I had a theist follow me on twitter, and as I usually do, I click around a bit. He had a video on YouTube that required much more than 500 characters to reply to. Here's the video:
It's hard to respond to this video, because there are so many separate statements. I'm going to tackle the first half of the video and respond to every statement. I'm not responding to the second half purely because if I can't show how ridiculous these statements are by just responding to the first half, the rest will fall on deaf ears as well.
From looking around, this person is clearly a Christian, and thus my answers will be showing the hypocrisy in his statements (and likewise the book he got them from).
Just in case no one reads to the end, the main thing points anyone should take away from this are:
Now, onto the fun part:
First of all, if there is no God, man has no soul or spirit.
I don't have a problem with this statement. The interesting part is that this is somehow implied a problem with atheism. This is only a problem to those who want to believe that we will have something after death.
People have no greater value than other life-forms.
I'm actually somewhat agreeing with this statement. After all, if all of the other organisms did not exist, we wouldn't have a source of food and we would eventually run out of oxygen. Thus, everything in the universe is truly needed to get us to where we are today, and without it, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
There is no right and wrong, no morality and no integrity.
Right and wrong are defined based on a moral understanding, so let me address morality. I've already defined my thoughts on the origin of morality. Beyond showing that there is a clear way to have morality without a god, this statement also implies two things:
Human destiny belongs to the clever and strong.
This is true, and I'm surprised you wouldn't agree with it. Who is the most powerful person today? Arguably it would be Barack Obama, a clever and strong (in the needed ways) person. Our destiny of the human race does depend on world leaders deciding to cooperate, despite their opposing and often conflicting religious teachings.
At any level, we have leaders who make decisions for groups of people. This trickles up all the way to the scope of our planet. Thus, we have ourselves constructed a system in which we allow the smart, trusted, or powerful people to make our decisions. When enough people disagree, we have revolutions or civil wars to attempt to overthrow the leader.
The concepts of worth and value do not exist.
I assume that this means of life itself and not the economics terms. Life is as valuable as you allow it to be. For the extreme case of value, let's ponder whether you consider your life valuable enough to keep living. If you think the only reason you would want to live is to please a god, I think you're lying to yourself. In fact if you honestly believe there is a heaven, you should be taking as much risk as possible to spread the gospel to the far reaches of the world. Who cares if you're martyred, right? You'll be going to heaven, and will be praised for doing your best to spread Christianity.
Of course, you want to stay alive. You don't want to take the risk. Unfortunately I'm having trouble finding the source, but I remember hearing of a study that showed that Christians who were facing death in hospitals fought harder to stay alive by requesting experimental medicines and procedures than non-believers in the same situation. The opposite should be true -- if god dealt you a hand that would get you to heaven more quickly, why not take it?
There is no love, and love is no better than indifference
There are many sciences that have studied and essentially explained love. Evolutionary psychology can hypothesize about how we evolved love. Additionally, neuroscience, anthropology, biology, and psychology all have a lot of research showing how love is a physical, natural thing, not inspired by a god.
Life is no better than death.
If you say so. I personally value my life greatly, as it's the only one I have. I'd say I've enjoyed being alive more than I did not existing.
There is no difference between life and non-life. Humans are just simply a collection of atoms, how is that different from a rock?
That's the inverse intelligent design argument. That's like saying if you have a wedge and a platform that it's no different than putting the platform on the wedge and having a lever.
Obviously the way things are put together makes a huge difference. A rock does not reproduce, asexually or sexually. That is one of the main differences between life and non-life.
There is no hope beyond death, and death is the end.
Correct. To be honest, this was the hardest thing to cope with as I was losing my faith in Christianity. However, I see nothing wrong with this statement, other than it is an implication of atheism.
There is no purpose or design in the universe.
Correct. Implying purpose is something we like to do, as it's been helpful for us in our evolutionary past. For example, let's look at simplistic behavior of someone who doesn't know about pain relievers: if someone had a toothache and found that chewing a certain weed/herb made the tooth not hurt anymore, one would imply that its purpose was a pain reliever.
However, the plant itself doesn't serve a purpose. In fact, the same pain relieving effect can be a toxin to its natural predators and this was a line of defense that was naturally selected that allowed the plant to survive.
Even though this is all hypothetical (I'm too lazy and tired after my road trip today), it shows how we have evolved to assume a purpose behind things. However, I'm completely fine with thinking there is no divine purpose in life.
Peace is no better than war. War can be good because it is the perfect environment for natural selection, "Survival of the fittest."
Says the person who has a god that commanded war a lot in the bible, and whose religion has a history of starting wars in the name of that god. After all, there is a time for war, and there is a time for peace. There is a time for everything.
Natural selection is indeed survival of the fittest, but we've reached a point in modern warfare where it's no longer about fittest. Nuclear holocaust is not about fitness, but purely who has the nukes and presses the button first. Because of our gross allocation of planet-threatening warfare, we've come to realize we need to learn how to get along rather than go to war. This is much more of a modern concept than a concept you find in the bible.
Humans are not responsible for the care of the earth. Why are humans more responsible than elephants. Why does human intelligence make them responsible for the care of the Earth? Why not simply the exploitation of the earth?
This actually made me laugh out loud. Do you realize who in America is most against attempting to reverse our recent influences on our atmosphere? Bible-thumpers. Most atheists recognize this planet as being something we have the ability to influence, and as a whole we've recognized that our technological advances have had negative impacts on the planet.
Why should we take responsibility? Well, if we don't, we may not survive. While that may not be reason enough for you, I take pride in us possibly being one of the only intelligent organisms in this universe, and I would like us to exist long enough to potentially meet others if they exist. I may not be here for it, but if I can do something to ensure that our descendants are, I'm going to do it.
Freedom is no better than slavery.
Again, says the person who's holy book sets out the rules for slavery. Yes, your bible specifically states how much to pay for slaves and how to treat them. In fact, it specifically outlines what the limits of punishing a slave are:
When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)
That's right, the slave owner can punish his slaves within inches of death, as long as the slave doesn't die within two days. Only if the slave dies is this wrong and the owner should be punished.
The abolition of slavery happened relatively recently, and I would take that as a victory for the morals of society overcoming the moral teachings of our ancestors, including that of the bible.
There is no beginning and no end and time is an illusion. The past and the future don't exist because they cannot be directly observed. And the present is always moving into the past, so it cannot be directly observed. And without direct observation, we are told things do not exist.
While an interesting thought experiment, this statement doesn't actually reflect reality. We are not told that direct observation is required to think things exist. Direct observation is one form of empirical evidence, but it is not the only. We have writings, pictures, archaeology, and many other physical pieces of evidence that allow us to see that dinosaurs existed. By writings, we can see what people did back in their time. We can also compare writings to archaeology and other writings to better understand what really happened in a given period.
This argument is trying to claim that we atheists claim that we can't believe in anything we can't directly observe. That's just a flat out lie.
Innocence is no better than guilt.
So the only thing keeping you from stealing, raping, murdering is that you fear it would upset your god?
There is no murder, because murder depends upon human value. Unique human value. We don't speak of killing an ant as murder. Or even of killing a dog, or even killing an elephant. That's not murder.
Actually, for the dog argument, I've actually heard that be called murder. In fact, one of the definitions of murder is, "to kill brutally or inhumanly."
To the original statement, we as a society don't like people killing each other. If we allowed people to kill each other, we would be in constant fear for our lives. Thus, there is a benefit to encouraging people from killing other people. We've chosen a word "murder" to represent that concept.
There is no reason for sexual purity and the concept of marriage. The only reason for sexual purity is because of certain sexual taboos that come from religion. And specifically Judeo-Christianity.
The bible specifically shows, without disapproval:
... And without that, one can have sexual relations with as many people as one wishes, at the same time or different times. After all, the most successful organism is the one who bears the most offspring.
Two thoughts:
According to atheist ideas, there is no reason for compassion and caring for others. There's no reason for generosity or philanthropy. There's no reason for kindness. There's no reason for gentleness above cruelty.
You're only kind to people because your God tells you to be? I've already linked to the golden rule page above, and that shows that this statement is false.
Human joy is no greater than animal contentment.
This is just a nonsensical statement. It certainly is superior to whomever is experiencing it. However, the animal doesn't know what it's missing out on.
We're in a unique position as humans because we've evolved a consciousness.
There's no love beyond lust, and no intimacy beyond physical touch.
This again is another repeat statement.
Honesty is no better than lying and stealing.
Again, basically the same as "no morality"
At this point I became too bored with the repeats and lack of actually stimulating things to discuss. If these statements are representative of the level of discourse provided by the book you mention, I would highly recommend against this book. It sounds like a lot of fluff with some tired, old arguments.
I'm going to be attending two conferences this year, maybe three if dates line up correctly.
First up is The Amazing Meeting 7 (TAM7) organized by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Through The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Podcast, I came to realize how great of a meeting this was. With the potential to meet Penn & Teller, James Randi, Phil Plait, Adam Savage, as well as many other distinguished people, I made it a goal to attend this year. I finally booked my tickets about a month ago. TAM is from July 9 through 12 in Las Vegas.
Next, I found the Atheist Alliance International Convention with Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher headlining, and many other noted speakers including people I admire such as Jerry Coyne and Eugene Scott. I'm extremely excited about this conference and the prospect of potentially being able to see Dawkins speak in person. This conference is held in Los Angeles from October 2 through 4.
Lastly is the Texas Freethought Convention which is still being organized. If the date is the same as last year, I unfortunately will most likely be out of town. However, if I'm in town, I'll definitely be there.
For the past few months I've been monitoring for various speakers that I would love to see. The top of my list includes Dawkins, Hitchens, and Ehrman. It's incredibly hard to find a schedule for Hitchens -- I wish the man would put together a simple website. Hell, I would volunteer to post and host an official website with a calendar of events.
To illicit some feedback, I have a few questions for the few readers I get:
Hopefully through these conferences I'll be able to put a face to many of the bloggers I've come to read and appreciate, as well as possibly meet some of the more influential public figures like Dawkins and Hitchens.
I've been reading a so-far great book Philosophers without Gods, and in one of the essays the author notes that he desires for there to be a god, but he just can't bring himself to believe in a god. He goes on to discuss Pascal's Wager.
Pascal's Wager is this:
If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is....
..."God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.
"That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.
This argument boils down to this analogy: you can't win the lottery if you don't play. However, this author knew all of the flaws in the argument, but still saw something in the argument. The part of Pascal's argument that I had not read much commentary on is his argument of how you can believe in something you do not actually think is true.
His proposition is that if you begin to live as a believer, God will eventually reveal himself to you:
God's will has been to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek it, but men have shown themselves so unworthy that it is right for God to refuse to some, for their hardness of heart, what he grants to others by a mercy they have not earned
... Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart and hidden from those who shun him with all their heart, he has qualified our knowledge of him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek him and not by those who do not.
There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.
The author of the essay describes his reluctance in accepting this proposition, even when faced with the idea of being granted knowledge of God:
My worry is different. If I follow Pascal's program, I will, indeed, land in a state in which I believe, and in which I am genuinely convinced that I can give a good reason for what I believe, if challenged. But am I entitled to trust my confidence when I am in that state? After all, I deliberately performed a series of steps that I knew would, if I followed them, put me into exactly that state. Now, it is one thing if, in the course of events, I find myself in that epistemic state. But it would seem to be quite another if I deliberately put myself into that state. In that case, it looks as if I am deliberately going about deceiving myself, believing because I want to believe.
And that wraps up one of the core problems with religious people's reasoning. To them, they feel like they have the evidence. However, to anyone who has not undergone the act of presupposition, their evidence is not evidence at all. Pascal actually summarizes it quite well in this cryptic passage:
Why, do you not say yourself that the sky and the birds prove God?
No.
Does your religion not say so?
No. For though it is true in a sense for some souls whom God has enlightened in this way, yet it is untrue for the majority.
Pascal understands that what evidence believers have is not empirical evidence, but rather reaffirmation of a presupposition.
My journey to unbelief came to a point that I decided the only evidence I could truly trust was empirical evidence, and that anything that required emotions or desires to be true must be discarded in favor of empirical evidence. It was that rationalization that eventually led to me becoming an atheist.
A huge breakthrough was announced today. Two essential elements of RNA have been made from scratch in a "primordial soup". This is an interesting feat for science and potentially understanding how we got here.
Quoting the article:
"By changing the way we mix the ingredients together, we managed to make ribonucleotides," said Sutherland. "The chemistry works very effectively from simple precursors, and the conditions required are not distinct from what one might imagine took place on the early Earth."
In other words, while we cannot guarantee that this is the way that we got on the path of forming RNA, it gives a scientifically tested theory as to how that might have occurred. This is a huge deal because provides us the empirical evidence to show that our theories about abiogenesis are possible, and we do not need a god to give rise to life.
The conclusion of the article is a great quote:
"Ribonucleotides are simply an expression of the fundamental principles of organic chemistry," said Sutherland. "They're doing it unwittingly. The instructions for them to do it are inherent in the structure of the precursor materials. And if they can self-assemble so easily, perhaps they shouldn't be viewed as complicated."
I love science.
One major change in my life after giving up my belief in God was my fascination with astronomy. I had always enjoyed astronomy, but what came with the acceptance of the age of the universe and big bang was a renewal of my interest in what lays beyond us. I've spent a lot of time reading and listening about astronomy.
For the new years my wife, dog, and I spent a little over a week in a log cabin in the mountains in Virginia. Without light pollution and at a little higher elevation, the night skies were simply amazing.
Unfortunately in Austin, TX, while you can still see stars, it's nothing like it was out in the Virginia mountains. I tried to get pictures of Comet Lulin, but I failed quite miserably.
However, I'm excited for this summer. We're going to spend it in Santa Fe, NM, and I am anticipating some wonderful viewing opportunities. The elevation there is over a mile above sea level, and there's lots of easily accessed areas in the mountains outside of Santa Fe. I'm having fantasies of grabbing my tent and spending some nights out in the mountains with my telescope and camera.
I have a penchant for astrophotography, which when reading about, is an idea I shouldn't try to bother with initially :-) But what do all the article authors know ;-)
Anyone else astronomy aficionados? I'd love to hear any anecdotes in the comments.
Last night my wife and I cuddled up and watched the documentary Flock of Dodos. Given the trailer, I was really expecting something much more over the top. It was actually a very well done movie that, while staying light-hearted, presented the filmmaker's hypothesis quite well.
The premise is that the reason that Intelligent Design (ID) is sticking is two-fold:
The first point is rather easy to see: just look at the majority of folks who are behind the ID movement. These people appear to be in large part are the ones that used to push for creationism. While some people still spout creationism nonsense, there is little support for ID outside of Christianity.
The second point is a much more subtle point, and the main emphasis in this film. He drew the distinct comparison to what the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry election seemed to boil down to: which of the two candidates would you rather sit down and have a beer with? The conclusion of Flock of Dodos is that in large part, the representatives for ID are those same types of people: kind, generous, and lovable.
They have their talking points. How many times have you heard any of the following phrases come out of an ID supporter's mouth:
These phrases are easy to memorize, and they've caught on. Compared to that, can you name any catch phrases from the evolutionary viewpoint?
The point was illustrated beautifully when the interviewer posed this question:
So the catch phrase of the intelligent design movement now is "Teach the Controversy." What would you say is the equivalent catch phrase for the "evolutionary movement?"
His reply:
Well, I would say that people who are scientists who study evolution feel there is no controversy; that it's been manufactured by those who would like to...
The video gets overdubbed at this moment by another person expressing the point:
Scientists and professors are some of the communicators I know.
Beyond not having talking points, our scientists often seem arrogant. Scientists do not like to spend time combatting unscientific nonsense. In what the Kansas School Board calls EW2 (Evolution War 2), the scientists didn't even show up to testify for the school board and instead were represented by a single lawyer.
The conclusion of the film is that we need our catch phrases and people who are able to communicate well. Instead of just one Ken Miller, we need fifty of them.
Let me propose a few talking points:
I'm sure we can come up with others. Feel free to list a few in the comments. Finally I'd like to point out a great series of shirts aptly named Teach the Controversy. I have three of their shirts, and they've always been a conversation starter.
On Friday I was listening to the latest episode of reasonable doubts, in which they referenced an incredible site: Common Sense Atheism.
On it, they have a list of over 400 debates organized with links to video, audio, and text when available. If you're ever in the mood for a "debate," this list is a great place to look.
I'll warn you though, you should mix your theists up. I watched three debates with Dinesh D'Souza this weekend (vs. Christopher Hitchens, Dan Barker, and Dan Dennet) in reverse chronological order. I was shocked at two things:
The same could be said about Hitchens. I used to despise him as a Christian, because he was so callous. If you watch his recent debates or discussions, he is a very reasonable person, and only becomes irritated when shown arrogance. I actually quite like Hitchens now, and I think that if I were a Christian still, his discussion would be much more appealing now than it was back a few years ago.
With that said, I'm most interested in finding video or audio of Bart Ehrman debating D'Souza over "God's Problem." It took place a week ago.
I admire Ehrman, and it's fascinating to hear him think and refute arguments on his feet. I find myself not listening for the debate itself, but listening for the interesting counter-arguments or viewpoints I may not have considered before. Ehrman's biblical knowledge is just simply astounding.
That wraps it up for this week's video Sunday.
On reddit I've been going back and forth with a user, presumably Christian. It hasn't been particularly fruitful yet. But this discussion cuts to the core of an issue I see from believers a lot: who is making the claim that must be defended?
For some reason, many believers feel that not believing in a god is just as much of a claim that believing in a god is making.
But this just isn't accurate at all. I used my favorite mythical creature in response: unicorns.
If I were to claim that unicorns exist, would you expect the burden of proof to be on me or on the "non-believers"?
But that apparently wasn't clear enough of an example. And I admit, it's not exactly the same: we know what we mean by "unicorns".
Going back to my Defining Atheism post, without a clear definition of what God is, it's impossible to debate the subject. So the true analogy would be:
If I were to claim that Zoodles exist, would you say that you were making a claim that Zoodles don't exist?
Without a clear definition of Zoodles, we can see that there's absolutely no debate to be had, because we don't know what Zoodles are. Substitute God in that sentence, and we still don't have enough information to debate.
And here's the crux of it: since atheists are claiming not to believe in any gods, they aren't claiming anything until someone offers a specific god to deny. And I finally caught him on his logic:
Theists believe in God -- meaning that they reject all claims that God doesn't exist.
To which I replied:
But they aren't. Are you saying you believe Zeus exists? Odin? Thor? If you are, then you're not rejecting all claims that gods don't exist. Rather, you're claiming that your one definition of God is the one that's correct.
And I think that expresses the point quite well. The Christian or Muslim is making a specific claim: that his god is the one true god, and that all of the other gods are false. We atheists just take it one step further.
I am an atheist because I do not believe in any gods and have yet to find a definition of a god that both a) has sufficient empirical evidence and b) would affect my life in any way.
