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Information Theory Argument

2011-05-02T06:12:13Z

Daemonowner: /* Argument */ Fixed Typo

The Information Theory Argument is often claimed to be a scientific [[argument for the existence of a god]] that combines the [[Fine tuning argument]] with the [[Watchmaker]] Argument. The argument is usually structured around the premise that [[DNA]] has "[[information]]" within it and information is something that can only be created by a mind.

== Argument ==

As presented on CosmicFingerprints.com

:Patterns occur naturally - no help required from a 'designer'. Many patterns occur in nature without the help of a designer – snowflakes, tornados, hurricanes, sand dunes, stalactites, rivers and ocean waves. These patterns are the natural result of what scientists categorize as chaos and fractals. These things are well-understood and we experience them every day.

:Codes, however, do not occur without a designer. Examples of symbolic codes include music, blueprints, languages like English and Chinese, computer programs, and yes, DNA. The essential distinction is the difference between a pattern and a code. Chaos can produce patterns, but it has never been shown to produce codes or symbols. Codes and symbols store information, which is not a property of matter and energy alone. Information itself is a separate entity on par with matter and energy.

::(1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism.

::(2) All codes we know the origin of are created by a conscious mind (inductive reasoning).

::(3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind, and language and information are proof of the action of a Superintelligence, i.e. God.

=== Counter Apologetics ===
==== Objection to DNA as Code ====
===== Information is a Label =====
Everything in reality can be classified into one broad umbrella category of being called "[[phenomenon]]". There are two broad types of phenomenon, those being Entities and Relationships. DNA is a type of molecule that is made up of both entities and relationships, those being the atoms that compose it and the way they are bonded together, respectively. Ultimately, DNA is a phenomenon. Intelligent beings label phenomenon with words. The Theory of Abiogenesis has shown how it is possible for this self-replicating molecule to emerge by natural causes, and there are other theories of how other self-replicating systems that undergo random mutation and non-random natural selection can occur naturally under completely accidental circumstances. Information is not an inherent quality of a phenomenon, phenomenon are entirely accidental/random (or causal) by their very nature. If this particular phenomenon happens to have the behavior of building and folding proteins that form what we label a living organism, and the way this phenomenon attained its form and composition is easily explained by the Theory of Evolution and the Theory of Abiogenesis, then it becomes clear that the word "information" is just a word that described the composition of something, whether it is designed or not designed.

===== Rocks Contain Information =====
If we agree to the premise that information is an inherent quality of DNA because it is expressed as a living organisms, then how is the clear line drawn to exclude the particular phenomenon of life from all other phenomenon in existence? It is entirely reasonable to infer that rocks contain information if information is defined as ''"the composition and form of an entity."'' The confusion results from the fact that information is classically described as either an entity or quality of entities (e.g. ''Give me the information'', ''the information we received was inaccurate''). The precise arrangement of atoms in a pebble does not have any relevant meaning or value to a person, however, a particular pebble and the way its atoms are arranged by completely random/causal forces could be assigned value by a scanning electron microscope. It would scan the surface of the pebble and assign meaningful values to the composition of atoms on the whole surface of the pebble so that if you put any other pebble inside the stage, the translation would be incoherent and random, but if you have the particular pebble inside the stage then the translation would be meaningful.

===== Static vs. Signal =====
A radio wave does not have information inherent within it, nor does a continuous stream of static contain information. Even a continuous repeating pattern does not have information in it (the signal produced by [[pulsars]] was thought to be signals from an alien civilization), however, a continuous repeating pattern, if assigned value by a mind, can represent information that is meaningful, like an S.O.S., even though there may potentially be a natural phenomenon that produces a signal that is identical to an S.O.S.

==== Objection to codes by minds ====

===== Evolution =====
If one considers DNA a code full of information, then we know how that information got there. It got there through a process of evolution by natural selection. Which has not only been shown to produce useful information but to be the best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet and the DNA configuration of that life. Therefore we have a counterexample to the premise that "there is no natural phenomenon which can generate information in such a coherent manner" because we have a complete explanation for DNA that is a purely natural phenomenon.

===== Self Refuting =====
If we accept the premise that DNA contains information, and that only minds can create information, then it is safe to assume that for minds to create information they must contain information too. This then begs the question, who created the information in god's mind? Doesn't god then too need a creator resulting in an [[infinite regress]]?

== Cosmicfingerprints ==

=== Definition of "Information" from Cosmicfingerprints.com: ===

The dictionary definition (computer science case in particular) will suffice: "Processed, stored or transmitted data."

From Wikipedia:

Information is a message, something to be communicated from the sender to the receiver, as opposed to noise, which is something that inhibits the flow of communication or creates misunderstanding. If information is viewed merely as a message, it does not have to be accurate. It may be a lie, or just a sound of a kiss. This model assumes a sender and a receiver, and does not attach any significance to the idea that information is something that can be extracted from an environment, e.g., through observation or measurement. Information in this sense is simply any message the sender chooses to create.

This view assumes neither accuracy nor directly communicating parties, but instead assumes a separation between an object and its representation, as well as the involvement of someone capable of understanding this relationship. This view seems therefore to require a conscious mind.

{{Response|Actually, no consciousness or intention would be required in providing the DNA with the structure it possesses. The specific pattern of nucleotides on the ladder are attained by random mutation and natural selection. Mutations are introduced by a variety of means demonstrated in labs and observed in nature including gene duplication, gene deletion, radiation, retroviral insertion, etc.}}

Information is dependent upon, but usually unrelated to and separate from, the medium or media used to express it. In other words, the position of a theoretical series of bits, or even the output once interpreted by a computer or similar device, is unimportant, except when someone or something is present to interpret the information. Therefore, a quantity of information is totally distinct from its medium.

What's important here is 1) information always involves a sender and a receiver; 2) an encoding / decoding mechanism; 3) a convention of symbols ("code") which represent something distinct from what those symbols are made of. A paragraph in a newspaper is made of ink and paper, but the sentence itself may say nothing about ink or paper.

It may be very helpful here to point out the difference between a pattern and a code. Patterns (snowflakes, crystals, hurricanes, tornados, rivers, coastlines) occur in nature all the time.

A code is "A system of signals used to represent letters or numbers in transmitting messages." Examples of code include English, Chinese, computer languages, music, mating calls and radio signals. Codes always involve a system of symbols that represent ideas or plans.

All codes contain patterns, but not all patterns contain codes. Naturally occurring patterns do not contain code.

{{Response|In certain scenarios where linguistic shortcuts are necessary, it is definitely useful to speak of structure of DNA as containing a "code", but beyond that, it is objectively nothing more than a piece of matter descended from a piece of matter that was able to make copies of itself. In the process of copying itself, it acquired mutations which were beneficial to the function of copying itself. In that sense, the code in DNA is in fact a naturally occurring one.}}

=== "Proof" that DNA is a code from Cosmicfingerprints.com: ===

Francis Crick received the Nobel prize for discovering DNA. The following is from the first paragraph of Francis Crick's Nobel lecture on October 11, 1962. Note his use of the word "code" and "information," emphasis mine:

"Part of the work covered by the Nobel citation, that on the structure and replication of DNA, has been described by Wilkins in his Nobel Lecture this year... I shall discuss here the present state of a related problem in information transfer in living material - that of the genetic CODE - which has long interested me, and on which my colleagues and I, among many others, have recently been doing some experimental work..."

{{Response|This is hardly proof of anything other than the aforementioned necessity for linguistic short cuts. Scientists assigned meaning to the pattern of nucleotides that the current organisms have acquired through random mutation and natural selection and understand which sequence produces which protein, but DNA is just that, a piece of matter that copies itself by a variety of means. To attempt to use quotes such as this is tantamount to claiming Einstein for certain believed in god just because he said "God doesn't play dice."}}

The following quotes are from atheist Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker:

"Every single one of more than a trillion cells in the body contains about a thousand times as much precisely-coded digital information as my entire computer.

"Each nucleus, as we shall see in Chapter 5, contains a digitally coded database larger, in information content, than all 30 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica put together. And this figure is for each cell, not all the cells of a body put together."

{{Response|Again, this does not make any case that DNA requires a mind to have initially created it. It only shows that our capacity to communicate is limited by a listener's/reader's tolerance for long-winded descriptions of every individual phenomenon.}}

Having quoted Dawkins here, it's interesting to note that neither he, nor any materialist has ever provided any scientific (i.e. empirical, testable, falsifiable) explanation for the origin of information. For a very interesting and extensive read on this subject, read "The Problem of Information For The Theory of Evolution" by Royal Truman. If you carefully trace every reference and rebuttal to this article on the internet, you'll discover that not one person has ever supplied a scientific response to the questions raised here, nor provided any examples of materialistic processes that produce coded information.

{{Response|In actuality, there is an abundant quantity of empirical, testable, falsifiable explanations for the origin of the length and complexity of the pattern of nucleotides in the DNA of organisms that produces the phenomenon we call Life. As mentioned earlier, these include: gene duplication, gene deletion, radiation, retroviral insertion, etc.}}

No naturally occurring molecule possesses the properties of information. Nature does not produce any kind of code, encoding/decoding mechanism or symbolic relationships at all; everything in nature represents only itself.

{{Response|What they are basically saying is "because this thing wasn't created, it wasn't created" which is a tautology. "No naturally occurring molecule (something not designed) possesses the properties of information (something that is designed).}}

DNA, on the other hand, represents a complete plan for a living organism. DNA is an encoding / decoding mechanism that contains code, or language, representing the organism.

== Variations ==

* The vast majority of scientist agree that DNA is a storage system of coded information. Since all known codes are known to have been created by intelligent minds and there are no known codes which are created by natural processes, the rational conclusion to draw is that an intelligent designer created DNA.

{{Response|Although there is no doubt the vast majority of scientists will use "storage system of coded information" as a tidy way of describing what DNA is like, there is no indication that the vast majority of scientists believe some supreme being put the information there, rather, most biologists and geneticists understand that the "information" got there as a result of gene duplication, transposition, and retroviral insertion. To put is very simply, DNA is a molecule with certain chemical properties that causes it to build proteins. It is no more special or magical than any other molecule.}}

*There is a possibility that what sounds like random static could be signals from an alien civilization being sent to earth and the encryption is so complex that no computer built by humans can detect the [[pattern]]. Information Theory is a legitimate scientific [[theory]] that is used to find [[Intelligent Design]].

{{Response|Information Theory is a legitimate field of Mathematics and Engineering ONLY and has never been used by any legitimate biologist or geneticists to understand anything about DNA. Instead, Information Theory is ONLY applied in espionage and analysis of signals received by the SETI program. There is a field of computing called Bioinformatics that is used to analyze genetic code and simplify the big picture processes of protein production and function but there is no larger inference at the foundation of this field that a supreme being must have programmed all the "information" into the DNA}}

===See Also===
*[[Information]]
*[[SETI]]

===External links===
* [http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis.htm If you can read this, I can prove God exists] - Cosmicfingerprints.com

Anthropic principle

2011-04-01T20:28:30Z

Daemonowner: Corrected typo in links- 'Concequent'

{{Wikipedia|color=#EEDDEE;}}
The '''anthropic principle''' simply states that there are several universal constants and that these constants take on their values according to the requirement that carbon based life can evolve at some point during the universe's history. The universe must be old enough that this has already occurred.

==Background information==
Perhaps rather than being an argument on its own, apologists use the anthropic principle (or more precisely a straw man version of it) to further bolster the [[fine-tuning argument]] and [[argument from design]].

[[Brandon Carter]], the British Cosmologist who proposed this principle in 1976, has gone further by stating that "the Universe ''must'' have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history."

==Argument==
===Argument overview===
Astronomer and Minister [[Hugh Ross]] counts more than 100 constants, at a probability of about 1 chance in 10138 against their lining up as they have in our universe. The probability that each of these constants has lined up in a "life friendly" way, without the intervention of an outside intelligence, is astronomically small. With such a low probability of a "life friendly" universe, the only reasonable explanation for our existence is that God has "fine tuned" these attributes specifically to accommodate human life.

There are several versions of the anthropic principle. The two major variations being: "strong" and "weak". The strong anthropic principle (SAP) can also be divided into two other variations, "participatory" and "final".

===Weak anthropic principle (WAP)===
The weak anthropic principle states that in a universe that is large or infinite in space and/or in time, the conditions necessary for the development of intelligent life will be met only in certain regions that are limited in space and time. The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence." (Steven Hawking. A Brief History of Time)

===Strong anthropic principle (SAP)===
This form states that a universe "must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage of its history." (John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle)

===Participatory anthropic principle (PAP)===
This form states that a universe "must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage of its history." (John Barrow and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle)

===Final anthropic principle (FAP)===
This form states that intelligences must evolve within a universe and that once evolved will not die out.

The FAP has also been dubbed "the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (CRAP)" by author and skeptic [[Martin Gardner]].

===Syllogism===
::p1. There is some kind of special significance to human life and or the human frame of reference.
::p2. From the human frame of reference we seem to observe a number of 'constants' that are necessary for human life to be sustained
::::a. Goldilocks zone
::::b. Oxygen level
::::c. Strength of gravity fields
::::d. Etc
::p3. It is far too improbable for all the necessary 'constants' to occur by chance
::c1. Therefore the universe was specifically made this way
::c2. Therefore God

==Counter arguments==
===Straw man argument===
The proper scientific usage of the anthropic principle in physics and cosmology, is a cautionary statement ''against'' making unwarranted assumptions based on the observer's frame of reference. Directly it refers to the tautology that the universe must be able to support life because we are here to observe this fact. Or more broadly, that anything we do observe in the universe must necessarily be skewed by our limited frame of reference from within the very system we are trying to observe.

One of the rules that defines over arching laws of nature, is that they cannot be frame dependent. Einstein's law of relativity must hold true on the other side of the galaxy, just as it does here, otherwise it cannot be called a true law of nature.

An example of the anthropic principle in action would be that we are able to observe red shift in the stars surrounding us. This means that they are all moving away from us. A credulous or egocentric observer might therefore conclude we are at the center of the universe.
This is an unwarranted assumption. If however the universe were 'inflating' rather than simply expanding from a single point then another observer would see the same thing from any other position of observation within the universe.
On closer inspection we see that the red shift of the stars exponentially increases with the distance the star is from us. It appears the stars are all moving away from ''us'', but in fact they are all really moving away from ''each other''.

The theistic usage of the term ''anthropic principle'' is almost diametrically opposed to its proper scientific usage. Rather than acting as a cautionary statement against weighting our conclusions based on our frame of reference, it argues that because of our observable frame of reference there must be a god.

===False premise p1: Frames of reference===
The entire argument hinges on the human frame of reference being [[statistically significant]]. There is however no evidence to support this premise. The only significance to our personal existence or frame of reference, is the significance that we choose to grant it post hoc.

The chances of getting a royal flush (A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠) in poker is 649,740 to 1. It is interesting to note though, that there are four suits and therefore, four possible royal flushes in a deck of cards. That means that the chances of getting any specific random poker hand of five cards (K♥ J♣ 8♣ 7♦ 3♠) is actually four times more unlikely than getting a royal flush. However we simply do not grant any statistical significance to this hand in the games rules.

The fundamental core of this argument is a case of the theist being dealt a random poker hand, and then proclaiming after the fact, “Wow! The chances of me getting this specific hand of cards is 2,598,960 to 1. It must have been divine intervention."

===False premise p2: Constants===
The second false premise is related to the so called ''constants''. It is entirely possible that there are factors that make the possibilities of life in the universe statistically improbable, but reviewing the list of given reasons at some [http://www.inplainsite.org/html/anthropic_principles.html apologetics sites], their importance in the probability equation is questionable at best.

Examples:
* Goldilocks Zone – Proponents of the argument claim that earth had to be exactly a certain distance from the sun to seed life. This is not necessarily the case. [http://www.livescience.com/animals/050207_extremophiles.html Some forms of bacteria] can thrive in conditions ranging from -5°C ice sheets to 400°C underwater volcanic vents. Pressures up to 400 bar. Salt concentrations up to 10 times higher than regular sea water. The reason we see the life we do is because it has evolved to fit the environment. If a planet was further of closer to the sun, it doesn't mean life couldn't exist, just that it would be different to the life we observe now. Additionally, it is possible that our solar system is a fairly typical system. That when a star system forms it does so under strict physical laws. A gas cloud of a certain size will form a certain sized star, with certain sized planets, at certain orbital distances. Similar to the way Plateau–Rayleigh instability causes a droplet of water followed by several smaller after drops at certain distances due to the waters surface tension verses gravitational pull.
* Oxygen Levels – The oxygen level within earth's atmosphere fluctuates. As there is more plant life the oxygen levels rise, the carbon dioxide level inversely goes down. When this happens plants have less to live on and some of those plants die off. When this happens the oxygen level goes back down and the carbon dioxide level goes up again allowing the plants to reproduce more and regain vitality. This is called an equilibrium. The system balances itself. It is also worth mentioning that some animals require more oxygen and others less. The level of oxygen is not a constant. And the current level of oxygen being fixed, isn't necessary for life to exist, just extremely fragile life that has evolved within the current environment. Furthermore it is worth noting that on the [http://www.inplainsite.org/html/anthropic_principles.html website referenced], carbon dioxide level is listed as a separate 'constant' rather than a counterpoint to oxygen in a further attempt to try and make the universe appear even more complicated than it really is.
* Gravity Fields – Even something as apparently fixed and transcendental as the strength of gravity is not necessarily a set constant. Recent unified field theories in physics and cosmology propose that at high enough energies, the strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravity forces, all converge to become a single unified force. As the universe cooled after the big bang and the four forces separated, mass and energy collapsed to a state where the outward push of the nuclear forces was in a stable equilibrium with the inward pull of gravity. We even observe some cases where one of the forces fails, such as in white dwarf or neutron stars, and the matter and energy compress further under the force of gravity until once again the remaining forces are in equilibrium. The universe is not dependent on the current strength of gravity being fixed.

===False premise p3. Statistical probability===
A royal flush is considered statistically significant. It has a probability of 649,740 to 1, which whilst being improbable means if you play 649,740 hands of poker, you should statistically get a royal flush at some point.
Given the flaws with the first 2 premises that:
::p1. The only statistical significance to human life or the human frame of reference is what we arbitrarily apply to it post hoc
::p2. That the alignment of the necessary 'constants' is far less improbable than apologists would like to argue they are
Although the conditions for life similar to that on earth may still be improbable, given that there are 400 billion stars in our milky way galaxy, and that there are 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, that is a staggering number of 'poker hands' the universe has to play with. That doesn't even take into account hypothetical theories about multiverses or an oscillating big bang/big crunch universe. Of course the proper usage of the anthropic principle tells us that while it may be statistically improbable, its isn't statistically impossible given that we have at least one example of life in the universe occurring.

===Affirming the consequent===
Arguments from the anthropic principle commit the fallacy of placing the consequent ahead of the antecedent, or [[affirming the consequent]]. In plain English, it means the tail is wagging the dog. The features of humanity have evolved as a result of our environment, rather than our environment being tailored to suit us.

''[[Douglas Adams]] c.1998'':
{{Quote|Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.}}

The SAP and its variants assume that human observers are required for the existence of the universe. This is a common misrepresentation of the "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics. It is taken from the mental experiment called Schrödinger's cat. A cat is placed in a sealed box into which poison will be pumped when the nucleus of a certain atom decays. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, the atom exists as both decayed and undecayed (superpositioned) until a measurement is made. Since the atom must exist in this superpositioned state, the cat must exist in the same state until the box is opened. Note that the cat does not cease to exist, nor does the atom's nucleus. They simply exist in an unobserved state. The 'wave forms' that represent the experiment's possibilities have not collapsed into a single 'choice'. If we accept the most mystical interpretation of quantum mechanics, the universe would still exist without human intelligence. It would simply exist in an unobserved state.

==Other counter arguments==
* Because we don't know of other universes with different constants, attempting to list the constants that can somehow vary is little more than speculation. There is no reason to assume that any "constant" can be changed. Furthermore, assuming it is somehow a knob that can be turned by a god effectively makes the anthropic principle assume its conclusion.
* While the odds of a universe's fundamental constants having a ''specific'' set of values may be very low, the odds of them having ''some'' value is 1.0 (100%). It may be that life exists in our universe because it happened to form, by chance, with a set of universal constants that support life. In other words, humanity exists because of a lucky roll of the dice, so to speak.
* It is possible that terrestrial life is not the only form of life possible in our universe. For example, creatures on another planet might pass on their genes via a mechanism other than the DNA double helix. In other words, it is possible that our universe's constants are friendly to a broad variety of life forms, and therefore it is wrong to assume that they have been 'tailored' to suit just humans.
* Similarly, it is possible that the universe's constants could have varied quite a bit, and still allow earth-style life to form. In other words, a broad variety of universes might be friendly to life as we know it. Indeed, if one of the "constants" is the amount of matter in the universe, why would a god choose a value that was clearly much higher than it needed to be to create life?
* The strong, participatory, and final anthropic principles presuppose that life had to exist in our universe. This is an unwarranted assumption. If our universe could not support life, it would not contain life. There is no reason to suppose that our universe was "intended" or "supposed to" contain life.
* The underlying principles of the universe are not known. Without knowing these principles, applying odds to the settings of the Universal constants is disingenuous. A probability analysis with a sample size of one is meaningless. Since we do not know how many 'settings' are possible for each constant, we cannot assign valid odds for different 'settings'.
* It can be shown that the chances of a universe having "life friendly" universal constants, low though they may be, are higher than the chances of the existence of a supernatural creator. As Michael Ikeda and Bill Jefferys point out in their paper "The Anthropic Principle Does Not Support Supernaturalism" a self referential loop occurs when a supernatural entity is assumed as a creator. Each iteration of the loop decreases the chances of a supernatural entity's involvement in the settings of the universal constant.
* It is unknown whether this is the only iteration of "The Universe". If other universes exist or if this universe has oscillated through a series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches, the universal constants may have been reset many times. Given enough universes and/or Bangs, our "life friendly" settings would inevitably occur.
* Most physicists do not accept the most mystical interpretation of quantum mechanics. Instead they view 'wave form collapse' and 'superpositioning' as an extremely useful and accurate description of poorly understood processes.
* With the SAP, apologists are positing a [[God of the gaps]]. The SAP and its variants take as fact what most cosmologists take as speculation. Cosmologists are making highly educated guesses about how the universe works. No-one currently knows how the Universe started or what underpins it. No-one even knows IF the universe started, or if it has always existed. This gap in our knowledge may provide a place for a god to exist, but humankind has examined other holes into which God was supposed to have climbed. In each case we have found nothing there but nature. It is a good bet that this gap houses fascinating things, but no God.
*The same argument can be applied to many entities within our universe, such as bacteria, black holes, or spaghetti bolognaise. For instance: we seem to observe a number of "constants" that are necessary for black holes to be formed and sustained. It is far too improbable for all the necessary "constants" to occur by chance. Therefore, the universe was specifically made this way so that black holes could exist.

==Additional notes==
Notwithstanding the obvious fact that the universe really isn't very congenial towards life, as 99.999% of the observed universe is uninhabitable, Vic Stenger in his book ''God: The failed hypothesis'', quotes a private communication with Martin Wagner in which he points out that:
{{Quote|In fact, the whole argument from fine-tuning ultimately makes no sense. As my friend Martin Wagner notes, all physical parameters are irrelevant to an omnipotent God. 'he could have created us to live in a hard vacuum if he wanted.'}}

==Links==
===See also===
*[[Fine tuning argument]]
*[[Habitable zone]]
*[[Straw man]]
*[[Statistical significance]]
*[[Affirming the consequent]]

===External links===
* [http://www.inplainsite.org/html/anthropic_principles.html Anthropic Principle: The Design Is In The Details] – Apologist POV
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_5_28/ai_n6361530 The anthropic principle and the big bang: natural or supernatural?] - Skeptical POV
* [http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html The Anthropic Principle Does Not Support Supernaturalism] – Skeptical POV
* http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/hawking.html

===Reference===
* [[Wikipedia:Anthropic principle]] – Wikipedia article
* [[Wikipedia:Schrödinger's cat]] - Erwin Schrödinger's thought experiment regarding quantum indeterminacy.
* [[Wikipedia:Copenhagen interpretation]] – Key feature of quantum mechanics regarding particles described by wave function.
* [[Wikipedia:Unified field theory]] – Theory regarding the relationship between the 4 main forces in the universe.

{{Arguments for god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments for the existence of God]]
[[Category:Cosmological arguments]]
[[Category:Anthropic arguments]]

Talk:Biblical knowledge of round earth before science

2011-03-18T08:56:24Z

Daemonowner:

Interesting discussions -
*[http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/196697/1/Circle-or-Sphere Circle or Sphere ?]
*[http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF9-01Schneider.html Does the Bible Teach a Spherical Earth?] --[[User:George100|George100]] 03:46, 16 March 2011 (CDT)

How about a fifth option, interpretation. Shouldn't mere interpretation and cherry picking be the most likely? -- [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]] - 18/03/2011

Atheists worship materialism

2011-02-09T03:53:52Z

Daemonowner: Restructured sentence (end of rebuttal)

==Rebuttal==
The notions of [[atheism]] and [[materialism]] are two different concepts, and are not by design mutually inclusive ideas that stand hand in hand as an indistinguishable [[ideological]] position. Just because you are an atheist it does not mean you are materialistic; this statement is as correct a stance as saying that because you are a [[theist]] you are not materialistic.

==Definitions==
To fully understand whether or not "atheists [[worship]] materialism" the terms of this statement need to be defined, which are 'atheists', 'worship' and 'materialism'. In its broadest sense, an 'atheist' is a person who lacks belief in any form of [[Deity]]; 'worship' as a noun is defined as the feeling or expression of reverence for a deity, and as a verb means showing reverence and adoration for (a deity) or to honour with religious rights; and 'materialism' can either be defined as 1.) a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values, 2a) the [[doctrine]] that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications or 2b) the doctrine that consciousness and will are wholly due to material agency (Dialectical Materialism).

Using these definitions, the concept of whether or not 'atheists worship materialism' is very complex as the notions of 'atheism', 'worship' and 'materialism' on their own merits are multifaceted issues, as each term changes meaning depending on what context you use it in, such as whether or not you use the term 'materialism' in a capitalist or scientific sense. Atheists are not necessarily capitalist or scientific in their ideological stance, just as theists are not necessarily capitalist or scientific in their ideological stance, and consequently to assert that 'atheists worship materialism' is a misguided claim.

[[Category:Criticisms of atheism]]
[[Category:Arguments]]

Appeal to tradition

2011-02-06T08:31:35Z

Daemonowner:

{{argument-stub}}
'''Appeal to tradition''' is the fallacy that something is good or correct because it is old.

==Examples==
* Many people attend the church their parents attended, perhaps carrying through several generations, and when asked to defend their beliefs use the fact that it is a family tradition to argue its validity. "I believe it because my parents believed it."
* Those opposed to gay marriage often argue that since marriage was originally a bond between a man and a woman exclusively, it should now be defined in law to require a similar heterosexual relationship.
* Some people believe the United States electoral system should be changed to reflect current social standards, while others (making an appeal to tradition) say it should be kept as-is. "It has worked for over 200 years, so we shouldn't change it."

==Counterarguments==
The mere fact that something is old does not mean that it is good: throughout most of human history, people have kept slaves, but [[slavery]] is now universally recognized as being [[evil]]. On the other hand, people have lived in houses for thousands of years as well, but that does not mean that we should stop building houses: old ideas can be good as well.

===Changing conditions===
Sometimes, conditions change so that the reasons that originally supported an idea no longer hold. For instance, in the 17th century when the US constitution was ratified, travel was difficult and news traveled slowly, so it made sense for voters to elect a representative who would travel to the capital, learn about the presidential candidates, and vote on behalf of the people in his state. With the advent of mass media, however, individual voters can easily learn about the candidates, so this particular justification for the electoral college no longer holds.

==See also==
* [[Appeal to novelty]]

{{Logical fallacies}}

[[Category:Logical fallacies]]

Strong atheism

2011-02-05T04:31:33Z

Daemonowner: Added argument/fixed previous error

'''Strong atheism''' is the positive belief that no [[god]] exists.

==Arguments for strong atheism==

It is often said that one cannot [[You can't prove a negative|prove a negative]]. However, this is not really correct, and understanding this hinges on understanding the difference between two kinds of [[truth]]: contingent and logical. A contingent truth is one whose validity is contingent on other facts which may or may not be true or known. [[Scientific]] truth falls in this category. A logical truth is one whose validity depends only on logic, on the definitions and properties of concepts we ourselves define. An example is whether 2 + 2 can equal 5. It follows from the definitions of 2, 4, 5, +, and = that 2 + 2 can only equal 4, not 5. It is not necessary for a reasonable, fair, and open-minded person to remain agnostic on that question. There is nothing contingent or unknown about it.

A strong atheist would argue that the idea of a god is logically contradictory and therefore cannot exist as most [[theist]]s define the word. The [[Christian]] god is defined as an [[omniscient]], [[omnipotent]], [[intelligent]], aware being which created and was responsible for the [[universe]]. The [[problem of evil]] is one example of a logical impossibility that comes from believing that the god is also [[omnibenevolent]], this can be avoided by relaxing the requirements on God's qualities.

Since its inception, science has followed an empirical method, a combination of theory and observation. We construct our understanding by working from the simple to the complex. We understand atoms in terms of elementary particles and their forces, such as quarks, leptons, gluons, and photons. We understand molecules and chemistry in terms of atoms and their interactions. We understand biology in terms of the underlying chemistry and its emergent properties. We understand intelligence in terms of the complex interactions of the underlying neurological or electronic substrate.

Of all the things we know of in the universe, the most complex is intelligence. To posit an intelligence as the creator and driving force of everything else makes no sense, since it would itself require explanation in terms of simpler underlying entities. It makes no more sense than 2 + 2 = 5. It is not incumbent upon a reasonable, fair, open-minded person to remain [[agnostic]] on that point.

If there were in fact a deity delivering the divinely inspired word of the one true religion to the human race then it would be expected that all religions would converge on the same answers, yet that is not what we see. There are so many different religions with vastly different beliefs that one should question whether there really is an intelligence behind it all. Since religions diverge rather than converge, this should count as evidence against the proposition of a Theistic deity.

== Arguments against strong atheism ==

See [[Weak atheism#Arguments_for_weak_atheism|arguments for weak atheism]].

{{Atheism}}

[[Category: Atheism]]
[[Category: Epistemology]]

Fallacy of division

2011-02-05T04:02:33Z

Daemonowner:

A fallacy of division occurs when one reasons logically that if a property is true of something, it must be true of all of its parts.

For example:

# A Boeing 747 can fly unaided across the ocean.
# A Boeing 747 has jet engines.
# Therefore, one of its jet engines can fly unaided across the ocean.

A boeing 747 has the ability to fly unaided across the ocean because of the whole of the systems it contains allowing it to do so. Although the 747 can fly unaided, the engine does not contain the system that the 747 as a whole contains, and so it cannot fly unaided across the ocean.

Example two:

# Functioning brains think.
# Functioning brains are nothing but the neurons that they are composed of.
# If functioning brains think, then the individual neurons in them think.
# Individual neurons do not think.
# Functioning brains do not think. (From 3 & 4)
# Functioning brains think and functioning brains do not think. (From 1 & 5)

The opposite of the fallacy of division is the [[fallacy of composition]], which occurs when one fallaciously attributes a property of a part to the sum of the parts as a whole. You can see both the fallacy of division (premise 3) and the fallacy of composition (premise's 4 & 5) in the second example.

[[Category:Logical fallacies]]

Fallacy of division

2011-02-05T04:01:45Z

Daemonowner: Slightly re-worded sentence

A fallacy of division occurs when one reasons logically that if a property is true of something, it must be true of all of its parts.

For example:

# A Boeing 747 can fly unaided across the ocean.
# A Boeing 747 has jet engines.
# Therefore, one of its jet engines can fly unaided across the ocean.

A boeing 747 has the ability to fly unaided across because of the whole of the systems it contains allowing it to do so. Although the 747 can fly unaided, the engine does not contain the system that the 747 as a whole contains, and so it cannot fly unaided anywhere.

Example two:

# Functioning brains think.
# Functioning brains are nothing but the neurons that they are composed of.
# If functioning brains think, then the individual neurons in them think.
# Individual neurons do not think.
# Functioning brains do not think. (From 3 & 4)
# Functioning brains think and functioning brains do not think. (From 1 & 5)

The opposite of the fallacy of division is the [[fallacy of composition]], which occurs when one fallaciously attributes a property of a part to the sum of the parts as a whole. You can see both the fallacy of division (premise 3) and the fallacy of composition (premise's 4 & 5) in the second example.

[[Category:Logical fallacies]]

Talk:50 reasons to believe in God

2011-01-27T20:09:43Z

Daemonowner: /* Reason 5 */

==Initial discussion==
To be honest, so much of this is simply gibberish, it's going to take a while to sort out proper responses. And we thought Gish galloping was dead! [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 14:01, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:Many of them can all be lumped together or the responses can be repeated. For instance, 15-20 may probably all be dismissed with [[Douglas Adams]]' "sentient puddle" analogy. Is there another name for that besides the fine tuning argument? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 15:37, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

::As far as fallacies go, these could be a combination of unaccepted enthymemes, the existential fallacy, tautology, and/or denying the antecedent, and, of course, a priorism. -- [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 19:48, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:::Thanks for translating my makeshift "puddle fallacy" responses to the more correct "anthropic principle" -- knew I was missing a better way to say that.[[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 22:29, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

I understand the need to remain entirely objective, but I'm having trouble coming to an answer that isn't a giant "you're an idiot" with response to "26. If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised." War, famine, corruption, oppression, slavery, hatred, racism, homocide, infantacide, genocide. That's what runs through my head, and I don't think argument ad ignoratiam alone covers it. Anyway, I'd be interested in how to elegantly, neutrally and directly explaining this one. --[[User:Zurahn|Zurahn]] 18:41, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:+1 for the "you're an idiot" response to most of these. Is that allowed, or do we have to play by the rules even when they refuse to/are unable? [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 19:31, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

Anyone know why the history page lists all the edits that have been made today, which is actually June 18 unless I've stepped into some time warp, as occurring on June 6? (Wait: Goddidit?) [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 20:28, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:It's most likely that the system date of the server and separate offset in MediaWiki are conspiring to provide conflicting dates. It may be prudent to check the date on the server, and any date manipulation being done by MediaWiki. -- [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 20:43, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

And we now have an answer for every claim. 50 arguments, thoroughly demolished in less than 10 hours. Applause all around.

My next thought: how do we get this in front of the people who need to see it? I know, even if everyone who received the original email read these answers, we'd likely gain very few converts, but often just getting people to stop thinking on the level of this nonsense and considering their faith in logical terms can be the seed that sprouts into freethought, to appropriate their metaphor. I wouldn't want to start mass spamming people, but I certainly think anyone who forwards the original is fair game for a rational response, having opened the debate. What other methods can we use to make sure this effort (not that it took much, honestly) doesn't amount to us talking amongst ourselves? [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 22:27, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

: I dunno... google the wording of the original post periodically, find copies of it on the web, and publicly reply to them with this link? (i.e., post it on blogs) --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 01:04, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

I...um...broke it. I've tried to fix the Comment Box for #7, but for some reason it just won't show up.
: I couldn't identify the cause of the problem but I essentially just retyped it and it works now. [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 20:14, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

Most of these "arguments", I've noticed, aren't even "arguments for the existence of God" at all; about half are just stupid straw man assertions like "Atheists should get a life" or "Einstein said that religion and science should mingle". Of the half that aren't just ad hominem qualifiers, the list is still chock full of the false dichotomy between natural selection and creationism by a specific god. Even when I was a Christian, I don't think that I would actually take any of this seriously.
[[User:walkertheatheist|walkertheatheist]]

== Split into sections? ==

Does anyone have a strong objection to splitting the contents of this page into 50 sections? For example:
<pre><nowiki>
== Reason 1 ==
...
== Reason 2 ==
...
</nowiki></pre>
Now that all the "reasons" have rebuttals (and the page has grown to 31K), I think this would make future editing much easier, since much of it will probably be minor tweaking or expansion of individual responses. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 03:37, 20 June 2008 (CDT)
:Sure, I'll do it. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 11:22, 20 June 2008 (CDT)
:It Is Finished. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 11:52, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

== Integrate the responses into existing articles ==

Some of the responses are now very long -- which is nice, but also doesn't quite match what I had in mind originally. I was hoping that any material which requires a lengthy response or multiple responses would be integrated into existing articles, so that it can improve the state of the articles as a whole. For example, "Reason 29" is about the use of the "BC/AD" system as proof that Jesus lived. It has three separate comment boxes on it. I would hope that this text could be folded into some article, such as [[Anno Domini]] or a new apologetic argument focused article with a header such as "The Western calendar proves that Jesus was real." Also, any comment box that has external links would likely be better off pointing to an article which includes those links in the "external links" section. What do you think? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 12:23, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

== Snappy comebacks? ==

I hate to say this, I really do, because TheTrueScotsman has clearly put a lot of work into it. But I am just not sold on the idea that "Snappy comebacks" belong here. I love [http://www.leedberg.com/mad/satsq/satsq.html Mad Magazine], but this isn't a site for practicing comedy; it's for sincere counter-apologetics.

To the extent that the "snappy comebacks" make legitimate points, I think they should be worked into the counter-apologetics sections of each of the various argument pages. If they're just there to repeat things that were already said in the arguments, I feel like we can do without them.

Can I get some discussion please? I wouldn't feel comfortable just wiping out everything that TheTrueScotsman has done by fiat.
--[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 07:27, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
: Agreed in full. [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 19:46, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
:: All right then... I'll give Scotsman another day to suggest what we should do with his responses before I just take them out. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 20:55, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
::: A few days ago, [http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=50_reasons_to_believe_in_God&diff=8480&oldid=8477 I added] a "snappy comeback", as it were, to one of the comments, because, well, it seemed so ''necessary''. Having two or three sarcastic retorts (worked into the main comments) seems to me to be entirely appropriate, but not on the ''majority'' of the responses. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 22:11, 24 June 2008 (CDT)

Chaps, I've just seen that my "Snappy Comebacks" have been removed. Obviously I'm sorry if my tone was not in keeping with the objectives of the Wiki (you can tell it is my first idea at editing, having read the invitation from ''The Atheist Experience''), I just thought that sometimes detailed comebacks are not always necessary. I though the answers given - whilst completely accurate - seemed to be a little formal. In any debate a well aimed barb can often disarm an opponent better than a detailed retort. I shall, of course, bear the comments in mind for any future editing. Regards. [[User:TheTrueScotsman|TheTrueScotsman]]

:Hi Scots. I really hope that you don't take this change in your writing as an implication that you are not welcome to post on Iron Chariots. I want to encourage you and others to feel free to make improvements and corrections, and even contribute new articles when necessary. What you have to understand, however, is that a wiki is a group effort, and sometimes your changes will be overridden. In this case, you made very sweeping changes to the style of the page across the board. I think it might have been a good idea to take your ideas to the discussion page first and see if you could drum up a consensus about this. Again, this is not a universal description of policy, but when you have something that constitutes a drastic change, it's a courtesy issue.
:As far as well-aimed barbs go: I appreciate humor as a rhetorical weapon also, but sometimes it can be overdone. Most comedians know that jokes lose their impact if you repeat them too many times. You could respond to a serious argument by saying "I know you are, but what am I?" This might even get you a laugh because of the unseriousness of the response. But if you do this fifty times, first of all it gets old, and second of all it doesn't help to make your case. Do you see what I mean? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 16:20, 27 June 2008 (CDT)

== RNA ==

DNA argument, if addressed at all, need somebody knowledgeable to review it. RNA is perfect example of decoder(understander) , which supposedly according to this article is required for ID argument. RNA-DNA interactions are very tricky subject it should not be treated lightly as it seems to be in this article. —The preceding [[Project:Sign your comments|unsigned]] comment was added by [[User:Cheburashka1326|Cheburashka1326]] ([[User talk:Cheburashka1326|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Cheburashka1326|contribs]]){{if|test=9 September 2009|then=, 9 September 2009|else=.}}

== Stephen hawking quote - Doesn't answer 'why' ==

In the 45th reason, the stephen hawking quote one, the response is that religion or the bible does not answer the 'why' the universe began to exist, or why God made it. But there is a problem with that. If god made the universe, then he had a want or need to do so. Since a perfect being does not have any wants or needs then god is not perfect, and subsequently not a god. If god were to want to become a god, or more god-like then he would have a reason to create the universe (ignoring him wanting to create it for people, its just arrogant). Since he would never be more perfect than a being who was always perfect, he could never be a god, but he could become more god-like, hence his reason to create the universe (getting rid of a want or need to become more like a god).
This is actually my argument I made, maybe missing a bit of reasoning but easy to understand i think.. feel free to respond with what you think of it. --[[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]] 07:26 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe what you are referring to is the [[no-reason argument]]? I think it makes some sense, although I don't really think that the idea of a "perfect" being is even clear enough that I personally would base any argument off it. I thought we had a clear explanation of the that argument somewhere on this site, but I can't find anything but that stub. --[[User:Quantheory|quantheory]] 03:30, 16 July 2010 (CDT)

Yeah, I made the argument but I don't think I was the first to do so. [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

== Reason 44 ==

regarding the response to reason 44, isn't it true that nothing in the scientific sense gave rise to everything? unless i misunderstood lawrence krauss' speech which is very plausible. {{unsigned|Daemonowner|15 October 2010}}

== Maximum entropy? ==

At the end of the response to [[50 reasons to believe in God#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]], it says: "''If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.''" This would appear to be faulty reasoning: the universe can continuously increase in entropy (including "infinitely far" back in time) without actually ever reaching its maximum entropy, in the same way that the function ''t''/sqrt(''t''2+1) increases (as ''t'' increases) for all real numbers ''t'' [i.e., in the interval (−∞,∞)], but never reaches a maximum value. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 14:36, 22 October 2010 (CDT)

== Comment removed from article ==

I've removed this comment ([http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=50_reasons_to_believe_in_God&diff=13721&oldid=13717 submitted] by [[User:Meruem]] on 16 June 2010) from the article:
:"''Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and that its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesistate to advise the use of the AP in relgious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}''"
It doesn't seem to fit in with the whole "responses to theist arguments" theme and appears more suited to a talk page. But perhaps I've misunderstood and it can be reworked into a more appropriate "response" for the article itself? - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 16:12, 20 January 2011 (CST)

== Reason 5 ==

At the end of the first comment on the fifth argument, it says "energy requires no space". Is that supposed to say that or perhaps "energy doesn't require space?" -- [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

Talk:50 reasons to believe in God

2011-01-27T20:09:16Z

Daemonowner:

==Initial discussion==
To be honest, so much of this is simply gibberish, it's going to take a while to sort out proper responses. And we thought Gish galloping was dead! [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 14:01, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:Many of them can all be lumped together or the responses can be repeated. For instance, 15-20 may probably all be dismissed with [[Douglas Adams]]' "sentient puddle" analogy. Is there another name for that besides the fine tuning argument? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 15:37, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

::As far as fallacies go, these could be a combination of unaccepted enthymemes, the existential fallacy, tautology, and/or denying the antecedent, and, of course, a priorism. -- [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 19:48, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:::Thanks for translating my makeshift "puddle fallacy" responses to the more correct "anthropic principle" -- knew I was missing a better way to say that.[[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 22:29, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

I understand the need to remain entirely objective, but I'm having trouble coming to an answer that isn't a giant "you're an idiot" with response to "26. If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised." War, famine, corruption, oppression, slavery, hatred, racism, homocide, infantacide, genocide. That's what runs through my head, and I don't think argument ad ignoratiam alone covers it. Anyway, I'd be interested in how to elegantly, neutrally and directly explaining this one. --[[User:Zurahn|Zurahn]] 18:41, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:+1 for the "you're an idiot" response to most of these. Is that allowed, or do we have to play by the rules even when they refuse to/are unable? [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 19:31, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

Anyone know why the history page lists all the edits that have been made today, which is actually June 18 unless I've stepped into some time warp, as occurring on June 6? (Wait: Goddidit?) [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 20:28, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:It's most likely that the system date of the server and separate offset in MediaWiki are conspiring to provide conflicting dates. It may be prudent to check the date on the server, and any date manipulation being done by MediaWiki. -- [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 20:43, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

And we now have an answer for every claim. 50 arguments, thoroughly demolished in less than 10 hours. Applause all around.

My next thought: how do we get this in front of the people who need to see it? I know, even if everyone who received the original email read these answers, we'd likely gain very few converts, but often just getting people to stop thinking on the level of this nonsense and considering their faith in logical terms can be the seed that sprouts into freethought, to appropriate their metaphor. I wouldn't want to start mass spamming people, but I certainly think anyone who forwards the original is fair game for a rational response, having opened the debate. What other methods can we use to make sure this effort (not that it took much, honestly) doesn't amount to us talking amongst ourselves? [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 22:27, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

: I dunno... google the wording of the original post periodically, find copies of it on the web, and publicly reply to them with this link? (i.e., post it on blogs) --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 01:04, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

I...um...broke it. I've tried to fix the Comment Box for #7, but for some reason it just won't show up.
: I couldn't identify the cause of the problem but I essentially just retyped it and it works now. [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 20:14, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

Most of these "arguments", I've noticed, aren't even "arguments for the existence of God" at all; about half are just stupid straw man assertions like "Atheists should get a life" or "Einstein said that religion and science should mingle". Of the half that aren't just ad hominem qualifiers, the list is still chock full of the false dichotomy between natural selection and creationism by a specific god. Even when I was a Christian, I don't think that I would actually take any of this seriously.
[[User:walkertheatheist|walkertheatheist]]

== Split into sections? ==

Does anyone have a strong objection to splitting the contents of this page into 50 sections? For example:
<pre><nowiki>
== Reason 1 ==
...
== Reason 2 ==
...
</nowiki></pre>
Now that all the "reasons" have rebuttals (and the page has grown to 31K), I think this would make future editing much easier, since much of it will probably be minor tweaking or expansion of individual responses. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 03:37, 20 June 2008 (CDT)
:Sure, I'll do it. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 11:22, 20 June 2008 (CDT)
:It Is Finished. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 11:52, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

== Integrate the responses into existing articles ==

Some of the responses are now very long -- which is nice, but also doesn't quite match what I had in mind originally. I was hoping that any material which requires a lengthy response or multiple responses would be integrated into existing articles, so that it can improve the state of the articles as a whole. For example, "Reason 29" is about the use of the "BC/AD" system as proof that Jesus lived. It has three separate comment boxes on it. I would hope that this text could be folded into some article, such as [[Anno Domini]] or a new apologetic argument focused article with a header such as "The Western calendar proves that Jesus was real." Also, any comment box that has external links would likely be better off pointing to an article which includes those links in the "external links" section. What do you think? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 12:23, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

== Snappy comebacks? ==

I hate to say this, I really do, because TheTrueScotsman has clearly put a lot of work into it. But I am just not sold on the idea that "Snappy comebacks" belong here. I love [http://www.leedberg.com/mad/satsq/satsq.html Mad Magazine], but this isn't a site for practicing comedy; it's for sincere counter-apologetics.

To the extent that the "snappy comebacks" make legitimate points, I think they should be worked into the counter-apologetics sections of each of the various argument pages. If they're just there to repeat things that were already said in the arguments, I feel like we can do without them.

Can I get some discussion please? I wouldn't feel comfortable just wiping out everything that TheTrueScotsman has done by fiat.
--[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 07:27, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
: Agreed in full. [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 19:46, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
:: All right then... I'll give Scotsman another day to suggest what we should do with his responses before I just take them out. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 20:55, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
::: A few days ago, [http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=50_reasons_to_believe_in_God&diff=8480&oldid=8477 I added] a "snappy comeback", as it were, to one of the comments, because, well, it seemed so ''necessary''. Having two or three sarcastic retorts (worked into the main comments) seems to me to be entirely appropriate, but not on the ''majority'' of the responses. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 22:11, 24 June 2008 (CDT)

Chaps, I've just seen that my "Snappy Comebacks" have been removed. Obviously I'm sorry if my tone was not in keeping with the objectives of the Wiki (you can tell it is my first idea at editing, having read the invitation from ''The Atheist Experience''), I just thought that sometimes detailed comebacks are not always necessary. I though the answers given - whilst completely accurate - seemed to be a little formal. In any debate a well aimed barb can often disarm an opponent better than a detailed retort. I shall, of course, bear the comments in mind for any future editing. Regards. [[User:TheTrueScotsman|TheTrueScotsman]]

:Hi Scots. I really hope that you don't take this change in your writing as an implication that you are not welcome to post on Iron Chariots. I want to encourage you and others to feel free to make improvements and corrections, and even contribute new articles when necessary. What you have to understand, however, is that a wiki is a group effort, and sometimes your changes will be overridden. In this case, you made very sweeping changes to the style of the page across the board. I think it might have been a good idea to take your ideas to the discussion page first and see if you could drum up a consensus about this. Again, this is not a universal description of policy, but when you have something that constitutes a drastic change, it's a courtesy issue.
:As far as well-aimed barbs go: I appreciate humor as a rhetorical weapon also, but sometimes it can be overdone. Most comedians know that jokes lose their impact if you repeat them too many times. You could respond to a serious argument by saying "I know you are, but what am I?" This might even get you a laugh because of the unseriousness of the response. But if you do this fifty times, first of all it gets old, and second of all it doesn't help to make your case. Do you see what I mean? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 16:20, 27 June 2008 (CDT)

== RNA ==

DNA argument, if addressed at all, need somebody knowledgeable to review it. RNA is perfect example of decoder(understander) , which supposedly according to this article is required for ID argument. RNA-DNA interactions are very tricky subject it should not be treated lightly as it seems to be in this article. —The preceding [[Project:Sign your comments|unsigned]] comment was added by [[User:Cheburashka1326|Cheburashka1326]] ([[User talk:Cheburashka1326|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Cheburashka1326|contribs]]){{if|test=9 September 2009|then=, 9 September 2009|else=.}}

== Stephen hawking quote - Doesn't answer 'why' ==

In the 45th reason, the stephen hawking quote one, the response is that religion or the bible does not answer the 'why' the universe began to exist, or why God made it. But there is a problem with that. If god made the universe, then he had a want or need to do so. Since a perfect being does not have any wants or needs then god is not perfect, and subsequently not a god. If god were to want to become a god, or more god-like then he would have a reason to create the universe (ignoring him wanting to create it for people, its just arrogant). Since he would never be more perfect than a being who was always perfect, he could never be a god, but he could become more god-like, hence his reason to create the universe (getting rid of a want or need to become more like a god).
This is actually my argument I made, maybe missing a bit of reasoning but easy to understand i think.. feel free to respond with what you think of it. --[[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]] 07:26 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe what you are referring to is the [[no-reason argument]]? I think it makes some sense, although I don't really think that the idea of a "perfect" being is even clear enough that I personally would base any argument off it. I thought we had a clear explanation of the that argument somewhere on this site, but I can't find anything but that stub. --[[User:Quantheory|quantheory]] 03:30, 16 July 2010 (CDT)

Yeah, I made the argument but I don't think I was the first to do so. [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

== Reason 44 ==

regarding the response to reason 44, isn't it true that nothing in the scientific sense gave rise to everything? unless i misunderstood lawrence krauss' speech which is very plausible. {{unsigned|Daemonowner|15 October 2010}}

== Maximum entropy? ==

At the end of the response to [[50 reasons to believe in God#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]], it says: "''If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.''" This would appear to be faulty reasoning: the universe can continuously increase in entropy (including "infinitely far" back in time) without actually ever reaching its maximum entropy, in the same way that the function ''t''/sqrt(''t''2+1) increases (as ''t'' increases) for all real numbers ''t'' [i.e., in the interval (−∞,∞)], but never reaches a maximum value. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 14:36, 22 October 2010 (CDT)

== Comment removed from article ==

I've removed this comment ([http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=50_reasons_to_believe_in_God&diff=13721&oldid=13717 submitted] by [[User:Meruem]] on 16 June 2010) from the article:
:"''Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and that its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesistate to advise the use of the AP in relgious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}''"
It doesn't seem to fit in with the whole "responses to theist arguments" theme and appears more suited to a talk page. But perhaps I've misunderstood and it can be reworked into a more appropriate "response" for the article itself? - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 16:12, 20 January 2011 (CST)

== Reason 5 ==

5: Complexity
At the end of the first comment on the fifth argument, it says "energy requires no space". Is that supposed to say that or perhaps "energy doesn't require space?" -- [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

Talk:50 reasons to believe in God

2011-01-27T20:08:11Z

Daemonowner:

==Initial discussion==
To be honest, so much of this is simply gibberish, it's going to take a while to sort out proper responses. And we thought Gish galloping was dead! [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 14:01, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:Many of them can all be lumped together or the responses can be repeated. For instance, 15-20 may probably all be dismissed with [[Douglas Adams]]' "sentient puddle" analogy. Is there another name for that besides the fine tuning argument? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 15:37, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

::As far as fallacies go, these could be a combination of unaccepted enthymemes, the existential fallacy, tautology, and/or denying the antecedent, and, of course, a priorism. -- [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 19:48, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:::Thanks for translating my makeshift "puddle fallacy" responses to the more correct "anthropic principle" -- knew I was missing a better way to say that.[[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 22:29, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

I understand the need to remain entirely objective, but I'm having trouble coming to an answer that isn't a giant "you're an idiot" with response to "26. If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised." War, famine, corruption, oppression, slavery, hatred, racism, homocide, infantacide, genocide. That's what runs through my head, and I don't think argument ad ignoratiam alone covers it. Anyway, I'd be interested in how to elegantly, neutrally and directly explaining this one. --[[User:Zurahn|Zurahn]] 18:41, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:+1 for the "you're an idiot" response to most of these. Is that allowed, or do we have to play by the rules even when they refuse to/are unable? [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 19:31, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

Anyone know why the history page lists all the edits that have been made today, which is actually June 18 unless I've stepped into some time warp, as occurring on June 6? (Wait: Goddidit?) [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 20:28, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:It's most likely that the system date of the server and separate offset in MediaWiki are conspiring to provide conflicting dates. It may be prudent to check the date on the server, and any date manipulation being done by MediaWiki. -- [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 20:43, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

And we now have an answer for every claim. 50 arguments, thoroughly demolished in less than 10 hours. Applause all around.

My next thought: how do we get this in front of the people who need to see it? I know, even if everyone who received the original email read these answers, we'd likely gain very few converts, but often just getting people to stop thinking on the level of this nonsense and considering their faith in logical terms can be the seed that sprouts into freethought, to appropriate their metaphor. I wouldn't want to start mass spamming people, but I certainly think anyone who forwards the original is fair game for a rational response, having opened the debate. What other methods can we use to make sure this effort (not that it took much, honestly) doesn't amount to us talking amongst ourselves? [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 22:27, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

: I dunno... google the wording of the original post periodically, find copies of it on the web, and publicly reply to them with this link? (i.e., post it on blogs) --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 01:04, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

I...um...broke it. I've tried to fix the Comment Box for #7, but for some reason it just won't show up.
: I couldn't identify the cause of the problem but I essentially just retyped it and it works now. [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 20:14, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

Most of these "arguments", I've noticed, aren't even "arguments for the existence of God" at all; about half are just stupid straw man assertions like "Atheists should get a life" or "Einstein said that religion and science should mingle". Of the half that aren't just ad hominem qualifiers, the list is still chock full of the false dichotomy between natural selection and creationism by a specific god. Even when I was a Christian, I don't think that I would actually take any of this seriously.
[[User:walkertheatheist|walkertheatheist]]

== Split into sections? ==

Does anyone have a strong objection to splitting the contents of this page into 50 sections? For example:
<pre><nowiki>
== Reason 1 ==
...
== Reason 2 ==
...
</nowiki></pre>
Now that all the "reasons" have rebuttals (and the page has grown to 31K), I think this would make future editing much easier, since much of it will probably be minor tweaking or expansion of individual responses. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 03:37, 20 June 2008 (CDT)
:Sure, I'll do it. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 11:22, 20 June 2008 (CDT)
:It Is Finished. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 11:52, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

== Integrate the responses into existing articles ==

Some of the responses are now very long -- which is nice, but also doesn't quite match what I had in mind originally. I was hoping that any material which requires a lengthy response or multiple responses would be integrated into existing articles, so that it can improve the state of the articles as a whole. For example, "Reason 29" is about the use of the "BC/AD" system as proof that Jesus lived. It has three separate comment boxes on it. I would hope that this text could be folded into some article, such as [[Anno Domini]] or a new apologetic argument focused article with a header such as "The Western calendar proves that Jesus was real." Also, any comment box that has external links would likely be better off pointing to an article which includes those links in the "external links" section. What do you think? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 12:23, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

== Snappy comebacks? ==

I hate to say this, I really do, because TheTrueScotsman has clearly put a lot of work into it. But I am just not sold on the idea that "Snappy comebacks" belong here. I love [http://www.leedberg.com/mad/satsq/satsq.html Mad Magazine], but this isn't a site for practicing comedy; it's for sincere counter-apologetics.

To the extent that the "snappy comebacks" make legitimate points, I think they should be worked into the counter-apologetics sections of each of the various argument pages. If they're just there to repeat things that were already said in the arguments, I feel like we can do without them.

Can I get some discussion please? I wouldn't feel comfortable just wiping out everything that TheTrueScotsman has done by fiat.
--[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 07:27, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
: Agreed in full. [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 19:46, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
:: All right then... I'll give Scotsman another day to suggest what we should do with his responses before I just take them out. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 20:55, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
::: A few days ago, [http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=50_reasons_to_believe_in_God&diff=8480&oldid=8477 I added] a "snappy comeback", as it were, to one of the comments, because, well, it seemed so ''necessary''. Having two or three sarcastic retorts (worked into the main comments) seems to me to be entirely appropriate, but not on the ''majority'' of the responses. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 22:11, 24 June 2008 (CDT)

Chaps, I've just seen that my "Snappy Comebacks" have been removed. Obviously I'm sorry if my tone was not in keeping with the objectives of the Wiki (you can tell it is my first idea at editing, having read the invitation from ''The Atheist Experience''), I just thought that sometimes detailed comebacks are not always necessary. I though the answers given - whilst completely accurate - seemed to be a little formal. In any debate a well aimed barb can often disarm an opponent better than a detailed retort. I shall, of course, bear the comments in mind for any future editing. Regards. [[User:TheTrueScotsman|TheTrueScotsman]]

:Hi Scots. I really hope that you don't take this change in your writing as an implication that you are not welcome to post on Iron Chariots. I want to encourage you and others to feel free to make improvements and corrections, and even contribute new articles when necessary. What you have to understand, however, is that a wiki is a group effort, and sometimes your changes will be overridden. In this case, you made very sweeping changes to the style of the page across the board. I think it might have been a good idea to take your ideas to the discussion page first and see if you could drum up a consensus about this. Again, this is not a universal description of policy, but when you have something that constitutes a drastic change, it's a courtesy issue.
:As far as well-aimed barbs go: I appreciate humor as a rhetorical weapon also, but sometimes it can be overdone. Most comedians know that jokes lose their impact if you repeat them too many times. You could respond to a serious argument by saying "I know you are, but what am I?" This might even get you a laugh because of the unseriousness of the response. But if you do this fifty times, first of all it gets old, and second of all it doesn't help to make your case. Do you see what I mean? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 16:20, 27 June 2008 (CDT)

== RNA ==

DNA argument, if addressed at all, need somebody knowledgeable to review it. RNA is perfect example of decoder(understander) , which supposedly according to this article is required for ID argument. RNA-DNA interactions are very tricky subject it should not be treated lightly as it seems to be in this article. —The preceding [[Project:Sign your comments|unsigned]] comment was added by [[User:Cheburashka1326|Cheburashka1326]] ([[User talk:Cheburashka1326|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Cheburashka1326|contribs]]){{if|test=9 September 2009|then=, 9 September 2009|else=.}}

== Stephen hawking quote - Doesn't answer 'why' ==

In the 45th reason, the stephen hawking quote one, the response is that religion or the bible does not answer the 'why' the universe began to exist, or why God made it. But there is a problem with that. If god made the universe, then he had a want or need to do so. Since a perfect being does not have any wants or needs then god is not perfect, and subsequently not a god. If god were to want to become a god, or more god-like then he would have a reason to create the universe (ignoring him wanting to create it for people, its just arrogant). Since he would never be more perfect than a being who was always perfect, he could never be a god, but he could become more god-like, hence his reason to create the universe (getting rid of a want or need to become more like a god).
This is actually my argument I made, maybe missing a bit of reasoning but easy to understand i think.. feel free to respond with what you think of it. --[[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]] 07:26 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe what you are referring to is the [[no-reason argument]]? I think it makes some sense, although I don't really think that the idea of a "perfect" being is even clear enough that I personally would base any argument off it. I thought we had a clear explanation of the that argument somewhere on this site, but I can't find anything but that stub. --[[User:Quantheory|quantheory]] 03:30, 16 July 2010 (CDT)

Yeah, I made the argument but I don't think I was the first to do so. [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

== Reason 44 ==

regarding the response to reason 44, isn't it true that nothing in the scientific sense gave rise to everything? unless i misunderstood lawrence krauss' speech which is very plausible. {{unsigned|Daemonowner|15 October 2010}}

== Maximum entropy? ==

At the end of the response to [[50 reasons to believe in God#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]], it says: "''If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.''" This would appear to be faulty reasoning: the universe can continuously increase in entropy (including "infinitely far" back in time) without actually ever reaching its maximum entropy, in the same way that the function ''t''/sqrt(''t''2+1) increases (as ''t'' increases) for all real numbers ''t'' [i.e., in the interval (−∞,∞)], but never reaches a maximum value. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 14:36, 22 October 2010 (CDT)

== Comment removed from article ==

I've removed this comment ([http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=50_reasons_to_believe_in_God&diff=13721&oldid=13717 submitted] by [[User:Meruem]] on 16 June 2010) from the article:
:"''Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and that its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesistate to advise the use of the AP in relgious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}''"
It doesn't seem to fit in with the whole "responses to theist arguments" theme and appears more suited to a talk page. But perhaps I've misunderstood and it can be reworked into a more appropriate "response" for the article itself? - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 16:12, 20 January 2011 (CST)

5: Complexity
At the end of the first comment on the fifth argument, it says "energy requires no space". Is that supposed to say that or perhaps "energy doesn't require space?" -- [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

Talk:Jesus died for your sins

2011-01-13T07:37:25Z

Daemonowner: /* thanks */

I'm not sure that all christians believe that jesus is god. I think that some view the 3 in the trinity to be parts of the same being, but others view the 3 as distinct beings. I'm not really sure about that, so I didn't want to edit the page. But the part about him going to heaven to be with god, his father, (who is also himself) only appies to the belief of some christians, not all (if I'm right). So maybe there should be something there that specifies that the part of this argument that points out that jesus is god only applies to the christians who believe jesus and god are the same?

:In general, we don't mean to imply that every usage of "Christians" necessarily means "all Christians". It's worth making the points you mentioned, though perhaps not in this article. This entry addresses a particular claim "Jesus died for your sins" and only addresses the question of divinity as one possible apologetic. For doctrinal assertions like this, we try to list a variety of counter-apologetics. Not all of them will be relevant to all interpretations or theologies, but they should all be relevant to some view. The issue of Jesus' divinity is one that should be addressed (it's worth noting that not all people who identify as Christians accept the notion of the trinity or the idea that Jesus was divine) - I'm just not sure that it's relevant to this point. Feel free to add it here (or in a more relevant article), someone can always go back and edit for clarity or relevance later. :) [[User:Sans Deity|Sans Deity]] 11:59, 7 March 2007 (CST)

== thanks ==

Thanks for the clarification. I won't edit the page, though. Also, I'm sort of intimidated by the prospect of writing an article that people will be relying on for accurate, thorough information, so I might just stick to correcting spelling and grammatical errors that I see. It's a small job, but it's what I do best. I'm considering writing some articles, but it'll take forever to get them right. :)

: Pebbles, I think you should look at the Wikipedia article about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BB being bold], and adopt that strategy. If you make an article that's full of errors, somebody will be along shortly to fix them.
: Also I'd like to point out that on the talk pages, you should make a habit of signing your posts. You can do this by ending the article with four tildes (~) in a row, or if you can't remember this, find the icon on top that looks like a scribbled signature. It's the second from the last button. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 21:30, 11 March 2007 (CDT)
----
Say, this entire thing, Christian and Jewish religion together, is dependent on one critical concept' that guilt is a transferable commodity. It is not of course.

This being the case, his dying on the cross accomplishes nothing whatsoever; you're still guilty.
the old Hebrew practice with the goat? Same thing. No transfer, guilt remains.

One of the critical foundation stones of the internal logic of both faiths is hopelessly flawed.
-Deliberatus Freeman

What do you, as the readers, think of this argument:
There were christians centuries ago that believed that Christ did not die, namely the docetists. Both sects of christianity use faith to justify their position, so why should anyone, as outsiders to the faith, accept that christ even died?
- [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

Talk:Jesus died for your sins

2011-01-13T07:36:36Z

Daemonowner:

Mormonism

2010-10-24T02:40:19Z

Daemonowner: /* Women's roles in Mormonism */ typo

{{wikipedia|Mormonism}}
'''Mormonism''', is a religious movement founded by [[Joseph Smith]] in the early 1800's. The official name of the church today is '''The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints''', sometimes shortened to '''LDS''' to refer to both the church or its members. Mormonism is one of the few young religions, based on [[Christianity]], along with [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] and [[Scientology]], to have survived with any significant membership.

==Church History==

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known commonly as the Mormon church) was orginized on April 6th, 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr. and several of his followers in Palmyra, New York. Joseph proclaimed himself as a prophet, receiving visions and other revelations from [[God]], [[angels]], biblical figures and even claimed to encounter the [[Devil]]. Furthermore, Joseph Smith proclaimed that God and [[Jesus]] (although this version of the revelation would be changed many times) told him that he had been chosen by God to restore God's "true church" on this earth. This first revelation is usually set in the Spring of 1820, though the initial versions were not written down until 1828 at the earliest.

Church members are known as Mormons, or amoung themselves the saints. The Mormon Church is officially known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Church headquarters are located in Salt Lake City, Utah.

(need to add more detail and expound)

===Great Migration to Salt Lake City===

Following the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joseph_Smith,_Jr. death of Joseph Smith], the Mormons moved westwared and eventually settled in the Salt Lake Valley in what would eventually become the Utah Territory and then the State of Utah. In the decades following, converts to Mormonism migrated to Utah, which is still largely dominated politically by the religion.

==Prophets==

===Joseph Smith===
[[Joseph Smith]] Jr. was born in Sharon, Vermont, to Lucy Mack and Joseph Smith, on December 23, 1805. Smith grew up on a series of tenant farms in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. Smith's education consisted of a very limited exposure to the reading, writing, and arithmetic. It is known however that his Father Joseph Sr. was a school teacher.

In 1823, Joseph Smith said he was visited by an angel named Moroni, who told him of an ancient record containing God's dealings with the former inhabitants of the American continent. These writings served as the foundation of the Mormon religion, with Joseph Smith as prophet.

====Counter-apologetics====

{{Comment-box1|text=Because of their living prophets, Mormons' doctrine has changed over time, including temple ceremonies and the church's policy of denying the priesthood to racial minorities. Most Mormons are unaware of these significant changes.
}}

===Brigham Young===

[[Brigham Young]] became the second prophet, or president, of the Mormon church after Joseph Smith was killed in 1844. He led the great migration from Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley.

==Holy Books==
Mormons do not rely solely upon the Bible as a basis for their beliefs. According to Mormonism's Articles of Faith (see [[Articles of Faith (Mormonism)]]), Mormons "believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly" (Articles of Faith, 8). In fact, Joseph Smith did hazard a retranslation of the Bible. Because Mormons believe in a living prophet and continuing revelation, other official church publications are considered to be part of church doctrine.

===Book of Mormon===
Initially printed in 1830, the [[Book of Mormon]] is the primary holy book of Mormonism, though much of the church's structure and rituals are derived from the Doctrine and Covenants, which were written later. The book is similar in style and content to the Bible, but describes God's dealings with the inhabitants of the Americas, the ancestors of Native Americans. It includes the description of Christ's visit to these people after his death and resurrection, as well as the source of the "dark skin" which they received as a curse.

A foreword to the Book of Mormon contains the promise that readers may pray to God for a confirmation of it's authenticity. This promise is used extensively by Mormons (especially missionaries) in proselytizing.

===Doctrine and Covenants===

The [[Doctrine and Covenants]] is a collection of "revelations" that Joseph recieved from Jesus Christ. It contains amoung other things instructions for how the church should be run. It was originally called the "Book of Commandments"

A key section is D&C 132 which gives the requirements for Polygamy. Specifically verses 61-65.

===Pearl of Great Price===
The [[Pearl of Great Price]] is a collection of books, including the Articles of Faith, supposed translations from Egyptian papyri and the official Joseph Smith History. These books include some of the most exotic Mormon doctrines, including the plurality of gods, the potential for humans to become gods and a different portrayal of the creation story from the Old Testament book of [[Genesis]].

===Counter-apologetics===

{{Comment-box1|text=Because Mormons have many more writings, there exist more opportunities to find contradictions. Also, their world-view provides much less wiggle room for Mormon apologists. The nature of God and the way the universe works, as described in Mormon scripture, is so much more detailed that Mormons have a much harder time dealing with arguments like the [[problem of evil]], or retreating into an ill-defined [[deism]], without violating their own doctrines.}}

==Other official Mormon publications==

====Journal of Discourses====

The [[Journal of Discourses]] (often abbreviated J.D.) is a 26-volume collection of public sermons by early leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first editions of the Journal were published in England by George D. Watt, the stenographer of Brigham Young. Publication began in 1854, with the endorsement of the church's First Presidency, and ended in 1886. The Journal is one of the richest sources of early Mormon theology and thinking. It includes 1,438 sermons given by 55 church leaders, including most numerously Brigham Young, John Taylor, Orson Pratt, Heber C. Kimball, and George Q. Cannon.

While the J.D. is not considered scripture by the modern church it is still important to it's history.

====Holy Bible: Joseph Smith Translation====

Joseph Smith also performed a "re-translation" of the King James version of the Holy Bible. Mormon's include these translations as footnotes in their versions of the Bible. In his translation, Smith attempts to clarify contradictory passages to fit more precisely with the Book of Mormon and his other writings.

==Church Doctrine==

===The Mormon godhead===

Mormons reject the concept of the [[Trinity]], and thus believe that God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are three distinct beings. God and Christ both have resurrected bodies of "flesh and bone" ([http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/130/22#22 D&C 130:22]), but not blood. The Holy Ghost is made of "spirit" ([http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/130/22#22 D&C 130:22]). Christ, the Holy Ghost and all human souls are considered the literal "spiritual offspring" of God, the Father.

{{Comment-box1|text=Because God and Christ are corporeal, it is impossible for Mormons to claim to be deists. Mormons cannot argue that their claims relate to a supernatural realm, because they believe that "There is no such thing as immaterial matter" (D&C 130:22). Claims made by Mormons are therefore subject to scientific inquiry and falsification.}}

===Mormon world view===

Mormons believe that human beings have the potential, if they follow God's plan, to become gods themselves([http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/132/20#20 D&C 132:20]). In the Mormon world view, the purpose of the existence of this world is as a training ground for new gods. According to that view, human souls or intelligences existed in heaven, with God, before birth. Receiving a physical body, and eventually a perfected body after the final [[resurrection]], is part of becoming like God the Father and Jesus Christ, who both have bodies of "flesh and bones" ([http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/130/22#22 D&C 130:22])

===Polygamy===
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the largest church devoted to the Latter-Day Saint movement, openly endorsed and encouraged polygamous relationships for nearly the first century of its existence. Early church leaders such as Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, Jr. had as many as 50 wives, and preached that it was the only way to enter heaven. As the Utah Territory, settled by Mormon pioneers, fought the government of the United States for recognition as a state, the Church came under criticism for its practice of polygamy. In 1890, Church president Wilford Woodruff issued a manifesto that renounced the practice, as a condition of Utah's statehood.

Today, practice of polygamy can lead to disfellowship ([[excommunication]]) from the LDS church, and the church claims it works with the government to stop those who practice polygamy. Nevertheless, many Latter-Day Saint sects, collectively known as ''fundamentalist Mormons'', continue the practice of polygamy. The largest of these groups is the [[Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints]] (FLDS Church), which is based in Texas and has approximately 10,000 members across North America.

===Temples and ceremonies===

As of 2010, the Mormon church had built 160 temples, with 22 more announced or under construction ([http://www.lds.org/temples/chronological/0,11206,1900-1,00.html LDS.org]). Mormon temples are the setting for many of the church's secretive rituals, including marriages, sealings and the mysterious [[Endownment]] ceremonies. Mormons also perform all these ceremonies, by proxy, for their ancestors who died before Mormonism came into being. Temples are also the setting for [[baptism for the dead]].

The church claims that ceremonies for the dead are limited to people for whom Mormons have discovered as ancestors through the church's extensive geneology program. But the church has been criticized in the past for posthumously baptizing people outside of their members' family trees, including many of the Founding Fathers and Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

Only Mormons, who have been screened by local priesthood leaders for a "temple recommend," may enter the temple to perform ceremonies.

===The Priesthood===
The two priesthoods that the Mormons claim are the [[Aaronic priesthood]] and the [[Melchizedek priesthood]], referred to collectively as simply the Priesthood. Both of these priesthoods are constituted by various offices and priviledges, called keys, that constitute the Mormon leadership heirarchy. The priesthood is passed, by the laying on of hands, from one priesthood holder higher up on the heirarchy.

Mormons believe that these priesthoods are the only authentic priesthoods on Earth, and that all other churches claiming divine authority from God are without authority. Mormons believe that Peter, one of Jesus's original apostles, was given the priesthood keys. But they believe that the chain of heirarchy was broken and that the [[Catholic]] church is bereft of any authority. God supposedly restored these priesthoods to the earth through Joseph Smith.

All the rituals of the Mormon church are conducted by authorized priesthood holders, including baptisms, temple weddings (known as sealings), and general-purpose blessings.

===Women's roles in Mormonism===

Mormon society, like most of Christianity, is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy patriarchy]. Women are subordinate to men in the organization of the church and family structures. Women are prohibited from holding either of the church's two priesthoods, and thus are prohibited from holding priesthood based callings or leadership positions within the church. Women do hold leadership positions in the church's women's organizations, such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief_Society Relief Society].

During the Mormon church's bi-annual broadcasts, known as general conference, the majority of the speakers are the male leaders of the church.

As children, girls and boys are separated by gender into separate Sunday school classes. They also share co-ed classes and meetings as part of the regular three hour block of Sunday meetings.

Church leaders repeatedly recommend that women, when possible, should stay at home and rear children rather than pursue professional careers.

===Adam-God doctrine===

Brigham Young (who was the 2nd prophet of the LDS church) taught that Adam and God where in fact the same being. He taught that God came with one of his many wives to the Garden of Eden, and he was Adam. - Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 50

===Eternal progression===

Eternal progression refers to as the continual development of the soul. Mormons consider each human soul to be the spiritual offspring of God, the Father. All humans who have lived, or will live on Earth, are considered to have been spiritually conceived, as spirit children, by God and one or more of his presumed wives. Jehovah is considered the firstborn spirit child of God. Satan and his followers are also spirit children. Mormons also believe that there are other habitable planets (such as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolob Kolob]) in the universe, also inhabited by God's children, though Christ lived, died and was resurrected only on this planet. Thus, Mormons believe that Jesus died for the sins of all human mortals, on all planets in the universe. Presumably, there would be other gods' children in the universe, all with their own saviours, going through the same cycle of eternal progression. Whether Mormons consider these humans, belonging to other gods, to be in a separate universe of ours is the matter of some debate.

All spirit children have the potential, through eternal progression, to become gods in their own right, provided they follow God's plan. God himself is considered by Mormons to have once been a spirit child of yet other gods, an also passed through a mortal life, gaining a physical body and following his own eternal progression to his current state of godhood. Gods are thought to be eternally progressing, even though they are considered perfect, through the maturation of their spiritual progeny.

{{Comment-box1|text=The concept of Eternal progression, and of humans as gods in the making, runs into the [[infinite regress]] of [[Who created God?]].}}

The cycle of spiritual death, physical death and redemption from both through a messianic sacrifice is continual according to this model. The goals of the cycle for each individual include: baptism by immersion, receving the [[gift of the Holy Ghost]], achieving the highest levels of the Mormon priesthood and the various Mormon temple rites. Those who follow God's plan will eventually live with God and Christ in the Celestial kingdom. Those who do not follow that plan will receive lesser [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_glory degrees of glory] and live in either the Terrestrial kingdom, Telestial kingdom or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_darkness#Usage_in_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints Outer darkness].

{{Comment-box1|text=According to this view -- gods as fully matured human beings -- God is following his plan and issuing his commandments according to the conditions required to nurture his human children into gods. This means that Mormons believe that the "good" is good, not becuase God declares it so, but because he is operating according to a set of requirements or rules not of his making (see the [[Euthyphro dilemma]]). This makes it harder for Mormons to explain away immoral actions taken by their god, including murdering millions in the [[Flood]].}}

===Eternal families===

Mormons believe that marital and familial bonds can continue beyond death if those family members are sealed in a Mormon temple by a priesthood holder designated as a sealer. Sealed families will remain families in the afterlife, and will be together if they all go to the same kingdom. Deceased family members may also be sealed, provide they have been baptised posthumously, by proxy.

{{Comment-box1|text=The doctrine of eternal families is problematic, as the Mormon church does grant petitions to divorced couples to have their sealings annulled. Also, only those who have been baptised into the Mormon church and are vetted through an interview process may enter a temple to perform temple rituals. So Mormons, who's spouses are not baptized, may not be sealed to their children.}}

{{Christianity}}

[[Category: Religions]]
[[Category: Religious doctrine]]

YouTube

2010-10-22T23:39:22Z

Daemonowner: Added 'TheThinkingAtheist' to proscience/atheist

There are many videos on YouTube dealing with Evolution, Creation, atheism and God.

== Channels==
=== Pro-Science/Atheist ===
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t Thunderf00t]
:Creator of the ''[http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AC3481305829426D Why do people laugh at creationists?]'' series of videos, various science/astronomy videos, along with videos documenting his humiliation of VenomFangX.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/richarddawkinsdotnet richarddawkinsdotnet]
:The Richard Dawkins Foundation. Lectures, documentaries and interviews by Richard Dawkins.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell patcondell]
:Stand-up comedian [[Pat Condell]], with almost 84.000 followers (as of June 2009).
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/FFreeThinker FFreeThinker]
:Various atheist and science videos, including more than hundred (as of June 2009) excerpts from [[The Atheist Experience]].
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/BestOfAtheism BestOfAtheism]
:Another channel by FFreeThinker.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/MrEvilution777 MrEvilution777]
:Brett Keane, very active creator of various atheist videos, often calling pastors and churches asking tough questions in a civil manner.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/ZOMGitsCriss ZOMGitsCriss]
:Romanian atheist woman with 40+ videos.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/AronRa AronRa]
:Creator of the ''[http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=126AFB53A6F002CC Foundational Falsehood of Creationism]'' series of videos.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54 Potholer54]
:Creator of the ''[http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=DB23537556D7AADB From Big Bang to Us – Made Easy]'' series of videos.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/EdwardCurrent Edward Current]
:Creates parodies of creationist videos which are sometimes mistaken for the real thing - see [[Poe's law]].
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/MrsBettyBowers MrsBettyBowers]
:"Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's best Christian." Christian satire.
;[http://www.youtube.com/ExtantDodo ExtantDodo]
:Goes through creationist videos, such as those of [[Kent Hovind]], and debunks their claims step by step.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/cdk007 cdk007]
:Many pro-evolution videos and creationist criticism.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/FightingAtheist FightingAtheist]
:19 self-produced good videos.
;[http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Nick+Gisburne+&search_type=&aq=f Nick Gisburne]
:Believers tried to ban him from You Tube but he got back.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/QualiaSoup QualiaSoup]
:Pro-reason videos focused on correct use of logic and semantics.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/1GOD1JESUS 1GOD1JESUS]
:Father Greg, Christian evangelist satire
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/GodVids GodVids]
:God himself has a Youtube channel.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/AngieAntiTheist AngieAntiTheist]
:Former religious cult member.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/FactVsReligion FactVsReligion]
:Commentary
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/KingHeathen KingHeathen]
:Commentary
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/misterdeity MisterDeity]
:God "behind the scenes" brilliant sketch comedy.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStampCollector NonStampCollector]
:Animated comedy demonstrating absurdities of Christianity.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/Noworkbum Noworkbum]
:"Eye on Religion" news segment; Pastor Dick, Christian satire
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/Zjemptv Zjemptv]
:Commentary
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/TremickWorld Tremick's World]
:Commentary
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/xxxThePeachxxx xxxThePeachxxx]
:Commentary
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/Theologikos Theologikos]
:Christian evangelist satire
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/BornWithoutReligion BornWithoutReligion]
:Commentary
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/coughlan666 Richard "The Dick" Coughlan]
:Commentary
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/dprjones dprjones]
;no description
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/TheThinkingAtheist TheThinkingAtheist]
;Well produced videos sparking debate on religion

=== Skeptic ===
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesRandiFoundation JamesRandiFoundation]
:The [[James Randi Educational Foundation]]. Videos where [[James Randi|James "The Amazing" Randi]] talks about various topics related to skepticism and critical thinking + debunks various forms of superstition.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/TheFriendlySkeptic TheFriendlySkeptic]
:Many videos from various sources related to skepticism.

=== Pro-Creation ===
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/VenomFangArchive VenomFangArchive]
:Archive with all videos made by the infamous creationist [[VenomFangX]]. All these videos were removed from the [http://www.youtube.com/user/VenomFangX VenomFangX channel] when he left YouTube.
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/thewayofthemaster thewayofthemaster]
:[[Ray Comfort]] & [[Kirk Cameron]] of [[The Way of the Master]] ministries. Perhaps best known for the video [[Banana argument|Bananas - The Atheist's Worst Nightmare]].
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/AnotherBrotherMark AnotherBrotherMark]
:Self described as "Youtube's most despicable Christian"
;[http://www.youtube.com/user/NephilimFree NephilimFree]
:An abrasive young-earth creationist and geocentrist who is described by many as one of the creepiest and most deranged personalities one could wish to come across in the YouTube community. Well known for his signature oversized head-gear apparatus, delusions of grandeur, and theories from far out in left field, he comes across as loopy entertainment to some and unbearable to others.

==See also==
* [[Atheist podcasts]]

== External links ==
[http://www.youtube.com/ YouTube website]

[[Category:Media]]
[[Category:Web sites]]

Talk:50 reasons to believe in God

2010-10-16T08:11:15Z

Daemonowner: /* Stephen hawking quote - Doesn't answer 'why' */

Talk:50 reasons to believe in God

2010-10-16T03:37:59Z

Daemonowner: Reason 44

==Initial discussion==
To be honest, so much of this is simply gibberish, it's going to take a while to sort out proper responses. And we thought Gish galloping was dead! [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 14:01, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:Many of them can all be lumped together or the responses can be repeated. For instance, 15-20 may probably all be dismissed with [[Douglas Adams]]' "sentient puddle" analogy. Is there another name for that besides the fine tuning argument? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 15:37, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

::As far as fallacies go, these could be a combination of unaccepted enthymemes, the existential fallacy, tautology, and/or denying the antecedent, and, of course, a priorism. -- [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 19:48, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:::Thanks for translating my makeshift "puddle fallacy" responses to the more correct "anthropic principle" -- knew I was missing a better way to say that.[[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 22:29, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

I understand the need to remain entirely objective, but I'm having trouble coming to an answer that isn't a giant "you're an idiot" with response to "26. If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised." War, famine, corruption, oppression, slavery, hatred, racism, homocide, infantacide, genocide. That's what runs through my head, and I don't think argument ad ignoratiam alone covers it. Anyway, I'd be interested in how to elegantly, neutrally and directly explaining this one. --[[User:Zurahn|Zurahn]] 18:41, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:+1 for the "you're an idiot" response to most of these. Is that allowed, or do we have to play by the rules even when they refuse to/are unable? [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 19:31, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

Anyone know why the history page lists all the edits that have been made today, which is actually June 18 unless I've stepped into some time warp, as occurring on June 6? (Wait: Goddidit?) [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 20:28, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

:It's most likely that the system date of the server and separate offset in MediaWiki are conspiring to provide conflicting dates. It may be prudent to check the date on the server, and any date manipulation being done by MediaWiki. -- [[User:Nullifidian|Nullifidian]] 20:43, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

And we now have an answer for every claim. 50 arguments, thoroughly demolished in less than 10 hours. Applause all around.

My next thought: how do we get this in front of the people who need to see it? I know, even if everyone who received the original email read these answers, we'd likely gain very few converts, but often just getting people to stop thinking on the level of this nonsense and considering their faith in logical terms can be the seed that sprouts into freethought, to appropriate their metaphor. I wouldn't want to start mass spamming people, but I certainly think anyone who forwards the original is fair game for a rational response, having opened the debate. What other methods can we use to make sure this effort (not that it took much, honestly) doesn't amount to us talking amongst ourselves? [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 22:27, 18 June 2008 (CDT)

: I dunno... google the wording of the original post periodically, find copies of it on the web, and publicly reply to them with this link? (i.e., post it on blogs) --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 01:04, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

I...um...broke it. I've tried to fix the Comment Box for #7, but for some reason it just won't show up.
: I couldn't identify the cause of the problem but I essentially just retyped it and it works now. [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 20:14, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

Most of these "arguments", I've noticed, aren't even "arguments for the existence of God" at all; about half are just stupid straw man assertions like "Atheists should get a life" or "Einstein said that religion and science should mingle". Of the half that aren't just ad hominem qualifiers, the list is still chock full of the false dichotomy between natural selection and creationism by a specific god. Even when I was a Christian, I don't think that I would actually take any of this seriously.
[[User:walkertheatheist|walkertheatheist]]

== Split into sections? ==

Does anyone have a strong objection to splitting the contents of this page into 50 sections? For example:
<pre><nowiki>
== Reason 1 ==
...
== Reason 2 ==
...
</nowiki></pre>
Now that all the "reasons" have rebuttals (and the page has grown to 31K), I think this would make future editing much easier, since much of it will probably be minor tweaking or expansion of individual responses. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 03:37, 20 June 2008 (CDT)
:Sure, I'll do it. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 11:22, 20 June 2008 (CDT)
:It Is Finished. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 11:52, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

== Integrate the responses into existing articles ==

Some of the responses are now very long -- which is nice, but also doesn't quite match what I had in mind originally. I was hoping that any material which requires a lengthy response or multiple responses would be integrated into existing articles, so that it can improve the state of the articles as a whole. For example, "Reason 29" is about the use of the "BC/AD" system as proof that Jesus lived. It has three separate comment boxes on it. I would hope that this text could be folded into some article, such as [[Anno Domini]] or a new apologetic argument focused article with a header such as "The Western calendar proves that Jesus was real." Also, any comment box that has external links would likely be better off pointing to an article which includes those links in the "external links" section. What do you think? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 12:23, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

== Snappy comebacks? ==

I hate to say this, I really do, because TheTrueScotsman has clearly put a lot of work into it. But I am just not sold on the idea that "Snappy comebacks" belong here. I love [http://www.leedberg.com/mad/satsq/satsq.html Mad Magazine], but this isn't a site for practicing comedy; it's for sincere counter-apologetics.

To the extent that the "snappy comebacks" make legitimate points, I think they should be worked into the counter-apologetics sections of each of the various argument pages. If they're just there to repeat things that were already said in the arguments, I feel like we can do without them.

Can I get some discussion please? I wouldn't feel comfortable just wiping out everything that TheTrueScotsman has done by fiat.
--[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 07:27, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
: Agreed in full. [[User:Fishbulb|fishbulb]] 19:46, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
:: All right then... I'll give Scotsman another day to suggest what we should do with his responses before I just take them out. --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 20:55, 24 June 2008 (CDT)
::: A few days ago, [http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=50_reasons_to_believe_in_God&diff=8480&oldid=8477 I added] a "snappy comeback", as it were, to one of the comments, because, well, it seemed so ''necessary''. Having two or three sarcastic retorts (worked into the main comments) seems to me to be entirely appropriate, but not on the ''majority'' of the responses. - [[User:Dcljr|dcljr]] 22:11, 24 June 2008 (CDT)

Chaps, I've just seen that my "Snappy Comebacks" have been removed. Obviously I'm sorry if my tone was not in keeping with the objectives of the Wiki (you can tell it is my first idea at editing, having read the invitation from ''The Atheist Experience''), I just thought that sometimes detailed comebacks are not always necessary. I though the answers given - whilst completely accurate - seemed to be a little formal. In any debate a well aimed barb can often disarm an opponent better than a detailed retort. I shall, of course, bear the comments in mind for any future editing. Regards. [[User:TheTrueScotsman|TheTrueScotsman]]

:Hi Scots. I really hope that you don't take this change in your writing as an implication that you are not welcome to post on Iron Chariots. I want to encourage you and others to feel free to make improvements and corrections, and even contribute new articles when necessary. What you have to understand, however, is that a wiki is a group effort, and sometimes your changes will be overridden. In this case, you made very sweeping changes to the style of the page across the board. I think it might have been a good idea to take your ideas to the discussion page first and see if you could drum up a consensus about this. Again, this is not a universal description of policy, but when you have something that constitutes a drastic change, it's a courtesy issue.
:As far as well-aimed barbs go: I appreciate humor as a rhetorical weapon also, but sometimes it can be overdone. Most comedians know that jokes lose their impact if you repeat them too many times. You could respond to a serious argument by saying "I know you are, but what am I?" This might even get you a laugh because of the unseriousness of the response. But if you do this fifty times, first of all it gets old, and second of all it doesn't help to make your case. Do you see what I mean? --[[User:Kazim|Kazim]] 16:20, 27 June 2008 (CDT)

== RNA ==

DNA argument, if addressed at all, need somebody knowledgeable to review it. RNA is perfect example of decoder(understander) , which supposedly according to this article is required for ID argument. RNA-DNA interactions are very tricky subject it should not be treated lightly as it seems to be in this article. —The preceding [[Project:Sign your comments|unsigned]] comment was added by [[User:Cheburashka1326|Cheburashka1326]] ([[User talk:Cheburashka1326|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Cheburashka1326|contribs]]){{if|test=9 September 2009|then=, 9 September 2009|else=.}}

== Stephen hawking quote - Doesn't answer 'why' ==

In the 45th reason, the stephen hawking quote one, the response is that religion or the bible does not answer the 'why' the universe began to exist, or why God made it. But there is a problem with that. If god made the universe, then he had a want or need to do so. Since a perfect being does not have any wants or needs then god is not perfect, and subsequently not a god. If god were to want to become a god, or more god-like then he would have a reason to create the universe (ignoring him wanting to create it for people, its just arrogant). Since he would never be more perfect than a being who was always perfect, he could never be a god, but he could become more god-like, hence his reason to create the universe (getting rid of a want or need to become more like a god).
This is actually my argument I made, maybe missing a bit of reasoning but easy to understand i think.. feel free to respond with what you think of it. --[[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]] 07:26 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe what you are referring to is the [[no-reason argument]]? I think it makes some sense, although I don't really think that the idea of a "perfect" being is even clear enough that I personally would base any argument off it. I thought we had a clear explanation of the that argument somewhere on this site, but I can't find anything but that stub. --[[User:Quantheory|quantheory]] 03:30, 16 July 2010 (CDT)

== Reason 44 ==

regarding the response to reason 44, isn't it true that nothing in the scientific sense gave rise to everything? unless i misunderstood lawrence krauss' speech which is very plausible.

50 reasons to believe in God

2010-10-09T10:22:43Z

Daemonowner: /* Reason 39: A bad lie? */

: ''For the book by Guy P. Harrison, see [[50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God]].''

'''50 reasons to believe in [[God]]''' is an email that made the rounds of [[atheist]] [[Wikipedia:Blog|blog]]gers in June 2008. [[PZ Myers]], on his blog [[Pharyngula]], identifies the original author as Debra Rufini, an author whose recent book contains "an imaginary scenario in which [[Richard Dawkins]] gets psychiatric counseling…from Jesus".[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php]

What follows is a collection of responses to these purported "reasons".

(Note that the title associated with each "reason" did not appear in the original e-mail and is provided here merely for reference.)

==Responses to the message==

===Preamble===
<tt>It is easy to prove to yourself that God is real. .the evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs:</tt>

{{Comment-box1|label=General responses:|text=None of the arguments put forth in this e-mail are "proofs" of God's existence. Technically, most of them aren't even "reasons" to believe. On the other hand, the author did say, "prove to yourself", which is, one could argue, different from proving a claim to someone else. Nevertheless, almost all of the arguments rely on the same handful of [[logic]]al [[fallacies]], the responses to which can be summarized as follows:
# Disproof of one claim is not proof of another (unless they are exact logical opposites).
# The [[burden of proof]] lies with the person making the claim that something exists or should be "believed in".
# Just because you [[argumentum ad ignorantiam|can't figure out what caused something]], or can't understand how something works, doesn't mean [[God did it]].
# Arguing that the environment was created to fit the needs of humans is getting the order of causality exactly backwards: according to modern [[evolutionary theory]], humans have evolved to fit their environment.
# If an argument for the existence of God can be used to argue for the existence of ''any other god'', then it can't be a good reason to believe in the ''particular'' god of [[Christianity]].}}

===Reason 1: DNA===
<tt>Whilst agreeing that [[random]] [[pattern]]s occur naturally [[by chance]], [[DNA]] however, consists of code, which requires a [[designer]].</tt>

{{Response|This is the [[argument from design]]. Incidentally, it is the study of DNA that gives the strongest [[evidence]] of [[common descent]], a key component of [[evolution]]ary theory (which is argued against in several of the "reasons" below).}}

{{Response|A code does not simply require a designer - it requires an encoder and a decoder who ''agree on its meaning''. Or more generally, a code requires a set of ''understanders''. It makes no sense to speak of something being a "code" unless it encodes a ''message'' of some sort from a sender to a receiver. That is to say, to call DNA a "code" at all is [[begging the question|question-begging]]. DNA is a chemical which interacts with other chemicals according to well-understood laws of chemistry and physics.

However, if we wish to speak of it as encoding a message, then that message surely comes not from a God but from ''prior generations of living things''. The messages our distant ancestors have left for us are such things as; "this is a good way to make a muscle", "this is how you digest food", "it is a good idea to run away from things that look like this", and of course those instincts that make us a social species such as "punish the wicked", and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".}}

{{Response|Not all systems which are known to represent information (aka code) were known to have been created by a designer. For example, the solar system can be viewed as a system which encodes information, such as the length of a day or the period in which one might harvest crops or the tidal calendar. While this coded information provides data relevant to the daily lives of the inhabitants of this planet, it is by no means apparent that this information was created by a designer, and it is highly plausible this information is simply the emergent metrics of an unordered assembly of celestial bodies.}}

===Reason 2: Paranormal phenomena===
<tt>How do you explain the [[paranormal]], such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine — I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.</tt>

{{Response|This is an [[argument from personal experience]] and an implicit appeal to [[personal revelation]]. It fallaciously presupposes that one's senses, and the interpretations given them, are [[infallible]]. One need not be a liar or attention-seeker, or be overtired to misinterpret sensory information.

Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built up from prior beliefs and past experience (a fact that [[magic]]ians primarily rely upon to "fool the eye", especially in [[wikipedia:close-up magic|close-up magic]]). In addition, we tend to impart meaning on ambiguous input even when there is [[pareidolia|no real meaning behind it]] (e.g., "seeing faces" or "hearing voices" where there are none). There are also real physiological limitations to our senses that result in nearly universal misperceptions such as [[optical illusion]]s. On a different level, we tend to see causal relationships where none exist (one example of this kind of fallacious reasoning is called [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]). All of these tendencies may have conferred evolutionary advantages in the past — and may continue to do so today — but they can easily lead to the misinterpretation of evidence.

Finally, consider the fact that the very same phenomena that were once attributed to "ancestors" in early human history may have been attributed to angels or [[demon]]s in the Middle Ages, to [[witch]]es or [[the Devil]] in the 17th and 18th centuries, to "spirits" or [[wikipedia:poltergeist|poltergeist]]s in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to [[wikipedia:extraterrestrial|extraterrestrial]]s in the late 20th century. The sensory stimuli may be the same, but the interpretation is different. Why should we believe the claim that these phenomena point to the existence of a god, especially the god of [[Christianity]]?}}

{{Response|I don't believe you. We each of us have to decide, from the multitude of conflicting voices around us, what information we are going to accept as reliable. I have no more reason to believe your miracle story than you have to believe the stories that a Hindu (I assume you are a Christian) might tell you, or indeed that other Christians might tell you. Every religion is awash with absurd miracle stories, and you and I both have to reject the vast majority of them. You are going to have to do better than "My mate and I saw a ghost! For real!"}}

===Reason 3: Prayer===
<tt>Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?</tt>

{{Response|This argument is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. It urges the reader to pray, and anticipates that any results of [[prayer]] would be easy to dismiss as chance. In essence this is an admission that the results of prayer may not actually be distinguishable from coincidence and chance. On the other hand, using similar reasoning, what good is it to consider the extremely low odds of winning the lottery, or the risks of [[wikipedia:day trading|day trading]]? Shouldn't we all just jump in and have a little faith? [[Skepticism]] helps people live better, more secure lives.}}

{{Response| Try praying for what? Prayer will not set a broken bone, prayer will not move a mountain. Prayer has even been tested, and it failed.The Templeton Foundation funded a prayer study to find out if prayer helped on recovery after heart surgery. The results were conclusive that prayer did not help; on the contrary, it showed that those who knew they were being prayed for experienced more complications during recovery. Brain studies have shown that the same areas of the brain are active during meditation and talking problems out with friends, these latter two having greater results in improving on the quality of life. Try praying? I say try a little meditation and have a few drinks and dinner with friends, it will do you a lot more good.}}

===Reason 4: First cause===
<tt>The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.</tt>

{{Response|This fails to provide proof for a god, as it requires to define god as the "[[uncaused cause]]," therefore negating the original premise. Refer also to [[David Hume]]'s arguments regarding the inability to determine the cause of an effect through reason alone (we need some experience, and have none for 'creating universes.') Moreover, there need not be a direct cause for all things; there is no direct cause for the radioactive decay of an individual atom, and yet it happens. There would appear to be uncaused quantum "effects" as well. Attempts to use physical laws (real or conventionally-accepted, with the above being the latter) to require the existence of a god tend to ignore that, for nearly all definitions of god, god violates various physical laws. Even if "everything must have a cause" necessitated the existence of a God, "energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed" (the [[Thermodynamics#Laws|First Law of Thermodynamics]]) would necessitate an un-created/eternal universe. Theists can't [[Cherry picking|cherry-pick]] physical laws to prove their god's existence. See also: [[Special pleading]].

The author doesn't explain why things that existed forever don’t need a cause while others do. In any case, recent physical theories suggest that the physical [[Universe]] is part of a larger [[Wikipedia:Multiverse|Multiverse]]; which by your reasoning always existed and doesn’t need a cause.}}

{{Response|My response would be to say that even if there was a first cause, how is this true proof of God? There are many other possible events that could have caused our universe.

I wouldn't use the "eternal universe" model as evidence. A theist was all too quick to point out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and recent astronomical observations prove that our universe is not eternal. If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.}}

===Reason 5: Complexity===
<tt>Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.</tt>

{{Response|This is [[False premise|fallacious in its assumption]] that an atheistic viewpoint requires the world to [[Origin of the universe|start from "nothing"]]. It also is guilty of [[special pleading]] ([[responsibility]] is an attribute of [[intelligence]]) and is another invocation of the [[argument from design]]. Note also that this author's "nothing" includes the entirety of physical, chemical, and other laws of the universe.

For the record, none of the scientific theories about the beginning of the universe posit that there was "nothing" and then there was "something." The [[Big Bang]] theory does posit the universe as being compacted to a singularity, and this does pose certain problems at such a [[Wikipedia:Quantum theory|quantum level]] because of how matter is understood to work, but it is not even clear that matter yet existed at this singularity - it doesn't have to, either, because matter and [[energy]] are equivalents (by [[general relativity]]) and energy does not follow the same types of quantum constraints as matter. You could (in a very simplified view of quantum and relativity theories) have all the matter in the universe converted to energy, and have all that energy contained in no space at all (a singularity) because energy requires no space.}}

{{Response|We know that this claim is factually wrong. According to this argument, complex snowflakes must be made by some intelligence, rather than the "mindless nothing" of physical and chemical forces. That is, if this is true, then God must assign angels to individually craft each snowflake. There must be a "Jack Frost" who draws those artistic patterns on our windows when it's cold. Rather than this childish storybook view of the world, we know that emergent complexity happens all the time, and is an exciting and interesting branch of mathematics and science.

Snowflakes are a special case of any crystalline structure. Diamonds, for example, are nothing more than a special (and precise) arrangement of carbon atoms in a structure that makes the overall object transparent (unlike graphite or other forms of pure carbon). Diamonds do not require a creator to arrange the carbon atoms just so. They require nothing more than the right pressure to force the carbon atoms into this configuration, and such pressures arise naturally in the earth as a result of nothing more than the properties of matter and gravity.}}

{{Response|I once read a Jack Chick tract that said that all the atoms in the universe are held together by God. This argument here reaches to the one about complexity. If God has to multitask on everything, what if God got tired and let his guard down for one second? Uh-oh, the universe is destroyed. If one is making an argument this complex, one should check all the angles so it is foolproof.}}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator (as the argument follows). But the fact is that God must necessarily be more complex only demonstrates that his existence is greatly improbable. Especially if he is infinite, for an infinite, complex being would be neverendingly improbable, or more plainly put, impossible.}}

===Reason 6: Limitations of science===
<tt>Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.</tt>

{{Response|This is a case of possible confusion on the meaning of the terms used, as well as a use of the [[god of the gaps]] argument. We can detect emotions through the physical changes to the body, and we can detect brain activity. To say that memory is not detected 'scientifically' is possibly a [[dualism|dualistic]] argument, but there is no basis in it. It is true, however, that the scientific method can only detect certain things: specifically, things which have some observable effect in the universe. Either God has an observable effect on the universe, and can therefore be studied scientifically, or God does not, and therefore is irrelevant.}}

{{Response|Taking the case of 'memory' further, psychologists long ago learned that if they probe the brain in certain areas, they can stimulate full, vivid, true memories in the subject. This would seem to be a form of 'scientific detection' of memory.}}

===Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory===
<tt>Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the 'theory of evolution'. It's a fairy tale for grown ups!</tt>

{{Response|This is surely an instance of [[hypocrisy|the pot calling the kettle black]]. Modern [[evolutionary theory]] is supported by a large number of independently verifiable facts and is used to explain, predict, and manipulate the responses of all manner of biological systems. Where is the corresponding [[evidence for God]] (or [[intelligent design]], etc.)? No, in actuality, most religions, with their tales of super-beings and [[magic]]al events, bear a much greater resemblance to fairy tales than does evolution.

More to the point, however, this is the "[[Evolution is only a theory]]" argument, which relies heavily on an [[equivocation]] between the common usage of the word "theory" and the scientific one (see [[Theory]] for more information). Furthermore, [[science]] is not about [[proof]]s, but [[evidence]], and the evidence supporting evolution is solid. See, for example, the Wikipedia article, [[Wikipedia:Introduction to evolution|Introduction to evolution]] (or the full [[Wikipedia:Evolution|Evolution]] article).

Finally, even if our current understanding of evolution were completely wrong, it still wouldn't make belief in God any more reasonable.}}

{{Response| Gravity is 'just a theory' too. We do not really know how or why it exists, or what exactly causes it. We can, however, observe it, understand it, and make use of that understanding to fly airplanes, launch rockets, put satellites into orbit, etc. I think we could all agree that few theists would question the theory of gravity- why then single out evolution as being 'just a theory'?}}

===Reason 8: Atheism is based on faith===
<tt>Atheism is a faith which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no 'good news' to preach in atheism.</tt>

{{Response|Typical claim that [[atheism is based on faith]] combined with the claim that [[religion provides hope]]. The former is simply untrue (for most atheists) and involves [[shifting the burden of proof]] when used as an argument for belief in God (you don't need to "prove" something doesn't exist to lack belief in it). The latter is an [[appeal to consequences]]; just because religion may have some positive effects does not mean that its claims are true, nor that its tenets should be accepted even for "practical" purposes.}}
{{Response|It is simply not true that "believers believe because they have witnessed". No believer alive today has witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus, the saints emerging from their graves, heaven, God, or any of the other myriad things that they claim to be "witnesses" to. Insofar as a religion orders its followers to "witness" to things they have no experience of, it is ordering them to be ''liars''. Thomas had the right idea: when you have put your fingers in Jesus's wound, ''then'' you can come back and talk about being a "witness".}}
{{Response|In fact, atheism ''does'' have "good news" to "preach": atheists need not subscribe to the arbitrary customs and strictures of religious dogma. We don't have to reconcile biblical contradictions nor deal with the hypocrisies of a schizophrenic deity. We can use our own minds rather than submit to competing human interpretations of "holy" books.}}

===Reason 9: Atheists are angry with God===
<tt>How much of the [[Atheism is based on faith|atheist's faith]] relies on [[Angry at God|anger with God]] as opposed to genuine [[disbelief]] in God?</tt>

{{Response|The assumption that ''any'' atheists are [[angry at God]] is an unfounded one and constitutes an [[ad hominem]] argument, since it questions the motivations behind atheists' lack of belief.}}

{{Response|Ignoring the [[atheism is based on faith]] part of the question, the correct answer is: None. One need not be angry at God (or, more properly, those who perpetuate the myth of God) to disbelieve (or, more properly, lack belief).

Granted, there are different kinds of atheists, and people are atheists for different reasons. But if you use ''[[atheism]]'' to mean either [[weak atheism|the lack of a belief in any gods]] or [[strong atheism|the belief that no gods exist]] then, logically, no atheists can be angry at God. How can you be angry at something that you don't think exists? Those who are angry at God are, by definition, not atheists but angry theists.}}

===Reason 10: Atheists need to get a life===
<tt>Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don't they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don't they leave this 'God nonsense' alone?</tt>
{{Response|This is a [[straw man]] argument, and a [[False dichotomy|false dilemma]]. Atheism does not prevent hobbies, partying, etc. Furthermore, it neglects that while god may not exist, religions do exist. The adherents to these religions often try to impose the values and practices of their own religion onto society at large. Moreover, it presupposes that a majority of people on the planet believe in a fantasy and that is a good reason to have an active life.

Furthermore, assuming that atheists, indeed, need to get a life, it is not a valid reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the email insists.}}

{{Response|The vast majority of atheists have no problem with- indeed, could care less about- theists and theism. It is the methods theists use that cause the problem. When we see theists use political means to try to force their beliefs down our throats, we are offended, and we do indeed "rant and rave" about this misuse of our political processes. However we, more than any, realize that one must have the convictions of their beliefs. Penn Jillette of "Penn & Teller" puts it nicely in one of his videos when he states something to the effect of "if you are a theist and you DON'T proselytize, I have no respect for you." In other words, if you truly believe in Christianity and yet do not share that belief with me- you are no Christian, and are, in fact, evil by your own definition, since you refuse to 'save my soul' by sharing your beliefs. I have no problem with theists sharing their beliefs when they follow established cultural norms in doing so (i.e., ask if I want to hear it, don't try to force your beliefs and opinions on me.)}}

===Reason 11: Chicken-and-egg paradox===
<tt>What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] leading to [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]. Also, evolutionary biology shows that the egg preceded the chicken[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_and_egg#Science_and_Evolution]. This is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]].}}

===Reason 12: Improbability vs. impossibility===
<tt>Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.</tt>

{{Response|The first sentence is [[special pleading]] as it applies to anything and everything that isn't explicitly disproven, including no god whatsoever. The second is an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. It is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 5: Complexity|Reason 5]].}}

===Reason 13: Complexity of human life===
<tt>How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. The complexity of life is the very thing that the theory of evolution explains. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 14: Complexity of the human mind===
<tt>How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and similar to the [[homunculus argument]]. Science demonstrates that [[consciousness]] is an [[emergent property]] of the physical brain; this argument suggests a form of [[dualism]], where the mind and brain are separate. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 15: Food and drink===
<tt>What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we're supplied with?</tt>

{{Response|This is an example of the [[anthropic principle]]. It commits the formal fallacy of [[petitio principii]], assuming that hospitable features of our universe were built to support life, rather than considering that life was adapted to the undesigned features of the universe through natural selection. Douglas Adams' analogy about a [[Douglas Adams#Quotes|sentient puddle]] neatly sums up the problem with this argument.}}

{{Response|We did! Humans are not autotrophs (make one's own food). We require energy from other sources such as plants, fruits and animals. This process of eating and digesting is essential not only to life, but also to performing many biochemical reactions within our bodies. We evolved to eat these substances for this very purpose- we were not created to eat these things (nor were they created for us). If this is a "proof" for God, then we could challenge his benevolence. Why did he put plants on Earth that we can't digest? Or why create poisonous foods? Why do many foods from animals require so much physical risk to achieve? Certainly a loving God would not put such dangers on Earth that could threaten his creation.}}

===Reason 16: The five senses===
<tt>Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we're provided with.</tt>

{{Response|Another example of the [[anthropic principle]].}}
{{Response|The "five senses" common to most humans, while adequate for the purposes of savanna apes, are only able to capture the barest fraction of all light and sound waves, and detect a very limited set of chemicals. There is nothing intrinsically special about the number of senses we possess: they differ from one another more by degrees than by kinds. For instance, our sense of touch is much like hearing when it comes to detecting vibrations, and much like sight for heat detection. Similarly, our senses of smell and taste are quite related. Thus, we can just as easily say we are born with three senses as seven (if you reduce touch to pressure and temperature detection, and consider the sense of balance, for example). Finally, there is nothing special about our sense mechanisms when compared with other members of the animal kingdom. We are far outclassed in the abilities we do possess, and we lack even rudimentary detection mechanisms for electrical or magnetic fields.}}

===Reason 17: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 1===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?</tt>

{{Response|See next reason.}}

===Reason 18: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 2===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?</tt>

{{Response | See the [[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response | What? Nothing. Who? No one. When Earth and the rest of the solar system were formed, the development of human life, or indeed life of any kind, was not the purpose or goal. We humans are the only ones (that we know of) who care that we are here. If things were different, they would be different. Perhaps a different kind of life would have developed — maybe even a kind of life that could wonder how or why it came to exist. But if not, there wouldn't be anyone to ask the question in the first place. In other words, it is possible that the correct answer to the question, "Why do things in the universe look like they were 'fine tuned' to support human life?" might simply be, "If they weren't that way, there would be no humans around to ask the question."}}

{{Response | There is a wide range of possible [[Wikipedia:Habitable_zone|orbits suitable for Earth-like life]] (that is, carbon-based and dependent on water) in our solar system: about 0.95 to 1.37 AU (or 88 million to 127 million miles) from the Sun. The Earth is near the middle of this so-called Goldilocks zone, so it is hugely inaccurate to claim that any deviation from our current position would freeze (or burn) us all up. There is also reason to believe that [[Wikipedia:Gliese_581_d#Climate_and_habitability|life is possible]] in other places in the solar system, such as Jupiter's moon [[Wikipedia:Europa_(moon)#Possible_extraterrestrial_life|Europa]] or the moons [[Wikipedia:Enceladus_(moon)|Enceladus]] or [[Wikipedia:Titan_(moon)|Titan]] of Saturn. These "hot spots" are possible because direct warming by the Sun is not the only way for a celestial body to become warm enough to support life: tidal forces caused by gravitational attraction to other "nearby" bodies (like Earth's moon) can be sufficient to heat up the interior of a planet or moon.}}

{{Response|There are approximately 200 – 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone. Around many of these stars there are going to be planets. Most will be too hot or too cold for life, but there will surely be some that are the right temperature just by chance alone. Our solar system has 8 planets ([[Wikipedia:Pluto#Classification|Pluto is no longer recognized as a planet]]), only 2 of which (Earth and Mars) are in the Goldilocks zone. That makes 2 "successes" out of 8 for our solar system alone. Now extrapolate that to the billions of other solar systems that are presumed to exist in the billions of galaxies in the universe. Even with relatively pessimistic estimates of the sizes of the various Goldilocks zones and the number and kinds of planets that would form in them, there could easily be billions of planets capable of harboring life. See also the [[Infinite monkey theorem]].}}

===Reason 19: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 3===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response| My main response to these points would be that this still does not prove the existence of God. This can be seen as a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesitate to advise using the AP in religious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}

===Reason 20: Complementarity of plant and animal life===
<tt>What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. These anthropic principle arguments are all phrased in such a way as to assume that the answer must be in the form of a "who"--i.e., a personal God. This is [[Petitio principii|begging the question]].}}

{{Response|This 'reason' makes the mistake of assuming some inherent worth of humans or reason for humans to exist. The life on earth tends to conform to the conditions of the planet they inhabit. An organism that cannot conform to the required standards is more likely to die, which goes to show why we don't see the abomination known as the [[Crocoducks|Crocoduck]], or anything like it.}}

===Reason 21: The tornado and the 747===
<tt>The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[argument from design]]. This is [[Fred Hoyle]]'s classic [[Tornado argument]], which is based on the assumption that evolution works by [[Probability|random chance]], ignoring the non-random process of [[natural selection]]. [[Richard Dawkins]] proposed the Ultimate 747 argument[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit] as a response. This reason is also contradictory to the argument proposed in [[#Reason 12: Complexity|Reason 12]].}}

{{Response| The Tornado and the 747 argument also does not take into consideration that a Boeing 747 is a nonliving entity, with no will of its own or ability to think or act. Life came about through natural selection, and by living organisms. Organisms that could adapt, had the will to survive and reproduced. As evolution progresses, organisms have evolved into more complex beings with the ability to communicate, socialize, analyze data and interpret them. Basically life did not come about by chance, as the nonliving 747 has no will to assemble itself whereas a conscious being can think and act to suit survival purposes. }}

{{Response| If one is to believe in cause and effect, there is no such thing as "sheer chance", even if it gives a illusion of such. Although there are some unanswered questions regarding the early evolution of life, we can definitely say that life did not arise according to chance. Molecules have ways of attracting each other and forming complex structures because they behave that way naturally. Given enough time and enough success, life can theoretically arise through natural mechanisms.}}

===Reason 22: The invisible and the supernatural===
<tt>We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work [sic], yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.</tt>

{{Response|While phenomena like [[wikipedia:radio waves|radio waves]] or [[wikipedia:infrared light|infrared light]] may not be visible to the human eye, they are not analogous to any purported supernatural forces. Natural "unseen" waves [[manifest]] in other ways — ways that are detectable and predictable. In short, they are well understood and explained by science, and this is why they can be utilized in technology. The same cannot be said for God.}}

===Reason 23: Self-organization and entropy===
<tt>Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.</tt>

{{Response|An uneaten tomato does not "transform" into disorganization. It may decompose into simpler organic components by the action of bacteria, fungi or other creatures such as maggots through well-understood biological processes. In fact, these components might then become part of other plants or animals, including a pineapple. This argument is utter absurdity, ignoring the very basics of [[evolution]], specifically that individuals do not evolve, ''populations'' evolve. It also ignores the role of reproduction in evolution, the fact that evolution proceeds by small changes over time, the lack of a hierarchical/teleological path for evolution, and so forth. See the EvoWiki page on a similar, more common argument[http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The_descendants_of_an_X_(cat,_dog...)_will_remain_X].}}

{{Response|The opening assumption that matter is unable to self-organize is wrong: crystals are a prime example of matter organizing itself. This innate ability of matter becomes important in some theories of abiogenesis, like A. Graham Cairns-Smith's Clay theory.}}

===Reason 24: Darwin's deathbed conversion===
<tt>Our 'inventor' of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; "I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions; wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire - people made a religion of them." Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbors the next day. "What shall I speak about?" She asked. He replied; "Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?"</tt>

{{Response|The story of [[Darwin]]'s [[deathbed conversion]] is an [[urban myth]]. Even if it were true (and evidence shows that it is not), it is an [[Argumentum ad verecundiam|argument from authority]]. We accept [[evolution]] not based on Darwin's word but on the [[evidence]] supporting the theory, most of which has been discovered since Darwin's death. By the same token, we should not reject evolution based on Darwin's word, even if he repudiated everything he had written on the subject. Similarly, we should not take Darwin's word for it that a [[god]] exists (if he did believe that) or that [[Christianity]] is the path to [[salvation]]. It is also worth noting that Darwin was not the first person to propose evolution as a possibility, or even that natural processes were responsible; he just happens to be the first to produce both a cogent theory for how the process works along with solid evidence supporting it.}}

===Reason 25: Morality===
<tt>Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we've no-one to be accountable to.</tt>

{{Response|[[Evolutionary psychology|Evolutionary psychologists]] have proposed explanations for many "moral values" and behaviors that appear to be instinctual; observations of [[wikipedia:social animal|social animal]]s reveal that many have moral codes that are similar to that of humans. [[Atheist]]s may follow any number of [[secular]] [[ethical]] codes, holding themselves accountable to values or ideals derived [[rational]]ly, rather than to a [[deity]]. Furthermore, the [[Euthyphro dilemma]] turns this argument around on the [[theist]]: where do [[God]]'s moral values come from?}}

{{Response|To whom are we morally responsible? In moral systems that lack a divine component, we are accountable to those around us.}}

{{Response|Most people don't share many of the moral values of the Bible. The vast majority of humans consider rape within marriage and slavery to be wrong while working on the sabbath is considered to be acceptable, which conflicts with biblical morality. The fact that the Bible condemns murder, theft and lying is trivial because peoples and even many other animals that are unfamiliar with the Bible also hold these moral values.}}

===Reason 26: Man vs. animal===
<tt>If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.</tt>

{{Response|There are many problems with this argument.
# It is based, at least implicitly, on the archaic concept of the [[Great Chain of Being]], in which humans are seen as separate from, and inherently superior to, other animals. In fact, humans ''are'' animals. The theory of evolution doesn't hold that they evolved "away from" animals and became something fundamentally different.
# Since evolution necessarily implies change from a previous state, the fact that the ancestors of humans had certain characteristics doesn't necessarily mean that humans must still have those characteristics. ''Any'' two animal species will share certain characteristics and not share others. This is the result of the process of evolution and not — as is implied above — a refutation of it.
# Many human behaviors ''are'', in fact, very similar to those found among animals today (especially other [[wikipedia:primate|primates]]). Examples include the seeking of food and shelter, the forming of social groups to secure these resources, the forming of pair bonds for reproduction and the rearing of offspring, the protection of family members from others in the social group and of members of the group from outsiders, and communication through sound and gestures. On the other hand, aspects of human behavior that are indeed unique to our species may be attributable to adaptations such as bipedalism or advanced cognitive function, particularly the capacity for abstract thought. Evolutionary theory may actually be able to explain how these characteristics arose.
# Given the history of the 20th century (for example), there is some doubt as to what "civilized" actually means and whether humans can be said to possess that characteristic.
# Finally, as with [[#Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory|Reason 7]] (and many others), even if the claim above were completely true, it wouldn't justify belief in God.}}

===Reason 27: Chance and ignorance===
<tt>'Chance' isn't the cause of something. It just describes what we can't find a reason for.</tt>

{{Response|[[Straw man]] argument. While [[evolution]] contains some aspects of apparent "[[chance]]" (genetic mutations), the process of [[natural selection]] is the force which drives the process of adaptation. Furthermore, "chance" is not a description of something we cannot find a reason for; that is "ignorance". Chance is a description of systems which operate according to laws of [[probability]].}}

===Reason 28: Limitations of science and logic===
<tt>Science & logic do not hold all the answers - many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.</tt>

{{Response|You're right, science and logic do not hold all the answers, that's why we have Chemistry and Mathematics, and as for concerns of the heart/soul/emotional side we have the Arts. Every thing can be accounted for with careful use of reason. Just because something is not known does not mean it can not be known.}}

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[special pleading]]. If we have no understanding of these forces, then how can anyone be said to be "aware" of them? If we are aware, we must have some small measure of understanding.}}

{{Response| Majority opinion is irrelevant to the facts. Many people may believe a lie- take for example: "Many teenagers believe that marijuana is harmless, drugs are harmful whereas marijuana is not, therefore marijuana is not a drug." Any doctor could tell you of the harmful side effects of marijuana usage. Furthermore, a drug need not be immediately harmful for it to be a drug. But nonetheless, many teenagers may make this claim, even if it is obviously not true.

We should be asking bigger questions. Such as: Are the majority of the people mentioned experts in said field? Do they know about the field they are making claims on? Is it their educational background or profession? Anyone can make conclusions on a subject in physics, but if they are not a physicist, we should be more skeptical of their conclusions.

What is the majority basing their opinions on? Evidence? If no, then we can't say with certainty they have a "proven" claim. Feeling, Emotion, Belief? If yes, then perhaps there is a bias they have preventing them from accepting conflicting evidence or looking upon the subject from other perspectives. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote Sherlock as saying "Never theorize before one has data, invariably one twists facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts." Majority opinion can always be based on biases and evidence is required to take any claim seriously.

Is the majority well informed on the subject and all aspects/perspectives on it? You can hardly say that "many people believe in mediums, therefore medium phenomena is true." Really? Have the believers read any skeptical positions? Done any research? Looked for alternative explanations? Just as with evolution, in some countries, the majority do not believe- but are they aware of all the evidence? It's hardly fair to say majority wins when many of the majority may not have all the facts.

Lastly, just because there may be things we do not yet have scientific answers to, it does not mean there is no scientific answer. We just haven't found one yet. It's nothing more than a hasty conclusion to say "Science has no answer, therefore this one is true." It is not so. Perhaps we will find an answer in a year or two from now, until then, conclusions should not be made.}}

===Reason 29: Gregorian calendar===
<tt>Look at the date/year on our calender - 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus' existence.</tt>

{{Response|This is an unfounded claim that [[the Gregorian calendar proves that Jesus existed]]. The Anno Domini (AD) dating system was not created until 525 AD. It is not independent, contemporary historical confirmation of the New Testament. The current Gregorian Calendar was drafted in 1582 under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII of the Catholic church, and cannot act as evidence of the existence of a man who is thought to have lived 15 centuries earlier.}}

{{Response|Look at the names of days and months on your calendar. This proves that the gods Moon, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, Saturn and Sun, Januarius, the Roman gods to whom the Februa were celebrated, Mars, etc., etc. all exist.}}

===Reason 30: Martyrs===
<tt>Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!</tt>

{{Response|This could only show that purported martyrs ''believed'' they were dying for a true faith. It cannot prove that their beliefs are actually true; martyrs may be mistaken. Many people have died in the name of many contradictory faiths. Further, people have given their lives in the name of beliefs such as Nazism; must we assume these are also true?}}

{{Response|See article - [[Would someone die for a lie?]]}}

===Reason 31: Biblical accounts===
<tt>Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.</tt>

{{Response|It may be a stretch to describe stories of events written 40+ years after they supposedly occurred as "eyewitness accounts", when the average lifespan of a human in those times was likely much lower[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_over_human_history]. The truth is that none of the [[Gospels]] were written by eyewitnesses, the earliest dating estimate[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating] is 65 C.E. and most are thought to be significantly later. Moreover, the earliest New Testament texts were purportedly authored by early church founder Paul of Tarsus, who was not an eyewitness. Even assuming the events were recorded by supposed eyewitnesses, we could make that argument in favor of many religious texts and other writings which may contradict each other. Does this give us reason to assume the events recorded in books like the Qur'an are also true? And given the many conflicts over heresies, apocryphal texts and other teachings in the early church, it seems safe to say that there was "confusion and anger" over the contents of the books.}}

{{Response| Some of the Four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. The book of Mark was written by Barnabas' nephew Mark, who was not one of the original Twelve Apostles. The book of Luke was written by Luke of Antioch, who was a believer after hearing the Gospel. Those two books were collections of various eyewitness accounts. Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which was both a collection of eyewitness accounts, as well as a journal of Luke's travels when he helped spread the Gospel.

There is much truth in the New Testament accounts in terms of "normal" historical events that can be verified through comparing contemporary historical works and archaeology. However, one could question whether or not the supernatural events that are written in the Gospels took place.}}

===Reason 32: Archaeology===
<tt>From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaeological evidence to confirm many details we're provided with in the Bible.</tt>

{{Response|This may be true, but there is also a striking ''lack'' of archaeological evidence for many important stories recorded in the Bible (see claim #34). Atheists do not claim that the Bible must be entirely false in every respect. What matters when determining if the Bible provides basis for a belief in God is the evidence we can find for its claims of supernatural phenomena, like the resurrection of Jesus. This evidence does not exist. Furthermore, there is evidence to confirm many of the details provided in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad Iliad] or the average [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-man Spider-Man] comic, but that doesn't mean that Achilles and Spider-Man exist.}}

===Reason 33: Biblical prophecy===
<tt>Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.</tt>

{{Response|This is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. The Bible does not contain a single fulfilled prediction which is/was verifiable, non trivial, and was not self-fulfilling.

Biblical [[prophecy]] was "confirmed" by those who were already aware of such prophecy and with a vested interest in ensuring that such prophecy had the appearance of being fulfilled.}}

{{Response| This claim is simply false. Perhaps the most strikingly embarrassing unfulfilled prophecy in the bible is Jesus' prediction of his own second coming, to occur within the lifetimes of the people listening to him. There are dozens of others.}}

{{Response| Those prophecies only come true in the context of the bible, which was compiled and edited after the fact. There are many works of fiction where predictions are made that come true in the context of that book or film, does this make the stories true?}}

===Reason 34: Biblical history===
<tt>The evidence from literature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.</tt>

{{Response|This is plainly false. In addition to the miracles and supernatural events described in the Bible, for which there is no historical evidence, many of the historical claims which could theoretically be substantiated with archaeological evidence are contradicted by modern historians. For example, historians believe there is no evidence for Hebrew slavery in Egypt or the Exodus as described in the Old Testament[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus#CriticalEvaluation].}}

===Reason 35: Christianity and science in harmony===
<tt>From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac ''[sic]'' Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.</tt>

{{Response|Many of the arguments in this email appear to promote Christianity by opposing science, but even if we grant that there is no conflict between science and Christianity and that many scientists are Christians, this hardly provides evidence that Christianity is true. See [[burden of proof]]. And if we fail to grant that there is no conflict, we recognize many contradictions[http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html] between the Biblical account and established science.}}

{{Response| From the time of Galileo to the latest attempts by creationists to push their agendas in schools, science and faith have ''always'' been in opposition. Whether it's the germ theory of disease vs. demons and the powers of the air, the preposterous miracles of the Roman Catholic Church, heliocentrism vs. angels moving the stars about, lightning rods instead of sounding the church bells, science has ''never'' had to back down: it has always been religion that has had to preserve itself by "reinterpreting" its texts.}}

===Reason 36: How vs. why===
<tt>Science can explain 'how' something works, but not 'why' something works.</tt>

{{Response|This argument is essentially meaningless. To science, 'how' and 'why' are the same thing. 'How' speaks of the mechanism, 'why' speaks of the cause. If a domino knocks another domino over, the 'how' is by transfer of energy, the 'why' is explained as Newton's three laws of motion.}}

{{Response| Terry Pratchett, of all people, gives an insight into this. The question "why" presupposes that there is a ''story'' to be told. A ''narrative''. Science is a different way of knowing, and one of its discoveries is that the language of the universe is not that of story and legend, but that of mathematics. It's something that a lot of math-phobes have a hard time accepting.}}

===Reason 37: Science changes===
<tt>Science is constantly recorrecting ''[sic]'' its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.</tt>

{{Response|A willingness to reconsider [[theory|theories]] in the face of new [[evidence]] is essential to any process that seeks the [[truth]]. [[Science]] is strong precisely because of this, rather than despite it. In addition, religious groups, even those considered extreme or [[fundamentalist]], often change their teachings in response to social concerns. For example, the [[Church of Latter-Day Saints]] abandoned polygamy in order to gain statehood for Utah. Mainstream [[Christianity]] is guilty of the same revisionism: In 1633, [[Wikipedia:Galileo|Galileo]] was convicted of [[heresy]] by the Catholic Church for promoting [[wikipedia:heliocentrism|heliocentrism]], which directly contradicts biblical "evidence" of the organization of the universe. It wasn't until 1992 that Galileo was officially vindicated in a declaration by [[Wikipedia:Pope John Paul II|Pope John Paul II]]. Did God change the arrangement of the heavenly bodies in the intervening centuries? Or was the Catholic Church simply wrong because they were using a completely unreliable source of knowledge? [[Wikipedia:Ben Franklin|Ben Franklin]] was accused of heresy by Catholics and [[Protestants]] alike, for developing the [[wikipedia:lightning rod|lightning rod]], which was considered an effort to stifle God's wrath. Today, however, virtually all structures, including churches, are fitted with lightning protection.}}

{{Response|When science changes, the new theory generally explains both the new facts ''and'' the old. For example, [[Einstein]]'s [[Wikipedia:theory of relativity|theory of relativity]], which shows relative speed, changes the rules while at the same time making it quite clear that Newtonian physics is still a very good approximation for a lot of things. On the contrary, when society changes in such a way that religions have to "reinterpret" their own scriptures, the original interpretations are no longer valid. The prior behaviors of followers are then written off as heretical, as, for example, in the case of the Catholic Church during the [[Inquisition]]. See also: [[no true Scotsman]]. }}

{{Response|The truth is always changing and evolving. Humans, both individually and collectively, only have a limited understanding of how the world is. Whether or not we admit it, our view of our world is one made up of a lot of assumptions, however educated they may be. The fact that science and the interpretation of religious beliefs keep changing is proof of this. The fact that science and religion are constantly changing should not be a reason to dismiss either one entirely. We should dismiss our own personal assumptions/beliefs regarding the object in question, and not the object itself.}}

===Reason 38: Abiogenesis===
<tt>Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn't explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.</tt>

{{Response|The biological theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life; it describes how the diversity and complexity of life found today arose from simpler organisms. However, science could explain how life began on Earth if a credible theory of [[abiogenesis]] or [[wikipedia:panspermia|panspermia]] emerges in the future. Though there is currently no generally accepted and evidence-supported theory of how life arose on Earth, scientists have demonstrated that abiogenesis is possible (such as in the [[Wikipedia:Miller-Urey experiment|Miller-Urey experiment]]), and there are a variety of hypotheses which are more [[Occam's razor|parsimonious]] than one invoking a transcendent God. While a consensus theory of abiogenesis or panspermia would not disprove the existence of God, the [[burden of proof]] is on those who assert the existence of supernatural phenomena.}}

{{Response|This is another iteration of the [[God of the gaps]] argument and an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. While this argument attempts to defend the Christian mythological deity, it serves the same function for all other deities, as well as for any other unfalsifiable claim, including [[You can't prove God doesn't exist|Russell's Teapot]], [[Wikipedia:Brain in a vat|you are in the Matrix]], or that the universe was created 20 seconds ago by me.}}
{{Response|The author is entirely correct in maintaining that proof of evolution would not be disproof of God; however, as can be seen in many other "reasons", she seems to be unwilling or unable to recognize that ''disproof'' of evolution is likewise not ''proof'' of God.}}

{{Response|Scientists haven't answered all of the questions of the universe. I admit this. However, this fact is not a reason to believe in God. This fact doesn't have anything to do with God.}}

{{Response| Evolution is true and it does disprove the existence of the god of the Jewish and Christian Bible. Evolution shows there was no creation since there was no creation then there was no Garden of Eden then there is no first sin. Since there was no first sin then there is no evil in the world. Since there is no evil in the world then there is no reason for there to be a Jesus Christ and no reason for him to give his life to wash away our sins with his blood. So with evolution there is no god of the Bible or its false religions.}}

===Reason 39: A bad lie?===
<tt>The two people who discovered Jesus' empty tomb were women. Women were very low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical & Biblical truth.</tt>

{{Response|Let me get this straight: because women had low status and because it is written somewhere that some women claimed something that would be really great (from the author's perspective) if it were true, therefore the claims must be true? Wow. That's an amazing logical leap. (To be fair, historians do sometimes use such [[Wikipedia:Criterion of embarrassment|"countersupportive" evidence as positive evidence]] of historical claims — for example, [[Bart D. Ehrman]]'s analysis of which [[sayings of Jesus]] in the Bible might be historically accurate relies in part on whether each quotation shows Jesus or his message in a positive or negative light — but a good historian would never go so far as to argue that this makes the claims ''true''.)}}

{{Response|While the Gospels describe Jesus' tomb being found empty by women, the Gospels also give accounts of the resurrected Jesus appearing to his male disciples. The Gospels were also written and promulgated by men. The resurrection claim does not rest solely on the word of low-status women. Even if it did, this would hardly be sufficient reason to deem it true; [[extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence]]. Moreover, the account is [[hearsay]] and [[Biblical contradictions|contradictory accounts]] of this event are given in the Gospels.}}

{{Response|Aside from this claim highlighting sexism initiated by religion, in particular christianity, this would also put the rest of the mesopotamian Gods who's myths mimicked jesus' myth, including the women part, as more likely to be true, doesn't it?}}

===Reason 40: Near-death experiences===
<tt>Think about Near Death Experiences. It's naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn't have otherwise known, an african ''[sic]'' man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing "a dream". We're not silly - we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.</tt>

{{Response|It is not naive to seek physiological or psychological explanations for unusual experiences a person may have while their body is recovering from life-threatening trauma or disease; in fact, studies have shown that NDEs can be induced through drugs or trauma, and are almost certain to be a physiological phenomenon. It is naive to immediately presume something supernatural is occurring. Why are these bizarre claims about paperclips and Africans rising from the dead not substantiated? If credible evidence existed of a man being actually deceased and rising three days later, this would be unprecedented news quickly publicized to every corner of the globe by every kind of formal or informal media. If this actually occurred, present the evidence. Science demands more proof than a mere assurance that one asserting a shocking revelation is "not silly." See also the Skeptic's Dictionary entry[http://skepdic.com/nde.html] on the subject.}}

{{Response|Why do you, necessarily, need eyes to experience visual information? When I dream, my eyes are closed yet I 'see' things. Either all my dreams are magical journeys to the furthest edges of reality, or my brain can generate visual information independently from my eyes. I choose the latter.}}

===Reason 41: Biblical skeptics===
<tt>There are many skeptics who didn't believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.</tt>

{{Response| This is a form of [[argumentum ad populum]], at one stage the majority of the world believed the earth was flat. These are anecdotal accounts of people who could be mistaken. While it is true conversions to Christianity continue today, conversions to other religions and away from organized religion also occur.}}

{{Response| This argument does not take into consideration that people may have alternative reasons for changing their religion (or lack thereof) besides believing. People may change religions to suit a new marriage, or perhaps they lost a loved one and need some form of comfort. Perhaps they are trying to please persistent family members or just enjoy the Christmas carols and architecture and enjoy the sense of community. We can not always assume that people join a faith because they believe that it is true. }}

===Reason 42: Einstein quote===
<tt>Albert Einstein said; "A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".</tt>

{{Response|[[Albert Einstein]] also said, "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." [[argumentum ad verecundiam]]. Lameness does not affect factuality. Besides this, Einstein used the term "religion" in a specific, nonstandard way, defined here: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 'If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it'." It is this admiration for the structure of the universe that Einstein thought essential to science.}}

===Reason 43: The tomato thrower===
<tt>A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"</tt>

{{Response|This unsubstantiated anecdote about a believer assaulting an atheist with a vegetable is actually a form of the [[unmoved mover]]/[[uncaused cause]] argument, implying that atheists are foolish not to believe in a higher power that created the universe. This argument does not solve the problem of the first cause; it merely shifts the burden onto an unproven supernatural being. If God is not caused, then it cannot be said that all things must have a cause. Whether it be the universe itself, for atheists, or God himself, for the believer, all must admit the existence of something whose cause is as yet undiscovered. Atheists hope to continue discovering causes through reason; theists merely give up. Theism cannot claim this as an advantage. If we are to take this anecdote at face value, we must also question the morality of the presumed theist who both assaulted the speaker, rather than refute his claims, and then either lied about the assault or failed to confess and apologize.

Furthermore, the public assault of an atheist by means of a possibly self-actuating, suicidal vegetable is hardly a compelling reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the original email suggests.}}

===Reason 44: Occam's supernatural razor===
<tt>It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.</tt>

{{Response|This is another form of [[uncaused cause]] argument employing [[Occam's Razor]], but an explanation that requires the existence of an unseen, omnipotent supernatural being can hardly be simpler than one that relies on observable natural principles. This argument also prompts the question, how did God arise out of nothing? It also presupposes a [[straw man]] form of the [[Big Bang]] theory of cosmology. Theists often claim that the Big Bang suggests that "nothing became something," when in fact it says no such thing. In fact, there is no scientific reason to think that the matter and energy of the universe had to be created (which would be a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics) and have not merely always existed in one form or another.}}

===Reason 45: How-vs.-why Hawking quote===
<tt>Stephen Hawkins ''[sic]'' has admitted; "Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?"</tt>

{{Response|Spurious. Whatever reason the universe exists, the Bible does nothing to answer this question. All it does is provide a claim of 'what' was created, and 'when', vaguely (and incorrectly) answers the 'how' ([[magic]]) but it in no way answers the 'why'. If it even makes sense to speak of the universe as if it chooses to exist, why it does so would not be the subject of science, which deals with what can be naturally observed. This should be considered a problem of philosophy.}}

===Reason 46: With God all things are possible===
<tt>We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.</tt>

{{Response|[[Petitio principii]], [[religion provides hope]]. These statements merely follow from the definition of an omnipotent creator God; they do nothing to prove its existence.}}

{{Response|It is precisely ''because'' supernatural explanations allow "all things [to be] possible" that they are useless when it comes to determining the true causes of observed phenomena.}}

{{Response|It was also the Bible that said that pi is equal to 3, but I don't see any Christians promoting that theory.}}

{{Response| Is it really true that with God all things are possible? Can God create a stone large enough that even he can not lift it? Either way, he fails at omnipotence. The argument is also special pleading, it gives God a status of being immune to the laws of science but how is this possible? God is NOT made up of matter? Ultimately this argument is only an attempt to "dodge the bullet".}}

===Reason 47: Evolved vs. evolving===
<tt>If we are the product of evolution - by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. And, in fact, we ''are'' still evolving, as are all living things. As for "finely tuned", most of our planet's surface is uninhabitable by or inhospitable to humans (frozen wastelands, oceans, deserts), and the vast majority of the universe is fatal to humans, so how can "everything" be said to be "finely tuned for our living"?}}

===Reason 48: The Missing Link===
<tt>Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. The falsification of [[evolution]] would not be evidence of a god and inability to find a particular [[missing link]] is not falsification of evolution. The "missing link" itself comes from a misunderstanding of evolution, and has more in common with the [[Great Chain of Being]] than anything scientific.}}

{{Response|The famous Missing Link between humans and ape ancestors has also been found. Not merely one example, either, but many different stages. This is another example of the [[God of the gaps]] argument. What's more, even if the "missing link" were really missing, that does not prove it does not exist. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.}}

{{Response| The Missing Link argument claims that we are still missing the fossils to prove evolutionary descent. However scientists are discovering more fossils by the year, each giving more insight into how evolution works and how relationships are established. This argument does not take into consideration the other things besides fossils which prove evolution, such as genetics.}}

===Reason 49: Open your eyes===
<tt>God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?</tt>

{{Response|[[Special pleading]], [[petitio principii]]. If God is omnipotent, there is no limit to what more he could do. Even if our eyes are "shut to him," an omnipotent being could certainly open them.

Such a claim is also prejudiced against the blind. What if someone has no eyes to see God's works? Are blind people, by definition, atheists?}}

{{Response|[[Argument from non-belief]]. Why doesn't God speak directly to the entire human population? Or visit "physically" every once in a while? In other words, why isn't God's existence more obvious, based on direct, observable and irrefutable evidence and not theoretical guesses and feeling? }}

===Reason 50: Liar or Lord?===
<tt>Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. He could have also...
* been insane,
* never actually existed,
* not said all of the things attributed to him, or
* been deceived by the lies of others.
See also C.S. Lewis's [[trilemma]].}}

===Big finish===
<tt>YOU DECIDE!!!</tt>
{{Response|[[Pascal's Wager#Atheist's Wager|Choose wisely!]]}}

== Summary ==

Of the "50 reasons" given, the following do not say anything about evidence for God at all:
* 19 arguments against atheism/science/rationality and for non-religious paranormal ideas: 2,5-10,13-14,21,23,26-28,36-38,40,48
* 8 non sequiturs that make a statement and hope that the reader draws a connection to God (mostly bad fine-tuning arguments): 12,15-20,47
* 5 statements that simply assert God against all objections, giving no real "reason" for belief: 3,11,22,46,49
* 4 appeals to famous scientists: 24,35,42,45
* 1 story that attacks atheism through straight-forward ridicule: 43
* 1 appeal to morality that claims that faith is good without showing that it is correct: 25

The remaining twelve arguments are mostly either about the Bible or of the type that say "this is all here because God put it here."

Fifty arguments probably sounds like a pretty impressive number. But a more accurate (and far less catchy) title to this email would be "Twenty-four attacks on our enemies who promote science and reason over faith, fourteen vague statements that try to make theists look good or reasonable, and twelve reasons why some Christian beliefs are superficially plausible."

==External links==

* [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php Copy of the email] originally posted by [[PZ Myers]]

[[Category:Internet memes]]

50 reasons to believe in God

2010-10-09T06:50:56Z

Daemonowner: /* Reason 30: Martyrs */

: ''For the book by Guy P. Harrison, see [[50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God]].''

'''50 reasons to believe in [[God]]''' is an email that made the rounds of [[atheist]] [[Wikipedia:Blog|blog]]gers in June 2008. [[PZ Myers]], on his blog [[Pharyngula]], identifies the original author as Debra Rufini, an author whose recent book contains "an imaginary scenario in which [[Richard Dawkins]] gets psychiatric counseling…from Jesus".[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php]

What follows is a collection of responses to these purported "reasons".

(Note that the title associated with each "reason" did not appear in the original e-mail and is provided here merely for reference.)

==Responses to the message==

===Preamble===
<tt>It is easy to prove to yourself that God is real. .the evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs:</tt>

{{Comment-box1|label=General responses:|text=None of the arguments put forth in this e-mail are "proofs" of God's existence. Technically, most of them aren't even "reasons" to believe. On the other hand, the author did say, "prove to yourself", which is, one could argue, different from proving a claim to someone else. Nevertheless, almost all of the arguments rely on the same handful of [[logic]]al [[fallacies]], the responses to which can be summarized as follows:
# Disproof of one claim is not proof of another (unless they are exact logical opposites).
# The [[burden of proof]] lies with the person making the claim that something exists or should be "believed in".
# Just because you [[argumentum ad ignorantiam|can't figure out what caused something]], or can't understand how something works, doesn't mean [[God did it]].
# Arguing that the environment was created to fit the needs of humans is getting the order of causality exactly backwards: according to modern [[evolutionary theory]], humans have evolved to fit their environment.
# If an argument for the existence of God can be used to argue for the existence of ''any other god'', then it can't be a good reason to believe in the ''particular'' god of [[Christianity]].}}

===Reason 1: DNA===
<tt>Whilst agreeing that [[random]] [[pattern]]s occur naturally [[by chance]], [[DNA]] however, consists of code, which requires a [[designer]].</tt>

{{Response|This is the [[argument from design]]. Incidentally, it is the study of DNA that gives the strongest [[evidence]] of [[common descent]], a key component of [[evolution]]ary theory (which is argued against in several of the "reasons" below).}}

{{Response|A code does not simply require a designer - it requires an encoder and a decoder who ''agree on its meaning''. Or more generally, a code requires a set of ''understanders''. It makes no sense to speak of something being a "code" unless it encodes a ''message'' of some sort from a sender to a receiver. That is to say, to call DNA a "code" at all is [[begging the question|question-begging]]. DNA is a chemical which interacts with other chemicals according to well-understood laws of chemistry and physics.

However, if we wish to speak of it as encoding a message, then that message surely comes not from a God but from ''prior generations of living things''. The messages our distant ancestors have left for us are such things as; "this is a good way to make a muscle", "this is how you digest food", "it is a good idea to run away from things that look like this", and of course those instincts that make us a social species such as "punish the wicked", and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".}}

{{Response|Not all systems which are known to represent information (aka code) were known to have been created by a designer. For example, the solar system can be viewed as a system which encodes information, such as the length of a day or the period in which one might harvest crops or the tidal calendar. While this coded information provides data relevant to the daily lives of the inhabitants of this planet, it is by no means apparent that this information was created by a designer, and it is highly plausible this information is simply the emergent metrics of an unordered assembly of celestial bodies.}}

===Reason 2: Paranormal phenomena===
<tt>How do you explain the [[paranormal]], such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine — I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.</tt>

{{Response|This is an [[argument from personal experience]] and an implicit appeal to [[personal revelation]]. It fallaciously presupposes that one's senses, and the interpretations given them, are [[infallible]]. One need not be a liar or attention-seeker, or be overtired to misinterpret sensory information.

Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built up from prior beliefs and past experience (a fact that [[magic]]ians primarily rely upon to "fool the eye", especially in [[wikipedia:close-up magic|close-up magic]]). In addition, we tend to impart meaning on ambiguous input even when there is [[pareidolia|no real meaning behind it]] (e.g., "seeing faces" or "hearing voices" where there are none). There are also real physiological limitations to our senses that result in nearly universal misperceptions such as [[optical illusion]]s. On a different level, we tend to see causal relationships where none exist (one example of this kind of fallacious reasoning is called [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]). All of these tendencies may have conferred evolutionary advantages in the past — and may continue to do so today — but they can easily lead to the misinterpretation of evidence.

Finally, consider the fact that the very same phenomena that were once attributed to "ancestors" in early human history may have been attributed to angels or [[demon]]s in the Middle Ages, to [[witch]]es or [[the Devil]] in the 17th and 18th centuries, to "spirits" or [[wikipedia:poltergeist|poltergeist]]s in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to [[wikipedia:extraterrestrial|extraterrestrial]]s in the late 20th century. The sensory stimuli may be the same, but the interpretation is different. Why should we believe the claim that these phenomena point to the existence of a god, especially the god of [[Christianity]]?}}

{{Response|I don't believe you. We each of us have to decide, from the multitude of conflicting voices around us, what information we are going to accept as reliable. I have no more reason to believe your miracle story than you have to believe the stories that a Hindu (I assume you are a Christian) might tell you, or indeed that other Christians might tell you. Every religion is awash with absurd miracle stories, and you and I both have to reject the vast majority of them. You are going to have to do better than "My mate and I saw a ghost! For real!"}}

===Reason 3: Prayer===
<tt>Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?</tt>

{{Response|This argument is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. It urges the reader to pray, and anticipates that any results of [[prayer]] would be easy to dismiss as chance. In essence this is an admission that the results of prayer may not actually be distinguishable from coincidence and chance. On the other hand, using similar reasoning, what good is it to consider the extremely low odds of winning the lottery, or the risks of [[wikipedia:day trading|day trading]]? Shouldn't we all just jump in and have a little faith? [[Skepticism]] helps people live better, more secure lives.}}

{{Response| Try praying for what? Prayer will not set a broken bone, prayer will not move a mountain. Prayer has even been tested, and it failed.The Templeton Foundation funded a prayer study to find out if prayer helped on recovery after heart surgery. The results were conclusive that prayer did not help; on the contrary, it showed that those who knew they were being prayed for experienced more complications during recovery. Brain studies have shown that the same areas of the brain are active during meditation and talking problems out with friends, these latter two having greater results in improving on the quality of life. Try praying? I say try a little meditation and have a few drinks and dinner with friends, it will do you a lot more good.}}

===Reason 4: First cause===
<tt>The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.</tt>

{{Response|This fails to provide proof for a god, as it requires to define god as the "[[uncaused cause]]," therefore negating the original premise. Refer also to [[David Hume]]'s arguments regarding the inability to determine the cause of an effect through reason alone (we need some experience, and have none for 'creating universes.') Moreover, there need not be a direct cause for all things; there is no direct cause for the radioactive decay of an individual atom, and yet it happens. There would appear to be uncaused quantum "effects" as well. Attempts to use physical laws (real or conventionally-accepted, with the above being the latter) to require the existence of a god tend to ignore that, for nearly all definitions of god, god violates various physical laws. Even if "everything must have a cause" necessitated the existence of a God, "energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed" (the [[Thermodynamics#Laws|First Law of Thermodynamics]]) would necessitate an un-created/eternal universe. Theists can't [[Cherry picking|cherry-pick]] physical laws to prove their god's existence. See also: [[Special pleading]].

The author doesn't explain why things that existed forever don’t need a cause while others do. In any case, recent physical theories suggest that the physical [[Universe]] is part of a larger [[Wikipedia:Multiverse|Multiverse]]; which by your reasoning always existed and doesn’t need a cause.}}

{{Response|My response would be to say that even if there was a first cause, how is this true proof of God? There are many other possible events that could have caused our universe.

I wouldn't use the "eternal universe" model as evidence. A theist was all too quick to point out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and recent astronomical observations prove that our universe is not eternal. If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.}}

===Reason 5: Complexity===
<tt>Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.</tt>

{{Response|This is [[False premise|fallacious in its assumption]] that an atheistic viewpoint requires the world to [[Origin of the universe|start from "nothing"]]. It also is guilty of [[special pleading]] ([[responsibility]] is an attribute of [[intelligence]]) and is another invocation of the [[argument from design]]. Note also that this author's "nothing" includes the entirety of physical, chemical, and other laws of the universe.

For the record, none of the scientific theories about the beginning of the universe posit that there was "nothing" and then there was "something." The [[Big Bang]] theory does posit the universe as being compacted to a singularity, and this does pose certain problems at such a [[Wikipedia:Quantum theory|quantum level]] because of how matter is understood to work, but it is not even clear that matter yet existed at this singularity - it doesn't have to, either, because matter and [[energy]] are equivalents (by [[general relativity]]) and energy does not follow the same types of quantum constraints as matter. You could (in a very simplified view of quantum and relativity theories) have all the matter in the universe converted to energy, and have all that energy contained in no space at all (a singularity) because energy requires no space.}}

{{Response|We know that this claim is factually wrong. According to this argument, complex snowflakes must be made by some intelligence, rather than the "mindless nothing" of physical and chemical forces. That is, if this is true, then God must assign angels to individually craft each snowflake. There must be a "Jack Frost" who draws those artistic patterns on our windows when it's cold. Rather than this childish storybook view of the world, we know that emergent complexity happens all the time, and is an exciting and interesting branch of mathematics and science.

Snowflakes are a special case of any crystalline structure. Diamonds, for example, are nothing more than a special (and precise) arrangement of carbon atoms in a structure that makes the overall object transparent (unlike graphite or other forms of pure carbon). Diamonds do not require a creator to arrange the carbon atoms just so. They require nothing more than the right pressure to force the carbon atoms into this configuration, and such pressures arise naturally in the earth as a result of nothing more than the properties of matter and gravity.}}

{{Response|I once read a Jack Chick tract that said that all the atoms in the universe are held together by God. This argument here reaches to the one about complexity. If God has to multitask on everything, what if God got tired and let his guard down for one second? Uh-oh, the universe is destroyed. If one is making an argument this complex, one should check all the angles so it is foolproof.}}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator (as the argument follows). But the fact is that God must necessarily be more complex only demonstrates that his existence is greatly improbable. Especially if he is infinite, for an infinite, complex being would be neverendingly improbable, or more plainly put, impossible.}}

===Reason 6: Limitations of science===
<tt>Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.</tt>

{{Response|This is a case of possible confusion on the meaning of the terms used, as well as a use of the [[god of the gaps]] argument. We can detect emotions through the physical changes to the body, and we can detect brain activity. To say that memory is not detected 'scientifically' is possibly a [[dualism|dualistic]] argument, but there is no basis in it. It is true, however, that the scientific method can only detect certain things: specifically, things which have some observable effect in the universe. Either God has an observable effect on the universe, and can therefore be studied scientifically, or God does not, and therefore is irrelevant.}}

{{Response|Taking the case of 'memory' further, psychologists long ago learned that if they probe the brain in certain areas, they can stimulate full, vivid, true memories in the subject. This would seem to be a form of 'scientific detection' of memory.}}

===Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory===
<tt>Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the 'theory of evolution'. It's a fairy tale for grown ups!</tt>

{{Response|This is surely an instance of [[hypocrisy|the pot calling the kettle black]]. Modern [[evolutionary theory]] is supported by a large number of independently verifiable facts and is used to explain, predict, and manipulate the responses of all manner of biological systems. Where is the corresponding [[evidence for God]] (or [[intelligent design]], etc.)? No, in actuality, most religions, with their tales of super-beings and [[magic]]al events, bear a much greater resemblance to fairy tales than does evolution.

More to the point, however, this is the "[[Evolution is only a theory]]" argument, which relies heavily on an [[equivocation]] between the common usage of the word "theory" and the scientific one (see [[Theory]] for more information). Furthermore, [[science]] is not about [[proof]]s, but [[evidence]], and the evidence supporting evolution is solid. See, for example, the Wikipedia article, [[Wikipedia:Introduction to evolution|Introduction to evolution]] (or the full [[Wikipedia:Evolution|Evolution]] article).

Finally, even if our current understanding of evolution were completely wrong, it still wouldn't make belief in God any more reasonable.}}

{{Response| Gravity is 'just a theory' too. We do not really know how or why it exists, or what exactly causes it. We can, however, observe it, understand it, and make use of that understanding to fly airplanes, launch rockets, put satellites into orbit, etc. I think we could all agree that few theists would question the theory of gravity- why then single out evolution as being 'just a theory'?}}

===Reason 8: Atheism is based on faith===
<tt>Atheism is a faith which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no 'good news' to preach in atheism.</tt>

{{Response|Typical claim that [[atheism is based on faith]] combined with the claim that [[religion provides hope]]. The former is simply untrue (for most atheists) and involves [[shifting the burden of proof]] when used as an argument for belief in God (you don't need to "prove" something doesn't exist to lack belief in it). The latter is an [[appeal to consequences]]; just because religion may have some positive effects does not mean that its claims are true, nor that its tenets should be accepted even for "practical" purposes.}}
{{Response|It is simply not true that "believers believe because they have witnessed". No believer alive today has witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus, the saints emerging from their graves, heaven, God, or any of the other myriad things that they claim to be "witnesses" to. Insofar as a religion orders its followers to "witness" to things they have no experience of, it is ordering them to be ''liars''. Thomas had the right idea: when you have put your fingers in Jesus's wound, ''then'' you can come back and talk about being a "witness".}}
{{Response|In fact, atheism ''does'' have "good news" to "preach": atheists need not subscribe to the arbitrary customs and strictures of religious dogma. We don't have to reconcile biblical contradictions nor deal with the hypocrisies of a schizophrenic deity. We can use our own minds rather than submit to competing human interpretations of "holy" books.}}

===Reason 9: Atheists are angry with God===
<tt>How much of the [[Atheism is based on faith|atheist's faith]] relies on [[Angry at God|anger with God]] as opposed to genuine [[disbelief]] in God?</tt>

{{Response|The assumption that ''any'' atheists are [[angry at God]] is an unfounded one and constitutes an [[ad hominem]] argument, since it questions the motivations behind atheists' lack of belief.}}

{{Response|Ignoring the [[atheism is based on faith]] part of the question, the correct answer is: None. One need not be angry at God (or, more properly, those who perpetuate the myth of God) to disbelieve (or, more properly, lack belief).

Granted, there are different kinds of atheists, and people are atheists for different reasons. But if you use ''[[atheism]]'' to mean either [[weak atheism|the lack of a belief in any gods]] or [[strong atheism|the belief that no gods exist]] then, logically, no atheists can be angry at God. How can you be angry at something that you don't think exists? Those who are angry at God are, by definition, not atheists but angry theists.}}

===Reason 10: Atheists need to get a life===
<tt>Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don't they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don't they leave this 'God nonsense' alone?</tt>
{{Response|This is a [[straw man]] argument, and a [[False dichotomy|false dilemma]]. Atheism does not prevent hobbies, partying, etc. Furthermore, it neglects that while god may not exist, religions do exist. The adherents to these religions often try to impose the values and practices of their own religion onto society at large. Moreover, it presupposes that a majority of people on the planet believe in a fantasy and that is a good reason to have an active life.

Furthermore, assuming that atheists, indeed, need to get a life, it is not a valid reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the email insists.}}

{{Response|The vast majority of atheists have no problem with- indeed, could care less about- theists and theism. It is the methods theists use that cause the problem. When we see theists use political means to try to force their beliefs down our throats, we are offended, and we do indeed "rant and rave" about this misuse of our political processes. However we, more than any, realize that one must have the convictions of their beliefs. Penn Jillette of "Penn & Teller" puts it nicely in one of his videos when he states something to the effect of "if you are a theist and you DON'T proselytize, I have no respect for you." In other words, if you truly believe in Christianity and yet do not share that belief with me- you are no Christian, and are, in fact, evil by your own definition, since you refuse to 'save my soul' by sharing your beliefs. I have no problem with theists sharing their beliefs when they follow established cultural norms in doing so (i.e., ask if I want to hear it, don't try to force your beliefs and opinions on me.)}}

===Reason 11: Chicken-and-egg paradox===
<tt>What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] leading to [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]. Also, evolutionary biology shows that the egg preceded the chicken[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_and_egg#Science_and_Evolution]. This is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]].}}

===Reason 12: Improbability vs. impossibility===
<tt>Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.</tt>

{{Response|The first sentence is [[special pleading]] as it applies to anything and everything that isn't explicitly disproven, including no god whatsoever. The second is an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. It is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 5: Complexity|Reason 5]].}}

===Reason 13: Complexity of human life===
<tt>How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. The complexity of life is the very thing that the theory of evolution explains. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 14: Complexity of the human mind===
<tt>How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and similar to the [[homunculus argument]]. Science demonstrates that [[consciousness]] is an [[emergent property]] of the physical brain; this argument suggests a form of [[dualism]], where the mind and brain are separate. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 15: Food and drink===
<tt>What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we're supplied with?</tt>

{{Response|This is an example of the [[anthropic principle]]. It commits the formal fallacy of [[petitio principii]], assuming that hospitable features of our universe were built to support life, rather than considering that life was adapted to the undesigned features of the universe through natural selection. Douglas Adams' analogy about a [[Douglas Adams#Quotes|sentient puddle]] neatly sums up the problem with this argument.}}

{{Response|We did! Humans are not autotrophs (make one's own food). We require energy from other sources such as plants, fruits and animals. This process of eating and digesting is essential not only to life, but also to performing many biochemical reactions within our bodies. We evolved to eat these substances for this very purpose- we were not created to eat these things (nor were they created for us). If this is a "proof" for God, then we could challenge his benevolence. Why did he put plants on Earth that we can't digest? Or why create poisonous foods? Why do many foods from animals require so much physical risk to achieve? Certainly a loving God would not put such dangers on Earth that could threaten his creation.}}

===Reason 16: The five senses===
<tt>Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we're provided with.</tt>

{{Response|Another example of the [[anthropic principle]].}}
{{Response|The "five senses" common to most humans, while adequate for the purposes of savanna apes, are only able to capture the barest fraction of all light and sound waves, and detect a very limited set of chemicals. There is nothing intrinsically special about the number of senses we possess: they differ from one another more by degrees than by kinds. For instance, our sense of touch is much like hearing when it comes to detecting vibrations, and much like sight for heat detection. Similarly, our senses of smell and taste are quite related. Thus, we can just as easily say we are born with three senses as seven (if you reduce touch to pressure and temperature detection, and consider the sense of balance, for example). Finally, there is nothing special about our sense mechanisms when compared with other members of the animal kingdom. We are far outclassed in the abilities we do possess, and we lack even rudimentary detection mechanisms for electrical or magnetic fields.}}

===Reason 17: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 1===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?</tt>

{{Response|See next reason.}}

===Reason 18: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 2===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?</tt>

{{Response | See the [[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response | What? Nothing. Who? No one. When Earth and the rest of the solar system were formed, the development of human life, or indeed life of any kind, was not the purpose or goal. We humans are the only ones (that we know of) who care that we are here. If things were different, they would be different. Perhaps a different kind of life would have developed — maybe even a kind of life that could wonder how or why it came to exist. But if not, there wouldn't be anyone to ask the question in the first place. In other words, it is possible that the correct answer to the question, "Why do things in the universe look like they were 'fine tuned' to support human life?" might simply be, "If they weren't that way, there would be no humans around to ask the question."}}

{{Response | There is a wide range of possible [[Wikipedia:Habitable_zone|orbits suitable for Earth-like life]] (that is, carbon-based and dependent on water) in our solar system: about 0.95 to 1.37 AU (or 88 million to 127 million miles) from the Sun. The Earth is near the middle of this so-called Goldilocks zone, so it is hugely inaccurate to claim that any deviation from our current position would freeze (or burn) us all up. There is also reason to believe that [[Wikipedia:Gliese_581_d#Climate_and_habitability|life is possible]] in other places in the solar system, such as Jupiter's moon [[Wikipedia:Europa_(moon)#Possible_extraterrestrial_life|Europa]] or the moons [[Wikipedia:Enceladus_(moon)|Enceladus]] or [[Wikipedia:Titan_(moon)|Titan]] of Saturn. These "hot spots" are possible because direct warming by the Sun is not the only way for a celestial body to become warm enough to support life: tidal forces caused by gravitational attraction to other "nearby" bodies (like Earth's moon) can be sufficient to heat up the interior of a planet or moon.}}

{{Response|There are approximately 200 – 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone. Around many of these stars there are going to be planets. Most will be too hot or too cold for life, but there will surely be some that are the right temperature just by chance alone. Our solar system has 8 planets ([[Wikipedia:Pluto#Classification|Pluto is no longer recognized as a planet]]), only 2 of which (Earth and Mars) are in the Goldilocks zone. That makes 2 "successes" out of 8 for our solar system alone. Now extrapolate that to the billions of other solar systems that are presumed to exist in the billions of galaxies in the universe. Even with relatively pessimistic estimates of the sizes of the various Goldilocks zones and the number and kinds of planets that would form in them, there could easily be billions of planets capable of harboring life. See also the [[Infinite monkey theorem]].}}

===Reason 19: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 3===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response| My main response to these points would be that this still does not prove the existence of God. This can be seen as a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesitate to advise using the AP in religious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}

===Reason 20: Complementarity of plant and animal life===
<tt>What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. These anthropic principle arguments are all phrased in such a way as to assume that the answer must be in the form of a "who"--i.e., a personal God. This is [[Petitio principii|begging the question]].}}

{{Response|This 'reason' makes the mistake of assuming some inherent worth of humans or reason for humans to exist. The life on earth tends to conform to the conditions of the planet they inhabit. An organism that cannot conform to the required standards is more likely to die, which goes to show why we don't see the abomination known as the [[Crocoducks|Crocoduck]], or anything like it.}}

===Reason 21: The tornado and the 747===
<tt>The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[argument from design]]. This is [[Fred Hoyle]]'s classic [[Tornado argument]], which is based on the assumption that evolution works by [[Probability|random chance]], ignoring the non-random process of [[natural selection]]. [[Richard Dawkins]] proposed the Ultimate 747 argument[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit] as a response. This reason is also contradictory to the argument proposed in [[#Reason 12: Complexity|Reason 12]].}}

{{Response| The Tornado and the 747 argument also does not take into consideration that a Boeing 747 is a nonliving entity, with no will of its own or ability to think or act. Life came about through natural selection, and by living organisms. Organisms that could adapt, had the will to survive and reproduced. As evolution progresses, organisms have evolved into more complex beings with the ability to communicate, socialize, analyze data and interpret them. Basically life did not come about by chance, as the nonliving 747 has no will to assemble itself whereas a conscious being can think and act to suit survival purposes. }}

{{Response| If one is to believe in cause and effect, there is no such thing as "sheer chance", even if it gives a illusion of such. Although there are some unanswered questions regarding the early evolution of life, we can definitely say that life did not arise according to chance. Molecules have ways of attracting each other and forming complex structures because they behave that way naturally. Given enough time and enough success, life can theoretically arise through natural mechanisms.}}

===Reason 22: The invisible and the supernatural===
<tt>We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work [sic], yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.</tt>

{{Response|While phenomena like [[wikipedia:radio waves|radio waves]] or [[wikipedia:infrared light|infrared light]] may not be visible to the human eye, they are not analogous to any purported supernatural forces. Natural "unseen" waves [[manifest]] in other ways — ways that are detectable and predictable. In short, they are well understood and explained by science, and this is why they can be utilized in technology. The same cannot be said for God.}}

===Reason 23: Self-organization and entropy===
<tt>Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.</tt>

{{Response|An uneaten tomato does not "transform" into disorganization. It may decompose into simpler organic components by the action of bacteria, fungi or other creatures such as maggots through well-understood biological processes. In fact, these components might then become part of other plants or animals, including a pineapple. This argument is utter absurdity, ignoring the very basics of [[evolution]], specifically that individuals do not evolve, ''populations'' evolve. It also ignores the role of reproduction in evolution, the fact that evolution proceeds by small changes over time, the lack of a hierarchical/teleological path for evolution, and so forth. See the EvoWiki page on a similar, more common argument[http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The_descendants_of_an_X_(cat,_dog...)_will_remain_X].}}

{{Response|The opening assumption that matter is unable to self-organize is wrong: crystals are a prime example of matter organizing itself. This innate ability of matter becomes important in some theories of abiogenesis, like A. Graham Cairns-Smith's Clay theory.}}

===Reason 24: Darwin's deathbed conversion===
<tt>Our 'inventor' of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; "I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions; wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire - people made a religion of them." Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbors the next day. "What shall I speak about?" She asked. He replied; "Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?"</tt>

{{Response|The story of [[Darwin]]'s [[deathbed conversion]] is an [[urban myth]]. Even if it were true (and evidence shows that it is not), it is an [[Argumentum ad verecundiam|argument from authority]]. We accept [[evolution]] not based on Darwin's word but on the [[evidence]] supporting the theory, most of which has been discovered since Darwin's death. By the same token, we should not reject evolution based on Darwin's word, even if he repudiated everything he had written on the subject. Similarly, we should not take Darwin's word for it that a [[god]] exists (if he did believe that) or that [[Christianity]] is the path to [[salvation]]. It is also worth noting that Darwin was not the first person to propose evolution as a possibility, or even that natural processes were responsible; he just happens to be the first to produce both a cogent theory for how the process works along with solid evidence supporting it.}}

===Reason 25: Morality===
<tt>Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we've no-one to be accountable to.</tt>

{{Response|[[Evolutionary psychology|Evolutionary psychologists]] have proposed explanations for many "moral values" and behaviors that appear to be instinctual; observations of [[wikipedia:social animal|social animal]]s reveal that many have moral codes that are similar to that of humans. [[Atheist]]s may follow any number of [[secular]] [[ethical]] codes, holding themselves accountable to values or ideals derived [[rational]]ly, rather than to a [[deity]]. Furthermore, the [[Euthyphro dilemma]] turns this argument around on the [[theist]]: where do [[God]]'s moral values come from?}}

{{Response|To whom are we morally responsible? In moral systems that lack a divine component, we are accountable to those around us.}}

{{Response|Most people don't share many of the moral values of the Bible. The vast majority of humans consider rape within marriage and slavery to be wrong while working on the sabbath is considered to be acceptable, which conflicts with biblical morality. The fact that the Bible condemns murder, theft and lying is trivial because peoples and even many other animals that are unfamiliar with the Bible also hold these moral values.}}

===Reason 26: Man vs. animal===
<tt>If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.</tt>

{{Response|There are many problems with this argument.
# It is based, at least implicitly, on the archaic concept of the [[Great Chain of Being]], in which humans are seen as separate from, and inherently superior to, other animals. In fact, humans ''are'' animals. The theory of evolution doesn't hold that they evolved "away from" animals and became something fundamentally different.
# Since evolution necessarily implies change from a previous state, the fact that the ancestors of humans had certain characteristics doesn't necessarily mean that humans must still have those characteristics. ''Any'' two animal species will share certain characteristics and not share others. This is the result of the process of evolution and not — as is implied above — a refutation of it.
# Many human behaviors ''are'', in fact, very similar to those found among animals today (especially other [[wikipedia:primate|primates]]). Examples include the seeking of food and shelter, the forming of social groups to secure these resources, the forming of pair bonds for reproduction and the rearing of offspring, the protection of family members from others in the social group and of members of the group from outsiders, and communication through sound and gestures. On the other hand, aspects of human behavior that are indeed unique to our species may be attributable to adaptations such as bipedalism or advanced cognitive function, particularly the capacity for abstract thought. Evolutionary theory may actually be able to explain how these characteristics arose.
# Given the history of the 20th century (for example), there is some doubt as to what "civilized" actually means and whether humans can be said to possess that characteristic.
# Finally, as with [[#Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory|Reason 7]] (and many others), even if the claim above were completely true, it wouldn't justify belief in God.}}

===Reason 27: Chance and ignorance===
<tt>'Chance' isn't the cause of something. It just describes what we can't find a reason for.</tt>

{{Response|[[Straw man]] argument. While [[evolution]] contains some aspects of apparent "[[chance]]" (genetic mutations), the process of [[natural selection]] is the force which drives the process of adaptation. Furthermore, "chance" is not a description of something we cannot find a reason for; that is "ignorance". Chance is a description of systems which operate according to laws of [[probability]].}}

===Reason 28: Limitations of science and logic===
<tt>Science & logic do not hold all the answers - many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.</tt>

{{Response|You're right, science and logic do not hold all the answers, that's why we have Chemistry and Mathematics, and as for concerns of the heart/soul/emotional side we have the Arts. Every thing can be accounted for with careful use of reason. Just because something is not known does not mean it can not be known.}}

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[special pleading]]. If we have no understanding of these forces, then how can anyone be said to be "aware" of them? If we are aware, we must have some small measure of understanding.}}

{{Response| Majority opinion is irrelevant to the facts. Many people may believe a lie- take for example: "Many teenagers believe that marijuana is harmless, drugs are harmful whereas marijuana is not, therefore marijuana is not a drug." Any doctor could tell you of the harmful side effects of marijuana usage. Furthermore, a drug need not be immediately harmful for it to be a drug. But nonetheless, many teenagers may make this claim, even if it is obviously not true.

We should be asking bigger questions. Such as: Are the majority of the people mentioned experts in said field? Do they know about the field they are making claims on? Is it their educational background or profession? Anyone can make conclusions on a subject in physics, but if they are not a physicist, we should be more skeptical of their conclusions.

What is the majority basing their opinions on? Evidence? If no, then we can't say with certainty they have a "proven" claim. Feeling, Emotion, Belief? If yes, then perhaps there is a bias they have preventing them from accepting conflicting evidence or looking upon the subject from other perspectives. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote Sherlock as saying "Never theorize before one has data, invariably one twists facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts." Majority opinion can always be based on biases and evidence is required to take any claim seriously.

Is the majority well informed on the subject and all aspects/perspectives on it? You can hardly say that "many people believe in mediums, therefore medium phenomena is true." Really? Have the believers read any skeptical positions? Done any research? Looked for alternative explanations? Just as with evolution, in some countries, the majority do not believe- but are they aware of all the evidence? It's hardly fair to say majority wins when many of the majority may not have all the facts.

Lastly, just because there may be things we do not yet have scientific answers to, it does not mean there is no scientific answer. We just haven't found one yet. It's nothing more than a hasty conclusion to say "Science has no answer, therefore this one is true." It is not so. Perhaps we will find an answer in a year or two from now, until then, conclusions should not be made.}}

===Reason 29: Gregorian calendar===
<tt>Look at the date/year on our calender - 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus' existence.</tt>

{{Response|This is an unfounded claim that [[the Gregorian calendar proves that Jesus existed]]. The Anno Domini (AD) dating system was not created until 525 AD. It is not independent, contemporary historical confirmation of the New Testament. The current Gregorian Calendar was drafted in 1582 under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII of the Catholic church, and cannot act as evidence of the existence of a man who is thought to have lived 15 centuries earlier.}}

{{Response|Look at the names of days and months on your calendar. This proves that the gods Moon, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, Saturn and Sun, Januarius, the Roman gods to whom the Februa were celebrated, Mars, etc., etc. all exist.}}

===Reason 30: Martyrs===
<tt>Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!</tt>

{{Response|This could only show that purported martyrs ''believed'' they were dying for a true faith. It cannot prove that their beliefs are actually true; martyrs may be mistaken. Many people have died in the name of many contradictory faiths. Further, people have given their lives in the name of beliefs such as Nazism; must we assume these are also true?}}

{{Response|See article - [[Would someone die for a lie?]]}}

===Reason 31: Biblical accounts===
<tt>Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.</tt>

{{Response|It may be a stretch to describe stories of events written 40+ years after they supposedly occurred as "eyewitness accounts", when the average lifespan of a human in those times was likely much lower[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_over_human_history]. The truth is that none of the [[Gospels]] were written by eyewitnesses, the earliest dating estimate[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating] is 65 C.E. and most are thought to be significantly later. Moreover, the earliest New Testament texts were purportedly authored by early church founder Paul of Tarsus, who was not an eyewitness. Even assuming the events were recorded by supposed eyewitnesses, we could make that argument in favor of many religious texts and other writings which may contradict each other. Does this give us reason to assume the events recorded in books like the Qur'an are also true? And given the many conflicts over heresies, apocryphal texts and other teachings in the early church, it seems safe to say that there was "confusion and anger" over the contents of the books.}}

{{Response| Some of the Four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. The book of Mark was written by Barnabas' nephew Mark, who was not one of the original Twelve Apostles. The book of Luke was written by Luke of Antioch, who was a believer after hearing the Gospel. Those two books were collections of various eyewitness accounts. Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which was both a collection of eyewitness accounts, as well as a journal of Luke's travels when he helped spread the Gospel.

There is much truth in the New Testament accounts in terms of "normal" historical events that can be verified through comparing contemporary historical works and archaeology. However, one could question whether or not the supernatural events that are written in the Gospels took place.}}

===Reason 32: Archaeology===
<tt>From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaeological evidence to confirm many details we're provided with in the Bible.</tt>

{{Response|This may be true, but there is also a striking ''lack'' of archaeological evidence for many important stories recorded in the Bible (see claim #34). Atheists do not claim that the Bible must be entirely false in every respect. What matters when determining if the Bible provides basis for a belief in God is the evidence we can find for its claims of supernatural phenomena, like the resurrection of Jesus. This evidence does not exist. Furthermore, there is evidence to confirm many of the details provided in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad Iliad] or the average [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-man Spider-Man] comic, but that doesn't mean that Achilles and Spider-Man exist.}}

===Reason 33: Biblical prophecy===
<tt>Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.</tt>

{{Response|This is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. The Bible does not contain a single fulfilled prediction which is/was verifiable, non trivial, and was not self-fulfilling.

Biblical [[prophecy]] was "confirmed" by those who were already aware of such prophecy and with a vested interest in ensuring that such prophecy had the appearance of being fulfilled.}}

{{Response| This claim is simply false. Perhaps the most strikingly embarrassing unfulfilled prophecy in the bible is Jesus' prediction of his own second coming, to occur within the lifetimes of the people listening to him. There are dozens of others.}}

{{Response| Those prophecies only come true in the context of the bible, which was compiled and edited after the fact. There are many works of fiction where predictions are made that come true in the context of that book or film, does this make the stories true?}}

===Reason 34: Biblical history===
<tt>The evidence from literature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.</tt>

{{Response|This is plainly false. In addition to the miracles and supernatural events described in the Bible, for which there is no historical evidence, many of the historical claims which could theoretically be substantiated with archaeological evidence are contradicted by modern historians. For example, historians believe there is no evidence for Hebrew slavery in Egypt or the Exodus as described in the Old Testament[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus#CriticalEvaluation].}}

===Reason 35: Christianity and science in harmony===
<tt>From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac ''[sic]'' Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.</tt>

{{Response|Many of the arguments in this email appear to promote Christianity by opposing science, but even if we grant that there is no conflict between science and Christianity and that many scientists are Christians, this hardly provides evidence that Christianity is true. See [[burden of proof]]. And if we fail to grant that there is no conflict, we recognize many contradictions[http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html] between the Biblical account and established science.}}

{{Response| From the time of Galileo to the latest attempts by creationists to push their agendas in schools, science and faith have ''always'' been in opposition. Whether it's the germ theory of disease vs. demons and the powers of the air, the preposterous miracles of the Roman Catholic Church, heliocentrism vs. angels moving the stars about, lightning rods instead of sounding the church bells, science has ''never'' had to back down: it has always been religion that has had to preserve itself by "reinterpreting" its texts.}}

===Reason 36: How vs. why===
<tt>Science can explain 'how' something works, but not 'why' something works.</tt>

{{Response|This argument is essentially meaningless. To science, 'how' and 'why' are the same thing. 'How' speaks of the mechanism, 'why' speaks of the cause. If a domino knocks another domino over, the 'how' is by transfer of energy, the 'why' is explained as Newton's three laws of motion.}}

{{Response| Terry Pratchett, of all people, gives an insight into this. The question "why" presupposes that there is a ''story'' to be told. A ''narrative''. Science is a different way of knowing, and one of its discoveries is that the language of the universe is not that of story and legend, but that of mathematics. It's something that a lot of math-phobes have a hard time accepting.}}

===Reason 37: Science changes===
<tt>Science is constantly recorrecting ''[sic]'' its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.</tt>

{{Response|A willingness to reconsider [[theory|theories]] in the face of new [[evidence]] is essential to any process that seeks the [[truth]]. [[Science]] is strong precisely because of this, rather than despite it. In addition, religious groups, even those considered extreme or [[fundamentalist]], often change their teachings in response to social concerns. For example, the [[Church of Latter-Day Saints]] abandoned polygamy in order to gain statehood for Utah. Mainstream [[Christianity]] is guilty of the same revisionism: In 1633, [[Wikipedia:Galileo|Galileo]] was convicted of [[heresy]] by the Catholic Church for promoting [[wikipedia:heliocentrism|heliocentrism]], which directly contradicts biblical "evidence" of the organization of the universe. It wasn't until 1992 that Galileo was officially vindicated in a declaration by [[Wikipedia:Pope John Paul II|Pope John Paul II]]. Did God change the arrangement of the heavenly bodies in the intervening centuries? Or was the Catholic Church simply wrong because they were using a completely unreliable source of knowledge? [[Wikipedia:Ben Franklin|Ben Franklin]] was accused of heresy by Catholics and [[Protestants]] alike, for developing the [[wikipedia:lightning rod|lightning rod]], which was considered an effort to stifle God's wrath. Today, however, virtually all structures, including churches, are fitted with lightning protection.}}

{{Response|When science changes, the new theory generally explains both the new facts ''and'' the old. For example, [[Einstein]]'s [[Wikipedia:theory of relativity|theory of relativity]], which shows relative speed, changes the rules while at the same time making it quite clear that Newtonian physics is still a very good approximation for a lot of things. On the contrary, when society changes in such a way that religions have to "reinterpret" their own scriptures, the original interpretations are no longer valid. The prior behaviors of followers are then written off as heretical, as, for example, in the case of the Catholic Church during the [[Inquisition]]. See also: [[no true Scotsman]]. }}

{{Response|The truth is always changing and evolving. Humans, both individually and collectively, only have a limited understanding of how the world is. Whether or not we admit it, our view of our world is one made up of a lot of assumptions, however educated they may be. The fact that science and the interpretation of religious beliefs keep changing is proof of this. The fact that science and religion are constantly changing should not be a reason to dismiss either one entirely. We should dismiss our own personal assumptions/beliefs regarding the object in question, and not the object itself.}}

===Reason 38: Abiogenesis===
<tt>Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn't explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.</tt>

{{Response|The biological theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life; it describes how the diversity and complexity of life found today arose from simpler organisms. However, science could explain how life began on Earth if a credible theory of [[abiogenesis]] or [[wikipedia:panspermia|panspermia]] emerges in the future. Though there is currently no generally accepted and evidence-supported theory of how life arose on Earth, scientists have demonstrated that abiogenesis is possible (such as in the [[Wikipedia:Miller-Urey experiment|Miller-Urey experiment]]), and there are a variety of hypotheses which are more [[Occam's razor|parsimonious]] than one invoking a transcendent God. While a consensus theory of abiogenesis or panspermia would not disprove the existence of God, the [[burden of proof]] is on those who assert the existence of supernatural phenomena.}}

{{Response|This is another iteration of the [[God of the gaps]] argument and an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. While this argument attempts to defend the Christian mythological deity, it serves the same function for all other deities, as well as for any other unfalsifiable claim, including [[You can't prove God doesn't exist|Russell's Teapot]], [[Wikipedia:Brain in a vat|you are in the Matrix]], or that the universe was created 20 seconds ago by me.}}
{{Response|The author is entirely correct in maintaining that proof of evolution would not be disproof of God; however, as can be seen in many other "reasons", she seems to be unwilling or unable to recognize that ''disproof'' of evolution is likewise not ''proof'' of God.}}

{{Response|Scientists haven't answered all of the questions of the universe. I admit this. However, this fact is not a reason to believe in God. This fact doesn't have anything to do with God.}}

{{Response| Evolution is true and it does disprove the existence of the god of the Jewish and Christian Bible. Evolution shows there was no creation since there was no creation then there was no Garden of Eden then there is no first sin. Since there was no first sin then there is no evil in the world. Since there is no evil in the world then there is no reason for there to be a Jesus Christ and no reason for him to give his life to wash away our sins with his blood. So with evolution there is no god of the Bible or its false religions.}}

===Reason 39: A bad lie?===
<tt>The two people who discovered Jesus' empty tomb were women. Women were very low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical & Biblical truth.</tt>

{{Response|Let me get this straight: because women had low status and because it is written somewhere that some women claimed something that would be really great (from the author's perspective) if it were true, therefore the claims must be true? Wow. That's an amazing logical leap. (To be fair, historians do sometimes use such [[Wikipedia:Criterion of embarrassment|"countersupportive" evidence as positive evidence]] of historical claims — for example, [[Bart D. Ehrman]]'s analysis of which [[sayings of Jesus]] in the Bible might be historically accurate relies in part on whether each quotation shows Jesus or his message in a positive or negative light — but a good historian would never go so far as to argue that this makes the claims ''true''.)}}

{{Response|While the Gospels describe Jesus' tomb being found empty by women, the Gospels also give accounts of the resurrected Jesus appearing to his male disciples. The Gospels were also written and promulgated by men. The resurrection claim does not rest solely on the word of low-status women. Even if it did, this would hardly be sufficient reason to deem it true; [[extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence]]. Moreover, the account is [[hearsay]] and [[Biblical contradictions|contradictory accounts]] of this event are given in the Gospels.}}

===Reason 40: Near-death experiences===
<tt>Think about Near Death Experiences. It's naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn't have otherwise known, an african ''[sic]'' man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing "a dream". We're not silly - we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.</tt>

{{Response|It is not naive to seek physiological or psychological explanations for unusual experiences a person may have while their body is recovering from life-threatening trauma or disease; in fact, studies have shown that NDEs can be induced through drugs or trauma, and are almost certain to be a physiological phenomenon. It is naive to immediately presume something supernatural is occurring. Why are these bizarre claims about paperclips and Africans rising from the dead not substantiated? If credible evidence existed of a man being actually deceased and rising three days later, this would be unprecedented news quickly publicized to every corner of the globe by every kind of formal or informal media. If this actually occurred, present the evidence. Science demands more proof than a mere assurance that one asserting a shocking revelation is "not silly." See also the Skeptic's Dictionary entry[http://skepdic.com/nde.html] on the subject.}}

{{Response|Why do you, necessarily, need eyes to experience visual information? When I dream, my eyes are closed yet I 'see' things. Either all my dreams are magical journeys to the furthest edges of reality, or my brain can generate visual information independently from my eyes. I choose the latter.}}

===Reason 41: Biblical skeptics===
<tt>There are many skeptics who didn't believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.</tt>

{{Response| This is a form of [[argumentum ad populum]], at one stage the majority of the world believed the earth was flat. These are anecdotal accounts of people who could be mistaken. While it is true conversions to Christianity continue today, conversions to other religions and away from organized religion also occur.}}

{{Response| This argument does not take into consideration that people may have alternative reasons for changing their religion (or lack thereof) besides believing. People may change religions to suit a new marriage, or perhaps they lost a loved one and need some form of comfort. Perhaps they are trying to please persistent family members or just enjoy the Christmas carols and architecture and enjoy the sense of community. We can not always assume that people join a faith because they believe that it is true. }}

===Reason 42: Einstein quote===
<tt>Albert Einstein said; "A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".</tt>

{{Response|[[Albert Einstein]] also said, "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." [[argumentum ad verecundiam]]. Lameness does not affect factuality. Besides this, Einstein used the term "religion" in a specific, nonstandard way, defined here: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 'If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it'." It is this admiration for the structure of the universe that Einstein thought essential to science.}}

===Reason 43: The tomato thrower===
<tt>A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"</tt>

{{Response|This unsubstantiated anecdote about a believer assaulting an atheist with a vegetable is actually a form of the [[unmoved mover]]/[[uncaused cause]] argument, implying that atheists are foolish not to believe in a higher power that created the universe. This argument does not solve the problem of the first cause; it merely shifts the burden onto an unproven supernatural being. If God is not caused, then it cannot be said that all things must have a cause. Whether it be the universe itself, for atheists, or God himself, for the believer, all must admit the existence of something whose cause is as yet undiscovered. Atheists hope to continue discovering causes through reason; theists merely give up. Theism cannot claim this as an advantage. If we are to take this anecdote at face value, we must also question the morality of the presumed theist who both assaulted the speaker, rather than refute his claims, and then either lied about the assault or failed to confess and apologize.

Furthermore, the public assault of an atheist by means of a possibly self-actuating, suicidal vegetable is hardly a compelling reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the original email suggests.}}

===Reason 44: Occam's supernatural razor===
<tt>It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.</tt>

{{Response|This is another form of [[uncaused cause]] argument employing [[Occam's Razor]], but an explanation that requires the existence of an unseen, omnipotent supernatural being can hardly be simpler than one that relies on observable natural principles. This argument also prompts the question, how did God arise out of nothing? It also presupposes a [[straw man]] form of the [[Big Bang]] theory of cosmology. Theists often claim that the Big Bang suggests that "nothing became something," when in fact it says no such thing. In fact, there is no scientific reason to think that the matter and energy of the universe had to be created (which would be a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics) and have not merely always existed in one form or another.}}

===Reason 45: How-vs.-why Hawking quote===
<tt>Stephen Hawkins ''[sic]'' has admitted; "Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?"</tt>

{{Response|Spurious. Whatever reason the universe exists, the Bible does nothing to answer this question. All it does is provide a claim of 'what' was created, and 'when', vaguely (and incorrectly) answers the 'how' ([[magic]]) but it in no way answers the 'why'. If it even makes sense to speak of the universe as if it chooses to exist, why it does so would not be the subject of science, which deals with what can be naturally observed. This should be considered a problem of philosophy.}}

===Reason 46: With God all things are possible===
<tt>We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.</tt>

{{Response|[[Petitio principii]], [[religion provides hope]]. These statements merely follow from the definition of an omnipotent creator God; they do nothing to prove its existence.}}

{{Response|It is precisely ''because'' supernatural explanations allow "all things [to be] possible" that they are useless when it comes to determining the true causes of observed phenomena.}}

{{Response|It was also the Bible that said that pi is equal to 3, but I don't see any Christians promoting that theory.}}

{{Response| Is it really true that with God all things are possible? Can God create a stone large enough that even he can not lift it? Either way, he fails at omnipotence. The argument is also special pleading, it gives God a status of being immune to the laws of science but how is this possible? God is NOT made up of matter? Ultimately this argument is only an attempt to "dodge the bullet".}}

===Reason 47: Evolved vs. evolving===
<tt>If we are the product of evolution - by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. And, in fact, we ''are'' still evolving, as are all living things. As for "finely tuned", most of our planet's surface is uninhabitable by or inhospitable to humans (frozen wastelands, oceans, deserts), and the vast majority of the universe is fatal to humans, so how can "everything" be said to be "finely tuned for our living"?}}

===Reason 48: The Missing Link===
<tt>Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. The falsification of [[evolution]] would not be evidence of a god and inability to find a particular [[missing link]] is not falsification of evolution. The "missing link" itself comes from a misunderstanding of evolution, and has more in common with the [[Great Chain of Being]] than anything scientific.}}

{{Response|The famous Missing Link between humans and ape ancestors has also been found. Not merely one example, either, but many different stages. This is another example of the [[God of the gaps]] argument. What's more, even if the "missing link" were really missing, that does not prove it does not exist. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.}}

{{Response| The Missing Link argument claims that we are still missing the fossils to prove evolutionary descent. However scientists are discovering more fossils by the year, each giving more insight into how evolution works and how relationships are established. This argument does not take into consideration the other things besides fossils which prove evolution, such as genetics.}}

===Reason 49: Open your eyes===
<tt>God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?</tt>

{{Response|[[Special pleading]], [[petitio principii]]. If God is omnipotent, there is no limit to what more he could do. Even if our eyes are "shut to him," an omnipotent being could certainly open them.

Such a claim is also prejudiced against the blind. What if someone has no eyes to see God's works? Are blind people, by definition, atheists?}}

{{Response|[[Argument from non-belief]]. Why doesn't God speak directly to the entire human population? Or visit "physically" every once in a while? In other words, why isn't God's existence more obvious, based on direct, observable and irrefutable evidence and not theoretical guesses and feeling? }}

===Reason 50: Liar or Lord?===
<tt>Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. He could have also...
* been insane,
* never actually existed,
* not said all of the things attributed to him, or
* been deceived by the lies of others.
See also C.S. Lewis's [[trilemma]].}}

===Big finish===
<tt>YOU DECIDE!!!</tt>
{{Response|[[Pascal's Wager#Atheist's Wager|Choose wisely!]]}}

== Summary ==

Of the "50 reasons" given, the following do not say anything about evidence for God at all:
* 19 arguments against atheism/science/rationality and for non-religious paranormal ideas: 2,5-10,13-14,21,23,26-28,36-38,40,48
* 8 non sequiturs that make a statement and hope that the reader draws a connection to God (mostly bad fine-tuning arguments): 12,15-20,47
* 5 statements that simply assert God against all objections, giving no real "reason" for belief: 3,11,22,46,49
* 4 appeals to famous scientists: 24,35,42,45
* 1 story that attacks atheism through straight-forward ridicule: 43
* 1 appeal to morality that claims that faith is good without showing that it is correct: 25

The remaining twelve arguments are mostly either about the Bible or of the type that say "this is all here because God put it here."

Fifty arguments probably sounds like a pretty impressive number. But a more accurate (and far less catchy) title to this email would be "Twenty-four attacks on our enemies who promote science and reason over faith, fourteen vague statements that try to make theists look good or reasonable, and twelve reasons why some Christian beliefs are superficially plausible."

==External links==

* [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php Copy of the email] originally posted by [[PZ Myers]]

[[Category:Internet memes]]

50 reasons to believe in God

2010-10-09T06:49:38Z

Daemonowner: /* Reason 30: Martyrs */

: ''For the book by Guy P. Harrison, see [[50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God]].''

'''50 reasons to believe in [[God]]''' is an email that made the rounds of [[atheist]] [[Wikipedia:Blog|blog]]gers in June 2008. [[PZ Myers]], on his blog [[Pharyngula]], identifies the original author as Debra Rufini, an author whose recent book contains "an imaginary scenario in which [[Richard Dawkins]] gets psychiatric counseling…from Jesus".[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php]

What follows is a collection of responses to these purported "reasons".

(Note that the title associated with each "reason" did not appear in the original e-mail and is provided here merely for reference.)

==Responses to the message==

===Preamble===
<tt>It is easy to prove to yourself that God is real. .the evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs:</tt>

{{Comment-box1|label=General responses:|text=None of the arguments put forth in this e-mail are "proofs" of God's existence. Technically, most of them aren't even "reasons" to believe. On the other hand, the author did say, "prove to yourself", which is, one could argue, different from proving a claim to someone else. Nevertheless, almost all of the arguments rely on the same handful of [[logic]]al [[fallacies]], the responses to which can be summarized as follows:
# Disproof of one claim is not proof of another (unless they are exact logical opposites).
# The [[burden of proof]] lies with the person making the claim that something exists or should be "believed in".
# Just because you [[argumentum ad ignorantiam|can't figure out what caused something]], or can't understand how something works, doesn't mean [[God did it]].
# Arguing that the environment was created to fit the needs of humans is getting the order of causality exactly backwards: according to modern [[evolutionary theory]], humans have evolved to fit their environment.
# If an argument for the existence of God can be used to argue for the existence of ''any other god'', then it can't be a good reason to believe in the ''particular'' god of [[Christianity]].}}

===Reason 1: DNA===
<tt>Whilst agreeing that [[random]] [[pattern]]s occur naturally [[by chance]], [[DNA]] however, consists of code, which requires a [[designer]].</tt>

{{Response|This is the [[argument from design]]. Incidentally, it is the study of DNA that gives the strongest [[evidence]] of [[common descent]], a key component of [[evolution]]ary theory (which is argued against in several of the "reasons" below).}}

{{Response|A code does not simply require a designer - it requires an encoder and a decoder who ''agree on its meaning''. Or more generally, a code requires a set of ''understanders''. It makes no sense to speak of something being a "code" unless it encodes a ''message'' of some sort from a sender to a receiver. That is to say, to call DNA a "code" at all is [[begging the question|question-begging]]. DNA is a chemical which interacts with other chemicals according to well-understood laws of chemistry and physics.

However, if we wish to speak of it as encoding a message, then that message surely comes not from a God but from ''prior generations of living things''. The messages our distant ancestors have left for us are such things as; "this is a good way to make a muscle", "this is how you digest food", "it is a good idea to run away from things that look like this", and of course those instincts that make us a social species such as "punish the wicked", and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".}}

{{Response|Not all systems which are known to represent information (aka code) were known to have been created by a designer. For example, the solar system can be viewed as a system which encodes information, such as the length of a day or the period in which one might harvest crops or the tidal calendar. While this coded information provides data relevant to the daily lives of the inhabitants of this planet, it is by no means apparent that this information was created by a designer, and it is highly plausible this information is simply the emergent metrics of an unordered assembly of celestial bodies.}}

===Reason 2: Paranormal phenomena===
<tt>How do you explain the [[paranormal]], such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine — I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.</tt>

{{Response|This is an [[argument from personal experience]] and an implicit appeal to [[personal revelation]]. It fallaciously presupposes that one's senses, and the interpretations given them, are [[infallible]]. One need not be a liar or attention-seeker, or be overtired to misinterpret sensory information.

Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built up from prior beliefs and past experience (a fact that [[magic]]ians primarily rely upon to "fool the eye", especially in [[wikipedia:close-up magic|close-up magic]]). In addition, we tend to impart meaning on ambiguous input even when there is [[pareidolia|no real meaning behind it]] (e.g., "seeing faces" or "hearing voices" where there are none). There are also real physiological limitations to our senses that result in nearly universal misperceptions such as [[optical illusion]]s. On a different level, we tend to see causal relationships where none exist (one example of this kind of fallacious reasoning is called [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]). All of these tendencies may have conferred evolutionary advantages in the past — and may continue to do so today — but they can easily lead to the misinterpretation of evidence.

Finally, consider the fact that the very same phenomena that were once attributed to "ancestors" in early human history may have been attributed to angels or [[demon]]s in the Middle Ages, to [[witch]]es or [[the Devil]] in the 17th and 18th centuries, to "spirits" or [[wikipedia:poltergeist|poltergeist]]s in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to [[wikipedia:extraterrestrial|extraterrestrial]]s in the late 20th century. The sensory stimuli may be the same, but the interpretation is different. Why should we believe the claim that these phenomena point to the existence of a god, especially the god of [[Christianity]]?}}

{{Response|I don't believe you. We each of us have to decide, from the multitude of conflicting voices around us, what information we are going to accept as reliable. I have no more reason to believe your miracle story than you have to believe the stories that a Hindu (I assume you are a Christian) might tell you, or indeed that other Christians might tell you. Every religion is awash with absurd miracle stories, and you and I both have to reject the vast majority of them. You are going to have to do better than "My mate and I saw a ghost! For real!"}}

===Reason 3: Prayer===
<tt>Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?</tt>

{{Response|This argument is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. It urges the reader to pray, and anticipates that any results of [[prayer]] would be easy to dismiss as chance. In essence this is an admission that the results of prayer may not actually be distinguishable from coincidence and chance. On the other hand, using similar reasoning, what good is it to consider the extremely low odds of winning the lottery, or the risks of [[wikipedia:day trading|day trading]]? Shouldn't we all just jump in and have a little faith? [[Skepticism]] helps people live better, more secure lives.}}

{{Response| Try praying for what? Prayer will not set a broken bone, prayer will not move a mountain. Prayer has even been tested, and it failed.The Templeton Foundation funded a prayer study to find out if prayer helped on recovery after heart surgery. The results were conclusive that prayer did not help; on the contrary, it showed that those who knew they were being prayed for experienced more complications during recovery. Brain studies have shown that the same areas of the brain are active during meditation and talking problems out with friends, these latter two having greater results in improving on the quality of life. Try praying? I say try a little meditation and have a few drinks and dinner with friends, it will do you a lot more good.}}

===Reason 4: First cause===
<tt>The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.</tt>

{{Response|This fails to provide proof for a god, as it requires to define god as the "[[uncaused cause]]," therefore negating the original premise. Refer also to [[David Hume]]'s arguments regarding the inability to determine the cause of an effect through reason alone (we need some experience, and have none for 'creating universes.') Moreover, there need not be a direct cause for all things; there is no direct cause for the radioactive decay of an individual atom, and yet it happens. There would appear to be uncaused quantum "effects" as well. Attempts to use physical laws (real or conventionally-accepted, with the above being the latter) to require the existence of a god tend to ignore that, for nearly all definitions of god, god violates various physical laws. Even if "everything must have a cause" necessitated the existence of a God, "energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed" (the [[Thermodynamics#Laws|First Law of Thermodynamics]]) would necessitate an un-created/eternal universe. Theists can't [[Cherry picking|cherry-pick]] physical laws to prove their god's existence. See also: [[Special pleading]].

The author doesn't explain why things that existed forever don’t need a cause while others do. In any case, recent physical theories suggest that the physical [[Universe]] is part of a larger [[Wikipedia:Multiverse|Multiverse]]; which by your reasoning always existed and doesn’t need a cause.}}

{{Response|My response would be to say that even if there was a first cause, how is this true proof of God? There are many other possible events that could have caused our universe.

I wouldn't use the "eternal universe" model as evidence. A theist was all too quick to point out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and recent astronomical observations prove that our universe is not eternal. If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.}}

===Reason 5: Complexity===
<tt>Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.</tt>

{{Response|This is [[False premise|fallacious in its assumption]] that an atheistic viewpoint requires the world to [[Origin of the universe|start from "nothing"]]. It also is guilty of [[special pleading]] ([[responsibility]] is an attribute of [[intelligence]]) and is another invocation of the [[argument from design]]. Note also that this author's "nothing" includes the entirety of physical, chemical, and other laws of the universe.

For the record, none of the scientific theories about the beginning of the universe posit that there was "nothing" and then there was "something." The [[Big Bang]] theory does posit the universe as being compacted to a singularity, and this does pose certain problems at such a [[Wikipedia:Quantum theory|quantum level]] because of how matter is understood to work, but it is not even clear that matter yet existed at this singularity - it doesn't have to, either, because matter and [[energy]] are equivalents (by [[general relativity]]) and energy does not follow the same types of quantum constraints as matter. You could (in a very simplified view of quantum and relativity theories) have all the matter in the universe converted to energy, and have all that energy contained in no space at all (a singularity) because energy requires no space.}}

{{Response|We know that this claim is factually wrong. According to this argument, complex snowflakes must be made by some intelligence, rather than the "mindless nothing" of physical and chemical forces. That is, if this is true, then God must assign angels to individually craft each snowflake. There must be a "Jack Frost" who draws those artistic patterns on our windows when it's cold. Rather than this childish storybook view of the world, we know that emergent complexity happens all the time, and is an exciting and interesting branch of mathematics and science.

Snowflakes are a special case of any crystalline structure. Diamonds, for example, are nothing more than a special (and precise) arrangement of carbon atoms in a structure that makes the overall object transparent (unlike graphite or other forms of pure carbon). Diamonds do not require a creator to arrange the carbon atoms just so. They require nothing more than the right pressure to force the carbon atoms into this configuration, and such pressures arise naturally in the earth as a result of nothing more than the properties of matter and gravity.}}

{{Response|I once read a Jack Chick tract that said that all the atoms in the universe are held together by God. This argument here reaches to the one about complexity. If God has to multitask on everything, what if God got tired and let his guard down for one second? Uh-oh, the universe is destroyed. If one is making an argument this complex, one should check all the angles so it is foolproof.}}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator (as the argument follows). But the fact is that God must necessarily be more complex only demonstrates that his existence is greatly improbable. Especially if he is infinite, for an infinite, complex being would be neverendingly improbable, or more plainly put, impossible.}}

===Reason 6: Limitations of science===
<tt>Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.</tt>

{{Response|This is a case of possible confusion on the meaning of the terms used, as well as a use of the [[god of the gaps]] argument. We can detect emotions through the physical changes to the body, and we can detect brain activity. To say that memory is not detected 'scientifically' is possibly a [[dualism|dualistic]] argument, but there is no basis in it. It is true, however, that the scientific method can only detect certain things: specifically, things which have some observable effect in the universe. Either God has an observable effect on the universe, and can therefore be studied scientifically, or God does not, and therefore is irrelevant.}}

{{Response|Taking the case of 'memory' further, psychologists long ago learned that if they probe the brain in certain areas, they can stimulate full, vivid, true memories in the subject. This would seem to be a form of 'scientific detection' of memory.}}

===Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory===
<tt>Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the 'theory of evolution'. It's a fairy tale for grown ups!</tt>

{{Response|This is surely an instance of [[hypocrisy|the pot calling the kettle black]]. Modern [[evolutionary theory]] is supported by a large number of independently verifiable facts and is used to explain, predict, and manipulate the responses of all manner of biological systems. Where is the corresponding [[evidence for God]] (or [[intelligent design]], etc.)? No, in actuality, most religions, with their tales of super-beings and [[magic]]al events, bear a much greater resemblance to fairy tales than does evolution.

More to the point, however, this is the "[[Evolution is only a theory]]" argument, which relies heavily on an [[equivocation]] between the common usage of the word "theory" and the scientific one (see [[Theory]] for more information). Furthermore, [[science]] is not about [[proof]]s, but [[evidence]], and the evidence supporting evolution is solid. See, for example, the Wikipedia article, [[Wikipedia:Introduction to evolution|Introduction to evolution]] (or the full [[Wikipedia:Evolution|Evolution]] article).

Finally, even if our current understanding of evolution were completely wrong, it still wouldn't make belief in God any more reasonable.}}

{{Response| Gravity is 'just a theory' too. We do not really know how or why it exists, or what exactly causes it. We can, however, observe it, understand it, and make use of that understanding to fly airplanes, launch rockets, put satellites into orbit, etc. I think we could all agree that few theists would question the theory of gravity- why then single out evolution as being 'just a theory'?}}

===Reason 8: Atheism is based on faith===
<tt>Atheism is a faith which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no 'good news' to preach in atheism.</tt>

{{Response|Typical claim that [[atheism is based on faith]] combined with the claim that [[religion provides hope]]. The former is simply untrue (for most atheists) and involves [[shifting the burden of proof]] when used as an argument for belief in God (you don't need to "prove" something doesn't exist to lack belief in it). The latter is an [[appeal to consequences]]; just because religion may have some positive effects does not mean that its claims are true, nor that its tenets should be accepted even for "practical" purposes.}}
{{Response|It is simply not true that "believers believe because they have witnessed". No believer alive today has witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus, the saints emerging from their graves, heaven, God, or any of the other myriad things that they claim to be "witnesses" to. Insofar as a religion orders its followers to "witness" to things they have no experience of, it is ordering them to be ''liars''. Thomas had the right idea: when you have put your fingers in Jesus's wound, ''then'' you can come back and talk about being a "witness".}}
{{Response|In fact, atheism ''does'' have "good news" to "preach": atheists need not subscribe to the arbitrary customs and strictures of religious dogma. We don't have to reconcile biblical contradictions nor deal with the hypocrisies of a schizophrenic deity. We can use our own minds rather than submit to competing human interpretations of "holy" books.}}

===Reason 9: Atheists are angry with God===
<tt>How much of the [[Atheism is based on faith|atheist's faith]] relies on [[Angry at God|anger with God]] as opposed to genuine [[disbelief]] in God?</tt>

{{Response|The assumption that ''any'' atheists are [[angry at God]] is an unfounded one and constitutes an [[ad hominem]] argument, since it questions the motivations behind atheists' lack of belief.}}

{{Response|Ignoring the [[atheism is based on faith]] part of the question, the correct answer is: None. One need not be angry at God (or, more properly, those who perpetuate the myth of God) to disbelieve (or, more properly, lack belief).

Granted, there are different kinds of atheists, and people are atheists for different reasons. But if you use ''[[atheism]]'' to mean either [[weak atheism|the lack of a belief in any gods]] or [[strong atheism|the belief that no gods exist]] then, logically, no atheists can be angry at God. How can you be angry at something that you don't think exists? Those who are angry at God are, by definition, not atheists but angry theists.}}

===Reason 10: Atheists need to get a life===
<tt>Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don't they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don't they leave this 'God nonsense' alone?</tt>
{{Response|This is a [[straw man]] argument, and a [[False dichotomy|false dilemma]]. Atheism does not prevent hobbies, partying, etc. Furthermore, it neglects that while god may not exist, religions do exist. The adherents to these religions often try to impose the values and practices of their own religion onto society at large. Moreover, it presupposes that a majority of people on the planet believe in a fantasy and that is a good reason to have an active life.

Furthermore, assuming that atheists, indeed, need to get a life, it is not a valid reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the email insists.}}

{{Response|The vast majority of atheists have no problem with- indeed, could care less about- theists and theism. It is the methods theists use that cause the problem. When we see theists use political means to try to force their beliefs down our throats, we are offended, and we do indeed "rant and rave" about this misuse of our political processes. However we, more than any, realize that one must have the convictions of their beliefs. Penn Jillette of "Penn & Teller" puts it nicely in one of his videos when he states something to the effect of "if you are a theist and you DON'T proselytize, I have no respect for you." In other words, if you truly believe in Christianity and yet do not share that belief with me- you are no Christian, and are, in fact, evil by your own definition, since you refuse to 'save my soul' by sharing your beliefs. I have no problem with theists sharing their beliefs when they follow established cultural norms in doing so (i.e., ask if I want to hear it, don't try to force your beliefs and opinions on me.)}}

===Reason 11: Chicken-and-egg paradox===
<tt>What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] leading to [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]. Also, evolutionary biology shows that the egg preceded the chicken[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_and_egg#Science_and_Evolution]. This is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]].}}

===Reason 12: Improbability vs. impossibility===
<tt>Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.</tt>

{{Response|The first sentence is [[special pleading]] as it applies to anything and everything that isn't explicitly disproven, including no god whatsoever. The second is an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. It is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 5: Complexity|Reason 5]].}}

===Reason 13: Complexity of human life===
<tt>How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. The complexity of life is the very thing that the theory of evolution explains. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 14: Complexity of the human mind===
<tt>How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and similar to the [[homunculus argument]]. Science demonstrates that [[consciousness]] is an [[emergent property]] of the physical brain; this argument suggests a form of [[dualism]], where the mind and brain are separate. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 15: Food and drink===
<tt>What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we're supplied with?</tt>

{{Response|This is an example of the [[anthropic principle]]. It commits the formal fallacy of [[petitio principii]], assuming that hospitable features of our universe were built to support life, rather than considering that life was adapted to the undesigned features of the universe through natural selection. Douglas Adams' analogy about a [[Douglas Adams#Quotes|sentient puddle]] neatly sums up the problem with this argument.}}

{{Response|We did! Humans are not autotrophs (make one's own food). We require energy from other sources such as plants, fruits and animals. This process of eating and digesting is essential not only to life, but also to performing many biochemical reactions within our bodies. We evolved to eat these substances for this very purpose- we were not created to eat these things (nor were they created for us). If this is a "proof" for God, then we could challenge his benevolence. Why did he put plants on Earth that we can't digest? Or why create poisonous foods? Why do many foods from animals require so much physical risk to achieve? Certainly a loving God would not put such dangers on Earth that could threaten his creation.}}

===Reason 16: The five senses===
<tt>Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we're provided with.</tt>

{{Response|Another example of the [[anthropic principle]].}}
{{Response|The "five senses" common to most humans, while adequate for the purposes of savanna apes, are only able to capture the barest fraction of all light and sound waves, and detect a very limited set of chemicals. There is nothing intrinsically special about the number of senses we possess: they differ from one another more by degrees than by kinds. For instance, our sense of touch is much like hearing when it comes to detecting vibrations, and much like sight for heat detection. Similarly, our senses of smell and taste are quite related. Thus, we can just as easily say we are born with three senses as seven (if you reduce touch to pressure and temperature detection, and consider the sense of balance, for example). Finally, there is nothing special about our sense mechanisms when compared with other members of the animal kingdom. We are far outclassed in the abilities we do possess, and we lack even rudimentary detection mechanisms for electrical or magnetic fields.}}

===Reason 17: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 1===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?</tt>

{{Response|See next reason.}}

===Reason 18: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 2===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?</tt>

{{Response | See the [[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response | What? Nothing. Who? No one. When Earth and the rest of the solar system were formed, the development of human life, or indeed life of any kind, was not the purpose or goal. We humans are the only ones (that we know of) who care that we are here. If things were different, they would be different. Perhaps a different kind of life would have developed — maybe even a kind of life that could wonder how or why it came to exist. But if not, there wouldn't be anyone to ask the question in the first place. In other words, it is possible that the correct answer to the question, "Why do things in the universe look like they were 'fine tuned' to support human life?" might simply be, "If they weren't that way, there would be no humans around to ask the question."}}

{{Response | There is a wide range of possible [[Wikipedia:Habitable_zone|orbits suitable for Earth-like life]] (that is, carbon-based and dependent on water) in our solar system: about 0.95 to 1.37 AU (or 88 million to 127 million miles) from the Sun. The Earth is near the middle of this so-called Goldilocks zone, so it is hugely inaccurate to claim that any deviation from our current position would freeze (or burn) us all up. There is also reason to believe that [[Wikipedia:Gliese_581_d#Climate_and_habitability|life is possible]] in other places in the solar system, such as Jupiter's moon [[Wikipedia:Europa_(moon)#Possible_extraterrestrial_life|Europa]] or the moons [[Wikipedia:Enceladus_(moon)|Enceladus]] or [[Wikipedia:Titan_(moon)|Titan]] of Saturn. These "hot spots" are possible because direct warming by the Sun is not the only way for a celestial body to become warm enough to support life: tidal forces caused by gravitational attraction to other "nearby" bodies (like Earth's moon) can be sufficient to heat up the interior of a planet or moon.}}

{{Response|There are approximately 200 – 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone. Around many of these stars there are going to be planets. Most will be too hot or too cold for life, but there will surely be some that are the right temperature just by chance alone. Our solar system has 8 planets ([[Wikipedia:Pluto#Classification|Pluto is no longer recognized as a planet]]), only 2 of which (Earth and Mars) are in the Goldilocks zone. That makes 2 "successes" out of 8 for our solar system alone. Now extrapolate that to the billions of other solar systems that are presumed to exist in the billions of galaxies in the universe. Even with relatively pessimistic estimates of the sizes of the various Goldilocks zones and the number and kinds of planets that would form in them, there could easily be billions of planets capable of harboring life. See also the [[Infinite monkey theorem]].}}

===Reason 19: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 3===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response| My main response to these points would be that this still does not prove the existence of God. This can be seen as a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesitate to advise using the AP in religious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}

===Reason 20: Complementarity of plant and animal life===
<tt>What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. These anthropic principle arguments are all phrased in such a way as to assume that the answer must be in the form of a "who"--i.e., a personal God. This is [[Petitio principii|begging the question]].}}

{{Response|This 'reason' makes the mistake of assuming some inherent worth of humans or reason for humans to exist. The life on earth tends to conform to the conditions of the planet they inhabit. An organism that cannot conform to the required standards is more likely to die, which goes to show why we don't see the abomination known as the [[Crocoducks|Crocoduck]], or anything like it.}}

===Reason 21: The tornado and the 747===
<tt>The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[argument from design]]. This is [[Fred Hoyle]]'s classic [[Tornado argument]], which is based on the assumption that evolution works by [[Probability|random chance]], ignoring the non-random process of [[natural selection]]. [[Richard Dawkins]] proposed the Ultimate 747 argument[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit] as a response. This reason is also contradictory to the argument proposed in [[#Reason 12: Complexity|Reason 12]].}}

{{Response| The Tornado and the 747 argument also does not take into consideration that a Boeing 747 is a nonliving entity, with no will of its own or ability to think or act. Life came about through natural selection, and by living organisms. Organisms that could adapt, had the will to survive and reproduced. As evolution progresses, organisms have evolved into more complex beings with the ability to communicate, socialize, analyze data and interpret them. Basically life did not come about by chance, as the nonliving 747 has no will to assemble itself whereas a conscious being can think and act to suit survival purposes. }}

{{Response| If one is to believe in cause and effect, there is no such thing as "sheer chance", even if it gives a illusion of such. Although there are some unanswered questions regarding the early evolution of life, we can definitely say that life did not arise according to chance. Molecules have ways of attracting each other and forming complex structures because they behave that way naturally. Given enough time and enough success, life can theoretically arise through natural mechanisms.}}

===Reason 22: The invisible and the supernatural===
<tt>We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work [sic], yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.</tt>

{{Response|While phenomena like [[wikipedia:radio waves|radio waves]] or [[wikipedia:infrared light|infrared light]] may not be visible to the human eye, they are not analogous to any purported supernatural forces. Natural "unseen" waves [[manifest]] in other ways — ways that are detectable and predictable. In short, they are well understood and explained by science, and this is why they can be utilized in technology. The same cannot be said for God.}}

===Reason 23: Self-organization and entropy===
<tt>Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.</tt>

{{Response|An uneaten tomato does not "transform" into disorganization. It may decompose into simpler organic components by the action of bacteria, fungi or other creatures such as maggots through well-understood biological processes. In fact, these components might then become part of other plants or animals, including a pineapple. This argument is utter absurdity, ignoring the very basics of [[evolution]], specifically that individuals do not evolve, ''populations'' evolve. It also ignores the role of reproduction in evolution, the fact that evolution proceeds by small changes over time, the lack of a hierarchical/teleological path for evolution, and so forth. See the EvoWiki page on a similar, more common argument[http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The_descendants_of_an_X_(cat,_dog...)_will_remain_X].}}

{{Response|The opening assumption that matter is unable to self-organize is wrong: crystals are a prime example of matter organizing itself. This innate ability of matter becomes important in some theories of abiogenesis, like A. Graham Cairns-Smith's Clay theory.}}

===Reason 24: Darwin's deathbed conversion===
<tt>Our 'inventor' of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; "I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions; wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire - people made a religion of them." Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbors the next day. "What shall I speak about?" She asked. He replied; "Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?"</tt>

{{Response|The story of [[Darwin]]'s [[deathbed conversion]] is an [[urban myth]]. Even if it were true (and evidence shows that it is not), it is an [[Argumentum ad verecundiam|argument from authority]]. We accept [[evolution]] not based on Darwin's word but on the [[evidence]] supporting the theory, most of which has been discovered since Darwin's death. By the same token, we should not reject evolution based on Darwin's word, even if he repudiated everything he had written on the subject. Similarly, we should not take Darwin's word for it that a [[god]] exists (if he did believe that) or that [[Christianity]] is the path to [[salvation]]. It is also worth noting that Darwin was not the first person to propose evolution as a possibility, or even that natural processes were responsible; he just happens to be the first to produce both a cogent theory for how the process works along with solid evidence supporting it.}}

===Reason 25: Morality===
<tt>Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we've no-one to be accountable to.</tt>

{{Response|[[Evolutionary psychology|Evolutionary psychologists]] have proposed explanations for many "moral values" and behaviors that appear to be instinctual; observations of [[wikipedia:social animal|social animal]]s reveal that many have moral codes that are similar to that of humans. [[Atheist]]s may follow any number of [[secular]] [[ethical]] codes, holding themselves accountable to values or ideals derived [[rational]]ly, rather than to a [[deity]]. Furthermore, the [[Euthyphro dilemma]] turns this argument around on the [[theist]]: where do [[God]]'s moral values come from?}}

{{Response|To whom are we morally responsible? In moral systems that lack a divine component, we are accountable to those around us.}}

{{Response|Most people don't share many of the moral values of the Bible. The vast majority of humans consider rape within marriage and slavery to be wrong while working on the sabbath is considered to be acceptable, which conflicts with biblical morality. The fact that the Bible condemns murder, theft and lying is trivial because peoples and even many other animals that are unfamiliar with the Bible also hold these moral values.}}

===Reason 26: Man vs. animal===
<tt>If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.</tt>

{{Response|There are many problems with this argument.
# It is based, at least implicitly, on the archaic concept of the [[Great Chain of Being]], in which humans are seen as separate from, and inherently superior to, other animals. In fact, humans ''are'' animals. The theory of evolution doesn't hold that they evolved "away from" animals and became something fundamentally different.
# Since evolution necessarily implies change from a previous state, the fact that the ancestors of humans had certain characteristics doesn't necessarily mean that humans must still have those characteristics. ''Any'' two animal species will share certain characteristics and not share others. This is the result of the process of evolution and not — as is implied above — a refutation of it.
# Many human behaviors ''are'', in fact, very similar to those found among animals today (especially other [[wikipedia:primate|primates]]). Examples include the seeking of food and shelter, the forming of social groups to secure these resources, the forming of pair bonds for reproduction and the rearing of offspring, the protection of family members from others in the social group and of members of the group from outsiders, and communication through sound and gestures. On the other hand, aspects of human behavior that are indeed unique to our species may be attributable to adaptations such as bipedalism or advanced cognitive function, particularly the capacity for abstract thought. Evolutionary theory may actually be able to explain how these characteristics arose.
# Given the history of the 20th century (for example), there is some doubt as to what "civilized" actually means and whether humans can be said to possess that characteristic.
# Finally, as with [[#Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory|Reason 7]] (and many others), even if the claim above were completely true, it wouldn't justify belief in God.}}

===Reason 27: Chance and ignorance===
<tt>'Chance' isn't the cause of something. It just describes what we can't find a reason for.</tt>

{{Response|[[Straw man]] argument. While [[evolution]] contains some aspects of apparent "[[chance]]" (genetic mutations), the process of [[natural selection]] is the force which drives the process of adaptation. Furthermore, "chance" is not a description of something we cannot find a reason for; that is "ignorance". Chance is a description of systems which operate according to laws of [[probability]].}}

===Reason 28: Limitations of science and logic===
<tt>Science & logic do not hold all the answers - many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.</tt>

{{Response|You're right, science and logic do not hold all the answers, that's why we have Chemistry and Mathematics, and as for concerns of the heart/soul/emotional side we have the Arts. Every thing can be accounted for with careful use of reason. Just because something is not known does not mean it can not be known.}}

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[special pleading]]. If we have no understanding of these forces, then how can anyone be said to be "aware" of them? If we are aware, we must have some small measure of understanding.}}

{{Response| Majority opinion is irrelevant to the facts. Many people may believe a lie- take for example: "Many teenagers believe that marijuana is harmless, drugs are harmful whereas marijuana is not, therefore marijuana is not a drug." Any doctor could tell you of the harmful side effects of marijuana usage. Furthermore, a drug need not be immediately harmful for it to be a drug. But nonetheless, many teenagers may make this claim, even if it is obviously not true.

We should be asking bigger questions. Such as: Are the majority of the people mentioned experts in said field? Do they know about the field they are making claims on? Is it their educational background or profession? Anyone can make conclusions on a subject in physics, but if they are not a physicist, we should be more skeptical of their conclusions.

What is the majority basing their opinions on? Evidence? If no, then we can't say with certainty they have a "proven" claim. Feeling, Emotion, Belief? If yes, then perhaps there is a bias they have preventing them from accepting conflicting evidence or looking upon the subject from other perspectives. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote Sherlock as saying "Never theorize before one has data, invariably one twists facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts." Majority opinion can always be based on biases and evidence is required to take any claim seriously.

Is the majority well informed on the subject and all aspects/perspectives on it? You can hardly say that "many people believe in mediums, therefore medium phenomena is true." Really? Have the believers read any skeptical positions? Done any research? Looked for alternative explanations? Just as with evolution, in some countries, the majority do not believe- but are they aware of all the evidence? It's hardly fair to say majority wins when many of the majority may not have all the facts.

Lastly, just because there may be things we do not yet have scientific answers to, it does not mean there is no scientific answer. We just haven't found one yet. It's nothing more than a hasty conclusion to say "Science has no answer, therefore this one is true." It is not so. Perhaps we will find an answer in a year or two from now, until then, conclusions should not be made.}}

===Reason 29: Gregorian calendar===
<tt>Look at the date/year on our calender - 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus' existence.</tt>

{{Response|This is an unfounded claim that [[the Gregorian calendar proves that Jesus existed]]. The Anno Domini (AD) dating system was not created until 525 AD. It is not independent, contemporary historical confirmation of the New Testament. The current Gregorian Calendar was drafted in 1582 under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII of the Catholic church, and cannot act as evidence of the existence of a man who is thought to have lived 15 centuries earlier.}}

{{Response|Look at the names of days and months on your calendar. This proves that the gods Moon, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, Saturn and Sun, Januarius, the Roman gods to whom the Februa were celebrated, Mars, etc., etc. all exist.}}

===Reason 30: Martyrs===
<tt>Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!</tt>

{{Response|This could only show that purported martyrs ''believed'' they were dying for a true faith. It cannot prove that their beliefs are actually true; martyrs may be mistaken. Many people have died in the name of many contradictory faiths. Further, people have given their lives in the name of beliefs such as Nazism; must we assume these are also true?}}

{{Response|See [[Liar, Lunatic or Lord]]}}

===Reason 31: Biblical accounts===
<tt>Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.</tt>

{{Response|It may be a stretch to describe stories of events written 40+ years after they supposedly occurred as "eyewitness accounts", when the average lifespan of a human in those times was likely much lower[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_over_human_history]. The truth is that none of the [[Gospels]] were written by eyewitnesses, the earliest dating estimate[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating] is 65 C.E. and most are thought to be significantly later. Moreover, the earliest New Testament texts were purportedly authored by early church founder Paul of Tarsus, who was not an eyewitness. Even assuming the events were recorded by supposed eyewitnesses, we could make that argument in favor of many religious texts and other writings which may contradict each other. Does this give us reason to assume the events recorded in books like the Qur'an are also true? And given the many conflicts over heresies, apocryphal texts and other teachings in the early church, it seems safe to say that there was "confusion and anger" over the contents of the books.}}

{{Response| Some of the Four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. The book of Mark was written by Barnabas' nephew Mark, who was not one of the original Twelve Apostles. The book of Luke was written by Luke of Antioch, who was a believer after hearing the Gospel. Those two books were collections of various eyewitness accounts. Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which was both a collection of eyewitness accounts, as well as a journal of Luke's travels when he helped spread the Gospel.

There is much truth in the New Testament accounts in terms of "normal" historical events that can be verified through comparing contemporary historical works and archaeology. However, one could question whether or not the supernatural events that are written in the Gospels took place.}}

===Reason 32: Archaeology===
<tt>From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaeological evidence to confirm many details we're provided with in the Bible.</tt>

{{Response|This may be true, but there is also a striking ''lack'' of archaeological evidence for many important stories recorded in the Bible (see claim #34). Atheists do not claim that the Bible must be entirely false in every respect. What matters when determining if the Bible provides basis for a belief in God is the evidence we can find for its claims of supernatural phenomena, like the resurrection of Jesus. This evidence does not exist. Furthermore, there is evidence to confirm many of the details provided in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad Iliad] or the average [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-man Spider-Man] comic, but that doesn't mean that Achilles and Spider-Man exist.}}

===Reason 33: Biblical prophecy===
<tt>Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.</tt>

{{Response|This is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. The Bible does not contain a single fulfilled prediction which is/was verifiable, non trivial, and was not self-fulfilling.

Biblical [[prophecy]] was "confirmed" by those who were already aware of such prophecy and with a vested interest in ensuring that such prophecy had the appearance of being fulfilled.}}

{{Response| This claim is simply false. Perhaps the most strikingly embarrassing unfulfilled prophecy in the bible is Jesus' prediction of his own second coming, to occur within the lifetimes of the people listening to him. There are dozens of others.}}

{{Response| Those prophecies only come true in the context of the bible, which was compiled and edited after the fact. There are many works of fiction where predictions are made that come true in the context of that book or film, does this make the stories true?}}

===Reason 34: Biblical history===
<tt>The evidence from literature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.</tt>

{{Response|This is plainly false. In addition to the miracles and supernatural events described in the Bible, for which there is no historical evidence, many of the historical claims which could theoretically be substantiated with archaeological evidence are contradicted by modern historians. For example, historians believe there is no evidence for Hebrew slavery in Egypt or the Exodus as described in the Old Testament[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus#CriticalEvaluation].}}

===Reason 35: Christianity and science in harmony===
<tt>From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac ''[sic]'' Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.</tt>

{{Response|Many of the arguments in this email appear to promote Christianity by opposing science, but even if we grant that there is no conflict between science and Christianity and that many scientists are Christians, this hardly provides evidence that Christianity is true. See [[burden of proof]]. And if we fail to grant that there is no conflict, we recognize many contradictions[http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html] between the Biblical account and established science.}}

{{Response| From the time of Galileo to the latest attempts by creationists to push their agendas in schools, science and faith have ''always'' been in opposition. Whether it's the germ theory of disease vs. demons and the powers of the air, the preposterous miracles of the Roman Catholic Church, heliocentrism vs. angels moving the stars about, lightning rods instead of sounding the church bells, science has ''never'' had to back down: it has always been religion that has had to preserve itself by "reinterpreting" its texts.}}

===Reason 36: How vs. why===
<tt>Science can explain 'how' something works, but not 'why' something works.</tt>

{{Response|This argument is essentially meaningless. To science, 'how' and 'why' are the same thing. 'How' speaks of the mechanism, 'why' speaks of the cause. If a domino knocks another domino over, the 'how' is by transfer of energy, the 'why' is explained as Newton's three laws of motion.}}

{{Response| Terry Pratchett, of all people, gives an insight into this. The question "why" presupposes that there is a ''story'' to be told. A ''narrative''. Science is a different way of knowing, and one of its discoveries is that the language of the universe is not that of story and legend, but that of mathematics. It's something that a lot of math-phobes have a hard time accepting.}}

===Reason 37: Science changes===
<tt>Science is constantly recorrecting ''[sic]'' its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.</tt>

{{Response|A willingness to reconsider [[theory|theories]] in the face of new [[evidence]] is essential to any process that seeks the [[truth]]. [[Science]] is strong precisely because of this, rather than despite it. In addition, religious groups, even those considered extreme or [[fundamentalist]], often change their teachings in response to social concerns. For example, the [[Church of Latter-Day Saints]] abandoned polygamy in order to gain statehood for Utah. Mainstream [[Christianity]] is guilty of the same revisionism: In 1633, [[Wikipedia:Galileo|Galileo]] was convicted of [[heresy]] by the Catholic Church for promoting [[wikipedia:heliocentrism|heliocentrism]], which directly contradicts biblical "evidence" of the organization of the universe. It wasn't until 1992 that Galileo was officially vindicated in a declaration by [[Wikipedia:Pope John Paul II|Pope John Paul II]]. Did God change the arrangement of the heavenly bodies in the intervening centuries? Or was the Catholic Church simply wrong because they were using a completely unreliable source of knowledge? [[Wikipedia:Ben Franklin|Ben Franklin]] was accused of heresy by Catholics and [[Protestants]] alike, for developing the [[wikipedia:lightning rod|lightning rod]], which was considered an effort to stifle God's wrath. Today, however, virtually all structures, including churches, are fitted with lightning protection.}}

{{Response|When science changes, the new theory generally explains both the new facts ''and'' the old. For example, [[Einstein]]'s [[Wikipedia:theory of relativity|theory of relativity]], which shows relative speed, changes the rules while at the same time making it quite clear that Newtonian physics is still a very good approximation for a lot of things. On the contrary, when society changes in such a way that religions have to "reinterpret" their own scriptures, the original interpretations are no longer valid. The prior behaviors of followers are then written off as heretical, as, for example, in the case of the Catholic Church during the [[Inquisition]]. See also: [[no true Scotsman]]. }}

{{Response|The truth is always changing and evolving. Humans, both individually and collectively, only have a limited understanding of how the world is. Whether or not we admit it, our view of our world is one made up of a lot of assumptions, however educated they may be. The fact that science and the interpretation of religious beliefs keep changing is proof of this. The fact that science and religion are constantly changing should not be a reason to dismiss either one entirely. We should dismiss our own personal assumptions/beliefs regarding the object in question, and not the object itself.}}

===Reason 38: Abiogenesis===
<tt>Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn't explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.</tt>

{{Response|The biological theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life; it describes how the diversity and complexity of life found today arose from simpler organisms. However, science could explain how life began on Earth if a credible theory of [[abiogenesis]] or [[wikipedia:panspermia|panspermia]] emerges in the future. Though there is currently no generally accepted and evidence-supported theory of how life arose on Earth, scientists have demonstrated that abiogenesis is possible (such as in the [[Wikipedia:Miller-Urey experiment|Miller-Urey experiment]]), and there are a variety of hypotheses which are more [[Occam's razor|parsimonious]] than one invoking a transcendent God. While a consensus theory of abiogenesis or panspermia would not disprove the existence of God, the [[burden of proof]] is on those who assert the existence of supernatural phenomena.}}

{{Response|This is another iteration of the [[God of the gaps]] argument and an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. While this argument attempts to defend the Christian mythological deity, it serves the same function for all other deities, as well as for any other unfalsifiable claim, including [[You can't prove God doesn't exist|Russell's Teapot]], [[Wikipedia:Brain in a vat|you are in the Matrix]], or that the universe was created 20 seconds ago by me.}}
{{Response|The author is entirely correct in maintaining that proof of evolution would not be disproof of God; however, as can be seen in many other "reasons", she seems to be unwilling or unable to recognize that ''disproof'' of evolution is likewise not ''proof'' of God.}}

{{Response|Scientists haven't answered all of the questions of the universe. I admit this. However, this fact is not a reason to believe in God. This fact doesn't have anything to do with God.}}

{{Response| Evolution is true and it does disprove the existence of the god of the Jewish and Christian Bible. Evolution shows there was no creation since there was no creation then there was no Garden of Eden then there is no first sin. Since there was no first sin then there is no evil in the world. Since there is no evil in the world then there is no reason for there to be a Jesus Christ and no reason for him to give his life to wash away our sins with his blood. So with evolution there is no god of the Bible or its false religions.}}

===Reason 39: A bad lie?===
<tt>The two people who discovered Jesus' empty tomb were women. Women were very low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical & Biblical truth.</tt>

{{Response|Let me get this straight: because women had low status and because it is written somewhere that some women claimed something that would be really great (from the author's perspective) if it were true, therefore the claims must be true? Wow. That's an amazing logical leap. (To be fair, historians do sometimes use such [[Wikipedia:Criterion of embarrassment|"countersupportive" evidence as positive evidence]] of historical claims — for example, [[Bart D. Ehrman]]'s analysis of which [[sayings of Jesus]] in the Bible might be historically accurate relies in part on whether each quotation shows Jesus or his message in a positive or negative light — but a good historian would never go so far as to argue that this makes the claims ''true''.)}}

{{Response|While the Gospels describe Jesus' tomb being found empty by women, the Gospels also give accounts of the resurrected Jesus appearing to his male disciples. The Gospels were also written and promulgated by men. The resurrection claim does not rest solely on the word of low-status women. Even if it did, this would hardly be sufficient reason to deem it true; [[extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence]]. Moreover, the account is [[hearsay]] and [[Biblical contradictions|contradictory accounts]] of this event are given in the Gospels.}}

===Reason 40: Near-death experiences===
<tt>Think about Near Death Experiences. It's naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn't have otherwise known, an african ''[sic]'' man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing "a dream". We're not silly - we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.</tt>

{{Response|It is not naive to seek physiological or psychological explanations for unusual experiences a person may have while their body is recovering from life-threatening trauma or disease; in fact, studies have shown that NDEs can be induced through drugs or trauma, and are almost certain to be a physiological phenomenon. It is naive to immediately presume something supernatural is occurring. Why are these bizarre claims about paperclips and Africans rising from the dead not substantiated? If credible evidence existed of a man being actually deceased and rising three days later, this would be unprecedented news quickly publicized to every corner of the globe by every kind of formal or informal media. If this actually occurred, present the evidence. Science demands more proof than a mere assurance that one asserting a shocking revelation is "not silly." See also the Skeptic's Dictionary entry[http://skepdic.com/nde.html] on the subject.}}

{{Response|Why do you, necessarily, need eyes to experience visual information? When I dream, my eyes are closed yet I 'see' things. Either all my dreams are magical journeys to the furthest edges of reality, or my brain can generate visual information independently from my eyes. I choose the latter.}}

===Reason 41: Biblical skeptics===
<tt>There are many skeptics who didn't believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.</tt>

{{Response| This is a form of [[argumentum ad populum]], at one stage the majority of the world believed the earth was flat. These are anecdotal accounts of people who could be mistaken. While it is true conversions to Christianity continue today, conversions to other religions and away from organized religion also occur.}}

{{Response| This argument does not take into consideration that people may have alternative reasons for changing their religion (or lack thereof) besides believing. People may change religions to suit a new marriage, or perhaps they lost a loved one and need some form of comfort. Perhaps they are trying to please persistent family members or just enjoy the Christmas carols and architecture and enjoy the sense of community. We can not always assume that people join a faith because they believe that it is true. }}

===Reason 42: Einstein quote===
<tt>Albert Einstein said; "A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".</tt>

{{Response|[[Albert Einstein]] also said, "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." [[argumentum ad verecundiam]]. Lameness does not affect factuality. Besides this, Einstein used the term "religion" in a specific, nonstandard way, defined here: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 'If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it'." It is this admiration for the structure of the universe that Einstein thought essential to science.}}

===Reason 43: The tomato thrower===
<tt>A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"</tt>

{{Response|This unsubstantiated anecdote about a believer assaulting an atheist with a vegetable is actually a form of the [[unmoved mover]]/[[uncaused cause]] argument, implying that atheists are foolish not to believe in a higher power that created the universe. This argument does not solve the problem of the first cause; it merely shifts the burden onto an unproven supernatural being. If God is not caused, then it cannot be said that all things must have a cause. Whether it be the universe itself, for atheists, or God himself, for the believer, all must admit the existence of something whose cause is as yet undiscovered. Atheists hope to continue discovering causes through reason; theists merely give up. Theism cannot claim this as an advantage. If we are to take this anecdote at face value, we must also question the morality of the presumed theist who both assaulted the speaker, rather than refute his claims, and then either lied about the assault or failed to confess and apologize.

Furthermore, the public assault of an atheist by means of a possibly self-actuating, suicidal vegetable is hardly a compelling reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the original email suggests.}}

===Reason 44: Occam's supernatural razor===
<tt>It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.</tt>

{{Response|This is another form of [[uncaused cause]] argument employing [[Occam's Razor]], but an explanation that requires the existence of an unseen, omnipotent supernatural being can hardly be simpler than one that relies on observable natural principles. This argument also prompts the question, how did God arise out of nothing? It also presupposes a [[straw man]] form of the [[Big Bang]] theory of cosmology. Theists often claim that the Big Bang suggests that "nothing became something," when in fact it says no such thing. In fact, there is no scientific reason to think that the matter and energy of the universe had to be created (which would be a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics) and have not merely always existed in one form or another.}}

===Reason 45: How-vs.-why Hawking quote===
<tt>Stephen Hawkins ''[sic]'' has admitted; "Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?"</tt>

{{Response|Spurious. Whatever reason the universe exists, the Bible does nothing to answer this question. All it does is provide a claim of 'what' was created, and 'when', vaguely (and incorrectly) answers the 'how' ([[magic]]) but it in no way answers the 'why'. If it even makes sense to speak of the universe as if it chooses to exist, why it does so would not be the subject of science, which deals with what can be naturally observed. This should be considered a problem of philosophy.}}

===Reason 46: With God all things are possible===
<tt>We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.</tt>

{{Response|[[Petitio principii]], [[religion provides hope]]. These statements merely follow from the definition of an omnipotent creator God; they do nothing to prove its existence.}}

{{Response|It is precisely ''because'' supernatural explanations allow "all things [to be] possible" that they are useless when it comes to determining the true causes of observed phenomena.}}

{{Response|It was also the Bible that said that pi is equal to 3, but I don't see any Christians promoting that theory.}}

{{Response| Is it really true that with God all things are possible? Can God create a stone large enough that even he can not lift it? Either way, he fails at omnipotence. The argument is also special pleading, it gives God a status of being immune to the laws of science but how is this possible? God is NOT made up of matter? Ultimately this argument is only an attempt to "dodge the bullet".}}

===Reason 47: Evolved vs. evolving===
<tt>If we are the product of evolution - by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. And, in fact, we ''are'' still evolving, as are all living things. As for "finely tuned", most of our planet's surface is uninhabitable by or inhospitable to humans (frozen wastelands, oceans, deserts), and the vast majority of the universe is fatal to humans, so how can "everything" be said to be "finely tuned for our living"?}}

===Reason 48: The Missing Link===
<tt>Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. The falsification of [[evolution]] would not be evidence of a god and inability to find a particular [[missing link]] is not falsification of evolution. The "missing link" itself comes from a misunderstanding of evolution, and has more in common with the [[Great Chain of Being]] than anything scientific.}}

{{Response|The famous Missing Link between humans and ape ancestors has also been found. Not merely one example, either, but many different stages. This is another example of the [[God of the gaps]] argument. What's more, even if the "missing link" were really missing, that does not prove it does not exist. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.}}

{{Response| The Missing Link argument claims that we are still missing the fossils to prove evolutionary descent. However scientists are discovering more fossils by the year, each giving more insight into how evolution works and how relationships are established. This argument does not take into consideration the other things besides fossils which prove evolution, such as genetics.}}

===Reason 49: Open your eyes===
<tt>God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?</tt>

{{Response|[[Special pleading]], [[petitio principii]]. If God is omnipotent, there is no limit to what more he could do. Even if our eyes are "shut to him," an omnipotent being could certainly open them.

Such a claim is also prejudiced against the blind. What if someone has no eyes to see God's works? Are blind people, by definition, atheists?}}

{{Response|[[Argument from non-belief]]. Why doesn't God speak directly to the entire human population? Or visit "physically" every once in a while? In other words, why isn't God's existence more obvious, based on direct, observable and irrefutable evidence and not theoretical guesses and feeling? }}

===Reason 50: Liar or Lord?===
<tt>Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. He could have also...
* been insane,
* never actually existed,
* not said all of the things attributed to him, or
* been deceived by the lies of others.
See also C.S. Lewis's [[trilemma]].}}

===Big finish===
<tt>YOU DECIDE!!!</tt>
{{Response|[[Pascal's Wager#Atheist's Wager|Choose wisely!]]}}

== Summary ==

Of the "50 reasons" given, the following do not say anything about evidence for God at all:
* 19 arguments against atheism/science/rationality and for non-religious paranormal ideas: 2,5-10,13-14,21,23,26-28,36-38,40,48
* 8 non sequiturs that make a statement and hope that the reader draws a connection to God (mostly bad fine-tuning arguments): 12,15-20,47
* 5 statements that simply assert God against all objections, giving no real "reason" for belief: 3,11,22,46,49
* 4 appeals to famous scientists: 24,35,42,45
* 1 story that attacks atheism through straight-forward ridicule: 43
* 1 appeal to morality that claims that faith is good without showing that it is correct: 25

The remaining twelve arguments are mostly either about the Bible or of the type that say "this is all here because God put it here."

Fifty arguments probably sounds like a pretty impressive number. But a more accurate (and far less catchy) title to this email would be "Twenty-four attacks on our enemies who promote science and reason over faith, fourteen vague statements that try to make theists look good or reasonable, and twelve reasons why some Christian beliefs are superficially plausible."

==External links==

* [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php Copy of the email] originally posted by [[PZ Myers]]

[[Category:Internet memes]]

50 reasons to believe in God

2010-10-09T06:49:18Z

Daemonowner: /* Reason 30: Martyrs */

: ''For the book by Guy P. Harrison, see [[50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God]].''

'''50 reasons to believe in [[God]]''' is an email that made the rounds of [[atheist]] [[Wikipedia:Blog|blog]]gers in June 2008. [[PZ Myers]], on his blog [[Pharyngula]], identifies the original author as Debra Rufini, an author whose recent book contains "an imaginary scenario in which [[Richard Dawkins]] gets psychiatric counseling…from Jesus".[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php]

What follows is a collection of responses to these purported "reasons".

(Note that the title associated with each "reason" did not appear in the original e-mail and is provided here merely for reference.)

==Responses to the message==

===Preamble===
<tt>It is easy to prove to yourself that God is real. .the evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs:</tt>

{{Comment-box1|label=General responses:|text=None of the arguments put forth in this e-mail are "proofs" of God's existence. Technically, most of them aren't even "reasons" to believe. On the other hand, the author did say, "prove to yourself", which is, one could argue, different from proving a claim to someone else. Nevertheless, almost all of the arguments rely on the same handful of [[logic]]al [[fallacies]], the responses to which can be summarized as follows:
# Disproof of one claim is not proof of another (unless they are exact logical opposites).
# The [[burden of proof]] lies with the person making the claim that something exists or should be "believed in".
# Just because you [[argumentum ad ignorantiam|can't figure out what caused something]], or can't understand how something works, doesn't mean [[God did it]].
# Arguing that the environment was created to fit the needs of humans is getting the order of causality exactly backwards: according to modern [[evolutionary theory]], humans have evolved to fit their environment.
# If an argument for the existence of God can be used to argue for the existence of ''any other god'', then it can't be a good reason to believe in the ''particular'' god of [[Christianity]].}}

===Reason 1: DNA===
<tt>Whilst agreeing that [[random]] [[pattern]]s occur naturally [[by chance]], [[DNA]] however, consists of code, which requires a [[designer]].</tt>

{{Response|This is the [[argument from design]]. Incidentally, it is the study of DNA that gives the strongest [[evidence]] of [[common descent]], a key component of [[evolution]]ary theory (which is argued against in several of the "reasons" below).}}

{{Response|A code does not simply require a designer - it requires an encoder and a decoder who ''agree on its meaning''. Or more generally, a code requires a set of ''understanders''. It makes no sense to speak of something being a "code" unless it encodes a ''message'' of some sort from a sender to a receiver. That is to say, to call DNA a "code" at all is [[begging the question|question-begging]]. DNA is a chemical which interacts with other chemicals according to well-understood laws of chemistry and physics.

However, if we wish to speak of it as encoding a message, then that message surely comes not from a God but from ''prior generations of living things''. The messages our distant ancestors have left for us are such things as; "this is a good way to make a muscle", "this is how you digest food", "it is a good idea to run away from things that look like this", and of course those instincts that make us a social species such as "punish the wicked", and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".}}

{{Response|Not all systems which are known to represent information (aka code) were known to have been created by a designer. For example, the solar system can be viewed as a system which encodes information, such as the length of a day or the period in which one might harvest crops or the tidal calendar. While this coded information provides data relevant to the daily lives of the inhabitants of this planet, it is by no means apparent that this information was created by a designer, and it is highly plausible this information is simply the emergent metrics of an unordered assembly of celestial bodies.}}

===Reason 2: Paranormal phenomena===
<tt>How do you explain the [[paranormal]], such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine — I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.</tt>

{{Response|This is an [[argument from personal experience]] and an implicit appeal to [[personal revelation]]. It fallaciously presupposes that one's senses, and the interpretations given them, are [[infallible]]. One need not be a liar or attention-seeker, or be overtired to misinterpret sensory information.

Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built up from prior beliefs and past experience (a fact that [[magic]]ians primarily rely upon to "fool the eye", especially in [[wikipedia:close-up magic|close-up magic]]). In addition, we tend to impart meaning on ambiguous input even when there is [[pareidolia|no real meaning behind it]] (e.g., "seeing faces" or "hearing voices" where there are none). There are also real physiological limitations to our senses that result in nearly universal misperceptions such as [[optical illusion]]s. On a different level, we tend to see causal relationships where none exist (one example of this kind of fallacious reasoning is called [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]). All of these tendencies may have conferred evolutionary advantages in the past — and may continue to do so today — but they can easily lead to the misinterpretation of evidence.

Finally, consider the fact that the very same phenomena that were once attributed to "ancestors" in early human history may have been attributed to angels or [[demon]]s in the Middle Ages, to [[witch]]es or [[the Devil]] in the 17th and 18th centuries, to "spirits" or [[wikipedia:poltergeist|poltergeist]]s in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to [[wikipedia:extraterrestrial|extraterrestrial]]s in the late 20th century. The sensory stimuli may be the same, but the interpretation is different. Why should we believe the claim that these phenomena point to the existence of a god, especially the god of [[Christianity]]?}}

{{Response|I don't believe you. We each of us have to decide, from the multitude of conflicting voices around us, what information we are going to accept as reliable. I have no more reason to believe your miracle story than you have to believe the stories that a Hindu (I assume you are a Christian) might tell you, or indeed that other Christians might tell you. Every religion is awash with absurd miracle stories, and you and I both have to reject the vast majority of them. You are going to have to do better than "My mate and I saw a ghost! For real!"}}

===Reason 3: Prayer===
<tt>Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?</tt>

{{Response|This argument is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. It urges the reader to pray, and anticipates that any results of [[prayer]] would be easy to dismiss as chance. In essence this is an admission that the results of prayer may not actually be distinguishable from coincidence and chance. On the other hand, using similar reasoning, what good is it to consider the extremely low odds of winning the lottery, or the risks of [[wikipedia:day trading|day trading]]? Shouldn't we all just jump in and have a little faith? [[Skepticism]] helps people live better, more secure lives.}}

{{Response| Try praying for what? Prayer will not set a broken bone, prayer will not move a mountain. Prayer has even been tested, and it failed.The Templeton Foundation funded a prayer study to find out if prayer helped on recovery after heart surgery. The results were conclusive that prayer did not help; on the contrary, it showed that those who knew they were being prayed for experienced more complications during recovery. Brain studies have shown that the same areas of the brain are active during meditation and talking problems out with friends, these latter two having greater results in improving on the quality of life. Try praying? I say try a little meditation and have a few drinks and dinner with friends, it will do you a lot more good.}}

===Reason 4: First cause===
<tt>The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.</tt>

{{Response|This fails to provide proof for a god, as it requires to define god as the "[[uncaused cause]]," therefore negating the original premise. Refer also to [[David Hume]]'s arguments regarding the inability to determine the cause of an effect through reason alone (we need some experience, and have none for 'creating universes.') Moreover, there need not be a direct cause for all things; there is no direct cause for the radioactive decay of an individual atom, and yet it happens. There would appear to be uncaused quantum "effects" as well. Attempts to use physical laws (real or conventionally-accepted, with the above being the latter) to require the existence of a god tend to ignore that, for nearly all definitions of god, god violates various physical laws. Even if "everything must have a cause" necessitated the existence of a God, "energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed" (the [[Thermodynamics#Laws|First Law of Thermodynamics]]) would necessitate an un-created/eternal universe. Theists can't [[Cherry picking|cherry-pick]] physical laws to prove their god's existence. See also: [[Special pleading]].

The author doesn't explain why things that existed forever don’t need a cause while others do. In any case, recent physical theories suggest that the physical [[Universe]] is part of a larger [[Wikipedia:Multiverse|Multiverse]]; which by your reasoning always existed and doesn’t need a cause.}}

{{Response|My response would be to say that even if there was a first cause, how is this true proof of God? There are many other possible events that could have caused our universe.

I wouldn't use the "eternal universe" model as evidence. A theist was all too quick to point out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and recent astronomical observations prove that our universe is not eternal. If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.}}

===Reason 5: Complexity===
<tt>Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.</tt>

{{Response|This is [[False premise|fallacious in its assumption]] that an atheistic viewpoint requires the world to [[Origin of the universe|start from "nothing"]]. It also is guilty of [[special pleading]] ([[responsibility]] is an attribute of [[intelligence]]) and is another invocation of the [[argument from design]]. Note also that this author's "nothing" includes the entirety of physical, chemical, and other laws of the universe.

For the record, none of the scientific theories about the beginning of the universe posit that there was "nothing" and then there was "something." The [[Big Bang]] theory does posit the universe as being compacted to a singularity, and this does pose certain problems at such a [[Wikipedia:Quantum theory|quantum level]] because of how matter is understood to work, but it is not even clear that matter yet existed at this singularity - it doesn't have to, either, because matter and [[energy]] are equivalents (by [[general relativity]]) and energy does not follow the same types of quantum constraints as matter. You could (in a very simplified view of quantum and relativity theories) have all the matter in the universe converted to energy, and have all that energy contained in no space at all (a singularity) because energy requires no space.}}

{{Response|We know that this claim is factually wrong. According to this argument, complex snowflakes must be made by some intelligence, rather than the "mindless nothing" of physical and chemical forces. That is, if this is true, then God must assign angels to individually craft each snowflake. There must be a "Jack Frost" who draws those artistic patterns on our windows when it's cold. Rather than this childish storybook view of the world, we know that emergent complexity happens all the time, and is an exciting and interesting branch of mathematics and science.

Snowflakes are a special case of any crystalline structure. Diamonds, for example, are nothing more than a special (and precise) arrangement of carbon atoms in a structure that makes the overall object transparent (unlike graphite or other forms of pure carbon). Diamonds do not require a creator to arrange the carbon atoms just so. They require nothing more than the right pressure to force the carbon atoms into this configuration, and such pressures arise naturally in the earth as a result of nothing more than the properties of matter and gravity.}}

{{Response|I once read a Jack Chick tract that said that all the atoms in the universe are held together by God. This argument here reaches to the one about complexity. If God has to multitask on everything, what if God got tired and let his guard down for one second? Uh-oh, the universe is destroyed. If one is making an argument this complex, one should check all the angles so it is foolproof.}}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator (as the argument follows). But the fact is that God must necessarily be more complex only demonstrates that his existence is greatly improbable. Especially if he is infinite, for an infinite, complex being would be neverendingly improbable, or more plainly put, impossible.}}

===Reason 6: Limitations of science===
<tt>Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.</tt>

{{Response|This is a case of possible confusion on the meaning of the terms used, as well as a use of the [[god of the gaps]] argument. We can detect emotions through the physical changes to the body, and we can detect brain activity. To say that memory is not detected 'scientifically' is possibly a [[dualism|dualistic]] argument, but there is no basis in it. It is true, however, that the scientific method can only detect certain things: specifically, things which have some observable effect in the universe. Either God has an observable effect on the universe, and can therefore be studied scientifically, or God does not, and therefore is irrelevant.}}

{{Response|Taking the case of 'memory' further, psychologists long ago learned that if they probe the brain in certain areas, they can stimulate full, vivid, true memories in the subject. This would seem to be a form of 'scientific detection' of memory.}}

===Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory===
<tt>Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the 'theory of evolution'. It's a fairy tale for grown ups!</tt>

{{Response|This is surely an instance of [[hypocrisy|the pot calling the kettle black]]. Modern [[evolutionary theory]] is supported by a large number of independently verifiable facts and is used to explain, predict, and manipulate the responses of all manner of biological systems. Where is the corresponding [[evidence for God]] (or [[intelligent design]], etc.)? No, in actuality, most religions, with their tales of super-beings and [[magic]]al events, bear a much greater resemblance to fairy tales than does evolution.

More to the point, however, this is the "[[Evolution is only a theory]]" argument, which relies heavily on an [[equivocation]] between the common usage of the word "theory" and the scientific one (see [[Theory]] for more information). Furthermore, [[science]] is not about [[proof]]s, but [[evidence]], and the evidence supporting evolution is solid. See, for example, the Wikipedia article, [[Wikipedia:Introduction to evolution|Introduction to evolution]] (or the full [[Wikipedia:Evolution|Evolution]] article).

Finally, even if our current understanding of evolution were completely wrong, it still wouldn't make belief in God any more reasonable.}}

{{Response| Gravity is 'just a theory' too. We do not really know how or why it exists, or what exactly causes it. We can, however, observe it, understand it, and make use of that understanding to fly airplanes, launch rockets, put satellites into orbit, etc. I think we could all agree that few theists would question the theory of gravity- why then single out evolution as being 'just a theory'?}}

===Reason 8: Atheism is based on faith===
<tt>Atheism is a faith which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no 'good news' to preach in atheism.</tt>

{{Response|Typical claim that [[atheism is based on faith]] combined with the claim that [[religion provides hope]]. The former is simply untrue (for most atheists) and involves [[shifting the burden of proof]] when used as an argument for belief in God (you don't need to "prove" something doesn't exist to lack belief in it). The latter is an [[appeal to consequences]]; just because religion may have some positive effects does not mean that its claims are true, nor that its tenets should be accepted even for "practical" purposes.}}
{{Response|It is simply not true that "believers believe because they have witnessed". No believer alive today has witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus, the saints emerging from their graves, heaven, God, or any of the other myriad things that they claim to be "witnesses" to. Insofar as a religion orders its followers to "witness" to things they have no experience of, it is ordering them to be ''liars''. Thomas had the right idea: when you have put your fingers in Jesus's wound, ''then'' you can come back and talk about being a "witness".}}
{{Response|In fact, atheism ''does'' have "good news" to "preach": atheists need not subscribe to the arbitrary customs and strictures of religious dogma. We don't have to reconcile biblical contradictions nor deal with the hypocrisies of a schizophrenic deity. We can use our own minds rather than submit to competing human interpretations of "holy" books.}}

===Reason 9: Atheists are angry with God===
<tt>How much of the [[Atheism is based on faith|atheist's faith]] relies on [[Angry at God|anger with God]] as opposed to genuine [[disbelief]] in God?</tt>

{{Response|The assumption that ''any'' atheists are [[angry at God]] is an unfounded one and constitutes an [[ad hominem]] argument, since it questions the motivations behind atheists' lack of belief.}}

{{Response|Ignoring the [[atheism is based on faith]] part of the question, the correct answer is: None. One need not be angry at God (or, more properly, those who perpetuate the myth of God) to disbelieve (or, more properly, lack belief).

Granted, there are different kinds of atheists, and people are atheists for different reasons. But if you use ''[[atheism]]'' to mean either [[weak atheism|the lack of a belief in any gods]] or [[strong atheism|the belief that no gods exist]] then, logically, no atheists can be angry at God. How can you be angry at something that you don't think exists? Those who are angry at God are, by definition, not atheists but angry theists.}}

===Reason 10: Atheists need to get a life===
<tt>Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don't they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don't they leave this 'God nonsense' alone?</tt>
{{Response|This is a [[straw man]] argument, and a [[False dichotomy|false dilemma]]. Atheism does not prevent hobbies, partying, etc. Furthermore, it neglects that while god may not exist, religions do exist. The adherents to these religions often try to impose the values and practices of their own religion onto society at large. Moreover, it presupposes that a majority of people on the planet believe in a fantasy and that is a good reason to have an active life.

Furthermore, assuming that atheists, indeed, need to get a life, it is not a valid reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the email insists.}}

{{Response|The vast majority of atheists have no problem with- indeed, could care less about- theists and theism. It is the methods theists use that cause the problem. When we see theists use political means to try to force their beliefs down our throats, we are offended, and we do indeed "rant and rave" about this misuse of our political processes. However we, more than any, realize that one must have the convictions of their beliefs. Penn Jillette of "Penn & Teller" puts it nicely in one of his videos when he states something to the effect of "if you are a theist and you DON'T proselytize, I have no respect for you." In other words, if you truly believe in Christianity and yet do not share that belief with me- you are no Christian, and are, in fact, evil by your own definition, since you refuse to 'save my soul' by sharing your beliefs. I have no problem with theists sharing their beliefs when they follow established cultural norms in doing so (i.e., ask if I want to hear it, don't try to force your beliefs and opinions on me.)}}

===Reason 11: Chicken-and-egg paradox===
<tt>What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] leading to [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]. Also, evolutionary biology shows that the egg preceded the chicken[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_and_egg#Science_and_Evolution]. This is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]].}}

===Reason 12: Improbability vs. impossibility===
<tt>Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.</tt>

{{Response|The first sentence is [[special pleading]] as it applies to anything and everything that isn't explicitly disproven, including no god whatsoever. The second is an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. It is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 5: Complexity|Reason 5]].}}

===Reason 13: Complexity of human life===
<tt>How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. The complexity of life is the very thing that the theory of evolution explains. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 14: Complexity of the human mind===
<tt>How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and similar to the [[homunculus argument]]. Science demonstrates that [[consciousness]] is an [[emergent property]] of the physical brain; this argument suggests a form of [[dualism]], where the mind and brain are separate. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 15: Food and drink===
<tt>What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we're supplied with?</tt>

{{Response|This is an example of the [[anthropic principle]]. It commits the formal fallacy of [[petitio principii]], assuming that hospitable features of our universe were built to support life, rather than considering that life was adapted to the undesigned features of the universe through natural selection. Douglas Adams' analogy about a [[Douglas Adams#Quotes|sentient puddle]] neatly sums up the problem with this argument.}}

{{Response|We did! Humans are not autotrophs (make one's own food). We require energy from other sources such as plants, fruits and animals. This process of eating and digesting is essential not only to life, but also to performing many biochemical reactions within our bodies. We evolved to eat these substances for this very purpose- we were not created to eat these things (nor were they created for us). If this is a "proof" for God, then we could challenge his benevolence. Why did he put plants on Earth that we can't digest? Or why create poisonous foods? Why do many foods from animals require so much physical risk to achieve? Certainly a loving God would not put such dangers on Earth that could threaten his creation.}}

===Reason 16: The five senses===
<tt>Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we're provided with.</tt>

{{Response|Another example of the [[anthropic principle]].}}
{{Response|The "five senses" common to most humans, while adequate for the purposes of savanna apes, are only able to capture the barest fraction of all light and sound waves, and detect a very limited set of chemicals. There is nothing intrinsically special about the number of senses we possess: they differ from one another more by degrees than by kinds. For instance, our sense of touch is much like hearing when it comes to detecting vibrations, and much like sight for heat detection. Similarly, our senses of smell and taste are quite related. Thus, we can just as easily say we are born with three senses as seven (if you reduce touch to pressure and temperature detection, and consider the sense of balance, for example). Finally, there is nothing special about our sense mechanisms when compared with other members of the animal kingdom. We are far outclassed in the abilities we do possess, and we lack even rudimentary detection mechanisms for electrical or magnetic fields.}}

===Reason 17: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 1===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?</tt>

{{Response|See next reason.}}

===Reason 18: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 2===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?</tt>

{{Response | See the [[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response | What? Nothing. Who? No one. When Earth and the rest of the solar system were formed, the development of human life, or indeed life of any kind, was not the purpose or goal. We humans are the only ones (that we know of) who care that we are here. If things were different, they would be different. Perhaps a different kind of life would have developed — maybe even a kind of life that could wonder how or why it came to exist. But if not, there wouldn't be anyone to ask the question in the first place. In other words, it is possible that the correct answer to the question, "Why do things in the universe look like they were 'fine tuned' to support human life?" might simply be, "If they weren't that way, there would be no humans around to ask the question."}}

{{Response | There is a wide range of possible [[Wikipedia:Habitable_zone|orbits suitable for Earth-like life]] (that is, carbon-based and dependent on water) in our solar system: about 0.95 to 1.37 AU (or 88 million to 127 million miles) from the Sun. The Earth is near the middle of this so-called Goldilocks zone, so it is hugely inaccurate to claim that any deviation from our current position would freeze (or burn) us all up. There is also reason to believe that [[Wikipedia:Gliese_581_d#Climate_and_habitability|life is possible]] in other places in the solar system, such as Jupiter's moon [[Wikipedia:Europa_(moon)#Possible_extraterrestrial_life|Europa]] or the moons [[Wikipedia:Enceladus_(moon)|Enceladus]] or [[Wikipedia:Titan_(moon)|Titan]] of Saturn. These "hot spots" are possible because direct warming by the Sun is not the only way for a celestial body to become warm enough to support life: tidal forces caused by gravitational attraction to other "nearby" bodies (like Earth's moon) can be sufficient to heat up the interior of a planet or moon.}}

{{Response|There are approximately 200 – 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone. Around many of these stars there are going to be planets. Most will be too hot or too cold for life, but there will surely be some that are the right temperature just by chance alone. Our solar system has 8 planets ([[Wikipedia:Pluto#Classification|Pluto is no longer recognized as a planet]]), only 2 of which (Earth and Mars) are in the Goldilocks zone. That makes 2 "successes" out of 8 for our solar system alone. Now extrapolate that to the billions of other solar systems that are presumed to exist in the billions of galaxies in the universe. Even with relatively pessimistic estimates of the sizes of the various Goldilocks zones and the number and kinds of planets that would form in them, there could easily be billions of planets capable of harboring life. See also the [[Infinite monkey theorem]].}}

===Reason 19: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 3===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response| My main response to these points would be that this still does not prove the existence of God. This can be seen as a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesitate to advise using the AP in religious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}

===Reason 20: Complementarity of plant and animal life===
<tt>What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. These anthropic principle arguments are all phrased in such a way as to assume that the answer must be in the form of a "who"--i.e., a personal God. This is [[Petitio principii|begging the question]].}}

{{Response|This 'reason' makes the mistake of assuming some inherent worth of humans or reason for humans to exist. The life on earth tends to conform to the conditions of the planet they inhabit. An organism that cannot conform to the required standards is more likely to die, which goes to show why we don't see the abomination known as the [[Crocoducks|Crocoduck]], or anything like it.}}

===Reason 21: The tornado and the 747===
<tt>The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[argument from design]]. This is [[Fred Hoyle]]'s classic [[Tornado argument]], which is based on the assumption that evolution works by [[Probability|random chance]], ignoring the non-random process of [[natural selection]]. [[Richard Dawkins]] proposed the Ultimate 747 argument[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit] as a response. This reason is also contradictory to the argument proposed in [[#Reason 12: Complexity|Reason 12]].}}

{{Response| The Tornado and the 747 argument also does not take into consideration that a Boeing 747 is a nonliving entity, with no will of its own or ability to think or act. Life came about through natural selection, and by living organisms. Organisms that could adapt, had the will to survive and reproduced. As evolution progresses, organisms have evolved into more complex beings with the ability to communicate, socialize, analyze data and interpret them. Basically life did not come about by chance, as the nonliving 747 has no will to assemble itself whereas a conscious being can think and act to suit survival purposes. }}

{{Response| If one is to believe in cause and effect, there is no such thing as "sheer chance", even if it gives a illusion of such. Although there are some unanswered questions regarding the early evolution of life, we can definitely say that life did not arise according to chance. Molecules have ways of attracting each other and forming complex structures because they behave that way naturally. Given enough time and enough success, life can theoretically arise through natural mechanisms.}}

===Reason 22: The invisible and the supernatural===
<tt>We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work [sic], yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.</tt>

{{Response|While phenomena like [[wikipedia:radio waves|radio waves]] or [[wikipedia:infrared light|infrared light]] may not be visible to the human eye, they are not analogous to any purported supernatural forces. Natural "unseen" waves [[manifest]] in other ways — ways that are detectable and predictable. In short, they are well understood and explained by science, and this is why they can be utilized in technology. The same cannot be said for God.}}

===Reason 23: Self-organization and entropy===
<tt>Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.</tt>

{{Response|An uneaten tomato does not "transform" into disorganization. It may decompose into simpler organic components by the action of bacteria, fungi or other creatures such as maggots through well-understood biological processes. In fact, these components might then become part of other plants or animals, including a pineapple. This argument is utter absurdity, ignoring the very basics of [[evolution]], specifically that individuals do not evolve, ''populations'' evolve. It also ignores the role of reproduction in evolution, the fact that evolution proceeds by small changes over time, the lack of a hierarchical/teleological path for evolution, and so forth. See the EvoWiki page on a similar, more common argument[http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The_descendants_of_an_X_(cat,_dog...)_will_remain_X].}}

{{Response|The opening assumption that matter is unable to self-organize is wrong: crystals are a prime example of matter organizing itself. This innate ability of matter becomes important in some theories of abiogenesis, like A. Graham Cairns-Smith's Clay theory.}}

===Reason 24: Darwin's deathbed conversion===
<tt>Our 'inventor' of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; "I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions; wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire - people made a religion of them." Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbors the next day. "What shall I speak about?" She asked. He replied; "Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?"</tt>

{{Response|The story of [[Darwin]]'s [[deathbed conversion]] is an [[urban myth]]. Even if it were true (and evidence shows that it is not), it is an [[Argumentum ad verecundiam|argument from authority]]. We accept [[evolution]] not based on Darwin's word but on the [[evidence]] supporting the theory, most of which has been discovered since Darwin's death. By the same token, we should not reject evolution based on Darwin's word, even if he repudiated everything he had written on the subject. Similarly, we should not take Darwin's word for it that a [[god]] exists (if he did believe that) or that [[Christianity]] is the path to [[salvation]]. It is also worth noting that Darwin was not the first person to propose evolution as a possibility, or even that natural processes were responsible; he just happens to be the first to produce both a cogent theory for how the process works along with solid evidence supporting it.}}

===Reason 25: Morality===
<tt>Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we've no-one to be accountable to.</tt>

{{Response|[[Evolutionary psychology|Evolutionary psychologists]] have proposed explanations for many "moral values" and behaviors that appear to be instinctual; observations of [[wikipedia:social animal|social animal]]s reveal that many have moral codes that are similar to that of humans. [[Atheist]]s may follow any number of [[secular]] [[ethical]] codes, holding themselves accountable to values or ideals derived [[rational]]ly, rather than to a [[deity]]. Furthermore, the [[Euthyphro dilemma]] turns this argument around on the [[theist]]: where do [[God]]'s moral values come from?}}

{{Response|To whom are we morally responsible? In moral systems that lack a divine component, we are accountable to those around us.}}

{{Response|Most people don't share many of the moral values of the Bible. The vast majority of humans consider rape within marriage and slavery to be wrong while working on the sabbath is considered to be acceptable, which conflicts with biblical morality. The fact that the Bible condemns murder, theft and lying is trivial because peoples and even many other animals that are unfamiliar with the Bible also hold these moral values.}}

===Reason 26: Man vs. animal===
<tt>If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.</tt>

{{Response|There are many problems with this argument.
# It is based, at least implicitly, on the archaic concept of the [[Great Chain of Being]], in which humans are seen as separate from, and inherently superior to, other animals. In fact, humans ''are'' animals. The theory of evolution doesn't hold that they evolved "away from" animals and became something fundamentally different.
# Since evolution necessarily implies change from a previous state, the fact that the ancestors of humans had certain characteristics doesn't necessarily mean that humans must still have those characteristics. ''Any'' two animal species will share certain characteristics and not share others. This is the result of the process of evolution and not — as is implied above — a refutation of it.
# Many human behaviors ''are'', in fact, very similar to those found among animals today (especially other [[wikipedia:primate|primates]]). Examples include the seeking of food and shelter, the forming of social groups to secure these resources, the forming of pair bonds for reproduction and the rearing of offspring, the protection of family members from others in the social group and of members of the group from outsiders, and communication through sound and gestures. On the other hand, aspects of human behavior that are indeed unique to our species may be attributable to adaptations such as bipedalism or advanced cognitive function, particularly the capacity for abstract thought. Evolutionary theory may actually be able to explain how these characteristics arose.
# Given the history of the 20th century (for example), there is some doubt as to what "civilized" actually means and whether humans can be said to possess that characteristic.
# Finally, as with [[#Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory|Reason 7]] (and many others), even if the claim above were completely true, it wouldn't justify belief in God.}}

===Reason 27: Chance and ignorance===
<tt>'Chance' isn't the cause of something. It just describes what we can't find a reason for.</tt>

{{Response|[[Straw man]] argument. While [[evolution]] contains some aspects of apparent "[[chance]]" (genetic mutations), the process of [[natural selection]] is the force which drives the process of adaptation. Furthermore, "chance" is not a description of something we cannot find a reason for; that is "ignorance". Chance is a description of systems which operate according to laws of [[probability]].}}

===Reason 28: Limitations of science and logic===
<tt>Science & logic do not hold all the answers - many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.</tt>

{{Response|You're right, science and logic do not hold all the answers, that's why we have Chemistry and Mathematics, and as for concerns of the heart/soul/emotional side we have the Arts. Every thing can be accounted for with careful use of reason. Just because something is not known does not mean it can not be known.}}

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[special pleading]]. If we have no understanding of these forces, then how can anyone be said to be "aware" of them? If we are aware, we must have some small measure of understanding.}}

{{Response| Majority opinion is irrelevant to the facts. Many people may believe a lie- take for example: "Many teenagers believe that marijuana is harmless, drugs are harmful whereas marijuana is not, therefore marijuana is not a drug." Any doctor could tell you of the harmful side effects of marijuana usage. Furthermore, a drug need not be immediately harmful for it to be a drug. But nonetheless, many teenagers may make this claim, even if it is obviously not true.

We should be asking bigger questions. Such as: Are the majority of the people mentioned experts in said field? Do they know about the field they are making claims on? Is it their educational background or profession? Anyone can make conclusions on a subject in physics, but if they are not a physicist, we should be more skeptical of their conclusions.

What is the majority basing their opinions on? Evidence? If no, then we can't say with certainty they have a "proven" claim. Feeling, Emotion, Belief? If yes, then perhaps there is a bias they have preventing them from accepting conflicting evidence or looking upon the subject from other perspectives. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote Sherlock as saying "Never theorize before one has data, invariably one twists facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts." Majority opinion can always be based on biases and evidence is required to take any claim seriously.

Is the majority well informed on the subject and all aspects/perspectives on it? You can hardly say that "many people believe in mediums, therefore medium phenomena is true." Really? Have the believers read any skeptical positions? Done any research? Looked for alternative explanations? Just as with evolution, in some countries, the majority do not believe- but are they aware of all the evidence? It's hardly fair to say majority wins when many of the majority may not have all the facts.

Lastly, just because there may be things we do not yet have scientific answers to, it does not mean there is no scientific answer. We just haven't found one yet. It's nothing more than a hasty conclusion to say "Science has no answer, therefore this one is true." It is not so. Perhaps we will find an answer in a year or two from now, until then, conclusions should not be made.}}

===Reason 29: Gregorian calendar===
<tt>Look at the date/year on our calender - 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus' existence.</tt>

{{Response|This is an unfounded claim that [[the Gregorian calendar proves that Jesus existed]]. The Anno Domini (AD) dating system was not created until 525 AD. It is not independent, contemporary historical confirmation of the New Testament. The current Gregorian Calendar was drafted in 1582 under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII of the Catholic church, and cannot act as evidence of the existence of a man who is thought to have lived 15 centuries earlier.}}

{{Response|Look at the names of days and months on your calendar. This proves that the gods Moon, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, Saturn and Sun, Januarius, the Roman gods to whom the Februa were celebrated, Mars, etc., etc. all exist.}}

===Reason 30: Martyrs===
<tt>Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!</tt>

{{Response|This could only show that purported martyrs ''believed'' they were dying for a true faith. It cannot prove that their beliefs are actually true; martyrs may be mistaken. Many people have died in the name of many contradictory faiths. Further, people have given their lives in the name of beliefs such as Nazism; must we assume these are also true?}}

{{See [[Liar, Lunatic or Lord]]}}

===Reason 31: Biblical accounts===
<tt>Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.</tt>

{{Response|It may be a stretch to describe stories of events written 40+ years after they supposedly occurred as "eyewitness accounts", when the average lifespan of a human in those times was likely much lower[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_over_human_history]. The truth is that none of the [[Gospels]] were written by eyewitnesses, the earliest dating estimate[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating] is 65 C.E. and most are thought to be significantly later. Moreover, the earliest New Testament texts were purportedly authored by early church founder Paul of Tarsus, who was not an eyewitness. Even assuming the events were recorded by supposed eyewitnesses, we could make that argument in favor of many religious texts and other writings which may contradict each other. Does this give us reason to assume the events recorded in books like the Qur'an are also true? And given the many conflicts over heresies, apocryphal texts and other teachings in the early church, it seems safe to say that there was "confusion and anger" over the contents of the books.}}

{{Response| Some of the Four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. The book of Mark was written by Barnabas' nephew Mark, who was not one of the original Twelve Apostles. The book of Luke was written by Luke of Antioch, who was a believer after hearing the Gospel. Those two books were collections of various eyewitness accounts. Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which was both a collection of eyewitness accounts, as well as a journal of Luke's travels when he helped spread the Gospel.

There is much truth in the New Testament accounts in terms of "normal" historical events that can be verified through comparing contemporary historical works and archaeology. However, one could question whether or not the supernatural events that are written in the Gospels took place.}}

===Reason 32: Archaeology===
<tt>From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaeological evidence to confirm many details we're provided with in the Bible.</tt>

{{Response|This may be true, but there is also a striking ''lack'' of archaeological evidence for many important stories recorded in the Bible (see claim #34). Atheists do not claim that the Bible must be entirely false in every respect. What matters when determining if the Bible provides basis for a belief in God is the evidence we can find for its claims of supernatural phenomena, like the resurrection of Jesus. This evidence does not exist. Furthermore, there is evidence to confirm many of the details provided in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad Iliad] or the average [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-man Spider-Man] comic, but that doesn't mean that Achilles and Spider-Man exist.}}

===Reason 33: Biblical prophecy===
<tt>Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.</tt>

{{Response|This is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. The Bible does not contain a single fulfilled prediction which is/was verifiable, non trivial, and was not self-fulfilling.

Biblical [[prophecy]] was "confirmed" by those who were already aware of such prophecy and with a vested interest in ensuring that such prophecy had the appearance of being fulfilled.}}

{{Response| This claim is simply false. Perhaps the most strikingly embarrassing unfulfilled prophecy in the bible is Jesus' prediction of his own second coming, to occur within the lifetimes of the people listening to him. There are dozens of others.}}

{{Response| Those prophecies only come true in the context of the bible, which was compiled and edited after the fact. There are many works of fiction where predictions are made that come true in the context of that book or film, does this make the stories true?}}

===Reason 34: Biblical history===
<tt>The evidence from literature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.</tt>

{{Response|This is plainly false. In addition to the miracles and supernatural events described in the Bible, for which there is no historical evidence, many of the historical claims which could theoretically be substantiated with archaeological evidence are contradicted by modern historians. For example, historians believe there is no evidence for Hebrew slavery in Egypt or the Exodus as described in the Old Testament[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus#CriticalEvaluation].}}

===Reason 35: Christianity and science in harmony===
<tt>From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac ''[sic]'' Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.</tt>

{{Response|Many of the arguments in this email appear to promote Christianity by opposing science, but even if we grant that there is no conflict between science and Christianity and that many scientists are Christians, this hardly provides evidence that Christianity is true. See [[burden of proof]]. And if we fail to grant that there is no conflict, we recognize many contradictions[http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html] between the Biblical account and established science.}}

{{Response| From the time of Galileo to the latest attempts by creationists to push their agendas in schools, science and faith have ''always'' been in opposition. Whether it's the germ theory of disease vs. demons and the powers of the air, the preposterous miracles of the Roman Catholic Church, heliocentrism vs. angels moving the stars about, lightning rods instead of sounding the church bells, science has ''never'' had to back down: it has always been religion that has had to preserve itself by "reinterpreting" its texts.}}

===Reason 36: How vs. why===
<tt>Science can explain 'how' something works, but not 'why' something works.</tt>

{{Response|This argument is essentially meaningless. To science, 'how' and 'why' are the same thing. 'How' speaks of the mechanism, 'why' speaks of the cause. If a domino knocks another domino over, the 'how' is by transfer of energy, the 'why' is explained as Newton's three laws of motion.}}

{{Response| Terry Pratchett, of all people, gives an insight into this. The question "why" presupposes that there is a ''story'' to be told. A ''narrative''. Science is a different way of knowing, and one of its discoveries is that the language of the universe is not that of story and legend, but that of mathematics. It's something that a lot of math-phobes have a hard time accepting.}}

===Reason 37: Science changes===
<tt>Science is constantly recorrecting ''[sic]'' its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.</tt>

{{Response|A willingness to reconsider [[theory|theories]] in the face of new [[evidence]] is essential to any process that seeks the [[truth]]. [[Science]] is strong precisely because of this, rather than despite it. In addition, religious groups, even those considered extreme or [[fundamentalist]], often change their teachings in response to social concerns. For example, the [[Church of Latter-Day Saints]] abandoned polygamy in order to gain statehood for Utah. Mainstream [[Christianity]] is guilty of the same revisionism: In 1633, [[Wikipedia:Galileo|Galileo]] was convicted of [[heresy]] by the Catholic Church for promoting [[wikipedia:heliocentrism|heliocentrism]], which directly contradicts biblical "evidence" of the organization of the universe. It wasn't until 1992 that Galileo was officially vindicated in a declaration by [[Wikipedia:Pope John Paul II|Pope John Paul II]]. Did God change the arrangement of the heavenly bodies in the intervening centuries? Or was the Catholic Church simply wrong because they were using a completely unreliable source of knowledge? [[Wikipedia:Ben Franklin|Ben Franklin]] was accused of heresy by Catholics and [[Protestants]] alike, for developing the [[wikipedia:lightning rod|lightning rod]], which was considered an effort to stifle God's wrath. Today, however, virtually all structures, including churches, are fitted with lightning protection.}}

{{Response|When science changes, the new theory generally explains both the new facts ''and'' the old. For example, [[Einstein]]'s [[Wikipedia:theory of relativity|theory of relativity]], which shows relative speed, changes the rules while at the same time making it quite clear that Newtonian physics is still a very good approximation for a lot of things. On the contrary, when society changes in such a way that religions have to "reinterpret" their own scriptures, the original interpretations are no longer valid. The prior behaviors of followers are then written off as heretical, as, for example, in the case of the Catholic Church during the [[Inquisition]]. See also: [[no true Scotsman]]. }}

{{Response|The truth is always changing and evolving. Humans, both individually and collectively, only have a limited understanding of how the world is. Whether or not we admit it, our view of our world is one made up of a lot of assumptions, however educated they may be. The fact that science and the interpretation of religious beliefs keep changing is proof of this. The fact that science and religion are constantly changing should not be a reason to dismiss either one entirely. We should dismiss our own personal assumptions/beliefs regarding the object in question, and not the object itself.}}

===Reason 38: Abiogenesis===
<tt>Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn't explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.</tt>

{{Response|The biological theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life; it describes how the diversity and complexity of life found today arose from simpler organisms. However, science could explain how life began on Earth if a credible theory of [[abiogenesis]] or [[wikipedia:panspermia|panspermia]] emerges in the future. Though there is currently no generally accepted and evidence-supported theory of how life arose on Earth, scientists have demonstrated that abiogenesis is possible (such as in the [[Wikipedia:Miller-Urey experiment|Miller-Urey experiment]]), and there are a variety of hypotheses which are more [[Occam's razor|parsimonious]] than one invoking a transcendent God. While a consensus theory of abiogenesis or panspermia would not disprove the existence of God, the [[burden of proof]] is on those who assert the existence of supernatural phenomena.}}

{{Response|This is another iteration of the [[God of the gaps]] argument and an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. While this argument attempts to defend the Christian mythological deity, it serves the same function for all other deities, as well as for any other unfalsifiable claim, including [[You can't prove God doesn't exist|Russell's Teapot]], [[Wikipedia:Brain in a vat|you are in the Matrix]], or that the universe was created 20 seconds ago by me.}}
{{Response|The author is entirely correct in maintaining that proof of evolution would not be disproof of God; however, as can be seen in many other "reasons", she seems to be unwilling or unable to recognize that ''disproof'' of evolution is likewise not ''proof'' of God.}}

{{Response|Scientists haven't answered all of the questions of the universe. I admit this. However, this fact is not a reason to believe in God. This fact doesn't have anything to do with God.}}

{{Response| Evolution is true and it does disprove the existence of the god of the Jewish and Christian Bible. Evolution shows there was no creation since there was no creation then there was no Garden of Eden then there is no first sin. Since there was no first sin then there is no evil in the world. Since there is no evil in the world then there is no reason for there to be a Jesus Christ and no reason for him to give his life to wash away our sins with his blood. So with evolution there is no god of the Bible or its false religions.}}

===Reason 39: A bad lie?===
<tt>The two people who discovered Jesus' empty tomb were women. Women were very low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical & Biblical truth.</tt>

{{Response|Let me get this straight: because women had low status and because it is written somewhere that some women claimed something that would be really great (from the author's perspective) if it were true, therefore the claims must be true? Wow. That's an amazing logical leap. (To be fair, historians do sometimes use such [[Wikipedia:Criterion of embarrassment|"countersupportive" evidence as positive evidence]] of historical claims — for example, [[Bart D. Ehrman]]'s analysis of which [[sayings of Jesus]] in the Bible might be historically accurate relies in part on whether each quotation shows Jesus or his message in a positive or negative light — but a good historian would never go so far as to argue that this makes the claims ''true''.)}}

{{Response|While the Gospels describe Jesus' tomb being found empty by women, the Gospels also give accounts of the resurrected Jesus appearing to his male disciples. The Gospels were also written and promulgated by men. The resurrection claim does not rest solely on the word of low-status women. Even if it did, this would hardly be sufficient reason to deem it true; [[extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence]]. Moreover, the account is [[hearsay]] and [[Biblical contradictions|contradictory accounts]] of this event are given in the Gospels.}}

===Reason 40: Near-death experiences===
<tt>Think about Near Death Experiences. It's naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn't have otherwise known, an african ''[sic]'' man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing "a dream". We're not silly - we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.</tt>

{{Response|It is not naive to seek physiological or psychological explanations for unusual experiences a person may have while their body is recovering from life-threatening trauma or disease; in fact, studies have shown that NDEs can be induced through drugs or trauma, and are almost certain to be a physiological phenomenon. It is naive to immediately presume something supernatural is occurring. Why are these bizarre claims about paperclips and Africans rising from the dead not substantiated? If credible evidence existed of a man being actually deceased and rising three days later, this would be unprecedented news quickly publicized to every corner of the globe by every kind of formal or informal media. If this actually occurred, present the evidence. Science demands more proof than a mere assurance that one asserting a shocking revelation is "not silly." See also the Skeptic's Dictionary entry[http://skepdic.com/nde.html] on the subject.}}

{{Response|Why do you, necessarily, need eyes to experience visual information? When I dream, my eyes are closed yet I 'see' things. Either all my dreams are magical journeys to the furthest edges of reality, or my brain can generate visual information independently from my eyes. I choose the latter.}}

===Reason 41: Biblical skeptics===
<tt>There are many skeptics who didn't believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.</tt>

{{Response| This is a form of [[argumentum ad populum]], at one stage the majority of the world believed the earth was flat. These are anecdotal accounts of people who could be mistaken. While it is true conversions to Christianity continue today, conversions to other religions and away from organized religion also occur.}}

{{Response| This argument does not take into consideration that people may have alternative reasons for changing their religion (or lack thereof) besides believing. People may change religions to suit a new marriage, or perhaps they lost a loved one and need some form of comfort. Perhaps they are trying to please persistent family members or just enjoy the Christmas carols and architecture and enjoy the sense of community. We can not always assume that people join a faith because they believe that it is true. }}

===Reason 42: Einstein quote===
<tt>Albert Einstein said; "A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".</tt>

{{Response|[[Albert Einstein]] also said, "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." [[argumentum ad verecundiam]]. Lameness does not affect factuality. Besides this, Einstein used the term "religion" in a specific, nonstandard way, defined here: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 'If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it'." It is this admiration for the structure of the universe that Einstein thought essential to science.}}

===Reason 43: The tomato thrower===
<tt>A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"</tt>

{{Response|This unsubstantiated anecdote about a believer assaulting an atheist with a vegetable is actually a form of the [[unmoved mover]]/[[uncaused cause]] argument, implying that atheists are foolish not to believe in a higher power that created the universe. This argument does not solve the problem of the first cause; it merely shifts the burden onto an unproven supernatural being. If God is not caused, then it cannot be said that all things must have a cause. Whether it be the universe itself, for atheists, or God himself, for the believer, all must admit the existence of something whose cause is as yet undiscovered. Atheists hope to continue discovering causes through reason; theists merely give up. Theism cannot claim this as an advantage. If we are to take this anecdote at face value, we must also question the morality of the presumed theist who both assaulted the speaker, rather than refute his claims, and then either lied about the assault or failed to confess and apologize.

Furthermore, the public assault of an atheist by means of a possibly self-actuating, suicidal vegetable is hardly a compelling reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the original email suggests.}}

===Reason 44: Occam's supernatural razor===
<tt>It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.</tt>

{{Response|This is another form of [[uncaused cause]] argument employing [[Occam's Razor]], but an explanation that requires the existence of an unseen, omnipotent supernatural being can hardly be simpler than one that relies on observable natural principles. This argument also prompts the question, how did God arise out of nothing? It also presupposes a [[straw man]] form of the [[Big Bang]] theory of cosmology. Theists often claim that the Big Bang suggests that "nothing became something," when in fact it says no such thing. In fact, there is no scientific reason to think that the matter and energy of the universe had to be created (which would be a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics) and have not merely always existed in one form or another.}}

===Reason 45: How-vs.-why Hawking quote===
<tt>Stephen Hawkins ''[sic]'' has admitted; "Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?"</tt>

{{Response|Spurious. Whatever reason the universe exists, the Bible does nothing to answer this question. All it does is provide a claim of 'what' was created, and 'when', vaguely (and incorrectly) answers the 'how' ([[magic]]) but it in no way answers the 'why'. If it even makes sense to speak of the universe as if it chooses to exist, why it does so would not be the subject of science, which deals with what can be naturally observed. This should be considered a problem of philosophy.}}

===Reason 46: With God all things are possible===
<tt>We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.</tt>

{{Response|[[Petitio principii]], [[religion provides hope]]. These statements merely follow from the definition of an omnipotent creator God; they do nothing to prove its existence.}}

{{Response|It is precisely ''because'' supernatural explanations allow "all things [to be] possible" that they are useless when it comes to determining the true causes of observed phenomena.}}

{{Response|It was also the Bible that said that pi is equal to 3, but I don't see any Christians promoting that theory.}}

{{Response| Is it really true that with God all things are possible? Can God create a stone large enough that even he can not lift it? Either way, he fails at omnipotence. The argument is also special pleading, it gives God a status of being immune to the laws of science but how is this possible? God is NOT made up of matter? Ultimately this argument is only an attempt to "dodge the bullet".}}

===Reason 47: Evolved vs. evolving===
<tt>If we are the product of evolution - by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. And, in fact, we ''are'' still evolving, as are all living things. As for "finely tuned", most of our planet's surface is uninhabitable by or inhospitable to humans (frozen wastelands, oceans, deserts), and the vast majority of the universe is fatal to humans, so how can "everything" be said to be "finely tuned for our living"?}}

===Reason 48: The Missing Link===
<tt>Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. The falsification of [[evolution]] would not be evidence of a god and inability to find a particular [[missing link]] is not falsification of evolution. The "missing link" itself comes from a misunderstanding of evolution, and has more in common with the [[Great Chain of Being]] than anything scientific.}}

{{Response|The famous Missing Link between humans and ape ancestors has also been found. Not merely one example, either, but many different stages. This is another example of the [[God of the gaps]] argument. What's more, even if the "missing link" were really missing, that does not prove it does not exist. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.}}

{{Response| The Missing Link argument claims that we are still missing the fossils to prove evolutionary descent. However scientists are discovering more fossils by the year, each giving more insight into how evolution works and how relationships are established. This argument does not take into consideration the other things besides fossils which prove evolution, such as genetics.}}

===Reason 49: Open your eyes===
<tt>God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?</tt>

{{Response|[[Special pleading]], [[petitio principii]]. If God is omnipotent, there is no limit to what more he could do. Even if our eyes are "shut to him," an omnipotent being could certainly open them.

Such a claim is also prejudiced against the blind. What if someone has no eyes to see God's works? Are blind people, by definition, atheists?}}

{{Response|[[Argument from non-belief]]. Why doesn't God speak directly to the entire human population? Or visit "physically" every once in a while? In other words, why isn't God's existence more obvious, based on direct, observable and irrefutable evidence and not theoretical guesses and feeling? }}

===Reason 50: Liar or Lord?===
<tt>Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. He could have also...
* been insane,
* never actually existed,
* not said all of the things attributed to him, or
* been deceived by the lies of others.
See also C.S. Lewis's [[trilemma]].}}

===Big finish===
<tt>YOU DECIDE!!!</tt>
{{Response|[[Pascal's Wager#Atheist's Wager|Choose wisely!]]}}

== Summary ==

Of the "50 reasons" given, the following do not say anything about evidence for God at all:
* 19 arguments against atheism/science/rationality and for non-religious paranormal ideas: 2,5-10,13-14,21,23,26-28,36-38,40,48
* 8 non sequiturs that make a statement and hope that the reader draws a connection to God (mostly bad fine-tuning arguments): 12,15-20,47
* 5 statements that simply assert God against all objections, giving no real "reason" for belief: 3,11,22,46,49
* 4 appeals to famous scientists: 24,35,42,45
* 1 story that attacks atheism through straight-forward ridicule: 43
* 1 appeal to morality that claims that faith is good without showing that it is correct: 25

The remaining twelve arguments are mostly either about the Bible or of the type that say "this is all here because God put it here."

Fifty arguments probably sounds like a pretty impressive number. But a more accurate (and far less catchy) title to this email would be "Twenty-four attacks on our enemies who promote science and reason over faith, fourteen vague statements that try to make theists look good or reasonable, and twelve reasons why some Christian beliefs are superficially plausible."

==External links==

* [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php Copy of the email] originally posted by [[PZ Myers]]

[[Category:Internet memes]]

50 reasons to believe in God

2010-10-09T01:20:56Z

Daemonowner: /* Reason 20: Complementarity of plant and animal life */ fixing link

: ''For the book by Guy P. Harrison, see [[50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God]].''

'''50 reasons to believe in [[God]]''' is an email that made the rounds of [[atheist]] [[Wikipedia:Blog|blog]]gers in June 2008. [[PZ Myers]], on his blog [[Pharyngula]], identifies the original author as Debra Rufini, an author whose recent book contains "an imaginary scenario in which [[Richard Dawkins]] gets psychiatric counseling…from Jesus".[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php]

What follows is a collection of responses to these purported "reasons".

(Note that the title associated with each "reason" did not appear in the original e-mail and is provided here merely for reference.)

==Responses to the message==

===Preamble===
<tt>It is easy to prove to yourself that God is real. .the evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs:</tt>

{{Comment-box1|label=General responses:|text=None of the arguments put forth in this e-mail are "proofs" of God's existence. Technically, most of them aren't even "reasons" to believe. On the other hand, the author did say, "prove to yourself", which is, one could argue, different from proving a claim to someone else. Nevertheless, almost all of the arguments rely on the same handful of [[logic]]al [[fallacies]], the responses to which can be summarized as follows:
# Disproof of one claim is not proof of another (unless they are exact logical opposites).
# The [[burden of proof]] lies with the person making the claim that something exists or should be "believed in".
# Just because you [[argumentum ad ignorantiam|can't figure out what caused something]], or can't understand how something works, doesn't mean [[God did it]].
# Arguing that the environment was created to fit the needs of humans is getting the order of causality exactly backwards: according to modern [[evolutionary theory]], humans have evolved to fit their environment.
# If an argument for the existence of God can be used to argue for the existence of ''any other god'', then it can't be a good reason to believe in the ''particular'' god of [[Christianity]].}}

===Reason 1: DNA===
<tt>Whilst agreeing that [[random]] [[pattern]]s occur naturally [[by chance]], [[DNA]] however, consists of code, which requires a [[designer]].</tt>

{{Response|This is the [[argument from design]]. Incidentally, it is the study of DNA that gives the strongest [[evidence]] of [[common descent]], a key component of [[evolution]]ary theory (which is argued against in several of the "reasons" below).}}

{{Response|A code does not simply require a designer - it requires an encoder and a decoder who ''agree on its meaning''. Or more generally, a code requires a set of ''understanders''. It makes no sense to speak of something being a "code" unless it encodes a ''message'' of some sort from a sender to a receiver. That is to say, to call DNA a "code" at all is [[begging the question|question-begging]]. DNA is a chemical which interacts with other chemicals according to well-understood laws of chemistry and physics.

However, if we wish to speak of it as encoding a message, then that message surely comes not from a God but from ''prior generations of living things''. The messages our distant ancestors have left for us are such things as; "this is a good way to make a muscle", "this is how you digest food", "it is a good idea to run away from things that look like this", and of course those instincts that make us a social species such as "punish the wicked", and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".}}

{{Response|Not all systems which are known to represent information (aka code) were known to have been created by a designer. For example, the solar system can be viewed as a system which encodes information, such as the length of a day or the period in which one might harvest crops or the tidal calendar. While this coded information provides data relevant to the daily lives of the inhabitants of this planet, it is by no means apparent that this information was created by a designer, and it is highly plausible this information is simply the emergent metrics of an unordered assembly of celestial bodies.}}

===Reason 2: Paranormal phenomena===
<tt>How do you explain the [[paranormal]], such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine — I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.</tt>

{{Response|This is an [[argument from personal experience]] and an implicit appeal to [[personal revelation]]. It fallaciously presupposes that one's senses, and the interpretations given them, are [[infallible]]. One need not be a liar or attention-seeker, or be overtired to misinterpret sensory information.

Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built up from prior beliefs and past experience (a fact that [[magic]]ians primarily rely upon to "fool the eye", especially in [[wikipedia:close-up magic|close-up magic]]). In addition, we tend to impart meaning on ambiguous input even when there is [[pareidolia|no real meaning behind it]] (e.g., "seeing faces" or "hearing voices" where there are none). There are also real physiological limitations to our senses that result in nearly universal misperceptions such as [[optical illusion]]s. On a different level, we tend to see causal relationships where none exist (one example of this kind of fallacious reasoning is called [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]). All of these tendencies may have conferred evolutionary advantages in the past — and may continue to do so today — but they can easily lead to the misinterpretation of evidence.

Finally, consider the fact that the very same phenomena that were once attributed to "ancestors" in early human history may have been attributed to angels or [[demon]]s in the Middle Ages, to [[witch]]es or [[the Devil]] in the 17th and 18th centuries, to "spirits" or [[wikipedia:poltergeist|poltergeist]]s in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to [[wikipedia:extraterrestrial|extraterrestrial]]s in the late 20th century. The sensory stimuli may be the same, but the interpretation is different. Why should we believe the claim that these phenomena point to the existence of a god, especially the god of [[Christianity]]?}}

{{Response|I don't believe you. We each of us have to decide, from the multitude of conflicting voices around us, what information we are going to accept as reliable. I have no more reason to believe your miracle story than you have to believe the stories that a Hindu (I assume you are a Christian) might tell you, or indeed that other Christians might tell you. Every religion is awash with absurd miracle stories, and you and I both have to reject the vast majority of them. You are going to have to do better than "My mate and I saw a ghost! For real!"}}

===Reason 3: Prayer===
<tt>Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?</tt>

{{Response|This argument is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. It urges the reader to pray, and anticipates that any results of [[prayer]] would be easy to dismiss as chance. In essence this is an admission that the results of prayer may not actually be distinguishable from coincidence and chance. On the other hand, using similar reasoning, what good is it to consider the extremely low odds of winning the lottery, or the risks of [[wikipedia:day trading|day trading]]? Shouldn't we all just jump in and have a little faith? [[Skepticism]] helps people live better, more secure lives.}}

{{Response| Try praying for what? Prayer will not set a broken bone, prayer will not move a mountain. Prayer has even been tested, and it failed.The Templeton Foundation funded a prayer study to find out if prayer helped on recovery after heart surgery. The results were conclusive that prayer did not help; on the contrary, it showed that those who knew they were being prayed for experienced more complications during recovery. Brain studies have shown that the same areas of the brain are active during meditation and talking problems out with friends, these latter two having greater results in improving on the quality of life. Try praying? I say try a little meditation and have a few drinks and dinner with friends, it will do you a lot more good.}}

===Reason 4: First cause===
<tt>The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.</tt>

{{Response|This fails to provide proof for a god, as it requires to define god as the "[[uncaused cause]]," therefore negating the original premise. Refer also to [[David Hume]]'s arguments regarding the inability to determine the cause of an effect through reason alone (we need some experience, and have none for 'creating universes.') Moreover, there need not be a direct cause for all things; there is no direct cause for the radioactive decay of an individual atom, and yet it happens. There would appear to be uncaused quantum "effects" as well. Attempts to use physical laws (real or conventionally-accepted, with the above being the latter) to require the existence of a god tend to ignore that, for nearly all definitions of god, god violates various physical laws. Even if "everything must have a cause" necessitated the existence of a God, "energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed" (the [[Thermodynamics#Laws|First Law of Thermodynamics]]) would necessitate an un-created/eternal universe. Theists can't [[Cherry picking|cherry-pick]] physical laws to prove their god's existence. See also: [[Special pleading]].

The author doesn't explain why things that existed forever don’t need a cause while others do. In any case, recent physical theories suggest that the physical [[Universe]] is part of a larger [[Wikipedia:Multiverse|Multiverse]]; which by your reasoning always existed and doesn’t need a cause.}}

{{Response|My response would be to say that even if there was a first cause, how is this true proof of God? There are many other possible events that could have caused our universe.

I wouldn't use the "eternal universe" model as evidence. A theist was all too quick to point out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and recent astronomical observations prove that our universe is not eternal. If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.}}

===Reason 5: Complexity===
<tt>Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.</tt>

{{Response|This is [[False premise|fallacious in its assumption]] that an atheistic viewpoint requires the world to [[Origin of the universe|start from "nothing"]]. It also is guilty of [[special pleading]] ([[responsibility]] is an attribute of [[intelligence]]) and is another invocation of the [[argument from design]]. Note also that this author's "nothing" includes the entirety of physical, chemical, and other laws of the universe.

For the record, none of the scientific theories about the beginning of the universe posit that there was "nothing" and then there was "something." The [[Big Bang]] theory does posit the universe as being compacted to a singularity, and this does pose certain problems at such a [[Wikipedia:Quantum theory|quantum level]] because of how matter is understood to work, but it is not even clear that matter yet existed at this singularity - it doesn't have to, either, because matter and [[energy]] are equivalents (by [[general relativity]]) and energy does not follow the same types of quantum constraints as matter. You could (in a very simplified view of quantum and relativity theories) have all the matter in the universe converted to energy, and have all that energy contained in no space at all (a singularity) because energy requires no space.}}

{{Response|We know that this claim is factually wrong. According to this argument, complex snowflakes must be made by some intelligence, rather than the "mindless nothing" of physical and chemical forces. That is, if this is true, then God must assign angels to individually craft each snowflake. There must be a "Jack Frost" who draws those artistic patterns on our windows when it's cold. Rather than this childish storybook view of the world, we know that emergent complexity happens all the time, and is an exciting and interesting branch of mathematics and science.

Snowflakes are a special case of any crystalline structure. Diamonds, for example, are nothing more than a special (and precise) arrangement of carbon atoms in a structure that makes the overall object transparent (unlike graphite or other forms of pure carbon). Diamonds do not require a creator to arrange the carbon atoms just so. They require nothing more than the right pressure to force the carbon atoms into this configuration, and such pressures arise naturally in the earth as a result of nothing more than the properties of matter and gravity.}}

{{Response|I once read a Jack Chick tract that said that all the atoms in the universe are held together by God. This argument here reaches to the one about complexity. If God has to multitask on everything, what if God got tired and let his guard down for one second? Uh-oh, the universe is destroyed. If one is making an argument this complex, one should check all the angles so it is foolproof.}}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator (as the argument follows). But the fact is that God must necessarily be more complex only demonstrates that his existence is greatly improbable. Especially if he is infinite, for an infinite, complex being would be neverendingly improbable, or more plainly put, impossible.}}

===Reason 6: Limitations of science===
<tt>Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.</tt>

{{Response|This is a case of possible confusion on the meaning of the terms used, as well as a use of the [[god of the gaps]] argument. We can detect emotions through the physical changes to the body, and we can detect brain activity. To say that memory is not detected 'scientifically' is possibly a [[dualism|dualistic]] argument, but there is no basis in it. It is true, however, that the scientific method can only detect certain things: specifically, things which have some observable effect in the universe. Either God has an observable effect on the universe, and can therefore be studied scientifically, or God does not, and therefore is irrelevant.}}

{{Response|Taking the case of 'memory' further, psychologists long ago learned that if they probe the brain in certain areas, they can stimulate full, vivid, true memories in the subject. This would seem to be a form of 'scientific detection' of memory.}}

===Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory===
<tt>Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the 'theory of evolution'. It's a fairy tale for grown ups!</tt>

{{Response|This is surely an instance of [[hypocrisy|the pot calling the kettle black]]. Modern [[evolutionary theory]] is supported by a large number of independently verifiable facts and is used to explain, predict, and manipulate the responses of all manner of biological systems. Where is the corresponding [[evidence for God]] (or [[intelligent design]], etc.)? No, in actuality, most religions, with their tales of super-beings and [[magic]]al events, bear a much greater resemblance to fairy tales than does evolution.

More to the point, however, this is the "[[Evolution is only a theory]]" argument, which relies heavily on an [[equivocation]] between the common usage of the word "theory" and the scientific one (see [[Theory]] for more information). Furthermore, [[science]] is not about [[proof]]s, but [[evidence]], and the evidence supporting evolution is solid. See, for example, the Wikipedia article, [[Wikipedia:Introduction to evolution|Introduction to evolution]] (or the full [[Wikipedia:Evolution|Evolution]] article).

Finally, even if our current understanding of evolution were completely wrong, it still wouldn't make belief in God any more reasonable.}}

{{Response| Gravity is 'just a theory' too. We do not really know how or why it exists, or what exactly causes it. We can, however, observe it, understand it, and make use of that understanding to fly airplanes, launch rockets, put satellites into orbit, etc. I think we could all agree that few theists would question the theory of gravity- why then single out evolution as being 'just a theory'?}}

===Reason 8: Atheism is based on faith===
<tt>Atheism is a faith which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no 'good news' to preach in atheism.</tt>

{{Response|Typical claim that [[atheism is based on faith]] combined with the claim that [[religion provides hope]]. The former is simply untrue (for most atheists) and involves [[shifting the burden of proof]] when used as an argument for belief in God (you don't need to "prove" something doesn't exist to lack belief in it). The latter is an [[appeal to consequences]]; just because religion may have some positive effects does not mean that its claims are true, nor that its tenets should be accepted even for "practical" purposes.}}
{{Response|It is simply not true that "believers believe because they have witnessed". No believer alive today has witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus, the saints emerging from their graves, heaven, God, or any of the other myriad things that they claim to be "witnesses" to. Insofar as a religion orders its followers to "witness" to things they have no experience of, it is ordering them to be ''liars''. Thomas had the right idea: when you have put your fingers in Jesus's wound, ''then'' you can come back and talk about being a "witness".}}
{{Response|In fact, atheism ''does'' have "good news" to "preach": atheists need not subscribe to the arbitrary customs and strictures of religious dogma. We don't have to reconcile biblical contradictions nor deal with the hypocrisies of a schizophrenic deity. We can use our own minds rather than submit to competing human interpretations of "holy" books.}}

===Reason 9: Atheists are angry with God===
<tt>How much of the [[Atheism is based on faith|atheist's faith]] relies on [[Angry at God|anger with God]] as opposed to genuine [[disbelief]] in God?</tt>

{{Response|The assumption that ''any'' atheists are [[angry at God]] is an unfounded one and constitutes an [[ad hominem]] argument, since it questions the motivations behind atheists' lack of belief.}}

{{Response|Ignoring the [[atheism is based on faith]] part of the question, the correct answer is: None. One need not be angry at God (or, more properly, those who perpetuate the myth of God) to disbelieve (or, more properly, lack belief).

Granted, there are different kinds of atheists, and people are atheists for different reasons. But if you use ''[[atheism]]'' to mean either [[weak atheism|the lack of a belief in any gods]] or [[strong atheism|the belief that no gods exist]] then, logically, no atheists can be angry at God. How can you be angry at something that you don't think exists? Those who are angry at God are, by definition, not atheists but angry theists.}}

===Reason 10: Atheists need to get a life===
<tt>Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don't they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don't they leave this 'God nonsense' alone?</tt>
{{Response|This is a [[straw man]] argument, and a [[False dichotomy|false dilemma]]. Atheism does not prevent hobbies, partying, etc. Furthermore, it neglects that while god may not exist, religions do exist. The adherents to these religions often try to impose the values and practices of their own religion onto society at large. Moreover, it presupposes that a majority of people on the planet believe in a fantasy and that is a good reason to have an active life.

Furthermore, assuming that atheists, indeed, need to get a life, it is not a valid reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the email insists.}}

{{Response|The vast majority of atheists have no problem with- indeed, could care less about- theists and theism. It is the methods theists use that cause the problem. When we see theists use political means to try to force their beliefs down our throats, we are offended, and we do indeed "rant and rave" about this misuse of our political processes. However we, more than any, realize that one must have the convictions of their beliefs. Penn Jillette of "Penn & Teller" puts it nicely in one of his videos when he states something to the effect of "if you are a theist and you DON'T proselytize, I have no respect for you." In other words, if you truly believe in Christianity and yet do not share that belief with me- you are no Christian, and are, in fact, evil by your own definition, since you refuse to 'save my soul' by sharing your beliefs. I have no problem with theists sharing their beliefs when they follow established cultural norms in doing so (i.e., ask if I want to hear it, don't try to force your beliefs and opinions on me.)}}

===Reason 11: Chicken-and-egg paradox===
<tt>What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] leading to [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]. Also, evolutionary biology shows that the egg preceded the chicken[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_and_egg#Science_and_Evolution]. This is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]].}}

===Reason 12: Improbability vs. impossibility===
<tt>Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.</tt>

{{Response|The first sentence is [[special pleading]] as it applies to anything and everything that isn't explicitly disproven, including no god whatsoever. The second is an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. It is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 5: Complexity|Reason 5]].}}

===Reason 13: Complexity of human life===
<tt>How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. The complexity of life is the very thing that the theory of evolution explains. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 14: Complexity of the human mind===
<tt>How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and similar to the [[homunculus argument]]. Science demonstrates that [[consciousness]] is an [[emergent property]] of the physical brain; this argument suggests a form of [[dualism]], where the mind and brain are separate. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 15: Food and drink===
<tt>What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we're supplied with?</tt>

{{Response|This is an example of the [[anthropic principle]]. It commits the formal fallacy of [[petitio principii]], assuming that hospitable features of our universe were built to support life, rather than considering that life was adapted to the undesigned features of the universe through natural selection. Douglas Adams' analogy about a [[Douglas Adams#Quotes|sentient puddle]] neatly sums up the problem with this argument.}}

{{Response|We did! Humans are not autotrophs (make one's own food). We require energy from other sources such as plants, fruits and animals. This process of eating and digesting is essential not only to life, but also to performing many biochemical reactions within our bodies. We evolved to eat these substances for this very purpose- we were not created to eat these things (nor were they created for us). If this is a "proof" for God, then we could challenge his benevolence. Why did he put plants on Earth that we can't digest? Or why create poisonous foods? Why do many foods from animals require so much physical risk to achieve? Certainly a loving God would not put such dangers on Earth that could threaten his creation.}}

===Reason 16: The five senses===
<tt>Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we're provided with.</tt>

{{Response|Another example of the [[anthropic principle]].}}
{{Response|The "five senses" common to most humans, while adequate for the purposes of savanna apes, are only able to capture the barest fraction of all light and sound waves, and detect a very limited set of chemicals. There is nothing intrinsically special about the number of senses we possess: they differ from one another more by degrees than by kinds. For instance, our sense of touch is much like hearing when it comes to detecting vibrations, and much like sight for heat detection. Similarly, our senses of smell and taste are quite related. Thus, we can just as easily say we are born with three senses as seven (if you reduce touch to pressure and temperature detection, and consider the sense of balance, for example). Finally, there is nothing special about our sense mechanisms when compared with other members of the animal kingdom. We are far outclassed in the abilities we do possess, and we lack even rudimentary detection mechanisms for electrical or magnetic fields.}}

===Reason 17: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 1===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?</tt>

{{Response|See next reason.}}

===Reason 18: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 2===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?</tt>

{{Response | See the [[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response | What? Nothing. Who? No one. When Earth and the rest of the solar system were formed, the development of human life, or indeed life of any kind, was not the purpose or goal. We humans are the only ones (that we know of) who care that we are here. If things were different, they would be different. Perhaps a different kind of life would have developed — maybe even a kind of life that could wonder how or why it came to exist. But if not, there wouldn't be anyone to ask the question in the first place. In other words, it is possible that the correct answer to the question, "Why do things in the universe look like they were 'fine tuned' to support human life?" might simply be, "If they weren't that way, there would be no humans around to ask the question."}}

{{Response | There is a wide range of possible [[Wikipedia:Habitable_zone|orbits suitable for Earth-like life]] (that is, carbon-based and dependent on water) in our solar system: about 0.95 to 1.37 AU (or 88 million to 127 million miles) from the Sun. The Earth is near the middle of this so-called Goldilocks zone, so it is hugely inaccurate to claim that any deviation from our current position would freeze (or burn) us all up. There is also reason to believe that [[Wikipedia:Gliese_581_d#Climate_and_habitability|life is possible]] in other places in the solar system, such as Jupiter's moon [[Wikipedia:Europa_(moon)#Possible_extraterrestrial_life|Europa]] or the moons [[Wikipedia:Enceladus_(moon)|Enceladus]] or [[Wikipedia:Titan_(moon)|Titan]] of Saturn. These "hot spots" are possible because direct warming by the Sun is not the only way for a celestial body to become warm enough to support life: tidal forces caused by gravitational attraction to other "nearby" bodies (like Earth's moon) can be sufficient to heat up the interior of a planet or moon.}}

{{Response|There are approximately 200 – 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone. Around many of these stars there are going to be planets. Most will be too hot or too cold for life, but there will surely be some that are the right temperature just by chance alone. Our solar system has 8 planets ([[Wikipedia:Pluto#Classification|Pluto is no longer recognized as a planet]]), only 2 of which (Earth and Mars) are in the Goldilocks zone. That makes 2 "successes" out of 8 for our solar system alone. Now extrapolate that to the billions of other solar systems that are presumed to exist in the billions of galaxies in the universe. Even with relatively pessimistic estimates of the sizes of the various Goldilocks zones and the number and kinds of planets that would form in them, there could easily be billions of planets capable of harboring life. See also the [[Infinite monkey theorem]].}}

===Reason 19: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 3===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response| My main response to these points would be that this still does not prove the existence of God. This can be seen as a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesitate to advise using the AP in religious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}

===Reason 20: Complementarity of plant and animal life===
<tt>What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. These anthropic principle arguments are all phrased in such a way as to assume that the answer must be in the form of a "who"--i.e., a personal God. This is [[Petitio principii|begging the question]].}}

{{Response|This 'reason' makes the mistake of assuming some inherent worth of humans or reason for humans to exist. The life on earth tends to conform to the conditions of the planet they inhabit. An organism that cannot conform to the required standards is more likely to die, which goes to show why we don't see the abomination known as the [[Crocoducks|Crocoduck]], or anything like it.}}

===Reason 21: The tornado and the 747===
<tt>The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[argument from design]]. This is [[Fred Hoyle]]'s classic [[Tornado argument]], which is based on the assumption that evolution works by [[Probability|random chance]], ignoring the non-random process of [[natural selection]]. [[Richard Dawkins]] proposed the Ultimate 747 argument[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit] as a response. This reason is also contradictory to the argument proposed in [[#Reason 12: Complexity|Reason 12]].}}

{{Response| The Tornado and the 747 argument also does not take into consideration that a Boeing 747 is a nonliving entity, with no will of its own or ability to think or act. Life came about through natural selection, and by living organisms. Organisms that could adapt, had the will to survive and reproduced. As evolution progresses, organisms have evolved into more complex beings with the ability to communicate, socialize, analyze data and interpret them. Basically life did not come about by chance, as the nonliving 747 has no will to assemble itself whereas a conscious being can think and act to suit survival purposes. }}

{{Response| If one is to believe in cause and effect, there is no such thing as "sheer chance", even if it gives a illusion of such. Although there are some unanswered questions regarding the early evolution of life, we can definitely say that life did not arise according to chance. Molecules have ways of attracting each other and forming complex structures because they behave that way naturally. Given enough time and enough success, life can theoretically arise through natural mechanisms.}}

===Reason 22: The invisible and the supernatural===
<tt>We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work [sic], yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.</tt>

{{Response|While phenomena like [[wikipedia:radio waves|radio waves]] or [[wikipedia:infrared light|infrared light]] may not be visible to the human eye, they are not analogous to any purported supernatural forces. Natural "unseen" waves [[manifest]] in other ways — ways that are detectable and predictable. In short, they are well understood and explained by science, and this is why they can be utilized in technology. The same cannot be said for God.}}

===Reason 23: Self-organization and entropy===
<tt>Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.</tt>

{{Response|An uneaten tomato does not "transform" into disorganization. It may decompose into simpler organic components by the action of bacteria, fungi or other creatures such as maggots through well-understood biological processes. In fact, these components might then become part of other plants or animals, including a pineapple. This argument is utter absurdity, ignoring the very basics of [[evolution]], specifically that individuals do not evolve, ''populations'' evolve. It also ignores the role of reproduction in evolution, the fact that evolution proceeds by small changes over time, the lack of a hierarchical/teleological path for evolution, and so forth. See the EvoWiki page on a similar, more common argument[http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The_descendants_of_an_X_(cat,_dog...)_will_remain_X].}}

{{Response|The opening assumption that matter is unable to self-organize is wrong: crystals are a prime example of matter organizing itself. This innate ability of matter becomes important in some theories of abiogenesis, like A. Graham Cairns-Smith's Clay theory.}}

===Reason 24: Darwin's deathbed conversion===
<tt>Our 'inventor' of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; "I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions; wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire - people made a religion of them." Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbors the next day. "What shall I speak about?" She asked. He replied; "Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?"</tt>

{{Response|The story of [[Darwin]]'s [[deathbed conversion]] is an [[urban myth]]. Even if it were true (and evidence shows that it is not), it is an [[Argumentum ad verecundiam|argument from authority]]. We accept [[evolution]] not based on Darwin's word but on the [[evidence]] supporting the theory, most of which has been discovered since Darwin's death. By the same token, we should not reject evolution based on Darwin's word, even if he repudiated everything he had written on the subject. Similarly, we should not take Darwin's word for it that a [[god]] exists (if he did believe that) or that [[Christianity]] is the path to [[salvation]]. It is also worth noting that Darwin was not the first person to propose evolution as a possibility, or even that natural processes were responsible; he just happens to be the first to produce both a cogent theory for how the process works along with solid evidence supporting it.}}

===Reason 25: Morality===
<tt>Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we've no-one to be accountable to.</tt>

{{Response|[[Evolutionary psychology|Evolutionary psychologists]] have proposed explanations for many "moral values" and behaviors that appear to be instinctual; observations of [[wikipedia:social animal|social animal]]s reveal that many have moral codes that are similar to that of humans. [[Atheist]]s may follow any number of [[secular]] [[ethical]] codes, holding themselves accountable to values or ideals derived [[rational]]ly, rather than to a [[deity]]. Furthermore, the [[Euthyphro dilemma]] turns this argument around on the [[theist]]: where do [[God]]'s moral values come from?}}

{{Response|To whom are we morally responsible? In moral systems that lack a divine component, we are accountable to those around us.}}

{{Response|Most people don't share many of the moral values of the Bible. The vast majority of humans consider rape within marriage and slavery to be wrong while working on the sabbath is considered to be acceptable, which conflicts with biblical morality. The fact that the Bible condemns murder, theft and lying is trivial because peoples and even many other animals that are unfamiliar with the Bible also hold these moral values.}}

===Reason 26: Man vs. animal===
<tt>If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.</tt>

{{Response|There are many problems with this argument.
# It is based, at least implicitly, on the archaic concept of the [[Great Chain of Being]], in which humans are seen as separate from, and inherently superior to, other animals. In fact, humans ''are'' animals. The theory of evolution doesn't hold that they evolved "away from" animals and became something fundamentally different.
# Since evolution necessarily implies change from a previous state, the fact that the ancestors of humans had certain characteristics doesn't necessarily mean that humans must still have those characteristics. ''Any'' two animal species will share certain characteristics and not share others. This is the result of the process of evolution and not — as is implied above — a refutation of it.
# Many human behaviors ''are'', in fact, very similar to those found among animals today (especially other [[wikipedia:primate|primates]]). Examples include the seeking of food and shelter, the forming of social groups to secure these resources, the forming of pair bonds for reproduction and the rearing of offspring, the protection of family members from others in the social group and of members of the group from outsiders, and communication through sound and gestures. On the other hand, aspects of human behavior that are indeed unique to our species may be attributable to adaptations such as bipedalism or advanced cognitive function, particularly the capacity for abstract thought. Evolutionary theory may actually be able to explain how these characteristics arose.
# Given the history of the 20th century (for example), there is some doubt as to what "civilized" actually means and whether humans can be said to possess that characteristic.
# Finally, as with [[#Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory|Reason 7]] (and many others), even if the claim above were completely true, it wouldn't justify belief in God.}}

===Reason 27: Chance and ignorance===
<tt>'Chance' isn't the cause of something. It just describes what we can't find a reason for.</tt>

{{Response|[[Straw man]] argument. While [[evolution]] contains some aspects of apparent "[[chance]]" (genetic mutations), the process of [[natural selection]] is the force which drives the process of adaptation. Furthermore, "chance" is not a description of something we cannot find a reason for; that is "ignorance". Chance is a description of systems which operate according to laws of [[probability]].}}

===Reason 28: Limitations of science and logic===
<tt>Science & logic do not hold all the answers - many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.</tt>

{{Response|You're right, science and logic do not hold all the answers, that's why we have Chemistry and Mathematics, and as for concerns of the heart/soul/emotional side we have the Arts. Every thing can be accounted for with careful use of reason. Just because something is not known does not mean it can not be known.}}

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[special pleading]]. If we have no understanding of these forces, then how can anyone be said to be "aware" of them? If we are aware, we must have some small measure of understanding.}}

{{Response| Majority opinion is irrelevant to the facts. Many people may believe a lie- take for example: "Many teenagers believe that marijuana is harmless, drugs are harmful whereas marijuana is not, therefore marijuana is not a drug." Any doctor could tell you of the harmful side effects of marijuana usage. Furthermore, a drug need not be immediately harmful for it to be a drug. But nonetheless, many teenagers may make this claim, even if it is obviously not true.

We should be asking bigger questions. Such as: Are the majority of the people mentioned experts in said field? Do they know about the field they are making claims on? Is it their educational background or profession? Anyone can make conclusions on a subject in physics, but if they are not a physicist, we should be more skeptical of their conclusions.

What is the majority basing their opinions on? Evidence? If no, then we can't say with certainty they have a "proven" claim. Feeling, Emotion, Belief? If yes, then perhaps there is a bias they have preventing them from accepting conflicting evidence or looking upon the subject from other perspectives. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote Sherlock as saying "Never theorize before one has data, invariably one twists facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts." Majority opinion can always be based on biases and evidence is required to take any claim seriously.

Is the majority well informed on the subject and all aspects/perspectives on it? You can hardly say that "many people believe in mediums, therefore medium phenomena is true." Really? Have the believers read any skeptical positions? Done any research? Looked for alternative explanations? Just as with evolution, in some countries, the majority do not believe- but are they aware of all the evidence? It's hardly fair to say majority wins when many of the majority may not have all the facts.

Lastly, just because there may be things we do not yet have scientific answers to, it does not mean there is no scientific answer. We just haven't found one yet. It's nothing more than a hasty conclusion to say "Science has no answer, therefore this one is true." It is not so. Perhaps we will find an answer in a year or two from now, until then, conclusions should not be made.}}

===Reason 29: Gregorian calendar===
<tt>Look at the date/year on our calender - 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus' existence.</tt>

{{Response|This is an unfounded claim that [[the Gregorian calendar proves that Jesus existed]]. The Anno Domini (AD) dating system was not created until 525 AD. It is not independent, contemporary historical confirmation of the New Testament. The current Gregorian Calendar was drafted in 1582 under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII of the Catholic church, and cannot act as evidence of the existence of a man who is thought to have lived 15 centuries earlier.}}

{{Response|Look at the names of days and months on your calendar. This proves that the gods Moon, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, Saturn and Sun, Januarius, the Roman gods to whom the Februa were celebrated, Mars, etc., etc. all exist.}}

===Reason 30: Martyrs===
<tt>Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!</tt>

{{Response|This could only show that purported martyrs ''believed'' they were dying for a true faith. It cannot prove that their beliefs are actually true; martyrs may be mistaken. Many people have died in the name of many contradictory faiths. Further, people have given their lives in the name of beliefs such as Nazism; must we assume these are also true?}}

===Reason 31: Biblical accounts===
<tt>Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.</tt>

{{Response|It may be a stretch to describe stories of events written 40+ years after they supposedly occurred as "eyewitness accounts", when the average lifespan of a human in those times was likely much lower[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_over_human_history]. The truth is that none of the [[Gospels]] were written by eyewitnesses, the earliest dating estimate[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating] is 65 C.E. and most are thought to be significantly later. Moreover, the earliest New Testament texts were purportedly authored by early church founder Paul of Tarsus, who was not an eyewitness. Even assuming the events were recorded by supposed eyewitnesses, we could make that argument in favor of many religious texts and other writings which may contradict each other. Does this give us reason to assume the events recorded in books like the Qur'an are also true? And given the many conflicts over heresies, apocryphal texts and other teachings in the early church, it seems safe to say that there was "confusion and anger" over the contents of the books.}}

{{Response| Some of the Four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. The book of Mark was written by Barnabas' nephew Mark, who was not one of the original Twelve Apostles. The book of Luke was written by Luke of Antioch, who was a believer after hearing the Gospel. Those two books were collections of various eyewitness accounts. Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which was both a collection of eyewitness accounts, as well as a journal of Luke's travels when he helped spread the Gospel.

There is much truth in the New Testament accounts in terms of "normal" historical events that can be verified through comparing contemporary historical works and archaeology. However, one could question whether or not the supernatural events that are written in the Gospels took place.}}

===Reason 32: Archaeology===
<tt>From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaeological evidence to confirm many details we're provided with in the Bible.</tt>

{{Response|This may be true, but there is also a striking ''lack'' of archaeological evidence for many important stories recorded in the Bible (see claim #34). Atheists do not claim that the Bible must be entirely false in every respect. What matters when determining if the Bible provides basis for a belief in God is the evidence we can find for its claims of supernatural phenomena, like the resurrection of Jesus. This evidence does not exist. Furthermore, there is evidence to confirm many of the details provided in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad Iliad] or the average [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-man Spider-Man] comic, but that doesn't mean that Achilles and Spider-Man exist.}}

===Reason 33: Biblical prophecy===
<tt>Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.</tt>

{{Response|This is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. The Bible does not contain a single fulfilled prediction which is/was verifiable, non trivial, and was not self-fulfilling.

Biblical [[prophecy]] was "confirmed" by those who were already aware of such prophecy and with a vested interest in ensuring that such prophecy had the appearance of being fulfilled.}}

{{Response| This claim is simply false. Perhaps the most strikingly embarrassing unfulfilled prophecy in the bible is Jesus' prediction of his own second coming, to occur within the lifetimes of the people listening to him. There are dozens of others.}}

{{Response| Those prophecies only come true in the context of the bible, which was compiled and edited after the fact. There are many works of fiction where predictions are made that come true in the context of that book or film, does this make the stories true?}}

===Reason 34: Biblical history===
<tt>The evidence from literature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.</tt>

{{Response|This is plainly false. In addition to the miracles and supernatural events described in the Bible, for which there is no historical evidence, many of the historical claims which could theoretically be substantiated with archaeological evidence are contradicted by modern historians. For example, historians believe there is no evidence for Hebrew slavery in Egypt or the Exodus as described in the Old Testament[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus#CriticalEvaluation].}}

===Reason 35: Christianity and science in harmony===
<tt>From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac ''[sic]'' Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.</tt>

{{Response|Many of the arguments in this email appear to promote Christianity by opposing science, but even if we grant that there is no conflict between science and Christianity and that many scientists are Christians, this hardly provides evidence that Christianity is true. See [[burden of proof]]. And if we fail to grant that there is no conflict, we recognize many contradictions[http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html] between the Biblical account and established science.}}

{{Response| From the time of Galileo to the latest attempts by creationists to push their agendas in schools, science and faith have ''always'' been in opposition. Whether it's the germ theory of disease vs. demons and the powers of the air, the preposterous miracles of the Roman Catholic Church, heliocentrism vs. angels moving the stars about, lightning rods instead of sounding the church bells, science has ''never'' had to back down: it has always been religion that has had to preserve itself by "reinterpreting" its texts.}}

===Reason 36: How vs. why===
<tt>Science can explain 'how' something works, but not 'why' something works.</tt>

{{Response|This argument is essentially meaningless. To science, 'how' and 'why' are the same thing. 'How' speaks of the mechanism, 'why' speaks of the cause. If a domino knocks another domino over, the 'how' is by transfer of energy, the 'why' is explained as Newton's three laws of motion.}}

{{Response| Terry Pratchett, of all people, gives an insight into this. The question "why" presupposes that there is a ''story'' to be told. A ''narrative''. Science is a different way of knowing, and one of its discoveries is that the language of the universe is not that of story and legend, but that of mathematics. It's something that a lot of math-phobes have a hard time accepting.}}

===Reason 37: Science changes===
<tt>Science is constantly recorrecting ''[sic]'' its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.</tt>

{{Response|A willingness to reconsider [[theory|theories]] in the face of new [[evidence]] is essential to any process that seeks the [[truth]]. [[Science]] is strong precisely because of this, rather than despite it. In addition, religious groups, even those considered extreme or [[fundamentalist]], often change their teachings in response to social concerns. For example, the [[Church of Latter-Day Saints]] abandoned polygamy in order to gain statehood for Utah. Mainstream [[Christianity]] is guilty of the same revisionism: In 1633, [[Wikipedia:Galileo|Galileo]] was convicted of [[heresy]] by the Catholic Church for promoting [[wikipedia:heliocentrism|heliocentrism]], which directly contradicts biblical "evidence" of the organization of the universe. It wasn't until 1992 that Galileo was officially vindicated in a declaration by [[Wikipedia:Pope John Paul II|Pope John Paul II]]. Did God change the arrangement of the heavenly bodies in the intervening centuries? Or was the Catholic Church simply wrong because they were using a completely unreliable source of knowledge? [[Wikipedia:Ben Franklin|Ben Franklin]] was accused of heresy by Catholics and [[Protestants]] alike, for developing the [[wikipedia:lightning rod|lightning rod]], which was considered an effort to stifle God's wrath. Today, however, virtually all structures, including churches, are fitted with lightning protection.}}

{{Response|When science changes, the new theory generally explains both the new facts ''and'' the old. For example, [[Einstein]]'s [[Wikipedia:theory of relativity|theory of relativity]], which shows relative speed, changes the rules while at the same time making it quite clear that Newtonian physics is still a very good approximation for a lot of things. On the contrary, when society changes in such a way that religions have to "reinterpret" their own scriptures, the original interpretations are no longer valid. The prior behaviors of followers are then written off as heretical, as, for example, in the case of the Catholic Church during the [[Inquisition]]. See also: [[no true Scotsman]]. }}

{{Response|The truth is always changing and evolving. Humans, both individually and collectively, only have a limited understanding of how the world is. Whether or not we admit it, our view of our world is one made up of a lot of assumptions, however educated they may be. The fact that science and the interpretation of religious beliefs keep changing is proof of this. The fact that science and religion are constantly changing should not be a reason to dismiss either one entirely. We should dismiss our own personal assumptions/beliefs regarding the object in question, and not the object itself.}}

===Reason 38: Abiogenesis===
<tt>Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn't explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.</tt>

{{Response|The biological theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life; it describes how the diversity and complexity of life found today arose from simpler organisms. However, science could explain how life began on Earth if a credible theory of [[abiogenesis]] or [[wikipedia:panspermia|panspermia]] emerges in the future. Though there is currently no generally accepted and evidence-supported theory of how life arose on Earth, scientists have demonstrated that abiogenesis is possible (such as in the [[Wikipedia:Miller-Urey experiment|Miller-Urey experiment]]), and there are a variety of hypotheses which are more [[Occam's razor|parsimonious]] than one invoking a transcendent God. While a consensus theory of abiogenesis or panspermia would not disprove the existence of God, the [[burden of proof]] is on those who assert the existence of supernatural phenomena.}}

{{Response|This is another iteration of the [[God of the gaps]] argument and an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. While this argument attempts to defend the Christian mythological deity, it serves the same function for all other deities, as well as for any other unfalsifiable claim, including [[You can't prove God doesn't exist|Russell's Teapot]], [[Wikipedia:Brain in a vat|you are in the Matrix]], or that the universe was created 20 seconds ago by me.}}
{{Response|The author is entirely correct in maintaining that proof of evolution would not be disproof of God; however, as can be seen in many other "reasons", she seems to be unwilling or unable to recognize that ''disproof'' of evolution is likewise not ''proof'' of God.}}

{{Response|Scientists haven't answered all of the questions of the universe. I admit this. However, this fact is not a reason to believe in God. This fact doesn't have anything to do with God.}}

{{Response| Evolution is true and it does disprove the existence of the god of the Jewish and Christian Bible. Evolution shows there was no creation since there was no creation then there was no Garden of Eden then there is no first sin. Since there was no first sin then there is no evil in the world. Since there is no evil in the world then there is no reason for there to be a Jesus Christ and no reason for him to give his life to wash away our sins with his blood. So with evolution there is no god of the Bible or its false religions.}}

===Reason 39: A bad lie?===
<tt>The two people who discovered Jesus' empty tomb were women. Women were very low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical & Biblical truth.</tt>

{{Response|Let me get this straight: because women had low status and because it is written somewhere that some women claimed something that would be really great (from the author's perspective) if it were true, therefore the claims must be true? Wow. That's an amazing logical leap. (To be fair, historians do sometimes use such [[Wikipedia:Criterion of embarrassment|"countersupportive" evidence as positive evidence]] of historical claims — for example, [[Bart D. Ehrman]]'s analysis of which [[sayings of Jesus]] in the Bible might be historically accurate relies in part on whether each quotation shows Jesus or his message in a positive or negative light — but a good historian would never go so far as to argue that this makes the claims ''true''.)}}

{{Response|While the Gospels describe Jesus' tomb being found empty by women, the Gospels also give accounts of the resurrected Jesus appearing to his male disciples. The Gospels were also written and promulgated by men. The resurrection claim does not rest solely on the word of low-status women. Even if it did, this would hardly be sufficient reason to deem it true; [[extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence]]. Moreover, the account is [[hearsay]] and [[Biblical contradictions|contradictory accounts]] of this event are given in the Gospels.}}

===Reason 40: Near-death experiences===
<tt>Think about Near Death Experiences. It's naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn't have otherwise known, an african ''[sic]'' man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing "a dream". We're not silly - we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.</tt>

{{Response|It is not naive to seek physiological or psychological explanations for unusual experiences a person may have while their body is recovering from life-threatening trauma or disease; in fact, studies have shown that NDEs can be induced through drugs or trauma, and are almost certain to be a physiological phenomenon. It is naive to immediately presume something supernatural is occurring. Why are these bizarre claims about paperclips and Africans rising from the dead not substantiated? If credible evidence existed of a man being actually deceased and rising three days later, this would be unprecedented news quickly publicized to every corner of the globe by every kind of formal or informal media. If this actually occurred, present the evidence. Science demands more proof than a mere assurance that one asserting a shocking revelation is "not silly." See also the Skeptic's Dictionary entry[http://skepdic.com/nde.html] on the subject.}}

{{Response|Why do you, necessarily, need eyes to experience visual information? When I dream, my eyes are closed yet I 'see' things. Either all my dreams are magical journeys to the furthest edges of reality, or my brain can generate visual information independently from my eyes. I choose the latter.}}

===Reason 41: Biblical skeptics===
<tt>There are many skeptics who didn't believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.</tt>

{{Response| This is a form of [[argumentum ad populum]], at one stage the majority of the world believed the earth was flat. These are anecdotal accounts of people who could be mistaken. While it is true conversions to Christianity continue today, conversions to other religions and away from organized religion also occur.}}

{{Response| This argument does not take into consideration that people may have alternative reasons for changing their religion (or lack thereof) besides believing. People may change religions to suit a new marriage, or perhaps they lost a loved one and need some form of comfort. Perhaps they are trying to please persistent family members or just enjoy the Christmas carols and architecture and enjoy the sense of community. We can not always assume that people join a faith because they believe that it is true. }}

===Reason 42: Einstein quote===
<tt>Albert Einstein said; "A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".</tt>

{{Response|[[Albert Einstein]] also said, "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." [[argumentum ad verecundiam]]. Lameness does not affect factuality. Besides this, Einstein used the term "religion" in a specific, nonstandard way, defined here: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 'If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it'." It is this admiration for the structure of the universe that Einstein thought essential to science.}}

===Reason 43: The tomato thrower===
<tt>A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"</tt>

{{Response|This unsubstantiated anecdote about a believer assaulting an atheist with a vegetable is actually a form of the [[unmoved mover]]/[[uncaused cause]] argument, implying that atheists are foolish not to believe in a higher power that created the universe. This argument does not solve the problem of the first cause; it merely shifts the burden onto an unproven supernatural being. If God is not caused, then it cannot be said that all things must have a cause. Whether it be the universe itself, for atheists, or God himself, for the believer, all must admit the existence of something whose cause is as yet undiscovered. Atheists hope to continue discovering causes through reason; theists merely give up. Theism cannot claim this as an advantage. If we are to take this anecdote at face value, we must also question the morality of the presumed theist who both assaulted the speaker, rather than refute his claims, and then either lied about the assault or failed to confess and apologize.

Furthermore, the public assault of an atheist by means of a possibly self-actuating, suicidal vegetable is hardly a compelling reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the original email suggests.}}

===Reason 44: Occam's supernatural razor===
<tt>It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.</tt>

{{Response|This is another form of [[uncaused cause]] argument employing [[Occam's Razor]], but an explanation that requires the existence of an unseen, omnipotent supernatural being can hardly be simpler than one that relies on observable natural principles. This argument also prompts the question, how did God arise out of nothing? It also presupposes a [[straw man]] form of the [[Big Bang]] theory of cosmology. Theists often claim that the Big Bang suggests that "nothing became something," when in fact it says no such thing. In fact, there is no scientific reason to think that the matter and energy of the universe had to be created (which would be a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics) and have not merely always existed in one form or another.}}

===Reason 45: How-vs.-why Hawking quote===
<tt>Stephen Hawkins ''[sic]'' has admitted; "Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?"</tt>

{{Response|Spurious. Whatever reason the universe exists, the Bible does nothing to answer this question. All it does is provide a claim of 'what' was created, and 'when', vaguely (and incorrectly) answers the 'how' ([[magic]]) but it in no way answers the 'why'. If it even makes sense to speak of the universe as if it chooses to exist, why it does so would not be the subject of science, which deals with what can be naturally observed. This should be considered a problem of philosophy.}}

===Reason 46: With God all things are possible===
<tt>We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.</tt>

{{Response|[[Petitio principii]], [[religion provides hope]]. These statements merely follow from the definition of an omnipotent creator God; they do nothing to prove its existence.}}

{{Response|It is precisely ''because'' supernatural explanations allow "all things [to be] possible" that they are useless when it comes to determining the true causes of observed phenomena.}}

{{Response|It was also the Bible that said that pi is equal to 3, but I don't see any Christians promoting that theory.}}

{{Response| Is it really true that with God all things are possible? Can God create a stone large enough that even he can not lift it? Either way, he fails at omnipotence. The argument is also special pleading, it gives God a status of being immune to the laws of science but how is this possible? God is NOT made up of matter? Ultimately this argument is only an attempt to "dodge the bullet".}}

===Reason 47: Evolved vs. evolving===
<tt>If we are the product of evolution - by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. And, in fact, we ''are'' still evolving, as are all living things. As for "finely tuned", most of our planet's surface is uninhabitable by or inhospitable to humans (frozen wastelands, oceans, deserts), and the vast majority of the universe is fatal to humans, so how can "everything" be said to be "finely tuned for our living"?}}

===Reason 48: The Missing Link===
<tt>Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. The falsification of [[evolution]] would not be evidence of a god and inability to find a particular [[missing link]] is not falsification of evolution. The "missing link" itself comes from a misunderstanding of evolution, and has more in common with the [[Great Chain of Being]] than anything scientific.}}

{{Response|The famous Missing Link between humans and ape ancestors has also been found. Not merely one example, either, but many different stages. This is another example of the [[God of the gaps]] argument. What's more, even if the "missing link" were really missing, that does not prove it does not exist. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.}}

{{Response| The Missing Link argument claims that we are still missing the fossils to prove evolutionary descent. However scientists are discovering more fossils by the year, each giving more insight into how evolution works and how relationships are established. This argument does not take into consideration the other things besides fossils which prove evolution, such as genetics.}}

===Reason 49: Open your eyes===
<tt>God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?</tt>

{{Response|[[Special pleading]], [[petitio principii]]. If God is omnipotent, there is no limit to what more he could do. Even if our eyes are "shut to him," an omnipotent being could certainly open them.

Such a claim is also prejudiced against the blind. What if someone has no eyes to see God's works? Are blind people, by definition, atheists?}}

{{Response|[[Argument from non-belief]]. Why doesn't God speak directly to the entire human population? Or visit "physically" every once in a while? In other words, why isn't God's existence more obvious, based on direct, observable and irrefutable evidence and not theoretical guesses and feeling? }}

===Reason 50: Liar or Lord?===
<tt>Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. He could have also...
* been insane,
* never actually existed,
* not said all of the things attributed to him, or
* been deceived by the lies of others.
See also C.S. Lewis's [[trilemma]].}}

===Big finish===
<tt>YOU DECIDE!!!</tt>
{{Response|[[Pascal's Wager#Atheist's Wager|Choose wisely!]]}}

== Summary ==

Of the "50 reasons" given, the following do not say anything about evidence for God at all:
* 19 arguments against atheism/science/rationality and for non-religious paranormal ideas: 2,5-10,13-14,21,23,26-28,36-38,40,48
* 8 non sequiturs that make a statement and hope that the reader draws a connection to God (mostly bad fine-tuning arguments): 12,15-20,47
* 5 statements that simply assert God against all objections, giving no real "reason" for belief: 3,11,22,46,49
* 4 appeals to famous scientists: 24,35,42,45
* 1 story that attacks atheism through straight-forward ridicule: 43
* 1 appeal to morality that claims that faith is good without showing that it is correct: 25

The remaining twelve arguments are mostly either about the Bible or of the type that say "this is all here because God put it here."

Fifty arguments probably sounds like a pretty impressive number. But a more accurate (and far less catchy) title to this email would be "Twenty-four attacks on our enemies who promote science and reason over faith, fourteen vague statements that try to make theists look good or reasonable, and twelve reasons why some Christian beliefs are superficially plausible."

==External links==

* [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php Copy of the email] originally posted by [[PZ Myers]]

[[Category:Internet memes]]

50 reasons to believe in God

2010-10-09T01:19:47Z

Daemonowner: /* Reason 20: Complementarity of plant and animal life */ second response

: ''For the book by Guy P. Harrison, see [[50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God]].''

'''50 reasons to believe in [[God]]''' is an email that made the rounds of [[atheist]] [[Wikipedia:Blog|blog]]gers in June 2008. [[PZ Myers]], on his blog [[Pharyngula]], identifies the original author as Debra Rufini, an author whose recent book contains "an imaginary scenario in which [[Richard Dawkins]] gets psychiatric counseling…from Jesus".[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php]

What follows is a collection of responses to these purported "reasons".

(Note that the title associated with each "reason" did not appear in the original e-mail and is provided here merely for reference.)

==Responses to the message==

===Preamble===
<tt>It is easy to prove to yourself that God is real. .the evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs:</tt>

{{Comment-box1|label=General responses:|text=None of the arguments put forth in this e-mail are "proofs" of God's existence. Technically, most of them aren't even "reasons" to believe. On the other hand, the author did say, "prove to yourself", which is, one could argue, different from proving a claim to someone else. Nevertheless, almost all of the arguments rely on the same handful of [[logic]]al [[fallacies]], the responses to which can be summarized as follows:
# Disproof of one claim is not proof of another (unless they are exact logical opposites).
# The [[burden of proof]] lies with the person making the claim that something exists or should be "believed in".
# Just because you [[argumentum ad ignorantiam|can't figure out what caused something]], or can't understand how something works, doesn't mean [[God did it]].
# Arguing that the environment was created to fit the needs of humans is getting the order of causality exactly backwards: according to modern [[evolutionary theory]], humans have evolved to fit their environment.
# If an argument for the existence of God can be used to argue for the existence of ''any other god'', then it can't be a good reason to believe in the ''particular'' god of [[Christianity]].}}

===Reason 1: DNA===
<tt>Whilst agreeing that [[random]] [[pattern]]s occur naturally [[by chance]], [[DNA]] however, consists of code, which requires a [[designer]].</tt>

{{Response|This is the [[argument from design]]. Incidentally, it is the study of DNA that gives the strongest [[evidence]] of [[common descent]], a key component of [[evolution]]ary theory (which is argued against in several of the "reasons" below).}}

{{Response|A code does not simply require a designer - it requires an encoder and a decoder who ''agree on its meaning''. Or more generally, a code requires a set of ''understanders''. It makes no sense to speak of something being a "code" unless it encodes a ''message'' of some sort from a sender to a receiver. That is to say, to call DNA a "code" at all is [[begging the question|question-begging]]. DNA is a chemical which interacts with other chemicals according to well-understood laws of chemistry and physics.

However, if we wish to speak of it as encoding a message, then that message surely comes not from a God but from ''prior generations of living things''. The messages our distant ancestors have left for us are such things as; "this is a good way to make a muscle", "this is how you digest food", "it is a good idea to run away from things that look like this", and of course those instincts that make us a social species such as "punish the wicked", and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".}}

{{Response|Not all systems which are known to represent information (aka code) were known to have been created by a designer. For example, the solar system can be viewed as a system which encodes information, such as the length of a day or the period in which one might harvest crops or the tidal calendar. While this coded information provides data relevant to the daily lives of the inhabitants of this planet, it is by no means apparent that this information was created by a designer, and it is highly plausible this information is simply the emergent metrics of an unordered assembly of celestial bodies.}}

===Reason 2: Paranormal phenomena===
<tt>How do you explain the [[paranormal]], such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine — I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.</tt>

{{Response|This is an [[argument from personal experience]] and an implicit appeal to [[personal revelation]]. It fallaciously presupposes that one's senses, and the interpretations given them, are [[infallible]]. One need not be a liar or attention-seeker, or be overtired to misinterpret sensory information.

Humans have evolved a variety of cognitive shortcuts to deal with the mass of information provided by our senses. In particular, we tend to filter sensory input according to a set of expectations built up from prior beliefs and past experience (a fact that [[magic]]ians primarily rely upon to "fool the eye", especially in [[wikipedia:close-up magic|close-up magic]]). In addition, we tend to impart meaning on ambiguous input even when there is [[pareidolia|no real meaning behind it]] (e.g., "seeing faces" or "hearing voices" where there are none). There are also real physiological limitations to our senses that result in nearly universal misperceptions such as [[optical illusion]]s. On a different level, we tend to see causal relationships where none exist (one example of this kind of fallacious reasoning is called [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]). All of these tendencies may have conferred evolutionary advantages in the past — and may continue to do so today — but they can easily lead to the misinterpretation of evidence.

Finally, consider the fact that the very same phenomena that were once attributed to "ancestors" in early human history may have been attributed to angels or [[demon]]s in the Middle Ages, to [[witch]]es or [[the Devil]] in the 17th and 18th centuries, to "spirits" or [[wikipedia:poltergeist|poltergeist]]s in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and to [[wikipedia:extraterrestrial|extraterrestrial]]s in the late 20th century. The sensory stimuli may be the same, but the interpretation is different. Why should we believe the claim that these phenomena point to the existence of a god, especially the god of [[Christianity]]?}}

{{Response|I don't believe you. We each of us have to decide, from the multitude of conflicting voices around us, what information we are going to accept as reliable. I have no more reason to believe your miracle story than you have to believe the stories that a Hindu (I assume you are a Christian) might tell you, or indeed that other Christians might tell you. Every religion is awash with absurd miracle stories, and you and I both have to reject the vast majority of them. You are going to have to do better than "My mate and I saw a ghost! For real!"}}

===Reason 3: Prayer===
<tt>Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?</tt>

{{Response|This argument is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. It urges the reader to pray, and anticipates that any results of [[prayer]] would be easy to dismiss as chance. In essence this is an admission that the results of prayer may not actually be distinguishable from coincidence and chance. On the other hand, using similar reasoning, what good is it to consider the extremely low odds of winning the lottery, or the risks of [[wikipedia:day trading|day trading]]? Shouldn't we all just jump in and have a little faith? [[Skepticism]] helps people live better, more secure lives.}}

{{Response| Try praying for what? Prayer will not set a broken bone, prayer will not move a mountain. Prayer has even been tested, and it failed.The Templeton Foundation funded a prayer study to find out if prayer helped on recovery after heart surgery. The results were conclusive that prayer did not help; on the contrary, it showed that those who knew they were being prayed for experienced more complications during recovery. Brain studies have shown that the same areas of the brain are active during meditation and talking problems out with friends, these latter two having greater results in improving on the quality of life. Try praying? I say try a little meditation and have a few drinks and dinner with friends, it will do you a lot more good.}}

===Reason 4: First cause===
<tt>The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.</tt>

{{Response|This fails to provide proof for a god, as it requires to define god as the "[[uncaused cause]]," therefore negating the original premise. Refer also to [[David Hume]]'s arguments regarding the inability to determine the cause of an effect through reason alone (we need some experience, and have none for 'creating universes.') Moreover, there need not be a direct cause for all things; there is no direct cause for the radioactive decay of an individual atom, and yet it happens. There would appear to be uncaused quantum "effects" as well. Attempts to use physical laws (real or conventionally-accepted, with the above being the latter) to require the existence of a god tend to ignore that, for nearly all definitions of god, god violates various physical laws. Even if "everything must have a cause" necessitated the existence of a God, "energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed" (the [[Thermodynamics#Laws|First Law of Thermodynamics]]) would necessitate an un-created/eternal universe. Theists can't [[Cherry picking|cherry-pick]] physical laws to prove their god's existence. See also: [[Special pleading]].

The author doesn't explain why things that existed forever don’t need a cause while others do. In any case, recent physical theories suggest that the physical [[Universe]] is part of a larger [[Wikipedia:Multiverse|Multiverse]]; which by your reasoning always existed and doesn’t need a cause.}}

{{Response|My response would be to say that even if there was a first cause, how is this true proof of God? There are many other possible events that could have caused our universe.

I wouldn't use the "eternal universe" model as evidence. A theist was all too quick to point out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics and recent astronomical observations prove that our universe is not eternal. If the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to the whole universe/multiverse, this would mean that all of the closed systems within the universe/multiverse (and thus the universe/multiverse itself) tend to lose usable energy and that this energy is never recovered or used again. If the matter in our universe was eternal, it would have already reached its point of maximum entropy, which clearly has not happened yet.}}

===Reason 5: Complexity===
<tt>Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.</tt>

{{Response|This is [[False premise|fallacious in its assumption]] that an atheistic viewpoint requires the world to [[Origin of the universe|start from "nothing"]]. It also is guilty of [[special pleading]] ([[responsibility]] is an attribute of [[intelligence]]) and is another invocation of the [[argument from design]]. Note also that this author's "nothing" includes the entirety of physical, chemical, and other laws of the universe.

For the record, none of the scientific theories about the beginning of the universe posit that there was "nothing" and then there was "something." The [[Big Bang]] theory does posit the universe as being compacted to a singularity, and this does pose certain problems at such a [[Wikipedia:Quantum theory|quantum level]] because of how matter is understood to work, but it is not even clear that matter yet existed at this singularity - it doesn't have to, either, because matter and [[energy]] are equivalents (by [[general relativity]]) and energy does not follow the same types of quantum constraints as matter. You could (in a very simplified view of quantum and relativity theories) have all the matter in the universe converted to energy, and have all that energy contained in no space at all (a singularity) because energy requires no space.}}

{{Response|We know that this claim is factually wrong. According to this argument, complex snowflakes must be made by some intelligence, rather than the "mindless nothing" of physical and chemical forces. That is, if this is true, then God must assign angels to individually craft each snowflake. There must be a "Jack Frost" who draws those artistic patterns on our windows when it's cold. Rather than this childish storybook view of the world, we know that emergent complexity happens all the time, and is an exciting and interesting branch of mathematics and science.

Snowflakes are a special case of any crystalline structure. Diamonds, for example, are nothing more than a special (and precise) arrangement of carbon atoms in a structure that makes the overall object transparent (unlike graphite or other forms of pure carbon). Diamonds do not require a creator to arrange the carbon atoms just so. They require nothing more than the right pressure to force the carbon atoms into this configuration, and such pressures arise naturally in the earth as a result of nothing more than the properties of matter and gravity.}}

{{Response|I once read a Jack Chick tract that said that all the atoms in the universe are held together by God. This argument here reaches to the one about complexity. If God has to multitask on everything, what if God got tired and let his guard down for one second? Uh-oh, the universe is destroyed. If one is making an argument this complex, one should check all the angles so it is foolproof.}}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator (as the argument follows). But the fact is that God must necessarily be more complex only demonstrates that his existence is greatly improbable. Especially if he is infinite, for an infinite, complex being would be neverendingly improbable, or more plainly put, impossible.}}

===Reason 6: Limitations of science===
<tt>Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.</tt>

{{Response|This is a case of possible confusion on the meaning of the terms used, as well as a use of the [[god of the gaps]] argument. We can detect emotions through the physical changes to the body, and we can detect brain activity. To say that memory is not detected 'scientifically' is possibly a [[dualism|dualistic]] argument, but there is no basis in it. It is true, however, that the scientific method can only detect certain things: specifically, things which have some observable effect in the universe. Either God has an observable effect on the universe, and can therefore be studied scientifically, or God does not, and therefore is irrelevant.}}

{{Response|Taking the case of 'memory' further, psychologists long ago learned that if they probe the brain in certain areas, they can stimulate full, vivid, true memories in the subject. This would seem to be a form of 'scientific detection' of memory.}}

===Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory===
<tt>Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the 'theory of evolution'. It's a fairy tale for grown ups!</tt>

{{Response|This is surely an instance of [[hypocrisy|the pot calling the kettle black]]. Modern [[evolutionary theory]] is supported by a large number of independently verifiable facts and is used to explain, predict, and manipulate the responses of all manner of biological systems. Where is the corresponding [[evidence for God]] (or [[intelligent design]], etc.)? No, in actuality, most religions, with their tales of super-beings and [[magic]]al events, bear a much greater resemblance to fairy tales than does evolution.

More to the point, however, this is the "[[Evolution is only a theory]]" argument, which relies heavily on an [[equivocation]] between the common usage of the word "theory" and the scientific one (see [[Theory]] for more information). Furthermore, [[science]] is not about [[proof]]s, but [[evidence]], and the evidence supporting evolution is solid. See, for example, the Wikipedia article, [[Wikipedia:Introduction to evolution|Introduction to evolution]] (or the full [[Wikipedia:Evolution|Evolution]] article).

Finally, even if our current understanding of evolution were completely wrong, it still wouldn't make belief in God any more reasonable.}}

{{Response| Gravity is 'just a theory' too. We do not really know how or why it exists, or what exactly causes it. We can, however, observe it, understand it, and make use of that understanding to fly airplanes, launch rockets, put satellites into orbit, etc. I think we could all agree that few theists would question the theory of gravity- why then single out evolution as being 'just a theory'?}}

===Reason 8: Atheism is based on faith===
<tt>Atheism is a faith which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no 'good news' to preach in atheism.</tt>

{{Response|Typical claim that [[atheism is based on faith]] combined with the claim that [[religion provides hope]]. The former is simply untrue (for most atheists) and involves [[shifting the burden of proof]] when used as an argument for belief in God (you don't need to "prove" something doesn't exist to lack belief in it). The latter is an [[appeal to consequences]]; just because religion may have some positive effects does not mean that its claims are true, nor that its tenets should be accepted even for "practical" purposes.}}
{{Response|It is simply not true that "believers believe because they have witnessed". No believer alive today has witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus, the saints emerging from their graves, heaven, God, or any of the other myriad things that they claim to be "witnesses" to. Insofar as a religion orders its followers to "witness" to things they have no experience of, it is ordering them to be ''liars''. Thomas had the right idea: when you have put your fingers in Jesus's wound, ''then'' you can come back and talk about being a "witness".}}
{{Response|In fact, atheism ''does'' have "good news" to "preach": atheists need not subscribe to the arbitrary customs and strictures of religious dogma. We don't have to reconcile biblical contradictions nor deal with the hypocrisies of a schizophrenic deity. We can use our own minds rather than submit to competing human interpretations of "holy" books.}}

===Reason 9: Atheists are angry with God===
<tt>How much of the [[Atheism is based on faith|atheist's faith]] relies on [[Angry at God|anger with God]] as opposed to genuine [[disbelief]] in God?</tt>

{{Response|The assumption that ''any'' atheists are [[angry at God]] is an unfounded one and constitutes an [[ad hominem]] argument, since it questions the motivations behind atheists' lack of belief.}}

{{Response|Ignoring the [[atheism is based on faith]] part of the question, the correct answer is: None. One need not be angry at God (or, more properly, those who perpetuate the myth of God) to disbelieve (or, more properly, lack belief).

Granted, there are different kinds of atheists, and people are atheists for different reasons. But if you use ''[[atheism]]'' to mean either [[weak atheism|the lack of a belief in any gods]] or [[strong atheism|the belief that no gods exist]] then, logically, no atheists can be angry at God. How can you be angry at something that you don't think exists? Those who are angry at God are, by definition, not atheists but angry theists.}}

===Reason 10: Atheists need to get a life===
<tt>Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don't they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don't they leave this 'God nonsense' alone?</tt>
{{Response|This is a [[straw man]] argument, and a [[False dichotomy|false dilemma]]. Atheism does not prevent hobbies, partying, etc. Furthermore, it neglects that while god may not exist, religions do exist. The adherents to these religions often try to impose the values and practices of their own religion onto society at large. Moreover, it presupposes that a majority of people on the planet believe in a fantasy and that is a good reason to have an active life.

Furthermore, assuming that atheists, indeed, need to get a life, it is not a valid reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the email insists.}}

{{Response|The vast majority of atheists have no problem with- indeed, could care less about- theists and theism. It is the methods theists use that cause the problem. When we see theists use political means to try to force their beliefs down our throats, we are offended, and we do indeed "rant and rave" about this misuse of our political processes. However we, more than any, realize that one must have the convictions of their beliefs. Penn Jillette of "Penn & Teller" puts it nicely in one of his videos when he states something to the effect of "if you are a theist and you DON'T proselytize, I have no respect for you." In other words, if you truly believe in Christianity and yet do not share that belief with me- you are no Christian, and are, in fact, evil by your own definition, since you refuse to 'save my soul' by sharing your beliefs. I have no problem with theists sharing their beliefs when they follow established cultural norms in doing so (i.e., ask if I want to hear it, don't try to force your beliefs and opinions on me.)}}

===Reason 11: Chicken-and-egg paradox===
<tt>What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] leading to [[post hoc ergo propter hoc]]. Also, evolutionary biology shows that the egg preceded the chicken[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_and_egg#Science_and_Evolution]. This is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 4: First cause|Reason 4]].}}

===Reason 12: Improbability vs. impossibility===
<tt>Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.</tt>

{{Response|The first sentence is [[special pleading]] as it applies to anything and everything that isn't explicitly disproven, including no god whatsoever. The second is an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. It is also a direct refutation of [[#Reason 5: Complexity|Reason 5]].}}

===Reason 13: Complexity of human life===
<tt>How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. The complexity of life is the very thing that the theory of evolution explains. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 14: Complexity of the human mind===
<tt>How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and similar to the [[homunculus argument]]. Science demonstrates that [[consciousness]] is an [[emergent property]] of the physical brain; this argument suggests a form of [[dualism]], where the mind and brain are separate. }}

{{Response| For any universe to be "complex", the being who created it would have to be even more complex than the thing he created. If God is a "simple" being, then how can he possess the essence or intelligence to create something more complex than himself? So if complexity suggests a creator, then the increased complexity of God only suggests that he would also require a creator. }}

===Reason 15: Food and drink===
<tt>What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we're supplied with?</tt>

{{Response|This is an example of the [[anthropic principle]]. It commits the formal fallacy of [[petitio principii]], assuming that hospitable features of our universe were built to support life, rather than considering that life was adapted to the undesigned features of the universe through natural selection. Douglas Adams' analogy about a [[Douglas Adams#Quotes|sentient puddle]] neatly sums up the problem with this argument.}}

{{Response|We did! Humans are not autotrophs (make one's own food). We require energy from other sources such as plants, fruits and animals. This process of eating and digesting is essential not only to life, but also to performing many biochemical reactions within our bodies. We evolved to eat these substances for this very purpose- we were not created to eat these things (nor were they created for us). If this is a "proof" for God, then we could challenge his benevolence. Why did he put plants on Earth that we can't digest? Or why create poisonous foods? Why do many foods from animals require so much physical risk to achieve? Certainly a loving God would not put such dangers on Earth that could threaten his creation.}}

===Reason 16: The five senses===
<tt>Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we're provided with.</tt>

{{Response|Another example of the [[anthropic principle]].}}
{{Response|The "five senses" common to most humans, while adequate for the purposes of savanna apes, are only able to capture the barest fraction of all light and sound waves, and detect a very limited set of chemicals. There is nothing intrinsically special about the number of senses we possess: they differ from one another more by degrees than by kinds. For instance, our sense of touch is much like hearing when it comes to detecting vibrations, and much like sight for heat detection. Similarly, our senses of smell and taste are quite related. Thus, we can just as easily say we are born with three senses as seven (if you reduce touch to pressure and temperature detection, and consider the sense of balance, for example). Finally, there is nothing special about our sense mechanisms when compared with other members of the animal kingdom. We are far outclassed in the abilities we do possess, and we lack even rudimentary detection mechanisms for electrical or magnetic fields.}}

===Reason 17: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 1===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?</tt>

{{Response|See next reason.}}

===Reason 18: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 2===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?</tt>

{{Response | See the [[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response | What? Nothing. Who? No one. When Earth and the rest of the solar system were formed, the development of human life, or indeed life of any kind, was not the purpose or goal. We humans are the only ones (that we know of) who care that we are here. If things were different, they would be different. Perhaps a different kind of life would have developed — maybe even a kind of life that could wonder how or why it came to exist. But if not, there wouldn't be anyone to ask the question in the first place. In other words, it is possible that the correct answer to the question, "Why do things in the universe look like they were 'fine tuned' to support human life?" might simply be, "If they weren't that way, there would be no humans around to ask the question."}}

{{Response | There is a wide range of possible [[Wikipedia:Habitable_zone|orbits suitable for Earth-like life]] (that is, carbon-based and dependent on water) in our solar system: about 0.95 to 1.37 AU (or 88 million to 127 million miles) from the Sun. The Earth is near the middle of this so-called Goldilocks zone, so it is hugely inaccurate to claim that any deviation from our current position would freeze (or burn) us all up. There is also reason to believe that [[Wikipedia:Gliese_581_d#Climate_and_habitability|life is possible]] in other places in the solar system, such as Jupiter's moon [[Wikipedia:Europa_(moon)#Possible_extraterrestrial_life|Europa]] or the moons [[Wikipedia:Enceladus_(moon)|Enceladus]] or [[Wikipedia:Titan_(moon)|Titan]] of Saturn. These "hot spots" are possible because direct warming by the Sun is not the only way for a celestial body to become warm enough to support life: tidal forces caused by gravitational attraction to other "nearby" bodies (like Earth's moon) can be sufficient to heat up the interior of a planet or moon.}}

{{Response|There are approximately 200 – 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone. Around many of these stars there are going to be planets. Most will be too hot or too cold for life, but there will surely be some that are the right temperature just by chance alone. Our solar system has 8 planets ([[Wikipedia:Pluto#Classification|Pluto is no longer recognized as a planet]]), only 2 of which (Earth and Mars) are in the Goldilocks zone. That makes 2 "successes" out of 8 for our solar system alone. Now extrapolate that to the billions of other solar systems that are presumed to exist in the billions of galaxies in the universe. Even with relatively pessimistic estimates of the sizes of the various Goldilocks zones and the number and kinds of planets that would form in them, there could easily be billions of planets capable of harboring life. See also the [[Infinite monkey theorem]].}}

===Reason 19: Goldilocks and the habitable planet, part 3===
<tt>What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]].}}

{{Response| My main response to these points would be that this still does not prove the existence of God. This can be seen as a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Just on a side-note, the Anthropic Principle can be used to either help prove or disprove the existence of God (depending on how you use and interpret it), and its application in the theist/atheist sense is not truly scientific. Science is not about theism or atheism, and I would hesitate to advise using the AP in religious discussion, particularly given the limited frame of reference current-day humans have. Whenever someone does bring this up, this is what I say.}}

===Reason 20: Complementarity of plant and animal life===
<tt>What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. These anthropic principle arguments are all phrased in such a way as to assume that the answer must be in the form of a "who"--i.e., a personal God. This is [[Petitio principii|begging the question]].}}

{{Response|This 'reason' makes the mistake of assuming some inherent worth of humans or reason for humans to exist. The life on earth tends to conform to the conditions of the planet they inhabit. An organism that cannot conform to the required standards is more likely to die, which goes to show why we don't see the abomination known as the [[Crocoduck]], or anything like it.}}

===Reason 21: The tornado and the 747===
<tt>The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!</tt>

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[argument from design]]. This is [[Fred Hoyle]]'s classic [[Tornado argument]], which is based on the assumption that evolution works by [[Probability|random chance]], ignoring the non-random process of [[natural selection]]. [[Richard Dawkins]] proposed the Ultimate 747 argument[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit] as a response. This reason is also contradictory to the argument proposed in [[#Reason 12: Complexity|Reason 12]].}}

{{Response| The Tornado and the 747 argument also does not take into consideration that a Boeing 747 is a nonliving entity, with no will of its own or ability to think or act. Life came about through natural selection, and by living organisms. Organisms that could adapt, had the will to survive and reproduced. As evolution progresses, organisms have evolved into more complex beings with the ability to communicate, socialize, analyze data and interpret them. Basically life did not come about by chance, as the nonliving 747 has no will to assemble itself whereas a conscious being can think and act to suit survival purposes. }}

{{Response| If one is to believe in cause and effect, there is no such thing as "sheer chance", even if it gives a illusion of such. Although there are some unanswered questions regarding the early evolution of life, we can definitely say that life did not arise according to chance. Molecules have ways of attracting each other and forming complex structures because they behave that way naturally. Given enough time and enough success, life can theoretically arise through natural mechanisms.}}

===Reason 22: The invisible and the supernatural===
<tt>We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work [sic], yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.</tt>

{{Response|While phenomena like [[wikipedia:radio waves|radio waves]] or [[wikipedia:infrared light|infrared light]] may not be visible to the human eye, they are not analogous to any purported supernatural forces. Natural "unseen" waves [[manifest]] in other ways — ways that are detectable and predictable. In short, they are well understood and explained by science, and this is why they can be utilized in technology. The same cannot be said for God.}}

===Reason 23: Self-organization and entropy===
<tt>Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.</tt>

{{Response|An uneaten tomato does not "transform" into disorganization. It may decompose into simpler organic components by the action of bacteria, fungi or other creatures such as maggots through well-understood biological processes. In fact, these components might then become part of other plants or animals, including a pineapple. This argument is utter absurdity, ignoring the very basics of [[evolution]], specifically that individuals do not evolve, ''populations'' evolve. It also ignores the role of reproduction in evolution, the fact that evolution proceeds by small changes over time, the lack of a hierarchical/teleological path for evolution, and so forth. See the EvoWiki page on a similar, more common argument[http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The_descendants_of_an_X_(cat,_dog...)_will_remain_X].}}

{{Response|The opening assumption that matter is unable to self-organize is wrong: crystals are a prime example of matter organizing itself. This innate ability of matter becomes important in some theories of abiogenesis, like A. Graham Cairns-Smith's Clay theory.}}

===Reason 24: Darwin's deathbed conversion===
<tt>Our 'inventor' of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; "I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions; wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire - people made a religion of them." Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbors the next day. "What shall I speak about?" She asked. He replied; "Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?"</tt>

{{Response|The story of [[Darwin]]'s [[deathbed conversion]] is an [[urban myth]]. Even if it were true (and evidence shows that it is not), it is an [[Argumentum ad verecundiam|argument from authority]]. We accept [[evolution]] not based on Darwin's word but on the [[evidence]] supporting the theory, most of which has been discovered since Darwin's death. By the same token, we should not reject evolution based on Darwin's word, even if he repudiated everything he had written on the subject. Similarly, we should not take Darwin's word for it that a [[god]] exists (if he did believe that) or that [[Christianity]] is the path to [[salvation]]. It is also worth noting that Darwin was not the first person to propose evolution as a possibility, or even that natural processes were responsible; he just happens to be the first to produce both a cogent theory for how the process works along with solid evidence supporting it.}}

===Reason 25: Morality===
<tt>Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we've no-one to be accountable to.</tt>

{{Response|[[Evolutionary psychology|Evolutionary psychologists]] have proposed explanations for many "moral values" and behaviors that appear to be instinctual; observations of [[wikipedia:social animal|social animal]]s reveal that many have moral codes that are similar to that of humans. [[Atheist]]s may follow any number of [[secular]] [[ethical]] codes, holding themselves accountable to values or ideals derived [[rational]]ly, rather than to a [[deity]]. Furthermore, the [[Euthyphro dilemma]] turns this argument around on the [[theist]]: where do [[God]]'s moral values come from?}}

{{Response|To whom are we morally responsible? In moral systems that lack a divine component, we are accountable to those around us.}}

{{Response|Most people don't share many of the moral values of the Bible. The vast majority of humans consider rape within marriage and slavery to be wrong while working on the sabbath is considered to be acceptable, which conflicts with biblical morality. The fact that the Bible condemns murder, theft and lying is trivial because peoples and even many other animals that are unfamiliar with the Bible also hold these moral values.}}

===Reason 26: Man vs. animal===
<tt>If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.</tt>

{{Response|There are many problems with this argument.
# It is based, at least implicitly, on the archaic concept of the [[Great Chain of Being]], in which humans are seen as separate from, and inherently superior to, other animals. In fact, humans ''are'' animals. The theory of evolution doesn't hold that they evolved "away from" animals and became something fundamentally different.
# Since evolution necessarily implies change from a previous state, the fact that the ancestors of humans had certain characteristics doesn't necessarily mean that humans must still have those characteristics. ''Any'' two animal species will share certain characteristics and not share others. This is the result of the process of evolution and not — as is implied above — a refutation of it.
# Many human behaviors ''are'', in fact, very similar to those found among animals today (especially other [[wikipedia:primate|primates]]). Examples include the seeking of food and shelter, the forming of social groups to secure these resources, the forming of pair bonds for reproduction and the rearing of offspring, the protection of family members from others in the social group and of members of the group from outsiders, and communication through sound and gestures. On the other hand, aspects of human behavior that are indeed unique to our species may be attributable to adaptations such as bipedalism or advanced cognitive function, particularly the capacity for abstract thought. Evolutionary theory may actually be able to explain how these characteristics arose.
# Given the history of the 20th century (for example), there is some doubt as to what "civilized" actually means and whether humans can be said to possess that characteristic.
# Finally, as with [[#Reason 7: Evolution is only a theory|Reason 7]] (and many others), even if the claim above were completely true, it wouldn't justify belief in God.}}

===Reason 27: Chance and ignorance===
<tt>'Chance' isn't the cause of something. It just describes what we can't find a reason for.</tt>

{{Response|[[Straw man]] argument. While [[evolution]] contains some aspects of apparent "[[chance]]" (genetic mutations), the process of [[natural selection]] is the force which drives the process of adaptation. Furthermore, "chance" is not a description of something we cannot find a reason for; that is "ignorance". Chance is a description of systems which operate according to laws of [[probability]].}}

===Reason 28: Limitations of science and logic===
<tt>Science & logic do not hold all the answers - many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.</tt>

{{Response|You're right, science and logic do not hold all the answers, that's why we have Chemistry and Mathematics, and as for concerns of the heart/soul/emotional side we have the Arts. Every thing can be accounted for with careful use of reason. Just because something is not known does not mean it can not be known.}}

{{Response|[[Argumentum ad ignorantiam]] and [[special pleading]]. If we have no understanding of these forces, then how can anyone be said to be "aware" of them? If we are aware, we must have some small measure of understanding.}}

{{Response| Majority opinion is irrelevant to the facts. Many people may believe a lie- take for example: "Many teenagers believe that marijuana is harmless, drugs are harmful whereas marijuana is not, therefore marijuana is not a drug." Any doctor could tell you of the harmful side effects of marijuana usage. Furthermore, a drug need not be immediately harmful for it to be a drug. But nonetheless, many teenagers may make this claim, even if it is obviously not true.

We should be asking bigger questions. Such as: Are the majority of the people mentioned experts in said field? Do they know about the field they are making claims on? Is it their educational background or profession? Anyone can make conclusions on a subject in physics, but if they are not a physicist, we should be more skeptical of their conclusions.

What is the majority basing their opinions on? Evidence? If no, then we can't say with certainty they have a "proven" claim. Feeling, Emotion, Belief? If yes, then perhaps there is a bias they have preventing them from accepting conflicting evidence or looking upon the subject from other perspectives. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote Sherlock as saying "Never theorize before one has data, invariably one twists facts to suit theories rather than theories to suit facts." Majority opinion can always be based on biases and evidence is required to take any claim seriously.

Is the majority well informed on the subject and all aspects/perspectives on it? You can hardly say that "many people believe in mediums, therefore medium phenomena is true." Really? Have the believers read any skeptical positions? Done any research? Looked for alternative explanations? Just as with evolution, in some countries, the majority do not believe- but are they aware of all the evidence? It's hardly fair to say majority wins when many of the majority may not have all the facts.

Lastly, just because there may be things we do not yet have scientific answers to, it does not mean there is no scientific answer. We just haven't found one yet. It's nothing more than a hasty conclusion to say "Science has no answer, therefore this one is true." It is not so. Perhaps we will find an answer in a year or two from now, until then, conclusions should not be made.}}

===Reason 29: Gregorian calendar===
<tt>Look at the date/year on our calender - 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus' existence.</tt>

{{Response|This is an unfounded claim that [[the Gregorian calendar proves that Jesus existed]]. The Anno Domini (AD) dating system was not created until 525 AD. It is not independent, contemporary historical confirmation of the New Testament. The current Gregorian Calendar was drafted in 1582 under the direction of Pope Gregory XIII of the Catholic church, and cannot act as evidence of the existence of a man who is thought to have lived 15 centuries earlier.}}

{{Response|Look at the names of days and months on your calendar. This proves that the gods Moon, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, Saturn and Sun, Januarius, the Roman gods to whom the Februa were celebrated, Mars, etc., etc. all exist.}}

===Reason 30: Martyrs===
<tt>Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!</tt>

{{Response|This could only show that purported martyrs ''believed'' they were dying for a true faith. It cannot prove that their beliefs are actually true; martyrs may be mistaken. Many people have died in the name of many contradictory faiths. Further, people have given their lives in the name of beliefs such as Nazism; must we assume these are also true?}}

===Reason 31: Biblical accounts===
<tt>Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.</tt>

{{Response|It may be a stretch to describe stories of events written 40+ years after they supposedly occurred as "eyewitness accounts", when the average lifespan of a human in those times was likely much lower[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_over_human_history]. The truth is that none of the [[Gospels]] were written by eyewitnesses, the earliest dating estimate[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating] is 65 C.E. and most are thought to be significantly later. Moreover, the earliest New Testament texts were purportedly authored by early church founder Paul of Tarsus, who was not an eyewitness. Even assuming the events were recorded by supposed eyewitnesses, we could make that argument in favor of many religious texts and other writings which may contradict each other. Does this give us reason to assume the events recorded in books like the Qur'an are also true? And given the many conflicts over heresies, apocryphal texts and other teachings in the early church, it seems safe to say that there was "confusion and anger" over the contents of the books.}}

{{Response| Some of the Four Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. The book of Mark was written by Barnabas' nephew Mark, who was not one of the original Twelve Apostles. The book of Luke was written by Luke of Antioch, who was a believer after hearing the Gospel. Those two books were collections of various eyewitness accounts. Luke also wrote the book of Acts, which was both a collection of eyewitness accounts, as well as a journal of Luke's travels when he helped spread the Gospel.

There is much truth in the New Testament accounts in terms of "normal" historical events that can be verified through comparing contemporary historical works and archaeology. However, one could question whether or not the supernatural events that are written in the Gospels took place.}}

===Reason 32: Archaeology===
<tt>From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaeological evidence to confirm many details we're provided with in the Bible.</tt>

{{Response|This may be true, but there is also a striking ''lack'' of archaeological evidence for many important stories recorded in the Bible (see claim #34). Atheists do not claim that the Bible must be entirely false in every respect. What matters when determining if the Bible provides basis for a belief in God is the evidence we can find for its claims of supernatural phenomena, like the resurrection of Jesus. This evidence does not exist. Furthermore, there is evidence to confirm many of the details provided in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad Iliad] or the average [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-man Spider-Man] comic, but that doesn't mean that Achilles and Spider-Man exist.}}

===Reason 33: Biblical prophecy===
<tt>Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.</tt>

{{Response|This is an attempt to shift the [[burden of proof]]. The Bible does not contain a single fulfilled prediction which is/was verifiable, non trivial, and was not self-fulfilling.

Biblical [[prophecy]] was "confirmed" by those who were already aware of such prophecy and with a vested interest in ensuring that such prophecy had the appearance of being fulfilled.}}

{{Response| This claim is simply false. Perhaps the most strikingly embarrassing unfulfilled prophecy in the bible is Jesus' prediction of his own second coming, to occur within the lifetimes of the people listening to him. There are dozens of others.}}

{{Response| Those prophecies only come true in the context of the bible, which was compiled and edited after the fact. There are many works of fiction where predictions are made that come true in the context of that book or film, does this make the stories true?}}

===Reason 34: Biblical history===
<tt>The evidence from literature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.</tt>

{{Response|This is plainly false. In addition to the miracles and supernatural events described in the Bible, for which there is no historical evidence, many of the historical claims which could theoretically be substantiated with archaeological evidence are contradicted by modern historians. For example, historians believe there is no evidence for Hebrew slavery in Egypt or the Exodus as described in the Old Testament[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus#CriticalEvaluation].}}

===Reason 35: Christianity and science in harmony===
<tt>From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac ''[sic]'' Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.</tt>

{{Response|Many of the arguments in this email appear to promote Christianity by opposing science, but even if we grant that there is no conflict between science and Christianity and that many scientists are Christians, this hardly provides evidence that Christianity is true. See [[burden of proof]]. And if we fail to grant that there is no conflict, we recognize many contradictions[http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html] between the Biblical account and established science.}}

{{Response| From the time of Galileo to the latest attempts by creationists to push their agendas in schools, science and faith have ''always'' been in opposition. Whether it's the germ theory of disease vs. demons and the powers of the air, the preposterous miracles of the Roman Catholic Church, heliocentrism vs. angels moving the stars about, lightning rods instead of sounding the church bells, science has ''never'' had to back down: it has always been religion that has had to preserve itself by "reinterpreting" its texts.}}

===Reason 36: How vs. why===
<tt>Science can explain 'how' something works, but not 'why' something works.</tt>

{{Response|This argument is essentially meaningless. To science, 'how' and 'why' are the same thing. 'How' speaks of the mechanism, 'why' speaks of the cause. If a domino knocks another domino over, the 'how' is by transfer of energy, the 'why' is explained as Newton's three laws of motion.}}

{{Response| Terry Pratchett, of all people, gives an insight into this. The question "why" presupposes that there is a ''story'' to be told. A ''narrative''. Science is a different way of knowing, and one of its discoveries is that the language of the universe is not that of story and legend, but that of mathematics. It's something that a lot of math-phobes have a hard time accepting.}}

===Reason 37: Science changes===
<tt>Science is constantly recorrecting ''[sic]'' its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.</tt>

{{Response|A willingness to reconsider [[theory|theories]] in the face of new [[evidence]] is essential to any process that seeks the [[truth]]. [[Science]] is strong precisely because of this, rather than despite it. In addition, religious groups, even those considered extreme or [[fundamentalist]], often change their teachings in response to social concerns. For example, the [[Church of Latter-Day Saints]] abandoned polygamy in order to gain statehood for Utah. Mainstream [[Christianity]] is guilty of the same revisionism: In 1633, [[Wikipedia:Galileo|Galileo]] was convicted of [[heresy]] by the Catholic Church for promoting [[wikipedia:heliocentrism|heliocentrism]], which directly contradicts biblical "evidence" of the organization of the universe. It wasn't until 1992 that Galileo was officially vindicated in a declaration by [[Wikipedia:Pope John Paul II|Pope John Paul II]]. Did God change the arrangement of the heavenly bodies in the intervening centuries? Or was the Catholic Church simply wrong because they were using a completely unreliable source of knowledge? [[Wikipedia:Ben Franklin|Ben Franklin]] was accused of heresy by Catholics and [[Protestants]] alike, for developing the [[wikipedia:lightning rod|lightning rod]], which was considered an effort to stifle God's wrath. Today, however, virtually all structures, including churches, are fitted with lightning protection.}}

{{Response|When science changes, the new theory generally explains both the new facts ''and'' the old. For example, [[Einstein]]'s [[Wikipedia:theory of relativity|theory of relativity]], which shows relative speed, changes the rules while at the same time making it quite clear that Newtonian physics is still a very good approximation for a lot of things. On the contrary, when society changes in such a way that religions have to "reinterpret" their own scriptures, the original interpretations are no longer valid. The prior behaviors of followers are then written off as heretical, as, for example, in the case of the Catholic Church during the [[Inquisition]]. See also: [[no true Scotsman]]. }}

{{Response|The truth is always changing and evolving. Humans, both individually and collectively, only have a limited understanding of how the world is. Whether or not we admit it, our view of our world is one made up of a lot of assumptions, however educated they may be. The fact that science and the interpretation of religious beliefs keep changing is proof of this. The fact that science and religion are constantly changing should not be a reason to dismiss either one entirely. We should dismiss our own personal assumptions/beliefs regarding the object in question, and not the object itself.}}

===Reason 38: Abiogenesis===
<tt>Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn't explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.</tt>

{{Response|The biological theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life; it describes how the diversity and complexity of life found today arose from simpler organisms. However, science could explain how life began on Earth if a credible theory of [[abiogenesis]] or [[wikipedia:panspermia|panspermia]] emerges in the future. Though there is currently no generally accepted and evidence-supported theory of how life arose on Earth, scientists have demonstrated that abiogenesis is possible (such as in the [[Wikipedia:Miller-Urey experiment|Miller-Urey experiment]]), and there are a variety of hypotheses which are more [[Occam's razor|parsimonious]] than one invoking a transcendent God. While a consensus theory of abiogenesis or panspermia would not disprove the existence of God, the [[burden of proof]] is on those who assert the existence of supernatural phenomena.}}

{{Response|This is another iteration of the [[God of the gaps]] argument and an [[argumentum ad ignorantiam]]. While this argument attempts to defend the Christian mythological deity, it serves the same function for all other deities, as well as for any other unfalsifiable claim, including [[You can't prove God doesn't exist|Russell's Teapot]], [[Wikipedia:Brain in a vat|you are in the Matrix]], or that the universe was created 20 seconds ago by me.}}
{{Response|The author is entirely correct in maintaining that proof of evolution would not be disproof of God; however, as can be seen in many other "reasons", she seems to be unwilling or unable to recognize that ''disproof'' of evolution is likewise not ''proof'' of God.}}

{{Response|Scientists haven't answered all of the questions of the universe. I admit this. However, this fact is not a reason to believe in God. This fact doesn't have anything to do with God.}}

{{Response| Evolution is true and it does disprove the existence of the god of the Jewish and Christian Bible. Evolution shows there was no creation since there was no creation then there was no Garden of Eden then there is no first sin. Since there was no first sin then there is no evil in the world. Since there is no evil in the world then there is no reason for there to be a Jesus Christ and no reason for him to give his life to wash away our sins with his blood. So with evolution there is no god of the Bible or its false religions.}}

===Reason 39: A bad lie?===
<tt>The two people who discovered Jesus' empty tomb were women. Women were very low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical & Biblical truth.</tt>

{{Response|Let me get this straight: because women had low status and because it is written somewhere that some women claimed something that would be really great (from the author's perspective) if it were true, therefore the claims must be true? Wow. That's an amazing logical leap. (To be fair, historians do sometimes use such [[Wikipedia:Criterion of embarrassment|"countersupportive" evidence as positive evidence]] of historical claims — for example, [[Bart D. Ehrman]]'s analysis of which [[sayings of Jesus]] in the Bible might be historically accurate relies in part on whether each quotation shows Jesus or his message in a positive or negative light — but a good historian would never go so far as to argue that this makes the claims ''true''.)}}

{{Response|While the Gospels describe Jesus' tomb being found empty by women, the Gospels also give accounts of the resurrected Jesus appearing to his male disciples. The Gospels were also written and promulgated by men. The resurrection claim does not rest solely on the word of low-status women. Even if it did, this would hardly be sufficient reason to deem it true; [[extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence]]. Moreover, the account is [[hearsay]] and [[Biblical contradictions|contradictory accounts]] of this event are given in the Gospels.}}

===Reason 40: Near-death experiences===
<tt>Think about Near Death Experiences. It's naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn't have otherwise known, an african ''[sic]'' man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing "a dream". We're not silly - we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.</tt>

{{Response|It is not naive to seek physiological or psychological explanations for unusual experiences a person may have while their body is recovering from life-threatening trauma or disease; in fact, studies have shown that NDEs can be induced through drugs or trauma, and are almost certain to be a physiological phenomenon. It is naive to immediately presume something supernatural is occurring. Why are these bizarre claims about paperclips and Africans rising from the dead not substantiated? If credible evidence existed of a man being actually deceased and rising three days later, this would be unprecedented news quickly publicized to every corner of the globe by every kind of formal or informal media. If this actually occurred, present the evidence. Science demands more proof than a mere assurance that one asserting a shocking revelation is "not silly." See also the Skeptic's Dictionary entry[http://skepdic.com/nde.html] on the subject.}}

{{Response|Why do you, necessarily, need eyes to experience visual information? When I dream, my eyes are closed yet I 'see' things. Either all my dreams are magical journeys to the furthest edges of reality, or my brain can generate visual information independently from my eyes. I choose the latter.}}

===Reason 41: Biblical skeptics===
<tt>There are many skeptics who didn't believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.</tt>

{{Response| This is a form of [[argumentum ad populum]], at one stage the majority of the world believed the earth was flat. These are anecdotal accounts of people who could be mistaken. While it is true conversions to Christianity continue today, conversions to other religions and away from organized religion also occur.}}

{{Response| This argument does not take into consideration that people may have alternative reasons for changing their religion (or lack thereof) besides believing. People may change religions to suit a new marriage, or perhaps they lost a loved one and need some form of comfort. Perhaps they are trying to please persistent family members or just enjoy the Christmas carols and architecture and enjoy the sense of community. We can not always assume that people join a faith because they believe that it is true. }}

===Reason 42: Einstein quote===
<tt>Albert Einstein said; "A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".</tt>

{{Response|[[Albert Einstein]] also said, "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions." [[argumentum ad verecundiam]]. Lameness does not affect factuality. Besides this, Einstein used the term "religion" in a specific, nonstandard way, defined here: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. 'If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it'." It is this admiration for the structure of the universe that Einstein thought essential to science.}}

===Reason 43: The tomato thrower===
<tt>A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"</tt>

{{Response|This unsubstantiated anecdote about a believer assaulting an atheist with a vegetable is actually a form of the [[unmoved mover]]/[[uncaused cause]] argument, implying that atheists are foolish not to believe in a higher power that created the universe. This argument does not solve the problem of the first cause; it merely shifts the burden onto an unproven supernatural being. If God is not caused, then it cannot be said that all things must have a cause. Whether it be the universe itself, for atheists, or God himself, for the believer, all must admit the existence of something whose cause is as yet undiscovered. Atheists hope to continue discovering causes through reason; theists merely give up. Theism cannot claim this as an advantage. If we are to take this anecdote at face value, we must also question the morality of the presumed theist who both assaulted the speaker, rather than refute his claims, and then either lied about the assault or failed to confess and apologize.

Furthermore, the public assault of an atheist by means of a possibly self-actuating, suicidal vegetable is hardly a compelling reason to believe in a god, as the subject of the original email suggests.}}

===Reason 44: Occam's supernatural razor===
<tt>It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.</tt>

{{Response|This is another form of [[uncaused cause]] argument employing [[Occam's Razor]], but an explanation that requires the existence of an unseen, omnipotent supernatural being can hardly be simpler than one that relies on observable natural principles. This argument also prompts the question, how did God arise out of nothing? It also presupposes a [[straw man]] form of the [[Big Bang]] theory of cosmology. Theists often claim that the Big Bang suggests that "nothing became something," when in fact it says no such thing. In fact, there is no scientific reason to think that the matter and energy of the universe had to be created (which would be a violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics) and have not merely always existed in one form or another.}}

===Reason 45: How-vs.-why Hawking quote===
<tt>Stephen Hawkins ''[sic]'' has admitted; "Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?"</tt>

{{Response|Spurious. Whatever reason the universe exists, the Bible does nothing to answer this question. All it does is provide a claim of 'what' was created, and 'when', vaguely (and incorrectly) answers the 'how' ([[magic]]) but it in no way answers the 'why'. If it even makes sense to speak of the universe as if it chooses to exist, why it does so would not be the subject of science, which deals with what can be naturally observed. This should be considered a problem of philosophy.}}

===Reason 46: With God all things are possible===
<tt>We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.</tt>

{{Response|[[Petitio principii]], [[religion provides hope]]. These statements merely follow from the definition of an omnipotent creator God; they do nothing to prove its existence.}}

{{Response|It is precisely ''because'' supernatural explanations allow "all things [to be] possible" that they are useless when it comes to determining the true causes of observed phenomena.}}

{{Response|It was also the Bible that said that pi is equal to 3, but I don't see any Christians promoting that theory.}}

{{Response| Is it really true that with God all things are possible? Can God create a stone large enough that even he can not lift it? Either way, he fails at omnipotence. The argument is also special pleading, it gives God a status of being immune to the laws of science but how is this possible? God is NOT made up of matter? Ultimately this argument is only an attempt to "dodge the bullet".}}

===Reason 47: Evolved vs. evolving===
<tt>If we are the product of evolution - by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?</tt>

{{Response|[[Anthropic principle]]. And, in fact, we ''are'' still evolving, as are all living things. As for "finely tuned", most of our planet's surface is uninhabitable by or inhospitable to humans (frozen wastelands, oceans, deserts), and the vast majority of the universe is fatal to humans, so how can "everything" be said to be "finely tuned for our living"?}}

===Reason 48: The Missing Link===
<tt>Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. The falsification of [[evolution]] would not be evidence of a god and inability to find a particular [[missing link]] is not falsification of evolution. The "missing link" itself comes from a misunderstanding of evolution, and has more in common with the [[Great Chain of Being]] than anything scientific.}}

{{Response|The famous Missing Link between humans and ape ancestors has also been found. Not merely one example, either, but many different stages. This is another example of the [[God of the gaps]] argument. What's more, even if the "missing link" were really missing, that does not prove it does not exist. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.}}

{{Response| The Missing Link argument claims that we are still missing the fossils to prove evolutionary descent. However scientists are discovering more fossils by the year, each giving more insight into how evolution works and how relationships are established. This argument does not take into consideration the other things besides fossils which prove evolution, such as genetics.}}

===Reason 49: Open your eyes===
<tt>God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?</tt>

{{Response|[[Special pleading]], [[petitio principii]]. If God is omnipotent, there is no limit to what more he could do. Even if our eyes are "shut to him," an omnipotent being could certainly open them.

Such a claim is also prejudiced against the blind. What if someone has no eyes to see God's works? Are blind people, by definition, atheists?}}

{{Response|[[Argument from non-belief]]. Why doesn't God speak directly to the entire human population? Or visit "physically" every once in a while? In other words, why isn't God's existence more obvious, based on direct, observable and irrefutable evidence and not theoretical guesses and feeling? }}

===Reason 50: Liar or Lord?===
<tt>Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.</tt>

{{Response|[[False dichotomy]]. He could have also...
* been insane,
* never actually existed,
* not said all of the things attributed to him, or
* been deceived by the lies of others.
See also C.S. Lewis's [[trilemma]].}}

===Big finish===
<tt>YOU DECIDE!!!</tt>
{{Response|[[Pascal's Wager#Atheist's Wager|Choose wisely!]]}}

== Summary ==

Of the "50 reasons" given, the following do not say anything about evidence for God at all:
* 19 arguments against atheism/science/rationality and for non-religious paranormal ideas: 2,5-10,13-14,21,23,26-28,36-38,40,48
* 8 non sequiturs that make a statement and hope that the reader draws a connection to God (mostly bad fine-tuning arguments): 12,15-20,47
* 5 statements that simply assert God against all objections, giving no real "reason" for belief: 3,11,22,46,49
* 4 appeals to famous scientists: 24,35,42,45
* 1 story that attacks atheism through straight-forward ridicule: 43
* 1 appeal to morality that claims that faith is good without showing that it is correct: 25

The remaining twelve arguments are mostly either about the Bible or of the type that say "this is all here because God put it here."

Fifty arguments probably sounds like a pretty impressive number. But a more accurate (and far less catchy) title to this email would be "Twenty-four attacks on our enemies who promote science and reason over faith, fourteen vague statements that try to make theists look good or reasonable, and twelve reasons why some Christian beliefs are superficially plausible."

==External links==

* [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/i_get_email_19.php Copy of the email] originally posted by [[PZ Myers]]

[[Category:Internet memes]]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

2010-10-09T01:09:00Z

Daemonowner: correlation /= causation

Literally, "after this, therefore because of this".

This [[logical fallacies|logical fallacy]] represents a mistaken assertion of causality. Two events, which may have no significant causal connection, are erroneously considered to represent a cause and its effect. Correlation does not equal causation.

==Examples==
* I took 2 pills
* My headache went away
* Therefore, those pills cured my headache

Those pills '''might''' be responsible, but that causality can't be determined from this argument alone. This sort of confusion about cause and effect is demonstrated by the [[placebo effect]] and is a common basis for folk remedies and many basic religious beliefs.

Another example:

* I prayed that I would find my lost keys
* I found them behind the couch
* Therefore, prayer helped me find my keys

There's no evidence that demonstrates a direct causal relationship between [[prayer]] and finding lost keys. Plenty of people have found their keys without prayer and many keys remain lost despite prayer. Yet, for those individuals who willingly accept arguments based on this fallacy, each occurrence represents another data point supporting the idea that prayer produces results.

A third example, popularized by the [[Flying Spaghetti Monster|Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster]]:

* Between 1820 and 2000, the global mean temperature has increased
* During this same time period, the pirate population has decreased from 45,000 to 17
* Therefore, pirates prevent global warming.

Obviously, the link between pirates and global temps is specious at best.

{{Logical fallacies}}

[[Category: Logical fallacies]]

Problem of evil

2010-10-07T23:18:39Z

Daemonowner: /* Evil is a consequence of disobeying God */

{{Wikipedia|color=#DAE3FF;}}
The '''problem of evil''' points out a [[logical contradiction]] in the traditional conceptions of the nature of [[God]] and the world.

Suppose we have the following four premises:
# God is [[omnipotent]].
# God is [[omnibenevolent]].
# God is [[omniscient]].
# [[Evil]] exists.

We get the following contradiction. If God is omnibenevolent, then he does not want evil to exist. If God is omniscient, then he must know about all evil in the world. If God is omnipotent, then he must be capable of doing something about it. Therefore, evil should not exist. Dropping any one of those four premises would resolve the contradiction, but dropping #4 would require us to fundamentally redefine evil in some way, and dropping the other three would undermine the Christian concept of God.

As [[David Hume]] wrote, (paraphrasing [[Epicurus]]):
{{Quote-source|Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?|''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion''}}

"So how do theists respond to arguments like this? [The Argument from Evil] They say there is a reason for evil, but it is a mystery. Well, let me tell you this: I'm actually one hundred feet tall even though I only appear to be six feet tall. You ask me for proof of this. I have a simple answer: it's a mystery. Just accept my word for it on faith. And that's just the logic theists use in their discussions of evil." [Quentin Smith, "Two Ways to Defend Atheism"]

==Theodicy==
A [[theodicy]] is a proposed solution to the problem of evil. Coined by [[Wikipedia:Gottfried Leibniz|Gottfried Leibniz]] in 1710, in a work called "Theodicy Essay on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil".

A theodicy can generally be divided into four categories, each typically rejecting one of the four premises used to make the argument. The argument is, after all, not an argument for the non-existence of God but an argument for the non-existence of God with the characteristics of [[omniscience]], [[omnipotence]], and [[omnibenevolence]] in the presence of evil. Some arguments aren't solutions to the problem but justifications.

When compared to a easily prevented, extremely "evil" act, such as the rape and murder of a child, or a gross atrocity like the holocaust, [[slavery]] or other [[genocide]]s, most theodicies crumble, quickly exposing them as sophistry with worse implications than the original problem.

'''Another refutation of theodicies:'''

The Moral Argument from Evil is expounded by Dean Stretton in his article on the subject. Here is the full formulation as given by Stretton:

A1. The most rational theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists.

A2a. For any possible world W, if God exists in W, then every instance of evil in W is objectively justified.

A2b. If God exists, then there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, including those evils for which there is a human onlooker

A2. If God exists, then there is objective justification for every actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.

A3. Some members of the class of most rational theists (as I have defined that class) are theists who know A2.

A4. Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know A2) know that there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.

A5. If human person P knows that there is objective justification for evil E, and that this justification will occur even if P does not intervene to stop or prevent E, then P is morally justified in allowing E to occur.

A6. Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know A2) are morally justified in allowing any actual evil to occur.

A7. If the most rational theists know that God exists, then some of those theists (namely, those who know A2) are morally justified in allowing any evil to occur.

A8. Even the most rational theists (including those who know A2) are not morally justified in allowing just any evil to occur.

A9. Even the most rational theists do not know that God exists.

A10. If the most rational theists do not know that God exists, then no theist knows that God exists.

A11. No theist knows that God exists.

A12. For any given theist, that theist’s belief that God exists is either false or unjustified.

A13. If God exists, then some theists are justified in believing that God exists.

A14. If God exists, then no theist has a false belief that God exists.

A15. If God exists, then some theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists.

A16. It is not the case that some theists know (i.e., have a justified and true belief) that God exists.

A17. God does not exist.

This argument can be summarized as follows:

A1 to A2 – If God exists, then all instances of evil are morally justifiable by definition.

A3 to A7 – If all events are morally justifiable, then some believers know that they should not try to stop any instance of presumed evil.

A8 – Yet they do intervene.

A9 to A17 – Therefore their own behaviour proves that God does not exist.

===God is not omnipotent===
====Free will====
It is often claimed that evil exists because God gave humans [[free will]]. According to the Bible, God's gift of free will led to the fall of [[Adam and Eve]] through their [[original sin]]. Free will is assumed to be a greater good than the evil that it causes or is needed by God to serve some purpose. For example, free will is required for people to love God in a free and open fashion. So if a young girl is raped and murdered, this is because God needed the rapist's free will so that his actions could result in greater good or so that the rapist could freely love God.

As Mackie asked: "Why could [God] not have made men such that they always freely choose the good?" Even if man is believed to have free will, God could have created humans such that they would always freely choose the good. This he did not do and is therefore ultimately responsible and blameworthy for any evil act which humans perform.

"For at least some theists, this difficulty is made even more acute by some of their further beliefs: I mean those who envisage a happier or more perfect state of affairs than now exists, whether they look forward to the kingdom of God on earth, or confine their optimism to the expectation of heaven. In either case they are explicitly recognizing the possibility of a state of affairs in which created beings always freely choose the good. If such a state of affairs is coherent enough to be the object of a reasonable hope or faith, it is hard to explain why it does not obtain already."

This argument fails in that free will is given a definition which relies on the ability to perform actions. The implication is that humans must be free to commit actions which would qualify as "evil" as well as "good" in the argument, in order to have free will. In this case, all humans born without this capability, possess no free will. Also, those who have an advantage, of strength, size, or skill, are presumably, more free in their will, in comparison to their potentially smaller, weaker, or less skilled, victims. Therefore, this objection to the problem of evil can only apply where this standard for free will is actually applied. Paradoxically, this puts God in the position of denying free will to someone regardless of God's position on an action, whether God intervenes, or not.

This argument also fails to explain why God allows natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. These events kill large numbers of people in specific geographical locations, which indicates that the concept of "evil" is not necessarily tied to what people do. Furthermore, it fails to account for evil done to people against their will. The argument of free will is used to justify why an infant can be killed, however the infant invoked no measure of free will to allow for this evil to result. So in order to give the gift of free will to this infant, the child is murdered without having any choice in the matter.

Even if we define natural disasters as not being evil, there remains the fact that they occur, and that God does not prevent them or the deaths and suffering they cause. If we replace "evil" with "suffering" in the discussion above, the problem remains: either God is unaware of people's suffering, and is therefore not omniscient; or he is unable to do anything, and is therefore not omnipotent; or he is unwilling to intervene, and is therefore not omnibenevolent.

There is also the question of [[heaven]]. Heaven, being a perfectly wonderful place, does not contain evil. Does this mean that inhabitants of heaven no longer retain their free will? Or does their will suddenly become perfectly good?

Bertrand Russell notes: "[I]t is clear that the fundamental doctrines of Christianity demand a great deal of ethical perversion before they can be accepted. The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before He created the world He foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain; He is therefore responsible for all of it. It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference. If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He decided to create man."

See also: The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html]

A Sound Logical Argument from Evil
[http://www.qsmithwmu.com/a_sound_logical_argument_from_evil.htm A Sound Logical Argument of Evil by Quentin Smith]

Quentin Smith distinguishes three kinds of freedom:

1. External freedom:A person is externally free with respect to an action A if and only if nothing other than (external to) herself determines either that she perform A or refrain from performing A.

2. Internal freedom: And a person is free with respect to an action A at a time t only if no causal laws and antecedent conditions determine either that he performs A at t or that he refrains from so doing. A person is internally free with respect to an action A if and only if it is false that his past physical and psychological states, in conjunction with causal laws, determine either that he perform A or refrain from performing A.

3. Logical freedom: A person is logically free with respect to an action A if and only if there is some possible world in which he performs A and there is another possible world in which he does not perform A. A person is logically free with respect to a wholly good life (a life in which every morally relevant action performed by the person is a good action) if and only if there is some possible world in which he lives this life and another possible world in which he does not.

These distinctions, according to Smith, constitute a sound logical argument from evil. It is possible to be internally-externally free but logically determined with respect to being morally good. This is the case with God, who is both internally and externally free but who does only good actions in each possible world in which he exists.

1. God possesses the maximally valuable consistent conjunction of great making properties.

2. If it were intrinsically better to be logically free with respect to a morally good life than logically determined, and this logical freedom were consistent with God's omnipotence and omniscience, then God would possess this logical freedom.

3. Logical freedom with respect to a morally good life is consistent with omnipotence and omniscience.

4. God is logically determined with respect to a morally good life.

Therefore

5. It is false that it is intrinsically better to be logically free with respect to a morally good life than logically determined.

Premise (3) is true because "x knows all truths" does not entail "It is not logically possible for x to perform a morally wrong action," and "x is all-powerful" does not entail "It is not logically possible for x to perform a morally wrong action." Nor does the conjunction of omniscience and omnipotence entail this.

It follows that a possible world WI containing N number of persons who always do what is right and who are logically determined with respect to moral goodness is (all other things being equal) a more metaphysically valuable world than a world W2 containing N number of persons who are logically free with respect to a morally good way of life. And this suggests that God, if he existed, would have created W1 rather than W2.

Although Plantinga does not address this issue, an unspoken assumption of his argument is that there are no possible creatures who are internally-externally free with respect to a morally good life but logically determined. This assumption is false, for "x is an internally-externally free creature with respect to a morally good life" does not entail "x is logically free with respect to a morally good life." If it did, there would have to be some relevant difference between God and creatures that ensured the entailment goes through in the case of creatures but not God. But what could this difference be? None of the divine attributes (other than necessary goodness) entails necessary goodness. Nor does a conjunction of two or more of these divine attributes entail it. Further, the relevant nondivine attributes do not entail logical freedom with respect to a morally good life. For example, "x knows many but not all truths" does not entail "x freely chooses to do something wrong in at least one possible world in which x exists." Nor is this entailed by "x has the power to do many but not all things." a nonomniscient person can have only true moral beliefs, if only for the reason that it is possible to know all moral truths and not know all mathematical truths. Such a person would be necessarily morally good.

6. It is possible that there is a nonomniscient mind x such that: for each possible world W in which x exists, and for each circumstance in which x is faced with a moral choice, x knows all the factual and moral truths he needs to know to make a correct choice.

7. This mind x is neither causally determined nor causally influenced by any external or internal factors.

8. Necessarily, if a perfectly free mind knows all the moral and factual truths needed to make the morally correct choice in any morally significant circum stance in which he finds himself, then this mind will make the correct choice.

If such persons are possible, worlds containing only such persons and God and no nature (a physical realm) are possible; in these worlds, there is no moral or natural evil. The counterfactual argument that it is possible that if God created these persons in certain circumstances, they would do something wrong, fails because these persons are necessarily good. Accordingly, Plantinga's free will defense cannot be used to show that a world containing these persons is not creatable.

The idea that there are possible creatures who are necessarily good and that God could have created a world containing only them does not depend on the truth of Plantinga's theory of counterfactuals of freedom. At first glance, it might appear there is a dependency because presumably God, if he existed, would have known logically prior to creation counterfactuals about these creatures and made his decision to create a world with them on the basis of this knowledge. For example, God would know prior to creation:

9. If the individual essences of some necessarily good creatures were to be instantiated, the instantiations of these essences would always do what is right.

Proposition (9) is true logically prior to creation even if Plantinga's theory is false, for (9) is analytically true and thereby does not require similarity relations among worlds to make it true. Proposition (9) is true because the antecedent entails the consequent. Accordingly, if the Stalnaker-Lewis theory of counterfactuals is true, there are no logically contingent counterfactuals of freedom that are true logically prior to creation, but there are logically necessary counterfactuals of freedom that are true logically prior to creation, and the latter are all that God needs to know which world to create.

The fact that necessarily good creatures are possible supplies the missing proposition (p') that will enable the conjunction of (G), (E), and (p') to form an explicit contradiction.

Statements (G) and (E) we recall, are

G. God exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient.

E. There is evil.

There are several ways to formulate (p'), one being based on a proposition in Plantinga's first discussion of the free will defense in his article "The Free Will Defence".

10. If God is all-good and the proposition God creates free humans and the free humans He creates always do what is right is consistent, then any free humans created by God always do what is right.

If the negation of (E) is to be deduced from (10) and (G), then (10) needs to be a necessary truth. But we need further premises. One is

11. It is consistent that God creates free humans and the free humans he creates always do what is right.

Another is

12. It is possible that: free humans who always do what is right exist without there being any natural evil, and if God creates these humans, he will not create natural evil.

If (10), (11), and (12) are all necessary truths, then the proposition (p') is the conjunction of ( 10), ( II), and ( 12 ) because the conjunction of these three propositions with (G) entails

-E. There is no evil.

This would give a sound logical argument from evil, for it would show that the theist is committed to a proposition two of whose conjunctions are there is evil and there is no evil.

In "The Free Will Defence" Plantinga attacks (10). He writes, "There seems to be no reason for supposing that (10) is true at all, let alone necessarily true. Whether the free men created by God would always do what is right would presumably be up to them; for all we know they might sometimes exercise their freedom to do what is wrong."

In one sense Plantinga is right, for humans are logically free with respect to a morally good life and being logically free and being logically determined are plausibly thought to be essential properties. There is no possible world in which humans are logically determined with respect to a morally good life. But Plantinga over- looks the possibility that there are possible rational creatures who are internally- externally free but logically determined, and if we take "humans" in (10) in a broad sense as referring to any rational creature, then Plantinga's purported refutation of (10) fails. Thus, the logical argument from evil goes through unscathed by Plantinga's criticism.

The soundness of the logical argument from evil can be seen more clearly if we consider a relevant proposition from Plantinga's God, Freedom and Evil, a proposition that he concedes "for purposes of argument" is a necessary truth (although he subsequently makes no attempt to show it is not a necessary truth). The proposition is

13. An omniscient and omnipotent [and wholly] good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate.

A being properly eliminates an evil state of affairs if it eliminates that evil without either eliminating an outweighing good or bringing about a greater evil. A good state of affairs g outweighs an evil state of affairs e if the conjunctive state of affairs 9 and e is a good state of affairs. Given these definitions, it is plausible to think that (13) is a necessary truth. If a state of affairs is eliminated by its actualization being prevented, and if a possible world is a state of affairs (a maximal state of affairs), then (13) entails

14. God prevents from being actual any world W1 that contains evil if there is another creatable world W2 containing at least as much good as W1 and no evil.

There is no world containing evil that contains more good than a creatable world W2 that contains no evil and that consists of God and an infinite number of necessarily good and internally-externally free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts. This is true by virtue of the mathematics of infinity, for the addition of more creatures or acts to a world containing an infinite number of them does not increase the amount of good, for infinity plus N for any finite number N equals infinity. Thus we cannot say that there is a possible world containing evil and infinity-plus-N good acts and that this world contains more good than a world containing an infinite number of good acts and no evil. Of course, we can get more good acts if we add to a world with aleph-zero good acts an additional aleph-one acts, where aleph-zero is the number of all finite integers and aleph-one is (by the continuum hypothesis) the number of all real numbers. But this sort of argument can be blocked by supporting there is another world with no evil but with aleph-one good acts. The same holds for any other transfinite cardinal greater than aleph-zero.

The above arguments about necessarily good free rational creatures show that

There is some possible creatable world W2 containing only God and an infinite number of necessarily good free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts.

This gives us our explicit contradiction, namely, the conjunction of the following propositions:

G. God exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient.

E. There is evil.

14. God prevents from being actual any world W1 that contains evil if there is another creatable world W2 containing at least as much good as W1 and no evil.

15. For any possible creatable world W I containing evil and an infinite number of free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts, there is another possible creatable world W2 containing no evil and an infinite number of necessarily good free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts.

-E. There is no evil (from G, (14], and (15]).

====Best of all possible worlds====
Apologists such as [[Alvin Plantinga]] have made the claim that although there may be some evil in the world, this is in fact the best of all possible worlds. {{Wikipedia|Pangloss|color=#DAE3FF;}}

This theodicy suggests that no improvement may be made to the world. Preventing children from dying in a [[tsunami]] or the [[holocaust]] from happening would be impossible for God. Plantinga argues that God's power is limited in that he cannot sin and cannot violate free will. However, there are plenty of improvements one could make to this world without violating free will or requiring God to sin.

Although it is not a direct problem with the claim itself, it is important to note that many theists who propose this claim also believe in [[Heaven]], which is believed to be an even better world than this one. If this is the best world able to be created then Heaven cannot be created.

See also: The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html#entailment]

====Tough love====
[[Apologists]] often claim that what appears to be harmful to humans may, in fact, be for humanity's good. How can we learn, the argument goes, without making our own mistakes?

The "tough love" argument only works if God is limited in power. If God is omnipotent there is nothing he can not teach us gently that he can teach us harshly. If he is benevolent than he would never choose to teach us a harsh lesson when it could be taught, with exactly the same impact, gently.

Another problem with this argument is that although according to this argument, God wants us to grow as people by learning from our mistakes, according to most religious doctrine he also wants worship. Worship involves complete obedience and submission, whereas learning from mistakes requires using one's intelligence. It is contradictory to claim that God wants us to be both completely obedient and make decisions for ourselves, since complete obedience means blindly obeying authority, for example the story of Abraham and Issac ({{Bible|Genesis 22:1-19}}). Abraham was called "righteous" because he blindly obeyed God's command to murder his son. The fact that God stopped Abraham before the knife fell means nothing- even if he had allowed the murder, Abraham would still be called righteous for obeying God's command.

====Really powerful, not all-powerful====
God is not all-powerful in the sense that he can create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it. So, God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and really really powerful.

If a child is raped and killed, is this because God is not powerful enough to prevent it? I could prevent that and would strive to with the smallest degree of foreknowledge. So if this argument is to succeed it must conclude that I am more powerful than God. And more benevolent.

====God does not exist====
God is unable to prevent evil because God does not exist.
Argument does not apply to non-existing gods.

===God is not omnibenevolent===
====Redefining benevolence====
One way to redefine the term 'benevolence' is to cite limited human perspective in space and time. A parent might spank a child for running into traffic, or take a child to the doctor for painful, life saving, injections. It is only in the limited, child's-eye-view that these things are malevolent.

As with the "tough love" argument, this view of God implicitly denies his omnipotence or, at least, his omniscience. What kind of parent purposely takes his child for a surgery which he knows the child does not need or want?

Another way to redefine 'benevolence' is to argue that God may be benevolent to specific humans or to non-humans. Our entire history may exist for the positive influence it may have on aliens we have not met. We may be actors in a puppet show that makes these beings happy. After all, it is perfectly possible for benevolent humans to play comically violent video games with their delighted children.

But this argument is sophistry. To win the argument the apologist defines a God that neither we nor he would have much reason to worship. For example, if the creatures in a violent "Run and Gun" video game were to gain self awareness, would we expect them to view us as benevolent beings worthy of their love and trust as we blast them into electronic oblivion?

And, if God is not benevolent toward humans, then what differentiates him from a human sociopath or from the [[Devil]]?

The problem of evil must be taken up in the context of humanity. No other context would make a God useful to humans in any realistic way. A God that is benevolent to others at lethal expense to humans is, by definition, malevolent, or at least indifferent, toward humans. It is an unusual apologist indeed who believes in this type of God.

====God is benevolent to the point of impotence====

Some claim that since God is omnibenevolent, he loves all his creatures, even Satan, who is considered by many to be the embodiment of evil. Therefore it would violate his omnibenevolence to simply destroy Satan or any other evil creation. This of course implies that God is not omnipotent. It is also contradicted by the Bible, which states that God hates evil.

====Evil is a consequence of disobeying God====
Evil exists not because it was created by God but because it results from our disobeying God's divine laws.

This explanation argues that God has created an earthly consequence for disobeying divine laws. There are two problems with this argument: 1. Innocents being victims of evil. 2. Immoral people escaping earthly consequence. If this argument was indeed true, infants, children, and otherwise good people would not suffer and murderers, thieves, and the like would not live comfortable lives.

====Perfection implies no lacking====
God is also evil. The argument does not apply.

====God allows evil so that the good is appreciated====
God wants to be loved and is very vain. He wants to be loved so much that he allows many evils to befall mankind so that they appreciate the good more. Much as the blind man healed by Jesus appreciated his sight more because of his blindness.

===God is not omniscient===
Unlike the other characteristics of God, omniscience isn't necessarily required for the argument. Any situation God doesn't see can still be created as intended through the power of omnipotence.

====God does Good. Satan does Evil.====
God only has limited omniscience, he cannot see the future. God simply did not know that Satan would turn against him because he cannot know the future. Satan blindsided God, who lacks future knowledge, and created evil himself. God was betrayed and Satan is the reason evil exists.

If God is all-good and all-powerful, he should snuff out Satan and promptly remove all evil from the world.

===Evil does not exist===
====Redefining evil====
As with "benevolence", "evil" can be redefined. What is "evil" for humans may not be evil for God. In fact, anything that God chooses to do can be construed as "good". Using this argument, "evil" can not exist in any definable terms when applied to God.

Besides the arguments already used in the "Tough Love" response (an all powerful God would have no reason even to appear evil) here, the apologist treads dangerously close to [[ethical relativism]]. We know from information in the bible that ethical rules have changed at the will of God. Is God, then, a relativist?

If the answer is that God is following an ethical plan, then the apologist opens himself up to the [[Euthyphro dilemma]]. If the answer is that God changes as he sees fit and anything that god declares as good is good, then what is the difference between being a relativist and following a relativist God?

When an apologist tries to redefine the premises of "the problem of evil" he finds himself in a morass of relativism, but when he tries to work with the premises he finds himself unwittingly limiting the unlimited God of his religion.

====Evil is an illusion====
We believe that evil exists because we view things like genocide as bad. We are simply wrong, all of these things are good.

Which suggests that everything which has ever happened is objectively good: [[rape]], the [[holocaust]], [[slavery]], [[genocide]]. In order defend this theodicy, a proponent would need to agree that any horrific thing you could mention is a good thing to do.

====It is all part of the plan====
God's divine plan is good. What we think is evil is not, rather it's a part of God's plan we are misidentifying as evil because we cannot see the big picture.

The holocaust is part of God's divine plan? Young girls being raped and murdered is part of God's plan? If such things are part of God's plan, even without seeing the big picture one must conclude that it's a really bad plan. Furthermore, what is the point of a plan if one is all powerful? There are no steps needed; simply create the end results.

====Evil is a test====
Evil is needed so that God can test people.

The holocaust is a test of faith? Whose faith is tested when a child is murdered? If God is omniscient, then God already knows what humans will do in any test.

====Evil is the absence of Good====
Just as cold is the absence of hot and dark is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good.

This contradicts an omnipresent deity. Furthermore, if accurate then an omnipotent omnibenevolent deity should employ his omnipotence to be omnipresent in order to stand vigilant against evil.

Are evil deeds an absence of some corresponding good? Is rape an absence of unrape? Is murder an absence of unmurder? (How many people have you unraped or unmurdered today? We're committing unsins constantly!) Conversely, if baking your neighbor cookies [or name any random act of kindness] is a good deed, what is the absence of that good deed?

===Justifications===
====You bring evil on yourself====
God is good and does good, but any evil you do you brought upon yourself. This is principle the theodicy of Islam.

If you are raped, you were bad. If you have a holocaust happen to you, you were bad. If something bad happens to you, you brought it on yourself. This theodicy consists of blaming the victim.

====Heaven exists after this world====
After you die you can go to heaven which evens everything out in the end. Regardless of what pain and suffering exists here, heaven will balance out the scales. This was often used by religious authorities to justify torture and murder during the many inquisitions and crusades. The victims' temporary agony was justified if it saved them from the eternal agony of hell.

This has nothing to do with the argument, rather it's a conclusion that it doesn't matter if there is evil, rather than address the logical consequence of a deity incompatible with an evil filled world.

==False trilemma?==
One could argue that the argument above does not cover all possibilities, much like C.S. Lewis's trilemma "[[Liar, Lunatic or Lord]]", which does not consider alternate possibilities like "Legend". The argument does not account for a God who is not able and willing, which creates the problem, as paraphrased by Epicurus, that if he is not able or willing, then why call him God?

However, the problem of evil can be restated as follows:
# If evil exists, and God is omniscient, then God knows about it.
# If God knows about evil, and is omnibenevolent, then he wants to prevent it.
# If God wants to prevent evil, and is omnipotent, then he can prevent it (if God wants something to happen, then it happens).
# Therefore, if God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent, then evil should not exist.

There is a logical rebuttal to this version of the problem of evil posited by [[Alvin Plantinga]], a Prominent Philosopher, called the [[Free will defense]]. This defense is widely regarded as solid by the philosophical community, even with some mentionable critisisms.

==The problem of good==

It is fairly easy to flip the argument around: if we postulate that
God is all-evil, the problem of evil becomes the problem of good: why
would an infinitely evil god allow good to exist?

Many or all of the arguments against the problem of evil can easily be
turned around to argue against the problem of good:
* People do good deeds because God gave us free will, which in turn allows us to torment each other in ways that mere automata couldn't.
* Natural beauty, such as sunsets or the majesty of a starry sky, exists so that we may more deeply appreciate the ugliness around us.
* Mystery: while some instances of good may remain unexplained, who can claim to understand the mind of an infinitely evil god?

If the existence of evil in the universe that also includes a lot of
good does not point to an infinitely evil god, then it follows that
the existence of good in a universe that also includes a lot of evil
does not point to the existence of an infinitely good god.

==See also==
* [[Theodicy]]
* [[Problem of Hell]]

==External links==
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Problem of Evil]
* [http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/John_Wright/Hume%20Dialogue%2010.htm Hume and the Evidential Problem of Evil]
* Stephen Law, ''[http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/03/god-of-eth.html The God of Eth]'' — the problem of good
{{Def-word|sophistry}}

{{Arguments against god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
[[Category:Empirical arguments]]

Problem of evil

2010-10-07T22:48:24Z

Daemonowner: /* Free will */ typo

{{Wikipedia|color=#DAE3FF;}}
The '''problem of evil''' points out a [[logical contradiction]] in the traditional conceptions of the nature of [[God]] and the world.

Suppose we have the following four premises:
# God is [[omnipotent]].
# God is [[omnibenevolent]].
# God is [[omniscient]].
# [[Evil]] exists.

We get the following contradiction. If God is omnibenevolent, then he does not want evil to exist. If God is omniscient, then he must know about all evil in the world. If God is omnipotent, then he must be capable of doing something about it. Therefore, evil should not exist. Dropping any one of those four premises would resolve the contradiction, but dropping #4 would require us to fundamentally redefine evil in some way, and dropping the other three would undermine the Christian concept of God.

As [[David Hume]] wrote, (paraphrasing [[Epicurus]]):
{{Quote-source|Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?|''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion''}}

"So how do theists respond to arguments like this? [The Argument from Evil] They say there is a reason for evil, but it is a mystery. Well, let me tell you this: I'm actually one hundred feet tall even though I only appear to be six feet tall. You ask me for proof of this. I have a simple answer: it's a mystery. Just accept my word for it on faith. And that's just the logic theists use in their discussions of evil." [Quentin Smith, "Two Ways to Defend Atheism"]

==Theodicy==
A [[theodicy]] is a proposed solution to the problem of evil. Coined by [[Wikipedia:Gottfried Leibniz|Gottfried Leibniz]] in 1710, in a work called "Theodicy Essay on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil".

A theodicy can generally be divided into four categories, each typically rejecting one of the four premises used to make the argument. The argument is, after all, not an argument for the non-existence of God but an argument for the non-existence of God with the characteristics of [[omniscience]], [[omnipotence]], and [[omnibenevolence]] in the presence of evil. Some arguments aren't solutions to the problem but justifications.

When compared to a easily prevented, extremely "evil" act, such as the rape and murder of a child, or a gross atrocity like the holocaust, [[slavery]] or other [[genocide]]s, most theodicies crumble, quickly exposing them as sophistry with worse implications than the original problem.

'''Another refutation of theodicies:'''

The Moral Argument from Evil is expounded by Dean Stretton in his article on the subject. Here is the full formulation as given by Stretton:

A1. The most rational theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists.

A2a. For any possible world W, if God exists in W, then every instance of evil in W is objectively justified.

A2b. If God exists, then there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, including those evils for which there is a human onlooker

A2. If God exists, then there is objective justification for every actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.

A3. Some members of the class of most rational theists (as I have defined that class) are theists who know A2.

A4. Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know A2) know that there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.

A5. If human person P knows that there is objective justification for evil E, and that this justification will occur even if P does not intervene to stop or prevent E, then P is morally justified in allowing E to occur.

A6. Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know A2) are morally justified in allowing any actual evil to occur.

A7. If the most rational theists know that God exists, then some of those theists (namely, those who know A2) are morally justified in allowing any evil to occur.

A8. Even the most rational theists (including those who know A2) are not morally justified in allowing just any evil to occur.

A9. Even the most rational theists do not know that God exists.

A10. If the most rational theists do not know that God exists, then no theist knows that God exists.

A11. No theist knows that God exists.

A12. For any given theist, that theist’s belief that God exists is either false or unjustified.

A13. If God exists, then some theists are justified in believing that God exists.

A14. If God exists, then no theist has a false belief that God exists.

A15. If God exists, then some theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists.

A16. It is not the case that some theists know (i.e., have a justified and true belief) that God exists.

A17. God does not exist.

This argument can be summarized as follows:

A1 to A2 – If God exists, then all instances of evil are morally justifiable by definition.

A3 to A7 – If all events are morally justifiable, then some believers know that they should not try to stop any instance of presumed evil.

A8 – Yet they do intervene.

A9 to A17 – Therefore their own behaviour proves that God does not exist.

===God is not omnipotent===
====Free will====
It is often claimed that evil exists because God gave humans [[free will]]. According to the Bible, God's gift of free will led to the fall of [[Adam and Eve]] through their [[original sin]]. Free will is assumed to be a greater good than the evil that it causes or is needed by God to serve some purpose. For example, free will is required for people to love God in a free and open fashion. So if a young girl is raped and murdered, this is because God needed the rapist's free will so that his actions could result in greater good or so that the rapist could freely love God.

As Mackie asked: "Why could [God] not have made men such that they always freely choose the good?" Even if man is believed to have free will, God could have created humans such that they would always freely choose the good. This he did not do and is therefore ultimately responsible and blameworthy for any evil act which humans perform.

"For at least some theists, this difficulty is made even more acute by some of their further beliefs: I mean those who envisage a happier or more perfect state of affairs than now exists, whether they look forward to the kingdom of God on earth, or confine their optimism to the expectation of heaven. In either case they are explicitly recognizing the possibility of a state of affairs in which created beings always freely choose the good. If such a state of affairs is coherent enough to be the object of a reasonable hope or faith, it is hard to explain why it does not obtain already."

This argument fails in that free will is given a definition which relies on the ability to perform actions. The implication is that humans must be free to commit actions which would qualify as "evil" as well as "good" in the argument, in order to have free will. In this case, all humans born without this capability, possess no free will. Also, those who have an advantage, of strength, size, or skill, are presumably, more free in their will, in comparison to their potentially smaller, weaker, or less skilled, victims. Therefore, this objection to the problem of evil can only apply where this standard for free will is actually applied. Paradoxically, this puts God in the position of denying free will to someone regardless of God's position on an action, whether God intervenes, or not.

This argument also fails to explain why God allows natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. These events kill large numbers of people in specific geographical locations, which indicates that the concept of "evil" is not necessarily tied to what people do. Furthermore, it fails to account for evil done to people against their will. The argument of free will is used to justify why an infant can be killed, however the infant invoked no measure of free will to allow for this evil to result. So in order to give the gift of free will to this infant, the child is murdered without having any choice in the matter.

Even if we define natural disasters as not being evil, there remains the fact that they occur, and that God does not prevent them or the deaths and suffering they cause. If we replace "evil" with "suffering" in the discussion above, the problem remains: either God is unaware of people's suffering, and is therefore not omniscient; or he is unable to do anything, and is therefore not omnipotent; or he is unwilling to intervene, and is therefore not omnibenevolent.

There is also the question of [[heaven]]. Heaven, being a perfectly wonderful place, does not contain evil. Does this mean that inhabitants of heaven no longer retain their free will? Or does their will suddenly become perfectly good?

Bertrand Russell notes: "[I]t is clear that the fundamental doctrines of Christianity demand a great deal of ethical perversion before they can be accepted. The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before He created the world He foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain; He is therefore responsible for all of it. It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference. If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He decided to create man."

See also: The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html]

A Sound Logical Argument from Evil
[http://www.qsmithwmu.com/a_sound_logical_argument_from_evil.htm A Sound Logical Argument of Evil by Quentin Smith]

Quentin Smith distinguishes three kinds of freedom:

1. External freedom:A person is externally free with respect to an action A if and only if nothing other than (external to) herself determines either that she perform A or refrain from performing A.

2. Internal freedom: And a person is free with respect to an action A at a time t only if no causal laws and antecedent conditions determine either that he performs A at t or that he refrains from so doing. A person is internally free with respect to an action A if and only if it is false that his past physical and psychological states, in conjunction with causal laws, determine either that he perform A or refrain from performing A.

3. Logical freedom: A person is logically free with respect to an action A if and only if there is some possible world in which he performs A and there is another possible world in which he does not perform A. A person is logically free with respect to a wholly good life (a life in which every morally relevant action performed by the person is a good action) if and only if there is some possible world in which he lives this life and another possible world in which he does not.

These distinctions, according to Smith, constitute a sound logical argument from evil. It is possible to be internally-externally free but logically determined with respect to being morally good. This is the case with God, who is both internally and externally free but who does only good actions in each possible world in which he exists.

1. God possesses the maximally valuable consistent conjunction of great making properties.

2. If it were intrinsically better to be logically free with respect to a morally good life than logically determined, and this logical freedom were consistent with God's omnipotence and omniscience, then God would possess this logical freedom.

3. Logical freedom with respect to a morally good life is consistent with omnipotence and omniscience.

4. God is logically determined with respect to a morally good life.

Therefore

5. It is false that it is intrinsically better to be logically free with respect to a morally good life than logically determined.

Premise (3) is true because "x knows all truths" does not entail "It is not logically possible for x to perform a morally wrong action," and "x is all-powerful" does not entail "It is not logically possible for x to perform a morally wrong action." Nor does the conjunction of omniscience and omnipotence entail this.

It follows that a possible world WI containing N number of persons who always do what is right and who are logically determined with respect to moral goodness is (all other things being equal) a more metaphysically valuable world than a world W2 containing N number of persons who are logically free with respect to a morally good way of life. And this suggests that God, if he existed, would have created W1 rather than W2.

Although Plantinga does not address this issue, an unspoken assumption of his argument is that there are no possible creatures who are internally-externally free with respect to a morally good life but logically determined. This assumption is false, for "x is an internally-externally free creature with respect to a morally good life" does not entail "x is logically free with respect to a morally good life." If it did, there would have to be some relevant difference between God and creatures that ensured the entailment goes through in the case of creatures but not God. But what could this difference be? None of the divine attributes (other than necessary goodness) entails necessary goodness. Nor does a conjunction of two or more of these divine attributes entail it. Further, the relevant nondivine attributes do not entail logical freedom with respect to a morally good life. For example, "x knows many but not all truths" does not entail "x freely chooses to do something wrong in at least one possible world in which x exists." Nor is this entailed by "x has the power to do many but not all things." a nonomniscient person can have only true moral beliefs, if only for the reason that it is possible to know all moral truths and not know all mathematical truths. Such a person would be necessarily morally good.

6. It is possible that there is a nonomniscient mind x such that: for each possible world W in which x exists, and for each circumstance in which x is faced with a moral choice, x knows all the factual and moral truths he needs to know to make a correct choice.

7. This mind x is neither causally determined nor causally influenced by any external or internal factors.

8. Necessarily, if a perfectly free mind knows all the moral and factual truths needed to make the morally correct choice in any morally significant circum stance in which he finds himself, then this mind will make the correct choice.

If such persons are possible, worlds containing only such persons and God and no nature (a physical realm) are possible; in these worlds, there is no moral or natural evil. The counterfactual argument that it is possible that if God created these persons in certain circumstances, they would do something wrong, fails because these persons are necessarily good. Accordingly, Plantinga's free will defense cannot be used to show that a world containing these persons is not creatable.

The idea that there are possible creatures who are necessarily good and that God could have created a world containing only them does not depend on the truth of Plantinga's theory of counterfactuals of freedom. At first glance, it might appear there is a dependency because presumably God, if he existed, would have known logically prior to creation counterfactuals about these creatures and made his decision to create a world with them on the basis of this knowledge. For example, God would know prior to creation:

9. If the individual essences of some necessarily good creatures were to be instantiated, the instantiations of these essences would always do what is right.

Proposition (9) is true logically prior to creation even if Plantinga's theory is false, for (9) is analytically true and thereby does not require similarity relations among worlds to make it true. Proposition (9) is true because the antecedent entails the consequent. Accordingly, if the Stalnaker-Lewis theory of counterfactuals is true, there are no logically contingent counterfactuals of freedom that are true logically prior to creation, but there are logically necessary counterfactuals of freedom that are true logically prior to creation, and the latter are all that God needs to know which world to create.

The fact that necessarily good creatures are possible supplies the missing proposition (p') that will enable the conjunction of (G), (E), and (p') to form an explicit contradiction.

Statements (G) and (E) we recall, are

G. God exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient.

E. There is evil.

There are several ways to formulate (p'), one being based on a proposition in Plantinga's first discussion of the free will defense in his article "The Free Will Defence".

10. If God is all-good and the proposition God creates free humans and the free humans He creates always do what is right is consistent, then any free humans created by God always do what is right.

If the negation of (E) is to be deduced from (10) and (G), then (10) needs to be a necessary truth. But we need further premises. One is

11. It is consistent that God creates free humans and the free humans he creates always do what is right.

Another is

12. It is possible that: free humans who always do what is right exist without there being any natural evil, and if God creates these humans, he will not create natural evil.

If (10), (11), and (12) are all necessary truths, then the proposition (p') is the conjunction of ( 10), ( II), and ( 12 ) because the conjunction of these three propositions with (G) entails

-E. There is no evil.

This would give a sound logical argument from evil, for it would show that the theist is committed to a proposition two of whose conjunctions are there is evil and there is no evil.

In "The Free Will Defence" Plantinga attacks (10). He writes, "There seems to be no reason for supposing that (10) is true at all, let alone necessarily true. Whether the free men created by God would always do what is right would presumably be up to them; for all we know they might sometimes exercise their freedom to do what is wrong."

In one sense Plantinga is right, for humans are logically free with respect to a morally good life and being logically free and being logically determined are plausibly thought to be essential properties. There is no possible world in which humans are logically determined with respect to a morally good life. But Plantinga over- looks the possibility that there are possible rational creatures who are internally- externally free but logically determined, and if we take "humans" in (10) in a broad sense as referring to any rational creature, then Plantinga's purported refutation of (10) fails. Thus, the logical argument from evil goes through unscathed by Plantinga's criticism.

The soundness of the logical argument from evil can be seen more clearly if we consider a relevant proposition from Plantinga's God, Freedom and Evil, a proposition that he concedes "for purposes of argument" is a necessary truth (although he subsequently makes no attempt to show it is not a necessary truth). The proposition is

13. An omniscient and omnipotent [and wholly] good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate.

A being properly eliminates an evil state of affairs if it eliminates that evil without either eliminating an outweighing good or bringing about a greater evil. A good state of affairs g outweighs an evil state of affairs e if the conjunctive state of affairs 9 and e is a good state of affairs. Given these definitions, it is plausible to think that (13) is a necessary truth. If a state of affairs is eliminated by its actualization being prevented, and if a possible world is a state of affairs (a maximal state of affairs), then (13) entails

14. God prevents from being actual any world W1 that contains evil if there is another creatable world W2 containing at least as much good as W1 and no evil.

There is no world containing evil that contains more good than a creatable world W2 that contains no evil and that consists of God and an infinite number of necessarily good and internally-externally free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts. This is true by virtue of the mathematics of infinity, for the addition of more creatures or acts to a world containing an infinite number of them does not increase the amount of good, for infinity plus N for any finite number N equals infinity. Thus we cannot say that there is a possible world containing evil and infinity-plus-N good acts and that this world contains more good than a world containing an infinite number of good acts and no evil. Of course, we can get more good acts if we add to a world with aleph-zero good acts an additional aleph-one acts, where aleph-zero is the number of all finite integers and aleph-one is (by the continuum hypothesis) the number of all real numbers. But this sort of argument can be blocked by supporting there is another world with no evil but with aleph-one good acts. The same holds for any other transfinite cardinal greater than aleph-zero.

The above arguments about necessarily good free rational creatures show that

There is some possible creatable world W2 containing only God and an infinite number of necessarily good free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts.

This gives us our explicit contradiction, namely, the conjunction of the following propositions:

G. God exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient.

E. There is evil.

14. God prevents from being actual any world W1 that contains evil if there is another creatable world W2 containing at least as much good as W1 and no evil.

15. For any possible creatable world W I containing evil and an infinite number of free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts, there is another possible creatable world W2 containing no evil and an infinite number of necessarily good free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts.

-E. There is no evil (from G, (14], and (15]).

====Best of all possible worlds====
Apologists such as [[Alvin Plantinga]] have made the claim that although there may be some evil in the world, this is in fact the best of all possible worlds. {{Wikipedia|Pangloss|color=#DAE3FF;}}

This theodicy suggests that no improvement may be made to the world. Preventing children from dying in a [[tsunami]] or the [[holocaust]] from happening would be impossible for God. Plantinga argues that God's power is limited in that he cannot sin and cannot violate free will. However, there are plenty of improvements one could make to this world without violating free will or requiring God to sin.

Although it is not a direct problem with the claim itself, it is important to note that many theists who propose this claim also believe in [[Heaven]], which is believed to be an even better world than this one. If this is the best world able to be created then Heaven cannot be created.

See also: The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html#entailment]

====Tough love====
[[Apologists]] often claim that what appears to be harmful to humans may, in fact, be for humanity's good. How can we learn, the argument goes, without making our own mistakes?

The "tough love" argument only works if God is limited in power. If God is omnipotent there is nothing he can not teach us gently that he can teach us harshly. If he is benevolent than he would never choose to teach us a harsh lesson when it could be taught, with exactly the same impact, gently.

Another problem with this argument is that although according to this argument, God wants us to grow as people by learning from our mistakes, according to most religious doctrine he also wants worship. Worship involves complete obedience and submission, whereas learning from mistakes requires using one's intelligence. It is contradictory to claim that God wants us to be both completely obedient and make decisions for ourselves, since complete obedience means blindly obeying authority, for example the story of Abraham and Issac ({{Bible|Genesis 22:1-19}}). Abraham was called "righteous" because he blindly obeyed God's command to murder his son. The fact that God stopped Abraham before the knife fell means nothing- even if he had allowed the murder, Abraham would still be called righteous for obeying God's command.

====Really powerful, not all-powerful====
God is not all-powerful in the sense that he can create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it. So, God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and really really powerful.

If a child is raped and killed, is this because God is not powerful enough to prevent it? I could prevent that and would strive to with the smallest degree of foreknowledge. So if this argument is to succeed it must conclude that I am more powerful than God. And more benevolent.

====God does not exist====
God is unable to prevent evil because God does not exist.
Argument does not apply to non-existing gods.

===God is not omnibenevolent===
====Redefining benevolence====
One way to redefine the term 'benevolence' is to cite limited human perspective in space and time. A parent might spank a child for running into traffic, or take a child to the doctor for painful, life saving, injections. It is only in the limited, child's-eye-view that these things are malevolent.

As with the "tough love" argument, this view of God implicitly denies his omnipotence or, at least, his omniscience. What kind of parent purposely takes his child for a surgery which he knows the child does not need or want?

Another way to redefine 'benevolence' is to argue that God may be benevolent to specific humans or to non-humans. Our entire history may exist for the positive influence it may have on aliens we have not met. We may be actors in a puppet show that makes these beings happy. After all, it is perfectly possible for benevolent humans to play comically violent video games with their delighted children.

But this argument is sophistry. To win the argument the apologist defines a God that neither we nor he would have much reason to worship. For example, if the creatures in a violent "Run and Gun" video game were to gain self awareness, would we expect them to view us as benevolent beings worthy of their love and trust as we blast them into electronic oblivion?

And, if God is not benevolent toward humans, then what differentiates him from a human sociopath or from the [[Devil]]?

The problem of evil must be taken up in the context of humanity. No other context would make a God useful to humans in any realistic way. A God that is benevolent to others at lethal expense to humans is, by definition, malevolent, or at least indifferent, toward humans. It is an unusual apologist indeed who believes in this type of God.

====God is benevolent to the point of impotence====

Some claim that since God is omnibenevolent, he loves all his creatures, even Satan, who is considered by many to be the embodiment of evil. Therefore it would violate his omnibenevolence to simply destroy Satan or any other evil creation. This of course implies that God is not omnipotent. It is also contradicted by the Bible, which states that God hates evil.

====Evil is a consequence of disobeying God====
Evil exists not because it was created by God but because it results from our disobeying God's divine laws.

This explanation argues that God has created a earthly consequence for disobeying divine laws. There are two problems with this argument: 1. Innocents being victims of evil. 2. Immoral people escaping earthly consequence. If this argument was indeed true, infants, children, and otherwise good people would not suffer and murderers, thieves, and the like would not live comfortable lives.

====Perfection implies no lacking====
God is also evil. The argument does not apply.

====God allows evil so that the good is appreciated====
God wants to be loved and is very vain. He wants to be loved so much that he allows many evils to befall mankind so that they appreciate the good more. Much as the blind man healed by Jesus appreciated his sight more because of his blindness.

===God is not omniscient===
Unlike the other characteristics of God, omniscience isn't necessarily required for the argument. Any situation God doesn't see can still be created as intended through the power of omnipotence.

====God does Good. Satan does Evil.====
God only has limited omniscience, he cannot see the future. God simply did not know that Satan would turn against him because he cannot know the future. Satan blindsided God, who lacks future knowledge, and created evil himself. God was betrayed and Satan is the reason evil exists.

If God is all-good and all-powerful, he should snuff out Satan and promptly remove all evil from the world.

===Evil does not exist===
====Redefining evil====
As with "benevolence", "evil" can be redefined. What is "evil" for humans may not be evil for God. In fact, anything that God chooses to do can be construed as "good". Using this argument, "evil" can not exist in any definable terms when applied to God.

Besides the arguments already used in the "Tough Love" response (an all powerful God would have no reason even to appear evil) here, the apologist treads dangerously close to [[ethical relativism]]. We know from information in the bible that ethical rules have changed at the will of God. Is God, then, a relativist?

If the answer is that God is following an ethical plan, then the apologist opens himself up to the [[Euthyphro dilemma]]. If the answer is that God changes as he sees fit and anything that god declares as good is good, then what is the difference between being a relativist and following a relativist God?

When an apologist tries to redefine the premises of "the problem of evil" he finds himself in a morass of relativism, but when he tries to work with the premises he finds himself unwittingly limiting the unlimited God of his religion.

====Evil is an illusion====
We believe that evil exists because we view things like genocide as bad. We are simply wrong, all of these things are good.

Which suggests that everything which has ever happened is objectively good: [[rape]], the [[holocaust]], [[slavery]], [[genocide]]. In order defend this theodicy, a proponent would need to agree that any horrific thing you could mention is a good thing to do.

====It is all part of the plan====
God's divine plan is good. What we think is evil is not, rather it's a part of God's plan we are misidentifying as evil because we cannot see the big picture.

The holocaust is part of God's divine plan? Young girls being raped and murdered is part of God's plan? If such things are part of God's plan, even without seeing the big picture one must conclude that it's a really bad plan. Furthermore, what is the point of a plan if one is all powerful? There are no steps needed; simply create the end results.

====Evil is a test====
Evil is needed so that God can test people.

The holocaust is a test of faith? Whose faith is tested when a child is murdered? If God is omniscient, then God already knows what humans will do in any test.

====Evil is the absence of Good====
Just as cold is the absence of hot and dark is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good.

This contradicts an omnipresent deity. Furthermore, if accurate then an omnipotent omnibenevolent deity should employ his omnipotence to be omnipresent in order to stand vigilant against evil.

Are evil deeds an absence of some corresponding good? Is rape an absence of unrape? Is murder an absence of unmurder? (How many people have you unraped or unmurdered today? We're committing unsins constantly!) Conversely, if baking your neighbor cookies [or name any random act of kindness] is a good deed, what is the absence of that good deed?

===Justifications===
====You bring evil on yourself====
God is good and does good, but any evil you do you brought upon yourself. This is principle the theodicy of Islam.

If you are raped, you were bad. If you have a holocaust happen to you, you were bad. If something bad happens to you, you brought it on yourself. This theodicy consists of blaming the victim.

====Heaven exists after this world====
After you die you can go to heaven which evens everything out in the end. Regardless of what pain and suffering exists here, heaven will balance out the scales. This was often used by religious authorities to justify torture and murder during the many inquisitions and crusades. The victims' temporary agony was justified if it saved them from the eternal agony of hell.

This has nothing to do with the argument, rather it's a conclusion that it doesn't matter if there is evil, rather than address the logical consequence of a deity incompatible with an evil filled world.

==False trilemma?==
One could argue that the argument above does not cover all possibilities, much like C.S. Lewis's trilemma "[[Liar, Lunatic or Lord]]", which does not consider alternate possibilities like "Legend". The argument does not account for a God who is not able and willing, which creates the problem, as paraphrased by Epicurus, that if he is not able or willing, then why call him God?

However, the problem of evil can be restated as follows:
# If evil exists, and God is omniscient, then God knows about it.
# If God knows about evil, and is omnibenevolent, then he wants to prevent it.
# If God wants to prevent evil, and is omnipotent, then he can prevent it (if God wants something to happen, then it happens).
# Therefore, if God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent, then evil should not exist.

There is a logical rebuttal to this version of the problem of evil posited by [[Alvin Plantinga]], a Prominent Philosopher, called the [[Free will defense]]. This defense is widely regarded as solid by the philosophical community, even with some mentionable critisisms.

==The problem of good==

It is fairly easy to flip the argument around: if we postulate that
God is all-evil, the problem of evil becomes the problem of good: why
would an infinitely evil god allow good to exist?

Many or all of the arguments against the problem of evil can easily be
turned around to argue against the problem of good:
* People do good deeds because God gave us free will, which in turn allows us to torment each other in ways that mere automata couldn't.
* Natural beauty, such as sunsets or the majesty of a starry sky, exists so that we may more deeply appreciate the ugliness around us.
* Mystery: while some instances of good may remain unexplained, who can claim to understand the mind of an infinitely evil god?

If the existence of evil in the universe that also includes a lot of
good does not point to an infinitely evil god, then it follows that
the existence of good in a universe that also includes a lot of evil
does not point to the existence of an infinitely good god.

==See also==
* [[Theodicy]]
* [[Problem of Hell]]

==External links==
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Problem of Evil]
* [http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/John_Wright/Hume%20Dialogue%2010.htm Hume and the Evidential Problem of Evil]
* Stephen Law, ''[http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/03/god-of-eth.html The God of Eth]'' — the problem of good
{{Def-word|sophistry}}

{{Arguments against god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
[[Category:Empirical arguments]]

Problem of evil

2010-10-07T22:35:53Z

Daemonowner: removed failed links.

{{Wikipedia|color=#DAE3FF;}}
The '''problem of evil''' points out a [[logical contradiction]] in the traditional conceptions of the nature of [[God]] and the world.

Suppose we have the following four premises:
# God is [[omnipotent]].
# God is [[omnibenevolent]].
# God is [[omniscient]].
# [[Evil]] exists.

We get the following contradiction. If God is omnibenevolent, then he does not want evil to exist. If God is omniscient, then he must know about all evil in the world. If God is omnipotent, then he must be capable of doing something about it. Therefore, evil should not exist. Dropping any one of those four premises would resolve the contradiction, but dropping #4 would require us to fundamentally redefine evil in some way, and dropping the other three would undermine the Christian concept of God.

As [[David Hume]] wrote, (paraphrasing [[Epicurus]]):
{{Quote-source|Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?|''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion''}}

"So how do theists respond to arguments like this? [The Argument from Evil] They say there is a reason for evil, but it is a mystery. Well, let me tell you this: I'm actually one hundred feet tall even though I only appear to be six feet tall. You ask me for proof of this. I have a simple answer: it's a mystery. Just accept my word for it on faith. And that's just the logic theists use in their discussions of evil." [Quentin Smith, "Two Ways to Defend Atheism"]

==Theodicy==
A [[theodicy]] is a proposed solution to the problem of evil. Coined by [[Wikipedia:Gottfried Leibniz|Gottfried Leibniz]] in 1710, in a work called "Theodicy Essay on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil".

A theodicy can generally be divided into four categories, each typically rejecting one of the four premises used to make the argument. The argument is, after all, not an argument for the non-existence of God but an argument for the non-existence of God with the characteristics of [[omniscience]], [[omnipotence]], and [[omnibenevolence]] in the presence of evil. Some arguments aren't solutions to the problem but justifications.

When compared to a easily prevented, extremely "evil" act, such as the rape and murder of a child, or a gross atrocity like the holocaust, [[slavery]] or other [[genocide]]s, most theodicies crumble, quickly exposing them as sophistry with worse implications than the original problem.

'''Another refutation of theodicies:'''

The Moral Argument from Evil is expounded by Dean Stretton in his article on the subject. Here is the full formulation as given by Stretton:

A1. The most rational theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists.

A2a. For any possible world W, if God exists in W, then every instance of evil in W is objectively justified.

A2b. If God exists, then there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, including those evils for which there is a human onlooker

A2. If God exists, then there is objective justification for every actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.

A3. Some members of the class of most rational theists (as I have defined that class) are theists who know A2.

A4. Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know A2) know that there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.

A5. If human person P knows that there is objective justification for evil E, and that this justification will occur even if P does not intervene to stop or prevent E, then P is morally justified in allowing E to occur.

A6. Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know A2) are morally justified in allowing any actual evil to occur.

A7. If the most rational theists know that God exists, then some of those theists (namely, those who know A2) are morally justified in allowing any evil to occur.

A8. Even the most rational theists (including those who know A2) are not morally justified in allowing just any evil to occur.

A9. Even the most rational theists do not know that God exists.

A10. If the most rational theists do not know that God exists, then no theist knows that God exists.

A11. No theist knows that God exists.

A12. For any given theist, that theist’s belief that God exists is either false or unjustified.

A13. If God exists, then some theists are justified in believing that God exists.

A14. If God exists, then no theist has a false belief that God exists.

A15. If God exists, then some theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists.

A16. It is not the case that some theists know (i.e., have a justified and true belief) that God exists.

A17. God does not exist.

This argument can be summarized as follows:

A1 to A2 – If God exists, then all instances of evil are morally justifiable by definition.

A3 to A7 – If all events are morally justifiable, then some believers know that they should not try to stop any instance of presumed evil.

A8 – Yet they do intervene.

A9 to A17 – Therefore their own behaviour proves that God does not exist.

===God is not omnipotent===
====Free will====
It is often claimed that evil exists because God gave humans [[free will]]. According to the Bible, God's gift of free will led to the fall of [[Adam and Eve]] through their [[original sin]]. Free will is assumed to be a greater good than the evil that it causes or is needed by God to serve some purpose. For example, free will is required for people to love God in a free and open fashion. So if a young girl is raped and murdered, this is because God needed the rapist's free will so that his actions could result in greater good or so that the rapist could freely love God.

As Mackie asked: "Why could [God] not have made men such that they always freely choose the good?" Even if man is believed to have free will, God could have created humans such that they would always freely choose the good. This he did not do and is therefore ultimately responsible and blameworthy for any evil act which humans perform.

"For at least some theists, this difficulty is made even more acute by some of their further beliefs: I mean those who envisage a happier or more perfect state of affairs than now exists, whether they look forward to the kingdom of God on earth, or confine their optimism to the expectation of heaven. In either case they are explicitly recognizing the possibility of a state of affairs in which created beings always freely choose the good. If such a state of affairs is coherent enough to be the object of a reasonable hope or faith, it is hard to explain why it does not obtain already."

This argument fails in that free will is given a definition which relies on the ability to perform actions. The implication is that humans must be free to commit actions which would qualify as "evil" as well as "good" in the argument, in order to have free will. In this case, all humans born without this capability, possess no free will. Also, those who have an advantage, of strength, size, or skill, are presumably, more free in their will, in comparison to their potentially smaller, weaker, or less skilled, victims. Therefore, this objection to the problem of evil can only apply where this standard for free will is actually applied. Paradoxically, this puts God in the position of denying free will to someone regardless of God's position on an action, whether God intervenes, or not.

This argument also fails to explain why God allows natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. These events kill large numbers of people in specific geographical locations, which indicates that the concept of "evil" is not necessarily tied to what people do. Furthermore, it fails to account for evil done to people against their will. The argument of free will is used to justify why a infant can be killed, however the infant invoked no measure of free will to allow for this evil to result. So in order to give the gift of free will to this infant, the child is murdered without having any choice in the matter.

Even if we define natural disasters as not being evil, there remains the fact that they occur, and that God does not prevent them or the deaths and suffering they cause. If we replace "evil" with "suffering" in the discussion above, the problem remains: either God is unaware of people's suffering, and is therefore not omniscient; or he is unable to do anything, and is therefore not omnipotent; or he is unwilling to intervene, and is therefore not omnibenevolent.

There is also the question of [[heaven]]. Heaven, being a perfectly wonderful place, does not contain evil. Does this mean that inhabitants of heaven no longer retain their free will? Or does their will suddenly become perfectly good?

Bertrand Russell notes: "[I]t is clear that the fundamental doctrines of Christianity demand a great deal of ethical perversion before they can be accepted. The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before He created the world He foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain; He is therefore responsible for all of it. It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference. If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He decided to create man."

See also: The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html]

A Sound Logical Argument from Evil
[http://www.qsmithwmu.com/a_sound_logical_argument_from_evil.htm A Sound Logical Argument of Evil by Quentin Smith]

Quentin Smith distinguishes three kinds of freedom:

1. External freedom:A person is externally free with respect to an action A if and only if nothing other than (external to) herself determines either that she perform A or refrain from performing A.

2. Internal freedom: And a person is free with respect to an action A at a time t only if no causal laws and antecedent conditions determine either that he performs A at t or that he refrains from so doing. A person is internally free with respect to an action A if and only if it is false that his past physical and psychological states, in conjunction with causal laws, determine either that he perform A or refrain from performing A.

3. Logical freedom: A person is logically free with respect to an action A if and only if there is some possible world in which he performs A and there is another possible world in which he does not perform A. A person is logically free with respect to a wholly good life (a life in which every morally relevant action performed by the person is a good action) if and only if there is some possible world in which he lives this life and another possible world in which he does not.

These distinctions, according to Smith, constitute a sound logical argument from evil. It is possible to be internally-externally free but logically determined with respect to being morally good. This is the case with God, who is both internally and externally free but who does only good actions in each possible world in which he exists.

1. God possesses the maximally valuable consistent conjunction of great making properties.

2. If it were intrinsically better to be logically free with respect to a morally good life than logically determined, and this logical freedom were consistent with God's omnipotence and omniscience, then God would possess this logical freedom.

3. Logical freedom with respect to a morally good life is consistent with omnipotence and omniscience.

4. God is logically determined with respect to a morally good life.

Therefore

5. It is false that it is intrinsically better to be logically free with respect to a morally good life than logically determined.

Premise (3) is true because "x knows all truths" does not entail "It is not logically possible for x to perform a morally wrong action," and "x is all-powerful" does not entail "It is not logically possible for x to perform a morally wrong action." Nor does the conjunction of omniscience and omnipotence entail this.

It follows that a possible world WI containing N number of persons who always do what is right and who are logically determined with respect to moral goodness is (all other things being equal) a more metaphysically valuable world than a world W2 containing N number of persons who are logically free with respect to a morally good way of life. And this suggests that God, if he existed, would have created W1 rather than W2.

Although Plantinga does not address this issue, an unspoken assumption of his argument is that there are no possible creatures who are internally-externally free with respect to a morally good life but logically determined. This assumption is false, for "x is an internally-externally free creature with respect to a morally good life" does not entail "x is logically free with respect to a morally good life." If it did, there would have to be some relevant difference between God and creatures that ensured the entailment goes through in the case of creatures but not God. But what could this difference be? None of the divine attributes (other than necessary goodness) entails necessary goodness. Nor does a conjunction of two or more of these divine attributes entail it. Further, the relevant nondivine attributes do not entail logical freedom with respect to a morally good life. For example, "x knows many but not all truths" does not entail "x freely chooses to do something wrong in at least one possible world in which x exists." Nor is this entailed by "x has the power to do many but not all things." a nonomniscient person can have only true moral beliefs, if only for the reason that it is possible to know all moral truths and not know all mathematical truths. Such a person would be necessarily morally good.

6. It is possible that there is a nonomniscient mind x such that: for each possible world W in which x exists, and for each circumstance in which x is faced with a moral choice, x knows all the factual and moral truths he needs to know to make a correct choice.

7. This mind x is neither causally determined nor causally influenced by any external or internal factors.

8. Necessarily, if a perfectly free mind knows all the moral and factual truths needed to make the morally correct choice in any morally significant circum stance in which he finds himself, then this mind will make the correct choice.

If such persons are possible, worlds containing only such persons and God and no nature (a physical realm) are possible; in these worlds, there is no moral or natural evil. The counterfactual argument that it is possible that if God created these persons in certain circumstances, they would do something wrong, fails because these persons are necessarily good. Accordingly, Plantinga's free will defense cannot be used to show that a world containing these persons is not creatable.

The idea that there are possible creatures who are necessarily good and that God could have created a world containing only them does not depend on the truth of Plantinga's theory of counterfactuals of freedom. At first glance, it might appear there is a dependency because presumably God, if he existed, would have known logically prior to creation counterfactuals about these creatures and made his decision to create a world with them on the basis of this knowledge. For example, God would know prior to creation:

9. If the individual essences of some necessarily good creatures were to be instantiated, the instantiations of these essences would always do what is right.

Proposition (9) is true logically prior to creation even if Plantinga's theory is false, for (9) is analytically true and thereby does not require similarity relations among worlds to make it true. Proposition (9) is true because the antecedent entails the consequent. Accordingly, if the Stalnaker-Lewis theory of counterfactuals is true, there are no logically contingent counterfactuals of freedom that are true logically prior to creation, but there are logically necessary counterfactuals of freedom that are true logically prior to creation, and the latter are all that God needs to know which world to create.

The fact that necessarily good creatures are possible supplies the missing proposition (p') that will enable the conjunction of (G), (E), and (p') to form an explicit contradiction.

Statements (G) and (E) we recall, are

G. God exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient.

E. There is evil.

There are several ways to formulate (p'), one being based on a proposition in Plantinga's first discussion of the free will defense in his article "The Free Will Defence".

10. If God is all-good and the proposition God creates free humans and the free humans He creates always do what is right is consistent, then any free humans created by God always do what is right.

If the negation of (E) is to be deduced from (10) and (G), then (10) needs to be a necessary truth. But we need further premises. One is

11. It is consistent that God creates free humans and the free humans he creates always do what is right.

Another is

12. It is possible that: free humans who always do what is right exist without there being any natural evil, and if God creates these humans, he will not create natural evil.

If (10), (11), and (12) are all necessary truths, then the proposition (p') is the conjunction of ( 10), ( II), and ( 12 ) because the conjunction of these three propositions with (G) entails

-E. There is no evil.

This would give a sound logical argument from evil, for it would show that the theist is committed to a proposition two of whose conjunctions are there is evil and there is no evil.

In "The Free Will Defence" Plantinga attacks (10). He writes, "There seems to be no reason for supposing that (10) is true at all, let alone necessarily true. Whether the free men created by God would always do what is right would presumably be up to them; for all we know they might sometimes exercise their freedom to do what is wrong."

In one sense Plantinga is right, for humans are logically free with respect to a morally good life and being logically free and being logically determined are plausibly thought to be essential properties. There is no possible world in which humans are logically determined with respect to a morally good life. But Plantinga over- looks the possibility that there are possible rational creatures who are internally- externally free but logically determined, and if we take "humans" in (10) in a broad sense as referring to any rational creature, then Plantinga's purported refutation of (10) fails. Thus, the logical argument from evil goes through unscathed by Plantinga's criticism.

The soundness of the logical argument from evil can be seen more clearly if we consider a relevant proposition from Plantinga's God, Freedom and Evil, a proposition that he concedes "for purposes of argument" is a necessary truth (although he subsequently makes no attempt to show it is not a necessary truth). The proposition is

13. An omniscient and omnipotent [and wholly] good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate.

A being properly eliminates an evil state of affairs if it eliminates that evil without either eliminating an outweighing good or bringing about a greater evil. A good state of affairs g outweighs an evil state of affairs e if the conjunctive state of affairs 9 and e is a good state of affairs. Given these definitions, it is plausible to think that (13) is a necessary truth. If a state of affairs is eliminated by its actualization being prevented, and if a possible world is a state of affairs (a maximal state of affairs), then (13) entails

14. God prevents from being actual any world W1 that contains evil if there is another creatable world W2 containing at least as much good as W1 and no evil.

There is no world containing evil that contains more good than a creatable world W2 that contains no evil and that consists of God and an infinite number of necessarily good and internally-externally free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts. This is true by virtue of the mathematics of infinity, for the addition of more creatures or acts to a world containing an infinite number of them does not increase the amount of good, for infinity plus N for any finite number N equals infinity. Thus we cannot say that there is a possible world containing evil and infinity-plus-N good acts and that this world contains more good than a world containing an infinite number of good acts and no evil. Of course, we can get more good acts if we add to a world with aleph-zero good acts an additional aleph-one acts, where aleph-zero is the number of all finite integers and aleph-one is (by the continuum hypothesis) the number of all real numbers. But this sort of argument can be blocked by supporting there is another world with no evil but with aleph-one good acts. The same holds for any other transfinite cardinal greater than aleph-zero.

The above arguments about necessarily good free rational creatures show that

There is some possible creatable world W2 containing only God and an infinite number of necessarily good free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts.

This gives us our explicit contradiction, namely, the conjunction of the following propositions:

G. God exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient.

E. There is evil.

14. God prevents from being actual any world W1 that contains evil if there is another creatable world W2 containing at least as much good as W1 and no evil.

15. For any possible creatable world W I containing evil and an infinite number of free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts, there is another possible creatable world W2 containing no evil and an infinite number of necessarily good free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts.

-E. There is no evil (from G, (14], and (15]).

====Best of all possible worlds====
Apologists such as [[Alvin Plantinga]] have made the claim that although there may be some evil in the world, this is in fact the best of all possible worlds. {{Wikipedia|Pangloss|color=#DAE3FF;}}

This theodicy suggests that no improvement may be made to the world. Preventing children from dying in a [[tsunami]] or the [[holocaust]] from happening would be impossible for God. Plantinga argues that God's power is limited in that he cannot sin and cannot violate free will. However, there are plenty of improvements one could make to this world without violating free will or requiring God to sin.

Although it is not a direct problem with the claim itself, it is important to note that many theists who propose this claim also believe in [[Heaven]], which is believed to be an even better world than this one. If this is the best world able to be created then Heaven cannot be created.

See also: The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html#entailment]

====Tough love====
[[Apologists]] often claim that what appears to be harmful to humans may, in fact, be for humanity's good. How can we learn, the argument goes, without making our own mistakes?

The "tough love" argument only works if God is limited in power. If God is omnipotent there is nothing he can not teach us gently that he can teach us harshly. If he is benevolent than he would never choose to teach us a harsh lesson when it could be taught, with exactly the same impact, gently.

Another problem with this argument is that although according to this argument, God wants us to grow as people by learning from our mistakes, according to most religious doctrine he also wants worship. Worship involves complete obedience and submission, whereas learning from mistakes requires using one's intelligence. It is contradictory to claim that God wants us to be both completely obedient and make decisions for ourselves, since complete obedience means blindly obeying authority, for example the story of Abraham and Issac ({{Bible|Genesis 22:1-19}}). Abraham was called "righteous" because he blindly obeyed God's command to murder his son. The fact that God stopped Abraham before the knife fell means nothing- even if he had allowed the murder, Abraham would still be called righteous for obeying God's command.

====Really powerful, not all-powerful====
God is not all-powerful in the sense that he can create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it. So, God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and really really powerful.

If a child is raped and killed, is this because God is not powerful enough to prevent it? I could prevent that and would strive to with the smallest degree of foreknowledge. So if this argument is to succeed it must conclude that I am more powerful than God. And more benevolent.

====God does not exist====
God is unable to prevent evil because God does not exist.
Argument does not apply to non-existing gods.

===God is not omnibenevolent===
====Redefining benevolence====
One way to redefine the term 'benevolence' is to cite limited human perspective in space and time. A parent might spank a child for running into traffic, or take a child to the doctor for painful, life saving, injections. It is only in the limited, child's-eye-view that these things are malevolent.

As with the "tough love" argument, this view of God implicitly denies his omnipotence or, at least, his omniscience. What kind of parent purposely takes his child for a surgery which he knows the child does not need or want?

Another way to redefine 'benevolence' is to argue that God may be benevolent to specific humans or to non-humans. Our entire history may exist for the positive influence it may have on aliens we have not met. We may be actors in a puppet show that makes these beings happy. After all, it is perfectly possible for benevolent humans to play comically violent video games with their delighted children.

But this argument is sophistry. To win the argument the apologist defines a God that neither we nor he would have much reason to worship. For example, if the creatures in a violent "Run and Gun" video game were to gain self awareness, would we expect them to view us as benevolent beings worthy of their love and trust as we blast them into electronic oblivion?

And, if God is not benevolent toward humans, then what differentiates him from a human sociopath or from the [[Devil]]?

The problem of evil must be taken up in the context of humanity. No other context would make a God useful to humans in any realistic way. A God that is benevolent to others at lethal expense to humans is, by definition, malevolent, or at least indifferent, toward humans. It is an unusual apologist indeed who believes in this type of God.

====God is benevolent to the point of impotence====

Some claim that since God is omnibenevolent, he loves all his creatures, even Satan, who is considered by many to be the embodiment of evil. Therefore it would violate his omnibenevolence to simply destroy Satan or any other evil creation. This of course implies that God is not omnipotent. It is also contradicted by the Bible, which states that God hates evil.

====Evil is a consequence of disobeying God====
Evil exists not because it was created by God but because it results from our disobeying God's divine laws.

This explanation argues that God has created a earthly consequence for disobeying divine laws. There are two problems with this argument: 1. Innocents being victims of evil. 2. Immoral people escaping earthly consequence. If this argument was indeed true, infants, children, and otherwise good people would not suffer and murderers, thieves, and the like would not live comfortable lives.

====Perfection implies no lacking====
God is also evil. The argument does not apply.

====God allows evil so that the good is appreciated====
God wants to be loved and is very vain. He wants to be loved so much that he allows many evils to befall mankind so that they appreciate the good more. Much as the blind man healed by Jesus appreciated his sight more because of his blindness.

===God is not omniscient===
Unlike the other characteristics of God, omniscience isn't necessarily required for the argument. Any situation God doesn't see can still be created as intended through the power of omnipotence.

====God does Good. Satan does Evil.====
God only has limited omniscience, he cannot see the future. God simply did not know that Satan would turn against him because he cannot know the future. Satan blindsided God, who lacks future knowledge, and created evil himself. God was betrayed and Satan is the reason evil exists.

If God is all-good and all-powerful, he should snuff out Satan and promptly remove all evil from the world.

===Evil does not exist===
====Redefining evil====
As with "benevolence", "evil" can be redefined. What is "evil" for humans may not be evil for God. In fact, anything that God chooses to do can be construed as "good". Using this argument, "evil" can not exist in any definable terms when applied to God.

Besides the arguments already used in the "Tough Love" response (an all powerful God would have no reason even to appear evil) here, the apologist treads dangerously close to [[ethical relativism]]. We know from information in the bible that ethical rules have changed at the will of God. Is God, then, a relativist?

If the answer is that God is following an ethical plan, then the apologist opens himself up to the [[Euthyphro dilemma]]. If the answer is that God changes as he sees fit and anything that god declares as good is good, then what is the difference between being a relativist and following a relativist God?

When an apologist tries to redefine the premises of "the problem of evil" he finds himself in a morass of relativism, but when he tries to work with the premises he finds himself unwittingly limiting the unlimited God of his religion.

====Evil is an illusion====
We believe that evil exists because we view things like genocide as bad. We are simply wrong, all of these things are good.

Which suggests that everything which has ever happened is objectively good: [[rape]], the [[holocaust]], [[slavery]], [[genocide]]. In order defend this theodicy, a proponent would need to agree that any horrific thing you could mention is a good thing to do.

====It is all part of the plan====
God's divine plan is good. What we think is evil is not, rather it's a part of God's plan we are misidentifying as evil because we cannot see the big picture.

The holocaust is part of God's divine plan? Young girls being raped and murdered is part of God's plan? If such things are part of God's plan, even without seeing the big picture one must conclude that it's a really bad plan. Furthermore, what is the point of a plan if one is all powerful? There are no steps needed; simply create the end results.

====Evil is a test====
Evil is needed so that God can test people.

The holocaust is a test of faith? Whose faith is tested when a child is murdered? If God is omniscient, then God already knows what humans will do in any test.

====Evil is the absence of Good====
Just as cold is the absence of hot and dark is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good.

This contradicts an omnipresent deity. Furthermore, if accurate then an omnipotent omnibenevolent deity should employ his omnipotence to be omnipresent in order to stand vigilant against evil.

Are evil deeds an absence of some corresponding good? Is rape an absence of unrape? Is murder an absence of unmurder? (How many people have you unraped or unmurdered today? We're committing unsins constantly!) Conversely, if baking your neighbor cookies [or name any random act of kindness] is a good deed, what is the absence of that good deed?

===Justifications===
====You bring evil on yourself====
God is good and does good, but any evil you do you brought upon yourself. This is principle the theodicy of Islam.

If you are raped, you were bad. If you have a holocaust happen to you, you were bad. If something bad happens to you, you brought it on yourself. This theodicy consists of blaming the victim.

====Heaven exists after this world====
After you die you can go to heaven which evens everything out in the end. Regardless of what pain and suffering exists here, heaven will balance out the scales. This was often used by religious authorities to justify torture and murder during the many inquisitions and crusades. The victims' temporary agony was justified if it saved them from the eternal agony of hell.

This has nothing to do with the argument, rather it's a conclusion that it doesn't matter if there is evil, rather than address the logical consequence of a deity incompatible with an evil filled world.

==False trilemma?==
One could argue that the argument above does not cover all possibilities, much like C.S. Lewis's trilemma "[[Liar, Lunatic or Lord]]", which does not consider alternate possibilities like "Legend". The argument does not account for a God who is not able and willing, which creates the problem, as paraphrased by Epicurus, that if he is not able or willing, then why call him God?

However, the problem of evil can be restated as follows:
# If evil exists, and God is omniscient, then God knows about it.
# If God knows about evil, and is omnibenevolent, then he wants to prevent it.
# If God wants to prevent evil, and is omnipotent, then he can prevent it (if God wants something to happen, then it happens).
# Therefore, if God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent, then evil should not exist.

There is a logical rebuttal to this version of the problem of evil posited by [[Alvin Plantinga]], a Prominent Philosopher, called the [[Free will defense]]. This defense is widely regarded as solid by the philosophical community, even with some mentionable critisisms.

==The problem of good==

It is fairly easy to flip the argument around: if we postulate that
God is all-evil, the problem of evil becomes the problem of good: why
would an infinitely evil god allow good to exist?

Many or all of the arguments against the problem of evil can easily be
turned around to argue against the problem of good:
* People do good deeds because God gave us free will, which in turn allows us to torment each other in ways that mere automata couldn't.
* Natural beauty, such as sunsets or the majesty of a starry sky, exists so that we may more deeply appreciate the ugliness around us.
* Mystery: while some instances of good may remain unexplained, who can claim to understand the mind of an infinitely evil god?

If the existence of evil in the universe that also includes a lot of
good does not point to an infinitely evil god, then it follows that
the existence of good in a universe that also includes a lot of evil
does not point to the existence of an infinitely good god.

==See also==
* [[Theodicy]]
* [[Problem of Hell]]

==External links==
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Problem of Evil]
* [http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/John_Wright/Hume%20Dialogue%2010.htm Hume and the Evidential Problem of Evil]
* Stephen Law, ''[http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/03/god-of-eth.html The God of Eth]'' — the problem of good
{{Def-word|sophistry}}

{{Arguments against god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
[[Category:Empirical arguments]]

Problem of evil

2010-10-07T22:35:11Z

Daemonowner: added links

{{Wikipedia|color=#DAE3FF;}}
The '''problem of evil''' points out a [[logical contradiction]] in the traditional conceptions of the nature of [[God]] and the world.

Suppose we have the following four premises:
# God is [[omnipotent]].
# God is [[omnibenevolent]].
# God is [[omniscient]].
# [[Evil]] exists.

We get the following contradiction. If God is omnibenevolent, then he does not want evil to exist. If God is omniscient, then he must know about all evil in the world. If God is omnipotent, then he must be capable of doing something about it. Therefore, evil should not exist. Dropping any one of those four premises would resolve the contradiction, but dropping #4 would require us to fundamentally redefine evil in some way, and dropping the other three would undermine the Christian concept of God.

As [[David Hume]] wrote, (paraphrasing [[Epicurus]]):
{{Quote-source|Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?|''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion''}}

"So how do theists respond to arguments like this? [[The Argument from Evil]] They say there is a reason for evil, but it is a mystery. Well, let me tell you this: I'm actually one hundred feet tall even though I only appear to be six feet tall. You ask me for proof of this. I have a simple answer: it's a mystery. Just accept my word for it on faith. And that's just the logic theists use in their discussions of evil." [[Quentin Smith, "Two Ways to Defend Atheism"]]

==Theodicy==
A [[theodicy]] is a proposed solution to the problem of evil. Coined by [[Wikipedia:Gottfried Leibniz|Gottfried Leibniz]] in 1710, in a work called "Theodicy Essay on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil".

A theodicy can generally be divided into four categories, each typically rejecting one of the four premises used to make the argument. The argument is, after all, not an argument for the non-existence of God but an argument for the non-existence of God with the characteristics of [[omniscience]], [[omnipotence]], and [[omnibenevolence]] in the presence of evil. Some arguments aren't solutions to the problem but justifications.

When compared to a easily prevented, extremely "evil" act, such as the rape and murder of a child, or a gross atrocity like the holocaust, [[slavery]] or other [[genocide]]s, most theodicies crumble, quickly exposing them as sophistry with worse implications than the original problem.

'''Another refutation of theodicies:'''

The Moral Argument from Evil is expounded by Dean Stretton in his article on the subject. Here is the full formulation as given by Stretton:

A1. The most rational theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists.

A2a. For any possible world W, if God exists in W, then every instance of evil in W is objectively justified.

A2b. If God exists, then there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, including those evils for which there is a human onlooker

A2. If God exists, then there is objective justification for every actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.

A3. Some members of the class of most rational theists (as I have defined that class) are theists who know A2.

A4. Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know A2) know that there is objective justification for any actual instance of evil, justification that will occur even if no onlooker intervenes to stop or prevent that evil.

A5. If human person P knows that there is objective justification for evil E, and that this justification will occur even if P does not intervene to stop or prevent E, then P is morally justified in allowing E to occur.

A6. Some of the most rational theists (namely, those who know A2) are morally justified in allowing any actual evil to occur.

A7. If the most rational theists know that God exists, then some of those theists (namely, those who know A2) are morally justified in allowing any evil to occur.

A8. Even the most rational theists (including those who know A2) are not morally justified in allowing just any evil to occur.

A9. Even the most rational theists do not know that God exists.

A10. If the most rational theists do not know that God exists, then no theist knows that God exists.

A11. No theist knows that God exists.

A12. For any given theist, that theist’s belief that God exists is either false or unjustified.

A13. If God exists, then some theists are justified in believing that God exists.

A14. If God exists, then no theist has a false belief that God exists.

A15. If God exists, then some theists know (i.e., have a justified, true belief) that God exists.

A16. It is not the case that some theists know (i.e., have a justified and true belief) that God exists.

A17. God does not exist.

This argument can be summarized as follows:

A1 to A2 – If God exists, then all instances of evil are morally justifiable by definition.

A3 to A7 – If all events are morally justifiable, then some believers know that they should not try to stop any instance of presumed evil.

A8 – Yet they do intervene.

A9 to A17 – Therefore their own behaviour proves that God does not exist.

===God is not omnipotent===
====Free will====
It is often claimed that evil exists because God gave humans [[free will]]. According to the Bible, God's gift of free will led to the fall of [[Adam and Eve]] through their [[original sin]]. Free will is assumed to be a greater good than the evil that it causes or is needed by God to serve some purpose. For example, free will is required for people to love God in a free and open fashion. So if a young girl is raped and murdered, this is because God needed the rapist's free will so that his actions could result in greater good or so that the rapist could freely love God.

As Mackie asked: "Why could [God] not have made men such that they always freely choose the good?" Even if man is believed to have free will, God could have created humans such that they would always freely choose the good. This he did not do and is therefore ultimately responsible and blameworthy for any evil act which humans perform.

"For at least some theists, this difficulty is made even more acute by some of their further beliefs: I mean those who envisage a happier or more perfect state of affairs than now exists, whether they look forward to the kingdom of God on earth, or confine their optimism to the expectation of heaven. In either case they are explicitly recognizing the possibility of a state of affairs in which created beings always freely choose the good. If such a state of affairs is coherent enough to be the object of a reasonable hope or faith, it is hard to explain why it does not obtain already."

This argument fails in that free will is given a definition which relies on the ability to perform actions. The implication is that humans must be free to commit actions which would qualify as "evil" as well as "good" in the argument, in order to have free will. In this case, all humans born without this capability, possess no free will. Also, those who have an advantage, of strength, size, or skill, are presumably, more free in their will, in comparison to their potentially smaller, weaker, or less skilled, victims. Therefore, this objection to the problem of evil can only apply where this standard for free will is actually applied. Paradoxically, this puts God in the position of denying free will to someone regardless of God's position on an action, whether God intervenes, or not.

This argument also fails to explain why God allows natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. These events kill large numbers of people in specific geographical locations, which indicates that the concept of "evil" is not necessarily tied to what people do. Furthermore, it fails to account for evil done to people against their will. The argument of free will is used to justify why a infant can be killed, however the infant invoked no measure of free will to allow for this evil to result. So in order to give the gift of free will to this infant, the child is murdered without having any choice in the matter.

Even if we define natural disasters as not being evil, there remains the fact that they occur, and that God does not prevent them or the deaths and suffering they cause. If we replace "evil" with "suffering" in the discussion above, the problem remains: either God is unaware of people's suffering, and is therefore not omniscient; or he is unable to do anything, and is therefore not omnipotent; or he is unwilling to intervene, and is therefore not omnibenevolent.

There is also the question of [[heaven]]. Heaven, being a perfectly wonderful place, does not contain evil. Does this mean that inhabitants of heaven no longer retain their free will? Or does their will suddenly become perfectly good?

Bertrand Russell notes: "[I]t is clear that the fundamental doctrines of Christianity demand a great deal of ethical perversion before they can be accepted. The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before He created the world He foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain; He is therefore responsible for all of it. It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference. If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He decided to create man."

See also: The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html]

A Sound Logical Argument from Evil
[http://www.qsmithwmu.com/a_sound_logical_argument_from_evil.htm A Sound Logical Argument of Evil by Quentin Smith]

Quentin Smith distinguishes three kinds of freedom:

1. External freedom:A person is externally free with respect to an action A if and only if nothing other than (external to) herself determines either that she perform A or refrain from performing A.

2. Internal freedom: And a person is free with respect to an action A at a time t only if no causal laws and antecedent conditions determine either that he performs A at t or that he refrains from so doing. A person is internally free with respect to an action A if and only if it is false that his past physical and psychological states, in conjunction with causal laws, determine either that he perform A or refrain from performing A.

3. Logical freedom: A person is logically free with respect to an action A if and only if there is some possible world in which he performs A and there is another possible world in which he does not perform A. A person is logically free with respect to a wholly good life (a life in which every morally relevant action performed by the person is a good action) if and only if there is some possible world in which he lives this life and another possible world in which he does not.

These distinctions, according to Smith, constitute a sound logical argument from evil. It is possible to be internally-externally free but logically determined with respect to being morally good. This is the case with God, who is both internally and externally free but who does only good actions in each possible world in which he exists.

1. God possesses the maximally valuable consistent conjunction of great making properties.

2. If it were intrinsically better to be logically free with respect to a morally good life than logically determined, and this logical freedom were consistent with God's omnipotence and omniscience, then God would possess this logical freedom.

3. Logical freedom with respect to a morally good life is consistent with omnipotence and omniscience.

4. God is logically determined with respect to a morally good life.

Therefore

5. It is false that it is intrinsically better to be logically free with respect to a morally good life than logically determined.

Premise (3) is true because "x knows all truths" does not entail "It is not logically possible for x to perform a morally wrong action," and "x is all-powerful" does not entail "It is not logically possible for x to perform a morally wrong action." Nor does the conjunction of omniscience and omnipotence entail this.

It follows that a possible world WI containing N number of persons who always do what is right and who are logically determined with respect to moral goodness is (all other things being equal) a more metaphysically valuable world than a world W2 containing N number of persons who are logically free with respect to a morally good way of life. And this suggests that God, if he existed, would have created W1 rather than W2.

Although Plantinga does not address this issue, an unspoken assumption of his argument is that there are no possible creatures who are internally-externally free with respect to a morally good life but logically determined. This assumption is false, for "x is an internally-externally free creature with respect to a morally good life" does not entail "x is logically free with respect to a morally good life." If it did, there would have to be some relevant difference between God and creatures that ensured the entailment goes through in the case of creatures but not God. But what could this difference be? None of the divine attributes (other than necessary goodness) entails necessary goodness. Nor does a conjunction of two or more of these divine attributes entail it. Further, the relevant nondivine attributes do not entail logical freedom with respect to a morally good life. For example, "x knows many but not all truths" does not entail "x freely chooses to do something wrong in at least one possible world in which x exists." Nor is this entailed by "x has the power to do many but not all things." a nonomniscient person can have only true moral beliefs, if only for the reason that it is possible to know all moral truths and not know all mathematical truths. Such a person would be necessarily morally good.

6. It is possible that there is a nonomniscient mind x such that: for each possible world W in which x exists, and for each circumstance in which x is faced with a moral choice, x knows all the factual and moral truths he needs to know to make a correct choice.

7. This mind x is neither causally determined nor causally influenced by any external or internal factors.

8. Necessarily, if a perfectly free mind knows all the moral and factual truths needed to make the morally correct choice in any morally significant circum stance in which he finds himself, then this mind will make the correct choice.

If such persons are possible, worlds containing only such persons and God and no nature (a physical realm) are possible; in these worlds, there is no moral or natural evil. The counterfactual argument that it is possible that if God created these persons in certain circumstances, they would do something wrong, fails because these persons are necessarily good. Accordingly, Plantinga's free will defense cannot be used to show that a world containing these persons is not creatable.

The idea that there are possible creatures who are necessarily good and that God could have created a world containing only them does not depend on the truth of Plantinga's theory of counterfactuals of freedom. At first glance, it might appear there is a dependency because presumably God, if he existed, would have known logically prior to creation counterfactuals about these creatures and made his decision to create a world with them on the basis of this knowledge. For example, God would know prior to creation:

9. If the individual essences of some necessarily good creatures were to be instantiated, the instantiations of these essences would always do what is right.

Proposition (9) is true logically prior to creation even if Plantinga's theory is false, for (9) is analytically true and thereby does not require similarity relations among worlds to make it true. Proposition (9) is true because the antecedent entails the consequent. Accordingly, if the Stalnaker-Lewis theory of counterfactuals is true, there are no logically contingent counterfactuals of freedom that are true logically prior to creation, but there are logically necessary counterfactuals of freedom that are true logically prior to creation, and the latter are all that God needs to know which world to create.

The fact that necessarily good creatures are possible supplies the missing proposition (p') that will enable the conjunction of (G), (E), and (p') to form an explicit contradiction.

Statements (G) and (E) we recall, are

G. God exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient.

E. There is evil.

There are several ways to formulate (p'), one being based on a proposition in Plantinga's first discussion of the free will defense in his article "The Free Will Defence".

10. If God is all-good and the proposition God creates free humans and the free humans He creates always do what is right is consistent, then any free humans created by God always do what is right.

If the negation of (E) is to be deduced from (10) and (G), then (10) needs to be a necessary truth. But we need further premises. One is

11. It is consistent that God creates free humans and the free humans he creates always do what is right.

Another is

12. It is possible that: free humans who always do what is right exist without there being any natural evil, and if God creates these humans, he will not create natural evil.

If (10), (11), and (12) are all necessary truths, then the proposition (p') is the conjunction of ( 10), ( II), and ( 12 ) because the conjunction of these three propositions with (G) entails

-E. There is no evil.

This would give a sound logical argument from evil, for it would show that the theist is committed to a proposition two of whose conjunctions are there is evil and there is no evil.

In "The Free Will Defence" Plantinga attacks (10). He writes, "There seems to be no reason for supposing that (10) is true at all, let alone necessarily true. Whether the free men created by God would always do what is right would presumably be up to them; for all we know they might sometimes exercise their freedom to do what is wrong."

In one sense Plantinga is right, for humans are logically free with respect to a morally good life and being logically free and being logically determined are plausibly thought to be essential properties. There is no possible world in which humans are logically determined with respect to a morally good life. But Plantinga over- looks the possibility that there are possible rational creatures who are internally- externally free but logically determined, and if we take "humans" in (10) in a broad sense as referring to any rational creature, then Plantinga's purported refutation of (10) fails. Thus, the logical argument from evil goes through unscathed by Plantinga's criticism.

The soundness of the logical argument from evil can be seen more clearly if we consider a relevant proposition from Plantinga's God, Freedom and Evil, a proposition that he concedes "for purposes of argument" is a necessary truth (although he subsequently makes no attempt to show it is not a necessary truth). The proposition is

13. An omniscient and omnipotent [and wholly] good being eliminates every evil that it can properly eliminate.

A being properly eliminates an evil state of affairs if it eliminates that evil without either eliminating an outweighing good or bringing about a greater evil. A good state of affairs g outweighs an evil state of affairs e if the conjunctive state of affairs 9 and e is a good state of affairs. Given these definitions, it is plausible to think that (13) is a necessary truth. If a state of affairs is eliminated by its actualization being prevented, and if a possible world is a state of affairs (a maximal state of affairs), then (13) entails

14. God prevents from being actual any world W1 that contains evil if there is another creatable world W2 containing at least as much good as W1 and no evil.

There is no world containing evil that contains more good than a creatable world W2 that contains no evil and that consists of God and an infinite number of necessarily good and internally-externally free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts. This is true by virtue of the mathematics of infinity, for the addition of more creatures or acts to a world containing an infinite number of them does not increase the amount of good, for infinity plus N for any finite number N equals infinity. Thus we cannot say that there is a possible world containing evil and infinity-plus-N good acts and that this world contains more good than a world containing an infinite number of good acts and no evil. Of course, we can get more good acts if we add to a world with aleph-zero good acts an additional aleph-one acts, where aleph-zero is the number of all finite integers and aleph-one is (by the continuum hypothesis) the number of all real numbers. But this sort of argument can be blocked by supporting there is another world with no evil but with aleph-one good acts. The same holds for any other transfinite cardinal greater than aleph-zero.

The above arguments about necessarily good free rational creatures show that

There is some possible creatable world W2 containing only God and an infinite number of necessarily good free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts.

This gives us our explicit contradiction, namely, the conjunction of the following propositions:

G. God exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient.

E. There is evil.

14. God prevents from being actual any world W1 that contains evil if there is another creatable world W2 containing at least as much good as W1 and no evil.

15. For any possible creatable world W I containing evil and an infinite number of free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts, there is another possible creatable world W2 containing no evil and an infinite number of necessarily good free rational creatures who perform an infinite number of good acts.

-E. There is no evil (from G, (14], and (15]).

====Best of all possible worlds====
Apologists such as [[Alvin Plantinga]] have made the claim that although there may be some evil in the world, this is in fact the best of all possible worlds. {{Wikipedia|Pangloss|color=#DAE3FF;}}

This theodicy suggests that no improvement may be made to the world. Preventing children from dying in a [[tsunami]] or the [[holocaust]] from happening would be impossible for God. Plantinga argues that God's power is limited in that he cannot sin and cannot violate free will. However, there are plenty of improvements one could make to this world without violating free will or requiring God to sin.

Although it is not a direct problem with the claim itself, it is important to note that many theists who propose this claim also believe in [[Heaven]], which is believed to be an even better world than this one. If this is the best world able to be created then Heaven cannot be created.

See also: The Free Will Defense Refuted and God's Existence Disproved [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/fwd-refuted.html#entailment]

====Tough love====
[[Apologists]] often claim that what appears to be harmful to humans may, in fact, be for humanity's good. How can we learn, the argument goes, without making our own mistakes?

The "tough love" argument only works if God is limited in power. If God is omnipotent there is nothing he can not teach us gently that he can teach us harshly. If he is benevolent than he would never choose to teach us a harsh lesson when it could be taught, with exactly the same impact, gently.

Another problem with this argument is that although according to this argument, God wants us to grow as people by learning from our mistakes, according to most religious doctrine he also wants worship. Worship involves complete obedience and submission, whereas learning from mistakes requires using one's intelligence. It is contradictory to claim that God wants us to be both completely obedient and make decisions for ourselves, since complete obedience means blindly obeying authority, for example the story of Abraham and Issac ({{Bible|Genesis 22:1-19}}). Abraham was called "righteous" because he blindly obeyed God's command to murder his son. The fact that God stopped Abraham before the knife fell means nothing- even if he had allowed the murder, Abraham would still be called righteous for obeying God's command.

====Really powerful, not all-powerful====
God is not all-powerful in the sense that he can create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it. So, God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and really really powerful.

If a child is raped and killed, is this because God is not powerful enough to prevent it? I could prevent that and would strive to with the smallest degree of foreknowledge. So if this argument is to succeed it must conclude that I am more powerful than God. And more benevolent.

====God does not exist====
God is unable to prevent evil because God does not exist.
Argument does not apply to non-existing gods.

===God is not omnibenevolent===
====Redefining benevolence====
One way to redefine the term 'benevolence' is to cite limited human perspective in space and time. A parent might spank a child for running into traffic, or take a child to the doctor for painful, life saving, injections. It is only in the limited, child's-eye-view that these things are malevolent.

As with the "tough love" argument, this view of God implicitly denies his omnipotence or, at least, his omniscience. What kind of parent purposely takes his child for a surgery which he knows the child does not need or want?

Another way to redefine 'benevolence' is to argue that God may be benevolent to specific humans or to non-humans. Our entire history may exist for the positive influence it may have on aliens we have not met. We may be actors in a puppet show that makes these beings happy. After all, it is perfectly possible for benevolent humans to play comically violent video games with their delighted children.

But this argument is sophistry. To win the argument the apologist defines a God that neither we nor he would have much reason to worship. For example, if the creatures in a violent "Run and Gun" video game were to gain self awareness, would we expect them to view us as benevolent beings worthy of their love and trust as we blast them into electronic oblivion?

And, if God is not benevolent toward humans, then what differentiates him from a human sociopath or from the [[Devil]]?

The problem of evil must be taken up in the context of humanity. No other context would make a God useful to humans in any realistic way. A God that is benevolent to others at lethal expense to humans is, by definition, malevolent, or at least indifferent, toward humans. It is an unusual apologist indeed who believes in this type of God.

====God is benevolent to the point of impotence====

Some claim that since God is omnibenevolent, he loves all his creatures, even Satan, who is considered by many to be the embodiment of evil. Therefore it would violate his omnibenevolence to simply destroy Satan or any other evil creation. This of course implies that God is not omnipotent. It is also contradicted by the Bible, which states that God hates evil.

====Evil is a consequence of disobeying God====
Evil exists not because it was created by God but because it results from our disobeying God's divine laws.

This explanation argues that God has created a earthly consequence for disobeying divine laws. There are two problems with this argument: 1. Innocents being victims of evil. 2. Immoral people escaping earthly consequence. If this argument was indeed true, infants, children, and otherwise good people would not suffer and murderers, thieves, and the like would not live comfortable lives.

====Perfection implies no lacking====
God is also evil. The argument does not apply.

====God allows evil so that the good is appreciated====
God wants to be loved and is very vain. He wants to be loved so much that he allows many evils to befall mankind so that they appreciate the good more. Much as the blind man healed by Jesus appreciated his sight more because of his blindness.

===God is not omniscient===
Unlike the other characteristics of God, omniscience isn't necessarily required for the argument. Any situation God doesn't see can still be created as intended through the power of omnipotence.

====God does Good. Satan does Evil.====
God only has limited omniscience, he cannot see the future. God simply did not know that Satan would turn against him because he cannot know the future. Satan blindsided God, who lacks future knowledge, and created evil himself. God was betrayed and Satan is the reason evil exists.

If God is all-good and all-powerful, he should snuff out Satan and promptly remove all evil from the world.

===Evil does not exist===
====Redefining evil====
As with "benevolence", "evil" can be redefined. What is "evil" for humans may not be evil for God. In fact, anything that God chooses to do can be construed as "good". Using this argument, "evil" can not exist in any definable terms when applied to God.

Besides the arguments already used in the "Tough Love" response (an all powerful God would have no reason even to appear evil) here, the apologist treads dangerously close to [[ethical relativism]]. We know from information in the bible that ethical rules have changed at the will of God. Is God, then, a relativist?

If the answer is that God is following an ethical plan, then the apologist opens himself up to the [[Euthyphro dilemma]]. If the answer is that God changes as he sees fit and anything that god declares as good is good, then what is the difference between being a relativist and following a relativist God?

When an apologist tries to redefine the premises of "the problem of evil" he finds himself in a morass of relativism, but when he tries to work with the premises he finds himself unwittingly limiting the unlimited God of his religion.

====Evil is an illusion====
We believe that evil exists because we view things like genocide as bad. We are simply wrong, all of these things are good.

Which suggests that everything which has ever happened is objectively good: [[rape]], the [[holocaust]], [[slavery]], [[genocide]]. In order defend this theodicy, a proponent would need to agree that any horrific thing you could mention is a good thing to do.

====It is all part of the plan====
God's divine plan is good. What we think is evil is not, rather it's a part of God's plan we are misidentifying as evil because we cannot see the big picture.

The holocaust is part of God's divine plan? Young girls being raped and murdered is part of God's plan? If such things are part of God's plan, even without seeing the big picture one must conclude that it's a really bad plan. Furthermore, what is the point of a plan if one is all powerful? There are no steps needed; simply create the end results.

====Evil is a test====
Evil is needed so that God can test people.

The holocaust is a test of faith? Whose faith is tested when a child is murdered? If God is omniscient, then God already knows what humans will do in any test.

====Evil is the absence of Good====
Just as cold is the absence of hot and dark is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good.

This contradicts an omnipresent deity. Furthermore, if accurate then an omnipotent omnibenevolent deity should employ his omnipotence to be omnipresent in order to stand vigilant against evil.

Are evil deeds an absence of some corresponding good? Is rape an absence of unrape? Is murder an absence of unmurder? (How many people have you unraped or unmurdered today? We're committing unsins constantly!) Conversely, if baking your neighbor cookies [or name any random act of kindness] is a good deed, what is the absence of that good deed?

===Justifications===
====You bring evil on yourself====
God is good and does good, but any evil you do you brought upon yourself. This is principle the theodicy of Islam.

If you are raped, you were bad. If you have a holocaust happen to you, you were bad. If something bad happens to you, you brought it on yourself. This theodicy consists of blaming the victim.

====Heaven exists after this world====
After you die you can go to heaven which evens everything out in the end. Regardless of what pain and suffering exists here, heaven will balance out the scales. This was often used by religious authorities to justify torture and murder during the many inquisitions and crusades. The victims' temporary agony was justified if it saved them from the eternal agony of hell.

This has nothing to do with the argument, rather it's a conclusion that it doesn't matter if there is evil, rather than address the logical consequence of a deity incompatible with an evil filled world.

==False trilemma?==
One could argue that the argument above does not cover all possibilities, much like C.S. Lewis's trilemma "[[Liar, Lunatic or Lord]]", which does not consider alternate possibilities like "Legend". The argument does not account for a God who is not able and willing, which creates the problem, as paraphrased by Epicurus, that if he is not able or willing, then why call him God?

However, the problem of evil can be restated as follows:
# If evil exists, and God is omniscient, then God knows about it.
# If God knows about evil, and is omnibenevolent, then he wants to prevent it.
# If God wants to prevent evil, and is omnipotent, then he can prevent it (if God wants something to happen, then it happens).
# Therefore, if God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent, then evil should not exist.

There is a logical rebuttal to this version of the problem of evil posited by [[Alvin Plantinga]], a Prominent Philosopher, called the [[Free will defense]]. This defense is widely regarded as solid by the philosophical community, even with some mentionable critisisms.

==The problem of good==

It is fairly easy to flip the argument around: if we postulate that
God is all-evil, the problem of evil becomes the problem of good: why
would an infinitely evil god allow good to exist?

Many or all of the arguments against the problem of evil can easily be
turned around to argue against the problem of good:
* People do good deeds because God gave us free will, which in turn allows us to torment each other in ways that mere automata couldn't.
* Natural beauty, such as sunsets or the majesty of a starry sky, exists so that we may more deeply appreciate the ugliness around us.
* Mystery: while some instances of good may remain unexplained, who can claim to understand the mind of an infinitely evil god?

If the existence of evil in the universe that also includes a lot of
good does not point to an infinitely evil god, then it follows that
the existence of good in a universe that also includes a lot of evil
does not point to the existence of an infinitely good god.

==See also==
* [[Theodicy]]
* [[Problem of Hell]]

==External links==
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Problem of Evil]
* [http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/John_Wright/Hume%20Dialogue%2010.htm Hume and the Evidential Problem of Evil]
* Stephen Law, ''[http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/03/god-of-eth.html The God of Eth]'' — the problem of good
{{Def-word|sophistry}}

{{Arguments against god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
[[Category:Empirical arguments]]

Argument from nonbelief

2010-10-06T21:08:04Z

Daemonowner: /* Free will */ added Matt D. to ex-ministers

The '''argument from nonbelief''', '''argument from reasonable nonbelief''', and '''argument from divine hiddenness''' are a related set of [[:Category:Arguments against the existence of God|arguments against the existence of God]] having the following rough form:

# If God existed, this fact would be more obvious.
# God's existence is not, in fact, as obvious as we would expect, if he existed.
# Therefore, God does not exist.

==Arguments for the first premise==
===Argument for God's love===
[[J. L. Shellenberg]], the original proponent of the argument, has argued that a loving God would want to have a relationship with every person on Earth, which requires that his existence be made evident to everyone.

When it comes to the use of divine hiddenness as an objection or evidence against God, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser in the introduction to a volume of papers dedicated to refutations of Schellenberg's argument, cite Nietzsche's question: "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"

===Arguments from evangelical doctrine===
[[Theodore Drange]], who defended the argument in his 1998 book, ''[[Nonbelief and Evil]]: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God'', explicitly focused most of his book on the god of [[evangelical]] [[Christianity]]. He approvingly quoted David and Randall Basinger, who said, "[T]he philosophical community would be better served if it concerned itself primarily with... ''specific'' theological systems."''[citation needed]''

Drange cites a number of [[Biblical]] passages that suggest God strongly desires everyone to be aware of his existence:
* A number verses, including {{Bible|John 3:16}} and {{Bible|Romans 10:9}}, suggest belief is required for salvation.
* {{Bible|1 Timothy 2:4}} says God "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."
Drange also cites a number of divine commands which suggest God wants everyone to believe:
:"(a) God commanded people to 'believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ' ({{Bible|1 John 3:23}}). (b) God commanded people to love him maximally ({{Bible|Matt. 22:37}}, {{Bible|Mark 12:30}}), and called that his 'greatest commandment.' (c) Jesus directed missionaries to preach the gospel message to all nations ({{Bible|Matt. 28:19-20}}) and to all creation ({{Bible|Mark 16:15-16}} NIV)."[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/drange-wilson/drange1.html]

In spite of his emphasis on [[evangelicalism]], Drange has explained that he views his argument as a problem for anyone who would answer "yes" to two questions:
# Could God have done things that would have caused everyone, or almost everyone, to believe that he exists?
# Does God strongly desire that everyone, or almost everyone, believe that he exists?

==The argument's precise form==
Though Shellenberg refers to his argument as dealing with "divine hiddenness," he has specifically formulated it in terms of reasonable or inculpable non-belief:
# If God existed, there would be no instances of reasonable or inculpable non-belief.
# But there are instances of reasonable or inculpable non-belief.
# Therefore, God does not exist.

Theodore Drange, in contrast, has argued the argument should be formulated simply in terms of non-belief. First, he argues that the distinction between non-belief and ''reasonable'' non-belief is unclear. Also, he argues that even if it could be made clear, it would be irrelevant:
: "A perfectly loving deity would set vindictiveness aside and still want to help nonbelievers (by supplying them with evidence of his existence), despite their culpability."

'''Drange's argument from non-belief'''

1.God is omniscient.

2.God is omnipotent.

3.God wants everyone to believe in him.

4.Since God is omniscient, he knows exactly what demonstration would convince any given person that he exists.

5.Since God is omnipotent, he is capable of performing this demonstration.

6.Since God wants everyone to believe in him, he wants to perform this demonstration.

7.However, atheists manifestly exist.

8.Therefore, the god described by the first three conditions does not exist.

==Objections==
===Free will===
Probably the most popular objection to the argument from non-belief is that if God caused everyone to believe, he would be interfering with their [[free will]]. There are many problems with this defense (dubbed the [[Free will defense]]), however. We do not normally consider giving people [[evidence]] of something, or making them aware of something or someone's existence, as interference with their free will. Traditional [[scripture]]s show God frequently giving people (and even [[Satan]], who nevertheless still rejects him) overwhelming evidence of his existence through miracles, and evidently this does not interfere with their free will — or, at least, God as portrayed in these texts does not value free will highly. Also, the free will objection seems to imply that God wants people to believe in him without sufficient evidence; however, there appears to be no good reason for him to want this.

In addition to these things, it seems that the free will objection is not effective against the argument from reasonable non-belief. For example, in his debate with [[Austin Dacey]], [[William Lane Craig]] denied that "If god existed, he would ensure everyone who can have a loving relationship with him believe in him," appealing to free will in support of this point. However, Craig conceded that if God existed, everyone would have reasonable grounds for belief.[http://www.veritas.org/3.0_media/talks/147] On other occasions, Craig has said, "If you're sincerely seeking God, God will make His existence evident to you." This is representative of evangelical claims that all unbelievers are choosing wrongly or being dishonest, "suppressing the truth" as the Bible says. Another example of Craig's perspective is William J. Wainwright, who responded to the argument from non-belief by blaming non-belief on, "human corruption… sinfulness… perversity… [and] tendency to idolatry." This view, however, is almost as difficult to square with the evidence as the view that there are no unbelievers. Among the ranks of contemporary, outspoken non-believers are many people who were once sincere [[orthodox]] Christians, including ministers ([[Dan Barker]], [[Farrell Till]], [[John W. Loftus]], [[Matt Dillahunty]]) and aspiring apologist-scholars ([[Robert M. Price]], [[Bart Ehrman]]).

===Calvinism===
Many [[Calvinist]]s have claimed that the argument from non-belief is inapplicable to Calvinism, because Calvinism holds that God does not want all persons to be saved. This, however, requires an implausible understanding of Biblical passages such as {{Bible|1 Timothy 2:4}}. Also, while Calvinism may not claim God wants everyone to be saved, Calvinists have typically claimed that God wants everyone to be aware of his existence, and in fact all people are aware of God's existence. [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/no_atheists.html]

=== The unknown purpose defense ===

Alvin Plantinga writes that the statement "We can see no good reason for God to do X" only implies "There is no good reason for God to do X" on the assumption that "If there were a good reason for God to do X, we would be able to see it," which he suggests is absurd.

Let X be "having all humans to believe God exists before they die"

Not only is there no good reason for God to refrain from doing X, but it is also irrational for God- especially the Christian God- not to do X.

The Christian God supposedly cares terribly about matters of belief and interaction with humans, as depicted in the bible and other holy books; hence if such a God deeply desires to do X and attempts to do X but fails (as attempting to reveal a religion to all humanity and convince everyone about its validity), then this omnipotent and omniscient being does not exist.

Drange's formulation of the argument (see above) is also a good reply to these theodicies.

==External link==
*[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/nonbelief.html The Argument from (Reasonable) Nonbelief] at Internet Infidels
*[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/steven_conifer/ar.html The Argument from Reason for the Nonexistence of God] at Internet Infidels

==References==
*Theodore Drange. ''Nonbelief and Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God.'' Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1998.
*Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul K. Moser, eds. ''Divine Hiddenness: New Essays.'' Cambridge University Press, 2002.

{{Arguments against god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
[[Category:Empirical arguments]]

Argument from nonbelief

2010-10-06T21:05:59Z

Daemonowner: /* Free will */

The '''argument from nonbelief''', '''argument from reasonable nonbelief''', and '''argument from divine hiddenness''' are a related set of [[:Category:Arguments against the existence of God|arguments against the existence of God]] having the following rough form:

# If God existed, this fact would be more obvious.
# God's existence is not, in fact, as obvious as we would expect, if he existed.
# Therefore, God does not exist.

==Arguments for the first premise==
===Argument for God's love===
[[J. L. Shellenberg]], the original proponent of the argument, has argued that a loving God would want to have a relationship with every person on Earth, which requires that his existence be made evident to everyone.

When it comes to the use of divine hiddenness as an objection or evidence against God, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser in the introduction to a volume of papers dedicated to refutations of Schellenberg's argument, cite Nietzsche's question: "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"

===Arguments from evangelical doctrine===
[[Theodore Drange]], who defended the argument in his 1998 book, ''[[Nonbelief and Evil]]: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God'', explicitly focused most of his book on the god of [[evangelical]] [[Christianity]]. He approvingly quoted David and Randall Basinger, who said, "[T]he philosophical community would be better served if it concerned itself primarily with... ''specific'' theological systems."''[citation needed]''

Drange cites a number of [[Biblical]] passages that suggest God strongly desires everyone to be aware of his existence:
* A number verses, including {{Bible|John 3:16}} and {{Bible|Romans 10:9}}, suggest belief is required for salvation.
* {{Bible|1 Timothy 2:4}} says God "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."
Drange also cites a number of divine commands which suggest God wants everyone to believe:
:"(a) God commanded people to 'believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ' ({{Bible|1 John 3:23}}). (b) God commanded people to love him maximally ({{Bible|Matt. 22:37}}, {{Bible|Mark 12:30}}), and called that his 'greatest commandment.' (c) Jesus directed missionaries to preach the gospel message to all nations ({{Bible|Matt. 28:19-20}}) and to all creation ({{Bible|Mark 16:15-16}} NIV)."[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/drange-wilson/drange1.html]

In spite of his emphasis on [[evangelicalism]], Drange has explained that he views his argument as a problem for anyone who would answer "yes" to two questions:
# Could God have done things that would have caused everyone, or almost everyone, to believe that he exists?
# Does God strongly desire that everyone, or almost everyone, believe that he exists?

==The argument's precise form==
Though Shellenberg refers to his argument as dealing with "divine hiddenness," he has specifically formulated it in terms of reasonable or inculpable non-belief:
# If God existed, there would be no instances of reasonable or inculpable non-belief.
# But there are instances of reasonable or inculpable non-belief.
# Therefore, God does not exist.

Theodore Drange, in contrast, has argued the argument should be formulated simply in terms of non-belief. First, he argues that the distinction between non-belief and ''reasonable'' non-belief is unclear. Also, he argues that even if it could be made clear, it would be irrelevant:
: "A perfectly loving deity would set vindictiveness aside and still want to help nonbelievers (by supplying them with evidence of his existence), despite their culpability."

'''Drange's argument from non-belief'''

1.God is omniscient.

2.God is omnipotent.

3.God wants everyone to believe in him.

4.Since God is omniscient, he knows exactly what demonstration would convince any given person that he exists.

5.Since God is omnipotent, he is capable of performing this demonstration.

6.Since God wants everyone to believe in him, he wants to perform this demonstration.

7.However, atheists manifestly exist.

8.Therefore, the god described by the first three conditions does not exist.

==Objections==
===Free will===
Probably the most popular objection to the argument from non-belief is that if God caused everyone to believe, he would be interfering with their [[free will]]. There are many problems with this defense (dubbed the [[Free will defense]]), however. We do not normally consider giving people [[evidence]] of something, or making them aware of something or someone's existence, as interference with their free will. Traditional [[scripture]]s show God frequently giving people (and even [[Satan]], who nevertheless still rejects him) overwhelming evidence of his existence through miracles, and evidently this does not interfere with their free will — or, at least, God as portrayed in these texts does not value free will highly. Also, the free will objection seems to imply that God wants people to believe in him without sufficient evidence; however, there appears to be no good reason for him to want this.

In addition to these things, it seems that the free will objection is not effective against the argument from reasonable non-belief. For example, in his debate with [[Austin Dacey]], [[William Lane Craig]] denied that "If god existed, he would ensure everyone who can have a loving relationship with him believe in him," appealing to free will in support of this point. However, Craig conceded that if God existed, everyone would have reasonable grounds for belief.[http://www.veritas.org/3.0_media/talks/147] On other occasions, Craig has said, "If you're sincerely seeking God, God will make His existence evident to you." This is representative of evangelical claims that all unbelievers are choosing wrongly or being dishonest, "suppressing the truth" as the Bible says. Another example of Craig's perspective is William J. Wainwright, who responded to the argument from non-belief by blaming non-belief on, "human corruption… sinfulness… perversity… [and] tendency to idolatry." This view, however, is almost as difficult to square with the evidence as the view that there are no unbelievers. Among the ranks of contemporary, outspoken non-believers are many people who were once sincere [[orthodox]] Christians, including ministers ([[Dan Barker]], [[Farrell Till]], [[John W. Loftus]]) and aspiring apologist-scholars ([[Robert M. Price]], [[Bart Ehrman]]).

===Calvinism===
Many [[Calvinist]]s have claimed that the argument from non-belief is inapplicable to Calvinism, because Calvinism holds that God does not want all persons to be saved. This, however, requires an implausible understanding of Biblical passages such as {{Bible|1 Timothy 2:4}}. Also, while Calvinism may not claim God wants everyone to be saved, Calvinists have typically claimed that God wants everyone to be aware of his existence, and in fact all people are aware of God's existence. [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/no_atheists.html]

=== The unknown purpose defense ===

Alvin Plantinga writes that the statement "We can see no good reason for God to do X" only implies "There is no good reason for God to do X" on the assumption that "If there were a good reason for God to do X, we would be able to see it," which he suggests is absurd.

Let X be "having all humans to believe God exists before they die"

Not only is there no good reason for God to refrain from doing X, but it is also irrational for God- especially the Christian God- not to do X.

The Christian God supposedly cares terribly about matters of belief and interaction with humans, as depicted in the bible and other holy books; hence if such a God deeply desires to do X and attempts to do X but fails (as attempting to reveal a religion to all humanity and convince everyone about its validity), then this omnipotent and omniscient being does not exist.

Drange's formulation of the argument (see above) is also a good reply to these theodicies.

==External link==
*[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/nonbelief.html The Argument from (Reasonable) Nonbelief] at Internet Infidels
*[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/steven_conifer/ar.html The Argument from Reason for the Nonexistence of God] at Internet Infidels

==References==
*Theodore Drange. ''Nonbelief and Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God.'' Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1998.
*Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul K. Moser, eds. ''Divine Hiddenness: New Essays.'' Cambridge University Press, 2002.

{{Arguments against god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
[[Category:Empirical arguments]]

Argument from nonbelief

2010-10-06T21:05:26Z

Daemonowner: /* Free will */

The '''argument from nonbelief''', '''argument from reasonable nonbelief''', and '''argument from divine hiddenness''' are a related set of [[:Category:Arguments against the existence of God|arguments against the existence of God]] having the following rough form:

# If God existed, this fact would be more obvious.
# God's existence is not, in fact, as obvious as we would expect, if he existed.
# Therefore, God does not exist.

==Arguments for the first premise==
===Argument for God's love===
[[J. L. Shellenberg]], the original proponent of the argument, has argued that a loving God would want to have a relationship with every person on Earth, which requires that his existence be made evident to everyone.

When it comes to the use of divine hiddenness as an objection or evidence against God, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser in the introduction to a volume of papers dedicated to refutations of Schellenberg's argument, cite Nietzsche's question: "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"

===Arguments from evangelical doctrine===
[[Theodore Drange]], who defended the argument in his 1998 book, ''[[Nonbelief and Evil]]: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God'', explicitly focused most of his book on the god of [[evangelical]] [[Christianity]]. He approvingly quoted David and Randall Basinger, who said, "[T]he philosophical community would be better served if it concerned itself primarily with... ''specific'' theological systems."''[citation needed]''

Drange cites a number of [[Biblical]] passages that suggest God strongly desires everyone to be aware of his existence:
* A number verses, including {{Bible|John 3:16}} and {{Bible|Romans 10:9}}, suggest belief is required for salvation.
* {{Bible|1 Timothy 2:4}} says God "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."
Drange also cites a number of divine commands which suggest God wants everyone to believe:
:"(a) God commanded people to 'believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ' ({{Bible|1 John 3:23}}). (b) God commanded people to love him maximally ({{Bible|Matt. 22:37}}, {{Bible|Mark 12:30}}), and called that his 'greatest commandment.' (c) Jesus directed missionaries to preach the gospel message to all nations ({{Bible|Matt. 28:19-20}}) and to all creation ({{Bible|Mark 16:15-16}} NIV)."[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/drange-wilson/drange1.html]

In spite of his emphasis on [[evangelicalism]], Drange has explained that he views his argument as a problem for anyone who would answer "yes" to two questions:
# Could God have done things that would have caused everyone, or almost everyone, to believe that he exists?
# Does God strongly desire that everyone, or almost everyone, believe that he exists?

==The argument's precise form==
Though Shellenberg refers to his argument as dealing with "divine hiddenness," he has specifically formulated it in terms of reasonable or inculpable non-belief:
# If God existed, there would be no instances of reasonable or inculpable non-belief.
# But there are instances of reasonable or inculpable non-belief.
# Therefore, God does not exist.

Theodore Drange, in contrast, has argued the argument should be formulated simply in terms of non-belief. First, he argues that the distinction between non-belief and ''reasonable'' non-belief is unclear. Also, he argues that even if it could be made clear, it would be irrelevant:
: "A perfectly loving deity would set vindictiveness aside and still want to help nonbelievers (by supplying them with evidence of his existence), despite their culpability."

'''Drange's argument from non-belief'''

1.God is omniscient.

2.God is omnipotent.

3.God wants everyone to believe in him.

4.Since God is omniscient, he knows exactly what demonstration would convince any given person that he exists.

5.Since God is omnipotent, he is capable of performing this demonstration.

6.Since God wants everyone to believe in him, he wants to perform this demonstration.

7.However, atheists manifestly exist.

8.Therefore, the god described by the first three conditions does not exist.

==Objections==
===Free will===
Probably the most popular objection to the argument from non-belief is that if God caused everyone to believe, he would be interfering with their [[free will]]. There are many problems with this defense (dubbed the [[Free Will Defense]]), however. We do not normally consider giving people [[evidence]] of something, or making them aware of something or someone's existence, as interference with their free will. Traditional [[scripture]]s show God frequently giving people (and even [[Satan]], who nevertheless still rejects him) overwhelming evidence of his existence through miracles, and evidently this does not interfere with their free will — or, at least, God as portrayed in these texts does not value free will highly. Also, the free will objection seems to imply that God wants people to believe in him without sufficient evidence; however, there appears to be no good reason for him to want this.

In addition to these things, it seems that the free will objection is not effective against the argument from reasonable non-belief. For example, in his debate with [[Austin Dacey]], [[William Lane Craig]] denied that "If god existed, he would ensure everyone who can have a loving relationship with him believe in him," appealing to free will in support of this point. However, Craig conceded that if God existed, everyone would have reasonable grounds for belief.[http://www.veritas.org/3.0_media/talks/147] On other occasions, Craig has said, "If you're sincerely seeking God, God will make His existence evident to you." This is representative of evangelical claims that all unbelievers are choosing wrongly or being dishonest, "suppressing the truth" as the Bible says. Another example of Craig's perspective is William J. Wainwright, who responded to the argument from non-belief by blaming non-belief on, "human corruption… sinfulness… perversity… [and] tendency to idolatry." This view, however, is almost as difficult to square with the evidence as the view that there are no unbelievers. Among the ranks of contemporary, outspoken non-believers are many people who were once sincere [[orthodox]] Christians, including ministers ([[Dan Barker]], [[Farrell Till]], [[John W. Loftus]]) and aspiring apologist-scholars ([[Robert M. Price]], [[Bart Ehrman]]).

===Calvinism===
Many [[Calvinist]]s have claimed that the argument from non-belief is inapplicable to Calvinism, because Calvinism holds that God does not want all persons to be saved. This, however, requires an implausible understanding of Biblical passages such as {{Bible|1 Timothy 2:4}}. Also, while Calvinism may not claim God wants everyone to be saved, Calvinists have typically claimed that God wants everyone to be aware of his existence, and in fact all people are aware of God's existence. [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/no_atheists.html]

=== The unknown purpose defense ===

Alvin Plantinga writes that the statement "We can see no good reason for God to do X" only implies "There is no good reason for God to do X" on the assumption that "If there were a good reason for God to do X, we would be able to see it," which he suggests is absurd.

Let X be "having all humans to believe God exists before they die"

Not only is there no good reason for God to refrain from doing X, but it is also irrational for God- especially the Christian God- not to do X.

The Christian God supposedly cares terribly about matters of belief and interaction with humans, as depicted in the bible and other holy books; hence if such a God deeply desires to do X and attempts to do X but fails (as attempting to reveal a religion to all humanity and convince everyone about its validity), then this omnipotent and omniscient being does not exist.

Drange's formulation of the argument (see above) is also a good reply to these theodicies.

==External link==
*[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/nonbelief.html The Argument from (Reasonable) Nonbelief] at Internet Infidels
*[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/steven_conifer/ar.html The Argument from Reason for the Nonexistence of God] at Internet Infidels

==References==
*Theodore Drange. ''Nonbelief and Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God.'' Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1998.
*Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul K. Moser, eds. ''Divine Hiddenness: New Essays.'' Cambridge University Press, 2002.

{{Arguments against god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
[[Category:Empirical arguments]]

Argument from nonbelief

2010-10-06T21:05:07Z

Daemonowner: /* Free will */

The '''argument from nonbelief''', '''argument from reasonable nonbelief''', and '''argument from divine hiddenness''' are a related set of [[:Category:Arguments against the existence of God|arguments against the existence of God]] having the following rough form:

# If God existed, this fact would be more obvious.
# God's existence is not, in fact, as obvious as we would expect, if he existed.
# Therefore, God does not exist.

==Arguments for the first premise==
===Argument for God's love===
[[J. L. Shellenberg]], the original proponent of the argument, has argued that a loving God would want to have a relationship with every person on Earth, which requires that his existence be made evident to everyone.

When it comes to the use of divine hiddenness as an objection or evidence against God, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul Moser in the introduction to a volume of papers dedicated to refutations of Schellenberg's argument, cite Nietzsche's question: "a god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions — could that be a god of goodness?"

===Arguments from evangelical doctrine===
[[Theodore Drange]], who defended the argument in his 1998 book, ''[[Nonbelief and Evil]]: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God'', explicitly focused most of his book on the god of [[evangelical]] [[Christianity]]. He approvingly quoted David and Randall Basinger, who said, "[T]he philosophical community would be better served if it concerned itself primarily with... ''specific'' theological systems."''[citation needed]''

Drange cites a number of [[Biblical]] passages that suggest God strongly desires everyone to be aware of his existence:
* A number verses, including {{Bible|John 3:16}} and {{Bible|Romans 10:9}}, suggest belief is required for salvation.
* {{Bible|1 Timothy 2:4}} says God "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."
Drange also cites a number of divine commands which suggest God wants everyone to believe:
:"(a) God commanded people to 'believe on the name of his son Jesus Christ' ({{Bible|1 John 3:23}}). (b) God commanded people to love him maximally ({{Bible|Matt. 22:37}}, {{Bible|Mark 12:30}}), and called that his 'greatest commandment.' (c) Jesus directed missionaries to preach the gospel message to all nations ({{Bible|Matt. 28:19-20}}) and to all creation ({{Bible|Mark 16:15-16}} NIV)."[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/drange-wilson/drange1.html]

In spite of his emphasis on [[evangelicalism]], Drange has explained that he views his argument as a problem for anyone who would answer "yes" to two questions:
# Could God have done things that would have caused everyone, or almost everyone, to believe that he exists?
# Does God strongly desire that everyone, or almost everyone, believe that he exists?

==The argument's precise form==
Though Shellenberg refers to his argument as dealing with "divine hiddenness," he has specifically formulated it in terms of reasonable or inculpable non-belief:
# If God existed, there would be no instances of reasonable or inculpable non-belief.
# But there are instances of reasonable or inculpable non-belief.
# Therefore, God does not exist.

Theodore Drange, in contrast, has argued the argument should be formulated simply in terms of non-belief. First, he argues that the distinction between non-belief and ''reasonable'' non-belief is unclear. Also, he argues that even if it could be made clear, it would be irrelevant:
: "A perfectly loving deity would set vindictiveness aside and still want to help nonbelievers (by supplying them with evidence of his existence), despite their culpability."

'''Drange's argument from non-belief'''

1.God is omniscient.

2.God is omnipotent.

3.God wants everyone to believe in him.

4.Since God is omniscient, he knows exactly what demonstration would convince any given person that he exists.

5.Since God is omnipotent, he is capable of performing this demonstration.

6.Since God wants everyone to believe in him, he wants to perform this demonstration.

7.However, atheists manifestly exist.

8.Therefore, the god described by the first three conditions does not exist.

==Objections==
===Free will===
Probably the most popular objection to the argument from non-belief is that if God caused everyone to believe, he would be interfering with their [[free will]]. There are many problems with this defense (dubbed the [[Free will Defense]]), however. We do not normally consider giving people [[evidence]] of something, or making them aware of something or someone's existence, as interference with their free will. Traditional [[scripture]]s show God frequently giving people (and even [[Satan]], who nevertheless still rejects him) overwhelming evidence of his existence through miracles, and evidently this does not interfere with their free will — or, at least, God as portrayed in these texts does not value free will highly. Also, the free will objection seems to imply that God wants people to believe in him without sufficient evidence; however, there appears to be no good reason for him to want this.

In addition to these things, it seems that the free will objection is not effective against the argument from reasonable non-belief. For example, in his debate with [[Austin Dacey]], [[William Lane Craig]] denied that "If god existed, he would ensure everyone who can have a loving relationship with him believe in him," appealing to free will in support of this point. However, Craig conceded that if God existed, everyone would have reasonable grounds for belief.[http://www.veritas.org/3.0_media/talks/147] On other occasions, Craig has said, "If you're sincerely seeking God, God will make His existence evident to you." This is representative of evangelical claims that all unbelievers are choosing wrongly or being dishonest, "suppressing the truth" as the Bible says. Another example of Craig's perspective is William J. Wainwright, who responded to the argument from non-belief by blaming non-belief on, "human corruption… sinfulness… perversity… [and] tendency to idolatry." This view, however, is almost as difficult to square with the evidence as the view that there are no unbelievers. Among the ranks of contemporary, outspoken non-believers are many people who were once sincere [[orthodox]] Christians, including ministers ([[Dan Barker]], [[Farrell Till]], [[John W. Loftus]]) and aspiring apologist-scholars ([[Robert M. Price]], [[Bart Ehrman]]).

===Calvinism===
Many [[Calvinist]]s have claimed that the argument from non-belief is inapplicable to Calvinism, because Calvinism holds that God does not want all persons to be saved. This, however, requires an implausible understanding of Biblical passages such as {{Bible|1 Timothy 2:4}}. Also, while Calvinism may not claim God wants everyone to be saved, Calvinists have typically claimed that God wants everyone to be aware of his existence, and in fact all people are aware of God's existence. [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/no_atheists.html]

=== The unknown purpose defense ===

Alvin Plantinga writes that the statement "We can see no good reason for God to do X" only implies "There is no good reason for God to do X" on the assumption that "If there were a good reason for God to do X, we would be able to see it," which he suggests is absurd.

Let X be "having all humans to believe God exists before they die"

Not only is there no good reason for God to refrain from doing X, but it is also irrational for God- especially the Christian God- not to do X.

The Christian God supposedly cares terribly about matters of belief and interaction with humans, as depicted in the bible and other holy books; hence if such a God deeply desires to do X and attempts to do X but fails (as attempting to reveal a religion to all humanity and convince everyone about its validity), then this omnipotent and omniscient being does not exist.

Drange's formulation of the argument (see above) is also a good reply to these theodicies.

==External link==
*[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/nonbelief.html The Argument from (Reasonable) Nonbelief] at Internet Infidels
*[http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/steven_conifer/ar.html The Argument from Reason for the Nonexistence of God] at Internet Infidels

==References==
*Theodore Drange. ''Nonbelief and Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God.'' Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1998.
*Daniel Howard-Snyder and Paul K. Moser, eds. ''Divine Hiddenness: New Essays.'' Cambridge University Press, 2002.

{{Arguments against god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments against the existence of God]]
[[Category:Empirical arguments]]

Talk:Argument from the second law of thermodynamics

2010-10-03T20:31:48Z

Daemonowner:

This should be merged into [[Thermodynamics]]. --[[User:Arensb|Arensb]] 08:43, 5 June 2010 (CDT)

== response to creationists ==

since this argument is nonsense, i propose a sort of tongue in cheek nonsense response; something along the lines of "yeah, well creationism breaks the third!". [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

: The 2LoT argument may be bogus, but it's regularly brought up by people who simply don't know any better. So IMHO a snarky response is uncalled for. --[[User:Arensb|Arensb]] 11:23, 3 October 2010 (CDT)

i see your point, perhaps you could use it for amusement but then go ahead to debunk it. [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]]

Talk:Argument from the second law of thermodynamics

2010-10-02T23:19:59Z

Daemonowner:

Talk:Argument from the second law of thermodynamics

2010-10-02T23:19:20Z

Daemonowner: response to creationists

Would someone die for what they knew was a lie?

2010-10-02T08:41:54Z

Daemonowner: added second C.A. point

An often used modern [[argument]] for the [[truth]] of the [[resurrection]] of [[Jesus]] is that of [[martyr]]dom. The claim is that all of the [[apostle]]s would have had first-hand [[knowledge]] as to whether or not Jesus actually returned from the dead and confirmed that he was the [[Jesus|Son of God]]. As they died rather than admit the account was false, this suggests that rather than just [[believe]] that it was true like other martyrs in other faiths, they knew it was true for a fact.

=Counter-apologetics=
* The [[premise]] that people would never "die for a lie" is demonstrably false. People throughout history have, in fact, died for beliefs which turned out to be false, deceptive, poorly understood, and even [[mutually exclusive]].

* The Apostles may well have had first hand knowledge but that doesn't lend any credibility to the claim because we don't have first hand knowledge about them or of their claims. Any number of people can have first hand knowledge of spiderman as stated in his comics, but we still don't believe in spidermans authenticity.

* [[Implicit]] in this argument is the idea that the [[miracles of Jesus]] therefore actually happened, which is not supported by the [[premise]] that his apostles would not have died for a lie. This [[conclusion]] ignores several other possibilities:
*# The apostles strongly believed the stories to be true, but were mistaken:
*#* The ones who were killed never actually [[witness]]ed the events take place themselves, but were told by other apostles, whom they trusted.
*#* They convinced themselves the stories were true, to the point of actually believing they were, even though what they witnessed directly contradicted them.
*#* They remembered the details of the events differently than they witnessed, because the false details were constantly reinforced by everyone they kept company with.
*#* They were fooled. They really did see the events, but what they saw was a [[magic|trick]].
*# The apostles did not believe all of the stories, but died for another reason:
*#* They believed the literal truth of {{Bible|John 3:16}}, and thought they would not die.
*#* They considered the cause to be just, even though they knew some of the stories were embellished or exaggerated.
*#* They were protecting the lives of other people.
*#* They were killed because they were public figureheads for the cause, not due to the specific stories they maintained or denied.
*#* They were killed without being given opportunity to retract their stories.
*#* They stuck to their story to maintain some dignity in their death, as they were going to be killed either way.
*#* They intended to become martyrs.
*# The apostles admitted the stories were not true, but the admission was never made public.
*# They did die protecting the truth, but the stories of those events were later embellished. The "miracles" we now read about are not what they actually saw and died for.
*# The stories of the apostles' deaths were themselves later embellished to present them as martyrs.
*# The apostles were never killed.
*# The existence of the apostles was also an invention.

{{Arguments for god}}

[[Category:Christological arguments]]

Just hit your knees

2010-10-02T07:04:53Z

Daemonowner: fixed typo

{{argument-stub}}
The "Just hit your knees" argument asks the non-believer in question to just drop all logic and rationality and to just accept the theist's [[god]] into your heart for old times sake. This can go two ways. You can refuse to do it because it's ridiculous (you might as ask Kermit the Frog into your heart), or do it and then nothing will happen. When nothing happens, a common response from theist is that you weren't sincere enough, and weren't really asking god into your heart.

==Significance of the Heart==

Usually you will be asked to accept the god into your heart. It's questionable why this god would want to be in your blood pumping organ. Theists also tend to use the word "heart" to claim certainty, for example:

*I know in my heart.

*I feel him in my heart.

But the heart is not for knowing or feeling. Your brain is for knowing things and to feel emotions. Your heart is for pumping blood around your body. So it remains unanswered why would a being require spritiual entry to the heart rather than the brain.

{{Arguments for god}}

Argument from faith

2010-10-02T07:02:40Z

Daemonowner:

An '''argument from faith''' asserts that we can know of the existence of God through faith. Even if it were true, this argument suffers from an obvious limitation; in order to accept the argument, one must already have accepted it.

== Formal statement ==

:: p1. Faith is a unique method of knowing.
:::: a) Nothing can be known for certain or proven from scratch.
:::: b) Instead we must rely on certain assumptions which we take on faith.
:::: c) Through faith one can know these truths that cannot otherwise be verified.
:: p2. The existence of God cannot be determined except through faith.
:: p3. I have faith in God.

:: c1. God exists.

== Counter-arguments ==

=== False premise p1a ===

The premise that nothing can be proven for certain or from scratch can be demonstrated as false when you consider 'I think therefore I am', mathematics and the 3 logical absolutes. You can prove to yourself that your mind exists in some possible form, and that 2 + 2 = 4 with absolute certainty. A simple yet sufficient answer to this premise is 'so what?'. Science does not work with absolute certainty on most subjects, such as evolution which is not proven absolutely however close it may be, but it is still demonstrably the best way to discover the world.

=== Faith is not necessary in any other situation ===

Most skeptical atheists will probably reject the idea that faith is a way of knowing anything. The things which atheists supposedly assume, such as the reliability of the senses, are in fact generally ''not'' taken on faith in the same way as religious ideas are. For one, we are constantly bombarded with new evidence regarding the reliability of the senses, as each one confirms the others, and as new experiences prove to be consistent with old ones. The world could be Matrix-like or a dream, but Occam's razor recommends the straightforward explanation, which is that the world is what it appears to be and not an elaborate illusion created by unknown means. Furthermore, it is a practical necessity to live life based on the best information one has, even if it is not absolutely certain.

That said, even this acceptance is not absolute. Most people are willing to accept the possibility that illusions, hallucinations, or dreams may fool their senses, at least from time to time. This is in strong contrast to religious belief. Theists often feel such a strong loyalty towards their beliefs that they are unwilling to even confront the possibility that they might be wrong. What such people call "faith" is most certainly ''not'' a way of knowing that everyone relies upon.

=== Which God? ===
{{main article|Which god?}}

This argument for the existence of God doesn't specify anything about Him, except to say "He is the God I have faith in." Since many people have different ideas about what God is, they can "prove" to themselves the existence of [[Yahweh]], [[Allah]], [[Vishnu]], or any other deity with this argument. In fact, this is true of virtually every argument for the existence of God that is not explicitly based on a particular scripture.

=== Other ways of knowing God should be possible ===

An omnipotent God, or indeed one with any power great enough to make Him worthy of being called God, should be able to manifest in the physical world, do miracles, speak directly to human beings, and many other things. If He did, faith would be unnecessary, and this would seem to be a far more honest and straightforward way for him to interact with mankind. Since these things don't seem to be happening to people nowadays, the fact that we have to rely on faith to believe in him seems to be a reason to ''not'' believe that he really exists.

=== Faith is not reliable ===

This should be obvious to anyone who takes even a brief moment to think about the subject, but sometimes it must be stated aloud. Cult members and even conventionally religious people often have strong convictions that lead them to commit murder or suicide, even when their beliefs are demonstrably false. Different religions contradict one another, yet they are often based on similar degrees of faith. It's clear that having faith in something, however strong, does not force it to be true, or even lend credibility to the concept. If you say that faith is the only way to determine whether god exists, as stated in p2, then you are out of gas, and more is required.

=== The atheist has no direct access to faith in God ===

By definition, no atheist has faith in God, and it is usually not possible to make yourself believe in just anything for just any arbitrary reason (although this is often what theists seem to be demanding when they require an atheist to have faith in God). As a result, no atheist has any way of evaluating this argument except by noting that other people have faith (in which case she will notice that faith is not a reliable source of knowledge).

In fact, this is a counter-productive argument to use on any kind of atheist. Since it insists that faith is the best or even only way of knowing God, it implies that anyone who cannot have faith should immediately give up on discovering anything about Him. It also encourages theists to give up on ever justifying their own beliefs with solid, objective evidence or reasoning that they could use to shore up their own faith or to convince others.

=== Self-justifying/circular nature of the argument ===

This argument is utterly unconvincing to anyone who does not already believe the conclusion. However, it does provide a way for a believer to reaffirm their faith through circular reasoning (my faith in God is justified by my faith in God). This makes the argument effectively a defensive tactic, one which has no power to convince, but which becomes unassailable through sheer stubbornness. That is, an atheist confronted with someone who sincerely makes this argument may give up, simply because the theist in question appears totally unreachable through rational discussion.

{{Arguments for god}}

[[Category:Arguments]]
[[Category:Arguments for the existence of God]]
[[Category:Arguments for belief]]

Free will defense

2010-09-30T23:17:58Z

Daemonowner: added 'freewill in heaven'

The '''free will defense''' is a apologetic argument posited by [[Alvin Plantinga]] as a solution for the [[problem of evil]]. The argument holds that "it is possible that [[God]], even being [[omnipotent]], could not create a world with [[free will|free]] creatures who never choose [[evil]]. Furthermore, it is possible that God, even being [[omnibenevolent]], would desire to create a world which contains evil if moral goodness requires free moral creatures." Even with the below objections, the argument is considered to solve the problem of evil by the majority of philosophers.

==Problem of evil==

The problem being addressed by Plantinga's argument is the problem of evil:

# An all-powerful (omnipotent) God could prevent evil from existing in the world.
# An all-knowing (omniscient) God would know that there was evil in the world.
# An all-good (omnibenevolent) God would wish to prevent evil from existing in the world.

Since evil does exist, God must lack one of those three qualities.

==Counter-apologetics==

As omnipotence is the ability to do anything, surely he could create a world in which creatures had free will yet never chose evil. A good question to show this problem is asking freewill in Heaven. Since Heaven is said to be perfect, the inhabitants of heaven would never choose evil and yet are not said to be 'robots'. If God could not create a world such as the one described, then surely a greater God could be conceived. Free will could be accomplished if the creatures had the ability to choose what they were doing, just not in the sense of being able to choose evil.

Omnibenevolence is being all-good, and as evil is not good, an all-good should not want evil or not be able to create evil. since evil exists, God does not meet the criterion - God is not wholly good, a more benevolent being can be conceived. For this reason the argument is flawed, he would be considered perhaps good, until other factors like the bible are included (but they are not the subject), but not wholly good.

Another area of criticism in the argument is the type of evil addressed. The argument does not account for natural evil, natural evil being evil that is not caused by choices of creatures or beings. Plantinga's argument suggests that natural evil is caused by non-human beings (spirits or fallen angels, etc).

Also, an error exists in the wording of the last sentence. Moral goodness does not require creatures that are able to commit acts of evil. Moral goodness would still be moral goodness if humans did not exist, because god is said to exist, therefore the moral goodness should still be.

[[Category:Philosophy]]

Argument from poor design

2010-09-21T20:58:22Z

Daemonowner: added suboptimal features list'

The Dysteleological argument, or argument from poor design, is an argument against the existence of [[God]] - specifically a creator God. (Dysteleogology meaning unintelligent.)

The argument typically goes as follows:

# An [[omnipotent]], [[omniscient]] and [[omnibenevolent]] God would create organisms with an optimal design.
# Organisms, especially humans, have features that are suboptimal.
# Therefore, God either did not create these organisms or is not omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.

The argument is usually not proposed as an actual argument, but as a weaker [[Reductio ad absurdum]] of the argument from design - the bedrock argument for the [[Intelligent design]] movement.

Some of the suboptimal features often touted includes:
# The eye (including the human eye, as the retina is backwards -- among other imperfections).
# The Laryngeal nerve (seen most spectacularly in the giraffe with a multiple metre detour to reach a displacement of mere centimetres).
[[Category:Arguments]]

Crocoduck

2010-08-27T23:44:16Z

Daemonowner:

The Crocoduck fallacy is one made by Apologist [[Kirk Cameron]] and was refuted immediately. All it ends up being is a [[straw man]] fallacy. Even though it was refuted Kirk was found to continuously use it mostly with his partner [[Ray Comfort]] (The banana man).

The argument states that for [[evolution]] to be proved right, the sets of transitional fossils need to be completed, and according to Kirk, creatures such as the Crocoduck (Duck with a Crocodile head) need to be discovered.
This fallacy doesn't need much explaining: the theory of evolution does not state that a crocodile has to become a duck or that that precisely happened for evolution to be correct, even if a duck was supposed to have evolved directly into a crocodile nothing says that a duck would have a crocodile head aside from his photoshopped picture.

Ray Comfort

2010-08-24T06:25:30Z

Daemonowner:

{{Ray Comfort}}
'''Ray Comfort''' is a New Zealand [[Christian]] [[apologist]] who co-hosts ''[[The Way of the Master]]'' radio show.

==Favorite arguments==

Ray Comfort has appeared on many [[freethinking]] radio shows. Some arguments come up time and time again (see our articles about these arguments for relevant counter-arguments). Ray is also known to [[lie for jesus]].

===The Watchmaker Argument===

He will usually say something along the lines of "If I see a watch, it must have been made by a watchmaker, a loaf of bread by a baker, a building by an engineer, a creation by a creator."

This is the '''[[argument from design]]'''.

===The Banana Argument===

The '''[[banana argument]]''', in which Comfort points out several features of bananas that indicate they were designed for human use, was presented as evidence of a creator in the ''[[Way of the Master]]'' episode entitled "[[The Beauty of a Broken Spirit—Atheism (Way of the Master)|The Beauty of a Broken Spirit—Atheism]]". Although he called it "the atheist's worst nightmare" in the episode, he later conceded the weakness of the argument on the [[Hellbound Alleee]] show. Comfort still uses it, however, and promotes it in his [http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=231 Atheist Test] tract.

A response to "The Atheist's Nightmare", by Nick Gisburne can be found [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HW06Wz_R74 here.]
===Are you a good person?===
: ''Main article: [[Are you a good person?]]''

This argument uses the [[appeal to emotion]]. Comfort asks the unbeliever a set of questions. A nutshell version of the argument is as follows:
* Are you a good person? Are you sure?
* Have you ever lied in your life? Yes? Then you're a liar.
* God hates lies. You deserve to go to [[hell]].
* Luckily, you have Jesus. Hope you'll accept him.

Comfort will seize any admission of imperfection to condemn his interlocutor: stealing a piece of candy from a store when one was a child counts as a "yes" answer to "Have you ever stolen anything?". Comfort's god considers this equivalent to robbing a bank.

==Books==
Ray Comfort has written many christian books including:
*[[Nothing Created Everything (book) | Nothing Created Everything]]: The Scientific Impossibility of Atheistic Evolution
*[[You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think]]: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics
*Evolution A Fairy Tale for Grownups
*God Doesn't Believe in Atheists: Proof That the Atheist Doesn't Exist
*Hell's Best Kept Secret
*Scientific Facts in the Bible: 100 Reasons to Believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin
*The Evidence Bible
*The School Of Biblical Evangelism
*Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution: Letters to an Atheist
*How to Bring Your Children to Christ..& Keep Them There: Avoiding the Tragedy of False Conversion
*Out of the Comfort Zone
*Overcoming Panic Attacks
*The World's Greatest Preachers
*Wesley Gold
*What Did Jesus Do? : A Call to Return to the Biblical Gospel
*How to Live Forever Without Being Religious
*What Hollywood Believes: An Intimate Look at the Faith of the Famous
*Thanks a Million!
*Hollywood Be Thy Name
*Russia Will Attack Israel

==External links==
* "[http://raytractors.blogspot.com/ The Raytractors]" now at "[http://www.wearesmrt.com/ WeAreSMRT]", Ray Comfort's Detractors, a community of atheists and theists who critique and respond to Ray and the Way of the Master.
* ''[http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/ Atheist Central]'', Ray Comfort's weblog (former title: ''Comfort Food'').

{{wayofthemaster}}

[[Category:People|Comfort, Ray]]
[[Category:Christian apologists|Comfort, Ray]]

Noah's ark

2010-08-15T07:38:52Z

Daemonowner: added counter #12

In the [[Bible]], this is the story of how [[God]] drowned every person on earth with a great flood, sparing only a man named Noah and his family of seven. [[Fundamentalist]]s believe that the story is literally true, and there have been many claims to have found the ark on which Noah and his family sailed.

==The story==

The story of Noah's ark is told in {{bible|Genesis 6:11-8:22}}. God sees that the world has become full of evil, and decides to kill everyone on Earth, with the exception of Noah, Noah's unnamed wife, and his three sons and their respective unnamed wives.

God explains to Noah that he is going to flood Earth, and tells him to build an ark. God gives instructions on how to build the ark, what its dimensions should be, and so forth. He also tells Noah to bring representative samples of all living creatures: either one pair of each animal ({{bible|Genesis 6:19-20}}) or seven of each clean animal (or seven pairs) and two of each unclean animal ({{bible|Genesis 7:2-3}}).

After the animals have been loaded onto the ark, God sends rain and opens up the "fountains of the great deep" for forty days and forty nights, until the earth is covered with water and every living being has died, except for those on the ark. The floodwaters start subsiding, and a year later the ark rests on "the mountains of Ararat."

Noah releases a raven through the window of the ark, but it can't find any dry land, and keeps flying around until the water subsides. Noah sends out a dove, but it returns, not having found any dry land. A week later, Noah releases the dove again, and this time it returns with an olive leaf in its beak, indicating that the water level is getting low. A week later, he releases the dove again, but it fails to return, and Noah looks out to see that the world has dried out.

==Counter-arguments==

# This story assumes that a perfectly loving [[Omnibenevolent]] God killed the whole human population including innocent babies and children. A perfectly just God judges that these babies and children deserved death by drowning. A God such as the christian God should have been able to take a different route rather than killing everyone, and he would have wanted to take practically any other route because he he supposedly omnibenevolent.
# There are millions of known animal species in the world; it would take an impossibly large ship to hold representatives of all species, not to mention food for at least a year.
# Assuming that Noah did not take two of each species, but two of each "[[Kind#Biblical_.22Kinds.22|kind]]", that still requires an awfully rapid [[evolution]] explosion to account for the biological diversity today. If all creatures on earth were destroyed some five thousand years ago in the Great Flood, it would require incredibly fast evolution to cause, for instance, the dog "kind" to produce both dire wolves and Chihuahuas. If we take a very conservative estimate of 1 million species that descended from creatures on Noah's ark, and assume that 16,000 "kinds" of animal were on the ark, each "kind" would have had to evolve into over 62 species in the 4,000 years since Noah's flood.
# The flood story does not explain the present geographic distribution of species, e.g., how did marsupials wind up in Australia, and only in Australia?
# The story of Noah is not unique. For one, there are several versions of the Noah account itself, passed down and changed over time, with only the latest version being used in the Bible. But even it is derivative of previous flood myths.
#* The flood myth in the [[Epic of Gilgamesh]], similar in many respects to that of Noah, is dated as early as 2150 BCE (Sumerian version) with the latest "standard" Akkadian tablets dated between 1,300 and 1,000 BCE.
#* The oldest fragments of the [[Septuagint]], which forms the basis of modern version of Genesis in the Bible, is dated to 132 AD with its composition beginning between 300 and 200 BCE. The Wellhausen hypothesis dates the composition of the earliest forms of Genesis to between 950 and 500 BCE.
#* Note that this is the dating of the tablets and texts themselves, not of the timeline of the story. The earlier date of composition is a factor in showing the Biblical version of the story to be derivative.
# The Deluge would have meant the resetting of DNA lines for nearly every living thing on earth. All DNA lines should curiously and rapidly narrow to small breeding populations located in the Middle East. Ignoring every other creature on earth, we can say with some confidence, that human DNA lines appear to originate in Africa. Most lines do not appear to have stopped in the middle east 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
# The Deluge, according to the [[Ussher chronology]], occurred circa 2348 BCE. It should have represented a clear historical breaking point for every civilization around the world. No such breaking point exists. History appears to continue uninterrupted through the flood in every other part of the world.
# Once the animals got off the ark, they would have nothing to eat. All the plants would have died in the flood, so the herbivores would have nothing to eat. The carnivores would wipe them out anyway, and then they would die too.
# Creationists often claim that there were only babies of each species and only seeds of each plant on the ark, but then this would require a time for them to grow. For every ten units of mass on one level of the food chain, only one unit of mass can be created on the next level. That means for a lion, which weighs over 400 pounds, to become fully grown, he needs to eat 4,000 pounds of meat, and that animal would have to eat 40,000 pounds of plant to get that much weight.
# A single worldwide deluge cannot explain the distribution of fossils in the fossil record:
#* Radiometric dating, geological layering (both fossils and otherwise), major extinction events, corrosion, and mountain range formation all line up to show the same age. Any argument that attacks a single dating method has to address why all of them show the same thing.
#* Even if the dating method is not accepted as accurate (i.e. you don't believe a fossil is 250 million years old), every dating method shows the same relative difference. So to be successful, even an argument that attacks every dating method would have to show why they're all out by the same amount, to account for the agreement over the relative age.
#* Given the distribution of fossils, even if fossilization were accelerated under high-pressure water, which it is not, there have still been several times when almost all life has been wiped out (we're talking 50-75% of all species going extinct, not 50-75% of all individual animals dying). No apologist argument addresses all five major extinction events.
# What about the complex ecosystems that would have been destroyed from the flood? All it would have taken is one animal dying and then the other couldn't reproduce and would die, and the animals that require that species alive for any number of reasons would have died, and subsequently would have killed off an entire ecosystem or more. A birth defect would have a remarkable chance of occuring which could have caused an outcome such as this.
# Considering that the waters from around the world would have mixed, the content of salt would have been altered resulting in the sea life being killed worldwide.
# Isn't God all-knowing, and therefore knowing of all possibilities aside from a global flood which killed babies and that required a family to commit incest and their subsequent children to do the same down all generations?

==Flood models==

===Vapor Canopy===

This is the Flood Model in which the water was suspended above Earth in ice, liquid water, or water vapor state. At the end of the seven days, it came down to the surface as rain.

If a canopy of more than 40 feet of water were suspended above Earth, atmospheric pressure would skyrocket to 64 times the norm; nitrogen and oxygen would reach toxic levels causing [[Wikipedia:Decompression sickness|the bends]] worldwide. If the canopy began as vapor, it would have to be at a minimum of 100 degrees Celsius to remain in a gaseous state. As this heat dispersed, Earth would have been cooked. If the suspended water were in ice form, the gravitational potential energy would also have raised the temperature past the boiling point. Some models have the ice orbiting Earth; if it were not within the ozone layer, UV radiation would have broken them apart.

A canopy thick enough to provide the water for a global flood would have blocked a great deal of sunlight, lowering the temperature greatly.

===Hydroplate===

This model proposes that roughly ten miles below the Earth's surface was a layer of water, and at the end of the seven days, the crust of the earth ruptured and the pressurized water shot out and fell as rains.

Rock (with the exception of pumice) doesn't float, a layer of water below Earth's crust would have been forced to the surface long before the flood. Even a mile deep, the earth is hot enough to boil water. When it did finally come out it would have been superheated, as that heat dispersed throughout the atmosphere the global temperature would have increased dramatically and the ark would be cooked. There is also a large lack of evidence. When the water escaped from the ground, it would have left huge gashes in Earth's crust. Blowing through ten miles of rock is no small task, there should be large holes, and poorly sorted basaltic deposits (Noah also would have had to watch his head for falling rocks). Such formations should be easily visible but we see none.

===Comet===

Kent Hovind proposed that the flood waters came from comets that broke up in the atmosphere and rained water down to Earth.

Any comet large enough to contain all the water needed to flood Earth would have been too large to just break up in the atmosphere, and it would have taken far too many smaller ones for them to all come at Earth at the same time. Comets entering the atmosphere would have been burned up, and the water would be steam.

===Runaway Subduction===

This flood model proposes that the pre-flood ocean floor sank into the mantle, the heat released caused the plate to melt faster. All the original plate subducted and the new magma raised the ocean floor and boiled off water that then fell as rains. When this magma cooled, the sea floor lowered again and the oceans got deeper. Isostatic rebound formed mountains like the Rocky Mountains and the Andes.

To get the proposed subduction rates, the thermal diffusivity of Earth (how well heat moves through Earth) would have to increase 10,000 fold. Additional miracles are required to cool the new ocean floor in months in stead of the millions of years it should take. Studies estimated that the energy released would be 10^28 joules, more then enough to boil off the oceans. The mantle also would have had to be hotter for this model to work. All this heat would have to be radiated to the surface, and eventually out of the atmosphere.

===New ocean basins===

This is the model that most others use to explain where the flood water went after the flood. It states that the water became our present day oceans, Earth's topography was much flatter in the time before the flood, and during the flood there was widespread reconstruction of the surface. After the flood the water drained into the new ocean basins.

The heat required to make the crust malleable enough for such widespread reconstruction packed into a few months would require additional miracles. Most sediments are found on high ground. Most sediments are transported with the water until the water slows down. Since it is expected that the water was rushing off the continents and into the basins, there should be much more sediment on the ocean floor, where the water slowed down and deposited to sediment. The opposite is true. With all that water rushing to the lower ground, there should be evidence of large torrents crossing the continents. There are similar marks in Washington when an ice dam broke and a lake drained.

==External Links==
===Logical Inconsistencies===
* [http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/bad0d3c8a5fb8d8b?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 Torpedo Ye Arke], by Pat James
* [http://skepdic.com/noahsark.html The Skeptic's Dictionary]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MPrtyIGE7Y Nick Gisburne's analysis of Noah's Ark]
* [http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/on-the-two-biblical-flood "Nelson"'s analysis of the two interwoven, contradictory Flood stories]

===Biblical Timelines===
* [http://atheism.about.com/library/chronologies/blchron_ot1.htm About.com Religious Timelines]
* [http://www.andrews.edu/SEM/bket/BKET%20OT%20Time%20Line.htm The Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary Timeline]
* [http://www.wordsight.org/btl/000_btl-fp.htm Word Sight's Bible Time-line]

===Historical Timelines===
* [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/03/wam/ht03wam.htm The Metropolitan Museum of Art historical timeline]
* [http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Doc6/3rdmill.htm Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago historical timeline]
* [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001198.html Infoplease.com Ancient history timeline]

===Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim===
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utnapishtim Wikipedia Entry: Utnapishtim]
* [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/ The Epic of Gilgamesh]

===DNA and Mapping Human Migration===
* [https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html National Geographic and the Genographic Project]

[[Category:Religious mythology]]
[[Category:Bible]]

Noah's ark

2010-08-15T05:11:07Z

Daemonowner: added counter #11, added to counter #1

In the [[Bible]], this is the story of how [[God]] drowned every person on earth with a great flood, sparing only a man named Noah and his family of seven. [[Fundamentalist]]s believe that the story is literally true, and there have been many claims to have found the ark on which Noah and his family sailed.

==The story==

The story of Noah's ark is told in {{bible|Genesis 6:11-8:22}}. God sees that the world has become full of evil, and decides to kill everyone on Earth, with the exception of Noah, Noah's unnamed wife, and his three sons and their respective unnamed wives.

God explains to Noah that he is going to flood Earth, and tells him to build an ark. God gives instructions on how to build the ark, what its dimensions should be, and so forth. He also tells Noah to bring representative samples of all living creatures: either one pair of each animal ({{bible|Genesis 6:19-20}}) or seven of each clean animal (or seven pairs) and two of each unclean animal ({{bible|Genesis 7:2-3}}).

After the animals have been loaded onto the ark, God sends rain and opens up the "fountains of the great deep" for forty days and forty nights, until the earth is covered with water and every living being has died, except for those on the ark. The floodwaters start subsiding, and a year later the ark rests on "the mountains of Ararat."

Noah releases a raven through the window of the ark, but it can't find any dry land, and keeps flying around until the water subsides. Noah sends out a dove, but it returns, not having found any dry land. A week later, Noah releases the dove again, and this time it returns with an olive leaf in its beak, indicating that the water level is getting low. A week later, he releases the dove again, but it fails to return, and Noah looks out to see that the world has dried out.

==Counter-arguments==

# This story assumes that a perfectly loving [[Omnibenevolent]] God killed the whole human population including innocent babies and children. A perfectly just God judges that these babies and children deserved death by drowning. A God such as the christian God should have been able to take a different route rather than killing everyone, and he would have wanted to take practically any other route because he he supposedly omnibenevolent.
# There are millions of known animal species in the world; it would take an impossibly large ship to hold representatives of all species, not to mention food for at least a year.
# Assuming that Noah did not take two of each species, but two of each "[[Kind#Biblical_.22Kinds.22|kind]]", that still requires an awfully rapid [[evolution]] explosion to account for the biological diversity today. If all creatures on earth were destroyed some five thousand years ago in the Great Flood, it would require incredibly fast evolution to cause, for instance, the dog "kind" to produce both dire wolves and Chihuahuas. If we take a very conservative estimate of 1 million species that descended from creatures on Noah's ark, and assume that 16,000 "kinds" of animal were on the ark, each "kind" would have had to evolve into over 62 species in the 4,000 years since Noah's flood.
# The flood story does not explain the present geographic distribution of species, e.g., how did marsupials wind up in Australia, and only in Australia?
# The story of Noah is not unique. For one, there are several versions of the Noah account itself, passed down and changed over time, with only the latest version being used in the Bible. But even it is derivative of previous flood myths.
#* The flood myth in the [[Epic of Gilgamesh]], similar in many respects to that of Noah, is dated as early as 2150 BCE (Sumerian version) with the latest "standard" Akkadian tablets dated between 1,300 and 1,000 BCE.
#* The oldest fragments of the [[Septuagint]], which forms the basis of modern version of Genesis in the Bible, is dated to 132 AD with its composition beginning between 300 and 200 BCE. The Wellhausen hypothesis dates the composition of the earliest forms of Genesis to between 950 and 500 BCE.
#* Note that this is the dating of the tablets and texts themselves, not of the timeline of the story. The earlier date of composition is a factor in showing the Biblical version of the story to be derivative.
# The Deluge would have meant the resetting of DNA lines for nearly every living thing on earth. All DNA lines should curiously and rapidly narrow to small breeding populations located in the Middle East. Ignoring every other creature on earth, we can say with some confidence, that human DNA lines appear to originate in Africa. Most lines do not appear to have stopped in the middle east 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
# The Deluge, according to the [[Ussher chronology]], occurred circa 2348 BCE. It should have represented a clear historical breaking point for every civilization around the world. No such breaking point exists. History appears to continue uninterrupted through the flood in every other part of the world.
# Once the animals got off the ark, they would have nothing to eat. All the plants would have died in the flood, so the herbivores would have nothing to eat. The carnivores would wipe them out anyway, and then they would die too.
# Creationists often claim that there were only babies of each species and only seeds of each plant on the ark, but then this would require a time for them to grow. For every ten units of mass on one level of the food chain, only one unit of mass can be created on the next level. That means for a lion, which weighs over 400 pounds, to become fully grown, he needs to eat 4,000 pounds of meat, and that animal would have to eat 40,000 pounds of plant to get that much weight.
# A single worldwide deluge cannot explain the distribution of fossils in the fossil record:
#* Radiometric dating, geological layering (both fossils and otherwise), major extinction events, corrosion, and mountain range formation all line up to show the same age. Any argument that attacks a single dating method has to address why all of them show the same thing.
#* Even if the dating method is not accepted as accurate (i.e. you don't believe a fossil is 250 million years old), every dating method shows the same relative difference. So to be successful, even an argument that attacks every dating method would have to show why they're all out by the same amount, to account for the agreement over the relative age.
#* Given the distribution of fossils, even if fossilization were accelerated under high-pressure water, which it is not, there have still been several times when almost all life has been wiped out (we're talking 50-75% of all species going extinct, not 50-75% of all individual animals dying). No apologist argument addresses all five major extinction events.
# What about the complex ecosystems that would have been destroyed from the flood? All it would have taken is one animal dying and then the other couldn't reproduce and would die, and the animals that require that species alive for any number of reasons would have died, and subsequently would have killed off an entire ecosystem or more.

==Flood models==

===Vapor Canopy===

This is the Flood Model in which the water was suspended above Earth in ice, liquid water, or water vapor state. At the end of the seven days, it came down to the surface as rain.

If a canopy of more than 40 feet of water were suspended above Earth, atmospheric pressure would skyrocket to 64 times the norm; nitrogen and oxygen would reach toxic levels causing [[Wikipedia:Decompression sickness|the bends]] worldwide. If the canopy began as vapor, it would have to be at a minimum of 100 degrees Celsius to remain in a gaseous state. As this heat dispersed, Earth would have been cooked. If the suspended water were in ice form, the gravitational potential energy would also have raised the temperature past the boiling point. Some models have the ice orbiting Earth; if it were not within the ozone layer, UV radiation would have broken them apart.

A canopy thick enough to provide the water for a global flood would have blocked a great deal of sunlight, lowering the temperature greatly.

===Hydroplate===

This model proposes that roughly ten miles below the Earth's surface was a layer of water, and at the end of the seven days, the crust of the earth ruptured and the pressurized water shot out and fell as rains.

Rock (with the exception of pumice) doesn't float, a layer of water below Earth's crust would have been forced to the surface long before the flood. Even a mile deep, the earth is hot enough to boil water. When it did finally come out it would have been superheated, as that heat dispersed throughout the atmosphere the global temperature would have increased dramatically and the ark would be cooked. There is also a large lack of evidence. When the water escaped from the ground, it would have left huge gashes in Earth's crust. Blowing through ten miles of rock is no small task, there should be large holes, and poorly sorted basaltic deposits (Noah also would have had to watch his head for falling rocks). Such formations should be easily visible but we see none.

===Comet===

Kent Hovind proposed that the flood waters came from comets that broke up in the atmosphere and rained water down to Earth.

Any comet large enough to contain all the water needed to flood Earth would have been too large to just break up in the atmosphere, and it would have taken far too many smaller ones for them to all come at Earth at the same time. Comets entering the atmosphere would have been burned up, and the water would be steam.

===Runaway Subduction===

This flood model proposes that the pre-flood ocean floor sank into the mantle, the heat released caused the plate to melt faster. All the original plate subducted and the new magma raised the ocean floor and boiled off water that then fell as rains. When this magma cooled, the sea floor lowered again and the oceans got deeper. Isostatic rebound formed mountains like the Rocky Mountains and the Andes.

To get the proposed subduction rates, the thermal diffusivity of Earth (how well heat moves through Earth) would have to increase 10,000 fold. Additional miracles are required to cool the new ocean floor in months in stead of the millions of years it should take. Studies estimated that the energy released would be 10^28 joules, more then enough to boil off the oceans. The mantle also would have had to be hotter for this model to work. All this heat would have to be radiated to the surface, and eventually out of the atmosphere.

===New ocean basins===

This is the model that most others use to explain where the flood water went after the flood. It states that the water became our present day oceans, Earth's topography was much flatter in the time before the flood, and during the flood there was widespread reconstruction of the surface. After the flood the water drained into the new ocean basins.

The heat required to make the crust malleable enough for such widespread reconstruction packed into a few months would require additional miracles. Most sediments are found on high ground. Most sediments are transported with the water until the water slows down. Since it is expected that the water was rushing off the continents and into the basins, there should be much more sediment on the ocean floor, where the water slowed down and deposited to sediment. The opposite is true. With all that water rushing to the lower ground, there should be evidence of large torrents crossing the continents. There are similar marks in Washington when an ice dam broke and a lake drained.

==External Links==
===Logical Inconsistencies===
* [http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/bad0d3c8a5fb8d8b?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 Torpedo Ye Arke], by Pat James
* [http://skepdic.com/noahsark.html The Skeptic's Dictionary]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MPrtyIGE7Y Nick Gisburne's analysis of Noah's Ark]
* [http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/on-the-two-biblical-flood "Nelson"'s analysis of the two interwoven, contradictory Flood stories]

===Biblical Timelines===
* [http://atheism.about.com/library/chronologies/blchron_ot1.htm About.com Religious Timelines]
* [http://www.andrews.edu/SEM/bket/BKET%20OT%20Time%20Line.htm The Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary Timeline]
* [http://www.wordsight.org/btl/000_btl-fp.htm Word Sight's Bible Time-line]

===Historical Timelines===
* [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/03/wam/ht03wam.htm The Metropolitan Museum of Art historical timeline]
* [http://fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Doc6/3rdmill.htm Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago historical timeline]
* [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001198.html Infoplease.com Ancient history timeline]

===Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim===
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utnapishtim Wikipedia Entry: Utnapishtim]
* [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/ The Epic of Gilgamesh]

===DNA and Mapping Human Migration===
* [https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html National Geographic and the Genographic Project]

[[Category:Religious mythology]]
[[Category:Bible]]

You are a communist

2010-08-11T01:29:58Z

Daemonowner:

"No you are the communist"

"Well I'm a registered voter in a Democratic Republic who votes regularly...Did you vote?"

This claim is completely inane and scorn is probably deserved. You do not need to argue with such a claim. You can argue past it to an audience and then say "next" or pass by the claimant without any acknowledgment.

Talk:Big Daddy? (Chick tract)

2010-07-31T22:28:01Z

Daemonowner: /* Panel 11 */

Panel 7's footnote - "It has never been against the law to teach creationism in public schools."
There's another red herring here...a bit of misdirection. The footnote is true, it's never been against the law to teach creationism...provided you teach it in a comparative religions class (or similar), and not as science or fact. You're correct to point out that the student is justified in expressing his religious opinion - though I'd add that the primary justification for this because he was '''asked''' to do so.

Going through the various rulings on the subject we see a clearer picture (all rulings affect public schools only):
* Epperson v. Arkansas (Supreme)
** Schools cannot ban evolution
* Edwards v. Aguillard (Supreme)
** Schools cannot require equal time for creationism
** (Note that this is probably the case you meant to cite as it specifically targets "equal time" issues)
* McLean v Arkansas (District)
** Creation science is religious dogma (unchangeable with new evidence) which means it's not science
** As it's not science, it can't be taught as fact and "equal time" is not allowed
* Webster v. New Lennox School District (7th Circuit)
** Teachers can't take it upon themselves to teach creationism
** Doing so is a violation of the 1st amendment, just as if it had been ordered by the school
** This is the key case that points out the critical flaw in the footnote. If creationism is taught in science class, by a teacher, it's illegal.

You can use this or ignore it, I'll probably put together a quickie article on creationism in the public schools, based on these and other items - though I have no idea how quickly I'll get to that. [[User:Sans Deity|Sans Deity]] 23:14, 18 August 2006 (MST)
----
I created and added a template to this page, let me know what you think. Mediawiki is pretty good about handling edit merges, but as the wiki community grows, it seems like adding a quick warning about editing a work in progress seems like a good idea.

There's another option available to you, also - click the protect tab. Only sysops will be allowed to edit the page and it posts a warning on the edit screen...which should be enough to keep us from stepping on each other's toes. Just remove the protect setting when you're done and it'll be back to normal.[[User:Sans Deity|Sans Deity]] 14:32, 19 August 2006 (MST)
----

== Including more pictures? ==

As Jack Chick is drowning the world in these little nuggets would it be possible to include more panels rather than transcribing.
Any suggestions how we can check up on the legality of that (and whether it's actually a worthwhile contribution to the page.)
{{unsigned|Illogicology|7 November 2008}}

== Comment on Panel 31 ==

So since the good lord holds atoms together, what exactly happens in a nuclear reaction? Does he let go? Sneeze? Get distracted? If it were true, then god would be doubly responsible for the horror caused by nuclear weapons. Not only did he permit the socio-political climate suitable to the use of nuclear weapons to occur at the end of WWII but he also forgot to hold on to all of those uranium atoms. If he had not forgotten, Little boy would have just been 4,000 kg rock we dropped out of the sky.

I live in an area that uses nuclear power. Is the power plant a special no-lord zone? Why does god specifically let go of the really heavy atoms, and not all the boring stuff in the concrete and steel that the reactor is built from. If there's a special volume of space where god allows atoms to be flung apart all willy nilly, shouldn't we get a couple (just 2) christians to pray and ask that he keep his atom pinching invisible brain power on the concrete and rebar that surrounds the reactor core? It could cause a big mess if he got distracted by a shiny object.

== Richard Leakey link ==

The link to the refutation of the Richard Leakey claim leads to a page that has no mention of Richard Leakey. I've searched the site using the search facility and found nothing about it. Is there another link that could be used?--[[User:Jcvamp|Jcvamp]] 11:49, 12 April 2010 (CDT)

== Panel 11 ==

The comment to this panel jumps through some hoops to prove that one wrong, and they are basically unnecessary. Macro-evolution has been observed in and out of the lab and may even have been reproduced(?). The only difference between micro and macro-evolution is time-scale--Lots of micro-evolution leads to macro-evolution--so saying that macro is unscientific or any other claim of that absurdity is just an absurdity. The comment should probably be rewritten.
-- [[User:Daemonowner|Daemonowner]] 1 August 2010

Talk:Big Daddy? (Chick tract)

2010-07-31T22:27:02Z

Daemonowner: Panel 11

Evolution (Way of the Master)

2010-07-30T09:12:49Z

Daemonowner: /* Missing Evidence */ fixing typo

[[Image:Trilobite1.jpg|thumb|250px|right|A 250-million year old trilobite]]
[[Image:Darwin's_finches.jpeg|thumb|250px|right|Darwin's finches]]
<div style="margin-right: 300px;">
[[Evolution (Way of the Master)|Evolution]] is the title of the eighth episode from season two of [[Way of the Master]].

==Episode Synopsis==
In the opening scene, shot in black-and-white, Kirk is meant to resemble Rod Serling and delivers a modified version of Serling's traditional ''Twilight Zone'' introduction:
:''"You've traveled to another dimension, a dimension not only of contradiction and speculation but also one that defies logic and is based on blind faith. A journey into a nebulous land whose limits are that of imagination. You've just crossed over into, The Evolution Zone."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This introduction lays the groundwork for the case against evolution presented in this episode. Kirk's assertions are that evolution is:
* replete with contradictions
* rooted in speculation
* logically unsound
* based on blind faith
* nebulous
* the result of an active imagination
In using the ''Twilight Zone'' imagery, they intend to represent evolutionary theory as being more ''science fiction'' than ''science''.

As the particular objections he raises are usually attributed to [[creationism]], this is the intellectual equivalent of ''"I know you are, but what am I?"'' This is an attempt to muddy the issue by making evolutionary theory appear to be, at a minimum, equally subject to the criticisms of creationism and support the idea that, lacking absolute knowledge, we should ''"teach the controversy."''

This notion, popular with the [[Intelligent Design]] movement, establishes a [[false dilemma]] (by ignoring other creation myths) and relies on a general ignorance of scientific theories and methods in the hopes that public opinion, rather than evidence, will be sufficient to raise the status of their claims to a level which can compete openly with established scientific explanations.}}
</div>
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
==Episode Walkthrough==
===Introduction===
(0:53 - 2:21)
:*Kirk, ''"What you're about to see, was not planned. There was no script, there were no writers, there were no cameras, no production crew, no lighting, no graphic artists and no editors. The entire program 'just happened' ... there was a big bang in our production studio...and here we are."''
:*Ray, ''"Could you believe that? Of course you couldn't. No one in their right mind could. And yet many evolutionists would have us believe that, in the name of science."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray and Kirk are fond of analogies which completely misrepresent the current scientific explanations they mean to denounce. Here they're combining [[big bang]] cosmology, [[abiogenesis]] and [[evolution]] into one theory. This false oversimplification isn't remotely accurate and any scientist who made such an elementary mistake would lose all credibility. In science, those theories are completely separate and in very different states.

Evolutionary theory is wholly unconcerned with the big bang and abiogenesis. Regardless of how the universe was created or how life began, evolution (descent with modification) does occur. This is a simple, scientific observation...a fact which requires an explanation (later discovered to be errors in DNA replication) and can be used within theories to explain other things. Evolutionary theory holds that the process of natural selection determines which of these changes (mutations) survive and which die off. Over long periods of time, this process is responsible for speciation (another observed fact) and it seems to be a reasonably sufficient explanation for the diversity of life.}}
:*Ray, ''"There was no creator. No space, no energy, no matter, there was nothing. And then there was this big bang and out came the sea and the land...the birds and flowers and trees and elephants and giraffes and horses and cats and dogs and, of course man and woman...and this took countless millions of years."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This program, which purports to be a critique of evolution, has started off with a lot of criticism of big bang cosmology and abiogenesis, which have absolutely nothing to do with evolution. Ray's statement seems absurd, because it is...yet it doesn't accurately represent any scientific theory.

His objection is structured in such a way that it implies that all of these things were directly produced by a big bang and he completely ignores the very thing he wants to argue against - evolutionary theory. The only portion of his statement which remotely correlates to evolutionary theory is his dismissive remark that, ''"...this took countless millions of years."'' Presented as an afterthought, it's meant to appear as absurd as the rest of his remarks.}}
:*Ray, ''"We're now gonna look closely at some of the believers of the theory of evolution and we want you to listen very closely to the type of language they use. True believers use, what we call, the language of speculation. They'll start off sounding like an expert, but because there's such a lack of factual evidence for the theory, they're forced to use words like, ''"we surmise", "we believe", "perhaps", "maybe", "could've"'' and ''"possibly."'' And then they'll end up saying things like, well, ''"I really don't know", "I'm not an expert."'' So watch for these phrases and these words."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=As if misrepresenting the theory of evolution was not enough, Ray prepares us for an incredibly dishonest adventure. Instead of speaking to actual experts who could provide scientific explanations, they're heading out to accost individuals on the street. This isn't an attempt to provide a scientific objection to evolutionary theory, it's a cheap theatric. It's a weak [[argument from incredulity]] which asserts that if these individuals don't have a good explanation, none exists and the theory is just wild speculation. If we were to use their methodology, no scientific theory would stand up.

The people being interviewed are being honest in their explanations. The "language of speculation" that Ray wants us to watch for is, in fact, honesty. Instead of acknowledging that these non-experts willingly admitted they weren't experts, he seeks to use this admission as an indictment against the theory. It's hardly surprising, given Ray's gross misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, that he would avoid experts and seek out lay people.

Ray falsely asserts that the individuals are forced to use words like "maybe" and "possibly" because of the lack of factual evidence for the theory. This is logically unsound. The fact that a lay person may not be aware of or able to explain the factual evidence for the theory does not mean that the evidence doesn't exist. If Ray were really interested in discovering factual evidence, he should have sought out experts. The fact that he did not do this, betrays his true motives and demonstrates the weakness of his position.

Finally, even if Ray had sought out experts, we might still have heard many of the words he mentions, because science doesn't assert absolutes. Science is concerned with discovering the most reasonable, most likely explanation based on the available evidence.

The honesty of scientists and the integrity of the scientific method is often taken advantage of by apologists like Ray. Any admission to a lack of absolute certainty is perceived as a ''gap'' into which the apologist can insert their own assertion that "god did it." Ray, and his ilk, assert absolute answers with no supporting evidence, while science presents sound explanations based on the available evidence.}}

===Street Interviews===
(2:22 - 6:52)

*Ray asks several individuals, ''"Do you believe man evolved from apes?"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=While each of the individuals affirmed that they believe this, Ray's question doesn't accurately reflect evolutionary theory in any sense beyond the colloquial. Evolutionary theory claims that man and ape evolved from a common ancestor, not that man evolved from apes, as we classify them today.}}
*Ray asks a young girl to be more specific about the evidence which supports evolutionary theory. She gives a brief explanation which begins with the formation of the earth and quickly mentions that single-cell organisms eventually developed and, over time, evolved into humans.
*Ray asks a young man, ''"How did it begin?''. His response is, ''"I don't know. Probably the big bang theory."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=The man's honest admissions that he doesn't know the answer, but accepts that the current scientific explanation is probable, are highlighted with graphics as two of the phrases ("I don't know." and "probably") Ray wants us to watch for. Admitting one's ignorance is not always an easy thing to do. In the face of a question which does not have the absolute answer Ray is seeking, this individual's response is the only honest answer and Ray despicably exploits his honesty as an indictment on evolutionary theory. This is particularly dishonest given the nature of the question asked.

The response should have continued, ''"...and you don't know, either."''}}
*Ray's response is, ''"What caused the big bang?"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=While the young man's answer is fundamentally impossible ("probably an asteroid from another planet"), Ray is beginning to use the [[cosmological argument]]. One fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning is that the apologists' answer, that God is the uncaused first cause, denies the initial premise that nothing can exist without a cause.}}
*Ray asks a girl about life emerging from the oceans, ''"When they came out, what came out of the ocean?"'' She responds, ''"I don't know, you tell me."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray's answer, if any was given, wasn't included and the clip cuts to the next interview.

Ray continues asking questions which, when answered honestly (especially by a lay person) must lead to the particular "language of speculation" responses he's looking for.}}

Other questions asked:
:*''"Cause I'm trying to think...here is this sort of animal who's coming out of the ocean without lungs, so he comes out with gills, goes'' [gasping noises] ''runs back to water and just keeps coming out until lungs develop?"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Fossil evidence and the swim bladders of some modern fish support evolutionary theory regarding the evolution from gills and gill-like features to lungs in the earliest amphibians. Ray, in attempting to make this sound as absurd as possible, relies on the our inherent inability to properly conceive of large spans of time, portraying one individual creature, at one point in time. This oversimplification of speciation doesn't accurately reflect scientific explanations.}}
:*''"This animal that came out, without lungs, and breathed and went back in, was he male or female?"''
:*''"He could have been alone? How did he reproduce?"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=These questions betray Ray's misunderstanding of evolutionary theory and speciation. Asexual and hermaphroditic species can, sometimes, form new species but among sexually reproducing species, we wouldn't see one spontaneous jump to a new species, we'd see gradual changes which allow reproduction but still represent a fundamental change from the ancestor. These changes, eventually, result in the rise of a new species.

Evolutionary theory, like the individuals responding to Ray's questions, doesn't purport to have an absolute explanation for every aspect of origins. It is a continuing field of research, yet the fundamentals of evolutionary theory are the very basis of all modern biology. For answers to these questions, and many others, visit the [[http://www.talkorigins.org talk origins website]].}}

The interview segment concludes with the question, ''"Do you think God had anything to do with this?"''. The response is, ''That's an area I've never explored but it's hard not to believe that, sometimes."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=The camera freezes on his face and the still shot slowly zooms in on his face, as if this were some ominous admission that his lack of knowledge is support for the claim that God is responsible. Even if we were to discover that evolutionary theory is completely wrong, that still isn't evidence for the hypothesis that a god exists and is responsible for creating the universe. That hypothesis requires its own supporting evidence and testing. Something which has yet to prove fruitful, though Ray and other apologists would prefer to avoid that and simply proclaim that it is true.

This ominous zoom is an implied [[argument from ignorance]]. Ray's implication is that these answers are unknown to all believers in evolution and that the "real" answers are known to believers in creationism.}}

Episode 21 - Evolution

===Missing Evidence===
(6:53 - 8:55)
*Kirk, ''"Ok, here's a simple lesson on evolution. The theory of evolution basically teaches that every living creature, like you and me, evolved from a single cell, billions of years ago.So that means that every animal supposedly transformed into another kind of animal, over time."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This is certainly a very simple lesson on evolution and, judging only the intent of Kirk's words, it's fairly accurate. Common ancestry is a foundational principle of the biological evolution of all life on Earth.}}

*Kirk, ''"Now, the big problem evolutionists have is that they're finding a huge gap in the fossil record. In other words, when archaeologists dig up the bones of these dead animals, they don't find these transitional forms that helped one animal transform into another animal. And if you don't have those bones, you can't prove evolution ever happened."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Kirk makes three claims here,
#Scientists find huge gaps in the fossil record
#Scientists don't find transitional forms
#Transitional fossils are required to prove evolution occurred

The first is true, though 'huge' may make the statement misleading. The second is false and Kirk runs with this false statement...to the extreme. The third is simply false, as even without any fossils at all there would still be enough evidence to "prove" evolution occurred.}}

*Kirk, ''"That's what they're calling, 'The Missing Link' and there's not just one, there would have to be thousands and thousands of those transitional forms. The truth is, they're not missing at all, they never existed in the first place."
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Kirk's claim isn't supported by evidence and conveniently dismisses the bulk of scientific evidence which contradicts it.}}

*Kirk, ''"Now, maybe you're asking 'what about the proof?' I mean, what about those science teachers that showed us those drawings of apes, all hunched over and then eventually straightening themselves up and becoming very 'man-like'? Well, remember, those are just drawings, that's not proof."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Kirk is correct, drawings aren't proof. In fact, many of the drawings of extinct species are simply artistic interpretations based on the available evidence, especially in the areas of soft-tissue and coloration.}}

*Kirk, ''"The real proof is in what we can find in the fossil record. The bones that we dig up. And that's what's missing, the actual proof."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Kirk is correct that the 'real proof' is in the fossil record, though he completely denies the existence of this evidence. The skeletal structures (the basis for the drawings he objects to) exist for a variety of species, including transitional forms. In denying the available evidence and relying on bad information, Kirk takes a real issue, an incomplete fossil record, and exaggerates it to claim that there's no fossil record.}}

*Kirk, ''"In reality, this is what scientists actually have:'' [cut to Kirk and a chimp standing against a wall] ''Me..and the monkey. Apes and humans. The supposed transitional forms are what are known as the 'missing links'. But the truth is, there is no missing link. There's nothing to link apes to humans. The 'supposed' transitional forms simply don't exist...except in the imagination of evolutionists who want to justify their theory."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Essentially, he's claiming that the bulk of the scientific community is delusional and portraying fictional evidence in order to support their theory. This accusation takes all of the fossil evidence, all of the DNA evidence, all observations of genetic change, all observations of speciation, all of the reliable, consistent predictions of the theory which serves as the cornerstone for all of modern biology...and tosses it aside in favor of the idea that scientists are imagining that the evidence fits the theory.

Kirk's pseudo-conspiracy theory is supported only by accusations, not evidence. Intelligent Design creationists often attempt to exploit "gaps" in evolutionary theory (the [[Discovery Center]]'s infamous [[wedge document]] is clear evidence of this) and most of their objections center around assertions that 'evolution isn't a sufficient explanation' or direct denial of the validity of evidence supporting evolution. The complete lack of evidenciary support for their own ideas prevents them from offering viable alternate explanations to challenge evolutionary theory and the easiest tactic is to simply misrepresent or deny the evidence which supports the theory of evolution.}}

===Ancient hominids and hoaxes===
(8:56 - 9:45)

Kirk provides four examples for us to consider...
* '''Lucy''' - (''Australopithecus afarensis'')
** Kirk's claim: ''"...nearly all experts agree that Lucy was just the skeleton of a 3-foot-tall chimpanzee"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This is simply '''not true'''. This claim has been made by a variety of creationists and makes an appearance in the [[Big Daddy? (Chick tract)|Big Daddy?]] tract by [[Jack Chick]]. [[Australopithecine]]s were the subject of much study and debate (as any scientific discovery should be). While many, like Sir Arthur Keith initially proclaimed that Lucy was possibly a chimpanzee and, at a minimum, more ape-like than man-like, the consensus view by 1950 was that australopithecines were far more similar to humans than chimpanzees. Sir Keith retracted his initial position:

:''"I was one of those who took the point of view that when the adult form was discovered it would prove to be near akin to the living African anthropoids—the gorilla and chimpanzee. Like Prof. Le Gros Clark, I am now convinced, on the evidence submitted by Dr. Robert Broom, that Prof. Dart was right and that I was wrong; the Australopithecinae are in or near the line which culminated in the human form."'' - Arthur Keith, (''Nature'' March 15, 1947)

The consensus opinion among experts remains and Kirk's claims that "nearly all experts" agree that Lucy was a chimp is without basis.}}
* '''Nebraska man'''
** Kirk's claim: ''"...they created an entire skeleton with arms, legs, feet, hands, even facial features when all they really had was one tooth which, later, was found to be the tooth of an extinct pig."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=The talk origins web site has a discussion about [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html Nebraska man]. In short, [[Nebraska man]] was an error, which was quickly corrected. The image to which Kirk is referring appeared in Illustrated London News (Smith 1922) and was drawn by Amedee Forestier. The image was accompanied by the following text, which was repeated in the article:

:''"Mr. Forestier has made a remarkable sketch to convey some idea of the possibilities suggested by this discovery. As we know nothing of the creature's form, his reconstruction is merely the expression of an artist's brilliant imaginative genius. But if, as the peculiarities of the tooth suggest, Hesperopithecus was a primitive forerunner of Pithecanthropus, he may have been a creature such as Mr. Forestier has depicted."'' - (Smith 1922)

Most scientists were skeptical of the discovery and few, if any, reputable scientists made any bold assertions that this was a confirmed human ancestor. Since the discovery of the error, Nebraska man's only significant mention is in creationist literature that hopes to discredit evolution by exploiting a mistake - a mistake which was discovered and exposed by scientists.}}
* '''Piltdown man'''
** Kirk's claim: ''"...the jawbone turned out to belong to a modern ape."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=[[Piltdown man]] was a hoax, which was exposed by science. This is significant not only because it demonstrates the self-correcting methods of science but because the evidence which exposed the hoax supports evolutionary theory. The bulk of evidence regarding ancient hominids formed a clear evolutionary pattern and Piltdown man remained an anomaly - it didn't fit the pattern.

A single hoax does not disprove a theory and, in this case, exposing the hoax actually demonstrates the veracity of the theory. Piltdown man, once exposed as a hoax, was no longer used as evidence for evolutionary theory, yet continues to be referenced by creationists as evidence against evolution.

Interestingly, there are a number of [[:Category:Creationist_hoaxes|Creationist hoaxes]] which continue to be used to support creationist arguments.}}
* '''Neanderthal man''' - (''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis'')
** Kirk's claim: ''" ...whose famous skeleton, found in France over 50 years ago, was that of an old man who suffered from arthritis."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Kirk begins by reducing [[Neanderthal man]] to a single skeleton when, in fact, many specimens have been discovered. While some of them have exhibited symptoms of arthritis or other diseases, neither arthritis nor rickets (the other common claim) explain the the distinct features of Neanderthals. Additionally, these diseases do not result in similar features in modern humans.}}

===Misrepresenting Gould===
(9:46 - 10:04)

Ray invites us to ''"listen to what the famous Harvard evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould said about the fossil record..."''
{{Quote-source|The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of '''palientology'''...|Stephen Jay Gould (as it appears in episode 21 of ''Way of the Master'')}}

{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Despite the misspelling of 'paleontology' (and the amusement that their spelling includes the word ''''lie'''' - ''pa-'''lie'''-ntology''), the quote is technically accurate. The context in which they frame this quote, however, completely misrepresents Gould's position...and still doesn't support their claim. Kirk's claim is that ''"transitional forms don't exist"'' yet Gould's quote refers to them as 'rare' not 'non-existent'.

:More quotes from Gould on this subject:
::''"Transitions are often found in the fossil record. Preserved transitions are not common -- and should not be, according to our understanding of evolution ... but they are not entirely wanting, as creationists often claim."'' - Stephen Jay Gould, ''"Evolution as Fact and Theory"'' (1983)

::''"But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life's physical genealogy."'' - Stephen Jay Gould, ''Natural History'', May 1994}}

===Common Blueprints===
(10:05 - 12:04)
*Kirk, ''"Have you ever been mystified as to why human beings and apes have so many similar features? After all, compare our hands to the hands of apes - they're very similar - and our feet are a lot the same. In fact, we can make many of the same facial expressions and other things that apes can do to prove this point we hired an orangutan for the day and had some fun. Check this out..."'' [cut to a vignette of Kirk and the orangutan making similar facial expressions]
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Kirk makes a number of expressions which are "aped" by the orangutan (which, incidentally, is derived from the Malay for ''man of the forest''). He begins each one by describing an emotional condition and displaying the corresponding expression; happiness, embarrassment, disagreement, agreement and others.}}
*Kirk, ''"Does this prove that men evolved from apes? No, not at all."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Agreed, this sort of similarity alone does not prove common ancestry and evolutionary theory isn't based on facile observations like this one. One possible description of the [[scientific method]] is; observation leads to an hypothesis which leads to evidence gathering, testing and falsification which leads to the development of a theory. The theory, if it holds, should be useful, and continually subject to revision (based on evidence) while making predictions which should be verified by evidence. Kirk is declaring that the observation of similarity doesn't prove anything - and he's right. The observed similarities he noted, and others, are the starting point, not the proof.

Kirk, and those who share his views, reject or ignore the evidence and consistently reliable predictions which supports the theory.}}

*Kirk, ''"Think of it like this; think of the bi-plane and the 747 jumbo jet. They're both very similar. After all, they both have wings, they both have landing gear, cockpits...does that mean that the jet evolved from the little bi-plane? Not at all...it just means they have a common designer. The designer used a similar blueprint for each one."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Actually, it may be fair to say that the 747 '''did''' evolve from the bi-plane. While we're obviously not talking about biological evolution, the designs did evolve - with the guidance of the human mind. It's doubtful that a 747 could have been invented without relying on the early invention of the bi-plane. Creationists, like Kirk, will immediately point out that this claim of evolution necessarily requires a guiding intelligence - and they're correct. However, they've failed to consider ''why'' this process requires intelligence and the answer is remarkably simple: external intelligent guidance is required because planes are not biological organisms - they have no method of self-replication, no mechanism for changes in this replication and no selection filter to determine the results. A guiding intelligence is required to fill those roles.

Life, human and otherwise, includes the ability to self-replicate and this imperfect replication is filtered by natural selection. There's no evidence to support the idea of an intelligent designer and no reason to posit one in the first place.}}

*Kirk, ''"It's the same with us. God, the creator of the world and the universe, is our common designer. He simply used a similar blueprint when creating the hands and feet and facial expressions of men and apes."''

{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This ad hoc explanation for the similarity between man and ape is without justification or evidence. Evolution doesn't deny that life was designed, it just recognizes that natural selection is the designer. Similarities between species is explainable by purely natural means and Kirk is completely correct - there is a blueprint for life... it's called DNA. [[Speciation]] is an observed fact.}}

===Lunch with an orangutan===
(12:05 - 17:00)
*Ray, ''"Despite the fact that there is '''no''' evidence when it comes to the theory of evolution, we're continually told that primates are our relatives. So we decided, we'd have a little fun and call a number of airlines and ask if we could have a 'relative' fly on the plane with us."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This adventure in absurdity is a cheap theatric to ridicule evolutionary theory. A thinly veiled [[equivocation fallacy]], they rely on the common understanding of 'relative' while arguing against a very different meaning of the word.}}
*Ray, talking to various airlines, ''"I'm flying with a friend, um, and I'd like to take a relative with us. He works in the movie industry so he'll have two managers with him and the reason for the managers is he's a little slow intellectually and he's also got physical problems with underdeveloped feet. He can't stand upright. Uh, his name is Bam Bam, he's actually an orangutan and what we want to do is take him on the flight, with two managers, is it possible to do that?"''
*Airline representative, '"No sir, we can't transport animals..."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray goes on to question the airline representatives about whether or not they believe that we "came from apes", though none were willing to address the question.}}
*Ray, ''"Despite the fact that airlines won't allow primates on planes, for obvious reasons, there are some scientists who'd have us believe that primates are just about as intelligent as human beings."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Intelligence is irrelevant to whether or not airlines will allow primates on planes just as whether or not airlines allow them on planes is irrelevant to whether or not we're related.}}
*Ray, ''"So Kirk and I took an orangutan to lunch to see if it ''[claims of ape intelligence]'' was true."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray spends the next few minutes pointing out all of the stupid things that the ape does, like sucking on their tracts, demonstrating a lack of etiquette, stuffing his mouth like an untrained beast. He also notes that the ape also broke the 10th Commandment (coveting Ray and Kirk's lunches - though one might think this is an argument for intelligence and desires similar to humans, Ray apparently doesn't notice) and used a fork (though Ray was fearful that he would be stabbed).

This entire exercise is a [[red herring]] and while Ray may shrug it off as a bit of fun, the fact remains that rather than addressing evolutionary theory they're attacking [[straw man]] after straw man. While they're both quick to claim that there's no evidence for evolution, they have yet to demonstrate an understanding of the theory or seriously address any of its claims.}}

*Ray, ''"The incident reinforced the fact that the primate is limited when it comes to the unique ability, the human ability, to reason, to invent, to appreciate the sound of music."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray's real objection is one of ''"sophistication"''. His examples are also flawed in that he's comparing two modern species without regard to the divergent variation which has occurred since the time of our last common ancestor. The current mental state of either species is completely irrelevant to their evolutionary ties. Ray's understanding of evolution seems to be more similar to the ''ladder-view'', complete with goals and value judgments. Evolutionary theory is better represented by a ''tree-view''.

By way of analogy, Ray's objections about the ape could be made of a human with severe mental retardation. Would Ray be willing to claim that this was reasonable evidence to claim that such an individual is not related to humans?}}
*Ray, ''"You see you don't get orangutans forming themselves into an orchestra. You don't get them forming themselves into a court system to mete out justice to its fellow creatures. This isn't because he's a prehistoric man who's less evolved than us, but it's because he's another species."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray is absolutely correct and clearly, if he thinks this is a valid argument ''against'' evolution, he has no concept of evolution. Evolutionary theory doesn't claim that modern apes are less evolved than humans (the ladder view), it doesn't claim that they're prehistoric men...evolution claims that modern apes and modern humans (which are scientifically classified as apes) are descendants of a common ancestor.

Ray's spent so much time arguing against his straw man version of evolution that he's failed to notice that his final sentence completely negates every single objection he's just raised.}}

===Discrediting Darwin===
(17:00 - 18:17)
*Kirk, ''"The revered father of evolution, the man who really made the theory popular is Charles Darwin. He wrote ''Origin of Species and the Descent of Man''. Ladies, listen to what he had to say about women.."''
{{Quote|The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man attaining to a higher eminence in whatever he takes up than woman can attain; whether requiring deep thought, reason or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands.}}
*Kirk, ''"Did you hear that?! He's saying that man has evolved to a higher eminence over women in, basically, anything he decides to do. Whether it requires reason, imagination or deep thought. Darwinian evolution, at its core is not only male chauvinistic but it's also very racist. Charles Darwin wants us to believe that black people are less evolved than whites."''

{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=[[Charles Darwin|Darwin's]] personal views on race, the sexes and even evolution are completely irrelevant to the assessment of whether or not evolutionary theory is true. This is an [[ad hominem]] attack, and a particularly weak one. This is just as irrelevant as the false claims that Darwin recanted on his death bed. As Ray and Kirk are unable to provide any reasonable criticism of evolutionary theory they are forced to resort to flawed arguments and irrelevant commentary in an attempt to make evolution distasteful. Unfortunately, the truth, however distasteful isn't threatened by such tricks. Evolutionary theory isn't sexist or racist, science deals with facts not opinions.

It's a bit ironic, however, that they chose to attack Darwin's views on women. One wonders if they've read their own Bible which not only denigrates women but supports slavery.}}

===Expert testimony===
(18:18 - 19:10)
Ray, ''"If we can't convince you of how unscientific the theory of evolution is, perhaps these following experts can.."''

:* '''Ernst Chain''' (1906-1979), Nobel prize winner in medicine said, in reference to the theory of evolution, ''"I would rather believe in fairies than in such wild speculation."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Chain was not alone. Other knowledgeable scientists have objected to evolutionary theory, for a variety of reason. However, the truth of the theory is not dependent on the opinions or preferences of any individual. Chain's primary objection (that the probability of the origin of DNA molecules by sheer chance is too small to be seriously considered) is an outdated objection to abiogenesis, not evolution. Additionally, his objection is an [[argument from ignorance]] - even if we were to discover that the true probability was enormously small, that has no bearing on whether or not it actually occurred because 'unlikely' does not equate to 'impossible'.

Modern theories refute Chain's objection by noting that it's based on fundamentally flawed assumptions. The first 'life' forms need not resemble modern proteins, they could have been single, self-replicating molecules or any number of other simple living things. The formation of these simple polymers is a natural function of chemistry and the element of 'sheer chance' is limited.}}

:* '''Sir Arthur Keith''' (1866-1955) Physical anthropologist who ''"wrote the forward to Darwin's Origin of the Species, 100th anniversary edition"'' said, ''"Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This quote, cited by a number of creationists, appears to be completely fraudulent. Firstly, Sir Keith died in 1955 and couldn't have written the forward to the 100th edition of ''Origin of Species'' in 1959. He did write an introduction to an edition of ''Origin of Species'' but in 1928, over 30 years prior to the centennial. The quote attributed to him does not appear in that edition or in any other known work.

The quote is designed to make it appear as though Keith's acceptance of evolution was a reaction to his rejection of special creation. Sir Keith's writings make it clear that the opposite is true...he accepted evolution as the best explanation based on evidence and rejected special creation based on a lack of evidence and its inability to explain observations. Writing about Darwin's observations of different species on the Galapagos Islands...
:''"And why should each of the islands have its own peculiar creations? Special creation could not explain such things."''

:''"The Origin of Species is still the book which contains the most complete demonstration that the law of evolution is true."''}}

:* '''Malcolm Muggeridge''' (1903-2003) British journalist and philosopher said, ''"I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in history books in the future"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=An obviously flawed [[argument from authority]], this quote from Muggeridge does nothing to further Ray's stated goal of demonstrating that the theory of evolution is 'unscientific'. What '''is''' unscientific is Ray's attempt to discredit evolution.

The opinion of any individual, philosopher or scientist, has no bearing on whether a proposition is true or false.}}

===Rejection of the Bible===
(19:11 - 19:20)
*Kirk, ''"A wise man once said, man will believe anything as long as it's '''not''' in the Bible."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This quote is commonly attributed to Napolean Bonaparte, though we've been unable to identify the source. While this is meant as an amusing indictment of man's visceral rejection of God, it's actually an interesting point to ponder. In truth, whether consciously or subconsciously, rejections of Biblical claims are justified. We have no autographs and no reliable evidence to support the claim that it is divine in origin.

One might propose an alternate version, directed at fundamentalists, ''"Some people will believe anything as long as it's in the Bible."''

Every claim, whether from an ancient book or a close friend, must be critically examined before belief or rejection can be justified. If a single source makes numerous claims, its reliability can be evaluated by looking for clarity, consistency and correlation to known facts. If it is found to be self-contradictory, confusing, or in contradiction to known facts, it is reasonable to doubt or reject its validity. If it promotes values commonly considered immoral while proclaiming that these are moral absolutes, it is worthy of ridicule and opposition.}}

===Street Interviews 2===
(19:22 - 21:29)

Ray's and his crew head back out into the streets to ask lay people (and one PhD biologist) questions about evolution..
====Transitional Fossils====
*Question (apparently asked of a lay person): ''"Can you give me any example of a transitional form, going from one kind of animal to another kind?"''
*Response: ''"I can't think of anything right off the moment."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=We've already addressed the absurdity of asking random people to answer scientific questions. If they don't know the answer or get it wrong, you've proved nothing. The fact that this individual couldn't think of a transitional form is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not they exist. The following list is a small sample of transitional forms which connect birds and reptiles, reptiles and mammals as well as apes and humans...feel free to investigate:

Eoraptor, Herrerasauras, Allosauraus, Archaeopteryx, Cryptovolans pauli, Sinornithosaurus, Pelycosauria, Therapsida, Australopithecus africanus, Homo hablis, Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.}}
====Creator vs. Nature====
*Ray, ''"The parrot that's on your arm, God created. How could any, how could science make a parrot?"''
*Man with parrot, ''"Science? Nature made it."''
*Ray, ''"Nature made itself?"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray deliberately redirects the mans response by lodging yet another objection to abiogenesis. He's perfectly happy to accept that his God always existed, yet the idea that matter might have always existed is rejected and replaced with this concept of 'making itself'. It's a way to hide the [[special pleading]] behind his own beliefs. The gentleman seems to miss this idea about nature making itself and continues referring to the parrot in his answers.}}
*Man with parrot, ''"Yes, absolutely..."''
*Ray, ''"So it made the parrot..."''
*Man with parrot, ''"...evolution."''
*Ray, ''"So, evolution made it?"''
*Man with parrot, ''"Mm hmm"''
*Ray, ''"So you don't believe God created things?"''
*Man with parrot, ''"Well, I don't know what you're referring to as God."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This is a very valid point. Ray presumes, as so many do, that his concept of God is clearly understood by everyone else. God is an esoteric and ill-defined term, even among people who share common beliefs. Well over 1000 denominations of Christians in addition to the multitude of other religions attest to this fact. Asking Ray to define what he means by 'God' is essential to answering this question correctly. In casual conversation, it may be reasonable to presume a generic concept of God and, in many cases, it may be reasonable to assume a generalized 'Christian' definition - but when confronted in this fashion, asking for specific definitions is critical.}}
*Ray, ''"The Creator."''
*Man with parrot, ''"To me, evolution, nature, is God"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray gives an incredibly narrow definition of his concept of God, designed to assume the very thing he's arguing for - creation. The interview ends here, in a not-so-subtle attempt to abuse the [[equivocation fallacy]] - relying on his intended audience's concept of God to make it appear as though evolutionists 'worship' evolution. The truth is that this man's answer is reasonable. If your definition of 'god' is, essentially, 'that which is responsible for the current state of every living thing' - evolution and nature fit the bill.}}
====What convinced you evolution was right?====
*Ray, ''"When it comes to evolution, what was the scientific fact that convinced you that it was right?"''
*Young woman, ''"Um, I would say, how it all got started, like...explaining how we have elements that were brought to Earth by, you know, like, let's say, meteorites, or whatever. That it all got started in the ocean and um, organisms grew and, you know, people evolved from there.."''
*Ray, ''"Do you believe in the Bible?"''
*Young woman, ''"Uh, yes I do."''
*Ray, ''"Do you believe in Adam and Eve?"''
*Young woman, laughing, ''"Yes I do."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Some may suspect that her laughter indicates that she doesn't 'really' believe the Adam and Eve story. An alternate view is that she's aware of the contradictions that Ray is about to present and hasn't found a satisfactory way to reconcile her Biblical beliefs with the scientific answers she accepts and that this is nervous laughter. While there are plenty of Christians who accept evolution, it requires a rejection of the literal acceptance of Biblical claims in favor of a more allegorical view.}}
*Ray, '''"Did Adam used to be an ape?"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Ray's misunderstanding and misrepresentation of evolutionary theory rears its ugly head again. By presenting an absurd straw man of evolution, he hopes to exploit the confused nature of this individual to convince her, and others, that evolution is unsupported.}}
*Young woman, ''"No."''
*Ray, ''"Did he crawl up out of slime?"''
*Young woman, laughing, ''"No."''
*Ray, ''"So which are you gonna go? Did God create man in his own image and tell him to bring forth after his own kind, or did he begin as some slime from a meteorite from outer space?"''
*Young woman laughs, uncomfortably. Her response isn't shown.
====A real expert====
Ray begins to question a young man as text on the bottom of the screen informs us that he is an evolutionary biologist with a PhD in Biology..
*Biologist, ''"Non-random changes come about as a result of selection. Ok?"''
*Ray, ''"Who's doing the selecting?"''
*Biologist, ''"Selecting is being done by the ecosystem..."''
*Ray, interrupting, ''"And where did this come from?"''
*Biologist, ''"...it's being done by predators..."''
*Ray, interrupting, ''"Where did it come from?"''
*Biologist, ''"...it's being done by geological processes. Well here..."'' [acknowledges Ray's interruption] ''"This is the big question, this is where atheists and theists both have a problem, ok? And I'm going to admit to it, ok? The problem we have is at the beginning."''
The camera freezes and zooms in on the biologists face as his final sentence is echoed. "In the beginning... God created the heavens and the earth" is dramatically displayed.
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=It's unfortunate, though predictable, that the one potential expert they interviewed was cut off in order to misrepresent his case as an admission of the failure of evolution. As noted previously, this program is supposed to be about evolution, yet many of the objections address abiogenesis. This biologist points out that neither atheists nor theists can know, for certain, what happened at the beginning. What he's not allowed to point out is that the various scientific explanations, despite the fact that they aren't conclusively proved, have a distinct advantage over the theists proposition that God created everything in that they don't rely on unproven supernatural causes or rely on blind faith in ancient texts.

Ray, when presented with an explanation (natural selection) that he cannot argue against, falls back on the common practice of pointing to a gap, or unanswered question, and implying that the absence of absolute knowledge about the process somehow negates the knowledge we do possess. As if that wasn't bad enough, he further implies that it's acceptable to plug God into those gaps. This [[god of the gaps]] tactic is popular among Intelligent Design creationists as it sounds very good to those who already believe and may convince the uninformed. However, even if evolutionary theory proved to be incorrect, this still doesn't stand as sufficient evidence to justify their claim of an intelligent designer.}}

===Turn off your brain===
(21:30 - 23:04)
*Kirk, ''"Here's a very interesting fact; in the last couple of dozen times that I've witnessed to someone, I can honestly say that the subject of evolution has not come up, even once. Why? Because I didn't bring it up. I didn't have to. And it doesn't come up on its own because it's often a non-issue."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Kirk is essentially correct, though his reasons may not be. Evolution is a non-issue, to many, because it's a scientific fact. Debating evolutionary theory is as absurd, to some, as debating theories about gravity, sexual reproduction or relativity. Evolution is a non-issue, to others, because they realize they're not experts. It's unfair to imply that the subject doesn't come up because people subconsciously reject it, secretly know that God really created everything or are afraid to evaluate the merits of the theory.}}
*Kirk, ''"When you learn how to speak to a person's conscience, and circumnavigate the intellect, the subject of evolution seems to disappear."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=When you circumnavigate the intellect, a lot of subjects seem to disappear. Appealing to someone's emotion or conscience may be an effective way to get them to '''accept''' supernatural claims, but it has no effect on whether or not those claims are actually true. If one's goal is to discover truth, and not simply accept propositions that ''feel'' good, circumnavigating the intellect is counterproductive.}}
*Ray, ''"Now this is real good news for people like me. It means I don't have to become an expert in the 'fossil record'. And it also means I don't have to learn words like 'Rhinorhondothackasaurus'."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This idea that voluntary ignorance is preferable to critical thought is a common theme in their ministry. They begin with the flawed assumption that their beliefs are true until proven false, they proceed to misrepresent the subject they wish to criticize and then after making a very weak attempt at attacking the intellectual issues by way of attacks on straw men, they conclude with an appeal which amounts to; ''Those pesky scientists with all of their 'facts' are just confused and attempting to confuse you, ignore that stuff and go with what you 'feel'.''}}
*Kirk, ''"Now, are we trying to be anti-intellectual or avoid talking about the subject of evolution? Of course not."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Most definitely. As we've demonstrated throughout this response, they've completely avoided talking about evolution by misrepresenting it, objecting to abiogenesis (which isn't part of evolutionary theory), seeking the opinions of lay people, dangling red herrings, attacking straw men and misrepresenting experts.

You cannot, say, ''speak to a person's conscience and circumnavigate the intellect'' and expect an immediate claim that you're not being anti-intellectual to carry any weight. It's as if, at the end of this response, we were to add, ''Now, are we trying to say that Ray and Kirk are wrong? Of course not.''}}
====Buy the book====
*Kirk, ''"That's why we have ''The Evidence Bible''. And this is packed full of teaching on the subject and includes quotes from teachings from Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould and William Huxley."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=The Bible isn't a demonstrably reliable authority on anything and filling it with quotes from scientists and philosophers doesn't change that - especially as we've already witnessed how dishonest and unreliable their selected quotes are. If the quotes and 'evidence' presented in the various episodes of this program are an example of the quality of their ''evidence Bible'' they may have actually made the Bible less reliable. An impressive feat, to be sure.}}
*Kirk, ''"And it will show you that the theory of evolution is unscientific, that it's based on blind faith; so that you don't need to panic and upset yourself every time you read in the newspaper or see something on the news that talks about man evolving from apes."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Concepts and facts which contradict your personal beliefs can be very uncomfortable and abandoning deeply held beliefs, like religion, when presented with evidence and rational argument, isn't always a pleasant process. Realizing this, Ray and Kirk are hoping to spare their viewers the anxiety and agony of discovering that their views might be incorrect. It's clear that they are true proponents of the 'ignorance is bliss' camp.

Rather than encourage everyone to investigate claims on their own, Ray and Kirk are essentially saying, ''We've done the work for you, so you don't have to think about this stuff.'' With their new 'evidence Bible', creationist are presented with a very comforting over-abundance of [[arguments from authority]].}}
*Kirk, ''"You can have confidence in God's word that we are made in God's image. And '''true science''', even our common sense, supports the Bible and not the theory of evolution."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=The assertion that science supports the Bible and not the theory of evolution is completely without support, which might be why they immediately move on to another subject. It may be a comforting assertion for believers, but that doesn't make it true.}}

===The Purpose of the Church===
(23:05 - 25:19)

*Ray, ''"Let's look at the church and ask, 'what is the purpose of the church on Earth?' Well, we're here primarily to glorify God and to lead lost sinners to the savior. We know, there's gonna be a day of judgment and we have to present every man and every woman perfect before a perfect God and a perfect law they must face on Judgment Day. We want them to 'put on' the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved from the wrath that's to come."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=This perfect God and his perfect law, according to Christian dogma, created imperfect beings who are incapable of living up to his law and has decided to punish them for this failing. In order to rectify this conundrum, this perfect God decided to create a loophole by which his imperfect creations can be granted [[salvation]]. By taking human form, he sacrificed himself, to himself, to circumvent a law he created.

Why would a perfect God create imperfection? How can a law be considered perfect if it punishes people for things beyond their control - the imperfections of their very essence? How can a law be considered perfect if it includes infinite torture for finite crimes? Why would a perfect God need to create a loophole in a perfect law and how could a truly perfect law need or be circumvented by such a loophole? How is the punishment of one person for the crimes of another, perfect? How can 'sins' be inherited and why is that considered just?}}
====Put on Your Parachute====
*Kirk, ''"Let's look at an analogy that's going to make a very important point. Let's say, you're on an airplane and you're trying to convince another passenger to put on a parachute because you know at any moment he's gonna have to jump 25,000 feet out of the plane. You have two lines of reasoning. The first is; you try to convince him that the plane was made by Boeing. Now, this is important because it will give credibility to the emergency card which will tell him about the parachute. So, you point out the fact that the maker's name is written all over the plane. He doesn't buy it, he thinks the plane happened by accident. Then, you tell him that it's a relatively new plane. He thinks it's an old plane. You say you have proof, so does he...and as long as you disagree, he ignores the emergency card and you find yourself in a frustrating and perilous situation."''
*Ray, ''"The second line of reasoning is much easier. All you do is you tell him about the law of gravity and you say what it will do to him if he jumps. 25,000 feet on his frail body. His eyes widen with fear and he says, 'Hey, would you pass me that emergency card, thing...I want to check it out?'"''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=All analogies fail, on some level, but this analogy barely gets out of the gate. The initial premise is that you're trying to convince someone to put on a parachute because you know that he's going to have to jump at any moment. The second line of 'reasoning' is simply a fear tactic, a threat...and it's just a veiled version of [[Pascal's wager]]. They establish this as a reasonable option because their first line of reasoning failed.

Looking at the first example, why did their first line of reasoning fail? Because they never gave a single reason to justify putting on the parachute. The maker of the plane, the emergency card and the age of the plane are all completely irrelevant when trying to explain why someone should put on a parachute. One could be on a new, Boeing plane, complete with emergency cards and still not have any good reason for putting on a parachute.

Their analogy is just as much a straw man as the 'arguments' they've made against evolution in this episode and it's filled with even more flaws. In their analogy, Boeing is God, the emergency card is the Bible and the parachute is Jesus. A more accurate analogy might go something like...

:''You're on an airplane and you're trying to convince someone to put on a parachute because you know they're going to have to jump out of the plane and fall 25,000 feet. First, you try to convince him that the plane was made by Boeing. Now, this is relevant because you're convinced that Boeing is going to force everyone to jump out of the plane, parachute or not. So you point to the carefully woven fabric on the seat in front of you and claim that it has Boeing's name written all over it. He points out that it doesn't say Boeing anywhere on the seat. You reply that it doesn't 'literally' say Boeing, but only Boeing orders fabric like that. He's unconvinced, as he's seen similar fabric before. You then explain that this plane wasn't manufactured like other planes, it was secretly modified to cause seatbelts to malfunction and the side of the plane is rigged to explode at 25,000 feet. He's convinced this is, most likely, an airplane like any other. You say you have evidence, he asks to see it. You pull out the emergency card, and show him Boeing's name, a description of the eminent calamity and instructions for putting on the parachute. He points out that there are mistakes on the card and that other people have different emergency cards with names other than Boeing, some of which don't mention parachutes or calamities. You claim that those are fakes and you have the 'real' emergency card. He's skeptical and asks how you know yours is true. You point out that the emergency card says it's true. He looks under the seat for a parachute and doesn't find one. You explain that he has go up to the cockpit and ask for a parachute by saying the secret phrase, 'I've been a bad boy and need a spanking.' He tries this and is met with blank stares and confusion. You tell him that he didn't try hard enough...He asks the flight attendant if he can move to another seat''}}
*Ray, ''"Now, you and I want to convince sinners to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We can talk to them about God and his existence, we can talk to them about the age of the earth and how old it is our how young it is and this leads to all sorts of discussions which often end in arguments. Or, we can tell them about the jump - that he has to pass through the door of death, and face a holy God and a holy law, whether he believes in God or not, on the day of judgment. We show him the Ten Commandments, stir the conscience and bring the knowledge of sin. He realizes his danger and sees his need to put on the Lord Jesus Christ."''
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=Reason bad, guilt-trips good. Got it. Ray is wise to recommend that his viewers avoid arguing about troublesome facts and focus on emotions like guilt and fear by threatening them with [[hell]]. He certainly hasn't equipped them to do anything else, though it's unclear whether anything more is possible.}}

===The Atheist Test===
(25:20 - 27:08)

A short interview is shown, featuring a teenager from [[The Beauty of a Broken Spirit—Atheism (Way of the Master)|a previous episode]] and demonstrates the 'atheist test', in action.

===Closing Comments===
(27:09 - )
Kirk encourages those who are looking for more information on evolution and evangelism to visit their website, purchase their 'Evidence Bible', their 'Way of the Master' book, their 'Foundation course' which many churches are using to ''"train up"'' their people.
{{Comment-box1|label=Comment:|text=For those who are seriously looking for more information on evolution, visit a library, search the web, or visit one of the sites listed below.}}

==External Links==
*[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1883320866427500766 Google Video]
*[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html Transitional Fossils FAQ]
*[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html Common Descent Evidence]
*[http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Main_Page The Evolution Wiki]
*[http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ University of California, Berkeley - Understanding Evolution]
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3k0dDFxkhM&feature=PlayList&p=126AFB53A6F002CC&index=5 Youtube Video Explaining Evolution]

*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfoje7jVJpU&feature=PlayList&p=126AFB53A6F002CC&index=8 Youtube Video Explaining the Fossil Record and Transitional Species]


{{wayofthemaster}}

[[Category: Christian shows]]