Hey, remember that Catholic guy who was writing a column about how atheists are atheists because of daddy issues? He’s back. He had to write a response because the intensity of atheist eye-rolling was annoying him.
In that post, I did not attempt to explain any proofs or evidence for the existence of God—that wasn’t the point. The point was to pose a question: Why would anyone hope against eternal happiness? Referencing a book by Paul Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, I posited one among many possible answers, namely that since one’s own experience with his father (or lack thereof) seems to have a tremendous sway in his perception of God, a bad father might lead a child to wish that God didn’t exist. That thought struck me as terribly sad. Thus, I made a very specific point that we Catholics should be compassionate toward atheists, hence the title. Frankly, I expected rebuttals to this statement along the lines of: “You’re wrong! I had a terrific father, and I’m an atheist! And the same goes for everyone in my college sociology class!”
I waited for this type of rebuttal to pour in. And I kept waiting. But my point went largely unaddressed.
But…but…that was exactly the point of my rebuttal! Many atheists have happy relationships with their fathers, and many Catholics have miserable relationships with theirs, and still remain within the faith. And also, if Jehovah is your role model for paternal parenting, you are seriously screwed up. But I guess he didn’t read my post, or it didn’t count, or something.
So now you might think his follow-up is to defend his position that atheists need pity because they have bad dads. You’d be wrong! I guess he decided his original proposition was indefensible, so he’s moved on to instead insisting that there is too evidence for his god, which is, ha ha, a so much more easily supported claim.
It’s a weird article, though, because he repeatedly refuses to actually defend that claim, but instead says he could have. It’s like a total non-defense. He’s hunkered down in a trench yelling at us, but ready to duck back down at an instant. It’s chickenshit Catholicism.
And his ‘evidence’ sucks.
I could have mentioned a very basic evidence: the existence of matter. How do you explain the existence of matter—stuff like diamonds, oxygen, and Saturn? Atheists frequently reply that if you put a monkey in front of a typewriter for an infinite number of years, he will eventually produce Macbeth. Their point is that given enough chances, a well-ordered universe will eventually just happen. But even conceding the conclusions of the “Infinite Monkey Theorem”, we are left with a prior question: Where did the monkey come from? The monkey might produce Macbeth, but nothingness doesn’t produce somethingness if you just give it enough tries. How do you explain somethingness? As many philosophers like Gottfried Leibniz, the inventor of calculus, have wondered: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Leibniz concluded that this somethingness meant there must be a Creator.
We know how diamonds, oxygen, and Saturn came to be: reactions in the hearts of stars, and the condensation of gases in the formation of the solar system. The harder question is how did the universe start, what was there before the Big Bang, etc., and in all honesty I have to say that I don’t know. I don’t see how stating with certainty that an anthropomorphic being with intelligence and super powers did it is a reasonable answer, though.
My answer to “Why is there something rather than nothing?”, though, is to say that if there were nothing, there would be no one here to ask the question. That says nothing about what was the initial trigger for our existence. It leaves it as an open question, which I’ll trust the physicists to be able to someday answer, I hope, rather than the theologians.
I could have mentioned the existence of not only the material, but the immaterial. For instance, where in the world does conscience come from? Why does man have a notion of right and wrong, and why is that notion so similar across the historical and cultural spectrum?
Conscience, or the general idea of guilt, obligation, and empathy, is the product of activity in the brain. It’s partly built-in as a function of the theory of mind in social animals, and partly a product of social learning. We’d be lousy (errm, I mean lousier) at building communities if we lacked the ability to interact conscientiously. We have a notion of right and wrong that is constructed by our social environment in our plastic, responsive brains.
What else would it be? The product of angels?
I could have mentioned intelligent design.
You could have. I could have laughed harder.
Intelligent design does not help your case. It’s a circular argument. You’re job is to tell me what the evidence is that the universe is designed, and it does not provide new information to say that there is a hypothesis that the universe is designed.
I could have mentioned causality and the necessity of First Cause, or Uncaused Cause.
Yeah, yeah, right, while invoking an intelligent being who is an exception to that necessity, which means it isn’t really a necessity at all, now is it? I could also argue that the physical nature of our universe is also eternal, and therefore doesn’t require a first cause. Same answer, no hocus pocus with gods.
I could have mentioned plenty of evidence, but it would be rejected by convicted atheists. Atheists are certain God does not exist; that’s that. Of course, it’s impossible to prove that God does not exist, since you cannot prove a universal negative. True-believing unbelievers are, however, untroubled by that quandary. For many atheists—the verdict is pre-determined. Why bring evidence to a show trial?
Hang on there: in the very next paragraph, this guy then asserts that we are Catholics and it is our loving duty to spread the Good News of the Gospel.
He is certain that his god exists so he rejects all criticisms of his religion, while complaining that atheists are arguing out of prior conviction, and are asking him to provide evidence for his beliefs, which he can’t do.
I’m a hardcore atheist, but I’m not claiming to possess absolute truth, Catholics are. I’m saying that 1) believers have failed to provide an internally consistent definition of a god that does not contradict available evidence, and 2) have failed to provide specific evidence that their god is the best possible explanation. Saying that “things exist” is not evidence for “my specific model for why things exist”, especially when there are better alternative models that don’t have the shortcomings of the god hypothesis. There is a fundamental distinction there that they consistently fail to notice.
Oh, well. I look forward to John Clark’s future columns in which he ignores all the criticisms of the last one so he can flutter over to another non sequitur packed with irrelevant claims.
The liar. That wasn’t really his question. And the rest of his piece was far from an honest attempt to find an answer.
Another Catholic hypocrite. What a surprise.
I don’t wish for God to exist, or not. I wish to know the truth, as best I can. Reason tells me God does not exist, whether I like it or not. My only relevant psychological characteristic is that I practice critical thinking.
Why do I see Jesuits all over the world weeping at those columns?
Christ onna stick. Even if the whole Jehovah/Jesus/Heaven crap were true, I wouldn’t want anything to do with it. Eternity, on my knees, polishing the ego of a psychopathic god with a serious tantrum problem? Fuck, no thank you. That’s not happiness to me, and I much prefer going out of existence.
Why would anyone hope against eternal happiness? Why would anyone doubt the Big Rock Candy Mountain? You must hate lemonade springs!
Also remember that the Norse pantheons version of happiness was eternal battle. It’s kind of clear that there is no consistent definition for what “happiness” should be.
“True-believing unbelievers” — Clever. It’s the old atheists are just as much believers as theists wrapped in an oxymoron.
If he really believed that his evidence “would be rejected by convicted atheists,” I wonder why he bothered. He coulda had a nice samwich instead.
Of course, he really didn’t bother. He just spewed the same ol’ apologetics. God is because the wonders of circular reasoning and sloppy thinking know no bounds. I do wish these apologists would spend some time reading the already vast archive of god arguments and the critiques of them. He could start with Aquinas who conveniently cataloged them some 750 years ago.
If I understand correctly, physicists do have a preliminary explanation of how you get a universe from nothing. You start by examining the notion of “nothingness” itself, a concept which gets murky in the subatomic world where things are popping in and out of existence all the time.
Arguing with catholics is like sword-fighting Monty Python’s black knight: you get tired and sweaty and they keep shouting cries of victory and “I’ll bite your ankles!”
Caine@#4:
Eternity, on my knees, polishing the ego of a psychopathic god with a serious tantrum problem? Fuck, no thank you. That’s not happiness to me, and I much prefer going out of existence.
Kinda gives you some sympathy for Sean Spicer, doesn’t it? Oh, wait, no. No, it doesn’t.
Why would anyone hope against eternal happiness?
Eternal happiness would be *nice*. Unfortunately, they have nothing to justify the supposition and tons of icky baggage that comes along with the belief.
If there were any evidence that justified or required belief in [deity], I’d not necessarily be happy, but inclined to believe. Show some evidence that isn’t total hash.
Looks like that line: “Why would anyone hope against eternal happiness?” struck a lot of us the same way. And then you couldn’t even die of boredom.
“Why would anyone hope against eternal happiness?”
[fine print: applies only to catholics]
Since he finds the promise of eternal happiness so compelling, presumably Clark should be trying to work out which religion has the absolute best afterlife and committing to that one.
Curious Digressions @ 10:
No, it would be boring as fuck. And there’s you, with no kill switch.
Intelligent Design is specifically NOT a Catholic doctrine. This guy argues against his own religion. Maybe he should figure out what the position of his religion is before trying to argue.
Why would anyone hope against a pony for Christmas? Logically the question is exactly the same except that ponies are real and Christmas comes once year so the hope is more realistic. I’m still not going to waste a perfect sunny day worrying about it.
If eternal happiness only comes with a price of condemning others, even for the minor infraction of not believing in your particular brand of happiness, to eternal suffering than i want no part of it.eternal nothingness is much preferred.
Evidently with this guy and others like him having ‘faith’ boils down to having the authority to say that MY daddy is tougher than YOUR daddy! [With petulant tongue sticking out: ‘Nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah!’]
Pride in such a delusion is about as childish as it is possible to get. Learning anything at all is not part of their repertoire.
What the feck has infinite-monkey-Macbeth got to do with matter? One is a hypothetical improbable†, the other is observed reality. (Actually, he babbles , which is even stoopider — why isn’t, e.g., the impossibly long-lived monkey stopped after it does type out Macbeth?)
And neither is dad (albeit dad is made of one; so would be the infinite monkeys, typewriters, and so on).
† Actually, impossible: Infinite simultaneously-existing monkeys & typewriters, et al, would require infinite matter, plus infinite food, …
I could have mentioned intelligent design.
You could have. I could have laughed harder.
You are going to do yourself a mischief one of these fine days doc ,laughing so hard at these cretins .
@8 ,I have heard them described as Yellow Plastic Ducks ,no matter how many times
you push them under the surface ,they always pop up again.
And infinite shit to fling.
Actually, I think the church has that last requirement covered.
specialffrog @#13
Or perhaps the “eternal happiness” that’s easiest to get. Christianity may have an advantage on that. Christianity really requires nothing but saying your believe a bunch of idiotic nonsense, and you can even skirt a lot of that. Depending on the particular flavor of Christian you choose, you also don’t have do anything special, like go to church regularly or do good things for others. In fact, the very notion that “good works” is the key to heaven has been endlessly controversial among Christians. And, if you mess up, all you have to do is ask for forgiveness.
God is an infinite monkey typing infinite copies of The Scottish Play (please) on infinite typewriters to foist on the bare souls of high school juniors for eternity.
I will believe a super-powered creator exists when and if it manifests itself in front of me and explains why we have to poop. If you have get to built a universe and all its rules from scratch, why make the living inhabitants so wasteful that they have to expel it from their bodies in a form that can carry disease?
On the other hand, to be fair if we are to literally believe a book of fantasies, that creator did rush the entire thing leaving animals for the last couple of days. It’s pretty difficult to design an efficient machine in just two days.
Are any of the arguments he presented as “evidence” logically barred from being applied to the Flying Spaghetti Monster religion? If Pastafarianism can be substituted into your arguments with no discernable difference, how valid is your argument? Why would your particular argument be considered more valid than any one else’s?
Realistically, if when you die you are presented at the Rainbow Bridge into Asgard for judgement whether you go to Valhalla or Hel after having worshiped a single God for your entire life, you have pissed off dozens of Norse gods and goddesses. Or you piss of one Jehovah. What gives you the best odds of paradise? And doesn’t Jehovah have to forgive you if you repent? I never heard anything about Loki being the forgiving sort. So if I am going to worship anything, why would I choose monotheism?
The idea that there is nothing after death makes a lot more sense, even if it is more “scary” than the idea of life after death. Does a Theistic life imply a fear of death? Why? You have your shot – as Neil Gaiman writes in his Sandman comic, we all get the same amount of time here – a lifetime. Whether that is days or decades doesn’t matter to the universe, and it shouldn’t matter to us.
Do what you can with what you’ve got, and try to leave the place better than you found it. Our kids should have an easier time of it than we did.
Well, that doesn’t get us anywhere, unless you seriously thought our existence explains why there is anything at all. You may as well pound your fist on the table and say “there is something!” because that’s as far as you get with this line of thought.
The question isn’t even presupposing there was an initial trigger, and it isn’t asking what that thing happened to be. If there were such a trigger, which isn’t nothing, the task would be to ask about the reason(s) that thing existed, whatever it may be.
It’s neither physics nor theology. It’s a metaphysical question, and I don’t think there will ever be a day when someone answers it satisfactorily.
Firstly, the issue of whether or not something would be nice or not has zero bearing on whether it’s true. There are quite a few atheists who readily accept that some aspects of various religious beliefs, including Christianity, would be nice – but also say there is absolutely no concrete evidence that those religious beliefs are actually correct, whether they’re nice or not.
Secondly, the question was actually why some atheists actively want there to be no God, rather than are simply unpersuaded by the evidence presented of God’s existence by the various Christian sects. Atheists are a pretty diverse bunch, so there’s probably more than one answer to that, but one answer to that is quite simple – if you read the Bible, God is actually a pretty damn evil being, who sees no problem with all sorts of horrendous acts. In his original blog post, linked in the OP, John Clark flies right by this by simply assuming and stating that atheists are against a loving, father figure God, and thus moves on to the ‘eternal happiness’ angle, but doesn’t actually present any evidence of that. I would state that, if the God of the Bible is the father of humanity, that father is a very abusive, manipulative, and possibly mentally ill one that is utterly unfit to look after his ‘children’ – ironically enough, exactly the kind of father Mr Clark seems to imply that all atheists have.
consciousness razor
Technically, you are correct, and PZ’s answer is not really an answer. It is a way of saying: well, there could have been nothing, but then there wouldn’t have been anybody to ask why there is nothing instead of something, rendering the original question meaningless.
A few words about heaven and hell, taken from Winwoode Reade’s ‘The Martyrdom of Man’ (1872), in a passage on the development of religion. It explains much about the Christian view:
“The doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future state comes into vogue. The world of ghosts is now divided into two compartments. One is the abode of malignant spirits, the kingdom of darkness and of pain to which are condemned the blasphemers and the rebels, the murderers and the thieves. The other is the habitation of the gods, the kingdom of joy and light, to which angels welcome the obedient and the good. They are dressed in white robes and adorned with golden crowns; they dwell eternally in the royal presence, gazing upon his lustrous countenance and singing his praises in chorus round the throne.
To the active European mind such a prospect is not by any means inviting; but heaven was invented in the East, and in the East to be a courtier has always been regarded as the supreme felicity. The feelings of men towards their god in the period at which we have now arrived are precisely those of an Eastern subject towards his king.”
Bwahahahahahahahahaha …
“so similar”? Across the historical and cultural spectrum?
But, of course, I’d be happy to concede arguendo that if morality varied across cultures that would prove no god exists and if morality did not vary across cultures it would be at least some small point of evidence that some type of god (not necessarily the Catholic version) did exist.
That point of agreement could be the beginning of some productive conversations, couldn’t it, John Clark?
Uh, yeah. Forgot this.
Suffice it to say that I’ve never even been brought up on charges of atheism, though I know many others have. So, John Clark, is this relevant to any atheist in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, or NZ? What about Italy? France? Can you be convicted of atheism in France?
Or, perhaps, were you deliberately using loaded language in order to malign your rhetorical opponents?
Couldn’t be.
“it’s impossible to prove that God does not exist”
If we can show that god as defined by catholics is incoherent that’s sufficient proof for me that there is no god. And I think Herman Philipse in God in the Age of Science has done a fine job showing it’s an incoherent concept indeed (keyword: interactionism). But yeah – it’s no absolute proof. Perhaps one day some apologist finds a way to work around it.
“Eternal happiness?” That’s a child’s vision of heaven. Sittin’ on a cloud eating all the candy and ice cream you want, surrounded by all your dead pets and grandparents. With no homework.
I remember vividly a moment that broke my mind: Back about 16 years ago, when I was High School, I was at a “Hell House” with some friends. We all had a good laugh over the sad vision of hell it presented, but when we got to “heaven,” I stopped laughing. ‘Heaven’ was a bunch of teenagers on their knees, bowing before a cardboard cross that had been spray-painted gold.
I was a Christian, but I’d never really thought about heaven. I’d thought a great deal about hell, because I was terrified that that’s where I’d end up. But I still had that child’s idea of heaven. I hadn’t really thought about what my version of Christianity actually taught: Heaven is the place where we go to praise God, until the end of time and beyond. Heaven was eternal church.
Have you ever learned something so horrible that you wanted to die? That’s where I was. Only, I didn’t want to die. Ever. Because whether I wound up above or below, I knew hell was waiting for me. That’s how you break a person’s mind, right there. At least, that’s what it did to me. Becoming an atheist, years later, was a relief. Sweet, sweet oblivion.
I’m a theist again. I have renewed hopes about an afterlife, one which isn’t forever. One in which I am neither tortured nor forced to serve on my knees. I would be… proud? Honored? Yes. But mostly I’d be happy. I would be happy to serve her, if she’ll have me, because she’s never threatened me with eternity.
rietpluim:
But that’s absurd. It doesn’t render the question meaningless. If it has no coherent answer (quite possible, I think), then that would be a problem and we shouldn’t worry ourselves about lacking an answer, but that doesn’t imply the question lacks meaning.
If you don’t have people (or anybody else) who are asking a perfectly sensible question like “what is two plus two?” then the answer is four. That could’ve been the way that the world is: two pairs of things in that world would still would have amounted to four things, without us being around to have anything to say about it. If there are people (as is the case), then of course the answer is still four. It makes no difference that someone is or is not asking about it, because it doesn’t depend on us and we have no coherent reason to believe anything like that depends on us. It wouldn’t somehow transform into a nonsensical question, if we were not around. So unless you sincerely were a solipsist (which would be absurd), I don’t see how you can really mean what you’re saying here.
You should at least think it’s quite remarkable that you were able to extract so much meaningful content out of a claim like “I exist” or “we exist.” It could have been any question whatever and have received the same response. I mean, is that really where the truth or meaningfulness of “2+2=4” comes from, as well as the boiling point of water and the energy density of the universe and anything else you care to name? That would be quite a magic trick if you could pull all of those rabbits out of your hat, but I don’t think anthropic reasoning can legitimately do all of that for you.
Well, it shows that “why is there something instead of nothing” is just as meaningful as “why is there nothing instead of something” and since the latter is meaningless, so must be the former.
Apparently, the only reason you’re claiming the latter is meaningless (thus both of them are) is because, if there were nothing, no one would ask that question.
I had just said that’s not a valid standard to use for assessing meaningfulness. I gave an example of a presumably meaningful question, in a situation where nobody is asking it. It’s also easy to consider other questions that people simply don’t ask, which may be the case for any number reasons. So, people can ask meaningless questions, they can ask meaningful ones, they can fail to ask things when there are answers, they could’ve not existed at all, and none of these are logically equivalent to one another.
And all you’re doing here is using that standard anyway, without justification. You’re merely asserting that something “shows” this, and I don’t know when/where/how this demonstration occurred.
It’s also weird that you treat total nothingness as equivalent to people not existing. If there’s a world full of rocks and no people, that’s not nothing. People aren’t around to ask questions there, but we mean things (in this world, obviously) by descriptions such as a “a world full of rocks and no people.” It isn’t meaningless to describe it as such by virtue of the fact that we are not there.
We’re also not in the Andromeda galaxy, and I could just as well describe it as a galaxy containing no humans. The lack of humans doesn’t imply such a description lacks meaning or content — it just lack the “human” sort of content (as it should) which isn’t all of the possible content that anything and everything must have. That’s simply not a precondition that we ought to have, right from the beginning, when reasoning about anything and everything.
It’s amazing how effortlessly the religious just forget that they’re also hoping for eternal suffering.
“Why would anyone hope against eternal happiness?”
What would anyone construct this straw man? Equating a simple lack of belief in Heaven with rooting against the concept is like calling me greedy for not donating $500 trillion in fuckin’ Monopoly money to charity.
The stupidity of these delusional assholes still startles me. If every refusal to accept a wildly irrational premise can be equated with fatalism or nihilism, then I guess everyone who is not at this very moment waiting for $500 trillion’ in fuckin’ actual money to drop from the sky can be called “suicidal.”
“I could have mentioned causality”
And i could have mentioned quantum mechanics. Current understanding is that nothing causes the atom on the left to undergo radioactive decay before the one on the right or vice versa.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… no. Question assumes
facts not in evidencea large amount of visibly wrong bullshit.In other words, there is something rather than nothing because there has always been something. A timeless, conscious, all-powerful, all-knowing, necessarily existing mind.
Leibniz hadn’t exactly got the hang of this parsimony thing, now, did he?
This statement attracted my interest:
How does he know this? Does he have a rational argument? Experimental evidence? Divine revelation? Some other method of knowing?
I mean, that’s a pretty big statement (a categorical denial of the possibility of self-creating entities, including presumably his own God), and he just… asserts it, without any support, and then expects the readers to move on without actually interrogating the reasoning for it.
I’ve always wondered at theists who are willing to take for granted the existence of a supernatural agent, but would balk at granting the existence, without explanation, of some primordial state of the utmost simplicity that could then be understood to give rise to the complexity of the cosmos. Straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel, indeed.
It’s not even some apologetics sleight of hand, they truly think so, I believe. And yet, it even goes contrary to Paley’s Natural Theology rationale: Paley would grant that a pebble might have always existed, but not the proverbial watch, since it seems intricately designed. Well, a sentient Creator sure seems intricately designed; to deny that would be to deny the need to explain beings of comparable complexity, such as the watch or humans.
@10 If the lord god almighty had consulted me before embarking on creation
i would have recommended something simpler.
King Alfonso X of Castile.