Justify the belief that gods do not exist.

[wiploc]

Some people believe that gods do not exist. (One can call this position "atheism" or "strong atheism" or "anti-theist perversion," anything you want. But we aren't going to argue terminology in this thread. Clarity is good, so you can explain what you personally mean by "atheist," but you shouldn't suggest that other usages are inferior.)

This thread is to make a list of arguments, of reasons to believe that theism is false.

And we can discuss the soundness of those arguments.

I'll start:

1. The Parable of the Pawnbroker.
(I'll just post titles here, so as not to take too much space at the top of each thread.)

2. Presumptive Falsity of Outrageous Claims.



Feel free to add to this list.

[Danmark]

On one hand you accuse Christianity and Islam of being anti science, and indeed have painted Republicans and the 'Religious right" with so broad a brush as to be ludicrous.

Indeed, the tenor of your post is such as to assign the evils of the world to theism...as if human nature would be happier without it. You specifically mention "Climate change denial" in there...and I'll admit that I am, in that, a wee bit of a denier myself. Oh, not that there is 'climate change,' but I rather doubt that having the political left use it as a whip to drive their agenda is all that helpful.

No where did I say 'all' theists or 'all' republicans. Obviously we are about generalities, probabilities and statistics. The 'tenor' of the post, according to you, does not represent exactly what I wrote. This conversation started with your claim about more murder in atheist countries, a generalization so broad as to be meaningless, even if you had backed it up with statistics.

That Republicans and Christians are more likely to oppose the claims of science has been documented repeatedly. I don't think I need to cite those studies again, but...
http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scie ... nd-belief/
.
BTW, I challenge you to read Mooney's The Republican Brain, and the research he uses to support his theses.

Here's a fairly even handed article on Mooney and the issue of the divide between GOPs and DEMs on science.
http://reason.com/archives/2011/10/04/m ... mocrats-or

It certainly does not paint with too broad a brush and points out the obvious, that there are always individual variations that run counter to the generalizations.

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 639 by dianaiad]

I want to focus on another theme you addressed by ref. to your:
For instance, one of the nastiest bits of environmental meddling and disaster was that of the Soviet Union when it made a lake...more like an inland sea in that it was as big as any of our Great Lakes...disappear in a lapse of judgment so huge as to be jaw dropping.

You make an excellent point, but perhaps not the one you intended... or at least I have a very different slant on it since it addresses one of my pet peeves about religion, politics, and even science, albeit bad science:

In all of those areas, and perhaps in all of academia, a central problem is ideology. I would have been in greater agreement with Hitchens if instead of saying 'religion poisons everything,' he'd said 'ideology poisons everything.' One of the many problems the soviets had was letting their ideology cloud their judgment and their evaluation of facts. This same problem infects both democrats and republicans, environmentalists capitalists.

Environmentalists sometimes cause more damage to the environment by taking too narrow a view on what and how to protect. Tho' I don't site this to argue one way or the other about the Alaska pipeline I mention it to show how factual evaluation should trump ideology and vested interests:

While the Alaskan Pipeline surely has some negative environmental effects, it is better than alternative methods of transporting Northern Alaskan oil. If a system of roads were built to transport the oil, road pollutants would cause plants to be more susceptible to pest attacks. Nitrogen oxide, a common pollutant from road traffic, causes forest dieback. A series of roads to Prudhoe Bay would also open the door for further resource extraction and development (Spellerberg). The Alaskan Pipeline only transports oil, and consequently it safeguards against the removal of metals, agricultural products, and other natural resources that could be developed. This untapped expanse of land can be preserved because the oil is transported without roads, and this system does not encourage further extraction of other natural resources in the area.

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section003_group001/home

[dianaiad]

Any Christian who truly understands that their belief is based on pure faith should be able to totally accept the faith-based beliefs of anyone else as being just as valid as their own faith. Including atheists.

But that is seldom if ever the case.

Is there any atheist that believes their belief system is based on pure faith?

Insofar as I am aware atheism is not a belief system. It's simply a philosophy that rejects theism on the grounds that theism has no merit. And I agree with that philosophy in general regarding certain theisms.

I'm not emphasizing the point whether atheists have a belief system (which I'm not convinced they don't have one). I'm questioning how readily would atheists admit that they base their belief that no gods exist on pure faith.

I made a long post here but I'm going to edit it short.

I agree that atheists have made a grave mistake. They should have become specific anti-theists instead. They should simply point out the utter ignorance, immorality, absurdities, and hazards of the Abrahamic religions specifically.

Trying to claim that there cannot be any god at all is absurd. That's a flaw of atheism.

So yes I agree atheists would have been far better offer had they formed an anti-theist group that simply dismisses the Abrahamic religions specifically.

Let's get these hateful Abrahamic religions out of the way first. Then if we want to question the more abstract spiritual philosophies that should be taken on from an entire different perspective.

Islam and Christianity are a cancer on humanity. The spread hate, division, and bigoted degradation in the names of their false jealous Gods.

Both Yahweh and Allah are ignorant immoral fictitious absurdities. They were clearly modeled after the Greek Zeus with many negative and hateful character traits tacked on.

We need to get past these hateful religions. They are spreading ignorance and hatred throughout the world in the name of Jesus and Muhammad.

So I agree, "atheism" should really be "anti-theism" with a very specific focus on these Abrahamic theism.

Trying to argue that there cannot be a spiritual essence to reality on any level is just plain stupid. So atheism as an abstract movement is only shooting itself in it's own foot. But fortunately they are bringing into awareness the utter absurdities and immoralities of Christianity and Islam, in any case. But they could be much more effective if they would just focus on these immoral theisms, instead of trying to argue that there cannot be a god of any imaginable type.

May God save me, and everybody else (and may everybody join in to save each other) from systems and cultures that are, as you recommend, specifically anti-theist.

For history shows us that it is these governments and cultures which are, every single time, murderous, authoritarian, genocidal societies in which freedom simply did not exist.

However, please feel free to show me one single government that was anti-theist, officially, that was NOT genocidal, murderous and completely uncaring of the environment.

Now, we are not talking about 'secular' nations which allow freedom of religion, but simply stay the heck out of it.

Officially atheist/ anti-theist. You know, like, oh, periods of the French Revolution (the folks who recognized, and named, terrorism as a valid political method), Albania, the Young Turks, Maoist China, Stalinist Soviet Union...you know, folks like that, who took advice to yours to heart and actually attempted to implement it?

Now the knee jerk reaction to this is 'atheism didn't cause the killings' and 'nobody killed anybody in the name of atheism." (except of course they did...) but anti-theism is also atheism, just as Catholicism is also Christian and Sunni Muslims are part of Islam, which is theist.

So what is your recommendation, DI? Your language is rather, er, martial, here. Are you recommending that we follow the example of the Soviets, Mao and the Young Turks?

What do you recommend we do to prevent the mayhem that religion wasn't around to stop in those systems? Because, well, evidently with religion gone from them, there was NOTHING to stop them. Certainly their atheism/anti-theism did not.

My point is simple: if atheism didn't cause all these murders, nothing in it stopped them, either. Most religions do have rules against such stuff which must be 'gotten around,' or used.

Atheism has no such problem.

Some atheistic systems do, such as humanism, et al....but anti-theism certainly doesn't. In fact, anti-theism is nothing but hate. You don't offer anything in the place of theism.

So why should anybody listen?

[Danmark]

My point is simple: if atheism didn't cause all these murders, nothing in it stopped them, either. Most religions do have rules against such stuff which must be 'gotten around,' or used.

And if theism didn't cause... O! Wait. It did cause mass genocide. And it certainly did nothing to stop it. Individual theists and non theists are responsible for both the good and the bad done in their names.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 643 by dianaiad]

It seems to me you're saying in essence this:

- Theism doesn't cause murder and mayhem.
- Religion (a subset of theism) may call for murder and mayhem, and may call for peace and love.

- Atheism doesn't call for murder and mayhem.
- Anti-theism (a subset of atheism) doesn't call for murder and mayhem.

Seems only one group has no call to arms.

-All the best.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to dianaiad]

My point is simple: if atheism didn't cause all these murders, nothing in it stopped them, either. Most religions do have rules against such stuff which must be 'gotten around,' or used.

Atheists have as much to fear from murderers, and rapists, and the horrible things that humans do to one another that we generally lump under the heading of evil, as anyone else Diana. And every bit as much incentive to oppose such actions as do theists. If I were walking down the street and saw you being mugged, I would attempt to intervene, even though I don't know you. I might get knifed for my trouble, but I would be compelled to help you. It's not a matter of being an atheist or a believer. I have to live with myself. This is the only life we really know anything about, and we are all in it together. Theists are continually attempting to generalize about atheists, with no apparent understanding that atheists are the ultimate example of individualists. There is little purpose in attempting to lump all atheists into a basket of rigid expectations and baseless preconceptions.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 643 by dianaiad]

It seems to me you're saying in essence this:

- Theism doesn't cause murder and mayhem.
- Religion (a subset of theism) may call for murder and mayhem, and may call for peace and love.

- Atheism doesn't call for murder and mayhem.
- Anti-theism (a subset of atheism) doesn't call for murder and mayhem.

Seems only one group has no call to arms.

-All the best.

I made no claim that anti-theism 'calls for murder and mayhem." I think it does.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 643 by dianaiad]

It seems to me you're saying in essence this:

- Theism doesn't cause murder and mayhem.
- Religion (a subset of theism) may call for murder and mayhem, and may call for peace and love.

- Atheism doesn't call for murder and mayhem.
- Anti-theism (a subset of atheism) doesn't call for murder and mayhem.

Seems only one group has no call to arms.

-All the best.

I made no claim that anti-theism 'calls for murder and mayhem." I think it does.

My apologies if I misunderstood. I thought your point was that atheism & anti-theism offered no belief system to prevent such atrocities from happening.

My bad.

But how does actively opposing religion equate to killing theists? What in an ant-theist doctrine (is there even such a thing???) can be the root of this belief?

In order to believe that anti-theism condones or calls for murder, you would have to have evidence or reason, or proof. Just because the Soviet Union had an anti-theist policy and advocated slaughtering people, does that define all anti-theists?

The difference here, as I've said, is that theists have doctrine to debate about. Anti-theists don't. So, how can you make this claim?

All the best,

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 643 by dianaiad]

It seems to me you're saying in essence this:

- Theism doesn't cause murder and mayhem.
- Religion (a subset of theism) may call for murder and mayhem, and may call for peace and love.

- Atheism doesn't call for murder and mayhem.
- Anti-theism (a subset of atheism) doesn't call for murder and mayhem.

Seems only one group has no call to arms.

-All the best.

I made no claim that anti-theism 'calls for murder and mayhem." I think it does.

My apologies if I misunderstood. I thought your point was that atheism & anti-theism offered no belief system to prevent such atrocities from happening.

My bad.

But how does actively opposing religion equate to killing theists?

when 'actively opposing religion' includes punishing those who practice religion, when anti theism becomes the official law of the land and official policy includes doing nasty things to theists that end up killing 'em.

That's when.

Not all anti-theism does this, but those who do this happen to be anti-theists.

You know, the way not all Muslims are extremist Jihadists, but extreme Muslim Jihadists are Muslim?

Don't commit the True Scot fallacy here of figuring that if there are anti-theists and anti-theist movements that do not call for murdering theists, that no anti-theists and anti-theists movements do.

Because that would be just plain si...er, illogical.

What in an ant-theist doctrine (is there even such a thing???) can be the root of this belief?

In order to believe that anti-theism condones or calls for murder, you would have to have evidence or reason, or proof. Just because the Soviet Union had an anti-theist policy and advocated slaughtering people, does that define all anti-theists?

No, but I made no claim that it did.

Unlike many anti-theists on this forum who seem to think that one verse in a book means that all theists are out to bash the heads of babies against rocks.

The difference here, as I've said, is that theists have doctrine to debate about. Anti-theists don't. So, how can you make this claim?

What claim?

As to anti-theists not having a "doctrine," of course they do. ATHEISTS may not have, as a factor of being atheist, but 'anti-theists' definitely have one; it is 'religion is bad, we don't like it, and we oppose it."

Killing a theist because he is a theist makes one an anti-theist, by definition.

An officially anti-theist government which has laws that provide for severe penalties for the practice of, and belief in, a religion, and policies that include death for practicing a religion are anti-theist by definition; one does not do such things if one supports religion, after all. In fact, one does not do such things if one merely attempts to ignore it.

Are you honestly going to tell me that the officially atheist (or rather, anti-theist) governments I've already referred to did not have such policies and laws?

Because if you are, you should look into history a bit more closely.


That does bring us back to the purpose of this thread, though, I think, which is...hmn....justify the belief that gods do not exist. Or in this case, justify your belief that anti-theism is a good thing and that getting rid of theism will help anything at all.

Because history and the evidence certainly is not on your side in this.

[FarWanderer]

I made no claim that anti-theism 'calls for murder and mayhem." I think it does.

Then what's your point?