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Life is fragile and transient. That is what makes it wonderful. If life were eternal, it would be eternally boring. If life were unchanging, it would smell of death. —Dwight Lyman

Why atheism? November 11, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Naturalism, Non-Existence Arguments , 6 comments

Why am I an atheist? Since atheism is still a somewhat unusual point of view, let me be candid about why I believe no God exists.

Before proceeding, it is important to define God — otherwise no coherent discussion is possible. I define God as “the solitary, perfect, non-physical being who created the physical world.” By non-physical I mean “bodiless, not consisting of matter/energy (as those terms are used by physicists and other scientists).” Here then is an outline of my reasons for rejecting the existence of God, in order of importance: (more…)

Naturalism’s Touchstone Proposition August 6, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Naturalism, Theologians , 4 comments

In his book, Faith & Reason, Ronald Nash introduced what he calls Christianity’s “touchstone proposition.” A touchstone proposition, Nash explained, is the “control-belief or ultimate presupposition” that encapsulates the “fundamental truth ” of a worldview. [p. 46] Nash followed with a quick introduction to Naturalism as “the major competition to the Christian world-view” [p. 47]. He then explained what he considers Naturalism’s touchstone proposition to be. I will disagree.

Nash declared that Naturalism’s touchstone proposition is that

Nothing exists outside the material, mechanical (that is, nonpurposeful), natural order.

We see right away that in phrasing this, Nash put his Christian thumb on the scale. He made sure to throw in “mechanical” and “nonpurposeful” because that provides something juicy to attack. (more…)

What atheists have in common July 14, 2007

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

It’s often said that the only thing atheists have in common is what they disbelieve. It’s also often said that disbelieving in God is just as much a religious belief as is believing in God, or more exactly, that both belief and disbelief rely on faith. All of these assertions are incorrect.

Atheists don’t have a religion — but they do have something in common beyond what they disbelieve. What atheists share is a natural worldview.

Sometimes that worldview is a bit confused, incorporating too much from the still dominant supernatural worldview. But understood clearly, the natural worldview is simply the belief that body precedes mind. The supernatural worldview, of course, takes the opposite tact: that mind precedes body. We see right off from this that naturalism is not merely a refusal to believe in supernaturalism. It’s based on its own specific hypothesis about the nature of the world. (more…)

Does Life Have Meaning? June 12, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Meaning & Value, Naturalism , 19 comments

Perhaps the most popular objection to naturalism is the claim that without a God life is meaningless. Let’s take a look at it. This is actually a two-part claim

  1. under a natural world view life has no meaning
  2. God provides meaning to life

But right away we notice something strange about this: it implies that we must obtain our meaning from something outside of us, namely God; and yet apparently there is no need for God to obtain meaning from something outside of himself. There is an unspoken assumption here that God is inherently meaningful. Or else the assumption is that God doesn’t have a need to be meaningful.

Why wouldn’t either of those options apply not just to God but to us as well? (more…)

Teach the Controversy June 6, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Evolution & ID, Naturalism , add a comment

One thing advocates of teaching Intelligent Design (ID) in school like to say is why not expose kids to both sides and “teach the controversy.” I’m actually very sympathetic to this approach. The goal of education is to learn how to reason and evaluate evidence on your own, not merely have your head loaded up dogmatically with “facts.”

However, there’s no scientific controversy between evolution and ID; therefore no appropriate way to present the controversy in science class. ID relies on abandoning the scientific method and declaring that despite all the scientific evidence, evolution (at least macro-evolution) does not occur.

There is a controversy, of course. But it’s not a scientific controversy. (more…)

Can General Atheism be Proved? June 3, 2007

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

In Agnosticism Revisited and the Case for Atheism I argued that being agnostic about the Judeo-Christian-Islamic Creator isn’t justifiable. I used the Argument from Perfection (a version of the Problem of Evil) to demonstrate that belief in a perfect creator isn’t sustainable and therefore people who are not agnostic about imperfect gods and goddesses have even less basis to be agnostic about the monotheistic deity at the heart of Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Instead they should be atheist.

However that article received a comment from Max, an agnostic, which deserves serious attention. Although agreeing that I did “a good job pointing out the irreconcilable difficulties in a particular concept of God,” one which “embodies specific attributes,” Max argued that I “left the basic idea of god untouched.”

Although Max doesn’t “believe in Allah, or Jesus, or any and all specific mythic representations of god,” he is still agnostic rather than atheist since he doesn’t “disbelieve in the very idea of god.” In fact, Max wrote,

You did not present an argument at this level. Nor will you ever, since the concept of god in abstract of a specific mythic tradition is a completely non-falsifiable proposition, and thus cannot be affirmed or denied by any rational means.

He fleshed this objection out at the end of his comment this way:

If you argue against the existence of god, must you not pin that argument on some imagined attribute(s) of god. The problem is that as soon as you imagine god’s attributes you cease talking about the idea of god, and start talking about some specific imagined representation of god. You can disprove a billion representations without ever even addressing the concept of god itself.

Although Max left his comment over a year ago, I never got around to replying. I’m rectifying that now. (more…)

Why Are We Alive? May 21, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Atheist Culture, Meaning & Value, Naturalism , 13 comments

We go to work, we eat, are entertained or entertain others with movies, music, tv, drama and comedy, we party with friends, couple, have sex , yet behind all our activities lurks the question, why do we exist? What is it all about? Why should there be life rather than not? And why us — why are we the ones who should be alive?

I think it is fair to say that this is the ultimate religious question. All of our major religions have a “story” whose purport is to answer it.

It’s likely that humans are the only species on earth who asks such a question of themselves. That observation itself, that we alone ask the question of existence, is often thought to be a clue to the answer. Perhaps other animals fail to ask why they are alive because they have no “higher purpose”; perhaps we ask because we sense that we do. That we even wonder about such things could itself be evidence that there is something “untold” about our lives, that there is “something more”.

Before continuing, let’s ask ourselves what kind of answer could ever satisfactorily resolve this question of “why?”.

Imagine God asking himself (itself/herself)

Why do I exist? What is my purpose?

For God, what could the answer be to such a query? What is it that makes God’s existence meaningful for God? (more…)

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…)

The Key to Happiness March 16, 2007

Posted by Rastaban in : Atheist Culture, Naturalism , 2 comments

The key to happiness is discovering — and reconciling with — the fact that we are not minds. If you grow up in a Christian culture this is the most important mental health lesson you must learn.

We grow up instilled with a lie. Nearly everything in Judeo-Christian culture implicitly or explicitly teaches us that we are a mind with a body to do our bidding. Well, what’s wrong with that, you might ask? It makes sense, doesn’t it? (more…)