rationalskepticism.org

I was going to post this (see below), but lack any of the accounts I need to do so. If anyone would be able to link to this forum from his blog, that might be good. I've shortened the quotes from his blog, for sake of brevity, but you'll easily find the full comment.

First, atheism and theism are mutually exclusive world views which both deserve careful consideration ...

Something of a problem from the off. Various theisms are also mutually exclusive, and in simply setting up a dichotomy between theism & atheism, you make a basic error. It’s not that both can’t be correct, it’s that there is such fundamental disagreement between the various theistic positions too.

Atheists are materialists, believing that …

Atheists simply lack any belief in god(s). You can’t assume anything much beyond that. Atheists are not a homogenous whole, all thinking alike. It’s quite possible for atheists to have never considered many of the questions that lead to the positions you assert they hold.

By contrast theists (including Christians, Muslims and Jews) believe that the universe was created by an all-powerful, all knowing, rational, omnipresent, benevolent, and personal God who is both transcendent (separate from it) and immanent (intimately involved with it) ...

No they don’t. Not all theists believe this stuff. It might be true of the Abrahamic religions, but not all theists. This speaks to the false dichotomy you established earlier. The logical inconsistencies in the idea of omnipotence need not concern us here, but I’ll address this if asked.

… So, theists believe that, in addition to chance and necessity, the universe was also the result of intelligent design.

Simply not true. You claim to speak for all who believe in god(s), yet I know several people (Pagans of various stripes) who take a very scientifically congruent view on possible cosmic origins, and see gods as an expression of the cosmos, not as progenitors of it. You maybe need to get out more

Moving on, because I can’t address all the points you make (though if you feel I’ve missed any of import, ask & I’ll happily wade in with a comment or three) …

Third, I challenge atheists (and agnostics) reading this blog not to adopt the view, as a matter of faith, that the atheistic world view is some sort of neutral default position and that the burden of proof lies solely with theists to prove their case.

Did it occur to you that the ‘agnostics’ might be theists or atheists, and in fact, must be one of the other? A/theism speaks to matters of belief/lack thereof, whereas a/gnosticism is to do with issues of knowing. ‘Don’t know’ & ‘Not sure’ are to do with knowledge, not belief. Someone who is asked “Does God exist?” and says “I don’t know” isn’t answering a question of belief, but one concerned with the truth of the matter behind the question. Ask them “Do you believe in god(s)?”, and “Don’t know” becomes a stupid answer – you don’t know whether you believe or not? Really?

As for the burden of proof issue – it lies with those making a positive claim about the way things are. It absolutely lies with those making claims of god(s), not with those lacking such beliefs & making no claims for how reality is. You assert God, someone else asserts Odin or Quetzalcoatl. So you lot provide the unambiguous, incontrovertible evidence for your gods. If they don’t exist, there is no evidence, so asking an atheist to provide the evidence is pointless. You lot assert the existence of one or more gods, so you produce the goods please. Trying to handwave away the responsibility to do so, is not good enough.

Oh, and logical fallacies are logical fallacies, and it’s fair to point them out in respect to an argument another is presenting. ‘Appeals to authority’ is one of those logical fallacies.

Start instead with the admission that theism is a plausible, internally consistent world view ...

The trouble is, theism isn’t a monolithic thing, but is multivarious & diverse. So we’ll need to narrow things down a bit. Shall we stop with the theism/atheism bit, and instead agree to discuss one form of theism? Let’s take Christianity as that form. I’m happy to comment on Islam, Hinduism, Asatru, Wicca, Voodoo and others, but given the diversity of views inherent in so many different belief systems, hopefully I can be forgiven for focussing on just one. And here’s the thing, Christians will most probably claim that Asatru isn’t plausible, & the Muslims will be pretty much antipathetic towards Wicca. So none of your ‘proofs’ will prove theism, because theism isn’t one thing to be proven, and theism doesn’t, indeed can’t explain phenomena better than atheism, partly because atheism makes no claim to explain, but also because the various theistic traditions make competing claims themselves. So let’s stick to just one. Christianity it is.

So, to your questions … Available space to post means just one at a time.

1. What caused the universe to exist?

I don’t know. I don’t even know whether it did have a cause. Maybe it’s always been around, albeit in a different form to that we know of. Maybe it caused itself. I think physics has managed to explain all the way back to a few microseconds after the massive expansion of spacetime we call ‘The Big Bang’. We really don’t know beyond that, though there is a good amount of scientifically informed speculation. Contrary to your claim about virtually all scientists, amongst cosmologists & astrophysicists, virtually all will say “I don’t know”, and a few might follow up with, “but I’ve got some ideas that may be worth kicking around.”

Your case thereafter seems to be a variant on the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which has been done to death, and dismissed numerous times, but let’s deal with it anyway.

Given that all known things which began to exist have a cause it seems reasonable to assume that the universe itself had a cause. But unless we are to believe that the universe somehow pulled itself up by its own bootstraps, this cause must have been extrinsic to the universe (space-time continuum) itself.

You offer no good reason to assume the universe had a beginning, and therefore need of a cause, let alone one to challenge the idea that the universe was indeed self-caused. Assertion doesn’t cut it.

Anything extrinsic to the universe must be both immaterial, beyond space and time and must have unfathomable power and intelligence. Moreover, it must be personal, as it made the decision to bring the universe into existence, and decisions only come from minds.

Extrinsic to the universe – well, if we took a multiverse theory, there are lots of extrinsic things, but if we take the universe to be all that there is, then by definition, nothing is extrinsic. But for sake of argument, let’s say that there is … unfathomable power & intelligence do not logically follow. Moreover, there is no compulsion on anything outside this universe to be personal, nor to have made a decision to bring the universe into being. It could be the result of impersonal, unintelligent compusive action. No need for minds or anything else.

It is therefore not unreasonable to believe in the existence of a timeless, spaceless, immaterial, powerful, intelligent, personal Creator of the universe.

Well, whether or not it is unreasonable, there certainly is no compelling reason to do so. It is certainly no less reasonable than belief in all manner of unevidenced things. It doesn’t make it true though, and it does suggest an unwillingness to be humbly say, “I don’t know”.