What are some good checkmate arguments against religion?

[Artur Axmann]

Just the words :"I now truly believe" that will shut them up and checkmate any Christian.

[mralstoner]

According to Dr. Peter Boghossian, author of A Manual for Creating Atheists, don't bother going for the checkmate. Rather, your aim is to move the person one step at a time away from their faith.

I haven't watched this video in a while, but from memory, Peter B says to focus on epistemology i.e. how we form beliefs, how we arrive at certainty about our beliefs, etc. It's a good video.

Street Epistemology - by Dr. Peter Boghossian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orW1AstN7AI

[Esquilax]

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.

Do you remember how that call ended? Specifically they were talking about children being raped (I listened to that episode fairly recently ) and the theist caller shrugged off the entire issue: "First of all, you're portraying that child as innocent, she's just as evil as the rest of us..."

Which was when he got hung up on before the ensuing Matt Dillahunty rant. The whole exchange is a very powerful demonstration of exactly what's wrong with christianity as a moral worldview.

Just the words :"I now truly believe" that will shut them up and checkmate any Christian.

Since when is conceding the point a checkmate?

[Confused Ape]

Just the words :"I now truly believe" that will shut them up and checkmate any Christian.

Hmm. I might try that one day. "I now truly believe that the creator God of the Bible is an evil demiurge."

[Wyrd of Gawd]

It's easy to shut-up a rambling on about what a good Christian he is. Just tell him to give you his stuff. Chances are he will tell you in no uncertain terms to go screw yourself.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_tea...ng/mt05_41.

[MindForgedManacle]

Two words that can be used against any and all theist arguments: Prove it.

Strictly speaking, theists can provide a logical proof of God's existence (think ontological arguments in particular). The real question should be what actually follows from those proofs, i.e if successful, do they necessarily establish God's existence?

Likewise the mystery of consciousness is the weakest point for materialistic atheism.

I have no problem in comprehending consciousness. I honestly cannot understand why people get so hung up on it, as though it is the end all.

I doubt this. Consciousness is generally considered among academics to be one of, if not the, most mysterious known phenomenon, and it's not particularly well understood by anyone.

---

A few minutes googling shows that he isn't the only atheist who converted to a religion. So, in my opinion, arguments about lack of education and indoctrination should be used with caution.

Or rather, broad generalizations about that should be used with caution. Life is too nuanced to make sweeping blanket statements about all but the simplest of positions; exceptions to a rule don't necessarily invalidate the rule in a general sense.

That said, I do wonder why it is that so many of these "former atheist" stories we hear include such inaccurate portrayals of what atheism actually is. Sometimes it seems like every atheist-turned-christian we hear from was of the gnostic stripe, or rather, convinced themselves that they were after the fact to distance themselves from the more cogent atheist positions out there.

To be fair, atheists-turned-Christians stories tend to do this same sort of thing. They're generally like the following:


1) Atheist was a stupider, more gullible person as a Christian and had no good reason to be a theist.

2) They became an atheist by a rational consideration of the evidence on both sides.

3) They found the theist side to have no evidence at all and they're all either idiots or just indoctrinated morons on the topic of religion.

4) The Christian-turned-atheist's change to atheism was a result of rational skepticism, and had no emotional or non-rational component to it.


I hear this general story from fellow atheists all the time and it reeks of the same strain of bullshit as those atheist-turned-Christian stories, because it paints a picture of people and how they usually change more fundamental beliefs about the world that is very against the grain. Sure, it happens sometimes, but this sort of thing certainly does not happen nearly as often as fellow internet atheists like to pretend (especially in cases where the reasoning they present is less rationally sound than they seem to realize).

[Rampant.A.I.]

Name a logically sound ontological argument, that doesn't require presupposition of the conclusion.

[MindForgedManacle]

Name a logically sound ontological argument.

You should read more carefully. I said there are, so far as I can tell, logical proofs of God's existence. What I mean is that the arguments in question are valid, i.e the conclusion follows from the premises. I don't think the actual premises are true/sound, otherwise I wouldn't be an atheist/naturalist. And to be honest, the least we should be surprised by is logical validity. After all, the following, is logically valid:

All men men are bald;
MindForgedManacle is a man;
Therefore MindForgedManacle is bald.

But we clearly known the argument is unsound.

Now, logically valid ontological arguments would include:

Plantinga's modal ontological argument, the higher-order ontological argument, the mereological ontological argument and (I think) Anselm's ontological argument.

But as I say, I contest each of those.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Name a logically sound ontological argument.

You should read more carefully. I said there are, so far as I can tell, logical proofs of God's existence. What I mean is that the arguments in question are valid, i.e the conclusion follows from the premises. I don't think the actual premises are true/sound, otherwise I wouldn't be an atheist/naturalist. And to be honest, the least we should be surprised by is logical validity. After all, the following, is logically valid:

All men men are bald;
MindForgedManacle is a man;
Therefore MindForgedManacle is bald.

But we clearly known the argument is unsound.

Now, logically valid ontological arguments would include:

Plantinga's modal ontological argument, the higher-order ontological argument, the mereological ontological argument and (I think) Anselm's ontological argument.

But as I say, I contest each of those.

Plantinga himself admits the modal ontological argument is unconvincing and flawed: One must presuppose the conclusion to allow the premises.

I'm unsure why you would provide four examples of circular reasoning when I asked you for a logically sound ontological argument, but judging from past responses and your post here, you simply fail to understand why circular reasoning is logically invalid.

Two words that can be used against any and all theist arguments: Prove it.

Strictly speaking, theists can provide a logical proof of God's existence (think ontological arguments in particular). The real question should be what actually follows from those proofs, i.e if successful, do they necessarily establish God's existence?

You should learn not to describe presuppositional arguments as "logical proofs," and then condescend to anyone who disagrees with an invalid ontological argument being defined as a "logical proof" like an arrogant 21 year-old suffering from the Dunning-Kreuger effect.

[MindForgedManacle]

Plantinga himself admits the modal ontological argument is unconvincing and flawed: One must presuppose the conclusion to allow the premises.

What one presupposes in Plantinga's argument is that 1) modal realism is true and 2) God's existence is possible. If those 2 are true, then God would exist. That's no more circular than saying 1) modal realism is true, 2) the existence of ETs is metaphysically possible, 3) Therefore ETs exist (in some possible world, not necessarily ours). You're confusing circularity with entailment. The assumptions I mentioned do entail the conclusion, but that's true of all arguments.

For example, Kalam assumes that actual infinities are impossible and that the A-theory of time is true. These entail the conclusion that the unuverse has a cause for its existence. But that doesn't make Kalam circular.

I'm unsure why you would provide four examples of circular reasoning when I asked you for a logically sound ontological argument, but judging from past responses and your post here, you simply fail to understand why circular reasoning is logically invalid.

I DO understand why circular reasoning is bad, but you're actually wrong. Circular reasoning is not, strictly speaking, logically invalid; it's just unconvincing because it can support any proposition. I'm lazy, so I'll just quote Wikipedia's article:

Circular reasoning is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. However, the argument is useless because the conclusion is in the premises. Circular logic cannot prove a conclusion because, if the conclusion is doubted, the premise which leads to it will be doubted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning


Regardless, what YOU don't seem to understand is that the arguments aren't anymore circular than any other logically valid argument. Take the classical syllogism:

All men are mortal;
Socrates is a man;
Therefore Socrates is immortal.

The first premise entails the conclusion already, but we clearly don't see this as a problem.

Now, you'd have to be a fuckwit if you think I'm supporting circular reasoning. What I am doing is questioning your claims about ontological arguments (esp. Plantinga's) being circular.

Worse, you seem to be confusing validity with circularity. I've never said I thought any ontological argument was sound (I'm an atheist, dumbass), but plenty of them have been valid, i.e the conclusion follows from the premises.

You should learn not to describe presuppositional arguments as "logical proofs," and then condescend to anyone who disagrees with an invalid ontological argument being defined as a "logical proof" like an arrogant 21 year-old suffering from the Dunning-Kreuger effect.

Oh boy, the old standby of "Can't beat the argument, so let's talk about my spurious claims regarding their psychology!"

Anyway, Plantinga's argument is not presuppositional, it's an argument from natural theology. It is almost never disputed as being logically valid (I can only find claims that philosopher Michael Martin disputes this) because, again, it just follows from its premises. Yes, they ARE proofs because given the premises, the conclusion NECESSARILY follows; that's basically what a logical proof IS. That tells you nothing of the soundness however.

I'd rather like to know what my apparent condescension and arrogance has to do with the argument at hand. I can show why you're wrong - and have - but as with many when shown you're wrong, you shift into non sequiturs and ad hominems. Most are just content to criticize arguments for bad (or at least badly stated) reasons and call it a day. Which always surprises me from a community which generally trumpets its rationality, intellectual capabilities and skepticism. Disagreeing is fine, but accepting bad responses to arguments we reject is just silly.