Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Hemant Mehta and Alpha God

The friendly Atheist clips a bit from a book by Hector A. Garcia, "Alpha God", which claims to know how the God idea came about. This is a common practice amongst evolutionary story tellers, who make up fantasy scenarios which to them seem to be plausible. They focus these stories on the evils which they discern in the modern world, such as Catholicism of 1,500 years ago, give or take, and Islam, not all of it just the parts that fit the narrative. Oh, and also the Evil God which makes their lives of moral ambivalence pure hell.

The first part deals with size, quoting Steven Pinker who claims - without a shard of evidence - that for hunter-gatherers the term "big man" referred to men who were actually large in size (makes sense to Pinker, so it must be true - he wrote a book). Then the standard un-referenced claims that taller men go farther than less tall men, a claim which is questionable first of all, and is of no consequence to creating the universe in any event. The meaning of this is that big is alpha to humans, dogs and goldfish of course, thus enabling the stacking up of that selected evidence as the faux axiom for support of the claim that God was created as the biggest and most alpha of alphas. It's a story. Just a story. There is no evidence, because it is just a fantasy story.

I haven't read the book so I don't know if there are any actual arguments intended to serve as actual logic to refute the existence of a non-physical intelligent agent which created the universe. That fundamental hypothesis is an argument wherein size doesn't matter, but innate power does. But that is not what the Atheist narrative is about; the Atheist narrative is about fabricating a self-designated "plausible" argument for the human creation of God, rather than God creating humans. It's a necessary belief, unsubstantiated and unsubstiable, but for which "truth" is necessary for the belief system and worldview, regardless. Evidence is not necessary, unless the evidence serves the narrative. It is the narrative itself which is deemed necessary and sufficient for proof of "no God". Atheism has never had evidence or logic for its support; so stories are sorely needed. And this author has this one to offer.

The second part that Mehta offers is "foot kissing" as evidence for the human creation of God as top dog. Really. That's it. Read it for yourself, the absurdity of this as an argument for there being "no God", is beyond parody.

The fact that Mehta considers this to be worthy of repeating reveals a lot about the critical thinking paths which he does not take. Yet Mehta maintains a somewhat influential profile in the Atheist community, apparently. And that reveals a lot about the Atheist community.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stan, here's a good one:

Promissory Materialism isn't even plausible

Phoenix said...

Well,the writer did manage to trace the equivalence of lipsmacking in our ape cousins.Since that type of behavior is displayed in the animal kingdom,it makes it automatically natural behavior for humans too.Therefore lipsmacking and its human identical (hand and footkissing) is a natural practice that should be embraced wholeheartedly by Atheists too.

Seriously,I fail to grasp how hand and footkissing refutes the existence of God.

Phoenix said...

JBsptfn

Yes,promissary materialism is where the Atheist believe some day in the distant future science will solve all our problems and refute every theist proposition ever made but just not today,so they will have to conjure up some super faith until that day when science will finally show its face.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but their faith is OK, but when a theist has faith, it is "Believing in what you know ain't so". Love their double-standards (lol).

Unknown said...

"Love their double-standards"

Accusing them of having double standards presupposes they have standards.

It's really all just an elaborate game of question-begging. We know Science will one day answer all theistic arguments because materialism. And we know materialism is true because Science. Theistic arguments are throwbacks to the Dark Ages before Science taught us that materialism is true. Want proof? Before Science people believed in the supernatural. QED.

Phoenix said...

Stefani,I know this is a parody of bad Atheist arguments but let's refute them anyway.

"We know Science will one day answer all theistic arguments because materialism"

Sure,but science has failed to provide an adequate scientific theory for consciousness/mind for centuries now.At some point Atheists will have to relent that there are somethings which are outside the control of empricism.

As has said the neurophysiologist and Nobel Laureate:“We regard promissory materialism as superstition without a rational foundation. The more we discover about the brain, the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena, and the more wonderful do both the brain events and the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a religious belief held by dogmatic materialists . . . who often confuse their religion with their science.”
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"And we know materialism is true because Science"
This is question begging because there are many examples within philosophical materialism contradicting current scientific models.For example:Atheists/Physicalists claim that neuroscience proves mind is an emergent property of the brain.But there are people living,breathing,walking and talking with large parts of their brains missing.Since emergent properties are contingent on the whole,thus removing any parts from the composition would render it useless and impotent.
===
"Theistic arguments are throwbacks to the Dark Ages before Science taught us that materialism is true"
Literally or figuratively,this is false.Becuase most philosophical arguments for the existence of God has their roots in the Middle Ages actually proves that it was a time of scientific and philosophic inquiry.

Want proof? Before Science people believed in the supernatural. QED"

The scientific

Phoenix said...

As has said the neurophysiologist and Nobel Laureate John Eccles