If I were an Atheist

[robvalue]

Supernatural claims are worthless to anyone at all interested in truth.

It's not possible to determine that an event has supernatural causation at all, let alone what causation. It is possible to freak out and call stuff you don't understand supernatural, but that isn't worth anything since it's entirely speculation. So something cannot accurately be described as a supernatural event, ever. There are no goalposts.

There's no need to deny the possibility of the supernatural, just to admit that by definition we cannot know anything about it. (I use the definition of supernatural being anything that can never be measured or tested, regardless of whether we currently have the ability to do so.)

[Tonus]

Some of the events described in the Bible might be verifiably supernatural if they occurred under specific conditions. Walking on water, converting water to wine, parting the waters of a sea, resurrecting a dead person, giving a man who had been blind from birth sight, and so on: under most circumstances it's impossible to say for sure that something supernatural or miraculous happened, but under controlled conditions it would be possible to rule out nearly every natural explanation. But this has never happened. And to date, every unknown that we have managed to understand had a natural explanation, not a supernatural one. All you might need is one example. We have zero.

[robvalue]

Sure, you could rule out all known natural explanations, but you can't rule out unknown ones. It would still be speculation to say that there are no unknown natural explanations.

Everything could potentially have a partly supernatural cause. I wouldn't deny that. It's just that there is never any reason to conclude that there actually is any.

[Whateverist]

Yeah, I can't think of anything to put in the supernatural category which might not equally well fit in the not-yet-understood natural category .. and neither can xtians. Even if a god existed, xtians couldn't possibly rule out the possibility that god acts in ways that have a natural explanation - which we aren't yet privy to and perhaps never will be able to understand. [Note, I'm not arguing that god must act in ways which are natural given a more complete account of natural law; I'm just arguing that no theist can rule the possibility out any more than I can.]

[robvalue]

Sure. If they define their God as entirely supernatural, then they are done. They cannot ever demonstrate it exists in any way, or that it is responsible for anything. It becomes indistinguishable from nothing.

Unless of course they don't care about being honest, or don't know anything about science, and just make up whatever they want.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Sure. If they define their God as entirely supernatural, then they are done. They cannot ever demonstrate it exists in any way, or that it is responsible for anything. It becomes indistinguishable from nothing.

This sounds like the sort of thing that could cause a never-ending argument...

[Tonus]

Sure, you could rule out all known natural explanations, but you can't rule out unknown ones. It would still be speculation to say that there are no unknown natural explanations.

Hence why I said nearly every natural explanation. But I think that for some of the described events we could make it very, very difficult to deny the supernatural if we could test them in the right setting. My point being that the fact that we never get the chance, and that any seemingly supernatural event turns out to be natural once we understand it, points towards there not having been any such events.

[robvalue]

No argument is never ending when you have a chainsaw attached to your arm. There's an implied time limit

[Mister Agenda]

Fizbinali? This does not fit my presupposition. My gut tells me I must still be right then. On the other hand, Terebulus and Fitzbinali have still not been refuted yet, so they must both be equally viable and likely explanations. Perhaps Drew can shed some light here...

Zounds! You've made a polytheist of me!

[Drew_2013]

Hello all,

Just to summarize this discussion.

The two best theories that attempt to account for the existence of the universe and the existence of humans is the following.

1. We are the result of plan, intention engineering and design by a Creator who intentionally caused the universe and life to exist.
2. We are the result of mechanistic forces that somehow came into existence and arbitrarily caused the universe and subsequently life to exist minus plan or intent to do so.

Most atheists in my experience don't defend or support theory 2. Instead they bash, marginalize and demonize theory 1 in an attempt to make it look foolish and then claim we don't know how the universe came into existence. The reason most atheists don't support or defend 2 is because theory 2 is inexplicable. They would have to defend the notion that mechanistic forces always existed and eventually turned into matter, caused time and the universe to exist. This would endow mechanistic forces with the divine attribute of always existing and working outside of time. The alternative is an act of magic in which mechanistic forces came into existence uncaused out of nothing. Although they would claim this is 'natural' which just means it doesn't involve a Creator which is really all supernatural means.

Even if we somehow swallow this explanation, it still leaves us with mindless unguided forces that for unknown reasons have laws of physics that allowed the simplest matter to turn into stars, galaxies, solar systems and planets. For planets to form a process of alchemy occurs inside stars that fuse hydrogen and helium into exotic matter that subsequently turns into second generation stars that have rocky planets. Then a myriad of exacting conditions occurs (minus any plan or intent) that eventually turn inert matter into life. In short theory 2 states we owe our existence to happenstance. If something isn't by plan or design what do you have left? Apart from mind nothing happens by design it all occurs by chance. I wrote in the OP the best arguments in favor of atheism (other than relentlessly bashing theism).

-There is no direct evidence a Creator caused the universe. 

True but there are lots of things which only have circumstantial evidence in their favor, theism is a belief not  a fact.


-The laws of physics over vast periods of time appear to have caused all the things we observe including our own existence.

True. But why are there any laws of physics never mind specific ones that allowed for the existence of planets and life?

-Much of the universe appears to be chaotic and unguided.

True. But much of it also appears to be designed and engineered to produce specific results.

-Evolution appears to account for how living things developed on going complexity.

To the best of our knowledge evolution would only occur after life begins and only under a myriad of conditions already mentioned.

The problem with the bashing theism technique of justifying atheism is it only inspires the base, those who are already atheists or those who hate all religion. That is why atheism hasn't grown significantly in numbers in many years. A new approach would be to admit theism and atheism are beliefs, opinions about how our existence came about. Since no one knows for sure and no evidence rules out either theory there is no grounds to mock and ridicule one belief over the other.