Godless philosophy from a godless worldview

I’ve been trying to play Minecraft recently (and I say trying, because, as awesome as the game is, trying to run it on my G4 PPC Mac with 2 gigs of ram, only 1 of which I’m allowed to allocate to Java, makes me incredibly frustrated due to the lag), and it gave me a great metaphor. Minecraft is cool. I love making my big ass mines and fancy houses, but there’s a problem with it.

No matter how much time I spend, no matter how much I want it, no matter how fancy I make my house, and no matter how realistic I try to make the Minecraft world, it will never be real. It could be very realistic, but if it’s not real in the first place, nothing will change that by playing more Minecraft.However, I still play Minecraft. It’s fun, it makes me happy to play, and it gives me something to do. But why, then, do I not argue against the playing of Minecraft if it’s not real? It’s simple.

Nobody is told that if they work really really hard at Minecraft, they’re going to get eternal bliss in return, but if they don’t, and their house in Minecraft sucks, then they’re going to suffer eternally. Nobody is told that if they don’t kill people who don’t make their Minecraft mine like their own, then they are bad people, and that they must use force to make the other person want to play Minecraft the same way they do. Nobody is told that the people who don’t play are therefore immoral, because they don’t have Minecraft to dictate morality. And of course, no one is tricked into thinking Minecraft is real. If we understand that it’s all virtual, then, and only then, can we look into it and extract the good parts and use them as good things for the world.

I decided that, in order to better understand the other side, I’d write out a list of all the rational evidence and good reasoning for the existence of the Judeo-Christian god. I’m not going to include all the arguments I’ve ever heard, only the ones that give some support for the claim of God’s existence.

Here it is:

Well, that’s all I could think of! Let me know if you know of anything else to add to my super-extensive list! I almost got hand cramps typing all of that up!

In retrospect, I’m not sure why I never put my name and face on the blog in the first place.

Whatever, in case any of you actually care who I am or what I look like, you can check my “about me” page.

analyzedatheist:

http://bittersweetend.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/the-atheist-challenge/

1. If there is NO God, then there is no Measurement or Standard for morality?  Then What will define morality?

2. If there is NO God, then there is NO meaning or purpose to Life.  So without a God, does life have purpose or meaning?  Without God, does the Atheist have purpose?

3. Are you an advocate of New Atheism and Darwinism?  If so, then the most extreme and logical form of Darwinism is Eugenics.  Would you support this?  Why or Why Not?

4. If we are ancesoters/descendants of Apes, then why are there no transitional fossils or species to support this theory?

5. Do you believe in Human Nature?  It is Human Nature to believe in God, if so, why do you go against human nature and not believe in God?

6. Can ‘Something come from Nothing’?  Doesn’t that violate The First Law of Thermodynamics?

7. It seems that a society of Atheist are immoral and self-destructing.  Why would anyone want a Godless Society, just look at our examples: North Korea, Maoist China, Stalin, & Pot Pol?

8. If you were to die, and you were before God.  And he was getting ready to pass judgement on you,  What would be your reaction or thoughts?  What plea would you give him so he does not judge you harshly?

9. What would convince you atheism is wrong?  And that Christianity is Right?

10. Why are you an Atheist?  Why do you NOT believe in God?  Why do you reject God?  (You can be as detailed as you want.)

I guess I feel like doing this. I’m bored and these aren’t difficult questions to answer, even though I’m sure they tried very hard to make them difficult. In fact, I bet I could answer each one with a witty (or not so witty, as some of them would probably turn out) one-liner. (Maybe I’ll do those in the parentheses?)

1. If there is NO God, then there is no Measurement or Standard for morality?  Then What will define morality?

This is my favorite subject, by far, and one that actually has a simple answer once you’ve figured it out. However, I will elaborate.

Morality is a code of right and wrong that comes simply from the fact that we are social creatures, and we must interact on a regular basis. All of our rights, aspirations, ideas, and actions can be summed up and reasoned in one sentence: We want to live our lives the way we want. Sounds stupid, maybe, but it’s the basis of morality. An immoral action is any action which takes away another’s right to live the way they want. If we all agree not to do so, there comes into being our moral code. In other words, it’s the golden rule. If you don’t want it done to you, don’t do it to someone else. If you want to live your life your own way, let others live their life their own way. Any immoral action can be defined as such. Rape? Taking away someone’s right to do what they want with their body. Theft? Taking away someone’s right to do what they want with their possessions. Murder? Taking away someone’s right to live, period. Of course, this works just as well in a theistic and atheistic view of things. You don’t have to be an atheist to agree with me, unless you agree that the Bible is the ultimate source of morality. And no, working on Sunday, being gay, having impure thoughts, worshiping other gods, and coveting stuff are not immoral. God doesn’t define morality, the bible gave us some fairly arbitrary (and dare I say it, immoral) rules to follow.

Witty response: (But if Crayola doesn’t exist, how do we define the color blue?)

2. If there is NO God, then there is NO meaning or purpose to Life.  So without a God, does life have purpose or meaning?  Without God, does the Atheist have purpose?

First of all, I’m going to point out that’s a very stupid way to phrase a question. “Maple syrup does NOT taste good. Does maple syrup taste good?”

Secondly, that’s just incorrect. There can very well be meaning and purpose to life. On the grand scale, sure, I’m a nihilist. We’re on this stupid hunk of rock hurtling through space, and nobody really cares about us. Life happened, and we’re dealing with it. However, that doesn’t mean individuals, or even groups, or even the whole of humanity doesn’t have a meaning or purpose. We create our own purpose. My purpose right now is to alleviate some suffering by alleviating causes of suffering. A comedian might make their purpose to make others laugh. A scientist might make their purpose to gain knowledge about the universe and spread it to others. Some people invent gods to write books about and make their purpose to be a follower of that god. I would say that right now, humanity as a whole has not given itself a purpose, but that can be done, and it’s something I would like to have done. The idea that there is one overarching purpose for everybody to follow is just preposterous. Individuals make their own, different purposes, and those purposes change often, both on the grander scale of what they do with their life, and what they’re doing at any one moment. I recently walked out to the fridge to get milk. My purpose was to get milk. And to make a neat parallel, you can walk to the refrigerator with the purpose of getting milk whether or not there is actually and milk in the refrigerator. So to sum it up, the purpose in your life is whatever you make it to be.

Witty response: (So with a God, does life have purpose or meaning?)

3. Are you an advocate of New Atheism and Darwinism?  If so, then the most extreme and logical form of Darwinism is Eugenics.  Would you support this?  Why or Why Not?

Now this is just stupid. The whole “New Atheism” thing is whatever. I just prefer the term anti-theist. I do support the 4 horsemen of New Atheism, if that means anything. Other than that, whatever. I do support Darwinian evolution. I don’t support Social Darwinism. I would say as an instinct that I don’t support eugenics, but I would have to think about the topic as a whole. I like how the author of that article tries to make it seem like Dawkins supports eugenics. It doesn’t say that at all. He is simply posing the question. Is that so bad?

Witty response: (Being an atheist makes me a bad person, so I therefore support social Darwinism and my atheistic hero, Adolf Hitler, because he was definitely an atheist, and knowledge of the theory of evolution makes me think that people are not people and I like to eat babies and kill people for fun.)

4. If we are ancesoters/descendants of Apes, then why are there no transitional fossils or species to support this theory?

No.

Witty response: (No.)

5. Do you believe in Human Nature?  It is Human Nature to believe in God, if so, why do you go against human nature and not believe in God?

Wow, more bad assertions. Who said it’s human nature to believe in God? Can anyone show me why it’s human nature to believe in God? I grew up without religion, and I didn’t invent God for myself. That’s ridiculous.

It’s not human nature to believe in God. It is human nature to believe what your parents tell you, though. If your parents tell you that there’s a God at a young age, you’re likely to believe it without question.

Anyway, yes, I do think that there are certain things we can attribute to being “human nature.” It’s all because of evolution, of course. Certain things, such as emotions, help us survive and reproduce, and so those things are selected for, are part of our genes, and are what we call “human nature.”

Witty response: (It is human nature to believe in FSM, so why do you go against human nature and not believe in FSM? You can’t prove it’s NOT human nature to believe in FSM!)

6. Can ‘Something come from Nothing’?  Doesn’t that violate The First Law of Thermodynamics?

Oh, the scientific ignorance. It burns!

Ok, really? First of all, let’s talk about the first law of thermodynamics. Closed system. Guess what, if you consider the whole universe as a closed system, the total amount of energy is equal to zero. So, if I assume the question is asserting that we think the universe coming from nothing would violate the first law of thermodynamics, you’re wrong. All it is is the conservation of energy. If there was no energy before, in the “nothingness,” and there is a total of no energy now, that fits perfectly with the first law. So learn science, thank you.

Secondly, who the fuck said that something came from nothing? I am assuming the question is referring to the “big bang” theory (well, some really messed up version of it), so please show me where that theory says “in the beginning, there was nothing.” I really don’t see it, thank you.

Witty response: (Everything has to come from something. Except God. Because I said so.)

7. It seems that a society of Atheist are immoral and self-destructing.  Why would anyone want a Godless Society, just look at our examples: North Korea, Maoist China, Stalin, & Pot Pol?

First of all, North Korea and Stalin’s U.S.S.R. are/were not godless societies. They have religions of the state. To claim that North Korea has no god is very ignorant of North Korea. The god/gods of North Korea are the past leaders and present leader. In the U.S.S.R., Stalin was the deity. The dictators are worshipped by the people because it’s put in to their heads that they’re lead by deities. It’s a way of controlling the masses (hey, that sounds familiar!).

Pol Pot (not Pot Pol) was technically an atheist, as he had no belief in a deity, but he also wasn’t the kind of atheist that this is directed at. Although atheism technically just means “a lack of belief in god or gods,” a majority of tumblr atheists don’t believe in anything supernatural: astrology, ghosts, reincarnation, etc. Guess what, Pol Pot believed in all three of those. He was more or less Buddhist.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about Maoist China, so I’ll just give the benefit of the doubt and say “Ok, Mao and Maoist china was godless.” Congratulations, you have one “bad” atheist society.

Now, none of this matters of course, because the dictators in these places didn’t do anything motivated by their “atheism.” It was about politics and power, not killing off religion. Sure, they were bad people, even the atheists. That’s because they were bad people, not because they were somehow motivated by a lack of belief.

Furthermore, I’ve narrowed this down to one (two, if you still want to count Pol Pot) godless societ(y/ies). I’m pretty sure that’s all counter-acted just fine by the religious societies which were pretty immoral and awful. Nazi Germany? Hitler was a Roman Catholic, and believed he was doing God’s work. All German soldiers had “Gott Mit Uns” on their belt buckles, which means “God with us.” The Nazi party was backed and supported by the Catholic Church. There are countless other societal atrocities, but I feel like it would be a waste of time to go into detail on things like the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials. I think the point is made.

Witty response: (It seems that a society of people is immoral and self-destructing. Why would anyone want a society of people, just look at our example: Planet Earth)

8. If you were to die, and you were before God.  And he was getting ready to pass judgement on you,  What would be your reaction or thoughts?  What plea would you give him so he does not judge you harshly?

Now this is a fun question, I like this one.

My first reaction would of course be “Oh shit, look at that, I was wrong.”

My pleas however, would be something I think, if he was a reasonable God, would help me out. Firstly, I’d point out that he made me with critical thinking skills. He gave me the ability to reason and make sense of things. Why would he do that, and then expect me to believe in his contradictory immoral holy book, all without any shred of evidence. I would also plea that I lived as a good person. I was very moral, and always stood up for the rights and well-being of those around me. Why should whether or not I worshiped him matter when I was a genuinely good person? I would also stand up for the fact that I opposed religion, because I would point first back to the reasons for me not believing, and then show that because there’s not reason to believe, there was absolutely no justification for the thousands of years of history of immoral, horrific atrocities because of religion, and, as a good, person, there’s no way I couldn’t oppose religion. And if that doesn’t get through his mind, I would rather spend eternity in hell, than spend an eternity in heaven worshiping such an egotistical, unreasonable god.

Actually there’s no witty response for this one, it was actually a pretty good question.

9. What would convince you atheism is wrong?  And that Christianity is Right?

First of all, by definition, atheism can’t be “wrong.” It’s not saying that there are no gods, it’s a lack of belief in gods. However, I can be convinced that Christianity is right, and therefore that would make me no longer an atheist.

Firstly, the basis has to be proven. I need some empirical evidence that there is a God, and that it is the God of the bible. There are infinite ways for an omnipotent being to do this. He could reveal himself to humanity. He could give me a personal revelation (not through a dream, because I wouldn’t trust that). He could really do a whole lot of different things. That fact that he hasn’t kinda shows me he doesn’t exist. Then, in order to separate Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, I need to be given empirical evidence of the resurrection. The only argument I’ve seen for the resurrection was god-awful (no pun intended). It was Gary Habermas’s “minimal facts approach,” and it’s just riddled with fallacies. But yeah, anything to show me that, once I know God exists, that Jesus existed and was the son of God.

So really, any sort of evidence at all. Because I’ve seen none.

Witty response: (What wouldn’t convince me Christianity is right?)

10. Why are you an Atheist?  Why do you NOT believe in God?  Why do you reject God?  (You can be as detailed as you want.)

This is pretty much the same as the above question, but a little more detailed.

I’m an atheist first and foremost because I’ve seen no evidence to believe in any deity at all. Furthermore, all the definitions of deities (gods of different religions), still have no evidence to support them, and most of them have inherent problems, kind of proving to me that they can’t exist.

That’s really all the detail I need to give.

Witty response: (Why aren’t you an atheist?)

P.S. Whoever made this needs to calm down with the capitalization. Measurement, standard, what, life, atheist, why, not, human, nature, something, nothing, and godless are all words that shouldn’t be capitalized. Also, god is capitalized only when it’s a proper noun, generally referring to the name of the Abrahamic god. When God is not the name of the god, you don’t capitalize it. Whatever, whoever it is is on wordpress, so they’re not going to see this.

P.P.S. For an atheist “challenge,” this wasn’t very challenging. Please, if anyone has some really thought provoking questions, hit up my ask box.

hopefulheathens:

That is in quotations because I tend to think it is a superficial, nonsense term.  I have yet to see anyone identify as a “New Atheist.”  It honestly sounds made-up to me.  Yes, I know about the four horsemen of New Atheism (I really hate even capitalizing it), but I guess I would hardly call it some new revolutionary movement, much less see it as important enough to label its adherents as “New Atheists” instead of as just atheists.  It seems like anti-theists who openly challenge religion are suddenly being labeled as New Atheists.

I think people only call another person a New Atheist if that person is outspoken.  As if calling them a new term allows you to dislike them or feel better than them or something.  ”New Atheism” kind of just sounds like an excuse to generalize people you disagree with in order to separate yourself from them.  It’s like progressive atheism instead of complacent atheism is somehow worse in the eyes of some people.

Anywho, this just came to mind because I always see people griping about how terrible “New Atheism” is and all it seems like to me is them thinking atheists shouldn’t have a voice.  Whatevs.  

This^ This muh’fuhckhin’ this.

Let us first define these terms, then explain how they relate.

the·ism

noun /ˈTHēˌizəm/

Belief in the existence of a god or gods, esp. belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures

a·the·ism

noun /ˈāTHēˌizəm/

1. A lack of belief in the existence of God or gods

ag·nos·tic·ism

noun /agˈnästisizəm/

1. The disbelief in any claims of absolute knowledge

gnos·tic·ism

noun /ˈnästisizəm/

1. The claim of absolute knowledge

Now that we have that out of the way, I hope it is painfully obvious what I am going to say. Stop saying that atheists “should be agnostics, because you can’t know that God doesn’t exist.” Great, awesome, yes. I agree. All atheists should be agnostics. Guess what: Most of us are. You’ve accomplished nothing. Especially here on tumblr, I haven’t met a single atheist here who doesn’t consider themself to be an agnostic atheist. We all realize we could be wrong. So should all theists. Before we even get to whether or not we believe any deities exist, we should all be agnostic.

Now, let’s talk about mixing and matching. Pick one of the first two that define you, and then take one of the third or fourth and put it in front of that. Let’s see. I lack any belief in God or gods, so I’m an atheist. Also, as a philosophical position, I understand that as humans, there is only one thing that we can know: that we have thoughts. Past that, we can only believe very strongly. I believe very strongly that the shorts I am wearing are blue because that’s what my eyes tell me and that’s the word I think defines the color my eyes are receiving. I could even be wrong about the fact that I’m wearing shorts. I believe very strongly that I am wearing shorts, but I might be hallucinating and feeling things that aren’t there. I could be sitting on a cruise ship completely naked. However, everything tells me that is not so, so I believe very strongly that I am actually sitting on a couch wearing blue shorts, a Pizza-my-heart shirt, and leather vans. So that makes me an agnostic, because I realize I could be wrong about my atheism. Even though I have no reason to believe in a god, I have never been given any shred of evidence for a god, and all the gods I’ve ever heard of having inherent problems, I know that I could still be wrong, because I can’t know anything. That makes me an agnostic atheist. Do you hear that? Should I say it louder?

Agnostic atheist!

Does that make sense? Stop telling us that we can’t be atheists because that’s not a valid philosophical position. Stop trying to claim that you’re better than us because you’re an agnostic, so therefore you have some sort of philosophical high-horse to sit on. Stop saying that you’re a theist, and you believe that atheism is stupid because you can’t 100% disprove that your god exists. We understand that. We acknowledge that. I think I can safely speak for a majority of the tumblr atheist community in saying that we are agnostic atheists, and we believe your gods to be very, very, very, very, very, very, very improbable, but we know that we can’t 100% prove that your god doesn’t exist any more than we can 100% prove that Bertrand Russel’s flying teapot doesn’t exist.

In conclusion, the span of atheist to theist is different than the line between agnostic and gnostic. They are two different things. You can be an agnostic atheist, a gnostic atheist, an agnostic theist, or a gnostic theist. It doesn’t go “theist, agnostic, atheist.” Learn some basic definitions, please and thank you. Can we once and for all educate ourselves and stop making stupid criticisms and finding ourselves superior to others because we don’t understand some basic definitions?

Thank you.

He honestly just tried to disprove Islam using the New Testament. Like, really. He just Islam is a false religion because the Bible says not to follow any gospel that wasn’t preached by the apostles.

Like, he honestly just said that.

Like, really.

I’m not making this up.

I mean, really? Come on…

Also, he said in the same comment, “I see no more reason to continue this conversation if you stand where you stand because I won’t be moved by an argument when i already know what is true!”

Quoted, word for word, copy and paste. That’s exactly what he said…

Thanks to the internet, I lose hope for humanity on a daily basis.

Fine. Atheism is a religion. We did a pretty good job about hiding that fact for a while, but people are just too smart. Ok, you guys finally figured us out. Atheism is a religion! Are you guys happy now? They’ve been slowly figuring us out. They found out a little while ago about the fact that we eat babies. We tried keeping that one hidden for a little while, but the evidence was just too clear, so we eventually had to just admit to everyone and own up to the fact that we eat babies. Then they figured out that we have holy scripture, which is “On the Origin of Species.” Again, we tried to deny it, but they figured it out. From there, it wasn’t long before they realized that we have a god: Darwin. We worship Him whole-heartedly. Well, the trinity, that is. Darwin, who is also satan, who also sent down His son to debate for our sins, Richard Dawkins. From there, that’s all the world needed to finally correctly identify atheism as a religion. This one we’ve fought hard on. We tried to keep it covered, but I think, my fellow atheists, that we should just finally admit it.

Atheism is a religion. I apologize for trying to deny it.

yaosnonexistentmanhood:

So apparently I’m supposed to be tolerant about anti-theists.

And I don’t understand that at all.

I’ll respect someone’s opinion, but when it gets to stuff like anti-theism I refuse to do so, because it’s simply bullying by then.

Nobody expects someone to be tolerant of the Westboro Baptist Church, so nobody should expect someone to be tolerant of anti-theists.

Just like Westboro gives Christians a bad name, anti-theists give us atheists a bad name. They bully and harass people, get in your face, hate you for no reason, and spout nonsense.

Fuck that, I’m not going to respect people like that.

Would you like to talk about anti-theism? I’ll tell you exactly why I am an anti-theist, and why it is nothing like bullying, and why there is no reason for you to not respect anti-theism.

The reason I ask before just telling you is because I wonder if you even care. You say “They bully and harass people, get in your face, hate you for no reason, and spout nonsense.” That’s a severe misrepresentation of anti-theism, and I don’t get how you say we “spout nonsense” when you, too, are an atheist. You therefore agree with us in saying that a belief in gods is incorrect.

You should probably learn what anti-theism is and what we do before YOU start spouting nonsense, and I’m here to give you that opportunity.

DO you care?

This problem encompasses a whole lot of stuff: The problem of evil, free will, omnipotence, and omni-benevolence are the basics.

All I’m really going to do is posit the commonly discussed “problem of evil,” and why it shows that the Abrahamic God is not in existence. Hopefully, though, I will go more in depth than most people usually think about the problem of evil, and maybe this will help a believer question their beliefs.

First of all, what is the problem of evil? In its most basic form, what it says is that because evil exists, the God that people believe in cannot. Why is that? If God truly loved all of his “children,” he would not let evil come upon them. This calls, firstly, into question the idea of omni-benevolence (the state of being “all loving”). That’s the surface. Let’s take, for example, one very heinous crime: rape. I am not discussing murder here, because that can be rationalized in other ways (if the victim is a good Christian/Muslim/Jew, then they will be allowed in to heaven because they are now dead). Therefore, rape is a prime example for the problem of evil, because a victim of such a heinous crime still must carry on their existence after this evil, which was not prevented by God, happens to them. A heavy subject, yes, but it gets my point across.

This is the basic situation (Layer 1, if you will): Somebody gets raped by another human, and because God did not prevent it, he is not all loving. Of course, the debate over this goes further than that. At this point, many believers will say that God is still omni-benevolent, and call in the rationalization by bringing up free will. What is generally stated is that God has given all of us free will, so we may live our lives the way we wish, and if we so wish to reject God, we can, and therefore, God cannot prevent the rape from happening because he would be interfering with free will: the free will of the rapist to act how they like. Layer 2 of this problem puts the ball back in the theists court: God is still omni-benevolent because he still loves the victim and would prevent the evil if he could, but he cannot interfere with free will.

This is when I bring in why that rationalization does not work: God is also supposedly omnipotent (all powerful). If he is all powerful, he can do anything. Part of “anything” includes being able to prevent evil without interfering with free will. Of course, there are already problems with omnipotence, such as the Stone Paradox (Can God create a stone so heavy he cannot lift it?), but this posits that God, while still allowing free will, can prevent the evil, the rape, from happening. There are endless ways you can think of to what he might do, so I shall not needlessly posit ideas, but the point is there, and layer 3 brings the ball back in to the skeptics court: God did not prevent the rape from happening, and so he is not omni-benevolent, not omnipotent, or both, because if he is omnipotent, he can prevent the rape from happening without interfering with free will.

So far, I have not been given, nor seen anywhere, any response to that. Past layer 3, I have seen no counterargument to why God can still be omnipotent and omni-benevolent, and so I ask anyone to please provide me with something further. If not, you must accept that the Abrahamic God, who is defined as both omnipotent and omni-benevolent, does not exist.

Any responses from any standpoint are welcomed, so please let me know what you think. I love arguments, and I love any other input you have on the problem of evil.

Why is it that my post about starting an atheist bar gets a bunch more notes than the quote by Gandhi on a background of pictures that I actually spent time on? Also, anyone want to give me tips on how I can get more followers?