If Hitchen's challenge is correct, then why are there ethical lapses?

[BenVTrigger]

Jay520 said:

BenVTrigger said:

This post is not even remotly true.  And can be easily swept away with a simple thought experiment.

Imagine you decide to make a drawing.  You draw a big picture with a couple people in it, a house, some birds etc.  You just created your own "world" and Creatures inside of it.  Now if the figures in the drawing were capable of thought and speech and they looked around the drawing and saw all this creation but did not observe you within the drawing they might say to themselves "Look at this amazing drawing! It must have drawn itself since we cant see an artist!"

You exist OUTSIDE of your creation, not within it.  In fact this is true of everything.  If you paint a picture, if you build a sculpture, or design a video game.  In every case you yourself exist wholly seperate from the creation.  The entire point atheism makes about god cant be real because you cant observe him defies both logic and science.  Whatever created the Universe would never exist inside it.

I will play your game. But just so you know, we aren't talking about atheism in general. Atheism is not about saying the universe created itself. You're talking about subset of atheism.

Anyway, this is easy. Sure, you can call it absurd that something can create itself. Fine, I wouldn't argue with it. BUT religion claims the same thing - God created itself too! At this point the two are on equal ground. You can't say either is more absurd because both make the claim that an entity can create itself.

The thing that makes religion worse is the fact that it assumes an extra entity. The other one does not.

Here, let me map out the assumptions for you.

Theory A:
- The Universe exists
- Something can create itself

Theory B:
- The Universe exists
- God exists
- Something can create itself

Both A & B make some bold assumptions. But which is the bigger assumption*? Hmm.....

*Hint: It's the one that makes more assumptions

No not really.  The Universe obeys by its own laws.  Just like the figures in the drawing do.  No where in the known Universe do we see examples of creation out of wholly nothing.  It has laws.  Just like the figures in the drawing couldnt suddenly become 3 dimensional beings or jump out of the paper.  One law we observe in the universe is matter is pretty much a constant and cant just self create itself.

A God however would exist outside of the Universe and wouldnt have to obey by its laws.  Just like you yourself can be 3 dimensional and capable of things your 2 dimensional drawings could never imagine as being real.  The belief the Universe created itself also hinges on the belief that from chaos naturally things gain order, another non observable trait that defies known science and logic.