"Facts" on Atheism

A friend recently pointed me to this website: http://www.blog.churchwebstop.com/facts-on-atheism/.

Atheism, according to this article, is "easy to deal with," and it goes on to give some pointers to the theist for derailing atheists in chat rooms. I'd like to discuss a couple of the points that the author attempts to make:

If you say that atheism needs no evidence or reason, then you are holding a position that has no evidence or rational basis? If so, then isn’t that simply faith?

Though I'm sure that every atheist has said something like this at one time or another, and that no christian accepts it, one more time: If someone suggests to you that there exists a Flying Spaghetti Monster, is it your job to disprove it, or theirs to prove it? As to rationality, is it really less rational to believe that there is no god? I have never seen god, nor has anyone I know. Not even the Southern Baptist preachers and other zealots that I have had contact with my whole life were brazen enough to claim that they had seen god.

Everything that was brought into existence was caused to exist. Can you have an infinite regression of causes? No, since to get to "now" you'd have to traverse an infinite past. It seems that there must be a single uncaused cause. Why can't that be God?

This is, of course, a very widespread argument in favor of Creationism. It has been reduced to shreds by countless people before, but I will once more address it here. This is what is known as ad hoc reasoning. Everything has to have a cause, except for god.

A quote from Atheist Universe (an excellent book, by the way):

If we can suppose that God always existed - and thus requires no causal explanation - then we can suppose instead that the mass-energy compromising our universe always existed and thus requires no causal explanation.

This seems to make more sense, does it not? It also conforms to Occam's Razor (which, while not always accurate, is helpful in determining truth). It is much simpler to assume that the universe which exists today has always existed, rather than that a supernatural creature has always existed and decided one day to create a universe.

If the laws of logic are human constructs then how can they be absolute since humans think differently and often contradictorily. If they are produced from human minds, and human minds are mutually contradictory, then how can the constructs be absolute? Therefore, the laws of logic are not human constructs.

The assertion that the 'laws of logic' are absolute was one made by the author. As a rule, skeptics tend to shy away from declaring anything 'absolute.' Logic is not an independent entity. It is a way of describing observations, and it has been agreed upon (either explicitly or implicitly) by humankind since Aristotle and before. However, it is conceivable that someday something will occur that will render our current 'laws of logic' obsolete. If quantum physicists one day determine that a particle can be both itself and not itself (which doesn't seem too far-fetched, given the little I've read about quantum theory), than our logic is rendered obsolete. Modern logic is necessarily bound to the limitations of our species and our technology.

If you say that atheism is simply lack of belief in a god, then my cat is an atheist the same as the tree outside and the sidewalk out front, since they also lack faith. Therefore, your definition is insufficient.

Therefore, your definition is insufficient? Why? Your cat is an atheist; it does not believe in a god. Similarly, newborn humans are also atheists. They do not believe in a god. Even you were once an atheist, before the religious establishment got its hands on you.

A tree is not capable of belief (as far as we are aware), therefore it cannot lack belief in a god.

If you lack belief in God, then why do you go around attacking the idea of God? If you also lack belief in invisible pink unicorns, why don’t you go around attacking that idea?

I attack the idea of God because extremist Christian groups in this country threaten everything that we stand for. They attempt to push their backward morality on all citizens, and yet cry "Persecution!" the moment someone tells them that they'd like to have sex with whomever they please, and would rather not have a picture of Jesus staring them in the face while they renew their registration at the DMV.

I would most definitely "go around attacking" the idea of pink unicorns if the majority of my family, friends, and countrymen had been stricken by an irrational belief in them. If groups of Pink Unicorners were rallying outside the gates of congress, attempting to force their morality on everyone in the country, I would vehemently attack. However, there are not. There are only christians. I lack belief equally in God, Allah, Vishnu, and Ahura-Mazda. However, as I live in the United States, I focus most of my energy to the christian god, as it is christians who make our country unbearable.

You cannot logically state that there is no God because you cannot know all things so as to determine that there is no God.

You cannot logically state that there is a god because you cannot know all things so as to determine that there is a god. Similarly, you cannot logically state that there are no Pink Unicorns (see above) because you cannot know all things so as to determine that there are no Pink Unicorns.

The universe exists. It is not infinitely old. If it were it would have run out of energy long ago. Therefore, it had a beginning. The universe did not bring itself into existence. Since it was brought into existence by something else, I assert that God is the one who created the universe. When the atheist complains, ask him to logically explain the existence of the universe. Point out that opinions and guesses don’t count.

But writings from a book do?

I don't mean to be condescending (though the article states I have a duty to eventually become so), but how can anyone be so blind? How can they, in one single paragraph, state that they believe that God created the universe (presumably because the Bible said so), and then say "opinions and guesses don't count" for explaining how the universe was created?


That's it for now. Stay tuned, as I found a link to carm.org on the site, and it looks like great material for some discussions.