“Probably” isn’t enough in the argument against God

iansand says:

08:21am | 26/03/10

Maybe all the gods sit as a committee.  Decisions (or, more accurately, lack of decision) by committee would explain some of the otherwise inexplicable stuff that happens.

John A Neve says:

08:53am | 26/03/10

Iansand,

Methinks you could be right, the Camel theory at work!  God like committees don’t work either, now that makes me feel a lot better.

Lee from WA says:

09:40am | 26/03/10

iansand: lol, maybe Kevin Rudd is actually looking for a spot on that committee rather than the UN.

Wayne Fehlhaber says:

10:12am | 26/03/10

John , simply put , there are billions of people in our world of varying religions , who believe in God . The basic virtue required is faith . You can persecute them in so many ways , destroy their material lives , force them into a life of misery but you will never take away their faith.
Your question ” Do all religions worship the same God ? ”  has a simple answer : we all worship the same God even though we see Him through differrent eyes.  Faith can not be physically taken from a believer even if he or she is forced to renounce his or her faith.

SR says:

10:26am | 26/03/10

The problem/paradox that the “faithful” have is that they often confuse faith/belief with selfish or self interest desires/wants.

When faith and self interest are combined (unsuccessfully), “righteousness” is the result, which basically means “God is on MY/their side”.

God is on no ones’ side, except apparently Jesus’ which means pretty much nothing.

Wayne Fehlhaber says:

11:51am | 26/03/10

SR :  Your analysis of faith contains the message that you once had faith ,  that life has not dealt well with you and you now struggle to maintain your faith. This can happen to all believers during life and certainly leads to an individual questioning or abandoning his or her faith.

Proud Infidel says:

12:06pm | 26/03/10

Wayne, faith in religion only exists because it is taught to children. By your logic Scientology or any religion invented, even one I just invented in my mind as an abstract concept has truth, because I may be able to convince myself to have faith in it. Sounds like you are confusing faith with hope.

Robert Smissen of Rural SA says:

12:33pm | 26/03/10

Lee from WA you could be right. My thoughts are, God doesn’t think he is Kevin Rudd, however…............

Grumbles says:

01:48pm | 26/03/10

John, relax, life is actually pretty good. We are not fighting amongst ourselves for the crumbs of existence, the fact is there is plenty for everybody. It is all well and good to blame God for the state of the world, but what about man, with his free will. This is where we have ended up and the state of the world doesn’t say anything for or against the existence of God.

Wayne Fehlhaber says:

01:58pm | 26/03/10

proud infidel :  Whether you embraced a belief in God , via a religion , as a child or an adult , your belief is still faith .  Yes , you may form that hypothetical religion in your mind and still believe in God . You believe in Him because you have faith. You don’t have to embrace religion to have faith and believe in God. I am not a religious person but i do believe in God. I have faith.

Mike says:

03:06pm | 26/03/10

Lee from WA and Robert Smissen: To quote Alec Baldwin from a movie whose name escapes me, ” You accuse me of having a God complex? Let me tell you something, I am God.”

Proud Infidel says:

07:55am | 29/03/10

Wayne - Faith, like a Jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from those dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

Herman Melville

Steve says:

09:35am | 26/03/10

Ron, how do you come to that conclusion?

Lee from WA says:

09:44am | 26/03/10

Any evidence for that? Because if you go and learn New Testament Greek, you can look at the original texts for yourself, no need for translation. That is one of the great things about the Reformation - knowing Greek and Hebrew is important because for many centuries, the church told you what to believe.

Craigles says:

10:15am | 26/03/10

How can we know what the original texts were?  There are only the texts that have been discovered, which may be rewrite number 53 for all we know

Dave in Perth says:

05:25pm | 26/03/10

Us regular folk have to make do with Codex Sinaiticus (~450AD) as a biblical start point.  Everything prior is just conjecture. Word of mouth? Handwritten? Who knows? Every played Chinese Whispers?

The first PRINTED bible wasn’t until 1450’ish, so all sorts of transcription errors would have crept in along the way.

Lee from WA obviously has a VERY comprehensive library at home, cause it would appear he’s got Moses’ Tablets to practice his Greek on!

I climbed Mt Sinai a few years back, and NOW I realise why I didn’t find the Tablets along the trail. It’s cause Lee’s got them !

Ron Saunders says:

08:31pm | 26/03/10

Well Steve what was the first language the bible was written in!

Jim says:

03:23am | 27/03/10

Ron thinks that 4000 years ago, humans had the same literacy to perverse and pervert things, as they do on facebook today.

Seriously. The Bible still has it’s original text that is carbon dated as well.

JJJ says:

07:44am | 26/03/10

If only everyone felt the same way you do, Timmo. I am all for people having their own faith, but allow me to have mine & stop trying to label something that is undefinable.

J says:

08:04am | 26/03/10

And that is the difference between religion and spirituality.  Nice one, Timmo.

Isabel says:

08:34am | 26/03/10

Timmo, have we met in my imagination?

Sam Chowder says:

08:35am | 26/03/10

I’m sorry Timmo but my God is harder than your god - outside in the carpark now

Isabel says:

08:46am | 26/03/10

Sam, we (God and I) are in the carpark watching.

AliceC says:

09:21am | 26/03/10

Oh GOD!

Sam Chowder says:

10:41am | 26/03/10

My gods been there all the time, ain’t omnipitance great.  Unfortunately I’m relying on public transport before the mother of all battles can commence.

MichaelS says:

11:01am | 26/03/10

LOL nice one sounds a bit like live and let live to me, way to go! i like this, there is no need to run around with a board with a nail in it smashing it in to anyones head that does not agree with you!

Simon says:

02:28pm | 26/03/10

Nnnnnnnnn God.

Steely Dan says:

03:30pm | 26/03/10

Well, for the people who believe Barack Obama is a reptoid he’s a reptoid and for the people who believe he isn’t a reptoid he isn’t a reptoid. So what’s the problem?

The problem, Timmo, is that I don’t think you or anyone else actually believes that there are multiple truths out there. Multiple interpretations, sure - but some people actually want to know the truth.

Bind Faithful says:

03:53pm | 26/03/10

Yeah, Timmo, that is great, let’s all join hands and dance in a circle in a sunny, mountain meadow with our happy-happy joy-joy Gods inside us.

Frazer says:

11:25pm | 26/03/10

Not sure about belief in nothing is a belief. Does that mean that NOT being involved in stamp collecting is a hobby.

Daddio D says:

07:40am | 26/03/10

That’s all very well if you believe that Time and Space exist. I don’t believe either does. Both were invented by some men/women of mankind to give some order to the world we humans inhabit. When was the last time you saw a cat or an elephant wearing a watch? Or carrying a measuring tape? Yet both know when and where and how far to go to get food. They don’t write rubbish either. In fact they don’t write at all. 

iansand says:

08:21am | 26/03/10

Lot of words to say nothing much.  You can call the first cause that brought the Universe and its physical laws into existence God if you want.  Or you can call it Veronica.  Or the Big Bang.  That is just a label.

It is the ongoing micro-managing god that is the problem.  The one that created the natural laws of the Universe then chooses to flout them.

Mike says:

03:25pm | 26/03/10

I think Peyton is saying that God is a timelord. For they transcend time and space, and alternate universes aswell. And they have cool accents too. Except for that one Doctor. You know, the american one. How crap was he.

But I also agree with you Daddio, Time and space are constructs of man to define existence.

Steely Dan says:

03:37pm | 26/03/10

Payton, if someone (and most people in the world are in this category) believe that their God has some physical impact on this world (through answering prayer etc), we would be able to see evidence of this.  And we should be able to test this. Dawkins’ point is this - why does the existence of an intelligent creator require a different standard of evidence than any other claim would? Plausibility is not probability.

the apologist says:

05:12pm | 26/03/10

@Steely Dan:
Perhaps it would be good to contemplate how very little of what happens in the world you experience my friend.
In response to your point on different standards of proof for the creator claim: From the Christian perspective, it logically follows that if the Creator created all things, and exists outside all things, the ‘normal’ approach to testing claims (i.e.empirical process) doesn’t apply. How can you empirically find something which is not subject to empirical process? (which is an evident truth with God).
Our knowledge of Him needs to be revelational. I think this is the direction that Payton was heading. Can you see the logical flow based upon the premise?

Steely Dan says:

07:02pm | 26/03/10

@the apologist:

@Steely Dan:
“Perhaps it would be good to contemplate how very little of what happens in the world you experience my friend.”
I don’t claim to have absolute knowledge. I claim that nobody has presented me with any credible evidence.

“How can you empirically find something which is not subject to empirical process?”
You can’t. So how does one distinguish between lack of evidence and evidence that can’t be detected?

“Our knowledge of Him needs to be revelational.”
So your argument about evidence was pointless.  You don’t think we would be able to believe in God via non-personal revelation. So why has this God refused to come to show his/herself to me? Let me guess: because I’m a nasty person who has ‘closed their heart’?

“Can you see the logical flow based upon the premise?”
I can. Just back your premise and you’re good to go!

Payton L. Inkletter says:

05:47am | 29/03/10

Thanks @Daddio D, @iansand, @Mike, @Steely Dan, for taking the trouble to try to slap me into line somewhat. @the apologist understands my empiric point and re-expressed it well.

@Steely Dan: ‘Evidence’: is observation-measurement needing of or supporting various explanations, but it is such a subjective concept; and much evidence supports contending explanations at the same time: take as one simplistic example of which, the invisibility of God: this supports the atheist’s contention, because something that doesn’t exist won’t be visible, while this same invisibility supports the theist’s contention, for something that is outside of time and space can’t be visible.

Take the evidence of the atom: it’s as close to a perpetual motion machine as we’re likely to find, the moving parts of which keep on going for billions of years against ‘frictions’ and ‘drags’ of various kinds (gravitational and electromagnetic for example): One person considers the atom, and sees it as the result of an ultimately accidental agglomeration of forces for no reason, with no ultimate purpose; Another sees an ingenious mechanism designed to be both incredibly stable and amazingly malleable, making chemistry and biology possible.

As for the putative principles I alluded to, consider but two: Dawkins and his faithful, whether they are aware of this or not, are pushing to prove a principle that is ontologically profound, namely THE GREATER COMES FROM THE LESSER. Many equally intelligent thinkers push for a mutually exclusive principle, namely THE GREATER COMES FROM THE GREATER STILL. This latter principle is not damaged by the process of evolution, in which case a process of development from simple to complex intervenes between the GREATER STILL and the GREATER.

Steely Dan says:

10:58am | 29/03/10

@Payton: Evidence is not subjective – but our interpretation of the evidence can be.  Saying that something like an atom is evidence for design is pure speculation – yes, it’s consistent with the hypothesis that everything came from a designer, but also consistent with the hypothesis that there is no compelling reason to assert that a designer designed anything. Again – plausibility is not possibility.  It is very easy to construct an un-falsifiable being (eg. Flying Spaghetti Monster), but it is very hard to show that there is reason to believe it exists. 
In the case of a theistic God that answers prayer, ‘guides’ evolution or has some other physical impact on the universe, we should be able to record it.

Payton L. Inkletter says:

05:14am | 30/03/10

@Steely Dan: Both evidence and its interpretation are subjective at the human level.

Evidence is an observation-measurement, and thus requires mental processing for its apprehension-comprehension, that is, evidence is a result of perception. Evidence is first experienced as real in the observer’s mind. The human mind is finite in quantity and quality, it is sub-absolute.

Both a million observers of the same brick, or one person observing the brick a million times will render unique perceptions, however slightly different; the same applies even more so to the interpretation of the brick.

Thus evidence can be placed on a continuum of ‘objectivity’, increasing, for example, from 0 to 1, 1 being totally reliable/accurate, totally objective.

Thus interpretation of evidence can also be placed on the same continuum.

These positionings are determined by both the nature of the thing observed, and the nature and limitations of the observer, for but two determiners.

Steely Dan says:

01:02pm | 30/03/10

@Payton
“Both evidence and its interpretation are subjective at the human level.” But in your very next statement you say this: “Evidence is an observation-measurement”. If it’s measurable, it is not subjective. A measurable, observable brick is (conclusive) evidence of the existence of that brick. Subjectivity (and I’m not 100% sure that’s the right term to use) comes in when somebody then asserts something that is not immediately measurable or observable (eg. ‘that brick was used to break the window in the break and enter case’). Human minds are certainly fallible, but this is what the scientific process is for – to try and eliminate the fallibility of one mind’s interpretation.
To bring this back on topic – the hypothesis that a god/s has a physical impact on this earth is unfounded without a measurable impact that is not perfectly compatible with all opposing hypotheses.

Payton L. Inkletter says:

07:35am | 31/03/10

@Steely Dan: Let me clarify regarding ‘objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’: I introduced the continuum analogy to demonstrate that meanings are fuzzy.

No word’s meaning is discrete, not a single one. The most obvious evidence for this a perusal of a dictionary. And all pursuits of knowledge at the human level must first pay their linguistic dues; this is unavoidable, even though often unpalatable to some or many or most.

Regarding the subjectivity-objectivity continuum, each observation and then each interpretation of that observation, could, in theory, have a quotient applied to it, namely, a subjectivity/objectivity quotient.

So if a toddler encounters a brick, her observation-measurement-perception of ‘a big hard thing’ would attract a low objectivity quotient, or OQ, and her interpretation of her observation would have to earn an even lower OQ, or higher SQ, subjectivity quotient.

A modern engineer’s OQ and SQ scores for the brick hopefully would reflect far better on both, with the SQ scores close to the 0 end and the OQ scores close to the 1 end.

But no human can score a 1 for OQ for any observation and lesser so for its interpretation. Pure objectivity is not a thing we encounter like the things of energy-matter, not a thing we can bump into and then examine. It rather is an ideal of mind reality, and an assessment or judgment upon the degree of objectivity (reliability; even value!) contained is made anew by every student who ponders some presented fact.

When this is appreciated, it invites a degree of appropriate humility to be invested into any subject of inquiry and its discoveries, its facts. And I AM NOT thus saying, as some do, that no facts are safe: I risk my life gladly every day, as do we all, based upon the solid (high OQ) facts of science; I AM saying that some ‘facts’ are on far shakier ground than many of their proponents – on both sides of the theistic-atheistic divide – insist, even still, in this 21st century.

Dawkins does not evince an adequate understanding of the linguistic limitations encircling the subject he fancies himself on top off in his ‘The God Delusion’, and this reader found scores upon scores of fallacious reasonings and conclusions of his flowing from this ignorance. And I must add, I have no problem with accepting the part that natural selection has obviously played in evolution. The pity is that his delusions of grandeur at being an expert in the things of surmised divinity not only put him in the same asylum as the religiously naïve (I’m feeling too polite to use the word ‘nutters’), these delusions regarding his discriminative powers detract from some of the excellent work he has done in his disciplines of ethology and evolutionary biology.

Your last sentence above betrays that you view the putative existence of God and the physical effects of this in the same way that a science experiment is conducted: ‘…the hypothesis that a god/s has a physical impact on this earth is unfounded without a measurable impact…’

Science uses the things of time and space to measure the things of time and space. Automatically you have a philosophical problem looming if you seek to scientifically test a purported ‘intervention’ by a creator being who by definition transcends time and space, but I’ll trust that some of our readers will process that one relatively unaided. Just let me drop a hint of the issues to be dealt with: the scientists of and within the system of time and space have to devise a means of proving or disproving an ‘impact’ – your words – arising from ‘outside’ this system. Good luck to them…

Steely Dan says:

01:17pm | 31/03/10

@Payton: “I introduced the continuum analogy to demonstrate that meanings are fuzzy.”
And I don’t think it’s particularly helpful or relevant. Everyone’s well aware of this fact, and this is an issue that has to be factored into every examination, not just questions of the existence of god/s. (I’ve omitted any discussion of your Dawkins book review as I’m not sure it’s relevant).

“Your last sentence above betrays that you view the putative existence of God and the physical effects of this in the same way that a science experiment is conducted”
Betrays?  I’ll pronounce it openly.  I have no “philosophical problem” with my statement that if the number of purported divine interventions were really occurring, the vast number of believers should be able to produce some measurable, testable evidence that is not also consistent with entirely natural mechanisms.  It is not rational for me to accept the existence of a god based on a lack of measurable, unambiguous evidence, even if a lack of measurable, unambiguous evidence is entirely consistent with the existence of a hypothetical transcendent being.  The fact that it is impossible to make a scientific case that links physical evidence in our time and space to the existence of a being outside of time and space is only a problem for the person making the claim that they are in fact linked.

Why don’t you explain what evidence led you to believe in a god?

Payton L. Inkletter says:

06:45am | 01/04/10

@Steely Dan: You are making an educated guess that I believe in God, if you confine the indications to my comments thus far to Chris Deal’s article here; you assume correctly however. It matters that I have never in my adult life been a member of any organised, institutionalised, (nor, for that matter, disorganised) religion.

What evidence do I base my belief in God upon? Firstly I must pay my dues by promissory note to the linguistics realm, by registering in passing the caveat that ‘belief’, and – especially – ‘God’, are complex concepts which suffer from so much ugly distortion and ‘simplisticification’ in so many minds, and thus it would be wise some time to hone the cutting edges of these words’ semantic payloads, in regard to my employment of them.

A tad of history: the inception of my considered belief in God dates from my very early adulthood, triggered by the reading of a non-fiction book in which the author related his belief in God as a side issue, not the subject nor message of his exposition. This belief has developed and ripened over the almost 40 years since; not surprisingly, the nature of it has changed: specifically, the degree of certainty has increased vastly, as has the appreciation of the being believed in.

So the origin of my belief in God was more in the order of an appeal from another’s mind, and subsequent thinking about it, than specific scientific evidence, and the intellectual groove has been the primary pathway, by predilection, that I’ve followed in establishing the foundations for my deepening belief in, growing faith in, and increasing valuing of, God.

My (subjective) certainty of the existence of God is now but an infinitesimal fraction of a flea’s whisker’s breadth from my certainty of my wife’s existence; her I touch, argue with, feel her regularly lessening the weight of my wallet as well as feel her slaps (!), all with my gross senses, and I love and adore her with my finer ones: God I experience (subjectively) exclusively with the subtler range of human awareness capacities.

Back to evidence: Taking ‘evidence’ to mean observations-measurements-perceptions (the scientific kind), and expanded to include intangible qualities such as love, purpose, consistency, sensibleness, and such, embracing intellectual conundrums, paradoxes, mysteries, and the like (these latter being of the non-scientific kind), taking these things scientific and non-scientific, and grouping them together as things suggestive of (or in need of) explanations for elements of the reality ‘set’, or the whole collective, I find I have an abundance of evidence supporting my belief; not proving it, but lending support. I also acknowledge evidence that tends to counter the existence of God, or support both mutually exclusive possibilities.

Of many material things, I consider the atom to be a superb piece of evidence supporting (possible) design; it is hardly proof, but is a good example of a successful machine which is stable in scores of versions, but is flexible enough to combine to form possibly limitless molecular states, and which thus is a candidate for a system to design for purposes of chemistry and biology. If the physics we know did not exist, and human-kind existed by other means, and was or grew to be highly intelligent, it is conceivable, at least as a thought experiment (I don’t anticipate that human intelligence could reach the level required), that we could design such a physics to make the atom possible, for the purpose of its fulfilling the roles we know it does.

And but another two suggestive pieces of evidence for me for the existence of an infinitely intelligent designer of the foundations of reality are morphogenesis, and the genetic transmission of behaviour.

You wrote: “The fact that it is impossible to make a scientific case that links physical evidence in our time and space to the existence of a being outside of time and space is only a problem for the person making the claim that they are in fact linked.” Well, it may not be a problem at all, for that depends upon the individual’s outlook; however, in the sense you appear to mean, it is clearly a difficulty for both sides: if you claim there is no God, or if you claim there is, this transcendence quality breaks the scientific evidence trail at the portal to or from time and space; grasping this might take a tad of thought, but it is problematic for all dichotomous claimants, myself included.

And are you aware (I could be forgiven for assuming not) of the assumptions inherent in your use of ‘natural’ in your statement “…consistent with entirely natural mechanisms…”?

Steely Dan says:

02:12pm | 01/04/10

@Payton
“Of many material things, I consider the atom to be a superb piece of evidence supporting (possible) design”
So complexity = design?  What about complexity suggests conscious design? 

“Well, it may not be a problem at all, for that depends upon the individual’s outlook”
It is a problem if you’re trying to get someone to believe what you do. 

“it is clearly a difficulty for both sides: if you claim there is no God, or if you claim there is”
You’re aware that this is a false dichotomy? You’re also aware that the person making a claim has the burden of proof?

“And are you aware (I could be forgiven for assuming not) of the assumptions inherent in your use of ‘natural’”
I am.

Payton L. Inkletter says:

05:34am | 02/04/10

@Steely Dan:
“So complexity = design?  What about complexity suggests conscious design?” This is confused: ‘conscious’ is a redundancy. And no, complexity doesn’t equal design, but yes, complexity can suggest design; maybe you are agreeing with me?
“It is a problem if you’re trying to get someone to believe what you do.” There are several ways to classify theists and atheists, and in our immediate topic’s context, consider these few:
Aggressive: striving to convert those of opposing belief/opinion;
Passive: willing in some circumstances to debate the issues involved foundational to the beliefs/opinions held;
Apathetic/Neutral: preferring not to get involved.

Professor Richard Dawkins and many fundamentalist theists fit the aggressive label, and thus have the problems to wrestle with to which you allude; as does anyone of any of the classifications who enters debate with them.

I place myself loosely into the passive group; though a theist, I don’t mind anyone who is an atheist, or a theist of different bent, or an agnostic (and I am fascinated with the prognostic, although I have issues with the caustic!); I enjoy debating issues, especially if my interlocutor is intelligent and sincere; I do mind ugly behaviour, both in myself and others.

I note that Richard Dawkins’ behaviour in general is exemplary, if a bit arrogant at times, but in general he is a gentleman of a high order, and many ugly theists, some very prominent, would do well to emulate his behaviour. He doesn’t threaten violence to anyone.

Now I’m less interested in ‘trying to get someone to believe what (I) do’, than trying to get a person to rigorously examine the issues and principles germane to their belief, of whatever a/theistic flavour. The Dawkinsensians of the world as well as ugly and naïve theists come as obvious targets, but in both cases, bizarrely so in the case of the former, intelligent debate is too often an excruciating and fraught procedure, in which the non sequitur and moving goal posts are but two of the constant hazards needing to be negotiated around.

“You’re aware that this is a false dichotomy?” The theistic – atheistic divide is not a false dichotomy, it is a dichotomy.

“You’re also aware that the person making a claim has the burden of proof?” Yes, if he is making a scientific claim.

Not so, if he is claiming “God exists!” or “God does not exist!”, for he is then making a statement of faith-belief or opinion, not of conjectured scientific fact, regardless of whether or not he is savvy to the epistemological nature of these statements. He may want to, or be invited to, share his reasons, his justifications, for his belief or opinion, but if so nothing can be proven of a final nature regarding the nub of these beliefs.

If you willingly find yourself debating things ontological with an equally willing opposition, why not revel and rejoice in the opportunity and stimulation of polite intellectual striving and investigation to the end of advancing reason and mutually learning from one another? Your twains may never meet, they may meet part way, or the one may hop right over the divide to the other.

Payton L. Inkletter says:

05:14pm | 02/04/10

@Steely Dan:
(“And are you aware (I could be forgiven for assuming not) of the assumptions inherent in your use of ‘natural’.”) “I am.” Well then, you’ll resonate to the philosophical lessons implicit in the following story:

Mankind developed scientifically in leaps and bounds, and began the process of terraforming Mars, and over the subsequent million years made spectacularly fast and successful progress, producing a planet with oceans teeming with marine life, continents covered with land life, an atmosphere like Earth’s, and most of Earth’s species present, and many new ones.

It was time to take the bold step and introduce humans; two space liners set off, one carrying a thousand adults, the other a thousand children. On the way a massive rogue extra-solar system planet hurtled in, colliding with and obliterating the adults’ vessel, and its gravity was so great it pulled Earth with it and on into a fiery death upon the surface of the Sun. By some amazing stroke of luck the children’s vessel made it to Mars, and as it was on automatic pilot, landed and despatched its living cargo successfully, before it blew up, leaving shredded remains which eventually were washed deep into the sea and covered with sediment.

Many of the young maroons survived and bred, and over the next several hundreds of millennia wrought out an advancing civilisation, from the cave man standards they began with, and around a million years from that fateful day when those little ones became ‘little green men’, their society was on a par with the Earth of the current readers of this tale.

Some folk believed in God, some believed in no God, and debate raged perennially about the origin of reality. There were those who maintained that THE GREATER COMES FROM THE LESSER – “We are living proof!” they said – while others held that THE GREATER COMES FROM THE GREATER STILL – “Only an infinitely intelligent creator could originate reality, whether involving evolutionary processes or not!” they said.

“Nonsense!” the atheists bellowed. “Entirely natural mechanisms at work here on Hearth (their name for the now third rock from the Sun) brought us about.”

“What, meaning no outside help or influence by higher intelligence?” quizzed the theists.

“No, we don’t believe in fairy tales, and neither should you!” they shouted back in unison.

One of the less hairy but atheistic erudites wrote a book, calling it ‘The Supernatural Delusion’, in which he legitimately lambasted the many stupidities, naiveties, and atrocities of the professional class of religionists that had sprung up, but try as he might, Professor Chuck Meeno Phaireetayl could not eradicate the pesky belief in God held by many.

There were always persistently valid and crucial questions which his theories could not dispense with, despite the unwitting help the ugly and immature theists lent his cause. There were always some – sometimes very few – moderate voices calling out “But Chuck, what about this anomaly, what about that dead end, where is the genetic code for the appreciation of truth, beauty, and goodness?”

Steely Dan says:

01:00pm | 06/04/10

@Payton:
“And no, complexity doesn’t equal design, but yes, complexity can suggest design; maybe you are agreeing with me?”
I agree that complexity does not require design.  So do you see that making a point that means we could both be right isn’t helpful?
“The theistic – atheistic divide is not a false dichotomy, it is a dichotomy.”
Correct.  But you were presenting a theistic-antitheistic divide.
“He may want to, or be invited to, share his reasons, his justifications, for his belief or opinion, but if so nothing can be proven of a final nature regarding the nub of these beliefs.”
So if you don’t want to back your beliefs with reason, you don’t have a burden of proof. Fair enough. The null hypothesis will stand until reason is provided.
Re your story:
You’ve presented another false dichotomy.  I can think of examples of the greater coming from the lesser, and examples of greater coming from the greater still. 
The stuff about atheists denying that we could come from elsewhere is laughable given that Dawkins gets so much scorn from theists for suggesting that panspermia is a possible origin of live on earth. 
And the “moderate voices” should look into genetic markers for altruism.  The suggestion that the scientific world is completely perplexed by the existence of ‘truth, beauty and goodness’ is extraordinarily naïve.

Matt says:

02:29pm | 31/12/10

wait, wait, wait….
as a physicist myself, specialising in quantum mechanics, you’re saying that an atom is good ‘evidence’ of intelligent design?!?!
then you are suggesting that ‘God’ has at least (once before) interacted with space/time (our 4-dimensional universe).
Hence, it logically follows that there must be proof?!? where is it?

Andrew says:

07:45am | 26/03/10

So there’s no spirit?

Tone says:

07:51am | 26/03/10

Nope; no spirit, no soul.  No more imagining them, either.

keith hammersmith says:

08:40am | 26/03/10

actually at the moment of death, the body loses 7 grams in weight.  Could this be the weight of the soul?

Bob H says:

08:46am | 26/03/10

Just food for the worms

Tone says:

08:54am | 26/03/10

Keith, verification would be appreciated.  Perhaps a study reporting a reasonable sample-size of people lying on accurate, appropriately-sensitive scales before, during and after death?

T.Chong says:

09:06am | 26/03/10

Hey Keith, that sounds like a great premise for a flick. I’ll get my people to call yur people.

J says:

09:54am | 26/03/10

@Bob H - I prefer cremation, personally. I know it won’t matter when I die, but the thought of putting me in a box to slowly decompose is icky.  Brig on the fire!

Steve Smith says:

12:08pm | 26/03/10

@Tone: many people have tried weighing the soul. Look up Duncan MacDougall for the earliest instance. He researched into the weight of the soul over 100 years ago. He came up with the result of 21 Grams which was used for a film recently.

G says:

07:14pm | 26/03/10

There needs to be death to be a resurrection. Your statement doesn’t do anything to prove that God doesn’t exist and that death is the end. You’re just stating an obvious fact.

Amelia says:

12:35pm | 28/03/10

Regarding the comments of the weight of the soul…

I was under the impression that the loss of weight with final death was the loss of tidal volume of air from the lungs. We know that air has weight. When you breathe in and out normally, on the out breath there is always a volume of air still left in the lungs (otherwise they would collapse). This is called tidal volume. When you die, you lose this tidal volume and so lose a small amount of weight.
That was my understanding, but I am open to correction if I am mistaken

Tedd says:

07:40am | 26/03/10

and one who participates in Easter is a bunny? or a bad egg? or just an older-fashion pagan?

Warren says:

08:31am | 26/03/10

Surely Christmas was originally a pagan festival, the winter solstice, since appropriated by Christianity?

acker says:

09:04am | 26/03/10

@Warren….Orwell showed in “1984” if you change history people soon forget why they are doing thing’s. Maybe the godbotherers did that with Xmas 1700-2000 years ago, the Athiests are in the process of putting their spin on Xmas now.

bella starkey says:

09:12am | 26/03/10

A pagan is not an atheist so it still doesn’t make sense.

However, if you look at christmas as the cultural festival as it exists today, where very little of it’s religious beginings bare on it’s current rituals or participants, I don’t think atheists should hae a problem engaging in it.

Austin 3:16 says:

09:43am | 26/03/10

Hey Bella, that’s one of the things I like about Christmas it’s so flexible. The symbolism of Xmas now includes the pagan, the Christian and the modern commercialism. It’s a timeless festival.

Astrosodi says:

10:12am | 26/03/10

Lol, in the modern age, Xmas and Easter are straining to maintain religious meaning for many people. I know a few people who still aren’t sure which one is a celebration of what, and they’re from judeo-christian stock!

Saying an atheist attends a Christmas function is not evidence of much more than they are attending a family function. Even a staunch atheist might still have social skills and attend church sanctioned weddings. With that logic, a 100% theist wouldn’t attend a civil ceremony, because that’s not a real marriage.

Geez, stores had Easter ‘eggs’ in stores by February!

Shannon says:

08:14pm | 26/03/10

Im an atheist, i don’t celebrate jesus or god, i like presents and spending time with my family.

iansand says:

08:22am | 26/03/10

Why must there be a “why”?

J says:

08:38am | 26/03/10

God vs no God is an argument that will go around and around in circles because no side can definitively prove their point.  We find out when we die… well, amybe, who knows?

For me, I researched both sides, and I just find it too incredible that there is some omnipotent deity that sat down one day and created life.  I find it far more plausible that life happened on this life as a pure accident, then the weak traits were eliminated, and the strong traits nurtured, in accordance with the environment, until we reached the pinnavle (humans), who started manipulating the environment to suit them.  I find the possibility of life on other planets far more plausible that the idea of God.  I find comfort in the fact that for me, there is no deep and profound ‘meaning’ to life, and I can just go about doing my own thing, until I die.  My path might not be the right one for everybody, but it suits me fine.

In the end, that’s all I can do.  I can’t believe in something I don’t, to make people feel better.  I can only do what’s right for me.  So long as a I don’t wilfully hurt, physically or emotionally, other people whilst doing it, I don’t see anything wrong with it.

Not sure if that answers your question, but that’s all I’ve got. Have a great day.

Isabel says:

08:50am | 26/03/10

As a child asking that question, I was told that Y is a crooked letter and you can’t make it straight. Since then I have come to believe that each creates their own answer to “why” such as will satisfy enough to just get on with it.

J says:

08:51am | 26/03/10

What is with my spelling lately?  Sorry! 

Craigles says:

09:10am | 26/03/10

Not an accident, J. 

Just the way Organic Chemistry works - mostly based around the covalent bonds of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), and other atoms; ... and billions of years for their bondings & groupings to get more organised as bigger and more versatile molecules, as well as for the molecules to work together in increasingly elaborate ways.

J says:

09:29am | 26/03/10

@Craigles - cheers.  I failed chem in highschool.

Craigles says:

10:14am | 26/03/10

Glad we bonded, J, albeit “non-covalently”

Paul Horn says:

01:10pm | 26/03/10

There’s a big problem with your thinking though J.  And it goes like this. Present scientific thinking accepts there was a big bang that heralded the beginning of the universe and the start of time. It was a singularity if you like, a point from which everything was created. The scientific problem though J is that something has never been created from nothing! No scientific experiment has ever produced something from nothing. It is implausible. Ask any scientist to produce metal from a percect vacuum and he/she will laugh in your face.

Now it is possible that matter can be destroyed and converted into pure energy, Einsteins energy equation which we are all familiar with E=MC*2. So whatever preceded the big bang must have posesesed infinite energy to create this awe inspiring universe.   

The question is what form did it take and what do you believe? An inifinite ether, an inaminate Star Wars “force”?? An infinite number of parallel universes, flying spaghetti monster? No matter what, these “possibilities"are far more plausible than the unscientific belief that nothing preceded this infinity called our universe.

Then if you accept that something preceeded the big bang what is its most likely form? What is the probability of it being inaminate, that is having form but no awareness of its existence???  I would say just on pure logic that this probability is very slim because it leads to the next question well what preceeded this form??? And so on. The greatest and most logical probability to my way of thinking is that the predecessor to the big bang is an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being that exists beyond the concept of time and space. A being of and posessing infinite energy able to create mass through the Einsteinian equation.

150 years ago if you had introduced the concept that mass could be completely annihilated and turned into pure energy (one tiny train ticket possesses enough energy to power the worlds largest train three times around the Earth - staggering) you would have been laughed off your lectern and committed to an insane asylum. Conservation of mass was the law. How arrogant we humans are!!! 

To add even more awe to the whole argument the probability that mass would be created from infinite energy is infinitisemally low. In fact what should have happened is that the big bang should have resulted in lots of radiation and heat spewing out into infinite blackness. But as we know this was not the case as a small precentage of the reaction became star mass from which all known elements of the periodic table are derived.  I leave it to you to ponder but I am in total awe whenever I look up and peer into that never ending blackness called space populated by infinite glistening specks bejewelling the night sky.

And by the way fantastic article Mr Deal. Definitely the most insightful and well thought out piece I have ever read on this site. Big pay rise for you sir!!! I will even sign your application.

iansand says:

01:37pm | 26/03/10

Paul Horn - You don’t know much about quantum physics, do you?  Try looking up “virtual particle”.  Matter is coming into existence and disappearing all the time.

J says:

02:02pm | 26/03/10

Paul Horn, thank you for your comment.  It was an interesting read. 

However I will reiterate what I said before - having studied both sides extensively, I do not feel any kinship with the idea of a divine designer, Heaven, Hell and all the stuff in between.  Nor am I arrogant enough to believe that science knows all the answers.  I feel comfortable in my beliefs (or lack thereof!).  I feel no less awe when I gaze up at the sky (or look at those awesome pics on APOD).

You obviously think I’m deficient in my thinking.  No worries.  I don’t mind having all the answers.  It would take the fun out of life.

Shannon says:

02:32pm | 27/03/10

Why what?

I don’t believe in any higher power, I have not seen any evidence of it.
I went to church as a child, but stopped when I was 7, I told my parents I didn’t want to go anymore,so we never went back. Since I was 10 I have been reading books on religion, Atheism and pretty much anything I can get my hands on.

I got to grow up with a lot of knowledge surrounding me, which is why I decided there is no need for a higher being in my life.

I don’t feel so insecure that i need a god.
Saying that though, I can understand why some people believe in god, I don’t judge people who believe, as long as you don’t push your beliefs into me.

Ron Saunders says:

11:08am | 31/03/10

Shannon I agree with you, I think the same way! as long as they don’t push it down my neck, they can beleive anything they like!

Lady Fong says:

10:50am | 26/03/10

“From a marketing perspective the Dawkins athiests”  have done very well indeed…how many copies of God Delusion did he sell?

Steely Dan says:

03:43pm | 26/03/10

“It merely preaches to the converted.”
Actually, that was the point. It wasn’t an argument against the existence of god/s, the campaign was to get inactive atheists to join atheist organisations.

“I bet Peter Singer has some ethical issues with it.”
You thought that was meant to be a summation of an atheistic philosophy? Why?

the apologist says:

08:44am | 26/03/10

If God created the evidence, and exists outside of it, why should one expect to be able to empirically prove Him?

God is not subject to our scrutiny.

Austin 3:16 says:

09:47am | 26/03/10

Only if the god in question hides from his creation.

However most believers believe in an interventionist god that interacts with his creation. If that is the case then there ought to be some evidence of that interaction.

The hiding god is a good ‘hypothesis’ though.

the apologist says:

10:26am | 26/03/10

@Austin:
I didn’t say He hides from His creation Merely that you can’t expect to empirically reach Him (which is the road athiests commonly demand).

But you raise an important point - any knowledge or experience of Him must be revelational - or, in your language, He must intervene for us to know Him.

He did this through Jesus Christ. Jesus (and the entire Bible) claimed this: “No one comes to the Father exept through me” and “I am the light of the world”.

I think the sheer impact that a supposedly backwater, non-consequential, crucified Jew has had on human history is a pretty convincing place to start in terms of blatant evidence…
No way He would have made any impact with God’s power working through it all. What was it that set Him apart in such a significant manner?? I am fully convinced in every way that His claims are true.

Austin 3:16 says:

10:57am | 26/03/10

Jesus is an excellent example, is there any (non-biblical) evidence of him? No, not really.

As to his impact you don’t think that Constantine perhaps helped out a little?

The same arguments could also be made for Muhammad – surely the rise of Islam must attest to it being the true religion of God ?

the apologist says:

11:38am | 26/03/10

Well, what I actually said was the impact that Jesus has had is observable evidence as a place to start. Christianity itself based upon who Jesus is - as a testament - was the point I was attempting to make as a starting point for your investigation.  But yeah, the historical Jesus too. There’s more evidence that Jesus existed than there is for Julius Caesar. No scholar would take you seriously if you tried to deny his existence.

The Bible itself is nothing to be sneezed at in purely historical terms either. It’s got better historical credentials than pretty much all historical documents. Again, Christian and non-Christian historians alike hold this position.

As for Constantine, depends what sort of ‘help’ you mean. As part of the propagation of Christianity itself, sure, he played a significant role. So did Luther, Calvin, Augustine, Huss, Tyndale, etc. This is consistent with my initial point on the ‘impact’ of Christianity. I’d want your clarification before I commented further on what you’re raising.

Re. Muhammad – I wouldn’t claim that things necessarily need to be direct revelation from God to have a significant impact on human history. When Jesus says “I am the only way you can know God” I think the claims can then be looked at in themselves, and measured for consistency. I think that careful study of the Bible shows it to be incredible coherent and unified. Certainly more so than if it was merely authored by numerous authors over a space of thousands of years.
Whereas Muhammed (for example) and Islamic religion is inherently self-contradictory. E.g. they claim to ‘accept’ Jesus, but the worldview and doctrine of Islam is vastly inconsistent with the Biblical Christian position.
When you start investigating the claims and impacts of religions that claim to be revelational, you’ve got to get into what they’re saying and start assessing it for contradiction. If you think Christianity has got problems in terms of this kind of investigation, I’m more than happy to hear them.

Cheers

Robert Smissen of Rural SA says:

12:35pm | 26/03/10

Sorry Austin 3:16 Josephus the Roman historian of Christ’s time mentions Jesus many times in his writings. He was a pagan/non Christian. Just because your reading is incomplete, doesn’t make your theory true

Joe says:

02:07pm | 26/03/10

Geez, bloody handy that he isnt subject to our scrutiny. But hang on, how did you find that out? Did someone capable of lying tell you that? Apart from God of course, that is everyone. So, how can you be 100% that the bloke who told that wasn’t telling furfies?

H of SA says:

02:35pm | 26/03/10

Yup, anyone who denies the existance of a historical Jesus stands far outside mainstream history

the apologist says:

02:55pm | 26/03/10

@Joe:
How did I find that out? Well, if you take the Christian premise of who God is, it is a logical conclusion. I) He created everything.  II) He exists outside of creation. Therefore - how can you expect to find Him by empirical process? All that empirical process can do is examine existing phenomena in the known universe. God does not fall into this category. No one ‘told me I can’t’ it’s just a logical conclusion based upon a given premise.

Peter says:

03:02pm | 26/03/10

Certainly Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawkins can not comprehend how the universe could have been created without the existence of God. As for these other clown scientists running around with no proof calling everyone stupid for not believing God, I say to them greater minds than you disagree. These smart people like Dawkins prefer to think they were once fish, because to them that makes more sense than the existence of God…

Craigles says:

04:24pm | 26/03/10

Robert Smissen- the consensus is that in Josephus’ writings, most of the references to Jesus are fraudulent additions; and, Origen says Josephus only refers to “the Christus” - not necessarily Jesus.

Steely Dan says:

05:29pm | 26/03/10

@Robert Smissen
Craigles is correct - even most Christian scholars agree that the Jesus passage is a later addition. Two main reasons:
1) Josephus wasn’t a contemporary of Jesus - he could only have heard about a Jesus person second-hand.
2) The passage claims that Jesus was the ‘Christ’ (messiah) - which is a strange thing for Josephus to claim as he was at the time a Jew, and did not convert to Christianity.

Chris L says:

06:52pm | 26/03/10

Peter, we have had civil discussion before so I don’t want to be antagonistic, but please don’t misrepresent Einstein and Hawkings.

“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.” (Albert Einstein)

He’s saying that his idea of god is the universe, which is all fine and dandy. To be honest I wouldn’t mind if all the great scientists were fundamentalist christians or whatever, if I remain free of religious constrictions. (yes internet filter/abortion/euthenasia/nudity/cannibus laws, I’m talking to you!)

Chris L says:

07:06pm | 26/03/10

Also, Peter, you keep simplifying evolution to say we were once fish. The idea (backed up with fossil evidence, geology, biology and a massive amount of rigorous testing) is that life began as single cell micro-organisms that, over the course of billions of years, gradually developed, bit by bit, into the life we have today.

I get that you want to ridicule evolution the way religion is often ridiculed, but your ridicule is easily countered and shown to be baseless.

Besides, you don’t have to disprove evolution. Many theists believe it was god’s method for crafting life as it is. (I don’t, but I’m not a theist.)

Austin 3:16 says:

08:18pm | 26/03/10

Hey apologist - the remarkable claim of such evidence for Jesus do you have a source for that at all ?

Tone says:

08:31am | 26/03/10

We know reindeer can’t fly, though.  From reasoning about their morphology, and from observation of them.  It would be unethical to push any off a building.  Why bother with this red-herring?

Gods are a human description.  The ongoing lack of evidence increases their unlikelihood.

gavin says:

09:51am | 26/03/10

because they have legs instead of wings.

Astrosodi says:

10:28am | 26/03/10

Hey Tone and Gavin—Sure Gerard’s example is inelegant, but his point is that you can’t prove the non-existance of something, from a scientific certainty perspective. That’s the essence of this debate, and why it’s not one that can be answered.

Humans being’s are capable of comprehending things they can’t see, feel, or otherwise physically sense, therefore intellectually we can understand that although we can’t scientifically ‘prove’ something right here and now, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

Arguing about faith and humans’ ability to believe without evidence is part of the limitation on the science of proving the non-existence of something. Evidence is a positive aspect. If something doesn’t exist, there’s no evidence of it. But that only is a statement saying that we have not found any evidence to date.

Did witchery trials disprove the existance of witches? No. Can science prove God doesn’t exist? Unlikely. Even if they can prove the creation of the Earth was not Godly, how can science prove that those elements weren’t created by God?

100% theists will believe regardless of atheists ‘anti-evidence’, and 100% atheists will disbelieve regardless of theists ‘evidence’. It’s what you do with those beliefs (either way) and how you impact others lives that’s important.

Mavis says:

10:24am | 26/03/10

Gerard, what you are proposing to do with those poor defenceless reindeers is very cruel. You should be ashamed.

Robert Smissen of Rural SA says:

12:44pm | 26/03/10

Tone until you have tested your premise on ALL the reindeer you can’t say it is proven.

Tone says:

04:32pm | 26/03/10

Robert - No reindeer are designed to fly; no reindeer have ever flown.  Testing is illogical.

Robert Smissen of Rural SA says:

11:59pm | 26/03/10

Tone are you Afraid to test your “unproven theory” in case despite your strong “faith” that you are right, you are worried you just might be wrong. How do you think science works, by only testing the things you"think” are true? I don’t think so! !

Tone says:

12:33pm | 27/03/10

Robert, we don’t go testing that 747s can crash killing all on board, do we?

Adam Diver says:

09:13am | 29/03/10

@ Tone - Actually they do test that. Its part of the safety protocol for al new aircraft designs testing the impact and survivability of a crash.

Tone says:

02:22pm | 29/03/10

Adam, they don’t take a plane on a real flight, with real passengers, and deliberately crash it; just like it would be silly to push a sample of reindeer off a cliff - or all reindeer as Robert seems to want to do.

ladybuglauren says:

02:20pm | 26/03/10

I’m not trying to be facetious here, but I’m not entirely sure about the idea of being agnostic because nobody can prove ‘either way’ about god.  I kind of assumed the burden was always on people to prove things DID exist. 

I for one have seen no empirical evidence definatively disputing the existence of unicorns, the loch ness monster or the Roswell UFO.  That withstanding, I can say with 100% conviction that I do not believe that these things exist, and I think a lot of people would agree with me.

I don’t really think, then, that the logic that one can’t prove something doesn’t exist mandates that you allow for the possibility that it does.

BTW Seano I’m not disagreeing with you per se, your line of reasoning just got me thinking….

H of SA says:

02:57pm | 26/03/10

ladybuglauren,

The burden of proof lays with the person trying to do the convincing. When an atheist is trying to convince you there is no God - the burden of proof lays with them, otherwise they are well….unconvincing

Seano says:

04:08pm | 26/03/10

@Ladybuglauren: I know what you’re saying but my way of looking at is that God either exists or or doesn’t exist. Both theists and atheist are trying to tell you the know the answer but neither side can provide any proof what so ever.

All I’m really saying is that I’m open to proof from either side. But I also make the distinction between God and religion. Religion is a man made construct that I think we can largely do without in these enlightened times.

So I’m not hedging my bets as it were I’m just saying that I’m open to proof.

Crash says:

10:08pm | 28/03/10

@ H of SA

Sorry, but absolutely not.  The burden of proof rests on the person who asserts that something IS the case,  This part of Logic is an integral part of our legal system.

AliceC says:

09:36am | 26/03/10

I agree. I don’t have a problem with faith, it’s the people who carry out acts of violence ‘in the name of God’ which bothers me.

If I wrote a book, and told people to live by it ,as God had spoken to me, I would be thrown into the loony bin!

Dunx says:

05:50pm | 26/03/10

@Alice C: I dunno - it worked for the Mormons.

AliceC says:

09:47am | 29/03/10

@Dunx, you’re right! I’m gonna start my book today and call it ‘The Bable” (copyright 2010)..... LOL!

AliceC says:

09:33am | 26/03/10

‘And he is a vengeful Frog’....

LOL!!

6c legs says:

12:29pm | 26/03/10

“Well, actually, Father Christmas is possible?...”

Hey! I KNOW Father Christmas is true - *I* am FC every 25th December!
(and if a woman whose not keen on other peoples kids dressed in a stinking hot red suit mit fake beard isn’t proof enough of my existence, i dunno what is)
So lay off saying Santa aint true.

James in Footscray says:

08:56pm | 26/03/10

Haha AliceC, you obviously haven’t read the Frog New Testament!

Sorry 6c legs, that was a low blow of mine. Of course Santa exists.

AliceC says:

10:02am | 29/03/10

I sure have:

Acts 14:11

11And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian,(A) “The frogs have come down to us in the likeness of men!”

LMAO!

Grumbles says:

01:58pm | 26/03/10

Your reasoning is flawed. Back to the drawing board. Nothing has been proven to not exist.

Chris L says:

08:58pm | 26/03/10

On the other hand, holy scriptures can be proven false… or at least plagurised. The deluge and ensuing flood is an old legend used by the Egyptians, Babylonians and Sumerians. While this doesn’t disprove the flood itself (although archeological evidence is yet to be proffered) it does show that the flood was not the work of the monotheistic god. Jesus is almost a carbon copy of Horus and Vishnu combined (both polytheistic deities).

In the end, there may be some force or entity (or multiples thereof) that caused our reality to be. I’m happy to call that god (or perhaps Kali) but I’m confidant that I won’t burn for all eternity if I don’t drop to my knees and worship it.

Adam Diver says:

09:20am | 29/03/10

I am afraid that you are wrong. Most people would rather believe in a god. I can tell you why, if your an atheist think about your life after death.

It is utterly meaningless and unbelievably depressing. Most people are happy to believe in a few stupid myths to create meaning in thier life. Unfortunately I am not one. Best not to think about it

H of SA says:

02:46pm | 26/03/10

Do you place your faith in this?

the apologist says:

10:34am | 26/03/10

He did create the earth. But we’ve done a grand job of stuffing it up…

Austin 3:16 says:

04:59pm | 27/03/10

Ever notice that the best energy sources we have found on this planet to date are also the most polluting. How’s that for “intelligent design”. And don’t get me started on the appendix - a random self destruct feature, just what every good design has.

Astrosodi says:

10:34am | 26/03/10

Hey Sean—but also be careful to appreciate there are things science has proven to be false that have been contrary to church teachings and based on faith. The Earth as centre of the universe is one such perspective.

It is the central issue that regardless of what ‘evidence’ or ‘anti-evidence’ one side has, the goal posts shift as we gain more knowledge. So you prove that the Earth isn’t the cnetre of our universe; perhaps God made it that way—disprove that… Believers will believe, and disbelievers will not.

Even those with faith use that faith to dismiss the faith of others, that’s why there are so many ‘false gods’, no? Becasue surely believers don;t have ‘proof’ that other religions’ gods don’t exist?

Sean says:

12:15pm | 26/03/10

Astrosodi,
I must admit I used those examples deliberately as a wind up.
I agree that science can also disprove arguments, my point is that at this stage saying that science can’t prove that God(s) exist therefore it doesn’t, is not the same as saying God(s) don’t exist.

The reason I’m a 2.5 on the Dawkins scale not a 1 is because whilst I believe I’m keeping an open mind about it

the apologist says:

12:01pm | 26/03/10

“not omnipotent and false. Theists need to get used to the fact that their god is in their mind and it’s imaginary.”

Is He ‘not…false’ or is He ‘imaginary’?
But seriously, condemning theists that their God is imaginary is pointless. I might just as well say: your belief in your dog is imaginary.You would say, no here it is, i’ve got proof. Attacking the ideas is the same as attacking the evidence in effect, and you can’t say God doesn’t exist cause you can’t prove it.
Anyway, you’ll meet God one day, perhaps you’ll be able to ask Him all these questions - I don’t think that it will cross your mind at the time though…

H of SA says:

02:48pm | 26/03/10

Phil Kyson, you said “Sciend has exposed any god produced by the human imagination thus far as impotent not omnipotent and false”

I think you just exposed yourself as knowing very little about science. I don’t either the atheist or theist scientist can take you seriously after that statement.

Austin 3:16 says:

09:55am | 26/03/10

Lee, Buddhism and Islam also speak of real people in time periods.

The historic evidence for Jesus is minimal at best (virtually negligible if you discount Christian sources), the historical evidence for his rising from the dead is non-existent. Maybe Paul had a pretty good point.

Steely Dan says:

03:50pm | 26/03/10

“when a crisis comes, he will drop to his knees and pray for a favourable outcome”
When all else fails, just be condescending, eh?

We atheists - in foxholes or out - don’t drop to our knees and pray for a solution.  We think of one.

AliceC says:

11:41am | 26/03/10

Cheers Timmo!!!

J says:

10:53am | 26/03/10

*sigh*, I love love love Monty Python.  Graham Chapman - a talent gone too soon!

BBB says:

12:29pm | 26/03/10

Your point 4 - Australia doesn’t get a mention in the Bible as the story about Tidilick the frog might be in conflict with some biblical stories.  As for dinosaurs, do you think T-Rex would get a spot upstairs?  The mind boggles.

DG says:

03:28pm | 26/03/10

Your point 5 is flawed. While God only made two people that he sent to the garden of eden there is no reason why other people could not have evolved. It would be consistent with later parts of Genesis where people go off and find partners to carry on the begetting. For starters Cain finds a wife (who bore Enoch) in the land of Nod after killing his brother (not Seth, the other brother, Abel). Seth also found a wife (who gave birth to Enos).

Consider that the Bible is only intended to speak to those direct decendents of Adam and Eve (and only also those of Noah and his wife that were not wiped out in the flood), and only to those of the male line, down through Abraham and onwards. Then when we get to revelations and have the names of all people written in the book of life from the blood of a goat facing god - we can explain away all of the other people that are not descendants of Noah et al.

Personally, I think it’s a load of nonsense, after all “there were giants in the earth in those days…” [Gen 6:4], and god says “...Behold, man is become as one of us…..” (which means that there must have been more than one god, and that Man is also Godlike)..... the whole things is just nonsense. Don’t get me started on Job, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Corinthians or any of the 4 gospel.

Can one person explain to me just how long Noah’s flood was. How long did the water cover the land?

Paul Horn says:

12:36pm | 26/03/10

I’m deeply impressed Timmo. Did you make that up yourself?? As old intellectual Arnie once said “Theres no gain for the brain without a bit of pain”. So’s I’d have to disagree with you there old bean. But your previous posts are impressive so well done. Lets toast the gain in Alices brain wherever it may be found or not. We need faith to believe Alice has a brain though she may argue that she posesses one as it is hurting!!!

AliceC says:

04:45pm | 26/03/10

Thanks for the support guys! Yes, I do have a brain, and it was hurting, so therefore it exists.

All this discussion reminds me of the Flat Earth Society. They believe the earth is flat, that they don’t have to prove it’s flat because it’s up to the ‘earth is round’ believers to prove otherwise, and the proof that is out there is a conspiracy!

http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

Giggles all round!

Grumbles says:

02:04pm | 26/03/10

The biggest point missed by all these theologists is the wording of the bible.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

There is no mention of the time between the beginning and the first day. I do not believe in Evolution, much of the evidence is based on the age of rocks…. which were there in the beginning. It’s the rest of the stuff that got put there 6000 - 10000 years ago.

Proud Infidel says:

01:12pm | 26/03/10

Grant, I like this god that speak of, having looked at all the others I think I can have faith in his noodly appendage.

AliceC says:

11:42am | 26/03/10

I agree! Let them decide once they’re grown into a mature adult.

J says:

01:45pm | 26/03/10

Weird, this was supposed to be in response to Harquebus…

H of SA says:

02:54pm | 26/03/10

Your argument falls apart early. You said, “Can anyone deifnatively prove that unicorns or fairies, do not exist” - but consider, at one time could anyone prove the microscopic organism exist? Or electrons? Or other planets in the solar system? Or the new species living very deep underwater that have only been proven to exist in the last few months?

There are many unobservable phenomena that do exist. So to consider it foolish to not give credence to the possibility of their existance is well ....wrong. Your post proves exacty what the author of this article has pointed out about atheist arguments, they aren’t very persuasive.

Chris L says:

09:09pm | 26/03/10

H, I’m trying to follow. You accept the possibility of unicorns is equal to the possibility of god? If so, I fully agree. Personally (and in all honesty) I also hold out for the possibility of ghosts, werewolves and vampires.

Andy says:

10:24pm | 26/03/10

H, you obviously did not understand the argument. “but consider, at one time could anyone prove the microscopic organism exist?”. At no time in my original post was I referring TO or FOR the existence of anything. Therefore your response in relation to my original post does not make sense. The point is, if you are going to assert that something DOES exist (as in your example of microscopic organisms, planets etc), then that assertion requires some evidentiary basis. It would not be wrong for people to respond with “I don’t believe there are planets, show me some evidence (as in my example of fairies. unicorns NOT existing)

Not recognising the difference between asserting something does exist, or that something does not exist is where your own argument falls apart. To assert something does NOT exist first requires someone proposing that it does/may exist. I am sure no-one just said out of the blue “Oh, you know what, I don’t think there are microscopic organisms”, without the assertion/theory of their existence being put forward first.  Why is God the only thing the same reasoning doesn’‘t apply to?

J says:

01:14pm | 26/03/10

The dating might be accurate, but are the texts fact, or just someone’s wild imagination?

You don’t know!

KH says:

01:36pm | 26/03/10

I can see several problems with your ‘evidence’, but the main one is that history is written by human beings.  How do you know that in 200BC, 160BC, 32AD and 70AD and so on, someone just didn’t write or just make up something that fit a story that was already around to make it appear like a prophecy?  Are there independent alternate sources?

What exactly is the original wording? It could also be one of those ‘nostradamus’ things, where the language is so obtuse that you can make any interpretation.  Maybe the dating is wrong - or is a range that is actually quite large.  There is (ahem) probably more I could say…............
Your ‘evidence’ is starting to look a little flimsy.

monkeytypist says:

01:45pm | 26/03/10

Sorry Simon, but all of those rely on highly subjective interpretations of what the actual references were.  There’s still vigourous disagreement whether specific passages in the Gospels were referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, or to the end of the world. And there is, to put it charitably, no historical evidence for the story of Exodus as described.  Not to mention the extremely suspect narrative of the Two Kingdoms period.

Proud Infidel says:

02:03pm | 26/03/10

Simon, this sounds a little like the Shroud of Turin controversy. In 1988 a radiocarbon dating test was performed on small samples of the shroud, concluding that they date from the Middle Ages, between 1260 CE and 1390 CE. As all ways there is debate over the reliability of the test. So I would say no evidence yet.

Agnostic Atheist says:

02:56pm | 26/03/10

Believe what you read Simon?You can quite easily go back through Egyption,Greek writings and others as well!

Peter says:

03:15pm | 26/03/10

Yes proud infidel, but any accurate carbon dating of the shroud was poluted due to the fact that it had been through a fire. Having said that, i do not necessarily believe the shroud is what some scholars claim it to be. There is no proof, like there is ZERO proof about evolution..

Simon Ingram says:

03:34pm | 26/03/10

The events I referred to were the Greek, Selucid and Ptolomic Empire conquests and invasions, the Maccabean Revolt and of course 32 AD refers to all of the incredibly detailed descriptions of Jesus’ triumphal entry, betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, burial and resurrection that were all detailed in books written in 7th, 6th and 5th Centuries BC.

These are just “someone’s wild imagination” how??

I believe my point still stands.

monkeytypist says:

04:30pm | 26/03/10

And I believe that you still haven’t established why the references in (to take just one example) the Book of Daniel don’t map unambiguously onto any given event - that there are multiple interpretations about each one and not a single reference is beyond dispute.  Not to mention Revelations! Sloppy work by God, to keep us all guessing like that!  And you still haven’t shown the numerous times the Bible claims an event took place without any supporting (archeological, external textual etc.) evidence whatsoever - like the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan.

iansand says:

06:40pm | 26/03/10

If someone knows of a prophecy, as Jesus knew about the prophesces elating to the crucifixion, sets out to fulfil them are they still prophecies?

Do bears fall over in the woods?

Craigles says:

08:38pm | 26/03/10

Simon, are you referring to Codex Siaiticus, which is real and highlights the alterations made between its writing and the KJV about 1,000 yrs later.

For example, Mark 16 finishes at 8 ie. omitting the 12 verses on the appearance of the resurrected Christ – and leaving the disciples exiting in fear; Christ’s supposed words about his executioners from the cross - “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” - are also absent from Codex Sinaiticus.

Also, it has been shown 3-4 separate scribes copied the work, and five correctors emended portions, one of them contemporaneous with the original scribes, the others dating to the sixth and seventh centuries.  A paleographical study at the British Museum in 1938 found that the text had undergone several corrections. The first corrections were done by several scribes before the manuscript left the scriptorium. In the sixth or seventh century many alterations were made ....

Dave Sag says:

04:42pm | 27/03/10

Peter said “There is no proof, like there is ZERO proof about evolution..”

Peter there may be zero proof about evolution but there is also zero evidence that the theory of evolution is wrong.  Science is not about proofs, that’s for maths.  Science is about theories that explain the observed facts and then trying hard to disprove them.  So far not a single observation or experiment has cast any doubt on evolution.  Predictions made based on the theory of evolution have all been shown to happen.  Even by simulating evolutionary systems one gets exactly the results one would expect.  That’s why genetic algorithms work.  Indeed there is a whole field of evolutionary computation.

Andrew Goff says:

04:27am | 29/03/10

Simon,

With Respect,

This has been shown to be a beat-up so often I am surprised it still gets a run.

First: Do you understand carbon dating at all? The date given is when the tree that the paper came from died. Why is this important? Ancient manuscripts were used and reused and reused again. To suggest that a religious manuscript would remain unchanged for 10 years, let alone 500, is ridiculous and no theological scholar would treat such a claim seriously without extra-ordinary circumstance. In particular, the British Museum Manuscript cited contains a (partial) version of the old testament and then a history of the people of Jerusalem. Which, completely unastonishingly, was updated as events happen.

This manuscript is probably the best evidence that Jesus was an historical figure! But as evidence against carbon dating’s accuracy it is hopeless. 

The modern equivalent of what you are saying is that The Wall Street Journal contains an article about the recovery from the Global Financial Crisis in 2010. The Wall Street Journal has been around since 1889. Therefore either we knew about the GFC in 1889 or the calendar is wrong.

The Septuagent Old Testaments in the British Mueseums

Matt says:

02:34pm | 31/12/10

Actually, there is proof for evolution, plenty of it.

Do not confuse the fact that they call it the Theory of Evolution.

Scientific theory is defined differently than philosphical theory - wikipedia it.

Just one example of evolution is the recent story of Japanese scientists subjecting mice to be more ‘prone’ to mutations (a stepping stone of evolution), over time the mice began to ‘sing’.

AliceC says:

05:01pm | 26/03/10

Don’t forget James in Footscray’s Frog God….

stephen says:

03:25pm | 26/03/10

Ha !! Nice one.

Craigles says:

12:36pm | 27/03/10

DNA testing will sort out the answer, Robert

Austin 3:16 says:

04:53pm | 27/03/10

Really no trust ?

Peter says:

03:08pm | 26/03/10

Certainly Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawkins can not comprehend how the universe could have been created without the existence of God. As for these other clown scientists running around with no proof calling everyone stupid for not believing God, I say to them greater minds than you disagree. These smart people like Dawkins prefer to think they were once fish, because to them that makes more sense than the existence of God… But you are right to say, just enjoy life. As a person who believes in God, i believe that believers and non-believers will ultimately be judged on their character. There have been many evil religous and aethiest people in our history.. Simply believing won’t attone people for their sins…

Steely Dan says:

03:48pm | 26/03/10

Awesome comment DG. I thought I’d write this because I think its a travesty that only a creationist had responded to you at the time of me writing.

monkeytypist says:

04:44pm | 26/03/10

Peter - both Hawking and Einstein consider(ed) themselves agnostics and did/do not believe that the existence of the universe provides proof for the existence of God.  In particular, in A Brief History of Time, Hawking discusses how he disagrees with Pope John Paul II that there could be considered to be a “moment” of creation, since the purported structure of space-time make such an idea meaningless.

Peter says:

03:40pm | 26/03/10

Daniel, which policies have been faith based? Has there been a law passed insisting you become a christian? I keep hearing this, but i am not aware of a single “faith based” law. Im happy to have aethiest in parliament, but i want believers in there too. It seems to me aethiests only want themselves represented in parliament…

Andrew Goff says:

01:44pm | 29/03/10

Easy: Churchs are tax exempt.

Ellie says:

05:15pm | 31/03/10

Heres one for you Peter: marriage. Our government will not let homosexuals marry because their Christian faith tells them its not right, despite the fact that marriage was invented by pagans long before Jesus walked the earth.

Atheists only want themselves represented in parliment? Who has said that to you? I could quite easily say that “Christians only want themselves represented in parliment” simply because i don’t like their beliefs, like you don’t like atheism.

AliceC says:

09:39am | 29/03/10

Yes, I agree. Just some friendly banter, not upset at all.

DG says:

03:44pm | 26/03/10

Children can celebrate Saturnalia, Passover (which happens to be next week) or simply celebrate life (their own, their family’s or their pet’s). 

An annual celebration involving Santa and presents certainly doesn’t require Christianity. Fortunately this country, unlike the USA, has made a pretty smooth transition from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays” without anyone seeming to care.

There are still presents and celebrations, just less religion. 

Don’t worry, Christmas is pretty safe. Even I “celebrate” on the 25th of December for the benefit of my Catholic wife and her family. My celebrations have nothing to do with a bloke born in a barn 2000 odd years ago, but I celebrate friends and family and a few days off work.

Personally I prefer New Years but that may just the the Scottish blood longing for Auld Land Syne.

...now if they could determine the birthday of Mitochondrial Eve, perhaps we could celebrate that instead. 25th of December sounds good, we could hijack an existing religious festival and name it as our own. Thus Saturnalia becomes Christmas, and Christmas becomes Eve Day.

Grant says:

04:15pm | 26/03/10

I see I see said the blind man…

So you religious types don’t like other people preaching their belief’s at you…?  How deliciously ironic…

J says:

04:28pm | 26/03/10

The same could be said for fundamental religious nuts - if you think the idea of us evolving fro fish is laughable, fine - just keep it to yourself.

cats says:

05:09pm | 26/03/10

Nope you’re wrong. I’m an atheist and I celebrate xmas but for me its about spending time with the people I love and making them feel good, and feeling good myself. That’s what i’ll teach my kids when I have them.

Nat says:

11:07am | 29/03/10

Yes because lying to Children about a man called Santa Claus is very noble!

Ron Saunders says:

07:42am | 01/04/10

Nat
the same could be said about God/Jesus!

AliceC says:

04:53pm | 26/03/10

Well if it’s in the bible it’s gotta be true!!!!!

DG says:

11:05pm | 26/03/10

The wise man yells it from the rooftops.

the apologist says:

05:17pm | 26/03/10

You’re wrong Stephen. I am firmly convicted that there is a God, and it affects absolutely every aspect of my life. It is not mere abstract knowledge.
And actually, I know of plenty of times where God has intervened to ‘pay the bills’ (read the autobiographical account of George Muller…).
Everything changes when you realise who God is and experience walking with Him day by day as He created us to. I’d say more, but it’s like trying to describe colour to a man blind from birth.

J says:

04:45pm | 26/03/10

All ver well and good, but the debate will still circle until the end of days (or whatever), because neither side has conclusive proof that a God does or does not exist.

Some questions just weren’t meant to be answered.

monkeytypist says:

04:58pm | 26/03/10

H - a few points.
(A) Atheism - in the sense we understand it - has not been around for 2000 years.  Modern atheism is predicated on a scientific understanding of the world - with knowledge of things like biology, physics, geology and chemistry.  A complete scientific understanding of the origins of life still eludes us, but we have a much better picture that people writing 200 or even 20 years ago.  So to treat atheism as intellectually the same thing over 2000 years is deeply misleading.
(2) The failure of a given person to be convinced or not convinced of an idea is not ipso facto evidence for its soundness as a proposition.  This is called the “argument from authority” and is a logical fallacy that is addressed in science but not in religion, which holds store on whether an individual accepts something as true, not whether it can be independently demonstrated to be true.  There are very sound philosophical rebuttals for all of the arguments usually made for God’s existence by people like Thomas Aquinas.  Such counter-arguments have been largely ignored and dismissed not on their merits but on the basis that they undermined fundamental views held by a majority of people in society.  That however doesn’t make them wrong, any more than the fact that the majority of people used to believe the Earth was flat made it so.
(3) As you would know, religion has played a vast and important role in human society for millenia.  In fact, go back far enough and it would be impossible to talk about “religion” being distinct from “society” at all.  It would be extremely difficult to find someone who disagreed fundamentally with the basic beliefs of a society, since such a person tended to be executed.  Now our society is pluralist and intellectually diverse, that power no longer exists and as a result people have begun to think outside of established doctrines and question them using science.  This phenomenon is relatively new, but nevertheless the number of atheists worldwide is growing every day.
(4) In the theistic societies of the past, it was assumed that religion was natural and innate and that children raised in isolation from other humans would grow up believing in God.  We have since discovered this to be false - children do not believe in God unless they are inculcated by their parents/society.  Atheism is the default human position, and religion is a societal construct, just like agriculture.  Therefore, given the diversity of religious views that exist, it is imperative that a religious person be able to empirically justify their faith.  Otherwise there is no reason for us as rational people to set any store by what they say.
(5) I don’t know what your own beliefs are, but I am guessing you believe that there is no such god as Thor, or Osiris, or Zeus, and to believe in those gods, and issue sacrifices to them, would be pointless superstition.  Without relying on supernatural explanations (e.g. “God favours it”), explain how believing in Christianity or your belief system of choice is more rational than these other pointless superstitions.  Until you can, there isn’t a debate at all. There’s rational science, and there’s people who choose for whatever reason to put themselves outside of it.

Steely Dan says:

05:10pm | 26/03/10

@ H of SA

Let’s ignore the fact you seem to think atheists have the burden of proof…

1) The age of an argument says nothing about whether its a good argument or not.
2) The “numerous theist professional scientists” generally subscribe to the NOMA theory - in short, that science and religion are different categories, and they’re not allowed to meet. Another way of saying that religion is not scientific.
3) Atheism and agnosticism aren’t mutually exclusive! Dawkins is an agnostic atheist!
4) We shouldn’t believe in pixies, but the burden of proof lies with the person who claims that pixies exist - and for good reason. If I say ‘nobody has ever taken a photo of a pixie’, the believer could say that they’re invisible to cameras. It’s impossible to argue against a god when the goalposts are constantly shifting.  If you make a claim, you have to back it.

Why don’t you give an argument for the existence of god?

Austin 3:16 says:

10:41am | 27/03/10

Which god Jim? There’s been thousands of the blighters.

Steely Dan says:

12:01pm | 29/03/10

Agreed, Russell.  An extra-logical being is indistinguishable from an illogical one. It’s special pleading at it’s worst. 
I don’t understand why the question of the existence of a creator being is allowed a free pass.

Djinn says:

07:33am | 27/03/10

Mate, with all due respect, you might want to look up the meanings of proof and evidence. They are the same thing.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evidence

Also, faith does not require evidence. The very definition of faith, is belief without proof. So you’re right, faith negates the need to provide evidence, because there isn’t any to start with which is fair enough. Just don’t go around claiming your beliefs as fact (general comment, not directed at you personally.)

Craigles says:

12:52pm | 27/03/10

A - DNA is the ultimate example of organic chemistry: the way the bases are formed; the way the bases come together as a single helix; and the way the 2 helices come together, is all down to the way the atoms bond and the sequences they are in.

The dozens of atoms available in the universe came from fission and fusion of H & He in the stars (like the sun).  The bonds they are able to form vary from atom to atom: C probably is the most versatile.  N, H, O, are too.

Jane says:

01:44pm | 28/03/10

I would love to meet you!
I’m a very happy Atheist, nothing dramatic happened in my life to make me this way.
Christians are good because their ‘god’ tells them to be, otherwise they go to hell. Christians only help others go get them to believe in the big invisible dude in the sky.. Why cant they just help and not mention this dictator?
I donate to non religion charities, I do what I can for the people I meet, youn know why? Because I’m a nice person with a moral compass, yes even without god, people can be nice.

iansand says:

05:55pm | 28/03/10

We should have a beer one day.

Adam Diver says:

10:17am | 29/03/10

How many atheist do you know? Richard Dawkins is a public figure which one could assume you have never even met. Judging someone without knowing them is very unchristian like. Judging a section of society is very unchristian like.

I would like to meet a christian who actually follows the word of the lord. What possible argument is there against gay marriage?

Kelly says:

11:11am | 29/03/10

I am an atheist and a very happy, healthy and well-balanced one. I have no hatred or anger toward believers but would love to sit down and have a rational argument with them about why they believe in God. But often I find they get defensive so sometimes it’s best to not discuss these things. But I am happy in my own ideas and not phased one bit by a god/no god discussion. I love a good old brain workout. To be honest I have the opposite problem - I have yet to find a God believer who isn’t defensive and full of hatred/anger towards atheists. Would love to meet some open-minded Christians.

Proud Infidel says:

04:25pm | 28/03/10

Dave Sag, thank you. Some sense a last.

Proud Infidel says:

04:42pm | 28/03/10

Peter, don’t you think its strange that you have to rely on science to prove the date of the Shroud of Turin. After all this is the same science that proofs evolution.

Drew says:

09:49am | 29/03/10

What?  That makes no sense logically or historically.

Steely Dan says:

03:48pm | 29/03/10

Since when has religion driven scientific enquiry?

Religion has often done the opposite, and while many scientists are religious, I have never seen anything in any major religion that might specifically promote scientific enquiry.

Daddio D says:

09:56pm | 28/03/10

It’s only when you submit to this God that you find His mercy, kindness, love and grace. Those who reject God and do not submit to Him have none of these.

Craigles says:

11:05am | 29/03/10

Daddio D - that’s not very kind, loving, or graceful, is it?  What about those that cannot submit to something they have tried to reason for or reasoned about, and cannot in good conscience, logically believe?

Daddio D says:

07:24am | 29/03/10

And the source of these quantum fluctuations is…?

monkeytypist says:

05:10pm | 29/03/10

@Daddio D the problem with positing that something has to “cause” quantum fluctuations is that you then have to posit something that causes the causer of the fluctuations, and something that causes that, and something that causes that, etc. It’s called an infinite regress and it was established centuries ago as a problematic factor in discussions of God.  And talking about quantum processes as having a “cause” anyway is misleading, since they are inherently random.

Matt says:

02:49pm | 31/12/10

that’s true. and they follow inherent formulae derived from the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

No ‘God’ needed.

Steely Dan says:

11:52am | 29/03/10

@myidea:
“Athesits are therefore either extremists who try to prove God doesnt exist (deligitimising other faith systems) or a group of people subscribe to the faith system that beleives there is no God”
This is a false dichotomy.  Atheism is the lack of a belief in god - not the positive assertion that there is no god.  People who do assert absolutely that there is no god are still atheists - but most atheists (myself included) do not, and I personally have not met anybody who holds that view.  We can of course make the argument that there is no god (not claiming absolute knowledge) based on a lack of evidence (despite no lack of believers searching) and the well-documented tendency for people to invent gods. It is no more arrogant to say that there is no god than to say that there are no leprechauns. I hope this has been helpful.

myidea says:

01:46pm | 29/03/10

but isnt a lack of belief in a God a belief in itself? ie a belief that God doesnt exist (irespective of the degree of conviction)?  if they dont profess either way then i was under the impression this was acutally agnostic? the atheists that you described, like yourself, i would not obviously call extremist (who move toward the ‘fact’ arena) but I would still argue they subscribe to a broad atheist belief system.

personally (unrelated to previous argument) I have no problem with people believing something different to me, what concerns me is when people patronise of a majority of the worlds popultion (past and present) by assuming an ‘enlightened’ position and subscribing to long-debunked idea of the ‘the gullible masses’ - you dont have to agree with them but you can respect them as human beings in control of their own destiny.

DG says:

03:34pm | 29/03/10

“but isnt a lack of belief in a God a belief in itself? ie a belief that God doesnt exist (irespective of the degree of conviction)?”

Not really.

The atheist has no belief, only an observation that there is insufficient evidence for the god hypothesis and that in the absence of evidence we much return to the null hypothesis (i.e there is no god). Without the god hypothesis there would be no atheist.

For example scientologists are “atheist”, they have no belief in god. There are other religions that are the same (i.e that have no deity, but may have a belief in the supernatural). For that reason it is wrong to assume that there is an “atheist” belief system. For example: Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God - both the Jews and the Muslims reject this hypothesis. Does that mean that the Muslims and the Jews have the same beliefs? They don’t even have the same belief about who Jesus was.

The rejection of the God hypothesis does not mean a common belief. A common observation perhaps but certainly not a belief. Interestingly, we assume that the God hypothesis is about the Christian God. A much more defensible position is that of the Deist god created all, and then left creation to its own devices.

As for agnostics: they acknowledge that there is no evidence for god’s existence but are unwilling to reject the god hypothesis. That is akin to appreciating that there is no evidence that Dragons do exist, but being unwilling to reject the Dragon hypothesis. I think that really speaks for itself.

Militant atheists (or extremists), those that try to disprove god, still require the God hypothesis to exist. They require a clear definition of god which they can disprove. Those who hear the God hypothesis and agree that there is no evidence for the hypothesis are either atheists or have faith (i.e are religious), those that believe that there is proof of God tend to be on the Fundamentalist/extremist side of things (and ignore the ‘proof denies faith’ theory).

Steely Dan says:

03:43pm | 29/03/10

@myidea:
“but isnt a lack of belief in a God a belief in itself?”
No. Though I guess you could say that atheists are people who believe that they have not seen any credible evidence for a god. A bit of a stretch of the term though.

“if they dont profess either way then i was under the impression this was acutally agnostic?”
Agnosticism (and its opposite, Gnosticism) relate to what you claim to know, rather than what you believe (although to what degree you know something is another issue).  Somebody who claims to know on faith that God exists would be a gnostic theist, someone like myself (or Dawkins, Dennett et al) would be an agnostic atheist.

“I would still argue they subscribe to a broad atheist belief system.”
As abover, there is no atheist ‘belief’, and certainly no ‘atheist belief system’. There are belief systems that are consistent with atheism (ie. they don’t require the existence of a deity), but atheism is not a club or a church – the only ‘membership’ requirement is that you don’t believe in a god.

“you dont have to agree with them but you can respect them as human beings in control of their own destiny”
I respect people’s right to hold beliefs.  In my experience, atheists are more likely to defend the rights of religion x than those in a faith competing with religion x (perhaps this is because we’re a minority that we understand the importance of this right).  But if I think an idea is a bad one, or that a belief is unfounded, I will tell people (it’s another right I hold dear).  Not to tell people that I believe they are in error would actually be disrespectful.  Similarly, I do not grant religions any special rights simply because they are religions.  Beliefs about how or why we are here are not magically off limits for conversation or criticism.
But I agree that people on both sides are not always out to share information, they’re often just out to scream and rant.

SkepDadBlog says:

10:17pm | 29/03/10

All of these questions are easy to understand really.  God was a creation of primitive people to explain things they couldn’t understand.  As humans grew up, they found better explanations, and stopped believing in the religious ones.
Feel better without all that nonsense weighing you down?  Now go live your life, it’s probably the only one you’ll ever have!

Ben Finney says:

01:15pm | 04/04/10

It would indeed be very pleasant to live in a world where “atheist” was an unnecessary label, like “a-unicornist” or “non-stamp-collector”. Unfortunately that’s not this world.

So long as theistic beliefs are indoctrinated in children, so long as religious organisations get tax exemptions at all citizen’s expense, so long as pernicious myths abound of morality being dependent on supernatural beliefs, so long as unsupported claims are held immune from open criticism, the need to reject such stuff will remain.