Atheism: Proving The Negative
Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.
Guilty!
Suppose that you have been falsely accused of committing a crime, say, a murder, that occurred many years ago. There is very little evidence connecting you to the murder except the testimony of 4 people named Mike, Monty, Larry, and Jacob. Your defense attorney puts them on the witness stand and interviews them one at a time. During the questioning several important facts about their belief that you committed the murder are revealed. It turns out that none of the four actually saw you commit the murder. They've never even met you before. But each one of them admits that they heard some stories from some other people that you committed the murder. And it cannot be established that these other people were witnesses either and they are not available to be questioned. None of the 4 knows how many times the story was repeated or passed around before they heard it. They heard that a lot of people were witnesses to the murder, but again, none of those people are available and it is not known who they are. It turns out that the murder happened 30 years ago and they heard about it because the accusation that you did it has been talked about and remembered by these other unavailable people during all these years.
It also turns out that Mike and Larry got the story from Monty. They believe that you did it entirely on the basis of Monty's telling them that you did. Furthermore, when the attorney tries to get the details straight about what happened at the crime scene, none of them tell the same story. The important details (that they all got from other people) are different in every case.
At one point, the prosecution puts a man named Perry on the stand and he affirms that you did it too. But he admits that he wasn't there and he did not see it. Rather, he had a powerful vision during a trance while he was walking down the street one day and a voice he heard told him that you committed the murder.
The prosecuting attorney makes an attempt to assure the jury that you are guilty because there are lots and lots of people out there who believe it because they heard it from Mike, Monty, Larry, Jacob, and Perry. But the judge prohibits it because "Everyone knows that it is true," is not an admissable form of evidence in court. But it never becomes clear why the judge allowed the hearsay evidence of the 5 men to be heard in the court in the first place.
The prosecuting and defense attorneys close their case. And the jury, all being good Christians, promptly convicts you of murder and sentence you to death.
If you haven't figured it out: Mike, Monty, Larry, Jacob, and Perry are all Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, respectively.
Does it sound like fair grounds upon which to convict a person?
A murder charge and conviction are no less important in their impact on a person's life than the changes that Christian's believe we should enact in our lives for Jesus. If it is not reasonable to convict a person of murder on these grounds, it is no more reasonable to believe that 2,000 years ago a person came back from the dead on similar grounds, especially since it matters so much.
Suppose that we debriefed the jury after the trial and asked them about their decision and when we raised doubts about what they had done, some of them said things like, "Well, I know that the evidence was really sketchy, but in the end you just gotta have faith. And I have faith in my heart that he did it and deserves to go to prison for the murder." Would that make the decision better or worse? Some of the others said things like, "I was raised Lutheran and we were always taught that he did the murder. That's just the way I was raised. So when it came time to decide, I just went with that." One of the other jurors said, "Yeah, the evidence for his guilt was really weak. But I just figure that it's a good bet to find him guilty anyway. I mean, it could be wrong, but you never know—he might really have done it. There's a 1 in a billion chance that he did. So if I convict him, then I will have done the right thing and justice will be served." Another juror said that he just went along with the others to keep his grandmother happy.
There will be complaints about this story, no doubt. "The cases aren't the same because in this case the person is accused of something bad, a murder, and it is a false accusation. But Jesus' resurrection is true." There are two problems with this response. The murder charge is analogous because it and the Jesus belief are both decisions of great import. What matters is that what is decided on the basis of the information at hand will have an enormous impact on a person's life. There's no question that believing in Jesus does have a radical effect on people, and there is no question that millions of believers think that it should have that effect on you. If believing in Jesus seems like a minor, trivial matter to you, then perhaps you should rethink the implications of it. But even so, believing something irrationally is irrational, no matter how big or little the belief is.
Furthermore, if the source of a person's conviction that Jesus' resurrection happened is the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, then complaining that the murder case is different because it is a false charge is begging the question. The point is that we don't know whether or not Jesus came back from the dead, except on the basis of their words, so we can't then assert that we are sure their words are accurate because Jesus came back from the dead.
There is a disanalogy here that actually makes the case for Jesus worse. To make the murder trial closer, Paul would have to tell his vision story about 20 years after the alleged murder. Then 10 to 20 years later, Mike, Monty, and Larry would come to the courthouse and give their stories. Then a full 90 years after the alleged murder, Jacob would show up and give his account of the murder.
But we must assume that the Christians on the jury would still be untroubled by the problems in the case for your guilt and when they promptly convict you on the basis of it, we should find them guilty of nothing unreasonable or unfair in their decision.
Posted by Matt McCormick at 11:40 AM
mikespeir said...
I once wrote an essay (unpublished) very much like this one, except that I made the reader a member of the jury. I went even further and asked the reader how it would affect his vote during deliberations if God appeared to him personally--as really as any other purported encounter with God as he had ever experienced--and told him the accused was guilty. Would even that direct testimony, supposedly from God himself, cause the reader to vote to send a man to his death? How could anyone ever be so sure of his revelatory experience as to deprive someone of life based on it? Wouldn't we all shudder, step back, and admit to ourselves that we're just not that sure that our experience really was what we thought it was? Is it more believable if the experience wasn't ours, but that of some man (presumably) 2000 years ago, whose name we don't even know for sure?
Matt McCormick said...
Great point Mike. Nice variation on the theme. The model here is you take some form of believer/theistic reasoning and run a parallel case where people draw a conclusion on comparable grounds or in a comparable way, but the conclusion they come to has negative, morally repugnant, or obvious bad consequences. Then you ask the question: would this form of reasoning still be acceptable? If the answer is no in the negative case, then the form of reasoning is no more acceptable for the sake of God. These kinds of cases lay open the errors in theistic rationalizing that we have been inured to by the widespread popularity for and sympathy with believing.
Steve Martin said...
The curveball is that the witnesses were all killed as a result of their testimony (except John).
They could have changes their stories, even disingenuously, to save their lives...but they did not.
Not to mention the millions of people who have had their lives transformed for the better by hearing their testimonies and coming to faith throughout the centuries...in spite of all the evidence to the contrary for the existance of God.
I'm one of those millions.
ChrisAC said...
Ah, Steve, but you see Islamic fundamentalists are willing to give their lives to fight the good fight, so you must concede that they must no doubt have true beliefs.
And, to completely mangle Dawkins since I don't feel like looking up the quote:
"I suppose a shot of morphine would be comforting as well, but to say it is comforting is not to say that it is true."
Besides, to say that the only reason you, or others, are a decent human being is because the belief in a divine power giving you goodies when you die (or burning you forever) is not a heartwarming story but a terrifying tale of a wire-thin sanity.
Sure, you can say the story of sacrifice is quite touching... but honestly it's a rather mediocre story. Even the Greeks had better mythological sacrifices.
Prometheus had his liver torn out every day (it regrowing during night) for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to man. Quite frankly that's a far more respectable man than someone who sent himself-as-his-son to die to stop an arbitrary rule he could have stopped regardless since he's sorta omnipotent. One crucifixion and he goes back to heaven? Tons of people were crucified by the Romans, that's not too special.
Regardless, you'll find that reading books can help change you for the better, you can find many inspirations. Also, unlike with televangelists, you get a tangible good from spending ten bucks.
"The curveball is that the witnesses were all killed as a result of their testimony (except John)."
Generally I try not to respond much to Steve's posts. The grossest of non sequiturs don't trouble him in the slightest. But this news story is relevant. At least 12 fans who were overcome by sorrow killed themselves after Michael Jackson died:
http://www.examiner.com/x-14288-Norfolk-Film-Examiner~y2009m6d30-Fans-commit-suicide-over-Michael-Jacksons-death--Jesse-Jackson-records-video--See-here
I can't get the link to work, Matt.
MJ Fans Commit Suicide
I wasn't talking about killing yourself.
I wasn't talking about killing others (Islam).
I was talking about one's life being taken from them by others who do not like the beliefs of those they wish to kill.
The disciples could have easily walked away, unscathed.
They could not deny Christ. The Christ they had seen for themselves, raised from the dead by God the Father.
Your faith that all of this world and the life within it, all came from...nothing...astounds me.
Your faith is far greater than mine.
Are you going to deal with my simple question, Steve? Again, I ask, Says who? Who says they were all, except John, killed as a result of their testimony?
I think the question of whether or not they were killed for believing is utterly irrelevant since it is obvious that people devote themselves slavishly to all many of idiotic ideas and happily die for them every day--hence the Michael Jackson point. The general principle here has to be something like, "People will only dedicate themselves to or be persecuted for beliefs that are true." And the counter examples to this principle are just too numerous to count.
It doesn't quite go along with your intention for the thread, Matt. But Steve seems to believe the notion that the disciples died for their witness is an adequate answer to you. I don't think he can come up with any compelling evidence for the claim. In short, he has no answer.
eheffa said...
Steve Martin:
Not only do we have no evidence that the anonymous authors of the books we call the "Gospels" or the cardboard cutout disciples of Jesus they caricature were actually killed for their faith; we have very little evidence that the Jesus person described in the Gospels was an actual historical person.
Doesn't it strike you as odd that the perfectionist creator of the universe would do such a poor job of documenting what is supposed to be the most important event in all of human history? Why would leave this story open to such reasonable doubt. It's almost as if he had nothing to do with this whole story... Hmmmm doesn't it make you think some scary thoughts - like maybe it's all a made up story & you (like me in a former life) have devoted yourself to a fable?
-evan
Evan's dead on about what God would have done if he wanted to make his existence clear by means of Jesus or the Bible. An omnipotent being could have done a profoundly better job than what we've got. So since the evidence is so poor, it must not be that an omnipotent being wants us to believe it. So by believing it, you are diverging from his will, if there is such a being. So believing the Bible is against God's will, ironically.
限制級,免費成人片觀賞.免費成人情色.av969 免費短片.sex情色.sex女優王國,情色,av.sex女優王國情色.免費a片卡通,travian tw4.免費a片線上看,卡通aa片免費看.aaa的滿18歲卡通影片.免費成人影片sex,av女優.免費成人影片sex女優.xxxpanda com.成人圖片.性愛,a漫,線上a片.18成人電影-色情.高雄聯盟聊天,卓文萱性感照片.xxxholic春夢記.xxxholic次元魔女.玩美女人影音秀,a片頻道.xxx18.免費a片卡通,免費成人片試看.一對多美女視訊.一對多視訊,美女短片免費試看.xxx movie.線上 aa 片試看,成人 視訊.免費a片線上觀看s383視訊.18成人影城.xxx383.情色 視訊免費成人.成人影城.嘟嘟成人網.成人光碟.成人網站-天天看美女.一夜情人視訊 .live173影音視訊聊天室 .日本av女優,免費a影片.av影片性愛巴士.sex女優王國.A片-免費視訊 .A片-無碼援交東京熱一本道.av影片,比基尼美女的奶.美女視訊-成人聊天室.色美眉,r片,免費成人.免費成人.色遊戲王國,性愛.免費av,性愛技巧.情色文學,sex女優王國.104免費視訊辣妹脫衣秀.104美女遊戲.給我肉棒.1111非常好色6 0下載.給我棒棒.1111免費線上Aa片試看,sexy,視訊.免費影片觀賞,sex女優王國.陳冠希最新自拍外流.1111這次換你當國王-視訊.104廖家儀自拍外流.1111我姊是惡魔.1111川藏第一美女視訊.104自拍 部落格 遊戲區.百人斬視訊妹真人真事.正妹百人斬飯島愛
I see you got rid of the Chinese spam. And, gee, I came back just to click on it and fill my computer with all manner of adware, viruses, and Trojan horses. Ah, well. Missed opportunities.
the feral fox said...
Is there only the physical, or do you respect the spritual?
Ken (feel free to call me names) said...
So let me see if I got this straight. We believe anything written after 1950? We dismiss everything before 1950?
Lets come at this from a different angle. How many pieces of written documentation are there that are 2000 years old?
What are those documents?
Back 2000 years ago things were not recorded at the rate they are today or anytime this century for that matter.
There is a Sumerian text about the epic of Gilgamesh which people will accept as truth because it doesn't come from the bible.
Those same people dismiss the story of Noah and do so ONLY because it is written in the bible.
Josephus recorded events during his time. Do we dismiss these also?
Which year is it ok to start believing recorded documents?
No matter which year you choose, I will produce documents that will contradict your documents, EXCEPT for the bible.
Now some people say the epic of Gilgamesh predates the story of Noah.
But thats not provable at all.
Personally I think that christians are the dumbest race of people on this planet.
But the arguments I am seeing be put forth make the christians look smart.
Gee, where are you getting this stuff, Ken? No self-respecting historian accepts any ancient document at face value. You really think we take Gilgamesh, for instance, as historical? And, no, Gilgamesh doesn't provably predate the story of Noah, but the surviving documents of the former certainly do predate the surviving documents of the latter. That's a good reason to think Gilgamesh is older. Do you have a good reason to think otherwise?
So, do you have any actual evidence for the historicity your ancient texts; evidence strong enough that we should turn our lives upside down on account of it?
J said...
"How many pieces of written documentation are there that are 2000 years old? "
Thousands of pages. Check out Rome, Greece, China. Hell, Herodotus and Thucydides had already started making evidence based based historical arguments some 400 years before the time of Jesus.
"Those same people dismiss the story of Noah and do so ONLY because it is written in the bible."
Well, I can't speak for "those same people," but as for me, I reject the Noah myth based on the archeological, geological, and historical record. All three sciences clearly falsify the global flood hypothesis. I personally don't care if it were written about in the Bible, in Homer or in Einstein's 1915 paper; it didn't happen.
"Josephus recorded events during his time. Do we dismiss these also?"
Two things about Josephus, one I don't take his accounts at face value without corroborating evidence, however for a good amount of what he wrote there is corroborating evidence. That said, he writes nothing that would corroborate any itinerant Jewish preacher doing anything supernatural.
Ken, I won't call you any names, but you appear to me to have created quite a straw-man and in no point in your discussion did you ever remotely address the central argument: If I apply the same standards of evidence I would use in a trial (or evaluating any other historical claim for that matter), is there sufficient documented evidence to believe a supernatural resurrection occurred in the Levant 2000 years ago?
My book is out:
The Basics: What is Atheism?
The Influential Arguments for Atheism
Bibliography of Important Works on Atheism
Matt McCormick
Atheism: Proving The Negative--The Recent Posts
Proving Atheism
Is God Impossible, or Kind of Impossible?
What's Left to be Agnostic About?
Perpetual Motion Machines and an Argument Against Agnosticism
Know Your Godless Heathens
Are We Proving the Negative Yet?
Three Important Arguments for Atheism
Philosophical Atheism Bibliography
Encyclopedia Entry: Atheism
God is Hiding
500 Dead Gods Pluse One
500+1: Bad Answers to a Good Question, part 1.
500 + 1: Bad Answers to a Good Question—Science has a record with as many failures as religions.
Proving Atheism and Bayes' Theorem
Teaching Atheism
Critiques of Atheism
Common Criticisms of Atheism--Revised
What Would Change Your Mind?
A Hundred Reasons to Believe that God Does Not Exist
Another Way to Prove the Negative
Some Varieties of Atheism
Intellectual Cheaters
Everitt on Standards of Proof and Non-Belief
Many Paths, No God
One of Several Ways to Prove the Negative
Reasonable Belief, Proof, and Uncertainty
500 Dead Gods
Is He Keeping His Distance, or Is He Just Not There?
God Wouldn't Leave Room For Agnosticism
Wide Atheism: There Are No Gods
The Burden of Proof is on the Atheist
The Burden of Proof is On The Atheist--Redux
Coherence and Atheism
He Has No Brain, So God Doesn't Exist
Proving the Negative
Morality and Atheism
Can't Be Moral without God? Wrong.
Can Evolution Explain Morality?
Science is Essential to Morality
Nature Gives Us Morality, Not God
Praying for the Answers
Morality, Therefore God
Explaining Our Moral Intuitions
Heroism and the Duty to Rescue Show that there is No God
The Believer's Moral Double Standard for God
No Moral Truths, No God
Monkey Morality, or Goodness Isn't Magical
Stephen Pinker: Instinct for Morality
Trying to be Moral Through the Distorted Lens of the Bible
Incoherent: I believe because it makes me moral.
Believing in God is Immoral
Does the Theist Have a Moral Advantage over the Atheist?
Can Atheists be Moral?
Theistic Fallacies
How Reliable Are Human Religious Claims?
Natural Minds
Everything Is To the Glory of God, Revamped
The Jesus Sharpshooter Fallacy
Belief Persistence Despite Discredited Evidence
I was raised religious. . .
Heaven and Justifications of Evil
Reigning In the Fallacious Human Belief Machine
Possible, Possible, Possible: Overdrawing the God Account
Everything to the Glory of God
Confusing Possible with Probable and Having a Right to Believe
Troubles for Christianity
The Salem Witch Trials-video
The Money Bag
The Case Against Christ--draft of a book proposal
Putting Odds on Jesus
The Case Against Christ
What Does the Bible Really Say? It Doesn't Matter if We Don't Have Reasons to Think It's True.
More Bad Answers to Good Questions: Witches and Reasonable Proof
Jesus Magic
God Doesn't Want You to Believe the Bible
Abducted by Aliens
The Perfect Word of God
Resurrection? Probably Not.
Disbelieving the Believers
The Sin of Original Sin
The Real Evil of Original Sin
What's Desirable About Heaven?
Washing in Blood, Human Sacrifices, Cannibalism, Groveling in Front of Altars
Did the Believers Believe?
Putting the Fox In Charge of the Henhouse
Perfect Word of God? Reliable Historical Document?
Should We Believe that Jesus Was Resurrected?
Grave Robbers or Magic
300 Year Gap
You Don't Really Expect Us to Believe That, Do You?
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Textual Exegesis Will Not Solve
Naturalism, Magic, and Religious Belief
Vetting Supernatural Knowledge Claims
No Vital Spirits
Doubt vs. Dogma
Science vs. Faith
The Neuroscience of Believing
Adding Epicycles to God
Self-Deception: Religion and Science are Compatible
Science Always Replaces Supernatural Explanations
The Epistemology of Atheism
Knowing More Than Science
God is Not Beyond Logic
Sowing the Seeds of Atheism in Rocky Soil
Belief as Declaration of Intent
Faux Agnosticism
Grasping at Possibilities
Sinking the Raft I'm Standing On
More on the Epistemology of Atheism
The Psychology of Believing
Ghosts, Resurrections, and Bereavement Hallucinations
IQ and the Origins of Religions
Inside the Mind of a Religious Mystic
Santa and the Believers Real Idea of God
Intelligence is Inversely Related to Religiousness
Would Anything Change Your Mind?
Believing is Good for You, Even if it's Nonsense
The Forbidden Conclusion
The God Projector
Non-Cognitive Religious Utterances Produce Beliefs About Reality
Remembering God
The Hidden Costs of Religious Belief
Religion is a Mind Virus
How the Surreal Becomes Commonplace
Does Sin Corrupt Our Ability to See God?
Knowing Your Own Mind About God
We Are Wired To Resist the Truth About Pointless Suffering
God Blind Spot
Isn't "God" Just Another Word for New Age Nonsense?
What if the Lie Really is Good For Us?
The God Urge
Faith and Atheism
My Private Unassailable Knowledge of God
Intuiting God
Does the Atheist Need to Respond to Faith?
Gibberish? Non-Cognitivist Speech Act? or Serious Truth Claim?
Science is Not a Religion
The So-Called Right To Believe: Confusing Hoping with Justified Believing
Problems with Fine Tuning and Design Arguments
U.S. District Court: Intelligent Design is a Farce
The RNA World
MacGyver-ing the Universe
4 Modern Views about the Universe
Design Shows That There Is No God
God and the Big Bang
Current Theories of Abiogenesis
Design Shows that there's No God
How Probable is God?
Fine Tuning's Fatal Flaw
How Big Would God's Universe Be?
Bogus Probabilistic Judgmetns and God
Can We Find Evidence for the Divine Properties in the Universe?
God is Not a Watchmaker
We Don't Have the Right Dataset to make the Design Argument
Evil and God
Evil Isn't the Problem, the Concept of God Is
Another Paradox for the Soul Building Defense: God Has No Virtue, and Humans are More Virtuous Than God
Heaven and Justifications for Evil
God's Evil
If There is a Satan, Then There Is No God
God and Suffering
The Paradox of the Soul Building Defense for Evil
God or Gratuitous Evil?
The Double Standard of God's Goodness
The Super Evil Challenge
Is Heaven Guilt Money?
The Inductive Problem of Evil Argument for Atheism
What Would Make the Atheist Happy?
Religious Tolerance and Atheism
Retraction Retraction: Imagining No Religion
Freedom of Speech, Only For the Religious. Freedom of Thought, but only for Religious Thoughts
The Duplicity of Religious Moderation
Don't Like My Tone? Am I Being Rude?
There is No Right To Religious Belief
Jerry Falwell: Exploiting Religious Tolerance and Respect
Is Religious Education Child Abuse?
Treating Religious Affiliation as Ethnicity
Problems with Immortality posts
Still Think You've Got an Immortal Soul? You Need a New Brain
When Do We Die?
Employee of the Month: God
There is no Psychic Contact with the Dead
What Would be Evidence of Life After Death?
Problems with Miracles
A God Who Performs Miracles is Evil
God Wouldn't Do Miracles
God Doesn't Do Miracles—full version article draft
Top Ten Suggestions for Performing Better Miracles
Begging the Question: Miracles and Nature
Miracles Make it Harder to Prove God Is Good
You Don't Really Believe in Miracles
Miracles Prove that There is No God
Other Articles by Prof. McCormick
God Would Not Perform Miracles (draft)
Problems for the Miracles of Jesus (draft)
Against the Immortality of the Soul, published in Death and Anti-Death.
Why God Cannot Think, reprinted in The Improbability of God
Debunking Christianity--John Loftus
Atheist Student Organization (CSUS)
Interview with Matt McCormick in Capitol Weekly
Feature Article about Prof. McCormick's Atheism Seminar
Article in CSUS Hornet about Atheism and Christmas, features Matt McCormick and several of his students
Why God Cannot Think, published in Philo, McCormick
Prof. McCormick's Academic Webpage
Prof. McCormick's Atheism Seminar
Sam Harris's Webpage, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation
Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, and other important books.
Superstition as a Natural Phenomenon
Business Communications Group
Schellenberg, J.L. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason
God and the Problem of Evil, ed. William Rowe
Stenger, Victor. God: The Failed Hypothesis
Ehrman, Bart. Lost Christianities
Mackie, J.L. The Miracle of Theism
Everitt, Nicholas. The Non-Existence of God
Gale, Richard. On the Nature and Existence of God
Martin, Michael. Atheism, A Philosophical Justification
Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Ed. Martin.
The Improbability of God. Eds. Martin and Monnier.
The Impossibility of God. Eds. Martin and Monnier
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion.
Dennett, Daniel. Breaking the Spell.
Harris, Sam. The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation.
"Science. It works, bitches."
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!" George Carlin 1937 - 2008
Many Paths, No God.
I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen
Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, "It is a matter of faith, and above reason."
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.
The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger
Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe
Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts
The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson
Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM
The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris
Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.
Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great
We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.
"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.
"Only a tiny fraction of corpses fossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.
One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick
Add this blog to your Google Page
Top Ten Myths about Belief in God
1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.
There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.
2. Myth: Prayer works.
Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.
3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.
There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.
4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.
In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.
5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.
We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.
6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.
Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.
7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.
The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.
8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.
All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it is
all going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?
9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.
People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.
10: Myth: There is a God.
Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They're Mistaken)
1. You can't prove atheism. You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.
Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.
As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith? Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like? Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing? (they aren't). If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith? Faith is a bad thing? That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.
2. The evidence shows that we should believe.
If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God's existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it's implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken. Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.
3. You should have faith.
Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person's faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.
4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.
These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let's suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn't provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.
5. Atheism is bad for you. Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.
First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field. Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken. What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more. There are a number of obvious natural explanations. Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases. Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons? Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.
6. Atheists and atheist political regimes have committed horrible crimes against humanity. Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, perhaps Hitler, and their atheistic tyrannies tortured and murdered millions.
Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world's population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over "who has done more harm," or "which ideology has caused more human suffering." It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.
Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions. "Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable."
7. Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.
Sam Harris has advocated something he calls "conversational intolerance." For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race. There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice. But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us. Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don't), which social programs they fund (and don't), and a long list of other vital, public matters. Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.
Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor's foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes. Real respect is found in disagreement. The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.
8. Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.
At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference. The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines. By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method. The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals: actively seek out disconfirming evidence. The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.
Get this Blog by email, by FeedBlitz
Visitors to this site: