Now, when I try to explain to religious people why it is I don’t believe in god, I have to work hard not to be jumpy. There are so many reasons not to believe in god, I generally like to try and sample all of them. This isn’t the right way to go about it, I’ve discovered, as it ends in a lot of tangent conversations that don’t really go anywhere.
Instead, I have started to reduce my argument, and when I come back to the general argument against belief in a god, it comes in three parts, really, as the vast majority of theism that ends in religion is born out of three central premises:
1) The universe was created, and this creator is god.
2) This god cares about human affairs.
3) This god is good, to the point of being worthy of worship.
Now, out of hand, I reject premise one, and this is what I forget to talk about, and I think many of us do.
We know about these three premises (I’m simplifying them, but it’s not as though they’re new). Now, many theists accept additional premises, and we often attack those because they are entertaining or extraordinarily ridiculous, but it all comes back to premise one, that’s where the root of atheism needs to be.
Hopefully I’ll get into the problem with each of these, especially premise one. Clearly, though, that’s the issue we should discuss. It’s easy to attack the other absurdities of religion, and we should. It’s a real problem, especially when they attack basic freedoms and cause death, famine and ignorance (actively or through neglect), and we should attack those two.
But I thought it was important to point out the real issue with religiosity, and the reason why atheists dismiss it. We shouldn’t pretend that the reason we dismiss religion is because it’s a force for all things ignorant and disreputable. It is, but that’s not the root of disbelief.
Child Soldier in the Culture Wars
1 hour ago
14 comments:
Dude are you serious,who did you're brainwashing?You're just a parrot,without original thought but,keep trying!You have nothing to back up you're assertions but you are so precious in you're sincerety that i'm almost a bit embarassed for you.
Besides which don't you think it's ironic that you sould choose the words of a God fearing man like Bob Marley as the title of you're blog?You sad little atheist? See this is exactly why you are a tool.
Bob Marley thought that Haile Selassie was the incarnation of god, the messiah promised in the Bible. I don't think this was what you had in mind with your objection.
Your little rant fails to address the premise of this post, which is typical of believers with no basis for their beliefs. Perhaps you should present your arguments in support for the cosmological argument? I, personally would love here your thoughts.
How would you know what i had in mind or are you telepathic? How do you know i'm not a Rastafarian?Clearly you have an open mind though right? What i object to is jackasses like the author of this blog who present their inane opinions as "fact".Personally, i couldn't care less whether you believe in God or not.You work it out.
vin, if you want to have a debate about the post, then post comments about the content. The ad hominem brainwashing crap is annoying, and doesn't get us anywhere. And since when has calling someone a tool ever been productive.
If you think I was brainwashed, that's all well and good. Frankly, my religious education (first, in the years I spent as a Jew, then in Catholic school) were the reason I rejected theism.
You threw the word "fact" in quotes, but it doesn't appear in the post at all. The post is not a claim to my facts, and it's actually not one that I claim is particularly original (the original stuff I keep in the sidebar, if you're at all curious, though that's doubtful).
Also, there are plenty of religious people who said things worth repeating. The fact that I'm using it to illustrate a different point may frustrate you, but I don't really care.
Paul, the post was meant to address the way that I tend to get off topic, and not to address the central argument against theism (and, for that matter, deism). That post is a lot longer, but, since you brought it up, I'll work on one.
Josh, i couldn't think of anything which would be less productive than having a debate with you.I don't think i've ever seen quite your level of mania with regards to religion as the basis of all evil.It's a nice copout though,your whipping boy for all seasons.Kind of how i feel about the ACLU.As much as anything,i'm offended by a person with beliefs such as yours using the words of a man i admire greatly,the Hon. Robert Nesta Marley as the title of your blog.It was exactly your type of mentality that Bob so often spoke against."There are none so blind as those who will not see".There was a lot more to Bob than just being a Rasta but,people like yourself want to break everyone down into believers or non-believers and while you may espouse tolerance you are in actuality the most intolerant of all.You(of course)are right and everyone else is crazy.Many of us have as little faith in mankind as you have in God.Heaven,Hell or Houston skippy i don't give a damn where you end up. Just don't tell me what to believe and we'll get along fine.You spend so much of your time preaching to the choir it kind of throws you off your game when someone tells you your full of shite(which you are).You'd like to present"Big Ideas" but you have neither the intellegence nor the imagination to back it up and so you just ramble on endlessly.It must take great faith to be an atheist though cause you kinda have to be right don't you? Anyway, you hang in there Josh, keep giving 'em Hell or whatever it is you do,somebody must be listening.
Wow, that's an awfully long post for someone who thinks this blog is a piece of crap that nobody reads. Anyway, you can keep posting comments, I don't much care.
If you have something substantial to say, feel free.
Yeah,thanks Josh and truth to tell the only reason i even left you a comment in the first place was because your blog was deadsville.Didn't seem like you been getting a whole lot of feedback.Now i may think your full of it(and i do)at least you know somebody's reading your tripe and that has to count for something.Well,me and the crickets...As well as substantial,right back at ya Skip.
Well, I'd rather have a quiet blog with 65 ghosts than a troll. Still, very thoughtful.
No,you just don't want to hear from anyone who disagrees with you.But,it must be tough since you are constantly fighting an uphill battle.Still 65 is probably wishful thinking at best.
Interesting points. I agree that without 1, 2 and 3 are useless. To make the case that 1 simply isn't true requires points 2 and 3.
You can't really prove that God didn't create the universe, and while many signs point to a naturalistic cause - it's a nightmare to dismiss it outright. Given there is much yet we don't know about the formation of the laws of physics or the very nature of reality, 1 cannot stand on it's own. It's a god-of-the-gaps to conclude that God is the creator the universe, but the concept just can't be dismissed outright. The Strong Anthropic Principle as yet remains unsatisfied.
Premise 2 is a much easier point to argue against. The Weak Anthropic Principle is negated by a) the sheer size and timeframe of the universe and b) that we are but one of ten million species on this planet alone. When there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world, to think that one species of billions that have lived on one planet, of which the species has lived 1/10000th of the time span of the universe - to be the focal point is observed.
Premise 3 is an extension of 2 in my view; that in order to see whether there is a good force in the universe, it is vital to look at the events in the universe under an anthropomorphic context. There's a reason after all why so many people bring up the problem of evil as a reason not to believe in a higher power - when an earthquake indiscriminately kills thousands or one country partakes in the ritual extermination of another, it's damn hard how to see that there is a good force that cares about the affairs of humanity.
Explaining atheism to believers is hard, though I choose to avoid (largely) all three points that you brought up. Instead I just tell them to look at all the other religions of the world, the past and present gods that form the basis of billions of peoples' belief. And what they are asking me to do is say that while thousands of different versions of the supernatural have appeared, somehow they have it right while all the others have it dead wrong. If they can't explain why their religion is a true exception, then there is no reason for believing in it.
Kel, you make excellent points.
I think that what you've most significantly demonstrated is that while two and three are readily and easily debatable.
Each premise is an extension of the next, and each requires the addition of premises. Theism exists only with all three.
Your refutation of the Weak Anthropic Principle is a good one (and the standard approach, from what I've seen, though I like your numbers better than the ones I hear a lot of the time).
Also, DeGrasse's bit on Stupid Design does a pretty good job at rebutting premise 3.
My point is that I differentiate between myself and deists because I don't except Premise 1, but it sounds like you got that.
I'm not endowed with sufficient scientific faculties to demonstrate its truth or falsity, but since there is no evidence in favor of a creator, I don't make worship of said creator a centerpoint of my life.
Great comment.
I'm not endowed with sufficient scientific faculties to demonstrate its truth or falsity, but since there is no evidence in favor of a creator, I don't make worship of said creator a centerpoint of my life.And that to me is what atheism is all about. It's not the belief in the non-existence of God, but the lack of belief in the existence. While it can't be falsified, there's no evidence for God and thus no reason to believe.
Yup, Kel. And that's the point I always forget to make.
It's Russell's Teapot and Dawkins' Fairies and whatever other term we want to use.
That's the deal with premise one.
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