A Gap In Every Argument

Many arguments for god(s) take something the apologist intellectually doesn't understand and compensates with an assumption that reinforces the belief they've been taught is true. Sometimes they disregard or deny the available information because it doesn't jive with their indoctrination (committing the fallacy of personal incredulity) and sometimes there is no information available in which case they are filling a gap in knowledge with their divine explanation of choice (called the god of the gaps.)

Example time.

Those who use the cosmological argument: "I don't know if the universe has an ultimate origin or what that might be, so let's assume there is and it's God."

Those who use the fine tuning argument: "I don't know if the constants that apply to our universe could be different nor how different nor do I know if there are other universes or variables, but let's assume they can differ wildly and our universe is unique because God designed it that way."

Those who use the argument from design: "I don't know how the diversity of complex organisms could have came to be as they are now, so let's say it's God."

Those who use the moral argument: "I don't know why I feel so strongly about certain things being right and other things being wrong, so God must have made me aware of those moral values."

In the case of the cosmological and fine tuning arguments, humanity hasn't nailed down the mechanics of the origin of the universe nor why the universe has the constants it does. We have theories that cover part of the answer and hypotheses that speculate the rest, but there is enough that we don't know that I consider these arguments, in part, god of the gaps arguments.

The argument from design and the moral argument are different. Since the Theory of Evolution, the only way to find the argument from design convincing is by sticking your head in the proverbial sand to avoid the evidence. Saying they are personally incredulous of evolution doesn't an argument make. The moral argument is more nuanced and, depending on definitions, suffers the same fate of the argument from design. There is enough selective pressure to be altruistic, especially within one's own gene-mates (which some call their family), that that feeling to be good is also covered with evolutionary theory.

Quit Your Whying

I’ve been listening to comedian Pete Holmes’ podcast You Made It Weird recently. A point of interest relevant to this blog is that Pete ends each episode with an exploration of his guest’s religious or atheistic beliefs. Most often his guest is a fellow comedian, a trade that fosters atheism almost as readily as scientific fields. Speaking of which, he’s had on scientists like Brian Green and Bill Nye as well as less scientifically literate types such as Deepak Chopra (that was a hard episode for me to get through even though it was about half the usual two hour length.) Pete himself is a lapsed fundamental Christian who still holds various spiritual beliefs while being sympathetic to the secular. I tell you all this to both encourage you to check out his show and to introduce a concept Pete often brings up--that science answers the “what”s and “how”s of the universe but offers little in terms of “why.”

The big “why”s were the last related questions I found of value as I left theism--most notably “why is there something rather than nothing?” Atheists don’t have a definitive answer to this and perhaps never will. Theists can answer it, but only with their go-to guess. They essentially answer “because God.” They then immediately stop asking questions, considering “because God” becomes more absurd when the question is “why is there God rather than no God?”

The only thing more frustrating than an empirical God of the Gaps argument is a philosophical God of the Gaps argument, which is what we have here. Pete is filling a gap with an assumption, as he has been conditioned to by his upbringing. While we should try to discover answers to every “why,” the problem with the question is that it eventually creates an unknown in any body of knowledge. When a “why” question is answered, a new “why” question applies. The result? A gap that keeps on giving. The better question may be this: with what degree of reductionism are you comfortable?

To illustrate this, here is another favorite comedian of mine, Louis CK, talking about kids.

For Heaven to be Perfect, You Can’t be There

If heaven is defined as the best possible afterlife, there are at least as many concepts of heaven as there are religions in the world. I’d argued there are as many different concepts of heaven as there are people who have ever considered it. Perfection is seemingly a subjective idea as strange as that sounds. Be it virgins, streets of gold, reunions with family, or nirvana, most agree that the bad things we experience in life, do not occur in heaven. They don’t occur because they fundamentally can’t.

If I’m in heaven and a fellow worthy dead guy wants to do something I don’t like, they just can’t do it because it would conflict with my perfect world. Yet if they can’t act on their desires, then their experience is lacking and therefore not a fulfillment of their ideal. The only way around this is to say, despite appearances, perfection is not subjective. There is one perfect experience for all of us, we are just not yet able to know it. This still poses a problem--that person who knows this hypothetical objective perfection, isn’t you.

Even predicting you will become that person is folly. That person is so fundamentally not you that I’m completely justified in saying that aren’t going to heaven. Heaven, as understood by believers, is an infinite dimension after our finite life. That means any being that can experience things will experience an infinite amount of happiness there. That being will also experience an infinite amount of sadness, guilt, suffering, envy, ect. In fact, an eternal timeline for any of us will result in an infinite amount of every positive and negative emotion and response. If the being who goes on to such a place is anything like us, it really doesn’t matter whether we go to heaven or hell--the experience is functionally the same. For heaven to be devoid of the negative, we must be rendered incapable of experiencing everything from pain to boredom. By the time you are a being who is like that, that being won’t bare any resemblance to you.

Think about yourself at five years old. You are likely made up of entirely different atoms today. You think entirely different thoughts and have entirely different knowledge. Some memories may be shared, but chances are most only feel the same and are different from what actually happened. That child is the you of the past, but is only tangentially related to the you of the present. Imagine how much more different the you of the future would be divorced from most of the experiential ability, intelligence, and freedom of will we’re capable of now. It would be like a saying a computer that has had all it’s software and hardware replaced is the same computer. No, you’re not going to heaven. If heaven exists, that other guy is.

Come to terms with the fact that collectively we aren’t compatible with a universal perfection and work towards a best-case world in which everyone gets a fair shot at social happiness.

Deity Shmeity Quickies

Faith, as unsubstantiated belief to the degree of perceived certainty, is the most anti-intellectual concept ever created. When applied to religion, it's effectively ignorance worship.

Last month's PewResearch data that shows how atheists are viewed relative to religious groups. (Spoiler: not great)

I find that theists tend to project their beliefs onto reality. Concepts--like right and wrong, the mind, love, truth to some extent--are all more than abstractions, they are considered real in some way beyond the use of the people that conceive them. The support for this is always along the lines of "I feel it's true" or, my favorite, "we all know it, even those who put on a show of denying it." You can believe something, you can even really believe something, but you can't believe something into existence.

You Are Not So Smart is becoming one of my favorite podcasts. Each episode goes over a topic related to the human experience with a focus on thinking and biases. This episode is particularly relevant to those who spend probably too much time arguing on the Internet (or anywhere.)

Religious apologists have a problem with infinite regress, but considering they believe in a being who has always existed, I don't understand why. If we ask when an everlasting being existed before any given moment, the answer would be the moment before, ad infinitum. If we ask what caused any given effect in an infinite causal series, the answer is the cause before it, ad infinitum. So far, no one has showed what the essential difference is between the two claims or why infinite regress is logically inferior. If you know, let me know.

Incomplete & Circular Apologetic Definitions

Are you healthy? I don’t know much about you, reader, but if you are the average American your answer is probably close to “sure...I guess” or maybe even a straight up “I don’t know.” That’s because the term “healthy” is an imprecise word that means different things to different people. A judgement of health, when poorly defined, is subjective and not very meaningful. If, on the other hand, I asked if you are overweight then provided a scale, tape measure, and the calculation to determine your Body Mass Index, we could objectively see if your BMI is over 25 and therefore overweight.

In debates with religious apologists, I’ve noticed their moral arguments rely on the imprecise meaning of right and wrong--of good and evil. Ask them to define them clearly and you will be met with resistance. Define them secularly and those meanings will be dismissed. Push, and you will likely hear one of two meanings.

1. Good or evil are inherent properties of the action in question.
2. That which is right is that which we have a moral obligation to God to do and that which is wrong is that which we have a moral obligation to God to refrain from.

Let’s take the first one first. “Good or evil are inherent properties of the action in question.” The first problem is that most will latter disagree with the definition they provided. If evilness or wrongness is an inherent property of lying or killing, then it can’t ever be right. However, they will almost certainly agree that lying to protect others or killing in self defense isn’t wrong or evil. In Catholicism there is something called The Principle of Double Effect which allows Catholics to break commandments to achieve what they judge to be the greater good. Hell, most theists in America support the death penalty, that should tell you something.

The second problem is that the property definition is incomplete. It’s like explaining to a child that wetness is a property of water without ever getting into what it means to be wet. Wetness could mean it’s liquid, it could mean it’s clear, it could mean it’s made of molecules. What does the property of good or evil say about the actions? From here they might falter and give secular reasons regarding a harm vs. benefit analysis of the actions, which would negate the perceived need for a deity entirely, or they might move to the previously mentioned secondary definition.

“That which is right is that which we have a moral obligation to God to do and that which is wrong is that which we have a moral obligation to God to refrain from.” Not only does this mean nothing to anyone who doesn’t already believe and therefore has no persuasive power, it also undermines the moral argument entirely. Assigning morality a definition that assumes God exists, cannot then be used to demonstrate that God exists. It is a simple example of circular reasoning. The crazy thing is, I’ve heard many apologists be fine with that--to the point that they ask “what’s wrong with circular reasoning?” Jesus Christ!

Don’t follow apologists down the moral rabbit hole until you know just what they mean by right and wrong. Depending on how these terms are framed, morality can be subjective, objective, relative, conceptual, nonsensical or anything in between.

When Life Gives You Objectively Good Lemons

The moral argument for God is very convincing to Internet apologists because they believe in something called transcendent morality. It comes up by many names including objective morality, absolute morality--and as I prefer, cosmic morality and magical morality. Regardless of the name, it is seen as a moral standard that exists somewhere independent of the minds of mere mortals and supersedes alternative judgements.

That’s the claim. Is there proof? No. Is there evidence? No. The defense for the claim is essentially finding a moral value agreed upon between the apologist and the non-apologist, such as “murder is wrong,” and using that shared common ground to say all other assessments aren’t just wrong from their perspective, but wrong independent of perspective.

What do you think, is murder wrong independent of perspective? In my experience, “wrong” means different things to different people. It is like saying not murdering is better than murdering. “Better,” like “wrong” in this case, is imprecise language that the apologist can leverage during these exchanges. Analogy time. What if I said lemons are an objectively better fruit than blueberries? This seems laughable because we understand taste preferences are opinions. However, we can say something is objectively true here if only I use a clear metric. I value sour flavor. Lemons are objectively more sour than blueberries. This isn’t a matter of taste, we can actually compare pH levels and know for a fact that lemons are more sour and are therefore objectively more appealing to one who values sour flavor.

Apply this to morality. Instead of saying something imprecise like not murdering is better than murdering, which could be subjective or objective depending on the metric used to judge something as “better,” let’s say not murdering allows for a safer world than murdering. This specification allows us to say not murdering is better for those who value safety. That is an objective fact and an instance of an objective moral.

I cannot say anything about one’s morality without saying something about one’s values. Because the majority of us value human life, safety, and equality (at least to some degree) the discouragement of murder is near universal...but transcendent? No, that is neither justified nor demonstrable.

Debates & Misdemeanors

When I started Deity Shmeity my intension was to use it as a record of my exchanges with theists. Long time readers know that never really happened. My first attempt to publish a debate resulted in so much editing that I concluded my time was better spent taking the topic discussed and simply writing an article informed by the theistic objections. Why so much editing, you might ask? Well, debates, especially those on-line, have a way of branching off into new topics before the previous are resolved. Like the Hydra of mythology and Marvel comics, chopping off one head of a crappy argument just results in two more crappy arguments taking it’s place--all without an acknowledgment that the first head lies resting at my feet. More so, debates get personal. I don’t just mean they get all ad-hominemy, although that certainly happens, but also that elements from both my and the theist’s lives are brought up which I feel are either too intimate to post or too irrelevant to make public. Top that off with having to censor out the peanut gallery or else post pages of nonsense in an effort to be a balanced completionist! No, I quickly learned my lesson. The debates are for me, the posts are for you.

That said, the fact that all my posts are informed by at least one theist’s objections is true to this day. My workflow usually goes like this: I post an idea on Twitter or Google+ and let my surprisingly high number of theistic (usually Christian) followers attempt to take it apart. If they fail outright, I post it addressing some of their objections. If they somewhat succeed, I revise the idea to make it tighter, more objection-proof, and clearer. My argument is then also, I like to think, closer to being true--even if it comes down less on the side of “God is obviously bullshit” than I originally intended.

It’s a valuable process to me and one I encourage fellow atheists to take up. Thinking critically about gods and religions will likely give you all kinds of ideas. Most will have been already thought up by someone else, but coming to them organically speaks volumes of their power. Some will be logically true and serve as ironclad takedowns of indoctrinated superstitions. And others will be flawed, inconsistent or fallacious--in which case entering them into the intellectual area for battle and being open to the possibility of being wrong and losing an argument will make you better. It will make you more right in the future, and that’s all that should really matter.

Gods are Very Likely Human Inventions

Historically, gods have gone in and out of favor among humanity. Thor, for example, isn't believed today outside of the possible fringe and huge Marvel comics fans, but he had his time of popularity. Same goes for Zeus, Ra, Cupid, y'know...a bunch that seem quaint now. Each represented the values of the culture in which the belief in them was first took root. Where belief first took root, and where the gods themselves were first conceptualized.

Today, we still have a variety of gods and their central points of popularity follow governmental and cultural borders. If you are born in the US, you are likely Christian--this probability goes up further in the south, among conservatives, among whites of a European background, ect. Likewise, if you are born in India you're likely Hindu. Just like the historical examples of the past, the values of the gods believed fall in line with the cultures in which they were created. It's also true that, in the case of long-standing faiths, the morality attributed to a particular god and therefore as the standard to be followed shifts as it is adopted by new cultures or as the culture progresses. A possible reason for this is congregation retention. If a value goes out of favor that is a staple of the religion, the religion must adjust it's staples or lose their members to competing religions that have that more popular value. Or, as we atheists prefer, they defect from faith-based worldviews entirely and start a secular life.

The adoption to something like Christianity can be traced from the conversion of social/political leader to social/political leader who, in turn, either forces or encourages the adoption of the faith among his followers. Religions tend to ramp up in popularity when the leaders gain more territory and influence.

All this shows that the idea of Yahweh/Jehovah/Christ/whoever is not spontaneous, but the product of systematic indoctrination from culture to parent to child. The genesis of the idea of the god is harder to nail down because it goes so far back, but the imagination and creativity of humanity is well documented. We have covered every story I can imagine. (Admittedly, this is why I'm not a novelist.) What else is well documented is that charismatic individuals can convince a following so completely that they are willing to kill or be killed over ideology. Religious faith is more often than not the drive for this absolute compliance--just Google "cults" or "suicide bombers." I'm not equating Christianity in general terms to the harm caused by most of these groups, but think of how easy it would be to convince someone to believe some strange things, donate a little money and go to church Sundays compared to convincing people to take their own life. Jesus, Mohammad, and Joseph Smith are possible examples of these charismatic people.

The religions of this or that time of conception also take into account the scientific knowledge of the day as a base to start filling in gaps with faith alone. More modern religions deny or contradict less of what we (at least most of us :-) now understand. That could be another whole rant, and I've probably typed enough for now.

God Offers No Choice

God's judgment, as seen by most theists, can only be just if those judged choose to sin or be saved. I believe we are not free to choose anything if our present and future is known by an omniscient being. Allow me to show my work by analogy.

Just before his death, Lincoln seemed to have made a choice to go to Ford's Theatre. From the President's perspective he felt he had a choice, but look at it from our perspective. Lincoln's action is an historical event which is known. Lincoln, essentially as a character in a history book, has no choice but to go to Ford's Theatre because any action on his part has been acted. Even if we went back to Lincoln's time, armed with our fore-knowledge, Lincoln would still be bound to the actions that we know he will make (providing we don't interfere, of course.) This means that Lincoln's perceived choices, and our own, are an illusion if a being is capable of viewing us as history either in the present, future, or independently of time.

Set up a camera on someone. They will do a variety of things that you probably wouldn't be able to predict in the moment if you were there. However, if you watch the video later, then watch it again, upon second watching you will be able to predict perfectly their every move. The person on camera, while acting, perceives free will from their perspective. However, the recording of the person, from the perspective of the omniscient video watcher, is not free to act. To anyone who knows our future, we are essentially a recording.

A being with all-knowledge of an event, whether it be God or a well-studied time traveler, would view the present as a history or recording. There are no surprises to this being because there is only one way for the events to unfold. Each person involved follows only one path. No choices are made because choice deals with the availability of options and there are none.

If choice is only an illusion of our limited perspective as this shows, then a god's sentence of eternal reward or eternal punishment is exacted upon helpless people with no ability to change their fate. It is exactly as fair and just as arbitrarily and immediately sending newborn babies to heaven of hell.

For Christians: God's Second Holocaust

A Shaming Process

I’ve been observing and taking part in on-line arguments regarding the existence of God for three years now. These interactions should be evaluated primarily by the value of their content, but I’ve also noticed a trend in their civility. Atheists, on average, are more douchy than theists. I don’t like admitting that the stereotype of the angry atheist is more often fulfilled than not, but I can’t deny it...and neither can I condemn it.

Unlike most theists, atheists don’t have an obligation to a doctrine of charity. We can be mean without being hypocritical, but should we?

My answer used to be a resounding “no.” Now, while I maintain the personal choice of “playing nice,” I can’t slight others for getting their hands dirty. Reason is only one way to affect hearts and minds, shame is another.  Bullying can work to deter others from adopting the subject of the abuse--which should be the erroneous belief and not the believer. I try to change minds, but I’ve seen that some people simply cannot see where their arguments fail. People like William Lane Craig profit off selling fallacious arguments to the sheep (their word, not mine) so indoctrinated that they will accept anything that vaguely resembles a justification for the belief in magic they so want to maintain. The vast majority of those I debate aren’t sources of the problem. They are just the parrots for those who propagate misinformation and champion uncritical thought. Even though most his work is simply a tactful rewording of long refuted philosophy, Craig isn’t a parrot. He actually comes up with this shit--making him one of two things (channeling comedian Adam Carolla here) stupid or a liar. Either way, he earns the shaming some choose to give, and, by proxy, the parrots do too.

I wish someone embarrassed me about my ridiculous beliefs when I was a Christian. In retrospect, that would have been a great service.

All I ask is that the belief, or at least the link to the belief, is what is shamed. Calling someone an idiot for believing in a talking snake is warranted. Calling someone inherently an idiot is not.

Ray Comfort is Exquisitely Deluded

After so many discussions with internet apologists, I decided to engage a "name brand." The following is an exchange I had with Ray Comfort, who is, no exaggeration, the least effectual apologist I've ever met. The point I tried to illustrate was that, while one may have belief in the Christian God, it is impossible to have certain knowledge of him. The blue text is me. The red is Mr. Comfort.

Shortly after telling his followers that they can only assume God is real...

We don't assume there is a God, we KNOW that God exists.

You believe that you know God exists.

No, I KNOW God exists.

That's impossible.

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20, KJV).

It's impossible to know that the bible is valid, so the bible saying that the bible is valid or that God is real is worthless.

Because everything that we see proves that God exists, we KNOW God exists. A painting is proof that someone painted it, it didn't come about from nothing. A building is proof that somewhere there was the builder, the building didn't appear from nothing. Because there is all creation, universal laws of logic, morality, physics, information itself, did not come about from nothing - therefore there was a clear Designer, and the Bible tells who that designer was - the Lord God - Jesus Christ.

You say "It's impossible to know that the bible is valid,"  No it's not, and if you keep on arguing without listening, you won't last long here. Because it's obvious you don't like or want the answer, only what your itching ears want to hear.

I've read your stuff. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're right about the universe being designed and requiring a designer. Let's even say you're right about the existence of a supernatural entity. It would then be impossible to say anything about this designer, much less that it's Jesus or Yahweh or both. An agency with that power could simply deceive us--forge the bible, forge your own thoughts and faith for that matter.

Philosophically speaking, there is the idea that we can't know things in an absolute sense because we could all be "brains in vats." (Or in the matrix, for a more modern reference.) There could be a set of natural ways that your faith could not truly be your own and everything you think you know could be a lie. If the supernatural is possible, then we could be deceived in an infinite number of ways.

And before you say that Jesus wouldn't deceive, know that what I'm saying is that there is no way to know that Jesus is anything but an implanted, erroneous thought.

Nice try, but your are deceived into thinking that way. That's still no excuse and won't get you out of trouble with the Lord on judgment day. For there is plenty of evidence.

How am I wrong?

You are wrong, because God says you are wrong. God is the ultimate standard, not you, not any science of this earth. His Word is true, yours is not.

But, in light of what I pointed out, how can you be sure that God as you understand him is true?

We know that God is real because He has revealed Himself to us in three ways: in creation, in His Word, and in His Son, Jesus Christ.

And there will be scoffers and skeptics that, for all the evidence before them, still not believe. "The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good."  Psalm 14:1

You told me to listen. All I'm asking is for you to do the same. Did you read my above comment? I know it was a long one, but...

How can you know those revelations were not a deception?

Mr. Comfort had no more to add. He may have been out of his...comfort zone. (see what I did there?)

Apologetics: A Displacement of Faith

The simplified presentation of a straight forward theist: "I have faith in God."
The simplified presentation of an apologetic theist: "I have faith in something else that makes God a necessity."

Examples of "something else" include, but aren't limited to:

• A universe that could only be created by an external agency.
• Complex life that could only be intelligently designed.
• Objective and absolute moral values that exist in some way independent from those who value them.
• An external meaning for life/existence/them personally.

Apologetics isn't so much a defense of faith, just a displacement of it.

Faith vs. Force

If I believed the Force was real as completely as theists say they believe their religion is real. I'd be out staring at rocks all fricking day thinking "Go up! Fly! Levitate dammit!" I'd be reading the grocery lists of Jedis--anything to get a handle on this power. Hell, if it didn't work out after a couple years of daily training, I'd even give the Sith a shot.

Christians claim to have complete faith in the word of God, but generally don't even spend the time to learn the original languages in which the Bible was written. They read translations of translations, sure (or more commonly listen to someone else's interpretation once a week), but I don't find that convincing. Maybe they aren't so convinced. Maybe we aren't so different.

I was a Christian Scientist, a denomination that taught God's power and influence was more attainable then the average flavor of Christianity. If I lived by the values of Jesus I could, with complete faith, do as Christ did with God working through me. The analogue to Star Wars is very appropriate. Live like a Jedi and when you truly believe you can lift a rock with your mind, it will happen. JC's disciples were the Jedi of the Bible, healing folks long after the ascension.

I tried healing myself and others as a Christian Scientist. Surprise, surprise, it didn't work. The theological out for my failure was that I didn't have enough faith that it would work. I agreed there. More than that, I knew I was fundamentally incapable of complete faith in what I found unbelievable. So I embraced my disbelief and here I am.

Sometimes I think the vast majority of theists, if not all, are also incapable of complete faith in their supernatural stories. I would think an underlying skepticism in that which is contrary to experience is a feature of human nature. Surely there is selective pressure for it, evolutionarily speaking. The question is, how to get them to embrace their disbelief and move on?

Or maybe they just need to believe a little harder and start levitating rocks. ;-)

Morality and the Definition Divide

Search “morality” in Merriam-Webster and the first definition you’ll see is “beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior.” That’s beliefs, plural. This implies that what I believe is right and wrong isn’t the only belief out there, which should be obvious. Add the word “objective” in front of a word with a definition like this and the result is an oxymoron. Morality, by definition, is subjective. Case closed.

Well, of course the case isn’t closed. I can’t cite Merriam-Webster and expect millennia of philosophy to buckle.  Honestly, it isn’t even justified. Merriam-Webster has four definitions for the word “morality,” and MW is hardly the only dictionary in circulation. Should I go with the terminology of Google? Wikipedia? Who is the linguistic authority here?

Few theists will deny the reality that different beliefs of right and wrong behavior exist, they just believe one in particular belief is true in an absolute and objective way, conveniently, it’s their own. Digging deeper we need argument on more definitions. What does right mean? What does wrong mean? According to the first entry of Merriam-Webster, right behavior is that which is morally or socially correct or acceptable. Apologists reject any definitions of right and wrong in terms of what is acceptable because those definitions are subjective. They say, “what if people find rape acceptable, then is rape right by this definition?” That is true, by this definition. Finding it distasteful doesn’t strike it from the vernacular. If it did, we likely wouldn’t have a word for “rape” to begin with. Still, they want another definition. Lucky for them, there are 15 other definitions in MW alone, some of which tell us little. Right behavior is defined as what is moral, what is moral is defined as good behavior, and good behavior is defined as right behavior. Thanks. Zero help.

Apologists also don’t like definitions that are relative. This means defining right behavior as that which benefits others or causes no harm is a no go. They don’t see morality as a social contract, they think it exits independent of those capable of moral choices. In other words, rape was wrong in some transcendent way even before living creatures existed to rape or be raped. Where does that leave us?

It leaves the majority of us using relative and/or subjective definitions while apologists demand words with meanings that are absolute and objective. Words like...okay there are no words like that. Language is a human invention that at some point paired concepts with arbitrary strings of letters. I’ve spent the last couple weeks trying to understand how apologists arbitrarily paired their words.

I tried asking apologists to define “right” behavior. They did their best not to, but when pushed I received the following responses.

• “The right thing is what we ought to do.”
• “The right thing is part of God’s nature.”

There is something interesting about each of these apologetic definitions.  “Ought” implies obligation. Ought to according to whom? The answer is, of course, God. The second answer explicitly mentions God as part of the definition. It’s clear from this that many religious apologists frame their understanding of morality with God as a fundamental prerequisite. Given this understanding, they are completely correct to say morality requires God, but not by logic or deduction, rather by definition. The perceived validity of the moral argument for God then is a product of indoctrination. Any outsider with a secular understanding of the terms, should see the moral argument for God as entirely circular. The conclusion, that God is required for morality, is assumed from the start.

"How can you judge something as immoral without a divine moral foundation?"

Some theists claim that when atheists judge the character of God in the Bible as immoral, they show that they have a sense of objective morality which could only be present if God is a foundation for morality.

By claiming this they are implying that the atheist's judgement is objectively correct. These theists either must agree that God is objectively immoral or admit that the atheist's judgement isn't objectively true thereby discounting their claim that the atheist's judgement shows that we have a sense of objective morality.

Atheist Q & A

Immaterial Concepts Do Not A God Make

Not quite up for regular posting yet, but here is my take on why apologists using the "existence" immaterial concepts as rationalization for why an immaterial God is possible fails.

A popular thought in religious apologetics lately is that there are examples of things that are immaterial in which atheists can't deny and that these things make an immaterial deity possible.

Here's the problem:

The examples of these immaterial things aren't things, they are concepts. Yes, thoughts are immaterial--they are also fundamentally different from an active agent like God. Thoughts are completely dependent on a thinker, but to call the thinker an immaterial consciousness analogous to God is just as fallacious. The prerequisite for consciousness is a brain. To say that God requires no material prerequisite is special pleading and contrary to all evidence.

I floated this take on Google+ and it spawned 100+ comments. Here's the link.

God Argument Power Rankings

The following is my personal assessment of the validity of popular apologetic arguments. The list goes from most valid to least valid.

The Fine Tuning of the Universe: Could be valid, currently based on assumptions.

1. There are a vast number of physically possible universes.
2. A universe that would be hospitable to the appearance of life must conform to some very strict conditions. Everything from the mass ratios of atomic particles and the number of dimensions of space to the cosmological parameters that rule the expansion of the universe must be just right for stable galaxies, solar systems, planets, and complex life to evolve.
3. The percentage of possible universes that would support life is infinitesimally small (from 2).
4. Our universe is one of those infinitesimally improbable universes.
5. Our universe has been fine-tuned to support life (from 3 and 4).
6. There is a Fine-Tuner (from 5).
7. Only God could have the power and the purpose to be the Fine- Tuner.
8. God exists.

This argument, had we just a little more supporting knowledge, could make me deist. It says that the physical laws and constants that allow for a life-sustaining universe lie in a very small fraction of the possible spectrum of values and the fact that our universe is within that unlikely range is evidence that it was designed with us in mind. Many atheists argue the anthropic principle here, which says that we can only come to this conclusion because we are, in fact, here. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t. Obvious, I know. The anthropic principle is worthwhile when arguing against the fine tuning of earth specifically, but we don't have enough information for it to be meaningful in terms of the fine tuning of the universe.

The difference is that the variables that can vary widely and affect the possibility of life on a planet (such as distance from a star, having a moon/asteroid belt to deflect impacts with space objects, the presence of water, etc.) are most likely all fulfilled throughout the universe. There are enough planets that one can say, “sure, we are alive on this planet because we couldn’t be alive elsewhere.” However, we can only account for one universe. If this universe is all there has ever been, and if the aforementioned laws and constants can vary to the degree apologists claim, then I agree that we are such a coincidence that a designer is a better explanation than chance. I’m just not convinced because those "if"s are not answered. I tend to think that the laws and constants can vary, but that enough other universes either have, will or currently exist to make the anthropic principle meaningful--but that’s just personal speculation.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument: Invalid, only replaces one mystery with another.

1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence;
2. The universe has a beginning of its existence;
3. Therefore: The universe has a cause of its existence.
4. (Implied) God is that cause.

This argument is at least based on something that is most likely true--the Big Bang Theory. So, I won't argue premise 2. As much as they like the Big Bang, apologists stop paying attention to the science after it can be used to support their beliefs. Traditional causation could very well not apply in general at the quantum level in which we find the singularity, and especially in the case of the universe with no prior time or space for a cause to occur or God to exist. The Big Bang, after all, isn't just the beginning of our universe, but also space and time as we understand it. To posit otherwise is merely an "of the gaps" argument. The implication of 4 is hasty now that there are more hypotheses than ever for possible causes of the universe and likely others that haven't occurred to us. In the end, the biggest weakness is that the argument establishes a rule because a lack of counter examples and then arbitrarily makes what they want to believe an exception. If we say that everything that begins to exist has a cause because we have no examples of things that exist without a cause, then we can also say everything that exists is within time and space because we have no examples of things that exist outside time and space. Since apologists require their God to be outside time and space for this argument to work, they would have to explain why the first statement is legitimate while the second it not.

The Ontological Argument: Invalid, basically it's just wordplay.

1. Nothing greater than God can be conceived (this is stipulated as part of the definition of “God”).
2. It is greater to exist than not to exist.
3. If we conceive of God as not existing, then we can conceive of some-thing greater than God (from 2).
4. To conceive of God as not existing is not to conceive of God (from 1 and 3).
5. It is inconceivable that God not exist (from 4).
6. God exists.

"Greater" is a value judgement that can vary from person to person, which is problematic to this argument. However, the real problem is that the argument works for any concept that includes the linguistic trick of including "must exist" in it's definition. For example, if one said the Fly Spaghetti Monster exists, by definition, then it exists. Somehow I doubt many Christian apologists would accept that definition. Nor should they, because existence isn't a property one can prescribe conceptually. Neither is "greatness" for that matter.

The Argument from Moral Truth. Invalid for a variety of reasons.

1. There exist objective moral truths. (Slavery and torture and genocide are not just distasteful to us, but are actually wrong.)
2. These objective moral truths are not grounded in the way the world is but, rather, in the way the world ought to be.
3. The world itself—the way it is, the laws of science that explain why it is that way—cannot account for the way the world ought to be.
4. The only way to account for morality is that God established morality (from 2 and 3).
5. God exists.

I don’t know if this is the worst argument for God in my book, but it is certainly the worst of those still popular in the apologetic community. Why? Because it has so many points of failure. There is Euthyphro’ Dilemma that shows that God is a redundant factor if objective morality is valid. There is the impossibility of ascertaining exactly what the objective morals are if they exist, unless. of course, they are defined by humans in relation to social interactions which would discount a need of a supernatural law giver. There is the question if morality is objective at all (I see morality as a broad concept including the possibility for a variety of moral codes--which may be applied objectively but are hardly transcendent.) There is evolutionary biology that suggests moral instincts are selected traits which are passed down genetically. I feel apologists over estimate the argument’s power because the opposition can seem scatter brained when refuting it because the number of ways to refute it makes one’s mind spin out. That, and it’s the one argument that allows them to both claim there is a god and take the moral high ground in one fallacious move.

Diluvian Math

The following is a post by Google+ user Rick Rab in which he goes over what it might take if the biblical flood was be found in the nonfiction section. I didn't check the math, nor did I proofread. I barely practice journalism in any sense of the word.

Was it really possible to put the animals in the biblical ark?

Let’s start with a horse, say 1000lbs weight. It requires 17.5lb of hay and 10lb of grain per day per 1000lb of its weight. So for 40 days it requires 700lb of hay and 400lb of grain. Baled hay occupies about 10lb per cu ft. Oats (whole) occupy iro 26lb per cu ft. So its food alone required 85 cu ft. Modern rules require 350 cu ft space per horse, let’s say Noah gave it ½ that, 175 cu ft, so per horse he needed 260 cu ft. Let’s add a token 10 cu ft for its water. Total 270 cu ft per horse.

Now the big sums... Ok, not all animals are horse sized so let’s half that just to be nice…13.5 cu ft per animal, Oh sod it, let's be really nice, let’s half it again…. 7 cu ft per animal, inc its food & water.

There are (at present knowledge) about 8.7 million known types of animal. God of course would know the exact amount but let’s work on 8.7 million. Before you suggest there were less in those days, creationists don’t believe in evolution, so where could any extra have come from?? But ok, let’s be really nice, to please them, let’s half that figure too… 4.3million types. So if Noah packed in 2 of every animal, real tight, with no passageways and nowhere for humans to live, he would’ve needed 60,200,000 cu ft.

God spelt out to Noah the dimensions of the ark; 300 cubits by 50 by 30, approximately 137 x 23 x 14 metres (440 feet long, 73 ft wide, and 43 ft high). That’s 1,281,160 cu ft.  Oh dear, even with all those massive concessions, Noah would've still needed to have built 47 of those Arks! God’s not very good at maths, is he?

The ark has  1,281,160 cu ft. of space
There are 8,700,000 species.
So each specie (and remember some were more than the '2 by 2') would have had 0.147 cu ft of space.

So what about the flood itself? Was that possible?

The world was flooded by god, to a depth at least permitting the Ark to settle on top of Mt Ararat. That Mountain is 5,137 m in elevation. The surface area of the world is 510,072,000 km² (510,072,000, 000 m x 1m) so the water had to fill 2,620,239,864,000,000 m3. Wait, didn’t account for existing mountains etc I hear you say. OK, let’s ½ that to allow for everything; 1,310,119,932,000,000 m3 of water.

Let’s convert that to ice (so we can stack it, say on Africa). To convert  to ice, divide by 0.92… that makes 1,424,043,404,347,826 m3 of ice. The surface area of Africa is 30,221,532 km² (30,221,532,000 m2).

So to fit all that ice on Africa, we would have to stack it 47,120.16 m high. Mt Everest is 8,848 m, so the ice would be stacked, over the area of all of Africa, 5.3 times the height of Mt Everest!

Hmmmm.

• Where was that Ice before it thawed?
• Where did it go when it ‘ebbed away’?

Gen 7:11–12  & 7:17–20; Rain fell for 40 days, water covered the earth’s highest places by over 20 ft (15 cubits) .
The first 40 days and nights (3rd month, 27th day of month)

Gen 7:24–8:5; water rose to its highest level (covering the whole earth), and the Ark rested on Ararat. On the 150th day, the springs of the great deep were shut off, and the rain from above ceased, and the water began continually receding.
150 days (inc. the initial 40 days total so far) (7th month, 17th day of month)

Gen 8:5; tops of the mountains became visible on the 10th month, 1st day.
That’s 74 days more (= 224 so far) (10th month, 1st day of month)

Gen 8:6; After 40 more days, Noah sent out a raven.
That's 40 days more (= 264 so far) (11th month, 11th day of month)

Gen 8:6–12; The dove was sent out 7 days after the raven. It had no resting place and returned to Noah.
That's 7 days more (=271 so far) (11th month, 18th day of month)

Gen 8:10–11; After 7 more days, Noah sent out the dove again. It returned again, with an olive leaf in its beak.
That' 7 days mor e (= 278 so far) (11th month, 25th day of month)

Gen 8:12; After 7 more days, Noah sent out the dove again, and it did not return.
That's 7 days more (= 285 so far) (12th month, 2nd day of month)

Gen 8:13; Noah removed the cover of the Ark on the 1st day of the 1st month. The surface of the earth was dried up, and Noah could verify this to the extent of what he could see.
That’s 29 days more (=314 so far) (, 1st month, 1st day of month. NB; 601st year of Noah’s life)

Gen 8:14–17 & 7:11; the earth was dry, God commanded Noah’s family and the animals to come out of the Ark. From the 1st day of the year during the daylight portion there were 29.5 more days left in the month plus 26.5 more days left in the 2nd month until the exit, so that’s 56 days more (= 370 (371 if counting 1st day and last day as full days) (2nd month, 27th day of month).

So the flood was actually over a period of 370 days. The animals were in the ark all that time.  The maths in PART 1 only gave food for 40 days. But now we know it was in fact 370. Let’s see how that affects the ark...

Horse…..for  370 days it requires  6475 lb of hay and 3700 lb of grain..…food alone required 786 cu ft…..Total 961 cu ft per horse.…half that… 480.5 cu ft….half it again…. 240.25 cu ft per animal, inc its food & water.

8.7 million known types of animal ….half that…. 4.3million .....So Noah...would’ve needed 1033,075,000  cu ft.…..

Noah would've needed to have built at least 807 of those Arks!