Sorry, Deists — Your God Doesn’t Exist Either

In most of my discussions about God and whether or not there is any good reason to believe God exists I have focused on the various concepts of God that people actually worship, since those concepts of God are described as having specific characteristics and as having done and promised to do specific things. As such, those concepts of God make testable claims that we should be able to verify and for which there should be an abundance of reliable and objective evidence, so the complete lack of reliable and objective evidence and the fact that the various claims can and have been proven to be false is, in itself, compelling evidence that those concepts of God do not, in fact, exist. See, for example, Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence. 

With such a focus on evidence and counter-evidence, however, I have often more or less given a pass to the concept of the so-called “Deist” God. The Deist God is described as the Creator of the Universe (as with most theistic concepts of God), but with the qualification that this Creator simply set the universe in motion and then let it run on its own ever since with absolutely no further interference whatsoever. This means that the Deist God has never revealed itself to humanity in any way, does not perform miracles, does not provide moral guidance, does not promise salvation, etc. And the reason I have more or less given a pass to this concept of God is basically because it seems to be a wholly irrelevant concept. I have even gone so far as to say that, while I am an atheist with regard to standard concepts of God, I would consider myself to be agnostic with regard to the Deist God, since there’s neither evidence for nor evidence against a God who, by its very nature, does not interact with the universe in any way.

Well, that was then and this is now. After giving the matter a lot of thought, I’m finally ready to assert that I know that the Deist God does not exist to the same extent that I know that all other concepts of God do not exist (which is to say, as much as I can claim to know anything in life, including that I am a conscious being, that I only have one head on my shoulders, that the earth is round and rotates, etc.). Some of the reasons for why I know this are included in another recent post (No, I Don’t Need to Explore the Entire Universe to Be an Atheist), but I thought it would be helpful to put them all into a post of their own and expand a bit on my reasoning. And please keep in mind that the following is not offered as any sort of “proof” that the Deist God does not exist, but simply to explain why I can now feel confident that I know that it does not exist, to the same level of confidence that I claim to be able to know anything.

First of all, many modern Deists like to claim that Deism is wholly separate from the ancient superstitions that produced every other concept of God, whether it be the Sumerian gods, the ancient Greek and Roman gods, the Egyptian gods, the Norse gods, or even the God of the Bible. “Those gods are all based on ignorant superstition,” they like to say, “but our concept of God is derived from wholly logical and rational considerations of the universe.” Except, this claim is not actually supported by the history of modern Deism:

Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Typically, these had been raised as Christians and believed in one God, but they had become disenchanted with organized religion and orthodox teachings such as the Trinity, Biblical inerrancy, and the supernatural interpretation of events, such as miracles.

— Deism - Wikipedia

In other words, Deism was clearly a response to the prevailing concepts of God that were rooted in ancient superstitions and not some sort of de novo theology that came up with the idea of God from first principles and careful consideration of the universe. Or, to put it yet another way, when Deists realized how untenable it was to assert belief in something for which there was no good evidence (and for which there was plenty of counter evidence), they decided to argue for an impersonal and undetectable creator God rather than abandoning their faith all together. As a result, if we can dismiss all the mainstream theist concepts of God as the product of ignorant superstitions, we can also dismiss the Deist God for exactly the same reason, despite all the pseudo-intellectual gloss that has been applied to the underlying concept over the years.

Second of all, since the Deist God — by definition — does not interact with the universe in any detectable way whatsoever, the only way in which Deists can claim to know that such a God exists in the first place is through various logical and philosophical arguments. And every single one of those arguments is flawed. Every single argument in favor of there being a Deist God is based in an Argument from Ignorance (or “God of the Gaps”) fallacy. Whether it be the so-called Teleological Argument (a.k.a. the Argument from Design), the Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument, or what have you, they all basically claim that since we [supposedly] cannot explain some facet of the universe, the only possible explanation is a supernatural creator who exists outside of time and space and is somehow able to interact with matter and energy despite not being composed of either. Aside from the fact that we actually can now explain many of the things that used to be inexplicable (the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, for example, now perfectly explains the apparent design in the natural world), the lack of an explanation cannot, in itself, be evidence of some other explanation for which there is no independent evidence.

There have been many, many refutations of the various Deist arguments for the existence of God over the years, but here are some of my own personal attempts:

• God of the Gaps
• The Argument from Design
• The Cosmological Argument
• The Fine Tuned Universe

To quote the late, great Christopher Hitchens, “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” Deists acknowledge that there neither is nor can there be any direct observable evidence for the existence of their God, and all of their philosophical arguments are based on flawed premises that by necessity lead to incorrect conclusions.

Finally, even if the Deist God weren’t rooted in the same ignorant superstitions as mainstream theist concepts of God, and even if the various Deist arguments weren’t fatally flawed, the Deist God requires a belief in a logically impossible “supernatural” being of some sort that somehow exists “outside of space and time” and that is made made of neither matter nor energy (yet is somehow able to interact with matter and energy at least with regard to creating both). Can I “prove” that nothing supernatural exists? No, but I assert that the term itself is meaningless (a “one word oxymoron” as some have been known to say) and therefore I know (again, to the same degree that I claim to know anything) that the Deist God does not and cannot possibly exist. For more on this, see:

• Why the Word “Supernatural” Is Meaningless
• The Logical Impossibility of God

Of course, your mileage may vary, but this is what I know to be true and why I feel confident saying that I know it to be true.

The Cosmological Argument

They say there is nothing new under the sun, and that may very well be true.  As I watch various apologists try to justify their belief in God (whether it be the God of Christendom, Allah, or some other version of God), most of them at some point fall back on some form of the so-called "Cosmological" argument that has actually been around for quite a long time and has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy (despite the fact that, as far as I am aware, the God that Aristotle was trying to prove was neither the Christian nor the Muslim God).

Some modern apologists go to great lengths to add numerous subtle nuances to the argument to patch its obvious flaws, but the basic formation of the argument has been codified as the "Kalām Cosmological Argument" (KCA) that reads as follows:

1.  Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

On its face, this is a perfectly valid argument in the sense that the conclusion logically follows from its premises.  There are, however, some serious problems with the argument that basically render it useless on its face.

A Valid Argument Is Not the Same as a Sound Argument

As stated above, a "valid" argument is one which the conclusion logically follows from the stated premises.  However, in order to be at all useful, an argument must also be "sound."  In order to be sound, the conclusion must not only logically follow from the premises, the premises themselves must also be actually true.

For example, the following is a perfectly valid argument that is completely unsound:

1. All elephants can fly
2. Dumbo is an elephant
3. Therefore, Dumbo can fly

This argument is unsound for a variety of reasons, namely that the first premise is not actually true and the second premise refers to a fictional character that doesn't actually exist.  Therefore, this argument is completely useless as an attempt to prove that Dumbo can fly, regardless of whether or not Dumbo really exists and can, in fact, fly. In other words, an unsound argument doesn't necessarily mean the conclusion is false, but it simply isn't useful in proving that conclusion.

Another example, perhaps a bit closer to the KCA, would be as follows:

1. All swans have white feathers
2. Black swans are swans
3. Therefore, black swans have white feathers

Again, the problem with this argument is with the first premise.  What makes this argument a bit more subtle than the Dumbo example, however, is the fact that most swans do, in fact, have white feathers.  It's even possible that, before the discovery of the black swan in Australia, every species of swan ever encountered did, in fact, have white feathers.  But there's a huge difference between saying "All swans have white feathers" and saying "All swans that we are currently aware of have white feathers."  Not understanding that empirical evidence is not the same as absolute truth could therefore lead somebody to follow up by claiming that, since black swans must (according to the argument) have white feathers, it must be the case that black swans have a special kind of magical white feathers that just appear black to our eyes instead of just acknowledging that the argument is flawed.

Keeping that in mind, let's take another look at the KCA, but with a few annotations added in:

1. [Based on our limited empirical experience,] whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist [depending on your definition of "universe" and assumed to be true because humans aren't comfortable with the idea of an infinite regress].
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause [unless, of course, the universe is a special case of something that began to exist without having a cause, or unless the universe didn't actually have a true beginning as would be the case if it were part of a multi-verse or in an eternal cycle of expansion and contraction].

The first premise is based on empirical evidence of how things we currently observe behave, but isn't necessarily true for all cases everywhere. Perhaps the universe is the exception to this general rule (after all, we have never observed a universe come into being before, so we can't know whether it follows the same rules as everything else within that universe that we have observed).  Perhaps things come into being by themselves all the time, but just not where we can observe it (or where we have yet observed it).  Or perhaps the entire premise is just flat out wrong and, as physicist Lawrence Krauss describes in his book, "A Universe from Nothing," particles routinely do pop in and out of existence all around us all the time.  Either way, there's simply no justification to accept as absolute the premise that whatever begins to exist has a cause.  It may seem to be common sense and may seem to be based on our experience with the natural world, but that doesn't make it necessarily true by any stretch of the imagination.

[As an aside, it's interesting to note that early formations of the Cosmological Argument simply had "Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.  The big "breakthrough" of the KCA was adding "that begins to exist" to get around the obvious observation that God, as a being who exists, would also necessarily need a cause of his existence.  All we have to do then is magically redefine God as a being who never had a beginning (or "exists outside of time and space") and voila! Problem supposedly solved.  Except, not really.  More on this later...]

As for the second premise, the Bible states that God created the universe out of nothing. That's not what science says, however. The Big Bang theory doesn't explain how the universe was created but simply describes the expansion of the known universe from an seemingly infinitely dense and infinitely small singularity that presumably contained within itself all matter and energy. Where did that singularity come from and what caused it to expand? Nobody knows, but there are numerous theories that do not require any sort of intelligent causation.

Now, some modern apologists try to finesse the argument here by claiming that the universe must have had a beginning since the concept of an "actual" infinity (as opposed to, I assume, the "virtual" infinities that are used in and even required by various disciplines of mathematics and physics) is "metaphysically" impossible.  And by "metaphysically" impossible, these apologists basically mean that the concept makes no sense to them.  OK, so maybe I'm oversimplifying their view a wee bit, but their arguments against "actual" infinities rely on discussions of logical contradictions such as how an infinite amount divided in half would produce two infinite amounts.  And they then claim that this supposed impossibility of an "actual" infinity means that there must have been a beginning to everything at some point, even if you assume the universe is cyclical or budded off from a pre-existing multiverse.

Since the first two premises are not necessarily true, the conclusion is not justified.   The premises could possibly be true, but there's nothing that requires them to be true, and therefore the argument fails on its face as an unsound argument.  Again, this doesn't prove that the conclusion is false, only that this argument doesn't prove it to be true.

What if the Conclusion Is True?

OK, so the cosmological argument isn't sound and therefore the conclusion that the universe had a cause isn't necessarily true.  But it could still be true, right?  And perhaps, some would argue, it's extremely probable even if not necessarily true.

So let's go there and assume for the sake of argument that the conclusion is actually true and there actually was a cause to the universe (either our current universe or the theoretical cyclical universe or multiverse).  So what?  Even if we accept that the universe somehow had some sort of "cause," we still don't know anything about what that cause was. Could the universe be its own cause (again, we've never observed a universe come into being before, so we can't say what the rules are for universe creation)?  Why does it have to be an intelligent being (lot's of things happen by random chance, so why do we insist that the creation of the universe must have been done on purpose)?

Some apologists start with the conclusion that the universe must have had a "cause" of some sort and try to make all sorts of inferences as to what this cause must be like.  For example, since whatever caused space and time to exist in the first place can't possibly exist in space or time itself, this cause must therefore be somehow timeless (a.k.a "eternal") and immaterial.  Gee, they then claim, this sounds an awful like the God of [insert pet religion here], since that God is described as being eternal and a being of pure mind.  Except... Well, first of all, there's no explanation given as to how something that is timeless and immaterial could actually have any interaction whatsoever with time and space.  It just did.  Second of all, God isn't actually described as a "pure mind" in any of the holy scriptures (in fact, he is described as a physical being who interacts with his creations).  Third, while God is described as being "eternal" in the holy books, that's not the same as "existing outside of time" or "timeless."  It just means he has existed forever and will exist forever, "forever" being a measurement of time and not a state outside of time.

These apologists will also argue that whatever caused the universe to exist must be an "agent" of some sort, meaning an intelligent being.  And this is supposedly because something had to choose to create the universe or else it would have stayed in it's uncreated state forever.  And only an intelligent being is capable of choosing.  Except... the whole concept of choosing implies the passage of time.  The whole concept of a being sitting around saying, "No universe yet, no universe yet, wait for it... NOW!" only makes sense if you're talking about a being that exists within time and not outside of it.  Besides, there's no logical requirement that something like the creation of the universe must be the result of choice in the first place.  If quantum theory teaches us anything at all, it's that sometimes things happen when they do out of sheer random chance.

Which brings us to the part where apologists really back themselves into a corner via a startling bit of circular logic.  If everything that begins to exist must have a cause and the universe must have had a beginning because actual infinities are metaphysically impossible, where did God come from?  As mentioned earlier, the original formulation of the Cosmological Argument stated that everything that exists must have a cause, but modern apologists changed that to everything that begins to exist must have a cause.  This provided them with a loophole to state that God is exempt from the first premise since he didn't actually have a beginning and therefore didn't need a cause to begin to exist.

Well, aside from the fact that this leads to all sort of mental wrangling described above whereby you have to claim that, in order to never have had a beginning, God must simultaneously be an immaterial being consisting of pure "mind" (whatever that means) existing outside of space and time and somehow be able to interact with space and time whenever he wants, it also ignores the second premise of the argument that claims that the universe must have had a beginning because an actual infinity is impossible.  If that is actually true, than it would also apply to God.  Claiming that God, being an infinite and eternal being, is the exception to the rule that actual infinities are impossible is just a case of special pleading and one would be equally justified claiming that the universe (or multiverse) is the exception to the rule and therefore there's no need for God.  In other words,  if the universe necessarily had a beginning then so did God, and no amount of making up claims out of whole cloth that God must be "timeless" can avoid that fact.  And remember -- the "timelessness" of God was not an something originally attributed to him in the scriptures, but was instead something ascribed to him as a way of dealing with the flaws in this argument.  God never claimed to exist outside of time, but assuming that he must do so is the only way this argument can possibly work.  Except that "timelessness" doesn't actually mean anything.  If an "actual infinity" is meaningless, the concept of "timelessness" is surely far, far worse.  Calling God timeless to patch up a flaw in the KCA is like making up the concept of magical white feathers in my black swan argument described above.  Sure, it makes the argument work, but it's ridiculous and self-contradictory on its face and is only required because you want to accept a false premise as true.

But let's go a step further and assume that somehow there is such a thing as an immaterial mind that is both "timeless" and "spaceless" and that such a concept is not just an obvious self-contradiction [Q: What do you call something that does not exist within space and time? A: Nothing].  And let's push accommodation to the very limits and assume that such a being could actually somehow interact with the physical universe, at least to the extent of creating it in the first place.  What justification is there to imagine that intelligent being just happens to be the God worshiped by your particular religion and not that of your neighbor?  One you've "proved" that the universe has a cause and that cause was some sort of intelligent being of some sort, how do you know it's your God?

My favorite part of watching people argue for the existence of their particular God using the Kalām Cosmological Argument is when they get to the end and are inevitably asked how they know that this "first cause" God is their particular God. And then you invariably get answers along the line of "Because Christ came to me and spoke to my heart" or "that's where faith comes in" or "the Koran is the most demonstrably true book ever written", etc.  In other words, every different religion that believes in a God can use the same argument to prove the existence of their particular version of God, and every different religion is convinced that their version of God is the correct one.  Which is to say, an argument that can be used to prove inherently contradictory conclusions is not a particularly useful argument:

In Conclusion...

 So, to sum up:

1. The Cosmological Argument doesn't necessarily prove that the universe must have had any sort of "cause."
2. Even if it the universe did have a cause, there's no justification to claim that that cause must be a conscious agent an trying to describe that cause as existing outside of space and time (since those terms have no actual meaning) or that it is "pure mind" (since we have no evidence that minds can exist apart from a physical brain) or that something that is outside of space and time could even possibly interact with matter and energy in the first place.  After all, when was the last time you were able to affect anything apart from your own body simply by willing it to happen with your mind?
3. Finally, even if the universe did have a cause, and even if that cause could actually be said to be a timeless, immaterial being of pure mind, there's no justification to associate that being with the God of any particular religion, since it doesn't actually match the description of God from any religion's holy books and has, in fact, been equally associated to many different religions.

Some Random Questions for Theists

OK, I've been watching some debates between theists (usually Christians) and theists again, and as usual I thought of a bunch of questions I really wish I had been able to ask.  I'm not saying these are unanswerable questions, especially since 2000 years of formal apologetics have allowed modern theists to come up with some sort of answer to just about anything thrown their way, but I'd like to think they are questions which would, at the very least, indicate the weakness of some of their positions and assertions.

• Why do you keep asserting that the universe was "obviously" finely tuned to support life (and specifically intelligent human life), when 99.99999999... % of the known universe is utterly and completely hostile to the existence of life (let alone to human life)?  Is all the rest of the vastness of space just for the sake of decoration?


• You've said that the observed suffering in the natural world is the direct result of mankind sinning in the Garden of Eden and causing the world (universe?) to enter into a fallen state with suffering and death.  If God is all powerful, however, why did he create a universe where man's sinning would affect all of creation and not just man?  Why would God punish innocent animals instead of just punishing mankind?


• In the past, theists have claimed that the creation of the universe "out of nothing" proves the existence of God since there's no other possible explanation.  Now that physicists have described ways in which a universe could have arisen out of nothing by purely natural processes, why does it matter whether physicists can prove that this is how it actually happened?  Since you previously said God must exist because there was no other possible way it could have happened, isn't it a sufficient refutation of your "proof" that there is, in fact, at least one possible way after all?


• As a Christian, what does it matter that some percentage (that you completely made up) of humanity throughout history has had some sort of spiritual experience that lead them to believe in some sort of god or gods?  Even if that somehow proved that there was some sort of God (which it doesn't, since it would only prove at most that humans have a tendency to believe in supernatural beings), what justification is there for assuming that the "God" in question is the Christian one and not, say, the God of Islam, Zoroastrianism, Norse mythology, etc.?


• How can you claim that the Bible is evidence of the existence of God and then admit that much of it is allegorical and not to be taken literally?  Especially when, once upon a time, it was all thought to be literally true until science and evolving societal norms slowly but surely proved that more and more of it couldn't possibly be literally true??  Also, how do you determine which parts are literally true and which parts are merely allegorical??  Does it bother you that the determination of which parts are literal and which parts are allegorical has changed over time, indicating that there is no "correct" answer other than "everything is literally true that hasn't yet been shown to be demonstrably false or distasteful to our modern sensibilities"?


• On a related note, how can you claim that "absolute morality" can only come from God and then acknowledge that the only source we have for what God's morality actually is (i.e., the Bible) contains numerous laws and principles that do not apply to today's society and therefore are not absolute?


• You claim that God is necessary in order to explain what the purpose of life is, which is something science cannot do.  What justification do you have for the assertion that life must necessarily have a purpose in the first place, other than the fact that you find the notion of a life without a purpose to be too depressing to contemplate?


• Once you have "logically proven" the necessity of some sort of timeless and immaterial supernatural being in order to explain the creation of the universe and all its laws (leaving aside for the moment the question as to whether you actually did prove anything), how do you get from that supernatural being to the God of your particular religion and your particular sect of your particular religion? If you're trying to prove something, it's not enough to just say you have faith in your God or that your God personally spoke to your heart. You're perfectly entitled to your faith, but that's not the "proof" you promised to provide.

The Argument from Design

I’ve touched upon aspects of this in other posts, but I thought it was time to try and put all my thoughts on this subject together into one post.

The so-called “Argument from Design” is one of the most common and most powerful arguments that theists have at their disposal when they want to argue for the existence of God.  It gets trotted out during nearly every debate between theists and atheists, it underpins the entire “Intelligent Design” movement, and is often the sole argument that your average, run-of-the mill theist (as opposed to professional apologists) can think of when asked to justify his or her belief in God.  And when I say it is a powerful argument, I simply mean that it is highly persuasive, not that it is actually a particularly sound or valid argument.

In a nutshell, the Argument from Design simply states that the entire observable universe provides evidence that some intelligent being purposely designed it, and this being is what we commonly call “God.”  A more formal statement of the argument might look similar to the following:

1. Much of what we can observe in the universe has the appearance of being designed.
2. Things that appear to be designed most likely were designed, especially when they are too complicated to have happened any other way.
3. Anything that is designed must, by definition, have a designer.
4. The act of designing requires intelligence and purpose.
5. Therefore, there must be an intelligent and purposeful being or entity who designed the universe, and this is a label that fits our traditional notions of God.

Let me try and tackle these points one at a time.

Much of what we can observe in the universe has the appearance of being designed.

It is certainly true that much of what we can observe in the universe, especially here on Earth, has the appearance of being designed.  The key word, of course, being appearance.  To say that everything we observed actually is designed is to assume the very point being argued, so we have to stick with appears to be designed at this stage in the argument.  We also need to keep in mind that the whole “appears to be designed” thing really doesn’t apply to everything we observe.  Yes, we have learned through centuries of careful scientific observation how cells work like tiny machines and that higher organisms are made up of trillions of cells working together in unison.  But much of what we observe beyond our planet has the appearance of sheer chaos.


Things that appear to be designed most likely were designed, especially when they are too complicated to have happened any other way.

This is really the crux of the entire Argument from Design.  If something appears to be designed and there’s no way for it to have happened other than being designed, it must therefore have been designed.  This is the argument made so famously by William Paley some two hundred years ago when he used a pocket watch as an analogy to the natural world.  When we encounter something as complex as a pocket watch, the very fact of its existence and complexity testifies to the fact that it was designed by an intelligent creator and did not just occur by chance.  Similarly, we can look at the natural world – the complex organisms, the cycle of the seasons, the movement of the stars and planets – and know that it couldn’t all have happened by chance.

Another, more modern, analogy compares the natural world to a painting found hanging from a tree in a forest.  Only a fool would see that painting, frame and all, and think it possible that it could have just happened by the chance accumulation of elements over time or that it just grew there exactly like that.

The problem with analogies, however, is that they are just that – analogies.  They are attempts to explain something by comparing it to something else and are not statements of fact or proofs in and of themselves.  As a result, an analogy is only as good as the things being compared.  In this case, the watch and painting analogies fail for a number of reasons, including the following:

• In both analogies, the object in question is found in isolation in a situation where it is clearly different from its surroundings.  Nature, on the other hand, is a unified whole.
• It’s easy to identify a watch or a painting as designed because we have seen numerous other examples of watches and paintings that have all been designed.  We know the processes involved in making a watch or painting a picture, so it’s safe to assume that any other watch or painting we discover was made in a similar fashion.  The same is not true with items in nature, however.  We have never seen anybody make a cell or a bear or a tree and therefore can’t say that the process must be the same as things made outside of nature.
• We can “know” that a watch or a painting is designed because there is no other way to explain how it could come to be.  The same used to be true for items in the natural world, but we now have much greater knowledge and can explain how seemingly complex natural items could arise purely by natural processes.  And keep in mind that “by natural processes” is not the same thing as “by random chance,” since natural processes can include a great degree or organization and direction, even if not driven by any purposeful intelligence (see my post on Accepting Evolution for a more in-depth discussion of this).
• Any claim that something “couldn’t impossibly have occurred unless it was designed” is really just a statement of personal ignorance as to the mechanisms involved.  This is often referred to as the problem of “Irreducible Complexity,” which sounds scientific, but is really just a made-up term that means “I don’t understand how evolution works.”  It used to be argued, for example, that the human eye was so complex that it had to have been created all at once and couldn’t possibly have evolved over time.  Recent studies have shown, however, exactly how a complex eye could have evolved over time, starting from light-sensitive cells and eventually becoming the imperfect organs we have today.  “But what good is a partial eye,” you may ask?  Just look at all the creatures alive today that have less evolved eyes and ask them how their “partial eyes” benefit them compared to not having any eyes at all.

Anything that is designed must, by definition, have a designer.

Well, true, I suppose that’s purely a matter of definition.  If you assume that something is designed, it must have a designer of some sort.  The problem with this (aside from the fact that it’s really just a tautology like saying “anything painted has a painter” or “any thought has a thinker”) is two-fold:

• As discussed above, the mere appearance of design doesn’t necessarily mean that something was, in fact, designed.
• The word “designed” presumes the existence of intelligence and purpose, whereas more neutral terms like “created” or “formed” do not.  A falling meteorite can create a crater.  Years of dripping water can form marvelous looking stalactites and stalagmites in a cave.  Neither of these occurrences involves purpose or intelligence.  Unfortunately, some people like to use the term “design” to simply mean “created” or “formed” and thereby claim that some purposeful and intelligent designer must, by definition, have been behind it.

The act of designing requires intelligence and purpose.

This point is really nothing more than anthropomorphism at its worst.  Since we design things and we are intelligent and purposeful, we assume that all things that are “designed” must also be done by some entity that is intelligent and purposeful.  However, as discussed previously, what many people call “design” is more properly referred to as “creation” or “formation” and these words do not require any sort of intelligence or purpose at all.

Therefore, there must be an intelligent and purposeful being or entity who designed the universe, and this is a label that fits our traditional notions of God.

Well, since I’ve already addressed the problems with all the underlying premises, there’s no further need to show why this conclusion is false.  I will point out the leap in logic, however, required to go from “an intelligent being who designed the universe” and “my personal concept of a God.”  There are many different and contradictory notions of God throughout the world and throughout history, and everybody who uses the Argument from Design seems to use it to justify a belief in a different God.  If the Argument from Design works just as well to “prove” the existence of Jehovah as it does Allah, Shiva or Zeus, maybe the argument isn’t quite as powerful as it’s cracked up to be.

In reality, all the Argument from Design attempts to prove is the existence of some sort of intelligent designer.  Sure, it could be the particular God of the person making the argument, but why assume so?  Heck – given all the observable flaws with the natural world (genetic diseases, blind spots, vestigial organs, etc.), one might argue that the Argument from Design best provides evidence for a malevolent or incompetent god or gods instead of the all-powerful, all-loving Christian God.

Top Ten Misconceptions about Atheists - Part Three

Misconception Number Three -- It Requires More Faith to Be an Atheist than to Believe in God

No, actually it doesn’t require any faith to be an atheist.  All it requires is for you to not believe that “God did it.”  This argument is usually accompanied by a whole bunch of blather about how ridiculously improbable it is that our universe came to exist exactly the way it did and that the only possible explanation is GOD.

I won’t go into all the flaws with the so-called “argument from design” or the “finely tuned universe” (check out some of my other blog posts for long-winded discussions on those issues), but the bottom line is that even if atheists had no explanation whatsoever as to how the universe came to be the way it is and how we came to be in it, that still just leads us to a big fat “WE DON’T KNOW” and not “GOD DID IT.”  Why God?  Why not some as yet undiscovered universal force?  Why not a multiverse? Why not aliens?  And if God, why YOUR God and not somebody else’s God (Allah, Vishnu, Odin, Zeus, etc.)?

I get it, though.  I really do.  Having been there myself once upon a time, I know what it is like to look around the world in wonder and think that it all couldn't have just happened on its own without some sort of intelligence guiding it.  And, since we just happen to have this book of scripture describing exactly such an intelligence, and since billions of people believe in that intelligence, and since all my family and friends tell me how important it is to believe in such an intelligence, well, you'd think that believing in such an intelligence is so blindingly obvious that it would take an extreme act of will to actively NOT believe in such an intelligence, right?

Except, all you’re really saying is that, since you personally (and those you hand around with) cannot understand how it all came to be, it “must” be the way it was described in the particular ancient text that you personally accept as true, despite the fact that there are lots of other ancient text that are accepted by other people that say completely different things. Sure, billions of people believe that the entire universe was created by some sort of God, but they certainly don't all share belief in the same sort of God.  Just because you have the Bible and think that proves what you believe to be true, other people have their Koran or Bhagavad Gita or what have you.  And to those people, it is just as obvious how the universe was created as it is to you, except that they believe something completely different.

No, it doesn’t take faith to admit ignorance, just honesty.  But keep in mind that many of the things that supposedly “can’t be explained without God” are either wholly specious in the first place (such as the supposed “finely tuned universe” argument) or else actually CAN now be explained perfectly well.  We don’t know all the answers, and perhaps never will, but we certainly know a heck of a lot more about the universe now than the desert tribesmen who wrote scriptures thousands of years ago.

Something from Nothing?

Many modern Christian apologists delight in attacking atheists for their supposed belief that the universe was created “out of nothing,” presumably in reference to the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. I’ve always felt this was a very off means of attack, however, for the following reasons:

1. First of all, Christian theology itself has long taught that God created the entire universe ex nihilo (literally, “out of nothing”). So, apparently, creating something out of nothing is only a ridiculous idea if God didn’t do it. That’s very helpful if you are then going to define God as basically “that being who is the only being who can create something out of nothing.” You can then argue that (a) the universe was created out of nothing, (b) only something we will arbitrarily call “God” can create something out of nothing because we say so, therefore (c) “God” exists.
2. Second, this whole line of attack completely misrepresents what science actually says about the origin of the universe. The so-called “Big Bang” theory does not actually state that the universe was created “out of nothing.” Instead, it claims that the entirety of the universe was once condensed into an infinitesimally small point billions of years ago and that it expanded from that point. There are various competing theories as to how the universe came to be condensed into a tiny point in the first place and what caused it to expand (including the theory of a cyclic universe that constantly expands and then contracts over and over again, the theory that our universe branched off of another existing universe, etc.), but none of these theories claim that the universe suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Which is to say that there is nothing whatsoever in the current scientific understanding of the origin of the universe that requires the existence of some sort of “being” who can create things out of nothing.
3. For centuries, even thousands of years, Christians have believed that the Earth and entire universe was created sometime in the last 10,000 years. Many modern “intellectual” or “sophisticated” Christians today acknowledge the scientific evidence and discoveries that show the Earth is actually around 4 billion years old and that the universe far older than that, although there are still plenty of fundamentalist Christians who think the whole universe was created some 6,000 years ago. What I find hilarious is that these modern Christian apologists are willing to chuck out the literal words of the Bible and accept what science has to say about the age and origin of the universe, but then want to take what science says and somehow use it to support what the Bible says about God creating the universe. Creating the universe in six days? Well, that just an allegory. But the bit about God doing it? That’s literally true!

On the Nature of God

According to every theist apologist I have listened to, in order for God to have created the universe "he" must be immaterial and exist outside of space and time (since matter, space and time are all components of the universe which didn't exist until it was created). Logically, God must also not be made of energy, since matter and energy are equivalent and energy also didn't exist before the universe was created.

The problem for theist apologists is two-fold. First of all, an entity that is not made of matter or energy and that exists outside of space and time is, pretty much by definition, something that has no existence whatsoever. Second of all, even if such an entity could somehow be said to exist, there is no proposed mechanism for how such an entity could ever interact with space, time, matter or energy. Which means that, even if God did exist, there would be no way of knowing it and certainly no validity to any religious systems that claim to know the will of God.

Theist apologists go to great lengths to attempt to prove the logical necessity of some sort of creative force of the universe, despite the fact that the only such force they can logically "prove" is one that is completely unknowable and self-contradictory. After they've tied logic into complete knots to get that far, however, they then just throw logic out the window and end with, "Therefore, the God of [my favorite holy book] must be real!"

I recently watched a debate between an atheist and a Christian apologist regarding the existence of God.  In his opening statement, the Christian apologist claimed that he would prove two things: first, that God must logically exist, and second, that this God was the Christian God described in the Bible.  During the debate proper, the Christian apologist attempted to logically prove the existence of God (all the while calling atheists stupid for not agreeing with his logic).  Basically, his “proof” came down to arguing that since certain fundamental logical concepts such as “the law of identity” (i.e., a thing is equivalent to itself) must exist independent of human minds, since not all humans know about these laws and they would exist even if there were no humans, they must have been created by some being who exists wholly outside of the universe of space and time.  Aside from the fact that this argument is a load of hooey to begin with, however, the apologist never bothered to mention how this abstract notion of God had anything to do with the Christian God of the Bible.  After the formal part of the debate was over, an audience member asked him how he got from one to the other,  Despite his initial claim that he would prove it, his reply was that he knew the Christian God of the Bible was real because “He came to me in my heart.”  Oh, really?

In general, I find it hilarious to watch both Christian and Muslim apologists go through the same tortuous logic to "prove" that something must have created the universe, and then come to completely different conclusions as to what that creative force actually is. And each side is absolutely convinced because it's just obvious that their religion is true and therefore their description of God must be true as well.

Do I know exactly how the universe came into being? Nope. Do I think that it's possible that some "force" (whether the universe itself or something outside the universe, including a multiverse) was somehow responsible for the universe coming into being? I honestly don't know, which I suppose would make me an agnostic. But that would only make me an agnostic as to whether or not some "force" (whether the universe itself or something outside the universe) was somehow responsible for the universe coming into being. Do I believe that a personal God as described in the holy books of any religion or as worshiped by any religion was the force that was responsible for the universe coming into being? Absolutely not, and in that regard I remain firmly an atheist.


To sum up:

• The whole concept of a "supernatural" being is nonsensical, since anything outside of nature would, by definition, be unable to interact with nature. Either God can interact with it (speaking to our minds, performing miracles, healing the sick, answering prayers, etc.) and is therefore part of the natural world or he is "supernatural," in which case he would not be able to do all those things. You can't have it both ways.
• Calling something an "uncaused cause" is pure sophistry. It's a contradiction in terms and exists solely as a way of getting yourself out of a corner that you have painted yourself into. If everything must have a cause, what caused God? You've basically said that God must be "supernatural" because everything natural must have a cause, and since you don't want to admit that God himself must therefore have a cause, you will arbitrarily define God as "supernatural" with no justification other than it provides you with a loophole.
• Even if God were somehow necessary to explain the origin of the universe, even if it actually made sense to say that some being who exists outside of space and time could actually create space and time, what rationale is there to accept that that being is the Christian God? I have listened to Muslims make the exact same arguments for the necessity of God, but strangely they are absolutely convinced that their arguments prove the necessity of the God of the Koran and not that of the Bible.
• Since theist apologists love to twist logic in order to "prove" the existence of their personal concept of God, I think it is only fair to disprove the existence of God in the same manner (it's amazing how you can logically prove or disprove anything at all if you define your terms correctly) :

1. In order for God to have created the universe, He must exist outside the universe.
2. Anything that exists outside the universe cannot be said to exist within the universe.
3. The universe is defined as the totality of all existence, meaning that nothing can be said to exist if it is not inside the universe.
4. Therefore, God does not exist.  QED.

Man's Place in the Universe

At the core of most theistic beliefs seems to be the assumption that the universe was created for the benefit of man. That may be overstating things a bit with regard to the wide variety of religions in the world, but it’s certainly the case with religions based on the Bible.

Now, it certainly made sense to think this way when the entire known universe consisted of the small amount of land you and/or members of your tribe had personally visited together with a bunch of lights in the sky that appeared to be just out of your reach. And that’s basically where human knowledge stood at the time the Bible was written.

Well, that was then and this is now, as the saying goes. Modern cosmology has shown us just how vast the universe actually is. Not only is the Earth much larger than was imagined back in Old Testament times, we now know we are just one (relatively small) planet in an entire solar system of planets. And our solar system is just one of billions in our galaxy. And our galaxy is just one of billions in the observable universe that extends for billions of light years in every direction. A universe chock full of weird phenomena like black holes and distant quasars and galactic nebulae – most of which mankind was completely unaware of until extremely recently.

I understand that many people take comfort in the thought that God created it all just for us and that he cares about each and every one of us as individuals because we are so special to him. To think that Earth is just a random speck of dust in a vast universe can be a bit depressing. I look at it another way, however. To me, the thought that in the entire vast universe there is only one being exactly like me is awe-inspiring. I am wholly unique, and when I am gone there will never be anything just like me. And the same goes for every single person who has ever lived or who ever will live. It gives my life a purpose to know this, since I have the chance to improve the world in my own unique way and cause ripples that will potentially continue on throughout eternity.

The Fine Tuned Universe

A frequent argument used to prove the existence of God (or some form of God, at least) is the so-called “Fine Tuned Universe” argument.  In a nutshell, the argument is that the universe is so perfectly and improbably “tuned” to support life (human life in particular) that there’s no way it could have happened just by chance.  Some have phrased the argument more particularly as follows:

The entire universe is governed by 6 mathematical constants:

1.      The ratio of electromagnetic force to gravitational force between two electrons

2.      The structural constant that determines how various atoms are formed from hydrogen

3.      The cosmological constant

4.      The cosmic anti-gravity force

5.      The value that determines how tightly clusters of galaxies are bound together

6.      The number of spatial dimensions in the universe

If the value of any of these constants had been off by even an almost infinitesimal degree, a universe like ours, that’s capable of supporting life, would not exist.  The odds of each of these constants just happening to all be exactly what is needed to support life, purely by coincidence, is infinitesimally small.  Therefore, they must have all be set on purpose by an intelligent being who wanted them to be that way.

There are (at least) four huge problems with the "fine tuning" argument that I can come up with:

1.      The argument assumes that the values of the various constants supposedly required for the universe to be capable of supporting life could, in fact, have possibly been different than what they actually are. It's not "fine tuning" if there were no other options available.

2.      There's a huge difference between "capable of sustaining life" and "capable of sustaining life as we know it." Even if the various constants could have had some other values, who is to say that some other form of life wouldn't have arisen instead?  In other words, it’s more accurate to say that life evolved to fit the way the universe is rather than saying the universe was designed to support the life that would eventually evolve within it.

3.      For a universe that is supposedly "finely tuned" to support life, it seems awfully strange that the vast majority of said universe is not, in fact, capable of sustaining life.  Even here on Earth, there are plenty of regions totally inhospitable to life.  And what about all the other planets in the solar system?  And the vast emptiness of interstellar space?  What about planets near supernovas and black holes?

4.      What makes life so special? Why not say the universe has been finely tuned to support the existence of diamonds? Or black holes? Or the rings around Saturn?  All of these things (let alone the vast multitude of non-human life on this planet such as insects) are also only possible because the universe is exactly the way it is.

I like to compare the fine tuning argument to the odds of my own existence given the vagaries of my ancestry. In order for me to be here in exactly the way I am, every one of my ancestors over the entire course of human history must have met and mated with the exact right person. If my great-great-grandmother on my father's side had married the boy her parents had forbidden her to marry instead of the man they approved of, I might have a different shaped nose, no genetic disposition to diabetes, bigger feet, etc. Or I might not have been born at all. In fact, given the size of the human population throughout time and the size of the mating pool, the odds of every single one of my ancestors mating with the exact person they did is so ridiculously low that it can't have happened by chance.

No, it's crystal clear that some external force must have been guiding each and every ancestor from the dawn of time until my mother met my father, ensuring that they met and mated exactly on schedule (did I mention the two miscarriages my mother had before having me?) In fact, given the fact that many of my ancestors traveled across the globe before meeting each other due to various political upheavals, I think it's fair to say that the majority of human history was manipulated by this external force in order to ensure that I would be born exactly the way I was, small feet, diabetes and all.

Except, of course, that had anything been different in the past then the outcome would have been different and I wouldn't be here discussing it.  If you tried to estimate in advance (say, 10,000 years ago) the odds of me coming out exactly the way I did, the odds would be ridiculously, impossibly small.  But if you try to estimate the odds now of me turning out the way I did based on my past ancestry, the odds are exactly 1:1.

Another analogy I have heard compares the improbability of the universe turning out just the way it did to the improbability of someone dealing out a shuffled deck of cards and just happening to lay down a complete suit (e.g., all clubs, all hearts, etc.).  From a purely mathematical standpoint, the odds of doing this from a shuffled deck of cards are 635,013,559,600 to one.  Which is, of course, incredibly improbable and you would be right to suspect that the dealer had somehow rigged the deck in his favor.

Except… let’s say I deal out thirteen cards from a shuffled deck and get a totally random mixture of hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.  What are the odds that I laid down the exact combination of cards that I did?  Still 635,013,559,600 to one.  How can this happen? Well, it's all because 635 billion to 1 against was the chance of getting it right before the cards were dealt. In fact, now they've been dealt, the probability is actually 1. Talking about how improbable something was that has actually happened already is not helpful.

Similarly, one can look at a lottery where the odds of any one person winning may be 250,000,000 to 1, but the probability of somebody winning the lottery is pretty close to 1 before the drawing and exactly 1 after somebody actually does win it.

In terms of the universe, nobody was around before it began to estimate the probability that things would be as they are today. Had there been someone, then they'd have calculated a very, very slim probability indeed. But here's a universe and here we are in it. The probability of this having occurred is exactly 1.

Again, there are two possibilities. Either the universe was made just to suit life, or else life evolved to fit the way the universe is.

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One other point to consider...  Let's assume that the "fine tuned universe" argument  is actually correct and that the odds of the universe turning out the way it did by chance are mind-bogglingly, infinitesimally small (further assuming that it did, in fact, happen by chance and not because of some immutable laws of nature).  How can you say that the odds are any better of it being created by some timeless, immaterial being whose very nature would contradict all we know about existence?  How would you even go about calculating those odds?  Regardless of how unlikely a naturally caused universe is, you have to first show that a supernatural cause is even possible before you can argue that it is plausible (let alone more probable than a naturally cased universe).