1/6/10

Atheist Circular Alogic - “Who Designed the Designer?”

Please note that this essay will now be housed in True Freethinker’s section on Atheism
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Posted by Ken
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25 comments:

  1. UnknownJanuary 6, 2010 at 10:50 AM

    How is it illogical to question where God comes from? I don't pretend to know how matter, the universe, or life came about, but I can't even imagine the origin of God because none is suggested, nor is the concept addressed by theologians.

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  2. mmcelhaneyJanuary 6, 2010 at 11:55 AM

    @Ginx Did you read this post?

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  3. DWJanuary 6, 2010 at 12:41 PM

    I don't see anything in the post that rebuts the argument.

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  4. BruckerJanuary 6, 2010 at 2:10 PM

    No, this is really good; I think I get it. Even as a theist, I've had problems with the "Uncreated creator" concept, but if I'm understanding correctly, Mariano isn't answering the question of "Who or what created the creator?" He's pointing out that the question fails to really be meaningful.

    Take the classic ID argument of finding a watch in the sand at the beach. When you find the watch, you assume it had a creator. Does it make it invalid to assume the existence of the creator of the watch if I ask, "So you assume the watch had a creator, but you don't know who created the creator, do you?!"

    The point is, it may be an interesting question, but whether or not there is an answer seems to make little difference.

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  5. AnonymousJanuary 6, 2010 at 3:09 PM

    Well Mariano has used the point that God doesn't have a creator as he is eternal. Or at least the Bible portrays him that way. It sort of overides many atheist objections.

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  6. FissureJanuary 6, 2010 at 3:14 PM

    God is an effect and must have had a cause.
    Matter is the uncaused first cause.

    You don't get it. The point of the "Who designed the designer?" question is to turn the logic of theistic cosmological and design arguments against themselves. Naturalists aren't proposing out of thin air that a god would require a designer. They're just taking your argument that the universe requires a designer and applying it without special pleading.

    "Who designed the designer?" does not defeat theism. It just defeats a particular type of argument for the necessity of a god.

    In other words, if you want to say that God exists, no problem. If you say that God must exist because the universe must have a first cause, then I will turn your argument against you and show you why it is ridiculous. You can't get out of it by defining the word "God" to treat him as a special case.

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  7. bossmanhamJanuary 6, 2010 at 5:24 PM

    They're just taking your argument that the universe requires a designer and applying it without special pleading.

    It's not special pleading to say an uncaused being can't have a cause. The universe has been shown to have a beginning. Anything that has a beginning has a cause. Not special pleading.

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  8. WhatevermanJanuary 7, 2010 at 8:45 AM

    I agree with DW: you wrote nothing with either addresses or refutes the argument.

    Mariano wrote this: Interesting that the universe could simply be but God would require a maker.

    BZZZT. Dishonesty from a dogmatic theist? How utterly unsurprising. Science's answer as to how the universe was created is "We don't know", not "It just happened". Anyone who fancies himself as an intellectual understands this, and would never claim otherwise.

    You people (dogmatic Christians) have been demonizing and mischaracterizing scientific understanding ever since it contradicted your world view. You don't particularly care about the nature of that understanding, or the conclusions (and questions) it leads to. This more than anything else explains why you're so willing to lie about its claims, and Mariano, that's exactly what you're doing here.

    Naturalism is atheistic, scientific theories are atheistic, the whole world is atheistic, etc ad nauseum. In reality, the only thing that bothers you about these explanations is that they dare to contradict your dogmatic understanding of your God. Perish the thought that you might be wrong in that understanding.

    ---

    Christian theists claim that everything needs a creator, yet exclude God from this rule via special pleading. "Who created the creator" is not an attempt to refute the concept of God, but to require the theist to apply the logic of his own argument TO that argument. The fact that you refuse to be bound by the logic you wish science to be bound by is telling. In the extreme.

    And I predict that you, once again, will pretend as if I've said nothing of consequence.

    God gave you a brain. Use it.

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  9. BruckerJanuary 7, 2010 at 10:15 AM

    Ah, isn't it nice when someone explains something in such a way as to silence debate once and for all? Too bad that clearly wasn't the case here.

    I think I still agree that "Who created the creator?" is a silly question, but it's clear that there are closely related questions that still have some validity. To quote the above commenter:

    "Anything that has a beginning has a cause. Not special pleading."

    While as a theist, I accept on faith that God is an uncreated creator, as a critical thinker, I question both of the above statements. I hear it stated often, but never with explanation or proof, that "Anything that has a beginning has a cause." Says who?

    And while that's questionable (and in fact not 100% strictly true, I've been told) it's the "special pleading" that really bothers me, and apparently atheists as well. I'm not sure why many of my fellow theists don't see it, but this is virtually the definition of "special pleading". We're essentially saying that God doesn't count because...well, He's special.

    (More of my rambling on the "first cause" argument.)

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  10. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2010 at 1:07 PM

    Theists are just playing with language whan they say things like "uncaused being." It's just poetry. Similarly, attributing traits to the Creator like 'before time' and 'outside space' - using temporal and spatial referents to supersede said referents - is just poetry.

    Part of the problem is thinking of 'All Known Matter' as a singular 'Thing', subject to laws of cause and effect.

    And in the end, all you're really arguing is that you couldn't possibly be wrong about your Biblical conclusion: i'ts your own infallibility that's at stake.

    Lawrence Krauss has an excellent presentation on youtube that posits an entirely rational and plausible scenario, and wouldn't you know, it's called "A Universe from Nothing." Not that you'll watch it with any kind of objectivity.

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  11. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2010 at 1:13 PM

    "It is rational and scientific to believe that matter is eternal."

    I don't think you'll find a working physicist that would call this rational or scientific. They will tell you that the material universe has an age, not that it's eternal.

    You don't seem very well informed about these debates.

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  12. AnonymousJanuary 7, 2010 at 2:01 PM

    whateverman, you should eat your own words, fundy atheists have pilloried bible-believing christians for crimes that Christianoids committed without the atheists actually having the brains and discipline to learn what the New Testament Actually has to say vs Christianoids behaviors,

    your ilk is also responsible for propagating false myths and lies that faith is antithetical to reason like the Draper-White Thesis when historians of Science, History and Religion has shown it to be false and toothless.

    you also claim that science, the entire world are inherently atheistic, when it requires that you have omniscience to claim that, and its obvious you're not god.

    Clean your own crap before you tell other people to do so!

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  13. WhatevermanJanuary 7, 2010 at 3:02 PM

    Anonymous said the following to me: your ilk

    Hi Anonymous. I'm not an atheist. You know what they say about assumptions, right? And to be honest, I'm having trouble understanding what your point was.

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  14. WhatevermanJanuary 7, 2010 at 3:08 PM

    To be fair, where I used general terms like "Christian theists", I should have been more specific and referred to Christian Evangelicals & Apologists. I know plenty of "average" Christians who write and opine as Brucker does above; they have faith while being aware & honest about the inconsistencies.

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  15. BruckerJanuary 7, 2010 at 3:15 PM

    I knew I was losing my "fundie cred". I am an evangelical & apologist, just not professionally so on either count. Although I live by faith, I can't resist a good tough theological question, and the answers are rarely as simple as some would like to believe. (Well, at least as I see it.) You know, now that I think about it, that's probably why I'm not a professional...

    So long as you brought it up in response to Anonymous, may I ask of what theological bent you may actually be, if not an atheist?

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  16. dguestJanuary 7, 2010 at 6:21 PM

    Whateverman, what do you mean by "naturalism is atheistic... ad nauseaum"? Are you parodying the evangelical apologist position or are you presenting your own? seriously its confusing...

    My point is your point when you accuse evangelicals (as you say ) of subsuming scientific inquiry for the sake of theology when they should know better since their not scientists, when I should point out that atheists and their liberal theologian counterparts do the same thing to Christian theology when their not competent theologians to properly handle the material

    That's just called hypocrisy

    To Brucker, I'm a deist

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  17. WhatevermanJanuary 8, 2010 at 12:13 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  18. WhatevermanJanuary 8, 2010 at 12:17 AM

    dguest asked me the following: Whateverman, what do you mean by "naturalism is atheistic... ad nauseaum"? Are you parodying the evangelical apologist position or are you presenting your own?

    It's the former. It appears to me that Christian evangelicals often add the word "atheistic" to a term in order to make the thing that term represents appear less credible. I've explicitly heard at least 2 of the 3 terms I mentioned above - and still am at a loss to understand what they're supposed to mean.

    My apologies for any ambiguity/confusion caused above.

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  19. WhatevermanJanuary 8, 2010 at 12:18 AM

    Brucker wrote the following to me: Although I live by faith, I can't resist a good tough theological question, and the answers are rarely as simple as some would like to believe. (Well, at least as I see it.) You know, now that I think about it, that's probably why I'm not a professional...

    I have to agree; from my limited experience with you here, I don't think you've got the X factor to turn from thoughtful theist to dogmatic theist.


    Brucker also asked me the following: So long as you brought it up in response to Anonymous, may I ask of what theological bent you may actually be, if not an atheist?

    I was raised a Baha'i, moved away from religion in my twenties, and now call myself an agnostic deist. Without being overly technical about it, I think God exists, but I'm about as likely to characterize him/her/it as a disbeliever is. Simply put, I'm still trying to understand the nature of this deity - I haven't had much success to date.

    If God created mankind somehow, he gave us brains. I feel fairly certain that he would not ask us to accept things regardless of what our brains say about doing so.

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  20. BruckerJanuary 8, 2010 at 10:24 AM

    Ah, so the comment thread is being overrun by deists, is it? Well, that's as good as anything I suppose.

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  21. kh123January 8, 2010 at 1:04 PM

    "Well Mariano has used the point that God doesn't have a creator as he is eternal. Or at least the Bible portrays him that way. It sort of overides many atheist objections."

    Question now is: What would it take to override your spelling errors? Bold red underlining in the comment box just isn't catching your attention, apparently.

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  22. WhatevermanJanuary 9, 2010 at 9:29 AM

    "Overrun"? I'm one person trying to comment and respond appropriately.

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  23. dreamking00January 9, 2010 at 10:37 AM

    The point of all the various "who created god" arguments is to illustrate how nonsensical it is to construct an argument from ignorance. To say that "God created the universe" just because we don't have any data one way or the other at the moment doesn't tell us anything of use.

    Put another way, if you're going to accept the existence of something eternal and uncreated, doesn't it make more sense to focus on what we do see, rather than to insert some bodiless immortal we DON'T see, and some special pleading to boot about how the rules of causality and finitude don't apply?

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  24. JamesJanuary 27, 2010 at 4:39 PM

    Do we at least all have one thing in common - We all struggle to comprehend things outside our physical (3 spacial dimensions plus 1 dimensional time) experience of our World? I think it's likely this gap in our understanding is something we will continue to try to resolve without success until humanity finally disappears. The fact that something is outside our understanding surely does not logically point directly to a creator? Equally it is surely not possible to provide a watertight case to disprove the existence of a creator. I happen to subscribe to a lean view of the Universe, in which only necessary things exist. Because there is an apparently satisfactory way to describe the Universe which does not include "God" there is no need for God, and therefore it is unlikely that God exists. Why do we beat each other up so much over this? Can't we just accept that we are unlikely ever to find common ground, and move on? Why be so fearful lest "the other side" gains the upper hand. Before we know it we'll be fighting for the right to have our Worldview dominate. That way lies collective madness.

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  25. BruckerJanuary 27, 2010 at 8:12 PM

    The difficulty lies in the fact that both sides are strongly convinced that they are in the right, and that the correct position should influence the way one lives. It's both a moral and a spiritual issue (which are not the same thing). In theory, I like the idea that everyone should live the way they just feel like, but honestly that way lies madness as well.

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