This one and the “where do you get your morals from” are most annoying to me.
It certainly is an argument that is trivially turned on its head. (As I did with my quip at the end of my post.)
And, yeah, it’s like the morality argument, and Grumman’s observation that it carries undesired implications about the person making it. These are shallow arguments. They’re “talking points” or gotchas, but they pop like soap bubbles when examined.
I say report the mods, too!
As a theist/Xian, I find Pascal’s wager and Lewis’ “Lord, liar, or lunatic” argument the most annoying. If there’s a deity who cares if people believe in him/her, do you think this supreme being would be fooled by someone claiming to believe just to avoid the possibility of eternal torment? And I’m supposed to believe that texts written 40 or more years after the J-man died are supposed to be accurate regarding what he said? I suspect these arguments would get you laughed out of theology 101 in any mainline divinity school in the country. FWIW, I ain’t got no quarrel with atheists. I’ve got a major quarrel with anyone who doesn’t treat his/her fellow human beings and planet with respect.
I always use Homer’s Corollary to Pascal’s Wager; “Suppose we’ve chosen the wrong god? Every time we go to church we’re just making him madder and madder.” What if when you die you hear in the unctuous tone of a game show host “Oh I’m sorry, Zeus is the God we were looking for, Zeus was the correct answer. But as a lovely parting gift, welcome to Tartarus.” You’d feel pretty foolish then, I bet.
I ticked a few, but my personal annoyance is the Ontological Proof, as often touted (in its Modal form) by the late Liberal - “God must exist because he’s the greatest ever!”, with enough extra layers of “possibly necessary” and “necessarily possible” to give it that veneer of real philosophy. Blech!
They’re all awful, but the most infuriating I’ve seen is the creationist codswollop that scientists know nothing about primordial origins because “they weren’t there.” Disgusting, especially when taught to children.
For alliteration’s sake I usually counter this with another L-word: Legend. There was probably a real preacher named Jesus who said a bunch of stuff and then had a bunch of OT prophesies attached to him as well as an assortment of other common myths, which were blended through a few decades of retelling and then eventually written down in a neat story. Legen…wait for it…dary.
For me the least annoying one is the “personal relationship with Jesus” comment. I’m perfectly fine letting people believe whatever works for them as long as they’re not harming or harassing anyone else. Expecting me to get a personal relationship with Jesus too…that’s another thing entirely.
ETA: Huh. Having now read the link it seems I’m far from the first to go with the “legend” angle. Great minds etc etc.
Oh my yes.
The rhetorical equivalent of putting one’s fingers in one’s ears and going “lalalalalalala” while bursting with pride over the willful ignorance.
I think I was 12 when I read about Pascal’s wager, and my first thought was how completely effed up that argument was.
The morality one, of course, is completely non-sensical to me for reasons obvious to the SDMB folk (i.e., what, is fear of God the only thing keeping you from taking out a school bus of children?) Luckily, I’ve never encountered that as a serious rejoinder in my (limited) discussions on theism vs. atheism. The “no atheists in foxholes” is also particularly annoying to me for somewhat related reasons, assuming that everyone must have the mindset that the only thing in the time of stress and fear of dying that brings comfort to all is a belief in a higher power, and then when presented with such a high-stress, high-risk situation for the first time, all atheists will renounce their ways and turn to this higher power.
Assuming I am just as logical, critical, and empathetic toward humanity as I am now, the added belief in a deity would not silence my logic, my critique, or my empathy.
I would still wake up each day facing massive income inequalities, lingering racism and mistreatment of women, rampant substance abuse, poverty and drug-driven crime, wars, mass political imprisonment, loneliness, hunger, and preventable disease epidemics, and suffering and pointless death all across the globe.
I would also be quite miffed at the ineffectiveness of my prayers.
I find this one noteworthy.
Noticing how the Bible is chock full of direct, visible miracles from a personal god that literally appears to people, talks to them, threatens them, rains plagues and death upon them, it’s funny to me that I’m supposed to accept all of these theistic claims on faith, when no one, literally no one in the Bible had to accept any theistic claims on faith.
Ever since recording and photographing devices were invented, God’s miracles seem to have utterly vanished from the earth, along with dragons, faeries, leprechauns, and Bigfoot.
If God were physically observable, then it would be a matter of science, not faith. God would then be part of the natural and physical universe, not just the supernatural (aka imaginary) one, and then I would be rather easily persuaded of his existence.
As to the morals require a deity thing, I think I’m far less likely to be killed by a closed minded atheist than by a closed minded, Bible thumping, fundamentalist. The people I’ve known with the most messed up morals have always been the most adamant true believers. Claiming that without God there is no morality is denying everyday reality.
I’m a theist, so I only voted for the last one, but I find a lot of these arguments tired as well. Personally, I think the whole idea of trying to convince someone else that God exists is not only generally borderline impossible, but it’s pointless. Personally, I think we’re more called to live as well, as morally, with as much love as we can, and and all the rest behind that is ultimately the small stuff. So, I guess that despite that I am a theist, I’d tend to agree with Marcus Aurelius’s assessment to, paraphrasing, live a good life, and a just God won’t care how devout you’ve been.
That all said, I still find some arguments that I hear particularly annoying. Some of them are just a matter of trying to relate a personal experience, which I can’t blame someone too much for trying, since we all do that in some matter or another. It’s not much different than when someone loves a song or a movie or a book or a show and someone else doesn’t and they try to convince them how awesome it is by relating how it moved them. So that one, while obviously not very good, doesn’t really annoy me.
I think the one that annoys me the most is quoting scripture. It begs the question, because it’s only convincing if you already believe that the source of the scripture is authoritative. Worse, when it is quoted, it’s usually something threatening, like how non-believers will face torment, which is about the worst way to present God. I’m not the least bit surprised that so many atheists are turned off by scripture if that’s how it’s so often presented to them.
I also am annoyed when I hear someone use Pascal’s wager, mostly because I think it’s emphasizing the worst reasons to have faith. I don’t believe in God because I hope to get rewarded in the afterlife. In fact, if the only reason you believe is because you want to be rewarded in the afterlife or you’re afraid of eternal punishment for not believing. It makes God look vindictive, and it makes it look like faith is about fear and that morality is based on that fear, rather than love. Personally, I don’t even really believe in an afterlife, so I find the whole argument rather pointless anyway.
And on that same line, I also find the moral argument annoying because while I believe the nature of God is that he is morally perfect, or at least so close to it compared to our perspective that we cannot discern it, but the idea that he is the arbiter of morality and the sole source of it is ridiculous. All morality is is how we decide what is right and wrong, it’s not just some set of random rules, and morality is derived from knowledge and wisdom which, even as man becomes more knowledgable and wise, we can asymptotically approach a perfect morality, whether or not God actually exists. That is, God’s perfect morality derives from his omniscience. And the idea that, while perhaps well intentioned, we can necessarily understand a morality derived from omniscience, and that it can be so simply summarized seems to miss the point that it’s not about just following a set of rules laid out for us, but working toward discovering the minutiae. So, really, it seems to me that this whole argument arises out of a fundamental misunderstanding of what morality even is.
The finally one I find particularly annoying is the “angry at God” argument. Yes, I’ve met a few people who claim to be atheists who seem to have a huge amount of anger toward God and religion as a whole. But not being that person, how can I assert that I know better what they really believe and what they really feel than they do? I could actually appreciate that idea that there are a few people out there who actually are “pretending” to be an atheist because they’re angry at God, but so what? I don’t think that’s a majority or even a significant fraction, and I think a lot of the anger that a theist might think is directed at God is really just directed at something else and they’re just assuming motives. Hell, I’ve met a handful of theists who are surprisingly angry people; some people are just angry people for whatever reason. Overwhelmingly, the people in my life that are atheists aren’t angry, they just plain don’t believe, and they’re generally pretty cool talking about religion. And while I do know one or two that I can’t have a religious discussion with, I know at least as many religious people I can’t either. So, if I were to have a discussion with someone I didn’t know about religion, how could I possibly be so arrogant to believe I know more about what they think and feel and why than they do, when I know nothing about them?
After all that, I’m still bothered by any based on logical fallacies, like “billions of people can’t be wrong”, but at least those don’t basically assume that somehow an atheist is less of a person than a theist or utterly misrepresents the ideas behind faith.
Excellent post, Blaster Master.
Well, for what it’s worth, your post was the first I’d ever heard of it, so I’ll give you full credit…'cause I am gonna make use of it from now onward! Thank you for it!
I kinda like that. I try to follow his teachings as I understand them, and if were proven he never existed it wouldn’t change how I live my life. Also, the morals argument is totally repugnant. I know plenty of moral atheists.
BTW, I don’t believe in the god many atheists reject either; to me it more of a ground of being. And if you don’t believe in that either, no harm done.
My favorite response to Pascal’s Wager is to take it further: if you base your beliefs on maximizing your rewards as a function of what you have to ante up, why settle for mere eternal life in heaven?
Why not a religion that offers something here and now? Or more than just life in the hereafter (like virgins and stuff)? Or how about a warranty? The Church of the Subgenius offers eternal salvation, or triple your money back. By the reasoning of Pascal’s Wager, these are clearly superior religions to Christianity.
One of my favorite annoying arguments: “I concede that you know more about Christianity than I do. That proves you’re not really an atheist! If you’re an atheist, why did you learn so much about Christianity? My relative ignorance defeats your superior knowledge!”
You can do that and be a Christian, if you’re willing to bend the rules a bit: Prosperity Gospel.