KidFury

Hello everyone,

As you can see by the numbers, I am not a very frequent poster on this board. Although I do lurk here and observe, I prefer to concentrate my posts into the heart of enemy territory over at apologetics.com.

I have been mulling over a new argument for the non-existence of God and I wanted to get feedback from a few of you before I make it part of my arsenal.

The argument from sexuality for the non-existence of god

The basics are as followed.

1) Sexuality exists
2) Sexuality is incompatible with some aspects of God’s attributes
3) Therefore God does not exist.

I will not discuss premise 1) and conclusion 3) for now and I want to concentrate on 2)

How can we say that sexuality is incompatible with some aspects of God’s attributes?

Sex and design:

Sexuality is an inefficient system of replication. Cell mitosis is safer for the organism and more efficient. Why not simply have babies created ex-nihilo with based on genetic info from parents? Babies could be flown in by angels after marriage and there would be no possibility of miscarriage or birth defects.

Why do the designer’s chosen creatures (humans) have a reproduction process that is identical in function with other lower animals? Aren’t we supposed to be special?

Sex and evil:

The freewill defence used by theists against the problem of evil claims that God does not want to influence our free choice by planting thoughts into our minds. However, sexual impulse is a clear violation of this. Our sex drive influences just about every choice we make in our day-to-day lives. Why didn’t God put in a “Good Drive” in us at least as strong as our sex drive? Is reproduction more important then salvation?

In addition, sex drive is not just an example of free will tampering. Without sex drive, female-female or male-male competition would be non-existent. Such competition is a major source of the evil that men do. Without sex drive, humans would be free to clam look for the so-called soul mate we keep claiming we look for without physical attraction getting in the way.
I would appreciate any thought on this issue. Keep in mind however that I am not a trained philosopher and that these are only the outlines of what I hope to develop.

Thanks,
KF

Peter Kirby

What God are we talking about? The deistic God created energy in a trans-dimensional science fair. By a fluke, life evolved on a few planets.

If you want to argue for something that humans could do without if we weren't evolved, it would also be eating. Eating causes us to kill other animals and to work long hours in China and to waste time in mastication that could be spent on praise and to get overweight because we desire the foods that were scarce in the jungle. What's the theodicy for food?

best,
Peter Kirby

streamline

French fries are clearly the tool of Satan. That goes for Red Bull & Vodka, as well.

KidFury

Dear Peter,

Sorry, I thought it obvious I was addressing the existence of the Christian deity.

I also agree with your argument from food and would like to add to it. The fact that we are built to masticate, ingest and process things that were until recently dead proves one of two things:

Either death did not enter the world through Sin or Adam did not resemble what we know as a human being.

KF

Jobar

I think your argument could be generalized as the 'argument from imperfection', KF. We live in an imperfect universe, which conflicts with the supposed perfection of its creator.

All your points about sexuality point out one aspect of how the universe is imperfect.

I like the title of your thread here, though. It's- ahem- sexy.

Peter Kirby

I feel its category is more likely an "argument from evolution," i.e. the purposes of life seem to be more to make copies in an uncaring universe than to glorify God. And there was no Fall.

best,
Peter Kirby

luvluv

Three things, and only three things, to say on this topic.

A) You do have a good drive, it's called your conscience. It's why you feel like crap when you betray your best friend, and why you feel good when you extend yourself selflessly for your felllow man.

B) The fact that you have sexual urges and drives in no way suggests that you do not have free will as concerns your sexual decisions. I doubt that if your signifigant other cheated on you, you would be much consoled if all they had to say for themselves was "Because I have sexual urges, I have no free will to restrain my sexual decisions."

C) There is always the soul-making theodicy, which suggests, in brief, that souls are perfected through difficulty. On this view, our existence is not simply to glorify God but to improve ourselves. Thus, one could say that using our free will to overcome our lesser urges and pursuing procreation on the basis of fidelity and love will work towards God's purposes more practically than simply creating a world in which there is nothing evil(sexual or otherwise) to overcome.

Bill

On this view, we should not forget that the Jewish Bible clearly states that the pain of childbirth for women was deliberately increased as punishment for leading Adam and herself astray with the old apple tree..... So, one can clearly argue that the inefficiency of human reproduction is part of this process of causing the woman increased pain and inconvenience (although my wife sure seems to actually enjoy trying to make babies; particularly when she is certain that no baby can possibly result.... So, I'm really uncertain just how far you can press the point of inefficient reproduction causing increased pain rather than increased pleasure responses.)

== Bill

KidFury

Since c) was answered by bill I will simply address a) and b).

A) You misunderstood my post. I said we should have a good drive at least as strong as the sex drive. Any man who has ever desired a woman will find it obvious that the difference between that impulse and our ``conscience`` is night and day.

B) I never argued sexual urges inhibit freewill. I tried to argue that it has a strong influence on it. The theist often defends the non-interference of God in the minds of potential criminals by saying that it would influence their freewill. Sexual impulse has precisely the same effect on a potential lover than an Angel screaming ``don't do it`` would have on a child-molesting priest.

Thanks for the counter arguments though, they show I probably need to work on it some more to clear it up...