cheese muffin
May 1st, 2006, 04:03 AM
:!: Yes, I do know that there is another thread in the fight room related to this topic. No, I'm not trying to pick a fight with anyone online. i simply wanted to share this article with you. Only reply if u have any rational thoughts on the topic. As for the hatemail, there is another forum for that.
:!: And by the way, I didn't write this. :!:
The replies that I do not need to read are moronic ones such as this:
AllyouATHEIST'Swhokeeparguingthisridiculousargumen taboutreligionand notbelievinginGODisabouttofeelhiswrath! Godwillcurseyoubymakingallthe wordsthatyouarereadingruntogetherintoonewordandtha nyouwillgoblindwithin24hours!
Why Atheism? by Mark Thomas
Hello. My name is Mark, and I’m an Atheist.
History and Development of Science and Scientific Naturalism
Let’s start with a quick experiment. You can grab three coins and actually do the experiment, or just do a thought experiment.
Drop one coin and watch it fall. Do this again. Hold out the third coin.
If you were to do this again, what do you think would happen? If you could get ten good Christians to pray that this next coin wouldn’t fall, would it still fall? How about one thousand faithful Muslims? How about one billion people of any faith? I think that it would still fall. Drop the third coin.
Our understanding of the world around us, and our abilities to predict what will happen are based on naturalism — the basis of science. Naturalism is how all people live their lives most of the time.
OK, let’s just do a thought experiment. If you were to take two coins and glue them together, then drop them at the same time as you drop a single coin, would they fall twice as fast as the single coin? Aristotle thought so 2300 years ago, and for over 1900 years, his ideas were what was taught about this and many other subjects. Some of the other ancient Greeks had many ideas that are now a basis for modern science, engineering, math, philosophy, and democracy. Unfortunately for humankind, these ideas were largely forgotten for almost two thousand years while religion took control and Aristotle was revered as the source of supposedly scientific knowledge.
Galileo and Empirical Science
Around 1600, Galileo had a new idea for his culture. He decided to do something that now seems like common sense — to actually test the idea of what we now call gravity. He reasoned that two weights held together would fall at the same rate as one weight. Then he did experiments to test the idea — and, not surprisingly to us, it was true. This was the start of modern empirical science, and our collective understanding of the universe hasn’t been the same since.
“Empirical” is a word that I'll be using a lot. It refers to ideas that are capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment. Empirical evidence is not simply one type of evidence, but rather it is the only evidence that we can rely on, because it is reproducible. Empirical evidence is the basis for physical science.
Galileo also took the new invention of the telescope, refined it, and used it to look at the night sky. He was astounded. On the moon he could see mountains and valleys. It wasn’t just some strange heavenly object; it was probably made out of the same stuff as Earth. In 1609 Galileo looked at Jupiter and discovered that he could see four moons. If moons orbited Jupiter then not everything orbited the Earth, as the Catholic Church taught at the time. Astronomy made more sense if the theories of Copernicus were true, and the Earth and planets orbited the sun. After writing a book about this, Galileo was called to Rome in 1633 by the Catholic Church’s Inquisition, and told to recant his heretical ideas.
This was no “simple request” by the Church. Just 33 years before, the Inquisition had executed Galileo’s friend Giordano Bruno. Have you heard of him? In 1600, the Christian authorities in Rome took him out of the dungeon he had been in for eight years, drove a nail thru his tongue, tied him to a metal post, put wood and some of his books under his feet, and burned him to death. Bruno’s crime was writing ideas that the Catholic leaders didn’t like — there might be other worlds with other intelligent beings on them, Jesus didn’t possess god-like power, and souls can’t go to heaven. For these heretical ideas, the Catholic Church punished this brilliant man with a slow, agonizing death.
Galileo knew what he was up against. For the crime of heresy the Inquisition could put him in a dungeon, torture or even execute him — as it had done to Bruno. So, after a long trial, this proud 70 year-old man obediently got on his knees and recanted. But even after recanting, he was still sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. The Catholic Church officially condemned heliocentrism 31 years later, when Pope Alexander VII banned all books that affirmed the earth’s motion. However, even as powerful as the Church was, they could not hold back the tidal wave of scientific discovery, and the Church eventually lost its battle over our view of the universe. It only took them over three hundred years to admit it. In 1992, after 12 years of deliberations, they grudgingly noted that Galileo had been right in supporting the theories of Copernicus. But no such admission has been made for Bruno; his writings are still on the Vatican’s list of forbidden texts, and Pope John Paul II refused to even apologize for the Catholic Church's torture killing of Bruno.
God of the Gaps, or Argument From Ignorance
Until just a couple of hundred years ago, most people thought that a god or gods controlled everything. Why did the wind blow? Why was there lightning and thunder? Why did the sun, moon, and stars apparently go around the Earth? Why did someone get sick and die? Why did anything happen? Well, obviously, God did it. If a person doesn’t know how something works or why something happened, they can say, “God did it.” This is known as the “god of the gaps,” or the “argument from ignorance,” and it is at the heart of the conflict between science and religion. Science looks for natural causes, while religion looks for supernatural causes. Science is steadily winning, because as we understand more and more about the universe, the gap where God might function grows smaller and smaller. Every time we learn more, God has less room to operate. When we learned what caused the sun to apparently move across the sky, there was no need for the Greek god Helios and his chariot. When we understood what caused lightning, there was no need for the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, or the Norse god Thor.
In fact, the understanding of lightning was one of the first areas of battle between science and the Christian religion. When Ben Franklin discovered that lightning was just a big electric spark, he invented the lightning rod. It was enormously successful at preventing buildings from being struck by lightning. However, this caused a bit of a problem for the church leaders; should they trust in their god to prevent lightning strikes on their churches, or should they use these new lightning rods? Up until then, lightning hit churches much more frequently than other, more “deserving” buildings — such as taverns or houses of ill repute. “Why was that?” they might have wondered. Could it be that churches had spires and were taller, or was it SATAN and his WITCHES? …… Actually, that is what they often believed, and many a supposed witch was executed for having caused the destruction of a church. When they started putting lightning rods on churches, witch killings stopped soon thereafter. However, the obvious fact is that they were putting their trust in science and lightning rods, not religion and prayer.
Galileo and others started something big — empirical science. Thru science, we have come to a good understanding of the workings of the world and universe around us. The weather, lightning, thunder, the planets and stars, disease, and life itself all function based on fairly well understood principles. God doesn’t control them; the physical properties of matter and energy do. This principle is at the center of naturalism — the idea that only matter and energy exist, and they have properties that are repeatable, understandable, and quantifiable within the limits of quantum mechanics. We take this idea so for granted that we typically don’t realize that it is based on several articles of faith. This faith, however, is quite different from religious faith. This faith is based on past experience and results. It is the faith that:
There is an external world that exists independently of our minds.
There are understandable, quantifiable, natural laws that describe how things happen in this world.
These natural laws won’t change when we’re not looking; the universe isn’t totally chaotic.
So far, this faith has been well founded, as shown by the amazing accomplishments of modern science, engineering and medicine.
Why God(s)? Why Not?
The idea of an all-controlling, caring supernatural god is a very attractive one. It can make our mortal lives seem less frightening, more comforting. Somebody’s in control and won’t let bad things happen to us. Many gods also promise that we can go to heaven after we die, and live forever in some sort of bliss.
The idea of a god is also an easy answer to questions about the world around us. Where did the universe come from? God created it. Where did life come from? God created it, too. Where did humans come from? God created us, and in his own image, to boot.
Religious philosophers have tried for thousands of years to prove that there is a god or many gods. They have come up with many arguments. We will look at these arguments. Because I live in a largely Judeo-Christian society, when I refer to God with a capital ‘G’ I will be referring to the Judeo-Christian god Yahweh (a.k.a. Jehovah) and probably the Muslim god Allah. This god is typically defined as having free will, and being omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnibenevolent (all-good) and eternal. This god also created the universe and is separate from the physical world while still intervening in the physical world. After all, what good is a god that doesn’t do anything? Most of the arguments I use here will also apply to most of the other 2500+ gods created by humankind, and most of the thousands of religions. I certainly don’t know all of them, so I will deal with most of the major religions and their god(s). I will also closely link god(s) and religion. I do this advisedly because, for most people, one could not exist without the other. In addition, if there were a god I would think that this god would be able to appropriately guide the religions created for it.
There is at least one religion, essential Buddhism as taught by Buddha, which does not have a god or any supernatural component. To keep things a bit simpler here, the arguments I make regarding religion will probably not apply to essential Buddhism or any other religion without a supernatural component. However, almost all religions have grown from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created just for our benefit.
We need to define “Atheism.” Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any gods. For many, Atheism is also the conclusion that no gods exist, based on the complete lack of evidence for any god. I take the strong Atheist position — depending on how we define “God” we can prove that it does not exist, and I will use the typical definition just given for the Christian god Yahweh.
Why am I doing this? Is it just because I want to poke holes in people’s beliefs so that we can take away what makes them happy? No, I’m doing this because I want to know what is true, be intellectually honest, and be open to reality. And, I hope that you have similar reasons.
In this article I will put forth some of the reasons why Atheism is true, so they can be examined and evaluated. I will also show why Atheism is important to the future of humankind.
The arguments for the existence of God fall into several areas. I have arranged them into these categories:
Mysticism and Revelation
“Scientific” Claims
Love and Morality
Appeals to Authority
Prophesy and Miracles
Appeals to Faith, Logic, and Emotion
What Tools Can We Use?
How can we examine these claims? What tools can we use to determine truth of external reality? We have (1) empirical, verifiable evidence; and we have (2) logic. Evidence and logic are the best tools we have to determine how the universe really works. These tools have been extraordinarily successful in science, engineering and medicine, and in our daily lives. This is the standard that most of us expect in dealing with the real world; we expect doctors to use the latest medicine, and engineers to use empirical data when building bridges. Why should we use anything else for examining external reality?
Each of us can choose between a magical view of the universe (one or more invisible, immaterial gods did it), or the “what you see is what you get” scientific version. I think that science, using empirical evidence, has done a far better job in explaining how the universe works.
Mysticism, Revelation and Experience
Some people claim that there are other ways of knowing, such as mysticism, revelation or direct experience. People claim that they can experience God, sometimes thinking that the Holy Spirit has come into them. How can we verify these claims? The “Holy Spirit” experience seems to be very similar to the well-documented experience of catharsis. People claiming knowledge thru mysticism or revelation often don’t even agree with each other. The only way that I know to verify any mystic’s abilities is for the supposed mystic to be able to accurately, repeatedly, and verifiably know things that are supposedly impossible to know — such as events of the future. I know of no one who can, or could. Of course, we have to be very careful in any testing of such claims, because a good magician can easily fool us. Even if there were somebody who could predict the future, that does not mean that there’s a god. It would only mean that this person has peculiar skills. I submit that mysticism and revelation result from internal, altered states of consciousness — with no basis in external reality. Mysticism, revelation, and any other religious experience can only count for those who experience them; for all other people, they are merely hearsay. Thus, we can’t depend on mysticism or religious revelation to give us reliable answers to any issues.
“Scientific” Arguments for God(s)
The biggest weakness in using God to explain anything scientifically is that the explanation is not falsifiable, and thus not even testable. There is no way to create an experiment to show that it’s wrong. For every possible set of a test and a result, we could simply say, “God did it.” Why do the Earth and universe appear to be so old? God did it. Why does nature seem so balanced? God did it. Once again, why does anything happen? If we say that God did it, there is no reason or opportunity to learn how the world really works. If we had stayed with God as the cause of all events, our modern culture would have been impossible. We would have no real science, engineering, or medicine. We would still be living in the Dark Ages.
The “god of the gaps” is the basic premise behind all the “scientific” arguments for the existence of a god. The logic of “god of the gaps” goes like this (as an argument that Martin Luther could have used): Isn’t lightning amazing! I don’t understand how lightning could be, without something else (that I don’t really understand either) making lightning. This something else must be a god because I can’t come up with a better explanation.
The obvious main fault of “god of the gaps” is its supposition that current lack of knowledge on a subject means that it can’t be known — that “unknown” means “unknowable.” If this applies to an individual, it’s the argument from personal incredulity — because a person doesn't understand something then he thinks that the subject must be unknown, unknowable, or false. For the fringe areas of knowledge that we don’t understand, there is no indication that we won’t learn the secrets of nature. As we have all seen, science has made excellent advances in our physical understanding of the universe, and will, no doubt, continue to do so.
When faced with an unknown, let's first note that it's perfectly OK to say, “I don't know,” or, “We don't know,” — just as it would have been when people several hundred years ago asked, “What causes lightning?” or, “Why do things fall to the ground?” or countless other questions for which we now have straightforward scientific explanations. Obviously, just because we don't know how something happened does not mean that “God did it.” Relegating an explanation of something to a god is easy; a person doesn't have to think much. Finding an explanation with science often involves hard work and analysis.
There are three common “god of the gaps” types of arguments for the existence of God. We have (1) first cause, (2) Intelligent Design, which grew out of creationism, and (3) origin of consciousness.
First Cause, or Cosmological Argument
The first cause, or cosmological argument, says that everything has a cause, and, since we supposedly can’t have an infinite series of causes stretching into the past, God must be the first cause — an uncaused cause. This argument has at least four problems.
The main problem of the first cause argument is the idea that every event has a cause. As we discovered in the 20th century, the universe is actually ruled at the bottom level by quantum mechanics, in which it’s possible for events to have no cause. An obvious example of quantum mechanics in action is the radioactive decay of a uranium atom. There is no previous cause for each such event, and we can only predict it with probability. The averaging of quantum effects gives us the Newtonian experience that we have. However, Newtonian physics does not control the universe; quantum mechanics and Einsteinian relativity do. We now know that the universe has an intrinsic, bottom level of uncertainty that cannot be bypassed. Quantum mechanics also shows us that objects can appear out of nothing and then disappear back into nothing. Even in supposedly empty space, virtual particles are continuously appearing and disappearing. This is a real and measurable process, via what is known as the Casimir Effect.
The beginning of the universe — of all the matter and energy in it and even of time itself — is called the Big Bang. The science of quantum mechanics is only a century old, and already we've been able to get extremely close to understanding the beginning of the universe -- with no god needed. How close can we get? Approximately a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory is supported by extensive data. The four most prominent facts are:
The red shift of almost all galaxies — getting greater as their distance increases.
- This shows that the galaxies are flying away from each other — at greater speeds at greater distances.
The cosmic microwave background radiation.
- This is a remnant of the radiation from the Big Bang, and has cooled over time to the exact temperature predicted.
The proportions of the lightest elements and isotopes.
- This helps show that the calculations for nuclear interactions immediately following the Big Bang are correct.
The changes in galaxies as we look further away (and thus back in time), with distant galaxies more primitive.
- This shows some of the changes in the universe since the Big Bang, and confirms the deep time of the universe.
The physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth of MIT has put forth the scientific theory, called Inflation, that the Big Bang was just the result of a random quantum event called a vacuum fluctuation — with no cause, created out of nothing, and with a total energy of zero. Even tho this doesn’t make sense in the Newtonian physics of our experience of the world, it does make sense in quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general relativity. In relativity, gravity is negative energy and matter is positive energy. Because the two seem to be equal in absolute total value, our universe appears balanced to the sum of zero. Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy. There is also excellent experimental and theoretical evidence to support Inflation Theory. Even if Inflation Theory is eventually shown to be wrong or incomplete, that doesn’t mean that “God did it.”
The next problem of the first cause argument is the assumption that an infinite chain of events is impossible. Many cosmologists have proposed that our universe could be part of a much larger, super and perhaps eternal meta-universe; we certainly don’t know for sure, and may never know. However, this meta-universe would allow infinite chains of events.
Another problem comes from the typical definition of God as a perfect and unchanging being. If these qualities were true, then why would God need a universe and how could God change from not needing a universe to needing one?
The last problem with the first cause argument lies in its assumption that this eternal god exists, something that it is trying to prove. This is known as begging the question. Even a child can ask, “If God created the universe, then who created God?” If the answer is that God is uncaused, then the same answer could certainly be applied to the existence of the universe — that it is uncaused. Besides, which god are we talking about? People using the first cause argument always make the assumption that their god did the creating. Muslims think that Allah created the universe. Hindus think that Brahma did it. Christians and Jews think that Yahweh did it. Most religions have a story of how their god created the universe. The idea of a god as creator of the universe obviously tells us little about the characteristics of that god. What they are doing is explaining one mystery with a bigger mystery, and that is fallacious logic.
Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Irreducible Complexity
The next scientific type of argument is called Intelligent Design (ID). It states that life on Earth is so complex that it must have had an intelligent designer. This argument has evolved from the creationism argument, and it’s gaining strength by masquerading as a science. It’s a belief structure and not science because there is no body of research to support its claims, and it makes no testable predictions. To get around legal restrictions on teaching religious dogma, proponents of ID often say that they don’t know what this designer was; it could have been an alien or a god. This is disingenuous. If it was an alien, then the obvious question is: where and how did the alien originate? If they really mean God, which is what some of them have admitted, then ID is basically creationism with a few new ideas. So, I will treat ID and creationism as basically the same.
Proponents of Intelligent Design make many claims:
The apparent design of the universe design requires a designer, like a watch requires a watchmaker.
The complexity of life and the universe require a cause that is not part of this natural world.
Irreducible complexity shows that the odds against natural causes for certain processes are too great, so a designer is necessary.
The physical laws require a lawgiver.
The laws of physics were fine-tuned for life.
Science can’t explain all the features of life.
Our system of life on Earth was designed.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics proves that evolution is impossible.
What they really claim is God did it!
Let's start with the apparent design of the universe, and use a story of Sir Isaac Newton as an example. A deeply religious man, Newton was struck by the order that he observed in the orbits of the planets, with all of them in the same plane. He could think of no reason for this, so he attributed it to God. Of course now, thru science, we understand the formation of solar systems fairly well, and no longer need to invoke a god. Science is similarly showing how the rest of the universe works and eliminating the need for theistic explanations.
Now let’s look at the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This states that any closed system will tend toward disorder. However, it does not apply to the Earth, because we live in an open system with energy constantly streaming in from our sun. This is the energy that powers almost all life on our planet. Thus the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply to evolution or any living being.
Next, let’s consider the laws of physics. They are quantified explanations of how matter and energy behave — not anything like man-made laws. We currently don’t know why the parameters of matter and energy have certain values, but that doesn’t mean that some god set them that way. The simple solution to the question of the source of the laws of physics is to accept them as brute fact, with no source. Besides, if it were true that a god set up the universe specifically for us, he certainly waited a long time for the result. The universe has been around for about 13 billion years. It took about nine billion years before our Earth was formed, and single celled bacteria were forming ecosystems about a billion years after that. Life on Earth evolved and became more complex, as shown by the evidence for Earth’s history in its rocks and fossils. Then humans, God’s supposed reason for the whole creation, finally came along within the last 150,000 years or so — on one planet orbiting one of the trillions of stars. This seems like a lengthy, complex, massive, and apparently natural process for an omnipotent being that could have simply snapped everything (or just one magic planet) into existence. Using God as the source of the laws of physics just doesn’t make sense. Once again, religionists are trying to explain one mystery with a bigger mystery.
It's also important to note that life is exceedingly rare in the universe — even if it exists on every planet and moon. All we do know is that life exists on one oasis — Earth. Most of the universe is nearly empty, and almost all of the matter is in stars or nebulae. Any sort of life that we can imagine only has a chance on planets or moons. The universe was not designed for life; in practically the entire universe conditions are extremely hostile to life. Saying that the universe is made just for us is like a frog looking at his pond and thinking that the whole world was made just for him.
The core argument in Intelligent Design is the fact that evolutionary biologists can’t yet fully explain all the features of life; therefore ID claims that life must have been designed by some intelligent being. This is the old “god of the gaps” argument, and it is logically and historically flawed.
ID is logically flawed in two ways. The first logical flaw in ID is that it's based on a lack of knowledge — explaining gaps in knowledge by invoking the magic of an unknown (perhaps supernatural) being. Like all “god of the gaps” arguments, ID is not falsifiable, can’t even be tested, and says nothing about the moral qualities of this unknown being, god, or gods. The second logical flaw is in the assumption it makes that, because something is supposedly very highly unlikely, something else must have designed it. What ID proponents blatantly ignore, because they take the existence of their god as a given, is the fact that this unknown designer must be even more complex, and thus less likely, than what ID was invoked to explain.
ID is historically flawed because science has shown excellent progress in explaining the world around us, and there is nothing to show that evolutionary biology should be abandoned simply because it has not yet explained the origins of every single process of life. Because biochemical processes don’t leave behind fossils, it’s not as easy to explain their origins as it is for bone structures that do fossilize. However, evolutionary biologists are making excellent progress in understanding the origins and processes of the biochemistry of life.
ID is simply not science; it's religion dressed up to look like science to the uninformed. Intelligent Design is mystical pseudoscience.
Proponents of ID have also created the idea of irreducible complexity, which states that many processes of life are too complex and irreducible to have evolved; therefore a designer must have created them. This complexity comes from many interrelated parts or processes, which supposedly are useless without all the other parts or processes. This is just another “god of the gaps” and it also falls apart under close examination.
“What good is half an eye?” they ask. The response is simple. Any amount of vision is better than none, and any change that improves vision probably improves survivability. Starting with a basic light-sensing cell, eyes have evolved thru natural selection — one small step at a time. Richard Dawkins has an excellent explanation of this (and much more) in his book Climbing Mount Improbable.
An icon of the irreducible complexity concept is the bacterial flagellum, with its many similarities to an electric motor — and about 30 protein components required to produce a working biological function. Unfortunately for the ID movement, research has demolished its status as an example of irreducible complexity. Some bacteria use what is known as type III secretory system (TTSS) to allow them to inject proteins directly into the cytoplasm of a host cell. TTSS has a strong likeness in structure to the flagellum, and uses about 15 to 20 of the same proteins. This shows that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex, because a functioning structure (albeit with a different function) can be made with 10 to 15 fewer proteins. A detailed analysis can be found in The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity".
I'd like to address a common statement made by creationists — that scientists have supposedly never actually witnessed evolution, so evolution either: a) isn't real science, or b) hasn't happened. First, this is a gross mischaracterization of science. There are many processes that scientists can understand without directly witnessing them, such as much of geology or fusion at the cores of stars. Second, this statement ignores the fact that evolution usually takes thousands or millions of years. It's like looking a tree and saying that it is not growing because you can't see any growth in a day. Third, scientists have actually witnessed the evolution of new species — the apple moth from the hawthorn moth, and a new species of polychaetes fish.
The Theory of Evolution
Life is a process — not a design. It requires an explanation — not an intelligent designer. This explanation is the fact and theory of evolution. “Evolution” simply means change over time. It’s a fact that enormous changes to life on Earth have occurred. The 3.5 billion year fossil record is clear and unambiguous on this. The Theory of Evolution explains the processes that caused these changes.
There are at least nine areas of study and empirical data supporting the Theory of Evolution. They are:
Paleontology (fossils)
Distribution of Animals and Plants
Comparative Anatomy
Embryology
Vestigial Organs
Natural Selection
Sexual Selection
Genetics
Molecular Biology
I will only deal here with brief overviews of paleontology, vestigial organs, natural selection, and genetics.
The history of life on Earth is in its fossils, and we have extensive fossils showing how species have come and gone over the last several hundred million years. Here are just a few examples: Trilobites appeared over 500 million years ago and existed for 300 million years (with over 15,000 described species). Dinosaurs (with an estimated 200,000 species) lived 251 to 65.5 million years ago. Horses are descended from the cat-sized Eohippus of 50 to 60 million years ago. Whales are descended from land animals of 52 million years ago. In fact, some whales still have vestigial legs and pelvic bones. Humans are descended from a long line of hominids, over at least 4.4 million years.
The evidence for evolution of life is overwhelming and conclusive. This evidence is not just in the fossils, but also in the body parts and genes of almost every living thing. If you have any doubts, take a little time to learn the concepts of evolution, then spend a few hours in any natural history museum or public library. If your mind is at all open, you will see the evidence. Remember, ignorance of how evolution works is no argument against it. The basic Theory of Evolution is completely solid, and will continue to be updated as we learn more about the complex history of life.
You don’t even need to go to a natural history museum or library to see evidence for evolution; our own bodies have many signs of our evolutionary heritage. When we get goose bumps, our bodies are trying to keep warm by raising hairs that are no longer dense enough to help. The muscles that allow us to wiggle our ears are of no use for us, but they did help some distant ancestors. We also have many other useless, vestigial organs such as nipples and mammary glands on males, the appendix and the tailbone, which is just a holdover from when our primate ancestors actually had tails millions of years ago.
Intelligent Design completely fails to explain vestigial organs, which are obviously suboptimal. The Theory of Evolution explains them perfectly.
Just about every cell in our bodies contains the evidence of our evolutionary origins. The basic process of life on Earth is so common that we share about 50% of our genes with carrots, and 98.5% of our genes with chimpanzees. Here are some useful biological facts:
We get an exact copy of the mitochondria in each cell from our mother, almost every time.
Every male gets an exact copy of his Y chromosome from his father, almost every time.
Both mitochondria and Y chromosomes slowly mutate over time at known rates.
With this knowledge, geneticists can estimate how recently any two of us shared a common female ancestor, or any two males shared a common male ancestor. Using this information and other data, the evidence strongly points to the claim that most or all of us are descended from a group of Africans that started migrating about 100,000 years ago.
We may share 98.5% of our genes with chimps, but we have 23 chromosomes in our sperm and eggs while chimps and other great apes have 24. A close examination of the chromosomes shows that one of our chromosomes is made of two from the other primates. Our combined chromosome even shows the evidence of where the two chromosomes joined, with the ends of the old chromosomes in the middle of the joined chromosome. For more, see Evidence of Common Descent between Man and Chimp.
Let me address a common example that proponents of Intelligent Design use. [See general eye diagram.] “Look at the wonderful design of the human eye,” they say. “Surely this design could not have happened by chance. It must be that God did it.” Actually, it did happen by chance — countless little chance events of changes in the gene pool over millions of generations, all controlled by the harsh realities of natural selection and survival of the fittest. While the initial changes in the gene pool were chance events, survival of the fittest is obviously not random. This is the heart of the basic Theory of Evolution; individuals can pass their genes and characteristics on to their offspring. If a gene makes an individual more likely to have offspring that survive, its offspring (carrying that gene) will be more likely to have offspring that survive. In effect, species are designed to fit their environment. The designer is the blind process of evolution, however, not some god or gods. Evolution creates an illusion of human or supernatural design. This illusion is so powerful that it took until 1859 for us to discover it, when Charles Darwin put forth one of the greatest ideas in science — evolution by natural selection.
The faults in the design of the human eye, especially, show its evolutionary origins. [See eye diagram of retina.] When we study the retina at the back of the eye, we can see that the cell layers are backwards. Light has to travel thru seven layers of cells before reaching the light sensing cells. Then the signals go back thru these layers to the nerves on the inside surface. A truly intelligent designer could have done better than the human eye. Actually, evolution did a better job with the eyes of the octopus and squid, which have the light sensing cells on the surface, where they should be.
In fact, vision is so useful for survival that eyes have independently evolved at least twenty separate times, with at least a dozen different designs.
You’ve probably heard people say that evolution is “only a theory.” It’s important to remember that the term “theory” in science is not the same as it is in general usage. A scientific theory is a unifying concept that explains a large body of data. It is a hypothesis that has withstood the test of time and the challenge of opposing views. The Theory of Evolution is the basic unifying concept of biology. The CEO of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Alan Leshner, wrote, “Although scientists may debate details of the mechanisms of evolution, there is no argument among scientists as to whether evolution is taking place.” The National Academy of Sciences, the nation’s most prestigious scientific organization, has declared evolution “one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have,” and notes that evolution is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus. The Theory of Evolution has as much validity as the theory of gravity, atomic theory, or the germ theory of disease.
There is an underlying problem with the design argument, and most proponents of Intelligent Design probably aren’t aware of it. By assuming that living things have some sort of metaphysical purpose, they are intrinsically assuming what they want to prove. Purpose is an abstract human concept that exists only in our minds, much like beauty — with no physical reality. In the universe, I maintain, things have no intrinsic purpose; they just exist. Does an atom have any purpose? Does a rock? Does a star? Does an amoeba, plant or any living thing have a real external purpose? We could say that living things have the purpose of procreating, of creating more life. However, we must realize that this is just our viewpoint, our interpretation. Rocks, trees, people, and the universe have no intrinsic purpose. We can create purpose for ourselves, and that is good because it's a useful concept; but it’s important to understand that purpose is a human construct. Remember, when proponents of ID begin their arguments by noting the design and purpose of nature, they are assuming what they want to prove. Don’t be fooled by this logic sleight of hand. No intelligent designer is needed for purpose to exist, because purpose exists only in our minds.
Even more basic than evolution is the field of science called abiogenesis, which deals with the origins of life from non-life. Simple experiments have shown that amino acids, the molecular units that make up proteins, can be made in lab conditions simulating Earth’s early atmosphere, and they are even found in outer space. Amino acids are not living, but abiogenesis scientists are learning many ways that life could have originated from amino acids.
A basis for the creationism idea is the concept that humans are at the center of the universe. The idea of God used to make sense, when people thought that the Earth was the unmoving center of creation, and humans were the reason that there was an Earth and everything else. The biblical universe was much simpler then. The flat Earth was at the base, and above was the vast solid dome called the firmament. It contained the stars and held back the celestial waters. Above that were heaven and God.
We now know that the universe is almost unimaginably immense, complex, and ancient. It is the height of conceit for humans to believe that this whole universe was made just for us. Our perspective has changed. We are no longer at the center of the universe — not our planet, not our star, and not our galaxy. As people grow and mature, one of the big realizations is that they aren’t at the center. It is the same for our species; it is time for us to realize that we are not at the center either.
It is also necessary to note that in order for Intelligent Design to be true, these areas of science would be largely false: evolutionary biology, paleobiology, cosmology, astronomy, physics, paleontology, archeology, historical geology, zoology, botany, and biogeography, plus much of early human history. These fields of science make predictions and get results. ID makes no verifiable predictions and gets no useful results, and thus cannot in any way be called a science. A simple example of this is the field of oil exploration, where you won’t find any geologists using creationism or ID — because they don’t get results. And, with large amounts of money at stake, the companies want results.
Studies have shown that most people say that they base their belief in God on the design argument. I think that this is part of why proponents of ID are putting so much energy into promoting their view and attempting to refute evolution. They realize that if the design argument were to fall, people might rethink their belief in God.
Many people say things like, “Isn't that baby cute?” or, “Isn't that sunset beautiful? There MUST be a god.” I think that, if they are going to give God credit for the good and beauty in the world, they should also give God credit for the evil and ugliness — such as natural disasters, babies with birth defects, and all the diseases. The morality of nature shows its evolutionary heritage. What loving, intelligent designer would have invented the diseases of the world, including a parasite that blinds millions of people and a gene that covers babies with excruciating blisters? This is part of the Problem of Evil, which I will cover later.
Origin of Consciousness
Some people claim that consciousness is too mysterious or complex to be explained scientifically, therefore a god is necessary. The answer to this is simple. Consciousness is the result of a sufficiently complex living brain. Anyone who has had a mammal as a pet knows that animals can think and emote. They may not think as well as we do, because their brains aren’t as complex as ours, but they definitely think and even dream. Even simple animals such as worms show a very limited consciousness by responding to their environment. The more complex the brain, the more complex the consciousness. We also know that, when a person’s brain is damaged, the person can lose part of his consciousness. The sad cases where the brain is extremely damaged can result in a “persistent vegetative state” with no consciousness. God(s) aren’t necessary to explain consciousness; functioning complex brains are.
Argument from Love
Where does love come from? Many religionists say that evolution can't explain love, that we need a god as the source for love.
Evolution actually explains love very simply. In primitive, hunter/gatherer societies it is strongly advantageous to have a couple stay together to raise their children. It's advantageous even in modern societies, altho not as critically. Without love a couple is less likely to stay together. Without love they would be far less likely to keep raising their children when things are difficult. With love, children are more likely to be loving themselves — to others and eventually to their own children. Any humans who didn't love were less likely to have descendents. Any humans who did love were more likely to have descendents. Evolution has programmed us for love.
Argument from Morality
How about morality? Some people say that we need an absolute morality, and that we all have a sense of morality. They say that the only possible source for this morality is God.
Many people have claimed that humans could not have created morality, that there is nothing in evolution or history that mandates it. This is wrong. In order for any social species to function, implicit or explicit rules of interaction are necessary. This is the basic function of morality — implicit rules of interaction that allow us to function cooperatively. Groups of our distant ancestors that had individuals who worked together were more likely to succeed. Groups that didn’t cooperate were less likely to succeed. Laws are the explicit rules of interaction. Morality and laws are human constructs that come from basic human kindness, compassion, and our need to work together — not from some static scripture. Morality and laws have evolved as humans have evolved our culture. We are social animals evolved by natural selection, so the great majority of us will naturally desire the health of our families and the peace of our communities.
It has also been claimed that humans could not have had the concept of morality. I don’t see why not. We’re fairly intelligent. Human minds have created many ideas that are far more complex than morality. Why should morality be different?
Let’s look at what happens when people claim to get absolute morality from a god. I say that such religious absolutists don’t have morality; what they have is a code of obedience, which is not the same. God sets what is supposedly moral, and they obey. If God were to say that murder and theft were moral, theists would have to kill and steal to act morally. Actually, this is exactly what is happening with the suicide bombers in the Middle East. This is also what was behind the Crusades, the Inquisitions and 9/11. The fact that we find this so abhorrent shows that morality does not come from a god. God fails the morality test.
A large philosophical problem that religious moralists face is where to get the word of their god or gods. They can get it from “divine” revelation or from supposedly “holy” books. Each of these sources faces a problem; how do we know that this is the true word of the god? I’ve already discussed revelation, so let’s look at the idea of a holy book. I am most familiar with the Christian Bible, so that’s what I’ll address.
The Bible is touted by many as a source of ultimate knowledge and morality. It is said to be God’s perfect words to humankind. Have you ever read it? It contradicts itself in many places, is often difficult or impossible to interpret, and is largely simply boring. Some of it looks to me like it was written under the influence of hallucinogens. It contains two very different sets of Ten Commandments and three sets of paternal ancestors for Jesus (with one lineage just being the Holy Ghost). The better-known set of Ten Commandments (given twice, in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5) even says that children can be punished for the sins of their great-grandfathers! The lesser-known set (in Exodus 34) tells us to not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. Are these the words of a perfect moral being? As I noted, the story of Jesus’ lineage is also confusing. If Joseph didn’t father Jesus, then why does the Bible show Joseph’s ancestors — with two different lists? (Matthew 1:1-16, Luke 3:23-38) The historical reason for the conflicting stories of Jesus' lineage lies in the fact that the idea of the virgin birth was added later. The original story had Jesus descended from David (thru Joseph), to fulfill prophesy.
The Christian Bible has the purported histories of many rapes, slaughters, and other mass killings, most of them apparently condoned by God. They even note how the pregnant women were sliced open (Hosea 13:16) — so much for God being against abortion. In one well-known story, God drowned almost everyone and everything on the planet merely because he didn’t like the activities of some of the people in his creation. In another story, 42 children were killed in the name of God, just for calling a man bald (2 Kings 2:23-24). In addition, the Bible has over 30 listings of death penalties — many for supposed “sins” that most of us don’t even consider to be wrong, such as working on the Sabbath. Do these tales and penalties show the actions of a loving god? God seems to be more of a capricious, petty, pathological, vindictive, schizophrenic, mass murdering tyrant than a paragon of moral virtue, and Satan often comes off as the good guy. After all, how many people did Satan kill? If you still think that morality should come from the Christian Bible, I ask, what do you think about slavery and child abuse? Not once in the entire Bible is slavery or child abuse condemned, not even in the writings about Jesus. In fact both are condoned in many places; there are at least 18 verses on slavery and 21 on child abuse. Even Jesus had recommendations about beating and killing slaves (Luke 12:42-48). I think that any kind person could do a better job of defining morals than what is in the Bible. The Christian Bible, its god, and its savior all fail the morality test.
What about the historical veracity of the Christian Bible? People say that archeological evidence shows that some places and people mentioned in the Bible really existed; therefore the Bible is true. This is like saying that Gone With the Wind is true because the Civil War actually occurred. Let’s look at two biblical personages — King Herod the Great and Jesus. King Herod ruled from 39 - 4 BCE. His supposed slaughter of the innocents is not mentioned by any historian of the time, and is thus likely a complete fabrication. As for the historicity of Jesus, there is absolutely no verifiable historical evidence that he ever even lived. There may have been a man whose life formed the basis for the story of Jesus, but he made no impression on any historian of the first few decades CE. The earliest biblical writings about Jesus, by Paul, don't refer to a living Jesus; Jesus was more of a sky god to Paul. The gospels weren't written until at least 70 or 80 CE. In a semi-literate and superstitious society, that's a long time after Jesus' supposed life — a long time where myths could grow.
Here's one religion's basic story: Over two thousand years ago on December 25 a baby was born to a virgin, who was given the title “Mother of God.” The birth took place in humble surroundings, with shepherds in attendance. The baby grew to be a man who had twelve followers. He taught morality and performed miracles, including raising the dead and making the blind see. This man was known as “The Light of the World,” “The Good Shepherd,” and “Mankind's Savior.” He took part in a last supper with his companions, was killed and three days later resurrected. He then ascended into heaven where he protected the faithful from above, was mediator between heaven and earth, and was a member of a holy trinity. His followers practiced purification thru baptism and also took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the blood and body of their savior. The savior's name was Mithras and the religion was Mithraism, which had been a popular religion for several hundred years before Christianity began.
It would be an oversimplification to suggest that Mithraism was the only basis for Christianity. There were plenty of other deities (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Balder, Attis, and Dionysus) said to have died and resurrected. Also, many classical heroic figures (such as Hercules, Perseus, Theseus, and even some Roman emperors) were said to have been born thru the union of a virgin mother and divine father.
Christianity is obviously an amalgam of previous religions, and is by no means unique. Almost all the pagan rituals and festivals that it couldn't suppress it incorporated — such as Christmas (near the winter solstice) and Easter (near the spring equinox).
Jesus died for our sins. This is one of the primary moral points of Christianity, and it is formally known as “substitutive sacrifice.” Many religions practiced it when they killed sacrificial animals or humans on altars. What kind of morality is this, where one person has to die because of what others have done? When we look at cultures that sacrificed animals or humans, we call them barbaric and primitive. It makes no difference if the person being sacrificed agrees; it is still blatantly, repugnantly immoral and abominable. The Christian ceremony of communion is based on this blood sacrifice, and is just ritualized cannibalism and vampirism.
Using religion as a source for morality completely collapses when we look at religious positions now and in history. There are religious people with different positions on such moral issues as the death penalty, abortion, birth control, and gay and women’s rights. How can this be, if they all get the same divine words from the same god? Restrictions on birth control have added to the misery in the world by causing more disease and more births on a planet that already has too many people. Racism, misogyny, and slavery were once considered perfectly moral by large portions of humankind, and were seen as having a religious basis. Also, the killings done in the name of God, by most religions, are legendary. Our culture has changed, along with our laws, and these evils are no longer acceptable in modern society. Religion cannot give us the best answers to moral issues. Morality is a social and legal construct, not a religious one. Religion fails the morality test.
Argument from Authority
I think that most people begin their belief in God because something or someone said that God exists. This is called the “argument from authority.” We just discussed the Bible as one of these sources. There are other sources for other religions, such as the Koran for the Muslims.
What does it mean, when we believe something based on an authority? It means that we are taking something or someone else’s words as truth. We all do this for most subjects. Our first authorities are the people who raise us. This is because we are born with no innate knowledge of the world, and have to learn it from scratch. We soon start learning from other sources, such as friends, teachers, books and other written material. As we learn and experience our world, we develop a map in our minds of what the world is like. This map becomes a truth filter. When we look at a new idea, we typically compare it to the mental map that we have. If the idea fits well in the map, we can add it. If the idea doesn’t fit, we have a problem. We must either discard the idea, or make a change to the map. Change is difficult and often painful, so many people tend to discard ideas that don’t fit their mental maps.
When we use someone or something as an authority, we often bypass the comparison process and plug the new ideas directly into our maps. This can save us a lot of research time and mental work. However, it also opens us to believing in things and ideas that aren’t true. Since we can’t be experts on everything, we thus have a problem — what and whom can we implicitly believe? For me, since I want my mental map to be as accurate as possible, I have chosen the methods of science and reason as my ultimate authority. Science and reason have been shown to be the best predictors of how the world functions. Science and reason aren’t perfect, but they are self-correcting. Other sources of authority are too prone to misinformation.
One large difference between science and religion is this: In science, if the facts don’t fit the theory, the theory is modified or tossed out. In religion, if the facts don’t fit the theory, the facts are often tossed out.
Argument from Prophesy and Miracles
Now, let’s discuss prophesy and miracles. I am continually astounded at just how little evidence people are willing to accept for proof of these. Prophesies that did come true are often easy to explain, once you understand that it’s easy to predict something if it has already occurred, or that actions were done merely to fulfill prophesy, or that events or prophesies were fabricated. There are also many prophesies that haven’t come true. As for religious miracles, the evidence is so slim that they should be relegated to hearsay. As David Hume and Carl Sagan wrote, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” With this in mind, which is more likely, that true prophesies and miracles have actually occurred, or that they are just tall tales?
Even if truly inexplicable ‘prophesies’ or ‘miracles’ have occurred, that does not mean that there’s a god. It could just mean that a person has peculiar skills or technological help that we don’t understand. We all can imagine how easy it would be to go to a primitive tribe of humans and impress them with ‘god-like’ skills that are the result of our technology, medicine, or knowledge. It is reasonable to consider that we could be fooled by technology that is far in advance of our own. As famous science fiction author Sir Arthur C. Clarke wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Let’s consider one well-known miracle, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. First, as I noted, there is no verifiable evidence that Jesus ever even lived. Second, even if he did exist, there is no verifiable evidence that he actually died on the cross. If Jesus didn't die, his supposed ‘resurrection’ was much more possible in a purely natural sense.
Argument from Religious Faith
Next, let’s look at religious faith. What is faith? It is the firm belief in something for which no proof exists — simply because you want it to be true. As Mark Twain once said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” Religious faith proves nothing, except the bullheadedness of the believer. If you have faith, you don’t need proof. If you have proof, you don’t need faith. Therefore, any attempt to use faith as a basis for proof is intrinsically doomed to failure. Also, what good is faith if it has you believing in something that is not true? A recent example of absolute faith and its possible consequences can illustrate the objective failures of religious faith. I ask, on September 11, 2001, whose faith was the most effective? I say that it was the faith of the suicidal pilots of those three planes that crashed into the buildings. If you believe in the primacy of religious faith, there is no way to objectively differentiate between yours and theirs, for it is all purely subjective. Religious faith fails as a proof for God.
Dan Barker, of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, wrote, “If faith is a valid tool of knowledge, then anything can be true 'by faith,' and therefore nothing is true. If the only reason you can accept a claim is by faith, then you are admitting that the claim does not stand on its own merits.”
Faith is the antithesis of rational thought. This is why so many religious leaders actively preach against rational thought and even advanced education. They realize that rational thought and education can destroy religious faith and result in fewer followers for them.
Logical Arguments for God(s)
How about logical arguments for the existence of God? Let’s look at a proof for God that relies on reason alone. It is called the Ontological Argument, and it basically says that God exists because we can conceive of God. One of the characteristics of God is existence; therefore, God exists. This argument is so obtuse that it’s ridiculous. It is just confusion between the existence of ideas and the existence of real things. Simply saying that something like a god exists does not make it exist. All that exist are the ideas (in our minds) of Satan, Jesus, God, or an invisible pink unicorn.
There are some people who claim that God is the source of logic, therefore we can’t even use logic without presupposing the existence of God. They say that logic can’t be created from unformed matter; therefore God formed the matter and created logic. This argument is known as Presuppositionalist, or the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God. The names are fancy, and my response is simple. Logic is a pattern of thinking, and patterns can emerge from simple rules. There are many examples of complex patterns coming out of simple rules, such as snowflakes and waves forming. There is nothing in our everyday experience that indicates that some higher power is necessary for these patterns, and there is nothing that proves that a god is necessary for the patterns we call logic. Additionally, the presuppositionalist argument gives little indication as to the qualities of the god it presupposes — much like the first cause argument. The argument is just another way of answering a supposedly difficult question with the simple response, “God did it.”
If anything is not logical, it is most religions. I am most familiar with Christianity, so let’s look at its basic claims:
A supernatural god exists that created everything and intervenes in the natural world.
This god had a son whose mother was a virgin who had been impregnated by the god in the form of a ghost.
This son did many miracles, including making a dead person alive again.
This son was killed, and came back to life one and a half (not three) days later.
There is not any empirical, verifiable evidence for any of this. There is also much experience from everyday life that virgins can’t get pregnant from ghosts, and that people who have been dead for a while can’t come back to life. Thus, belief in the above claims is illogical.
There is an argument for belief in God that is called Pascal’s Wager, named for Blaise Pascal who conceived it. The argument goes like this: Either there is a god or there isn’t. If you believe in God, and God exists, then you win big time and go to heaven. If you don’t believe in God, and God exists, you lose big time and go to hell. If there is no god, then you haven’t lost much by believing. So the obvious choice is to believe in God, because it’s simply the best bet.
Pascal’s Wager has several faults. The biggest problem is that it’s not a proof of any god’s existence; it’s just an argument for believing, a method of extorting the gullible thru fear. Like many other such arguments we have discussed, it also fails to denote exactly which god it refers to. Pascal’s Wager could be applied to any god that offers rewards and punishments. Taken to the extreme, following the wager would necessitate betting on the god with the worst hell, so it could be avoided.
Another problem with Pascal’s Wager is that it implicitly assumes that the odds of the two possibilites are similar. Since the odds of the Christian god existing are zero, the wager creates a false dilemma.
The last problem with Pascal’s Wager is that it completely ignores intellectual integrity and honesty. As an example, let’s talk about belief in Santa Claus. Don’t we have more respect for a child who figures out that Santa doesn’t exist, and says so, rather than continuing to l
:!: And by the way, I didn't write this. :!:
The replies that I do not need to read are moronic ones such as this:
AllyouATHEIST'Swhokeeparguingthisridiculousargumen taboutreligionand notbelievinginGODisabouttofeelhiswrath! Godwillcurseyoubymakingallthe wordsthatyouarereadingruntogetherintoonewordandtha nyouwillgoblindwithin24hours!
Why Atheism? by Mark Thomas
Hello. My name is Mark, and I’m an Atheist.
History and Development of Science and Scientific Naturalism
Let’s start with a quick experiment. You can grab three coins and actually do the experiment, or just do a thought experiment.
Drop one coin and watch it fall. Do this again. Hold out the third coin.
If you were to do this again, what do you think would happen? If you could get ten good Christians to pray that this next coin wouldn’t fall, would it still fall? How about one thousand faithful Muslims? How about one billion people of any faith? I think that it would still fall. Drop the third coin.
Our understanding of the world around us, and our abilities to predict what will happen are based on naturalism — the basis of science. Naturalism is how all people live their lives most of the time.
OK, let’s just do a thought experiment. If you were to take two coins and glue them together, then drop them at the same time as you drop a single coin, would they fall twice as fast as the single coin? Aristotle thought so 2300 years ago, and for over 1900 years, his ideas were what was taught about this and many other subjects. Some of the other ancient Greeks had many ideas that are now a basis for modern science, engineering, math, philosophy, and democracy. Unfortunately for humankind, these ideas were largely forgotten for almost two thousand years while religion took control and Aristotle was revered as the source of supposedly scientific knowledge.
Galileo and Empirical Science
Around 1600, Galileo had a new idea for his culture. He decided to do something that now seems like common sense — to actually test the idea of what we now call gravity. He reasoned that two weights held together would fall at the same rate as one weight. Then he did experiments to test the idea — and, not surprisingly to us, it was true. This was the start of modern empirical science, and our collective understanding of the universe hasn’t been the same since.
“Empirical” is a word that I'll be using a lot. It refers to ideas that are capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment. Empirical evidence is not simply one type of evidence, but rather it is the only evidence that we can rely on, because it is reproducible. Empirical evidence is the basis for physical science.
Galileo also took the new invention of the telescope, refined it, and used it to look at the night sky. He was astounded. On the moon he could see mountains and valleys. It wasn’t just some strange heavenly object; it was probably made out of the same stuff as Earth. In 1609 Galileo looked at Jupiter and discovered that he could see four moons. If moons orbited Jupiter then not everything orbited the Earth, as the Catholic Church taught at the time. Astronomy made more sense if the theories of Copernicus were true, and the Earth and planets orbited the sun. After writing a book about this, Galileo was called to Rome in 1633 by the Catholic Church’s Inquisition, and told to recant his heretical ideas.
This was no “simple request” by the Church. Just 33 years before, the Inquisition had executed Galileo’s friend Giordano Bruno. Have you heard of him? In 1600, the Christian authorities in Rome took him out of the dungeon he had been in for eight years, drove a nail thru his tongue, tied him to a metal post, put wood and some of his books under his feet, and burned him to death. Bruno’s crime was writing ideas that the Catholic leaders didn’t like — there might be other worlds with other intelligent beings on them, Jesus didn’t possess god-like power, and souls can’t go to heaven. For these heretical ideas, the Catholic Church punished this brilliant man with a slow, agonizing death.
Galileo knew what he was up against. For the crime of heresy the Inquisition could put him in a dungeon, torture or even execute him — as it had done to Bruno. So, after a long trial, this proud 70 year-old man obediently got on his knees and recanted. But even after recanting, he was still sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. The Catholic Church officially condemned heliocentrism 31 years later, when Pope Alexander VII banned all books that affirmed the earth’s motion. However, even as powerful as the Church was, they could not hold back the tidal wave of scientific discovery, and the Church eventually lost its battle over our view of the universe. It only took them over three hundred years to admit it. In 1992, after 12 years of deliberations, they grudgingly noted that Galileo had been right in supporting the theories of Copernicus. But no such admission has been made for Bruno; his writings are still on the Vatican’s list of forbidden texts, and Pope John Paul II refused to even apologize for the Catholic Church's torture killing of Bruno.
God of the Gaps, or Argument From Ignorance
Until just a couple of hundred years ago, most people thought that a god or gods controlled everything. Why did the wind blow? Why was there lightning and thunder? Why did the sun, moon, and stars apparently go around the Earth? Why did someone get sick and die? Why did anything happen? Well, obviously, God did it. If a person doesn’t know how something works or why something happened, they can say, “God did it.” This is known as the “god of the gaps,” or the “argument from ignorance,” and it is at the heart of the conflict between science and religion. Science looks for natural causes, while religion looks for supernatural causes. Science is steadily winning, because as we understand more and more about the universe, the gap where God might function grows smaller and smaller. Every time we learn more, God has less room to operate. When we learned what caused the sun to apparently move across the sky, there was no need for the Greek god Helios and his chariot. When we understood what caused lightning, there was no need for the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, or the Norse god Thor.
In fact, the understanding of lightning was one of the first areas of battle between science and the Christian religion. When Ben Franklin discovered that lightning was just a big electric spark, he invented the lightning rod. It was enormously successful at preventing buildings from being struck by lightning. However, this caused a bit of a problem for the church leaders; should they trust in their god to prevent lightning strikes on their churches, or should they use these new lightning rods? Up until then, lightning hit churches much more frequently than other, more “deserving” buildings — such as taverns or houses of ill repute. “Why was that?” they might have wondered. Could it be that churches had spires and were taller, or was it SATAN and his WITCHES? …… Actually, that is what they often believed, and many a supposed witch was executed for having caused the destruction of a church. When they started putting lightning rods on churches, witch killings stopped soon thereafter. However, the obvious fact is that they were putting their trust in science and lightning rods, not religion and prayer.
Galileo and others started something big — empirical science. Thru science, we have come to a good understanding of the workings of the world and universe around us. The weather, lightning, thunder, the planets and stars, disease, and life itself all function based on fairly well understood principles. God doesn’t control them; the physical properties of matter and energy do. This principle is at the center of naturalism — the idea that only matter and energy exist, and they have properties that are repeatable, understandable, and quantifiable within the limits of quantum mechanics. We take this idea so for granted that we typically don’t realize that it is based on several articles of faith. This faith, however, is quite different from religious faith. This faith is based on past experience and results. It is the faith that:
There is an external world that exists independently of our minds.
There are understandable, quantifiable, natural laws that describe how things happen in this world.
These natural laws won’t change when we’re not looking; the universe isn’t totally chaotic.
So far, this faith has been well founded, as shown by the amazing accomplishments of modern science, engineering and medicine.
Why God(s)? Why Not?
The idea of an all-controlling, caring supernatural god is a very attractive one. It can make our mortal lives seem less frightening, more comforting. Somebody’s in control and won’t let bad things happen to us. Many gods also promise that we can go to heaven after we die, and live forever in some sort of bliss.
The idea of a god is also an easy answer to questions about the world around us. Where did the universe come from? God created it. Where did life come from? God created it, too. Where did humans come from? God created us, and in his own image, to boot.
Religious philosophers have tried for thousands of years to prove that there is a god or many gods. They have come up with many arguments. We will look at these arguments. Because I live in a largely Judeo-Christian society, when I refer to God with a capital ‘G’ I will be referring to the Judeo-Christian god Yahweh (a.k.a. Jehovah) and probably the Muslim god Allah. This god is typically defined as having free will, and being omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnibenevolent (all-good) and eternal. This god also created the universe and is separate from the physical world while still intervening in the physical world. After all, what good is a god that doesn’t do anything? Most of the arguments I use here will also apply to most of the other 2500+ gods created by humankind, and most of the thousands of religions. I certainly don’t know all of them, so I will deal with most of the major religions and their god(s). I will also closely link god(s) and religion. I do this advisedly because, for most people, one could not exist without the other. In addition, if there were a god I would think that this god would be able to appropriately guide the religions created for it.
There is at least one religion, essential Buddhism as taught by Buddha, which does not have a god or any supernatural component. To keep things a bit simpler here, the arguments I make regarding religion will probably not apply to essential Buddhism or any other religion without a supernatural component. However, almost all religions have grown from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created just for our benefit.
We need to define “Atheism.” Atheism is simply the lack of belief in any gods. For many, Atheism is also the conclusion that no gods exist, based on the complete lack of evidence for any god. I take the strong Atheist position — depending on how we define “God” we can prove that it does not exist, and I will use the typical definition just given for the Christian god Yahweh.
Why am I doing this? Is it just because I want to poke holes in people’s beliefs so that we can take away what makes them happy? No, I’m doing this because I want to know what is true, be intellectually honest, and be open to reality. And, I hope that you have similar reasons.
In this article I will put forth some of the reasons why Atheism is true, so they can be examined and evaluated. I will also show why Atheism is important to the future of humankind.
The arguments for the existence of God fall into several areas. I have arranged them into these categories:
Mysticism and Revelation
“Scientific” Claims
Love and Morality
Appeals to Authority
Prophesy and Miracles
Appeals to Faith, Logic, and Emotion
What Tools Can We Use?
How can we examine these claims? What tools can we use to determine truth of external reality? We have (1) empirical, verifiable evidence; and we have (2) logic. Evidence and logic are the best tools we have to determine how the universe really works. These tools have been extraordinarily successful in science, engineering and medicine, and in our daily lives. This is the standard that most of us expect in dealing with the real world; we expect doctors to use the latest medicine, and engineers to use empirical data when building bridges. Why should we use anything else for examining external reality?
Each of us can choose between a magical view of the universe (one or more invisible, immaterial gods did it), or the “what you see is what you get” scientific version. I think that science, using empirical evidence, has done a far better job in explaining how the universe works.
Mysticism, Revelation and Experience
Some people claim that there are other ways of knowing, such as mysticism, revelation or direct experience. People claim that they can experience God, sometimes thinking that the Holy Spirit has come into them. How can we verify these claims? The “Holy Spirit” experience seems to be very similar to the well-documented experience of catharsis. People claiming knowledge thru mysticism or revelation often don’t even agree with each other. The only way that I know to verify any mystic’s abilities is for the supposed mystic to be able to accurately, repeatedly, and verifiably know things that are supposedly impossible to know — such as events of the future. I know of no one who can, or could. Of course, we have to be very careful in any testing of such claims, because a good magician can easily fool us. Even if there were somebody who could predict the future, that does not mean that there’s a god. It would only mean that this person has peculiar skills. I submit that mysticism and revelation result from internal, altered states of consciousness — with no basis in external reality. Mysticism, revelation, and any other religious experience can only count for those who experience them; for all other people, they are merely hearsay. Thus, we can’t depend on mysticism or religious revelation to give us reliable answers to any issues.
“Scientific” Arguments for God(s)
The biggest weakness in using God to explain anything scientifically is that the explanation is not falsifiable, and thus not even testable. There is no way to create an experiment to show that it’s wrong. For every possible set of a test and a result, we could simply say, “God did it.” Why do the Earth and universe appear to be so old? God did it. Why does nature seem so balanced? God did it. Once again, why does anything happen? If we say that God did it, there is no reason or opportunity to learn how the world really works. If we had stayed with God as the cause of all events, our modern culture would have been impossible. We would have no real science, engineering, or medicine. We would still be living in the Dark Ages.
The “god of the gaps” is the basic premise behind all the “scientific” arguments for the existence of a god. The logic of “god of the gaps” goes like this (as an argument that Martin Luther could have used): Isn’t lightning amazing! I don’t understand how lightning could be, without something else (that I don’t really understand either) making lightning. This something else must be a god because I can’t come up with a better explanation.
The obvious main fault of “god of the gaps” is its supposition that current lack of knowledge on a subject means that it can’t be known — that “unknown” means “unknowable.” If this applies to an individual, it’s the argument from personal incredulity — because a person doesn't understand something then he thinks that the subject must be unknown, unknowable, or false. For the fringe areas of knowledge that we don’t understand, there is no indication that we won’t learn the secrets of nature. As we have all seen, science has made excellent advances in our physical understanding of the universe, and will, no doubt, continue to do so.
When faced with an unknown, let's first note that it's perfectly OK to say, “I don't know,” or, “We don't know,” — just as it would have been when people several hundred years ago asked, “What causes lightning?” or, “Why do things fall to the ground?” or countless other questions for which we now have straightforward scientific explanations. Obviously, just because we don't know how something happened does not mean that “God did it.” Relegating an explanation of something to a god is easy; a person doesn't have to think much. Finding an explanation with science often involves hard work and analysis.
There are three common “god of the gaps” types of arguments for the existence of God. We have (1) first cause, (2) Intelligent Design, which grew out of creationism, and (3) origin of consciousness.
First Cause, or Cosmological Argument
The first cause, or cosmological argument, says that everything has a cause, and, since we supposedly can’t have an infinite series of causes stretching into the past, God must be the first cause — an uncaused cause. This argument has at least four problems.
The main problem of the first cause argument is the idea that every event has a cause. As we discovered in the 20th century, the universe is actually ruled at the bottom level by quantum mechanics, in which it’s possible for events to have no cause. An obvious example of quantum mechanics in action is the radioactive decay of a uranium atom. There is no previous cause for each such event, and we can only predict it with probability. The averaging of quantum effects gives us the Newtonian experience that we have. However, Newtonian physics does not control the universe; quantum mechanics and Einsteinian relativity do. We now know that the universe has an intrinsic, bottom level of uncertainty that cannot be bypassed. Quantum mechanics also shows us that objects can appear out of nothing and then disappear back into nothing. Even in supposedly empty space, virtual particles are continuously appearing and disappearing. This is a real and measurable process, via what is known as the Casimir Effect.
The beginning of the universe — of all the matter and energy in it and even of time itself — is called the Big Bang. The science of quantum mechanics is only a century old, and already we've been able to get extremely close to understanding the beginning of the universe -- with no god needed. How close can we get? Approximately a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory is supported by extensive data. The four most prominent facts are:
The red shift of almost all galaxies — getting greater as their distance increases.
- This shows that the galaxies are flying away from each other — at greater speeds at greater distances.
The cosmic microwave background radiation.
- This is a remnant of the radiation from the Big Bang, and has cooled over time to the exact temperature predicted.
The proportions of the lightest elements and isotopes.
- This helps show that the calculations for nuclear interactions immediately following the Big Bang are correct.
The changes in galaxies as we look further away (and thus back in time), with distant galaxies more primitive.
- This shows some of the changes in the universe since the Big Bang, and confirms the deep time of the universe.
The physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth of MIT has put forth the scientific theory, called Inflation, that the Big Bang was just the result of a random quantum event called a vacuum fluctuation — with no cause, created out of nothing, and with a total energy of zero. Even tho this doesn’t make sense in the Newtonian physics of our experience of the world, it does make sense in quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general relativity. In relativity, gravity is negative energy and matter is positive energy. Because the two seem to be equal in absolute total value, our universe appears balanced to the sum of zero. Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy. There is also excellent experimental and theoretical evidence to support Inflation Theory. Even if Inflation Theory is eventually shown to be wrong or incomplete, that doesn’t mean that “God did it.”
The next problem of the first cause argument is the assumption that an infinite chain of events is impossible. Many cosmologists have proposed that our universe could be part of a much larger, super and perhaps eternal meta-universe; we certainly don’t know for sure, and may never know. However, this meta-universe would allow infinite chains of events.
Another problem comes from the typical definition of God as a perfect and unchanging being. If these qualities were true, then why would God need a universe and how could God change from not needing a universe to needing one?
The last problem with the first cause argument lies in its assumption that this eternal god exists, something that it is trying to prove. This is known as begging the question. Even a child can ask, “If God created the universe, then who created God?” If the answer is that God is uncaused, then the same answer could certainly be applied to the existence of the universe — that it is uncaused. Besides, which god are we talking about? People using the first cause argument always make the assumption that their god did the creating. Muslims think that Allah created the universe. Hindus think that Brahma did it. Christians and Jews think that Yahweh did it. Most religions have a story of how their god created the universe. The idea of a god as creator of the universe obviously tells us little about the characteristics of that god. What they are doing is explaining one mystery with a bigger mystery, and that is fallacious logic.
Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Irreducible Complexity
The next scientific type of argument is called Intelligent Design (ID). It states that life on Earth is so complex that it must have had an intelligent designer. This argument has evolved from the creationism argument, and it’s gaining strength by masquerading as a science. It’s a belief structure and not science because there is no body of research to support its claims, and it makes no testable predictions. To get around legal restrictions on teaching religious dogma, proponents of ID often say that they don’t know what this designer was; it could have been an alien or a god. This is disingenuous. If it was an alien, then the obvious question is: where and how did the alien originate? If they really mean God, which is what some of them have admitted, then ID is basically creationism with a few new ideas. So, I will treat ID and creationism as basically the same.
Proponents of Intelligent Design make many claims:
The apparent design of the universe design requires a designer, like a watch requires a watchmaker.
The complexity of life and the universe require a cause that is not part of this natural world.
Irreducible complexity shows that the odds against natural causes for certain processes are too great, so a designer is necessary.
The physical laws require a lawgiver.
The laws of physics were fine-tuned for life.
Science can’t explain all the features of life.
Our system of life on Earth was designed.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics proves that evolution is impossible.
What they really claim is God did it!
Let's start with the apparent design of the universe, and use a story of Sir Isaac Newton as an example. A deeply religious man, Newton was struck by the order that he observed in the orbits of the planets, with all of them in the same plane. He could think of no reason for this, so he attributed it to God. Of course now, thru science, we understand the formation of solar systems fairly well, and no longer need to invoke a god. Science is similarly showing how the rest of the universe works and eliminating the need for theistic explanations.
Now let’s look at the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This states that any closed system will tend toward disorder. However, it does not apply to the Earth, because we live in an open system with energy constantly streaming in from our sun. This is the energy that powers almost all life on our planet. Thus the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply to evolution or any living being.
Next, let’s consider the laws of physics. They are quantified explanations of how matter and energy behave — not anything like man-made laws. We currently don’t know why the parameters of matter and energy have certain values, but that doesn’t mean that some god set them that way. The simple solution to the question of the source of the laws of physics is to accept them as brute fact, with no source. Besides, if it were true that a god set up the universe specifically for us, he certainly waited a long time for the result. The universe has been around for about 13 billion years. It took about nine billion years before our Earth was formed, and single celled bacteria were forming ecosystems about a billion years after that. Life on Earth evolved and became more complex, as shown by the evidence for Earth’s history in its rocks and fossils. Then humans, God’s supposed reason for the whole creation, finally came along within the last 150,000 years or so — on one planet orbiting one of the trillions of stars. This seems like a lengthy, complex, massive, and apparently natural process for an omnipotent being that could have simply snapped everything (or just one magic planet) into existence. Using God as the source of the laws of physics just doesn’t make sense. Once again, religionists are trying to explain one mystery with a bigger mystery.
It's also important to note that life is exceedingly rare in the universe — even if it exists on every planet and moon. All we do know is that life exists on one oasis — Earth. Most of the universe is nearly empty, and almost all of the matter is in stars or nebulae. Any sort of life that we can imagine only has a chance on planets or moons. The universe was not designed for life; in practically the entire universe conditions are extremely hostile to life. Saying that the universe is made just for us is like a frog looking at his pond and thinking that the whole world was made just for him.
The core argument in Intelligent Design is the fact that evolutionary biologists can’t yet fully explain all the features of life; therefore ID claims that life must have been designed by some intelligent being. This is the old “god of the gaps” argument, and it is logically and historically flawed.
ID is logically flawed in two ways. The first logical flaw in ID is that it's based on a lack of knowledge — explaining gaps in knowledge by invoking the magic of an unknown (perhaps supernatural) being. Like all “god of the gaps” arguments, ID is not falsifiable, can’t even be tested, and says nothing about the moral qualities of this unknown being, god, or gods. The second logical flaw is in the assumption it makes that, because something is supposedly very highly unlikely, something else must have designed it. What ID proponents blatantly ignore, because they take the existence of their god as a given, is the fact that this unknown designer must be even more complex, and thus less likely, than what ID was invoked to explain.
ID is historically flawed because science has shown excellent progress in explaining the world around us, and there is nothing to show that evolutionary biology should be abandoned simply because it has not yet explained the origins of every single process of life. Because biochemical processes don’t leave behind fossils, it’s not as easy to explain their origins as it is for bone structures that do fossilize. However, evolutionary biologists are making excellent progress in understanding the origins and processes of the biochemistry of life.
ID is simply not science; it's religion dressed up to look like science to the uninformed. Intelligent Design is mystical pseudoscience.
Proponents of ID have also created the idea of irreducible complexity, which states that many processes of life are too complex and irreducible to have evolved; therefore a designer must have created them. This complexity comes from many interrelated parts or processes, which supposedly are useless without all the other parts or processes. This is just another “god of the gaps” and it also falls apart under close examination.
“What good is half an eye?” they ask. The response is simple. Any amount of vision is better than none, and any change that improves vision probably improves survivability. Starting with a basic light-sensing cell, eyes have evolved thru natural selection — one small step at a time. Richard Dawkins has an excellent explanation of this (and much more) in his book Climbing Mount Improbable.
An icon of the irreducible complexity concept is the bacterial flagellum, with its many similarities to an electric motor — and about 30 protein components required to produce a working biological function. Unfortunately for the ID movement, research has demolished its status as an example of irreducible complexity. Some bacteria use what is known as type III secretory system (TTSS) to allow them to inject proteins directly into the cytoplasm of a host cell. TTSS has a strong likeness in structure to the flagellum, and uses about 15 to 20 of the same proteins. This shows that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex, because a functioning structure (albeit with a different function) can be made with 10 to 15 fewer proteins. A detailed analysis can be found in The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity".
I'd like to address a common statement made by creationists — that scientists have supposedly never actually witnessed evolution, so evolution either: a) isn't real science, or b) hasn't happened. First, this is a gross mischaracterization of science. There are many processes that scientists can understand without directly witnessing them, such as much of geology or fusion at the cores of stars. Second, this statement ignores the fact that evolution usually takes thousands or millions of years. It's like looking a tree and saying that it is not growing because you can't see any growth in a day. Third, scientists have actually witnessed the evolution of new species — the apple moth from the hawthorn moth, and a new species of polychaetes fish.
The Theory of Evolution
Life is a process — not a design. It requires an explanation — not an intelligent designer. This explanation is the fact and theory of evolution. “Evolution” simply means change over time. It’s a fact that enormous changes to life on Earth have occurred. The 3.5 billion year fossil record is clear and unambiguous on this. The Theory of Evolution explains the processes that caused these changes.
There are at least nine areas of study and empirical data supporting the Theory of Evolution. They are:
Paleontology (fossils)
Distribution of Animals and Plants
Comparative Anatomy
Embryology
Vestigial Organs
Natural Selection
Sexual Selection
Genetics
Molecular Biology
I will only deal here with brief overviews of paleontology, vestigial organs, natural selection, and genetics.
The history of life on Earth is in its fossils, and we have extensive fossils showing how species have come and gone over the last several hundred million years. Here are just a few examples: Trilobites appeared over 500 million years ago and existed for 300 million years (with over 15,000 described species). Dinosaurs (with an estimated 200,000 species) lived 251 to 65.5 million years ago. Horses are descended from the cat-sized Eohippus of 50 to 60 million years ago. Whales are descended from land animals of 52 million years ago. In fact, some whales still have vestigial legs and pelvic bones. Humans are descended from a long line of hominids, over at least 4.4 million years.
The evidence for evolution of life is overwhelming and conclusive. This evidence is not just in the fossils, but also in the body parts and genes of almost every living thing. If you have any doubts, take a little time to learn the concepts of evolution, then spend a few hours in any natural history museum or public library. If your mind is at all open, you will see the evidence. Remember, ignorance of how evolution works is no argument against it. The basic Theory of Evolution is completely solid, and will continue to be updated as we learn more about the complex history of life.
You don’t even need to go to a natural history museum or library to see evidence for evolution; our own bodies have many signs of our evolutionary heritage. When we get goose bumps, our bodies are trying to keep warm by raising hairs that are no longer dense enough to help. The muscles that allow us to wiggle our ears are of no use for us, but they did help some distant ancestors. We also have many other useless, vestigial organs such as nipples and mammary glands on males, the appendix and the tailbone, which is just a holdover from when our primate ancestors actually had tails millions of years ago.
Intelligent Design completely fails to explain vestigial organs, which are obviously suboptimal. The Theory of Evolution explains them perfectly.
Just about every cell in our bodies contains the evidence of our evolutionary origins. The basic process of life on Earth is so common that we share about 50% of our genes with carrots, and 98.5% of our genes with chimpanzees. Here are some useful biological facts:
We get an exact copy of the mitochondria in each cell from our mother, almost every time.
Every male gets an exact copy of his Y chromosome from his father, almost every time.
Both mitochondria and Y chromosomes slowly mutate over time at known rates.
With this knowledge, geneticists can estimate how recently any two of us shared a common female ancestor, or any two males shared a common male ancestor. Using this information and other data, the evidence strongly points to the claim that most or all of us are descended from a group of Africans that started migrating about 100,000 years ago.
We may share 98.5% of our genes with chimps, but we have 23 chromosomes in our sperm and eggs while chimps and other great apes have 24. A close examination of the chromosomes shows that one of our chromosomes is made of two from the other primates. Our combined chromosome even shows the evidence of where the two chromosomes joined, with the ends of the old chromosomes in the middle of the joined chromosome. For more, see Evidence of Common Descent between Man and Chimp.
Let me address a common example that proponents of Intelligent Design use. [See general eye diagram.] “Look at the wonderful design of the human eye,” they say. “Surely this design could not have happened by chance. It must be that God did it.” Actually, it did happen by chance — countless little chance events of changes in the gene pool over millions of generations, all controlled by the harsh realities of natural selection and survival of the fittest. While the initial changes in the gene pool were chance events, survival of the fittest is obviously not random. This is the heart of the basic Theory of Evolution; individuals can pass their genes and characteristics on to their offspring. If a gene makes an individual more likely to have offspring that survive, its offspring (carrying that gene) will be more likely to have offspring that survive. In effect, species are designed to fit their environment. The designer is the blind process of evolution, however, not some god or gods. Evolution creates an illusion of human or supernatural design. This illusion is so powerful that it took until 1859 for us to discover it, when Charles Darwin put forth one of the greatest ideas in science — evolution by natural selection.
The faults in the design of the human eye, especially, show its evolutionary origins. [See eye diagram of retina.] When we study the retina at the back of the eye, we can see that the cell layers are backwards. Light has to travel thru seven layers of cells before reaching the light sensing cells. Then the signals go back thru these layers to the nerves on the inside surface. A truly intelligent designer could have done better than the human eye. Actually, evolution did a better job with the eyes of the octopus and squid, which have the light sensing cells on the surface, where they should be.
In fact, vision is so useful for survival that eyes have independently evolved at least twenty separate times, with at least a dozen different designs.
You’ve probably heard people say that evolution is “only a theory.” It’s important to remember that the term “theory” in science is not the same as it is in general usage. A scientific theory is a unifying concept that explains a large body of data. It is a hypothesis that has withstood the test of time and the challenge of opposing views. The Theory of Evolution is the basic unifying concept of biology. The CEO of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Alan Leshner, wrote, “Although scientists may debate details of the mechanisms of evolution, there is no argument among scientists as to whether evolution is taking place.” The National Academy of Sciences, the nation’s most prestigious scientific organization, has declared evolution “one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have,” and notes that evolution is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus. The Theory of Evolution has as much validity as the theory of gravity, atomic theory, or the germ theory of disease.
There is an underlying problem with the design argument, and most proponents of Intelligent Design probably aren’t aware of it. By assuming that living things have some sort of metaphysical purpose, they are intrinsically assuming what they want to prove. Purpose is an abstract human concept that exists only in our minds, much like beauty — with no physical reality. In the universe, I maintain, things have no intrinsic purpose; they just exist. Does an atom have any purpose? Does a rock? Does a star? Does an amoeba, plant or any living thing have a real external purpose? We could say that living things have the purpose of procreating, of creating more life. However, we must realize that this is just our viewpoint, our interpretation. Rocks, trees, people, and the universe have no intrinsic purpose. We can create purpose for ourselves, and that is good because it's a useful concept; but it’s important to understand that purpose is a human construct. Remember, when proponents of ID begin their arguments by noting the design and purpose of nature, they are assuming what they want to prove. Don’t be fooled by this logic sleight of hand. No intelligent designer is needed for purpose to exist, because purpose exists only in our minds.
Even more basic than evolution is the field of science called abiogenesis, which deals with the origins of life from non-life. Simple experiments have shown that amino acids, the molecular units that make up proteins, can be made in lab conditions simulating Earth’s early atmosphere, and they are even found in outer space. Amino acids are not living, but abiogenesis scientists are learning many ways that life could have originated from amino acids.
A basis for the creationism idea is the concept that humans are at the center of the universe. The idea of God used to make sense, when people thought that the Earth was the unmoving center of creation, and humans were the reason that there was an Earth and everything else. The biblical universe was much simpler then. The flat Earth was at the base, and above was the vast solid dome called the firmament. It contained the stars and held back the celestial waters. Above that were heaven and God.
We now know that the universe is almost unimaginably immense, complex, and ancient. It is the height of conceit for humans to believe that this whole universe was made just for us. Our perspective has changed. We are no longer at the center of the universe — not our planet, not our star, and not our galaxy. As people grow and mature, one of the big realizations is that they aren’t at the center. It is the same for our species; it is time for us to realize that we are not at the center either.
It is also necessary to note that in order for Intelligent Design to be true, these areas of science would be largely false: evolutionary biology, paleobiology, cosmology, astronomy, physics, paleontology, archeology, historical geology, zoology, botany, and biogeography, plus much of early human history. These fields of science make predictions and get results. ID makes no verifiable predictions and gets no useful results, and thus cannot in any way be called a science. A simple example of this is the field of oil exploration, where you won’t find any geologists using creationism or ID — because they don’t get results. And, with large amounts of money at stake, the companies want results.
Studies have shown that most people say that they base their belief in God on the design argument. I think that this is part of why proponents of ID are putting so much energy into promoting their view and attempting to refute evolution. They realize that if the design argument were to fall, people might rethink their belief in God.
Many people say things like, “Isn't that baby cute?” or, “Isn't that sunset beautiful? There MUST be a god.” I think that, if they are going to give God credit for the good and beauty in the world, they should also give God credit for the evil and ugliness — such as natural disasters, babies with birth defects, and all the diseases. The morality of nature shows its evolutionary heritage. What loving, intelligent designer would have invented the diseases of the world, including a parasite that blinds millions of people and a gene that covers babies with excruciating blisters? This is part of the Problem of Evil, which I will cover later.
Origin of Consciousness
Some people claim that consciousness is too mysterious or complex to be explained scientifically, therefore a god is necessary. The answer to this is simple. Consciousness is the result of a sufficiently complex living brain. Anyone who has had a mammal as a pet knows that animals can think and emote. They may not think as well as we do, because their brains aren’t as complex as ours, but they definitely think and even dream. Even simple animals such as worms show a very limited consciousness by responding to their environment. The more complex the brain, the more complex the consciousness. We also know that, when a person’s brain is damaged, the person can lose part of his consciousness. The sad cases where the brain is extremely damaged can result in a “persistent vegetative state” with no consciousness. God(s) aren’t necessary to explain consciousness; functioning complex brains are.
Argument from Love
Where does love come from? Many religionists say that evolution can't explain love, that we need a god as the source for love.
Evolution actually explains love very simply. In primitive, hunter/gatherer societies it is strongly advantageous to have a couple stay together to raise their children. It's advantageous even in modern societies, altho not as critically. Without love a couple is less likely to stay together. Without love they would be far less likely to keep raising their children when things are difficult. With love, children are more likely to be loving themselves — to others and eventually to their own children. Any humans who didn't love were less likely to have descendents. Any humans who did love were more likely to have descendents. Evolution has programmed us for love.
Argument from Morality
How about morality? Some people say that we need an absolute morality, and that we all have a sense of morality. They say that the only possible source for this morality is God.
Many people have claimed that humans could not have created morality, that there is nothing in evolution or history that mandates it. This is wrong. In order for any social species to function, implicit or explicit rules of interaction are necessary. This is the basic function of morality — implicit rules of interaction that allow us to function cooperatively. Groups of our distant ancestors that had individuals who worked together were more likely to succeed. Groups that didn’t cooperate were less likely to succeed. Laws are the explicit rules of interaction. Morality and laws are human constructs that come from basic human kindness, compassion, and our need to work together — not from some static scripture. Morality and laws have evolved as humans have evolved our culture. We are social animals evolved by natural selection, so the great majority of us will naturally desire the health of our families and the peace of our communities.
It has also been claimed that humans could not have had the concept of morality. I don’t see why not. We’re fairly intelligent. Human minds have created many ideas that are far more complex than morality. Why should morality be different?
Let’s look at what happens when people claim to get absolute morality from a god. I say that such religious absolutists don’t have morality; what they have is a code of obedience, which is not the same. God sets what is supposedly moral, and they obey. If God were to say that murder and theft were moral, theists would have to kill and steal to act morally. Actually, this is exactly what is happening with the suicide bombers in the Middle East. This is also what was behind the Crusades, the Inquisitions and 9/11. The fact that we find this so abhorrent shows that morality does not come from a god. God fails the morality test.
A large philosophical problem that religious moralists face is where to get the word of their god or gods. They can get it from “divine” revelation or from supposedly “holy” books. Each of these sources faces a problem; how do we know that this is the true word of the god? I’ve already discussed revelation, so let’s look at the idea of a holy book. I am most familiar with the Christian Bible, so that’s what I’ll address.
The Bible is touted by many as a source of ultimate knowledge and morality. It is said to be God’s perfect words to humankind. Have you ever read it? It contradicts itself in many places, is often difficult or impossible to interpret, and is largely simply boring. Some of it looks to me like it was written under the influence of hallucinogens. It contains two very different sets of Ten Commandments and three sets of paternal ancestors for Jesus (with one lineage just being the Holy Ghost). The better-known set of Ten Commandments (given twice, in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5) even says that children can be punished for the sins of their great-grandfathers! The lesser-known set (in Exodus 34) tells us to not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. Are these the words of a perfect moral being? As I noted, the story of Jesus’ lineage is also confusing. If Joseph didn’t father Jesus, then why does the Bible show Joseph’s ancestors — with two different lists? (Matthew 1:1-16, Luke 3:23-38) The historical reason for the conflicting stories of Jesus' lineage lies in the fact that the idea of the virgin birth was added later. The original story had Jesus descended from David (thru Joseph), to fulfill prophesy.
The Christian Bible has the purported histories of many rapes, slaughters, and other mass killings, most of them apparently condoned by God. They even note how the pregnant women were sliced open (Hosea 13:16) — so much for God being against abortion. In one well-known story, God drowned almost everyone and everything on the planet merely because he didn’t like the activities of some of the people in his creation. In another story, 42 children were killed in the name of God, just for calling a man bald (2 Kings 2:23-24). In addition, the Bible has over 30 listings of death penalties — many for supposed “sins” that most of us don’t even consider to be wrong, such as working on the Sabbath. Do these tales and penalties show the actions of a loving god? God seems to be more of a capricious, petty, pathological, vindictive, schizophrenic, mass murdering tyrant than a paragon of moral virtue, and Satan often comes off as the good guy. After all, how many people did Satan kill? If you still think that morality should come from the Christian Bible, I ask, what do you think about slavery and child abuse? Not once in the entire Bible is slavery or child abuse condemned, not even in the writings about Jesus. In fact both are condoned in many places; there are at least 18 verses on slavery and 21 on child abuse. Even Jesus had recommendations about beating and killing slaves (Luke 12:42-48). I think that any kind person could do a better job of defining morals than what is in the Bible. The Christian Bible, its god, and its savior all fail the morality test.
What about the historical veracity of the Christian Bible? People say that archeological evidence shows that some places and people mentioned in the Bible really existed; therefore the Bible is true. This is like saying that Gone With the Wind is true because the Civil War actually occurred. Let’s look at two biblical personages — King Herod the Great and Jesus. King Herod ruled from 39 - 4 BCE. His supposed slaughter of the innocents is not mentioned by any historian of the time, and is thus likely a complete fabrication. As for the historicity of Jesus, there is absolutely no verifiable historical evidence that he ever even lived. There may have been a man whose life formed the basis for the story of Jesus, but he made no impression on any historian of the first few decades CE. The earliest biblical writings about Jesus, by Paul, don't refer to a living Jesus; Jesus was more of a sky god to Paul. The gospels weren't written until at least 70 or 80 CE. In a semi-literate and superstitious society, that's a long time after Jesus' supposed life — a long time where myths could grow.
Here's one religion's basic story: Over two thousand years ago on December 25 a baby was born to a virgin, who was given the title “Mother of God.” The birth took place in humble surroundings, with shepherds in attendance. The baby grew to be a man who had twelve followers. He taught morality and performed miracles, including raising the dead and making the blind see. This man was known as “The Light of the World,” “The Good Shepherd,” and “Mankind's Savior.” He took part in a last supper with his companions, was killed and three days later resurrected. He then ascended into heaven where he protected the faithful from above, was mediator between heaven and earth, and was a member of a holy trinity. His followers practiced purification thru baptism and also took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the blood and body of their savior. The savior's name was Mithras and the religion was Mithraism, which had been a popular religion for several hundred years before Christianity began.
It would be an oversimplification to suggest that Mithraism was the only basis for Christianity. There were plenty of other deities (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Balder, Attis, and Dionysus) said to have died and resurrected. Also, many classical heroic figures (such as Hercules, Perseus, Theseus, and even some Roman emperors) were said to have been born thru the union of a virgin mother and divine father.
Christianity is obviously an amalgam of previous religions, and is by no means unique. Almost all the pagan rituals and festivals that it couldn't suppress it incorporated — such as Christmas (near the winter solstice) and Easter (near the spring equinox).
Jesus died for our sins. This is one of the primary moral points of Christianity, and it is formally known as “substitutive sacrifice.” Many religions practiced it when they killed sacrificial animals or humans on altars. What kind of morality is this, where one person has to die because of what others have done? When we look at cultures that sacrificed animals or humans, we call them barbaric and primitive. It makes no difference if the person being sacrificed agrees; it is still blatantly, repugnantly immoral and abominable. The Christian ceremony of communion is based on this blood sacrifice, and is just ritualized cannibalism and vampirism.
Using religion as a source for morality completely collapses when we look at religious positions now and in history. There are religious people with different positions on such moral issues as the death penalty, abortion, birth control, and gay and women’s rights. How can this be, if they all get the same divine words from the same god? Restrictions on birth control have added to the misery in the world by causing more disease and more births on a planet that already has too many people. Racism, misogyny, and slavery were once considered perfectly moral by large portions of humankind, and were seen as having a religious basis. Also, the killings done in the name of God, by most religions, are legendary. Our culture has changed, along with our laws, and these evils are no longer acceptable in modern society. Religion cannot give us the best answers to moral issues. Morality is a social and legal construct, not a religious one. Religion fails the morality test.
Argument from Authority
I think that most people begin their belief in God because something or someone said that God exists. This is called the “argument from authority.” We just discussed the Bible as one of these sources. There are other sources for other religions, such as the Koran for the Muslims.
What does it mean, when we believe something based on an authority? It means that we are taking something or someone else’s words as truth. We all do this for most subjects. Our first authorities are the people who raise us. This is because we are born with no innate knowledge of the world, and have to learn it from scratch. We soon start learning from other sources, such as friends, teachers, books and other written material. As we learn and experience our world, we develop a map in our minds of what the world is like. This map becomes a truth filter. When we look at a new idea, we typically compare it to the mental map that we have. If the idea fits well in the map, we can add it. If the idea doesn’t fit, we have a problem. We must either discard the idea, or make a change to the map. Change is difficult and often painful, so many people tend to discard ideas that don’t fit their mental maps.
When we use someone or something as an authority, we often bypass the comparison process and plug the new ideas directly into our maps. This can save us a lot of research time and mental work. However, it also opens us to believing in things and ideas that aren’t true. Since we can’t be experts on everything, we thus have a problem — what and whom can we implicitly believe? For me, since I want my mental map to be as accurate as possible, I have chosen the methods of science and reason as my ultimate authority. Science and reason have been shown to be the best predictors of how the world functions. Science and reason aren’t perfect, but they are self-correcting. Other sources of authority are too prone to misinformation.
One large difference between science and religion is this: In science, if the facts don’t fit the theory, the theory is modified or tossed out. In religion, if the facts don’t fit the theory, the facts are often tossed out.
Argument from Prophesy and Miracles
Now, let’s discuss prophesy and miracles. I am continually astounded at just how little evidence people are willing to accept for proof of these. Prophesies that did come true are often easy to explain, once you understand that it’s easy to predict something if it has already occurred, or that actions were done merely to fulfill prophesy, or that events or prophesies were fabricated. There are also many prophesies that haven’t come true. As for religious miracles, the evidence is so slim that they should be relegated to hearsay. As David Hume and Carl Sagan wrote, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” With this in mind, which is more likely, that true prophesies and miracles have actually occurred, or that they are just tall tales?
Even if truly inexplicable ‘prophesies’ or ‘miracles’ have occurred, that does not mean that there’s a god. It could just mean that a person has peculiar skills or technological help that we don’t understand. We all can imagine how easy it would be to go to a primitive tribe of humans and impress them with ‘god-like’ skills that are the result of our technology, medicine, or knowledge. It is reasonable to consider that we could be fooled by technology that is far in advance of our own. As famous science fiction author Sir Arthur C. Clarke wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Let’s consider one well-known miracle, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. First, as I noted, there is no verifiable evidence that Jesus ever even lived. Second, even if he did exist, there is no verifiable evidence that he actually died on the cross. If Jesus didn't die, his supposed ‘resurrection’ was much more possible in a purely natural sense.
Argument from Religious Faith
Next, let’s look at religious faith. What is faith? It is the firm belief in something for which no proof exists — simply because you want it to be true. As Mark Twain once said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” Religious faith proves nothing, except the bullheadedness of the believer. If you have faith, you don’t need proof. If you have proof, you don’t need faith. Therefore, any attempt to use faith as a basis for proof is intrinsically doomed to failure. Also, what good is faith if it has you believing in something that is not true? A recent example of absolute faith and its possible consequences can illustrate the objective failures of religious faith. I ask, on September 11, 2001, whose faith was the most effective? I say that it was the faith of the suicidal pilots of those three planes that crashed into the buildings. If you believe in the primacy of religious faith, there is no way to objectively differentiate between yours and theirs, for it is all purely subjective. Religious faith fails as a proof for God.
Dan Barker, of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, wrote, “If faith is a valid tool of knowledge, then anything can be true 'by faith,' and therefore nothing is true. If the only reason you can accept a claim is by faith, then you are admitting that the claim does not stand on its own merits.”
Faith is the antithesis of rational thought. This is why so many religious leaders actively preach against rational thought and even advanced education. They realize that rational thought and education can destroy religious faith and result in fewer followers for them.
Logical Arguments for God(s)
How about logical arguments for the existence of God? Let’s look at a proof for God that relies on reason alone. It is called the Ontological Argument, and it basically says that God exists because we can conceive of God. One of the characteristics of God is existence; therefore, God exists. This argument is so obtuse that it’s ridiculous. It is just confusion between the existence of ideas and the existence of real things. Simply saying that something like a god exists does not make it exist. All that exist are the ideas (in our minds) of Satan, Jesus, God, or an invisible pink unicorn.
There are some people who claim that God is the source of logic, therefore we can’t even use logic without presupposing the existence of God. They say that logic can’t be created from unformed matter; therefore God formed the matter and created logic. This argument is known as Presuppositionalist, or the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God. The names are fancy, and my response is simple. Logic is a pattern of thinking, and patterns can emerge from simple rules. There are many examples of complex patterns coming out of simple rules, such as snowflakes and waves forming. There is nothing in our everyday experience that indicates that some higher power is necessary for these patterns, and there is nothing that proves that a god is necessary for the patterns we call logic. Additionally, the presuppositionalist argument gives little indication as to the qualities of the god it presupposes — much like the first cause argument. The argument is just another way of answering a supposedly difficult question with the simple response, “God did it.”
If anything is not logical, it is most religions. I am most familiar with Christianity, so let’s look at its basic claims:
A supernatural god exists that created everything and intervenes in the natural world.
This god had a son whose mother was a virgin who had been impregnated by the god in the form of a ghost.
This son did many miracles, including making a dead person alive again.
This son was killed, and came back to life one and a half (not three) days later.
There is not any empirical, verifiable evidence for any of this. There is also much experience from everyday life that virgins can’t get pregnant from ghosts, and that people who have been dead for a while can’t come back to life. Thus, belief in the above claims is illogical.
There is an argument for belief in God that is called Pascal’s Wager, named for Blaise Pascal who conceived it. The argument goes like this: Either there is a god or there isn’t. If you believe in God, and God exists, then you win big time and go to heaven. If you don’t believe in God, and God exists, you lose big time and go to hell. If there is no god, then you haven’t lost much by believing. So the obvious choice is to believe in God, because it’s simply the best bet.
Pascal’s Wager has several faults. The biggest problem is that it’s not a proof of any god’s existence; it’s just an argument for believing, a method of extorting the gullible thru fear. Like many other such arguments we have discussed, it also fails to denote exactly which god it refers to. Pascal’s Wager could be applied to any god that offers rewards and punishments. Taken to the extreme, following the wager would necessitate betting on the god with the worst hell, so it could be avoided.
Another problem with Pascal’s Wager is that it implicitly assumes that the odds of the two possibilites are similar. Since the odds of the Christian god existing are zero, the wager creates a false dilemma.
The last problem with Pascal’s Wager is that it completely ignores intellectual integrity and honesty. As an example, let’s talk about belief in Santa Claus. Don’t we have more respect for a child who figures out that Santa doesn’t exist, and says so, rather than continuing to l