1 of 9 debate Harris vs. Craig

I would love to actually see a factual account of Hitchens, Harris or Dawkins being owned by a believer in mythology! These empty claims surface on Youtube but are always proven wrong by critical analysis of the video, something that hysterical apologists can’t understand. Just because you debate ignorance well does not lend credibility to the fallacy of religion

Great Sam Harris video.

I find it amazing how many video captions begin with false statements like ‘Sam Harris destroyed by Wm Lane Craig.’ By running the video you find that the ignorant have taken one of Craig’s unsubstantiated claims and labeled it a ‘win’ for the religious. This is NOT critical thinking and reveals the poster to be profoundly ignorant. Craig is great at theatrics only; debate. Anyone can beat an unskilled debater if they are an expert at argument, that is why the person armed with truth needs skills in debate. Craig and Cy Ten Bruggencate are apologist as are all other apologists, they can be defeated because they only have myth on their side.

Know the people that you disagree with!!

William Lane Craig

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Dr. WIlliam Lane Craig.

“”The person who follows the pursuit of reason unflinchingly toward its end will be atheistic or, at best, agnostic.

— William Lane Craig [1]

Dr. William Lane Craig, born August 23, 1949 in Peoria, Illinois, is an American Christian apologist, philosopher, and theologian. He received a Bachelor of Arts from theologically-moderate evangelical protestant Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, a summa cum laude Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham (England), and a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Munich. Craig claims that religious faith must be supported by reason and logic or atheism will triumph.^[1] He has admitted multiple times that he will not change his faith no matter what the evidence points to, because he has “witnessed the Holy Spirit in his heart”.^[2]

He has authored numerous books on subjects including cosmology, philosophy of science, theology, the Christian church, Christian apologetics, metaphysics and epistemology, and history.

He is best known for his attempted proof for the existence of God using the Kalām cosmological argument. His work is heavily dependent on the perspective of Reformed Epistemology, which, like presuppositional apologetics is criticized as circular for depending entirely on an unwarranted assumption of the existence of God.

Contents  [hide]  1 Profession 2 On morality 2.1 Divine command theory 3 Apologetics 3.1 Kalam Cosmological Argument 3.1.1 Why the Kalam Cosmological argument fails 3.1.2 Begging the question 3.1.3 Compositional errors 3.1.4 Defining essentials 3.1.5 Who created God? 3.2 Ontological argument 4 Circular evidence 5 Craig’s debating tactics and criticism of opponents 6 Craig and Creationism 7 See Also 8 External links 9 Footnotes

[edit] Profession

Since 1996, Craig has been a Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology. Since 2003, he has also been a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College.

Talbot University website includes a “Doctrinal Statement” that reads;

“”The Bible, consisting of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, is the Word of God, a supernaturally given revelation from God Himself, concerning Himself, His being, nature, character, will and purposes; and concerning man, his nature, need and duty and destiny. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are without error or misstatement in their moral and spiritual teaching and record of historical facts. They are without error or defect of any kind.[3]

As for Wheaton College, their “Statement of Faith and Educational Purpose” includes the following;

“”WE BELIEVE that God has revealed Himself and His truth in the created order, in the Scriptures, and supremely in Jesus Christ; and that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writing, so that they are fully trustworthy and of supreme and final authority in all they say.[4]

Both of these statements would be an embarrassment to any legitimate academic institution. They are the very antithesis of what an academic institution should represent; namely the promotion of free discovery, understanding and learning.

The mere fact that Craig has associated himself with these two institutions, and only these two institutions, reveals a lot. This is especially clear when he openly admits he will dismiss all and any evidence no matter what because he believes Christianity is true because of the “Holy Spirit” in his “heart.”^[5]

[edit] On morality

Craig argues in favor of objective morality. He defines objective morality as “to say that something is right or wrong independently of whether anybody believes it to be so.” His most common argument goes as follows:

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

This is a common argument among Christian apologists and is logically valid as an instance of modus tollens. However, validity does not entail soundess — neither premise is well-supported. There are two assumptions smuggled into this argument. For one, there are numerous ways of formulating systems of morality that don’t require a god. Demonstrating that a god is a necessary condition for objective morality requires either one or more a priori arguments to discredit the various alternatives. Secondly, the argument assumes objective morality is consistent with the existence of god — this is challenged by the Euthyphro dilemma. Craig of course says that, according to divine command theory, god had goodness built into his character in such a way that everything god does and commands is good. However, that leaves us with nothing more than a tautology redefining good such that we are unable to truly judge what is good.

In April 2011, on his Reasonable Faith site ^[6], Craig published an explanation for why the genocide and infanticide ordered by God against the Canaanites in the Old Testament was morally defensible. In summary: When guilty people get killed, they deserved it because they were guilty and bad. When innocent people get killed (including innocent babies), they went to Heaven. Here are some key points:

God had morally sufficient reasons for His judgement upon Canaan, and Israel was merely the instrument of His justice, just as centuries later God would use the pagan nations of Assyria and Babylon to judge Israel.[7][8]

And:

Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.[7][8]

And:

So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life.[7][8]

Please bear in mind that Craig is not some cruel dogmatic wingnut. He’s not some extremist Fred Phelps type, ranting about how God’s hateful vengeance is upon us for tolerating homosexuality. He’s not some itinerant street preacher, railing on college campuses about premarital hand holding. He’s an educated, widely-published, widely-read theological scholar and debater. When believers accuse atheists or non-believers of ignoring “sophisticated modern theology“, Craig is one of the people they’re talking about.

Modern theology cannot escape the dogmas of the cruel theology of the ancient times. Educated apologists like Craig must argue that as long as God orders such things to happen, it’s perfectly moral take the lives of these people. Killing bad people is tolerable, because they’re bad and they deserve it. This implies the problem of evil and the folly of attempting to understanding the motives of a capricious and inscrutable god.

Killing innocent and good people is just as tolerable, because they wind up in Heaven. As long as God approves it, it’s acceptable to systematically wipe out entire races, including babies and children.

Craig said —not essentially, not as a paraphrase, but literally, in quotable words— “the death of these children was actually their salvation.” This viewpoint is not something unique to Craig, but is one that apologists often choose to adopt when tasked with explaining the war crimes perpetrated under God’s command in the Old Testament. The ethical framework of the Old Testament, if taken in whole, is completely incompatible with most contemporary conceptions of morality. It is difficult to discern whether or not apologists such as Craig are devoted enough to this viewpoint to act on it, but it is safe to say that the objective morality that the apologetic likes of Craig support is anything but objective.

[edit] Divine command theory

Craig accepts the Divine Command, as he describes as follows;

But the transcendent and sovereign God sees the end from the beginning and providentially orders history so that His purposes are ultimately achieved through human free decisions. In order to achieve His ends, God may have to put up with certain evils along the way. Evils which appear pointless to us within our limited framework may be seen to have been justly permitted within God’s wider framework. [9]

So basically, God has ordered everything throughout history to unfold through free will. This means that God does not intervene with human life, otherwise freedom would be eliminated. This is also problematic because it begs the question and it does not answer any ethical problems. God allows necessary evil, it is all part of God’s plan. Divine command theory implies that whatever God commands must be the morally correct course of action. Therefore, if/when God endorses genocide, infanticide, animal sacrifice, slavery, or rape, those things are good, whereas if/when he forbids eating certain foods or working on certain days or having certain kinds of kinky sex, those things immediately become bad. This makes divine command theory a subjective theory of morals, one which is arbitrary and can change at God’s whim. Claims like “God wouldn’t do that”, but this doesn’t help at all. For one, in many religious traditions he does do such things. For another, if God is the source of morality, he can do whatever he wants and it would still be just as “good” as anything else.

Whether divine command theory is true or not (and there seems to be no reason to think that it is), it is often not an effective method of settling moral dilemmas. For one, it’s not clear which religious tradition is correct. For another, religious texts tend to contain many conflicting, arbitrary, or excessively specific rules. These rules rarely allow a clear method of generalizing these ideas to every possible situation, so a believer is forced to do much the same thing that an atheist does, which is to work out moral principles and ideas for herself. Often, the fact that the believer is bound to respect certain statements as absolute truth makes this process even harder, because those statements may not make good sense, or may make sense in most situations but be absurd in others. Divine command theory thus fails to provide moral guidance for much the same reason that religions often fail to provide moral guidance.

[edit] Apologetics

[edit] Kalam Cosmological Argument

Craig is well known for the Kalām cosmological argument (KCA). The KCA is a variation of the centuries old cosmological argument, originated in Islamic philosophy, that argues for the existence of a personal first cause for the universe. Cosmological goes back to Plato, but many are familiar with the Thomistic and Leibnizian forms. In 1979, Craig popularized this argument, and to many theists this has been a powerful tool to prove the existence of God. Craig presents the argument as the following:

• (P1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
• (P2) The universe began to exist.
• (C) Therefore, the universe must have a cause.

The conclusion we are supposed to reach from this is that the God of the Bible created the universe. This is generally reached by a few additional sections of argument: that the cause must be a god, and furthermore that god must be the God of the Bible.

[edit] Why the Kalam Cosmological argument fails

The first premise of Craig’s argument is flawed.

In quantum mechanics, things happen that are not caused, such as radioactive decay, or when an atom in an excited energy level loses a photon. No cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus. Craig has said that quantum events are still “caused” just in a non-predetermined manner — what he calls “probabilistic causality.” Craig is thereby admitting that the “cause” in his first premise could be an accidental one, something spontaneous and not predetermined. He therefore destroys his own case for a predetermined creation. Even if the KCA was sound, why would the cause itself not be natural?

The second premise of his argument is also flawed.

The argument assumes that the universe has a beginning. Not enough is known about the early stages of the Big bang or about what existed before the Big bang. We don’t know what the universe was like before the first 10⁻⁴³ seconds after inflation started to say with certainty that the universe had a beginning, various possibilities exist.

1. Before the expansion started, the universe existed in a stable state eternally.
2. The multiverse could have existed before our universe started.
3. There could have been a Big crunch that finished occurring before the big bang
4. Something else entirely could have existed.

Furthermore, the conclusion is inconclusive.

Even if we reason that the universe has a cause, we know nothing about the nature of this cause; certainly not enough to ascribe godhood (with properties such as awareness and intelligence) to it. The cause of the universe may very well lack mind or will. There is even less reason to assume the cause of the universe is the God of the Bible.

[edit] Begging the question

The KCA is invalid and refuted because it commits the logical fallacy of begging the question. The phrase “whatever begins to exist” is not presumed to accommodate anything other than God, and that puts God into the definition of the premise of the argument that was supposed to prove his existence in the first place. This is also most likely an example of special pleading, as the first premise, “Everything that begins to exist has a cause”, can be rewritten as “Everything that is not God has a cause”, unless there exists some other thing or things than did not begin to exist. However, if other things exist but did not begin to exist, then even accepting the other broken premises does not lead to God being the answer. As there is never any positive evidence offered for a god, but merely the asserting that god must have been the cause if there was one, the argument from ignorance is also heavily at play.

[edit] Compositional errors

The two premises that support the conclusion both commit compositional errors. This is because the premise, “Whatever begins to exist has a cause” commits the fallacy of composition because, to quote Francois Tremblay, “The first premise tries to infer a necessary causality on a whole, the universe, on the basis of observation of such attributed in the parts, the exist around us. The attribute being transposed here, being caused, is relational and therefore cannot be transposed. Thus the KCA cannot generalize from caused entities around us to the universe in this matter.” We have no reason to assume that “Whatever begins to exist has a cause” because we don’t know enough.

The second premise, “The universe began to exist” forces us to draw an inference between the items in the set (things within the universe) and apply it to the set as a whole (the universe itself). For that to be valid, one must fallaciously presuppose a realm beyond the universe, in which the universe can be taken as an item in a larger set itself, within which it is contained, limited, and defined.

Which gives away to the compositional error, via the fallacy of Begging the question, since such a realm beyond the universe, is entirely unproven and in question itself.

[edit] Defining essentials

The KCA fails to identify, either through its syllogism, or subsequent explanations for its syllogism, it is defining its essentials. And the word that is essential for it to define is the word universe.

The KCA depends upon the Big Bang Theory, being the beginning of everything because if it is not, then there’s a part of existence that is unaccounted for. That larger whole may be eternal, or may never have begun to exist, or caused our Big Bang, as a local inflationary expansion, or caused the rest of the multiverse in it’s overall entirety.

Even if the universe in the KCA is defined as the totality of existence, the argument is again rendered impotent and refuted, because the universe could not have been created by something outside itself, since for something to create the totality of that which exists, one can only appeal to that creating agent as being non-existent. Further, for the universe to be labeled the totality of existence, it can never be caused as a whole, since that would assert that at one point, existence, was non-existent, which is impossibly incoherent.

[edit] Who created God?

Another reason why the KCA is invalid and refuted is because it can be expressed in a competing syllogism.

• (P1) Everything that has sentience has a cause.
• (P2) The Abrahamic god is said to have sentience.
• (C) Therefore the Abrahamic god has a cause.

This syllogism can easily be ported to any god, since most, if not all gods, are said to be sentient in some form or fashion; and all referrals to reality, attest that sentience does not arise without antecedent causation.

[edit] Ontological argument

Craig defends Alvin Plantiga’s modal version of the ontological argument for the existence of God^[10], rendering it thusly:

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

This argument has been widely criticized on two main points.

1. The modal ontological argument, in some presentations, relies on an equivocation between metaphysical and epistemic possibility. It may very well be that the existence of a maximally great being is epistemically possible (i.e. we don’t know that it’s false) but not metaphysically possible (i.e. non-contradictory). If the concept of a maximally great being is not self-consistent, then it is not metaphysically possible for such a being to exist. Compare: we don’t know whether the twin prime conjecture is true or not. Suppose it is false but we don’t yet know it; it follows that it is (metaphysically) necessarily false. We might nevertheless agree that it might be true because we don’t know its truth value.
2. Premise 3 is questionable. If this is supposed to follow from the definition of “maximally great being,” then that definition needs substantial defense. Otherwise it is question-begging. It suffers from the same problem as St. Augustine’s: existence is not a real predicate. A being that exists in every possible world is not greater than a being who does not exist in every possible world.

Premise 2 follows from the definition of the possibility operator. Premise 4 follows from the definition of the necessity operator. Claims 5 and 6 follow from the initial premises. Claim 7 is generally taken to follow from the stipulated identity between the maximally great being and God, in keeping with the Christian tradition.

The issue with the metaphysical possibility as it relates to the first three premises can be clearly shown with a competing version of the argument:

1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) does not exist.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being does not exist, then there is some possible world where a maximally great being does not exist.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. A maximally great being does not exist in every possible world (from 2).
5. Therefore, a maximally great being (God) does not exist.

This further highlights that the argument has two likely sources of error: with the construction of the argument in general (in which case the argument is not useful for proving anything) or a problem specific to the first premise (in which case the possibility of the existence or non-existence of the character God must be defended with further arguments). Of course it is also entirely possibly the problem lies in both areas, and it is neither possible to prove and actuality from a mere possibility or accept a possibility without supporting empirical evidence.

[edit] Circular evidence

The KCA is also dependent on the controversial A-theory (i.e “Tensed” Theory) of Time, which states the present moment is uniquely real. Craig quotes in The Nature of Time, “The moments of time are ordered by past, present, and future, and that these are real and objective aspects of reality. The past is gone, it no longer exists. The present is real. The future has not yet come to be and is not real.” The common objection to the A Theory comes from Einsteins theory of relativity, that states there is no absolute present moment and time is relative.

Craig has written a lot of books on the subject of time in which he puts in the interpretation of relativity that he calls the Neo-Lorentz interpretation, which includes an absolute present moment. Craig claims that his interpretation is observationally equivalent to special relativity. Of course this is seriously disputed, but even if this is the case there is no reason why we should prefer Craig’s interpretation (which is very complex) to Einstein’s interpretation (which is simpler and works completely fine by itself). In Craig’s book Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity he writes “we have good reasons for believing that a neo-Lorentz theory is correct, namely, the existence of God in A-theoretic time implies it, so that concerns about which version is simpler become of little moment” (pg. 179).

So it seems that Craig is saying the existence of God implies the Neo-Lorentz Aether Theory, which is needed for A-theory of time to be correct, which is then necessary for the KCA to work, so Craig can prove the existence of God. That is clearly circular.

Craig does have four other argument for God, such as the fine tuning argument. The common objection to the fine tuning is that it is a tautology, weakened by the multiverse theory (Craig never says a multiverse is impossible). Craig explains this in the debate book God?, “the hypothesis of a Cosmic Designer…is again the better explanation because we do have independent evidence of the existence of such a Designer in the form of other arguments for the existence of God.” {pg. 14). So now we cannot rely on the Kalam to tip the scale in favor of the cosmic designer hypothesis, because that just gets us in the same circle we were in before.

What about the resurrection of Jesus? The common objection is that any other naturalistic explanation, no matter how crazy it may seem, is much more probable than the resurrection story. But Craig addressed this an a debate with Bart Ehrman that the resurrection was a supernatural event caused by God. So he proves the existence of God by presuming God already exists to explain the resurrection. Again, circular.

And finally, the moral argument, another favorite of Craig. Craig says if God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist. Craig argues that objective moral values do exist. Basically that our personal experiences of morality makes it true, which is another argument for God. Craig says (in his own words)

“”The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost is the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit.

—[11]

This makes it seem that all of Craig’s arguments for God are tied to personal experience that are dependent on the existence of God, which he uses to support the moral argument to prove the existence of God. Again, circular.

[edit] Craig’s debating tactics and criticism of opponents

Craig likes to boast that he is a “professional philosopher” and engage in “academic” debates that concentrate on the arguments, not on personalities. Despite this, Craig states that while Richard Dawkins may be a good scientist, he is a “layman” in philosophy and theology and The God Delusion is a “very unsophisticated book. As a philosopher, I was just appalled by the arguments he offers in that book. It is an embarrassment, really, I think.” A classic example of his tactics can be seen in his debate with Bart Ehrman, in which most of the listed tactics are used very successfully.

1. Within debates, Craig uses the Gish Gallop, presenting a hailstorm of misrepresentations and dubious statements, wrapped up in a few obvious facts. Since rebutting statements takes up more of his opponents time than it took him to deliver them, he later is able to list out those statements of his which were not replied to, owing to the strictly controlled format and time limit in most debating environments.
2. He strawmans his opponents arguments and responds to them with an undertone of humour, thereby lessening the credibility of both. He also uses arguments from authority. In friendly audiences, this convinces the public of his upstanding honesty.
3. He quote mines extensively. This allows him to present his opponents past statements out of context, and out of line of any recent historical and scientific developments. Indeed, it is clear that he uses public resources (eg. Youtube) to gauge public opinion about his opponent, and this allows him to subtly attack his opponents reputation and character. For example, he praises Bart Ehrman for a minor shift in opinion that he made years before the debate date, and he is thus able to convince the audience that the morally and scientifically proper thing for Ehrman to do is to continue to shift towards Craig’s position.
4. He appeals to emotions, and as in his debate with Bart Ehrman, tries to paint his opponent as a bumbling moron while he’s the supposed academic scholar. When his opponents take objection to his tactics, he can accuse them of bluster. He disses New Atheist authors like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris as
   • Non-intellectual.
   • Angry and bitter against religion.
5. He twists or ignores the rules of the debate (if any) and this gives him an advantage over his opponent, who is usually civilized enough to stick to the format. He takes a very brief part of his opening statement to state his own views, and takes the majority of the time speaking against his opponent. This has the following effects –
   • He is able to misrepresent his opponents views before his opponent has had the chance to present them himself.
   • By the time his opponent presents his points, the audience already has Craig’s rebuttals in their mind, and hence they cannot truly analyze them objectively.
   • He is able to start his rebuttal period with a statement to the effect that he has not heard any rebuttals to his points, completely ignoring the fact that the time period for his opponents rebuttals is yet to arrive.
   • By the time his opponent begins his rebuttal, he is virtually back to his starting position in the audience’s mind, due to Craig’s double rebuttal.
   • Since he states his arguments very briefly, his opponent lacks sufficient ammunition to rebut them in any detail. Indeed, this lack of detail in his initial arguments allows him to present qualifications for them after his opponents have presented counterarguments. This provides the illusion of an adequate rebuttal and makes it looks as if his opponent has misunderstood or misinterpreted his points.
6. After he strawmans and misrepresents his opponents views, he then sets down his own set of points that he feels his opponent must prove in order to support his position. In most cases, those views have nothing to do with his opponents position and are completely different from what his opponent was going to assert. These points are usually absurd and in principle unassertable.
   • If his opponent chooses not to toe Craig’s line and instead asserts his own points, Craig can then later list out his own twisted caricatures of his opponents views as points his opponent has failed to assert.
   • If his opponent chooses to try and prove Craig’s points, he can rebut them easily as he frames them in an extremely biased way which makes them difficult or impossible to support.
7. Thanks to the way in which the propositional statements of most controlled debates are framed, Craig is almost never in a position in which he has to simultaneously prove the existence of a god, and the assertion that the god is in fact the Abrahamic god. This is advantageous for him because most of his arguments – the Kalam Cosmological argument, the Ontological argument, the assertion of the existence of Objective Morality, the Divine Command theory, the Fine Tuning argument etc. – do not point to the existence of the Abrahamic god, and can in principle, be used to prove the existence of any given supernatural entity. Since his arguments for the Abrahamic god are extremely weak compared to his general arguments for a god, he never uses that line of argument against competent opponents like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, and only unleashes them against opponents who, at least in principle, believe in a higher power.
8. Craig frequently name drops, referring to the works of famous historians, theologians and apologists, in lieu of presenting an actual rebuttal to his opponents statements. This usually takes the form of “My opponent’s arguments have already been replied to by XYZ famous writer, hence I will just make a statement that it is invalid, without actually telling you what that rebuttal is.” This is the height of intellectual dishonesty because,
   • He completely ignores the facts that he is the one who is debating, not some long dead writer.
   • Some vague reference to a rebuttal is not an actual rebuttal, but in the eyes of the spectators, it is valid.

[edit] Craig and Creationism

Debate!!!!

Atheist Experience debate!

The great Sam Harris!

Sam Harris has debated and won against the most learned religious scholars in the world. I find it very strange still that most of the population doesn’t give an atheist points just because there is NO PROOF that ANY religion is factual in any way! These geniuses have had to debate supporters of fairy tales for years because of the gullibility of mankind.

The Amazing Atheist.

This guy may be ‘in your face’ about things, but he does his research and does it well. He also is not afraid to take on Wm Lane Craig as others are.

This guy is awesome!

Noah Fucking Way

40 Days and 40 Go Fuck Yourselves

Many great articles have been written over the years ripping apart the silliness of the Noah’s Ark fairytale. Most of them destroy the tale by demonstrating the impossibility of Noah’s alleged task from a physical and technical perspective, like the Square-Cube Law, which proves that the ark (even if it ever were built) could not have functioned as the bible claims. While these complex explanations clearly debunk the story and stand on their own, I have decided to focus on a far more basic argument.

Setting the Bar

What would you say if I told you that from now on Microsoft is going to package all of its software on floppy disks again instead of CDs? Add to that, all of their products will be boxed and sold on retail shelves only. Internet download will no longer be allowed. Moreover, all retail products will be distributed via paddle boats across all bodies of water and by horse and carriage across all bodies of land. Large-scale ships, trucks, and air transport are verboten.

As an outsider you know absolutely nothing about the inner workings of their business and haven’t a clue what happens behind their closed proprietary doors. You’re just a mere mortal. Their ways are higher than yours and their motives are not to be questioned.

The fuck?

Only an Idiot Would Deny the Obvious

As long as we have the intellect (which, in this case, is nothing more than simple common sense) and the ability to streamline tasks and make them more efficient and timely, we will. Anything less just wouldn’t make sense now, would it? And as mankind’s intellect and abilities are infinitesimal when compared to that of its alleged magnificent creator, it becomes incomprehensible that such a god would resort to anything less.

The Claim

According to moronic bible lore, god created THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT in a mere six days (which Evangelical Christians believe to be six literal 24-hour days) by a mere act of his will. Just to be clear about this, we’re talking about every speck of matter, living and inanimate, not just on this planet but also on all of the planets and systems in the entire universe.

The scope of this massive creation effort is completely and thoroughly incomprehensible to man, but suffice it to say that it would have been one amazing feat.

Accepting the incomprehensible enormity and complexity of the act (to the extent that a mere mortal can) is essential to understanding the silliness of the Noah’s Ark fairytale.

A Stipulation

Okay, for sake of the argument, let’s assume that the story is true and correct and that god did create everything in the entire universe in a mere 144 hours. Without recounting why his once perfect creation went bad (why is not relevant), god decided to wipe the slate clean and try again. Well, apparently not the entire slate.

God certainly didn’t need to recreate the entire universe. That would have been silly and far too inefficient for such an all-powerful and all-knowing being. Even I wouldn’t have done that, and I can’t imagine that you would have either. He didn’t even need to recreate the entire planet. That would have been enormously inefficient and total overkill as well.

There was no need to recreate the trees and the flowers, the mountains and the valleys, the rivers and the oceans (of course), and everything else on land and in the sea. All god had to do was essentially get rid of all the people inhabiting the earth (just his human creations except for Noah and his family) and replace them via procreation on their own accord. The rest was a matter of of mass-genocide. Everything else was to remain intact albeit a bit soggy for a short while.

Whatever the world population was at the time, it would have been a piece of cake for such an all-powerful being to eradicate all of them with a single wink of his eye. BOOYAH! You is all gone. (Anyone remember the tenth plague in Exodus?)

Remember, god created everything in the entire universe in only 144 hours. Getting rid of such a trifling speck of his creation could have and should have been another simple act of his almighty will. But instead, when all he wanted to do was get rid of just the people on this teeny tiny planet in the vastness of all that he created, he certainly took his time and resorted to illogical crudity for such a relatively simple task – which makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE for an omnipotent being.

There’s not a single shred of biblical evidence that states or even suggests that any part of the story was a test of faith for Noah and his family. And even if it was a test of faith, the entire story still doesn’t hold water [pun intended] because pieces of the story are in logical conflict with such a motive. (More about this in a bit.)

According to bible lore and my reliable contacts, Noah lived to be about 900 years old. He was born around 1056 (or 2894 BC) and the flood took place sometime in 1656 (or 2294 BC), which by computation was in the 600th year of Noah’s life. Add to this nonsense the fact that it took 120 years to build the ark. (Yup.)

Only an idiot wouldn’t see the glaring inefficiency of god’s plan.

Why the Story is Patently False

On the grand scale of common sense, logic, and good judgment, the almighty couldn’t have been any more off his mark.

It would have made much more sense for this all-powerful being to just snap his fingers and make all of the people just go bye-bye, and then let Noah and his family start their little inbred fuck-fest. And even if god were to go with the ridiculous barge/flood idea, he could have just created the ark for Noah and then proceed with the drowning party.

But wait. We’re not done just yet.

I find it interesting that while god launched such an unreasonably and unnecessarily long project (with regard to the building of the ark), he decided to introduce, seemingly out of nowhere, a smidgen of courteous efficiency. (Aw, how nice.)

To save Noah the pain in the ass effort of having to circumnavigate the globe and then trek across every continent to gather all those critters, god brought all of the animals to the ark. What a brilliant time-saving shortcut. I mean, it’s not like Noah had plenty of time to do all this all on his own. He only lived to be 900.

And know that the same sudden and inconsistent act of efficiency was seen when the floods subsided. Apparently god took care of getting all of the animals back to their respective continents and ensured that they (and several generations of their offspring) survived long enough to repopulate the entire animal kingdom. This is thoroughly consistent with the almighty’s duality of efficiency and proves that the building of the ark and all that followed wasn’t a test of Noah’s faith. Bringing the animals to the ark and then back to their respective homes would be like letting marathon runners take a taxi through the toughest parts of the race.

Other Red Flags

Since we’re on this topic, I wonder what all those lions and tigers and bears ate while all of their natural prey were repopulating? Remember, only two of each kind survived the flood, and the earth is a pretty big place you know. How could only one pair reproduce fast enough to not only repopulate the earth, but also to feed their predators? Did all of the carnivores turn vegan for all those years? Perhaps god turbo-charged their physiology so as to accelerate their procreation capabilities.

Many Christians try to argue that lions, for example, weren’t carnivores back then. Of course, those powerful jaws and long, sharp teeth must have evolved sometime after they became meat eaters. But wait, I thought evolution was a farce? Perhaps their all-knowing creator knew they would eventually become carnivores and gave lions and tigers and bears those necessary meat-eating features so that they’d be well-equipped when the time came. Seems logical.

Christians also have to account for that unilateral “two of every kind” mandate, so they must argue that all of the dinosaur varieties were on the ark – all babies, for obvious reasons. Only problem is, T. Rex and at least a few of his buddies would still be here today if any of this patent nonsense were true. It stands to reason that we should have at least a few of these ancient creatures still roaming the planet today – cryptozoological delusions notwithstanding. Those two lions and tigers and bears are still here, yet all we find of these prehistoric land-dwelling giants today are their fossilized bones. And of course let’s not forget about the unicorns.

Furthermore, Christian apologists argue that it was the flood that killed the dinosaurs, but this leaves yet another whopper of a problem. Why is it that all we find are dinosour (and a few other small ancient mammal) remains in those fossil layers? Why haven’t we found any goats, sheep, horses, pigs or dogs? If dinosaurs roamed the earth with man and all of those “kinds” that made it onto the ark, we should find many of them in the fossil layer as well.

On another semi-related long-debated note, if everyone but Noah’s family was killed during the flood, how the hell did we get all of the current races of people inhabiting the planet today? It’s not like all of these races evolved from Noah’s family gene pool, right?

Look, if you kept breeding Chihuahuas with Chihuahuas, you’d still get Chihuahuas – not Great Danes. If you kept breeding Noah’s family, you’d get people who look like Noah’s family – not Ho Chi Minh’s family. Likewise, if you cross bred a Chihuahua with Great Dane, you’d get a unique mix of genetics no different than if an Asian person and an African person had a child together. The Ibizan and Pharaoh hound breeds have remained the same for 5000 years, just as our five basic human races have.

All human variations are a direct result of interracial breeding. Many Christian apologists argue that what appear to be multiple human races is really just one, and that all of our variations come from 5000 years of exposure to the sun. Yes, exposure to the sun quite obviously influenced the staggering average height differential between the Dutch and Japanese, as well as the average weight/mass differential between the Japanese and Pacific Islanders (like Samoans).

These apologists argue that our five races are based on depth of skin color: darkest at the equator, getting lighter as you move away (north or south), and the getting dark again as you get to the areas of “midnight sun.” Okie dokie. Well, I suppose they need to manufacture some sort of explanation no matter how asinine it sounds.

Yes, it’s quite clear from all of the faces and body types around the world that everyone is indeed a direct descendant of Noah and his family. Yup. No doubt about it.

Timing is Everything

Now let’s go back to god’s abortively bad time and resource management skills.

Noah took 120 years to build the ark, plus there was the unknown timeframe that god needed to bring the animals to the ark, plus another 40 days and 40 nights for the flood (actually, they were on the ark for about a year), and then two other unknown periods of time for the waters to recede and to get all of the animals back to their respective continents. But even if these unknown periods were instantaneous (unlikely, as that would be so thoroughly insane considering the crudity of the rest of the project), the entire event would have taken at least 121 years, plus several generations to repopulate the earth with humans, animals, and vegetation.

Ultimately, the act was wholly inefficient and thoroughly inconsistent with the knowledge, power and perfection of this allegedly Supreme Being even without his precedent six-day creation feat. But for sake of the argument, even if god had a sound reason for placing the burden upon man, this story is still marred with an abortively crazy mix of efficient and inefficient acts.

If no sane, prudent, fallible human would conduct business in this manner, then neither would his all-powerful, all-knowing creator.

Well Aren’t You Special?

When bitch-slapped with all of the aforementioned, your average idiot Christian will invariably cling to a special pleading in a pathetic attempt to sidestep logic and physics (in the face of the Square-Cube Law, for example). These idiots can’t be reasoned with. But just for fun, if such a pleading is invoked (e.g. god suspended the laws of physics to stabilize and protect a wooden barge of such enormous proportions from destruction), ask them why the pleading is necessary in the first place. If god intervened and temporarily suspended the laws of physics or magically brought all of the animals to the ark, then why didn’t he just use some of that magic to make all those people go away with a plague or a nod of his head? I mean, the fucker fucking SPOKE shit into existence. Let there be light, jackass.

Anyway…

Finding Noah: Of Artifacts and Hoaxes

On a final and semi-related note, several nutcase Christian wackos in recent years have claimed to have found the remains of Noah’s ark. Sadly, none of them ever provided any concrete proof to that end. But Christians won’t allow that little problem to rain on their parade.

If the ark did land on Mount Ararat as the bible claims (even so many years ago), there should still be some trace of it somewhere on the mountain given its alleged enormous size. Sure, Ararat is huge, but mankind has been searching for the ark for generations and generations. Surely some conclusive artifacts would have surfaced by now. It’s not like the ark could possibly (and reasonably) be buried in a hole or hidden in a cave – again, not given its alleged size.

Click here to read the official textbook Christian excuse for not finding the ark.

Anyway, this is how it works. If the ark were to be found, Christians would claim it to be absolute proof that their god exists. However, if the bones of Jesus were found (thus disproving the resurrection and ascension), then it would be either (a) a hoax perpetrated by atheists, (b) a hoax perpetrated by Satan, or (c) a hoax perpetrated by Satan through atheists. To your average Christian, hoaxes are a one-way street. No credence is given to the possibility that some religiously deluded guy (with low self-esteem and the need for self- validation) heard a voice in his head telling him to build a really big boat.
 

 

New website!

American Atheists Launches New WebsitePosted on: May 23, 2013

We are pleased to roll out a brand new website design to our members and supporters!

Among the features of the new website is a full integration between your online account and your membership records. After you have created a new user account, please allow for a 1-3 business days for your account to be linked to your membership record. Please note that this means that your old login information will no longer work. This is for your security and to allow for the use of email addresses (rather than usernames) as the login method.

In the mean time, you are welcome to browse our new site, check out the magazine archive, watch past issues of the Atheist Viewpoint, and read up on the history of American Atheists.

If you find problems, errors, or bugs in the site, please email us at website@atheists.org so we can correct it.

The time is NOW!

For years religion has bilked the populace out of billions to fund myth-based folley benefiting no one. Some of the funds DO provide food and other services and are well needed in the community, but most are not. It is time that organizations that live off of the taxpayer paid their fair share. The economy is bad and the churches are still doing well. You don’t hear charlatans like Joel Osteen or Creflo Dollar complaining, but that is because our system has given them a free ride! End the ride and end corporate welfare as well!