pegasus_atheist

Why do I believe there is(are) no god(s)?

Having had the pleasure of reading/studying about many cultures and religions I have come to see certain parallels in what they attribute to gods.

1. People attribute to some god or gods whatever they don't understand and can't explain. In the pre-Judeo-Christian religions, most notably the western Greco-Roman and some eastern religions such as Zoroastrianism you had more than one god, each in charge of some phenomena (the Sun, the wind, the Earth, the sea, the fire, etc). As people started to come up with scientific/logical explanations of more and more of such phenomena, the need for so many gods diminished. Thus we have the consolidated Judeo-Christian God-Yahweh-Allah, who is now in charge of well, everything.

2. In all of these religions god(s) have the following attributes (more ore less):
a. omnipotence
b. omniscience
c. (in most cases) immortality
d. they tend to get angry a lot
e. they like sacrifices (human or animal, depending on the diety and religion)
f. they like to f@$% anything (from virgin human females (ex. Virgin Mary) to animals (think Zeus and by association the Minotaur)
g. humans are not allowed to be/do any of the above
h. most rules set by such gods are nearly impossible to carry out by humans, who invariably fail and end up in Hell, Hades, the Underworld, in eternal darkness take your pick (and religion)

3. All of the religions fail to make any compelling arguments for such god(s)' existence. Most are there to:
a. explain what humans are incapable of explaining through scientific means at the time (that's why gods know it all and can do it all)
b. to control the masses through fear (that's why gods tend to get angry a lot)

4. Gotta admit though, some of it makes for entertaining reading (like the part where Zeus has sex with a cow and I don't mean a fat woman)

Sooo, here's the thing. We, humans, have this incredible need to understand and explain everything around us. If we can't explain it in some logical way we start grasping at straws, miracles and invent gods... some in our image.

But perhaps there is another side to this. Perhaps the concept of god is really the idealized human. Perhaps it is what subconciously we aspire to. We want to know it all. We want to be able to explain it all. We want to be able to do it all. And, gasp! We want to be immortal. All indications are there that this is what we're trying to accomplish indeed. We constantly learn more and more about ourselves and the surroundings through scientific research and philosophical discussions such as these. We are able to pull off some of the magic ourselves that even 200 years ago were part of tales... think "Open Sesame"... now you go to pretty much any supermarket and "magically" the doors open up for you... we don't even have to say "Open Sesame".

So, why don't I believe that gods exist? Because there is nothing to prove (or disprove, really, but then again you can't prove the negative) that such creatures exist. Because the more we're able to explain things scientifically, the less there is need for the "god" explanation. Because arguments that "Universe exists because some god created it" begs the question "Who created god?" and thus we run into Infinite Regression... and that, for our puny human brains, is not satisfactory either because even though we want to be immortal we really don't grasp what it is that we call "infinite". Our logic demands that there be "first cause". But maybe there isn't any. We don't know. I prefer not knowing and knowing that I don't know, rather than satisfying myself with some lame "explanation" that some invisible thing is in charge of the universe and I am it's toy. Because once you realise that you don't know you're more likely to search for true answers.

This is why I don't believe.

George.

Wiploc

I'm gonna go now to the EoG forum and start a thread to discuss this. I'll call the thread Darkfrog's First Cause.

pegasus_atheist

Hmmm....dictionary mode on...
One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods. (dictonary.com)

Pronunciation: 'A-thE-"i-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god
Date: 1546
1 archaic : UNGODLINESS, WICKEDNESS
2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity (Miriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary)

.......dictionary mode off.......

Well, let's see. I do deny the existence of god, simply because I don't believe one exists... I have also been called "ungodly" and "wicked"... and I am full of disbelief...

Also, please note that in both sources your definition is listed second, so it's not the valid one necessarily, just that it's one of the interpretations...

LOL. It just occured to me... we can't even agree on the true meaning of the word atheist... and there are people that actually take the word of the Bible as the word, quite literally, forgetting that it's a translation of a translation of a translation... not to mention other problems...? Makes one wonder about the extent of human gullibility.

Sargeant Pepper

I think the most logical desicion is to believ that there is no god, being that I do not believe the evidence supporting his existance is sufficient. Without sufficient evidence, I am inclined to believe he doesn't exist. I know this is is a cliche, but it's much like unicorns. There is not enough evidence for me to start going around believing in them. To me, god is in the same boat. He could exist, but I doubt it.

HRG

First, it is Newton's, not Einstein's. Second, it talks about momentum conservation, not causation.

Think of a tiny spark causing a ton of TNT to explode.

In general, with non-linear systems, the effect may be quite disproportionate to the cause (this is called the "butterfly effect" in chaos theory).

Regards,
HRG.

HRG

You assume that things have to "come from" in order to exist. This assumption is unwarranted IMHO since quantum theory indicates that it is probably false.
The concept of "Life" does not fit the development of the universe (life seems to be concentrated on small planets). Electrons, quarks etc. do not "run out".
Not at all. You confuse "for all times t, there is an x(t) which exists at time t" with "there is an x such that x exists at all times". It is perfectly possible that everything within the universe is not perpetual, yet the universe is perpetual.

Regards,
HRG.

Jobar

The only thing perpetual is change- and really, it's not a 'thing'.

All the particles of matter seem to be, when examined minutely, tiny twists of motion in vast quantities of emptiness. When we try to find what it is that's moving, we detect even tinier twists of energy. Matter is motion- so sayeth Einstein.

Motion is the only thing which may be eternal.

the_cave

Well, leaving non-linear systems out of it (which we don't understand yet anyway), it's also true that the explosion of the TNT is also caused by the energy stored within the TNT. So the effect was there, in the cause, after all.

Ah, but where did the quantum laws come from...

Well, it's very hypothetical, but it does appear that Protons do decay into quarks over nearly unimaginable timespans (we're talking 10*100 years, maybe 10*200, or even longer...) It's true that at the level of quarks and electrons there isn't any current theory which predicts their dissolution, but that's because there isn't any corroborated theory about what they're made of in the first place! (string/membrane theory in in a very early stage, for those of you who know what that is.)

But besides that, it does appear that entropy will eventually turn the universe into, at best, a sea of black holes awash in e-m radiation. (Freeman Dyson, I believe, suggests intelligent life could still survive in such a situation...) Yet some hypothesize that even the black holes will eventually vaporize (again, over unimaginably long periods of time.) Sure, it isn't "alive" in the sense that we are, but it does appear that order will slowly decrease over time.

Quote:

Not at all. You confuse "for all times t, there is an x(t) which exists at time t" with "there is an x such that x exists at all times". It is perfectly possible that everything within the universe is not perpetual, yet the universe is perpetual.

True. But a universe in which nothing happens, forever, is not much of a universe, imo.

Now, once again, all this is complete speculation. And some speculate that black holes could somehow "spawn" new universes (though otherwise totally separated from their "parent" universe) through the laws of quantum physics. But this is also speculative. I'm just saying it could indeed be the case that the universe has an effective life-span (or, maybe not.)

Lobstrosity

The discussion seems to have progressed beyond this, but if it's all right I'd like to post a humble response. It's difficult to answer such a restrictive question considering that my beliefs are founded upon countless intertwined threads of reasoning, but if I had to pick one main one thread I guess it would be the following:

1) Even if we concede that there is a god, I have no absolutely no faith (heh) that man knows the slightest thing about it. My reasoning for this stands upon simple logic. Virtually every civilization throughout recorded history has had its own unique religion. What's more, by the very nature of religion, each of these requires that every other religion is fundamentally flawed. At most, only one of these dozens of religions is correct, leaving dozens-minus-one religions that we know are mere myth. Clearly, man has a need to make up stories that answer the fundamental questions he asks. Creating fake religions isn't all that rare. So now logically ask yourself: if dozens of civilizations are capable of making up their own religion, is it such a stretch to think that all current religions are simple fantasies created by man? Why must we assume that anyone has gotten it right so far, especially when all these religions require "faith" and can no way be tested for accuracy? For someone to have gotten it right, this requires that God personally spread his word, which would indicated that God wants humans (his fabulous creations) to know about him. If an all-powerful being wants people to know about him, don't you think he'd have a better success rate in the religion department? Why would he wait until relatively recently to tell a few people in a rather isolated region of the globe the truth about him? It just doesn't make sense. It makes more sense that he told no one and everyone just came up with their own ideas to fill the deep chasms in their current understanding of the universe.

2) So now my thought process leads me to the idea that if there is a supreme being up there, I need to logically deduce its nature from what can be observed since I feel fairly certain that culturally-dependent tales of "God" must be grossly inaccurate (e.g. at least no more accurate than we hold Greek mythology to be). First and foremost I notice that clearly this universe is a highly-ordered place with very beautiful, self-consistent physical laws governing everything we choose to observe. Science works in this universe. Experiments are repeatable. We can derive actual laws that will time and time again explain how processes occur. If there is a god, it seems fairly clear to me from all this that said god does not routinely interfere with the workings of his universe. Everything is set up so that it can run on its own without the need for constant maintainance, and if god were constantly tweaking things, physics (and science in general) just wouldn't work. One day you'd measure your local gravity to be one quantity, and the next day you'd measure it to be something completely different because god has decided in his infinite wisdom that it was time for a change. We cannot deduce the presence of an active intelligent supreme being, so it does not make sense to simply assume one exists just for the hell of it. That's just silly. I might as well assume my car is powered by a giant hamster that resides on Jupiter, but I have to sacrifice gasoline and Doritos to him on a regular basis or else he'll become displeased with me and stop making my car go vroom.

3) The above two lines of reasoning lead me to claim that I see no evidence at all for an active intelligent supreme being (a.k.a. God). So what about a God who created the universe but no longer interferes? Well, I could postulate that it was a god who initiated the Big Bang. No one knows much of anything about why the physical laws of the universe are the way they are (why to the fundamental constants have the values they do?) and our science can't say anything about the state of things before the Big Bang because from our perspective as residents of this universe, the phrase "before the Big Bang" has no meaning. But now here's the real question: where does it get me to assume a god created this universe? How does that help me in any way? Well, you might say that this tells us where we came from, but that's utter hogwash. All you've done is displaced the mystery of our creation into the mystery of a god. You still have the same unknowns, only for some reason you feel more comfortable to have these unknowns resting in what you label as "God." If you can't believe a universe this amazingly perfect started on its own, how can you believe that something as amazingly complex as an all-powerful God started on its own? You're left having to answer where God came from and who created God. You have not gotten to the bottom of the creation mystery, and the answer that God was always here is no more satisfying to me than the answer that the universe was always here (or, as current theory indicates, spawned in the Big Bang). As such, when faced with having to choose between a spontaneously-forming universe or a spontaneously-forming infinitely powerful intelligent being who then created this universe using his vast powers, I'll take the simpler of the two scenarios until I have significant reason to think otherwise.

Jamie_L

Hold it right there. Like any word, atheist has many meanings. We each believe what we believe, and then we choose a word to label ourselves. Calling into question the label doesn't call into question our beliefs. The label follows from us, not the other way around.

I'm actually an atheist who will agree with you here. Practically speaking, I think most of us believe God does not exist. My 3-year-old daughter truely "lacks belief in God" because she has never heard of the concept. My dog likewise lacks a belief in God. I believe God doesn't exist. However, that's different from me saying I know with 100% certainty that no God exists.

Atheists tend to talk about "lack of belief" as a way to distinguish between a positive claim of existence and a reaction to a positive claim. I think what most people mean by "lack of belief" is that they are saying "your positive claim of god existence is one that I don't believe."

Yes and no. There's really more of a spectrum. You can suspect God doesn't exist. You can think it's likely God doesn't exist. You can have a high degree of certainty God doesn't exist. You can believe it's impossible for God to exist. Theists arguing with atheists tend to pick one place on this spectrum and lump all atheists, and that's not accurate.

So, you've said why you take issue with "lacking a belief in God." However, that is a different statement from saying "there's not enough evidence to convince me God exists." What is your issue with that position?

Jamie