I mean, it's a weak reductio, and the absurdum that you're reductio-ing to is an FSM or a teapot or something, right? Well, such things are only "absurd" in contrast to the implicitly non-absurd traditional judeo-xian God concepts. So the argument sort of relies on the typical Christian concept of God being non-absurd in order to make its point.
Would you mind elaborating on this briefly? I fail to see how the argument relies on the non-absurdity of God, or how it's a count against the argument either way.
Additionally, it misunderstands the "you can't disprove it" argument. The "you can't disprove it" argument isn't just the silly notion that anything which cannot be disproven ought to be given full credit. The "you can't disprove it" argument might more accurately be stated as "you can't disprove it, but you act as if you have disproven it" or "unless you have actual proof that I'm wrong, get out of my face and quit challenging my beliefs." FSM doesn't do a whole lot to counter either of those.
Well, frequently the "can't disprove..." argument indicates that something warrants respect in a conversation, not necessarily full credit. This is somewhat in line with the intellectually indefensible position held by some agnostics that there's an inherant 50/50 chance of the existence of god(s), even in the absence of evidence.
Also, given your examples of analogous arguments, teapots and FSMs are still appropriate to address the claims- it's not that the concept has been disproven (or that people should act that way), it's that in the limbo of no evidence for or against, it's ridiculous to assume in the affirmative.
Finally, for those unfamiliar:
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. -Bertrand Russell
It's irritating to have people constantly insulting you and your beliefs so people get angry. Not many people really want to be prosyletized. The irritating thing about it is that the people doing it don't really give a flying fuck about you except in the most abstract sense. They just want to convert you to their righteous point of view.
And they have endless rationalizations about why converting you is more important than not bothering you or why you don't deserve to be treated like a person - there's nothing you can do with them.
You just have to ignore them and try to be polite when they knock on your door.
It's irritating to have people constantly insulting you and your beliefs so people get angry. Not many people really want to be prosyletized. The irritating thing about it is that the people doing it don't really give a flying fuck about you except in the most abstract sense. They just want to convert you to their righteous point of view.
And they have endless rationalizations about why converting you is more important than not bothering you or why you don't deserve to be treated like a person - there's nothing you can do with them.
You just have to ignore them and try to be polite when they knock on your door.
I think you've pretty well summed up my views on the subject. I have a high respect for most atheists, the simple lack of belief is, in my opinion, a pretty brave stance.
Still, it isn't my belief, and I'm not really in the mood to be converted by much of anyone. Not that this applies to Loren specifically, more, as I said before, the kind of frustration that builds as you run into multiple examples of the worst parts of it. Eventually you start to hear a familiar arguement, and you start to bring up past arguements that were actually with totally different people.
Because annoying the hell out of people you disagree with certainly makes them inclined to change their minds.
There is a middle ground, here. The fact that you don't seem to understand that is why you get labeled as a fundamentalist.
And yet, you don't feel the need to take your own advice when arguing for things you believe in. Hello, concern-trolling. What you just posted is basically a thinly-disguised STFU. I've seen it plenty of times, "if only you feminists/coloureds/lefties weren't so *shrill*...". Bullshit.
For the record, it's hardly the first time someone around here has ever responded to a fallacy with a thinly-disguised 'STFU'.
It's irritating to have people constantly insulting you and your beliefs so people get angry. Not many people really want to be proselytized. The irritating thing about it is that the people doing it don't really give a flying fuck about you except in the most abstract sense. They just want to convert you to their righteous point of view.
And they have endless rationalizations about why converting you is more important than not bothering you or why you don't deserve to be treated like a person - there's nothing you can do with them.
Try not to conflate rationalizations with actual reasons.
I don't doubt that many fundamentalists have what they perceive to be humanity's best interests at heart. I don't doubt that many of them actually believe that they are saving souls. If this is the "abstract sense" that you are talking about, I have to disagree that they are using their beliefs to justify pushing people around. I've said as much in the past, but a great many fundamentalists are extremely nice people, soft spoken, polite, and/or somewhat withdrawn, genuinely given to caring about other people.
Where people like myself are concerned, I can only really speak for me, but I perceive dogmatism and faith-like beliefs (and the toleration of them) to be extremely damaging to society and individuals.
The problem that is largely unique to religion, and I'm glad you bring this up, is that people feel justified in being angry at challenges to their religious beliefs in ways that are wholly unlike disagreements in other areas. In talks of politics, science, or economics, "can you back that up?" isn't met with righteous indignation (or if it is, someone's credibility is immediately shot).
Finally, with respect to "you don't deserve to be treated like a person..." how exactly is a person to be treated? If someone says something that to me is obviously wrong or specious, should I lie through a pasted-on smile, speaking words I do not believe, just for the sake of ensuring that people I disagree with don't feel bad? We don't commonly extend this saccharine level of courtesy to people, and I don't see why we should where religion is involved.
It's irritating to have people constantly insulting you and your beliefs so people get angry. Not many people really want to be prosyletized. The irritating thing about it is that the people doing it don't really give a flying fuck about you except in the most abstract sense. They just want to convert you to their righteous point of view.
And they have endless rationalizations about why converting you is more important than not bothering you or why you don't deserve to be treated like a person - there's nothing you can do with them.
You just have to ignore them and try to be polite when they knock on your door.
I think you've pretty well summed up my views on the subject. I have a high respect for most atheists, the simple lack of belief is, in my opinion, a pretty brave stance.
Still, it isn't my belief, and I'm not really in the mood to be converted by much of anyone. Not that this applies to Loren specifically, more, as I said before, the kind of frustration that builds as you run into multiple examples of the worst parts of it. Eventually you start to hear a familiar arguement, and you start to bring up past arguements that were actually with totally different people.
I think the problem is you're all conflating the internet with real life, which for this exact subject is a terrible medium because no one gives a fuck about their usual sensibilities in this sort of interaction.
Not real enough to challenge anyone who's going to post's beliefs, not fake enough for people who post to ignore.
On the internet, atheists aren't believe to actually be moral people because it's the internet and they're not quite real much like everyone else.
It's irritating to have people constantly insulting you and your beliefs so people get angry. Not many people really want to be proselytized. The irritating thing about it is that the people doing it don't really give a flying fuck about you except in the most abstract sense. They just want to convert you to their righteous point of view.
And they have endless rationalizations about why converting you is more important than not bothering you or why you don't deserve to be treated like a person - there's nothing you can do with them.
Try not to conflate rationalizations with actual reasons.
I'm sure you feel you have very important reasons for your mono-mania.
The problem that is largely unique to religion, and I'm glad you bring this up, is that people feel justified in being angry at challenges to their religious beliefs in ways that are wholly unlike disagreements in other areas. In talks of politics, science, or economics, "can you back that up?" isn't met with righteous indignation (or if it is, someone's credibility is immediately shot).
Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That's an idea we're so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it's kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? — because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'.
The odd thing is, even as I am saying that I am thinking 'Is there an Orthodox Jew here who is going to be offended by the fact that I just said that?' but I wouldn't have thought 'Maybe there's somebody from the left wing or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the other in economics' when I was making the other points. I just think 'Fine, we have different opinions'. But, the moment I say something that has something to do with somebody's (I'm going to stick my neck out here and say irrational) beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say 'No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no, we respect it'.
It's rather like, if you think back in terms of animal evolution, an animal that's grown an incredible carapace around it, such as a tortoise—that's a great survival strategy because nothing can get through it; or maybe like a poisonous fish that nothing will come close to, which therefore thrives by keeping away any challenges to what it is it is. In the case of an idea, if we think 'Here is an idea that is protected by holiness or sanctity', what does it mean? Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that's holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we've just got used to doing so? There's no other reason at all, it's just one of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it's very, very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.
There's two problems with labeling any atheist with the words extreme.
1) Almost any religious person, no matter how non-religious they actually are(my mom doesn't go to church, pray, read the the bible or ever talk about religion), the second you bring up the notion that god doesn't exist they immediately go on the defensive. It's almost impossible to have a rational conversation about it. Religion has been put on such a pedastle that any slight towards it is considered an insult. Any outside person watching an exchange such as this is going to blame the entire incident on the atheist simply because they brought it up. Suddenly any atheist is extreme simply because they were trying to have a conversation or make a joke.
2) Atheists, as a group(which I don't like to use, because then people confuse it for a religion) are the most misunderstood subconsciously discriminated against people in the country. Sure, nobody is going to call you a racial slur simply because there is no outword way to seperate atheists from anyone else. But as soon as it becomes known, you have a bullseye on your head. I had a girl come up to me randomly at school once and tell me I was sad. I couldn't figure it out. I'm sure many of you have heard the study where the average person in the united states put an atheist on the bottom of the list for people they would elect president. That's below blacks, muslims and gays.
At this point in our society, calling an atheist extreme or a fundamentalist is almost akin to calling civil rights leaders fundamentalists. People need to know they exist and stop tightening their asshole over it. I've very rarely encountered an atheist who was actively trying to convert someone. 90% of the time they are on the defensive explaining themselves.
2) Atheists, as a group(which I don't like to use, because then people confuse it for a religion) are the most misunderstood subconsciously discriminated against people in the country.
I might not consider a guy like Sam Harris a fundamentalist, but I'm very comfortable with calling him a leadsucking moron. I don't consider anyone who dismisses economics like he does worth listening to.
I might not consider a guy like Sam Harris a fundamentalist, but I'm very comfortable with calling him a leadsucking moron. I don't consider anyone who dismisses economics like he does worth listening to.
Could you please elaborate?
I'm not arguing with you; I just really don't know much about Sam Harris (I'm more familiar with Richard Dawkins on the outspoken atheist front).
I might not consider a guy like Sam Harris a fundamentalist, but I'm very comfortable with calling him a leadsucking moron. I don't consider anyone who dismisses economics like he does worth listening to.
He doesn't dismiss economics, to my knowledge. I'm pretty certain his argument is that people tend to reduce problems purely to economic and similar factors and dismiss religion and ideology as being potential factors in the motivations of people.
I might not consider a guy like Sam Harris a fundamentalist, but I'm very comfortable with calling him a leadsucking moron. I don't consider anyone who dismisses economics like he does worth listening to.
Could you please elaborate?
I'm not arguing with you; I just really don't know much about Sam Harris (I'm more familiar with Richard Dawkins on the outspoken atheist front).
He considers those who think economic development to be an appropriate tool in fighting fundamentalism (in the middle east) to be living in a fantasy world. Because it's apparently not as effective as masturbating about atheism.
I agree with much of what has been said in this thread.
Some thoughts:
I've noticed that a lot of outspoken atheists tend to concentrate on abstract, philosophical discussions about the existence of God. FSM, celetial teapot, "you can't prove that God doesn't exist," the nature of faith vs. logic, etc. These are interesting (though often tedious) discussions, but I find it odd that so many atheists are limiting their discussion to the idea of religion, and so few are interacting with the specific claims of the religions themselves.
I don't think there's anything strange about a belief in a higher power. I don't accept that belief but I'm not going to call someone "stupid" or even "brainwashed" for holding that belief. On the other hand, I am completely dumbstruck as to how so many people can say, with conviction, that they believe the Bible is the word of this higher power, or even that the Bible is somewhat inspired by this higher power. (or the Quran, or the Vedas).
Most Christians in America simply have no fucking idea what the Bible even says (a Time article recently said that 50% of Americans couldn't name a gospel). More importantly, I've found that the moral beliefs of Christian Americans are completely contradictory to the morals in the Bible. You won't find any Christian in America who believes that slavery should be legal—and yet God explicitly tells us that we can buy foreign slaves as property and even commands us to enslave cities we conquer. Christians pretend that the "New Covenant" somehow abolishes all the barbaric laws of the OT—which is nonsense for two reasons: (1) Jesus did not abolish the law but fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17) and (2) just because you don't have to follow the old laws doesn't mean the old laws are wrong to follow (how could they be wrong if they come from God?)
I think it's high time for atheists to refocus their efforts from these abstract philosophical questions about God, and start talking about the nitty-gritty of the Bible—especially the morals of the Bible. I believe that the vast majority of Christians in America simply have no idea what the Bible says. Most Americans snore through church services, absorbing only a few palatable tidpits like "Jesus so loves the world" and "honor thy father and mother" and "believe and go to heaven." The best way to wake these people up is not through abstract arguments about faith and supreme beings—it's by challenging them to actually, honestly face the scriptures they claim to be sacred.
[Genes as selfish] is a language of convenience which is harmless unless it happens to fall into the hands of those ill-equipped to understand it. Or over-equipped to misunderstand it? I can, for example, find no other way to make sense of an article criticizing The Selfish Gene in the journal Philosophy, by someone named Mary Midgley, which is typified by its first sentence: 'Genes cannot be selfish or unselfish, any more than atoms can be jealous, elephants abstract or biscuits teleological." My own 'In Defense of Selfish Genes,' in a subsequent issue of the same journal, is a full reply to this incidentally highly intemperate and vicious paper.
It's not that he calls this published criticism "highly intemperate and vicious;" it's the way he calls it "incidentally highly intemperate and vicious." It's the way he states it was written by "someone named Mary Midgley." This tone--condescending and vengeful--suffuses the Selfish Gene.
I mean, yes, Mary's sentence (and thus paper) sounds entirely dumb, but -- he published a rebuttal in a subsequent issue of the magazine? And, a decade later, he's still grinding the axe in his endnotes? It sounds as if it got under his skin, to the point where he's incapable of dealing with it professionally. He's still calling this person "somebody named So-and-so," which is not a good sign.
Mary Midgley is a British philosopher, and probably ranks a slightly better epithet. On the other hand, judging from that Wikipedia entry, she and Dawkins seem constitutionally suited to one another.
I simply don't see how the argument can be made that he's not an asshole to those with whom he disagrees. He IS very humorous but he definitely pushes the envelope. For instance, the juxtaposition of the end of Chapter 1 with the beginning of Chapter 2:
(end of Chapter 1, paraphrase): "...will offer due accord to all other people, try not to be overtly offensive or bait others, understand religion a touchy subject, etc. Now let us proceed."
(first sentence of Chapter 2, exact quote): "The god of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, Philicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
I mean, I agree, but the guy was born without the tact gene.
I think it's high time for atheists to refocus their efforts from these abstract philosophical questions about God, and start talking about the nitty-gritty of the Bible—especially the morals of the Bible. I believe that the vast majority of Christians in America simply have no idea what the Bible says. Most Americans snore through church services, absorbing only a few palatable tidpits like "Jesus so loves the world" and "honor thy father and mother" and "believe and go to heaven." The best way to wake these people up is not through abstract arguments about faith and supreme beings—it's by challenging them to actually, honestly face the scriptures they claim to be sacred.
This has been done. And it's a lot easier that talking about the philosophical questions about god's existence. In my experience though when you point out these flaws, people either immediately shut down any kind of logical response or they are the "pick and choose" type people who only use the Bible for the fuzzy feelgoods while completely ignoring anything. This gives them feeling of moral superiority that the bible tends to infuse it's believers with while(in their mind) any contradiction or immoral activity in the bible is simply to be ignored. It's hard to discuss those matters with someone like that.
I think it's high time for atheists to refocus their efforts from these abstract philosophical questions about God, and start talking about the nitty-gritty of the Bible—especially the morals of the Bible. I believe that the vast majority of Christians in America simply have no idea what the Bible says. Most Americans snore through church services, absorbing only a few palatable tidpits like "Jesus so loves the world" and "honor thy father and mother" and "believe and go to heaven." The best way to wake these people up is not through abstract arguments about faith and supreme beings—it's by challenging them to actually, honestly face the scriptures they claim to be sacred.
This has been done. And it's a lot easier that talking about the philosophical questions about god's existence. In my experience though when you point out these flaws, people either immediately shut down any kind of logical response or they are the "pick and choose" type people who only use the Bible for the fuzzy feelgoods while completely ignoring anything.
Then challenge them on it. They pick and choose? Ask them what moral authority do they decide which parts of the Bible are good and which parts are worthless? Because it can't be the Bible.
This gives them feeling of moral superiority that the bible tends to infuse it's believers with while(in their mind) any contradiction or immoral activity in the bible is simply to be ignored. It's hard to discuss those matters with someone like that.
I say keep at it, as it's the most effective method I've seen for "deconverting" people.
And I think we also have to keep that in mind—deconverting is exactly what we're doing. People don't rationally decide to believe in religion. Think about how most people are raised in America. Before you even learn how to speak your parents take you to church, where you see all the people standing up to sing a song and sitting down to listen to a sermon, in perfect harmony. Before you have the capacity to reason, you are baptized and forced to undergo bizzarre religious rituals with all the other children. Just as you're beginning to understand English, every Sunday you go and hear a man in a position of tremendous authority (your parents sit in rapt attention) that if you don't believe you are going to hell, but if you do believe you'll get to meet your loving father in heaven and be happy forever. You pledge allegiance to the flag—under God. You spend money with "in God we trust" printed on it. Everywhere you go, everywhere you turn, the belief in God and the Bible is presented as completely normal.
That's not something you can just "turn off" when someone presents you with a rational counterargument. This is why abstract discussions about God are so inneffective. Religious people need "shock treatment" and the best way to shock them out of their beliefs is to challenge them on their morals. Yes, they're going to cherry-pick or invoke some bullshit faith claim, but I think in general it has a major effect and in some cases provokes a moral crisis that leads them to start seriously questioning their faith. Once they start questioning, then you hit them with the philosophical arguments.
Well, specific supernaturalist claims have already been debunked- miracles, the power of prayer, etc. Many atheists are also ambitious, and concentrate on knocking down the whole Jenga tower with a single pull- take away the God Brick, in the hopes it all comes tumbling down. It's probably unrealistic.
The point of the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't too annoy- it's to get you to think. Why is God any different from the FSM? The burden is always on the claim maker to show evidence for a claim. In general, when you press a theist on this subject, they can't come up with a legitimate reason to dismiss the Flying Spaghetti Monster but accept God. Other than...
1. Hearsay (unreliable, distorted and contradictory hearsay!)
2. The fact that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is obviously a joke, which is admittedly a pretty good reason.
But it still defeats the "You can't prove me wrong!" argument, since I can't prove a thousand ridiculous ideas wrong. I can't prove you don't have a dragon in your brain. I can't prove you aren't really a Cylon 'less you and I are going to get intimate. I can't prove there isn't a conspiracy to get you- after all, the conspiracy could just be better at hiding than I am at investigating. You can't prove the FSM isn't real- maybe the creator was simply inspired by his Noodly Appendage? After all, many Christians believe that confirmed mistranslations and errors that went into the King James Bible were divinely inspired and so reflect the Word of God accurately because...God loves typos, apparently.
If it is impossible to disprove an idea, it is impossible to prove it. Science is about disproof, about separating bullshit from truth. Unfalsifiable ideas are indistinguishable from one another. Evolution is a scientific theory because it could conceivably be falsified if the evidence led in that direction, and that evolution hasn't been falsified despite every effort to do so is a sign that it is a robust and likely pretty good reflection of reality. How would I go about falsifying Catholicism?
I can't, and I'm expected not to point this out because it is 'Sacred'. Well, nothing is sacred to a skeptic- I believe in evolution wholeheartedly, but if fossil rabbits in the pre-cambrian showed up tomorrow I'd have to discard it.
"unless you have actual proof that I'm wrong, get out of my face and quit challenging my beliefs.
Ah, this sums up the problem quite succinctly. We're not "challenging" your beliefs, as if they're established and we (we being "atheists") are introducing something new. We're demanding that you back up your challenge to the default, the null hypothesis. The theist is the one making the extraordinary claim- God's existence is not obvious, even if it is popular and long lasting.
I, the atheist, don't have to prove you wrong. That's not my job. It is your role to provide evidence to make me reject the null hypothesis that God does not exist.
Whenever we test for the existence of something, we first assume that it does not exist. We then look at the evidence in favor and if said evidence is compelling, we reject the hypothesis of nonexistence. We do this because it is much easier and more reliable than assuming something exists and then looking for evidence that it doesn't.
I've never seen an argument that presents a good reason- evidence, logic, whatever- for the existence of God. And that, by itself, constitutes a good argument for God not existing at all- because if He was real, surely there'd be some sign of it.
EDIT: Oh, come on. If the worst thing a person can say about Richard Dawkins is that he is "really grumpy", I'm going to go ahead and trust the guy. Call him Professor Crankypants if you want- if he's right, he's right. Besides, that end notes section includes all sorts of responses to criticism- I imagine he wanted to stop getting mails about the same tired old objections.
Professor Phobos on
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BarcardiAll the WizardsUnder A Rock: AfganistanRegistered Userregular
edited April 2007
interesting article on the subject
horray for dissenting opinions oh wait no lol internet
I feel that atheism may be acquiring precisely those characteristics that atheists so dislike about religion - intolerance, dogmatism, righteousness, moral contempt for one's opponents.
• Atheists are not intolerant. They are not advocating imprisoning or sanctioning people in any way for holding beliefs—let alone burning them at the stake or stoning them.
• Atheists are not dogmatic. "Dogma" means a body of scripture you believe cannot be wrong. Science is not dogma because it's by nature falsifiable. "There is no god" is not dogma in the same way that "there are no fairies" is not dogma.
• "Righteousness" and "moral contempt" are not problems I have with religion. My problems with religion is that their morals are atrocious. I think it's very important for atheists to be passionate about their morals—otherwise, what's the point of debating?
Edit: comparing Dawkins to Ahmadinejad is utter bullshit. Seriously. If you're going to compare me to a theocratic dictator because I think your belief in God is wrong, you're full of shit.
I think it's high time for atheists to refocus their efforts from these abstract philosophical questions about God, and start talking about the nitty-gritty of the Bible—especially the morals of the Bible. I believe that the vast majority of Christians in America simply have no idea what the Bible says. Most Americans snore through church services, absorbing only a few palatable tidpits like "Jesus so loves the world" and "honor thy father and mother" and "believe and go to heaven." The best way to wake these people up is not through abstract arguments about faith and supreme beings—it's by challenging them to actually, honestly face the scriptures they claim to be sacred.
This has been done. And it's a lot easier that talking about the philosophical questions about god's existence. In my experience though when you point out these flaws, people either immediately shut down any kind of logical response or they are the "pick and choose" type people who only use the Bible for the fuzzy feelgoods while completely ignoring anything. This gives them feeling of moral superiority that the bible tends to infuse it's believers with while(in their mind) any contradiction or immoral activity in the bible is simply to be ignored. It's hard to discuss those matters with someone like that.
Many people frequently say "don't tell me how to interpret my religion!" as if quoting verse from the book they ostensibly follow is somehow an insult.
Dawkins noted this is one of his speeches, saying that many modern religious people, especially in the west, take parts of their religion as metaphor or allegory if they no longer agree with them. He says it's not really any more or less of an illogical stance, but actually admits that it aggravates him because people will never admit that that's what they're doing.
Everything in the Bible was taken as literal fact for hundreds of years. That doesn't mean a literal interpretation is automatically correct any more than the fact that Christianity has been around so long means it must be right, but it's hard for many people like Dawkins to deal with it because it's like a game. Point out something in the Bible that they don't agree with - like God in Deuteronomy commanding believers to LITERALLY kill anyone if they so much as suggest you convert to a different religion - and rather than seeing it as irrational and recognizing that other things may be irrational too and in fact maybe the entire thing is irrational, they'll simply rationalize it by saying "oh, that's allegory," or "oh, that's a metaphor," or "oh, here, don't take that literally, this is what I think God really meant when he said that."
It is generally accepted by Christians that in order to get into heaven you have to accept Christ as your personal savior. There are many, many verses in the NT that support this, ranging from things like (paraphrasing) "the only way to get into heaven is through Christ" to things like (paraphrasing) "if you don't accept Christ all of your good works will be like dirty rags to God because you have rejected his greatest gift to man (Jesus)."
I know someone who's incredibly smart and except for religion is a pretty reasonable guy, even if I frequently disagree with him. But when it comes to his religion - and how he finds the idea that you will go to hell no matter how good you are if you don't accept Christ terrible - he rationalizes everything in the Bible to a ludicrous degree so he can still hold onto his belief. He interprets "the only way to heaven is through Christ" as "the only way to heaven is being a good person like Christ was" and interprets the "LOOK IF YOU DON'T ACCEPT CHRIST ALL OF YOUR GOOD DEEDS ARE DIRTY RAGS" thing as metaphor, because God doesn't really mean that.
And of course, he can hold those beliefs. He can rationalize it as much as he wants. But stuff like this precludes trying to show someone their religion is irrational by pointing out things they don't agree with, because they find it easier to desconstruct verse to the point where it means the opposite of what it actually says than to admit that there might be something wrong with their belief system.
I've never seen an argument that presents a good reason- evidence, logic, whatever- for the existence of God. And that, by itself, constitutes a good argument for God not existing at all- because if He was real, surely there'd be some sign of it.
Actually, it is a rather shitty argument.
Argument from Ignorance: or 'absence of evidence equals evidence of absence'. "Unicorns cannot exist because nobody has ever seen them". Just because nobody has seen one does not prove that Unicorns do not exist.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
• Atheists are not intolerant. They are not advocating imprisoning or sanctioning people in any way for holding beliefs—let alone burning them at the stake or stoning them.
But they're so mean about it! How will religion's domination of politics, culture and society possibly survive Richard "Snarky" Dawkins?
• Atheists are not dogmatic. "Dogma" means a body of scripture you believe cannot be wrong. Science is not dogma because it's by nature falsifiable. "There is no god" is not dogma in the same way that "there are no fairies" is not dogma.
I'm sure there are some dogmatic atheists who would refuse to believe in God even if they met Him, but these people suck at being atheists. You're supposed to be an atheist because it is the only reasonable conclusion based on the evidence (or lack thereof). Atheism is a falsifiable belief, a scientific belief. Which means it could conceivably get beaten up and have its lunch money taken.
I think it's very important for atheists to be passionate about their morals—otherwise, what's the point of debating?
Passion is good! Besides, it takes a certain amount of arrogance to adopt the atheist perspective (at least in parts of the US) because you've effectively got to, at some point, decide that everyone around you is totally wrong about something they believe in wholeheartedly and you've been taught since birth. You have to conclude that your parents, your siblings, your priest (who may or may not be a big influence in your life), probably some or most of your teachers, your friends, you relatives, maybe your doctor...are all completely wrong, and you are right. Of course, this is justified- atheists are deservedly righteous because we've got the right idea about things.
Luckily for me I was in a fairly secular area and when I announced I was an atheist, everyone shrugged. But for some, it's a tough path to take simply because of the peer pressure against it.
The point I'm trying to make is that—at first—atheists shouldn't engage believers in a "rational" debate because believers don't value rationality. Pointing out the moral stance of the Bible is not really a "debate," it's just pointing out shit and asking them to clarify their own moral position.
You have to shock them out of their cult mentality before engaging in a rational debate with them. Rational debate is the easy part. The hard part is getting them to the point where they can accept the possibility that their faith in the Bible is misplaced.
If the author thinks that Dawkins is elitist, that's fine. But being elitist doesn't change your argument, it just changes how people perceive you. I think the problem with that article is that it brings emotion into the picture. It seems as though the author believes that without religion, emotion would not exist or we would not experience it as acutely. Emotion and Reason both have their place in problem solving. Emotion evolved just as reason did. There is no need to bring religion into the matter.
If you think religious belief is irrational, I don't see how one interpretation of a scripture - or even not valuing a scripture at all - makes the belief any more or less rational.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
2. There is no way to put the atheist position (weak or strong) nicely. Anyone interested in claiming to have been insulted, or anyone looking to be insulted, can find it, simply because an atheist, by definition, thinks that any religious person is flat-out wrong about something fundamental to their identity.
I've found that, if asked, you can just say "I'm not religious". People generally let that go.
As far as the implicit rudeness of disagreement, it's pretty much endemic to any form of disagreement. If you, say, favor the godl standard, it necessarily means that you think those monetarists are wrong. I think it's mostly that a lot of religious people asses their own virtue (and the virtue of others) along the axis of belief.
Argument from Ignorance: or 'absence of evidence equals evidence of absence'. "Unicorns cannot exist because nobody has ever seen them". Just because nobody has seen one does not prove that Unicorns do not exist.
Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. It is wholeheartedly evidence of it. I don't know where you got this mangled definition of the Argument from Ignorance, but it's erroneous and obviously contradictory- since it switches from "evidence of" to "proof of".
That there is no evidence of Unicorns is certainly evidence they don't exist. Do you believe in Unicorns? Why not? Because you have no compelling reason to! We do these sorts of things all the time, every day of our lives.
If there is no evidence of rain, do you believe it is raining?
If there is no evidence someone is inside your house asking you about your opinions on Scary Movies, do you call the police?
If there is no evidence you are a Martian, do you believe yourself a Martian?
If there is no evidence that you are really a dead child psychiatrist, do you hang around psychic children?
Besides, it's an informal fallacy, and like all informal fallacies, there are plenty of cases where they are not fallacious. The argument from authority is non-fallacious if the authority is accepted to be a reliable judge of the subject in question. It's not a fallacious tu quoque if you're arguing for someone being a hypocrite. Correlation and causation sometimes go together.
The lack of evidence for unicorns, faeries, gods, and Belgium all compel reasonable people to disregard their existence. This is not fallacious reasoning, and it is cruel to those of us who really should be going to bed to suggest that it is.
I mean, sure, if I can't find any evidence a murder occurred...that doesn't mean a murder did not occur. But it certainly inclines me towards that conclusion.
The point I'm trying to make is that—at first—atheists shouldn't engage believers in a "rational" debate because believers don't value rationality. Pointing out the moral stance of the Bible is not really a "debate," it's just pointing out shit and asking them to clarify their own moral position.
You have to shock them out of their cult mentality before engaging in a rational debate with them. Rational debate is the easy part. The hard part is getting them to the point where they can accept the possibility that their faith in the Bible is misplaced.
This probably works with some people, but I haven't met them. Everyone I have ever pointed out ridiculous things in their religion to has done one of two things:
1) Stopped listening entirely.
2) Rationalized the ridiculous things.
Then again, when I've engaged them on abstract grounds, one of two things always happens anyway:
1) They, again, stop listening entirely.
2) They resort to sophism and solipsism.
Either way, at a certain point they are no longer willing to continue the discussion.
I don't try to continue at that point because I'd rather not lose a friend and it's generally not that big a deal, but it's depressing, to say the least.
If you think religious belief is irrational, I don't see how one interpretation of a scripture - or even not valuing a scripture at all - makes the belief any more or less rational.
It doesn't.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
He considers those who think economic development to be an appropriate tool in fighting fundamentalism (in the middle east) to be living in a fantasy world. Because it's apparently not as effective as masturbating about atheism.
He has a point IMO. Areligiosity and religious liberalism tend to be correlated with economic progress, but I think it's mostly that economic progress in the modern world generally requires acceptance of modernism, which tends to work against most flavors of fundamentalism.
If you think religious belief is irrational, I don't see how one interpretation of a scripture - or even not valuing a scripture at all - makes the belief any more or less rational.
It doesn't.
I just think it is funny when someone trying to convert someone else to atheism gets all angry because the person treats a scripture allegorically or doesn't put much weight on it.
It doesn't actually make a difference from the perspective of the atheists argument, but they get all frustrated and feel like the person is trying to cheat them of their rightful victory.
Argument from Ignorance: or 'absence of evidence equals evidence of absence'. "Unicorns cannot exist because nobody has ever seen them". Just because nobody has seen one does not prove that Unicorns do not exist.
Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. It is wholeheartedly evidence of it. I don't know where you got this mangled definition of the Argument from Ignorance, but it's erroneous and obviously contradictory- since it switches from "evidence of" to "proof of".
That there is no evidence of Unicorns is certainly evidence they don't exist. Do you believe in Unicorns? Why not? Because you have no compelling reason to! We do these sorts of things all the time, every day of our lives.
If there is no evidence of rain, do you believe it is raining?
If there is no evidence someone is inside your house asking you about your opinions on Scary Movies, do you call the police?
If there is no evidence you are a Martian, do you believe yourself a Martian?
If there is no evidence that you are really a dead child psychiatrist, do you hang around psychic children?
Besides, it's an informal fallacy, and like all informal fallacies, there are plenty of cases where they are not fallacious. The argument from authority is non-fallacious if the authority is accepted to be a reliable judge of the subject in question. It's not a fallacious tu quoque if you're arguing for someone being a hypocrite. Correlation and causation sometimes go together.
The lack of evidence for unicorns, faeries, gods, and Belgium all compel reasonable people to disregard their existence. This is not fallacious reasoning, and it is cruel to those of us who really should be going to bed to suggest that it is.
I mean, sure, if I can't find any evidence a murder occurred...that doesn't mean a murder did not occur. But it certainly inclines me towards that conclusion for obvious reasons.
Also please see: Negative Proof. To take one of your rather poor examples:
If there is no evidence of rain, do you believe it is raining? Not if there is evidence that it is, in fact, not raining. There is a difference between looking up at the sky and saying, "it is not raining," and looking up at the ceiling of a windowless room and saying, "it is not raining."
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
If you think religious belief is irrational, I don't see how one interpretation of a scripture - or even not valuing a scripture at all - makes the belief any more or less rational.
It doesn't.
I just think it is funny when someone trying to convert someone else to atheism gets all angry because the person treats a scripture allegorically or doesn't put much weight on it.
It doesn't actually make a difference from the perspective of the atheists argument, but they get all frustrated and feel like the person is trying to cheat them of their rightful victory.
Are you referring to me? When have I gotten "angry" or "frustrated"? I remember you claiming that my "interpretation" of Biblical scripture was incorrect, though I don't remember you supporting that assertion.
I don't get angry when people take Deuteronomy 22:28, a verse that commands rape victims to marry their rapists, "allegorically." I simply ask why the person takes that verse allegorically—as opposed to the verse about, for example, the resurrection of Jesus.
"Militant","Fundamentalist","Asshole" atheists are a dime a dozen on the internet, and it really is a big problem because they all tend to conglomerate together and bash religion in a masturbatory orgy of oblivious groupthink. I really have no problem with having a discussion with an atheist, online or in person, concerning matters of religion and God when that person is essentially open-minded. But when you all get together online and sneer at Christians and other theists for being narrow-minded and intellectually inferior, you don't even realize the irony of the situation. That is why the term "fundamentalist atheist" is not entirely unjustifiable.
If you think religious belief is irrational, I don't see how one interpretation of a scripture - or even not valuing a scripture at all - makes the belief any more or less rational.
It doesn't.
I just think it is funny when someone trying to convert someone else to atheism gets all angry because the person treats a scripture allegorically or doesn't put much weight on it.
It doesn't actually make a difference from the perspective of the atheists argument, but they get all frustrated and feel like the person is trying to cheat them of their rightful victory.
Are you referring to me? When have I gotten "angry" or "frustrated"? I remember you claiming that my "interpretation" of Biblical scripture was incorrect, though I don't remember you supporting that assertion.
I don't get angry when people take Deuteronomy 22:28, a verse that commands rape victims to marry their rapists, "allegorically." I simply ask why the person takes that verse allegorically—as opposed to the verse about, for example, the resurrection of Jesus.
Probably because one is from the Old Testament and one is from the New Testament. Jesus changed or tossed out several of the old Jewish laws.
Knuckle Dragger on
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
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Would you mind elaborating on this briefly? I fail to see how the argument relies on the non-absurdity of God, or how it's a count against the argument either way.
Well, frequently the "can't disprove..." argument indicates that something warrants respect in a conversation, not necessarily full credit. This is somewhat in line with the intellectually indefensible position held by some agnostics that there's an inherant 50/50 chance of the existence of god(s), even in the absence of evidence.
Also, given your examples of analogous arguments, teapots and FSMs are still appropriate to address the claims- it's not that the concept has been disproven (or that people should act that way), it's that in the limbo of no evidence for or against, it's ridiculous to assume in the affirmative.
Finally, for those unfamiliar:
And they have endless rationalizations about why converting you is more important than not bothering you or why you don't deserve to be treated like a person - there's nothing you can do with them.
You just have to ignore them and try to be polite when they knock on your door.
I think you've pretty well summed up my views on the subject. I have a high respect for most atheists, the simple lack of belief is, in my opinion, a pretty brave stance.
Still, it isn't my belief, and I'm not really in the mood to be converted by much of anyone. Not that this applies to Loren specifically, more, as I said before, the kind of frustration that builds as you run into multiple examples of the worst parts of it. Eventually you start to hear a familiar arguement, and you start to bring up past arguements that were actually with totally different people.
Try not to conflate rationalizations with actual reasons.
I don't doubt that many fundamentalists have what they perceive to be humanity's best interests at heart. I don't doubt that many of them actually believe that they are saving souls. If this is the "abstract sense" that you are talking about, I have to disagree that they are using their beliefs to justify pushing people around. I've said as much in the past, but a great many fundamentalists are extremely nice people, soft spoken, polite, and/or somewhat withdrawn, genuinely given to caring about other people.
Where people like myself are concerned, I can only really speak for me, but I perceive dogmatism and faith-like beliefs (and the toleration of them) to be extremely damaging to society and individuals.
The problem that is largely unique to religion, and I'm glad you bring this up, is that people feel justified in being angry at challenges to their religious beliefs in ways that are wholly unlike disagreements in other areas. In talks of politics, science, or economics, "can you back that up?" isn't met with righteous indignation (or if it is, someone's credibility is immediately shot).
Finally, with respect to "you don't deserve to be treated like a person..." how exactly is a person to be treated? If someone says something that to me is obviously wrong or specious, should I lie through a pasted-on smile, speaking words I do not believe, just for the sake of ensuring that people I disagree with don't feel bad? We don't commonly extend this saccharine level of courtesy to people, and I don't see why we should where religion is involved.
Not real enough to challenge anyone who's going to post's beliefs, not fake enough for people who post to ignore.
On the internet, atheists aren't believe to actually be moral people because it's the internet and they're not quite real much like everyone else.
I'm sure you feel you have very important reasons for your mono-mania.
Have a nice day.
Here's that quote:
1) Almost any religious person, no matter how non-religious they actually are(my mom doesn't go to church, pray, read the the bible or ever talk about religion), the second you bring up the notion that god doesn't exist they immediately go on the defensive. It's almost impossible to have a rational conversation about it. Religion has been put on such a pedastle that any slight towards it is considered an insult. Any outside person watching an exchange such as this is going to blame the entire incident on the atheist simply because they brought it up. Suddenly any atheist is extreme simply because they were trying to have a conversation or make a joke.
2) Atheists, as a group(which I don't like to use, because then people confuse it for a religion) are the most misunderstood subconsciously discriminated against people in the country. Sure, nobody is going to call you a racial slur simply because there is no outword way to seperate atheists from anyone else. But as soon as it becomes known, you have a bullseye on your head. I had a girl come up to me randomly at school once and tell me I was sad. I couldn't figure it out. I'm sure many of you have heard the study where the average person in the united states put an atheist on the bottom of the list for people they would elect president. That's below blacks, muslims and gays.
At this point in our society, calling an atheist extreme or a fundamentalist is almost akin to calling civil rights leaders fundamentalists. People need to know they exist and stop tightening their asshole over it. I've very rarely encountered an atheist who was actively trying to convert someone. 90% of the time they are on the defensive explaining themselves.
I went to public school, so maybe.
Yeah they would.
I'm not arguing with you; I just really don't know much about Sam Harris (I'm more familiar with Richard Dawkins on the outspoken atheist front).
He doesn't dismiss economics, to my knowledge. I'm pretty certain his argument is that people tend to reduce problems purely to economic and similar factors and dismiss religion and ideology as being potential factors in the motivations of people.
He considers those who think economic development to be an appropriate tool in fighting fundamentalism (in the middle east) to be living in a fantasy world. Because it's apparently not as effective as masturbating about atheism.
Some thoughts:
I've noticed that a lot of outspoken atheists tend to concentrate on abstract, philosophical discussions about the existence of God. FSM, celetial teapot, "you can't prove that God doesn't exist," the nature of faith vs. logic, etc. These are interesting (though often tedious) discussions, but I find it odd that so many atheists are limiting their discussion to the idea of religion, and so few are interacting with the specific claims of the religions themselves.
I don't think there's anything strange about a belief in a higher power. I don't accept that belief but I'm not going to call someone "stupid" or even "brainwashed" for holding that belief. On the other hand, I am completely dumbstruck as to how so many people can say, with conviction, that they believe the Bible is the word of this higher power, or even that the Bible is somewhat inspired by this higher power. (or the Quran, or the Vedas).
Most Christians in America simply have no fucking idea what the Bible even says (a Time article recently said that 50% of Americans couldn't name a gospel). More importantly, I've found that the moral beliefs of Christian Americans are completely contradictory to the morals in the Bible. You won't find any Christian in America who believes that slavery should be legal—and yet God explicitly tells us that we can buy foreign slaves as property and even commands us to enslave cities we conquer. Christians pretend that the "New Covenant" somehow abolishes all the barbaric laws of the OT—which is nonsense for two reasons: (1) Jesus did not abolish the law but fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17) and (2) just because you don't have to follow the old laws doesn't mean the old laws are wrong to follow (how could they be wrong if they come from God?)
I think it's high time for atheists to refocus their efforts from these abstract philosophical questions about God, and start talking about the nitty-gritty of the Bible—especially the morals of the Bible. I believe that the vast majority of Christians in America simply have no idea what the Bible says. Most Americans snore through church services, absorbing only a few palatable tidpits like "Jesus so loves the world" and "honor thy father and mother" and "believe and go to heaven." The best way to wake these people up is not through abstract arguments about faith and supreme beings—it's by challenging them to actually, honestly face the scriptures they claim to be sacred.
It's not that he calls this published criticism "highly intemperate and vicious;" it's the way he calls it "incidentally highly intemperate and vicious." It's the way he states it was written by "someone named Mary Midgley." This tone--condescending and vengeful--suffuses the Selfish Gene.
I mean, yes, Mary's sentence (and thus paper) sounds entirely dumb, but -- he published a rebuttal in a subsequent issue of the magazine? And, a decade later, he's still grinding the axe in his endnotes? It sounds as if it got under his skin, to the point where he's incapable of dealing with it professionally. He's still calling this person "somebody named So-and-so," which is not a good sign.
Mary Midgley is a British philosopher, and probably ranks a slightly better epithet. On the other hand, judging from that Wikipedia entry, she and Dawkins seem constitutionally suited to one another.
I simply don't see how the argument can be made that he's not an asshole to those with whom he disagrees. He IS very humorous but he definitely pushes the envelope. For instance, the juxtaposition of the end of Chapter 1 with the beginning of Chapter 2:
(end of Chapter 1, paraphrase): "...will offer due accord to all other people, try not to be overtly offensive or bait others, understand religion a touchy subject, etc. Now let us proceed."
(first sentence of Chapter 2, exact quote): "The god of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, Philicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
I mean, I agree, but the guy was born without the tact gene.
This has been done. And it's a lot easier that talking about the philosophical questions about god's existence. In my experience though when you point out these flaws, people either immediately shut down any kind of logical response or they are the "pick and choose" type people who only use the Bible for the fuzzy feelgoods while completely ignoring anything. This gives them feeling of moral superiority that the bible tends to infuse it's believers with while(in their mind) any contradiction or immoral activity in the bible is simply to be ignored. It's hard to discuss those matters with someone like that.
I say keep at it, as it's the most effective method I've seen for "deconverting" people.
And I think we also have to keep that in mind—deconverting is exactly what we're doing. People don't rationally decide to believe in religion. Think about how most people are raised in America. Before you even learn how to speak your parents take you to church, where you see all the people standing up to sing a song and sitting down to listen to a sermon, in perfect harmony. Before you have the capacity to reason, you are baptized and forced to undergo bizzarre religious rituals with all the other children. Just as you're beginning to understand English, every Sunday you go and hear a man in a position of tremendous authority (your parents sit in rapt attention) that if you don't believe you are going to hell, but if you do believe you'll get to meet your loving father in heaven and be happy forever. You pledge allegiance to the flag—under God. You spend money with "in God we trust" printed on it. Everywhere you go, everywhere you turn, the belief in God and the Bible is presented as completely normal.
That's not something you can just "turn off" when someone presents you with a rational counterargument. This is why abstract discussions about God are so inneffective. Religious people need "shock treatment" and the best way to shock them out of their beliefs is to challenge them on their morals. Yes, they're going to cherry-pick or invoke some bullshit faith claim, but I think in general it has a major effect and in some cases provokes a moral crisis that leads them to start seriously questioning their faith. Once they start questioning, then you hit them with the philosophical arguments.
The point of the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't too annoy- it's to get you to think. Why is God any different from the FSM? The burden is always on the claim maker to show evidence for a claim. In general, when you press a theist on this subject, they can't come up with a legitimate reason to dismiss the Flying Spaghetti Monster but accept God. Other than...
1. Hearsay (unreliable, distorted and contradictory hearsay!)
2. The fact that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is obviously a joke, which is admittedly a pretty good reason.
But it still defeats the "You can't prove me wrong!" argument, since I can't prove a thousand ridiculous ideas wrong. I can't prove you don't have a dragon in your brain. I can't prove you aren't really a Cylon 'less you and I are going to get intimate. I can't prove there isn't a conspiracy to get you- after all, the conspiracy could just be better at hiding than I am at investigating. You can't prove the FSM isn't real- maybe the creator was simply inspired by his Noodly Appendage? After all, many Christians believe that confirmed mistranslations and errors that went into the King James Bible were divinely inspired and so reflect the Word of God accurately because...God loves typos, apparently.
If it is impossible to disprove an idea, it is impossible to prove it. Science is about disproof, about separating bullshit from truth. Unfalsifiable ideas are indistinguishable from one another. Evolution is a scientific theory because it could conceivably be falsified if the evidence led in that direction, and that evolution hasn't been falsified despite every effort to do so is a sign that it is a robust and likely pretty good reflection of reality. How would I go about falsifying Catholicism?
I can't, and I'm expected not to point this out because it is 'Sacred'. Well, nothing is sacred to a skeptic- I believe in evolution wholeheartedly, but if fossil rabbits in the pre-cambrian showed up tomorrow I'd have to discard it.
Ah, this sums up the problem quite succinctly. We're not "challenging" your beliefs, as if they're established and we (we being "atheists") are introducing something new. We're demanding that you back up your challenge to the default, the null hypothesis. The theist is the one making the extraordinary claim- God's existence is not obvious, even if it is popular and long lasting.
I, the atheist, don't have to prove you wrong. That's not my job. It is your role to provide evidence to make me reject the null hypothesis that God does not exist.
Whenever we test for the existence of something, we first assume that it does not exist. We then look at the evidence in favor and if said evidence is compelling, we reject the hypothesis of nonexistence. We do this because it is much easier and more reliable than assuming something exists and then looking for evidence that it doesn't.
I've never seen an argument that presents a good reason- evidence, logic, whatever- for the existence of God. And that, by itself, constitutes a good argument for God not existing at all- because if He was real, surely there'd be some sign of it.
EDIT: Oh, come on. If the worst thing a person can say about Richard Dawkins is that he is "really grumpy", I'm going to go ahead and trust the guy. Call him Professor Crankypants if you want- if he's right, he's right. Besides, that end notes section includes all sorts of responses to criticism- I imagine he wanted to stop getting mails about the same tired old objections.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/04/07/do0701.xml
• Atheists are not dogmatic. "Dogma" means a body of scripture you believe cannot be wrong. Science is not dogma because it's by nature falsifiable. "There is no god" is not dogma in the same way that "there are no fairies" is not dogma.
• "Righteousness" and "moral contempt" are not problems I have with religion. My problems with religion is that their morals are atrocious. I think it's very important for atheists to be passionate about their morals—otherwise, what's the point of debating?
Edit: comparing Dawkins to Ahmadinejad is utter bullshit. Seriously. If you're going to compare me to a theocratic dictator because I think your belief in God is wrong, you're full of shit.
Many people frequently say "don't tell me how to interpret my religion!" as if quoting verse from the book they ostensibly follow is somehow an insult.
Dawkins noted this is one of his speeches, saying that many modern religious people, especially in the west, take parts of their religion as metaphor or allegory if they no longer agree with them. He says it's not really any more or less of an illogical stance, but actually admits that it aggravates him because people will never admit that that's what they're doing.
Everything in the Bible was taken as literal fact for hundreds of years. That doesn't mean a literal interpretation is automatically correct any more than the fact that Christianity has been around so long means it must be right, but it's hard for many people like Dawkins to deal with it because it's like a game. Point out something in the Bible that they don't agree with - like God in Deuteronomy commanding believers to LITERALLY kill anyone if they so much as suggest you convert to a different religion - and rather than seeing it as irrational and recognizing that other things may be irrational too and in fact maybe the entire thing is irrational, they'll simply rationalize it by saying "oh, that's allegory," or "oh, that's a metaphor," or "oh, here, don't take that literally, this is what I think God really meant when he said that."
It is generally accepted by Christians that in order to get into heaven you have to accept Christ as your personal savior. There are many, many verses in the NT that support this, ranging from things like (paraphrasing) "the only way to get into heaven is through Christ" to things like (paraphrasing) "if you don't accept Christ all of your good works will be like dirty rags to God because you have rejected his greatest gift to man (Jesus)."
I know someone who's incredibly smart and except for religion is a pretty reasonable guy, even if I frequently disagree with him. But when it comes to his religion - and how he finds the idea that you will go to hell no matter how good you are if you don't accept Christ terrible - he rationalizes everything in the Bible to a ludicrous degree so he can still hold onto his belief. He interprets "the only way to heaven is through Christ" as "the only way to heaven is being a good person like Christ was" and interprets the "LOOK IF YOU DON'T ACCEPT CHRIST ALL OF YOUR GOOD DEEDS ARE DIRTY RAGS" thing as metaphor, because God doesn't really mean that.
And of course, he can hold those beliefs. He can rationalize it as much as he wants. But stuff like this precludes trying to show someone their religion is irrational by pointing out things they don't agree with, because they find it easier to desconstruct verse to the point where it means the opposite of what it actually says than to admit that there might be something wrong with their belief system.
Actually, it is a rather shitty argument.
- John Stuart Mill
But they're so mean about it! How will religion's domination of politics, culture and society possibly survive Richard "Snarky" Dawkins?
I'm sure there are some dogmatic atheists who would refuse to believe in God even if they met Him, but these people suck at being atheists. You're supposed to be an atheist because it is the only reasonable conclusion based on the evidence (or lack thereof). Atheism is a falsifiable belief, a scientific belief. Which means it could conceivably get beaten up and have its lunch money taken.
Passion is good! Besides, it takes a certain amount of arrogance to adopt the atheist perspective (at least in parts of the US) because you've effectively got to, at some point, decide that everyone around you is totally wrong about something they believe in wholeheartedly and you've been taught since birth. You have to conclude that your parents, your siblings, your priest (who may or may not be a big influence in your life), probably some or most of your teachers, your friends, you relatives, maybe your doctor...are all completely wrong, and you are right. Of course, this is justified- atheists are deservedly righteous because we've got the right idea about things.
Luckily for me I was in a fairly secular area and when I announced I was an atheist, everyone shrugged. But for some, it's a tough path to take simply because of the peer pressure against it.
The point I'm trying to make is that—at first—atheists shouldn't engage believers in a "rational" debate because believers don't value rationality. Pointing out the moral stance of the Bible is not really a "debate," it's just pointing out shit and asking them to clarify their own moral position.
You have to shock them out of their cult mentality before engaging in a rational debate with them. Rational debate is the easy part. The hard part is getting them to the point where they can accept the possibility that their faith in the Bible is misplaced.
As far as the implicit rudeness of disagreement, it's pretty much endemic to any form of disagreement. If you, say, favor the godl standard, it necessarily means that you think those monetarists are wrong. I think it's mostly that a lot of religious people asses their own virtue (and the virtue of others) along the axis of belief.
Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. It is wholeheartedly evidence of it. I don't know where you got this mangled definition of the Argument from Ignorance, but it's erroneous and obviously contradictory- since it switches from "evidence of" to "proof of".
That there is no evidence of Unicorns is certainly evidence they don't exist. Do you believe in Unicorns? Why not? Because you have no compelling reason to! We do these sorts of things all the time, every day of our lives.
If there is no evidence of rain, do you believe it is raining?
If there is no evidence someone is inside your house asking you about your opinions on Scary Movies, do you call the police?
If there is no evidence you are a Martian, do you believe yourself a Martian?
If there is no evidence that you are really a dead child psychiatrist, do you hang around psychic children?
Besides, it's an informal fallacy, and like all informal fallacies, there are plenty of cases where they are not fallacious. The argument from authority is non-fallacious if the authority is accepted to be a reliable judge of the subject in question. It's not a fallacious tu quoque if you're arguing for someone being a hypocrite. Correlation and causation sometimes go together.
The lack of evidence for unicorns, faeries, gods, and Belgium all compel reasonable people to disregard their existence. This is not fallacious reasoning, and it is cruel to those of us who really should be going to bed to suggest that it is.
I mean, sure, if I can't find any evidence a murder occurred...that doesn't mean a murder did not occur. But it certainly inclines me towards that conclusion.
1) Stopped listening entirely.
2) Rationalized the ridiculous things.
Then again, when I've engaged them on abstract grounds, one of two things always happens anyway:
1) They, again, stop listening entirely.
2) They resort to sophism and solipsism.
Either way, at a certain point they are no longer willing to continue the discussion.
I don't try to continue at that point because I'd rather not lose a friend and it's generally not that big a deal, but it's depressing, to say the least.
I just think it is funny when someone trying to convert someone else to atheism gets all angry because the person treats a scripture allegorically or doesn't put much weight on it.
It doesn't actually make a difference from the perspective of the atheists argument, but they get all frustrated and feel like the person is trying to cheat them of their rightful victory.
Also please see: Negative Proof. To take one of your rather poor examples:
If there is no evidence of rain, do you believe it is raining? Not if there is evidence that it is, in fact, not raining. There is a difference between looking up at the sky and saying, "it is not raining," and looking up at the ceiling of a windowless room and saying, "it is not raining."
- John Stuart Mill
I don't get angry when people take Deuteronomy 22:28, a verse that commands rape victims to marry their rapists, "allegorically." I simply ask why the person takes that verse allegorically—as opposed to the verse about, for example, the resurrection of Jesus.
Probably because one is from the Old Testament and one is from the New Testament. Jesus changed or tossed out several of the old Jewish laws.
- John Stuart Mill