Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?

[Harry Nevis]

What do you mean by justified?

By justified I mean having satisfied any epistemic obligations regarding one's opinions. In other words, can one believe that people should be fair and act on that belief without being obligated to provide supporting evidence. Secondly, if someone has normal cognitive capacities and directs those faculties successfully towards attaining truth, can that person be called irrational?

Whet does "successfully" mean?  Not to mention "truth".  Quo Vadis?

---

You can always find an expert to give you the answer you want. 

Or an apologist.

[Angrboda]

What do you mean by justified?

By justified I mean having satisfied any epistemic obligations regarding one's opinions. In other words, can one believe that people should be fair and act on that belief without being obligated to provide supporting evidence. Secondly, if someone has normal cognitive capacities and directs those faculties successfully towards attaining truth, can that person be called irrational?

Human instincts, such as the instinct for fairness, are fundamentally irrational if by rational you mean founded upon an objective logical basis. So yes, such a person can be called irrational, if you like. However I would say that this incorporates a misunderstanding of the foundational sense of what meaning is composed of in thinking of it as something which is objective in process or logical in make up. Nothing in our psychological make up is founded upon logic alone; all our impulses rest upon illogical emotional components. With that in mind, what is your overall point?

[Neo-Scholastic]

By justified I mean having satisfied any epistemic obligations regarding one's opinions. In other words, can one believe that people should be fair and act on that belief without being obligated to provide supporting evidence. Secondly, if someone has normal cognitive capacities and directs those faculties successfully towards attaining truth, can that person be called irrational?

Human instincts, such as the instinct for fairness, are fundamentally irrational if by rational you mean founded upon an objective logical basis.  So yes, such a person can be called irrational, if you like.  However I would say that this incorporates a misunderstanding of the foundational sense of what meaning is composed of in thinking of it as something which is objective in process or logical in make up.  Nothing in our psychological make up is founded upon logic alone; all our impulses rest upon illogical emotional components.  With that in mind, what is your overall point?

Not really driving at anything in particular. I'm just kind of trying to get a handle on what people consider reasonable with respect to the management and regulation of opinion. I'm getting the sense that skeptical AF members feel theists have in some way failed to fulfill an intellectual duty with respect to their opinions, as if everyone "should" require that "all" their opinions trace back to defined criteria, such as self-evident principles or incorrigible observations. I'm also concerned about the charges that theists are irrational for not accepting whatever validation criteria skeptics believe "should" always apply.

[SteveII]

What do you think is new that will be a detriment (in the long run) to Christianity?

It's hard to say: religious traditions of all stripes have a long and storied history of retracting their claims away from established facts as we discover them, while at the same time pretending that's not what they've done. I could only really answer that question if I knew how stubborn humans can be when employing motivated reasoning, which is hard to gauge.

What specifically do you think that Christianity has walked-back due to a new discovery?

[Brian37]

It's hard to say: religious traditions of all stripes have a long and storied history of retracting their claims away from established facts as we discover them, while at the same time pretending that's not what they've done. I could only really answer that question if I knew how stubborn humans can be when employing motivated reasoning, which is hard to gauge.

What specifically do you think that Christianity has walked-back due to a new discovery?

See if you can spot the pattern SteveII.

"What specifically do you think that Islam has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think that Hebrew has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Buddhism has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Scientology has walked back do to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Hinduism has walked back do to a new discovery?"....

Every religion has members whom, when they cant make a positive argument for their position, either try to attack science, and when they cant do that, they try to co opt science after the fact to point to their club.

Our species is much older than any written religion. Our planet is 4 billion years old. Our universe is 13.8 billion years old with 100s of billions of galaxies in it. Humans are not important to this planet or the universe. Our clubs and superstitions and religions we make up, are just that, made up, mere placebos humans create as false perceptions and gap answers because of our own narcissism and fear of being finite. 

There are no such things as super natural beings with super powers. The only place your god exists is in your head, just as made up as Apollo and Thor. The only difference between calling something a religion and calling it mythology, is that one is dead and the other is currently still popular.

[SteveII]

What specifically do you think that Christianity has walked-back due to a new discovery?

See if you can spot the pattern SteveII.

"What specifically do you think that Islam has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think that Hebrew has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Buddhism has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Scientology has walked back do to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Hinduism has walked back do to a new discovery?"....

Every religion has members whom, when they cant make a positive argument for their position, either try to attack science, and when they cant do that, they try to co opt science after the fact to point to their club.[1]

Our species is much older than any written religion. Our planet is 4 billion years old. Our universe is 13.8 billion years old with 100s of billions of galaxies in it. Humans are not important to this planet or the universe. Our clubs and superstitions and religions we make up, are just that, made up, mere placebos humans create as false perceptions and gap answers because of our own narcissism and fear of being finite. [2]

There are no such things as super natural beings with super powers. The only place your god exists is in your head, just as made up as Apollo and Thor. The only difference between calling something a religion and calling it mythology, is that one is dead and the other is currently still popular. [3]

I am not interested in arguing about other religions. I asked specifically about Christianity. 

1. If you are talking about Christianity, you are painting with too broad a brush to make a point. Christianity does not attack science. Science has nothing to say about whether Christianity is true or not. If you think it does, you are wrong somewhere in your understand or logic. 
2.  Untestable, unfalsifiable theories. 
3. You couldn't possibly know that and your opinion doesn't much matter to me.

[Brian37]

See if you can spot the pattern SteveII.

"What specifically do you think that Islam has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think that Hebrew has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Buddhism has walked back due to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Scientology has walked back do to a new discovery?"
"What specifically do you think Hinduism has walked back do to a new discovery?"....

Every religion has members whom, when they cant make a positive argument for their position, either try to attack science, and when they cant do that, they try to co opt science after the fact to point to their club.[1]

Our species is much older than any written religion. Our planet is 4 billion years old. Our universe is 13.8 billion years old with 100s of billions of galaxies in it. Humans are not important to this planet or the universe. Our clubs and superstitions and religions we make up, are just that, made up, mere placebos humans create as false perceptions and gap answers because of our own narcissism and fear of being finite. [2]

There are no such things as super natural beings with super powers. The only place your god exists is in your head, just as made up as Apollo and Thor. The only difference between calling something a religion and calling it mythology, is that one is dead and the other is currently still popular. [3]

I am not interested in arguing about other religions. I asked specifically about Christianity. 

1. If you are talking about Christianity, you are painting with too broad a brush to make a point. Christianity does not attack science. Science has nothing to say about whether Christianity is true or not. If you think it does, you are wrong somewhere in your understand or logic. 
2.  Untestable, unfalsifiable theories. 
3. You couldn't possibly know that and your opinion doesn't much matter to me.

Of course you are not interested in arguing about other religions because magically you picked the correct one. So what, get in line take a number. 

Science most certainly DOES have something to say about the claims of Christianity. No such thing as a magic baby born without a second set of DNA. Humans also do not survive the death myth as the bible would imply. Without those two most important stories the bible claims about the Jesus character, you have nothing. 

But again, funny how you rightfully reject the claims of other religions but refuse to aim that same logic at your own book.

Nope sorry, I cannot take a book seriously that makes claims about men magically popping out of dirt, women magically popping out of a man's rib. A book that treats the sun and moon as separate sources of light, when science proves that sunlight bounces off the moon. I cannot take a book seriously that makes claims about talking snakes, talking bushes and talking donkeys. The flood never happened, but if we assume it did, it is an immoral act of genocide, and the buyers of that tripe would be still stuck with a limited gene pool in the Noah Family at the end of it.

Of course you aren't interested in debating other religions, don't feel bad, most humans aren't either because everyone thinks they got it right. Tell me is Thor a real god because we observe lightening?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Every religion has members whom, when they cant make a positive argument for their position, either try to attack science, and when they cant do that, they try to co opt science after the fact to point to their club.[1]

1. If you are talking about Christianity, you are painting with too broad a brush to make a point. Christianity does not attack science. Science has nothing to say about whether Christianity is true or not.

You know, Steve, I agree that many atheists have an unsophisticated grasp of Christian doctrine and imagine non-existent conflicts with natural science. At the same time, we must admit that embittered atheists like Brian are the "equal and opposite" reaction to some Christians who focus on side-issues that have nothing to do with the Cross. Perhaps that is what you meant by "painting with a broad brush." Really, I have no quarrel even with YEC. I can grant that a literal interpretation of Genesis chapters 1-3 is possible, since most anything is possible, although I consider YEC wildly implausible. Nevertheless, as Christians we do need to clean-up our own house. Maybe then atheists like Brian would not be distracted from the saving grace available to him by all the red herrings about incompatibility with science and comparisons with other religions.

[Brian37]

Christians most certainly do attack science. Creationists shit their pants all the time because science has debunked their bullshit. You claiming Christians can accept science well no shit, up until a point. Yea and so what. There are also Muslims and Jews and Hindus who also can accept science, but that does not prove that any of you have the right club.

"I am not like the others" is an excuse I have seen all over the world when the club member tries to dodge the reality that modern science does not jive with their old writings. 

I am not making this about one religion. I have seen the same tactics from members of every religion.

1. My club is right.
2. My god is right.
3. My holy writing is right.
4. Science doesn't explain everything.
5. Science points to my club.

Seen that from all religions, not just yours. Seen it from Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists ect ect. Been at this for 16 years on an almost daily basis. 

You have the same problem all other religions have. Scientific method is not a religion it is a tool, a process. It does not prop up the bible, Jewish OT, Koran, Buddha, or Hindu Vedas. It is a neutral process. So the theists when they don't want to face that it is neutral, either try to attack science, then when they cant get away with that, try to claim it points to their club. 

"I accept science" I have heard from all of them, so what? If any one club were the only right club, you wouldn't need to call it a religion, you could call it science. 

Science is science and your wishful thinking is just that. Religious people are capable of accepting science up until it points away from their claims.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Religious people are capable of accepting science up until it points away from their claims.

Which, when it comes to Christianity, it never does.