Atheism makes no sense to me?!?

JasonDeVaux said:

Either you believe:

1) That the universe was created spontaneously from nothingness and is infinite from the point of existence
2) That the universe was created spontaneously from nothingness and finite from the point of existence; from whence it will resort back to nothingness
3) The universe is infinite and has always existed, but will someday cease to exist
4) The universe is infinite and will always exist

As an atheist you have the luxury to say "I don't have to believe anything". That may be acceptable to you, but it is not sufficient on a discussion site devoted to Christianity.

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Why not?

JasonDeVaux said:

Because I say so, of course =) LOL No, seriously, I just think there must be more to a thesis of beliefs that "Just because". I enjoy the banter of a discussion about what believe, rather than an declaration of what they do not!

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And therefore I have to believe just something for to be allowed to discuss your or Christianity´s claims?

I know it´s inconvenient to defend one´s view without the option to resort to tackling other views...but, well, you are the one who has made up his mind.

JasonDeVaux said:

Ahh you miss the point of all of this. I don't want to attack anyone. Believing in "nothing" is a belief in it of itself.

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Sure, but so far noone here said "I believe in nothing".

However, ALL of us have to to our beliefs for a reason. I doubt you would say that you are an Atheist "just because".

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Then why did you come with the "just because" thing?

You must have reasons for doubting the existence of God.

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No. I would have to have reasons for to believe in the existence of a god.

More power to you. I just want people to defend WHY they have rejected Theism.
Because theism doesn´t make sense to them. That´s a
Asking for THAT hardly seems unreasonable on a Christian website. That hardly seems unreasonable to me.

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...and you don´t even have to look hard to find countless threads in which atheists explain why theism doesn´t make sense to them. That´s all that´s required for being an atheist: Theism doesn´t make sense to you.

There are so many variants of atheism that this defies a singular or even a multiple cause explanation. Antitheists differ vastly from apatheists, ignostics from nontheists, agnostics from skeptics, etc.

I can tell you that for me, I just realized that I find no meaningfulness in believing in any God, though I could also say I don't find much meaningfulness in affirming the nonexistence of a God, which is where my apatheism comes in. God basically makes no real influence on my life and feeling fulfilled and makes little sense as even a basic Deist deity

JasonDeVaux said:

It is truly puzzling that a person associating themselves as a Wiccan and posting a pentagram as their profile picture would even seek to enter a Christian Forum, much less demand a response. Do you simply seek to antagonize Christians with that symbolism? Perhaps we should find a picture of Salmon Rushdie and chastise Islam on Ummah.com?

As to your points. Whether or not Christians or impoverished Africans have heard of Aristotle is completely irrelevant to the truth of the logic behind his argument. Show me one instance in science or physics that is NOT cause and effect related? Show me one instance in science or physics that does not draw on the concept of matter in terms of Quantum Field Dynamics? No matter how you slice it, everything in existence that we have seen or studied is cause and effect related. As an Atheist, you deny the existence of God. Fine. That leaves you with only four logical choices as to creationism. Either you believe:

1) That the universe was created spontaneously from nothingness and is infinite from the point of existence
2) That the universe was created spontaneously from nothingness and finite from the point of existence; from whence it will resort back to nothingness
3) The universe is infinite and has always existed, but will someday cease to exist
4) The universe is infinite and will always exist

As an atheist you have the luxury to say "I don't have to believe anything". That may be acceptable to you, but it is not sufficient on a discussion site devoted to Christianity. I implore you to justify any non-Christian creationist model that does not fall into one of these four categories. If you ascribe to a purely scientific approach to our understanding of the universe, 1) and 2) above are illogical. There is no empirical evidence of spontaneous creation and dissolution of matter in the universe into nothingness. Talk about believing in something based solely on faith! So, you are left with the choice of 3) or 4). The problem therein is that science has justified the case and effect argument of Aristotle's prime mover theory. So which is it? A belief contrary to logic of a universe that existed without creation (whether it ends or not), or the belief in a God that existed without creation? You've painted yourself into your own dichotomy! You base your disbelief in God on an unsubstantiated faith in the immutability of science. I place mine on faith in the immutability of God and an Intelligent Design to the universe. Either way, you are basing your world-view on faith.

BTW, how did we test for the existence of Thor or Jupiter? Haven't heard about that one.

As for Modalism, I should have added "One God in three co-existent persons", instead of "manifestations". My bad. It's part and parcel to writing while suffering from a crappy summer cold.

Jason

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A few things to call you on

1) The Pentacle is not an offensive symbol to Christians who actually know their symbols. The five pointed star was used to represent the 5 wounds of Christ, albeit it fell out of popularity, because of confusion and associations with other "pagan" religions, I'd wager. Don't talk as if you absolutely know everything about the pentacle, because clearly you don't. Not to mention, you're confusing the pentacle for the pentagram, which is a reversed star used by Laveyan Satanists, since it represents a goat, commonly associated with bad people in the New Testament. Just qualify that it's your perception about the pentacle, not facts about it, because they just don't follow scrutiny.

2)There are other explanations about the universe, such as that it is infinite and cylical, collapsing upon itself and then beginning anew, or that the universe is one of a series of bubbles in a multiverse that will eventually "pop", or other varied possibilities that could admit of the universe's finitude without saying it was created or saying it was infinite without any need for the universe cycle to have any prime mover.

3)Point out anywhere in this conversation where any atheist has said science is immutable. Science by its nature is mutable and justifiably so. Otherwise, we wouldn't have changing theories to new evidence. Mutability is not by necessity a flaw or weakness, contrary to what you would say about your god. Maybe your God is a nice person, limited in powers, but that doesn't reduce its awe that it hypothetically would inspire. You just want to go with the ontological argument's formulation of God it would appear; the greatest thing ever!

JasonDeVaux said:

I got the "just because" and the "believe in nothing" comments from countless other atheist posters.

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Could you just give me 10 quotes out of those countless examples? Or, say, five? Ok, three will do. Actually just one would already be nice.

I simply state that if Theism does NOT make sense to you, than you must have come up with an alternative theory yourself. Am I wright?

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No, I´m pretty fine with saying "I don´t know" when I don´t know.
Besides, theism is not a theory. It´s an exceptional claim that tries to sell me that as strength which is actually a great weakness: unfalsifiability.

JasonDeVaux said:

I got the "just because" and the "believe in nothing" comments from countless other atheist posters. I apologize for associating to that of others. It is an unfair generalization of you I simply state that if Theism does NOT make sense to you, than you must have come up with an alternative theory yourself. Am I wright?

Jason

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It's not just my own ideas, it's a collaboration of thoughts. But this does not constitute anything like a willfull antagonism of any form against theism.

JasonDeVaux said:

1) That the universe was created spontaneously from nothingness and is infinite from the point of existence
2) That the universe was created spontaneously from nothingness and finite from the point of existence; from whence it will resort back to nothingness
3) The universe is infinite and has always existed, but will someday cease to exist
4) The universe is infinite and will always exist

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How about:
5) The universe spontaneously came from something that existed "before" the universe and will revert to this state again.

That you don't have the imagination to consider other options does not mean that they aren't there.

JasonDeVaux said:

It is truly puzzling that a person associating themselves as a Wiccan and posting a pentagram as their profile picture would even seek to enter a Christian Forum, much less demand a response. Do you simply seek to antagonize Christians with that symbolism? Perhaps we should find a picture of Salmon Rushdie and chastise Islam on Ummah.com?

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I fail to see the relevance of my alias or my avatar, much less how it affects the validity of my points, but nonetheless: When I joined CF, I was Wiccan, hence my name of 'Wiccan_Child'. I chose the pentagram as my avatar as it was a symbol of my faith. Though I am now an atheist, I've kept the alias and avatar. I rarely get pestered about it, and the mods have consistently ruled in my favour whenever some over-zealous Christian tries to take out the Big Bad Pagan.

If you find the avatar offensive, I apologise, but all I can recommend is that, in the nicest possible way, you try not to be so sensitive. It is, after all, a symbol used by Christians for 1900 years.

JasonDeVaux said:

As to your points. Whether or not Christians or impoverished Africans have heard of Aristotle is completely irrelevant to the truth of the logic behind his argument.

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Indeed, but my point was simply that your claim ("Most Christians believe some form of Aristotle's "Prime Mover" Theory") is false. Most Christians are not even aware of Aristotle, let alone subscribe to his arguments. That's all.

JasonDeVaux said:

Show me one instance in science or physics that is NOT cause and effect related?

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Have six: radioactive decay, the Casimir effect, vacuum fluctuations, quantum foam, Hawking radiation, and the smorgasbord of virtual particles. All of these constitute real, physical phenomena that demonstrate violations of causality.

JasonDeVaux said:

Show me one instance in science or physics that does not draw on the concept of matter in terms of Quantum Field Dynamics?

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General Relativity in its entirety stands apart from Quantum Mechanics. Its treatment of matter is also quite different to quantum field theory.

JasonDeVaux said:

No matter how you slice it, everything in existence that we have seen or studied is cause and effect related. As an Atheist, you deny the existence of God. Fine.

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I wouldn't say I deny the existence of God; that implies that I secretly know he exists, but I refuse to acknowledge him - but let's not quibble semantics. I also disagree with your statement about causality, but more on that later.

JasonDeVaux said:

That leaves you with only four logical choices as to creationism. Either you believe:

1) That the universe was created spontaneously from nothingness and is infinite from the point of existence
2) That the universe was created spontaneously from nothingness and finite from the point of existence; from whence it will resort back to nothingness
3) The universe is infinite and has always existed, but will someday cease to exist
4) The universe is infinite and will always exist

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I disagree. Models of a cyclic universe, wherein the universe is finite but arose neither spontaneously nor from nothingness, or models of temporal loops, wherein the universe's temporal 'infinitude' loses meaning, are perfectly valid models of how the universe operates or came into being, yet are not part of your categorisation.

Also, you still haven't really explained what you mean by 'infinite'. What, exactly, is infinite? Its past? Its future? Both? Its quantity of mass/energy? Its volume? Its topography? I assume, rather tentatively, that you're referring to a finite/infinite past/future, but still, I don't want to make a long post only to get the fundamental point wrong

JasonDeVaux said:

As an atheist you have the luxury to say "I don't have to believe anything". That may be acceptable to you, but it is not sufficient on a discussion site devoted to Christianity.

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Of course it is. Appealing to the general Christian nature of this forum hardly justifies cosmogonic models. What if I really don't believe in or ascribe to any particular belief on the origin of the universe? What if I really do consider the evidence to be so thin that no option is convincing? You can't force me to pick a belief, how absurd

JasonDeVaux said:

I implore you to justify any non-Christian creationist model that does not fall into one of these four categories. If you ascribe to a purely scientific approach to our understanding of the universe, 1) and 2) above are illogical. There is no empirical evidence of spontaneous creation and dissolution of matter in the universe into nothingness. Talk about believing in something based solely on faith! So, you are left with the choice of 3) or 4). The problem therein is that science has justified the case and effect argument of Aristotle's prime mover theory. So which is it? A belief contrary to logic of a universe that existed without creation (whether it ends or not), or the belief in a God that existed without creation? You've painted yourself into your own dichotomy! You base your disbelief in God on an unsubstantiated faith in the immutability of science. I place mine on faith in the immutability of God and an Intelligent Design to the universe. Either way, you are basing your world-view on faith.

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You make a number of interesting assumptions and fallacies here, so I'll discuss them together:

• First, you make the mistake of assuming those four options are the only four options. Perhaps you tried to create the four options from saying "The universe has either a finite or infinite past, and either a finite or infinite future"? Even so, this is an overly simplistic approach to the nature of time and the universe - does a temporally looped universe have a finite, or infinite, time-line? Nonetheless, let's assume these four options really are the only four possibilities, and move on.
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• Second, you attempt to discard (1) and (2) (spontaneous creation, finite past) by calling them illogical, yet in the next breath you appeal to a lack of evidence. Which is it? Are they fundamentally paradoxical, or simply lacking in evidence? Further, your appeal to a lack of evidence rests on the assumption that there is nothing in science to support the "spontaneous creation and dissolution of matter" - well, this simply isn't the case. Despite the fact that the conservation of energy is ultimately just an empirical observation only really applicable to what we know (and not the origin of universes!), and thus entirely open for violation, the nature of energy makes it entirely possible that the universe has a net energy of zero joules: for every kilogram of matter, there is a corresponding deficit of energy in the form of gravitational potential. In particle physics, we routinely see new particles coming into existence that would violate conservation laws, were it not for a 'deficit' also coming into existence (e.g., an electron and an antineutrino, or a positron and a neutrino). Why, then, could the universe not spontaneously come into being, with a positive amount of physical energy and a negative amount of potential energy, thus violating no conservation laws? Anyway, this point is far too long, so moving on...
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• Third, you attempt to dismiss (3) and (4) (infinite past, no creation event) as being contradictory to the law of cause and effect. The problem here is threefold. First, instead of bolstering it, science has done much harm to the supposedly universal law of causality, both from quantum mechanical 'events without cause' and relativistic 'events preceding cause'. Second, even if causality really is universally binding, so what? How does that disprove the idea that the universe has an infinite past, that it has no beginning or creation? Infinite regress is not the big hiccup medieval philosophers once thought it was. Third, if the idea of an eternally existent entity is troublesome, whence cometh the Lord? If he can be eternally existent, why can't the universe?
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• Fourth, and finally, you make the rather disjointed claim that I "base [my] disbelief in God on an unsubstantiated faith in the immutability of science". Where did you get this? Anyone who knows anything about the scientific process knows that it is anything but immutable - to the contrary, for it to be of any use, it must be very mutable indeed. I also do not see how such a bizarre belief could be the basis of my disbelief in God - how does one lead to the other? And, for the record, my atheism stems from a perceived absence of evidence or rational for the existence of any deity.

I find it rather amusing that you accuse me of painting myself into my own dichotomy, when I daresay I never even held the paintbrush - you were the author of the post and its particular dichotomies, not me.

JasonDeVaux said:

BTW, how did we test for the existence of Thor or Jupiter? Haven't heard about that one.

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My mistake, I meant to say Zeus. There were large groups of humans who believed Jupiter and Zeus were deities that controlled and created thunder and lightening. By studying and going into clouds, we've thereby tested the claim that there is/are a deity/ies which control thunder and lightening - we've found the claim to be false. We've directly tested for the existence of a lightening deity. The same is true for the claim that there are deities that control the waves, earthquakes, famine, disease, etc - we've systematically demonstrated that all these deities, at least as proposed, do not exist.

So I disagree with your assertion that deities cannot be tested for - depending on what you claim of them, they really can.

Wiccan_Child said:

I fail to see the relevance of my alias or my avatar, much less how it affects the validity of my points, but nonetheless: When I joined CF, I was Wiccan, hence my name of 'Wiccan_Child'. I chose the pentagram as my avatar as it was a symbol of my faith. Though I am now an atheist, I've kept the alias and avatar. I rarely get pestered about it, and the mods have consistently ruled in my favour whenever some over-zealous Christian tries to take out the Big Bad Pagan.

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There's no such thing as an over-zealous Christian.

CTD said:

There's no such thing as an over-zealous Christian.

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Sure there is. A Christian who has too much zeal about a given subject (the primacy of General Relativity over Quantum Mechanics, the superiority of the XBox 360 over the PS3, the superior attractiveness of a British accent over an Irish accent, etc) is a person who is both Christian and who is over-zealous - an over-zealous Christian.

Some over-zealous Christians are over-zealous about their own Christianity. Most Christians are quite benign and passive, choosing to not be high-and-mighty about their religious beliefs, they don't actively try and convert their non-Christian friends, they're generally fun people whose religious beliefs are incidental to their personality, rather than an overwhelming factor. On the other hands, there is a minority of Christians who are high-and-mighty about their beliefs, who actively try to convert their friends, who vote according to which politician has the most similar religious views, who (in this case) attempt to get someone banned from CF simply because their avatar is symbolic of a non-Christian religion. That person is over-zealous about their own religion.

Of course, you may well retort that the 'benign' Christian, the Christian whose religious beliefs are incidental to their everyday social interactions, isn't a True Christian™...

I always felt that Atheism boiled down to : "I hate God" or "Stuff Happens".

/shrug

abysmul said:

I always felt that Atheism boiled down to : "I hate God" or "Stuff Happens".

/shrug

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ROFL

This is a joke, right?

abysmul said:

I always felt that Atheism boiled down to : "I hate God" or "Stuff Happens".

/shrug

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Yeah... yeah that's not quite how it works.

sandwiches said:

ROFL

This is a joke, right?

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actually no

Just my personal experience, that boiled down to the heart of the matter the atheists I've known and read about seem to either hate God (for any number of reasons) or believe the universe and life in it just "poofed" into existence by sheer dumb luck!