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Well I'm pretty happy with the fact that 75% of my econ professors at Loyola New Orleans are going to hell. Bill Barnett being the only crazy one...
 

Bob, if you`re in favor of using your reason when contemplating God, can you tell me:

1. is there a hell? what evidence is there for hell?

2. Who goes to hell? You suggest "person[s] who actively rejected the Creator's offer of friendship", but by this (a) do you imply that everyone got a "personal" offer? how so?

(b) if not, what happens to those throughout human history who never got a personal offer, or who thought their offer was to follow Judaism, Islam, the Budddha, etc?

(c) what about those with limited capacity - children (including those stillborn, or naturally or artificially aborted), the mentally handicapped? do they burn in hell for eternity, or are they united in communion with the Creator?

I`m not sure where reason leads us in matters of faith, other than we have a capacity to believe all manner of what seems obvious nonsense now.
 

Bob, I enjoyed this post and would like to read more about you ideas on religion. Are you just plain Baptist or do you believe in this biblical anarchy stuff?
 

While I was reading this post, a large advertisement for Dianetics (i.e. Scientology) was displayed on your site.

Way to go, Google!
 

Because that person actively rejected the Creator's offer of friendship.

I do not recall receiving such an offer. At least, not from someone who had acceptable credentials as a divine being or agent thereof.

So if a person has the option of accepting Jesus as personal savior and Lord, and chooses to tough it out alone...

Um, yes, what are you talking about? I would think my decision to marry and raise three children would indicate a strong preference on my part not to "tough it out alone".

I have married well, and acted responsibly in my financial affairs. As a result, my life is about as far from a "hell on earth" as can be reasonably imagined.
 

Hi everyone,

I can't answer the really deep questions here. I will try to come back to some of them on future Sunday posts, but obviously we're not going to settle them on this thread.

Virginian Rebel: I'm not sure what sect you would put me in. I was raised Catholic, so I am not familiar with all the different boundaries. Right now I call myself a born-again Christian, and I believe Jesus really walked on water etc. I don't necessarily believe in the literal Genesis account, because whoever wrote that didn't live through it, and so at best he was reporting a vision. (In contrast, the people who wrote the Gospels were discussing real-time events that human beings witnessed with their own eyes. So either that's literally true or they are lying.)

English Bob said:

I have married well, and acted responsibly in my financial affairs. As a result, my life is about as far from a "hell on earth" as can be reasonably imagined.

You are proving my point. You don't consider it reasonable to believe that there is an omnipotent Being who designed the universe with you in mind (as well as everybody else). So the issue isn't "how awful is your life right now?" it's rather, "The universe is so much better than you realize."

The evangelist presents the opposite of Morpheus' offer to Neo.
 

I have always been struck by the fact that professed atheists think they have no faith.

My position is simple- I doubt there is a supreme being that created our universe, but I am open to evidence to the contrary
 

When has this Creator offered to me his friendship? It is not unreasonable for a person to question the authenticity of the bible as the word of God. Yeah, Jesus came and left with followers who could testify to his word, divinity, etc; and these apostles had their own disciples, and the whole apostolic chain of succession thingy until it's like a classic rumor: "I know this guy who has a friend whose cousin was roommates with this other guy who could move objects with his own mind."

I wouldn't reject the offer of his friendship, but I'd like a more recent one than circa 1st century.
 

OK, here's my question (possibly to be answered on some future thread with the others): What about people (like myself) who agree with you that there is a really neat prize behind Door #1, but just don't agree that Christianity has a monopoly on the truth about how to open that door?

Do you believe that Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, etc. who are also pursuing communion with "the Creator" in ways that don't necessarily include Jesus are also going to Hell? If so, why?
 

The Heaven's Gate folks believed that the world was coming to an end. Those who remained would be subject to a form of hell on earth.

Had one of the HG folks approached me with their story of the fast approaching end times, I would have shrugged it off -- since I would have none of their beliefs.

The HB folks would never have offended me, even in the slightest.

In the same vein, how can an atheist be offended by the Christian view of eternity?

If the God and hell do not exist for the atheist, what is there to be offended about?

By the way, the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, etc, versions of hell hold no power over me. Their condemnations of my soul are no offense to me either.
 

tokyotom:

mormons have nice clean answers for all of those questions.

1. yes, there is a hell (mormons call it outer darkness, and atheists WONT go there)

2. everyone gets a personal offer. if they dont get it in this life, they will get it in the next and will be offered the opportunity to be baptized through a proxy baptism for the dead performed in one of the mormon temples.

according to mormon doctrine, those with limited capacity are spirits that were exceptional in their premortal existence and will be given the highest glory after their resurrection.
 

Bob, I'd like to know: have you ever read and considered a proper rebuttal to your beliefs, such as one from Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, or their ilk?

For me, what really cemented my beliefs was Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. It's really powerful and eye-opening stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw
 

The problem with the whole theist/atheist debate is that it rarely occurs to people to just come out and say that when someone uses the word "God" they are referring to something which would have to be a contradiction to exist, therefore, it does not exist. End of story.
 

"Because that person actively rejected the Creator's offer of friendship." - Bob Murphy

That's an interesting way of putting it, because I don't believe that any such offer was ever made, so I did not actively reject anything. If I did believe that such an offer had been made, then I would readily accept it.

If Bill Gates should offer to bequeath his entire fortune to me, then I would happily accept it. But he has made no such offer, and even though I will not receive his vast fortune, neither have actively rejected it.
 

By the way, I do not think it is unreasonable to be a Christian, but nor do I think it is particularly reasonable either. I tend to reserve the word "reasonable" or "rational" to describe the attitude with which a belief is held, rather than the belief itself.
 

One other thing.

Almost everyone in my family is atheist/agnostic. Where I grew up, few of my friends or classmates were religious, and those that were didn't make a big deal of it. Whether God existed was a non-issue, and whether the Christian vision of God existed was even less important. Religion was something found in history books, films, or news reports from far-away countries.

I have never felt the presence of God, even when I have made a sincere effort to make a connection. I have since my youth attended churches, gotten to know many Christians, and even enjoy quite a lot about Christian culture, but never have my underlying beliefs been changed.

The fact is that my understanding of the world, my weltanschauung, has never been challenged by anything I have seen or felt at church, or learnt when talking with Christians. I have no problem for which a belief in the Christian God, or acceptance of Jesus Christ as my saviour, corresponds as a solution. In fact, such a change of position would actually introduce more problems, and thus feel like a regress.

Anyway, my point is that not all atheists are bitter ex-Christians. I was never a Christian, and probably never will be, and I certainly do not feel as though I have rejected any offer of friendship from God. If I ever believed, even for a moment, that any such offer was actually made, then, believe me, I would accept it happily.

I would never actually intentionally choose to burn in hell, but your original post seems to assume that I am.
 

Sorry for the quadruple post, but one last thing (for real this time).

Although I grew up in south-east England, I am currently living about an hour's drive away from Auburn.

I am interested in economics, but have never been by the Ludwig von Mises Institute (is it even possible to just go by?).

Anyway, it would be interesting to talk to you sometime about religion sometime. Rarely are discussions about religion fruitful, but you seem like a very reasonable person.
 

Sorry, but I couldn't let this one go without a comment.

"(In contrast, the people who wrote the Gospels were discussing real-time events that human beings witnessed with their own eyes. So either that's literally true or they are lying.)" - Bob Murphy

Is it not possible that they were simply mistaken? If man has free will, then he is free to err. Just because someone was an eyewitness does not mean they have truthfully interpreted events.
 

I was raised in a catholic family, but nobody followed the religion rigorously.

I became an atheist during my teens.

I was complete ignorant in the matter and just felt religion was an immense load of crap people tried to make other people believe.

Nowadays I am not a religious guy, but I've developed a much more sensible stance over the matter.

I think one good thing about religion is that it put some ultimate moral truths in a form that is palatable and traditionally meaningful.

It does not work for me anymore. I believe in absolute moral values and identify myself with the standards of Christianity, I just don't feel that I need to buy the whole package of allegories and myths literally in order to be a good person.

I do not reject the advice of priests, and I generally regard them positively, as well as the messages in the Bible (of course, not all of them).

The fact that I don't really care for the hocus pocus doesn't really makes me think they do not have any wisdom at all.
 

Victor: "I believe in absolute moral values and identify myself with the standards of Christianity..."

When Christians say that non-Christians are going to hell, most people think that they mean that Christians are morally better people than non-Christians. That should be the case, but it is not relevant to the issue of going to hell or heaven.

For Protestant Christians, no one but Christ has ever been good enough to go to heaven, and no one besides Christ can be good enough. Christ could because he is God. No human can because we are human and it's impossible. In fact, I think many of you will have noticed that a lot of Christians, especially those on TV, don't seem to be particularly good people.

Putting Christ's work into language is hard to do. All we can do is resort to imperfect allegories. One is that Christ suffered hell in our place and if we believe in him and accept his offer of salvation, then his death will substitute for ours. God will attribute Christ's goodness to us.

Another is the ransom allegory in which we are held captive by Lucifer and Christ paid our ransom with his death.

I like the allegory of Christ being the perfect human, because he is also God, who died, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. We can't do that, but if we believe in him we can hitch a ride with him.
 

TokyoTom: “1. is there a hell? what evidence is there for hell?”

These are excellent questions and as it appears that Robert may not have time to answer I’ll toss in my two bits, although I don’t claim to be answering for Robert. The only evidence for hell is in the Bible. It’s described as a place of torture for those who rebel against God.

TokyoTom: “2. Who goes to hell? You suggest "person[s] who actively rejected the Creator's offer of friendship", but by this (a) do you imply that everyone got a "personal" offer? how so? “

The Bible makes it clear that God offers his friendship to everyone who comes into the world. He does it in a variety of ways. According to the Apostle Paul in Romans God uses our consciences to convince us that we are not moral people, and he uses the external world, the creation, to witness to his existence and power. He also uses reason. Then there is the Bible and the witness of believers. I have even read of Muslims who became Christians seeing visions.

TokyoTom: (b) if not, what happens to those throughout human history who never got a personal offer, or who thought their offer was to follow Judaism, Islam, the Budddha, etc?

I think the testimonies of Muslims who became Christians are very instructive. They had no Christian witness or a Bible and yet they were drawn to Christ, some through the Koran. An excellent book is “Into the Den of Infidels” published by persecution.org which has about a dozen similar testimonies. But the point is that no one who has ever lived has not received an invitation.

TokyoTom: (c) what about those with limited capacity - children (including those stillborn, or naturally or artificially aborted), the mentally handicapped? do they burn in hell for eternity, or are they united in communion with the Creator?

They spend eternity in heaven, and without the handicaps they suffered from on earth.

TokyoTom: “I`m not sure where reason leads us in matters of faith, other than we have a capacity to believe all manner of what seems obvious nonsense now.”

The popular usage of faith makes it the opposite of reason, so I guess we need to keep that usage, but that is not what the Bible calls us to. I guess we need a different translation of the Greek word “pisteo” which is translated faith. In the Bible, the word translated faith is more like our modern concept of extrapolation. We know certain things to be true by reason and experience. Starting with those truths, we can extrapolate into the future and discover what the future should be like. We can also extrapolate about things that we can’t know with our limited ability to reason or experience, such as the character of God.

What seems like “obvious nonsense now” can become perfectly reasonable, and often necessary, if looked at from a different perspective. For example, the miracles in the Bible throw most non-Christians. But think of them this way: how would God communicate with humans and convince them that the one talking to them is God without using miracles? Without miracles, most people would dismiss any such communications as nothing but man made. Look at the movies “Bruce Almighty” and “Evan Almighty”.

As the late Francis Schaeffer used to say, if the God of the Bible exists, then he wants to communicate with us as badly as we communicate with each other. The Bible claims to be a record of that communication throughout history. He used miracles to confirm that it was God who was speaking and not an impostor. Finally, he could perform those miracles only because he is God and created the laws of physics. Miracles may not be a violation of the laws of physics as much as a superior knowledge of them and the power to manipulate them. For example, a simple computer would seem like a miracle to people in the middle ages. So what we see as miracles may simply be God’s superior knowledge of physics.
 

Read Heaven and Hell, by Emmanuel Swedenborg. Too many people, Christians included, view hell as place full of fire and chains, which is not necessarily a worthwhile description.
 

The only reason I am bothered by Bob's public professions of religion is that it has stopped me cold from recommending his blog to other people. I’m simply too embarrassed. If I had never heard of Austrian economics, and I had first stumbled upon it here on Free Advice, I’d probably still be a mainstream Keynesian. The only reason I’m still coming back here is because I enjoy Bob’s views on economics, but I feel their persuasiveness for the people I associate with regularly is greatly diminished by the overt religiousness. I associate with a very limited number of people due to my extensive set of exclusionary criteria – overt religiousness is one of them.
 

If Hell were real, it would be nothing but an enclosed space 9x9x9 feet in size, utterly dark with the exception of a digital time display clock that counts the millennia by the minutes. Nothing to do, nobody to talk to, nothing to hear or see, unchanging except for the ticking away of eternity.

But, since hell is not real, people had to come up with absurd descriptions of it to compensate for its impropability.
(HT2 Richard Dawkins for the latter insight)
 

I'm not surprised that you "can't answer the really deep questions here," because I have never heard any believer give actual evidence for a God. Yet you don't have any problem giving evidence that we're going to a face a decade of stagflation. The problem, of course, is that God is supposed to be "outside of" the natural world and exempt from evidentiary requirements as we know them--the exact same entitlements that attend any fantasy.
 

There is lots of evidence that God exists, if you view the world with the assumption that God exists.

All evidence "for" anything similarly begs the question, because that's just the way logic works.
 

In response to Anonymous 9:47 & David:

You want evidence for God? Christians are citing evidence for God every day of the week.-David

have you ever read and considered a proper rebuttal to your beliefs, such as one from Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, or their ilk?

For me, what really cemented my beliefs was Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. It's really powerful and eye-opening stuff. -Anonymous 9:47

Of course I can not argue with the likes of "Pale Blue Light," a compilation of video clips with a voice over .

I don't really see much in a "Pale Blue Dot" but an emotional appeal to be nice.

The video essentially makes two premises.
Premise I) "The Earth is small stage in a vast cosmic arena."
Premise II) There are "endless cruelties visited on the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner."
Conclusion)We need to "deal more kindly with one another and [we need] to preserve and cherish the only home we've ever known."

The conclusions just doesn't follow from the premises. Truth is not based on emotion, as all atheists should agree.
have you ever read and considered a proper rebuttal to your beliefs, such as one from Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens

Have you ever read and considered a proper rebuttal to your beliefs? Volumes enumerating just some of the many fallacies in Hitchens' book.

If you want to take atheism seriously read serious atheists. Don't rely on popular literature peddling logical fallacies to make a quick buck off ill-educated rubes. Don't rely emotional video appeals, strings of pop culture references with voice over and piano music.

I'm not surprised that you "can't answer the really deep questions here," because I have never heard any believer give actual evidence for a God. Yet you don't have any problem giving evidence that we're going to a face a decade of stagflation. The problem, of course, is that God is supposed to be "outside of" the natural world and exempt from evidentiary requirements as we know them--the exact same entitlements that attend any fantasy.

Argue with the greatest minds of all time if you wish. Murphy is not a legendary philosopher rather a trained economist, but because he has not attempted a written logical defense of the Truth does not mean he does not have one.

Murphy offers not logical proofs rather his personal faith. Many Christians choose to offer proofs.

Christians are out offering proofs every day.

Just today I read the writings of John C. Wright:
Nature Cannot Have a Natural Origin
http://johncwright.livejournal.com/253366.html

I offer him as evidence of every day Christians offering proofs of God's existence, not that he has the best proof. (I posted it because he wrote it this week.) If you want someone more serious then a Science Fiction author I suggest St. Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) and his dialogue with Trypho. Perhaps St. Augustine is to your liking?

I submit to you St. Thomas Aquinas and his five ways.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm


Tell me seriously how can you exist? Were you formed from dust? How was this dust created? In the flotsam of a supernovaed nuclear sun? How was this sun formed? From gasses that burst forth from a singularity in such joy and violent frenzy? And then?

I give you evidence for God. "I exist. You exist."

You can not claim no proofs for the existence of God has never been offered. The father offered proof of himself when he appeared in smoke and flame. Jesus offered proof of himself through prophecy and miracles. Christians have been offering proofs from logic and life every day from the beginning of Christianity.

I suggest you start with Thomas' Five Ways and rebutt me from there. Hitchens makes an attempt.
 

Continued...

Perhaps you are one of these youtubers who eschew reading in preference for modern medias. I submit Dinesh D'Souza (who has had good and bad debates) for the existence as a Christian who offers proofs which David alludes does not exist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw7J15TeDG4&feature=related
 

God offered me his personal friendship once. He put his hand up for a high five, and I raised mine too, but then pulled it back at the last second and slicked my hair back. It was pretty schweet.
IA: Suppose there is a god that created the universe and everything in it. Suppose the bible is all his revealed word too: directly from him to scribe. How do I know he wasn't lying? How do I know he isn't messing with us and poops and giggles? How do I know god and jesus didn't just get drunk one night and play odds and evens to pick who had to go down to earth to mess with all the silly mortals by walking on water and stuff? "Why would god lie" you may ask. Why woudln't he? By definition, he's not human. How do we have any gauge whatsoever of judging his actions? Furthermore, if a god (a being immune from logic, fundamental laws of thermodynamics, etc) is your answer to the "how did anything get here" question (which it very well could be, and I mean that sincerely) what's stopping throngs upon throngs of these beings popping in and out of existence (as we know it) every second? Maybe they're having a party all around right now? Maybe the being that created the singularity popped out of existence a second later and left us alone? I'm not an atheist by any means, but I believe the very definition of a "god" in any meaningful sense precludes such a being from any meaningful human contemplation. Make of that what you will.
 

James Rothfeld: "I feel their persuasiveness for the people I associate with regularly is greatly diminished by the overt religiousness."

You don't seem to be even a little bit embarassed by your extreme narrowmindedness. You won't find Christian intellectuals making any similar claim. Some of my favorite intellectuals are atheists, like Charles Krauthammer. Most of what he writes is great and I recommend him to Christians. I just warn them about his atheism and they're OK with reading him. It seems that atheists are about the most narrowminded people around.
 

David: "I have never heard any believer give actual evidence for a God."

The ignorance of atheists is almost as astounding as their lack of shame at being so ignorant. Whole encyclopedias have been written with the evidence for God. The fact that no believer has ever given you evidence says nothing about Christianity or the evidence for God. It merely advertises how small you world is and how ignorant atheists are.
 

Fundamentalist,

not one bit embarrassed at all.
 

Atheists may want to talk a look at some of the arguments pro and con on my blog.

Arguments for/against Christian theism

Especially check out the kalam and fine-tuning arguments.

I may also benefit you to see Hitchens, Dawkins and much better qualified atheists defend atheism in actual debates.
 

Alex R: "How do I know he wasn't lying?"

Funny you should ask, but the Muslim god, Allah, is a bit of a prankster. The laws in the Koran are for humans only and don't bind Allah. Allah will send a good person to hell and an evil one to paradise just to show he can. He is very fickle.

The Christian God of the Bible anticipates that people won't trust him, so he asks that people test him. He often gave prophecies to people about future events and asked people to wait and see if the events happened or not. Also, he emphasizes the need for reason and asserts that people can examine his claims and determine if they are reasonable or not.

God never asks people to take him at his word without any proof. History, archeology, reason and science all testify to the truthfulness of the Bible, and the Bible claims that God is good, loving, caring, and rational. That's because he didn't invent morality for humans as Allah did, but his morality comes from his character.
 

Alex R: "I'm not an atheist by any means, but I believe the very definition of a "god" in any meaningful sense precludes such a being from any meaningful human contemplation."

I think even Christians miss your point and it's a good one. God is so beyond what humans can understand. If we understood God completely, he could be no more than a man. If God is the God of the Bible, then there must be a great deal about him that we simply can't understand, such as the trinity or miracles.

But that doesn't mean that we can know nothing whatsoever about God. Even if limited, we can know some things that are true. For example, God might have some traits like us, otherwise we would have no ability to know anything about him or communicate with him. Many atheists claim that humans just projected human traits onto a fictitous god, but the God of the Bible is far from human.

Instead of man having created God, it's much more likely that God created humans and gave them some traits similar to his so that he could communicate with us.

Just as natural law and Austrian econ work out systems that complement human nature, we can do something similar with religion. Atheism and most religions in the world, except Judaism and Christianity, conflict with human nature. As a result, people who follow atheism or non-judeo-christian religions tend to be hypocrites in that they claim to believe one set of ideas but have to live as if those ideas aren't true.

For example, real atheism, not the comic book versions of Hitchens and Dawkins, deny the existence of universal morals. But humans can't live without them, so they are forced to make up their own. Most atheists are moral people by common standards. Also, atheism denies free will, love, meaning and many other things that are important to humans. In contemporary forms, atheism calls reason in to doubt.
 

Ok, Fundamentalist, I'm not going to address this in any detail with YOU, but just in case there are impressionable people around:

"Real atheism, not the comic book versions of Hitchens and Dawkins, deny the existence of universal morals."

I call BULLSHIT.

Of course, in the tradition of Humpty-Dumpty and all Fundamentalists, you define as 'real atheists' only those who meet your desired criteria.

For the rest of the sane world, an Atheist is somebody who does not believe in any kind of deity. Believe or unbelieve in universal morals has nothing to do with that.

(Why am I actually wasting my time on this fool??)
 

Fundamentalist: So we should trust god because he says he's good for it? I really don't think ya get how this whole "god" thing works. The history, science reason, archaeology, past, future, whatever, he could manipulate with less effort than it take for you to breathe to extents you couldn't possibly imagine. How do I know he didn't make all that stuff right to make us believe him about the other stuff? How do I know none of it's true and he just makes us think it is cause he's god, or it's only true because he's god? How do I know this isn't just the most elaborate prank ever constructed? You're gonna have to do a little better than "we can trust god because he says we can" buddy.
 

Murphy: "...my personal style of evangelism is not confrontational."

There is nothing wrong with that. If you study Jesus' style of evangelism, he wasn't confrontational either. He never tried to make someone listen to him who didn't want to listen. Generally, he would speak to a crowd of people and then talk one-on-one with those who remained behind and had more questions. He confronted opposition from the Pharisees and scribes directly. But he also gave the recommendation to not cast pearls before swine, which I interpret to mean that if people are opposed to the gospel, we have no requirement to force them to listen.
 

"Also, atheism denies free will, love, meaning and many other things that are important to humans. In contemporary forms, atheism calls reason in to doubt."-Fundamentalist

"I think therefore I am". Explain how atheism invalidates that. Also, if by "reason" you DO in fact mean things like "love" then sure, because when I think love, I think rational.

"
(Why am I actually wasting my time on this fool??)"-James Rothfeld
'Cause it's fun:D
 

Thanks for the post. I appreciate the public confession of faith. It's nice to know that there are intellectuals out there with an Austrian/libertarian perspective who are also Christians.

I find that libertarianism is quite compatible with a Christian world view. I can love my neighbor by working toward government that does not steal from him and redistribute his wealth to another.

Regarding hell, I like Dr. Timothy Keller's take on it: "Hell is one's freely chosen identity apart from God on a trajectory of infinity"
 

Man. First Alton Brown. Now Bob Murphy.
 

James Rothfeld: "I call BULLSHIT."

Your intellectual abilities are astounding! How can I argue with such wisdom.

Anyone who has read the great atheist philosophers will be totally embarassed by Dawkins and Hitchens.

Alex R: "How do I know he didn't make all that stuff right to make us believe him about the other stuff?"

I think you answered your own question. If he created it that way, then its the only reality that exists. There is no other reality so there is no deception or dishonesty.

Alex R: "How do I know this isn't just the most elaborate prank ever constructed?"

Interesting, that is sort of like the Hindu version: reality is nothing but a dream of Brahma. When he wakes up it will all disappear.

As I wrote before, you use the same methodology as natural law and Austrian economics. It's not perfect, but there is nothing better. You examine human nature and use reason to arrive at a scenario that agrees with it, not one in which people have to believe one thing but act as if it's not true.

You are free to assume anything you want and to imagine as many absurd possibilities as your limited imagination can conjure. But most of us are concerned with what is the most likely scenario. We care about truth, not imaginary scenarios.
 

Fundamentalist said:

"Your intellectual abilities are astounding! How can I argue with such wisdom."

You can't, of course, which is why you don't.

But, for sheer amusement, I would be curious to know which atheist philosophers a religious fundamentalist would consider truly great. French post-modernists?
 

In response to AlexR@6:28

Why would god lie" you may ask. Why woudln't he? By definition, he's not human. How do we have any gauge whatsoever of judging his actions? Furthermore, if a god (a being immune from logic, fundamental laws of thermodynamics, etc) is your answer to the "how did anything get here" question (which it very well could be, and I mean that sincerely) what's stopping throngs upon throngs of these beings popping in and out of existence (as we know it) every second? Maybe they're having a party all around right now? Maybe the being that created the singularity popped out of existence a second later and left us alone? I'm not an atheist by any means, but I believe the very definition of a "god" in any meaningful sense precludes such a being from any meaningful human contemplation. Make of that what you will.

I would say God is logic. The gospel of John begins "In the begging was the Logos," the Eternal λόγος, Logos, in English normally translated into word but it has multiple overlaid meanings. It from what we have drawn our word Logic.

God is not a liar because it is against his nature.

Lets start with this simple proof. You moved to the seat to read this webpage by the sugars in your blood. It got there because you ate an apple which had moved electrons from hydrogens attached to oxygens to carbons. The apple grew because the sunlight, the photons moving from the sun, which is a nuclear furnace. The idea: everything moving is moved by something else.

Now this reasoning can continue back ad infinitum.

Prime Mover Argument:
All things' motion are caused by something else. Is the universe itself its own cause? What would it take to be its own cause? It would have to be so perfect existence could not exist without it.

It is circular reasoning but it is the only possible explanation as to how can existence exist. How can I exist?

Either the universe itself must exist because it is infinitely perfect or an infinitely perfect It formed the universe.

Since I know the universe can not make decisions it can not choose to go left or right. It is simply a product of its laws, its physics, the universe must be the product of a thing that can choose to move.

From that perfection necessary to be its own cause nothing must be lacking. If we are to say It is all powerful then It must be one, singular. If there are two beings what would separate them? There can not be one all powerful being and one all knowing being, the all powerful being would not have the power to attain knowledge and the all knowing being would not have the knowledge to attain power.f
 

We exist because we are created from base components but the Lord exists because It is.

This means that It is Its own cause.

Similarly logic exists. 1+1 always equals 2. It always has, it always will. You can use rocks or photons or words to wrap your mind around that mathematical fact. It just is.

We can not prove experiments to prove or disprove this fact. We can not put two beans in a bowl, shake them, then recount to find a different number. I can't call "two" "three" and go home happy I disproved logic by simply changing a definition of a word. Logic is in and of itself.

God can not contradict Itself. If God contradicts itself then it has parts. If it has parts then It can be divided. Thus there is something It is made of, thus it is not its own first cause.

If logic contradicts itself it is gibberish. It does not exist. It is a square circle, two beans in a bowl called "three."

Similarly if God contradicts Itself It can not be God.

A lie is an intentional communication that portrays something that is not. It takes that which is known, twists it, and gives that false knowledge to another. Since God is omniscient God is all science (all knowledge). God can not contradict Himself or else he would be a logical impossibility. Nothing. A God who lies is not a just a fallacy, it is a self-contradiction. A non-entity.

(To say the statement that God could not lie would counter his omnipotence I say that it is not powerful to lie, in fact it is out of weakness people lie. Similarly dark is not the counter of light, it is light's absence. Lies are not the opposite of truth they are truth's absentee.)

This was a short and dirty answer to "How can we know God is not lying to us." I am no trained philosopher. It is not formal, it is not the best answer, but it is an answer. I hope it may lead you to think about it yourself.

I know of no way of proving from reason alone that the Lord loves us or that the Lord cares two cents about us. I'm young and I really haven't thought that much about proving that aspect of God. Personally I know it because I have seen His hand in my life. I could say because the bible says so, but that is kind of silly in a discussion like this. I'm sure some great ancient mind like Augustine or Thomas Aquinas has come up with something but I know it not.

AlexR, you sound more like a modern agnostic than an atheist. Classical agnosticism essentially claimed that God is a mystery, so far beyond man that it is useless to even contemplate Him because he necessarily must be so radically different our finite mind can not begin to comprehend.

I think that stance is false. I say God is a mystery in the sense he is infinite, but I say he is infinitely knowable (he knows himself infinitely deeply) but our clumsy human minds are finite. We can only know so much about God, a drop in the sea, a pop in the cosmic foam. I can say God is one, I can not ever know all the consequences of that but I can know some of the consequences of that.

That though, I suppose is best saved for a different post.

I suggest looking up "Attributes of God," NewAdvent.com has a pretty good article.

"Divine Simplicity" which I'm still not sold on but it is a good to think about might interest you.
 

There are HUNDREDS of proofs that God Exist, check this out:

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

IA, everyone of yours is covered, too.

Who created the creator is and remains the ultimate stump.
 

In response to James Rothfeld


Fundamentalist said:

"Your intellectual abilities are astounding! How can I argue with such wisdom."

You can't, of course, which is why you don't.

But, for sheer amusement, I would be curious to know which atheist philosophers a religious fundamentalist would consider truly great. French post-modernists? - Rothfield @ 10:56

I'm not a fundamentalist in the American religious sense (a very specific subset of American protestant Christianity that started among American Presbyterians) but I like to think I am a religious fundamentalist in the loose sense you seem to use.

I would call several philosophers "great" for several reasons.

Many would propose the enlightenment philosophers of Immanuel Kant and David Hume as examples. Hume was instrumental in destroying the "Argument from Design." There is the post-modern example of Friedrich Nietzsche who devastated Kantian ethics replacing them with a twisted world of his own making.

There is also the influence of Jean-Paul Satre which pushed existentialism forward through our parent's lifetimes. We'll see how seriously he'll be taken a hundred years from now.
 

In response to James Rothfield

There are HUNDREDS of proofs that God Exist, check this out:

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

IA, everyone of yours is covered, too.

Who created the creator is and remains the ultimate stump.

That website was funny.
88. # BENDER’S ARGUMENT (I)
(1) One day, demons were tap-dancing on my roof. I prayed and they went away.
(2) Therefore, demons are really good dancers.
(3) Also, God exists.

In any case the point was that if "God" had a creator that creator would be God and not the being we had labeled as "God."

I was trying to say God is necessary, His own cause, in and of Himself.
 

And why were you not trying to say the Universe is necessary, its own cause, in and of itself.

What's the difference?

So you believe in the universe. Big Deal. Next.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Kant an atheist? I doubt good old Emmanuel would have been amused. Next.
 

James

Mea Culpa
 

In response to James Rothfield
And why were you not trying to say the Universe is necessary, its own cause, in and of itself.

What's the difference?

So you believe in the universe. Big Deal. Next. - James

***
I take it as self evident the universe exists. I was saying either the universe itself is its own sufficient cause (which it isn't because it has no consciousness) or something external to it (God) is.
 

Fundamentalist: You utterly misunderstood my point. "Alex R: "How do I know he didn't make all that stuff right to make us believe him about the other stuff?"

I think you answered your own question. If he created it that way, then its the only reality that exists. There is no other reality so there is no deception or dishonesty." What if he created something one way and then told us something different. What if denying the existence of Christ is the actual path to heaven? What if he made science and archaeology and whatever the hell else you used to justify his existence seem to work out to us to screw us on that last point? You totally missed what I was going for. In addition, Austrian economics and natural law arguments deal with human beings, not celestial ones: that's the entire point. I would advise you to go back and read what Mises had to say about comprehending the action of sub and super human beings.

IA: You're absolutely right, I am an agnostic. The prime mover argument is in fact one of the main reasons I am an agnostic (I'm not ruling out another answer to that question that I and the rest of humanity have simply been too stupid to see so far). Your conclusion from the first mover argument that god has to be a perfect being...talk about a non sequitur. God doesn't have to be perfect...it just has to be able to get around a few basic principles of thermodynamics and logic as we(human beings at this point in time) understand them. How does that work out to "perfect"? With regards to the "lying" isn't power bit, I'll quote james: "I call BULLSHIT". I would certainly count the ability to say "2+2=5" among my various "powers", and would no doubt feel restricted if all of a sudden I couldn't do that any more. If it's a question of motivation, stop right there: we have absolutely no insight into god because we can't. His very existence defies the logic of the human mind (I'm sure you're well acquainted with the various omnipotence/science paradoxes as well as the whole "creating himself" bit) and nothing you can say can change that. It's not a "drop in the ocean": it's a singularity in infinity. It's dividing by 0. If you feel personally touched by a christian god, fine, great, I'm truly happy for you that your life is better off. But don't try to pass off your personal comfort aid as a logical necessity to everything.
 

IA: Can you provide a simple logical argument why the universe would have to be conscious to be its own cause?

AND - can your provide a simple logical prove that the universe is NOT conscious?
 

PS: Max Stirner in the beginning and end of all moral philosophy:).
 

If our Fundamentalist had Stirner in mind, I'd be almost impressed....;)
 

In response to James

IA: Can you provide a simple logical argument why the universe would have to be conscious to be its own cause?

AND - can your provide a simple logical prove that the universe is NOT conscious? - James

I'm sorry if I was not clear enough earlier. I thought I was pretty explicit.

Now would be an appropriate time to delve into the nature of the word universe to make sure we're on the same page, but I'll assume we are for time's sake.

The first cause needs to be conscious because it needs to choose to set in motion all following actions. That alone causes the universe not to be God because the universe has no mind.

If the universe itself did or did not display consciousness it wouldn't disprove an external prime cause. Things in the universe do display sentience, humans. However other properties the universe has does not make it godlike though. (All of these lacks are due to the physical nature of the universe. I could extend this argument to claim that God must necessarily be not physical.)

Any God would necessarily need to be indivisible as I proved above. The universe can be divided any which way but Sunday, and along then if you want to take into account this tipsy dimension of time. It is divided between you and me and everything else, matter to your left and matter to your right. The universe is not infinite. It has a beginning. Although expanding it has its shores. The universe extends thus far. The universe only has so much energy, at least according to Newton.

Since the universe can not be its own cause something must have caused it.
 

IA: you didn't prove anything so far, you asserted certain assumptions, and build on those.

I see no reason to rule out that the universe has a mind.

Not saying it does, only saying there is no reason to rule it out;)
 

James Rothfeld: Do you always talk so arrogantly?
 

It's only arrogance if you're wrong.
 

In Response to James Rothfield
IA: you didn't prove anything so far, you asserted certain assumptions, and build on those.

I see no reason to rule out that the universe has a mind.

Not saying it does, only saying there is no reason to rule it out;) - Rothfield

In my post at 4:14 I stated it doesn't matter if the universe does or does not have a mind. Because it is limited it can not be its own sufficient cause.

If you don't like any assumption feel free announce why you don't like the assumption.

If you don't like a conclusion state why you think it is fallacious and what kind of fallacy I've fallen into.
 

It is an unwarranted assumption to say that the universe is limited (I am not even sure what that means).

Also, there is no obvious link between limitedness and the ability to be one's own cause.
 

In Response to James Rothfield
It is an unwarranted assumption to say that the universe is limited (I am not even sure what that means).

Also, there is no obvious link between limitedness and the ability to be one's own cause. -James

1) The universe is limited. Astronomy informs us of such.

2) Perfection is what is required to be its own sufficient cause, for existence not to be able to exist without it. Since the universe is both differentiated and limited it can not be its own sufficient cause. If the universe is limited, only so large, a size can be thought of which is larger, therefore the universe is not perfectly large.
 

"Perfection is what is required to be its own sufficient cause"

That is, of course, nothing but an assertion that becomes no more true by repetition. There remains no logical connection between 'perfection' and 'own sufficient cause'.

Regarding universe being limited: astronomy does NOT tell us so. There are limits to what astronomy can observe, but that does not allow the conclusion that the universe is limited.

After all, it could just be pulsating in and out of itself in an infinite cycle of big bang and big crunch, in which case it would be its own cause - and unlimited.

Of course, that's simply a supposition - but at least no less legitimate than yours.
 

Theism vs Pantheism

Almost everyone of sound mind believes in some god. At the end of the day, reality itself must have the power to be, or it is not reality. As a result of this logical bias toward belief, more and more modern natural scientists are arriving at the conclusion that it is most consistent with the philosophy of science to posit that the universe itself contains the ontological "power of being", hence the popular saying that “the universe is all that ever was and all that ever will be”. Spinoza and later the Vienna Circle espoused this view, with its most famous adherent being Albert Einstein. When examined closely however, this faith is really a sophisticated form of pantheism, holding that God is synonymous with this grand reality of the universe. Until quantum mechanics, this faith worked itself out in physics as the search for "the theory of everything". However, in the last half-century the discovery of a quantum universe has largely diminished the focus of this endeavor.

It should be conceded however that this form naturalism is no less religious than the traditional monotheistic faiths of Christianity or Judaism. In either view, reality is either *the* self-existent “supreme being" of naturalism, or as theists rather argue, that supreme reality resides within the confines of the “self-existent Supreme Being” (theism). In a post-modern world, what makes those on both sides of the naturalism and theism divide strange bedfellows is the insistence that there is indeed a true “supreme reality” independent of how humans understand that reality. This is why Murphy (theist) can sit and have pleasant conversation with Block (atheist) at a conference.

Christian and conservative Jewish theologians who think on these matters must carefully seek to avoid contradiction of the nature of YAHWEY as depicted in scriptures with that of “heretical” thoughts of pantheism (**as a scientist, a pantheistic view is tempting to me personally, but the temptation is guarded by my orthodox theism). The "I AM THAT I AM" is the "all in all" of theism, not just the *all* of pantheism. The astute theist however is careful not to say that the eternal supreme being is comprised of the stuff of the natural world, but rather that the natural world exists within the confines of this supreme being, *but* is not the essence of the Supreme Being. So in the end, I think that all rationalists must be persons of faith to some extent or another. If one is even semi-rational, he is either a theist or a type of pan-theist. Most of us are probably not existentialists in its modern definition.
 

As a personal testimony, I happen to be a rare natural scientist who is also a conservative evangelical (of the Baptist/Calvinist persuasion), so I might have some subtle differences with the more Arminian theology espoused by many modern evangelicals (probably Bob Murphy?). We conservative evangelicals would largely all agree however that the catholic faith founded by Christ and the Apostles is narrow (the Parable of the Sheep in John 10) in that it depicts faith in Christ alone (Sola Fide) as the only way of obtaining eternal favor (justification) and life in the imminence and transcendence the Supreme Being (the God of the Bible). To paraphrase Al Mohler, Calvinists believe a little more, but most true evangelicals do not believe less.

It seems amazing to many moderns that educated people could consider it Gospel that reality would consist of a conscious, willful portion of the Supreme Being’s all-loving essence becoming incarnate for the purpose of protecting flawed and unholy human beings from another portion of the Supreme Being’s holy essence that is all-consuming and all-just. Furthermore, how one might peaceably live with the apparent contradiction that the Supreme Being willingly formed human creatures with the power to commit evil, and the foreknowledge that they would commit evil, thereby simultaneously decreeing that they become both the scourge of his consciousness and the apple his eye, yet all-the-while God remains blameless for the evil. Moreover, that the redemption and renewal of these creatures would play out in a primitively brutal tale of a voluntary human sacrifice offered up by God in the form of his son, Jesus of Nazareth.- A Jewish boy who was born of a teenage virgin, raised as a peasant carpenter’s son, who lived a simple and completely holy life, who as an adult took on the occupation of an unpopular religious teacher and fanatic, then finally was sentenced to death by Rome at the hands of an incensed and angry mob. Adding to this is the fantastical claim that Jesus rose from the dead after being buried in a borrowed tomb.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul described how the power of God works through the proclamation of this account of Jesus to effectually compel some human beings to come to salvation through repentance and faith in God through the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. As unlikely as “learned scholars” might view this story, this is the Christian Gospel. It is good news to those who believe and an absurd farce to those who don’t. The Apostles however left the invitation of the Gospel open to anyone who would believe. There is no arm-twisting or guilt trip required. The invitation is straightforward and non-invasive. Come to Christ through repentance and faith.
 

Believing there is an objective physical reality is sufficiently absurd to make it unnecessary to believe in something even more absurd, such as a divine spirit that exists outside this objective physical reality, and while not part of it can nonetheless influence it.

Or to paraphrase Stephen Hawkins: There is no need for the God Hypothesis.
 

"After all, it could just be pulsating in and out of itself in an infinite cycle of big bang and big crunch, in which case it would be its own cause - and unlimited."-James Rothfeld

An electromagnetic wave propagates through empty space through an infinite cycle of electric field generating magnetic field and magnetic field generating electric field, and it is by no means its own cause. As to your point about perfection not even being close to being a requirement for causing one's self, I made that point in an earlier post, and IA conveniently ignored it:).
 

Arg. When I talked about 'pulsating', I was not exactly thinking of a wave. I was more thinking along the lines of the universe shrinking and expanding infinitely with no 'beginning' and no 'end'.

The concept of 'beginning' and 'end' are merely constructs of our mind, evolved to deal with the meso-world - not the micro or the macro.
From a uber-macro point of view, the universe probably is not doing anything. It's just there, with no time before or after it.
Why should the universe at that level make any more sense to us than it does at the quantum level?

And ignoring salient objections is the general strategy of the theist.
 

James,

In the view of the theist, reality (beingness) springs out of the divine, but nonetheless reality is also contained within the confines of the Supreme Being, not really seperate from it. Ponder the meaning of the word supreme *being* in its full sense. The *supreme* being is the All *in* all. I think you might find that Hawking, Aristotle, Augustine, or Aquinas are not as far apart as you might suspect.

Hawking, like many of his less famous scientist collegues, views the physical universe (and whatever that term might encompases) as the divine *all*, with the full ontological ramifications. His difference with the theist (as best I can understand from reading him) is that he does not like the primitive view of God (with the resultant problem of evil) put forth by organized religion, and thus the concept of YAHWEY. Hawkings is distinctly not an atheist however. From the standpoint of saying "there is no need for the God hypotheis", what really underlies his statement is that in his view, *there is no need for the YAHWEY hypothesis*.

P.S. The expanding and contracting universe hypothesis (big crunch) has been proposed and has met with harsh peer review in recent years. The expansion of the universe is accelerating with respect to time, which entails that k is negative (universe has insufficient density to contract). And yes, the universe is thought to most likely be finite. It is a result of the latest big bang cosmology.
 

KSralla,

Hawkins is as self-identified atheist. Of course, the religious crowd likes to humpty-dumpty with the words until they lose all meaning and can be interchanged to the point that one is led by the nose back into theistic swampland, but that does not change the facts.

When it comest to rabulistic pettyfoggery on words, the theist will always have a leg up on the scientist: while the scientist sees words as means to clarify, the theist sees words as a means to confuse, since only a confused mind can fall victim to the stupendous silliness of ontological proofs and their ilk.

What the most recent cosmology has to say about the current undertstanding of the universe is secondary to the insight that the likelihood of theistic explanations to be correct is very small indeed.

Since the universe is a singular event, there is little we can predict about its future. There is nothing that could rule out the emergence of natural phenomena which - while already 'inscribed' into the very structure of reality - have not yet become observable.

So, our understanding of the universe is by definition limited, but the universe itself may not be - particularly not if one moves beyond the primitive assumptions based on our three-dimensional perception of the world.
 

James,
Who is Hawkins? Dawkins?
I leave you with a quote by a major collaborator of Hawking, Roger Penrose: "There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance. Some people take the view that the universe is simply there and it runs along–it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe, I think that there is something much deeper about it, about its existence, which we have very little inkling of at the moment." Please see my above explanation of Spinoza and this view of the meaning of God.
James, atheism does not make on more “scientific”. And for the ontological argument in its best forms, it has challenged some of the best philosophers in history. Read about Bertrand Russell and his wrestling with the argument. He did not ultimately accept it, but in its most potent forms, the argument cannot be casually dismissed. James, please continue to think hard about the universe. You clearly are searching for answers, and in that search, I bid you peace.
 

I meant Hawking, of course.

As for wrestling with the ontological argument, I think David Hume put it very nicely when he said that "there is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable."

The ontological argument in any of its forms is simply absurd, and I have a hard time taking serious those who take it serious.

I also have a hard time taking serious those who seriously believe in deities of any type. Actually, to be honest, I don't take people who believe in deties very serious. Whenever I realize that an acquaintance of mine is a serious theist, I tend to limit my interactions with them to the purely superficial.
 

James, I think you are being far too judgmental.

And I think this discussion generally is too shallow.

Can I suggest that you - and others - step back to consider the role of "Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity" as explored in a book of that title by Roy Rappaport (former head of the American Anthropology Assn. and published postumously)?

Rappaport recognized the role that ritual and "sacred postulates" (later, religions) have played in the evolution of man as a social animal, by providing a fundmental way of ordering the world, the group`s role in it, and the individual`s role in the group - thereby abating commons problems both within and created by the group.

The religious lies at the root of our human nature, even as its inviolable, sacred truths continue to fall by the wayside during the long the march of culture and science out of the Garden of Eden.

Ａｍａｚｏｎ

Ｇｏｏｇｌｅ　Ｂｏｏｋｓ

review by Mary Catherine Bateson

href="http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/58544/1/Hoey_Fricke_2007.pdf">Interview

Especially as we live in an increasingly global world, it behooves us all to know ourselves better - even us hermits in Tokyo.
 

Thanks for the book tip.

Regarding the history of religion, I was almost spooked when a few years ago I read Campbell's "Ancient Mythology" and came across the segment of apes dancing rythmically around a pole.

Yes, there is something in religious ritual that is needed by people, and that completes us emotionally. I have no problem with the ritual, it's the simplistic myths masquerading as truths that get my goose.

Also, while there can be had a deep and meaningful discussion on the history and role of religion, there is little deep and meaningful to talk about on the content as 'truth'.

Sorry for the redundancy.

Cheers.
 

James, I`m with you, but Rappaort`s point is not simply about emotional needs, but that mankind evolved with "those simplistic myths masquerading as truths" (each group with its own myths) and the rituals by which we turn them into "sacred postulates". The urge to ritual and to the acceptance of "truths" - like baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and Nissan - are built into our nature and benefitted us by helping us to control group behavior.

The way to sidestep frustration is to move away from the details of particular myths and religions. Perhaps we can find ways to mitigate the excesses of religious conflict and opportunistic funadmentalism by politicians, by finding new ways to break bread together.
 

I'll read the book, dammit. But I won't promise I'll be nice.
 

"there is little deep and meaningful to talk about on the content as 'truth'."

Agreed, generally. But some combinations of "truths" and ritual may be more adaptive that others.

"the simplistic myths masquerading as truths that get my goose"

Do they get your goose, or your emu?

It`s an important distinction, as guard geese are noisy, but not nealy as dangerous ....
 

If you took the population of any major city to heaven this evening, many would wish to leave as soon as they got there. If one had no time for Jesus during one's lifetime, what would his presence be but a cause for discomfort? It would be a constant reminder to them of the one they slighted and like adam who fled and hid in the trees of paradise, they would wish to exit his presence immediately.It is to those who love his appearing that he will appear an only those who loe him can be happy in his presence.