DEFINING Atheism.

[AlAyeti]

Is it not fair to say that atheism thought of in terms of mathematics is:

0 x 1 = trillions x trillions x trilloins x trillions?

Something from nothing.

The zero, denoting nothing, and the one, being the person who states they are an "Atheist."

Where did the individual believer come from?

[ST88]

ST88 wrote: "You're assuming that the universe started with a 0, when there is really no need for that. It is possible that there was an existing pre-universe condition, of which we might know absolutely nothing. You're also assuming that this generation of the universe from the pre-universe required some kind of intelligence to make the transition. There is no need for this, either. "

AlAyeti: That is not what I assume. The universe started the way you explain it below. The pre-universe condition was "the Word." I am not "assuming" that an intelligence started the universe, because of the order I see all around. And what I can deduce from what I can observe.

OK. Let me put it another way. You're assuming that Atheists believe that the universe started with a 0. But there is really no need for that in Atheism. The only thing Atheism states about the beginning of this universe is that there were no gods or religious incidents which allowed the universe to come into being. Everything else is on the table. That fact that there may be Atheists who don't know for sure how it came into being does not imply that this knowledge vacuum should be filled by any god or any religious interpretation of events.

Yes, AlAyeti wrote:
0 x 1 = 0.

"Trillions," is the metaphor.

We see far more than "trillions" of things all around us. And even more numbers unseen.

Why do you assume that Atheists believe that these trillions of things which now exist did not at one point exist? Like bernee51 says, material only changes form.

ST88 wrote:

"What makes you think this transaction should be multiplication? The singularity at the moment of conception, if you will, should at least be a 1. After this, everything else came from that sigularity, therefore the correct transaction should be division. If the universe = 1, then everything in it should be somewhat less than 1 -- and all of it adding up to 1."

Entropy shows this very presentation. Multiplication in reverse so to speak.

But all things divide when growing. That makes the assumption part come into play. I'll give you that. But conception by the very word carries with it order and reason. That multiplication happens after conception is also observable.

The multiplication after conception can only happen in the presence of additional material which can be incorporated into the additional objects. The material simply changes form.

Now, it seems that Atheists are playing with semantics. Let's call the starter of it all, "blugglezich."

If we don't call the prime mover "God" then we can do away with somethingness from nothingness. Because that is what you have if nothing started all of what we currently dwell amongst.

Again, you're assuming that Atheists believe that "nothing" was the beginning constant. Not so.

Bringing up pre-universe conditions is ad infinitum logic. Then we would have to bring up the pre-pre-universe condition, which in turn brings up pre-pre-pre-universe condition, which then brings us to . . . ah, add the "pre's" yourself. If, you have sixty trillion (or more) years you don't know what to do with!

I can't say anything about the pre-universe condition. By your own admission, time was created when this universe was created, so "time" may not be a valid measuring device at this point. And what is wrong with the thinking that the pre-universe condition had always existed? Isn't this how God is thought of?


The point here is that Atheism does not say these things that you say it does. The only thing it says is God didn't do it.

[The Happy Humanist]

ST88 wrote: "You're assuming that the universe started with a 0, when there is really no need for that. It is possible that there was an existing pre-universe condition, of which we might know absolutely nothing. You're also assuming that this generation of the universe from the pre-universe required some kind of intelligence to make the transition. There is no need for this, either. "

AlAyeti: That is not what I assume. The universe started the way you explain it below. The pre-universe condition was "the Word." I am not "assuming" that an intelligence started the universe, because of the order I see all around. And what I can deduce from what I can observe.

OK. Let me put it another way. You're assuming that Atheists believe that the universe started with a 0. But there is really no need for that in Atheism. The only thing Atheism states about the beginning of this universe is that there were no gods or religious incidents which allowed the universe to come into being. Everything else is on the table. That fact that there may be Atheists who don't know for sure how it came into being does not imply that this knowledge vacuum should be filled by any god or any religious interpretation of events.

Yes, AlAyeti wrote:
0 x 1 = 0.

"Trillions," is the metaphor.

We see far more than "trillions" of things all around us. And even more numbers unseen.

Why do you assume that Atheists believe that these trillions of things which now exist did not at one point exist? Like bernee51 says, material only changes form.

ST88 wrote:

"What makes you think this transaction should be multiplication? The singularity at the moment of conception, if you will, should at least be a 1. After this, everything else came from that sigularity, therefore the correct transaction should be division. If the universe = 1, then everything in it should be somewhat less than 1 -- and all of it adding up to 1."

Entropy shows this very presentation. Multiplication in reverse so to speak.

But all things divide when growing. That makes the assumption part come into play. I'll give you that. But conception by the very word carries with it order and reason. That multiplication happens after conception is also observable.

The multiplication after conception can only happen in the presence of additional material which can be incorporated into the additional objects. The material simply changes form.

Now, it seems that Atheists are playing with semantics. Let's call the starter of it all, "blugglezich."

If we don't call the prime mover "God" then we can do away with somethingness from nothingness. Because that is what you have if nothing started all of what we currently dwell amongst.

Again, you're assuming that Atheists believe that "nothing" was the beginning constant. Not so.

Bringing up pre-universe conditions is ad infinitum logic. Then we would have to bring up the pre-pre-universe condition, which in turn brings up pre-pre-pre-universe condition, which then brings us to . . . ah, add the "pre's" yourself. If, you have sixty trillion (or more) years you don't know what to do with!

I can't say anything about the pre-universe condition. By your own admission, time was created when this universe was created, so "time" may not be a valid measuring device at this point. And what is wrong with the thinking that the pre-universe condition had always existed? Isn't this how God is thought of?


The point here is that Atheism does not say these things that you say it does. The only thing it says is God didn't do it.

I hesitate to jump in on this, as tired as I am, but....too tempting.

It may be of value to consider that when an atheist is confronted with the question of ultimate origin, his position is not necessarily "God didn't do it" so much as "We don't need to invoke God to solve this problem. " The reason for this distinction is that the religionist is implying by the question, "How do you think we got here," that some sort of divine intervention was necessary to the creation of the universe. We need only to counter that contention; we need not show that God absolutely didn't do it. And we counter that contention by enumerating ways in which the origin of the universe could have taken place without the hand of God. This is not so tough as it sounds. For example, I have posited a non-sentient, non-temporal "universe-creation-thingy" that exists outside of the space-time continuum (and thus could be "eternal"), whose only function is to occasionally burp out a cosmos here and there - or perhaps universe-creation is a by-product of some other function. There is no need to invoke sentience in the creation process. (Try to prove otherwise!). The lack of empirical underpinnings to this approach is, for once, excusable, since there literally is no science (and no hope of science!) on the other side of that singularity, and so we are free to speculate.

The important thing here is that we need not actually believe that this (or any other non-divine scenario) is the case; we need only show that it is plausible, and the Argument from Cosmology is utterly destroyed. The God-proponent is then forced to move on to the Argument from Design, which I may take up in another post. But the A-from-C has always been the toughest nut to crack, simply because we always get bogged down in endless "What created the universe?" "What created God?" cycles, which can only end in stalemate.

So, to answer AlAyeti's objection, atheists are not necessarily something-from-nothing-ists; some of us might be something-from-universe-creator-thingy-ists.

[QED]

It may be of value to consider that when an atheist is confronted with the question of ultimate origin, his position is not necessarily "God didn't do it" so much as "We don't need to invoke God to solve this problem. " The reason for this distinction is that the religionist is implying by the question, "How do you think we got here," that some sort of divine intervention was necessary to the creation of the universe. We need only to counter that contention; we need not show that God absolutely didn't do it. And we counter that contention by enumerating ways in which the origin of the universe could have taken place without the hand of God.

And therein lies an important distinction: all is conjecture, but the god theory carries an extra-heavy burden of having the full range of human emotion somehow pre-dating the cosmos. Of course this can be rationalized by those that crave the comfort it might provide, but to do so requires an extra step which, when examining the world around us, proves to be unnecessary.

[hamilrob]

Is it not fair to say that atheism thought of in terms of mathematics is:

0 x 1 = trillions x trillions x trilloins x trillions?

Something from nothing.

The zero, denoting nothing, and the one, being the person who states they are an "Atheist."

Where did the individual believer come from?

How did you rise to the level of scholar posing totally illogical questions like that? Zero times anything is zero. Are you defining an atheist as an idiot? I'm not attacking, just having trouble with this one. Help me out.

[starseyer]

Atheism is the belief that all things came from nothing or it is another form of deism. Defining Atheism would then be "those that just don't want to call the beginning by a proper name."

Um, no.

"First Cause" theism = We can't understand how the universe started, so God must have done it. Period.

Atheism = We really don't know how the universe started (if it even did start), only that nothing that could properly be called a god had anything to do with it.

Science = We don't know how the universe started, but we'll keep trying to figure it out until we know!

[ST88]

It may be of value to consider that when an atheist is confronted with the question of ultimate origin, his position is not necessarily "God didn't do it" so much as "We don't need to invoke God to solve this problem. " The reason for this distinction is that the religionist is implying by the question, "How do you think we got here," that some sort of divine intervention was necessary to the creation of the universe. We need only to counter that contention; we need not show that God absolutely didn't do it. And we counter that contention by enumerating ways in which the origin of the universe could have taken place without the hand of God. This is not so tough as it sounds.

Thank you for that distinction. The atheist I was thinking of actively denies the existence of God so the only assertion s/he makes is that This concept of God you have? It's wrong. Therefore anything said about that God or what that God does is wrong.

[The Happy Humanist]

It may be of value to consider that when an atheist is confronted with the question of ultimate origin, his position is not necessarily "God didn't do it" so much as "We don't need to invoke God to solve this problem. " The reason for this distinction is that the religionist is implying by the question, "How do you think we got here," that some sort of divine intervention was necessary to the creation of the universe. We need only to counter that contention; we need not show that God absolutely didn't do it. And we counter that contention by enumerating ways in which the origin of the universe could have taken place without the hand of God. This is not so tough as it sounds.

Thank you for that distinction. The atheist I was thinking of actively denies the existence of God so the only assertion s/he makes is that This concept of God you have? It's wrong. Therefore anything said about that God or what that God does is wrong.

And the thing is, s/he is not necessarily wrong to make that statement; it may well be valid. My point is that it's not necessary to defend that position in this case...or for that matter, any case. Once we have shown that God need not exist, we can all make a good case that it is exceedingly unlikely that he does...and I'm content with that.

[hamilrob]

It seems to me that a theist ought to stick with faith in matters concerning origin. Attempts to radify what faith has taught take away the strength of belief and open the matter to justifiable dispute. As long as an atheist can discount the need for a "God act" to get the universe going, he's made his point. The theist ultimately has to return to why he believes what he believes in the first place and go with that. "In the beginning God..."

The Genesis creation story is clearly insufficient as an explanation of how we got here or why. That's ok with me because as a rationalist, I am not saddled with the notion that the bible is inerrant. I can freely explore all considerations as to the nature of origin. If science dicovers an infiniteness in the creation of the universe; an endless or beginningless series of multiple universes, then the theist is going to be embarrassed, having attempted to explain the big bang, universe-had-a-beginning concept with God as the agent of origin. What if there was no beginning? Who would be more open to that idea. An atheist or a Theist?

Even if one wants to use "Intelligent Design" to prove that God created the universe, he still has to make an unsupported, ideological leap to characterize that "God" as the God of the bible. The issue always comes down to faith. It never left there. If a Christian is satisfied with faith, then there is no need for any attempt to rationally explain what is known by faith.

[The Happy Humanist]

Even if one wants to use "Intelligent Design" to prove that God created the universe, he still has to make an unsupported, ideological leap to characterize that "God" as the God of the bible. The issue always comes down to faith. It never left there. If a Christian is satisfied with faith, then there is no need for any attempt to rationally explain what is known by faith.

===

That's a very good point, and one that often gets lost. Christians expound at length on the importance of faith, and rejecting "worldly wisdom" in favor of spiritual wisdom...until it comes to Origins and Creationism. Then they seem to want to play in the scientist's sandbox. And of course once they get into it, they want to change the rules.

[Curious]

That's a very good point, and one that often gets lost. Christians expound at length on the importance of faith, and rejecting "worldly wisdom" in favor of spiritual wisdom...until it comes to Origins and Creationism. Then they seem to want to play in the scientist's sandbox. And of course once they get into it, they want to change the rules.

Not all Christians.