(Want a chew toy? I’ve had a number of submissions to the “Why I am an atheist” series from Christians trying to play the apologetics game. Most of them are embarrassingly illiterate and incoherent, and I just throw them away; this one is at least competently written, even if the ideas are nonsense cribbed from William Lane Craig. Have fun tearing them up.)
Hi PZ, I know this isn’t exactly what you called for, and you probably won’t post this on your famous blog (understandably), but I feel quite strongly that I have two very good reasons for being a Christian:
1) Existence
2) The Uniqueness of Christianity
Now I’ll elaborate a little:
1) The universe exists. Disregarding modern philosophy for a minute, I think this one is fairly obvious. As far as I can know anything, I know that the universe exists. That means it had to have a beginning. Now, the existence and order of the universe may or may not be explained by the Big Bang (I’m no theoretical physicist), but it seems to me that the Big Bang still needs a Big Banger. Someone or something to start the whole thing off. Multiverse theory? I think it still needs some work. And evidence. An eternal Universe? Ok, but I think there are some problems with assigning non-material properties (namely eternal existence) to material things (namely matter). I’ll come back to that. But for now, I’m at the point where I admit that there has to be a beginning, an “uncaused cause” as the philosopher’s put it.
2) That “uncaused cause,” that “Big Banger,” the being that caused everything else to exist, must be the God of the Christian Bible. Why? Because of Christianity’s uniqueness. Say what you will, but after years of studying world religions, Christianity is entirely unique. To oversimplify my case: Every other religion requires an action (service, certain words or actions, good works, etc.), in return for a reward. Christianity is the exact opposite. You are called by Christ first, saved from yourself (that’s the reward), and then the good works flow out of gratitude, or a desire to be more like God. You don’t have to do good works to be saved. Can you see how this is unique?
Now, as to the point about assigning eternal properties to material objects, I don’t see how this is beneficial. Christianity says God created the universe, and He is eternal, intelligent, and caring. Atheism says that the universe created itself, and it is eternal, unintelligent, and uncaring. Is that really better? Personally, I can’t believe that this universe is unintelligent, nor that all of the pain and suffering I see is purposeless.
It seems pretty straightforward to me, but I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
God bless, and stay warm up there,
Taylor
United States
(My response: #1 is meaningless. Physics has evidence that our universe had a beginning, but there is absolutely no reason to suppose a cosmic benign intelligence was behind it. An avalanche also has a beginning, but we don’t assume it was a little man triggering it by intent. #2 is absolutely the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard (and I’ve heard it many times) for believing Christianity is true. Here, I’ve just invented a religion: you achieve salvation by hopping precisely three times on one leg every morning. If you forget and die unhopped, you go to hell; so long as you have hopped, you are forgiven and go to heaven. That’s entirely unique, but it doesn’t make it true — in this case, and in Christianity’s case, it’s just stupid.
Now compare this Christian entry, selected as the best of the religious submissions so far, to the atheist submissions, which were chosen entirely at random.)
I also think this entry was fundamentally dishonest. Those are post hoc rationalizations that would only appeal to somebody who was already biased towards Christianity. They are utterly unpersuasive and not at all compelling logically.
So, did anyone else feel an urge to hop?
Faith, Hop and Charity, and the greatest of these was Hop.-Arnold Judas Rimmer.
Mmm, hops.
Oh, not that kind of hops?
Sorry, I’m not joining till you invent a religion that requires daily consumption of an IPA.
You actually wrote that?
Glen Davidson
“Say what you will, but after years of studying world religions, Christianity is entirely unique.”
i.e. point out how much Xinanity has codified concepts from other religious traditions all you want, I’m just going to assert the opposite.
…kinda like how he took the opportunity to hijack a “tradition” not dedicated to his worldview and make it about his worldview.
Everything must have a cause! Without exception! Therefore god*!
Christianity is unique. Therefore it must be TRUE**.
*God doesn’t have a cause. SHUT UP, that’s why.
**No other religions are unique. At all. Ever. SHUT UP, that’s why.
Ah yes, the Seventh Day Advent Hoppists, I’d forgotten them. Thanks Ariaflame.
[I]t seems to me that the Big Bang still needs a Big Banger.
“It seems to me” is how we used to do it in the old days before we had science. And indoor plumbing. (Which kinda go together, but I’ll leave that alone for a bit.)
It “seemed” to Aristotle that heavier things fell faster–until someone went and looked at the evidence and tested. It “seemed” that every event needed a cause, but the origin of the universe appears to be unique in a lot of ways–most especially by having nothing “behind” it, not matter, not space, not time. And certainly no Cosmic Muffin. (Although I hold out a bit of hope for the Great Green Arkelseizure.)
My favorite part is the “Disregarding modern philosophy for a minute” line.
As in, “Let’s not use rationales, logic, or conclusions that follow from premises for a minute”.
“Say what you will, but after years of studying world religions, Christianity is entirely
uniquecobbled and stolen from previous and contemporary religions.”fixed.
1. There’s no necessity that the Universe, defined as everything that exists as physical reality, ever had a beginning. Even then, if it had a beginning, there is no necessity for it to ever have had a cause. Causality is not absolute, and Quantum Mechanics has pretty solidly demonstrated that particles (actually pairs of particles, but hey…) go in and out of existence without cause all the time. So considering that at the Big Bang, our Universe (and not necessarily THE Universe defined as above) was smaller than the Planck length, there’s nothing that prevents the whole Universe from having come into existence without cause.
2. Christianity is hardly unique, except in ways in which every religion is unique. Every single religion can point to something which can be considered unique to it. Why is the fact that belief is more important than actions (to *some* Christians, btw, not all of them) a sign that Christianity is the correct religion? I could easily argue that it’s a weakness of Christianity, not a strength. And it’s certainly not unique. There are many strains within Hinduism that take devotion and belief as primary, and Islam itself considers belief (the very word means “submission”, as in submission of one’s will to Allah), and not acts or rituals, to be fundamental to their religion. Actually, Islam is even more oriented towards the primacy of belief than Christianity is.
And when you state that “You are called by Christ first” in Christianity, you are going against the very heart of Catholicism, which is the largest Christian denomination by quite a margin. So, even “after years of studying world religions”, it seems to me that you still have a lot to learn about your own professed religion, before you can justifiably come to a conclusion about the nature of others.
Please put down your Craig books, and pick up Mackie’s “Miracle of Theism” (http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Theism-Arguments-Against-Existence/dp/019824682X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1321473509&sr=8-1). You’ll find that your cosmological argument has been thoroughly debunked even before modern Physics is brought into the picture…
Big Banger conjures the image of a nice plump breakfast sausage.
Heaven has a beer volcano…
RAmen
And the, ahem, Big Banger was created by what, the Perfect Banging? Where’d that come from? It’s the old infinite regress, oh, except there’s the magical “uncaused cause” that stops it because those words can be fitted together in English, not because they have any kind of referent.
So are Santa and Raven.
OK, everything’s unique if you pay close enough attention, and nothing’s unique if you mean that it’s not derivative at all–least of all the synthesis of Greek and Jewish ideas called Christianity. It’s a sort of unique blend, sure, with its own creative elements, but it’s about as obviously derivative as the coccyx is.
Glen Davidson
So basically an argument from ignorance.
Christianity is not unique. Even if Taylor takes a Calvinist approach to salvation, biblegod “requires an action in return for a reward”. God calls you to salvation, but you still have to respond with faith. All the other religions in the world can posit a similar calling-response mechanism. And of course, none of the teachings in the bible are original or unique to it.
Perhaps if Taylor is a Universalist his claim might hold some water, but if he is, that claim doesn’t really matter.
I still don’t understand why people who supposedly put a premium on having faith go so far out of their way to find evidence to support their beliefs. Why isn’t simply having faith sufficient for the faithful? Is it possible that deep down they understand that believing in something ‘on faith’ is absurd and are trying to find ways to square that mental circle?
humm, not really what came to my mind first.
Taylor, what you have written is nothing to do with why you are a Christian. You are a Christian because Mummy or Daddy or somebody you trusted told you to be one. Be honest.
I seek to be ordained into the order of Hoppist Monks.
Blessed are the IBU’s, for they preserve and refresh.
In the beginning, there was the Alpha (acid).
Blessed be Myrcene, Humulene, Caryophyllene, and Farnesene, for they bring goodness to the Wort.
Big Banger
If I were gawd, that would totally be my sacred name. YHWH. Fuck that. Big Banger.
Also, rip off of Craig? Hell this sounds a little Cartesian, which makes it how out dated?
Ohhh. A fresh one.
First fail. Not a “theoretical physicist” indeed or anyone that has heard of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle even. Let me spell it out. If the Universe has zero overall energy (perfectly feasible), then the mass and length of time it can exist for, spontaneously and without a cause, is i) big and ii) a long time.
The second half is just bonkers. Uniqueness as an argument for correctness? If I believe a carrot in my garden is the Tower of London, then I’m not correct just because it’s a unique idea. I’m wrong because there’s no evidence for it.
And this is the best you got?
What you’re really asking is, is it what we (you) want to believe?
Did we say a priori that the universe “created itself” (that’s your view of what we believe, since you don’t understand anything but your worldview, but we’ll let it go for now with this caveat), that it’s eternal, unintelligent, and uncaring? If that’s all we did, the counterpart of what you’re doing, then you could properly reject it just as we reject your wish-fulfillment.
We looked at the universe and noticed that it was unintelligent and uncaring, and went ahead and concluded as much. In that sense it is far better than you looking at its unintelligence and lack of concern and saying “That can’t be right.” As for whether it’s “eternal,” our “universe” seems not to be, although a multiverse may be–I say may be.
Glen Davidson
oh yawn.
Uniqueness (arguable at best in this case) does not equal correctness.
And if it did the author would be shooting itself in the foot because every single religion has it’s own uniqueness. The fact the author chooses the “uniqueness” of Christianity as the most important kind of uniqueness is pretty telling as to the depth of the argument.
What a pedestrian, stupid argument. But it works well on the merry-go round and around and around and around and …
I’ve never really been convinced by these “Look how unique Christianity is!” arguments. But even assuming that it’s true – then so what?
You say basically two things: You don’t know how the universe started and you think that Christianity is special, therefore you assume that the universe started because of a God and it was your God. Don’t you see that there are a few steps where you might need to elaborate a bit further there?
I don’t know how the universe started, so my logical next step is to not assume that I know how it started. In your brand of logic, the fact that you don’t know how the universe started seem to lead you directly into thinking that you know how it started. I just can’t follow that, there seems to be some steps missing.
There are some seriously vital steps missing in your second part too. Why is it so important to you that Christianity is unique? As PZ pointed out, it’s easy to make up a unique religion. In fact, I can think of a couple of existing ones that don’t conform to your “All other religions are like that, only Christianity is like this“-stereotype.
But even disregarding that Christianity’s uniqueness isn’t hard to accomplish, I still don’t understand why it would matter. You haven’t explained why that would make it true. There are vital steps missing there – you go from proclaiming that Christianity is unique to proclaiming that it is Truth with no steps inbetween.
Why does it matter? I think that the universe is a place fulled of wonder, discovery, love, life and beauty – but even if I didn’t feel that way I wouldn’t automatically believe in Christianity.
Wishing that something is true doesn’t make it true. “Is that really better?” is very obviously the wrong question to even mention.
Empirical studies lead me to believe that my foot really hurts. Now, I could instead have faith that my foot is fine. Is it really better to believe that my foot hurts? Doesn’t matter – it’s the truth that matters, not what I want to believe.
Taylor writes:
Most Christian soteriology requires at least two acts to be saved: 1) believing in Jesus as a god, and 2) accepting the salvation he allegedly offers. Taylor might want to read some of the explanations of why people are atheists, to understand why the first is problematic for many, likely impossible for some. Christians want to run right past belief as an act. Perhaps to minimize the cost of what they are selling.
It’s funny how ignorant of all the rest of christian denominations this guy is. I’m sure he’s one of those people who don’t consider catholics as christians (despite the fact that catholicism is the biggest christian denomination not only in the world but also specifically in the United States).
About uncaused things. Not only particles and anti-particles do appear randomly all the time; they must do that because otherwise it would be a violation of Heisenberg’s principle. You can’t have a true vacuum where no particles are produced. It’s one of the rules of the game, like gravity and magnetism. Saying these particles are caused by God is the same as saying gravity is God pushing things around.
Off-Topic: can someone help me change this handle? I log in through gmail, and it automatically takes my name and put it all in lowercase and no spaces. It’s pretty bad.
Sorry PZ, you failed:
In failing to specify the leg you have opened the floodgates of religious schism between the left leggers and the right leggers, while the moderate any-damned-leg-you-like-as-long-as-you-hop-ers will be pleading for peace and quothing No True Hoppist™.
And you don’t have any pirates.
Yea, sorry Taylor. The reasons you’ve given are not reasons you became a Christian. They are reasons you’ve come up with for why you are still a Christian. They are after the fact, and in no way convincing towards those who take Biblical claims as pointless mythology.
‘Edit Profile’–> ‘Display Name’
Say what you will, but after years of studying world religions, Christianity is entirely unique.
This really is quite remarkably stupid, even for a Christian. Every religion is unique, or it would be exactly the same as some other religion, and so, not a distinct religion. If the extent of uniqueness is supposed to be a selling point, then I’d be inclined to award the prize to Scientology (among those of which I am aware); certainly not to Christianity, which bears close resemblance to Judaism, Islam, and other Abrahamic faiths.
Beneficial? What has that to do with whether or not something is true? Are you really too stupid to tell the difference? It would be beneficial if holding your breath for two minutes was a cure for cancer.
Instead, you assign all that pain and suffering to the will of a supposedly omnipotent and benevolent being. Now that’s something no rational person could possibly believe for a second.
Funny I saw this advertising model in action somewhere else. The other day a pop-up ad broke through my pop-up blocker (it’s a miracle) and told me: “Congratulations, you have won an iPhone 4S. Click to claim your prize.. OK, so it is lovely for them, out of the goodness of their hearts, to provide me with a reward before I have to do the work of claiming it, but still I doubt there is actually anything there waiting for me.
This hoppist religion is awfully exclusive. What about amputees and paraplegics? No salvation for the handicapped?
Sorry: blockquote fail on the first paragraph, which is of course Taylor’s.
Lucmoreno, go to your dashboard and edit your profile to change your Displayed name
Would a divine creator have treated half of his created creatures as subserviant second class beings? The Bible and other religious books treat women as inferior, which seems to demonstrates that those works were the efforts of men and not a Divine Entity with limitless wisdom, love and compassion.
Yup, Christianity is unique, all 30,000 different sects of them.
Every other religion requires an action
you mean, like accepting Jesus Christ as your savior?
this same imaginary person who supposedly claimed you can’t ignore the past laws of God?
all christians have done is simply defined what actions are necessary differently.
that’s all.
History repeats itself. Here’s C.C. Moore’s response to a “believer” that infiltrated the first run of WIAAA essays in 1903. The believer, a doctor, was convinced that a prime mover existed, but left it at that. Moore’s response works for the above individual…
–
the Big Bang still needs a Big Banger
…and a fuckton of Mash.
Why does what you or I want have anything to do with what is reality.
Glad to see you excusing your god’s despicable behavior because it has some purpose only your god can choose.
And onion gravy. And mushy peas…
And that “uniqueness” gets you physics, how? Oh yeah, it’s an “uncaused cause,” so suddenly you don’t have to explain anything at all. Just swirl your magic claims around in your head a few times, and whatever spills out must be true.
Nietzsche noted the inversions of Xianity a good while back (not the first, however he covered them better than most), which he did understand appealed to people in large part because they were inversions. It’s a late proselytizing religion, it has to do some things that most religions don’t, and, not being very inventive in fact, inversions were what a number of minds hit upon. It’s really an old Semitic and Eastern “wisdom tradition” to go to the paradox, the opposite, the inversion.
So the inversions, including the supposed inversions of grace (but in the end you pay for your sins or “rejection of Jesus” and are rewarded for loving your tormenter, so oddly nothing changes in fact), have their appeal, that isn’t really doubted. They certainly don’t take you to any meaningful references in the observable world.
Glen Davidson
not just “a believer” note…
Certainly, there is nothing in the conclusions of Dr. Morris…
interesting.
father of Henry Morris maybe?
What fucking flavour of Jesus Juice has this guy been huffing? You are saved by Christ first?
Fucking awesome. I guess all the priests and proselytisers can shut the fuck up then, because their jobs were done before they were squishy plinks in their respective moms’ Fallopians.
I call bullshit on Taylor’s “years of studying world religions”.
All the entries from atheists so far have been personal stories, telling about the various ways their philosophies have formed. This is someone who wrote a couple of generic and fairly trite points on why christianty ought to be true, if only the universe was completely different. It’s not personal at all, and therefore the only thing that could make it worthwhile is missing.
I call bullshit on Taylor’s “years of studying world religions”.
what, you mean watching Fox News doesn’t count?
Just as all the other religions in the world are all wrong, in their own unique way!
The pirates are assumed. And you aren’t even getting your schisms right!*
… as it’s not between whether you hop on your left or your right leg. It’s whether you hop on your peg leg or t’other.
(*/Yes, we now also have a schism over the nature of the schism. I always sez if religion is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.)
1. Where did god come from? Why is it that religionists can imagine infinity in terms of “our deity has always existed” but not in terms of “We might get bored singing Kum Ba Ya all day in heaven.”
2. Okay, let’s assume that god has existed forever in timeless infinity. What was he doing before he created the universe? Why don’t Christians have a story for that? I would find that story fascinating! What does an omniscient being do when there’s nothing to be omniscient about? What does an omnipotent being do when there’s nothing to exert his potency on? Come on, guys, it was only 6000 years ago, much easier to get your mind around than 14 billion years.
3. Good works aren’t required? Oh, this is why so many Christians don’t consider Catholics to be christian, despite the fact that every Western (i.e., not Greek Orthodox, inter alia) christian church is a direct descendant of Catholicism, with lines easily drawn through history. I still have a lot of trouble understanding how a religion that believes in Christ as savior is not christian. Words have meanings, people, and the whole “christ” phoneme is a bit of a frigging giveaway.
Sigh. This apologetic was written in coherent grammar, but it has the same old boring lacunae in thought and logic that we’ve seen a million times before, and repeats the same old canards using the same rote language. I’m beginning to think that Christians are right–they’re not descended from ape ancestors. They’re descended from parrots.
The Urban Dictionary defines “banger” as a really cool, out-of-control party with beer pong. This kid might be onto something here.
“Do this in rememberance of me.” Services every Friday night.
Taylor says:
Modern physics is full of “uncaused causes.” Quantum events don’t have a (sufficient) cause, but they are themselves causes.
More relevantly, spacetime singularities like the big bang are by definition uncaused causes.
So the physics itself gives you all you’re asking for. How is it reasonable to demand an extra supernatural “uncaused cause” when the physical equations already hand you a perfectly natural “uncaused cause”?
1) Yeah…bullshit. Convince me that every event has to have a definite, and knowable cause (in other words, the universe is entirely deterministic), and I’ll consider not laughing at you. ‘course, that assertion flies in the face of quantum theory (more specifically, QED), one of the most rigorously tested and the most accurate scientific theory ever put forth (sorry biolo…erm, Darwinists). Admittedly, we do not yet understand everything about inflation or “the big bang.” The key word here is “yet.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not having all the answers just yet, because it means there’s something interesting to think about for the next generation of scientists! Point being, I’d rather have an incomplete natural explanation than space wizards.
Besides, nothing has ever been discovered by a bunch of old white men sitting around and discussing how improbable existence really is. Fuck philosophy.
2) Soooo…I can just sit on my arse and watch children in Africa starve, and still be a good person? I gotta say, I like your appeal to my laziness! It’s just a crying shame that I do have enough of a conscience to see some major flaws in that assertion, mostly the whole “oh fuck it, this life is nothing more than a transient state” attitude. Look, if I had to pick some meaningless term to define my philosophical outlook, it would be nihilism. But even I am not as cold as what you’re suggesting I should be doing with my life…
Look, Taylor, it’s not that I don’t understand the appeal in easy answers. I do, I really do! But you see, once you get to a certain level of education and/or intelligence, you’ll realize that your easy answers are far more convoluted than any natural explanation (take that with a grain of salt, since this is coming from a theoretical chemistry grad student). All I can really say is that quantum mechanics and the standard model make a hell of a lot more sense than anything in the mess of a religion you call your own.
PS: The proper term would be “cosmologist,” or “astrophysicist.”
Ho ho ho ho ho! Christianity–ain’t it special? It’s special, so it must be true!
Sheesh. Even when I was a Christian, I never thought such a stupid thing. Get a grip, Taylor!
Christianity doesn’t have rewards? Christianity doesn’t require action? Isn’t the idea of a party in the sky some kind of reward? Isn’t choosing to maintain faith some kind of action? At least you’re right about one thing, Christians don’t care how good a person is–any old charlatan or murderer will do.
Wait, so now Christianity has rewards? OOooo-K.
By that logic, most Christians aren’t Christian. And they call us smug. And isn’t it quite the contradiction that ‘good works flow’ but you don’t have to do them? So which is it? You can’t have it both ways!
Fully.
I have an idea that “Studying” means reading the wiki entry for world religions.
And then having his pastor tell him how wrong they are.
Maybe interspersed with some “History” channel shows.
“Ok, but I think there are some problems with assigning non-material properties (namely eternal existence) to material things (namely matter).”
Oh you are such a moron.
And it gets worse:
“But for now, I’m at the point where I admit that there has to be a beginning, an “uncaused cause” as the philosopher’s put it.”
Ahh.. “Taylor” you have a very limited mind.
LewisX #30
I feel that the more you learn about christianity the more parallels to an advertising model you will find. I’m convinced that christianity isn’t a religion, but an advertising campaign that sells the hope for eternal happiness after death and charges loyalty and money (tithing).
Crow #31
No there isn’t. Being unable to hop for whatever reason is proof that you have angered the Prime Hopper.
Didn’t Tolstoy say that every unhappy religion is unhappy in its own way? “Unique” doesn’t seem to be a good thing, necessarily.
A friend of mine and I have a half-assed dream of being a professional wrestling tag team one day and when we get to talk (he’s in Afghanistan) one of our common discussions is about what we’d call ourselves.
The Big Banger just jumped up to the top of my list. I’m not sure what to call the tag team itself but I could see our signature move being called the Laplace Transformation- it transforms your face!
Actually, Judaism (you may have heard of it–it’s the pre-existing tradition whose scripture you guys crib from) isn’t modeled around a fee-for-service business plan as you describe either. In fact, perhaps the principle difference between Judaism and Christianity is that Christianity is all about getting paid–achieving a personal salvation through faith or good works, depending on which flavor of Christianity you embrace–while Judaism is all about rolling up your sleeves and getting on with an appointed task: tikkun olam, perfecting creation.
If these really are your reasons for embracing Christianity I respectfully submit you need to identify much better reasons.
Whoa! Hold on there. You left out a very important step.
Before you start to focus on which God caused the Big Bang, you have to make a case for an “uncaused cause” being mind-like. Otherwise, the uncaused cause (if one is needed at all) could be a quantum fluctuation, a superstring brane, or some other mindless mechanism working without intention or goal. And that will not be God, or a god, or anything god-like.
This is where the rational science-y part of your argument breaks down. You’re appealing to the child-like intuition that agent-causation is a special kind of power which is totally separate from matter, energy, and the natural world. When you will your finger to move, it moves because of the force of the thought itself — for this is what it feels like and we can’t see how it works otherwise. We extend this assumption out into the universe as a whole. The primitive view is that Minds exist apart from and above physical laws and thus can be or do anything we want, an all-purpose explanation which needs no further explanation. Like comes from like. Mind just is, and can’t be reduced to anything that isn’t mental in essence.
We have discovered that this is not true. That it’s superficial, and wrong.
This is where you have to do all your work, I think. Right here. If you can’t get over this, then everything else falls apart, including the Bible and the so-called “uniqueness” of Christianity.
What seems pretty straightforward to me is that your reason for believing in God isn’t really based on any thoughtful analysis of evidence and argument, but on a fundamental inability to believe that the universe is not formed in our image and thus very concerned with making sure everything turns out all right for us. This inability isn’t an intellectual one: it’s an emotional one. You can mature out of it — because you know better than this, don’t you?
You are not God. You have to accept reality and work with it. You don’t get to create it.
Ok so far…
We can’t be certain about this. The universe at large is not like a living creature, a planet or even a star – it is possible that it just ‘is’ and has no beginning as we would understand it.
The Big bang is a more credible explanation than ‘a magic man in the sky did it’.
That makes two of us.
Why? Why can’t the universe simply be an emergent property of reality? Also, before the universe, there was no matter and likely no time, so why even propose the idea of ‘someone’ creating it? How is it credible to propose the existence of a complex sentience before the universe itself came to be?
It is still being worked on, and ways of gathering evidence are being looked into – can you say the same for your ‘goddidit’ hypothesis?
Maybe you should look into the concept of conservation of energy.
Even if we grant this ‘uncaused cause’ concept for a moment, why do you assume that it is Yahweh? Why not any of the multitude of other gods in human hstory? Or something that we have no knowledge of at all? Why must it even be a sentient entity capable of agency? Why can’t the ‘uncaused cause’ simply be the universe itself? You can’t simply claim ‘uncaused cause = the Abrahamic christian god’ without some kind of evidence that this deity of yours actually exists.
Non sequitur.
Actually, christianity borrows heavily from earlier faith systems. The corporeal messiah, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Great Flood, the cosmic battle between good and evil and pretty much every other major doctorine of christianity has been lifted wholesale from one earlier religion or another, particularly the Ancient Greek and Egyptian Pantheons, as you would expect if christianity was simply another cultural manifestation of existing creation mythology and deity tropes in society.
And even if christianity were culturally unique, that would not amount to evidence that its claims are true.
Doesn’t Catholicism require works alongside faith? Isn’t the demand for faith itself a requirement in return for supposed ‘salvation’? On what basis, other than confirmation bias, do you claim that being ‘called by Christ’ is anything other than a personal belief? A position adopted out of a desire to acheive the afterlife promised by christianity?
As for Christian ‘good works’ – have you ever bothered studying the history of your religion? Particualrly the actions of theocratic christian societies? Or the contemporary actions of many christian groups? Their ‘good works’ often manifest as the promotion of dangerous ignorance and the promulgation of toxic bigotry against women, homosexuals, atheists and the followers of other religions – hardly a glowing endorsement of the moral standing of your faith.
There are forms of Buddhism that require that the observant seek ‘spiritual enlightenment’ through various meditative techniques without any particular call for good works in broader society.
The argument from incredulity is not persuasive. What you want to believe is irrelevant – it has no bearing on that which actually exists. The evidence supports a non-sentient universe. Whether or not it is ‘eternal’ has yet to be discovered. The evidence doesn’t support the existence of a non-corporeal super-intelligence that created the universe, and, as any rationalist will tell you, without evidence the null hypothesis must hold.
I’d like to say something nice about Taylor’s submission and this is all I could come up with:
At least he/she tried to provide an explanation. It’s not a valid or sound argument, but it’s an attempt. That’s a lot better than just playing the “Bible told me so” card. Or “I can feel that God exists.”
Swing and a miss, but at least they stepped up to the plate.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
I would love to live in a world with a benevolent god looking out for all of us. I’d also love to live in a world where animated woodland creatures fly through my kitchen window to sing a jaunty work song while they wash my dishes for me. The trouble is that I live in a world where there isn’t a shred of evidence to lead me to believe that either of those things exist.
Conga rats, you just made an argument from personal incredulity !
With tomato sauce and cheese, if I’ve watched my “Law & Order” correctly…
Dibs on “Big Banger” as a porn star name. Not that I currently plan on pursuing this career path, but one never knows…
I believe it earns you transfer credits towards a degree at the University of Google.
Is that why they love their crackers so?
Taylor asked:
It’s whether it is true that matters.
Why would the desirability of something have anything to do with whether it is true? And why would anyone believe something just because it was desirable? If you are suggesting that to be deluded and happy is a worthy goal, hope it brings you much joy. I’ll live in the real world.
As Crow says
A bit like asking a doctor to “forget modern medicine for a minute” and breaking out the leeches and sacrificial chicken. Winner.
And as for part 2… Er, wow. So because something isn’t like everything else therefore it’s true? Hmm. I think that I may have an automobile to sell this guy. It’s not like any other automobile in that it’s invisible and only manifests at the repeated clubbing of your own genitals with a brick.
Not even wrong.
One more reason why Brownian has a host of admirers.
Why I’m a FSM cult member:
1) Spaghetti exists, and is delicious, therefore, there must be a Greater Progenitor Pasta. Because that makes sense to me, and if it doesn’t make sense to you, you’re doin’ it wrong.
2) The cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is unique, because pirates. Motherfuckin’ pirates! Pirate garb is WAY cooler than any other religion’s traditional regalia, so FSM must be the One True Way! (And we will forever battle the tides of darkness – which come in the form of ninjas, our mortal frenemies – by being loud and lusty and drinking lots of grog.)
I don’t see how anyone can experience the wonder and glory that is pasta with marinara and meatballs and not believe this.
Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Doesn’t that suggest that yes, matter IS eternal in some form or another? Wouldn’t that make eternal existence a very material property to assign to this material thing? And if it is eternal, that would mean it is uncaused, thereby conforming to the whole “you can’t have an infinite regress” rule Aristotle set up that necessitates a first efficient necessary cause.
The fact that Christianity is unique in nature (assuming it is) says nothing about its truth or falsehood. The claim that there is a little man who lives in my finger and gives me good advice is certainly a unique claim. That doesn’t make it true.
I find it interesting that Christianity always acts like EVERY religion is concerned with “salvation”. If heaven’s a reward for good deeds, then going there means being rewarded for your actions, not saved from hell. It’s only Christianity that seems to think that one cannot deserve reward for good actions, only lack of punishment.
I wouldn’t, but it does give me an idea for a new slogan:
Christianity–we’d rather be hamsters!
I can. Ain’t that hard.
At least, for a certain value of “purpose”. Some people just can’t accept the purposes of anyone down here, and think it all has to be for one big grand purpose. They all want to be cogs in a machine for some reason. And then they can never articulate just what that purpose is. I think it’s just masturbation myself.
Not only that, but if he had tied his Christianity to losing his grandma or somesuch, we might (might) have been less inclined to tear his post to shreds. Bit of a tactical error there.
haaayoooooo
Hi folks. Seems like the uniqueness argument is well taken care of, so I’ll go for his first point.
Is it just me or does the first cause argument fail even if you accept the premise, namely that there has to be a first cause that is timeless? In one extreme, we could posit the existence of some simple mechanism as that cause. On the other extreme, a sentient but (somehow) timeless magical being of infinite complexity. Now which of these two options has evidence on its side and which is massively unparsimoneous? Now I’ve studied probabilistic reasoning a bit, and what this seem to say is that unnecessary complexity=unlikely. It’s not too hard to understand why either. Prediction strength is the way to assess whether some statement, let’s call it a model, holds water (unless pure deductive logic can falsify it). So a model with less room for adjustment that still manages to describe the information you have, will do so with more certainty than a model with lots of extra bells and whistles. Now there’s no “model”, no candidate for first cause, with more bells and whistles than the sentient all-powerful superintelligent magical being the religious call God. So, God has to be the worst candidate for first cause imaginable! Only if you can find massive evidence against every other candidate for first cause, will the goddidit explanation start to look anything but incredibly unlikely. (And that’s assuming that the universe needs a timeless first cause.) Make sense?
You know theists are always asking us what it would take to convince me god was real? This. I would instantly convert and be the most annoying evangelist ever, if god (first existed and then) could produce this.
Then, I’m going to start an order called the Maltist Nuns. Together, we’d make kick ass brew.
I’m no theoretical physicist either, but it looks like you are conflating the beginning of our universe as we know it with the beginning of existence itself.
I don’t know that existence needs to have a beginning. It seems to this non-physicist that you can’t have causation without time. If time began with the Big Bang, then demanding that existence have a cause is demanding that the origins of time behave like an event within time. And that would appear to be nonsense.
Even if we grant your premise that a cause is needed, you state there are two possibilities: 1. Someone and 2. Something. Then you jump straight to assuming it’s a Someone without ever explaining why this is more realistic than Something.
Christianity is unique because it is the only one to believe in Jesus, who banged the universe. Word.
It’s better than living in a universe supposedly ruled by a benevolent creator who has a LOT of ‘splaining to do (but doesn’t do it).
You know who else was unique? Hitler.
Oh yeah…I went there.
You might want to read up on that a bit further.
Echoing that sentiment, I was pleased to see that Taylor attempted to explain why the cosmological/fine-tuning/ontological argument ∴ Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour.
I do get tired of all the apologists who spend themselves explaining why the BBT is stupid, or Goldilocks necessitates Three Bears (OMG Trinity!) or whatever fucking contortions they put thought through, and somehow forget that they’ve just argued for every religion with an omnipotent creator deity, including all possible ones that haven’t been invented.
Taylor’s may be weak sauce, but at least s/he poured water in a saucepan.
Hey, I just read the answer to this bit in The Greatest Show on Earth on the bus this morning! Taylor, I highly recommend it. :)
Christianity is unique in its moral banruptness! Good people go to hell and awful bellievers are saved! Hitler is exhalted and Anne Frank is in hell! Can’t you see how wonderful that is?
PZ
Of course!
After all, if I die, and the hopping thing turned out to be wrong, what did I loose?
Taylor
After years of studying world religions honestly I can tell you that all of them are unique. Incidentally Christianity is not unique for the reason stated:
First of all “being called by Christ” involves actions, like being baptized and/or confirmed, praying, and tithing.
Second, Nichiren Buddhism has very similar ideas about the Lotus Sutra containing special properties that provide a “direct path to enlightenment”. The idea that a particular figure or text provides a close connection to a God/spiritual force is a very common idea though. I think almost every religion in the world has some variation on this line of thinking, it just isn’t the exact formulation found in Christianity.
As long as we are assigning points for originality I would think that Discordia deserves a mention. The original doctrine was revealed to its founders by a talking ape in a bowling alley, and as far as I know, no other religion has instructed its devotees to disregard its own doctrine:
(emphasis and numbering mine)
Does that mean the “first cause” was actually a crazy woman?
1. Christianity is unique!!
2. ????
3. Prophet!!!!
@ Aratine
Bonus because hamsters are often mistaken for dead before they “resurect”
#71 Aratina Cage
“Christianity–we’d rather be hamsters!”
If comments were hats, this one would have been only for Mardi Gras and to be worn by Scarlett Johansson.
Who banged the Banger?
Remember the last time you saw a puppy dead by the side of the road? God hated that puppy…the only other option is thatthat event was purposeless. So fuck you little Timmy! Go cry over you dead devil dog. Sinful puggle
PZ you’ve got me scared
I’ve searched through all the world’s religions and I can’t find the answer to my question and now I’m scared I’m going to hell.
Do I hop on the left foot or the right foot?
There’s already a place of worship.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Matter is a form of energy. Matter can therefore be transformed into energy, and/or different matter, under specific conditions, but the total amount of energy, including matter as energy is a constant.
Although Hairy Chris I do believe leeches are still used in certain cases in modern medicine for things like removing congested blood from a wound.
@Ing:
My hamster went bald.
Oh for Cthulhu’s sake. It isn’t atheism that says the universe created itself and is eternal. This is part of some scientific Cosmological theories. And if the universe is eternal, it might well have not created itself but is a rearrangement of a -preexisted meta- or multiverse.
Conflating or confusing science with atheism is just wrong.
1. His big terror seems to be that the universe is “uncaring”. Far as we can tell, it is. That is just empiricism. Just because you want to believe the universe cares, doesn’t mean that it will care. This is wishful thinking or delusions.
He is confusing what he wants to be true, with what is true.
This is the Reformed Hoppist Unidexters, isn’t it.
Damned cults.
GodotIsWaiting4U:
Let me introduce you to my friend, the fission bomb. It’s based entirely on the principle of the destruction of matter. That’s where its power comes from: the fast conversion of matter into energy, based on the famous equation E=mc^2.
And that doesn’t even get into the principle of virtual particle pairs.
Okay, let’s assume that god has existed forever in timeless infinity. What was he doing before he created the universe?
Absolutely nothing. No time. In fact, no room to create the universe, either.
Unique ≠ Good
Also, if existence requires a beginning (a premise any topologist should find dubious), then either God had to have a beginning, or God does not exist; which inferred position would our Christian prefer to take?
@Ariaflame
Yes, I’m aware of that (and the fact that maggots are now being bred for medical use, etc), I was playing to the stereotype. ;-)
A respectful question for Taylor: Why Christianity?
The “existence” argument can be made for any deity: Hesiod’s Theogeny explains existence just as well as Genesis; the Enuma Elish, the Popol Vuh, the Kalevala all have explanations as to why the universe is; Ptah and Marduk were creator gods worshipped by millions for millennia.
As for the “uniqueness” argument, Christianity does require an action in return for a reward. Two of them, in fact: you must accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and you must repend of your sins. Universalism, the soteriology that all people everywhere are going to heaven no matter what, is an extremely minority theology rejected as heresy by nearly every Christian denomination and school of thought. Christianity’s requirements are little different from the requirements of Islam, or Buddhism, or Wicca. If you are looking for a religion with fewer requirements, the only one that comes to mind is the Church of Satan: their only rule is Do As You Want.
So again: Why Christianity, specifically, and not one of the many, many other religions?
So the response I have for Taylor is to metaphorically take a rolled up newspaper and smack him on the nose. NO NO NO, bad Taylor!
1) delusional word games, not even reflective of the actual philosophical arguments. I have a post on this I called Illogical Cosmology: http://iconoclasm2000.blogspot.com/2011/11/illogical-cosmology.html
Hume wrote:
2) If you think Christianity is ‘unique’ you haven’t studied the history of religion even remotely broadly enough despite what you claimed.
But just out of curiosity, exactly which of the 30,000 DIFFERENT sects of Christianity is the ‘unique’ one?
How are we to be saved? [multiple choice]
[ ] Grace Pre-destined
[ ] Grace Free Will
[ ] Actions
[ ] Faith
[ ] Accepting Jesus as Lord
[ ] Baptism
[ ] Other _____________________
The correct answer is of course Other: Romans 10:9 – “For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and believe in your heart that GOD has raised Him from the dead, You shall be saved.” – but you can find versions that say just about any combination of the above that YOU happen to like.
And this sure sounds like action to me.
So, which part(s) of the Bible that directly contradicts itself on this point do you use to justify your view?
Wow. The Cosmological argument I can understand, and I’m glad Taylor, unlike most moronic theopologists, managed to realize “This argument doesn’t prove Jeebus, does it?” and fucking tried to bridge the gap. But he did so with the idea that Christianity is unique? An argument that is both factually wrong and besides the fucking point even if it were true? And finishes with an argument from “I would really prefer if the universe had intelligent causes behind it” and the insinuation that atheism would make people have a sad?
I would express surprise that this is the best that PZ could find, but in actuality, it’s about consistent with experience. Theopologetics are generally hare-brained, counterfactual exercises in fallacy-dabbling, so I guess Taylor’s only failure in that respect was not doing it with the appropriate amount of bluster and obfuscation.
This hopping thing…What if, hypothetically, it was the right leg you had to hop on, but you’d broken that through no fault of your own, or maybe you’ve had it amputated, again through no fault of your own. Do you still go to hell?
What if you were born a paraplegic?
He seems like a nice enough guy, and so many comments have been so harsh. Can’t we take a page from the other side’s book and “hate the sin but love the sinner”?
Taylor, if you are reading this… many have noted that Christianity is hardly unique. I’d urge you to take off the hat of belief and put on the hat of an anthropologist or historian, and consider just how much Christianity reflects and borrows from the soup of late Hellenistic beliefs floating around at the time. There were notions of grace and predestination before Christianity. Jesus was born right when the Roman Empire suddenly forced all the peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean together in ways they hadn’t been before, and Christianity took over three centuries later because the civil and military authorities of Rome purged those mystical gnostics and settled on a set of gospels that were well suited to reinforce state power. You might claim that was God’s will. I might argue for historical contingency and blind luck. Either way, see Ellaine Pagels “The Gnostic Gospels” and “The Origin of Satan”. Maybe you will remain a Christian, as is Pagels, but at least learn more about the history of your religion. It’s fascinating – but it’s simply inaccurate to claim that Christianity is in any sense an entirely unique or new idea.
As far as the theological question of whether the big bang needs a big banger, as others have already explained that is kind of a cop-out. It just substitutes one unknown for another, and then shuts down inquiry.
Anyway, I suspect you may have written in good faith, so to speak, and I wanted to respond in kind.
Channeling Zohan here…
If I can hop without using either leg does that mean I get to be the hopping pope….
Hmm. I sense the start of something. The ‘Seventh Day Hopists’?
And now these three remain: faith, hop and love. But the greatest of these is Hop.
“You are called by Christ first, saved from yourself (that’s the reward), and then the good works flow out of gratitude, or a desire to be more like God. You don’t have to do good works to be saved. Can you see how this is unique?”
You mean, all you have to do is go for that reward and save yourself, feel smug in your uniqueness, and you don’t even have to do any work (good or otherwise) because it automatically gushes out of your gratitude for being personally selected for salvation? You are saving yourself from yourself by obssessing about your self?
In other words, be more like a vain and selfish pig?
You said it: “a desire to be more like God”.
Who the PHLAMING PHUCK do you think you are?
The otherwise goofy rhetorical response in cases like this is literally correct. Religion cultivates a pathologically over-inflated level of self-esteem. It is not earned, but somehow bestowed by invisible graces. Adherents aspire to greatness and beneficience (towards others but only if THEY earn it, and so may become properly shepherded) and the political ambition for power is supported by unimpeachable authority (because that authority can’t be consulted).
Me, I don’t think selfish pig-gods are particularly important. But I think that the existence of religion today is very strong evidence not only that schizophrenia existed thousands of years ago, but that a substantial proportion of nation-state populations around the world back then gullibly accepted their ravings and claims of divinity. They have been reproducing ever since. There is a safe haven for ‘dumb genes’ in the societal meme-pool, and they’ve gotten free rides, almost unopposed, on the backs of a credulous (or accomodating) mob…encouraged to think it more important to save themselves in an afterlife than it is to WORK to help improve conditions for those who are simply struggling to live and learn about the world with some semblance of dignity.
Oh please.
I know I’m mostly echoing others here, Taylor, but I think you need to see a lot of people independently spotting the same flaws in your reasoning.
Your infinite regress of causes is self-defeating, precisely because you have to cut it off at some point to preserve god’s supremacy…otherwise who created god, and who created that creator, and it’s turtles all the way down. It’s dishonest to assert the NEED for causes is itself evidence for god, while exempting god from that very need. And if its possible to cut off the infinite regress, why not cut it off at the universe instead? Why assume “god” over “natural process” for the creator? You recognize this problem, but you offer a meaningless excuse…literally that it must be cut off at “god” because that makes you FEEL BETTER. Please, PLEASE think about that statement and the problems therein, if for no other reason than the sake of your daily life. Wanting things doesn’t make them so. Believe me, I know; I spent the better part of my young adulthood wanting something so fiercely…and so futilely. Plenty of others could tell you the same.
As for “non-material properties”, I think you need to research the definitions an usages of “material”, particularly in science. The duration of something’s existence is not a “non-material” property. I imagine you also believe “energy” and “love” are immaterial or abstract phenomena as well?
And as PZ points out, the “uniqueness” of an idea has nothing to do with its validity. How could you possibly suggest otherwise? Seriously, think about that proposition for a while. While you’re at it, look a bit more into the evidence that Christianity isn’t half so unique as you like to think, not even in your assumption that salvation is by faith. That is arguably still an “act” (especially the way you presented it, as if it was a free gift with no strings attached), there are other religions for which the goal is not necessarily achieved by physical action, and in practice most Christians actually DO judge salvation by physical actions (with the feeble excuse that faith without acts is invalid).
Xianity isn’t at all unique. There are elements in it derived from a lot of other religions and philosophies. Syncretic.
Dying resurrecting gods were dime a dozen in the ME. Osiris, Mithras, Adonis, etc.
Much of xian mythology was stolen from the Greeks including the afterlife.
Plus xianity evolved out of Judaism.
Now my Pagan religion is unique. So far it is just myself and a bunch of cats. Our sacred rituals are drinking white wine, going for walks in the evening, and one of us feeding the others magically significant meals of tuna fish.
It isn’t much but we are unlikely to ever get around to launching a genocide, crusade, or even stoning a heretic to death.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/12/answer-is-neither.html
“Do more educated people see more risk — or less — in climate change?
The answer is neither. In a survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,500 U.S. adults, education level had a correlation pretty close to zero (r = -0.02, p = 0.11) with climate change risk perceptions.
These data were collected by the Cultural Cognition Project as part of an ongoing study of science literacy, numeracy, & risk perception. In results that we describe in a working paper, science literacy and numeracy also have very minimal impact on perceptions of climate change –assessed independently of cultural worldviews. Once cultural worldviews are taken into account, the impact of science literacy & numeracy on climate change risk perceptions depends on peoples’ cultural orientations: as they get more science literate & numerate, egalitarian communitarians see more risk, but hierarchical individualists see even less.
Or in other words, enhanced science literacy & numeracy are associated not with convergence on any particular view (supported by science or otherwise) but with greater cultural polarization.”
The openly religious have faith in gods; atheists have faith in godlessness; secularists doubt everything, even themselves.
New here?
Also: “Hate the sin but love the sinner” is a nice idea, but in practice, hating “the sin” often is indistinguishable from hating “the sinner”. Just look at all the homophobes who claim that they only “hate the sin”. Just look at the sheer lack of proportion they have in addressing how evil the gayness is, when they know that, according to their fuckwitted religion, every sin is as bad as any other and everyone is likely a sinner. The entire purpose for their religion (the pretense that everyone is a sinner, and even the slightest sin deserves eternal punishment) is entirely ignored when they hyperventilate over how being gay is an abomination. “Love the sinner” my ass.
@nigelTheBold: Isn’t that conversion from one to the other, not destruction? I mean, my grasp of physics in general and thermodynamics in particular is shaky, but I was pretty sure that e=mc2 demonstrated that energy and matter are basically just different states of the same thing, and you can’t increase or decrease the total present in the universe, just convert between the two.
I wish I knew more physics. :(
“You don’t have to do good works to be saved.”
That is exactly what I find so disgusting about the doctrine of Christianity. It doesn’t even try to enforce its own morality. It makes the living world utterly irrelevant. It is in exact opposition to humanism.
What the fuck are you on about? Atheists are a subset of secularists, and none of that actually follows from the thing you quoted.
I’m going to blow his mind right here:
But who created the creator?
Duuuuuuude….
As for point 2, I suppose it’s vaguely possible that this guy read a few books (probably written by Christians) about other world religions. But he doesn’t seem to know a whole lot about the variety within Christianity throughout it’s entire existence, nor the bits and pieces it’s picked up from various theologies and influences. I’m kind of curious about how he defines “Christian.”
The universe isn’t a closed system. Rinse and repeat.
It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that everyone would be happier if we simply enslaved Christians. I mean, they want to give up their will to a master/father figure on so many levels, they think beatings and torture are signs of love, and they’re manifestly uncomfortable unless they’re told that every little thing they do/happens to them is in the service of the plan of someone greater than themselves.
Most importantly, I’m tired of putting away my own socks.
That’s what everyone else does; gush over faith, no matter how naïve, as if it were a virtue. “Oh, you believe. Isn’t that just darling?”
It’s time someone cracked the spine of some of these other books we’ve got lying around.
@se: “atheists have faith in godlessness”. NO. I have no faith in anything. Faith is holding on to belief after it’s clear there’s no good reason to do so (because when there’s good reason to do so, no one calls it faith). I have beliefs, but they are of two kinds:
1. Beliefs that are well supported by quite a bit of evidence. These I have quite a bit of confidence in.
2. Beliefs that are not well supported, but which are not refuted by any clear evidence either. Those I have quite a bit less confidence in.
And yes, “confidence” and “faith” have a common linguistic root. But they do NOT mean the same thing. Faith is *NOT* trust. Faith is the active disabling of one’s ability to critically reason in order to maintain a belief one considers critical to one’s perceived identity. It’s a defense mechanism.
That.
No. This isn’t even xian theology. Some are saved by faith and some say, faith and works. The NT is contradictory in many places.
It is also really dumb when you look at it. The main requirement to be saved is to believe jesus is god.
Why should the all powerful, creator of everything care whether we believe he exists and is god?
1. If he did, he could show up once in a while and do some TV shows. The gods don’t care or more likely don’t exist.
2. This is just a human created protection racket anyway. Believe in our gods or they will send you to hell and torture you forever. Unless no one is looking and then we will burn you at the stake or beat the stuffing out of you. And BTW, our god needs money. Send it, NOW.
If you actually try to make sense of xian mythology or theology, it immediately falls apart into nothing worthwhile.
Umm, how do you know?
What is an “eternal property?” If time started with the instantiation of the universe (as modelled by inflation theory, perhaps), and ends with the destruction of the universe (maybe via a big crunch, or perhaps a simple “fade to black” as it evaporates into nothingness), how can there be “eternal properties?”
This is what I don’t get. You get this from a book, one that is quite obviously written by people. You believe the book because the book claims it is true. In spite of your declaration of the uniqueness of your chosen religion, this is all you have. A book that claims its own truth.
That’s just silly. Hopefully you don’t think the events of Fargo are also true, just because it claims to be based on a real story. That claim, like the rest of the movie, is fiction.
As raven pointed out, this is not true at all. There are actually some atheists who suggest the universe is intelligent, for some degree of “intelligent.” I am one of them. Not the way some believe, as an intelligent quantum computer, but simply by this: we are part of the universe. We are intelligent. This doesn’t mean the entire universe is intelligent, but part of the universe is intelligent. The part that is us.
Also, nobody claimed the universe was eternal.
I really think you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Yep. It means we can understand the universe. It means we’re not judged by some arbitrary dictator who only wants us to kiss his ass for eternity. It means we are free to explore the universe based on our humanity. It means we don’t need saved from ourselves, because we’re not all that bad.
Think about what Christianity says about you: that you suck. That you are intrinsically bad. That you are not only flawed (which we all are), but you are responsible for those flaws. Talk about victim blaming! Christianity is predicated on the idea that God made you flawed, and made you personally responsible for those flaws.
Atheism (or rather, humanism) concedes we are flawed, but makes us responsible only for our actions and our intent. Our responsibility isn’t for our flaws, but how we allow our flaws to affect the people around us. This is far better.
I don’t worry about whether or not I’m going to offend some unknowable entity by my actions. I only worry about hurting other people. I do my best to make the world better for other people, and in return, they help make the world better for me, too. I recognize my flaws, and accept them; but I do not take responsibility for the fact I have flaws. I take responsibility only for the ways in which I allow these flaws to manifest.
My way is far superior, I think.
Unfortunately for you, your desires don’t really affect the way reality works.
I would prefer that pain and suffering be purposeless than to suppose there is an entity who structured reality in such a way that pain and suffering not only exist, but are inevitable. I would rather believe that we can work to decrease pain and suffering, and increase happiness, than to suppose it is all part of God’s plan.
If it is part of God’s plan, then the plan is fucked up.
This was my first thought as well. I’m already preparing for the war between the left-leg hoppers and the right-leg hoppers.
I would like to make one correction to the quote above: Any-leg hoppers will be despised by both left-leg and right-leg hoppers, so they will die first. No need to even include them in the equation.
Dear Any-leg Hoppers, please do all your practicing in private. Don’t reveal your ecumenical practices. There will few of you left after the Great Hopper War, so I suggest you base your theology on stealth technology. Alternatively, you could have both your legs amputated and start a No-leg Hopping sect calculated to play on the sympathies of all Hoppers.
Clearly, the Maltist Nuns and the Hoppist Monks need to organize this 7th Day Adventist Hoppist Church. Immediately.
P.s. Church Brew + Red Dwarf References = part of why I love this blog.
So you’re assuming that what’s apparent from one study of 1500 individuals regarding the sociology of climate change — a particularly politicized scientific question — is true for all other questions?
I suspect there’s some serious problems with how “scientific literacy” is proxied in this study. After all, a vast majority of scientists believe that climate change is true. Presumably scientists are the most scientifically literate folks in our society. Does the study take this into account in any way?
And what about us egalitarian individualists? Why don’t you tell us what we believe too?
jjgdenisrobert,
“Faith is holding on to belief after it’s clear there’s no good reason to do so”
There’s no good reason to believe in human rationality, or free will for that matter.
I’m done. It’s no use arguing with the faithful. I posted the link to amuse myself.
Gregory @100:
Why Christianity? Well, as you said, it’s because it’s “unique”…like every one of its thousands of denominations, and the denominations of other religions. And were there some actual meaning to the claim, what of it? Being unique has nothing to do with being correct. It’s as if Taylor treats faith as a shopping excursion, picking the religion off the shelf that has the most interesting packaging. And even THAT wouldn’t work (if we were deluded enough to think it could), because plenty of people prefer that which conforms, is familiar, is normal.
Of course, the real reason is almost certainly that Taylor, like virtually all other Christians, was born into the religion, or born into a culture steeped in the religion, and was later told it was his own impartial choice, and taught how to rationalize the lie with logical fallacies, pseudoscience and willful ignorance.
Oh…and it also makes him feel good.
atheists have faith in godlessness
You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
I had Physics in school. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Pockets of high energy, pockets of low energy. A zero sum game after all. Making Thermodynamics hard to grasp for the casual confused religiously biased observer.
@se:
You’re basing a judgment about the motivations of pretty much all of humanity on the basis of one dubious sociological study and jjgdenisrobert is “the faithful”?
Excuse me while I go enjoy a belly laugh.
Let me know when sociology gets widely acknowledged as a scientific field.
Please seriously answer the question. I am legitimately curious and I would really appreciate a serious answer.
You haven’t even made an understandable claim.
I think SE might be trying to claim xians aren’t dumb and crazy. But he can’t, because it is true.
Probably not all xians. But there are gigantic mountains of data that say, the fundie xian perversion scores lower in education and intelligence than the general population.
There is a reason why fundieland is sometimes known as “Dumbfuckistan”.
While Christianity might offer who was the big bang banger, only Pastafaria tells the world who the big bang banger’s banger was. Although it is still unknown the big bang banger’s banger’s bang was a big bang or a bang average proportions….
FSM
GodotIsWaiting4U:
Well, yeah. But part of the matter is “destroyed,” in that it is no longer matter.
Your basic idea wasn’t far off; all you’d need to do is substitute “energy” for “matter.”
But, as rorschach pointed out, even the concept of energy as an “eternal” thing that can be neither created nor destroyed is shaky. For instance, there are some models which suggest the entire energy content of the universe is 0. So, while you might have an equation like -1 + 1 = 0, the two sides are not necessarily the exact same. One side represents existence; the other side, nothingness.
And so the question: if the total content of the universe sums up to 0, were the energy and negative energy created? When the end comes, and the wave function of the universe collapses back to nothingness, can you say the energy has been destroyed?
Also, you might enjoy reading up on black holes and Hawking radiation.
“I am legitimately curious and I would really appreciate a serious answer.”
Seriously? A question prefixed with an “Umm”?
As in, “Umm, you need to obtain an answer to a physics question here, even as a humongous www with the answers expansively surrounds you?”
sc_f34d31c0eb054f13969e9cb8ec8e73c0 person,
you lost me there :
But thanks for playing.
Big fucking whoop for the latter. You won’t find many here who will weep particularly hard about your putting that particularly convoluted idea into the realm of faith. As for human rationality: Yes, there is very good reason to believe that it exists. The fact that we also know the systematic ways that human rationality fails belies the fact that, in most other cases, it actually does work. Science would not get results if it weren’t for that particular form of human rationality existing in a meaningful way. We would not be able to use logic to make accurate predictions if that particular form of human rationality didn’t exist or wasn’t rational.
The fact that people don’t apply logic or scientific reasoning consistently does not mean that the existence of human rationality at all is in question. Try harder.
@se #127: Huh??? I need not believe in “human rationality”. I believe in logic. Without logic, no thought is possible. And although I can’t prove that “Cogito, ergo sum”, it’s the one axiom that is absolutely necessary for any discussion.
Humans may not be absolutely rational, but reason is definitely part of their make-up.
As for freewill: I never claimed that I believed in free will. I agree with you: there’s no good reason to believe in free will. And evidence is mounting that it may just be an illusion. So right now, based on the evidence available, I have to come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing as free will. Of course, I’d be happy to change my mind if evidence to the contrary is provided.
And there’s the difference between belief and faith, which you so conveniently declined to address.
@rorscach:
To be clear why I don’t think your answer is serious:
1. I also took physics in school, going so far as to major in it for my first two years of undergrad. I was never exposed to any result to suggest the the universe is a closed system. Of course, such a statement is a little ambiguous. Under certain interpretations it is incoherent — if the universe is literally ALL THERE IS then it must be a closed system.
2. Tides go in and tides go out on a closed earth/moon system. Pockets of high and low energy density can exist in, for example, a closed generator/fuel tank/refrigerator system. Dynamism does not imply an open system. So if these are intended as serious examples they don’t work. If they’re intended as metaphors they are more mysterious than the answer I was hoping for.
If there’s a cosmology paper or something you’re getting this from just link to it.
In terms of the sociology thing I was giving se a hard time for being a prat. It has nothing to do with your cosmological claim that you’re not bothering to back up.
sigh
You call what you did here arguing? 2 whole posts not answering anyone?
Just asserting some nonsensical pet peeve of yours?
Great job there
se @ 111;
I don’t think you understand atheism (or secularism) very well. As anteprepro points out @ 115, atheism is a subset of secularism – secularists believe that religion has no place in government, and atheists believe that god doesn’t exist, and so authority claims (including the claim that religion should influence government) predicated upon the notional ‘will of god’ are invalid. Indeed, I think you would be hard pressed to any atheists who weren’t secularists, except possibly among the squishiest of all accomodationists.
Also, atheists don’t ‘have faith’ in godlessness. Atheists explicitly reject the very concept of blind ‘faith’ in anything. Atheists don’t believe in god because god is wholly unevidenced. It is no coincidence that so many atheists are also skeptics – we simply class god among other claims of unevidenced phenomena and creatures, like Bigfoot and UFO abductions, albeit as a more widespread and socially toxic form of delusion.
I would not presume to speak for all unbelievers, but the position of rationalist, skeptical atheists like myself is tentative and entirely ammenable to evidence – I could be convinced of the existence of god if, and only if, a sufficient weight of credible scientific evidence for that god was forthcoming. Since not a single shred of scientific evidence for any god has ever been produced in the entire history of our species, I remain an atheist.
Little bit of a fail there.
From now on I will always refer to the Christian God as the Big Banger.
Now for the million dollar question for all you Hoppists: Which calendar do you use? The oppressive one, or the Ogvorbilander?
sc:
There are specific models that suggest our universe is not all there is, that our universe is one of innumerable bubble universes within a potentially infinite sea. Not that this means our universe isn’t itself a closed system — it might very well be. But it also might not.
All it really indicates is that we don’t know enough about the origins of the universe to be relatively certain of any particular model right now.
Actually, no: there are atheists who believe religion does have a place in government, to keep the “ignorant masses” from questioning their betters.
“Religion is considered by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful” – Seneca
A probable recent example is the godfather of the neocons, Leo Strauss.
Gregory Greenwood:
Hah! So you admit you are a zealous dogmatic member of the Church of Pharyngula!
You lot are no better than fundamentalists.
Christianity is unique?
BWA HA HA HA HA! Never mind that it was built on the foundations of Judaism, right?
Why not? We already had The Big Bopper.
Of course, we have ample evidence that The Big Bopper actually existed. While there is none for the Big Banger.
Unless it has something to do with Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple breasted whore from Eroticon Six?
Well, Eccentrica did refer to Zaphod as the best banger since the big one, right?
About all current Cosmological theories have our universe as part of a greater multiverse.
There is even a key piece of data that indicates this. The total net energy of our universe is ZERO. ZERO!!! It could have been any number but it seems to be zero.
Most likely this is a consequence of its creation by quantum fluctuations from a larger and infinite in time and space continuum.
Any universe that is not expanding is unstable and finite. Gravity would inevitably cause it to collapse into the Big Crunch. We don’t see this.
Howdy folks! Taylor here.
Thanks for all the great feedback! And thank you Dr. Meyers for posting this. I think some of you (though not all) are misunderstanding me on a couple of points.
First of all, God is non-material, unlike the material universe (multiverse, whatever), so we can attach non-material properties to Him, namely, infinite existence. Do you know why infinity doesn’t work for material objects? Here’s an example: Let’s say you have a bookshelf with an infinite number of books. That is, going on without end in either direction. The books are alternately red and black. So it goes red book, black book, red book, black book, red black red black and on and on for an infinite distance, ok? Now, if you take out all of the black books, how many books are left? An infinite number. You’ve removed an infinite number, and you’ve left an infinite number. Infinity just doesn’t make mathematical sense in a material world. If something is going to be infinite, it must be non-material, unlike the universe we observe. Conversely, if something is infinite, it (by definition) cannot have a beginning or an end. This is one of the attributes of God.
Secondly, your “hopping” analogy is perfect! You are perfectly summing up my argument, but perhaps not how you intended. Your new religion, just like every religion except Christianity, requires the action (hopping) in order to be saved. Christianity is the exact opposite. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
And as far as humanity being, “not all that bad,” I wholeheartedly disagree with you. Just turn on the tv. CS Lewis has a great point about “loving the sinner, hating the sin” in Mere Christianity. He says that we do this to ourselves all the time! I do things I don’t like every day, but I still love myself.
Again, thanks for the feedback, I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.
“Christianity is entirely unique.”
Yep, just like all the other religions.
/cue Life of Brian scene in 3.. 2.. 1…
Mike.
True, but Zaphod had the extra head, so that did give him just a bit of an advantage, neh?
Is there a name for this tired, pathetic attempt at face-saving?
…
Besides “a tired, pathetic attempt at saving face” I mean.
Yes, I read Sean Carroll’s book. His pocket universes are self-contained once they drop out of “inflation mode” so they would probably be closed systems.
See, that’s what I thought. Then rorschach seemed to say that the universe is DEFINITELY not a closed system. That was news to me and I wanted to read more if there was more to be read.
I was being glib — as I said, I was giving se a hard time for being a prat — but consider be properly chastened.
No, if this comment from you is any indication, you look froward to ignoring our thoughts and asserting more unconvincing gibberish like this
Why this man, and many others REALLY became Christians:
Truth be told they usually come from long lines of equally slow and gullible ancestors, who were all too busy scratching their asses in arithmetic class to get the basics of mathematics and algebra. Thus when they got to High School and were taught about plate tectonics in geography they were absolutely incapable of understanding the subject, and rather than admit their ignorance they found they could fall back on “god’s mysterious ways”, especially with all the other equally lazy individuals who join the same Sunday club.
They do this because it’s easier than paying attention and learning something useful in school, and because so many other people are equally lazy they think that being a majority somehow makes stupid the right thing to do and be.
KG:
lol, good point. I neglected to account for the more hardcore among the faitheists. “Atheism largely overlaps with secularism” may be the better phrasing.
But I suppose I’d also note that the atheists that aren’t secularists generally couldn’t be portrayed as “se” tried to portray them: as having “faith in godlessness”. No, they are atheists who have the strongest doubts in “godlessness” and have a desperate desire to have religion remain powerful and influential for whatever demented reasons their minds can cobble together. They are atheists who still have faith in the power of religion, even if they don’t have faith in the things those religions are about. This is far from the portrait “se” was trying to paint of them, and I wonder how he ever came to the conclusion that “secularism” was the Happy Medium that he wanted to portray as the position of the contemplative doubter, free from the influences of faith. “Secularists” has more or less become code for atheists (and atheist sympathizers, of course), so it baffles me that he tried to portray “secularists” as an entirely separate (and more rational) party.
@taylormade #154: You posit God in order to demonstrate God. That’s called circular reasoning. But to come back to your argument about infinities. Because there is not such thing as an observable infinite does not mean that you can make the concept of “infinite” automatically equal to God: it does not follow (non-sequitur). And you certainly cannot possibly go from there to the characteristics that define the God of Christianity. What you are making, without being explicit, is the classic Ontological Argument, which, just like the Cosmological Argument you initially made, has been defeated quite soundly long ago. I really recommend you read Mackie, since he pretty clearly lays out all the classic arguments for God, and explains why they do not hold, including both the Cosmological Argument and the Ontological Argument.
“I don’t think you understand atheism (or secularism) very well.
I’m afraid you don’t understand self-awareness very well, or the definition of secularism. That religion should have no place in government is subsidiary to an indifference to religious ideas as such.
“Atheists explicitly reject the very concept of blind ‘faith’ in anything.” The concept of faith is not faith, and the concept of its lack is not its lack. By your definition the atheist Donald Rumsfeld could not have been blinded for faith. But the most basic trait of incompetence is a faith in your abilities.
Read the link I posted.
You know what you can do with material (physical) phenomena? Observe them, and actually discover their properties.
We don’t have to “attach” anything like you do with any fiction, such as God.
Glen Davidson
If gods are non-material, that would make them something completely and totally removed from the natural world? Which means that there is no way to determine if they exist or not. So if gods are unable to interract with the natural world, why assign anything to them other than putting a label on the idea stating “Well, that didn’t work,” and go on with being human?
And you have already described gods as immaterial, having no connectoin with the natural world. which means that, for gods, infinity is mental masturbation.
So you deny thinking is an action? You deny belief is an action? I think I understand.
KG @ 148;
Good point. I wonder how many theocratic tyrants throughout history have considered the religious source of their authority as useful rather than true?
Perhaps I should refine my statement to;
“Indeed, I think you would be hard pressed to find any atheists who aren’t secularists, except possibly among the squishiest of all accomodationists and authoritarian sociopaths who find the god myth a useful means of keeping the bulk of society downtrodden.”
—————————————————————-
nigelTheBold @ 149;
Curses, I am unmasked! Quick, fellow Pharyngula cultists, to the secret volcano base! Mini-me, prep the anti-faith warheads, and get me some sharks with frikkin’ laser beams on their heads! We will threaten to destroy the world’s religions unless we are paid *dramatic Dr. Evil-esque pause* One million dollars! *Sound of manic laughter*
As Mother Superior of the Holy Order of Maltist Nuns (yes, I just crowned myself), obviously we use the Ogvorbilander. Mainly because I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce that.
In your own words, please explain what you think the post to which you linked means.
Without any proof that the gods exist, that is just writing a comic book.
Fiction doesn’t equal fact.
@taylormade: What do you mean, exactly, by “infinite existence”? You either exist, or you don’t. Is there Aleph-Null existence? Is Existence countable, or continuous? Is it mappable to N, or R?
Infinity is not a philosophical or religious concept, but a mathematical tool.
Well, based upon the posts here, it would seem Taylor is just a word tweak or two from having a compelling argument for his sky pixie.
Don’t feel bad, kid. This is a tough crowd.
Simple. Just say ‘Ogvorbis.’ Now say ‘Calendar.’ Now say both, really quickly, after drinking three fingers of single malt while gargling an nudibranch. See? Easy as pi.
My new religion, the second church of hopping, says that you are saved by default, but that you have to truly believe that hopping saves you, or you are damned.
Therefore, my new religion is unique-ier than Christianity, and is therefore true.
I really don’t think Taylor understands the arguments against him, or his own argument, for that matter.
Is “existence” a non-material property?
If Yes: Then nothing material can exist, by your logic.
If No: Then why is “eternal existence” any different? (Please note: The universe would have existed, according to the Big Bang, at all points where time existed. If “eternal” has any applicable meaning, it would apply to the universe, where there are no possible time when the universe didn’t exist, even if the time isn’t infinite).
You just don’t fucking get this, do you?
1. The “no effort required” thing isn’t the sole criterion for uniqueness.
2. The “no effort is required” thing isn’t proof that Christianity is true.
3. The uniqueness of Christianity, even if true, is not an indication that it is true either.
Humanity is terrible if your considering them against some platonic, perfect ideal of how perfectly kind and perfectly rational entities should behave. Humanity is “not all that bad” once you realize that we aren’t all raping and murdering 24/7, are ultimately just smart animals and not mini-gods, that we do show altruism, sympathy, rationality, and show social and moral improvement within generations or even an individual lifetime. Get some fucking perspective.
And I don’t think he cares. He’s comfortable in his “unique” superiority no matter how fictitious it may be.
How do you know that God is non-material? How do you know that there is anything that can properly be called “non-material”? You can certainly ASSUME there is such a thing as God and that you can then assume that this non-material thing has “non-material properties” but how do you know that this corresponds to anything in the universe we actually live in?
Once you’ve settled that, please give us a model for non-material/material interaction. Without such a thing God can’t even see what happens in the universe let alone have created it in the first place.
Please explain how “accepting Christ as savior” is not an action. Then explain how “letting go of attachments”, the Buddhist criterion for salvation, IS an action while accepting Christ is not.
Then it can’t interact with the material universe. You lose with your inane presuppostion.
More inane presupposition. Nothing concrete to date, just mental masturbation.
How can something that exists only in your mind have attributes. You need solid and concrete physical evidence. Evidence that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers, as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin. And all you have is nothing.
jebus didn’t exist. Prove otherwise with solid and conclusive physical evidence from outside of your book of mythology/fiction known as the babble.
A presuppositional fuckwitted idjit, who can’t prove his deity exists, should be taken for anything other than a liar and bullshitter? Where is your logic, reason, intellect, and rationality, with a soupcon of skepticism?
se @ 163;
How do you get to this? Oh, let me guess, you are now going to tell me what I believe, right? Oh, hail the magic mind reader se…
I was employing the common vernacular usage. What makes you think that an indifference to religion is somehow superior to an evidence based position that points out the lack of evidence for god? What is your problem with the application of the principle of parsimony to godhead?
We reject the idea of blind, unsupported faith in favour of rational conclusions based upon scientific evidence. What is so hard to understand about that?
You do like you non sequiturs, don’t you?
Quite the truism. Ever considered applying it to yourself?
Taylor – assuming that Christianity is unique can you provide any reason as to why this would make it true?
The only conclusion I think you could draw if Christianity were unique is that Christianity is unique.
I’d suggest that if one assumes a god who tells folk what to do, and folk then muddle the message, you’d want to figure out the non-unique aspects of various religions to figure out what god wanted you to do, rather than focusing on the unique bits (y’know, extract the message from the noise?) – the more unique the less likely to be true.
The “nonmaterial”, the invisible, and the nonexistent all look the same.
It you can’t tell them apart, the most likely one is “nonexistent”.
I think Rev nailed it. He doesn’t care. He’s comfortable with his fairy tales. And, like all theists, knows its better to not know anything and retain their fragile and fickle faith, then learn things and potentially lose it.
The ignorant, such as yourself, don’t understand what either “atheist” or “secularist” mean.
“And thank you Dr. Meyers…”
TWIT.
Why do you think a link about the relative attitudes toward the level of threat presented by climate change has any relevance to a discussion about the supposed faith-based element of atheism?
Like I say, you and your non sequiturs…
He didn’t. No way.
[looks upthread]
Holy shit, he did. He did.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Bwahahainfinityhahaha!!!
So atheists are saved?
Say what you will, but after years of studying world religions, Christianity is entirely unique.
There are billions of galaxies in the universe each filled with billions of planets. Maybe some of them harbor civilizations with “entirely unique” religions.
Pardon moi:
WILLFUL TWIT.
FWIW, the real reason most xians are xians is well known.
Their parents were xians. This is the number 1 correlation with what religion people are. Children born into Moslem or Hindu families become Moslems or Hindus. Children born into xian families become xians.
It’s all due to cultural background, tribalism, and early childhood brainwashing, backed up by the occasional murder of defectors.
If God is non-material, why is he a he? English has very little in the way of grammatical gender; for the most part our use of gender reflects real-world sex differences (with some exceptions that may or may not be relevant here). So if you’re referring to God as a he, the implication is that he’s masculine. And that only makes sense if there’s a feminine equivalent running around. So are you implying that there’s a female god as well?
As for the uniqueness crap, wouldn’t it be more convincing if people all over the world came to the same conclusion independently? If Columbus got off the boat in Hispaniola and found the native celebrating a Catholic mass, I’d think that would be more reason to suppose that if there were a true religion, Christianity would be a good bet.
Ok, let me elaborate a little more: The universe exists, therefore it must have had a beginning (the kalam cosmological argument for those paying attention). Everything must have a beginning, unless it is infinite. The universe cannot be infinite because it is material. Therefore, whatever began our universe must be immaterial and infinite. And someone nicely said that we are intelligent, so intelligence exists, and since intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence, that means that whatever began our universe must also be somewhat intelligent. That’s all in point 1.
I get to point 2 by assuming (it’s ok if you think that I incorrectly assume this) that whatever being created this universe would probably reveal him/her/itself to humanity. How would they do this? Science? Religion? Why not both? So I get a degree in ecology to look at the world from a naturalistic perspective. Then I look at all the world religions, some of which just seem silly, and I come to the conclusion that science is awesome, and Christianity sticks out from the rest. Therefore it may very well be the way that this creator being reveals His existence to humanity. Now I’m studying science AND Christianity to learn more about this Creator, and so far, I like what I see.
Allow me to relate the exact conversation I had with my husband after reading this out loud to him:
A.”If you only had one leg, would it be hopping or jumping?”
B.”I think it would be hopping. Jumping means going forward or backward or sideways. Hopping is just in place.”
A.”To me, jumping can be up and down, like ‘jump up and down'”
B. “No, that’s definitely hopping, hopping is just up and down.”
A.”No, it’s jumping”
B.”Hopping”
A.”Jumping”
B.”Hopping”
A.”Jumping”
So now we have a new schism… I think my husband has just created the Jumpists. Crap and a half.
Taylor’s title should be “How my (borrowed) mental manipulations keep me from putting any of my claims to observational tests.”
Because obviously there’s nothing remotely close to an explanation for “why Taylor is Christian” in there, neither psychological explanation nor why anyone would think Xianity would be true.
But hey, if we can forget that our fictions are fictions, wow, fictive God can be anything, so nothing we know about reality applies to it or makes it “impossible.”
Sadly, Taylor thinks that is intellection.
Glen Davidson
taylormade,
Why is it you lackwits generally can’t even get PZ’s surname right when it’s there in a prominent position at the head of every thread?
No, that simply doesn’t follow, and your stupidity in thinking it does is painful to behold. If the material world is infinite (we don’t know whether it is or not, but most physicists see no particular problem in the hypothesis that it is), then of course you could discount an infinite number of objects and still have an infinite number left.
Where do you live? Were you raised Christian?
@taylormade #191: Clearly you haven’t been paying attention. The Kalam argument is easily defeated because its premises do not hold.
1. It’s not true that everything which came to be has a cause. (Quantum fluctuations, for example, create particle pairs without cause ALL THE TIME).
2. It’s not necessarily true that the Universe came to be. We just don’t know whether that’s true or not. But even if it were true, see #1.
You can’t keep repeating your argument and not answer its critiques. I know that’s what your maître-à-penser Bill Craig does all the time, but that’s no reason to emulate his intellectual dishonesty.
taylormade:
Why do you suppose intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence? You’re just making that up!
“Now I’m studying science AND Christianity to learn more about this Creator, and so far, I like what I see.”
You must be hallucinating if you are “learning” about that ‘Creator’ figment of yours from studying science.
@taylormade #154 – Ahura Mazda is non-material. So is the Invisible Pink Unicorn. That does not somehow prove that they must therefore exist.
I was a math major in college; I am quite familiar with infinite sets. I am also quite familiar with how those who are ignorant of infinite sets try to use them in nonsensical ways. Your attempt doesn’t go far enough to be considered nonsensical: it never leaves the domain of puzzlingly incoherent. Your syllogism seems to be: Fish have tails. Horses have tails. Therefore trees can moo.
You assert that hopping is not necessary for salvation in the Christian religion. So one does NOT need to believe in the deity of Jesus? One does NOT need to repent of one’s sins and acknowledge Jesus as personal lord and savior? I am saved and assured a place in heaven despite my unbelief? Even if I were to rape my mother, murder my father and go to the grave cherishing the fond memories of these actions? If so, then the question of “Why Christianity?” becomes even more significant: why should I believe in and adhere to a faith system that does not require faith? If belief, and repentance, and submission, and making an effort to lead a good life are all requirements of Christian salvation — as such things are requirements for the equivalent in almost every other faith systems — then Christianity DOES require hopping.
Lastly, some human beings commit horrible acts; some of these people are devout Christians. Some human beings are paragons of selfless altruism; most of these people are not Christians. Most human beings fall somewhere in between these two extremes, representing every religion and every shade of no religion. What does that have to do with why Christianity and no other religion?
What kind of a fucking idiot are you?
And oh boy do they hate hearing that. Try telling them that you yourself were once very religious but are now and atheist (as my former roomie and BFF tried explaining to a group of braindead whiners on one of the Big Feminist blogs), and they lose their shit.
They want to believe that they were born religious, evidently, and that there’s no social conditioning to follow the flock, as it were.
OT but vaguely related. FYI
This church seems to be very small. And there was only one interracial couple that set off some of the racists.
“Taylor: First of all, God is non-material, unlike the material universe (multiverse, whatever), so we can attach non-material properties to Him, namely, infinite existence.”
We can attach fake antlers to PZ, doesn’t mean he’s got antlers…
Philosophically speaking I’d say that just because something might be “non-material” it does not neccessarily follows that it exists in an infinite state.
Another term for non-material is immaterial.
That’s kinda the problem with this whole argument, you can attach anything you want to your god, you’re still making a leap of faith. As in, you’ve proved absolutely nothing!
All hail the hops master!
The universe exists, therefore it must have had a beginning (the kalam cosmological argument for those paying attention)
the person who fails to pay attention is yourself.
I wonder why you never bothered to critically examine this argument?
Others have.
MANY others.
your problem is you are simply unable to think outside of very simplistic preconceptions.
Taylormade, why do you “elaborate” an old and fatuously bad argument? It’s Aquinas all over again, Platonic in many of its premises.
There’s no reason for any of us, or for you, to accept your baseless presuppositions, which is why it fails. Sure, it’s good enough for you, but you don’t know anything about the nature of reality (our perceptions of phenomena, to be more correct).
You’d need to give us any reason to accept your a priori beliefs in some “non-material” realm or entity that seemingly can’t be observed, in your belief that merely moving words around makes something meaningful. You haven’t.
Glen Davidson
Taylor –
I’m SURE you can do better than that. This isn’t an essay about why you are a Christian. Were you born and raised a Muslim and then realized:
a) There needs to be a big banger (aka an origin to the universe)
b) Clearly it needs to be the Christian God, because he is unique?
Think it through and come back with a better answer.
Assignment marked incomplete.
“And someone nicely said that we are intelligent, so intelligence exists, and since intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence, that means that whatever began our universe must also be somewhat intelligent.”
By the same argument you must also accept that because stupidity exists…well, I’ll let you fill in the rest of that.
Citation needed on that one. There is ample evidence in the fossil record of increasing brain size among hominids coupled with increased complexity of tools.
Which is still suppositional argumentation. Since intelligence can evolve (we are a case in point, as are dolphins, chimpanzees, bonobos), why the ‘must’? You assume that gods exist and therefore created the universe. Don’t you think that, had that happened, there would be at least a tiny bit of evidence other than suppositionalism?
Then why do Christians spend so much time and energy lying through their collective teeth about cosmology, geology, evolution, thermodynamics, and a host of other ‘awesome’ sciences?
And there is that ol’ presuppositionalism again. You insist on viewing the natural world through a godslense and all you will see is gods (if you look hard enough in the gaps of our own knowledge).
What a Moroon:
I, for one, welcome our new Great Brewmaster Overlord.
The ale must flow!
Beginning does not necessarily imply a creator. Otherwise, you must show how the creator came about, or you have thing but presupposition. Which is all you have.
This does not logically follow, as you haven’t explained how intelligence first ccame about, only presupposed it did. Actually, the Theory of Evolution allows for the rise of intelligence quite nicely, without any need for your imaginary deity. Another losing argument.
Christians aren’t unique in being astoundingly incapable of self-reflection, but boy: you guys love being hypocritically oblivious more than you love your Christ figure.
you know who you should read, Taylor?
Victor Stenger.
here’s a list of some relevant essays of his that tear your philosophy to tiny tatters:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/vic_stenger/
If you’re so confident that philosophy and apologetics holds the key to your faith, you should have no worries reading them.
This is an assertion without proof or data. It’s also completely wrong.
This is wrong on two counts.
1. Not every other religion requires an action to be saved. Many religions have no concept of “salvation” at all.
2. Christianity does require an action to be saved – accepting Jesus as your savior.
Seriously, kid, you’re embarrassing yourself.
-truthspeaker, still trying to get his ftb account activated.
non-material properties
?
what the fuck are these?
if it’s non-material, how does it have “properties”?
it’s oxyMORONIC, is what it is.
Wow.
We know that chickens can’t come from non-chickens, therefore god is a chicken.
Who knew chickens were so well versed in brewing.
(applying the same level of ignorance of reality required for the above to stand)
@Rev. BigDumbChimp #195, I was *technically* raised in a Christian home and went to church, but if anything that made me want to be a Christian even less. I hated church. In high school I decided I was going to be an atheist because, like you all say, I saw no reason to believe in any gods. I started hanging out with a group of guys, hip young atheists all. Then I met a man who followed Christ. He showed me that Christianity is not stupid, that God is not dead, that He is living and active. I checked out this guy’s church, and he eventually started mentoring me. Very long story short, Christ, through that man, saved me from the path I was headed down. Those guys I had been hanging out with eventually started doing heavier and heavier drugs, got into lots of trouble, wrecked their lives, and I actually have now the unique position of seeing, almost exactly, where I would be if Christ hadn’t saved me.
See, God can use perfectly material means to accomplish His goals.
And since stupidity exists, therefore…
yes?
Thanks you’ve answered the question I didn’t want to assume I knew the answer to, but really did none the less.
Convenient how you seem to have chosen the one religion your family and the majority of the people around you decided was the one.
Yep.
Very.
An activate ftb account cannot come from an unactivated one.
As a teenager, I once asked a youth ministry director how we could possibly know Christianity was true when people born in other religions were just as sincere as we were, had their own holy books they believed were true, and all had experiences that, to them, proved their belief was true. Her answer was “Because none of those other religions have someone who died for your sins.” I may have called myself a Christian for a while longer (because I was still theist, and still looked on (certain) teachings of Jesus as a model to live by, but I knew that I couldn’t believe in the specific mythologies anymore because I just had no good reason to, and apparently nobody I asked could.
@taylormade #191 – “The universe exists, therefore it must have had a beginning.”
Not so: there are cosmological models that posit an infinite universe, or a cyclical universe. Even the Big Bang model posits only a start, not necessarily the start. These models are internally consistent and do not require any kind of Prime Mover or Creator to get them going: Occam’s Razor says that since these are simpler models, they are more likely to be correct.
Even if I stipulate some kind of divine initialization to the universe, you still have not given any reason for me to accept Christianity rather than Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or any other religion that has an ex nihilo creation story. Just because something seems “silly” to you is no argument; I find your beliefs to be silly as well. “I contend we both are atheists: I just believe in one few god than you do. When you understand why you reject all other gods, you will understand why I reject yours.”
You Christianity “sticks out” above Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikh, Jainism, Baha’i, Wicca, any of the hundreds of “folk” religions. Why, exactly?
But apparently the reverse happens all the time.
Correction: a finite set is not infinite (which is true, but trivial). Infinity make perfectly sense in a world that is material, as long as that world is infinite in extent.
Even in a non-infinite material world, infinity can make sense in certain situations. Suppose you have a bookshelf containing two books, a red one on one end, and a black one on the other. How many times can the space between the two be subdivided? Well, unless space itself is granular and there is some point below which it cannot be subdivided, the answer is “an infinite number of times.”
Is a newborn baby who dies called by Christ, and therefore saved, or not called by Christ, and therefore not saved? Christians don’t seem to agree on this, but if you believe that a newborn baby who dies is saved, then presumably you believe that you don’t have to do good works to be saved, and you also believe don’t have to believe anything in particular to be saved — salvation is possible without either faith or works.
When Christ was asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”, and he replied, “If you want to enter life, keep the commandments,” I am understanding you to be saying that Christ was not teaching Christianity. He should have said, “There is no good thing that you can do to get eternal life.”
Or perhaps you can do good things to get eternal life, but only
so long as you’re a Jew?
@ Lynna
So true.
I have to say that calling it hopping was a bad PR move right from the start. If it had been named something mystical like Karmic flying, pictures of believers would show them magically suspended in mid air. Of course, as soon as you see video rather than stills it just looks ridiculous, rather like yogic flying.
So… you were intelligent as a blastocyst? Or, more appropriately, as a Pharyngula?
Taylor, time and space are related (hence space-time) according to relativity. Around the Big Bang was the origin of space, and
thus also the origin of time. There was, as a result, no time that the universe didn’t exist, because time began along with the universe. Your handwaving regarding infinities ignores that possibility.
The “only intelligence from intelligence” is no rule that I’ve heard of that needs to be slavishly abided by. It’s an asspull, nothing more. Evolution explains the origin of intelligence far more nicely than positing an infinite intelligence cramming finite intelligence into the skulls of certain animals for no clear reason with no real mechanism.
Yes, I might dispute the assumption. But I also dispute that this has anything at all to do with what you actually fucking said. How does uniqueness have anything to do with proving that the Big Banger revealed itself?
Bullshit. Christianity might stick out because it’s the most popular, but Judaism is far less silly and less internally contradictory. Buddhism and Daoism are also a little less of both as well. You didn’t study very well.
Yeah, I’m sure you would like that Big Banger killing people indiscriminately, issuing harsh laws and then coming down as a human to give people a loophole so that they can break his laws without forcing Mr. Banger to punish them eternally for it. I’m sure you would like the fact that Mr. Banger knows everything and is good, yet still let the first two humans fall into temptation, held them accountable for what he knew they would do, and held all of their descendants accountable as well, to give himself an excuse to play savior later on. I’m sure you just love the fact that Perfect Designer Mr. Banger lets everyone suffer and die, specifically designing biological systems that were meant to fail, species meant to prey upon one another, and viruses existing just to fuck with actual life. Because you’re a sick fuck. Apparently. Or just ignorant and naive as fuck. Either/or.
Father Ogvorbis:
You don’t need to look at the fossil record to observe intelligence come from non-intelligence. You just need to look at a human fetus.
Pre-fertilization, are the gametes intelligent? Post-conception, is the zygote intelligent? How about after the first week of gestation? Is the fetus intelligent at one month? At six? Is the baby intelligent at birth?
The development of a single human is sufficient to prove that intelligence can come from non-intelligence.
I suspect the response is going to be, “That’s not what I meant!,” but it is exactly this. There is no reified platonic “intelligence” that exists outside ourselves, which is what taylormade suggests. There is no magic that suddenly confers intelligence where there was no intelligence before. There is a full spectrum of intelligence, and we all start at the end marked ‘0,’ and move along the spectrum to somewhere a bit farther away from 0.
No god required. No reification of intelligence. No assumptions that anything other than hard, unintelligent matter and energy is required. Hell, there’s no evidence that anything else is required. In fact, quite the opposite: it’s matter and energy and the relationships thereof, all the way down.
The Big Bang was an event. No event without an eventor, huh Taylor?
Christianity ain’t unique, it just came up with its own sales pitch, cobbled from old examples. “This dude died for you. Oh, but he’s not dead anymore, due to special God-magic, so you have to believe he’s your savior. Oh, you don’t have to have to, but if you choose not to, it’s off to a big roasty BBQ with your unsaved ass forever. That’s all you gotta do. Promise! OK, so now you believe. Yeah, I said that was all, but there’s also these ways of behaving that you really should follow…”
Why is it that when atheists state that this is the Kalam argument theists get their knickers in a twist about how we’re doing it wrong but when straight-faced theists insist that this is how the Kalam goes everything is hunky dory? Where’s WLC and Edward Feser to correct this young scamp on his grievous errors regarding the formulation of the Kalam? Jerry Coyne was lambasted for stating it this way.
Is space-time, i.e. the medium whose curvature is described by general relativity, material? It doesn’t have mass, doesn’t absorb or reflect EM radiation…do you think it’s material? And why?
A simple capacitor can do differential and integral calculus. I studied calc for three or four years before I could do what a simple capacitor can do and it takes me much longer. Plus the capacitor can integrate and differentiate functions that no human mathematician, engineer, or physicist has ever figured out how to integrate or differentiate. What I’m getting at is that you seem to be thinking of “intelligence” as its own discrete metaphysical force of nature. That’s not what intelligence actually is.
Getting a degree in scientific field does not mean you have looked at the world from a naturalistic perspective. I’m really curious to hear what kind of work you did to look at world religions. “Some of which just seem silly” doesn’t seem to me like a serious appraisal, not least because Christianity itself doesn’t seem any more or less silly than the other religions out there.
Why don’t you give us a sense of how much investigation you’ve actually done of viewpoints outside of Christianity. I’m getting the feeling you read a couple encyclopedia articles to give yourself a taste and then decided you had done your due diligence.
And delusional people can suck other want to be convinced delusional people into their delusion.
If gods are not dead, if gods are living and active, then, if gods do actively intervene here in the natural world, then how is this intervention accomplished (since they are immaterial) and what evidence do we have that this has ever happened?
Are you claiming that atheism led directly to the drug abuse and wrecked lives of your friends? Are you claiming that, because you were saved by a mythical being, this new addiction replaced the drugs?
I read dreck such as this and am amazed at how many times I have read, or been told, almost exactly the same story, again and again and again, by fundogelical born-agains. It is almost as if every saved Christian went through exactly the same time of atheism, drug use, alcoholism, sexual profligacy, and then, *bing* MIRACLE and they are saved for Jesus.
I find this hard to believe. It may be true, but I have heard variations on it so many times that it has become evangelical boilerplate.
But only gods can be perfect (though your gods sure fucked this universe up (by your argument)) and now you claim to be gods’ ‘perfectly material means’ to witness to the great unwashed hoppers? I think your hubris is showing. Or you worship Tpyos on the side. Either one.
Saved you?
Christianity turned you into a lazy, intellectual coward. It’s taught you to accept word games (the dumber, the better) in order to insulate yourself from hard questions. “Is that really better?” sums up your entire attitude. You don’t care about truth; you’re simply happy believing whatever makes you more comfortable.
I’ve no idea whether you had a mind to speak of before you were mentored by this fuckwit, but your brain has become mush.
Is that really better? Because honestly, you’re still a mindless addict.
What Xianity didn’t save (were it ever there) was any of Taylor’s ability to consider another’s position, or an argument opposed to the props to his social belief system.
Taylor does seem to be one of the least likely to really think about what anyone else says, because he was “saved” from what might have been a pretty bad fate (Xianity may well have done it, but so could have other belief systems, were they able to appeal to what he thought).
So I really do think that he’s never going to come over enough into treating ideas as possible equals, initially, to allow a meaningful discussion with him. It’s always going to be that Xianity is right, as well as any “argument” that props up these cherished beliefs.
Glen Davidson
This leap, here: ‘the being that caused everything else to exist, must be the God of the Christian Bible’. That’s one heck of a leap, Taylor, and you present no evidence for it at all. If there is a being that caused everything else to exist (I used to believe in such a being), what shred of evidence is there that this being is the same petty, capricious and unreasonable God who set human beings up to fail and required a human sacrifice in order to free humans from the punishment God himself had instituted? Just look at the *scale* this God works on, and compare it with the scale of the universe. It simply does not compute.
(There’s another leap in your comment #191, that ‘intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence’. Again, no substantiation, and I think a reasonable time spent studying evolution would demonstrate to you that you are wrong about that.)
I find it hard to believe you have studied world religions for years. I have not, but even so, I know that other religions have their own creation stories (personally, I think The Silmarillion is as good as any), their own versions of heaven and sets of conditions required for the faithful to get there, and their own capricious gods—who, oddly, always seem to reflect the mores and opinions of the people who decided to worship them. None of them fits with scientifically described reality, incidentally.
It seems to me that you have not achieved a full and clear understanding either of the God you worship or of the religious tradition of Christianity. I don’t recommend you do your homework, however. It’s awfully hard to believe all this stuff when you’ve taken a clear-eyed look at it.
“…hanging out with a group of guys, hip young atheists all.”
Oh, sure, of course, they MUST have been atheists, those vile druggies, wouldn’t they? If they weren’t God-fearin’, they obviously wouldn’t have been. Like some of those qwazy meth-odists, huh?
It’s like dress up with gods instead of dolls. My god is so insubstantial, he canappear in any way i can fantasize…
Poor hamster god…. in a dress.
I laugh at the “Uniqueness” of Christianity. Especially during this time of the year!! Happy Winter Solstice, Taylor.
Wow, an intelligent Christian. AMAZING! And how is that God is active? Actually performing miracles that couldn’t be explained except by saying “well, obviously, there is a god at work, and it could only be the Christian God”?
Yeah, being saved from the atheist druggies by becoming a perfect little choir boy. We all believe your story. It totally doesn’t resemble the standard Conversion Story with the standard demonization of any lifestyle that doesn’t involve Jeebus. Nope. Not at all. Do you happen to work for Chick Publications, by chance?
And is apparently a complete cock, given that your group of friends apparently descended into heavy drug addiction whereas only you were saved. Particularly given that you don’t have to do anything for christianity to work, therefore your friends didn’t have to do anything and it failed for them. (the assumption here of course being that you didn’t invent the whole scenario, which seems more likely to be perfectly honest)
Nigel:
Yeah, I know. I’m just much more used to thinking in historical/paleaontological forms rather than blastocyst to human sequencing. My limited imagination apologizes.
Positing an alternate explanation doesn’t disprove the original explanation. I’ve looked at all the explanations, and come to the conclusion that Christianity is the best one. That’s all. Feel free to hold to another explanation, and, by all means, keep trying to convince me that I’m wrong. We’re all seeking for the truth right? If you convince me that atheism is a better explanation for the world that we see, I’ll buy it. But I’ve read a lot of arguments, watched a lot of debates, had a lot of good long talks, and so far it has failed to convince me. I’m sorry but I respectfully disagree with your explanation.
Isn’t that a Jack Chick tract?
nigelTheBold @ 210;
If that is the motto of the Navigator Guild, then they probably shouldn’t be allowed to fold space-time…
Still, ‘Shai-Hulud’ would be one heck of a brand name for a real ale…
Again: NO NO NO Taylor! BAD Taylor!
One (of many things) thing you fail to comprehend here is that our universe naturally expresses the property of computation. We see this time and time again, at many levels.
Computation means that natural structures can sense the world around them, store representations of it, manipulate them, and form decisions based on that information. Extremely simplistic arrangements of matter can exhibit the property of Universal computation. And computational systems of sufficient complexity can learn AND act in the world.
These are simple facts.
And based on everything we know, the brain is such a computational system (even if not in the limited von Neumann sense). We don’t know everything about the brain to but to assume some feature of the brain that we haven’t explained = God is called an Argument from Ignorance. “you can’t explain consciousness, therefore God” is a fallacy. There isn’t even the slightest HINT that God is required to explain the function of the Brain. Evolution and Abiogenesis take care of the rest.
PS Thank you #217 Ewan R – cracked me up. Shall we call this the Poultry Conundrum? I’m sure you just scrambled a few brains.
You’re a walking Chick tract, but somehow dumber, because you’re an actual human being who’s turned his back on the ability to think.
Have we got down to the voices in the heads yet?
All theological arguments ultimately are based on what voices in people’s heads told them.
There are billions of heads with voices in them. Those voices all say different things. The gods are just sockpuppets.
Skimming the thread. Predictable, yes we have.
Also, Taylor, isn’t this story about being taken under the wing of a Phantasmagorical Jeebusite slightly at odds with your suggestion in 191 that you were on your own, exploring science and world religions, when you suddenly scream out “Aha! JEEBUS IS LORD!”? So, what was it that led you to your current religion:
-Guidance from someone of that religion
-Coming to the decision on your own based on analysis of other religions.
We await your revisionism with bated breath.
This is complete bullshit. Total fucking lie.
You have not studied every single other religion or view on religion.
And which version of Christianity?
taylormade #154:
Most of taylormade’s points have been refuted already, but I also want to point out that you really don’t seem to understand what infinity means from a mathematical perspective. Infinity is not synonymous with “has no beginning or end”.
Consider the natural numbers. The set of natural numbers is infinitely large, but at the same time it has a beginning – zero. Conversely the set of all negative integers is also infinite in size, but it has an end – negative one.
Getting a little more complicated, let’s consider the set of all real numbers between zero and one. Right there in the definition of the set are both a beginning and an end, but since the real number line can be subdivided indefinitely the set is still of infinite size.
On the other hand, a circle has no beginning or end, but still finite length.
No. People who know The Truth are extremely destructive. Stalin, Pol Pot, Martin Luther, Torquemada, and lots of others knew that they, and only they, had the one real Truth. Which made the rest disposable.
We’re all seeking for the truth right?
I’m sure you think you are. But you gave up long ago.
argh!
1. The universe as WE KNOW IT right now TODAY, had a “beginning”. What the “universe” looked like before the big bang we don’t know.
2. Stories about resurrection, empty tombs, virgin births, intelligent snakes, tree of life etc, is NOTHING ORIGINAL AT ALL! All this stuff was very popular story material during that time and place!
That’s not the problem, I really wouldn’t be bothered if you believed (some would, I know) after all of that. What bothers me, given that you’re here, is that you seem to have no comprehension of why no one here is impressed with the idea that the universe has to have a beginning, therefore we can cobble together words like “non-material,” “infinite,” and “uncaused cause” and think that you have demonstrated something, all without any evidence for the “non-material,” an “infinited entity,” or an “uncaused cause” (no, I don’t mean quantum fluctuations, which aren’t the “cause” or “aition” meant by theists).
There are theists who make sense, although they really can’t give us a reason to believe in God. You do not make sense, quit relying on people who say what you want to do your “thinking” for you, or at least quit pretending to others that you’re being thoughtful as you do.
We’re not impressed by your word games. You may be if you like it, just quit thinking that you’ve (or WLC has) accomplished something. It’s not so.
Glen Davidson
@antepro #249 Both. The man (his name is Brad) showed me in high school that Christianity is not ridiculous or only for old people, and in college I studied ecology and world religions and that’s when it clicked for me.
@taylormade in #218:
So, are you asserting that it was God’s goal for you to be saved, but not your friends? Why wasn’t it his goal to save those other kids too? Surely he was capable of saving them too? Why would you worship a deity that so arbitrarily plays favorites?
Positing an alternate explanation doesn’t disprove the original explanation.
you don’t apply evidence and reason to make your conclusions.
1. Which explanation are you speaking of?
2. To any half-way rational human being, it may not disprove the original explanation, but it might make one doubt how accurate the original explanation is until the alternatives are fucking ruled out.
No, it isn’t. It is factually wrong with respect to origins of life (see: evolution), there is no reason that you or anyone else has EVER given to link “prime mover” to “YHWH”, the moral laws provided are so transparently primitive and distant from “objective morals” that would be expected of a god, the idea that Jesus’s sacrifice was necessary is nonsensical and the case for the Resurrection is piss-poor. Judaism is a far BETTER conclusion, because it doesn’t run into the problems that is a perfect all-knowing God CHANGING HIS MIND (at least, not as often and with as much magnitude as Christianity) and it also doesn’t bring up the questionable morality of burning all unbelievers for eternity. But, it doesn’t matter: You are dishonest. You did not arrive at Christianity due to following the evidence or considering the alternatives. Or, at least, you are not smart enough to have done so successfully. You just kowtowed to social pressure and weak apologetics. That you think that this should impress anyone is pathetic beyond description.
You have yet to prove, or even provide a convincing argument for, your original explanation.
We atheists far as I can tell, aren’t all drug addicts with wrecked lives. Quite a few people on Freethoughtblogs have advanced degrees of one sort or another, Ph.D., MD, JD, MA etc..
In fact, fundie xians score higher in any social problems you care to name, abortion, teenage pregnancy, poverty, STD’s, drug and alcohol abuse, prison time, etc..
Atheists score higher in education and intelligence than the general population.
Whatever, the truth of not of Taylor’s stories, it certainly has no relevance to the overall value of xianity or not.
to think…
This was the BEST of the letter sent to PZ on this issue.
Is it any wonder that Republicans use these clowns as their base?
they just BEG to BE used.
I can’t help wondering why Taylor didn’t just keep the atheism and yknow…just not done drugs. Just because it got you out of a sticky social situation doesn’t mean it will get you out of the next one you just ran head first into…
Also, if non-material things are pretty much like material things (because god no doubt interferes an awful lot in Taylor’s world, and let’s face it, jesus was terminally mortal) then surely we just make the universe non-material (but no different really) then the universe can do amazing and fantastic things… and be infinite and stuff.
Funnily enough the universe is pretty amazing… better than appearing fishes and raising the dead. In fact you had to make fishes with the universe before those cheap miracles could be done.
Bringing something alive back from the dead isn’t half as fantastic as building a human out of peanut butter sandwiches and coca cola in the first place IMHO.
Gregory Greenwood:
Oh. I am so making this. I’ll post the recipe once I’ve figured it out.
“Patrickblaha: 2. Stories about resurrection, empty tombs, virgin births, intelligent snakes, tree of life etc, is NOTHING ORIGINAL AT ALL! All this stuff was very popular story material during that time and place!”
Do you guys realize what this could mean?
Maybe, just maybe christianity was just one big publicity stunt gone haywire with jesus trying to promote his book/play/whatever…
I studied ecology and world religions and that’s when it clicked for me.
you mean, you realized since you failed both courses that religion was the only way for you to succeed with the rest of your life?
because so far, you haven’t evidenced ANY knowledge of world religions, past or present, and nothing at all relating to ecology or that is even relevant.
your thinking is mush.
The problem, Taylor, is that you don’t seem to be engaging with the specific problems with “Christianity” as an explanation. This is a really telling comment. Note that none of us has actually offered one explanation to compete with Christianity — because very few atheists believes they are in possession of such an explanation.
From my perspective, the correct “explanation” has almost certainly not been discovered yet. That’s why I’m not leaping to a particular explanation but critiquing existing explanations to see whether any of them might be on the right track. But you’ve already decided that Christianity is the most reasonable explanations and refuse to engage with critiques of it.
So no, you’re not seeking after truth, you have your truth and you’re trying to defend it, mostly by not listening to the problems with your version of truth.
Oh. I am so making this. I’ll post the recipe once I’ve figured it out.
I think it should include vomit from giant earthworms!
in homeopathic amounts, of course.
MichaelE: The working title for the New Testament must’ve been “Old Testament II: Electric Boogaloo”. Or, slightly less anachronistic: Tanakh II: “Let Them Eat Pork!”.
In the context of the discussion this isn’t even what is being done. What is being asked is for you to define your logic a little better.
You state (to paraphrase, b/c I ain’t scrolling that far!) that Christianity is right because it is original. The counter to this is another (contradictory) original religious idea – if originality is actually what you’re using to differentiate between what is true and what is false then you are in the rather uncomfortable position of having to believe two mutually contradictory ideas are true – if you’re using some other criteria the onus is on you to tell us what that is – if you can’t give a better reason then one would assume you’d have to reject that particular method for arriving at the truth.
What makes you think the “original” is the proper default, or even a decent hypothesis?
You write your biases when you write of “an alternate explanation.” The Big Bang is not an “alternate explanation,” it’s the only one based on the evidence (it has lingering problems, but explains much). The multiverse is an alternate explanation of some things, because it is based upon what we know about physics, but it’s an “alternate explanation” because others seem possible in physics. Religious “explanations” aren’t even “alternate explanations” because they’re just based on visions or some pre-scientific presuppositions, etc.
Glen Davidson
@taylormade: Explanations of the world are not equal. If you come home, and you see that your front door is wide open, you can posit a few hypotheses:
1. You got broken into.
2. Your mom got home in a hurry (I’m assuming you still live at home; I may be wrong, but that’s what the evidence tells me right now), and just forgot to close the door.
3. Your mom came home, closed the door, but didn’t push hard enough, and the wind blew it open.
4. Some green blob from space came down, dematerialized the door, and rematerialized it open.
Now although I can’t completely disprove #4, I’m completely in my rights to dismiss it as so highly improbable as to not be worthy of investigation.
Your explanation of the world is in every way equivalent to #4, except that #4 is actually more probable.
Positing an alternate explanation doesn’t disprove the original explanation.
the world is both flat and round, both moves and is stationary, is both part of a galaxy of stars that both do and do not form a ceiling above it….
some explanations indeed ARE mutually exclusive, by their very nature.
In your original mailing and in a number of your comments, your attitude could be summed up as “Say what you will”, meaning that no matter what people said, you would not re-examine your position.
So, fuck you.
@PZ: Yeah, thanks for the toy. But he’s getting a little tiresome. Got anything fresher?
The universe contains material things but … is the empty space of which the universe seems to contain so much “material”?
If the universe is infinite, it can be infinite. While there is some uncertainty among the cosmologists about whether the universe is infinite, and although as far as I can tell the opinion is leaning in the direction of saying that the universe is finite (in size), the reasons for that opinion do not seem to include “because the universe contains material things.”
FWIW, Taylor is being Post Modernist whether he knows what that is or not.
PM: All explanations are equally valid.
It doesn’t work in science. It was in fact, a spectacular failure. There is only one objective reality and one real world.
taylormade:
No. What disproves the original explanation is evidence. If the evidence more supports the alternate explanation, then that alternate explanation is considered more accurate than the original explanation.
And if the original explanation makes no specific testable predictions, it isn’t much of an explanation at all. And that’s where your “original explanation” fails.
Because it’s another class in the school of “If there was no god, I’d be raping and killing all the time”
Epistemology. Learn about it, Taylormade.
If only so that you can understand how thinking about these things is properly done.
You don’t have to apply proper epistemology to your beliefs at all, if you don’t want to, but you’ll get nowhere in convincing us of anything so long as you flagrantly disregard evidence and its proper use.
Glen Davidson
Taylor #191 wrote:
As has been pointed out, you are on shaky ground here because you have gotten into math — and you are not a mathematician. Instead, you are using technical terms in a kind of “folk” way, appealing to common sense.
Science — and mathematics — are uncommon sense. Intuitive assumptions will fall apart.
Here is an interesting thing to try: consider a definition of the Universe which includes everything that exists, in every form it has, did, or will exist, material and nonmaterial. Universe = reality.
Now, the Universe contains God. Or not.
And either way, it is still in some sense eternal.
No. Again. This is your WEAKEST point and it’s also the most critical one. Intelligence does come from non-intelligence, whether you look at the process from the molecular standpoint or the evolutionary one.
When it comes right down to it, the only “explanation” God provides is the lazy one of “like comes from like.” No mechanism, no process, no attempt at any real explanation. How does this explain anything?
How did some things get to be intelligent?
They got intelligence from Intelligence.
But how?
Intelligence made them intelligent.
How?
Intelligent power acted on them.
How?
It granted intelligence.
How?
Ah, okay. We are not intelligent enough to know.
But the rest of this is supposed to illuminate things?
Let’s just take a second to pause and think about this. Think about how much narcissism, self-righteousness and misanthropy must factor into saying something like this.
Christ “saved” him, but not his friends. Christ “saved” him, but can’t be arsed to prevent the natural disasters he created and knows are going to happen from killing infants. Christ “saved” him, but doesn’t lift a finger to help the millions of children raped countless times a day being pimped out by human traffickers.
I’m seriously agog at the level of your apathy for the suffering of others, Taylor. And the way you pretend you’re so special and superior, because you’re privileged.
Congrats. You’ve made Christianity truly and completely reprehensible.
Taylor explains:
Taylor originally said:
Mmmhmm. So, Christianity clicked when you were studying world religions and ecology in college. While the man you met in high school taught you about Christianity, mentored you, and “saved [you] from the path” you were headed down? Don’t see the disconnect there? That you are giving credit to a man for teaching you and saving you while supposedly also claiming that you converted, explicitly, due to looking at world religions? So, are you giving this man a little too much credit in 218, or are you admitting that you came into “world religions” exploration bit biased and already on the verge of Christianity for reasons other than strict examination of the evidence? You can’t both give credit to this man for saving you and claim that you gave world religions an objective look years after meeting the man you credit with “saving” you.
If the man “saved” you before you explored world religions: You were only looking at other religions to confirm your beliefs. Which is consistent with your ridiculous claims here.
If the man “saved” you after you explored world religions: You weren’t actually fully convinced by finding the best world religion via research.
If the man and the research both contributed, but neither had the sole role: Why give so much credit to the man for helping you stay away from drugs? Why also pretend that you came to this conclusion on your own based on evidence, as you did in originally talking about world religions and ecology? It’s like you cherry picked the research when trying to claim objectivity and cherry picked the mentor when trying to show how good Christianity is. Dishonest.
You misrepresent your own life. What is the fucking point of that?
It contains a psychoactive chemical that the yeast excrete before they die. That not enough for you?
But (and I am assuming here) he can claim it is all about the free will (shit, not that again) that was granted us by the gods. Those atheist drug addled alcoholics made the choice to numb their brains which chemicals when they could have numbed their brains with jeebus and gods.
I don’t think our friend here deserves that much credit. Xianity was truly and completely reprehensible long before Taylor came along.
I’m actually a little confused here, why can’t the universe be infinite?
I mean, sure, there was a beginning, but I seem to remember someone once saying that “what happened in the time before the big bang?” question was meaningless because time and space began with the big bang.
So I don’t understand why something material can’t be infinite…Does matter degrade over time?
As those quicker than me have pointed out, that’s not what’s going on here. Our non-acceptance of your explanation doesn’t mean that we accept any other specific explanation. You do not need to look at “available explanations and decide which is the best one.”
If there is no explanation that explains everything, the only rational thing to do is to admit that you don’t have a complete explanation. You do not have to pick one.
A belief in God and a lack of belief certainly aren’t equal propositions – it’s not a case of “Well, you have to believe either A or B, so it’s just as rational to believe either.”
Believing that God created everything adds an extra variable for which there is no discernible evidence. You need a lot of very strong reasons to just suddenly assume something like that. If you’re in the forest and hear a rustle in a pile of autumn leaves, you do not assume tiny unicorns hidden in the leaves. Assuming that there are no tiny unicorns is not an alternative explanation – it is a basic starting point.
When you are at that point you can start looking for explanations – not by assuming that a being you wish to be there is there, but by examining the world. In the forest you can feel if there is a breeze or look if you see some little rodent or rabbit in the leaves. If you find something, only then do you have an alternative explanation – the “I don’t think that it’s unicorns because I have no evidence of tiny unicorns hiding in autumn leaves” is not the explanation.
Likewise for God. I start at the basic, rational point of not believing in God/gods. “There is no God” is not my explanation for Life, the Universe and Everything – it just describes the fact that I haven’t found any reason to assume the existence of a God.
So no, I have no explanations. Your explanation is not an alternative to my lack of explanation – it is an unsubstantiated, unnecessary assumption that I simply never made. I don’t have to have an explanation for everything, and neither do you. But we do have to justify why we suddenly believe in something that we can’t readily demonstrate is there – whether it’s gods or tiny unicorns.
No, i think he’d have been playing dungeons and dragons then joined a witches coven before his best friend committed suicide. Thank god he picked up the other Chick Tract. That’s all i can say.
Unless intelligence did come from non-intelligence, in which case intelligence can come from non-intelligence.
If the universe was created by a spiritual person which wanted to reveal itself to humanity as a whole, it would not have done so by giving a special revelation at a very late point in human history to a single tribe of superstitious people and then allowed this knowledge to slowly spread through a book, the sword, ruler fiat, indoctrination from birth, and missionary conversions. It’s fiercely inefficient. Only 30% of the world today is technically Christian, and most of that belief is based on cultural momentum as opposed to deep conviction.
Taylormade only thinks this system is the “best” one a god could have chosen because she/he personally is Christian so it worked where it counts.
Look, if God existed and really wanted humanity as a whole to know it, there would have been no mystical revelations or divine hiddenness or sacred literature. The existence of God would have been as clear, obvious, and non-controversial as the existence of trees. That’s not too hard a task, surely.
And don’t give me any nonsense about how this would eliminate our “free will” to choose to love God or obey it or whatever. Being able to actually know that person X is there and is asking you to do something doesn’t mean that you’re a robot if you decide to do it. Of all the silly arguments in Christianity, that one might be in the top 10.
MichaelE:
It depends. If baryon number conservation holds, then no. Some models break baryon number symmetry, though. If one of those models are correct*, then protons decay over time. Granted, their half-life is quite a bit longer than the expected lifespan of the universe. But that means there are protons decaying somewhere.
That is, if one of those models is correct.*
* Which isn’t bloody likely, it seems
nigelTheBold @ 264;
As an advertising slogan, how about;
“Why chase the Dragon, when you can be swallowed by the Worm?”
——————————————————————
Ichthyic @ 268;
“Now with real worm vomit” – another selling point.
And, since we are discussing homeopathy, why not claim that, since it contains homeopathic quantities of worm vomit, it also acts as a wormifuge? That should reel in a few newage rubes…
Taylor:
You wrote:
Considering that every argument you have presented has been shot down in flames here today, what, precisely, would it take for you to give up on your fantasy world and join reality?
Applying the word infinite to the universe is not a coherent statement as I understand it.
Seems to me you could say the universe has infinite space. Or that it has existed for an infinite amount of time. Or even that it contains infinite matter.
But just saying the universe is infinite is like saying the universe is 42. What the hell are you talking about?
Gregory Greenwood:
Oh, yeah. I’m really digging this. Also, too, you made me snort water out my nose. Not nice.
So, one of my coworkers thinks it should contain Thai peanut sauce, and some Thai hot peppers. The spice must flow, you know.
Things Taylor said that have already been refuted by science and noted on this thread, but which Taylor completely ignored (thus proving that he does not in fact care about actual truth, only about what he would like to be true):
1)The claim that everything needs a cause; refuted by the existence of virtual particles
2)The claim that like has to come from like (in this case, intelligence); refuted by evolution and the observable existence of assorted emergent properties
3)The claim that the non-material has properties (self-refuting)
4)The claim that infinity can only be a property of the non-material (refuted by mathematics and the properties of space-time)
5)Uniqueness of Christianity (refuted both by the existence of 38000 flavors of Christianity, as well as the existence of unique features in every single non-Christian religion in existence)
6)The claim that uniqueness of Christianity leads to it being true; that simply does not logically follow.
On a separate note, am I the only one creeped out by Taylor’s story about some old dude hanging around High-School students? I mean, if he worked for the school, then he was breaking the law by “counseling” students into Christianity*, and if he didn’t work for the school, what was he doing, chatting up High-School students?
*except if Taylor went to a private, Christian school. But if so, his claims for having come to Christianity independently (rather than by the “mere exposure” and “classical conditioning” pathways of attitude formation) would be complete BS; and his claim that he hung out with “hip atheists”** would reduce to “hung out with a bunch of contrarians why did what they did just to spite authorities”, which at least might explain the otherwise inexplicable connection between drugs and atheism.
**where in the universe does such a thing exist? In the US, atheists are generally shunned, not considered cool; in other Western countries, atheism is mostly treated with indifference.
Taylormade at #218, you have not proved that your immaterial big sky daddy did a thing to “save” you. All you gave is a “just so” story.
Also, I have a question. Do you think that atheists are prone to heavy drug use?
It does when your argument is: “I don’t know how else this could have happened, ergo Christian God.”
We all have lots of real authority figures in our lives. Our parents at first. Society and the laws.
It doesn’t mean we don’t have free will. In fact, the laws have to be backed up by police and courts or we would just ignore them and some do anyway.
Xianity is like having laws and police (that no one can agree what they are or want) that are hiding and invisible but will get you and torture you forever, after you are dead. Rather unfair and pointless way to run a world.
“I would have followed in their footsteps exactly if I hadn’t found someone else to blindly follow instead.”
I don’t know what makes me more annoyed: the assumption that everyone is just as mindless a servant as he is, or the fact that people like Taylor exist and yet I’m restocking my own toilet paper dispenser like a fucking chump.
As Ichthyic says, “they just BEG to BE used.”
It’s the ultimate expression of navel-gazing.
“I’m a moronic asshole who’d walk off a cliff if someone ‘hip’ told me to, but thankfully god sent along someone to show me that Christianity could be ‘hip’, so now I can follow him.”
The more this puke writes, the more I loathe his very being.
@What a Maroon – You’re absolutely correct. However, I’m trying to get through to Taylor that the god he is presenting us with is a sociopathic piece of shit, and completely unworthy of any human being’s “worship”. And, pointing out that the way he speaks, the things he considers the positives of his religion make him sound almost as bad.
@ Father Ogvorbis – He can’t rest no the “free will” dodge. I specifically chose those examples because they involve powerless, innocent children. Free will rests on the shoulders of the human trafficker, for example, yes. Not on his victim. If Taylor’s god exists, and allows child rape trafficking to also exist, then he’s still a sociopathic piece of shit and Christianity is still reprehensible.
Jadehawk:
That just proves that Christianity is really unique. It’s 38,000 times more unique.
How else are we to kill the pain of the knowledge that we’re copiloting this planet with millions (if not billions) of Taylors?
And really, can anything you buy an ounce at a time be called ‘heavy’?
@Father Ogvorbis in #285:
But in that case, Taylor can’t honestly attribute his own turnabout to God anymore either. Did God use material means to make this happen, as he originally claimed? Then where was Taylor’s free will in all this? And if it was Taylor’s free will that made him improve his life, what was it exactly that God did? Even if you assume that God could somehow magically intervene in someone’s life without violating their free will, you end up again where we started: why didn’t he do it for those other kids? The free will argument isn’t going to help him.
Funny. When I was a child and a believer in the christian god, one of the many ideas that nagger me was the fact that christianity was not world wide through out all of history. If the big sky daddy truly cared for humans, European missionaries were not needed to spread the new of Christ to the Far East, Australia and the Americas.
I guess my faith was not too blind.
A fluid ounce of liquid neutronium?
============
Taylor:
You still out there? How about actually answering a question?
I love how you countered the notion that your Christianity, like most peoples’, is primarily a product of the culture in which you were raised with a story about how you would have blindly followed what your friends were doing had someone not intervened and convinced you to his example instead.
Careful, Brownian.
If you keep up that kind of talk, Taylor is going to threaten to prat for you.
Arguing existence of the universe as demonstrating God is not really going to get us anywhere. The universe has to exist for us to exist; it’s in-effect arguing that our existence demonstrates God’s existence because if God didn’t exist then there would be nothing for us to exist in.
It’s a completely ad hoc justification, and I’m really surprised that anyone uses it. Actually, I’m not surprised, because one can never show to the contrary – it’s built God into the premise of existence so to deny existence would be to deny God. It’s great sophistry, but absolutely useless in terms of trying to understand the universe.
The universe exists – so what?
Atheism isn’t an explanation. That’s the point of it, at least for many of us.
All our version does is to demand that we not jump to some conclusion of “God” or what-not that’s thrown out there with inadequate (more likely, no) evidence for it. To have no explanation where none is adequate, and to accept what is the best explanation based on the evidence at a given time. Also, not to mind overmuch if an accepted explanation turns out to be inadequate compared with a new explanation.
Science provides most of the explanations that we have, and is the only reliable means of possibly discovering causes or reasons for the universe. And maybe it isn’t up to that task. If not, there isn’t any evident way to know.
That’s what’s important, knowing the way to get to answers. Atheism by itself doesn’t tell us how to know the answers, and is therefore commonly a consequence of science and its findings, a posteriori, not a priori as so often dishonestly claimed. Theism’s results in telling us about the universe have been abysmal, save where it has been a kind of earlier “science,” that is, based on the evidence. We certainly have no reason to think that its unique (apart from appropriate epistemics) means of “finding things out” will have failed utterly in everything near, recent, and familiar, yet will prove reliable about happened in the distant past, the far away, and the unfamiliar.
It makes claims about the distant and strange precisely because it has completely failed in the near and the familiar–again, with respect to its unique, not its science-shared, methods.
Glen Davidson
Ha! Yes I’m still out here. Just grabbed a bite to eat. Did I miss anything good? :)
P.S. I don’t claim to know everything. Those guys I was friends with may become Christians, that would be awesome! I unfortunately moved away…
Also, if God does interfere with humanity, how do you think He does it? In the book of Exodus, the Bible says sometimes that “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Other times it says that “Pharaoh hardened his own heart.” Well, which one was it? I submit that it is both.
Ok, so we have a new religion, Hoppism. What are its 10 Commandements? I challenge the community….
On a side note, this whole line of discussion reminds me of an incident that took place at a wonderful Cuban restraunt in Venice Beach. Whilst perusing the menu for lovely hoppy beverages I came across the following menu write up: “XXX beer is made of monks in XXX city.” Made OF monks? I had this visual of a brewer forcing monks into the brewing vats at the point of a pitchfork! Love those typos! :)
BTW, you are ALL wrong. You MUST hop up and down on BOTH legs at the same time! Crazy splinter sects!!
Cutting to the chase, since I don’t expect Taylor to be honest enough to actually address this in any meaningful way:
My overall point is this: Taylor talks about god in an academic way. It’s all ridiculous apologetics and big words in an attempt to deflect from the vapid emptiness of theology.
Which implies that, the only way for theists like Taylor to make god appear moral or good or even palatable, is to completely ignore the state of the world, and the myriad of ways in which the state of the world makes it clear that their god is an utter asshole (if he did exist).
Heroin is cheap and blotter paper is heavy. So yes.
Christianity requires a very specific action: if you do not accept that gift of Christ’s death, you will not go to Heaven. Take any version of the Sinner’s Prayer you want. Write your own. Ask any evangelical pastor. There is most definitely something you have to do.
This still does not prove shit.
Please, answer my very simple question; do you think that atheist are more prone to drug use.
I submit that elves did it. Or trolls, orcs, witches, and then there’s always cats, especially the dark ones.
Glen Davidson
“If you convince me that atheism is a better explanation for the world that we see, I’ll buy it”
@Father Og.#294: It’s hopeless. Atheism, of course, isn’t an explanation, but that idiot will insist that it’s an alternative belief = “faith”. In that cock-eyed universe, one is forbidden to disbelieve anything. Worse: disbelief is not only untenable, it doesn’t actually exist and is a fraudulent claim,. Just as the non-existence of God must, in their view, be impossible, every atheist must therefore be an insincere closet believer in something. Since disbelief is the absence of belief, they construe this in their worm-eaten logic as evidence for the object of the belief that is denied as well as an indication of the disbeliever’s insincerity, and we get shown the Go-To-Hell Card. We don’t need to convince Jack Shit. He’s already bought it and swallowed it. He’s a Goner.
nigelTheBold @ 296;
Just water, or the Water of Life?
Yes. Definately yes.
Have you ever read the Bible? Damn straight it’s stupid.
I thought the same thing. I recall thinking how special I was, being born to the ‘right’ family and into the ‘right’ religion at the ‘right’ time in history. Unlike Taylor, I didn’t pat myself on the back for being so awesome—I became suspicious.
Whatever did happen to all those savages God’s fucking stupid plan for spreading the ‘good news’ didn’t reach?
Heisenberg’s your dealer too, eh?
But I wonder, would a single ounce of liguid neutronium remain neutronium at standard ambient temperature and pressure?
@MichaelE #287 – [b]I’m actually a little confused here, why can’t the universe be infinite?[/b]
We have observed that the universe is expanding at a given rate. Postulating backwards, we have concluded that there was some point before spacetime. Assuming such an origin, it follows that the universe has existed for a finite amount of time. Expansion within a finite amount of time is still a finite amount of expansion even if that expansion encompasses an unimaginably large volume. QED.
Every other religion requires an action (service, certain words or actions, good works, etc.), in return for a reward. Christianity is the exact opposite.
Bull.
Fucking.
Shit.
1) You have to believe your stupid genocidal fairy tale. That’s an ACTION, stupid.
2) You’re supposed to go to your delusion palaces periodically. That’s an ACTION, stupid.
3) You’re supposed to convert innocent people to your scumbag delusion. That’s an ACTION, stupid. If you’re not expected to do this, then why are you pieces of shit knocking on my door and nearly mugging me in parking lots all the fucking time?
You’re not too bright, are you?
Why? Because of Christianity’s uniqueness. Say what you will, but after years of studying world religions, Christianity is entirely unique.
Then you didn’t study very fucking hard or look at anything except what some scumbag preacher gave you to look at, you incurious, illiterate nitwit.
Resurrection–existed before your emo scumbag deity was even supposedly alive in dozens of religions, such as the Egyptians (Osiris), the Babylonians (Tammuz), the Romans (Dionysius), the Greeks (Adonis, Persephone), the Phoenicians (Ba’al), the Cypriots (Gauas), the Etruscans (Attis), and more. The idea was centuries old by the time you lackwits caught up with the rest of the world.
Miraculous/virgin birth–existed before your emo scumbag deity was even supposedly alive in several religions of its day, such as Hinduism (Khrishna), the kooky strands of Buddhism (the Buddha himself), Romans (Mithras), Babylonians/Akkadians (Marduk), Greek (Athena), Egyptians (Horus), and so on.
Evangelism–existed before your emo scumbag deity was even supposedly alive in Buddhism. No, scumbag, christardery didn’t come up with the idea. There were Buddhist converts in Europe three centuries before you turds floated to the top of the religion punch bowl.
Monasteries–existed before your emo scumbag deity was even supposedly alive in Buddhism. Four centuries before in this case.
Salvation from sacrifice of deity–existed before your emo scumbag deity was even supposedly alive in Hinduism (Shiva). the Egyptian Isis cult (Osiris/Horus). You did know that the Isis cult was extremely prevalent and popular in Palestine when your emo scumbag deity was supposedly spreading is stupid–right?
Vows of poverty–existed before your emo scumbag deity was even supposedly alive in Buddhism.
“Golden Rule”–existed before your emo scumbag deity was even supposedly alive in Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and the pagan religions, including the Babylonian and Egyptian religions, long before you scumbags came along.
Your Easter is openly the Jewish Passover, gussied up with paganism and turned into blood rite.
So what do you have left that’s “unique”?
Nothing.
You guys aren’t unique. You’re a piddling little hodgepodge of ideas that were ripped off from better ideas than yours. The people who took up your spiritual vomit heap were simply meaner, stupider and more bloodthirsty about forcing other people to buy into your scam.
Fuck off.
I can’t help it. Some people are willingly loathsome. Some are idly so.
Question for you. Why did God harden the Pharaoh’s heart when there weren’t ever any Jewish slaves in Egypt?
I’ve never even heard of this ‘uniqueness’ argument. Probably because it’s the fucking dumbest rubbish ever and even most christians would be embarrassed to bring it up. ‘Unique’ =/= true.
We always hear the first cause argument, but we could use the exact same logic and apply it to space.
The First Layer Argument: Obviously the Earth came from the Hot Lava Men at the core of the earth, as there is no explanation of where the earth came from otherwise. Dirt and rock doesn’t come from other dirt and rock, and there are layers of dirt and rock (and other materials) on the surface of the earth. But we can always go one layer below, until we get to the lowest layer at the core of the Earth. Where did the first layer come from, a first layer that is necessary for all the layers above them?
Obviously the Hot Lave Men created those layers, as they are the only beings capable of creating layers of dirt and rock (and whatever) because they are 1) made of metaphysical Hot Lava so the core of the Earth doesn’t bother them (it is their natural home as it is in their nature to exist there), and 2)defined inside of the rock and dirt the Earth is actually made of because they exist inside metaphysical Inside, which goes deeper than the exact center of the Earth.
How can this be denied? We even have evidence of them, as volcanos even today spit out hot lava. Where could this possible come from if not the Hot Lava Men?
I don’t get how to fix it either. My “Blogger” account, via Google includes a Display Name. The regular one only includes a Nickname, which its not using, and there is no option in the “log in” function here to use the Blogger account instead. Its got to be some bloody stupid setting some place else, which determines how/if it gets used.
And no, I absolutely do not think that atheists are more prone to drug use. Nor do I think you are dumb, evil, incapable of being “nice,” arrogant prats. In fact, I think Christians are a lot more prone to be seen as evil, simply because there are a lot of Christians in the world. When one of them “falls” (for lack of a better term), it’s big news and everybody hears about it. When atheists do the same thing, it just doesn’t make the news.
To summarize: I just think that there are two explanations for the existence of the universe:
1) it is eternal, or
2) it was created.
Both have tons and tons of subpoints, but it all boils down to these two. Does anyone disagree?
I think it still needs some work. And evidence. An eternal Universe? Ok, but I think there are some problems with assigning non-material properties (namely eternal existence) to material things (namely matter).
Ummm, and I think you need to listen to yourself before talking about life after death and all that crap WITHOUT EVIDENCE!
And yet, you go there… you demand evidence from us…seriously, it’s so pathetic, it’s not even funny.
So Christianities uniqueness stems entirely from “being called” (the act of becoming Christian) and performing little rituals (praying, going to church, thanking God for your supper etc) just like every other religion on the planet does?
Also, most Christians aren’t “called” they are born into it, just like Muslims are born into being Muslims if they happen to live in Saudi Arabia. Don’t get me started on the innate “goodness” of Christians (pederast priests, Republicans, Crusaders, etc)!
Taylor:
You wrote:
Considering that every argument you have presented has been shot down in flames here today, what, precisely, would it take for you to give up on your fantasy world and join reality?
============
then how do you know they wrecked their lives?
I submit it is neither. Egyptology is a very advanced science. There are few major holes in the history recorded in the tombs and monuments of ancient Egypt. And not one of them, anywhere, anytime, anyplace, records anything that is written in Exodus:
No record in Egypt of this happening.
Again, no record of it anywhere but in your book of fairy tales. Matter of fact, there is no record outside of the Old Testament, no writings, no heiroglyphics, no archaeological evidence, to even suggest that the Hebrews were ever in Egypt.
And yet you felt the need to point out that your hip atheist former friends descended to heavy drug use while you were saved. You must think that this is significant because you used that detail.
…”To summarize: I just think that there are two explanations for the existence of the universe:
1) it is eternal, or
2) it was created.”
I think you are getting existence (ie, that which actually exists) confused with the term “The Universe”.
I would accept that existence in some form is without need of space-time, which would make BOTH the terms “eternal” and “created” incorrect.
Therefore “not eternal” and “not created” would be applicable simultaneously.
taylormade:
Seriously? You’re going with the “poor persecuted Christians” bit?
Let’s look at two similar cases. The Vatican hiding people who rape little children, and the recent Penn State athletics department hiding a person who raped little children. Considering the Vatican is hiding many child rapists, and Penn State was hiding just one, which should make the biggest news, by your little hypothesis?
Yeah. The Vatican.
But as it turns out, that’s just not so.
Would you like to make another prediction from your faith?
So if I made up a religion which was isomorphic to Christianity, but replaced Jesus with giant, sentient space pizza, would Christianity become false in this person’s mind because it was no longer unique?
Special pleading is not a leg you can fuck, you goddamn chihuahua.
Taylor, you say:
The universe exists, therefore it must have had a beginning (the kalam cosmological argument for those paying attention). Everything must have a beginning, unless it is infinite.
Here’s an analogy – think of time spatially, and envision the duration of the universe as a globe. Say the origin of the universe occurs at the south pole and time procedes northward. What point on the globe is south of the south pole? Nothing. I am comfortable with or at least open to the idea that time might not have a meaning distinct from the universe as it exists, particularly since time and entropy seem to be somehow related.
Anyway, even if the universe is “material and therefore not infinite”, it doesn’t necessarily follow that “whatever began the universe must be infinite and immaterial”. We don’t know enough physics yet to say much definitive about what preceded the universe, or what exists parallel to the universe. If you just say “I don’t understand so God must have done it”, all you are doing is substituting a term “God” for what is yet unknown.
Then you say this:
“since intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence, that means that whatever began our universe must also be somewhat intelligent.”
That made me chuckle. If I believed in God, I’d be terrified of calling him “somewhat” intelligent as He appears to have a rather poor sense of humor with respect to insults. But the main issue is that intelligence can indeed come from non-intelligence. That’s the beauty of entropy and thermodynamics. Complexity can and does develop as systems transition from high energy states to lower energy states. And, especially, that’s the profound beauty of natural selection. Of course intelligence can come from non-intelligence. It’s happened several times – humans, cephalopods, and ravens to site just three.
Here’s the thing about Christianity that I wish I could convey to you. It’s not just about rationality, although that’s more than enough reason to walk away from religion. It’s about asthetics too. Religion is such weak tea compared to reality. I spent an Easter in church listening to the priest drone on about the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection, when outside on an oak tree a warbler flitted from branch to branch, gleaning insects. What’s more unexpected and astounding, and franky more beautifu? A sadistic story of torture with no actual evidence to support the ressurection, or what my own eyes witnessed – a living thing that weighs four grams, but is complex enough to navigate between north and south america, breed and reproduce? It’s the very unexpected nature of the universe that should humble us a little about assigning simple explanations for things, particularly explanations that start with “it must be God”.
How would we know? It’ll just drop straight through the floor and keep going.
Yes. I disagree. And the reasons have been stated, by me and others, repeatedly. But your heart has been hardened by the gods created in your mind so that you will refuse to see reality.
I don’t agree that “it was created” is an explanation at all. You need to learn the difference between a real explanation and some nonsense someone made up one day. You have no evidence that it was created, hence it’s no explanation of anything. At the very best it’s a possibility, a hypothesis.
As for “eternal,” that’s nearly impossible, especially for what’s now considered to be “the universe,” the spacetime expansion after the Big Bang and inflation. The multiverse, which we don’t really know exists, may or may not have been eternal, how would we know?
You need to learn how inadequate your dichotomy actually is. We don’t even know what “created” means if it’s some kind of magical conjuring out of the void. There is likely some possibility that an alien mad scientist “made the universe,” or that we’re a hologram “game” or some such thing, which we think we can give some meaing to based on physics, but your magical “created” is essentially a meaningless claim.
Glen Davidson
3) it has not always existed, but neither was it created.
I would add that “2) it was created” is not actually an explanation for the existence of the universe, since an actual explanation would require an understanding of how it was created.
To put it another way,
“1) It exists because of magic, and
2) The name of the magician was Yahweh”
is not an explanation. It is an admission that you don’t really have an explanation.
I will raise my hand in disagreement. I’m sure that while I’m typing this the other people here will provide you with all the other alternatives, so I won’t bother – instead I will reiterate my very important point from before:
You do not have to have an explanation. If you don’t know, it’s ok to admit that you don’t know. In fact, it’s more than ok – it’s the only rational, logical, honest thing.
If you think that those two are the only alternatives (and I’m sure nobody here agrees with that) that does not force you to pick one. You can do like I do, shrug your shoulders and say “I don’t know, but very smart people are working on it. Maybe they’ll find out some day, maybe they won’t.” You do not have to assume God.
God should only be assumed if you have actual evidence for its existence. Just boiling everything down to two alternatives and thinking “Well, I have to pick one!” is not rational.
Assuming God is, most importantly, a dead end. If you think “This is the only explanation that I can see”, then you naturally will not see any other. Assuming an almighty creator puts a definite stop to all further fully rational inquiry. Sure, you can study the universe – but whenever there is something you don’t understand, your mind will go “God.” instead of “I don’t know why this is.”
“I don’t know” is at the basis of our entire civilization. That question, that admission of lack of knowledge, is the single most important thing I can think of right now – because that is what leads to all discoveries, rational inquiry and exploration.
Sure, a Christian can do science and explore and be a brilliant person – we have many examples of that. But as long as you keep going “I don’t see how this could happen so it must have been God” that important, rational side of you will be suppressed.
I don’t assume God, so I’m free to explore all possibilities. One of those possibilities will, in whatever you study, be God – but unless you’re doing unwarranted assumptions, God can be deemed just as unlikely as fairies and magical bridge trolls. Unless there is some further evidence that puts God apart from all the other imagined explanations, there is no rational reason to assume it.
of course I disagree; there is also
3)It popped into existence uncaused
and so far, that one is the one that explains all existing evidence while being the most parsimonious.
A couple possible reasons for that:
1. It’s rare, if ever, that someone’s atheism leads them to action whereas someone’s religion is often cited by the actor themselves as their reason for acting.
2. Religionists, like yourself, like to flaunt how vile they would be without religion and forget that people are people…and when something happens to remind them otherwise, they think its a big deal.
Or it could be a conspiracy against in you.
Booga, booga.
…“since intelligence cannot come from non-intelligence, that means that whatever began our universe must also be somewhat intelligent.”
Actually, intelligence does come from nonintelligence. When I was a zygote, I didn’t know anything. Now I know how to type!
The other argument that is often thrown around is that complexity must come from complexity. But what makes something complex? By definition, it is the compounding of many simpler things. Complex things “come from” simpler things, but the other error made in this argument is that “complex” and “simple” are not real things in reality. They are simply a reflection of an observer’s capacity to understand them. If it is harder to understand, it is labeled complex. If it is easier to understand, it is labeled simple. But “complex” and “simple” is always relative to the observer, not the phenomenon being observed. When I was 3, typing was very complicated. Now it is very simple.
There’s been nothing gained throughout history by labelling our ignorance God. Forego the near-trivial examples where the weather, earthquakes, gambling, and the outcome of war were at the whims of gods, and just focus on two scientific examples. Isaac Newton, possibly one of the greatest scientific minds in history, invoked God as an explanation for the order and the stability of the solar system. His laws could explain the motion of the solar system, but not how the solar system was formed. Yet an explanation for how the solar system formed did emerge from Newton’s laws, and no God was necessary. Likewise, William Paley argued that the complexity and function of life, more intricate than any artefact ever created by a human designer, must too have had a designer. Paley turned out to be spectacularly wrong, with the designer (evolution via natural selection) not having any of the mental qualities associated with human design.
Why there is a universe is a mystery, and in the absence of knowing how a universe came into existence it’s okay to say we don’t know. In fact, it’s the only honest answer. Invoking God is not only an ad hoc explanation that does nothing to shine any new knowledge on the mystery of mysteries, doing so has a historical track record of failure.
I suppose while the origin of the universe is still unanswered, people will see God as a possibility, but there’s no more justification for God than there is for an Supernatural Spider who weaved a multiverse out of Her supernatural web. Perhaps our universe is one of the Supernatural spider’s egg’s and the fine-tuning of the universe explains the existence of spiders – but no-one would take such a suggestion seriously, even though it has the same merit as invoking God. After all, spiders create “something out of nothing” in much the same way people do. So why should an anthropomorphic supernatural entity be preferred over an arachnid?
wait.
you think that actually happened?
I guess in all your “studies” you neglected history and archaeology.
“The trick is that you generically obtain an infinite universe even after a finite amount of inflation. The subtle trick involves the t=constant spatial hypersurvaces perceived by observers curving upwards in spacetime towards the infinite future time direction. Loosely speaking, the infinite future time direction gets warped into an infinite space. Please see Garriga & Vilenkin 2001, Phys. Rev. D 64, 043511 and references therein for details.” – Max Tegmark.
aside from this sounding interestingly evasive (Christians only seem to be more evil?), I also want to point out that you’ve contradicted yourself: either there are a lot of Christians in the world, or Christianity is a religion that saves by faith alone; not both.
Since there are many religions, saying many things, they can’t all be true.
Therefore the one that is unique must be true.
See?
Logic™
Similarly, lots of people stop overdoing it on drugs and alcohol, and become responsible people. Most of the time, it’s called ‘growing up’. But when it happens to a fucking evangelical narcissist…
Father Ogvorbis:
I would not like to be close enough to observe it fall through the floor. The resulting gamma ray blast would probably turn me green and irritable. And with my luck, I would’ve forgotten my purple stretchy shorts.
Ignoring the fact that it’s not clear what you mean by “universe” there is at least one more possibility: that something can occur spontaneously without cause. In fact, many of us have already pointed out that this happens literally all the time and can be demonstrated by experiment.
But it’s not as simple as you’re making it. By “universe” do you mean all the “stuff” in the universe? That is to say, the matter/energy? Or does it include space-time itself, the mass-less boundary-less (as far as we know anyway) medium in which the “stuff” swims? Both at once? Is “time” itself part of the universe? Your argument implies that it is not, for you insist that the universe is either eternal (coexists WITH time) or is created (occurs at a particular POINT in time). In other words, you’re supposing that time is its own thing apart from the universe. That need not be true. Even many Christian apologists argue that time is part of the creation of the universe itself. But if that’s the case, how can we speak of the cause of the universe given that “cause” is almost always defined, at least in part, with respect to relative position in time? How can we speak of the moment of creation when each moment is a part of creation?
My take is that the universe is much more mysterious and more difficult to understand than you are giving it credit for. The nature of time and causality are poorly understand (but to the extent we know anything about these things it’s through science, not religion). As a result they serve as poor foundations for any argument let alone what is putatively the most important argument in the universe.
It sickens me that you have no problem with the idea that your god might intentionally make someone evil so that he may punish them.
Considering God refused to spare Pharaoh in the story even though he submitted the the ultimatum, what makes you think he’s going to hold up his end of the bargain with you? Why do you think he’s not going to harden your heart and make you evil at the end of your life and not save you to make an example out of you?
one thing that seems to be summarily ignored by Taylor: there is no requirement for reality to be intuitive to humans. What “seems”, “feels” or otherwise appears to be true to a human brain is by no means necessarily true. For that reason alone, philosophical argument is worthless in establishing what is or isn’t true, and shouldn’t be used when in a disagreement about likely explanations for reality (I’ll except some forms of epistemology and philosophy of science here, as well as logic; however, those only apply to the form of argument, not to the content)
Bar none, the most unique religion is the one that no one has described and no one believes, by virtue of not having either of those traits in common with all other religions.
By Taylor’s own logic, Christianity is untrue.
No. We are discussing liquid neutronium which is, like, totally neutral. Sort of like really, really, really, really heavy helium. Won’t react with anything. Well, except purple stretchy shorts. So if you forget them, this is a Good Thing.
Yes it’s a false dilmena
Either the Universe is eternal or it is not eternal
Either the universe is created or not created.
For example, someone could make a universe that runs on a battery that will burn out, thus not being eternal. Or one could build one that is infinite and stable (because they’re God) thus making an infinite time line retroactively.
“Gregory:We have observed that the universe is expanding at a given rate….”
Yes, I’m aware of that. However, as I mentioned in my question the explanation I was given was that since time and space only started with the big bang it did not exist prior to that which would entail that “Always” or eternity could only be counted as to be relevant AFTER the big bang.
As in, the universe has already existed because before the big bang time did not exist and that “period” is therefore not relevant.
Now, I’m not sure if this is bunk or not, but it is the explanation I was given (no, not by a religious nut, but I honestly can’t remember who it was) about how it was not unreasonable to state that the universe has always existed.
Wait, what?
Neutronium can’t interact with normal matter? Why not?
What luck it just happened to be the religion Taylor has. What are the odds?
Crippling aspergers.
Well, I think we’re actually talking about people with addictive personalities — people who have, for addictions to drugs and/or alcohol, substituted a relationship addiction. The peculiar thing is that, in this case, we are talking about an addiction to a relationship with a wholly non-existent entity.
One could certainly argue that this peculiar relationship addiction might be better for the welfare of the individual addict than his or her previous addiction, but that is hardly an argument for his or her claim that the non-existent entity exists.
Yay, lets play that game.
MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
LUK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.
Well, which one was it? I submit that it was both! Who’s your Daddy Joseph? You get two picks.
MAT 27:46,50: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” …Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.”
LUK 23:46: “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, “Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:” and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”
JOH 19:30: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished:” and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”
What were Jesus’ last words? I submit it was all three!
Man was created after the other animals – Gen 1:25,26,27
Man was created before the other animals- Gen 2:18,19
Was man created before or after the other animals? I submit it was both! (why not right?)
I mean it all has to be right, because the bible is inerrant, even when completely self contradictory. Somewhat like your whole line of reasoning – contradictions don’t matter because you know what you want the truth to be.
Father Ogvorbis:
Damn me and my ignorance!
Thank you for saving me from further embarrassment. Though I am saddened I will not have the opportunity to wear my purple stretchy shorts.
Ing:
Thread saved!
I disagree.
First of all, neither of those are explanations for the existence of the universe. They are just hypothetical descriptions of some of its properties.
Second, if it isn’t eternal, it doesn’t follow that it was created.
This is just god of the gaps. Big Bang = Goddidit.
It’s probably wrong.
1. It’s now looking like our universe is part of a larger continuum. For one thing, the total net energy of our universe is zero.
2. “Nothing” is unstable. We know this for a fact. What we call a vacuum is a higher energy state with quantum and gravitational fields i.e. space-time. It also is a Dirac sea full of virtual particles popping into existence and annihilating each other. Uncaused BTW.
The most parsimonious theory has our universe starting as a quantum fluctuation of a larger continuum because “something” is more stable than nothing.
Playing god of the gaps hasn’t worked too well. God used to run the weather and cause earthquakes. These days he is hiding behind the Big Bang and in danger of getting kicked out. Again.
Sigh..
1. No evidence of the Semitic people in Egypt, other than fairly early on, when *they* ruled it, before being overthrown.
2. No evidence of mass death of first born.
3. No evidence of devastating plagues.
4. No evidence of nearly every scrap of food they had being lost, or them buying it from other places.
5. No way they could have defended themselves, in such a disastrous state, from outside rivals (of which there where plenty), if their whole army, and their leader, all died.
QED: It must be true, since like the evidence for Jesus, there isn’t any!!
Oh wait, that’s not how it works? Damn…
The One True Religion™ must be the one anyone can come to, no matter their circumstances or upbringing. It hardly seems fair the someone who grew up Catholic could be condemned to Hell for never having heard of Buddhism.
I therefore submit (unoriginally), that One True Religion&trade, which has been discovered over and over again, independently, in many cultures, throughout all of written history, is atheism.
If uniqueness is the key to truth, I submit that the Elder Gods are far more unique.
Christianity proposes salvation. Islam proposes salvation. Cthulhu offers no salvation whatsoever.
Christianity requires belief for salvation. Islam requires belief for salvation. Cthulhu doesn’t give a fuck what you believe. He’s going to eat you with a nice tarragon and corrupted soul marinara no matter what.
Christianity has a highly anthropomorphized god. Islam has a highly anthropomorphized god. Cthulhu is a tentacled embodiment of terror with a predilection for long naps.
So tell me, Taylor, why is Christianity true due to its uniqueness, when in fact it really isn’t unique at all, compared to the Elder Gods?
I disagree.
A rewording of your suggestions to avoid any word games you might be wanting to play:
It is either eternal or
It has a beginning that can be referenced in our Universe’s time [has a start].
The two are not mutually exclusive. And that something has a start does not imply a creator or even an act of creation.
pfft, the elder gods have nothing on the uniqueness of the supernatural spider weaving a multiverse with its supernatural web. Do the elder gods explain the fine tuning of the carbon atom that allows for the existence of spiders? I think not. QED ;)
I think it is unique in her mind because it is the only religion in her mind that she believes in. I can see how that might seem to make sense to me…if I believed it.
Kel:
Bah. Qvrgbl (hir’s unpronounceable name be blessed) is far more original and unique. Xe once feasted on a cosmic vindaloo with a nice crisp lager and garlic and butter naan. After, xe took a nap. In hir sleep, xe suffered a bit of gastronomic distress, which was relieved with thunderous and reverberating exhaust. Xe sighed in hir sleep and rolled over, and is asleep yet today.
Yes. Our universe is that very vindaloo-induced flatulence.
There is a parallel universe almost identical to ours in every way, except its antecedent was a hot dog with sauerkraut and peanut butter. In that universe, popcorn is not allowed in movie theaters.
nigel the Bold #372
May you be eaten first.
I think the Bible needed better editors.
Also define “created” my dear TaylorMade. If sand drops down from a cliff and makes a nice neat cone, isn’t that “created?” and should I worship the cliff?, the sand? gravity? the rocks the sand came from? The wind for wearing down the rocks across the millenia?
I can guarantee that if you come up with only 2 options for something, an either/or, then a million more options will spring forth from this blog.
Such is the universe. It should probably have its own law.
her?
oh yeah, I suppose Taylor is an unisex name, innit?
…”the Bible says sometimes that “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” Other times it says that “Pharaoh hardened his own heart.” Well, which one was it? I submit that it is both.”
I’m surprised no one has realized what this means. If BOTH the statements “go hardened Pharoah’s heart” and “Pharoah hardened his own heart” are true…
…then the only possible conclusion is that Pharoah is god!
I always suspected.
In other words Taylor, the ease by which one can create an ad hoc account of the origin of the universe that is unique should really give you pause for thought as to the extent to which your arguments establish Christianity. If you disagree, could you show where the Christian account is superior to my Supernatural Spider in its explanation? One thing the Supernatural Spider has over God is that the Supernatural spider doesn’t have the problem of evil. So I’d contend that the Supernatural Spider is more reasonable than God.
Show otherwise…
I saw the movie. That means Yul Brenner is god! I’m shaving my head today.
Nigel the Bold, I hereby crown you Abbot Nigel the Bold of the Hoppist Monks. I get to do that because my religion – Hoppism – is TRULY unique and therefore the correct religion.
But what about the Trappist monks and their Belgium ales?
But wouldn’t that argument apply equally to the existence of G-
Ah, so he’s recognised that problem, but I’m not at all convinced by the “non-material properties” distinction. If we accept that matter can be created by non-material causes, then we still haven’t proven that those causes have to be gods.
When I was a kid, I used to love those “which of these words is the odd one out?” puzzles. I wouldn’t rest until I’d come up with a uniqueness argument for every word in the list. It wouldn’t be too hard to do the same for religion… and if ‘uniqueness’ = ‘true’, well then, I can think of an obvious argument for the uniqueness of atheism.
Besides, where did we establish that uniqueness makes a religion correct?
As for “a desire to be more like God”… if that means aspiring to create weak and corruptible beings who are prone to painful maladies, then punish some of them eternally for giving in to the weaknesses with which I endowed them, and expect the others to be grateful for ‘forgiving’ them for my design errors? No, thank you.
Every morning I get several emails from gentlemen in Nigeria offering to help me obtain my inheritances and lottery winnings. I would LOVE for all those emails to be true. It would be much better than the idea that they’re simply con-men trying to swindle me. I could do so much good with that money, and still have plenty left over to indulge myself.
But what I would LIKE to be true has not one iota to do with what IS true.
And honestly, if I have to choose between believing that pain and suffering exists for no purpose, or believing that it’s deliberately imposed on us by a supreme being who wants us to be grateful for sometimes sparing us (but is going to impose ETERNAL torment upon us if the imperfect brains that he gave us can’t figure out which religion is correct), I’d prefer the former. I would prefer to believe in “no god” than “cruel god”.
Illuminata:
That is the coolest thing anybody has done for me that didn’t include scented oils and acts that are illegal in several southern states.
Thank you. Thank you. A thousand times thank you. I shall do my utmost to behave in a fashion that brings honor to the faith. I shall cleave to tennets of the faith as if I were performing acts that are illegal in several southern states.
Uhm… what are the tennets of the faith?
I wish they could Chimay like my sister Kate.
*groan*
Jesus, that Christ fellow is a bit of a dick!
Okay, folks, I see a problem with Hoppism.
Is Hoppism the ceremony-based religion of salvation through hopping up and down on one foot? Or is Hoppism the faith-based religion of salvation through the belief in the magic of bitter beer?
I can, mentally, deal with the schisms arrising from left foot, right foot, blue foot, red foo . . . (Sorry, got into Suessism there) arrising from left foot, right foot, both feet. But when you move away from the ceremony of Hopping and fermenting into the Yeastatic evangelism of liquid Hoppism, it just gets weird.
And where would Porter, Bock, Lager, Stoudt and all the other older gods fit into Beerish Hoppism?
I worship a wheat-doppelbock. Does this make me a member of a different sect?
Yes but what are you going to demand we all call dragging a large tree into your living room, wrapping it in gaudy things and slowly starving it to death?
It isn’t unique unless you completely lay claim to the holidays (and whinge if anyone tries to be inclusive)
This is actually VERY important. Beer could get spilled with all that up and down motion!!!
Did I accidentally found a religion? Crap.
I guess I’m just going to have to start making gnomic utterances that sow confusion and dissent. I shall also declare my one true heir to be…oh, wait. I’ll tell you later.
We are all individuals!
Not to mention the ol’ in-and-out motion.
Are you kidding? We are self confusing and self dissenting. Your religion is less than ten hours old and we have the minor schisms of left foot, right foot, both feet, plus the major schism of fermentation which will soon dissolve into Bockists, IPAists (the traiditionalists), the Wheat Beerists, the Alists, the Lagerists, and even [shudder] the Coorsian Schismatics.
Has anyone used the analogy about herding cats when it comes to this grope?
Sorry, that should have been “the major schism of Fermantationism”.
My bad.
jolo5309
Well, I’ve always had one prime question I want answered by apologists who use the “Jesus saved me!”-argument.
Why does Jesus love you but hate and/or ignore starving children in Africa? Seriously, why does Jesus save so many middle class white people in rich countries, making their lives great while millions starve and are abused?
I can’t even imagine how someone with good conscience could seriously say “God took a personal interest in my life and saved me.” How can someone believe both that God is good and that He actively made your life better, while still knowing what goes on in so many lives around the world?
One can either believe in no god, a powerless god that did nothing for you, or a monster of a god who helps some but not others. If God saved Taylor while leaving millions of children who are abused, sick and starving – then I can only say that this god is not good, fair or just, but an unfair and generally uncaring God that just cares about a few favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xwZt8ypufE
I am not a Bockist. I will not abide with such scum. I am a Wheat-Doppelbockist!
Father Ogvorbis:
They are no true Hoppist!
Let’s be mindful of the groping. Especially of cats.
This is another false presupposition, that the babble is anything other than mythology/fiction, and you haven’t shown otherwise with solid and conclusive physical evidence. TSK-TSK.
er, grope should, of course (all hail Tpyos, Hollowed be Hir Name), group.
Groping is not cool for cats.
Yeah, it is a piss poor excuse to link to a song.
I’ll have to disagree too.
False dichotomy.
The fact that something has a beginning doesn’t make it causal (causality has other, a bit harder to understand meanings in physics).
But even assuming causality, it in no way presupposes a causal, conscious agent. A lot of things (most of them, in fact) in our everyday causal world are not caused by couscious agents.
Oh, c’mon, Hoppists of the world. We can’t let these petty doctrinal differences ruin the One True Faith. Coorsians, disCoorsians, neo-Leffeites, followers of bottom fermentation, children of the ales, we are all still one big Hoppy family, are we not?
Come. Put down the blunt instruments and dangerously heavy mugs and sing with me our time-honored anthem…
(Ahem…)
(/Shiny Hoppy People holding haaaaands…)
OK. We have ourselves a bit of a troll situation here. Whatever the intent at the outset, Taylor is now camped out gleefully watching us throw shit at the wall to see what sticks.
Taylor didn’t come to have an actual conversation, but intended to write PZ a smug little letter. How many times have I heard Xtians said something like, “I’d love to hear what you think” or “I look forward to hearing your thoughts.” It’s Xtian-ese for I’d love the chance to witness to you about my set in concrete thoughts on everything, that I think are irrefutable. It’s their foot in the door. It’s what they think we want to hear, and we willingly oblige. Yet, we expect them to listen and consider the arguments like rational people, but they only intend for us to see their staunch unwavering faith in their wonderful skymonster. Hallelujah.
Now Taylor’s going to go back to church, and after they finish circle jerking around a guitar and electric piano, Taylor’s going to rave about the chance to witness, and brag about how those indignant atheists were falling all over themselves to refute the arguments Dr. Craig…excuse me, I presented. “And they never succeeded because they just weren’t persuasive since I’ve sprayed my mind with this Teflon-coated faith.”
It’s the same deal as PZ’s and JT Eberhard’s recent encounters with ignorant fool Xtian’s on the Skepticon sidewalk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ASBBIVFb8c They had no answers, only faith, but that’s what they’ve come do display. Why should we even attempt to engage someone unless they’re willing to come to the conversation with an equal intent?
So to Taylor I say. Fuck off. And to all Xtians: If you say you’ve examined all the evidence, and every possibility, I call you ignorant. If you tell me that you want to hear what I think, and then I tell you, and then you repeat the same arguments instead of providing a proper rebuttal than I say you’re not worth any more time.
I do have some hope. At least Taylor’s here. Maybe something will stick, some day.
“I submit that it is both.”
I like mine malty and non agitated.
What a lot of effort for ajuvenile and silly vanity post!
There HAVE been a few good cracks at its expense, though.
And may I kindly suggest that, when said maroon says “years of studying world religions” he is using the “creationist scale” , where the billions of years of real time since the Big Bang and the origin of life on earth is shrunk into 6-10,000 years.
I spend more time deciding to switch off Faux Noise should it appear on a TV.
This sort of Xian vain stupidity is really inexcusable.
Also: Hop! Morans!
Religion does seem to be very bad for your logic gland.
You forget other possibilities such as :
1) Exactly none of them are true. If you tell a number of lies, there’s no reason one of the lies automatically becomes true.
2) Assuming there’s one that is true, it can be that the one that is true has many copycats that are slightly false. In fact it would actually make more sense than assuming that one that is completely different is true – it’s easier to make up lies when you have some basis in thruth.
Erulóra Maikalambe:
You Floorwax Desserttoppingists are always saying that.
I am proud to be a Fermentationlist Hoppist. My daddy was a Fermentationalist Hoppist, and his daddy before him.
The Seventh Day Adventhoppists are trying to usurp our rightful title.
Thanks for all the great feedback! And thank you Dr. Meyers for posting this. I think some of you (though not all) are misunderstanding me on a couple of points.
It’s Myers, illiterate nitwit.
First of all, God is non-material, unlike the material universe (multiverse, whatever), so we can attach non-material properties to Him, namely, infinite existence. Do you know why infinity doesn’t work for material objects?
You really are fucking stupid. You just pulled this out of your ass. You have ZERO to back it up.
NOTHING.
ZILCH.
NADA.
That doesn’t fucking cut it here, you ignorant piece of shit.
Here’s an example: Let’s say you have a bookshelf with an infinite number of books. [moronic christard bullshit blah blah blah more stuff out of your infinite supply of stupid blah blah blah
Analogy FAIL.
Books are material things, dumbass.
Secondly, your “hopping” analogy is perfect! You are perfectly summing up my argument, but perhaps not how you intended. Your new religion, just like every religion except Christianity, requires the action (hopping) in order to be saved. Christianity is the exact opposite. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
And you don’t get that we’re laughing at you for making shit up and trying to present it as real.
That’s how fucking stupid you are.
And as far as humanity being, “not all that bad,” I wholeheartedly disagree with you.
That makes you human filth,
Fuck off.
Just turn on the tv.
I have an idea for you, champ: Why don’t you turn it off? It’s obviously making you even dumber than you already are.
CS Lewis
has a great point about “loving the sinner, hating the sin” in Mere Christianity. He says that we do this to ourselves all the time! I do things I don’t like every day, but I still love myself.</strike made up a bunch of bullshit based on bullshitCS Lewis is laughed at here as a fucking moron. He’s the philosophical equivalent of Teletubbies–without the cute.
Again, thanks for the feedback, I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.
LIAR. You’re too fucking stupid to understand something called thought. You don’t have a cogent thought in your tiny pea brain.
Fuck you. That’s all you deserve for vomiting up so much stupid on the carpet.
Ah, indeed.
Now I’m wondering when he will entertain us with stories from the Vedas and the Mahabharata.
I like the cut of your jib, Thurday’s Child.
And they say we atheists aren’t kind, but here we are giving them their chance to lie for Jesus.
My notes on that would be
1) Quantum Physics throws the idea that all things have a cause into doubt.
2) No Christianity is not unique in the things that are listed
What about Pure Lands Buddhism, all you have to do is sencerly ask the Buddha three times in your life (essentially pray) and you will be reborn in the prue lands.
Even then not all Christians belive in the covanant of grace, some subscribe to the covanant of works, that you actually have to live a Christian life to be saved.
Going by the evidence of hir original screed, I don’t think Taylor is a Christian at all, but a Bokononist. For it is written in the Books of Bokonon:
*Lies
Taylor waaaay up there at #218:
You know, there’s a book out there that posits that the old gods are alive and still mucking about with human lives– it’s called American Gods. What makes your book of fiction any more believable than Neil Gaiman’s work of fiction?
Oggie:
Yuck, I hate IPAs.
Schism!
I will worship the Belgium farmhouse style ales, however. Now all I need it a big wooden door to nail my thesis on.
Shorter Taylor:
Because I lack imagination and critical thinking skills.
FIN
Self obsessed wilfully blind incredulity is not a position of integrity…but it does place the victim of nonsense firmly in the cult of xian pompous wet dreams and fluffy pink pillow never never land.
Nothing new and a lot just par for the hard of thinking!
When he grows up he to can discriminate against atheists like his all growed up brethren!
He can hate and hold bigoted views about teh gheys and women and foreigners because his delusion tells him A OK and besides his fellow goofs will no doubt tell him that is what is expected after all…oh to be a jeebus sunbeam… what a waste of air.
Sister Audley, us Alers welcome you to the true brew.
Funny how the “some being created the Universe” in most cases leads to the same conclusions:
Someone created the Universe, so it has to be God. It couldn’t have been due to the actions of a scientist in a pre-existing universe, either deliberately or accidentally as the result of an experiment.
God created the Unverse, and has an interest in what happens in it. God never created the Universe, then ignored it because he got bored with the results, or something more worthy of his attention came up.
God specifically created the Earth and its creatures, or at the very least played a direct role in their development. God is never busy doing something else, only to come visit Earth and find to his surprise that life has appeared.
God has specific ideas about what the intelligent beings on Earth should be doing, many of them strangely aribitrary and petty ones. He never just sits back and watches what humanity is up to, with no desire to interfere or dictate.
God is specifically interested in the behaviour of every being on Earth. He’s never interested in only a few people, and ignores the rest because they actually aren’t of any interest to him.
@Aquaria
Thanks for this. I needed a good laugh, and that was fucking awesome.
“daily consumption of an IPA”
Every day we should learn a few letters of the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Otherwise you’re being almost “quaintly” local. And (sub)regional.
Wow, if you wanted to convince me to become an Atheist, you sure are doing a poor job. You call yourself FreeThoughtBlogs, but then verbally beat down anyone who disagrees. And you call Christians discriminating and hurtful? Look at yourselves. Some of you make good points, which I will consider. If I find your arguments more representative of reality, I will give up Christianity. But until that happens, try to respect Christians and understand that we (some of us anyway) are just searching for the truth, like some of you. Don’t pretend you know me. Don’t lump me into a category of people you blindly hate. I’m trying to show respect for your worldview, but many of you are making it very difficult to respect Atheism of any fashion.
Wrong. The only thing The Big Bang needs is a Big Foreplay.
‘Tis:
All of you sinners* must fall onto your knees and REPENT**! Renounce your evil ways*** or you will spend the afterlife not in paradise, but being tortured for all of eternity****!
Can I get an amen?
*IPA drinkers
**Drink a decent ale, for shit’s sake
***Drinking IPA
****Forced to consume Bud Ice.
Does anybody else find it curious that a large part of the skeptical community has glommed onto the kind of narrative postmodernist / critical theory-type philosophy that it generally claims to despise?
“Privilege” is a big part of that. See here e.g. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/
We’ve probably already done this somewhere, but ‘long as we’ve got folk claiming Christianity is somehow less flaky ‘n the rest, couldn’t we have a proper discussion on which religion is the most flaky?
I mean, I feel David Fitzgerald Skepticon thing made a pretty good case for the Mormons (see Greta’s blog), but really, I gotta admit…
… well, it’s a competitive field, innit?
Jewish zombies what have a bad weekend for yer sins… and are also the god what created you, see, and which foresaw he’d have to sacrifice hisself, see… well, temporarily, anyway… I mean, let’s not get carried away… the god has stuff to do next week, after all… anyway, ‘cos… well… see, ‘cos you–who he created–were going to be baaad and do impudent stuff like look back along the road (what cheek, ye slattern; I’m very shy when I’m committing genocide, doncha know) whilst he was destroying cities ‘n the like, well, all of that, that’s just setting the bar, here, after all…
I mean, with an opening act like that, do we really need flying horses handling the redeye from Mecca to Jerusalem, songs sung ’round gold phalli to summon the 13* bloody bits of yer lover back to life for a post-mortem conjugal visit, et al? It’s like an embarrassment of riches already, really.
$cientology makes a good case for itself, sure, in terms of pure zany paranoid/insular nastiness, and it’s so 20th century… So I figure giving ’em the nod here, it’d be a bit like giving an Oscar to a fantasy film, finally… But still, I dunno… At the same time there’s something so gauche and commercial about a religion that’s just so bloody blatant about the whole game. It’s like… geez, guys, you’ve got an actual fee schedule for achieving Nirvana? Lemme guess… You take credit cards, too, don’t you?
… all they need next is drive-thrus. Stop, no, don’t tell me they already have ’em; I don’t want to know. Anyway, my point is: I don’t want to give them this honour. It’s too much like giving retailer of the year to some strip-mall discount chain or somethin’.
Catholics for the chutzpah, mebbe. Ye, let us inveigh against them immoral secular humanists what corrupt the world… and who made us rape these kids, see. It’s their fault, somehow, absolutely, see…
Gets tricky, too, when we start considering their histories. Some of ’em been around longer, do have some of their wackiest and nastiest bits back a few centuries… Should these count? Or should there be some kinda lifetime achievement award for superstitions? My understanding is the burning/burying alive of widows with their dead husbands has been mostly frowned upon in India since its being made illegal back near the beginning of the 19th century, and it’s been a while since any Brahmins were particularly public about their endorsement… Not sure how to rate that, therefore. Honorary mention, mebbe?
Anyway. Brief summation: again, it’s a competitive field. Still, entries, anyone?
(*/And it’s true, y’know: you can never find that 14th piece. So much like what happens whenever you have to put the toaster back together, too, really… there’s always some bit missing.)
taylor:
What the point in trying to convince you to become an atheist? You’re a small-minded person with simple ideas, who lacks the imagination to see past the explanation of “goddidit”.
No one is going to tell you to become and atheist– it’s religion’s role to force people into a narrow band of thinking, not ours.
You aren’t being beat down because you disagree with us, it’s because you keep repeating stupid shit that was proven wrong long before you were conceived. And then you repeat it. And repeat it some more.
In short, you are being swatted at because you’re being an annoying prat. So stop playing the aggrieved victim here. You brought this on yourself.
taylormade:
I don’t think the point is to convince you to become an atheist. That’s something you’ll either come into on your own (through patient application of logic and rationality), or you won’t.
Some folks here are just blowing off steam. You’ve presented arguments that have been discussed to death, and your responses have been a bit weak. You’ve not addressed several substantive points raised in-thread that are fairly devastating to your arguments. So some folks react in a way that illustrates their frustration.
I too do that too. I’m just in a very good mood today.
What is the rubrik by which you judge whether something is “representative of reality?” Which epistemology to you employ when judging a truth-claim?
Also, are you willing to accept an answer of “We don’t know” as being more truthful?
These are important questions to ask yourself.
I respect Christians the same way I respect other strangers. I give all strangers a default level of respect.
I do not, however, respect your beliefs. They indicate you allow wishful thinking to trump objective observation. They show a willingness to accept revelation as a legitimate source of knowledge. They indicate a hubris that is astounding, if one honestly believes a god exists.
But mostly, I can’t respect someone who hasn’t examined their own beliefs in the light of objective reality.
if your “respect” for a particular explanation of reality is based on the niceness of the people who adhere to it, you are doing it wrong. A potential explanation for reality stands or falls based on its explanatory power and parsimony, not on whether the people who accept that explanation as the most accurate ones are nice or assholes. Linking truth-values to the character or behavior of a person is a fallacious, authoritarian argument.
taylormade wrote:
We don’t give a toss if you don’t respect us; it has no bearing whatsoever on the issue. What you do need to respect is truth and intellectual honesty – if you do that, you’ll realise that your beliefs are baseless and that the position of atheism (note the lack of capitalisation) is the only possible conclusion one can draw from the evidence.
PZ Myers @ 392;
Yup, you are now the one true prophet of Hoppism. All hail the Great Bearded One!
Well, it is traditional…
And que the schismatic sectarian warfare – or, since Hoppism is clearly a more enlightened religion, drinking contests.
For lo! Xe who can hold hir sacred alcoholic beverage the best is clearly beloved of the Hops and speaks the one true gospel!
Ramen…
…Damn it, wrong religion. Just as well Hoppism doesn’t mandate all this silly punishing apostasy with murder business.
Besides, I hear that the Hops and the FSM have a ‘special relationship’, if you get my drift. That beer fountain is a dead giveaway.
I’m not sure why you think people are trying to convince you to become an atheist.
People are rebutting your arguments and people are correctly poitning out that you’re just regurgitating things you’ve been fed, whether or not you’re aware of it, in such a way that your behavior is hard to distinguish you from a troll. (As pointed out above your way of saying “I’m interest in hearing what you have to say” is very telling).
At any rate, people are trying to help you think critically. Atheism is not, on its own, but I think most atheists here, like me, see critical thinking as a key to their worldview and as part of what makes them an atheist. If that’s how it works for you great btu unlike you we’re not interested in simply sending you conversion anecdotes. We are concerned with reality and how to interact with it.
We are not a hive mind, some people will engage with you, some won’t. Some will assume you are just messing with us, some won’t. Some will talk about something else entirely, some will make up a new religion and toy with the idea. Some will just troll.
This is Pharyngula.
Debate those you want to, ignore those you don’t. Or don’t, it’s up to you.
Ask questions if you want, we have greek philosophy majors, scientists, ex christians and people that were born atheist here.
But don’t expect us to pander to your beliefs. They MUST stand up by themselves.
A combination of intellectual arrogance and obdurate idiocy.
Oh, wait, that’s Newtronium. Sorry.
You foolish naughty rude atheists! Taylor has convinced me!!!
Taylor Christianity is unique because no action is required for salvation. Yay, sign me up! It’s the only religion I’ve ever found Pascal’s wager to work for: there is in fact ZERO cost to this one.
No church, no praying, no confessions, no worship, no penitence, no fasting, no need to persecute gays or feel guilty if I lust after kd lang, no science denial, no titheing, no purity pledges, no dress code, no evangelising, no need to accept second class status or submit to anyone. Great! And if submission’s your bag, baby, there’s also no requirement not to, so we’re still cool here.
Also, renouncing other religions isn’t required (there are NO requirements!) so we can all keep right on with our hopping and malting and dressing as pirates and quaffing.
what makes you think we want that? becoming an atheist is something you’d have to do with yourself. we are merely pointing out the flaws in your arguments, mostly for our own entertainment; enlightenment on your part would mostly be a bonus to the posters here.
incorrect. you are being “verbally beat down” not because you disagree, but because of how you disagree: this is not a place that’s very tolerant on Willful Ignorance and fallacious arguments.
Mostly, we’re calling Christians “believe in blatantly false things”, actually. Nonetheless, significant chunks of “christians” as a population are treating atheists quite a bit worse than disagreeing and even calling them names on the internet. Meaning, what you just did is called a False Equivalence; which is another fallacious argument.
I highly doubt that, but it would certainly be a refreshing change from the way this usually goes (meaning, the Christian goes to find some apologetics that shallowly address the points made here, and accepts them as means to resolve their cognitive dissonance, rather than actually changing their mind)
I said no such thing.
And the one who did is no Maroon.
What do you mean ‘convince’ you? You claim you just know you would have wrecked your life because of the people you used to follow if you hadn’t started following someone else. Where was the convincing? If you live your life by “When in Rome”, then you hardly need an argument as to pros and cons of Roman life.
You don’t want convincing. You want someone from Hameln with a flute.
You’re a fucking moron without a spine. I need you to respect my worldview like I need my cat to.
For those of you following along.
Fuck right off, you whiny, smug bowl of warm douche.
May you suffer through eternity with nothing but warm wine coolers and Coors Light.
@taylormade
You are a employing the “argument from ignorance.”
A lot.
As was explained in a video clip in a recent post – you should watch it; I think you’d like it, since it’s debunking stuff in the Quran – your argument goes like this:
1) I don’t know the answer to X
2) Therefore, I do know the answer to X, and the answer is (insert unfounded belief of your preference)
This is one of the reasons you’re getting such a hard time. Please try to see it from our point of view. You are using that argument. Really… That’s what you’re doing… Honestly, do you really think that this is going to convince anyone of anything? Do you really think it’s a good argument? Because, as I just said, in case you weren’t paying attention, that’s one of the arguments you’re using. Over and over again.
If you want to be taken in the least bit seriously, you really should stop using that stupid argument.
Taylor, I took your arguments seriously enough to respond to them. Why do you have the time to insult people here, but not to respond to the objections I raised?
Ugh, memories of undergrad phonetics come pouring back….
Ejectives, injectives, retroflexes….
I could go there, i could give you statistics on gay suicides, I could talk about the cover up of child rape. I could talk about the pope and condoms in aids-torn countries or all the civil war deaths in Ireland over how Jesus should be worshipped.
Would you like to talk to the people on here who fear for their jobs, should someone find out they are atheist? OR one hundred other discriminations…
We can go there. But I reeeally suggest you don’t.
Why on earth would we want to do that, then you’d become a degenerate drug addict and would probably rape puppies and kick babies.
first line of OP:
Want a chew toy?
*445 posts later*
chew toy all chewed.
I can has moar plz?
Taylor: We don’t hate the stupid person, we hate the stupidity. And, boy oh boy, were your arguments awesomely stupid.
Taylor Christianity is unique because no action is required for salvation. Yay, sign me up!
too late! It’s likely the Mormons already have, and if they haven’t, they’ll probably get you after you’re dead and can’t complain.
but then if NO action is required…
it kinda turns Pascal’s Wager on it’s head, don’t it?
Yup, you are now the one true prophet of Hoppism. All hail the Great Bearded One!
Good thing I’ve already grown mine to match the Prophet’s.
you all have started on yours, right?
right?
*looks for handy weapon to punish the unbearded with*
And you call Christians discriminating and hurtful?
LEAVE JESUS ALONE!!!
So, who was second best in the line up PZ? Cmon, Taylor can’t have been too far ahead of the next guy surely?
Or maybe you should ask christians why they converted… they are going to tell you anyway regardless. Might as well make it a segment. Of course they have to be interesting and personal.. unlike TaylorMade.
Taylor:
We are mocking (with relish (corn relish, I think)) your poorly thought-out arguments, your repetition of the arguments even after they were shredded, and your absolute refusal to even read any of the responses showing why your arguments were poorly thought-out.
On the other hand, you did help us to found Hoppism. Though right now, we seem to be at lagerheads about what it means, but that is IPAr for the course.
oh, one more discrepancy:
if Christianity means you’re “called by Christ” and “saved” before any actions in relation to religion, then the following cannot be true, as it is based on actions:
the belief that one is “called by christ” without any action on one’s own is calvinist, and means no actions are taken by any person to lead to belief: belief just suddenly blooms in one’s brain, because it’s an action done by god to the person.
And I totally missed this one on first reading:
interesting set of priorities, to hope that your atheist, drug-addicted friends stop being atheist (no mention of stopping being a drug-addict; unless you claim that one is causally related to the other, which you claimed you don’t, which would make you a liar)
Ogvorbis,
You present a stout case, but ale be boch when I have more to counter it with.
Christianity is unique because no action is required for salvation.
strange, that reminded me of another religion…
The Ultimate Religion for Slackers…
BOB!
where are you when we need you most?
Ichthyic, no problem, I can be a mormon AND a Taylor-Xian – no requirements! Though TBH, I’m still a bit unclear about why Taylor felt s/he had to renounce the drugs, given that there are no requirements.
Things are definitely coming to a head. Though we’re sitting on a powder keg.
Oh, well, I guess it could be wort.
Dhorvath:
Better Schooner than Lager, right?
Well, it requires a lot of humility. </snark
I see Taylor has morphed into a typical fundie troll. About all they have left. Have we got to the claims of persecution yet? German dictators? Stalin?
Doubt it. Lying is one of the fundies 3 main sacraments.
BTW, most of us, including myself are ex-xians. .We know all about it.
A lot of biblical scholars and even some ministers end up Deists or atheists because they studied xianity and the bible. If you actually study them and try to make sense out of it, without Presuppositionalism, it all looks like something humans frequently make up.
Despite your false claims that xianity is unique, it looks a lot like Scientology or the Book of Mormon and we know those are made up.
Wow, if you wanted to convince me to become an Atheist, you sure are doing a poor job.
His reading comprehension is as bad as his logic.
strangely, looking through over 400 posts, I don’t recall anyone asking him to be an atheist.
Instead, all anyone has done is tear apart the arguments he has made for being a Christian.
We can’t help it if these arguments are terrible.
That said, here’s me, asking you this:
Since all your arguments ARE terrible, what will you replace them with in order to still have a reason to be a Christian?
or even to be a theist?
and if you indeed do NOT have better arguments, why NOT be an atheist?
do you somehow think that your morals will disintegrate into magical goo?
I know you don’t.
so, the question isn’t even which arguments you like and dislike, it’s….
WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
Oops, borked the blockquote.
To clarify, I’m the guy heartlessly persecuting the poor Christian and beating up Jesus.
Haha, I can almost imagine the imaginary Jesus (in my head) saying the SAME thing.
I cannot abide the hop however, it’s the Gruit life for me!
Historical aside, Look up the use of Yarrow in the brewing of gruit ales.
Right, and then we’d have to share our stashes.
But of course. What else?
And really, fuck that.
You haven’t come across as sane enough, intelligent enough, or educated enough to break out of your mental prison.
Not that it is all that hard. US xianity is losing 1.5 million members a year. The religion is slowly dying.
Xianity has nothing to offer most people but hate, lies, and hypocrisy. Xians are no better than anyone else. The fundies are demonstrably worse.
Xians, creating atheists since 33 CE.
Oh and a big fat fucking *GROAN* for the collective punning here.
Ichthyic, no problem, I can be a mormon AND a Taylor-Xian – no requirements!
don’t forget a Hopper!
or do we actually have requirements for that yet?
Though TBH, I’m still a bit unclear about why Taylor felt s/he had to renounce the drugs, given that there are no requirements.
well, he likely did it for himself, which is fine and dandy.
what’s sad is that he felt the need to then clothe his accomplishment in false moral turpitudes, and rationalize that was OK because he calls it “Christianity”.
Pulling yourself away from addiction is laudable; saying it was because of some imaginary deity simply takes AWAY from it.
…it diminishes the people who claim such, but, at the same time, does not add any humility. Go figure.
— Concering Hoppism: I don’t care wheter its IPAntheism or Lagerism, as long as it adheres to the one and true Reinheitsgebot, the only dogma that is delicious. I hope I am not fermenting discontent by saying that.
@taylormade
You would consider not becoming an atheist because you don’t like the tone of some people in a blog comments section? Do you realize how shallow that sounds?
Yes, it’s barley humour.
Why do I speak English?
Because I was reared in an English speaking environment and offered no alternative languages from which to choose.
Why am I a Christian?
Because I was reared in an Christian environment and offered no alternative religions from which to choose.
Why am I a Muslim?
Because I was reared in an Muslim environment and offered no alternative religions from which to choose.
Why am I an Atheist?
Because I made myself aware of alternative religions and chose to reject them all.
if Taylor was actually Calvinist, instead of bullshitting, the reason for giving up the drugs would be that their newly Christian self would not feel the urge to take drugs, even if their old, non-Christian self did.
Dhorvath
I’m watching you
sc_mess #231
I was also going to bring up something that you mentioned in passing.
I feel tempted to yell @ taylormade, but it’s rude to everyone else. So taylormade, please consider the following to be in all caps:
====================================
The Universe is not a material object!!!1!1!!11!!!eleventy1!!
====================================
The universe contains material objects, but is not itself one. The universe is immaterial. Spacetime is immaterial. Energy is also immaterial. What we call the beginning of the universe involved no matter at all. Matter eventually condensed out of the supremely dense energy fields, but matter was not involved in the big bang.
To say that anything material was involved in the big bang is like saying that the Boxing Day Tsunami was part of the fault-slippage of the Sunda mega-thrust fault. Don’t do it.
Thus, the universe is immaterial. Individual things in the universe are material. Deal with that – don’t get around it, deal with it. And since matter is made up of condensed energy and the energy is immaterial, then deal with the fact that no matter is in the form it was in during the big bang…as no matter existed then…but that the creation of matter did not involve adding anything to the universe.
The creation of matter is simply like water freezing as it cools. It was slippery, hard to grasp, and becomes less so as there is less energy around it to maintain its melted state. Gods are not required for the universe to cool, therefore gods are not required for the creation of all matter.
Period.
The point at which all the confusion reigns, the point in history about which we humans are so curious, is not the creation of the material. We wonder about the immaterial. Since we are talking about the immaterial exclusively, all your handwaving about books is irrelevant.
The universe, being immaterial, can have lasted forever.
However, let’s assume for argument’s sake that the universe does have a beginning.
If it does, it **cannot have a cause**.
Let me state that again: a finite universe **cannot have a cause**.
Causes, in order to be causes, must precede effects in time. Without a universe, there is no spacetime, which means there is no time. There is no before. There
**is no cause**
for any finite universe.
the reason for giving up the drugs would be that their newly Christian self would not feel the urge to take drugs, even if their old, non-Christian self did.
uh huh.
I can imagine a Calvinist having to lie to themselves harder and harder each day…
“I am a Christian! God makes me immune to drug cravings!”
well, whatever works, i suppose, to end an addiction.
but after a broken leg heals, aren’t you supposed to STOP walking with a crutch?
I will have to disagree on this as this limits the possibilities. The entire Dogfish Head ancient ales would be disallowed.
er. #474 is of course an explanation of how calvinism explains this sort of thing.
it’s pretty evident that a)that’s not actually what happened, and more importantly, b)not even Taylor believes that’s what happened, since the story Taylor presented here was one of two people taking actions that lead to Taylor’s supposed conversion; thus, Taylor doesn’t really believe that no actions are required for salvation, either
Further discussion of time that may be required to head off taylormade from asking what physicists are studying if not causes or by selectively quoting physicists using the word cause to describe something related to why the big bang happened the way that it happened.
===================================================
Now there may be a reason for the creation of time, but it would have nothing to do with “causes” in the meaning of that word. Even “reason” is possibly inapplicable here. We simply have no language to describe a relationship between two events or actions that may be related when there is no concept of time to describe which came first or whether they were simultaneous.
Physicists studying cosmology are very interested in how the Big Bang came about, and even use the word “cause” for lack of a better term, but it is wrong to infer that this means that something could precede the universe in time.
On the other hand, if we discard your unproven assumption that the universe is finite in time and that there was nothing “before” the universe, it is possible that the universe never reached the level of a singularity – that the Big Bang started from something less than infinitesimal. Then time would have existed even before the earliest moment of what we call the big bang. This could happen if it were actually a Big Bounce, for instance, with the collapse of a previous universal incarnation hitting some not-yet-known wall of physics and rebounding the way that a supernova begins with a fantastically rapid stellar collapse before slamming into an impenetrable wall of force created by intra-nuclear forces that become relevant at the stellar scale only because the star has collapsed enough to eliminate the space between nuclei.
Yes! Muadib! Muadib! *BURP*
#1. God(god)Of(god)The(god)Gaps(god)……Nuff said
#2. Try that argument with a Jew or Muslim and see where it gets ya.
Hi Taylor.
We have a list of good books here I’d like to recommend: http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Books,_science
Most of all I’d like to recommend Religion Explained, by Pascal Boyer.
I think you’ll appreciate it. It’s not about whether what you believe is true or false; it’s about why people believe the kinds of things you believe.
Here’s a link that should allow you to find it in major online bookstores and most physical libraries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0465006965
Cider.
Cider is even uniquerer than any hop-based beverage, because you can distil it into calvados which is manifestly one of the lynchpins of the universe.
Ah, Taylor, poor Taylor. All those neurones, almost completely unused … But none of us would ever dream of making you change your ways – as long as your ways don’t include actively causing harm and suffering, e.g. persecuting gay people and non-xians, discriminating against women, interfering with their bodily autonomy, ripping off your fellow-citizens by finagling tax exemptions …
But can you do it fast enough to make the Guinness Book of World Records?
Careful. I think he’s tapped your phone. Put up a stout defense.
Atheists don’t proselytize. You might become one once you start thinking for yourself, and not letting a barely literate preacher tell you lies.
Freethought means atheist or deist. Not a regular Xian. Question everything. We questioned you, and you provided no answers. Just the typical Xian lies.
Some are. You know that if you read the news.
Why? They don’t respect us. Golden rule and all….
Then show us you can think by not repeating the old lies. Otherwise, you are those people who can’t think for themselves.
The respect should only come from us challenging your believes. That shows respect. Us not challenging you shows fear. And we don’t really care what you think of us. Just what you try to do to us with actions.
IPAs suck.
Pale Ale all the way.
opposablethumbs,
Thou hast to be fucking kidding mineself! Doest thou even know what thou getst when distilling ye olde hoppe based beverage? Ye greatest and most sublime of all drinks!
Nah, Oatmeal Stouts…Deep Rifts.
Lets all stand up and give a warm round-of-applause to Taylor for volunteering as the day’s “chew toy!”
And also, to our dear leader for bestowing on us this most wonderful of gifts! (The damn thing even squeeks!!!)
What does it mean exactly for Taylor’s effort to qualify as the “best of the religious submissions” so far? Hell if I know! But what we can know and appreciate, however, is that THIS toy was carefully scrutinized, and then selected, for us to enjoy.
And there’s something else we can know also: That whatever the creationists and pussy atheists might say about him, at least PZ loves his dogs.
Again, one more round-of-applause! ;)
Schisms abound.
Some use mechanical contrivances: Pogoists. And you can recognize them them by uttering the first half of their code phrase: “We have met the enemy . . . ”
Those who seek to lose weight are the Hoplites!
And the Skiptomylouarians? Faster than they look.
Randomfactor@49:
You win the internets! Gratz! (We’ll celebrate on Friday)
If I may, Nerd, there is an important distinction to be made – I usually choose to grant all people, Christian or not, some respect by default. I do not respect their ideas by default. This distinction is lost on taylor.
I’ll have you know, i am no mere dog. I am a pure-blood wolf hound!!!
@ Taylormade, #243
Are you really this dumb?
atheism isn’t a better explanation for the world that we see because atheism
**is not an explanation, of any kind, for anything**.
Nor is any particular god an explanation for the world that we see. God X could exist but not participate in the universe in any sense. The mere existence of God X is not an explanation for anything existing or the qualities /properties of anything at all.
“Mom, why is the sky blue?”
“God X exists, my precious little.”
“Okay, Mom. God X exists, but why is the sky blue?”
You have to have God X taking actions and these actions are the proposed explanations of the qualities or properties of things (used loosely so as to include systems, natural laws, etc.) including the property “existence”.
Even less so does **believing** in God X constitute an explanation for something. Whether some anonymous God X exists and extended her noodly appendage to perform work Y is entirely independent of whether or not any given person believes that God X performed work Y. For instance, I do not believe in Jesus-the-smeared-with-grease. If you are correct that the One-smeared-with-grease created my ultimate foremother from a rib, my lack of belief doesn’t retroactively prevent this from happening, does it?
The point here is that treating atheism as an explanation for something is incredibly stupid. Belief in a god doesn’t explain anything. Non-belief in a god doesn’t explain anything. It’s not intended to explain anything. It is simply non-belief. Or do you really believe that each declaration of non-belief in Chaac or some other god causes a black hole to collapse into another dimension, creating a brand new universe?
Didn’t think so.
It’s no wonder that you believe in a god if you think that the mere act of non-belief is supposed to create the friggin’ universe, cause people to walk on water, trigger earthquakes, end drought, extract a sequoia from a tiny seed, and raise babies’ Apgar scores. There certainly is no evidence for that.
No. Atheism does not explain the universe.
Therefore the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Really?
Try again.
My favorite part is the “Disregarding modern philosophy for a minute” line.
As in, “Let’s not use rationales, logic, or conclusions that follow from premises for a minute”.
My favourite part about that was the way “a minute” meant “exactly until it’s convenient for me to start talking about ‘assigning non-material properties to material things’.”
So this is the best Christian entry you got, eh?
I won’t even say it’s disappointing. What else could you possibly expect from a person who claims to take even a portion of such a ridiculous fairy tale book as the Bible seriously? It’s like talking to a child. A mendacious, malicious, cynical child.
http://youtu.be/c_tm38I26Gg?t=5m42s
it’s remarkable to compare Taylor’s escape from addiction with the one immediately preceding it from Rikitiki:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/12/01/why-i-am-an-atheist-rikitiki/
Riki dropped the crutch after he realized it wasn’t useful.
Taylor?
still using it, and the extended use has caused disfigurement and health problems of its own.