A REBUTTAL TO ATHEISM WHICH SEEMS TO CONVERT PEOPLE TO ATHEISM!
What I Believe is written by Anthony Kenny. Anthony Kenny is one of the leading
philosophers of the post-war years. As he recounts in this book, he abandoned
the Roman Catholic priesthood to set out on an intellectual journey which led
him to become a professional academic and philosopher of distinction. Kenny
responds to the request to write personally and honestly about his own struggles
with belief with attempts to argue for the existence of God. He displays how he
has developed a non-position. He is neither theist nor atheist.
What I Believe says
God is omniscient. He knows the future and what we will do. But if we are really
free, God cannot know what we will do. PAGE 8
If God is outside time he cannot foresee our actions for past, present and
future are all the one for him. It is like a present moment with the past and
the future present in it and all is happening at the one time. That means my
future actions are present to him already and not future to him and so I cannot
avoid doing them. If God can see that I sin tomorrow that means I cannot avoid
sinning and so I don’t have free will. The thought that God is timeless is silly
for it has Boethius being imprisoned being simultaneous with the sack of Troy.
Eternity doesn’t have parts so we cannot say that time and eternity both happen.
That would require eternity to have a limit and also be treating time like a
part of eternity that was different and in which change really happened PAGE 48,
49
When actions are future there is no necessity for them to happen but suggesting
God knows what we will do contradicts that so God knowing what we will do in the
future contradicts our free will PAGE 50
My Comments
If God is not timeless then it is impossible for God to know the future without
controlling what we do and controlling everything. Then there is no free will.
Then God is to blame for all the wrong we do.
If God is timeless then it is only an illusion when I think I deliberate about
things and make a decision. To deliberate it would really need to happen before
the decision but timelessness has time down as an illusion and the deliberation
and the deciding all happening at once. Free will is about thinking your choice
through and going for it or not going for it. It requires time.
God and free will are incompatible.
Religionists say that God foresees what we will freely do. But they cannot prove
that this is possible given the nature of time and eternity. They endanger
belief in free will with their God idea until they prove the two are compatible.
They cannot prove a thing. Therefore what they are saying makes no sense.
They don’t know what way free will works or how to make it. They don’t know how
God’s knowledge works or how to make it. They therefore cannot rule out that
both are so linked that genuine free will isn’t possible.
Let me explain. It might be impossible for God in some way we don’t understand
for him to be aware of anything even the future without largely controlling it
or totally controlling it. I can look at something without the looking affecting
it. But God is totally different from me. An X-Ray Machine cannot look at me
without sending radiation into me that affects me. Religion says that God’s
powers and attributes are all one with him because in spirit there is no
division and he is spirit. His knowledge is the same as his power to control
things. This may prove that he cannot foresee what we will do without making us
do it. If it doesn’t, it makes it the most likely scenario.
Jack the Ripper mutilated Catherine Eddowes in a very distinctive way. He left
cuts below her eyes that looked like incomplete triangles. Suppose I know all
this. Suppose an alien appears to me and wipes my memory and sends me back in a
time machine to the Ripper’s killing field in 1888 and I become the Ripper. I
kill all those women. The exact same thing happens as I read about in the books
before I went back in time. How could what I knew before I went back in time
coincide and be an exact match for what happened to Eddowes when my memory is
wiped and the alien didn’t force me to copy the books? How could I copy the
books when the books are about what I did? Something forced me to carry out the
murders according to the books. It must have been God or something. God knowing
the future means that God must control the future and program our decisions. We
do not have free will if there is a God. And if there is a God he must be evil
or not all-good for we cannot blame ourselves but him for evil and suffering.
You may object that God seeing the past doesn’t mean that God controlled the
past. The past has happened. The future hasn’t. that is where the difference is.
The question is how something that doesn’t have to happen could be foreseen by
God which implies it has to happen after all.
Religion says it is wrong to think that because God knows what you will do
tomorrow that he is predestining or predetermining you to do it. Islam is an
exception. It treats belief in God like belief in fate. The result is they are
not afraid of waging war when they feel like it for they think God predestined
them to do it. Nor are they afraid to stone adulteresses to death. If belief in
God justifies this, then the belief is wholly evil. If it doesn’t justify then
when such intelligent men as Kenny say it does, clearly nobody can be blamed for
thinking as the Muslims do. Belief in God is dangerous.
And at any rate, there is no way to prove the Muslims wrong. The belief is
dangerous. It allows a person to agree with the Muslims on the matter of fate.
And there is reason to believe the Muslims would be right if there is a God.
Nobody thought that when Muhammad started his religion that it would become so
powerful. Nobody thought that Christianity would take off and morph into Roman
Catholicism the bloodiest religion ever. The point is, don’t take chances.
Oppose the God belief and destroy faith in God today.
What I Believe says
The strongest argument against the existence of God is the difficulty of
conceiving a mind that doesn’t have a body PAGE 9
My Comments
Believers assume that God is a mind without a body but they cannot prove this is
possible for they neither understand mind or body. We cannot understand the
least atom. If I think there is such a thing as a maths book that has no
dimensions then I cannot prove I am talking sense. Therefore I cannot be talking
sense though the words might at first glance seem to mean something. Same with
God.
What I Believe says
Atheism says that whatever definition of God you use it is untrue PAGE 21
My Comments
Atheism is the rejection of an infinite and all-powerful and all-good God.
Anything else no matter how powerful it is, cannot be totally supreme and cannot
be strictly speaking divine. Atheists can believe an angelic type being that is
virtually omnipotent but isn’t literally omnipotent runs the universe but they
will have to differ with anybody who says that being is God.
What I Believe says
Atheists try to put the burden of proof for God on the theists and the theists
try to put the burden of proof against God on the atheists. They treat their
position as a default. The true default position is agnosticism. It admits one
doesn’t know if there is a God or not. It is the default position because it is
confessing that one doesn’t know if there is a God. But if you claim to know you
must substantiate that knowledge. PAGE 21
My Comments
Kenny has argued that God in any meaningful sense is nonsense. So his
agnosticism is not sitting on the fence with God and atheism. It is sitting on
the fence with a magical being and atheism. That is a totally different
agnosticism from what we usually mean.
If I say the tooth fairy doesn’t exist I don’t have to prove it. The burden of
proof is on the person who says it does exist. I don’t have to prove myself
right in everything I disbelieve. But I may have to prove myself in everything I
do believe. To say that being agnostic on the tooth-fairy is the default
position is simply ludicrous. If we are default on all supernatural claims, we
become irrational. Less irrational yes than the believer in them but irrational
all the same.
To be agnostic on whether the tooth fairy exists or not seems silly. It is not a
necessary belief and neither is God. God is not going to put bread on the table
for you. You need shelter more than you need God. Clergy want you to need God
because they want you to need their ridiculous hocus-pocus and them.
You cannot be 50 50 in relation to God. If you are 50.5% of the opinion that God
exists then you are a believer though your faith is extremely weak.
What I Believe says
Evolution is a problem because of the problem of language. It doesn’t explain it
for how could language originate when there was nobody to teach it PAGE 26
My Comments
This is taken as evidence for the existence of a designer being perhaps a God.
But psychics would say psychic ability caused language. Besides even simple life
forms have their own version of language though it might be like sign language.
Your body uses such language with you. It tells you by a feeling that something
is too hot to touch. It isn’t using words but it is still communicating. If God
could be an answer, then where did God get language from? Nothing taught the
first bird to chirp or talk. It just happened.
What I Believe says
The question religionists say God is the answer to, ”Why is there something
rather than nothing?” makes no sense for it is about the origin of the universe.
The proposition, “there is nothing” is incoherent. There is no need to ask if
incoherent propositions are false. And that is exactly what the question is
asking. It is not the existence of the universe that calls for an explanation.
It is its coming into existence. PAGE 28
My Comments
Good.
There are two versions of the question.
One is that the universe must have been started off so it means, “Why is there a
universe when there could have been none?”
Two is that the universe doesn’t need to exist and that even if it never had a
beginning something is creating it right now. So the question then means, “The
universe for every moment it exists is being created. If God stopped creating
the universe would become nothing again. Why is there a universe now rather than
none?”
This view denies that the universe was made aeons ago and left to run for
itself. It says that the universe whether it had a beginning or not needs
something to prevent it turning into nothing for it doesn’t need to exist. So
the universe that existed a moment ago is the same universe that exists now. But
it is made not by one act of creation. Each moment is a separate act of
creation.
One view says that creation happened in the past and the other says that
creation is happening separately each moment of time. It is happening now and
God is creating all the time.
God could give the universe the power to run without him. He could give it the
power to be the reason for its own existence.
If a thing can be the reason for its own existence then there is no need for the
God hypothesis at all.
The question would be more accurately put as “How is there something rather than
nothing?” The God-botherers cannot explain how God makes things so they have no
right to manipulate this question to get believers or convince believers.
Why is there a God rather than no God? That is the question that needs to be
asked next. The question of the religionists doesn’t get us anywhere. The answer
is just a lie which doesn’t warm us to the god-botherers.
Suppose the question could be answered only by the God hypothesis. It wouldn’t
prove the God of the Christians but only an impersonal power that makes things
exist. To say it proved God would be going too far even if there were a God. You
have to go by evidence and you must not go too far. You must not read too much
into evidence. The use of the question as an argument for God among Christians
speaks of their deceitfulness.
Another problem is how they say God made the universe from nothing not even
himself. They agree that something cannot come from nothing but God does
miracles so he is exempt from this rule. In mathematical terms, something coming
from nothing is like 0+0=1. Nothing makes sense if that is possible. They assume
miracles happen without evidence. They reason, “We guess that miracles happen.
Therefore God is the origin of the universe in the miracle of creation. The
universe had to have a maker so God exists.” How could that be a proof or
evidence for God when they are guessing about miracles?
Why is there an atom in a solar system floating about all by itself rather than
none? Clearly there is no need for it. Why it exists is more important than how.
If God just made it for the sake of it then maybe he doesn’t love us at all and
just made us for the sake of it too? Amoebas seem to be in that category too!
Evil is what is unnecessary. For example, sloth is unnecessary rest. Adultery is
unnecessary sex because you have a wife or husband. A God who makes without need
would be evil. His power is sacred so he cannot use it lightly.
So the atom is a problem. And so is the universe if it is not needed. Believers
say it isn’t needed.
God would not explain the universe. God is the worst possible explanation.
What I Believe says
Some argue that a necessary being is necessary in all possible worlds so since
our world exists god must exist. The idea of possible worlds makes no sense.
PAGE 36
My Comments
It isn’t necessary. Why not just say we have a world and did a necessary being
make it? What do you need the possible worlds for? Besides one can imagine a
possible world where there is nothing but evil and suffering and people die and
stay dead. Would such a world be evidence for a necessary being like the
Christian God? Certainly not!
What I Believe says
If an item exists, it depends on other things to exist or there is something in
its own nature makes it exist.
Everything needs a reason to exist, and nothing is the reason for its own
existence. Something that is the reason for its existence is the reason for the
existence of all things. This something is God.
This argument is to be rejected. It says that a thing is not disposed to make
itself exist or not. It does nothing to be existing or non-existing. It is
equally disposed to both.
If we hold that a thing is indisposed whether it comes into existence or not
that is absurd. It cannot decide whether to exist or not before it exists or
doesn’t exist.
If we hold that a thing is indisposed as to whether it stays in existence or not
that is contrary to our experience. You don’t see the mat on the landing
suddenly going out of existence.
PAGE 39, 40
My Comments
Excellent.
What I Believe says
The design argument for the existence of God from St Thomas is the most
convincing but what it gives you is not God but a Grand Architect of the
Universe PAGE 40-41
My Comments
Who designed the designer? It doesn’t help to say he is God and God doesn’t need
a designer. That is assuming the designer has to be God – and the argument makes
that assumption unwarranted. The designer isn’t too clever when he left us with
the raw materials to make nuclear weapons and destroy all life on earth.
Christians tend to agree that Thomas gives only a Grand Architect but say this
is a partial understanding of God. This is not necessarily correct for we can
stop with the Grand Architect. And we should for it is over-explaining. And the
Grand Architect may manipulate us to think he is more than what he is and should
be honoured as a proper God.
What I Believe says
Kant said we need to believe in God for the sake of morality. He thought only a
designer could have arranged life so that virtue and happiness work together and
being virtuous makes you happy in this world if not in the next PAGE 43
My Comments
Kant didn't really argue for a proper God. He should have been clear and said
that anything that can keep us alive in the afterlife would do.
God must have made cannabis then so that we could have happiness without virtue!
Kant’s view makes faith in God a moral act in the sense that you have a moral
duty to believe in God and are bad if you don’t and should be punished.
What I Believe says
Blaise Pascal admitted that there can be no way that reason proves the existence
of God or makes it probable so and said that we have to believe in God to be on
the safe side for we will go to Hell forever if we disbelieve and there is a
God. Is it not safer to take neither road? God cannot blame us for that. Proof
is needed that God will really threaten us with eternal damnation for disbelief
or unbelief and besides which God should we believe in? The Catholic God,
Islamic God, Jansenist or Calvinist God. PAGE 45
My Comments
True.
THE LAST WORD - I do not believe Kenny is truly agnostic. As agnostic was
fashionable when atheism was not he used the tactic of misusing the agnostic
label to promote atheism while hiding his atheism. His logic is quite simple and
we must remember that we don't have to be obtuse and mysterious to be
philosophers.
