First Cause and Cosmological Arguments
The first cause argument states "Everything has a cause and every cause is the result of a previous cause. There
must have been something to start off this chain of events, and that something is God."
This argument is self-contradictory. The premise is that everything has a cause; the conclusion is that
something exists, namely God, which does not have a cause. If we are going to allow something to exist which
is uncaused, it is much more sensible to say that the universe itself is uncaused than to postulate the existence
of God and say that God is uncaused. After all, we know that the universe exists.
A recently popularized variant of the First Cause Argument is
the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which states that every thing that
begins to exist must be caused, and since the universe began to
exist, it must have been caused and that cause was God. This argument
is a slight improvement on the traditional First Cause Argument
since its conclusion does not contradict its premises, but it still
fails because, as shown below, there is no reason to think that
the universe has not existed, in some form, forever. Another serious
problem with the argument is that the very notion of the universe
beginning to exist is incoherent. If something begins to exhibit
some property, there is a time in which the property is partially
exhibited. But it makes no sense to say that the universe ever partially
existed. Perhaps what theists mean when they say that the universe
began to exist is that there was some time when the universe did
not exist and then some later time when it did exist. But, according
to classical general relativity, this is not what actually happened
and there is no indication that quantum gravity will change this
conclusion. In the classical big bang picture of cosmology there
was never a time in which the universe did not exist, so there is
no coherent notion of "before the big bang". This is because in
general relativity time is a part of space-time and the big bang
is a space-time singularity, not a singularity in space that occurred
at some instant in time.
Both the First Cause Argument and the Kalam Cosmological Argument attempt to show that there was an
external cause to the big bang, and they both fail. But even if there was a sound argument showing that the
big bang had an external cause, this would in no way point to the existence of a supernatural, conscious being.
This is because there would be no reason to believe that there could be no
natural explanations for such an external cause,
and natural explanations will always be superior to "God did it", which has no explanatory power.
It is quite possible that the universe has existed, in some form, forever.
Our current understanding of cosmology is based on classical general
relativity, which breaks down for times earlier than the Planck
time of 10-43 seconds. Until we have a fully worked out
theory of quantum gravity, we can only speculate on what happened
before the Planck time. One possibility is that our universe is
a quantum fluctuation in some "meta-universe" that has existed for
all time. Lets compare this hypothesis with the hypothesis that
God created the universe. Both scenarios postulate the existence
of something outside of what we normally think of as our universe.
One scenario postulates the existence of an extremely complex conscious
entity, while the other only postulates some space in which quantum
fluctuations can occur. Even if the two scenarios had equal explanatory
power, we would have to say that the natural hypothesis is much
more likely to be correct than the supernatural hypothesis, since
the natural hypothesis is much simpler. Moreover, as we have already
noted, "God did it" is not really an explanation at all, since it
doesn't describe anything in terms of something that we already
understand. The quantum fluctuation scenario, while speculative,
can potentially provide an explanation, since we do have an understanding
of quantum fluctuations. Since the natural scenario has more explanatory
power and is much simpler than the "God did it" scenario, we should
apply Ockham's Razor and reject "God did it" as non-parsimonious.
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Moral Argument
Theists sometimes claim that the existence of morality implies the
existence of God, since they can conceive of no natural explanation
for the existence of morality. Put in this way, it is obvious that
this argument is an example of the "god of the gaps" fallacy. Despite
the theists' claims to the contrary, it is easy to see, with a little
reflection, that there is a natural explanation for morality: Morality
simply evolved as rules of behaviour that allow people to work effectively
together. Frederick Edwords provides an excellent discussion of
this in The Human Basis of Laws and Ethics:
Let's imagine for a moment that we have the earth, lifeless and dead, floating in a lifeless and dead universe. There are
only mountains, rocks, gullies, winds, and rain, but no one anywhere to make judgments as to good and evil. In such a
world would good and evil exist? Would it make any moral difference if a rock rolled down a hill or if it didn't? Richard
Taylor in his book, Good and Evil, has argued effectively that a "distinction between good and evil could not even
theoretically be drawn in a world that we imagined to be devoid of all life." ...
Enter Adam. Adam is a man who is fully human. He has deficiencies, and hence needs. He has longings and desires.
He can experience pain and pleasure and often avoids the former and seeks the latter. Things matter to him. He can
ask of a given thing, "Is this for me or against me?" and come to some determination.
At this point, and only at this point, do good and evil appear. Furthermore, as Taylor argues, "the judgments of this
solitary being concerning good and evil are as ABSOLUTE as any judgment can be. Such a being is, indeed, the measure
of all things: of good things as good and of bad things as bad. . . . No distinction can be made, in terms of this being,
between what is merely good for HIM and what is good ABSOLUTELY; there is no higher standard of goodness.
For what could it be?" Apart from Adam's wants and needs, there is only that dead universe. And, without him, good
and evil could not exist.
Now let's bring another being into the picture, a being who, though having many needs and interests in common with
Adam, has some that differ slightly. We will call her Eve. Interesting things begin to happen at this point. For, on the
one hand, we have two people with similar aims who are capable of working together for a common cause. On the
other hand, we have two people who need to compromise with each other in order that each will be able to satisfy
the other's unique desires. And so a complex interpersonal relationship develops, and rules are established to maximize
mutual satisfaction and to minimize the effects of evil. With rules, we now have right and wrong. And from this basic
recognition of the need for cooperation ultimately come laws and ethics.
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Near-Death Experiences
Some people who have come very close to dying say that they had an out of body experience
and report seeing a bright light. Some theists claim that these experiences are indications
of an afterlife and that the bright light is God. The reality, however, is that these experiences are purely
natural. Recent advances in neuroscience show that near-death experiences are a result of the breakdown
of the brain's normal processes that occur as the brain is dying. This breakdown in the brain's processes can
be reproduced using the drug ketamine to block certain receptors in the brain. Patients treated with
ketamine report exactly the same near-death experiences that the people genuinely near to death have
reported.
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Divine Revelation
Many theists claim that their god revealed himself to them and that this is reason to believe. But many
other theists believe that their version of god, which contradicts the other theists' version of god,
revealed himself to them.
Both groups of theists cannot be correct. Also, many psychotic people claim to hear voices and see magical things
and their claims are no less credible than the theists' claims. Since we know that psychology can explain some
of these
revelations, it is much more sensible to conclude that they are all psychological phenomena than to assume
that some revelations are genuinely magical.
Christians claim that the Bible is divinely revealed and that
the Bible is evidence for their god. But the Bible is self-contradictory
and it states in no uncertain terms that the Earth is flat. It is
not reasonable to argue that a book filled with such errors provides
evidence for the existence of God. In fact, it can be reasonably
argued that the errancy of the Bible is evidence that the Christian
god does not exist. Furthermore, the god described in the Bible
is an abhorrent monster that ordered mass murder and approved of
rape and slavery. In the remote possibility that a god actually
exists, the Christians' claim that the Bible describes this god
is extraordinarily blasphemous (see A
Message from God for what a god might think of Biblical mythology).
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Ontological Arguments
Ontological arguments are really nothing more than silly word games. The first, and best-known, ontological argument was proposed by St. Anselm in the 11th century. It
goes something like this:
"God is by definition a being such that no greater being can be conceived. If God does not exist, then a greater
being can be conceived, since an existing god is a greater being than a non-existing god. Therefore God
exists." It should be obvious to any reasonably intelligent person that something is wrong with this argument.
It is less obvious exactly what it is that's wrong with it. To see that it is wrong, replace God with Paradise Isle:
"Paradise Isle is by definition an island such that no greater island can be conceived. If Paradise Isle does not exist,
then a greater
island can be conceived, since an existing island is a greater island than a non-existing island. Therefore
Paradise Isle exists."
The problem with this argument is that it fails to distinguish the concept of something existing from existence in
reality.
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Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?
The "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?" argument was put forward by C. S. Lewis to show that Jesus is "Lord".
Here is the argument: "Jesus said he was Lord. If he was not Lord,
he must have lied or else he was a lunatic that just thought he was Lord. Given the morals that
he displayed in the Bible, it is unlikely that he was a liar, and since he did not behave like a lunatic,
he must have been Lord." This argument is based on a false "trichotomy"; it artificially restricts us to just
three possibilities when in fact there are many more. For example, it is possible that Jesus never
claimed to be Lord at all and that Christians got it wrong 30 to 120 years later when the Gospels were
written.
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