3 Arguments Atheists Aren’t Allowed To Use An

[markdohle]

(http://www.patheos.c...se-anymore.html)

[Davros of Skaro]

Oy! Vay!

[bubblykiss]

Can I still use the argument that God created himself for no other reason than to create time, which inadvertently caused the universe to be, just so he would have a way to measure exactly how long he had been bored for?

or

What kind of God would create a world filled with delicious monkeys and then make it illegal to harvest and BBQ them while still at the zoo?

Edited September 14, 2014 by bubblykiss

[Iron_Lotus]

[Imaginarynumber1]

Number 3 I have never heard before. That would be a poor argument to use.

Number 2 is dumb. Sick people rape children. An inordinate amount of priests might, but that's really more of an argument against the church than it is religion.

As for number 3, again, most importantly in science, correlation is not causation. As is noted, "concluded that children below the age of five found it easier to believe in some “superhuman” properties than to understand human limitations". So it's more a case of children not fully understanding the limitations of being human.

4 year old believing in superhuman properties =/= god

Besides, it's well know that religion has function, whether or not it is true. It maintains social cohesion, enables social control and provides meaning and purpose (to some) to things that otherwise would be unexplainable (to some). Obviously it is of benefit of survival to be a socially cohesive society. To what degree the social cohesion of religion benefits over the enormous amount of social control, however, is an entire other topic.

[Rlyeh]

A better argument is the earth existed before the sun.

As for 2, Christians use it too, in fact the WBC has a site called priestsrapeboys.com

[Arbenol]

1. I'm not sure that magical thinking is the same as "thinking religiously"

2. That's not an atheist argument. In fact I've never seen it phrased that way. The only argument here is that the Catholic Church systematically covered up and denied that it ever occurred. It protected the perpetrators. It's an argument against the Catholic Church.

3. This argument could only ever be used against a biblical literalist. Is it really necessary to argue with literalist. It's like arguing with a flat earther. Pointless.

[Emma_Acid]

Thats amazing. Also - love the profile pic.

[Davros of Skaro]

I rember as a kid someone said the Macaroni that was still being boiled tasted funny.I visualized the Macaroni with laughing faces as I did not comprehend the term.

My imagination a Religion?Who knew?

[Leonardo]

1) Babies are Atheists.

Well, believing in the supernatural (as others have said, 'magical thinking') does not necessarily suggest religious belief. Let's make a hypothetical case that the existence of the soul was proven true. Would this also prove the existence of god, or gods?

No. Although some religions connect the existence of soul with the existence of deity, this connection is only an assumption made to suggest the validity of that religion (and deity) - it is not necessarily true. Studies suggesting infants engage in 'magical thinking' are wrong to then make a connection between this and 'religious thinking'. There is no indication babies believe in a defined god, and so babies can be said to be atheists until deity is defined for them.

2) Priests Rape Boys.

Nice strawman, but that's all it is. I've never made this argument, nor have I seen others make it as a general case against religion. I have seen people make the case that religion is so suffocating with respect the repression of natural behaviours, that it can lead to increased aberrant behaviour among the clergy. I have also seen people make the case that religion, in order to protect it's image of "defender of morality", tries to cover-up aberrant behaviour among its clergy.

Furthermore, child abuse is not a "problem in Western culture" - as the article promotes, it's a problem in every culture. Perhaps the author of the article wanted to project an image of secular 'Western' culture as being morally lacking?

3) Light Before the Sun.

Let's put this argument into context...

" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

That's the first 5 verses of Genesis. So, what can we tell about the "light" God creates from this?

First, the context within which the light is created is not "the universe" - but "Earth". This is made particularly clear in verse 5 where "light" is named "Day". There is no "day and night" in the universal sense, only in the context of our planet's rotation around it's axis as it orbits the sun. Now, I'm not going to make a case that the ancient Hebrews realised our planet rotated on an axis and orbited the sun, they probably assumed the Earth was fixed and the sun instead moved around the planet. However, the context of "light" in Genesis is clearly the "day/night" cycle we all experience as inhabitants of this planet - not the 'light' which cosmologists promote as being the earliest form of 'matter' (i.e. the earliest 'creation') in the formative universe.

The modern promotion of the biblical Genesis as being consistent with scientific cosmological origin theories is clearly wrong.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Leonardo

[+Paranoid Android]

My take:

1- Babies are atheists in the exact same way that rocks are atheists. That is, they don't have the cognitive ability to conceive abstract concepts like "God". To say atheism is the default position is not a logical step into saying that atheism is the best position. Logic, for example, is also not the default position and yet is highly valued as a learned response.

.2- Priests aren't statistically more likely to be rapists/paedophiles and no evidence has confirmed this outside of media bias. Insurance companies don't charge higher premiums to the Catholics (yes, insurance exists to cover this). Yes, the Church does have to answer for their cover up of events, but they aren't the only organisation to do this. Schools have covered up the actions of teachers, most often to keep the reputation of the school in tact. It doesn't excuse these schools either, but it does show that the matter is not just a religious one and therefore not a valid argument against religion.

3 - Light and sun would only be an issue for creationists, who don't represent the majority of Christians.

In short, I've seen all three arguments used to support atheism over Christianity, and all three arguments are insufficient, in my opinion.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Paranoid Android

[Iron_Lotus]

Thats amazing. Also - love the profile pic.

thank you, glad you do

Edited September 14, 2014 by Iron_Lotus

[Doug1029]

1. I'm not sure that magical thinking is the same as "thinking religiously"

"Magic" is bending the actions of the deity to one's own will. Includes such things as asking for favors (prayer).

2. That's not an atheist argument. In fact I've never seen it phrased that way. The only argument here is that the Catholic Church systematically covered up and denied that it ever occurred. It protected the perpetrators. It's an argument against the Catholic Church.

By operating a systematic cover-up for more than five years, the Roman Catholic Church may have exposed itself to racketeering charges. It hasn't been charged due to politics.

3. This argument could only ever be used against a biblical literalist. Is it really necessary to argue with literalist. It's like arguing with a flat earther. Pointless.

I am a dendrochronologist specializing in weather - I read past weather events in the ring patterns. We have chronologies going back 17,000 years. Tell me what year the earth was "created" and I'll tell you the weather that year - and the year after - and the year before.

Presumably god created the earth from something else. So why couldn't that have been the previous days' earth?

Doug

[XenoFish]

Magick is making what you want happen through your own efforts and will. Like I've mentioned before, the "new" magick is in the self-help/personal growth section of most book stores. As for God loving atheist, I can see that. Makes a lot more sense if you think about it.

[+DieChecker]

1. Babies are atheists. True only in that they are not religious. False in that they are unable to make a choice at their age regarding deities.

IMHO, this is equivalent to saying all babies are gay, because they have not expressed a sexuality yet.

2. Priests rape boys. I have to agree with Paranoid Android (post #11), this is not any more statistically likely then any other groups of human males.

Someone used this one just the other day in another thread....

Look at all the priests and all the older men raping little boys. You don't see atheists acting out like that.

http://www.unexplain...ic=272295&st=15

3. I think I agree with Arbenol on this one. This argument only would be taken seriously by a Biblical literalest, who, even by the majority of Christians, are considered wacko.

For discussion purposes.... What has to be considered here is God just created the Earth. God... just... created... the... Earth.... So why is a lightsource providing day and night before the Sun such a big deal? If God can create a planet out of nothing, then surely he could create a continuous beam of light to shine on one side of the Earth and make day and night.

If we're going to look at "light before the Sun", then perhaps we need to look at "created the heavens and the Earth", before that?

Edited September 14, 2014 by DieChecker

[Odin11]

1. Babies are atheists. True only in that they are not religious. False in that they are unable to make a choice at their age regarding deities.

They are unable to make a choice, because they have no true understanding of the choice they're making. The cognitive ability to understand an abstract thought like deities does not develop until well into the teenage years.

IMHO, this is equivalent to saying all babies are gay, because they have not expressed a sexuality yet.

No it would be like calling them asexual. And until they begin to express a sexuality they basically are.

[Stubbly_Dooright]

I think the saying babies are born atheists is a shorthand saying, they don't automatically believe what their parents believe. It has to be taught to them. I think one could say they are born atheists because they do not affilaliate to a religion being new and unknowing. Granted, they will believe anything, because they are young, and again, unknowing from my opinion. So, could one also put the Easter bunny, Santa Claus, and the boogie man as a religion, because they seem predisposed to easily believe that as well? I think it's still a good argument, just I think it should worded differently.

The thing with Priest raping boys, I wouldn't use, though I have seen others do so. I wouldn't think all Priests rape boys, so I would consider this an enlarged isolated incident, (I know, that probably doesn't make sense) and not used as a good argument, cause there have been incidents every aspect of life, to me it seems, that things like that occur. And I agree with PA and others on that topic too.

I have never heard about the light aspect. And the person making the argument about it confuses me. I take it this person is religious, but it seems to argue against it. I could be wrong, I may have been confused by it. But to me, it almost seems to have it's own version of the chicken and the egg argument.

[Thought Poop]

From the article: “As I’ve noted before, child-molestation is not a Catholic problem. It is a problem of Western culture in general.” Maybe, maybe not, that is argumentative; but the covering up of child-molestation definitely is a Catholic problem.

From the article: “…’available research suggests that approximately two to five percent of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor’ a percentage which ‘is lower than the general adult male population’…”. Um, you have this all wrong; the percentage is two to five percent too high than the general adult male population. There should be NO priests having any kind of sexual experience with a minor…the percentage should be zero, nothing more than that. It’s really stupid to say otherwise.

The Catholic church is nothing more than an organized crime family, whatever they express, either for or against anything, is null and void based on this.

Edited September 18, 2014 by Thought Poop

[+Paranoid Android]

From the article: “As I’ve noted before, child-molestation is not a Catholic problem. It is a problem of Western culture in general.” Maybe, maybe not, that is argumentative; but the covering up of child-molestation definitely is a Catholic problem.

And they'll have to answer for the cover up. But covering up child molestation is not a uniquely Catholic issue either. Schools (particularly wealthy private schools) have been caught in the same cover up of molestation to protect the reputation of their name.

[Thought Poop]

And they'll have to answer for the cover up. But covering up child molestation is not a uniquely Catholic issue either. Schools (particularly wealthy private schools) have been caught in the same cover up of molestation to protect the reputation of their name.

Ok, may be covering up a molester isn't a uniquely Catholic "thing"...however there shouldn't be anything to cover up!!

[Arbenol]

And they'll have to answer for the cover up. But covering up child molestation is not a uniquely Catholic issue either. Schools (particularly wealthy private schools) have been caught in the same cover up of molestation to protect the reputation of their name.

I know you're not saying otherwise, but all such cases are equally abhorrent.

There is one slight difference though. Schools, generally, do not appoint themselves arbiters of morality.

[+Paranoid Android]

Ok, may be covering up a molester isn't a uniquely Catholic "thing"...however there shouldn't be anything to cover up!!

Unfortunately in any profession, there are evil humans. And if those evil humans have a thing for young kids, and the profession they are in gives them access to kids, then the potential for abuse can happen. And that doesn't change if it's a Roman Catholic profession, a Baptist profession, a Presbyterian profession, any other Christian profession, a school teacher profession, a youth worker profession, a child care profession, a psychologist profession, or any other number of professions where adults work with children.

[+Paranoid Android]

I know you're not saying otherwise, but all such cases are equally abhorrent.

There is one slight difference though. Schools, generally, do not appoint themselves arbiters of morality.

You're right, I did not say otherwise, and I wasn't meaning to suggest they weren't abhorrent, I just hate the way people categorise child molestation and child coverup as a "Catholic Issue".

Being a religious institution preaching morality doesn't stop it from being an institution run by humans, and any human, regardless of what they preach, is not perfect, and some are downright evil. Being a priest or a minister doesn't change that, though when I was at university I did sit in a lecture on school teachers and how we were among the higher-offending professions when it came to child molestation, and the statistics shown put ministers and priests right at the bottom as one of the least likely professions.

[Doug1029]

And they'll have to answer for the cover up.

Under US law, only if the Catholic church can be declared a racket - a continuing criminal enterprise. I believe the evidence to do that exists right now. All that is needed is to show a pattern of three cover-ups, one of which was more than five years ago. Once that is done, the statute of limitations is voided and all previous cover-ups can be prosecuted.

Right now, politics prevents that. But if our politicians ever grow a backbone,* the church may be in big trouble. Every time it has promised something and not delivered, it committed fraud. And if it is a continuing criminal enterprise, it can be held accountable for all past frauds. Christians better hope the Kochs keep buying elections.

Doug

* An old rancher once walked into the DC office of his Senator, put a bag of prairie oysters on the table and said, "you need some of these, so I brought you some."

[Arbenol]

You're right, I did not say otherwise, and I wasn't meaning to suggest they weren't abhorrent, I just hate the way people categorise child molestation and child coverup as a "Catholic Issue".

Being a religious institution preaching morality doesn't stop it from being an institution run by humans, and any human, regardless of what they preach, is not perfect, and some are downright evil.

Being a priest or a minister doesn't change that, though when I was at university I did sit in a lecture on school teachers and how we were among the higher-offending professions when it came to child molestation, and the statistics shown put ministers and priests right at the bottom as one of the least likely professions.

It happens. I understand that. There are sexual predators in many walks of life. But the criticism of the Catholic Church is not that they should have prevented these crimes, but that on discovering them they denied it and actively assisted perpetrators to evade justice.

Being a religious institution preaching morality doesn't stop it from being an institution run by humans, and any human, regardless of what they preach, is not perfect, and some are downright evil.

I would reverse this to read:

Being a religious institution run by humans (and any human, regardless of what they preach, is not perfect, and some are downright evil) doesn't stop it preaching morality