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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2009
 Against the Gods: Arguments Against God's Existence
Introduction:
It's been my hope to create a blog which attempts to answer a great majority of the claims and arguments putforth by theists about the existence of god, evolution, etc. I think I've amassed a great deal of informationsince I began my blog about a year and a half ago, but there seems to have been some arguments I've missed orust didn't bother to cover because, to put it simply, I thought they were too stupid to be taken seriously. Forthis reason I won't cover the Ontological arguments for god's existence, but I will cover all others. Because Ihave spent so much time on the arguments against "design" I will skip those sets of arguments as well (but I willplace links that will point you to posts I've already written about it).Because I began my blog in the first place to argue against the creationist/intelligent design nonsense amajority of my counter arguments and posts have been geared towards those kinds of arguments but becauseof reader feedback I've decided to address more arguments for god. I have referenced the book 
The Non- xistence of God 
, by Nicholas Everitt, for a list of arguments that I will be debunking.The truth is, though, that I see nothing special about these arguments. Each of these arguments are fatally flawed when you think about them for just a few minutes (or when you look at the contradictory evidence). When someone comes to me and starts using a lot of philosophical arguments I often dismiss them by claimingthey're using "philosophical bullshit" because, while I like philosophy, it can oftentimes be abused and just because something
sounds
logical doesn't mean it represents reality. Take, for example, the experiment in which a feather is dropped along with a bowling ball (taking wind resistance out of the equation). Logic woulddictate that the ball would hit the ground first, but in reality they would both hit the ground at the same time.This is an example of something that
seems
like a logical conclusion: a heavier object will fall faster, but if youeliminate the affect air has on the objects, they will fall at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time.It is because of this that I strongly argue that logic by itself, while extremely helpful and right much of thetime, can sometimes get you into trouble. With that in mind, let's begin smashing the logical disaster that is theology.
The Euthyphro Dilemma:
The Euthyphro Dilemma is so named because it comes from Plato's
 Euthyphro
, in which it's asked, "Is the piousloved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"This essentially means, "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it iscommanded by God?" This is also called the divine command theory. Assuming god exists, it would be horrible to have morality dictated by such a being. The reasons are thefollowing:
"It is the responsibility of intellectuals tospeak the truth and expose lies." 
- NoamChomsky 
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1. The first question that must be asked is what god are you interpreting? The god of the bible, or nature?2. If it is the god of the bible then you have already lost the argument because god commands the murder of the inhabitants of multiple cities in Joshua 10:28-42, "...as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded." (40)[NEB] This is one of many other slaughters found throughout the bible, including, Hosea 13:16:"Samaria will become desolate because she has rebelled against her God; her babes will fall by the sword and bedashed to the ground, her woman with child shall be ripped up." [NEB]Clearly, any sane human being will see that this is an immoral act, therefore, god cannot be considered asource for good morals since he commands the murder of many people.Some christian apologists attempt to explain these acts away. Take the author of the apologist websitegodandscience.orgfor example. He says,
"The sixth commandment is "Thou shall not kill."1 Atheists claim that God violated His own commandment inordering the destruction of entire cities, just to allow the Jews to have a homeland in the Middle East. Theible confirms that God ordered the killing of thousands of people. Isn't this an open and shut case for thehypocrisy of the God of the Bible? One thing you have to love about atheists is their extreme appreciation for the King James Version (KJV)translation. The KJV was translated in the early 17th century using an archaic form of modern English. Inthe last 400 years, English has changed significantly. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those who read the JV (both believers and unbelievers) are unqualified to know what the text means in many instancesbecause of word meaning changes. In attempting to demonstrate the contradiction of God's commands tosrael and the sixth commandment, atheist cite the KJV translation, "Thou shalt not kill." owever, like English, Hebrew, the language in which most of the Old Testament was written, uses different words for intentional vs. unintentional killing. The verse translated "Thou shalt not kill" in the KJV translation, is translated "You shall not murder"2 in modern translations - because these translationsrepresents the real meaning of the Hebrew text. The Bible in Basic English translates the phrase, "Do not put anyone to death without cause."2 The Hebrew word used here is ratsach,3 which nearly always refers tointentional killing without cause (unless indicated otherwise by context). Hebrew law recognized accidental killing as not punishable. In fact, specific cities were designated as "cities of refuge," so that an unintentional killer could flee to escape retribution.4 The Hebrew word for "kill" in this instance is not ratsach, but nakah,which can refer to either premeditated or unintentional killing, depending upon context.5 Other Hebrewwords also can refer to killing.6-8 The punishment for murder was the death sentence.9 However, to beconvicted, there needed to be at least two eyewitnesses.10 The Bible also prescribes that people have a right to defend themselves against attack and use deadly force if necessary.11To answer the question whether God breaks His own commandments,
we need to determine if God committed murder (i.e., killed people without cause).
[emphasis mine] The Bible is quite clear that God has killed people directly (the most prominent example being the flood) and indirectly (ordered peoplesto be killed). If God ordered or participated in the killing of innocent people, then He would be guilty of murder. Let's look at two of the most prominent examples.ccording to the Bible, God killed every human except Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives in the flood.Were any of these people killed unjustly? The Bible says specifically that all people (except Noah and hisamily) had become corrupted.12 Not only had all people become corrupted, but they were continuallylotting evil!13 Is it possible that an entire culture can become corrupted? You bet! Recent history proves theoint rather well. When the Nazis took over Germany before WWII, opposition was crushed and removed.When they began their purging of the undesirables (e.g., the Jews), virtually the entire society went alongwith the plan. Further examples are given on another page. So, the Bible indicates that no innocent peoplewere killed in the flood.What about when God ordered Joshua and his people to kill every man, woman and child in Canaan?14 What crime could be so great that entire populations of cities were designated for destruction? God told Moses that the nations that the Hebrew were replacing were wicked.15 How "wicked" were these people? The text tellsus that they were burning their own sons and daughters in sacrifices to their gods.16 So we see that theseeople were not really innocent. For these reasons (and others17), God ordered the destruction of theeoples whom the Israelites dispossessed....The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is really not as general as the King James version would indicate.The commandment actually refers to premeditated, unjustified killing - murder. Although God ordered the
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The Tyranny of the State, Part 1 - Taxes The Tyranny of the State, Part 2 - Prison The Tyranny of the State, Part 3 - War OnDrugs The Tyranny of the State, Part 4 - SpeedLimits The Abolishment of the State, Part 1 The Abolishment of the State, Part 2 Contracts and CoercionSpeed Cameras: Are They Really Reducing Accidents? Or is it a Lie by theGovernment to Steal Our Money?Say NO to Red-Light Cameras The Genius of Charles Darwin, presented by Richard Dawkins Altruism in Primates and Humans Atheism Is No Defense AgainstIgnorance  Against the Gods: Arguments AgainstGod's ExistenceEvidence Against the Supernatural Evidence Against the Supernatural, Part2 The Bible and Its False Prophesies Communism and Atheism: Revised andUpdated 
Way of the Master 
Reviews and Reviewsof Ray Comfort's Books A Review of the Book 
The Truth Behind the New Atheism
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 The Delusion of David Aikman: A Review of 
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,extreme wickedness, including child sacrifice. Did God destroy the righteous along with the wicked? In anexchange with Abraham, God indicated that He would spare the wicked to save the righteous. Hedemonstrated this principle by saving righteous people from Sodom and Jericho prior to their destruction.The charge that God indiscriminately murdered people does not hold to to critical evaluation of the biblical texts." 
So, according to this guy, murder is killing another without cause, therefore god did not murder since he hadreasons to do so. Alright, let's take this to it's logical conclusion. A wife cheats on her husband, which gives hima reason to murder her, and so he carries out his plan and kills her. Now, by this apologist's own argument, he would not have murdered his wife because he had a reason; it would have been justified.Clearly this isn't the case (I've got to say too that this thinking is literally insane. The lengths apologists willgo...). Even if we accept this author's claim that the people were "corrupted" and "evil" what exactly does thisimply, and who is to judge what is 'corrupt' or 'evil?' The author's claim that the people were "evil" for their actsof child sacrifice sounds like a decent reason (to protect the children) but god is being a hypocrite if that wasthe case, because in the very next book of the bible god asks for a sacrifice:Exodus 22:29-30: "Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the first born of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers from sevendays, but give them to me on the eighth day (NIV)."If god cannot even be consistent in what he deems immoral and moral, how are we to judge what is moral ornot by looking at the actions of god in the bible? Again, we're back at the same question as before. "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, oris it moral because it is commanded by God?"3. A theist could look around at nature and conclude this god is a wonderful god, but nature, as even CharlesDarwin wrote, is often cruel and inhumane. Animals kill and eat others for food, sometimes while still alive.Natural cells in a body turn cancerous and a person dies, etc.True, there are very many things in nature that we could call "beautiful" but there are many cruel things as well, and if god is given credit for the good, he must also be given credit for the bad.If god's commands cannot be considered moral, then is it possible that god is responsible for some kindof "moral sense" within us, which helps guide us?This has been proposed by theologians for centuries. Christian apologists even today use this claim of "NaturalLaw Theory." One example is David Marshall, author of the book 
The Truth Behind the New Atheism
, whoseemingly tries to dismiss the findings of evolutionary psychology which is studying the innate nature of ourmoral sense, by saying that, "The naivete displayed by [Marc] Hauser's questionnaire is even more remarkable.Can a Harvard professor writing about morality have never heard of Natural Law Theory? Christians (andothers) have been talking about it for thousands of years" (page 103). Marshall seems to be trying to give creditto theologians for this concept and not science for discovering it's truthful biological basis.First of all, I wouldn't trust a "moral sense" put inside me by a being who is clearly hypocritical in nature andoftentimes horribly cruel.Second, if god supposedly placed this moral sense within all humans, then how can theists claim that atheistsare immoral if god gave this moral sense to
everyone
? Atheists and christians would be getting their moralsfrom the same source. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Many theists insist homosexuals are to be put todeath, but this isn't shared by atheists and others. So, where are theists getting this information? The bible. If god is supposedly the author of the bible, or at least inspired it, and god is the one who created this moralsense, why wasn't he consistent with what he deems moral (according to divine command theory, whatevergod commands is moral)? Our human conscience (for most of us anyway) sees the persecution of homosexualsas cruel and wrong, and yet it is a law given in the book supposedly written/inspired by this same god. A third stumbling block is the fact that god has never been proven. If god cannot be proven beyond areasonable doubt then the most logical answer for our morality would be our biology and our culture. A related point are people who claim to do helpful and harmful things because god supposedly told them to.Because there are people who have supposedly been told to commit both good and bad acts, this doesn't doanything to fix the contradictory messages that god seems to send (assuming he is real). There are people who Welcome to Arizona Atheist  A Little More About 'Arizona Atheist' Get theDemocracy Now!widget andmany othergreat free widgetsat Widgetbox!
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NOTE TO VISITORS:
I'd like to remind everyone that Itry to make this a visitor- friendly  blog because in the past I've goneto websites and a video the posterhad put up was no longer availablefrom the source website, or a website that was referenced was nolonger there. I found thatfrustrating because if I wasinterested in what the author hadto say I wouldn't be able to fully understand what was being talkedabout. So, with my blog I try my  best to save all referenced websites with a screenshot, or at least copy the information directly into my post. I also try to keep backups of all videos I post. So, if anyone everfinds that a video isn't working, ora website I linked to is no longerthere, please contact me and I'll
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