I find it interesting that your blog here is called “liberated mind,” and yet it is nothing but a website for atheists, because you presume that you must be an atheist to have a liberated mind.

Paradoxically, IF you had a liberated mind, you would actually be open to the possibility for the existence of God, whether God actually exists or not. I hope the irony is not wasted.

PROVE THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST. If you had a liberated mind, you’d actually be able to believe in things like that.
Got any other proof besides your opinion? Huh?

asking someone to prove that god does not exist is like asking a person to prove that unicorns do not exist, or fairies….because we have not witnessed a unicorn nor a fairy seems to be evidence enough that neither of these things exist. No one asks us to PROVE that these things do not exist because there is no evidence that either of these things are anything other than made up factions.

most atheists do not claim that there is no god, they claim that they hold no personal belief in god (the semantics in this case seem to be relevant)…do not feel badly though, we hold no personal belief in ANY god…not just the one of the christian bible…we hold no belief in thor (thats reasonable right?) nor athena (thats reasonable right?, nor zeus (thats reasonable right?) nor any of the other gods in history and literature that have participated in virgin births and/or blood sacrifice. (that’s reasonable right?)..then why is it not reasonable to exert that the god of the christian bible probably does not exist, most especially considering there is not much evidence of him, nor his son outside the writing of the bible…that neither Him nor his son wrote even one word from their own hand that is seen in the bible…

i myself am an apathetic atheist…i don’t care if a god existed because it would not change how i live my life as i live my life now in a manner that hopefully honors nature and the people that live here…i try to make good choices…i don’t need a god (most especially not the god of the bible…have you READ it??? or…even JUST Job?…he is kind of an ass). I do not point my finger at believers and tell them they are wrong…i am typically happy that they have found the path they are happy with. This is not a street that goes both ways. I will actually go to church or bible study with people just to learn new ways of thinking, or at least try to grasp why it is people think the way they do…..this street does not work both ways…ask a believer to even entertain the idea that there is no god and they will no longer listen (of course if someone says that god speaks directly to them and tells them to do something that is not lawful then they are crazy…as if god never asked people to do insanely cruel things )…from here…it seems…even believers only believe as far as their face

grats on the baby!!! was it an immaculate conception?

Tom, first of all thank you for commenting. I would like to respond to some of the points you raised.

You objected to my comparison of the multiverse theory to the many god-claims. You stated that there is no evidence for the multiverse theory and then said “There is independent evidence for the existence of God: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and the phenomenon of worship among many sensible people from diverse backgrounds, for example.” I would like to know why you think that stories about Jesus and the personal experience of people who state a belief in a god is evidence that a supernatural being is the catalyst before the “big bang”.

In your second objection, you stated “You appear to be endorsing a kind of positivism, and there are several problems with it. Every world-view requires a leap of faith, including atheism and agnosticism.” This is a common misconception about what atheism is. Atheism is a rejection of godclaims. It is not a positive claim nor a set of beliefs or doctrines. Atheism is a rejection of godclaims in the same way that A-Bigfootism is a rejection of the claims that Bigfoot exists. As an atheist my approach to the unknowns in the universe is to humbly state that we do not know and leave it at that until evidence and discovery reveals more information. Religion jumps to conclusions by inserting “god” into the unknowns in human knowledge. For example, the god Zeus was thought to be responsible for lightening because humans simply could not understand lightening. Today, science has pushed god out of so many unknowns as we close the gaps in our knowledge with new discovery. God has been pushed out beyond the start of the universe where the religious like to jump to the conclusion that since we do not know what caused the birth of the universe, we must insert a god. I find this an egotistical method of trying to seem more informed than we really are as a species. It is a flawed practice that has proven to fail since the days of Zeus.

To close, you stated “the truth of Christianity is confirmed by my personal experience.” If you believe in something that has no provable repeatable evidence, based solely on your own personal experience (which cannot be repeated by others), are you suggesting that others should believe what you do based on your personal experience? If your personal experience is evidence enough for you to believe in something, you must conclude that what others experience gives them just as legitimate a reason to believe in whatever it is they believe in and have it be just as valid as your belief, even if those beliefs are in complete contradiction to each other. This does not seem to be a very rational or pragmatic way of understanding how the world we live in actually works.

Thanks for commenting!
LiberatedMind

I think in trying to understand these sorts of things, for me, I like to think in terms of non-linear time, or eternity. The universe had a beginning, and probably an end. That is just a finite linear segment encapsulated by non-linear time. I think in this non-linear timeframe, either something exists that is eternal(a catalyst), or things just appear out of nothing. Its very possible that any wordly laws cannot be applied in this non-linear realm. Which is to say the absurd may be unreasonable, but at the same time true.

If your criteria is that logically something cannot come from nothing and you insist that a creator initiated the ‘something’ that is our universe, that begs the question: who created the creator? Your criteria for the universe can be applied to a hypothetical creator: where did it come from and who created it? The problem is thus never ending. Watch the video by physicist Lawrence Krauss linked to at the end of the above post. In it he talks about this very never ending problem of the creator of the creator of the creator… Physicists suggest it may be possible that the laws of matter and energy and other substances that govern outside of our universe bubble are very different than the laws within the bubble. It may be that matter popping into existence is a commonplace and predictable event in this region outside of our universe. So far we have no way of knowing one way or the other because we can only test and observe within our bubble of a universe.

Matter is finite… The concept that matter may not be finite in some place outside of our known universe is based on a bigger stretch than any theist belief

Unless it has happened before the big bang. Perhaps a universe with different physical properties was created before our universe, it died and collapsed on itself creating another big bang. It’s just a thought. Antimatter or dark energy-the absence of anything is what pushes on everything that exists which possibly could have caused the chain of big bangs.

You are misunderstanding the argument. Atheists stop at the part where we say we don’t know what is beyond our observable universe. There are hypothesis such as string theory, the mulitiverse theory and others that are attempting to set up a means by which to test these ideas. Until tested, however, they remain hypothesis.

Where the Theist goes awry at this point is to say: ‘Aha, science doesn’t have the answer, so I am going to ASSUME the answer is this thing I call “god” with properties A, B C, etc.’ This assumption is completely fabricated and without supporting evidence. With this criteria, anyone can assume or insert whatever fantastical idea they can dream up as the cause of the universe.

In order to jump to the conclusion of whatever version of god you ascribe to, no evidence or logic is necessary, but rather an abandonment of logic and evidence. With this criteria, you have no argument against the gods of every other brand and flavor, as their reason for believing is equally as justified as your own: it is based on nothing but assumption. This argument is notoriously called the “god of the gaps” argument, inserting a god into an area of unknowns in the human knowledge base. Most classically, Zeus was held responsible for casting down lightening bolts, as the Greeks could not sort out at the time how lightening worked.

The logical, responsible conclusion to a “gap” in the current collective human understanding of the universe (it’s origins) is to simply say we do not know. The irrational response is to fabricate an answer; be it fairies, aliens, gods or any other fantastical, unproven notion.

I actually found this very fair and objective. I’ve been digging into this subject for some time now, and get fed up with the biased, heavily atheistic (or more accurately anti-theistic) articles with the usually arrogant tone of “we don’t need God because we have science” and “If you can’t prove God does exist, that must mean he doesn’t”. I guess you could say I’m a practicing Christian, but scientifically agnostic. We don’t really know, do we?

But you did raise some excellent points I had not yet considered. I had not considered that the laws of our universe might not apply to whatever it is that exists outside of that orb that was the beginning of our universe, according to the “Big Bang Theory”. There could be some random place of thing popping up out of nowhere. There could be a single omnipotent being experimenting with different universes (the “God Theory”), or for all we know, a collection of Karma from which all existence escapes, to one day return.

I couldn’t disagree more with what you have said. The question of how the material that makes up the universe originated has absolutely nothing to do with the question of how humans interact in society (making rules and laws and modes of conduct). A worldview can be influenced by many different things, but it is not contingent upon the mechanism that initiated our universe.

For example, I can say with honesty (and accuracy) that I do not know how this universe came into existence Yet simultaneously I do understand that if I steal from another human and think that this behavior within a group of humans is acceptable behavior, I risk getting my stuff stolen. Same thing goes for murder and slavery. All these behaviors have been marked by humans in civil societies as unacceptable and punishable, simply because each individual in turn does not wish the actions of theft or murder or slavery upon himself. Many “higher” animals are capable of this altruistic behavior within their social groups (dolphins, elephants, bonobos). You don’t need a deity to come to these conclusions.

The nature of faith, as you mentioned, is lack of evidence. When reason and evidence cannot be employed to prove an assertion, faith is the leap between what is real and what is desired to be true. When your standard for evidence falls this low to the point of believing something without evidence, what logical reason have you for not believing in all other wild claims that are accepted on faith without evidence? Examples such as alien abductions with first hand “witnesses”. Why not believe these people? Have faith in their first hand accounts? Why not believe in the gods of countless other religions and the many versions of a creation story they offer? Your standard for your belief is the same as theirs, how do you tell the difference between your lack of evidence for your claim and their lack of evidence for their claim?

Thanks for commenting!
LM

This is one of the best articles I’ve read on the subject, and overall seems very fair. However I do think that making the ad infinitum argument that something must have created the creator is not a particularly valid one. I think the fairest approach would be the separate spheres model proposed in Michael Shermer’s book Why Darwin Matters. Basically science and religion answer different questions and can be equally true. Despite saying that the laws of physics might have been different before the big bang I know from The Elegant Universe that the inability for the laws of physics to function the closer you approach time 0 has caused many physicist considerably confusion. I guess overall I’m just saying there may be some questions that perhaps people will always be looking to answer. And I know you may make the comparison to bronze age people saying zeus was the reason for lightening, but some things like the origin of the universe and biogenesis simply don’t mesh with the established rules we have for how life works.

Theories,hypothesis,science,and physics are good for they’ve come a long way to give us some clear cut meaning,definitions and knowledge to some puzzles of life.But have someone pondered over this:Assuming you have a virtually empty bottle.When you begin to fill this bottle with water,a time comes where it gets completely full and becomes IMPOSSIBLE to add even a drop.That is exactly how our mental capacities are;We have been created with a DIMENSIONALLY DEFINED thinking capability .ANYTHING outside this thinking capacity is a deep secret…A deep secret of the creator of all thing.And you’ll agree with me that;this secret would by no means be unveiled by mere theories,researches and observations of mortal.why these secrets?…He said “it is not our concern,but we should rather stick to the things revealed to us”….Sorry didn’t mean to be too biblical in my analogy;but that’s the little I wanna contribute.