It seems that many atheists are content with taking a wholly negative approach to their atheism. That is, they wait for theistic arguments and attempt to find problems with it to justify their own position. Whether or not this is proper action, it seems quite puzzling that most atheists wouldn't simply charge right out of the gate presenting arguments of their own. One of my favorites is one which does not show that God does not exist, but that if God does exist, he could not have created the Universe (this generally leads to the refutation of monotheistic religions anyhow).

I had first thought to parse through two of these publicly available papers and condense the material, but I expect this post to be met with a lot of "LOLPHILOSOPHYWUT" so I'd rather avoid wasting my time and simply link to the papers as they are.

There are two main papers (or one if you have the Cambridge Companion to Atheism, simply read Smith's paper therein):

http://www.qsmithwmu.com/time_began_wit ... _point.htm
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... aused.html

For those who prefer to watch videos instead of reading:

http://www.closertotruth.com/video-prof ... Smith-/984

Now, even if this argument fails (I don't presently think it does) it is an example of the TYPE of thinking atheists should be doing to rationally justify their position. Unfortunately the consensus seems to be that atheists need not do anything to establish their case, I think that any academic worth his or her salt can tell you this is simply wrong.

The papers are authored by Quentin Smith, a Philosopher of Religion, Philosopher of Science, Philosopher of Physics and upon my last communication with him, someone moving towards becoming a theoretical physicist. The hard physics can only get us so far, but with the coupling of philosophy (much to the dismay of many members, I'm sure) we can arrive at a strong argument against the existence of God.

The moral of the story, I hope, is that we don't need to misrepresent William Lane Craig's arguments (for example), we don't need to establish cases based on erroneous understanding. You can meet the theistic arguments with arguments of your own, instead of being a passive do-nothing atheist.

Enjoy! (Questions welcome)

Excellent post!

MitchLeBlanc wrote:



http://www.closertotruth.com/video-prof ... Smith-/984

Was Smith nervous or something? He stuttered so much I thought I was listening to elmer fudd.

The moral of the story, I hope, is that we don't need to misrepresent William Lane Craig's arguments (for example), we don't need to establish cases based on erroneous understanding. You can meet the theistic arguments with arguments of your own, instead of being a passive do-nothing atheist.

Interesting critique of your ilk. It's rare to see it on the Internet.

Mick wrote:

MitchLeBlanc wrote:



http://www.closertotruth.com/video-prof ... Smith-/984

Was Smith nervous or something? He stuttered so much I thought I was listening to elmer fudd.

The moral of the story, I hope, is that we don't need to misrepresent William Lane Craig's arguments (for example), we don't need to establish cases based on erroneous understanding. You can meet the theistic arguments with arguments of your own, instead of being a passive do-nothing atheist.

Interesting critique of your ilk. It's rare to see it on the Internet.

Cheers! Smith definitely needs to work on public speaking, but you can't have it all!

I enjoy Swinburne's 3 part series on arguing God within analytic philosophy.
http://www.closertotruth.com/video-prof ... of-3-/1031

make sure u watch the other 2.

Mick wrote:I enjoy Swinburne's 3 part series on arguing God within analytic philosophy.
http://www.closertotruth.com/video-prof ... of-3-/1031

make sure u watch the other 2.

Yes! I am a huge fan of Swinburne!

Book-marked (nearly bed-time, to tired to read now).

Mick wrote:Was Smith nervous or something? He stuttered so much I thought I was listening to elmer fudd.

Classy.

Interesting. I scanned the whole of the second paper, and the beginning of the first. I will read them in greater detail later, but I can already see some problems, so I thought I might as well put them on the table before I continue.

Why does time exist? In the context of the “spacetime theories” of the special or general theory of relativity, this question should be more appropriately phrased as “Why does spacetime exist?” I will narrow the question further and adopt the results of contemporary general relativistic cosmology, namely, that spacetime began to exist about fifteen billion years ago. Accordingly, my question will be “Why did spacetime begin to exist?”

There are two familiar, contemporary responses to this question. The theist says that the question has an answer and that this answer is that God caused spacetime to begin to exist. The standard response of the atheist is to say that there is no answer to this question; spacetime’s beginning to exist is a brute fact or has no explanation. This standard atheist response seems to give theism a prima facie theoretical superiority to atheism; theists offer a detailed explanatory hypothesis about why spacetime begins to exists, and standard atheists are content to leave spacetime’s beginning to exist unexplained.

Now, it may be that he goes on to address my objections later in the paper, in which case just consider this a case of premature ejaculation, and I also realise that this paper is quite elderly, but my real problem is this one of 'beginnings'. We can certainly say with some confidence that the three spatial dimensions 'unfolded' from the dimensional manifold at the big bang, but is that really a beginning? Or is it simply a change in state, such as every single 'beginning' that can be pointed to? [edited to add] Without a beginning, the question of a cause is moot.[/edit]

As for time, it cannot be demonstrated that time had a beginning at the big bang. It's certainly a feature of the standard model, due to Hawking and Penrose's showing that this arises naturally out of General Relativity. The problem here is that we know that General Relativity is incomplete, and we have models on the table that don't have time beginning at the big bang. Given a rigorous definition of 'universe' as opposed to the vernacular, and given that time is a feature of the universe, this would seem to be something of a stumbling block.

Alan Guth wrote:So far, it's been made to sound, I think for the purposes of simplifying things, that until the cyclic model, all scientists had believed that the big bang was the origin of time itself. That idea is certainly part of the classic theory of the big bang, but it's an idea which I think most cosmologists have not taken seriously in quite a while. That is, the idea that there's something that happened before what we call the big bang has been around for quite a number of years... In what I would regard as the conventional version of the inflationary theory, the Big Bang was also not in that theory the origin of everything but rather one had a very long period of this exponential expansion of the universe, which is what inflation means, and, at different points, different pieces of this inflating universe had stopped inflating and become what I sometimes call pocket universes...

...What we call the Big Bang was almost certainly not the actual origin of time in either of the theories that we’re talking about. … The main difference I think [between the inflationary theory and Neil Turok and Paul Steinhardt's theory] is the answer to the question of what is it that made the universe large and smooth everything out. … The inflationary version of cosmology is not cyclic. … It goes on literally forever with new universes being created in other places. The inflationary prediction is that our region of the universe would become ultimately empty and void but meanwhile other universes would sprout out in other places in this multiverse.

He goes on to talk about the singularity. Again, this has not been established, and certainly Turok's model removes it. He is correct in that other quantum cosmologies don't, such as Guth's inflationary model, which actually has a whole series of singularities, but which of these models is correct, if indeed either of them are, is not yet clear. Even if the singularity is established, that in no way supports the suggestion that time began at the big bang. The reason for this is clear. It could well be the case that there is no passage of time at the singularity, but the question then arises 'is the singularity the sum total of the universe?' There are entities within our universe that do not experience the passage of time, not least photons and (it is postulated) the singularities of black holes, but does that suggest that there is no time in the universe?

My final problem is a little niggle with your own contribution:

MitchLeBlanc wrote:It seems that many atheists are content with taking a wholly negative approach to their atheism. That is, they wait for theistic arguments and attempt to find problems with it to justify their own position.

My own position being what? To be honest, the question of god's existence is of only academic curiosity to me. My position is already entirely justified. In the absence of hard evidence from reality one way or the other, I withhold belief. My position is also slightly different than most here, as already elucidated on many occasions. Whether this entity exists or not is not a fact that can alter my position, not because I'm a hard-nosed bastard (although I undoubtedly am), but because I have no want, need or indeed use for such an entity. If a deity exists, it isn't mine and you can keep it.

Overall, though, a good post, and I will certainly give those papers more attention when I have leisure to do so. Cheers.

I’m tired right now, so I just read part of the paper and skimmed the rest. I intend to read in more depth (and possibly approach the second) later.

There are two familiar, contemporary responses to this question. The theist says that the question has an answer and that this answer is that God caused spacetime to begin to exist. The standard response of the atheist is to say that there is no answer to this question; spacetime’s beginning to exist is a brute fact or has no explanation. This standard atheist response seems to give theism a prima facie theoretical superiority to atheism; theists offer a detailed explanatory hypothesis about why spacetime begins to exists, and standard atheists are content to leave spacetime’s beginning to exist unexplained.

Interesting, he seems to be telling us what we think here. Danger of a straw man within the first few lines of the paper? Perhaps I am in the minority, but I do not accept this statement, to the contrary I do not assert that spacetime’s beginning is a brute fact.

The reality is that we have no reason to speculate one way or the other. The existence of spacetime is a fact and not in dispute, that the big bang occurred and this resulted in a cosmic inflation is a fact and not in dispute. However, that the big bang was the beginning of spacetime is a speculation, as to whether this hypothetical position is a brute fact would be wild speculation.

I reject standard or traditional atheism and side with theism on this issue. A theory that includes an explanatory hypothesis about some observational evidence e, such as spacetime’s beginning to exist, is ceteris paribus epistemically preferable to any theory of the observational evidence e that does not include such an explanatory hypothesis. No atheist has ever provided a proof that the existence of spacetime is a brute fact and, consequently, standard atheism remains, in this respect, an unjustified hypothesis.

I’ll have to check up with the rest of the paper and see if this claim is explained and justified, because it reads like a blatant falsehood. A theory that includes an “explanatory hypothesis” is not superior just by an assertion of an explanation, it’s superior by it’s predictive power.

If I lose my keys, then saying “I have lost my keys” is superior to saying “I have lost my keys because a leprechaun stole them”.

Indeed the whole point of Popperian falsifiability is to try and establish criteria for when we can consider an explanation or hypothesis superior and when we can’t. Such a claim needs to be justified with evidence or proof by formal logic or a combination of the two to be considered superior. Without such support it is in fact clearly inferior to insert such an “explanatory hypothesis” and claim knowledge where in fact none is possessed.

Perhaps I have judged the paper too soon, and these comments are addressed further in, I intend to read the rest tomorrow and amend/revise what I have said here.

http://www.closertotruth.com/video-prof ... Smith-/984

Now, even if this argument fails (I don't presently think it does) it is an example of the TYPE of thinking atheists should be doing to rationally justify their position.

I haven't read the papers, (it's late and I'm tired), but the argument in the video is, not to put to fine a point on it, just terrible. So terrible that it completely fails to address the actual question asked at all on anything but the most superficial level. I'm a little tired right now, as I said, so I'll get back to this thread in the morning.

The difference between the atheist and the theist:

The atheist is comfortable saying "I don't know how it happened, I'll wait until evidence surfaces to support a specific claim."

The thesist is comfortable saying "I don't like the idea of not knowing how it happened, so I'll say that god did it."

The atheist has a problem with the theists claim of a god of the gaps because there is no evidence to support their claim.

The theist has a problem with admitting they don't know the answer because it causes them anxiety so they pretend they know the answer by putting their "faith" into "god did it".

As far as justifications go, here are my thoughts.

As of yet no verifiable evidence for the countless claimed god entities or the arguments used to try to define them into existence has been presented for me to hold the claims with any credibility. That is really all the justification I need for my position. I need not argue with any theist or otherwise about it or make any initial arguments. One can talk for hours using fancy words and apologetics, but without that evidence it is no more than another talking for hours making up their own stories using fancy words and apologetics. Anyone can make claims, talk, and try to use word games to force their claims into reality even if they are not. Without evidence, picking which one is true if any, is nothing short of a wild goose chase. So simply put, no evidence presented, no acceptance of claims, all the justification needed for my position.

One making any claims that a god entity does exist and that their particular version with their particular mandates and dogmas needs to provide evidence of those claims, otherwise they are just as unjustified as if I were to say that a god entity definitely does not exist or that some other god entity or entities definitely exist. One wishing to pass into law or legislation items on religious grounds need to provide evidence of the claims of their religion, else it is just as unjustified as someone trying to pass into law virgin sacrifice to make the Sun God happy based on their own religious beliefs and claims. One trying to teach as fact anything needs to provide evidence to back it up, otherwise it is just as unjustified as a person trying to teach that water has a memory and heals and the earth was formed out of the poop of the marshmallow god.

It seems that many atheists are content with taking a wholly negative approach to their atheism. That is, they wait for theistic arguments and attempt to find problems with it to justify their own position. Whether or not this is proper action, it seems quite puzzling that most atheists wouldn't simply charge right out of the gate presenting arguments of their own.

I need to find no problems with any theistic arguments to justify my own position as above. No evidence presented for claims, no credibility. But what arguments can one present without first knowing what is being argued? Before making an argument, one need to know what is the subject of the argument, and as it is theists who are making the claims of god entities, without first determining their claims, there is nothing to argue.

Also I would say it is actually more ridiculous to accept a hypothesis by mere assertion than to accept a lack of hypothesis due to lack of knowledge and information. It is better to accept that something is not presently known than to accept an asserted hypothesis claims to explain (and thus know) but does not actually provide verification of the explanation.

MitchLeBlanc wrote:Now, even if this argument fails (I don't presently think it does) it is an example of the TYPE of thinking atheists should be doing to rationally justify their position. Unfortunately the consensus seems to be that atheists need not do anything to establish their case, I think that any academic worth his or her salt can tell you this is simply wrong.

Of the infinite number of things in which you have no belief, how many have you rationally justified your position? It's far simpler to generally justify lack of belief in the myriad unsubstantiated claims of others by pointing out their burden to produce compelling evidence or reason. I don't feel compelled to dance for just anyone with a story to tell. Sorry.

I don't believe in The Incredible Hulk either, so in your view, Mitch, I would also need to justify that and everything else I don't believe in, right? Utter nonsense, and a colossal waste of time.

Macroinvertebrate wrote:I don't believe in The Incredible Hulk either, so in your view, Mitch, I would also need to justify that and everything else I don't believe in, right? Utter nonsense, and a colossal waste of time.

+1

klazmon wrote:

Macroinvertebrate wrote:I don't believe in The Incredible Hulk either, so in your view, Mitch, I would also need to justify that and everything else I don't believe in, right? Utter nonsense, and a colossal waste of time.

+1

You don't believe in the Incredible Hulk as opposed to what, given then context of this thread? 'Why is there something rather than nothing' isn't a statement of belief, it is a question. Moreover, it's not a 'silly' question, no matter whether you're a theist or an atheist. Rather it is something that would be particularly interesting to know.

Now it might be the case that your response to that question is 'I don't know' (a presumption on my part). While that may be the only response you are able to give at this time, it is not in any sense an answer to the question, nor does it qualify as information which is useful to those interested in discovering an answer. I don't know about you, but personally I don't like not having answers to sensible and interesting questions. Nor do I necessarily hold that it is my role in life to patiently wait while other people work out all the answers before I can have anything to say on a matter, and thankfully there are other people you believe as I do or else there would never be any answers! We are all perfectly capable of thinking about what we believe about the universe around us for ourselves; we don't need to be handfed all of our answers by an intellectual elite. While it is likely that other peoples' answers will be better than our own, in which case we should use them, that's no reason to take so passive a role. So, for me, the OP is right that this is a question that we (and not just atheists, but all of us, since it is equally applicable to all of us) should be addressing, and the refusal to address it is a refusal to think for yourself.

Furthermore, of course you should be able to justify why you do and do not believe things! A refusal to think for yourself on the basis that it would mean you would have to provide a rational justification for your other beliefs and non-beliefs is nothing short of intellectual laziness. The argument that this would be time consuming is nonsense. No-one is suggesting that you have to publish that reasoning, once you have it, unless you want to, so the time involved is the time it takes for you to justify, to yourself, your reasons for holding that view. If you're not willing to take that time then you have no reason to believe what you believe and no right to the claim of being rational.

In short, whether or not you address the question is up to you. Telling us that you don't intend to address it is superfluous, we'll take it that you don't intend to address it at this time by the fact that you don't. Telling that the reason you're not going to do so because you don't have time to justify your beliefs, or lack thereof, with reason is irrational and lazy.

Jef wrote:

klazmon wrote:

Macroinvertebrate wrote:I don't believe in The Incredible Hulk either, so in your view, Mitch, I would also need to justify that and everything else I don't believe in, right? Utter nonsense, and a colossal waste of time.

+1

You don't believe in the Incredible Hulk as opposed to what, given then context of this thread? 'Why is there something rather than nothing' isn't a statement of belief, it is a question. Moreover, it's not a 'silly' question, no matter whether you're a theist or an atheist. Rather it is something that would be particularly interesting to know.

Now it might be the case that your response to that question is 'I don't know' (a presumption on my part). While that may be the only response you are able to give at this time, it is not in any sense an answer to the question, nor does it qualify as information which is useful to those interested in discovering an answer. I don't know about you, but personally I don't like not having answers to sensible and interesting questions. Nor do I necessarily hold that it is my role in life to patiently wait while other people work out all the answers before I can have anything to say on a matter, and thankfully there are other people you believe as I do or else there would never be any answers! We are all perfectly capable of thinking about what we believe about the universe around us for ourselves; we don't need to be handfed all of our answers by an intellectual elite. While it is likely that other peoples' answers will be better than our own, in which case we should use them, that's no reason to take so passive a role. So, for me, the OP is right that this is a question that we (and not just atheists, but all of us, since it is equally applicable to all of us) should be addressing, and the refusal to address it is a refusal to think for yourself.

Furthermore, of course you should be able to justify why you do and do not believe things! A refusal to think for yourself on the basis that it would mean you would have to provide a rational justification for your other beliefs and non-beliefs is nothing short of intellectual laziness. The argument that this would be time consuming is nonsense. No-one is suggesting that you have to publish that reasoning, once you have it, unless you want to, so the time involved is the time it takes for you to justify, to yourself, your reasons for holding that view. If you're not willing to take that time then you have no reason to believe what you believe and no right to the claim of being rational.

In short, whether or not you address the question is up to you. Telling us that you don't intend to address it is superfluous, we'll take it that you don't intend to address it at this time by the fact that you don't. Telling that the reason you're not going to do so because you don't have time to justify your beliefs, or lack thereof, with reason is irrational and lazy.

+1

Given that their are an infinity of things we don't believe in ,and we pricesely don't believe them because of their lack of justification , its a pointless demand.
Examining beliefs and their justifications is far more rational.

IIzO wrote:Given that their are a infinity of things we don't believe in ,and we pricesely don't believe them because of their lack of justification , its a pointless demand.
Examining beliefs and their justifications is far more rational.

You'll tend to find that there's a 'one argument fits all' reasoning for why you don't believe in almost all of them and it doesn't take a great deal of thought to figure out what it is - that there is not to your knowledge any evidence which requires their existence for a sufficient account of itself nor sound logical argument which concludes their existence*. That is a sufficient reason for not believing in the existence of a great many things, and doesn't take much time to consider in response to any of them, but it is of little use in answering the question of why there is something rather than nothing, which does not in any way ask you why you don't believe something.





*There are other reasons for not believing in some things, of course, such as that they are logically impossible or incoherent.