Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Western Civilization Is Not Evidence For God's Existence

Asinine arguments for God's existence are often more damaging to theism's grip on a society than atheists themselves are.  The vast majority of the historical and comtemporary arguments for the existence of God are nothing but inept, petty attempts at "proving" a conclusion that has been accepted beforehand.  There are also statements about various subjects that are implied to have significance for the issue of God's existence, such as when conservatives speak of Western (more specifically, American) civilization as if it helps affirm the presence of God in human history.  The existence and functioning of Western civilization is nothing but a red herring to the subject of God's existence at best.

The proponents of this fallacious implied argument regard the very continuation of Western society as if it somehow confirms not only that there is a God, but also that God is a personal, moral being that prescribes Western values.  Even when one ignores the non sequitur fallacies inherent in this argument, it relies on assumed premises.  After all, any other established culture could have used the same argument in hopes of persuading people that its most commonly praised deity exists, with each society considering its own arbitrary values proven valid by its successes.

In order to make this argument, a Westerner must already regard the values of his or her culture as authoritative.  However, values can only be grounded in the existence of a deity, so one must prove that (1) a deity exists, that (2) the deity at least likely has a moral nature, and that there is at least strong evidence that (3) the deity has revealed its moral nature to humans before one can have a basis for approving of a particular set of values.  Conscience and social norms are both irrelevant to moral epistemology and often dangerous, as they easily compel ignorant people to follow a distorted form of morality.  Ironically, conservatives rely on the very subjectivity and tradition they claim do not ground morality when they laud their values.

There is also, of course, the fact that the West has never truly operated in a thoroughly Christian manner.  Some point to broad areas where Western and Biblical values are similar, but the true measure of a culture's Biblicality lies in the specifics, and this is precisely where the idea that the West is a champion of most Biblical values fails [1].  If a Christian claims to genuinely want Biblical values to be present in the West, they must ironically refuse to endorse many of the ethical stances taken by the modern church.  The twin scourges of anti-nomianism and legalism have devoured the church for centuries, rendering much of its moral teachings unbiblical as a result.  Western civilization's values overlap with actual Biblical morality only at selective points.

Despite these facts, Christian apologists and historians dramatically overhype the significance of Western culture, with some going so far as to pretend like the West at least helps establish the existence of God.  In actuality, nothing at all about Western civilization is even mere evidence for God's existence.  The stupidity of many apologists or theologians does not mean that God does not exist; it merely means that almost all of their arguments for God's existence are refuted in full by a simple logical analysis.  Furthermore, there is only one way to prove the existence of a deity: demonstrating the necessity of an uncaused cause that is responsible for bringing contingent existents [2] into being.  The popular Christian apologists have yet to admit this, but its veracity is not lessened.


[1].  Among other things, the West endorses a deeply unbiblical justice system and sexual prudery, both of which are affronts to Biblical Christianity.  American/Western values only ever connected with those of the Bible in an incomplete way, and there are always examples of major disparities between the two at any given moment in history.

[2].  Not everything besides God that exists is contingent on something else.  The laws of logic and space are the only two things that exist due to the impossibility of their nonexistence, whereas even God himself could not exist apart from the laws of logic, without which he could not even be what he is.  See here for more elaboration:
 A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html
 B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-ramifications-of-axioms.html
 C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-refutation-of-naturalism-part-2.html

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