For the Sake of Science

In a recent thought of the day, I said this:

I have yet to see a good argument for God in the 21st century. There were arguments that worked when we didn’t have the same facts we have now, but ever since the Enlightenment every argument for God has been a radical failure.

I posted that link to my Facebook page and got a response from a Christian. He pointed out three arguments that he says he has never seen refuted. They are:

• the Cosmological Argument
• the Teleological Argument
• the Moral Argument

I’ve addressed all of these arguments on FTSOS in some way or another, and I’ve gone to length at least on the Cosmological Argument. I’m going to quickly go over their obvious flaws again.

Cosmological Argument: This argument says that everything which has a beginning has a cause. It then applies this concept to a point ‘prior’ to the Big Bang and assigns God as being the first cause of everything. Also, in order to avoid an infinite regress, believers arbitrarily declare that God is eternal. First, why make God eternal? Why not do the same for Nature, at least in some form, and cut out the middle man? Second – and this is the more important point – this argument uses facts derived of the Universe and then applies those facts outside the Universe. This makes for a dismal failure of an argument, don’t you think? After all, how can anyone know that properties of the Universe existed ‘prior’ to the Universe? In fact, what we do know is that all of these properties break down if we go back far enough in time. So what believers are arguing is that these properties exist eternally outside the Universe, then when the Universe was in its very first moments of existence they stopped to exist, then they resumed existing. And they’re doing all this without even knowing anything about what existed ‘prior’ to the Big Bang.

Teleological Argument: This is the argument that says there is evidence of design in life and everything (or at least humanity) has a purpose. It is little more than an argument from ignorance that morphs into a pathetic God of the Gaps argument. There is no evidence of design anywhere outside the actions and behaviors of animals. Anyone who has seriously studied any field of hard science knows this and rejects the teleological argument for that reason.

Moral Argument: This is the argument that says the existence of objective morality is evidence for God. I find this to be one of the worst arguments out there. In most cases, it is ultimately circular. Theists have to invoke an objective source in order to maintain that objective morality exists. That is, they say God exists because objective morality exists, yet they know objective morality exists because God exists. Alternatively, they have to say that objective morality simply exists and is outside God. If that is the case, then they haven’t given any evidence for God. That is, they’ve stated in their very premise that objective morality has nothing to do with God.

So I’m still waiting for at least one good argument for God.

Filed under: Philosophy | Tagged: Cosmological Argument, Moral Argument, Teleological Argument |