shome42

Why even argue about theism vs. atheism? (aside from those who do it for the mental exercise or just enjoy arguing)

It's my opinion that even if it were proven that 'something' must be out there that created all of 'this,' you haven't gotten anywhere.

I'm not talking about disproving the God of the Bible, Allah, Zeus, etc. That, in my opinion is very important to argue, considering there are people constantly trying to push those specific beliefs on you.

I'm talking about trying to prove that 'something' must have created the universe. You know, those "the big bang never happened vs. happened" type arguments.

Even if you prove that 'something' must have created all of this, then what? You now have like 50 gods to choose from as well as new age religions, etc.

Since you can never prove that any one of them is 'the true' religion, you've ultimately acheived nothing.

Most theists who argue that something created the universe are implying that Jesus H. Christ must of have done it. It's a non-sequitur argument: "See!!! I've proven that something created the universe, therefore Jesus H. Christ is Lord!!! The Bible was right!!!"

What am I missing?

Paul Baxter

As a xian, I have to say I couldn't agree with you more on this point. I wouldn't get any satisfaction out of convincing an atheist to become a Hindu or a deist. If you care to read a Christian philosopher who agrees with you here, check out Cornelius Van Til's book _The Defense of the Faith_.

fishbulb

The atheist position is not necessarily to argue that there is no such thing, but rather that there is no reason to suppose, or act, as though there were. In other words, the deist question can be re-framed as questioning whether we ought to assume the existence of supernatural phenomena or assume that even things we cannot presently understand probably have a naturalistic explanation.

Hmm... I think that is wrong. How could you possibly prove that the universe was created without being able to conclusively demonstrate something about the creator? Assuming the Universe acually did have a creator, and assuming further that you were somehow able to prove this, the evidence you gathered to do this would surely allow us to draw some conclusions about the creator and would likely allow us to rule out most, perhaps all, of the god myths proposed to date.

ComestibleVenom

I think the debate about gods in general has valuble philsophical issues involves. Yes, the terms in which the debate occurs are often very silly and useless, but I nevertheless believe that the attendent issues of science (which, by the way, has the last word like it or not, insofar as there can be a last word) and parsimony are of the utmost practical importance even if God doesn't matter.

Nom

Not really. From what shome posted initially, I gather he's talking about your garden-variety cosmological argument: everything has a cause, the universe is a thing, therefore the universe had a cause. A variant is actually being knocked about now in the "Brief Defense of the Kalaam Cosmological Argument" thread. But even if you accept that the universe had a cause, that doesn't mean that cause was capital-G God. It could have been a singularity, or a quantum event, a group of (lesser) gods, or space aliens from another dimension. Now, if someone was claiming to have found some kind of evidence about *what* the cause was, that's another story, and if proved obviously you might be able to draw some conclusions about which belief(s) are correct. But assuming the universe had an unknown cause is perfectly compatible with atheism.