Is atheism logical?

[cantata]

If you're talking about examples like Sodom and Gomorrah- you're right- we have a God who has little tolerance for evil.

Including the evil children and livestock. Evil, I say!

 

[Morcova]

I guess I'm not going to convince you to embrace a faith that two billion people in the world subscribe to.

Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm

No, appeals to majority is a bad argument.

Even so.. the majority doesn't worship your god so your argument fails anyway.

 

[Hnefi]

The more important observation I would make here is that 97.5% of the human race believe in the existence of God. They may call Him by different names, but nevertheless believe that the universe is created, rather than an accidental happening.

Well, first of all that's wrong. Buddhists are also generally atheists, and the "non-religious" group hasn't been properly defined, so the the number of believers according to that image is somewhere between 91.6% and 78.5%.

That's still a large percentage, but I don't see why that's suprising. There are many reasons why people believe in gods, but that doesn't make any of them any more likely. For example, christianity is a very expansionist and aggressive religion that spread throughout Europe very much through military conquest and missionary activity. That has certainly helped it gain a vast number of followers, especially since it was Europeans who later colonized America. But that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the religion has any truth to it.

That's why arguments from popularity are worthless. If the population is not qualified to have an informed opinion of something - which is the case in the question of the existence of god - then the popularity of an opinion is completely unrelated to its correctness.

Of course, I have already stated that I believe that there is no such thing as a true atheist- only 2.5% of the world's population that deny that God exists.

Look, you seem like a rather nice person. Why, then, do you have such an arrogant opinion as this? You claim to know the thoughts and minds of atheists better than themselves. It's as if, when buying a chocolate ice cream, the ice cream salesman stubbornly insists on only selling you vanilla because he claims that's your favourite, a claim he makes eventhough he's never met you before. It's a ridiculous position and only shows that you are unable to accept other peoples beliefs and opinions.

I think you should work on that, and try to open your mind to the possibility that maybe you are wrong.

 

[Morcova]

You claim to be for now- but as a Christian, I believe you will eventually come to believe.

But you have the free will to determine whether it will be from the vantage point of Heaven or hell.

I urge you to continue learning, and to keep an open mind.

Most atheist I know were once christians... so it's kind of unlikely that we would all of a sudden change our minds.

And you may wish to retract that open mind comment, it was reading the bible with an open mind that started me on the road to become an atheist.

 

[Morcova]

Including the evil children and livestock. Evil, I say!

Yes, Jesus so loved the little children he ordered their brains to be smashed out.

SUCH LOVE!

Yet abortion is somehow wrong...

 

[Servant of Jesus]

Yes, Jesus so loved the little children he ordered their brains to be smashed out.

SUCH LOVE!

Yet abortion is somehow wrong...

Huh? Where did He do this?

And I do think abortion is wrong because it is murder. The problem is that we don't perceive something we can't see- a fetus- as being a human being.

Whenever I ask someone that is pro-choice whether they believe it is a mother's right to abort a fetus just because it is one sex or the other, they express outrage. But pro-choice is pro-choice- you either believe in it, or you don't.

Same goes when I ask a pro-choice person whether they believe that abortion is o.k. until a moment before a baby is born- again, this usually meets with outrage. But a fetus is a fetus- if you think it is a human being a moment before it is born, then it is also a human being a moment after it is conceived.

 

[cantata]

Whenever I ask someone that is pro-choice whether they believe it is a mother's right to abort a fetus just because it is one sex or the other, they express outrage. But pro-choice is pro-choice- you either believe in it, or you don't.

I think it's a bad reason but it's still the her choice.

Same goes when I ask a pro-choice person whether they believe that abortion is o.k. until a moment before a baby is born- again, this usually meets with outrage. But a fetus is a fetus- if you think it is a human being a moment before it is born, then it is also a human being a moment after it is conceived.

Suffering is what I believe should be minimised. Aborting a foetus just before birth would cause unnecessary suffering, so unless it's medically necessary it shouldn't be done.

Sorry to disappoint you.

Anyway, this is off-topic. The point is that God apparently condones the massacre of everyone in a city indiscriminately, including women, children and livestock. See Deut. 13:13-19, for example.

 

[Hnefi]

Whenever I ask someone that is pro-choice whether they believe it is a mother's right to abort a fetus just because it is one sex or the other, they express outrage. But pro-choice is pro-choice- you either believe in it, or you don't.

Same goes when I ask a pro-choice person whether they believe that abortion is o.k. until a moment before a baby is born- again, this usually meets with outrage. But a fetus is a fetus- if you think it is a human being a moment before it is born, then it is also a human being a moment after it is conceived.

This is not the place for abortion discussions, but you seriously need to think over your position above, because you are presenting a strawman.

Pro-choice people don't draw the line at birth, because it wouldn't make sense to do so. The line is drawn at the first trimester, because before that the fetus has no brain activity. In other words, there is nothing in the fetus capable of sustaining thought, emotion or feelings during the first trimester. It's not yet a person.

Also, the argument "you either believe in it, or you don't" shows a seriously warped worldview. By that very same argument, people in favour of capital punishment should have no problem with executing shoplifters. After all, you either believe in capital punishment, or you don't, right?

 

[Servant of Jesus]

This is not the place for abortion discussions,

You're right- except as it may relate to the original question.

Pro-choice people don't draw the line at birth, because it wouldn't make sense to do so. The line is drawn at the first trimester, because before that the fetus has no brain activity. In other words, there is nothing in the fetus capable of sustaining thought, emotion or feelings during the first trimester. It's not yet a person.

Oh- and who has arbitrarily decided that a fetus that apparently has no brain activity is not a human being?

If you believe in God, then you believe that God not only created a human being at the moment of conception, but even before:

Jeremiah 1:4-5

4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;

And as for no brain activity- maybe not detectable brain activity- but there must be something going on that is directing the multitude of cells to continue to grow and multiply, and ultimately to develop into a fully-formed baby. Surely no atheist believes that not only did life just accidently begin, but that even after a baby is conceived, the growth of that tiny human being into a fully-formed adult is due to a series of amazing accidents that just happen to all coincide to make the baby develop and grow (I jest, of course)?

Also, the argument "you either believe in it, or you don't" shows a seriously warped worldview. By that very same argument, people in favour of capital punishment should have no problem with executing shoplifters. After all, you either believe in capital punishment, or you don't, right?

I really don't understand your reasoning here- where did God ever suggest that we should execute anyone that has ever sinned, no matter what the crime.

 

[Morcova]

Huh? Where did He do this?

And I do think abortion is wrong because it is murder. The problem is that we don't perceive something we can't see- a fetus- as being a human being.

Have you never read your bible?
Psalm 137:9 (King James Version)

9Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.


1 Samuel 15:3 (King James Version)

3Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.



And then of course you have the story of the curses upon egypt.. god makes certain that phraroh will not free the jews till god gets to kill everybody he wanted to kill.

 

[Morcova]

Oh- and who has arbitrarily decided that a fetus that apparently has no brain activity is not a human being?

Nobody has abritarily decided that fetuses don't have brain activity they studied them.

 

[TeddyKGB]

The more important observation I would make here is that 97.5% of the human race believe in the existence of God. They may call Him by different names, but nevertheless believe that the universe is created, rather than an accidental happening.

That's really post-modern straw-grasping. Christianity has historically never been promoted internally as merely one way out of hundreds or thousands to become closer to the creator. You are using it now as a rhetorical point, but I doubt you think Muslims or Hindus or Sikhs are in God's favor.

Of course, I have already stated that I believe that there is no such thing as a true atheist- only 2.5% of the world's population that deny that God exists.

So there are no "true atheists" except for the 150 million represented by that figure?

I think you had better figure out statistics before making grand philosophical pronouncements.

 

[ranmaonehalf]

The more important observation I would make here is that 97.5% of the human race believe in the existence of God. They may call Him by different names, but nevertheless believe that the universe is created, rather than an accidental happening.

Of course, I have already stated that I believe that there is no such thing as a true atheist- only 2.5% of the world's population that deny that God exists.

you also confuse religion with believeing in a god.
buddhsim is an atheistic religion in general.
not to mention that the majority of the planet believes in DIFFERENT things.
and one more time POPularity does not make true or right.

 

[ranmaonehalf]

...If you believe in God, then you believe that God not only created a human being at the moment of conception, but even before:....

your kidding right?
god is one of the biggest fiends in the bible
do you know how many pregnant women, young children, babies ect.. god has orderd killed?
heck god doesnt even care about fetus, he will kill you even after your born.

 

[Hnefi]

Oh- and who has arbitrarily decided that a fetus that apparently has no brain activity is not a human being?

Noone. It was concluded after very careful study of the development of fetuses in the womb.

If you believe in God, then you believe that God not only created a human being at the moment of conception, but even before:

That's just a belief though, and an unsupported one at that. The same source says prayer can heal all kinds of illnesses, but all evidence points to the contrary.

You have to understand that medicine is a science that in a very direct way deals with peoples lives. There is no room for superstition and fantasy - doctors must only look at what is real, not what they or their patients want to be real. That means that they can pay no heed to an ancient text and start claiming things by faith - real medicine requires a lot more work than that.

And as for no brain activity- maybe not detectable brain activity- but there must be something going on that is directing the multitude of cells to continue to grow and multiply, and ultimately to develop into a fully-formed baby. Surely no atheist believes that not only did life just accidently begin, but that even after a baby is conceived, the growth of that tiny human being into a fully-formed adult is due to a series of amazing accidents that just happen to all coincide to make the baby develop and grow (I jest, of course)?

Of course not. But that has nothing to do with brain activity. The growth of a baby (or any other organism) has nothing to do with brains - after all, most of the organisms on this planet don't have brains at all, and they are growing quite happily anyway. Even after birth, our growth has little to do with our brains. We mature and become adult whether we want to or not. It is not regulated by our brains.

As to what happens with the cells during the first trimester, well, they grow. Wikipedia has a nice summary, with sources, here. There simply are not enough nerve cells to constitute a brain in the first trimester, and the cells that do exist are not yet connected. That happens in the second trimester.

I really don't understand your reasoning here- where did God ever suggest that we should execute anyone that has ever sinned, no matter what the crime.

Don't you get it? You claimed that pro-choice is an all-or-nothing stance. I used that very same logic to point out what happens when you apply it to other beliefs. Of course the bible doesn't claim that all crimes should be punished by death, just like pro-choice advocates don't claim that all abortions are okay - but you claimed they did or should. Do you see the error of your reasoning now?

 

[Servant of Jesus]

1 Samuel 15:3 (King James Version) 3Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

god is one of the biggest fiends in the bible
do you know how many pregnant women, young children, babies ect.. god has orderd killed?
heck god doesnt even care about fetus, he will kill you even after your born.

Us mortal human beings will never understand why God occasionally took such drastic action against evil, as described mainly in the Old Testament.

I think the best examples are the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as described in Genesis 19:

24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.

and the destruction of the entire world, as it existed at that time, during the Biblical flood, as described in Genesis 7:

22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

Us mortal human beings will also never understand why God allows suffering on this Earth- why innocent children and babies die of disease, of malnutrition, in wars, etc.

So we can get some comfort and hope from the New Testament, where God tells us in passages like John 3:16:

16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

But I'll be the first to admit that I don't have all the answers, or can even begin to understand God's thinking in all of this.

However, that still doesn't dissuade me from following the advice in Proverbs 3

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

 

[NotreDame]

How can you justify existance without a divine Creator? How did the heavens and the earth come to form out of a vast expanse of nothing? Surely there was a divine beginning and initial creation set in motion by a higher power.

Depends on the basis of their belief. What if the reason for believing was a logical fallacy? If the atheist exclaims, "I do not believe in God because there is no evidence for God's existence, or God has not been shown to exist," then it may not be logical, as the reasoning error here constitutes as the fallacy of the argument from ignorance.

Now, I want to address this remark made by Corey.

In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence despite searching, as positive evidence towards its non-occurrence.

This may not rehabilitate the atheist's position. First, we must ask ascertain what is the "event". I suppose the event is "God" but this does not quite make sense, as God is not an "event" but an entity. The next question to be answered is whether or not evidence could be discovered of God's existence, and who would constitute as "qualified investigators"?

In the end, this just asks more questions than it answers and as a result, makes it more problematic, as opposed to facilitating, the atheist's reasoning as one of "logical" in regards to God's existence.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Depends on the basis of their belief. What if the reason for believing was a logical fallacy? If the atheist exclaims, "I do not believe in God because there is no evidence for God's existence, or God has not been shown to exist," then it may not be logical, as the reasoning error here constitutes as the fallacy of the argument from ignorance.

That is not an argument from ignorance. Arguments from ignorance are of the form "A has not been disproven, therefore A is true" or "A has not been proven, therefore A is false".

While weak atheists would make the statement "The existance of deities has not been proven", they do not conclude that "therefore "Deities exist" is false", and thus are not committing the fallacy of ignorance. Indeed, the weak atheists I have talked to fully accept the possibility that dieties might exist.

Now, I want to address this remark made by Corey.

In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence despite searching, as positive evidence towards its non-occurrence.

For the record (if one exists), I agree with Corey here.

This may not rehabilitate the atheist's position. First, we must ask ascertain what is the "event". I suppose the event is "God" but this does not quite make sense, as God is not an "event" but an entity.

Indeed. The statement is "deities exist", and the question is whether or not there is any evidence for or against this statement.

The next question to be answered is whether or not evidence could be discovered of God's existence, and who would constitute as "qualified investigators"?

Presumably, anyone who sets out to find evidence of deities.

 

[NotreDame]

That is not an argument from ignorance. Arguments from ignorance are of the form "A has not been disproven, therefore A is true" or "A has not been proven, therefore A is false".

The argument of ignorance, also called the appeal to ignorance, is not this narrow. The argument from ignorance/appeal to ignorance includes your definition along with the one I provided. (Parker and Moore, Critical Thinking). There is no evidence against p. Therefore, p.
There is no evidence for p. Therefore, not-p.
http://http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html


There is no evidence for P, where P is God exists. Therefore, not P (-P) God does not exist.

While weak atheists would make the statement "The existance of deities has not been proven", they do not conclude that "therefore "Deities exist" is false", and thus are not committing the fallacy of ignorance. Indeed, the weak atheists I have talked to fully accept the possibility that dieties might exist.

I never made any remarks about the beliefs of weak atheists and consequently, I am not quite sure how it benefits you to bring them up when addressing my post.

Indeed. The statement is "deities exist", and the question is whether or not there is any evidence for or against this statement.

Assuming "God," can qualify as an "event," not sure he can, then the question is whether there is evidence for God's existence. Please explain to me how "God" is an "event"?

Presumably, anyone who sets out to find evidence of deities.

Really? So, setting out to find evidence of a crime makes you a qualified detective?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

The argument of ignorance, also called the appeal to ignorance, is not this narrow. The argument from ignorance/appeal to ignorance includes your definition along with the one I provided. (Parker and Moore, Critical Thinking). There is no evidence against p. Therefore, p.
There is no evidence for p. Therefore, not-p.
http://http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html


There is no evidence for P, where P is God exists. Therefore, not P (-P) God does not exist.

True, the fallacy is this general. But since weak atheists affirm neither the existance nor non-existance of deites, they still do not commit the fallacy. Strong atheists, on the other hand, are susceptible: they claim deities do not exist, for whatever reason.

I never made any remarks about the beliefs of weak atheists and consequently, I am not quite sure how it benefits you to bring them up when addressing my post.

Because we are talking about atheists, of which weak atheism is by far prevalent.

Assuming "God," can qualify as an "event," not sure he can, then the question is whether there is evidence for God's existence. Please explain to me how "God" is an "event"?

No, because that's not my argument. If you'll notice, I agreed with you when you said a deity is an entity, not an event. Indeed, I made the point of rephrasing it to the statement "deities exist", rather than the event "deities".

Really? So, setting out to find evidence of a crime makes you a qualified detective?

Yes. A court of law probably won't accept your testimony, since your qualifications are likely spurious at best. Nevertheless, proof beyond reasonable doubt (or even all doubt) is still proof beyond reasonable doubt, regardless of the author.
For instance, though anti-evolutionists are ridiculed for relying on lawyers and theologians, noone dismisses their arguments on those grounds alone. They are summarily dismissed on their own virtues (or lack thereof).

My point? Anyone can go out to look for evidence. Whether it is accepted by one's peers and the relevant establishments is another thing altogether.