Fair enough. I guess my understanding of the terminology may be obsolete.
But I’m unsure how you can be gnostic about the Judeo-Christian God existing. Doesn’t that require the exact same amount of faith as actual Christians, just in the opposite direction? I’m not comfortable with claiming certainty of anything in the absence of any logical framework, and thus I do not identify as an atheist.
I do identify as an atheist, and I would say it has nothing to do with some sort of faith in non-existence. I know there is a lot more to be found out about the universe, and as our methods of observation and tools improve so will our understanding of how everything fits together and where it all “came” from. What I dont understand is what would a 2000 year old book’s character have to do with anything? Why would the Abrahamic god enter the picture at all? If you can imagine that there’s some ultimate creative force that is responsible for existence, why would it resemble the “God” in the Bible? It could be something like a “white hole”, spewing matter in to the universe as another interesting but ultimately mundane cosmic feature. It certainly wouldn’t give a shit that you exist, or ever hear prayers, or that people are cruel to each other, and all the other stuff people made up and have been telling each other about God. I acknowledge that we don’t and can’t know everything about how the universe works but I don’t get why that has to leave the back door open to believing in some sapient paranormal omniscient presence floating somewhere in space. The Bible is a work of fiction. There are lots of great lessons to be learned in fiction, and it can be a great comfort and an escape, but it was written and made up by people.
Why wouldn’t it? We have no frame of reference to make a value judgment about what a higher power should or would be like. We simply have no way of knowing.
We do, however, have a framework of references regarding the other natural mysteries humans once ascribed to gods having elegant solutions rooted in the hard sciences. We searched the storm clouds and didn’t find Thor. We’ve dug boreholes and didn’t find Hades. We’ve studied the sun and haven’t found Ra. Human history is chock full of gods and “higher powers” to explain the unknown, and as we learned more about the world the less relevant they became. We learned sacrificing goats to a god does not make it rain, and now understand the natural and mundane systems that do. There’s no reason to believe that the creation of matter or “something from nothing” as you put it is any different.
Our extremely advanced collection of scientific knowledge doesn’t even attempt to explain anything prior to the big bang. The models simply don’t apply.
In the 20th century, many made similar arguments regarding quantum mechanics. Einstein famously remarked “God doesn’t play dice”, because he didn’t see how uncertainty could be a fundamental aspect of physics. Everything we knew about physics up until that point involved definitive calculations which provided a determinate result. Turns out he was wrong.
I try to avoid hubris, and in this situation it’s pretty easy for me to recognize and avoid. My question for you is, what is your incentive to make such a definitive claim in the absence of certainty? My suspicion is it has something to do with OPs original claim that atheists choose to believe that God doesn’t exist due to emotional reasons, rather than rational ones.
Let’s say for example that before there was space time, outside of the known universe that there was a giant space whale. This space whale ate dark energy and as it passed through its digestive system it created matter. Turns out, this is how the universe started. Is the space whale God? It created all life and the universe so is that all it would take to fit the description? Does it have to be intelligent? How intelligent? Does it have to have heard prayers or be aware of humans? Does it have to have directly created Earth or humanity or can it just have created all matter?
How about if Star Trek is right, and there is a race of incredibly advanced extra dimensional beings with powers indistinguishable from gods? They seem to be all knowing and all powerful and can communicate with us and can even read our minds. Are they gods, or aliens with technology beyond our understanding? What if the aliens were confirmed to have created Earth? Humans even?
Would it still be a god if you could measure it, visit it, observe it? Does a theist’s idea of god have to be something beyond perception? I would argue that the line between a god and a highly advanced alien is in the deliberate ambiguity, and the need to “have faith” that it exists. The moment there is hard evidence of its existence it stops being a god. Anything that can’t exist in the face of any evidence that it does might as well not.
There are probably an infinite amount of possibilities in the unknown, but without any evidence or scientific rigor then any theory people come up with are just daydreams. Being pooped out by a giant space whale is an equally valid idea to there being a god out there, and equally valid to an enormous primordial cow licking the salt from ice to create life. I don’t believe in those stories because I don’t have any reason to. Your saying that my lack of belief in god is emotional is pretty funny to me, perhaps your lack of belief in Superman is emotional rather than rational.
Because modern morality would reject the idea that an omnipotent being would need to torture someone to death to absolve humanity of the “sin” of acquiring knowledge of good and evil from actions they took prior to understanding the difference between good and evil. Whereas 2000 years ago that concept might have been more palatable.
Or that somehow it is acceptable to torture people for eternity for losing a guessing game you created. We have only 100 years to pick the right answer, should we make everything just and fair so it’s easy to figure out there was a plan? Or give cancer to children?
Not to mention just torturing some dude to win a bet with Satan. Wait, isn’t that a bet with one of the creations that doesn’t have the free will? Isn’t an omnipotent being actually above needing to prove things to the devil?
Either the Bible is a work of fiction embracing the morality of the era it was written in, or it’s perfectly normal for an omnipotent being to create things with free will but flip out and do tortures or mass genocides when the free will is used incorrectly. Can you imagine how you’d perceive people acting out these stories today? “Hey boss, I need the day off, I’m hearing voices telling me to take my child up a mountain to kill him, so I’m going to do that.”
What makes you assume that a higher power would adhere to your moral code?
You don’t actually know, but because certain possibilities make you emotionally uncomfortable, you choose to reject them. It’s totally fine for you to choose to believe whatever you like. But from a purely rational perspective, you cannot prove your assertion; it’s based on faith.
If you assert a higher power with a more advanced moral code than mine would condone selling women into sexual slavery I am pretty sure you have already lost the argument.
But that higher power isn’t even consistent with its own moral code. Remember when it sent bears to maul a bunch of children for teasing a bald dude? I assume you will say it is foolhardy to assume it is morally wrong to maul children to death for a childish mistake? That’s absurd, though, the Commandment is not killing. Maybe god should have tossed in an eleventh: “bald dudes are off-limits, kids, bother someone else.”
From a purely rational perspective, I have to reject the Abrahamic religions as being fantasies from cultures with barely developed moral codes, as that is the infinitely more plausible explanation.
If I cannot find my keys, I don’t “from a purely rational perspective” have to accept that pixies might have hidden them. Rejecting the existence of mischievous pixies has nothing to do with my emotions towards pixies.
Certainty is a fool’s errand. Everything is ranges of probability. I ultimately can’t prove that everyone on the Internet is not a corgi, but it’s highly unlikely.
I specifically disbelieve the Judeo-Christian god exists because that god is claimed to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and merciful. All three are difficult to reconcile with the suffering we see in the world. If he knew everything and was merciful, but powerless to do anything, that would be different. If he was merciful and powerful, but didn’t know any better, that would be different. If he was powerful and knowledgeable, but didn’t give a shit, that would be different. All three, however, is a different matter.
Could there be some other explanation? Perhaps. There have been pages and pages written on that very subject down through the centuries. I’ve found those explanations to be deeply unsatisfying. It’s more likely that such an entity does not exist.
I haven’t gone through every single god in every single pantheon and measured out their likelihood of existing or not. I merely find the concept of a god to be unnecessary to explain the universe around us, so I’m agnostic about the vast majority of them.
Not at all. There is a huge difference in proving a positive (i.e. that God exists) than prooving a negative (i.e. that God is IMPOSSIBLE).
EXAMPLE:
Could Trump be a lizard alien in a skin suit as some might believe? Absolutely.
Am I gnostic by stating in a matter of fact tone that he isn’t (and thus dependant on “faith” by extension of your argument? Probably not.
Just because someone once made a wild claim about God existing, doesn’t make me require “faith” to call out he obviously made up story with absolutely zero facts to back it as such.
Fair enough. I guess my understanding of the terminology may be obsolete.
But I’m unsure how you can be gnostic about the Judeo-Christian God existing. Doesn’t that require the exact same amount of faith as actual Christians, just in the opposite direction? I’m not comfortable with claiming certainty of anything in the absence of any logical framework, and thus I do not identify as an atheist.
I do identify as an atheist, and I would say it has nothing to do with some sort of faith in non-existence. I know there is a lot more to be found out about the universe, and as our methods of observation and tools improve so will our understanding of how everything fits together and where it all “came” from. What I dont understand is what would a 2000 year old book’s character have to do with anything? Why would the Abrahamic god enter the picture at all? If you can imagine that there’s some ultimate creative force that is responsible for existence, why would it resemble the “God” in the Bible? It could be something like a “white hole”, spewing matter in to the universe as another interesting but ultimately mundane cosmic feature. It certainly wouldn’t give a shit that you exist, or ever hear prayers, or that people are cruel to each other, and all the other stuff people made up and have been telling each other about God. I acknowledge that we don’t and can’t know everything about how the universe works but I don’t get why that has to leave the back door open to believing in some sapient paranormal omniscient presence floating somewhere in space. The Bible is a work of fiction. There are lots of great lessons to be learned in fiction, and it can be a great comfort and an escape, but it was written and made up by people.
Why wouldn’t it? We have no frame of reference to make a value judgment about what a higher power should or would be like. We simply have no way of knowing.
We do, however, have a framework of references regarding the other natural mysteries humans once ascribed to gods having elegant solutions rooted in the hard sciences. We searched the storm clouds and didn’t find Thor. We’ve dug boreholes and didn’t find Hades. We’ve studied the sun and haven’t found Ra. Human history is chock full of gods and “higher powers” to explain the unknown, and as we learned more about the world the less relevant they became. We learned sacrificing goats to a god does not make it rain, and now understand the natural and mundane systems that do. There’s no reason to believe that the creation of matter or “something from nothing” as you put it is any different.
There’s also no reason to believe it’s the same.
Our extremely advanced collection of scientific knowledge doesn’t even attempt to explain anything prior to the big bang. The models simply don’t apply.
In the 20th century, many made similar arguments regarding quantum mechanics. Einstein famously remarked “God doesn’t play dice”, because he didn’t see how uncertainty could be a fundamental aspect of physics. Everything we knew about physics up until that point involved definitive calculations which provided a determinate result. Turns out he was wrong.
I try to avoid hubris, and in this situation it’s pretty easy for me to recognize and avoid. My question for you is, what is your incentive to make such a definitive claim in the absence of certainty? My suspicion is it has something to do with OPs original claim that atheists choose to believe that God doesn’t exist due to emotional reasons, rather than rational ones.
Let’s say for example that before there was space time, outside of the known universe that there was a giant space whale. This space whale ate dark energy and as it passed through its digestive system it created matter. Turns out, this is how the universe started. Is the space whale God? It created all life and the universe so is that all it would take to fit the description? Does it have to be intelligent? How intelligent? Does it have to have heard prayers or be aware of humans? Does it have to have directly created Earth or humanity or can it just have created all matter?
How about if Star Trek is right, and there is a race of incredibly advanced extra dimensional beings with powers indistinguishable from gods? They seem to be all knowing and all powerful and can communicate with us and can even read our minds. Are they gods, or aliens with technology beyond our understanding? What if the aliens were confirmed to have created Earth? Humans even?
Would it still be a god if you could measure it, visit it, observe it? Does a theist’s idea of god have to be something beyond perception? I would argue that the line between a god and a highly advanced alien is in the deliberate ambiguity, and the need to “have faith” that it exists. The moment there is hard evidence of its existence it stops being a god. Anything that can’t exist in the face of any evidence that it does might as well not.
There are probably an infinite amount of possibilities in the unknown, but without any evidence or scientific rigor then any theory people come up with are just daydreams. Being pooped out by a giant space whale is an equally valid idea to there being a god out there, and equally valid to an enormous primordial cow licking the salt from ice to create life. I don’t believe in those stories because I don’t have any reason to. Your saying that my lack of belief in god is emotional is pretty funny to me, perhaps your lack of belief in Superman is emotional rather than rational.
Because modern morality would reject the idea that an omnipotent being would need to torture someone to death to absolve humanity of the “sin” of acquiring knowledge of good and evil from actions they took prior to understanding the difference between good and evil. Whereas 2000 years ago that concept might have been more palatable.
Or that somehow it is acceptable to torture people for eternity for losing a guessing game you created. We have only 100 years to pick the right answer, should we make everything just and fair so it’s easy to figure out there was a plan? Or give cancer to children?
Not to mention just torturing some dude to win a bet with Satan. Wait, isn’t that a bet with one of the creations that doesn’t have the free will? Isn’t an omnipotent being actually above needing to prove things to the devil?
Either the Bible is a work of fiction embracing the morality of the era it was written in, or it’s perfectly normal for an omnipotent being to create things with free will but flip out and do tortures or mass genocides when the free will is used incorrectly. Can you imagine how you’d perceive people acting out these stories today? “Hey boss, I need the day off, I’m hearing voices telling me to take my child up a mountain to kill him, so I’m going to do that.”
What makes you assume that a higher power would adhere to your moral code?
You don’t actually know, but because certain possibilities make you emotionally uncomfortable, you choose to reject them. It’s totally fine for you to choose to believe whatever you like. But from a purely rational perspective, you cannot prove your assertion; it’s based on faith.
If you assert a higher power with a more advanced moral code than mine would condone selling women into sexual slavery I am pretty sure you have already lost the argument.
But that higher power isn’t even consistent with its own moral code. Remember when it sent bears to maul a bunch of children for teasing a bald dude? I assume you will say it is foolhardy to assume it is morally wrong to maul children to death for a childish mistake? That’s absurd, though, the Commandment is not killing. Maybe god should have tossed in an eleventh: “bald dudes are off-limits, kids, bother someone else.”
From a purely rational perspective, I have to reject the Abrahamic religions as being fantasies from cultures with barely developed moral codes, as that is the infinitely more plausible explanation.
If I cannot find my keys, I don’t “from a purely rational perspective” have to accept that pixies might have hidden them. Rejecting the existence of mischievous pixies has nothing to do with my emotions towards pixies.
Certainty is a fool’s errand. Everything is ranges of probability. I ultimately can’t prove that everyone on the Internet is not a corgi, but it’s highly unlikely.
I specifically disbelieve the Judeo-Christian god exists because that god is claimed to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and merciful. All three are difficult to reconcile with the suffering we see in the world. If he knew everything and was merciful, but powerless to do anything, that would be different. If he was merciful and powerful, but didn’t know any better, that would be different. If he was powerful and knowledgeable, but didn’t give a shit, that would be different. All three, however, is a different matter.
Could there be some other explanation? Perhaps. There have been pages and pages written on that very subject down through the centuries. I’ve found those explanations to be deeply unsatisfying. It’s more likely that such an entity does not exist.
I haven’t gone through every single god in every single pantheon and measured out their likelihood of existing or not. I merely find the concept of a god to be unnecessary to explain the universe around us, so I’m agnostic about the vast majority of them.
Not at all. There is a huge difference in proving a positive (i.e. that God exists) than prooving a negative (i.e. that God is IMPOSSIBLE).
EXAMPLE: Could Trump be a lizard alien in a skin suit as some might believe? Absolutely. Am I gnostic by stating in a matter of fact tone that he isn’t (and thus dependant on “faith” by extension of your argument? Probably not.
Just because someone once made a wild claim about God existing, doesn’t make me require “faith” to call out he obviously made up story with absolutely zero facts to back it as such.
Trump is a human being who physically exists on Earth.
God is an abstract concept that is beyond human comprehension and exists outside the bounds of time and space.
Making claims about something that you fundamentally don’t understand is a fool’s errand.