Exposing the Intellectual Bankruptcy of Atheists Criticizing Religion

[IATIA]

Your leprechaun example is stupid. It’s an obvious category error, the type that only fools fall into and childish contrarians put forth.

Your god example is stupid. It’s an obvious category error, the type that only fools fall into and childish contrarians put forth.

Fixed that for you. No thanks necessary.

[LadyForCamus]

I have a microscopic leprechaun who lives on the tip of my thumb, and dances the jig all day.  Wait, you don't believe me?  Why not?  Just because you can't see the microscopic leprechaun dancing on my thumb, that doesn't mean he doesn't EXIST!  ...that's because he can't be found through empirical scientific methods. ...can you honestly say that the next logical step in a sane person's train of rational thought is to simply conclude:  my tiny leprechaun MUST certainly be real?

Your leprechaun example is stupid. It’s an obvious category error, the type that only fools fall into and childish contrarians put forth. Questions about being itself cannot be approached in the same way as questions about particular beings. Metaphysical questions are about what people can know about anything that is, regardless of what it is? For example, what do acorns, people, electrons, oil paintings, and numbers have in common with each other.

Maybe you think such inquiries are pointless or just bullshit. You have that right. But you cannot ignore that such stances come at great cost. Ideas about the fundamental nature of reality touch on the most important and consequential issues of life – values, autonomy, and rationality. They inform our social interactions, personal behavior, and private life of the mind. Your positivist stance disqualifies you from entertaining any meaningful thoughts or beliefs about the human condition.

You can't have it both ways Chad. You can't on one hand declare god and metaphysics outside the reaches of empirical science, but then on the other accuse me of not doing my due diligence in investigating the "true nature of being and reality."

(And thank you Cato for explaining my meaning in a more intelligent and succinct fashion than I ever could )

Tell me Chad, if the scientific method is an incorrect investigative tool for such metaphysical matters, how DO you propose we gather this knowledge? Just by thinking really, really hard about it? That is called day dreaming.

God is either knowable or unknowable. He is either in the same category as reality or outside of reality (which is utterly meaningless, in any case).

The only fallacy here is yours in thinking there is any substantial difference between your God and my leprechaun.

We are circling here though, because my main point to you has been this: just because one MIGHT concede that there MIGHT be a possibility that there are objective aspects of reality that modern science cannot as of yet obtain, this by its self is NOT a rational reason to just believe in a creator god. I am asking you to explain how you make this incredible leap in reasoning.

Oh, and by the way, screw you. I am a human being; I experience the human condition as richly as you do. But thanks for your Christian spirit in dismissing the sum and total of my humanity. Shame on you; What Would Jesus Do???

---

Your leprechaun example is stupid. It’s an obvious category error, the type that only fools fall into and childish contrarians put forth.

Your god example is stupid. It’s an obvious category error, the type that only fools fall into and childish contrarians put forth.

Fixed that for you. No thanks necessary.

He must have forgotten to proof read...[emoji41]

[Reflex]

Article: The New Philistinism

The New Atheist writers are supremely self-confident in their ability to dispatch opponents with a sarcastic quip or two. And they show no evidence whatsoever of knowing what they are talking about.


Great article. Worth reading to get an idea of what a joke so many atheist clergy are.

The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart as well as The Last Superstition by the same author of the article you linked to, a former atheist himself, show just how intellectually bankrupt atheism is. The former even prompted an atheist reviewer to title his review “The one theology book all atheists really should read.” In comparison, books by atheist authors, and I've read several, are extremely puerile and ill-informed—even those written by former evangelists. Virtually every argument posed in this forum and 99.9999% of of those posed by atheist authors are category errors.

“Where's the evidence?” means “What empirical empirical evidence do you have?” If atheists knew just how silly a question that is, they'd hide their faces in shame. Asking for physical evidence of a universal principle or Spirit is illogical and plainly the result of that category error. Whether it's an attempt at parody like the FSM or something relatively more intelligent like comparing God to a microscopic leprechaun, it's the same thing. People who pose those kinds of arguments are really just putting their ignorance on display. And they do so proudly because they imagine it to be clever and more intelligent than theism.

[Reflex]

The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart as well as The Last Superstition by the same author of the article linked to in the OP, a former atheist himself, show just how intellectually bankrupt atheism is. The former even prompted an atheist reviewer to title his review “The one theology book all atheists really should read.” In comparison, books by atheist authors, and I've read several, are extremely puerile and ill-informed—even those written by former evangelists. Virtually every argument posed in this forum and 99.9999% of of those posed by atheist authors are category errors. 

“Where's the evidence?” means “What empirical empirical evidence do you have?” If atheists knew just how silly a question that is, they'd hide their faces in shame. Asking for physical evidence of a universal principle or Spirit is illogical and plainly the result of that category error. Whether it's an attempt at parody like the FSM or something relatively more intelligent like comparing God to a microscopic leprechaun, it's the same thing. People who pose those kinds of arguments are really just putting their ignorance on display. And they do so proudly because they imagine it to be clever.

[tkolter]

Interesting.  Of course the Brits are not weighed down by shitloads of nutty baptists and mormons.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34686993?post...368111#_=_

Forty percent of people in England do not believe Jesus was a real person, a survey suggests.
However, 43% of the people asked said they did believe in the resurrection - although many did not think it happened as described in the Bible.
The figures also found while 57% classified themselves as Christian, fewer than 10% actually go to church.

Some day - hopefully soon - the US will catch up.

I don't care about philosophical arguments generally my only focus as a militant Atheist is:

1. Can you provide the extraordinary evidence that's empirical that there is a supernatural reality, note I didn't say god or goddess etc., which would be a higher claim but just is there a supernatural reality which should be easier and open the door to a divine claim.

2. To counter faith which is by its nature blind and illogical for reason which is the opposite and through reason undermine religion. You pluck out faith the seed of religions and religions will usually start to fail.

[robvalue]

Erm...

Some atheists make bad arguments. So what?

Delicate's recent return prompted me to remember this thread. The above was my analysis, back on page 1. Unless I missed it, Delicate never did say what other point the article is making although he implied we were all stupid for not seeing what that point was.

Did I miss anything? I would actually regain some respect for Delicate if it was admitted there actually is no point and this thread was a bad idea.

[robvalue]

So, I take it there was no point at all then. Glad we got that sorted.

[drfuzzy]

The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart as well as The Last Superstition by the same author of the article linked to in the OP, a former atheist himself, show just how intellectually bankrupt atheism is. The former even prompted an atheist reviewer to title his review “The one theology book all atheists really should read.” In comparison, books by atheist authors, and I've read several, are extremely puerile and ill-informed—even those written by former evangelists. Virtually every argument posed in this forum and 99.9999% of of those posed by atheist authors are category errors. 

“Where's the evidence?” means “What empirical empirical evidence do you have?” If atheists knew just how silly a question that is, they'd hide their faces in shame. Asking for physical evidence of a universal principle or Spirit is illogical and plainly the result of that category error. Whether it's an attempt at parody like the FSM or something relatively more intelligent like comparing God to a microscopic leprechaun, it's the same thing. People who pose those kinds of arguments are really just putting their ignorance on display. And they do so proudly because they imagine it to be clever.

Ah, but you just admitted that you are making a claim for a "universal principle" (nope . . . laws of the universe can and have been measured and identified) or "Spirit" - - (THAT'S the one!) is illogical and a category error.  Precisely.  Because there IS NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that anything such as "spirit" or "deity" or ghost, or angel, or devil, or any disembodied entity exists.  And that is the very basis of the atheist stance.  No verifiable evidence exists.

We are asked to accept myths, fairy tales, anecdotes from personal experience, philosophical musings, and none of that qualifies as evidence.

[Crossless2.0]

“Where's the evidence?” means “What empirical empirical evidence do you have?” If atheists knew just how silly a question that is, they'd hide their faces in shame. Asking for physical evidence of a universal principle or Spirit is illogical and plainly the result of that category error. Whether it's an attempt at parody like the FSM or something relatively more intelligent like comparing God to a microscopic leprechaun, it's the same thing. People who pose those kinds of arguments are really just putting their ignorance on display. And they do so proudly because they imagine it to be clever and more intelligent than theism.

Look, if you want to believe in a "universal principle or Spirit", my dear anachronistic Hegelian, that's your business. I couldn't care less. But when I ask for evidence -- yes, empirical evidence -- I do so in the context of discussing the beliefs of Abrahamic followers, who purportedly believe in a god who intervened numerous times in history and who therefore might have left some kind of evidence, some trace of his existence, that can be recovered and examined.

And what do we get from the Abrahamic crowd? Appeals to a book of stories (their laughable idea of "evidence"); attempts by Christians to bury the last "real" intervention by their god in the dim history of Roman-era Palestine (or later in Arabia, in the case of the Muslims); private unverifiable experiences; spurious accounts of "miracles"; and attempts to refine the main character of their book of stories into precisely the kind of "universal principle or Spirit" that Plato or Hegel might recognize but bears hardly any resemblance to the Biblical god -- that strange literary creation laden with superlatives and an all-too-human range of emotional responses to things great and petty. Plato's Forms, after all, didn't enjoy the occasional nosh or concern themselves with foreskins and menstrual blood.

It's not our fault that you god believers feel the need to refine your own object of worship right out of existence. Of course, if I couldn't provide the goods, I'd do the same. It's as human an impulse as is creating gods to worship in the first place.

[Delicate]

Erm...

Some atheists make bad arguments. So what?

Delicate's recent return prompted me to remember this thread. The above was my analysis, back on page 1. Unless I missed it, Delicate never did say what other point the article is making although he implied we were all stupid for not seeing what that point was.

Did I miss anything? I would actually regain some respect for Delicate if it was admitted there actually is no point and this thread was a bad idea.

You did miss something. Namely it's not that SOME atheists make bad arguments but that A LOT do. And it's prevalent in atheist idols. I can't think of a single intelligent atheist overlord who doesn't make some outright false claims.