What or who created the universe?

[jlaurson]

Drogulus,

O.k. fair enough but how would you answer the following:

"Atheism is for the best part an option of the educated elite. Go spend some time among the poor and uneducated. You may observe, as I have, that there are simple folk who not only derive a sense of dignity from their religion but also a decent moral code about being kind to their fellow beings. Others of course draw different lessons and may become religious bigots... Religion is a complex phenomenon, and its reduction to its evangelical or fundamentalist parody is intellectually dishonest. More fundamentally it betrays woeful ignorance of the human psyche"

Strictly speaking, Religion is intellectually dishonest in all its forms. But how do you want one to respond to this? It doesn't raise a question, it states truisms. Except the "elite" part. In post-modern societies, most people don't bother thinking about God and religion, these days. They are default-Christians or, in the communist countries, default-Atheists. The poor and uneducated, in that rather dim, patronizing view, get their moral code from wherever they get it from. ABOVE. Whether that's the Nazi Party or Oprah or the Pope doesn't really matter. And I want to see you talk to the rubble in Liverpool or Berlin and ask them about the "dignity" they feel, through the presence of God in mankind. Ha! And how kind are they, to their fellow man? At that level, Religion can be instrumentalized for good or bad -- 'moral behavior' or suicide bombings, at the extremes. But surely that doesn't speak to the existence of religion... looked at in isolation it's rather the point Marx made (albeit simplistically and ultimately wrongly)... You know... "Opium for the masses" and such.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Strictly speaking, Religion is intellectually dishonest in all its forms. But how do you want one to respond to this? It doesn't raise a question, it states truisms. Except the "elite" part. In post-modern societies, most people don't bother thinking about God and religion, these days. They are default-Christians or, in the communist countries, default-Atheists. The poor and uneducated, in that rather dim, patronizing view, get their moral code from wherever they get it from. ABOVE. Whether that's the Nazi Party or Oprah or the Pope doesn't really matter. And I want to see you talk to the rubble in Liverpool or Berlin and ask them about the "dignity" they feel, through the presence of God in mankind. Ha! And how kind are they, to their fellow man? At that level, Religion can be instrumentalized for good or bad -- 'moral behavior' or suicide bombings, at the extremes. But surely that doesn't speak to the existence of religion... looked at in isolation it's rather the point Marx made (albeit simplistically and ultimately wrongly)... You know... "Opium for the masses" and such.

Jens,

For the record, I reject ALL religions but I still want to leave open the possibility that there could exist some kind of supernatural being.

Over the past few years (since the resurgent atheism of Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens),  I've noticed that whenever religion itself is criticized, the academics invariably roll out William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902) in defense of it, claiming that religion (and religious experience) itself cannot be dismissed so easily by the atheists and agnostics.

Are we perhaps missing something here ?

[jlaurson]

For the record, I reject ALL religions but I still want to leave open the possibility that there could exist some kind of supernatural being.

Yes, I remember Freud having something to say about "your kind" [ please take no offense, for I hardly mean any!  ]:

Civ. & its Discontents, Chapter II

"...It is still more humiliating to discover how large a number of people living to-day, who cannot but see that this religion is not tenable, nevertheless try to defend it piece by piece in a series of pitiful rearguard actions. One would like to mix among the ranks of the believers in order to meet these philosophers, who think they can rescue the God of religion by replacing him with an impersonal, shadowy and abstract principle, and to address them with the warning words: 'Though shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain!'..."

Over the past few years (since the resurgent atheism of Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens),  I've noticed that whenever religion itself is criticized, the academics invariably roll out William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902) in defense of it, claiming that religion (and religious experience) itself cannot be dismissed so easily by the atheists and agnostics.

Are we perhaps missing something here ?

Do we need James to figure out that religion cannot be easily dismissed? For most cultures, no matter how secular they have since become, it is still tantamount to the equivalent of "culture". We are, if sometimes only in small ways and possibly ever decreasing ways, formed in how we think, write, build, compose -- by religion.

[Andante]

IMHO as it is impossible to prove the existence or non-existence of a creator an atheist is just as guilty as a religious follower in being bloody minded,  an open mind is surly the way to go.

[drogulus]

IMHO as it is impossible to prove the existence or non-existence of a creator an atheist is just as guilty as a religious follower in being bloody minded,  an open mind is surly the way to go.

      According to this open-minded people don't decide issues on the best available evidence, they refuse to decide issues when the favored proposition looks like a loser: Either God exists or you have to keep an open mind. 

     Are all unprovable beliefs therefore to be treated as factual? The point has been made in this and other threads a number of times now, but here you see the imperviousness to argument that believers protect themselves with.

      Patience is a virtue, though, so one more time:

      The unprovability of nonexistence is not an argument for the existence of anything. For that you need an affirmative argument.

      Most atheists do not take the position that you can disprove all unknown beings. They probably realize, like I do, that it's not necessary to do that. The utter lack of affirmative evidence does all the work needed to make existence claims completely untenable. All the believer has left are the medieval arguments for a priori belief like a perfect thing must exist, everything must have a cause, etc. Unless these arguments look good to you, the way anything looks edible to a starving person, you have no place to go.

      In such circumstances, open-mindedness is a dodge, a covert attempt to avoid a verdict. Would it be the best policy if the existence arguments were actually good?

[Brian]

Eric, my comments in bold.

"Atheism is for the best part an option of the educated elite. Not sure what "elite" has to do with this. I can see there being a relationship between atheism and education - haven't yet met an atheist homeless person on the Houston metro system - but not necessarily out of "superiority." But yes, I suppose it is for the best part an option of the educated elite, because let's face it: atheism is not easy. Intellectually, it's hard to say "I reject the views of 87% of America, and here's why." And when your family is religious, and/or all your friends and teachers are religious, and/or you are raised in a church, then it takes a lot of time, thinking, effort, and serious questioning and reading and soul-searching to become an atheist. No wonder it's not so common! Go spend some time among the poor and uneducated. You may observe, as I have, that there are simple folk who not only derive a sense of dignity from their religion but also a decent moral code about being kind to their fellow beings. How condescending! "Simple folk." That's disgusting. This passage seems to imply that people who are too stupid to be atheists should be left alone. What if I reject that ELITIST claim? Others of course draw different lessons and may become religious bigots... Religion is a complex phenomenon, and its reduction to its evangelical or fundamentalist parody is intellectually dishonest. Well, its reduction to evangelism and fundamentalism is a profoundly important force in American politics, and needs to be deterred/destroyed. More fundamentally it betrays woeful ignorance of the human psyche" People need spiritual fulfillment. Sure. People need to feel a sense of purpose. Sure. People need "a decent moral code." Sure. But I submit to you that religion is not the best approach to those three problems. Do "poor and uneducated" people have the fortitude to see the secular alternative? They've probably never been shown it; but, at any rate, why be so condescending to them, so arrogant about their "simple folk" ideas, if we have something better to show them?

[Andante]

      According to this open-minded people don't decide issues on the best available evidence...                        .................                     .............

     

      In such circumstances, open-mindedness is a dodge, a covert attempt to avoid a verdict. Would it be the best policy if the existence arguments were actually good?

OK drogulus ,, So is our UV purely meaningless or could there have been a Creator? 
And open mindedness is not a covert attempt to avoid a verdict, just maybe we are not capable of understanding and how can it be covert when it is in the open?

[Homo Aestheticus]

[ please take no offense, for I hardly mean any!  ]:

Of course not, Jens.. 

Civ. & its Discontents, Chapter II

"...It is still more humiliating to discover how large a number of people living to-day, who cannot but see that this religion is not tenable, nevertheless try to defend it piece by piece in a series of pitiful rearguard actions. One would like to mix among the ranks of the believers in order to meet these philosophers, who think they can rescue the God of religion by replacing him with an impersonal, shadowy and abstract principle, and to address them with the warning words: 'Though shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain!'..."

I like that Freud passage. But was he addressing the average agnostic or eminent philosophers as well ?

A point on Karl Marx:

Here is a good recent article on the "New Atheists":

Forget Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. These atheists du jour have nothing on the most famous anti-theist of all time. Good old Karl Marx is still the most eloquent and thoughtful nonbeliever, and his "religion is the opium of the masses" is still the best one-liner in the business.

But as famous as that zinger is, it's too bad that most people have never read the sentences that come before and after it. Marx was a whole lot more sympathetic to religious faith than most people give him credit for. He saw religion as a source of solace that should only be abolished until the sources of people's pain -- an unfair economic system -- had been eradicated.

Here is the full piece: Asking The Right God Question

[max]

I'ts interesting to contemplate - at least for me - how history and the human psyche would have developed if the God Virus had never been postulated in the first place.

[Florestan]

Atheism is the opium of the elites. 

[71 dB]

IMHO as it is impossible to prove the existence or non-existence of a creator an atheist is just as guilty as a religious follower in being bloody minded,  an open mind is surly the way to go.

Who says it's impossible? Maybe it is, maybe not. We don't know.

When you don't know/can't prove something 100 % it doesn't mean the situation is 50/50. The existence of God is EXTREMELY unlikely simply because he would have to be more complex than the universe he created. Who created God? How improbably it is to have a higher being with all that power without a creator?

Religious people say God is allmighty and all knowing. These things contradict each other! If God knows everything he knows what he will do tomorrow. But that means he can't change his mind and do something else! So how can he be allmighty?

Why did God create so LARGE universe? All he is interesting is if we do sin and stuff like that. Why did he create billions of galaxies? Does not make sense. Just imagine all the stars, planets, pulsars, asteroid fields, black holes etc. God is interested if YOU go to church every Sunday! What a lunatic! Why create atheist people? Why create people with WRONG religion? Why? It's all lunatic! God belongs to mental house. He should create one for himself. Perhaps churches are in fact God's mental houses? That almost makes sense!

Charles Darwin gave us a truly brilliant theory of evolution. It explains beautifully how all the breathtaking life on Earth was developed from nothing. Before you criticise the theory of evolution be sure you really understand it! According to Richard Dawkins many don't understand. That's sad. The explanation of the whole universe and it's existence is perhaps not darwinistic. God is a very bad explanation, lazy. Religion tend to say it's ok not to try to understand things. That's why I hate religion so much. I am far too intelligent for that. I have NEVER believed in God, not even in my childhood. I have always understood how silly the idea of God is (in our age). We know too much to think God's existence makes sense.

Yeah, I can't prove God doesn't exist. In my mind the probability of God's existence is a very small number, perhaps 0.00000000001 %. That is a damn good justification for being an atheist!

Believing in God is silly. Intelligent people do it because 1) they were indoctrinated in childhood (outracious brainwashing!) and 2) Religion sadly has an insanely strong status in society.

Religion is dangerous. Religion is a virus exploting the malfunctions of brain. All people free of that virus should promote reason and hope for secular tomorrow.

[jlaurson]

Who says it's impossible? Maybe it is, maybe not. We don't know.

When you don't know/can't prove something 100 % it doesn't mean the situation is 50/50. The existence of God is EXTREMELY unlikely simply because he would have to be more complex than the universe he created. Who created God? How improbably it is to have a higher being with all that power without a creator?

etc.etc.

We may be technically on the same side of the coin, but it should be pointed out that the above is an example of a--let's put this very kindly--"not very helpful" contribution to this discussion. Even in an internet forum we could try to do better than these not terribly sophisticated arguments, no? Gross simplification, though perfectly acceptable when talking about Mstislav Rostropovich, is counterproductive to all involved in matters religion and religious. (As they say: generates much heat, no light.)

And yes, we do know that it's impossible to prove a negative, not the least because we set up the (our) rules with which to prove things in the first place. You can only infer a negative.

[Bulldog]

Yeah, I can't prove God doesn't exist. In my mind the probability of God's existence is a very small number, perhaps 0.00000000001 %.

That little (1) could come back to bite you in the butt.

[bwv 1080]

Charles Darwin gave us a truly brilliant theory of evolution. It explains beautifully how all the breathtaking life on Earth was developed from nothing.

Darwin and evolution is silent on how life "developed from nothing"  it presupposes the existance of some form of life. Evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection.

Yeah, I can't prove God doesn't exist. In my mind the probability of God's existence is a very small number, perhaps 0.00000000001 %. That is a damn good justification for being an atheist!

Believing in God is silly. Intelligent people do it because 1) they were indoctrinated in childhood (outracious brainwashing!) and 2) Religion sadly has an insanely strong status in society.

Religion is dangerous. Religion is a virus exploting the malfunctions of brain. All people free of that virus should promote reason and hope for secular tomorrow.

Why is religion ubiquitous among all pre-modern societies?  Largely because it is an extremely powerful tool for promoting cooperation within groups and creating larger group boundaries than those of simple kinship.  In the Darwinian competition among cultures for the past 10,000 years, those with strong religious bonds have proven fitter than those without.

[Andante]

Who says it's impossible? Maybe it is, maybe not. We don't know.

Why did God create so LARGE universe?

Why do you assume that there is only one UV??    Also do not confuse a creator with the GOD of religions, [perhaps some form of intelligence would have been a better label than creator] I state now that I am in total agreement that religion is a man made crock but that does not  mean that the Cosmos purely popped into existence and was made out of nothing!  Until science can answer that then we do not know.

[Daidalos]

RE: percentages

It's a futile effort to assign probabilities to the likelihood of God's existence.

[71 dB]

That little (1) could come back to bite you in the butt.

My butt is ready.

[71 dB]

Why do you assume that there is only one UV??    Also do not confuse a creator with the GOD of religions, [perhaps some form of intelligence would have been a better label than creator] I state now that I am in total agreement that religion is a man made crock but that does not  mean that the Cosmos purely popped into existence and was made out of nothing!  Until science can answer that then we do not know.

I don't assume that.

Religious God is "stupid idea". Einsteinian God is different story.

It's difficult to explain how the universe popped into existence but it's even more difficult to explain a maker for it!

[Bulldog]

My butt is ready.

Sorry, but I have to turn down your generous offer.

[Daidalos]

It's difficult to explain how the universe popped into existence but it's even more difficult to explain a maker for it!

I agree with that. Furthermore, I am rather annoyed by the common riposte that God could be "simple", as a solution for this regression-issue, as that strikes me as disingenuous wordplay. It's ridiculous to suggest that that is, in any shape or form, a real solution. Naturally, the theist is correct in saying that the complexity-question is no death blow to the existence of God, as the nature of God could be so fundamentally different from ours that our rationality is insufficient to grasp it. Of course, this disqualifies the theist's argument, as well. If the nature of God cannot be described in any meaningful, quantifiable fashion, it's the height of dishonesty to claim God's alleged "simplicity" as a solution to a human-conceived, logical dilemma.

If I am to take that argument seriously, the theist would have to reconcile God's apparent complexity (emotions, willingness to create, personal, invested interest in His followers, the fact that He's intelligent) with his necessary simplicity. It's no good to dismiss the question as a blinkered rationalistic materialism, as that very dismissal kills any force the theist's argument had in the first place. How can the simple God be a solution, if it is merely stated that He is simple, however still incomprehensible. I have always likened it to the situation where you're faced with a seemingly insoluble problem, and instead of admitting to ignorance, you make up a solution, outside of the parameters of the problem, and then shut down all inquiry into the nature of that solution. Or, algebraically, the phenomenon X is difficult to account for; Y is postulated as its cause; oh... and we have no idea what Y really is, but it's a good solution, trust us, parsimony is intrinsic to Y.