Human life being the result of accidents, rather than the creation of a divine creator?
Are those the only choices you can imagine?
Let’s try a thought experiment: it’s proven, through some combination of theory or scientific experimentation, that your god doesn’t exist. Does that mean your life has no value and there’s no reason to spare you?
As for hostility, you probably should expect that from a group who you are proposing to exterminate. You would probably be quite hostile if somebody argued that theists should be killed off to ensure that their overly credulous genes were not propagated, for the betterment of the human species.
First you said that atheists believe we’re here purely by accident. I point out that we evolved and fought our way to this lofty position, and so you moved the goalposts. As has been said, though- it’s irrelevant. We are *not *here strictly by chance, so saying that atheists believe human life is an accident and therefore worthless is a non-starter.
And even if we *are *purely accidental… so what? That doesn’t make it any less precious to us, individually. Why is it suddenly worth more when we’re given it on a silver platter?
Look, it’s very clear that you don’t understand how atheists think, so why do you keep trying to tell us what we think? Maybe instead of telling us, *we *should tell *you [/I- without you constantly telling us that our position is not convincing. When it comes to our motivations, your opinion isn’t worth the pixels it’s printed on.
And like others, I’m quite baffled as to the point of this thread. Why are you asking us to argue against someone else, but to convince you?
I, and plenty of others, can give you rational arguments, but they won’t be atheist arguments, as in arguments derived from a philosophy called atheism, but instead individual arguments from individual atheists. Again, atheism starts and ends at the lack of belief in gods.
A similiar offer was made by iiandyiiii in post #119.
Your claim that, humans can’t be said to have “clawed their way up the evolutionary ladder” because they benefited from natural catastrophes. At best, you’re trying to interpret **Lightnin’**s post in an unreasonably narrow way. I’m not sure what you hope to achieve with this tangent.
Since you are the one presenting the arguments here, filtered through your lenses, it is certainly appropriate to know what your personal beliefs are about atheists and atheism, what your definitions are for those two terms, because any message we give you to send back to your Muslim acquaintances will certainly be filtered through those same lenses.
What is you definition of, and beliefs about, atheism?
edited to add: The only other reasonable alternative is to have your Muslim acquaintances post on this board and speak for themselves.
I don’t know how you have concluded I “have” a god. Because, for the sake of the squeezing an answer from the surprising hesitants (who otherwise regard themselves as brave enough to face the truth), I have been analyzing atheists’ views critically? But this is preposterous. If I were a contemporary politician who criticizes contemporary politicians, would that exclude me from the category of contemporary politicians.
And isn’t it possible for one to discuss a person’s idea without judging the person himself? In the name of intellectual chivalry?
This is really frustrating. I am proposing to exterminate atheists? I’ve been stating repeatedly that I’m interesting in this subject expressly because I would like to be more proficient in my debates against those who condone terrorists. Why does my story seem reliable? Because I sound to critical to atheism? But haven’t I been clear that I look for better arguments than mine? Am I not supposed to test what I’m offered from the perspective of those I will be debating against? Well, I have expected too much probably.
You haven’t the foggiest idea what atheists think. That makes it unlikely you’re an atheist.
You want a rational argument for why Muslim terrorists shouldn’t kill atheists?
Okay, let’s start from the premises that your interlocutors laid out:
According to you, they believe that: “From an atheist point of view, human life does not have an absolute meaning or value. … Therefore, killing an atheist would not be worse than killing a bug, from the perspective of the atheist himself.”
However, the question for a would-be Muslim terrorist is not “Is this killing allowed within my potential victim’s moral system?” The question is “Is this killing allowed within MY moral system?”
After all, the would-be Muslim terrorist thinks the atheist is full of shit. From the would-be Muslim terrorist’s point of view, the atheist is gravely mistaken about the nature of reality and therefore any moral judgements derived from this mistaken view of reality are worthless.
So it doesn’t make any sense for a W-bMT to say “I can kill atheists because atheists say human life has no value!” It’s no different than saying “I can steal from the retarded girl because she doesn’t know stealing is wrong!” Stealing from someone is wrong even if the person you’re stealing from doesn’t realize that it is.
There are tons of rational arguments that an atheist life should be spared, including those that you offered to your Muslim friends in your original post.
But there is no argument that is universal to atheists – because the only thing universal to atheists is the lack of belief in gods. There is no single “atheist morality” – there are many. We would be happy to discuss some of our individual moral systems, if you’d like. But you have to accept that the assumptions about atheists you’ve expressed so far at least don’t appear to apply to any of the atheists in this thread so far, and probably don’t apply to many atheists in the real world at all.
Here’s a chance to clarify matters: Do you?
If so, which one?
Most people believe themselves to be rational. It’s not always true.
Again, you can’t logically argue somebody out of a position they didn’t arrive at logically. And that’s really your problem.
You want somebody to provide a rational argument against a position based on irrational and erroneous assumptions. How is that supposed to work?
Also, haven’t we already done a dozen variations on this topic? Why not start there?
Atheism is what people have already stated here in this thread. Atheists’ beliefs are of interest of me only if I can obtain what I asked for in the OP - the rational arguments that an atheist’s life should be spared. I for one, obviously, think it should, duh, but what I feel I lack is a solid reservoir of rational arguments to use in my occasional debates.
I don’t think we discuss atheism if we stray away to far from this question. And if this is all I can get, I’m okay with it, I’m not blaming anyone except myself.
The problem is the irrationality of the arguments (as you present them) of your Muslim friends. Their beliefs about atheists are wrong, their logic is wrong, and their conclusions are wrong. Unless these things can be corrected, then there is no way to argue with them.
Your Muslim friends say this about atheists (from your OP):
Every single sentence is incorrect for the vast majority of atheists. They are totally and completely wrong about atheists. The only way to argue with them is to correct their misunderstandings about atheists.
I’ve done a search, but the results I obtained apparently did not address my question. I will study the threads you indicate, plus another one mentioned by Grey, and make a statement. In the meantime, thank you.
Why do you continue to ask why atheists, as a whole, should be spared when you have repeatedly been told that the ONLY thing atheists have in common is a disbelief in gods? What part of “No common philosophy” are you having trouble understanding? Would you ask this question of all left-handed people? Would you inquire about the shared political beliefs of blondes?
Valid points, and very likely this is the reason why this matter is difficult. Identifying a rational argument that can be embraced by the totality of atheists is virtually impossible since they hold innumerable moral systems, which makes them easy to target by more homogeneous groups.
Theists aren’t particularly homogenous in their innumerable views.