Atheist's argumentation against religions and metaphysics
The problem of evil or Epicurean Paradox
by Fenris
The problem of evil is not something that necessarily contradicts the presence of a "higher being", such as God(s), but the perfection and omnipotence of some religion's God, such as Christianity. Basically, if God was perfect and omnipotent, his creation would have been perfect and evil (as of the respective religions morals) would be absent.Originally Posted by Mimirswell
The problem of evil
Usual critics: Some like to say that God has given us free will, or it would have been evil by itself.
Answer: However, God created us as limited beings, we are not able to do what we want. We are limited by our intelligence, by physical obstacles,... but God would have perfectly been able to make us unable to do any evil, inherently, and would not have created us sinner, or maker of evil (to different degrees) by nature, and all that without giving us less free will.
Topic about the Epicurean Paradox
Topic about Omniscience/potence vs freewill
The reliability of the Bible
by DarkKnight
The bible as a reliable source of theology is somewhat unlikely. First off, the very canonization of the bible was chosen by a select few long ago. There were several books that were rejected by the church. Of course theists will argue that the council that canonized the bible was divinely inspired by the holy spirit, but from a secular view this creates severe doubt. The fact that one basis their belief in the inerrancy of the bible (or the Pope if Catholic) based on bible is rather circular logic.
Also the bible has been subject to editing throughout the years. For example Mark 16:9-20 was not present in the earliest manuscripts but was added in later codexes. In the council of Trent the longer version was declared canonical.
Mark 16
Topic about the authenticity of the Bible
The creation and Occam's Razor
by Fenris
"Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity."
-William of Ockham
When discussing about the creation of the universe, we have basically the choice between two main options (we will not include the integrist creationism for now): The Big Bang created the universe. God was there and someday decided to create the universe through the Big Bang. But Occam's Razor tells us that, based on the knowledge we have, we must go with the most simple answer eliminating as many suppositions as we can. Since the Big Bang could have very well happened by itself, as far as we know, God is eliminated from the equation by Occam's Razor.
Occam's RazorFurthermore, when multiple competing theories have equal predictive powers, the principle recommends selecting those that introduce the fewest assumptions and postulate the fewest hypothetical entities.
Usual critics: There had to be something that started the processus of the Big Bang, why did it happen all of a sudden?
Answer: Before the Big Bang, there was only energy, that means time didn't exist. Time is relative to space and space is relative to matter. This means: No matter, no time. So what was "before" (this is actually an oxymoron" was just a state, where energy always stayed at time 0, this means it was never there in a temporal perspective.
Time
The circular logic of God and the Bible
by Fenris
"God exists because the Bible says so, the Bible is true because God exists." is a circular argument that, in consequent have no value, the justification for any of those claim, be it "God exists" or "The Bible is the word of God or The Bible is true" needs to have an exterior justification.
The plurality of religions
by Fenris
The amount of different religions, mythologies, pantheons, beliefs, etc. Since the dawn of humanity is present by the thousand. This comes to one simple question: If one is right indeed, which one is it? Usually a very strong argument for faith is that million of people have believed in it. However, million, what do I say, billion of people have also not believed in it, often for the profit of other documented religions with Holy Books, rites, institutions,... The vast majority of those religions cannot be proved wrong out of all doubt when using the "escape" arguments of modern religions, and what's more is that many of those religions are not subject to many of the logical fallacies that incriminate,for example, the Christian, Jewish and Muslim God.
Many will say that the abrahamic religions (not to mention the sub-religions among the families) all come from the same source, and all talk about the same God, but with different interpretations (which has the right one, if there is any? This brings us again to the same problem). But it has been observed that many pagan religions also come from the same source, like the ancient greek, the egyptian, the roman, and even oriental religions share many similarities. So the same reasoning could be applied, and we would come to the debate of "Why abrahamic religions over the pagan ones? Have we gone the wrong way?" Theists from abrahamic religions will argue that pagan have been physically proved wrong (Gods living on the Olympus), but all those myths can be taken as metaphors and as having a double meaning, just like the Bible, the Quran, etc.
The uncomprehensible nature of God
by Fenris
The main argument against the rational and logical refutations of God is it's uncomprehensible nature. "God is perfect, he is above logic and comprehension of finite beings."
Source - WikipediaThere is something paradoxical about this position, namely, if one believes that the nature of God is totally unknown, but one nevertheless says that one believes that God exists, then one cannot even say what it is that one is believing in.
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**Critics of articles are also appreciated by theists (and anyone else, if there are flaws), but be aware that this topic is not meant for argumentation, we will find an answer to the critic, or the article will be modified so it's as flawless as possible**
Basically, if you have an argument, post it here, if you can bring sources to add to the credibility, it's a plus. Then we will discuss and decide what to add.
If theists could keep off this topic, and if they want to discuss any argument here, create another topic to try to refute the argument. I think the process that theists try to refute our argument will be a very important one, and any discussion about this will be welcome and appreciated, but in another topic please, so this doesn't degenerate in another Existance of god topic.
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