The good atheist arguments IMO generally fall into the following categories:
The problem of evil
Eutrophyro’s Dilemma and the fact that God (if the Scriptures are true) committed or commanded actions that would be considered morally objectionable by many
Some seemingly contradictory Bible verses
I think it helps for atheists (at least for those who wish to argue against theists) to study Christian theology (or whatever other religion they intend to focus on). I was glad to find in Robert G. Ingersoll an agnostic who could actually see the difference between a Catholic and a Presbyterian.
I always thought ‘the problem of evil’ to be horribly simplistic and flawed (never mind often wrongly attributed). For starters how can you apply human concepts of evil and morality to a God?
Again, human concepts of morality clashing with God’s doesn’t disprove him.
The idea that the Bible is the untouchable Word of God is a human idea isn’t it? I mean does it say in The Bible “This is the Word of God”? (Even though that would have a problem too)
Now if by ‘good atheist arguments’ you mean 'arguments against the common American ideas of God and Christianity: “All-knowing, All-Good, Perfect, Jesus is God and vice-versa, the Bible is written by men touched by the mind of God”
And all the stupid crap that people take upon themselves to be blasphemies…then I agree.
But that touches on yet another annoying Atheist argument: “More interested in making people look stupid and scoring points than having an honest conversation”
Pretty much. I still don’t like loaded questions as a debate tactic though lol. They tend to just convolute the discussion.
I’ve never found the “problem of evil” to be a particularly convincing argument. I’ve seen it characterized as, “Well if your gods so perfect, then why is there evil in the world?”
IMO, as far as good and evil goes, you can’t have one without the other, or you need to at least have one at the beginning and then only have one later. Otherwise you wouldn’t know the difference.
It doesn’t disprove the actual existence of deities in any way. Even if you’re just trying to prove that a theist’s god is not omnibenevolent, it’s still not a good tactic. Professionals can’t even agree on the definition of “omnibenevolent,” so why would YOU try and argue that something is or isn’t omnibenevolent.
Also, the “problem of evil” is quite simply explained by FREE WILL. A deity’s benevolence would not also be human’s benevolence.
In my mind that is a problematic argument based on some fallacious yin-yang thinking. After all by this logic you can’t say your life is good unless you’ve had your life threatened. It’d also imply Heaven would be less than perfect since evil would no longer exist.
As a Calvinist I find the explanation of divine soverignty more satisfying.
You don’t have to starve to know that hunger is bad.
All the free will in the world won’t help you avoid getting drowned by a tsunami. The problem of natural evil is far more interesting than that of human evil. Even with that, many people are limited in what they can do while still having free will. I don’t think any of us would stab an innocent baby. God could have prevented the mass murder impulse without harming much of our will at all.
It’s a basic example, but as you say, “it is more satisfying,” than some oversimplified “problem of evil” rant from an atheist. Also, why would your life need to be threatened for it to be good? The point is, “good” would have no meaningful use. Good is a comparison to something else, so if everything is good and has always been good, nobody would think that anything was good.
Explain to me precisely why “you can’t have good without evil” is a fallacious idea. Please.
I don’t think anything I said about free will contradicts Calvanism. Calvanism just takes it a step farther by saying we have inherently flawed morals, and God can choose to take mercy upon us if we repent for our sins.
I think you would. If no one was ever hungry, you wouldn’t know what starving was, let alone think that it was bad.
So now were personifying natural disasters as evil? In my mind, evil is inherently a human characteristic. All you have to do is take the “sovereign grace” approach to solve that one. Using this approach, God would say, “Yeah, I put you in a world with many hazards, deal with it.”
I don’t think this is necessary at all and requiring people to study it gives it undue legitimacy. Sure, it is what the theist like you to do as it tends to bog people down in the detail when the simplest questions have not even been addressed.
Theology exists only to muddy the waters because stripped of the fripperies all you are left with are a set of error-ridden allegorical/mythical/historical stories (delete as applicable to you and the zeitgeist) of dubious provenance and uncertain authorship that are used as a circular justification for their own divine provenance.
That is it.
The millennia since the bible’s construction has been an exercise in damage limitation and post-hoc justification and rationalisation to account for our increased, factual knowledge of the world and to plead the case for the bible’s relevance within it.
You don’t need a ThD to open your mouth, but attacking what you don’t understand is a bad sort of ignorance. You don’t want to tell people that Jesus said, “God hates fags” to the Apostles John, Paul, and Ringo.
I don’t think many atheists have landed on their theological stance without already having a decent knowledge of religion. I’ve always found atheists to be more knowledgeable than theists of religions in general. That’s usually because they were once devout theists themselves. You might be right in some practical sense, that once you are an atheist, why waste time studying something you know is wrong, but I think that’s part of the battle were in now.
Should gays have to study the Bible so that they know their opposition? They shouldn’t have to, but it will probably help.
Even in a more or less perfect world people would get hungry. People would have bad dates. People would fall down and scrape their knees and feel pain. But it wouldn’t have starvation and torture.
There you go. A god who dumps us in such a world is not omnibenevolent or even very benevolent - no more than a parent who dumps kids in a house with easily reachable poison, uncovered outlets, and sharp knives on the floor.
Evil doesn’t rule out gods - just gods worthy of our worship.
So you’re asking why not a MORE perfect world? A place where bad or evil things still exist, even if they only exist in our minds. A place that still falls into the category of “can’t have one without the other” because good and evil are essentially comparisons of each other.
Blame for starvation and torture could just as easily be placed on humans as it could be on a deity.
Using this premise, it is then also bad or evil that your mother brought you into this world knowing full well that there were myriad hazards you might face. If omnibenevolence is a prerequisite to worshiping a deity, then that is just your preference.
There is also no quantifiable way to claim that, just because natural disasters happen, that a deity is not still omnibenevolent or very benevolent.
Like I said, God could have made us without the capacity to torture without hurting our free will much at all. As for starvation, did he have to create blight? Today much starvation is our fault, but that was not the case in the past. He could have added an appendix with good farming practices to the Bible at least.
My mother did not have the power to protect me from all harm. She did the best she could - which was pretty good. God does. If you judge what god should do based on what humans can do, you need to judge God by human standards also.
Lots of Christians think God is omnibenevolent. The Greeks and the Norse would have laughed at such a concept. I don’t worship any deity because best I can figure out none exist.
God could have made a world where this stuff doesn’t happen. When it does happen, he could direct the waves away from places where hundred of thousands would die. Does he look down at the waves, shrug his shoulders, and go back to playing Monopoly because it would only interest a small circle of friends of the drowned, most of whom will be drowned too?
If you think god is a schmuck, it at least fits the facts better than god being good.
I suppose, but now your just playing god yourself by oversimplifying an action that takes many variables to actually take place. This is going to sound intuitively wrong, but I’m going to say it anyways. Without the capacity to torture, it may cause more harm than good; we don’t know. Also, it wouldn’t be “free will” if it had any kind of limitations, now would it?
Well now, God didn’t write the Bible himself did he? If he even had a hand in it all…
Who’s to say that disease and famine aren’t some kind of necessary evil? It’s very easy to think your parents are evil if they took your favorite blanky away when you were ten, because it was tattered and gross. On a cosmic or divine scale, we have a very arbitrary perspective of what’s right and wrong. Who are we to say how a deity should conduct himself?
I have a feeling they think that because they have been told that, and don’t truly understand what that word means, or what the implications are.
So in a world where a god allows natural disasters, because of reasons that would obviously be over our heads from this perspective, he is automatically not a good deity? I still don’t find that convincing, since we don’t know what the divine reasoning would be.
You are correct in many cases. Personally, I’ve never read the bible other than to read an odd quote in context. Crucial point is that I don’t consider myself an expert on the contents of the bible, i.e. Who said what, or begat who or annihilated which.
I 'd never argue on points of content and don’t care what people believe in their own heads. Only where their religious beliefs have an effect on others would I question them.
In those cases I prefer to turn the religious claims back on themselves.
If it says in the bible that “gay is bad” then ask “where does it say that? how is it worded, translated and in what context?”. you can also ask “what else is claimed as bad? Why do you not also adhere to that? how did you make that decision?”
You don’t need to know anything about the bible in order to do that and it keeps the burden of explanation and justification where it belongs.
One pretty clear argument is “Christians believe that out of the world’s 19 major religions, 18 of them are false religions. Atheists disbelieve in just 1 more.”