The absurdity of atheism

[Rohzek]

Any atheist who thinks that some things have always existed cannot explain the Big Bang.

Genesis, 1000 B.C. : “Let there be light.”

Carl Sagan in Cosmos, 1980 A.D.

“Ten or twenty billion years ago, something happened – the Big Bang, the event that began our universe…. In that titanic cosmic explosion, the universe began an expansion which has never ceased…. As space stretched, the matter and energy in the universe expanded with it and rapidly cooled. The radiation of the cosmic fireball, which, then as now, filled the universe, moved through the spectrum – from gamma rays to X-rays to ultraviolet light; through the rainbow colors of the visible spectrum; into the infrared and radio regions. The remnants of that fireball, the cosmic background radiation, emanating from all parts of the sky can be detected by radio telescopes today. In the early universe, space was brilliantly illuminated.”

Uh, no. An atheist can easily say the Big Bang, or the singularity/all matter, simply always existed. All they have done is exchange one unmoved mover for another. So when a theist complains that an atheist cannot explain where matter or existence came from, it is like the pot calling the kettle black. An atheist can just as easily ask, “So where did God come from?” It’s an absurd point to make in this type of argument.

 

[Rohzek]

The very fact the atheist is using reason to deny the power of reason is a sign of incoherence and inconsistency. If reason is the product of unreasoning molecules it is worthless. It is like believing the ladder we climbed to look at the landscape doesn’t exist. We only imagine we have climbed a ladder! We are really where we started: in a state of total ignorance. Yet something is rotten in that state of affairs. How do we know we know nothing? Even if we only believe we know nothing our belief is worthless. Ladders don’t just exist - by chance…

Well, if the atheist is a philosophical determinist and materialist, then yes you might very well have a point. However, there are plenty of atheists who adhere to philosophical Mysterianism or dualism. In short, where reason, consciousness, free will, etc. come from is something they sort of throw their hands up in the air about or try to understand as best of possible. A theist is arguably no better off than the atheist in this regard. Simply stating that God created reason, etc. doesn’t mean you actually understand how reason particularly works. It would be like saying, “Hey I know things fall to the ground, therefore I understand gravity.” No, you wouldn’t unless you knew full well Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The problem in the case of reason, free will, etc. is that we really don’t have anything akin to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Hence, neither party is better off than the other.

 

[tonyrey]

Well, if the atheist is a philosophical determinist and materialist, then yes you might very well have a point. However, there are plenty of atheists who adhere to philosophical Mysterianism or dualism. In short, where reason, consciousness, free will, etc. come from is something they sort of throw their hands up in the air about or try to understand as best of possible. A theist is arguably no better off than the atheist in this regard. Simply stating that God created reason, etc. doesn’t mean you actually understand how reason particularly works. It would be like saying, “Hey I know things fall to the ground, therefore I understand gravity.” No, you wouldn’t unless you knew full well Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. The problem in the case of reason, free will, etc. is that we really don’t have anything akin to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Hence, neither party is better off than the other.

There is no need to understand how we reason or how everything exists because we know Ultimate Reality must be not only incomprehensible but also far more powerful than anything else. If we have changed the world for better and for worse God must have infinitely more insight and control of events. The vital difference between theists and atheists is that we have a rational, purposeful foundation for existence whereas they have none. Even from a pragmatic point of view our explanation is superior because it corresponds to the way we think and live whereas no sane person behaves as if life is pointless and meaningless.

 

[Rohzek]

There is no need to understand how we reason or how everything exists because we know Ultimate Reality must be not only incomprehensible but also far more powerful than anything else. If we have changed the world for better and for worse God must have infinitely more insight and control of events. The vital difference between theists and atheists is that we have a rational, purposeful foundation for existence whereas they have none. Even from a pragmatic point of view our explanation is superior because it corresponds to the way we think and live whereas no sane person behaves as if life is pointless and meaningless.

You’ve clearly never had the fortune of reading Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness. As a Christian, I have much to disagree with in it. However, he as an atheist had profound insights into life and its meaning.

Also, on what basis does the atheist not have a rational and purposeful foundation for existence? If you mean an explanation for the complexity of the universe, yeah they have scientific theories that explain how the work and developed. As to why they even exist, well no one in science can answer those questions. But can a Christian just as well answer why God exists? Nope.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . on what basis does the atheist not have a rational and purposeful foundation for existence? . . . can a Christian just as well answer why God exists? Nope.

God is the Truth and purpose of our existence.
Atheism proclaims the absence of any such objective foundation.
Meaning and purpose are to be defined by the individual.

As a Christian, you should know that to ask why God exists is absurd.
He is the Why, the Purpose.
If there existed another reason, it would be God.
One may speculate about infinite regressions, and at that point we depart form the rational.
So agreed; there is no answer to nonsense.

God is the Light that illumines, the Life which gives existence to all that is.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

How do you know God got it right the first time (without you using circular reasoning?).

Because we are here!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You’ve clearly never had the fortune of reading Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness. As a Christian, I have much to disagree with in it. However, he as an atheist had profound insights into life and its meaning.

I have read that book by Russell. Where you come up short in your analysis is that Russell offered no “meaning” to life so much as some interesting tips on how to survive in a meaningless world. Had he gotten a chapter on belief in a personal God into the book, it might have been one of the great classics of Christian literature.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Uh, no. An atheist can easily say the Big Bang, or the singularity/all matter, simply always existed. All they have done is exchange one unmoved mover for another. So when a theist complains that an atheist cannot explain where matter or existence came from, it is like the pot calling the kettle black. An atheist can just as easily ask, “So where did God come from?” It’s an absurd point to make in this type of argument.

This is puerile logic. Get your foot out of your brain.

An atheist cannot say that the singularity always existed because there is no scientific proof that the singularity always existed, and atheists always insist on scientific proof.

Before the Big Bang, the atheists always insisted (assumed without proof) that the universe is eternal. Now they can no longer say this since the Big Bang shows just the opposite. So they are up against the wall and come back with the argument that if the universe must have a cause, then God must have a cause. The assumption of the eternity of the world they were once willing to accept without proof is not even granted as a possibility with God.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

This is puerile logic. Get your foot out of your brain.

An atheist cannot say that the singularity always existed because there is no scientific proof that the singularity always existed, and atheists always insist on scientific proof.

Before the Big Bang, the atheists always insisted (assumed without proof) that the universe is eternal. Now they can no longer say this since the Big Bang shows just the opposite. So they are up against the wall and come back with the argument that if the universe must have a cause, then God must have a cause. The assumption of the eternity of the world they were once willing to accept without proof is not even granted as a possibility with God.

:thumbsup:Bravo!

 

[tonyrey]

There is no need to understand how we reason or how everything exists because we know Ultimate Reality must be not only incomprehensible but also far more powerful than anything else. If we have changed the world for better and for worse God must have infinitely more insight and control of events.

No response. Do you agree or disagree?

The vital difference between theists and atheists is that we have a rational, purposeful foundation for existence whereas they have none. Even from a pragmatic point of view our explanation is superior because it corresponds to the way we think and live whereas no sane person behaves as if life is pointless and meaningless.

You've clearly never had the fortune of reading Bertrand Russell's *The Conquest of Happiness*.  As a Christian, I have much to disagree with in it. However, he as an  atheist had profound insights into life and its meaning.

What is Russell’s rational, purposeful foundation for existence in an irrational, purposeless universe? Camus and Sartre were more consistent in recognising its absurdity.

Also, on what basis does the atheist not have a rational and purposeful foundation for existence? If you mean an explanation for the complexity of the universe, yeah they have scientific theories that explain how the work and developed.

No one has ever explained why the universe is orderly nor why it has become more complex. “Physical necessity” is not an explanation.

As to why they even exist, well no one in science can answer those questions. But can a Christian just as well answer why God exists? Nope.

God exists because existence is intrinsically valuable, purposeful and meaningful. God Is Existence! The Jews has this remarkable insight that the Deity is “He Who Is”, the foundation of
Things that exist by Chance are valueless, purposeless and valueless because they exist for no reason whatsoever. Atheists are inconsistent and incoherent because they use reason to prove everything is ultimately unreasonable - including truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love. That is not an explanation but an evasion of reality they contradict in the way they think and behave throughout their lives - unless they go insane like poor Nietszche who was obsessed with the Nazarene. He had some good ideas but his belief in the Will to Power may well have destroyed him because it is not only self-destructive but an inadequate substitute for Love which unites us to God and everyone else whereas self-love isolates us leaving us lonely and frustrated. St John of the Cross was far more closer to the mark:

In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything, Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything, Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything, Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything, Desire to know nothing.

• Ascent of Mount Carmel

*In the eyes of the world this is lunacy but it is the folly of the Cross which leads to heaven but John was a saint and a contemplative who suffered very much and we are not expected to take detachment from the world to such an extreme. Even so those who follow Christ have a more balanced view of reality than those who live for themselves. Atheists are not excluded because what matters is not what we claim to believe but how we live. In that respect many atheists put believers to shame by caring for others more than themselves…They are misguided but not necessarily miscreants.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

What is Russell’s rational, purposeful foundation for existence in an irrational, purposeless universe?

I am very familiar with Russell’s work, and I can’t remember that he ever admitted to any “rational, purposeful foundation for existence.”

In fact, it is difficult to find a passage in Sartre or Camus more miserably morose than this from Russell’s
“A Free Man’s Worship.”

“Brief and powerless is man’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow fall, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day, disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.”

Clearly, Russell had the soul of a decent poet drunk with despair.

 

[Bradski]

Because we are here!

But why do you insist He got it right the first time? We would be here if this was the nth attempt.

B: How do you know He got it right the first time?
C: Because He is God and God is omnipotent.
B: How do you know He is omnipotent?
C: Because He created the universe?
B: How do you know He got it right the first time?
C: Because He is God and God is omnipotent.

If I gave you a great loaf of bread, you might say ‘Wow, Bradski’s a great cook. Look what he made’. At least, you might if you didn’t know about the dozen or so loaves in the bin that are inedible.

 

[Rohzek]

This is puerile logic. Get your foot out of your brain.

An atheist cannot say that the singularity always existed because there is no scientific proof that the singularity always existed, and atheists always insist on scientific proof.

Well they do say that…soooooo idk what you want me to do about it… As Karl Popper astutely observed, scientists too operate from metaphysical assumptions. So both atheists and theists use metaphysics in some way to make up for the lack of indubitable proof.

 

[Rohzek]

I have read that book by Russell. Where you come up short in your analysis is that Russell offered no “meaning” to life so much as some interesting tips on how to survive in a meaningless world. Had he gotten a chapter on belief in a personal God into the book, it might have been one of the great classics of Christian literature.

Strange. I came away from the book with quite the opposite impression. For Russell, people found meaning by focusing on things other than themselves (ie selfishness). He considered the idea that external discipline gives life its meaning and thus happiness.

 

[Rohzek]

No response. Do you agree or disagree? What is Russell’s rational, purposeful foundation for existence in an irrational, purposeless universe? Camus and Sartre were more consistent in recognising its absurdity.

Well, I’m not sure what you are saying here. If you mean that I personally believe God gives me meaning, then the answer is obviously yes. I am a Christian after all. If you mean that an atheist cannot believe that life has meaning, then I would disagree. Setting aside Camus and Sartre, Russell simply asserted that life for human cannot be happy nor find meaning if one’s focus is directed solely inwards and is self-absorbed. An individual must have an external discipline to find meaning and thus true happiness that is not fleeting. To put it in sociological terms, meaning is not socially constructed but socially stimulated.

Also, what do you mean by an irrational universe? Order does not imply a rational consciousness. Order is merely conceptual.

No one has ever explained why the universe is orderly nor why it has become more complex. “Physical necessity” is not an explanation.
God exists because existence is intrinsically valuable, purposeful and meaningful. God Is Existence! The Jews has this remarkable insight that the Deity is “He Who Is”, the foundation of
Things that exist by Chance are valueless, purposeless and valueless because they exist for no reason whatsoever.

Stop right there. On what basis do you assert that an atheist would argue that existence of the singularity was ever solely by chance and hence meaningless? If anything, their argument would be akin to the theist’s argument for God. They would argue that the singularity existed because it existed, just as the Jewish argument that God exists because he exists. I don’t see the difference here. The only fundamental difference here is that the atheist would argue that life itself gains its meaning from the individual person via external devotion and stimulation. Meanwhile, the theist might argue that meaning comes from God. In either case, meaning of some sort is found. Whether or not the meaning is true is almost an arbitrary matter and of personal opinion.

Atheists are inconsistent and incoherent because they use reason to prove everything is ultimately unreasonable - including truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love.

Maybe if they are a nihilist. But most atheists aren’t nihilist or Nietzschites. Most atheists believe in an objective morality, justice, etc.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

But why do you insist He got it right the first time? We would be here if this was the nth attempt.

B: How do you know He got it right the first time?
C: Because He is God and God is omnipotent.
B: How do you know He is omnipotent?
C: Because He created the universe?
B: How do you know He got it right the first time?
C: Because He is God and God is omnipotent.

If I gave you a great loaf of bread, you might say ‘Wow, Bradski’s a great cook. Look what he made’. At least, you might if you didn’t know about the dozen or so loaves in the bin that are inedible.

B: How do you know He got it right the first time?
C: Because we believe God to be omnipotent, meaning that there is technically no getting it right or wrong; there is simply how He created it.

B: How do you know he is omnipotent?
C: There are philosophical arguments for this, none of which I’m familiar enough with to repeat intelligably here. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote on the subject, as have other philosophers and theologians throughout history. What I’d like to point out is that, even if God weren’t omnipotent, it wouldn’t circumvent the fact that physical existence, by all the laws which govern our reality, necessitates an external cause due to the fact that there is a demonstrable beginning to our existence. This means that there was a change in state from nothing to something. Since something cannot come from nothing, that means that the “something” which comprises our physical existence must have been created by something external to itself.

 

[tonyrey]

I am very familiar with Russell’s work, and I can’t remember that he ever admitted to any “rational, purposeful foundation for existence.”

In fact, it is difficult to find a passage in Sartre or Camus more miserably morose than this from Russell’s
“A Free Man’s Worship.”

“Brief and powerless is man’s life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow fall, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day, disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.”

Clearly, Russell had the soul of a decent poet drunk with despair.

Thank you, Charlie, for that very significant paragraph which sums up perfectly the predicament of “a logical atheist” revealed in the phrase “a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life”. He never explained how or why they can co-exist. and takes entirely for granted our inner independence. The fatal flaw is evident in three words : “for a moment”. What on earth would make blind, omnipotent matter “tolerate” a minute speck of anything for a split second? :whacky: Impressive prose but sheer nonsense! The absurdity of atheism in its full glory…

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But why do you insist He got it right the first time? We would be here if this was the nth attempt.

So far as we can prove, we are a product of one Big Bang.

When you can prove there were others, do let me know.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Maybe if they are a nihilist. But most atheists aren’t nihilist or Nietzschites. Most atheists believe in an objective morality, justice, etc.

Can you cite a study which confirms this claim, or are you just guessing here?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Strange. I came away from the book with quite the opposite impression. For Russell, people found meaning by focusing on things other than themselves (ie selfishness). He considered the idea that external discipline gives life its meaning and thus happiness.

I have quoted a passage from Russell that shows he regarded life as meaningless.

Please show me a relevant passage from *The Conquest of Happiness *that contradicts what Russell said in “A Free Man’s Worship.”

I reiterate: Conquest is not about life’s meaning but about how best to cope with daily struggle for survival. You seem to be conflating the two.