Premise:
Theism is based on the universal truth that there is a god.
Atheism is based on the universal truth that there is no god.
We cannot prove that a god exists.
We cannot disprove that a god exists.
Argument:
Atheism challenges theism in its claim of an unprovable universal truth.
This implies that atheism believes it is impossible to claim an unprovable universal truth.
The assertion that "a god cannot exist" is an unprovable universal truth.
By atheism's logic, atheism cannot exist.
In contrast, theism does not assert that claims of unprovable universal truths are impossible, hence logically can exist.
Conclusion:
Theism is more logical than atheism
Extra:
This, by no means, proves that theism is correct in any way. It shows that it is more correct than pure atheism (but if you believe in something you already "knew" that anyway).
As an analogy, proving the box isn't white does not make it black.There are various possible shades of grey (agnosticism), not to mention colours (other religions!) And maybe it appears black but it's reflecting ultraviolet, infrared, microwaves - beyond our powers of perception.
More crap ahead. The good part's over though.
My personal view is that truth is not universal. Hence gods may exist for group A but not for group B. I can prove God does not exist for me, but I cannot prove God does not exist for you. Similarly, you can prove that God exists for you but you can't do the same for me.
Using the analogy above, though, I'd say the box is out of our visible spectrum.
I'd consider myself in the agnostic in the definition that - I can't prove gods don't exist, but I haven't found one that is credible. If a god were to exist, it would be much too complex for us to understand, let alone to document. Next, I think methods such as sacrifice and prayer do not influence the god, and I think that they do not show results greater than if left to chance.
To get good things to happen in life, you merely influence the system that the god governs - work hard to improve the probability that you will have a good future. Seems like there's almost no god at all, but who are we mortals to define what is affected by a god and what would've happened anyway?
On atheists, though
I don't like atheists attacking Christians, dedicating their whole cause to disprove Christianity, then dusting their hands and going "yeahp I'm done." There are a myriad of other religions that just might happen to be true.
Atheists that act with the same amount of annoyingness and stubbornness as evangelist Christians are, surprise surprise, equally annoying.
And it makes me wonder why Christians making reasonably logical arguments on Youtube get insane dislikes, but atheists saying stuff like "FUCK YOU" over and over has a pretty green bar. It's clear that the Internet is not a good place for Christians to spread their views. This is clearly an emotionally charged battle.
9gag often makes jokes about the Pope's golden throne and bulletproof glass, too. The Internet is a bunch of predators waiting to pounce on some poor outspoken Christian =P
If atheists didn't enjoy looking at theists condescendingly and going "you stupid gullible bastards", and if (well specifically Christians (esp American) this time) didn't go around saying "you're going to hell. You too. You believe what I believe - hi5, heaven for us. Poor suckers who aren't us. All going to hell. All 4.62 billion of them" (that stat was kind, assuming that all Christians believe that all sects of Christianity are acceptable, and no Christians go to hell)
I know that no Christians at Ruse are like this - but we all know the kind of Christians I'm talking about :L
That's it for today, I probably forgot to close off a couple of my statements but whatever you can pick this post apart in the comments if you so desire.
15 comments:
you seem to portray atheists as "anti-thiests" or "anti-christians"
on the contrary, from the views of the athiests and thiests I know/have seen, the thiests are usually the "anti-athiests" whereas few athiests directly ridicule thiests
your post seems rather biased
though I admit, as a buddhist I may be as well
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities
-Wiki
That was if you were talking about the proof part of the post.
If you are referring to my depiction in the second part, there are both idiot atheists and theists. You're clearly familiar with the idiot theists, but on YouTube you can check up "theamazingatheist" or "theatheistexperience" to see the almost evangelical actions of some atheists
I feel that most people who call themselves atheists don't adhere to the narrower sense of atheism - probably because of the stuff you have said at the beginning of this post.
I call myself an atheist because I believe that (typical and organised) religion is a blight of society - most of its functions are replaceable by other social structures that do not have the negative side effects of religion (e.g. extremism - which leads to things such as terrorism - and abuse of power). I think that many Christians think of God as a benevolent omnipotent man in the sky, and I reject this conception of God as irrational and illogical. I have no issues with God as the embodiment of perfection or something (sorry I don't have a great understanding of these views of God) who doesn't interfere with human matters.
Most atheists that tend towards anti-theistic views are woefully uninformed and pretty awfully ignorant philosophically. Dawkins, for example, thinks Aquinas's teleolgical argument is equivalent to Paley's watchmaker.
Atheists who have a better understanding of the issues involved (William Rowe, Quentin Smith, Graham Oppy) aren't nearly as hostile to theism. But this isn't an absolute rule, more an general observation (I'm fairly sure J.L. Mackie was a strident anti-theist).
Also, I think the thing about religion is that it tends to push people to extremes, but this can go good or bad, so you get the Westboro Baptist Church along the Quakers, the Bible as seen promoting a pro and anti-slavery message, Crusades alongside charities, etc.
@cloudier
I'm using atheist as the exclusive, definite term, which is to mean "strong atheism". A 7 on the Richard Dawkins spectrum of theistic probability. I'm quite sure most people who identify themselves loosely as "atheists" are agnostic atheists - "weak atheists", as opposed to the ones I'm talking about, gnostic atheists, "strong atheists".
I think we both fit into that category that we are pretty much 100% sure that if a god even exists, it definitely isn't anything that
I don't think we should attempt to comprehend what Christians think God is without finding out from Christians what God is - a task I cannot be bothered doing.
I do object that religion is a blight of society - religion, while we may think is bullshit, is not bullshit in the eyes of those who believe. You cannot quantify how many crimes may have been prevented for fear of eternal punishment in hell. Church-going would also foster positive relationships with like-minded people, which can hardly be seen as a blight.
I have never been against religion - I merely found participating in it an obvious no-no as I know I can never force myself to believe the stuff that is in the Bible. However I don't have anything against the people who do believe.
Extremism can, yes, stem from religion. But people get extreme about anything they get passionate about - feminism, SOPA, high taxes.
I agree that your description of the Christian god is irrational and illogical, however as I said above we don't actually know what God is - that being said, I don't think anyone is meant to know.
Sorry for replying with a longer post than yours :L
deep stuff...
@cloudier Those who do believe in some kind of "external force" or power are not atheists. Atheists are those who do not accept the concept of god as "its" existance cannot be proven, which like you said is quite paradoxical.
Also, I personally think, from observation, several of those people who do criticise and condescend Christianity are those category of atheists who find its rules and teachings restricting upon their lifestyles. It could almost be a fear, sometimes. I'm sorry if that didn't make sense, but what I mean to say is that you can't go to hell if you don't believe in one...
On the other hand, other atheists who are not necessarily as outspoken do not believe in the existance of god as they find it improbable. My point is, the outspoken "athiests" aren't always basing their beliefs on scientific principles, but rather their fear of the "truths" religion presents to them.
Sorry about the extra long post.
The term 'evangelical Christian' to describe someone who actively promotes the bible isn't actually accurate for future reference. I'm an evangelical Christian but I don't think I have force fed you the bible or attempted to force you to convert.
Evangelical Christian simply refers to a certain movement within Christianity which believes in personal conversion, as to say you need to personally believe and commit to God, take absolute authority in Christian teachings from the bible and believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We also believe in actively sharing the gospel but so do pretty much all Christians.
@goldie
My bad, I will edit that to say "evangelist" Christians when I get on a computer.
And by "taking absolute authority in the Bible", do you mean just NT or OT as well? And does it mean "believe and obey every word" or "believe and obey the main bits"?
Sorry if I seem intrusive, I am just curious as to how much of the Bible that Christians are expected to adhere to.
Believe and obey every word.
I'm going to take it you're saying this because in the old testament it has some pretty crazy rules given down in books like Leviticus and Numbers but what some non-Christians (and some Christians sadly) fail to understand is that you can't take JUST the new testament or JUST the old testament because they're all part of the story of Jesus and the message of Christianity.
The rules and traditions which are dictated in the bible and so often quoted at Christians like they're some sort of "you must be retarded this is in your holy book" thing is actually very explainable when you take into context the entire bible instead of focusing on the one or two verses that they're quoting.
So there are biblical reasons that I don't stone people to death, it's just that when non-Christians are using out of context verses in the bible to undermine your faith they don't really want to bring those up.
So ermm.. I'm hoping i answered your questions and that I'm not assuming incorrectly. If I did; I'm sorry.
There's nothing wrong with the way you interpreted that :P
I can't claim to have studied the Bible in any depth, so I'll take your word for that. I might find it a worthy read. But of course there are the varied translations and versions *sigh*
As a Christian, do you believe the Bible was designed for cover-to-cover reading?
But more important that them outdated nutty rules - Creationism: agree or disagree? It seems to difficult to refute that the Bible clearly says God everything, then made a dude, stole his rib, made a woman, some unavoidable incest, then few thousand years later we have this current world population.
This part may be refutable, but I think people have this Creationism event, by somehow piecing together dates in the OT, occurred at around 6000 years ago.
Yes, evolution must be wrong because clearly Genesis is a science textbook.
Whoa hold your horses the answer wasn't "yes go Creationism."
Give them a go.
@Anonymous
I don't entirely understand what you are trying to say so I apologise if I misinterpret your comments.
Firstly, you seem to be implying that I believe that people who believe in 'some kind of "external force" or power' are atheists. I said that I have no issues with religious people who believe that God is a being that does not concern itself with humans.
The point I was trying to make about the word 'atheist' is that, in common usage, most people do not consider it to mean 'a person who believes there are no deities'. I think anti-theist more clearly conveys the common meaning of atheist, so I'll be using anti-theist instead.
"you can't go to hell if you don't believe in one..."
Do you really think that people such as Billy Lucas, who commited suicide due to the bullying he faced for his sexual orientation, weren't already living in a 'hell'? It's far too easy for people to use religion as a cover for morally reprehensible acts, and this is what I believe the people you describe as atheists who apparently 'fear' religion are trying to point out. I hope this clears up the misunderstandings you seem to have about the opinions of anti-theists who criticise religion - the position you believed these atheists were holding is illogical.
"their fear of the "truths" religion presents to them"
I believe that religion doesn't provide a moral framework that has clear advantages over the best secular ones.
However, I would also like to add that I don't believe that being an anti-theist makes you a good person. Like Jeff remarked in an earlier comment, some of them are idiots.
Pretty much all translations of the bible are the same. KJV uses like 'ye olde english' and NIV is simply a version that is nicer to read but the meaning across pretty much all versions is the same so if you picked up any version of the bible you would still get the same bible story.
I wouldn't say the bible was designed for cover to cover reading and I can't claim to have read the bible cover to cover but on reading larger sections of the bible in one go you'll see that even though different authors have written different books of the bible, the God that they are all describing remains constant and His personality doesn't actually change as opposed to the whole OT=angry God and NT=forgiving God thing that a lot of people say. Also if you are very familiar with the old testament a lot of the weird and seemingly random stuff that Jesus seems to do or random things that are included in the bible are perfectly explainable.
So yeah if you are familiar with the bible a lot of misinterpretations would not happen. Not meaning to pick on you but in your blog I remember reading something like a screenplay of certain bible scenes and one of them was Mary explaining to Joseph about her virgin pregnancy. Now in the screenplay you wrote that it was Mary who convinced Joseph and he just bought it. Now if you read the bible you would see that Joseph was going to divorce Mary over this incident even though doubtless Mary would have tried to explain it but Joseph in the end came to conclusion himself that she was telling the truth.
In the same way that you took what is mostly out of the bible but didn't quite know the full story and therefore thought Joseph was gullible, a lot of people know generally what is in the bible or some obscure verse or two and come to the conclusion Christians must be gullible to believe it. Now I know this isn't true for all atheists but yeah massive tangent.
Back to your question about Genesis. I’m personally not a seven day creationist but what I know about Genesis is that it was written by Moses in about 2300BC and that it was most likely written in a time when he was wandering around the desert with the Israelites and they asked how the world came to be and this was his answer. What I've taken from it is that he's saying that God created the universe and everything that is part of it, which I believe. What I know is that Moses wasn’t writing a step by step instruction manual on how to build your own universe but yeah this post is already much longer than it should be..
TLDR? Okay..
Post a Comment