The Case for Atheism

[Mister Agenda]

I wrote..

but we infer a cause because the overwhelming majority of things (if indeed not all things) that begin to exist can be traced back to a cause. Even though there is no direct evidence of blackholes (they can't be directly observed or tested) the indirect evidence of their existence is strong enough that the existence of black holes has been established as fact. I don't want to turn this into the case for theism argument...I've already done that. There are facts and evidence (the existence of the universe, the existence of life, the existence of sentient life, the fact that conditions that allowed our existence obtained) that provide a basis for hypothesizing the existence of a Creator who intentionally caused the universe for the purpose of sentient life.

Thanks for bringing this up again. Would you give an example of something beginning to exist that can be traced back to its cause?

This is an interesting point. Many atheists seem to think that by eliminating the existence of God they have eliminated a magical or miraculous cause to the existence of the universe and sentient life.

Most of us on this forum don't think we've eliminated the existence of God, just found it doubtful enough not to think believing in it is justified.

But have they? Is the fact of our existence made any less miraculous if we owe our existence to mindless forces that for some reason burped into existence and then without plan or intent or design caused something totally unlike itself to exist, life and sentience.

Yes, because mindless forces are known to exist. Postulating known forces is less miraculous than postulating unknown ones.

If God doesn't exist humans are in fact gods in that we (unlike everything else) can act volitionally.

You set the bar for godhood remarkably low.

Where as all other events occur in reaction to some other event, we alone can cause an event to occur.

You've never owned a cat, have you?

This is ironic because atheism is the disbelief in God and gods yet according to atheism mindless forces without plan or intent created gods.

If you redefine 'god' enough to make it mean 'people'.

Lets look at it another way. Suppose we had never seen a computer before and we came stumbled across one. Which explanation for its existence would be more or less miraculous (or magical); that it was creating intentionally by a more complex and intelligent designer or that mindless forces without plan or intent to create such a device stumbled into making one by some process of time and chance?

We would quickly identify a computer as being the obvious handiwork of human beings or something much like them, because it is so clearly artificial; that is, we'd know it was designed by the characteristics that distinguish it from its natural surroundings.

Bottom line is the sentiment I often here from atheists is that by eliminating God we reduce the explanation of our existence to some natural (but unknown cause) and somehow that removes the magical or miraculous out of the equation.

Magical: Relating to or using magic.
Miraculous: Occuring through divine or supernatural intervention.

If you are using the words in these senses, not using magic as an explanation is not using magic as an explanation.

Magical: Resembling, produced or working as if by magic.
Miraculous: Highly improbably and extraordinary with welcome consequences.

If you're using the words in these senses, yes, events always seem miraculous when you consider everything that had to happen just so for you to wind up putting the particular socks you're wearing on this morning.

If atheists really dared to free think about it...they'd realize their counter explantion is no less magical.

If you're using 'magical' in its second sense of something that only appears to be magical, the rationalist counter explanation also includes some pretty interesting hypotheses on how the trick works.

Well first off I don't know that a Creator creating and desiging the universe intentionally is a case of what we call magic...but how do you know some miraculous explanation isn't needed?

A miraculous explanation isn't actually an explanation at all.

'How did this happen?'

'It was a miracle!'

See? Not much informaition content there. Saying something was caused by a miracle is distinguishable from saying its cause is unknown only by being the less honest thing to say.

Now, maybe there isn't a non-miraculous explanation for everything. Maybe the inference that every single explanation we've ever found for anything that we could confirm with any degree of certainty to be true has been a natural one means that future explanations will also be non-supernatural won't hold. But I know there are a lot of natural explanations for things we'll never discover if science starts taking 'it's a miracle!' as a sufficient explanation. Speaking as a rationalist, not an atheist, though you confusing the two flatters a lot of atheists who don't deserve it.

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It's the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis holds until it is disproved, else, to be consistent, one would have to believe every proposal heard.

I disagree. A null hypothesis is a hypothesis still. The hypothesis with the most explanatory power should be the one that holds until disproved.

And taking your advice, an enormous grinding sound is heard from science as it begins to come to a halt.