Turning the tables on atheism

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

A religion being perfectly internally coherent has no bearing on whether that religion is true.

Boru

An internally consistent religion suggests diligence on the part of the people who created the theology and/or its supporting scriptures.  Very similar to the world-building done by good authors working on a complicated piece of fiction.

Perfectly put. Moby Dick displays a high degree of internal coherence, but this is insufficient reason to suppose that the adventures of the Pequod are factual.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Now....this doesn't have anything to do with the appraisal of potential inference above....but....Moby Dick very much was a dangerous book in that it suggested that large and powerful animals who might remember more than the last 12 seconds are a severe risk to life and property - much more than the insurance assessments and outlays which supported the industry accounted for.

Whaling was dangerous...physically and economically.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Now....this doesn't have anything to do with the appraisal of potential inference above....but....Moby Dick very much was a dangerous book in that it suggested that large and powerful animals who might remember more than the last 12 seconds are a severe risk to life and property - much more than the insurance assessments and outlays which supported the industry accounted for.  

Whaling was dangerous...physically and economically.

It’s at least tangential to the topic - any book, irrespective of internal consistency, has the potential to teach us something. In the case of the Quran, we can learn what Mohammed and his followers believed. In the case of Melville’s novel, we can learn that sperm whales will, if given half a chance, fuck you up.

Boru

[R00tKiT]

@Klorophyll

If I say proposition X is true, and you offer counter arguments A, B, and C, and in response to your counter arguments I say, “meh, I believe X is true anyway,” my persistent belief is irrelevant to the quality of either the original proposition or your counter arguments. If you take issue with a specific argument against the god proposition, you need to identify the problem and describe it. You need to give a reason why it’s flawed. 

Further, you should know by now that even if every existing argument against god is in some way flawed, your belief is still not rationally warranted. My inability to present a compelling counter argument to your claim in no way bolsters the likelihood that it’s true. You still bear that burden of proof.

I am not sure to whom you're writing this, since I wasn't arguing for the existence of God in the first place. It's not because I am a Muslim that any thread I ever make should be about God's existence. The argument here is less ambitious: It's more probable than not that large crowds of theists managed to solve the subtleties regarding the problem of evil, the hiddeness of God, infinite regress, etc. and other minor technical issues that appear to stand in the way of theism, and which atheists tend to exaggerate. 

I already explained why this is not an argumentum ad populum, these large crowds of theists are capable of rational thinking, after all, even if we assume that their stance is false. Now because they're capable of logical reasoning, one would expect they found good reasons to maintain faith while acknowledge there is suffering, and since atheists can't build a logical argument against theism based on the existence of evil, they're only left with evidential arguments from evil, that is, probability arguments' that the amount of suffering outweighs evidence for God. And even those fail miserably because the problem of evil is only a problem to some attributes of God, but not his overall existence.....

And what exactly is wrong with rationalization? In any case, it doesn't imply falsehood, it's only a state of mind helping one reach an internally consistent worldview. Atheists rationalize too in the face of the beauty of creation, they say evolutionary theory explains away the need of a designer, well no, it doesn't, the same way managing to fully explain the workings of a car engine doesn't explain away a manufacturing company.

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I agree, Zebo is asking you to prove that what you argue is a real thing (physical object), not a made up thing (supernatural agent).  Pity you don't try to do that.

You're begging the question, smart guy. If you're assuming supernatural agents are made up, you're already assuming theism is false while asking about proof..

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Still a reading comprehension problem.  I'm an atheist who has a problem with evil, but the problems of evil aren't part of why I'm an atheist at all.  They're just reasons that the existence of your silly god is irrelevant to my rejection of your very real and shitty religion.

You're not being precise enough about why you reject religion. Are you being honest here? Is really every aspect of Islam the complete opposite of your own morality?

You mean, that's a problem that you don't know and haven't rationalized?  How many more things like this will we find?

I am not sure what's your problem with rationalization. As I said, it doesn't imply falsehood. If we can have an internally consistent theism, then we're better off spend more time on standard arguments for god than argue endlessly about evil and hiddenness, this is the point of my thread.

[LadyForCamus]

@Klorophyll

If I say proposition X is true, and you offer counter arguments A, B, and C, and in response to your counter arguments I say, “meh, I believe X is true anyway,” my persistent belief is irrelevant to the quality of either the original proposition or your counter arguments. If you take issue with a specific argument against the god proposition, you need to identify the problem and describe it. You need to give a reason why it’s flawed. 

Further, you should know by now that even if every existing argument against god is in some way flawed, your belief is still not rationally warranted. My inability to present a compelling counter argument to your claim in no way bolsters the likelihood that it’s true. You still bear that burden of proof.

I am not sure to whom you're writing this, since I wasn't arguing for the existence of God in the first place. It's not because I am a Muslim that any thread I ever make should be about God's existence. The argument here is less ambitious: It's more probable than not

How did you determine this probability? What was your method?

I already explained why this is not an argumentum ad populum, these large crowds of theists are capable of rational thinking

That’s an assertion. How have you determined that these large crowds are not only capable of rational thinking with regard to their belief,  but that they are actively applying rational thinking to it? If your answer is simply the sheer number of them then not only is that indeed an ad populum fallacy, but your entire argument is circular. I mean, you are making an example of yourself in this very thread of at least one theist who is not applying sound reasoning. Your own argument undercuts itself. That’s fairly impressive, lol.

[The Grand Nudger]

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Still a reading comprehension problem.  I'm an atheist who has a problem with evil, but the problems of evil aren't part of why I'm an atheist at all.  They're just reasons that the existence of your silly god is irrelevant to my rejection of your very real and shitty religion.

You're not being precise enough about why you reject religion. Are you being honest here? Is really every aspect of Islam the complete opposite of your own morality?

It would be highly unlikely for any moral system to be the complete opposite of any other - but that's not really a requirement.  A religion doesn't have to be doing every bad in the worst possible way all of the time for someone to decide that the club isn't for them.  Often enough, it just has to hit any non negotiable items of moral import...and if all of the rest of it were candy and roses... it wouldn't matter.  

That's what having moral character means.  That's why the bribe theory you floated before doesn't work.  Maybe if I had a better life I would believe in a god or abandon my moral principles and become a muslim?  Maybe if I believed that allah would grant me a reward, in this life or even the next... I'd be a muslim? 

In a word, no.  The longer answer is, ofc, that I've had a good life, and I don't believe. That there are certainly people who would reward me for breaking my principles.... and yet I don't.

You mean, that's a problem that you don't know and haven't rationalized?  How many more things like this will we find?

I am not sure what's your problem with rationalization. As I said, it doesn't imply falsehood. If we can have an internally consistent theism, then we're better off spend more time on standard arguments for god than argue endlessly about evil and hiddenness, this is the point of my thread.

Don't you think it's ironic that a theist who claimed that there was a high likelihood that believers were aware of and had rationalized the issues with their beliefs,..therefore something...turned out to be an example of a theist who is both unaware of issues with his faith..and indeed has never once rationalized those things or even had occassion to do so?

I'm not sure that it's going to work out for your argument, whatever that turns out to be.

[LadyForCamus]

@Klorophyll

The “point of the thread” was in its title; to turn atheism on its head. We’re still waiting for you to do that. In fact, the only way you can turn a lack of belief in something around is to present compelling evidence that it exists, which you explicitly stated you aren’t interested in doing, so I’m not really sure why you’re here. 🤷‍♀️

[The Grand Nudger]

He's not any better at the thing he says is the point of the thread anyway. His idea of a standard argument for a god is to post of picture of two birds and call everyone stupid. That's an even less competent pitch than reward for evil.

aaaaand scene.

[no one]

Hey klorotroll;

[Pat Mustard]

A religion being perfectly internally coherent has no bearing on whether that religion is true.

Boru

An internally consistent religion suggests diligence on the part of the people who created the theology and/or its supporting scriptures.  Very similar to the world-building done by good authors working on a complicated piece of fiction.

Hence why no religion has ever shown any of that. Because religions are cobbled together over generations, and then changed radically to suit yet more generations. And each author pays not a blind bit of notice to what his predecessors inserted into the shared fanfic.