From: lucio@phyrql.Alt.ZA (Lucio de Re)
Subject: Re: The Bible As A Rorschach
Reply-To: lucio@proxima.Alt.ZA
Organization: MegaByte Digital Communications
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 07:27:19 GMT

joeb@arden.linet.org (Joe Beiter) writes:
>Since the basis of atheism is apparently the assuredness that there is no
>God then I'm sure there is someone here would like to disscuss it.

I wonder how many different ways this has been explained?  Let's see if
I can do it in a less boring (his words, not mine) manner than in the FAQ
(fat chance, the FAQ is actually excellent, in my opinion).

My particular brand of middle-of-the-road atheism asserts that if _a_
God exists, it is one and the same with the physical, perceivable universe
and has no properties that are supernatural or omni-whatever.

In other words, there is nothing beyond the measurable nature of things,
no soul, no spirits, no highest authority, merely a collapsing pattern
which can be described by mathematical laws.

My belief, if you're interested, is that if a supernatural God existed,
it would have to conflict with accepted physical laws (miracles are a
typical example), and I have had no experience of such events.  Further,
should I experience such an event, I would attempt an explanation in
physical terms first (Randy's wager), knowing that it is much more likely
that somebody is trying to fool me.

You may want to surmise (I do, anyway) that I am not an atheist as I
concede that "Natural Law" is my Goddess.  On the other hand, Natural
Law is not a petulant child that expects worshipping from its subjects,
nor is it wimpy or forgiving: if you conflict with it you die (or, at
best, you suffer).  It also does not appoint priests to define my
behaviour, nor does it provide ambiguous guidelines, in fact, it leaves
it entirely to me to discover, by trial and error, what is good and
what is sin (in a Robert Heinlein fashion: sin is stupidity, the inability
to learn from past mistakes).

Now, you want to know what makes us such rabid unbelievers: I claim that
in the entire atheist group that posts to a.a you will find few who will
claim they do not believe that "Natural Law" exists, although there is
still phylosophical room for discussion.

It is the supernature of God (testable, but not falsifiable) that most of
us reject.  Omnipotence and omniscience conflict with Natural Law (almost
by definition) and as a result need to be proved before being accepted.
The fact that you (stupidly) are prepared to believe in an entity whose
characteristics are in conflict with Natural Law (or that you'd like to
add sufficient exceptions to Natural Law to allow for such an entity),
does not place the onus on us to explain why you shouldn't (Karl Popper
and Imre Lakatos have done so quite adequately) much as we might
enjoy establishing with your help exactly which exceptions you want to
introduce so that we may be able to explain why it is not desirable
or possible.

The point is, it is _your_ God we do not believe in.  Tell us what goes
into making up this deity and we'll tell you why we don't believe in it.
-- 
Lucio de Re (lucio@phyrql.Alt.ZA)
The supernatural does not exist, but it gives me the creeps...
Xref: sparky alt.atheism:24618 talk.religion.misc:24796