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

[masterofpuppets]

Even if science were shown to be all false tomorrow, that would do little to support the veracity of the Bible. Religion is simply injecting unnecessary nonsense into the brains of its followers. These barbaric ways of thinking should have died off hundreds of years ago.

God is supposed to be a perfect being, yet he requires worship. He is omniscient and yet he has free will. These two logical contradictions are enough to demonstrate that God is false, or else he cannot have all these characteristics, and in that case he would not be the biblical god. He is also supposed to be benevolent and yet ten people have starved to death during the time that you have been reading this. The only way Christians justify all these things is that God is mysterious and is beyond our capability to fathom. In other words, special pleading.

The most compelling argument for atheism, is that it is time to abandon our primitive and unsophisticated belief systems.

[downbeatplumb]

"1.Because I am convinced of the evidence for my belief"
Yea ok. I am sure you believe it and? 
And others are "convinced" of the "evidence" of the Koran"
And others are "convinced" of the "evidence of the Torah/Talmud"
And others are "convinced" of the "evidence" of Buddha.
And others are "convinced" of the "evidence" of the Hindu Vedas,

You guys need to decide which it will be. On the one hand, you say because various world religions contradict each other that means they are all false. Then you turn around and say there isn't any reason to choose one over the other 'cause they're all the same. Which is it?

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They are all wrong because they appeal to the supernatural.

If they were all identical then they'd all be the same.

Think of it like this.

All cartoons are artificial images manipulated in some way, but they have different stories.

Religions all appeal to the same non-exitent realm, the supernatural, but they have different stories.


See how that works.

[Brian37]

You guys need to decide which it will be. On the one hand, you say because various world religions contradict each other that means they are all false. Then you turn around and say there isn't any reason to choose one over the other 'cause they're all the same. Which is it?

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They are all wrong because they appeal to the supernatural.

If they were all identical then they'd all be the same.

Think of it like this.

All cartoons are artificial images manipulated in some way, but they have different stories.

Religions all appeal to the same non-exitent realm, the supernatural, but they have different stories.


See how that works.

And all this time I thought it was super glue.

[Fake Messiah]

God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.

Try getting this to you head: just Polio killed 500 million people in XX. century and was eradicated in 1979 - now how did this happen? Did Virgin Mary or Jesus come from the sky and give people cure? No! It were humans, mere mortals using science, who invented the vaccine.
During that same past century medicine increased life span for 30 years. Before that whooping cough killed 8000 people a year - mostly children. Rubella caused birth defects in 20 000 children every year. Measles killed 500 000 people every year and so on and on. Who put an end to it? Was it Jesus? Again no. It was invention of vaccine.
Imagine, for instance, that in medieval times only 1 in 10 children lived to celebrate it's 10 birthday, while all knowing Jesus didn't even bother to mention penicillin that would have saved many billions of people - so if you truly want to devote your energy to a good healing force, go to science.

God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.

If that is the case then please answer me why does malaria exist? Why does leukemia exist? Why do giant earthquakes and other natural disasters exist that kill many children? I want to know, tell me if god is best explanation then answer will be easy.

God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

No it doesn't. Morality and altruism comes from a simple fact that a single human cannot survive alone. From the early beginnings people realized no human is an island. Humans depend on each other's favors and also everybody has to contribute, so there really is nothing special about that.

God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.

Big bang theory does sound complicated for people. But there is something very different about the big bang. Unlike every other "explanation" that our species has come up with for the creation of the universe, this one has scientific observations and experiments that back it up. This explanation for how the universe started is not a belief and has no need for faith.

Though I'm not sure why we have to keep repeating over and over again that many (if not most) of us Christians do not believe the OT is to be taken as word for word, literal, historical fact.

But if Genesis is just an allegory meaning that Adam and Even never existed then original sin could not be created and then what is the point of god incarnating himself as a man, Jesus, in order that he should be tortured and executed in atonement for the hereditary sin of Adam - that was only an allegorical story?
I mean how does this make sense? Maybe that's why you need to repeat your statement because you never answered this.

Not to mention that not even majority of christians on this forum takes OT as an allegory.

[Angrboda]

Typical apologetic trash.  Intentionalist fallacy with a healthy dose of ad hoc interpretation.  Total bullshit, Chad, Mr. "I take things as they seem" (except when it comes to the bible).  Total bullshit.

I wonder how someone, such as yourself, can so readily recognize nuance in the natural sciences and philosophy and yet be so oblivious to it in other areas such as hermeneutics and semiotics.

Why don't you own your accusations Chad? If you think I'm being stupid in my criticism of your hermeneutic stance towards the bible, say so. The fact is that I recognize nuance just fine when it comes to such subjects, enough to recognize that you pull your punches regarding themes in the bible due to ideological commitments. That's special pleading and it's intellectually dishonest. You make excuses for the places where the bible gets the science wrong because you are committed to a view of the bible as inspired by God. This is nothing more than an irrational presupposition. You can take your accusations about my competence in hermeneutics and semiotics and shove them up your ass.

[Whateverist]

The evidence that I believe that supports my belief (another opinion) is below:

1. Person of Jesus is compelling.
2. The NT describes actual events including the miracles, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. 
3. God works in people's lives today--changing people on the inside as well as the occurrence of miracles.
4. The natural theology arguments:
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Since you cannot 'prove' that any of these are falsely held beliefs, my conclusion (opinion) that God exists is rationale.  The amount of evidence meets my personal threshold for proof that God exists.

Hey, they're your beliefs, your rationale and your thresholds. You could tighten them up or make them a lot looser and my opinion would matter just as little. They only have to please you.

But I have a question for you. Why do you assume in your "natural theology arguments" that all these functions are performed by just one being? All of them assume that external agency is required, something I find more dubious than satisfactory in explanatory power. But even if you hang on to a tinkering mega-agency as being required for a-c, why couldn't d-e be explained by evolution or as unintended by products of a-c?

Funny how the impulse to keep it simple by attributing it all to just one omni-agent doesn't go even further and leave out the middleMan altogether. Instead of everything is just so because it is the will of God - where the will of God just is the will of God, you could have everything is just so because the universe just is the way it is. Simpler still.

[Brian37]

Even if it's ture that occasionally skeptics were wrong that no more supports the bible then not after all the bible is folklore  .  And even if the bible got some things right that actually fails to support the narrative as a whole .

Got what right? Scientifically? Nope. The ancient Egyptians had evidence of the sun existing but that didn't mean they knew the chemical makeup of it, nor did their ability to point to the sun make their sun god "Ra" a real god. The ancient Greeks were the first to coin the word "atom" and use it, but that didn't mean they knew what a electron, proton or neutron were. Back then "atom" merely meant "the tiniest thing one could imagine".

I'd advise atheists when debating to be reminded that every major religion has members that like to reach back in time, after the fact, to retrofit science to clearly ambiguous language that does not demonstrate any hint of modern knowledge. Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists all try to retrofit science to their writings after the fact, Christians are not the only ones who pull that tactic.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I wonder how someone, such as yourself, can so readily recognize nuance in the natural sciences and philosophy and yet be so oblivious to it in other areas such as hermeneutics and semiotics.

If you think I'm being stupid in my criticism of your hermeneutic stance towards the bible, say so.  The fact is that I recognize nuance just fine when it comes to such subjects, enough to recognize that you pull your punches regarding themes in the bible due to ideological commitments....You can take your accusations about my competence in hermeneutics and semiotics and shove them up your ass.

My sincere apologies for a poor choice of word on my part. In no way did I intend to suggest that you were, in your words, stupid. I do think you are being naive. Within the circles of biblical scholarship there is a saying that the bible was "written for us, not to us." While a superficial reading is sufficient to support doctrines received by instruction, critically picking apart the text for deeper readings must take into account the historical context and literary conventions of the cultures in which they were created.

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Have Sodom and Gomorrah been found and if so do they show signs of being destroyed by means other than natural.

I kinda thought they had from something I read a few years back, not sure if this is the same:

Sodom was the Buttsex Town, Gammorah was all Oral

Biblical archeology keeps moving forward...

[downbeatplumb]

If you think I'm being stupid in my criticism of your hermeneutic stance towards the bible, say so.  The fact is that I recognize nuance just fine when it comes to such subjects, enough to recognize that you pull your punches regarding themes in the bible due to ideological commitments....You can take your accusations about my competence in hermeneutics and semiotics and shove them up your ass.

My sincere apologies for a poor choice of word on my part. In no way did I intend to suggest that you were, in your words, stupid. I do think you are being naive. Within the circles of biblical scholarship there is a saying that the bible was "written for us, not to us." While a superficial reading is sufficient to support doctrines received by instruction, critically picking apart the text for deeper readings must take into account the historical context and literary conventions of the cultures in which they were created.

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Have Sodom and Gomorrah been found and if so do they show signs of being destroyed by means other than natural.

I kinda thought they had from something I read a few years back, not sure if this is the same:

Sodom was the Buttsex Town, Gammorah was all Oral

Biblical archeology keeps moving forward...

What I want to know is what is so wrong with oral that god had to level a town, Its safeish and no one gets pregnant.

We know he doesn't like the bum sex for which may because that is where the poo comes out but head whats the big whoop.

Its like anything nice is band.

He'll be saying we cant have bacon next.

[Amarok]

So that makes what 4 time "biblical archeology " has claimed to find the two cities  but guess 5 times the charm just like how they keep  "finding " noahs ark .This is like saying that if 3000 years from now archeologist found the ruins of new York it was destroyed by Dr Dooms heat ray . Sorry fundies a bunch of stones does not a whole narrative make.

Yup it marches on and on finding a mountain of pebbles and then boasting the one in a million times it manages to find something no one disputed as possible in the first place and no more confirms the bible as a narrative as shown above . And scream" bible confirmed " . Mean while secular archeology and the rest of human knowledge keeps forcing your kind to continue the cop out "we don't take it literally "sometimes"