IDoNotGetIt

Since I picked on invalid or useless atheist arguments yesterday, today let me go after a common theistic argument. The following quote is from a video called “The Collapse of Atheism”. This video is sad at best. It shows a vast ignorance that you would expect from such propaganda. Surprisingly it is not Christian, it is Muslim propaganda but with minor alterations, the script could be rewritten as Christian as well.

“The size of the sun, the wavelength of its rays and its distance from the Earth are all at the levels necessary to support human life. Even the slightest deviation from these could destroy life on Earth at a stroke. The way that Earth’s atmosphere contains the gasses necessary to allow respiration, or that the Earth’s magnetic field is ideally suited to human life are just two examples of such important delicate balances. The water that covers three quarters of our planet also contains features designed to support human life.”

Well this seems like a logical argument doesn’t it? It’s true that if the sun were to suddenly grow or shrink in size, significantly, or if the properties of water were to suddenly change, our existence would most likely cease. So, obviously, this planet and this solar system, even, were specifically designed to support our life, right? Well, actually no, not right. A common error that people make (and if you pay attention, you’ll see it all the time in the media, usually attempting to misuse some statistical information) is a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of cause and effect. The world and everything around it could look like it was designed for us to some people, to these people, we are the cause and the earth is the effect. But from a more logical point of view, the earth is the cause and we are the effect. We breathe O² because that is what the atmosphere was made of when we were evolving. We couldn’t have evolved with a requirement to breathe nitrogen because, since there wasn’t enough of it in the atmosphere around us, those organisms would not have survived (I am simplifying here, I am aware that the first organism evolved in water but my point is still valid due to the fact that oxygen was still the most prevalent element in the water). We breathe oxygen, are made mostly of water and survive under the specific weather conditions afforded to us by our sun and its proximity to us not because it was designed that way but because we evolved under those conditions and therefore had to be able to survive under those conditions (otherwise we wouldn’t have survived and wouldn’t be having this discussion). We are the result of the conditions, not the other way around.

If you want to watch the video that the above quote was taken from, here it is:

Be warned, it is propaganda. It is full of outright lies and misinterpretations (I’d say deliberate misinterpretations but, sadly, I don’t think the people who believe these things even realize that they are lying).

Every time I read a post by a fellow atheist, who is going on and on in a futile attempt to “prove” that belief is God is not logical, I have to wonder if they were ever religious themselves, specifically if they were ever Christian.  If they were, they wouldn’t bother with it.  They might as well go to a mental intuition and try to convince a schizophrenic person that they are not hearing voices.  I don’t mean to insinuate that I think Christians are mentally ill (at least not all of them), I’m just trying to illustrate the futility of the argument.  If they were ever a religious believer they should remember that these facts are not important to the believer.

Since it is not possible to prove that their beliefs are wrong, a more productive way to spend our time is to attack the religious attempts to discredit science.  This is, at least, possible.  It is only through an understanding of science that they will begin to question their beliefs on their own.  Here is an example of what I am talking about:

“We start with man’s creation. Adam was supposedly created from a pile of dust and Eve was supposedly created from one of Adam’s ribs. Why did a God who supposedly created this huge complex Universe and everything in it not just ‘create’ Adam and Eve?”

Now from our point of view, as atheist, he has a point.  What he is saying makes sense, it would certainly be logical to just create Adam and Eve from nothing just like he did everything else.  But this perfectly logical observation does not matter to the Christian who believes it.  Because in their mind, it does not matter why God does the things he does, only that he does them.  This is not a valid argument against Christianity because just because God could have done it the logical way, doesn’t mean he had to do it that way.

Rather than waste energy trying to prove the Christian beliefs wrong, we should focus our attention on what is important.  It is not that “God can’t exist” it is just that “God doesn’t have to exist” and in the absence of any evidence that he does exist, it does not make sense to believe that he does.

One of my biggest complaints about myself is that I have so much trouble articulating my thoughts.  I can think about a subject and make complete sense of it and sometimes be incapable of expressing it in an understandable way to others.  In addition, I try so hard to give the other person the benefit of the doubt so as not to seem close-minded that I tend to let myself think too much about how to reconcile their thoughts even when their thoughts are clearly, inconsistent or wrong.  Then later, after getting alone and thinking about it for a bit, I will realize where I let myself go astray and, unfortunately, by then it is too late. The argument is over and it is usually too late to bring the subject back up in an appropriate manner.

For this reason, whenever, I read something that someone else writes that precisely articulates what I was thinking; I want very much to remember their words.  So I want to do that here.

Certainly, today’s version of “does the Sun revolve around the Earth or the Earth around the Sun” argument is evolution vs. creationism.  Oh do the claims of atheistic faith come out when arguing in favor of evolution.  Now today no one, that the majority of the people on this planet would consider educated and sane, would deny that the Earth revolves around the Sun.  But just 400 years ago, it was the other way around.  You would have been considered crazy or worse, a heretic, to deny that the Earth was at the center and everything revolved around it. And from the “I couldn’t have said it better myself department”, this is Neil deGrasse Tyson:

“Now the way I see it, that level of resistance is not fundamentally different from the resistance that prevailed when Copernicus and Galileo demonstrated that Earth goes around the sun and not vice versa. We didn’t have Newtonian gravity back then. You couldn’t predict, with high precision, the clockwork solar system. That would have been a new word back then: “solar system,” implying that the sun is at the center of things.”

He is pointing out that the science behind Evolution is not the same concrete kind of science that is behind the physics that make the planetary bodies spin around each other. He points out that I can’t, in support of my evolutionary claims, say, look at this creature, here is a computer model of what it will look like in 500,000 years. Whereas, I could support my theory of where the earth is in the grand scheme of things by predicting the exact time of the next sun rise and the exact time that some asteroid currently millions of miles away will pass by.

I like this quote as well, also by Neil:

“What were the consequences in the mid-1800s of saying you didn’t believe Darwin? There weren’t any, really. But today, with biotech companies, there is no understanding of biology without the theory of evolution. And so if you say, ‘I don’t believe the theory of evolution, I think we were all specially created,’ you must understand the consequences of it to your own employability. If you’re coming in saying that there was Adam and Eve, you’re not going to get past the front door. Because they can’t use your knowledge base to invent the next vaccine, the next medicine, the next cure for cancer. That knowledge base does not track into discoveries we know are awaiting us in the halls of biotech firms.”

This leads to the other favorite argument against evolution… “Evolution is just a theory”. This little jewel has two purposes; one is to discredit evolution and the other, ironically, is to give credit to creationism. Once again, I’ll let someone much more articulate than I explain why this is not a valid argument.

“Just to nip this argument over ‘theories’ in the bud: Until Einstein, all tested, confirmed physical theories were labeled laws. There’s Newton’s three laws of motion … the laws of gravity … the laws of thermodynamics. When Einstein came along, he showed that Newton was incomplete — not wrong, but incomplete, describing just a subset of reality. Einstein showed that a deeper understanding was required to account for this reality. At that point, physicists – I think not even consciously, just sort of subconsciously – stopped calling things ‘laws.’”

Calling something a scientific theory is not a way of lessening its creditability; it does not indicate that the science behind it is not proven or substantiated. A scientific theory is “a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.” This is how a theory is defined according to the National Academy of Sciences. This is how a scientist uses the term theory. Creationist use a more laymen definition of theory in which it defines something that is not proven but is merely thought to be true. When we call it the theory of relativity, we are not attacking the believability of the science. No reasonable person denies that relativity is real science. Scientist use it every day to do things like find out how far a star is from us. Yet it is “just” a theory. Relativity is a valid theory because it has science to back it up. Creationism is not a valid theory because it does not have any science to back it up. It is as much based on faith as any other aspect of religion. And therefore belongs in a church classroom dedicated to teaching the religion and not a public one dedicated to teaching science.

Some people like to predict the end of religion.  I’m certainly one who believes knows that knowledge is the worst enemy of most religions.  But even though we, as a society, will slowly allow religion to loosen its grip on us as we gain more and more knowledge about how the universe works, that doesn’t mean that everyone will be forced to give up there faith in something unknown.  Knowledge will only “kill” the religions that continue to try to control society.  The religions who try to work their way into politics (ahem, Christianity, cough-cough) will die as our knowledge of the world around us makes them less and less useful.  All religions are essentially unnecessary, but so are underclothes and jewelry.  Just because they are unnecessary doesn’t make them undesirable to some or even most people.  I’m wearing a tie right now, this tie is most definitely not necessary.  It performs no function other than to make me look more businesslike, which, itself, is not necessary for me to efficiently perform my daily duties.  Some religions will persist no matter how much knowledge we obtain, but these religions will be the ones that focus on the things that they do best for the people that require them, without trying to grow themselves and work their way in to policies outside of their churches.

I mentioned in an earlier post of how I used to have long arguments with a guy I worked with regarding religion.  I was Christian and he was atheist.  This is very important to me today and relates exceptionally well to what I just said.  He is the most intelligent person I know today.  And he is no longer an atheist, but it is, I believe, important to point out that he is also not a Christian.  He is Wiccan.  He now has faith in something that is not scientific; he has faith in something that is not, strictly, logical.  But I don’t consider him a crack-pot either.  He is still the most intelligent person I know.  But for what ever reason, he has chosen to believe in something other than what he can prove with science.  This makes him feel good and I don’t believe it is just him fooling himself with nonsense beliefs.  Even though he can’t show proof for the things he believes it doesn’t matter, because he isn’t trying to make policy based on his beliefs.  He is only using them to improve his own mental well-being and that of his family.  It is no crazier for him to perform Wiccan rituals than it is crazy for someone to meditate to calm themselves.  It could even be proven scientifically that his religion does physically make him healthier just as it can be proven that some Christians are healthier.  The point is that it is their beliefs in their religion and not their religion that makes them feel better.  It is a scientific fact that our well being can be influenced by our mental health and for some people; their religious beliefs are an important, if not integral, part of their mental health.  So I feel sure that religion will never disappear completely.  Only the ones that believe that they are the source of morality for everyone and that they must enforce their version of morality on other people will disappear.  Christians would scoff at the very idea of teaching these rituals in a public school, but they have no problem suggesting that their own religious beliefs should be taught there.  This is why amenable religions like Wicca who are not out trying to make other people behave according to their beliefs will outlive the ones like Christianity.

I thought this was an interesting article I ran across on CNN.

what_the_hell_happened_to_christianity.pdf

I love it when I talk to someone about religion and I hear myself, albeit my much younger and less wise self, in their words and thoughts.  I can recall being 18 or 19 years old and having an argument with someone I worked with.  Every time he made a point, a perfectly valid and inarguable point, I always fell back on the old standard “you’ve just got to have faith”.  It is amazing how silly I still feel when I think about myself saying that, because an argument about God is the one and only argument where anyone would accept that as a valid response.  There is nothing else, not religious related, that I could make a sane person believe just based on faith.  And by “just” I mean without any other evidence other than faith.  Sure I could probably convince a person who knows me that I have a $100 bill in my pocket even if I don’t.  But their faith has some basis in fact.  They know me; they know that $100 isn’t such a large amount of money that it is improbable that I could have it in my pocket.  So they will have faith, that I, as a typically truthful person who is capable of possessing a $100 bill, am being truthful this time also. They have faith but their faith isn’t blind, it has a basis in fact.  This is such an important distinction.  The reason why it is such an important distinction is because of how often a person arguing in favor of religion will try to use it against me. Why do theists believe that faith is somehow “theirs”? Faith, in general, is not mutually exclusive with atheism. I have faith that my mother loves me. But there is also evidence for this love. I don’t have this faith just because I believe I should or because I believe she will write me out of her will if I don’t. It drives me crazy when a theist attempts to discredit a theory, like that of evolution, by saying that I have faith in it.

This is my first blog.  I insisted that I was not interested in a blog of my own but to spare my friends from having to listen to my rants unwilling, I’ve decided this is the best place to express them.  That way if they are willing to hear them they can come here and if not, oh well

My first rant is actually going to be about a post I ran across on a news group called Atheism-vs-Christianity.  Why such a group even exist, I don’t know.  The title of this post is “THE HIGH UNINTELLIGENCE OF ATHEISM”.  Following is the post along with my comments.

GOOD MORNING CLASS: At this moment, I would like to have you to visit alt.atheism. As you know, each time I have had you visit this news group, it was for the purpose of conducting an experiment to prove a point about atheism. In every case, the truth and point I wanted to make were proved overwhelmingly by the responses everyone of the atheists gave.

Oh please, do, educate me.

One experiment was designed to prove that atheism is not about proof but is about rejecting certain fundamental truths. I asked the atheists who believe in abortion to *prove* that human embryos and fetuses aren’t human. Over the course of a weeks time, you observed some of the most ridiculous and insane responses. Not even the most so-called “educated” respondents provided the least proof.

Rejecting “fundamental truths”, this should be interesting…
To begin with, this is what is known in the argument world as a “red herring”.  Whether a human embryo and/or fetuses are or are not human has absolutely nothing to do with atheism.  So to use it in an argument for or against atheism makes no sense.  It is simply designed to cause a heated discussion to draw attention away from the actual topic which is, of course, atheism.  But on top of that, it is also illogical to ask one to prove a negative, more on that after this next jewel.

Another experiment was designed to prove that the most educated atheists aren’t really intelligent. In order to prove that truth, I asked only the most educated atheists to respond to my post. All I simply asked the atheists to do was to prove that there is nothing that is eternal. However, the responses you observed were the most unintellectual you have ever read. They ranged from cursing, name calling, cynicism, mockery, the posting of pictures to ridicule and etc. There was not one intelligent response from any of the respondents.

So now we are going to “prove” that “most” atheist are not intelligent.  He proceeds to impress us with his amazing ignorance of what it means to prove anything.  The fundamental (ha, I love that word) error that this person makes in his reasoning here is that he expects anyone to prove a negative.  A basic principle that we as intelligent beings hold is that we do not believe every thing we hear.  If I claim to have 1 million dollars and tell a bank that I need to borrow another 100 thousand to build a business, they will expect me to prove that I have that million dollars.  If my response to them is “prove that I don’t have a million dollars,” they will surely laugh at me.  We are not expected to prove anything is “not” in any situation except with regards to religion.  I wonder why that is?  No, wait, I remember… Because there is no proof that it is true!  I get so tired of saying “the burden of proof is on the person making the claim” that I get sick every time I think it.  You can’t say something is true and expect me to prove that it isn’t.  That is simply not intelligent.

Now if you will, look at alt. atheism at this moment. Note the many unintelligent subjects in the headers of each post. Try also reading the content of the various posts. All of them manifest the deepest of unintelligence. Most are pure senselessness and vanity. All basically manifest a hatred for God and true Christianity and etc. If God’s existence is no more than the tooth fairy’s or santa clause’s, why do atheists put so much time, effort and money into trying to disprove God’s existence? None of them are doing the same for the tooth fairy.

I don’t know where this comes from.  I do see a lot of senseless post on the alt.atheism newsgroup but they are mostly created by the theist saying things to antagonize and insult the regulars of the group.  As far as the “hatred for god”, etc. this is another classic fallacy and show of ignorance.  And, if not said out of pure ignorance, it is said, once again, to antagonize the atheist it is directed at.  This kind of statement is an insult to an atheist because it presumptuously says that the atheist is lying to himself, that he actually believes in God and just won’t admit to it because he has some kind of vendetta against him/her/it.  Give me a break, just because this persons fragile mind can’t handle a logical if not obvious truth, don’t pretend that I am the one fooling myself.  And by the way, I use the same logic as proof that belief in the other imaginary figures (Tooth Fairy, Santa, Easter Bunny, etc.) is not logical as I would use against God.

The web sites that atheists have placed on the internet also manifest the unintelligence of atheism. Note all the unintelligent names of the sites. Note also the unintelligent content of those sites.

He exhibits a fallacy in every paragraph so far.  This is simply an attack, there is no proof to back up his claims, it is just a baseless attack on something this poster does not understand…  “unintelligent names of the sites”, is that the best you’ve got?

When anyone note the content of atheistic news groups, atheistic web sites and all other atheistic material on the web and in the world, no person in his/her right mind can conclude that atheists are truly intelligent people. The only way anyone can conclude that atheists are intelligent people is to use the twisted and unintelligent logic of atheism.

There is no such thing as “unintelligent logic”.  Logic is one of those fundamental truths that this author says atheist reject.  An argument is either logical or it is not logical.  Intelligence allows us to know the difference.  Logic has rules, if you follow those rules, you will be able to determine if an argument is sound or not.  Religious fanatics do not use twisted or unintelligent logic to prove their positions and beliefs.  They just don’t use logic at all, or apply it subjectively to suit their needs.  I don’t claim that this author is unintelligent (although the evidence in his post would suggest that he is), he is, however, ignorant.  He does not have a good understanding of logic and how to apply it to an argument.  He also, has an agenda, he “knows” that he is correct but since his beliefs are based on faith rather than facts, he can’t prove his beliefs with logic.  So any attempt to do so will result in… well the kind of rubbish you see above.  Fallacies and nonsense.