Archive for June, 2010
June 25th, 2010 by Justin
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYe_V2hOZ4
5. Can nature generate complex organisms when previously there was none?
Yes. Through evolution. Yet again, he drags in an irrelevant topic (evolution versus creationism) into the discussion.
The speaker asks “where else does [the development of life] take place in our universe.” The answer is potentially in many places, since very little of the actual universe has been observed to this detail. But he misses the fact that in most of the universe, the conditions simply are not right for the development of life in the first place, much less complex life, much less intelligent life. So the “contingencies” (in his words) are not there.
He makes the fantastic declaration that the atheist believes that “nature is blind; everything else is designed intelligently.” Everything else? Nature is everything else! Almost everything in existence is nature, and only a few things (relatively speaking) are man-made. He finds it amazing that undirected, uncoordinated processes can occur in nature, but I find it amazing that he even says this. Is he not aware of a myriad number of such processes, the most important being the undirected, uncoordinated joining and organization of protons, neutrons, electrons and atoms? Clearly, undirected processes in nature are not only possible, they are the norm and they have been occurring continuously for eons.
Indeed, when it comes to the development of life from inanimate matter, given what we know about the natural, uncoordinated processes of the world, it is entirely expected–not surprising–that it should arise through an undirected process. It is, however, surprising and ludicrous and even disturbing from the perspective of a creationist, which is why they so often make this argument from outrage.
“So what you’re saying is, time and chance, plus something coming out of nothing, morality evolving–and then suddenly we’re here.”
No, no and no. Wrong on all 3 counts. As I mentioned previously, evolution is not about “time and chance.” No one believes that “something came from nothing” (except the theists, of course, who believe that God created the world ex nihilo, ”out of nothing”). And clearly humans did not “suddenly appear”–it took millions of years. The notion of things “suddenly appearing” is yet another common misconception and straw man used by creationists to make evolution seem ludicrous. All it really does is show their total ignorance of the theory and the argument.
Atheism, secularism and evolution remain safe after this speaker has finished.
June 24th, 2010 by Justin
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYe_V2hOZ4
4. How did morals evolve?
This is a bit of an odd question, since the speaker has already addressed the issue of morality previously. He makes the mistake of saying that self-consciousness or self-awareness played a role in the evolution of morals. They did not. The process of natural selection and random change did. In other words, people thousands of years ago did not need to know what evolution was in order to evolve morals; they simply had to respond to the changes in their environment and species–including the consequences of their actions–and adjust their behavior, their culture, their priorities and values accordingly. That’s it.
His argument is as ridiculous as saying that a bird ancestor had to consciously think about what would be the best way to travel long distances in order to develop wings. Proto-birds did not need governmental councils and reams of scientific research in order to “figure out” that wings were beneficial. They just had to act and respond to changes in their environment and in their species. And the same goes for early humans.
He gives an example of cave men killing each other and feeling guilt. Why would he feel guilt, when killing the opposition is good for his survival? Yet again, he (like many creationists and intelligent designers) unknowingly gives away the game by demonstrating his lack of understanding of the theory of evolution and how it applies to morals.
Killing a foreigner was indeed good for the survival of the clan or tribe, and therefore for the individual, but killing a fellow member of the tribe was bad for the tribe and for that individual. That is why the earliest forms of codified morality (demonstrated wonderfully in the Old Testament, for example) praised the killing and conquest of foreigners, while nevertheless condemning the killing of fellow in-group members. “Love thy neighbor” really meant “love your fellow Jew, but be willing and eager to kill anyone who stands in the Jews’ way.”
June 23rd, 2010 by Justin
David Hume
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYe_V2hOZ4
3. Where do you get your morals from?
Yet another tired old argument for theism–the moral argument–which I have dealt with before, specifically in regard to secular moral absolutes. His first major point is meaningless because it is based on subjectivity and outrage: “This is all that morality ends up being!”
The description he gives of the development of a moral tendency or moral behavior, according to the evolutionary model, is essentially correct. He makes the interesting point that morality at its core speaks to the future, and not the past–prescription, and not description. This is true, and it speaks directly to the is-ought problem as elucidated by philosopher David Hume. That is, one cannot logically deduce an “ought” from an “is.”
This means, unfortunately for the speaker, that even his own theistic morality is not supported by logic: just because God tells him to do something, it does not logically follow that he should. He cannot derive an “ought” from an “is.” Thus, a God-based morality and a human-based morality are equal when it comes to the is-ought problem. However, there are nevertheless several key advantages for a human-based morality, one of which is that we know humans exist, but do not know if God exists. Other things equal, it is better to ground your morality in something you know exists than in something you don’t know exists.
It should also be mentioned that the moral issue, while very interesting, is not really relevant to the question of the veracity of atheism per se. It speaks to consequences of the truth, but not the truth itself.
June 22nd, 2010 by Justin
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYe_V2hOZ4
2. Why should there be something instead of nothing?
This is an ancient and very tired argument for God. It has come in many forms. One form of the argument might be “Why does anything exist?” to which the answer comes in the form of another question: why do you ask?
That is, why does one believe that nonexistence is even possible? After all, if one asks “why is there something, instead of nothing,” they must explain why they are assuming that it is even possible that nothing exist. What is the basis for that assumption? Could it be that they are assuming that whatever entity that created reality had a choice? In which case, are they not assuming the very thing they are trying to prove? Namely, that their Christian God exists?
He asks, in reference to the Big Bang, why should it have occurred? Again, why does he ask? He is assuming that there is some purpose inherent in the universe or in the creation of the universe. Why? THAT is the real interesting question.
He also brings up an old favorite of theists: that the earth seems “fine-tuned” for life. This is meaningless, because we know there is an incomprehensible amount of matter and energy in the universe that is not hospitable to life at all. By laws of probability, it only makes sense that, given the massive amount of matter and energy and the huge number of planets and stars in existence, at least one of them would give rise to life.
He says that life “bears the marks” of intelligent design. He calls this a fact; I call it his subjective intuition. Life does not seem intelligently designed to me.
He asserts that there is “moral order” and then asks why should it exist. Firstly, this “moral order” is a very slippery concept. If he means that all humans have some kind of common moral tendency, then he is correct. But if he is saying that the world has moral order inherent in it, as fundamental as the laws of physics, this is simply a traditional Christian belief, which in turn relies on the belief in a morality-giving God, and thus not supported by any evidence.
Secondly, and more importantly, the answer to the question is simple: evolution. If anything, the common moral tendency of humans across this planet is strong supporting evidence for evolution and natural selection as explanations for the development of humans.
June 21st, 2010 by Justin
The following video features five “questions for the atheist.” Each is based on a common fallacy or misconception on the part of theists. Let’s take a look at the arguments made, and where they fail. This was originally intended to be one post, but each of the five sections turned out to be long enough for its own post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYe_V2hOZ4
Before anything, the speaker refers to an “atheistic belief system” indicating he is already off on the wrong foot, before he has asked any of his questions. Atheism, properly defined, is not a belief system, but rather a belief. Atheism, if anything, is equivalent to theism in the sense that it defines a belief or an idea. Many argue that atheism is not even a belief, but rather simply the lack of a belief. Whichever it is, atheism clearly is not a “belief system,” and is therefore not comparable to belief systems such as Christianity, Islam, Marxism or Kantianism. This is a very common misconception on the part of religious people who argue against atheism.
Moving on, the speaker warns that his questions “must be answered well” and the answers must “not collide with reality as we see it.” It is fascinating to see a theist appeal to sense experience as a standard of knowledge, when many theists in other contexts question the legitimacy of sense experience as a reliable provider of knowledge, emphasizing instead extra-sensory or non-sensory knowledge. Perhaps the theist finds sense experience useful… except when he doesn’t. Nevertheless, with this initial warning, the pressure’s on.
1. The god of the gaps
Does not the atheist or secularist use chance in the exact same way that the Christian uses “God”? Instead of “God of the gaps” do we not have “chance of the gaps”? Just as the Christian uses God to explain away anything he can’t understand, does not the atheist use the same tactic, by using chance? This is probably the most interesting question of the five offered.
Firstly, it is important to note that even if this equivalency were true, all it would indicate would be that the neutral observer is swayed by neither theism nor atheism, and is thus not compelled to accept the theist narrative.
This use of the idea of “chance” would seem to be informed by the common theistic misconception of evolution as “time + chance.” The theory of evolution in particular seems to bother many traditionally-minded Christians, and they associate evolution with atheism, although there is no rational basis for doing so (except the stunning insight that they both disagree with the Bible; but then, perhaps belief in evolution leads to belief in Islam, too?).
“Chance” also plays a prominent role in theistic characterizations of atheist belief on the origin of the universe. What they evidently fail to grasp (and this perhaps related to the misconception of atheism as constituting a “belief system”) is that atheism does not even posit that reality had a beginning (it might be eternal).
In any case, the speaker misses a key point: we know that chance exists; we don’t know if God exists. Therefore, of the two, it is more reasonable to think that the origin of the universe and the origin of life owe to chance than it is to think that they owe to God. More fundamentally, at this point in human understanding, it is not reasonable to believe that reality had an origin or that it did not have an origin (that it is eternal)–because we simply cannot know. So the “chance versus intelligence” issue is moot to begin with. We don’t know whether reality had an origin, therefore questions about how it originated are meaningless.
The speaker says “Darwinism makes chance… a creative force in biology.” This demonstrates his lack of knowledge of the modern theory of evolution. There are 3 main things to remember on this point:
(1) No one believes in Darwinism anymore. Darwinism died with Darwin. Evolution as a theory has advanced and improved significantly in the many decades since Darwin’s time.
(2) Darwinism and evolution are COMPLETELY irrelevant as to the veracity of atheism, as mentioned above. Which means this whole topic does not even belong in this discussion.
(3) I’m not sure about Darwinism, but it is fairly well known (except in many creationist circles) that evolution does not “make chance a creative force,” because chance is only one component of evolution. The two major forces in evolution are (a) random mutation and (b) natural selection. Natural selection, by acting as a funnel guiding the randomness of the mutations, massively reduces the unlikelihood that any given advantageous development will occur in life forms. So when creationists argue that the likelihood of a given advantageous mutation developing is extremely low, they are making a straw man argument–they neglect the very non-random force of natural selection. But again, evolution is totally irrelevant to the veracity of atheism.
