The Case for Atheism

[Drew_2013]

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

Sure, black holes begin to exist. There cause is when a super nova explodes and the remaining material contracts into a black hole. I suspect your leading up to something else but I'll wait for your response.

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.

Then what non-god cause is more justified and what is your justification? Otherwise I'm liable to think you're just biased.

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.

You know Mister Agenda, I think if I made this same argument to you in some other context you'd bang me over the head with it. This would be like saying if we didn't know how base balls came into existence it would be less miraculous to propose that base balls somehow created themselves because we know they exist. No one disagree's that mindless forces exist. It's how they came into existence, why they turned into a universe with the right characteristics to allow sentient life that is in question. The fact of their existence doesn't lead to any explantion for thier existence or for the laws of nature.

I could apply that same logic to life and intelligence, since life and intelligence is known to exist it is less miraculous to propose a known cause to an unknown one and we have observable, repeatable proof that life can cause life and intelligence can cause intelligence.

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'.

Compared to mindless forces we are gods.

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.

You're avoiding the point that a computer coming into existence at the hands of designers and engineers is far less miraculous than if mindless forces through time and chance untentionally caused one to exist. Another clue that would inform us its designed its the extremely close tolerance in which the constituient parts operate also known as fine-tuning.

A miraculous explanation isn't actually an explanation at all.
'How did this happen?'
'It was a miracle!'

And if mindless forces without plan or intent, design or engineering caused a universe to exist with the correct characteristics to create life and sentience we'd have to chalk it up to the most fantastic and fortuitious stroke of luck imagininable. On the other hand if the universe was the product if design, engineering and planning no luck or miracle needed.