Sam Harris

Invoking God “hides our ignorance behind a theological fig leaf,” and to further quote atheologian Keith Parsons,“Occult power wielded by a transcendent being in an inscrtutable way for unfathomable reasons does not seem to be any sort of a good explanaton.” Indeed it is just the unimformative tautology that God wills what He wills. God did it is just a mystery,surrounded by more mysteries, ostensible to be the ultimate cause and explanatin but really is just obfuscation.
  That shows that God has no meaning.He is incoherent. That is the ignostic argument.
  Now,allowing for meaning, Ockham’s Razor shows no need of Him in explanations whatsoever. We do not need Thor as an explanation in addition to natural causes, nor demons and gremlins.
Hume-Russell-Edwards criticized the cosmological argumment as committing the fallacy of composition but not so. However, that does not help theists ,for if we do not need Thor,demons and gremlins to explain parts of Existence, why should we need God for the whole of it?

I prefer to invoke the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who created the entire universe and everything in it…..after drinking heavily.

I prefer to invoke the Invisible Pink Unicorn.  I just can’t get over how she can be both pink AND invisible at the same time…

skeptic griggsy - 09 December 2007 07:48 PM

further quote atheologian Keith Parsons,“Occult power wielded by a transcendent being in an inscrtutable way for unfathomable reasons does not seem to be any sort of a good explanaton.”

Yes, it’s like finishing a crossword puzzle by making up words, or filling the missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with Play-Doh.

skeptic griggsy - 09 December 2007 07:48 PM

for if we do not need Thor,demons and gremlins to explain parts of Existence, why should we need God for the whole of it?

Very true. I find it frustrating that theists treat a single god as the default position, whereas all claims about gods are equal as to the lack of evidence.

All theology, I daresay, is just a series of   guesses aboout this mystery, supposedly a personal explanation, according to Richard Swinburne, but only a pseudo- explanation for a pseudo-question: why is there something rather than nothing [Leibniz]? How could there be nothning? Ponder whatt Bede Rundle has to say in “Why is there Something rather than Nothing?’
I find the ignostic challenge, one of our   postitive atheist challenges, underlines our negative challenges to natural theology rather making atheism also meaningless. How can one speak of the First Cause, the Highest Explanation ,when the term is so otiose? What does it mean to be the Grand Designer when a desinger means someone with substance rather than opaqueness? Ditto for the Grand Miracle Worker, the savior of Jewry and any other fatuous theistic arguments?
  Faith, the we just say so of credulity, cannot make the unfathomable fathomable. Negative theology compounds the problem.
Thanks for these responses and any future ones.
  Double depression is so depressing!