Why do atheists constantly critique religion and assert truth claims even though they have no way to ground their own epistemology?

Debate Room
61

you are a clown, and a liar

1 Like
62


(*ruff*)
. :dog_face:

1 Like
63

I am trying (very hard and very sincerely) to follow the thinking behind these ideas, as I have encountered this before.

As a paramedic, I had to work in areas (usually in an extention of what we think of when we hear stories about backward, poverty-stricken areas of the “Deep South”) that were still largely segregated, and–often–a center of some ultra-conservative form of the Southern Baptist faith.

Their reasoning (assuming–of course–that you want to call it that) was very similar to the initial post in this thread.

Please . . . I only speak for myself, but I would welcome a civilized, polite, and reasonable exchange of ideas about God’s existence.

The way you present the atheist almost seems like a racist cartoon and/or caricature.

If you want to get better clarity from our point of view . . . then please dive in!

And–above all–be civil and be nice even with people you disagree with.

And please remember that I only spoke for myself.

64

Sadly this particular correspondant showed that they were more interested in insults than genuine discussion and were escorted from the building.

3 Likes
65

A dead giveaway, whose fucking opinion should they assert one wonders, should they blindly parrot religious doctrine and dogma maybe, let the priest Rabi and Imam tell them what to assert maybe, and not care whether what they say is true?

What an utter clown. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

1 Like
66

I’m still wondering what opinion the atheist is asserting

2 Likes
67

So, by your logic, because one Muslim kills an innocent, all Muslims are capable of such an act and should be categorized accordingly. Am I interpreting that correctly?

If I have, it gives the appearance of simple stereotyping. As I understand it, the Bible warns against these judgments and generalizations.

Personally, I see most religious doctrine as benign. If practiced is shows signs of being constructive. I don’t believe in any religious teachings or dogma personally, but I do feel a sense of morality, despite what theists may think or perceive.

I feel no need to vilify scripture. I do feel the need to vilify hypocrisy.

3 Likes
68

If we’d just stop pulling the curtain back to reveal the Wizard this would all be a non-issue


2 Likes
69

all hail the overlord Wizard: the flying spaghetti monster

3 Likes
70

Oh look, once again we have garbage to deal with. Now that the distractions of bureaucracy have been swept aside, I can attend to this particular sewage fest.

Oh how many times do we have assorted mouths on sticks coming here, claiming to be “ex-atheists”? This is one of the commonest pieces of mythology fanboy duplicity in the playbook, and readily exposed once the content of the post is examined, as is about to happen here.

I smell the foetid odour of blatant mythology fanboy projection. Another frequently observed feature of the aetiology. Be patient, your dismantling will follow in due course.

Again, dismantling approaches. Be patient.

Ah, arrogance. where have we seen this before? Oh that’s right, it’s practically the definition of mythology fanboy posting.

Now, on to the dismantling I promised. It’s blatantly obvious to me, and to several other veterans here, that your self-declaration to be an “ex-atheist” is merely more mythology fanboy lying, because it’s similarly blatantly obvious that you don’t know what atheism actually is. I shall now provide the requisite schooling.

Atheism, in its rigorous formulation, consists of nothing more than proper suspicion of unsupported mythology fanboys assertions, said assertions being deserving of suspicion PRECISELY BECAUSE they are unsupported by even an atom of genuine evidence. More on this detail shortly.

As a corollary, atheism, when conducted properly, does NOT consist of presenting assertions of any sort - it consists merely of questioning YOUR assertions, and questions don’t possess a truth value. So already, your feeble apologetics is crumbling as a result of being subject to the pyroclastic flow of FACT.

Meanwhile, to demonstrate that your waving a flag labelled “epistemology” doesn’t mean you actually know anything about the subject, let’s consider the matter of truth, shall we?

Anyone who has studied pure mathematics, such as myself, will tell you that in that realm, the matter of ‘truth’ depends intimately upon one’s choice of axioms. The classic example being provided by geometry. Which, as those of us who paid attention in class learned early, was originally launched by Euclid, who was possibly one of the most celebrated geniuses of the era of Classical Antiquity.

Indeed, one of the reasons that Euclid was such a genius, is because he not only produced the first properly working systematisation of geometry, but along the way, he also invented the entire concept of a formal axiomatic system, fully 20 centuries or so before the term was coined.

In his seminal work, The Elements, Euclid declared that five axioms underpinned the whole of geometry. Four of theses axioms are indispensible to any geometric system, because without them, you don’t have the definitions of basic geometric entities in place. However, the fifth axiom - the one that states that parallel lines never meet - is rather more interesting.

For the best part of 20 centuries, mathematicians expended a huge amount of effort trying to establish the validity of Euclid’s fifth axiom. This was because that fifth axiom ‘looked right’ to anyone studying geometry at the time - the geometric system worked - and worked extremely well - with that axiom in place, and no one thought, for a very long time, that an alternative was possible.

That fifth axiom made intuitive sense to mathematicians for the best part of 20 centuries, and no one thought, throughout that time, that this would change.

Then came Riemann and Lobachevsky. Who, in a flash of brilliance of their own, asked the question “what happens if we replace Euclid’s fifth axiom with a different one?”

They did so, thinking that the end result would be an inconsistent system, one that fell apart the moment one tried to build meaningful theorems from the axioms. But, to their no doubt surprise, and later delight, they discovered that one could produce consistent alternative geometries by implementing different versions of Euclid’s fifth axiom.

The two geometries in question - the elliptic geometry of Riemann and the hyperbolic geometry of Lobachevsky, were not only consistent, but would later be found by cosmological physicists to have a bearing on the structure of the universe, depending upon how much matter was present. If the critical value of the quantity of matter is labelled “M”, and the actual amount of matter in the universe is labelled “m”, then the following has been found to hold:

[1] If m<M : the universe has a Lobachevskian geometry, and is infinite in extent.

[2] If m=M, the universe has a Euclidean geometry, and is infinite in extent.

[3] If m>M, the universe has a Riemannian geometry, and is finite in extent, but boundless.

So, here we have examples of formal axiomatic systems, within which the true theorems are dependent upon the axioms (and differ in critical instances across the three geometries), and as a corollary, what constitutes “truth” in geometry is directly dependent upon one’s choice of axioms. Even more hilariously for your apologetics, what is true about the geometrical structure of the universe, is dependent upon a physical constant that governs the choice of geometry.

At this point, we’re in a position to discard your wibblings without further ado, but since you also decided to mention ‘morality’, boy, do I have a surprise for you. I’ve already provided no less than seven relevant dissertations on this subject on these forums, but just for you, I’ll add number eight.

First, there’s the matter that those of us who paid attention in classes devoted to ethics, learned a long time ago that this subject is far more subtle and complex than the fatuous caricature thereof that mythology fanboys embrace, namely “Magic Man says so”.

Which of course is recognised by those of us who paid attention in class, as not merely a caricature of genuine ethics, but a dangerous one, as anyone familiar with Susan B. Anthony’s famous and succinct critique thereof is well aware. In addition, a paper I present below, about differences between secular and religious societies, also has significant input at this juncture. Again, be patient.

Second, those of us who paid attention in the requisite classes, learned some time ago of a simple and powerful test that can be performed, to determine the ethical status of an action, that is independent of any “authority” - namely, what benefit or harm is bestowed upon the recipients of the action in question.

Being able to perform this test, courtesy of our ability to place ourselves mentally in the situation of others, doesn’t require a cosmic Big Brother, but empathy, a property that is actually to be found possessed by Eutherian mammals all the way down to rodents (about which I shall say more shortly).

Third, humans were constructing ethical and legal codes before your religion and its associated mythology existed. Perhaps the canonical example is the Code of Urukagina, which was written 2,000 years before your mythology existed. It has the distinction of being the first ethical code to enact prohibitions against slavery and the exploitation of the poor by the rich. Which your favourite Bronze Age mythology failed to do.

Fourth, speaking of your favourite Bronze Age mythology, it not only condones slavery, but devotes fully 260 pages to the matter of exterminating entire indigenous peoples, so that the sociopathic authors thereof can pursue their Bronze Age version of Lebensraum. All of these instances of wanton butchery mentioned within said mythology, are asserted either to have been directly ordered by your cartoon magic man, or given silent assent thereby.

Among said tales of slaughter, is the particularly hideous instance covered in Numbers 31:18, in which said mythology declares it to be “moral”, for the raving hordes in question to kidnap underage girls as rape slaves, after butchering their parents and elder siblings.

The mythology you slavishly devote yourself to, and whose assertions you treat uncritically and dangerously as fact, condones slavery, rape and genocide. The warped and fascistic view of human relations presented therein, provided the pretext for 1,500 years of doctrinally motivated torture and murder in Europe.

Indeed, the real central message emanating from your favourite mythology, consists of “kill all who do not conform”. Instructive instances thereof can be found in Exodus 23:24, Deuteronomy 7:5, Deuteronomy 13: 6-10, Deuteronomy 13: 12-15,Deuteronomy 17:2-5, 2 Chronicles 15:13 , Jeremiah 12: 1-3, and Luke 19:27.

Fifth, the concepts of reciprocity and fairness are to be found distributed much more widely than the usual suspects imagine. Indeed, there now exists an abundant scientific literature, documenting in exquisite detail the evidence for the evolutionary and biological basis of:

[1] our capacity for ethical thought, and;

[2] the motivation to act thereupon.

Among the topics discussed in said literature, are:

[3] The evolution of brain development genes expressed in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that has been known to be implicated in ethical decision making for over a century;

[4] Observed instances of ethical behaviour in non-human species, none of which know about our mythologies or invented cartoon magic men.

With respect to [4] above, I was recently introduced to peer reviewed scientific papers, documenting experimental determination of ethical behaviour in RATS. Which have been shown in the laboratory, to reject behaviours that would inflict pain and suffering upon a fellow rat, even when a substantial reward for those behaviours is offered. Seems rats have a better ability to reject avarice than a good many human beings I can think of.

In addition, the late Frans de Waal provided evidence not only in his numerous peer reviewed scientific papers for the above, but also presented this highly educational YouTube video, featuring the footage from his experiments with reciprocity and fairness in non-human species:

Sixth, this peer reviewed academic paper:

informs us that avowedly secular nations are far better places to live, than religion infected shit holes. The most secular nations covered in that paper, all have lower rates of homicide, juvenile crime, STDs and abortion than the USA.

The idea that your cartoon magic man is purportedly “necessary” in order for us to function as ethical beings, has been falsified by vast quantities of observational data.

Seventh, the idea that your imaginary cartoon magic man is purportedly “necessary” for successful ethical behaviour, is also falsified by the number of “pastors”, who featured in the news after being arrested for playing “Hide The Sausage” with 12 year old girls. The list thereof is growing DAILY.

To illustrate the work that has been conducted in the relevant fields, the following is merely a short and incomplete list of relevant citations of peer reviewed scientific papers:

Characterisation Of Empathy Deficits Following Prefrontal Brain Damage: The Role Of The Right Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex by S.G. Shamay-Tsoory, R. Tomer B.D. Berger and J. Aharon-Peretz, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15: 324-337 (2003)

The Role Of The Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex In Abstract State-Based Inference During Decision Making In Humans by Alan N. Hampton, Peter Bossaerts and John. P. O’Doherty, The Journal of Neuroscience, 26(32): 8360-8367 (9th August 2006)

Characterisation Of The Decision-Making Deficit Of Patients With Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Lesions by Antione Bechara, Daniel Tranel and Hanna Damasio, Brain, 123: 2189-2202 (2000)

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activation Is Critical For Preference Judgements by Martin P. Paulus and Lawrence R. Frank, NeuroReport, 14(10): 1311-1315 (28th March 2003)

Impairment Of Social And Moral Behaviour Related To Early Damage In Human Prefrontal Cortex by Steven W. Anderson, Antoine Bechara, Hanna Damasio, Daniel Tranel and Antonio R. Damasio, Nature Neuroscience, 2(11): 1032-1037 (November 1999)

Damage To The Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral Judgements by Michael Koenigs, Liane Young, Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Fiery Cushman, Marc Hauser and Antonio Damasio, Nature, 446: 908-911 (19th April 2007)

The Regulatory Function Of Self-Conscious Emotion: Insights From Patients With Orbitofrontal Damage by Jennifer S. Beer, Erin A. Heerey, Dacher Keltner, Donatella Scabini and Robert T. Knight, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 85(4): 594-604 (2003)

Theory Of Mind Enhances Preference For Fairness by Haruto Takagishi, Shinya Kameshima, Joanna Schug, Michiko Koizumi and Toshio Yamagishi, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 105(1-2): 130-137 (Jan/Feb 2010)

The Neural Bases Of Cognitive Conflict And Control In Moral Judgment by Joshua D. Greene, Leigh E. Nystrom, Andrew D. Engell, John M. Darley and Jonathan D. Cohen, Neuron, 44: 389-400 (14th October 2004)

How Does Morality Work In The Brain? A Functional And Structural Perspective Of Moral Behaviour by Leo Pascual, Paulo Rodrigues and David Gallardo-Pujol, Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 7(65): 1-7 (September 2013)

Empathy: Its Ultimate And Proximate Bases by Stephanie D. Preston and Frans de Waal, Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 25: 1-20 (2001)

Mechanisms Of Social Reciprocity In Three Primate Species: Symmetrical Relationship Characteristics Or Cognition? by Frans B. M. de Waal and Lesleigh M. Luttrell, Ethology and Sociobiology, 9(2-4): 101-118 (1988)

Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay by Sarah F. Brosnan & Frans B. M. de Waal, Nature, 425: 297-299 (18th September 2003)

Primates: A Natural Heritage Of Conflict Resolution by Frans B. M. de Waal, Science, 289: 586-590 (28th July 2000)

Reconciliation And Consolation Among Chimpanzees by Frans B. M. de Waal and Angeline van Roosmalen, Behavioural Ecology & Sociobiology, 5(1): 55-66 (March 1979)

Attitudinal Reciprocity In Food Sharing Among Brown Capuchin Monkeys by Frans de Waal, Animal Behaviour, 60: 253-261 (2000)

Cooperative Hunting And Meat Sharing 400-200 kya At Qesem Cave, Israel by Mary C. Stinera, Ran Barkai and Avi Gopher, [i]Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA[i], 106(32): 13207-13212 (11th August 2009)

Capuchin Monkeys Are Sensitive To Others’ Welfare by Venkat R. Lakshminarayanan and Laurie R. Santos, Current Biology, 18(21): R999-R1000 (11th November 2008)

Do Infants Have A Sense Of Fairness? by Stephanie Sloane, Renée Baillargeon and David Premack, Psychological Science, 23(2): 196-204 (1st February 2012)

How Infants And Toddlers React To Antisocial Others by J. Kiley Hamlina, Karen Wynn, Paul Bloom and Neha Mahajan, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 108(50): 19931-19936 (13th December 2011)

Empathy And Prosocial Behaviour In Rats by Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, Jean Decety and Peggy Mason, Science, 334: 1427-1430 (9th December 2011)

Harm To Others Acts As A Negative Reinforcer In Rats by Julen Hernandez-Lallement, Augustine Triumph Attah, Efe Soyman, Cindy M. Pinhal, Valeria Gazzola and Christian Keysers, Current Biology, 30: 949-961 (23rd March 2020)

So, methinks you need to spend a long time acquainting yourself with the relevant facts, before posting here again.

Meanwhile, pointing out the manifest inconsistencies, absurdities and contradiction endemic to mythology fanboyism in its various forms, isn’t “cope” (oh look, another infantile piece of Internet slang to subject to scorn and derision), it’s the proper business of dismantling canards and garbage, in the pursuit of genuine, substantive knowledge. Which mythology fanboys such as you have FAILED DISMALLY to provide, despite having had over 2,000 years to deliver the goods.

If I receive from you, as a pathetic excuse for a response to the above, something along the lines of “tl;dr”, or some other display of wilful ignorance and indolence, then the rest of the audience here will be in a position to dismiss your dribblings without further ado.

71

I made slight mention of it in an earlier post in this thread, but since you brought it up again, I figured I would expand on it just a wee bit more. Granted, since our “exatheist” has appropriately been ousted from the premises after having been determined to be a blatant troll, what follows is meant primarily for the “lurkers” who might read the threads but never wish to participate. Also, maybe it can be of use to the aspiring “ex-atheist” trolls to help them see the folly of using the all-too-ridiculous “ex atheist” ploy as a means of establishing some sort of imaginary ‘weight” to their falsely fabricated charade. Anyway, here it goes
.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a passage or two in the bible that describes how horribly UNFORGIVABLE it is for a person to deny god?If anybody wants to look it up and post it in response to this, please feel free to do so. I’m honestly just too lazy right now to do it myself (been a very long and stressful week). Basically, I know I was taught as a kid that the ONLY sin that god will NEVER forgive is that of “turning your back on god and denying him.” As such, that begs the question, if somebody claims to be an ex-atheist, HOW does that individual expect to get back into the good graces of that particular god? Are they somehow special? They think that “rule” does not apply to them? Or do they believe if they interpret the relevant passage in the “correct” manner, they can find a loophole that makes it null and void? OR
. maybe their god was just joking when he made that rule? Otherwise, what’s the point of returning to the flock if the shepherd is only going to kick your ass over the cliff the first chance he gets? Besides, speaking from personal experience, once my eyes were finally opened to the ridiculous nature of it all, having seen the “man behind the curtain” controlling the “wizard”, there is absolutely no way I could ever consider getting back involved in all that nonsense. So, yeah, my bullshit detector IMMEDIATELY starts sounding the alarms whenever somebody comes in defending Christianity by claiming they “were once an atheist.” Just goes to show they never read their bible, or they simply do not believe that rule applies to them. Either way, it’s a ludicrous way of trying to gain any sort of credibility in a religous debate. Just my opinion.

1 Like
72

Cogently noted. And yet another reason to be suspicious of the numerous so-called “ex atheists” that turn up here, a reason that I admit had eluded me. I shall of course be adding this to the database, now you’ve alerted me to this - everything of this sort that passes my way is assimilated Borg style for later use. :smiling_face:

1 Like
73

This one just reminded me that in all the places I’ve been over the last 68 years, I have never seen anyone standing on a soapbox, going door to door or handing me a flyer that boldly proclaimed “God is a philosophical disorder”.

Personally, unless you came here, or made the misguided attempt to proselytize to me in public, you probably wouldn’t know what my beliefs were.

I find it ironic that theists seem to see atheists as a threat to society or some perceived moral order. Aside from the LTTE and the Chechen “Black Widows”, theists typically do not engage in suicide attacks against society. While they may have killed close to 2000 people from their actions, Robert Pape and CPOST determined approximately 93.7% of all deaths caused by suicide bombers since 1981 have been the result of Muslim attacks. That’s over 24,600 deaths out of 26,277.

Threat myopia is.

74

It is ironic, but they view atheists as their opposite, so must be opposed. Part of what goes into this equation is that they only think in digital - that is, there are only 2 positions.

Please be aware that not all theists are like this, so when you and I are talking in absolute terms, we both know that we are trying to illustrate a point, recognizing that it isn’t 100% true. (I hope!)

75

I can’t be arsed to look it up either, but there’s a verse that states words to the effect, “it is impossible, having tasted of the truth, to turn from it”, another that says anyone who claims that “was never one of us”, another verse that promises that if you raise a child in “the way he should go” that “when he is old he will NOT depart from it” – and of course there’s the all-purpose, undefined “unpardonable sin” that has been identified as everything from apostasy to masturbation depending on the need of the moment.

I personally have been accused of never having actually been a Christian despite that I could see your wife’s Christian education and raise her one – specifically one year in a Bible Institute that I will never get back. As a stealth atheist I must have been very convincing because no one ever questioned my Christianity, so long as I agreed with and immersed myself in it.

I don’t consider myself a true expert on theology in the sense that for example the Comparative Religion class was really just “memorizing the reasons why all non-Christian religions are utterly false and evil” rather than an honest delve into their history and teachings with compare and contrast, and all the classes were like that really – devoid of critical thinking as any Sunday morning sermon. Still, I know my Bible even after over 5 decades and all the forgetting that implies than the average pew-warmer who comes here with an imagined “gotcha”.

1 Like
76

Heh, one of the ironies applicable here, is that many atheists have read more of the mythology in question than the fanboys. We can point with ease to entire sections of said mythology, that the fanboys in some cases do not even know exist.

Such as the 260-plus pages thereof, devoted to gleeful depictions of brutal, genocidal Lebensraum wars, and in one hideous instance thereof, the sickening business of kidnapping underage girls as rape slaves, after the butchering of the girls’ parents and elder siblings.

Though I’m minded to think that some of the fanboys ARE aware of that particular passage, but instead of treating it with the revulsion it deserves, secretly long for a piece of that action themselves. The epidemic of child rape that is a twisted and diseased feature of American evangelicalism probably arises from this.

2 Likes
77

This has a frighteningly strong appearance of tribalism. How did that turn out in Judges?

I am curious as to why, being the polar opposites, there is the automatic “you’re with us, or against us” response.

I don’t feel threatened by theists. I am cautious of you all when en masse, but I feel no need to assault your core beliefs merely for existing.

One question I would ask is this, because I am honestly curious. What is your motivation for posting theist beliefs on an atheist forum? I ask, because I cannot imagine a motivation myself for going to any theist forum and espousing atheist rhetoric


And yes, sometimes exaggeration may be employed to press a point.

78

That, and they just file it under “it was a different time” without giving it any real thought.

I do believe that there’s a denied shadow there probably more often than not, though, that they’d like to see such comeuppance against their “enemies”. In particular this is nursed with respect to hell. In their imagined afterlife they will not feel bad at all for those eternally writhing in anguish because they “chose it” and “had it coming”.

79

Why must morality, truth, and ethics have a “grounding” in order to be important?

Why do so many theists automatically assume that God is necessary to have morals and/or values?

I don’t behave in a way that I consider “good” out of fear of punishment . . . I just behave in a way that is good simply for its own sake.

I don’t accept that a fear of punishment is the only reason to behave in a specific way.

Theists often claim that atheists have no faith in anything if they have no faith in God, and I claim that this is bullshit.

I have faith in the idea that one should be good (in however we define the term) simply for its own sake. Conversely, I also have faith that one should avoid doing bad (again, in however we define the term) things simply for it own sake.

This brings up the old argument about absolutes of right and wrong vs. morality and ethics being situational, and I find myself believing that ethics and morality are situational.

When we really think about it, one can find legitimate exceptions to almost every rule, and it seems–at least to me–that the idea that “I was following the rules” is not an excuse for doing something that is horribly wrong.

80

My response to the “you have no faith in anything” mythology fanboy attempt at a pejorative, is to state “precisely - because ‘faith’ consists of nothing more than uncritical acceptance of unsupported blind assertions, and this is useless as a means of obtaining genuine, substantive knowledge”.

Instead, I accept as valid, postulates that are supported by proper evidence. For example, are those postulates the product of an error free deduction in an appropriate formal system, such as pure mathematics? Or are the postulates in question demonstrably in accord with observational reality, preferably found to be thus by proper experimental tests?

If you have nothing of this sort to offer, then your recourse to “faith” is nothing more than a easte of your time and mine.