1. Rebuttal:
Man created God in his own image
Man created God in his own image
Summary:
Modern religions evolved culturally & their influences can be traced back in time, with doctrines changing as cultures did. This indicates that mankind created gods, rather than the other way around.
No Content Yet
“No Content Yet"
― No Content Yet
“No Content Yet"
― No Content Yet
2. Rebuttal:
Argument from Incompatibility
Argument from Religious Diversity
Argument from Multiple Theisms
Argument from Incompatibility
Argument from Religious Diversity
Argument from Multiple Theisms
Summary:
Most people believe in the explanations their culture gives them. This implies that gods were created by societies. If there is only one God with specific attributes, then why are there so many contradictory beliefs about God?
Jerome I. Gellman, Israeli professor of philosophy, 1940-
“...If there were massive perceptions of a volcano at a certain location, say, and then one day we got some reports of an eruption and other reports denying that an eruption took place, it would be highly irrational on those grounds to suspend judgment about the existence of the volcano. At most we would have some reason for thinking that at the time maybe one side had not observed the same volcano as the other, or the like.
“Secondly, the Argument from Incompatibility is successful only if it convinces us that two alleged experiences of God being incompatible is a good reason for thinking that they are not reliable experiences of God, that their incompatibility robs them of evidential value on behalf of their being experiences of God, everything else being equal. Not every pair of experiences allegedly of a given object and which have elements of incompatible with one another need be rejected as being truly of that object. In some cases the incompatibility may be overcome by other perceptual evidence, including evidence provided by the very experiences in question, that strongly suggests that both perceptions are of a single object and that the elements that are inconsistent must then be explained by various differences in the contexts of experience. For example, from the fact that two people give contradictory perceptual reports about another person whom each of them takes to be the president of the United States it does not follow so far forth that they are not both perceiving the president of the United States. After all, they may each have perfectly sound perceptual grounds for thinking that they are perceiving the president, and the compatibility may be due merely to ‘local’ differences in the way they perceive the president. The discrepancy might be due to ‘local’ differences of vantage points or perspective, different lighting, expectations of the observers, or the like. All of these differences are perfectly compatible with each observer having excellent grounds for thinking that he really is observing the very same person, the president. And even if we are inclined to think that the local discrepancies at least count against its being the same person who is being perceived, we can readily imagine that there is overwhelming counterevidence, including perceptual evidence, that it is the same person being perceived in both instances. So the Argument from Incompatibility has to be able to show not only that two alleged experiences of God are incompatible, but that the incompatibilities are of such a nature that they show the experiences in question to be unreliable indicators overall on the ‘global’ level of the presence of God...
“In the vast majority of cases of alleged experiences of God across religions the subject experiences only God’s very presence, or only God’s acting in some way toward her, such as consoling her, or perceives God as revealing His will as it pertains solely to the subject herself... The place to look for incompatible revelations is in revelations of true propositions or in directives meant to apply to all of humankind or to large groups of people. But these sorts of revelations are minuscule in number when compared to the total number of alleged experiences of God known to have occurred... Even were we to subtract them from the total experiential evidence for God’s existence, our evidential base will be more than enough to make belief in God strongly rational.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p93-94
“On the face of it, the mere fact that two alleged revelations, R1 and R2, are incompatible in the above sense is not yet a reason for thinking that they cannot both be experiences of God. Why can’t there be in each case a correct identification of God by the subject, an identification made independently of the content of the revelation? And why should the remaining incompatibility not be ascribed to ‘local’ differences in the conflicting perceptions? Why should the very question of whether it was God who was being experienced be raised at all? Even if we are inclined to believe that incompatible revelations at least count against its being God who is perceived in both instances, why should we suppose that the content of the revelations was all the evidence that the subjects who had the experiences had to interpret the experiences? There may very well be independent, overwhelming perceptual evidence in the experiences that each is, after all, of God. So the very fact that alleged revelations clash may indeed count against their both being from God, but this would be quickly overcome by the additional perceptual evidence...
“This we have good reason to believe that if there is an incompatibility between alleged revelations, the incompatibility should be best explained as a ‘local’ difference between the experiences.
“Plausible explanations of incompatibility can be sought from the subject end of such experiences as well as from the object end. The incompatibility may be ascribed to a misunderstanding on the part of one or another of the subjects involved, or both. The subject just may not quite have understood what God wanted. Or it can be ascribed to one or another of the two subjects, or both, when experiencing God imagining that God was imparting a revelation. Neither of these possibilities would give sufficient reason for thinking that either or neither of the subjects had actually perceived God. It happens frequently that one person misunderstands another, and happens sometimes that one person thinks someone is communicating with him when she is not.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p95-96
“But perhaps it will be protested that in the case of God we should not expect that a person would misunderstand what has been communicated or that he would imagine in the midst of an experience of God that God was communicating to him when He wasn’t. Even so, there are plausible explanations from the object end of the alleged revelations. There are several possible explanations of how or why God could or would issue incompatible revelations. For example, considering type (1) incompatibilities, God might simply wish one addressee to believe what is incompatible with what He wants another addressee to believe. And considering type (2) incompatible revelations, God might wish to test an addressee by issuing a command He does not wish carried out, and which is at odds with a previous command. Or God might desire only a temporary suspension of a previous command. Maybe, even, God very much wants us to be in the dark and perplexed by the whole question of why He would give incompatible commands in the first place. Or, finally, there is nothing logically untoward in simply supposing that God gives incompatible commands for His own inscrutable reasons although we have no idea what these reasons might be.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p96
“Now it might be protested that at least some of our explanations of why God might give incompatible commands are not possible explanations, because they imply that God could issue a command He did not mean to have fulfilled. And it might be protested that there could not be any possible explanation of why God would reveal incompatible propositions, because that would imply that God could reveal a falsehood. But these, it might be protested, contradict a traditional belief about God’s nature, a belief implied by God’s absolute perfection. God is considered in the major religious traditions of the West to be absolutely trustworthy. But it cannot be the case that God is absolutely trustworthy yet reveals a falsehood, or reveals a command He does not mean to have carried out. When an absolutely trustworthy being reveals a proposition it must be true. And when an absolutely trustworthy being issues a command He must really wish it to be fulfilled. Hence, it is not possible that God issue a command He does not mean to have obeyed or that God reveal a falsehood.
“Leaving aside the doctrinal position here being enunciated, it is not clear that apparent experiences of God support the conclusion that God cannot reveal a proposition that is not true and cannot issue a command He does not wish to have fulfilled. For while the experience of God’s absolute perfection may be assumed to support God’s absolute trustworthiness, the doctrinal position may be construing the trustworthiness too narrowly. It supposes that the trustworthiness of God must reside in trusting His word. But this is not necessarily so. The absolute trustworthiness of God need imply no more than that God Himself is to be perfectly trusted. That means that whatever God does is done for God’s own, perfectly good reasons. God is to be trusted no matter what. But from that it does not follow that God cannot reveal a falsehood or issue a command that He does not mean to have performed. What follows is only that if God does reveal a falsehood or does issue a command that He does not mean to have fulfilled He can be perfectly trusted to be doing so for the best of reasons. So even if God reveals incompatible revelations and we are unable to fathom why this should be so, we can perfectly trust that God has done so for His own inscrutable reasons, reasons flowing from His perfection.
“God, after all, can allow innocent children to suffer horrible tortures and painful deaths for His own good, inscrutable reasons, without that compromising His perfection. And that is because He has sufficient reason for allowing these things, reasons we can perfectly trust. Similarly, God could reveal a falsehood or give a command He does not mean to have carried out, for His own good reasons, reasons we can perfectly trust...
“Hence we conclude that God’s issuing incompatible revelations should not be expected to entail the ascription of incompatible properties to God.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p97-99
“We turn to the second alleged incompatibility within experiences of God: between God’s nature or character as experienced in one religion as opposed to another religion.
“It must be pointed out, as a first step, that differences in God’s character do not at all divide along the lines of distinct religions. These differences on the contrary, reside within religious traditions themselves. God is experienced in a variety of ways within each of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. One need only be reminded of the priest’s sermon in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to realize how the God of anger and vengeance has loomed large in the Christian experience of God. Or one could think of Rudolf Otto’s characterizations of religious experience as evoking dread and terror or of Jonathan Edwards’s sermon ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’ In the mystical tradition of Islam, Sufism, God is regularly experienced as no less loving than in the most rapturous mystical perceptions of the Catholic mystic Bernard of Clairvaux. And the typical experiences of a Jewish Hasid are of a God overflowing with love for the subject of the experience.
According to traditional Jewish thinking, Abraham experienced God as a God of love, while Isaac experienced God as a God of justice, while Jacob knew God as a combination of the two. These variable ways of experiencing God are central to the traditional Jewish way of thinking about God and are accentuated in the daily prayers where God is addressed as ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,’ rather than simply as ‘The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”...“...The truth is that perceptions of God differ within religious traditions themselves. Even if we were to grant that the intra-religious differences may be less extensive than the inter-religious ones, were the present form of the Argument from Incompatibility correct, the same form of argument would tend to show there to be a radical incoherence in how God is perceived to be within particular religious traditions themselves. This should give us reason to doubt the efficacy of this argument...
“...Characters are logically incompatible only if they require incompatible results. But God could so arrange things that His love and His justice coincided perfectly. So if one person or group of people experienced God’s character or nature as loving and another person or group experienced God’s character or nature as just, they may both be experiencing the true nature of God, a nature both loving and just.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p100-101
“We said that alleged experiences of Brahman create a problem for our argument from BEE [Best Explanation of Experience] and STING [Strength in Number Greatness]. But how exactly are we to conceive of the problem involved here? One way of conceiving of it would be to think that because of the ‘mutual exclusion’ of God and Brahman, alleged experiences of God (and of Brahman) are simply too unreliable to employ alleged experiences of God as a way of establishing God’s existence. We should therefore turn our backs on alleged experiences of God as a source of truth.
“But this way of conceiving the problem would not be warranted by the facts. When faced with conflicting experiences we should first see whether we can explain away recalcitrant elements by reference to the conditions under which one or another of the experiences took place. If this fails or seems to hard to do, we should seek to adjudicate between the conflicting experiences as best as possible. If what were involved were only one single experience, or just a few, conflicting with another single one or with just a few, or if the matter were not momentous, the rational recourse might very well be to suspend judgment and not bother with the whole matter. But the matter here at hand is momentous. The experiencing of God is a massive phenomenon in terms of the sheer numbers of such alleged experiences across religions down through history. It is a phenomenon that occurs under widely varying social, cultural, psychological, and economic conditions. And the same can be said for the phenomenon of the alleged experiencing of Brahman (with some reservations, as expressed earlier).
“When faced with two experiential phenomena of this sort, the rational way to proceed is to attempt to explain away the differences between them by reference to the conditions of perception, and if this fails, to resolve to harmonize between the recalcitrant phenomenal features of the recurring perceptions. It is not rational to abandon the field. The attempt at harmonization should be guided by the desire to accommodate as much of the appearances as is possible as indicative of reality...
“...And indeed, the Argument from Multiple Perfect Beings, or its like, is typically dealt with by philosophers by way of offering what are regarded to be plausible adjudications... But there is an epistemological point that must be made before turning to these attempts at harmonization. It has to do with what happens if no plausible way of harmonizing the conflicting appearances suggests itself. Would the rational course be to then refuse to rely on alleged experiences of God? It is most important to note that this would not be the rational course. Given the massiveness of the phenomenon of alleged experiences of God, and given the rich variations of conditions under which they occur, the rational approach to having failed to come up with a plausible harmonizing of ‘God appearances’ with the ‘Brahman appearances’ would be to continue to rely on the alleged experiences of God, but to do so together with a resolve to seek adjudication together with the understanding that some elements of what is given in those experiences might have to be abandoned in a successful harmonization.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p111-112
“...If there were massive perceptions of a volcano at a certain location, say, and then one day we got some reports of an eruption and other reports denying that an eruption took place, it would be highly irrational on those grounds to suspend judgment about the existence of the volcano. At most we would have some reason for thinking that at the time maybe one side had not observed the same volcano as the other, or the like.
“Secondly, the Argument from Incompatibility is successful only if it convinces us that two alleged experiences of God being incompatible is a good reason for thinking that they are not reliable experiences of God, that their incompatibility robs them of evidential value on behalf of their being experiences of God, everything else being equal. Not every pair of experiences allegedly of a given object and which have elements of incompatible with one another need be rejected as being truly of that object. In some cases the incompatibility may be overcome by other perceptual evidence, including evidence provided by the very experiences in question, that strongly suggests that both perceptions are of a single object and that the elements that are inconsistent must then be explained by various differences in the contexts of experience. For example, from the fact that two people give contradictory perceptual reports about another person whom each of them takes to be the president of the United States it does not follow so far forth that they are not both perceiving the president of the United States. After all, they may each have perfectly sound perceptual grounds for thinking that they are perceiving the president, and the compatibility may be due merely to ‘local’ differences in the way they perceive the president. The discrepancy might be due to ‘local’ differences of vantage points or perspective, different lighting, expectations of the observers, or the like. All of these differences are perfectly compatible with each observer having excellent grounds for thinking that he really is observing the very same person, the president. And even if we are inclined to think that the local discrepancies at least count against its being the same person who is being perceived, we can readily imagine that there is overwhelming counterevidence, including perceptual evidence, that it is the same person being perceived in both instances. So the Argument from Incompatibility has to be able to show not only that two alleged experiences of God are incompatible, but that the incompatibilities are of such a nature that they show the experiences in question to be unreliable indicators overall on the ‘global’ level of the presence of God...
“In the vast majority of cases of alleged experiences of God across religions the subject experiences only God’s very presence, or only God’s acting in some way toward her, such as consoling her, or perceives God as revealing His will as it pertains solely to the subject herself... The place to look for incompatible revelations is in revelations of true propositions or in directives meant to apply to all of humankind or to large groups of people. But these sorts of revelations are minuscule in number when compared to the total number of alleged experiences of God known to have occurred... Even were we to subtract them from the total experiential evidence for God’s existence, our evidential base will be more than enough to make belief in God strongly rational.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p93-94
“On the face of it, the mere fact that two alleged revelations, R1 and R2, are incompatible in the above sense is not yet a reason for thinking that they cannot both be experiences of God. Why can’t there be in each case a correct identification of God by the subject, an identification made independently of the content of the revelation? And why should the remaining incompatibility not be ascribed to ‘local’ differences in the conflicting perceptions? Why should the very question of whether it was God who was being experienced be raised at all? Even if we are inclined to believe that incompatible revelations at least count against its being God who is perceived in both instances, why should we suppose that the content of the revelations was all the evidence that the subjects who had the experiences had to interpret the experiences? There may very well be independent, overwhelming perceptual evidence in the experiences that each is, after all, of God. So the very fact that alleged revelations clash may indeed count against their both being from God, but this would be quickly overcome by the additional perceptual evidence...
“This we have good reason to believe that if there is an incompatibility between alleged revelations, the incompatibility should be best explained as a ‘local’ difference between the experiences.
“Plausible explanations of incompatibility can be sought from the subject end of such experiences as well as from the object end. The incompatibility may be ascribed to a misunderstanding on the part of one or another of the subjects involved, or both. The subject just may not quite have understood what God wanted. Or it can be ascribed to one or another of the two subjects, or both, when experiencing God imagining that God was imparting a revelation. Neither of these possibilities would give sufficient reason for thinking that either or neither of the subjects had actually perceived God. It happens frequently that one person misunderstands another, and happens sometimes that one person thinks someone is communicating with him when she is not.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p95-96
“But perhaps it will be protested that in the case of God we should not expect that a person would misunderstand what has been communicated or that he would imagine in the midst of an experience of God that God was communicating to him when He wasn’t. Even so, there are plausible explanations from the object end of the alleged revelations. There are several possible explanations of how or why God could or would issue incompatible revelations. For example, considering type (1) incompatibilities, God might simply wish one addressee to believe what is incompatible with what He wants another addressee to believe. And considering type (2) incompatible revelations, God might wish to test an addressee by issuing a command He does not wish carried out, and which is at odds with a previous command. Or God might desire only a temporary suspension of a previous command. Maybe, even, God very much wants us to be in the dark and perplexed by the whole question of why He would give incompatible commands in the first place. Or, finally, there is nothing logically untoward in simply supposing that God gives incompatible commands for His own inscrutable reasons although we have no idea what these reasons might be.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p96
“Now it might be protested that at least some of our explanations of why God might give incompatible commands are not possible explanations, because they imply that God could issue a command He did not mean to have fulfilled. And it might be protested that there could not be any possible explanation of why God would reveal incompatible propositions, because that would imply that God could reveal a falsehood. But these, it might be protested, contradict a traditional belief about God’s nature, a belief implied by God’s absolute perfection. God is considered in the major religious traditions of the West to be absolutely trustworthy. But it cannot be the case that God is absolutely trustworthy yet reveals a falsehood, or reveals a command He does not mean to have carried out. When an absolutely trustworthy being reveals a proposition it must be true. And when an absolutely trustworthy being issues a command He must really wish it to be fulfilled. Hence, it is not possible that God issue a command He does not mean to have obeyed or that God reveal a falsehood.
“Leaving aside the doctrinal position here being enunciated, it is not clear that apparent experiences of God support the conclusion that God cannot reveal a proposition that is not true and cannot issue a command He does not wish to have fulfilled. For while the experience of God’s absolute perfection may be assumed to support God’s absolute trustworthiness, the doctrinal position may be construing the trustworthiness too narrowly. It supposes that the trustworthiness of God must reside in trusting His word. But this is not necessarily so. The absolute trustworthiness of God need imply no more than that God Himself is to be perfectly trusted. That means that whatever God does is done for God’s own, perfectly good reasons. God is to be trusted no matter what. But from that it does not follow that God cannot reveal a falsehood or issue a command that He does not mean to have performed. What follows is only that if God does reveal a falsehood or does issue a command that He does not mean to have fulfilled He can be perfectly trusted to be doing so for the best of reasons. So even if God reveals incompatible revelations and we are unable to fathom why this should be so, we can perfectly trust that God has done so for His own inscrutable reasons, reasons flowing from His perfection.
“God, after all, can allow innocent children to suffer horrible tortures and painful deaths for His own good, inscrutable reasons, without that compromising His perfection. And that is because He has sufficient reason for allowing these things, reasons we can perfectly trust. Similarly, God could reveal a falsehood or give a command He does not mean to have carried out, for His own good reasons, reasons we can perfectly trust...
“Hence we conclude that God’s issuing incompatible revelations should not be expected to entail the ascription of incompatible properties to God.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p97-99
“We turn to the second alleged incompatibility within experiences of God: between God’s nature or character as experienced in one religion as opposed to another religion.
“It must be pointed out, as a first step, that differences in God’s character do not at all divide along the lines of distinct religions. These differences on the contrary, reside within religious traditions themselves. God is experienced in a variety of ways within each of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. One need only be reminded of the priest’s sermon in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to realize how the God of anger and vengeance has loomed large in the Christian experience of God. Or one could think of Rudolf Otto’s characterizations of religious experience as evoking dread and terror or of Jonathan Edwards’s sermon ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’ In the mystical tradition of Islam, Sufism, God is regularly experienced as no less loving than in the most rapturous mystical perceptions of the Catholic mystic Bernard of Clairvaux. And the typical experiences of a Jewish Hasid are of a God overflowing with love for the subject of the experience.
According to traditional Jewish thinking, Abraham experienced God as a God of love, while Isaac experienced God as a God of justice, while Jacob knew God as a combination of the two. These variable ways of experiencing God are central to the traditional Jewish way of thinking about God and are accentuated in the daily prayers where God is addressed as ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,’ rather than simply as ‘The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”...“...The truth is that perceptions of God differ within religious traditions themselves. Even if we were to grant that the intra-religious differences may be less extensive than the inter-religious ones, were the present form of the Argument from Incompatibility correct, the same form of argument would tend to show there to be a radical incoherence in how God is perceived to be within particular religious traditions themselves. This should give us reason to doubt the efficacy of this argument...
“...Characters are logically incompatible only if they require incompatible results. But God could so arrange things that His love and His justice coincided perfectly. So if one person or group of people experienced God’s character or nature as loving and another person or group experienced God’s character or nature as just, they may both be experiencing the true nature of God, a nature both loving and just.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p100-101
“We said that alleged experiences of Brahman create a problem for our argument from BEE [Best Explanation of Experience] and STING [Strength in Number Greatness]. But how exactly are we to conceive of the problem involved here? One way of conceiving of it would be to think that because of the ‘mutual exclusion’ of God and Brahman, alleged experiences of God (and of Brahman) are simply too unreliable to employ alleged experiences of God as a way of establishing God’s existence. We should therefore turn our backs on alleged experiences of God as a source of truth.
“But this way of conceiving the problem would not be warranted by the facts. When faced with conflicting experiences we should first see whether we can explain away recalcitrant elements by reference to the conditions under which one or another of the experiences took place. If this fails or seems to hard to do, we should seek to adjudicate between the conflicting experiences as best as possible. If what were involved were only one single experience, or just a few, conflicting with another single one or with just a few, or if the matter were not momentous, the rational recourse might very well be to suspend judgment and not bother with the whole matter. But the matter here at hand is momentous. The experiencing of God is a massive phenomenon in terms of the sheer numbers of such alleged experiences across religions down through history. It is a phenomenon that occurs under widely varying social, cultural, psychological, and economic conditions. And the same can be said for the phenomenon of the alleged experiencing of Brahman (with some reservations, as expressed earlier).
“When faced with two experiential phenomena of this sort, the rational way to proceed is to attempt to explain away the differences between them by reference to the conditions of perception, and if this fails, to resolve to harmonize between the recalcitrant phenomenal features of the recurring perceptions. It is not rational to abandon the field. The attempt at harmonization should be guided by the desire to accommodate as much of the appearances as is possible as indicative of reality...
“...And indeed, the Argument from Multiple Perfect Beings, or its like, is typically dealt with by philosophers by way of offering what are regarded to be plausible adjudications... But there is an epistemological point that must be made before turning to these attempts at harmonization. It has to do with what happens if no plausible way of harmonizing the conflicting appearances suggests itself. Would the rational course be to then refuse to rely on alleged experiences of God? It is most important to note that this would not be the rational course. Given the massiveness of the phenomenon of alleged experiences of God, and given the rich variations of conditions under which they occur, the rational approach to having failed to come up with a plausible harmonizing of ‘God appearances’ with the ‘Brahman appearances’ would be to continue to rely on the alleged experiences of God, but to do so together with a resolve to seek adjudication together with the understanding that some elements of what is given in those experiences might have to be abandoned in a successful harmonization.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p111-112
3. Rebuttal:
Argument from (Evolutionary) Psychology
Argument from (Evolutionary) Psychology
Summary:
Belief in God has a root in psychology or emotions, not fact. Psychological forces often offer us different reasons besides objective fact to believe various things, like the existence of a god. While these beliefs may or may not be of benefit to humanity, it is not a reliable measure of reality.
Peter John Kreeft, American professor of philosophy, 1937-
“One of the atheist’s strongest arguments has been his ability to explain the origin of the idea of God without a God. Freud, for example, makes a reasonable case for fear and wishful thinking as its origin. Voltaire puts it simply and elegantly: ‘If God does not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.’
“But when is it reasonable for us to look for such psychological explanations for the origin of an idea? Only after we know, or think we know, that the idea is false. We don’t give psychological explanations for the origin of the idea that 2+3=5 or that the sun is round. Thus the Freudian argument begs the question. The God-question cannot be settled that way, psychologically. The theist could fairly turn the argument around and psychoanalyze the atheist’s motives as the atheist has analyzed his. He could argue, for example, that Freud had a bad relationship with his father, and explain that that was why he became an atheist: it was the Oedipus complex. Instead of killing his earthly father, Freud took vengeance on his heavenly Father. Such an ‘argument’ has no more (and no less) validity than Freud’s own explanation of the heavenly Father as a substitute for the lost earthly father.
“In other words, both sides must avoid the ‘genetic fallacy’: deciding whether an idea is objectively true by looking at its subjective origin.”
— Peter Kreeft, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p23-24
“One of the atheist’s strongest arguments has been his ability to explain the origin of the idea of God without a God. Freud, for example, makes a reasonable case for fear and wishful thinking as its origin. Voltaire puts it simply and elegantly: ‘If God does not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.’
“But when is it reasonable for us to look for such psychological explanations for the origin of an idea? Only after we know, or think we know, that the idea is false. We don’t give psychological explanations for the origin of the idea that 2+3=5 or that the sun is round. Thus the Freudian argument begs the question. The God-question cannot be settled that way, psychologically. The theist could fairly turn the argument around and psychoanalyze the atheist’s motives as the atheist has analyzed his. He could argue, for example, that Freud had a bad relationship with his father, and explain that that was why he became an atheist: it was the Oedipus complex. Instead of killing his earthly father, Freud took vengeance on his heavenly Father. Such an ‘argument’ has no more (and no less) validity than Freud’s own explanation of the heavenly Father as a substitute for the lost earthly father.
“In other words, both sides must avoid the ‘genetic fallacy’: deciding whether an idea is objectively true by looking at its subjective origin.”
— Peter Kreeft, Does God Exist?, Prometheus Books, 1988 p23-24
4. Rebuttal:
Religion Itself Evolved
Religion Itself Evolved
Summary:
Rather than suggesting evidence for the literal existence of a god, religion is an adaptive system that itself evolves like an organism and competes for resources (human attention and devotion) within the habitat of human minds. The features of religion are what they are not because they are true, but because they are adaptive.
Elmer Leon Towns, American professor of theology & pastor, 1932-
“Some claim that Jesus Christ is a journalistic or creative invention. If man invented Christ by journalistic fiction or by religious mysticism, then two questions face us. First, if man invented Christ, why has man not invented a greater god than Jesus Christ? And second, if man invented Christ, why has He [sic] not been able to improve on Christ over the years?...
“...The fact that Jesus Christ is presented as the perfect God-man implies He has all the attributes that the average man would project onto deity. The Greeks had their concept of deity which is nothing more than an extension of the adoration of man. The Americans have invented Superman, Spiderman, Batman or some other super-hero. Again, all of these qualities are the amplification of man and his desires to live beyond his present human limitations. The gods created by man are an extension of the desires of man and not a personification of the infinite and eternal power that are usually inherent in deity. The fact that Christ possesses absolute powers suggests He must be God who has revealed Himself to man.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p46
“Man would not write the Bible if he could, and man could not write the Bible if he would. By this we mean man would not write the Bible, for in doing so he has created a message of the perfect Son of God who condemns all men. Since God will judge sin, no rational man would write a book that would be self-condemning. Rather, the average man will write a book that reinforces the way he lives. Surely judgment in Hell would not be desired by any rational thinking man for himself or others. In the second place, man could not write a Bible if he would. Because of the limitations of humanity, it is impossible for an imperfect human with limited rational ability to conceive of an unlimited God who is all-powerful and eternal in attributes.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p46-47
“Some claim that Jesus Christ is a journalistic or creative invention. If man invented Christ by journalistic fiction or by religious mysticism, then two questions face us. First, if man invented Christ, why has man not invented a greater god than Jesus Christ? And second, if man invented Christ, why has He [sic] not been able to improve on Christ over the years?...
“...The fact that Jesus Christ is presented as the perfect God-man implies He has all the attributes that the average man would project onto deity. The Greeks had their concept of deity which is nothing more than an extension of the adoration of man. The Americans have invented Superman, Spiderman, Batman or some other super-hero. Again, all of these qualities are the amplification of man and his desires to live beyond his present human limitations. The gods created by man are an extension of the desires of man and not a personification of the infinite and eternal power that are usually inherent in deity. The fact that Christ possesses absolute powers suggests He must be God who has revealed Himself to man.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p46
“Man would not write the Bible if he could, and man could not write the Bible if he would. By this we mean man would not write the Bible, for in doing so he has created a message of the perfect Son of God who condemns all men. Since God will judge sin, no rational man would write a book that would be self-condemning. Rather, the average man will write a book that reinforces the way he lives. Surely judgment in Hell would not be desired by any rational thinking man for himself or others. In the second place, man could not write a Bible if he would. Because of the limitations of humanity, it is impossible for an imperfect human with limited rational ability to conceive of an unlimited God who is all-powerful and eternal in attributes.”
— Elmer L. Towns, Theology for Today, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002 p46-47
Jerome I. Gellman, Israeli professor of philosophy, 1940-
“Evidence against any religious doctrine or style of thinking of scriptural passage of one religion or another is not relevant, however, to the question of whether God exists. The question of God’s existence can be settled in the affirmative, even if no known religion is true or acceptable as is. Our argument, specifically, that God exists because allegedly experienced, does not depend for its cogency on any religion at all being true or largely true as is. In particular, the fact that purported experiences of God historically occur most often to people who adhere to a religious life is in itself not a reason for thinking that the alleged experiences can be taken as true only if the surrounding religions can be so taken. All that need be acknowledged is that adherence to a religion prepares one or trains one for the possibility of experiencing God. And this can be so even though the religion might not be true as is. It need only have the spiritual power to direct one toward God.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p155
“Evidence against any religious doctrine or style of thinking of scriptural passage of one religion or another is not relevant, however, to the question of whether God exists. The question of God’s existence can be settled in the affirmative, even if no known religion is true or acceptable as is. Our argument, specifically, that God exists because allegedly experienced, does not depend for its cogency on any religion at all being true or largely true as is. In particular, the fact that purported experiences of God historically occur most often to people who adhere to a religious life is in itself not a reason for thinking that the alleged experiences can be taken as true only if the surrounding religions can be so taken. All that need be acknowledged is that adherence to a religion prepares one or trains one for the possibility of experiencing God. And this can be so even though the religion might not be true as is. It need only have the spiritual power to direct one toward God.”
— Jerome I. Gellman, Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief, Cornell University Press, 1997 p155
5. Rebuttal:
Argument from Tradition
Argument from Tradition
Summary:
Belief in God has a root in tradition, not fact. People tend to adhere to the religion of their parents and surrounding culture, which creates a lens through which all experiences are interpreted, creating confirmation bias that tends to conform to those traditions.
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6. Rebuttal:
Argument from Lack of Scientific Consensus
Argument from Lack of Scientific Consensus
Summary:
While some scientists believe in God or gods, most do not, presumably based on their scientific understanding of the universe. Those who do believe often do not adhere to traditional religious views.
Fred Hoyle, English astronomer, 1916-2001
“I have always thought it curious that, while most scientists claim to eschew religion, it actually dominates their thoughts more than it does the clergy.”
— Fred Hoyle (quoted by Paul Davies), The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p223
“I have always thought it curious that, while most scientists claim to eschew religion, it actually dominates their thoughts more than it does the clergy.”
— Fred Hoyle (quoted by Paul Davies), The Mind of God, Touchstone, 1992 p223