A Sincere Question for Atheists

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wolpertinger:
Granted. But the opposite is true, as well – it is impossible to disprove that god hides in the gaps.
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It most certainly is. And was even before Heisenberg.
Many theists here have pointed out quite often and frequently:
  • We cannot disprove God.
  • We haven’t looked everywhere to find him, so how can we be sure?
    Both deeds are impossible, the 1st logically the latter practically and with Heisenberg’s UP even physically. Again, those negative assertions do not alone justify a positve assertion. (@All Catholics here: I acknowledge, you have other justifications besides those arguments, I personally just don’t buy them.)
Since I don’t understand quantum mechanics (who does…), I’ll let this stand with the single objection that something reverts to nothing just as quickly.
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Yes, on a microscopic scale. The implications on a cosmological scale are yet unclear, as we don’t have a unified theory of all forces yet.
Same applies to the 2nd law of thermodynamics btw.
 
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AnAtheist:
It most certainly is. And was even before Heisenberg.
Many theists here have pointed out quite often and frequently:
  • We cannot disprove God.
  • We haven’t looked everywhere to find him, so how can we be sure?
    Both deeds are impossible, the 1st logically the latter practically and with Heisenberg’s UP even physically. Again, those negative assertions do not alone justify a positve assertion. (@All Catholics here: I acknowledge, you have other justifications besides those arguments, I personally just don’t buy them.)
    Yes, on a microscopic scale. The implications on a cosmological scale are yet unclear, as we don’t have a unified theory of all forces yet.
    Same applies to the 2nd law of thermodynamics btw.
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This conversation is getting a bit beyond me since I haven’t studied physics seriously in over a decade. But you are bringing up some of the same points that Christians do, namely, where does matter come from, what existed before the “big bang” if indeed the big bang occurred. Existence itself is a mystery. Wouldn’t it be simpler if there was no existence? No “nothingness” even? I find the differences between your and wolp’s atheistic beliefs quite enlightening. I had no idea there was anything other than atheists and agnostics. It’s certainly been an education. I guess as a “theist” (never called myself that before) I would say that the fact that you and I are sitting here chatting is proof enough to me that some uncreated Creator had to have – at the very least – created the energy for some big bang to occur. Then you mentioned things like the laws of thermodynamics, gravity, etc. Why do we have these laws? Why does the strength of gravity decrease proportionally to the square of the distance between two bodies? (I hope I got that right, been a while as I said.) Why are atoms made of quarks or strings(?) or something else? Why not ______ (insert other incomprehensible physics idea here)? Even if physicists unlock the underlying structures or proceeses for these phenomena, they can’t tell us WHY the universe behaves in the way it does, why matter-energy exists at all, why there are n units of matter-energy equivalent and not n+1 units (assuming the amount of matter-energy in the universe is a constant). This “why” is what we Christians would attribute God, the uncreated Creator who brought it into existence in the first place and imposed some kind of order on it.
 
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ktm:
must this is the first time I ever heard this statement, that something can spring from nothing without some kind of help from outside. Do I understand you correctly? How can a statement like that be verified?
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AnAtheist:
That’s the tricky part.
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The populist analogy I’ve heard is that at a magnification level past the particles we can observe (more or less indirectly), there is sort of a bubbling “quantum” soup, with matter spontaneously popping in and out of existence. This soup averages out to what we can observe from a distance.

Chances are that this analogy will make a physicist cringe…

Quantum mechanics are a major, major headache for science. The math just works out, predictions based on the theory and all. But the whole concept is so weird that it is virtually impossible to comprehend in its fullness.

Explaining cosmology in terms of QM is just about the most reductionist approach I can conceive of. Just sayin’.
 
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wolpertinger:
The populist analogy I’ve heard is that at a magnification level past the particles we can observe (more or less indirectly), there is sort of a bubbling “quantum” soup, with matter spontaneously popping in and out of existence. This soup averages out to what we can observe from a distance.
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Yeah, that fits. :yup:
Quantum mechanics are a major, major headache for science. The math just works out, predictions based on the theory and all. But the whole concept is so weird that it is virtually impossible to comprehend in its fullness.
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Weirder than common concepts of God?
I regard working out math as an advantage, religion doesn’t have.
 
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AnAtheist:
Yeah, that fits. :yup:
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Oh, good.
Weirder than common concepts of God?
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Parsimony. If this very site is any indication, theistic belief raises as many questions as it solves.

What it really boils down to is that philosophy, religious or not, can go where science cannot. Therefore, what religion should do is to embrace and extend science, not get into a turf war, so to speak. The dilemma is that science far outpaces the churches ability to adapt… One way to look at it is to say that “modern” fundamentalism is a knee-jerk reaction to being sandbagged with questions.
 
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wolpertinger:
Oh, good.

Parsimony. If this very site is any indication, theistic belief raises as many questions as it solves.

What it really boils down to is that philosophy, religious or not, can go where science cannot. Therefore, what religion should do is to embrace and extend science, not get into a turf war, so to speak. The dilemma is that science far outpaces the churches ability to adapt… One way to look at it is to say that “modern” fundamentalism is a knee-jerk reaction to being sandbagged with questions.
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Some folks seem to think that the Catholic Church has some aversion to science. Quite the contrary. Take, for instance, miracles. There have been very few miracles (comparatively speaking) that the Church has “approved” in the sense that the popes have said yes, this is a miracle. Whenever a supposed miracle is reported, the first question the Church asks is, “Is there a natural explanation for this”? Or take evolution. The Church does not deny or affirm human evolution since that is a question for science. What the Church WILL say, however, is that at some point God intervened and gave us a soul, reason, a sense of good and evil, etc. What, do you think we believe the sun revolves around the earth? 😃
 
ktm said:
Why…Why …Why?
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For me, hypothesizing the existence of God raises as many questions, if not more, than imagining a reality without God. If I believed in God I would still have these questions: why does God, the universe and human beings exist instead of nothing? Why is God omnipotent rather than merely powerful? Why is God infinitely good rather than mostly good with an occasional temper tantrum that he later regrets?

Many theists seem content to say “God wanted it that way” and leave it at that. This seems rather arbitrary to me. If you demand an explanation of the origin and nature of the universe shouldn’t you be equally demanding of an explanation of the origin and nature of God?

Personally, I don’t believe that human beings were created to completely understand the universe and I don’t believe the universe was created to be completely understandable. All we can say is that so far we’ve understood it well enough to survive. So I don’t have any problem with saying “I don’t know” to the big “why” questions and don’t feel that saying “God did it” gets me any closer to a satisfactory answer.
 
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ktm:
I find the differences between your and wolp’s atheistic beliefs quite enlightening. I had no idea there was anything other than atheists and agnostics. It’s certainly been an education.
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Then this thread had one positive outcome already!
I guess as a “theist” (never called myself that before) I would say that the fact that you and I are sitting here chatting is proof enough to me that some uncreated Creator had to have – at the very least – created the energy for some big bang to occur.
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Not necessarily. The total energy of the universe is 0. You can gauge energy to any value. E(x) descibes the same system as E(x) + [arbitrary constant].
Then you mentioned things like the laws of thermodynamics, gravity, etc. Why do we have these laws? …] Even if physicists unlock the underlying structures or proceeses for these phenomena, they can’t tell us WHY the universe behaves in the way it does, why matter-energy exists at all,
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No argument from me. I take those things as they are, and ask not why. Just like you do not ask. Why is there a god? Where did he come from?
I stop looking for reasons one step before you do.
why there are n units of matter-energy equivalent and not n+1 units (assuming the amount of matter-energy in the universe is a constant).
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Why has the christian god n=3 aspects and not n+1? Ever asked that question?
This “why” is what we Christians would attribute God, the uncreated Creator who brought it into existence in the first place and imposed some kind of order on it.
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Granted, the “god of gaps” is a very good explanation of everything. To me this explanation feels somewhat too easy.
Besides, imho all this thinking leads to a notion of a god that can be identified with nature or the universe itself (Spinoza).
When I look at the christian god though, his concept raises more questions than it answers (theodicy problem, salvation plan, trinity, OT atrocities, …).
The agnostic side of my personality owns this probability scale of possible gods:
personal god (Jahwe, Allah) < personal gods (Catharian dualism, pagan beliefs) << impersonal god (Spinoza) << no god
Now you perhaps wonder why I regard two or more gods slightly more likely than a single one. Multiple dieties don’t have the thedodicy problem.
 
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AnAtheist:
Why has the christian god n=3 aspects and not n+1? Ever asked that question?
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That one depends on how you look at it. The God of the Christians consists of 3 persons with 1 nature. And at the same time is simple and indivisible and yet infinite. He obviously doesn’t look at math the same way as we do. :hmmm:
 
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wolpertinger:
Parsimony. If this very site is any indication, theistic belief raises as many questions as it solves.
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It surely does.
What it really boils down to is that philosophy, religious or not, can go where science cannot. Therefore, what religion should do is to embrace and extend science, not get into a turf war, so to speak. The dilemma is that science far outpaces the churches ability to adapt… One way to look at it is to say that “modern” fundamentalism is a knee-jerk reaction to being sandbagged with questions.
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And fantasy can go to where science cannot. Now what does that imply? 😃
 
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AnAtheist:
It surely does.
And fantasy can go to where science cannot. Now what does that imply? 😃
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Please, I beg of you to choose your words carefully. So many of these atheism threads get killed when people call religion or belief in God “fantasy”, then someone responds in anger, things escalate, etc.
 
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squirt:
That one depends on how you look at it. The God of the Christians consists of 3 persons with 1 nature. And at the same time is simple and indivisible and yet infinite. He obviously doesn’t look at math the same way as we do. :hmmm:
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Listen to Tom Lehrer’s “New Math” song and all will be explained.
 
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ktm:
Please, I beg of you to choose your words carefully. So many of these atheism threads get killed when people call religion or belief in God “fantasy”, then someone responds in anger, things escalate, etc.
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My late father always told me in many places on this world, making jokes about religion is the quickest way to get yourself killed. Not that this differs from certain secular regimes…
 
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wolpertinger:
My late father always told me in many places on this world, making jokes about religion is the quickest way to get yourself killed. Not that this differs from certain secular regimes…
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La la de da, and away we go off onto tangents!
 
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ktm:
Please, I beg of you to choose your words carefully. So many of these atheism threads get killed when people call religion or belief in God “fantasy”, then someone responds in anger, things escalate, etc.
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Ok, ok.
But please understand, to me the bible is a mixture of history, fiction, and fantasy. Just like any other religious book. That much should be obvious.
And saying it shouldn’t threat your faith, it is not that weak.

So I have chosen my handle for a purpose. That everybody knows from start, what I (not) believe. I sincerely hope, that noone is suggesting I should lie about what I think, just to be opportunistic.
 
Atheist,

I would like to quote a Filipino martyr who once neglect believing about God. He was a senator, a briliant guy who fought for freedom in that country. He was no doubt an enemy of the late strongman in the Philippines, Pres. Marcos. When he was imprisoned during the martial law years which was crafted by Mr. Marcos, he was greatly humiliated and feared for his life. He began to look back of the many times he was successful, his family and friends who cared for him, etc. but they were all totally helpless. And with his conditions in an isolated prison, he began to think and reason about God. There was no one else he could think of who can help him. He then began to realize that he was not alone in the midst of his trials. He quoted one of his famous words; “Where reason ends, faith begins.”

Pio
 
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AnAtheist:
Ok, ok.
But please understand, to me the bible is a mixture of history, fiction, and fantasy. Just like any other religious book. That much should be obvious.
And saying it shouldn’t threat your faith, it is not that weak.

So I have chosen my handle for a purpose. That everybody knows from start, what I (not) believe. I sincerely hope, that noone is suggesting I should lie about what I think, just to be opportunistic.
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I could also give you a frank opinion of what I think of atheism and atheists, but I haven’t, because this thread would immediately be locked or deleted, I would get suspended in all likelihood, and most importantly, it would not advance the discussion at all.

I think I will leave this thread since (1) I have learned sufficient amounts of information from the 2-3 of you and (2) I feel like quitting this thread before it gets ugly.

See you around the boards!! 👍
 
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