Atheism article (Worth a look.)

[imported_Berserk_Exodus]

Apologies if some folks find this a bit long winded, as I couldn't find the link on the web any where. Why Atheism? by Mark Thomas [NOTE: This is written as a speech, with actions by the speaker in square brackets.] Hello. My name is Mark, and, surprise, surprise [pause, look around, whisper]; I’m an Atheist. History and the Development of Science and Scientific Naturalism OK. Let’s start with a quick experiment. [Hold out your hand with a penny in it. Show it to the audience. Let it fall. Do this again. Hold out a third penny.] If I were to do this again, what do you think would happen? If we could get ten good Christians to pray that the next penny wouldn’t fall, would it still fall? How about one thousand Muslims? How about one billion people of any faith? I think that it would still fall. [Drop the third penny.] Our understanding of the world around us, and our abilities to predict what will happen are based on naturalism – the basis of science. Naturalism is how all people live their lives most of the time. OK, let’s do a thought experiment. If I were to take two pennies and glue them together, then drop them at the same time as I drop a single penny, would they fall twice as fast as the single penny? Aristotle thought so 2300 years ago, and for over 1900 years, his ideas were what was taught about this and many other subjects. Around 1600, Galileo had a new idea. He decided to do something that now seems like common sense - to actually test the idea of what we now call gravity. He reasoned that two weights held together would fall at the same rate as one weight. Then he did experiments. And, guess what? It was true! This was the start of real empirical science, and our collective understanding of the universe hasn’t been the same since. Galileo also took the new invention of the telescope, refined it, and used it to look at the night sky. He was astounded. On the moon he could see mountains and valleys. It wasn’t just some strange heavenly object; it was probably made out of the same stuff as Earth. In 1609 Galileo looked at Jupiter, and discovered that it had four moons. If moons orbited Jupiter, then not everything orbited the Earth, as the Catholic Church taught at the time. Astronomy made more sense if the Earth and planets orbited the sun. After writing a book about this, Galileo was called to Rome in 1633, and told to recant his heretical ideas. This was no “simple request” by the Church. Just 33 years before, the Catholic Church had executed Galileo’s friend Giordano Bruno. How many of you have heard of him? In 1600, the Christian authorities in Rome took him out of the jail he had been in for eight years, drove a nail through his tongue, tied him to a metal post, put wood and some of his books under his feet, and burned him to death. Bruno’s crime was writing ideas that the Catholic leaders didn’t like -- there might be other worlds with other intelligent beings on them, Jesus didn’t possess God-like power, and souls can’t go to heaven. For these heretical ideas, the Catholic Church punished this brilliant thinker with a slow, agonizing death. Galileo knew what he was up against. The church could torture or even execute him. So, he recanted. Even after recanting, he was still sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. Heliocentrism was officially condemned by the church in 1664, when Pope Alexander VII banned all books which affirmed the earth's motion. But, you know, even as powerful as the Church was, they could not hold back the tidal wave of scientific discovery, and the Catholic Church eventually lost its battle over our view of the universe. In 1992, after 12 years of deliberations, they grudgingly admitted that Galileo had been right in supporting the theories of Copernicus. But no such admission has been made for Bruno, and his writings are still on the Vatican's list of forbidden texts. Until just a couple of hundred years ago, most people used to think that the gods controlled everything. Why did the wind blow? Why was there lightning and thunder? Why did the sun, moon, and stars apparently go around the Earth? Why did someone get sick and die? Why did anything happen? Well, obviously, God did it. If we don’t know how something works or why something happened, then God did it. This is known as the god of the gaps, or the argument from ignorance, and it is at the heart of the conflict between science and religion. As we understand more and more about the universe, the gap where God might exist grows smaller and smaller. Every time we learn more, God has less room to operate. When we learned what caused the sun to apparently move across the sky, there was no need for the Greek god Helios and his chariot. When we understood what caused lightning, there was no need for the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, or the Norse god Thor. In fact, the understanding of lightning was one of the first areas of battle between modern science and religion. When Ben Franklin discovered that lightning was just a big electric spark, he invented the lightning rod. It was enormously successful at preventing buildings from being struck by lightning. However, this caused a bit of a problem for the church leaders; should they trust in God to prevent lightning strikes on their churches, or should they use these new lightning rods? Up until then, lightning hit churches much more frequently than other, more deserving buildings – such as taverns or houses of ill repute. “Why was that?” they wondered. Could it be that churches had spires and were taller, or was it SATAN and his WITCHES? …… Actually, that is what they often believed, and many a supposed witch was burned at the stake for having caused the destruction of a church. When they started putting lightning rods on churches, witch burnings stopped soon thereafter. However, the obvious fact is that they were putting their trust in science and lightning rods, not religion and prayer. Galileo and others started something big -- empirical science. Thru science, we have come to a good understanding of the workings of the world and universe around us. The weather, lightning, thunder, the planets and stars, disease, and life itself all function based on fairly well understood principles. God doesn’t control them; the physical properties of matter and energy do. This principle is at the center of naturalism – the idea that matter and energy have properties that are repeatable, understandable, and quantifiable. We take this idea so for granted, that we typically don’t realize that it is based on several articles of faith. This faith, however, is quite different from religious faith. This faith is based on past experience and results. It is the faith that: There is an external world that exists independently of our minds. There are understandable, quantifiable, natural laws that describe how things happen in this world. These natural laws won’t change when we’re not looking; the universe isn’t totally chaotic. So far, this faith has been well founded, as shown by the amazing accomplishments of modern science and medicine. Why God(s)? Why Not? Examinations of Scientific and Logical Arguments for God(s) The idea of an all-controlling, caring supernatural god is a very attractive one. It can make our mortal lives seem less frightening, more comforting. Somebody’s in control and won’t let bad things happen to us. Religious philosophers have tried for thousands of years to prove that there is a god. They have come up with many arguments. We will look at these arguments. Why? Why am I doing this? Is it just because I want to poke holes in people’s beliefs so that we can take away what makes them happy? No, I’m doing this because I want to know what is true, and be open to reality. And, I hope that you are here for the same reasons. The arguments for the existence of God fall into several areas. I have arranged them into these categories: scientific claims morality appeals to authority prophesy and miracles appeals to faith, logic, and emotion. How can we examine these claims? What tools can we use to determine truth of external reality? We have (1) logic; and we have (2) empirical, verifiable evidence. Logic and evidence are all we have, to determine how the universe really works. These tools have been extraordinarily successful in science and medicine, and in our daily lives. Some people claim that there are other ways of knowing, such as mysticism or revelation. But, the only way that I know to verify these claims is for a supposed mystic to be able to accurately, repeatedly, and verifiably predict the future. I know of no one who can, or could. I submit that mysticism and revelation result from internal, altered states of consciousness, with no basis in external reality. Mysticism and revelation can only count for those who experience them. For all other people, they are merely hearsay. Also, even if there were somebody who could predict the future, that does not mean that there's a god. It would only mean that this person has peculiar skills. The biggest weakness in using God to explain anything scientifically is that the explanation is not falsifiable, and thus not even testable. There is no way to create an experiment to show that it’s wrong. For every possible set of a test and a result, we could simply say, “God did it.” Why do the Earth and Universe appear to be so old? God did it. Why does nature seem so balanced? God did it. Once again, why does anything happen? If we say that God did it, there is no reason or opportunity to learn how the world really works. If we had stayed with God as the cause of all events, our modern culture would have been impossible. We would have no real science, engineering, or medicine; we would still be living in the dark ages. Besides the god of the gaps, there are two other scientific types of arguments for the existence of God. We have (1) First Cause. And we have (2) Intelligent Design, which grew out of creationism. The first cause argument says that everything has a cause, and, since we supposedly can’t have an infinite series of causes stretching into the past, God must be the first cause – an uncaused cause. This argument has at least three problems. The main problem of the first cause argument is the idea that every event has a cause. As we discovered in the 20th century, the Universe is actually ruled by quantum effects, which can have no cause. An obvious example of quantum physics in action is the radioactive decay of a uranium atom. There is no cause for such an event, and we can only predict it with probability. The averaging of quantum effects gives us the Newtonian experience that we have, but Newtonian physics does not control the universe; quantum physics does. We now know that the Universe has an intrinsic, bottom level of uncertainty that cannot be bypassed. Quantum physics also shows us that objects can appear out of nothing and then disappear back into nothing. Even in supposedly empty space, virtual particles are continuously appearing and disappearing. This is a real and measurable process. The physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth has proposed that the Universe itself may be just a virtual particle that came out of a random quantum event called a vacuum fluctuation, or false vacuum -- with no cause, created out of nothing, and with a total energy of zero. Even if Alan Guth is eventually shown to be wrong, that doesn't mean that "God did it." The next problem of the first cause argument is its assumption that an infinite chain of events is impossible. It seems possible that the universe could be infinitely old, cycling forever between Big Bang and Big Crunch. Even tho our current understanding of physics implies that our universe is a one-shot happening, this may change as we learn more. Another possibility is that our universe could be part of a much larger, super and perhaps eternal universe; we certainly don't know for sure, and may never know. The last problem with the first cause argument lies in its assumption that this eternal god exists, something that it is trying to prove. This is known as begging the question. Even a child can ask, “If God created the Universe, then who created God?” If the answer is that God is uncaused, then the same answer could certainly be applied to the existence of the Universe – that it is uncaused. Besides, which god are we talking about? People using the first cause argument always make the assumption that the particular god that did the creating is their god. Muslims think that Allah created the Universe. Hindus think that Brahma did the creating. Christians think that their god did it. The idea of a god as creator of the universe obviously tells us little about the characteristics of that god. What they are doing is explaining one unknown with another unknown, and it just doesn’t make sense. The next scientific type of argument is called Intelligent Design. It states that life on Earth had a designer that was intelligent. It has evolved from the creationist argument, and it’s gaining steam. To get around restrictions on teaching religious dogma, proponents of intelligent design sometimes say that they don’t know what this designer was; it could have been an alien or a god. I find this disingenuous; if it was an alien, then the obvious question is, “Where and how did the alien originate?” If they really mean God, which is what I think they mean, then it devolves back to creationism. So, I will treat intelligent design and creationism as the same idea. Proponents of creationism make many claims: A watch requires a watchmaker. A design requires a designer. The physical laws require a lawgiver. The complexity of life and the universe require a cause that is not part of this natural world. The laws of physics were fine-tuned for life. Our system of life on Earth was designed. Let’s consider the laws of physics. They are quantified explanations of how matter and energy behave, not anything like man-made laws. We don’t know why the parameters of matter and energy have certain values, but that doesn’t mean that a god set them that way. The simple solution to the question of the source of the laws of physics is to accept them as brute fact, with no source. Besides, if it were true that God set up the universe for life and us to exist, he certainly had to wait a long time for the result. The Universe has been around for about 13 billion years. It took about nine billion years before our Earth was formed, and single celled bacteria were forming ecosystems about a billion years after that. Life on Earth evolved and became more complex. Then humans, God’s supposed reason for the whole creation, finally came along within the last hundred thousand years or so. This seems like a lengthy and complex process for an omnipotent being that could have simply snapped everything into existence. Using God as the source of the laws of physics just doesn’t make sense. Once again, religionists are trying to explain one unknown with another unknown. Life is a process -- not a design. It requires an explanation -- not an intelligent designer. This explanation is the fact and theories of evolution. It’s a fact that enormous changes to life on Earth have occurred. The theories of evolution explain the processes that caused these changes. The evidence for evolution of life is overwhelming and conclusive. If you have any doubts, spend a little time learning the theories of evolution, then spend a few hours in any museum of natural history or public library. You will see the evidence. Remember, ignorance of how evolution works is no argument against it. The basic theories of evolution are completely solid, and will continue to be updated as we learn more about the complex history of life. You’ve probably heard people say that evolution is “only a theory.” It’s important to remember that the term “theory” in science is not the same as it is in general usage. Basically it refers to a unifying concept that explains a large body of data. The theories of evolution have as much validity as the theory of gravity or the germ theory of disease. Let me address a common example that creationists use. [Move to the right, and show eye diagram.] “Look at the wonderful design of the human eye,” they say. “Surely this design could not have happened by chance. It must be that God did it.” [Move to the left.] Actually, it did happen by chance – countless little chance events of changes in the gene pool over millions of generations, all controlled be the harsh reality of natural selection and survival of the fittest. While the initial changes in the gene pool were chance events, survival of the fittest is obviously not random. This is the heart of the theory of evolution; individuals can pass their genes and characteristics on to their offspring. If a gene makes an individual more likely to have offspring that survive, its offspring that carry that gene will be more likely to have offspring that survive. In effect, species are designed to fit their environment. The designer is the blind process of evolution, however, not some god. The faults in the design of the human eye, especially, show its evolutionary origins. When we look at the retina at the back of the eye, we can see that the cell layers are backwards. Light has to travel through seven layers of cells before reaching the light sensing cells. Then the signals go back through these layers to the nerves on the inside surface. A truly intelligent designer could have done better than the human eye. In fact, evolution did a better job with the eyes of the octopus and squid, which have the light sensing cells on the surface, where they should be. There is an underlying problem with the design argument, and most creationists probably aren’t aware of it. By assuming that living things have some sort of metaphysical purpose, they are intrinsically assuming what they want to prove. Purpose is a human concept. In the Universe, I maintain, things have no purpose; they just exist. Does an atom have any purpose? Does a rock? Does a star? Does an amoeba, plant or any living thing have a real external purpose? We could say that living things have the purpose of procreating, of creating more life. However, we must realize that this is just our viewpoint, our interpretation. Rocks, trees, people, and the Universe have no intrinsic purpose. We can create purpose for ourselves, and that is good, but it’s important to understand that purpose is a human construct. Thus when creationists begin their arguments by noting the design and purpose of nature, they are assuming what they want to prove. A basis for the creationism idea is the concept that humans are at the center of the universe. The idea of God used to make sense, when people thought that the Earth was at the center of creation, and humans were the reason that there was an Earth and everything else. The Universe was much simpler then. The Earth was at the center, and above was the vast solid dome called the firmament. It contained the stars and held back the celestial waters. Above that were heaven and God. We now know that the Universe is almost unimaginably immense, complex, and ancient. It is the height of conceit for humans to believe that this whole Universe was made just for us. Our perspective has changed. We are no longer at the center of the Universe --- not our planet, not our star, and not even our galaxy. But do babies know this? Every baby knows that it is at the center of everything else. As people grow and mature, one of the big realizations is that they aren’t at the center. It is the same for our species; it is time for us to realize that we are not at the center either. It is also necessary to note that in order for creationism to be true, these areas of science would be largely false: evolutionary biology, cosmology, physics, paleontology, archeology, historical geology, zoology, botony, and biogeography, plus much of early human history. Studies have shown that most people say that they base their belief in God on the design argument. I think that that is why creationists are putting so much energy into promoting their view. They realise that if the design argument were to fall, people might have to rethink their belief in God. How about Morality? Some people say that we need an absolute morality, and that we all have a sense of morality. They say that the only possible source for this morality is God. I say that religious absolutists have no morals; what they have is a code of obedience, which is not the same. God sets what is supposedly moral, and they obey. If God were to say that murder and theft were moral, people would have to kill and steal to act morally. Actually, this is exactly what is happening with the suicide bombers in the Middle East. This is also what was behind the Crusades and the Inquisitions. The fact that we find this so abhorrent shows that morality does not come from a god. True morality comes from basic human kindness. God fails the morality test. The main problem that religious absolutists face is where to get the word of their god or gods. They can get it from divine revelation or from supposedly "holy" books. Each of these sources faces a problem; how do we know that this is the true word of the god? I've already discussed revelation, so let's look at the idea of a holy book. I am most familiar with the Christian Bible, so that's what I'll address. The Bible is touted by many as a source of ultimate knowledge and morality. It is said to be God’s words to humankind. Have you ever read it? It contradicts itself in many places, is often difficult or impossible to interpret, and is largely simply boring. It even contains two very different sets of Ten Commandments and two sets of ancestors for Jesus. Some of the Bible looks to me like it was written under the influence of hallucinogens. It has the supposed histories of many rapes, slaughters, and other mass killings, most of them apparently condoned by God. They even note how the pregnant women were sliced open – so much for God being against abortion. In one story that you all know, God drowns almost everyone and everything on the planet because he doesn’t like the activities of some of the people in his creation. How can that be the action of a loving god? God seems to be more of a schizophrenic mass murderer than a paragon of moral virtue, and Satan comes off as the good guy. After all, how many people did Satan kill? For those of you who think that morality should come from the Christian Bible, I ask, “What do you think about slavery and child abuse?” Not once in the entire Bible is slavery or child abuse condemned, not even in the writings about Jesus. In fact both are condoned in many places; even Jesus had recommendations about beating and killing slaves. I would bet that any one of you could do a better job of defining morals than what is in the Christian Bible. The Bible fails the morality test. Jesus died for our sins. This is one of the primary moral points of Christianity, and it is formally known as substitutive sacrifice. It was practiced by many ancient religions, when they burned sacrificial animals on the altar. What kind of morality is this? When we look at other ancient cultures sacrificing animals or humans, we call it barbaric and primitive. It makes no difference if the person being sacrificed agrees; it is still blatantly immoral. Using religion as a source for morality completely collapses when we look at religious positions now and in history. There are religious people with different positions on such moral issues as the death penalty, abortion, and women’s rights. How can this be, if they all get the same divine words from God? Racism, misogyny, and slavery were once considered perfectly moral by large portions of humankind, and were seen as having a religious basis. Also, the killings done in the name of God, by most religions, are legendary. Thus religion cannot give us the answers to these moral issues. Our culture has changed, along with our laws, and these evils are no longer acceptable in modern society. Morality is a social and legal construct, not a religious one. God and religion both fail the morality litmus test. I think that most people begin their belief in God because something or someone said that God exists. This is called the “argument from authority.” We just discussed the Bible as one of these sources. There are other sources for other religions, such as the Koran for the Muslims. What does it mean, when we believe something based on an authority? It means that we are taking something or someone else’s words as truth. We all do this for most subjects, because we can’t be experts on everything. Our first authorities are the people who raise us. This is because we are born with no innate knowledge of the world, and have to learn it from scratch. We soon start learning from other sources, such as friends, teachers, books and other written material. As we learn, we develop a map in our minds of what the world is like. This map becomes a truth filter. When we look at a new idea, we typically compare it to the mental map that we have. If the idea fits well in the map, we can add it. If the idea doesn’t fit, we have a problem. We must either throw out the idea, or make a change to the map. Change is difficult and often painful, so most people tend to throw out ideas that don’t fit their mental map. When we use someone or something as an authority, we often bypass the comparison process, and plug the new ideas directly into the map. This can save us a lot of mental work. However, it also opens us to believing in things and ideas that aren’t true. Since we can’t be experts on everything, we thus have a problem -- what and whom can we implicitly believe? For me, since I want my mental map to be as accurate as possible, I have chosen the methods of science and reason as my ultimate authority. Science and reason have been shown to be the best predictors of how the world functions. Science and reason aren’t perfect, but they are self-correcting. Other sources of authority are too prone to misinformation Part 3 Let's take a look at the historical veracity of the Bible. People say that archeological evidence shows that some places and people mentioned in the Bible really existed, therefore the Bible is true. This is like saying that "Gone With the Wind" is true because the Civil War actually accurred. Let's look at one biblical person -- King Herod the Great, who ruled from 39 - 4 BCE. His supposed slaughter of the innocents is not mentioned by any historian, and is thus a complete fabrication. Now let’s look at prophesy and miracles. I am continually astounded at just how little evidence people are willing to accept for proof of these. Prophesies that did come true are often easy to explain, once you understand that it’s easy to predict something if it has already occurred, or that actions were done merely to fulfill prophesy, or that events or prophesies were fabricated. There are also many prophesies that haven’t come true. As for religious miracles, the evidence is so slim that they should be relegated to hearsay. As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. With this in mind, which is more likely, that the prophesies and miracles actually occurred, or that they are just stories? Let’s consider one well-known miracle, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. First, there is absolutely no verifiable evidence that he ever even lived. Second, even if he did exist, there is absolutely no verifiable evidence that he actually died on the cross. This makes Jesus’ supposed ‘resurrection’ much more possible in a purely natural sense. Now, let’s look at religious faith. What is faith? It is the firm belief in something for which no proof exists. As Mark Twain once said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." If you have faith, you don’t need proof. If you have proof, you don’t need faith. Therefore, any attempt to use faith as a basis for proof is intrinsically doomed to failure. A recent example of absolute faith and its possible consequences can illustrate the objective failures of religious faith. I ask you, on September 11, 2001, whose faith was the most effective? I say that it was the suicidal pilots of those three planes that crashed into the buildings. If you believe in the primacy of religious faith, there is no way to differentiate between yours and theirs, for it is all purely subjective. Religious faith fails as a proof for God. How about logical arguments? Let’s look at a proof for God that relies on reason alone. It is called the ontological argument, and it basically says that God exists because we can conceive of God. One of the characteristics of God is existence; therefore, God exists. This argument is so obtuse that it’s ridiculous. It is just confusion between the existence of ideas and the existence of real things. There are some people who claim that God is the source of logic, therefore we can't even use logic without presupposing the existence of God. They say that logic can't be created from unformed matter; therefore God formed the matter and created logic. This argument is known as presuppositionalist, or the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God. The names are fancy, and my response is simple. Logic is a pattern of thinking, and patterns can emerge from simple rules. There are many examples of complex patterns coming out of simple rules, such as snowflakes and waves forming. There is nothing in our everyday experience that indicates that some higher power is necessary for these patterns, and there is nothing that proves that a god is necessary for the patterns we call logic. Additionally, the presuppositionalist argument gives little indication as to the qualities of the god it presupposes - much like the first cause argument. The argument is just another way of answering a supposedly difficult question with the simple response, “God did it.” If anything is not logical, it is most religions. I am most familiar with Christianity, so let's look at its basic claims: A supernatural god exists that created everything and intervenes in the natural world. This god had a son that was born of a virgin. This son did many miracles, including making a dead person alive again. This son was killed, and came back to life two (not three) days later. There is not any empirical, verifiable evidence for any of this. There is also much experience from everyday life that virgins can't get pregnant (without modern medicine) and that people who have been dead for a while can't come back to life. Thus I call belief in the above claims illogical. There is an argument for belief in God that is called Pascal’s Wager, named for Blaise Pascal who conceived it. The argument goes like this: Either there is a god or there isn’t. If you believe in God, and God exists, then you win big time and go to heaven. If you don’t believe in God, and God exists, you lose big time and go to hell. If there is no god, then you haven’t lost much by believing. So the obvious choice is to believe in God, because it’s the best bet. Pascal’s Wager has several faults. The biggest problem is that it’s not a proof of any god’s existence; it’s just an argument for believing, a method of extorting the gullible thru fear. Like many other such arguments we have discussed, it also fails to denote exactly which god it refers to. Pascal’s Wager could be applied to any god that offers rewards and punishments. Taken to extreme, following the wager would necessitate betting on the god with the worst hell, so it could be avoided. Another problem with Pascal’s Wager is that it completely ignores intellectual integrity. As an example, let’s talk about Santa Claus. Don’t you have more respect for a child who figures out that Santa doesn’t exist, and says so, rather than continuing to lie so he can get more presents? I think that many people continue to believe in God because it gives them comfort; it’s an emotional response. It allows them to pray to God, and think that they’re actually accomplishing something. It gives them feelings of structure and meaning in their lives, and makes them feel connected. It makes the world black and white, less confusing, and easier to deal with. But, is this any actual proof for the existence of God? Is comfort a good indicator of the truth of external reality? I don’t think that it is. George Bernard Shaw said it best. "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality." This question about the existence of a god is not merely a philosophical exercise; it has pertinent applications to the world in which we live. I will talk about four areas – education, politics, medicine, and everyday life. In education, at the same time that we have a rise of religion in the U.S., the youth of America are scoring lower on scholastic tests. How can they learn to think rationally when they are taught such irrational concepts as creationism and invisible beings? Here are some disturbing statistics: 47% of Americans believe that the world is less than 10,000 years old. 40% think that we should teach just creationism in schools; and 68% think that we should teach creationism and evolution. 24% also think that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife! Belief in an omnipotent deity allows people to use sloppy logic. If they are faced with a difficult question about why an event occurred, all they have to say is “God did it.” Then the reason behind the event is a mystery. This is the old ‘god of the gaps’ answer, and it’s an intellectual cop-out. It answers nothing; it predicts nothing, and it teaches nothing. To counter this we must ensure that scientific naturalism is taught in our schools. As students understand better how the world works, their personal gods of the gaps will diminish. If we want to have a strong democracy, our students and future voters must understand the simple facts of the world around us, in order to make informed decisions. God bless America. We’ve all heard it countless times, especially from politicians. It is a very dangerous concept, for it can give us the arrogance and invulnerability of supposedly divine leadership where we can do no wrong. It can also give us the idea that we are blessed, and have the responsibility to impose our beliefs on other countries – whether they want us to or not. The Roman leaders used to require that every Roman citizen pray to the Roman gods, to ensure victory for their armies. There’s an old saying that goes like this: To the Romans, all religions were equally true. To the philosophers, all religions were equally false. To the politicians, all religions were equally useful. Does this sound familiar? Our politicians keep pulling God and religion into politics. In 1988 President Reagan established the National Day of Prayer. On March 27, 2003, House Resolution 153 passed by an overwhelming vote. It urges the President to issue a proclamation "designating a day for humility, prayer, and fasting for all people of the United States.” We are “to seek guidance from God to achieve a greater understanding of our own failings," and "to gain resolve in meeting the challenges that confront our nation." The Senate unanimously passed a similar bill. I say that we are becoming a de facto theocracy. Do you agree? [pause] Many religious and political leaders say that our freedoms and liberties come from God. I say that these freedoms did not exist until our government created them. If God is the source of freedom, why was there so little of it before our nation was formed? It’s important to remember that our nation was founded as the first country that derived its power from a purely secular, nonreligious basis. All nations before then had kings and queens who used their supposed "God-given divine right" to rule. Instead of this top-down power structure, our founders wisely created a government that derived its powers from the consent of the governed. They also realized the inherent divisiveness of religion, and kept it specifically out of our Constitution and government; God is not even mentioned in our Constitution. The Treaty of Tripoli, written during the administration of President George Washington, signed by President John Adams, and unanimously approved by the Senate, stated, "The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." How could we as a nation have forgotten such an important fact? [pause] Part 4 Let’s look at religion and medicine. Religious leaders have consistently come out against medical advances. Hundreds of years ago, they were against autopsies and medical use of cadavers for research. In the 1800’s Christians fought the use of anesthetics on the ground that suffering is God's will and therefore must be endured. This was particularly true for a woman’s pain during childbirth, because they could quote the Bible to support their position. Currently, some religious groups prohibit life-saving blood transfusions. Children die every year because their parents withhold medical treatment,trusting in God instead. Many religious leaders are preventing access to birth control, disease prevention, and information about sexuality. They act as though they would prefer to see people dying of disease and starvation, rather than allow the population to have forbidden products and information. Recently they have come out against very promising areas of medicine, such as fetal cell research, stem cell research, and therapeutic cloning. They have also convinced our government that these areas of research should be prohibited or severely limited. This has real implications for reducing the possible medical treatments available for each of us. Not all religions want this research limited; but many do, and they fail the medical test. Let’s look at God and everyday life. If there really were a personal god, the existence of this god would be an obvious fact in the universe. God would be reaching into events in the world, and bypassing the laws of physics to influence the outcomes. People who lost limbs might have them re-appear. Babies killed in fires might come back to life. Other true miracles would happen. I see none of this, and I would bet that no one else here does either. There is no reliable evidence of divine intervention. God fails the reality test of everyday life. What could an invisible, immaterial god be like? This immaterial god would have an immaterial mind, and the only minds that we have any examples of are results of physical brains. The only invisible, immaterial things that I know of are ideas, like mathematic, scientific and social concepts. Although ideas can be powerful in moving people to action, they are human creations and have no separate reality. If the Earth and humankind were to disappear tomorrow, so would ideas – including the idea of God. Ultimately though, it’s not necessary to prove that God doesn’t exist. It is up to the God believers to prove that their god or gods exist, for they are making the assertion of the existence of something that is not immediately visible. For example, if I were to claim that there is an invisible ten-foot tall pink unicorn in this room, and demand that you feed it, you could justifiably expect some sort of hard proof. The same concept of proof lies with those who claim that an invisible, immaterial god exists. Thus, even if all proofs of the nonexistence of God were to fail, it would still be necessary for theists to prove the actual existence of this god, if they expect us to take them seriously. Some people say that we can’t prove that the Christian god doesn’t exist, that we have to have absolute knowledge. This is wrong. Depending on how we define a god, it is possible to prove that it doesn’t exist, just like it is possible to prove that square circles don’t exist. The god of Abraham is typically defined as having free will, and being all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good and eternal. This sounds pretty good. Unfortunately these attributes are mutually exclusive and can’t all exist in one being, no matter how supernatural it is. God can’t have free will and be all-knowing and all-powerful. If God knows the future, God would be unable to change it, and thus could not have free will. As a simple example, let’s say that God declares what tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers will be, and writes them down. However, now God can’t change those numbers. God can’t both know the future and change it. God also can’t be both all-good and all-powerful, because terrible events really do occur, and this all-loving god hasn’t prevented them. This is known as the problem of evil, and I think that it is one of the biggest problems for those attempting to prove the existence of God. How can anybody explain the existence of a loving, all-powerful god, while also knowing the bad things that happen to all of us? The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus summed it up well when he wrote these ideas: Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can and does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world? And yet the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good god with free will won’t go away. So, here we are discussing this subject again. It’s good to remember that there have been over 2500 gods created by humankind. Monotheists don’t believe in all but one of them. Atheists don’t believe in just one more. The Atheist position is that the universe is understandable and explainable in the naturalistic terms of science and mathematics. There is no need or reliable evidence to show that any god or gods exist. Why Atheism and not Agnosticism? Many people say that there still could be a god, that we can’t totally disprove the existence of all types of gods. That is true, but common Agnosticism ends up splitting hairs and being intellectually lazy. We’ve seen that there is no evidence that any god exists, especially a personal god of the Christian/Jewish/Muslim type. This typical personal god would show up in its interactions with the real, physical world. As I said, there is no evidence of this. Thus, in this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. This leaves only marginal gods that have little or no interaction with humans' and the world. Do we think that the ancient Greek gods still exist? How about the Roman gods? How about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny? Of course not. There is no reliable evidence for any supernatural guy in a red suit, magic rabbit, or gods. Just like it’s theoretically possible for a ’57 Chevy to be orbiting Mars, some gods are also theoretically possible, but ridiculously improbable. So, let’s be honest with ourselves and look at the world with open eyes, as it actually is. Many religious people ask how Atheists can be happy without God. For me and for many Atheists I know, the realization of our Atheism has been extremely freeing and has opened us to our own happiness. Atheism gives us the ability to see the universe as it actually is, without the mental filters of dogmatism and superstition preventing us from directly experiencing it. Atheism allows us to experience our selves, without the debasing idea that we are innately sinful. Atheism gives us the freedom to think for ourselves, to construct our own meanings. Atheism allows us to experience true interpersonal love, without any supernatural intervention. Atheism lets us see that we have to make choices about our future. No big daddy god is going to protect us from bad decisions. Atheism teaches us to treasure this moment, this life, and this world - because we realize that it’s all we have. Most Atheists are also Secular Humanists. The philosophy of Secular Humanism takes the Atheist position and adds another layer. It declares that humans are most important, not any imaginary gods. We have the power, thru love, reason, science, courage, and vision, to solve our problems. We shape our destiny. We are each capable of personal development and satisfaction. Humanism holds as its highest goal the happiness, fulfillment, and freedom of all humankind. This has been a long and involved talk, so I would like to conclude with letting you know the bad news, and the good news. The bad news is that there is no god to watch over and care for us. The good news is that there is no hell, and we can all love and care for each other – if we so choose

[gameover]

This whole argument is meant to put down the over simplified, fairy-tale idea of God. Starting from the very first example with the penny's falling. Thats assuming you believe God is a Powerfull controller of the universe and not the universe itself. If the penny fell, then that was God's will, through you(or the speaker). So I find this whole thing pointless and bringing us right back to the beggining. Unless some of you out there believe in a God who creates people and puts them here, and creates floods, and tried to govern the universe as if he is a simple creature with insane powers. I jsut dont buy that. Most Atheists are also Secular Humanists. The philosophy of Secular Humanism takes the Atheist position and adds another layer. It declares that humans are most important, not any imaginary gods. We have the power, thru love, reason, science, courage, and vision, to solve our problems. We shape our destiny. We are each capable of personal development and satisfaction. Humanism holds as its highest goal the happiness, fulfillment, and freedom of all humankind. [/b] And THAT is how my vision of God fits in perfectly. Since we are all living breathing parts of God, than humans are important, and God, becasue in a sense we are one and the same. Only God is the sum of all things, and we are his parts.

[imported_Berserk_Exodus]

Back to the intelligent design theory is it. He stated that even the mention of an all powerful god in any form is self-defeating to the logical mind. If god created us then who created god. Of course there are some people (like you) that believe that the universe is god, but that is essentially the same thing as the Christian god because if god in fact created the universe then he would be part of it as well obviously.

[bradybaker]

Incredible article! I enjoyed myself to the fullest while reading it. Thanks. Only one thing I would change: I would argue that humans have no free will, all of our actions are predetermined by the natural physical laws we observe daily in this universe. Great Post!! Do you have a link to the actual article?

[Death-Wuad]

How do you define god?

[gameover]

If god created us then who created god.[/b] I dont believe God created us, or anyone created God. If god created us then who created god. Of course there are some people (like you) that believe that the universe is god,but that is essentially the same thing as the Christian god because if god in fact created the universe then he would be part of it as well obviously.[/b] God created himself? I dont believe that. How is that possible? He had to exist first to create himself. Which I dont believe "he" did. And I stand nowhere near Christianity. And saying that God is everything, its pretty easy to prove Gods existence. Do you believe that everything exists? I think of god as the summation of everything. The one and only everything. Not some being whos pointlessing designing things on some mad power trip. I don't "worship" God. I don't "praise" God. God is merely an abstract concept in relation to my experience...the ony thing I know exists.

[bradybaker]

I think of god as the summation of everything. The one and only everything. Not some being whos pointlessing designing things on some mad power trip. I don't \"worship\" God. I don't \"praise\" God. God is merely an abstract concept in relation to my experience...the ony thing I know exists.[/b] Well then find a new name for whatever you believe. God is already taken. That's like deciding to call a caterpillar a dog. It only leads to confusion.

[TheUnknown]

There had to be a catalyst for everything, that catalyist is God, atheists may not be able to prove there is a God, but they have not been able to prove there is not a God. Do what you want in life, its your life, you make the choices, in the end though, you'll find the truth, and I hope it turns out well for you.

[bradybaker]

There had to be a catalyst for everything, that catalyist is God, atheists may not be able to prove there is a God, but they have not been able to prove there is not a God. [/b] I believe that that topic was covered in the article. Please re-read.

[imported_Berserk_Exodus]

Originally posted by gameover If god created us then who created god. Of course there are some people (like you) that believe that the universe is god,but that is essentially the same thing as the Christian god because if god in fact created the universe then he would be part of it as well obviously. God created himself? I dont believe that. How is that possible? He had to exist first to create himself. Which I dont believe \"he\" did. And I stand nowhere near Christianity. And saying that God is everything, its pretty easy to prove Gods existence. Do you believe that everything exists? I think of god as the summation of everything. The one and only everything. Not some being whos pointlessing designing things on some mad power trip. I don't \"worship\" God. I don't \"praise\" God. God is merely an abstract concept in relation to my experience...the ony thing I know exists.[/b] Not what I meant at all. You said, "Since we are all living breathing parts of God, than humans are important, and God, becasue in a sense we are one and the same. Only God is the sum of all things, and we are his parts." I was implying that the "God" or the notion of "God" you believe in is essentially the same as the Christian god in which the universe is part of god itself. Most people fear the possibility of concioussness ending entirely but I do not think that it would be all that bad. If knowledge and concioussness causes suffering then death would surely be blissful. Anyways, the only way anyone can make any sure judgement about anything is to detach from the realm of prejudice, be that from the scientific community or the religious community. The world would be a better place without the notion of "God". We would be unified instead of fractured by differences in culture, a major one being the religion factor.

[gameover]

Well then find a new name for whatever you believe. God is already taken. That's like deciding to call a caterpillar a dog. It only leads to confusion.[/b] I beg to differ since everyone has a different definition of God. Some believe him to be a man-like being on a throne with a lot of powers...some believe him to be the collective conciousness....this is a word that has not been clearly labeled so as everyone has the same definition. Not by a long-shot. And my definition of God is not unique to me. It is not one I created for the hell of it. A caterpillar is certainly easily definable from our perspective. Language is not truth, but a means of attempting to communicate those truths. And anyways, if I call a caterpillar a dog, and let you know it, then there should be no problem because I have communicated myself properly. The world would be a better place without the notion of \"God\". We would be unified instead of fractured by differences in culture, a major one being the religion factor.[/b] You say this giving me no actual reason to believe it. Why would be suddenly unified? Our cultural differences will still prevail and our human nature would not change. Anyone who is killing in the name of God is a lunatic. I was implying that the \"God\" or the notion of \"God\" you believe in is essentially the same as the Christian god in which the universe is part of god itself. [/b] That doesn't come close to the description of God that Christians have. I dont believe there is a \"word of god\", and I dont beleive that God cares what choices he makes because he is infact making those choices through us. Enlighten me on this one. Where do Christians get thie notion that God is the summation of all things? I've talked read the bible, talked with christians, and been one myself. And maybe I missed it. Thats very likely. But everything I read about God in the bible shows a vengefull God, and a God with humanlike charactersitics. Far from my view of God. Most people fear the possibility of concioussness ending entirely but I do not think that it would be all that bad. If knowledge and concioussness causes suffering then death would surely be blissful. [/b] Death would not be blissfull, assuming you're saying death is nothingness. Bliss comes from existence. Death would be nothing. No happienss, no sadness, no caring, no anything. But I certainly wouldn't fear this outcome, though I dont believe it to be true. Hell..I wouldnt really care would I? How could I But energy can not be created or destroyed. Im not going to cease to exist. I will cease to exist in the same way that the 5 yr old boy that was once me, no longer exists. That boy is dead. He is nowhere to be found. THe energy is still there. But it has gone through transformations. I believe dying is an ultimate transformation, where the energy that was once held together now seprates. So with that, the me that you know will be dead. But my conciousness, now no longer a unit, would have no chocie but to continue existing. But it would not be like the conciousness we have now. It could not be. It is no longer contained into an orderly system. It is now spread out around the universe, for fractions of it to possibly exist in another being at some point. Of course this makes death an amazing experience that is quite difficult to imagine. So in a sense, yes, death will be the end of me. But in another sense..I will....no...forget I...my conciousness will still exist, but the ego you know as Gameover will be dead.

[Submerged]

this whole argument is null. You cant prove the existence of a god. The whole idea of the christian faith is just that, faith. Faith (in this context) is the belief of an idea without logical proof.

[Death-Wuad]

Well it doesn't hurt to talk about it . Discussing lucid dreams are null too because we have no proof they even happened, but we do it anyway and ignore such things.

[Submerged]

notreally a comparison,lucid dreams are an enjpyment thing whilst religonis so so much more than that (if you believe in religonanyways)

[bradybaker]

Originally posted by gameover But energy can not be created or destroyed. Im not going to cease to exist. Don't even think about trying to use the Law of Conservation of Energy to justify your idea of an afterlife. What energy are you talking about? I assume that you're talking about the idea of a soul, but in reality, the only energy that exists within us are the bonds between each and every one of our atoms. Now, as we learned in grade 9 science class, what happens when those bonds are broken? The energy is released, ususally as heat, or it takes the form of new bonds between different atoms. Will the energy that keeps you together (in a molecular sense) always exist? As far as we know, yes. Will the atoms that you're composed of always exist? For all practical purposes, yes (actually they wont, but thats a topic for another thread). But that process in no way justifies an afterlife in any sense.

[gameover]

I wasnt in any way proving an afterlife. I am saying that my conciousness will still exist, while my life will not. I do not believe in an afterlife. An afterlife implies that thier will be life after death. My conciousness will exist. But I do not believe that "I" will exist. My conciousness will change so durastically you wouldnt even recognize it as any sort of being.

[bradybaker]

gameover, you haven't explained your position very clearly, what exactly is you "conciousness" changing into? Also, do you believe that you will be aware of this new form?

[gameover]

Ok let me attempt to explain this. Ill start with an old analogy. Picture a bucket of water. The water represents conciousness. Now picture a hand slapping that water causing several drops of water to come out of the bucket. Think of these drops of water as a person or order of conciousness, enjoying its moments of seperation and having a feeling of self. An ego. Now when this water falls back down and reaches the water again, the ego dies, the unit no longer existing and melting with the rest of the water. In essence that being is now dead. But the conciousness is still there. It's just no longer contained within one being. All of conciousness has always existed and always will, as far as I can see. The conciosuness that makes up me, is an accumulation of conciousness that may have been parts of other beings and entities. So the theory of reincarnation, where the same conciousness continues to experience another life, I find a bit ridiculous. Or maybe better put, a bit oversimplified. What is holding the coincuousness together after death? What's is to keep it from flowing freely? I'm gonna try explaining this another way, to ensure I'm understood. Keep in mind this is just a visual example. Picture 100 "conciousness particels"(cp's) that make up Joe. Now picture a massive pool cp's. Now lets say Joe dies, and his cp's, no longer held together by structure, mix back in with the pool. Now lets say a baby, jim, starts growing in the womb, after conception, and conciousness slowly enters his being. He may have 1 cp that was once Jim, and another baby might have another cp from jim, and maybe even a frog somewhere. Jim is dead, but his conciousness is still alive. I hope I explained myself a little better this time.

[Je33ica]

Originally posted by Berserk_Exodus OK. Let’s start with a quick experiment. [Hold out your hand with a penny in it. Show it to the audience. Let it fall. Do this again. Hold out a third penny.] If I were to do this again, what do you think would happen? If we could get ten good Christians to pray that the next penny wouldn’t fall, would it still fall? How about one thousand Muslims? How about one billion people of any faith? I think that it would still fall. [Drop the third penny.] Our understanding of the world around us, and our abilities to predict what will happen are based on naturalism – the basis of science. Naturalism is how all people live their lives most of the time. Satin tempted Jesus in the desert (40 days 40 nights/Lent) to jump off a cliff, for the angels of God would save him. Jesus said that we should never test God's powers. Hence, we shouldn't test his powers by dropping a penny and commanding God not to let it fall. Here's a story involving, instead of a penny, a piece of chalk and an Athesist professor: This is a true story of something that happened just a few years ago at USC. There was a professor of philosophy there who was a deeply committed atheist. His primary goal for one required class was to spend the entire semester attempting to prove that God couldn't exist. His students were always afraid to argue with him because of his impeccable logic. For twenty years, he had taught this class and no one had ever had the courage to go against him. Sure, some had argued in class at times, but no one had ever 'really gone against him' (you'll see what I mean later). Nobody would go against him because he had a reputation. At the end of every semester, on the last day, he would say to his class of 300 students, \"If there anyone here who still believes in Jesus, stand up!\" In twenty years, no one had ever stood up. They knew what he was going to do next. He would say, \"because anyone who does believe in God is a fool. If God existed, he could stop this piece of chalk from hitting the ground and breaking. Such a simple task to prove that he is God, and yet he can't do it.\" And every year, he would drop the chalk onto the tile floor of the classroom and it would shatter into a hundred pieces. The students could do nothing but stop and stare. Most of the students were convinced that God couldn't exist. Certainly, a number of Christians had slipped through, but for 20 years, they had been too afraid to stand up. Well, a few years ago, there was a freshman who happened to get enrolled in the class. He was a Christian, and had heard the stories about this professor. He had to take the class because it was one of the required classes for his major and he was afraid. But for 3 months that semester, he prayed every morning that he would have the courage to stand up no matter what the professor said or what the class thought. Nothing they said or did could ever shatter his faith, he hoped. Finally the day came. The professor said, \"If there is anyone here who still believes in God, stand up!\" The professor and the class of 300 people looked at him, shocked, as he stood up at the back of the classroom. The professor shouted, \"You FOOL!! If God existed, he could keep this piece of chalk from breaking when it hit the ground!\" He proceeded to drop the chalk, but as he did, it slipped out of his fingers, off his shirt cuff, onto the pleats of his pants, down his leg, and off his shoe. As it hit the ground, it simply rolled away, unbroken. The professor's jaw dropped as he stared at the chalk. He looked up at the young man and then ran out of the lecture hall. The young man who had stood up proceeded to walk to the front of the room and share his faith in Jesus for the next half hour. 300 students stayed and listened as he told of God's love for them and of his power through Jesus.[/b]

[OrangeStar]

That was a very enjoyable and interesting article, thanks for posting it! Personally, I am an atheist. But my favorite feature about myself is that Im very open minded. If someone could prove to me the existence of "souls" "God" or anything in that category, then I would believe it. I am not a very confident atheist. What I mean is that I know there isnt a god, but Im not completely convinced that we dont have souls or some kind of energy that is left over after we are dead. Maybe I just watch to many horror movies and read to many scary stories, but I kind of believe in ghosts. There is evidence to support ghosts and evidence against it, so I dont really have a set view on the subject. Now that Im done rambling, I just want to ask what you guys think happens when we die. Do we just blink out? or does something live on in a way?

[bradybaker]

Originally posted by Je33icaLy88 Satin tempted Jesus in the desert (40 days 40 nights/Lent) to jump off a cliff, for the angels of God would save him. Jesus said that we should never test God's powers. I've said it before, and i'll say it again, the bible was not written by people trying to record history, it was written by people trying to convert others to Christianity. That like getting the head of marketing for Coca-Cola and asking him to tell you what the best brand of cola is. As for your little story, how does that in any way prove the existence of God? 1) I doubt it's even true. 2) Even if it is true, it's a simple coincidence, nothing "miraculous" happened there. gameover: You operate under the assumption that conciousness is some sort of deep, innate characteristic of the universe. Sort of like "the Force" in Star Wars. A much more simple and scientifically sound explanation of conciousness is that its simply an emergent property of the complex neural network within our brain. I actually read an article on it in Scientific American a while ago...if I can find it I'll post it.

[gameover]

gameover: You operate under the assumption that conciousness is some sort of deep, innate characteristic of the universe. Sort of like \"the Force\" in Star Wars. A much more simple and scientifically sound explanation of conciousness is that its simply an emergent property of the complex neural network within our brain.[/b] And you operate under the assumption that conciosuness is an emergant property of a neural network within our brain, without explanantion. Why would we be concious, just because of a brain? Do you believe computers are concious because of thier complex circutry? The brain is a like a hihgly sophisticated machine for processing information and making decisions. But conciousness is why we experience it. Otherwise, we'd just be robots but no-one would experiecne anything.

[bradybaker]

Originally posted by gameover+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gameover)</div> Why would we be concious, just because of a brain?[/b] Yes. <!--QuoteBegin-gameover Do you believe computers are concious because of thier complex circutry? If their complex circuitry were about a billion times more complex, then yes, I believe that they would be concious. And don't confuse conciousness with self-awareness, all animals are concious, conciousness is a physical state of mind. As for self-awareness, that isn't a trait that is unique to humans. Dolphins and some other primates are self-aware.

[imported_Berserk_Exodus]

And why should being concious make us "special"? Mainly, usually, the only way you can prove anything that can't be known is by going off of something that can. At least these hard-line, stubborn atheists have a basis to work upon.

[gameover]

If their complex circuitry were about a billion times more complex, then yes, I believe that they would be concious. [/b] Do you have any basis for this belief, or just the statement that you believe it? And don't confuse conciousness with self-awareness[/b] I don't, I didn't, and I wont. I never said conciousness has anything to do with self-awareness. Ever. WHere did that even come from, Im curious? Coinciousness is the very center of our being. The observer of our our thoughts and actions. Not the direct cause of these thoughts and actions. As for self-awareness, that isn't a trait that is unique to humans. Dolphins and some other primates are self-aware.[/b] You're right. But how, remind me agian, did we got on the topic of self-awareness? ***edit And why should being concious make us \"special\"? [/b] Special is not a measurable quality in the iniverse. It comes from within peopes minds. So someone might find conciosuness \"special\" but we couldnbt really argue it. It's a statement of how one feels. Mainly, usually, the only way you can prove anything that can't be known is by going off of something that can. [/b] Could you explain that? WHat do you mean, \"by going off of something that can\"? At least these hard-line, stubborn atheists have a basis to work upon.[/b] Every belief structure has a "basis" to work upon