My problem with Evangelical Atheism

[KabeRinnaul]

You may be on to something. It's not that he's AFK, its that after 200,000 years, the turns take forever to resolve.

.....we need to put that on a T-Shirt:

"God's Not Gone. He's Just Waiting For China To Finish Moving Its Units".

Or maybe he's waiting for Xenu to finish his turn.

[Sleepwalker]

If you oppose this, you oppose all of modern civilization. You can't escape the influence of faith or religion.

Hardly. Darwin did not draw his conclusions from the bible. He drew them from his observations of the physical world. More appeals to popularity and authority- most of the REALLY IMPORTANT PPL were christian for the last thousand years, therefore saying christianity is false means you can't eat potato chips. Or something. I suppose if he were a rapist, I'd have to choose between antibiotics and bodily integrity. Jefferson raped his slaves, oops, there goes the republic!

They are your feelings. You cannot prove them. You can go on and on about how I can't disprove them, but the fact is, I can't disprove that the X-men actually exist in a parallel reality accessible via nursery rhyme, either. It is a logical fallacy for a reason. You can go on and on about how these intangible, IMMEASURABLE things exist, but you show no proof, and I do not believe you.

[Kheldarson]

^ Actually, she was more talking the foundation of things, not completely modern science. Simple fact is that a religious group, the Catholic Church, filled a void created by the decline and fall of the most prominent power in the west, the Roman Empire, and preserved it as best it could. Most books written by the monks? Books from the Roman Empire. Most knowledge given to the European powers? From the Roman Empire.

Did they do well at it? That's another debate topic entirely. But considering that a number of basic science and thought innovations came from access to these books, that's fairly important. And frankly, without that base of knowledge or the structure the Church provided, who knows what would have happened when the Byzantine Empire fell? For one, Europe would not have had the structure to start accepting those books as is.

[Iseeyouthere]

They didn't preserve it... They took control of it and changed it.

[Gravekeeper]

And frankly, without that base of knowledge or the structure the Church provided, who knows what would have happened when the Byzantine Empire fell?

Least they could do after they set technology back 1500 years(!!) by torching the Library of Alexandria. 1500. Years. Think about that. Imagine where we'd be now if Rome hadn't been a bunch of dicks. 1500 fucking years of technological development. >.>

[Gravekeeper]

Oops, missed a couple things, sorry.

It's been done. It's called Deism, or the Clockmaker Theory. The universe is a clock made by God. He wound it up, and walked away to let it run on its own.

Jefferson is believed to have been a Deist, though no one is really sure

I believe I've already said once or twice in these threads that I'm a bit of a pandeist. So I know precisely what you mean. Also, many of the founding fathers were deists. Only 2 were anything close to Christian and neither of them apparently was that serious about it. Hence why the "Christian Nation" bullshit is so maddening. >.>

It seems to me that (the quoted parts, not what I skipped over) relies on assuming God is *not* omniscient. If he is, he can design the universe with the foreknowledge that he will be interfering at points x, y, and z, and for it to accommodate that.

But then he's acting irrational as if it was perfect the first time around, he does not need to interfere to make corrections. Why would he create it imperfectly specifically so he would have to make corrections?

Alternately, most miracles could be put down to providence rather than direct intervention, if you like.

But providence is merely probability. Humans have a very bad habit of looking for meaning in probability. If something has a 1 in 50,000 chance of happening, the person it happens too will be inclined to believe it occured to him specifically for a reason. When in fact, he is simply the 1 in 50,000.

Our existence is blatantly unfair. Some are born healthy to good, stable families with enough resources to provide for them. Some are the opposite. Some are hit by disasters of one kind or another, and so on.

Our existence is entirely a construct of our own doing. People are not mentally equipped with enough foresight to see just how far down the chain their actions affect them, their children, grandchildren and great grand children. Nor do we realise exactly how much our actions directly affect our children and grandchildren. We only recently began to really understand the affect of stuff like Epigenetics. Where the way you live your own life quite literally changes your offspring and their offspring.

Disasters and what not are again, not a matter of fate, luck or any such thing. They are the result of a variety of complex systems within the planet and our interaction with it. Again, we assign luck or fairness to something thats actually the logical result of a series of interconnected systems and effects. We assign luck because we're not smart enough or fast enough to predict it and get out of the way yet.

This universe is an amazing web of interconnected systems. But the average person barely sees any of it and rarely cares about most of it unfortunately.

Some people see new discoveries of how the world works and how it has progressed as evidence that God had nothing to do with at least that part. Gap filled, no room for God here, go stick him somewhere else if you insist on keeping him around at all. I do not. I see such discoveries as "oh, so THAT'S how he does it!"

I would surmise this is the Atheist's problem. This line of thinking puts cart before horse so to speak. But that aside, if I may point back to my original argument: Quantum physics is the one layer of creation for which we still have many missing explainations. It is also the layer by which you could shape reality on a whim if you had power over it and thus the most logical for a superior being to operate on.

Thus, again, there is no need to cram God into any segment of the natural world which we've pretty much got covered. There is no real reason for him to operate on the natural world and violate the laws of the natural world. Which would be easily noticable and tracable. When he could dick around on a quantum level all he wants and not generate anymore than a puzzled "That's funny...." from a handful of scientists in a bunker in Europe. >.>

[HYHYBT]

But then he's acting irrational as if it was perfect the first time around, he does not need to interfere to make corrections. Why would he create it imperfectly specifically so he would have to make corrections?

No. You have no basis for the claim that any touching of creation once it's set running must necessarily be a *correction* in the first place. It's only your misuse of a word that makes this quote have even the appearance of reason.

But providence is merely probability. Humans have a very bad habit of looking for meaning in probability. If something has a 1 in 50,000 chance of happening, the person it happens too will be inclined to believe it occured to him specifically for a reason. When in fact, he is simply the 1 in 50,000.

True only in an irrelevant sense. If you were designing your own world with complete foreknowledge, you could arrange probability to turn up convenient coincidences here and there without messing anything up.

Our existence is entirely a construct of our own doing. People are not mentally equipped with enough foresight to see just how far down the chain their actions affect them, their children, grandchildren and great grand children. Nor do we realise exactly how much our actions directly affect our children and grandchildren. We only recently began to really understand the affect of stuff like Epigenetics. Where the way you live your own life quite literally changes your offspring and their offspring.

Disasters and what not are again, not a matter of fate, luck or any such thing. They are the result of a variety of complex systems within the planet and our interaction with it. Again, we assign luck or fairness to something thats actually the logical result of a series of interconnected systems and effects. We assign luck because we're not smart enough or fast enough to predict it and get out of the way yet.

This universe is an amazing web of interconnected systems. But the average person barely sees any of it and rarely cares about most of it unfortunately.

Again, true (other than the first sentence, which is contradicted, for example, by the second paragraph) but irrelevant. I'm not arguing against *any* of that. Only that, *if* you want to insist that miracles happening at all but not for everybody equally is unfair, you don't have to go to miracles.

(I for one hope, as well as expect, never to see a miracle in this life.)

[Gravekeeper]

No. You have no basis for the claim that any touching of creation once it's set running must necessarily be a *correction* in the first place. It's only your misuse of a word that makes this quote have even the appearance of reason.

Wait, what? Back up a minute here. You don't have any basis for the claim a God even exists, never mind any basis for a claim that any touching of creation once its running isn't a correction. If the universe is perfect, as it must be if created by an omnipontent and omnisentient being, why is there a need for intervention? Intervening to change the course of events is most assuredly a correction as it implies the universe is imperfect and requires God step in to alter the course. If God intentionally creates points where he must step in to alter the course, then what is the reasoning behind that? Arrogance?

True only in an irrelevant sense. If you were designing your own world with complete foreknowledge, you could arrange probability to turn up convenient coincidences here and there without messing anything up.

You're running afoul of probability. It would in fact mess something up because it would create a pattern. Probability would favour those who God was intervening on the behalf of and a pattern would emerge. However, assholes win the lottery just as often and nice people get struck by lightning too. Coincidence itself is merely a result of probability.

Again, true (other than the first sentence, which is contradicted, for example, by the second paragraph) but irrelevant. I'm not arguing against *any* of that. Only that, *if* you want to insist that miracles happening at all but not for everybody equally is unfair, you don't have to go to miracles.

-1 for nitpicking at the meaning of the sentence. Also, changing it from miracle to providence does not change the underlying problem. If a force is specifically favouring a group of people by fudging the dice on some level, the force is unfair. The mechanism doesn't matter. God literally cannot show favoritism or else he becomes fallible.

This is the problem. He cannot be all powerful and fallible, and you can't wave away the fallibility by saying he's intentionally being fallible as that too would essentially be a character flaw. Bringing him back to fallible.

[jackfaire]

Question I said this as a joke to a friend and realized it's actually kind of how I would like to present the can we please just agree to disagree argument.

Atheists would it bother you if I said,


"Here's the deal if I am right I get to tell you ha I told you so, If your right well ha then you don't get to say anything at all"

[siead_lietrathua]

i kinda wanna toss a theory i heard once from a friend into the "correction" part of this debate. it was a while ago so im probably butchering it in paraphrase but: "maybe god changes the world because he is just bored"
and really, it kinda makes sense. i've seen enough guys that i game with who strip and repaint models, or rebuild their gaming tables, or etc to their hobbies and creations just because it gets boring if it stays the same over time.
so maybe the cycles of global warming and cooling are changing the gameboard. and evolution and extinction are switching the armies. or i just hang out with too many Warhammer nerds...... meh!


@ jackfaire: i'll have to remember that one. its funny!

[HYHYBT]

Wait, what? Back up a minute here. You don't have any basis for the claim a God even exists, never mind any basis for a claim that any touching of creation once its running isn't a correction.

Irrelevant, because I'm speaking of *if* God exists. The point is that without assuming, based on apparently nothing at all, that any touch must necessarily be error correction, the notion that miracle proves fallibility is nonsense.

As a far from perfect example, but one that gets to the point, in the 90's Atlanta built a new stadium for the Olympics. After the Olympics were over, part of it was demolished and built differently to make what is now Turner Field. But it was designed from the get-go to be that way. So the fact that the demolition and reconstruction went ahead as planned does not show the original design to be flawed, nor does it make the designers fools for not building a baseball stadium in the first place when they needed it to be something else its first year.

As for *why* God would make it that way, I don't know. But not knowing why is not evidence of any sort that it's not the way things are.

Winning the lottery and such has nothing to do with it, by the way. Part of the nature of probability, as I'm sure you know, is that events are independent. Parting the sea and changing water into wine thousands of years ago would not have any effect on this week's lottery drawing that we could even conceivably measure without the type of record-keeping that we do not now have being put in place before those events happened, if they did.

-1 for nitpicking at the meaning of the sentence.

The same to you for falsely claiming it was nitpicking.

God literally cannot show favoritism or else he becomes fallible.

I'm not certain it *is* favoritism. But regardless, without knowing MOTIVE it's rather presumptuous to judge.

[Gravekeeper]

Irrelevant, because I'm speaking of *if* God exists. The point is that without assuming, based on apparently nothing at all, that any touch must necessarily be error correction, the notion that miracle proves fallibility is nonsense.

Why? See, here's the problem again. You have nothing to say that it's not a correction either. Just because you feel like it isn't doesn't mean it isn't.

As a far from perfect example, but one that gets to the point, in the 90's Atlanta built a new stadium for the Olympics.

That makes no point at all, because God should not be limited by budget, time or manpower. Which are the likely reasons behind that decision. Again, if God is perfect and all knowing, then his creation must be likewise, otherwise he is not perfect and all knowing because he has either inadvertently caused glitches in the system or has intentionally placed glitches in this system which require him to step in and alter the course to where it "should" be. But the possible reasons for why he would do that again make him imperfect.

You can't have your cake and eat it too here.

As for *why* God would make it that way, I don't know. But not knowing why is not evidence of any sort that it's not the way things are.

You can't hand wave this with the "God works in mysterious ways" Jedi mind trick either.

Parting the sea and changing water into wine thousands of years ago would not have any effect on this week's lottery drawing that we could even conceivably measure without the type of record-keeping that we do not now have being put in place before those events happened, if they did.

Considering the effect even the claim of these events has had on drastically and irreparably altering human history....but that's not the point. A miracle that allegedly happened thousands of years ago is not the same as one allegedly happening in modern times such as winning said lottery. Unless you are suggesting God performed said miracles to create a long reaching butterfly effect spanning out from the middle east over thousands of years to insure one dick head in Florida wins the lottery in the distant future.

But even that sort of nonsense would not hold up as probability doesn't indicate any sway one way or another. So God would have to be balancing it out ensuring one dickhead for every "deserving" person wins the lottery. In which case he's acting illogically and redundantly as that's the way the dice would land anyway. Which again would make him fallible.

The same to you for falsely claiming it was nitpicking.

"Falsely"? Then explain the contradiction for the class if you would. Seeing as my point, as evidenced by the entire rest of the paragraph following said sentence, was how far reaching our actions are and how unaware of it we are.

I'm not certain it *is* favoritism. But regardless, without knowing MOTIVE it's rather presumptuous to judge.

Its not presumptuous at all seeing as "It" may or may not even exist. I am not going to bow my head to your theoretical God and avoid discussing "Him" because its presumptuous of my lowly mortal existence. -.-

[HYHYBT]

So: even when speaking only of what may be possible, you want to create arbitrary limitations and rules which you declare that God must fit within (and pretending to be all insulted when even *asked* why you make the assumptions you do), and then say that since he doesn't, he isn't. And you blame me for it. Nice.

[Gravekeeper]

So: even when speaking only of what may be possible, you want to create arbitrary limitations and rules which you declare that God must fit within (and pretending to be all insulted when even *asked* why you make the assumptions you do), and then say that since he doesn't, he isn't. And you blame me for it. Nice.

You've lost me on your wording there.

As for limitations and rules, yes, "God" should fit within them or the general realm of them as their is no evidence presently or previously that "God" has broken said limitations nor has any intentions of doing so. That is the very essence of the word "possible". The very act of determining what is possible requires sketching out limitations as beyond those limitations is the impossible. Additionally, as a being higher than us, "God" should be better than us and thus able to act more logically, intelligently and reasonably than us. You cannot deflect reason being applied to "God" through a "works in mysterious ways" type argument.

As for being insulted, like I said, I do not see a contradiction unless you're reading into it something that I did not write into. You still have not explained the contradiction you percieve.

[HYHYBT]

You say that God's logic *must* fit within your own: that is, it must be smaller, not larger. You make up rules such as that anything designed for touching must necessarily be flawed, and then act as if it were the most horrible offense even to ASK why, much less not accept that limitation without grounds. You now seem to be claiming that the possible is limited to what has already happened, which is a whole new kind of nonsense as far as I'm concerned. You dismiss any suggestion that someone who knows everything might possibly have perfectly well organized and logical plans that would seem not to be so from our more limited (however logical within those limits) understanding as handwaving. None of that is sound.