God of the Gaps, Chance and Atheism
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.
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The idea that the probability of our existence is very low is not that relevant, even if it was once true, as we are here. The odds that a gene will mutate is very high. We know this happens. If I shuffle a deck of cards, the odds that they will land in the exact order in which they landed were astronomically low, and yet they still landed in that order, and I can see that they did. To think that something does not happen just because the odds that it would have happened were low is foolish once we see the possible effect of it happening, as is the case with the deck of cards.
Also, the theist argument that we have to explain how everything happened is silly. We can only logically explain what happened once we have gathered the data necessary to explain it. Were we to explain it with less data, wouldn’t we be silly?
I am not required to provide a solution to the puzzle in order to reject the theist’s answer as illogical. I only have to see the fallacy in his thinking, which rarely mirrors any of his arguments, anyway. In Western culture, faith is the answer for why the theist actually believes what he believes, and everything else is usually a case prepared to defend a position he already holds.
Oddly enough, faith is actually the most logical argument the theist has in his bag of nonsense. Even the simplest of ideas lack data sufficient to adequately prove them beyond a shadow of doubt. Our eyes see and they complete the “blind spot” with probable details. The same is true of our mind’s eye. The atheist and agnostic will try to apply reason to his conclusions, but ultimately not enough data will be available and to believe anything definitively, we must almost always finish our thoughts with faith. I have never heard a theist make this argument, as I think it is beyond them. They start with faith and try to work backwards and marvel not at all when reason shuns them in the end. It is not big deal, really, as reason was never the targeted device for reaching a conclusion in the first place.
JMyste
JMyste, thanks for visiting and commenting.
I agree with what you said about chance and randomness. It is indeed a poor argument on the part of the theists.
You said:
“The atheist and agnostic will try to apply reason to his conclusions, but ultimately not enough data will be available and to believe anything definitively, we must almost always finish our thoughts with faith.”
I don’t exactly agree. Blind faith is necessary for all knowledge and all beliefs and ideas, yes–I agree with that. But some blind faith is more grounded and more fundamental than others. The belief that the natural universe exists is more fundamental than believing in the supernatural world, therefore conclusions derived from blind faith in the natural world are actually more solid and more reasonable and better-established than conclusions or ideas derived from blind faith in the supernatural.
So atheism/ agnosticism is indeed logically superior to theism/ supernatural belief.
I agree that reason it is logically superior to faith, by all means. My point was that all notions are finished with faith. I make this point because I have spent a lifetime ridiculing the use of faith to arrive at any conclusion and I eventually realized that all conclusions are reached with faith as the last step. I am a devout non believer, but that fact makes me want to concede any logical morsel I can find to the opposition.
I will often argue whatever the dissenting position is. For this reason, if I think an atheist is making illogical arguments, I will counter argue on the side of the theist in order to refute the lack of a sound argument. It was in one of these sessions that I realized that I too have some faith, not in a deity, but in my position that none of their deities exists.
That said, obviously I find the atheists position far more logical, just as find the theist’s arguments far more faithful. The primary tool of the atheist is reason, with faith as a finisher. The primary tool of the theist is faith. The more intellectual theists do not deny this accusation at all, which takes away my ability to refute anything further. Faith and reason do not exist in the same dimension and trying to refute one with the other is an exercise in futility.
Sincerely,
JMyste
“Faith and reason do not exist in the same dimension and trying to refute one with the other is an exercise in futility.”
Well actually they do exist in the same dimension in the sense that they both serve to increase knowledge. Insofar as someone believes in God, they believe that God exists as an objective fact, out there in the universe. Well, the truth or falsity of statements of objective fact can only be known through reason/ logic.
Therefore someone who says they base their beliefs solely on faith can, in fact, be refuted further by pointing out that all knowledge requires some kind of reasonable or evidentiary basis. Otherwise, his faith in God is no more or better, no more true and no more false, than my faith in the tooth fairy, or someone else’s faith in ancestor spirits, or someone else’s faith in Santa Claus, Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster.
The next time you encounter that person, ask them if they accept that fact–that their faith is no more or less true than faith in all these other nonsensical and magical fantasies.
Either there is a God, or there is not. It is a statement of objective fact. All statements of objective fact require reason and/or evidence. The difference between an atheist (in the classical sense of the word) or an agnostic and the theist is that the former two make no claim about the existence of God as an objective fact, but the theist does. That is why the theist has the obligation of furnishing some kind of evidence or logic to support his position, but we do not.
The problem again, is that a logical argument against faith will fall on deaf ears. Faith needs no logical support. It is frustrating, when one believes that reason is the tool of truth-seeking and they debate someone who believes that truth is beyond the facilities of reason.
You asked me to ask a consistency question to the theist. No point. As soon as I bypass faith in favor of reason, I have lost him.
This kind of thinking is precisely why no one ever budges when they debate each other in this matter.
JMyste.
All hope may not be lost. I agree that many are stubborn and inaccessible–those people should just be left alone with their private fantasies. They aren’t affecting anyone until they try to convert or convince someone.
But for those who are a bit more open, we can simply ask: why do you believe that?
Note, this is an extremely simple, but extremely powerful question. Some will say “there is no why–I just believe.” Ok, fine, then we know where they stand. Just give them a friendly reminder that they don’t accept such an approach anywhere else in their life, with any other question. Chances are their response (if they can muster one) will be useless.
But many–who nevertheless will give lip service to this idea of “truth through faith”–will respond with some answer. It may be some supernatural experience they had, some poetry they read, a sermon they heard in church, or whatever.
It doesn’t matter what answer they provide to that question. As long as they provide ANY answer, they have admitted that you win. Because they have then admitted that an idea or belief requires justification, and THAT is the stuff of reason. For almost every single believer on earth, there is something that has caused them to believe what they believe. Almost nobody believes something “just because.” There is almost always some kind of reason or justification behind it, however small or poorly thought-out it might be.
I too have debated with countless theists and religious believers. When I make these kinds of issues clear to them, they either do not respond altogether, leave, or respond by just repeating what they already said, or some unintelligible gobbledegook. That counts as a win in my book.
If, on the other hand, you are interested in truly converting someone and changing their mind/ beliefs, that is the work of demonstrating a superior system–a superior moral system, a superior epistemological system, a superior logical system, or whatever. Only when people are provided with a compelling, positive alternative will they be attracted away from their stodgy old traditions.
The earliest Christians understood this–they did not spend much time attacking the established order, but rather simply blazed a new intellectual/ philosophical trail, created a positive example to others, and let their work speak for itself.
Keep your enemies close, I like to say.
Hi friend,
I’m Sagar Gorijala from India. I’m an Atheist with a difference and it’s I actually proved that god(s) can’t exist and I want rest of the World to know my theory and couldn’t achieve it and as a fellow Atheist I seek your help in doing so. Here is my theory http://sagargorijala.blogspot.com/
Honestly this won’t be something that consumes or wastes your precious time, it’s worth more than gold or diamonds. It’s for real and this time around theists can’t fool around with their ignorance. It has been more than ten long years and I couldn’t let the World know my theory. I started it in 1999 December – 2000 January and had it ready in the month of January 2000 since then I tried a lot but couldn’t let rest of the World know my theory. If there is a way to join hands with your blogroll please let me know. We are fellow atheists and I need your help.
You might try reading Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin’s paper. Unless our universe is one of a few weird mathematical constructs, it had a beginning. If you posit multiverses as the cause of our universe, then you must come to the conclusion that they had a beginning as well.
As to Sagar’s “proof” – it is self-refuting. He argues that sure, we can have 10 apples, but not an infinite number of apples. This blows up the entire first half of his paper, where he argues that because we cannot divide by zero, matter cannot ever be created or destroyed. There are hordes of mathematical concepts that follow logically from fundamental mathematical axioms that in fact don’t represent reality, ergo your entire argument falls apart.
“Unless our universe is one of a few weird mathematical constructs, it had a beginning.”
Our universe had a beginning, yes. Science has more or less established that. But reality does not have a beginning. There is no reason to think that it had a beginning, anyway. If you disagree with that, you are going to have to explain to me why it is so essential that there be a beginning.