10 Questions Every Intelligent Atheist Must Answer
My post in response to the God Is Imaginary people has generated a lot of interest. One of the incoming links to that post is from atheist.net in which literally hundreds of responses were generated from a link to my post – which is supposedly an unbiased look at the workings of the Christian brain. I’m not sure if I should be flattered or annoyed since I believe I firmly stated in the forematter of the post that I am neither a Christian nor an atheist – I am at present a neutral party. I am attempting to give equal treatment to both arguments.
I will now present you 10 questions that I have asked myself, through the lens of atheism, and have been unable to come up with sufficient explanations. I welcome any intelligent atheist to comment in response to all of some of these questions and offer your answer to them as an atheist. I will also present these questions with my own commentary (I do not present these as answers since, as I said, I am unable to sufficiently answer these).
1. Are you a moral relativist, or do you believe in absolute morality? In other words, do you believe that cultures, or even individuals, can define their own rules on what is moral and what is not, or do you believe that every action has one unique, absolute, and true moral assessment?
I have written about this one already, but it’s an important one, since Biblical morality, and the assertion that a God is responsbile for defining and dictating actions as moral by many Christians is a point of contention and is frequently used in arguments on the matter. This issue is compounded by the fact that the morality as defined by the Old Testament is different than the morality defined by the New Testament which is different than the morality exercised by most people today (in general, people today believe the Bible is immoral, including many Christians on many points such as slavery, the killing of homosexuals, and so forth).
As an atheist, if you are to be consistent, then as I see it, two scenarios follow depending on what you believe. If you are a moral relativist (you do not judge other cultures, such as the Iranians, because their moral code is different than your own), then you must necessarily also not use the morality argument as a reason to be an atheist – simply because the morality of Scripture was practiced by a now extinct culture does not mean it alone can be judged. If you believe in universal morality, then the answer to another question becomes central to your belief system: who or what determines which actions are moral and which are not? This is my dilemma. I do believe in absolute morals, but I cannot reconcile the fact that I do not trust any human being, no matter how smart they are, including myself, to prescribe to me what is moral and what is not. Sure, I go by my gut, and I consider myself a pretty moral person, but I am also not so arrogant to believe that I uniquely know what is moral and what is not especially since I will readily acknowledge that the older I get the more moral I become – actions I would have considered moral 10 years ago I consider immoral today, so how am I sure that I will not also think that actions I take today as moral will not be immoral to me 10 years from now?
I have seen a few atheist writings about this topic that attempt to create some logical formula for judging an action, such as this one from ebonmusing: “Always minimize both actual and potential suffering; always maximize both actual and potential happiness.“
I am not convinced. Although his essay is thorough and attempts to explain how and why morality can be universal and where it comes from, I don’t buy most of it, nor do I even think his rule is valid. I have several simple examples which defeat it, and I’ll post them in a comment if you can’t come up with them on your own (they are trivial).
This example shouldn’t distract you from the fact that question above still isn’t sufficiently answered. Think on it. I think you’ll be hard pressed.
2. Is your trust in science based on faith or based on science?
What I mean is this: how much do you actually know about the science most atheists parrot? Most atheists know as little science as most Christians know as little theology. Just as a Christian trusts his priest to tell him what he believes, an atheist trusts scientists with a Ph.D. tacked to their name to tell them what they believe. But how many times have the scientists turned out to be wrong? I only ask this because it seems this is central to the problem that most atheists have. They are repulsed by the phrase “believe” – they are addicted instead to the phrase “know”. But honestly, do you really know, or are you just believing what you’re told? I would like to remind you that in the 1970’s the scientists of the day were seriously concerned that we were about to enter an ice age, and less than 30 years later they are now convinced Earth is about to turn into a desert.
Unless you’ve observed something yourself, or observed and interpreted the evidence yourself and drew your own conclusions, you are just as guilty as faith as any religious person. I will demonstrate this fact by asking you, the atheist, the following questions.
These are all questions that would typically appear on a 100 level biological anthropology couse taught in universities around the world. They relate to your favorite topic: evolution. I will post the answers (and the reasons why you should believe me) at the bottom of the post:
- Name the major extinct hominid species from which human beings are presently believed to have evolved.
- How long ago did the modern human (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) come into existence?
- How long ago did early hominids leave Africa?
- How long ago did hominids split from the other primates?
- Which biological feature is believed to be the most important in the evolution of man, and why?
- Name one phyisical trait or behavior that is unique to the genus Homo.
- Who were the neanderthals? Where did they live, when did they live, and why are they gone?
- A major event occurred approximately 70,000 years ago very relevant to the evolution of humanity. What was the event, and why is it significant?
If you can’t answer these questions, I think my point is illustrated. And please don’t dwell on the fact that even if you don’t know the answers, the answers exist. Because if you could answer these questions you would know enough to know how little we actually know about these topics.
3. Where does language, art, music, and religion come from?
This question is related to #2 – most atheists will parrot something about cranial evolution (without knowing the slightest bit about the topic) – but this is in fact one of the most baffling questions in anthropology today and it remains unsolved.
Approximately 50,000 years ago (the numbers vary), we suddenly see an explosion in things like archaic flutes, abstract cave drawings (not just represntations of observations like antelope and men with spears), venus figurines, evidence of ritual burials, etc. Before this date: nothing.
Why? Survival? I don’t think so. Our hominid cousins, the Neanderthals, who lived at the same time, in the same place, and for much longer, didn’t need any of that to survive. The hominids before either of us, H. Erectus, lasted even longer without any of those things. Greater mating potential? Maybe, but you’re stretching, and you know it. And you have what? No proof. So, I ask you, where does it come from?
You’ll find that in order to explain this you have to rely on the same kind of faith in evolution and natural selection that Christians use in defending their faith. Same basic human behavior, different parameters.
4. Suppose, hypothetically, that you met with someone who knew nothing about you except your first name. And this person was able to accurately name deceased family members, dicuss in detail how they died, and describe intimate personal details about your relationship with these people (including people you aren’t consciously thinking about). How would you explain this?
I ask because this is a documented phenomenon. I am highly skeptical of these “mediums” myself. However, my two parents and two family friends (one of whom was the mother of Meghan Kanka of Meghan’s Law) went to see such a medium by the name of George Anderson. This man was able to pinpoint all of the things I described in my hyoptheticals for both Mrs. Kanka, our other guest, and my parents – up to and including the supposition that my deceased grandmother has forgiven my mother for not holding her hand while she was dying, a fact which has kept my mother away from her mother’s grave for two decades.
Now, I know what you’re thinking – you don’t believe it. Neither did I, until I heard the tapes. Now, I can’t explain any of this, and neither can you, unless you start making enormous stretches – for example, that he had some preordained knowledge of the guests, or that he said things that were too vague and could apply to anyone, etc. I’ve heard it all. I am statistically intellectually smarter than 95% of the population. I am not easy to convince about anything, but I am convinced that it was real. I can give you more examples of facts that he couldn’t have possibly known even if he had a private investigator tracking my parents for 40 years prior to their meeting.
So, I ask, what enormous stretch are you going to make to prove that this is nonsense? Is he reading peoples’ minds? How known is that to science? Any explanation you could make is as much or more absurd as any claim a Christian makes about how Jesus rose from the dead.
5. Is absence of proof the proof of absence?
This belief is fundamental to the atheist position. You must answer yes to this question or you have a very hard time denying most, if not all, religious beliefs. However, you should also see how absurd this statement is. The fact that it is always impossible to prove that something does not exist does not change the fact that it cannot be known that something doesn’t exist. So mustn’t you be agnostic? I’ve heard responses to this one too, but they have so far been illegitimate and unsatisfying.
6. What does the atheist position offer people? How has it improved your life? Why will it improve others’ lives?
This question stumped Richard Dawkins, so maybe you have a better answer.
I imagine it’s something along the lines of, “I’m free from a silly delusion!” which I would reduce to, “I used my enormous intellectual powers of intelligence to conclude that I am right!” I also believe that what follows is a comfortable level of superiority over all of those misguided, stupid Christians who are obviously not nearly as smart as you are. If that helps you sleep at night, I guess. But in what I’ve seen, at least of the vocal atheists floating about the internet, this is almost unilaterally the case. Just watch any one of the atheists on YouTube. They give off such a condescending vibe it makes your head spin. Of course, to admit that this is true for you is pretty impossible especially since you’ve probably gone over this in your head so many times that you truthfully believe that you are merely right, not merely arrogant. And maybe you aren’t arrogant, but if you aren’t, you should have a good answer to this question.
I don’t. And while I admit that Christianity has been the cause of great suffering for many people over the years, I also believe that it has been the cause of great happiness for many people over the years. Does the good outweigh the bad? I am inclined to think yes. Personally, I’d rather take the good with the bad than take nothing at all, which is the atheist position as I see it.
7. When you attempt to use logic to conclude facts about religion, are you starting at the conclusion (God is not real), or are you starting at true premises? Be honest. If you are starting at true premises, then what are they? And how are they true? Think about #5 when you answer.
This one has been a real problem for me when I listen to the majority of atheist arguments. They claim that they are the logical ones, and that absence of logic results in faith, but I watch them constantly do exactly what I’ve described in the question. How do you know any premise is true? Most people gloss over this fact by correctly observing the fact that no one really ever knows anything since this question can be applied to anything, up to and including your own very existence. But how does this fact change anything? You still don’t know whether any of your logical premises are true.
As I’ve said before, logical debates work because both opposing parties agree on premises as being true before they start. Otherwise, you end up in this trouble. The example is this: the abortion debate focuses on whether a fetus is alive or dead because both sides agree that killing humans is bad. In order to make abortion not bad you have to prove that a fetus is not a human life.
Since there are few, or no, premises that can said to be definitively true on this topic, how on earth can you use logic to work out anything?
8. If all Christians believed that the Bible was entirely allegorical, what would you argue in support of your position?
I have heard very few atheists intelligently debate this issue without bringing up the Bible. Let’s assume that it is totally allegorical and Christians didn’t literally believe in Jesus and believed only that the Bible books were stories told by God to illustrate his word. Would this change how you viewed the belief in God? If not, why not?
9. Why is it important to you that everyone is an atheist?
I find that many atheists tend to b extremely dogmatic. They are intent on converting everyone they meet. Many atheists don’t care, but if you do, why do you feel so strongly about it? How is your preaching different than any religious preacher attempting to convert you?
10. Do you believe in extra-terrestrials?
I saved the best for last. I want you to think long and hard about this. We have as little or less evidence that E.T. landed in Roswell than any evidence we have for the truth in any part of the Bible and yet almost every single atheist I meet believes that we are not alone in the universe despite there being no evidence whatsoever. They hand-wave me to death with stories like, “even if only one in a trillion stars had planets and only one in a trillion planets had life and only one in a trillion planets with life hosted intelligent life there would still be eleventy-gazillion earths in the universe”, or they make up fairy tales about Area 51.
If you are an atheist, I am going to require that you also do not believe in E.T. And if you acknowledge that E.T. has not been observed but is likely to exist, I demand that you also acknowledge that God has not been observed but is likely to exist.
Comments if you like.
As promised, here are the answers to the questions I asked about evolution:
1. Name the major extinct hominid species from which human beings are presently believed to have evolved.
The short list is: Australopithecines -> H. Habilis -> H. Erectus -> H. Sapiens -> H. Sapiens Sapiens. H.Sapiens is sometimes referred to as archaic humans.
2. How long ago did the modern human (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) come into existence?
The numbers vary, and the exact cutoff between H. Sapiens Sapiens is disputed (some don’t even use the term). But anatomically moderns are known as old as about 150,000 years ago, but it didn’t happen over night. The split from H. Erectus started between half a million and about 350,000 years ago.
3. How long ago did early hominids leave Africa?
There is evidence of H.Erectus (and some claim H.Habilis) in Europe and Asia starting around 1.5 million years ago. Most scientists today believe that H.Erectus evoled solely in Africa and migrated, but some still believe that H.Habilis migrated, evolving uniquely into the same species, H.Erectus (you see the problem with this).
4. How long ago did hominids split from the other primates?
The number changes every time a new skeleton is dug up. Originally, when the australopithecines were first identified, it was believed to be about 5 or 6 million years ago. DNA evidence suggests around 12 million years ago. Others say 8. It probably isn’t longer than 15, but it could be as short as 8.
5. Which biological feature is believed to be the most important in the evolution of man, and why?
Bipedalism. The brain came long, long after this. Australopithecines were little more than chimpanzees who walked on two feet, but from them, humans are believed to have evolved. The reason for this, aside from the obvious archaeological evidence, is that once the hands are freed from walking, they can be used to make tools. This triggered growths in the brain since better tools means better survival.
6. Name one phyisical trait or behavior that is unique to the genus Homo.
Good luck. You might try bipedalism. Nope – the ostrich. Tool use. Nope – sea otters. Transmission of ideas between generations. Nope – this has been observed in macaques (relatives of babboons). Culture. Nope - this has been observed (in a primitive form) by chimpanzees, who have unique behaviors and tool uses depdending on where in Africa they live. Belief in God – you’re on to something!
7. Who were the neanderthals? Where did they live, when did they live, and why are they gone?
Neanderthals were early relatives of humans (we did not evolve from them!) who lived in Europe, the middle east, and parts of Asia about 350,000 to 30,000 years ago. They were not considered as intelligent as we are. They did not develop the same kinds of tools (we humans are believed to have at least atlatls, but probably bows and arrows, as early as about 50,000 years ago). They did not display definitive ritualistic behavior, and they are generally not believed to have buried their dead. The most likely scenario for their disappearance is that we, the humans, killed them over hunting territory disputes until we drove them to extinction.
8. A major event occurred approximately 70,000 years ago very relevant to the evolution of humanity. What was the event, and why is it significant?
A major volcano erupted in the Indian Ocean and deposited a layer of soot many inches thick across nearly the entire bottom of the ocean (as well as on land). DNA sampling of modern humans from around the globe has suggested that, around the same time, a group of about 3,000 humans living in Ethiopia populated the entire planet. Meaning, all other hominids, and all other human beings, were killed in that event or were replaced by descendants of this one, small group. Garden of Eden, anyone?
Now, who am I to be telling you this, anyway? I was a teaching assistant for ANTH220, Intro to Biological Anthropology, for 5 semesters during college. I ran the 2 hour weekly lab, graded almost all of the course work, and wrote exam questions. I know a lot more about evolution, specifically human evolution, than the armchair atheist. Perhaps it is because of this that I know we have more questions – far, far more questions – than we have answers.
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[...] Ten Questions Every Intelligent Atheist Must Answer [...]
tuche, my friend. I don’t think that atheists are in fact caring so much about not caring but are overly annoyed with the hypocracy that takes place in the world. They are more than likely truth seekers and where they bring up valid points, they still fail to bring up legit evidence backing the point just like the Christians. Nobody knows the truth. We only can go by what we know. I was very impressed with your knowledge of science when arguing your point. However, I can’t say that it was an awakening experience. I’m not saying that God isn’t real but I would say that you can’t condense an omnipitent being down to a man figure with human egos and traits. Some feminist argue the sex of God. I say if God has a penis or a vagina it’s dissappointing. God isn’t human. When scripture tells me that God loves me, well, in order for the transaction of love to take place you must have the loved and the beloved. Love is a human emotion characterized from reproductive instincts.
Secular love is however an insane subject. It is not like the primary love that is unconditional but secular love comes with ultimatems and regulations. So once again I ask, how is the doctrine correct. I do believe that there is a God but I believe that we got it all wrong. Atheist however are just annoyed at hypocracy and the acts thereof.
1. False dichotomy – I do not believe in absolute morality, and I am not a moral relativist. Your question is thus
rendered senseless.
I have posted several videos on this topic. Morality can be viewed from two angles, the way I see it: As a set of
behaviours, and as the philosophical reasoning (if any) behind this set of behaviours.
And morality is constantly evolving. There is no such thing, even among theists, as “absolute morality”. Show me one
christian who thinks it’s not just okay, but a good thing to do, to stone disobedient children. Just one.
2. My trust in science, in so far as I trust science, is based on the fact that the scientific method yields
consistent results and fits the evidence as I see it.
3. As a computer programmer, the short term I would use is “emergent behaviour”. Our brains evolved their current
size and structure (which obviously is an evolutionary advantage in whichever way, as evidence of which I would
submit the fact that we have outcompeted all other hominids including the physically more well-endowed (in the brain
department) Neanderthals). I would suggest that language evolved from a basic need of communication (and rudimentary
language is present even in the other great apes, by the way), and that art, music, and religion are behavioural
by-products of our evolution. None of them are necessary as such, but only one of them is inherently harmful.
4. If, hypothetically, this were to happen, I would set it aside as unexplained. I am not afraid to say that I don’t
know something.
So far, I have had no evidence of such an occurence, and your anecdote is not evidence unless you can document the
circumstances. So until you present such evidence, from my point of view, it didn’t happen.
Also note that the existence of “something unexplained” like this in no way indicates an omnipotent creator of
whatever kind.
5. Absence of evidence is not, in itself, evidence of absence. However, absence of expected evidence for a given
proposition is.
For instance, prayer to any of the gods on Earth has been shown not to work, therefore, any of these gods who are
claimed to answer prayers, do not exist.
6. Atheism “offers” nothing. Why should it? And why would this affect whether or not it’s true or false?
7. Premise: Reality is real (ie. observational evidence IS in fact evidence). From this premise we know that all the
claims of earthly intervention of supernatural beings are false, because they have never been measured under the
circumstances where they are claimed by each religion to be found. We therefore conclude that these religions have
no knowledge other than that available to the rest of us, and their fantastic claims of the existence of
supernatural beings are therefore about as believable as claims of the existence of Santa Claus or the Celestial
Teapot.
8. If the bible was believed by all christians to be entirely allegorical, it would change nothing. There would
still be no evidence for god(s), and the bible would still be nothing more than a bronze age fantasy novel.
9. To the extent that this is important to me, it is so because atheism follows naturally from skepticism, and it is
important to me that everyone is a skeptic. Simply because the lack of skepticism, ie. blind faith, leads to
atrocities in every context where it exists. Atheism in itself does nothing, it’s simply the absence of belief in
deities. Skepticism is vital, however.
10. I find it highly likely that extraterrestrial life of some kind exists. Based on sheer probability.
I find it highly unlikely that intelligent extraterrestrial life should cross the interstellar gap and visit us at
any point, particularly at a point where we would be sufficiently evolved, physically and culturally, to know what
was going on if it happened.
There is no correlation between the statistical probability of believing that life could exist elsewhere (after all,
we know it exists here), and the statistical probability of a supernatural, sentient entity that created the
universe (there is no evidence here or anywhere else that such an entity exists). And you are not in a position to
REQUIRE anything about what I consider likely or unlikely based on a false presupposition that something we know
exists in one place and can imagine in another is equally as probable as something we have no evidence exists
anywhere.
By all means, if you can present evidence that a supernatural entity exists, measurable, testable evidence, then I
shall happily believe in this supernatural entity. If you can then present evidence that this entity somehow created
all this, then I shall happily believe that that’s the case. Until such a time, however, it’s no more believable
than the idea that an invisible pink unicorn roams the earth.
And frankly, you presuppose a lot of things in your questions that would lead me to call you an agnostic christian
theist, so I can understand why others would name your perspective “a christian perspective”. It is. It’s just
slightly more well-reasoned and slightly less superstitious than that of the fundies.
But you are still presupposing a supernatural agent as the default position for anything we do not know. It’s not.
The default position is “we don’t know”. That’s it.
This post merely shows a fundamental idiocy and disingenuousness, and a very small intellect.
And THIS post merely shows that you own a thesaurus.
This post seems to be an argument against a specific type of atheist, one who seeks to disprove God through logic and is bent on “converting” all those who he meets, with atheism his sole motivating reason for continued existence. This does not represent atheism any more accurately than Josef Stalin does, or than an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist represents his religion or religion in general. Just as there are plenty of Christians, say, who don’t read the Bible regularly or go to church each week, there are plenty of atheists who don’t believe the world needs to be rid of religion and attempt to carry this plan out in all their social interactions. Judging by your arguments, I guess you’ve only met this type of atheist and therefore assume all atheists are like this?
Not all atheists are Richard Dawkins. Your questions assumed this was the case and came across as condescending and betray a fundamental understanding of atheism, despite your claim that you are “statistically intellectually smarter than 95% of the population.” (An irrelevant claim when no definition of the subjective quality of intelligence is given.) In this way, they are much like the questions for Christians that you seek to rebut.
That said, here are my short and very personal answers to these questions. I speak for myself, not all atheists.
1. I am a moral relativist. There is no absolute morality. Personally, I think killing is wrong, and I like to think I would never kill for any reason, but I also think the Allies’ role in stopping Hitler through warfare was a noble one. I could not have ordered it because of the great loss of life it caused by definition, but it happened and resulted in stopping great atrocities. So in no way do I use an argument of moral superiority to justify my atheism.
2. I trust science to give correct answers to my questions even though I know very little facts in specific fields of science. I could only answer one (#5) of your questions. Also, I don’t know how airplanes work, or anything about storms beyond what I can see outside my window right now. However, if I were to look up scientific explanations of these things, I would trust them unless something I observed directly contradicted these explanations. Why? Because I believe in the core ideas of scientific method – we cannot presume to know anything for certain, but by testing and proving or disproving theories we can hope to better understand the world around us. This seems to me a more legitimate argument than the religious argument that religious texts represent absolute truth.
3. I don’t know where language, art, and music come from, except that it makes sense that language emerged as a way to cooperate between people as they evolved. I don’t feel that I need to know, either – I can enjoy music without thinking about the origins of the human brain.
4. This is anecdotal evidence with no support. If I had this experience, after doing the investigations you did, I would dismiss the incident as unexplained and interesting. As I said in question 2, humble science does not see itself as obliged to give a definite explanation for everything that may happen. My main problem with religion is that it does.
5. This belief is not fundamental to the atheist position. I don’t believe in God. Proof has never been shown to me, and this supports my belief, but I don’t believe that God has been proven not to exist through scientific inquiry. I just don’t believe in Him. (Also, see the above poster “Cap’”’s answer to this question for an effective proof that I would like to see a rebuttal to.)
6. I am personally happier as an atheist than I would be as religious, because I don’t have the pain of observing people who don’t share my beliefs and knowing that they are doomed to hell or other punishment, and I don’t feel the need to annoy people by sharing my beliefs. Everyone has their own reason for their beliefs – this is true of religious people as well. Religious people too might have their lives improved, or detracted from, by religion – it’s a personal thing.
7. I don’t use logical debates to prove God doesn’t exist. I just don’t believe in God.
8. I think belief in God is a totally legitimate way of living, and can result in good and bad decisions alike. I just don’t believe in God.
9. Do you really think that every atheist desires to spread their beliefs to everyone on the planet with a condescending air of superiority? I don’t say the same about religious people! I just don’t believe in God!
10. This argument is completely illogical, and reveals yet again your offensive stereotype of atheists as deranged conspiracy theory freaks with an air of superiority and a missionary complex. I do not believe in aliens. If aliens invade the earth, sure, then I will know they exist. If the universe is proved to be infinite, sure, aliens must exist. I have chosen to believe that God doesn’t exist. If God invades the earth, sure, I’ve been proven wrong. If God is defined as a vague concept of “the Universe, as it is”, then sure, I have to believe in God. Belief in aliens wouldn’t affect my life at all, probably. But I refuse to believe in a sentient and all-powerful being who controls my life – believing in the absence of God is the belief that makes the most sense to me and is the most beneficial to my lifestyle.
These were just my answers to your questions, and not condescending arguments against the faith-based position. Hopefully they have been opened up your idea of what an atheist is? Being an atheist and having atheist friends as well as religious ones, I have to say that generalizations about personality based on beliefs never work! Hopefully you will meet an atheist who will change your mind about your stereotypes – maybe you already know one! Until that day, your intellectual superiority about your position is no different from that of the internet atheists you mock, and has little respect from me.
ALPlurabelle-
#2: My point here is to illustrate that most atheists have faith in science that is at least as blind as the faith in God by the religious, but when “blind faith” is ascribed to the religious they are mocked for it while when applied to atheists they fall back on an explanation like the one you gave.
As a scientist myself, I am very aware that the more we learn, the more we see how little we know. When you actually understand scientific explanations for various phenomenons like thunderstorms, you find that every answer just leads to hundreds or more questions. It is as endless and infinite as God is described to be.
#4: “As I said in question 2, humble science does not see itself as obliged to give a definite explanation for everything that may happen. My main problem with religion is that it does.”
But the nice part about religion is that the answer is always the same. When something like my scenario occurs, it is not unexplainable. If you think of science like a path to discovery, you refuse to accept that the end of every path is God, so instead when science fails to lead you anywhere, you just dismiss, ignore it, chalk it up as “interesting” and promptly stop exploring the experience because science is useless. That sounds like a terrific way of arriving at understanding.
#5 – So again, you have no valid reason for your belief but you are still an atheist despite neither evidence for nor against your position. But you also believe in the scientific method? Do you listen to yourself? Do you see how your worldivew is contradictory? You cannot be an atheist. You must be an agnostic. They are different things. You may not be guilty of accusing believers of believing without any evidence, but the vast majority of other atheists are and that’s why I asked this question.
#9 – Yes, I do, and you have provided evidence for my argument by responding to this post. If you didn’t want people to agree with you, you wouldn’t spend the time justifying your beliefs on the internet. You can deny that claim, but then you have to ask yourself why you were interested in both reading and responding to this post.
#10 – No, this argument is completely logical. Atheists refuse to believe in God because they have no physical proof of his existence. Yet how can an atheist remain consistent in the method by which they arrive at conclusions about big ideas like God and aliens if they use one criteria to dismiss God and then completely contradict it to accept the existence of aliens? Neither has any proof, and if you don’t believe in one you must not believe in another.
I asked this specific question to illustrate this point, because many atheists do in fact believe in aliens. I am trying to illustrate the atheist’s clearly contradictory belief system. They can’t have it both ways. Of course, despite the widely held atheist belief in their own intellects, this is way over their head.
And lastly, please don’t bore me with the stereotypes lecture. Everyone bases their entire lives on generalizations. Even the atheists who aren’t openly hostile still have the same personality traits that all other atheists have or they wouldn’t be the kind of vocal atheist who responds to posts like this one or talk about their non-belief publicly. Since those are the only ones that anyone ever has exposure to by virtue of the fact that the others keep their mouths shut, I don’t think any of my generalizations are innacurate or irresponsible despite your assurance that you and your atheist friends are somehow different. Nothing in your comment has suggested that my generalization is so far inaccurate. But then again, you’re a moral relativist, so anything goes.
Cap’ –
#1 – Not a false dichotomy at all. Your answer indicates that you do not believe in absolute morality, therefore you believe in relative morality (relative morality is a fancy way of saying that people or groups define their own morality). What’s false about that dichotomy?
I think you would agree that we could find someone who calls themselves a christian who thinks it’s a good idea to stone disobedient children. They would describe it as a moral.
However, since I do not believe that morality is a mutable, intellectual pursuit, I would call bullshit and tell them they aren’t moral.
I understand a small set of actions or behaviors to be universally and absolutely moral or immoral, and the set for which there is no grey area has grown for me over time as I get older. Stoning disobedient children qualifies as absolutely immoral.
But then again, this is really just a thought question for the answerer. The nature of morality is something human beings have struggled with since the dawn of time and I don’t think we’re individually or collectively any closer to coming up with any real answers than we were 2000 years ago. I picked this question because the way someone answers it is a very solid predictor of how he’ll answer most of the other questions, and in fact whether or not he’s prone to be an atheist or not.
#2 – Except that most of the evidence you don’t actually see, you just hear about it and accept it. You haven’t personally witnessed any miracles but you also haven’t personally witnessed particle collisions in a hadron collider but you believe in one and not the other. Why? That’s the point of this question.
#3 – The fact that our species of hominid has outcompeted the other can’t be shown to be either a cause or an effect of any of the traits I’ve described. It is also not necessarily an evolutionary advantage. Although we could probably exterminate any other life form if we really put our minds to it, many would argue that various microorganisms, ocean life, and insect species are evolutionarily superior to us, especially in view of the fact that our species has not stood a test of hundreds of millions of years or any mass extinctions.
Symbolic langugage at the level that I am referencing in the post is posessed by no other species including great apes and prior to the mysterious evolutionary event that seems to have occured somewhere after 100,000ya our language faculties were only barely, if at all better than other primates.
#4 – I’ve described the situation more thoroughly than you’ve been explained many scientific tenets you would publicly defend. Observation is reality, right?
#5 – Prayer has not been shown not to work. In order for you to show that prayer does not work a precondition for the experimental environment would be to know that arbitrary prayers will be answered. All we can say about prayer is that not all prayers are answered. Again, we’re back to the fundamental question. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Although you tried to agree because you know it’s logically sound, you obviously do not really believe it because you’re inventing something called “expected evidence” as if there’s a difference. A scientist expects nothing.
#6 – it doesn’t affect whether it’s true or false, it only affects why anyone should be interested in atheism or seek to further it.
#7 – All right, I’ll go with reality being real.
I claim that Seth MacFarlane’s failure to arrive at his flight from Boston to New York on time on 9/11 was divine intervention because he brings joy to millions.
Please construct an experiment for me that can show definitively that my claim is false. Please prove to me that claims of earthly intervention from supernatural beings are false.
By the way, the definition of supernatural being is a being that exists above nature, and therefore possibly outside of it.
This is a reiteration of the standard atheist rhetoric: I haven’t observed it so it must not be false. See #5. Does it make sense to you now why I specifically mentioned absence of evidence when asking this question?
#8 – but would you still mock it and call it worthless? This question was linked to #6. My point is that the bible and religious teachings have intrinsic worth that are independent of the “god is not real” distraction. It’s one thing to be an adeist, it’s another thing to be an atheist.
#9 – Blind faith leads to attrocities in every context that it exists? Are you serious? You have a very pessimistic view of religion that is unrealistic. Since you’re in love with science, I’ll refer to some studies that have shown conclusively that people who believe in God are more likely to survive in crisis situations, such as POW camps (which the study covered). Is survival an attrocity? Also, what about that Mother Theresa dame? I’m pretty sure that her blind faith didn’t produce any attrocities, did it?
You’re clearly very biased, and that’s unfortunate.
#10 – I claim that a being whose powers could only be described as supernatural by any scientist who observed it lives on the surface of Vega.
Is it a god? Is it an alien life form? Is it the Celestial Teapot? Who knows!
Can you prove it doesn’t exist? Can you prove it does? Is it highly likely? What’s the probability?
Your whole line of reasoning here is ridiculous. There is absolutely a correlation between using the “probability” argument to suggest that it is “highly likely” that something exists in a complete derth of evidence to support it but at the same time scoff at the notion that it is also “highly likely” that God exists in a complete derth of evidence to support it. The fact that life exists here has no necessary relationship whatsoever to the likelihood of it existing anywhere else.
The default position of an atheist is absolutely not “we don’t know”, it’s “we do know, and he doesn’t exist.” You just defined agnosticism.
Theists don’t just believe that a supernatural agent is the default position for anything we don’t know. It’s the default position for everything, including both what we know (through scientific observation) and what we do not yet know (because no one has observed it yet). Theists believe in an existence above and beyond nature (“supernatural”) and atheists do not. The details of what that supernatural world is like, I agree, are unknowable and therefore the specifics of religion are suspect. That’s why the “fundies” are such easy targets. Presuming to know what exists beyond anything we can ever observe is a tad on the naive side.
Of course, my point in defending Christianity specifically is because it combines belief in the supernatural with allegorical explanations that may or may not have actually happened (it really doesn’t matter) that when applied to one’s life are generally known to improve it. Part of why I believe the Christian church has, for so long, forced the belief that everything in the Bible literally happened is because the ones doing it understood how dimwitted the average person is and how completely hung up they get on what’s real and what isn’t.
The older I get, the more I see that truth and fiction are far, far less important than the consequences they produce. And that’s one of the reasons I spend time combating atheism because I believe it is counterproductive and dwells on details that are irrelevant.
YOu might be interested in reading a blog I just posted about a(theist) logic.
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/7ol42/athiest_logic_equivocal_to_theist_logic/
Stupid irrelevant questions. Atheism means you refuse to believe in a deity or god, not necessarily that you believe in evolution or any theory for that matter. Before trying to make an intellectual blog get the facts moron.
You’re right. I clearly do not understand the definition of atheism. Thanks for clearing that up.
I have a suggestion for you, too. Before hitting the “post” button, stop for a minute and ask yourself why it is that I might have brought up the topics I brought up.
Since you’re probably an idiot teenager with nothing better to do than troll the internet, I’ll explain it for you:
Because we do not, and in all probability never will have a “smoking gun” to cause every reasonable person to accept or reject a deity, the only criteria we have to make those decisions are tangential. Evolution has been a powder keg in this particular debate because one could argue (as many have) that it surmounts to evidence for or against (the Christian) god.
Chiefly, if evolution is true, then the Biblical account of Genesis is, depending on how generous you are in accepting allegory, entirely metaphorical but nonetheless valid, or completely flat-out wrong. The latter is the conclusion a huge number of atheists reach at about age 15 when they learn about Darwin in high school biology class.
If evolution were false, however (as it was de facto prior to about 1850 since the theory had yet to be developed), the explanation of Genesis is at least an explanation and thus, belief in God gave you a way to answer the question of where you came from.
I would think not many educated people today can look at the facts of evolution and dismiss them. Educated, religious people tend to interpret evolution as merely the mechanism by which God created us, and thus interpret Genesis as a metaphoric story. Most intelligent people can also appreciate a work like the Bible as potentially being 100% mythological without its diluting its value. I find atheists (and religious folks) who attempt literal translations of the Bible as a springboard for this debate to be some of the shallowest thinkers around.
Do you mind if i answer these questions out of order, i hope not.
Here goes.
number 10 first since its an easy one. We have no proof that aliens either exist or do not exist. We do know that it is possible for life to exist in the universe since we exist. It is therefore possible that there are other life bearing worlds with life on them (although we have found none so far). So, aliens, possible but no evidence. So do i believe in aliens? Yes. Why? Because given the size of the universe and given the fact that it is clearly possible i think it is likely that there is alien life.
Now for the real question. How is this different from belief in god? Surely god is possible and, like aliens, there is no evidence for his existence (to an atheist). Well, several points here. We don’t have any gods to show us that god is possible. Indeed, many of his capabilities are beyond anything we have seen. Alien life merely has to be like us and we know we exist. Secondly although on balance i think aliens might exist, i don’t actually know and don’t make any differences in my life whatsoever to accommodate them. I wear neither a tinfoil hat nor do i have alien invasion house insurance. Believers in god however do not claim to believe “on balance” but claim to “Know” and they do all kinds of odd stuff related to this such as elaborate rituals, singing, giving money and generally acting as thy think he would want them to (or not, then feeling guilty).
I apologise for going straight for your easy arguements first, but i’m fickle like that.
Next up is question 8.
Quite simply if the bible was viewed entirely allegorically there’d be no reason to believe in god and everyone would be an atheist. I would still argue that the bible is a bad book to base ones morals/lifestyle/philosophy off. If its entirely allegorical then its stories only have value in the lesons they teach. There are books out there that teach better lessons with better stories. If the bible is viewed allegorically then what on earth is with Leviticus, Deuteronomy, revelations, etc. What message exactly are these trying to get across?
The bible only has value as a guide if it is true. Otherwise we can get the good messages from the bible without the bad messages from better written books. Basically if the bible is not true, there is no reason to be a christian.
Okay, time for question 5.
Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Damn straight. However, absence of proof does not mean we should treat that thing as real either.
You do not worship gods such as Krishna, Zeus or Odin but there is no evidence disproving them either. You are not agnostic towards their existence are you?
How about pink dragons? There is no evidence that they don’t exist, only absence of evidence that they do. Are you an agnostic about pink dragons? Of course you aren’t.
In purely philosophical terms we cannot be certain about anything. But in realistic terms, we all act as if things with no evidence aren’t real all the time. You disbelieve in all gods except the christian one. You are an atheist to all gods but one. We just reject that one for the same reasons you reject the others.
Ok, bit of a harder one now, question 2.
How much science do i know? Rather a lot actually, even if i do say so myself. This is however irrelevant (if enjoyable).
I believe the scientific consensus because the scientists know what they are talking about. I do indeed trust them in the way a religious person trusts their preacher.
Faith you cry!
Not so. I happily admit that scientists can be wrong and that sometimes scientific ideas are changed, rejected and altered. Generally this only happens right on the cutting edge of science where new theories are grown, altered, cut and discarded all the time.
Furthermore whenever i choose i can buy a copy of nature, or any other scientific journal and read the actualy research. Furthermore i can read rebuttals to that research by scientists that disagree. Finally i can see the actual product of science all around me. Such as this computer, the lasers at a rock concert i went to last week, the pictures of the hubble space telescope and such like.
Sciences proof is in the pudding. We can see the results of scientific labour. Gene therapy, drugs, electronics, new materials (such as nylon and polyester, carbon nanotubes and buckyballs), all these things are direct working products of science. They are PROOF that it is working.
Your preacher may do much good work feeding the homeless, counselling the bereaved and building communities, all valuable stuff. But the pre-scientific nonsense he tacks onto it from the bible has no basis in fact. He cannot prove it, he can produce no good evidence in its defence.
So yes, i believe the scientific consensus (not necessarly individual scientists, its the scientific community as a whole that makes it work) because it can prove its claims.
In the areas which i am well educated scientifically, i know the proof quite well and can perform tests to show me i am right. With religion you cannot.
When religion makes real world claims and these claims conflict with the scientific consensus, religion is ALWAYS wrong.
Question 1. The big morality question.
Morality is clearly subjective. It changes over time. It changes over cultures and it changes between individuals within that culture. What i consider perfectly acceptable, others might consider wrong, even wicked, and vice versa.
There may well be an ULTIMATE morality, if so, we certainly have no clue what it might be. Since the major religions differ on it, they are clearly no good guide.
Lets take some examples.
Slavery. Biblically, this is fine. In my homeland, the UK, it was acceptable 300 years ago. Now, it is considered one of the most wicked barbarities imagineable. The moral zeitgeist has moved on.
Sex before marriage. Many today find this unacceptable (mostly religious types it has to be said). I see nothing wrong with it. As long as the sex is consensual and the two (or more) people taking part protect themselves from negative consequences such as unplanned pregnancies and STDs,go for it.
Smoking weed. Illegal in the UK. I see nothing wrong with it. I don’t smoke at all myself (although i dabbled in university) but as long as it is done in private, i don’t think i, or the state should give two hoots about folk smoking weed. Its certainly less harmful than getting drunk or smoking tobacco regularly. What i don’t think is acceptable is people smoking weed in public where others might get exposed to it. Thats non-consensual.
No while i am a believer in moral subjectivity, this doesn’t mean i consider all moral systems the same. I think my moral system is thebest obviously (or i wouldn’t hold it) but i do think the government should enforce the basics. These are the things that MOST people also believe. i.e. murder, theft, discrimination, etc.
So, a neo nazi clearly has a different moral system to me. He thinks it is perfectly acceptable to beat up or kill jews and blacks. I do not. I believe my moral system trumps his and i would like my choice (which is a vastly more popular choice than his) enforced.
Society is heavily dependant on shared moral systems. We don’t all have the same moral system but we share enough to get by together. Indeed my moral system differs from that of a christian only slightly, we agree on far more than we disagree.
when you say, that an athiest does not truely “know” science, but just believes what a person witha Ph.D tells them, and you go on to mention the iceage/global warming, may i state this one false point of yours ?
It is easy to write a book about the past, and get many to believe it. If i were to write a book, about a god, that i made up, and got 5 people to believe it, and then they inturn had 5 more people each to believen it, that is 30 people, and so on and so on, in time, it could because as wide spread and accepted as christianity, there is not much to prove anything by saying this other than saying the bible is more fact than a scientist ? no. To add to my point, it is much harder to predict the future, than to make up a past. Christians have tried for YEARS to tell when the apocolips will come, and have all failed, everytime. So why is it so wrong for a scientest to make a mistake as in what the weather will be like ? There are millions of tiny things that can easily change the futrue, making it much harder, than saying what has (truefully or falsely) happened in the past.
I’m not asserting that any religous text is more authoritative on any given subject than any given peer reviewed scientific work on any given subject. I am merely suggesting that in both cases – those who believe the word of God vs. those who believe the word of Al Gore – some amount of faith is extended because you personally have not born any witness to any observation that would prove to you that what either talks about is real. Put in simpler terms, suppose the Bible says the whole world became a flood, and only Noah and his ark survived it. Al Gore tells you that if humans don’t stop burning fossil fuels, in as few as 100 years from today the Earth will be 5 degrees warmer. You were not alive several thousand years ago to witness this the Ark, and in all likelihood you will not be alive 100 years from now to witness a temperature shift. You have made judgments on the sources (the Bible vs. global warming alarmists) and you have concluded that you believe the global warming alarmists but not the Bible. But in both cases you are merely taking their word (or not taking it). You have not observed either. And you likely don’t understand the science behind global warming better than any other layman, but you are probably certain that Noah never existed but Al Gore is spot on. I merely ask: how can you make that assertion in good faith?
As far as the Christians failing to predict the apocalypse, point taken. But as I’ve mentioned before, only 40 years ago, the climatologists of the day were convinced of an ice age. They, too, are wrong about the future of the Earth’s climate. Why is it okay and sensible to believe climatologists now – especially when they have been completely wrong in recent memory – but not okay or sensible to believe the Bible? Why is science necessarily superior?
The standard retort is to reissue the definition of the scientific process as if I don’t know anything about it, and my standard retort is to suggest this: how the world works is far less interesting to me than why it works the way it does. Science offers nothing on this subject. The Bible at least tries.
[...] [...]
First I must say kudos. For the most part this list has proposed some very interesting questions. A lot of them are difficult to answer. Difficult, but not impossible. Please allow me to answer these questions to best of my ability. But before I do, I wish to label my credentials.
My atheistic position is a weak positional agnostic atheist. Meaning I take the assumption that NO god (not just the Christian God) exist, however I understand and accept the fact that I do not know, and cannot know. And to assert 100% that God does not exist, despite knowledge that I cannot know, is not an assertion I am comfortable making.
My philosophical position is Socratic Philosophy, and I believe that the doubt of everything is essential for the pursuit of true knowledge (if we do not doubt, we do not challenge our beliefs. If our beliefs go unchallenged what certainty do we have that they are true?).
Finally, my educational position is a student in the field of Social Sciences. I am by no means an expert, but because of my years of obsession with the human condition, my educational pursuits of Psychology and Sociology, in addition to my years of researching human behavior makes me more than fluent on the subjects of Social Structures. I am also well versed in Quantum Physics (Which was my basis for my beliefs), Astro Physics, and Mathematical Principles. As well as many of the Scientific Laws.
Now, let’s begin.
1. Are you a moral relativist, or do you believe in absolute morality? In other words, do you believe that cultures, or even individuals, can define their own rules on what is moral and what is not, or do you believe that every action has one unique, absolute, and true moral assessment?
I am a moral relativist. Why? Ask a Sociologist, or better yet a Cultural Anthropologist. There are no set morals across the board. Virtually every culture since the beginning of culture has drafted their own unique set of morals and values. This set of values is determined by a process called Social Evolution. Which is the Evolution of a society based upon traits that are advantageous for the entire society to survive as an entity based in the stressors of the environment that the society was built in. Individual Morals are explained through Learning Cognitive theory, which is a fancy phrase for explaining personal choices in psychological development.
2. Is your trust in science based on faith or based on science?
This is my favorite question. Because it is true, at least for the common atheist. Most atheists do not know WHY they believe in scientific principles. They just do. However a responsible atheist will research what they believe and not blindly follow it because some guy in a white coat told them to. My beliefs in science are because I obsessively research scientific developments, I have strong sense of mathematics, and every scientific assertion that I believe in has consistent results and sufficient testing. I am also attracted by the Scientific Method because it is an objective form of gathering information.
Now it is true, I am not an expert on biology. (I could not answer most of your questions) I am not what you would call an expert in ANY form of science. But I know enough to know how it heralds results. So in conclusion MY belief in science is not based on faith, but based on reason and understanding of the scientific method.
3. Where does language, art, music, and religion come from?
It is true that biological evolution cannot explain most of these phenomenon. But we can’t deny them merit either. So how does, with out god, a person explain the development of these traits if biological evolution does not explain them. I will attempt to rationalize these problems individually.
Language – Language IS a biological evolution. We are not the only race on the planet who has it. Wolves howl to attract its pack, bees dance to direct the hive toward nectar, virtually every creature on the planet has one or several ways to communicate information. This is a biological incentive known as preservation of the species. It is the same biological incentive that makes sexual reproduction an essential process. Now how language as we know it developed? This is a Social Evolution. As our brains get bigger and much more complex, we require a way to communicate basic ideas to the other people who we are stuck on this rock with. Through trial and error we associate certain sets of sounds with certain objects and ideals. This is a social trait, if we as a species did not require social contact we would not require language. Thus why asexually reproducing organisms DON’T have any form of language, because they do not require social contact.
Art – The origin of art is easily deduced from the first form of art, cave drawings. This, like language, is the need to communicate information. If Krok, the caveman, did something great, he would want other people who he probably never would meet to know what he did. (part of the human condition, the need to believe that you are somehow important) As we use art more and more, the art gets more complicated until, over time, it is no longer used to describe situations, rather ideals and idealism.
Music – When I think of music, I always think of History Of The World Part 1, where a cave man drops a rock on his foot and lets out a howl, and another caveman thinks this is beautiful and forms a choir of cavemen to drop rocks on their feet at certain intervals to make music. I cannot give evidence HOW music happened. But I can reasonably assume that the discovery of music was based off of an accident, and was not intentional. An early human stumbles upon a set of sounds he enjoys and begins to mimic them. Social Evolution begins to take place from here (as other humans hear this, they create their own music and communicate how they made the music, thus advancing the art).
Religion – This is actually the easiest to explain. As we see certain phenomenons in the world that we cannot explain, our need to rationalize these events leads us to the conclusion that a supernatural force is behind them. We begin to explain all these events through spirits or Gods, much like the ancient Greeks explained lightning through the god Zeus. Religion spawns from the same place science spawns from, the human need to rationalize and explain the world around us.
4. Suppose, hypothetically, that you met with someone who knew nothing about you except your first name. And this person was able to accurately name deceased family members, discuss in detail how they died, and describe intimate personal details about your relationship with these people (including people you aren’t consciously thinking about). How would you explain this?
Hypothetically if I met a person who did this, I would not be able to explain it. I would have to test this person, test how far he can go, test brain reactions, and find out if I can explain how he does it empirically. However no such case has come up. What it sounds like what happened to you is what is called cold reading. In which the “psychic” says general facts (albeit they do often SOUND specific) in such a convincing way that your brain in WANTING to believe it, so it fills in the gaps that he is not saying. You had mentioned you were in the top 5% of the world (a position that both you and I share). I present to you that far more intelligent people than either you or I believed in things much more ridiculous. I present my Grandfather, for example. He was a nuclear physicist, a Mathematician, and a computer scientist. He worked with the government trying to maintain and create new nuclear bombs. A position that by definition placed him in the top 0.1% of the worlds intellectual community. He was also a Scientologist (I don’t think I need to explain WHAT makes this ridiculous). The point is intelligence has no relevance on skepticism except for the fact that skeptics typically are intelligent people. But not all intelligent people are skeptics. One can retain their intelligence and buy into something completely against reason. I find it happens to all intelligent people at one point or another.
5. Is Absence of Proof, Proof of Absence?
No, by all means no. Absence of Evidence Does Not Imply evidence of absence. My question is, is it reasonable to assume if there is no proof either way, that it implies that the positive (ie God Exists) is true. I have no evidence to assume that fairies don’t exist, doesn’t mean I believe in fairies or unicorns. You can’t prove that Allah does not exist, or Shiva, or even Zeus does not exist. Does that mean that you’re going to start worshiping Zeus like you do the Christian God?
Absence of Evidence DOES NOT Imply Evidence of Absence. However if you can see that a system DOES NOT REQUIRE divine intervention, where is the logic in assuming that IT IS there?
6. What does the atheist position offer people? How has it improved your life? Why will it improve others’ lives?
I guess it depends on how you look at it. I believe my position allows me to live my life more (if I do not believe in an afterlife, than this is all I have, and I should live it), it purifies my morals (If I do good not because I will be rewarded, but because it is the RIGHT THING TO DO, than my morals are purer), and it allows me to release myself of the confines of faith, and learn new things with out the constant challenge of my faith getting in the way. For others? It might effect them well, it might not. My decision on the God Question is my own, I invite all others to come to their own conclusion.
7. When you attempt to use logic to conclude facts about religion, are you starting at the conclusion (God is not real), or are you starting at true premises? Be honest. If you are starting at true premises, then what are they? And how are they true? Think about #5 when you answer.
I came across my conclusion of God quite by accident. It wasn’t me asking if God existed, it started with a question. Does anything exist? My answer to this question was “Cogito Ergo Sum.” (I Think, Therefor I am). When I concluded That I exist, I could not assume that I exist in a vacuum, so the question became WHAT exists outside of myself. During this journey I found that the universe works perfectly well WITHOUT God. So, in conclusion, why should I assume there is one? As for my conclusions on Religion? Even if I am to assume that there IS a God, what is the reason to assume that any religion is correct on the notion? Am I to believe that an Omnipotent being who is REALLY so concerned with the goings on of a violent ignorant race that he would communicate with us? Even if people say they were communicated by a god, wouldn’t that be more evidence of insanity than evidence of God? How am I to conclude that a god of ANY religion exists? Or that man got it right?
8. If all Christians believed that the Bible was entirely allegorical, what would you argue in support of your position?
I would argue the same way I do now, my beliefs would not be affected as you my think. I do not personally argue against specific gods unless they are mentioned by name in the argument. I personally argue against the Idea of ALL Gods not the dogmatic assertions thereof.
9. Why is it important to you that everyone is an atheist?
It’s not. Sure I’d rather people don’t try to talk to me about converting to their religion, but I don’t care if anybody believes in what I believe in. If I converted a christian to MY beliefs, I would actually think they are simplistic, and unable to come up with their own conclusion. What is important to me is that people question their beliefs and values, because if you refuse to question, than your beliefs are blind, and they prevent you from moving forward intellectually. Blind beliefs promote ignorance, and ignorance promotes hate or intentional misunderstanding. All of which are dangerous.
10. Do You Believe in Extra Terrestrials?
Aww, and you were doing so well…
Isaac Asimov, world renowned Science Fiction Writer and pioneer of Atheistic Thought presented this assertion – “Is There Life on other planets, or are we alone in the universe? Either Way, the idea is astounding.” Looking at the universe and it’s vast complexity it is mind boggling to assume that there isn’t a form of intelligent life somewhere out there. We have proof that life developed outside this planet (Bacteria from an asteroid hitting the polar caps), And we have Drakes Equation that Measures the probability of intelligent life outside this planet. So it is a REASONABLE assertion that there is Extra Terrestrial Beings. Now whether or not they have visited our planet? I remain unconvinced.
**********************
Yes, there are more questions than answers, but that does not mean we should launch to conclusion just because we cannot answer them, we MUST continue to try to answer them through empirical and logical means. Not means of faith.
In the end there will ALWAYS be more questions than answers. It is the human condition. Every question we answer spawns twenty or more questions. What do we do about it? accept it. The beginning of wisdom is not knowing everything. It is understand that you do not, and will never know everything… And that is Okay.
“If I do good not because I will be rewarded, but because it is the RIGHT THING TO DO, than my morals are purer.”
That’s really all you needed to say. You are an atheist because it makes you, in your own mind, somehow better than other people.
Not that religious people aren’t guilty of the same thing – many religions believe that only its followers are “chosen” by God and are therefore somehow special (i.e., better, more worthy, e.g. Judaism). Just goes to further my assertion that atheism is a religion in which the worshipper worships himself.
“We have proof that life developed outside this planet (Bacteria from an asteroid hitting the polar caps), And we have Drakes Equation that Measures the probability of intelligent life outside this planet. So it is a REASONABLE assertion that there is Extra Terrestrial Beings.”
Did you read my post? This is exactly the kind of hand waving I’m talking about. You’re certain that intelligent life exists in the universe (or at least, it’s very highly probable) but you believe it is very highly unlikely that God exists despite the void of proof in both cases.
Drake’s equation? Probability? Really? That’s evidence, now?
You live your life under the assumption that God does not exist but ET does when proof for neither exists. This, again, is evidence of the motivation behind atheism. It doesn’t have anything to do with logic, reason, intelligence, or reality. It was an emotional decision made for reasons impossible to quantify. It was made exactly the same way a religious person makes his decision to believe.
These comments just keep proving my thesis again and again. Please, keep it up.
Understand that probabilities are simply mathematical determinations of logic. How is it illogical to assume that probabilities cannot be used as evidence? Probabilities have been a form of evidence for centuries. The pioneers of science ran most of their beliefs and conjectures (many in which we have proven and still hold today), based off of the idea that this is the most likely scenario. This is a primitive form of logic and probability. For example: Isaac Newton postulated that the force of gravity is proportionate to the size of an object. He made calculations, with out knowing exactly how much the mass the earth has, and with no way of telling that he was right. And years later, come to find out, he was, it seems that our weight is less on the moon, than it is on earth, than we find that Gravity is a proportional effect from mass.
The fact is if something is probable enough to happen once (and we can much determine that life has appeared in this universe at least once), than it is logical to assume that it can, and probably has, happened again.
Now here is my concession: Just because something is probable, does not MEAN it happens. We see evidence of the improbable occurrences in day to day life, so the universe shouldn’t be any different. Who really knows? Maybe we were a freak accident, this is completely possible. I choose to trust my position on extra terrestrial life as a reflection of modesty, it just seems so mind-blowingly improbable that the universe would only produce life once in the billions of galaxies, each having billions of stars and planets, that the conditions that created life once CANNOT happen again. The logical position here is that it can.
I can give you probabilities, I can give you evidence. Why can you not produce the same? What is the probability of God? What factors would you use to determine this? Are there variables in which you know that God exists in? If so, what are they? How did you attain this information? So far I have not seen a single scrap of evidence, probability, material, or otherwise that indicates the existence of God. If you have this evidence, please enlighten me. (And don’t use abiogenesis, that is a tired out argument, that doesn’t factor in density of organic material (Amino Acids), all the possible combinations for DNA, the 1 billion (at least) years that it took for life to appear on this planet, ect. ect.)
Now, I must address your argument against my moral justifications. You ask me how my beliefs effect me in a positive way, perhaps knowing that this questions will inevitably make any person sound superioristic no matter what their belief, and you attack me on sounding the way the question was intended to be answered? This sounds an awful lot like a trap.
But, as I usually do. I will attempt to explain (perhaps in vain) my position. Understand, I do not believe that I am (by any means) generally superior to a theist because I do not personally believe in God. I actually argue to many of the atheists that I spend time with that we are not superior at all, we have simply come to a different conclusion based on our definition of truth (truth being the subjective definition of correct and incorrect). I have met many people who are logically, morally, ethically, and intellectually superior to me, however still believe (I come from a family of Geniuses, at least to MENSA’s standards, almost all of which are Christians and Catholics). So to assume that I am smarter or superior to these people who have proven time and time again that they are smarter (in general in certain areas, but in some instances almost globally) than I am, wouldn’t that just make me arrogant and ignorant? Wouldn’t I be just lacking the ability of humility in which my own moral code completely disallows?
Just because I have come to a different conclusion, does not mean I am better than the people around me. My conclusion is better for me, and necessarily for everyone else.
Now I understand that how I worded it implied certain things. I did not mean to imply that religious people are not capable of holding pure morals (doing things not because of reward, but because it is the right thing to do), though I understand it cam across that way. I simply meant to point out that because the idea of God is inert in my moral decisions IF I decide to do the right thing, it is for the right reason. And IF I decide to do the wrong thing, than it is my fault, and I am the only one to blame. It’s a double edged sword of accepting responsibility of ones own transactions that a truly moral person must walk.
Now this does not mean that pure morals can only happen in atheists. I personally know many theists who exercise pure morals, and take responsibility for their faults. Fear of of divine reprisal falls no more in their morality than it does in mine. So being atheist doesn’t make me morally superior in either.
What makes me superior (or inferior for that matter) is defined simply by my moral decisions, my intellectual capacities, and my output towards society measured against my intake from it. In none of it do I mean imply my belief in the nonexistence in an entity has ANY factor on what would give me my position in society (an I really wish the rest of world felt the same).
Now I must ask the question, why, instead of trying to argue the rest of my answers (like you do with everyone else) have you chosen to only attack my (by my own admission) weakest arguments? And why do you only chose to ridicule my arguments in lieu of making counterpoints, with examples. Why do you chose to ignore certain parts of my arguments, and then chose to cherry pick what is wrong and state with certainty that it’s all wrong because of it? Isn’t that a little biased? Are you even considering my argument? Or are you simply scanning through them in hopes of the (probable) chance that you will find a couple things that you can produce an argument that holds a little water? I would really like to know this.
I will leave you now with one question:
In absence of evidence for a positive (and absence of examples or variables to formulate a mathematical premise to explain the probability and/or the parameters of a positive) and the inherent inability to attain evidence for a negative. Is the positive position the logical base position?
Edit: “And necessarily for anyone else” in the 7th paragraph should be “And NOT necessarily for anyone else.”
Edit 2: Second sentence, first paragraph: cannot should be can
Jack – Because only a handful of the answers to your questions were worth elaborating on, and as I said in my original comment, I can already tell what kind of atheist you are so nothing else surprised me and I think I did a pretty good job of laying out my objections to that attitude throughout the post body and previous comments. I took a second look at your original comment and the only thing I would elaborate on is in response to this:
“That I exist, I could not assume that I exist in a vacuum, so the question became WHAT exists outside of myself. During this journey I found that the universe works perfectly well WITHOUT God.”
Let’s hear more about this journey, because my premise is that you can’t conclude either way. It’s impossible to know whether the universe works in spite of a God or because of a God, ispo facto, “god doesn’t exist” presumes to know more than can be known, also known as my major objection to atheism.
“So, in conclusion, why should I assume there is one?”
Why should you assume there isn’t one?
“As for my conclusions on Religion? Even if I am to assume that there IS a God, what is the reason to assume that any religion is correct on the notion?”
Duly noted, and I agree with you. Very few people approach these debates with the correct terminology: a deist is pro-diety: a God exists. A theist is pro-religion: a God exists and we know what he wants us to do and how to worship. Please also keep in mind that I am neither a deist, an adeist, a theist, or an atheist.
“In absence of evidence for a positive (and absence of examples or variables to formulate a mathematical premise to explain the probability and/or the parameters of a positive) and the inherent inability to attain evidence for a negative. Is the positive position the logical base position?”
There is no logical position that can be attained either way. That is one of the roots of the problem in this debate today. Atheists harp on logic all the time without understanding this principle. Their mantra is unilaterally that if there is no proof for or against an argument, you can’t simply stop there, you have to assign some kind of logical value to it so you can use it as a premise on which to base other decisions. I find that atheists are often atheists for no reason other than that they like to start down a path by saying, “If God exists, then…” In order to reach any conclusions, their conditional has to resolve to something. They have decided that since it must resolve, they assume that when decisive proof neither for presence or absence exists, it resolves to absent.
I claim that is not a fair resolution, and all attempts to justify said resolution are easy to derail. “We cannot detect him.” The only thing that tells you about God is that he’s undetectable.
Now, in the physical world where things like capital murder trials proof is an important thing and it is important to assume that if a murder weapon linking the accused to a crime can’t be found, it means that it doesn’t exist, not that he used an invisible, undetectable weapon. And that is not in conflict with any talks about god because the very definition of god puts it outside the physical world.
I think this issue is why atheists like yourself cannot accept the fact, no matter how many times I say it, that I am not arguing for the existence of a god. I’m merely attempting to show that it is not possible to reach a conclusion either way, and I don’t bother writing a post directed to theists who have concluded that God exists to show that they can’t know for sure because it’d be a one-line post: you can’t prove it. But by and large, theists know this, and they accept it; that’s the point of faith.
I direct these writings to atheists because they apparently have not gotten the memo that they cannot prove their position either! They are simply taking it on faith that God does not exist and I argue that this makes them indistinguishable from theists in that regard, and instead of worshipping the God they don’t believe in, they worship stupid shit like global warming, prepositional logic, “science”, conspiracy theories, and other nonsense to fill the void that we are all born with, as evidenced by the fact that religion in one form or another exists in every human culture ever known.
Emach,
Thank you for this time giving me a reasoned response. I can more clearly see your position. And I must admit, in your positional standpoint, you are correct. The dirty little secret is: Both sides are equally as likely (in the sense that neither side can be proven). Understand, I am, at base, a Schrodingeristic Agnostic (My little reference to my favorite Quantum Physics conjecture, Schrodinger’s Cat). Meaning: I believe that God both exists and does not exist.
I have spent years debating the God Question, because I found it thrilling to have a debate that nobody could win. But after years of debate, I found the side of the negative to be more challenging, and much more fun. Because of this I have attained the identity of Agnostic Atheist (Probably from years of being asked to “pick a side”).
I thought I would point this out, because you seemed to have misinterpreted my mission. I debate as fervently on the negative side as you do the positive side, for the same reason you debate the issue. To make people understand that both sides (even the negative side) deserve merit.
Well, it seems we’ve reached common ground, and we’re going to have to end the debate… If it’s so important to anybody who won, I guess because I’m making this concession, that unfortunately makes me the loser. But I’m okay with that. Because I thoroughly enjoyed the debate, and even a mass debater, such as myself has to lose as a humbling experience (it’s better than arguing semantics til the end of time). I look forward to arguing with you again (from what I see, we’ll a lot to argue about).
As Always
Your friend in dissonance,
Jack
This is actually quite amusing to read. Especially the part about wanting answers from intelligent atheists – I’m not going to claim I’m intelligent, but then I’m lucky in that the questions aren’t very intelligent either.
To start with the basics, the definition of atheism.
Atheism is the position when you don’t have belief in gods. Absence of belief is not belief in absence.
You can modify that to be strong or positive atheism, which is the position that gods do not exist, ie belief in absence. While these positions are closely related, they are distinct.
And don’t confuse it with agnosticism, agnosticism deals with knowledge, not belief, the agnostic will say it’s unknowable, you can be an agnostic christian or an agnostic atheist. (and like with atheism there’s more than one version of agnosticism)
This is very fundamental, and you get it very wrong.
And then to your questions.
1. Are you a moral relativist, or do you believe in absolute morality? In other words, do you believe that cultures, or even individuals, can define their own rules on what is moral and what is not, or do you believe that every action has one unique, absolute, and true moral assessment?
Has no bearing on atheism, wont bother to answer.
2. Is your trust in science based on faith or based on science?
Has no bearing on atheism, wont bother to answer.
3. Where does language, art, music, and religion come from?
Has no bearing on atheism, wont bother to answer.
4. Suppose, hypothetically, that you met with someone who knew nothing about you except your first name. And this person was able to accurately name deceased family members, dicuss in detail how they died, and describe intimate personal details about your relationship with these people (including people you aren’t consciously thinking about). How would you explain this?
Is this person a god, does he state he is, do others state he is? According to christian doctrine I assume that would mean the return of the messiah, or perhaps rise of the beast – I’m not so familiar with christian mythology anymore, so don’t shoot me for getting it wrong.
Anyway, if this person is claimed to be god I may challenge the notion and examine the claims. However, as it stands now it’s too vague to reply to in this context.
5. Is absence of proof the proof of absence?
Is it? Why did you pick the christian god instead of Osiris?
6. What does the atheist position offer people? How has it improved your life? Why will it improve others’ lives?
The smug superiority you find in most atheist.
No seriously, another irrelevant question – what it gives has no bearing on whether atheism is a sensible position.
If you had restated the question as “what gives atheism” then it could have been interesting to philosophise about a bit.
7. When you attempt to use logic to conclude facts about religion, are you starting at the conclusion (God is not real), or are you starting at true premises? Be honest. If you are starting at true premises, then what are they? And how are they true? Think about #5 when you answer.
This question makes absolutely no sense. You don’t use logic to state facts about anything except statements and relationships between them. And god is not real as valid a “true premise” as any other. E.g. we can examine the premise of “god is not real” against the premise that “god is real” – we clearly see that both can not be true at the same time, if one is true, then the other is false. This however does not tell us anything about which claim is correct.
Your belief or disbelief in one or many gods has absolutely no bearing on a logical analysis of the stated claims.
8. If all Christians believed that the Bible was entirely allegorical, what would you argue in support of your position?
Has no bearing on ateism, but I’ll write a few lines anyway. This could possibly be the worst thought out question so far, what should I support? There’s neither less nor more to support for me. I’m not the one making any claims about gods, about what verses should mean or whatever. If they present a claim towards me, I will examine the claim, and that’s it.
But I’d like to turn this question around a bit, what if the same applied to all the believers reading the Rig Veda?
9. Why is it important to you that everyone is an atheist?
This one is quite funny, I’ll let it up to the readers to decide what I think about it.
10. Do you believe in extra-terrestrials?
Utterly irrelevant question, has no bearing on atheism. But when that is said, I need to explain your false dichotomy here, you’re claiming there’s no evidence for either gods or ETs, so it’s impossible to have the position that there are no gods, and there are ETs at the same time. However, that would only be true if ETs were necessarily supernatural.
We know there is life on this planet, we know that the universe is rather big and we know there are other planets in it. We know some of the requirements of life as we know. And finally we know that the same requirements can be met on other planets.
We do not know anything about gods. We don’t know if they’re carbon based lifeforms, how many can stand on the point of a needle or even something as basic as what colour they are.
We have exactly zero knowledge of gods. Therefore the dichotomy of ETs vs. gods is completely and utterly false.
Having gone true your question I find them quite amusing, through your questions you have demonstrated a total lack of comprehension of what atheism is, you have demonstrated that you don’t understand logic, that you don’t…
I’m frankly dissapointed. You should both think and study the subject matter before you challenge intelligent atheist, when the questions are at best silly on average for me with my meager intelligence…
And no, you are absolutely not a “neutral” person on this subject – every question demonstrates extreme bias towards only one set of possible explanations, however, the questions being poorely thought out only reveal something about your biases and lack of understanding. They don’t say anything at all worthwhile about atheism.
I’ll probably come across as a angry or agressive person, the reason is the dishonesty of these questions – they are simple “intellectual” traps for the simple minded, they are not intelligent questions, for the most part not deserving of a question – it’s the obvious deceit which pisses me off, when I started replying I tought to myself – ah a nice little intellectual challenge – less than halfway true I had lost all hope of meeting an intelligent question, but expected only more of the same poorely stated simple traps.
You sir are not honest when you claim neutrality. If you are honest, then you are far less intelligent than you presume you are.
vinarliga,
Corvus corax
So, most of these comments have been good. Others, like this last one, are a waste of time. I don’t believe in deleting comments unless they’re spam so I’ll leave it up for you all to see, but seriously? How have you improved this discussion in any way? All you’ve done is assert that I’m a retard under the veil of humility by self-deprecating your “meager” intelligence as you put it. You don’t think the questions are relevant? Fine. Then don’t answer them.
The answers to these questions do indeed offer absolutely nothing to the presence or absence of a God – I believe that we’re all agnostics whether we admit it or not.
By the way, if you’re going to respond here, please do not waste space on the page by redefining terms that everybody understands. Especially don’t do it if you not only define the terms incorrectly and then point out that I’m the idiot when not only am I not, but you don’t even understand the difference between atheism and adeism.
The purpose of these questions is to explore the process by which an atheist decides to be an atheist. Ultimately, everybody decides: there either is a god or there isn’t.
If these questions are so irrelevant to atheism, then perhaps the intelligent atheists among you will explain to me why many of the topics addressed in these questions, such as morality, are cornerstones of the atheist platform. It’s nearly impossible to hear a mainstream atheist argue for the absence of a divinity without listening to them rant about the evils of Christianity and the superiority of the atheists’ good deeds for goodness’s sake. Or listening to them rant about the Bible. Thus question #8. It isn’t hard to find an atheist whose primary motivation for abandoning his religion was the absurdity of its teachings (e.g., the Bible). My motivation for this question was to get you thinking about whether this might be the case for yourself. And, coincidentally, if this is the case, you may certainly have become an atheist, but are you still an adeist?
Please keep the comments constructive. If you aren’t going to offer anything other than a rant about how I’m an idiot, redirect your comments to the bottom of a VenomFangX video or something.
So much ignorance, pontificating, and blather about what Christians do or don’t say, think, or believe. It’s clear enough that nobody here (including the original blogger) has a clue about what it means to be a member of God’s kingdom. The problem is that you all appear to be outside the window, looking inside at Christians and trying to figure them out.
It is truly the blind arguing with the blind. None of you “gets it.” Not one. Neither did I until I was introduced to the person of Christ Jesus and voluntarily made the decision to crown Him as Lord of my life. I’m not any smarter than any of you; probably just the opposite. I do not care about what science says or does not say, even though I happen to think the real science is actually on my side. It’s simply that “I know what I saw, and nobody is going to tell me that I imagined it.” It’s like that.
I don’t just “believe” in God. I know Him personally. I’m a friend and brother to His Son Christ Jesus, who was and is both God and man. Who walked among us, who proved through His testimony and His miracles that He was exactly whom He said He is. Whose blood was poured out for the sins of ALL mankind, who died, who was resurrected three days later, who rose back into Heaven, who now sits at the right hand of God the Father, who one day will return again at the end of time to separate His people from the rest and take home His adopted sons and daughters.
God isn’t just a man in the clouds. He’s my Father. I know him and talk to Him. I hear His voice in my heart; I feel His Presence. He’s real. How do I know that? Because I have experienced His power first-hand.
None of you appear to have had the benefit of feeling God’s presence, His Holy Spirit, inside of you. You argue about which that you do not understand. You are all as three-year-olds attempting to dissect and understand a brain. You are fools, and I know this because I was once like you, until I met God.
No one here appears to have the faintest clue about what it’s like to experience His love, grace, and forgiveness firsthand, so tangible at certain moments that it seems you could reach out and touch Him. To feel warmed by His love, to know that you’ve been redeemed by the death of His Son upon that cross. I never know just quite where my feelings end and his Spirit really begins, but that’s OK.
For me, I feel that the most strongly at the moments when I’m standing in church, surrounded by the other children of God, putting my own wants and needs fully aside and concentrating completely on praising Him, on giving myself over to Him completely.
I also feel it when I pray to Him, when I see miracles happen right in front of me, and when I humble myself by being willing to serve others, even the ungrateful and the unbelieving.
That giving over of oneself means denying oneself, taking up one’s cross, and running after Jesus, allowing Him to guide you and protect you. One step at a time. One day at a time. It means coming to rely on God completely. It means serving others and loving them as Christ did, even if they aren’t Christians or believers in unchanging morality; it means loving and praying even for those who persecute you and wish to kill you for talking about Jesus!
It truly is a blind faith at first, but as you grow and learn, you gradually begin to see better and better. You understand. You begin to connect the dots of what you’ve experienced here and there. It all starts to “make sense.” It’s like you’re looking down on your life from above (God is) and seeing things that were not visible from “ground level.”
Until you’ve been there and done that, it isn’t something that anyone can possibly understand or identify with. You can’t just listen to someone else talk about it, and neither is it a place you get to by walking through a set of logical steps. Knowing God Incarnate through Jesus (the only name given under Heaven by which we may be saved) is a decision made with the heart, not the mind. That doesn’t mean that you have to “check your brain at the door,” but you’re not going to find this path in a laboratory, a field reasearch project, or even in the pages of a philosophy textbook.
One more thing. Put aside any nonsense you may have heard about Christians believing themselves to be better than others, or members of an exclusive club. While it is true that there is but ONE path to God the Father, real and authentic followers of Christ recognize themselves as the weakest, most fallen, most sinful members of humanity of all, redeemed ONLY by the Blood of the Lamb (Jesus). In other words, we’re not perfect, just forgiven. As for belonging to a club, all of humanity is separated into two groups: those who have heard and accepted the Truth, and those who are still living in darkness and confusion.
Jesus provides everlasting life in the next world; He provides wisdom, guidance, and protection in this one. He calls on us to fellowship and worship with other believers, and to love and serve EVERYONE, not just other Christians.
You may sniff, you may scoff at my testimony, that’s OK. In fact Christ said, “The highway to hell is broad for all the multitudes who choose its easy way. But the Gateway to Life (Him) is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it.” I don’t mind ridicule and head-shaking; this is pretty mild compared to what my brothers and sisters in the Lord are experiencing in countries like China, Sudan, Egypt, and countless other countries where the authorities are afraid of the Gospel.
Read this link. Christ will give anyone Living Water without cost, to all who would hear and believe.
http://www.bible.com