Yoda
10-12-07, 01:54 PM
As promised in The Shoutbox (http://www.movieforums.com/community/shoutbox.php), here are just a few reasons I believe the existence of some kind of God is more likely than the absence of one. These are mainly intended to be a jumping off point.
The Existence of the Universe
As logic dictates, there are only three broad possibilities for the origin of physical matter: either it was created by something/someone outside the Universe, it has always been here, or it popped into existence somehow. All three are basically considered supernatural, yet at least one of them must be true.
I find this to be a point in favor of some form of theism for a very simple reason: it's more internally consistent than the other two options, which ask us to accept something which would seem to contradict scads of scientific observation.
A greater intelligence creating the Universe is internally consistent and logical. Something popping into existence for no reason has next to no scientific basis; it's the kind of explanation you give simply to have an explanation. It's not in keeping with the scientific process that most who reject the idea of God put their trust in.
We each have to ask ourselves: is it really more likely that the Universe created itself, in all its synchronization and complexity, than that a greater intelligence did? The universe (and life in general) is the only thing where we see complexity and organization, yet don't associate it with intelligence. In all other walks of life, where religion and ideology do not factor into the discussion, we seize on exponentially smaller levels of design to indicate intelligence.
Physical Laws
Accepting the idea that the Universe created itself is hard enough to swallow on its own, but we must add to it the fact that it must have also created itself in a stunningly orderly fashion.
Why do we have the universal laws that we do? Obviously the universe is going to have rules of some sort, but why should they be consistent? Why should they bring order rather than chaos?
Mathematics, in particular, strikes me as significant example. It is the language of the universe; it underlies everything. But why should the universe have a language at all if it's such a random, meaningless creation?
If humanity were to start all over again, numerous things would surely be different; certain social customs and the like. Maybe the idea of formalwear would be different, and bow ties would be in style. Who knows? But a few things would have to be the same: things like mathematics. We do not create mathematics, we discover it. It is already there for us to discover. Why, after discovering such an incredible universal blueprint, would we not then posit an architect?
Nearly Unanimous Moral Principles
C.S. Lewis put this far better than I ever could in his tremendous book, Mere Christianity, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to examine the issue properly. As he describes it (rough quote follows): "people all over the world have this curious idea of how they ought to behave, that they can't seem to get rid of." Here's an excerpt from Chapter 1, "The Law of Human Nature":
"Every one has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: 'How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?' -- 'That's my seat, I was there first' -- 'Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm' -- 'Why should you shove in first?' -- 'Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine' -- 'Come on, you promised.' People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: 'To hell with your standard.' Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word.Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football."As many non-believers are quick to point out, they can be just as "moral" as any theist. They, too, operate under these basic assumptions. Though their beliefs (or lack thereof) necessitate the denial of any such moral standard, they still behave as if there is one, and obviously they feel the same sense of justice and moral outrage as a believer does. This is to their credit as human beings, but to the detriment of their arguments.
One common counter-argument is that such a morality is purely a social construction. Lewis has an answer for that, too:"I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behaviour known to all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities.But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean.Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to-whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or every one. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired."In other words, morality, though certainly culturally influenced, appears to have a highly innate quality. Human morality shares base principles across both time and cultures. Though people may disagree about where one's loyalties should lie, for example, societies always seem to agree that you should be loyal to someone. Certain human traits, such as cowardice, are never thought highly of, no matter the level of technological or cultural development of the society.
Most of the things purported to be significant moral differences are actually a matter of ignorance. The example Lewis uses is the Salem Witch Trials, which he notes are more about a lack of knowledge than any moral difference. After all, if we thought witches existed and were going to destroy our crops and eat our children, wouldn't we want to get rid of them, too? Thus, we share base moral principles even with those who commit heinous acts. What varies, generally, is knowledge.
You can make the case that this is ultimately nothing more than instinct, but there seems to be another element at play. To borrow another example from Lewis: suppose you hear someone yelling "fire!" and calling for help. Generally, a person in this situation will find their instincts dueling; there is the desire to assist this other person, and there is the desire of self-preservation, which would want us to flee.
But there is another desire, which feels not that it wants to help, but that it ought to help. It is not either instinct by itself, because it clearly stands outside them both, and lobbies for the former. To reference Lewis yet again, it stands above instincts, and appears to mediate between them. I suppose you could call it our conscience. Whatever it is, it is decidedly less panicked than we know most instincts to be.
Ancillary Issues
All that said, there are a few other issues which do not directly support the existence of God, but rather, highlight the nature of some of the alternatives. None of these things logically require that you believe in God, but they do illustrate some of the things you must logically believe if you don't:
1. Morality does not existThis one is obvious, and mentioned often. The basis of objective morality is a universal, authoritative standard that only a God can provide. Without such a God, there is ultimately nothing to appeal to when making moral judgments. Thus, the most heinous acts imaginable become nothing more than a difference of opinion.2. Choice is an illusionThis one's a little more subtle, but just as unavoidable. If there is nothing supernatural about the Universe, and everything consists of mere atoms reacting to one another, that would have to include each of our minds. Complex though they might be, they, too, would be only physical, and thus their movements (and therefore, our thoughts) would be predetermined by the first appearance of matter. We would not have any more choice about what we think, say, or do, than an apple has a choice about whether or not to fall towards the ground when separated from its branch.
Thus, everything that has ever taken place was predetermined by the positioning and movement of the very first atom to ever exist, and the rejection of any form of God or supernatual entity like the soul requires that one become a complete determinist. Which means you can't get too mad at me, because I have no choice but to say the things I'm saying. ;)
3. Religion is good for mankindAgain, not proof of the existence of God, but it seems to me that anyone who believes in evolutionary development somewhat contradicts themselves if they simultaneously believe that religious belief is somehow harmful. After all, if we evolved, we evolved to hold these beliefs; almost unanimously across our species. Clearly, then, it has tremendous benefits to mankind. Something so central to our way of thinking could not survive millions of years of evolution if it were detrimental.Technically speaking, one could make the case that religion was good for our development, but is not any longer. But this is purely conjecture given the scale we're talking about, and still requires that any reasonable Darwinist acknowledge religion's usefulness to to this point. Needless to say, most do not.4. Democracy is rooted in beliefThe entire idea behind Democracy is not that people cannot be wrong, but that enough people, over a long enough period of time, will make the right decisions. This is especially true of the major issues which affect people the most, of which religion is obviously near the top of the list.To deny the existence of God, then, is not simply to say that lots of people are wrong, but that humanity itself has been wildly and consistently wrong about a life-changing issue for as long as we have any record of human thought. I'm sure we can all agree that that's an awfully bold claim, and in my mind it calls into question just where the burden of proof ultimately lies.Summary
In short, then, disbelief in God requires that you believe the following:
The Universe exists of its own accord, yet still in an orderly fashion, complete with consistent natural laws to govern it. Mankind's ideas of morality and choice are illusions, nothing is right or wrong, and the overwhelming majority of human beings have made a monumental error about one of the most important choices of their lives.
Good? Good. I'll see you all at Church. ;)
The Existence of the Universe
As logic dictates, there are only three broad possibilities for the origin of physical matter: either it was created by something/someone outside the Universe, it has always been here, or it popped into existence somehow. All three are basically considered supernatural, yet at least one of them must be true.
I find this to be a point in favor of some form of theism for a very simple reason: it's more internally consistent than the other two options, which ask us to accept something which would seem to contradict scads of scientific observation.
A greater intelligence creating the Universe is internally consistent and logical. Something popping into existence for no reason has next to no scientific basis; it's the kind of explanation you give simply to have an explanation. It's not in keeping with the scientific process that most who reject the idea of God put their trust in.
We each have to ask ourselves: is it really more likely that the Universe created itself, in all its synchronization and complexity, than that a greater intelligence did? The universe (and life in general) is the only thing where we see complexity and organization, yet don't associate it with intelligence. In all other walks of life, where religion and ideology do not factor into the discussion, we seize on exponentially smaller levels of design to indicate intelligence.
Physical Laws
Accepting the idea that the Universe created itself is hard enough to swallow on its own, but we must add to it the fact that it must have also created itself in a stunningly orderly fashion.
Why do we have the universal laws that we do? Obviously the universe is going to have rules of some sort, but why should they be consistent? Why should they bring order rather than chaos?
Mathematics, in particular, strikes me as significant example. It is the language of the universe; it underlies everything. But why should the universe have a language at all if it's such a random, meaningless creation?
If humanity were to start all over again, numerous things would surely be different; certain social customs and the like. Maybe the idea of formalwear would be different, and bow ties would be in style. Who knows? But a few things would have to be the same: things like mathematics. We do not create mathematics, we discover it. It is already there for us to discover. Why, after discovering such an incredible universal blueprint, would we not then posit an architect?
Nearly Unanimous Moral Principles
C.S. Lewis put this far better than I ever could in his tremendous book, Mere Christianity, which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to examine the issue properly. As he describes it (rough quote follows): "people all over the world have this curious idea of how they ought to behave, that they can't seem to get rid of." Here's an excerpt from Chapter 1, "The Law of Human Nature":
"Every one has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: 'How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?' -- 'That's my seat, I was there first' -- 'Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm' -- 'Why should you shove in first?' -- 'Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine' -- 'Come on, you promised.' People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: 'To hell with your standard.' Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word.Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football."As many non-believers are quick to point out, they can be just as "moral" as any theist. They, too, operate under these basic assumptions. Though their beliefs (or lack thereof) necessitate the denial of any such moral standard, they still behave as if there is one, and obviously they feel the same sense of justice and moral outrage as a believer does. This is to their credit as human beings, but to the detriment of their arguments.
One common counter-argument is that such a morality is purely a social construction. Lewis has an answer for that, too:"I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behaviour known to all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities.But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean.Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to-whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or every one. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired."In other words, morality, though certainly culturally influenced, appears to have a highly innate quality. Human morality shares base principles across both time and cultures. Though people may disagree about where one's loyalties should lie, for example, societies always seem to agree that you should be loyal to someone. Certain human traits, such as cowardice, are never thought highly of, no matter the level of technological or cultural development of the society.
Most of the things purported to be significant moral differences are actually a matter of ignorance. The example Lewis uses is the Salem Witch Trials, which he notes are more about a lack of knowledge than any moral difference. After all, if we thought witches existed and were going to destroy our crops and eat our children, wouldn't we want to get rid of them, too? Thus, we share base moral principles even with those who commit heinous acts. What varies, generally, is knowledge.
You can make the case that this is ultimately nothing more than instinct, but there seems to be another element at play. To borrow another example from Lewis: suppose you hear someone yelling "fire!" and calling for help. Generally, a person in this situation will find their instincts dueling; there is the desire to assist this other person, and there is the desire of self-preservation, which would want us to flee.
But there is another desire, which feels not that it wants to help, but that it ought to help. It is not either instinct by itself, because it clearly stands outside them both, and lobbies for the former. To reference Lewis yet again, it stands above instincts, and appears to mediate between them. I suppose you could call it our conscience. Whatever it is, it is decidedly less panicked than we know most instincts to be.
Ancillary Issues
All that said, there are a few other issues which do not directly support the existence of God, but rather, highlight the nature of some of the alternatives. None of these things logically require that you believe in God, but they do illustrate some of the things you must logically believe if you don't:
1. Morality does not existThis one is obvious, and mentioned often. The basis of objective morality is a universal, authoritative standard that only a God can provide. Without such a God, there is ultimately nothing to appeal to when making moral judgments. Thus, the most heinous acts imaginable become nothing more than a difference of opinion.2. Choice is an illusionThis one's a little more subtle, but just as unavoidable. If there is nothing supernatural about the Universe, and everything consists of mere atoms reacting to one another, that would have to include each of our minds. Complex though they might be, they, too, would be only physical, and thus their movements (and therefore, our thoughts) would be predetermined by the first appearance of matter. We would not have any more choice about what we think, say, or do, than an apple has a choice about whether or not to fall towards the ground when separated from its branch.
Thus, everything that has ever taken place was predetermined by the positioning and movement of the very first atom to ever exist, and the rejection of any form of God or supernatual entity like the soul requires that one become a complete determinist. Which means you can't get too mad at me, because I have no choice but to say the things I'm saying. ;)
3. Religion is good for mankindAgain, not proof of the existence of God, but it seems to me that anyone who believes in evolutionary development somewhat contradicts themselves if they simultaneously believe that religious belief is somehow harmful. After all, if we evolved, we evolved to hold these beliefs; almost unanimously across our species. Clearly, then, it has tremendous benefits to mankind. Something so central to our way of thinking could not survive millions of years of evolution if it were detrimental.Technically speaking, one could make the case that religion was good for our development, but is not any longer. But this is purely conjecture given the scale we're talking about, and still requires that any reasonable Darwinist acknowledge religion's usefulness to to this point. Needless to say, most do not.4. Democracy is rooted in beliefThe entire idea behind Democracy is not that people cannot be wrong, but that enough people, over a long enough period of time, will make the right decisions. This is especially true of the major issues which affect people the most, of which religion is obviously near the top of the list.To deny the existence of God, then, is not simply to say that lots of people are wrong, but that humanity itself has been wildly and consistently wrong about a life-changing issue for as long as we have any record of human thought. I'm sure we can all agree that that's an awfully bold claim, and in my mind it calls into question just where the burden of proof ultimately lies.Summary
In short, then, disbelief in God requires that you believe the following:
The Universe exists of its own accord, yet still in an orderly fashion, complete with consistent natural laws to govern it. Mankind's ideas of morality and choice are illusions, nothing is right or wrong, and the overwhelming majority of human beings have made a monumental error about one of the most important choices of their lives.
Good? Good. I'll see you all at Church. ;)