Reasons why religion fails to impress

Des Carter wrote: »

The one with the money and power and the pope, you know with the very confusing stance on contraception.

Indeed. You will need to do better to argue about Christianity as a whole when you use "Christianity" surely? Nearly half of Christians in the world are not members of RCC.

Deleted User wrote: »

Circular logic.

'The Bible is true!'
'How do you know?'
'Because it's the word of God!'
'How do you know!'
'Because the Bible says so!'

I've never heard this logic argued on a personal level. There are arguments that go on after "How do you know?" (or indeed if we "know" or "believe" which is an important distinction in philosophy of religion) in most apologetics.

Deleted User wrote: »

I've had the pleasure of having to deal with it. :pac:

Me too, many many times. It used to be some what common back in the day on the Christianity forum, but it was demolished so many times, leading to annoyance and embarrassment I guess they had to come up with better reasons for believing.

Christians, your welcome

Not that the arguments that replaced it were that much better, or that less circular.

Deleted User wrote: »

It's like a Scalextric track: the cars go around and around, faster and faster until one of them flies off from sheer desperation to win and crashes into a dead-end like 'well you just have to take it on faith' or 'urgh I don't want to discuss my beliefs with you anymore'.

I would actually agree with you and Wicknight in that Christians need to seek out better arguments for their convictions. I will also say, that there are many good arguments already made in philosophy in particular but also in other fields.

PDN wrote: »

Neither have I, actually. But since I started visiting this forum I find that there are tons of atheists who regularly hear 'Christians' saying things and making arguments that you or I, or any other Christian, never hear despite engaging in innumerable conversations with other believers.

Strange that.

Probably because you are hideously bias.

Strange that

bluewolf wrote: »

you need to visit gaiaonline.com more often
i havent been there in a long time, but all the caricatures were true... as well as some more intelligent ones, though the quotes i've remembered from those, you always disagreed with

lot of USA fundies though

Just to clarify, you're saying that the quotes I always disagreed with were the intelligent ones?

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I am sure you would “say” that. I am sure of this because I can not even begin to guess at the number of people I have had say that to me since I started asking about this subject 16+ years ago. People are all too willing to say it and there is, quite literally, no reason I can think of to expect you would be any different.

The issue I have faced for those 16 years is that they are so busy saying how there is so many “good arguments”, that no one has gotten around to presenting me with a single one. Just the occasional collection of non-sequitars which take forms something like “Well stuff causes other stuff, therefore the universe must have been caused by something, and that something has to be intelligent” or even worse they make up something else that they have no evidence exists, and then say that that something can only exist if you pre-suppose a god so QED (Examples "Objective Morality" and the idea that "If something looks designed it is designed therefore there is a designer")... without realising that making something up as evidence for something you have made up is not exactly a "good argument".

More often than not though people do not try, but instead say there are “many good arguments” and then very quickly follow up with some cop out as to why I will not be hearing any of them like “But you would not understand them” or “But you do not really want them anyway” or “But you should find them for yourself” or “But you deep down hate god so why bother” or or or…

That you would SAY there are many good arguments therefore is entirely unsurprising to me and I could have told you that before you said it.

One man's "good" argument is another man's hideous mess of illogical nonsense.

I and others have tackled Jakkass' list of his arguments for his faith and, unsurprisingly, found them seriously lacking.

Same with Mere Christianity, often touted as the best place for people to start exploring Christian apologetics.

I would actually love to find some strong meaty arguments for theism, stuff that I really had to think a long time about, or that caused me to struggle to find an answer to. So far I haven't met any theist arguments like that since I was a teenager just starting to explore atheism.

liamw wrote: »

You and Jakkass love to say this. Why not start a new thread with your arguments for belief in Christianity since we got it all so wrong?

I point out that I've never heard a particular argument (a point that, if I've ever made it before, would only have been once before). That qualifies as loving to say something?

Christianity is primarily a relationship, not a system of belief. Why would I want to try to argue you or anybody else into a relationship?

I think sometimes you let your vitriol override your brain. It certainly doesn't help reasoned discussion.

PDN wrote: »

Christianity is primarily a relationship, not a system of belief. Why would I want to try to argue you or anybody else into a relationship?

So you pop into this forum every so often to point out how atheists are arguing against straw-men. If Christianity is about a 'relationship' with God, then you need to make the assertion that firstly your particular God exists and the Bible is his inspired word. That, to me, would seem like a truth claim. If you are content having a 'relationship' with an entity for which you don't care about the evidence for it's existence, then there is nothing more to discuss really.

PDN wrote: »

Ah, I think you're splitting hairs. Anyone with whom you have a relationship (assuming you do have some relationships) could be a figment of your imagination.

True.

But a "relationship" with a supernatural deity no one can see or test requires a bit more of a belief that a belief you have a relationship with your mother.

Saying that Christianity is not about belief but about a relationship is just skipping over the the acceptance of a supernatural belief in order to get to the relationship bit, the bit you guys like to talk about (as I've said in this age of reason Christianity seems to be more and more about PR, making sure the focus stays on the bits Christians want to be on, not the troublesome bits).

The rest of us are back at the belief bit, and I think you will agree that if the belief isn't true you don't have a relationship with anyone other than your own subconscious. A lot of Christians realize this and feel it necessary to justify why it is real. We have had rather a lot of "Arguments for God" threads on this forum and other forums.

PDN wrote: »

The fact is that I, and millions of others like me (confirmation from others?), enjoy a relationship that we are satisfied is not imaginary, and which we feel benefits our lives and makes us happier.

And which a lot of Christians spend a lot of time trying to justify is actually real, particularly as more and more evidence mounts that it isn't.

Justifying Christian belief isn't something that was invented by atheists.

bluewolf wrote: »

I'm surprised you're not more into spreading the good word

I spend my life spreading the Word - but trying to argue someone into a position is a very different proposition from that. I tell people what I believe, and let them take it or leave it. The rest is up to them.

If you keep trying to argue people to agree with you, then the net result is often that you become hostile to those who don't accept your arguments. Such a trait is singularly unattractive both in Christians and in atheists.

What caricatures and misrepresentations would those be?

They are legion. Where do you want me to start?
One of the first times I ventured on this forum was when a poster posted a video (produced in Germany) arguing that George Bush's invasion of Iraq was motivated by him being a Southern Baptist (complete with lurid details about what fundamentalist Southern Baptists believe), and a link to a Hindu fundamentalist website that claimed missionaries had deliberately committed genocide on a particular island to put a convert on the throne there. The poster used this as a basis that Christianity needed to be eradicated and replaced by "the courage and compassion of atheism" (now there's 2 words you won't often find together).

I pointed out that George Bush was in fact a member of the rather liberal Methodist denomination (Bill Clinton is a Southern Baptist, as was Al Gore and Jimmy Carter) and cited historical sources to demonstrate that the genocide claim was bogus.

There have been many other instances, and in some cases they boiled down to differences of interpretation and opinion. Other times I pointed out an easily verified error (such as the SS having "Gott Mitt Uns" on their belt-buckles) and generally, on those occasions, the response was usually one of "Well, that might technically be correct, but what about this?" accompanied by a snide dig or an attempt to pick an argument over something else.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that anyone has responded by saying "Thanks, I didn't know that." or "You might have a point there."