Thoughts on this week's PD: Vertigo Comics and Religion

[zuludelta]

I tend to agree with Mr. Grant in that many of the comics that deal with religion (or at least their respective authors' take on the subject) tend to come off as slightly overwrought, teetering on melodrama at times. Granted (no pun intended), straight-up good vs. evil iconography is pretty much a given in the medium, when one considers Vertigo Comics' (the particular example SG brings up in this week's column) historical and genealogical ties to the superhero genre.

Still, even with that knowledge coming in, I find little to interest me in, say, Mike Carey's Lucifer or even the much-vaunted Sandman outside of the excellent level of craft that goes/went into them (I haven't read a single Neil Gaiman interview in my life but I'd always thought that there were some parallels being drawn between Morpheus and the semi-historical Jesus Christ... so if this was the author's intention or not, or if it was something I was just reading into the material, I'm not sure).

Even Garth Ennis' Preacher, possibly the pinnacle of "pissing on religious convention" comics during Vertigo's, for lack of a better term, "industry media renaissance", held my attention only insofar as the character interactions were of (possibly prurient and morbid) interest to me (Tulip cheating on Custer and sleeping with Cassidy, Odin Quincannon's love affair with meat-products, Arsefaces' uh, arse-face, etc.). The over-arching theme that was supposed to tie the whole series together, of some cosmic über-Judeo-Christian God-power being let loose in the world in the body of a conflicted man-of-the-cloth, sort of lost steam towards the end of the series, and to be honest, I found the ending sorely disappointing and anti-climactic. Part of the reason is that I could smell the ending from a good telegraphing-distance away... not the particulars, mind you, but the general idea, at the very least.

Despite my qualms, though, I don't find myself as critical of these comics as SG does. It maybe a function of age... I discovered these books when I was a disillusioned Catholic teen, caught between atheism and Buddhism (I'll let you guess where I eventually settled on... here's a clue, I work in a lab... although I should probably have been looking to critical/reviewed texts instead of North American comics for direction... The Waiting Place is not The Theological Review). I mean, they got me thinking about religion, at least, which is more than you can say about a lot of the stuff out there. And to that extent, I think they have some value outside of the authors soapboxing and such.

[Paul McEnery]

And besides, the blame lies with Jack Kirby, for Highfather and Darkseid.

[Dennis]

i believe in god, and recently I've been looking at atheist videos on youtube and trying to find books and ideas by atheists. I'm especially interested in atheists who say they have scientific proof that god doesn't exist. but when i look into such books, they don't have this scientific proof, it's just bashing the christian god for hundreds of pages. i'm not really into the christian god, so this kind of stuff is useless for me. so if you guys know about this scientific proof, i'd like to hear it. the usual atheist argument I would describe in one sentence: God is an asshole, therefore he can't possibly exist.

which is the same message from garth ennis and vertigo. they can only show the ridiculousness of god by showing god behaving ridiculously. so god has to be in the story. if he wasn't in the story, you can't really attack him or the belief in him.

[ACertainMrDoe]

[QUOTE=Dennis;4566106]God is an asshole, therefore he can't possibly exist.
QUOTE]

God is an asshole, and each of us is made in His image. That explains a lot.

[dancj]

I'm especially interested in atheists who say they have scientific proof that god doesn't exist.
There's never going to be any scientific proof that he doesn't exist because it would be impossible to prove the non-existence of something that doesn't have to obey any scientific laws.

but for fun we could argue with specific definitions....

God is allegedly "something than which nothing greater can be imagined"

and according to Douglas Adams, good won't prove he exists.. "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

Well I can imagine a being that is something without faith!

(Don't take my argument seriously - I know it's full of holes)

[Paul McEnery]

i believe in god, and recently I've been looking at atheist videos on youtube and trying to find books and ideas by atheists. I'm especially interested in atheists who say they have scientific proof that god doesn't exist. but when i look into such books, they don't have this scientific proof, it's just bashing the christian god for hundreds of pages. i'm not really into the christian god, so this kind of stuff is useless for me. so if you guys know about this scientific proof, i'd like to hear it. the usual atheist argument I would describe in one sentence: God is an asshole, therefore he can't possibly exist.

which is the same message from garth ennis and vertigo. they can only show the ridiculousness of god by showing god behaving ridiculously. so god has to be in the story. if he wasn't in the story, you can't really attack him or the belief in him.

Define God and I'll give you the proof. But if you mean the Aquinas model of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence, I could cheerfully show you that they're pseudo-words with no real meaning whatsoever which can't therefore be used to define anything.

But if you want a full grasp of the argument, try The Miracle of Theism by J.L. Mackie.

[Gmarvelous]

*ahem*
I just wanted to say that I am a Christian, I strongly believe in GOD, and I LOVE comics as well. As a matter of fact, I'm an aspiring comics writer who wants to do traditional superhero stories. That's all I wanted to say. :cool:

[Dennis]

Define God and I'll give you the proof. But if you mean the Aquinas model of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence, I could cheerfully show you that they're pseudo-words with no real meaning whatsoever which can't therefore be used to define anything.

But if you want a full grasp of the argument, try The Miracle of Theism by J.L. Mackie.

god is the creator of our universe. he created everything in it: humans, birds, rocks, spider-man, american idol, atheists, books written by atheists.

[yoda510]

I am so offended by the way religion is portrayed in the media and as an extension comics. Mr Grant writes:

Not that I'm not going to mock religion - all religion; it's all just weird cults of various sizes to me - but usually only when it's thrown in my face and, you know, if you don't want to be mocked, don't try telling me I should be believing patently ridiculous things.

I am sorry, that is mocking religion right there alone. I guess it is much more realistic that we evolved from a one celled organism and came down from a tree than something created us, even though most scientists say that to have non life become life was over a billion to one shot. To survive that evolve more puts the odds in the trillions. I think to call either view patently ridiculous is ridiculous since neither can be proven. What really offends me even more is if someone is considered really smart in comics(Mr. Terrific, the 3rd smartest man alive) he has to be an atheist.

Wouldn't a truly smart man be an agnostic? Since you can't prove it either way, wouldn't that make more sense.

I know our church supports an orphanage in the Ukraine and and in Brazil. We also kept steady trucks of fresh water going to Hurricane Katrina. I don't remember the last time a group of atheists got together and supported anything or helped anyone. I believe that is what it is all about after you die, if there is a heaven or not. What did you accomplish and who did you help?

[badMike]

I don't remember the last time a group of atheists got together and supported anything or helped anyone.Why do atheists have to do something in a group in order for it to "count" for you? No atheist ever did anything to help anyone ever? Did you ever ask one? How many do you hang out with regularly?

BTW: I'm not an atheist. I was just curious about a further explanation.

[yoda510]

Mike, I think you missed my point there. My point is I would like to see some positive points about religion and the good it does placed out there. I know of one coworker I work with who is atheist and we play cards about once a month together and go out to eat once or twice a week. We have had some great debates. But he doesn't come to me and say hey your ideas are "patently ridiculous" and I pay him the same respect. I wish the good aspects of religion would be covered as much as the negative ones.

Of course it counts if they do good, and I know they do. I know Ted Turner donated 1 billion dollars to charity. I think that is great. It is just largest charitable organizations that do good throughout the world are supported by religious institutions, and that is never, ever brought up anywhere.

[mattx110]

Mike, I think you missed my point there. My point is I would like to see some positive points about religion and the good it does placed out there. I know of one coworker I work with who is atheist and we play cards about once a month together and go out to eat once or twice a week. We have had some great debates. But he doesn't come to me and say hey your ideas are "patently ridiculous" and I pay him the same respect. I wish the good aspects of religion would be covered as much as the negative ones.

Of course it counts if they do good, and I know they do. I know Ted Turner donated 1 billion dollars to charity. I think that is great. It is just largest charitable organizations that do good throughout the world are supported by religious institutions, and that is never, ever brought up anywhere.

i thought the "i'm not gonna mock religion, it's just a bunch of cults anyway" line was pretty funny, and probably came out of a stream of consciouscness type thing, or an editted line that put the contradicting statements together.

anyway, the line i see is between solidarity and nationalism.

solidarity, you are equating yourself with all, working for the common good through religious organizations. this is a positive use of religion.

nationalism, you are claiming pride in your religion at the expense of non-believers. this leads to nothing good. isn't pride a deadly sin or is that just a cool idea for fiction to play with?

[yoda510]

nationalism, you are claiming pride in your religion at the expense of non-believers. this leads to nothing good. isn't pride a deadly sin or is that just a cool idea for fiction to play with?


I agree, and you should do it out of love and not out of feeling good about yourself. But Pride works for non believers as well. Taking pride in not believing at the expense of believers is just as bad. And that is the point of this post. I have read these message boards for quite some time and almost all the posts are of a anti religious nature. I know there are many Christians, Muslems, Hindu's etc out there that just don't respond because I think most religions have a turn the other cheek mentally but I just want our point of view heard and not stomped out like many of these boards try to do.

[dancj]

Wouldn't a truly smart man be an agnostic? Since you can't prove it either way, wouldn't that make more sense.

In the DCU a truly smart man - especially one who rubs shoulders with superheroes - would be religious as it's been proved over and over again that there's a hell.

Speaking as an atheist it makes sense to me that a really smart man would be an atheist, but you might see it a different way ;)

[NatGertler]

Wouldn't a truly smart man be an agnostic? Since you can't prove it either way, wouldn't that make more sense.Nope. Atheism is a statement of belief, and when one can find no reason to believe that X exists, despite ample opportunities for evidence, then it can be reasonable to believe there is no X. I'm not agnostic about whether there's a giant undetectable floating elephant hovering over my head; would you be?

I don't remember the last time a group of atheists got together and supported anything or helped anyone.Because atheism isn't a belief that demands unification... but many atheists are quite active in supporting and helping. The belief that this is the world that matters, not some supposed afterlife, can be powerful. You want to look at big donors in this world, look at the religiously-unaffiliated Warren Buffett...

[Steven Grant]

I am sorry, that is mocking religion right there alone.

Of course it's mocking it. You think I don't know that?


I guess it is much more realistic that we evolved from a one celled organism and came down from a tree than something created us, even though most scientists say that to have non life become life was over a billion to one shot. To survive that evolve more puts the odds in the trillions.

Well, you know what my daddy used to say: any chance is better than no chance at all.


Wouldn't a truly smart man be an agnostic? Since you can't prove it either way, wouldn't that make more sense.

The problem with being an agnostic is that sooner or later everyone's got to stop sitting on the fence because after awhile getting poked in the butt by those spiky fence tops gets really uncomfortable.


I know our church supports an orphanage in the Ukraine and and in Brazil. We also kept steady trucks of fresh water going to Hurricane Katrina. I don't remember the last time a group of atheists got together and supported anything or helped anyone. I believe that is what it is all about after you die, if there is a heaven or not. What did you accomplish and who did you help?

I don't believe there is anything after you die, so it's only what you do here that counts. And I don't recall ever saying that churches serve no social function; hell, all it takes is hearing the biography of Joseph Smith to figure out that Mormonism is basically insane, but Mormons do an awful lot of good works. But the accomplishments of religious organizations have nothing to do with assessing the merits of the foundations of their beliefs. As for assuming atheists aren't interested in good works simply because they don't collectively advertise theirs, that's kind of a stretch...

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

Nope. Atheism is a statement of belief, and when one can find no reason to believe that X exists, despite ample opportunities for evidence, then it can be reasonable to believe there is no X. I'm not agnostic about whether there's a giant undetectable floating elephant hovering over my head; would you be?

Did you never wonder why **** keeps raining down on your head? Great whopping piles of it?

(Just kidding, Nat. Couldn't resist.)

By the way, technically atheism is a statement of lack of belief...

- Grant

[badMike]

Mike, I think you missed my point there. My point is I would like to see some positive points about religion and the good it does placed out there.I guess I did, because I hear lots of people saying good things about religion all the time.

[NatGertler]

Did you never wonder why **** keeps raining down on your head? Great whopping piles of it?Naw. I'm Jewish. We expect that.

(Note to others reading: that's a statement of cultural heritage, not of religious belief.)

[bartl]

; hell, all it takes is hearing the biography of Joseph Smith to figure out that Mormonism is basically insane, but Mormons do an awful lot of good works.
There was a South Park episode that was based on exactly that.

[Steven Grant]

Believe me, I know, and they did their homework.

- Grant

[mattx110]

when it comes to the odds behind the spontaneous creation of life, and evolution.
it didn't happen in a week.
we don't know how long the universe did nothing interesting before a little ameoba showed up. if you play the lottery every week you may or may not win. when you play the lottery every week for 7 billion years, your chances increase amazingly.

meanwhile: my new bandname is the undetecable elephants, thank you nat gertler

[Dennis]

when it comes to the odds behind the spontaneous creation of life, and evolution.
it didn't happen in a week.
we don't know how long the universe did nothing interesting before a little ameoba showed up. if you play the lottery every week you may or may not win. when you play the lottery every week for 7 billion years, your chances increase amazingly.

meanwhile: my new bandname is the undetecable elephants, thank you nat gertler

we know how the lottery works. you pick 6 numbers, then the state randomly picks 6 numbers. if your numbers match, you win. someone will probably win this week.

so how did life begin?

[yoda510]

when it comes to the odds behind the spontaneous creation of life, and evolution.
it didn't happen in a week.
we don't know how long the universe did nothing interesting before a little ameoba showed up. if you play the lottery every week you may or may not win. when you play the lottery every week for 7 billion years, your chances increase amazingly.



What is funny is they have all these theories about how life was jump started from nothing, and scientists have been trying for years to create life from nothing and failed miserably.

Well scientists believe that they are really lucky. They believe that life is a one in a billion shot but happened near the very beginning of the Earth. That is like winning the lottery every week for 3 months straight

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/10.07/15-origins.html

[mattx110]

we know how the lottery works. you pick 6 numbers, then the state randomly picks 6 numbers. if your numbers match, you win. someone will probably win this week.

so how did life begin?

first of all, you should probably ask your question in a forum for scientists who can explain this beyond my capability.

second, you need to understand that life is not something special. life is a chemical reaction, with the ability to actively sustain itself. the level of development that it took to get to conscious thought and humans took billions of years. when you get down to the molecular structure of a living organism, a single-celled organism, it won't look completely disparate from something that isn't living, and to think of life as something special that makes it discernable from all non-living molecular combinations shields you from seeing that.
i'm not saying life isn't important, but it's not magic and it didn't come out of nowhere. the foundation was there, the molecular building blocks were there.


What is funny is they have all these theories about how life was jump started from nothing, and scientists have been trying for years to create life from nothing and failed miserably.

Well scientists believe that they are really lucky. They believe that life is a one in a billion shot but happened near the very beginning of the Earth. That is like winning the lottery every week for 3 months straight

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/...5-origins.html
because a scientist can't replicate a process that in the article you quoted it states it took a billion years before the first showing of life i wouldn't exactly call that a failure as much as a lack of patience.
"near the beginning of earth" is a relative term for an almost 5 billion year old planet.
cloning a sheep is easier than recreating in a lab the environment of earth billions of years ago without understanding completely what factors lead directly to life as a phenomena.

also, scientists don't believe in luck in that sense. that's why they want to understand and recreate the processes that incited life. if they understand it, they won't see a random occurrence, but a repeatable process that factors 3 billion years ago allowed. probability is a tool to quantify uncontrollable factors. it's not "luck"

i'm not sure i did a good job of explaining anything, but i'm not a great teacher and i haven't devoted my life to understanding the origins of life. ask your local bio professor. seriously, audit a college course, the teachers, especially in very specific courses, like the "origins of biological development in earths early history" the professor wants to be listened to and they like when people show an interest. even if you're not paying tuition.

and mr. grant, you have the oddest little section of a comic book forum i've ever seen, and i've been to brian bendis's board.

[yoda510]

because a scientist can't replicate a process that in the article you quoted it states it took a billion years before the first showing of life i wouldn't exactly call that a failure as much as a lack of patience.



And until that process can be ruled out no one can rule out the existance of a supreme being. And that is the point I have been trying to make. You can't know for sure either way because there is not any proof either way.

[mattx110]

And until that process can be ruled out no one can rule out the existance of a supreme being. And that is the point I have been trying to make. You can't know for sure either way because there is not any proof either way.

i don't have proof i can't fly until i fall off a bridge...

[plainbrownwraper]

Proper application of the scientific method does not result in ruling out the existence of a "Supreme Being" , but lack of evidence for such a thing means that one cannot control for it, and thus one can only ignore it, and proceed as if this thing for which there is no evidence does not in fact exist, at least until such time as evidence does present itself.

One can, of course, control for passion, which is a palpable human emotion - i.e., the human propensity for abstraction leads to the acceptance of simplistic narratives that nevertheless reflect known human social processes.

The sheer boggling improbability of the fact "that we evolved from a one celled organism and came down from a tree" attest to a certain fear of the complexity, denial of actual miracles, in order to mebrace ersatz "miracles", that are at least understandable in terms of prosaic human social interaction - ironically, the more one denies and dengrates the scientific method, in favor of simplistic Anthropomorphic stories, the more Feuerbachian religion appears.

At the same time, insistance on proof of the unprovable - even the Bible states "who is man to know the mind of god"? - indicates a certian paucity of faith, and leads the objective observer to consider the possibility that the whole argument is more about politics than god, more gutter than grace, evidenced by the passive aggressive tactic of acting mortified about being insulted while piling on ones own insults with gleeful abandon.

Anyway, the whole debate belongs inthe NYT evolution forum - it doesn't really belong there either, but the denizens of that forum will be more than happy to chase tails and piss up ropes with you, me, I'm tired of rolling that particular rock up that particular hill.

Insofar as the OP is concerned, naturally, mythologies are the original comix, comix are directly descended form mythology - so natually, gods and devils belong there - probobly more there than anywhere.

Still, in much the same way that belief in the Easter Bunny as a furry entity that brings you jelly beans to stuff your fat face with blinds you to the the celebration of the spring equinox as symbolic of death and rebirth, the cyclic nature of life, the Chicken or the egg and other imponderable, or ponderable mysteries, reducing it to an oversimplifed "good vs. evil" thing tends to overlook the rich complexity of mythology, which after all, is using mystical beings as metaphors of human fallability.

If there is anything really innovative about the Jewish religion in fact, it's that they didn't abstract human imperfection in the form of deities, safely objectified and distanced, but stuck to the unpleasant, often horrifying intimacy of human behavior - there is no more compelling, tragic, passionate and stupendous myth than that of Samson and Delilah, or John and Salome - this is stuff to make you tear your hair - I'm skeptical that anybody could even make this stuff up - if it is made up, the author was a genius, a neolithic Shakespeare.

So anyway, I'm kinda with Steven here, there's no law says you can't do religious comix, the more the merrier, but that, if I understand it correctly, and as the OP alluded - there aren't that many really good ones.

[plainbrownwraper]

Thought I'd add: perhaps the deepest weakness of comix, as opposed to serious literature, is that comix stories seldom have tragic ending (more often they begin in tragedy), and even if they do, it's usually undone in the next issue.

All great literature ends in tragedy - perhaps why Watchmen qualifies as literature, wheras most superhero tales more closely resemble soap operas - nothing wrong with that, people like soap operas, one gets attached to certain characters - but one does hunger for an occasional genuine myth.

[Dennis]

hey plainbrownwrapper, you seem really smart. how did life begin?

[Steven Grant]

and mr. grant, you have the oddest little section of a comic book forum i've ever seen, and i've been to brian bendis's board.

We do what we can.

So, as long as we're all looking for simplistic answers to really complex questions, can God create a boulder so heavy he can't lift it?

I always liked that one, even though it's really stupid...

- Grant

[yoda510]

Plainbrownwrapper, I read your whole thread and I am not sure if you have a point or not. If you were trying to string together a lot of large words you were successful.

Just because you can't prove something, doesn't mean we go forward that it doesn't exist. There is no way we can prove the blinking lights in the sky are other stars until someone or some thing travels there, but stars is what they are.

[mattx110]

hey plainbrownwrapper, you seem really smart. how did life begin?

you make me feel like i'm living in a brian bendis comicbook.

and i'm sorry for using two bendis references in one thread(god knows i try not to think of the man), but this really feels like i'm in a bendis comic(and i'm the one staring with the same picture repeated with you asking the same question repeatedly as if it's clever).
and honestly, sometimes it is clever (though i'm unsure in this case...(is the parenthetical aside thing getting annoying by the way? i can stop))...

anyway, yea, apparently bendis was right, people do talk like this.

edit: and it's not just that there is no proof of god. there's no evidence. any record of god has been written by people anywhere from billions to thousands of years after the fact.

edit again: and did anyone think with the daredevil picture and the "steven grant takes a stance you wont suspect" blurb thingy that he'd come out in support of religion in comics and say it builds depth to characters, and then read the thing and it's completely different and calls atheist comic creators cowards.

ps. i really like hellstorm, though that is mostly for michael bair artwork.

[Dennis]

you make me feel like i'm living in a brian bendis comicbook.

and i'm sorry for using two bendis references in one thread(god knows i try not to think of the man), but this really feels like i'm in a bendis comic(and i'm the one staring with the same picture repeated with you asking the same question repeatedly as if it's clever).
and honestly, sometimes it is clever (though i'm unsure in this case...(is the parenthetical aside thing getting annoying by the way? i can stop))...

anyway, yea, apparently bendis was right, people do talk like this.

edit: and it's not just that there is no proof of god. there's no evidence. any record of god has been written by people anywhere from billions to thousands of years after the fact.

edit again: and did anyone think with the daredevil picture and the "steven grant takes a stance you wont suspect" blurb thingy that he'd come out in support of religion in comics and say it builds depth to characters, and then read the thing and it's completely different and calls atheist comic creators cowards.

ps. i really like hellstorm, though that is mostly for michael bair artwork.

yes, there's no evidence for god. so atheists think it is stupid to believe in such a thing, because there's no evidence. but there's no evidence for abiogenesis. right? so why should i believe in that?

i have the warren ellis hellstorm comics, maybe i'll read it one day.

bendis is god.

[NatGertler]

meanwhile: my new bandname is the undetecable elephants, thank you nat gertlerYou are indeed welcome.

[Dennis]

We do what we can.

So, as long as we're all looking for simplistic answers to really complex questions, can God create a boulder so heavy he can't lift it?

I always liked that one, even though it's really stupid...

- Grant

the answer is no, he can't. the physical universe isn't really, uh, physical...it's maya as they say. god is the programmer and we're kinda like data. that's like asking if a programmer can create a pixel he can't manipulate.

[yoda510]

yes, there's no evidence for god. so atheists think it is stupid to believe in such a thing, because there's no evidence. but there's no evidence for abiogenesis. right? so why should i believe in that?



Man Dennis, I almost always agree with your posts. That has been my whole point this whole time. Some people get mad when you don't believe how they do (I know this goes for atheists and creationists). But no one truly knows how not life became life.

[Paul McEnery]

god is the creator of our universe. he created everything in it: humans, birds, rocks, spider-man, american idol, atheists, books written by atheists.

Rewriting that a testable assertion, that means there's a blueprint to the universe. Unfortunately for your position, we know that this isn't the case. That is precisely what has been tested to destruction by Godel, Bohm, Darwin, and far too many others to mention. So by "know", I mean "know". Worse than that, for the theistic position, we not only know that this isn't an intelligently designed universe, we know that there's no such thing in all possible universes. IOW, such a program will not run.

And now speaking as a former clergyman, and as someone who has some experience with and in what we call "God":

There's a further assumption you're not taking into account, that there's a meaningful distinction between what we call "organic" and the other stuff.

In real money, the universe can be considered as a whole as a living system of systems, each of which gives rise to more complex systems as they evolve, until we get to what we recognize as "life".

Most of our religious experiences come from non-egoistic interaction with deeper and higher levels of these emergent systems than the one we normally play with (i.e. classical physics); although some are simply non-egoistic interaction at the normal level (like participating in sport), or are egoistic interaction at the other levels (like conscious magic).

At any rate, none of this depends upon a non-materialist conception of reality (assuming one allows quantum physics etc. as a materialist aspect of being).

[Paul McEnery]

Man Dennis, I almost always agree with your posts. That has been my whole point this whole time. Some people get mad when you don't believe how they do (I know this goes for atheists and creationists). But no one truly knows how not life became life.

No, yoda, people get mad when you post assertions which are contrary to the facts, and then when we correct you on the facts, you get insulting.

Although it has to be said that your assertions are usually insulting, at least to the intellect, right from the get go.

The reality is, as I stated above, that while spiritual experiences certainly happen, the explanation for them is not the Thomist one. By putting the Theistic cart before the horse, you already rule out all genuine explanations.

Which also rules out any genuine and honest relationship with what you call "God".

[Dennis]

Rewriting that a testable assertion, that means there's a blueprint to the universe. Unfortunately for your position, we know that this isn't the case. That is precisely what has been tested to destruction by Godel, Bohm, Darwin, and far too many others to mention. So by "know", I mean "know". Worse than that, for the theistic position, we not only know that this isn't an intelligently designed universe, we know that there's no such thing in all possible universes. IOW, such a program will not run.


and how do you know this. more details please.

[mattx110]

oh, and i forgot to mention leonardo manco. him and michael bair are just terrific and that's why i liked hellstorm... plus the editors were trying real hard to put something together that people would enjoy because fabian nicienze (i think)knew they were on the edge of cancellation or protesting christians, so that let em cut loose a bit, and get real out there.

meanwhile, it's impossible to prove a religious person wrong.
you can prove one aspect of their beliefs is wrong, and give them the scientific solution, but they can just say "god makes that happen".
i'm not saying this to offend religious people, but say that it science must operate free of religion, but religion needs to take science into account to maintain a level of believability (it's a word, you don't have to look it up).
saying "God makes that happen" is not disproving what happened or really saying that science is wrong, but saying "good job for showing us more of how the spiritual world operates"

what i'm trying to say, is that it's not an argument so much as one side's projection of faith-based ideas over scientific theories.
"ok, we'll stop burning books, evolution is real, but it was part of god's plan, he just forgot to put that in the bible cause he was busy mainting the reality he created..."

[bartl]

i don't have proof i can't fly until i fall off a bridge...
That is close to being correct. However, proof and evidence are two different things.

[bartl]

So, as long as we're all looking for simplistic answers to really complex questions, can God create a boulder so heavy he can't lift it?
Certainly.

First he makes the boulder.

Second, he makes himself forget that he can lift it.

Where do you think human beings came from?

[mattx110]

Certainly.

First he makes the boulder.

Second, he makes himself forget that he can lift it.

Where do you think human beings came from?

i am not a boulder.

[mattx110]

That is close to being correct. However, proof and evidence are two different things.

hey look, you posted a statement that is in accordance with my point, but made it seem contrary, your minx you...

[Paul McEnery]

and how do you know this. more details please.

See, it takes a while to summarize Bohm, Darwin, Godel etc. You might want to try reading them for yourself.

But here's the most straightforward and immediate proof that this universe is not intelligently designed:

Your appendix.

[Dennis]

See, it takes a while to summarize Bohm, Darwin, Godel etc. You might want to try reading them for yourself.

But here's the most straightforward and immediate proof that this universe is not intelligently designed:

Your appendix.

yes, the appendix is a bit of a mystery. so that proves god doesn't exist. hmm.

[Dennis]

deleted , sorry

[mattx110]

what are some examples of internal vestigial organs in animals?

huh?
why is it everyone else's responsibility to be geniuses in the field of biology while you get to say "tell me something else that people who devote their lives to the field need pages of research and theses to explain"... atheists shouldn't have to do all the legwork, some part of you should want truer answers than what faith tells you.

and referencing my earlier post, you can believe in god, and keep it separate from science. you can have faith without thinking that whatever you can't explain is a sign of god's presence. if there is a god, he didn't create intelligent humans on an incredible planet so they could go "that's nice". we're clever enough to figure some things out, and faith should be inspiration, not impetus for ignorance (TM me)

ok, now that might bemy new band name...
oh crap... i just though of steve winwood and claptons "blind faith" and realized i'm not as clever as i thought.
anyway, don't let faith blind you, let it inspire you to understand non-faith based processes.


and i think his point was that the universe is so random, that a divine plan begins to make less sense than theories there is evidence of.




oh and bartl, i didn't mean to be snappy, you were just following the path of logic, i read your post as more animositous than it was. i'm done butchering adjectives.

[Dennis]

huh?
why is it everyone else's responsibility to be geniuses in the field of biology while you get to say "tell me something else that people who devote their lives to the field need pages of research and theses to explain"... atheists shouldn't have to do all the legwork, some part of you should want truer answers than what faith tells you.



sorry, i'll delete my post.

[dancj]

"ok, we'll stop burning books, evolution is real, but it was part of god's plan, he just forgot to put that in the bible cause he was busy mainting the reality he created..."
That's sits nicely alongside "Okay we now realise that the Earth isn't physically the centre of the universe, but where it says that in the Bible it means metaphorically or spiritually or something..."

[dancj]

yes, the appendix is a bit of a mystery. so that proves god doesn't exist. hmm.
Or maybe it just proves that he's not that intelligent - or that he's lazy

[Dennis]

i just read a few things about the appendix aiding in the digestion of raw meat.

[Steven Grant]

See, it takes a while to summarize Bohm, Darwin, Godel etc. You might want to try reading them for yourself.

But here's the most straightforward and immediate proof that this universe is not intelligently designed:

Mosquitos.

Nipples on men.

Tens of thousands of defunct species.

Etc.

- Grant

[Adam C]

yes, the appendix is a bit of a mystery. so that proves god doesn't exist. hmm.

No, the point is basically if we were intelligent designed we wouldn't have an appendix. It's an organ whose utility is, at the very best, ancilliary. Yet it's also a liability. If it becomes obstructed it fills with mucous, distends, and will possibly kill you should it ruptured. It's not much of a problem now with modern surgery, but I can't imagine that being much good for earlier civilizations before 1735, let alone early humans. There's no reason an intelligent designer would bother with something that can't even be chalked up to an understandable design flaw.

[Paul McEnery]

yes, the appendix is a bit of a mystery. so that proves god doesn't exist. hmm.

Actually, this post proves you don't actually want to think the issue through, since that's totally obviously not what I said.

Since you ask, though, here's some more of the argument against Thomism:

This universe wasn't intelligently designed, as per Darwin and plain common sense, hence there is no Creator. It's also patently obvious that any rationally designed universe whatsoever is a steady state universe of the kind described by Parmenides (which would disallow free will anyway). Parmenides proves, accidentally, that steady state universes can't possibly exist (he's trying to prove the opposite, but winds up in an absurdity).

There is no absolute knowledge of the universe. Godel says that any given model is necessarily incomplete. Heisenberg says that any means of investigating subatomic particles necessarily achieves one kind of knowledge at the expense of another. Complexity theory says that a precise model of sufficiently complex systems (like weather) is indistinguishable from the real thing. So given that there is no absolute knowledge of the universe, there's no omniscient being.

Relativity tells us that communication outside of a local light cone is severely restricted. This effectively tells us that an omnipresent God makes no practical sense, outside of simply referring to the universe as an holistic living being, and even then, expected it to be monistic will only give you grief.

So there you go: omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are specifically excluded not only from this particular universe but also from all possible universes.

[Dennis]

Actually, this post proves you don't actually want to think the issue through, since that's totally obviously not what I said.

Since you ask, though, here's some more of the argument against Thomism:

This universe wasn't intelligently designed, as per Darwin and plain common sense, hence there is no Creator. It's also patently obvious that any rationally designed universe whatsoever is a steady state universe of the kind described by Parmenides (which would disallow free will anyway). Parmenides proves, accidentally, that steady state universes can't possibly exist (he's trying to prove the opposite, but winds up in an absurdity).

There is no absolute knowledge of the universe. Godel says that any given model is necessarily incomplete. Heisenberg says that any means of investigating subatomic particles necessarily achieves one kind of knowledge at the expense of another. Complexity theory says that a precise model of sufficiently complex systems (like weather) is indistinguishable from the real thing. So given that there is no absolute knowledge of the universe, there's no omniscient being.

Relativity tells us that communication outside of a local light cone is severely restricted. This effectively tells us that an omnipresent God makes no practical sense, outside of simply referring to the universe as an holistic living being, and even then, expected it to be monistic will only give you grief.

So there you go: omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are specifically excluded not only from this particular universe but also from all possible universes.

i think i'm pretty much with you with the omniscience thing, that very well could be an impossibility. what about a god with limited abilities? a god who can only do one thing at a time, and be in one place at a time. a god that doesn't know the future.

"patently obvious that any rationally designed universe whatsoever is a steady state universe" - don't understand this, why is a steady state universe the only option for the creator?

[Paul McEnery]

i think i'm pretty much with you with the omniscience thing, that very well could be an impossibility. what about a god with limited abilities? a god who can only do one thing at a time, and be in one place at a time. a god that doesn't know the future.

"patently obvious that any rationally designed universe whatsoever is a steady state universe" - don't understand this, why is a steady state universe the only option for the creator?

Nice one, Dennis. Always like to see someone willing to do a rethink.

Okay, the steady state thing is about what we mean by design (especially in the context of omniscience). Essentially, you'd be looking at a universe that operates like a movie. All the elements would be predetermined, and it's just a matter of running the program, whose outcome you already know (along with all possible steps within it).

The creator idea assumes a fifth dimensional being who stands orthogonally to our universe as we stand orthogonally to both the silver screen and to the strip of 35 mm film. To us as the audience to the movie, the movie unfolds in time in a surprising and unpredictable manner (unless it comes out of Hollywood). To the characters in the movie, there's the appearance of volition, and no knowledge that they just popped into existence and will pop out of it in 90 minutes time. But to the projectionist, it's all there on the film.

That is, the film is in a steady state. That's the universe we assume with intelligent design, or with Newton's Deistic clockwork universe.

You'd be right to say that we don't know if there was a conscious agency there at the start of the universe. What we do know are the limits on what that agency could have been up to, and one of them is that it can't do more than set the initial parameters, because everything after that gets unpredictable, because it isn't ordered by linear or predetermined logic.

As for small gods -- Ultra God! -- well, you're putting the cart before the horse. It's perfectly possible to imagine extensions to human knowledge and power such that our descendents will seem as gods to us, just like Prince Philip reportedly looks like a god to one bunch of South Sea islanders (or so we're told -- I've got no idea what they mean by that).

But I don't see that it adds anything to actually call such possible beings "gods", because that's not what we encounter in religious experiences.

To get some idea of what I think goes on in that process, you could check out the Ask an Atheist thread on the Comm Board, where I've gone into fairly great length. (And a few other places on the Comm Board, I think; I lose track.).

[Steven Grant]

i think i'm pretty much with you with the omniscience thing, that very well could be an impossibility. what about a god with limited abilities? a god who can only do one thing at a time, and be in one place at a time. a god that doesn't know the future.

"patently obvious that any rationally designed universe whatsoever is a steady state universe" - don't understand this, why is a steady state universe the only option for the creator?

Don't limited abilities void his status as God, by definition? Under those circumstances, he could only manage to be a demiurge at best, and then we're in Manichean territory...

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

You'd be right to say that we don't know if there was a conscious agency there at the start of the universe. What we do know are the limits on what that agency could have been up to, and one of them is that it can't do more than set the initial parameters, because everything after that gets unpredictable, because it isn't ordered by linear or predetermined logic.

There's a vast difference between believing that God created the Earth and Sun and that God created the Universe. It is possible to conceive of a time and an existence prior to the Earth or even the Solar System, but something existing prior to the Universe is a contradiction in terms, since "universe" is all-encompassing. For God to have existed prior to the Universe, there would have to be another Universe that would encompass or at least generate both of them. In order for intelligent design to occur, an intelligence, whether God or otherwise, must pre-exist the Universe; any being that comes into being simultaneously with the Universe cannot design it, and though it may arrange after the fact for some level of design, it's by that point already forced to operate within already existing parameters. But if a Designer pre-exists our Universe, it automatically makes our Universe a subset of the Universe of the Designer, and that only pushes the question back another "generation": is the Designer's universe also designed, and, if so, what designed it?

And the only real option is to fall back on the traditional portrayal of God as existing forever and ever with no beginning and no end, but, again, if God creates the Universe and exists before it, what does he previously exist in?

- Grant

[Dennis]

i'm going to take your movie analogy and play with it. let's say the universe is really like a movie, with a beginning middle and end. we're characters in that movie. and god created everything in that movie...he is the writer, director, art director, special effects artist, key grip, makeup artist, and he performed all the roles. in a sense, he is all-knowing, but only when it comes to that movie. what if we're just handpuppets. we're the puppet, and god is the hand. we're characters, but god is the actor. there is no freewill, it's just an illusion. everything, and i mean everything, has been tightly scripted, down to the last atom. but maybe atoms don't really exist, maybe the stars don't exist, what if they're just a backdrop?

if that's the way the universe really is, then calling god an intelligent designer doesn't really explain things, and may even cause confusion. if this is a movie, then god is basically a storyteller. he's not just an engineer, but an artist. if we label him as an engineer, the "intelligent designer," then we can nitpick his creations all day long, how they're stupid, don't make sense, flawed. but maybe his job isn't to create perfect machines... he's not here to make ipods. he ain't steve jobs.

don't think in terms of design, think in terms of story. then everything makes sense. but my argument comes apart if it turns out that animals have non-functioning organs, because that makes no story sense. if they had external features that don't work, then that's fine, because god will create something simply because of looks...because it looks good, or funny. maybe he thinks nipples on a man are sexy. but if lions tigers and bears had non-functioning internal organs, then that would be weird, and it would be evidence they weren't designed. so far, i haven't seen a massive list of animals with vestigial organs, the list seems kinda paltry, and the ones on that list are easily debatable. if it turned out that the horse had 15 vestigial organs, or maybe even 1 or 2, then I'm wrong about god as storyteller.

[Dennis]

Don't limited abilities void his status as God, by definition? Under those circumstances, he could only manage to be a demiurge at best, and then we're in Manichean territory...

- Grant

the word God for me is about the relationship between me and him. just like i call my dad Dad. it's just a name. whoever created me is automatically called god, even if he's the devil.

[Dennis]

i had some crazy thoughts about the appendix. adam and eve were supposed to live forever. that was the plan. but because of their misconduct, they were punished. because eve was a bad girl, now all women experience pain during childbirth. and we were limited to a short life span. so god altered their anatomy. or the bad behavior that adam and eve engaged in altered their anatomy. what if the appendix was altered? what if it secreted something that numbed physical pain, what if it cured disease. what if it turns on for the spiritually enlightened.

[mattx110]

There's a vast difference between believing that God created the Earth and Sun and that God created the Universe. It is possible to conceive of a time and an existence prior to the Earth or even the Solar System, but something existing prior to the Universe is a contradiction in terms, since "universe" is all-encompassing. For God to have existed prior to the Universe, there would have to be another Universe that would encompass or at least generate both of them. In order for intelligent design to occur, an intelligence, whether God or otherwise, must pre-exist the Universe; any being that comes into being simultaneously with the Universe cannot design it, and though it may arrange after the fact for some level of design, it's by that point already forced to operate within already existing parameters. But if a Designer pre-exists our Universe, it automatically makes our Universe a subset of the Universe of the Designer, and that only pushes the question back another "generation": is the Designer's universe also designed, and, if so, what designed it?

And the only real option is to fall back on the traditional portrayal of God as existing forever and ever with no beginning and no end, but, again, if God creates the Universe and exists before it, what does he previously exist in?

- Grant

you really wanna %$#@ it up for the rest of us don't you?
you're gonna go all "if god exists and isn't omipotent then there's nothing holding the universe together because a limited god would be incapable of sustaining..." and then the earth is gonna crash into the sun, and the universe'll implode. you are this close to causing all this to come crashing down...
yup, life isn't a movie, it's a roadrunner cartoon, and we're the coyote standing over the abyss about to look down (TM me)

and to answer your last question, i think the reasonable solution that includes the concept of god, is a simultaneous creation of the universe and an entity that would serve as a universal custodian, but that'd mean "God" was so powerful he could control time and space to the point where he'd create a universe and himself previous to his own existence... in comic terms god is booster gold/supernova only omnipotent.

and the appendix thing would be an odd explanation for comicbook superpowers. wolverine wasn't born with a healing factor, but an ability to access a healing factor latent in his appendix...
anyway, i've heard some talk of the appendix being an adaption that did help prevent disease (the plague or somethign like it), but has since become useless, and since it only causes harm when badly infected, it hasn't been phased out by evolution. maybe it was never helpful, but it was never harmful enough to go away, it could just be an oddity, it was just a coincidence that the humans with stronger legs had appendixes.

[Steven Grant]

Still doesn't explain mosquitoes...

- Grant

[mattx110]

Still doesn't explain mosquitoes...

- Grant

god knew lawyers would never work without a precedent.

[Steven Grant]

But that's what the serpent in the Garden Of Eden was for. Wasn't he the first lawyer? How intelligent is any design with pointless redundancy built in?

- Grant

[Dennis]

they're classic monsters.

[Paul McEnery]

There's a vast difference between believing that God created the Earth and Sun and that God created the Universe. It is possible to conceive of a time and an existence prior to the Earth or even the Solar System, but something existing prior to the Universe is a contradiction in terms, since "universe" is all-encompassing. For God to have existed prior to the Universe, there would have to be another Universe that would encompass or at least generate both of them. In order for intelligent design to occur, an intelligence, whether God or otherwise, must pre-exist the Universe; any being that comes into being simultaneously with the Universe cannot design it, and though it may arrange after the fact for some level of design, it's by that point already forced to operate within already existing parameters. But if a Designer pre-exists our Universe, it automatically makes our Universe a subset of the Universe of the Designer, and that only pushes the question back another "generation": is the Designer's universe also designed, and, if so, what designed it?

And the only real option is to fall back on the traditional portrayal of God as existing forever and ever with no beginning and no end, but, again, if God creates the Universe and exists before it, what does he previously exist in?

- Grant

Of course, that makes the world even more metaphysically unstable than immediately strikes the eye.

Take Heidegger's stumper: Why is there something rather than nothing?

This gives us three uncomfortable options:
1) Infinite regress. Something created the world, but this only defers the question.
2) There isn't nothing rather than something. So all of this is an illusion.
3) Stop asking stupid questions, I'm going down the pub.

We'll take Descartes for number 2, but that leaves us with 1 and 3, and either way our ideas of causation turn out not to work in all cases. Of course, this is the same as Godel when you think about it.

But that leads me to think about causation and how we've constructed our scientific model of the universe. And ultimately, I think that's no less anthropocentric than the religious viewpoint. Because our survival depends upon attributing agency -- tiger! -- we attribute it to the entire universe in the figure of cause and affect.

[Dennis]

There's a vast difference between believing that God created the Earth and Sun and that God created the Universe. It is possible to conceive of a time and an existence prior to the Earth or even the Solar System, but something existing prior to the Universe is a contradiction in terms, since "universe" is all-encompassing. For God to have existed prior to the Universe, there would have to be another Universe that would encompass or at least generate both of them. In order for intelligent design to occur, an intelligence, whether God or otherwise, must pre-exist the Universe; any being that comes into being simultaneously with the Universe cannot design it, and though it may arrange after the fact for some level of design, it's by that point already forced to operate within already existing parameters. But if a Designer pre-exists our Universe, it automatically makes our Universe a subset of the Universe of the Designer, and that only pushes the question back another "generation": is the Designer's universe also designed, and, if so, what designed it?

And the only real option is to fall back on the traditional portrayal of God as existing forever and ever with no beginning and no end, but, again, if God creates the Universe and exists before it, what does he previously exist in?

- Grant

in computer terms, there's the root folder, which contains all other folders. so is there a root universe? i guess that might mean there are child universes inside the root'verse. ha, i made up my own stupid scifi term. so is the god of our world the god of the root universe? maybe there are multiple gods, with one master god who delegates authority to lesser gods. so we have god creating other gods. but who created the first god?

i guess the only answer is that something has always existed, because how can something come out of nothing. the answer is that something can't come out of nothing, because nothing is nothing. so there was always...stuff. but what is that stuff. that stuff is the root universe. and somehow that stuff gave rise to god. maybe god evolved from inside that stuff. wouldn't that be silly. so god is made out of that stuff. he's limited by what that stuff is, and what it can do. he can't go outside of it, because it's the root universe.

[plainbrownwraper]

hey plainbrownwrapper, you seem really smart. how did life begin?

Current best theory favors thin films, as opposed to "soup" theory - i.e., an extremely thin film of moisture limits the number of possible combinations of carbon into more complex compounds, including simple proteins, amino acids, etc., sort of mini tide pools, basically a wet rock.

Essentially random, and probobly took a few billion or so years for replicating DNA to appear, give or take a couple of billion.

[Paul McEnery]

i guess the only answer is that something has always existed, because how can something come out of nothing. the answer is that something can't come out of nothing, because nothing is nothing.

That's actually part of Parmenides argument that we live in a steady state universe. But it's based on a simple linguistic error. "Since nothing is no thing, there's no such thing as nothing". Yup, it's as dumb as that, and yet it's that theology of presence that infects all of Plato, which is the underpinning of the ideology of the Holy Roman Empire. And that's the internal structure of the popular conception of "God".

Interestingly, Parmenides was the inventor of the mode of logical proof known as reductio ad absurdam, in which you assume what you want to disprove, and show that the assumption leads to a logical contradiction (or absurdity).

Now Parmenides' "proof" of the non-existence of "nothing" is part of a manuscript written under the influence of a profound spiritual hallucination (I suspect either drugs or an extreme manic episode). What he writes is that he ascended into the heavens and met with Dike, the goddess of order, and it's her that clued him in to the nature of reality. Which is that the absence of the void means that clear nothing can move, which means that all movement in the universe is an illusion, which means that the universe itself is an illusion.

IOW, he's arguing the answer to "why is there something rather than nothing?" is that there isn't. Which is a bit awkward since he's just "proved" that there's no such thing as nothing, which is why there's something. Rather obviously, this is a contradiction.

So, that's why the assumption of a perfectly-ordered universe leads to the steady state, and why that's bollocks.

But what's really going on here is that Parmenides has made a category mistake. He's trying to translate his experience of a pervasive spiritual presence into terms of material presence, which is to say he's mistaking a phenomenological truth for a material truth.

[mattx110]

didn't i already mention that god went back in time and created himself and the universe...

[Dennis]

paul, how did the universe start?

[Steven Grant]

Paul obviously cannot tell you how the universe started. There are theories but no one knows for sure.

However, the scientific theories that exist are based on observable available data.

That no one can positively specify the origin and mechanics of origin of the universe isn't any sort of argument for the existence of god, or any sort of proof that an entity identifiable as god had anything at all to do with it. Claiming it does is tantamount to saying "We have no idea so whatever we come up with off the tops of our heads must be the truth." Which is no kind of logic at all.

- Grant

[Paul McEnery]

paul, how did the universe start?

Something fell.

[SoulOnIce]

I found it amusing that after Steven's recent column on religion someone amended his Wiki profile to add "He is an atheist."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Grant

[mattx110]

I found it amusing that after Steven's recent column on religion someone amended his Wiki profile to add "He is an atheist."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Grant

ah. no word on anyone demanding a wikipedia article for me though...
i'll have to work on that.

[mjm1231]

i guess the only answer is that something has always existed, because how can something come out of nothing. the answer is that something can't come out of nothing, because nothing is nothing. Actually, something can come out of nothing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation). It happens all the time (http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?chanID=sa005&articleID=0004D0F8-772A-1526-B72A83414B7F0000&topicID=13).

[NatGertler]

ah. no word on anyone demanding a wikipedia article for me though...
i'll have to work on that.It's not so much the demanding that causes it to happen... it's the writing of one.
I was amused the other day to find that I'd gotten an entry. It's mostly factually correct. Not completely, mind you...

[mattx110]

It's not so much the demanding that causes it to happen... it's the writing of one.
I was amused the other day to find that I'd gotten an entry. It's mostly factually correct. Not completely, mind you...

eh good job then.

i'm still waiting till i do something worth noting to put down. either my folk metal band takes off, or i finish my first graphic novel.

[Dennis]

there's a manga called berserk. it's got lots of demons in it. it's the greatest comic ever. and the cartoon is just as great. check it out.

[Mick]

I don't remember the last time a group of atheists got together and supported anything or helped anyone.


Since you mentioned hurricane Katrina, I know of several atheist/humanist charities which raised money to aid the citizens of New Orleans, despite slanderous suggestions to the contrary in the media.

[outlander78]

heh - wrong thread!

[plainbrownwraper]

the answer is no, he can't. the physical universe isn't really, uh, physical...it's maya as they say. god is the programmer and we're kinda like data. that's like asking if a programmer can create a pixel he can't manipulate.

Actually, in complex programs, the programmer doesn't know exactly how it will work: with multitasking and shared clock cycles, one only makes predictions on how it should work, the liklihood of a given thing happening at a given moment - sort of the "uncertainty principle" of programming. Much of good programming technique is coding solid error trapping routines.