What Should Atheists Be Like?

[harvey1]

Let's assume that someone genuinely has a problem conceiving of God to exist, and they in all honesty cannot accept such a view without feeling that they are sacrificing a rational depiction of the world. (That is, they aren't in any kind of deep psychological battle with God.)

Then, in that case, what would the proper reaction be for how they deal with religious issues and religious people? For example, let me take an improper reaction. It is well-documented that a few scientists spent years trying to promote an oscillating universe despite the physical problems with this. In effect, certain atheists (and agnostics) were endorsing a bad model for no apparent reason other than to give the impression that this was a very viable model to theism without mentioning the problems with this model. I would take this as a bad reaction toward religion by atheists. It hints at pettiness on the part of the non-believer to sway people away from a belief they do not share even though the approach they propose is conceptually problematic at best.

Supposing that theists are not always pleased with how some atheists approach religion in public, outside of asking them to convert, what should an atheist be like--i.e., speaking in terms of an ideal atheist?

(Btw, atheists can and should respond, but you might phrase your answer in terms of what you think the ideal atheist should be like with respect to how they promote their views without embarrassment to other atheists. For example, astrophysicist Lawrence Krause recently wrote an article where he criticized non-theists for acting too aggressively against religion because of its potential negative impact on science--referring to Dawkins. That would be an example of Krause voicing his opinion of the ideal atheist in terms of their approach to religious issues.)

[achilles12604]

Since nothing starts without a cause there must have been a cause.

But how do we know that nothing starts without a cause? Have we done an exhaustive search?!? Later you say that physics teaches us that "nothing begins without a good reason". I'm wondering what physics this is... I have to say it sounds like the synthesis of philosophy and natural sciences that took us up to the turn of the 20th century.

Simple. How do we know gravity is a force which exists between two masses every time? Scientific method. Can you present an example of something which science has discovered begins spontaneously without a cause?

Scientists used to think that larva and flies came from nothing, but when they conducted an experiment examining a piece of food left in a sealed container, they discovered that when flies did not land on food, no flies were produced. Science showed that their earlier assumptions were incorrect.

It is things like this that make me so excited about science from a believers point of view.

This leaves us with multiple options as to the cause.

1) It could have always been that there was a great deal of "stuff" that for reasons yet to be determined suddenly exploded.

True we have not determined whether any particular cosmological hypothesis provides the explanation, but there are a number of very well thought out contenders. At any rate I see no good reason to abandon the Copernican Principle when we meet the boundaries of physical law any more than we should have when supposing other boundaries in the past.

Doesn't this presuppose that God is merely a God of Gaps? In other words, even if science explains how everything happened, this does nothing to disprove God. In fact the more I learn about science, the more I see an intricacy and intelligence in its construction. After all Darwin was a believer in God. So why should his theory of evolution disprove God's existence? It simply shows how God did it.

What indicates a God, is the vast complexity of things. The minute details of the universe milliseconds after it was formed, the intricacy of biology and how the transitional stages were uniform and very short lived. These all point to a very organized arrangment which could very easily have been put into motion on purpose.

3) It could be that the big bang was caused on purpose by an intelligent force outside of space time (God).

How true, but how anthropocentric too! We have a habit of looking at watches and the like and thinking "this must have been made by an intelligence for a purpose" but people are learning more about the capacity for systems to be self-organizing and the impression that one gains from all this is that not everything has to be deliberately designed nor exists for some purpose. For example World economies tend to be self-organizing, lacking in overall planning or objective. This is an example of a highly complex system that shifts from one quasi-stable configuration to another in unpredictable ways. Some people will look at the ridiculously complex system we call nature and tell us that it all serves to prove the greatness of God. The limitless capacity for self-organization looks like something altogether different to me but if it is God's method, then he's being extraordinarily economical and not particularly fussy about the outcome with it.

But self-organizing systems is not what we have observed as the rule. The law of Entropy.
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~broholm/l38/node2.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... tropy.html

Notice that Richard Carrier points out that the second law of thermodynamics holds true in every closed system. Only in an open system can order increase and this is due to impute from outside the system assisting the ordering.

In the example of economics, while it is true that there is no overriding mind controlling all of the events, world economics is far from uncontrolled. Vast amounts of impute are being added by thousands of minds all over the planet. Each country working too better their economy. As any biologist will tell you, when the parts are healthy, the system as a whole is healthy. So while world economics is not cocontrolled by one consciousness it does have enormous amounts of impute by thousands of minds. Hence it is not a closed system as required by the law of Entropy and so it doesn't apply to our example of the Universe as a whole.

In general, in a closed system such as the Universe, disorder increases and there are only weak examples of self-organization. Even water freezing and becoming more ordered is not a perfect example because the unique shape and composition of the water molecule aids in that ordering. There is impute from another source beyond the removing of energy and the slowing of the molecules. And this is the best example of "self-organization" within a closed system I can think of.

I'm sure you can think of more, but the point is that the Universe had a beginning and based on what we have learned about the laws of physics nothing begins without a good reason.

This is the exact expression of common sense that I was calling into question. It almost hurts trying to imagine the transition from nothing to something -- an indication perhaps of the bluntness of our minds?

While I agree our minds are blunt, I hope that we will continue to discover more about how God designed this universe so perfectly.

[bernee51]

Since nothing starts without a cause there must have been a cause.

Really?

What 'caused' your god.? Or are you 'special pleading'?

[achilles12604]

Since nothing starts without a cause there must have been a cause.

Really?

What 'caused' your god.? Or are you 'special pleading'?

First you have to show that God had a start. I didn't say whatever exists had a cause. I said whatever starts of begins to exist has a cause.

We can show that the Universe had a beginning. So it had a cause.

[Hexameter]

Can you prove that God didn't have a start?

[bernee51]

Since nothing starts without a cause there must have been a cause.

Really?

What 'caused' your god.? Or are you 'special pleading'?

First you have to show that God had a start. I didn't say whatever exists had a cause. I said whatever starts of begins to exist has a cause.

We can show that the Universe had a beginning. So it had a cause.

Current theories of the universe as we know it lead towards a Big Bang and subsequent evolution. We can but posit that there was 'nothing' prior. I can just as easily accept an infinity of 'universes' as I can your god.

Why must there have been a First Cause?

[achilles12604]

Since nothing starts without a cause there must have been a cause.

Really?

What 'caused' your god.? Or are you 'special pleading'?

First you have to show that God had a start. I didn't say whatever exists had a cause. I said whatever starts of begins to exist has a cause.

We can show that the Universe had a beginning. So it had a cause.

Current theories of the universe as we know it lead towards a Big Bang and subsequent evolution. We can but posit that there was 'nothing' prior. I can just as easily accept an infinity of 'universes' as I can your god.

Why must there have been a First Cause?

Because so far in science, there has never been an example of something being spontaniously started without a cause.

As for your many universe theory, it is entirely theoretical and not very widely accepted. So believe it if you must. It simply shows that non-theists will accept ANYTHING before accepting God.

[achilles12604]

Can you prove that God didn't have a start?

Actually yes.

For the universe to have been started, there must have been a cause. This cause must have fulfilled several requirements in order to logically be able to complete the task of the creation of the universe.

First the cause must have been timeless since time did not exist before the creation of the universe.

Second the cause must have been spaceless since space was not created yet.

Third the cause must have allowed for the creation of the universe with specific details so exact, the numbers boggle our greatest minds.

Therefore, since the cause of the unverse must at a minimum meet these requirements, we can conclude that God best fits this discription.

Since God is timeless, he didn't have a start.

If you would like some theological reasons why God is forever, I could provide you with some verses.

[bernee51]

Since nothing starts without a cause there must have been a cause.

Really?

What 'caused' your god.? Or are you 'special pleading'?

First you have to show that God had a start. I didn't say whatever exists had a cause. I said whatever starts of begins to exist has a cause.

We can show that the Universe had a beginning. So it had a cause.

Current theories of the universe as we know it lead towards a Big Bang and subsequent evolution. We can but posit that there was 'nothing' prior. I can just as easily accept an infinity of 'universes' as I can your god.

Why must there have been a First Cause?

Because so far in science, there has never been an example of something being spontaniously started without a cause.

As for your many universe theory, it is entirely theoretical and not very widely accepted. So believe it if you must.

As you say...so far in science. The various god concepts have shrunk as science has grown.

And it is not a matter of "believing it if I must." I don't have to 'believe' anything.

It simply shows that non-theists will accept ANYTHING before accepting God.

Probably because the god you claim as the First Cause comes with a lot of other baggage.

[Confused]

No offense, but does any of this rambling actually address they question of this thread. Maybe I am not learned enough to discern it, so please for challenged people such as myself: how did anything you write theorize what an atheist should be like?

Dear confused: First off, the question was large and had many parts, Second, we can have fun with this topic can't we? Even if we stray from time to time?
Yes, thank you very much, it is rambling.
But yes, it does address the question as well as other posts in the thread - like the assertion that dead puppies could cause a tramatized child to hate God enough to stop believing him (which I say is impossible because you can't be angry at something that is not there)

I concede the point of the dead puppy. In that case it wouldn't be that they are refusing to believe in god, the refuse to acknowledge him. My apologies for not discerning that from your text.

[Confused]

Since nothing starts without a cause there must have been a cause.

But how do we know that nothing starts without a cause? Have we done an exhaustive search?!? Later you say that physics teaches us that "nothing begins without a good reason". I'm wondering what physics this is... I have to say it sounds like the synthesis of philosophy and natural sciences that took us up to the turn of the 20th century.

This leaves us with multiple options as to the cause.

1) It could have always been that there was a great deal of "stuff" that for reasons yet to be determined suddenly exploded.

True we have not determined whether any particular cosmological hypothesis provides the explanation, but there are a number of very well thought out contenders. At any rate I see no good reason to abandon the Copernican Principle when we meet the boundaries of physical law any more than we should have when supposing other boundaries in the past.

2) It could be that the laws of physics were different before the big bang and so the big bang could have been "caused" by a non-cause.

I think this would be accepted as a certainty given that our laws are specific to the way the various symmetries broke in the cooling of the universe.

3) It could be that the big bang was caused on purpose by an intelligent force outside of space time (God).

How true, but how anthropocentric too! We have a habit of looking at watches and the like and thinking "this must have been made by an intelligence for a purpose" but people are learning more about the capacity for systems to be self-organizing and the impression that one gains from all this is that not everything has to be deliberately designed nor exists for some purpose. For example World economies tend to be self-organizing, lacking in overall planning or objective. This is an example of a highly complex system that shifts from one quasi-stable configuration to another in unpredictable ways. Some people will look at the ridiculously complex system we call nature and tell us that it all serves to prove the greatness of God. The limitless capacity for self-organization looks like something altogether different to me but if it is God's method, then he's being extraordinarily economical and not particularly fussy about the outcome with it.

I'm sure you can think of more, but the point is that the Universe had a beginning and based on what we have learned about the laws of physics nothing begins without a good reason.

This is the exact expression of common sense that I was calling into question. It almost hurts trying to imagine the transition from nothing to something -- an indication perhaps of the bluntness of our minds?

Not all things are created for a reason. Somtimes things just happen. I may be interpreting this wrong, but to one can't compare a cause of the beginning of the universe by big bang theory with the beginning of it by god. To say somehting had to create it initially is saying that their was an intent for it to be created. ie: an alien started the big bang event to initiate the process of life to begin, or god created the universe to sustain the life ie would now hold. In physics, nothing really is random right? I mean there are random variables but they are usually included in any equation. Therefore, to say life began with the big bang is saying that is wasn't by a random chance. I don't know of anything currently existing to support that it was a random chance or that it was a planned event. Sorry, I digress.

I don't think an atheist can ever completely reject the existence of a god unless the belong to one of those doomsday cults. I may not acknowledge the existence, but I don't denounce it either. I think an atheist should always be seeking out challenges to their current beliefs to expand on their enlightenment. They must remain open minded to all current beleifs and judge what is logical to them and what isn't. This being said, there could be many difference classifications as to what a good athiest may be like. I guess it would vary from individual to individual and group to group.