Ask the Atheist

** An indescribably divine nothing **

Dealing with those mystically inclined, or the more naive 'I-feel-god-in-my-heart' crowd, and in general all irrationalist believers, requires a different approach from dealing with rationalists.

I know that my god/goddess/demon exists -- but he/she/it cannot be described, or is beyond human understanding.

The philosopher Wittgenstein, in one of his seemingly cryptic utterances said, "A nothing would be as good as a something about which nothing could be said."

Spelled out: you claim that something exists, but no property (like, being blue) could ever be ascribed to it. This is the famous Western "via negativa" - negative path to god. Or, "neti, neti, neti" not-this, not-this not-this of Hindu mystics. God is not blue, is not evil, is not good . . . .

Logically, however, a claim that something exists does not ascribe a property to it -- or, as you ought to have learned in logic class -- existence is not a predicate. (Non-existence is not a predicate either.)

"Some god exists" seems to be saying something, but it is meaningless. You might as well be saying "bar-bar" or saying nothing at all. The Viennese novelist, Robert Musil wrote "The Man without Qualities." The man who can't be there. A nobody. Nothing.

Nobody can talk about nothing. Who's doing the talking here? (Nobody?) And what's being talked about? (Nothing?) Zen Buddhism figured all this out long ago -- hence, koans if you're lucky or a hard slap in the face when you're persistently obtuse. And what did Nobody say about Nothing?

If a god "is a something about which nothing can be said," then this putative something is equivalent to "a nothing." So-called mystics in India, China, Japan, and even Europe apprehended that a "god" without qualities was nothing. And, they were right.

Such a god’s only excuse is that it *cannot exist*. (with apologies to Stendahl)

bipolar2
c. 2008

Very nice, not_this, very deep. It's an argument against God, though. Just this once, I'm looking for the opposite.

Most of the debates betweem the likes of Dawkins, Hitches, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet and the theist apologists (eg Boteach, Alistair McGrath or Rabbi David Wolpe) run along fairly standard lines from the theist point of view;

1) establish the cosmological argument, ie something must have created the universe, that was the first cause, and suggest that might be a "god" who did that. The atheist cannot deny the possibility of a super-universal power who created the universe.

2) Establish that the atheist cannot deny the possibility of a god, who is supernatural. Ie Dawkins cannot say that there is definitely no god who gave his son for our sins.

3) Mention the moral argument for god. ie that without god, Hitler and Stalin were able to flourish, and that without a omniscient diety morality is relative.

4) Allude to the possibilty that evolution is not a correct theory. Talk about lack of fossil evidence and flaws in carbon dating.

5) Produce the "faith in god is not ammenable to normal standards of scientific proof" trump card.

6) that's it! and hope that they have used up their alloted time in the debate.

For my argument for theism, I think it would be necessary to do away with some of the notions attached to the current biblical religions.

For example get rid of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence as they create fairly obvious problems with ascribing qualities to a god. For example you can't say god is good, while having those properties, otherwise you fail the Epicurus riddle;
http://riddleofepicurus.com/

Obviously you can keep the omnis, but you have to get rid of the notion of "god is good", certainly in the modern context of the phrase.

I would argue that clearly the universe started, or was started by something, and that something provided properties and relations to the objects in our universe. Whether that "something" that started the universe had consciousness or that these properties and relations are somehow deterministic or functions of some underlying substrate is currently mysterious.

I would probably be forced to argue that the universe was some sort of experiment of outcome (by the "something" god), rather than of the objective moral theatre that biblical theists suggest that is going on. Otherwise you are going to get stuck with all the objections to supernatural intervention that modern religion says have occurred. For example heaven and hell, and objective morality are all going to get stuck on meta-physical hooks.

So basically I would argue that there was a god, who is this powerful super-universal entity, who is running the universe like a school science project. He/she (more likely it) probably doesn't care too much about individual human actions, however we might just get noticed if we managed to not all kill ourselves, and make a decent show of it.

If the above was the case, then morality would be based upon general principles of trying to improve humanity in order to better understand the nature of this god and his toy universe.

Yep, that's about the extent of the regular approach. I'm sure it does a good job of reassuring believers, but does it convince many atheists, I wonder? Anyone got personal examples of McGrath, D'Souza, etc. achieving one less atheist in the world?

If you had to fill in for one of these apologists at short notice, how would you improve his game plan?

If there is a convincing proof for a god, then it is, therefore, a convincing rebuttal to atheism.

The problem, of course, is there is no convincing proof of a personal god as conceived of in the modern judeo/christian culture.