Most annoying/frustrating atheist arguments?

To pick one at random from your link:

3
Priestly Celibacy

Misconception: Catholic Priests can’t get married

This has appeared on a previous list, but it is well worth including it here as well. In order to clear this one up, we need to first understand the nature of the Catholic Church. Within the universal Church there are sections (also called churches but not in the sense that they are separate) – the most common one is, of course, the Roman (or Latin) Catholic Church. Then there is the Eastern Catholic Church (not to be confused with the Orthodox which is a different religion). Both of these churches fall under the jurisdiction of the Pope and all believe the same doctrines. There are a lot of differences between the two groups but these are all in matters of style of worship and certain rules. In the Eastern Church, priests are allowed to be married – but a married priest can’t become a Bishop.

It also happens that occasionally in the Latin Church, pastors who convert from other religions such as the Church of England are allowed to become priests even though they are married, so married priests can be found in all parts of the Roman Catholic Church. Pictured above is a Greek Catholic priest and his wife. Don’t believe me? Here is proof. And here is more proof.

The fact that there are some exceptions to the rule does not mean the rule does not exist. The fact remains that Catholic Priests can’t get married

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

I cringe whenever I see Atheists begin to argue the meaning of scripture with Christians. It's such a pointless endeavor and I've never seen any good come of it. What they are effectively trying to accomplish is convincing the individual that their understanding as a mortal human is more correct than the one they have received through holy spirit from God himself.

If it was possible to effectively explain the "true" meaning (by true I clearly mean the Atheists subjective opinion) of the Bible to a Christian then their wouldn't be so many possible and still active schisms of Christianity each with their own arbitrary hermeneutics for understanding the Bible to fit their own belief systems.

It really is a pointless endeavour tbh. If a believer has, say, read the bit about beating your slaves and holding their family to ransom or the bits where god kills lots and lots of people for no apparent reason and has decided he's somehow ok with it, no amount of logic is going to untwist that particular rationalisation. You can make smoe headway with people who've never read it but then those aren't the people who'd generally get into such debates

Goduznt Xzst
Quickly, give me your first impression, someone walks up to you and says they are setting up a camcorder to record the gnomes coming alive in their garden at night. How intelligent do you imagine this person is?

Isnt it weird that the cleverest people on earth are trying to record a for what could be imaginary particle spinning round a tube in Switzerland? In a few hundred years time we could regard them the way we look at alchemists now. Not that it isnt incredibly cool that they are trying this.

Jakkass wrote: »

1. How do we know the Bible is a work of fiction?

Perhaps know is too strong a word. I simply give it roughly the same weight that you give all the other thousands of holy books.

Jakkass wrote: »

2. If the Bible offers the authoritative source of Christian belief, what use would it be to discuss Christianity without reference to the Bible?

His point is this all too common phenomenon:

An argument that's only valid if you accept the bible as truth is a waste of time against someone who doesn't

Jakkass wrote: »

3. Glad to be mentioned , but I have another question for you. Is it that we are making the Bible fit into a particular issue, or does the Bible actually fit into that issue of its own accord irrespective?

The first one

Dades wrote: »

^^ Last post on the issue right there. ^^

Sam Vimes I know we overlapped.

Now I get to make my point and no one can respond.

/evil laugh :pac:

There is one that springs to mind because I used to make it myself and I cringe now looking back. It took me a lot of time, debates, research and experience to stop using it.

It is the phrase „Faith is belief without evidence”.

It is not entirely accurate and misrepresents the theist enough to close down discourse which is never good. When someone is sure they have lots of evidence and you tell them they literally have none, what else can happen but them stopping listening to you? The second you start talking past someone you have failed.

I have reassessed this many times and now I think that faith to me means “Assuming to be true that which you are trying to show is true”.

When you do this you find evidence everywhere. You will literally have evidence coming out of your ears whether you believe in a god, that the number 23 controls everything, or whatever.

If you make the assumption first, and fit the evidence later, it is very hard NOT to have evidence for your proposition. It would be a true miracle if you did not.

Even the Bible knows this to be true and it says “Seek and you shall find”. Of course you will! How could you not?

If I could press a button and make one change in my fellow atheists rhetoric therefore it would be this, and my thumb would be raw from stabbing that button.

Yes Jakass, it is applicable to everyone, on all subjects, everywhere. We should entertain all possibilities. However we should not assume that because we can think of a possibility that it is therefore 50:50 either. Unless there is SOME evidence for such an entity the chances of it existing are not 50:50 but 1 in X where X is the number of things possibly imaginable to be true anywhere ever by anyone and all the things they have not thought of or may never think of.

This is, obviously, a large large number. Unless evidence for a deity is provided therefore it is not that we should not “entertain the possibility” but that we should “dismiss the possibility” until such time as some evidence comes in on which to grant it credence.

This is not, as it may sound at first, a bit thing to ask as it is in fact what we do in most other realms of discourse every day.

The problem is that such a position is often misconstrued as being willing to “entertain the possibility” at all. I “entertain the possibility” of a god in the same way as I do about santa, fairies, alien abductions and a still living elvis. They are all possible, but until such time as there is a reason to grant them any credence I merely proceed in life without the assumption.

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Yes there are several.

1. Any of the arguments that just think all religious people are stupid are cringe inducing. Especially when 5 minutes later the atheist comes out with some wacky argument such as Vote No to Lisbon because they don't want a super state or because they can think for themselves.

Oh dear, this from you Tim?

The argument that "all religious people are stupid" is in no way affected by the stupidity or otherwise of non-religious people, you have made an elementary logic error here mate, you've confused the two statements "all religious people are stupid" and "all stupid people are religious", you stated the first one, then presented evidence against the second.

I could go an and try and explain why the colours of pigeons is irrelevant to the statement "All swans are white", but this would probably be labouring the point.

faceman wrote: »

Great post. There was an atheist interviewed on the radio last night and he failed on both point 2 and 3. The interviewer hung him by the ghoulies on point 3.

Indeed, Dicky Dawkins blames 3,000 killings (or so) in Northern Ireland on Religion in 'The God Delusion'. He doesn't mention things like social inequality, nationalism, bad politics, bad leadership.

In fact, he even omits evidence which refutes his arguments: such as the fact that Catholics and Protestants don't kill each other in Dublin or Liverpool or any of the several American states which has a large proportion of the two. Or that the Irish Rugby team has also been supported by thousands of Protestants and Catholics and there's never been a sniff of a problem.

Another argument I hate from atheists is:

4. Indoctrinating your children is a form of child abuse. Also, from Dicky.