I’m familiar with a number of arguments for theism that I find convincing and worth defending, and while I think on scale my reasons for believing theism are stronger, I’m also willing to admit that there are arguments for atheism which do carry at least some weight. In this post, I want cover two arguments that I find to be the most compelling to me, although you shouldn’t think I find these arguments to be overwhelming or without good answers.
The Impossibility of Unembodied Minds
If God exists, then He is, at least fundamentally, a mind which exists without a body. Now here it may be possible, though I think unlikely, for God to have a body contingently (that is to say He wills to have a body for whatever reason), which is what any Mormon ought to say who maintains God has a body since no necessary being can be essentially a physical one. So God, if he exists, is essentially an immaterial and personal being. The argument then comes from the atheist that all the minds we are familiar with are embodied. Everywhere we know there is mind, there is brain. We might put the argument like this,
- God would be a mind able to exist without a body.
- No mind can exist without a body.
- Therefore, God does not exist.
I think the first premise is true and the second seems to have support from experience. In our experience, whenever we encounter a mind there is also a body with it. This said, I would still deny the second premise on the basis that the arguments against materialism and for dualism seem to be better than their adversaries. If dualism (in the relevant forms) is true, then in fact it is possible for the mind to exist without the body. I am thinking here of arguments for the soul like the modal argument and the various sub-arguments to the argument from reason (of Reppert, though Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument is certainly relevant) against materialism. Besides that, there are arguments (such as the one given in my previous post for a Thomistian Cosmological Argument) for the existence of just such a mind which I find to be more convincing. Altogether then, I am willing to say this argument does carry a bit of weight for atheism even if I don’t find it compelling enough with regard to the overall cases.
The Problem of Natural Pain and Suffering
While the argument from evil in the sense of the moral evil of persons and their actions is not one which has ever made me raise an eyebrow, given the free-will of persons, nonetheless when I reflect on natural evil and suffering I am a bit troubled. One might think about the various natural disasters, which don’t seem to be instigated by any moral agents, and, especially if you are convinced of an evolutionary past (let me confess I’m not), the pain and suffering in the animal kingdom that goes on all the time. It becomes difficult to understand why God would allow such natural cruelty as a part of His creation.
This argument is not as strong as the last one, but it does make you think. To begin with, this argument seems to be primarily emotional (and emotions are not the best indicators of truth). As a logical argument, no contradiction can be demonstrated between the existence of God and natural evil. In fact, we can prove they are not contradictory by suggesting the possibility that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing it (this is part of the response to general problem of evil). Remember this is the atheist’s argument, so the theist does not have to prove the possibility is the reality. As the atheist’s argument, it is their task to show that this solution could not be the case, which is itself an impossible task. Lacking the overall view of the grand scheme of intricate and complicated causal relationships between all the events that have happened, are happening, and will happen, it would be arbitrary speculation (or an absurd claim to having the knowledge God would have) for the atheist to say God could not have sufficient reasons for permitting natural evil. If one takes a Christian perspective, it becomes even easier to think of some reasons God could have. For instance, if God desires as many people as possible to repent and turn to Him, then it is not at all implausible that the greatest numbers of persons acquiring salvation can only be found in worlds with natural and moral evil (think of how effective evangelical work is in places of disaster as opposed to the more comfortable U.S. and Europe).
Also worth mentioning, with regard to animal suffering, is the scientific support for three different levels of pain awareness, with the highest level only being found in humans and the great apes. It looks as though God has spared the animal kingdom of the kind of pain we deal with ourselves. Michael Murray explains this in his book Nature Red in Tooth and Claw and I’ll give you the link below to a response Murray has given as a guest author on a Q&A where he addresses the problem of animal pain,
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/animal-suffering1
So There You Have It
These are the two arguments for atheism which I would say carry the most weight. There are probably a host of other arguments you can think of, but frankly I find most of these to be either silly or based on a misunderstanding (like the “Who made God?” nonsense). For instance, I once met a person (sorry, but no names) who argued that if Catholicism were not true then theism could not be true. A strange premise in itself, the person then offered an argument against being Catholic that seemed to be based more on his/her personal experience with the Church more than on any problems with its teachings (I’ve noticed a problem with theistic shortsightedness where a person finds they disagree with the teachings/character of the particular group they’ve grown up in and jumped to abandoning theism altogether rather than that particular view of it, I’ve seen this with many ex-Mormons). If you think there is another argument worth adding to the list, please leave me a comment about it!
ichthysthinktank.wordpress.com 
The problem of evil was a big one for me. The free will argument was not quite convincing enough for me. Considering the idea that babies and developmentally /mentally disabled are generally granted “heaven” rights by most. If babies go to heaven, without needing to experience free will….then doesn’t that call into question allowance of all pain and suffering and evil in order to be with god?
Another one is the lack of difference between a “believer” and “non believer” in the reality of their life.
With or without prayer to an “all powerful all omni being” the lives seem to be…the same…
(lack of miracles) combined with “rain upon the just and unjust” and basically the same type of answers to prayers whether they be to god or a moss covered teddy bear…
Lack of difference in life….(overcoming sin/temptation) seems to be the same …some do…some don’t…regardless of belief systems…
(these were my tops)
Thanks for being willing to consider life from another’s point of view!
I look forward to more of your posts as well.
kind regards,
holly
Thank you for the comment, Holly! If I understand you correctly, I think we can make a distinction between two complaints you have.-
1. The salvation of babies and mentally disabled persons regardless of free will.
2. The lack of a clear practical difference in the life of the believer vs. the unbeliever.
I think your first point is a very thoughtful one and I’m going to be very careful as I consider it. However, the second to me almost seems irrelevant. We don’t judge the truth of a proposition based on the life of those who adhere to it. Besides that, I don’t think one can legitimately claim that there is no difference between the life of the unbeliever and believer unless they can somehow “see” into the developing hearts and minds of both. Also notice that I don’t think God is really after, fundamentally, our propositional affirmation of His existence and the like. It is a definitely an important step, but simply stating the proposition, “there is a God”, is not going to give someone complete salvation. God is much more interested in the state of the heart and whether we are willing to repent and struggle to change (I think this change will continue in the afterlife, see my previous post on a protestant Purgatory).
Anyways, as I said I find 1 to be the real though provoker so let’s muse about that for a bit. First, lets think about it in relation to the argument. When it comes to the problem of evil and the free will defense I don’t think this objection is relevant. The free will defense doesn’t necessarily make claims about the nature of salvation, rather it says God rightly endowed us with free will and that enables us to chose to do evil. Also remember that this is the atheists argument against God, and as such it is the atheist who must demonstrate the incompatibility of the two.
In any case, you do make a significant point with 1 in how it appears problematic for my views of the nature of salvation as requiring a free choice. It is true that we usually say babies and the mentally disabled are not denied salvation because of their cognitive limitations and inability to make an informed free decision and we usually assume these persons to Heaven. Now, I agree with you that this solution would by problematic if we take it that salvation requires a freely willed decision(s). So what might our solution be? Well, we could go back to Dante’s “Inferno” and put these persons in the Limbo section of Hell with the virtuous pagans, but that seems a rather harsh way to deal with them considering their disabilities. Notice, as I mentioned above, that I believe in Purgatory (probably not the one you have in mind though). If there is such a place, I’d say it is plausible to suggest that this is where such persons would go in order to develop enough to the point that they can make informed and freely willed decisions regarding their salvation.
Thanks for getting me thinking, Holly! I hope we can have more dialogue in the future.
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“We don’t judge the truth of a proposition based on the life of those who adhere to it”
But if that proposition comes with a clause…..”born again” life more abundant” “victory over sin” …and proclamations of “you shall know them by their fruit” then?
Thank you for allowing open discussion like this. 🙂 I am enjoying it.
There are Christians who live in a way that expresses those things, for the record, but in any case the failure of persons to live consistently with their beliefs does not show the propositional claims to be false. I also would not say that a person who adheres to Christian truth claims is necessarily “born again”, nor would I say the process is instantaneous. Paul himself said he was chief of sinners and recognized it took will on the part of the person to be consistent with their beliefs.
Also your theory on a holding place for those who should / could experience free will but cannot is an interesting one. Have you anything to base this theory on ?
That’s not quite the notion I have in mind. Look at my post on Purgatory to see why I believe there is such a place which can, in addition to its fundamental purpose, provide a place for those who could not freely choose to repent here to be able to do such in the afterlife (I will say ahead of time it is a theological case).
will do. Am off to work but will get back to it upon my return. Thank you again for being willing to consider and discuss other points of view!
And thank you for the same, very courteously I might add.
The number one reason why I am not a theist, nor have ever been, is that no plausible, or even remotely logically sound evidence of the existance of any gods has ever been presented to me.
The problem of evil does not suggest that there are no gods, it only suggests these are not very evidently “benevolent” as is the claim by some theists of their particular gods. It is a very serious contradiction between the alledged nature of some divinities as proposed by humans and (holy)books written by humans and the observable reality. It is more likely that these humans have or had a very subjective idea of benevolence, than that there actually exists an objectively benevolent entity. A truly benevolent creator entity would not withold the information about why there needs to be seemingly unnecessary suffering. It would not have created us too stupid to understand the reasons of our pain, if it expected us to accept that suffering.
The improbability of the unembodied minds is a valid argument. It stands alone as long as there is no evidence about an unenbodied mind. The mere fact that we could come up with an idea of an unembodied mind does not in any way support the likelyhood of such a thing existing. As theism and atheism are all about belief, it is therefore my logical conclusion to withold any belief to any such suggestions until they are demonstrated.
The idea of the free will is in direct contradiction to most divine stories I know of. For instance, I have been told that the free will is the prime cause of suffering, but that it is purposefull, because a god needs to hide from our investigations, since a god would not want to have us humans to be woship automatons. As if we lost our free will if we actually had convincing information about him. I may have misrepresented the idea, but this is how it was presented to me, and it makes no sense. Human free will has nothing to do with diseases, or natural catastrophes. People who thought they had convincing information about the existance of a god have done horrible deeds, thinking that is what their god wanted them to do, and similar people who thought they had very convincing information about the existance of a god have done the most horrible deeds despite, the fact they thought it was against the will of this god. Are people going to be worship automatons in the afterlife where they alledgedly have a certainty of the existance of a god? Do people loose their free will when they die?
The “where did your god come from” is a valid point. It is not a question the asker expects a logical answer to. It simply points out, that the argument for a god to exist, as a prime cause implies, that since we do not know what the prime cause was, we could insert a god as an explanation just because it has been a tradition to assert that particular non-verifiable information as if it was a fact. It is a path that, even if taken as far it could possibly logically take us, only reaches a point of deism, wich to be honest, does not differ in any practical terms from atheism.
One of the most convincing arguments for atheism in my view is, that all the many god stories I have ever read, or heard are obvious fiction. Most of the people, if not almost all people on this planet are convinced, that most of the religions are fables. It is their own religion, wether actually chosen by them (wich is comparatively rare), or if they were raised as an adherent of it, that they believe to be true. Not because of any particular arguments, or because of any evidence. Most stories of personal revelations are quite obvious mental cases. It is obvious, that most people do not choose to worship any particular god, they mainly join religions through their own cultural heritage and indoctrination. Not one depiction of a god stands apart from all the others. The different gods may have different attributes, but in the end they are all obviously mere andropomorphications of natural processes.
I think I’ve addressed most of your concerns in this post, a previous post on a thomistian cosmological argument, and other two posts on arguing about God and the evidence. I’ll ask you to look at those to add to your thinking, but I will say something here about two of your points. First, the “where did God come from?” question is an old and well addressed question. Ask any atheist philosopher and they would probably acknowledge that if God exists he is a necessary being, not contingent. Now, your last objection to God was by means of explaining belief away psychologically. To begin with this is a classic genetic fallacy of saying because you can explain the origin of a belief that therefore it is false. If I were locked in a windowless room since birth and believed the sky was blue just because it was my favorite color, I could still be right about the sky being blue. Also, notice how arbitrary the claim is! You have not offered evidence to support your explanation and I could just as easily give a psychological account of atheism. Lastly, even if the account were accurate, it could be God’s way of establishing a generally basic belief in God, and so the argument becomes a nonstarter.
Oh one more thing, deism is not compatible with atheism in any meaningful definition of the word. To say it is lack of belief in God’s is just to state a psychological state and it is not clear if you are traditional atheist, agnostic, or a verificationist of some sort. It would mean anyone’s pet or infant child is an atheist too, which seems rather silly.
Deism is practically not any different from atheism, because the deist god has no bearing in the individual human lives. This is similar as the atheistic idea of not believing in any unverifiable gods in the sense, that the impropable gods have no bearing in human life.
Pets and infants are practically atheists. They have no inherent knowledge about gods, so they lack the belief in any of them. Correct?
I’m taking atheism by it’s traditional philosophical definition which is the belied there is no god. As I said, this redefinition you offer of atheism is problematic (reread my response to see why). In any case, deism affirms the existence of God and is only similar to atheism in denying miracles, but is not by any means the same thing as atheism even on the definition you offered. If you do define atheism as lack of belief in God I will need you to clarify in what way you lack belied. Do you say there is no God, withhold judgement about God, or say the question is meaningless as the verificationist does?
Well, that is just semantics. Traditionally being an atheist means one has no belief in gods, but I personally also happen to be an antitheist in the sense I think that in the light of present information about the issue we are warranted to conclude there most propably exists no actual supernatural gods. I am somewhat abhorred by the lack of morals in the alledgedly divinely inspired instructions to humanity. I am also an agnostic in the sense, that I do not know for sure, if there is, or once was something we could define as gods. However, as stated abowe I find that very very unlikely.
I reread and reread your response and I still do not see the problem you are referring to. Could you perhaps rephrase it?
Deism was presented in a situation where people had a lot less information about how to the world and the universe work, than we today have but when it was finally possible to divorce oneself from the church and not be killed on sight by the religious zealots. However, holding deism as a belief affects just about as much the individual life of a person as that person being an atheist. And in that sense of comparrison to any religious people, deism and atheism do not differ from each other in practical terms. The only difference is the assertion wether or not a god exists, or as for some deists – has existed.
Well, I commented your post, so obviously you addressed the issues my comments touched upon. In addition I also gave a couple of examples of arguments for atheism you had not touched in this post, since you asked your readers to give such. If you have some other posts that allready address them, then perhaps I should have commented them in your posts, that deal in these issues, but I was not aware, that there were any such. Perhaps I will take a look at them and comment. Thank you for the invitation.
I do not know any atheist philosophers, do you? Hence, in these issues I mostly rely on my own reasoning. Besides, since atheism has no dogma (as it is not a religion, just a position about the existance of gods). The issue of where did a primal cause kind of god come from, may have been very much addressed, but as far as I have heard the problem has never been solved. If we would claim, that a universe needs a disembodied omnipotent intelligence as a primal cause wich does not need to have a primal cause outside itself to exist, it is only honest to conclude, that it is more likely (within the information we have about the universe), that the universe did not necessarily need a primal cause outside itself to exist. Because the universe with all its galaxies, is ultimately less complex item, than any such originator entity. Or, that we simply do not have enough information about the primal cause of the universe to make any positive claims about it. It is quite a leap from the idea that the universe might have a primal cause, to the idea, that it must be a disembodied mind.
Is it not obvious to you, that there is a mighty leap of faith between any assumed primal cause (be it a particular god, or what ever) for the universe to a deity, that goes to choose one tribe of nomads as more important, than the next tribe of nomads and carries out personal relationships with some people, but only after these people believe very very hard and have first had the chance to learn about this particular god from other human beings?
I am sorry but you are mistaken, it is not the genetic fallacy to understand why people had these supernatural explanations and how that gave a rise to all the different religions. Where do you think Hinduism came from? Are you not aware of how cultures evolve? This is something investigated and researched with scientific integrity and rigour. It is evidence for the real and simple reasons how religions and the idea of supernatural came to be and a very good indicator wether if there is any truth value behind any claims about gods.
For wich particular one of my claims would you want me to present more evidence? I made quite a lot of claims, and I thought that most of them are common knowledge, like the fact that most people do not choose what they believe about gods, but are indoctrinated into a particular religion from childhood.
I really do not understand what your analogy is trying to establish, but I do agree it is arbitrary. However, even if you guessed the colour of the sky right as in your analogy, it does not mean you were warranted to believe it to be blue, if you had no evidence, that this is true. Only when one has the evidence, that it actually is blue (in certain weather and in daytime) one has a justified belief in what the colour of sky is. Besides, when one is guessing about stuff, that one has no information, or one has heard, or read a lot of contradicting claims all equally without evidence, it is rather unlikely that one is not going to guess right.
Excuse me, that I have trouble in understanding some of your points, as I am not a native english speaker. To me your last point seems very much like a circular argument, but perhaps I just did not get it.
I do think there is some confusion, but I’m glad you’re hanging in there! I think the most jarring thing I read in your response above was the sentence, “I do not know any atheist philosophers, do you? Hence, in these issues I mostly rely on my own reasoning.” RAUTAKYY, my goodness! Not only are there atheist philosophers, but they are the majority and theistic philosophy was for a while almost nonexistent (although it recent years there has been quite a revolution moving in the opposite direction). Graham Oppy, Michael Ruse, Quentin Smith, and Thomas Nagel are just some of the brilliant atheistic philosopher writing today (in particular I recommend Oppy’s “Arguing about Gods” and Nagel’s “God and other Minds”). I’m afraid many of your complaints are rather trivial given the long history of philosophy of religion in which these very basic kind of issues have been addressed. If you were to ask these fellows, I’m sure they would agree with me that your psychological argument against God is a genetic fallacy. Now in saying that I’m not claiming belief in God would be warranted if that were the only reason we had to believe in Him (my belief in the sky being blue would not have been warranted, just true, in the example). However, I would say my belief in God is warranted based on the arguments for God’s existence and I also maintain the possibility that for belief in God being properly basic (like belief in other minds than my own). RAUTAKYY, my friend, I would like to encourage you to take as serious look at philosophy of religion and its history if you want to take the question of God’s existence seriously. It may be a challenging task, but you’ll come out of it incredibly well informed. To show you there are atheist philosophers who take theistic arguments seriously, as opposed to the Dawkins type, let me give you a link to a short response by Michael Ruse regarding Dawkins and the new atheists:
Happy thinking my friend!
Not knowing these philosophers you mention I have no idea wether, or not they would agree with me, that you appealing to them, is a fallacy of appealing to authority. I still prefer to think for myself. Oh, I like thinking, because I am quite good at it. 🙂
I think the main problem here is, that you are defending the notion of a primal cause kind of god. When my argument of the origin of the religions is concerning any gods as proposed by any particular religion. You see those entities are totally different “animals” all together. That is why my argument about the origin of religions is not a genetic fallacy at all and propably the philosophers you refer to would argue with me, or if they did not they would be wrong. 😉
Why do you think the god of Abraham enjoyed the smoke from sacrificial animals? Was it not because the sacrifice as an idea is all about bargaining with an andropomorphication of the natural forces? That we today know are indifferent of any human individuals and… well, natural?
I have not read any of the Dawkins books, nor any of the other “new atheists”. I am really not even that interrested what other people have to say about them. I do not even understand how the video you linked is relevant to our conversation. Michael Ruse says on the video, that the question of “where did the god come from”, is a valid question, he only says that Dawkins does not consern himself with arguing it in his book.
It is the job of the theists to convince me, that the particular god they believe in has any truth value, and they do come up with the silliest arguments (as you propably know 😉 ) like circular argumentation based on an old book, claims against scientific research when it contradicts their faith and such. Oh, and the apologetics about nasty and immoral stuff in religions is often rather horrible to read, because people are streching their own morals to the extremes to accomdate the tribal moralisms of their gods to their own more modern sensibilities. I have not read any valid arguments for any particular gods, though I have as my entertainment read a lot of them.
The trouble of theology (or religious philosophy, if you will) is that it tries to explain so much about what the gods have obviously chosen to hide from the majority of people. Is the purpose of theology to make the gods more plausible to the people who have the chance to hear the theological arguments for any particular gods and what happens to people who are left outside this information? Why is a god not in direct connection with every human being and why are there so many people who think they are in connection to mutually exclusive gods? What should we think about these facts?
I honestly do not even see what is the point of faith. Why would it even be important for the originator of the entire universe, that people make some conscious choise wether, or not to believe in a particular traditional story about this entity? What ever the reason, the entity is failing miserably, if it is true that it actually would prefer for us to make that choise to believe in a certain cultural heritage, since most people do not make any choises, they are simply born and indoctrinated into cultures with Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or what ever heritage. Some people make such a choise, but the traffic is in every direction, between religions.
nverified belief in wishfull thinking)
I subscribe to the Onus of Proof principle that says that the burden of proof is on he who asserts that things are a specific way. Atheism means a lack of belief in a creature called “God,” whereas theism is the assertion of such a creature. So atheism is the default position and it is the theist who has to prove the existence of this “God.”
One can disprove certain (often traditional) ideas of God by showing that they contradict known facts. But someone can always invent some new arbitrary construct, call it “God” and demand that you disprove it. The Onus of Proof principle says that this is improper, because we prove things starting from observations; from our sensory perceptions.
So “arguments against God,” in the most general sense, mean pointing out that arguments for God are inadequate and don’t inextricably connect the idea to our sensory experience.
Let’s start with your definition of atheism. Your definition is merely the statement of a personal psychological state and as is is you could believe 3 different things. Are you a traditional atheist saying there is no god (which requires support because that would be, in your words, saying reality is a certain way, namely that it is one without a God ), an agnostic withholding judgment, or a verificationist who says the claim is meaningless? Now, when it comes to your definition of the “Onus of Proof” it would require us to say that the principle is itself improper because you cannot prove it from sensory perception. In other words, this principle defined as such is self-defeating. I won’t say theism is without a burden of proof, but if you are not agnostic then the burden is shared. I have given on this blog at least one argument and I will be making posts on others. Thanks for commenting! This post in particular as generated plenty of discussion!
The fallacy would be an appeal to illegitimate authority and these men are professional philosophers (it doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but you should take what they have to say on subjects in their fields seriously). If you’re going to use this psychological explanation argument, you have got to deal with my objections to it and I don’t think you’ve done that (aside from trying to pretend there is no such thing as a genetic fallacy). I don’t know where you are going for your arguments for theism, but I don’t know any theistic philosopher who would argue in the way you suggest. You need to choose your sources carefully (and you do need sources, relying only on your own knowledge won’t get you very far and that’s the case for all disciplines). You need to address serious arguments for God and I would like to know which premise you object to in my cosmological argument as you suggest you don’t know any valid theistic argument (I think you must mean a sound argument because mine is at least logically valid). As for the list of questions you ask, you are just shot gunning a bunch of theological questions (none of which would lead to the conclusion God does not exist) and sitting back smugly to wait for an answer. I’ve answered some of these in previous posts so go back to those ones I mentioned before. By the way, I’m still waiting for a clarification on what exactly you mean by atheism. Again, are you a traditional atheist saying there is no god (which requires support), an agnostic withholding judgment, or a verificationist?
Hmm… this format of conversation does not allow very much room for anything complicated or large amounts of evidence. Trying to put thoughts to a compact form, it often may cause the impression of not dealing with objections and explanations. 🙂
My take on not knowing any atheist philosophers was to your suggestion to ask some of them. I meant I do not know any (other than myself) personally.
In your appeal to authority, you insisted something on the lines of, that if I knew what these great men had said I would have to accept it also. This to me is a fallacy of appealing to authority. You also claim, that atheist philosophers somehow support some arguments for a god, wich is not demonstrated in the video you linked, though it seems as if you yourself thought so. You tell me, that these great minds have allready solved the problems I referred to, but you offer not even a hint of what their solutions are. Is that not a fallacy of appealing to authority?
If there actually is some form of divine salvation plan going on, wich is dependable on believing in the right things and gods, it seems rather silly, that a person who has come up with some direct questions concerning the many different and mutually contradicting and even exclusive claims about gods would have to first learn all what has been said by people who do not even believe in these gods, and then learn all the imaginable apologetics to counter their thoughts and then all the counter apologetics to determine what is true, in order to find some particular claim about gods true.
The psychology and sociology as researched sciences tell us how religious ideas develope, like any other cultural memes. Correct? This has nothing to do with the idea of a genetic fallacy. There are recognizable patterns of human psyche, that tell us how people invent supernatural explanations to stuff they are either unable to tackle with, or are unable to understand. Even today. All the time. Correct?
The basic model of the supernatural is an outside explanation to phenomenons in the natural universe. Supposedly this explanation model has some unexplainable properties, that state they do not need an explanation nor do they need to follow the laws of the physical universe, wich I am sorry to say is the only one we can examine with any reliability. It is a form of circular reasoning. The unexplained is explained by something unexplainable. Adding human attributes like intelligence, or emotions to it the supernatural is often andropomorphized, yes?
The theistic “philosophers” I was reffering to, are the likes of William Lane Graig and his Islamic predesessors who came up with these funny cosmological arguments, to wich the question where did their god come from was the refuting answer. Saying that the god came from nowhere and simply allways existed, is a non-answer. If their premises actually were that for every existing item there has to be a beginning, that premise refutes the conclusion, that a god made the universe. And since we have established that premise does not need to apply, then the universe may have just as well have allways existed. Correct? Yet there could be a prime cause, but we just do not know what that is, do we?
There is the arrogant leap from the unestablished necessity of a primal cause to any disembodied minds, not to speak of the leap from that notion of demiurgi to any particular personal god. All the idea of a primal cause argument has established is that any religion with a creation myth might be true, unless that creation myth is not in direct contradiction of what we know of the origins and development of the universe, the Milky Way, Sol, Tellus, or life on it. Yes?
Many stories may be internally logically sound, but that does not make them valid explanations of anything outside the story.
I allready gave you an explanation of what atheism means to me (and actually to most atheists I know), and I am terribly sorry if it did not fit any of your ready made boxes of atheism. Should I repeat myself, or try to fit myself in one of your boxes? Would it then be equally justified for me to demand you fit in one of the theistic boxes I come up with? I often run into theists who try to object to my atheism because they have an old dictionary wich has a different meaning to the word atheism, from the one commonly used one today. As if they did not know, that the meaning of words is changing all the time, and often for a clearer version as the amount of information about the reality increases. Surely, you are not one of those?
However, I also often run into theists who do not accept any particular refutation of the previous tenets of their religion, on the grounds that is not what they themselves believe. Like for example the increasing amount of theists who do not accept the idea of hell as an eternal torment. It is an example where their own morality has overcome the terrible and unethical suggestions of their own religion held sacred and as a firm reason for people to hold that religion true as a result of an obvious fear fallacy.
Religions and cultures evolve all the time, there seems to be no objective truths offered by any religions, since they all are under re-evaluation and change. And there you have yet a nother nail in the coffin of the imaginary deities.
Your comment is rather long so forgive me for not addressing every point. Let me just explain what I was doing with recommending atheist philosophers. I was not trying to appeal to authority to make a case for God, nor was I suggesting they accept arguments for God are good (then they wouldn’t be atheists). I was simply trying to show that the best minds atheism has to offer take these arguments seriously without just waving them off with “what caused God?” and the like. As for the cosmological argument (for the record look at my mine not Craig’s) you complain about the existence of uncaused beings. You suggest this is at odds with the causal premise, but if you look at my causal premise you will see I allowed room for personal agents. My argument doesn’t actually require a necessary being, but I do think we should avoid multiplying entities arbitrarily. Anyways, appealing to necessity is not making a special case for God. Plenty of people have believed, for instance, in the existence if Plato’s forms which would be necessary entities (every hear of atheistic moral platonism?).
Fair enough. You write well and seem like a reasonable chap, so I will take a look at your other posts when I have the time to spare.
Though I have never read the Dawkins books, I think that he is not even addressing any reasonable arguments for gods, rather the outrageously mad and silly ones. And that seems to be what Michael Ruse is complaining about. However in defence of Dawkins I would say that he propably does what he does, because his interrest in the religious movements affecting the society lies with the fundamentalists who have risen against science and science education. I would not say, these people who are acting with the value set of adolescents and who market ignorance as equal or even superior knowledge in comparrison to scientific research deserve to be treated.
I myself am a supporter of the freedom of religion. I do not believe we can have a set of mind crimes or a mind police, though we have nasty examples of people punishing the dissidents just for expressing their thoughts. That means that anyone has the right to think or believe what they find compelling, but when the beliefs start to affect the society, that is when I take issue, if their actions are informed by superstitious moralism. I bet you would agree with me, that it is not a preferable situation when a person who weilds power over number of other people makes decisions based upon a horoscope. Correct? Now, I personally do not see any difference between astrology and theology. Both are outdated systems of aquiring information, that never really worked, but have long since evolved into other more reliable means to make actual predictions about the reality. Astrology been made obsolete by astronomy and theology has been outdated by social studies and the like. Astrology and theology fail by settin premises about stuff we simply do not know about as absolute and unquestionable truths, and alltough for historical reasons theology is studied in the universities around the globe it does not hold to scientific integrity.
You asked for arguments for atheism and I offered a couple in a very short, almost lakonian sense, wich of course is not really fair, I must admit. But I blame the media 😉 . I also addressed how you treated a few of such in your post, but then we got tangled on words. However, I do hope and expect we can have a meaningfull discourse about this concept of the divine.
The problem of natural suffering is slightly more potent that you give it credit for. Why would suffering ever be morally necessary?
Suffering is a symptom of a failing of all lovingness.
God is all loving.
Therefore suffering is a failure on God’s part.
God is omnipotent.
Omnipotent things cannot fail.
Suffering is evidently real.
God is not omnipotent.
A slightly more illuminating way to look at this is that “suffering” is an imperfect solution to a problem. It may be the best one available, but it’s imperfect. Suffering is the result of an imperfect Being negotiating with the state of the world.
Whatever God wishes to achieve, for which suffering might be morally necessary, is something He should be able to achieve without suffering.
The problem of natural suffering is slightly more potent that you give it credit for. Why would suffering ever be morally necessary?
Suffering is a symptom of a failing of all lovingness.
God is all loving.
Therefore suffering is a failure on God’s part.
God is omnipotent.
Omnipotent things cannot fail.
Suffering is evidently real.
God is not omnipotent.
A slightly more illuminating way to look at this is that “suffering” is an imperfect solution to a problem. It may be the best one available, but it’s imperfect. Suffering is the result of an imperfect Being negotiating with the state of the world.
Whatever God wishes to achieve, for which suffering might be morally necessary, is something He should be able to achieve without suffering.
What is your support for “suffering is a symptom of a failing of all lovingness”?
I think this problem would be much worse for someone like a Calvinist, where God determines everything including free choices, but not necessarily for someone who thinks God allows for freely willed decisions on our part. It could be that in the absence of suffering less persons would freely seek God (this seems consistent with missionary experience in areas of great devastation and suffering). As I pointed out in the post, there is no strict logical contradiction between God and suffering (your arguments are logically invalid by the way, you need to add some missing premises), so I think the best defense of the argument would be from a probabilistic version. Also, notice that in my view suffering is not a failure on God’s part but on ours. He works with what He can without overriding our free will.
You’re right, I was a little clumsy in the way I presented the argument. Although I’m sure most readers understood what I meant, I shall endeavour to make it clearer:
1. Suffering is a symptom of a failing of all lovingness.
2. God is all loving.
C1 (from 1 and 2): Suffering is a failure on God’s part.
By this point I have not established what God’s failure is–willingness (benevolence) or ability (omnipotence). But I have established that He is imperfect.
3. A benevolent Being wants to stop suffering.
4. An omnipotent Being could stop suffering, if it wanted to.
C2 (from 3 and 4): An omnipotent and benevolent Being would want to and could stop suffering.
5. Suffering is evidently real.
C3 (from C2 and 5) God is either not omnipotent or not benevolent.
You disputed P1 — loving is a failure of all lovingness. What sort of a mother allows her child to suffer? What sort of a husband beats his wife? One of the many indicators of love, all types, is the want to protect and help the recipient of that love.
To look at it a different way, how are you defining love, and still having love permit and allow suffering?
(http://allallt.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/what-is-love)
Your next rebuttal was the claim that God values our freewill more than He values protecting us from suffering. I don’t accept that, but I can bypass it without ever addressing it: what about droughts and tsunamis and tornadoes and earthquakes and landslides and other disasters that have no obvious moral actor? Freewill is not an issue in plate tectonics or weather patterns or the sheer strength of a cliff face.
God allowed the tornado in Moore that killed 24 people. You are saying that this is not a symptom of lacking omnipotence, and it’s not a symptom of capricious indifference. In fact, you are saying there is some benefit to this tornado which outweighs the importance of those 24 lives and the families and the devastation to the community. And whatever that benefit is, it couldn’t be achieved any other way.
Well, if it could not be achieved any other way then that is a symptom of a lack of omnipotence.
(http://allallt.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/epicurus-and-the-problem-of-evil)
Also, where was the freewill of the 24 people who died?
I’m just letting you know you have a comment from me waiting in your approval queue. I’d appreciate it if you could approve it, because I was enjoying our conversation.
Same here.
Sorry for the wait guys.
Allallt, I wonder how you deal with this response I offered in the post, “As a logical argument, no contradiction can be demonstrated between the existence of God and natural evil. In fact, we can prove they are not contradictory by suggesting the possibility that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing it (this is part of the response to general problem of evil). Remember this is the atheist’s argument, so the theist does not have to prove the possibility is the reality. As the atheist’s argument, it is their task to show that this solution could not be the case, which is itself an impossible task. Lacking the overall view of the grand scheme of intricate and complicated causal relationships between all the events that have happened, are happening, and will happen, it would be arbitrary speculation (or an absurd claim to having the knowledge God would have) for the atheist to say God could not have sufficient reasons for permitting natural evil. If one takes a Christian perspective, it becomes even easier to think of some reasons God could have. For instance, if God desires as many people as possible to repent and turn to Him, then it is not at all implausible that the greatest numbers of persons acquiring salvation can only be found in worlds with natural and moral evil (think of how effective evangelical work is in places of disaster as opposed to the more comfortable U.S. and Europe).”
Needing to cause or allow suffering in order to achieve something greater (which is the only thing you can mean by “morally sufficient reasons”) is a symptom of imperfectly negotiating or circumventing the state of the natural world.
His goal would be to achieve the “something greater” without suffering, that fact that He couldn’t means He’s not omnipotent.
“Morally sufficient reasons” means not omnipotent. The Epicurean problem of suffering stands.
I take it that omnipotence does not include the ability to do the logically impossible and that it is impossible to make someone freely do something. If that’s the case, and people chose to do wrong and need to be reconciled with God, it may very well be the case that only by allowing all kinds of natural and moral evil the greatest number of persons come of their own free will to repentance before God. So long as that is even possible the strictly logical version of the argument fails. But should you think this implausible I invite you to look at places of great struggle and suffering and how willing the people are to be reconciled with God in such places.
So logical laws limit God? Do logical laws transcend God, or did He author them?
So God is failing to negotiate with the state of the world?
Didn’t God harden pharaoh’s heart? What’s all this thing about freewill?
How free are we, if God is doing the things that will convert the most of us?
Are you guessing and stabbing in the dark when you say that all the pain in this world is the best way to bring people to God?
Remember, so long as my account is even possible then it shows that God and evil are not contradictions. I don’t actually have to prove the account is even likely true (though I think it is). As for God and logical laws, I’d point out that things which contradict logic are not really “things” at all. A five-sided square, for instance, is not any actual concept. To speak of a five-sided square is just to combine contradictory terms which together do not denote any concept. So to say God cannot do the logically impossible is not in anyway a limitation of God.
But it still isn’t possible that suffering is the best way to achieve love. At times, as a limited being, it may be the only practical option, but not for an unlimited being or an omnipotent one.
If something ‘evil’ can convert some people to religion (which I assume is the thing you are measuring this by) then those people that convert are having their freewill interfered with. Well then, God could interfere with our freewill (or “influence”, if you prefer) in a suffering-free way. Any reason a suffering-free option isn’t acceptable is equally a reason a suffering-laden option isn’t acceptable.
If a tsunami in Asia, in the long run, saves souls by converting some people to the correct religion (an idea I find laughable) then surely a pretty sunset or a string of good luck equally could convert some people.
So long as the problem of suffering can be articulated in an evidential way, then some people are being pushed away from religion; what is that achieving? Not saved souls, I’m sure.
Lastly, in violent natural disasters survivors are given the opportunity to convert. Those that die instantly are not given that option. So naturally-caused suffering is equally incompatible with justice (especially when you consider how all this natural suffering follows geographical rules… that’s capricious, not justice).
So you’ve left behind the deductive version and switched to an evidential version. That means you must show that it is unlikely God would allow evil and suffering for the reasons I suggested. Unfortunately, given the vast and intricate causal relationships our lack of knowledge on how free creatures will act in various circumstances (middle knowledge), it simply beyond our capacity to see if it all plays out or not. As for those who fail to convert in natural disasters it may be God already knew their choice would be not to accept Him, or perhaps they would receive some fuller revelation in the afterlife (though having the truth revealed is not really enough, you have to actually desire to repent and be changed).