Kevin Graham wrote:You pointed to Stalin and Pol Pot as exemplars of atheism, which they are not.
No, I never did that. Here, I did a search of all the times I used the word "Stalin" in a post. It all began a year ago in March when people were trying to imply religion is dangerous simply because some religious leaders killed. Here is what I said.
Wed Mar 19, 2008:
Dartagnan: So what kind of atheism is it that is dangerous? What kind of atheism breeds guys like Stalin? The kind of atheism that expresses intolerance towards theists.
Dude: Who cares about Stalin and his deranged personal psychology?! He wasn't just a skeptic (like most of us here). He was much, much more than that to become a murderous dictator.
Dartagnan: You're right. And bad religious people are much, much more than just religious. People in power will have the tendency to abuse that power no matter their views on the origin of life or the universe. I think the benefit of religion is that it provides a personal ideology to temper such temptation, whereas with atheism, well, there's nothing there. So I think the argument isn't what atheism causes so much as what it fails to preclude. Atheism does nothing to make bad people better but it doesn't make good people worse either. And that doesn't mean all atheists are bad. It just means atheism doesn't do anything. Religion effectively makes bad people better people, or at the least, makes a great effort at it.
Clearly I referred to a
type of atheism, and did not lump all forms of atheism into Stalinism. But understanding this would require reading.
Fair point. You've got me here -- you did not hold up Stalinism as emblematic of atheism. You
did, however, say that it was a
logical consequence of atheism, which is virtually indistinguishable from saying it's an exemplar of it. I'm not going to let you wriggle out of castigation for
that.
Example #1:
There are clear indications that the symmetries of the universe point to a purpose and that is to promote the existence of human life. This is consistent with virtually all theistic belief systems. This in and of itself screams intelligent design. And when I say intelligent design, I mean to say there are indications that the universe was not an accident and the laws therein were tweaked by something intelligent.
How in the hell can that be watered down to a simple, "it must be God since nature hasn't explained it"? My point isn't that naturalism hasn't explained it. My point is that naturalism
can't explain it in any way that excludes an intelligent source. The only explanation that stands a chance is the multiverse theory, which really isn't much of one since we will never be able to detect their existence, let alone count them out to confirm they amount to a trillion trillion.
Are you completely foreclosing on the possibility that a new cosmological theory will emerge, ever? That's basically what you have to do for your residual logic to work: "nothing can explain X except God; therefore God exists" breaks down if another theory is added to the mix. Think about it this way: before electricity was discovered, the 13th century Kevin Graham would say, the only thing that could explain lightning was God. That argument was as bad in the 13th century as it is today. It's also the exact same form of argument you're using in this thread.
Example #2:
we cannot see God, but his/her/its existence conveniently explains a lot about the beauty in the world we live in; things science has not been able to explain. It is truly difficult for some people to sit and wonder at the amazing world we live in and not conclude it was by intelligent design.
Yes, there is much about the world that screams intelligence. This isn't the same thing as saying, "it must be God since nature hasn't explained it"? There is plenty that naturalism hasn't explained, that I think will eventually be explained via science. In the meantime I don't count any of these things as evidence for God. We haven't found a cure for Cancer yet. I don't consider that evidence for God. We have yet to figure out how make batteries last ten years. I don't think that is evidence for God. I've never seen a bear crap in the woods, but I doubt the piles that have been discovered are based on divine intervention.
I can't even take your exegesis seriously. The point of your above quote is obvious. You were not arguing that the unexplained beauty in the world constitutes weak circumstantial evidence for the existence of God; you were putting it forth as a reason we should conclude that God exists.
Example #3:
It defies logic to say it was an accident or that we won the cosmological jackpot. To that extent, I know a God exists.
Exactly.
Why is this one so hard to comprehend? Naturalism cannot explain this without some intelligent source. The problem isn't that it hasn't, but that it can't. Go ahead an just
try to throw out some kind of "plausible" naturalistic explanation for the fact that all of the universal constants share one common value, which just happens to be one that theists have taken for granted for thousands of years.
You're making a fatal reasoning error here. You say that you're relying on "naturalism cannot", not merely "naturalism has not", and then you fail, grotesquely, to show that a naturalistic explanation is
necessarily impossible, and instead demand that provide one. That's not how it works, buddy. It's
your argument that relies on the impossibility of naturalistic explanation for the cosmological constants, so it's
your burden to prove it. Good luck, Kevin "Godel" Graham.
All the other stuff about biology and evolution, you can throw up some kind of plausible scenario that might offer satisfying explanations. For example you can simply say one day scientists will watch various elements come together in a controlled experiment, to form a living cell. Fine. I guess that's plausible. There is no reason to think it willhappen, but at least that is a way naturalism could explain life forming naturally.
I think this is the most sensible thing we'll be able to squeeze out of you. Too bad.
But with the fine-tuned universe, just try to come up with a plausible explanation. All you have to fall back on is the appeal to chance. Enter the multiverse argument, which I find to be less than convincing, as well as humorous.
Why would I bother? You won't be satisfied that residual arguments are crappy until science is capable of explaining every jot and tittle of the universe. If magic-free reasoning ever convincingly explained the origin of the universe, you'd find the next-furthest thing out that science couldn't explain at the time, and hitch your belief in God to that instead. I don't want to play that game.
These conversations all come down to the question of what explanatory work God does. If you really want to make a case for your residual arguments, you should give us reason to believe that invoking "God" works better as an explanation than does invoking a magic walnut. You have yet to do so.