The Alleged Troubles With Atheism

[joelr]

No...you say it is a myth and provided no evidence in support of that claim.

The unfalsifiability fallacy is one of the worst apologetics. Very low level. It's. bummer to even have to explain. I can cite the Hindu creation myth and then you can say since I've shown no evidence that it's a myth it's unreasonable to believe it's a myth. Same with any Greek myth. There are thousands of ridiculous creation stories that are as far away from what we know about the universe as the creation story from Lord of the Rings. Genesis is exactly as mythic as all of them.

Although, I'm pretty sure I DID give clear evidence that both Genesis myths look to be borrowing from Mesopotamian sources. Sometimes verbatim. For example:
Noah - Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned


Gilamesh - When the seventh day dawned I loosed a dove and let her go. She flew away, but finding no resting- place she returned.


Noah - And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.


Gilamesh - When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled;


Noah - And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake;


Gimamesh - , I made a sacrifice and poured out a libation on the mountain top. Seven and again seven cauldrons I set up on their stands, I heaped up wood and cane and cedar and myrtle. When the gods smelled the sweet savour, they gathered like flies over the sacrifice.


Noah - The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.


Gimamesh - “Wisest of gods, hero Enlil, how could you so senselessly bring down the flood? Lay upon the sinner his sin, Lay upon the transgressor his transgression, Punish him a little when he breaks loose, Do not drive him too hard or he perishes; Would that a lion had ravaged mankind Rather than the flood, Would that a wolf had ravaged mankind Rather than the flood, Would that famine had wasted the world Rather than the flood, Would that pestilence had wasted mankind Rather than the flood


Gilamesh - ‘For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled;


Noah - And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.

As already obvious, there are thousands of historical documents, artifacts, stories passed on down through generations of human legend, social habits...all of these prove conclusively that the Christian Bible, unlike other religions, it is consistent, very credible and historically reliable.

You have been lied to, in many ways.
First the Hindu scriptures also passes down historical information about Kings, places, wars and events which are historical. Far more than in the Bible, - Kings List India By Puranas Validated
How passing myths down through generations makes the supernatural events real I have no idea (it doesn't). But again, the OT is a collection of Mesopotamian and a few other myths reworked for Judaism. The NT is dramatically worse borrowing Hellenism/Persian myths as if they owned them. Dying/rising savior demigods who get followers into an afterlife, a myth already in 6 known religions before Jesus. Greek religions also are where baptism/eucharist comes from (I sourced a paper already).

But I also sourced the most well known Biblical archaeologist William Dever. Rather than repeat some of the specific things we know the Bible is wrong about (I did that you had no response except to ignore it), the general idea is :
"The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people."
NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Archeology of the Hebrew Bible | PBS

Beyond archaeology there are zero historians who consider the Bible "consistent, very credible and historically reliable"? The Gospels are non eyewitness, anonymous myths from which the earliest copy we have is a shard of Mark (P 137) - The manuscript has been dated paleographically to the later 2nd or earlier 3rd century...
The stories mirror older myths so much that early apologists told people Satan went back in time to make history look that way to fool Christians? Pick one thing you think is credible? YOur response to specific claims from scholarship are super vague claims?
Again, from a 2007 paper
"
Early apologists admited similarities and blamed them on Satan.

Even allowing for these caveats, it is clear that substantial ideological and ritual similarities did exist. In fact they were sufficiently obvious to the early Christian apologists that they felt obliged to offer some explanation for them, particularly since, to their embarrassment, it was clear that the Mystery rituals predated their own. The most common explanation, offered by many Christian apologists including Firmicus Maternus, Tertullian and Justin Martyr, was that demons had deliberately prefigured Christian sacraments in order to lead people astray. This explanation has sufficed for Christians over countless centuries, and indeed scholastic bias towards the assumed uniqueness, primacy and superiority of Christianity is one of the major methodological pitfalls encountered by those engaged in the comparative study of Christianity and the Mysteries. Many Christian scholars have been so certain that Christianity alone, of all the world’s religions, is an original and unique revelation that at times it seems that they might almost prefer the “demonic intervention” explanation to the unthinkable possibility that Christianity was influenced by its philosophical and theological environs. This paper, however, will seek to explore and quantify the similarities and differences and to offer a more prosaic explanation for them as far as it is possible to do so at such a remove and in the light of the methodological difficulties discussed above. "

Add to the above the now the scientific researching coming to the fore from YEC academics that prove the flood and y chromosome studies linking human origin to a single individual in the nth Africa region...

Wait, is this the post from 2 days ago??? No this is new? You have failed to respond to the scientific consensus given that flood geology has ruled out a world flood. There are 5 or 6 specific arguments, all given. You haven't responded, you just repeated the same claim? Did you come to a debate forum to just oddly repeat the same phrase over and over?
It does help demonstrate your beliefs are based on fiction and that you do not care about what is true.

Show me another philosophy that has the kind of supporting evidence and consistency of the Christian Bible? As I've said before on these forums, even the famous New Testament scholar and agnostic Bart Erhman admits the most influencial person to have ever lived is Jesus Christ!

Please pick one aspect of the supporting evidence? There actually is none. But you said this last time. So I addressed a wide variety of topics regarding the OT/NT. To which you ignored and just made the same sweeping claim. As if you are a recorded message. It's actually quite rude to pose as someone who wants a discussion but then really doesn't, is unable and is just here to repeat claims without evidence.
It does help to show how ridiculous the beliefs are, so that is something?

I even addressed the fact that being famous and influential doesn't make something true. Especially a myth. In 2050 Islam will outnumber Christians in the U.S. Does that make it more true?
What Bart Ehrman also says is that the Gospels are a mythical narrative using a person who was a Jewish teacher. The savior demigod stuff he considers fiction.
The supporting evidence is there is no supporting evidence. Not any better than Hinduism or Islam.
The theology is Greek/Persian. Oh, the consistency....
You mean from Judaism who would never worship a man as a God, had no afterlife except wandering in the grave, had a national God with an agent named Satan who did dirty work for him to Christianity where they suddenly have all the Greek legends, including heaven as a place souls go after being redeemed, God and Satan are suddenly at war and there is a prediction of a final battle between good and evil where there will be lots of fire and all followers get resurrected and live on an Earthly paradise? Yahweh becomes supreme God. Those last few are verbatim Persian myths.
Or the consistency among the Gospels? Pick an event, the tomb? Each version is completely different. Different people, events, giant lightning angels, 2 regular angels, guard, no guard. Completely different.
Show supporting evidence for one thing?

 

[joelr]

I only report what Bart Erhman himself said on this topic of Jesus that Jesus really existed. You have added the other stuff outside of my statement about him. Bart does not believe that Jesus was a myth. That was and is my point!

Bart Ehrman is an atheist. He does not believe Jesus was a dying/rising savior demigod. He believes those are MYTHS? What about thais do you not understand?

I
Would you like me to provide video reference to Barts own statements on this? I have a very recent youtube evidence where he was in an open discussion with High School students and this was one of the question put directly to him!

Don't bother, I'll do it for you. I have read some of his books and listened to most of his lectures and debates.

"In this debate I'm going to show why I actually don't believe in the resurrection" starts at 4:12

Ehrman also says the Gospels are not historically reliable and there is nothing that can be taken from them that is definitely fact. He only believes in a historical teacher who MAY have been killed.
The theology is myth and Ehrman also believes that. As does the vast consensus of historians.

Another option for you is to purchase Barts book

"Jesus Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium"

• By: Bart D. Ehrman
• Narrated by: Tom Parks
• Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
• Unabridged Audiobook
• Categories: History, Religious

"In this book, written to counter the idea that there was never such a person as Jesus of Nazareth at all, Ehrman sets out to demonstrate the historical evidence for Jesus' existence, and he aims to state why all experts in the area agree that "whatever else you may think about Jesus, he certainly did exist."

You definitely didn't read that book. He argues Jesus was a human teacher and part of his teachings were apocalyptic teaching. No Gods, no magic powers. Apoctalyptic teachings were introduced to the Israelites around 500 B.C. by the Persians.
You should have done a little research first?
"In two key books, Apocalyptic Prophet (about the historic Jesus) and Misquoting Jesus (about the New Testament), Dr. Ehrman searches the most reliably accurate parts of the gospels to better understand who Jesus was. From this effort, Ehrman makes an exceedingly strong case that Jesus was a human product of his time, not of All Time.

This is hard reading for Christians because Ehrman, formerly a Christian, methodically examines other historical sources along with the oldest surviving materials of the New Testament to make informed, rational, evidence-based arguments consistent with proven principles of scholarship. He's not pulling this stuff out of the air — in fact, much of it has been long-proved but ignored — and he's well aware of the crisis this awareness can cause. But evidence in the text and subtext of Jesus' message shows that Jesus’ life was altogether human. His story, however, made a compelling impression that took on a life of its own almost immediately. Ehrman traces where emphases, errors and additions were made to the Jesus story from the start, possibly while he was still alive. (Possibly, even by him.)"

Note - HUMAN and HARD READING FOR CHRISTIANS. because the gospel stories are mythology.
Also - "Since the apocalyptic genre developed during the Persian period, this dualism may have developed under the influence of Persian thought.[1"
-Arising initially in Zoroastrianism, apocalypticism was developed more fully in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic eschatological speculation.

Apocalypticism - Wikipedia

The Persian Revelation is dated to 1600 B.C and is where the Christian myth came from. apocalypticism was preached by Ehrmans Jesus but it's a myth that began with the Persian religion, Zoroastrianism. Revelation is a direct copy of the basic myth. Mary Boyce details this in her work on the Persians. I was actually surprised at how exact it is.

At the end of the day, if you were purchasing the house of salvation vs secularism, which one offers the best long term investment, a religious view where you can live forevermore, or an atheistic one that says after you have pillaged this life its "kaput"?

Really? Ending with Pascals Wager?
Hellenism (as I sourced last time) was a religious movement where savior Gods could redeem this thing inside people called a "soul" and the soul can then go to this afterlife. The Greeks occupied Israel around 200B.C. and Hellenism had a huge impact on Judaism as well as most religions in the area. That doesn't make it real.
Islam will say you can choose Allah or eternal doom. There is no compelling evidence that this is true. Same for your religion.
Even if an afterlife and a soul was a real thing, the idea that a God of reality would use archaic concepts like magic blood atonement sacrifice and gospels that use ridiculous myths is absurd.

You can spend whatever time you have pondering any ancient legends you like. Maybe take a few minutes and read about the fallacies in Pascals wager? Or try to present some actual evidence rather than claims?
If a Muslim approached you with the same wager would you not find it ridiculous? How about if they presented a bunch of false claims first and misunderstandings of historical evidence and Bart Ehrmans work? Would that make it even more ridiculous? Yup.

Second Temple Judaism[edit]
During the period of the Second Temple (c. 515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire.[47] Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[48][49] The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.[49] By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[40]

 

[danieldemol]

Do you not recognise the idea that largely, God's punishments are a direct consequence of our own poor decision making...and that this occurs because of design rather than a chaotic accident?

If poor decision making occurs because of design the fault is with the designer.

Then how can a just God judge the designed for that which is God's own fault?

Take for example a some illustration, two drivers in motor vehicles, one regularly speeds, the other conscientiously drives to the speed limit...who is more likely to have a car accident?

A second illustration, two individuals, one smokes the other does not, who is more likely to suffer from lung problems or die from lung cancer?
Third illustration, two individuals, one lives a life of gang related crime, the other a life of honesty and love for their neighbour...who is more likely to live the happier life?

How much do you know of the scientific knowledge about decision making process of the brain?

It honestly seems to me like decisions are made by the brain largely predetermined by a complex interaction of brain chemistry, hard wiring, and environmental influences.

We aren't really given a choice at birth of which brain we will get or what environment we will be born into. So unless you can provide some evidence that people can make decisions opposed to their brain chemistry etc it seems strange to judge people unworthy of salvation for things that are outside their control.

For example a person born outside of a Christian family and who is never in an environment where they will hear about Jesus most (dare I say all) such people will never become Christians.

But a person did not choose to be born into a Christian family or receive a Christian environment - that is just a matter of random chance. Then how unfair of a God who allegedly places them in such circumstances to judge them unworthy of salvation.

And if you say such people can receive salvation without joining Christianity so long as they do their best to lead righteous lives then why are those who do their best to lead righteous lives and find it leading them away from the Christianity of their environment at a disadvantage to the group that will never hear of Christianity?

In my opinion.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

According to some religious apologists I'm acquainted with, atheism is a problematical way of looking at reality and living one's life. Here is a list of some of the criticisms of atheism and atheists I've heard:

This should be fun.

Atheism offers no hope.

Correct. It doesn't offer recipes on how to make pancakes either. Atheism isn't about that. So this is just stating the obvious.

Atheism cannot explain existence.

Correct. Same as above. Atheism isn't about "explaining existence". Again stating the obvious.

The amazing complexity of living things cannot be explained by atheism.

Correct. Same as above. Atheism isn't about "explaining complexity of life". Again stating the obvious.

Atheists are responsible for close to 100 million deaths during the twentieth century alone.

Assuming this is talking about Hitler and Stalin, then first of all, Hitler wasn't an atheist and neither were the nazi's. Secondly, by the same token those killings were ordered by men with mustaches.
Correlation does not imply causation.
None of these killings were done "in the name of atheism". They were done in the name of nazism, communism, etc. Which, in essence, are political counterparts of religion. With the "Great Leader" and the State taking up the role of "god".

Hitler was an atheist, and his atheism led him to commit his "final solution" resulting in the deaths of six million Jews.

1. Hitler was not an atheist.
2. Nazi's had "Got mit uns" on their belt buckles
3. Nazi Germany collaborated with the vatican
4. his "final solution" was inspired by deep rooted anti-semitism feelings, which weren't exactly rare in christian land. He had 2000 years of christian prosecution of jews to inspire folks.

If one is an atheist, then there is no objective basis for that person's morality.

Neither is there one for theists. They like to claim otherwise, but there is no such thing.

Atheism is illogical because it is impossible to know that God doesn't exist.

By the same token theism is illogical because it is impossible to know that a god does exist.
The difference, off course, is that atheism is not the claim that one doesn't exist - merely a response of disbelief to the theistic claim that a god DOES exist.

Atheism is a ruse because there are no true atheists: Supposed atheists do believe in God but don't recognize God's authority because they would rather sin.

That's just absurd. Don't know what else to say about this. It's so absurd that I don't even know how to respond.

Atheists have created ideas like evolution and the multiverse to avoid the fact that God created the cosmos and life.

Did they also create ideas like how lightning works to avoid the "fact" that Jupiter / Zeus / Thor is responsible for lightning?

Atheism is a mental illness brought on by childhood trauma regarding one's father which leads a person to reject her Heavenly Father.

LOL! Haven't heard that one before.
I'll just apply Hitchin's Razor here: that which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

Is there any truth to these criticisms?

Nope.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Where are all these numbers coming from, and why can't I consolitate my post?

Because the programmers of the forum messed up with numbering systems in quoted form.

How do I get rid of them?

The only thing you can do is delete them when quoting them (by placing your cursor after them and then hitting backspace). This will also renumber all the items below it.

 

[Revoltingest]

Is there any truth to these criticisms?

Let's set aside whether the OP's criticisms are valid.
True or not, they really don't matter to me.
I'm an atheist because belief in gods isn't reasonable.
- There's no evidence or rational argument for gods.
- The various religions are a mess of mythologies
that are either debunked or "not even wrong".

It matters not if believers are happier, more moral,
better people, destined for Heaven, or have more
meaningful lives. I simply cannot believe in things
that make no sense.
Fortunately, religion isn't necessary for a life well lived.

 

[night912]

Atheists have created ideas like evolution and the multiverse to avoid the fact that God created the cosmos and life.

How come the Big Bang is viewed in the same way? Could it be that it was proposed by a theist?

 

[Augustus]

How come the Big Bang is viewed in the same way? Could it be that it was proposed by a theist?

It was

Georges Lemaître - Wikipedia


Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître (/ləˈmɛtrə/ lə-MET-rə; French: [ʒɔʁʒ ləmɛːtʁ] ( listen); 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Catholic priest, theoretical physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain.[1] He was the second to theorize that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by an expanding universe,[2] which was observationally confirmed soon afterwards by Edwin Hubble.[3][4] He first derived "Hubble's law", now called the Hubble–Lemaître law by the IAU,[5][6] and published the first estimation of the Hubble constant in 1927, two years before Hubble's article.[7][8][3][4] Lemaître also proposed a version of the "Big Bang theory" of the origin of the universe, calling it the "hypothesis of the primeval atom",[9] and later calling it "the beginning of the world".[10]

 

[Jagella]

Marxists argued against the sanctity of human life on the grounds it was a theistic religious myth.

Well, the religious approached the idea of the sanctity of human life as a myth, and that might well be what influenced some Marxists to take the same approach.

In a purely materialistic world the ends justified the means, and millions of deaths was a price worth paying for the "progress" of humanity.

I'm not sure how a materialistic philosophy would result in disrespect for human life. In a materialistic view of life, our lives are limited, and that's what makes them precious. If we can live forever, then why worry about human life on earth?

As such there is an indirect connection to atheism, although it is obviously not the case that they were killed purely due to atheism. They were killed by atheists though.

I see no direct connection between belief in God(s) and a respect for human life especially when the God(s) can command genocide. It is possible, though, that some people need to fear punishment from a God in order to behave themselves.

While it is impossible to know, there is an arguable case that Marxism was responsible for more deaths in a century than died in all religious wars in history.

He was likely some kind of providential deist.

How exactly did Marx inspire mass murder? Marxists can play the same game the religious do by asserting that Marx was not a true Marxist!

 

[Augustus]

Well, the religious approached the idea of the sanctity of human life as a myth, and that might well be what influenced some Marxists to take the same approach.

The difference is that even the most violent religious ideologies have valued life, but only the life of the believer.

This is fundamentally different from an extreme utopian materialistic utilitarianism where the only thing that matters is the end. A human life is meaningless and it is stupid to worry about killing millions if it serves the greater good. Such weak and sentimental thinking is traitorous.

Leon Trotsky: “We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life”.
Yemelyan Yaroslavsky: It is our duty to destroy every religious world-concept... If the destruction of ten million human beings, as happened in the last war, should be necessary for the triumph of one definite class, then that must be done and it will be done.

I'm not sure how a materialistic philosophy would result in disrespect for human life. In a materialistic view of life, our lives are limited, and that's what makes them precious. If we can live forever, then why worry about human life on earth?

What makes them precious is a quasi-religious attitude to Humanity (itself a religious concept). Most Western atheists are really just post-Christians and retain many of the ideals that developed in a European Christian context over 2000 years.

Humans are just collections of atoms that became sentient by chance. No more intrinsically valuable than a plant of lump of magnesium. We are matter now and will be matter when we die.

We assign our lives some mythical value (and that is a good thing), but only because we do not really take the logic of materialism to its full consequences.

I see no direct connection between belief in God(s) and a respect for human life especially when the God(s) can command genocide. It is possible, though, that some people need to fear punishment from a God in order to behave themselves.

Belief in god on its own does nothing, but all major theistic religions, AFAIK, place a value on human life.

Now, in some more extreme forms, this only applies to believers, but non-believers can become believers at least.

How exactly did Marx inspire mass murder? Marxists can play the same game the religious do by asserting that Marx was not a true Marxist!

In the context of Soviet Marxism, because Marxism-Leninism was a violent revolutionary ideology. It's like saying how did Salafi-jihadism inspire mass murder, because it's what the ideology was about.

The point is, therefore, to be more radical than everybody else as far as atheism is concerned. Fortunately it is easy enough to be an atheist today. Atheism is so near to being self-obvious with European working-class parties nowadays — although in certain countries it is often enough like that of the Spanish Bakuninist who maintained that it was against all socialism to believe in God but that the Virgin Mary was a different matter, every decent socialist ought naturally to believe in her. It can even be said of the German Social-Democratic workers that atheism has already outlived itself with them: this purely negative word no longer has any application as far as they are concerned inasmuch as their opposition to faith in God is no longer one of theory but one of practice; they have purely and simply finished with God, they live and think in the world of reality and are therefore materialists. Marx and Engels On Religion,

It is furthermore imperative to put the propaganda of atheism on solid ground. You won't achieve much with the weapons of Marx and materialism, as we have seen. Materialism and religion are two different planes and they don't coincide. If a fool speaks from the heavens and the sage from a factory--they won't understand one another. The sage needs to hit the fool with his stick, with his weapon. Gorky, Letter to Stalin


What they said was matched by what the did in power.

 

[Jagella]

Hope for what?

If its just hope in general, I think atheists have as much hope as everyone else.

Most people I think want to live forever in paradise. It's just that some of us know better than to expect it. So the hope many theists have to live eternally is a forlorn hope, and why should any atheist want a forlorn hope?

So far nothing can explain existences.

Simply throwing in God(s) might give an "excuse" of how we came to be, but it doesn't offer a satisfying explanation. I don't think any atheists have a major issue with this, except we would like to know

There are some explanations for existence that are controversial or not widely accepted.

That is correct, it is explained by biology, chemistry etc.

And certainly theism can't explain it, because then there would be no need for scientists to try to figure it out.

Belief that God created life is popular as a folk belief. It seems unreasonable to me that an all-mighty God would make life so complex. Can't he create life any way he wants to?

Some crazy individuals and people are responsible for killing a lot of people, but I highly doubt that the motivation were atheism.

If some people conclude that since there is no God then mass murder is OK, they would have to be complete idiots.

Might have been, not sure.

But none the less, Hitler doesn't represent all atheists. Just as Osama Bin Laden didn't represent all Muslims etc. etc. You can find nutcases within all "religious" views or ideas.

I believe the view that Hitler was an atheist was fabricated by the Christian clergy to distance themselves from Hitler's avowed theism.

Agree.

Personally, I like subjective morality. It works well for me, and I don't need to mindlessly believe some self-proclaimed prophet who says God told him right from wrong.

Its a negative position and is no more illogical than someone who doesn't believe in something else, such as fairies, pixies, gnomes or unicorns. Such person wouldn't be called illogical since there is no good reason to believe that set beings should exist.

I thought of your same response here when I first heard a preacher say that atheism is illogical due to its supposed disavowal of a God. I wonder if that preacher believed in Peter Pan because Pete can't be disproved either.

We don't recognize any God's period... authority or no authority doesn't matter, we don't believe they exist at all. Therefore we don't care about sin either.

I must admit I do like sin, but most people who believe in God like sin too.

Evolution have nothing to do with the creation of life and the multiverse is simply a theory in an attempt to explain how there is something rather than nothing, but it has nothing to do with atheism as such, as not all atheists believe in the multiverse idea.

Actually, the multiverse is predicted by quantum mechanics and has nothing to do with fearing God.

Probably true

If atheists are mentally ill, then they're still right. Is that possible?

 

[Jagella]

Everyone is free to choose their own religion, and you have no right to call someone insane for choosing atheism. I think that it violates forum rules.

The criticisms of atheism and atheists I listed in the OP are not my own criticisms; they are the criticisms I've heard from other people.

 

[Nimos]

Most people I think want to live forever in paradise. It's just that some of us know better than to expect it. So the hope many theists have to live eternally is a forlorn hope, and why should any atheist want a forlorn hope?

I think most people like the idea of paradise, but I think for atheists its not about hope, its about whether or not it is reasonable to believe in it being true in the first place.

For us atheists and just generalizing here, there is no reason to get our hopes up or try to aim towards something such as paradise unless we know it is true, I think most would consider it a waste of time. Sort of like spending all days hoping that somehow a billion dollars end up in your mailbox for no good reason. Living ones life as if this is going to happen and its just a matter of time, I don't think atheists find particularly appealing.

There are some explanations for existence that are controversial or not widely accepted.

I bet there are lots, which is perfectly fine. And they are interesting to listen to, but I personally don't jump on them unless they are more than just random ideas, despite how many good things or empty promises there comes with set idea. I simply need more than that. And I have no issue with being honest and say that I don't know the answer to the question. And if someone claim to know it, then they ought to be able to demonstrate it.

Belief that God created life is popular as a folk belief. It seems unreasonable to me that an all-mighty God would make life so complex. Can't he create life any way he wants to?

I completely agree, things seems extremely complicated, if the sole purpose is that we have to just get into paradise, it would be much more logical for God to simply read our minds and throw those that deserve it there or simply make a questionnaire and get people to answer it and get it over with.

If some people conclude that since there is no God then mass murder is OK, they would have to be complete idiots.

I agree, and it is not an uncommon argument made by believers that if there were no God they would just go crazy. Yet, they seem to pay no attention to the amount of atheists there is and that these are not going crazy. And besides that, even if we assume God exist, he obviously didn't care to stop Hitler or Stalin anyway so what difference does it really make? If God had picked up Hitler so everyone could see it and thrown him into outer space fair enough, but he didn't.

I believe the view that Hitler was an atheist was fabricated by the Christian clergy to distance themselves from Hitler's avowed theism.

I don't know and honestly I don't think it matters. One could wonder that if he were a full blown atheist, then jumping on the Jews doesn't make sense, compared to jumping on all of them, which might be because he needed the support or whatever, I have no clue what that man wanted to achieve, he was completely screwed up. But if he hated religion so much why bother writing "God with us" on the uniforms etc. he could simply demand it to not be there. So maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, I really don't think it is important.

Personally, I like subjective morality. It works well for me, and I don't need to mindlessly believe some self-proclaimed prophet who says God told him right from wrong.

Agree, I also think that subjective morality better explain the world and why things are as they are, than objective morality does.

I thought of your same response here when I first heard a preacher say that atheism is illogical due to its supposed disavowal of a God. I wonder if that preacher believed in Peter Pan because Pete can't be disproved either.

There is a lot of people that think its a strong argument or equally strong position when something can't be disproven. And it is massive logical fallacy, which they simply don't realize, because it should be obvious to them, that any other God which they can't disprove are equally as likely to be true as their own based on such logic.

I must admit I do like sin, but most people who believe in God like sin too.

If someone could demonstrate sin and why something is a sin sure, but I don't think anyone can even remotely do that. And therefore I won't bother with it.

Actually, the multiverse is predicted by quantum mechanics and has nothing to do with fearing God.

Im not that much into quantum mechanics, but I would be surprised if the multiverse were predicted by it, given how little we know about it. I could imagine some ideas going there or some assumptions, but im not really sure what such prediction would look like?

If atheists are mentally ill, then they're still right. Is that possible?

Well it was meant as a joke

All people are born atheists, I doubt it is possible to ask a child about God until they have been exposed to the idea, which I also think is perfectly supported by the huge amount of different religious beliefs in the world and through time.

 

[AdamjEdgar]

If poor decision making occurs because of design the fault is with the designer.

A typical non christian response is usually like the one you have posted above. It also completely ignores that if there is good, there is evil...a known and observable social fact!

Very few people like authoritative regimes (such as communism) so when you say, "its poor design", how then do you answer the reply, "we have been given free will"? Do you honestly believe free will is poor design?

 

[AdamjEdgar]

It was

Georges Lemaître - Wikipedia


Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître (/ləˈmɛtrə/ lə-MET-rə; French: [ʒɔʁʒ ləmɛːtʁ] ( listen); 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Catholic priest, theoretical physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain.[1] He was the second to theorize that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by an expanding universe,[2] which was observationally confirmed soon afterwards by Edwin Hubble.[3][4] He first derived "Hubble's law", now called the Hubble–Lemaître law by the IAU,[5][6] and published the first estimation of the Hubble constant in 1927, two years before Hubble's article.[7][8][3][4] Lemaître also proposed a version of the "Big Bang theory" of the origin of the universe, calling it the "hypothesis of the primeval atom",[9] and later calling it "the beginning of the world".[10]

I would argue that for myself as a Christian, the big bang is true...in terms of a creator expanding the entire universe from nothing. Quite obviously, if we are to believe in an origin, then one would assume a start point. Having said that, it appears that debates now are moving towards a universe which does not actually have a beginning...or an end. This to me makes sense because if God is eternally past and future, would not that also mean the universe is the same? I guess we will not know these things for sure until those who are saved, get to heaven and ask!

 

[Jagella]

The difference is that even the most violent religious ideologies have valued life, but only the life of the believer.

I don't know about that. One group that was victimized the most by the Christian Inquisition was Christians.

This is fundamentally different from an extreme utopian materialistic utilitarianism where the only thing that matters is the end. A human life is meaningless and it is stupid to worry about killing millions if it serves the greater good. Such weak and sentimental thinking is traitorous.

That sounds like religious doctrine to me! Just read Revelation to see what happens to people when the "saved" are granted utopia.

Leon Trotsky: “We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life”.
Yemelyan Yaroslavsky: It is our duty to destroy every religious world-concept... If the destruction of ten million human beings, as happened in the last war, should be necessary for the triumph of one definite class, then that must be done and it will be done.

Posting quotations doesn't prove much. Can your lifelong philosophy (if you have one) be summarized in one sentence that you wrote? But just for fun, let's take a look at another quotation:

Theodore Roosevelt: ‘The Only Good Indians Are the Dead Indians’

That's an American president talking. He sounds every bit as bad as any Marxist if not worse. Of course, we cannot get a complete picture of Roosevelt reading that one quotation. The same goes for Marxists.

What makes them precious is a quasi-religious attitude to Humanity (itself a religious concept). Most Western atheists are really just post-Christians and retain many of the ideals that developed in a European Christian context over 2000 years.

Actually, valuing human life came long before Christians started saying that they invented it. If people don't value human life, then we go extinct. The fact that modern humans have been around for 250,000 years should tell you something about how we value each other's lives.

Humans are just collections of atoms that became sentient by chance. No more intrinsically valuable than a plant of lump of magnesium. We are matter now and will be matter when we die.

It doesn't matter to me what we're made of. I still value people generally more than plants or magnesium. I happen to be very fond of those collections of sentient atoms called "human beings." I would be a complete idiot to disregard human life just because humans are made of atoms.

We assign our lives some mythical value (and that is a good thing), but only because we do not really take the logic of materialism to its full consequences.

What is "the logic of materialism"? I assume you mean that we humans are material. What's wrong with seeing people as material? I've never had any trouble with it.

Belief in god on its own does nothing, but all major theistic religions, AFAIK, place a value on human life.

As far as I can tell, "materialists" value life as much as the religious do if not more. Why would anybody need to believe in an invisible man in the sky (i.e. God) to value other people? I see no logical connection there.

Now, in some more extreme forms, this only applies to believers, but non-believers can become believers at least.

I hope not!

In the context of Soviet Marxism, because Marxism-Leninism was a violent revolutionary ideology. It's like saying how did Salafi-jihadism inspire mass murder, because it's what the ideology was about.

The ideology of the first Americans was a violent revolutionary ideology too. We've been in many wars and have killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of people that way. We've enslaved people, and to this day we execute people by gassing them or electrocuting them. So Marxism is not so unique.

 

[danieldemol]

A typical non christian response is usually like the one you have posted above. It also completely ignores that if there is good, there is evil...a known and observable social fact!

Evil is also part of poor design if the designer is omnipotent.

Very few people like authoritative regimes (such as communism) so when you say, "its poor design", how then do you answer the reply, "we have been given free will"? Do you honestly believe free will is poor design?

I'm honestly not convinced we have free will, it may be that our responses are determined by the interaction of electrochemical process of the brain and its environmental inputs.

If they are then how can you claim our will is free when it seems to be constrained by brain structure/chemistry and environmental influences?

In my opinion.

 

[Augustus]

Posting quotations doesn't prove much. Can your lifelong philosophy (if you have one) be summarized in one sentence that you wrote? But just for fun, let's take a look at another quotation:

Posting quotations doesn't do much, unless they are also backed by volumes of political theory and a near century of implementation of that theory in multiple countries leading to several of the most murderous regimes in human history.

It's not an exercise in hypothesising, but what actually happened and how people justified it.

You seem to be arguing against the wrong point. Of course religious and other belief systems can cause violence and we should look at what caused the violence in each case.

In the 20th C though we had a series of remarkably murderous political ideologies that sprang out of Marxism-Leninism.

Unless you think it is pure coincidence that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot engaged in extreme levels of violence, it is worth looking at what drove them.

Simply saying "but whatabout religion/Roosevelt/etc..." doesn't negate the unusual levels of violence present in the Marxist regimes.

I don't know about that. One group that was victimized the most by the Christian Inquisition was Christians.

Heretics are not considered part of the in group.

But, the inquisition killed a handful of people a year and was primarily about getting people to renounce "heresy" and be "rehabilitated".

Not admirable, but it didn't kill 50-100 million people.

That sounds like religious doctrine to me! Just read Revelation to see what happens to people when the "saved" are granted utopia.

The major difference is that religions tend to hold that eschatological salvation is for the next life, Marxists believed it could be attained on Earth. Eschatology can always lead to violence, but millenarianism focused on creating an earthly paradise tends to be particularly violent as the neds justify any means (Religions occasionally can do this too: ISIS would probably meet this kind of goal as their caliphate was cast in utopian terms, the Münster anabaptists also perhaps).

Leninism posited a belief in humankind’s effective perfectibility through development of a new type of person, capable of living under communism. Belief in the attainability of an aesthetically pure, harmonious, and unitary future society required the removal of imperfections and the active sculpting of society by the state... [thus it required] “a radically new type of violence, truly decisive and self-contained, a form of violence that will put an end once and for all to violence itself.”93 This dialectical notion of violence to end violence is of cardinal importance for understanding how violence in the service of the revolution was not simply justified but sacralized in Bolshevik thought...the Soviet concept of “active humanism”—the necessity of taking (violent) action to eradicate the sources of human suffering—was quite central to the representation of violence as morally good...

The Sacralization of Violence: Bolshevik Justifications for Violence and Terror during the Civil War - Jame Ryan

Actually, valuing human life came long before Christians started saying that they invented it. If people don't value human life, then we go extinct. The fact that modern humans have been around for 250,000 years should tell you something about how we value each other's lives.

No one said Christians were the first to value life, all societies value their own lives based on their own mythologies. They don't necessarily have a universal view of a common humanity though as that requires a specific type mythology most common in monotheism(but not exclusive to it).

What I did say was that Western liberal ideology developed in a European Christian context, and that is not universal but historically and culturally contingent.

If you compare it to pre-Christian Europe (Graeco-Roman, Norse, etc.), or many non-Western societies you see a very different way of viewing the world.

As far as I can tell, "materialists" value life as much as the religious do if not more. Why would anybody need to believe in an invisible man in the sky (i.e. God) to value other people? I see no logical connection there.

Again, I didn't suggest that materialists can't value human life, I explicitly stated the opposite: they usually have their own myths to justify its value.

What is "the logic of materialism"?

That human lives have no intrinsic value beyond what we say they do.

You may be a secular humanist and create a nice myth of melioristic human progress and individual rights.

On the other hand, if you follow an ideology that rejects the concept of the individual and focuses only on the perfection of humanity and accept that violence is a necessary part of this process, why should you care if millions of individuals die in the pursuit of progress?

Nothing has been lost while something has been gained.

The point is not what you think about how people should behave, but the logic that underpinned the Marxist-Leninist Communism regimes and why they proved to be so unusually violent.

 

[Jagella]

Posting quotations doesn't do much, unless they are also backed by volumes of political theory and a near century of implementation of that theory in multiple countries leading to several of the most murderous regimes in human history.

It's not an exercise in hypothesising, but what actually happened and how people justified it.

You have all that with the good ol' US of A. At this point Marxism doesn't look much worse than western capitalism.

You seem to be arguing against the wrong point. Of course religious and other belief systems can cause violence and we should look at what caused the violence in each case.

In the 20th C though we had a series of remarkably murderous political ideologies that sprang out of Marxism-Leninism.

Unless you think it is pure coincidence that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot engaged in extreme levels of violence, it is worth looking at what drove them.

I've read that Stalin was influenced to commit genocide by his religious indoctrination in a Christian seminary. I find that easy to believe because when Stalin rose to power he acted much like Yahweh demanding absolute, unquestioning obedience and slaughtering all those who displeased him.

Simply saying "but whatabout religion/Roosevelt/etc..." doesn't negate the unusual levels of violence present in the Marxist regimes.

My point in quoting T Roosevelt is that it's not difficult to find things people have said to make them look bad.

Heretics are not considered part of the in group.

Many of the victims of the Christian Inquisition considered themselves to be Christians, and so do I. Asserting that they were not "part of the in group" doesn't change the fact that the Inquisition victimized Christians.

But, the inquisition killed a handful of people a year and was primarily about getting people to renounce "heresy" and be "rehabilitated".

I've read that the Inquisition wiped out entire villages of people.

Not admirable, but it didn't kill 50-100 million people.

Who killed that many people, and why did they do it? And it's absurd to describe the violent acts brought on by religion as "not admirable"!

The major difference is that religions tend to hold that eschatological salvation is for the next life, Marxists believed it could be attained on Earth. Eschatology can always lead to violence, but millenarianism focused on creating an earthly paradise tends to be particularly violent as the neds justify any means (Religions occasionally can do this too: ISIS would probably meet this kind of goal as their caliphate was cast in utopian terms, the Münster anabaptists also perhaps).

Jehovah's Witnesses seek an earthly paradise too. Although their sect is in my opinion "not admirable," I don't see them using violence to attain that earthly paradise. So contrary to what you say, eschatology need not lead to violence.

If you compare it to pre-Christian Europe (Graeco-Roman, Norse, etc.), or many non-Western societies you see a very different way of viewing the world.

I like the Greeks, personally. They greatly valued knowledge and the result was great scientific and social progress. Much of that came to an end when Christianity took over.

That human lives have no intrinsic value beyond what we say they do.

But that goes for everybody. We all define the value of human life saying so. Materialists are no different than the religious in that regard.

You may be a secular humanist and create a nice myth of melioristic human progress and individual rights.

If you don't think we've made progress, then go back to the ways of the past. Tell your doctor you want no antibiotics, for example. You can also join the Amish. Then let us all know how progress is a myth.

On the other hand, if you follow an ideology that rejects the concept of the individual and focuses only on the perfection of humanity and accept that violence is a necessary part of this process, why should you care if millions of individuals die in the pursuit of progress?

What is "the concept of the individual"? I see no conflict between enhancing the lives of individuals and all of society. And I don't see violence as a way to perfect people. I would be an idiot if I did.

The point is not what you think about how people should behave, but the logic that underpinned the Marxist-Leninist Communism regimes and why they proved to be so unusually violent.

Could it be that their violence and injustices resulted from the failure to live up to their ideals? That's the excuse we use here in Western Society, so why can't Marxists use the same excuse?

 

[Augustus]

You have all that with the good ol' US of A. At this point Marxism doesn't look much worse than western capitalism.

You really, genuinely believe that living through the "Great leap Forward" and Cultural Revolution in China, or Year Zero in Cambodia wouldn't have been much worse than growing up in 60s America?

That's a pretty remarkable level of whatboutism.

I've read that Stalin was influenced to commit genocide by his religious indoctrination in a Christian seminary. I find that easy to believe because when Stalin rose to power he acted much like Yahweh demanding absolute, unquestioning obedience and slaughtering all those who displeased him.

You might want to read better sources.

Stalin's seminary noted he was an atheist, Stalin acknowledged he was an atheist. Stalin implemented an "atheist 5 year plan", called for the liquidation of the clergy, killed tens of thousands of clergy and implemented policies that led to the almost complete destruction of the Church.

The seminary journal reports that Stalin declared himself an atheist, stalked out of prayers, chatted in class, was late for tea and refused to doff his hat to monks. He had eleven more warnings... [Stalin] adored Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin and Chekhov, whose works he memorized and “could recite by heart.” He admired Tolstoy “but was bored by his Christianity,” later in life scrawling “ha-ha-ha!” beside Tolstoyan musings on redemption and salvation... In his seventies, the dictator was still chuckling about these arguments. “I became an atheist in the first year,” he said, which led to arguments with other boys such as his pious friend Simon Natroshvili.
Young Stalin - S. Sebag-Motefiore

I like the Greeks, personally. They greatly valued knowledge and the result was great scientific and social progress. Much of that came to an end when Christianity took over.

Again, you might want to read better sources. The "Christian Dark Ages" myth, while beloved of many internet atheists, is not considered tenable by modern historians.

Also the idea that Greeks were some kind of progressive, proto-humanist society is nonsense.

I like the Greeks in a historical sense, but they certainly aren't the source of modern humanistic values. We can admire many things about historical societies and shouldn't judge them anachronistically, but I can't agree with you that a theocratic society based on extreme xenophobia, where maybe half the people were slaves who could be raped at will, women were kept in seclusion, humans were fundamentally unequal, there was no such thing as individual rights, etc. was "socially progressive".

I've read that the Inquisition wiped out entire villages of people.

Who killed that many people, and why did they do it? And it's absurd to describe the violent acts brought on by religion as "not admirable"!

3 communist regimes collectively in the 20th C killed that many: USSR, China and Cambodia.

The Spanish Inquisition killed maybe 3000-5000 people in 350 years (a fraction of a tenth of a percent of the population)

The Khmer Rouge killed 2-3 million in 4 years (1/3 of the population)

The Great Leap Forward killed anywhere from 15-60 million people.

You think it is "absurd" to draw a distinction between these?

What is "the concept of the individual"? I see no conflict between enhancing the lives of individuals and all of society. And I don't see violence as a way to perfect people. I would be an idiot if I did.

The concept of the individual means that people have rights as an individual. The other extreme is that only the collective matters: society. If 10 million individuals die to benefit society it's great: progress.

But you are again missing the point. It's not about materialism in general, or what you think, or about hypotheticals, but about a specific, real world ideology, Marxism-Leninism (and its offshoots), that had, specific real world effects.

You say "I don't see violence as a way to perfect people. I would be an idiot if I did" yet are bending over backwards to defend and excuse an ideology that did exactly this.

It is possible to identify problems with particular religious beliefs, while also noting there is a vast differences in scale of deadliness that exists between Marxist regimes and the average religious one.

Could it be that their violence and injustices resulted from the failure to live up to their ideals? That's the excuse we use here in Western Society, so why can't Marxists use the same excuse?

No, what you keep avoiding is that they were stated as part of their ideals. They were necessary for progress, not incidental.

Do you really think it is a complete coincidence that 3 of the most murderous regimes in history all followed the same ideology at the same time? Or is it more likely that there was some kind of connection to this ideology which specifically accepted the need for violence and death to purify society?

It's like saying the violence of ISIS was caused by them not living up to their ideals, rather than being a well documented strategy for achieving their ideological goals.