William Lane Craig's Arguments for God Refuted

Considered one of the most famous and respected Christian apologists, William Lane Craig is often in atheists' cross-hairs and his arguments are often scrutinized both on the internet and in popular books, two examples being The Secular Web and Victor J. Stenger's 2008 book titled God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.

Even though these arguments have been refuted by many others, and by those who have much more knowledge than I, I am always up for a challenge and so will do my best to show the illogical and unscientific nature of Craig's arguments. The source for the set of arguments I will tackle can be found in an article by Craig titled Five Arguments for God, currently hosted at The Gospel Coalition.

I've covered several of these arguments in the past but I'd like to take this opportunity to tackle these same arguments from such a respected philosopher as Craig, though for anyone who is familiar with my views, I do not think philosophy is the best method of getting at the truth.

With that, let's begin.

Craig begins his discussion by saying, "[L]et’s get clear what makes for a 'good' argument. An argument is a series of statements (called premises) leading to a conclusion. A sound argument must meet two conditions: (1) it is logically valid (i.e., its conclusion follows from the premises by the rules of logic), and (2) its premises are true. If an argument is sound, then the truth of the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. But to be a good argument, it’s not enough that an argument be sound. We also need to have some reason to think that the premises are true. A logically valid argument that has, wholly unbeknownst to us, true premises isn’t a good argument for the conclusion. The premises have to have some degree of justification or warrant for us in order for a sound argument to be a good one. But how much warrant? The premises surely don’t need to be known to be true with certainty (we know almost nothing to be true with certainty!). Perhaps we should say that for an argument to be a good one the premises need to be probably true in light of the evidence."

And this is precisely part of Craig's problem. As I argued in my post Against the Gods, just because an argument is valid philosophically, and follows from it's premises, does not make it true. As even Craig says, the premise must have some solid evidence for it, and it naturally follows that if it doesn't, it should be discarded. Even Craig himself says,

But to be a good argument, it’s not enough that an argument be sound. We also need to have some reason to think that the premises are true.

These are the very means by which I will demolish William Lane Craig's arguments.

1. The Cosmological Argument from Contingency

Craig begins this argument by saying:

The cosmological argument comes in a variety of forms. Here’s a simple version of the famous version from contingency:

1. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
3. The universe exists.
4. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
5. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).

Now this is a logically airtight argument. That is to say, if the premises are true, then the conclusion is unavoidable. It doesn’t matter if we don’t like the conclusion. It doesn’t matter if we have other objections to God’s existence. So long as we grant the three premises, we have to accept the conclusion. So the question is this: Which is more plausible—that those premises are true or that they are false?

He then attempts to justify the first premise, which is where things fall apart for Craig:

Consider first premise 1. According to premise 1, there are two kinds of things: things which exist necessarily and things which are produced by some external cause. Let me explain.

Things that exist necessarily exist by a necessity of their own nature. It’s impossible for them not to exist. Many mathematicians think that numbers, sets, and other mathematical entities exist in this way. They’re not caused to exist by something else; they just exist necessarily.

By contrast, things that are caused to exist by something else don’t exist necessarily. They exist contingently. They exist because something else has produced them. Familiar physical objects like people, planets, and galaxies belong in this category.

So premise 1 asserts that everything that exists can be explained in one of these two ways. This claim, when you reflect on it, seems very plausibly true. Imagine that you’re hiking through the woods and come across a translucent ball lying on the forest floor. You’d naturally wonder how it came to be there. If one of your hiking partners said to you, “Don’t worry about it! There isn’t any explanation of its existence!”, you’d either think he was crazy or figure that he just wanted you to keep moving. No one would take seriously the suggestion that the ball existed there with literally no explanation.

According to modern physics, however things can seemingly happen without cause. There are several things we observe that appear to have no cause. For example, "[w]hen an atom in an excited energy level drops to a lower level and emits a photon, a particle of light, we find no cause of that event. Similarly, no cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus." [1]

Craig goes on to discuss his other premises, but given the fact that either they require no comment or they hinge upon the first premise, I don't think I need to go through the others. I've taken the very legs of this argument out from under Craig.

I will, however, point out something he said in his conclusion:

From these three premises it follows that God exists. Now if God exists, the explanation of God’s existence lies in the necessity of his own nature, since, as even the atheist recognizes, it’s impossible for God to have a cause. So if this argument is successful, it proves the existence of a necessary, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal Creator of the universe. This is truly astonishing! [emphasis mine]

Note the part of the quote I placed in italics. Craig, I feel, erects a strawman by arguing that atheists recognize "it’s impossible for God to have a cause." When have any atheists ever said such a thing? I certainly don't think this. And further more, I feel this statement about god not needing a cause is hypocritical because, as I noted in Against the Gods: "[Theologians] contradict themselves and claim their god is infinite and has always existed, though they can never articulate 'where' their god was or 'what' he was doing the eternity before he just happened to create this universe." How can their god not need a cause, but the universe must?!

2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument Based on the Beginning of the Universe

Craig presents this argument as follows:

Here’s a different version of the cosmological argument, which I have called the kalam cosmological argument in honor of its medieval Muslim proponents (kalam is the Arabic word for theology):

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Once we reach the conclusion that the universe has a cause, we can then analyze what properties such a cause must have and assess its theological significance.

Now again the argument is logically ironclad. So the only question is whether the two premises are more plausibly true than their denials.

As I will prove below, his premises are not true. I also must point out how slyly he sets up the argument. After he argues for his conclusion (that the universe has a cause) he wants to convince the reader that the cause must have the attributes of his christian god. How convenient. As I'll show later, even if the universe did have a cause there are plausible naturalistic scenarios that explain how it may have happened.

Craig attempts to justify his first premise:

Premise 1 seems obviously true—at the least, more so than its negation. First, it’s rooted in the necessary truth that something cannot come into being uncaused from nothing. To suggest that things could just pop into being uncaused out of nothing is literally worse than magic. Second, if things really could come into being uncaused out of nothing, then it’s inexplicable why just anything and everything do not come into existence uncaused from nothing. Third, premise 1 is constantly confirmed in our experience as we see things that begin to exist being brought about by prior causes.

Craig argued, "Third, premise 1 is constantly confirmed in our experience as we see things that begin to exist being brought about by prior causes."

As I noted in Craig's first argument, despite what we think happens is not always accurate. As I said, ideas must be tested, and things can seem to happen without cause.

Craig next explains his second premise:

Premise 2 can be supported both by philosophical argument and by scientific evidence. The philosophical arguments aim to show that there cannot have been an infinite regress of past events. In other words, the series of past events must be finite and have had a beginning. Some of these arguments try to show that it is impossible for an actually infinite number of things to exist; therefore, an infinite number of past events cannot exist. Others try to show that an actually infinite series of past events could never elapse; since the series of past events has obviously elapsed, the number of past events must be finite.

The scientific evidence for premise 2 is based on the expansion of the universe and the thermodynamic properties of the universe. According to the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe, physical space and time, along with all the matter and energy in the universe, came into being at a point in the past about 13.7 billion years ago (Fig. 1).


Figure 1: Geometrical Representation of Standard Model Space-Time. Space and time begin at the initial cosmological singularity, before which literally nothing exists.


What makes the Big Bang so amazing is that it represents the origin of the universe from literally nothing. As the physicist P. C. W. Davies explains, “the coming into being of the universe, as discussed in modern science . . . is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization . . . upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming-into-being of all physical things from nothing.”

Of course, cosmologists have proposed alternative theories over the years to try to avoid this absolute beginning, but none of these theories has commended itself to the scientific community as more plausible than the Big Bang theory. In fact, in 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin proved that any universe that is, on average, in a state of cosmic expansion cannot be eternal in the past but must have an absolute beginning. Their proof holds regardless of the physical description of the very early universe, which still eludes scientists, and applies even to any wider multiverse of which our universe might be thought to be a part. Vilenkin pulls no punches:

"It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning."

Moreover, in addition to the evidence based on the expansion of the universe, we have thermodynamic evidence for the beginning of the universe. The Second Law of Thermodynamics predicts that in a finite amount of time, the universe will grind down to a cold, dark, dilute, and lifeless state. But if it has already existed for infinite time, the universe should now be in such a desolate condition. Scientists have therefore concluded that the universe must have begun to exist a finite time ago and is now in the process of winding down.

Again, as I've said already, just because Craig can't imagine an infinite universe doesn't mean it's impossible. Simply arguing that it's impossible without any proof is no argument. Second, Craig quotes Alexander Vilenkin from his 2006 book Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes and argues that because the universe cannot allegedly be past-eternal it implies a god, however, Vilenkin himself denies this interpretation just a few paragraphs after the statement quoted by Craig:

Theologians have often welcomed any evidence for the beginning of the universe, regarding it as evidence for the existence of God […] So what do we make of a proof that the beginning is unavoidable? Is it a proof of the existence of God? This view would be far too simplistic. Anyone who attempts to understand the origin of the universe should be prepared to address its logical paradoxes. In this regard, the theorem that I proved with my colleagues does not give much of an advantage to the theologian over the scientist. As evidenced by Jinasena’s remarks earlier in this chapter, religion is not immune to the paradoxes of Creation. [2]

Furthermore, via email I contacted Victor Stenger and asked him about the quote. He then contacted Alexander Vilenkin and others about this claim by Craig. I feel very privileged to have had a very small part in the correspondence with these scientists. During the discussions Mr. Vilenkin explains how, yes, the theorem does prove that the universe had a beginning, however, this conclusion is not written in stone. Given various "subtleties" the theorem could be negated.

Mr. Stenger asked Mr. Vilenkin the following question,

Does your theorem prove that the universe must have had a beginning?

Vilenkin replied,

No. But it proves that the expansion of the universe must have had a beginning. You can evade the theorem by postulating that the universe was contracting prior to some time.

Vilenkin added,

This sounds as if there is nothing wrong with having contraction prior to expansion. But the problem is that a contracting universe is highly unstable. Small perturbations would cause it to develop all sorts of messy singularities, so it would never make it to the expanding phase. That is why Aguirre & Gratton and Carroll & Chen had to assume that the arrow of time changes at t = 0. This makes the moment t = 0 rather special. I would say no less special than a true beginning of the universe. [3]

In a follow up email to me Mr. Vilenkin made his position clearer,

[I]f someone asks me whether or not the theorem I proved with Borde and Guth implies that the universe had a beginning, I would say that the short answer is "yes". If you are willing to get into subtleties, then the answer is "No, but..." So, there are ways to get around having a beginning, but then you are forced to have something nearly as special as a beginning.

I further learned that the cyclic model of the universe (that I often propose by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok, authors of Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang), according to Vilenkin, "cannot be a complete description of the universe" because "[i]n the model of Steinhardt and Turok, there are some particles whose histories can be extended to the infinite past. Such particles go through an infinite succession of expansion and contraction cycles. But, as our theorem requires, histories of most particles cannot be so extended and should reach the boundary beyond which the cyclic picture no longer applies." [3]

Despite this flaw in the theory I've often proposed, there are other scientists who posit that an eternal universe is possible, such as Anthony Aguirre whose theories seem compatible with Vilenkin's theorem. [4]

There are even perfectly natural scenarios for the creation of the universe. One such hypothesis is by Victor Stenger who proposes our universe came about by a process called quantum tunneling, which also takes into account an eternal past and future. [5]

After this failed attempt at disproving a possible eternal universe, Craig proposes that the Second Law of Thermodynamics prevents an eternal universe. He says,

Moreover, in addition to the evidence based on the expansion of the universe, we have thermodynamic evidence for the beginning of the universe. The Second Law of Thermodynamics predicts that in a finite amount of time, the universe will grind down to a cold, dark, dilute, and lifeless state. But if it has already existed for infinite time, the universe should now be in such a desolate condition.

It's odd that Craig would cite the second law of thermodynamics to prove his point, but at the same time ignore the first law, which states that "energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but cannot be created or destroyed." [6] Given the first law, it would appear to demolish Craig's entire Kalam argument about the universe needing a "cause." Not that the above arguments I've presented thus far haven't done this already.

I asked Mr. Vilenkin about the second law of thermodynamics and whether or not it would prevent an eternal universe, and the short answer is no but here was his full answer to me:

It follows from the second law that the total entropy (which is the total amount of disorder) in the universe grows with time. This seems to imply that ordered systems, like living organisms, should gradually get extinct. However, the theory of inflation, which is now the leading cosmological paradigm, offers a way out of this conclusion.

This theory suggests that much of the universe is filled with peculiar high-energy stuff called "false vacuum", which causes the universe to expand at an extremely fast rate. Here and there, "normal" regions like ours are formed, where the false vacuum decays and its energy goes to produce a hot expanding fireball of matter and radiation. This explosive end of inflation is what we call the big bang. In this scenario, inflation is eternal, and big bangs will forever continue creating "pocket universes" like ours.

Now, how does this help with the second law argument? The amount of disorder in each pocket universe grows, and in any given region the stars die and all life forms get extinct, but new pocket universes are constantly being formed. So, at any time there are some new pocket universes which still have relatively low entropy. Their existence does not contradict the second law, since the number of high-entropy pockets grows with time. [7]

In his conclusion Craig states the following:

There seems to be only one way out of this dilemma, and that’s to say that the cause of the universe’s beginning is a personal agent who freely chooses to create a universe in time. Philosophers call this type of causation “agent causation,” and because the agent is free, he can initiate new effects by freely bringing about conditions that were not previously present. Thus, a finite time ago a Creator could have freely brought the world into being at that moment. In this way, the Creator could exist changelessly and eternally but choose to create the world in time. (By “choose” one need not mean that the Creator changes his mind about the decision to create, but that he freely and eternally intends to create a world with a beginning.) By exercising his causal power, he therefore brings it about that a world with a beginning comes to exist. So the cause is eternal, but the effect is not. In this way, then, it is possible for the temporal universe to have come to exist from an eternal cause: through the free will of a personal Creator.

As I've shown, his god is clearly not the only way out of this "dilemma." Even the scientist and science he cites disagree with him about this. Instead of the solution having to be his god, as I noted above, even if created there are natural scenarios that are plausible and due to the lack of evidence for the supernatural, the naturalistic scenario is incredibly more likely. [8]

3. The Moral Argument Based upon Moral Values and Duties

Craig sums up this argument thusly:

1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

As I've argued elsewhere, I do not see much of an objective morality in our world, but mostly a relative one. Relative to one's socialization, culture, time in which we live, etc. At one time, it was moral to own slaves; even christians justified it by citing the fall of man. Thomas Aquinas accepted slavery because we live in a fallen world, and because of this we must accept this injustice. [9]

This is a perfect example of my claim in my paper Against the Gods that just because all of your premises are true, it doesn't mean your conclusion is true, ie. god exists. This moral argument does nothing to prove god because there clearly is not any objective moral standard that we can call upon. I agree that most believe in doing the right thing and this is nearly universal, but this hardly points to a god. The argument fails because there has yet to be any evidence of a god, therefore, we can conclude that it was nature, ie. evolution and natural selection, that crafted our innate moral capacities in order to better survive in the world and in our formed communities.

Craig tackles the well-known Euthyphro Dilemma, but his argument is very weak; in my view completely unconvincing. In my opinion, Plato demolished the moral argument for god thousands of years ago and judging by one of the most skilled christian apologist's weak response to it, it seems that the Euthyphro Dilemma has yet to be solved.

Craig simply says,

The weakness of the Euthyphro Dilemma is that the dilemma it presents is a false one because there’s a third alternative: namely, God wills something because he is good. God’s own nature is the standard of goodness, and his commandments to us are expressions of his nature. In short, our moral duties are determined by the commands of a just and loving God. [emphasis in original]

Craig continues,

So moral values are not independent of God because God’s own character defines what is good. God is essentially compassionate, fair, kind, impartial, and so on. His nature is the moral standard determining good and bad. His commands necessarily reflect in turn his moral nature. Therefore, they are not arbitrary. The morally good/bad is determined by God’s nature, and the morally right/wrong is determined by his will. God wills something because he is good, and something is right because God wills it.

God is simply "good" by nature, and therefore he wouldn't command anything immoral? Right. Is that why many people have claimed to hear god speak to them, and they then commit horrible atrocities? One example is Dena Schlosser, who chopped her baby's arms off because god supposedly told her to. [10]

Other than peoples' supposed experiences with god (which can said to be either good or bad, depending on who you ask. According to one person, god told them to help the poor, with another, god told someone to kill another, or chop their baby's arms off), where can we attempt to determine god's nature? Well, nature itself, and as even Darwin saw, was oftentimes cruel with animals killing other animals for food. Even though Darwin never actually used this phrase, nature truly is "red in tooth and claw."

Another source is the bible. Unfortunately, this source doesn't seem to help Craig either because throughout the bible god is reported to have ordered the killing of multitudes of people. Examples include Leviticus 10:1-3; Numbers 31: 1-35, where god orders the murder of thousands of Midianites; 1 Samuel 6:19, the murder of seventy people simply for looking at a chest (the Ark of the Lord); Deuteronomy13: 5, among other verses, speak of killing those who do not believe or try to turn others away from god. There are many other examples besides these in the Old Testament. Even in the New Testament, while god greatly mellows out during this time period, his earthly incarnation in Jesus (if you believe in the Trinity as Craig does) does not always put forth some moral or righteous teachings. For example, Matthew 10:34-36, Luke 14:26, and Luke 12:51-53 all speak of dividing family and friends and how "a man will find his enemies under his own roof." . In Matthew 10:24-25 and Luke 12:47 Jesus apparently has no problem with slavery, and in these two passages, Jesus not only thinks that slaves are never above their master, but in a parable Jesus recommended that a slave be "flogged severely" if they don't follow their master's wishes. So much for family values and equality!

So far we've looked at all the sources we can find in order to determine god's true nature, and in both cases - in nature and the bible - we've seen that god is not always good, and sometimes commands people to do things that are clearly immoral, such as murder. Furthermore, Craig simply states that god is good without any proof whatsoever. He simply proclaims this as a fact, but this obviously isn't a fact. Therefore, it is wholly illogical to offer the argument that god's nature is good against the Euthyphro Dilemma.

Even though morality is relative, it does not mean we can do whatever we wish. We still have a responsibility to our friends and family and there are various secular moral systems that have been developed throughout history that can guide us through this morally relative world.

After all, even religion's morality is relative. It's dependent upon god's commands (there's the Euthyphro Dilemma again), and even differing and the same religions (through it's various sects) are conflicted and disagree when it comes to moral choices, so it's obvious that religion does not solve the problem of morality or prove god exists since god has yet to be proven, and there are much more plausible naturalistic reasons for our relativistic morality: evolution. There is a growing body of research that points in this direction. [11]

However, some argue that this is proof of a moral sense installed by god, but again, where is the proof? There is proof that evolution and natural selection has acted upon species and there is evidence of a moral sense. There is no evidence of a god, therefore, I'd go with the explanation that has evidence for it every time.

Furthermore, ala Craig's supposed rebuttal to the Euthyphro Dilemma, if god's nature is all good, then why does our moral sense contain both compassionate and selfish behavior? If god is all good, then that stands to reason that god wouldn't have placed a selfish morality inside his creations; only one of total compassion for everyone and everything. Therefore, the most logical conclusion is that natural selection crafted our innate moral sense and empathy, which isn't perfect and is combined with our less desirable traits.

In conclusion, judging by the evidence at hand, and logic, the moral argument for god does not stand up.

4. The Teleological Argument from Fine-tuning

Craig begins his discussion of the "fine-tuning" of the universe with the following:

We now come to the teleological argument, or the argument for design. Although advocates of the so-called Intelligent Design movement have continued the tradition of focusing on examples of design in biological systems, the cutting edge of the contemporary discussion concerns the remarkable fine-tuning of the cosmos for life.

Before we discuss this argument, it’s important to understand that by “fine-tuning” one does not mean “designed” (otherwise the argument would be obviously circular). Rather during the last forty years or so, scientists have discovered that the existence of intelligent life depends upon a complex and delicate balance of initial conditions given in the Big Bang itself. This is known as the fine-tuning of the universe.

This fine-tuning is of two sorts. First, when the laws of nature are expressed as mathematical equations, you find appearing in them certain constants, like the constant that represents the force of gravity. These constants are not determined by the laws of nature. The laws of nature are consistent with a wide range of values for these constants. Second, in addition to these constants, there are certain arbitrary quantities that are put in just as initial conditions on which the laws of nature operate, for example, the amount of entropy or the balance between matter and anti-matter in the universe. Now all of these constants and quantities fall into an extraordinarily narrow range of life-permitting values. Were these constants or quantities to be altered by less than a hair’s breadth, the life-permitting balance would be destroyed, and no living organisms of any kind could exist.23

For example, a change in the strength of the atomic weak force by only one part in 10100 would have prevented a life-permitting universe. The cosmological constant which drives the inflation of the universe and is responsible for the recently discovered acceleration of the universe’s expansion is inexplicably fine-tuned to around one part in 10120. Roger Penrose of Oxford University has calculated that the odds of the Big Bang’s low entropy condition existing by chance are on the order of one out of 1010(123). Penrose comments, “I cannot even recall seeing anything else in physics whose accuracy is known to approach, even remotely, a figure like one part in 1010(123).”24 And it’s not just each constant or quantity that must be exquisitely finely-tuned; their ratios to one another must be also finely-tuned. So improbability is multiplied by improbability by improbability until our minds are reeling in incomprehensible numbers.

So when scientists say that the universe is fine-tuned for life, they don’t mean “designed”; rather they mean that small deviations from the actual values of the fundamental constants and quantities of nature would render the universe life-prohibiting or, alternatively, that the range of life-permitting values is incomprehensibly narrow in comparison with the range of assumable values. Dawkins himself, citing the work of the Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees, acknowledges that the universe does exhibit this extraordinary fine-tuning.

Craig is obviously talking about intelligent design here, but in the last paragraph quoted he seems to me to be trying to distance the intelligent design argument from its religious connotations by saying that fine-tuning doesn't mean "designed," even though that's exactly what he's doing.

He further said in the beginning of his discussion:

Before we discuss this argument, it’s important to understand that by “fine-tuning” one does not mean “designed” (otherwise the argument would be obviously circular).

So what is Craig trying to do here? Even in his "proof" below he argues that this "fine-tuning" is the result of "design" so is Craig contradicting himself? It seems that way to me.

If Craig is trying to distance this obviously religiously motivated argument (intelligent design) from religion it is futile since even one of the famed advocates of intelligent design, William Dembski, has stated the following making the intelligent design movement's true motives clear:

Where is the work on design heading? [...] [S]pecified complexity is starting to have an effect on the special sciences. [...]

[D]espite it's [...]implications for science, I regard the ultimate significance of this work to lie in metaphysics. [...]

The primary challenge, once the broader implications [...] for science have been worked out, is [...] to develop a relational ontology in which the problem of being resolves thus: to be is to be in communion, and to be in communion is to transmit and receive information. Such an ontology will [...] safeguard science and leave adequate breathing space for design, but [...] also make sense of the world as sacrament.

The world is a mirror representing the divine life. The mechanical philosophy was ever blind to this fact. Intelligent design [...] readily embraces the sacramental nature of physical reality. Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory. (emphasis added) [12]

Craig lays out his argument:

Here, then, is a simple formulation of a teleological argument based on fine-tuning:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, it is due to design.

As Craig has said many times now, in order for an argument to be valid, it's premises must all be shown to be true and the second premise has not been proven. How does Craig know it cannot be due to chance? Has he cited any evidence to that effect? Of course not.

The fact is, if one varies many of these numbers a universe still is possible:

"Physicist Anthony Aguire has independently examined the universes that result when six cosmological parameters are simultaneously varied by orders of magnitude, and found he could construct cosmologies in which 'stars, planets, and intelligent life can plausibly arise.' Physicist Craig Hogan has done another independent analysis that leads to similar conclusions. And, theoretical physicists at Kyoto University in Japan have shown that heavy elements needed for life will be present in even the earliest stars independent of what the exact parameters for star formation may have been." [13]

According to Gordon L. Kane, and associates, "In string theories all of the parameters of the theory - in particular all quark and lepton masses, and all coupling strength - are calculable, so there are parameters left to allow anthropic arguments" [...] [14]

Even Stephen Hawking's more recent studies seem to cast doubt upon the fine-tuning argument. "He proposed that our universe is much less 'special' than the proponents of the Anthropic Principle claim it is. According to Hawking, there is a 98 percent chance that a universe of a type as our own will come from the Big Bang. Further, using the basic wave function of the universe as a basis, Hawking's equations indicate that such a universe can come into existence without relation to anything prior to it, meaning that it could come out of nothing." [emphasis in original] [15]

Let's look at one of the examples of "design" that Craig cites:

The cosmological constant which drives the inflation of the universe and is responsible for the recently discovered acceleration of the universe’s expansion is inexplicably fine-tuned to around one part in 10120.

However, according to Victor J. Stenger, it seems that the cosmological constant isn't "fine-tuned" at all:

For most of the twentieth century it was assumed that the cosmological constant was identically zero, although no known laws of physics specified this. At least no astronomical observations indicated otherwise. Then, in 1998, two independent groups studying supernovas in distant galaxies discovered, to their great surprise since they were looking for the opposite, that the expansion of the universe was accelerating. This result was soon confirmed by other observations, including those made with the Hubble Space Telescope.

The component of the universe responsible for the acceleration was dubbed dark energy. It constitutes 73 percent of the total mass of the universe. The natural assumption is to attribute the acceleration to the cosmological constant, and the data, so far, seem to support that interpretation.

Theorists had earlier attempted to calculate the cosmological constant from basic quantum physics. The result they obtained was 120 orders of magnitude larger than the maximum value obtained from astronomical observations.

Now this is indeed a problem. But it certainly does not imply that the cosmological constant has been fine-tuned by 120 orders of magnitude. What it implies is that physicists have made a stupid, dumb-ass, wrong calculation that has to be the worst calculation in physics history.

Clearly the cosmological constant is small, possibly even zero. This can happen any number of ways. If the early universe possessed, as many propose, a property called supersymmetry, then the cosmological constant would have been exactly zero at that time. It can be shown that if negative energy states, already present in the calculation for the cosmological constant, are not simply ignored but counted in the energy balance, then the cosmological constant will also be identically zero.

Other sources of cosmic acceleration have been proposed, such as a field of neutral material particles pervading the universe that has been dubbed quintessence. This field would have to have a negative pressure, but if it is sufficiently negative it will be gravitationally repulsive. [16]

Judging from this evidence, many parameters can be varied and a universe is still possible. Even if some of these universes did not result in our form of life, it is possible that another forms of intelligent life could flourish. After all, if the parameters were not as they were we wouldn't be here to discuss them anyhow! This hardly implies any sort of design.

Regardless, Craig attempts to back up his premises:

Premise 1 simply lists the three possibilities for explaining the presence of this amazing fine-tuning of the universe: physical necessity, chance, or design. The first alternative holds that there’s some unknown Theory of Everything (TOE) that would explain the way the universe is. It had to be that way, and there was really no chance or little chance of the universe’s not being life-permitting. By contrast, the second alternative states that the fine-tuning is due entirely to chance. It’s just an accident that the universe is life-permitting, and we’re the lucky beneficiaries. The third alternative rejects both of these accounts in favor of an intelligent Mind behind the cosmos, who designed the universe to permit life. The question is this: Which of these alternatives is the best explanation?

Craig continues:

Premise 2 of the argument addresses that question. Consider the three alternatives. The first alternative, physical necessity, is extraordinarily implausible because, as we’ve seen, the constants and quantities are independent of the laws of nature. So, for example, the most promising candidate for a TOE to date, super-string theory or M-Theory, fails to predict uniquely our universe. String theory allows a “cosmic landscape” of around 10500 different possible universes governed by the present laws of nature, so it does nothing to render the observed values of the constants and quantities physically necessary. With respect to this first alternative, Dawkins notes that Sir Martin Rees rejects this explanation, and Dawkins says, “I think I agree.”

So what about the second alternative, that the fine-tuning of the universe is due to chance? The problem with this alternative is that the odds against the universe’s being life-permitting are so incomprehensibly great that they can’t be reasonably faced. Even though there will be a huge number of life-permitting universes lying within the cosmic landscape, nevertheless the number of life-permitting worlds will be unfathomably tiny compared to the entire landscape, so that the existence of a life-permitting universe is fantastically improbable. Students or laymen who blithely assert, “It could have happened by chance!” simply have no conception of the fantastic precision of the fine-tuning requisite for life. They would never embrace such a hypothesis in any other area of their lives—for example, in order to explain how there came to be overnight a car in their driveway.

Again, just because something seems improbable doesn't make it so. After all, Craig is simply postulating an entity (god) that has no evidence going for it. Most of the "fine-tuning" has been shown to be false, or are misunderstandings. Due to my lack of knowledge of physics I will point the reader to other sources of information about more of these arguments. [17]

It seems that, according to the work by Victor Stenger, most of the fine-tuning is not that 'precise', unlike what Craig asserts.

After all, as Mr. Stenger noted in God: The Failed Hypothesis:

The anthropic argument for the existence of God can be turned on its head to provide an argument against the existence of God. If God created a universe with at least one major purpose being the development of human life, then it is reasonable to expect that the universe should be congenial to human life. Now, you might say that God may have had other purposes besides humanity. [...] [A]pologists can always invent a god for whom humanity is not very high on the agenda and who put us off in a minuscule, obscure corner of the universe. However, this is not the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who places great value on the human being and supposedly created us in his image. Why would God send his only son to die an agonizing death to redeem an insignificant bit of carbon?

If the universe were congenial to human life, then you would expect it to be easy for humanlife life to develop and survive throughout the universe. [18]

The rest of this section critiques arguments by Richard Dawkins (this article was originally a critique of some of Richard Dawkins' arguments in his 2006 book The God Delusion) and various other theories of the universe, such as the oscillating model of the universe and Lee Smolin’s evolutionary cosmology.

Again, due to my lack of in-depth knowledge of these theories I won't attempt to address Craig's claims, however, he does make an obvious mistake when critiquing the oscillating model of the universe.

Craig says,

Dawkins is apparently unaware of the many difficulties of oscillatory models of the universe that have made contemporary cosmologists skeptical of them. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, some theorists proposed oscillating models of the universe in an attempt to avert the initial singularity predicted by the Standard Model. The prospects of such models were severely dimmed in 1970, however, by Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking’s formulation of the singularity theorems that bear their names. The theorems disclosed that under very generalized conditions an initial cosmological singularity is inevitable. Since it’s impossible to extend space-time through a singularity to a prior state, the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems implied the absolute beginning of the universe. Reflecting on the impact of this discovery, Hawking notes that the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems “led to the abandonment of attempts (mainly by the Russians) to argue that there was a previous contracting phase and a non-singular bounce into expansion. Instead almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.”

As Victor Stenger has pointed out more than once, this is a classic mistake that has been made by Craig for quite some time. Hawking and Penrose's theory did not prove that there was a beginning or singularity when quantum mechanics is taken into account:

Hawking has repudiated his own earlier proof. In his best seller A Brief History of Time, he avers, "There was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe." This revised conclusion, concurred by Penrose, follows from quantum mechanics, the theory of atomic processes that was developed in the years following the introduction of Einstein's theories of relativity. Quantum mechanics, which also is now confirmed to great precision, tells us that general relativity, at least as currently formulated, must break down at times less than the Planck time and at distances smaller than the Planck length [...] It follows that general relativity cannot be used to imply that a singularity occurred prior to the Planck time and that Craig's use of the singularity theorem for a beginning of time is invalid. [19]

In his book The New Atheism Victor Stenger says:

Although the [argument from intelligent design by way of the biological sciences] has received greater public attention, more science-savvy theologians agree with most scientists that intelligent design, at least as it has been formulated so far, is a failure. Theologians are far more impressed by the fine-tuning argument [...] [20]

I firmly believe that as time goes on, just as with the science of evolution, these fine-tuning arguments will be seen as just as absurd as most claims of biological design are now as we gain more and more knowledge about our universe.

5. The Ontological Argument from the Possibility of God’s Existence to His Actuality

As I noted in my paper Against the Gods, I feel that the Ontological arguments do absolutely nothing to prove god, or even show through some form of logic that god exists but I will do my best to show that this argument, too, is illogical.

Craig makes use of Alvin Plantinga's version of the Ontological argument:

1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.

Later on Craig argues,

The concept of a married bachelor is not a strictly self-contradictory concept (as is the concept of a married unmarried man), and yet it is obvious, once one understands the meaning of the words “married” and “bachelor,” that nothing corresponding to that concept can exist. By contrast, the concept of a maximally great being doesn’t seem even remotely incoherent. This provides some prima facie warrant for thinking that it is possible that a maximally great being exists.

I agree that the argument itself is sound if you accept that a great being exists, however, is the conclusion true? Is the premise even true? I'd say the premise, that it's possible that a maximally great being exists, could be true however what evidence is there for one? Plantinga seems to be begging the question here because he uses the term "possible" in his premise, but then assumes god's reality as a fact in his conclusion! Also, doesn't a premise have to be shown to be true before the conclusion can be shown to be true?!

Even earlier Craig himself stated,

But to be a good argument, it’s not enough that an argument be sound. We also need to have some reason to think that the premises are true. A logically valid argument that has, wholly unbeknownst to us, true premises isn’t a good argument for the conclusion. The premises have to have some degree of justification or warrant for us in order for a sound argument to be a good one.

There are also more in depth rebuttals to this argument, such as one by Darrin at Debunking Christianity [21]

So far, Craig's other arguments have been found to be flawed so what are the chances that this form of mental gymnastics is even remotely true, and describes the real world? Slim to none.

In Craig's conclusion he says,

We’ve examined five traditional arguments for the existence of God in light of modern philosophy, science, and mathematics:

1. the cosmological argument from contingency
2. the kalam cosmological argument based on the beginning of the universe
3. the moral argument based upon objective moral values and duties
4. the teleological argument from fine-tuning
5. the ontological argument from the possibility of God’s existence to his actuality

These are, I believe, good arguments for God’s existence. That is to say, they are logically valid; their premises are true; and their premises are more plausible in light of the evidence than their negations. Therefore, insofar as we are rational people, we should embrace their conclusions. Much more remains to be said and has been said. I refer you to the works cited in the footnotes and bibliography, should you wish to explore further. But I trust that enough has been said here to show that the traditional theistic arguments remain unscathed by the objections raised by the likes of New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins.

I agree that Richard Dawkins did not do the best when critiquing all of the arguments for god, however, I don't think he did as bad as Craig asserts. After all, as I've shown, Craig himself made many logical and factual errors and since "we are rational people" then it follows that Craig's arguments for god are wrong and we should embrace the conclusion that these arguments do nothing to prove god exists.

Conclusion

I fully believe that I've (for the most part) thoroughly refuted William Lane Craig's arguments for god. The only set of arguments I feel I did not do the best on were the Teleological and Ontological arguments, which I admit are a bit out of my range of expertise, though I referred the reader to other, more reliable, sources on the problems with these particular arguments.

As I said at the end of the last section, due to Craig's many factual and logical errors it is incumbent upon any rational person to embrace the conclusion that if these arguments are seen to be faulty then it stands to reason that there is no evidence of god's existence. Given this fact, it shouldn't take much for a rational individual to further conclude that god is most likely non-existent.

Note: A christian who is obviously a fanboy of Craig’s seems to have taken offense at the fact that I demolished his idol’s arguments and tried his hand at refuting my counter-arguments. Though, as I show here and here, his attempts failed miserably, and he ended up putting his foot in his mouth several times, and completely misread and ignored much of what I had said throughout our discussions. This shows me that instead of wishing to deal with many of my arguments outright his true motive was to defend his idol William Lane Craig at all costs. Even if it means ignoring facts and arguments and completely misrepresenting what someone says.

Footnotes

1. God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, by Victor J. Stenger, Prometheus Books, 2007; 124

2. Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes, by Alexander Vilenkin, Hill & Wang, 2006; 176-177

3. These email exchanges (at least the ones I was privy to) took place between 5-20-10 and 5-24-10 and are used with permission.

4. Two papers by Aguire that present his theories are:

Eternal Inflation, past and future, by Anthony Aguirre

Inflation without a beginning: a null boundary proposal, by Anthony Aguirre - A huge thanks goes to Victor Stenger for emailing these two papers to me.

5. The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason, by Victor J. Stenger, Prometheus Book, 2009; 171

6. First law of thermodynamics - accessed 5-23-10

7. Personal communication via email with Mr. Vilenkin, dated 5-23-10

8. Please read my two posts, Evidence Against the Supernatural, Parts One and Two

9. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, by David Brion Davis, Oxford University Press, 2006; 55

10. Dena Schlosser on Wikipedia.org - accessed 5-24-10

11. Babies Provide More Evidence of Humans' Innate Morality

12. Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, by Barbara Forrest & Paul A. Gross, Oxford University Press, 2004; 260-261

The following post also exposes the dishonesty and religious motivations of those who advocate intelligent design: Creationism's Trojan Horse with Barbara Forrest

Here is another good post: NCSE Video Exposes Intelligent Design

13. God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, by Victor J. Stenger. Prometheus Books, 2007; 148-149

14. Did Man Create God? Is Your Spiritual Brain at Peace with Your Thinking Brain?, by David E. Comings, M.D., Hope Press, 2008; 272

15. Ibid.; 272

16. The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason, by Victor J. Stenger, Prometheus Books, 2009; 95-96

17. Two books by Victor J. Stenger that address several of the fine-tuning arguments are : The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason and God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. I should note, too, that currently Mr. Stenger is working on a book as of this writing solely addressing the fine-tuning arguments. Keep an eye out for it.

18. God: The Failed Hypothesis; 154

19. Ibid.; 122

20. The New Atheism; 88

21. On Plantinga's Ontological Argument - accessed 5-25-10

Against the Gods: Arguments Against God's Existence

Introduction:


It's been my hope to create a blog which attempts to answer a great majority of the claims and arguments put forth by theists about the existence of god, evolution, etc. I think I've amassed a great deal of information since I began my blog about a year and a half ago, but there seems to have been some arguments I've missed or just didn't bother to cover because, to put it simply, I thought they were too stupid to be taken seriously. For this reason I won't cover the Ontological arguments for god's existence, but I will cover all others. Because I have spent so much time on the arguments against "design" I will skip those sets of arguments as well (but I will place links that will point you to posts I've already written about it).

Because I began my blog in the first place to argue against the creationist/intelligent design nonsense a majority of my counter arguments and posts have been geared towards those kinds of arguments but because of reader feedback I've decided to address more arguments for god. I have referenced the book The Non-Existence of God, by Nicholas Everitt, for a list of arguments that I will be debunking.

The truth is, though, that I see nothing special about these arguments. Each of these arguments are fatally flawed when you think about them for just a few minutes (or when you look at the contradictory evidence). When someone comes to me and starts using a lot of philosophical arguments I often dismiss them by claiming they're using "philosophical bullshit" because, while I like philosophy, it can oftentimes be abused and just because something sounds logical doesn't mean it represents reality. Take, for example, the experiment in which a feather is dropped along with a bowling ball (taking wind resistance out of the equation). Logic would dictate that the ball would hit the ground first, but in reality they would both hit the ground at the same time. This is an example of something that seems like a logical conclusion: a heavier object will fall faster, but if you eliminate the affect air has on the objects, they will fall at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time.

It is because of this that I strongly argue that logic by itself (and I'm referring to both our more common "every day logic" and philosophical logic), while extremely helpful and right much of the time, can sometimes get you into trouble. Again, this is why I will not bother with covering the Ontological arguments. They don't prove anything. Their premises may all be true, but that doesn't mean the conclusion is true in reality.

With that in mind, let's begin smashing the logical disaster that is theology.


The Euthyphro Dilemma:


The Euthyphro Dilemma is so named because it comes from Plato's Euthyphro, in which it's asked, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

This essentially means, "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?" This is also called the divine command theory.

Assuming god exists, it would be horrible to have morality dictated by such a being. The reasons are the following:

1. The first question that must be asked is what god are you interpreting? The god of the bible, or nature?

2. If it is the god of the bible then you have already lost the argument because god commands the murder of the inhabitants of multiple cities in Joshua 10:28-42, "...as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded." [NEB] This is one of many other slaughters found throughout the bible, including, Hosea 13:16:

"Samaria will become desolate because she has rebelled against her God; her babes will fall by the sword and be dashed to the ground, her woman with child shall be ripped up." [NEB]

Clearly, any sane human being will see that this is an immoral act, therefore, god cannot be considered a source for good morals since he commands the murder of many people.

Some christian apologists attempt to explain these acts away. Take the author of the apologist website godandscience.org for example. He says,

"The sixth commandment is "Thou shall not kill."1 Atheists claim that God violated His own commandment in ordering the destruction of entire cities, just to allow the Jews to have a homeland in the Middle East. The Bible confirms that God ordered the killing of thousands of people. Isn't this an open and shut case for the hypocrisy of the God of the Bible?

One thing you have to love about atheists is their extreme appreciation for the King James Version (KJV) translation. The KJV was translated in the early 17th century using an archaic form of modern English. In the last 400 years, English has changed significantly. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those who read the KJV (both believers and unbelievers) are unqualified to know what the text means in many instances because of word meaning changes. In attempting to demonstrate the contradiction of God's commands to Israel and the sixth commandment, atheist cite the KJV translation, "Thou shalt not kill."

However, like English, Hebrew, the language in which most of the Old Testament was written, uses different words for intentional vs. unintentional killing. The verse translated "Thou shalt not kill" in the KJV translation, is translated "You shall not murder"2 in modern translations - because these translations represents the real meaning of the Hebrew text. The Bible in Basic English translates the phrase, "Do not put anyone to death without cause."2 The Hebrew word used here is ratsach,3 which nearly always refers to intentional killing without cause (unless indicated otherwise by context). Hebrew law recognized accidental killing as not punishable. In fact, specific cities were designated as "cities of refuge," so that an unintentional killer could flee to escape retribution.4 The Hebrew word for "kill" in this instance is not ratsach, but nakah, which can refer to either premeditated or unintentional killing, depending upon context.5 Other Hebrew words also can refer to killing.6-8 The punishment for murder was the death sentence.9 However, to be convicted, there needed to be at least two eyewitnesses.10 The Bible also prescribes that people have a right to defend themselves against attack and use deadly force if necessary.11

To answer the question whether God breaks His own commandments, we need to determine if God committed murder (i.e., killed people without cause). [emphasis mine] The Bible is quite clear that God has killed people directly (the most prominent example being the flood) and indirectly (ordered peoples to be killed). If God ordered or participated in the killing of innocent people, then He would be guilty of murder. Let's look at two of the most prominent examples.

According to the Bible, God killed every human except Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives in the flood. Were any of these people killed unjustly? The Bible says specifically that all people (except Noah and his family) had become corrupted.12 Not only had all people become corrupted, but they were continually plotting evil!13 Is it possible that an entire culture can become corrupted? You bet! Recent history proves the point rather well. When the Nazis took over Germany before WWII, opposition was crushed and removed. When they began their purging of the undesirables (e.g., the Jews), virtually the entire society went along with the plan. Further examples are given on another page. So, the Bible indicates that no innocent people were killed in the flood.

What about when God ordered Joshua and his people to kill every man, woman and child in Canaan?14 What crime could be so great that entire populations of cities were designated for destruction? God told Moses that the nations that the Hebrew were replacing were wicked.15 How "wicked" were these people? The text tells us that they were burning their own sons and daughters in sacrifices to their gods.16 So we see that these people were not really innocent. For these reasons (and others17), God ordered the destruction of the peoples whom the Israelites dispossessed....

The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is really not as general as the King James version would indicate. The commandment actually refers to premeditated, unjustified killing - murder. Although God ordered the extermination of entire cities, He did so in righteous judgment on a people whose corruption had led to extreme wickedness, including child sacrifice. Did God destroy the righteous along with the wicked? In an exchange with Abraham, God indicated that He would spare the wicked to save the righteous. He demonstrated this principle by saving righteous people from Sodom and Jericho prior to their destruction. The charge that God indiscriminately murdered people does not hold to to critical evaluation of the biblical texts."

So, according to this guy, murder is killing another without cause, therefore god did not murder since he had reasons to do so. Alright, let's take this to it's logical conclusion. A wife cheats on her husband, which gives him a reason to murder her, and so he carries out his plan and kills her. Now, by this apologist's own argument, he would not have murdered his wife because he had a reason; it would have been justified.

Clearly this isn't the case (I've got to say too that this thinking is literally insane. The lengths apologists will go...). Even if we accept this author's claim that the people were "corrupted" and "evil" what exactly does this imply, and who is to judge what is 'corrupt' or 'evil?' The author's claim that the people were "evil" for their acts of child sacrifice sounds like a decent reason (to protect the children) but god is being a hypocrite if that was the case, because in the very next book of the bible god asks for a sacrifice:

Exodus 22:29-30: "Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the first born of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers from seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day (NIV)."

If god cannot even be consistent in what he deems immoral and moral, how are we to judge what is moral or not by looking at the actions of god in the bible?

Again, we're back at the same question as before. "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"

3. A theist could look around at nature and conclude this god is a wonderful god, but nature, as even Charles Darwin wrote, is often cruel and inhumane. Animals kill and eat others for food, sometimes while still alive. Natural cells in a body turn cancerous and a person dies, etc.

True, there are very many things in nature that we could call "beautiful" but there are many cruel things as well, and if god is given credit for the good, he must also be given credit for the bad.

If god's commands cannot be considered moral, then is it possible that god is responsible for some kind of "moral sense" within us, which helps guide us?

This has been proposed by theologians for centuries. Christian apologists even today use this claim of "Natural Law Theory." One example is David Marshall, author of the book The Truth Behind the New Atheism, who seemingly tries to dismiss the findings of evolutionary psychology which is studying the innate nature of our moral sense, by saying that, "The naivete displayed by [Marc] Hauser's questionnaire is even more remarkable. Can a Harvard professor writing about morality have never heard of Natural Law Theory? Christians (and others) have been talking about it for thousands of years" (page 103). Marshall seems to be trying to give credit to theologians for this concept and not science for discovering it's truthful biological basis.

First of all, I wouldn't trust a "moral sense" put inside me by a being who is clearly hypocritical in nature and oftentimes horribly cruel.

Second, if god supposedly placed this moral sense within all humans, then how can theists claim that atheists are immoral if god gave this moral sense to everyone? Atheists and christians would be getting their morals from the same source. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Many theists insist homosexuals are to be put to death, but this isn't shared by atheists and others. So, where are theists getting this information? The bible. If god is supposedly the author of the bible, or at least inspired it, and god is the one who created this moral sense, why wasn't he consistent with what he deems moral (according to divine command theory, whatever god commands is moral)? Our human conscience (for most of us anyway) sees the persecution of homosexuals as cruel and wrong, and yet it is a law given in the book supposedly written/inspired by this same god.

A third stumbling block is the fact that god has never been proven. If god cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt then the most logical answer for our morality would be our biology and our culture.

A related point are people who claim to do helpful and harmful things because god supposedly told them to. Because there are people who have supposedly been told to commit both good and bad acts, this doesn't do anything to fix the contradictory messages that god seems to send (assuming he is real). There are people who feel compelled by god to help the poor, but there are also people who commit horrible atrocities, such as Dena Schlosser who chopped off her eleven month old girl's arms because god told her to.

Now, an apologist will likely say that Schlosser was clearly insane and god would never command someone to do such a thing. But if they dismiss this woman's testimony so quickly, why do they accept a christian's so easily, as long as they're doing something good? The simple answer? Bias.

Morality has nothing to do with god and, therefore, it cannot be used as any kind of "evidence" of god.


The Cosmological Argument:


The Cosmological argument has a few variations but ultimately it is the famed "first cause" argument. Theologians postulate that the universe cannot possibly be eternal and therefore something had to have brought it into existence. They call this thing god.

It can be broken down as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

There are a few major flaws with this. First, theologians assume that the universe can't be eternal; that it's impossible for the universe to just be, to just exist. Second, because of their claims that the universe cannot be eternal they then make a wild claim full of hypocrisy and nonsense and state that their god is eternal and does not need a cause. Third, they also assume that events that took place in the past could not go on indefinitely. But again, they contradict themselves and claim their god is infinite and has always existed, though they can never articulate "where" their god was or" what" he was doing the eternity before he just happened to create this universe. A related point is the fact that if the currently most widely accepted model of the big bang is one in which time didn't exist before the big bang, how could god exist in a "time" before time even existed? It's a contradiction. Fourth, with the Kalam Cosmological Argument claiming god has no beginning, thus needs no cause, they have no proof of this, and it's unknown if the universe even had a cause to begin with. The big bang we know of may have been just one out of countless "bangs" that have occurred throughout time, following Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok's theory.

Because of these facts and the lack of knowledge human beings have regarding the universe (though more is being learned through science; religion sure hasn't done anything to help out on the matter) no one truly knows if the universe is eternal or not (though there are some plausible scientific theories that state the universe could be eternal such as those endorsed by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, authors of the book Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang), but one thing is for sure, completely contradicting themselves in order to claim "god did it" is a completely bogus answer and leaves one to ask: "If nothing can be eternal, who made god?" Theologians have yet to come up with a reasonable answer that doesn't violate some scientific principal or use the bible for their proof, ahem, Ray Comfort.

The fact is, though, that there are things that happen at the subatomic level which appear to have no cause. "When an atom in an excited energy level drops to a lower level and emits a photon, a particle of light, we find no cause of that event. Similarly, no cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus" (Source: God: The Failed Hypothesis, by Victor J. Stenger, page 124). So it seems it's known that things can happen without a cause, which would put to rest the entire cosmological argument at the beginning. Since it's known that some things happen without a cause then it's scientifically possible for the universe to have come about without some definite cause.

Even assuming that the universe wasn't eternal, and the previous research was flawed in some way, it's pretty presumptuous of them to claim their god did it. They have no proof. All they have is a book written by very superstitious individuals who didn't know what we do today about the world and how it works. How theists can claim this book that is full of oftentimes silly and cruel statements and stories tells us how the universe came to be is dumb founding.


Teleological Arguments:


Teleological arguments are arguments in which theists cite the apparent design and order in the universe as proof of a creator.

To quote Nichloas Everitt about this argument, "This argues from the fact that the universe is orderly, or displays regularities, to the conclusion that there must be a cosmic intelligence responsible for creating or imposing and maintaining the order."

As far as design, this implies intelligent design and creationism. Both of these arguments I've written about at some length so I will point you to other sources for that information.

Life shows evidence of evolution, not of being created:

Another "Gap" Is Found

Earth is not the only planet located in the "sweet spot" for life to thrive; it's also known for a fact that life can thrive even in immensely hot and cold temperatures:

Design in the Universe...There's No god Behind It!

More Evidence Against the "Design" Argument

Ignorance and More 'Design' Nonsense

A website that is excellent and handily debunks many claims of "design" and "order" is the TalkOrigins Archive (along with many other creationist and intelligent design lies and deceptions).

The fine-tuning argument suffers from the same lack of reasoning, lack of scientific knowledge, and "god of the gaps" thinking that dominate all arguments for the existence of god.

First of all, it seems that many numbers have been manipulated to make these constants seem extraordinary. Some examples are irrelevant. Victor J. Stenger says, "Many of the examples of fine-tuning found in theological literature suffer from simple misunderstandings of physics. For example, any references to the fine-tuning of constants like the speed of light,c, Planck's constant, h, or Newton's gravitational constant, G, are irrelevant since these are all arbitrary constants whose values simply define the system of units being used. Only 'dimensionless' numbers that do not depend on units, such as the ratio of the strengths of gravity and electromagnetism are meaningful.

Some of the 'remarkable precision' of physical parameters that people talk about is highly misleading because it depends on the choice of units. For example, theologian John Jefferson Davis asserts, 'If the mass of of neutrinos were 5 x 10 - 34 instead of 5 x 10- 35 kg [kilogram], because of their great abundance in the universe, the additional gravitational mass would result in a contracting rather than expanding universe.' This sounds like fine-tuning by one part in 10- 35. However, as philosopher Neil Manson points out, this is like saying that 'if he had been one part in 10- 16 of a light year shorter (that is, one meter shorter), Michael Jordan would not have been the word's greatest basketball player.....'

One of the many major flaws with most studies of the anthropic principle coincidences is that the investigators vary a single parameter while assuming all the others remain fixed. They further compound this mistake by proceeding to calculate meaningless probabilities based on the grossly erroneous assumptions that all the parameters are independent....

Physicist Anthony Aguire has independently examined the universes that result when six cosmological parameters are simultaneously varied by orders of magnitude, and found he could construct cosmologies in which 'stars, planets, and intelligent life can plausibly arise.' Physicist Craig Hogan has done another independent analysis that leads to similar conclusions. And, theoretical physicists at Kyoto University in Japan have shown that heavy elements needed for life will be present in even the earliest stars independent of what the exact parameters for star formation may have been" (Source: God: The Failed Hypothesis, pages 145 - 149).

Other theories seem to put the Anthropic Principle to rest, including possible multiple universes, and string theory. If our universe is just one out of many the chances are very good for different values in the universe to happen to be within the right parameters to facilitate life.

According to Gordon L. Kane, and associates, "In string theories all of the parameters of the theory - in particular all quark and lepton masses, and all coupling strength - are calculable, so there are parameters left to allow anthropic arguments... "

Even Stephen Hawking's more recent studies seem to cast doubt upon the Anthropic Principle. "He proposed that our universe is much less 'special' than the proponents of the Anthropic Principle claim it is. According to Hawking, there is a 98 percent chance that a universe of a type as our own will come from the Big Bang [emphasis in original]. Further, using the basic wave function of the universe as a basis, Hawking's equations indicate that such a universe can come into existence without relation to anything prior to it, meaning that it could come out of nothing" (Source: Did Man Create God?, by David E. Comings, M.D., page 272).

Because physics and cosmology are not my strong suit I suggest reading Victor J. Stenger's book dealing in much detail with many of these arguments.

One of the best arguments I've heard against the anthropic principle isn't scientific arguments, but one that just relies on pure logic. If the universe wasn't suitable for life we wouldn't have evolved to witness it! Proof of our being here is no proof of any designer or creator.

After giving the previous examples of false reasoning and evidence that proves several of the fine-tuning and design arguments incorrect, I think it stands to reason that most others are just as faulty. That's something I've noticed about theists' arguments. After you debunk one they throw another argument out at you; you then successfully debunk it, and so it goes again and again. It would be nearly impossible to catalogue each and every single argument ever used, but again, if a majority are found wanting then most likely the others are as well. Especially since their beliefs oftentimes blind them from seeing the truth anyway, they won't give up until they find something you cannot effectively answer. Then they'll raise their arms in victory (after about a thousand wrong arguments in a row), but once again, the gaps in our knowledge is really the only avenue theists have for arguing their god. If that's the case they really have no arguments at all.


Appeals to Miracles:


I find the use of miracles to be one of the most absurd "proofs" of god's existence. It is once again a "god of the gaps" argument: because we don't understand precisely how someone may have been healed, it was a miracle. Most of these are far and few between. For example, in Richard Dawkins' two part series called The Root of All Evil? Part 1, it was said how within the last century and a half there were "sixty-six declared miracles" to have taken place out of the yearly 80,000 people who go a pool of water where the virgin marry is said to have appeared. Obviously not anywhere close to a significant percentage to declare any genuine miracles.

Other than this example, the failure rate of prayer is another devastating blow to the theologian. I've gone over this evidence in the past, along with other arguments against the supernatural, and those are located here.

Instead of trying to debate whether or not miracles exist I try to argue against the entire concept of the supernatural, or the existence of an immaterial world. If it cannot be reasonably shown that the supernatural exists, then no miracle could possibly occur. I have given several challenges for anyone to give me unbiased evidence (no personal accounts, secondhand stories) of the supernatural. No one has been able to present any evidence, nor debunk my two papers Evidence Against the Supernatural, parts 1 and 2.

The fact of the matter is that there have been many people have have experienced "something" in their lives they cannot explain but it seems that the mind is wired for personification and people apply human traits to objects and events. People tend to "see" something intervene in their lives if it goes the way they want; if their prayer was answered, if someone's injuries are healed all of a sudden, if a disease disappears. Again, just because these events occur doesn't even imply the existence of god! What if it was some other being that humans have never discovered? What if it was a different god? What if there were laws of nature that we haven't discovered yet and that's what was responsible for such and such event occurring? If these things happened due to this unknown law of nature, then it couldn't be considered a miracle nor supernatural.

There are countless examples of this throughout history. It's not a stretch of the imagination to any degree to think that these current claims of some supernatural agency are just as likely to be false as the ones that happened in the past. Because of the many natural events that took place in the past, lightning, wind, and other forces, human beings were sure to give these events human traits and think "something" caused them to happen. It's only with our more advanced knowledge do we know how wind and other natural disasters happen. No doubt the same will take place with certain instances of a medical "miracle" or other such events in the future.


Religious Experiences:


In this final section, I will attempt to argue why I think religious experiences aren't any form of evidence for god, let alone the supernatural, because of the large body of research which shows that these experiences are happening at the level of the brain only, and most religious experiences have been duplicated in subjects when certain areas of the brain are stimulated.

Mostly performed on epilepsy patients these tests confirm that when the temporal lobes, amygdala and hippocampus are stimulated many different experiences take place. Everything from out of body experiences, deja vu, a feeling of not being in this world, hearing voices, feeling a presence, etc.

In fact, one man who had been diagnosed with left temporal lobe epilepsy, his brain was stimulated at the point of the inferior temporal lobe and at this time he exclaimed, "I'm going to die." When he was asked if he saw anything, he replied, "No, God said I am going to die."

One case reported that while a man's brain was stimulated in the right superior surface of the temporal lobe he had an out of body experience. He exclaimed, "Oh God! I am leaving my body!"

In a case with a twenty-five year old woman who had TLE (Temporal Lobe Epilepsy), an MRI showed a right-sided, mesial temporal focus and hippocampal sclerosis. The auras, seizures, and religious thoughts she was experiencing were almost completely eliminated after the removal of the right amygdala and hippocampus.

In 1997 Vilayanur Ramachandran developed the idea of "The God Module" when studying epilepsy patients. During the experiments one subject with TLE felt a "oneness with the Creator" and others made statements like, "I finally understand what it is all about..."

Other experiences elicited feelings of a god and feeling as if they were "filled with the spirit" and felt the presence of god (Source: Did Man Create God?, by David E. Comings, M.D., pages 347, 349, 354, 355, 362).

This is only a tiny fraction of the experiments and examples of this kind of experiment. Direct stimulation of the temporal lobes seem to consistently bring out spiritual and religious thoughts, feelings, and visions.

This seems to be bedrock evidence that all of these religious experiences are caused completely at the level of the brain and humanities' experiences of god and spirituality are truly just in our heads.

Obviously religious believers would likely respond that this is proof of a god; that god placed these parts of our brains inside us so we might be aware of his presence. It's an interesting hypothesis, but I don't see how that's possible. god supposedly will send his creations to hell dependant upon if they believe or not based on some clue he left in our brains that might or might not give us the sensations of his presence. That's like rolling the dice and whoever gets a certain number gets themselves engulfed in flames, and others get "saved" just by the luck of the throw. Not a very kind thing to do in my opinion (of course theists always have silly excuses for the cruel acts of their god).

Another problem with this is the fact that this "spiritual feeling" one might characterize as "god" just points us to a belief in "something out there" that's bigger than us; points to ghosts, fairies, and a multitude of gods. If this belief was truly put in place by the one true god (according to christians) then why do humans have such a variety of beliefs about spiritual agents and gods? Wouldn't god implant a belief that just included him if he is the one and only true god in existence, if it was him, and only him, he wanted his creations to worship?

Based on this evidence, it seems clear to me that this "spiritual feeling" does not point to any god; the god a person believes in depends upon the culture they grow up in, and is not "hardwired" into our minds; it is only this vague spiritual belief that is hardwired (possibly for survival purposes and to cope with the fear of death) and humans built upon these vague, innate beliefs by making up everything else about these various spiritual agencies.

Because there is no evidence of any gods the most likely explanation is that these experiences caused the belief in gods and not the other way around.


Conclusion:


I'm sure there are many apologists who may feel as if I've created strawmen arguments, or did not represent all theological views during this discussion. I would argue strongly that I created no strawmen; I consulted the books of philosophers and ex-theologians such as John Loftus in representing the arguments of theists (and arguing against).

I also think it would be a near impossible task to present every theological argument, or variation of those arguments. I tried to pick the most common ones and go from there. Besides, most arguments are variations upon a basic theme anyhow, so if I debunked a major argument I likely debunked its variations as well.

It's sad that the a large majority of the human race must feel it has to lie to itself for whatever reasons it has for believing in some higher power or god. What it ultimately amounts to is ignoring and/or distorting evidence, and having a preconceived bias that leads you to believe in your god (while disbelieving in everyone else's for the same reasons they don't believe in yours!). This is surely the case with many believers and one such example is the christian apologist William Lane Craig, as told from John Loftus' book Why I Became an Atheist (page 214):

"Mark Smith (of www.jcnot4me.com) set up the following scenario for Craig: 'Dr. Craig, for the sake of argument let's pretend that a time machine gets built. You and I hop in it, and travel back to the day before Easter, 33 AD. We park it outside the tomb of Jesus. We wait. Easter morning rolls around, and nothing happens. We continue to wait. After several weeks of waiting, still nothing happens. There is no resurrection - Jesus is quietly rotting away in the tomb.'

Smith asked Craig, given this scenario, if he would then give up Christianity, having seen with his own two eyes that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Smith wrote: 'His answer was shocking, and quite unexpected. He told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the 'holy spirit' within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me.'"

There is no evidence of god in our biology, in the cosmos, nor within our uses of logic. This is why I often make the claim that there is no evidence for god, as I did here, in the review of the first chapter, despite these arguments being held up as such. I've even been insulted because of this view (though no one has yet to offer one argument against my position).

Because of the facts and logic that I have presented I see no reason to believe in any god. There are miles wide, gaping holes in every single argument ever put forth for a god and these arguments will only get weaker as science discovers more and more about the universe and us.

It is precisely for this reason that I consider christian apologetics to be a huge pile of bullshit, and half ass attempts by unenlightened and superstitious individuals to convince themselves that they aren't going to die.


UPDATE 4-3-09

It has come to my attention that some of Victor J. Stenger's statements that I cited may be false, but as with just about everything I write I usually think two or three steps ahead of any possible detractors, which is why I stated the following in the above post:

Even assuming that the universe wasn't eternal, and the previous research was flawed in some way, it's pretty presumptuous of them to claim their god did it. They have no proof. All they have is a book written by very superstitious individuals who didn't know what we do today about the world and how it works. How theists can claim this book that is full of oftentimes silly and cruel statements and stories tells us how the universe came to be is dumb founding.

I said this because I am well aware of the fluid nature of science. As more data is collected old theories are put to rest and are replaced with new ones that fit the data better. Because of the non static nature of science you can't always count on everything being completely accurate at all times, especially in the fast moving world of cosmology where they're finding new things at a fairly fast pace. There is also a lot of disagreement among scientists so to proclaim Stenger as the ultimate authority would be foolish. Of course he could be wrong (and as someone has informed me, he very well could be) and I don't deny that, but because he is wrong does nothing to my case. It's still no proof of a god and where I cited Stenger was just a small part of my argument.

As I tried to show throughout the post, all arguments for god are nothing more than "god of the gap" arguments: because theists are at a loss to explain something we don't yet understand or something miraculous, they wish to subscribe a god to plug the "gaps" in our knowledge. But, this is severely logically flawed way of thinking because theists are also at a loss to explain their god. They just assume their god exists and that it's necessary to have this "uncaused cause" to cause the universe. That's preposterous and contradictory to say the least. I might as well say that some leprechaun caused the universe because it's utilizing the exact same flawed reasoning.

The overall premises of my arguments stand untouched and thus far unrefuted. All arguments for god are nothing more than illogical attempts to plug "gaps" in our knowledge and that's that. That's no more "proof" of a god than me trying to explain how my sandwich disappeared by claiming the tooth fairy got hungry.

UPDATE 4-6-09

I've responded to a few criticisms (though they are mostly misunderstandings and pure ignorance) by one Joe Hinman, who tries, but fails miserably, to rebut any of my above arguments. I respond to his claims here.

UPDATE 4-21-09

I created a post pointing out errors in a christian apologists' arguments against my claim that all arguments for god are nothing more than "god of the gap" arguments. Click here to read it.

UPDATE 5-28-10

I recently finished writing a rebuttal to several of famed Christian apologist William Lane Craig's arguments for god. Some are repeated from this paper, but there is some new stuff in the new one that you might find interesting as well. It can be found here.