Are Atheists using Intellectually Dishonest Arguments?

[Amarok]

---

"Tell them 'I am' sent you." Sounds more cosmically fundamental than Baal or Odin to me.

"In the beginning was the Word" Logos...Divine Truth with a capital 'T'...doesn't sound very tribal to me either.

---

And then there is Job 39...

What about Job 39?  Can you expand on that?

He's trying to argue that the bible know when wild animals gave birth .As if that is impressive .

[Believer66]

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?

            View the plague of atheism with not a shred of opinion, but only truth. Reason provides the science of our conscience, arguing between our moral and instinctual laws. Now ask, if such atheists attempt to separate themselves from their “supposed God”, then why are they never able to truly do so, even in the longevity of purposeful decades held captive to their conscience. In the subject of reason may two sides battle under a persons will. Is it the triumph of their minds, or their souls which imprisons even the most stubborn of atheists. But these two work together, indeed it is your mind which holds your conscience, reasoning between good and evil, but the blessings of your soul which gives your mind this ability. Asking once more, what forces atheists to combat a religion which they are only trying to escape, it is the fight against their conscience which brings about this perpetual struggle. As such, it is because they are attempting to win the fight which cannot be won, the fight against their conscience. See, I believe two things about one’s conscience, that it, itself is always right, and that it guides us all to what is right. In what is right do we discover the truth to our questions, the greatest of which being God’s existence. Following an analytical sense should these questions be answered, in the triumph of reason. Should you battle your conscience, you combat the truth. Now, for all man, the universally recognized underlying truth is the existence of God, where you find even the most tenacious of atheists beg for God’s mercy in the time of loss. The wicked fall to Him under the gloomy deception in the dying light, and the sanctity of their conscience reveals itself. And as the atheist has sought an escape from their religion, they battle not the notion of faith, but the truth of morality.

[Whateverist]

It describes a finite god-- the god of a single people. The Jews. The NT describes a new covenant, but it doesn't really describe a new god.

"Tell them 'I am' sent you." Sounds more cosmically fundamental than Baal or Odin to me.

"In the beginning was the Word" Logos...Divine Truth with a capital 'T'...doesn't sound very tribal to me either.

And then there is Job 39...

You've just gotten used to the smell of your own shit.  It is still shit.

[Mister Agenda]

I had him in check and he threw over the board saying ' You're  wrong and I don't have to explain why'.

But you were wrong and he was quite specific as to why you were wrong.

---

There is a recognised format to debate and afaics you do not and never have conformed to this accepted convention. Why? Is it trolling or are you just a standard issue fucked in the head fundie?

As soon as he gets a little frustrated, he reverts to troll. I used to think the trollishness was the aberration, but I've come to realize that it's the reasonableness that is an act.

[Edwardo Piet]

None, of that matters.  If you are making a claim, then you have a share in the burden of proof for what you are claiming.

Nope, it doesn't work like that. It's the least parmonious premise that the onus is on.

If I claim that the universe isn't an illusion and we're not in a computer simulation. The burden of proof is not on me. If you claim the universe is an illusion, it's on you.

If you claim to have an imaginary friend who created everything and controls everything.... then the burden of proof is on you. If I claim that such a thing is improbable then that stands to reason to be correct by default until you provide evidence to the contrary. Why? Because of the principle of parsimony. It's the same reason that if you claimed Elvis was still alive and I said "No he isn't" the burden of proof wouldn't be on me but it would be on you. Because you're making a ridiculously unparsimonious suggestion.

    You don't get a free pass, as long as you feel that your claims do not surpass the opposition.   It doesn't work that way.  

It's clearly you who doesn't understand how it works.

Many of you guys, for being so quick to bring up the B.O.P. for others, work really hard to get out of it yourselves.  It appears that there are a bunch of pseudo-skeptics!

Nah, you're just dumb and don't understand the burden of proof.

---

---

[LadyForCamus]

None, of that matters.  If you are making a claim, then you have a share in the burden of proof for what you are claiming.

Nope, it doesn't work like that. It's the least parmonious premise that the onus is on.

If I claim that the universe isn't an illusion and we're not in a computer simulation. The burden of proof is not on me. If you claim the universe is an illusion, it's on you.

If you claim to have an imaginary friend who created everything and controls everything.... then the burden of proof is on you. If I claim that such a thing is improbable then that stands to reason to be correct by default until you provide evidence to the contrary. Why? Because of the principle of parsimony. It's the same reason that if you claimed Elvis was still alive and I said "No he isn't" the burden of proof wouldn't be on me but it would be on you. Because you're making a ridiculously unparsimonious suggestion.

    You don't get a free pass, as long as you feel that your claims do not surpass the opposition.   It doesn't work that way.  

It's clearly you who doesn't understand how it works.

Many of you guys, for being so quick to bring up the B.O.P. for others, work really hard to get out of it yourselves.  It appears that there are a bunch of pseudo-skeptics!

Nah, you're just dumb and don't understand the burden of proof.

---

---

LOL.  I’m loving the audio accompaniment, Hamz.  British accents are super awesome.  😎

[ohreally]

I had him in check and he threw over the board saying ' You're  wrong and I don't have to explain why'. Which takes us back to the OP. Intellectual dishonestly.

A pigeon walks into a chess game......

[Edwardo Piet]

Nope, it doesn't work like that. It's the least parmonious premise that the onus is on.

If I claim that the universe isn't an illusion and we're not in a computer simulation. The burden of proof is not on me. If you claim the universe is an illusion, it's on you.

If you claim to have an imaginary friend who created everything and controls everything.... then the burden of proof is on you. If I claim that such a thing is improbable then that stands to reason to be correct by default until you provide evidence to the contrary. Why? Because of the principle of parsimony. It's the same reason that if you claimed Elvis was still alive and I said "No he isn't" the burden of proof wouldn't be on me but it would be on you. Because you're making a ridiculously unparsimonious suggestion.


It's clearly you who doesn't understand how it works.


Nah, you're just dumb and don't understand the burden of proof.

---

---

LOL.  I’m loving the audio accompaniment, Hamz.  British accents are super awesome.  😎

Lol. Glad you're enjoying.

And, as a bonus. When people claim that I'm being super emotional or screaming or whatever (nudge nudge wink wink hehe) and I claim that I'm actually sitting here calm as fuck all deadpan. If you hear my voice from now on you may realize I'm being completely serious about that lol. I can say all this really emotional stuff and be like AHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHH FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING DEADBEAT PUSSY FOR BRAINS NINCOMFUCKER (I guess a "nincomfucker" is half nincompoop half fucker?) or whatever.... and I don't really feel anything much.

---

---

---

I had him in check and he threw over the board saying ' You're  wrong and I don't have to explain why'. Which takes us back to the OP. Intellectual dishonestly.

A pigeon walks into a chess game......

And squirts poop all over the board. And it totally puts me off my breakfast (I eat while I play (while I wank... but that's another topic)).

---

---

[RoadRunner79]

None, of that matters.  If you are making a claim, then you have a share in the burden of proof for what you are claiming.

Nope, it doesn't work like that. It's the least parmonious premise that the onus is on.

If I claim that the universe isn't an illusion and we're not in a computer simulation. The burden of proof is not on me. If you claim the universe is an illusion, it's on you.

If you claim to have an imaginary friend who created everything and controls everything.... then the burden of proof is on you. If I claim that such a thing is improbable then that stands to reason to be correct by default until you provide evidence to the contrary. Why? Because of the principle of parsimony. It's the same reason that if you claimed Elvis was still alive and I said "No he isn't" the burden of proof wouldn't be on me but it would be on you. Because you're making a ridiculously unparsimonious suggestion.

    You don't get a free pass, as long as you feel that your claims do not surpass the opposition.   It doesn't work that way.  

It's clearly you who doesn't understand how it works.

Many of you guys, for being so quick to bring up the B.O.P. for others, work really hard to get out of it yourselves.  It appears that there are a bunch of pseudo-skeptics!

Nah, you're just dumb and don't understand the burden of proof.

---

---

You can look it up.... but both sides can have a burden of proof if they are both making competing claims. I’m not surprised though that you think the burden of proof doesn’t apply to you. It explains a lot actually.

Also... you don’t just automatically go with the simplest idea no matter what.... I don’t think you understand this either.

[Silver]

I've always personally believed the burden of proof was the responsibility of the one making the positive claim.