Steve Weinberg on God.

An Ignostic Argument

The Kalam Cosmological Argument attracts a lot of attention from faithists and sceptics alike because of its superficial simplicity. Here is the case for ignosticism presented in similar format:-

1. The statement that an immaterial, timeless 'something' exists is without discernible meaning.

2. God is a 'something' defined by theists as having the properties of immateriality and timelessness.

3. Conclusion; the statement "God exists" has no discernible meaning.

-oOo-

See also:-

Debunking the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Rebuttal of the Kalam Cosmological Argument

The Counter Kalam Cosmolgical Argument

Early doubts

"Concerning the gods I cannot know either that they exist or that they do not exist, or what form they might have, for there is much to prevent one's knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of man's life." ~ Protagoras 5 BCE.

The Holy Parrot

If I choose to believe in an invisible parrot that perches on my shoulder and accompanies me everywhere whispering words of advice & comfort in my ear, I would be rightly regarded as delusional. If I claim this parrot exists outside time & space, created the Universe and is called "God" I'm apparently considered by the religiosa as completely normal.

Awkward questions for Theists - No.6

If in 100 billion years the Universe is cold, dark, lifeless what would this say about God? Is this his boredom limit? Was this the only cosmology model that would produce beings "in his image"? Or did he just get the fine-tuning slightly wrong? 

Supplementary question:- Is a God that can be bored, constrained in his creative abilities or error prone still a God?

Awkward questions for Theists - No.5

Awkward questions for Theists - No.2

In its objective meaning, how is the expression "God created the Universe" distinguishable from "X created the Universe"?

Awkward questions for Theists - No.1

Modern Christianity

A sceptic's guide to religious belief in the 21st Century

God is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being that created the Universe in a Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago. We know this for certain because God specially created us so that we could say so. However God didn't need us to say so until about 13,695 billion years after the Big Bang; so he either carefully tuned the Big Bang initial conditions or, once having set things in motion, he dropped by every few billion years, firstly tweaking cosmological evolution to produce the Earth, and then biological evolution on Earth itself. God exists outside time and space yet manages to intervene in time & space. This is said to be "moving in mysterious ways". 

God, existing outside time & space, is of course invisible and undetectable yet we know at least something about him because it is said we were created "in his image". This doesn't mean we look like him, (don't be silly) so the fact that he is male needn't cause us females too much angst, especially as he is invisible.. Maybe it just means we think like him. Even so, perhaps as existence was boring,  he also made us so we would sometimes think naughty thoughts and do naughty things, and he knew all along that we would. He also wanted us to know that he, being God is much godlier, even infinitely godlier, than us and would therefore be forgiving us for all our naughties since he made us like that.

God signalled his forgiveness in a way that is rather difficult to understand. One first needs to know that God is composed of 3 parts (but definitely not a tribunal. that's a real no-no; this is strictly a Monotheistic religion we are talking about here). To make sure there is no confusion we call God a "Trinity" and the three parts are known as "God the Father"; "God the Daughter"; whoops, sorry "God the Son", and God the Holy Ghost. 

That having been established we can get back to God's scheme for forgiveness. By means we needn't go into here, (save that it involves the Holy Ghost and even some Christians have doubts about its veracity,) the God Trinity decides ( I assume it was a joint decision) that the Son bit should appear on Earth as a man called Jesus. On Earth in a backward, illiterate corner of the Middle East, his chief occupation would be wandering about telling everyone how wonderful God was, how they should behave, and throwing in the odd miracle to get attention. Being God he already knew of course that that would greatly annoy the existing religious hierarchy and ruling power and  would eventually get him horribly tortured and crucified to death. This however was all part of the Godly plan. By sacrificing himself to himself he apparently atoned for all the sins he knew the human race were going to commit from when he made them half a million years previously into the indefinite future. We are so lucky!

To absolutely clinch matters he got up from his tomb a few days later and walked about a bit before ascending finally into Heaven in a bright light. This greatly impressed his groupies who went on wandering about for years stirring up trouble until a later Roman Emperor for the sake of a quiet life decided to humour them. And the rest is real history. 

Charles Bukowski

Henry Charles Bukowski, 1920 – 1994, was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the ambience of his home city of Los Angeles and marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". (Wiki)

Still no news of God . .

 "One by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. A new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from without.

These are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw off the yoke of superstition. These are the splendid facts that snatched the scepter of authority from the hands of priests."

A quote by Robert Ingersoll in 1872. . . Before Einstein, the electron microscope, the Hubble telescope and the Large Hadron Collider. . . .

A History of God (Part 1)

Dawkins talks to Mehdi Hasan

Degrees of Nonsense

In his article "Is there a God?" Bertrand Russell said:-

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."


This was in answer to those theists who claim the burden is on atheists to prove the non-existence of their deity rather than on theists to prove his existence. This is notwithstanding that theists are fond of claiming their god is ineffable, mysterious, indefinable, beyond the human mind to understand. We would, in fact, be on much safer ground in searching for the elusive teapot. We know what a teapot looks like; its size, its material, its approximate weight. Scientists and engineers could, no doubt, if pushed, design a teapot scanner which, in operation over an indefinite length of time, push the probabililty that there is no orbiting teapot nearer & nearer to certainty.

The Vatican Rag

Scouting for God?

Guest post by Jessica Redding.

A survey which was conducted by the Humanist Society in Scotland has seemingly found that there are many Humanists who have admitted their sons have joined the Scouts and made the “God Pledge” despite not having any real belief. One member who was surveyed claimed that her son had taken the pledge, sworn his allegiance and later revealed his “God” was Slash from Guns N Roses. Depending on your viewpoint on matters of humour and atheism, this is either hugely funny or not (especially if you prefer Bon Jovi).

6000 years ago . . .

Hitler the atheist

The Power of Prayer

God defined . . .

Graphics Tina Farnworth       

Dexter the atheist

Mr Deity & the philosopher

I something good just because God says it is, or is it good anyway?