Atheism: What's the point?

[Galloism]

I think I'm stuck in Groundhog Day...

[Schlusemann]

http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9501/bigbang2.html

Henry F. Schaefer III:

The Anthropic Principle
I must say something here about the anthropic principle: there are a number of scientific parameters or constants, any one of which, if changed just a little bit would make the earth uninhabitable by human beings. A book that I strongly recommend is by Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos. He has a substantial discussion of the anthropic principle and demonstrates why many physicists and astronomers have considered the possibility that the universe not only was divinely caused, but in fact divinely designed.

One such person is the pantheistic astronomer, George Greenstein, who makes this statement: "As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency, or rather Agency, must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a supreme being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially created the cosmos for our benefit?"

I think Greenstein has gone a little too far in the other direction. I do not think we have proof of the existence of God but I think we do have, in the big bang understanding, some good evidence for the existence of God.

Others have commented on this evidence. A book I recommend is Dreams of a Final Theory by Steven Weinberg. He doesn't have God in the title, but God is discussed in the book. He tells the story about a poem by the Venerable Bede, a religious person of the Middle Ages. In the poem, Bede talks about the banqueting hall being our ordinary existence and Weinberg's comment on this is, "It is an almost irresistible temptation to believe with the Venerable Bede that there must be something for us outside the banqueting hall." There must be something beyond materialism.

Of course this view is echoed in the New Testament. For example, Paul the Apostle wrote, "Ever since the creation of the world, God's eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made"(Romans 1:20). This is exactly what Weinberg is talking about-that almost irresistible temptation.

Atheism
It is very rare that a physical scientist is truly an atheist. Why is this true? Freeman Dyson, a Princeton faculty member, has said, "Nature has been kinder to us than we had any right to expect."

Martin Rees, one of Hawking's colleagues at Cambridge, stated, "The possibility of life as we know it depends on the values of a few basic, physical constants and is in some respects remarkably sensitive to their numerical values. Nature does exhibit remarkable coincidences."

Some scientists express surprise at so many accidental occurrences. However, that astonishment quickly disappears when one sees divine purpose instead of arbitrariness in the laws of nature.

Against overwhelming logic, some atheists continue to claim that the universe and human life were created by chance. A reply to this argument has been developed by the philosopher, William Lane Craig. The atheist's argument states that since we're here, we know this must have all happened by material forces. Craig's counter-argument states,

Suppose a dozen sharp-shooters are sent to execute a prisoner by firing squad. They all shoot a number of rounds in that direction, but the prisoner escapes unharmed. The prisoner could conclude, since he is alive, that all the sharp-shooters missed by some extremely unlikely chance. He may wish to attribute his survival to some remarkable piece of good luck. But he would be far more rational to conclude that the guns were loaded with blanks or that the sharp-shooters had deliberately missed. Not only is life itself overwhelmingly improbable, but its appearance, almost immediately, perhaps in as short a period as 10 million years following the solidification and cooling of our once molten planet, defies explanation by conventional physical and chemical laws.

All right, the argument that life arising was one of the most improbable events to ever occur in the universe is a valid one. There are a steady stream of coincidences and constants that must be present in order for life to exist. However, the fact that the dawn of life is so improbable lends itself to the assertion that a super-human designer, one capable of creating the most intelligent lifeforms that are yet known, would have to be tens of times more intelligent and complex. Therefore, the existence of this designer would increase exponentially, and the regression continues. If you would like to cop out and claim that all of the beauty and wonder around us was designed and created by some all-knowing father figure, instead of asking empirical and inquisitive questions, then you create more regression, not less. You, instead of answering the question of where we came from and why, have spurred countless new questions: where did this supernatural being come from, why is he here, why did he choose us, etc. God, instead of terminating the regression, continues it with a vengeance.

[Farnhamia Redux]

Not only is life itself overwhelmingly improbable, but its appearance, almost immediately, perhaps in as short a period as 10 million years following the solidification and cooling of our once molten planet, defies explanation by conventional physical and chemical laws.

Argument from incredulity. Just because it amazes you doesn't mean God did it. And ten million years is actually quite a long time, you know.

That is not my statement. And secondly, I didn't write that, William Lane Craig did.
And if something's improbable, it's not likely to happen

You posted it, one assumes you agree with it. Do you?

You often hear the argument that the earth is in just the right spot for life to have developed but that's arguing post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this). The location of the earth looks like it was "designed" for life because there is life on the planet. But if the planet were farther from the Sun and life had developed, people would argue that was the "sweet spot" that some deity picked for life.

Improbable - if it is - does not mean divinely ordained.

[Enadail]

And if something's improbable, it's not likely to happen

And what here are you claiming is improbable?

Because in a large part, something improbable in the past doesn't suddenly mean it didn't happen. If the chances of a bird flying through my window are 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (obviously ridiculous number in both aspects), and a bird does fly through my window... it doesn't matter how improbable it is. Improbability is about weighing the future, not undoing the past.

[Farnhamia Redux]

Can I post an "in before" and pre-empt the "Well, it's improbable that life was formed fully functioning in a pond after only ten million years"? You know, the old "tornado in a junk yard creating a 747" gambit. Because that's not how life was formed.

[Urghu]

Ah, yes, punishing curiosity, those, I find this applies more to religion itself than to just theism.

Well, aren't you atheists trying to punish theists for believing in a God?

You're being punished for believing in God .. how, exactly?

They have to go to church each Sunday if they are Christian while we atheist can take a nap?

[Tmutarakhan]

common sense, at best, suggests that "jesus" is a conglomeration of the teachings of any one of a number of radical jewish messianic preachers of the first century

Common sense suggests that he was one of them.

As a bonus, a lot of the stories told about Jesus were told before Jesus' time about Hercules, Mithras

Name one story told about Jesus and also told about Hercules or Mithras.

What's most interesting is that the Romans kept meticulous records during that time period. They have records of Pontius Pilate and the crucifixions he ordered

WHO has such records? I don't know where this insanely exaggerated notion arises from about how much preservation from ancient times we have. We do not have anything like a complete archive of records from anywhere until around the 13th century; we have fragmentary preservations (a land grant here, a trial transcript there) from late Merovingian France (8th century). Paper is fragile, and ancient preservations are like fossilizations in the biological world: rarely do we get anything; what we do get is often in a poor state; and you can't demand to see a particular item, no matter how much you want it.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

And if something's improbable, it's not likely to happen

Not necessarily true.

[Treznor]

This assumes that both sides of the argument have equal weight. On the one side we have multiple different religions that assert there are hundreds of different gods meddling in earthly affairs, or at least setting the whole thing off. On the other hand we have atheism pointing out the total lack of evidence to support even the suggestion of gods being responsible for so much as the manipulation of a single subatomic particle, let alone creating or guiding anything.

While lack of evidence prevents us from saying conclusively that there are no gods, the weight of evidence strongly suggests there aren't any. The two arguments do not have equal weight.

Ok prove it.

It's a fallacious argument to say that because most religions are probably false that that in any way implies the non-existence of god.

Back to square one.

I don't have to prove it, I'm not the one claiming gods exist. The burden of proof does not rest with me. If I were to claim that there's a fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage, then you would require me to prove it before you believe it. When I couldn't produce the evidence, you would be correct in dismissing my claims.

The only reason we're even having this discussion is because thousands of years ago, our ancestors watched rain fall and lightning flash and wondered why. At first they associated these events with spirits, and as time went on and the stories were retold those spirits became gods. Gods eventually became endowed with mighty powers and capricious natures that required worship and sacrifice.

Fast-forward to today when we have more rational answers for why rain falls and lightning strikes, and the gods have increasingly less responsibility for the world around us. Why, even prayer has been debunked as a means to intercede with the gods. Every time we examine the nature and role of gods, we find something distinctly not-divine behind it. In the end, all we're left with is a cultural tradition regarding gods and the stubborn insistence that they are somehow still relevant.

I can't prove God doesn't exist, because you can't prove a negative. But I can prove that God has no discernable impact on the world around us, and that's more verifiable proof than anything religion can put up against it.

[Farnhamia Redux]

Well, aren't you atheists trying to punish theists for believing in a God?

You're being punished for believing in God .. how, exactly?

They have to go to church each Sunday if they are Christian while we atheist can take a nap?

That is pretty mean!

[Grave_n_idle]

I don't understand what you think the motivation is. Can you try and tell this story in some way that makes sense? You lambasted me earlier for trying to piece together what it is that you think was going on; obviously I don't get it. So OK: nobody in the 60's thought the Christians were founded by a rabblerouser who got executed; nobody was really paying much of any attention to them at all; the whole "persecution by Nero" thing never happened; but decades later, at a time when all sources agree that there wasn't any particular controversy about Christians, Tacitus decides to invent a story about Nero persecuting Christians, because he despises Christians for some reason we haven't heard, but he makes it plain that Nero was in the wrong about these things he didn't do??? That's the best I can come up with for what it is that you are trying to postulate: please explain what it is that you actually think.

We don't KNOW what they thought in the 60's. That's where you're falling down. We only know what Tacitus SAYS they knew... writing considerably later, and influenced or altered via who knows what.

Even eye-witness testimony is reliable for one thing above all others - being unreliable. And what we're talking about here ISN'T eye-witness testimony - it's a much later telling of a story that might have been based on witness testimony many years earlier... or might not.

[Grave_n_idle]

Atheism is not the assertion that theism can't be proven -thats agnosticism - atheism it's the assertion that theism is wrong.

And Christianity is the assertion that unicorns shit rainbows.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

Atheism is not the assertion that theism can't be proven -thats agnosticism - atheism it's the assertion that theism is wrong.

And Christianity is the assertion that unicorns shit rainbows.

Yeah, who needs that whole "words mean what they mean" bullshit!

[Urghu]

You're being punished for believing in God .. how, exactly?

They have to go to church each Sunday if they are Christian while we atheist can take a nap?

That is pretty mean!

I know, and in another religion they are not allowed to eat while the sun is up for a month or so. Which is kind of a bitch certain years if they have moved up to where I live where the sun right now is down for 3 hours...

[Enadail]

I know, and in another religion they are not allowed to eat while the sun is up for a month or so. Which is kind of a bitch certain years if they have moved up to where I live where the sun right now is down for 3 hours...

And I'm not supposed to eat while the sun is down for a month... but its a good thing I don't believe in the non-sense part of my religion

[Bottle]

Atheism is not the assertion that theism can't be proven -thats agnosticism - atheism it's the assertion that theism is wrong.

And Christianity is the assertion that unicorns shit rainbows.

Blasphemer. As I clearly covered in another recent thread, Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on the belief that God really enjoys eating babies.

[Tmutarakhan]

All the Krishna stuff

Most of this is stuff I've known since childhood. So sources I donno... So unless my parents were trying to teach me Jesus while telling me Hinduism while I was Jain, the chances of ulterior motives are small.

I don't think they were TRYING to mislead you; but as non-believers in Krishna they would have little interest in getting all the details right, and would probably have all the beliefs from different religions that weren't theirs balled up together in their heads. The story of how the palace astrologer predicted Krishna to be a great warrior, and how the wicked uncle then ordered Krishna killed so he was hidden among good cottagers, sounds (except for gender) more like Snow White than anything else; if you were taught that the story was like the Star of Bethlehem leading the Magi to find a baby born in an obscure spot, that is just confusion. Similarly, I don't find any stories about Krishna going around healing lepers; he could seduce any woman at all with his intoxicating flute-playing (somewhat like Orpheus and his lyre) and was an astonishingly fast chariot driver (sort of like Jehu bar-Nimshi) but these particular superpowers aren't very reminiscent of those attributed to Jesus.

Regardless, for baptized, the reason I quoted it is that Hinduism doesn't have baptism. But like baptism, a ceremony in the Ganges River is said to purify and clean the body of sin/karma. So... no, pretty damn close. If you already had the idea of baptism in your religion, you could see this as a crude baptism.

But the notion of a bath as cleansing, symbolically as well as physically, is pretty much pan-human. The Hebrews had that all the way back to the giant bathtub in the inner court of the First Temple; the Romans had their sacred "lustrations", etc. To find significance in the commonality, we would want to see some sharing of more specific overtones. What sets the Christian notion of "baptism" apart from other cleansing rituals is the idea that it is a once and for all cleansing, rather than a ritual to be repeated as often as needed; and that is not present in India anymore than it is elsewhere.

Regardless, if even 4-5 things match up, it seems a bit peculiar that a mythical figure has similar properties to a mythical figure from another religion.

I'm not even seeing four or five, not without a lot of stretching and distortion.

[FreeSatania]

This assumes that both sides of the argument have equal weight. On the one side we have multiple different religions that assert there are hundreds of different gods meddling in earthly affairs, or at least setting the whole thing off. On the other hand we have atheism pointing out the total lack of evidence to support even the suggestion of gods being responsible for so much as the manipulation of a single subatomic particle, let alone creating or guiding anything.

While lack of evidence prevents us from saying conclusively that there are no gods, the weight of evidence strongly suggests there aren't any. The two arguments do not have equal weight.

Ok prove it.

It's a fallacious argument to say that because most religions are probably false that that in any way implies the non-existence of god.

Back to square one.

I don't have to prove it, I'm not the one claiming gods exist. The burden of proof does not rest with me. If I were to claim that there's a fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage, then you would require me to prove it before you believe it. When I couldn't produce the evidence, you would be correct in dismissing my claims.

The only reason we're even having this discussion is because thousands of years ago, our ancestors watched rain fall and lightning flash and wondered why. At first they associated these events with spirits, and as time went on and the stories were retold those spirits became gods. Gods eventually became endowed with mighty powers and capricious natures that required worship and sacrifice.

Fast-forward to today when we have more rational answers for why rain falls and lightning strikes, and the gods have increasingly less responsibility for the world around us. Why, even prayer has been debunked as a means to intercede with the gods. Every time we examine the nature and role of gods, we find something distinctly not-divine behind it. In the end, all we're left with is a cultural tradition regarding gods and the stubborn insistence that they are somehow still relevant.

I can't prove God doesn't exist, because you can't prove a negative. But I can prove that God has no discernable impact on the world around us, and that's more verifiable proof than anything religion can put up against it.

1) You are asserting that god does not exist. I'm not making you assert that - you have the option of asserting nothing, thats agnosticism. If you require proof from theists to justify their beliefs then you should in all fairness be prepared to answer the same.

2) You can't "prove that god has no discernable(sic) impact on the world around us" anymore than theists can prove that he does!

[Treznor]

common sense, at best, suggests that "jesus" is a conglomeration of the teachings of any one of a number of radical jewish messianic preachers of the first century

Common sense suggests that he was one of them.

Common sense suggests he was none of them, but an amalgamation of multiple stories and myths with varying degrees of accuracy.

As a bonus, a lot of the stories told about Jesus were told before Jesus' time about Hercules, Mithras

Name one story told about Jesus and also told about Hercules or Mithras.

The mortal and chaste Alcmene, the mother of Hercules, gave birth to him from a union with God (Zeus). Similar to Herod who wanted to kill Jesus, Hera wanted to kill Hercules. Like Jesus, Hercules traveled the earth as a mortal helping mankind and performed miraculous deeds. Similar to Jesus who died and rose to heaven, Hercules died, rose to Mt. Olympus and became a god.

Mithras was called the son of God, was born of a virgin, had disciples, was crucified, rose from the dead on the third day, atoned for the sins of mankind, and returned to heaven.

What's most interesting is that the Romans kept meticulous records during that time period. They have records of Pontius Pilate and the crucifixions he ordered

WHO has such records? I don't know where this insanely exaggerated notion arises from about how much preservation from ancient times we have. We do not have anything like a complete archive of records from anywhere until around the 13th century; we have fragmentary preservations (a land grant here, a trial transcript there) from late Merovingian France (8th century). Paper is fragile, and ancient preservations are like fossilizations in the biological world: rarely do we get anything; what we do get is often in a poor state; and you can't demand to see a particular item, no matter how much you want it.

I don't know, a quick Google search brings up a bit of interesting data for me. No, we don't have a complete archive, but we have enough historical context to even challenge the assertion of a town called Nazereth in that time period, let alone the crucifixion.

[Tmutarakhan]

We don't KNOW what they thought in the 60's.

The only way we can know is to listen to what the people who were actually there tell us about what people thought in the 60's. You are presuming that Tacitus is lying: why? I mean both senses of "why": "What makes you think so?" and "What is the motive for Tacitus to do so?" And what, exactly, is it that you think happened instead? You can't beat something with nothing. The Occam's Razor explanation for why Tacitus wrote what he did is that he remembers how things were; the burden of proof is on any more convoluted explanation, but so far you haven't even PROPOSED a more convoluted explanation, let alone tried to justify it.

[Enadail]

But the notion of a bath as cleansing, symbolically as well as physically, is pretty much pan-human. The Hebrews had that all the way back to the giant bathtub in the inner court of the First Temple; the Romans had their sacred "lustrations", etc. To find significance in the commonality, we would want to see some sharing of more specific overtones. What sets the Christian notion of "baptism" apart from other cleansing rituals is the idea that it is a once and for all cleansing, rather than a ritual to be repeated as often as needed; and that is not present in India anymore than it is elsewhere.

Except the concept of spiritually cleaning in holy water isn't pan human. Be even if it was, its more proof that ideas that are spread have less value.

I'm not even seeing four or five, not without a lot of stretching and distortion.

I think that's a difference of opinion, and lends itself to what I was saying earlier as well... a figure like Jesus, who's existence is so important, can't be up for any doubt.

[FreeSatania]

Mithras was called the son of God, was born of a Rock

The common misconception that Mithras was born of a virgin was invented by Alice Baily - a very interesting kooky person who I'd rather not get into.

[Treznor]

I don't have to prove it, I'm not the one claiming gods exist. The burden of proof does not rest with me. If I were to claim that there's a fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage, then you would require me to prove it before you believe it. When I couldn't produce the evidence, you would be correct in dismissing my claims.

The only reason we're even having this discussion is because thousands of years ago, our ancestors watched rain fall and lightning flash and wondered why. At first they associated these events with spirits, and as time went on and the stories were retold those spirits became gods. Gods eventually became endowed with mighty powers and capricious natures that required worship and sacrifice.

Fast-forward to today when we have more rational answers for why rain falls and lightning strikes, and the gods have increasingly less responsibility for the world around us. Why, even prayer has been debunked as a means to intercede with the gods. Every time we examine the nature and role of gods, we find something distinctly not-divine behind it. In the end, all we're left with is a cultural tradition regarding gods and the stubborn insistence that they are somehow still relevant.

I can't prove God doesn't exist, because you can't prove a negative. But I can prove that God has no discernable impact on the world around us, and that's more verifiable proof than anything religion can put up against it.

1) You are asserting that god does not exist. I'm not making you assert that - you have the option of asserting nothing, thats agnosticism. If you require proof from theists to justify their beliefs then you should in all fairness be prepared to answer the same.

I have not asserted that the existence of gods is disproven. I've asserted that, given all the evidence we've been able to gather so far, there's more reason to believe gods do not exist than there is to believe they do. Go back and re-read my comments. Go ahead. I'll wait.

2) You can't "prove that god has no discernable(sic) impact on the world around us" anymore than theists can prove that he does!

Sure I can. God is supposed to be the author of all life, except that we now understand the process of life well enough that we have scientists creating artificial life in labs right now. God used to cause the sun to rise and the rain to fall, except that we discovered he doesn't. God is supposed to answer prayer, but we get no different results from people who pray than people who don't. Every time theists claim God is working, we've tested verified nothing is happening that can't be explained through natural law and random chance. The same things happen regardless of faith or its lack thereof in gods. That means "no discernable impact on the world around us."

[Treznor]

Mithras was called the son of God, was born of a Rock

The common misconception that Mithras was born of a virgin was invented by Alice Baily - a very interesting kooky person who I'd rather not get into.

I stand corrected regarding Mithras' origins.

[Enadail]

1) You are asserting that god does not exist. I'm not making you assert that - you have the option of asserting nothing, thats agnosticism. If you require proof from theists to justify their beliefs then you should in all fairness be prepared to answer the same.

2) You can't "prove that god has no discernable(sic) impact on the world around us" anymore than theists can prove that he does!

He's not asserting God doesn't exist. He's asserting that belief in a god doesn't make sense, specially the Christian one which is the topic at the time.

Actually... if there is a natural explanation, it means that a supernatural explanation isn't required... so yes, if God is supernatural, you can prove he has no discernible affect on the world around us.