#notworthfollowing

It used to be that wearing a shirt with the headline “Atheist” was considered to be the gold standard in testing public reception of the label. Most of us never wore such shirts and assumed that non-atheists would be confrontational or, at the least, expect the shirt-wearer to be confrontational. Living in the bible belt, I get it. Don’t expect to see me wearing such a shirt to a job interview. Still, Americans came close to having our first non-Christian candidate for President this year with Bernie Sanders. This suggests that at least half the population of the US is more receptive than ever. So I made shirts.

They aren’t as explicit as a shirt with the big block letters A-T-H-E-I-S-T. Think of them as part of a campaign. Each shirt displays a passage of the bible, not unlike a Christian wearing John 3:16 across their chest. The primary difference is that the passages available here are the parts of the bible Christians don’t advertise. They are about God commanding the murder of kids, approving the institution of slavery and keeping women down. They highlight why the bible is #notworthfollowing.

Let me know what you think.

nwf.threadless.com

Hard God Questions

I'm starting a new project over at HardGodQuestions.com. If you like this, follow me over there.

Just Sayin'

Before.

God, if you exist, you could make a decent case for yourself if you strike me down in the next minute. Otherwise, I'm so going to mock you.
— Grundy (@deityshmeity) June 29, 2013

After.

Still alive. (See last tweet.) God, if you exist, you suck.
— Grundy (@deityshmeity) June 30, 2013

Putting the "c" Back in Schmeity

Link to related content they tell me. Research SEO they tell me. Post daily and engage readers they tell me. Bah! I have ideas of my own, successful blog people! Here’s one: I’ll scale back on content creation while simultaneously starting a new blog!

And this is why they don’t invite me to Blogging Conferences.

Let me back-up. I started Deity Shmeity with the intention of posting my thoughts on various religious topics for reference when arguing with apologists. It was to be a debating database, if you will, but over time that changed. Interview projects, cross-post throwdowns and my personal struggle with Attention Deficient Disorder all contributed to the evolution of this site’s purpose. That is, if you believe in evolution.

Turns out I had a lot to say on Deity Shmeity. I posted everyday for some time. Then I posted every weekday. Then thrice weekly. Now twice. I still have stuff to say, don’t get me wrong, but clearly not as much. There are only so many ways to say that God isn't real. In an effort to avoid filling these digital pages with unoriginal ideas and C-material, I’m scaling back to a commitment of one post a week with a likelihood of two. I’m thinking a Monday and/or Wednesday schedule. I figure this is better than burning myself out grasping for every atheist thought in my head until I finally stop writing altogether. (Looking at you, Johnny Reason.) Actually, a bunch of atheist blogs suffer creative heat death on the web. Who am I kidding? Most blogs in general suffer the same fate. What’s cool about the atheist blogosphere is that for every blog that goes under, two more take it’s place. I do routine searches for atheist blogs and find new ones launching every week. That’s the momentum of god-skeptics in our culture and why I feel, as my tagline clearly states, that one day we’ll all be atheists.

That said, only a maniac would start a new blog while admitting his post tank is running dry, right? Color me maniacal. I’ve recently set up a Wordpress site to serve as a more polished outlet for my stuff. I even spelled it how most people think this site should be spelled--Deity Schmeity. Where Deity Shmeity will continue to have new, amaturely written, short-form posts; Deity Schmeity will have old, professionally edited, long-form articles. Confusing, yes? Perfect!

Explanations

A natural explanation is always better than a supernatural explanation. This goes for theories, hypothesises, guesses, hunches anything--if it relies on the natural it is preferable by the sheer fact that we know that the natural exists and don’t know the supernatural exists. This will remain true until we have proof of miracles, repeatable experiments in clear violation of natural laws, or something to confirm that magic is real.

This may seem obvious, but the religious rarely apply the rule to the claims of their church. For instance, Christians often claim the best evidence supporting their faith is the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.* This is really the linchpin of Christian apologetics. While whether or not there ever was an empty tomb as described in the bible is debatable, if we assume the resting place of JC was revealed to be empty--there are so many better explanations than resurrection. Examples follow.

• Early Christians could have removed the body to propagate the resurrection lending validation to Christianity.
• Authorities could have lied about the true location of Jesus’ tomb to keep Christians away.
• Secretly Christian authorities could have kept the body for themselves in hopes Jesus’s reputation for healing was valid postmortem.
• A bear inside the tomb could have eaten Jesus’ body.
• Aliens could have removed the body just to mess with us.

There are good reasons why these scenarios are unlikely, but I find them all more likely than the divine reanimation of Jesus’ corpse. Each explanation, outside of the last option, we know could happen. They are consistent with our experience of reality. We have evidence that the man we now refer to as Jesus existed. We have evidence that this man had followers with an interest in spreading his word. We have evidence that government employees sometimes act outside or against their duties. We have evidence that religious motives can drive people to lie and break the law. We have evidence that bears exist and eat any available meat when hungry enough. Some of this evidence is not ironclad, but it’s something. This is enough to show that the above options (outside the alien bit) are possible, if not probable.

The problem with positing a divine resurrection is that we can’t even say that it is possible. We’d need evidence that both God exists and that the dead can rise, neither of which we have. In fact, brain activity returning days after brain death is contrary to everything we know about neuroscience. The heart beating again after rigamortis sets in is in direct conflict with biology. This brings me back the the alien option. Clearly an alien moving JC is excessively unlikely, but is it possible? Well, just as we don’t have evidence for divine resurrections, we don’t have evidence of intelligent alien life, but there’s a difference. Aliens are not in conflict with science. There’s nothing that prohibits life starting and evolving on another planet. Because of this, an advanced race with seemingly no motive for abduction taking a religious leader is possible while said religious leader getting up and walking away from a crucifixion is not.

*In my experience, apologists most often refer to the empty tomb as evidence supporting their faith, more so than even eye witness accounts of Christ risen. It’s as if they realize that accounts of witness could be fabricated yet believe there is still an empty tomb somewhere sealed from 2000 years of tampering that we can use as “exhibit A.” This obviously isn’t the case. There are plenty of natural explanations for eye witness accounts that are more valid than divine resurrection by the same rule referenced above--most notably that they are, in fact, fabrications.

The Last Moral

Meet Bob. he’s the last person on planet Earth. Due to a massive Goat Flu epidemic or a hydronuclear summer or a quantum-volcano eruption, the vast majority of the world’s population has expired. Bob, who was held up in an adamantium mine shaft or a bug-out bunker or an abandoned Blockbuster, managed to survive when no one else could. Good for Bob.

I pose this unlikely scenario to ask this question: is morality relevant to Bob moving forward? Christian apologists argue that morality is an objective truth that transcends human experience. If this is accurate then hypothetical Bob still has valid morals to follow. Granted, most Biblical laws don’t apply to Bob’s situation. He can’t very well kill, steal from, or covet his neighbor’s wife, for example; he has no neighbor. However, Bob can surely violate some religious rules. He could masturbate, he could make a false idol, he could have any number of impure thoughts, or he could attempt to make love to an irradiated buffalo corpse (which, incidentally, is a great way for him to speed up the inevitable extinction of humanity.)

According to secular definitions of morality, Bob can do no wrong in his lonely existence. Morality as the right way to interact with others, is meaningless without others. As the last living creature with the capacity to define morality, Bob can do whatever he damn well pleases.  It takes at least two minds for a code of conduct to be agreed upon or for morality to emerge. At least that's how I see it.

P.S. It’s worth noting that I declared “It takes at least two minds for morality to emerge” to an apologist during a standard “moral argument for God” debate--and he agreed with me! I was shocked until he counted God as one of the minds. Does that mean that we’ll have to agree to disagree to agree?

P.P.S. I imagine God’s Mind gets capitalized as with every divine trait. Maybe Divine should be capitalize as well, it’s unclear. I’m sure they’d go ahead a subscript words mocking God if they could.

Don't Assume Your God is an Asshole

Pascal's Wager is a gamble for a favorable afterlife built on one wild assumptions after another. If you use this, you're assuming there is a God first and foremost. Then you assume there is an afterlife. Then you assume there are multiple versions of the afterlife. Then you assume that belief can dictate where you go in the afterlife. Whether your assumptions are correct or not is no big deal up to this point, but that all changes when you assume that you know the very specific nature of God and what he wants from you. If you're wrong, then you could be the one forfeiting heaven just as easily as anyone else--Christian, Muslim, Pagan, Atheist, whatever. In fact, by making the wager you are worshipping a false idol, a damning sin in most deities books. The end result of the wager is the same for everyone. You are guessing at something that, if you are wrong, could earn you hell. Opting out of the wager is the safest move to avoid the "having other God's before Him" scenario.

The only reason to make the Christian assumptions is to accept the authority of the bible, and, let's face it, if nonbelievers did that then there would be no need for Pascal's Wager in the first place. Turning the gamble on it's head by assuming God will reward atheism and punish theism suddenly puts believers at risk. Why would God reward atheism and punish theism? I could answer "mysterious ways" here and make my wager just as valid as the next apologetic argument, but if you think about it, it is consistent with our own nature. I don't want my kids to worship at my alter, I want them to think for themselves. If I was an absentee father I certainly wouldn't expect them or likely want them to the look for me. Since God shows no sign of his existence, at least to me, He is like an absentee father, but if theists want to assume He's a narcissistic asshole as well, I hope they are comfortable in their very real codependency with a very imaginary master.

Parallel Universe Carl Sagan

For the uninitiated, this is a goof on Spiderman's motto "with great power comes great responsibility" and the saying popularized by Mr. Sagan "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." A wise mash-up brought to you by a parallel, if not perpendicular, universe.

The Argument Against Any Cosmological Argument

I’m convinced that the cosmological argument is the most convincing argument for God among the least skeptical people. This is speculation on my part, but it is informed speculation. Let’s look at the argument.

1. Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe exists.
   Therefore:
3. The universe has a cause of its existence.
4. If the universe has a cause of its existence, then that cause is God.
   Therefore:
5. God exists.

This form of the argument is laughable. The conclusion of (5) makes God subject to (1) which begs the question who or what created God? It doesn’t answer the question of First Cause thereby making it pointless. Many theists realize this and have tweaked the argument to avoid criticism...or tried to.

Kalam cosmological argument

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

This argument takes into account the Big Bang Theory, giving weight to premise (2). (I must say that it bothers me that many theists only find the science that could support their beliefs compelling while finding the rest somehow erroneous) I could argue that (1) is an assumption, but based on experience, it seems correct. William Lane Craig throws in his two cents with a sub argument.

Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite:

1. An actual infinite cannot exist.
2. An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
3. Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.

I imagine WLC is attempting to make the argument stronger in regards to God as First Cause, but claiming that an infinite can not exist makes God, who relies on infinities in a variety of ways, nonexistent. If God cannot exist infinitely into the past, he is not eternal and subject to the necessity of a cause according to this vary argument.

Then we have...
Thomistic cosmological argument

1. What we observe in this universe is contingent (i.e. dependent, or conditional)
2. A sequence of causally related contingent things cannot be infinite
3. The sequence of causally dependent contingent things must be finite

And...
Leibnizian cosmological argument

1. Every existing thing has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God
3. The universe is an existing thing.
4. Therefore the explanation of the universe is God.

Which can be tied together to be...

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. A causal loop cannot exist.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

If your cosmological argument of choice isn’t here, I’m not surprised. The apologist presents whichever form has help up the best under criticism, which speaks more to the quality of religious debates in their past than the quality of the argument. Ultimately they all rest on the same assumptions–that the universe needs a cause and that the cause must be God. If you define God as simply the thing that causes the universe, then I freely admit that God could exist, but most define God as an agent possessing will/intellect/personality/and the like, which is a definition unwarranted by every cosmological argument.

The arguments also suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of the universe. The Big Bang Theory, which lends weight to the claim that the universe even had a beginning, involves space and time’s origin as well. Ask a layperson to describe the Big Bang and you’ll likely hear about an explosion in space from which all matter and energy came forth to eventually form stars, planets, etc. I would guess this misconception draws the ignorant to the First Cause arguments. The scientific consensus is that space/time exploded outward with the matter and energy that eventually formed the universe. Scientists determined this, in part, from observations of celestial bodies drifting apart, marking the predicted expansion of space. The repercussions of this accurate understanding of the Big Bang Theory means that time began at the moment of the effect (the Big Bang) leaving no time for the cause. This leaves the apologist with the task of weighing which counter-intuitive statement is more logical--that every effect must be preceded by a cause or that anything can precede the arrow of time. It’s quite the chronological conundrum...that somehow doesn’t bother theists that much.

I’m not sure “logical” is the operable word here. At the first moment of the Big Bang, and therefore time, everything that would become the universe was a singularity, or something close to it. At this size it was subject to the strangeness that is quantum mechanics. While scientists don’t yet have clear explanations for everything we observe at the quantum level, we have repeated and repeatable results that inform particle/wave duality, the uncertainty principle, super positioning and all kinds of other phenomenon that most everyone would say seems impossible if they don't see it with their own eyes and instruments. Some of these phenomenon even open possibilities that may violate causality and the arrow of time. I look forward to having my mind further blown as humanity hashes this all out.

Mortality Week: Could God Kill Himself?

Could God create a stone so heavy even He couldn’t lift it? How does God know what it is like to learn if He has always known everything? These are just a couple examples of logic busting paradoxes that an idealized deity runs into. I’ve posed these questions to apologists who explain them away as illogical...but that’s kind of the point. If they think God can hold his omnipotent title while being confined by logic, fine. Thinking about mortality this week, I thought of a new question. Could God kill himself?

There is nothing illogical about this question. Suicide is something you or I can do fairly easily (although I don’t recommend you try.) I’ve reached out to a few high-profile apologists with this question. No answers. None. I’ve never gotten such a lack of feedback from these people.* I guess it’s because they know the repercussions of the question.

I’ve come to realize that I may never be able to convince a true believer that God is imaginary, but if this question can convince them that God is either mortal or less-than-omnipotent, I’m at least making some headway.

From my understanding, the biblically accurate answer is that yes, God could kill himself. We are made in his image, so anything we can do, he should be able to accomplish. A theist might argue that God can’t sin and suicide is a sin. To this I say that He clearly sins in the bible by wiping out masses of people on more than one occasion. The theist would then either have to grant me that God sins or take the stance that anything God does is inherently not a sin, which makes suicide not a sin if and when God commits it. This isn’t a question of whether God would commit suicide, it is a question if He could.

Any theists who would like to weight in on this, please do so in the comments or by email or on Twitter or by...carrier pigeon? Anything, just show me how I’m wrong. Until then, let’s just agree that your God ain’t what He used to be.

Upon further Googling, I realize that I'm not the first to ponder this question--even though I arrived at it organically. The only answers out there from the theist perspective I have already covered or fall under the "puny humans can't comprehend God" category. These same people then go on to explain all about God...paradoxes within paradoxes.

Omnicritical

By most accounts, God is pretty awesome. Maybe too awesome, and here’s why.

He’s omnipresent. God’s everywhere. He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good...wait, I may be confusing him with someone else. The main confusion for me here is, in Christianity at least, Jesus is God. It says so in the Bible. Colossians 2:9 “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” How can a physical person be everywhere at once? Not even the Flash can do that and he’s, like, really fast.

He’s omniscient. God knows what it is like to learn even though he has always known everything and has never needed to learn. He knew about you before you were born. He knew before humanity was born. He knows our future, so there can’t be free will. There’s also no reason to pray, seeing how there is nothing you can tell him that he doesn’t already know and nothing you can ask of him that he doesn’t already know you desire. Confessions? Pointless. You were brought into this world predestined to live happily forever or be cast off into everlasting torture. Since the future is already written by God, there’s nothing we can do about it.

He’s omnipotent. God is all powerful. He can create a weight so heavy that even he can’t lift it...wait. He can’t lift it? That doesn’t sound omnipotent. With omnipotence comes all the paradoxes of your favorite time-travel fiction. The faithful say that God has built in fail safes for this sort of thing. God wouldn’t want to do anything that limits his power, yet his will to not act, in this case, is the limit to his power. God apparently can’t sin either because...

He’s omnibenevolent. God’s a super nice guy. His benevolence isn’t by choice, it's his very nature. The same supreme morality that is supposedly ingrained in us, is God's nature. God is the ultimate Hippocratic Oath--do no harm...except when God is being a hypocrite, of course. God killed individuals, cities, and most of the planet on separate occasions in the Bible. The faithful say these were sinners who were killed, but they also say we are all sinners. We should watch our back. If you believe Genesis, you either believe God created a talking snake for the purpose of tempting Eve--making God not omnibenevolent, or the devil found a loop-hole in God’s plan--which would be another reason God isn't omnipotent.

He’s omnitemporal. God isn’t just everywhere, he’s everywhen. He’s even when there wasn’t whens and where there weren’t wheres--like before space and time were created in the Big Bang. Chronologically, God pre-dated dates. “Omni” doesn’t even cover it. He’s ultratemporal, maybe even superdupertemporal.

He’s omnipatient. Defined as “able to endure all things,” it isn’t a trait many believers mention, but God surely has this in his omni-toolbelt. If God didn’t have this get out of boredom free card, he would certainly go insane. Eternity is a long time to micromanage. In fact, since humans have eternal souls, we will need omnipatience as well if we are expected to enjoy heaven or remain aware in hell. It better be in my afterlife welcome bag.

Any of this sound crazy to you? Good. If there is a god, and that's a big if, he/she/it can't be the idealized deity many believe in today. There are enough contradictions and paradoxes within the omnis to disprove a perfect god, without even bringing up the problem of evil. But who are we kidding? I'll still bring it up...next time.