I Call Religious BS @religiousbs-blog - Tumblr Blog

More bullshit from the regressive left: “We can save atheism from the new atheists”

Yesterday, an op-ed by Jeff Sparrow appeared on the guardian, titled “We can save atheism from the New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris”. Like similar pieces before, it’s chock-full of misrepresentations with intention to slander those that speak out harshly against religious belief and dare to discriminate between those beliefs based on how much harm they do.

Unsurprisingly, Glenn Greenwald, adept at constructing straw man arguments against Harris, has already jumped onto the bandwagon and called it a “Great @Guardian op-ed [...] on the Dawkins/Harris-led New Atheist scam“ on twitter. I’ll now do my small part by answering three of the arguments in the article in an effort to stop this practice. I hope for a future where it becomes too demeaning for oneself to publish baseless slander.

Please read the article itself before reading this. It’s not too long. I quote only to show which specific statements I have a problem with and am responding to.

1. Dawkins’ and Ahmed Mohamed

The other day, The God Delusion author [...] responded to suggestions “he was only a kid” by linking to a report about a juvenile Islamic State (Isis) fighter. “And how old is this ‘kid’?” Dawkins asked. [...] He’d linked a youth falsely accused of terrorism on the basis of his religion to Isis, precisely the kind of smear that any FOX news demagogue might make.

Dawkins did not link Ahmed Mohamed to ISIS on the basis of their identity or behavior. He was making a point about how age itself doesn’t make one immune from criticism and doesn’t excuse actions. The use of an ISIS boy is there to reduce the “only a kid” argument to absurdity, not to say Ahmed Mohamed had any similarities to ISIS. Jeff Sparrow knows this, ...

“How COULD you think I was likening a hoaxer to a killer?” he [Dawkins] later posted. “I just meant ‘Only a kid’ is not a knockdown defence. [...]”

... but is willing to call it a smear anyways.

2. Hitchens and the war in Iraq

In the name of enlightened atheism, you thus arrive at an old-fashioned imperialism: the people we just happen to be bombing are simple-minded savages, impervious to reason and civilisation. That was the secret of Hitchens’ success: he provided a liberal rationale for the “war on terror”.

Hitchens never deployed the arguments the author of the article might have us believe he did. Hitchens’ reasons to back the war in Iraq were mainly humanitarian. He argued fiercely that it was necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power to save the people under him from torture and execution and misery, which Hussein and his sons created. No matter what you think about this argument - most liberals, including those in the new atheist movement, did not believe this was reason enough to start a war in an unstable region - it has nothing to do with “bombing simple-minded savages” on the basis of their religion. In fact, the population that Hitchens was trying to save from Hussein was itself majorly religious.

3. Alliance with right-wing lunatics

A few days before Dawkins relaunched his investigation into clock-gate, Harris explained on a podcast that Republican hopeful Ben Carson understood the Middle East better than Noam Chomsky. [...]

Why does Harris prefer Carson’s know-nothing bluster on foreign policy to the opinions of Chomsky, one of the most influential scholars in the world? Because, you see, Carson “understands that jihadists are the enemy”. That’s also why Harris defends Ted Cruz’s proposal to screen Syrian immigrants according to their religious views, since “some percentage of Muslims will be jihadists inevitably”.

You can proclaim you’re an atheist, a freethinker, a devotee of the enlightenment – and yet somehow still end up backing rightwing Christians like George W Bush and Ben Carson in their campaigns against the Muslim hordes.

The danger of people in general allying with the far right wing on these issues is real. But no one understands this better and fears this more than Sam Harris himself. He has repeatedly brought up the example of Carson, a person he himself labels an “imbecile”, as a means to show the real dangers of the regressive left not admitting that beliefs have consequences and that Muslims happen to have an increased probability of believing in martyrdom and jihad than non-Muslims. He’s making the point that this is a danger precisely because rational people like himself are forced into allying themselves with the only people that might address the problem, but only for the very wrong reasons, and very likely in the very wrong ways. So yes, this danger is there, but it is mainly there because of people like this very article’s author, Glenn Greenwald, Reza Aslan and others that start to slander people as islamophobic or racist or bigoted when they start talking sense on this topic.

#religion #atheism #new atheism #sam harris #glenn greenwald #richard dawkins #ahmed mohamed #jeff sparrow #christopher hitchens #noam chomsky #the guardian

Twitter with @AbuAbdallahF #3: Misconceptions about evolution

The main thing I want to do when talking about evolution is to point out how evolution actually works. First, though, I want to address the possible misconceptions @AbuAbdallahF has about this topic. This already contains a lot of information, but it is by no means exhaustive. Indented sections are quotes directly from him.

1. Evolution and the Origin of the Universe

You’re saying ‘No, there is no Creator, there is no purpose, it’s all random mutations’.

You’re claiming we are the result of random mutations over millions of years. But that still doesn’t explain how life began.

I am not sure what mutations have to do with creation myths. Let’s clear one thing up right off the bat: The theory of evolution by natural selection (Darwinism) makes no statements about the origins of the universe whatsoever. It doesn’t even try to explain the origin of life. It is simply the explanation of how organisms change over usually many generations.

2. Random Mutations and Natural Selection

Randomness? No purpose? Chance? Simply throw bricks randomly and millions of years later they will arrange themselves into a useful building? Sorry but that simply doesn’t make sense.

This is not how evolution works at all, if this is supposed to be an analogy.

When new life starts out building itself it is generally much smaller and looks much different than the final form it will take. For humans this first form is especially small: it is one cell. To reach its final form the organism needs information how to reproduce cells, what kind of cells are needed, and where they have to be placed. This information is encoded in genetic material. The actual molecular structure (DNA or mRNA) is irrelevant to the comprehension of the concept, so just think of genetic material as a long string of data. This string of data contains sections called genes which correspond to the traits an organism will have. Examples of such traits are eye color and other similarly obvious things, but they can also be subtle and sometimes ultimately inconsequential, like a higher risk for certain types of cancer, which might or might not lead to an effect. The specific version of the gene resulting in its specific version of the trait in question is called an allele. As an example of this distinction: every human has a gene for eye color, but it is the version of the gene, the allele, that determines whether it will result in brown or blue eye color. In colloquial language, the word gene is incorrectly used interchangeably with the word allele.

When random mutations happen in genetic material one or more of these alleles are changed into another. When this change happens in a cell that is passed on to the next generation (for example in the human zygote) this change will change one more traits the offspring will take, which may more may not influence the probability that this offspring itself will reproduce. There are three possibilities:

a) The change is neutral concerning reproduction rate and probability In this case, the offspring will reproduce at statistically the same rate as the “parent” with the “original” allele. Because it will reproduce with its kind, if it does, some of the children will carry the “old” allele, while some will carry the “new” one. A change has happened. An intuitive example for this could be eye color. An allele for brown eye color will not have an effect on the reproduction rate of a human when compared to a human with an allele for blue eye color. b) The change creates a disadvantage concerning reproduction rate and probability In this case, the allele is less likely to be passed on and if it is, the children suffer from the same disadvantage. Even if the change is not directly fatal, such traits usually die out over a few generations because populations exhibiting the “new” trait compete with populations carrying the “old” allele, or the new population is forced into other habitats. In some cases, the trait producing the disadvantage will only be effective in a small number of individuals carrying the allele, in which case the allele can be passed on. An example for this last case could be a disposition towards colon cancer. An example for a fatal change in a gene could be a missing head at birth; an example for a change that creates a disadvantage that would die out over time could be the disfigurement of limbs to the point of uselessness. c) The change creates an advantage concerning reproduction rate and probability In this case, the allele is more likely to be passed on to the next generation than the old one was. The situation is the same as in b), except reversed.

In summary, mutations that lead to advantages in reproduction also lead to propagation of that allele while mutations that lead to disadvantages are likely to disappear due to completely natural reasons. Over millions of years the accumulation of such smaller and larger changes leads to vastly different life forms.

3. Evolution’s Will

You told me that some random mutations will eventually (over millions of years) result in a better species increasing chance of survival. But death does not depend on health. Besides, like I said, if that is true, then let’s help evolution and randomly mutate every single animal on the planet and see what happens.

First of all, no, I did not tell him that. Evolution doesn’t in any way aim to create a life form with increased chances of survival. The mechanism simply abides by the law that things that procreate pass on their allele and things that don’t, don’t. Any change that just happens to decrease the chance of survival also decreases the chance of procreation, diminishing the probability that the corresponding allele is passed on.

Death does not depend on health? What’s that supposed to mean? I’m pretty sure a guy with terminal cancer has a higher chance of dying than someone without the condition, for example. That’s why it’s called “terminal”.

I don’t know what the last sentence is supposed to mean. We can’t mutate animals; the only thing that mutates in this context are genes.

4. Natural Processes and Perfect Bodies

Our bodies with their different systems, each system containing organs, each organ containing components…do you realize that we are machines controlled by information? We are much more sophisticated than any machine man has ever created. Even Dawkins admitted that biology has become study of information technology in the bodies of living things. And each bone, each system each muscle, each cell is placed in its’ well defined place in order to function properly. One single cell out of the many is more sophisticated than anything man has ever built.

Yet, this is exactly what you’d expect from a natural system where change occurs, “bad” changes naturally die off, “good” changes survive and lots of time passes. The information we are “controlled” by is our genetic material, which changes due to mutations.

Additionally, many of the traits that either were not relevant to our procreation probability or have outlived their “purpose” are still observable in our own bodies. He says our bodies are sophisticated because they were designed, yet we can easily conceive of a body that has much better properties. It would be nice to have an immune system that responds to more threats than it does, or no appendix that can suddenly rupture, or tissue that regenerates faster, or even limbs that grow back if lost. There is no technical reason why our bodies couldn’t be that way assuming a designer exists. So if there is a designer, it sure is an incompetent one. Except for the fact that a designer is completely superfluous; our genetic material instead evolved by natural processes, and the results just happen to be what they are.

5. But ... cancer?

You tell me it’s the result of random mutations…sorry man, that doesn’t make sense. Mutations do appear but they result in malfunction. In reality everything is decaying, everything is growing weaker and weaker because of mutations…diseases, like cancer or some other harmful mutations.

Mutations in genetic material that is passed on to the next generation that leads to malfunction doesn’t make it into the next generation, because beings that carry this genetic material die before they can procreate further. What he is probably talking about is an idea like cancer: a mutation in a cell in your body that leads to malicious procreation of cells. But cancer doesn’t get passed on to the next generation, and if it did, children of a person with cancer would likely not procreate as much as people without. It is important to understand that we are talking about differences between generations of an organism, not changes that occur in the body of one individual long after birth or, even further from the truth, in many individuals of the same organism simultaneously.

I fucking love science

Evolution is a fascinating topic on its own. Please be aware that many of the things I presented in this post are simplified and much more complex in reality. There’s much to be said how alleles influence traits of a life form. There’s a lot of interesting reading material about the mechanism by which DNA leads to these traits. There’s even more interesting material on the laws by which traits are chosen by the gene that governs them, which is one of the main things that was simplified in this post. The best place to start if this is interesting to anyone are Gregor Mendel’s experiments on pea hybridization in the middle of the 18th century which help you understand the concept of dominant and recessive alleles.

By far the most interesting book on genetics in my opinion is Richard Dawkins’ book “The selfish gene”. If after reading this book and honestly trying to understand what is explained in it someone can still say evolution is a hoax, I would forever be in awe of his or her willful ignorance. As always, send me critique on tumblr and twitter and I will see to correcting any misrepresentations as soon as I have confirmed them.

#evolution #creationism #religion #the selfish gene #twitter with #twitter #darwinism #natural selection

Twitter with @AbuAbdallahF #2 : Fine-tuning, the puddle fallacy and the anthropic principle

This post is number two in a series, so if you’re missing context you might want to check out this post first. So, let’s start out with the most intuitive part of my answer to him, which is his claim that the natural world is evidence enough for the existence of a creator. Here is the relevant excerpt of his statement:

“Regarding the evidence of the existence of the Creator. For me personally, the entire universe, which functions based on natural laws, systems, the sun, the moon, water, plants, animals, this is more than enough evidence. If that doesn’t satisfy you…well, that’s still your own problem. If you examine these natural laws you will notice that their sole direction and purpose is allowing us to live. One single alteration and everything will go BOOM! Our bodies with their different systems, each system containing organs, each organ containing components…do you realize that we are machines controlled by information? We are much more sophisticated than any machine man has ever created.”

The first part is a version of the prevalent argument you’ll often hear from christian apologists as well. It’s called the fine-tuning argument for god. The second part addressing our bodies is no evidence of anything, because the complexities can easily be explained by the process of evolution by natural selection. I’ll leave evolution out here, because I’d like to devote at least one whole post to it; the topic deserves a little more than just a paragraph. This post is already going to be long anyways. The fine-tuning argument for god goes something like this: “There are many natural constants so that, for each one, if it were a little different, we wouldn’t exist. Thus, it is extremely likely that these constants were set/tuned by a creator to allow for us to exist, because the probability for potentially completely random constants being at those values is small. Therefore, god exists.” The same argument is often made for the universe and/or life in general instead of humans, especially by theists and deists that accept evolution, and thus know that our existence within a universe with life can be explained by it. Logically, the argument has the same structure, though.

There are many problems with this argument, so I’ll touch on a few of them.

1. God

The most obvious and striking flaw in the argument, or at least the way it is commonly used, is the implicit fallacy of equivocation in its conclusion: the use of the word “god”. All the argument aims to show is the existence of a cause that is powerful enough to influence these constants and cares enough to adjust them so we can exist. The word god, in its theistic sense, describes a being that has many more attributes. Additionally, these change from religion to religion. This fact alone makes the argument alone completely useless for any kind of theistic viewpoint except “god is a being that created the universe and adjusted constants so we could come to exist” without further assertions about this being.

2. The Puddle Fallacy

The fine-tuning argument also commits the rather cutely named ‘puddle fallacy’, a term coined by Douglas Adams. Here is his analogy that aims to satirize the way people using this argument think:

imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be all right, because this World was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.

The argument shining through the satire is that the situation we find ourselves in is exactly what we would expect from a precarious natural system. The only thing that’s necessary to make sense of this objection is that a natural system shapes its content without a mind necessary behind it, because it doesn’t allow for things its properties don’t permit. Understanding this principle is also a big help when trying to understand evolution, which I will address in a later post.

A misconception about probabilities ties into this as well. Imagine a fair dice roll with a die with a billion sides. Let’s say the result of the roll is 35,226,192. Well, what is the probability for that to happen? It’s one in a billion. Yet, for any sensible observer the result is nothing to be astonished about. One of the sides had to come up, each with a probability of one in a billion. You wouldn’t assume that someone willfully turned the die to this side, would you? Saying that would be willfully ignoring data, namely, that the die has already landed at that side. This leads me to the anthropic principle.

3. The Weak Anthropic Principle

Let me preface this by saying that I am now, to a large extent, leaving the domain of science and entering the realm of philosophy. The anthropic principle alone also does not refute the idea of a creator in general; it only shows that one of the implications in the argument is false, as further explained in 4. .

The (weak) anthropic principle is a remarkably simple yet prominent philosophic consideration regarding such constants. It is not needed to debunk the fine-tuning argument, but interesting nonetheless. Its structure is one or another version of the following (read the original definition on the Wikipedia page linked at the start of this paragraph): a) Premise: We can only observe if we exist b) Premise: We can only exist if natural constants allow us to exist c) Premise: We observe d) Conclusion: Natural constants must allow us to exist In simple words: if natural constants wouldn’t allow for us to be in this universe, we couldn’t be here to observe it. Thus it is completely unremarkable that those constants fall exactly into the spectrum that permits life. It entertains the idea that the constants being the way they are is nothing more than selection bias. To make selection bias clear, consider an exemplary game with the following rules: you roll a standard fair die. If it rolls on a 6, you get a million dollars. If it rolls on any other number, though, you and everything around you is instantly destroyed. Now, if you roll the die, given that you do observe, how surprised are you really to see a 6 when you look down? Hopefully not a whole lot. You wouldn’t be there to observe it if you had rolled any other number. The probability for observing a 6 given that you do observe is 100%. We are in the same situation. It is empirically certain we observe, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that our universe around us permits us to. Claiming the universe could be any other way is ignoring data that we have, namely: that we are here.

The anthropic principle alone is not enough to prove the idea of a creator to be impossible because for selection bias to occur, there must be a selection. It thus draws on one or the other form of the multiverse, which is itself merely a hypothesis, which is, depending on its various definitions, more often than not unfalsifiable. But the possibility alone leads me to my final objection:

4. Disregarding Possibilities

At its base, the fine-tuning argument for god lacks a necessary premise that, if stated, wouldn’t be able to be supported. The flaw lies in the argument “The probability for potentially completely random constants being so is small means it’s very likely that there is a creator”. This would only follow if there was an additional premise like “the only possibilities for the constants to be at those values are completely random or set by a creator”. This is, of course, not true. Note that, even if there is only one other possibility than a creator or complete randomness, the argument is flawed, so any alternative theory or even just a hypothesis debunks this argument. There are many alternative theories as to what forced these constants to be that way, so certainly more than one alternative possibility. A short list can be found here. A creator does not follow simply by the possibility that these values might not be uniformly random despite the lack of a designer. To rephrase again: it’s not clear that those constants could have taken on any values, so the probability them being within those values that permit our existence is unknown, not as people using this argument would state without proof “extremely high”.

Yet another way to say this is: just because different values for those constants are conceivable doesn’t make them possible. Those constants might interfere with the existence of the universe as a whole. Or they may just be impossible altogether for yet unknown reasons.

We lack empirical evidence as to where the universe came from. This means assumptions about the probabilities involved will always be baseless until demonstrated. And especially if you use a statement like “all conceivable values for natural constants are equally likely” as a premise to your already flawed argument, you’ll be called out on it.

For some further reading on this topic I might suggest the strongatheism library. It goes into much more detail than I’ve given here and also raises additional objections. I’ll tackle the topic of evolution next, because it is such an important base line for understanding our own existence withing the universe purely because of natural processes. If you are a creationist, the least you can gain from this is better understanding of a process you so frequently criticize.

As always, I’d be happy to hear criticism from anyone on tumblr or twitter, especially if I’ve inadvertently misrepresented any concepts presented here.

#fine-tuning #creationism #religion #science #cosmology #anthropic principle #multiverse #selection bias #atheism #christianity #islam #twitter #twitter with #religiousbs #puddle fallacy

Twitter with @AbuAbdallahF #1 : The Wall of Text

So, as people with too much time do, I spend a lot of my time on twitter, and I spend most of it debating with religious people over this and that. My goal in these discussions usually isn’t to hear them say “you’re right” at the end of it. It’s much more important to correct their misconceptions about for example science and point out the lies they’ve been fed. If you’re lucky enough and find a religious person that actually tries his or her best to understand what you’re saying the least you’ve done is made a person a little smarter. The best you can do is him or her coming to the consequential conclusion that most assertions of religions are fabricated on his or her own, even if it is a long time later. Helping someone understand the value of evidence or what a scientific theory is helps way more than showing people how stupid their belief system has made them. Insulted people are less inclined to listen to you, so stop that! So, that in mind, I had a recent discussion with someone with the twitter handle @AbuAbdallahF . He seems to be a creationist and has all the funny beliefs that regularly go along with that stance. After the conversation started repeating itself a bit he apparently decided it was time to go all out and sent me a wall of text as an image. I appreciated a long and clearer answer because of the apparent difficulties in expressing complicated ideas with precise terminology in 140 character pieces. You don’t have to read the whole thing if you don’t want to; I will cite bits and pieces in following posts that I will answer to separately. Also be aware that a lot had been said previously to this post already. Here is his answer in text form, which he was nice enough to provide, because the image’s size made it nearly impossible to read:

Typing 160 characters per tweet is a bit annoying. Look, as I said, the issue is not a name, like God. You laugh cause I say I got it figured out, God made everything? Great. Laugh. I’ll say it again, God made everything. The issue is whether we are created or not. We are saying, yes, we are created. There is a Creator, He created the entire universe including animals and humans and He made everything with a purpose. You’re saying ‘No, there is no Creator, there is no purpose, it’s all random mutations’. Well, then you have to go ahead and provide us with an alternative explanation of where we came from. You told me that some random mutations will eventually (over millions of years) result in a better species increasing chance of survival. But death does not depend on health. Besides, like I said, if that is true, then let’s help evolution and randomly mutate every single animal on the planet and see what happens. And I am not saying that you not having an alternative theory is evidence for mine. No, your lack of theory is your own problem. Like I said, I have absolutely no doubt that there is a Creator who created everything. Everything is functioning too well for randomness to be the answer. And I have the Qor’an to explain many things about creation and purpose. You’re claiming we are the result of random mutations over millions of years. But that still doesn’t explain how life began. You keep saying I claim it’s God because I don’t know. No, I claim it’s God because I have absolutely no doubt. Atheists are the ones who speculate and have no certainty of anything. You openly admit you don’t know, and then you attribute ignorance to me and claim that I am wrong and you are sure there is no Creator. If you don’t know, at least stop claiming to be sure there is no Creator. Now if your issue is God Himself and you don’t like the idea of a Creator having created us with a purpose and that He will hold us accountable, that is a totally different issue. Your hatred towards Him doesn’t mean anything to anybody else. It’s your personal issue. Regarding the evidence of the existence of the Creator. For me personally, the entire universe, which functions based on natural laws, systems, the sun, the moon, water, plants, animals, this is more than enough evidence. If that doesn’t satisfy you…well, that’s still your own problem. If you examine these natural laws you will notice that their sole direction and purpose is allowing us to live. One single alteration and everything will go BOOM! Our bodies with their different systems, each system containing organs, each organ containing components…do you realize that we are machines controlled by information? We are much more sophisticated than any machine man has ever created. Even Dawkins admitted that biology has become study of information technology in the bodies of living things. And each bone, each system each muscle, each cell is placed in its’ well defined place in order to function properly. One single cell out of the many is more sophisticated than anything man has ever built.You tell me it’s the result of random mutations…sorry man, that doesn’t make sense. Mutations do appear but they result in malfunction. In reality everything is decaying, everything is growing weaker and weaker because of mutations…diseases, like cancer or some other harmful mutations. Again, the fact that you dislike the idea of a Creator holding us accountable is your own personal issue. You posted ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’. You’re right. You’re claiming that all the universe can randomly appear from nothing. You’re claiming existence simply appeared from non-existence by itself. You claim life appeared from non-life by itself. Well that’s a very extraordinary claim that defies any law of physics, so you have to provide extraordinary evidence. I say, nothing appeared from nothing by itself. A Creator made it to be and he set laws to everything to function in such a way that our planet can be suitable for survival. Everything is governed by laws that ensure our survival….absolutely everything. I say, and again, I don’t say it because I don’t have an explanation…this is the explanation. I say there is an extremely intelligent and wise Creator…we cannot even imagine His intelligence and wisdom. You say this is not the explanation? Randomness? No purpose? Chance? Simply throw bricks randomly and millions of years later they will arrange themselves into a useful building? Sorry but that simply doesn’t make sense.

So. Many. Fallacies. But I found that this is the way a lot of religious people think about topics like evolution, the existence of the universe, what constitutes evidence and so forth, so it’s definitely worthy to address. There are a lot of different topics being touched on here, and that’s why I decided to take the opportunity to make a small series of posts to address a few of them (maybe all I can find, if I’m very diligent) separately, in the spirit that I stated above. The least I can do is educate a few readers about some topics in biology and philosophy, even if the logical conclusion then does not arrive at my desired audience.So, without further rambling, here is my first one.

#twitter #debate #science #religion #atheism #christianity #creationism

Scientific evidence for god by "New generation for god"

So, there's this article by "New generation for god" on their wordpress website titled "5 SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT GOD EXIST". Well, this should be fun even disregarding the missing words throughout sentences in the article and the title. You can find the article here.

It took me a wile to find out whether they were a comedy site or actually serious. I can't find any explanation that this is sarcasm anywhere on the site, though, and their paypal donation seems to work as well.

I'm going to try to represent their opinion as honestly and accurately as possible. If you have doubts about my summary of their position go ahead and read their article. It's not very long.

I'm writing it out as a response to them. Double quotation marks are citations.

1.Their position: Suffering in the world is not a counterargument to the existence of god, but a consequence of our god-given free will and sin.

Answer: This is nonsensical on so many levels. First of all: even if this were true this would not be scientific evidence for god, but merely a counterargument to one argument against god. Second, even if our free will would lead to pain because of our decisions as opposed to his "divine plan for humanity" with "life in perfect health" this would not explain suffering independent of our actions merely because of influences from nature. Third, human suffering existed even in populations that never heard of the christian god. In their mind, suffering is a result of "bad decisions about our relationship with our Creator". If I don't know about god I can't make such a decision, even if free will is granted. I could find more counterexamples to this statement. Personally, I don't think free will exists; if you want to know more about my opinion simply watch Sam Harris speak on this topic on youtube or read his book; I pretty much share his views. 2. Their position: Eradicating poverty is not the job of the church, it's the responsibility of all.

Answer: Well, sure it is. You also say "we fulfill our role to love our neighbor as God command us to do". Have you read the bible, which you guys are generally so crazy about? Does it say 'amass large sums of money and use it to enrich your priests and build huge pompous monuments"? No, I think the citation you're looking for is Matthew 19:24 "Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God", or 2 Corinthians 9:7 "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver". Yeah, not giving money to the poor while stashing billions away seems a little contradictory to those statements, wouldn't you say? Oh, and that thing again where even if this were true, this is no evidence for god at all. Do you find the title of your article to be laughable already?

3. Their position: The fact that we can't see god is no contradiction to his existence, because god is spirit, not matter.

Answer: I agree, it isn't. By design, god is not falsifiable. There is just no reason to believe he is there, just as there is no reason to believe in Russel's teapot or the flying spaghetti monster. By the way, the word you were looking for is "measure" or "verify". We also can't see magnetic fields, but we can measure them and integrate them into our currently most accurate model of the world by extensive testing and verification. I find it especially amusing how you give solid percentages, in numbers, of how much "brain perfection" we have lost over the years by choosing pride over our relationship with god. Where the fuck do you get your data from? I'll just go out on a limb and say you pulled it out of your ass. 4. Their position: Because god is a person, not a thing, we don't need evidence for his existence to assume he's there, you just go talk to him.

Answer: Being able to talk to god in a way that can be reproduced and observed would actually constitute evidence. Unfortunately, that hasn't been done, although it seems to be rather trivial from your standpoint. Unfortunately, I can't really decipher what the rest of the mumbojumbo on the bottom is supposed to mean, exactly. I assume it means to say something along the lines of 'unconstrained investigation is good', although it for some reason throws love towards god in as a constraint in the same paragraph. I would agree with investigation to find out facts about the world; our most rigorous attempt at that is called science. Your world view seems not to be bound by your own advice, though. I would advise you to find a more competent translator if you want to maintain a website in English. 5. Their position: Genetics, maths, chemistry and other scientific advances are a perfect creation by god and don't contradict his existence. Only by reading sources from the religious as well as the atheist side of the argument we can work out the truth about our world.

Answer: Many of our scientific findings directly contradict nonsense written in the bible. You can shout that genetics is a perfect creation by god all you want, but in the end, if you take god away from that model of our world genetics and all the other advances science has brought us still work exactly the same. I am fully willing to read religious sources. I have done so. None of it makes sense. None of it can be turned into a functional model of our world that can be tested and make predictions. It's unnecessary nonsense from the beginning of civilization and is responsible for so much suffering that it is worth it to fight against it tooth and nail.

None of your points do even attempt to be evidence. We could grant all of them and you'd still not have proven god exists. This is the most illogical bullshit I've read in quite some time (and I've read quite a lot).

#newgenerationforgod #religion #atheism #antitheism #anti-theism #agnosticism #christianity #god #apologetics #suffering #free will

valeriejoyceyugo

Because of what’s happening to the world lately caused by religion, I flooded my Twitter page of rants against religion. I think I should write an essay about this. I wish the world will be free from the disease called religion soon!

proud-atheist

Daughter of American Atheist Blogger who was hacked to death in Bangladesh (along with his wife, in critical condition) wrote a facebook post about her dad http://proud-atheist.tumblr.com

kx9

Trolling the Westboro Baptist Church with @davesirus 😜

wishforequity

The author of ‘Infidel’ on the Paris massacre, memories of Theo Van Gogh, and why the Western media should reprint the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

You think this is going to get better? Because it won’t. Time to start listening to Sam Harris and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

religiousbs-blog

From my more general blog.

proud-atheist

Can I ask you something? Are you planning on going out and killing everyone who is part of those other religions? No? Then you’re gonna have to coexist! (She’s a little paranoid) http://proud-atheist.tumblr.com

religiousbs-blog

(disclaimer: I have no idea where this image came from, I just saw this post on tumblr and am answering to proud-atheist)

It helps to read the text. Yes, this might suggest that he/she means all religions depicted in the picture. But it clearly says "with people who want to kill you". And yes, religion is one large motivation for killings around the world. And if you have someone who wants to kill you motivated by religion, no matter whether you're just a different religion or an atheist, you can indeed not coexist. Some ideology is just incompatible.

For more about this, get yourself a dose of Sam Harris on youtube. I share his views.

#atheism #religion #Sam Harris #fundamentalism