Yes, Atheists are actually brainwashed

Debate Room
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I googled it: “While both terms are related to forceful influence on someone’s beliefs, “indoctrination” generally refers to the process of teaching someone to accept a set of ideas without critical thinking, often through repetitive instruction, while “brainwashing” implies a more extreme and often forceful method of manipulating someone’s mind, usually involving isolation, deprivation, and intense psychological pressure to completely change their beliefs and behaviors.”

I considered brainwashing a part of indoctrination. If you fight against the indoctrination, it escalates into brainwashing. As in the US military.

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Hard to read so many ridiculous inconsistencies in what you wrote. Get an education, perhaps some day your brain will function correctly.

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Watches are not naturally occurring. If you showed me a watch next to a tree I might believe that God designed the watch. But he didn’t. Watches were created by humans. So as long as evolution provides for the existence of humans then evolution provides for the existence of watches. It’s that simple. The first eye in nature was not nearly as complex as the human eye.

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Ah, you’ve been shanghai’d by the BG. The VOICE is in control. (Besides being a massive deus ex machina, of course.)

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The watchmakers arguement…isn’t that the one where if one finds a watch on a beach, one knows that someone made it?

What about the sand? A Christian claims EVERYTHING is made by god. So, in this analogy sand is the thing which was not made, so the the argument doesn’t seem to hold up.

Can a Christian point to something which has NOT been created to compare to something which has been created? Its kind of hard to marvel at the regular structure of a crystal, as god’s creation…and ignore the amorphous structure of glass. And yes, there is natural glass. Both are created substances according to Christians.

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This is exactly my response, Paley infers design, in his argument, by asserting we instinctively recognise a watch as out of place in a natural setting, but fails to understand what he is actually saying. If everything were designed then designed things would not contrast at all with nature.

The argument is rife with false equivalences as well, since watches are human designs, and he is arguing for supernatural designs and creations, we also have sufficient objective evidence to demonstrate that watches are designed and created, we have none that anything natural is, or for any deity, or anything supernatural. When we know something is designed, they never appear randomly in nature, that’s why of course a shiny metal watch would look out of place in an entirely natural setting.

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  • (skip this if you don’t like reading about me breaking down the logic of your arguments)
  1. tree is tree argument

The core problem with this analogy is that it ignores the burden of proof . In any debate, the person making a claim (e.g., “there is a tree seed planted in this yard”) is responsible for providing evidence for that claim.

It is rational to withhold belief in the existence of the “seed” or “tree” (God) until evidence is provided.

The analogy breaks down because we have observable, repeatable evidence for how trees grow.

We don’t need “faith” to believe a seed will become a tree because we understand the natural processes and scientific laws governing botany.

Claiming a supernatural being created the universe is an extraordinary claim that disregards known physical laws. Unlike a tree, which falls within the known scientific models of our universe, a deity does not. To accept such a claim, one would need extraordinary evidence , not just an analogy to a natural process

  1. the universe was designed

I talked about something like this before. I encountered someone who said the following quote:

“So my question to you will be, what is the cause of what caused the Big Bang? What caused it to compress into a singularity? And how did it expand precisely that way that it led to the development of life? Just like you won’t believe that a boat CANNOT be made without a boatmaker, how can you believe that the universe, with its vastness, cannot be created by God?”

(you can skip this part if it’s too long)

There are scientific, mathematical models like the Game of Life demonstrating complex systems emerging from simple cells following very basic rules.

And the watch (or boat, tree, whatever) analogy is self-defeating. The analogy only works because we can distinguish between artificial objects and naturally occurring ones. If every rock and every watch were the product of a designer, there would be no “non-designed” phenomena to serve as a contrast. Consequently, we would be unable to recognize “design” at all, making the term obsolete.

If the premise is that all complex things require an intelligent creator, then the complex mind of God would also require a creator , and that creator would require another, leading to an infinite chain of increasingly complex deities

Though Thomas Aquinas did say something that can act as some kind of counter-argument.

(paraphrased, not exact quote)

All bodies are either potentially in motion or actually in motion. Therefore, nothing can move itself; it must be put into motion by something else. But there is motion. If there were no “first mover, moved by no other,” there would be no motion. Therefore, there is a first mover, God.

If you ask, who moved this first mover, some theists would answer:

Why can’t God NOT require a creator?

Which is just a frickin’ double standard.

If everything complex requires a “seed” or a cause, then who created God?. Claiming that everything needs a cause except God is a fallacy called special pleading

Arguments that “design” or “logic” require a mind often commit the fallacy of equivocation by conflating a conceptual description of reality with the physical property itself. Just as a photograph of a car is not the car itself, the “laws” of logic or patterns of complexity are simply descriptive observations of a consistent physical reality that exists whether or not a mind is there to perceive it.

3. here's my actual response if we were to argue with the logic of this "god"

A lot of theists think of god as some being who hates certain people and will even harm those people (yet is still called Most Merciful for some reason).

so here’s my answer:

Look at the universe, and look at the size of the Earth compared to the universe. It looks smaller than even a grain of sand.

are you fucking saying that this “god” created a universe so vast just so “He” could burn gays? Not to mention men, women, and even children living a good life, not harming people, and either have a different interpretation of this god (either being one, many, or none) or just don’t want to dress or act a certain way that harms them.

Fuck, 7 books in the bible feature God killing children.

Also, how the fuck do you even know this invisible and supposedly unfathomable ‘god’ that exists out of time and reality is male?

We don’t even need to discuss how fallacious it is to attribute undiscovered scientific phenomena to God. You just have to look at how absurd it is.

I mean, it’s like you creating an ant farm just so you could torture some ants trying to live their lives. Not only that, you torture them FOR ETERNITY. You call yourself good for torturing poor, insignificant animals?

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They want to know how a bunch of random chemicals randomly became toxic? :rofl:

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when talking about brainwashing and delusions, i only see one difference between a theist and atheist: one believes in dieties and the other does not.

Both sides can still spout deluded ideas not backed by evidence

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Theists sure love to project onto Atheists. Last I checked, Atheists don’t have churches. We don’t join religious cults where one idiot fakes being Jesus. Nor do we have pastors or groups telling us how to live our lives. We don’t control others or tell them they’re gonna burn in hell because of how they want to live their lives.

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What? psycho-physical apparatus?

sourcecodewizard

…unlike something like a “spaghetti monster,” which has no observational basis. Scientific theories are tested and confirmed against observed data.

I am an astronomer: Explain why are most celestial objects shaped like meatballs?

sourcecodewizard
And when I say “Brainwashed” Atheists, it is not a putdown or of disparaging intent but rather a true and honest assessment of their true and honest mental state.

You cannot see your own contradiction?

sourcecodewizard
In, fairness, some atheists are really too easily influenced to really be brainwashed.

You cannot see your own contradiction?

sourcecodewizard
Brainwashing is real.
It is provable.
You are provably incorrect in your position and that is why you are brainwashed.

If that is so, then how come I see your LIE?

sourcecodewizard
The Watchmakers argument is valid, complete and correct.

I severely injured me self from laughing so hard when I read about intelligent design 40 years ago. Left shoulder has suffered ever since. My very First Thought has been the Utter Debunk: “Before you can CLAIM intelligent design, you MUST FIRST prove the designer.” That is why your claims are NOT true, nor science.

sourcecodewizard
Deities, Gods and Goddesses are simply silly nonsense.

Nope. Lysantra is not.

sourcecodewizard
Aside from the Watchmakers argument anyone with a basic understanding of science can easily see that the Universe was designed. You just look at it.

Incorrect Postulation Fallacy.

sourcecodewizard
Magic-Magnet “Poof” Theory

Can you please explain WT7734 this is?

sourcecodewizard
the existence of our “Designer” is simply, yet another in a long list of divine “failures” trying to explain what science has not yet explained.

This court finds sourcecodewizard Guilty of the Argumentum imploro dei hiatus Fallacy.

Franklin

P.S. - argumentum imploro dei hiatus = argument invoking god of the gaps.

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Interesting. So before you will admit that a watch has been made by a watch maker, you must first meet that watch maker? Or what if someone else has already met that watch maker and tells you that the watch is undoubtedly of his making - has his signature on it - no less?

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Ah, a variation of Paley’s watchmaker fallacy, well this is of course a false equivalence, since we know watches are designed and created already, but yes, if anything occurs randomly in nature, and someone claimed without any objective evidence, that it was designed, then they would need to demonstrate something beyond bare subjective claims and irrational arguments before I’d believe them.

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No, the question of the identity of the watchmaker is not revealed by the design of the watch.

Only if the watch had the signature of the maker upon would the maker’s identity be known. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs and other believers all make the same intelligent designer arguments using the same line of evidence they believe they see in the natural world around them.

It is precisely because the natural world DOES’NT have a designers name on it that all these people of different faiths can claim the apparent intelligent design of it for themselves. So the issue of identity is not and cannot be decided on the basis of the available evidence. There isn’t any. It could be Allah, Jesus, Yahweh, the god of the Sikhs or another god entirely who simply hasn’t revealed it’s hand. In the absence of a signature, there’s no way of knowing the watchmaker’s identity.

Unless one invokes personal revelation.

But as been established and agreed upon in another thread, that language isn’t up to the task of letting one person persuade another of their claims to have experienced such a personal revelation.

So the whole issue of the identity of the watchmaker can go nowhere.

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I don’t believe that for a minute.

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That has to be one of the stupidest comments I have ever read.

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We also know that things of extremely complex nature, which demonstrate signs of design, have an intelligent designer behind them. We would apply that metric to any basic existent which showed signs of design.

I think it is science itself which is demonstrating the existence of an intelligent design. Take the four codon sequence of DNA for example. This is a case where biochemistry is able to retain information. A system which retains complex information is a “design”. DNA is a design for life. Designs have designers. That’s a basic definition.

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I’m advocating for the existence of a supreme being - not a particular God belonging to a particular religion.

No. I think you’re wrong. I don’t think personal revelation is even close to being necessary to understand the watch makers argument. The watch demonstrates design. Designs have designers.

Yeah. I think you’ve confused the fact that you agree with your self with the fact that I haven’t claimed anything remotely resembling your accusations. Nice try though. It does appear to be more convincing the more you repeat it. I’m sure you’re quite proud of the argument you’ve made. Maybe try running it through chatGPT? See if it confirms your bias?

We don’t need the identity of the watchmaker to demonstrate that the watch was designed.

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Why would we, since we also know of extremely complex things that have evolved, humans for example. No, my metric for believing something is designed would be sufficient objective evidence being demonstrated to support the claim.

This claim doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, as atheism rises sharply among scientists and exponentially so among elite scientists, why would this be the case if there we any scientific evidence for any deity? All one need do is flip on any news channel to know this claim is dubious.

There is no evidence DNA was designed, and evolution is an objective scientific fact. So why would I believe an unevidenced claim over one of the most reliable scientific facts we have? You are also begging the question to form a circular reasoning fallacy here: “This is a case where biochemistry is able to retain information. A system which retains complex information is a “design”. DNA is a design for life. Designs have designers.”

You simply assumed your conclusion in your argument without any evidence, it’s underlined for you. It’s also very easy to come up with examples that contradict the assumption, human beings retain complex information, and were not designed, for example, they evolved slowly over time. You are making the same error of conflating design with complexity, which is question begging.

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So you’re advocating the existence of a supreme being. That’s exactly what the followers of those various religions have done. Again, you are doing nothing special. You are just doing what millions of others have already done for millennia. And unless you can provide objective evidence for this supreme being, then you doing exactly what these millions of others have already done for millennia. They can’t provide objective evidence for their supreme beings either.

You see? You have nothing new or special to offer here. You are just the same as every other theist who has preceded you.

Designs have designers. But unless the watchmakers name is on the watch then all of you - the Jews, the Muslims, the Sikhs and the Christians are making the same claim. That they know the name of the watchmaker, even though they can present no objective evidence to back up this claim. Again, you are nothing special. You claims are identical to theirs and equally void of any objective evidence to support them.

I will explain to you what you’ve agreed to in another thread. Seeing as you don’t seem to have understood what you’ve agreed with.

So, there’s a watchmaker? Fine. But unless you get the answer of the watchmaker’s identity exactly right, you will suffer an eternal penalty for your mistake. That’s why the question of it’s identity is of vital importance. Get it wrong and you will pay the price. Forever.

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