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Atheism is irrational More

Atheism is irrational

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  • If you think THAT is rational, you need help. More to the point, you need to go back to school.

    If everything has to come from something, and the Universe couldn't have come from nothing, God must've created it.

    Great.

    What came before God? Who or what created God?

    I mean, after all NOTHING CAN COME FROM NOTHING according to your argument.

    And if you give the predictable answer of "God is eternal, nothing came before him" then I counter with "then why can't the Universe be eternal and nothing came before it?"

    • It's turtles all the way down.

    • Causality began with the Big Bang. It's an invention of God. He doesn't need a cause because he is outside the system of cause and effect.

      Also trivial. But more to the point is, why do you accept an unproven axiom?

      • But more to the point is, why do you accept an unproven axiom?

        You mean like, "Causality began with the Big Bang?"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chill ( 34294 )

        It's an invention of God. He doesn't need a cause because he is outside the system of cause and effect.

        This is an example of a logical fallacy called "special pleading". You're dodging the entire question of generating something from nothing by saying your answer is special, thus the rules don't apply.

        Here, I'll save some typing.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument [wikipedia.org]

        • BD's Logical Fallacy Axiom of the Internet: Most the time logical fallacies are misapplied.

          I took the link from there to the page on "special pleading". It simply doesn't fit. To risk becoming an example of my own axiom, you may be guilty of the logical fallacy of "if you happen to have a good answer for something and I don't, then yours must be wrong".

          To the best of our knowledge:
          1) In the physical realm, something can't come from nothing, and
          2) The physical universe was created suddenly.

          From these then,

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by chill ( 34294 )

            The problem with this argument, and why it has been going on for at least a few thousand years, is our vocabulary can't express the proper concepts. We can barely grasp the concepts themselves and mostly imperfectly.

            We can't fundamentally accept the concept of being without beginning. By saying "X is outside the rules, thus it *can* exist without a beginning" is special pleading -- presenting an exception case without justification.

            What we refer to as "the beginning", or the Big Bang, may simply be the begi

            • While something may exist outside OUR universe's time/space construct, that implies a PLACE.

              Not really. Image a 2-dimensional reality with 2-dimensional beings. Having a "place" to them would be defined as existing somewhere along the x-y plane at, unbeknownst/incomprehensible to them, z = 0.

              We also have to deal with what we call the "fundamental" laws of the universe may have changed over time.

              That certainly throws an interesting monkey wrench into all of this. But I could just as well accuse you of specia

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by chill ( 34294 )

                Image a 2-dimensional reality with 2-dimensional beings. Having a "place" to them would be defined as existing somewhere along the x-y plane at, unbeknownst/incomprehensible to them, z = 0.

                I understand. You are referring to Edwin Abbott's Flatland [wikipedia.org] .

                All of this is beside the point I'm trying to make. I'm fully willing to accept an "Other" that we can't perceive. I'm *NOT* fully willing to accept that in that Other there is being without beginning. That God, or anything else, exists without being created.

                More to the point, I'm not willing to accept that possibility without extending it to the Universe as a whole. Instead of "God" existing eternally in Other, why not the Universe existing etern

                • And why not the universe existing inside of God?

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by chill ( 34294 )

                    That works, too. BUT YOU'RE STILL DODGING THE QUESTION -- IF EVERYTHING CAME FROM SOMETHING, WHERE DID GOD COME FROM?

                    The fundamental problem I'm talking about is what I see as the fundamental problem Thomas Aquinas has in his "5 proofs". He just pushes back the question one step and doesn't answer it.

                    If everything has a maker, what made the maker?

                    I fundamentally don't except "God is special. He is eternal" as an answer because it ISN'T AN ANSWER. That "logic" can be equally applied to the Universe.

                    Thus, if

                    • IF EVERYTHING CAME FROM SOMETHING, WHERE DID GOD COME FROM?
                       
                      Previous to our ability to measure.
                       
                        If there *must* be a first, why isn't the Universe itself the first?
                       
                      The universe itself is a part of God and cannot be separate from Him.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by chill ( 34294 )

                      Then, logically, God is unnecessary. The universe itself started "previous to our ability to measure" works just as well.

                      Your assertion that the universe itself is a part of God is a non-sequitur. It is unrelated to any of the logical arguments presented here-to-fore and is merely a wishful assertion without any proof on your part.

                    • ...God is unnecessary...

                      Quite the contrary for anyone that needs to rationalize authority. That's what it's all about. The alpha male is fighting off all challenges. In that way god is biologically necessary. Our language and 'philosophies' only serve our most basic instincts. It's law of the jungle at its most eloquent. And notice how religion is just like the state, always claiming it is under attack. A better way to suppress rebellious tendencies and divert attention you won't find. It's a direct path to

                    • "The universe itself started "previous to our ability to measure" works just as well."

                      But it didn't. It started an infinitesimal amount of time later.

                    • There's no need to justify authority- the behavior of those who do not believe in authority show the need for it. Anarchy only leads to Somalia.

                    • Anarchy only leads to Somalia.

                      The struggle for domination (that's what Somalia is), i.e.:authority, is not anarchy. Those wars, in fact all wars are the result of that perverse (to a human) desire for power. War and authority are literally inseparable and biologically symbiotic. A person cannot have any desire to subjugate other people if he wants to become a human being, never. I don't care how eloquent or poetic their philosophies are, the law is the law.

                    • Power is necessary. Where it is missing, it will be replaced, likely by somebody you don't want wielding it.

                    • Yes, by natural law, in the animal world it is inevitable that the vacuum will be filled. But the desire for it remains subhuman, an attempt to extend animal behavior (might makes right) into the human realm. And that, sir, is indeed impossible, one precludes the other, and we will remain as monkeys who can write Shakespeare until we rid ourselves of the desire.

                      The desire for authority is at the very root of the seven deadly sins, and in direct contradiction to the 'seven virtues'. Try to note how the piece

                    • The seven theological virtues are far more powerful than the seven deadly sins- and are more authoritative.

                      Without authority, the virtues can't exist either.

  • It is even inconceivable and inexplicable.

    Reducing reality to rational terms does it no service.

    Demanding rationality from God and existence is anthropomorphic hogwash.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 )

      The whole thing is damned inconvenient, to boot.

    • Oh, just because you use pi in a formula, without knowing its precise value, does not equate pi to hogwash.
      We just operate within the bounds of what the organic matter and God-given free moral agency can do.
      Lord, have mercy on the obfuscators.

  • From TFA:

    This non-contigent, un-caused thing, or being,

    Whoa, pardner, there's no rationality for believing that just because our space and time had to be created by something, that that automatically means that that creator wasn't also begat by something itself. I.e. there's no way to rule out that whatever realm the universe's creator exists/existed in, couldn't also have the same "no something from nothing" constraint as our realm. I.e. to not have all of our constraints does not indicate that it must the

  • If you're going to hang your hat on the Kalam argument, might as well cite a better treatment. The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology has a fairly good chapter on it. Might be worth more of a look than this.

    • Except for it isn't. The Kalam argument was good up until relatively recently as just a philosophical proof- then rather surprisingly, in the last 20 years, certain observations have confirmed the Big Bang Theory. It's no longer just an argument. The universe as we know it had a measurable beginning.

      • No, it's still just an argument. Perhaps you mean to say that one of the premises of this argument has recently received some sort of empirical confirmation?

        Either way, the linked post isn't a particularly good presentation of the Kalam argument. Which is why I referenced the far more complete and careful presentation above. Any discussion of the argument, and its theological implications (if any) will probably deal with points touched on there (and not in the linked post).

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