Free speech lovers, and atheists in particular take note

Bad news

I am God because you said so.

Having recently come to a website, http://needgod.com/ I forced myself to try and understand the absolute ridiculous reasoning behind their argument. What I came up with has probably been noted before by someone other than me, but here it is. 

The argument they postulate is wildly foolish by their own logic, and can be easily be turned around on them so much so that by their reasoning on only one point I could declare that biblically I -am- God.

They state:

YOUR SCORE ON QUESTION #1:  The Ninth of the Ten Commandments is "You shall not lie." Telling just one lie, according to God's standards, makes you a "liar." In Revelation 21:8, God says, "...all liars, shall have their part in the lake of fire..."

Now, leaving aside that this assumes the reader actually believes the Bible to be true, and the poor understanding of English that makes a person who tells one lie ever a liar for all eternity, let us assume this is true. Elsewhere in the Bible, Matthew 19:17 to be more precise it is put forth that "there is none good but one, that is, God." Ok, so far so good. Now, if a person who lies once is a liar, once and for all eternity, then what is someone who does a "good" thing. By that rationale, he would be a Good person once and for all eternity. But wait... there's only ONE good, and that is God. So, he's God, right? 

Now, i think we all know that someone who lies once is not customarily referred to as a liar, but evangelicals and apologists really use this argument. Seriously. I could poke holes in this all day, but making any sense of the texts necessitates understanding them as they were intended. As an evangelical point this completely fails, and if anyone tries to use it on you, remember, according to their argument, you are God, and so are they, and so is everyone who has ever done a good thing. Paradoxes are rough for an argument to overcome. 

Ray Comfort offers payment of $20,000 begging Dawkins to humiliate him

So, denialist and creationist cretin Ray Comfort has decided that with the release of his newest screed You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think, he wants to embarrass himself yet further. He has offered $10,000 (recently upped to $20,000) to debate Richard Dawkins, notable expert on evolution and Author of his own polemic, The God Delusion.

For those unaware, Dawkins has had a standing policy that he will not debate creationists simply based on the fact that their real interest is in gaining a platform, and some measure of respect outside of their own circle by being given debates with real scientists. Ray, in this case has no chance of doing anything but embarrassing himself, and his bff Kirk Cameron. Now, of course, Dawkins is going to reject the offer, right? Wrong. Well. Sort of wrong. Dawkins' demands are pretty far out there, but so is giving creationists a legitimate platform.

So, who knows how this could turn out. I do know that if it does happen I want a copy of the DVD. Yes, for the lulz.

Because I find him just that distasteful I dedided to dissect Ray Comfort's "Atheist Starter Kit". I'm sure its been done by just about every intelligent Atheist out there, at least in their own head, and probably on a thousand blogs, but here's my attempt.

<1. Whenever you are presented with credible evidence for God's existence, call it a "straw man argument," or "circular reasoning." If something is quoted from somewhere, label it "quote mining."

• Please present said evidence. As of yet I have heard nothing resembling credible evidence for God. In Ray's work I have seen only broad assertions without backing evidence other than redefinition and a propensity for closed-minded defensiveness.

2. When a Christian says that creation proves that there is a Creator, dismiss such common sense by saying "That's just the old watchmaker argument."

• You're playing the game wrong Ray. You've immediately defined the Universe -as- creation. That's an assertion, not evidence. You cannot equate life to a watch. It just doesn't work that way regardless of what the Hebrews tells you. You imply it is common sense, when you haven't even proven that the Universe was created. It exists, clearly, but whether that was through natural forces, i.e the big bang, or your deity has not been proven beyond doubt, or to the point of common sense. At this point, unless you can provide something better, then yes, it is the often and well refuted watch-maker argument, and its still just as fallacious as it has always been.

3. When you hear that you have everything to gain and nothing to lose (the pleasures of Heaven, and the endurance of Hell) by obeying the Gospel, say "That's just the old 'Pascal wager.'"

• I see it quite differently. I see it as having everything to gain -or- everything to lose. Sure, if your god is real, then by believing in him I could gain a heavenly paradise. But what if he doesn't exist? How many hours, years, decades of my life will have been wasted in a pursuit of a fiction, and when I die I'll be dust. I could have spent that time learning, studying, trying to make a difference in the world without wasting my time at church or praying, or worshipping a false deity. If it is the one life I have, as i currently believe it to be until better evidence presents itself, I wish to enjoy it, and ancient outdated parts of the Christian morality code have no place in that equation. Beside that, what assurance do I have that even if there is a god, its your god? It could be any deity/deities. So yeah, I guess it really is just pascal's wager. Once again, easily refuted. Jut because you don't like that it's fallacious doesn't make it less so.

4. You can also deal with the "whoever looks on a woman to lust for her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart," by saying that there is no evidence that Jesus existed. None.

• Neither of your statements say anything about atheism, nor does your absurd answer. The existence of Jesus as a man, whether real or not is irrelevant to your question, and no Atheist that I know would answer like that. They would more likely ask what your point is, since there doesn't appear to be one.

5. Believe that the Bible is full of mistakes, and actually says things like the world is flat. Do not read it for yourself. That is a big mistake. Instead, read, believe, and imitate Richard Dawkins. Learn and practice the use of big words. "Megalo-maniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully" is a good phrase to learn.

• Ah, this one. The bible -is- full of mistakes. Two contradictory creation stories, people going to home towns for the census, the entire book of Daniel (clearly maccabean propaganda), contradictory accounts of David vs. Goliath, no record of the Hebrews in Egypt as slaves, etc.etc ad nauseum. Richard Dawkins was speaking sensationalistically, but was essentially right on that quote. I don't personally repeat it, but I agree with it in essence.

6. Say that you were once a genuine Christian, and that you found it to be false. (The cool thing about being an atheist is that you can lie through your teeth, because you believe that are no moral absolutes.) Additionally, if a Christian points out that this is impossible (simply due to the very definition of Christianity as one who knows the Lord), just reply "That's the 'no true Scotsman fallacy.'" PLEASE NOTE: It cannot be overly emphasized how learning and using these little phrases can help you feel secure in dismissing common sense.

• Generally speaking, Atheists don't lie any more or less than any other demographic. That aside, you ARE committing the no true Scotsman fallacy. How hard is that to understand? You can't simply dismiss someone as not ever having been Christian because they've moved on, or realized that it was all bunk. I was never what you would consider a Christian (raised Mormon), but I still say I'm an ex-Christian. I believed I knew God. Then i realized that wasn't the case, well before I became an Atheist I was an Agnostic Christian leaning for about a decade. You don't like the No True Scotsman fallacy because you have no answer to it. Sorry Ray, you don't get off that easy.

7. Believe that nothing is 100% certain, except the theory of Darwinian evolution. Do not question it. Believe with all of your heart that there is credible scientific evidence for species-to-species transitional forms. When you make any argument, pat yourself on the back by concluding with "Man, are you busted!" That will make you feel good about yourself.

• Like all Creationists Ray is still stuck on Darwinism. The Modern Synthesis is currently the best theory out there. Calling it Darwinism is a distraction. Please explain tektaalik, Archaeopteryx, the Microraptor, Zegulodon etc. without evolution? Its not possible. If you want to argue theistic evolution, that's fine. You're welcome to believe that, but saying there is no evolution is absurd, and there's too much evidence to ignore it.

8. Deal with the threat of eternal punishment by saying that you don't believe in the existence of Hell. Then convince yourself that because you don't believe in something, it therefore doesn't exist. Don't follow that logic onto a railway line and an oncoming train.

• Not an argument any atheist uses. Weak athemism argue that without evidence there's no reason to believe. Said Atheist has plenty of evidence of material threats in the form of visuals, physics, chemistry. In short observation. There is no such observational evidence for God.

9. Blame Christianity for the atrocities of the Roman Catholic church--when it tortured Christians through the Spanish Inquisition, imprisoned Galileo for his beliefs, or when it murdered Moslems in the Crusades.

• I blame the Roman Catholic Church for its own crimes. That said, it certainly doesn't speak well of Christianity considering it was the only Christianity of Western Europe at the time. Protestantism wasn't much better. John Calvin ruled as a murderous dictator, Martin Luther was vehemently antisemitic. Protestants certainly didn't stop witch burnings (or hangings), and were not above torture. And yes, keep the "No True Christian" argument to yourself. When it applies, it applies.

10. Finally, keep in fellowship with other like-minded atheists who believe as you believe, and encourage each other in your beliefs. Build up your faith. Never doubt for a moment. Remember, the key to atheism is to be unreasonable. Fall back on that when you feel threatened. Think shallow, and keep telling yourself that you are intelligent. Remember, an atheist is someone who pretends there is no God.

• Wrong again Ray. The key to Atheism is rationality. That's the point. An Atheist can be convinced by EVIDENCE. You never provide any. Why do you hang out with Christians? Because you prefer to be with like-minded individuals. This is normal for Atheists too. Atheists are perfectly willing to doubt. At least most that I know of are. Its the Dogmatic people like you, thinking they have absolute undeniable proof that are unreasonable. And arguing with an atheist telling them they're "pretending" is no less condescending than me saying A Christian is someone who pretends that there is a God who took human form and was executed.

I'm sure someone could do it better, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

Posted with permission

Posted with permission from Ames at A Candid World


The Top 25 Things Every School Board Member, Legislator, Minister, etc. Should Know About the Theory of Evolution

1. Trying to teach creationism is expensive. Are you a school board member, just itching to “make a point” by forcing your kids to toss away the scientific method, and instead treat the Bible as some sort of science textbook? Then take this to heart: if you do, YOU WILL BE SUED. AND YOU WILL LOSE. HARD. By all means, don’t take my word for it: ask Bill Buckingham, the drug-addled creationist who forced the school board of his town of Dover through protracted, multi-million dollar litigation, only to expose his friends and constituents to nationwide ridicule, and be forced out of office the next year. Even if you think you’re doing your kids a spiritual favor, you’re doing your town a huge temporal disservice, by squandering taxpayer money to defend a lawsuit you’ll eventually lose. Don’t do it.

2. Public consensus has no bearing on scientific validity: it’s true. Creationists love to wave surveys in front of scientists, proving that less than 50% of the population believes in “naturalistic evolution.” That doesn’t matter. Just as you can’t vote away the fact that 2+2=4, you can’t vote away scientific truths, even if you don’t like them.

3.There’s no such thing as “irreducible complexity”: Michael Behe tried to prove to the world that the flagellum and blood cascade effect were “irreducibly complex,” such that no linked chain of beneficial mutations could give rise to them naturally. He failed. Each of his examples - especially the flagellum - has a clear evolutionary path. Remember, prior forms of flagella don’t have to be just bad or incomplete flagella: they just have to be useful.

4. Just because it’s hard to imagine, doesn’t mean it’s not true: there’s no “argument from awe” in science. You can’t say, “evolution is so hard to believe!” and expect that to hold water. Much in the world seems incredible at first, but turns out to be true. I find it hard to believe that Fox could ever have canceled “Futurama,” “Arrested Development,” and “Firefly,” but sadly, they did.

5. It doesn’t matter that evolution isn’t “observable”: science doesn’t require you to have observed something to be able to prove it true. The scientific method contemplates a method of reasoning that posits an explanation for linked facts (a hypothesis), and then performs experiments to test whether the hypothesis or its logical effects are observable, to establish the hypothesis’ validity. For example, we don’t have to see an animal evolve - we can postulate that, if species evolve, certain genetic markers would exist. And - whaddya know! - they do. Bottom line, there are methods of proof that aren’t simply observational.

6. There’s no difference between “macro” and “micro” evolution: creationists loooooove to argue that the observable, irrefutable change-over-time in laboratory bacteria is different than evolution over the long term, and its results, like speciation. However, the distinction between variation within a species (”microevolution”) and variation that results in split species (”macroevolution”/speciation) is simply a matter of degree. Microevolution, over time, becomes macroevolution. Deal with it.

7.“Theory” doesn’t mean “random hunch”: the colloquial definition of “theory” differs from its scientific meaning. In science, theory means something like, “fully-reasoned natural explanation for natural events born out by experimentation.” A scientific theory is as close as one gets to scientific Truth. Saying that evolution is “just a theory” is, scientifically, nonsensical.

8.There’s a reason science excludes non-naturalistic explanations: and no, the reason isn’t “liberal bias.” Science exists to explain natural phenomena in an objective manner, so as to provide predictions and applications useful to all of humanity. “Goddidit,” as a scientific explanation for a phenomenon, is useless to someone who believes in a different God, for example. Science is built to exclude this manner of failing.

9.There are loads of transitional forms: a long time ago, Darwin hypothesized that, if archaeologists couldn’t find fossils somewhere “between” extant species, his theory would be proved false. Creationists love to dredge that quote up and, without evidence, claim that no such “transitional fossils” have been found. They’re wrong: for God’s sake, they should do their reading. And recall that not all lifeforms fossilize: we shouldn’t expect the fossil record to be 100% complete, but as it stands, it’s more complete than we could have even expected.

10. Thermodynamics does not disprove evolution (besides, isn’t thermodynamics “just a theory” too?): a few especially ignorant creationists argue that, because evolution involves the increase of biological “order,” if an evolutionary system existed, it would violate the laws of thermodynamics by failing to conserve energy. Nota bene: conservation of energy only applies in “closed systems,” and the Earth is not a closed system. In fact, it constantly receives energy from space. If you don’t believe me, look up into the sky on a cloudless day.

11. What Darwin said in 1890 has little bearing on the merit of modern evolutionary biology: some people say that Darwin was kiiiind of a racist. Whether or not he was, it has no bearing on the validity of his theories: there’s no “sins of the father” doctrine in science that exists to transmute the scientist’s moral failings to his theory. Think of it this way: Werner von Braun was kind of antisemitic. Antisemitism is bad. But does that mean that atom bombs don’t work. Don’t think so, buddy.

12. A teacher or professor’s right to “academic freedom” is circumscribed by her job description: when a science teacher teaches creationism instead of evolution to her students, she’s not exercising her “academic freedom” - she’s violating the terms of her employment, by failing to teach science. Similarly, a physics teacher pronouncing the revolutionary idea that objects fall up is flat-out wrong, not a champion of first-amendment values.

13. There is no “controversy” to teach: something approaching 95% of scientists in all fields accept evolution as “true,” meaning, the only scientific explanation available to account for the variation of life on Earth. That’s not a controversy, that’ s a standard of professional responsibility.

14. There are no peculiar problems of “weaknesses” in evolution that need to be taught: all scientific theories have “strengths” and “weaknesses.” Einstein’s theory of gravitation, for example, can’t be reconciled with quantum theory. It’s really quite troubling. But it’s a weakness that points the way towards future research, not a weakness that undermines his theory of gravitation. Ditto for the supposed “weaknesses” in evolutionary biology. Such academic discourses ought not be inflicted on young students, and especially ought not be framed as reasons to distrust evolutionary biologists.

15. Logical problems with “young-earth creationism” are especially insurmountable: radiocarbon dating and the light from far-flung stars both completely demolish young-earth creationism - unless you’re going to argue that God changes the speed of light at His will. And please don’t argue that. So much for seven literal days.

16. No-one cares what Hitler thought about evolution: Hitler was a bad man. So what if he used evolution to justify genocide? He also used sandwiches to give him the biological energy necessary to keep him alive to commit genocide. Are sandwiches evil? Further, science doesn’t compel a moral conclusion (#17): it takes a sick, twisted human mind, extrinsic to evolutionary biology, to use it as a justification for murder.

17. Social Darwinism is emphatically NOT evolution: social Darwinism - the belief that, in a modern society, poverty is a type of evolutionary “unfitness” deserved by those upon whom it is visited - is a moral and philosophical attempt to employ the idea of “survival of the fittest” in service of a particular political philosophy. Evolution doesn’t imply “social Darwinism” any more than atomic physics implies the use of a nuclear bomb: it takes a human element external to the theory to “weaponize” the actual science.

18. Science doesn’t compel moral conclusions: science says what is, and why it is, in a natural sense. Science at no time attempts to contemplate the ramifications of the facts it exposes. That’s the job of philosophy and religion. While you may be “insulted” by the implications a scientific theory (see #19), the implications come from your own philosophy, and are wholly extrinsic to the scientific fact exposed by evolutionary biology.

19. Evolution is not random: mutation is random. Natural selection, the process by which some mutations are allowed to perpetuate in a species, is anything but random, instead dependent on a host of natural factors. So evolution is random in the sense that games like “Monopoly” are random: one part of it involves chance, but the rest is shaped by rules and circumstances.

20. Evolution does not mean you “came from goo”: this is an oversimplification just spun to sound particularly nasty and un-Godly, as if the theory of evolution is somehow an insult to mankind’s dignity. Even if it is, see #17: science doesn’t make moral judgments, you do. And besides, even if you think the theory is “insulting,” it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

21. Stop calling it “Darwinism”: evolutionary biology long since progressed beyond its association with a single scientist, long-since dead. Countless scientists have built on Darwin’s work over the past 150 years, meaning that evolutionary biology is no more “Darwinism” than “Lenski-ism,” or “nameless grad student-ism.” You don’t call telescopes “Galileoism,” and you don’t call gravity “Newtonism.”

22. Evolution is not a “religion” or “faith”: faith is unflinching belief without evidence. See #8 about the proof. And, evolutionary biologists are not unwavering in their commitment to the theory. The theory itself evolves as time goes on and discoveries are made. That’s how science works. Just because creationism keeps being proved wrong doesn’t mean that scientists are somehow religiously committed to being right.

23. Evolution is not the same as abiogenesis/the Big Bang theory: evolution answers the question of how life develops after it already has begun: it does NOT speak to how life began in the first place. You may have issues with abiogenesis, but that’s not a reason to discredit evolution.

24. You can be a good Christian and still “believe” in evolution: about 50% of the population does. Evolution only conflicts with fundamentalism. Don’t be a fundamentalist.

25. Natural selection can generate new “information”: creationists love to characterize the evolutionary process as somehow degenerative. Their idea seems to be that evolution can only delete genetic “information,” and so evolution could never progress towards something advantageous. This argument rests on a misconception of what genetic information actually looks and behaves like. Besides, Richard Lenski proved this claim wrong already.

A response to Sye from http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/ from his post on http://www.debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/

Hey sye. Your little quiz on your site is logically flawed and completely stacked towards a foregone conclusion, which I'm sure you know.

I.E, in step one: Saying one does not believe in absolute truth and asserting a true or false question about whether one absolutely believes that, does not speak to a belief in an all emcompassing abolute truth. Facts are absolutely true. Caesar was killed on the floor of the senate, 2+2=4. but those aren't what one would consider truths, those are facts but hardly what any philosopher would consider great Truth. Ontological truth is not the only truth.

Step 7: Saying laws of science and mathematics are unchanging is one thing, but saying morality has not is absurd. It is clear that over time morality has evolved and changed. The Jews murdered children and women according to the supposed orders of God. Why is it now wrong to do so? Clearly this has changed. Nobody today would argue that a jericho situation is acceptable. I'd continue the quiz, but the fallacious conclusions are already clear.

Welcome

Hello, I've just started this blog and am hoping to use it as an Atheistic discussion forum as well as a place to vent counterapologetics and other good stories I found online and around the "blogosphere" (i hate that term). Again, welcome, I hope to have more before long!