Fundie Claim #14: God-of-the-gaps
6/21/2008 | 7:31 PM | Evolved Rationalist
Fundie: Christianity answers questions while Atheism results in more questions. People tend to resort to a divine being in explaining supernatural happenings around them, and the questions of “why”, “when”, “who”, “how”, “which”, “what” and “where” will never cease as long as atheists still refuse to recognize the existence of God. Science cannot provide all these answers but Christianity can. God is the answer to those questions.
God isn't an answer, it is a science stopper. Science is the best tool we have in exploring the universe, and unlike religion, we have evidence that science works. God belief contributes exactly nothing towards our understanding of the universe.
How does Christianity answer questions? The demon theory of disease instead of the germ theory? Creationism instead of evolutionary biology? Jacob's striped-rod breeding technique instead of genetics? Grasshoppers having four legs instead of six? Geocentrism instead of heliocentrism? The flat earth instead of a spherical earth? I could go on, but you get where this is going. Atheism is a lack of a belief in a god/gods. Therefore, atheists strive to answer questions without resorting to the intellectually lazy 'GODDIDIT' cop-out. Only a theistard would think that this is actually a bad thing.
Atheists do not refuse to recognize the existence of a god. Atheists see no reason to believe that such a being exists as there is simply no evidence for this invisible sky-daddy's existence. Postulating god without evidence would certainly cause questions to cease, and that is exactly what would happen if science does not ultimately put an end to this cancerous institution called religion. Religion is the worst anti-science invention of mankind. It seeks to stop any and all scientific inquiry by postulating god in every question humans may have about the world around us.
Remember the time when people said "We do not understand what causes disease, so GODDIDIT!"? Notice how the space for god keeps shrinking until science finally delivers the ultimate death knell to god?
Theists simply love the god of the gaps argument, or the argument from ignorance. They use 'god' as an explanation for everything that science has not yet explained, the same way the ancients used to assume that it was Zeus who shoots thunderbolts from the sky. This outrageous science-stopper called religion must be nipped in the bud before religion drags us back to the Dark Ages where scientists were burnt at the stake for showing that religious dogma is a crock of lies.
We are in a culture war between rationalism and superstition, and this is a war we cannot afford to lose.
What this whole moronic fundie argument is leading to is this: When god is put into the picture, theistards can relieve themselves of the task of using their brains.
That is why I call them theistards.
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Atheist Refutation of Fundie Claims
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When god is put into the picture, theistards can relieve themselves of the task of using their brains.
Oh, I think they relieve themselves of more than that. Theism is the ultimate cop-out.
Not only are you relieved of the task of using your brains, you're relieved of EVERYTHING - any duty to this 'transitory' world, the need to work for social, environmental, or political change. The need to build, improve, and explore. The need to fight injustice, the need to face complicated issues and take action, not just wishing.
The question keeps coming up "Why, in face of all the evidence, do people still believe in the supernatural." As with many things, Homer Simpson got it right.
It's EASIER... DUH!
It's all just a bunch of head-in-the-sand, "Oh Noes! Scary world! Save me fluffy imaginary power-pal!" Argh.
This is a cowardly misrepresentation of Christianity.
"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." - Colossians 3:2.
So not really a misrepresentation. And cowardly? 'Cowardly' says the anonymous poster?
Christians don't reject science. Most great scientists have been Christians.
Fundies may apporve of the God of the gaps argument but not modern theologians, most religious thinkers througohout time have rejected the God of the gaps fallacy.
Also although religion can be a science stopper it is hardly the ultimate science stopper. Surely politics and lust for power and post-modern philosophy has a much more dire affect on science then monotheistic religion ever could (and sorry evolved, the middle ages were caused because of economic reasons not because the Christian church became influential).
During the middle ages science flourished in a region where Islam was the most prominent religion and most scientists were muslims. In the 13th century in Europe there was a scholastic revolution in learning and the advancedment of science.
One thinker in particular Nicole Oresme a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church proposed heliocentrism and he was not even attacked for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_the_Middle_Ages#High_Middle_Ages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_the_Middle_Ages#Late_Middle_Ages
Also Western monotheism can provide the natural uniformity needed to sustain science and scientific research.
Perhaps brainless fundamentalists impede on science but certainly not mainstream religious believers.
And Funkaplis: I give in response to your verse, 2 thessalonians 5:21 which says, "Test all things and hold fast to what is good," this sounds much more like a rationalistic worldview then you seem to think.
Colosians 3:2 seems to be more referring to not getting to cought up in persuit of material desires.
most religious thinkers througohout time have rejected the God of the gaps fallacy.
Someone should tell the ones in the Intelligent Design movement.
Surely politics and lust for power and post-modern philosophy has a much more dire affect on science then monotheistic religion ever could
Well, I may agree with you about the evils of post-modernism ;) But I don't think it's a 'surely'. Politics may make a virtue out of greed, but never of ignorance. Those who lust for power at least acknowledge the value of the real world, and don't fob it off as a fallen, sinful waiting-room for some immaculate imaginary immortality.
Now you want a real science killer? Funding cuts...
the middle ages were caused because of economic reasons not because the Christian church became influential
Ah, I see. So widespread Christianity was just a by-product of the middle ages. The economic conditions just created a fertile breeding ground for Christianity. So it's more like the Black Death than anything then, right?
During the middle ages science flourished in a region where Islam was the most prominent religion and most scientists were muslims.
And civilization is the better for their having carried the torch in those Dark Ages. But then the interpretation of scripture became that science wasn't so godly after all, and that was the end of that. It's easy to turn on a dime when your foundation of everything is subject to literary interpretation.
Also Western monotheism can provide the natural uniformity needed to sustain science and scientific research.
I think was actually methodological materialism that provided that uniformity.
Perhaps brainless fundamentalists impede on science but certainly not mainstream religious believers.
Well, I'm glad to hear there's never been a sermon against stem cell research in any mainstream church.
You wiki links got truncated, so I was unable to follow them. But thanks for the verse from Thessalonians. It goes on the (short) list of bits I actually like from the Bible. Like those charming "love thy neighbour" and "least of my brethren" bits that nobody actually pays any attention to.
Still, it's the same old game... I pull up a quote, you pull up a contradictory quote... It only proves that you can interpret literature in a lot of ways, which makes it a rubbish thing to base your model of reality upon.
What I mean to say was that Christianity was already becomming widespread by the time the dark ages came along. The reason the Dark Ages occured was because the educated Roman publicwas replaced by largely illiterate and tribal germanic peoples, and interestingly enough the most literate people in those days were priests. It was Christian monks who kept learning alive during the Dark Ages, and during that time period when political corruption was rampant it was often the church was the only organization that would defend people.
I'll try again with the wikipedia links;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_the_Middle_Ages#High_Middle_Ages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_in_the_Middle_Ages#Late_Middle_Ages
Now it is true there were some executions done by the church, but thawt mostly occured during the latter half of the middle ages when corruption of the church was rampant.
Methodological naturalism does sustain science,and monotheism operates of similar axioms. According to Christian monotheism God does not change his mind when it comes to moral law, he may find a way around the law but the law has not been abrogated. So we shouldn't be surprized that God is not fickle with natural law and natural is only interrupted at certain intervals when it is necessary for humanity, otherwise natura is uniform. So belief in a rational unchanging God can be just as science-friendly as Methodological Naturalism, although it is true that Methodological naturalism as practiced today can be traced back to Christian Medieval thinkers such as Nicole Oresme and Thomas Aquinas.
I hope I was able to clear up a few of my points.
So, CR, what about Galileo? What about Bruno?
Christians are a bunch of sick fucks.
As I said before that happened in a time when the corruption was rampant in the church. The Galileo affair had much more to do with the fact that the church had elevated Greek science to scripture. If they hadn't it wouldn't have gone the same way.
And Bruno was not executed because of his belief in Heliocentrism. It was because he held beliefs about God and spirituality held heretical at the time
1. No true Scotsman fallacy.
2. Really? Check out the files on Galileo - no mention of Greek science but a lot of Godtalk to me.
3. Wow, so if someone has "heretical" spiritual views, it's ok to burn them at the stake? Thank you for admitting that Christians like you are pure scum.
Yes, the church was genuinely mistaken to suppress Galileo, they are human too they make mistakes. And yes it is true that during that period corruption in the church was rampant, in earlier time the church was more open to such questioning, for example Nicole Oresme proposed heliocentrism hundreds of years before Galileo and he wasn't burnt at the stake or anything. Also keep in mind that in ptolemaic geocentrism IS greco-roman science, they may not have called it that but it is, ancient Christian philosophers mixed their philosophy with the accepted science of the day and since it was elevated to the teaching of the bible it was sacrosanct. To the church Geocentrism was the teaching of the bible.
No, there is nowhere in the New Testament where burning people at the stake is popularized, it was not ok that the church burnt Bruno at the stake, it was a horrible mistake on the part of the church. It proves Christians can do horrible things, it doesn't prove Christians are evil, my point was not that it is ok to burn people at the stake, my point was that him being executed wasn't over science.
Once again in case you didn't understand I do not support having people being burned at the stake, very few Christians do these days.
The amount of rationalizing and obfuscation from facts is what we have come to expect from someone who claims to accept evolution yet believes in the cult of Christianity.
CR, at first you said that the church persecuted Galileo because they held "Greek science above Scripture", yet now you claim it was because of corruption in the church?
Make up your mind.
I think you should be happy that CR at least is open to rational thinking, regardless of his personal beliefs. Congratulations, CR. You are one of the (sadly) few theists I consider to be reasonable, intelligent people.
Sorry for not being clear, yes my facts must seem hoplessly jumbled.
It is true that corruption was rampant in the church but that is not necessarily the reason Galileo was persecuted, Christians from many different denominations criticised Heliocentrism, sorry for that error.
Yes the church was influenced to an extant by Greek science but that is not important, and finally yes the church did in its right mind genuinely make a deadly mistake about science.
What I was trying to say was that this was partially because of the influences of the day and not because of Christian doctrine alone.
And Hbbtk: please explain what I have been rationalizing and obfuscating? I am simply telling the facts of history.
Argh I am still not making sense, to further explain my point. Human Error, dogmatic acceptance of old ideas, and corruption among some of the church officials all played a part in the Galileo affair, it wasn't just religious belief that was involved. I hope I have made my point clearer.
Biblical references like 1 Chronicles 16:30 or Psalm 104:5 (KJV) state that the earth is stable, unmoving, hence inescapably leading to the geocentric worldview. They were held as gospel truth (pardon the pun) and, as the Galileo debacle shows, rigorously defended.
If geocentrism wasn't dogma, wasn't the accepted religious belief of the time, why did the Church get involved? He was up against a charge of Heresy
"Heresy is a dislocation of some complete and self-supporting system of belief, especially a religion, by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein." (Wikipedia)
Belief was at the core of the affair. The bible stated the earth didn't move. The bible was wrong.
Galileo might have been pursecuted more actively because of corruption, he had a lot of enemies perhaps, but the fact remains that the charge could not have been brought unless he was going against accepted belief.
So much for the inerrant word and papal infallability. Makes you wonder how much else in the good book is wrong.
And yes, CR is someone I would quite happily buy a beer for and argue with in the pub, probably agreeing to disagree at the end of it and parting amicably. You are not a wide-eyed bible waving fanatic like christislord12 and crationist are portrayed as.
However. How do you decide which bits of the bible to believe in when you have accepted that part of it is already wrong? 100 years from now, as science advances, would someone with much the same mind as you believe still less of it?
CR is a compromising closet Darwinist. He is not a true Christian!
Oh hush. You're not even a real person.
In one last defence, in 1 Chronicles David is praising God for keeping Israel safe, it doesn't appear to have been addressing cosmology. Only a literal interpretation demands Geocentrism.
Psalm 104:5 might be using phenomonalogical language. Since it does appear the the earth will never move. Also that wasn't written by God but by a man of that time period which means it probably shouldn't be taken as a statement on cosmology.
And Christislord12, how can I not be a true Christian if I am defending Christianity?
What I mean by not written by God was that it was man speaking it wasn't God dictating to a man as he was writing.
Yes, it was written by men, but still supposed to be divinely inspired surely.
There still remains the fact that in Galileo's time people were imprisoned, and no doubt killed, over an aspect of belief that you are now quite happy to discount.
Mind you, saying the bible wasn't written by god would do much the same for you back then, you heretic you. Probably still true for some places today. Our resident fundie glove-puppets are going to have a field day with that one.
"Our resident fundie glove-puppets are going to have a field day with that one."
I am afraid so,
To clear up something in case someone is confused what I meant was the particular passage was npot written by God, and often in the bible when a human is talking they say something which is not necessarily true according to the bible.
When Darwinists cannot refute me, they mock. Repent!
CR is a fake Christian. The Bible is the word of G-d, blasphemer. Repent!
Oh boy...here we go again. Yet another straw man argument.
[sigh]
I will point out yet again that the foundation of modern science was laid in a Christian milieu and that many top scientists have been (and are) Christians: Among them - Michael Faraday, Isaac Newton, Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Francis Collins, etc. etc. etc.
For an alternative argument which will sight some actual...um, evidence [in contrast to assertions with no evidence, quotes, support, etc.] try reading Scientists and Their Gods .
And where did she ever say that it is impossible for a scientist to be a Christian, murf?
Strawman argument.
Shalini Sehkar has been EXPOSED!!!
I just noticed you had a link to the Anonymous page on Encyclopedia Dramatica on your sidebar. Are you aware that Anonymous is a vigilante group of computer hackers that take pleasure in ruining people's lives?
Mary,
That is only if you have swallowed the misinformation spewed by Fox News (Faux Noise). A little more skepticism would be appreciated in the future. Thank you.
Anonymous ruined that kid's life. Watch that Fox News clip. I agree that FN is conservative, but how do you explain what Anonymous did to that kid?
Mary,
http://tinyurl.com/3yxbtq
Stop being a silly pro-Faux Noise harpy.
Why do you keep linking to Encyclopedia Dramatica? It is a hacker site controlled by Anonymous.
Mary,
You are an idiot (and a lulzkiller). Stop spouting garbage out of your ass if you don't have a clue as to what you are talking about.
You are an Anon, aren't you?
Mary, you are either a troll or someone who is batshit insane.
Get some help or stop trolling my site.
Mary, you are either a troll or someone who is batshit insane.
Or a Scientologist. Which would be both.
I am a Scientologist. We have been misunderstood and misrepresented in the media, and Anonymous is threatening us now.
and the grand prize goes to funkopolis!
I am a Scientologist.
Ahh, Scilons, the epitome of common sense.
We have been misunderstood and misrepresented in the media, Well, you're capable of creating lulz, so you're not completely hopeless.
and Anonymous is threatening us now.
And generating epic lulz in doing so, besides, you're asking for it.
You are an Anon, aren't you?
We are, just look at the name.
If you're seriously expecting an answer to that, you're even dumber then you're making yourself look by talking.
By all means, keep talking though, your pretty funny.
Evolved Rationalist is a member of Anonymous!
Mary, I just want to make sure, you DO know what anonymous means right?
No, I'm spartacus!
Yes, the protestors and those who are trying to destroy Scientology.
Wrong. Anonymous is not a group; it is the internet incarnate. It has no cohesion and no mission. The ones you are talking about are not really Anon; they are the newfags, the ones who are doing it to uphold morals. The oldfags, the real anonymous, do things for the lulz. If it means shutting down an evil, money-grubbing cult.
Hello from Australia.
This blog is disgraceful.
grow some class, otherwise the only people who WON't give you the ass are people who are filled with the same hateful diatribes as yourself.
That is all.