Bad arguments for atheism

doctoremma

What is your pet hate argument for atheism? Which internet meme makes you facepalm?

I dislike this:


It works comparing gods one on one - "How do you feel about Thor? That's how I feel about Yahweh". However, I think it's disingenuous to pretend that the removal of the final god from your list of those you do not believe in is simply a matter of "quantity".

Dades

The only bad argument I can think of is someone who dismisses religion because science has given us all the answers.

We don't have all the answers, and probably never will.

Mark Hamill

doctoremma wrote: »

It works comparing gods one on one - "How do you feel about Thor? That's how I feel about Yahweh". However, I think it's disingenuous to pretend that the removal of the final god from your list of those you do not believe in is simply a matter of "quantity".

Thats because its a matter of intellectual honesty.

doctoremma

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Thats because its a matter of intellectual honesty.

Expand?

Attabear

doctoremma wrote: »

What is your pet hate argument for atheism? Which internet meme makes you facepalm?

I dislike this:


It works comparing gods one on one - "How do you feel about Thor? That's how I feel about Yahweh". However, I think it's disingenuous to pretend that the removal of the final god from your list of those you do not believe in is simply a matter of "quantity".

I don't think that argument should be about quantity rather its trying to point out that the atheist uses the exact same criteria as the christian to disregard those "gods", but the atheist applies these criteria more consistently.

As for bad arguments for atheism, I have no fondness for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It all seems a little bit too smug.

fitz0

Attabear wrote: »

As for bad arguments for atheism, I have no fondness for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It all seems a little bit too smug.

Agreed. It's a fairly juvenile argument that I've not been above using before but I really find it counterproductive.

doctoremma

Attabear wrote: »

I don't think that argument should be about quantity rather its trying to point out that the atheist uses the exact same criteria as the christian to disregard those "gods", but the atheist applies these criteria more consistently.

Sure. I just feel that it glosses over the qualitative change in world view that comes with one god fewer. Of course, that may well be secondary to the main thrust!

18AD

God doens't exist because a book said so. :pac:

seamus

doctoremma wrote: »

Sure. I just feel that it glosses over the qualitative change in world view that comes with one god fewer. Of course, that may well be secondary to the main thrust!

I agree actually.

The "one God fewer" argument has always irked me, and I think because it's presented as a "QED", one statement that destroys the theist's argument.

In the eyes of atheists it does, because they're already on that side. But if presented to theists, even the most one-the-verge theist isn't going to think, "Whoah.....you just blew my mind. You're right, there is no god".

Instead, most likely the discussion will progress from there about evidence and strength of evidence and cognitive biases and so forth. But it's not a debate stopper, it's not an argument for atheism in and of itself because it implies that all evidence for any god can be dismissed just because it's claimed evidence for god.
It doesn't address the possible (if implausible) scenario of a God actually existing and there being evidence for such. Instead it writes off any such potential evidence. IMO.

The actual quote given in the OP is also a little smug. As in, "Haha, run along now child and wait for enlightenment to come to you before I will engage with you any further on this topic".

What I do like about it though is that it can be used to open a less confrontational discussion with a theist. The question, "Why don't you believe in God?" is quite tough to respond to without being adversarial or critical of the asker's viewpoint. But if you instead pose the question of them - "Why don't you believe in Zeus?", then you have a common ground on which to have a rational discussion about belief with them.

It will still most likely end with, "I believe in God because that's just how I feel about it", but the odds are high that nobody's blood pressure will be up and you can have a pint afterwards without feeling tense.

Mark Hamill

doctoremma wrote: »

Expand?

T h a t s b e c a u s e i t s a m a t t e r o f i n t e l l e c t u a l h o n e s t y .


To answer you question: well theists (in theory anyway) don't believe in gods besides their own because they have applied similar debunking logic to other gods as atheists do. The difference between atheists and such theists, is that atheists don't stop applying said debunking logic when it comes to their own gods.
Trying to emphasis the argument on a "your god is just one more god to not believe in" is a bad argument I'll admit, but I dont think that that is the actual point.

EDIT: Attabear explains it well.
EDIT2: And, as seamus points out above, its more of an opening point rather than a full argument in of itself.

magicbastarder

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Well theists (in theory anyway) don't believe in gods besides their own because they have applied similar debunking logic to other gods as atheists do.

my mum doesn't believe in apollo because she made the decision not to - she doesn't believe in apollo because she was raised catholic and it is the default position.

seamus

Agreed. Most theists haven't analysed each of the Gods and come to a conclusion. They believe in their God because they were taught that "he" was fact, and they don't believe in other gods because they were taught that other gods were myths.

So when you present the "one God less" argument, to your common-or-garden theist you're not comparing like-with-like. You're comparing fact with mythology, from their point of view.

Think of how annoying and frustrating it is when someone says that evolution and creationism are equally valid. Yeah, that frustrating.

Mark Hamill

magicbastarder wrote: »

my mum doesn't believe in apollo because she made the decision not to - she doesn't believe in apollo because she was raised catholic and it is the default position.

Hence I said "in theory anyway". Few people would admit that they don't believe in other gods simply because they where raised to believe in just one specific god (despite that being the case), they would at least claim to believe in their specific god because of some logical reasoning that eliminates the others (or de facto eliminates the other).

As seamus points out, it wont work well with everyone, but it can be used (maybe in a round about way). You want to make sure you reference the right gods though, I find Allah or Vishnu works better than gods everyone knows are fake like Zeus.

Mark Hamill

I know its early in the thread yet, but there seems to be two types of bad argument being put forward. One is like what Dades said, an argument that is simply wrong. The other is the "we are both atheists" type (or the flying spaghetti monster type), an argument that has logical merit, but from experience we know it doesn't go down well in arguments with theists.

Would people agree?

Gbear

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I know its early in the thread yet, but there seems to be two types of bad argument being put forward. One is like what Dades said, an argument that is simply wrong. The other is the "we are both atheists" type (or the flying spaghetti monster type), an argument that has logical merit, but from experience we know it doesn't go down well in arguments with theists.

Would people agree?

On the FSM (praise be upon his noodly appendages:)) I think it makes for a good satire of religion. The inclusion on their site of the the problem of equating causation with correlation is a nice touch as well (earthquakes have increased as the numbers of pirates have dwindled).
Basically, it's a bit of fun for atheists. I do not think, even though at it's core is a logical argument, it is of any use in a debate with theists.

One argument that annoys me (and I'm sure I'm guilty of it too) is any argument delivered in an overly antagonistic way. The use of "Sky fairy" or whatever is certainly a pet hate of mine.

The "religion has killed more people" - "look at the crusades" line of argument annoys me as well. For starters, whether something has been used to justify genocide or murder or stoning women, has no bearing on it's veracity.
If you're approaching it from the point of view of attacking the notion that religion = morality then it has a little more value in that context but still, I don't think you've achieved much if the only reason you successfully change someone's mind about their religion is because of that particular religion not being the most conducive to human well-being.
What I'd want is to instead change how they go about developing their sense of morality so that they abandon basing it on such faulty foundations as the Bible or the Koran.

Northclare

I think Doctoremma is on the right track about the common ground.

I blew a hot and cold in here for a while and got wound up over things that were said etc

I got more red cards than Roy Keane

I realized that it wasn't getting me anywhere,not that I was looking for anywhere to go to but it was pointless being a tosser...

Im still searching and reading books about different Religions,New Age Spirituality,Science,Philosophy the list goes on.

I picked up that book I think it's called "The magic of reality"

I enjoyed browsing through it and I read something about rainbows,I'm more agnostic really but swaying twoards the Theism side more.

I'm probably sitting on the fence, untill some day the farmer will turn on the power and ill get some shock,ill either fall left or right

Daftendirekt

I'd consider any argument that attempts to demonstrate the non-existence of God as a bad one.

Generally it's a tactic only employed by noobs to the God debate, but all an atheist should do is ask for the claimant to meet his/her burden of proof. Anything stronger than that, and you're into the realm of trying to demonstrate the non-existence of a being that can quite literally bend reality to conceal its existence if it chooses to do so.

That said, I'm fond of Epicurus's problem of evil argument, since it works by attacking a definition of god that many theists agree with.

Galvasean

I too despise when people say 'sky fairy' in legitimate debates. It is needlessly antagonising and condescending.
I also dislike any arguments that infer that any atheist is smarter than any theist, because it is just plain wrong. I've met some fierce stupid atheists in my time as well as some very intelligent religious people.

joseph brand

Galvasean wrote: »

I too despise when people say 'sky fairy' in legitimate debates. It is needlessly antagonising and condescending.
I also dislike any arguments that infer that any atheist is smarter than any theist, because it is just plain wrong. I've met some fierce stupid atheists in my time as well as some very intelligent religious people.

This.

Calling a theist stupid or moronic will never help to open their eyes. Eyes that probably don't want to be opened. (They would choose the blue pill)

It's like dealing with a friend who has a partner who treats them terrible and cheats on them. Sometimes it seems as though there is absolutely no way to convince them that their partner has been 'playing away'. No amount of witnesses or photos or any other evidence will persuade them. It could be a defence mechanism, I'm not sure.

My wife's work colleague was spectacularly dumped by her husband of 3 months after he met a girl in his workplace. He brought her home to his wife to see if they could get along??? Madness!
No amount of warnings could have helped. She put her fingers in her ears and told her friends to shut up. Apparently they were all just jealous. Not joking. Her words.

Perhaps some/ most theists need to be cajoled. "You're so intelligent, I bet you'd love to read Hitchens, using that big brain of yours".

Dades

Gbear wrote: »

The "religion has killed more people" - "look at the crusades" line of argument annoys me as well.

Actually, this annoys me too. Mainly because it's such an impossibly vague statistic to throw about.

Enkidu

I think one of the poorer arguments for atheism is often the moral ones, i.e. "If God is good how come....". I don't think these are poor because they're bad arguments, but just because they're the ones people will be least receptive to. For a lot of religious people God defines good and often you will just end up with the definition of good being warped like elastic so that God comes out good.

I prefer (although you need to have a lot of historical knowledge to carry it through) a combination of the fact that there genuinely isn't any evidence, i.e. "Why should I believe in God?" asked as a genuine question with no "smugness", with the fact that most of the Bible is historically invalid, it literally could not have occurred.

For me personally, only through this method have I ever argued somebody to a standstill and I actually once made somebody an agnostic!*

*Specifically I demonstrated the Exodus and Joshua could not have occurred. In my view Joshua is the easiest "important" book of the Bible to discredit.

Newaglish

I'm not a big fan of the general attitude of "yay science, take that religious people! I love science!". You can be a scientist and still believe in gods, the two are not mutually exclusive. It also comes off as a little arrogant or self-important; "I've watched a few videos on YouTube about the solar system and the pale blue dot and now I'm totally into science."

Gbear

Newaglish wrote: »

You can be a scientist and still believe in gods, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Logically they are. You can be a scientist and a theist but only through cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics.

Jimoslimos

Gbear wrote: »

Logically they are. You can be a scientist and a theist but only through cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics.

I've worked with some brilliant scientists who were also very heavily religious*. Don't ask me how they juggle the two.

* That said, we tend to only notice the exceptional - so a theist scientist would stand out amongst his/her peers

Gbear

Jimoslimos wrote: »

I've worked with some brilliant scientists who were also very heavily religious*. Don't ask me how they juggle the two.

* That said, we tend to only notice the exceptional - so a theist scientist would stand out amongst his/her peers

Yeah intelligence isn't really an issue. Indeed, the more intelligent, the more sophisticated the mental gymnastics become.

There's still an overwhelming tendency for scientists not to be religious.
I'm not entirely sure is it because scientists are generally more likely to come from secular households where rational inquiry is prized or whether the process of learning how to be a scientists tends to disabuse people of the notion of superstition in general.
I suspect it's a bit of both.

Morbert

"The Bible is full of contradictions."

and

"Science contradicts Christianity."

are two arguments that I find unhelpful.

fitz0

But it is and it does.

Sonics2k

Morbert wrote: »

"The Bible is full of contradictions."

and

"Science contradicts Christianity."

are two arguments that I find unhelpful.

1) To be fair, it does have a good few in there.

2) It depends on the form of Christianity.

Galvasean

Morbert wrote: »

"The Bible is full of contradictions."

To be honest, inconsistency in supposed holy texts is a pretty damn good argument IMO. God's will comes across as being very much at odds with itself.

Andrewf20

Attabear wrote: »

...the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

It lives!

recedite

Enkidu wrote: »

*Specifically I demonstrated the Exodus and Joshua could not have occurred. In my view Joshua is the easiest "important" book of the Bible to discredit.

Can you elaborate (just the gist of it anyway).
Exodus; The Hebrews were enslaved and then set free again, at various times by the Egyptians to the south and the Babylonians to the north, were they not?
Joshua; was that where they knocked down the town walls of Jericho with trumpets (or arrived after an earthquake) and killed everybody they found inside?

Ant

magicbastarder wrote: »

my mum doesn't believe in apollo because she made the decision not to.

Not another moon landing denier! Sure, we all know the Olympians were johnny-come-latelys and the Titans are the true gods. Sorry. I'll get my coat.

Back on topic: I once referred in a discussion to Russell's Teapot but my agnostic theist colleague thought it wasn't a very good analogy as such a teapot is still material while a creator god is usually held to be supernatural (existing outside nature) and whose existence has huge philosophical consequences.

I still think Russell's Teapot is useful for communicating the simple point that the burden of proof rests upon the person making unfalsifiable claims.

Morbert

Galvasean wrote: »

To be honest, inconsistency in supposed holy texts is a pretty damn good argument IMO. God's will comes across as being very much at odds with itself.

For as long as I have been a member of boards, I have never seen anyone successfully establish a contradiction. My standards are not high. I can recognise contrived apologetics when I see it, but Christian explanations to contradictions have all sounded perfectly reasonable to me.

The problem is atheists don't seem to properly understand what the Bible is to most Christians. They attack it as if it were the Quran.

Newaglish

Morbert wrote: »

For as long as I have been a member of boards, I have never seen anyone successfully establish a contradiction. My standards are not high. I can recognise contrived apologetics when I see it, but Christian explanations to contradictions have all sounded perfectly reasonable to me.

The problem is atheists don't seem to properly understand what the Bible is to most Christians. They attack it as if it were the Quran.

I just googled these, there's loads:

God CAN be seen:
"And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my backparts." (EXO 33:23)
"And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." (EXO 33:11)
"For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." (GEN 32:30)

God CANNOT be seen:
"No man hath seen God at any time." (JOH 1:18)
"And he said, Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live." (EXO 33:20)
"Whom no man hath seen nor can see." (1TIM 6:16)

Enkidu

recedite wrote: »

Can you elaborate (just the gist of it anyway).
Exodus; The Hebrews were enslaved and then set free again, at various times by the Egyptians to the south and the Babylonians to the north, were they not?

No, actually. There are absolutely no Egyptian records of anybody from the Levant being held in captivity as a working population. Not only did the Egyptians not do this ("slave" for the Egyptians was a cast, closer to a peasant labourer), but there is no such record of any mass exodus from any of the surrounding literate civilisations at the time. Not the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Ugaritics, Hurrians, e.t.c. This is particularly unbelievable for the Ugaritic civilisation who held power in the Sinai peninsula and traded with Egypt.

Also remember that these civilisations recorded minor fluctuations in grain prices, so it is very unlikely that something like this wouldn't be mentioned.

The Hebrews were indeed captured by the Babylonians, but that's much later historically and quite far into the Old Testament. The late Old Testament is reasonably accurate from a Historical point of view.

It is the historical consensus that neither Exodus or anything remotely like it occurred.

Joshua; was that where they knocked down the town walls of Jericho with trumpets (or arrived after an earthquake) and killed everybody they found inside?

Yeah, that's it. The problem with Joshua is the basic facts the story rests on.

In Joshua the Hebrews invade Canaan and take the land from the Canaanites, making it the promised land of Israel. However the truth is the Hebrews were Canaanites, specifically Southern Canaanites. They had always lived in the land. We can see this in the archeological record were Canaanite culture in the south slowly becomes Hebrew culture. Hebrew in its earliest forms is just a dialect of the language at Ugarit. They never invaded because they were always there, there was just a gradual power shift south after the Bronze age collapse.

Basically the book is like a fictional history were people from Dublin say they "invaded" Ireland in the 15th century and that's why the government is in Dublin.

seamus

Morbert wrote: »

The problem is atheists don't seem to properly understand what the Bible is to most Christians. They attack it as if it were the Quran.

I think the problem is that most Christians don't seem to understand what the Bible is.
On the one hand the entire basis of their faith is historical writings which could be entirely fabricated, but they assert that these writing are "truth" based on their faith. But when apparent contradictions or ambiguities are shown, these writings are claimed to be contextual, or stories rather than historical truths, and one needs to "take the book as a whole".

If you "take the book as a whole", it's equally likely that none of it contains any truth whatsoever and christians are worshipping a mythical person who never existed and never said anything the book claims.

It would make sense if people read the book and used it as a guideline for living. That's not too crazy - love your fellow man, share the wealth, all good stuff. The problem is that christians create this mish-mash of general guidelines with very specific rules like praying to jesus, breaking bread, etc etc. That's not using the book as "guideline", that's taking the book as literal fact.

LittleBook

Yayy, I found the quote I was looking for. Thanks Doc!

In my (personal) experience, a lot of the "arguments for" atheism I'm reading here are actually defences of atheism which changes them quite a bit, context is important.

In fact, my recollection of the Stephen Roberts quote is only the second part ("when you understand ...") which makes it much less "smug".

Morbert

Newaglish wrote: »

I just googled these, there's loads:

God CAN be seen:
"And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my backparts." (EXO 33:23)
"And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." (EXO 33:11)
"For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." (GEN 32:30)

God CANNOT be seen:
"No man hath seen God at any time." (JOH 1:18)
"And he said, Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live." (EXO 33:20)
"Whom no man hath seen nor can see." (1TIM 6:16)

I am interested in where you got the John 1:18 quote, because they seem to have suspiciously omitted a very important part.

John 1:18
"No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

God the Son has been be seen. And through Him, people know God the Father. The Trinitarian God is at the very core of Christianity.

Morbert

seamus wrote: »

I think the problem is that most Christians don't seem to understand what the Bible is.
On the one hand the entire basis of their faith is historical writings which could be entirely fabricated, but they assert that these writing are "truth" based on their faith. But when apparent contradictions or ambiguities are shown, these writings are claimed to be contextual, or stories rather than historical truths, and one needs to "take the book as a whole".

If you "take the book as a whole", it's equally likely that none of it contains any truth whatsoever and christians are worshipping a mythical person who never existed and never said anything the book claims.

It would make sense if people read the book and used it as a guideline for living. That's not too crazy - love your fellow man, share the wealth, all good stuff. The problem is that christians create this mish-mash of general guidelines with very specific rules like praying to jesus, breaking bread, etc etc. That's not using the book as "guideline", that's taking the book as literal fact.

So then why not focus on demonstrating historical inaccuracies in the Bible, as opposed to trying to demonstrate an incoherent narrative?

joseph brand

Morbert wrote: »

For as long as I have been a member of boards, I have never seen anyone successfully establish a contradiction.

My standards are not high. [/QUOTE]

War or Peace?

EXO 15:3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.

ROM 15:33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

Who is the father of Joseph?

MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

LUK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.

There's plenty more here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html

Morbert wrote: »

My standards are not high.

A common quote from christians in the bible belt.

Interesting site here:

http://www.christianitydisproved.com/bible.html

Professor Bart Ehrman sets the scene for us; “The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them irreconcilable contradictions. Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not write the Gospels. There are other books that did not make it into the Bible that at one time or another were considered canonical – other Gospels, for example, allegedly written by Jesus’ followers Peter, Thomas, and Mary.

seamus

Morbert wrote: »

So then why not focus on demonstrating historical inaccuracies in the Bible, as opposed to trying to demonstrate an incoherent narrative?

The two aren't mutually exclusive.
If two accounts of the same event aren't coherent, then both can be considered historically inaccurate and call the entire narrative into question.

However, it's a line of debate that I don't really like much because it's like trying to prove that creationism is flawed by nitpicking specific parts of the "theory" rather than the glaringly obvious issue that the entire premise on which the theory is based (that of the existence of a higher power) is devoid of any evidence.

Gbear

seamus wrote: »

rather than the glaringly obvious issue that the entire premise on which the theory is based (that of the existence of a higher power) is devoid of any evidence.

The thing is, unless you can first get the person to accept where the burden of proof lies, and you usually can't, that argument is just pissing into the wind.

Again, there's 2 types of "bad" argument - there's the kind that are simply illogical and there's the kind that are correct but just won't work with people.

Morbert

War or Peace?

EXO 15:3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.

ROM 15:33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

Who is the father of Joseph?

MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

LUK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.

There's plenty more here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html



A common quote from christians in the bible belt.

Interesting site here:

http://www.christianitydisproved.com/bible.html

This is another tactic I would highly discourage: Jumping from one argument to the next without any acknowledged resolution. Creationists do it all the time, and no progress is made because of it.

The contradiction that was previously tendered (Whether or not God can be seen). Do you still feel it is a contradiction?

Morbert

seamus wrote: »

The two aren't mutually exclusive.
If two accounts of the same event aren't coherent, then both can be considered historically inaccurate and call the entire narrative into question.

However, it's a line of debate that I don't really like much because it's like trying to prove that creationism is flawed by nitpicking specific parts of the "theory" rather than the glaringly obvious issue that the entire premise on which the theory is based (that of the existence of a higher power) is devoid of any evidence.

I'm not saying they're mutually exclusive. I'm saying only one is a correct approach.

oldrnwisr

recedite wrote: »

Joshua; was that where they knocked down the town walls of Jericho with trumpets (or arrived after an earthquake) and killed everybody they found inside?

The radiocarbon dating performed on samples gathered at the site of Jericho shows that the fall of the city occurred no later than approximately 1550 BCE. In fact, more recent research by the two scholars who penned the original study suggests that the date should be pushed back even further. The biblical chronology declares a date of 1500 BCE for the birth of Joshua so by the time Joshua led the Israelite army Jericho was already nothing more than a ruin.

TELL ES-SULTAN (JERICHO): RADIOCARBON RESULTS OF SHORT-LIVED
CEREAL AND MULTIYEAR CHARCOAL SAMPLES FROM THE END OF
THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE

Also, the story of Joshua is completely undermined IMO by Joshua 10:13:

"So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day."

Morbert wrote: »

I am interested in where you got the John 1:18 quote, because they seem to have suspiciously omitted a very important part.

John 1:18
"No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

God the Son has been be seen. And through Him, people know God the Father. The Trinitarian God is at the very core of Christianity.

I don't see how including the omitted portion significantly impacts on the contradiction presented by Newaglish. The contradiction is whether or not God can be seen. The passage from John's Gospel says that no one has ever seen God but that Jesus is here to tell us about him. The word used for "has made him known" is exegesato from which we get the word exegesis. It has no bearing on the first part of the verse. Even if you remove the quote from John's Gospel entirely, the contradiction remains, especially if you consider Exodus 24:9-11.

As for other contradictions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk

Backspacer1

doctoremma wrote: »

What is your pet hate argument for atheism? Which internet meme makes you facepalm?

I dislike this:


It works comparing gods one on one - "How do you feel about Thor? That's how I feel about Yahweh". However, I think it's disingenuous to pretend that the removal of the final god from your list of those you do not believe in is simply a matter of "quantity".

But isn't it just a matter of quantity?? Don't all Gods carry equal probability of existence??

Zillah

I always find the reasons given by some former theists to be quite funny:
Bad thing X happened and now I am angry so I don't believe in God anymore.

You believed in God for the wrong reasons, now you're an atheist for the wrong reasons.

Morbert

oldrnwisr wrote: »

I don't see how including the omitted portion significantly impacts on the contradiction presented by Newaglish. The contradiction is whether or not God can be seen. The passage from John's Gospel says that no one has ever seen God but that Jesus is here to tell us about him. The word used for "has made him known" is exegesato from which we get the word exegesis. It has no bearing on the first part of the verse. Even if you remove the quote from John's Gospel entirely, the contradiction remains, especially if you consider Exodus 24:9-11.

It establishes that God the Son can be seen, but not God the Father. Moses was talking to Jesus.

oldrnwisr

Morbert wrote: »

It establishes that God the Son can be seen, but not God the Father. Moses was talking to Jesus.

OK, as rationalisations go that is beyond feeble.

Look, just because some Christians would like to retcon the bible to make these contradictions disappear doesn't make it so. The bible makes no such claim. While a trinatarian God is a core aspect of Christianity the God described by the Old Testament is completely different. When the Old Testament refers to God it is referring to a singular deity. When Moses speaks to God in Exodus 24, he sees what Christians refer to as God the Father. Jesus aint even an itchin' in his daddy's pants yet. As I said before, omitting the John verse entirely doesn't undermine the contradiction. The contradiction stands even if you only take verses from the Old Testament. It even works if you only take verses from Exodus. See Exodus 33:11 vs. Exodus 24:9-11.

The problem is that who take the view that the Bible has no contradictions seem to think that it's one single coherent tome inspired by God. It isn't. As Eric Cartman said: "Will you people stop reading into stuff that isn't there."

Sycopat

Backspacer1 wrote: »

But isn't it just a matter of quantity?? Don't all Gods carry equal probability of existence??

No. And this is actually my personal 'bad arguments for atheism'.


If a god exists, that gods probability of it existing is 1 and all other gods have a probability of existing of 0.

If no god exists, the probability of any god existing is 0.

If however, we assume that all possible religions have the same chance of being correct, then the chance of any specific god existing goes towards zero as there is a (nigh) infinite number of possible religions, and it can be argued that any specific religion is probably wrong.

However in order to make that argument, one must concede that it is possible that a religion is correct, and if any religion is correct than
a) atheism is definitely wrong.
b) As someone can't know which religion is the right one, the believer can 'have faith' that theirs is.

seamus

^^
This is why probability and pascal's wager don't work in this kind of argument.

The number of universes where a god exists is infinite. The number of universes where no god exists are also infinite. They are mutually exclusive. So therefore the chance of us being in a universe with no god is simultaneously 1 and 0. It's not 50:50 because that's not how infinity maths works.

Any probability calculation is meaningless because there are no parameters. God and no God can quite literally mean anything.

Just for the record, atheism doesn't mean that you believe that there is definitely no god. It's simply the absence of any belief in god. One can be atheist and accept there is a chance that a god exists.