Atheist Arguments
At Maverick Philosopher, William F. Vallicella has written a brief but insightful post about common atheist objections to theistic belief. (Hat tip to Brian Trapp for finding this.) I’ve considered wading into these waters myself, but my first blog taught me the importance of sticking primarily to subjects I understand well, such as physics, astronomy, bicycling, and watching movies and technophonic beer commercials. I dabble in theology or apologetics at my peril. But over the years I’ve encountered enough thoughtful, reasonable atheists to identify four broad types of objection to religious faith:
(1) The problem of evil, with which we are all familiar. In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas cites the problem of evil as the top-level objection to God’s existence (in the First Part, Second Question, Article 3):
It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word “God” means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist.
Aquinas’ response follows Augustine, that God allows evil to exist in order to bring out if it some good. Is Aquinas asserting there are certain good things (or a type of goodness) that could not otherwise exist if God didn’t allow the existence of evil?
Additionally, Christians usually argue that evil is a necessary part of any universe where free agents are allowed to exercise their own will. Some Christians attempt a solution by modifying our common understanding of God’s goodness, or his omnipotence.
(2) God is not necessary to understand how the universe works. Aquinas provides this as the second-level objection to God’s existence (same article):
Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God’s existence.
Aquinas’ reply is that both nature and human will represent links in a chain of cause-and-effect relationships that must initiate with the “unmoved mover,” God. Do philosophers today consider this a reasonable reply? Atheists appear to have little trouble believing in an infinite cause-and-effect chain, effectively denying any type of “unmoved mover.”
For my part, as a physicist, I follow the traditional path of methodological naturalism. For Christian scientists, this approach is summed up in the maxim, “as though God were not given.” We believe God created the universe in such a way that we can construct mathematical models to explain and predict its behavior without having to postulate the existence of God. However, the fact the universe is so constructed does not entail the non-existence of God, as far as I can see. Do atheists have a deductive argument that begins with a self-contained universe and proceeds to a conclusion that God does not exist?
I find it strange that many Christians today follow essentially the same line of thought, although moving in the opposite direction. They believe that if major scientific theories, such as evolution and the Big Bang are true, then it somehow follows that God does not exist. Again, I have never seen the argument laid out. It sometimes appears that a bizarre, symbiotic relationship exists between atheists and theists who see some kind of cosmic contraction between faith and science, as though each group needs the other to justify its existence.
(3) The flying spaghetti monster. Apparently, if one believes in God he is also compelled to believe in all sorts of fantasies, such as fairies, Santa Clause, UFOs, and so forth. Atheists sum this up in the flying spaghetti monster, a hypothetical invisible plate of spaghetti that flies through the sky controlling the weather, world politics, etc. The way the “argument” works, the theist lists all the reasons why he doesn’t believe in the flying spaghetti monster, and then the atheist responds by saying, “those are all the reasons I don’t believe in God.” In place of the flying spaghetti monster, a theist might encounter a unicorn on the Moon, or a teapot orbiting between the Earth and Mars, or anything whose existence is apparently a self-evident absurdity. Addressing this, Vallicella writes,
One problem with the teapot and similar analogies is that God as traditionally conceived in the West is not an isolani — to use a chess expression. He is not like an isolated pawn, unsupported and unsupporting. For if God exists, then God is the cause of the existence of every contingent being, and indeed, of every being distinct from himself. This is not true of lunar unicorns and celestial teapots. If there is a lunar unicorn, then this is just one more isolated fact about the universe. But if God exists, then everything is unified by this fact: everything has the ground of its being and its intelligibility in the creative activity of this one paradigmatic being. Such a paradimatic being is, as Aquinas appreciated, not just another being among beings, but Being itself, not one more ens but ipsum esse subsistens.
I think this response is fairly clear in pointing out the problem. But I remain curious as to exactly how the deductive argument is supposed to work on behalf of the atheist. I’ve never seen the actual argument, only a protracted effort to make the theist feel like an idiot. Is the argument supposed to be a reduction to absurdity? Is it some kind of mirror image of Anselm’s ontological proof, where instead of defining God into existence, we equate him to an invisible, flying plate of spaghetti and thus define him out of existence? Or is it merely an effort to show that religious people are inconsistent in their approach to the world? (And exactly how does that entail God’s non-existence?)
(4) Lack of evidence. According to my atheist friends, there is simply no evidence that God exists. Vallicella writes,
Ryan also claims that there is no evidence for the God hypothesis. This strikes me as just plain false. There are all kinds of evidence. That it is not the sort of evidence Ryan and fellow atheists would accept does not show that it is not evidence. People have religious and mystical experiences of many different kinds. There is the ‘bite of conscience’ that intimates a Reality transcendent of the spacetime world. Some experiences of beauty intimate the same. There are the dozens and dozens of arguments for the existence of God.
Vallicella may be a bit off-track by appealing to the sheer number of proofs for God’s existence. After all, none of them really work, if the goal is to intellectually force one to chose between between believing in God or being an unreasonable twit. But following Vallicella anyway, I ask my atheists friends to consider the difference between evidence and proof. I agree there is no proof of God’s existence, but evidence is everywhere. It may not be convincing evidence, but in this context that is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. For example, I consider the mere existence of the universe to be strong evidence for God’s existence, because the existence of the universe provides a reasonable basis for believing in God–that’s what we mean by “evidence.” But I don’t assert that the existence of the universe proves the existence of God, in large part because I understand the difference between evidence and proof.
(I hope my atheist friends will not complain that I am encouraging people to believe in unproven concepts. Most atheists accept a scientific view of the world. But science, by it very nature, is based on unproven theories. Many are those who patiently point out to non-scientists that science never proves its theories, since it is always true that tomorrow one could produce an experimental result or field measurement that contradicts a theory’s prediction. Yet we believe the theories. So we have no trouble believing in and working with unproven concepts. Why should atheists complain about religious people doing the same thing?)
I suppose it all depends on what one means by “God.” I frequently encounter fundamentalist Christians who believe that it is perfectly logical to think that everything requires a maker, so an eternal, invisible God must have made the universe. When one points out to them that if one can have an uncaused causer, that causer could just as easily be the universe itself. They find it nearly impossible to grasp that simple concept.
I think one of the most telling arguments against the standard concept of God is that there is really nothing left, in a universe of natural law, for “God” to do.
“that causer could just as easily be the universe itself”
well, yes, if one believes that matter can cause itself.
Makarios,
Don’t overlook Einstein’s view that matter and energy are interchangeable. But the basic point here is that of the inconsistency of “believer” reasoning.
If one posits that all things must have a creator, but that there is an exception to this — an eternal, invisible creator, then it is just as logical (or rather just as illogical, if one wants to see it that way) to posit that the uncaused causer could be the universe itself, in whatever its manifestation happened to be — whether matter or energy. No creator — no deus ex machina — is required.
What does it matter if God exists or not? It’s not like he directly effects my life in anyway. I with my own strength shape my future.
It’s entirely possible that what we call energy and matter, being two sides of the same thing really, simply cycle back and forth. Before the theoretical “big bang”, for instance, all matter may have been in its energy state, which may be inherently unstable, with unbelievably powerful potential, which is then suddenly released, cooling, as it were, to its less energetic matter state. Some think we are heading towards such a pure energy state somewhere in the future, and that the universe is actually an oscillation between those two extreme states of existence. Since the universe, by definition contains everything, it’s possible that it has some sort of consciousness about it at some point in its oscillation, just as we do. It’s possible that we all share in that consciousness. East to conjecture, diffucult to prove, but if there is a ‘god’, that’s my best guess as to what it is.
Well structured essay. The boundary conditions for the human mind are ever crucial to the conclusions one can come to. The evidence for God: Creator argument – existence is, yet without motivation it should not be; the revelation exists and its bearers and they are ‘unusually’ fantastic phenomena without whom we do not have a concept of God. I would also suggest that if God’s promise / covenant is realised then the evidence is supported in this world, for knowledge that cannot be supported by normal human avenues. (and I believe that the covenant has been fulfilled but it would be up to others to investigate that for themselves.)
‘As our non-dual spiritual traditions are as much founded in philosophy as they are based in the direct realization of the non-dual, it was exactly this loyalty to both philosophy and direct experience where much of the confusion arose. Philosophy seeks truth through the logic of words and concepts and tends to argue its way from some ultimate viewpoint, in this case the concept of non-duality or a supreme Essence as the ground of everything or Consciousness etc. Direct experience, on the other hand, transcends all knowledge and cares little for making philosophy out of experience. Unlike philosophy, experience is founded in reality. It could be called realism as apposed to the idealism of philosophy. The truest philosophy is always only a reflection, an image, of experience. Mostly it is mere thought upon thought, duplicating and modifying itself through endless argument.”
J. Krishnamurti
Hey, I was wondering if I could pick your brain for just a bit. Good post by the way. In my attempts to figure out these issues I wrote the following. Would you tell me if and where it just goes into stupid. I know that we can’t know for a fact all of what I wrote and I’m sorry that I didn’t put Scripture references where we could know that it was taught. Anyhow, for what it’s worth >
Why Has God Created Hundreds of Millions of People Who Are Destined for Eternal Separation From Him?
. I Am God.
. I Am before anything else.
. I Am above and beyond anything else.
. I Am perfectly Pure, Holy and Righteous. There is nothing imperfect or “wrong” in Me.
. Anything that is in rebellion to My perfect Purity, Holiness and Righteousness can never come into My presence.
Rodney’s Response: I deleted most of your post since it’s off topic. You’re asking me to find the error. I’m not a theologian, so you should share this with someone more qualified than me. But I believe the problem is in the last line above. If that statement is true, then human beings and God experience a kind of cosmic repulsion, like two positively-charged particles. The only way to enter into God’s presence is to somehow purify yourself. But Paul stresses time and time again that salvation is accomplished entirely by God, with no active participation on the part of the believer. Since the argument goes off-track at this point, there’s not much to be gained by following the rest of it.
Salvation is an interesting topic, but my article is about atheist objections to theistic belief. I’d like to keep the comments on that topic.
It is not the responsibility of the atheist to prove the non-existance of God, rather the job of the theist to prove the existance of God, not a possible task, as the author points out. For all belief in God eventually boils down to faith.
Butyou blithely asserts some points that deserve pondering. God “allows” evil to exist so that some good can be done in counterpoint. This goes against the theistic belief that God created the whole universe, for if so, he doesn’t “allow” evil, he MADE evil. Now ponder this. God made Hitler so that he could kill 6 million Jews in horrific ways, we could have a tremendous world war that tore apart the lives of so many and haunted the minds of concentration camp survivors day and night and lead to destruction on a massive scale so that a few people could do good deeds in the midst of the horror? Why is this logical? Why would you worship such an insane being? That, of course, is but one example. Pick your war, pick any rape, pick unfair labor practices, pick natural disasters on a large scale, muderers, theives, drunk drivers, domestic abusers. Do a cost benefit analysis. Did all those people really have to go through the nightmare of Katrina and it’s aftermath, particularly the incompetent and neglectful federal response, so that the courageous volunteers could look good? Not logical.
Second point. Just because God is not necessary to explain the universe doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. Well, maybe not, but the usual principale in science is that the simplest explanation is the best, so if one makes an elegant description of the formation and progression of the universe sans supernateral being, why would one then tack it on as an afterthought? It is merely superfluous and unnecessary.
Third point. Sigh. The Flying Spaghetti Monster or The Pink Unicorn are absurd beliefs, tongue in cheek reference to the absurd belief in a god or gods, since there is no evidence for either. Yes, it IS an effort to make the theist feel like an idiot. When one is faced with ridiculous and absurd things, one laughs. One makes jokes. That’s why Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, and David Letterman have jobs, because we enjoy laughing at the stupidity of others. So when otherwise intelligent people come up with what are essentially delusional beiefs in an invisable imaginary superfriend that they can talk to, some of us are driven to mirth. It’s to keep from crying at the fucking waste and stupidity. If people don’t want their beliefs laughed at, they shouldn’t have silly beliefs. And if there is anything that gets through to people that there is no evidence in reason to believe any of that shit, maybe humor will do it. I guess not though. Religionist have no sense of humor when it comes to their Big Sky Buddy.
Fourth. The existence of the universe is evidence for the existance of God. I ain’t gettin’ it. How? I thought it was evidence for the existence of matter, chemical processes, evolution, all kinds of scientific and socialogical developments but the delusion is in the eye of the beholder. There is nothing inherent in the universe that proclaims or hints at God unless one is pedisposed to believe that anyway.
All people are atheists of some god or gods. You have probably rejected belief in Zeus, Zoroaster, Mithra, Ra, Osiris, Adonis, Mars, and a legion of other deities that you pile on the scrapheap of history as relics of their time. They were the mythos of prescientfic peoples to explain events in their universe. I have merely shed belief in All of these ancient, dusty mythsas a logical explanation for anything.
Also, There is no e in Santa Claus.
thank you.
Thank a U.S. Service member for your freedom
Rodney’s response: I’m sorry, but I can’t find a charitable way to address your post. The tone and language speak for themselves. Is this the best you can do–treat us like drooling idiots? Can you make no better effort to understand and interact with our beliefs?
Perhaps not. In any event, I find your comments a near perfect representation of what Vallicella was talking about: what you deny is simply not what I believe.
On Santa Claus, I apologize for my spelling error, but I since I have you beat by a mile I’m not too worried about it.
If a god created the universe. where did it come from? Isn’t a universe, by definition, everything? I realize there are theories of alternate universes, and some people look at our limited concept of a universe, and postulate more universes beyond, but considering universe to mean everything there is, then how did this god create itself? I still think it’s entirely possible, given the ability of unicellular organisms to link up into functioning organs, especially a thinking organ, then there may be, through connections we don’t understand, a universal consciousness, which we interpret as god. If so, then it is not the idea of god that is wrong, but our understanding of it that is wrong, for such a consciousness would be aware of everything, but would not be able to act on behalf of individual pieces like ourselves – there would be no point. Can we communicate with it? Don’t know. Can it communicate with us? Don’t know. Perhaps there is a communication going on all the time. One thing seems certain, no organized religion has a clue.
Rodney’s response: In this context, most people implicitly define “universe” so that it does not include God. For a technical definition, one my astronomy textbooks has “[T]he largest astronomical structure we know of. The universe contains all matter and radiation and encompasses all known space.”
Dmitry Chernikov has posted an interesting response to Vallicella at http://dmitrychernikov.com/blog/2007/10/26/can-gods-existence-be-proved/
Have you read Sam Harris’ The End of Faith? or Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great? Religion has caused the great horrors of the ages. You failed to address the points in my post because I am passionate.
Let me summarize:
1.) an omniscient, all powerful god has created all of the universe. Ergo, he created the horrors and evils contained therein. War, terror, natural disaster, crime, incest, sexual abuse by clergy, etc. Your explanation is that he does this so that people can do good things. My position is that not only is this illogical, but that such a god would be too horrible to worship.
2.) You assert that just because god is not necessary to exist doesn’t mean he doesn’t. But why tack on god unnecessarily?
3.) Yes, I agree, people made up The Flying Spaghetti Monster and The Pink Unicorn as jokes. It goes back to point number 2. If god is not necessary to explain the universe, but could still exist, then why not The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
4.) You assert that the existence of the universe is evidence for the existence of god. No it’s not. It’s evidence for the existence of the universe. Christmas presents are not evidence for Santa Claus, they are evidence of Christmas presents.
Now, simply because someone has strong feelings doesn’t mean she doesn’t have valid points, which you have failed to address because your feelings were hurt. (No, I don’t entertain beliefs that I find dangerous very charitably. )
It’s a good thing that there exist people who can take on a belief despite an absence of observational evidence, or modern mathematics would be severely retarded. The standard of evidence which is demanded of theists by most atheists is a good bit higher than the standard of evidence most accept without question when given in support of set theory. Transfinite numbers are an intentional objects of the mind, lacking any observational evidence, and supported only by self-referential logic.
It’s fine to demand evidence, but at least be consistent in the standard of the evidence you accept.
As for flying spaghetti monsters, it is clearly obvious that each one of the uncountable “noodly appendages” represents one of the uncountable versions of string theory, each one being an untestable prediction of the existence of imaginary things. The more one looks at string theory, the greater it looks like a textbook definition of pseudoscience.
“Have you read Sam Harris’ The End of Faith? or Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great? Religion has caused the great horrors of the ages. You failed to address the points in my post because I am passionate.”
No, I elected to not address the points in your earlier post because you were acting like a jerk. You treated me and all theists like idiots, and completely mischaracterized what we believe. But what you write here deserves some interaction.
* * *
I haven’t read the books you mention.
Unless you simply define “great horrors” to be the wrongs caused by religion, there’s no reason to grant that “religion has caused the great horrors of the age.” Most reasonable people would say the Allied-fire bombing of Dresden was a great horror, certainly those who lived through it would say so. But it was not caused by religion. We can name many more counterexamples, but what’s the point?
Yes, religious groups have done terrible things. But God’s non-existence does not follow.
“Let me summarize:
1.) an omniscient, all powerful god has created all of the universe. Ergo, he created the horrors and evils contained therein. War, terror, natural disaster, crime, incest, sexual abuse by clergy, etc. Your explanation is that he does this so that people can do good things. My position is that not only is this illogical, but that such a god would be too horrible to worship.”
I don’t wish to attempt a full solution to the problem of evil. It deserves more attention than I give it in a brief reply to your post. But I think your first sentence is simply a non sequitur. It does not follow from “God created the universe” that “God created evil” for two reasons. First, the universe has a built-in creative ability. Human beings, for example, can create things that don’t get attributed to God. No one who thinks about it will say that God created the Empire State Building. Humans must take responsibility for the evil they perpetrate, and not blame it on God. Second, evil is not a thing alongside other things. It’s the privation of good. It isn’t “created” in the same sense that the Empire State Building is created.
I didn’t write that God creates evil so that people could do good things. I wrote that Aquinas’ position is that God allows evil to exist so that a greater good can come of it. This is part of the classical Christian position: God does not eliminate evil because he cannot do so without eliminating a greater good.
“2.) You assert that just because god is not necessary to exist doesn’t mean he doesn’t. But why tack on god unnecessarily?”
I don’t think I asserted that God is not necessary to exist—I’m not even sure what that means. Are you talking about “as though God were not given?” God is not a necessary element of any scientific model. But no scientific model addresses the universe in its entirety.
“3.) Yes, I agree, people made up The Flying Spaghetti Monster and The Pink Unicorn as jokes. It goes back to point number 2. If god is not necessary to explain the universe, but could still exist, then why not The Flying Spaghetti Monster?”
I didn’t intend to say that God is not necessary to explain the universe. I wrote that he isn’t a necessary part of scientific models, which by their very nature treat only a limited aspect of the universe. But I think we do need God to explain why the universe exists at all.
“4.) You assert that the existence of the universe is evidence for the existence of god. No it’s not. It’s evidence for the existence of the universe. Christmas presents are not evidence for Santa Claus, they are evidence of Christmas presents.”
The question is whether Christmas presents are *convincing* evidence of Santa Claus, not whether they are mere evidence. To children, they are convincing. To adults, they are not, because adults know more about the world than children. What do atheists know about the world that theists don’t?
The universe is evidence for God’s existence because it’s reasonable to believe the universe is contingent—it doesn’t have to exist. Given its contingency, the fact it does exist means that something outside of the universe gave rise to it. This is the central point of the cosmological argument. As a proof of God’s existence, the cosmological argument is inconclusive: the universe, if treated as an object alongside other objects, may be the non-contingent being that gave rise to everything else. But it’s not clear that we should treat the universe as an object alongside other objects, and no one has demonstrated that the universe is non-contingent.
I still haven’t seen an actual argument that concludes God doesn’t exist. You wrote earlier that it isn’t your responsibility to provide one. I think there is responsibility on both sides of this debate. You’re not merely claiming to be unconvinced of God’s existence, if I understand you correctly. You’re claiming to *know* that God does not exist. Am I correct? If so, that suggests you possess some kind of modus tollens:
(1) If God, then Q.
(2) Not Q.
(3) Therefore, not God.
What is Q?
Or do you have a different type of argument that ends with (3)?
“Now, simply because someone has strong feelings doesn’t mean she doesn’t have valid points, which you have failed to address because your feelings were hurt. (No, I don’t entertain beliefs that I find dangerous very charitably.)”
My feelings weren’t hurt, even though you were acting like a jerk.
Yes, your points are valid. So are mine.
“Unless you simply define “great horrors” to be the wrongs caused by religion, there’s no reason to grant that “religion has caused the great horrors of the age.” Most reasonable people would say the Allied-fire bombing of Dresden was a great horror, certainly those who lived through it would say so. But it was not caused by religion. We can name many more counterexamples, but what’s the point?”
I think a good point is that since religion has caused so many horrors, it is not necessary for human beings to believe in god or have religion in order to do good or evil. I’ve often been told that religion has value in the sense that it gives people hope and comfort, regardless of the existence of a god or gods, and that makes it worthwhile. If religion causes people to mistrust one another, to believe they are superior to non-believers, or to make war against others with a different view of the universe, then religion no longer serves any useful purpose, and should be discarded as a guide to moral behavior.
From tmulcahy’s comment above: “If religion causes people to mistrust one another, to believe they are superior to non-believers, or to make war against others with a different view of the universe, then religion no longer serves any useful purpose, and should be discarded as a guide to moral behavior.”
Possibly true, assuming the “if” at the beginning is true. But it’s not, so the argument goes splat. “Religion” is simply a set of teachings. Yes, some people’s (demonstrably warped) interpretations of those teachings are can certainly cause the things you indicate. Yet it is trivially shown that many of these interpretations are incorrect and that there do exist plenty of people who correctly interpret the teachings.
To single out one religion as an example, consider the teachings of Joshua ben Joseph (aka Jesus). We have a here collection of teachings which include “love your fellow man as you love yourself” and “if someone doesn’t wish to hear your message, forget about it and move along to someone who does”. Now consider someone who claims to follow those teachings and then commits murder, or simply attempts to force their beliefs on others. Does blaming the teacher/teachings strike you as particularly intelligent (or shall we be 1337 and use the term “bright”)?
Let’s apply this logic to another situation. A science teacher tells his pupil that when diluting sulfuric acid, one should always add the acid to the water. Later, with his sister in his home lab, the student poured water into the acid, hurting himself and his sister. Was the teacher at fault, or the student? The typical atheist position vis-a-vis religion seems to imply that the student simply should have skipped that class altogether, because science obviously causes kids to hurt themselves and others. Huh? Yeah, when you disregard everything your teachers tell you, it definitely can.
Lon wrote:
“To single out one religion as an example, consider the teachings of Joshua ben Joseph (aka Jesus). We have a here collection of teachings which include “love your fellow man as you love yourself” and “if someone doesn’t wish to hear your message, forget about it and move along to someone who does”. Now consider someone who claims to follow those teachings and then commits murder, or simply attempts to force their beliefs on others. Does blaming the teacher/teachings strike you as particularly intelligent (or shall we be 1337 and use the term “bright”)?”
I would like to point out that those particular ethics CAN be completely abstracted from a religious context, BUT it is the religious context in which they are set that may be toxic — the totality of the picture. That is one reason why “religions” tend sometimes to be blamed for the actions of their members. It is the doctrinal system as a whole that is at fault, and simply holding up the best of its ethics, abstracted for public view and out of that doctrinal context, does nothing to mitigate that.
As an example, I once heard someone say of the Jehovah’s Witnesses sect that, unlike many Christians, they “live their beliefs.” Of course part of those beliefs is a form of thought control — preventing members from reading material in disagreement with sect doctrine, and the shunning of family members who disavow sect doctrine, etc. etc. “Living one’s beliefs” is not necessarily a good thing.
People often make the mistake of confusing ethics and religion.
I agree that many people make the mistake of confusing ethics and religion. I also agree that ethics themselves do not need the basis of existence given them by religion. But I do believe they need a basis, and whether the practice of good ethics finds its basis in religion or in humanism is indeed one of the main points of argument between theists and atheists.
Regardless, the point here is that the fact that various religions at some time or other have been guilty of quite horrible things does in no way speak to the existence or the nonexistence of God, nor even to the correctness or incorrectness of other doctrines of the same or different traditions. *Especially* if it is trivially shown that when the “religion” was committing these horrors, it was obviously not following the teachings that they claim to venerate.
In fact, such an argument is such a obvious logical fallacy that I’m surprised that anybody who deems themselves a clear thinker would even consider its use in this context. And when I consider that Hitchens’ “God is not Great” became a bestseller based almost entirely on that single-note “argument”, I indeed fear for humanity’s future.
Showing that XYZ religion did something bad isn’t an argument against God’s existence, it’s an argument against XYZ’s doctrine (or its followers for ignoring or misinterpreting said doctrine). Showing that more than one religion has made the same or different mistakes during their evolution likewise doesn’t speak against (or for) God’s existence.
Not too long ago, there was a fairly long stretch of time when medical doctors thought that smoking was actually beneficial. There’s no real way to measure the immense amount of harm done to a few generations due to that bit of toxic scientific doctrine. Lead paint. Asbestos. Horribly overpowered and undershielded X-ray machines in stores so people could casually check the fit of a shoe. All products of toxic doctrines held by scientists.
Was science, the venerated scientific method, at fault here? Or was it an honest mistake made due to limited knowlege and/or the incompetence in following the tenets of the scientific method? More importantly, what was the proper correction to the problem? Was it the abolishment of science, or the correction of science?
As shown above, the logic presented doesn’t hold much water. Mistakes made due to incomplete knowledge of a subject or failure to adhere to that knowledge cannot be used as an argument against the existence of the subject of the knowledge. If we’re debating God’s existence, that logic won’t work. OTOH, if we’re debating the correctness of a given religion’s notions regarding God’s attributes or actions, then a study of its observed errors is indeed useful and quite relevant to the debate.
Returning to the original topic of the four main arguments atheists frequently make against God’s existence, I found myself too long-winded to clutter up Rodney’s comment section even more and thus posted them in my blog. So far, I’ve covered the first three; click my name if you’re interested.
Personally, I have no arguments that prove or attempt to show god’s existence. I just don’t believe in the concept. However, as a human construct, it is interesting. My point was that, while people defend religion as making people live better and moral lives, it doesn’t seem to hold true, so I can’t see the point of religion. As for this god creature, I don’t see the connection between belief in that and adherence to a particular religion as being the same thing. If there were a god as is commonly believed in, it wouldn’t have the slightest interest in all these stupid religions vying her its attention or trying to prove how much closer to it they are.
I was brought up in a fundamentalist family and spent much of my youth believing that. Later, as new evidence came to light, I had to trim away many of the inane beliefs I had but still clung onto the idea that there is an intelligence somewhere behind the scenes and that there is a purpose to life – even after death.
Over the last year I’ve had to reluctantly concede that this was all either a relic of my upbringing or wishful thinking and I’ve decided that there really is no god.
I can understand people believing in god and it doesn’t bother me. I do take issue however when people make the claim that their god somehow ‘touches’ the physical (and, therefore, testable) universe. As far as I’m aware these kinds of claims are destined for failure although I’d be interested to hear of a claim that succeeds.
If god doesn’t touch the physical universe then does it even matter whether we believe or not?
I’ve found greater happiness independent of the concept of god and suspect that, as the previous comment states, it’s just an interesting human construct.