If you guys had a chance to see the latest episode: Atheist Experience #748: The Failure of the Second Coming; the first caller (Emmanuel) did take Don Baker and Russell Glasser over the edge. I think the hosts missed explaining the very basic concept of Atheism which I am going to outline below (I have also posted a similar response on their blog).
----------------------
The first caller was correct about the definition of Atheism. It is, in its simplicity, a non-belief in God. But his take on the “origin of the universe” was flawed for many reasons. Granted there are only two possible explanations for the beginning of the universe; either:
A) The universe was created by a super being, thus, giving it a cause.
B) Or it is a result of random chance; thus un-caused.
Lets explore possibility A. The supposed God who created the universe has been given some specific attributes, namely, loving, kind, righteous, omnipotent, omniscient, etc; no matter which religion you refer to. Nothing could be further from the truth. Be it the Abrahamic religions, such as Christianity or non-abrahamic, such as Hinduism, the God of these religions simply do not possess these qualities. These gods bring wrath upon the humans, destroy their own creations when they turn out wrong, cannot stop evil which is supposedly their own creation, have weakness, cannot fathom the consequence of their own “mis-creations”, and so on. Simply put, this god is imperfect and even if it exits, it is not worthy of being revered.
This takes us to possibility B; the universe was a product of chance. Lets face reality. Our pale blue dot is just a tiny speck of dust in this vast universe which is basically chaotic in nature. Even life on earth is not perfect; we have had evidence of space rocks ending civilizations, extreme natural upheavals (such as the ice age) changing the face of this planet, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunami’s, famine, floods, cyclones, sun-flares, etc, etc. Evidence of “random chance” is widespread in the section of the universe we have studied so far; such as creation of planets just because the conditions were right, black holes devouring stars, a space rock narrowly missing earth, a sparse possibility of complete annihilation avoided on earth just because Jupiter was in the right spot at the right time to catch the asteroid and so on. Clearly the universe is not perfect, thus contradicting the very nature of “the perfectness” of God’s creation.
A rational thinker would immediately recognize the flaws in theory A and the remarkable harmony and compatibility of the current nature of the universe with theory B. These rational thinkers turn out to be the very Atheists that all the world’s dictionaries try to attach a definition to.
----------------------
The first caller was correct about the definition of Atheism. It is, in its simplicity, a non-belief in God. But his take on the “origin of the universe” was flawed for many reasons. Granted there are only two possible explanations for the beginning of the universe; either:
A) The universe was created by a super being, thus, giving it a cause.
B) Or it is a result of random chance; thus un-caused.
Lets explore possibility A. The supposed God who created the universe has been given some specific attributes, namely, loving, kind, righteous, omnipotent, omniscient, etc; no matter which religion you refer to. Nothing could be further from the truth. Be it the Abrahamic religions, such as Christianity or non-abrahamic, such as Hinduism, the God of these religions simply do not possess these qualities. These gods bring wrath upon the humans, destroy their own creations when they turn out wrong, cannot stop evil which is supposedly their own creation, have weakness, cannot fathom the consequence of their own “mis-creations”, and so on. Simply put, this god is imperfect and even if it exits, it is not worthy of being revered.
This takes us to possibility B; the universe was a product of chance. Lets face reality. Our pale blue dot is just a tiny speck of dust in this vast universe which is basically chaotic in nature. Even life on earth is not perfect; we have had evidence of space rocks ending civilizations, extreme natural upheavals (such as the ice age) changing the face of this planet, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunami’s, famine, floods, cyclones, sun-flares, etc, etc. Evidence of “random chance” is widespread in the section of the universe we have studied so far; such as creation of planets just because the conditions were right, black holes devouring stars, a space rock narrowly missing earth, a sparse possibility of complete annihilation avoided on earth just because Jupiter was in the right spot at the right time to catch the asteroid and so on. Clearly the universe is not perfect, thus contradicting the very nature of “the perfectness” of God’s creation.
A rational thinker would immediately recognize the flaws in theory A and the remarkable harmony and compatibility of the current nature of the universe with theory B. These rational thinkers turn out to be the very Atheists that all the world’s dictionaries try to attach a definition to.
