Are Atheists using Intellectually Dishonest Arguments?

[vulcanlogician]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

2) Atheists often presume  "belief in scientism, the logically incoherent claim that 'only scientific knowledge is valid/real/genuine knowledge'"

Point #2 is utter horseshit, pure and simple.  While some atheists are also supporters of scientism, this is obviously not the case with the majority of atheists.

While the author is correct that scientism is logically incoherent (I might quibble with her definition, but that's beyond the scope of this reply), there is nothing intellectually dishonest in an atheist using scientific methodology to refute some religious claims (the Flood, the resurrection, the Exodus, etc), because these are claims amenable to scientific investigation.  If theists are going to cite these claims  as potentially veridical events, it isn't just permissible but is incumbent upon atheists to test them with scientific rigor.  But the author seems to want NO testing of ANY claim made by ANY religionists.  That's true intellectual dishonesty, that is.

I agree, though, that not all religious claims are subject to scientific investigation.  One we often hear is 'God is love'.  This may or may not be a nonsensical statement (though I strongly suspect that it is), but I don't know how I'd begin to devise an experiment to test it.

I'm perfectly happy accepting things that I cannot prove scientifically (life on other planets, my wife loves me, bacon crumbles improve apple pie), but so what?  But when Ms Kenienan makes a claim for God that is at least potentially falsifiable, she ought not get her knickers in a twist when people attempt to falsify it.  And she certainly had no business labeling all scientific investigations of religious claims as 'scientism'.

Boru

[GrandizerII]

Only the first part perhaps applies to me. And I do that exactly because Christians do believe in a god that is distinct from the classical God of the ancient Greek philosophers or the God of deists. They believe in a God that has emotions, that really cares about what human beings do in their lives, that punishes whenever they see fit, that sends down commandments and revelations, that manifests physically in this world (whether as man or burning bush or cloud or whatever), that created angels, tested the first of mankind with a tree, is one God but convolutedly three Persons, made a donkey talk one time, and so on. A God that is clearly made in the image of ancient men who didn't know any better and couldn't come up with a better God that would appeal to modern civilized people (so modern civilized people have had to evolve their God to become a better deity). I don't see such a being as Supreme at all, so why should I make that distinction argued by the author? Because their God, over time, has been assigned "maximally great" characteristics? So what? It still remains a diminished god because of what the Christian faith demands of it.

[brewer]

[Amarok]

) Atheists often suffer from a "persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods"

Their is no difference. Theists are the ones engaging in special pleading by asserting their is a difference  

2) Atheists often presume  "belief in scientism, the logically incoherent claim that 'only scientific knowledge is valid/real/genuine knowledge'

Bullshit . Accepting that science is the best and firmest ideal of knowledge is not saying it's the only.  

3) Atheists often engage in "persistent use of the burden of proof fallacy, that is, the rhetorical trope which combines an argument from ignorance (“my position is the default position,” i.e. “my position is true until proven false, so I need not argue for it) with special pleading.

No we don't. Pointing out you have asserted a claim without supporting it . Thus i will accept the claim . Is not a claim that a position is true . Only that one position remains unsupported .

[vulcanlogician]

[brewer]

[Whateverist]

Keneinan made three main points, each divided into various subpoints:

1) Atheists often suffer from a "persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods"

I agree with your dismissal of this point. Furthermore God, gods and god are all to poorly defined terms.

2) Atheists often presume  "belief in scientism, the logically incoherent claim that 'only scientific knowledge is valid/real/genuine knowledge'"

In my experience this is her best source of criticism. Some atheists, upon leaving a religion, do seem to over react in this direction. Some of us will claim they will only believe that for which there is adequate evidence, when no one can live a life that way. Some seem to expect science to rule on all questions, when science is not germane to answering all questions.

3) Atheists often engage in "persistent use of the burden of proof fallacy, that is, the rhetorical trope which combines an argument from ignorance (“my position is the default position,” i.e. “my position is true until proven false, so I need not argue for it) with special pleading.

She gets no traction here and it makes me wonder if she defines atheism as holding the positive belief that gods do not exist, as if we actually understood what "gods" refers to. No one owes anyone an explanation for why they do not take the question of god belief seriously. Until terms are defined and reason provided to think the question matters, meh is a perfectly reasonable response.

[Minimalist]

1) Atheists often suffer from a "persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods"

A condition common among religitards.

[GrandizerII]

1) Atheists often suffer from a "persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods"

A condition common among religitards.

Except Christians are not atheists. They believe in a god. Atheists don't believe in any god.

Also, they don't seem to dismiss other gods for similar reasons we do. Have you not seen Huggy's terrible reasoning for why he believes Odin doesn't exist (in that recent Odin thread)?