Vandal Joe McDonald’s argument for God
Joe McDonald — admitted vandal of the FFRF’s “let reason prevail” freethought Winter Solstice banner (listen to his admission on live radio) — has appeared in the comment section of the WNEP article in which his vandalism is captured on video writing, among other things, arguments for God’s existence. Here is one of those posts:
The universe indeed appears to be complex, but the fact that the universe exists and appears to be complex is not evidence of a creator god. David Hume demolished this argument in the 1700s within his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Apart from Hume, and perhaps overlapping Hume, the fact that we can’t explain the complexity of the universe — or what we see to be complex because of our limited understanding — ought not lead one to the conclusion that a creator god exists (or that an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing god exists). Advances in our scientific knowledge, though, appear to point to the conclusion that life in the universe — a very, very, very big place which might not even be limited — is inevitable because of all of the potential combinations of chemicals which would yield life. We just happen to be the ‘lucky’ ones experiencing consciousness at this moment.
‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t understand’ should not justly lead one to assert whatever he/she wants to assert. Why God, anyway, and not some other intelligent being who may have been the spawn of several gods, a computer simulator, a time traveler, etc.? While I don’t believe these things, why is it more rational — I wonder — and appropriate to ‘privilege’ the god hypothesis over other explanations which are similarly fantastic and extraordinary?
A watch indeed is made by a watchmaker, but this does not mean that we can extrapolate one idea (or several ideas) concerning human design and believe that all complexity we see must have a designer – especially when the non-supernatural hypothesis of random chance and genetic variations can account for the phenomena. We have examples of human design and derive design when considering human objects, but we haven’t seen ‘divine design’ at all – you merely assert we are seeing it while trying to demonstrate it.
When I look at nature, I see what appears to be complex…but I also see, as Vincent Price noted in “The Masque of the Red Death,” “famine, pestilence, war, disease, and death” which is all — except perhaps for war — something which arises out of a state of nature that an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful creator god supposedly designed. The evidence of egregious natural calamities which are destructive to animal and human life appear to serve as a defeater to belief in a tri-omni god.
…and it’s not about ‘proving god doesn’t exist.’ Believers are making the positive claim that God exists and thus have the burden of proof. Even if you want me to ‘disprove God,’ I can (and have) done that with prior arguments I have voiced in debates with religious believers and here in this blog.
Atheism isn’t a religion — it’s simply a lack of belief in any gods — and nonbelievers, in addition to believers, have greatly contributed to the history of this country.
Your arguments fail.
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