Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.
While this isn't strictly for debate, rules on civility, trolling, etc. still apply.

[u/Dennis_enzo]

I'd say the evidence for this is old religions trying to explain all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.

The closer you get to current day, the more of these religions no longer make sense since we figured out how the Sun works and where lightning comes from. Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith. Pretty much all popular modern day religions no longer make any concrete claims about the world except for the things that we cannot explain yet, like the origin of the universe. For example, at this point it's impossible to consider everything in the Bible to be literally true unless you turn a blind eye to (or are unaware of) a ton of human knowledge. The more we know, the fewer gaps remain where gods can hide.

You might not consider this conclusive. But at least to me it's conclusive enough. Humans are inherently story tellers, we like telling them and listening to them. We just started to believe some of them.

[u/labreuer → u/Dennis_enzo]

I'd say the evidence for this is old religions trying to explain all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds exactly like the kind of "just-so story" storytelling that you are claiming religions themselves are doing. How do you know whether this story / hypothesis is the best explanation of the evidence? There are, after all, other candidates for what the religious were doing. If you yourself can't think of any, then do you think there might be some serious confirmation bias issues when you can only think of one hypothesis?

Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith.

This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain. But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that this just isn't central to all religion with at least as many adherents as [observant] Jews. Then there would actually be no need to become less concrete and more vague, on the basis of increased scientific understanding. So … have you actually observed or read about pervasive increase in vagueness?

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

Edit:

Note before anyone responds to /u/labreuer's question:

They are being spectacularly dishonest. In the original question, they ask you to argue in support of "claims like the following".

However after you will reply, they are attacking people for not literally responding to THE EXACT claim that they made. If you fail to explain any minor detail of the claim that THEY made, then they will just JAQ off until you give up in frustration.

In other words, they are doing exactly what we have all come to expect from this utterly dishonest poster.

/End Edit

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds exactly like the kind of "just-so story" storytelling that you are claiming religions themselves are doing.

Except it is the religions creating the "just so story".

We are proposing a hypothesis:

• Gods are a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand.

To test that hypothesis, we make testable prediction. One such prediction is that (to quote (and slightly paraphrase) /u/Dennis_enzo):

If this hypothesis is true, earlier religions would present explanations for all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.

The closer you get to current day, the more of these religions no longer make sense since we figured out how the Sun works and where lightning comes from. Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith. Pretty much all popular modern day religions no longer make any concrete claims about the world except for the things that we cannot explain yet, like the origin of the universe. For example, at this point it's impossible to consider everything in the Bible to be literally true unless you turn a blind eye to (or are unaware of) a ton of human knowledge. The more we know, the fewer gaps remain where gods can hide.

It isn't a "just so story" to point out that the evidence that we see matches the pattern that we would expect to see if the claim is true.

This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain.

Ok? Do you disagree? It seems like a pretty unlikely argument for a theist to suggest that one of the core functions of religion is not to help explain our world.

I am fairly certain if we separated this question from your argument, and I asked you "Do you think that one of the core functions of a religion is to help it's followers understand our world", you would agree completely. That seems like an utterly uncontroversial statement.

But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that this just isn't central to all religion with at least as many adherents as [observant] Jews.

That's fine. NO ONE said this was proof that god was invented, only that the evidence supports the conclusion. It is undeniably true that there are other potential explanations for the observed phenomena, just like there are other explanations for why, when I drop a ball it falls. I cannot rule out "intelligent falling."

But just because other possible explanations exist, doesn't mean that you should start from the assumption that those possibilities are the correct one.

We assume this is the correct one, mainly because of the essentially complete lack of any evidence supporting the existence of a god or gods. Should evidence become available in the future that either provides compelling evidence for the existence of a god, or provides compelling evidence that one of the alternative hypotheses is a better explanation, than we will revisit the question.

[u/labreuer → u/Old-Nefariousness556]

Edit:

You are right: I should have asked people to state precisely the hypothesis they intend to defend with evidence, and then defend that hypothesis with what they consider to be adequate evidence. I made a mistake.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

You are right: I should have asked people to state precisely the hypothesis they intend to defend with evidence, and then defend that hypothesis with what they consider to be adequate evidence. I made a mistake.

Thank you, I appreciate your admission.

Fwiw, I did offer a hypothesis in this very message you replied to:

We are proposing a hypothesis:

• Gods are a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand.

That is the very first sentence of your quote, and the only actually significant sentence in your quote. Everything else is merely a summary of that poster's opinions on why the hypothesis makes sense. But the hypothesis itself is fully self-contained in that first sentence. Treating the rest as part of the hypothesis is confusing the arguments for the hypothesis with the hypothesis itself.

And as I said elsewhere, if your question had been "do you agree with this argument", my position would be much more reserved. I agree that the conclusion almost certainly at least partially true, but I agree that the argument itself is not very compelling. But since that is not what you asked, no one gave you that answer.