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The equal toleration of all religions...is the same thing as atheism. —Pope Leo XIII, Immortal Dei

Goodbye Burden of Proof April 15, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Atheologians, Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments , 2 comments

Atheism is impoverished by the weakness of popular theism. Although God-believers are numerous, they are overwhelmingly advocates of revealed religions like Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, which are built on credulity and faith. To put it bluntly, atheists are used to puff-ball theism. They rarely find themselves challenged in their interactions with opponents. The result has been unfortunate: most atheists have not developed robust arguments against intelligent or “informed” theism.

Atheology.com is all about rectifying this situation, of course. But first, what do I have in mind when I say that most atheists don’t have a robust enough argument against this higher-class theism? (more…)

Thoughts & Trees April 14, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments , 1 comment so far

In God & Rocks I wrote,

Even if we concede the doubtful proposition that God can think thoughts, those thoughts can’t get anything done. And we all know this. A thought of a tree can’t bring an actual tree into existence. Thoughts are simply incapable of being anything other than, well, thoughts. If anyone doubts this obvious truth, they can prove me wrong by simply imagining a tree into real existence.

Thoughts can’t move, create or destroy anything in the physical world. This is not because our human thoughts aren’t strong enough, or because we are “only human”. Rather, the limitation is inherent to the nature of thoughts. Thoughts can’t do any real, physical work because thoughts are a type of experiencing, and nothing more. We use thoughts to guide our physical actions, but it is those physical actions (using our hands and arms and legs and so on) which do all of our actual doing.

Thoughts, in other words, are useful only because we have bodies with which to carry those thoughts out. God has no body, and therefore God’s thoughts would be useless.

In face of such an obvious difficulty, how can theists continue to think that the concept of God as Creator remains viable? The answer, I believe, is that they have a very fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the world. This misunderstanding is encapsulated by the “principle of sufficient reason.” (more…)

God & Rocks April 13, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Non-Existence Arguments , 3 comments

Given that He is all-powerful, can God create a rock so heavy even He can’t lift it? Theologians have puzzled over this particular nugget for centuries. The general consensus has been that God can’t do anything which involves logical contradiction, and therefore the answer is no. Even God’s omnipotence, in other words, is limited by the rules of logic.

But it has always been the wrong question. The more important question is this: can God lift any rock at all? The answer would appear to be no.

God’s problem, of course, is that He’s not a body-being; He doesn’t have a body. (Which means also, strictly speaking, God can’t be He since God lacks genitalia — but we’ll politely ignore that little detail.)

Theists, we know, scoff at the notion that God requires a body to do anything. Even atheists generally consider this a pretty weak argument. And yet no one, theist or atheist, can imagine how God, a purely spiritual infinite being with no specific location in space, interacts with the physical world.

It’s not that God is in a different location than the universe; rather God has no location at all. God is also timeless: no moving parts. And that’s the crux of the problem: logically speaking it’s impossible for any being defined as God is defined to do anything.

Doing involves change, and the changeless — as a matter of definition — can’t change. Doing something with a physical world involves being someplace, in some physical location, and then interacting with constantly changing physical things. At every step required for doing anything with the physical world, God’s definition gets in the way and makes the interaction impossible.

Ah, but God can just have an idea and it will happen. God doesn’t have to interact with anything, He merely has to think a thought. (more…)

Bad Faith April 6, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Faith & Reason , add a comment

Reliance on faith demonstrates bad faith on the part of the faithful. What makes reliance on faith “bad”? It’s bad, I would say, because it is intellectually dishonest. But what makes reliance on faith dishonest?

If the way we determine “facts” is by turning to faith, then yes, that is intellectual dishonesty. As I’ve said before, faith is useless at discerning matters of fact. The reason is simple: faith justifies or proves whatever we want it to. You tell me Osiris doesn’t exist? I have faith he does. I believe it, that settles it, and therefore Osiris does indeed exist.

Faith is not a method for determining truth at all. In fact, faith begs the question of truth. Yet people who invoke faith usually pretend otherwise, and that is dishonest. Bad faith.

If that’s bad faith, what is good faith? (more…)