I agree with theists that there appears to be sufficient evidence to reasonably believe that our universe was created by an intelligent being:
–the orderliness of the universe
–the inviolable laws of physics
–the existence of a human conscience
–a common set of moral standards found in most if not all human cultures
But there also appears to be very good evidence that our Creator is dead:
–massive, ongoing, horrific, human and animal suffering. It is inconceivable to me that a creator who gave us a conscience and basic moral standards would allow millions of human beings, including millions of innocent little children, to suffer unspeakable suffering, day after day, year after year, century after century, millennia after millennia.
–prayers to “God” seem to be no more effective than wishful thinking/chance.
Yes, dear theists. Our universe was quite likely created by an intelligent creator, but the evidence strongly indicates that our creator is dead.
Yes, God is dead.
Accept the facts, theists, and move one.
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End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
OR … much more likely … he never existed in the first place. Personally, I don’t agree that an “intelligent being” ever existed or played any kind of role in this universe. But that’s me.
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You may well be right, Nan.
I would give a supernatural Creator vs. a natural phenomenon as the cause of our universe a 50/50 chance each. I have chosen to be a deist for purely tactical reasons.
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The orderliness of the universe & the inviolable laws of physics: With no other universes that we can explore, I don’t see how this can be used as evidence for much of anything. Underlying this is the assumption that chaos and randomness ought to be the norm, but I don’t see a justification for this. It just seems to be more of an argument from incredulity. Besides, why does a god need to create a universe that is orderly and has inviolable laws of physics, particularly if we’re talking about God who is supposed to be all powerful? The god hypothesis doesn’t really offer us an explanation for this. It’s just an assertion that this is the way the creator wanted it, but the same can be said about any universe.
the existence of a human conscience & a common set of moral standards found in most if not all human cultures: Morality is how social species survive. Non-social species (think mostly solitary species like spiders) have little requirement to treat members of their species well except for mating. Even Piranha’s don’t eat and kill other piranha’s. Evolution and game theory offer us a good explanation for why these traits exist: Much better survival for the individual and the species..
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You make good arguments, Herald. But until there is a consensus of scientists regarding the origin of the universe (which I will accept), I’m sticking with deism: An intelligent being probably created the universe but is now dead.
I believe this is the best position to hold to defeat the arguments of theists.
By taking a deist’s approach, I can counter that the Christian god’s behavior counters the moral standard which exists “in every human heart”, proving that the Christian god is not the Creator.
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Gary, a thought just occurred to me … -IF- an “intelligent being” were capable of creating the entire universe, how could this being be “dead”? The possession of such immense power hardly coincides with the idea that this being could DIE. It seems to me you are associating the death of HUMANS with the idea that such a “intelligent being” could also die.
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Why must the Creator be eternal? I believe that his or her “creation” involved an explosion (the Big Bang) of a finite mass. How much supernatural power does that take? For all we know, our creator was a scientist is another universe whose experiment took an unexpected turn of events.
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I guess the keywords are in your closing sentence — “for all we know …” Having said that, I personally find your reasoning lacking. But as I’ve said before … to each his own.
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How would you respond to this dilemma, Nan:
Atheist: How can you worship a god who murdered so many people in the Old Testament? He is immoral and evil.
Theist: What objective basis do you have for condemning God? As an atheist, you cannot appeal to objective morality. Everything in your worldview is subjective. The Christian God is the source of all good. He can do no evil. Therefore what you may view as evil in the Old Testament, must be good. You just can’t see it. God’s ways are not our ways.
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Well, first off, I wouldn’t even ask the question posed by the Atheist since I don’t acknowledge the existence of the “God” of the Old (or New) Testament and thus would have no interest in the Theist’s response.
However, for the sake of discussion … in the Theist’s response, s/he is attributing qualities to a god that the Theist believes actually exists. To the Atheist, who does not acknowledge the existence of such a god, the Theist’s “argument” carries no weight.
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True. But I am trying to deconvert the theist. So I guess it depends on the goals one places on the discussion.
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Yes, I figured that was the reason behind your question … but even at that, I personally don’t think the existence or non-existence of “moral standards” plays a role in a “deity” discussion. It’s just a tool that theists use to defend their position because morality is part and parcel of Christian teaching. But this doesn’t mean it is a defining factor as related to intrinsic human nature. Personally, I see it as more of a cultural concept.
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Modern Christian apologists would much rather discuss the existence of a Creator and the origin of morality than discuss evidence for the resurrection of Jesus—the central claim of Christianity. Why? Answer: Because they know if they can persuade skeptics to go off into the tall weeds of these two issues they have a better chance of winning the debate than discussing evidence for the resurrection.
Deism allows the skeptic to skip past these two issues and go right for the jugular: The evidence that a first century Galilean peasant is the creator of our universe is piss poor. Claims that a few people believe they saw him alive again after his death is not good evidence to believe he is the creator.
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If you want to base your beliefs on god of the gaps reasoning, be my guest.
I’ll say this: Every single time we’ve ever investigated anything and found an explanation, we always find that the explanation is natural, rather than supernatural – or requiring any god. While this doesn’t prove that gods aren’t the reason for anything, we really have no good reasons to infer that gods have ever done anything.
I think you have bad reasons for your belief, and your “50/50” probability is based on nothing more than your intuition. What can I say… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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What if our creator was not a god and did not use the supernatural? Isn’t that possible? Maybe our creator was a scientist in another universe.
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And maybe it was Gus the universe farting hippo. Appealing to baseless speculation doesn’t help anyone.
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I’ve been thinking moire about this and something twigs me the wrong way about your position.
You don’t seem to hold to any specific creator being, and in fact allow for the possibility that the universe was created by a scientist (possibly just like us) in another universe (as you stated above).
So what is it about your “creator” that makes morality objective and binding that cannot also be the case on a universe created without the intervention of any agents? Why do you think this allows you to make statements like “you as an atheist cannot condemn their god for objectively immoral behavior. I can.” ?
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My decision to refer to myself as a “deist” is purely tactical, Herald. I wouldn’t get worked up over it. I am doing it as a strategy against Christian apologists who have learned to avoid discussing actual historical evidence regarding the claims about Jesus by arguing with skeptics over the evidence for a creator and the source of morality.
In reality I haven’t changed my positions at all. I have always said that since scientists have not reached a consensus on the origin of the universe, I am open to the possibility that the universe was created by an intelligent being but I reject the claims of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus that their gods are that creator.
I believe that something most likely caused the Big Bang. Whatever that was is the “creator”.
My position on morality, again, is purely tactical. I believe it is quite likely that morality is nothing more than biology: many species of mammals learned that by sticking together they increased their chance of survival. Morality is nothing more than the rules of the herd. However, it is also POSSIBLE that whoever or whatever caused the Big Bang somehow threw some basic morality into his/her/their/it’s creative mix.
It is just a ploy to counter apologists, Herald.
Maybe a better term to identify myself would be: “I am a creatorist” since I don’t believe that our creator was necessarily a god. Deism implies belief in a god of some sort to most people. Maybe our creator was just a scientist working in her or his laboratory in another universe and something went…BANG…and billions of years later…here we are!
I’m just playing head games with theists.
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I bet we are on the same page on this issue. But I would be happy to play “devil’s advocate” on this issue if you would like. I can play the part of the Christian apologist and debate you on the issue of morality. Maybe you have a better atheistic answer than what I have seen so far.
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Here is an example of why I have chosen to identify as a deist.
Atheist: How can you worship a god who murdered so many people in the Old Testament? He is immoral and evil.
Theist: What objective basis do you have for condemning God? As an atheist, you cannot appeal to objective morality. Everything in your worldview is subjective. The Christian God is the source of all good. He can do no evil. Therefore what you may view as evil in the Old Testament, must be good. You just can’t see it. God’s ways are not our ways.
I have never seen a good atheist response that defeats this theistic argument.
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My worldview isn’t subjective. Some aspects of my worldview are subjective, but not all of it. I hold that morality is objective, and based on the the well being of sentient beings.
When Christians attribute God as “good”, but then appeal to “God’s ways are not our ways”, they have no legitimate basis for telling me that anything is good or not. They are effectively throwing away any rational basis for morality in the hopes that you have no answer, become confused, and say “welp, they must be right because I have no answer.”
Not having answers doesn’t mean that the other side is right, especially if they cannot demonstrate the truth of their claims. If they’re basing morality in God then they can never show that any moral claims are true. All of their morality claims are ultimately arbitrary, or completely unsupported.
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True, but by the same token you as an atheist cannot condemn their god for objectively immoral behavior. I can.
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As I said, I hold that morality is objective, so yes I can. If they want to appeal to “God’s ways are not our ways”, then they’ve thrown out any basis for any knowledge claims about morality.
Arguing with those who will burn down every bridge they can, in an effort to make sure that their position is unassailable, is a pointless endeavor.
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Remember these important words: That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
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Regarding the design argument, please read David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In its best, non-explicit argument from ignorance form, the design argument roughly goes 1. all machines have designers, 2. the universe is like a machine, 3. therefore the universe has a Designer. David Hume knocks down each of these premises individually and collectively both on the basis of natural human reasoning and on the basis of religious piety. Note that Hume appeals to everyday reasoning and not to Darwin, who lived several decades later. My surface-deep knowledge of biology and evolution ended in high school and is likely never to exceed that, just like most Christians. Nevertheless, I don’t need Darwin to rebut the design argument when I know why the underlying logic itself is flawed. For a solid psychological analysis of why nearly everyone believes in the design argument, please see Spinoza’s Ethics Appendix 1. Spinoza goes after the underlying logic of it there too but not as well as Hume.
Regarding the cosmological argument, my understanding is that the consensus view is that the universe was once infinitely smaller before the big bang expansion, but not that it was non-existent entirely. I’ve heard that the big bang could have been caused by a collapsed black hole, and I’ve also heard that M-theory can explain how there was pre-big bang matter before neutrons, protons, quarks, neutrinos, and so on. Also, a doctrine of creation ex nihilo is problematic for the theist because everything in our experience is created from something else, thus it goes against universal and consistent precedent.
Regarding the moral argument, please see the Shelly Kagan vs. William Lane Craig debate, which is readily available on YouTube. I find the moral argument to be largely an appeal to emotion and mostly lacking in solid proof for a cold, detached observer, much how I see the atheist argument from suffering.
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Very good points. I have never said that the “hard atheist” position is indefensible. I have simply said that deism is a strategically stronger position when debating theists.
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Or the “God” isn’t anthropomorphic, may not even be concerned with any particular species including the human species!
IF “God” was love like some Christians claim, WHY didn’t God reveal to all humans 300,000 years ago about germs and viruses so that humans wouldn’t have had to go through horrific suffering and billions of tragic deaths, etc. before humans scientists finally used reason and testing, discovering germs only a little more than 100 years ago!?
Heck, why did God allow or plan for germs in the first place?
Your powerful questions demonstrate that there is no loving God of revealed religions.
Having said that, however, doesn’t show that Reality and our cosmos is meaningless matter and energy as many claim. It’s possible that like the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould and Jacques Monod stated that everything came about by massive Chance. But I doubt that. It seems more likely that Life, consciousness, DNA, the ability to reason, to learn of the cosmos by science and mathematics, to gradually over many thousands of years to discover what is true, good, and just–came about because all of that, the laws of physics, etc. is inherent in Reality, which is very meaningful. At least that was the tentative hypothesis of some Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas Paine.
It appears that most of religion is delusion, but that doesn’t mean God is dead. Rather “God” isn’t primarily focused on the human species, is far beyond the comprehension of a temporary extremely limited life form in one minor edge of only one galaxy. Maybe in another 300,000 years, humans thinkers and scientists will have learned a little more.
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Maybe our creator was a brilliant scientist in another universe who lost control of his experiment.
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I find it strange that humans are so given to extremes. Either humans are the very center of reality cared for by a loving God Or
humans are worthless and reality is meaningless.
I’ve formally studied such absolute claims including at the U. of Nebraska, Cal State Long Beach, etc.
It seems most either/or arguments are in error because they claim too much.
I’m disappointed to hear your deism is only a tactical method not an alternative to the 2 extremes.
However, I suppose the main weakness of my points is that the term “god” is so varied in it’s contradictory definitions, that I ought to avoid using it, since it is so ambiguous.
As for your Vonnegut-like satire of the alien scientist, that did bring a chuckle from me.
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But I am totally serious. Why isn’t it possible?
As far as morality, I do not claim to know the origin of morality. I do know that most humans possess some form of moral standard. Did our creator endow us with these ingrained beliefs or are they the evolutionary end product of our biology: mammalian herd behavior? I don’t know. Either or neither origin may be correct. Should I flip a coin? In lieu of flipping a coin, I choose to believe that our morality comes from our creator (which may have been a god, a proton, or a scientist in another universe), simply because it gives me an advantage in counter-apologetics. Is that wrong of me??
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🙂 I do think your hypothesis is possible. Sorry I wasn’t more clear and I thought you were joking. I’ve actually read a few scientists who do think the origin and continuation of life on earth is so highly improbable that they have posited that life on earth actually came from elsewhere in the universe.At the moment, I don’t remember their names, but I can probably Google and find that.
I do think the methods by which us human primates came to develop our abilities to reason, to do complex math, to discern what is morally true, etc. came naturally partially through evolution.
What I strongly disagree with is the Divine Command Theory of Christians such as WLC that God ordered it, but God did also order opposite moral commands in the past.
And the totally contrary view of many atheists that morality is a relative and subjective human constructed opinion that could be the opposite, etc.
I think atheists and agnostics who are moral realists, deists including Enlightenment thinkers, some generic theists are probably more correct–that slavery, abuse, rape, etc. are inherently wrong for any species that is self aware, rational, and senses ought.
As for the ultimate nature of how all this came to be, I don’t know. What I think I do know is that Christians who claim that God ordered slavery in the Bible and slaughter, etc. are wrong, and the famous nontheists who claim that morality is only subjective opinion are wrong too.
I admire the nontheist grad student at the U of Nebraska who was committed to moral realism, to justice, who opposed both extremes .
I do thank you for having this blog, getting all of us to think, to weigh the evidence. Yes, possibly life on earth came from elsewhere in the cosmos, but then where did that life come from? Chance? Inherent?
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Questions that seemingly have no firm answer tend to keep everyone on their toes. And, IMO, that’s a good thing. 🙂
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Well said!
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Good question, Daniel.
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