Any atheists on this board?

[kevin]

oh wait, speaking of universal anomalies....how about the bcs? how is it that a team with no offense (osu) is ranked ahead of quite possibly the best team in the country that has both offense and defense (usc)? very perplexing. sorry, i really dont want to change the subject, just venting. carry on.

 

[nittany03]

Jester, great paper. I think your argument is flawed, though, based on the idea that perfection is subjective. By saying that a perfect being would have all possible perfections attributed to it, you are assuming that a Catholic Priest would attribute his own idea of perfection to God, as well as Billy Graham's, my own, yours, Adolf Hitler's, Saddam Hussein's, Muhammad's . . . I think you get where I'm going. What you are doing is confusing a person's opinion on perfection (subjective) with perfection itself (objective and unknowable in the precise details). So when you are asking "which perfection is more perfect?" you are really asking "Whose idea of perfection comes closest to true perfection?" This is a valid question (almost said a "perfectly" valid one but let's not go there

). I think a diagram would help explain your concluding logic a little better, big thick paragraphs get murky. As I see it, yes, there are flaws with Descartes' and Anselm's arguments as you present them, but they are not the only way to argue God's existence, if you want to do so.

Obviously, the existence of anything is not predicated on its conception by the human mind. But to disprove that assertion is not to disprove the existence of whatever is in question (The former is what I think your paper is doing). Light is just now reaching the earth from stars who radiated it before there were any humans to observe their existence, let alone comprehend their nature. At the time of the founding fathers, scientists thought combustion occurred due to something called phlogiston, and would have had no clue what an oxygen molecule was. Does this mean that oxygen was "born" when it was discovered? I think not. So to say that the existence of God is dependent on humanity's conception of God is absurd.

There are plenty of things out there that we don't understand yet, and never will. So for scientists to become condescending towards people of faith is incredibly arrogant, considering how wrong they've been in the past. Not that they're not getting a better and better picture of HOW the universe works. They just don't know ultimately Why It All Is The Way It Is. Perhaps there is a place for God in the Big Bang. Even if the universe was created by a one in a trillion event, maybe that was Him just saying "hmm . . . let's see if it works this time." Was the Big Bang really the beginning of time, or just the beginning of evidence? If so, does anyone have any clue what happened those other 999,999,999,999,999 times?

Similarly, though, logic has its place. If religious zealots are going to argue the mathematical calculations about the age of the universe, why don't they attack Newton's Theory of Gravity, or Gauss's Law while they're at it? Those simple formulas are the genesis of the idea that the universe is billions of years old, and no one argues them (Yes, I know Newtonian mechanics breaks down as you enter the realm of quantum theory and relativity, but it is a progenitor of modern theories). No matter what your religion and views on morality, it is utterly inexcusable to use them to justify your own ignorance. Personally I think that the logical proof of God's existence is unnecessary, at least for my own opinion. I agree with the above in that faith is by definition the belief in things which are not necessarily contradictory to science, just in the realm beyond what it can prove or disprove. At least mine is.

 

[Hartman]

Well, Private Joker, I don't believe I heard you correctly?!?!
Now you will sound off that you love the Virgin Mary, or I'm gonna stomp your guts out!!!!!

 

[liberty4030]

nittany03,
Great writing. Your comments are right on in that it all comes down to "faith." I also think that what people are seeing today, particularly in developed countries, is a shift away from religion as a method of finding meaning in an otherwise meaningless world, i.e. science. Existentialism is quickly being adopted as a way of viewing the world, even if people don't realize that that is what it is called.

 

[Jester]

Nittany03,
I see your point. Just to make things clear for everyone else, I was not attempting to argue the existance of god-I don't think that is even possible. My paper was an argument against Anselm's premise that a person could concieve of a being in which there is no greater. Therefore, the ontological argument does not work. I argue that it is not possible to have a universal conception of such a perfect being. Nittany you disagree with my idea of subjectivity in relation to perfection, namely in a god. But I would have to argue that this subjectivity is the primary reason for differing religions. Religion, you would have to agree, is a doctrine or explanation of the nature of god. Although many of todays mainstream religions are monothiestic and describe somewhat similar stories, they each ascribe different characteristics to a divine being. Thus people rely on faith to solidify their beliefs in a god and it's nature. This leads me to some interesting questions about faith. I’m often puzzled by the claims that those of religious faiths tend to make concerning truth. It’s not just the religious doctrines themselves that concern me, but the religious doctrines they hold as true on the basis of faith. For faith seems to have little, if nothing at all, to do with truth. Faith is something that is arrived at in the absence of certainty. And truth is only attained when it can be met with absolute certainty. Faith is a rather bizarre concept however, for the individuals that claim to have strong faith, with in our case religious doctrines, it is almost synonymous with certainty. For they conceive their beliefs to be true even in the presence of doubt. When they are able to hold on to their religious beliefs in the presence of doubt it only makes their faith stronger. But what is it that allows an individual to arrive at faith? Is reason involved? Furthermore, why do so many individuals hold faith in something that is problematic and conducive to doubt? I realize that my inquiries may seem rather biased since I lack faith in religious doctrines and beliefs. But my inquiries are only the result of my experiences with religion, namely Christianity, and the faith that I once had in it.
First I should state that I don’t think reason alone can lead to a true determination of a god existing or not existing. Cosmological and ontological proofs concerning the existence of a god only manipulate our method of reasoning and logic into a play on concepts. It takes far more than our ability of logic to convince one of the existence of a god. A god that can be arrived at only through reason isn’t well supported because we live in a universe that is material as well as metaphysical. A cosmological or ontological argument doesn’t show us god’s existence it just reasons god’s existence. Since we live in a material universe we would need to perceive god’s existence in conjunction with reason in order to know with absolute certainty that god exists. Therefore the best I think we can do is show that god might or might not exist.
This is where I think faith comes in. Now I can’t say that others might not have perceived god for I can’t have their perceptions nor can I know there thoughts. However, I know that I have not perceived god and from the various things I have been taught about it’s nature it would seem contrary to it’s nature for it to makes it’s existence unknown to me. And so I postulate that many others have not perceived god as well or else there would be no need for faith. So faith, I believe, is a strong conviction in the absence of absolute certainty.
Faith has a major part in Christianity, Catholicism, Mormonism, Judaism, and Islam. Yet all of these different religions although they are monotheistic describe the nature of god differently. Even more different though are the doctrines that each religion holds. Nonetheless, faith is what each one of them is determinate on. Faith is what leads one to heaven and the mercy of god. It’s not just faith in god that gets one to heaven though; it’s faith in the specific religious doctrines that get one to heaven. But, what I am confused about is which religion is right? Say I have great faith in Christianity all my life but in the end Mormonism turns out to be the true religion of god. Am I going to suffer in hell for eternity because I was mistaken about the nature and doctrines of god? God never displayed his true nature to me so how was I to know with certainty that Christianity was wrong? In this example faith led me away from truth and into peril. So it seems religious faith has nothing to do with a determination of truth. If it does lead someone to truth it seems to do so only by chance.

 

[McNamara]

Jester, good paper. I personally find logical arguments for or against the existence of God to be a bit tiring. Perhaps I've read too many of them. Most of the ones I see start out with dubious premises, like Anselm's that you mentioned. From a purely logical perspective, agnosticism is the natural default. But we can't describe the universe using logic alone.

Theists use God to "fill in the gaps" of human knowledge, for example, why don't we understand how ____ works? God must have done that. While I accept that as a possibility, I think it's much more probable that everything happened due to natural causes. We simply don't understand all of them. We may never know what "caused" the universe, but it's not even clear if the universe needed a cause. For people who like to use the causal argument for God's existence, consider this. The laws of physics (as we currently know them) break down at a singularity, such as a black hole or the singularity at the instant of the big bang. We simply don't know what happened, but for all intents and purposes anything is possible when the laws of physics break down. Similarly, the laws of causality break down, so it's not necessary for the universe to have a causal relationship with anything before the big bang. One must also remember that both time AND space originated with that singularity, so it's also meaningless to speak of "what happened before the big bang," because the answer is *nothing* unless we are part of a larger universe that we can't detect. I'm a subscriber to Max Tegmark's "multiverse" theory, for what that's worth.

The idea that "science is flawed because they're always changing the theories" is mistaken. Theories MUST change in order to accommodate new evidence. Newton did the best he could with the knowledge available to him, but his laws were shown to be innacurate by Einstein. We can't even use Newtonian gravitation to predict the orbits of satellites due to the effects of general and special relativity. The next time you use your GPS, thank Einstein for improving upon science. Personally, I think our knowledge of the universe will continue to grow, approaching some as-yet unseen asymptote that represents the ultimate limits of our knowledge. In short, we'll always keep learning, but we'll never learn everything.

Faith in a higher power is an important part of life for many people, and I respect that. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, just letting you see things from my perspective. And I appreciate that the thread has been so civil. George Bush once said, "I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." But I think he failed to realize that there are atheists in the military protecting the right of EVERY citizen to believe and say what they want. For Christians out there who feel their religion is being challenged by people protesting "under God" in the Pledge, remember that those people are just exercising their right to be heard as citizens. The real threat to your religion (indeed, to all of us) comes from a small group of bomb-wearing fundamentalist Muslims who want everyone in the world to submit to their own brand of religion. Remember, Americans, we're all in this together, regardless of beliefs!

 

[stevew]

Originally posted by dsweeney
FlyNavy,

I'd like to see the probability argument demonstrated on some (any) micro scale. If there is a probability of molecules coming together to form life (or any organized structure) we should be able to conduct enough experiments to reproduce something.

I know the flipside to this is that we can not produce the number of variables and possibilities out there. I would just like to see something random produce something organized. In nature it seems to be the opposite. Randomness produces disorganization. I haven't done extensive research on this, but I just don't see it...

Just to elaborate a little on that, this is the second law of thermodymanics, things move toward entropy.

 

[Fly Navy]

First, I'd like to say there was no hostile intent in my post. I read it again after I got home from work and I guess it could be construed that way. Sorry about that.

Note I never said a superior being could not exist. I was merely attacking the flawed decision that "this seems so impossible, that is HAS to be a superior being". This is the mark of centuries of ignorant and lazy thinking (historically, I don't mean you personally).

So you want an example of disorder turning to order? Take the production of polymers. You mix a set of chemicals together, of which is included a catalyst to stop the reaction at a specific point in the polymer chain to make the correct polymer. These chemicals together are just a "random" mix, yet a reaction starts and it'll form a polymer chain. Now, using probabilities that the catalyst will produce a certain percentage of the correct polymer chain, you arrive with your product (amongst other byproducts). And I can't believe I retained that information from the only materials class I took while in college...LOL. But nonetheless, on the scale of life, you have ALLLLL this crap thrown together, all over the universe. Eventually, at some point, you're going to reach mixes that will be right for a reaction to occur which will start the process of more complex substance, etc etc. Now, your idea that the complete disorder will not yield anything will of course work virtually most of the time, but the deal here is, there is an odds of this happening...and a ****LOAD of time. It beat time.

 

[McNamara]

I'm impressed, Fly Navy, you seem to have a very good grasp of the subject. This article should interest you: it's a discussion of the probability involved in abiogenesis, and refutes claims that the origin of life is too improbable to have natural causes.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

 

[kevin]

sure there are examples of increased order (even to a great degree) within a universe of ultimately decreasing order. but at what point can organization increase to a point of self-awareness. it would take a great deal of organization for the universe to construct a toy truck (for instance) or even a diamond....but how does the universe organize itself to the point of recognizing itself (humanity). to extrapolate from this....if there is no god, there can be no TRUE awareness or choice. everything we do (even though we think it's choice) is merely a complex molecular equation ultimately dictated by disorder. and to the same extent, there is no right or wrong aside from what is built into that very small set of parameters.

jester, i agree with your arguments except that you seem to be implying that truth and faith are at odds. there are differing levels of truth, and i would argue that faith is higher than truth in many circumstances. i would argue that it is not inconceivable that God could be proven....and that would be truth. but does that mean that people would automatically have faith in God. no-they are separate topics, like comparing apples and oranges. but to steal from (the worst) movie of all time, often the most important aspects of the universe have nothing to do with certainty but with faith...here we go..."do you believe your parents love you?" reply "yes, of course" answer "then prove it." to continue, if you could prove your parents loved you, would you automatically have faith in that love....i would argue not necessarily.

on to the proving God argument...i could argue that i percieve God everyday. God=love. hence when i see an act of kindness i see God. this is no different than saying that by watching the sun revolve around the earth (just kidding, scientists) that i perceive gravity, even though i dont "see it" with my faculties. so if i was to prove God exists by one of your said methods, it would be no different than gravitation.

"It’s not just faith in god that gets one to heaven though; it’s faith in the specific religious doctrines that get one to heaven" - incorrect. i can only speak from my faith (catholicism), but one is "saved" by God's grace, not by us (works, worship, etc). what follows is that true faith will have works. catholics (and christians as far as i know) do not believe that you have to be catholic or christian to enter heaven. as a matter of fact, we argue that their may be no one in the state of hell. how can we know the grace of God? God is perfection and we cannot perceive him entirely. that is why importance is stressed on grace of God and not our own doing that achieves a spot in the heavenly state. and one more thing....faith is a gift, not earned by reason or anything else. it can be CULTIVATED by those things, but it must be gift received with an open heart.

sorry to sound like a preacher here, but a lot of people have misunderstandings about faith (mine specifically-most of friends are not catholic or christian) and i often feel the need to get the facts straight. and if mich doesnt beat osu this weekend, there is no God.

 

[paikea]

Originally posted by bch
Once again, Low slow n dumb (just like in the micheal moore posts) proves his name should be low slow n have no idea what I am talking about.

Oh, ufckin' wow. What the hell is your problem. I have never, EVER flamed you once so what exactly drives you to be a total @$$hole to me. Honestly if you think what I say is stupid, keep it to yourself, but don't come here and try and embarrass me. That's just rude

 

[paikea]

Originally posted by stevew

Originally posted by Fly Navy
lowslow_n_dumb: This has nothing to do with religion what I'm about to say, and I will not state my own beliefs, it is not important. But the universe is not in perfect order...it just appears that way...it's quite chaotic The most reasonable idea of how life came about, counter to Creationism, that I've ever heard is that we are a statistical probability. In the BILLIONS of stars that are out there, there will be planets...millions if not billions...at some point the required ingredients for life would come together. Makes a bit of sense, eh?

That is like saying if you take canvas and some paint and just spill the paint onto the canvas enough times then you are bound to come out with a picture of a guy walking his dog in the park with the leaves falling all around them... Come on who are we kidding, some superior being must have created everything you see and it didn't just happen by chance.

I'm not directing this at anyone in particular but it is very easy to look the other way and not think about how everything around us got here. Especially if the consequences of believing are that we are indebted(sp?) to that superior being for what we have.

Oh no no no no. I'm not an atheist. I just don't believe in the God people pray to in churches. I DO believe in a higher power. Just wanted to let you know my standpoint.

Maybe I should just change my name so bch won't be such a prick about it.

And bch, if you want to argue about lets do it off the board, and stop intruding on the others.

 

[McNamara]

Good points, Kevin. As humans we have to take alot on faith in every aspect of life. For example, we have faith that scientists aren't willfully deceiving us (to prove otherwise we'd have to do the experiments ourselves), we have faith that our loved ones really love us, we have faith that the officers appointed over us are making decisions that aren't contrary to the Constitution or morality. However, all of these "faiths" in other humans can be experimentally verified by other humans or by ourselves. Alot of that kind of faith is supported by experience - i.e., Einstein's equations have proved to be correct in real life many times over, so I accept other conclusions of his even though I don't fully research them.

God, on the other hand, can't be proven or disproven. One simply has to believe. Many people have subjective experiences where they "feel" the presence of God, and that's all the proof they need in order to have faith. Other people (some of whom I know, in fact) only believe in God because it's comforting. I'm not insulting these people, but as they are subjective experiences, we can only prove that they occurred within our mind. You don't know for a fact that God has spoken to me, just as I don't know that he has spoken to you. So religion should be very personal. How can you enforce your beliefs on others if you can't prove that your own religious experiences apply to all people? Fortunately, most of the religious people I've met (present company included) does not try to force their beliefs on others. So I'm of the "live and let live" mindset; let other people have their own religious beliefs, so long as they don't harm others. The best we can do is to try and understand where other people are coming from, so that we can live in harmony with them. As I was raised Catholic, I have a pretty good understanding of the doctrine and faith of that religion. I'm not happy about the leadership of the Catholic Church and I think they're rather corrupt and power-hungry, but the vast majority of American Catholics I know are good people who live moral lives. Technically I'm still Catholic, since they haven't excommunicated me yet.

I have one small point of contention with your post, Kevin. You say "by watching the sun revolve around the earth (just kidding, scientists) that i perceive gravity, even though i dont "see it" with my faculties." In fact, no one perceived of a force that caused the earth to orbit the sun until Newton. He derived this force from mathematical calculations of astronomical observations, so the scientific method was necessary to understand why it actually happened. Before that, no one really knew what caused the solar system to function the way it does. Previous scientists and philosophers, who were probably smarter than both of us combined though they lacked the scientific knowledge we have today, posited entirely different theories about astronomy. And even Newton didn't get it quite right. So there is more to understanding reality than merely using intuition and your eyes.

BTW, I hope you team wins...if they don't, welcome to the atheist club! LOL

 

[gunnerdd972]

I thank God every time I pass a pre flight brief, a check ride, a sim, first solo, test....
You get the picture. Doing what we do I would like to think that God is helping in some way.

 

[Hartman]

God was here before the Marine Corps, so you can give your heart to Jesus...but your a$s belongs to the Corps!!!