a charlie brown squiggle moment
I’ve done some traveling for my job the past few days, and something extremely annoying happened. I went to get my free breakfast at the hotel where I was staying, and as I was going to find a seat I noticed a couple of other people standing, holding their breakfast plates in thier hands, and looking around with big Charlie Brown squiggles over their heads. You know, the big blob of squiggles he gets when he’s confused or disgusted or something of that sort. The problem was all the tables and other seats were taken. The annoying part, the part that caused the Charlie Brown squiggle, was that some of the tables were occupied by people who had already finished thier breakfasts and were either reading a paper, watching the tv, or on the phone.
Come on you self-centered losers, other people are waiting for those seats. Eat and leave.
infinity? that just can’t happen, man!
Everyone’s heard it: A chain of causation must be finite, otherwise there would be an infinite regression of causes, which is absurd, therefore there is a first cause, which is God.
But why? What’s the problem with infinite regress?
Let’s check in with an ancient Greek dude, because sometimes the ancient Greek’s bad ideas linger. Proculus said this about things being uncaused:
But if all things were uncaused, there would be no sequence of primary and secondary, perfecting and perfected, regulative and regulated, generative and generated, active and passive; and all things would be unknowable. For the task of science is the recognition of causes, and only when we recognize the causes of things do we say that we know them.
…because the only way a thing can be knowable is to know all of its causes. And here’s why, according to Proculus, an infinite regress is impossible (meaning there must be a first cause):
And if the accumulation of causes may be continued to infinity, cause behind cause for ever, thus again all things will be unknowable. For nothing infinite can be apprehended; and the causes being unknown, there can be no knowledge of their consequents.
But does this really make sense? I don’t think so. I’m not sure that even if there were a finite set of causes, that you could know all the causes for most things, rendering them, according to Proculus, unknowable. Life is a good example. We don’t know the causes that led to the first single-cell organisms. That doesn’t make life unknowable. In fact, humankind knows a great deal about life and living organisms. A thing can still be knowable without knowing all the causes that precede it.
Causes have a relation to time. If there is an infinite regression of causes, then time stretches back infinitely.
Everyone’s heard this one, too: If the universe is infinitely old, then an infinite amount of time would have to be crossed to get to the present, which is impossible.
The universe is about 13.7 billion years old, so forget about that, but still this statement makes no sense. It doesn’t matter if time stretches back infinitely, or forward infinitely, the present is always at some point on this infinite line and is moving forward–the present is not a destination, it is the here and now.
There’s no problem with infinite regress. None at all. Do I believe there is an infinite regression of causes? Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. I don’t know. If Stephen Hawking is right about the universe spontaneously generating itself from nothing, then how long had this state of nothingness been there? If it had a finite lifetime, then what came before it? Maybe something. Who knows?
So why are theists so hung up on infinite regress? What is it that freaks them out so?
Easy, just check out what the scriptures say:
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
– Psalm 90:2But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.
– Psalm 102:27I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
– Revelation 22:13
Ah… God is infinite. And since He created everything, nothing else can be.
Theists begin with a belief in God, So when they hear an argument that claims infinite regression is impossible, they accept it without critical analysis because it fits so well with their beliefs. I am going to restate the original quote and in parentheses put the assumptions theists make.
(God exists.)
A chain of causation must be finite (God created all things at a specific point in time)
otherwise there would be an infinite regression of causes, (Only God is infinite.)
which is absurd, (Because my beliefs say so.)
therefore there is a first cause, which is God (Proof that God exists!)
I think that clearly shows the circularity of their argument.
howdy pilgrim
Sometimes, I find something on a blog post somewhere that I find a little funny.
“When God exposes himself to us, we become, at that very moment, responsible. … Be careful when you pray; ‘Lord show me your glory!’ What if He does? … You can be radically changed by the doctrines of the church, or you can become embalmed by them.”
That’s right, Christians, be very careful when you pray ‘Lord show me your glory!’ because he might expose himself to you, leaving you radically changed, maybe even embalmed.
I don’t know what the author means by ‘embalmed’ but it would be much better replaced with ‘impaled’.
you are an atheist too
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
- Stephen Roberts
The religious have problems understanding this quote from Stephen Roberts. But, they say, my religion possesses some special something that the others lack, so my religion is superior. It is incomparable to other religions. Therefore your statement is false and stupid.
There is also John Lotfus’s Outsider Test for Faith. It’s similar to the quote from Roberts. It challenges believers to view their own religion as critically as they view others.
But this is impossible for believers; it’s unfathomable to them. So immersed are they in their delusion that they claim the quote and the OTF are ridiculous and infantile. Their religious blinders prevent them from even being able to understand this one simple concept: objectively analyze your own religion as you do others.
They can’t do it.
Their belief stands in their way, and they are slaves to it. Hidden somewhere in their minds they know to be objective, they must set their belief aside. They can’t do that even temporarily. Some of these people are smart–that’s the really disturbing part–they have PhDs, they’ve authored books, but still they allow their belief to rule them.
It’s another of the insidious qualities of religion, it insulates itself as best it can from critical scrutiny and it erodes critical thought. The religious go on, comfortable in their bubbles of belief, oblivious to the fact that their religion is as much a failure as they believe other religions to be.
please turn me into a rabbit
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”
– Mathew 7:7, The Bible
Please turn me into a rabbit.
Please turn me into a rabbit.
Please turn me into a rabbit.
Amen.
Nope, doesn’t seem to be working.
i think i am a rabbit
“The mind is everything. What we think, we become.”
– Buddha
I think I am a rabbit.
I think I am a rabbit.
I think I am a rabbit.
Nope, doesn’t seem to be working.
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