Atheism and poor reasoning

[Taliesyn]

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
--Epicurus

Such glaring foolishness disguised as "smart". I will suppose that this is genuinely from Epicurus - some think it wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius. Whatever.

The worst is that atheists, to this day, still think this is good reasoning!
So how do we refute this ancient and crumbled line of bad reasoning?

To start let's quote a much more intelligent philosopher and ex-atheist, C.S .Lewis:

"Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself." -The Problem of Pain

Wow, that was easy. If freedom exists, evil can exist. So either God allows freedom and the possibility of evil, or he creates robotic beings with no freedom. Take yer pick.
Freedom has value in and of itself. Robotic behavior is meaningless.

Now, let's see Epicurus' self-contradictions in this famous quote according to his own teachings:

He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and evil; death is the end of both body and soul and should therefore not be feared; the gods do not reward or punish humans; the universe is infinite and eternal; and events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space. - from wikipedia

Much of that is generalized atheist reasoning in a nutshell - even though Epi was probably not an atheist.

So anyway when he speaks of malevolence, of good and evil, he's only referring to physical pain and pleasure

So how does that fit in with what everyone else in the universe thinks good and evil are?
It doesn't fit well for sure.
His good and evil are mere physical properties experienced by the physical subject.

Worse, suppose his "good and evil" were the same as what everyone else thinks, ie, something truly moral, and therefore, of metaphysical nature.

This would bring us to another common contradiction in standard atheist ...uh hum ... "reasoning".
First see here - an article I wrote on the same subject a while back. (I know many won't read it so I repeat some here)

So, if good and evil really exist, and are not some mere human invention, atheists contradict themselves in their very argument against theism by complaining about "evil".
Under atheism, there is no such thing as a real evil or real good.

The atheist high priests say so in no uncertain terms.
Hear the Word of your priests atheists! ;-)

"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3)no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent." -William B. Provine, atheist professor of biology at Cornell University

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music."Richard Dawkins, --Out of Eden, page 133

"If there is no God, everything is permitted." - Jean Paul Sartre on Ivan Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevski's character

"Morality is no more … than an adaptation, and as such has the same status as such things as teeth and eyes and noses. . . . [M]orality is a creation of the genes". - Michael Ruse

"Nature has no concern for good or bad, right or wrong. . . . We cannot get behind ethics." - Naturalist Simon Blackburn

Evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson said that morality is just a survival mechanism. Ethics, he claims,

"is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate," and "the way our biology enforces its ends is by making us think that there is an objective higher code to which we are all subject."

Many more could be quoted.

So! There really is no good or evil!
Ah, isn't atheism wonderful? lol
An intellectual black hole, if ever there was one.

Of course this makes the atheists complaint over God's allowing "evil" completely bogus and hypocritical.
How can one complain of evil if evil doesn't really exist?

Atheists, in using the existence of evil and suffering to refute the existence of God, are unwittingly assuming the existence of God in the very argument itself!
Therefore, how can one claim God doesn't exist while admitting the existence of evil? If there is no God how does one define evil? On what basis?

The only coherent atheist answer is "personal opinion".
What else is there? Since in atheism, there is no ultimate moral law.

Indeed, how does one claim that suffering is "wrong" in a universe without God?

One might even state,
"Evil exists. Therefore God exists."

Worse, there isn't an atheist on earth that doesn't complain when someone steals his property, smacks his face or calls him a bare faced liar etc..
This of course shows that, no matter what he says, he really does believe in a real right and wrong.
He will react with anger. Why?

Because the person stealing from him believes taking what belongs to others is "good"? Of course not. He reacts because he expects that person to know the same moral standard he is assuming when he says, "You have no right!"

Otherwise, why call robbery, murder, rape, etc etc, "evil" when in fact all these are merely actions done by others according to their own personal values and need for survival?
Indeed, evolutionist atheists have claimed that rape is just "an evolutionary adaptation"!

According to the above quoted priests of the "new atheism", there really is no evil.

This alone makes the words cited, at the start, null and void - if atheism were true.
Thus atheism cannot be true. Morals are not just learned, they are inherent in human makeup - and that is also confirmed by all the most recent studies on morality, the sense of purpose etc. with small children.

[Lazarus]

TL;DR for anyone who wants to jump in:
How can Atheists call things good and evil if there is no God to determine what is good or evil? (so yeah. That old chestnut).

Why do I get upset if someone slaps me? Why would I be angry if someone stole from me? On what grounds would I say "you shouldn't murder?"

Easy. The golden rule.

"Treat others as you would like to be treated". It's seriously that simple.

Morals are not just learned, they are inherent in human makeup - and that is also confirmed by all the most recent studies on morality, the sense of purpose etc. with small children.

If this were true, why does what is deemed moral vary from person to person, from place to place and from era to era?

[fkizz]

How can Atheists call things good and evil if there is no God to determine what is good or evil? (so yeah. That old chestnut).

That "chestnut" is defended by several famous atheists in OP, in case you didn't read.

Anyway good points OP. The fact that the claims you made about Atheism are defended by famous Atheists themselves, adds extra points to it.

To argue against your claims on Atheism, therefore becomes arguing against those said famous Atheists. So any Atheist who challenges your claim is entering a little atheism "Civil War" regardless if he notices or not.

Find me ONE atheist who says there is no right and wrong, please.

There are several famous ones saying that in the OP. Several. Hard to swallow ye but it's in front of your eyes.

[Biggieboy]

There are several famous ones saying that in the OP. Several. Hard to swallow ye but it's in front of your eyes.

Then I suggest you re-read the OP of which you're so keen. if you think atheists think there is no right and wrong, you clearly haven't talked to any, read any of their works, or simply misrepresent them by quotemining. But hey, whatever makes you sleep at night buddy.

[fkizz]

Then I suggest you re-read the OP of which you're so keen. if you think atheists think there is no right and wrong, you clearly haven't talked to any, read any of their works, or simply misrepresent them by quotemining. But hey, whatever makes you sleep at night buddy.

That's pure denial there.. You're totally ignoring/denying the Quotes OP made on famous Atheists. (for the second time)

[Biggieboy]

That's pure denial there.. You're totally ignoring/denying the Quotes OP made on famous Atheists. (for the second time)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy...out_of_context

an example:

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. -CHARLES DARWIN

posted like this, it sounds like Darwin is arguing against natural selection and evolution creating the eye. Here's the actual quote:

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. -CHARLES DARWIN

see the difference? Come back when you've learned to debate properly, or at least know the basics of it

[Himster]

That's pure denial there.. You're totally ignoring/denying the Quotes OP made on famous Atheists. (for the second time)

They're transparent strawmen edited and selected to push the pathetic and hate-fueled ignorant agenda of the OP. They should be ignored by anyone with a shred of intellectual integrity. This is a troll thread designed to provoke and cause a cycle of rage posting, nothing more.

[justicar5]

That's pure denial there.. You're totally ignoring/denying the Quotes OP made on famous Atheists. (for the second time)

Quote mining. But that kind of double think is necessary for a Christian, otherwise you would have to do as your bible says, and go on a rape and murder spree (only raping prepubescent girls, mind)

[Valden]

Why do I get upset if someone slaps me? Why would I be angry if someone stole from me? On what grounds would I say "you shouldn't murder?"

Easy. The golden rule.

"Treat others as you would like to be treated". It's seriously that simple.

I don't think the 'Golden rule' is an adequate explanation in itself; what is under scrutiny here is whether moral statements like the golden rule are objectively true, morally binding laws or a sociobiologically conditioned response. So really you aren't refuting (or even repudiating) the OP's points about the origin or moral values, you are simply stating a moral value that the OP (and myself) would agree with you on entirely, however I at least would claim this to be an objectively true moral obligation. Whereas I suspect you would fall short of making this claim, rendering your adherence to a moral 'rule' problematic, because it ceases to become a truth statement and instead becomes a matter or taste.

If this were true, why does what is deemed moral vary from person to person, from place to place and from era to era?

If Bob thinks murder is wrong, and Ben thinks murder is ok, does that mean whether or not murder is right or right is subjective? This is the ramification of your argument, you are utterly shooting yourself in the foot, because under this logic the opposite to the golden rule you previously stated becomes equally true, meaning your adherence to it becomes a matter of taste. I refer you back to the OP's point about evil actions ceasing to really be evil under atheism, instead of right or wrong we are simply left with personal taste.

I'm going to reiterate a point I have made a few times: atheists often pay intellectual thought/lip service to the idea of subjective moral values, but the majority of people will become unquestioning moral realists should a dilemma confront them. Atheism simply does not offer an accurate description of the way people actually make moral decisions.

[Vanoi]

If Bob thinks murder is wrong, and Ben thinks murder is ok, does that mean whether or not murder is right or right is subjective?

Murder by definition is an unlawful killing. In the 10 commandment it doesn't say Thou Shalt Not Murder. Its Thou Shalt Not Kill.

I think you will have a very hard time trying to argue that killing people is wrong.

[trance]

"Treat others as you would like to be treated". It's seriously that simple.


If this were true, why does what is deemed moral vary from person to person, from place to place and from era to era?

Hmm, now when you mention it, there's actually a stage based model of moral development. Essentially, we achieve higher moral reasoning with age, intellect and experience. There are actually quite a few .

[Biggieboy]

Such glaring foolishness disguised as "smart". I will suppose that this is genuinely from Epicurus - some think it wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius. Whatever.

The worst is that atheists, to this day, still think this is good reasoning!
So how do we refute this ancient and crumbled line of bad reasoning?

To start let's quote a much more intelligent philosopher and ex-atheist, C.S .Lewis: Wow, that was easy. If freedom exists, evil can exist. So either God allows freedom and the possibility of evil, or he creates robotic beings with no freedom. Take yer pick.
Freedom has value in and of itself. Robotic behavior is meaningless.

Now, let's see Epicurus' self-contradictions in this famous quote according to his own teachings: Much of that is generalized atheist reasoning in a nutshell - even though Epi was probably not an atheist.

So anyway when he speaks of malevolence, of good and evil, he's only referring to physical pain and pleasure

So how does that fit in with what everyone else in the universe thinks good and evil are?
It doesn't fit well for sure.
His good and evil are mere physical properties experienced by the physical subject.

Worse, suppose his "good and evil" were the same as what everyone else thinks, ie, something truly moral, and therefore, of metaphysical nature.

This would bring us to another common contradiction in standard atheist ...uh hum ... "reasoning".
First see here - an article I wrote on the same subject a while back. (I know many won't read it so I repeat some here)

So, if good and evil really exist, and are not some mere human invention, atheists contradict themselves in their very argument against theism by complaining about "evil".
Under atheism, there is no such thing as a real evil or real good.

The atheist high priests say so in no uncertain terms.
Hear the Word of your priests atheists! ;-)
Evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson said that morality is just a survival mechanism. Ethics, he claims,
Many more could be quoted.

So! There really is no good or evil!
Ah, isn't atheism wonderful? lol
An intellectual black hole, if ever there was one.

Of course this makes the atheists complaint over God's allowing "evil" completely bogus and hypocritical.
How can one complain of evil if evil doesn't really exist?

Atheists, in using the existence of evil and suffering to refute the existence of God, are unwittingly assuming the existence of God in the very argument itself!
Therefore, how can one claim God doesn't exist while admitting the existence of evil? If there is no God how does one define evil? On what basis?

The only coherent atheist answer is "personal opinion".
What else is there? Since in atheism, there is no ultimate moral law.

Indeed, how does one claim that suffering is "wrong" in a universe without God?

One might even state,
"Evil exists. Therefore God exists."

Worse, there isn't an atheist on earth that doesn't complain when someone steals his property, smacks his face or calls him a bare faced liar etc..
This of course shows that, no matter what he says, he really does believe in a real right and wrong.
He will react with anger. Why?

Because the person stealing from him believes taking what belongs to others is "good"? Of course not. He reacts because he expects that person to know the same moral standard he is assuming when he says, "You have no right!"

Otherwise, why call robbery, murder, rape, etc etc, "evil" when in fact all these are merely actions done by others according to their own personal values and need for survival?
Indeed, evolutionist atheists have claimed that rape is just "an evolutionary adaptation"!

According to the above quoted priests of the "new atheism", there really is no evil.

This alone makes the words cited, at the start, null and void - if atheism were true.
Thus atheism cannot be true. Morals are not just learned, they are inherent in human makeup - and that is also confirmed by all the most recent studies on morality, the sense of purpose etc. with small children.

your whole argument stands or falls on the premise that atheists believe there is no right or wrong. Find me ONE atheist who says there is no right and wrong, please.

Thus atheism cannot be true. Morals are not just learned, they are inherent in human makeup - and that is also confirmed by all the most recent studies on morality, the sense of purpose etc. with small children.

Have you ever SEEN young children behave? Trust me, if you don't teach them morals and ethics, they won't get why something is right and wrong. Children are inherently selfish (how they don't like to share); it's a quality they have to learn. This is also the reason why are differing morals and ethics that children learn: grow up in a racist family, chances are high you'll become a racist. Grow up in a homophobe family, chances are high you will become one yourself. And what about sociopaths, psychopaths etc., is that also part of God's plan? How come they don't have the same "inherent" morals and ethics as other people? That's easy to explain in naturalistic terms, but I'd like to see you explain it from a theistic standpoint.

To start let's quote a much more intelligent philosopher and ex-atheist, C.S .Lewis: Wow, that was easy. If freedom exists, evil can exist. So either God allows freedom and the possibility of evil, or he creates robotic beings with no freedom. Take yer pick.
Freedom has value in and of itself. Robotic behavior is meaningless.

Great false dichotomy. How about God creates a universe without suffering, without evil? A deist God? Sure, evil and suffering can exist there, since he just created the universe and no longer interfered. But a theistic God? The personal God, who cares about you, who intervenes from time to time (though it seems to be erratic when he decides to intervene? I see no logic as to why there would be evil and suffering under his creation (or her, or it, whatever).

Then we have some excellent quotemining, followed by your own personal twist/interpretation of it. First of all, there are no OBJECTIVE morals and ethics. That's not the same as saying there ARE NO morals or ethics. But seeing what side you're on, it doesn't surprise the... uh hum..."reasoning" you follow (as you like to put it.

Furthermore, Ivan Karamazov was the dumbest character in that book, which you would've gotten if you actually read it. Anyone can quotemine baby!

Also, explain to me why amongst atheists, there are lower teen pregnancies, lower divorce rates, lower criminality, fewer abortions,... if we don't believe there are things as "right" and wrong?

Worse, there isn't an atheist on earth that doesn't complain when someone steals his property, smacks his face or calls him a bare faced liar etc..
This of course shows that, no matter what he says, he really does believe in a real right and wrong.
He will react with anger. Why?

Because the person stealing from him believes taking what belongs to others is "good"? Of course not. He reacts because he expects that person to know the same moral standard he is assuming when he says, "You have no right!"

Otherwise, why call robbery, murder, rape, etc etc, "evil" when in fact all these are merely actions done by others according to their own personal values and need for survival?
Indeed, evolutionist atheists have claimed that rape is just "an evolutionary adaptation"!

Name me one theist who WOULDN'T complain. All you've proven is that atheists also believe in right and wrong, congratulations.

Now go listen to William Lane Craig, and how he defends that the killing of the Malachites and Midionites was good, since they got to go to heaven that way. That's right, killing innocent children is morally good! Watch this:



around the ten minute mark. What a great morality huh?

And I could post hundreds of examples of "morally questionable decisions" to put it mildly in the Bible, but I won't because you'll probably accuse me of "cherrypicking" (this isn't the first time I've debated a theist). If you think I'm refusing to give examples, I'm more than willing to give them, ask and ye shall receive.

[God]

We argue that there is right and wrong, it's just subjective.

The only coherent atheist answer is "personal opinion".

Yup, guided by evolution and society giving us very similar views for our survival and group cohesiveness.

As for the existence of evil, I'm still not sure why natural evil exists. A serial killer needs his free will sure, but why have toddlers die in earthquakes? Who's free will would not having that happen impact?

[Aanker]

For practical purposes we have through the course of history taken to calling things "good" or "evil", although no evidence suggests the existance of an external law explicitly listing good acts and evil acts. For practical purposes we have morals, else our society would fall apart.

God is not practical, unfortunately. At least not today. We do not need "him" no more than we need homeopathy, magic or tribalism. The best part about this argument from practical considerations is that it doesn't matter if God really exists (even though physical evidence has yet to point to the existance of God) - because if God does not have a direct physical presence, "he" has no physical effects and is therefore of no use to us. Once, religion may have been a strong unifying factor in establishing tribes or even cultures, but it is now redundant and mostly a bothersome hindrance (note: it still has some benefits). A personal anecdote would be the ethics panel for the medical program I attend, where the church was invited to discuss stem cell research. It doesn't take a Bible to figure out, however, that cloning entire humans is problematic and the opinion of the church was unfortunately not limited to reproductive cloning, but to stem cell usage in general ( ). In this way, religion acted as an inhibitor of progress.

Regarding a purported God/Allah/Zeus/Flying Zebra/What else:

There is a tiny protein in neural cells called the prion protein. In its natural form it is apparently important to the maintenance of the memory function, but with a tiny conformational change (in truth induced by random chance, which in the theist's world would be under the influence of God) it turns into the brilliantly unstoppable PrPSc form (PrP for prion protein and Sc for scrapie). This PrPSc is not only imbued by God's will - it is so stable that even some artificial methods of contaminant removal are insufficient - but it is also directed by His will in its suspiciously perfected ability to transform natural prions into the PrPSc form.

Eventually, the PrPSc particles accumulate in structures known as aggregates, the presence of which leads to the death of the cell. In this case, the cell is a nerve cell in the brain, and the PrPSc is then spread onwards to other, surrounding cells. The end result is the same - an unimaginably cruel neurodegenerative disease that cannot be stopped by any means known to Man. The afflicted experiences memory loss and brain dysfunction, slowly fading away into an empty shell and eventually dieing. Clearly God intended the universe to be a good place, a kind place, and thus enabled the prions to transmit via meat (famous cases include the Mad Cow epidemic) and extracts of the pituitary gland intended for children suffering from GH deficiencies.

[Ironside II]

Such glaring foolishness disguised as "smart". I will suppose that this is genuinely from Epicurus - some think it wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius. Whatever.

The worst is that atheists, to this day, still think this is good reasoning!
So how do we refute this ancient and crumbled line of bad reasoning?

To start let's quote a much more intelligent philosopher and ex-atheist, C.S .Lewis: Wow, that was easy. If freedom exists, evil can exist. So either God allows freedom and the possibility of evil, or he creates robotic beings with no freedom. Take yer pick.
Freedom has value in and of itself. Robotic behavior is meaningless.

That is allowing evil from humanity. Now dealing with God in his omnipotence, we have the Black Death or the diseases wiping out the Indians (makes the Black Death puny). Those falls on God alone. And since God's action defines good, genociding Indians are a good thing.

Or if going that ensoulment happens by conception, 30-50% (estimated ratio of spontaneous abortion) of the souls aren't even born to die. Personal pet theory is that heaven is run on the souls of unborn children.

[Jack04]

So one can write off human evils as necessary for the existence of free will. How about such delights as ebola, plagues and other such natural tragedies? One might be able to dismiss the Epicurean argument for the existence of human evils, but was that ever what was under question?

Anyhow yes, some atheists might argue that there are no natural rights or wrongs, they are entirely a construct of humanity. So what? Is that not an incredible thought? That our species has, over the course of only a few thousand years, developed a system of morality without requiring dictation.

Edit: ... also, atheists who do not believe in natural evils would be entirely justified in using them to argue against a theistic position. The assumption is made that the theistic position is true (and that there are natural morals) and then one attempts to demonstrate that this position is logically inconsistent. Nowt wrong with that.

[Ironside II]

Anyhow yes, some atheists might argue that there are no natural rights or wrongs, they are entirely a construct of humanity. So what? Is that not an incredible thought? That our species has, over the course of only a few thousand years, developed a system of morality without requiring dictation.

Subjective morals aren't abstract morals.

It's amazing what those pesky scientists can be nowadays. Being Gods and creating objective morals.

Take the prisoner's dilemma. Take a 100% selfish population (of data codes). Introduce random mutations (in rare cases cooperative behavior will occur). Run that those with least crime time will survive.
How will this population look like with time? Answer: Mostly cooperative, but with some selfish. Very similar to human population. Incredibly hard wasn't it?
Evolutionary psychology is a subject you know. They do research on this stuff.

Also, basic morals are way older than a few thousand years. More advanced ones are maybe that old, but the big jump they had was when survival stopped being priority one most of the time.

Now this is not really relevant since I countered it above, but I'm not sure that's a great counter either. I say that God has done/is doing evil things according what claimed to be his own morality system. You say; yes and that proves his existance. Then I would say, if he is shown to do matters of great evil why should I worship him in the first place?

[Denny Crane!]

So! There really is no good or evil!
Ah, isn't atheism wonderful? lol
An intellectual black hole, if ever there was one.

Apparently the OP conflates something he doesn't like with an intellectual black hole. Wonderful intellectual objectivity.

Until a significant amount of that emotional baggage is removed from the post not sure what I can do with it. Ethics and morality shouldn't be argued for because you want them to be there but because you can see a clear intellectual case for them, not because you would despair without them.

Interestingly when looking at morality without a god people who would dispute it rarely answer this conundrum, how did buddhism arrive at a moral and ethical system without a deity to enforce it? This is evidence that it is possible but not one that the antagonists like to answer.

[fkizz]

Interestingly when looking at morality without a god people who would dispute it rarely answer this conundrum, how did buddhism arrive at a moral and ethical system without a deity to enforce it? This is evidence that it is possible but not one that the antagonists like to answer.

Buddhism is full of supernatural and supersticion, don't be fooled otherwise, it's a religion, not a philosophy.

Shinto-Buddism, in Japan, worships Several Kami (Gods). I'll be honest and say I'm not sure how it is in other parts of the world.

Not like Christianity, but Buddhism pretty much acknowledges the existance of supernatural beings and states, aswell of higher planes of existance and supernatural dimensions, and religious worship is practiced. Point being? They try to comunicate with a higher supernatural existence. Sounds familiar?

So not as far from Christianity as you would wish, sorry.

T- former buddhism enthusiast.

[Denny Crane!]

1. Yeah right is that like you were a former atheist yet fail to get basic concepts relative to it?
   
2. Nothing you have said has anything to do with Buddhist morality, norDoes the adoption of local spirituality effect what was quite clearly laid out in Buddhist teachings.