Most irritating theological argument ever

[espritch]

My thread infers that atheism kills the spirit of morality and life, even if atheists are correct.

What spirit exactly is it you refer to? Is it the spirit of devout fanatics who crash airplanes into building and kill thousands? Is it the spirit of cults that drink poisoned coolaide because the “prophet” they chose to blindly follow told them too? Is it the spirit of the parents who let their children die for lack of available medicine because God was testing their faith? Is it the spirit of the witch burners who torture confessions from the innocent and burn them at the stake? Is this spirit really preferable to the truth?

And what is this morality you babbled about? Is it morality of fear and greed - the fear of hell and the greed for immortality (or 72 dark eyed virgins and ever flowing fountains of wine)? If you thought you wouldn’t be punished for it, would you just go out and start killing, raping, and pillaging? Are you really such a monster that only fear of eternal torment will make you treat your fellow human beings decently? Or do you just think everyone else is?

If atheism kills such "spirit" and "morality", that would appear to be a major plus for atheism.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Another happy atheist here...

My life has more meaning than ever, now that I'm not worried about some nasty God having a temper tantrum and drowning everybody..

That crap about the rainbow, was something I was never really sure about, even when I was holding out on some of the other stuff...

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

You might find my Bad Apologetics thread interesting. I covered several of the ones being discussed here.

 

[Some Friggin Guy]

Okay, enough with the crack-pot idea that "God gives life meaning" and "lack of belief in the mystic hooey kills the human spirit".

Let's examine me. Why? COZ I SAID TO!

I was thougroughly indoctrinated into a religion at a very young age. I honestly believed that there were factores at work in the universe that I couldn't POSSIBLY understand. There was a god in his heaven and he was controlling the destinies of all living things through his magical remote control device (Batteries included, since he is god.)

Anything that happened to em was god's will and anything I did was because he told me to.

Then reality hit me like a ton of bricks, though less bloody.

Without boring people again with my story, I realized that there was no god. There was no mystery that mankind (humanity to be a little more correct.) could not solve through their own power. No mechanism in the cosmos that could not be understood by the human mind.

There was an answer for everything, not just an excuse "god did it and we can't understand coz we're just his creations." I decided to spend my life looking for those answers.

Starting with what makes me the way I am. (I've been a little stumped on ths one. I think maybe my parents had a little too much fun at Woodstock, but I'm not too sure.)

And you know something? My "human spirit" is one HELL of a lot stronger now that I reailze I am a living, ration being, rather than god's Some Friggin Guy Action Figure with the Kung-Fu grip.

Now that I've said my piece, it's time for my medication.

 

[Yahweh]

My thread does not infer that God exists because life would be meaningless without 'him'. My thread infers that atheism kills the spirit of morality and life, even if atheists are correct.

I would beg to differ.

"Atheism kills the spirit of morality", Atheists are just as moral as everyone else, we adopt our morals through our environment, it is a psychology called "Social Ethics".

"Atheism kills the spirit of life", I dont know exactly what definition of spirit you are referring. I'm going to make a guess and assume the definition of "spirit" you were inferring is synonymous with "zest for life". In that case, Atheism does not kill the spirit of life, it's simply the attitude of the person that kills his own spirit. Athiests can be optimists, too, ya know.

 

[Yahweh]

Here's one that left me simply dumbfounded (translation: it made me dumber) when I heard it:

"It takes more faith to believe evolution than it does to believe in god."

 

[Yahweh]

Here's another:

"My proof for my belief in god is my faith in him, that's all the proof I need."

Of course, plenty of other people have just as much (or more) faith in Hinduism, Siikism (spelling?), Rain Gods, or [fill in the blank with your favorite non-Christian religion here] than the person who stated that, so I would say using "faith" as evidence pretty much defeats itself.

 

[Yahweh]

Ooh! And I just thought of another (sorry, I'd usually dont make so many short posts in succession):

"I know God exists because I can feel his love."

Gah?


"The bible is the word of God, and the word of God is infallible, therefore the bible is infallible. So there!"

Blehhhh?


"Just you wait until you die, let's see what you say when God doesnt let you into heaven."

Sorry, I cant be scared into religion, save that for the younger more impressionable children.


(Usually in response to a "god sucks" comment) "To hate/reject God, you first have to accept its existence, so you arent even an Atheist!"

Go ◊◊◊◊ yourself, you ignorant bastard.

 

[Yahweh]

Here's a common thing I see on the internet:

"How can you not believe in God, look at all he's given you..."

This usually tells me two things: First, I'm dealing with someone who is young. Second, this person undoubtedly thickheaded and/or has no reasoning skills beyond "Fire bad, tree pretty". These people will never get it through their heads that their overtly ridiculous approach to evangelism only annoys people, aside from the annoyance there is nothing coherent coming out of their mouth. Oh well, if someone wants to vocally express their lack of intelligible thought, so be it...

 

[Psydox]

One of the things that I see as being a flaw in the construct of sound argument is lack or loss of a clear objective.

What exactly is it that you are trying to achieve with your argument ?

Because what you have posted here does not clearly identify an objective, it allows for assumption of meaning. In other words, is the objective of this thread bitching for the sake of bitching, do you want people who believe in God to leave you alone, do you want people to stop believing in God....what do you want ?

Once you identify your true objective, and based on the evidence of what has been presented in this thread, you may want to consider asking yourself if the argument is logical.

Same goes for the "other team"

There is one last thing I want you to ask yourself.

Do you project the concept of faith to things external or do you internalize the concept of faith by applying it to your own opinions and then project it ?

 

[Yahweh]

One of the things that I see as being a flaw in the construct of sound argument is lack or loss of a clear objective.

What exactly is it that you are trying to achieve with your argument ?

Because what you have posted here does not clearly identify an objective, it allows for assumption of meaning. In other words, is the objective of this thread bitching for the sake of bitching,

I think you hit the nail pretty much right on the head.

This thread really has no objective, it was made for the sake of ranting.

Myself, I chose to take the much more cynical approach to humoring some of the funny theological arguements (I made several posts in a row because everytime I thought I was done and I clicked the submit button, a new idea came into my head...). I've seen a few others use a more light-hearted approach.

The goal of this thread is undefined, but I think its somewhere between ranting and humoring. No real discussion to expect from this thread.

do you want people who believe in God to leave you alone, do you want people to stop believing in God....what do you want ?

I wouldnt care whether or not they "just left me alone", but in actuality I dont expect they would or should. But hey, if they didnt, I would have been able to fit in my last 5 posts or ranting, could I?

I wouldnt care if they stopped believing in God or not, its not my decision to make.

What do I want... ummmm... a million dollars.

Once you identify your true objective, and based on the evidence of what has been presented in this thread, you may want to consider asking yourself if the argument is logical.

Most, if not all, of the theological arguements presented are of one form or another of any common logical fallacy you can think of. But again, the true objective is simply for humor value.

Same goes for the "other team"

There is one last thing I want you to ask yourself.

Do you project the concept of faith to things external or do you internalize the concept of faith by applying it to your own opinions and then project it ?

I project the concept of faith as applying to things which can or do exist externally and seperate from me, I also apply them internally in that I try to rationalize my own opinions and beliefs to determine whether they are statements of faith or not.

 

[Psydox]

Hummm Faith.

A concrete acceptance of a concept by both sides because to deny it would be to say that you do not believe in your own opinion (which in this case has no solid evidence to base it on or to prove it by).

Ultimately, what does it matter the name given to the recipient or object of that faith be it called God, or Atheism ?

Before you answer this question I want you to take an objective look at what the word God means and also at what the word Atheism means. Then relate those meanings to one another in terms of comparison and contrast. Once you have done that, read the question again then answer.

 

[Whomp]

One of the things that I see as being a flaw in the construct of sound argument is lack or loss of a clear objective.

What exactly is it that you are trying to achieve with your argument ?

A concrete acceptance of a concept by both sides because to deny it would be to say that you do not believe in your own opinion (which in this case has no solid evidence to base it on or to prove it by).

Psydox,
First, I don't see that the original intent of this thread was sound argument. Did you not read the original post?

Secondly, I beg to differ with your statement that my opinion (I assume you mean about god) has no solid evidence to base it on.

This is where many believers go wrong. I do have solid evidence on which to base my opinion.
It's called the entire history and body of science. (You may want to look it up some time.)
Nothing we have learned about the universe we live in requires or suggests a god. God is not needed for any of the explainations we now have about the way the universe works.

So why include god?

Whomp!

 

[The Thrasher]

Dumb Argument

The worst argument I ever heard was "but everyone has faith in something, you believe in something irrational so why not in god?"

My simple response was "Bulls**t!". I don't have faith in anything. When presented with a question I go with the answer that makes the most sense given the information I have. This girl believed that someday jesus will return to earth, the sky will split, and we will all be judged. This is faith. She believes in spite of all the evidence that this will never happen. I do not believe jesus is coming back because there is no good evidence to believe he will.
It was quite humorous actually. She couldn't get over the idea of simply going with the most logical answer to any question.

 

[triadboy]

... do you want people to stop believing in God....what do you want ?

Yes. The world would be a much safer, constructive place if we could all stop believing in invisible creatures. This would nullify their appointed, earth-bound representatives also.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Recently, I have encountered a particular argument in favor of God several times, once on this board, a couple of times away from it. This argument is the one that says, at its core, "God must exist because life would be meaningless if he didn't". I have also seen this argument used to justify why several other superstitions must be true.

It is, in my opinion, the most irritating, asinine, stupid argument ever conceived.

I think it is an excellent convincing sentiment. It is not an argument though, and it should be life would have no purpose rather than saying life is meaningless.

 

[Interesting Ian]

This is where many believers go wrong. I do have solid evidence on which to base my opinion.
It's called the entire history and body of science. (You may want to look it up some time.)
Nothing we have learned about the universe we live in requires or suggests a god. God is not needed for any of the explainations we now have about the way the universe works.

So why include god?

Whomp! [/B]

There is absolutely nothing in the entire history or body of science to remotely suggest that a God doesn't exist. Arguably the converse. What is it about science and its history I should look up which is suggestful there is no God?

And incidentally, you appear to conflate metaphysical explanations with scientific ones.

In short it would seem you have no reasons nor evidence to support your beliefs. You are at liberty of course try to persuade me otherwise.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Yes. The world would be a much safer, constructive place if we could all stop believing in invisible creatures. This would nullify their appointed, earth-bound representatives also.

Which would result in each and everyone of us not believing that other people exist, since it is not just God's mind which is invisible, but all minds whatsoever

 

[triadboy]

There is absolutely nothing in the entire history or body of science to remotely suggest that a God doesn't exist.

I assume you don't believe in the god of the OT/NT, the god of the Koran, the gods of Hinduism, etc. They can be quickly dispatched by reading their "inspired" writings and realizing they are born of myth.

I think you are speaking of an "initiator" in a deistic sense.

I believe Whomp is saying - belief in an initiator - without any need for an initiator - is an added feature without evidence. Science has not yet spotted this added feature, so there is no need to believe in it - except to sooth and validate the frightened human mind.

 

[triadboy]

Which would result in each and everyone of us not believing that other people exist, since it is not just God's mind which is invisible, but all minds whatsoever

That is odd thinking. I don't believe in a god, yet I believe you exist because you are real. People aren't just minds - people are also toenails.