My argument for atheism +

[Belacqua]

I very much doubt that most scientists see some mystical inherent order that's not emergent from the natural world.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that a Logos-like order would be anything mystical. I'm sure you're right that most scientists don't see it that way. Neither do I.

As I said before, the term "laws of nature" may be misleading, if it points toward a legislator. Unlike laws made by humans, laws of nature come afterward, as descriptions of regularities. The traditional word for the regularities and orderliness of the world is Logos, but if this has mystical connotations to people these days I guess we should use something else. "The inherent orderliness of the world," or "the non-chaotic nature of things." 

Saying that regularity is "emergent" doesn't help, I think. The fact that order emerges in an orderly way -- the same in New York and Tokyo, the same on Monday and Tuesday -- means that there is an orderliness in its emergence. 

The point is to avoid the idea that this orderly non-chaos is a nothing. It is something. 

Lawrence Krauss wrote a book about why there is something rather than nothing, and concludes that because the laws of nature are as they are, it is inevitable that there will be something. But he doesn't address why there are laws of nature. He wants to avoid the idea that "it's turtles all the way down," so he just starts with the turtles he's comfortable with and works upwards. 

Sadly, our minds seem constructed almost specifically to be drawn to concepts that attempt to "explain everything", such as "Logos-like order". We abhor uncertainty. It is an acquired talent to learn to sit with it.

Yes, I agree with this. The fact that science can't explain -- and can't even address -- the fact that there is orderliness means that we remain uncertain. 

The fact that we see a Logos-like order doesn't explain anything at all. It's just something we see -- there is order rather than chaos. 

I think the best book on this is still Burtt's The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science. He explains how, since the time of Newton, science proceeds by identifying and quantifying the regularities of nature without explaining why they are as they are. Why is there gravity? Because there just is. This is the uncertainty that science demands of us.

[The Grand Nudger]

Its usually best practice to make sure that science doesn't explain something, before confidently proclaiming that it can't.

Order isn't "just something that we see" - and that's so far out there as a comment on order and science that I can't write it down to hyperbole. You just don't know any better. But you could! Go, let wonder lead you to knowledge. Pick any kind of order you like, and see just how specific and needling scientific explanations of how and why that order exists can get.

I think we've found something you know less about than gods, even.

[Prycejosh1987]

Atheism: The belief that God almost certainly doesn't exist.

Reason for this: There is no evidence for god where there should be (not just that "there is no evidence..." that's agnosticism.)

Counter from theists: God created the universe/did the fine tuning/created humans/the Kalam/The argument from contingency/the Fine Tuning argument etc etc.

My counter for atheism that beats all arguments for God: God doesn't have a brain or neurons - he's immaterial not made of matter or energy - so how can he think thoughts or have knowledge? Without a brain or neurons he couldn't create a universe or create anything else.



I've never got any evidence that God can think without a brain or neurons.

GOD HAS A BRAIN, WELL IN TERMS OF RULES AND MORALS AND THOUGHTS. HE DOESNT HAVE A PHYSICAL BRAIN WELL JESUS DOES. WHERE DO WE GET OUR THOUGHTS FROM? WE KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG AND WE HAVE A CONSCIENCE. HUMANS AE MADE IN HIS IMAGE AND DONT FORGET THAT JESUS IS KNOWN TO BE GOD AND HES JUST LIKE US WITHOUT SIN THOUGH.

[Objectivist]

Atheism: The belief that God almost certainly doesn't exist.

Reason for this: There is no evidence for god where there should be (not just that "there is no evidence..." that's agnosticism.)

Counter from theists: God created the universe/did the fine tuning/created humans/the Kalam/The argument from contingency/the Fine Tuning argument etc etc.

My counter for atheism that beats all arguments for God: God doesn't have a brain or neurons - he's immaterial not made of matter or energy - so how can he think thoughts or have knowledge? Without a brain or neurons he couldn't create a universe or create anything else.



I've never got any evidence that God can think without a brain or neurons.

You're right, if there was a god there would be evidence all over the place.  It would be practically or actually self evident that a god existed.  We'd live in a fundamentally different universe (one where consciousness had primacy over existence, i.e., "wising makes it so").  Now plenty of people provide what they call evidence for gods but when one examines it, it turns out that one would either have to assume that a god exists in the first place for what is presented to be evidence or it requires one to drop important context, accept stolen concepts, ignore contradictions and generally go on a fallacy filled spree.  The fact that this is still being debated after thousands of years underscores your point.  

But it's even worse.  Many theists have told me that no one can either prove or disprove that a god exists.  Now, if we can't even know what proof for a god would look like, then how in the world could we know what would constitute evidence.  It's another example of theists trying to have their cake and eat it too.  Theists who offer this view, which is not all theists, but those who do are tacitly admitting that their evidence is not sufficient to prove that a god exists, which means that the atheist is fully justified to reject the notion of gods.  

My favorite comeback, whenever someone says look at the trees, the birds, etc., this is evidence for God, is that those things are evidence for God in exactly the same way that a rainbow is evidence for a pot of gold and a leprechaun.  

The theist does not understand that when he or she attempts to provide evidence for their god-belief they are performatively contradicting themselves given that the concept of evidence rests exclusively on the objective view of reality and theism affirms the subjective view of reality.  They are also borrowing from my worldview while at the same time denying the very thing they are borrowing.  

As you have pointed out, notice what problems we are supposed to ignore such as the fact that God is conscious but has no brain, nervous system or sense organs since it is immaterial or "spirit".  We're supposed to ignore this and accept that God is conscious somehow when if it existed it would be conscious nohow.

[Tom Fearnley]

I've modified this argument to:

We can agree to: 1) The universe began to exist. 2) It was created by something immaterial. But 3) The immaterial thing is intelligent: Where is your evidence for that? No argument for God gives evidence for the immaterial thing being intelligent. 

(I know 1 and 2 aren't necessarily true and that I'm bending over backwards to accommodate theist views.)

There is no evidence for an immaterial intelligence.

For those arguments that actually attempt to give evidence for an intelligence not made of matter or energy (the Kalam or argument from contingency don't even attempt to) like the Digital Physics argument for God:

Google: "Physicists find we're not living in a computer simulation." 

So, again, the Digital Physics argument for God fails and gives no evidence for an immaterial intelligence.

[Belacqua]

No argument for God gives evidence for the immaterial thing being intelligent. 

Several arguments for God give reasons why they think that a creator would have to be intelligent. 

Not intelligent in the way that people are intelligent -- a God would be different -- but intelligent nonetheless.

We can agree to: 1) The universe began to exist. 2) It was created by something immaterial.

If you're talking about arguments for a creator, many of them do not say that the universe began to exist. Plato, Aristotle, and others thought that the universe is probably eternal, with no beginning. Aquinas thinks the universe began, but says that this fact must be taken on faith; there is no argument for it. When these people talk of a creator, they are talking about something which sustains the universe in being. Something without which the universe would not be. They are not talking about a temporal origin.

It may be that you're arguing against a specific kind of naive Christian theology. But you're not addressing many of the classic arguments.

[Abaddon_ire]

It may be that you're arguing against a specific kind of naive Christian theology.

That would be most christians. Most of them have not even read their magic book cover to cover, let alone studied Plato or Aristotle or any of it. It is impossibly naive of you to even suggest that this might be the case.

Ask yourself a simple question. If an atheist wishes to counter christianity, is his/her time best spent addressing the vast bulk of christianity, or the few christian cranks who fell out of the philosophy tree hitting every branch on the way down?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It may be that you're arguing against a specific kind of naive Christian theology.

That would be most christians. Most of them have not even read their magic book cover to cover, let alone studied Plato or Aristotle or any of it. It is impossibly naive of you to even suggest that this might be the case.

Ask yourself a simple question. If an atheist wishes to counter christianity, is his/her time best spent addressing the vast bulk of christianity, or the few christian cranks who fell out of the philosophy tree hitting every branch on the way down?

While I’d hardly call Plato, Aristotle etc ‘cranks’, you make a very fair point. Christianity is, in a very practical sense, what the majority of Christians believe it to be. No one is going to make much headway against a literal hell, substitutive sacrifice or infant damnation by poking holes in what Aquinas had to say about it.

Boru

[Fake Messiah]

It may be that you're arguing against a specific kind of naive Christian theology.

That would be most christians. Most of them have not even read their magic book cover to cover, let alone studied Plato or Aristotle or any of it. It is impossibly naive of you to even suggest that this might be the case.

Ask yourself a simple question. If an atheist wishes to counter christianity, is his/her time best spent addressing the vast bulk of christianity, or the few christian cranks who fell out of the philosophy tree hitting every branch on the way down?

I'll give you a little spoiler: it is also a useless exchange with the philosopher-wannabe's of Christianity whose study of the great thinkers in history has led him to conclude that magic is real and who tells you tell you that you are ignorant and shallow.

[Abaddon_ire]

That would be most christians. Most of them have not even read their magic book cover to cover, let alone studied Plato or Aristotle or any of it. It is impossibly naive of you to even suggest that this might be the case.

Ask yourself a simple question. If an atheist wishes to counter christianity, is his/her time best spent addressing the vast bulk of christianity, or the few christian cranks who fell out of the philosophy tree hitting every branch on the way down?

While I’d hardly call Plato, Aristotle etc ‘cranks’, you make a very fair point. Christianity is, in a very practical sense, what the majority of Christians believe it to be. No one is going to make much headway against a literal hell, substitutive sacrifice or infant damnation by poking holes in what Aquinas had to say about it.

Boru

"cranks" was not referring to Plato or Aristotle. Rather it referred to the tiny sub-set of christians who have actually read any of it. I contend that putting any effort into arguing with that particular sub-set is a fools errand. There is no convincing those of anything. And there really are not that many of them anyway. No, the overwhelming bulk of christians have barely even heard of any actual philosopher, much less read their works.

If one concentrates on that overwhelming majority, there is at least a chance that they (or some at least) may start to eye that "tree of philosophy" with a view to perhaps attempting to climb it. I have no ambition to deconvert anyone of religion. But I would like them to actually think about what they believe and why do they believe it. And that is philosophy straight away.

I don't dismiss philosophy as a whole, but boy, is there an awful lot of crap philosophy bandied about. Take Chopra, for example. There is a reason why various Chopra quote generators exist. It is easy to write one and just as banal and meaningless as anything Chopra says for real. Dan Dennett coined the word "deepities" to describe such meaningless philosobabble. And he is a frakkin' philosopher. He ought to recognise it when he sees it. And he does. And points it out all the time.  And there are plenty of other great philosophers. Russell, Hume, plato, and so on. The list is long. But then you have people like Fetzer, whose cheese has apparently slid off his cracker a long time ago and is a professor (Emeritus) of philosophy.

And this is the problem of philosophy. "I think, therefore I am" can very quickly become "I think it is, therefore it must be". This is why Fetzer promotes the Sandy Hook Hoax claim, or the various 911 hoax claims, or a whole shopping list of bizarre hoax claims.