Post 10

God vs. Atheism: which is more rational?

This video, brought to you by the religiously conservative Prager University, an online school for those looking to immerse themselves into conservative thinking, is presented by Peter Kreeft. He is a philosophy professor at Boston College and is a Christian apologetic.

Most people around me will look at this video and conclude God is more rational. Why? Well, two key points: the universe is far more complex than our human minds can comprehend and the universe must have a prime mover or first cause (as Kreeft puts it later in his video, "the Big Bang requires a Big Banger!") to have started this all. This is the rational position? Within the previous lines one can easily see inherent problems with those two points:

• Complexity can be comprehended. It takes time and a well structured, rigorous, methodologically sound approach to tease apart billions of years of events to compile a sensible, reproducible explanation of everything. This point is known as the "God of the gaps"; God was the mover of clouds and the riser of the sun, then was the mover of the planets, then was creator of life, and now is only a "prime mover" to the creation of the universe. In other words, the more we know, the less reach God appears to have.
• If the universe required a prime mover, and one has designated God as the prime mover, then what created God? If this is countered with a claim akin to God always being there, then why can't the universe have always been there in some form?

Let's parse out what Kreeft claims in this video.

1. "Logic can show there is a God." Kreeft goes on to claim the universe is covered in the finger prints of God, and refers us to 13th Century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas, who developed the prime mover or "unmoved mover".
2. "Just because scientists don't see a cause doesn't mean there isn't one." This was brought up in relation to radioactive decay, after Kreeft made the claim that "mere matter doesn't move itself".
3. Science will be unable to find the first cause. Kreeft crafts this from reasoning around finding the cause for radioactive decay, then finding the reason for the reason for radioactive decay, then finding the cause to the reason to the reason for radioactive decay, and so on.
4. Kreeft brings up a simple objection to the universe requiring a creator by posing the hypothetical question of "what if the universe is infinitely old?". Kreeft relies on scientists knowledge in this case to refute the possibility of an infinitely old universe, stating astrophysics believes the universe to have an age, which required a beginning to measure from.
5. If the universe exists, it came from nothing. Things that do not have to exist must have a cause. The Big Bang was the precipitating event (which, I assume, he attributes to God). Kreeft mocks atheism for previously made claims by atheists that the Big Bang was "creationism in disguise", where only moments earlier he makes a statement that "no scientists doubt the Big Bang occurred".
6. Kreeft invokes Einstein's theory of general relativity: "all time is relative to matter". Therefore, since all matter began 13.7 billion years ago, that means that time only started 13.7 billion years ago.
7. Kreeft returns to mocking atheism by pointing out it is irrational to not believe in God but to believe in something like multiverse theory, which has no empirical evidence.
8. "The conclusion God exists does not require faith; atheism requires faith. It takes faith to believe in everything coming from nothing. It takes only reason to believe in everything coming from God."

There are patterns we see in this brief video that one can acknowledge as being intentionally used to distract the viewer from thinking critically about either claims for God or the objections against atheism. Kreeft begins by dismissing science as able to find the first cause of anything, including this universe, but regularly invokes the wisdom and knowledge of science to support vapid points in favour of God as the creator. What's more, Kreeft mocks atheism for claims which it either never held or held so briefly due to the presentation of the evidence that a rational person can reduce Kreeft's mockeries to merely strawman attacks.

1. Logic can show there is a God.

No. It can't. If this video is an example of logic showing God, then you failed to convey that message in a sensible and understandable manner. Attempting to claim everything requires a first mover because of a philosopher from 800 years ago is akin to deriving navigational techniques for our space crafts from 13th Century ship captains. We have moved passed the position of a particular god being a mover of any sort in our lives, just as we have moved on from Zeus as being the cause for lightning.

2. Just because science don't see a cause doesn't mean there isn't one.

This is Kreeft painting science as inherently limited within the universe which God created. It's a good thing, however, that we do not exist in such a place, and, given enough time, the method of knowledge acquisition known as the scientific method will discover more about our origins than any religion has ever guessed.

3. Science will be unable to find a first cause.

This is a similar point to the one above, but this time with an example: radioactive decay. Kreeft, in effect, attempts to describe matter as some unknowable event where we can only peel away the superficial layers of mysteries. It is clear to me from the Wikipedia article on radioactive decay that we have a far greater understanding of radioactive decay than what Kreeft dishonestly conveys. Why does some matter decay? Unstable orbits! Why are some orbits unstable? Because of uneven chargers or orbital patterns or quantum tunneling or other events which weaken the strong nuclear force! The answer to the why question following this point is not "God"; the answer to "why do we have strong nuclear force" or any other event which might be responsible for radioactive decay must be looked at in a bottom-up manner (rather than the top-down, which invokes God as the answer): if these constants did not exist in this manner, we, as cognitive beings able to conjure images in our minds, would no exist, making any notion of God or universe moot. In other words, we are here because the conditions are such; not because the conditions were set as such for us.

4. What if the universe is infinitely old?

Such a question is a near fair one to ask when arguing against a person who believes God is the only answer to the universe. Given enough time, we can observe many remarkable things. This principle can be applied to our existence and that of the universe as well. Kreeft, however, dishonestly poses a strawman question. The real question is: what if matter is infinitely old? This is important for point 6. We do have strong theories around the Big Bang as the birth of our cosmos, even though there is some dissent from scientists, like Eric Lerner, on the viability of the Big Bang.

5. Nothing can come from nothing. The universe is something. The universe needs a reason to exist.

You can almost read that as "therefore... therefore... therefore...". First, let's look at the work of Lawrence M. Krauss. Krauss's theory is simply something can come from nothing without any supernatural involvement. This can be a bit confusing, though, as Krauss, an astrophysicist, uses nothing in a different manner as Kreeft, a philosopher. To what I have gleaned from Krauss's work, he believes matter has always existed, just in different iterations over their infinitely long existence. When matter is placed into a quantum vacuum, or "nothingness", it will behave in strange ways. Krauss does not attempt to explain where the laws of physics come from, as this can be a ploy to artificially apply top-down reasoning on a bottom-up problem. Philosophers had their place when it comes to the origins of the fields of study, including astronomy and astrophysics. Now, however, their time has passed, and the questions they ask about the origins of life without knowing biology or the origins of the universe without knowing astrophysics are clumsy and misguided. Philosophers who want to know why the laws are physics are such will continually apply the top-down reasoning fallacy to these questions. The laws are they way they are because matter exists and operates in this system. Change the laws, change the system, have an entirely different universe. This line of thinking is where the multiverse theory has found support.

6. General relativity's claim that time is a construct of matter; no matter existed until the Big Bang, which means time didn't exist until the Big Bang.

This point ties into points 3, 4, and 5. General relativity views matter as the important reference to existence. Time is measuring the change of matter. It can be taken, then, that without matter (i.e., existence) there can be no time. This is an ontological failing. Without matter, there would be nothing or there would something else. The mere fact that matter exists in this current system of laws means we, and other intelligent life, have the possibility of existing. Time, therefore, is only a relational mechanism to differentiate two points of existence, which can be employed by intelligent life. Time itself does not exist within matter. If matter has always existed, even prior to the Big Bang, then time too will have existed. This point does nothing to support the idea of God or a prime mover. God is not time. God is not matter. Existence, again, can be considered as a bottom-up problem: matter exists in its state because of the laws of physics make it so. The laws do not presuppose a creator of those laws, for if those laws were to change, our understanding of matter would change--or matter, and time, would cease to exist.

7. Multiverse theory has no empirical evidence, which makes it a joke that atheists believe in it!

Not exactly Kreefts words, but his mocking approach fails to convince me he had any other intent. Maybe it is because of thick irony which goes along with such a statement. One reason multiverse theory gains support from individuals (atheist or not; by the way, if one believes in an afterlife which is distinct from this plane of existence, then that person believes in a multiverse) is due to the feasibility of non-constant constants. That is, changing the laws of physics ever so slightly from how our universe operates may actually create another universe. There is metaphysics and the choice-based mutliverse theory, whereby each unique choice a conscious creature takes will immediately spawn another universe where everything is identical except the decision which was just made. Theories, indeed, but the plausibility is born out of an understanding of physics and a powerful imagination. God, on the other, comes from no understanding at all and a powerful imagination. There is no empirical evidence for the existence of God, either, other than the evidence one can conjure through filling in the gaps of understanding or applying faulty logic to.

8. The conclusion God exists does not require faith; atheism requires faith. It takes faith to believe in everything coming from nothing. It takes only reason to believe in everything coming from God.

An open mind and patience does not require faith. If this were in the era of when Jesus was thought to have lived, we would not understand how disease is spread. This is not a strawman; rather, this is the point of science and acquiring knowledge about how the universe operates. Prior to the germ theory of disease, humans attributed illness to wrath of their local god. We now know the failings of this both by germ theory and by the inability of prayer or ritual to stem the damage of illness or disaster. This, again, is the God of the Gaps argument. God is an ever receding pocket of human knowledge about the universe. A time will come when humans will know the origin of life, with the ability to reproduce it. We are here not because the universe was made for us to be here, but because the conditions are such that, given enough time, life came into existence and went through a billion or more years of evolution to the point of humans as we are today. Atheism takes no faith. It takes a mind willing to accept that we do not know everything right now, but, with effort, dedication, and time, we might one day know it all. It takes faith to believe in a God whose power is ever shrinking into, whose influence is waning, and cannot explain anything.

What's more to the argument put forth by Kreeft is the claim to what God. Nothing in his argument lends to the Christian God, or even the God of the major monotheisms. This "prime mover" can be interchangeably swapped with any other god or anointed divine being or explanation. For example: all life is of one spirit, that spirit is the creator, who created this all to experience it for itself, to go through the every life ever lived. That argument is as valid as God making all of this.

So, which is more rational to believe in? Faith is believe in the absence of evidence. Evidence is required to make rational inferences. One needs faith to believe in God which there is no evidence for. Kreeft fails to be compelling not only for God as the creator but the universe needing a creator at all. Which leaves the evidence on the side of atheism and rationality.

This is an unedited rant. @nrokchi