Anti-theist Answers to Slick Questions

I saw that a Christian apologetics website is posted 31 questions inadvertently illustrating their confusion about why a significant portion of the world's population does not believe in any religion so I'd like to offer my answers to those questions how would you define atheism atheism means without theism theism being a belief system which proposes a deity so atheism is a lack of belief in a deity a deity being defined as a magical anthropomorphic immortal a belief is a conviction a lack of belief is a lack of conviction so anyone who is not convinced that an actual deity really exists is an atheist I know a lot of people are confused about this and want to call themselves agnostic instead but agnosticism refers to knowledge where atheism refers to belief so an agnostic is someone who does not know that they are really an atheist you act according to what do you believe in there is no God or what do you don't believe in lack belief in God beliefs inform actions but lack of belief is a lack of information or no information for no action do you think is inconsistent for someone who lacks belief in God to work against God's existence by attempting to show that God doesn't exist do you think it inconsistent for someone who lacks belief in the Stork to object when public schools teach middle schoolers that that's where babies come from likewise no history class you confuse students by playing any movie with Mel Gibson's name in the credits because it's wrong and it's wrong to mislead students it would be inconsistent for one who loves and seeks knowledge of truth not to object to lies or challenged liars everything religion teaches is wrong although public schools are not teaching about the Stork some of them are teaching creationism which is just as demonstrably absurdly wrong in either case it's a criminal amoral disservice and should be corrected how are you sure that your atheism properly represents reality if that means how sure am i that no gods exist I'm definitely sure about that we can say that no God exists in the same sense and for the same reason that we can say that there's no leprechauns sasquatch or extraterrestrial reptiles manipulating the Illuminati in human guise all of these things are unrealistic unprecedented absurdities with no form of justification whatsoever and when we get into either eastern or western theology there is no potential for any of that to be true reading Genesis is really no different than reading the story of Pandora's Box Prometheus's crucifixion or Persephone's abduction as an explanation for the seasons they're all just stories imagined in the minds of men without any basis in historical fact how sure are you that your atheism is correct is that Christopher Hitchens razor is part of what he described as the fundamental rules of logic that positive claims require positive evidence and that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence because then it's an empty assertion unworthy of serious consideration if you can't give me any reason to believe you then I have no reason to believe you come back when you can show me that you've got something to consider how would you define what truth is truth is generally defined as that which is concordant with reality if we don't know whether it is concordant with reality then we don't know whether it is truth and we should be honest about that we should not assert as fact that which is not evidently true because that is dishonest logically then the truth is whatever statement can be shown to be true the truth is what the facts are because the facts can be objectively verified and there are many facts that we know and can show to be true of evolution for example but there is not one fact that is positively indicative of work exclusively concordant with gods or magic or mythology so when I challenge religious believers to show me the truth of their religious beliefs they can't because there's literally no truth in it why do you believe your atheism is a justifiable position to hold because the default position is the null set you're not born believing everything you don't believe anything into you're convinced of it and the only reason anyone should ever believe anything is evidence so there's no reason to believe in a God and having no reason to believe something is a pretty good reason not to believe it plus God is defined by his miraculous nature and miracles are defined as inexplicable by science because they defy the laws of physics meaning that they're physically impossible and thus God is impossible by definition God is also supposed to exist outside of our reality which of course means he does not exist in reality are you a materialist or a physicalist or what I'm an epistle meaning that I don't believe anything on faith faith is an assertion of unreasonable conviction which is not based on reason is defended against all reason to prove that I got that right we can look it up on every definitive source dictionaries scriptural references hymns sermons of theologians past and present as well as philosophers this grossly dishonest definition is also demonstrated by the statement of faith published by every creationist organization there is these illustrate how faith is inherently Auto deceptive and the most dishonest position it is possible to have so any belief that requires or desires faith should be rejected for that reason you affirm or deny that atheism is a worldview why or why not there are many forms of atheism but not all of them are secular humanist sceptical rational scientifically literate intellectuals some are spiritual and riddled with woowoo so there are a few completely different and often contradictory worldviews under that one umbrella not only these are antagonistic to Christianity but for those of you you are why the antagonism because religion is predominantly evil and entirely deceitful it has only negative correlation statistically and is frequently maliciously abusive physically mentally and emotionally it has historically always obstructed education and retarded or impeded progress and whatever application it has ever touched all the worst atrocities in history were done the name of religion on our greatest advances were made in opposition to it I'm an anti theist because religion is factually historically ethically and morally wrong if you're a one-time believer in the Christian God what cause you did admire his existence once I realized that faith was required that pretty much did it for me I remember when I was reborn in Christ at 19 I was floating around the room in a sense of dizzy euphoria but I had the presence of mind to ask one of my friends who later became a Southern Baptist minister how I could know whether this sensation was really divine or something generated within my own mind and he grabbed me by both shoulders and shook me with his huge grin and said just keep telling yourself it's Jesus until you believe it and that tactic was described by himself and others as fake it till you make it and it Illustrated how faith-based beliefs are literally just make-believe his answer was so dishonest that I was cured immediately that was my last moment as a Christian you believe the world would be better off without religion yes I know it's not everyone's opinion but I have to side with Bertrand Russell on this one it's not just that you believe things that aren't evidently true you believe in things that are not true if the general consensus is that the less religion one has the better then it's best to have none there are all sorts of horrors abuses ignorant and atrocities commonly attributed to religion and no genuine benefit such as there would be from skeptical analytical critical thinking and humanist values if we promote those instead we'll be a lot better off do you believe the world would be better off about Christianity there are no special attributes to distinguish Christianity from any other collection of baseless lies meant to manipulate the masses if there were no Christians tomorrow we'd still have Muslims and a slew of other indefensible belief systems do you believe that faith in a god or gods is a mental disorder no but it acts as one for example the psychiatric definition of a delusion is a persistent false belief which does not change in spite of conflicting evidence so religion is literally a delusion but one that is caused by conditioning rather than pathology there are a number of studies showing a negative correlation of faith as a debilitating certain cognitive functions or even diminishing certain areas of the brain so religion can possibly lead to and certainly conceal or even encourage mental disorders without actually being one itself must God be known through the scientific method there is nothing anyone can honestly say they actually know about their various religious beliefs knowledge is justified belief meaning that it can be tested and demonstrated with measurable accuracy and if you can't show it and you don't know it if there is no way to confirm your convictions to any degree at all by any means whatsoever then you cannot actually know what you think you know you only believe you know that and everything we actually do know we learned from science so if God were real there would be a way to know him through science - if you answered yes to the previous question then how do you avoid a category mistake by requiring material evidence for an immaterial got the words magic and miracles share essentially the same definition being the e vocation of supernatural forces or entities to control or forecast natural events it is the natural events which are measurable the effect and the testable cause of the effect in Star Trek Star Wars and Lord of the Rings people demonstrate their mystic abilities all the time with objectively verifiable success but that has never happened in the history of reality if gods and miracles were part of reality there would be a way to know them that would require faith do we have any purpose as human beings as a species no asking for the meaning of life is no different than a fortune-teller casting tea leaves or chicken bones or tarot cards and then looking at the random mess they just created and wondering what that means Abrahamic religion offers no purpose either apart from the Stockholm Syndrome because the best you can hope for is to be imprisoned by an indomitable despot and have to press your lips to his colon for the rest of eternity or he'll suffer a fate worse than death you're damned if you do and damned if you don't if we do have purpose can you as an atheist please explain how that purpose is determined that's up to you on a case by case basis that is a matter of personal choice ambition motivation and situation there is obviously no purpose imposed by a God because there's no God to impose one personally I think the only meaning your life will ever have is whatever your involvement meant to someone else and the best strategy I think is if you want your life to mean something and try to make someone else's life meaningful but if you want your life to mean something five billion years from now it won't no matter what sorry but what matters now still matters now where does morality come from I've noticed that any species raised in maternal dependents has a greater capacity for empathy social species also demonstrate altruism and those whose passions benefit society tend to prevail while selfish aberrations are usually ostracized so our evolution naturally selected those with compassion for our family friends and fellows are there moral absolutes I would say yes but the only way to determine that is by having reasons why a particular action is moral or immoral something everyone could debate and yet still achieve consensus at the same time I should note that rather than absolutes most things fall on a scale of metrics where some things are permissible under certain circumstances if there are moral absolutes can you list a few of them a particular action or choice is moral or right when it somehow promotes happiness well-being or health or it somehow minimizes unnecessary harm or suffering or it does both a particular action or choice is immoral or wrong when it somehow diminishes happiness well-being or health or it somehow causes unnecessary harm or suffering or again it does both you believe that there is such a thing as evil if so what is it if there is such a thing as evil I think it would be an aberration against humanist values hatred prejudice abuse manipulation discrimination deception ignorance religion if you believe that the God of the Old Testament is morally bad by what standard you judge that he is bad by the objective standards of knowing the reason why something is bad and then realizing that according to the sacred fables God commands bad things almost exclusively not just in Christian scriptures but in all of them Muslim Sikh Hindu all of them every version of God is bad what would it take for you to believe in God for me to believe in God would probably require blunt-force trauma to the brain or perhaps a debilitating cognitive disorder what would it take for you to believe that the myth of Persephone explains the seasons or that babies are delivered by the stork what would constitute sufficient evidence for God's existence I'll accept whatever qualifies as evidence that means a body of objectively verifiable facts that are positively indicative of and or exclusively concordant with that one conclusion over any other musses evidence be rationally based archaeological testable in a lab etc or what the definition of evidence requires that it be factual that means rational and testable it doesn't have to be archeological though the Bible has already been proven wrong in every testable claim that it makes such that not even God could resurrect those falsified fables even if God were real we would still be evolving aids and the Bible would still be wrong but that wouldn't matter since God is supposed to be immortal and turtle and is still supposed to exist today so try him out here and let's see him have him do something that's actually godlike I mean if Darth Vader can do his schtick and have it work every time whenever he wants then he'd be able to collect James Randy's million dollar challenge right can your God do at least that much because when I read in the news that scientists have proven X or Y and once I confirm that with corroborating sources are usually shrug figured he probably did you win James Randy's million bucks I'll give you a nod do you think that a society that is run by Christians or atheists would be safer why a society that is run by reasonable rational educated objectives skeptical people who know that actions work and prayer doesn't would tend to be atheist we've already seen a world run by Christians whenever religion has had rule over law the result has historically always been an automatic violation of human right and an attack on factual education so yeah any potential utopia would have to be humanist do you believe in free will free will being the ability to make choices without coercion I find this question irrelevant because Christianity doesn't allow for free will and not just because the threat of eternal damnation definitely counts as coercion it's also because of prophecy if God knows the future then he knows what you're going to do and you could no more change the future than you could change the past it's just like Jesus himself said in Jesus Christ Superstar everything is fixed if you believe in free will do you see any problem with defending the idea that the physical brain which is limited and subject to the neurochemical laws of the brain can still produce free will choices I do not believe in free will but I'm not certain about that and I believe that our legal system should judge people as though they potentially have free will because that's the only way to hold them accountable if you are from evolution and that the universe will continue to expand forever then do you think that is probable that given enough time brands would evolve to the point of exceeding mere physical limitations and become free of the physical and temporal and thereby become deity and not be restricted by space and time if not why not everything that was ever reported about telepathy remote viewing telekinesis astral projection and other psionic abilities we're all not just exaggerations they were false there is no means or mechanism by which any of these things could work physical things can extend their limitations but by definition can never exceed them if you answer the previous question in the affirmative then aren't you saying that is probable that some sort of God exists even if I had answered any affirmative God still wouldn't be probable God is impossible not just physically but logically and the only possible probability is that man created God in his own image and it God exists only in man's imagination heaven and earth may pass away but all the gods of men will be long forgotten way before then you

Channel: AronRa

Views: 386,226

Rating: 4.9056392 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Slick, CARM, apologetics, antitheist, atheist, apistevist

Id: u6qRT6MjjSs

Length: 19min 58sec (1198 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 22 2015