Are Atheists using Intellectually Dishonest Arguments?

[I_am_not_mafia]

the atheist is simply attempting to conflate God with a god in order to set up a strawman and/or trying to annoy you by belittling God—while ignoring the basic conceptual distinction that all European languages mark by differentiating the word “God” from the word “god” by capitalization.

Who gives a shit? Some people have the bizarre habit of capitalizing a pronoun when "God" is the antecedent. This practice has no precedent outside of circles of believers and in no fucking way marks a logical distinction. If I chose to capitalize the word "house" when referring to my own particular place of habitation, would this assign my particular livingspace special significance over others? --"My House is the third house on the left. Just past the white house with the red trim, you will find my House." I fail to see how capitalization proves anything. And, even if it does... guess what? Zeus is capitalized!

Yeah I find the idea of a god named God quite amusing. It's like naming a baby 'Human'. Admittedly I've always wanted to call a pet dog 'Dog'.

Add to this that their god is also supposed to be male. Yet it's never really explained why. When christians are so keen on assigning and judging gender roles according to biological function, yet don't seem to grasp that if their god is male then by their standards he must have a penis and be able to produce sperm to impregnate a female (presumably female gods who don't have DNA that evolves over time).

So really, to avoid confusion and to not avoid giving undue respect, if we capitalise the word 'God' then we should always be clear that we mean it as a name. Therefore we should refer to their god as Mr God.

[Succubus]

OK, Brewer, but you have to admit that perceiving something as the truth makes it true. The unseen? Many have observed it.

Only to the one person/belief. I perceive that my dick used to be 12 inches long. Now it's only nine. 

Most truths require transferable unbiased perspective to remain true, from person, to person, to person, to................. 

 (my biased wife will tell you it was 6 as best)

Edit: I found this discussion, maybe you've seen it: http://argumentforreason.blogspot.com/20...-this.html

I've only just now read the whole thing after wading through the twatter links and this, I think, nails her:

Eve is the single most intellectually dishonest apologist hack I have ever seen in my life, and I've seen Sye Ten Bruggencate speak.

Nothing more to see here folks, move along.

[Edwardo Piet]

Some atheists do use intellectually dishonest arguments. Some don't.

But atheists don't need any arguments against theism anyway. An atheist needing an argument against theism is like a Great Dane needing to give a bunch of proofs that it's bigger than a Chihuahua.

[rskovride]

Glad someone brought this up.  For those who don't know, sensus divinitatis is basically an argument born out of desperation, beginning with that particularly deluded mystic, John Calvin.

Calvin claimed that no one really disbelieves in God, as SD is a spiritual sense, just as sight and hearing are physical senses - we can all sense God, much in the way we can all sense rocks, trees, the postman, etc.  For Calvin, claiming disbelief is as wrong as a sighted person claiming they can't see the rocks and trees all around him.  But SD is unlike the physical senses in that it cannot be damaged - it is simply not possible to be spiritually 'blind' or ''deaf', so ALL claims of disbelief are either irrational or dishonest.

Special plead, much?

Boru

I've heard quite a few people on YouTube say similar things. "There's no such thing as atheists". I mean, really. I can smell the desperation through my screen.

Its a terrible, terrible style of argument using predetermination.  Used by the likes of Ray Comfort, and Sye Ten Bruggencate.

[Silver]

Eve Keneinan is a master at mental gymnastics and illogical theistic apologetics; i.e., she's no different than any other hardcore theist.

[brewer]

Not to mention sensus divinitatis...

Glad someone brought this up.  For those who don't know, sensus divinitatis is basically an argument born out of desperation, beginning with that particularly deluded mystic, John Calvin.

Calvin claimed that no one really disbelieves in God, as SD is a spiritual sense, just as sight and hearing are physical senses - we can all sense God, much in the way we can all sense rocks, trees, the postman, etc.  For Calvin, claiming disbelief is as wrong as a sighted person claiming they can't see the rocks and trees all around him.  But SD is unlike the physical senses in that it cannot be damaged - it is simply not possible to be spiritually 'blind' or ''deaf', so ALL claims of disbelief are either irrational or dishonest.

Special plead, much?

Boru

I hate this type of theist, unfortunately have encountered several. It's what brought me here.

[GrandizerII]

I only consider myself "probably an atheist", since almost every theist defines God differently (if they bother to define it at all, which is rare).

They could have whatever definition they want to stick to for "God", but it doesn't mean I have to agree to stick to that definition for myself.

[polymath257]

Very few people actually believe in the 'God of the Philosophers'. Most believe in a tribal god.

But even if you want to go to the philosopher's God, it is far from clear that such a being exists. Most of the arguments in favor depend strongly on Aristotelian philosophy, which is, frankly, so outdated it is more of a joke than anything else. Even a little bit of study of the concept of partial orders shows that 'the Highest One' need not exist, especially when the requirement is to maximize more than one property at a time.

The critique of scientism is more and more common these days. There are, of course, a great many *opinions* that are not subject to the scientific method: that my wife is beautiful, that tomatoes are a noxious fruit, that the Mona Lisa is over hyped. Those are not *truths*. That doesn't mean they are not important. In fact, such opinions are essential to normal life. But they are NOT facts.

To be a 'truth' requires that there is some sort of way to challenge it and that it passes those challenges, even from disbelievers. So, in math, there are accepted axioms and rules of deduction. In the sciences, we have the scientific method. At this point, no such challenge procedures are known outside of those areas that I can tell. This is why religion and philosophy will not ever reach the standards of truth.

As for the burden of proof: sorry, but the one making the positive existence claim is the one with the burden of proof. To go further requires the object whose existence is considered be well enough defined to have its existence be testable in some way. And, in the absence of evidence, especially when evidence is to be expected, lack of belief is quite reasonable.

[RoadRunner79]

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So, last week I was browsing the internets and came across a blog post by Eve Keneinan entitled "Intellectually Dishonest Atheists." 

I clicked the link hoping to find an article which would make some significant points and perhaps challenge me to become more intellectually honest. I was sorely disappointed. The article did not challenge me at all. Well... maybe a little bit... but for the most part I felt like I didn't get my money's worth (and keep in mind the article was free to read online.)

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"

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

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.

I would like to see discussion of all three main points in this thread, but to keep the OP as concise as possible, I will only treat the first point here.

A persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods. This is a distinction 3 or 4-year-old children can easily grasp, so any atheist who claims not be be able to grasp it is either severely intellectually impaired or lying. In almost all cases, the atheist is simply attempting to conflate God with a god in order to set up a strawman and/or trying to annoy you by belittling God—while ignoring the basic conceptual distinction that all European languages mark by differentiating the word “God” from the word “god” by capitalization. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains, in the entry written by atheist philosopher J. J. C. Smart:

‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God. I shall here assume that the God in question is that of a sophisticated monotheism. The tribal gods of the early inhabitants of Palestine are of little or no philosophical interest. They were essentially finite beings, and the god of one tribe or collection of tribes was regarded as good in that it enabled victory in war against tribes with less powerful gods. Similarly the Greek and Roman gods were more like mythical heroes and heroines than like the omnipotent, omniscient and good God postulated in mediaeval and modern philosophy.

So, lets unpack this.

A persistent inability or refusal to distinguish God from a god or gods. This is a distinction 3 or 4-year-old children can easily grasp

Bullshit. If you have programmed your three-year-old to distinguish Yahweh from Zeus, she can regurgitate what you have told her to believe. But no child at that age cares about such a distinction, nor can she articulate it in her own words.

the atheist is simply attempting to conflate God with a god in order to set up a strawman and/or trying to annoy you by belittling God—while ignoring the basic conceptual distinction that all European languages mark by differentiating the word “God” from the word “god” by capitalization.

Who gives a shit? Some people have the bizarre habit of capitalizing a pronoun when "God" is the antecedent. This practice has no precedent outside of circles of believers and in no fucking way marks a logical distinction. If I chose to capitalize the word "house" when referring to my own particular place of habitation, would this assign my particular livingspace special significance over others? --"My House is the third house on the left. Just past the white house with the red trim, you will find my House." I fail to see how capitalization proves anything. And, even if it does... guess what? Zeus is capitalized!

"‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God. I shall here assume that the God in question is that of a sophisticated monotheism. The tribal gods of the early inhabitants of Palestine are of little or no philosophical interest."

This is probably the most valid point made in the article. When arguing with an adherent of a "sophisticated monotheism," one ought not use arguments which ignore the sophistication of one's opponent's particular god concept. In layman's terms: An argument that utterly refutes Drich may not even be appropriate to make against Neo. Oftentimes I find myself leveling criticisms against Christians in general that only really apply to Christian fundamentalists. In this instance, Keneinan makes a valid point. We ought to keep our opponents' actual views in mind, lest we be guilty of strawmanning.

But what about the vast majority of Christians who do not have a "sophisticated monotheism"? I'd estimate around 90% of the Christians I know, do not worship the eternal being of whom Aquinas and Anselm spoke. They worship the tribal god of the Israelites, and they will tell you as much if you inquire about the nature of their god. It seems quite unfair to atheists to have them respond to god-claims that resemble paganism with counterarguments that refute an eternal, cosmic being.

I like to work on myself intellectually. Working on one's own intellectual honesty requires one to reevaluate one's position, trying to spot prejudices and false assumptions. To be intellectually dishonest is to not care if one is wrong. All an intellectually dishonest person cares about is winning an argument. (Plato's critiques of sophism drive this point home.) An intellectually honest person cares about the validity of his or her own arguments. I'm wrong about tons of stuff. I, like anyone else, am susceptible to intellectual foibles (ie accepting false premises as true, logical fallacies, etc.) But why do I feel like this article misrepresents the position we are actually arguing? Why do I feel this article criticizes atheists for minor intellectual transgressions while ignoring the fact that theistic apologetics often uses these selfsame transgressions as the foundation of its position? Why do I feel that this article, in the course of criticizing intellectual honesty, is it itself intellectually dishonest?

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For me personally, I could identify with, and understand a number of the issues that this lady talks about.  I may have some disputes with the way in which the ideas are presented at times, but generally I agree with the message.  For one, I don't think that every instance or even a majority are necessarily intellectually dishonest.  I think it is more charitable if I'm making an assumption to think they are just stupid (the village atheists), rather than intellectually dishonest.  As well, they may not be intellectual at all, and are just provoking.  This could be intellectually dishonest, if they know better, but often I find myself questioning, if some really have given much thought or effort into understanding what they are criticizing.

In the article:  for subpoint 1, I believe that the citation of J.J.C. Smart is prior to the other discussion (even though you addressed this last).  With this, I believe that the rest of this section should be seen in light of this quotation (at least that is how I read it).  I would agree, that a 3-4 year old, likely isn't going to have a strong grasp or knowledge of the differences between the gods of polytheism and as Smart said a more sophisticated view in monotheism.  As such, I read it as hyperbole rather than with a strict literalism.  The point being, that it isn't that difficult to understand that there is some key differences in the behavior and roles of these mortal gods.   To finish the quote by JJC Smart -  "They were essentially finite beings, and the god of one tribe or collection of tribes was regarded as good in that it enabled victory in war against tribes with less powerful gods. Similarly the Greek and Roman gods were more like mythical heroes and heroines than like the omnipotent, omniscient and good God postulated in mediaeval and modern philosophy."

Given this, I don't think the quibble about capitalization is about the capitalization itself, but in acknowledging why and what the distinction that is being made by it's capitalization.  Again, this goes back to the citation given at the beginning of the argument.

Now it could be, that the "atheist" in question has not been made aware some particular distinction.  However especially for those who hang around on the internet, and have interacted with those who make a more sophisticated argument I think it can approach the level of intellectual dishonesty.  If I still start out arguing against evolution with "from the goo to the zoo" or "it's just a theory" when I know better, then I think that is intellectually dishonest.   Now you combine this with a number of other mis-representations found in section one, and I think a case can certainly be made. You have either earned the description of being intellectually dishonest or being stupid.

Similarly, if you would like to make a point about politics, I think that starting out your idea by calling your interlocutors conservtards or libtards  drastically takes away from any intelligence that may be contained there after.

[GrandizerII]

Bible God is not the God of the ancient Greek philosophers or the God of the deists.