The Irrational Religion of Christianity

There is a real problem in Christian beliefs that is worth outlining. The relation between free will, omnipotence, and omniscience are mutually incompatible concepts. Yet Christians never think deep enough to see the blatant irrationality of these beliefs. This is due to the dogma also teaching their believers to not rely on their own understanding and not question the validity of the Bible.

Let us examine these concepts and how they contradict each other. According to Christianity, their god is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. And according to that religion, people were given free will. First, some definitions need to be recognized, and I will do so using scripture to ensure it is not my interpolation that is creating the apparent contradictions.


Omniscient : God knows everything (past, present, and future)

Job 37:16 – “Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge.”

Psalm 147:5 – “Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.”

Isaiah 46:9 – “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done.”

1 John 3:20 – “God... knoweth all things.”


Omnipotent: God can do anything (is all-powerful, not limited in any way)
Matthew 19:26 - “But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Luke 1:37 – “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Job 42:2 – “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”


Free will: Sentient beings can make decisions without interference or influence from God.

Scriptural references to free will are quite cryptic, but generally, humans would have to have free will to rebel against God. There could be no fall of man if there was no free will. Without the fall of man there would be no need for a savior and would render the whole religion even more moot than it is on evidential grounds.

These concepts contradict themselves on several levels. But to simplify the issue, I like to present the case of the creation of heaven. In heaven, the inhabitants still have free will. They have free will sufficient to rebel against that god even in heaven, as the story of the fall of Lucifer explains. Numerous angels lead by Lucifer rebelled against god, necessitating the creation of hell.


So this immediately destroys several defenses to the problem of evil that theists like to bring up. Here are some of those defenses and why they are problematic.

1. You have to have evil to know good. Without evil, free will could not exist.
Wrong. This god, being all powerful, has the capacity to create any system/universe he wishes. He can create a place free of evil, free of suffering, without pain, without needs while also populating that place with sentient beings with free will. Per that religion, god indeed created such a place:heaven. Why he then also created the horrible existence of Earth is a big problem for Christianity.


2. God gave Adam and Eve the choice. It is because of their choice that the world ended up this way.

If that is somehow true, then that god is not omniscient. If god indeed knows everything, then that god would know the outcome of any situation. That god would know the choices made. There is no inherent flaw in giving people a choice, letting them make up their mind, and still also knowing the future (if god knows the future). Thus the Christian god made a universe that he knew would turn out this way. It is not predetermination from the humans' points of view, as they make their decisions independent of that god (free will). But that god, being independent of time, knowing the future, would know how the world would turn out. The creation of this world is unnecessary, as that god could have just made heaven the default state for existence.

Of course, ending up with a threat of hell motivation for obeying dictated morals makes free will rather pointless. If a mob boss has a gun to my head and says I need to pay him respect and money or he will kill me, I do not really have a choice there. I am not then committing suicide if I decide to disobey. Similarly, humans do not send themselves to hell, as Christians will often attest. Rather, the god set up a situation where there is no real choice. Too bad that god also failed to make his existence and system completely unverifiable. It is like a mob boss that never shows up for the meeting, and tries to convince you that he will kill you for disobeying when nobody has ever seen evidence that that mob boss ever killed anybody.

This demonstrates irrationality of the creation and implementation of hell. If god is all-powerful and all-knowing, then hell is unnecessary. Consider the rebellion story in heaven. If a god can do literally anything, it can simply unmake anything that exists just as easily. If a rebellion started, that god could just DELETE these troubled entities instead of creating hell and torturing them for eternity and setting up the evil-good polarity.Heaven could still just be the default state, and any god that does not like to see sentient beings suffer would prefer to just end their existence than send them to such a place.

Hell is a huge problem for Christianity as it shows just how immoral their god actually can be. Their god can condemn people to hell just for having impure thoughts. That god has no problem with seeing sentient beings suffer for eternity just for committing thought crimes. That god also gave mankind not only free will, but the capacity to grasp the concepts of the logical absolutes and think critically and make rational decisions. When exercising intellectual honesty, humans by default become atheists. An all-knowing god would know this consequence of his own design. Simply not believing in god is sufficient to justify an eternity of torture. As a matter of fact, denying the existence of the holy ghost is the only unforgivable sin, an act that has no victim or external effect. So Christianity is the worship of a god that has no problem condemning people to hell for eternity just for applying rational skepticism using the brains he supposedly designed.

Going back to the heaven concept, we have yet another problem. In heaven there is no suffering. That is impossible if human identity is maintained in the afterlife. Think about it this way. If you were in heaven, could you be happy knowing others are in hell? Knowing you made it and others, including loved ones, are not on the right path, will end up in hell, could you exist in that state without suffering? If the inhabitants of heaven are former humans, and they maintain their identity and memory, then there must be suffering in heaven. If there is no suffering, then it is not you that makes it to heaven. It is some facsimile of you that lacks the knowledge of former relationships and the love of family members on Earth. If your mind has been so altered that you no longer have care or concerns over your Earth-bound misguided relatives, is it really you that ends up in heaven?

The savior concept is a great way to wrap up this blog. God created a world, being all powerful, and all knowing. He knew the world would end up this way. He knew the great flood would have no effect on addressing the evil of men and yet did it anyway. He had also already created a world free of suffering, the inhabitants of which still have free will (heaven). Even if he passes the blame to Adam and Eve, that god still knows everything, including the future. Thus there is no rational reason that god would have created our world especially as heaven evidently already existed. Our world would have simply been a bad idea, a poor design, something illogical for an all-knowing and all-powerful being to bother implementing.

And then after eons of suffering and failings, that god sent himself to the planet in the form of a human to sacrifice himself (only for a weekend – not much of a sacrifice) to act as a loophole for the screwed up system that god created in the first place because somehow killing his human body version has some effect on the rules that he could not circumvent otherwise. This places a severe limit on that god's power, defying the definition of omnipotence. If that god wanted certain sacrificial laws to go away, that god could simply make them go away without killing a human incarnation and leaving no evidence for this event.


In the end, a Christian has to simply ignore the following facts:

1. Their all knowing god knew how the world would turn out. Otherwise that god is not all knowing.

2. Their god created a world that he would have to ultimately destroy (repeatedly).

3. Their god requires irrational belief (faith), while giving humans the ability to form rational beliefs.

4. Their god would rather torture people for eternity than simply unmake them. Rather, their god wants people to come to a belief in him on irrational grounds (faith) to pass the test of Earth to avoid hell rather than simply forgiving across the board so everyone ends up in heaven and obliterating evil by deleting hell from existence.

5. Their god made a world that he knew would end up in a state where 2/3rds of the planet would have the wrong religion and will end up in hell. That god made a world where the most intellectually honest cannot even believe he exists. And that god made disbelief in the holy spirit (a blasphemy to state), the unforgivable sin.


Mark 3:28-29 “I promise you that any of the sinful things you say or do can be forgiven, no matter how terrible those things are. But if you speak against the Holy Spirit, you can never be forgiven. That sin will be held against you forever.”

That last one is in direct contradiction to the 'god is love' concept of omni-benevolence. If we go by the Biblical definition of love, and by the attribute that states god is love, then that god could not have an unforgivable sin.

1 John 4:8 “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

God indeed insists on his own way. He does not believe all things or bear all things. Those extensions of this definition actually don't make any sense. Nothing, nobody can literally believe all things as this sets up direct dichotomies. The Christian god is thus not love even by the Bible's definition, and yet god is supposedly synonymous with love, per the Bible.

These inherent contradictions are irrefutable and demonstrate that the Bible is not a consistent collection of concepts about the same god, and certainly not an infallible word of any god. These contradictions are direct demonstrations of actual fallibility by definition. The last half of the Corinthians verse is actually good advice.

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”


So reason like an adult. Understand contradictions and logical fallacies. The truth indeed will set you free. And seeing the truth of the fallible Bible, and the contradictory Christian god concept is the first step to escaping this powerful, yet horribly flawed, religion.


A person replied to this blog, as it was originally posted on a different site. He brought up the scripture:

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

This seems to prove my point. I did some deeper research on the subject and replied:

What I was also getting at was the way different books contradict each other so severely to make the belief that the Bible is infallible completely irrational. So while Isaiah might say that god created evil, and while the omnipotent nature requires that god created evil, there are other scriptures that state that nothing impure or evil come from god. However, there are supporting scriptures to the one from Isaiah such as

Amos 3:6 "Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?"

But that gets dangerously close to contextual interpretation. Then again,

Isaiah 45: 5-7 "I am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other, The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these."

As expected, the Bible contradicts itself on this issue:

Habakkuk 1:3 "Thine eyes are too pure to approve evil, and Thou canst not look on wickedness with favor."

Deut: 32:4 “The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He."

Christian Apologetics Research Ministry did a good article on these references. http://carm.org/does-god-create-evil

They explain that the word evil has many meanings and the references were supposedly about calamity, or natural disasters. This, of course, does nothing to relieve god of the responsibility as an omniscient and omnipotent creator for the evil caused by men, the creation of hell, the creation of the polarity of good/evil in the first place, etc. One of the lamest defenses was given in this article:

"Of course, this raises other questions of why God would do such a thing, which I won't cover here. But, we can trust that whatever God does is just and is used for teaching, guiding, and disciplining His people."

Yes, it is somehow just to kill billions of infants over time through child-birth complications due to a rather imperfectly designed human reproduction system. It is somehow justified to kill millions by famine, plagues, and natural disasters. There is some justice in the deaths of innocent children who die in natural disasters like hurricanes or floods (a global one that god himself supposedly intentionally enacted on all living creatures including morally-neutral animals).


Insane. But a typical weak apologetic indicative of the "trust" they require believers to have to not question their celestial maniacal genocidal murderer and dictator.

Another reply brought up the fact that Revelations speaks of the ability for the inhabitants in heaven being able to see the people suffering in hell. That was a good point too. I replied:

If people in heaven have a view of hell, does that not require god to bypass our sense of empathy and compassion for there to also be no suffering in heaven? So that leaves the sentient beings that inhabit heaven without no sense of compassion or empathy, and thus seems to prove my point that whatever avatar that represents you that exists in heaven cannot be in any way the same individual that you actually are  in any meaningful sense. Thus nobody actually gets to heaven. Some weird, inhuman, stripped-down consciousness may get to heaven. But that is all that can logically exist in a place without suffering especially if that place has a front-row seat observing the suffering of other beings. Whatever sentient beings exist in heaven are less human and less moral that we are here on Earth. This can be conclusively shown to be true by examining the way heaven is defined (as being void of suffering) and by the other characteristics of heaven given in the Bible, such as the front-row seat of hell concept.

This seems a good place to state that as a rational, empathetic, and compassionate human, I cannot endorse or believe in Christianity, even if I wanted to disregard the utter lack of evidence for the supernatural, which is the basis of my position of atheism.


Further comments and my replies on this original blog, on atheistnexus.org:


Comment:

There would have to be memory in heaven, and the very fact that memory exists there means that a form of suffering is there as well. To just see or know that loved ones are in hell has to cause grief and suffering, but we are told these emotions are not in heaven at all. This contradicts the very idea of heaven as a place. Of course, apologists would argue that just being with god is so great that these feelings would be instantly overcome. Hog wash!

I point out again that there was once rebellion in heaven. The scripture says that. It would now appear that god is trying to discourage future rebellion if all of the above is true.

What our book writing friends of 2000 years ago forgot is that none of this appears to hold water when you look at it properly. Perhaps they couldn't see it then because they did not have knowledge at their fingertips as we do today.

My Reply:

The rebellion in heaven indicates that the inhabitants had free will. It also indicates that the inhabitants were at least not content with their situation. So heaven is not infinitely blissful as the mainstream Christians would have us believe. It is, in fact, so tyrannical and pointless that angels themselves formed a rebellion (at least once - reporting on further incidents would likely be suppressed by a dictator like their god). The inherent contradictions this raises cannot just be explained away, as they form a true dichotomy: perfect bliss and not perfect bliss: both are held to be true by the same belief system, making that system inherently objectively illogical and thus irrational.

There is a meta-level higher than this issue, however, which is what I was trying to originally express. If free will can exist in heaven, sufficient that one can form a rebellion, then their god can indeed create an existence where not only is his existence directly confirmed by immediate contact, but the necessity for suffering and evil is completely missing (ignoring the dichotomy indicated). This then sheds a bright light on the inconsistent apologetics used to explain why our existence on Earth has to have evil and suffering. It is thus clear that it is not related to free will at all, but the imperfect conception of men trying to construct the ultimate carrot/stick type of motivator for dictated morality. As such, being the creation of men from the bronze age, it is full of logical flaws, so flawed that any rational modern man is a fool for basing their life thereon.

So next time a Christian tries to explain why evil is needed for us to perceive good, for why hell was created, and for why their god hides himself from existence to preserve free will, one can refer to these points made here and expose the nonsensical nature of these defenses. All it would take is that theist examining the illogical nature of the overlapping beliefs to convince them that the whole system is just poorly designed. Of course, asking a theist to examine the illogical nature of their own beliefs is often asking too much of a brain-washed individual that has convinced themselves of a belief without evidence and convinced themselves that faith is a virtue.

A separate comment:

I guess that says it all why Athiesm is becoming more and more popular with former Theists...Well done GPD, I hope any theist reading your blog will use Rational Thinking and see the Light.......

My Reply:

Thank you. That is why I do blog about this crap. I finally cured myself of the god virus a while ago and wouldn't bother talking about it otherwise. But I care about the future of humanity - an empathy and compassion I have independent of any belief system. I also blog about this stuff so atheists that have recently moved from Christianity can overcome the lingering symptoms of that virus, of which the fear of hell is one of the most difficult. Once a new atheist can perceive the inherent flaws of the hell concept, they can finally themselves experience that profound freedom that most atheists eventually experience. Only after stomping out these lingering fears ingrained by indoctrination and brain-washing, can an atheist be completely cured of the god virus. That profound freedom feeling is otherwise quite elusive, as these ancient beliefs tend to roll around in the subconscious unless directly addressed. Once one has killed the virus, however, that freedom flows quite beautifully from within, and only then does that sense of peace and contentedness (that exceeds the simulated temporary placebo of any religion) come forth.

Stop Preaching Atheism

I have come to realize that I am annoying people. That in itself does not bother me. I have always been an odd duck, and not someone that many people found appealing. My best friends are similarly unique individuals who are also considered difficult to get along with by their contemporaries. But what I have recently realized is that my enthusiasm for challenging belief and promoting atheism has a very negative effect. It perpetuates a perception of atheists as angry, confrontational, literal-minded emotionless asses.

This is a serious problem for atheism as a movement. The most vocal of the minority are the recent deconverts, those who only recently abandoned faith in superstitions and gods for a rational perspective. And recent deconverts are actually very much overjoyed to be free of celestial dictatorships and guilt-driven mind games. It is this joy, this sense of freedom, that motivates atheists to tell others, so they too can share this experience. It does not typically come from a selfish narcissistic place in the atheist's mind, but rather a real concern for society and a desire to lead others to freedom.

But it is indeed the very nature of irrational belief, that is, religion, that makes confrontation and debate so inherently tricky. You can be good friends with someone and often hold conversations covering a wide range of unimportant subjects. You can even challenge their political views without damaging the relationship. But the moment you challenge their religious beliefs, you have crossed a line as you are challenging something they perceive is the core of their being. To a believer, having their religion challenged is offensive. It calls into question their sanity, their ability to use logic, and the meaning they have given themselves (thinking religion has provided this meaning) for their existence.

I think it comes down to a choice to not be an aggressor. Answer questions when asked. Debate someone that asks to be debated. But don't be the aggressor. It might seem that taking a passive road to changing society will slow progress. But I posit that this aggressive method of attacking and challenging people without their consent is by no means improving the situation and may actually be slowing progress.

People are waking up. Society is changing. Atheism is on the rise as rational critical thinking is becoming popular. So atheists need not be so concerned to challenge every religious statement other people make. Focus on the big fights. Church and State separation is the most important battle for atheism. Individual people's beliefs play into this fight, but it is more logical to attack the threat than the passive people that happen to be religious.

We should challenge people that are crazy enough to believe in young Earth Creationism or Intelligent Design. But it is more productive to challenge legislators and school boards that mean to introduce this crap in our schools than it is to challenge passive individuals who just happen to be ignorant of science.

It is indeed hard to not speak up when one of our friends says something remarkably ridiculous. But the conversation needs to be mutually agreeable. That is, it is impolite to just attack a belief without first asking the individual for clarification and getting their permission to discuss the matter. One should explain why the desire exists to discuss the subject of religion. If it is a genuine concern for the person's mental health and happiness, tell them. Assuming that they will perceive your advice as a benefit to them is a dire mistake. They must be willing to take advice, and challenge their own beliefs for any conversation on religion to be productive.

Many atheists were indoctrinated into Christianity. They were taught at a young age to spread the religion by challenging people and talking about it ad nauseam. Once they became atheists, this need to preach has not been totally eliminated. It is programming left over from the god virus that motivates many atheists to preach atheism. I now realize how much I hate hearing Christians preach their nonsense. But only recently did I realize that I am doing the same thing - preaching - and it annoys people to a high degree. I wish to eliminate the god virus from all aspects of my personality. Abandoning this need to preach is an essential endeavor, and marks a completion of my deconversion.

Narcissism is a tricky state to avoid as an atheist. We are indeed the more rational and healthier position. We are right. And it certainly feels great to be right. And unlike religion, we do not just believe we are right, but can logically show how our disbelief is justified. That is, we have a justified true belief that we are right. This, by definition, means we know we are right. So the real trick is not letting this knowledge go to your head. Atheists are right, but bothering everybody with our disbelief by challenging their core beliefs without warning does not help the movement at all, and only serves to perpetuate a perception that atheists are full of themselves.


So for these reasons, and because I value friendship more than I like hearing myself talk, I am henceforth refraining from interjecting my view in every conversation where religion pops up. I will cease to discuss my atheism with anyone that does not first ask me about my beliefs. And I intend to apologize to anyone I have offended by attacking their beliefs.  I will be an activist where it matters, on school boards and in my voting. And I will gladly debate anyone who wants to debate the subject. I will ask permission and make clear my intention and position if I feel I must challenge another individual's beliefs. But I will ease myself into the conversation rather than ramming my atheism into them like a freight train.

Atheism leads to a fulfilling and peaceful outlook through humanism. If the perception of atheism was some form of humanism, or at a minimum non-threatening, the movement would persist at a quickened pace, and the minority would become the majority much sooner. Most people desire a fulfilling and peaceful existence and religious people are starting to realize that their religion might promise such things, but never quite delivers. If this aspect of atheist humanism shines through, it will attract far more people as the populous realizes you don't have to be a confrontational prick to be an atheist.

Thomas Aquinas 5 ways

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD) wrote a specific series of works in Summa Theologica where he attempted to use logic alone to prove the existence of god. He came up with five arguments, or 'ways', that he felt could logically lead to that one conclusion. Of course, like all god claims, there is no evidence to support the claims, and his arguments have all been thoroughly debunked as containing serious logical flaws and presuppositions.


And yet modern apologists, either knowingly or simply through parallel thinking, use the same arguments to this day as if they are completely bullet-proof. Even professional apologists resort to mere modifications of these ancient debunked arguments by simply adding their personal spin to them. The modern versions are often simply the exact same argument with a few added premises that the apologist feels makes the causal path to the conclusion clearer.



The Five Ways


The five arguments have been restated in English as follows:

1. The Argument from Motion – a first mover special pleading
   
2. The Argument from Cause – a first cause special pleading, something from nothing
   
3. The Argument from Contingency – something from nothing
   
4. The Argument from Perfection – perfect being must exist
   
5. The Argumlinerallyent from Design – anthropic principle
   

Next will be a detailed deconstruction of the 'Five Ways'. Each section starts with the translated arguments followed then by the refutations specific to the premises and conclusions made. These refutations are highly useful in many arguments with theists given the similarities of theist arguments to these ancient ideas.



The Argument from Motion

1. Nothing can move itself.
   
2. If every object in motion had a mover, then the first object in motion needed a mover.
   
3. This first mover is the unmoved mover, called God.
   

This argument is based on an Aristotelian world-view that maintains an intrinsic identity of an object. Along with this world-view are many completely false beliefs like an aether, or a substance permeating space and that motion belongs to an objects individual description. But there is no unmoving reference frame for objects to pass through and be measured against.


The Michelson Morley experiment, among many others, have demonstrated that no aether exists. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity demonstrates that motion is entirely relative and a property only of a system of objects requiring at least two things, not a property of any one object.


So as the premise maintains a single body motion relative to a fixed unmoving reference, the argument is flawed as the premise is flawed. The conclusion is also simply an argument from ignorance combined with a special pleading fallacy citing god as the exception to the premise and the only possible explanation if the premise is true.



The Argument from Cause

1. There exists things that are caused (created) by other things.
   
2. Nothing can be the cause of (or create) itself.
   
3. There can not be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist.
   
4. Therefore, there must be an uncaused first cause called God.
   

This relies on a presupposition of things always being created. But nothing is created. Energy only changes forms. And the change of forms can occur without a cause. For example, quantum fluctuations occur. We know they occur and modern electronics would be impossible if they did not occur. Quantum fluctuations are random and unguided. Every now and then a fluctuation can exceed a threshold forcing a change in a system. As the fluctuation is uncaused, the change it creates is uncaused. Particles spring into existence without cause as virtual particle/anti-particle pairs. That is how we get Hawking radiation.


The “something cannot come from nothing” phrase pops up in premises presented by apologists because they lack an understanding of what “nothing” means, or rather how it means something quite different to cosmologists and physicists. In addition, it is an unknowable proposition to state that 'something cannot come from nothing' and the apologists will tend to state that it just 'makes sense' or that we lack any examples of something coming from absolute nothingness. This is an argument from ignorance. Even if we do lack any examples of something coming from nothing (which is not true), it is nonetheless possible until it is demonstrated that something, in fact, cannot come from nothing. Apologists often have no understanding that it is quite different to state that one believes something can come from nothing versus stating that the premise that something cannot come from nothing is unknowable and thus requires the premise to be rejected. It is the difference between stating 'premise x is unknowable and thus invalid' versus 'I do not believe in premise x.' It is equivalent to the statement that 'I reject belief in god claims due to a lack of evidence' versus 'I believe no gods exist,' which confound apologists for the exact same reason.


There is also the presupposition that nothingness was the initial state, of which very few modern cosmologists accept. There is certainly no evidence that nothingness ever was a state or could even be a state by definition (depending on which definition one uses, of course). Rather, the energy condensed in the singularity (which also may not have ever actually existed) may have always existed in some form or another prior to the Big Bang event. Even the phrase “prior to the Big Bang event” might be illogical as time itself, which defines what is before or after, also originates from the Big Bang, not just the contents of the universe. It seems reasonable to state that nothing could come before time itself, but we simply do not know for sure if this logical limitation represents an actual limitation.


The third premise also is a rejection of infinity, which is merely an argument from incredulity. A lack of imagination capable of accepting infinity is not a reason to reject infinity. The common sense gut feeling that makes a human wince at infinite series of causal events is no premise that has any logical power. That is a fallacy known as an appeal to common sense. And again, the conclusion is an argument from ignorance, as it takes as a unsupported fact that God is the only possible uncaused first cause. He lacked another explanation based on his own lack of imagination and the ridiculously primitive science of his age and inserted his God since no other explanation existed. Even if we had no explanations today for his premises (if his premises were assumed to be true), this still does not only point to one possible supernatural conclusion.



The Argument from Contingency

1. Contingent beings are caused.
   
2. Not every being can be contingent.
   
3. There must exist a being which is necessary to cause contingent beings.
   
4. This necessary being is God.
   

This is a tautology. It is circular. There is no way to know that a god is an uncaused or non-contingent being. This is merely a reflection of his particular faith which would proclaim, without evidence, that his god is uncaused and non-contingent. That is, his definition for his god is a presupposition. Thus the premise is flawed as it is unknown and likely unknowable. This negates the whole argument, but for completeness, the conclusion is also just another argument from ignorance as it is not the only conclusion possible. One can simply replace this non-contingent being as the immortal alien specie that engineered contingent beings on Earth. There is no evidence for either possibility.



The Argument from Perfection
(Ontological)

1. Objects have properties to greater or lesser extents.
   
2. If an object has a property to a lesser extent, then there exists some other object that has the property to the maximum possible degree.
   
3. So there is an entity that has all properties to the maximum possible degree.
   
4. This being is God.
   

This is based on another Aristotelian concept of extent. This argument does not demonstrate how to select for which properties are being considered to lead to the god conclusion. One would have to say that 'all properties' also includes evil. Thus the god being defined has the maximum possible degree of evil. Of course the entire second premise is completely and logically false. Just because degrees of extent exist does not automatically mean some being exists that has the maximum of these degrees. If that were the case, one could say unicorns exist. It would be the horse with the maximum values of the attributes of a horse (plus a horn). Just because we can imagine a being with maximum properties does not make it possible. Finally, the conclusion can be just as easily restated as 'this being is Zeus,' or 'this being is Superman.'



The Argument from Design
(Teleological)

1. Among objects that act for an end, some have minds whereas others do not.
   
2. An object that acts for an end, but does not itself have a mind, must have been created by a being that has a mind.
   
3. So there exists a being with a mind who designed all mindless objects that act for an end.
   
4. Hence that being is God.
   

'An object that acts for an end' is a vague concept. One might take this to mean an object with purpose or goals. This seems to work well in this argument as indeed it seems that some purposeful objects do have minds and some do not. Mindless objects with purpose or goals seems impossible unless the purpose or goals were given to these objects. But this does not mean a god had to be the individual that imbued purpose or goals on the mindless objects. Rather, purpose for life forms boils down to survival and natural selection ensures organisms with better features tend to survive. The purpose is longevity and/or stability. But this purpose is after the fact. Similarly, the Moon might seem to have the purpose of causing the tides. But the idea that something had to give the Moon that purpose is to think backwards. The moon causes tides, so we see an action caused and imbue purpose for no good reason.


It is a presupposition that the purpose was given instead of being simply a consequence of that object. If tides are necessary for life, which they very well might be, then it is not that the purpose was given to the Moon to cause tides. It is a backwards way of thinking about the anthropic principle. Human life developed on Earth. Were Earth different in certain ways, life could not have developed here. The fact that we are here does not justify us in assuming there is a purpose to the features that were compatible to our existence. If this planet were different, and life did not develop, we would have likely just developed on another planet where the conditions were right, and would have called that planet Earth instead.


The anthropic principle is a real eye-opener for people when it is first presented to them. People tend to think that the universe looks like it is just perfect for our existence which points to purpose. But that is based on our ego, our sense of importance. We would like to believe that we are so special that the whole universe is here for our benefit. The anthropic principle turns this around into a logical position independent of our ego. If our universe were much different, we might not have ever existed in this universe. That might actually be true. Despite the fact that we cannot know this to be a fact given we have but one universe to assess, and have only assessed a small fraction of it, we do know for sure that the conditions for life did occur in our universe at least in our small region thereof. But that is not to say it was designed for us. There may well be other forms of life that have evolved completely differently than ours elsewhere in this universe. In addition, there might well be more than one universe, or several configurations for universes.


Thus our universe, the one we observe, has the right configuration for life to exist, as obviously, we are here. We see a universe that is compatible for our existence because were it any different, we would not be here to ask the question in the first place. Rather, if this universe were indeed incompatible, we would be in some other universe where conditions are compatible. It does not even require an infinite number of universes. In any large sample of possible configurations, at least one would have the variables compatible for life. And we do not even know just how 'tuned' a universe would have to be to permit life. After all, 99.99999999% (more 9's than I have room for) of our universe is utterly hostile and incompatible to our type of life. So there might very well be other universes that are vastly more compatible than ours for life to exist. Here is a few examples of better universes than ours:


Universe B: An Oxygen-mix permeates space (making space suits pointless). Harmful radiation does not permeate all of space due to this intermediate atmosphere.


Universe C: Life similar to ours formed on a similar planet, but instead of having most of that planet being covered by undrinkable salt water, it is instead mostly covered by fresh water with more land than water for living land animals to populate.


Universe D: Life forms are based on completely different chemistry, or maybe no chemistry at all, just collections of energy in some other unimaginable structure). There is no need for metabolism, just the acquisition of more energy to expand the 'population'.


Any of these universe designs would be far more compatible for human existence, and they were but concepts that materialized in the brain of a human author. Surely a god would have chose a better configuration that what we have.


Similarly, if the Earth lacked a magnetosphere and ozone layer life may not have evolved very far, even if all of the other conditions were the same, due to radiation from the Sun and beyond. So a human might say the purpose of the magnetosphere is to deflect potentially deadly coronal mass ejections from the Sun. But this is a purpose we give to this feature, not one the feature has on its own. Jupiter has a far superior magnetic field, second only to the Sun in our solar system. That exact same feature lacks the same purpose because mankind did not evolve on Jupiter, but on Earth. Thus it is obvious that purpose is not intrinsic to all magnetic fields, just Earths (because we deem it purposeful).


The third premise is also unfounded. There does not necessarily have to exist a being, even if mindless objects cannot come into being without another process initiating its existence. And of course, we simply have no reason to call that which caused all mindless objects to exist with purpose a god.

The Watchmaker Analogy

There is an analogy that creationists often go to to argue for a designer. It is a false equivalency established between a complex designed object, like a watch, and the entire universe, or maybe simply a human eye. It ends up being an appeal to complexity, as it relies on a complex object having a difficult or even unknown naturalistic explanation to be valid. It also therefore boils down to an argument from incredulity and ignorance as it is of the standard form "we lack a better explanation, for x therefore god".

As the argument goes, if one were to walk down a beach and pick up a watch from the sand, it is indeed evident that somehting or someone had to design the watch. But this is only valid because it is contrasted relative to natural things, like the grains of sand, the sea, and your hand. The analogy fails for creationists as they must believe everything was designed and created. The watch they pick up is on a beach made of watches, beside a sea of watches. They only use the term watch as an analogy for complexity, and have nothing to contrast it with to determine that it is ineed designed as everything to them is designed.


A great question to ask a person who resorts to this analogy breaks down their failure to see the problem with this bad analogy. "So, to contrast, what would a non-designed eye/universe/watch look like?" They will be unable to answer this question for a few reasons. But the most important reason they will fail to offer an explanation is that they have no frame of reference for what is natural versus design as to them natural is the same as design, and of course we do not recognize design that way. We only recognize an object is designed by comparing it to other designed things, past experience of watching objects be designed and built, and contrasting them against natural processes.



Defining God Into Existence
The 'Five Ways' of Aquinas are somewhat complex versions of the simpler notion of defining a god into existence. If we were to say that energy is god, then sure, that “god” exists. But what makes it a god? What one is actually saying in this case is that energy, plus some more attributes, are god. If there are no further attributes beyond the typical natural definition, then swapping the perfectly adequate term energy for god is pointless.


This same problem applies to any other claims that are of similar structure. God is love. OK, but why not just call it love? What makes love synonymous with god or is there some additional attributes that make it more than the lesser term? One thing that tends to be the case with these statements is that the thing that the god happens to be is typically used vaguely. And when the term is something scientific, the person making the claim often lacks the capability to properly define the term. They often give really bizarre definitions for the term. In those cases they are not really saying something like 'god is energy' but instead are saying 'god is something like my weird version of what I think energy is without any reason.'


In the 'Five Ways' we see how the arguments end with 'that first cause is god' or 'that perfect being is god'. These statements are made as a matter of fact, without any evidence for the actual existence of that entity. If by some miracle a theist made a modified argument similar to one of the 'Five Ways' that lacked any contradictions, any inherent logical fallacies, or otherwise were intrinsically sound arguments, when they get to the conclusion and use a phrase like 'that first cause is god' they are right back to where they started as they have not explained the equivalence of the two terms. Their argument could only end with 'therefore there was a first cause,' such as in this case but they would be unable to make the case that the first cause is somehow a transcendent intelligent entity.


When confronted with this problem they typically resort to further statements without explanation such as 'I never posited that god was intelligent' or 'I never said god was transcendent' in which case they are still defining god into existence as most versions of modern theological gods hold that god has at least a few normal attributes.


God is typically transcendent, that is, independent of space and time or otherwise beyond our universe. This is the same as stating god is supernatural.


God is typically intelligent, though not always. The god(s) of Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism are typically thought of as thinking entities and being particularly intelligent.


What comes next is less common attributes, or ones that are at least not as well agreed. Even those who think they agree with the following attributes might actually not understand what the conditions are for these attributes. When given the definitions they often retract belief in those attributes often exposing gaping contradictions in their belief systems.


God is omnipotent. That is, god typically is regarded as having unlimited powers, capable of doing anything. Most would also maintain that this power has to be logically consistent such that god cannot create a contradictory thing out of principle like a square circle, or a rock so heavy he cannot lift it.


God is omnipresent. This means that god is typically thought as being everywhere and anywhere at the same time in all states, past present and future. This would be consistent with a transcendent being, even if that being were not an actual god. For example, a highly advanced alien race that lives in hyperspace would have this capability and attribute. This attribute usually has to be coupled with others to build up a being worthy of regarded as a god, at least in definition.


God is omniscient. This means god is all-knowing. Though most Christians believe this to be true about their god, their theology and dogma present blatant contradictions that make this impossible or inconsistent. For example, if their god knows everything, which would include any event past, present or future, then that god would have known beforehand the various situations of mankind that ended up in repeated failure (per the Bible myths), such as Eve eating the fruit. God may have given her the choice to eat or not eat, but their god would have known that Eve would eat the forbidden fruit even before that god bothered creating the planet and Eve in the first place. That god would have known beforehand that mankind would reject him, and that he would have to end up destroying the world per the Biblical flood myth. That god would know that an atheist would be born that would write these very words and would reject belief in Jesus Christ as divine, thereby ending up in hell. That god would have known in advance that Lucifer would challenge him, that he would have to create hell, that he would have to send nonbelievers there, and that this author would be one of them. It is not that people lack freedom of choice, or free will, it is that even if people exercise their free will, that god already knows which decisions they will make and thereby made a universe with the ridiculous rules that would send 80% (or more) of the non-Christian planet to eternal torment, some for simply not believing.


This is why when regarding the concept of eternal torment and the creation of hell and the rules for damnation, the ball remains in god's court as to who goes and who gets to heaven. If god wanted to, he could have created a universe where people lacked a reason to reject him (such as an utter complete lack of evidence). God could have created a better system for getting people to heaven than a contradictory book about a brutal killing of himself as a blood sacrifice to himself that nobody bothered to write about until it was so distorted and such an old story that rational people cannot regard it as factual. That god could have created a universe like heaven where one supposedly still has free will but without suffering or this weird game of believing on faith versus believing rationally with the brains that god supposedly designed that tend to regard things based on reason.


So when a Christian says their god is omniscient, one can easily explain the contradictions that create. Then they must concede that their god is not all knowing. One can even point out that their god is obviously not omnipotent, or it would have been far more logical to just create heaven and let free-willed people live there (especially since that is where believers are supposedly going to end up anyway). At this point all you have left is an omnipresent being that decided to build an ant farm that hides his own existence, where he can play games with peoples heads and create people that end up being eternally tormented.


Of course, any god that hides his existence is indistinguishable from a god that does not exist and has an equal impact on our existence of a god that does not exist.

Christian Nation Claims

A particularly annoying claim made by Christians is that the United States of America is, or is meant to be a Christian nation. They assert that the nation was built on Christian values by Christians and that even our laws are based on the ten Biblical commandments. None of these claims are true. And there is definitely no evidence for these claims.

The laws of the United States of America were originally based on British Common Law, not the ten commandments of the Christian Bible. But merely making this factual statement typically only leads to a counter-argument that British Common Law was influenced by the ten commandments. Of course, this is not true either. So here is a comprehensive progression of British Common Law, going all the way back to the traditions of the Suebi, a large tribe of Germanic people that were in opposition to the Romans (and therefore the Church).

British Common Law is base on Norman Law, which was well established by 1245 AD.

Norman Law was created by the Vikings, and influenced by Frank Law by around 900 AD which is older than the Vatican and not influenced by Christianity.

These laws were based on Germanic Common Law, or Gemeines Recht, which was influenced by Salic Law. The Salian Franks and other tribes had established a basic civil and criminal law by 511 AD.

The Salic Law is derived from oral traditions of certain designated elders who were also not influenced by Old Testament teachings. Rather, the elders that contributed to Salic Law based their understanding on several sources.

The Suebi, a large tribe of Germanic people going back to 58 BC, contributed traditional laws to various compilations, such as the Lex Ribuariorum, Lex Alamannorum, and the Lex Suauorum. The Alamanni also contributed to these compilations from the 3rd to 6th centuries.

For the ten Biblical commandments to have contributed to the laws of the USA would require a link between Christianity and the Suebi, which is certainly not seen anywhere in history.

But besides the origin of the laws of the United States, the forefathers intentionally designed America to be secular or religion-neutral. The false idea that the forefathers were Christians and wanted to create a Christian nation can be easily shown by myriad quotes and documents. Here are some easy quotes.

 “Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Lighthouses are more useful than churches.” – Ben Franklin
“This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it.” – John Adams
“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, the tyranny in religion is the worst.” – Thomas Paine
“The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” – James Madison
“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.” – John Adams
“Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the People alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery,” – John Adams
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law.” – Ben Franklin

Of course that last quote further validates the progression and evolution of British Common Law mentioned earlier.
Now, these quotes are merely statements made by the founding fathers. But the matter can be made even more concrete by using the legal documents and comments on those documents.
From the United States Constitution, Article VI, Section 3:

“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

…and from the 1st Amendment (the Bill of Rights):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercising thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

That last quote is often pointed to as defining a separation of church and state. Christians deny this separation by pointing out that the phrase is nowhere in the Amendment. But the point of the 1st Amendment is precisely this separation, as Thomas Jefferson had clearly explained in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association:

“…legislative should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”

And that is where we get the phrase ‘separation between church and state’ from.
Even without this explanation and the Constitution or Bill of Rights, it has been made clear in yet another document that America is not a Christian nation.

 “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, as it has itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of [Muslims] and the Said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any [Mohammedan] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

This was so perfectly stated in the Treaty of Tripoli.
So should a Christian theist claim the United States of America is to be a Christian Nation, they would be required to explain all of this historical evidence that clearly specifies the opposite position.

This is a copy of a chapter in my book, now available on Amazon Kindle and other formats. I created a website for the book:

http://gregorydeart1.wix.com/book

Introduction

Detours On My Path from Theism to Atheism

Many people have made a successful transition from a previous theistic belief system to the lack of belief known as atheism. It is particularly difficult for people who have been indoctrinated into dogmatic theism at a very young age. Critical skepticism is incompatible with many dogmatic religions, people that become atheists do not likely start their transition for this reason. It would require a skill set that is suppressed by the religion itself. So lacking the skills to apply rational logic to one's beliefs, the path to atheism is most often quite complicated and takes various detours that only in hindsight are exposed as unnecessary.

One major hurdle for many believers is getting past personal revelations. That is, believers often have had some experience that made them believe their god exists. They may believe they have felt or sensed the presence of this god. For Christians who have never had this experience, the path to atheism is that much easier.

I was not so lucky. I had a self-evident experience that I attributed to god as a child. I felt I had a relationship with an actual entity. Only much later in my life did I understand that personal revelations are often quirks of brain chemistry, including sensations of a 'presence', all of which have been reproduced in laboratory experiments, any rational being should dismiss any experience that cannot be objectively verified by another person. At some point, these experiences stopped. I still believed I was a Christian at the time, and certainly did not want these experiences to stop. I prayed and asked that god to re-reveal himself to me so my faith would again be bolstered. This never again happened. Despite repeated genuine attempts to rededicate my life to god, I never again achieved that connection.

I then relied on the testimony of others to keep any sense of faith. But I realized that the reason Christians share similar personal experiences does not point to the truth of those experiences, but to the fact that they have shared beliefs. Shared concepts and imagery influences personal experiences to the extent that similarities then arise. It is like dreaming about something that one constantly thinks about. Plus, the fact that people of differing religions (which often contradict each other) also have personal experiences of their different opposing gods, negates any evidential value of these claims, even anecdotally. They cannot all be true as certain dogmas contradict other dogmas. One certainly cannot tell who is really experiencing 'the real god' and who is just delusional.

Once one can doubt personal revelations on these grounds, one has to find better reasons to believe. That is, one is finally on a path to truth. So here is the process of transition that I went through, including the missteps I made along the way:

1. I gave myself permission to doubt as it seemed to be a logical designed feature of my mind that a god would want me to use honestly and unbiased. The problem of evil in particular made me question my faith. The fact that a god would kill everyone on the planet in a flood, or would authorize bands of people to enslave others, or would kill infants seemed particularly troubling, but my problem with evil was more based on the actual history of humankind, such as the holocaust, the massive world wars, the disease and famine throughout the world. This all seemed inconsistent with a loving god that was also all powerful.
2. I then studied other religions. This seemed quite logical after I realized that the only reason I was a Christian was that I was indoctrinated as a Christian. It was reasonable to expect that the god I thought existed might well be independent of the dogma. I looked for common traits among religions and found only certain morals were shared, and that no central god concept was consistent enough to believe there was any underlying true nature for that god. It seemed the world had got god wrong, but had figured out certain morals regardless. Given that the morals did still vary, and that the ones that were shared were pretty common sense (like not killing or stealing), I found no reason to expect morality itself indicated a common god. I dabbled in many religions, including pantheism and Buddhism. Once I realized that what I was getting out of these religions had natural explanations, and that no god was evident in them either, I became interested in science.
3. I sought explanations for as much of the world as possible to remove the need for a creator. This was a flawed approach (though I certainly did not realize this was a flawed approach at the time) that lead me to having to study a huge variety of scientific fields. I had not yet realized that I was allowed to simply state 'I don't know' and had not yet discovered the logical fallacy of the argument from incredulity or the argument from ignorance. Ultimately, I am glad I did go down this unnecessary detour, as I found that I really enjoyed science and was indeed able to understand it, despite the fundamentalist Christian teaching that would lead people to believe the universe is too mysterious to understand (and therefore god exists). But specific books opened my mind. Stephen Hawking's “A Brief History of Time” and Brian Greene's “Elegant Universe” were particularly mind-blowing for me and made me realize that science can, in fact, explain quite a lot of the universe, and that the god hypothesis is not even necessary to consider for what remains unexplained.
4. With the advent of the internet it is possible to watch the best minds of both positions, theism and atheists discuss the matter of god's existence. Knowing my mind was inferior to people with degrees in psychology, cosmology and theology, I wanted to see who was winning the argument in question. I found that the atheist debaters were overwhelmingly more rational in their arguments. That is, they just seemed to make more sense. I wanted to then know WHY they were making more sense, that is, I needed to understand what it is to be a critical rational skeptic.
5. Having found the limits of scientific explanations, I wanted to know how and why humans think in particular ways, especially why the majority of people are theists. Having seen that atheists debated their points from logical positions that seemed infallible, I also wanted to know how they had this power to create infallible arguments. Studying logic eventually lead me to understand fallacious arguments and the logical absolutes.
6. I then quickly realized that the remaining reasons I was holding to weak deism, or being an agnostic theist (without any dogma) were all fallacious. Making an exception for a god that I do not permit for big foot, fairies, or unicorns was unfair and illogical. I now chose to only believe in things that have been demonstrated to exist.
7. I then learned to be comfortable with unanswered questions. I just leave the holes alone. I figure we should let the scientists investigate and find answers and not worry about what is not yet explainable. I figured out that there was no need to plug holes with things that could not even prove exist in the first place as this stops the investigation and hinders science, as it has throughout history countless times. Once I learned that 'I don't know' is not an admission of inferior beliefs, but rather the most honest approach to avoiding fallacious beliefs, I became free. The honest way to continue from here was to remain an agnostic atheist: though I am certainly able to prove that certain gods do not exist, I can have my mind changed if any evidence ever presents itself. As no such evidence exists for ANY god, atheism is the logical default position.

The feeling of freedom, of owning my mind, and being a moral and good person despite the immorality and evil taught by Christianity made the transition worth while. I just wish I had learned the logical absolutes, logical arguments, and the logical fallacies at some point in my upbringing as the transition would not have taken me 14 years. Teaching rational thinking and logic to our children should be the new indoctrination and the goal of atheist parents. Give them the tools to know what they believe to be true and they will naturally avoid fallacious beliefs. It is quite the opposite to religious indoctrination. 

Further reading: My Book is now available on Amazon Kindle and other formats. Here is the link to the book's website: 

http://gregorydeart1.wix.com/book