While I'm not entirely unsympathetic to his argument, this:

"a water molecule has two hydrogen carbon atoms"

doesn't inspire much confidence in his scientific acumen.

A water molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H20).

Hydrogen and Carbon combined make hydrocarbons, like methane (CH4) and so on. Not one of which is even remotely related to water.

God (whether he / she / it exists at all) is an irrelevent construct in the realm of science.

If, and until, we manage to find a hypothesis (or method) that demonstrates the existence of something like God, the existence (or nonexistence) of God has no relevance.

Science is entirely (and exclusively) about what we can observe and what we can predict from those observations.

Nothing unreal exists.

You are kinder than I am "there are some who call me Tim"

I think the entire argument is complete drivel, and this guy is as confused about what constitutes logical proof as he is about the composition of water.

Evidence that the Christian construct of god, is extremely unlikely is not proof of the non existence of "any" concept of God.

He is confusing the lack of physical evidence for bible stories as equivalent to disproving the existence of God. A proof is a mathematical term, and an absence of evidence for something is "proof" of nothing, is is merely the absence of evidence that something does exist or is true, no more, and no less.

When I finally understood this concept is when I gave up calling myself an atheist, and realized that the best I could logically agree to, was to call myself an agnostic.

"The 'you can't prove a negative' argument is wrong."

No, it's quite correct. You might be able to prove that "science has discovered no evidence" of something or "we have uncovered no evidence" of something, but you cannot prove that "there is no evidence" of something.

"Can you disprove the notion that fairies live in my garden? Well, not absolutely, but if you never see one, and they have no effects, then you can provisionally conclude that they don't exist."

...that they don't exist - in your garden.

This does not mean that they don't exist outside you garden. And it assumes that you have never taken your eyes off the entirety of your garden.

I think the entire argument is complete drivel, and this guy is as confused about what constitutes logical proof as he is about the composition of water.

I think believers and non-believers talk past each other based on a fundamentally different outlook on the world. When I was a believer, it seemed obvious and intuitive to me that there was a God. Now that I am an atheist, I too find it logically insupportable and wonder how anyone can view the evidence and come to any other conclusion--except that I remember how I felt before.

I guess in contrast to Isab, I am willing to call myself an atheist rather than an agnostic based on the preponderance of evidence that no supreme being is at work in the world.

We created god in our own image, not the other way around.

It's a bit of the self-centered, narrow thinking that also shows up in sci-fi movies, where most every "friendly" alien being is an upright walking biped with two eyes, two arms, two legs, etc.(like us!) and all the "scary" aliens have the nasty pointy teeth, claws, tails, and devil-like appearances...

these arguments work, if you believe that God, god, dog, or the flying speghetti monster are a supernatural human. That is to say, that their ideas, their way of doing things is comprehensible to the regular guy.

"A benevolent God would not kill off humanity in 5 billion years."

really? Why not? People die EVERY DAY. Should they not? do we really understand what this existence IS versus any other?

If the mathmatical proof about 11 dimensions is FACTUAL, we, as 3d creatures have a really hard time thinking about it, AND CANNOT touch the others given our current existence.

does the MEAN that those other dimensions aren't out there? Because we CANNOT experience them?

Knock yourself out proving this thing or that thing doesn't exist in your own infinitely tiny part of this small universe... it may amuse anyone watching...

but if we are indeed data smeared across the event horizon of a supermassive black hole... how would we know that?

http://io9.com/5860931/are-we-just-a-3d-hologram-created-by-2d-information-stored-at-the-edge-of-the-universe

does an ameboa know that there is a whole wide world outside of their petri dish?

I don't have a problem denying the existence of god, when we are just wondering apes staring into a universe that we cannot comprehend...

don't be so arrogant as to tell me that it somehow proves one way or another if there is a God. You have no better insight than I.

for atheists, SCIENCE is God, the yardstick by which they seek to understand everything. In the same way primitive man understood lightning to be a spear thrown by Zeus, or Raiju causing problems in the clouds.

That's not to say Science or Zeus doesn't exist, but that they don't encompass everything.

People are always looking for a great big idea that encompasses everything, EVEN IF, their own minds cannot.

Isn't that the definition of god?

This is something I addressed when I was doing my "A Liberal Christian" project. We won't know for certain whether there is a God or an afterlife until we die, and it's a "win/win" situation for those with faith and a "lose/lose" for atheists. When those who believe in God die, if they wake up and find their consciousness elsewhere, they were right. If there's nothing there, they're never going to know it. When atheists die to find an afterlife, they will have a lot to think about. If there's nothing, they won't be able to gloat about it.

"A benevolent God would ..."

Here's where he goes off the rails for me, to claim to know what God would or would not do is pretty ballsy. I'm an engineer by trade and temperament, so I LUUVVV proof, and inconsistency or in-congruency in the world rubs my fur the wrong way too. But seems to me he is saying that because God's plan isn't lining up with his ideal view of the universe there must not be a God. Seems like an arrogant and close-minded statement, I don't think he's done a comprehensive search of the entire known and unknown universe.

These questions of faith require me to take my intellect and logic off-line, WAY off-line. I have to experience them with my heart and spirit, they completely confound my intellect, and that often pisses me off. But experiences show me often that "There is a God, and it's not me." I cannot explain it, but I can no longer deny it. My life now depends on it so I stay open-minded.

We won't know for certain whether there is a God or an afterlife until we die, and it's a "win/win" situation for those with faith . . . When those who believe in God die, if they wake up and find their consciousness elsewhere, they were right.

What if you picked the wrong religion and god punishes you for it no matter how good a life you led?

We won't know for certain whether there is a God or an afterlife until we die, and it's a "win/win" situation for those with faith and a "lose/lose" for atheists.

This is Pascal's Wager, and it only holds if you believe there is no penalty for believing in God while alive. Pascal suffered severely in life because he feared he was damned. Humanity paid a price when he, as one of the greatest scientists and mathematicians born, gave up his scientific pursuits to write religious manifestos.

"What if you picked the wrong religion and god punishes you for it no matter how good a life you led?" - lujlp

In my post, I made no statement of whether the afterlife would be reward or punishment, just that the consciousness would be elsewhere after death.

He writes about math proofs at the link. This is just an excerpt.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at October 15, 2013 4:56 AM

Yes he does, I noticed that, but his characterizations of them, are also completely wrong.

I dont have to accept his assumtions (axioms) about the nature of God as true or his tortured logic to "prove" a negative.
This isnt science, it isnt even good rhetoric.

I agree with his basic assumption, there is no actual evidence that I have seen that demonstrates the existence of God as most Christians conceive of him, But even the top scientists understand so little about the physical laws of the universe, it is folly to claim that we can use these tiny scraps of knowledge to disprove something that we probably dont have the tools to see or measure.

SwissArmyDad pretty much nails it.

Some people just cant stand not having all the answers to secrets of the universe, even if the answers they think they have, are completely wrong.

They simply must be right, and everyone who does not share their views must be wrong, or how else can they continue to believe how much smarter they are, than all those religious bigots? This is a special form of hubris.

If I can feel the presence of God in my heart, but can not show it to you, does that make it less real?

Is all reality purely objective or are parts of reality subjective?

'Think about the families that have been broken up because one kid was gay and the Bible says "Nuh-uh." '

A person does not need organized religion to believe in God. Personally I have the same problem with organized religion that you do. I do not see that as proof God does not exist.

"Then you are not believing in it because you have evidence it exists but because you've shut off your rationality." - Amy Alkon

I wouldn't say that I've completely shut off my rationality. I'm just allowing some irrationality to seep in. I doubt anyone can be 100% rational all the time.

A blogger known as "Respectful Atheist" once asked, "If Christianity was false, would you want to know?" With all the faith-bashing on the Internet, I feel like I already know that it is false, yet I still choose to believe. I cannot explain it to your satisfaction and I'm not even going to try. All I can do is respect your beliefs and refrain from trying to convert you or convince you otherwise.

There's a HUGE cost to being so gullible as to believe without evidence.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at October 15, 2013 8:45 AM

People believe all sorts of things without any evidence other than someone they trusted told them so. Look at global warming.
Religion is only a very small part of assumptions we make every day in order to construct a framework for operating in society.

People are gullible, mostly because we are both stupid and ill educated.

You see religious belief as a huge time waster. I see watching football as a huge time waster, but I have better things to do than to waste my time ranting against either of them.

I believe in gravity, because so far, it has been a pretty reliable constant in keeping me walking around, but I don't confuse my use of it, and belief in it, as a scientific understanding of its properties, and relationship to the other physical laws of life in this corner of the universe.

Dang you people are smart. Definitely over my head.

"Even if life exists elsewhere, it can't be common..."

Says who?

"...and the trillions of uninhabited stars serve no purpose"

Asides from decoration, the lovely stars in the night sky serve a vital purpose - navigation. And they've served this purpose since long before our ancestors first walked upright. Scientists knew that dung beetles used the Sun & the Moon to guide themselves, but didn't understand how they managed to roll their balls in unerring straight lines even on clear moonless nights. Earlier this year, researchers put some dung beetles in a planetarium and solved the mystery by proving that they used the Milky Way to orient themselves:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21150721

And the ancestors of these beetles were rolling balls of dinosaur dung 200 million years ago.

"A benevolent God would not kill off humanity in 5 billion years"

Yes the Sun will swell into a red giant and swallow up the Earth billions of years from now, but that leaves plenty of time for humanity to find a new planet around a new star and figure out a way to get over there.

"Nor would a benevolent and powerful God use evolution or natural selection to create modern life and humans...There is no explanation for why a benevolent God would allow more than 99% of all species he wanted to exist to subsequently go extinct without issue"

Without issue? Where does this guy think new species come from? Dinosaurs are long gone, but the birds that they evolved into are still here with us. There are no more Neanderthals, but you and I have Neanderthal genes in our genomes. Everything alive today evolved from ancestors now extinct.

Extinctions, even mass extinctions, are not pointless cosmic tragedies. Mammals did not pop up out of nowhere when that asteroid whacked the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. They were already around at the dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs, but they were just small, inconspicuous furry things trying not to get eaten or trampled by the reptiles that ruled the Earth. After the asteroid, these humble critters crawled out of their burrows to a new world where reptiles no longer ruled, and so they radiated into a glorious array of forms, and the Age of Mammals was on. There was no room for bears or buffaloes or whales or wolves in the Mesozoic, because all of these ecological roles were taken by dinosaurs and their relatives. In the new world recovering from mass extinction, these roles were vacant, and mammals evolved to fill them.

Think of the Earth as a stage, and life as a play. Dinosaurs were the stars, and mammals were the understudies waiting for their turn in the spotlight. Then disaster struck, and the stars were gone. But the show must go on, so mammals put on new costumes and took over the stage. You don't need to invoke a deity to explain this, any more than you need to believe that a benevolent God created the stars so that dung beetles & hominids could find their way home at night. But if you're saying the existence of God is an unfounded assertion, it helps not to have your own unfounded assertions or errors of fact in your argument.

What Fayd, Isab, SwissArmyD, Martin, and Matt said. Great responses, people.

Amy, there's so much stuff you're absolutely right about, and I respect you for it, but this topic is definitely where you fall down-- a lot. Of course there's no objective/scientific evidence for the existence of God. But your need to demand that everyone live by YOUR standards and YOUR definition of "rational" is frankly just as judgmental and, yes I'll say it because it's a big topic for you, RUDE as the woman in my Facebook feed who's constantly throwing ultra-conservative tracts at me because she thinks I'm not Christian enough, because I don't hate Obama and think he's a secret Muslim from hell who's out to cause the Rapture.

It's quite similar with your assertions about suburbia. I don't want to rehash that argument as obviously you had a different experience growing up there than I did, but for you to assert that because YOU had a bad experience, therefore the suburbs are "soul-killing" for EVERYONE, is just beyond arrogant. *You* are NOT everyone. And I'm still waiting for you to explain why your experience is any more valid than mine. Maybe because you're a published author and I'm not, or because you have more money? Gimme a break.

The same goes when you assert above that people who go to church are "wasting their time." Who the hell are you to tell other people that are minding their own business where and how they should spend their time?? I have a funeral coming up in a few weeks for my Uncle "Butch" Dwayne, and I guarantee it's going to be religious-oriented (my family is mostly Lutheran). If you think we're "wasting our time" remembering him the way WE want to do it, and not you, then as far as I'm concerned, YOU are the one who has a problem. Not us.

What's more, even if God truly does not exist, church-- and the communal fellowship and camaraderie that comes from it-- has helped a lot of people through a lot of tough times. Again, as long as they're not hurting other people with it, and they end up reasonably happy, healthy and reasonable people and citizens... what difference should it make to you? BTW, if others get those results by beliving in Bigfoot, fairies or leprechauns, they can go for it too. You want people to get and stay healthy in body and mind, right? The rituals of religion, for all its faults (and of course they are legion), can still provide that, at its best.

As an atheist, I had a "Near Death Experience" in the 1986 or so. The experience took weeks to process.

I fled my body as a particle of light on autopilot and joined in a chorus of "souls" that I can not describe in a meaningful way. There were no Christian or other denominational requirements to enter, no pearly gates, St Peter, or questions about Jesus, Allah or Shiva. I communed with some intelligence that gently let me know that I would have all the answers someday, but today was not the day. That I had wanted to play and it was time to get back in the game, and that I wasn't doing badly by the real rules.

I know science says this is merely a chemically induced hallucination, but it was more vivid than any real life experience, and it moved me from atheist to something else.

I'm still not a Christian, I still abhor all organized religion. But I can't help but feel there is some sort of system in operation. It changed the way I feel about death completely.
It is impossible for Logic to overcome such a vivid experience, one that has not faded with time. I don't have a dread of death (other than the horror of people going through my stuff...) anymore.

I do not normally discuss religion, beyond identifying as an agnostic-pagan, if pressed. I've met a few aggressive atheists that are as pushy as proselytizing Baptists recently. Believe what you want to believe, and refrain from telling others what to believe is my philosophy.

Lengthy tome ahead.
---------------
His understanding of theology seems to have left off at about third grade sunday school. I don't exactly expect atheists to be serious students of theology in any religion, but Jerry is preaching to a choir of people with a very shallow understanding.

Firstly, when dealing with an omnipotent, infinite, and eternal being, that exists out of everything we know and experience, why on earth would you assume He is so very human?

"God, despite being omnipotent and desirous of our knowing him, has never appeared . .."

There's this guy named Jesus Christ who was a minor figure in Christianity. According to the story he was fully God and fully man so that he could help humans get to know God.

"There is no good justification ... for "natural evil" the suffering of animals and innocent children ... "

Again, omnipotent and eternal being who manifested on earth to die a tortuous death in order to save our souls. It's not unreasonable to expect God to have a very different view on suffering and death than humans do.

"Tests of intercessory prayer show no effect."

Prayer is not a coin in a divine vending machine. The purpose is to align your will with God's, not the other way around.

"Earlier "evidence" for divinity has been dispelled (creation, Adam and Eve, Great Flood, etc.)"

Basically, an argument can be made that it's not literal 24 hour days. If you find it compelling then it opens up a lot of doors for these stories to be "as well as we understood at the time." Like going from the Bohr's orbital electron model to the electron cloud. I'd expand, but my post is already too wordy.

"A benevolent God would not kill off humanity in 5 billion years."

Why not? Seriously. Why is this a problem for God?

"There is no explanation for why a benevolent God would allow more than 99% of the species he wanted to exist to subsequently go extinct without issue."

This is only true if you assume that mortal life on earth is God's primary concern. It's not. And throughout the Bible he only regularly concerns himself with humans.

"Why this largesse of uninhabitable space if God created Earth for humans?"

Did you know everything that exists that is heavier than hydrogen originated in a supernova? We are made of exploded star-stuff. (And that is SO COOL!) Also, considering the balance of forces involved to keep the universe from collapsing back in on itself or expanding too quickly, this may have been the optimal size of universe necessary to maintain everything.

And again - a being that exists outside of time and space. What is a vast and unfathomable space to us might be a coffee-table terrarium from his point of view. Maybe all the stars were just there to be decoration and give us something to do science at.

Jerry keeps assuming that "benevolent" means "doing what we as 21st century citizens would find ideal." The purpose of a Christian God has never been to make mortal life easy and pleasant. It's been to refine souls to make them fit for the afterlife.

I don't expect any atheists reading this to "buy into" my arguments ( because many of them presuppose the existence of a God outside our universe - which I can't prove of course). But his arguments to "prove a negative" are hardly compelling.

And just to be an equal opportunity asshole:

Pascal's Wager is an awful foundation for faith. Indeed, I question whether it is enough for salvation. "Sure I'll believe because I don't have anything to lose that way," is a far, far cry from "Lord please forgive me, a sinner." Religious philosophers from other faiths (predating Christianity even) have made similar arguments as well and they obviously can't all be right that their particular faith is the safe bet.

There is no evidence of divinity or miracles in the present world, and no palpable evidence of God-inspired miracles (prayers don't heal amputees).

This reminds me of an essay I read earlier this year (can't recall where I read it or who wrote it) entitled something like "Why Does God Hate Amputees?" The author made the point that while there have been instances where people with diseases have seemingly been miraculously cured by prayer, by appeals to God, there has never been a single case of an amputee who has regenerated a limb due to prayer. Now, if there is a God and this God does heal people due to prayer, one would reasonably conclude that this God does indeed hate -- or at least doesn't like -- amputees.

It's not true that there is no evidence for the existence of God. The testimony of people (in the Bible and elsewhere) who claim to have received communication from God is evidence. It's not physical evidence, nor scientific evidence, and it certainly carries no weight with me, but it is evidence by any commonly understood definition of the term.

This reminds me of an essay I read earlier this year (can't recall where I read it or who wrote it) entitled something like "Why Does God Hate Amputees?" The author made the point that while there have been instances where people with diseases have seemingly been miraculously cured by prayer, by appeals to God, there has never been a single case of an amputee who has regenerated a limb due to prayer. Now, if there is a God and this God does heal people due to prayer, one would reasonably conclude that this God does indeed hate -- or at least doesn't like -- amputees.

Posted by: JD at October 15, 2013 12:37 PM

Since i am not sending my money to Doctors without Borders, a reasonable conclusion can be drawn than I hate sick people in the third world.

A more reasonable conclusion, is that I am not concerned with their individual heath, and chose to direct my aid and resources towards other causes that are more aligned with my values and beliefs.
But of course your assumption was faulty, and your logic jumped to a conclusion that was only one of a million possible reasons as to why I don't support Doctors without Borders.

As Elle so eloquently put it, a third grade understanding of morality logic, and theology..

@Isab 9:05 am, I understand your point, but I'll borrow an argument from Penn Jillette: believing IN a god is amazing hubris. I don't recall Penn's argument exactly, so simplistically: from a cosmic perspective anthropocentrism is hugely silly.

One of my views of Abrahamic religions is, if the Creator of the Universe!!! truly exists, why have you reduced He/She/It to a narcissistic psychopath with a series of stultifying tales?

bmused wrote earlier: "I do not normally discuss religion, beyond identifying as an agnostic-pagan, if pressed. I've met a few aggressive atheists that are as pushy as proselytizing Baptists recently. Believe what you want to believe, and refrain from telling others what to believe is my philosophy."

+10000. Exquisitely well said, bmused. Respect begets respect.

Elle and Isab, you are Poe Masters!

Jerry appears to have a strictly materialistic approach, which is fine. What's the point of developing a PhD level construct of a phenomenon that defies proof and disproof? Well, in the case of String Theory, it might just yield the fundamental nature of the Universe. Physics 1, God 0.

@qdpsteve and bmused, people deserve respect but sometimes their opinions don't.

Dear God,
Please save me from religion.
Amen

Many good arguments, not enough time, so while I will be back tomorrow I will just say this.

Having been raised a Catholic, I whole-heartedly agree with justme.

Religion is the loudest single argument against God that I have ever seen. Never have so many atrocities been committed in the name of God as when the Catholic Church came into power.

Having said that, while I don't in any way support ANY organized religion, I would describe myself as a believer in a higher power.

There are just too many coincidences in this life for me to believe that Earth and humanity just won some huge galactic lottery. Too many things that make you go hmmmmmmmm.

While everyone's opinion is valid, as it is a subjective question, I believe that the lack of faith in a God, whether your Pagan or Anglican or worship the devil, is just plain arrogant.

If He/She/It did prove His/Her/It's existence, it follows logically there would then be anarchy. Why follow man-made law, when you only have to answer to God? Why protect yourself, when you know there is a hereafter? And, if you DID absolutely know that there is a God and eternal life, wouldn't that take the fun out of life?

I am reminded of the joke about a little girl on a plane, and a preacher tries to talk to her. She asks him what he knows about fertilizer, whether deer, cow, or horse. He replies that he knows nothing about it, to which she in turn replies "Why would I want to talk to you about God when you don't know shit?

As for life on other planets, how arrogant is it to assume that we would be able to see this life, or even know it for what it is?

"Religion is the loudest single argument against God that I have ever seen. Never have so many atrocities been committed in the name of God as when the Catholic Church came into power."

Apparently you haven't been keeping track of Islam very well.
The Muslims make the Catholics look positively benevolent.

Please don't confuse bad acts done in the name of religion as tenants of faith. The first is relatively universal. Evil will always look for justification.

The second is reserved for truly sick cultures who practice human sacrifice, ritual cannibalism, murder of infidels, burning widows on funeral pyres, and that sort of thing.

Isab: I believe you were looking for "tenets of faith".

That said:

Be sure, that if you are using an "absence of evidence" argument, you fully understand the theater of argument.

For instance, if I tell you that no "great Flood" existed as described in the Bible, do not use that argument that there is no evidence of such a flood. Point out, instead, that other events occurred during any time period Flood™ fans choose that simply were not interrupted by inundation.
This is more effective than trying to point out the physics, since many are simply ignorant of the properties of water, or are eager to claim that the laws of matter and energy were simply set aside by their favorite entity.

Alas, there are people who find reality terrifying, and the idea that they have some power rendering their fate, out of their hands, is more important than the reality, that what they do determines what happens to them.

Elle
Firstly, when dealing with an omnipotent, infinite, and eternal being, that exists out of everything we know and experience, why on earth would you assume He is so very human?

because just one line later you make the same assumption. Also in Genesis our god makes us in his image meaning we look like him, then a little later he tells the other gods we have become like them in our though process as well. meaning we think the same way gods think.

There's this guy named Jesus Christ who was a minor figure in Christianity. According to the story he was fully God and fully man so that he could help humans get to know God.

Acctually according to the story Jebus on many occasions said he was not god

Again, omnipotent and eternal being who manifested on earth to die a tortuous death in order to save our souls. It's not unreasonable to expect God to have a very different view on suffering and death than humans do.

For an all knowing all powerful being he comes across fairly stupid and powerless if raping a child into giving birth to him so he could torture himself (while asking himself to give a pass to himself and then denying himself that pass) to then let humans torture him, to then die and be resurrected in such a manner that no one who saw him recognized his face ever again all in order to save us from the hell he condemned us to. Doesnt that kind of overly dramatic scenario strike you as the twisted plot of a Bond villain as opposed to a loving parent?

Prayer is not a coin in a divine vending machine.

Yes it is

The purpose is to align your will with God's, not the other way around.

According to the bible anything you ask of god in Jebus name will be given to you. ANYTHING. The passage contains no caveat that it will only be given to you if god had already decided to give it to you before you ever asked and your shit out of luck if not.

Basically, an argument can be made that it's not literal 24 hour days. If you find it compelling then it opens up a lot of doors for these stories to be "as well as we understood at the time." Like going from the Bohr's orbital electron model to the electron cloud. I'd expand, but my post is already too wordy.

Explain light existing before the sun and stars, explain plants existing before the sun, explain whales being called fish, explain the lack of reptiles and insects being created. Explain the moon being referred to as a light GENERATOR and not a light reflector.

And no "knowledge of the time" excuses either. According to tradition the story of genesis was given to Moses DIRECTLY from god. Meaning any factually and scientifically disprovable claims in the story were the direct result of gods will.

Why not? Seriously. Why is this a problem for God?

Cause murder is wrong according to god?

This is only true if you assume that mortal life on earth is God's primary concern. It's not.

How do you know?

And throughout the Bible he only regularly concerns himself with humans.

Thats true, he did nothing as angles went about raping and killing humans and giving birth to monsters

Did you know everything that exists that is heavier than hydrogen originated in a supernova?

False. It is everything heavier than iron, most of the element lighter than iron are created thru stellar fusion

considering the balance of forces involved to keep the universe from collapsing back in on itself or expanding too quickly, this may have been the optimal size of universe necessary to maintain everything.

Assumes fact not in evidence.

Jerry keeps assuming that "benevolent" means "doing what we as 21st century citizens would find ideal." The purpose of a Christian God has never been to make mortal life easy and pleasant. It's been to refine souls to make them fit for the afterlife.

Just throwing this out there, how do you know we arent just cattle to a god that feasts on our souls after we die? Domesticated cattle have a great life for the most part compared to wild.

Alternatively, Jebus told a crowd of people in 35AD that they'ed all still be alive when he returned.

Isnt it just as logical to assume that he did return and this world we live in is the hell promised to those who did not believe? How do you know we arent trapped here forever being born and reborn to this existence trapped for eternity because we didnt believe at the time of his return?

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? -- Epicurus [341–270 B.C.]

Please answer that and claim god exists.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? -- Epicurus [341–270 B.C.]
Please answer that and claim god exists.

Posted by: Jim P. at October 15, 2013 9:09 PM

Ok, I claim that if God, or what one would define as a God, (a being possessing supernatural powers,) he,she or it does not have the characteristics that Epicurious assumed that a god would exhibit.

Omnipotence, evil, malevolence, and will are human philosophical concepts, and "god" is not necessarily either constrained or defined by these human derived definitions.

In short, it is a straw-man argument. Epicurious sets it up, so he can knock it down.

I am not claiming that God exists, just that Epicurious does little to advance any evidence of God's non existence, because his argument is philosophical and not scientific.

The problem is what definition of god are we going with?

The kind of definition which would make us today appear as gods to the average human 12,000 years ago, an acctual supernatural being that will never under any circumstances be defined by science, or God(TM) as defined by the bible/majority of western civilization?

My guess is most people debating gods motives think of him in terms of definition number three. And in that case we can ascribe human motivations and reasoning and emotions to god because in the bible god himself say we think and look like him, and who are you as a believer in god to claim hes a fucking liar? Doesnt that carry a hefty prison/torture sentence after you die?

You guys do realize that there's a big difference between God™ - the one in the Bible™ - and any entity one might derive from examination of the world around us, right?

I say that because the origin of natural laws and phenomena are still, strictly speaking, mysteries. Most of Bible™ content can be discarded as poetic license to appeal to the masses, as can modern nonsense words like "supernatural". They are symptoms of the human tendency to define and redefine things favorably, like the word, "creation", which cannot be demonstrated physically.

"God, despite being omnipotent and desirous of our knowing him, has never appeared despite his manifest ability to do so."

Um, has this dude heard of "Jesus"? You know, God in mortal form? Coyne, whether or not he realises it, just made an outstanding argument against the Flying Spaghetti Monster and a good argument for Christianity.

JimP: Epicurus ignores this thing called "free will." God gave us free will, to do good or evil as we please. We will be judged on how we chose to use that free will, but are not prevented from using it. (Or perhaps there are limits to our free will that are so ingrained in the universe that we assume their existence.)

A teacher does not force teenagers to study for a test at home, but the students are certainly judged on how well they learned the material. Same idea.

(Incidentally, ever notice how evil situations bring out the good in people? How Hitler brought out the Greatest Generation, a group of people who stormed the beaches of Normandy to liberate strangers? How terrorist attacks induce people to run *towards* danger to save the lives of complete strangers? All you see is the evil; I see people using their free will to do evil, and people using their free will to do good, and a God who will judge us in the end accordingly.)

There are just too many coincidences in this life for me to believe that Earth and humanity just won some huge galactic lottery. Too many things that make you go hmmmmmmmm.

This is why humans make poor reporters, as they tend to pick out all the "coincidental" events and ignore the vastly greater incidences where no coincidences took place. Francis Bacon said it better than I can:

"The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who, when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods — "Aye," asked he again, "but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?" And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass them by. But with far more subtlety does this mischief insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences; in which the first conclusion colors and brings into conformity with itself all that come after, though far sounder and better. Besides, independently of that delight and vanity which I have described, it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed toward both alike. Indeed, in the establishment of any true axiom, the negative instance is the more forcible of the two."

Incidentally, ever notice how evil situations bring out the good in people? How Hitler brought out the Greatest Generation, a group of people who stormed the beaches of Normandy to liberate strangers?

This is a tendentious reading of history. Although the Allied troops in WWII were pretty well-behaved as soldiers go, there were still cases of abuse, rapes, etc. Generally speaking, evil situations bring out the selfishness in people, protecting self and clan. We remember the cases of good because they are relatively rare and truly heroic.

As I said way up above, I think believers and non-believers talk past each other because of fundamentally different outlooks on the world. wtf, for example, finds atheism "arrogant." To me, there is simply no sign that a higher being of any sort exists except in the minds of humans who needed such a figure. To me, the idea that a supreme being exists that involves itself in the lives of one species on a tiny planet in the vastness of the universe sounds more arrogant. If I were a believer, I would be a deist, except that that just seems like a soft form of agnosticism.

Well, here's what I will say about atheist governments like Hitler's and Stalin's, they sure did a fair amount of damage to human life while they were in power, so not exactly a ringing endorsement for atheistic communities. Let's see 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians, Poles, etc., or so for Stalin. Maybe they just wanted to show those ignorant bible thumpers how to really get things done. Who needs a Hundred Years War when you can decimate a community in less than 10 if you really put your mind to it. I think I'll pass.

"does an ameboa know that there is a whole wide world outside of their petri dish?"

SwissArmy said it best, although are arguments aren't quite the same.

It is arrogant to think we understand enough about life and the way it works to decide that this or that evidence or lack thereof proves one way or another whether there is or is not a God.

Fayd also brought up an interesting point. You have to die to figure it out, which brings me back to the theory that finding out while still in possession of a mortal coil would spoil everything, and take all the fun out to boot.

"A benevolent God would ..."

And there she is folks! Arrogance in its finest form.

To assume that you understand the working of the universe to the point where you can interpret and judge the workings of a higher power is the height of arrogance.

To assume that a benevolent God would or would not do something is also idiotic in the extreme. How do we know it isn't for the greater good? Perhaps I am wrong, but did it ever occur that God programmed us to war on each other as some cosmic form of population control? If you do the math, and no war at any point ever occurred, how many more people would there be on the planet? We would have died off due to overpopulation. Assuming we understand enough about the universe to interpret and judge it's workings is like a mosquito attempting to understand a dolphin.

"There's a HUGE cost to being so gullible as to believe without evidence."

I've always loved the line; "It is better to have a good idea rather than a belief." You can change an idea, people die for beliefs. I personally don't believe in any one concept of God. Rather, I believe all of them are at the same time right and wrong. Gives me room to grow.

Some people just cant stand not having all the answers to secrets of the universe, even if the answers they think they have, are completely wrong.

"They simply must be right, ... This is a special form of hubris."

SCORE!!! You said said it much better than I could Isab.

Extinctions, even mass extinctions, are not pointless cosmic tragedies..... because all of these ecological roles were taken by dinosaurs and their relatives. In the new world recovering from mass extinction, these roles were vacant, and mammals evolved to fill them.

Convenient, no?

"Firstly, when dealing with an omnipotent, infinite, and eternal being, that exists out of everything we know and experience, why on earth would you assume He is so very human?"

Thank You!!

"There's this guy named Jesus Christ who was a minor figure in Christianity. According to the story he was fully God and fully man so that he could help humans get to know God."

OK, even I as a believer have a problem with this one. Even if you assume that whoever wrote the Bible was writing was they knew to be truth, chances are far more likely that the burning bush was simply the result of one hell of an LSD trip. While I do think the Bible is a book of lessons on how to live life, one should never take it literally, or we get the Crusades.

"Prayer is not a coin in a divine vending machine. The purpose is to align your will with God's, not the other way around."

A very good point, one which many people, including myself, have failed to consider. Thank you.

"Why this largesse of uninhabitable space if God created Earth for humans?"

Why do we assume it is unihabited? Why do we assume that all life will appear similar to that on Earth, or better yet, appear to us at all?

"The purpose of a Christian God has never been to make mortal life easy and pleasant. It's been to refine souls to make them fit for the afterlife."

Another SCORE!!

"One of my views of Abrahamic religions is, if the Creator of the Universe!!! truly exists, why have you reduced He/She/It to a narcissistic psychopath with a series of stultifying tales?"

Because if you follow Christian theology to it's logical conclusion, God and the Devil are the same person.

"Apparently you haven't been keeping track of Islam very well.The Muslims make the Catholics look positively benevolent."

I use Catholicism in my argument because it is the one I am most familiar with. And while I agree with you that Muslim extremists are evil, the atrocities committed by the Catholic church even in recent times are simply staggering. I've posted the link before, but this is one of the most recent examples I can come up with, as recent as 1998. They've specifically targeted children, which in my mind is far more heinous than anything the Muslims have yet to come up with.

http://wherearethechildren.ca/

"Doesn't that kind of overly dramatic scenario strike you as the twisted plot of a Bond villain as opposed to a loving parent?"

Again, God and the Devil are working in tandem, and are in fact the same person, if you follow the theology to it's logical conclusion.

"Cause murder is wrong according to god?"

Nope.

"Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel." (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

"Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)"

"Isn't it just as logical to assume that he did return and this world we live in is the hell promised to those who did not believe? How do you know we aren't trapped here forever being born and reborn to this existence trapped for eternity because we didn't believe at the time of his return?"

Very good question.

"A teacher does not force teenagers to study for a test at home, but the students are certainly judged on how well they learned the material. Same idea."

Well put.

Astra, I don't believe the lack of belief to be arrogant, but Atheism is not the lack of belief. At least, not the way it has been put forth here. It is the belief that there is no God based on the assumption that we understand enough of the universe and it's workings to interpret and judge the evidence or lack thereof as proof there is no higher power, which is indeed arrogant.

JimP: Epicurus ignores this thing called "free will." God gave us free will, to do good or evil as we please. We will be judged on how we chose to use that free will, but are not prevented from using it.

How can you truly be free to make a decision when all the facts of reality are being hidden from you, and according to most religions failing to "choose" to do as ordered results in eternal hell fire?

Bold, what wtf quoted

Italic, wtf's response

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"does an ameboa know that there is a whole wide world outside of their petri dish?"

It is arrogant to think we understand enough about life and the way it works to decide that this or that evidence or lack thereof proves one way or another whether there is or is not a God.

I dont see why. Such knowledge was good enough for rain, and lightning, and the tides, and volcanoes, and earthquakes, ect. The domain of 'god' shrinks with every scientific advance, what evidence do you have which detracts from this progression?

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"A benevolent God would ..."

And there she is folks! Arrogance in its finest form.

'And let us make man in out image' / 'Man has become like us knowing good from evil'

First, how is THAT not arrogant? Second, if true it means we think in the same terms of right and wrong as god, and are therefore preeminently qualified to judge his actions

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To assume that a benevolent God would or would not do something is also idiotic in the extreme. How do we know it isn't for the greater good?

Do the ends justify the means, an interesting question and one of the few I can not answer to my own satisfaction. Perhaps Hitler was a good guy then? After all as horrible as his actions were it did lead to a homeland of for the Jews. Sure 6 million of them dead, but it was for the greater good right. So we cant judge his actions as bad as we do not yet know what the ultimate benefits might be. Right?

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Perhaps I am wrong, but did it ever occur that God programmed us to war on each other as some cosmic form of population control?

Pretty bad form, as it isnt working

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If you do the math, and no war at any point ever occurred, how many more people would there be on the planet?

Assumes facts not in evidence perhaps a less war like breed would not have had a reason to have so many kids in order to insure the survival of their linage/culture

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Some people just cant stand not having all the answers to secrets of the universe, even if the answers they think they have, are completely wrong.

Such people are usually religious, sometimes not. But most of the non religious I know have no qualms about say 'I dont know"

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"They simply must be right, ... This is a special form of hubris."

SCORE!!! You said said it much better than I could Isab.

So how is such behavior somehow better, and free of criticism, when it the religious who simply must be right?

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Extinctions, even mass extinctions, are not pointless cosmic tragedies.....

Think you slipped tracks here, thats what the non religious were arguing.

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"Firstly, when dealing with an omnipotent, infinite, and eternal being, that exists out of everything we know and experience, why on earth would you assume He is so very human?"

Thank You!!

Why thank her, immediately after asking that question she went on to claim he WAS human

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or we get the Crusades.

The crusades were a good thing, it held back muslim invaders

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"Prayer is not a coin in a divine vending machine. The purpose is to align your will with God's, not the other way around."

A very good point, one which many people, including myself, have failed to consider. Thank you.

I notice you skipped my response where I highlighted the fact that jebus said anything you ask of god will be given to you

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"The purpose of a Christian God has never been to make mortal life easy and pleasant. It's been to refine souls to make them fit for the afterlife."

Another SCORE!!

Again, what if god is a rancher and our souls are fodder for the dinning room table of gods?

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"Doesn't that kind of overly dramatic scenario strike you as the twisted plot of a Bond villain as opposed to a loving parent?"

Again, God and the Devil are working in tandem, and are in fact the same person, if you follow the theology to it's logical conclusion.

And what brand of theology suggests god/devil being the same thing

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"Cause murder is wrong according to god?"

Nope.

So thou shalt not kill was just a suggestion and not a commandment?

As I said way up above, I think believers and non-believers talk past each other because of fundamentally different outlooks on the world. wtf, for example, finds atheism "arrogant." To me, there is simply no sign that a higher being of any sort exists except in the minds of humans who needed such a figure. To me, the idea that a supreme being exists that involves itself in the lives of one species on a tiny planet in the vastness of the universe sounds more arrogant. If I were a believer, I would be a deist, except that that just seems like a soft form of agnosticism.

Posted by: Astra at October 16, 2013 7:47 AM

Astra, I occupy much the same philosophical position as you do, but have a different perspective. I find both the militant fundamentalists, and hard core militant atheists are the same. Both are totally certain that they are right, with a complete lack of evidence for either of their positions. And I find them equally annoying when they attempt to convince me of the "rightness" of their opinions.

Isab: A more reasonable conclusion, is that I am not concerned with their individual heath, and chose to direct my aid and resources towards other causes that are more aligned with my values and beliefs.

OK, so God likes (or loves) amputees. It's just that God is not concerned with their amputations, in the way God is concerned with people who are suffering from cancer, heart disease, blindness, etc.

So then the question becomes not as the essayist put it -- "Why Does God Hate Amputees?" -- but "Why Is God Not Concerned With The Amputations of Amputees?"

This isn't the essay I read, but it addresses the same issue:

Does God Hate Amputees? by David Barash (a Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, whom Amy has referred to here in the past.)

Incidentally, ever notice how evil situations bring out the good in people? How Hitler brought out the Greatest Generation, a group of people who stormed the beaches of Normandy to liberate strangers? How terrorist attacks induce people to run *towards* danger to save the lives of complete strangers? All you see is the evil; I see people using their free will to do evil, and people using their free will to do good, and a God who will judge us in the end accordingly.)

Bridget, I see the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy to liberate the French (and others) from the Nazis. Heroic and very admirable. But I also see the 6 million people who were murdered by the Nazis in their nine Extermination Camps.

"OK, so God likes (or loves) amputees. It's just that God is not concerned with their amputations, in the way God is concerned with people who are suffering from cancer, heart disease, blindness, etc."

Not at all. Perhaps God is only concerned with man's spiritual welfare, and people's souls rather than their physical bodies. Maybe God exists but is unconcerned about what goes on at all on this tiny planet at the edge of a galaxy.

I really couldn't say, but this author again sets up a strawman, i.e. a god, whose characteristics which he defines and the proceeds to knock down, so whether God likes loves, hates, or is indifferent to amputees is irrelevant to the existence or non existence of a God or gods, which is what this thread was originally about.

Again, I am not a believer, I just find certainty on either side of the argument to be hubris.

Okay, here we go: God is imaginary.

That's why He™ looks remarkably like us.

And there is a BUNCH of stuff the layman does not know about the state of the arts in investigating our surroundings.

How long do you have for research?

Be sure to look for the differences between what you THINK you know and what has actually been found!

But I also see the 6 million people who were murdered by the Nazis in their nine Extermination Camps. - JD

Care to let us in on why you never see the other nearly 10 million?

First off, my position is that the is a God for some degree of "God" and that religion, being a construct of man, cannot prove nor disprove his existence. Failures (or errors) of religious text or practice can not be proof there is no God.

God's plan is ineffable.

You must have faith to know God. You cannot have faith if you have proof.

You can know God and feel God's presence. For lack of a better description it feels like being in love

"You cannot have faith if you have proof."

I'm not sure you know what you said here, but it's correct:

You cannot have faith about an idea or action you know to be factual. It is not possible to do so.

If you care, you make a distinction between "expectation" and "faith". No, you do NOT have faith that the pizza boy will arrive, because you have seen the store in town, know how pizza is made, seen the number in the phone book, and others have reported immediate success in ordering pizza.

With "real" faith, the words of another are treated as factual, even though there was no witness - and no one has seen the event promised actually delivered. It becomes necessary to fabricate reasons this does not happen in order to continue to profess faith.

One comment: the water molecule thing was a typo that was subsequently fixed. Like all sentient beings, I know that a water molecule has one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. (The original post was about benzene but I didn't remove the carbon.)

As for everything else, I'll let the argument continue, even though I'm right. :-)

Jerry Coyne