Those condescending atheists

[Alexander]

Isn't being a militant atheist somewhat hypocritical? I'm just kinda wondering if there is some sort of obligation to spread the faith, or lack therof among atheists.

I feel like the answer to this should be somewhat obvious. Like everything else in life, you can choose to be as involved or as "militant" as you wish to be. I don't consider myself a militant atheist, but I do feel a need to answer misconceptions. Because as simple an idea atheism is, it is extremely misunderstood. I don't see why it would be hypocritical to answer misconceptions. That would imply that atheists are somehow "obligated" to shut up and let people say whatever they want whether it is true or not.

[JustKari]

I feel like the answer to this should be somewhat obvious. Like everything else in life, you can choose to be as involved or as "militant" as you wish to be. I don't consider myself a militant atheist, but I do feel a need to answer misconceptions. Because as simple an idea atheism is, it is extremely misunderstood. I don't see why it would be hypocritical to answer misconceptions. That would imply that atheists are somehow "obligated" to shut up and let people say whatever they want whether it is true or not.

I don't think answering questions or defining misconceptions would be considered militant.  What I think Murph is driving at is, there are atheists that do something very close to evangelism.  Everywhere there go, they must spread the word, what they feel is truth.  They have turned what could be described as a lack of religion, into a religion.  This certainly does not describe all atheists, but a certain segment of them does and we had quite the string of that type of atheist come here right after the election.

[Murph]

I don't think answering questions or defining misconceptions would be considered militant.  What I think Murph is driving at is, there are atheists that do something very close to evangelism.  Everywhere there go, they must spread the word, what they feel is truth.  They have turned what could be described as a lack of religion, into a religion.  This certainly does not describe all atheists, but a certain segment of them does and we had quite the string of that type of atheist come here right after the election.

Exactly

[Alexander]

I don't think answering questions or defining misconceptions would be considered militant.  What I think Murph is driving at is, there are atheists that do something very close to evangelism.  Everywhere there go, they must spread the word, what they feel is truth.  They have turned what could be described as a lack of religion, into a religion.  This certainly does not describe all atheists, but a certain segment of them does and we had quite the string of that type of atheist come here right after the election.

Generally speaking, atheism just means you don't believe in God. Whether or not you wish to go around telling people that, trying to convince people of that, etc, is a personal question that the individual with have to decide for themselves. Neither side could be consider the "atheist side." Many Christians believe they are called by God to evangelize, so for them this is a necessary part of their religion. This isn't the case for an atheist, it's more of whatever suits your fancy.

Atheists in America and elsewhere are becoming more outspoken for various reasons. My main motivation is that most people I come into contact are genuinely ignorant of what atheism is or what atheists believe. In many cases this leads to them having a rather negative feeling towards people who hold this view, which is rather troubling to me. And on top of this, publicly policy is often dictated with religious themes in mind which often limits the freedom of people who don't follow the "right" religion.

[American]

From what I have heard, I think that atheists, rightly or wrongly, tend to view religion as the embrace of "silly" ideas that are highly illogical and thus deserving of condescension. As for the question of moral values without God, I have an opinion about that. I don't think that Christianity is a bad thing and, overall, I think it is a positive force in the world. The simple truth is that many people would struggle to live morally upright lives without a belief in God. Religious people often ask atheists what would prevent absolute moral relativism from running rampant without God. But, in asking such a question, they to take for granted the idea that religion serves to prevent moral relativism from dominating. The existence of the Abrahamic God does no such thing. That is why some people kill innocent people in the name of God and others volunteer at soup kitchens in the name of the same God. Clearly, God cannot be our guiding moral light. I believe that there are absolute morals and that they can be known intuitively. For example, it is immoral to steal from someone because you would not want someone to steal from you.

[pisskop]

Believing in God myself, I'd like to point out that atheists are frequently underinformed about religion (and what would motivate them to learn about it, other than to refute it), but no more than any other subject.  Let's face it, the general public is often underinformed, and our little soundbyte society encourages this.

For instance, A fairly intelligent guy told me Friday that:
1) Christianity caused the crumpling of the Roman Empire (not just the west, but all of it).
2) Christianity destroyed our knowledge and caused a dark age.

IMO, science is only the latest step in our evolution of knowledge, one that doesn't obsolete faith and won't be obsoleted by whatever comes next.  Its emperical in nature, and often logically sound.  Religion relies on logic, but ultimately requires faith in the end.

However, I'd like to take this time to point out that many people don't like religion because it represents authority and responibility.  Many dislike it because they've been told to.  MAny more discount it because God tends to be ignored until trouble happens.

But even if you don't believe in a higher power, you always find alternatives to it.  Whether the being in the 5th dimension or the power of man himself, God is manifest in many concepts.  Religion will continue to influence our culture even as we deny it.

[Mountainshield]

So, I got into another debate w/ an atheist from my school.

I've no problem w/ them, but I'm shocked at how condescending they sound like.

Case in point (condensed, I posted a lot):

Last night, I had a heated discussion over the Net about the nature of God in society. As I'm fond of using the Moral Lawgiver argument (probably one of the most effective around there) I've argued that it is impossible for society to define "good", and that if God doesn't exist, every thing is permitted, and in that cases of communism & nazism, if atheism is true, we should be morally indifferent to it and shouldn't show disgust against it.

This is good qualitative statements of moral relativism, if God does not exist then ultimately all moral judgements are subjective and irrelevant. I.e follow your heart, but the heart can go dark places.

The problem with using this in an argument against an atheist is that its not representative of atheism as a collective and therefore not generalizable so the atheist can easily dismiss it as "well thats not what most atheist believe".

What is generalizable though is that every genocidal government/movement of the 20th century and moving on into the 21st century is atheist as a result of their dialectical materialistic beliefs. Not every atheist have these beliefs though, but this doesn't change that atheism as a collective have caused suffering of millions. The atheist will at this point use the Crusades as counter argument but first of all it happened 700-1000 years ago, Ottoman threat to Europe is a factor, destruction of Constantinople shows the pope had economical and not theological agenda etc.

I used this quote (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-absurdity-of-life-without-god):

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, 'There is no God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.' I have heard one torturer even say, 'I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.' He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners.

The atheist response? He told me my argument was "irrelevant" and I had "cute, but not valid arguments". Curiously, he never answered my question: Should we've evolved in a society where rape is permitted and normal, would you do it?

His arguments could only be described as a mix of sunday school atheism & 4chan-style argument:

"Since you say the proof God existed is b/c of the Bible, would you say Spiderman also exists b/c he's in a comic?"

I countered: "Nope, as far as I know, nobody worshipped Spiderman for more than 5000 years and died for him. Out of the 12 apostles, 11 were brutally killed. If they knew that Christianity was false, they would repudiate it & profess paganism."

He also said: "If the Moral Lawgiver is true, then why should it be your God? Shouldn't it be the Muslim Allah too?"

I said: "My God never told me to kill an unbeliever to go to heaven."

I'm confused as to why atheists are very keen to recruit others in their cause. I know hobbits don't exist, but I never spend my whole time convincing others they don't exist.

Kierkegaard was right in saying that a lone atheist man, without his peers, would suddenly realise there is a God, so that's why they had to stick together.

Also, I'll never go into debates again, as Proverbs 29:9 says: If a wise man goes to court with a foolish man,
the fool rages or scoffs, and there is no peace.

Well, we can prove that there is a God, all the empirical data shows that the universe had a beginning, and intelligent design have pretty much destroyed the theory of evolution (if you disagree then show me empirical examples of a speciment mutating into a entirely new speciment and not just minor variation within species).

What we can't prove is that the force we call God is Yahweh. This is where faith and experience comes in, and you have to experience and understand God intervention before you can acknowledge Yahweh existence wholly.

I was atheist and Dawkin fanboy from age 13-24 and I always made fun of christians and thought divine intervention was BS, feebleminded or self delusion, but I was proved wrong after studying both Darwin, Dawkin, Myers, Craig etc I came to the conclusion that Intelligent Design was right and from personal experience I have experienced divine intervention.

Edit: My point is, you can argue intelligent design, but you can't argue Biblical Faith, it has to be experienced/observed.

[American]

God, does not make sense logically. Although I understand why people say there must be some intelligent designer, their own premises actually defeat their conclusion. The argument is basically as follows:

Humans are so amazing and complex that it is absurd to think that time and random events could have created them. The same could also be said of the entire universe. Therefore, there must have been an intelligent creator that purposefully created the universe and life. That creator is God.

But who made God? The problem is that God has the same qualities--extended to infinity--that make "him" necessary to exist in the first place. In other words, if there needs to be an intelligent creator in order for a human being to exist then surely there must be an intelligent creator for God to exist. If a human can't just exist without being created then certainly God, being even more complex and amazing, cannot. Religious people have a variety of ways to try to deal with the "who made God" question but they simply cannot answer it.

[Mountainshield]

God, does not make sense logically. Although I understand why people say there must be some intelligent designer, their own premises actually defeat their conclusion. The argument is basically as follows:

Humans are so amazing and complex that it is absurd to think that time and random events could have created them. The same could also be said of the entire universe. Therefore, there must have been an intelligent creator that purposefully created the universe and life. That creator is God.

But who made God? The problem is that God has the same qualities--extended to infinity--that make "him" necessary to exist in the first place. In other words, if there needs to be an intelligent creator in order for a human being to exist then surely there must be an intelligent creator for God to exist. If a human can't just exist without being created then certainly God, being even more complex and amazing, cannot.

God does make sense logically, I would advice you to watch a few hours of William Lane Craig on the issue, or read his books or specifically the book "Signature in the Cell".

Your own premise is actually your own defeat because you don't understand the opposition premise.

Cells process and system they operate through are so complex and dependent on every variable and smallest factor to function that it is mathematically impossible  that it was created through random mutation or chance. (The universe had a begninning, so cells could not have been formed through endless mutations, i.e string theory)

The force that created the universe and material dimension transcend both time and matter. Therefore God is not bound by the beginning argument as God is timeless (more correctly out side of time).

Religious people have a variety of ways to try to deal with the "who made God" question but they simply cannot answer it.

I just answered it.

But if you are serious about this topic then please read the opposition instead of just making up your own premise and putting into religious peoples mouth.

[American]

God does make sense logically, I would advice you to watch a few hours of William Lane Craig on the issue, or read his books or specifically the book "Signature in the Cell".

Your own premise is actually your own defeat because you don't understand the opposition premise.

Cells process and system they operate through are so complex and dependent on every variable and smallest factor to function that it is mathematically impossible  that it was created through random mutation or chance. (The universe had a begninning, so cells could not have been formed through endless mutations, i.e string theory)

The force that created the universe and material dimension transcend both time and matter. Therefore God is not bound by the beginning argument as God is timeless (more correctly out side of time).



I just answered it.

But if you are serious about this topic then please read the opposition instead of just making up your own premise and putting into religious peoples mouth.

The alleged mathematical impossibility of the current state of affairs in the universe may be true (although obviously it is just extraordinarily unlikely to come about by “chance,” not impossible). But the same could be said of any other state of affairs that could have existed in the universe. Furthermore, if there are a near infinite number of other universes, then many of these other potential states of affair already exist.

The argument I made in my previous post has not been countered. Even if God “transcend both time and matter” and is therefore “not bound by the beginning argument,” my original argument remains intact. In fact, as amazing and complex as we humans are, a being that exists outside of time and space and is capable of creating us is much more amazing and complex than we are. If, by virtue of our complexity, we must have been created by an intelligent designer then God, for the same reasons, must also have been so created.

[Mountainshield]

The alleged mathematical impossibility of the current state of affairs in the universe may be true (although obviously it is just extraordinarily unlikely to come about by “chance,” not impossible). But the same could be said of any other state of affairs that could have existed in the universe. Furthermore, if there are a near infinite number of other universes, then many of these other potential states of affair already exist.

The argument I made in my previous post has not been countered. Even if God “transcend both time and matter” and is therefore “not bound by the beginning argument,” my original argument remains intact. In fact, as amazing and complex as we humans are, a being that exists outside of time and space and is capable of creating us is much more amazing and complex than we are. If, by virtue of our complexity, we must have been created by an intelligent designer then God, for the same reasons, must also have been so created.

It's not an alleged impossibility, its a mathematical fact. I would refer you to actually read Signature in the Cell if this is what you actually believe, because its clear you don't know the arguments which you are pretending to argue against. I don't have all the facts memorized and as stated earlier, please read the books of the opposition instead of just reading the books that validate your already embraced view. Thats what I did, and it changed my life. Both politically and socially.

There is no data whatsoever that supports multiverse theory, but from observable data we know the universe had a beginning and we know there is one universe.

The force which we call God does not need to ever have been created because it exist outside of time, it had no beginning and will have no end because it is timeless.

[American]

Sometimes raw logic will do the trick. It is a tautological truth that the existence of our current universe is NOT an "impossibility." By definition, impossible states of affairs can never exist. Because the state of affairs of our universe does exist, that state of affairs cannot be impossible.

It is of no particular importance that the alleged God exists "outside of time." If anything, one would think that God's existence "outside of time" and the fact that "he" is a being capable of creating the whole universe and the inhabitants therein would require at least as compelling of an explanation as the existence of the aforementioned things, allegedly created by God, would. What is that explanation? That's what I'm asking.

In other words, it seems entirely ridiculous that our universe needed an intelligent creator but that intelligent creator, being even more "impossible" and inexplicable than "his" alleged creations, needs no creator or explanation other than "he" has always existed "outside of time." If God's existence can be adequately explained in such a manner then, a fortiori, the universe and everything contained therein, including humans, can also be adequately explained that way, thereby rendering God an unnecessary part of any explanation of the universe's existence. 

[Solar]

The bigger question is what is God?
Could a simple explanation be that the human experience is a collective of souls needing a place to experience emotion, touch, conjointly created our very existence?

I find too often man wants to put a face on something to give it a tangible appeal, but in reality we are all a part of a higher collective power.

[Mountainshield]

Sometimes raw logic will do the trick. It is a tautological truth that the existence of our current universe is NOT an "impossibility." By definition, impossible states of affairs can never exist. Because the state of affairs of our universe does exist, that state of affairs cannot be impossible.

It is of no particular importance that the alleged God exists "outside of time." If anything, one would think that God's existence "outside of time" and the fact that "he" is a being capable of creating the whole universe and the inhabitants therein would require at least as compelling of an explanation as the existence of the aforementioned things, allegedly created by God, would. What is that explanation? That's what I'm asking.

In other words, it seems entirely ridiculous that our universe needed an intelligent creator but that intelligent creator, being even more "impossible" and inexplicable than "his" alleged creations, needs no creator or explanation other than "he" has always existed "outside of time." If God's existence can be adequately explained in such a manner then, a fortiori, the universe and everything contained therein, including humans, can also be adequately explained that way, thereby rendering God an unnecessary part of any explanation of the universe's existence.

I have to say that I doubt you are really looking for answer, because you are not interested in researching arguments that does not validate your already embraced atheist view. I'm sorry if this is not the case, I'm not used to debating polite atheists, and I'm finding myself being the more rude one. And it's fine if you are not really looking for answer too, each to his own. What I dont agree too is that you are stating that christians are illogical and don't have good scientific arguments for their faith or standpoint, this I will never accept.

But motivation aside let me answer your post.

I'm making a conclusion based on the observable data, and the data show that the universe had a beginning. This is based on verifiable data that is proved through science, the multiverse is a theory without any data whatsover, just wishfull atheist thinking. An eternal universe is an impossibility, +1 infinity and -1 infinity can't be the same number, yet if the universe was eternal it would be the same number of time which is not only logically false, but also mathematically false rendering the eternal universe theory invalid.

Because the universe had a beginning, then a fortiori our existence can't be explained as to have always existed or existed outside of time, therefore rendering a Cause for existence outside of time a necessity..

[American]

Before I address what you said, I want to point out that you have not addressed the argument I made.

I have to say that I doubt you are really looking for answer, because you are not interested in researching arguments that does [sic] not validate your already embraced atheist view.

I am not close minded. I have argued with religious people and I have spent a lot time reading their arguments online, although this is the first time I have had an online debate about it. Right now I am very busy and, unfortunately, I do not have time to do additional reading assignments. But, if you present an argument in your post I will read it and respond, as I have so far.

I'm not used to debating polite atheists, and I'm finding myself being the more rude one.

I'm glad you find me to be polite (if that's what you're saying). I too do not care for the attitudes that many atheists have. I once had a (relatively respectful) back and forth debate with Michael Newdow in person in front of dozens of people. I thought he was making ridiculous assertions and I called him out for it.

What I dont agree too [sic] is that you are stating that christians are illogical and don't have good scientific arguments for their faith or standpoint, this I will never accept.

I'm not a scientist and I'm not a theist. I am, however, schooled in philosophy and the crafts of argumentation, logic, and critical thinking. Some Christian beliefs are incredibly illogical and, in my experience, even many devout Christians will practically admit as much and always fall back on the "God works in mysterious ways" defense.

I'm making a conclusion based on the observable data, and the data show [sic] that the universe had a beginning. This is based on verifiable data that is proved through science, the multiverse is a theory without any data whatsover [sic], just wishfull [sic] atheist thinking.

I don't disagree with that but multiverse theory cannot be proven or disproven because of the nature of the theory. But it makes sense and seems much more reasonable than the God explanation/theory, which "is a theory without any data whatsoever."

An eternal universe is an impossibility, +1 infinity and -1 infinity can't be the same number, yet if the universe was eternal it would be the same number of time which is not only logically false, but also mathematically false rendering the eternal universe theory invalid.

I'm sorry but I honestly have no clue what you mean and I don't think it is my fault that I have no clue what you mean.

Because the universe had a beginning, then a fortiori our existence can't be explained as to have always existed or existed outside of time, therefore rendering a Cause for existence outside of time a necessity..

Allow me to try and re-write this argument: (P1) The universe had a beginning; (P2) It follows necessarily that we have not always existed; (C) Therefore, our existence must have been caused by a force outside of time.

This argument gets us exactly nowhere because (1) the "force outside of time" need not be God and (2) the universe didn't need to be caused by anything if God didn't need to be caused by anything.