What are some good checkmate arguments against religion?

[KUSA]

My personal checkmate is "show me your god or shut the fuck up".

I mean really why is every god that has ever been contrived always invisible?

[Confused Ape]

He seems uneducated in the details of atheism if "what do you believe" shook him to his core.

What are the details of atheism which people can be educated in? All that atheism means is a lack of belief in deities. It doesn't mean a lack of irrational beliefs because atheists can believe in dozens of irrational things which don't involve deities.

Not everyone fits the same mold. I suppose it's possible for an adult atheist to convert to a religious belief, but it's unlikely.

It's certainly possible for an adult atheist to convert to a religious belief because some adult atheists do it. I think it all depends on why they were atheists in the first place, though. People who used critical thinking to conclude that religious belief is irrational are unlikely to convert but an atheist who never really thought about it could be susceptible to conversion.

I found An Interview With Francis Collins where he talks about how he ended up as a Christian.

FRANCIS COLLINS: Well, growing up, I was vaguely aware of things that went on in church, because I was in the boys' choir at the local Episcopal church. But I got the clear message that I was supposed to learn music there, and not pay too much attention to the rest of it, and I followed those instructions very carefully. When I got to college and was challenged about what my beliefs were, I realized I had no idea what they were. I listened to others make an argument that religion and beliefs were basically a superstition, and I began to think — Yeah, that's probably what I believe, too.

Then I went off to be a graduate student in quantum mechanics at Yale, where I was very compelled with the notion that everything in the universe can be described in a second-order differential equation. I read a little bit about what Einstein had said about God, and I concluded that, well, if there was a God, it was probably somebody who was off somewhere else in the universe; certainly not a God that would care about me. And I frankly couldn't see why I needed to have any God at all. I was in a very reductionist frame of mind. That's often what science imposes upon your thought process, and it's a good thing when you apply it to the natural world. But I sought to apply it to everything else. Obviously the spiritual world is another entity.

So I concluded that all of this stuff about religion and faith was a carryover from an earlier, irrational time, and now that science had begun to figure out how things really work, we didn't need it any more. I think you wouldn't have enjoyed having lunch with me when I was in that phase. My mission then was to ferret out this squishy thinking on the part of people around me and try to point out to them that they really ought to get over all of that emotional stuff and face up to the fact that there really wasn't anything except what you could measure.

When he became a doctor he saw that some patients seemed to find strength from their religious beliefs. This prompted him to look into religion and he went to see a Methodist Minister.

And he was very tolerant and patient and listened and suggested that, for starters, it might be good if I read a little bit more about what these faiths stood for. And perhaps the Bible would be a good place to start. I wasn't so interested in that at that point. But he also said, "You know, your story reminds me a little bit of somebody else who has written about his experience — that Oxford scholar, C.S. Lewis."

I had no idea, really, who Lewis was. The idea that he was a scholar, though, that appealed to my intellectual pride. Maybe somebody with that kind of a title would be able to write something that I could understand and appreciate.

So this wonderful minister gave me his own copy of Mere Christianity, Lewis's slim tome that outlines the arguments leading to his conclusion that God is not only a possibility, but a plausibility. That the rational man would be more likely, upon studying the facts, to conclude that choosing to believe is the appropriate choice, as opposed to choosing not to believe.

Plus if one is so easily converted by a simple question, I doubt their newfound religious faith will be all that strong either.

Francis Collins was born in 1950 and has been a Christian for around 30+ years.

It's not that he has different views, it's that he's very nearly talking about a different thing: when he discusses the "blind faith" of atheists because god cannot be proved or disproved by science, that's necessarily a claim that only makes sense with a gnostic atheist position of there definitely being no god. I don't think I've ever met an atheist who thinks like that.

I bolded the bit in that interview where he describes what kind of atheist he was. Maybe the atheists he knew were earnest young things who would have classed themselves as a 7 on the Probability Scale.

Anyway, back to the question of good checkmate arguments. My personal view is that there aren't any good ones that will suit all situations. A Christian who goes along with John Shelby Spong's Twelve Points is likely to agree with a lot of the arguements.

Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.

The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.

The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.

The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.

There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.

Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.

The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.

All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

[Mudhammam]

Francis Collins' embrace of faith seems entirely emotional.

"But the Universe is so cold and meaningless without my fanciful god playing with me like a cat on a grasshopper!"

[Confused Ape]

Francis Collins' embrace of faith seems entirely emotional.

But he still needed reassurance that it was okay for an educated person to be a Christian and this is where C.S. Lewis comes in. There was more to Lewis than just being a scholar.

C.S. Lewis - Conversion To Christianity

Lewis was raised in a church-going family in the Church of Ireland. He became an atheist at 15, though he later described his young self as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing".[27]

His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time, he also gained an interest in the occult, as his studies expanded to include such topics.[28] Lewis quoted Lucretius (De rerum natura, 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:[29]

He slowly re-embraced Christianity, influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, whom he seems to have met for the first time on 11 May 1926, and by the book The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape."[31]

After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. He records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England – somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped that he would join the Catholic Church.[33][page needed]

This suggests that Lewis was persuaded back to Christianity by 'intellectual arguments' rather than emotion apart from going through a phase where he was angry with God for not existing.

Some Christians, however, say that they can feel God's presence and that God speaks to them. This doesn't automatically mean that they hear voices, though. When I switch over to what I call New Age Perception I sometimes get thoughts which seem to come from elsewhere. I know it's my own unconscious mind doing it but some people with my sort of brain might interpret the 'other thoughts' as coming from God or a spirit guide.

This is why I think that there aren't any good checkmate arguments which will work in all situations.

[vorlon13]

I haven't ever quizzed any Lutherans about this, but I've wondered, since they still have "LUTHERan" on the sign outside their building, how is it they can back pedal on Luther's Antisemitism ??

Like, aren't they stuck with it? If Luther was wrong about that, doesn't that open the door on questioning the 95 thesis ?? Where does it stop ??

---

So too, Joseph Smith's (and Brigham Young's) astonishing racism. And if 'mainline' LDS changes something (as they did in the late 70s) regarding blacks in the priesthood, would they acknowledge they changed something, and in the eyes of a hypothetical LDS schismatic group that did NOT change that at the time, would they acknowledge that in the eyes of that group, THEY were now a cult, since they are now contradicting the revered teachings of Smith (and Young) on that topic?

(I also note, that near as I can tell, the change in the 70s was accomplished via executive fiat, and the 'revered' writings in their voluminous paperwork remains unchanged. It occurs to me, should social mores change back, it might be rather easy to reverse a 'mistaken' decree, than to chip off the correcting fluid in the BoM to put things back they way they were)

(I'm implying that should the need arise, the LDS hierarchy has left an escape route to revert back to their racist teachings, should membership or financial concerns arise sufficient to make the change back attractive)

[RobbyPants]

I don't know of any big checkmate arguments. Especially since religious people will obviously twist christianity into whatever way they need to conform to their beliefs without abandoning it.

Yeah, there is frequently a difference between what Christians will say to each other and what they say when skeptics are around. There's another site I frequent, and I'll share Frank's views on this:

Does anyone here know anything about Christianity or Islam? Is God* supposed to be interacting with us in a meaningful way?


*the name may vary?

That depends on whether you're talking about what they actually say to each other and believe or whether you're talking about the "sophisticated theology" that they trot out when trying to win arguments against atheists. In their actual theologies, their God is in fact an active participant. Not just in the personal lives of individual believers, but in the day to day workings of literally every single thing everywhere. That is what expressions like "God willing" mean. The idea that God personally fucks with absolutely everything all the time and is in fact omnipresent and omnipotent and every single thing that ever happens no matter how inconsequential or important is in fact directly caused by God. So anything that happens, or could happen in the future, happens only because it is the Will of God that such a thing happens.

---

Now, you may have noticed that if that were true that you're living in a Skinner Box crafted by someone who literally knows every single thing you would choose when presented with any possible set of stimuli and crafts literally every piece of stimuli you experience for the express purpose of eliciting such a response. And while such a thing is not logically impossible or anything (albeit kind of depressing to contemplate), it is logically incompatible with any meaningful amount of the "free will" that Abrahamic religions constantly wank to. And the moment some Atheist points that out, the Christians and Muslims start busting out the "sophisticated theology".

The difference between regular theology (the actual crap they actually believe) and sophisticated theology is that the sophisticated theology is created for the purpose of being hard to refute by sophisticated people. That means that God instantly stops being a giant bearded leprechaun in the sky that has real effects in the real world and would thus be in some way testable to being a "God of the Gaps". That is: God stops having any and all traits that are in any way falsifiable and the things he (or possibly "it" depending on how "sophisticated" we're getting) controls or even effects are relegated to crap that is for whatever reason currently outside the reach of observation.

So while the actual theology version of God is someone who is a giant glowing bearded White dude who is going to purge the Earth in the "very near future" and lead all of his followers into a giant zombie dance (which is why Christians and Muslims have to be buried whole, so they can be backup dancers during the giant Thriller remake in the very near future), the "sophisticated" version of God only ever did or does anything very long ago, very far away, or in a manner so subtle or tiny that it is completely indistinguishable from not existing at all.

And no, I don't actually think they believe in the sophisticated theology version of their God, because it's trivial and unworthy of worship. The actual heavenly father that they actually talk about in their actual church services would actually be worthy of worship, but since it demonstrably does not exist they are forced to get increasingly "sophisticated" during any discussion with people who ask tough questions.

-Frank

---

[ThePinsir]

Good luck finding one "check mate" to work on anyone and everyone.

I'll throw out Occam's Razor. The universe, and life, work in such a way as to not require a god of any sort. Occam's powerful razor slices any woo right out of the equation.

[Chad32]

I don't know of any big checkmate arguments. Especially since religious people will obviously twist christianity into whatever way they need to conform to their beliefs without abandoning it.

Yeah, there is frequently a difference between what Christians will say to each other and what they say when skeptics are around. There's another site I frequent, and I'll share Frank's views on this:

That depends on whether you're talking about what they actually say to each other and believe or whether you're talking about the "sophisticated theology" that they trot out when trying to win arguments against atheists. In their actual theologies, their God is in fact an active participant. Not just in the personal lives of individual believers, but in the day to day workings of literally every single thing everywhere. That is what expressions like "God willing" mean. The idea that God personally fucks with absolutely everything all the time and is in fact omnipresent and omnipotent and every single thing that ever happens no matter how inconsequential or important is in fact directly caused by God. So anything that happens, or could happen in the future, happens only because it is the Will of God that such a thing happens.

---

Now, you may have noticed that if that were true that you're living in a Skinner Box crafted by someone who literally knows every single thing you would choose when presented with any possible set of stimuli and crafts literally every piece of stimuli you experience for the express purpose of eliciting such a response. And while such a thing is not logically impossible or anything (albeit kind of depressing to contemplate), it is logically incompatible with any meaningful amount of the "free will" that Abrahamic religions constantly wank to. And the moment some Atheist points that out, the Christians and Muslims start busting out the "sophisticated theology".

The difference between regular theology (the actual crap they actually believe) and sophisticated theology is that the sophisticated theology is created for the purpose of being hard to refute by sophisticated people. That means that God instantly stops being a giant bearded leprechaun in the sky that has real effects in the real world and would thus be in some way testable to being a "God of the Gaps". That is: God stops having any and all traits that are in any way falsifiable and the things he (or possibly "it" depending on how "sophisticated" we're getting) controls or even effects are relegated to crap that is for whatever reason currently outside the reach of observation.

So while the actual theology version of God is someone who is a giant glowing bearded White dude who is going to purge the Earth in the "very near future" and lead all of his followers into a giant zombie dance (which is why Christians and Muslims have to be buried whole, so they can be backup dancers during the giant Thriller remake in the very near future), the "sophisticated" version of God only ever did or does anything very long ago, very far away, or in a manner so subtle or tiny that it is completely indistinguishable from not existing at all.

And no, I don't actually think they believe in the sophisticated theology version of their God, because it's trivial and unworthy of worship. The actual heavenly father that they actually talk about in their actual church services would actually be worthy of worship, but since it demonstrably does not exist they are forced to get increasingly "sophisticated" during any discussion with people who ask tough questions.

-Frank

---

The kind of people that want you to think if every particular thing you're doing is glorifying god? As if every single thing you do, every day of your life, should be passed through the god filter. And when something conflicts with reality and its laws, yell persecution.

[Mudhammam]

This is why I think that there aren't any good checkmate arguments which will work in all situations.

Well, of course. An actual checkmate implies that two people are playing a fair game on the same chess board.

[Bad Wolf]

Something Tracy from the Atheist experience said was quite good, it was on morality and went something like:

If I knew that someone was going to rape someone else, I'd stop them. But your god, simply watches and says to them: 'i'm going to close the door now but once your done, i'm going to punish you'. And that's the difference between me and your god, I would stop someone getting raped.

Not exactly a checkmate argument but I thought it was quite powerful. Of course, its pointless saying that if you're talking to a Christian that believes in divine command theory.