Explain atheism before evolution?

[Allegory]

Maybe, but only in the typical fashion by losing a child to disease.



It is a fact that biology, physiology and anatomy show by indisputable facts, what sexuality "is." But you see that dismissed all the time for personal viewpoints to overrule established facts. Evolution is a concept that has yet to show us a bird becoming a tree monkey. Only a bunch of experiments and opinions that one thing becomes something entirely different.



Then why aren't strong men taking what they want on earth? You see the weak violating Natural Selection every single day just by being alive. And there are a lot of unintelligent weak people around these days driving cars I should own.



Umm, no chance. Order is not a good place to show proof of random mutations becoming you.



Then why did all the strong species die off? Oh yeah, a meteor. How convenient a "theory" that is. And the amount of time between the big snuff-out asteroid impact and the rise of Barack Obama's? Hmm, not likely.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis.htm

Part 1: Language, Information, and the Origin of DNA (Read Transcript)
Most arguments about evolution and intelligent design offer only anecdotal evidence and are inherently incapable of actually proving anything. We must get better evidence in order to get to the bottom of this! Fortunately, the science of modern communications easily provides us with the tools we need to get answers. Although the details are complex, the concepts are easily grasped by anyone with a high school education.​

Patterns occur naturally - no help required from a 'designer'. Many patterns occur in nature without the help of a designer – snowflakes, tornados, hurricanes, sand dunes, stalactites, rivers and ocean waves. These patterns are the natural result of what scientists categorize as chaos and fractals. These things are well-understood and we experience them every day.
Codes, however, do not occur without a designer.

Examples of symbolic codes include music, blueprints, languages like English and Chinese, computer programs, and yes, DNA. The essential distinction is the difference between a pattern and a code. Chaos can produce patterns, but it has never been shown to produce codes or symbols. Codes and symbols store information, which is not a property of matter and energy alone. Information itself is a separate entity on par with matter and energy.
Proof that DNA was designed by a mind: (1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern;

it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism. (2) All codes we know the origin of are created by a conscious mind. (3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind, and language and information are proof of the action of a Superintelligence.
We can explore five possible conclusions:

1) Humans designed DNA
2) Aliens designed DNA
3) DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously
4) There must be some undiscovered law of physics that creates information
5) DNA was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. God.

(1) requires time travel or infinite generations of humans. (2) could well be true but only pushes the question back in time. (3) may be a remote possibility, but it's not a scientific explanation in that it doesn't refer to a systematic, repeatable process. It's nothing more than an appeal to luck . (4) could be true but no one can form a testable hypothesis until someone observes a naturally occurring code. So the only systematic explanation that remains is (5) a theological one.
To the extent that scientific reasoning can prove anything, DNA is proof of a designer.

No.

 

[ragarth]

What would the arguments be for atheism without Darwin's little works of chaotic (randomly) changing beasts?

This question is designed to be agitating. It takes on an immediately angry an belittling tone in an attempt to throw off the purported focus of the question itself. The resulting mix of answers will be less effectively structured because of the implied insult to evolutionary theory, and so will tend to add to the OP's ego. This is my analysis anyway.

Now that that's out of the way, to answer the question asked, rephrased, I think you meant to say:

"Without evolutionary theory, what are the arguments for Atheism?" (Wasn't that clearer and more concise? It's amazing what you get when you don't take a belittling tone in your query for information.)

To answer: Atheism is the lack of belief in a divine entity. I propose, based on this, that one can be Atheist yet still believe in magic, and that life on the planet arose from magical forces producing it. By not relying on the existence of a God or Gods, this is a valid Atheist belief.

Ergo, as an argument for Atheism, one must argue only the nonexistence of a divine entity. I do this by working from the assumption that if there is not empirical, testable proof of something, then it is either capable of being proven or disproven at a later date, or it is incapable of being proven and therefore is false. The very nature of a divine entity require omnipotence and omniscience, whether that omnipotence and omniscience is collected in one individual or multiple, and is therefore capable of making itself unknown to scientific inquiry no matter how adept at science we become. Given this, any excuse for why the existence of a God/s has not been found becomes so burdensom with questions as to why as to begin failing Occam's Razor, and is therefore no longer the default position, and therefore not true without a body of supporting evidence.

That is my reason for not believing in a God/s.

 

[Polycarp_fan]

Some arguments would be anti-religious, specifically anti-Christian: the stories in the Bible are no more likely to be true than the ancient Greek and Roman legends of the gods; the god of the Bible clearly reflects the prejudices and world-view of an ignorant tribe of bronze-age cattle-herders; there is no historical corroboration for any word in the New Testament and for most of the Old Testament (though admittedly this was mostly shown after Darwin).

The Roman Empire never existed?

Pilate is a mispelled word?

Did they have planes 2000 years ago?

 

[Polycarp_fan]

This question is designed to be agitating. It takes on an immediately angry an belittling tone in an attempt to throw off the purported focus of the question itself. The resulting mix of answers will be less effectively structured because of the implied insult to evolutionary theory, and so will tend to add to the OP's ego. This is my analysis anyway.

Now that that's out of the way, to answer the question asked, rephrased, I think you meant to say:

"Without evolutionary theory, what are the arguments for Atheism?" (Wasn't that clearer and more concise? It's amazing what you get when you don't take a belittling tone in your query for information.)

To answer: Atheism is the lack of belief in a divine entity. I propose, based on this, that one can be Atheist yet still believe in magic, and that life on the planet arose from magical forces producing it. By not relying on the existence of a God or Gods, this is a valid Atheist belief.

Ergo, as an argument for Atheism, one must argue only the nonexistence of a divine entity. I do this by working from the assumption that if there is not empirical, testable proof of something, then it is either capable of being proven or disproven at a later date, or it is incapable of being proven and therefore is false. The very nature of a divine entity require omnipotence and omniscience, whether that omnipotence and omniscience is collected in one individual or multiple, and is therefore capable of making itself unknown to scientific inquiry no matter how adept at science we become. Given this, any excuse for why the existence of a God/s has not been found becomes so burdensom with questions as to why as to begin failing Occam's Razor, and is therefore no longer the default position, and therefore not true without a body of supporting evidence.

That is my reason for not believing in a God/s.

Fair enough. You have a personal opinion.

Now, you hang out here why?

And Occam's Razor? Is it always rote with you guys?

You left out Pascal's wager.

And who made God.

Wait and I'll go over to a skeptics website and be back for more.

Nah, never mind.

 

[Pliny the Elder]

The Roman Empire never existed?

Pilate is a mispelled word?

Did they have planes 2000 years ago?

How did you come up with those from a post that never mentions any of the three?

 

[Polycarp_fan]

How did you come up with those from a post that never mentions any of the three?

Yeah OK.

Originally Posted by Andreusz

Some arguments would be anti-religious, specifically anti-Christian: the stories in the Bible are no more likely to be true than the ancient Greek and Roman legends of the gods; the god of the Bible clearly reflects the prejudices and world-view of an ignorant tribe of bronze-age cattle-herders; there is no historical corroboration for any word in the New Testament and for most of the Old Testament (though admittedly this was mostly shown after Darwin).




​

 

[Washington]

"Darwin was not alone in providing naturalistic explanations. Many people before him removed God from explanations for parts of the universe. Pierre-Simon Laplace provided a natural explanation for the origin and stability of the solar system. Friedrich Wöhler synthesized urea, showing that there was no "vital" element in organic material. David Hume argued that design was not necessary for the origin of life. Darwin, by providing the mechanism, merely filled in one of the last gaps. It was possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist even before Darwin (Gliboff 2000). "

source


(Gliboff, S. 2000. Paley's design argument as an inference to the best explanation, or, Dawkins' dilemma. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 31(4): 579-597. )

 

[ragarth]

Fair enough. You have a personal opinion.

Now, you hang out here why?

And Occam's Razor? Is it always rote with you guys?

You left out Pascal's wager.

And who made God.

Wait and I'll go over to a skeptics website and be back for more.

Nah, never mind.

You have a personal opinion to, you believe in God, that makes your belief no less or more special then mine. I laid out my reasoning for why I don't believe in God, it answered your question. I could just as easily use the same statement if you made a post as to why you believe in God, but I won't because I'm not out to belittle those who are different than I am.

Occam's razor is valuable for finding the default position between possibilities. If I put a coin on a table heads up, then put a cup over it, leave, and come back, I don't know what happened during the period I was absent.

Someone could have come and flipped the coin, or taken the coin.
An earthquake could have flipped the coin
God could have made the coin turn into a butterfly.
Nothing could have happened and the coin is just as I left it.

All are possibilities, but Occam's razor tells me that the simplest explanation is the most likely one, therefore the simplest explanation is the default option without further information. I then lift the cup and what do you know? Occam's razor was right, the simplest explanation turns out to be correct. It's a tool to be used in scientific inquiry, nothing more.

Pascal's wager on the other hand states that God can be neither proven nor disproven. Given this, since Atheism postulates nothing happens when you die except being worm food, and Christianity postulates that you suffer for eternity unless you were a good Christian, that you have more to gain by being Christian.

There are two arguments against this, one logical and one theological.

1)There's more than just Atheism and Christianity. And there's more than one type of Christianity. Muslims say Christians are going to hell but Christians say Muslims are going to hell, or do some Christians say some muslims are going to hell but not others? Baptists think Catholics are going to hell, or was that Presbyterians? I can't keep it all straight, there's so many religions who think everyone else is going to hell or their own equivalent of an eternal unhappy place that Waging your bet on Christianity without an honest belief in it is only a little better than Atheism. This leads to #2.

2)Unless you believe blind obedience is all that matters, and not the truth within the soul, paying lipservice to a religion in the hopes of getting into the eternal happy place of choice is a wasted effort. I personally would rather be honest with myself, and act upon beliefs that I can truly believe in than taint myself by living a lie. Note mind you that by lie I mean being a Christian because I fear burning in hell for being something else, or because I fear there not being an afterlife. You are not living a lie if you truly believe in Christianity, but that's not what Pascal's wager is advocating, it's advocating paying lipservice to Christianity like playing russian roulette with your soul.

I ask you, Polycarp_fan, are you playing russian roulette with your soul, or do you really believe what you preach?

 

[TeddyKGB]

Fair enough. You have a personal opinion.

Now, you hang out here why?

And Occam's Razor? Is it always rote with you guys?

You left out Pascal's wager.

And who made God.

Wait and I'll go over to a skeptics website and be back for more.

Nah, never mind.

You are a bad debater. I say this not because you are ignorant but because you appear to lack even a rudimentary understanding of debate mechanics.

I bring to your attention the Principle of Charity. I can only assume you are unfamiliar with it as many of your posts consist almost entirely of sound bites and summaries that bear at best a passing similarity to your opponents' arguments. This naturally begs the question: Why not engage the opposing position where it is strongest?

What happens from this post forward will say much about why you attempt to dialog here and what your goals are. Up to now, the most reasonable answers I can produce to the question just above are: 1) You lack confidence in your own position; 2) Your real intention is to demarcate your and others' positions for the purpose of identifying (or manufacturing) enemies the Bible says you must have; 3) You feel superior when others get angry at your continuing efforts to trivialize every position but your own.

 

[Tenka]

Before biology had good theories, before geology had good theories, before cosmology had good theories it was still OK for an atheist to say "I don't have the answers, but your stories about magic are clearly myth".

 

[Morcova]

You left out Pascal's wager.

And who made God.

Wait and I'll go over to a skeptics website and be back for more.

Nah, never mind.

LOL

Pascal's wager is a childs argument.

 

[Nooj]

You demonstrate, once again, that you don't understand Darwinism. Evolutionary change is indeed random, but it is not chaotic, because only favourable changes are selected for.
Owing to the evidence of the fossil record, and the similarities between species, pre-Darwinian scientists hypothesized that evolution had occurred. Darwin's contribution was to provide an explanaton for how it occurred.
Among pre-Darwinian atheists were Lucretius and Christopher Marlowe. You could read their works to find an answer to your question.

I don't know about Christopher Marlowe, but Lucretius was not an atheist. He was an Epicurean and thus believed that the gods didn't play a role in our lives, but he seems to have believed that they did exist...or at least he didn't question the existance of the gods publicly in De Rerum Natura.

Darwin himself became an atheist because of his theory, as I understand it.

I think Darwin called himself an agnostic.

What would the arguments be for atheism without Darwin's little works of chaotic (randomly) changing beasts?

The theory of evolution is not an argument for atheism, otherwise there wouldn't be theistic evolutionists.

[edit] What the? My atheist icon just disappeared.

 

[Andreusz]

The Roman Empire never existed?

Pilate is a mispelled word?

Did they have planes 2000 years ago?

I assume that you mean that because the New Testament mentions figures who actually existed in history, then that is proof of its historicity. Well, I am going to ask you a Polycarp_fan-type crypto-question: Have you read Susannah Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell?
You have as weak an understanding of what constitutes history as you do of what constitutes science.

 

[Andreusz]

And Occam's Razor? Is it always rote with you guys?

Among the many errors of logical argument in which you rejoice, the two most frequent are what may be called the argumentum ad snarkum ("If I say a thing often enough, it makes it true"), and the argumentum contra snarkum ("If you say a thing often enough, it makes it false").
The number of times that an argument is put forward has no bearing whatsoever on its truth or falsity.