Atheists, why debate christians?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I wasn’t talking about “noble savage” bullshit, just basic impulses like empathy, bonding, nurturing, etc. Stuff that even chimps have.

[StusBlues]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

I wasn’t talking about “noble savage” bullshit, just basic impulses like empathy, bonding, nurturing, etc. Stuff that even chimps have.

Yes, these things are innate, evolved human characteristics. So are aggression and avarice. Without social conditioning and enforcement, you get a lot more of the latter unchecked by the former.

Face it, Diogenes: society is good for you.

[Der_Trihs]

@bazooka_luca

Which demonstrates how irrational, baseless and thus worthless religious beliefs are.

Do you only value knowledge? You are right, those silly teachings like be kind to your neighbor, don’t kill or steal, treat others as you would like to be treated… totally worthless

As said, those aren’t tied to religion. Nor does religion promote such ideas very well; generally, it promotes the opposite ideals.

@bazooka_luca

Religion isn’t about being a good person, it’s about believing in and following the dogma and rules of the religion regardless of consequences.*

I’m not saying that every churchgoer is in good faith. True religion is about personal comportment, about finding one’s values and adhering to them. Most people in good faith are quiet and keep to themselves about it. They are all around you, but they really have no personal need to tell you what they believe.

Oh, nonsense; the average believer goes out of their way to force their beliefs on others and torment unbelievers; as a recent example, all of the various laws forbidding same sex marriage. And true religion is about becoming nothing more than an extension of the religion in question; the more religious someone is, the more they become an automaton dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the religion which has infected them and uncaring of anything or anyone else.

@bazooka_luca

Being religious is at best about being amoral. Being good is anathema to religion, since being good requires that you take account of the real world, and the real effects of your actions. And yes, religious people can be good - but only by being bad religious people; by being willing to put people and reality above their religion.

Because morals come from science and Christians don’t have to pay taxes?

No, because religion is insane, and you can’t do good when acting on insane principles and an insane worldview except by sheer luck.

@bazooka_luca

What is the definition of a good person? A Catholic hospital give out free care to a poor family or the church downtown lets a homeless man come inside on a freezing day and they have become bad religious people by accepting and trying to help an unfortunate reality?

There’s nothing good about taking advantage of desperate people, using their need to turn them into captive audiences so you can try to convert them. They don’t care about people or their suffering; they are just trying to save souls.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@MrDibble

No. The root of “atheism” is ἄθεος (a-theos), “without god”, not “a-theism”. The -ism came later.

Well, I stand corrected, but nevertheless I uniformly reject religions that have a God, multiple gods, or no gods if they lack supporting evidence of theire premises, and I’m sure not that leaves anything else for “theism” to cover, so may as well toss it along with phrenology and astrology.

I suppose when someone uses theistic principles to prove a mathematical theorem or invent a better light bulb, I’ll modify my stance accordingly.

[Galileo]

@monavis

Being fair, wouldn’t you also say that Believers also take their information from other humans? All written things, read things, thought things,or taught things, come from humans…that is a proven fact weither one is religious or not.

I was being fair by pointing out that it’s not just theists who base some of their ideas and beliefs on something other than direct experience and the scientific method.

[Voyager]

@Omg_a_Black_Conservative

See. This is a truly ridiculous statement . What constitutes a rational argument isn’t an argument you agree with.

Imagine this scenario. I read an unnamed book. Through reading that book, I come to adopt a certain viewpoint. Next, let’s say I was reading some book on atheism and now I’m a committed atheist. Well, let’s say I was reading the Bible and now I’m a committed Christian. Now, let’s assume I was reading a book on atheism and, after reading said book, I’m left feeling empty and unsatisfied, and as a result I turn to Christianity. And finally, let’s say I read the Bible and am turned off by it, thus becoming an atheist. To that, you’d now agree I arrived at my views rationally.

I’m going to assume that, in the first and fourth instances, you would say that I arrived at my views rationally. In the second and third instances, however, you would argue that I arrived at my views irrationally. But how can this be? In the above scenario, I read the same material but come to different conclusions. You have no basis under which to say I came to my views irrationally except they disagree with your views.

That, of course, is nothing more than you feigning a sense of intellectual superiority where you feel as if the other guy’s position is intellectually inferior to yours.

Reading a book and doing something based on it does not mean what you do is rationally arrived at. What you left out, natch, is critical judgment of the contents of the book. Clearly following the guidance of a book that makes you feel good is no more rational than rejecting the guidance of a book which makes you feel bad.
A book that says we should be atheists because people who believe in god do horrible things is no more rational than the book which says we should believe in god because people who do so do good things.
All the attempts at rational arguments for any god are fairly simple to refute - the arguments for the Christian god as a special case for a god are laughably easy to refute. Why don’t you start to give some rational arguments?

BTW, from the apparent culture of religious belief, you are not allowed to doubt my claim that Daffy appeared to me on the way to San Jose (not road - thus does Gospel divergence begin.) I’m not going out to dig up some golden cels or something.

[Galileo]

@Voyager

All the attempts at rational arguments for any god are fairly simple to refute - the arguments for the Christian god as a special case for a god are laughably easy to refute.

“Laughably easy”?

As often happens in SDMB theism/atheism debates, an atheist makes a strong claim but does not provide evidence for that claim. It’s as if the only claim that needs evidence is the theist claim that God exists. Of course, I’m sure you realize that any claim can be called into question, including claims made by atheists.

I suggest that you provide a list of all arguments for any god and then provide refutations that are “fairly simple”, and then provide a list of all arguments for the Christian god and provide evidence that the counterarguments to all of them are “laughably easy”.

If you’re not prepared to do that, I suggest you retract your claims. If you don’t provide support for your claims and you don’t retract them, then all you’ve presented is hyperbole.

And, of course, it is not up to me to provide a counterargument to your claims. I don’t accept your claims – please provide support for them.

While you’re at it, please provide a concise, coherent explanation of why there are intelligent, educated Christians – paying particular attention to why they accept something that is so easy to refute – and please point me to scientific evidence that supports your explanation, preferably based on research that you have done yourself on the topic.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Well, isn’t God actually existing kind of an important axiom in Christianity? Jesus had to be the son of somebody, after all.

Actually, it might be interesting to speculate on a form of Christianity that has no mystical elements whatsoever, left with just “be a good person” and such.

And as for intelligent, educated Christians… I figure the majority draw some comfort in following whatever traditions they were raised with and most of the rest are afraid of feeling cosmically insignificant and/or dying, or something.

[Galileo]

@Bryan_Ekers

Actually, it might be interesting to speculate on a form of Christianity that has no mystical elements whatsoever, left with just “be a good person” and such.

How about the Jefferson Bible - The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth?

[Voyager]

@Galileo

“Laughably easy”?

As often happens in SDMB theism/atheism debates, an atheist makes a strong claim but does not provide evidence for that claim. It’s as if the only claim that needs evidence is the theist claim that God exists. Of course, I’m sure you realize that any claim can be called into question, including claims made by atheists.

I suggest that you provide a list of all arguments for any god and then provide refutations that are “fairly simple”, and then provide a list of all arguments for the Christian god and provide evidence that the counterarguments to all of them are “laughably easy”.

If you’re not prepared to do that, I suggest you retract your claims. If you don’t provide support for your claims and you don’t retract them, then all you’ve presented is hyperbole.

And, of course, it is not up to me to provide a counterargument to your claims. I don’t accept your claims – please provide support for them.

While you’re at it, please provide a concise, coherent explanation of why there are intelligent, educated Christians – paying particular attention to why they accept something that is so easy to refute – and please point me to scientific evidence that supports your explanation, preferably based on research that you have done yourself on the topic.

Laughably easy refers only to arguments for the Christian god. Cosmological arguments, arguments from necessity and the like are all arguments for some god, which is not at all evident.
The best argument I know for the Christian God is the resurrection, for which historical support is sorely lacking, as we’ve seen. The necessity of Christ for salvation is total nonsense with no OT justification, as evidenced by the fact Jews (which was my faith) see absolutely no need for it - and our leaders read the Bible in the original language.
Besides these, I’m quite at a loss to state any reasons for Christianity, never having drank the kool-aid. Lord, liar, lunatic? They left out misquoted, didn’t they?

BTW, a tri-omni god (or even a bi-omni god) is self contradictory. You can look up the many threads we’ve had on this.
As for why Christians accept things - most of the literature they see supports their view. They have had it drummed into them since childhood. I accepted Judaism as a child in the same way - I went to Hebrew School, most of my friends were Jewish, even my grandfather, who I’m sure now was an atheist, just didn’t participate and never said anything against it. My eyes opened when I read the introduction to a Bible and found out who really wrote it. Why do so many people reject evolution, which is far easier to verify than atheism?
As for my, my PhD is in computer architecture, but I have read science, Biblical archeology, and books of philosophy on the subject, including Russell as well as more technical works. (Dawkins is pretty feeble in this area.) However, I know < 1% of what Dio knows about it.
And of course if you want to ask me to refute god, you need to specify which one, since there are many, many mutually contradictory definitions.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Galileo

“Laughably easy”?

As often happens in SDMB theism/atheism debates, an atheist makes a strong claim but does not provide evidence for that claim. It’s as if the only claim that needs evidence is the theist claim that God exists. Of course, I’m sure you realize that any claim can be called into question, including claims made by atheists.

I suggest that you provide a list of all arguments for any god and then provide refutations that are “fairly simple”, and then provide a list of all arguments for the Christian god and provide evidence that the counterarguments to all of them are “laughably easy”.

If you’re not prepared to do that, I suggest you retract your claims. If you don’t provide support for your claims and you don’t retract them, then all you’ve presented is hyperbole.

And, of course, it is not up to me to provide a counterargument to your claims. I don’t accept your claims – please provide support for them.

While you’re at it, please provide a concise, coherent explanation of why there are intelligent, educated Christians – paying particular attention to why they accept something that is so easy to refute – and please point me to scientific evidence that supports your explanation, preferably based on research that you have done yourself on the topic.

This is ridiculous. Atheists don’t have to do your own work for you. Post up your best, strongest, most unassailable arguments/evidence and I will effortlessly destroy them. The burden is on you to prove your claims. We don’t have to try to imagine your own arguments for you. Put up or shut up.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Galileo

How about the Jefferson Bible - The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth?

Fine. Go be that kind of Christian and trouble us no more with this “God” stuff.

[Novelty_Bobble]

@Galileo

“Laughably easy”?

As often happens in SDMB theism/atheism debates, an atheist makes a strong claim but does not provide evidence for that claim. It’s as if the only claim that needs evidence is the theist claim that God exists. Of course, I’m sure you realize that any claim can be called into question, including claims made by atheists.

I suggest that you provide a list of all arguments for any god and then provide refutations that are “fairly simple”, and then provide a list of all arguments for the Christian god and provide evidence that the counterarguments to all of them are “laughably easy”.

Heck, I can have a go at that.
There really is no need to make it complicated (though of course that is the whole point of theology) The claims for the existence of a Christian god are asserted without evidence, I have yet to hear a claim that was otherwise, therefore they can be safely rejected without further thought. I think that is “laughably easy”

While you’re at it, please provide a concise, coherent explanation of why there are intelligent, educated Christians – paying particular attention to why they accept something that is so easy to refute – and please point me to scientific evidence that supports your explanation, preferably based on research that you have done yourself on the topic.

Don’t recall anyone suggesting you can’t have intelligent, educated Christians. Pretty sure we all would agree that intelligent and educated people can believe in some strange things. Look at Einstein and that whole cosmological constant nonsense.

The explanation is in the complex nature of human consciousness, pattern seeking behaviour, confirmation bias or any of a myriad intellectual frailties we are all prone to.
As it happens, there have been plenty of scientific studies on precisely these kind of subjects as I am sure you are well aware.

And are you sure you want to go down the path of only accepting evidence derived from research carried out first hand by the individual poster? Because that is going to slow up debate to a crawl and the funding issues are going to be a bitch.

[Czarcasm]

@Galileo

“Laughably easy”?

As often happens in SDMB theism/atheism debates, an atheist makes a strong claim but does not provide evidence for that claim. It’s as if the only claim that needs evidence is the theist claim that God exists. Of course, I’m sure you realize that any claim can be called into question, including claims made by atheists.

I suggest that you provide a list of all arguments for any god and then provide refutations that are “fairly simple”, and then provide a list of all arguments for the Christian god and provide evidence that the counterarguments to all of them are “laughably easy”.

If you’re not prepared to do that, I suggest you retract your claims. If you don’t provide support for your claims and you don’t retract them, then all you’ve presented is hyperbole.

And, of course, it is not up to me to provide a counterargument to your claims. I don’t accept your claims – please provide support for them.

While you’re at it, please provide a concise, coherent explanation of why there are intelligent, educated Christians – paying particular attention to why they accept something that is so easy to refute – and please point me to scientific evidence that supports your explanation, preferably based on research that you have done yourself on the topic.

Are you actually falling back on that old “Prove there isn’t a God!” dodge? The standing claim is that there is no solid evidence for God, and the only proper responses are either to agree that there isn’t, or provide solid evidence that there is.

[Der_Trihs]

@Voyager

A book that says we should be atheists because people who believe in god do horrible things is no more rational than the book which says we should believe in god because people who do so do good things.

I disagree. In both cases it’s a sensible argument if you buy the premises; avoiding doing awful things and doing good things are both rational reasons to follow a particular philosophy.

Such a pro-religious religious book fails in this case because it’s factually wrong; it says you should believe in a lie, and being religious doesn’t make you any nicer than being non-religious. While the atheist book comes off better because it’s arguing you should believe the truth, and religion really does make people do awful things on a regular basis.

[monavis]

@Gyrate

One could argue that according to the Big Bang Theory the universe “existed” before there was a time or place for it to exist in. The limitations we run into are more about our ability to conceive of and describe what a timeless spaceless existence (if “existence” is even the right word) would be like, than about the universe and/or God’s ability to do so under such theories.

This of course can be the truth, but existence must have always been. If there is no existence than nothing can be in existence, Not even the universe, Non- existence is just that! What isn’t in existence is nothing!

[monavis]

@Galileo

I was being fair by pointing out that it’s not just theists who base some of their ideas and beliefs on something other than direct experience and the scientific method.

I agree with you. The idea that there are many people who say they believe in a God are no more moral than a non-believer.Were this so, we wouldn’t need to have prisons or police forces.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Anyone done any studies on recidivism of prison converts?

[Galileo]

@Voyager

Laughably easy refers only to arguments for the Christian god. Cosmological arguments, arguments from necessity and the like are all arguments for some god, which is not at all evident.
The best argument I know for the Christian God is the resurrection, for which historical support is sorely lacking, as we’ve seen. The necessity of Christ for salvation is total nonsense with no OT justification, as evidenced by the fact Jews (which was my faith) see absolutely no need for it - and our leaders read the Bible in the original language.
Besides these, I’m quite at a loss to state any reasons for Christianity, never having drank the kool-aid. Lord, liar, lunatic? They left out misquoted, didn’t they?

Are you now saying that counterarguments to cosmological arguments are not “fairly simple”?

And, these are your counterarguments that are laughably easy: That there’s no historical support for the resurrection, that Jews (who still believe in a god, right?) don’t accept Christianity, and that “your leaders” (seriously, do you have leaders?) are, what, the only ones who read the Bible in the original language? Well, I guess that does it. I’m sure that no Christian has ever thought about it that way. They must all be stumped right now. They must be saying: “Damn, we’ve been wrong for 2,000 years! That is so funny! Good thing we have Voyager to show us the error of our ways.”

You first referred to “arguments for the Christian god”, but you’ve now changed it to two arguments that you know, and then you admit that you don’t know very many of the reasons for Christianity. It seems that you are in no position to comment on how easy the counterarguments are. Are you willing to retract your claim that they are “laughably easy”?

As for why Christians accept things - most of the literature they see supports their view. They have had it drummed into them since childhood.

I didn’t ask you why Christians accept things – I asked you for a concise, coherent explanation of why there are intelligent, educated Christians. Also, the “since childhood” riff is not an explanation. Why were the parents Christians, and their parents, and so on? It’s clear that you got nuttin’.

And of course if you want to ask me to refute god, you need to specify which one, since there are many, many mutually contradictory definitions.

I didn’t ask you to “refute god”. I asked you to support your claims:
Claim #1. All the attempts at rational arguments for any god are fairly simple to refute
Claim #2. The arguments for the Christian god as a special case for a god are laughably easy to refute.

You have not provided support for your claims. But, thanks for trying.

[Galileo]

@Novelty_Bobble

There really is no need to make it complicated (though of course that is the whole point of theology) The claims for the existence of a Christian god are asserted without evidence, I have yet to hear a claim that was otherwise, therefore they can be safely rejected without further thought. I think that is “laughably easy”

I see. More unsupported claims.

Okay, it gets a bit confusing when someone is making a claim about claims, but this is what you said:

1. The claims for the existence of a Christian god are asserted without evidence.
2. I have yet to hear a claim that was otherwise.
3. Therefore they can be safely rejected without further thought.

Please provide support for Statement #1.
For Statement #2, I can’t dispute what you claim to have heard, so I’ll just suggest that you Google “evidence of god” and take a look at some of the hits. The point isn’t whether you accept the evidence, but it’s obvious that there are many Christians who claim that there is evidence for God (making #1 false), and once you look at some of the sites, statement #2 will become false. You can, of course, choose to remain ignorant (and #2 remains true) but I’m guessing you’ll take a look.

Since #1 and #2 are false, your conclusion in #3 is not supported.

The explanation is in the complex nature of human consciousness, pattern seeking behaviour, confirmation bias or any of a myriad intellectual frailties we are all prone to.

Not bad, but I’m looking for a bit more detail. Your explanation is a bit like explaining the weather by referring to the sun, air pressure, and humidity. Close, but some of the factors are missing, and the key to a coherent explanation is how those factors work specifically and how they interact.

And are you sure you want to go down the path of only accepting evidence derived from research carried out first hand by the individual poster? Because that is going to slow up debate to a crawl and the funding issues are going to be a bitch.

I didn’t insist on first-hand research. I said “preferably”. As it turns out, you’ve provided no research or evidence.