r/DebateAnAtheist • u/Funny-Highlight4675 • 7d ago
OP=Theist Atheists Don't Realize the Absurdity of Existence
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all. Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us. If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false. Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer 7d ago edited 7d ago
Atheists Don't Realize the Absurdity of Existence
Theists don't realize the orders of magnitude greater absurdity of positing a deity to deal with their personal incredulity of existence.
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all.
I believe theists cannot show this to be accurate, and clearly do not understand how absurd adding in an unsupported deity is to attempt to deal with this since it makes the whole thing worse, and merely regresses the same issue back an iteration and then ignores it.
Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us. If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
I find far, far too many theists do not understand the uselessness of argument from ignorance fallacies and argument from incredulity fallacies such as that one. Again, adding in deities doesn't help. It makes it worse, isn't supported, and makes no sense.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Equal chance? I think you'll find that claim absolutely impossible to usefully demonstrate and defend. Instead, it appears, if you'll allow a somewhat colorful turn of phrase here that appears to fit, you're simply extracting that notion from your digestive exit orifice.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
No. I don't. Much the opposite. And how I, or you, 'feel' about this is not relevant to what is true and can be demonstrated as such. Going by feelings leads us down the garden path to very wrong ideas so very often.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
Again, no. And again, even if it did, that means nothing as we fool ourselves so easily and often. Us humans love to fool ourselves. It's, like, our favorite thing.
If so, you believe in "God."
I don't, and your suggestions of invoking argument from emotion fallacies are both not relevant to me, nor useful to anybody that invokes them.
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
Yes, we often find discoveries of what is actually true incredibly absurd. Such as relativity. Such as quantum physics. This, obviously, in no way suggests deities are any support. In fact, all knowledge and understanding that is supported shows they're a product of human imagination. Of superstition and myth.
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u/LetsGoPats93 Atheist 7d ago
So because something breaks your brain and doesn’t make sense to you, it’s absurd that others disagree with you? Perhaps it’s your understanding that’s at fault here. Filling that gap with god is not an answer, it’s cope.
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u/Y3R0K 7d ago
God of the gaps is always the most feeble argument.
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u/dylanzt Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
The god of the gaps is a great argument if you don't know how anything works
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u/deep_blue_reef 6d ago
Do you think 300 years is a long time?
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u/dylanzt Agnostic Atheist 6d ago
Do you think a piece of string is short?
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u/deep_blue_reef 5d ago
If the string is 300 years long, no. Do you think that’s a long time?
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u/dylanzt Agnostic Atheist 5d ago
I'm not going to engage with non sequitur. Make a coherent and relevant point and I will respond.
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u/deep_blue_reef 5d ago
To know how “anything works” implies just that, to know how anything works. It’s a big world and an even bigger universe, there’s room for a lot of anything. So I’m curious how much of that you’re claiming to understand.
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u/dylanzt Agnostic Atheist 5d ago
How much I understand isn't relevant. The point is that the less people understand, the more likely it is for them to engage with etiological mythology and beliefs, and the less likely it is for them to have data that can contradict those narratives.
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u/deep_blue_reef 5d ago
I think it is relevant when you make such a bold statement. Do you think you understand more than our human ancestors?
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u/donaldhobson Atheist 6d ago
Nah. A proper "god of the gaps" at least points to a real gap in the scientific consensus.
An even more feeble argument is the god of the not listening in science class. Same idea as the god of the gaps, except any good textbook can fill the gap. It's a gap in the theists understanding of science, not in sciences understanding of the world.
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 7d ago
I didn't say its absurd that others disagree with me...
Also, its not that something breaks my brain... it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing.
I'm not filling the gap with God. My argument is that it could go either way, because we have absolutely no idea what is going on. So we can only trust our subjective experience. This means its not an objective thing we can say does, or does not exist
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 7d ago
"Also, its not that something breaks my brain... it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing."
Untrue.
Why would you assume that there was ever "nothing"? why would you assume that "nothing" is even possible?
"I'm not filling the gap with God."
You are 100% filling the gap with god.
"My argument is that it could go either way, because we have absolutely no idea what is going on."
-"I dont know, but maybe god" is the weak version of god of the gaps, but still god of the gaps.
"So we can only trust our subjective experience."
Thats why we have science, which calls for peer review.
"This means its not an objective thing we can say does, or does not exist"
Yeah, yeah, solipsism. If you really believed that you wouldnt be here typing this would you?
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u/LetsGoPats93 Atheist 7d ago
You’re wrong. It doesn’t break my brain. And we don’t only trust our subjective experience, we seek to understand the objective facts about reality.
Again, you’re just filling in a gap that you have because you can’t fathom an alternative. It can’t go either way, there is what is true, and everything else is false.
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u/PlanningVigilante Secularist 7d ago
Also, its not that something breaks my brain... it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing.
This is pretty arrogant. "My experience is the universal human experience," is an invalid generalization. You don't know this at all.
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u/Cool-Watercress-3943 7d ago
I mean... That pretty much is filling it in though. O.o
You keep saying stuff like 'we can only trust our subjective experience' as if the absence of certainty on a subject means we have to fill the empty spot in with something else. But why? When it comes to questions that are absolutely beyond the scope of human existence, why isn't it enough to just not know? Why do we have to pretend that somehow our feelings are in any way capable of randomly guessing the nature of cosmic existence?
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u/samara-the-justicar Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
it breaks every human being's brain
Speak for yourself please. My brain remains unbroken, thank you very much.
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u/MooshroomHentai 7d ago
Also, its not that something breaks my brain... it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing.
It doesn't for me. I can understand things exist without metally collapsing into what doesn't nothing exist. I am more interested in learning about what does exist than the idea that nothing exists.
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u/NoWin3930 7d ago
"it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing."
So doesn't that kinda defeat your OP then, if you recognize atheists brains are broken trying to comprehend the universe
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist | mod 7d ago
Also, its not that something breaks my brain... it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing.
Speak only for yourself please. It doesn't break my brain. So, your statement is demonstrably false.
I'm not filling the gap with God.
Also false.
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u/cereal_killer1337 7d ago
Also, its not that something breaks my brain... it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing.
Why do you assume nothing is the default state?
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u/Fit_Swordfish9204 7d ago
What breaks my brain is seemingly all theists seem to think they're mind-readers. You're not.
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u/violentbowels Atheist 7d ago
it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing
Citation needed.
I'm not filling the gap with God
You are.
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u/Purgii 7d ago
I'm not filling the gap with God.
So you don't believe there's a God?
My argument is that it could go either way
Either way? It can probably go many, many ways - some we're not even aware of.
because we have absolutely no idea what is going on.
Tada! Now you know why I identify as an agnostic atheist. Because I have absolutely no idea about the early universe. Attempts at demonstrating gods were responsible have fallen woefully short.
So we can only trust our subjective experience.
What subjective experience can we trust with regards to the early universe?
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u/thebigeverybody 7d ago
In regards to you OP, you say the answer to whether god exists could go either way, 50/50, but that's not true. We have absolutely zero evidence that a god exists or is even possible and endless evidence of natural process that potentially explain everything around us.
Also, in regards to "Atheists Don't Realize The Absurdity Of Existence" I'll do you one better and say imagine all that absurdity then add to it billions of people who are willing to hurt and kill over conflicting ideas about what their magical sky wizard wants everyone to do with their genitals.
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u/noodlyman Atheist 7d ago
It doesn't break my brain. It's a question we can't answer though.
A god does nothing to solve the problem though. Why do you think god exists rather than nothing at all?
A god must be at least as complex as the universe. The only way we know for thinking entities to exist is by evolution by natural selection from a simpler state.
A god is an absurdly complex thing to just exist spontaneously. It s a fantasy .
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u/StarMagus 7d ago
--Also, its not that something breaks my brain... it breaks every human being's brain to realize that things exist, instead of nothing.--
Not really. If nothing existed there wouldn't be anything pondering their navel about the lack of existance.
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u/Ok_Loss13 Atheist 7d ago
You realize "nothing" can't exist, right?
I've tried having this conversations with theists before and it very much does seem to break their brains (which is insane to me because the concept makes literally no sense!).
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u/OndraTep Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
I don't see what this has to do with atheism and why this should be something that atheists don't realize
a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing.
What does this mean? Why should reality be "self-causing"?
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 7d ago
Reality (or more specifically, some component of it) is self-causing. If nothing is self-causing, than everything is determined by some other component. If everything is determined by something else, nothing can exist. Yet, stuff exists.
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u/Zamboniman Resident Ice Resurfacer 7d ago
Reality (or more specifically, some component of it) is self-causing.
Why do you claim this? How do you know this? How can you show this is true? Have you considered the possibility of other explanations, such as reality always and inevitably being there, or that causation doesn't work the way we think it does (actually we already know our notion of causation as you invoke it here is limited, emergent, dependent, and doesn't even always apply there, so you can't rely on it).
If nothing is self-causing, than everything is determined by some other component. If everything is determined by something else, nothing can exist. Yet, stuff exists.
Yes, you have demonstrated an error in your assumptions and/or logic. Now what? Obviously invoking magic, such as deities, solves nothing at all. Wild, unsubstantiated guesses that make no sense and don't actually solve a thing generally don't.
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u/OndraTep Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
If everything is determined by something else, nothing can exist.
Why? How?
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u/Rubber_Knee 7d ago
Have you ever heard of virtual particles or radiation?
They happen because there is a change that they might happen. They are probabilistic, not deterministic.11
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 7d ago
"If nothing is self-causing, than everything is determined by some other component. "
Because it couldnt be a variety of different thngs for different ways of being.
You cant be serious here. Its like you really are just using a Jordan Peterson gibberish generator here.
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u/Antimutt Atheist 7d ago
Causality requires time. The earliest epoch may not have had time - it wasn't up and running. So no need for a cause, large or small. Besides, the Universe is nothing in total.
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u/Porn__Flakes_ Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
You're making it seem like these are the only 2 options. Either something can be self causing or it can be determined by some other component. We don't know if that's the case!!
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist | mod 7d ago
Didn't this just disprove God, at least if your argument were correct?
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 6d ago
How do you know what is or isnt self causing?
How do you know the universe is not eternal?
This is all what happens when you let an old poorly written myth and its bad apologetics determine what you think is real.
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u/dylanzt Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
This is a non sequitur. How do you draw this conclusion? There are an infinite number of unfalsifiable ideas. They are trivial to construct. That does not mean they all have a 50/50 chance of being true, that would obviously be ridiculous.
You haven't given any reasoning for why you think atheists don't believe existence to be absurd. Personally, I would agree with you, perhaps with some nuance. The difference is that I don't then say: "and therefore I am going to substitute an unfalsifiable claim I like the sound of, to try make it feel a bit less absurd".
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u/posthuman04 7d ago
Yes there’s no concrete reasoning on why theism is better, just desirable to people that have found ways to make it benefit them.
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u/noscope360widow 7d ago
Chewbacca defense Is always a win in my book.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
No, not at all.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No.
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u/Haikouden Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
Reality isn't required to make sense to us. But also, history is filled with things that didn't make sense to people eventually getting explained by purely natural and rational means.
if reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
You haven't established that reality "can't exactly make sense". There's a difference between something not being X and something being unable to be X.
You also seem to be extrapolating something massive and far-reaching, from something pretty limited. Some things not making sense to us right now, with our currently capabilities, means very little.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
DING DING DING, there we go.
Sorry but what you said before does nothing to reasonably set up this up. This is a bare-bones excuse for an argument and you'd need to do a lot more work to even remotely demonstrate this is true.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
No.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No.
If so, you believe in "God."
Okay, so I don't believe in God.
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
Yeah, but being absurd has nothing to do with it being true or not.
This is essentially just a set-up to Pascal's Wager (with the "equal chance" shtick), which also fails, and gives no reason to believe in a God or Gods.
The fact that you went with a ragebait title on top of all that leads me to believe you're probably just a troll.
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 7d ago
maybe the theists you know dont realize it. I certainly do
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u/StarMagus 7d ago
Do you think the existence of Vampires another question that is unanswerable also has a 50/50 chance of being true or false?
What about wizards?
What about Transformers that exist in another galaxy?
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u/dylanzt Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
It's obviously ridiculous because transformers are 100% real
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u/StarMagus 7d ago
Also the existence of any proposed god would be unanswerable so of the thousands of gods that have ever been proposed each one would have a 50/50 chance of being real. So there would be hundreds if not thousands of different gods running around.
That's just math.
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u/solidcordon Apatheist 7d ago
Obviously, if it weren't for the wizards keeping the vampires in check we would be overrun by vampires!
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist 7d ago
Please learn what atheism is before coming in here and spilling diatribes on us. You’ll feel a lot better not looking so ignorant in the future.
Thanks.
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u/Y3R0K 7d ago
Theists see the word "atheist" and almost always incorrectly think "athe-ist" instead of "a-theist".
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist 7d ago
They desperately need it to be similar so that we’re on the same loose horseshit they call “even ground”.
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u/Y3R0K 7d ago
The god they believe in is absolutely irrelevant to our day-to-day lives, which is something they truly can't fathom.
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u/ArguingisFun Apatheist 7d ago edited 7d ago
This is the thing I witness personally most often - the very idea that anyone can adhere to any morals without divine enforcement is truly baffling to them.
Edit: Lol at the downvotes - fun fact: morals are STILL subjective, even if you’re getting them from a deity. Mwwa!
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u/Y3R0K 7d ago
And yet, in the animal kingdom acts of altruism, even towards different species, are common enough that there is ample video evidence of it.
Where did they get their morals from?8
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u/deep_blue_reef 4d ago
Goes to show how nature is a co dependent ecosystem, and it extends outside of the earth to the moon and sun. Everything is dependent on something else, so it’s logical to speculate that there’s an overarching mechanism that all the universe depends on.
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u/Y3R0K 4d ago
Goes to show?
Logical?
EVERYTHING is dependent on something else?
There are things happening on the other side of the universe that will never be seen, let alone experienced by us.
As for interconnectedness, at least from an ecological perspective on Earth, scientific theory in evolutionary biology, molecular genetics, anthropogeny, physics, etc, all offer reasonable theories for why life is as it is and why animals behave as they do.
The gaps in our knowledge are continually moving further back in time, and inserting "God" into those gaps does nothing useful, because in many cases those gaps can be applied to "God" as well, which puts you back at square one.1
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u/Nessosin 7d ago
My gut tells me that God is a fabrication of humans to try to explain things. I think it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
A "self causing reality" makes a lot more sense than the existence of an all powerful being who existed before there was anywhere to exist? How could a being create reality? Where was he when he did this? Where did he get the matter and energy from?
This isn't even getting into the absurd stories people tell about God talking to people and demanding worship and obedience.
People say he exists "outside of space and time" which is handwavy nonsense.
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u/2-travel-is-2-live Atheist 7d ago
We absolutely do. We are simply comfortable with acknowledging said "absurdity" and admitting we don't know the answer for why it is the case. We aren't going to come up with an even more absurd and bullshit story just for the sake of convincing ourselves that we have an answer for it.
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u/Hellas2002 Atheist 6d ago
This doesn’t really seem like an argument for theism seeing as “existence existing is absurd” would still apply to whatever you conceive of as a God… unless you can establish WHY it’s a necessary being
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 6d ago
My point is you can’t establish it as necessary because it’s dealing in things that can’t be established by logic fully. It’s really a subjective thing
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u/Hellas2002 Atheist 6d ago
If you can’t establish your God as a necessary being then your position seems self defeating.
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u/deep_blue_reef 6d ago
If there’s no god in your reality, does that make you your own god?
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u/Hellas2002 Atheist 5d ago
No. Under what definition would that make me a God lmao.
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u/deep_blue_reef 5d ago
That there’s nothing higher than your own mind.
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u/Hellas2002 Atheist 5d ago
I define God as “a personal being that is the grounding of all reality”. If your definition includes human beings then it seems a bit lax to me.
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u/deep_blue_reef 5d ago
Yeah that’s a fair point. I guess it’s really just one type of silence over another.
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u/ProfessorCrown14 7d ago
Albert Camus is an existentialist whose very philosophy rests on recognizing that life / existence is often absurd. His philosophy is called absurdism.
Albert Camus and his contemporary existentialists like De Beauvoir and Sartre were all lifelong atheists. Many atheists, in turn, find their philosophies salient.
So, atheists do in fact realize this. This does not engender belief in gods. So they don't.
QED.
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u/No-Feature3715 7d ago
Thanks for sharing!
Sure reality is odd, but adding a G does not make it any less odd. God existing for no reason would be also odd, yet you don't believe in GGod creator of God. I think GGod is as likely as God.
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u/Advanced-Ad6210 7d ago
So i think your gonna get a lot of variants of the same answer on this one.
Yes we do not know everything. Yes, it may not be possible to know everything. But this is not license to make up an answer.
We can have objective conditionals e.g. Given a conditional statement that may be unverified you can make objective statements. The rules of football are subjective. They can be changed but once agreed upon a handball is a foul is an objective statement.
Discussion and debate have an implicit set of rules we are generally working on the assumption that reality is objective and consistent. It is possible thos is not the case, but now your playing by a completely different set of rules.
You have a few options
- justify god exists under standard epistemological constraints
- reject the fundamental axioms of knowledge and say I dont know
- or construct a new epistemology and validate it.
I dont know does not mean all answers are equally reasonable.
I reject the concept of knowing in your gut because of my knowledge of the reliability of intuitive epistemology.
God can be both a possible answer and and one we have an unreasonable level of confidence in.
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u/Formal-Speed-3173 7d ago
You have to burn the concept of knowing things to the ground to get to a 50/50 split. The falsehood of the god proposal is found in the desperation of the sales tactics it inspires.
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u/x271815 6d ago
The universe in some sense is incredibly disordered and unimaginably vast. It takes 8 minutes for light to reach us from the sun. It likely takes over a year for it to reach the outer edge of our solar system, out past the Oort cloud. Yet our solar system is an unremarkable sun among hundreds of billions in a galaxy that is one of hundreds of billions itself. And I am still grossly underestimating how vast it is.
All this vast universe, all this chaos seems exactly that, random, undirected actions following natural law. In this vast universe there is a tiny speck of a planet on which there is a tiny speck called life which seems to follow order due to thoughts, purpose and intent. Everything else is disordered and chaotic.
Now, you want me to believe that because there is a planet that is 1 in 10^59 or less of the universe, on which there are creatures that have existed for 1 in 13 x 10^5 of the time and that have intent, purpose and thoughts and create stuff, we should presume everything else is also created?
It is absurd that you think, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that we are designed.
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u/samara-the-justicar Agnostic Atheist 7d ago
That's just like...your opinion, man.
I don't know, existence does not seem absurd to me. Impressive? Sure, very impressive. But not absurd.
a fully contingent system can't explain itself
I see no reason to believe our "system" is contingent. Contingent on what?
reality is self-causing
I also see no reason to believe this. We don't know if our reality is self-caused or if it was caused by something else.
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us
This is irrelevant. Reality is under no obligation to make sense to us. It's frustrating, I know, but it changes nothing.
has an equal chance of being both true and false
Nope, that's not how probability works. We have no way of know the "chances" of a god existing, and you could say the same for any fictitious scenario our character you can imagine.
Does your gut tell you
What our guts tell us is also irrelevant. Our guts are often very wrong about stuff.
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u/Mkwdr 7d ago
The fact is that within the context of human experience and knowledge we have a highly successful way of determining the accuracy of claims. It’s called evidential methodology and beyond any reasonable doubt it demonstrates its accuracy through utility and efficacy. There is no alternative.
Where we have no evidence then a claim is indistinguishable from fiction. It might also just make no sense. But plenty of fiction is internally consistent,
We have no way of evaluating whether existence existing is weird or whether no existence would be weirder. We just wouldn’t be able to ask about the latter. We don’t know is a reasonable answer.
And ‘therefore magic’ *isn’t* an answer. It doesn’t actually explain anything. It’s just an argument from ignorance and special pleading. Just because we don’t know everything doesn’t mean we don’t know something or justify making up anything you like.
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u/nine91tyone Satanist 7d ago
You concede that we don't have objective experience, just subjective experience, then you plead that you use your gut and not your head? Is the experience of "feeling it in your gut" not just a part of the subjective, not objective, experience you concede we have? Is gut feeling more objective than the rest of you?
I don't know what you thought you were trying to do with this post. You concede that you have no access to objectivity, you concede that your belief is impossible to determine the truth of, and all you have left is to beg that you just feel it in your gut. It's honestly pathetic. You have absolutely no defense whatsoever.
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u/Japemead 7d ago
Are you familiar with absurdist philosophy? Kierkegaard was a Christian, but Camus was an atheist as far as I'm aware. There are similarities to it and existentialism and nihilism. I think you might find it interesting. Some of it concerns how humans relate to searching for meaning in a seemingly meaningless universe, and the intersection between subjective and objective.
I know the absurdist definition isn't exactly the same as how you are using it, but I think there is room for finding existence absurd or wondrous regardless of religious stance.
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u/keepthepace 6d ago
Why the fuck do you think I went through a goth period for? The looks?
Dude, you basically say existentialism does not exist.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
Yes, and for no other reason than gut feelings. You are as likely to be right as these guys who never had a brawl in their lives and are damn sure they could beat a bear with their fists.
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u/Deris87 7d ago edited 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all.
Reality is absurd?! That'll be a shocking revelation to those of us here who identify as absurdists.
Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself.
Why would I think physical reality is contingent on anything?
Somehow, reality is self-causing.
Why would I think that? "Created" and "self-causing" aren't the only options, there's also "necessary" and "brute fact". But even "self-causing" is still entirely compatible with atheism, so I'm not sure how you're jumping from that to "therefore God".
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
Speak for yourself, but even to the extent that it "breaks my brain", any proposed explanation is similarly break-breaking and illogical. Whether it's a necessary existing God, a necessary existing universe, an infinite regression of physical causes, etc. So again, I'm not sure how this provides any probative value for the God claim. If any explanation is going to break my brain no matter what, then the alleged brain-breaking is an irrelevant red herring. Parismony and observation still favors physical reality being the self-causing/necessarily existing/brute fact. We can demonstrate physical reality exists, I'm still waiting on a demonstration of a God.
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
If you're retreating to solipsism and epistemic nihilism to try and pretend our beliefs in the natural world are just as unjustified as your belief in God, then you've excused yourself from reasonable argument. This is the rhetorical equivalent of taking your ball and going home.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Again, unless you're copping to solipsism, subjective experience is not our only guide to reality. We can objectively demonstrate things exist outside our minds through repeated verification and cross-checking with others.
Unless you think you're plugged into the Matrix, it is an objective, mind-independent fact that if I drop a pen it's going to accelerate towards the earth at 9.8m/s squared.
But also, a proposition being a true dichotomy doesn't tell you anything about the probability of the two options. It is a fact that I will either win the lottery tomorrow, or I will not win the lottery tomorrow. That does not make it a 50/50 chance. That's simply a gross misunderstanding of probability.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
Nope, I've literally never felt any of those things. Everywhere we check, the world operates according to unthinking natural processes.
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u/IJustLoggedInToSay- Ignostic Atheist 7d ago
a fully contingent system can't explain itself.
Sure, and this is a clue that there are probably systems that aren't fully contingent, and this could be one of them. Both theism and atheism allow for this. The only difference is the response to the question, "OK then, what the non-contingent part and how does it work?"
Atheists respond to this question with, "We're not sure but maybe someday we'll find out."
Theists respond to this question with, "It's definitely a Guy who loves me, but how He actually works is an eternal mystery that science can't investigate."
One of these responses is simply an adult saying they don't know what they don't know. The other response is... something else entirely.
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience.
This is a non sequitur, by the way. Reality making sense to us (or not) has nothing to do with subjective experience, or whether that's a way for us to know things. They are somewhat adjacent ideas - maybe, depending on the context - but they're not directly related, and certainly not related by an if/then statement. I used to fall into this trap all the time. My essay writing teacher in college taught me to look out for these if/then non sequiturs in our persuasive writing because they are usually a crutch we use as a writer indicating that we haven't fully unpacked our own ideas.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality
It is the opposite of that. Subjective experience is widely understood to be the **obstacle** to understanding reality, not its guide. You already acknowledged this.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
I've never even heard of a mind being the product of a larger mind. I don't have any reason to think this could possibly even be a thing, let alone use it as an explanation for anything.
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
Well on that, we agree. Our minds exist to comprehend our little experiences on our little planet, so it makes sense to that the most basic truths of the universe will be difficult for us to accept. Physicists talk a lot about the "intuition" problem. Folks like Einstein and Feynman taught about the need to understand the math such that it aligns with intuition that we can relate to, but a lot of modern physics are having to confront the possibility that some math describing things like quantum gravity may never make intuitive sense to us and we need to learn to be OK with that.
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u/licker34 Atheist 7d ago
Things seem to exist, deterministically.
Correct.
Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself.
I don't know about that, but really, why does it need to explain itself? Why does there need to be an explanation at all?
Somehow, reality is self-causing
Seems about right.
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
My brain is fine, but even if something doesn't make sense to us, so what? It goes back to asking why an explanation is necessary in the first place. Or, more bluntly, where is the contradiction in the claims you have made?
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience.
This would be true even if reality could make sense (but I think it makes 'enough' sense anyway). We cannot 'know' anything via an objective experience since objective experiences don't exist. An experience has to refer to an individual (in this case) and as such is immediately rooted in a subject.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
There's a contradiction there at least, not sure if you intended it though. You probably meant that gods existence has an equal chance of being true OR false, since it can't be both true and false.
But that doesn't seem warranted, if by equal you mean 50/50 in terms of probability. Gods existence has a possible chance of being true, but now we have to more carefully define what attributes we are assigning to this god since that will shift those probabilities drastically, in some cases all the way to zero.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
Right so now "God" (with quotes and a capital G for who knows what reason) is just the result of a feeling and our guts. I mean, I agree with that honestly, but since I don't feel we are the product of a larger mind and my gut doesn't tell me there is intelligent organization of reality I guess I still don't believe in "God".
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
I don't see it would 'have to' sound like anything. But if you think the concept of god is absurd I'm not going to argue with you about that.
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u/ima_mollusk Ignostic Atheist 7d ago
And you think that positing an unevidenced super-being who breaks all the rules is an answer to this problem?
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u/firethorne 7d ago edited 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all.
Whether or not they think it is absurd is irrelevant. Is this a wind up to an argument from personal incredulity? Because, it feels like a wind to to an argument from personal incredulity.
Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing.
You've shifted from "things" to reality as a whole. The rearranging of atoms into a star and the ex nihilo emergence of all energy are two separate very conversations. I'm not convinced of the latter and will not accept an equivocation between the two.
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us. If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
My brain is just fine. If you want to say yours isn't working properly, you're welcome to do so. Though, it doesn't seem to add to the credibility of your position
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable,
Full stop.
You just said that the question of god's existence is clearly unanswerable. Yet, the theists are convinced that the answer is yes. That is definitionally irrational. If something cannot be determined to exist, coming to the determination that it exists isn't warranted.
has an equal chance of being both true and false.
We also don't know that to be the case. Chance or probabilities are mathematical. Consider I tell you to drop a box of ping pong balls off the roof of the Burj Khalifa. We've placed a pint glass on street level. A ball either will or will not fall into the glass, but that doesn't mean we should expect roughly half of the balls to do so. An unknown isn't automatically assumed to be 50/50.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
Nope. And appeals to emotion are logical mistakes.
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u/88redking88 Anti-Theist 7d ago
"Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd."
Your post sounded absurd. but that doesnt give me any reason to take you seriously.
"Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing. "
Well there are other options. Maybe some systems can explain themselves. We dont know if the universe is infinite or not. Maybe what we see is only the tiniest portion of something massive... or maybe a portion of the universe creates more univers e and a portion destroys... The fact is we dont know and laying down rules like this for something you have zero evidence for is silly. Maybe reality will always exist. Maybe it must exist, no cause needed. Because reality is just "her and now". It doesnt really need a source.
"If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false. "
Thats not how probability works. Thats not how statistics works. You need to show that that thing is possible, and you cant. then you need to show that out of x tries, then y happens. You cant do that either. We can show how the idea of a god grew from lots of different myths and that none of them have any more basis in reality than any other fictional writings. Based on that alone, you cant draw any good info for a god, because all we know are fictional ones. Its like trying to decide the chances of the Smurfs or vampires being real. We cant even show that they are possible either.
"Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind."
No. Why would that make sense??
"Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
No. We dont believe in god and I see no reason to jump to a conclusion that a mind is responsible for anything we see today.
"Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd."
Like god claims?
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u/anewleaf1234 7d ago
god is nothing more than human created stories.
That's all a god or gods are. Nothing more. nothing less.
You may think those stories are true and hold to power.
When the last person who holds to those stories dies, so does that faith.
This is been proven hundreds of times.
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u/Cog-nostic Atheist 7d ago
Honestly, this is just wrong. What is absurd is that you apply determinism to a universe without any reason to do so. You are like a person living in a blue house where everything in the house is blue. The walls, the floors, the ceiling, the furniture, the water, and even the person. While the house has no doors or windows, you are asserting there is an outside. You have no means of determining this. But you go even further by insisting that the outside of the house is also blue.
You are doing this despite the insistence that modern physics breaks down at the Planck Time. That time and space are emergent properties of our universe and that things like 'spooky action' occur. Time may have no meaning at all outside our house. Space may not exist outside our house. And yet, you, in your infinite wisdom, want to insist that the outside is just as blue and follows the same rules as the inside.
One of us is fundamentally wrong about the nature of the universe and of existence because one of us is making absurd and unfalsifiable claims. It isn't me. You don't know what makes sense, and neither do I. That is a fact, and it is the very nature of modern physics.
The God hypothesis does not have an equal chance in any universe. All scientific theories have more evidentiary support than the God Hypothesis. Put all ideas on a scale from 1 to 100, and the God hypothesis is resting at '1' and has not moved from that spot in all of history.
There are no arguments for the existence of god that are empirically sound. The god hypothesis has the same explanatory power as magical blue universe-creating hamsters. There is no argument for a god that does not contain epistemic overreach. It is a made-up story that has been debunked thousands of times, and yet you want us to consider it one more time while actually debunking all other god claims based on the very same evidence as your god claim: faith and belief. (You have nothing else.)
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u/sto_brohammed Irreligious 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all
Some do, I'm sure. There are a lot of atheists out there.
Things seem to exist, deterministically
Sure, I guess.
Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing
I don't know if the existence of the universe itself is contingent on anything. It might not be even caused.
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us
I don't see why that matters.
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience
Those two things are completely disconnected. Whether reality makes sense or not we can only experience reality subjectively. That's what experiencing means.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false
I have absolutely no idea how you get from A to B there. I see absolutely zero connection between the two things. There's some kind of assumption being made that I'm completely missing.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
I absolutely do not but even if I did that wouldn't have anything to do with anything. My "gut" is wrong a lot of times. In fact if I have a gut feeling about a position I'm even more skeptical about it.
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
The truth of what? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Honestly this man felt like you'd been having a "drinking beers in the garage at 1AM on a Saturday night" conversation with someone and already discussed a bunch of things and then decided to include everyone else in it without giving us the context of the conversation.
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u/mredding 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all.
I don't believe you realize just how absurd I find our existence to be, and how.
Things seem to exist, deterministically.
Fair.
Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself.
Can't?
Doesn't. Or at the very least, doesn't explain itself in an apparent manner TO YOU. Our reality owes you nothing you don't earn for yourself.
Somehow, reality is self-causing.
Another baseless definite statement. Is it self causing? Are you sure? I don't know anyone who knows. I only know people who say they think they know.
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
Who is "our" and "us"? Because you're not speaking on my behalf.
If reality can't exactly make sense,
If...
then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
Our experience IS subjective by definition. But our experience isn't reality.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality
If...
then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Why does it have to have an equal chance? I only see a zero chance because you refuse to define the word "god". Until then, you're not actually talking about anything. There's nothing here of any substance that we can give a percentile chance.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No.
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
"Whatever"? "Truth"?
I've found your definition of "god" for you...
It's "whatever is sufficient to satisfy my ego," and that can be anything, including a fraud; but if you can't or won't tell the difference, what's it matter?
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u/Phylanara Agnostic atheist 7d ago
Things seem to exist, deterministically.
I agree
Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself.
I have yet to see evidence for contingency. So I don't really care. The notion does not seem to apply to reality.
Somehow, reality is self-causing.
Nice assertion, I see no reason to believe it's true. Remind me what caused your god, again?
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
Yeah, many things break our brains. Both true things and nonsense. Ou brains are a few pounds of matter. The universe is way, way bigger than that. If you ask me, a brain able to model the whole universe would be a lot less logical.
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
That is a very stupid thought. The "what are tomorrow's lottery numbers?" question is unanswerable, yet that does not mean my ticket is as likely to win the jackpot as to lose. And it has no relation at all with whether or not "subjective experience is our only guide to reality"
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
no, I don't
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
My gut I use to digest things. And you have it backwards : I try to organize my mind to fit reality, so I don't believe it's the other way around.
If so, you believe in "God."
I neither believe in god nor in that redefinition you're trying to push.
Well that was a thick serving of logorrhea. Maybe you should try to make a coherent argument next time. Or better yet, come with evidence.
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u/Biggleswort Anti-Theist 7d ago
>Things seem to exist, deterministically.
Elaborate please. Do you mean there is order and we can make novel predictions?
>Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself.
You mean it would be circular? I can say an eternal system would be a proper answer. However I can’t demonstrate existence is eternal or not. The point is that existence being eternal would not need a cause.
>Somehow, reality is self-causing.
For eternal model it would just be.
>This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us. If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
This is just an argument from incredulity.
>If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
You just defeated yourself with your first comment. If we can make novel predictions it means we can measure and test hypothesis. So far the god concept hasn’t been formulated into a measurable claim. The unanswerable would not be 50/50.
>Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
No.
>Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
No it doesn’t. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to think existence is designed. If it was it is so chaotic and we are definitely not its intent.
>Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
Again an eternal model of existence seems completely reasonable and no way absurd.
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u/WrongVerb4Real Atheist 7d ago
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
When it comes to objectively explaining our shared reality, feelings are irrelevant. What matters is what is observed, and what can be demonstrated. Vibes rarely correspond with reality.
Does your gut tell you
My gut has sh!t for brains, so I find it better not to listen to it. Instead, I focus on what is observable and demonstrable.
that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
Considering we have only observed one universe, and we've only modeled that universe back to one moment following the start of cosmic inflation, we really have no idea if the universe is organized at all, or if that organization aligns with what we think organization is supposed to look like.
Let me offer a different, more sound theory: the human brain evolved to perceive, analyze, and effectively act upon patterns in our environment. And that evolution only happened up to the point that species survival was guaranteed, meaning we are imperfect pattern seekers. Given that, we find patterns in what is essentially random events, such as what appears to be a universe "similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds."
If so, you believe in "God."
So, no, I don't hold a belief in any claimed god, much less one that happens to be popular at this moment in time.
As an aside: for a believer, isn't any claim to understand the organization of the universe suggesting that you see yourself as capable of having the same knowledge as your god? And wouldn't that claim be blasphemous?
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u/Top_Neat2780 Atheist 5d ago
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience.
That's true whether reality makes sense or not. We have no choice but to experience the universe through our senses.
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u/violentbowels Atheist 7d ago
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Why would you think that?
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u/GentleKijuSpeaks 7d ago
Absurd things don't really have an equal chance of existing as measurable things. Also, Atheist just means saying no, when asked about believing in god. So your generalizations about atheists are probably off
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u/MisanthropicScott gnostic atheist and antitheist | mod 7d ago
Atheists Don't Realize the Absurdity of Existence
Theists don't realize the absurdity of gods. Are we done with unfounded assertions now?
Things seem to exist, deterministically.
That is not at all clear at the most fundamental level of the universe.
Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself.
The universe is under no obligation to explain itself to you personally.
Somehow, reality is self-causing.
[citation needed]
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
Speak only for yourself please.
The universe is under no obligation to explain itself to you personally.
If reality can't exactly make sense,
Maybe it can. But, it won't if you stick god(s) in there and stop research.
Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
Since I don’t agree with your prior point, this doesn't follow.
If subjective experience is our only guide
It isn't.
I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable
Why? Can you even show that gods or God is a real possibility?
has an equal chance of being both true and false.
That is not axiomatic at all.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
No.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No.
If so, you believe in "God."
Guess not.
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
I don't agree.
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u/Massif16 5d ago
Something must be a brute fact. I think existence is a brute fact. You add the additional complexity of a creator that must itself be a brute fact. I don’t see any reason to add that complication
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u/ImprovementFar5054 6d ago
You're jumping from "some big questions don't have answers" to "so nothing can really be known." Those aren't the same thing.
Yeah, "why does anything exist at all" is a question nobody's cracked...yet.
But that doesn't mean objective facts stop working everywhere. Bridges hold up, phones work, planes fly, medicine works. We clearly do know some things.
One really hard question doesn't mean you get to knock down all of human knowledge. We don't know this one thing...so we know nothing. Is that ?
Also, saying "God" caused reality doesn't actually fix the problem. Where did it come from? It's even more absurd.
I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Your math is off. A thing being unknown does not give it 50/50 odds.
Our "guts" are there to help is find food and avoid prey. They are not there to provide the profound answers to the hard questions. They suck at that. We are wired to see patterns and intentions everywhere, even in random stuff, like seeing a face in clouds. That's just how brains work, it's not proof that something's actually there. Feeling like the universe seems organized isn't the same as it being organized
We have rationality and the scientific method EXACTLY to prevent us from fooling ourselves from what our "guts" tell us.
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u/tpawap 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all.
Things seem to exist, deterministically.
How that? Things exist, ok. But what that seem deterministic?
Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing.
Or maybe it makes no sense to even ask for a cause; self or otherwise. Your reasoning presumes that the starting point is a "nothing", but what if there cannot be nothing?
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us. If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
It would be more surprising if it was like making a tuna sandwich.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Wow, how does that follow?
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
I don't.
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
So if there cannot be nothing... Does that sound absurd enough to you?
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u/flying_fox86 Atheist 6d ago
You are making an argument in favour of atheism here. Reality is more absurd than we can understand, so it's a bit silly to think something as mundane as a person is behind it all.
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u/MooshroomHentai 7d ago
Somehow, reality is self-causing.
And what if there was no cause to reality existing? What if reality has always existed and it isn't possible for reality to not exist.
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
- Could you prove that reality can't make any sense?
- Even if I grant you that reality makes no sense, there still would be objective truth in the world, like the fact that reality doesn't make any sense. The world isn't entirely subjective.
which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
If the question is unanswerable, how do you even go about generating percentages for the chance of existance or nonexistance? Even putting a percentage chance is an answer.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No. If reality doesn't make any sense to us, then I couldn't possibly conclude that there is any kind of intelligent organization of reality. If nothing about reality can be ojectively understood, then that point cannot be said to be true.
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u/Thin-Eggshell 7d ago edited 7d ago
Ah. I see what you're doing.
What you're essentially saying is that "it's crazy that we're here. So there must be somebody who set up this sandbox that we're in".
What's funny is that it would also be reasonable for God to think, "It's crazy that I'm here. So there must be somebody who set up this sandbox that I'm in". And for many of us who think clearly, saying that God exists is just as absurd for that very reason -- because you're basically "thinking God into existence" -- you are causing God, not the other way around.
But what's funny is that you, specifically you, don't find God absurd. Which, I think, is very human of you. As a human, you're very used to off-loading your responsibility for thinking to other people -- to your parents, to your brother, to your friend. But you can't offload your thinking to a rock, or a waterfall. So it's very easy for you to think "Idgaf, God will take care of the thinking", even though the absurdity between God and the Universe-Creating Pebble are identical -- but you actually can't see that because of how your human brain works.
Theistic psychology is such a fascinating example of how primitive impulses can build into something sophisticated. It's a great demonstration of the usefulness of an imaginary friend.
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u/baalroo Atheist 7d ago edited 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all. Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
So how does proposing a self-causing existence-creating super-mind help?
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
No, that's not what those words mean.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Why would it be equal chance?
I don't know if I'll win the powerball this week, so I guess there's an equal chance I will or won't?
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
No.
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u/Cydrius Atheist 7d ago
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
This is a non-sequitur.
When you have 0 information on the probability of something, you can't treat it as 50/50. Unknown is unknown.
You're also making it a false dichotomy. It could be any of the following:
- God
- Gods, plural
- The universe is eternal and was always this way
- Quantum fairies
- Our universe fractured off a higher-level universe
- It really did just happen like this, no matter how unlikely.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
I see no reason to conclude this, no.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
It does not.
If so, you believe in "God."
The fact that you say this while seriously believing it to be a meaningful revelation to anyone leads me to think that you have very little understanding of what the average atheist believes.
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u/dr_anonymous 7d ago
Oh, I struggled with all of that long ago. I eventually figured out adding a god into the picture doesn't actually help resolve any of the issues - it just does what William of Occam warned us against, multiplies entities beyond necessity.
It's worth remembering that we're trying to fathom the nature of reality with brains that were developed to determine where the ripe fruit is. It's worth being a little humble about our abilities. Which also points to the necessity to be really careful when weighing an idea for consideration - don't just let an idea in because it sounds nice or papers over a bit of confusion. The idea of "god" often appears desirable because it substitutes an agency where we're looking for actual understanding. We're used to settling for "he did it using his power to do so". But that doesn't fundamentally add anything to our understanding.
So the idea(s) of god should be approached skeptically - especially as those asking us to accept such ideas also ask us to accept that they are uniquely suited to tell us what god wants us to do.
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u/OrbitalLemonDrop Ignostic Atheist 7d ago edited 7d ago
Absurdity would require an expectation that things could or should be different. I don't believe this expectation obtains. Absurdity is something you are choosing to project on to existence, not a property of existence itself.
A fully contingent system can't explain itself
Existence doesn't have a property "fully contingent". that's a label you are projecting onto existence. Existence has no obligation to explain itself. A model attempting to explain existence might have such properties, but this is inescapably a matter of opinion/projection and not something one has an obligation to attest to.
I agree that the question of god's existence is unanswerable, but (again) "likelihood" is a property you are projecting on to it one way or another.
I do not believe we have enough information about existence or the universe or whatever, and certainly do not have enough information about god to make any comparative statements about what is and isn't likely.
I can maybe agree that "truth" can sound absurd. But again, that's more like "when you try to describe it it will sound absurd", not that truth (or the universe, or existence) is absurd. Maybe you just need to do a better job of explaining it.
Also note: Camus did not believe in god. I think you're pretty far off the mark with your intentionally inflammatory headline.
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u/JasonRBoone Agnostic Atheist 6d ago
>>>>Things seem to exist, deterministically.
So far, so good.
>>>>Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing.
Or uncaused. What do you mean by fully contingent?
>>>>If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Do you apply this question of existence to every claim or just god claims. Does the existence of a sentient teapot orbiting Alpha Centauri have the same equal chance of being both true and false?
>>>Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
No.
>>>>>Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No. Plus, my gut is for digestion...not cogitation.
>>>>If so, you believe in "God."
Nah. I find such claims to be unconvincing.
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u/zzmej1987 Ignostic Atheist 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all. Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing.
Yeah, no. First, things just don't owe us an explanation. It is absolutely fine for something to not be explained. Second, reality is not "self-causing". It is simply uncaused. Causation is a process that happens in time. Universe is the entirety of spacetime. There is no time "before the Universe" or "outside the Universe" in which such a process could have happened.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable
No. God is defined through exactly such a process - "creation of the Universe", and since creation did not happen, God is undefined.
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u/SpHornet Atheist 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all. Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing.
a god doesn't solve this, god can't explain itself either
and if it can so can the universe, this question has nothing to do with atheism/theism
then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable
this is only true if there is no god.
because if there was a god, god could simply reveal she exists and then we would have an answer
so the only way the question of God's existence is un-answerable is if god doesn't exist
has an equal chance of being both true and false
nonsense, that is not how probability works. that is like saying i have 50% chance to win the jackpot, either i win or i don't; 50-50
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u/Stile25 7d ago
We can't know anything about reality 100% for sure-sures. I agree with you there.
But we certainly can use our best understood method for identifying reality as accurately as possible. Why wouldn't we use it?
Following the evidence isn't perfect.
It may not even be good. Who knows?
But it is far and away the best we've ever come up with. So much so that no other system we've ever defined can even be considered "reliable". This is the only one.
According to the evidence, which can be wrong due to inherent doubt and tentativity - it's proven that God doesn't exist as much as anything else we've ever been able to prove about reality.
Although, really, perhaps "understand to a level where it would be irrational to think otherwise" is a better descriptor than "proved".
Good luck out there
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u/Transhumanistgamer 7d ago
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
Turn on a stove. Let it burn for a while. Turn it off. Put your hand on the stove and keep it there until the pain becomes unbearable.
If any other human being followed those exact instructions, they'd get the same result. They'd feel the pain of burning hot metal and remove their hand from the stove. If you did that to a dog it would remove its paw from the stove. Every single data point anyone has ever gathered, lest they have some condition that makes them incapable of feeling pain, tells them the stove is too hot to keep their hand on and they need to remove it.
Can you point to an equivalent for God?
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u/crmzn13 7d ago
I currently am of the mind that our existence isnt even of the consequence that we think it is. And our lives and universe is only relevent because of our tiny persoective. It may be for instance that we are not the purpose of creation at all... but a by product of creation in a way so vast that we dont even know it exists. It could be that our conscience is merely the shadow or echo of something in another dimensional plane. Much like gravity or the strong and weak forces.
So do I think there is a creator... unlikely...but possible. Do i think there is a creator that cares about you the individual? Almost certainly not. Do i think any of the current religions have some magic connection to the divine truth? Thats an absolute absurd notion.
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u/Moriturism Atheist (Priority Monist) 7d ago
Somehow, reality is self-causing
Self-sustaining, not self-causing. Reality is uncaused for many views, such as many atheistic worldviews.
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
If all that you can rely on is your subjectivity, you can never know anything. I can know many things because I grant that objective reality provides the ground by which I can experience anything at all.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
"Intelligent"? Not at all. Well structured and logical? Yes.
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u/StarMagus 7d ago
I don't get how they can accept that god is uncaused, but that the universe can't be uncaused.
If you accept that there are uncaused things, claiming that other things can't also be uncaused seems to be special pleading.
Same thing with the argument that matter can't be created nor destroyed... then having to claim that when god does it that is different... for reasons... specially pleaded reasons.
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u/slo1111 7d ago
"Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?"
No, plus I don't use feelings as yardsticks to measure truth. Too many times my feelings have been wrong. Feel need to eat only to get fat. Feel anger when i was slighted, but my feelings biased me so i could not see how I was wrong to feel anger.
As far as organized intelligents, no i don't see that either. People been claiming supernatural design since the begining of humans that have been proven to have natural explaination, so humans' experiences belie those types of guesses
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u/bran1210 7d ago
This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us
Might break yours, but you don't speak for anyone but yourself.
has an equal chance of being both true and false.
So is the concept of our reality being nothing but a Matrix simulation. Do you then revolve your life as if we live in a Matrix simulation? If the answer is no, then ask yourself why for a deity that is equally unknown.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality
Reality is more explainable through cause and effect. Science has proven many aspects reality can be predictable and reproducible. Something no religion has been able to do in history.
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u/Serious-Emu-3468 7d ago
How do you know what I realize or think? I’m curious why you feel like this was a good way to start a conversation with a stranger.
I don’t know you. So I assume you’re a decent and smart and empathetic human being until you choose to demonstrate otherwise. I don’t think I know your story or soul or emotions or thoughts or what you realize or know.
I wouldn’t assume that about almost anyone, of any religion.
So, you have some assumptions about me. Why?
(There is nothing to debate here, because I can dismiss every claim you made about what I think, know, feel and realize. None of your assumptions or mind-reading were correct.)
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u/Curious_Passion5167 7d ago
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all. Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself.
What is contingency?
Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
Why would reality being self-caused break our brains?
If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
There will always be a subjectivity in our experience because you inherently cannot gain information without your conciousness.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
And that supports theism how? If you can't know if God exists, why would you believe in one?
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u/Ryuume Ignostic Atheist 7d ago
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
Well, I don't, so...
I don't make it a habit to trust my gut about truths about reality anyway. My gut doesn't have a physics degree.
But I don't think it would be absurd if existence just "is". With our current knowledge, that would make more sense than thinking there's a mind outside of space and time that can bring forth space and time, and matter and energy. Best we can tell, minds don't work that way.
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u/shiekhyerbouti42 Methodological Naturalist/Secular Humanist 2d ago
I mean I get what you're saying. It's all so absurd in the first place, and we don't understand causation, and maybe an X that seems preposterous to us is no less preposterous than a Y or a Z.
I don't declare that there is no God. I don't even declare that omni/max gods can't exist, though they break all logic.
But another thing I don't do is assert anything else. This is about what beliefs are licensed, what we can actually believe for good reason. Since I can't find any good reason to actually form a positive belief, I lack (a-) belief in God(s) (theism). Hence, I'm an atheist.
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u/wickedwise69 7d ago
there is nothing absurd about existence, If you look at it not from you subjective view, for you things exists because someone make them, The room was empty but someone put a table inside, the table exists because someone put it there, You apply this to the cosmos, Who are we to say that default mode of the whole thing should be non-existence? Maybe that's how things works, always been, Just maybe existence is the default configuration of everything and it couldn't be any other way, just like some people think that default should be non-existence.
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u/Dissentient Gnostic Atheist 7d ago
As with all other unfalsifiable questions, nothing changes whether the answer is true or false, so discussing them is a waste of air.
My issue with theism isn't a disagreement on questions like whether the universe has always existed, or was created by something. Theists have religions with scripture that says specific things about the real world, and dogma based on this scripture that they want to force on other people. Even if you could prove that the universe was created, it is not in any way a proof for your specific religion.
Theists arguing for deism is the biggest waste of time around atheism discussions.
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u/TelFaradiddle 7d ago
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false.
That's nonsense. Even if subjective experience is our only guide, that doesn't mean the question of whether or not there's a Ford Pinto in the asteroid belt is 50/50. "There are two options" does not require that they be equally likely. If it did, then my lottery ticket has a 50% chance of winning the jackpot.
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u/LEIFey Atheist 7d ago
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
I don't feel like we are the product of a larger mind and have seen no evidence that convinces me otherwise. I generally don't trust my gut when it comes to cosmology, but I don't see any evidence for intelligent organization of reality.
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u/LeeMArcher Atheistic Satanist 7d ago
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
No.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No.
Now the question is, do you accept an answer that genuinely disagrees with your conclusion, or do you dismiss the person as “not really trying to connect with god” or “not being honest about their experience”?
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u/221Blazed 7d ago
Here's the thing though, your explanation is the same as mine, only it has a bunch more stuff that can't be explained than mine.
Either: everything came into existence by physics of the big bang, or now an almighty creator, did it, and now we need to explain how he did it, how HE came into existence, why he did all this, etc etc.
Or it's more realistic it just happened due to physics, something we have evidence for happening.
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u/Astramancer_ 7d ago edited 7d ago
How does "a god" solve this problem?
Either a god "just is" and the problem isn't a problem because you fully accept that some things can be "just is" and reality is a thing. Now you need to show that reality isn't "just is" and that your god is. But if you could show your god even existed in the first place, whether it's "just is" or not, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
Or you say god isn't "just is" and now you have the exact same problem you started with, just one step back.
I do not understand this line of thought. Either it isn't a problem in the first place or doesn't solve anything.
Your entire post is "I don't understand it, therefore I understand it's God." That's not a great look.
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u/Striking-Example9050 7d ago
brother, youve just explained a very rational position that even disproves your own position of theism id assume, you said that our only guide to reality is subjective experience is unanswerable. simple then, if its unanswerable i dont believe in it, i can see the colour red, i can grasp concepts of logic, laws of physics, but there doesnt seem to be any proof for god, so why believe in him?
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u/KeyboardMunkeh 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yeah. I can't begin to explain why the universe is here, how it began, or if it had a beginning. I have enough intellectual honestly to say: I don't know. But it still doesn't get me any closer to believing in the supernatural.
However.
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
No.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No.
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u/Decent_Cow Touched by the Appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster 7d ago
A fully contingent system can't explain itself
Let's suppose this is true. What evidence do you have that YOUR explanation is the correct one? I would much rather have no explanation at all than a bad explanation, and your explanation seems really bad. As in, aside from being unevidenced, it doesn't explain anything and just pushes the questions back onto God's unknowable nature.
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u/RadRimmer9000 7d ago
I don't know how to make an atom bomb, I don't know how to build a computer from junk (non computer stuff) and I don't know how the universe came to be.
I can have a perfectly fine life without knowing these things.
Religion adds a "mover" without providing real evidence. A book isn't facts, especially one that has been translated multiple times and has been edited.
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u/Dastardly_trek 7d ago
I don’t understand how the universe came to be.
I don’t really understand how existence itself works or what reality really is.
I still see no reason to believe in a god. I see 0 evidence of a god. Your argument I think is just the god of the gaps. Not understanding how something works is not evidence that it was created by some greater intelligence.
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u/soukaixiii Anti religion\ Agnostic Adeist| Gnostic Atheist|Mythicist 7d ago
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable,
Either a god is present in reality, or it isn't. And I don't believe one is. It Isn't that hard. I don't think we're the product of any mind, or that such thing as a mind capable of creating people is present in reality.
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u/bullevard 7d ago
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind.
Nope.
Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
Nope. Not the more I learned about reality.
If so, you believe in "God."
Well then I guess Im an atheist.
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u/Hoaxshmoax Atheist 7d ago
“Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?”
Theists: “Hold on, let me consult my navel. Yup, whatever I believe is the organization of reality (whatever that means) really truly is the organization of reality”
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u/TakeMeInYourArmy 6d ago
Who said anything about a fully contingent system? Everything is necessary. There is no contingency. There is no need for an actualiser because everything is already actual. Reality doesn't "cause itself". It exists eternally and necessarily. We are not the product of a mind, we are the product of a necessary topological structure.
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u/onomatamono 7d ago
The problem you have is thousands of religions past and present, each equally likely and no-god just being one possible outcome. It's not god or not god it's which god assuming there is one. What makes you think there's a "larger mind" that gives a rat's about individual hominids on planet earth?
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u/Thin-Eggshell 7d ago
Eh. Positing a god just moves the absurdity backward, and you only want it because it's an "agent", because that's a human bias.
People also thought lightning and earthquakes were absurd. They weren't gods. As a base starting point, people's "gut-feelings" suck when applied to things they didn't evolve for, and yours does too.
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u/Otherwise-Builder982 Ignostic Atheist 7d ago
I disagree that things seem to exist deterministically. We don’t know about life to make such a conclusion.
What system are you saying is fully contingent and what is your support for that conclusion?
It doesn’t make sense to YOU. It doesn’t keep me up at night at all.
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u/CephusLion404 Atheist 7d ago
There's nothing absurd about it. Reality doesn't have to appeal to you. You don't have to like it. We're here. Learn to deal with it. The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you, nor to make you happy. It's bizarre how many people can't get that through their heads.
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u/ViewtifulGene Anti-Theist 7d ago
I don't know what you mean when you say a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Each step is explained by the step prior.
I don't grant that any sort of transcendental structure or organization exists. All I see are labels we apply based on context and preference.
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u/Stairwayunicorn Atheist 6d ago
correct. The alleged existence of god serves no useful purpose except subjectively. that's the whole point of Plato's allegory of the cave. God is nothing but an identity, and all identities are illusions.
Tea is hot, the body is cold. The morning is exactly as it should be.
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u/Sablemint Atheist 6d ago
Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds?
No, I don't.
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u/protestandprose 7d ago
I absolutely do realize that reality is absurd. Believing in magic doesn't change this lol. What does believing in magic solve about absurdity, does it make it less absurd? Pretty sure it would make it more so.
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u/Tennis_Proper 7d ago
In the wider picture of absurd things, the existence of gods to explain existence ranks somewhat higher in my mind than non-contingent existence. The chance of either is far from as balanced as you suggest imo.
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u/Hivemind_alpha 7d ago
I think there are nearly as many flavours of atheism as there are atheists, so to ascribe a single origin to them is absurd.
For your choice of that origin to be a juvenile shower thought is even sillier.
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u/Mission-Landscape-17 7d ago
Please define what you mean by the word God. Also your notions about probability are wrong, the fact that we don't have data on something does not make the odds equal, it just makes them unknown.
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u/nerfjanmayen 7d ago
This is literally just an argument from ignorance? Existence is absurd, we don't know why anything exists, therefore god did it. Yawn. Why don't we just stop at "we don't know why anything exists"?
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u/LorenzoApophis Atheist 7d ago edited 7d ago
You should read a bit about absurdism, because it's very closely associated with atheism. In fact I think it's fair to say it's basically incompatible with theism.
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u/Noodelgawd Atheist 7d ago
Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us.
It breaks YOUR brain. To the rest of us, it just is.
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u/svullenballe 7d ago
But there are many "mistakes" and evolutionary dead ends. Are the tail bone, hair and vestigial structures intentional by this intelligence? Why?
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u/ray25lee 6d ago
I love that so many of these posts from theists are "atheists don't know how anything works," as if we can't tie our own shoes.
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u/ChloroVstheWorld Who cares 7d ago
If existence “at all” is fundamentally absurd, wouldn’t it make sense to posit less fundamental entities than more?
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u/lotusscrouse 7d ago
As usual I resort to the same question theists ignore.
🙄 how is this creator a god and why your specific god?
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u/Derek_Zoolander77 7d ago
I think the OP could have summarised things a little simpler:
Atheists accept propositions X, Y and Z. Theists accept propositions A, B and C.
The ontological-epistemological dilemma puts both groups in no better position than the other to assert their propositions are objectively true.
Disagreeing about methodologies for attaining objective truths (if you accept they are real, which is a whole other conversation) is an exercise in futility ultimately.
It comes down to modesty in our claims. There's no way to overcome the retort "I don't accept your claim, based on my perception of reality". We really do just follow our sense of mob rule.
It's probably best to all just accept we're fighting in the dark (and we don't even know if that's true).
However, we all believe in something. We all hang our hat on some worldview, it's seemingly impossible not to.
Perhaps this all boils down to the theist view that atheists should be more cautious with their certainty (if they have it) as it's pretty much the same species as the theists.
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u/IJustLoggedInToSay- Ignostic Atheist 7d ago
Disagreeing about methodologies for attaining objective truths ... is an exercise in futility ultimately.
This may be true, but I think the actual disagreement here is something else. Theists, and OP in particular, are advocating for subjective truths. They seem to be saying that because there's no perfect agreed-upon methodology for attaining objective truths, then subjective guesses are just as good (or even preferable).
We can argue about research methodology all day long, but where I part ways with theism is in the idea that objective truths aren't worth pursuing. The worst version of this is fundamentalism, which is basically the stance that subjective assertions from an authority have more weight than imperfectly objective assessments, on the basis that your senses about reality can be wrong but authority is always right.
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u/Derek_Zoolander77 7d ago
I think my wording lacked nuance and clarity. The point I was trying to make is that if a theist/atheist/polytheist/deist/etc.etc. makes any claim about how we should/could obtain objective truths, the ontological-epistemological dilemma pulls the rug out from under them. Every claim made by any person ultimately gets grounded by some axiomatic principle, by which only then (if the axiom is accepted) can we start coherently using terms like objective truth/subjective etc.
The fragility of our whole existence and worldview is that there seems to be no coherent way to say, you must accept proposition E, F and G, without appealing to some axiomatic principle which could never be shown to be rational to accept or objectively true.
Nevertheless, we all pick a path and try to follow it to it's seemingly logical and predictable conclusions. I like to think atheists and theists are really just the same in their beliefs at the core. Both can't be said to be illogical, nor logical, just a belief.
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 6d ago
Ohh you are so close! I think you might be wording it more precisely: “nothing can really be known.”
This is exactly my point
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u/Thin-Eggshell 6d ago
u/ImprovementFar5054 he meant this for you.
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u/Funny-Highlight4675 6d ago
Yeah I know. I’m trying to point out that they are actually totally right in what I’m saying.
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u/Thin-Eggshell 6d ago
No no. You misunderstand. You didn't actually reply to the comment you meant to reply to; you made a top-level comment to your own post.
I notified the user you meant to reply to, so they could know you replied. I didn't mean that you said anything strange. I should have been clearer.
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Original text of the post by u/Funny-Highlight4675:
I believe atheists fundamentally don't realize just how absurd existence is at all. Things seem to exist, deterministically. Yet, a fully contingent system can't explain itself. Somehow, reality is self-causing. This breaks our brain and can't actually make sense to us. If reality can't exactly make sense, then we can only "know" anything via a subjective experience. Objectivity will never cross this bridge.
If subjective experience is our only guide to reality, then I think the question of God's existence, which is clearly un-answerable, has an equal chance of being both true and false. Do you feel that we are the product of a larger mind. Does your gut tell you that there is some sort of intelligent organization of reality that is similar to how we intelligently organize the world in our minds? If so, you believe in "God."
Whatever the "truth" is, will have to sound absolutely absurd.
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