Creation vs. Atheism

@Jzyehoshua (#449):
> Ahuh. And I'm guessing the fact that the Nazis also arrested 800 Protestant pastors and
> 400 Catholic priests while executing the leader of the Confessing Church, Dietrich
> Bonhoeffer, not to mention persecuting other Christians (e.g. Geertruida
> Wijsmuller-Meijer, Cornelia ten Boom, Sister Anna Borkowska, Clement Sheptytsky,
> Ona Šimaitė, the Skobtsova family, Irena Sendler, Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, and Maria
> Kotarba), had nothing to do with religion either? Then of course there was the town of
> Le Chambon led by pastor André Trocmé as well.

If you would have read my post carefully enough to understand what i had written you would have noticed that the snippet you argue against above was a DIRECT QUOTE - by Morozov in #185, as i made quite clear. It is not my fault that what your fellow theists write all day long sounds like the drivel it is once i quote them. It seems i own a somewhat inverted Midas-gift: the gold of godly-sounding phrases turns into utter nonsense once i touch it.

Aside from that: the people you named for your counter-argument were in fact not prosecuted because they were christians. They were prosecuted because they were against the Nazis. You will also find some glowing anti-semites being prosecuted or even killed by the Nazis, which doesn't mean they were against anti-semitism as such.

As an example how Nazi-Germany and the catholic church interacted:

Conrad Gröber (1872-1948), bishop of Meißen and later archbishop of Freiburg, supporting member of the SS. Here is a quote of his sermon, given on Good Friday 1941:

______Quote_______
Als treibende Kraft stand hinter der jüdischen gesetzlichen Macht die abstoßende Heuchelei und böswillige Heimtücke der Pharisäer. Sie entpuppten sich immer mehr als Christi Erz- und Todfeinde

(As driving force behind the jewish force of law stood the disgusting hypocrisy and malevolent perfidiousness of the Phariseans. They emerged ever more as arch- and death-enemies of the Christ.)
____End Quote_____

And before you tell me that 1941 he was probably "forced to say that": 1933 he was instrumental in making the Hitler salute obligatory in religious education. He was also instrumental in forging the concordate 1933, the first international contract the Thrid Reich signed. Other countries than the Vatican were unwilling to enter diplomatic negotiations with the Nazis. Also notice that the pope who signed the concordate: Eugenio Pacelli, papal emissary in Munich, later pope Pius XII.. He was probably less "forced" in 1933, when the Nazis just had taken office, when he wrote (Oct. 10th, 1933):

______Quote_______
I will not betray any secret if I explain that in the course of the last few months the contacts of the Church government in Freiburg with the government in Karlsruhe have proceeded in the most friendly way. I also believe that I will not be betraying a secret, either to you or to the German people, if I say that I place myself unreservedly behind the new government and the new Reich.
____End Quote_____

So, lets not get started on the collaboration of the christian churches and the Nazis. Not only would this be a thread in its own right, it would also show the churches in a pretty dim light.

But this really takes the biscuit:

@Jzyehoshua (#449):
> Probably the same thing that studying a physics book to see whether it's a reliable
> source of knowledge on physics would produce--an opinion on whether the book is
> reliable or not.

The distinctive difference being that physical theories can be approved or disproved by experiment. If you just show us one experiment that proves the existence of god we will probably all convert to theism. Mind you, by "experiement" i mean something as rigorously defined as in physics textbooks - not soething like "in the book of youknowwho there is this prophecy which later in the book of whoeverknows was said to be fulfilled". I also will not accept "you have to feel it in your heart" or such nonsense. Having lived through two heart-attacks i know what my heart feels like and it is definitely not god. I mean repeatable, observable, measurable, quantifiable experiments.

krasnaya

@havfanridindis
THE GUMBALL ANALOGY
Yes i used Matt Dillahuntys gumball analogy (Matt is the first person i heard use that argument although he may have got it from somebody else) to explain how i am not making any claims. To hear that you have had to use the same analogy shows the exact same
argument has gone 360 yet again.

"I don't think they feel any kind of fear."
Many do, especially in the bible belt of the US and even more so for muslims. Their entire life, family and friends, their entire community has this belief and for them to realise they are wrong would make them an outcast. They would be in danger of being shunned or in severe cases even worse. Think of fundamentalist muslims, sharia law and the punishment for apostasy. Okay, maybe they have no fear listening to the arguments but many, without any doubt will have a fear of openly admitting that they accept our arguments. It is literally dangerous for some of them to do so. If not dangerous then very bad for their social lives, it could effect their business, family and its likely they will have to start from the beggining to find a new social circle that doesnt revolve around dogma. This alone must induce
fear and i have yet to mention the concept of hell. Many christians genuinely fear hell, they would rather use that bad wager then risk going to hell. Surely going to hell strikes fear into these gullible people, and admitting god may be a biggest blag of the last 2000 years
is a sure way to get there (if it were true).

""Agnostics"" doesn't say much on its own. It doesn't even tell you wether a person is a theist or an atheist."

Yes i fully agree. I didnt go into detail on the defintion because i can tell you know that you and i (i assume) are both agnostic/atheists and that agnosticism is a claim to knowledge and atheism is a belief. It would be arrogant to say that i know 100% that god does not
exist, however this usually causes the theist to missrepresent what the agnostic part means. It does not put my belief in the chances of any gods existing at 50/50 odds. All it shows is our honesty in the fact that we cant know or prove god does not exist with 100% certainty. I am agnostic but i am 99.999% sure god does not exist, so for arguments sake i just say i am an atheist because saying i am "agonstic/atheist" will only be jumped on quicker then a tramp on on a sandwich. I have told people i am an agnostic atheist only to be TOLD that i therefor must think there is a 50% chance of their god existing. Yet again i was told what i know and believe. This is why definitions need to be agreed upon but that doesnt happen in forums.

I even posted this diagram qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-6a60e4868d500d8ac28de29441215528 but it seemed to confuse them
(that was not an ad hom, its a fact).

"Finally, if you want some really good arguements in favor of God, there aren't any."
Exactly, and this is highlighted by no theist bringing anything to the table. I was trying to trigger an argument that i have not heard but all their best ones have been heard and used so maybe i will settle for just a new argument.

THEISTS PLEASE CAN YOU GIVE ME A NEW ARGUMENT AS I AM TIRED OF SEEING YOUR OLD ONES BEING DEBUNKED AND YET STILL REPEATED TO THE NEXT PERSON IN HOPE THAT THEY CAN BE FOOLED. PLEASE CAN YOU STOP USING AN ARGUMENT WHEN IT HAS BEEN SHOWN TO BE UNSOUND, IT IS DISHONEST! (Rant over)

THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANTS
Yes this is probably the best they have and as you said its not hard to refute. We live in a universe that has all the constants that make life possible. The chances that we live in a universe that is capable of producing life as opposed to a universe incapable is 100%.
Its impossible that we would find ourselves living in a universe that cant support life. We are hardly going to be in a universe with constansts that dont allow for life so what is the big shock when we find ourselves in a life supporting environment.

Yes the numbers are shocking and very accurate but if the numbers were completely different and we were living in a universe with completely different cosmo constants then those different numbers would be just as shocking. The numbers have to be set at some point and obviously we can only be here to talk about them if they are set at the point that life can exist. If the numbers were different then that universe would have different physics, but if that physics still allowed some other form of life then they would be looking at very different, very specific numbers saying exact same thing "Look how these cosmo constants are perfect for us!" but the numbers have to land somewhere.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
To put odds on the chances of a universe with particular attributes (as theists love to do) then we would first need to know for how many universes exist. I AM NOT MAKING A CLAIM FOR THE MULTIVERSE, I AM JUST POINTING OUT THAT THEY CANT PUT ODDS ON ANYTHING WITHOUT KNOWING BEYOND DOUBT EXACTLY HOW MANY EXIST, would you accept odds on a horse without knowing how many were racing? There could be a billion horses for all you know.

For the chances of life to form naturally we would also need to know when time began, the less time the lower the odds. This is not so much about the cosmological constants but it just shows how theists can seem to produce mathematical odds without the data need to form those odds.

Theists putting odds on this universes constants is just pulling numbers from their arses (or from a hat if you prefer). We have no idea if we are part of a single universe or there are an infinite amount, and if that is the case then it is an absolute guarantee that a universe such as this will exist (actually an inifnite amount of universes exactly like this will exist). I bet that statement will trigger some arguments from personal incredulity ;-). After billions of years though that raises the odds considerably but this is a useless argument if you assert the universe is only 6000 yrs old. The fact is this universe is billions of years old, that has no effect on the odds of the constants but it does effect the odds of life being formed from natural processes.

NOW IF I FOUND MYSELF LIVING IN A UNIVERSE WITH CONSTANTS THAT DEFIED LIFE AND THE FORMATION OF ATOMS THEN THAT WOULD BE AN AMAZING ARGUMENT, THAT WOULD BE MIRACULOUS, THAT WOULD REQUIRE SOMETHING SPECIAL BUT LIVING IN A PLACE THAT IS PERFECT FOR LIFE IS EXPECTED, NOT MIRACULOUS.

Bassicly my rebuttal boils down to "we live in a universe that is perfect for life, so what? Do you expect to find us living in a universe that cant support life". The obvious answer would be "no". So why do theists find it so shocking we are living in this universe. My best theory would be evolution and that life evolved to adapt to these constants. As for the perfect constants for fusion, gravity etc and the universe being able exist then of course the numbers would be perfect. If the numbers were not perfect we not not have a universe to discuss this.
Again, what do the theists want? Do they expect a universe to exist that does not have the physical attributes to make it posiible. Life can only exist where the universe allows it, a universe can only exist where the physics allows it. THERE IS NOTHING AMAZING ABOUT
A UNIVERSE EXISTING WITHIN THE PARAMETERS THAT ALLOW IT TO EXIST.

This is turning into a word salad and i am not overly keen on any kind of salad especially the written kind. So i will leave it at that.

IF ANYBODY HAS A SOUND ARGUMENT FOR GOD PLEASE TAG ME AND SAVE MY UNDEMONSTARED SOUL FROM THE UNDEMOSTRATED GODS WRATH.
I WOULD HATE TO BE PUNISHED FOR USING WHAT LITTLE REASONING AND CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS THAT YOU ASSERT GOD ENDOWED ME WITH.

I hope that made sense i just quickly hashed it out because the post is getting long and you have most likely heard the response to the cosmological argument many times. It may be a bit repetative but hopefully you get what i am saying. AGAIN NOT PROOF READ JUST TYPED AND SKIMMED OVER SORRY, IT IS A LITTLE FORUM DISCUSSION NOT A PAPER AFTERALL.
IF ITS REPETATIVE OR TOO "SALADIFIED", IM SURE YOU GET THE POINT. WELL I HOPE.

@nuffsed81 said (#452):
> I have told people i am an agnostic atheist only to be TOLD that i therefor must think
> there is a 50% chance of their god existing.

Well, actually you don't have to: if i go outside there are two possibilities - i will be struck by lightning or i won't. That does NOT mean these two things happening have the same probability, though and most people, despite leaving home on a frequent basis, are NOT struck by a lightning at all. It should follow from there that the one incident is a lot more common than the other.

The same reasoning goes to this:
> WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

There are no "odds" at all when you have a sample of one. If i take a handful of water what are the chances that i hold exactly *this* set of molecules in my hand and not some others? Lets say a "handful of water" is about 2 mol (~36g), which is ~10^^24 molecules. To get exactly these molecules is a chance far exceeding any other improbability you can think of (in fact you could power the "improbable improbability drive" with that for a roundtrip to the restaurant at the end of the universe). It is easy to make up equally "improbable" events but doing so will always come down to this: you take a singular event and ascribe a probability to it as if it were a repeatable one. If one indeed could take a handful of water twice and show that it contains the exact same molecules both times - now, that would be an improbable event. But it happening once is just happenstance.

krasnaya

@krasnaya
You do realise i am arguing the same thing? My post is pointing out that there are no "odds" because we have a sample set of one universe.

I am also arguing the same thing that being an agnostic atheist does not mean i think there is a 50/50 chance of a god existing. I think it is extremely and ridiculously unlikely that any god exists and absolutely impossible for the abrahamic religions god to exist. Just being omnipotent alone has its problems. Can he make a rock so heavy he couldnt lift it? - NO. It maybe a cliche of an argument and it may sound childish, but the simple logic leads to the conclusion that this omnipotent god cant exist.

The christian god cant be omniscient either, if it is omniscient the it MUST be benevolent. Why would an omniscient being need to test anybodys faith or test anything at all? Surely if he knows all then any and every test must be unnecessary. Why did the bully god get Abraham to come close to murdering his son only to stop him at the last minute and say "i now know you fear god". HE SHOULD OF ALREADY KNOWN THAT HE WAS FEARED IF HE WAS OMNISCIENT. Everytime i hear "its a test of faith" you know its a cop out. Either this god doesnt know it all or he is a sadistic dictator.

Nuffsed2019 Plebs 1:1
GOD - "You must go out and spread the word of the god and make believers of these sinners so that they can be saved"
GULLIBLE PERSON - "MMKAY SKY DAD! I promise to spread the word to the four corners or the earth so the people can be saved.........but god?"
GOD - "What now son how can i help thee, ask and you shall be answered"
GULLIBLE PERSON - "Of what do we need your almighty power to save us from"
GOD - "YOU WILL BE SAVED FROM WHAT I WILL DO TO ALL OF YOU IF YOU DONT BELEIVE EVERYTHING I BLOODY WELL SAY, NOW STOP THINKING AND NO MORE QUESTIONS YOU PLEB!"

When i say "i am told that i must believe there is a 50% chance of a god existing" that doesnt mean that i accept it. That can try and assert what i must think but assertions are just assertions.

The "what are the odds" was not me giving odds, it was me pointing out that you cant give odds when you dont have half the data. How can you give a probability of an event occuring when we dont know if it has happened once or a billion times.

I am disagreeing with the theists claims that the odds of life are astronomical low. THEY MAY BE HIGHLY LIKELY and with new planets orbiting the habitable zones (goldilocks zone) of distant stars being discovered on a regular basis it is getting to seem more likely then not that life is out there somewhere else within our own galaxy. It is not a foregone conclusion, but it is highly improbable with the huge number of planets that we know of that life would only exist on just this one particular rock that we call earth.

To people not clued up on astronomy (a hobby of mine) the idea of life being on other planets may make me sound like a crackpot. However its not just me, most authorities on this subject are in agreement. This is not an argument from authority fallacy as the people i speak of are actually authorities on the subject and its not there words i am agreeing with, it is their evidence.

If we do find that life does indeed exist on these exoplanets it would be very unlikely that they have visited earth due to thes sheer distance and time it would take. Plus the physical barriers on speed. They would of had to have left their home planets hundreds of thousands of years ago. The lightspeed barrier isnt down to our technology, to travel fast enough they would have to break the laws of physics and turn the famous E=mc2 equation upside down and falsify relativity (unless they somehow did manage to bend space time but i dount that very much. Anyway i digress, the point is that life is turning out to look as though it is more common then we first thought. This is hard science not pseudoscience.

i went right off on another subject altogether then sorry, Get me talking about space or my limited understanding of physics and i start rambling, evidently.

The theists have gone very quiet! WOW............what are the odds of that ;-)

@nuffsed81

" Just being omnipotent alone has its problems. Can he make a rock so heavy he couldnt lift it? - NO. It maybe a cliche of an argument and it may sound childish, but the simple logic leads to the conclusion that this omnipotent god cant exist."

Your hypothetical simply shows that God cannot have all the power we can imagine, because the powers we can imagine could contradict one another. That does not, however, stop God from being all-powerful in the sense the Bible describes of having all power that exists.

@nuffsed81: i have understood you well enough. I was just reinforcing your point.

@Jzyehoshua said (#455):
> Your hypothetical simply shows that God cannot have all the power we can imagine,
> because the powers we can imagine could contradict one another. That does not,
> however, stop God from being all-powerful in the sense the Bible describes of having
> all power that exists.

First: from where do you have that? You can also only read the bible - like us - and draw conclusions from what was said there - like us. We just proved that *logically* such a thing as omnipotence or omniscience cannot exist because the sheer concept is inconsistent. Omnipotence is impossible because you cannot do something you can't undo. Either you can't do it or you can't undo it, but in both cases your ability to do is not infinite any more. The same with omniscience: you cannot know what you don't know because either you know it or you don't know it but not both.

You may want to look up "Russells set paradoxon" and "Gödels Incompleteness Theorem" for why self-referentiality (when sentences say something about themselves) is a problem for every logical system. (you may want to start with Freges "Type Theory", though, because Russell/Whiteheads Principia Mathematica was a direct reply to it. Also see Wittgensteins Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.)

You can, of course, suspend logical thinking and say "god is above logic" but that is just a very cheap out. If you deny logic it doesn't make sense to discuss anything because we could - just like you with god - simply deny logic at any arbitrary point. Holding your ears shut and shouting "la-la-la-la-la" won't make logic go away.

krasnaya

@Jzyehoshua
" That does not, however, stop God from being all-powerful in the sense the Bible describes of having all power that exists."

Where does it say that? Please point me to where it defines omnipotence as your special definition because one of three things is happening here. The dictionary has defined the word incorrectly, the bible has defined it incorrectly or you have just made up your own definition to suit your narrative. I will assume the dictionary is correct and the bible does not give a concise accurate definition which leaves you to make up your own definition which seems to occur quite often when it comes to this book of yours.

Im sorry if i sound bitter but i cant stand dishonesty so please go ahead and tell me where you got this special definition from.

If your have the correct definition (which you dont) then your god must be benevolent. Here is a very tired atheist argument but please @Jzyehoshua can you just humour me and answer this very common question:

Why is there evil in the world and why doesnt god stop the suffering of cancer patients?

I know its an obvious old argument that every skeptic spouts at every opportunity but there is a reason i ask you now.

Thank you

@nuffsed81

This is actually part of a lengthy analysis I wrote years ago on the Problem of Evil:

biblestrength.com/Problem_of_Evil

I'll quote from Presumption 1:

"God can be all-knowing of all that exists in the sense the Bible speaks of, and capable of knowing parts of the future as clearly evident from prophecy, without necessarily always having known what would occur. The Bible speaks of God being surprised and disappointed by the actions of human beings which would not make sense if God had inherent knowledge of the future. (Genesis 4:9-11, 6:6) The Bible also speaks of God looking down on mankind to see what is occurring (Psalms 14:2), which is consistent with knowledge based on decision rather than inherent without choice."

To go outside the page content I wrote there though, there are some things that God simply doesn't do because of His nature. For example, it is "impossible for God to lie." (Hebrews 6:18)

As another example, what about time travel? Just because we imagine that it can exist, doesn't mean it does. If so, it's impossible for God to have a power that doesn't exist, just because we think it should. In Matthew 13:27-28, the angels directly ask Jesus why there is evil among His creation if He made everything good, and are bluntly told that it's because an enemy (Satan) was responsible. God's absolute power thus did not prevent Satan's deception in causing mankind's fall, and it can be assumed that time travel does not exist Biblically or God could have just gone back in time and altered what happened.

@nuffsed81

What you are basically asking is whether God's power extends to the point where He can make something He can't control. However, that assumes that it is possible for God to make something that goes beyond the bounds of His power. You are, in other words, positing a hypothetical imaginary power that cannot exist if God is all-powerful. Just because you imagine a power, does not mean it exists.

Time travel is an imaginary power. We may imagine its existence, even think God should have such a power, but that does not mean it can possibly exist, or that God has such a power. God has all power (omnipotence) in the sense of having absolute power, i.e. all power that exists, not all powers we can think of that do not actually exist.

@nuffsed81

First of all, kudos for listening to Dillahunty. That guy is a legend. Maybe not the most patient person when it comes to religious nutbags, but definitely on point.

I agree with you, they totally have fear of hell and eternal damnation and most of them have social pressure at best and legal consequences at worst, if they ever even question their indoctrinations. What I meant is they're not afraid of our arguments and logic. Some understand them too. Their brains just can't evaluate them in an unbiased way cause their "truth" is all they've ever known.

I understand where you're coming from when talking about atheism and agnosticism with religious people, but I personally wouldn't change the definitions or the way I identify myself just because someone doesn't understand it. I can be patient, I can explain it many times with analogies and examples but I won't give in to their pressure and accept being called something other than who I am. At the end of the day, if they still don't understand it, at least I tried. We just stop there cause we can't have an honest discussion when they assert what my views are.

"Bassicly my rebuttal boils down to "we live in a universe that is perfect for life, so what? Do you expect to find us living in a universe that cant support life"."

What you explained there very elegantly and in more detail earlier, is known as the "Anthropic principle". I suppose you were already familiar with the name since you were able to describe it so well. This is a sufficient rebuttal on its own and I have used it in the past as well, but I can find even more flaws if they try to convince me that God made everything cause of some numbers.

Even if we ignore the anthropic principle for a moment, they still commit a false dichotomy by asserting that the only two possible explanations for the constants are either sheer luck or an omnipotent being creating them. For all we know, there could be a very natural way of creating them that doesn't require neither intelligence nor luck.

The hypothesis that most blows my mind is the one where universes reproduce through black holes with all sorts of different constant values. Therefore the ones which have conditions more suitable for the creation of black holes (and hence stars and planets and life etc) are more likely to reproduce than others. It's the same "survival of the fittest" phenomenon which happens in evolution and ensures that creatures will become adapted to their souroundings through a natural means, but on a cosmoligical scale. This is just a hypothesis among many others of course but the point is you can't just assert that it's either luck or God.

But even if we ignore this flaw too and pretend it's either luck or God, then luck will still be the most likely explanation cause of the so many assertions they make about their God. He's omnipotent, eternal and created everything. That definition requires so many assumptions that it sounds ridiculous. We can make much fewer assumptions and still explain the highly improbable values of constants. All you need to do is make the assumption that spacetime itself is eternal and math will do the rest for you. In an infinite amount of time, everything with a non zero probability will happen, no matter how unlikely it is. So out of the two options, the "eternal spacetime" is a more likely explanation than the "eternal God" cause the first requires fewer assumptions. (Occam's razor) Adding God to the picture as the creator of spacetime and making him be the eternal one instead, just adds an extra, unnecessary layer of complexity.

So that's my complete way of debunking the fine-tuning argument, but just using the anthropic principle is enough too.

@krasnaya

I usually demonstrate your point about probabilities using a deck of cards when people can't seem to understand the logic behind it. This also ties in well with the fine-tuning argument and the anthropic principle that @nuffsed81 and I are talking about.

"Suppose I let you pick 10 cards at random. Will you be surprised if they end up being the numbers 1-10 of spades in that exact order?" They'll reply "of course, that's very unlikely". In fact the probability would be (1/52*1/51....*1/43) = 1/5.74*10^16. But that's also the probability of any possible combination of 10 cards occuring in a specific order since the number of possible combinations is 5.74*10^16. So then I let them pick 10 random cards and ask "Why weren't you surprised now? The sequence of cards you picked was exactly as unlikely to occur as the 1-10 of spades sequence" The answer is that we assign value to the 1-10 sequence cause it has meaning to us, but that doesn't mean it has some intrinsic value or importance to reality or to the universe.

Same goes for the conditions that allowed for us to be here. They could be more likely or less likely than any other state of reality or the only possible state of reality, I don't know. What I know is that we assign value to it cause it has personal meaning to us. It doesn't mean it has any particular meaning or value to the universe. As you very well said, there are no odds when you only have a sample of one state. In my example, if I repeat the experiment and the second time you get the exact same sequence of cards, then you do have a reason to be surprised cause you have the first experiment as a frame of reference and you can calculate the odds.