Monday 9 March 2009

Rant!

Response to Dianelos Georgoudis comment on RD.NET:
So you think naturalists can't possibly believe in even *more* absurd things than theists can. That there are physical universes out there where you and I exist and where the Statue of Liberty every morning swims around Manhattan and then climbs back to her pedestal and quotes from the Bible in a booming voice - would you say that's *less* absurd than theistic beliefs? That there are universes out there where you and I will bodily rise after being dead for three days - that's also *less* absurd than theistic beliefs you think? Should I go on?

No, you shouldn't, since you are only betraying the flaws in your arguments. Listing a lot of strange *possible* scenarios for reality isn't going to help your case when speaking to *most* people (they've seen Jason and the Argonauts, you know!). *Your* proposition is that the reality we've uncovered by science is being maintained (for some reason) by a god, who is a person who is as perfect in all attributes as we can imagine, which means he must be perfectly stupid, perfectly red, perfectly epicene, since anyone can imagine that, who (for some reason) has given us a *material* universe to inhabit, in his mind (how?), rather than create us in his supernatural reality (whatever that is). This material universe he started, in his mind, 14 billion years ago, although he's timeless, so that's not a problem for him (but why bother with the time thing anyway, if being is possible without it? But how is it? Buggered if I know. But if he's timeless how does he interact with the temporal? Answers on a postcard, please); 10 billion or so years later the Earth is formed in a tiny corner of this vast (why? Is his mind mostly empty?) universe he's created. After much faffing around he creates life (? Or is the material universe responsible for abiogenesis? I presume you know DG, you think you know it all) and millions of species come and go on this pale blue dot (Why? Testing? Perhaps *conscious* life creator is not one of his perfect abilities?) until 200000 or 100000 years ago he finally cracks it and homo sapiens appears and then homo sapiens sapiens. He kills off other homo sapiens in case the *special* one thinks he's not so special, with his much coveted consciousness after all, and remember it's the consciousness that proves, err, that consciousness is fundamental reality (how again??). Millions of these special ones live short, horrid lives, full of fear and disease and ignorant of the one true god (Why? Surely their consciousness proves his existence - how again???). After thousands of years of this, the special ones have finally figured out farming and myth-making; one small tribe has even gone and decided that there is one true god (at f'ing last, he must have thought, how many more clues do they want? They're in my mind after all) but they are still screwing up good and proper, so he thinks: 'Christ knows why they can't figure out my perfect goodness, they seem to be just doing what *they* think is good, the heathens, my absolute perfection is obvious, I even put it on a stone and all - didn't mention stem cell research though, wasn't enough room - aha! That's it, Christ knows!' So he sends his son (who's him) down to put the record straight (still doesn't mention stem cell research) and to die (not really) for our sins (why?) and then be resurrected (but god can't die, can he?). And for good measure he does this in a primitive, backward part of the world, well away from scholars who could record the events as they happened, from different viewpoints and cultures, so there could be no dispute about the facts of the matter; this event is *so* important for the future of mankind that it's important to make sure that it's pretty damn hard to believe. Duh! And all for some vague need your god has for having lots of consciousnesses around who agree with him that he's the bee's knees (Why is that again?); so he's perfectly vain, too! And when all is said and done, you still haven’t got an explanation, because you have just magicked an uncaused being out of thin air to supposedly provide your explanation. Err, should I go on?

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