It’s not all of the terrible things that happen on Earth that make me think god isn’t real. We’ve all heard the argument that god wouldn’t help quarterbacks win football games while letting children in Africa starve to death, but this doesn’t make me think he’s not real; it just makes me think he’s an asshole.There is actually no logic to analyze here; this is the “If I Were God, Everything would Be Perfect” whine. There is no mention of free will, of character development, of moral choice. There is only “too much asymmetry”, and by the way, “the bible is completely full of shit”, THEREFORE, there is no God. But wait, it is possible god exists, but he is indifferent toward us.
It’s not that bad things happen to good people or good things happen to bad people, it’s that anything happens to anybody. The cause of my atheism isn’t tragedy, but the arbitrary nature of human existence.
Perhaps I expect too much from god, but if he is real, why isn’t everything beautiful? Why isn’t everything perfect?
People mention sunsets and that special feeling you get when you are with someone you love as evidence of god’s existence. Even things like death and heartbreak stir up emotions just as profound, if not as pleasant. But they seem to forget that god created everything, that everything is a part of his plan. Love is all well and good, but I can’t believe that a perfect being thought it would be best to include shitting as an unavoidable biological function of human beings.
I can’t believe that a perfect being would create anything less than perfect. Call me crazy, but it seems like a contradiction. Forget the elephant man; pimply faced teens are enough to convince me that god doesn’t exist. If god is real, why isn’t every man an Adonis and every woman his Aphrodite? Why do people have unibrows? Why is my moustache thicker on one side than it is on the other? These may seem like petty questions, but when it comes to the existence of god I truly think they are just as important as questions like why do people feel pain or why is there so much suffering in the world. I can believe that god makes hurricanes; maybe he really is trying to punish those queers. But what intelligent reason could there be for creating say, asparagus?
I must conclude that there is no god, no plan for existence. There is too much imperfection, too much asymmetry in the world we live in. This is of course not to mention the fact that the bible is completely full of shit.
On the principles of solipsism and critical thinking I must admit that it is possible that god exists. But if he does, mankind’s reverence for him is matched only by his indifference toward us.
James Grimes
Kansas, United States
If I try to put logic to this, it looks like this:
If [opinion A] & [opinion B] Then [no god];
[opinion A] & [opinion B];
Therefore, [no god… oh wait, god but indifferent, or an asshole].
What is amazing is that people actually write this stuff down as the Reason That They Are Atheist”.
17 comments:
Hello There!!
My native language is Spanish. I'm not a medium... I'm an undergraduate Electronic Engineering student.
I just came here to say that whenever I have time, will try to help. I'm not very skillful with logic, but I'm totally certain that spirituality is another source of knowledge that can be reached upon.
If done so (I'm still in progress), as in every learning process, I believe it is possible to "translate" those subjective experiences by exhaustive proof, giving them a common result, which can easily be relationated within different religions and cultures, and also, be given the logical and rationally correct statement it deserves.
I won't ask and/or force you to do this and unfortunately, it is a very very difficult task to take, because:
1)There are still many authorities that even nowdays won't try to understand some things about Mysticism and Spirituality
2)Those authorities will misunderstand which are some of the possible "methods", how those vary from culture to culture, and why those "methods" won't matter much after some "common conclusion" is reached.
3)I've observed over the years of my short-lived life, that pathological skeptics tend to shallowly focus in discriminate/differentiate rituals among cultures, but not in what really those rituals mean, so they won't even take the first step and rather will try to condition their boundaries so much, and even worse, with no previous knowledge, to get their logical arguments non-refutable.
I will recommend you a book called "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot.
The Amazon book link here:
http://www.amazon.com/Holographic-Universe-Michael-Talbot/dp/0060922583
I think it could be of use for you. I won't ask you to believe in everything of what is written in this book. Analyze yourself, what do you think this books suggests about what "seems to fit".
Kind Regards.
So he's throwing a tantrum, basically? It would never occur to such people that their arguments, even if accepted as valid, would leave Deism (or for that matter, Calvinism) as perfectly viable options.
No, for them its either a strawman form of Theism, or total Atheism.
Complete ignorance of the Biblical teaching of the Fall.
And the further irony? This guy probably lives in a First-World society were he has a better deal in life than most of the rest of the human race.
I thought about examining Christian testimonies to examine reasons for people becoming Christians.
Most people just say they were scared of death, felt some sort of positive feeling about God and then prayed and felt better. I read about four dozen of them yesterday. It's very repetitive.
I doubt the majority of any religion have logical reasons for being in that religion.
I read your other website Mr 40 Year Atheist and don't think you have good reasons to believe either. (Your evidence being an argument from ignorance, Bible verses and "the Existence of the Holy Spirit is attested by the eyewitness testimony".
Suddenly all your reasoning goes out the window and it falls down to holy books and "testimony". It's almost as if you believed first and worked backwards.
I was going to write some mocking posts about the other Christian testimonies but it felt sleazy.
Nats,
You have no idea what I believe because I have not written about that anywhere. There are no Bible verses or Holy Spirit references other than calling for people like yourself to disprove them. You believe without proof which is why your impulse is to mock; you have no logic to fall back on as support for your position. So your beliefs must be protected the only way you can: ridicule.
Otherwise your beliefs are defenseless.
A more charitable interpretation of this essay would be the classical problem of evil.
"But wait, it is possible god exists, but he is indifferent toward us."
He's rejecting a claim of absolute knowledge of course.
The easy answer is that maybe God does exist, but he's an asshole. That 'just' disproves the God of classical theism.
"I can believe that god makes hurricanes; maybe he really is trying to punish those queers."
I don't buy this. The French Quarter was relatively unscathed in New Orleans. If he wanted to punish 'them queers', he largely missed, and caused a lot of damage to the 'not queers'.
Yonose,
This is probably not the place for a discussion on the topic of comparative religion. Nevertheless, I'm sympathetic to your view. FrankNorman, that doesn't mean I can't appreciate your fierce orthodoxy. Skepticism is all too easy. For a long time, I myself remained a staunch agnostic, at least in part, because of the fact of religious plurality.
Many an argument has been made to logically defend the unique Truth of one particular tradition.
The historicist secularists tend to invoke that fact as an argument against the truth of all religions and spirituality in general.
In the final analysis, I believe it is only in the realm of experience (spirituality) that there can be any fruitful interfaith dialogue (if you think there should be). Consequently, the similarity of the inward dimension (esoterism) of the world's religions is a fact that shouldn't be lightly dismissed, but should be explored. And, no, I'm not arguing for syncretism nor do I believe religious doctrines should be "de-mythologized"
Ultimately, I think it's important to remember that it is the defenders of scientism that insist, as a matter of dogma, that spirit and transcendence, are, point blank, illogical illusions.
To submit to atheo-materialist reductionism is to accept a degraded understanding of man and, in effect, amputates the most important part of his nature.
Stan, your efforts are invaluable.
Keep it up, Charles "The Hammer" Martel!!
FrankNorman,
"It would never occur to such people that their arguments, even if accepted as valid, would leave Deism (or for that matter, Calvinism) as perfectly viable options.
No, for them its either a strawman form of Theism, or total Atheism."
I'm Afraid you have totally misunderstood me. You may think of it as a tantrum if you wish, although that was not my intended message and I really apologize if it sounded like a passive/aggresive "do what I want".
I repeat: it is not my intention to force believes on anyone, but just try to give some different perspectives and justify them, it is not simply something like a black & white thing.
I'm not able to change the way a pathological skeptic behaves, and it hasn't been my intention either.
What I'm also not asking to do is "to make a new religion", or preaching "my interpretation" of the Bible or any other sacred text.
What I'm trying to say is that spirituality is a source of knowledge. It is not necessarily the same as religion but in some aspects, they are strongly relationated.
Under some circumstances and boundary contidions, religion!=spirituality.
Also, I stated that from spirituality we might (ideally), from our individual and subjective constructs, make understand that some "common ground" is possible, by coinciding patterns between experiences and giving them, finally an objective, logical statement (something like what is happening with NDEs -Near Death Experiences- I've had experienced one, but I know one vote itself doesn't count, and unfortunately it is still very controversial within the scientific community as a whole).
"And the further irony? This guy probably lives in a First-World society were he has a better deal in life than most of the rest of the human race."
Nope, I actually living in the middle-class, in a Third-world country.
Kind Regards.
Chris,
I know, and thank you for making things clear.
It was not my intention to do comparative religion directly, I did not communicate this issues appropiately the first time. It was just an idea, not to be forced on anyone.
I'll try to do better, while at the same time doing so within the initial scope.
Kind Regards.
You have no idea what I believe because I have not written about that anywhere.
I was assuming you are "40 year atheist" and "Stan the 40 year atheist".
I don't think your beliefs are defensible so it's clever of you to try and hide what your believe.
Your whole shtick can be summed up in three phrases "Atheists must prove there is no god", "I don't know how the material world was formed so a god did it" and "prove me wrong!". It's amazing the verbiage you can excrete around these three concepts. Atheism means a negation of theism but you hide theism so atheists have little to negate.
Most atheists are atheists because there is no evidence for theism. It's not a world-view where they prove no gods exist.
I have to echo Chris' sentiments, Stan. I've learned much in a short time reading this blog.
Thank you!
nats,
”I was assuming you are "40 year atheist" and "Stan the 40 year atheist".
I don't think your beliefs are defensible so it's clever of you to try and hide what your believe.”
For purposes of this blog my belief, based on grounded logic, is that Atheism is internally contradictory and therefore false. Whatever else I believe is of no consequence to the blog. However, it does seem to irritate Atheists that they cannot attack my beliefs instead of defending their own: Ad Hominem is standard fare for Atheist “logic”.
”Your whole shtick can be summed up in three phrases "Atheists must prove there is no god",
Yes, quite astute.
”I don't know how the material world was formed so a god did it"
That is purposely false. Not only have I never said that, what I have said is that Atheists cannot prove their belief system, they make stuff up to cover their belief without evidence… which is a religious decision, not an empirical conclusion. So their claims of intellect, reason, logic, and devotion to science are false, and are smoke screen constructs to cover their faith.
”…and "prove me wrong!".
Atheists claim to be evidence based. So the challenge to prove it is more of a challenge than they can stand. So they call it a schtick, and ridicule that which they cannot logically or rationally answer – with or without evidence.
” It's amazing the verbiage you can excrete around these three concepts. Atheism means a negation of theism but you hide theism so atheists have little to negate.
False. Atheism is specifically a rejection of any possible deity, including the possibility of a first cause of the universe. Your definition of negation is a new one altogether, so the other new redefinitions must not be working out so well in Atheist land. If you wish to attack human derived ecclesiasticism, there are other sites and venues for that. I stick to the basic first principles and necessary existential probabilities.
”Most atheists are atheists because there is no evidence for theism. It's not a world-view where they prove no gods exist.”
When someone says “most” [people of some category], they generally are talking through their hat. Atheists that come here and have for the past four years are Atheists because they reject all gods. If you are paying any attention to the Atheist claims at PZ’s place, they are rejecting the Judeo-Christian God based on conflicts they have with human ecclesiasticism, a logical Category Error, unless they have rejected the Judeo-Christian God a priori, and don’t admit it (intellectual dishonesty). Either way, it’s a logical failure.
When someone comes along and analyzes my analysis, it is a tacit admission of failure to counter the premises put forth here with logical argumentation. So they resort to attacking the person or the method instead. This sort of failure is complete and total.
Russell,
You're quite welcome!
Chris,
Thanks, and I'm not going anywhere (that I know of).
"they resort to attacking the person or the method instead. This sort of failure is complete and total."
Oh, for the love of all that is good. Stan, you've spent years attacking people and their methods.
""Atheists must prove there is no god",
Yes, quite astute."
The reason people ridicule that position is that's a ridiculous position to hold.
The burden of proof, and I don't mean "burden of proof" the debating term, is on the one making the positive assertion.
If Johnny tell Mark that magical elves exist, Johnny should prove it. Mark is justified in not believing in magical elves until Johnny proves evidence.
I know that you can understand that so why do you pretend not to?
” Oh, for the love of all that is good. Stan, you've spent years attacking people and their methods.”
I do attack false arguments by pointing out the appropriate logical fallacy. For example you misrepresented my position, and I pointed that out. That is an attack on a claim you made. Then you made another claim, and I challenged your claim, to which you have not responded. I’m sure this seems like an attack when you have no evidentiary recourse for your beliefs, despite your claim of being evidence-based; but I have not attacked you, nor your method except to point to your fallacies.
For example, you feel it necessary to reject the concept of Burden of Proof as understood in a debate, yet you are engaged in a debate. That is a non-coherent position, as well as special pleading:
”The reason people ridicule that position is that's a ridiculous position to hold.
The burden of proof, and I don't mean "burden of proof" the debating term, is on the one making the positive assertion.”
If it is so ridiculous, then it must be illogical, so refute it using your demand for evidence as applied to yourself. That’s only fair.
”If Johnny tell Mark that magical elves exist, Johnny should prove it. Mark is justified in not believing in magical elves until Johnny proves evidence.”
This standard Atheist analogy is a false representation of the actual situation. The actual situation would be for Mark to claim positive knowledge that there are no creatures such as Johnny claims, and to have evidence to back this claim. But Johnny has no such knowledge nor evidence, so his claim is false. All analogies fail at some point, some earlier than others. This one fails immediately because it is a false representation. Also analogies are an abdication of argumentation using positive syllogistic structures, or proper evidentiary presentation.
I understand it, I understand why you value it, and I understand why it is false.
Three dashes, I changed your analogy of the conversation to something that you and Stan can probably agree on.
Johnny -Call me an Elf-believer.
Mark -I don't believe in elves and need good evidence before I'll be convinced.
Johnny -I believe in elves because my shoes must have come from somewhere and many people have had personal experiences of elfs.
Mark -Arguments from ignorance are not enough. Some personal experiences can be wrong, misinterpurted, misremembered or deliusions. These are not good reasons to believe in elves.
Johnny -Your disbelief in elves is unjustified unless you can prove elves don't exist.
Still an incorrect analogy. First, the statement by Johnny is not reflective of a logical extrapolation to a first cause. It is a non-sequitur Fallacy called Non Causa Pro Causa, because there is no reason for the consequent to relate to the stated antecedent. But of course this was stated this way in order to attempt to share this fallacy in the analogy with the statement of the actual premise, and that is a Fallacy of False Association, which is generally the purpose of analogies any way. The entire purpose of this analogy is to attempt to make a comparison that will reflect unfairly on the logic of the actual argument, by using a strained reduction to fairy tales as a comparative. It is an Apples and Oranges Fallacy (aka Fallacy of Lexical Equivocation). An example is this:
A is like B; therefore what applies to A also applies to B. (But in reality A is not like B at all in the characteristics which matter).
There is further error in this presentation:
Mark actually will claim to be completely evidence based, so Johnny will request evidence from Mark for his belief, who will beg off or use False Associations or other Fallacies to smear without evidence, and then claim no need for evidence for himself, because the only evidence required is from Johnny. Mark will continue to claim to be evidence based, despite any evidence to support his view.
Other than that, it's just another failed analogy - and they all fail, some just sooner than others.
Post a Comment