Turning the tables on atheism

[R00tKiT]

Hi there, 

The following verse in the Qur'an is probably the best response a theist can have to any atheist objection, it's actually the response God will give to those who denied his worship knowingly, and decided, instead, to spend their time making fun of believers:

(23:109), "Indeed, there was a group of My servants who used to pray, ‘Our Lord! We have believed, so forgive us and have mercy on us, for You are the best of those who show mercy,’ but you were ˹so busy˺ making fun of them that it made you forget My remembrance. And you used to laugh at them."

It conveys a very powerful idea: There exists a group of servants of god/believers who chose to worship God and beg him for forgiveness despite all the obstacles non-believers use to overemphasize, like the existence of evil and suffering, hiddenness of God, the absence of empirical evidence, etc.

Therefore :

There is a group of servants of God who are well aware of the amount of suffering in this world, but didn't find it to be an obstacle to belief.

There is a group of servants of God who are aware of the hiddenness of God, but didn't find it to be an obstacle to beleif.

More generally : For any objection O to theism, there exists a group of servants who reconciled O with theism.

This simple fact poses a very serious problem for atheism, it's not really an argumentum ad populum or from authority, because we're not arguing from the mere existence of these servants, but from the high probability that they managed to reconcile a given objection O to theism, with theism, if such a reconciliation is possible, then all the problems mentioned like hiddeness, evil, etc. have absolutely zero argumentative force, they don't help the atheist support his position at all because of the mere possibility of reconciliation.

We already know that no objection ever presented to theism is conclusive (proves the non-existence of God), we also have additional compelling arguments for God's existence, like fine-tuning, AND we can reconciliate between any objection O and theism : these three facts together are enough to completely reject atheism as an acceptable worldview.

[Angrboda]

Belief doesn't imply rational reconciliation. Irrational reconciliation of belief isn't a problem for atheists. We know humans do it. So this argument is a non sequitur.

Btw, you realize you're quoting a work of fiction as if it's true, don't you?

[brewer]

[zwanzig]

Of course. Console yourself that someday you'll be rewarded for wasting your own time. Believing without evidence has to mean something, otherwise, it meant nothing!

[Fake Messiah]

For any objection O to theism, there exists a group of servants who reconciled O with theism.

No there aren't. There are much, much more atheists in Allah than there are believers in Allah, since less than 25% of the world's population are Muslims, and even then there are "wrong" denominations, so an actual number of "real" Muslims is perhaps 5% of the world's population.

[The Grand Nudger]

Some people are thickheaded nuts. If those thickheaded nuts can fail to see an issue, it doesn't exist.

This is the best theist response™ you can think of? Have you tried asking god for help?

[R00tKiT]

No there aren't. There are much, much more atheists in Allah than there are believers in Allah, since less than 25% of the world's population are Muslims, and even then there are "wrong" denominations, so an actual number of "real" Muslims is perhaps 5% of the world's population.

So what ? How is that relevant ? The "wrong" denominations don't disagree on important articles of faith, so their existence doesn't favor atheism.

Some people are thickheaded nuts.  If those thickheaded nuts can fail to see an issue, it doesn't exist.  

That's not how the argument goes. There is a large group of people who are theists despite the issue I, therefore there is high probability that they managed to reconcile issue I , which they know exists, with theism.

---

Belief doesn't imply rational reconciliation.  

I didn't say it does. But if a lot of people managed to believe despite the existence of some obstacle O to belief, then there is a high probability that someone among them ratioally reconciled his belief with the obstacle O.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I didn't say it does. But if a lot of people managed to believe despite the existence of some obstacle O to belief, then there is a high probability that someone among them ratioally reconciled his belief with the obstacle O.

Appeal to Popularity. You keep racking up the fallacies.

[Fake Messiah]

There is a group of servants of God who are well aware of the amount of suffering in this world, but didn't find it to be an obstacle to belief.

There is a group of servants of God who are aware of the hiddenness of God, but didn't find it to be an obstacle to beleif.

They obviously have big obstacles believing God of Qur'an because "If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn't exist." - Yusuf al-Qaradawi

[LadyForCamus]

Hi there, 

The following verse in the Qur'an is probably the best response a theist can have to any atheist objection, it's actually the response God will give to those who denied his worship knowingly, and decided, instead, to spend their time making fun of believers:

(23:109), "Indeed, there was a group of My servants who used to pray, ‘Our Lord! We have believed, so forgive us and have mercy on us, for You are the best of those who show mercy,’ but you were ˹so busy˺ making fun of them that it made you forget My remembrance. And you used to laugh at them."

It conveys a very powerful idea: There exists a group of servants of god/believers who chose to worship God and beg him for forgiveness despite all the obstacles non-believers use to overemphasize, like the existence of evil and suffering, hiddenness of God, the absence of empirical evidence, etc.

Therefore :

There is a group of servants of God who are well aware of the amount of suffering in this world, but didn't find it to be an obstacle to belief.

There is a group of servants of God who are aware of the hiddenness of God, but didn't find it to be an obstacle to beleif.

More generally : For any objection O to theism, there exists a group of servants who reconciled O with theism.

This simple fact poses a very serious problem for atheism, it's not really an argumentum ad populum or from authority, because we're not arguing from the mere existence of these servants, but from the high probability that they managed to reconcile a given objection O to theism, with theism, if such a reconciliation is possible, then all the problems mentioned like hiddeness, evil, etc. have absolutely zero argumentative force, they don't help the atheist support his position at all because of the mere possibility of reconciliation.

We already know that no objection ever presented to theism is conclusive (proves the non-existence of God), we also have additional compelling arguments for God's existence, like fine-tuning, AND we can reconciliate between any objection O and theism : these three facts together are enough to completely reject atheism as an acceptable worldview.

All this demonstrates is that people believe things for bad reasons. We already knew that.