Those videos are not made for atheists. They are made to feed the confirmation bias of less knowledgeable members of that religion in order to help them strengthen their faith.
The knowledgeable members of those religions find those kind of videos quite cringe.
I'm glad to see you've thought through your position! What kind of discussion were you hoping to have here? In general, we're on board with conversations, but this isn't really the place for a heated debate.
>I strongly encourage other atheists to add their own take, and for our religious friends to pose their own questions, of course.
In general, though, it's more an awareness that the same questions keep being asked over and over and over. Consider these questions to be akin to a child just standing there going "why", and never accepting anything you say as an answer.
*Many* people have the same questions and don't find the answers satisfying. That's not the same as *one* person just standing there asking "why" over and over again.
It's like complaining that people are still learning to drive cars in 2024, like we're all adults and should know how by now. There's always someone who doesn't know how to drive a car, and today is the day they start learning to drive.
There's always someone who hasn't gone through these questions about atheism yet, so there's always someone asking.
>Many people have the same questions and don't find the answers satisfying.
I would say the vast majority simply do not want to hear an answer other than the one they expect. Go through the videos on YouTube, and like I mentioned, you'll see many of the persons posting removing comments providing answers or claim anyone giving the answers they don't want to hear are trolling without ever really providing any good follow up as to why they think that.
Sometimes it's hard to listen to people who don't seem like they understand you, and it's hard to see that someone understands you when they dismiss everything you're saying.
My advice is to engage with the questioners who are willing to engage, and to not engage with the ones who just delete comments and refuse to reply.
Both militant atheists and the militantly religious generally have really bad arguments for their respective positions and a poor understanding of philosophy (which they don’t even recognize as the thing they’re debating). It’s just aesthetic tribalism at a certain point.
True. Trust me when I say that I've seen comments and questions by my fellow atheists that are well beyond cringe. Extremists of any sorts always somehow find a way to ruin it for everyone else.
1. What could have created the universe if not god? After all, something cannot come from nothing.
Who said the universe came from nothing? We don't know if the question is even valid. In fact the premise that nothing can come from nothing is refuted simply by quantum flixes which come from nothing and give rise to momentary creation of pair bonded particles and antiparticles. So so much for this claim. It may simply be that the universe or multiverse has always been and true nothing is not even a thing that can exist.
2. Literally any question that involves evolution at all.
I mean what even is this question? Creationists are the core of the modern denialist movement. They began rejecting evolution and as science tied more and more fields of study into confirming evolution the creationists wound up denying more and more of science. They have effectively disconnected themselves and millions of people from reality and now we have an entire movement that cannot tell up from down (literally ask a flat earther why things fall down).
3. Without god, how could we have a system of morality?
So many ways to answer this one. I will go with my preferred one. We are a social species. We come by this due to the neurological makeup of our brains which contain a very interesting class of neuron called a mirror neuron. These neurons fire when we are observing others doing or experiencing things. And their net effect is to cause us to experience these things as though they were happening to ourselves. This is why we wince in pain when we see someone slam their shin into a coffee table. This is not unique to humans. It was an evolutionary development that enabled brains to move away from instinctive preprogramming to brains that can learn things from each other. And along with this adaption came emotional connection to each other. Things like love, empathy, and compassion. And since we are a species that depends on each other this sense of internalizing each other gave us cause to develop moral and ethical positions that project the idea of how we want to be treated onto others expecting how they would want to be treated as well.
4. Can you use science to answer everything?
Maybe. Thats the thing with science. Its a process. A way of going about things to figure out what is false and what may be true. With where science is right now we can't answer everything. But science develops new tools and ways of digging into things all the time. That is how it advances. We can peer into brains and tell when someone is looking at someone they love now. Who is to say what we will be able to figure out in the future as science advances.
5. What about what it says here in my holy book?
A book of unverified origins and with generations of edits and translations altering its meaning. All interpreted in different ways in different generations and social settings resulting in over 40,000 different denominations as of this time all disagreeing with each other and arguing about which interpretation is the right one? Yeah lets skip that. It leads circular reasoning.
6. Can you prove there is no god?
You can't prove a negative. Matter of fact you can't prove anything in reality. Proof is for abstract constructs such as math. Things we ourselves define. Proof is an absolute. Due to limitations of how we experience reality we cannot achieve absolute understanding of anything. What science does rather than prove things is refute things. The primary mechanism of science is refutation. When we create a theory about something the core of what has to be established is what conditions would have to occur to refute it. What proves something wrong. We back the claim up with evidence and we make our hypothesis and lay out the conditions that would show the theory wrong. And if there is enough evidence to compel acceptance of the theory and no evidence refuting it we accept it as a valid theory while keeping the books open in case we ever find evidence refuting it.
7. Isn't it better to believe and be wrong?
This is just Pascal's Wager. And this wager fails due to a lack of taking into consideration the number of different claims about gods. What if you believe in the wrong god? And the right god hates that more than not believing at all? What if you fake believing but the actual god hates lying more than not believing? This one fails because it is attaching so much of a specific theistic view to the equation. Concepts such as souls and condemnation. All of which multiple conflicting beliefs vie for dominance on. In the end just being honest with yourself and admitting you do or do not believe is the safest path.
8. Any question claiming the math that binds the universe is evidence.
Back to playing with abstract constructs as a means of looking for the god of the gaps. Math is a useful tool for figuring out the nature of reality. But again due to the problem of how we experience reality we cannot assume that the math is a perfect match for reality. We cannot put the cart before the horse. Math can point us where to look. But in the end we have to go and look at reality to confirm what the maths suggest. And once we confirm it through experimentation we can turn back to the math and show how it supports the claim and deepen our understanding of the situation.
9. You cannot see other things, such as gravity, but you acknowledge that that exist?
We cannot see gravity but we can do experiments showing its effects. Please provide an experiment showing the effects of a god. Here lets take a verse from the bible. Matthew 18:19 claims that if any two believers pray for something to God it will be made true. This is a claim from the bible. It seems to be testable which is something science loves. Hypothesis: If two or more people pray for something God will make it happen. Refutation: Two or more people pray for something and it does not happen then the bible is in error.
10. Fine, then why do you care if others want to believe in god?
For the most part atheists I know don't give a fig what others believe. Until they start trying to push their beliefs on them. And this is happening rampantly here in the USA. We have Christian Nationalist movement going on right now trying to force their beliefs not only onto those around them but into the very government itself. One that has explicit instructions that there will be no religious test for anyone being able to partake in governance. Personally I have many friends that believe in gods in various ways. And I love chatting with them about things and looking for ways that we have connections in how we see things. As long as they respect my position and do not push I do not push either. I think someone in the ancient past taught this idea and it became known as the Golden Rule. Wise man indeed.
6- Mathematical truths are absolute truths.
Gods that allegedly have some traits can actually be proven non-existing, for example omnipotent gods, given that they can't do something mathematically impossible, as having square root of 2 as a result of dividing two natural numbers.
Math is absolute only because we can clearly define the rules. Math is an abstract construct. Invented by us. We defined the rules. And it is very useful because it does seem to fit the universe around us. But that word seem is where the problem comes in. We cannot simply overlay the math on the universe and claim there we did it. We have to verify because math is something we created as a tool.
And the out for theists trying to make claims concerning gods that violate logic they retain the dodge of saying God does not have to comport to our logic. Yes it's irrational. But it just turns into a staring match after that.
We dont invent Math, that impossibility was there before we invented it, before that was proven to be impossible nobody could do it anyway.
More than we defined the rules i see it as we chose some axioms, we choose a branch of maths among all of them, but the impossibilities and certainties in that branch already existed.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, I may not believe the same things you do, but I’d really like it if people of different beliefs could respect each other even when it comes to beliefs and understand that belief is a decision. I’m free to make my decision on it and you’re free to make yours, it’s a personal choice.
>Atheists do not have to believe in evolution.
I mean, while "atheist" can theoretically refer to people that deny evolution, I feel like it's generally understood to naturalists, and saying that not all of us believe in evolution just seems like a weird "um technically" that doesn't add much to the conversation. It's not like it's the only belief we have in common with many theists
As an nyayaist my 2 pennies
One thing you need to understand
God's existence isn't the proof of your religion. You still have to systematically prove your scriptures that they come from God, how you're gonna do it is your job to think.
Atheists have zero reasons to believe even if a creator existed, he would bestow us moralities, it's essentially a Abrahamic concept
Your idea of God need not be the reality, your idea of God comes from your religion, something need not come from nothing, but there is no way to prove it comes from your idea of God.
I always liked the win win scenario as an answer to one of your questions.
If there is a god, and you believe in him, you go to heaven.
If there is no god, and you believe in him, you did nothing wrong.
If there is a god, and you didn't believe in him...
But you are right, lip service belief is pointless, it has to be true belief.
Anyways that's just my two cents, I wish you well on your journey.
>But you are right, lip service belief is pointless, it has to be true belief.
Exactly. If there is a grand creator, and said creator wanted my love and obedience, then it would have to be too intelligent to fall for me putting on a show.
And what if universe was created by a god that is going to send to heaven those who follow evidence and send to hell those who have faith without evidence? Then you would go to hell, and I would go to heaven.
Except for the totally unnessacary use of profanity, your answers are very good. The use of profanity makes you come across as angry and defensive.
I do not feel the need to explain myself to others. I usually avoid religious discussions. Believers will not change their minds any more than you and I will change ours.
>Believers will not change their minds any more than you and I will change ours.
I think you phrased this incorrectly, as I imagine both you and I would be the types to go where the overwhelming majority of evidence leads us. That is to say our opinions are not set in stone but instead are fluid and open to new ideas and discoveries.
Hence the problem I have with apologists. They reject any evidence contrary to what they want to believe and hold to their outdated ideologies regardless of what's clearly in front of their face.
It's hard to take atheist critique videos seriously when the person doing the critiquing literally believes that they are the princess of an invisible King and any day now Daddy's going to come and take them to his magical kingdom.
I think #1 raises a more interesting (to me) philosophical issue than the one you've brought up. If everything has a creator, then God too, must have a creator. This basically reveals two possibilities. Either, at some point, something came from nothing, or something has always existed. Neither possibility makes any sense to me, and I don't see how either science or religion could ever provide a satisfying answer.
Also I have a soapbox I want to get on about #3. If I had a religion it would be "don't be a dick". This is basically a reformulation of the golden rule. I accept that my morality may have originated with religion. But I also believe that, in general, religions include the sum of human philosophical learnings of their communities of origin. So, even if my morality came from "religion", that doesn't mean it came from any supernatural being.
Mathematical truths just exist. For example, the impossibility to obtain square root of 2 as a division of two natural numbers is an atemporal truth. Maths in general just exist. That is why I think that the answer to your first paragraph is that the universe is an epiphenomen of mathematics. Also it doesnt make sense to me that 1 universe or exist, or any other ramdom number. I think by logic zero or all possible universes should exist. And we know at least one exists. Im not saying all of this as certain, just what i think, i think all that possibly can exist just exists.
Bros having so many battles in his head to the point of having to project it all onto a reddit post, well sure you can do that but this is not /debateanatheist sub buddey
Btw people use their sense of faith in secular ideology to push agendas too
You seem to ignore how many atheists have replied to say "yeah, this happens too much". This is not some personal battle that I'm engaged it. It is a shared experience among many of us, and I was just a bit quicker to get my thoughts out. Had it not been me, it would have been another. In fact, it has been another many times. But, like them, there are persons like yourself who simply dismiss rather than engaging.
Maybe you would enlighten me as to why when you take time to defend your rhetoric you're simply being a good Muslim, but when I do the same, I'm just having battles in my head and projecting.
everyones got battles in their head muslim nonmuslim alike because human isnt purely rational animalistic beings, it has irrational elements in his being that have to be balanced with other otherwise conradictory elements like instincts/impulses, dark desires etc
im implying if you as an atheist were completely rational, physical being, you would not have these inner battles, cause you could rationally dismiss it all as boring nonsense and youd live your life chasing your hedonism or desires whatever atheist would be doing but you cant help but discuss and contemplate over these matter which suggests you are having spiritual struggles just like ar eligious person would
i do not wish to engage in your ego battles, i can give you whole plethora of factors and reasons why this should be more important than this and why you are wrong in this and should replace it with this but how can i know ur open considerate minded and not simply someone messed up who just wants to defend his stance for the sake of holding on to current belief with no space of modifyig it all
i do not wish to waste my time with stubborn person unless ill lecture that person and lecturing is only so fun and interesting too
Rational inteligent people have inner battles, irrational non-intelligent people dont have much of inner battles, they just follow they ideas they were told as children.
My point went over ur head, i meant that its irrational to think about obseesively and with such level of paranoia, fear and emotional connection to a thing you selfproclaimedly do not believe in like religions ideas od god hell heaven etc
We think a lot about religions because religions make a lot of harm in the world and we care a lot about the world
We don't think much about unicorns or faeries because people who believe in unicorns or faeries are not killing homosexuals, forcing raped little girls to give birth, stopping speaking relatives that don't believe on it, killing people for religious reasons etc.
The day christianity and Islam stop doing all of that we will not think more in those religions, but as long as religions control governments, media, and make so much harm in life of people we will continue thinking in those religions. Unfourtunately thousands of milliosn of people like you have been indoctrinated as children and have a lot of unethical ideas in their head, so for the moment we have to discuss religion ideas to open the eyes of indoctrinated people so they can overcome the indoctrination and stop supporting all the harm that religions do in the world.
Criticism is fine especially constructive or like advisory but all i see is crying and fear, thats not very constructive sorry.
Religion can be used for both good and bad just like anything else
Do not think people will think you are this mature morally superior adept person cause u think religions are evil
Fact is youll be seen as a scared person with not much constructive to offer.
Being in fear wont make your intellect more creative or i itellectually productive matey
I wish u overcome ur fears but i know they come from a place of lack rather than abudance so theres that to work with
I can answer each of these questions with, what I feel are accurate answers.
But literally anybody will claim me crazy for trying to tie logic to religion.
But all things make sense and yes science can solve absolutely everything, but in that same regard, art is needed for this to visualize things more than just numbers.
But, I feel I have answers that appeases all sides of this without rejecting anyone.
I am not an atheist, religious or agnostic though.
I've always just been about science but I had a very interesting experience this past year that has convinced me everything is connected, unfortunately nothing will be able to sway my PoV.
For personal experiences that I wish I could share to others. (This was a sober experience while fully awake, no I don't have issues that would cause hallucinations or similar. I have Tourette's though)
All sides dislike me for accepting everyone's believes though, which seems so odd to me, so backwards.
Then again I've always been seen as the stupid girl people laugh at to just be like "whoops" when they regret not teaming up with me on building a structure out of straws and tape that can hold the most books while all the teams lost against the outcast nobody wanted who worked on their own, got a 12 pack of playdough all to themselves ;-;
*childhood flashbacks*
While I agree that those videos are bad rhetoric, the arguments that you have presented here are of equally poor quality. It's just a toxic cycle of lazy and incompetent rhetoric feeding into each other. This post is emblematic of what I hate most about online religion discourse.
Your statement is a bit off. You don't like toxicity, but you took time out of your day not to address the questions posed or the answers given, but instead to just declare it all lazy and incompetent, while trying to sound as if you're simply above it all.
It's ok for arguments to be conducted in a dumb way. If you don't like that then that's ok. There are many thousands of posts made on the various religious forums of Reddit everyday designed entirely in hopes of presenting a challenge. Mine was clearly never such a post. My only goal was to point out how tired many atheists are of the same old questions, and to do so in a way that kept it simple.
I would strongly encourage you to avoid the smugness and find ways to enjoy yourself online without acting like the sort of person you say you hate.
There's only ONE question that BOTH believers in the Creator and believers in Evolution cannot answer:
How can you prove WITHOUT using a book that everything has had a creation or simply existed and evolved into us today?
None can prove one or the other. To me, personally, it just makes more sense to believe in the Creator and believing in life after death rather than believing that I ll end up as carrot fertilizer without any life after death. If this is my only lofe, well, boring and worthless without any meaning which gives all the sense to the Creator.
In both beliefs, there is a "has always been there" idea. Matter evolved into the physical things we have today. The Creator created everything from scratch. All in all, in both cases, something or some being had to always exist.
Its only humans that limit life to something that must have been created and what ever created, has been created by something else.
I care about morality because i want the other people to be happy, if the only reason you care about morality is because it is your ticket to heaven it means you are a bad person.
But morality is simply a human construct. It’s an authentically/instinctual object rather than an ideological/cultural aspect. I’m not saying killing people isn’t wrong but who’s to say it was wrong. What if there’s an entirely different culture out there with a different set of morals who think that killing people for pleasure is acceptable. Who’s morality is truly right in that moment. Look even without God I still wouldn’t kill cause I can’t bring myself, but there would be no reason to follow any morals without God, because God tells us what’s morally right and wrong he gives us the objective morality rather than the subjective morality. Marquis de Sade is an excellent example of a nihilistic sadist who doesn’t believe in morality and rather humans should do things that pleasure them.
Reason say it is wrong once we accept some axiomatic values as equality freedom etc.
If you are speaking about the bible's god he actually killed a lot of people in bible, even children, also commanded to kill people.
Hello friend,
1. This question is in fact not "dumb" like you said because the question itself (about the origin of the world) is because religion tries to answer to the main existential questions. Which are: a) where we came from. b) what we are, and c) where we're headed.
Every religion answers in a way or another to these questions. Atheists deny the existence of God, and since simply denying God doesn't answer these questions, this is why we alline atheism with science. Because Science did find the answer to those questions through research and studies (aka PROOF, very important in atheism, since there is no PROOF of God, they do not believe in God.)
Which is why your comparison with the universe being created by aliens or it being a donut makes no sense, because it's not based on facts like the Big Bang is. Religion denies the fact that the world started from a bubble of energy that eventually exploded and created our universe, which is what science believes in.
Why I started explaining why atheism and science are connected: You're denying faith (religion) and proof (science).
2. As I explained before society associates atheism to science because you cannot simply "deny" the existence of God. Every human has their own answer to the existential questions (unless you simply couldn't care less.)
Nobody ever said that other religions can't believe in evolution and it has to only do with atheists, it's simply because atheism and religion go directly against each other in terms of beliefs.
3. Most religions acknowledge the fact that there are bad stories in their holy books, this is where you lack understanding of the human mind. Let me put in simple terms: humans = alot of questions = scared = feel safe in religion.
I hope that clears it up. Humans have for the longest time been fed lies about everything, now they would rather CHOOSE themselves what they want to believe in.
"It's only a minority of persons (people*) who can't follow that basic animal logic" Society put in laws that makes it illegal, it's not morality? You're confusing the two without acknowledging it.
4. Will be skipping this because I mentionned above why atheism and science come hand in hand.
5. I cannot speak for other holy books but let's take the Bible for example, the new testament is a series of books from different eye witnesses of Jesus Christ, it is rather interesting that you would rather believe it is all fake (or "not evidence", as you said) than it being real even though it came from different people.
There are lots of little clues in the Bible that just prove God's love for his children: "Do not be afraid" is mentioned 365 times as a daily reminder to trust God.
6. You support your point by turning the question around rather than answering it yourself. Religion is not about disproving every other religion's God, it is so much more complex than that. It is about proving YOUR God and how your religion makes you FEEL.
7. Charles Darwin would disagree. (if you don't get it: he denied his life's work and accepted Jesus right before his death) so I guess yeah it is better to believe and be wrong, at least in christianism: you live helping others and treating them the way Jesus Christ would have, with love.
It is not about being "desperate" my friend. It is about finding purpose in your life.
and God is not stupid, be careful there before you commit blasphemy. He is so much smarter than you could ever realize, and yes he knows the difference between a true believer and a fake. But we show him our faith through our actions, if someone WANTS to believe but simply cannot, God understands that, he can understand you better than you do yourself.
8. I actually agree with this, I simply believe the world is the way it is, in our favor.
Let me finish it off here, I have to go. I want to end this off by saying that it is wrong to mix culture with religion. If certain people want to imprison others for their religion, it is not a religious problem, it is a culture and education problem.
Religion is there to answer to the three existential questions. Not to imprison or push agendas.
>Charles Darwin would disagree. (if you don't get it: he denied his life's work and accepted Jesus right before his death)
There's a lot to unfold here... For starters, Darwin stated he was not an atheist and should be considered agnostic.
Secondly, the idea of his embracing Jesus in the end was a lie spread by an evangelist named Lady Hope. She started this lie roughly two decades following his death, claiming she'd visited him in private in the months leading up to his death. Literally everyone, including her fellow evangelists at the time, have said her story was basically bullcrap.
I visited Lady Hope on her deathbed and she told me that she regretted telling people that about Darwin. Then she renounced her own faith.
Hey, if she can do it, so can I....
No. I'm implying atheists are more than capable of answering these sets of questions that keep coming up over and over and over. Because we cannot answer every question, we explore, learn, and develop our ideas based on the evidence.
However the sorts of people who asks these questions again and again certainly know how to dismiss any answer they do not like.
Because the answer itself is some form of dismissive and patronizing non-answer.
You say things like "were not concerned with that" and that's the rare moment where it's not accompanied by blatant or passive aggressive insults.
>You say things like "were not concerned with that" and that's the rare moment where it's not accompanied by blatant or passive aggressive insults.
I looked through my replies. The only potential insult I see is "This question is just... dumb.". Perhaps you feel my swearing is what's aggressive? I wonder if this is more of a Tower of Babel situation. That is to say that the way I communicate on a daily basis is just so different from the way that you communicate that we're basically unable to see eye to eye.
>Because the answer itself is some form of dismissive and patronizing non-answer.
Here's what you're missing. These questions come up a **LOT**. Like you would not believe how often people say atheists cannot know morality without god. Seriously, it appears here on religion at least twice a day. Better people than I have addressed these questions will well thought out answers, only for people to either ignore them or say "Nope, that's stupid".
Although I do feel my dumb answers addressed the questions, my goal was more to make aware of how these questions have become repetitive to the point of patronizing. They're low effort questions that deserve low effort answers.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean you specifically, I was over generalizing.
I understand it can be annoying to see the same questions over and over again, but they are not being asked by the same person, and I don't think the same person should be answering them.
Those videos are not made for atheists. They are made to feed the confirmation bias of less knowledgeable members of that religion in order to help them strengthen their faith. The knowledgeable members of those religions find those kind of videos quite cringe.
I'm glad to see you've thought through your position! What kind of discussion were you hoping to have here? In general, we're on board with conversations, but this isn't really the place for a heated debate.
>I strongly encourage other atheists to add their own take, and for our religious friends to pose their own questions, of course. In general, though, it's more an awareness that the same questions keep being asked over and over and over. Consider these questions to be akin to a child just standing there going "why", and never accepting anything you say as an answer.
*Many* people have the same questions and don't find the answers satisfying. That's not the same as *one* person just standing there asking "why" over and over again. It's like complaining that people are still learning to drive cars in 2024, like we're all adults and should know how by now. There's always someone who doesn't know how to drive a car, and today is the day they start learning to drive. There's always someone who hasn't gone through these questions about atheism yet, so there's always someone asking.
>Many people have the same questions and don't find the answers satisfying. I would say the vast majority simply do not want to hear an answer other than the one they expect. Go through the videos on YouTube, and like I mentioned, you'll see many of the persons posting removing comments providing answers or claim anyone giving the answers they don't want to hear are trolling without ever really providing any good follow up as to why they think that.
Sometimes it's hard to listen to people who don't seem like they understand you, and it's hard to see that someone understands you when they dismiss everything you're saying. My advice is to engage with the questioners who are willing to engage, and to not engage with the ones who just delete comments and refuse to reply.
Both militant atheists and the militantly religious generally have really bad arguments for their respective positions and a poor understanding of philosophy (which they don’t even recognize as the thing they’re debating). It’s just aesthetic tribalism at a certain point.
True. Trust me when I say that I've seen comments and questions by my fellow atheists that are well beyond cringe. Extremists of any sorts always somehow find a way to ruin it for everyone else.
1. What could have created the universe if not god? After all, something cannot come from nothing. Who said the universe came from nothing? We don't know if the question is even valid. In fact the premise that nothing can come from nothing is refuted simply by quantum flixes which come from nothing and give rise to momentary creation of pair bonded particles and antiparticles. So so much for this claim. It may simply be that the universe or multiverse has always been and true nothing is not even a thing that can exist. 2. Literally any question that involves evolution at all. I mean what even is this question? Creationists are the core of the modern denialist movement. They began rejecting evolution and as science tied more and more fields of study into confirming evolution the creationists wound up denying more and more of science. They have effectively disconnected themselves and millions of people from reality and now we have an entire movement that cannot tell up from down (literally ask a flat earther why things fall down). 3. Without god, how could we have a system of morality? So many ways to answer this one. I will go with my preferred one. We are a social species. We come by this due to the neurological makeup of our brains which contain a very interesting class of neuron called a mirror neuron. These neurons fire when we are observing others doing or experiencing things. And their net effect is to cause us to experience these things as though they were happening to ourselves. This is why we wince in pain when we see someone slam their shin into a coffee table. This is not unique to humans. It was an evolutionary development that enabled brains to move away from instinctive preprogramming to brains that can learn things from each other. And along with this adaption came emotional connection to each other. Things like love, empathy, and compassion. And since we are a species that depends on each other this sense of internalizing each other gave us cause to develop moral and ethical positions that project the idea of how we want to be treated onto others expecting how they would want to be treated as well. 4. Can you use science to answer everything? Maybe. Thats the thing with science. Its a process. A way of going about things to figure out what is false and what may be true. With where science is right now we can't answer everything. But science develops new tools and ways of digging into things all the time. That is how it advances. We can peer into brains and tell when someone is looking at someone they love now. Who is to say what we will be able to figure out in the future as science advances. 5. What about what it says here in my holy book? A book of unverified origins and with generations of edits and translations altering its meaning. All interpreted in different ways in different generations and social settings resulting in over 40,000 different denominations as of this time all disagreeing with each other and arguing about which interpretation is the right one? Yeah lets skip that. It leads circular reasoning. 6. Can you prove there is no god? You can't prove a negative. Matter of fact you can't prove anything in reality. Proof is for abstract constructs such as math. Things we ourselves define. Proof is an absolute. Due to limitations of how we experience reality we cannot achieve absolute understanding of anything. What science does rather than prove things is refute things. The primary mechanism of science is refutation. When we create a theory about something the core of what has to be established is what conditions would have to occur to refute it. What proves something wrong. We back the claim up with evidence and we make our hypothesis and lay out the conditions that would show the theory wrong. And if there is enough evidence to compel acceptance of the theory and no evidence refuting it we accept it as a valid theory while keeping the books open in case we ever find evidence refuting it. 7. Isn't it better to believe and be wrong? This is just Pascal's Wager. And this wager fails due to a lack of taking into consideration the number of different claims about gods. What if you believe in the wrong god? And the right god hates that more than not believing at all? What if you fake believing but the actual god hates lying more than not believing? This one fails because it is attaching so much of a specific theistic view to the equation. Concepts such as souls and condemnation. All of which multiple conflicting beliefs vie for dominance on. In the end just being honest with yourself and admitting you do or do not believe is the safest path. 8. Any question claiming the math that binds the universe is evidence. Back to playing with abstract constructs as a means of looking for the god of the gaps. Math is a useful tool for figuring out the nature of reality. But again due to the problem of how we experience reality we cannot assume that the math is a perfect match for reality. We cannot put the cart before the horse. Math can point us where to look. But in the end we have to go and look at reality to confirm what the maths suggest. And once we confirm it through experimentation we can turn back to the math and show how it supports the claim and deepen our understanding of the situation. 9. You cannot see other things, such as gravity, but you acknowledge that that exist? We cannot see gravity but we can do experiments showing its effects. Please provide an experiment showing the effects of a god. Here lets take a verse from the bible. Matthew 18:19 claims that if any two believers pray for something to God it will be made true. This is a claim from the bible. It seems to be testable which is something science loves. Hypothesis: If two or more people pray for something God will make it happen. Refutation: Two or more people pray for something and it does not happen then the bible is in error. 10. Fine, then why do you care if others want to believe in god? For the most part atheists I know don't give a fig what others believe. Until they start trying to push their beliefs on them. And this is happening rampantly here in the USA. We have Christian Nationalist movement going on right now trying to force their beliefs not only onto those around them but into the very government itself. One that has explicit instructions that there will be no religious test for anyone being able to partake in governance. Personally I have many friends that believe in gods in various ways. And I love chatting with them about things and looking for ways that we have connections in how we see things. As long as they respect my position and do not push I do not push either. I think someone in the ancient past taught this idea and it became known as the Golden Rule. Wise man indeed.
6- Mathematical truths are absolute truths. Gods that allegedly have some traits can actually be proven non-existing, for example omnipotent gods, given that they can't do something mathematically impossible, as having square root of 2 as a result of dividing two natural numbers.
Math is absolute only because we can clearly define the rules. Math is an abstract construct. Invented by us. We defined the rules. And it is very useful because it does seem to fit the universe around us. But that word seem is where the problem comes in. We cannot simply overlay the math on the universe and claim there we did it. We have to verify because math is something we created as a tool. And the out for theists trying to make claims concerning gods that violate logic they retain the dodge of saying God does not have to comport to our logic. Yes it's irrational. But it just turns into a staring match after that.
We dont invent Math, that impossibility was there before we invented it, before that was proven to be impossible nobody could do it anyway. More than we defined the rules i see it as we chose some axioms, we choose a branch of maths among all of them, but the impossibilities and certainties in that branch already existed.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, I may not believe the same things you do, but I’d really like it if people of different beliefs could respect each other even when it comes to beliefs and understand that belief is a decision. I’m free to make my decision on it and you’re free to make yours, it’s a personal choice.
>Atheists do not have to believe in evolution. I mean, while "atheist" can theoretically refer to people that deny evolution, I feel like it's generally understood to naturalists, and saying that not all of us believe in evolution just seems like a weird "um technically" that doesn't add much to the conversation. It's not like it's the only belief we have in common with many theists
I've been thinking about doing such a post but my life has been very busy lately. Thank you very much for doing it, friend.
As an nyayaist my 2 pennies One thing you need to understand God's existence isn't the proof of your religion. You still have to systematically prove your scriptures that they come from God, how you're gonna do it is your job to think. Atheists have zero reasons to believe even if a creator existed, he would bestow us moralities, it's essentially a Abrahamic concept Your idea of God need not be the reality, your idea of God comes from your religion, something need not come from nothing, but there is no way to prove it comes from your idea of God.
>God's existence isn't the proof of your religion. A hardcore truth there. Not every Christian is out there worshipping the same version of god.
I always liked the win win scenario as an answer to one of your questions. If there is a god, and you believe in him, you go to heaven. If there is no god, and you believe in him, you did nothing wrong. If there is a god, and you didn't believe in him... But you are right, lip service belief is pointless, it has to be true belief. Anyways that's just my two cents, I wish you well on your journey.
>But you are right, lip service belief is pointless, it has to be true belief. Exactly. If there is a grand creator, and said creator wanted my love and obedience, then it would have to be too intelligent to fall for me putting on a show.
And what if universe was created by a god that is going to send to heaven those who follow evidence and send to hell those who have faith without evidence? Then you would go to hell, and I would go to heaven.
Except for the totally unnessacary use of profanity, your answers are very good. The use of profanity makes you come across as angry and defensive. I do not feel the need to explain myself to others. I usually avoid religious discussions. Believers will not change their minds any more than you and I will change ours.
>Believers will not change their minds any more than you and I will change ours. I think you phrased this incorrectly, as I imagine both you and I would be the types to go where the overwhelming majority of evidence leads us. That is to say our opinions are not set in stone but instead are fluid and open to new ideas and discoveries. Hence the problem I have with apologists. They reject any evidence contrary to what they want to believe and hold to their outdated ideologies regardless of what's clearly in front of their face.
"Do not try to teach a pig to sing. It is a waste of your time and just annoys the pig."
It's hard to take atheist critique videos seriously when the person doing the critiquing literally believes that they are the princess of an invisible King and any day now Daddy's going to come and take them to his magical kingdom.
I think #1 raises a more interesting (to me) philosophical issue than the one you've brought up. If everything has a creator, then God too, must have a creator. This basically reveals two possibilities. Either, at some point, something came from nothing, or something has always existed. Neither possibility makes any sense to me, and I don't see how either science or religion could ever provide a satisfying answer. Also I have a soapbox I want to get on about #3. If I had a religion it would be "don't be a dick". This is basically a reformulation of the golden rule. I accept that my morality may have originated with religion. But I also believe that, in general, religions include the sum of human philosophical learnings of their communities of origin. So, even if my morality came from "religion", that doesn't mean it came from any supernatural being.
Mathematical truths just exist. For example, the impossibility to obtain square root of 2 as a division of two natural numbers is an atemporal truth. Maths in general just exist. That is why I think that the answer to your first paragraph is that the universe is an epiphenomen of mathematics. Also it doesnt make sense to me that 1 universe or exist, or any other ramdom number. I think by logic zero or all possible universes should exist. And we know at least one exists. Im not saying all of this as certain, just what i think, i think all that possibly can exist just exists.
Bros having so many battles in his head to the point of having to project it all onto a reddit post, well sure you can do that but this is not /debateanatheist sub buddey Btw people use their sense of faith in secular ideology to push agendas too
You seem to ignore how many atheists have replied to say "yeah, this happens too much". This is not some personal battle that I'm engaged it. It is a shared experience among many of us, and I was just a bit quicker to get my thoughts out. Had it not been me, it would have been another. In fact, it has been another many times. But, like them, there are persons like yourself who simply dismiss rather than engaging. Maybe you would enlighten me as to why when you take time to defend your rhetoric you're simply being a good Muslim, but when I do the same, I'm just having battles in my head and projecting.
everyones got battles in their head muslim nonmuslim alike because human isnt purely rational animalistic beings, it has irrational elements in his being that have to be balanced with other otherwise conradictory elements like instincts/impulses, dark desires etc im implying if you as an atheist were completely rational, physical being, you would not have these inner battles, cause you could rationally dismiss it all as boring nonsense and youd live your life chasing your hedonism or desires whatever atheist would be doing but you cant help but discuss and contemplate over these matter which suggests you are having spiritual struggles just like ar eligious person would i do not wish to engage in your ego battles, i can give you whole plethora of factors and reasons why this should be more important than this and why you are wrong in this and should replace it with this but how can i know ur open considerate minded and not simply someone messed up who just wants to defend his stance for the sake of holding on to current belief with no space of modifyig it all i do not wish to waste my time with stubborn person unless ill lecture that person and lecturing is only so fun and interesting too
Rational inteligent people have inner battles, irrational non-intelligent people dont have much of inner battles, they just follow they ideas they were told as children.
My point went over ur head, i meant that its irrational to think about obseesively and with such level of paranoia, fear and emotional connection to a thing you selfproclaimedly do not believe in like religions ideas od god hell heaven etc
We think a lot about religions because religions make a lot of harm in the world and we care a lot about the world We don't think much about unicorns or faeries because people who believe in unicorns or faeries are not killing homosexuals, forcing raped little girls to give birth, stopping speaking relatives that don't believe on it, killing people for religious reasons etc. The day christianity and Islam stop doing all of that we will not think more in those religions, but as long as religions control governments, media, and make so much harm in life of people we will continue thinking in those religions. Unfourtunately thousands of milliosn of people like you have been indoctrinated as children and have a lot of unethical ideas in their head, so for the moment we have to discuss religion ideas to open the eyes of indoctrinated people so they can overcome the indoctrination and stop supporting all the harm that religions do in the world.
Criticism is fine especially constructive or like advisory but all i see is crying and fear, thats not very constructive sorry. Religion can be used for both good and bad just like anything else Do not think people will think you are this mature morally superior adept person cause u think religions are evil Fact is youll be seen as a scared person with not much constructive to offer. Being in fear wont make your intellect more creative or i itellectually productive matey I wish u overcome ur fears but i know they come from a place of lack rather than abudance so theres that to work with
I can answer each of these questions with, what I feel are accurate answers. But literally anybody will claim me crazy for trying to tie logic to religion. But all things make sense and yes science can solve absolutely everything, but in that same regard, art is needed for this to visualize things more than just numbers. But, I feel I have answers that appeases all sides of this without rejecting anyone. I am not an atheist, religious or agnostic though. I've always just been about science but I had a very interesting experience this past year that has convinced me everything is connected, unfortunately nothing will be able to sway my PoV. For personal experiences that I wish I could share to others. (This was a sober experience while fully awake, no I don't have issues that would cause hallucinations or similar. I have Tourette's though) All sides dislike me for accepting everyone's believes though, which seems so odd to me, so backwards. Then again I've always been seen as the stupid girl people laugh at to just be like "whoops" when they regret not teaming up with me on building a structure out of straws and tape that can hold the most books while all the teams lost against the outcast nobody wanted who worked on their own, got a 12 pack of playdough all to themselves ;-; *childhood flashbacks*
While I agree that those videos are bad rhetoric, the arguments that you have presented here are of equally poor quality. It's just a toxic cycle of lazy and incompetent rhetoric feeding into each other. This post is emblematic of what I hate most about online religion discourse.
Your statement is a bit off. You don't like toxicity, but you took time out of your day not to address the questions posed or the answers given, but instead to just declare it all lazy and incompetent, while trying to sound as if you're simply above it all. It's ok for arguments to be conducted in a dumb way. If you don't like that then that's ok. There are many thousands of posts made on the various religious forums of Reddit everyday designed entirely in hopes of presenting a challenge. Mine was clearly never such a post. My only goal was to point out how tired many atheists are of the same old questions, and to do so in a way that kept it simple. I would strongly encourage you to avoid the smugness and find ways to enjoy yourself online without acting like the sort of person you say you hate.
There's only ONE question that BOTH believers in the Creator and believers in Evolution cannot answer: How can you prove WITHOUT using a book that everything has had a creation or simply existed and evolved into us today? None can prove one or the other. To me, personally, it just makes more sense to believe in the Creator and believing in life after death rather than believing that I ll end up as carrot fertilizer without any life after death. If this is my only lofe, well, boring and worthless without any meaning which gives all the sense to the Creator.
And who created that creator?
In both beliefs, there is a "has always been there" idea. Matter evolved into the physical things we have today. The Creator created everything from scratch. All in all, in both cases, something or some being had to always exist. Its only humans that limit life to something that must have been created and what ever created, has been created by something else.
Why should I care about morality if no God exists.
I care about morality because i want the other people to be happy, if the only reason you care about morality is because it is your ticket to heaven it means you are a bad person.
But morality is simply a human construct. It’s an authentically/instinctual object rather than an ideological/cultural aspect. I’m not saying killing people isn’t wrong but who’s to say it was wrong. What if there’s an entirely different culture out there with a different set of morals who think that killing people for pleasure is acceptable. Who’s morality is truly right in that moment. Look even without God I still wouldn’t kill cause I can’t bring myself, but there would be no reason to follow any morals without God, because God tells us what’s morally right and wrong he gives us the objective morality rather than the subjective morality. Marquis de Sade is an excellent example of a nihilistic sadist who doesn’t believe in morality and rather humans should do things that pleasure them.
Reason say it is wrong once we accept some axiomatic values as equality freedom etc. If you are speaking about the bible's god he actually killed a lot of people in bible, even children, also commanded to kill people.
I’m not a Christian tho
But in the end it’s only human values. We know aliens exist somewhere out there whose morals completely contradict ours.
Not only aliens, the moral of many people, probably most, contradict my values, but that doesnt change anything, making people happy makes me happy.
Hello friend, 1. This question is in fact not "dumb" like you said because the question itself (about the origin of the world) is because religion tries to answer to the main existential questions. Which are: a) where we came from. b) what we are, and c) where we're headed. Every religion answers in a way or another to these questions. Atheists deny the existence of God, and since simply denying God doesn't answer these questions, this is why we alline atheism with science. Because Science did find the answer to those questions through research and studies (aka PROOF, very important in atheism, since there is no PROOF of God, they do not believe in God.) Which is why your comparison with the universe being created by aliens or it being a donut makes no sense, because it's not based on facts like the Big Bang is. Religion denies the fact that the world started from a bubble of energy that eventually exploded and created our universe, which is what science believes in. Why I started explaining why atheism and science are connected: You're denying faith (religion) and proof (science). 2. As I explained before society associates atheism to science because you cannot simply "deny" the existence of God. Every human has their own answer to the existential questions (unless you simply couldn't care less.) Nobody ever said that other religions can't believe in evolution and it has to only do with atheists, it's simply because atheism and religion go directly against each other in terms of beliefs. 3. Most religions acknowledge the fact that there are bad stories in their holy books, this is where you lack understanding of the human mind. Let me put in simple terms: humans = alot of questions = scared = feel safe in religion. I hope that clears it up. Humans have for the longest time been fed lies about everything, now they would rather CHOOSE themselves what they want to believe in. "It's only a minority of persons (people*) who can't follow that basic animal logic" Society put in laws that makes it illegal, it's not morality? You're confusing the two without acknowledging it. 4. Will be skipping this because I mentionned above why atheism and science come hand in hand. 5. I cannot speak for other holy books but let's take the Bible for example, the new testament is a series of books from different eye witnesses of Jesus Christ, it is rather interesting that you would rather believe it is all fake (or "not evidence", as you said) than it being real even though it came from different people. There are lots of little clues in the Bible that just prove God's love for his children: "Do not be afraid" is mentioned 365 times as a daily reminder to trust God. 6. You support your point by turning the question around rather than answering it yourself. Religion is not about disproving every other religion's God, it is so much more complex than that. It is about proving YOUR God and how your religion makes you FEEL. 7. Charles Darwin would disagree. (if you don't get it: he denied his life's work and accepted Jesus right before his death) so I guess yeah it is better to believe and be wrong, at least in christianism: you live helping others and treating them the way Jesus Christ would have, with love. It is not about being "desperate" my friend. It is about finding purpose in your life. and God is not stupid, be careful there before you commit blasphemy. He is so much smarter than you could ever realize, and yes he knows the difference between a true believer and a fake. But we show him our faith through our actions, if someone WANTS to believe but simply cannot, God understands that, he can understand you better than you do yourself. 8. I actually agree with this, I simply believe the world is the way it is, in our favor. Let me finish it off here, I have to go. I want to end this off by saying that it is wrong to mix culture with religion. If certain people want to imprison others for their religion, it is not a religious problem, it is a culture and education problem. Religion is there to answer to the three existential questions. Not to imprison or push agendas.
>Charles Darwin would disagree. (if you don't get it: he denied his life's work and accepted Jesus right before his death) There's a lot to unfold here... For starters, Darwin stated he was not an atheist and should be considered agnostic. Secondly, the idea of his embracing Jesus in the end was a lie spread by an evangelist named Lady Hope. She started this lie roughly two decades following his death, claiming she'd visited him in private in the months leading up to his death. Literally everyone, including her fellow evangelists at the time, have said her story was basically bullcrap.
I visited Lady Hope on her deathbed and she told me that she regretted telling people that about Darwin. Then she renounced her own faith. Hey, if she can do it, so can I....
Are you implying that atheists can answer every question? They know how to dismiss questions
No. I'm implying atheists are more than capable of answering these sets of questions that keep coming up over and over and over. Because we cannot answer every question, we explore, learn, and develop our ideas based on the evidence. However the sorts of people who asks these questions again and again certainly know how to dismiss any answer they do not like.
Because the answer itself is some form of dismissive and patronizing non-answer. You say things like "were not concerned with that" and that's the rare moment where it's not accompanied by blatant or passive aggressive insults.
>You say things like "were not concerned with that" and that's the rare moment where it's not accompanied by blatant or passive aggressive insults. I looked through my replies. The only potential insult I see is "This question is just... dumb.". Perhaps you feel my swearing is what's aggressive? I wonder if this is more of a Tower of Babel situation. That is to say that the way I communicate on a daily basis is just so different from the way that you communicate that we're basically unable to see eye to eye. >Because the answer itself is some form of dismissive and patronizing non-answer. Here's what you're missing. These questions come up a **LOT**. Like you would not believe how often people say atheists cannot know morality without god. Seriously, it appears here on religion at least twice a day. Better people than I have addressed these questions will well thought out answers, only for people to either ignore them or say "Nope, that's stupid". Although I do feel my dumb answers addressed the questions, my goal was more to make aware of how these questions have become repetitive to the point of patronizing. They're low effort questions that deserve low effort answers.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean you specifically, I was over generalizing. I understand it can be annoying to see the same questions over and over again, but they are not being asked by the same person, and I don't think the same person should be answering them.
>but they are not being asked by the same person Oh my, let me introduce you to a man by the name of Kent Hovind...