Exposing Atheistic Myths

[Keith&Co.]

Aside from the fact that the OP ran away, is there a reason we're discussing these myths in a thread that's remarkably devoid of the myths advertised in the OP?

For that matter, did we ever really learn what an atheistic myth even is? Besides "things Halfie thinks he knows more than actual experts?" But that would be a troll myth, not an atheistic myth.

Hmm....

Atheistic myths... Meaning myths many atheists believe I guess.

I think a big one would be that religious people don't actually believe what they claim to believe, and just go along with it for social acceptance. I used to think and still know many who think most religious people can't ACTUALLY believe that stuff.

What part of that's the mythmaker, though? the idea that anyone's in the pews without sincerity?
Or when you start using quantities/ 'Most' religious people, as opposed to 'some' of them?

We've had a few people here that lost their faith before they left their church. So at least some are 'in the closet.' And they have often given social reasons for why it took so long for them to speak up. The opinions of family and friends, the smallness of their social circles.

 

[Lion IRC]

God can't keep kids from being born encephaletic, can't keep tsunamis from wiping out a quarter of a million people, can't keep a lunatic from sending dozens of kindergartners to their graves with bullets in their heads...

But he has plenty of divine magic juice to compel a man to pick one box out of 40 that contains a defective part?

There's no compulsion to pick the widget closest at hand which - as it turns out - was the last one stacked on the pallet (on the top) because it was the last one produced.

And yes Rhea, there actually IS a correlation between the likelihood of defects and the age of the worn out machine tool which produces them.

 

[James Brown]

Either God violated the physical laws of the universe in order to arrange for a person pick up a particular widget, or he did not.

If he did not, then by definition, it's not a miracle. Unless we stretch the meaning of the word 'miracle' to mean 'anything that happens to have happened,' at which point the word 'miracle' becomes a null value.

If he did, then it's a poor use of divine resources. It's a box on a pallet--it's not as though lives were at stake.

I wonder what the man would have said if the defective part was in the last box he picked, and not the first. Would he have suspected Satan to be at work?

 

[Politesse]

Either God violated the physical laws of the universe in order to arrange for a person pick up a particular widget, or he did not.

If he did not, then by definition, it's not a miracle. Unless we stretch the meaning of the word 'miracle' to mean 'anything that happens to have happened,' at which point the word 'miracle' becomes a null value.

If he did, then it's a poor use of divine resources. It's a box on a pallet--it's not as though lives were at stake.

I wonder what the man would have said if the defective part was in the last box he picked, and not the first. Would he have suspected Satan to be at work?

That doesn't even make sense. If the universe is created by God, why would she need to break "physical laws" to accomplish her will? Would the only law natural to the universe be her will? I can't say I've ever met a theist who would describe God as unnatural.

 

[Half-Life]

God can't keep kids from being born encephaletic, can't keep tsunamis from wiping out a quarter of a million people, can't keep a lunatic from sending dozens of kindergartners to their graves with bullets in their heads...

But he has plenty of divine magic juice to compel a man to pick one box out of 40 that contains a defective part?

And so we get to the REAL REASON why atheists don't believe. It's because they look around and think, "God wouldn't allow this. Therefore, He must not be real." That's as clear cut as you can get. However, this is faulty reasoning.

Just because God allows things and YOU PERSONALLY don't know why God allows them to happen, this does not mean that God has no reason why these things happen. Your finite miniscule brain can not comprehend every possible scenario like God can. Therefore, you are wrong to think this way.

What you really mean to say is, "If I was God, I wouldn't allow this stuff!" But, you are not God.

 

[Half-Life]

That doesn't even make sense. If the universe is created by God, why would she need to break "physical laws" to accomplish her will? Would the only law natural to the universe be her will? I can't say I've ever met a theist who would describe God as unnatural.

Silly wokeness. God is depicted in masculine terms, not female. People respond better to male authority figures over female ones. Single dads are better at discipline than single moms.

 

[Politesse]

That doesn't even make sense. If the universe is created by God, why would she need to break "physical laws" to accomplish her will? Would the only law natural to the universe be her will? I can't say I've ever met a theist who would describe God as unnatural.

Silly wokeness. God is depicted in masculine terms, not female. People respond better to male authority figures over female ones. Single dads are better at discipline than single moms.

Yeah, but they're shit at raising kids. And you're shit at theology.

 

[Half-Life]

That doesn't even make sense. If the universe is created by God, why would she need to break "physical laws" to accomplish her will? Would the only law natural to the universe be her will? I can't say I've ever met a theist who would describe God as unnatural.

Silly wokeness. God is depicted in masculine terms, not female. People respond better to male authority figures over female ones. Single dads are better at discipline than single moms.

Yeah, but they're shit at raising kids. And you're shit at theology.

Single dads can't raise kids? This is a very sexist claim.

 

[Politesse]

Yeah, but they're shit at raising kids. And you're shit at theology.

Single dads can't raise kids? This is a very sexist claim.

Sure they can. I've known some great single dads. But they are up against harder odds, since misogynistic twats like yourself try to convince young men that they should only do or know how to do "manly" things, a habit that leaves one disadvantaged at the practical skills necessary to run a household solo. In a world absent sexism, there would be no disparity between men and women at any task.

And God would still be genderless.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And so we get to the REAL REASON why atheists don't believe.

one person's post and you diagnose all of atheidom?
And complain about how arrogant those atheists are....?
Maybe youvreally are a parody....

 

[Keith&Co.]

Single dads can't raise kids? This is a very sexist claim.

So, hiw is "single dads are better at discipline than single moms" NOT sexist, Halfie?
Can you explain that?

 

[Rhea]

God can't keep kids from being born encephaletic, can't keep tsunamis from wiping out a quarter of a million people, can't keep a lunatic from sending dozens of kindergartners to their graves with bullets in their heads...

But he has plenty of divine magic juice to compel a man to pick one box out of 40 that contains a defective part?

And so we get to the REAL REASON why atheists don't believe. It's because they look around and think, "God wouldn't allow this. Therefore, He must not be real." That's as clear cut as you can get. However, this is faulty reasoning.

Just because God allows things and YOU PERSONALLY don't know why God allows them to happen, this does not mean that God has no reason why these things happen. Your finite miniscule brain can not comprehend every possible scenario like God can. Therefore, you are wrong to think this way.

What you really mean to say is, "If I was God, I wouldn't allow this stuff!" But, you are not God.

I’m going to answer this seriously, because while you’re completely wrong about WHY atheists might think it, you re correct that many do think it.


Here’s the difference.
IF you define a god as having certain properties,
AND IF the actions attributed to that god violate those properties,
THEN you’ve lost your audience, and we will never be able to believe you. You’re just not believable.

It’s not faulty reasoning to insist on internal consistency. Rather, it’s faulty reasoning to accept a story despite internal inconsistencies.
Your god story is chock full of bits that contradict other bits. Therefore, we don’t believe that you have a truth.

Now you’ve gotten to the nub of it.

 

[bilby]

Single dads can't raise kids? This is a very sexist claim.

So, hiw is "single dads are better at discipline than single moms" NOT sexist, Halfie?
Can you explain that?

Any why should we accept the subtext that discipline is necessarily a good thing in this context?

 

[Lion IRC]

Single dads can't raise kids? This is a very sexist claim.

So, how is "single dads are better at discipline than single moms" NOT sexist, Halfie?
Can you explain that?

Did Half-Life claim to be something other than heterosexist?
Maybe I missed that post.

 

[James Brown]

Either God violated the physical laws of the universe in order to arrange for a person pick up a particular widget, or he did not.

If he did not, then by definition, it's not a miracle. Unless we stretch the meaning of the word 'miracle' to mean 'anything that happens to have happened,' at which point the word 'miracle' becomes a null value.

If he did, then it's a poor use of divine resources. It's a box on a pallet--it's not as though lives were at stake.

I wonder what the man would have said if the defective part was in the last box he picked, and not the first. Would he have suspected Satan to be at work?

That doesn't even make sense. If the universe is created by God, why would she need to break "physical laws" to accomplish her will? Would the only law natural to the universe be her will? I can't say I've ever met a theist who would describe God as unnatural.

Maybe I'm confused. Is a man walking on water a violation of a physical property of the universe? Namely, the strength of water's surface tension? Is it not a miracle for a man to walk on water compared to a water bug?

 

[Treedbear]

God can't keep kids from being born encephaletic, can't keep tsunamis from wiping out a quarter of a million people, can't keep a lunatic from sending dozens of kindergartners to their graves with bullets in their heads...

But he has plenty of divine magic juice to compel a man to pick one box out of 40 that contains a defective part?

And so we get to the REAL REASON why atheists don't believe. It's because they look around and think, "God wouldn't allow this. Therefore, He must not be real." That's as clear cut as you can get. However, this is faulty reasoning.

Just because God allows things and YOU PERSONALLY don't know why God allows them to happen, this does not mean that God has no reason why these things happen. Your finite miniscule brain can not comprehend every possible scenario like God can. Therefore, you are wrong to think this way.

What you really mean to say is, "If I was God, I wouldn't allow this stuff!" But, you are not God.

That's not how it works. The reasoning goes that it is because "God can't keep kids from being born encephaletic, can't keep tsunamis from wiping out a quarter of a million people, can't keep a lunatic from sending dozens of kindergartners to their graves with bullets in their heads..." then you have no evidence demonstrating that God is perfectly good, all-knowing, and all-powerful. And that if God is all these things by definition then there is no evidence that God exists.

 

[Politesse]

Either God violated the physical laws of the universe in order to arrange for a person pick up a particular widget, or he did not.

If he did not, then by definition, it's not a miracle. Unless we stretch the meaning of the word 'miracle' to mean 'anything that happens to have happened,' at which point the word 'miracle' becomes a null value.

If he did, then it's a poor use of divine resources. It's a box on a pallet--it's not as though lives were at stake.

I wonder what the man would have said if the defective part was in the last box he picked, and not the first. Would he have suspected Satan to be at work?

That doesn't even make sense. If the universe is created by God, why would she need to break "physical laws" to accomplish her will? Would the only law natural to the universe be her will? I can't say I've ever met a theist who would describe God as unnatural.

Maybe I'm confused. Is a man walking on water a violation of a physical property of the universe? Namely, the strength of water's surface tension? Is it not a miracle for a man to walk on water compared to a water bug?

Well, if you don't believe that surface tension is a law that God must follow, but rather consider God's will to be a law that the water must follow, the whole thing looks a bit different.

 

[Gun Nut]

And so we get to the REAL REASON why atheists don't believe. It's because they look around and think, "God wouldn't allow this. Therefore, He must not be real." That's as clear cut as you can get. However, this is faulty reasoning.

That makes no sense.. people who don't believe in flying elephants don't say that they don't believe in flying elephants because we can;t see their contrials. They say what any rational person says about unbelievable claims.. "The claim is completely unsubstantiated and incredible enough to not just trivially accept.. equally incredible evidence is required to think any more about it"... or something like that..

Just because God allows things and YOU PERSONALLY don't know why God allows them to happen, this does not mean that God has no reason why these things happen. Your finite miniscule brain can not comprehend every possible scenario like God can. Therefore, you are wrong to think this way.

.. and no one does. What people do to maintain dialog and have a conversation with someone that has a conspiracy theory or believes in magic or whatever is to theoretically accept.. or as they say, "for the purpose of argument" IF (IF, IF, IF) there was a god with that attribute.. .THEN (THEN, THEN, THEN) your statement makes no sense because IF (IF IF IF) that is true then (THEN THEN THEN) that must also be true, and it conflicts with what you are saying. In other words, to show you how stupid an argument is, one must grammatically accept your statements so as to show you why they are illogical due to internal conflict. IF this THEN that.

What you really mean to say is, "If I was God, I wouldn't allow this stuff!" But, you are not God.

No, what they are really saying is "If the god you are describing exists that does the things you say, then we should see this arising from that, and we don't". It is your attributes you assign that "he" is failing to live up to. That's your problem in trying to define the "square circle" in a way that does not internally contradict itself.

 

[Atheos]

God can't keep kids from being born encephaletic, can't keep tsunamis from wiping out a quarter of a million people, can't keep a lunatic from sending dozens of kindergartners to their graves with bullets in their heads...

But he has plenty of divine magic juice to compel a man to pick one box out of 40 that contains a defective part?

And so we get to the REAL REASON why atheists don't believe. It's because they look around and think, "God wouldn't allow this. Therefore, He must not be real." That's as clear cut as you can get. However, this is faulty reasoning.

Just because God allows things and YOU PERSONALLY don't know why God allows them to happen, this does not mean that God has no reason why these things happen. Your finite miniscule brain can not comprehend every possible scenario like God can. Therefore, you are wrong to think this way.

What you really mean to say is, "If I was God, I wouldn't allow this stuff!" But, you are not God.

That's not how it works. The reasoning goes that it is because "God can't keep kids from being born encephaletic, can't keep tsunamis from wiping out a quarter of a million people, can't keep a lunatic from sending dozens of kindergartners to their graves with bullets in their heads..." then you have no evidence demonstrating that God is perfectly good, all-knowing, and all-powerful. And that if God is all these things by definition then there is no evidence that God exists.

Nitpick time. The word "good" is an escape clause for the problem of evil. Believers can easily commandeer the word "good" and redefine it to "whatever is according to God's will." Once they've done that it's game over. God commands you to commit genocide, it's good to commit genocide and it's evil to disobey. The word is useless. That's why I prefer to rephrase the problem in terms of suffering.

Does God want suffering? Few Christians would say "Yes" but most would hide the suffering behind a "greater good." This of course starts the Theodicy dance, attempting to defend omnipotence and omniscience while trying not to sacrifice benevolence. The curse of being omnipotent is that you never have to settle for a means to get to an end. You can have your end and you can have it now. This makes you culpable if you deliberately choose to get to the end by way of a method that involves suffering. If you know there is a child slowly dying of malnutrition while nearby vultures can barely contain their excitement at the prospect of this delectable meal, and if you have the power to resolve that suffering without so much as breaking a sweat on your omnipotent pinkie, yet you watch the entire grisly scene unfold... well, you're a malevolent monster. The one thing you ain't is "more benevolent than any other creature in the universe." I could drag a net down any main street in the world and capture at least a dozen humans who would act with more benevolence.

This doesn't eliminate all gods but it does eliminate any possibility that a god exists who is maximally benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient. There isn't a god like that. Not in this universe.

 

[Treedbear]

That's not how it works. The reasoning goes that it is because "God can't keep kids from being born encephaletic, can't keep tsunamis from wiping out a quarter of a million people, can't keep a lunatic from sending dozens of kindergartners to their graves with bullets in their heads..." then you have no evidence demonstrating that God is perfectly good, all-knowing, and all-powerful. And that if God is all these things by definition then there is no evidence that God exists.

Nitpick time. The word "good" is an escape clause for the problem of evil. Believers can easily commandeer the word "good" and redefine it to "whatever is according to God's will." Once they've done that it's game over. God commands you to commit genocide, it's good to commit genocide and it's evil to disobey. The word is useless. That's why I prefer to rephrase the problem in terms of suffering.
...

I understand your argument, but it doesn't matter how someone defines good, or whether we are even capable of understanding, my point is that there is no evidence for a God so defined. In fact it would be even less meaningful. But it's true that God's tri-omni nature conflicts with the existence of evil. Murdering one's own son or even wiping humanity from the Earth for the sake of one man and his offspring are then within reason.