Tag Archive for: Michael Shermer

The Fire-Breathing Dragon in The Garage vs God

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In the year 2018 the debate “What Best Explains Reality: Theism or Atheism? (Frank Turek vs. Michael Shermer)” took place. Frank presented his case for the existence of God as the best explanation for some facts about reality, such as the origin and fine-tuned of the universe and the objective moral values and duties. One of Shermer’s arguments to demonstrate the deficiency of the hypothesis of God was to present the famous analogy of “The Dragon in The Garage”, used for the first time by Carl Sagan in his book The Demon-Haunted World.

This is the original analogy:

Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely, you’d want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

“Show me,” you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle–but no dragon.

“Where’s the dragon?” you ask.

“Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely. “I neglected to mention that she’s an invisible dragon.” 

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon’s footprints.

“Good idea,” I say, “but this dragon floats in the air.”

Then you’ll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

“Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.”

You’ll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

“Good idea, but she’s an incorporeal dragon and the paint won’t stick.”

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won’t work.

Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

Shermer’s version has some variants to ridicule Frank’s stance on the existence of God as an explanation of the origin of the universe, the objective moral values, ​​and duties and the fine-tuning of the universe. The main objective of Shermer is to prove that the existence of God is impossible to refute in the same way that theists can’t refute the existence of the dragon in the garage. But is this a good argument? Not really. Let me explain why.

The first thing that Shermer wants us to believe using Sagan’s analogy is that the properties of God that the theists attribute to him are mere gratuitous affirmations without any evidence. Here Shermer has in mind the revealed theology, those attributes that we know that God possesses through his word revealed to us. But in the debate with Frank one does not affirm the attributes of God as in the case of the dragon in the garage. And although it is not necessary, let me compare the fire-breathing dragon and God with their respective attributes.

The case for the Fire-Breathing Dragon in The Garage

Invisibility. This attribute is granted without any evidence.

Floating in the air. Neither is inferred based on any evidence.

Cold Fire. Like the previous ones, there is no argument to attribute this property to the dragon; moreover, the property is self-contradictory.

Immateriality. Zero arguments, and like cold fire-breathing, this is a contradictory property of a dragon. For a dragon to be a dragon, it must have a body with certain essential properties of a dragon, it can’t be incorporeal.

The case for God

Creator, metaphysically necessary, self-existent. These attributes are inferred through the argument of contingent beings and the ontological argument.

Transcendent, personal cause, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, non-spatial, immaterial, extremely powerful. These attributes are required given the nature of a cause that transcends the universe and through the cosmological kalam argument.

Designer and extremely intelligent. These attributes are inferred by the fine-tuning argument of the universe.

Perfectly good whose nature is the standard of goodness and whose mandates constitute our moral duties. And this last attribute is concluded through the moral argument.

As we can see, the fire-breathing dragon is completely deficient in comparison to God.

Shermer also qualifies the hypothesis of God as a fallacy of the special pleading, but we have seen with this comparison that this is not the case. No serious apologist in a debate intends to refute the objections against the arguments in favor of the existence of God affirming that the atheist can’t understand the properties of God as the best explanation to some facts of reality.

Another important point is that Shermer also uses the dragon in the garage as a parody of God as an explanation to the following facts about reality: the absolute origin of the universe, fine-tuning, and the foundation for objective moral values ​​and duties. But his parody fails miserably for two reasons: the first is, as we have already seen, that some of the attributes that the fire-breathing dragon possesses are self-contradictory, more than enough reason to determine that such a dragon is impossible to exist. Second, for the sake of argument, I will be very kind in modifying the dragon by removing all its contradictory properties and adding the property of omnipotence. Can the dragon be the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe being that it has enough power to bring the universe to exist? ¡Of course not! An essential property of the dragon is that it has to be material/corporeal/physical, without that property it would cease to be a dragon. But if our version of the omnipotent dragon is corporeal, if it is a physical being, then it can’t be the cause of the origin of the universe, because one of the properties that the transcendent cause must have is to be immaterial, it can’t be material because matter arrives at existence with the origin of the universe. The same goes to be the foundation of the objective moral values ​​and duties, our dragon can’t be eternal, it had to come to exist together with the universe, therefore, it is contingent, and no contingent being can be the foundation for the objectivity of morality.

Conclusion

We have seen that the analogy of the fire-breathing dragon in the garage as presented by Michael Shermer as an argument against the hypothesis of God is deficient for four reasons:

  1. Thanks to the contradictory properties of the dragon in the garage, we can affirm that its existence is impossible.
  2. The properties of God are inferred using deductive arguments, which does not happen with the fire-breathing dragon.
  3. Defend the properties of the dragon in the way Shermer presented, surely it is to commit the fallacy of special pleading, but it is not in the case of God.

Even if we were to grant the Dragon possible existence by removing its contradictory properties, it would fail to be the transcendent cause of the absolute origin of the universe.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback), and (Sermon) by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek

God’s Crime Scene: Cold-Case…Evidence for a Divinely Created Universe (Paperback), (Mp4 Download), and (DVD Set) by J. Warner Wallace

God’s Crime Scene: The Case for God’s Existence from the Appearance of Design (mp4 Download Set) by J. Warner Wallace 

God’s Crime Scene: The Case for God’s Existence from the Appearance of Design in Biology DVD Set by J. Warner Wallace What is God Like? Look to the Heavens by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Jairo Izquierdo is an author and Community Manager for the Christian organization Cross Examined. He studies philosophy and theology, his current focus of study being classical logic, epistemology and molinism. He is co-founder of Filósofo Cristiano and editor at World View Media. Jairo resides in Puebla, Mexico and is an active member of Cristo es la Respuesta Church.

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My Discussion with Dr. Michael Shermer on God and Evil

J. Brian Huffling Discussion with Dr. Michael Shermer on God and Evil

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By J. Brian Huffling

Having seen Dr. Michael Shermer debate many times, I was excited to be able to get a chance to have a discussion with him. Shermer, the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, accepted Southern Evangelical Seminary‘s invitation to have an informal, but moderated, discussion with me on the topic, “Is the Reality of Evil Good Evidence against the Christian God?” This discussion was the culmination of a mini-conference on the problem of evil at SES. He was a delight to have, and the event was a blast.

My Discussion with Dr. Michael Shermer on God and Evil

I am not going to recount the whole debate. I am simply going to discuss some of the most important points and issues. (For those interested, Michael has a podcast of the debate/issue.)

What is ‘Evil’?

Michael was asked by the moderator, Adam Tucker (his thoughts on the discussion are here), to define what he meant by ‘evil.’ He said that evil is the intentional harm of a sentient being. There is no such thing, he said, of an entity that is evil, such as evil spirits, or anything that is pure evil.

I largely agree. Following Augustine, I hold that evil is simply the privation of good. In other words, evil is the corruption of a good thing. The classic example is blindness in the eye. The eye should have a certain power (sight) that it does not. It is lacking and is corrupted. Thus, it is physically evil. Then there is a moral evil. This happens when a person lacks virtues. Overall, though, Michael and I basically agree on what evil is and that there is no existing thing that is pure evil. For Christians, to exist is to somehow be like God, which is good. Further, following Aquinas, good seeks its perfection. Thus, there is a contradiction with an existing evil. Evil really has no goal or purpose in itself. Thus, an existing thing that is somehow good since it has being (in a sense like God) and that seeks its perfection cannot be pure evil.

At this point, we discussed the problem of evil and what it is exactly.

The Problem of Evil Briefly Stated

There are basically 2 forms of the problem of evil: the deductive form and the inductive form. The deductive form is also called the logical argument from evil and argues that the co-existence of the classical view of God and evil are logically impossible. This is the argument Michael used (from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy):

  1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
  2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
  3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
  4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
  5. Evil exists.
  6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.
  7. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

This argument makes several assumptions. The most problematic in my view is that God is morally perfect. Many, if not most, Christian theologians take it for granted that God is morally perfect. However, I would argue that God is not the kind of being to be moral. That is not to say he is not good; he is just not morally good. I have written that God is not a moral being. I have also written that God’s goodness does not depend on what he does, but what he is. How does this relate to the problem of evil? If it is indeed the case that God is not a moral being with obligations to man, it makes all the difference in the world. I will not rewrite the articles above on God, morality, and goodness. I will summarize those positions here as they relate to the problem of evil.

As I said in the debate, J. L. Mackie, a notorious atheist of the twentieth century, said that if one gives up a premise in the problem of evil as just laid out, then the problem doesn’t arise (see The Problem of Evil edited by Adams and Adams, page 1). This is exactly what I said we need to do. There are certain assertions/assumptions that have to be made in order for this argument (the problem of evil) to work. I argue that the assertion that God is a morally perfect being is false. If we take that out of the problem, the problem falls.

I am not suggesting this simply to get out of this argument. There are really good reasons for not thinking that God is a moral being, at least in the sense we normally mean when referring to humans being moral. When we say a person is moral, we mean that he behaves well and as he should. In other words, there is a prescribed way in which men are supposed to behave. If they do, they are moral. If they don’t, they are immoral.

I am arguing that God has no prescribed way in which he should behave. There are no obligations imposing on God. God transcends the category of morality like he transcends time and space. Morality is a created category wrapped up in what it means to be a human. Without created beings to live up to some objective standard that God has created him to live up to, there is no moral law.

If this is correct, then God is not a moral being and thus cannot be a morally perfect being. But this is the linchpin of the logical problem of evil as Michael has argued. Once this assertion is removed, as Mackie says, there simply is no logical problem of evil. There is no contradiction with an omnipotent, omniscient being existing alongside of evil. Thus, the problem of evil does not even arise.

All of this is to say that God has no obligation to how he orchestrates the universe. To say that God is morally obligated means that he has to treat his creation in a certain way. This is the basic thrust of the problem of evil. To put it another way, as Michael did at one point, the problem of evil boils down to this: “If God really does exist I would expect the universe to be different/better.” The assumption here is that God should operate the way we think he should. He doesn’t. The inference is that he doesn’t exist.

Again, if we take away the assumption/assertion that God is morally perfect then the problem of evil not only fails, it never gets off the ground. (Please remember we are talking about the academic/philosophical issue of evil and not the emotional/pastoral concern.)

This is not to say God is not good; he is just not morally good. He is metaphysically good and perfect. Given our definition of evil, this just means God lacks nothing. His existence is perfect and cannot be corrupted.

The story of Job illustrates my point that God is not obligated to treat his creatures in any certain way. In the opening chapters of Job God basically dares Satan to attack Job. God maintains to Satan that Job will not curse him (God). Satan agrees. The only caveat is that Satan cannot touch Job. Job’s family (except his wife) is killed, and he loses all of his many possessions. Yet he does not curse God. God gives Satan another chance, but this time Satan can inflict Job with disease; although he cannot kill him. Job is inflicted with sores and physical issues. Still, he does not curse God.

Job’s friends show up and stay with Job, silent, for a week. For many chapters after this Job’s friends argue about what Job did to bring this judgment upon him. They maintain that God would not do this without some (just) cause. Job maintained his innocence and wanted to take God to court and try him for being unjust.

At the end of the book, God shows up. Does he try to explain to Job why he did what he did? Does he offer a theodicy or defense for his actions? No. He basically asks Job where he was when God made all of the wonders of the world. Job cannot answer and repents. In short, God does not try to get off the hook, as it were. Rather he says, “I’m God, and you are not.”

I think this illustrates my point that God does not have to act in any certain way with his people. He is not unjust in dealing with Job the way he did. However, let’s put a human in the place of God and Satan in this story. If a human did to Job what God and Satan did, we would almost certainly say the human would be unjust. However, we would not, presumably, say that God is unjust. Why? Because he’s God. There is no standard by which to judge him. God transcends morality and yet is still perfectly good.

Philosophy vs. Science

This above point is one that I could not get Michael to acknowledge. He did not want to stray from his scientific position. (By ‘scientific’ I mean the modern sense of the word to refer to the natural sciences like biology and chemistry. This should be contrasted with the historical sense of a discipline’s conclusions being demonstrated via first principles and logic. In this latter sense, philosophy and theology were considered sciences.) This is unfortunate because the issues of God and evil are inherently philosophical. As I have written, natural science alone cannot demonstrate God’s existence. Thus, to adequately deal with the issues of the discussion we have to delve into philosophy. Michael would have none of it.

Michael’s main point here is that if God is not measurable, then we can’t know he exists. As I pointed out this is a category mistake as God is not a material being. Thus, even if he did exist, we could not measure him–which Michael acknowledged.

Throughout the debate, Michael approached the issue from the point of view of natural science. I approached it from philosophy. In short, the questions of God’s existence and evil cannot be decided by natural science since they are not physical things in the natural world to be studied: God is not a being in nature and evil is a description of the nature of being (a philosophical concept).

Michael offered a lot of red herrings. I will not deal with those here as they are, well, red herrings.

Conclusion

The problem of evil is not a problem concerning God’s existence if God is not a moral being. Further, questions of God’s existence and evil are inherently philosophical. If you are interested in this topic, I recommend Brian Davies’ The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil.

 

J. Brian Huffling, PH.D. have a BA in History from Lee University, an MA in (3 majors) Apologetics, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies from Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion from SES. He is the Director of the Ph.D. Program and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology at SES. He also teaches courses for Apologia Online Academy. He has previously taught at The Art Institute of Charlotte. He has served in the Marines, Navy, and is currently a reserve chaplain in the Air Force at Maxwell Air Force Base. His hobbies include golf, backyard astronomy, martial arts, and guitar.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2v4rTNa

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Debate Frank Michael Reality

When Debating Atheists: Those Who Lack A Belief Lack An Argument

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I just had a two hour plus debate with Dr. Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic Magazine, on the question: “What better explains reality:  Theism or Atheism?”  Given the title of the debate, both of us had the burden of proof to detect the cause (or causes) for certain effects we all see. That’s what scientists, philosophers, and investigators do—they observe effects and attempt to discover their causes. Since science is a search for causes, I thought Dr. Shermer, who writes for Scientific American each month, would posit adequate causes for reality in this debate.  He didn’t.

But before I unpack where I think Michael went wrong, I want to commend him for his kind manner and for agreeing to engage in cross-examination. So many formal debates are nothing but dueling speeches where the two debaters never interact and can, therefore, ignore each other’s points.  This debate was not like that.  After we each gave 20-minute opening statements, the hour after that was a spirited back and forth, first between us, and then between us and the audience.  (We then took it to a restaurant where my friends Oleg and Karina treated us to the best steaks we ever had!)

In my opening statement, I gave evidence to support my conclusion that six major effects comprising reality—presented with the acrostic CRIMES—are better explained by God, and, in fact, wouldn’t exist unless God existed. I started with the most obvious effect that needs to be explained:  the Creation and fine-tuning of the universe itself.   Then I moved on to our ability to Reason, the Information found in the genome of living things, objective Moral values and obligations, the existence of Evil, and an orderly natural world that allows us to do Science. (If you want more detail than a 20-minute statement, there is a chapter on each of the CRIMES in my book Stealing from God: Why atheists need God to make their case.).

In his opening statement, Dr. Shermer assumed he didn’t have any burden of proof.  Instead of giving evidence how reality could be explained by causes other than God, he just claimed that science is superior and would one day find naturalistic causes for CRIMES.  But that claim is, ironically, a faith position. In fact, it is a blind faith position because it’s impossible in principle to find a natural cause for each of the CRIMES.

Consider Creation.  If the entire natural world (space-time and matter) had a beginning as most atheists admit, then the cause can’t be part of the natural world but must transcend it. The cause of nature must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful to create the universe out of nothing, and personal and intelligent in order to choose to create. In other words, we’ll never find a natural cause for all of nature.  Whatever created nature must be beyond nature (which is what the word “supernatural” means).

The rest of the CRIMES are not subject to the scientific method either, which means, despite Dr. Shermer’s charge, they are not “God of the gaps” arguments that can one day be overturned by some future scientific discovery. For example, we’re never going to find the cause of orderly natural laws or our ability to reason—including the laws of logic and the laws of mathematics—by running some kind of experiment.  We must assume those laws in order to do the experiment!  In other words, science is built on metaphysical principles that can’t be explained by science—they are needed to do science.

Objective moral obligations can’t be explained through science or materialism either.  If there is no God and we are all just moist robots dancing to our DNA (as Richard Dawkins put it), then how does a materialist explain the fact that love is objectively better than hate?  You can’t explain that running an experiment or by appealing to mere molecules in motion.

Dr. Shermer didn’t even try.  Instead, he shifted the problem by talking about how we know what’s right rather than explaining how an objective standard of rightness exists in the first place.  (This is a common and illicit move by atheists: they want to focus on epistemology—how we know morality or goodness—and ignore ontology, which seeks to identify the grounding of morality or goodness.)

Michael asked the audience to think of reasons, other than God, as to why we ought not sexually abuse children.  He said it’s wrong because it hurts other sentient beings and you wouldn’t want anyone to do that to you.

But those “reasons” merely appeal to other moral principles that need grounding themselves.  He’s merely shifted, not solved the problem.  Why is it wrong to hurt other sentient beings?  Why should we follow the Golden Rule?  Who said?  If we’re just overgrown germs dancing to our DNA and fighting for survival, what is the cause or source of such moral obligations?

They don’t come from science or the natural world. Science can help you discover how to create a bomb, but science can’t tell you whether or not you ought to use it.  You need a moral standard that transcends human opinion for that.  You need an immaterial, authoritative essence known as Goodness, Righteous or Justice.  You need God’s Nature (see our first debate for much more on that).

It might come as a shock to atheists, but science is not the only way of discovering causes.  In fact, in order to explain CRIMES, you need to use other disciplines outside of science. These may include philosophy, history, reason, and direct observation.

Dr. Shermer may scoff at philosophy, but he actually uses it as do all scientists.  It’s required in order to do science.  Why? Because science actually doesn’t say anything—scientists do. All data needs to be gathered and all data needs to be interpreted.  Science doesn’t gather and interpret the data; it’s scientists applying philosophical principles who do that.  The philosophical principle that Dr. Shermer applied was to rule out God in advance. Michael kept saying, “God is not an explanation.”  Well, how does he know that?  He’s assuming what he’s trying to prove.  He’s not showing it; he’s merely asserting it.

Perhaps Dr. Shermer thought he didn’t have to provide reasons for atheism because—according to him—atheism is just the lack of a belief in God. “It just means we don’t believe in God.  Full stop.” He said atheism entails no other beliefs. (By the way, that’s another philosophical position, not a scientific one).

But if Michael just “lacks a belief in God”, then he’s only making a statement about his psychological state and nothing about external reality.  Yet the cause of external reality is what we were there to debate!   So why did he even show up?

If two homicide detectives discover a dead body with a knife in his back, bloody footprints leading out the door, and a cryptic note from the killer, both should hunt down a suspect.  If one detective shows evidence that suspect A is the cause of this murder, the other detective isn’t doing his job if he merely says “I just lack a belief suspect A is the murderer,” and I’m not required to investigate anymore. He should give reasons why A isn’t the real murderer, and then provide evidence that another suspect had the ability, motive, and actually committed the murder.

Dr. Shermer did not do that.  He neither refuted the evidence for my suspect (God) nor did he identify another suspect who could account for CRIMES.  The materialistic causes he suggested—evolution, quantum vacuums, and speculations about aliens and bouncing universes— even if true require causes or preexisting laws themselves and have no ability to cause the immaterial aspects of CRIMES.

Instead of providing evidence for his position, Dr. Shermer did what most atheists do in debates. Despite being materialists, they grant themselves immaterial realities such as the laws of logic, math, morality, and orderly natural laws, and then extol the virtues of science that require those laws while making complaints about how God is running the universe.

Without an objective standard by which to judge, they steal a standard from God and judge that there’s too much evil in the world, God is evil, or if God existed He would do things differently (like heal everyone or write the atheist’s name in the sky).   And don’t forget—religious people are stupid and religion is evil.  None of that shows there is no God or explains reality in the absence of God. In fact, evil actually demonstrates God’s existence because there would be no thing such as evil unless there was an objective standard of Good, which is God’s nature.

In short, atheists don’t have arguments—they have complaints.  And complaints are not arguments.

So what best explains reality:  theism or atheism?  I gave my case for theism.  I’m still waiting to hear the case for atheism.

 

Frank Turek is an American Christian author, public speaker, radio host and the president of CrossExamined.org. He is the author of four books: Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to make their Case, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, Correct, Not Politically Correct and Legislating Morality. A former aviator in the US Navy, Frank has a master’s degree from the George Washington University and a doctorate from Southern Evangelical Seminary.

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El Dragón del Garaje vs Dios

El Dragón del Garaje vs Dios

In the recent debate between Frank Turek and Michael Shermer, the latter tried to invalidate Frank’s God hypothesis as an explanation for some facts about reality by using the famous “dragon in the garage” analogy, first used by Carl Sagan in his book The Demon-Haunted World .

This is the original analogy:

“There is a fire-breathing dragon living in my garage.” Suppose I were to make a statement like that to you. Perhaps you would like to test it out, see for yourself. There have been countless stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

—Show me —you say.

I take you to my garage. You look in and see a ladder, empty paint cans, and an old tricycle, but the dragon is gone.

—Where is the dragon? —he asks me.

“Oh, it’s here,” I reply, waving my hand vaguely. “I forgot to mention that it’s an invisible dragon.”

He suggests that I cover the garage floor with flour so that the dragon’s footprints remain.

“Good idea,” I reply, “but this dragon is floating in the air.”

He then proposes using an infrared sensor to detect invisible fire.

—Good idea, but invisible fire doesn’t give off heat either.

Suggests spray painting the dragon to make it visible.

—Good idea, except it’s a disembodied dragon and the paint wouldn’t stick to it.

And so on. I counter any physical proof you propose to me with a special explanation of why it won’t work. Now, what is the difference between an invisible, disembodied, floating dragon that breathes fire that doesn’t burn and a nonexistent dragon? If there is no way to disprove my claim, if there is no conceivable valid experiment against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all equivalent to proving it true. Claims that cannot be proven, assertions that are immune to refutation, are truly worthless, no matter how much value they may have in inspiring us or exciting our sense of wonder. What I have asked you to do is to end up accepting, in the absence of proof, what I say.

Shermer’s version has a few variations to ridicule Frank’s position of the existence of God as an explanation for the origin of the universe, objective moral values ​​and duties, and the fine-tuning of the universe. Shermer’s main aim is to show that the existence of God is impossible to disprove in the same way that you cannot disprove the existence of the dragon in the garage. But is this a good argument? Not really. Let me explain why.

The first thing Shermer would have us believe by using Sagan’s analogy is that the attributes of God that theists attribute to him are mere gratuitous assertions without any evidence. Here Shermer has in mind revealed theology, those attributes that we know God possesses through his revealed word to us, the Bible. But in the debate with Frank—and in non-presuppositional apologetics in general—one does not assert God’s attributes as in the case of the garage dragon. And although it is not necessary, let me compare the garage dragon and God with respect to their respective attributes.

Garage Dragon

Invisibility. This attribute is granted without any evidence.

Levitation. It is also not inferred based on any evidence.

Cold Fire. Like the previous ones, there is no argument to attribute this property to the dragon, moreover, the property is self-contradictory.

Immateriality. Zero arguments, and like cold fire, this is a contradictory property with a dragon. In order for a dragon to be a dragon, it must have a body with certain essential characteristics of a dragon, it cannot be incorporeal.

God

Creator, metaphysically necessary, self-existent. These attributes are inferred by means of the argument from contingent beings and by the ontological argument.

Transcendent cause, personal, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spatially boundless, immaterial, personal, supremely powerful. These attributes are required by the nature of a cause transcending the universe and are inferred by the kalam cosmological argument.

Designer and highly intelligent. These attributes are inferred by the fine-tuning argument of the universe.

Perfectly good, whose nature is the standard of goodness and whose commands constitute our moral duties. And this last attribute is concluded by means of the moral argument.

As we can see, the garage dragon is completely deficient compared to God.

Shermer also calls the God hypothesis a special pleading fallacy, but we have seen from this comparison that this is not the case. No serious apologist in a debate sets out to counter objections to arguments for existence by claiming that the atheist does not have the capacity to understand the properties of God as the best explanation for some facts of reality.

Another important point is that Shermer also uses the garage dragon as a parody of God as an explanation for the following facts about reality: the absolute origin of the universe, fine-tuning, and the foundation for objective moral values ​​and duties. But his parody fails miserably for two reasons: the first is, as we have already seen, that some of the attributes that the garage dragon possesses are self-contradictory, which is more than enough reason to determine that such a dragon is impossible to exist. Then, for the sake of argument, I am going to be very kind in modifying the dragon by removing all of its contradictory properties and adding the property of omnipotence. Can the dragon be the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe when it has enough power to bring the universe into existence? No way! An essential property of the dragon is that it has to be material, corporeal, without that property it would cease to be a dragon. But if our version of the omnipotent dragon is corporeal, if it is a physical being, then it cannot be the cause of the origin of the universe, because one of the characteristics that a transcendent cause must have is to be immaterial; it cannot be material because matter comes into existence with the origin of the universe. The same goes for being the foundation of objective moral values ​​and duties; our dragon cannot be eternal; it had to come into existence together with the universe, therefore, it is contingent, and no contingent being can be the foundation for objective morality.

Conclusion

We have seen that the garage dragon analogy as presented by Michael Shermer as an argument against the God hypothesis is flawed for four reasons:

  1. Due to the contradictory attributes that the garage dragon possesses, we can affirm that its existence is impossible.
  2. God’s attributes are inferred by deductive arguments, which is not the case with the dragon in the garage.
  3. Defending the attributes of the garage dragon is indeed committing the fallacy of special pleading, but not in the case of God.
  4. The garage dragon as a parody of God to be the transcendent cause of the universe and the foundation for objective morality fails miserably because it is a contingent being (and that grants it a possible existence if we remove its contradictory properties).

 

Jairo Izquierdo Hernandez is the founder of Christian Philosopher . He currently works as Social Media Director and author for the Christian organization Cross Examined . He is a member of the Christian Apologetics Alliance, studies philosophy, and is a worship minister at the Christian Baptist church Christ is the Answer in Puebla, Mexico.

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