Having been around in the atheism vs. theism debate i’ve come to realize that there are certain errors made again and again in the defence of theism…
This thread is about the commmon errors of theism…
here’s a few of them…
“god explains why the universe exists the way that it does”
This is an appeal to consequence and a poor one at that… The sole reason this argument is used at all is because the theist has truble accepting that the universe is all there is… (s)he then posits that there needs to be some kind of “reason” behind it all… not only is that not necessary but also given our utter ignorance as to the origin of the universe positing god as an explination is at best speculation… with no force behind it what-so-ever…
“It’s possible god exists… and so it’s not impossible that god exists”
This is just sophistry… it is in fact possible that god’s existence is utterly impossible… logical possibility does not favor positive claims over negative one’s and so one can not go from “logically possible” to “not impossible”… that’s a gross misunderstanding of logical possibility…
“historical evidence”
This is almost a joke… but some people seem to take it seriously… The notion is that since some people wrote a story sometime in the past that therefor those stories are true. This is at best an argument from personal incredulity if not an argument from ignorance… believing a person when they tell you that they saw something extreamly rare/unlikely is counter intuitive… if not plain gullible… yet the theist seems willing to plunge in there with eyes wide shut and believe what (s)he is told without further evidence or examination of possible alternative motives for such a fiction…
“atheism/naturalism is not as coherent”
Again these are arguments appealing to consequence… and they do just as poorly as the other arguments… The theist again demonstrates his/her own personal inability to deal with a non-thestic universe and tries to somehow make that a valid reason to be a theist… we would need to let all the nuts out of the nuthouses if this were a valid argument…
These are just some of the few fallacies that are regularly commited by theists… If you have examples of more… Please feel free to post them here… and please explain why it is a fallacy…
Like the myth of Jesus being both fully man and fully god at the same time?
All men are mortal.
God is immortal.
At any particular instant, any being is either mortal or immortal, but never both mortal and immortal at the same time.
Since Jesus was never both mortal and immortal at the same time during his life, Jesus was never both fully man and fully god at any instant during his life.
I wanna know why atheists don’t ever try and prove there’s not a god. Most of them just insist that there’s not and then get all angry and argue against the statements that you’ve made above. Prove there’s not. Let’s say I’m agnostic and an atheist wants to educate me to his point of view. How would one go about it?
No no, that misses the point. The arguments aren’t interesting to me half so much as the perspective behind choosing to criticize theism purely in the context of what they say to atheists in an argument. It adds nicely to some other things I’ve been noticing in recent threads.
You are familar with the law of excluded middle I take it?
P v ~P ?
given we can agree on that one… I can inductivly show that there is no known instence of “god” in which case the only rational conclusion would be “not god”…
The lack of a positive is proof of a negative… given the law of excluded middle.
I think sometimes people slack off on their critical thinking, then try and cover it up by simply taking up a controversial viewpoint, even though it’s not well thought out. Most of the “atheists” on this board just end up talking to each other, because they present no positive evidence that there isn’t a god, which is simply boring. The form of the argument that they use is one that will “prove” anything, (but only to a half assed standard of proof). And when the theist reverses it on them they get emotional or just stop comprehending. These threads are a dime a dozen.
Edit: do you really think that by misunderstanding the law of excluded middle, or by misapplying it that you’ve solved the question of whether god exists? Seriously?
Call it the difference between understanding a position, and understanding how to defeat it in an argument. None of the examples of problems with theism you gave are entailed by theism- a person could agree with you on all counts and still be a theist.
So, you really haven’t said anything about theism. You’ve said something about what certain theists say in certain situations. Which situations? As far as I can tell, only those situations in which they are trying to defeat atheism. A theist who didn’t particularly care whether or not other people were atheists wouldn’t be affected by your points at all, is another way to look at it.
It just seems strange, that’s all. Like, if I was going to criticize Capitalism, I wouldn’t just point to holes in the things Capitalists say when criticizing Communism. There’s certainly more to Capitalism than anti-communism.
I see that you’re further gone than I thought. I can give you a paper if you want that explains how you can negate something with a positive argument if it’s actually negatable. It’s called “the problem of free mass” by Schaeffer (sp). Let me know if you’re interested.
That was/is the Atheistism thread in a nutshell! Is that what you had in mind when you wrote the above, or was there something else you observed. Of course you’re totally right. The problem with atheism as atheism is that it thinks it doesn’t have anything to defend, so the idea that a half-assed standard of proof could get turned around on them doesn’t seem plausible. Turned around on what? All they’re doing is shooting things full of holes.
Agreed. I’m not some godmonger out here trying to push a religious ideal, hell I’ve only been inside a church a handful of times in my entire life, mostly for weddings and shit. But I can’t stand improper reasoning. It just makes me cringe. There’s plenty of good ways to go about making any point, but ILP atheists are just lazy. Schaeffer’s argument is called the “subtraction argument” I think. I’m gonna try and post that paper in my “post or request an article” thread which has met with so much um… yeah, no one’s posted anything except me and xunian. No one will read it.
Allow me to share my views on theism and atheism and the concept of “god”.
God to me indicated the ultimate power (UP) in existence… Theists think of this UP as a personal being that is immaterial and cares a great deal about us humans. Atheists think of this UP as the sum of the universe… a non-personal thing that does not care any more about us than the grains of sand on the beach since we are both equally within it… One might say that the atheists do actually think of the UP as an immaterial thing in that the notion of a universe as a whole is purely an abstract…
we’re both actually agree that there is a “god”… we just very much disagree about what this “god” is like…
Atheists use science as a kind of theology… they use it to gain a kind of insight into “god’s mind” as it were… how it works… what makes god tick… ect…
Theists use a book that they claim is the word of god to try and determine who or what this “god” thing is…
and that’s the true nature of our disagreement… I think…
How amusing! When the theist can show the body, then there is something to discuss. Until then, “God” is merely a supposition. We can imagine the “possibility” of anything we choose, but imagination falls a bit short of knowing anything. Imagine anything you like - pixies, trolls, unicorns, the “unseen hand”, and all the rest. The same could be said for all the suppositions of science as well. Imagine anything you like about black holes, string theories and multiple universes.
Atheist or theist, it is all supposition. Assign all the cause-effect to what we don’t know till the abstractions reach meta meta meta and we still know next to nothing.
The problem of is - isn’t is that there is just too much knowing.
Why? Because it is too simple? Have any idea you wish about anything you can imagine, but there is no demonstrable connection between supposition and reality (whatever that is).
When the theist can show the body, then there is something to discuss. Until then, “God” is merely a supposition. We can imagine the “possibility” of anything we choose, but imagination falls a bit short of knowing anything. Imagine anything you like - pixies, trolls, unicorns, the “unseen hand”, and all the rest. The same could be said for all the suppositions of science as well. Imagine anything you like about black holes, string theories and multiple universes.