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Jocko_VT
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The notion that atheism is correlated with atrocity is not only false, but is hateful and libelous.
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Pieman333272
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Attacking a position takes much less effort than proving it wrong.
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antunesaa
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As for the first part of your post, let me tell you that when I discuss with my atheist friends the origins of reality - and I really think that is an important question - they usually say something like: “Ok, the Bing Bang is there but now such and such physicists say that possibly there’s an almost infinite supply of universes, or that quantum fluctuations allow for an ex-nihilo creation”, and so on. These are “non-God of the gaps” arguments! “The theory is speculation; ok, but someone will prove them to be accurate,” they seem to say. Now, not only this line of argument is weak, but it also is flawed. It is weak because it rests on presumptions about future discoveries. And it is flawed because, even if those discoveries are made later on, the scientific method requires that they too can be eventually proved wrong. So, you never really know - you just have suspicions until eventually your theory is proved wrong. And scientific theories are constantly proved wrong!
I think the origin of time is the most important question because if there’s an origin of time, science cannot explain the single most important event of reality. Therefore, it is irrelevant with respect to the creation debate, as it totally rests on the causality assumption - that is, any event must have a cause. Explanations like the Big Bang of the multiverse or quantum fluctuations do not work because they presuppose a time origin and a law, that is, there has to be a moment when the law comes into existence from nothing, even if the Big Bang comes later. So, what caused the law? An eternal soup of laws popping out of the non-space? Maybe, but then you need time for the appropriate law to pop out and allow for the Big Bang, etc. Can that soup extend backwards forever? No it can’t because the correct law would have popped somewhere in the past… Where are we now? Is this sound rational reasoning? I don’t think so. A non-caused cause (aka God) is a simpler explanation which has resisted the test of times admirably.
As for the last part of your post, notice that, if the theist claim that a universal truth exists and ours is a God-created universe, it should not be surprising that a number of myths emerged over the centuries with more or less the same ideas. Those would be ideas related to the eternal and universal truths. In fact, if you think about it, under the null assumption of the theist, the really surprising observation would be that there were no common themes across the numerous myths of our past civilizations, and in particular myths related to creation.
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antunesaa
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I didn’t say that. To oppose the Dawkins et al argument that religion is bad because religious people have made bad things in the name of religion, I just highlighted examples of equally wicked irreligious people who made bad things in the name of materialistic ideologies. (They couldn’t have invoked any religion, could they?) It is an entirely appropriate parallel which has as many implications about the wickedness of atheists as Dawkins et al’s have about religious people’s: none. I think religious beliefs are essentially orthogonal to wickedness.
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Jocko_VT
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Here’s the point. One can not use the big bang as evidence of a beginning of the universe, because the big bang is not evidence of a beginning of the universe in the intuitive sense–i.e., “beginning” has no real meaning when dealing with the beginning of the big bang because time didn’t exist until the big bang. However, this doesn’t mean there was nothingness before that point. Thus, no arguments, theistic or atheistic, can be based on the big bang.
To make God a non-caused cause doesn’t solve the problem though. It makes as much sense to say the universe (and i mean EVERYTHING, whatever it is, not just our universe) had no cause. We do not know. It may be completely likely that we will never know. In that situation, I do not feel compelled to jump to a God-did-it answer.
As far as “resisted the test of times admirably,” I’d differ with you. Non-natural explanations have been kicked to the curb for 1,000s of years as humans have come to understand the way things work.
Were everyone to just say, “Well, the Big Bang is the origin of it all, which means God did it about 15 billion years ago,” they would have previously said, “Well, the Milky Way is all there is,” and “Well, evil spirits make you sick.” I’m not interested in that way of thinking.
All this is why I always happily say, “I don’t know.”
To make God a non-caused cause doesn’t solve the problem though. It makes as much sense to say the universe (and i mean EVERYTHING, whatever it is, not just our universe) had no cause. We do not know. It may be completely likely that we will never know. In that situation, I do not feel compelled to jump to a God-did-it answer.
As far as “resisted the test of times admirably,” I’d differ with you. Non-natural explanations have been kicked to the curb for 1,000s of years as humans have come to understand the way things work.
Were everyone to just say, “Well, the Big Bang is the origin of it all, which means God did it about 15 billion years ago,” they would have previously said, “Well, the Milky Way is all there is,” and “Well, evil spirits make you sick.” I’m not interested in that way of thinking.
On the other hand, if the non-theist claim is correct, it should not be surprising that a number of myths emerged over the centuries with more or less the same ideas. Those would be ideas related to being human–i.e., “eternal” and “universal” truths emerging out of the human condition. In fact, if you think about it, under the null assumption of the non-theist, the really surprising observation would be that there were no common themes across the numerous myths of our past and present civilizations, and in particular myths related to creation.
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Betterave
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Are you sure it’s false? (That’s a positive statement so I wonder how you prove it.) I think it’s possibly true, and as such it’s certainly not hateful and libelous.
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Jocko_VT
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Believe me. I know. Catholics have been attacking my position in here for days, and no one has bothered to prove me wrong, or even make a sincere attempt at a cordial debate.Attacking a position takes much less effort than proving it wrong.
Seriously, though. Nothing has been presented to prove wrong. It’s just baseless accusations.
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Jocko_VT
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Actually, the positive statement is that there is a relationship. If you think it’s true, feel free to make the argument.
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Jocko_VT
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Then I apologize. I took you as repeating something I’ve heard probably 5 times in these forums in the last week. If that’s not what you meant, I apologize.
Then we are in complete agreement on this issue.
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Charlemagne_II
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jocko
**Are you actually saying God had to struggle to create the universe? **
Well there is a difference, I suppose, between just another day’s work and building an entire universe in six days!
**Are you actually saying God had to struggle to create the universe? **
Well there is a difference, I suppose, between just another day’s work and building an entire universe in six days!
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Betterave
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It seems as if you may not know what this claim actually means. The following is a positive assertion: “the burden of proof always lies on the individual making the positive assertion.” If it is true, then the burden of proof lies on you to prove that it is so. Your only attempt to do so, so far as I have seen, is to say “google it.” But obviously that is a silly way to prove your assertion, isn’t it? (If you can’t see that it is, I’ll be happy to explain.)
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traillius
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Making such a correlation with christians, or theists, is equally false, hateful, and libelous.
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Betterave
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I said I think it’s possibly true, not I think it’s true.
“There is no correlation between atheism and atrocities” is a positive statement. You are mistaken about the meaning of ‘positive statement’ if you think otherwise. (I guess I should explain: “there is an apple in my bag” and “there is no apple in my bag” are both positive statements because they both posit some state of affairs as actually obtaining.)
In any case, do you at least see my point about the charge of “hateful and libelous” being unwarranted (begging the question)?
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Betterave
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Or (un)equally true, and not hateful or libelous. The point is, the question of truth must come first. If we get upset about “hateful and libelous” first, we won’t be able to fairly examine the logically prior question.
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Sailor_Kenshin
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If you don’t believe in God, why are you even bothering to convince others? Why are you breaking a sweat in here instead of just being out in the real world, living your happy, God-free life?
If I went to the Democratic Underground and started in on how stupid liberals are, I would expect arguments.
If I went on the Ann Coulter Official Chat and proceeded to tell everyone off about the idiocy of conservatives and how intellectually superior I am because I disagree with them, I should expect a similar number of arguments.
Why should the laws of forum physics be suspended for atheists?
Especially since their idea of critical thinking wouldn’t pass muster in a duck pond.
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antunesaa
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Then you might as well go the way of Von Neumann, the famous mathematician and physicist, who famously said about his late (re)-conversion to Catholicism, that “Pascal had a point”.
From a scientific view point, it never makes sense to say that something had no cause without recognizing the inefficacy of science itself for shedding light on that issue. A lot of non-theist activists would vigorously reject that because that would put science in equal footing to any other belief system, namely philosophy and theology. But, to me, that is a perfectly acceptable declaration. Perhaps it would be fair to state here that I am a scientist - not that this gives me any particular authority…
The essential reasoning of Aquinas about the non-caused cause, for instance, is perfectly valid today. And things come and go: who would have said in the late XIXth century that the Universe had a beginning, contrary to claims of most physicists? A universe without a beginning would have been so much more atheist-friendly… Not to mention the fact that, contrary to philosophy and theology, modern science is, as the name says, well… modern, and people really have not yet had the time to process its ever more evident limitations. Some people today seem to think that eventually science will solve the problems of us humans. They will be sorely disappointed. I view science as an useful tool for solving practical problems, including traveling to Mars, studying the Inflation Theory and finding the first 10^100 digits of Pi’s decimal expansion. Nothing more, nothing less.
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tonyrey
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Jocko_VT
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You appear to have missed a great deal of what has been covered in here. If you want to debate something, make clear what it is you want to debate. If you just want to bicker, I’m not interested.
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Jocko_VT
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We are agreed, then.
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Jocko_VT
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What I see is that a lot of people in here make this particular charge, and they do not back it up. I don’t need to prove that it’s not true, because I don’t care if anyone in here agrees with me and don’t care to change their minds on this point. Since I know that it’s false, I’m fine with charging the people who repeat the nonsense with hatefulness and libel.
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