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.

Geoffrey Paul Goldberg (1939-2015)

My father passed away yesterday morning.  I was vacationing with my wife and son when I got the call from my step-mother.  I can't say it was a huge shock, since he has been in generally poor health for awhile now and actually came very close to dying four or five years ago after suffering congestive heart failure and going into a coma for a week after being revived.  In fact, the doctors at the time said there was very little chance he would recover and that we should all gather to say our final goodbyes.  Which is to say I long ago reconciled myself to the fact of my father's mortality.  The fact that he managed to recover last time also meant I had plenty of time over the last four years to rebuild some bridges with him and develop a much better relationship with him that we had when I was younger.

Still, his actual passing was sudden since he wasn't in the hospital or anything like that.  In fact, I had just seen him the previous weekend and even talked to him on the phone the night before he died, just to chat.  So, yeah, I wasn't really prepared for him to be gone like that despite everything.

All my friends and family are sending their condolences, and many of them are including words of comfort assuring me that my dad is now in a better place, that he knows that I love him, and that I will see him again some day.  None of which, of course, I actually believe, being an atheist and all.  But I do appreciate the thought nonetheless and certainly don't begrudge other people for clinging to beliefs that give them comfort or wanting to comfort me in turn.

How does one make sense of a loved one's death without a belief in God or an afterlife of some sort?  Well, that part's pretty easy, I suppose.  Everything that is born eventually dies, whether it be a fish, a cat, a horse or a man.  It's all part of the natural order, and it would be awfully strange if people didn't die the way that everything else in nature does.  Humans are obviously special, in the sense that we have a very highly developed intellect and a sense of self that provides us with a sense of our own mortality.  But that knowledge does not exempt us from the natural order.  So we don't need a belief in God or an afterlife to understand why people die or even why they die suddenly or why bad things happen to good people (and vice versa).  It's just the way things are.

How does one deal with/accept/find comfort after a loved one's death without a belief in God or an afterlife of some sort?  Ah, that's a much harder question and is probably one of the main reasons why there have been and still are so many different religions in the world.  We don't want to let people go and can't bear the thought of never seeing them again, and therefore it's very comforting to think that death is only a temporary separation and that we will be reunited with out loved ones at a later time.  As with many things, however, wishing and believing doesn't make it so.

As an atheist, I don't believe there is any extrinsic purpose to our lives, only the purpose we choose to give ourselves.  From a purely biological standpoint, the purpose of all life is to live long enough to reproduce.  Since we are intelligent, self-aware creatures, however, we have the ability to choose a greater purpose than that.  We can choose to be good people and try to make the world around us a better place.  We can choose to teach our children to be good people. We can choose to gain as much knowledge as possible about the world around us and to pass on that knowledge to others.  We don't need a God or an afterlife to define our purpose.

For this reason, I take comfort in knowing that my dad lived his life according to his own terms.  He chose to make a difference in the lives of others, and that choice will continue to have ripples throughout time long after he is gone.  He will continue to live on in my memory and that of all the other lives he touched.  He will live on in the genes he passed on to me and my siblings, who will in turn pass along to our children.  I will certainly miss him and his absence leaves a void in my heart that may never go away.  But I don't need a belief in fairy tales in order to accept that he is gone and take joy in the memories that I have of him.

As an aside, I often wonder what people really expect when they say they will see a dead loved one again some day.  If there really were a heaven and my father were up there right now, what would he actually be like?  Would his mind be in the state it was just before he died, a lot more mellow and kinder than he was when younger, but not nearly a sharp as he once was?  Would he be the person he was 30 or 40 years ago, a lot more arrogant and perhaps less sympathetic?  We all change throughout our lives, and none of us are the same person that we were years before.  We all evolve and grow and change, and sometimes it's for the better and sometimes for the worse.  Which version of us would actually be up there in heaven?  Would it be a version other people would even recognize?  I'm guessing people really expect our "souls" to be some sort of idealized version of ourselves, with all the good points and none of the flaws, but it's the flaws that often make us who we are.  And some of the things that some people might consider to be flaws in us are perhaps seen as good points by others, and vice versa.

I'm sorry my dad is dead and I will miss him.  I take comfort in knowing that he lived a good life and that I had a chance to know him both as a child and as a fellow adult. 

Why Do So Many People Believe in [a] God?

One argument I hear periodically is that, even if you can refute the claims of one particular religion, doesn't the fact that almost all cultures throughout human history have held a belief in some sort of god or gods mean something?  Couldn't this be evidence that there is, in fact, some sort of supernatural creative force "out there" and we all just perceive and interpret it in different ways?  If you want to get all scientific (and I always love when people invoke science to justify their non-scientific beliefs), doesn't it show that humans have evolved to believe in God and that it would only make sense if there were, in fact, a God to believe in?

Now, the easiest answer would, of course, be that it doesn't matter if a billion people believe something to be true if the thing is actually false, and humanity has collectively believed a lot of wrong ideas throughout history.  For untold thousands of years, people believed ("knew") that the sun went around the earth once a day, despite the fact that the earth actually revolves.  People believed that illnesses were caused by all matter of things (bad air, curses, etc.), despite the fact that they are actually caused by germs.  So yes, most cultures throughout recorded history have believed in some sort of supernatural creator, but (skipping the obvious problem that no two cultures could agree on what that creator actually was like) that doesn't really provide evidence that those beliefs are correct.

Having said that, however, I think the question does deserve a little more nuanced answer.  It's not enough to point out that people believe a lot of wrong things, since that doesn't mean that this particular belief is wrong (only that it could be wrong despite the fact that so many people have held it, or some form of it).  Instead, it would be helpful to provide an alternate explanation for why a belief in god or gods seems to be such an ingrained part of human nature.  Now, I'm not saying that I can conclusively provide the actual explanation, but I do at least have some thoughts as to one possible alternate explanation.  Someday I'll write a book on this subject and fill it with annotated footnotes to scientific studies and research, but for now I'm just going to go with a summation of things I have heard and read about, as well as my interpretation of what it all means.

Humans may not have evolved specifically to believe in God, but I think it's safe to say that our intellect and capacity to solve problems certainly evolved as a survival mechanism.  Rather than developing armored hides to protect ourselves from danger or razor-sharp claws to bring down prey, humans evolved the ability to anticipate danger to protect ourselves and to solve complex problems in order to figure out ways to obtain food.  When early man saw the tall grass swaying, especially in the absence of any evident wind, he realized it could still be caused by the wind but could also be caused by a predator stalking him.  If he assumed it's a predator and ran away, he lived to survive another day even if it really was the wind.  On, the other hand, if he assumed it was just the wind and it turned out to be a predator, well, he likely wouldn't live long enough to pass his genes to the next generation.  And thus, we evolved to see patterns even when they don't exist and to assume agency (i.e., that things are caused by mindful creatures) even when things happen by random chance.

Although this tendency to see patterns and assume agency was instrumental in allowing humans to survive and flourish throughout the millennia, it also brought along some baggage with it.  That's evolution for you.  Evolution allows species to adapt to changing environments and survive, but there's no guiding force to ensure that a particular adaptation is the "best" possible solution, only that it was better than other adaptations that did not enable a species to survive.  This is why we have eyes with built-in blind spots, appendices that serve no purpose and occasionally kill us by bursting and, sad to say, an intellect that assumes that every little bump in the night must be caused by some creature coming to eat us.

The problem is, of course, that our pattern-recognition skills are flawed.  Sure, they are good enough to help us survive, but they have also led us to see patterns where they don't exist and also ignore any evidence that contradicts the patterns we have convinced ourselves do exist.  If we, for example, see evidence of agency all around us, in the apparent design of the complex natural world or in stories of people being blessed after praying to one God or another, we are going to stick with our beliefs in those patterns even if the apparent natural design can be shown to have an alternate explanation or we hear stories about people who prayed and weren't blessed.  Psychologists call this "Confirmation Bias" and it simply means that, once we have made up our minds about something, we tend to accept any evidence supporting that belief and disregard (or ignore) any evidence that contradicts that belief.  And again, as a rough survival tool, confirmation bias served us well in the past.  The fact that 9 times out of 10 the swaying grass ended up just being caused by the wind doesn't matter if that 10th time ends up being a hungry predator, so it's better to just ignore the cases that don't fit the pattern and see the one case in your favor as proof that swaying grass means death is waiting to attack with sharp, nasty claws and fangs.

So, yeah.  Throughout history, human societies have tended to believe in one sort of supernatural force or another.  We don't know what that bright yellow thing in the sky is, but it moves and therefore must either be intelligent or else be pulled by something intelligent.  And when it hides for most of the day and things get cold, it must be because it is angry with us.  So we'd better pray to it and sacrifice things to it just in case.  And, sure enough, after a few months of prayers and sacrifices, winter comes to an end and spring returns proving we were right.  Except, we now know all about the rotation of the earth, the tilt of its axis and its yearly journey around the sun.  Does the fact that humans, in their ignorance, used to think the sun was a god and worshiped it accordingly really say anything about whether their is a god of some sort?  Or does it just speak to our ignorance and gullibility?

What Would It Take to Convince Me?

OK, so I've been watching more theist vs. atheist debates, and one question that often gets asked of both sides is "what would it take to convince you the other side was correct?" Typically, when the theists are asked what it would take to convince them that God doesn't really exist, the answer is that nothing could shake their belief in God. Which is, of course, rather telling, since it means that they admit their beliefs are neither based on evidence nor even rational to begin with, despite all their attempts to provide proof the existence of God.

Conversely, when the atheists are asked what would convince them of the existence of God, they usually start off by giving a snarky response along the lines of "a single shred of empirical evidence" and then say something like "if I looked up one night and all the stars had rearranged themselves to spell out a message saying, 'I am here.'"

Personally, however, I'm not sure a single bit of empirical evidence would sway me, no matter how impressive. Even if, say, somebody prayed to have an amputated limb restored and it grew back, I'd have to weigh that evidence against all the times when people prayed to have their limbs restored and it didn't happen.  And even if the single shred of evidence was overwhelmingly amazing, like the aforementioned message in the stars, I'd have to wonder whether I was hallucinating.

No, I think what would probably convince me more than anything else would be if the promises made in the holy scriptures actually and unequivocally happened on a consistent basis.  The Bible states repeatedly, for example, that if anybody prays for something in faith it will be given to them (not just that their prayers will be "answered").  The fact that most people don't actually get what they pray for, no matter how sincerely they believe, is just more evidence for the non-existence of God.  But if it were the case that Christians who prayed for things routinely received what they asked for (whether it be the health of a loved one, enough money to pay their rent, a safe trip, or even for a mountain to move from one location to another), I'd have to seriously consider the fact that maybe there's something to this whole God thing after all, despite how otherwise ridiculous it might seem to me.

Similarly, I'd be pretty convinced if faithful Christians routinely handled venomous snakes and drink poison with no ill effects as promised in the New Testament.  Sure, I know there are some fringe sects that do just this (well, they handle snakes, at least -- I'm not sure about the poison drinking), but the leaders have a tendency to die of snake bites after awhile...

Of course, believers will say that we shouldn't test God and that God purposely chooses not to reveal himself in such incontrovertible ways so as to not rob us of the ability to have faith in him.  To which I respond, "Then why did Jesus and his disciples make all those testable claims in the first place?"  I'm sure there are many other justifications why the things promised in the bible usually don't happen as promised ("God moves in mysterious ways", "the age of miracles is past", "it's all metaphorical", etc.), and that's fine.  The purpose of this post is not to point out the inherent inconsistency or hypocrisy involved, it's simply to state what would personally convince me that the God of the Bible actually exists.

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.

Every Theist vs Atheist Debate In a Nutshell

All right, so maybe the title of this post is a wee bit broad, but after watching (and engaging in) many debates between "Theists and Atheists" (a.k.a "Creationists vs Scientists", "Christian Apologists vs. Agnostics" or what have you), I've finally realized that every single debate always ends up following the exact same pattern.

From the atheist side comes the following points, stated in a wide variety of forms:

• There is no empirical, verifiable, reproducible evidence for any sort of God that is actually worshiped by any religion on earth (leaving open the question whether some sort of timeless, immaterial, non-interventionist, supernatural being might possibly exist beyond our ability to perceive it in any way).
• The various holy scriptures used by different religious beliefs to justify their faith are all deeply flawed insofar as they have descriptions that are at odds with reality (either readily observed or experimentally verified).  These include descriptions of the creation of the world, supposed miracles, historical events, prophecies, etc.
• Therefore, since there is no good evidence to support the existence of God and what little evidence is offered is flawed, there is no good reason to believe in God.

From the theist side comes the following points  (again, stated in a wide variety of forms):

• The holy scriptures state that the entire universe was created by God and therefore "God did it" is an all-encompassing explanation for everything in the universe.
• Atheists (or scientists) cannot completely explain every single observed phenomena in the universe and provide exact description of every single historical event or process that led the universe to be the way it is today.  And for things that do have a scientific explanation, atheists (or scientists) cannot prove those explanations to be 100% true and accurate in every single case.
• Therefore, since atheists can't explain everything perfectly and theists have a book that lets them use "God did it" as an explanation to explain everything, there's no valid reason to not believe in God.

In other words, theists and atheists are basically having two completely different conversations, and debates between theists and atheists are therefore usually "won" or lost" based entirely on how the debate is framed.  If the debate is framed by theists as "who can claim to have a source of All Truth," then the theists are going to win every time since atheists aren't actually making any claims to knowledge.  If, however, the debate can be framed as "is there any good evidence to support a belief in God or isn't there," then the atheists have a shot.

The problem comes, however, when theists almost always shift the debate away from their own burden of proof and atheists let themselves be put on the defensive as they try to prove how science has better methods of explaining the universe.  Atheists, however, don't actually need to provide an alternative explanation for everything theists claim can be explained by God, and they should really stop letting themselves get drawn into that sort of discussion during a debate.  Sure, it's awfully nice that modern science has well-tested and verified explanations for such things like how stars and planets form, how life evolves, etc., but that really has nothing to do with whether or not God exists.  Even if science had no explanations whatsoever to explain anything about the world around us, that would simply prove that "we don't know" and not that "God did it."  If a theist wants to prove that "God did it," it's not enough to simply point out that atheists don't have a better explanation -- they need to offer compelling evidence that God did, in fact, do it.

Once the debate is shifted away from "atheists can't prove that God didn't do it", it's possible to actually examine and refute any evidence offered by theists to prove that God exists.  If they go with the argument from design, point out the flaws in that argument.  If they claim their holy book is inerrant, point out all the things that it gets wrong.  If they claim that God is required to have absolute morality, point out that the Bible is full of moral laws that no longer apply today and that every single religion interprets God's laws in a different way (not to mention the fact that many atheists perform good deeds while many theists perform atrocious acts, often justified by their belief in God).  If they go with a cosmological argument that requires some sort of "creator,"point out how much of that argument depends on creative use of definitions (if you can), point out the inconsistency in claiming that everything except for God requires a creator (if you can make a special case for God, why not a special case for the Universe?), and point out that "proving" the existence of a timeless, immaterial being who -- by definition -- cannot possibly interact with the material world or be detected in any way doesn't really provide evidence of any sort of God actually worshiped by anybody.  If they resort to personal anecdotes ("I felt Jesus come into my heart") or so-called "Faith Promoting Stories" ("Little Bobby was lost in the woods and prayed, and then he was rescued!"), point out that anecdotes are not the same as evidence and that confirmation bias let's them ignore all the times Jesus didn't come  into someone's heart and heartfelt prayers weren't granted.  Finally, if they claim that a belief in God gives them comfort, acknowledge that being comforted by a belief isn't actually evidence for the truth of what is believed.


Shifting how a debate is framed isn't always easy, especially when theists know that the only way to succeed is to avoid having to actually justify their own position.  No matter how many times you try to point out that they have no good evidence for what they believe, they will constantly try to get you to provide 100% perfect explanations for everything.  And even if you do manage to shift the debate to actually discussing the evidence for God, it can be an uphill battle wading through the mountains of misinformation and, sad to say, outright lies that get offered as evidence that everything in the Bible is literally true or that religious miracles really did occur, etc.  If you know your stuff, however, and keep the debate focused on the actual topic, you might just get theists to admit that they don't actually have any good evidence for their beliefs and are relying primarily on faith instead.   And that's pretty much as far as you can hope to go, in my experience.  After that it's up to the theists (and those those in the audience watching the debate) to decide whether faith is enough to justify the way they choose to live.

Top Ten Misconceptions about Atheists - Part Four

Misconception Number Four -- Atheists Cannot Act Morally

OK, I discussed morality in some depth earlier in this post, but it bears repeating here the common misconception that a belief in God is required for somebody to act in a moral way and that, therefore, atheists cannot be moral.

Rather than rehash the entire discussion here, let me just make a few bullet points that explain why this misconception is, well, a misconception:

• There are entire societies that lack a belief in God, such as communist China, that are full of people being nice to one another and treating each other in a way that is, by all accounts, very moral.
  
  
• Morality existed long before the Bible was written.  Even if you accept the Bible as a literally and exclusively true account of human history, does anybody really think that people thought it was perfectly OK to murder, steal, lie, etc., before Moses was given the Ten Commandments?  Did people really need to be told, "God says that murder is wrong" before they were able to figure that out on their own?  Seriously?
  
  
• If "absolute morality" comes from God and is the only way to avoid any sort of "relative morality" (i.e., where different cultures think different things are moral and immoral), then why are there so many religions who interpret the same moral laws in different ways?  Why do some Christians believe homosexuality is a sin, while others think it's perfectly fine?  Why do some Christians feel that divorce is a sin, while others think it is perfectly fine?  Having a source of "absolute morality" doesn't seem to mean all that much as long as nobody can actually agree what that source actually says.
  
  
• On a related note, if God is supposed to provide "absolute morality" that is required for us to behave in a moral way, why have those moral precepts changed over time?  Why did it used to be a sin to eat pork and eat shellfish and wear fabric made of two kinds of cloths, but now it's not a sin?  Why it used to not be a sin to own slaves, but now it is a sin?  The standard answer seems to be that Old Testament laws (some of them, at least) were given to a particular people living in particular circumstances and no longer apply to our circumstances today.  Except, isn't that the very definition of "relative morality"?  And isn't it awfully convenient that the laws that "no longer apply" today just happen to be the ones that we don't actually want to follow today?
  
  
• Most importantly, who decided that any sort of "absolute morality" is even needed in the first place in order to be moral?  Morality is just a word, a human construct, that defines how people think we should act toward one another.  It varies from time to time, from place to place and from group to group.  At it's most basic, morality is simply a feeling that we should treat other people the way we want to be treated.  Or, more simply, don't be a dick toward others.  It's rooted in our evolution as intelligent, empathetic creatures and likely evolved as a way to help humans live together in a society instead of having to go it all on our own.  As a result, concepts of morality can and do evolve over time as societies evolve and there's no need to point to any sort of "absolute" morality in order to whether an act is moral or not within a particular society.   We may think France is "immoral" because they let women walk around topless at beaches.  Arab countries feel the United States is "immoral" because we let women walk around with their hair and faces exposed.  And each culture is convinced that their beliefs are guided by "absolute" moral principles handed down from on high.
  
  
• In short, you don't need to believe in God to think you should treat other people with respect, and a belief in God certainly doesn't lead all believers to treat others with respect.  In fact, you could argue that humans are inherently moral creatures and it takes a belief in God (or religion, if you prefer) to convince people to treat other people as "lesser beings" for not sharing those beliefs.

All right, my "few" bullet points ended up being more than just a few.  Just think of this post as strengthening my previous post on the subject rather than rehashing it.