Atheism IS the Default Position
Let us get one thing straight, atheism is the default position for anyone on issues of god. Remembering that atheist is 99.99% lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods. The other 0.01% is accounted for by a lack of complete information, until we know absolutely everything there is to know about the universe, we can never fully say there is 100% chance of no god (Russell’s Teapot). To be an atheist and claim that there is guaranteed 100% chance of no god shows ignorance to this fact.
A lot of theists will try and postulate that the default position is agnostic, this is not true. If I told you that there was a large 100ft dinosaur destroying New York, you would not sit there and claim that you are agnostic on the existence of the dinosaur. Assuming you are a rational person, you would know dinosaurs are extinct and for one to magically appear in New York to destroy it is ridiculously unlikely. You would seek evidence to support my claim or to disprove it, it is very unlikely that my word alone would convince you. You would try seeking information from a reputable source to support my claim, but until that moment you would remain in a state of disbelief. Since you cannot disprove the existence of the dinosaur either, we have the problem of incomplete information and you can only say with 99.99% certainty that there is no dinosaur wreaking havoc in down town New York. You are a dinosaur atheist.
If we transplant this situation to concerns about god, if I kept a child in a pure environment, where no mention of the word god or religion is exposed to the child. If we also, somehow gave the child a good education and still not educated her about god or any of the world views on god in a truly secular environment and wait for her to reach adulthood. Then, a stranger, someone with no credibility (so not a teacher of some kind or news reporter, just some random member of the public) and told her that there is this entity, called god, which created the universe, the planet Earth and the human race. She would seek evidence to support or refute this claim. She would not sit in the middle and be agnostic on the situation either, she would sit at 99.99% disbelief (because of the issue of incomplete information). Before this moment, she would have absolutely no idea about god and would be an atheist up to this moment, a 100% atheist to be exact. How can she be agnostic before even hearing about the concept or even the word ‘god’?
But this world does not exist, we live in a world where peoples views are distorted by those who surround them. Moving back to our example of the girl, one of the most important things to notice is her transformation from 100% atheist, due to a complete lack of knowledge in the very idea of a god, to a 99.99% atheist after being told of the idea by a stranger. Imagine if, instead of a stranger, we had a close relative, or a teacher or someone she respected and trusted said that there was a god. Would she still be a 99.99% atheist?
Short answer, no. The trusting bond between her and the person who told her would skew her views, it would make her think that there is a much greater chance of there being this entity called god, despite the lack of evidence presented to her. This is where the idea of avoiding indoctrination of children comes in. If a trustworthy person, such as her mother or father told her of this existence of god, she would almost take it as fact straight away, a result of evolutions programming of children to believe whatever their parents tell them. The position you take will be heavily influenced by the person who initially makes the claim. Moving back to the dinosaur example, what if a friend or a family member told you, you would not be an atheist (99.99%) on the claim likely believe that there was a dinosaur in New York.
So, I hope I have proven that atheism is the default position. The lack of belief is what causes this, since it is not belief that there is not god, it requires no thinking about the issue before hand, everyone is born an atheist. The same way that you do not automatically believe in the dinosaur existing, until evidence is presented. You will always 100% disbelieve in the existence of the dinosaur/god before you hear the claim and then will be at a point of 99.99% disbelief from there on in, until more evidence is provided and makes you belief that yes, this dinosaur/god is real.
How can you be agnostic about something you never even knew existed?
Argumental Approach of Theists Shifting
I’ve been noticing a recent trend. The approach of theists to the argument for the existence of god is shifting. Instead of just trying to deliver arguments in favour, tired old arguments that have been abandoned. The new, modern approach is to dismantle atheism. It is to usually start off with saying “atheists believe this…”
What normally follows is usually an argument from ignorance. Evolution by natural selection is regularly attacked and misunderstood, either abiogenesis is integrated with the theory. Atheistic philosophy is attacked directly, again from a misunderstanding. Myths that are repeated enough and loudly enough suddenly seem to be transformed into fact, these ‘facts’ are then trotted out by theists and anti-evolutionists. Then some god of the gaps argument then appears after this.
This is different than the traditional approach, usually the arguments were delivered in a much simpler way, evidence was provided to support the conclusion of gods existence, these arguments have been around for ages and have been subjected to thorough criticism. No wonder the shift has happened, with no more ammo left to fire, all the theists are left with is to remove the ammo of the non-believers. To try and find one tiny little thing and trot it out as a major underpinning of the whole idea, giving a gap which god amazingly comes along and fills.
I’m going to be breif, arguments for the existance of god are running out, they are failing and easily criticisable. This has lead to the movement of attacking atheistic arguments, usually by ignorance and other poor methods of argument (god of the gaps, argument from power, argument from personal experience, argument from innapropriate metaphor, argument from false dichotimy, even some ad hominem added in there for good measure). Desperation seems to be rising in the thiest camp, I have yet to be stumped by any rational argument that is easily dismantled. We have reached a critical point, where belief in god must come from faith with no reason behind it. Reason and faith are now truly diapoled. Ignorance is supreme in the theistic world and ignorance very quickly transends into violence.
First Church of Atheism?
So, should we have a first church of atheism? No. Not at all, never, the egg atheism will get on its face would be ridiculous. Ignore these churches of freethinking or whatever, I completely disagree with them. What I do agree we should have is an institution which provides secular weddings, funerals and other ceremonies which may contain some spiritual significance.
The term church is something that needs to be avoided. The idea of a church immediately conjurers up the idea of belief and worship, 2 things that atheism does not have in common with. Atheism has no need or belief or worship. I would like to provide the idea that yes we do need a secular institution to perform certain ceremonies that are commonplace in our culture and society, but it must not be labelled a church. A new term is needed, a more accurate term, something which can give an accurate and defining name.
What this name should be, I do no know. All I know is that words like church need to be avoided in its title. The need for such an institution to deliver secular ceremonies is prevalent, there is demand for it. This demand needs to be met, there needs to be an organisation that provided the supply. However, the name much not include church or any other word which describes a place of worship (such as temple etc.)
SO please, for the sake of not creating confusion during this transitionary period, don’t create churches of atheism, or of freethought, or of secularism, or of humanism. All it will do is lead to confusion and provide amunition to the opponents of the atheistic movement.
Where Does Science Say That Everything Came From Nothing?
I’ve been browsing the web recently (a dangerous pastime, I know) and there seems to be a rather flawed consensus among the theistic that science states that the universe started from nothing and then suddenly everything happened in the event known as the big bang. As a result they jump on the absurdity that everything can’t come from nothing, either it breaks the second law of thermodynamics, or some other scientific reasoning. Yet again, we are dealing with the argument from ignorance.
So where did it all come from, this singularity which existed prior to the rapid expansion known as the Big Bang? Well, we are dealing with a lapse in science, it is very difficult, if not impossible to truly determine why there was a singularity where all matter and energy was concentrated suddenly appeared in the universe as we know it and then rapidly expanded. There is a gap in knowledge and trying to work out what actually happened is why we build massive particle colliders under countries.
“Ah hah!” I hear the theist cry. “So there is no explanation for the origin of the universe, thus something must have made the singularity that expanded into the universe as we know it. It must have been God. QED.”
Now we are dealing with the ‘god of the gaps,’ a seriously flawed piece of arguing. Simply stating that since science cannot explain that phenomenon, it MUST have been god. Since god is the only explanation we currently have. Well, I tell you what, humanity thought that not cracking open a human chest every 24 hours would stop the sun from rising and when we work out how the universe began, we will stop bringing god into it.
God is a deus ex machina. God is a machine god. A deus ex machina is a plot device used in plays or books which exists purely to tie up loose ends or discontinuities in the story by some outrageous event. It is usually the sign of a poor writer and generally marks a bad play or book. In some cases a literal god would come down onto the stage, for no reason other than to fix whatever problem is plaguing the play.
My point is, god, in this world, exists for the only reason of tying up loose ends, of answering the question science has yet to answer. A simple plot device used by humanity to cover the shortcomings of our understanding of the universe. No more is this shown then in answering the question of how the universe began.
Yet another piece of poor arguing exists too and that is the argument from false dichotomy. Since the big bang theory cannot answer how the universe began, it is wrong and the ONLY alternative is that god did it. This is a common fallacy, used a lot by creationists, especially in confrontation with evolutionists. Find something that evolution can’t answer and then propose that the whole theory is wrong and so god must be the solution as it is the only alternative. Even if the big bang theory was wrong, despite the overwhelming evidence for it, that doesn’t mean that god did it, for there are more than just the 2 theories for how the universe began. To attempt to dis-prove one and claim the other must be right by process of elimination is a common error, please stop making it.
Finally, the idea that the universe came from nothing is something of a mis-leading statement. While, the Big Bang Theory leads to the idea that everything came from a singularity which must have popped into existence from nothing, this is rather misleading. The Big Band saw the universe expand, the universe in which we occupy, we have no idea what lies outside it, what happened before it (since time only began at the big bang according to my understanding) and what is going to happen to it in the future.
As far as I can understand, there are many theories about the initial stages of the universe and the sheer challenge of proving these true or false through experimentation is incredibly difficult, practically impossible. Cosmogony attempts to explain how reality as we percieve it came into being, but being such an abstract science, the chance of understading what truly happened is not going to be discovered in our lifetime, or even in out childrens childrens childrens childrens childrens lifetime. But one day, with enough experiments, scientists and funding the answer will be discovered, it is only a matter of time.
Is Atheism A Religion?
Short answer, NO. Long answer…
Free will. Does it even matter?
Free will, a complex subject. But for me, a rather null subject. I’ve been perusing the internet and seem to get the impression that we atheists are seen as believing there is no free will. Usually, the argument is based on a materialism viewpoint in that since thought and activity in the brain is nothing more than reactions. Reactions that can happen in only one way, there must only be one future and so no free will. After all, how could anything be different? Otherwise reactions in chemicals must not be consistent and science would be wrong.
A rather insane argument, I know. It makes some dangerous assumptions, mainly about physics which I suggest you contact your local scientist about. However, lets just consider the issue of freewill and why it is important to be able to tell if we live in a universe with freewill or not (ultimately it doesn’t matter, but I will get to that soon). Let us focus on Christianity. According to Christianity (and other monotheistic religions) humans have been given the gift of free will. The ability to decide between actions, being good or bad, believing in god or not etc. If there was no free will in the universe then we would all believe in god as we have been given no choice. Thus it is vital that we live in a universe with free will. If not, how could there be a god as we have already been pre-programmed to believe in god or not.
So, how can we determine if we have free will or not. Well, guess what? It simply doesn’t matter.
If we have free will, we simply decide which action to take based on a series of inputs to our mind. Then a specific action will be performed on the basis of these inputs. You decide. But actually, this could be a lie. It could have already been determined which decision you would reach, how you would analyse the inputs and the action you would take as a result. Free will or not, the same action would be taken.
It can be rather difficult to put this idea in words. The idea of free will is a foolish concept to begin with. It is impossible to tell if you have free will or not. Imagine a computer, one you program that will perform a certain action when it receives a certain input. Now consider a computer that has been programmed to think for itself. AI if you will, which will perform a certain action with a certain input, if it so chooses too. But, this action could be predicted, the AI can be programmed the rules it will use to work out if it will take a certain action with a certain set of inputs. The free will the AI may seem is nothing more than an illusion, while it may seem to be making an active choice, the programmer has already predicted what outcome would have happened with a certain input.
My argument is difficult to get across and may be tough to understand, but while you may think you are making a conscious choice. You could have been programmed with the parameters to make such a choice to begin with. So your decision may not be the result of free will. Either way, the output would be the same, free will or not. That will change NOTHING in the long-run. What is important to understand is how people react to this fact.
Some people feel that since there is no free will, what will happen will happen that way and no other way. However, this decision could have been made from free will. The opposite is true too, you may feel that there is free will, but this could simply be the result of no free will in the first place and that you thinking this way is the way you were always going to. Again, freewill is a null issue, one with no impact regardless of answer. I could decide by what I think to be free will to give a doughnut to you and I could think this to be a result of free will. I could also give you the doughnut as a result of not having free will. The outcome is the same.
So, everyone, who cares if you have free will or not. What matters is the decisions you make in life, wether to be good or bad, follow right or wrong, is what is important. What you decide may be the result of free will or determined millions of years ago, either way the same decision will be reached.
Death from an Atheists Standpoint
Death is a real issue for humans. What happens when you die? Where do you go? Do you just rot in the ground or does a part of you, soul if you will, go to a place to be with other souls and the creator of the universe? There are many, many questions surrounding death and naturally, people fear death. The fear of death is pretty easy to explain from any standpoint, who knows what happens when you die. You can never know, since when you are dead, your not going to be able to come back and tell everyone living what does happen. People fear what they do not know. Evolution is an obvious factor here, humans have evolved to fear death and avoid it at all costs.
I assume many religious individuals look at atheists and assume that our belief is just that when you die, that’s it. Your body will just simply rot and your soul/spirit is lost forever. Some then take this a step further and argue that we thus have no meaning and so life is meaningless. There is some truth in this, generally an atheist will just see death as the end, a full stop, but only to the individuals physical body.
While, I am speaking from a personal view point, I am sure many other atheists would agree with me. While the individual will cease to exist, the individual will live on from their impact on other peoples lives in the form of memories, ideas, physical objects etc. Sure, you die and for yourself, that is it, you will cease to exist, but do not despair! I would like to bring a little humanism into this. Live your life, do not simply abandon hope that you will finally come to an end, bring some good into this world and make it a better place for all. Be humbled by how the scale of the universe and the short, brief and fleeting moment you were part of it. If anyone thinks that atheists simply take this to mean that you should live without consequence, I insist you look up the humanist philosophy and learn a few things.
From a religious perspective, when you die, you carry on. Thanks religion! Now I no longer have to worry about what happens when I, or any of my friends/family dies. I can believe with confidence that I will never cease. While I have a beginning, I will never have an end! But, what’s this? I have to follow a set of solid rules. I have to believe and pray to god and thank him for my existence. And if I don’t, I go to a place of eternal suffering and damnation. Crap! I better start believing and praying then!
While, this may be a rather ignorant and basic way of explaining my point, I hope it is clear. Religion preys on the natural fear humans have of the unknown. This fear, probably the greatest of them all, is immediately put aside and we no longer need to worry. What you do is sell hope. If I could box hope, stick it on a shelf, I could practically set any price I cared for, the profit I could make! Hope that when you die, you live on eternally in a happy place, full of friends and loved ones, a wonderful fantasy. But a fantasy nonetheless.
So then, what about me. What do I do when a loved one dies. I am, of course, saddened by thier loss. But I do not dispair, I do not grieve. Instead I celebrate. I celebrate the impact they had during their life. How they changed my life and that of others. The good that that person had on the world and I will look back and smile with content, having the pleasure of knowing this individual. I will not sit there and content myself by giving into the delusion that I will be with them soon enough at some time in the future. As attractive that prospect may be to anyone, it is always better to live in the real world than a prefered, flawed fantasy.
Guitar Hero: World Tour – 2 months later…
So, it’s been 2 months since I got GH:WT. I’ve already posted my initial 3 part review of it. But now, 2 months down the line, I just want to return to some areas I may have missed.
Firstly, the guitar experience is simply incredible, anyone who has played GH III and not World Tour is severely missing out. Not only is the choice of songs greater, but they are more challenging to complete. Not more challenging in the sense that Dragonforce is challenging because of its pure speed and has the record for most hammer-ons/min. But more challenging because of the tap solos and the touch-sensitive bar (which is pretty useless) which are cleverly integrated. There are also additions in the way the buttons can be pressed, which is more realistic than before. For example, during some songs, you have to hold one button down while playing on several other ones. This leads to a greater variety of skills that are needed and makes the game a lot more interesting and less repetitive for guitar players.
The drum kit has yet to be replaced. The shop (HMV) has agreed to replace it when they have stock in, but this was over a month ago. While not having a green pad is not much of an issue during medium and easy level. Hard makes much more use of it and I feel a lot more pissed off about not having it. Whether HMV have yet to get more stock is down to a simple lack of demand, or failure of supply. It would be nice if they got off their asses and just brought me one, I may just have to buy the set again, swap out the broken component and then return it and get my money back.
Finally, band play has not lost any of its charm, in fact, like whisky and fine wine, time has simply improved it. It is surprisingly much more satisfying to be able to play with the whole band on hard/expert than having a large variety. Working together more effectively also sees a larger score being awarded.
Downloads have improved, there is a much larger range and more decent songs available for purchase and even some good ones available for free. It does feel that some of these downloaded songs are simply not made to the same quality as those included in the game, they seem rushed. Some songs, while excellent songs ot listen to, just don’t work that well in Guitar Hero, either the beat is wrong or the genre, but there is some reason it just doesn’t feel ‘right.’
Overall, GH:WT has still managed to captivate me and others. It is still prime choice of party game, something which a lot of people enjoy and is easily accessable by even the most musically challenged. I can’t really compare GH:WT to Rock Band 2, since over here in Europe we have to wait until the 27th to get out hands on it (Why is it taking the them so bloody long to get it here?). I’ll be sure to write up a review and comparison as soon as I have gotten my greasy mitts on it.
The Moral Atheist – Part 3
So, over the previous two parts I have hopefully shown that if we simply took morals directly from the Bible (or other book, such as the Qur’an) the world would be a very different place. It would be a much less moral world, especially when compared with today. I also went on to show how we judge which are the good and bad morals from the Bible, because us as humans have a higher level of thought and understanding of morality than the Bible, thus allowing us to make informed judgements. I rounded off the previous one by showing (albeit rather poorly) that evolutionary mechanics benefits those species who cooperate and have emotions such as empathy.
By having empathy, humans can apply the simple rule of thought when considering what is right and what is wrong, mainly the idea of “do onto others as you would have them do unto you.” By being nice to someone else, you hope that they will be nice in return and that if you are bad to someone else, they will respond negatively towards you. Over the years, these simple ideas have evolved over time and shape the morals of today.
Morals are a construct of society, what is determined to be right or wrong comes from the society which an individual is within. To give an example, if Hitler took over Europe successfully, would I think that Hitler was good or bad? Chances are, I would be thinking that Hitler was a great man, who freed us from the tyranny of Britain. We would consider Hitler to be a hero, a brave leader who led us to a wonderful future. But of course, this is not the case, we see Hitler as evil, as bad. Simply because our society won, Britain won the war, defeated Hitler and so we have the case of history being written by the winners.
Another case would be to look at how ethics vary across the world, in some places, piracy may be seen as a legitimate way of earning a living. When a man has no more options to turn to, desperation ha driven him to piracy, but the society accepts this. Being a pirate is not wrong. However, compared to western ideas, being a pirate is wrong. Stealing, looting, commandeering vessels etc. is all considered to be wrong. The same applies to more general ethics, they vary across the geography of the planet.
Ethics do not only vary over geography, but they vary over time. In the past, having a black slave was acceptable, they were an inferior race, something for us superior white people to own and control. Today, the idea of having a black slave is absurd, it goes against almost everyone’s ideology. This provides proof for how ethics vary over time. We humans can determine what ethics are good and which ones are bad, which code to live by. There is a transition period between the idea that a black slave is fine, to it being wrong. Different people had different views, but there percentage slowly changed as people considered if it was fair that blacks were being kept as slaves.
The point I am trying to make is simple, ethics cannot and do not come from an absolute source i.e.. the Bible. They vary over time because of humanities ability to think about issues, campaign, debate and decide which ethical code to live by. Evolution has made it hard wired into people to choose to do the right thing as this benefits the species in its ability to survive and reproduce.
Finally, Atheism is not an ethical code, it provided no ideaology with which to live by. However, Humanism does (just to avoid having to deal with this inevitable question when it arises).
The Moral Atheist – Part 2
As I showed in my previous post. We simply could not get our morals directly from the Bible, there is just too much in there we no longer apply or selectively ignore. While arguments could and have been made that the ‘negative’ moral parts of the Bible are either mis-interpreted by groups like atheists who don’t understand the real meaning. Very unlikely, I read around each quote and tried to place it into context, but still the same negative moral came out of the story.
Mis-translations are a popular move, well, the Bible is indeed riddled with mis-translations, but unsurprisingly, there seems to be a selective amnesia between which mis-translations are real and which are not. For example, there is a pretty strong chance that ‘young woman’ was mistranslated as ‘virgin woman’ (which could also explain why 2 books omit this point about the mother of Jesus) yet it is selectively ignored because this needs to be true for Christianity to work.
Literal or Figurative?
So which passages are meant to be taken literally and which ones are meant to be taken figuratively? Well, no one really knows, it doesn’t say in the Bible, ‘take this next part figuratively.’ No, it seems that we are expected to find out for ourselves, so who can we trust as interpretors who know what parts are literal and what parts are not. Also explain to me how they know which ones are literal and which ones are not. The only way to make a judgement on what are good morals from the Bible and which ones are negative would require a standard, a higher understanding of morality against which we can compare. All humans have this higher sense of morality and can apply it when thinking which passages in the Bible align with the current moral standards of a society.
This brings me to how what parts of the Bible are literal and which parts are not does not stay constant over time. At one moment in history, certain passages would be accepted as literal, as rules which do apply and people follow. Then go forward a few hundred years and you will suddenly see a reversal, this once literal passage is suddenly meant to be taken figuratively. It is a reactionary process to the current standard of morality in a culture, so the Bible never seems to outdated or wrong. It would be dangerous for a book to be published nowadays that says killing homosexuals is good, women are inferior and having a slave is perfectly fine, this book would be met with heavy criticism and probably see the author physically attacked.
The Bible must be fallible then. If it was infallible, then why do literal parts change, over time, into figurative parts. This would support the idea that the Bible was a man-made creation, one which is fallible and one which has declining relevance to peoples lives. The Bible was reflective of morals at the time of writing, which have remained constant as humans continue to evolve theirs.
Evolutionary Morality
So, if we do not get our morals from the Bible, then where do we get them from? Well, the answer is not an easy one, in order to have morals, we need a foundation on which to build them on. This foundation needs to include high intelligence, a capacity for communication, a sense of social norms, realisation of self and a concept of continuity. Chimpanzees have all of these and are a good example because of how closely related humans are to them.
But how did Chimpanzees get there, well through the slow process of evolution. If a pack of animals work together, there is a much greater chance of survival not only for the individual, but for the species as a whole. By sticking in packs, chances to mate, ability to gather food, to fight of predators, to assist in the rearing of young all increase because of working together in a group. If a group did not work together, then the chance of dying is increased greatly and the chances to mate decrease, natural selection benefits those species who work together.
Chimpanzees also exhibit behaviours of:
- Attachment and bonding
- Cooperation and mutual aid
- Sympathy and empathy
- Direct and indirect reciprocity
- Altruism and reciprocal altruism
- Conflict resolution and peacemaking
- Deception and deception detection
- Community concern and caring about what others think about you
- Awareness of and response to the social rules of the group
That is a rather long list of behaviours that chimpanzees exhibit. All of them beneficial over the alternative of not having them. They help the group to function and is beneficial to the individual as well. For example, conflict resolution and peacemaking is very useful because if the group did not resolve conflicts peacefully, then these would explode violently and see energy wasted into fighting each other as opposed to helping each other to survive. This wasted energy could be put to much better use, such as gathering food, or mating. That good feeling you get when you help someone selflessly, that bad feeling you get when you know something bad is happening is all a result of evolution. You are programmed to naturally know what is right and what is wrong, at least for very basic morals. The most important emotion to come from evolution is empathy.
However, empathy is not enough, while it and the evolution of morality can help us in understanding basic behaviours and the foundation for morals. We have a much greater understanding of them. This comes from the massive brains evolution has given us. We can reason with ourselfs. We can consider the “do onto other as you would have them do unto you,” rule. This comes from reciprication, only act towards other they way you want to be acted towards, for if you act positivly towards others, others will act positivly towards you. But, yet again, I seem to be only explaining behavior, not morality. Morality is the result of behaviour from a society. Good and bad come from society, they are constructs of humanity and this is what I’m going to look at in Part 3.
