On whether the idiocy of atheism speaks for itself

[hakutaku]

It has recently been claimed that 

4 hours ago, Peace said:

The idiocy of it [atheism] speaks for itself.

I disagree.  So lets debate!

What are the main catholic objections I hear regarding atheism?  Do they in fact show atheism to be idiotic?  Lets take them one-at-a-time!

Step 0: I accept all catholic arguments against non-catholic gods, so the only God left to debate about is the Catholic one.

1. Without God there can be no meaning/purpose.

This objection usually goes like this:

If the universe is not created by God, it will have neither meaning nor purpose.  Because the universe as a whole is without these things, nothing inside of the universe can have them either since a purposeless/meaningless thing cannot give rise to purpose or meaning.  Therefore atheism, unlike theism, is idiotic because obviously there is purpose and meaning in the universe.

My responses usually include:

First: if we accept that a purposeless/meaningless existence cannot give rise to purpose and meaning, then tell me the purpose and meaning of God (and who gave it to him.)  If you cannot, then God cannot give rise to a universe with purpose and meaning, so atheism is no more idiotic than theism.

Second: When it comes to meaning/purpose, it takes two to tango.  Meaning and purpose do not exist all by themselves in a vacuum, they are a relationship between a thing and an intender.  Therefore meaning and purpose are not some special mystical property that can only come from a God, they are simply a consequence of entities that can intend things.  All that is required for intent is an ability to make predictions about future events, an ability to prefer certain events to others, and an ability to select actions.  Since it is obvious that the universe can give rise to the components of intent without divine intervention, intent can arise without God.  Therefore meaning/purpose can arise.  Therefore atheism is not idiotic.

    2. Without God there can be no morality.

This claim is simply false.  People have been doing moral philosophy without invoking God for thousands of years.  For a good overview, see this debate.  (You can just watch the intro.)  The long and short of it is that there are moral systems that meet all of the requirements theists lay out for there to "be morality."  Therefore, atheism is not idiotic because there can be atheistic moral systems.

    3.  Without God nothing would exist.

One funny route this objection can take is for the theist to define the term God to mean exactly "existence itself."  The problem is that this is usually meant as a quick "gotcha" and I have never seen a theist even attempt a bridge starting from "God is existence itself" to "God is described by Catholicism".  Fortunately, we've ruled out everything but the Catholic God so this route doesn't really apply.  I have seen Catholics argue that God is existence itself, but I don't think I've ever seen one define God to be existence itself.

In a more typical case, theists will invoke something along the lines of the Prime Mover (PM), Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) or argue that everything that begins to exist must have a cause.  All of these lines of reasoning

• Define some form of regress (mover->moved, cause->effect, reason->outcome, changer->changed, composer->composed, etc)
• Assert there cannot be an infinite regress
• Define the "starting point" of the regression as God

Attacking the second assertion is usually enough to knock over the argument, and show that atheism is not idiotic for this reason.  In response, the theist moves to phase two:

   3.5  Without God we don't have an explanation for why the world is the way it is

Once the theist recognizes infinite regress as a possibility, he asserts:

Quote

God must have created the infinite series of regressions!  If the infinite series isn't explained by God, then there would be no reason to have this series instead of some other series, or a finite series, or no series at all.

To this I have two responses:

First: It can be a brute fact of reality that we have the universe we do.

Second, after the theist denies that there are brute facts:

"God did it that way" is not actually an explanation of why we have the universe that we have (rather, it is a post-hoc explanation, which is not sufficient).  Instead we need a full explanatory link between (God) and (the universe he creates).  There are two possibilities

A) God's properties fully explain the universe he creates

B) They don't

In A) God is logically required to create the universe.  God is effectively a machine that runs on logic.  The strength of the theist's argument now rests on how convincingly he can argue that God's properties are logically necessary and not themselves the result of brute facts.  Theists are usually not prepared to make this kind of argument and kind of trail off, but I would love to find one who was.

In B) it is simply a brute fact that God created this universe instead of some other one.

Regardless, we show that God does not eliminate the need for brute facts, and therefore we cannot call atheism idiotic with respect to theism on these grounds.

 

I think those are the big 3, what have I missed?

Edited August 16, 2021 by hakutaku
clarified quote

[ZeroM]

You know, I'm trying to find a place around here to contribute, but everybody seems to post as if they have manifestos.  Do you people talk in speeches?  

[Anomaly]

Yes.  

[hakutaku]

9 hours ago, ZeroM said:

as if they have manifestos

I sort of feel that "two pages is too many for me to read" in a debate about whose ideas are idiotic is a win by default for the other side.

[Peace]

12 hours ago, hakutaku said:

I sort of feel that "two pages is too many for me to read" in a debate about whose ideas are idiotic is a win by default for the other side.

Well congratulations on your default victory. You are not an idiot.

You gonna celebrate that achievement with your loved ones?

[Machine_Washable]

On 8/15/2021 at 10:33 PM, hakutaku said:

It has recently been claimed that 

I disagree.  So lets debate!

What are the main catholic objections I hear regarding atheism?  Do they in fact show atheism to be idiotic?  Lets take them one-at-a-time!

Step 0: I accept all catholic arguments against non-catholic gods, so the only God left to debate about is the Catholic one.

1. Without God there can be no meaning/purpose.

This objection usually goes like this:

If the universe is not created by God, it will have neither meaning nor purpose.  Because the universe as a whole is without these things, nothing inside of the universe can have them either since a purposeless/meaningless thing cannot give rise to purpose or meaning.  Therefore atheism, unlike theism, is idiotic because obviously there is purpose and meaning in the universe.

My responses usually include:

First: if we accept that a purposeless/meaningless existence cannot give rise to purpose and meaning, then tell me the purpose and meaning of God (and who gave it to him.)  If you cannot, then God cannot give rise to a universe with purpose and meaning, so atheism is no more idiotic than theism.

Second: When it comes to meaning/purpose, it takes two to tango.  Meaning and purpose do not exist all by themselves in a vacuum, they are a relationship between a thing and an intender.  Therefore meaning and purpose are not some special mystical property that can only come from a God, they are simply a consequence of entities that can intend things.  All that is required for intent is an ability to make predictions about future events, an ability to prefer certain events to others, and an ability to select actions.  Since it is obvious that the universe can give rise to the components of intent without divine intervention, intent can arise without God.  Therefore meaning/purpose can arise.  Therefore atheism is not idiotic.

    2. Without God there can be no morality.

This claim is simply false.  People have been doing moral philosophy without invoking God for thousands of years.  For a good overview, see this debate.  (You can just watch the intro.)  The long and short of it is that there are moral systems that meet all of the requirements theists lay out for there to "be morality."  Therefore, atheism is not idiotic because there can be atheistic moral systems.

    3.  Without God nothing would exist.

One funny route this objection can take is for the theist to define the term God to mean exactly "existence itself."  The problem is that this is usually meant as a quick "gotcha" and I have never seen a theist even attempt a bridge starting from "God is existence itself" to "God is described by Catholicism".  Fortunately, we've ruled out everything but the Catholic God so this route doesn't really apply.  I have seen Catholics argue that God is existence itself, but I don't think I've ever seen one define God to be existence itself.

In a more typical case, theists will invoke something along the lines of the Prime Mover (PM), Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) or argue that everything that begins to exist must have a cause.  All of these lines of reasoning

• Define some form of regress (mover->moved, cause->effect, reason->outcome, changer->changed, composer->composed, etc)
• Assert there cannot be an infinite regress
• Define the "starting point" of the regression as God

Attacking the second assertion is usually enough to knock over the argument, and show that atheism is not idiotic for this reason.  In response, the theist moves to phase two:

   3.5  Without God we don't have an explanation for why the world is the way it is

Once the theist recognizes infinite regress as a possibility, he asserts:

To this I have two responses:

First: It can be a brute fact of reality that we have the universe we do.

Second, after the theist denies that there are brute facts:

"God did it that way" is not actually an explanation of why we have the universe that we have (rather, it is a post-hoc explanation, which is not sufficient).  Instead we need a full explanatory link between (God) and (the universe he creates).  There are two possibilities

A) God's properties fully explain the universe he creates

B) They don't

In A) God is logically required to create the universe.  God is effectively a machine that runs on logic.  The strength of the theist's argument now rests on how convincingly he can argue that God's properties are logically necessary and not themselves the result of brute facts.  Theists are usually not prepared to make this kind of argument and kind of trail off, but I would love to find one who was.

In B) it is simply a brute fact that God created this universe instead of some other one.

Regardless, we show that God does not eliminate the need for brute facts, and therefore we cannot call atheism idiotic with respect to theism on these grounds.

 

I think those are the big 3, what have I missed?

So your arguments are 1) If life is meaningless without God then God must have a purpose (astaghfirullah) 2) people being able to intend things means that the universe has meaning 3) morality can exist in a godless universe (astaghfirullah) 4) you believe in infinite regress. Followed by your final point 3.5. I don't understand what you are saying in 3.5 but do these other summaries accurately describe your positions?

[hakutaku]

23 minutes ago, Machine_Washable said:

1) If life is meaningless without God then God must have a purpose (astaghfirullah)

If the theist puts forth the premise that meaning/purpose cannot arise from something that is itself meaningless/purposeless, then God must have a meaning or purpose.  What is it and who gave it to him?  (This is arguing purely on the theists terms, on my terms purpose and meaning can arise).

26 minutes ago, Machine_Washable said:

2) people being able to intend things means that the universe has meaning

As I said, meaning and purpose are not once-and-for-all existing-in-a-vacuum concepts.  The universe has meaning in the sense that there is in fact meaning and purpose within the universe because people can intend things.

29 minutes ago, Machine_Washable said:

3) morality can exist in a godless universe (astaghfirullah)

Of course

29 minutes ago, Machine_Washable said:

4) you believe in infinite regress

I believe it is certainly a possibility.  I believe we don't know for sure one way or the other, but the mere possibility is enough to defeat the "no infinite regress" postulate. 

I also believe that even in finite-past scenarios there are reasons to believe that the theists' regression-schemes break down or do not apply "outside" of the universe.  In short: our metaphysics has to change when we are talking about something that has fundamentally different physics.  This is relevant when talking about things "outside of time" as we do when we talk about the universe "from the outside."

I didn't write that out earlier because the post was already long.

[Machine_Washable]

1 hour ago, hakutaku said:

If the theist puts forth the premise that meaning/purpose cannot arise from something that is itself meaningless/purposeless, then God must have a meaning or purpose.  What is it and who gave it to him?  (This is arguing purely on the theists terms, on my terms purpose and meaning can arise).

Usually when people ask what the meaning of life is they are asking about some larger design or plan and how they fit into it. This larger plan comes from God. If life is a chance by product of chemicals sloshing around then there is no larger plan or meaning to your life other than what you give it. This is an observation that you are trying to turn into a formula and that is why your question makes no sense.

1 hour ago, hakutaku said:

As I said, meaning and purpose are not once-and-for-all existing-in-a-vacuum concepts.  The universe has meaning in the sense that there is in fact meaning and purpose within the universe because people can intend things.

This is a word game. When people talk about there being a purpose to their life they usually mean something put upon them. Something they fit into. They aren't pondering whether purposeful mental states exist. If your point is that you can give yourself some subjective purpose in a godless universe (astaghfirullah) then that is true but trivial.

1 hour ago, hakutaku said:

Of course

You can create ethical systems. That is not the same thing as a moral code we are bound to follow.

1 hour ago, hakutaku said:

I believe it is certainly a possibility.  I believe we don't know for sure one way or the other, but the mere possibility is enough to defeat the "no infinite regress" postulate. 

Infinite regress is compatible with belief in God.

1 hour ago, hakutaku said:

I also believe that even in finite-past scenarios there are reasons to believe that the theists' regression-schemes break down or do not apply "outside" of the universe.  In short: our metaphysics has to change when we are talking about something that has fundamentally different physics.  This is relevant when talking about things "outside of time" as we do when we talk about the universe "from the outside."

I didn't write that out earlier because the post was already long.

 

I don't see why this matters.

[Mercedes]

On 8/16/2021 at 12:33 PM, hakutaku said:

    2. Without God there can be no morality.

This claim is simply false.  People have been doing moral philosophy without invoking God for thousands of years. 

Was it not the case that theism was assumed until quite recently? Atheism is a new ideology as in the last century or two.  Prior to that, philosophers all assumed a divine hierarchy of some sort.

[Peace]

8 hours ago, Machine_Washable said:

Usually when people ask what the meaning of life is they are asking about some larger design or plan and how they fit into it. This larger plan comes from God. If life is a chance by product of chemicals sloshing around then there is no larger plan or meaning to your life other than what you give it. This is an observation that you are trying to turn into a formula and that is why your question makes no sense.

This is a word game. When people talk about there being a purpose to their life they usually mean something put upon them. Something they fit into. They aren't pondering whether purposeful mental states exist. If your point is that you can give yourself some subjective purpose in a godless universe (astaghfirullah) then that is true but trivial.

Well if Atheism is true his life is objectively meaningless, regardless of whether he gives some subjective meaning or purpose to it. The universe dies and returns to a state of nothing. Whether he existed or did not exist, whether he lived a moral life or an immoral life, has absolutely no impact on anything in the long run.

8 hours ago, Machine_Washable said:

You can create ethical systems. That is not the same thing as a moral code we are bound to follow.

Which is why the atheists have always been the most immoral people throughout history, Ultimately the only justification they can give for any code they follow has to do with “efficiency”. They can only say it is “wrong” to murder because that may make it more difficult to create an efficient, civilized society.

They cannot offer any moral justification as to why an individual person should not murder in a case where murder benefits him personally and causes no harm to the group.

8 hours ago, Machine_Washable said:

Infinite regress is compatible with belief in God.

I don't see why this matters.

Everyone knows an infinite regress is absurd. Even a six year old child understands that. Personally I think we are approaching idiocy when we try to make the absurd possible.

[KnightofChrist]

On 8/15/2021 at 10:33 PM, hakutaku said:

2. Without God there can be no morality.

This claim is simply false.  People have been doing moral philosophy without invoking God for thousands of years.  For a good overview, see this debate.  (You can just watch the intro.)  The long and short of it is that there are moral systems that meet all of the requirements theists lay out for there to "be morality."  Therefore, atheism is not idiotic because there can be atheistic moral systems.

Morals can 'exist' without God, yes, but such morals would be subjective, human constructs, mere opinions, and as make believe as the atheist claims God to be.

[hakutaku]

8 hours ago, Mercedes said:

Was it not the case that theism was assumed until quite recently?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia

Atheistic ethics (and indeed atheism itself) are as old as Socrates.  Atheistic ethics don't necessarily deny the existence of God, they simply don't need God to work.

You are certainly right that strong atheism was much rarer in olden days, but it was also much more common for atheism to carry head-chopping penalties enforced by the religious authorities.

2 hours ago, KnightofChrist said:

Morals can 'exist' without God, yes, but such morals would be subjective, human constructs, mere opinions, and as make believe as the atheist claims God to be.

What makes the theistic "we should obey God" not an opinion, vs an atheistic "we should not harm people"?

[hakutaku]

3 hours ago, Peace said:

Well if Atheism is true his life is objectively meaningless, regardless of whether he gives some subjective meaning or purpose to it. The universe dies and returns to a state of nothing. Whether he existed or did not exist, whether he lived a moral life or an immoral life, has absolutely no impact on anything in the long run.

There is no such thing as an objective meaning, "meaning" implies "meaning to an observer."  There are objective facts about what someone means, and objective facts about what meaning others take, but there is no such thing as meaning-all-by-itself-in-a-vacuum.

All you're doing is privileging God's subjective meaning.

That things might not matter in the long run doesn't imply they don't matter in the short run.  If we imagine a hell-bound murderer facing a heaven bound good christian, we don't say "in the long run they'll end up in the same place, so it doesn't matter whether or not the murderer kills the good person."

3 hours ago, Peace said:

Which is why the atheists have always been the most immoral people throughout history,

In current history, that is an objectively false witness against your neighbor.

https://today.uconn.edu/2017/08/think-atheists-likely-serial-killers/

Quote

data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons suggest that atheists are far less likely to commit crimes than religious people, and globally the least religious countries have the lowest crime rates. This is of course correlational evidence: it does not mean that being an atheist leads to committing fewer crimes. But the intuition that our study reveals, i.e. that atheists are immoral, is definitely not supported by reality.

 

3 hours ago, Peace said:

Everyone knows an infinite regress is absurd. Even a six year old child understands that. Personally I think we are approaching idiocy when we try to make the absurd possible.

Very few people understand infinity at all (not counting 6 yolds, who understand everything), and would likely find provably true facts about infinite series absurd, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel

So I am comfortable with the label of apparently absurd, but would deny the "self-evidence" because the apparent absurdity is based on misconceptions.

[KnightofChrist]

13 minutes ago, hakutaku said:

What makes the theistic "we should obey God" not an opinion, vs an atheistic "we should not harm people"?

One is an objective, unchanging, eternal moral law given by one unchanging, infinite and eternal being.

The other is an subjective, changing, ephemeral moral law imagined by many countless changing, finite and ephemeral beings.

You do or do not object that atheistic morals are subjective, human constructs, mere opinions, and make believe?

[Peace]

19 minutes ago, hakutaku said:

There is no such thing as an objective meaning, "meaning" implies "meaning to an observer."  There are objective facts about what someone means, and objective facts about what meaning others take, but there is no such thing as meaning-all-by-itself-in-a-vacuum.

All you're doing is privileging God's subjective meaning.

That things might not matter in the long run doesn't imply they don't matter in the short run.  If we imagine a hell-bound murderer facing a heaven bound good christian, we don't say "in the long run they'll end up in the same place, so it doesn't matter whether or not the murderer kills the good person."

In current history, that is an objectively false witness against your neighbor.

https://today.uconn.edu/2017/08/think-atheists-likely-serial-killers/

 

Very few people understand infinity at all (not counting 6 yolds, who understand everything), and would likely find provably true facts about infinite series absurd, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel

So I am comfortable with the label of apparently absurd, but would deny the "self-evidence" because the apparent absurdity is based on misconceptions.

Yeah an infinite-regress is absurd. Perhaps someone will debate you on that. Its a waste of my time. I'm not about debating the possibility of the tooth-fairy dropping a ten-spot under my pillow tonight either.

As for there being "no such thing as an objective meaning" - that's nonsense.

If I rape and murder people until the day I die I end up in hell and get punished for all eternity. If I treat people well I go to Heaven and live in bliss for all eternity. What I do today has an impact on my ultimate fate, and the ultimate fate of others. How I live my life matters.

If you are correct, the universe simply dies, according to science. Whether you rape or murder people until the day you die, or whether you treat people well, the ultimate result is exactly the same for you and everyone else - the universe dies and goes to a state of nothing. So your life and the way that you live it has no ultimate impact on anything whatsoever. And you know plenty well that if you read the serious atheists writers (the existentialists and so forth) - they all admit this. Literally whether you existed, or never existed at all, makes absolutely do difference whatsoever as to the final outcome.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Peace