Why I'm an Atheist. By Ricky Gervais

[Dan T.]

Threads like this are why I love this site. What a great and intellectually invigorating discussion this has become. Thank you all for your thoughtful posts here.

[brandymac27]

Well, to be fair, "100% certainty" is pretty much an impossible standard for most anything. The paragraph before the first one I just quoted happens to talk about this:

Point taken, but would it really have made a difference if I said I can't even be 70% sure?

[NavyDave]

Yet a lot of those people that are effected by all those hardships and horrors believe in God.

So GOD is suppose to kiss every boo boo man inflicts upon himself?

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 08:19 AM ----------

What if it turned out that we're the result of an alien species "seeding' the galaxy, or more.., and the species who left us here are / were as flawed as we are?

~Bang

Flaws? Heck even GOD has his moments.I don't just mean liberals and Soccer fans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xWNFByXjK0

[DCSaints_fan]

Sometimes I want to believe, but reality and the absurdities of religion keep getting in the way

[DRSmith]

Not for millions and millions of people.

It is very difficult to believe in a loving God in light of hardships and horrors suffered by humans and done to each other throughout history, blind natural disasters that kill thousands, and so on.

Is it difficult to believe in loving parents when a child becomes a drug addict or a criminal and end up inflicting damage on themselves or others?

People have children all the time aware of the possiblities that horrible things can happen to them and that they could do horrible things yet we never say it is hard to believe that parents can love their children.

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 08:32 AM ----------

Sometimes I want to believe, but reality and the absurdities of religion keep getting in the way

Reality?

[alexey]

Only if those other 99 abilities are very closely tied to the one where it is very difficult to have the one without having the other 99.

I understand and agree with you, but I am not really sure what you are getting at.

Let me use ice skating as an example. Our ability to engage in ice skating is rooted in our ability to learn and coordinate highly complex movements. There is an evolutionary benefit to doing highly complex movements. There is not necessarily an evolutionary benefit to ice skating. Therefore one may say that using our faculties to learn ice skating "rises above" evolution. Or, because ice skating is an example of highly complex movement, one may say that ice skating does not "rise above" evolution. Both are perfectly valid ways of looking at it.

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 09:08 AM ----------

Yet a lot of those people that are effected by all those hardships and horrors believe in God.

Exactly. Believers and nonbelievers, good people and bad people, kind people and evil people, liars and honest people, all get effected by those hardships and horrors. It is almost as if these horrors were indiscriminate.

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 09:11 AM ----------

Is this only for humans, or all animals overall? Now, there are a lot of abilities that animals and insects have that scientists are unsure of the reasoning behind these organisms having them, but not needing 99% of their abilities would be against what evolution intended, which would be the survival of those organisms in their specific environment.

It was just a hypothetical... we were discussing whether it makes sense to say that human beings have the capacity to "rise above" evolution.

In general, I'd say that higher level abilities have more "side effects".

[USS Redskins]

I am no hardcore christian or anything but I really think it would be scary as hell to not believe in an afterlife... the thought that there really is nothing when you die - that you end, totally is a very frightening concept.

[alexey]

Is it difficult to believe in loving parents when a child becomes a drug addict or a criminal and end up inflicting damage on themselves or others?

People have children all the time aware of the possiblities that horrible things can happen to them and that they could do horrible things yet we never say it is hard to believe that parents can love their children.

Yes it is difficult to believe in loving omnipotent omnipresent parents that cause or fail to prevent (while having the ability to prevent) horrible things.

[PeterMP]

And you are seriously understating the size of our universe. Astronomers commonly state that there are 10^11 stars in a galaxy.

It would seem to me that there are 4 different arguments that could be put forward to address techboy's point and none of them have anything to do with the number of stars in the universe or our galaxy:

1. Essentially concede the point while pointing that low probability events do happen.

2. Hang your hat on the research that I already posted and techboy commented on that suggests that the physical constants do vary over the universe, which changes the odds.

3. Point out that it is possible that there are/have been a large number of "universes". These could be "concurrent" "universes" (which would help answer some questions in quantum mechanics (http://www.npr.org/2010/11/12/131274183/the-spookiness-of-quantum-mechanics)), and/or non-concurrent ones (this would be our universe ends in a big crunch, returning to a state similar to that before the big bang, that another big bang like event (that doesn't have to be the same as the one that started ours), occurs and you get a different universe that potentially has different constants (and of course, you could have some combination of the two) so over the many "universes" the probability isn't so bad.

4. Suggest the odds techboy is citing are likely very badly flawed. Most simply, models tend to do less well at predicting the real case as you get further from the sample space you used to make your model. This is especially true when you have multiple interacting variables, like those related to the universe and the existance of life would be. These people are essentially building models of universes at different constants given a sample size of one, and then even extending that model to models of the formation of life, again essentially based on a sample size of one. Let's assume that in many cases, we wouldn't see atoms at different physical constants. It is possible that "life" would form from whatever subatomic particles would be present, but we can't even imagine it and even if confronted with it might not recognize it as life (we could call this the life will find a way rebuttal).

[mardi gras skin]

Exactly. Believers and nonbelievers, good people and bad people, kind people and evil people, liars and honest people, all get effected by those hardships and horrors. It is almost as if these horrors were indiscriminate.

I hate quoting scripture in these kind of discussions, but I think its important here in order to understand why Christians, at least, don't see these acts as indiscriminate. This is from Jesus' sermon the mount in Matthew 5:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

We don't expect that God is going to give us a leg up on other people if we're nicer than they are.

[DRSmith]

Yes it is difficult to believe in loving omnipotent omnipresent parents that cause or fail to prevent (while having the ability to prevent) horrible things.

So you believe an all powerful being should not allow the exercise of free will or one to face the consequences of their actions?

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 09:24 AM ----------

I am no hardcore christian or anything but I really think it would be scary as hell to not believe in an afterlife... the thought that there really is nothing when you die - that you end, totally is a very frightening concept.

I believe once one is dead they cease to exist, but I also believe it is possible for God to bring people back to life also

[alexey]

I hate quoting scripture in these kind of discussions, but I think its important here in order to understand why Christians, at least, don't see these acts as indiscriminate. This is from Jesus' sermon the mount in Matthew 5:

We don't expect that God is going to give us a leg up on other people if we're nicer than they are.

I understand... it's just that some horrible things that happen to people seem a little extreme. It seems that a way to deal with this would be to say that it's all "God's will" - we will never understand it, and we should not try. Only God knows God's will. In other words, it would be hubris for us to try and figure out any connection between our actions and stuff that happens.

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 09:27 AM ----------

So you believe an all powerful being should not allow the exercise of free will or one to face the consequences of their actions?

I'm just saying that sending out (or failing to stop) a tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands of poor people seems like a somewhat extreme thing to do, or not to do, for a loving God.

[PeterMP]

I'm just saying that sending out (or failing to stop) a tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands of poor people seems like a somewhat extreme thing to do, or not to do, for a loving God.

This is because you have an inherent view of death and even life on Earth, however that view might be badly flawed.

[DRSmith]

[/color]

I'm just saying that sending out (or failing to stop) a tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands of poor people seems like a somewhat extreme thing to do, or not to do, for a loving God.

If you have the power to give life back to those who lose their lives then you would view such a thing differently

[alexey]

This is because you have an inherent view of death and even life on Earth, however that view might be badly flawed.

Everybody does, and everybody runs that risk...

I may also have a flawed view of what it means to be "loving".

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 09:34 AM ----------

If you have the power to give life back to those who lose their lives then you would view such a thing differently

The experience of suffering takes place.

[mardi gras skin]

I'm just saying that sending out (or failing to stop) a tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands of poor people seems like a somewhat extreme thing to do, or not to do, for a loving God.

This really is the crux of it. If you believe that Jesus was the first of the Resurrected, your perspective on pain and suffering is altered dramatically. I would think that the Christian perspective regarding the character of God would have to be unsatisfactory to a person who doesn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

[NavyDave]

I just can't picture being an Atheist. Then again why would God's Gift to World have any doubts?????

[alexey]

This really is the crux of it. If you believe that Jesus was the first of the Resurrected, your perspective on pain and suffering is altered dramatically. I would think that the Christian perspective regarding the character of God would have to be unsatisfactory to a person who doesn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

I understand... That's why it's called "Faith"

I think the important part is having that awe and humility... lets all love and respect each other.

[mardi gras skin]

I think the important part is having that awe and humility... lets all love and respect each other.

Sounds good, alexey. Thank you.

[PeterMP]

Everybody does, and everybody runs that risk...

I may also have a flawed view of what it means to be "loving".

So stated another way you refuse to control your brain in a manner that would make it able to accept or even imagine scenarios related to life, death, god, omnipotence, and love that are consistent with a loving omnipiotent god.

(The number of claimed atheists that seem to believe they exert some real control (i.e. that is something other than what is the result of what is encoded by their DNA due ONLY to evolutionary processes and other non-evolutionary stochastic processes) over their thought processes, logic, and decisions, but don't believe they can "force" themselves" to "accept" the exsistance of a god (any god) shocks me.)

[techboy]

1. Essentially concede the point while pointing that low probability events do happen.

I guess you could do that, but I suspect that most would find the "yes, all 100 sharpshooters just happened to miss" explanation ultimately unsatisfying, and when comparing hypotheses this doesn't seem to have much going for it.

Heck, we accuse 3rd world (and even 1st world ) leaders of rigging elections based upon exit polls and probabilities that are orders of magnitude less stunning.

2. Hang your hat on the research that I already posted and techboy commented on that suggests that the physical constants do vary over the universe, which changes the odds.

I'd just note again that this finding has not to my knowledge been confirmed, even though Dr. Webb initially published something about it in 1998, but yes, if confirmed, this would seem to be a more promising line of refutation, although I'd add a few caveats.

First, this finding is regarding the fine-structure constant, and the argument deals with lots of constants (the one I quoted was regarding the cosmological constant, for instance), so this variability would have to not only be confirmed, but generalized.

Second, I know that Dr. Webb says that this could mean that the Universe is much bigger than we now think, but unless it can be shown to be infinite in size (a pretty big if), it would seem to me that the odds of these constants arising anywhere in the universe, let alone here, would be just as daunting (if not more so).

Finally, turning back to Dr. Collins' webpage, and looking at the second paper (designed for laymen), we see this:

The fine-tuning for life falls into four distinct types, each of which we will briefly discuss below:

(i) The fine-tuning of the laws of physics.

(ii) The fine-tuning of the constants of physics.

(iii) The fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the universe.

(iv) The fine-tuning of certain higher-level features of the universe, such as various properties of the chemical elements.

So constants are really only one piece of the overall argument, no matter how it shakes out (though, of course, they're also the only one I brought up, so it's natural that this is what we'd be focused on).

I'd also note in passing that one objection sometimes raised is that the argument just assumes that these constants can be changed (this doesn't really work, but I'm trying to be brief, at least for me ), and this finding would pretty neatly eliminate that objection, anyway.

3. Point out that it is possible that there are/have been a large number of "universes".

Two things here.

First, it doesn't seem very effective to attempt to refute observable evidence with a hypothesis which has not, to date, been experimentally supported (and might be untestable), to the point where I've seen physicists describe the multi-verse hypothesis as metaphysics (and I don't think it was a compliment).

Should evidence arise to support the theory that would change, of course, but if we're allowing the argument's objectors to assume unproven and possible untestable hypotheses, I'll just short-circuit the whole affair and assume that God exists.

Secondly, though, the multi-verse hypothesis, even if assumed to be true, doesn't necessarily invalidate the argument. Dr. Collins has two papers on that page (the first technical, the second not since it is the text of a speech), and in the second there is this:

In this section, I will argue that even if a multiverse generator exists, the argument for theism from the fine-tuning of the constants for intelligent life is not completely eliminated. The argument essentially goes as follows. The multiverse generator itself, whether of the inflationary variety or some other type, seems to need to be "well-designed" in order to produce life-sustaining universes. After all, even a mundane item like a bread machine, which only produces loaves of bread instead of universes, must be well designed as an appliance and must have the right ingredients (flour, water, yeast, and gluten) to produce decent loaves of bread. If this is right, then invoking some sort of multiverse generator as an explanation of the fine-tuning serves to kick the issue of design up one level, to the question of who designed the multiverse generator.

4. Suggest the odds techboy is citing are likely very badly flawed.

We've talked about this before, and again I fully concede that I am not nearly as qualified as you to assess the statistics, but again I'd just offer two thoughts.

First and foremost, theoretical physicists are qualified, and fine-tuning (which depends on those statistics) is not seriously disputed. The question usually asked is why, and in fact, it's one of the reasons a lot of physicists like the multiverse hypothesis (which reminds me of Hoyle and the Big Bang, to be perfectly honest).

For example, from How bio-friendly is the universe?, an article in the International Journal of Astrobiology 2 (2) : 115–120 (2003) by P C W Davies:

There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned’ for life.

Of course, most of these physicists (Davies, for instance) don't draw the conclusion (either) Collins does, but that's a different issue.

Second, as far as I know, there's no work in the literature (and as I recall, you couldn't find any either) questioning this statistical analysis (which would explain the apparent consensus among physicists).

Anyway, this article (which used to be on Space.com), talks about some of the issues I've been referring to in response to 3 and 4:

There’s a reason some theorists want other universes to exist: They believe it’s the only way to explain why our own universe, whose physical laws are just right to allow life, happens to exist. According to the so-called anthropic principle, there are perhaps an infinite number of universes, each with its own set of physical laws. And one of them happens to be ours. That’s much easier to believe, say the anthropic advocates, than a single universe “fine-tuned” for our existence.

and

Other astronomers are even more forceful in their resistance to the idea.

“It’s not a testable idea,” says Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University. Because the different universes would not be detectable by one another, he says, “You can’t really prove it exists or doesn’t exist.” When you talk about multiple universes, Steinhardt says, you’re not talking about science anymore. “In my view, you’re into metaphysics.”

Not everyone rejects the multiple-universe idea out of hand. At the University of California, Virginia Trimble is more accepting. “I find it neat. In much the same way that I think it would be neat if there were reincarnation.”

Not exactly a resounding scientific endorsement.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

Everybody does, and everybody runs that risk...

I may also have a flawed view of what it means to be "loving".

I think we all have a flawed view of why God would create all of this, and us, to begin with...

But yeah, "loving" doesn't necessarily mean "I will keep anything and everything bad from ever happening in your life"..."Loving" could mean "No matter what happens in your life or what troubles you may find yourself in, I will be there to help you out of them."

[alexey]

So stated another way you refuse to control your brain in a manner that would make it able to accept or even imagine scenarios related to life, death, god, omnipotence, and love that are consistent with a loving omnipiotent god.

(The number of claimed atheists that seem to believe they exert some real control (i.e. that is something other than what is the result of what is encoded by their DNA due ONLY to evolutionary processes and other non-evolutionary stochastic processes) over their thought processes, logic, and decisions, but don't believe they can "force" themselves" to "accept" the exsistance of a god (any god) shocks me.)

Why is that surprising? We are talking about changing a fundamental property of a massively interconnected system... of course it's very difficult if at all possible.

---------- Post added January-20th-2011 at 11:14 AM ----------

I think we all have a flawed view of why God would create all of this, and us, to begin with...

But yeah, "loving" doesn't necessarily mean "I will keep anything and everything bad from ever happening in your life"..."Loving" could mean "No matter what happens in your life or what troubles you may find yourself in, I will be there to help you out of them."

It's an interesting perspective, but it seems to distance these troubles from God as if God would not be involved creating and/or allowing them.

I see only one way for a believer out of this conundrum - we could not possibly understand or explain why these things happen. It's God's will. Our faith in a loving God needs no proof.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

It's an interesting perspective, but it seems to distance these troubles from God as if God would not be involved creating and/or allowing them.

That's ONLY if we don't take into consideration why we exist (or why a "creator" would create us) to begin with...in that context the "bad" that we experience serves no purpose other than inflicting unnecessary pain.

I see only one way for a believer out of this conundrum - we could not possibly understand or explain why these things happen. It's God's will. Our faith in a loving God needs no proof.

Nah, definitely other perspectives for believers to take that both make sense and adhere to their beliefs of a "loving" creator.

[Ellis]

Threads like this are why I love this site. What a great and intellectually invigorating discussion this has become. Thank you all for your thoughtful posts here.

I completely agree.

I really enjoy these discussions.

Whether someone has faith, or simply believes in the possibility of a higher power, or doesn't believe in anything at all... the discussion that takes place, arguing each others position, is GOOD b/c it leads us closer, step by step, to a more rational understanding of who we are as humans and why it is we exist in such a vast universe.

Cheers, ES!!

I love it when we can be civilized.