- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
I grew up never really believing in God, it was not until I started reading Ayn Rand that I declared myself an atheist. Her reasoning ( which I totally agree with) is as follows:
The criteria for believing in God is that everything requires an origion, something that caused or created it. Therefor in response to the question "Who created the universe?", the religionist responds "God did." Yet if you ever ask a religionist "Then, who created God?", the response will inevitably be "He was always here."
Ayn Rand refers to this as the "Stolen concept fallacy", where someone uses a concept, while at the same time negating a sub-concept that it necessarily rests upon. Two examples of this, and how to illustrate their fallacy; Pierre Joseph Proudon declared "Property is theft". Yet the whole concept of 'theft' rests upon the concept of legitimately owned property, an object cannot be stolen unless it previously had a legitimate owner. So his statement is in fact declaring "Property is the theft of property", or "Property is the negation of property", clearly irrational gibberish. Another example is the biblical concept of 'Origional Sin', that man is inherently immoral, not by his choosing, he is just naturally that way. Yet the whole concept of 'immoral' rests upon the concept of chosen beliefs or actions. What an avalanche does is tragic, but you could not call it immoral since rocks and soil do not have any soul or free will. So the concept of origional sin is in effect saying "Man has no choice in the matter of that he chooses to be immoral". Again, a contradiction that has to either be explained or dismissed.
Now apply this to the concept of God. Saying that God was always here negates the theists insistance that everything requires a cause, it is invoking it when it is convenient, but then negating it as soon as someone asks you "Who created God?" It is true that everything within existance requires a cause, but does existance itself require a cause? By default, the only explanation students of Objectivism (Rand's philosophy) can see is that existance (i.e., the universe) was always here. Existance exists, and only existance exists; there is nowhere else to go!
This is not to say that all atheists are moral or rational, or that all religionists are irrational, people can all too easily be of mixed principles. Nor is it to say that every atheist follows this road to their viewpoint. But it is the road that I hold to be most rational. The Objectivist road that lead me to this view also lead me to declare myself a radical for capitalism (small 'l' libertarian, if you wish).
I am 51 years old, and declared my atheism decades before this slew of books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et. al. became bestsellers, so I'm not just jumping on a bandwagon because it is popular in circles. As my way is intellectual, and not nihilistic, I challenge critics to refute it intellectually.
The criteria for believing in God is that everything requires an origion, something that caused or created it. Therefor in response to the question "Who created the universe?", the religionist responds "God did." Yet if you ever ask a religionist "Then, who created God?", the response will inevitably be "He was always here."
Ayn Rand refers to this as the "Stolen concept fallacy", where someone uses a concept, while at the same time negating a sub-concept that it necessarily rests upon. Two examples of this, and how to illustrate their fallacy; Pierre Joseph Proudon declared "Property is theft". Yet the whole concept of 'theft' rests upon the concept of legitimately owned property, an object cannot be stolen unless it previously had a legitimate owner. So his statement is in fact declaring "Property is the theft of property", or "Property is the negation of property", clearly irrational gibberish. Another example is the biblical concept of 'Origional Sin', that man is inherently immoral, not by his choosing, he is just naturally that way. Yet the whole concept of 'immoral' rests upon the concept of chosen beliefs or actions. What an avalanche does is tragic, but you could not call it immoral since rocks and soil do not have any soul or free will. So the concept of origional sin is in effect saying "Man has no choice in the matter of that he chooses to be immoral". Again, a contradiction that has to either be explained or dismissed.
Now apply this to the concept of God. Saying that God was always here negates the theists insistance that everything requires a cause, it is invoking it when it is convenient, but then negating it as soon as someone asks you "Who created God?" It is true that everything within existance requires a cause, but does existance itself require a cause? By default, the only explanation students of Objectivism (Rand's philosophy) can see is that existance (i.e., the universe) was always here. Existance exists, and only existance exists; there is nowhere else to go!
This is not to say that all atheists are moral or rational, or that all religionists are irrational, people can all too easily be of mixed principles. Nor is it to say that every atheist follows this road to their viewpoint. But it is the road that I hold to be most rational. The Objectivist road that lead me to this view also lead me to declare myself a radical for capitalism (small 'l' libertarian, if you wish).
I am 51 years old, and declared my atheism decades before this slew of books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et. al. became bestsellers, so I'm not just jumping on a bandwagon because it is popular in circles. As my way is intellectual, and not nihilistic, I challenge critics to refute it intellectually.
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