120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

...God cannot be an answer to the question 'why is there something rather than nothing'. Right now we don't know the answer; but we can rule out gods, because the existence or otherwise of gods doesn't affect the question.

The word "God" here stands as a placeholder for 'cause'. And since we are talking about a WHY question instead of a how question, I don't think we can avoid the need for a personal being as the cause.

If the universe happened spontaneously - literally for no reason whatsoever - then there is no 'why'. No Higher Being who wants to create the universe because He has a reason.

Why is there Beethoven's 5th Symphony instead of nothing?
Answer - because someone creatively, deliberately wrote it.
There hasn't always been such a thing - it's not a past eternal symphony.
Neither was it created by necessity or pure chance.
And it didn't create itself - it had a contingent cause and that cause was a personal being.

How questions. Why questions. This is pretty basic philosophy of science.

And if the universe came into existence supposedly by pure chance, will science be satisfied with such tentative, poorly evidenced theory? Or will we still be left wondering why it happened 13.7 billon years ago rather than 1 billion years ago?

Anthropocentric bullshit. Things happen in the natural world all the time without a "personal" cause. The universe is the natural world writ large.

Why did it rain today? Not because of a personal being in the sky who opened the floodgates. Because it was one stage in the precipitation cycle.
Why did part of the NZ coast rise by 6 metres last week? Not because of a personal being lifting it up with its mighty hand. Because of plate tectobnics and the clash of two plates under the surface of the earth.
Why did the universe begin? Not because of a personal being speaking it into existence by magic. Because the laws of physics dictated that it would happen.

"Before there was anything, there was a personal being" is a piss-poor answer to any question.

 

[Lion IRC]

Hang on it doesn't 'just' rain. Rain has a known prior cause.

There's nothing anthropocentric about the (Kalam) argument from contingency.

You can have THE EXACT SAME discussion about the cause of the universe whether or not there are observers called humans.

 

[Learner]

It's not so much that it is unsatisfactory; rather that it IS NOT AN ANSWER AT ALL.

The sum total of things you know after the answer is given is EXACTLY the same as it was when there was no answer - you've just painted your 'fucked if I know' a prettier colour.

It is an answer if we say "the universe is here because of a creator." There is no ifs or buts in this regard to creationists. This particular question shouldn't really be asked for the obvious reason stated. You'd be wasting your time.

 

[abaddon]

... if the universe came into existence supposedly by pure chance, will science be satisfied with such tentative, poorly evidenced theory? Or will we still be left wondering why it happened 13.7 billon years ago rather than 1 billion years ago?

You don’t know that existence (which you’re calling “the universe” here) began. That the universe expands doesn’t mean there was a time that all existence began.

Our language has been only somewhat modified over many centuries now, and though it’s not a total mismatch with reality (it's at least useful sometimes), still it’s not as descriptive as people who want to figure out the universe with mere words want to believe.

But playing with words a bit, I end up wondering if eternity didn’t begin when time did? Since time and space are inextricably linked, then when did time begin? When space did?

That eternity cannot “by definition” have a beginning doesn’t mean it is a line of just time by itself and that line goes infinitely backward in the way we tend to imagine. If something different from how we conventionally imagine things is hard to imagine, remember that reality at this scale is something people just can’t imagine anyway. But yet you want the silly old words to match up in an easy-to-imagine way and paint a neat and tidy picture.

To answer the quoted question: Honest people will still be left wondering. Theists will pretend to have an answer, and some will even pretend it’s a rational answer.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

Hang on it doesn't 'just' rain. Rain has a known prior cause.

I never said it did "just" rain. Rain is part of the precipitation cycle, which occurs because of hugely compicated climatic conditions in the atmosphere.

What I was saying is that nobody "makes" it rain.

There's nothing anthropocentric about the (Kalam) argument from contingency.

Depends how far you take it. If you leave it at "the universe has a cause", then no, it has nothing anthropocentric about it. If you extend it, as William Lane Craig, the best-known modern-day proponenet of Kalam, does, to "If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;

Therefore:

An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful" ... then you're wandering deeply into anthropocentric territory.

You can have THE EXACT SAME discussion about the cause of the universe whether or not there are observers called humans.

Yes, but you'll come back to the exact same "We don't know" answer as you would by positing that the universe is simply the result of natural conditions without a "personal" creator. because the only current answer to the question of how the universe came to be in the state in which we know it is "We don't know".

Was the universe created by "an uncaused, personal Creator, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful"? We don't know.
Is the universe just the latest in an infinite series of similar universes, cycling in a Big Bang -->> Physical Universe -->> Heat Death -->> Big Crunch stylee? We don't know.
Is the universe just one of many such universes, part of a multiverse? We don't know.

I'm sure there are many other propositions dealing with how the universe came to be, in the starte it has come to be, but for all of them, at this time, the only honest answer is "we don't know". Pushing the answer back one step to necessitate an explanation for the wxiatence of a "personal" creator doesn't help answer any of those questions, it only adds one more thing we need to explain ... or say "we don't know". As it stands, I'm happier with saying "we don't know" than I am with accepting an answer given to me by somebody who also doesn't know, but wants to push our lack of knowledge back one step on the basis of another thing we don't know.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The nutshell argument I like is

structure implies order implies design implies designer.

But the catch is, this is a process of the human mind. Intuitively we sense a unity to the universe. In the mind.

So if you trust your intuition over empirical evidence, you should be at least aware of that.

I think a believers insistence on things like creationism is essentially an admission that science is the true religion. So the religious who depend on revelatory texts have no choice but to argue that their traditional revelations are science. This is more to the advantage of religious institutions rather than members who are left confusing apologetics with spirituality.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

It's not so much that it is unsatisfactory; rather that it IS NOT AN ANSWER AT ALL.

The sum total of things you know after the answer is given is EXACTLY the same as it was when there was no answer - you've just painted your 'fucked if I know' a prettier colour.

It is an answer if we say "the universe is here because of a creator." There is no ifs or buts in this regard to creationists. This particular question shouldn't really be asked for the obvious reason stated. You'd be wasting your time.

All questions should be asked, even if it is a waste of time. At least that way, we know there's a question there to be asked.

When I was 6 years old, in a Catholic primary school, our teacher, who also happened to be my aunt, was telling us about God making everything. Naïve as I was, I didn't know any better than to raise my hand and, when given permission to speak, ask, "well, alright, but who made God?". Naïve because, at that tender age, I didn't realise that "who" might be the wrong question, assuming as it did that there must have been a person behind it. There may be "no ifs or buts" in the minds of creationists, but there should be. Many "ifs and buts". Because the proposition leaves so many questions unanswered that it's better to drop it altogether and concentrate on the original question of how things came to be, without adding unnecessary, unevidenced entities to the question. And the question needs to be asked, because I'm not 6 years old, being taught the origins of everything by my aunt, anymore.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

If something different from how we conventionally imagine things is hard to imagine, remember that reality at this scale is something people just can’t imagine anyway. But yet you want the silly old words to match up in an easy-to-imagine way and paint a neat and tidy picture.

Yes. Just as we say the Sun "rises" and "sets", because that's what we've seen for as long as we've seen and recorded what we've seen, while in reality, it's Earth that goes round the Sun and not, as was believed for so long, vice-versa, and language hasn't caught up with reality in that context. Reality can turn out counter-intuitive, but we never realise it until we can get outside that particular piece of reality (or at least go round the corner for a look from a different angle). We (or most of us, anyway) say the universe can't be infinite because it had a beginning, but we're not really advanced enough to say what "infinite" really means in that context ... or what "universe" really means in that context ... or what "beginning" really means in that context ... etc ...

 

[Learner]

All questions should be asked, even if it is a waste of time. At least that way, we know there's a question there to be asked.

When I was 6 years old, in a Catholic primary school, our teacher, who also happened to be my aunt, was telling us about God making everything. Naïve as I was, I didn't know any better than to raise my hand and, when given permission to speak, ask, "well, alright, but who made God?". Naïve because, at that tender age, I didn't realise that "who" might be the wrong question, assuming as it did that there must have been a person behind it. There may be "no ifs or buts" in the minds of creationists, but there should be. Many "ifs and buts". Because the proposition leaves so many questions unanswered that it's better to drop it altogether and concentrate on the original question of how things came to be, without adding unnecessary, unevidenced entities to the question. And the question needs to be asked, because I'm not 6 years old, being taught the origins of everything by my aunt, anymore.

Of course all questions should be asked. Some of us have asked these questions like your mentioned above and now we are convinced there is a God. Asking the question to the ready convinced is where I thought the question would be a waste of time.

 

[bilby]

It's not so much that it is unsatisfactory; rather that it IS NOT AN ANSWER AT ALL.

The sum total of things you know after the answer is given is EXACTLY the same as it was when there was no answer - you've just painted your 'fucked if I know' a prettier colour.

It is an answer if we say "the universe is here because of a creator." There is no ifs or buts in this regard to creationists. This particular question shouldn't really be asked for the obvious reason stated. You'd be wasting your time.

It's not an answer. 'The universe' means 'everything that exists'.

If the creator exists, then your 'answer' is "The creator is here because of the creator", which is nonsense on a number of levels. At the very least, it is circular.

 

[Lion IRC]

I never said it did "just" rain.

You said;
"Things happen in the natural world all the time without a "personal" cause."
...meaning, they just happen. Ho Hum.
That's fine if you don't care about why questions.

...Rain is part of the precipitation cycle, which occurs because of hugely compicated climatic conditions in the atmosphere.

Yep. The bible refers to the hydraulogical cycle. It rains. The rivers run to the sea but the sea doesn't ever 'overflow' etc.
They knew stuff about the laws of physics and nature - laws created by God.

...What I was saying is that nobody "makes" it rain.

That sounds very much like a fact claim. Or is that just your faith in the unseen and things you believe?

There's nothing anthropocentric about the (Kalam) argument from contingency.

...Depends how far you take it. If you leave it at "the universe has a cause", then no, it has nothing anthropocentric about it. If you extend it, as William Lane Craig, the best-known modern-day proponenet of Kalam, does, to "If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;

Yes,
WLC follows the logical progression to a conclusion which has better explanatory power than...'stuff just happens OK!

You can have THE EXACT SAME discussion about the cause of the universe whether or not there are observers called humans.

Yes, but you'll come back to the exact same "We don't know" answer as you would by positing that the universe is simply the result of natural conditions without a "personal" creator.

Nope. If the universe didn't happen by absolute random chance 13.7 billion years ago then we have good reason to contemplate the nature of its cause. And if that cause was necessity rather than a deliberate (personal) cause we likewise have a good reason to ask why it happened 13.7 billion years ago instead of 1 billion years ago.
And if it was neither chance nor necessity but a deliberate intentional act of causality then we have a very good reason to ask WHY questions.

...because the only current answer to the question of how the universe came to be in the state in which we know it is "We don't know".

Speak for yourself.
Saying we don't know is suspiciously similar to atheism-of-the-gaps.
If you don't know, why not stay open-minded to the God hypothesis?

...Was the universe created by "an uncaused, personal Creator, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful"? We don't know.

Who is 'we'?

...
Is the universe just the latest in an infinite series of similar universes, cycling in a Big Bang -->> Physical Universe -->> Heat Death -->> Big Crunch stylee? We don't know.

A past-eternal universe/multiverse/megaverse is the only way to avoid the Kalam argument but that belief system comes with so much baggage - gonzo metaphysics - that it's worse than magic or religion.
If the universe has always existed we would have long ago worked out that the universe has always existed. We wouldn't be asking why questions. There would be time-travellers popping by the forum to let us know that the universe is/was a past-eternal, perpetual motion machine and we would be like;
...yeah, we already know that...you told us the same thing last year

...Is the universe just one of many such universes, part of a multiverse? We don't know.

Yeah, yeah, I get it already! We don't know.

...I'm sure there are many other propositions dealing with how the universe came to be, in the starte it has come to be, but for all of them, at this time, the only honest answer is "we don't know".

*rolls eyes*

...Pushing the answer back one step to necessitate an explanation for the wxiatence of a "personal" creator doesn't help answer any of those questions, it only adds one more thing we need to explain ... or say "we don't know". As it stands, I'm happier with saying "we don't know" than I am with accepting an answer given to me by somebody who also doesn't know, but wants to push our lack of knowledge back one step on the basis of another thing we don't know.

Will you at least agree that there for every unanswered question there is an actual answer?
And that an omniscient God has an answer to EVERY question and so He resolves the infinite Q&A regression?

 

[Learner]

The nutshell argument I like is

structure implies order implies design implies designer.

But the catch is, this is a process of the human mind. Intuitively we sense a unity to the universe. In the mind.

So if you trust your intuition over empirical evidence, you should be at least aware of that.

I think a believers insistence on things like creationism is essentially an admission that science is the true religion. So the religious who depend on revelatory texts have no choice but to argue that their traditional revelations are science. This is more to the advantage of religious institutions rather than members who are left confusing apologetics with spirituality.

I'm sure theres some of that but you can also see a mechanical universe. Machines we build abide by the same aptly named "laws" in the same way. Which is more than just the structure element. (not derailing here) Staying on topic.

 

[none]

the laws of nature were created by humans

 

[bilby]

The nutshell argument I like is

structure implies order implies design implies designer.

But the catch is, this is a process of the human mind. Intuitively we sense a unity to the universe. In the mind.

So if you trust your intuition over empirical evidence, you should be at least aware of that.

I think a believers insistence on things like creationism is essentially an admission that science is the true religion. So the religious who depend on revelatory texts have no choice but to argue that their traditional revelations are science. This is more to the advantage of religious institutions rather than members who are left confusing apologetics with spirituality.

I'm sure theres some of that but you can also see a mechanical universe. Machines we build abide by the same aptly named "laws" in the same way. Which is more than just the structure element. (not derailing here) Staying on topic.

But the natural world is clearly not like a machine.

Paley's watch was designed. But the Heath upon which he found it was not - if it were, then the watch would not have stood out from the background, and would have been utterly unremarkable.

That we are able to see a clear difference between designed objects and the natural world is a convincing argument that nature lacks a designer.

 

[Learner]

the laws of nature were created by humans

Humans by observation described the processes then named them .They were already there.

 

[none]

the laws of nature were created by humans

Humans by observation described the processes then named them .They were already there.

blah
if humans didn't do the describing there would be no laws, they are not some thing like force or matter

 

[Learner]

But the natural world is clearly not like a machine.

Paley's watch was designed. But the Heath upon which he found it was not - if it were, then the watch would not have stood out from the background, and would have been utterly unremarkable.

That we are able to see a clear difference between designed objects and the natural world is a convincing argument that nature lacks a designer.

This from my perspective is like saying youre seeing a small enough watch, built of nano technology that could be inside a big grandfather clock. Being nano size not seeing the bigger picture.

 

[beero1000]

But the natural world is clearly not like a machine.

Paley's watch was designed. But the Heath upon which he found it was not - if it were, then the watch would not have stood out from the background, and would have been utterly unremarkable.

That we are able to see a clear difference between designed objects and the natural world is a convincing argument that nature lacks a designer.

This from my perspective is like saying youre seeing a small enough watch, built of nano technology that could be inside a big grandfather clock. Being nano size not seeing the bigger picture.

In a world made of gears, cogs, and watch components, finding a watch probably wouldn't be that surprising. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Learner]

blah
if humans didn't do the describing there would be no laws, they are not some thing like force or matter

If we didn't name or describe them the elements of nature would still be "miraculously predictable"

 

[none]

blah
if humans didn't do the describing there would be no laws, they are not some thing like force or matter

If we didn't name or describe them the elements of nature would still be "miraculously predictable"

elements or laws, make up your mind