# Best Responses to New Atheists **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 1, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682 "2010-10-01T02:09:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/181 "2010-10-04T15:50:05Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Yes, it is a positive argument. Positive means “explicity stated or explained”, according to my dictionary. Dawkins explicity states that he has a reason why I should believe that God almost certainly does not exist. I took “positive argument” to mean “an argument to support a position” (vs one that works against the opposite position). Which also appears to be how you used in the original post. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/182 "2010-10-04T15:58:34Z")
> [@Superfluous Parentheses](#): > > And for this. A direct quote for Dawkins endorsing multiple universes? Will do. On page 174, in addressing the argument from fine-tuning of the universe, and after dismissing other answers as unsatisfactory, he says: “This objection can be answered, by the suggestion, which Martin Rees himself supports, that there are many universes coexisting like bubbles of foam in a multiverse. The laws and constants of any one universe, such as our observable universe, are by-laws. The multiverse as a whole has a plethora of alternative sets of by-laws.” Defenders can, of course, try to insist that by including words like suggestion and hypothesis, he’s not actually arguing in favor of the existence of a multiverse, but since it’s the only alternative he offers to a designer to explain the fine-tuning, it’s clear that he is doing exactly that. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/183 "2010-10-04T15:58:45Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > What are you asking me to _explain_ here? There is a great deal of scintifically derived information on the cultural and evolutionary reasons for humans having a taboo on murder. > > All that demonstrates is that there are sociological advantages to not murdering anyone. That doesn’t answer the question of whether murder is right or wrong. > > “But murder is bad for society!” one might say. Perhaps that’s true, but it doesn’t answer the question of right or wrong. After all, why should you place the welfare of society above your own personal desires? Because they are ultimately the same thing, since you don’t want to be murdered. Almost no one does. That’s a perfectly sufficient reason to consider murder wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/184 "2010-10-04T16:10:13Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Defenders can, of course, try to insist that by including words like suggestion and hypothesis, he’s not actually arguing in favor of the existence of a multiverse, but since it’s the only alternative he offers to a designer to explain the fine-tuning, it’s clear that he is doing exactly that. It’s not an alternative explanation, since a designer doesn’t explain anything. What fine tuned whatever laws permit the designer to exist? And as is often pointed out in these discussions, “God” isn’t an explanation, it’s an attempt to silence any attempt at an explanation. And it’s silly for you to harp on multiple universes, since they are vastly more plausible than your silly god, for reasons already outlined. They don’t violate physics, we already see an example of one, it doesn’t violate logic and so on; as opposed “God”, which has none of that. Your physics ignoring, evidence free, logically contradictory barbarian myth has zero chance of being true. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/185 "2010-10-04T16:10:21Z")
According to [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_van_H.), Manfred van H. (a.k.a. Mahavo) was sentenced to one year in prison for blasphemy (the specific enumerated crime was “defamation of religious convictions in a manner suitable to disturb the public peace”) in Germany in 2006. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/186 "2010-10-04T16:17:33Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > > [@Superfluous Parentheses](#): > > > > And for this. > > A direct quote for Dawkins endorsing multiple universes? Will do. On page 174, in addressing the argument from fine-tuning of the universe, and after dismissing other answers as unsatisfactory, he says: “This objection can be answered, by the suggestion, which Martin Rees himself supports, that there are many universes coexisting like bubbles of foam in a multiverse. The laws and constants of any one universe, such as our observable universe, are by-laws. The multiverse as a whole has a plethora of alternative sets of by-laws.” Defenders can, of course, try to insist that by including words like suggestion and hypothesis, he’s not actually arguing in favor of the existence of a multiverse, but since it’s the only alternative he offers to a designer to explain the fine-tuning, it’s clear that he is doing exactly that. I’m sorry. This is your original quote: “they’re big one multiple universes. Dawkins tells that a very large number exist.” that’s not the same as arguing in favor of a multiverse theory. Also, in the last section of that chapter [p188], it says “some kind of multiverse theory could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for biology”. That’s a far cry from claiming a multiverse theory is true. Of course Dawkins _likes_ the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/187 "2010-10-04T16:21:00Z")
Nor is the idea of explaining “fine tuning” and other features of the universe via multiple universes original to Dawkins for that matter, it came out of the physics community. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/188 "2010-10-04T16:36:45Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > > [@FuzzyOgre](#): > > > > Its not the atheism that is new. Whats new is that religious hardliners can no longer lock people up, run them out of town(for the most part) or worse: such things as burning them at the stake. > > How exactly is that “new”? Are you implying that religious hardliners could “lock people up, run them out of town, or burn them at the stake” ten years ago? Or a hundred or two hundred? If so, you’re flat wrong. (In England & USA, just so you don’t resort to the desperate tactic of pointing to places like Afghanistan.) So again, please explain what you meant by this statement. > [@](#): > > …the last person to be jailed in the United States for blasphemy was Abner Kneeland in 1838, as decided by the Massachusetts case Commonwealth v. Kneeland… [Cite](http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Blasphemy). Why would pointing out that there are blasphemy laws all over the world be “desperate”? If you’ve paid any attention, you’ll see my cites upthread that people in Western Europe have been sentenced to prison this century, as recently as 2006. Even your own bullshit standards, England and the US in the last two centuries, both fail on the record. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/189 "2010-10-04T18:08:42Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@JThunder](#): > > > > All that demonstrates is that there are sociological advantages to not murdering anyone. That doesn’t answer the question of whether murder is right or wrong. > > > > “But murder is bad for society!” one might say. Perhaps that’s true, but it doesn’t answer the question of right or wrong. After all, why should you place the welfare of society above your own personal desires? > > Because they are ultimately the same thing, since you don’t want to be murdered. Almost no one does. That’s a perfectly sufficient reason to consider murder wrong. Nonsense. You may not want to be murdered, but that fact alone doesn’t make murder wrong. No criminal wants to be caught, and no child wants to be disciplined, yet we recognize that such acts are desirable. Moreover, **Dio** ’s claim was that there are scientific reasons why murder is wrong, and he implicitly appealed to the good of society. This whole argument presupposes that one _should_ do what’s best for society though, a claim that has not be justified scientifically. Therein lies the folly of insisting that science tells us what is right and what is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/190 "2010-10-04T19:09:02Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > Because they are ultimately the same thing, since you don’t want to be murdered. Almost no one does. That’s a perfectly sufficient reason to consider murder wrong. > > Nonsense. You may not want to be murdered, but that fact alone doesn’t make murder wrong. No criminal wants to be caught, and no child wants to be disciplined, yet we recognize that such acts are desirable. > > Moreover, **Dio** ’s claim was that there are scientific reasons why murder is wrong, and he implicitly appealed to the good of society. This whole argument presupposes that one _should_ do what’s best for society though, a claim that has not be justified scientifically. Therein lies the folly of insisting that science tells us what is right and what is wrong. I’m curious how **you** go about “proving” that murder is wrong. Hint: “god doesn’t like it” is not sufficient; how would you know that whatever god doesn’t like is wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/191 "2010-10-04T19:10:54Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > > [@Superfluous Parentheses](#): > > > > And for this. > > A direct quote for Dawkins endorsing multiple universes? Will do. On page 174, in addressing the argument from fine-tuning of the universe, and after dismissing other answers as unsatisfactory, he says: “This objection can be answered, by the suggestion, which Martin Rees himself supports, that there are many universes coexisting like bubbles of foam in a multiverse. The laws and constants of any one universe, such as our observable universe, are by-laws. The multiverse as a whole has a plethora of alternative sets of by-laws.” Defenders can, of course, try to insist that by including words like suggestion and hypothesis, he’s not actually arguing in favor of the existence of a multiverse, but since it’s the only alternative he offers to a designer to explain the fine-tuning, it’s clear that he is doing exactly that. He’s saying it would be a plausible _explanation_, which it would be. He’s not saying it’s been proven. It doesn’t have to be proven to refute the God hypothesis, it only has to be physically possible which it is. “God” does not have that going for it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/192 "2010-10-04T19:14:48Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > What are you asking me to _explain_ here? There is a great deal of scintifically derived information on the cultural and evolutionary reasons for humans having a taboo on murder. > > All that demonstrates is that there are sociological advantages to not murdering anyone. That doesn’t answer the question of whether murder is right or wrong. That’s not a question with any empirical meaning. “right and wrong” have no objective existence. The question has no answer. It’s also got nothing to do with offering a better method than science for discovering information about the universe, which is what I asked for. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/193 "2010-10-04T19:20:20Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > > [@JThunder](#): > > > > Nonsense. You may not want to be murdered, but that fact alone doesn’t make murder wrong. No criminal wants to be caught, and no child wants to be disciplined, yet we recognize that such acts are desirable. > > > > Moreover, **Dio** ’s claim was that there are scientific reasons why murder is wrong, and he implicitly appealed to the good of society. This whole argument presupposes that one _should_ do what’s best for society though, a claim that has not be justified scientifically. Therein lies the folly of insisting that science tells us what is right and what is wrong. > > I’m curious how **you** go about “proving” that murder is wrong. Hint: “god doesn’t like it” is not sufficient; how would you know that whatever god doesn’t like is wrong? I would hope that he wouldn’t go about using God in such a manner, as doing so would be just as subjective and arbitrary as choosing yourself as the ultimate arbiter of morality. Instead, one could argue that in order for a society to function, there must be some moral ‘rules’ to follow. The rules are based on what is optimal for the society to function, to thrive, etc. Is it ultimately ‘good’ for a society to thrive? I don’t know - I’m not sure that such objective values exist. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for them to, though, since value is very subjective. What I can say is that the optimal moral features of a society to thrive are objective in the sense that they can be measured. If your society approves of wanton murder, for instance, then it probably wouldn’t thrive. I should note that ‘thriving’ would be based on quality of life and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/194 "2010-10-04T19:21:17Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > Because they are ultimately the same thing, since you don’t want to be murdered. Almost no one does. That’s a perfectly sufficient reason to consider murder wrong. > > Nonsense. You may not want to be murdered, but that fact alone doesn’t make murder wrong. No criminal wants to be caught, and no child wants to be disciplined, yet we recognize that such acts are desirable. > > Moreover, **Dio** ’s claim was that there are scientific reasons why murder is wrong, and he implicitly appealed to the good of society. You must be mistaking my posts for someone else’s, I didn’t say either one of these things (though I don’t object to the second one). I said that it is possible to examine and explicate the biological and cultural reasons that humans form moral codes and usuaally have (highly qualified) taboos on murder. I didn’t say anything about murder being “right or wrong.” Those are not scientific terms and have no empirical meaning or existence other than descriptors for (biologically evolved) emotional responses and for legal codes. In other words, we can use science to figure out why humans have an aversion to murder (and that’s all “wrong” really amounts to). We don’t have any other reliable method for discovering information than science. If you think there’s a better method, or even an equal method, I’m open to hearing what it is. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/195 "2010-10-04T19:35:42Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > We don’t have any other reliable method for discovering information than science. How are you defining science? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/196 "2010-10-04T19:39:28Z")
Actually, “murder” is wrong by definition. “Murder” is killing that flouts societal rules about killing human beings. Killing human beings, in and of itself, cannot be objectively called _wrong_ or _right_. ---
**Author:** ![Fantome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Fantome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fantome)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/197 "2010-10-04T19:48:03Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > You must be mistaking my posts for someone else’s No, he’s pulled that shit before; he knows what he’s doing. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/198 "2010-10-04T19:50:40Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > We don’t have any other reliable method for discovering information than science. > > How are you defining science? The normal way. Science is a method for acquiring information – empirical research and the accumulated knowledge derived from it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/199 "2010-10-04T19:52:15Z")
> [@Fantome](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > You must be mistaking my posts for someone else’s > > No, he’s pulled that shit before; he knows what he’s doing. Show me where I said either of the things I deny having said. It should be pretty easy. Go to it. ---
**Author:** ![Fantome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Fantome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fantome)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/200 "2010-10-04T19:55:19Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@Fantome](#): > > > > No, he’s pulled that shit before; he knows what he’s doing. > > Show me where I said either of the things I deny having said. It should be pretty easy. Go to it. I was talking about **JThunder** , not you. He’s twisted what others have said before to argue against a straw man. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682.md?page=11)