nosuch
10-05-2007, 04:42 PM
1. God's demand for faith is epistemologically unfounded
For the sake of humoring the theists, and also for the sake of being thorough, let's say for a second that all these things that don't make sense, all the things stacked against the possibility of a god's existence, and all the "why would God do this?" questions can be written off with as being for the ultimate good, and masterfully orchestrated by a divine creator, and that things will work themselves out in a perfectly fair way in the end. Now let's say that you got down on those hands and knees and humbly begged God to point you in the right direction. Now let's say you've got an intensely warm feeling about the truthfulness of "x" religion. Let's say Mormanism, just for kicks. You go to church to investigate this feeling, you listen to missionaries, you read. You get more good and fuzzy warm feelings. But what does this prove?
Nothing. You get a warm feeling, sure, but how do you know that warm feeling comes from God? How could you ever know anything comes from God? Both the Bible and The Book of Mormon repeatedly demand belief in God, but if I can't tell definitively, for sure, 100%, if anything or any answer actually comes from any god, what is the point in demanding faith at all? To make matters worse, both texts also go so far as to promise spiritual answers to your query. Of course, if Mormonism (or, really, any religion based in similar parameters) were the only religion that offered spiritual enlightenment, this argument would be a bit harder, but the fact of the matter is that billions of people find what appears to be "the answer" in just about every other religion on the planet. Clearly, if the spiritual answer is both un-unique, and unverifiable, it isn't God's plan. At least, not any God worth worship.
Theists always seem to be saying something like "God doesn't need to prove himself to us, because he is magical and spiritual and he loves me." Well, allow me to supply the definition of irony: a spiritual answer that you could know for certain is from God is proof of God. If you don't have a spiritual or emotional answer, you have, by the measures of debate you set out, absolutely no reason to believe in your God. If you do, then you have proof of God, and therefore a scientifically verifiable reason for everyone to believe. When you disregard that last option (you can't ever know anything for certain), the only alternative is that your belief is totally unfounded.
Let's say that again: totally unfounded.
What all this demonstrates is that there is absolutely no good reason to believe in God. Of course, the outlook gets worse when you factor in the fact that you can't just ignore the logical reasons for disbelieving in a supreme deity (particularly the one of Christian persuasion), but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
2. We actually do live in a causal world
... and goddammit, you can't just ignore the rules of logic because they're inconvenient. In the first place, no relevant thing is supernatural. If it is not describable by physical laws, it cannot interact with the physical world. PERIOD. Therefore God cannot be both supernatural and God.
If it is not subject to laws of physics, it does not exist, at least not by our accounts. If it exists and contradicts our laws of physics, our laws need changing to accommodate and describe the existence of said object. But it is still subject to physics. Therefore, God must be subject to the laws of physics, and has no mystical powers. (This means that the only option left is a possible and natural God, who simply has a lot of power.)
If something has infinite power, that does not mean it is not subject to the laws of physics. The laws of physics exist because matter behaves such that it limits its own behavior, and while these laws may change a little bit according to the scope of the subject, they still always exist. Matter will always limit itself inherently. There is no escaping this. If an object exists and is not subject to some laws, then that is to say that the object simply has no qualities. What does all this mean? Even if God could change the laws of physics, his changing those laws would be subject to laws describing how those changes took place. If he altered that law, another law would have to exist. This conflict is inherent to all action said deity could ever undertake. Therefore, he could never undercut the law by acting with infinite power.
3. A God worthy of worship would know that dogma is really dangerous at any level, but extremely dangerous at the level of widespread adoption
... and would have no justification for its implementation in the form of a faith-based anything. If the potential for corruption of the system is so monumental, why would God choose to construct the system in that way?
Conclusion: if there is a God, faith and/or worship are clearly unnecessary.
I suppose a really powerful alien with a God joystick could have done everything here, and set all this up just to fuck with us, but why would we worship that guy. Epistemologically, no I am not certain there is no God, but I am convinced. That is simply all there is to it.
For the sake of humoring the theists, and also for the sake of being thorough, let's say for a second that all these things that don't make sense, all the things stacked against the possibility of a god's existence, and all the "why would God do this?" questions can be written off with as being for the ultimate good, and masterfully orchestrated by a divine creator, and that things will work themselves out in a perfectly fair way in the end. Now let's say that you got down on those hands and knees and humbly begged God to point you in the right direction. Now let's say you've got an intensely warm feeling about the truthfulness of "x" religion. Let's say Mormanism, just for kicks. You go to church to investigate this feeling, you listen to missionaries, you read. You get more good and fuzzy warm feelings. But what does this prove?
Nothing. You get a warm feeling, sure, but how do you know that warm feeling comes from God? How could you ever know anything comes from God? Both the Bible and The Book of Mormon repeatedly demand belief in God, but if I can't tell definitively, for sure, 100%, if anything or any answer actually comes from any god, what is the point in demanding faith at all? To make matters worse, both texts also go so far as to promise spiritual answers to your query. Of course, if Mormonism (or, really, any religion based in similar parameters) were the only religion that offered spiritual enlightenment, this argument would be a bit harder, but the fact of the matter is that billions of people find what appears to be "the answer" in just about every other religion on the planet. Clearly, if the spiritual answer is both un-unique, and unverifiable, it isn't God's plan. At least, not any God worth worship.
Theists always seem to be saying something like "God doesn't need to prove himself to us, because he is magical and spiritual and he loves me." Well, allow me to supply the definition of irony: a spiritual answer that you could know for certain is from God is proof of God. If you don't have a spiritual or emotional answer, you have, by the measures of debate you set out, absolutely no reason to believe in your God. If you do, then you have proof of God, and therefore a scientifically verifiable reason for everyone to believe. When you disregard that last option (you can't ever know anything for certain), the only alternative is that your belief is totally unfounded.
Let's say that again: totally unfounded.
What all this demonstrates is that there is absolutely no good reason to believe in God. Of course, the outlook gets worse when you factor in the fact that you can't just ignore the logical reasons for disbelieving in a supreme deity (particularly the one of Christian persuasion), but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
2. We actually do live in a causal world
... and goddammit, you can't just ignore the rules of logic because they're inconvenient. In the first place, no relevant thing is supernatural. If it is not describable by physical laws, it cannot interact with the physical world. PERIOD. Therefore God cannot be both supernatural and God.
If it is not subject to laws of physics, it does not exist, at least not by our accounts. If it exists and contradicts our laws of physics, our laws need changing to accommodate and describe the existence of said object. But it is still subject to physics. Therefore, God must be subject to the laws of physics, and has no mystical powers. (This means that the only option left is a possible and natural God, who simply has a lot of power.)
If something has infinite power, that does not mean it is not subject to the laws of physics. The laws of physics exist because matter behaves such that it limits its own behavior, and while these laws may change a little bit according to the scope of the subject, they still always exist. Matter will always limit itself inherently. There is no escaping this. If an object exists and is not subject to some laws, then that is to say that the object simply has no qualities. What does all this mean? Even if God could change the laws of physics, his changing those laws would be subject to laws describing how those changes took place. If he altered that law, another law would have to exist. This conflict is inherent to all action said deity could ever undertake. Therefore, he could never undercut the law by acting with infinite power.
3. A God worthy of worship would know that dogma is really dangerous at any level, but extremely dangerous at the level of widespread adoption
... and would have no justification for its implementation in the form of a faith-based anything. If the potential for corruption of the system is so monumental, why would God choose to construct the system in that way?
Conclusion: if there is a God, faith and/or worship are clearly unnecessary.
I suppose a really powerful alien with a God joystick could have done everything here, and set all this up just to fuck with us, but why would we worship that guy. Epistemologically, no I am not certain there is no God, but I am convinced. That is simply all there is to it.