Agnostichero

I pose the following thoughts and questions for fellow non-believers:

Having read many arguments against the existence of God, it strikes me that many of them address only the Christian religion. Often, the arguments will begin, "because the religion with which I am most familiar is Christianity, I will focus on it . . ."

Nonetheless, by ignoring the very real fact that there are hundreds of other religions out there, we miss out on some very useful debating strategies. By eliminating the multiplicity of other beliefs from the debate, we unwittingly set-up the so-called "fallacy of negation." We're left with only two mutually-exclusive belief systems (atheism and some form of Christianity). Thus, the apologist debaters think that if they discredit our position, they somehow bolster their position that 1) there is a God, and 2) It arbitrarily happens to be the exact same God they were taught to believe in as children.

In fact, the main reason I choose not to believe in the supernatural is that there are no principled, rational criteria by which we can distinguish one set of supernatural beliefs from another.

I think of it this way: I will admit that I cannot disprove the existence of God. Nonetheless, if I had to accept every supernatural claim that I could not disprove, my life would be almost impossible; my head would constantly be filled with an overwhelming abundance of competing and irreconcilable fables, superstitions, and hoaxes. I cannot disprove the occurrence of alien abductions. But to accept, without any evidence, that such phenomena are real would not help me to live a better life. In fact, it would almost certainly make my life much more paranoid for no reason at all.


Similarly, I've read several responses to the so-called "watchmaker argument," many of which I find persuasive. Like most of you, I don't believe that the "watchmaker" argument proves the existence of the Christian God. I would add the following response, though:

OK, let's assume for the sake of argument that the seeming perfection and harmony of the universe "proves" that there is some supernatural creator or god. How does this prove the existence of YOUR God? Why couldn't the earth have been created by the Muslim God, or the Roman Gods, or for that matter, a UFO full of benevolent and all powerful space aliens?

The truth of the matter is that I don't think that there's a good answer to this question.

In sum, I think that it's helpful to remember the potentially infinite supply of supernatural beliefs there are out there. Each of us is confronted with the task of deciding whether to accept or reject these beliefs. Indeed, most of us (whether religious or not) decide to reject the vast majority of supernatural beliefs out there. But if we accept some and reject others, where do we draw the line? What principled basis do we use to decide which empirically unverifiable belief system is "better" than the others, thus meriting our acceptance?

sidewinder

Good post. I often ask Christians if they are certain that they are worshipping the right god. I ask them if they have ever thoroughly verified that they belong to the correct religion, because it seems to be important, according to most theists. Most Christians accept Christianity in some form or another and have little or no idea about other religions, especially Judaism and Islam.

The arguments for the existence of a god are interesting and thought provoking. However, no matter how strong the theistic arguments for a god, it seems impossible to prove that this god is the Biblical God. The portrait of the Biblical God within the Bible is incoherent and contradictory.

Marduk

The narrower you define God (Bibles & such) the easier it is to argue against and disbelieve, if God is defined broadly enough such as God is 'life the universe and everything' the harder it is to say 'there is no such thing as life the universe and everything'. Many eastern religions fall into this latter category, despite the claims they have 'many' gods, it often is the case that they just have many names.
How would you disproove the claim that every X number of years Brahma dreams the great Brahma dream and a universe comes into existence, a universe which is just the dream of 'god' an illusion he lets us all share till Shiva takes it apart.

Agnostichero

I definitely agree with this sentiment. The greater the specificity of the supernatural claims, the more likely it is for such claims to appear arbitrary and contrived.

For these reasons, the more vague belief systems such as pantheism (as in "God is the universe and everything") possess more credibility--at least superficially--than the ones that purport to express the exact parameters of the will of some supernatural being.

That said, when you define "God" so vaguely that the definition of "God" is coextensive with the definition of "the universe," adding "God" into the analysis does not really add much. It's more of semantic change than a substantive one.

I think I see where you're going here. I will admit that I cannot disprove this hypothesis. But really, the idea that a supernatural deity would "dream" a universe into existence possesses enough specifity to make it appear (at least to me) to be contrived and arbitrary.

Why, for example, could Brahma not "wave" a universe into existence or "dance" a universe into existence?

What text tells us that he must "dream" the universe? And, indeed, if this does come from a text (the Vedas, perhaps?) what indicia of credibility do these texts have that let us know that they are "right" and other texts which present inconsistent and irreconcilable views of universe creation are "wrong"?

Marduk

"Why, for example, could Brahma not "wave" a universe into existence or "dance" a universe into existence?"

I think this is meant to explain human consciousness/soul every living thing born gets a slice of the cosmic pie/god.

"What text tells us that he must "dream" the universe? And, indeed, if this does come from a text (the
Vedas, perhaps?)"

I believe so but don't know which one. Carl Sagan quoted this during the Cosmos series, I think because X=20 billion years, the age of the universe as was thought when the show was made, just being poetic I guess.

"what indicia of credibility do these texts have that let us know that they are "right" and
other texts which present inconsistent and irreconcilable views of universe creation are "wrong"?"

none that I'm aware of.

[ February 22, 2002: Message edited by: marduck ]</p>

Echo

I couldn't agree more, and this is why it bugs me when I hear some atheists say "I don't believe in God because the bible contains contradictions, absurdities, etc." They assume the bible god is the only one in the running, and this is just what the Christian theists want to hear. I don't see that argument in here, but I see it a lot in atheist chat rooms.


Or perhaps the universe *is* god, as a pantheist might say, which would explain any apparent design just as well as the biblegod.


Would be nice to get some theist input on this.

Jayhawker Soule

... who is so parsimonious in the seeming perfection and harmony of design as to create men with nipples!

IMO, the worst of all possible gods is the god-of-the-gaps. Let's not assume some supernatural creator or god unless and until there is explanatory value in doing so, i.e., when in doubt, doubt, don't pray.

Jamie_L

The multiplicity of religions is really what started me on the road to atheism. I'll describe my thoughts at the time - not rigorous logic by any means, but a snapshot into my first questions about religion:

If there are so many religions, one of the followign must be true:

1) One religion is true. All others are false.
2) All religions are true.
3) Some religions are true. Some are false.
4) One or more religions are partially true, but few or none encompass the whole truth.
5) All religions are false.

Option 1 seemes unlikely. If one is really true, why so many others? Especially when many claim to be "obvious" or the creation of an omnipotent being that wants everyone to believe.

Option 2 is virtually impossible, since many religions explicitly state other religions are false.

Option 3 seems to have the problems of both 1 and 2. Unlikely.

Option 4 is the most intriguing of the "true religion" possibilities. Some truth is out there, but humans are not totally able to grasp it, so you get all this splintering of belief. But this still seems to require some mental gymnastics to explain everything - and again, many religions would deny these explanations.

Option 5 just made the most since. It's a simple explanation. We study many "myths" that almost everyone believes are false, but that people once earnestly believed were the truth about the world. What makes a modern religion more likely to be true? More likely, it seems, they are all myths, invented by humans to fill certain needs.

This is not intended to be a winning argument. But these were the first of many questions that lead me to be confident and comfortable in my atheism.

Jamie

Jayhawker Soule

Hence, a plethora of New Age pablum.

I'm not looking for a clever debating strategy. Even if I were, this seem like a weak argument. Why, for example, are you not open to Deism? The question is not, in my opinion, whether or not there's a basis for selecting, e.g., Hinduism over Christianity. The question is whether or not an appeal to any supernatural explanation is warranted and, if so, why. As previously mentioned, I have zero respect for the god-of-the-gaps, and my mantra remains faily simple: when in doubt, doubt, don't pray.

evildave

Here's my simplified breakdown for disbelief as I've conveniently worked it out previously... I should build a graph of it some day.

Religious Roulette

To evaluate the nature of deity, we need to examine the blind odds because we have no objective data to begin with:

50% There is no God
50% There is a god of some sort

If there is a god or gods:

25% Chance god or gods don't care what you do

25% God or gods do care what you do, and it breaks down further
--% And the moslems are right
--% And the shi'ite moslems are right
--% And the sunni moslems are right
--% And the sufist moslems are right
--% And the catholics are right
--% And the jehova's witlesses are right
--% And the christian scientists are right
--% And the amish are right
--% And some flavor of 'fundies' is right
--% And the mormons are right
--% And the luterans are right
--% And the pentacostals are right
--% And the babtists are right
--% And the methodists are right
--% And Jim Jones was right
--% And David Koresh was right
--% And it/they care what you wear
--% And it/they care what you eat
--% And it/they want to be wound up on Sundays
--% And it/they want to be wound up on Saturdays
--% And it/they want you to live your life
--% And it/they are capricious
--% And it/they want cash
--% And it/they want blood sacrifices
--% And it/they have exactly 10 things they want you to do, and these are:...
--% And it/they have exactly 11 things they want you to do, and these are:...
--% And it/they have exactly 9 things they want you to do, and these are:...
--% And it/they have exactly 11,314 things they want you to do, and these are:...
... (Infinitely many other negligible percentages for these and other combinations)
&gt;24% We have no clear information for what he/her/it/they want.

Now to evaluate the afterlife question:

50% One Life; you die and that's all, folks.
50% Some sort of afterlife, and this breaks down into more possibilities...
25% It's unaffected by deities
--% Simple reincarnation
--% Judgemental (Karma/etc.) reincarnation
--% Promotion to deity status
--% Some sort of afterlife exactly like "What dreams may come"
--% Some sort of afterlife exactly like "Beetlejuice"
--% Some sort tunnel thingy with your dead relatives waving at you
--% An afterlife for all
--% An afterlife for some
--% An afterlife all alone
--% An afterlife with everyone else
... (Nearly infinitely many other negligible percentages)
&gt;24% Something unlike what has been previously described
25% It's affected by deities
--% An afterlife with only heaven
--% An afterlife with only hell
--% An afterlife with heaven and hell
--% An afterlife with heaven and hell, and you have to kiss up to a deity to get in the heaven
--% An afterlife with heaven and hell, and you had to live a good life to get into heaven
--% An afterlife with heaven and hell, and you had to live a good life AND kiss up to a deity to get into heaven
--% An afterlife for some after being dead for a while
--% There's a boat and you needed to be buried with pennies on your eyes
--% An afterlife that is dependent on what you believed when you died
... (Nearly infinitely many other negligible percentages for these and other combinations)
&gt;24% Something unlike what has been previously described

The probabilities really need to be broken down graphically. Perhaps a grid like on a roulette table, or a tree structure describing the possibilities.

So an atheist has a 50% chance of being dead-on right, and at least a 75% chance that it doesn't matter because the deity/deities aren't even aware of your existence, or don't care what you do, and a better than 99% chance that no matter how we try to behave religiously for a deity or deities, we'll get it wrong anyway.

For the people who believes in one life, we have 50% chance of being absolutely correct, and a better than 99% chance that an afterlife has not been accurately described or defined.

For a theist who fervently believes in a deity and/or an afterlife, we have a rounding error for percentage chance that they are fully correct.

From a gambling perspective, bet atheism. It doesn't promise to pay off as well as the religious odds, but at least you can sleep in on sunday and you're not required to become offended by religious humor.