The Atheist Blogger

Ray Comfort is back from his “debate” which I’m sure he lost on actual content. There is only so far you can go denying reality and actually having a credible argument. Ray simply argues from ignorance, and eventually someone will educate him on the truth. Of course, it doesn’t help that Ray has repeatedly asserted that he would never consider any evidence for Evolution, because that would directly contradict his scripture. This makes Ray not just ignorant, but willingly ignorant.

Ray was quizzed on his “painting implies painter therefore creation implies creator therefore God exists” argument by a reader of his blog:

Ray, when you see a painting, it is reasonable to assume that a painter painted it. Is it reasonable to assume that his name is Alan Jeffrey Pinkerton? How would you go about validating your claim? Would it be enough for you if someone just told you his name was Alan Jeffrey Pinkerton? What if somebody else told you that Alan Jeffrey Pinkerton never existed and it was really painted by Cecil P. Fitzwilliam? Imagine that it is your job to find out who really painted it. How would you begin your investigation? You see, creation = creator is all well and good… but how do I establish who that creator was?

In other words, if we assume Ray’s argument stands, how do we know which creator created creation? Ray takes a stab at this question, and fails miserably.

The One who created the universe must be supernatural. With all our “genius,” humanity can’t create one grain of sand, a leaf, a flower or a bird, from nothing. The Creator must have powers that are infinitely greater than the greatest human being.

It’s true, humanity with all our genius cannot create sand, a leaf, a flower, or a bird from nothing. That would defy the laws of physics. However Ray makes his first mistake here, because he is setting the goalposts too far away. Nobody is arguing that nothing created everything, this has been established many many times to him, but Ray never seems to get it (willingly ignorant anyone?). The Big Bang was a rapid expansion of space-time, and to be an expansion, something must already be there. The initial condition of our universe is often considered “nothing” because it is considered to be extremely small, sometimes thought to be a singularity. However none of these are “nothing”.

Given that his premise is completely flawed, the rest of his argument falls down in style. He claims that the creator must have infinitely more power than the “greatest” human. Since the universe did not just spring out of nothing according to latest theories, any “creator” has to be more complex than the universe itself. There is no need to have some “infinite” attribute unless the creation is also infinitely complex. If there is anything we have learned through the last 500 years of science, it is that the universe is finite and it can be understood by a bunch of ape-like beings that have evolved on one of the planets that forms part of that universe.

So, if the “creator” does not need to be infinite, it doesn’t need to be supernatural, thus nulling is original statement. Ray then continues to answer the question:

The claim of the gospel is that this Creator will reveal Himself to all who repent and trust Jesus Christ.

Of course this answer does not cover the full question, as the reader specifically asked Ray to explain how you would validate that claim. To Ray this task is impossible; you just have to have “faith”, but this has problems when you come across people like me who have believed and realized that Christianity has no answers. Evidently Ray’s method of knowing the creator does not work, as there are many atheists who have been even more fundamentalist than Ray Comfort with their previous Christian beliefs. Ray’s only answer to these people is that they were never “true” Christians, but this really begs the question: how Christian do you have to be to be “true”?

The whole problem with the “painter” argument is that Ray is taking something for which we know the process of creation (i.e. the painting, the book, the car) and comparing it to something for which we either do not know the creation, or do not know if there even was a “creation”. Before the argument can work, Ray must prove that what he cites as “creation” was in fact created. To do this, he must disprove the Big Bang theory, and although he has attempted to do this many times, he has always failed because the simple truth is this:

Ray Comfort is a willingly ignorant fool.

I didn’t check my feeds much when away, mainly because I was on holiday, but also because my laptop completely died on me. I’ve only just set everything back up, and whilst I did check the odd website (like Friendly Atheist and Pharyngula), I didn’t check on many of the others. One of the sites I avoided was Ray Comfort’s site “Atheist Central”, and it doesn’t look I missed a lot. For one, he seems to have come up with this idea that because atheists don’t believe in God, they must therefore believe everything came from nothing. Comfort must have had a “eureka!” moment when he came up with that one, because he has proceeded to make several posts all centering around the same idea. I’ll debunk them all now.

From “The Intelligent Atheist is not an Atheist“:

It is scientifically impossible for nothing to create everything. If nothing created everything, then the “nothing” isn’t nothing. It is something, because it had the amazing ability to create everything. Only an unscientific ignoramus would hold to the thought that nothing created everything. We have the dilemma of having everything, so we therefore have to come to the conclusion that something made it. Whatever it was, it had to be non-material (unseen), eternal (without beginning or end), and it had to be omnipotent (have the amazing ability to create everything from nothing). If the professing atheist concedes to such basic logic (which he must or he reveals that he is unscientific and unintelligent), then he’s not an atheist. He is in truth an agnostic (“One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.”). He is someone who believes that there was a creative force that brought everything into existence, but for some reason he denies that it was God.

Firstly, I’d very much doubt that creating everything from nothing would be held as “scientifically impossible”. There are very few things that are labelled scientifically impossible due to recent research in quantum mechanics. Given that the Big Bang is a well supported theory, and we have no definitive theories about what happened before it, then a “nothing to everything” hypothesis is still on the table. Just because the nothing caused everything doesn’t change it being a nothing though, as Ray would like you to believe. He is arguing with semantics, saying that if nothing has an ability to do something, it must be a “something”, but this argument holds no merit because he fails to understand simple concepts like cause and effect. If there was nothing and then the universe suddenly appeared, it doesn’t mean the “nothing” was the cause. Secondly, the whole argument is rather silly as few scientists hold to the theory that “nothing” created everything. The scientific consensus is that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe as it currently is today, and that before that everything might have been compressed into an infinitely small point (a singularity), which although infinitely small, is not “nothing”.

Ray then goes on to say that the “creator” of everything must have been non-material (why? define “material”), eternal (why?), and omnipotent (why?). Already he is committing a logical fallacy by assigning the properties of a God onto this hypothetical creator. Why does the creator need to be non-material, when we have no idea what was there before the Big Bang? Why does it need to be eternal, when the current scientific argument is that time began at the Big Bang (and therefore there is no such thing as “eternal”)? Why does this creator need to know how to do everything in order to create a universe, which after all is a finite thing? Ray then goes on to a very bad definition of an agnostic (person who holds that the idea of God is unprovable) and how no atheists are really atheists at all. Many people have shown that agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive, and I hold to both views.

From “Atheism’s Best Kept Secret”

An atheist is someone who believes that nothing made everything. He will of course deny that because it’s an intellectual embarrassment, but if I say that I don’t believe that a builder built my house, then I am left with the insanity of believing that nothing built it. It just happened.

An atheist is someone who disbelieves in the existence of all gods. Atheism doesn’t have a position on how everything came to be, and the atheist is welcome to subscribe to a number of ideas if they so wish. Many do, many do not. I don’t deny Ray’s point because it is an intellectual embarrassment (it’s not though); I deny it because I don’t believe it. I personally accept the Big Bang theory as the explanation of how the universe began, and before that I can safely say I don’t know. Unlike Ray though, I am prepared to look at what scientists are saying, and the stuff concerning string theory, multiple dimensions, and “brane worlds” is intriguing. It’s nice to see the “building means a builder” fallacy again though, and those reading who recognise why this reasoning only works on things we know the process of, can stare in disbelief at how Ray hasn’t realised this simple point yet, even though it has been explained to him many times over the years.

From “Response to the Below Blog”

There is no intelligent response that can justify the embarrassment of professed atheism. It is intellectual suicide. Remember, if you believe that something made everything, then you are not an atheist.

These statements quite astound me when coming from a man who openly mocks Evolution by inventing the “Crocoduck” and claiming that scientists are looking for it to prove their theory, who says that the entire idea is a “fairy tale for grown-ups”, and who keeps on claiming these same things even when presented with as much evidence as his detractors can throw at him. There is misunderstanding; there is utter ignorance; and then there is Ray Comfort, and you don’t get much lower than that.

On his second point in this paragraph, Ray has committed the common fallacy of assuming that there are only two options for everything. Either nothing created everything, or “God” created it. He completely misses the point that if something created everything, it could be all manner of “somethings”, some of which include gods, some not. An atheist can easily fit in the “some not” group.

From “Eternal Everything”

There were a number of responses to the impossibility of the common atheistic belief that nothing made everything.

I bet there were.

They haven’t argued the point, but rather defaulted to the belief that the universal is eternal. But that won’t work. It’s a scientific impossibility. The Law of Thermodynamics proves that the universe cannot be eternal.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics only proves that the current state of universe we live in is not eternal, and had some sort of beginning. However, it says nothing of what happened before the beginning, or what will happen when entropy increases to maximum (Big Crunch anyone?). This is thinking outside of the box on a literally universal scale, and the thinking extends to unseen dimensions of space-time, as well as the multiverse. Of course Ray would probably either mock this view or call it “unscientific” (like he actually knows what that word means), all because he has a closed minded view that this is all there is, and only God can explain it.

From “Atheism: the Intellectual Embarrassment”

It’s a matter of definition. If you say of your Ford Expedition that you have no belief that there was a maker, then you think that nothing made it. It just happened. You have defined yourself as having that mentality. So if you call yourself an atheist, you are saying that you have no belief in a God–a Creator. Creation just happened.

It is indeed a matter of definition, and Ray simply moves the goalposts by assigning the “creator” as an actual being. He ignores the creator as a natural process, and says that if a being couldn’t have done it, nothing could have. This is an extremely simple view to take when you take into consideration all of man’s achievements compared to those made by natural processes. As I have already pointed out, the “building means a builder” argument only works on things we know the origin of. I know a building needs a builder, so I expect one. I have never seen a universe being “created” so I have no idea what did it (if anything). Atheists have no belief in a God as a creator, but that doesn’t mean we don’t believe in some creative force, and just as we accept the creative force of Evolution and natural selection, we accept the creative force that brought the universe into being (whatever it was).

So now we uncover theism’s best kept secret; the fact that although theists appear on the most part friendly and welcoming, they will be dishonest and lie to cover up the truth. They will create complex explanations for why science does not reflect their god, and when the explanation looks so silly even to them, they will renounce it and claim that science has got it wrong. For the best kept secret of the theist is that they cannot possibly be wrong, because after all, they have a holy document given to them by their god, and their god just has to exist. Theism is the intellectual embarrassment, and always will be, because without the doctrine, theism is nothing, and boy do they know it.

From a comment:

Arrogant Atheists,

Nothing can only create Nothing. Before the universe began, something must have always existed. And it is called Energy. Energy is eternal. The first law of thermodynamics confirms that.

The law states: “Energy cannot be created or destroyed”. No beginning or uncreated and no end. That’s the definition of “ETERNAL”. You also can’t claim that this energy always existed in the known universe because science has proven that the universe didn’t always exist. Stephen Hawking once said: “The universe and time didn’t always exist”.

This energy source that was present BEFORE the universe began had to have power beyond anything we can even begin to imagine, considering it had to transfer it’s energy unto the trillions of stars and billions of galaxies. A separate ETERNAL energy source that exists OUTSIDE of the universe had to have supplied or transferred it’s energy unto the universe (because we know the universe didn’t always exist) It is not unreasonable to assume this ENORMOUS energy was the creator GOD. Listen atheists, we reasonably have to options to determine what WAS this powerful always existing energy. It could be a dumb, unconscious and vague energy source. (However this seems extremely illogical considering that we can observe complexity, order, and design throughout the universe.) The most logical answer would be that an intelligent mind constructed the universe, or a GOD. It’s as simple as that.

If you can’t agree with this logic then you’re stubborn, unreasonable, and don’t want to believe in the possible existence of GOD.”

When I sit down to write an article, I do research. Unless my article is written from a purely philosophical angle, I usually look up and check the facts. I also do research when writing responses to comments such as this one, but the writer of this comment, “Costiliani”, had not done research at all. In fact, he (I’m assumed male just for ease) had lifted the entire comment out of a video he had come across on YouTube. This one to be precise. So it seems that my response to Costilani will also be to the maker of the video as well (who knows, they could even be the same person).

In the video, the supposed source of the Hawking comment is made (http://hawking.org.uk/lectures/bot.html). However, not once in the entire lecture did he say the words “The universe and time didn’t always exist”. I know for a fact that Hawking believes the universe winked into existence all by itself at some point, but the creator of the video seems to mix up meanings. Indeed, his quote is a paradox. The only reason why we use the word “always” is because we have time. It’s a word that means “all the time” very literally.

I have no problem with Hawking believing that universe didn’t exist at some point. It’s a good a theory as any when it comes to the beginning of the universe. Whether you go with the singularity beginning or Hawking’s version, we know nothing about either event. The real problem with the use of Hawking is that it is a blatant appeal to authority. Hawking is not omnipotent, and has in fact been wrong on several occasions. The man is fallible; he makes mistakes.

I also love how you make a massive assumption by saying that it was both an eternal and external energy source that powered the universe. The last time I checked, “multiverse theory” was still at the purely hypothetical stage. Since we reckon the universe is a closed system (at least theoretically), energy transfers are impossible both ways. So the simplest explanation is either that the universe “always” existed in some form, and with the Big Bang grew to the point is it now, or the universe itself is eternal, expanding and collapsing every 30 billion years or so (see Big Crunch).

You then claim that it isn’t unreasonable to assume that this energy was God. I say it is. It’s unreasonable to assume anything unless you have valid evidence for it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest an idea or hypothesis that it was “God”, but at the same time I don’t think it’s very likely either. Of course, you use the standard arguments that the universe is complex, ordered, and designed, which are all blatantly untrue. Sure, the universe is kinda complex, but not enough so that a bunch of evolved apes that only really started using science in the last 500 years (if that) can’t understand it. Sure, the universe is kinda ordered, as long as you conveniently forget about the increasingly entropy making the universe more “disordered” on the particle level. Sure, the universe is designed, if you ignore that most of it empty space, most planets don’t support life, and even the ones that do support it don’t do a very good job. Add to that the sheer amount of objects that serve no purpose (black holes spring to mind) and the design theory fails completely.

So I don’t disagree with your “logic” because I don’t want to accept the possibility of God. I accept that possibility already (agnostic atheist remember?). Then again, since you lifted your entire comment out of a video I bet you didn’t bother to read the rest of the site. I disagree with your logic because it assumes too many things, and it doesn’t answer the assumptions with rational logical arguments. Where you could have natural explanations, you have the supernatural, and you think this is the best possible explanation.

That, and I HATE arguments that use CAPITAL LETTERS in order to EMPHASIZE words.

In less than 2 hours (08:30 BST), the LHC will be turned on. Protons will be hurtled round the 27km circuit in opposite directions at 99.99999% the speed of light. They will attempt to smash them together and recreate the environment of the universe, a billionth of second after the Big Bang. The main purpose of the experiment is to find the elusive Higgs Boson, which would solve the problems we currently have in the standard model of particle physics.

Of course, everyone knows that the real purpose is to create a Black Hole and end the universe. BBC Radio 4 is having a day of programmes aimed at explaining the LHC, as well as the situation live from the control room at CERN.

Should be either an interesting day…or a final one.

Atheist blogger Kieran Bennett was asked the question “Why are you atheist and not agnostic?” and replies in essay format. He argues that whilst I am correct in saying that agnosticism has nothing to do with gods, I am wrong in thinking that “gnostic atheism” is irrational, and it is in fact the agnostic atheists who are the irrational ones.

I find this a bit incredulous, but I think his argument stems from the semantics of the word “god”. Kieran says that every god that exists today can ben traced back through history to it’s human origin, and we can also explain why such gods have so much power over people (fear, comfort, etc). However, I do not think that any of these gods are gods that the agnostic atheist would claim are unknowable.

In essence, the agnostic atheist is as certain as the gnostic atheist about most gods humanity has ever come up with. What we are really agnostic about is a god that humanity has not just dreamt up, the god of deism. Ok, so perhaps this god was dreamt up by a human, but it very different from it’s brothers and sisters. The god of deism is an attempt at explaining the reasons for the origins of the universe. Instead of an all-powerful being, we have a semi-powerful being, able to create but not to interfere, thus letting science do all the explaining of existence and the universe.

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