Atheism has the same logical flaws as religion

Frank wrote:

"I am an agnostic -- and I consider the agnostic position to be superior to the theistic or atheistic position.

I doubt seriously, though, that you will "prove"to agnosticism is "the only logical religious viewpoint."

Hey Frank, I'm with you on your beliefs, but I just found this very funny Spoken like a true agnostic.

Instead of all this personal attack bullshit, Setanta, why don't you mount a defense of your position that goes beyond -- There is no evidence that there is a God?

That argument is not really an argument at all.

You really have got to get back in control of yourself, Setanta. You are allowing the fact that my agnostic arguments are showing your atheistic arguments to be porous to make you unreasonable - and naturally, your postings show that.

So, i take it that your earlier remark, which you made yesterday, about my leading a drab existence, was solid sopport for the rationality of your position. I've made an argument, your saying is no argument at all does not mean that it is not. Why don't you stop trying to prove your ethical and logical superiority, and acknowledge that you've erected an atheist stawman to knock down, again and again, tediously, in post after post, in thread after thread . . .

Atheists like you don't have a leg to stand on. Your arguments are manufactured, self-serving, and ludicrous. Like your theistic counterparts, you go into angry denial when that is pointed out to you.

Don't worry.

Chances are some day you will wake up.




About that "drab life" comment that you seem so exercised about.

Let's go through its genesis:

You had written:



I replied:



It was ironic, sarcastic, AND APPROPRIATE.

Stop being such a cry baby. It really doesn't help your image.

The problem is, believers have *NO* evidence whatsoever. They have claims. They have faith. They have persuasive techniques. The one thing they have absolutely none of is evidence. In fact, every shred of actual evidence that exists shows that believers are wrong.

God, you're highlarious . . . i've no doubt you are concerned to create for yourself an image, Frank, the ethically and logically superior man, dropping pearls of wisdom, uselessly, before irrational swine.

I'm sure you're equally impressed with the quality of your sarcasm. In fact, you seem to be highly impressed with your excellence in every regard. My original remarks concerned what you write here, you took it into the realm of personal remarks, and you've now complained about my making personal remarks.

I'm not trying to create an image for myself here, and don't care what you think about me or how i appear. Nor am i being a crybaby. I've greatly enjoyed, over the last two afternoons, pointing out to you your pompous attitude of superiority, a baseless stance which you derive from a delusion of higher rationality. It is sufficiently entertaining not to stop now . . .

Actually that's true. There *SHOULD* be evidence for God, considering all the things in the Bible that he was reported to have done. The fact that this evidence is completely absent is good evidence that the God described in the Bible doesn't exist. The same is true of most of the other 'popular' deities. That doesn't mean that there can't be some god hiding in a corner somewhere, doing nothing, having no interaction with humanity and otherwise ignoring us, but how many people purport that such an entity exists and why would we bother believing in such a creature?



The only one getting hyper-sensitive here seems to be you, Frank. You are insulting people because they don't toe your philosophical line. Do you have some personal need to convert people to your way of thinking? That seems rather... um... theist of you.

Taken to any kind of logical conclusion, your so-called agnostic arguments make life worthless. As there is rarely any kind of rock-solid evidence to prove any position beyond a reasonable doubt, you must simply not believe anything. Gravity? Hey, for all we know, it could reverse itself tomorrow. Science, rationality and logic are not based on absolute proof, no such thing exists. They are instead based on a system of "best guesses" where the position that is best supported by the available evidence is accepted, subject to change at a later time as more evidence is gathered. If you're waiting for absolute proof of anything in this life, you'll be in for a very long wait.

Once again I am happy to bring entertainment into your life. You truly sound as though you need it. Frankly, you don't sound all that entertained -- in fact, you sound almost out-of-control distrubed.

You are a cry baby -- and if you will read over your posts, even you should be able to see that.

As for the nastiness -- I suggest you read through the posts and you will see that you started things going in that direction. All I did was to counterpunch.

BTW, Setanta, if you would like to stop all this back and forth insult nonsense and get back to the topic, that would be nice.

Frank's Challenge
I agree that would be fun. However, I think its only fair that we should both post our peices of evidence without first viewing the other's evidence.

Therefore, in fairness, you should not read further on this post until you post your own evidence. But I will tell you that in this post I have added FIVE peices of evidence so far. I also want to make one thing clear...i am by no means an expert in the fields of astronomy, physics, etc...so my arguments may not represent the best possible arguments in those fields.

Evidence #1)The formation of the universe, sun and earth. A true theist would claim that God (or intelligent design) created these things. But literally thousands of articles of evidence show that the sun and earth were created over millions of years by natural forces. It has also been shown that the universe and the earth are at least 25 billion and around 15 billion years old respectively. Evidene for this is backed up by carbon dating of rocks and fossils, geological digging and analysis of earth's crust layers (grand canyon is example of this), distant stars (as we can quite accurate measure the distance to many distant stars and see that based on the length of time it would take light to travel from that star to us, the stars must be many millions of years old), and the half life of helium in the sun, all tell us that these things are MUCH older than the bible would have us believe. And they not only tell us they are old, but also suggest that they formed naturally. Physicists and astromers can show us likely methods which the earth and sun formed naturally, and these methods concur well with observation. And the amazing thing is that these experiments used in all different fields of science seem to point to basically the same conclusions about age, etc..and they are REPEATABLE...any scientist in any part of the world can repeat the experiments and get the same answers. This repeatability is what RELIGION lacks.

Evidence #2)Evolution
Evolution has basically become fact among the scientific community. It is backed up by countless examples of fossil records. With the evidence we have now, ancient bones can be placed next to each other to actually show the progression of human development. While there are still some gaps to be filled in, as with any other legitimate science, the evidence is overwhelming. The only reason it is not accepted as fact is because of its controversial nature. According to the Bible, evolution did not occur. And the Bible was supposedly inspired by God. So, was God wrong?? Or was the Bible simply writen by Man??

Evidence #3)Ambiguous support
Although Frank makes the claim that lack of evidence is not evidence of absence, I disagree with him slightly. If I make the claim that aliens came into the room and abducted me last night, but examination of my house, my body, and my yard show absolutely no evidence of this, that lack of evidence is ONE peice of evidence that the event did not occur. Further, if I provided the police with a picture of an the UFO as it flew away from the house, and the picture turned out to be a FAKE, then that is STRONG evidence that the event did not occur. Well, the same thing goes for religion. I will attack Christianity here simply because I am most familiar with it, but the same arguments could be made for any organized spiritual group. Christians claim the Bible makes accurate predictions of the future and thus proves inspiration by God. Not true. Nowhere in the bible can be shown an example of SPECIFIC, unambiguous prediction of a future event. Religion tells us we were created by a God in his image. Mounds of scientific evidence shows us we evolved. Religion tells us the Bible was the first book to say the earth was round. In reality, many philosophers proposed a round earth as far back as 1000 B.C, religion tells us that the earth is 7000 years old....science shows us it is definately not....
Arent these claims, and hundreds of others, kind of like being caught with a FAKED UFO photograph??

Evidence #4)Logic
Allthough pure logic should never be used as proof for or against something, it can definately be used as evidence. Ever hear of Occum's Razor? It is the premise that all things considered equal, the simplist explanation is most likely the correct one. Consider this: Life evolved on earth naturally and eventually became intelligent. Early man had a God for everything he could not understand. There was a God of Rain, a God of Dark, a God of Death, a God of the Ocean, etc, etc....as science began to understand each of these phenomena, the God's disappeared. There is only one thing that many people still dont understand: WHY ARE WE HERE? So that God remains. It is much more logical that Man created God than God created Man. It certainly fits Occum's Razor. And the theory that Man created God certainly would explain the lack of evidence for a God, would it not??

Evidence #5) Statistics and Complexity
Theists claim that the chances of our evolving on the earth as intelligent beings is FAR TO UNLIKELY to ever have happened. Not true.
It is estimated that there are over 50,000,000,000,000,000,000 star systems in the universe. That is 50,000,000,000,000,000,000 chances for life like ours to form. So even if the chances of us evolving naturally is only ONE in 50,000,000,000,000,000,000, then here we are!!!
They also claim that the world and the universe is far to complicated to have evolved naturally, and there must have been an intelligent creator. Also not true. Complexity actually favors a natural creation, and simplicity favors intelligent design. Pebbles are very complex in their composition, shape and colors. Marbles are much simpler. If a place such as the earth was to devolope naturally over billions of years, it by definition would HAVE to be complex!!


I will choose to stop here, not for lack of more evidence, but because I feel i have already gone too long, and most people may not even read all this.....
Greg

truth
Bravo, Frank. I've been impressed by the strength of Setanta's debate lately; it was marred only by his unnecessary use of "horseshit" and "crapola." And, after writing the original draft of this post, I see that you and even the esteeemed Fresco delivered some unnecessary verbal stabs. I do not object on principle to "swear words" per se. It's only that they can grossly deprive an intelligent argument of its dignity. I swear, but never here where I wish to engage in mutually respectful exchange. But I'm beginning to give up hope; it appears that testosterone is more important here than is seratonin.

I agree
I agree JLN

If the mins agree to keep it in their pants and play fair, would JL and skeptic stay? I, for one, would hate to see anyone chased away for a little head-butting. It's almost rutting season, I think....this has been a great debate so far, I say let's not mar it further. All in favour say yea? Also, if anyone has some extra serotonin, I would like some. Thanks in advance.

Skeptic

That was a super post -- and I am impressed that you were able to put that together that quickly.

However, and please don't take this next part wrong -- I don't think any of the items you offered can be construed as evidence that there are no gods.

Let me take them one at a time:

Item #1...

...essentially tells us that the formation of the universe appears to have taken a long time -- and that it appears to have happened as the result of "natural forces."

You observed:



Good grief, Skeptic. Why bring the Bible into this? You are setting out evidence that gods do not exist -- not that the pathetic cartoon god of the Bible does not exist.

If that is your purpose, you don't have to write anything, because I have probably written thousands of essays suggesting that any impartial reading of the Bible has to elicit a guess that it is a piece of self-serving theological fiction intersperced in a self-serving history (of sorts) of the early Hebrew people.

Your point here is, in my opinion, impeccable -- but it does not go to the question at hand. What is the evidence that there are no gods?

The universe can be zillions of years old and even if every structure we can see or intuit was the result of "natural forces" -- there still could be a God or gods who set everything in motion zillions of years ago using the methods of allowing natural forces to determine where the thing winds up.


Item #2...

...essentially tells us that evolution is a fact.

Well, it may or may not be a fact, but let us suppose for the sake of this discussion that it is -- and the way scientists now THINK things evolved actually IS the way they evolved.
As one point you wrote:

Read my response to Item #1. Same thing applies to Item #2.

The Bible is bullshit.



Item #3...

...starts with an error.

You wrote:

I did not say that at all.

I said "absence of proof is not proof of absence."

In any case, even if EVERY religion on Earth made claims that cannot be supported -- that would not be evidence (and certainly not proof) that there are no gods. That would simply mean that religion is wrong about what they assert.

You won't get any argument from me on that Skeptic. I think (suspect, estimate) that EVERY religion now functioning is based on pure speculation -- and I think most of it is all wet.

But that says absolutely nothing about the question at hand: What is the evidence that there are no gods?

Nothing you can say about the gods now being worshipped on planet Earth will ever impact on that question.



Item #4...

...really is not an argument at all. It is a recitation of facts and suppositions ending with a question: "And the theory that Man created God certainly would explain the lack of evidence for a God, would it not??"

For which my answer would be: Sure it would. But so would so many other things. And a part of my challenge was to eliminate the idea that since there is no evidence for gods -- gods cannot exist.

So we really have to eliminate this one.



Item #5...

...essentially rebuts a theistic argument that suggests that the chances of us evolving on Earth without a God is so great against -- that a God is needed to explain us.

Skeptic, I have just gone through 2 years of intense debate over in Abuzz and here in A2K refuting that silly notion. So we are shoulder to shoulder in our scorn for this unsustainable assertion by theists.

But in no way does that provide any evidence that there are no gods.

At best, it means that one cannot make any estimates about whether or not there is or is not a God or gods based on those calculations or the msinterpretation of them.


You wrote:

I read it all Greg -- and I truly was impressed. But not one thing here is evidence that there are no gods.

If you want, we can take each item separately and discuss them to death. You can provide greater details if you choose.

But so far, I see not one bit of evidence that goes directly to the question: "What is the evidence that there are no gods?" Even if every thing you wrote here is absolutely correct -- it does not provide any evidence that no gods exist.

I'm not being unreasonable -- let's discuss it more if you disagree with my analysis.

It has long been my belief that the deist and the agnostic are variables of the same misconceptions. It's like comparing a Michaelangelo to a Van Gogh: The outer structure is vastly different, but at core they are both Great Art. The believer at core does not disbelieve; neither does the agnostic. Only the atheist stands alone. Many deists and agnostics try to pin the religion label to the atheist in what I see as a subtle attempt to rob the atheist of the appearance of superiority: "You wallow in the mud with the rest of us pigs." But, the atheist who lives his life on a high plane (not all do) is pristine, pure, compared to the others. He has no dogma, no mantra, no reason to do other than live.

I voted 'don't care' and I'll tell you why: Religion, gods, all of them be damned. Who do you live with every day? Is it your god, or your philosophy, or is it your wife, your kids, your friends, your co-workers, other people in general? If it is your god or your philosophy, check into the loony bin already...I say keep good relations with those around you, and leave the rest to what we do not understand. It's only our concern because we make it that way.

Frank
Frank-
i did not think that your criticism was unreasonable. I did not agree with it all, but it wasnt unreasonable.

HOWEVER.....you have not stuck to the challenge. The challenge was that we would EACH come up with five peices of evidence. As I said, it would only have been fair if you posted your five peices BEFORE reading and criticizing mine. I was hoping you would have taken my advice about posting your five before criticizing mine. But i'm still waiting for your five..


Also, you claim that none of what I said is evidence.....i disagree....what I said IS evidence...it just is not proof...but I dont want to discuss that any further until I read your five peices.

Also dont take this the wrong way, but all you have done so far is to look at my submitted evidence and state that you dont think its evidence. But you have not submitted your half of the evidence and opened it up to my criticism! That was the deal!!
Lets be fair here Frank.

Greg

ttruthruth
Cav, I see your point. But let me add that one's philosophy is something he lives with all the time. It is the basis for the way he treats his children, his wife, and his co-workers. It may not seem so because in most cases one's "philosophy" is tacit or implicit in his thinking and feeling. It is the worldview that we often associate with one's personality or character. I personally enjoy being with people who try hard to understand and "improve" their philosophies, who try to test them against experience and the philosophies of others. A good reason to come to Able2Know.

JLN

My apologies for taxing your sensibilities, but I felt it time to talk to Frank in his own idiom. His avoidance of the issues I raised was of course highly predictable, and it seems we still await a worthy proponent of the agnostic position. I have even thought of filling the vacancy myself (under a pseudonym ?)...perhaps advocating a balance between "sceptism of naive realism" and "selfless spirituality" but I would still have problems with the concept of a deity unless of course it was me (and/or Kuvasz) :wink:

truth
PLease note the change in second sentence of the post above. Personality changed to philosophy.