Ask an atheist
- Thread starter Askthepizzaguy
- Start date
- Status
PeteAtoms
FormulaRandom
I agree that people are totally fallible. And most atheists wouldn't claim to be 100% certain of the non-existence of God. A huge majority of atheists admit that they could be wrong, but they are honest with themselves when they say that there is no good evidence to support the notion of God.
I tend to think that having doubt is what makes the scientific method work. Maybe doubt is a key component to the progression of knowledge. You can't just assume you're right without doing the investigation. That's how you learn something new.
In my experience, religious people seem to start with the existence of God as a given axiom or something. From there, they work backwards to find evidence that support their conclusion, while doing mental gymnastics to explain away the contradictory evidence.
It seems to me, that the only proper way to discuss or go about proving the existence of God, is to start with doubt and than look at what we know to come to a conclusion.
And best of all, the unknown is always better handled by atheists. When confronted with a mystery, these are the responses I usually hear:
Atheist: "We don't know yet, but we're trying to figure it out."
Religious: "God did it (poof)." OR: "God works in mysterious ways."
I think it's awesome that one side can admit to being wrong and pursue the truth, while the other side clings to one view no matter what.
brennan
Argumentative Brit
Shown repeatedly to be false in particle physics: See 'virtual particles', 'casimir effect', hidden variables', 'Aspect experiment'.
Nonsense, frankly.
...bit of a rofl this one, on what is #2 based? It looks like a very convenient assumption to me and who says the universe is fine tuned in the first place?
1) So what?
2) No they don't.
What bothers me most about the "moral argument" is that God's morals are somehow objective. I mean, they're still his own morals he passed down to mankind according to Christian belief, so they're subjective.
Subjective with a really powerful authority behind it, but still subjective.
For the teleogical argument: I suggest looking up the weak anthropic principle. The world we live in is "fine tuned" for our existence because in a world that isn't we wouldn't be around wondering why it is.
Subjective with a really powerful authority behind it, but still subjective.
For the teleogical argument: I suggest looking up the weak anthropic principle. The world we live in is "fine tuned" for our existence because in a world that isn't we wouldn't be around wondering why it is.
Midgard Eagle
Warlord
Fixed that for you.
That, and the fact that God somehow agrees a 100% with each and every one of his two billion followers.
Edit:
Thing is, we all have things in which we don't believe, and we typically disbelieve for the same reason: lack of evidence.
I don't believe in God. I don't believe in Him for the same reason I don't believe there's a treasure chest full of silver bars buried under the floor of my room, or that come Friday someone will give me a sailboat free of charge. No evidence for a belief=no reason to hold that belief=no belief.
A weird thing about peoples' conception of atheists is that while everyone is perfectly fine with us not believing in other things (such as unicorns, or ghosts, or four-leaved clovers bringing luck), when it comes to God all of a sudden there must be some social or political or selfish reason for not believing.
Yes, I can be mistaken, just like you can be mistaken when you don't believe there's a magic Viking ship buried under your school or workplace, and that it will give you an eternity in a paradise if you just sacrifice it a goat once a month. But until you give me evidence, I'm not going to believe.
Edit again:
Except far more mentally healthy, because Santa loves you and is always cheerful and rewards you when you do good. With God, nothing is ever good enough. You can do your absolute utmost and be a fantastic human being, but your very nature (which He created you with) assures you won't ever reach His goals. No matter how good you are, no matter how well you treat your fellow creatures on earth, no matter how much you achieve, no matter how hard you strive, you are an evil, worthless creature who deserves only to be killed outright and then tortured for eternity.
This is not a philosophy that leads to contentment and self-esteem. It doesn't make Christians go around talking about how proud they are of humanity's achievements. It doesn't make people go out to accomplish great things. When humans treat each others this way, we call it oppression and abuse.
Akka
Moody old mage.
So their supposed champion has debating and reasoning skills that would shame a college schoolboy ? That's both comical and frightening, if somehow unsurprising...
I was going to start tearing these apart, but seems I've been beaten to it. Oh well, at least I didn't waste time battling windmills...
Whiskey_Lord
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 2,163
Yeah, William Lane Craig is extremely overrated. TBH, the best arguments for theism I've seen have come from Jewish intellectuals. I suppose Judaism has an edge over Christianity and Islam because it doesn't make the same careless assumptions.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Ha ha, what?
Whiskey_Lord
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 2,163
Yeah I know. Unfortunately, I couldn't get an answer to my questions either. The guy just told me that I missed the point and that I hated god. Whatever.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I am going to start using that in all my debates.
Whiskey_Lord
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 2,163
Well, I've made it clear that I despise the god of the Bible, but I also believe it's a fictional character. I don't 'hate' god in the sense that one hates a real person. The Biblical god is sort of like Bella Swan from Twilight: the main character who is also the main antagonist.
To be honest, I can't understand the atheist/agnostic who doesn't believe in a negative (God doesn't exist), but says they just don't believe in a positive (God exists). You say you don't believe in God because there is no evidence to prove His existence, yes? But, is there any evidence to suggest that this "logic" is correct?
According to a non-believing atheist, is there any evidence that says enlightenment, happiness, and logic are "better" than ignorance, sadness, and irrationality? No. So how can people be intent on supporting these things that have no evidence behind them, while being intent on denying other things that have no evidence behind them? I sense some degree of inconsistency here.
If faith in God is based off of nothing other than "blind faith and fairy tales", then where does your faith in logic and reason come from? Is there anything that proves that logic and reason are any more worth having faith in than religion, aside from your own intuition? (which is human; i.e. fallible).
According to a non-believing atheist, is there any evidence that says enlightenment, happiness, and logic are "better" than ignorance, sadness, and irrationality? No. So how can people be intent on supporting these things that have no evidence behind them, while being intent on denying other things that have no evidence behind them? I sense some degree of inconsistency here.
If faith in God is based off of nothing other than "blind faith and fairy tales", then where does your faith in logic and reason come from? Is there anything that proves that logic and reason are any more worth having faith in than religion, aside from your own intuition? (which is human; i.e. fallible).
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Would be capable of elaborating on that for us? It does not strike me as a self-evident point.
Whiskey_Lord
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2008
- Messages
- 2,163
Umm, because enlightenment, happiness, and logic are demonstrably more constructive and conducive to improving the quality of human life than ignorance, sadness, and irrationality? Was this a serious question?
Think about it; how is basing one's life off of one's ideology any different than the other - one decides that one thing is better than the other when there is no truth in any assessment of this sort - all moral value is given by mankind, and mankind is not omniscient.
EDIT DUE TO EDIT: As an atheist who refuses to believe unless there is proof, why would you believe that reason, logic, etc. are better (from an infallible, universal perspective) than idiocy and ignorance, when there is no indication from an infallible source that this is the case?
Improving? You say that as if you know what is "good" for mankind; what the consequences of events will be in the future, and whether they are "good" or "bad". Maybe it is "good" for mankind, if we think of "good" as serving to advance our species, but that does not by any means make it a universal good. And even "advancing our species" can be "bad" - look at how our advanced technology can kill millions in a second.
Eat_Up_Martha
Prince
I don't speak for the others who have been responding thus far, but I've always thought that one of the primary pillars of atheism was that there is no infallible, universal perspective.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
What do you mean by this, and why is it necessary? I certainly don't subscribe to any notion of the sanctity of objectivity, Gramscian little rascal that I am.
Therefore, they must act on their intuition and the way they see the world to gather their perspective - how does this make them any different from Christians or Muslims in terms of developing their "knowledge" with no evidence suggesting they are actually correct? If everything is relative, nothing absolute, then how is one thing right, better than the other?
If your "knowledge" is based off of subjectivity, then how do you know it is more correct than the "knowledge" of a Catholic or Lutheran? If nothing is guaranteed to be true, how is anything guaranteed to be wrong?
Akka
Moody old mage.
Welcome to the real world, where things don't works in binary, and it's not because two things aren't both 100 % certain that they are both equivalent !
Let me propose you a game ! I'll throw one hundred regular dices in a big closed box. Once closed, we won't ever be able to open it and be absolutely sure of which face the dices show.
Then we'll shake it, and then I'll tell you that they don't all show 6, and you'll tell me that yes, they do all show 6. Guess who's going to be "more correct" than the other, despite both events being possible and the result impossible to absolutely verify ?
- Status
