Arguments for Atheism

You are completely wrong. Religion is criticized as it makes assertions that are truth statements. Atheism does not make any such claims. It is simply the lack of belief in a god or that god does not exist. God not existing is a fact claim but it does not hold the burden of proof meaning that you can not prove it. On the other hand, religious believers hold the burden of proof to prove that a god does in fact exist as you it is possible prove that. Thus, any logical person would be an atheist until there was evidence that supported a god existing. Religions throughout the world try to do this. The choice between religion and atheism comes down to whether or not there is sufficient proof to make the most likely scenario that a god exists or not.

What you are arguing is the SPECIFIC reasons for CERTAIN people for being atheists. You can not apply those to atheism in general as they do not apply as they are personal.

 

lol @ two tenets of atheism


imo, just tell the kids that real moral fiber does not come from being afraid of punishment dealt out by a scary deity.
It comes from real empathy, sensitivity, and understanding of others.

 

I'll never understand why this thought seems logical to you. The whole burden of proof shit can just as easily be flipped around. Whatever event you believe occurred to create the universe needs proof as well, and even if you believe the universe is infinite and just always was, I could ask for proof. If you lack belief in a God, there is a reason why, which means you also must have SOME idea of what you think caused the universe to be created.

 

atheism is closer to withholding belief until further evidence is presented than it is to proving another view.

 

has little at all to do with proving the atheists view of the universe` creation correct

 

"Religion is ignorance. That's a statement not an opinion."

Its not opinion bro, .

I also meant to put isn't a belief.


and Joker, seems like you're fixated to argue against without thinking some things true. Things are pointed by Atheist in this section because this section is for intelligent debate. Like I said before if you don't want your beliefs and other things to be put up for debate, don't come here. Most religious people in this section talk about pure beliefs and extremely flawed arguments then try switching it by pointing out flaws in science because it is assumed all atheist are people of science. Usually the religious ones end up extremely upset and in denial.

 

I'm not religious at all, and I wouldn't be here if I wasn't up for debate. None of that stops me from believing hardcore atheists are ignorant and arrogant though.

Like I've stated here, I'm agnostic. I have basically no religious beliefs. My one and only belief is that there is some form of great being or energy that brought us into existence.

 

Okay, I have a number of points to address before I move onto the OP.

First: Atheism states nothing as to what your beliefs actually are. It merely states that you are atheistic. This is derived from the pre-fix "a" which means not or without; and theism which means: Belief in the existence of a god or gods.

So "atheism" literally means: not or without the belief in the existence of a god or gods.

This tells you nothing about what I do believe, and rather what I do not believe. Saying "I am an atheist" would be like responding to the question: "What do you do for a living" by saying "I am not a doctor." There is no standard by which people who are not doctors live their daily life. There is no standard by which people who are not doctors make a living. All that you can gather from that statement is that they are not doctors. Just as all you can gather from the statement "I am an atheist" is that, that particular person does not have belief in a god.

With this information I can confidently state that atheism does not contradict itself in it's beliefs as atheism is the lack of a belief. If you wanted to argue whether or not atheistic-naturalists (or any other type of atheist that well .. has a belief) contradict beliefs that is an entirely different topic, one which I am not discussing right now. Atheism is not a religion. Atheism is not a set of beliefs. Atheism is merely the lack of believe in a god / gods.

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With that settled I shall move onto the original poster:

You want to dispute Christian (specifically Catholic) arguments; I have spent a long time doing this myself. I find there are a number of approaches, and you should choose which will work best depending on who you are debating with.

The first argument, that is / was common to atheists, and is very well known, easily disputed but if the person is not philosophically inclined, it is a very solid argument:

A- If a being is omnipotent, they can do anything.
B- God is omnipotent.
C (Given a and b)- God can do anything.

D- If God can do anything, he can perform X.
E- Let "x" equal: create an object, too heavy to lift.
Therefor, given C, D and E, God can create an object, which is too heavy for him to lift.
I think you can see the problem here: If God can create this object, he cannot lift it, therefor, not all powerful. If God cannot create this object, he cannot and therefor, not all powerful.

People often argue to this argument "God can do anything that isn't a contradiction to everday reality: Doing something he can't do contradicts itself". This is a valid argument however:
There is nothing contradictory with:
Y can do X.
There is nothing contradictory with: Y can do X when X = create an object too heavy for them to lift.
If you insert human into "Y" in this case, it would be true. I can create an object I cannot lift. Therefor, it is not a contradiction until you insert an omnipotent God. This is because omnipotence contradicts itself.

That is known as the omnipotence paradox, you can read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox


The second approach I like to take is the literal vs. contextual interpretation.
As you and I both know, Catholics claim to read the bible "contextually"; whereas there are other branches of Christianity who may take the other stance on this (Literally.)

Now; reading the Bible contextually, I have a problem with this. Since a Catholic interpretation of the Bible will take the majority of the Old Testiment as symbolism, but then literally believe that the New Testiment (Jesus' life, The Gospels, etc.) actually happened. How can a "mere-human" pick and choose which parts of the "divine-scripture" actually happened, and which are meant to be symbols? If you want to read contextually, you better believe that the whole Bible is really just a symbol, as anything can be taken symbolically. However, catholics will not happily admit that the whole Bible is contextual, because then that opens up Jesus for attack. If however, you get them to agree with this, and take a literalist interpretation, open up your handy dandy bible, and read the first 2 stories of Genesis. I think they will find a nice contradiction when God created the world ... twice?

Contextual reading was developed to get around this (and the many other) contradiction(s) in the Bible. However, just by taking a contextual stance you open yourself up for attack as humans are choosing what the symbols mean, humans choose what is symbolic, and even Catholics will attest to: humans are not perfect. Therefor, they would have to also agree that it is possible humans made a mistake. Therefor, it is also possible that Jesus is just a symbol for water; and this "God" is really just a symbol for oxygen; if humans are reading "in context" humans could have easily created this context.

If the above argument didn't make much sense, I apologize. It was thought out by me, and I still don't advocate it very well. The third argument I will give is:

Omnipotence contradicts omniscience.
That is to say, nothing can be all powerful and all knowing at the same time.

Take an example:
God knows what will happen, when it will happen and how it will happen. That means, he knews in 2 weeks today he will part the red sea.
Does god then have the power to not part the red sea?

If he is able to not part the sea, he did not *know* correctly. That is to say, his omniscience were incorrect, as he did not part the red sea two weeks from today, and that makes him not all knowing.
If however, he is not able *know* incorrectly, he is not all powerful, as he does not have the power to oppose his omniscience.

Again, this argument can be brought down; however, it works decently well.


My final point is not actually an anti-theistic argument:
It is illogical to believe in God, as there is no proof of this. Until something is proven, there is no sense in believing in that. You would not believe in the magical cupcake floating around the galaxy of andromeda .. until I proved it to you.
Now they may see "Well there is no proof against god either", to which you reply "Burden of proof is in the hands of that person making a positive claim. Take my magical cupcake. Is it logical to believe in it, merely because you cannot prove that is does not exist? No. Why is God any different?"
Because of this point, do not concentrate so largely in making claims against gods existence, merely dispute claims people make for it. Because until an undisputable claim is made, it is illogical to believe in it.

I hope this was helpful; and legible. I am tired as I type this, so not sure how well I am conveying my point. But yeah! Best of luck!

 

Hardcore atheist? Lol.

It seems you're under the impression atheist simply wish to disprove all religions. That's obviously wrong, some atheist simply provide into the debate; unfortunately logic and reasoning can be harsh on religion. Thats something not many accept. Ignorance is worse in any religion than those "hardcore atheist". Lol. I wasn't saying you were one of the religious; apparently you're simply in between lines with thoughts of many possibilities of how life was created and how it works.

This goes for everyone; Please at least think some things through as to why it may seem atheist may seem to be insulting or reasons seem to be out bad.

As for these constant religion talk topics; if you're going to debate in it you have to accept a harsh truth; you can't intelligently debate for religion, never will until solid evidence arises.

 

You are adding things into the equation. It is impossible to prove that god does not exist. Period. End of discussion. How do you try to prove god exists? However you want, such as someone needed to create the universe. Then, one must decide whether or not that proof is valid and select the most likely answer to be true. When given a choice between god creating the universe and a natural process creating the universe atheists know that you can not prove either one. However, it is more likely that a natural process created it as ever other instance of anything in the universe is caused by natural processes. Creation is not special.

The only belief that all atheists share is the lack of belief in god and nothing more like you are trying to argue.

 

I tend to think that agnostics are even more puerile than Christians when it comes to their beliefs. Its just too wish-washy.


I'll try to think of some of the arguments that people use to prove the existence of a god..

Has anyone heard of Thomas Aquinas' Argument of the First Cause?

It basically states that there has to be the FIRST something. That unless the universe always existed there must have been a first energy or "god" if you will that set the universe into motion.

Read more about it at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinquae_viae#The_Argument_of_the_First_Cause

 

Some people argue it is and this is why -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_atheism

 

Want me to post a page about the criticisms for religion? Christianity in particular.

Nothing is perfect everything can be criticized, however if you want to say hey hey Atheism has these things wrong with it. Then I could simply say well hey spend the rest of your life looking at whats wrong with Christianity here.

 

Understanding comprehension, I was making my point to that other guy about how Athiesm's "belief" can be argue'd with. Idc about Christianity lol.

Glad you see Athiesm isn't great either though.

 

I dont think that Athiesm is any kind of religion. Theyre stupid if they think that. -.- A religion: where you worship a godlike figure. We have no god?

 

Religion:

This does explain atheism. However, I do see what you mean but this a rare case where it's the opposite but it's the same.
Like, It proves itself to be religion by countering religion.

Everyone is.

Wow you stretched that one pretty thin.
Yes your correct technically if your reffering to the realm of everything in existence. Then yes sayin one is just atheist really doesn't provide someone with much evidence to hold it as a belief system.

However, say we take your doctor scenario. Now what if there's a room and theres only a doctor and a nurse. If you ask the nurse, what do you do for a living and she replies "I am not a doctor" then we can easily assume she is a nurse then.

While written by a christian, this does make sense and proves the point in a logical sense.

 

It doesn't have a logical sense. If anything those are some listed opinions Atheist have about life and the rest is just complete crap.

"Atheists have a belief about God or Gods (They believe they don’t exist). So do other religions.

Somewhat right, except its absence of belief. We've been through this, you have to dig into everything on both sides.

Atheists have a creation story that they all generally believe (it is called abiogenesis, the big bang, and evolution). Every religion has a creation account.

Nope, its religious beliefs vs facts and other known theories; they may have their flaws, but at least its not make believe. -_-

Atheists have faith in their beliefs (they don’t know if we evolved from non-life, they just believe this and have faith this is how it happened). Faith is a component of every religion. We can’t know everything in life, so faith is required to fill those gaps in knowledge.

Again your confusing knowledge to beliefs which have almost no factual evidence but pure belief.

Atheists have organizations and groups. They meet on websites, message boards, speaking events, and so forth. Same as other religions.

So do gamers, so they can be considered to be a religious group? lmfao.

Atheists raise and donate money collectively, and do so often with intent of spreading their belief system. Sound familiar?

Did you even bother to read this thoroughly? They raise and donate out of good intents of spreading good morals or achieve a goal that benefits many.

Atheists have a bible (called the Origin of Species). So do other religions.

Lmfao. Not all atheist believe many scientific theories. How can you compare a bible (written by various people with the idea of a God and their image of the afterlife) to The Origin of Species (A book containing strong theories to back up the ideas greatly)? People need to understand that simply because we don't know somethings doesn't mean its a act of a God; that's complete ignorance.

Atheists have famous spiritual leaders, writers, and preachers (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, etc. etc.). Every religion has these people.

Read previous.

Atheists have thousands of evangelists (they run blogs and websites, they get on forums, they write books, they do speaking events, debates, etc.). So do other famous religions.

Again..this crap is beyond stupidity and ignorance.

Atheists have modified their behavior to match their world-view. Just as a new Christian may modify their lifestyle once they come to Christ (aka being born again), an atheist may modify their lifestyle once they reject God or become firm in their beliefs that God doesn’t exist. (example: an atheist may start preaching atheism, or they may stop observing Christian holidays, etc.).

Lmfao. Honestly where did you get this crap?

Atheists have a belief of what happens after death. Of course, no one knows what happens after death. Atheists generally believe you die, your atoms are recycled and your knowledge and personality cease to exist, and that’s that. All religions have some belief about what happens after death (since death is one of the big questions religion attempts to answer).

We all have questions no one can answer.

Atheists try to change laws. I always find it funny how atheists bark at Christians for trying to change laws or get religiously favored laws passed. While atheists do the same thing without realizing it. Atheists try to influence politics with their world views just as much, if not more, than Christians. So religious people try to change and influence laws….enough said.
Atheists reject prayer in school, but yet want to make sure your kids get dowsed with the unprovable atheistic theory of macro evolution. How hypocritical, huh? So once again we see atheists wanting to collectively spread their beliefs in the school systems.

Since when are facts and theories beliefs? This obviously comes from a troubled person lmfao or a compelte close-minded ignorant person.

Please use something that can actually hold a argument not sink it. Had a good laugh though.

 

Considering that a belief system is just that, a "belief" system then I would assume opinions would be expected correct?

Not quite, it's not really an absence of believe when it's actually it's own belief entirely. You put up a decent argument for why it wouldn't be a religion, but it had flaws and you really didn't focus on the idea about how it can't be a belief system and more just emphasizing "Its absence of belief thus it's not a religion". The fact is it disproves a belief system but is in iteself a belief system. Sorry to say but it can be a Affirmative or negative.

I'm an atheist so I see where your coming from. However, we assume the big bang can be correct, even though we have no idea where the matter from the big bang came from, nor what the universe is expanding into. While we can make guesses from our scientifical research, all they are, are guesses.

Again, your forgetting that I didn't write this for one, two your also forgetting that religions such as christianity have evidence for their beliefs however this evidence doesnt react well to science, and vice versa.

You really don't have to act like a smart ass. Sarcasm i'm fine with but acting like a complete idiot is just useless.

Did you even bother to try and understand the connections?
Morals a individualized, so obviously not everyone is running around doing different things, most people follow this moral code whether its inducted from society or a religion. Now yes i agree if they are just donating out of the good of their heart then it doesn't mean it's from a religion but if they are specifically donating or raising money for something pertaining to their beliefs (no matter what good it does) I'm saying it was a influenced moral code.

*sigh*
Again, Bible (Written by various people who saw what they saw as fact and ideas to how they can be related to god), Origin of species (Written with what was seen as fact and theories on how they can be related to the scientifical world).

You need to understand that theres two different state of minds and seperate thinking patterns to one situation.

Did, hardly cared.

Atheists have thousands of evangelists (they run blogs and websites, they get on forums, they write books, they do speaking events, debates, etc.). So do other famous religions.

How lol? Obviously they take it as a belief system, doesn't that in turn make it one?

I have to ask are you an idiot? If you honestly can't understand this connection then I have no idea why your here. Again, a belief system reenforces the whole idea of them being influenced by there beliefs.

But it's still an underlying question that both beliefs try to justify with their own influence.

Facts and theories are what they are. However, belief systems can be formed around these.

Also it'd be nice if you actually used a reasonable argument =] I didn't see one thing different in any of your comments, all of them were based off the same idea.
So sink an argument? Hardly think so since it showed how flawed yours is.

So glad you had a good laugh, I'll try to not make it so funny next time so you can actually think when you write instead of laughing. =]

 

This really has just become an argument as to why atheism should or should not be considered a "religion."

That is not at all what I intended -.-

 

This is just nonsense, plain and simple. The majority of Christians accept evolution and big bang cosmology, so the fact that atheists, too, accept these facts has absolutely no relevance to your point.

What you are asserting is completely illogical. We don't know where life comes from, therefore the magic sky daddy did it.

So, the atheist bible is a work which has nothing to do with atheism whose conclusion is accepted by religious people everywhere?

Reasonable religious people accept evolution for the fact that it is; your idiocy is not a reason to justify coercing young children to talk to an invisible man in the sky.

Atheism is based on the premise that theists have not met the burden of proof for their claims that gods exist.