Turning the tables on atheism

[LadyForCamus]

I believe in fairies despite the fact that people who don’t believe in fairies have been pointing out to me my entire life that there is no evidence or good reason to believe in fairies. I believe in fairies anyway, therefore fairies exist.

And as you’ve already pointed out yourself, multiplying the number of entities that hold the belief does not increase the likelihood of it being true.

Since there is no valid argument that theism is incoherent, we are left with equally compelling choices

If that were true, you wouldn’t be here in this thread attempting to make this terrible argument.

[Abaddon_ire]

Klorophyll's "arguments" always leave me unmoved, but he thinks they are amazing "gotchas" every time for some reason.

The truth is that his lame arguments do not "gotcha" anything at all, and as far as I can tell, nobody here has ever fallen for that kind of BS argument because all of them fail, whether islamic, christian or anything else.

What Klorophyll fails to realise is that were he to demonstrate the existence of his particular deity (among the countless thousands of others claimed) I would accept such solid evidence of existence and freely acknowledge it.

But nobody has been able to do that ever.

And that leaves aside that even if some clown managed to demonstrate their god, acknowledging it's existence does in no way mean that I would worship such a thug.

[The Architect Of Fate]

So another unimpressive thread from Klor 

Surprise surprise

[R00tKiT]

I think you may have a reading comprehension issue?  What is it, exactly, that you think atheism is?  Many atheists are also right handed.  Do you think that arguing against right handedness answers atheism, in some way?

I can go pretty much any direction you like with it, being a right handed atheist who has a problem with evil.  I don't have any traumatic obstacles in my life preventing belief, though, so that's a wash I guess.  If you think that more people would believe in your silly god if their life were better in some undefined way - that sounds like gods problem.  

Okay. So, as an atheist who has a problem with evil, do you have an argument from evil that conclusively proves that god doesn't exist ? Of course not. Now, considering the absence of such arguments AND the possibility of reconciliation, you cannot be an atheist based on the existence of evil alone, you either have other reasons -like not accepting the arguments in favor of god- or you have an irrational position. 

Are you trying to demonstrate something about people who find arguments for god compelling, or atheists....?  I think that everyone here would probably expect for people who find arguments for gods compelling to be able to then rationalize their beliefs.  As we've all said one way or another - we already understand that you exist.

Of course it's something about people who find arguments for god compelling, I thought I mentioned "servants of God" often enough to make that clear. The thread is not about proving the existence of God, I don't understand why some here are shouting about the argument being bad or something, it's not my problem that you misunderstood what the argument is aiming for.

I knew it would be a blast.  You're not worried about belonging to a death cult, but man..the possibility for typos just keeps you up at night!

Let me hazard a guess.  You're stumbling between the very different subjects of people who don't believe in gods, and people who reject your religion for it's barbarity, inadequacy, or idiocy.  People who, even if they believed in a god..would still reject your religion for those reasons.  So, pretty much every other god botherer..and some right handed atheists.

What do you mean by "death cult" ?  Feel free to throw unsubstantiated claims about Islam being inadequate, barbaric. Just recall Hitchens' famous quote: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence".

[no one]

Magic books concocted by scientifically inept, simpleminded fools who fear the dark, isn't really a sturdy leg to stand on.

Do you ever get tired of being wrong?

[LadyForCamus]

@Klorophyll

If I say proposition X is true, and you offer counter arguments A, B, and C, and in response to your counter arguments I say, “meh, I believe X is true anyway,” my persistent belief is irrelevant to the quality of either the original proposition or your counter arguments. If you take issue with a specific argument against the god proposition, you need to identify the problem and describe it. You need to give a reason why it’s flawed. 

Further, you should know by now that even if every existing argument against god is in some way flawed, your belief is still not rationally warranted. My inability to present a compelling counter argument to your claim in no way bolsters the likelihood that it’s true. You still bear that burden of proof.

[Astreja]

Therefore, one is faced with two choices : exaggerate these objections and take the easy way out of belief OR reconcile these objections with belief. Since some people managed to do the latter, belief is more justified than non-belief.

"Justified" is not the best word for this phenomenon.  "Rationalized" fits much better.  People who want to believe something are rather adept at coming up with a slew of excuses to convince themselves.  For me, that's a red flag - a sign that I'm making up excuses to substitute for testable, observable facts.

[zebo-the-fat]

Theism doesn't have to be incoherent for your beliefs to be incoherent or for a person to be an atheist.  That's your own problem, not any atheists.

No, you're lying. Many atheists have a problem with evil, for example, many of them, actually, became atheists as a result of some traumatic event highlighting suffering. In this case, we have people who would otherwise believe in God if these obstacles weren't there.

I feel like we're all just going to keep repeating the obvious until it sinks into your thick skull.  We already know that you exist.  We already know that you've rationalized your beliefs. What did you think this was supposed to demonstrate, again?

It demonstrates that those who find the arguments for God compelling have no excuse to reject belief, because many people managed to reconcile belief with these so-called excuses.

Should we interpret your comments about taking the easy way out as you acknowledging that your religion is evil, and just not giving shit?  Is that on that list of things?  If your main complaint is that you can't argue your way out of being a death cultist...I think we see another you problem, not our problem.

Of ccourse I can argue my way out of my belief. I actually do have issues with it, like God revealing his message to a handful of people, or the well-known story of al-Khidr, as described in 18:65-82, or the corruption of earlier scripture, and other issues. I can choose the easy way out and say these issues are serious enough to reject belief, instead of trying to better understand them.

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You've moved from claiming that it's highly probable that the beliefs have been rationally reconciled (for which we have no evidence) to there is no reason to believe theism is incoherent.

Even if I believed that, it's a different argument.  Stop moving the goalposts and settle on an argument.  Please restate the argument which you want us to consider.

Whether any of the objections to theism are conclusive is a matter of debate and another claim that you have not provided evidence for.  Are you just content to engage in a Gish Gallop?

I didn't change anything, read the post more carefully, please. My argument stands : it's highly probable that they have been reconciled. Do you disagree? You say we have no evidence that theism is coherent, well, we usually don't try to prove a negative (there is no contradiction in theism), we simply say : atheists were trying with this problem for thousands of years and didn't manage to come up with a contradiction, therefore it's almost certain that there is none.

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So the best way to "disprove" atheism are the alleged rantings of an insane and paedophilic mass murderer.

Yeah, and I'm the Queen of Sheba.

How do you know Muhammad PBUH is "insane", you must be a very skilled psychiatrist to come up with this precise retrospective diagnosis.

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When you (or anyone else) provides some testable, repeatable evidence for a god then and only then will I believe in it, what your (or any other) magic book says about it is irrelevent

What you're asking for is how we prove there is a physical object or particle, not a supernatural agent.

Supernatural is a null word. If something exists it must be natural.
Your claims have as much reality as the easter bunny and pixies

[The Grand Nudger]

I think you may have a reading comprehension issue?  What is it, exactly, that you think atheism is?  Many atheists are also right handed.  Do you think that arguing against right handedness answers atheism, in some way?

I can go pretty much any direction you like with it, being a right handed atheist who has a problem with evil.  I don't have any traumatic obstacles in my life preventing belief, though, so that's a wash I guess.  If you think that more people would believe in your silly god if their life were better in some undefined way - that sounds like gods problem.  

Okay. So, as an atheist who has a problem with evil, do you have an argument from evil that conclusively proves that god doesn't exist ? Of course not. Now, considering the absence of such arguments AND the possibility of reconciliation, you cannot be an atheist based on the existence of evil alone, you either have other reasons -like not accepting the arguments in favor of god- or you have an irrational position. 

Still a reading comprehension problem.  I'm an atheist who has a problem with evil, but the problems of evil aren't part of why I'm an atheist at all.  They're just reasons that the existence of your silly god is irrelevant to my rejection of your very real and shitty religion.

I strongly suspect that my being an atheist has nothing to do with rationality whatsoever.  I don't argue myself into it.  I just wake up noticing that I don't believe in gods every day.  

Of course it's something about people who find arguments for god compelling, I thought I mentioned "servants of God" often enough to make that clear. The thread is not about proving the existence of God, I don't understand why some here are shouting about the argument being bad or something, it's not my problem that you misunderstood what the argument is aiming for.

Excellent, you can rationalize your beliefs.  We know that you exist.  And?  

What do you mean by "death cult" ?  Feel free to throw unsubstantiated claims about Islam being inadequate, barbaric. Just recall Hitchens' famous quote: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence".

You mean, that's a problem that you don't know and haven't rationalized?  How many more things like this will we find?

[Rahn127]

There exists a group of servants who believed there was an invisible bridge that existed from one cliff to another.

They ignored all objections and still believed.

Their bodies were buried where they landed at the bottom of the cliff as a reminder to others.