Arguments Against Theism
Arguments Against Theism
What follows is a list of arguments, in semi-logical order, which attempts to show some of the more prominent philosophical and scientifically-skewed ideas that suggest the idea of a theistic god is a poor modern idea. The arguments will be presented lightly, with no ill-regard or altercation, and will assume the reader is both intelligent and interested in further research and philosophy, denoted by sources following most arguments. This writing is attempted without any veils or dishonesty. The arguments are direct, and it is due to warn the reader, should they find themselves religious, especially emotionally religious, that offense, while presumed, is not intended.
Not all of the arguments directly address the primary item, but instead provide answers and speculation on issues surrounding the main idea. It is important to mention these issues, and perhaps it is the most important thing as well, because their discussions are regarded by most arguing sides as results of the consequence of belief in god, or non-belief. Further, many of these arguments concern themselves with different understandings of what a god might be. The first three arguments help to define and an idea of god and criteria of reasoning against one that the rest of the arguments will pursue — they are philosophical and logical arguments, which will not reference any outside material. The rest of the essay sources itself to further reading material in hopes that the reader will further investigate.
Regarding Irrational Belief
Wanting to believe in a god is not a good reason for believing in a god. Fideism means having an irrational belief in a god — to believe in a god despite all reasoning against such belief. Throughout theocratic history, fideism has been a subject of scorn, although in modern times, in some religions, it has become the subject of praise. A simple problem with fideism is that anyone can claim it: one can volunteer irrational belief in any religion, and by their own volunteer, be no more justified in one belief than another. Since at least the Christian and Islamic religions distinctly claim that faith in the wrong idea of god (worshiping false idols) will send one to hell, to be fideist and aware of this logically means one is forgetting their reason in the face of unrecoverable and infinite torture. Fideism itself is a completely unreasonable justification — anyone who takes pride in irrational beliefs should very reasonably be considered horribly deluded and uncritical. Why one person would be respected for having irrational faith in Christianity, and another person not respected for having irrational faith in Thor, or irrational faith in Zeus, or irrational faith in Santa Claus in adulthood —— is a sad double-standard. Fideism is simply delusion, through-and-through.
Regarding God as an Axiom
Using god as a premise to explain natural phenomena in any philosophical context is clumsy.
When we talk about things as existing without proof, we call these things axioms. Axioms are premises that we assume are true without any evidence, because in order to make further statements, we have to start somewhere. To loosely exemplify this: if someone wants to talk about math being used to calculate how many apples a person has or trades, we have to accept at least these basic axioms: first, that apples exist and can be talked about, and second, that apples can be accurately represented by numbers.
When trying to understand the world, we need a number of basic axioms before we begin. These axioms are easy to identify: we must believe that the world we observe is in some sense real, we must believe that we ourselves are in some sense real, and we must believe that the experiences we have, in at least some sense, are real and are related to the world we observe. It is also important, of course, to assume that our experiences in the world can be used to derive some sort of understanding about the world around us, although it is not necessary to premise our experiences as being completely true — they only need to have a correspondence at the point of basic premises.
The axiom of god is used usually used to supply a sturdy ground for what could be called an Objective Truth. This is means that by evoking the premise of god, we can say that there is a way to absolutely understand things, that there is absolute truth, and that things have been created, and come from one, concise, logical source.
Axioms are, by nature, guesses about reality. The only way to measure any sort of relationship with reality that our axioms may have is to follow their conclusions and try to observe, as best we can, how accurately they seem to correspond back to our sense of reality. If we assume the axiom that all or at least most effects have causes, then this accuracy is related to prediction: if we can logically follow our axiom’s conclusions, and begin to predict events about the world, and fulfill the meaning behind our axioms, we may indeed have accurate premises about the world — although this is by far no grantee. We must understand that our axioms, in order to be considered accurate, must be specific. This means: (1) our axioms must not be able to be replaced by different axioms which rationalize the same accuracy about the world around us, and (2) that our axioms must assume as little as possible, and leave the rest to evidence and conclusion.
The reason god axioms axioms are clumsy is obvious: they assume way too much about the world around us. While some axioms are needed simply just to reason about reality, god-axioms are wildly unstable. It is not immediately clear to anyone that the world could not be random, or that our experiences and understanding are not entirely subjective. Immediately assuming god also does not help to identify any further truths about the world around us — we would also need to assume entire typological characteristics about god in order to make sense of a god’s reason — axioms such as our connection to Objective Truth are needed, as well as axioms which talk about our ability to understand or correspond with our idea of god.
God-axioms do nothing to ratify reality — we can always replace the axioms concerning faith about different characteristics about god, and our correspondence with god, with equal but different axioms, and remain with the same accuracy. To give a good example: to say that god is all knowing, and that god’s works are mysterious, and that the real god is the biblical, Christian god, means that we can justify any event that happens as something god made happen, and does not want us to know the reasoning behind. We can replace these same axioms with different axioms, and reach the same fulfillment: we can assume that god is Zeus, or an invisible unicorn, that god is all-knowing or just that god is always one step ahead of us, that he is all powerful or just more powerful, and a bit mysterious, or even just toying with us, and still retain the same exact predictive power that all other ideas of god have.
Axioms about god rest upon our original axioms: that the world is in some sense understandable, that we exist, etc. What makes these axioms ultimately clumsy is that we do not need these axioms to predict or rationalize anything. We can begin to explain and predict everything in the world without needing elaborate assumptions. We only need the basics.
If God is to be found in the world, he must be found through evidence. First assuming that a god exists to rationalize or reason of its existence will not hold.
Regarding The Difference Between a Creator and a God of Religion
The philosophical consequences of a god who initially created the universe does not include the consequence of concern for any of the universe’s inhabitants. Some theists claim that there must have been a creative act, then conflate that issue with the idea of a concerned, active god. The conclusion does not follow: the idea of an initial creator does not detail, nor needs to detail, the nature of a god. Therefore, if it was somehow proven that that the universe was initially created in any sense, this in—itself would do nothing to give evidence for any theistic idea of a god.
Sourced arguments:
On Supernatural Events
There is no evidence at all for anything supernatural. The scientific community has been doing a stellar job in the past three centuries, and within the last fifty, we have found in our skill the ability to detect nearly every nuance of matter above the subatomic level. A human can not sneeze, scratch, or blink, a tree can not fall or grow, the weather can not change, a sound can not be made and a source of light can not materialize without us being able to scrutinize and trace its cause and effects back to worldly answers.
While the previous few sentences seem to describe a state of scientific explanative power alien to most people, this is perhaps due to science’s unexciting answers to phenomena such as ghosts, possessions, and psychic ability — we explain these items easily, and many times, with common sense, which tends to result in zero media coverage. Institutions such as the James Randi Educational Foundation, the Skeptics Society, and the Committee of Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal restlessly debunk supernatural claims wherever they rise. Today, despite the knowledge not common, it is possible to hire paranormal investigators who will naturally explain away any curious phenomena. However, supernatural anecdotes and experiences are still prevalent in most cultures, and many people have, or know someone who has, experienced something they consider supernatural. While it is impractical to investigate every claim, one should keep mindful that the chances of them experiencing something that seems supernatural — but does not have the natural explicability of millions of other similar claims — is rationally equal to the chances of them experiencing a quantum flux that randomly accelerates them into outer-space. As it stands we can explain that phenomena.
Sources:
• Website: The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
• Website: James Randi Educational Foundation’s Million Dollar Challenge
• Website: Skeptic Society’s Article Page
• Video: Ted Shermer Talks About Why People Believe
• Website: Skeptic’s Dictionary
The Power of Prayer
There is no evidence whatsoever that prayer is effective. Our best analysis suggests that prayer is at best a placebo effect in select circumstances — such as praying for patience, which would by the nature of reflection offer at least a sense of calming, or praying for one’s health in minor medical struggles, sensibly raising one’s optimism, and in some cases, resilience —— there is nothing supernatural about this. Prayer seems to simply be a grossly proliferated illusion of coincidence. Despite this, every religion still claims that worship to their specific gods yields supernatural results. This claim has been resounding since tribes and cultures sacrificed humans and livestock for changes in weather, danced for rain, and built Egyptian pyramids in praise of Pharaoh gods. From the beginning of recorded history and continuing now, there is no evidence that prayer has ever worked.
• Website: Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?
• Website: 1872 Inquiry into Prayer
• Video: Prayer is Superstition
How People Believe
Even though this essay does not seek to refute plainly illogical arguments such as “god must exist — almost everyone believes he exists,” it will for this exception.
Our research into how the brain works, and how humans think about things, has found good explanations for why people believe counter-intuitive things, such as belief in gods — not just one’s own, but in our history — and supernatural happenings altogether.
Religious beliefs are best rationalized to be not just a culturally-formed phenomenon, but a bi-product of how our brains perceive reality. We humans entangle experiences in our brain with phenomena in the outside world. Our wont to rationalize things that happen around us to supernatural and invisible causes comes from the consequence of being able to attach meaning to the things we do — to make art and tools, and to be curious of the world around us. We have no indication outside of ourselves that tells us how the universe actually works, and creating a creator inside our own heads is the easiest way for us to come to terms with outside events that seem random. Compound this with our social nature and our ability to communicate, and we have at least a workable hypothesis to all of the religions in history. Gladly science does not restrict us to guessing — we have plenty of cognitive-biological, psychological, and neurological evidence that tells us how we create and reside in fantasy explanations for things that happen around us every day.
• Book: Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
• Book: Religion Is Not About God: How Spiritual Traditions Nurture Our Biological Nature
• Website: Symposium About Belief
• Book: In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion
On Evolution
Many scientists detract from commenting on the implications of the theory of Evolution when it comes to spiritual, or god-oriented matters. It is a fact that Evolution means random processes shaped life on this planet, and it is a fact that Evolution happened, and this means that humans, and life itself, were not designed in any reasonable meaning of the word. The theory aspect of evolution — what separates our science of biology concerned with life into a subject of conjecture, and not fact — rests in uncovering the most dominant random implications of evolution on our planet, and finding the total limits to how life may come into existence outside of our own known origins.
This discovery has created a chasm in theistic apologetics concerning the origin of human life. While many irrationally deny Evolution, a more appropriate choice of apologetic council has been to revise the once-concretely understood origins of life within the Bible, Koran, etc. into a metaphorical appreciation. However, this change in theistic paradigm comes entirely from secular and scientific evidence. There are no spiritual revelations to how passages in religious texts, which have survived centuries being taught specifically as literal truths, were after scientific evidence’s arrival, then prescribed to be taught differently. There is no good reason to think that select modern religious texts were somehow always meant to be completely metaphorical, despite the primary writers and teachers in ancient times orating these religions as concretely as every other religion that had existed in the past. The only way to logically accept this delusion is to first assume that the texts themselves are never going to be wrong. As it stands today — considering the creation of life in religious texts as purposeful metaphors is only a rationalization — it is not justified at all in the texts, or the in history of the texts.
• Website: Talkorigins Frequently Asked Questions
• Website: Berkeley University Information
• Interview: Richard Dawkins Talks About Evolution, Religion
• Book: Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design
• Book: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
Souls Are Outdated Explanations for Consciousness
Evidence of a central consciousness inside the mind, as revealed by the science of neurology, does not exist. Instead, we observe multiple instances of possible consciousness occurring at separate distances in the brain. The Cartesian Theatre model of consciousness, the model of the phenomena that most closely relates to what is known as “the soul,” states that there should be a central observer, or some sort of hub of consciousness in the brain, which we should be able to identify. We are now completely sure that place does not exist. Instead, new theories are emerging, for example, one known as the Multiple Drafts model. Here, we will consider it the “Multiple Drafts Problem,” because of what the model roughly says about consciousness, and how it dispels the notion of a soul. The “Multiple Drafts Problem” shows us that our consciousness can not reasonably be viewed from our perspective as a single entity without completely ignoring all scientific evidence of how our brain and its consciousness works. This theory explains voices in one’s head, how consciousness can arise in interactions between matter, and is consistent with multiple personality disorders and sundry ilk. Within the coming years we may finally be able to create true AI, or an artificial intelligence with a consciousness. The evidence of such a feat, and even the evidence of today, strongly suggests that our consciousness, our thinking selves, are not spiritual, but simply matter in-itself, experiencing and changing with the matter surrounding it.
• Essay: Time and the Observer
• Book: Consciousness Explained
• Book: The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain
• The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory
• Website: Essays on Consciousness
• Essay: Consciousness, Neural Basis of
Two Things We Know
Biology and Cosmology show us two truths in science that are completely uncontroversial in test and observation, yet may be difficult for the religious to accept: life can randomly arise anywhere where there is enough elemental support for it on any given planet orbiting a star — and the universe is full of trillions upon trillions to the power of trillions to the power of trillions to the power of trillions, to perhaps infinite, vistas of stars and galaxies and matter, space, and time — therefore there is absolutely a great conjecture for life to form again and again.
A common misconception is in ‘why’ we have not found other life yet. The person wondering this, however, is often a person who would not be able to define what a galaxy is, or how far stars are from each other, or tell you if a lightyear is a measure of time or distance.
Spacetime, the theoretical manifold that holds all space and time (traditionally referred to as ‘Space’), is an unimaginably big place, where it is commonly accepted to either be infinitely large, or continuing outwards infinitely. The known universe is only at most 15 billion years old, and when we talk about events in the universe, it is important to yield our own conceptions of long segments of time to segments of several billion years.
One possibility for life being so difficult to find is because there has not yet passed enough time for life to flourish more commonly in the universe. The elements needed for life — carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc., are atomic elements which can be rare to find in the universe. We have discovered that most elements find their synthesis in a common-sense way — in order for the elements of carbon and etcetera to form, they must first undergo nuclear fusion — the elements for future life, and the elements that make us — must first find their manipulation inside stars.
Another problem with finding other life in the universe is its difficulty. We are still very young in our explorations of the universe, and while our future may find us shaking hands with extra-terrestrial races, we are still in a technological infancy. Finding life that exists lightyears away from us is a difficult task, and our ability to pan the sky’s star systems for life is a arduous task. We have yet to scan much of our own skyline at all. It is a long process for life to form, a random process for life to become intelligent, and while it may be a lot shorter of a process for intelligent life to find life on other planets, we much understand we remain in explorative infancy. The universe is vast, and we stand only at the edge of one shore.
• Website: NASA’s Origins Program
• Website: Hubble’s Official Gallery
• Website: Planets and Stars To Scale
• Article: Hubble’s Deepest View of the Universe
Initial Creation vs. Infinity
There is no reason to believe that ‘initial creation’ must have taken place, or that ‘initial creation’ needs an intelligence or sentience behind it.
The Big Bang model might at a novice’s glance suggest that the known universe arrived here from nothing, but the mathematics involved in our best explanations do not at all display for us a state of previous nothingness. Instead, the Big Bang model suggests a previous state of infinite smallness — that the universe may have existed inside a black hole, or perhaps another dimension, or in a state of singularity, or the universe’s evolution may be composed of an infinitely continuing series of collapses and re-expansions. Calculations of infinite smallness do not equal non-existence. Further, there are problems with the Big Bang theory, which suggest that the calculations of quantum happenings do not account for the larger picture of metaphysical interactions, and the supposed laws that govern our universe. And all of our explanations about the universe, from any beginning to any end, rely on nothing more than material explanations.
In the Ekpyrotic Model of the universe, a model of M-Theory origin, we prescribe the introduction of our known universe into existence as a colossal event of friction between higher-dimensional, material universes. This theory, and others like it, help to explain why the universe seems to be growing in space, not only from its edges, but from within itself. It is also possible that permutations of the Big Crunch — a theory where the universe may undergo a series of collapses and expansions — will be a product of the shape of space and time curling around itself. In quantum mechanics, we have the notion of virtual particles — particles and anti-particles which spontaneously originate in space and annihilate themselves. It is entirely possible that, given an infinite expanse of space and time, that matter could begin to spontaneously exist and populate itself without any sentient act of creation needed.
This leads us to an interesting understanding of the universe around us —— since we now have good indication to believe that the universe, in at least some form, could have always existed, and continue to infinitely exist, there is no longer a need to talk about a creator. If the universe was always here, the need to first create it is out of the question.
• Website: Uncertainty and Virtual Particles
• Essay: A Brief Introduction to the Ekpyrotic Universe
• Website: Some Frequently Asked Questions About Virtual Particles
• Website: Real and Virtual Particles
• Website: The Big Bang: It Sure Was Big!
• Website: The Hot Big Bang Model
The Central Conclusion
If an idea of god is clumsy through axioms, then the only logical alternative for believing in god is to find evidence for him residing in more basic premises about the world. This means that if we are to have a good reason to believe in god, we should find some sort of evidence about a god’s nature in the world around us.
As this essay helps to conclude: there is no good evidence to suggest a god existing, much less a nature of a god. Our ideas about souls and life after death have been examined by science: every observation tells us they do not exist. We have very strong evidence, and consider it scientific fact that our life began from a series of causes and effects resonating in natural, random happenings. We have come to know that the universe is fantastically big, perhaps infinite, and realize through centuries of progressive science — that matter itself seems to have either infinitely existed, or at least retains the possibility to infinitely exist at any moment. From the measure of its vastness, we can be reasonably sure that there is other life out there, and we have no inclination to believe we are at the center of — or any interest to — the universe. We have no reason to believe that ghosts and spirits are real, and every experiment to realize that we can fool ourselves within our own brains. We know that ideas about god are cultural phenomena, and we can account for these ideas with science and anthropology. The only thing that holds us back from making the most sensible decisions about our own ideas about the gods we create is our human want to believe in them.
A lingering question may be a number of seeming loose ends, concerning one’s own spiritual feelings about the universe. Spiritual feelings are natural, and their interpretation rests on the individual. It is only a simple fact that these interpretations have nothing to do with a valid or reasonable idea of a god. Our spiritual feelings are our own, and we have done much (as the argument of ‘consciousness’ and ‘evolution’ provide adequate sources to educate) to understand what we are. What is left is an awe of the reality we inhabit, and the bravery of the questions we ask. We must continue to pursue answers to the world around us. We must not allow our childhood religious feelings about gods stop us from asking questions and progressing. From the spires of our philosophy and science and reason, we can notice the follies of what we once assumed. The next step may be difficult, but the consequences of not thinking are more terrible than our faith’s threat against it.
• Book: God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist
• Book: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
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You’re currently reading “Arguments Against Theism,” an entry on The Heliotrope
- Published:
- 4.29.07 / 10am
- Category:
- Christianity, Epistemology, God, Hinduism, Islam, Ontology, Religion, Science, Theism
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