My position goes a little something like this…

The universe follows a set of physical laws. Four of them actually: strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity. Theoretical physicists think that just before the big bang all of these forces were combined into one super force. Einstein spent many years trying to figure out how to combine all of these forces to come up with his theory of everything.

Getting side tracked, but the bottom line is that all physical matter in our universe follows these physical laws. These physical laws are deterministic. That’s why they’re laws. These laws are “descriptive” not “prescriptive”. I choose (I’ll get to my use of the word choose later) to obey the law of man regarding murder, that’s a prescriptive law. Gravity describes how objects react to one another, they’re descriptive laws, they’re explaining what happens.

Now… when we say “I choose to do x”, what do we mean by “I”? Is it my foot?, no. How about my elbow? no. I think most of us would agree that our brains do the “choosing”. So what happens physically when I “choose” to do something? Well, there’s a bio-chemical reaction in the brain that takes place that sends an electrical signal to my muscle that causes it to move. Those bio-chemical reactions are a part of the physical universe and thus subject to the same descriptive, deterministic laws. Hence, humans are physical matter and also deterministic.

Imagine a being that at any given point in time can take a snapshot of the universe. It knows every particle in existence and how they will react to one another. Using the physical laws of the universe, such a being could predict the next moment in time to a certainty. This type of being is commonly referred to as a “Laplacian Being” named after Pierre-Simon Laplace who hypothesized this type of being he said:

“An intelligence which at a given instant knew all the forces acting in nature and the position of every object in the universe – if endowed with a brain sufficiently vast to make all necessary calculations – could describe with a single formula the motions of the largest astronomical bodies and those of the smallest atoms. To such an intelligence, nothing would be uncertain; the future, like the past, would be an open book.” – Pierre-Simon Laplace (quoted in The Fascination of Physics by Jacqueline D. Spears and Dean Zollman (1986))

Take for example a coin flip. A coin flip can either go heads or tails, we flip a coin because we perceive this as “chance” it could go either way… 50/50. However, this is only considered “chance” to us because we do not posses all the knowledge of our Laplacian being. If we were able to determine the amount of force exerted on the coin, the wind resistance, how many times it flipped, etc, etc all the way down to the atomic level, we would be able to predict with certainty if that coin was going to fall heads or tails every time. In other words, it’s subject to the laws of physics and hence deterministic even though we perceive it as “it could have gone either way…” Which actually… it couldn’t.

Having made this conclusion one might make the statement:

“If we live in a deterministic universe, the future is inevitable, and thus we have no free will”.

I think this is wrong though. What do you mean by “inevitable?” Well, “evitable” means “avoidable”. So the future is unavoidable? What future? The future is going to happen whether we live in a deterministic universe or not. “Avoid ability” is something done by an entity that has the ability to try and predict what that future may be if they don’t act regardless of what future will or won’t be.

One of the great things about humans is that we’ve developed a very good “avoid ability” simulator in our brains. We have the ability to run a simulation in our head to try and determine what the outcome of an event will be if we do or don’t act. We don’t need to whip up a batch of liver and onion ice cream and taste it to know that it won’t taste good to most humans. We can run the simulation in our brains and come to this conclusion. Humans in other words have the ability to look forward into possible futures and react.

If I were to throw a brick at your head… the light would bounce off the brick, hit your eye, the eye would send eletrical signals to your brain your brain would run it’s simulation quickly.. “if I duck X is likely to happen, if I don’t duck X is likely to happen”, and then most would say you “choose” to either duck or not duck. I’m suggesting that no “choice” is made. When we say “you” decide, again we’re talking about your brain. Your brain doesn’t “choose” to do anything… it just does. It does what it’s going to do based on the physical laws of the universe. There is a reason that it did what it did. Again… if we could be that Laplacian being for that moment, we could quantify all the things that caused that brain to do what it did. Perhaps it just wanted to avoid the brick because it knew it would cause damage, perhaps that brain was looking for a court settlement… bottom line is… There’s a reason, a deterministic reason based on the physical laws of the universe.

So… do we have free will? If you mean, do we have the ability for choice… I suppose, if by choice you mean an entity’s ability to predict a possible future and attempt to avoid it. Do we live in a deterministic universe? Yes. Are these two ideas compatible? I believe so.

What do you think?

(I should cite that I pulled a large portion of this argument from a few lectures by Dan Dennett. I happen to agree with his take on this… mostly. )

———

A friend of mine thought I should elaborate a little bit more on the free will part of this piece. So here goes…

Let’s go back to the coin flip. The coin is just an object, it’s physical, it only moves because other physical objects move it. An object, acting upon other objects. I’m putting forth the argument that our brains are exactly the same. Their part of the physical universe and hence part of those laws which govern everything in the universe and thus, deterministic.

If we were able to give the coin the ability to shift it’s weight from one side or the other so that the coin could attempt to alter whether or not it came up heads or tails, would it then have free will? Many would say yes, because it can “choose” to attempt to come up heads each time. But what part of the coin would be choosing? It would have to have some apparatus that actually does the choosing. That apparatus would be physical and part of the deterministic universe.

The coin has the ability for choice but the part that does the choosing is physical and hence deterministic.

Think of the brain as a processor… a processor in a computer is not “smart”. It just computes ones and zeros. It’s all the programing that gets processed that makes the computer “smart”. Lots of things contribute to the programming of humans. Genetics, environment, etc. Bottom line is… a brain is going to do what a brain is going to do. The only way to influence that is to influence it physically (because it’s a physical object in our deterministic universe). But you can get the brain to act upon itself.

Take for example, eyesight. When you see something, it’s not the eye that’s seeing it. The eye automatically sends electrical signals to your brain. Your eyes are automatically physically affecting your brain. Same for all your other 4 senses. These senses are constantly firing off electrical signals to your brain to be interpreted. Pulling our laplacian being back in we can deduce that such a being would be aware of all of those electrical signals and how it would affect how that brain responds. The question though is… did that brain make what we perceive as a “choice” during that physical process?

We’re saying the words, “I chose”, but in reality “I did” is more appropriate. So again… if you’re referring to the human’s ability to make what we would perceive as a choice as “free will” then yes, we have free will (the only kind of free will that really matters if you ask me). but if you’re describing free will as some sort of non-physical, non-deterministic “thing” that is only bestowed upon humans… I would disagree.

The common misconception is that there are three belief systems:

Atheist = There is no God.
Theist = There is a God.
Agnostic = I don’t know.

At the face of it, I can understand how people can see this as the three options to the question “Is there a God?” The problem occurs when they think the question “Is there a God?” is the same as “Do you believe in God”. Those are two totally separate questions to which one could provide two totally different answers.

One could easily say, “I don’t know if there is a God, but I believe in one.” or “I don’t know if there is a God, but I don’t believe there is one”. These are two totally different answers to two totally different questions. So the question becomes, what would you call someone who says, “I don’t know if there is a God, but I don’t believe there is one.”?

Atheist? Well, not exactly because they didn’t say “there is no God” in fact, they said they DON’T know.

Agnostic? Well, they did say they don’t know, which according to the definitions above does make them an agnostic. But they also said they don’t believe. What if they said they did? Would that still make them an agnostic?

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re having trouble determining what these people are because we have two different systems (knowledge and belief) with four possible positions, and only three definitions to choose from. Hence why we’re coming up short.

The solution: You combine these terms. Here’s how it breaks down.

Gnosticism refers to “knowledge”
Theism refers to “belief”
A(gnosticism) means without knowledge
A(theist) means without belief.

so…

Agnostic Atheist = “I don’t know if there is a God, but I don’t believe there is one”
Gnostic Atheist = “I know there is no God, and I don’t believe in him/her/it.”

Agnostic Theist = “I don’t know if there is a God, But I believe there is one”
Gnostic Theist = “I know there is a God, and I believe in him/her/it.”

Before some of you jump to the dictionary to try and contradict the above, allow me to beat you to the punch

From Dictionary.com

Agnostic:

1.     a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

2.     a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

—–

***Note that the above says nothing about belief

Atheist:

a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

—–

Hey… look at that “denies or disbelieves”. “Denies” = “gnostic atheist”, “disbelieves” = “agnostic atheist.” It would appear as though the dictionary has confirmed what I stated above.

Now that we’ve established the meanings of the words and how to use them, let’s talk about why we should use them.

When I presented this to a friend (you know who you are) he said, “Two guys are having a beer and someone comes up to them and asks if there is a god. One says “no” the other says “I don’t believe so.” Practically, they are the same answer.”

Well… yes and no. They are “practically” the same answer. But if they were the same you wouldn’t need to put the qualifier of “practically” on there. You’d just say they are the same answer. Regardless, the problem isn’t with the answers, it’s with the answers to the question asked. His scenario said someone asked the question “is there a God”. They’re asking for knowledge. The first guy answered the question that was asked (by saying, “no”). The other answered a different question. He answered, do you “believe” there is a god. That wasn’t the question that was asked.

Now I can just hear some of you looking at the screen and saying, “So what?! It all boils down to the same thing. Either way, you’re not PRO God.”

Here’s why it’s important to know the difference in the terms. I’m going to use our legal system for an analogy.

When someone is accused of a crime they’re presumed innocent until proven guilty. The reason our society has a presumption of innocence is to ensure that as few people are wrongly convicted of a crime. You have to PROVE they did it. It’s not up to the accused to PROVE they didn’t.

Suppose I make the claim, “Joe killed Bob.” In our court of law I would have to PROVE that happened. So suppose I can’t prove he did, but Joe can’t prove he didn’t… what’s the verdict?

Not Guilty.

Is saying that he’s not guilty the same as saying he’s innocent? No. It’s just saying that the evidence for his guilt is not convincing enough. This is much like the theistic debate. If I make the claim, “There is a God”. I’ve made a positive assertion of knowledge. It’s up to ME to prove that there is. If someone is not convinced by my arguments, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically making the counter claim that there is no God (they’re not automatically assuming that he’s innocent). They’re just saying, they’re not convinced by the evidence I’ve provided for my claim. In other words, not guilty.

Someone might say… “It’s the same thing! He gets off either way.” Well, perhaps… but it’s important that we know the difference. It’s important because of this.

Anyone who makes a positive assertion of knowledge must back that claim up.

In our society Christians immediately assume that all atheists are making the positive assertion of knowledge that “there is no God”. This is NOT the case. Many atheists (such as myself) are agnostic atheists. In fact, unless an atheist specifically makes the claim “there is no god” you should assume that they are an agnostic atheist. Otherwise you run the risk of accusing them of making a claim that they have not made.

Same for theists. Just because someone says that they believe in God, Doesn’t automatically make them a gnostic theist who KNOWS there is a God and x,y,z.

We need to start listening to what people are saying and using the proper terms to avoid misunderstanding and misconceptions of people and ideas. If you take the time to ask the questions before you immediately label you may find that you have more in common with that person than you think.

This lady had cancer, she had chemo therapy. Some time passes, and the tumors are gone. ONE doctor says he can’t explain it, but SHE can. Yes, she prayed. She didn’t even pray to God, she prayed to a freaking saint! OWNED GOD!!! (side note, if saints can grant prayers are they doing so within God’s divine plan? If they have to check with God, why not just pray to God? Could God be too busy? Why the middle man?).

I’m always amazed by their logic. “I can’t explain something, therefore I can explain it”. Seriously?!?!?!

How do you know it was praying to a saint that healed you? How do you know it wasn’t because every Thursday you took two craps instead of one and you wiped with two ply? Someone please tell me how religion gained the status of “default answer”. If nothing else can be proven to have caused something, it then immediately defaults to a religious reason? I know atheists are perceived as “cocky”, but if I can look at this and see that this is flawed and you can’t… you ARE an idiot! I AM smarter than you. I’m sorry, I know it’s harsh but seriously, can you honestly say that this makes sense?

You know, for the life of me I can’t understand why it is that when I throw my underwear on the ground it always lands crotch up. “Oh well, must be God.”

I don’t know why it is that every time I want to pull one article of clothing out of the dryer it’s always at the bottom of the load. “Oh well, must be God.”

Backwards, retard logic like this is what holds back scientific advancement. Instead of being thoroughly examined by doctors to find out what REALLY caused her to go into remission, she’s instead going to be interviewed by the Vatican. DUBYA TEE EFF PEOPLE!!!! This woman could hold the freaking key to curing cancer and because we’d rather throw this in the “God did it” column, we’re missing out on a great medical opportunity. I can only imagine that throughout history there have been millions of scientific advances held back because of someone’s belief in a deity.

WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! Your ignorance and gullibility is causing lives!

Video after the break.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPTKnN4-RMo

At the face of it, it doesn’t sound all that crazy, but let’s look at the situation with God. How do you know that God is the moral one? How do you know that he is “good” and the devil is “evil”?

Think about it like this, are things good because God says they’re good? If this is the case, what method does God use to determine what is “good” and what is “evil”?

Let’s do a thought experiment. Suppose for a second that at the beginning of everything (assuming first for the sake of argument that God started everything) God took five acts. Let’s say: helping the poor, murder, theft, beating children, and feeding the hungry.

How did God know which ones are the good acts and which are the bad? Ask yourself this, if God had instead decided that “theft” was good, would stealing then be good? If that’s the case aren’t all of God’s morals subjective? If they are, how can we call God “good”, if anything he says is “good” is “good” then the terms of “good” and “evil” have no bearing on God.

If instead stealing is inherently bad, why the need for God? Couldn’t we just skip to what is inherently good?

So many people say, “you have to take the bible in context, during the time it was written”. In the bible it’s okay to stone your children, sell your daughter into slavery, and to kill people who worship different Gods. Does this mean that at one point in time they were moral acts but aren’t now?

How do we know? When did the switch over occur? Did we get a memo from God saying that something was okay then but not now? How does anything get more subjective than that?

If we should use the bible as our standard of morality, who are we going to use to interpret it? Should we take it literally and kill anyone who works on the sabbath? Who will determine what are outdated morals and what should be taken literally or metaphorically? James Dobson? Al Sharpton?

Many apologists will make the scarecrow argument that atheists “base their morals on nothing.” This is of course wrong. Here’s a quote from the awesome iron chariots wiki.

Although there is no such thing as unanimous agreement on complex philosophical issues, if we approach the question from a humanistic, scientific stand point, atheists ought to agree that there should be rational standards for arriving at moral conclusions. Like science and mathematics, useful systems of morality derive from some basic axioms, or recognize assumptions.

A few possible axioms in morality are:

1. Every person has their own feelings and desires, and they are more or less similar since they are based on the same brain chemistry.
2. When I look inward to my own desires, I fundamentally desire to pursue happiness and avoid pain and suffering.
3. Other people have these same basic desires, and these desires are valuable to them.
4. With all else being equal, it is better for people to be happy than not be happy.
5. Conflicts arise mainly because people’s desire to be happy and avoid suffering conflict with each other. The goal of secular morality is to resolve those conflicts in the best possible way for all concerned.

A few natural consequences of these axioms:

1. All else being equal, it is wrong to needlessly inflict suffering on people.
2. Except for the case of self-preservation, with all else being equal, it is best to avoid killing other people (on the assumption that they don’t want to be killed).

Actions such as slavery and rape are wrong because they excessively limit people’s happiness and freedom of action.

Bottom line, we are capable of being moral without any deity. In fact, people are moral in spite of most deities, not because of them.

Honestly… was anyone not expecting this to happen? Living in the south I can’t tell you how many depictions of religion I find all over the freaking place. I can’t walk down the street without being hit over the head with religious crap of one form or another, and some of it is extremely offensive. Bumper stickers that say stuff like, “Turn or burn” or something of the like.

It’s truly sad that people are so afraid of an opposing idea that they would seek to silence the individual. If what they’re spreading is so bad, debate them. Come up with your own ad campaign to counter theirs and point out to people why it’s bad.

You have not convinced me because you have silenced me!

On a side note, this is what we have to look forward to with the UN’s non-binding resoution regarding blasphemy.

I can think of so many other things in this world that could use our attention besides having to police what people believe.

It’s pathetic.

It’s not a very fast paced or hard hitting documentary, but it would serve a lot of religious families good to watch this.

My wife asked me this evening if I was a gay rights supporter and I said, “of course”. I do however remember when I was in high school making fun of this one guy for being gay. I called him names, snickered behind his back, and told gay jokes about him. I feel horrible about that. If I could go back and educate my younger self, I would.

To this day though, I catch myself saying thinks like, “oh man… that’s so gay”. Essentially I’ve made the terms “gay” and “lame” interchangeable. Does that make me wrong… maybe. I’m sure some would say so, but I have gay friends who say things like, “that’s so gay!” Is this like the term “nigga” with black people? They can say it, but I can’t?

Considering I’m a white male, probably most of what I say or do could be construed as racist or homophobic, though I am neither. Is this not another stereotype though? “All white people are closet racists or homophobes.”

I think if we’re going to evolve as a species and survive, we’re going to have to get out of this in-group / out-group mentality. We’re going to have to stop thinking in terms of “us” and “them”.

Religion, by definition, is exclusive. I think this is why religion can be so damaging. Not only does it draw the lines for “us” and “them” it tells “us” how we should treat “them” and then not to question it. I think this is one of the main reasons why religion can be so easily subverted to accomplish evil things.

Now I know someone is going to come out and say, “Hey, what about atheism, Stalin, Mao, etc”.  Same tired ass argument that they’ve been making every time a secular person points to one of the many cases where religion tells people it’s okay to do a wicked act. Here’s the bottom line though…

Suppose there are two groups. One that questions everything, demands evidence, is not convinced by arguments from authority, and seeks only to increase the happiness of ALL humans (not just those who believe what we believe).

And then there’s the other group who: takes things on faith, is persuaded by arguments from authority, and has a clear concept of “us” and “them”…

In my opinion, the second group is far more easily subverted than the first.

Here’s how we know…

Walk into any church with some B.S. story, it could be anything… any claim you want. Then tell me what percentage you think you can fool.

Then walk into a science lab and make that same claim to a bunch of scientists. Then tell me what percentage you think you can fool in that room.

We need only this thought experiment to see that the religiously motivated are more easily duped than skeptical people who require evidence for a claim.

Once you dupe them, you can use that false premise to justify just about anything you want.

The one thing I didn’t like about this documentary is that people kept saying, “Then I learned that you can’t take the bible literally, you have to take it in context during the time it was written.”

How about you just take it as it is, a bunch of nonsense our society could do without.

I know its easy to look at this and say, “See, all those religious nuts are just CRAZY, religion is evil!.” I’ll admit, a part of me screams that each time I see one of these videos. However, I have to think back to the “religious nuts” who were there for my grandmother when my grandfather passed. They always had someone there, they offered 24/7 support, to this day they make sure she’s not alone on the holidays, and she goes to grief counseling meetings each week that the church offers for free. This isn’t the work of crazies, this is the work of good people trying to do good by their neighbor.

What if my grandmother had been an atheist though? Could she lean on the support of the church? If she had doubt in God, would they be there to help her? I can’t know for sure, but part of me thinks they may have been less likely to provide that same level of care. Should they have to? Of course not, that’s not my point. The point I’m trying to make is that however you slice it, churches are an “in group”. As such their subject to all the same issues usually attributed to the in group / out group paradigm.

Now, does that make them bad or wrong… I can’t really say. Take for example the church in the video, these people ACTUALLY think they’re doing good for the boy. They think they’re saving his soul. This is where I think the danger exists with church and in fact believing anything without evidence.

The skeptic mind would have said, “wait a minute, before we put someone through this nonsense and possibly cause long term psychological damage, what evidence is there that suggests this will benefit in the least?” The faithful, are instead told that the less they question, the more faith they have and the more likely it will work.

Steven Weinberg said,

“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

I think Weinberg is correct, but it’s a little too focused. It’s not just religion, it’s anyone who would do any potentially harmful act to another person without asking for evidence that this works. Would you send your child who had cancer to a doctor who told you, “We have a procedure, we’re not sure if it’s ever worked before, but some people have claimed it to. It could permanently damage her physically and psychologically though.” Would you say, “Okay Doc… Do what you do!” Of course not, you’d want more info.

I think what makes religion especially bad in these kinds of situations is that they believe in an after life. This is all just a test. As such, many can justify violence in this life and claim it to be for the better good, it’s for the “eternal life”.

Are all religious individuals insane like this, no. But without the religious moderates these fundamentalists would just be extreme crazies. This is like calling some people who see pink unicorns who want to kill people crazy, but others who see pink unicorns and don’t want to kill people, perfectly normal.

It’s… well… insane.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9v2uk99o2E

Steps of the scientific method:

1. Ask a question

2. Do background research

3. Construct a hypothesis

4. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment

5. Analyze your data and draw a conclusion

6. Communicate your results

Creation science is called “creation” science for a reason. Because if it used the method above, it would just be called, “science”. If it was real science there would be no need to qualify it. Much in the same way that “alternative” medicine is called “medicine” once it’s been proved to work. ID doesn’t “ask a question” they start with “an answer”, they haven’t done their background research, they don’t have a valid hypothesis, They haven’t tested that hypothesis, They’ve analyzed nothing but attempt to use no data to support their preconceived conclusion, and finally they attempt to skip peer review and jump straight to the science classroom using “fairness” as their shield.

The discovery institute however would have you believe that, “No… this isn’t about teaching creationism, it’s about teaching intelligent design”. Well, that was their argument up until the Dover trial, when they brought in an ID approved textbook called, “Of Pandas and People” where it was shown that in earlier drafts it said “creationism” in every instance where it now said, “intelligent design”. ID is nothing more than a more than creationism dressed up as science.

Now that everyone sees that, they’re pushing for “teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolution”. Here’s their gameplan. They think that there can only be two answers. Evolution, or God did it. If they can punch holes in evolution, then they’re assuming people will default to God did it. This is nothing more than the God of the gaps argument all dressed up in “fairness” language.

Even if evolution was proved to be wrong (which it’s not) that would not lend one ounce of credibility to the intelligent design movement.

These people have an agenda, make no mistake about it. They will lie, cheat, coerce, and manipulate anyone and anything they can get their hands on to get their way. They have no interest in real scientific advancement.

If you buy into their crap, you’re a fool.

Videos after the break.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nL0T_ySG-U

About a week ago I got into a theological debate with a Catholic on Twitter (@chisaikame). As is the case with most theological discussions the affirmative side started making claims based off of false premises. I decided it was too much to combat in 140 characters or less so I gave out my email address.

So here’s a breakdown of what happened. I’ll skip to the meat of the discussion.

I guess I’ll start by asking the first question.

Suppose I grant you the assumption that “something” caused the universe, that it was an intelligent agent that purposefully created the universe in which we live. How do you get from that “entity” to the God depicted in Catholicism?

Thanks,

- Rick

To which he responded with…

okay, i haven’t read much* on this topic so i may be off on some areas; very layman attempt on apologetics and lacking in adequate research.

ok, so if God is outside time and space and not a physical being and He is the logos or ‘first thought’ (my wording may not be spot on)… also, another undeniable thing about creation… is that from the tiniest cell, to the farthest galaxy… there is ‘intelligence’. and not just simple intelligence, but really complex, mind-numbing advancement… and not only that, human beings can read this imprint of intelligence, although not perfectly understand it… Creation seems to me, has sense and a meaning.

In his defense he did say that english wasn’t his first language. I’ll spare you the usual parts where I asked for proof of his claims and jump straight to where he called in reinforcements. A new gentleman by the handle (@htoddcarter) jumped in with the following:

I hope you don’t mind me jumping in here. But, I think I can answer
Rick’s question.

My answer centers around the fundamental difference between philosophy
and theology. In philosophy one starts with first principles and
reasons ones way to why the world works the way it does. In Christian
theology, God has revealed himself in a way that can never be known in
philosophy. So, there’s really no way to reason ones way to a
Christian Triune God. However, we can point out certain facts about
God that can be found via reason (just see St. Thomas Aquinas‘ five
ways for that) and we can definitely say that faith and reason never
contradict. But, faith is still a supernatural gift that can’t be
earned.

I hope that answers your question and feel free to share it on your blog.

God Bless!
--Todd Carter

So right off the start he admitted that there’s no logical way for him to get from deism to catholicism. So far he’s winning points in my book, much more honest than most Catholics I have encountered. Below is my response (brace yourself for a wall of text).

Sorry for the delay, been real busy.

I’ll tackle this point for point…

“So, there’s really no way to reason ones way to a
Christian Triune God.”

We’re in agreement there

“However, we can point out certain facts about
God that can be found via reason (just see St. Thomas Aquinas’ five
ways for that)”

Not in agreement there…

Here I’ll refute each of Mr. Thomas Aquinas’ five “proofs”.

1. The Unmoved Mover: “Nothing moves without a prior mover. This leads us to a regress, from which the only escape is God. Something had to make the first move, and that something we call God.”

Refutation:

If nothing moves without a prior mover than God must have a mover. Otherwise, not all things require a mover. If God doesn’t require a mover, then maybe the universe doesn’t.

Also, suppose I were to give into your argument, perhaps it wasn’t a “who” but a “what” that caused the universe. Maybe it was a random quantum fluctuation. If it was it would fit Aquinas’ definition, but it wouldn’t be anything like the “god” you speak of.

Pairs of virtual particles are created (and annihilated) all of the time, out of literally nothing. These particles affect each other’s motion, thus disproving Aquinas’s premise.

2. The Uncaused Cause: “Nothing is caused by itself. Every effect has a prior cause. This leads to a regress. This has to be terminated by a first cause, which we call God.”

Refutation:

This is pretty much proof one repackaged, substitute “cause” for “mover”. What caused God? If God doesn’t need a cause, then why does the universe?

Why call it God? Same as before, even if we were to concede your point, you’re no closing to proving that it was “God” than any other natural event.

3. Necessary Being (cosmological argument): Breaks down like this:

1. Everything that exists must have a cause.
2. If you follow the chain of events backwards through time, it cannot go back infinitely, so eventually you arrive at the first cause.
3. This cause must, itself, be uncaused.
4. But nothing can exist without a cause, except for God.
5. Therefore, God exists.”

Refutation:

Mr. Aquinas must have really needed to hit that “5″ proofs mark, The first three are essentially the exact same argument. All you do by positing a God is push the problem back one step. If everything needs a creator, who created God? Another God? who made that God?

The third one can also be coupled with the first law of thermodynamics says that the amount of mass and energy in the universe will remain constant. Since this law only talks about mass and energy, space-time itself can, as far as we know, pop into existence whenever it wants. Some scientists, especially those who favor M-theory, say that, in a multi-universe model, when two universes collide it could create a matter and energy in a big bang, which would be the cause of mass and energy. Therefore, it is entirely possible for the universe to arise from material sources.

4. Greatest Being (Argument from degree): “Some things are greater than others. Whatever is great to any degree gets its greatness from that which is the greatest. So there is a greatest being, which is the source of all greatness. This is God.”

Refutation:

“The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.”

— Thomas Aquinas

By saying, “as fire, which is the maximum heat”, Aquinas scuttles his own argument: fusion reactions, which power stars (including the sun) are much hotter than fire. Aquinas, of course, did not know this, and therefore could not have based his idea of heat on the “maximum heat”. Yet we do not doubt that he understood what “heat” means.

Likewise, we can know what “goodness” and “perfection” (in Aquinas’s sense) mean by comparing people and actions to each other, and not to some superlative standard of goodness and perfection.

The fact that we can imagine a perfectly good being in no way implies that that being actually exists.

5. Intelligent Design (teleological argument): “Many things in the world that lack intelligence act for an end. Whatever acts for an end must be directed by an intelligent being. So the world must have an intelligent designer. This is God.”

Or what I like to call it “creationism in disguise”

Refutation:

This claims that we are designed to suite our surroundings. This is like a puddle saying, “man… it’s so wonderful that this pot hole should fit me so perfectly!, it must have been designed that way.” In fact, it is quite the opposite. We have adapted to our environment.

For everything that a creationist claims to have been “designed” there is always a simpler version from which it adapted. This brings us down to “irreducible complexity”, which has been dis-proven time and again. (see Dover Pennsylvania trial) To claim something is irreducibly complex is the same as the “god of the gaps” argument. “I can’t think of how this could be used for anything else, therefore it must be irreducibly complex, aka. God did it”.

There’s two problems with this:

1. A real scientist will always come along to think of what you didn’t and do the science you were unwilling to do.

and…

2. It still gets you no closer to proving that even if your argument was true (which is not for the reasons I pointed out) you’re still no closer to proving it was your God.

You still have all your work ahead of you. Even if we were to grant these arguments we could claim that it was the most perfect invisible pink unicorn that was the first cause / mover of the universe and it would fit with the “proofs” Aquinas provides.

…………..

Look, I’m not trying to be an ass here. I live my life wanting to have as many true beliefs as possible and as few false beliefs as possible. I can’t “know” everything, nobody can. But I know that my beliefs inform my actions, therefore I want to get rid of these false beliefs.

I know you’ll claim to get strength from your religion and that you love your church, but when you get right down to it, it wasn’t God that saved you. It was you! It was your own desire, your own drive that lead you to the successes that you have. It’s not “the church” that you love, it’s the people in it. It’s the sense of community and friendship. These are things you can have without all the silly superstitions. Those silly superstitions just get in the way by dividing us up into different groups, telling us that we’re worthless due to original sin.

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that you are worthless. I believe that you… your life… is intrinsically valuable and that you and I won’t get a second chance. We need to make the most of this life.

So, to end all this boring text, here’s a fun video for you to watch.

Sources: Iron Chariots Wiki

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_htqDCP-s

I looked Mr. Barron up on youtube and found a bunch of videos including one discussing Bill Maher’s movie, “Religulous” (Entertaining Movie by the way).

In the video Mr. Barron said:

“He’s obsessed with biblical literalism… The bible is not a book, the bible is a library. So do you take the library literally? Well, it depends on what section you’re in. If you go into the journalism section or you go into the strict history section (as opposed to the sorta history section?) yea, you’d take that pretty straight-forwardly. But if you wander into the poetry section, you wander into the section about religion mythology, you wander into a section about… um… political opinion, it depends on what genre you’re dealing with.  The bible is not ‘a’ book, it’s a collection of books from a wide variety of literary genres. Therefore you have to know which lenses to wear.”

Well… that sounds all fine and dandy Mr. Barron except for one thing. In a library, those sections are clearly marked. Suppose the library was like your bible and you told a child to go in and teach themselves. You’d have people planning trips to visit historical parts of the shire, being sure to avoid Dragons and Goblins, all the while searching for Morpheus so that they can be unplugged from the matrix.

Mr. Barron would have us believe that all that violence in the bible, all those horrible morals, “oh… that’s all just story telling, but all the good bits, that’s Jesus. The bible isn’t bad, you’re just not reading it with the right rose colored glasses with the blinders strapped to them.”

How do you know which parts are story and which parts are literal? Will you do us (and the rest of the human race) a favor by reading every religious book out there and telling us which parts are to be taken literally and which parts are to be taken metaphorically? If you could do such a thing, by what means would you determine what was moral or immoral? Couldn’t we just cut out the middle man and go straight to what is intrinsically moral?

Perhaps if there was a disclaimer on the section that says “gay is an abomination” we wouldn’t have so many issues in America with gay marriage.

Just another note, his argument speaks nothing to prove the existence of god. He’s only saying the bible isn’t as evil as atheists are making it out to be. Wow… kind of a weak argument for god there wouldn’t you say padre?

His argument is like saying we should let kids read playboy, so long as they’re reading it with the right “lenses”. There are books out there from which people can obtain good morals, the bible is hardly one of them.

Do people really want to believe in something that requires so many justifications, so many mental back-flips JUST so it doesn’t come off as pure evil? C’mon people… think about this, please!

Video after the break…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk0el9nH6Q4