August, 2008 at 10:27 am
@ anders
"I have to emphatically emphasize that no ridicule was intended by bringing the spaghetti monster to the plate."The flying the spaghetti monster is a form of logical fallacy, which is called an “appeal to ridicule”, so is Russell’s teapot (@ Martin 130).
I can’t accept the first cause argument fails because it doesn’t (@ Rob 129 + 135).
Atheism is a faith based belief system, and its fraudulent to claim otherwise. Disbelief in God cannot be logically or empirically proved. If it could we wouldn’t be having this debate.
And I never said that disbelief in the Russell’s teapot isn’t founded on faith, I pointed out Russell’s teapot has no necessity to exist, so it’s an irrelevant logical fallacy (@ martin 139).
Anders
8 August, 2008 at 10:32 am
@ltwc247 @131
In this post you are stating a lot of things about Gods nature. I will refrain commenting these claims for several reasons: They are outside the scope of the original post, and as there is several presuppositions I would have to take before I can make my own opinion on the subject I will let it be, and have merely read it with interest.
Anders
8 August, 2008 at 12:02 pm
@Martin @139
I guess I have answered your question in 142:
I fully accept that if I were to accept the first cause argument, it would render the teapot argument useless in this regard.
What do you mean by valid rationale? (I actaully think I agree with this point but so did Russell. The teapot is after all a part of a much longer argument).
About pointing out that I have a strange way of putting my points across (I will consider it), but I think it has a lot to do with what is taken for granted by different parties in this discussion.
steph
8 August, 2008 at 1:15 pm
@ anders
You’re argument doesn’t get any better for the repeating. Whether you accept the cosmological argument for God’s existence is irrelevant. I don’t accept that it proves God existence. But that doesn’t change the fact that atheism is a faith-based belief system and Russell’s teapot is a logical fallacy that fails to rebut the cosmological argument. And frankly your misrepresentations of what I and others have said is getting tiresome.
Rob
9 August, 2008 at 11:39 pm
@ anders
In all fairness, no he didn’t, he welcomed it: “I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival.” Nietzsche rejected the pessimism of Schopenhauer but he was still a constructive nihilist and even his greatest sympathiser Kaufmann has to admit that “by his own lights” Nietzsche was a nihilist.
bake
25 August, 2008 at 2:23 am
Hi steph,
If you have a son or daughter, and if they ask “Is the tooth fairy real?”, what do you answer? (assuming you give them the truth)
steph
25 August, 2008 at 9:42 am
@ Bake
That logical fallacy has already been dealt with in the comments. The tooth fairy doens’t offer a plausible explanation for existence so there is no reason to believe in its existence and it’s not a like for like comparison.
And as no child in my family has ever believed in the tooth fairy or is ever likely to, it’s not relevant. But my nephew did ask me who made the universe – and for that question, atheism has no answer – so I gave him the only logically plausible one consistent with the known scientific evidence and the one I intuitively know to be right and implied in the question: God.
bake
25 August, 2008 at 10:49 am
So if I gave it an explanation, would it be a better comparision? There is no difference, the only difference is the way you define them. Many, such as yourself, seem to misunderstand the meaning of the word “atheism”. You’ve done a fine wikipedia-ing on the latin and it’s translation though.
Atheism: Without god / godless
Faith does in 99% of the cases account for religion, not for politics or science. You do not have “faith” that one theory is correct, you simply believe so by the probability of that it’s right. You can’t say it’s impossible for the tooth fairy to exist, because you have no way of proving this. But the chance which is based on the evidence that is there (which is none) makes the chance of a tooth fairy low enough to be able to say “There is no tooth fairy”. While you only say it doesn’t, without providing the slightest reason why it does – extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidences. Your only reason against this is because it cannot be proven, which isn’t a reason. And just because you don’t know an answer for a question, don’t make up one.
steph
25 August, 2008 at 1:16 pm
@ Bake
I understand atheism perfectly well, and have given the universally recognised definition of atheism – it comes from having a good education, hence I know the difference between ancient Greek and Latin.
Can you read the previous comments and not repeat the same invalid points. Faith is belief in the absence of evidence, which is exactly what atheism is. Atheists are dyed in the wool faith heads.
Faith also accounts for a great deal of science, any scientist of integrity would acknowledge this, the theory of everything is an exercise in faith. Probability is only relevant where it can be measured but as no one can say what the probability of God or not God is, this argument is irrelevant and atheism has no logical or provable explanation for existence. Therefore denying God’s existence is unscientific and illogical.
Again this has been already addressed in this thread. Feel free to bring up a new argument if it’s relevant to the post.
Chris W.
27 August, 2008 at 1:59 pm
@ Steph
“And as no child in my family has ever believed in the tooth fairy or is ever likely to, it’s not relevant. But my nephew did ask me who made the universe – and for that question, atheism has no answer – so I gave him the only logically plausible one consistent with the known scientific evidence and the one I intuitively know to be right and implied in the question: God.”
How do you define theism?
I’ve always seen it defined as:
“Belief in the existence of a god” or “belief in one god as creator of the universe” and more important “intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation,” AKA personal god.
If you use the commonly defined version, then, I am curious as to where and/or what scientific evidence has provided to conclude it plausible that a personal god exists.
Will you please provide some scientific evidence, just so I know what you mean?
Danke.
steph
27 August, 2008 at 3:42 pm
@ Chris
Personal God?
There is no scientific evidence to offer any argument against the existence of an infinite creator. As has already been pointed out existence can’t come out of non-existence, and we know that there is existence (unless you reject your own) and if there is existence there must be infinity. And if you accept the Big Bang Theory, which there is is empirical evidence for, then the Universe hasn’t always existed and was caused to exist by a cause which itself has no cause. I call that infinite cause with no cause: God.
chris
2 November, 2008 at 8:28 pm
wow steph
you are clever, some great arguments against the some of the strident athiests, but i think the lack of belief position is absurd, for athiests to reject evidence, they have to believe the alternative explanations, therefore they have beliefs, and to say that an athiest can go back to a state of disbelief once exposed to an idea then that is ridiculous
as somebody who believes in god, i have more time for agnostics, their position is more rational than atheism.
Wendi
27 February, 2009 at 1:59 pm
So what about agnostics?
Rob
27 February, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Wendi, what about them?