Common Atheists' Myths

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/atheists_myths.html ^

[truthfinder9]

Introduction

I know that Christians are supposed to be the ones who believe a lot of myths. However, the vast majority of atheists believe myths such as religion is the primary cause of wars, and the vast amount of atrocities have been caused by religious people, the Bible has been vastly changed over the centuries, Paul invented Christianity, and the list goes on and on. Find your favorite myth below and read the article so that you won't embarrass yourself in the future.

Atheists' Myths

• Atheists have Proven God Does Not Exist. Right? - Only if that god is not the God of the Bible
• Religion is the Cause of All (Most) of the World's Problems - Religion is not even close to being the leading cause suffering in the world. In fact, atheists have been responsible for most of it within the last 100 years.
• Are Most Wars the Result of Religious Belief? - Religion is implicated in less than 7% of all wars over the entire written history of mankind.
• Is Christianity a Made-up Myth Written by the Disciples? - Now really - would the disciples write about all their shortcomings, make the Christian church into a female, design heaven with no sex in it, and say that they were going to be married to Jesus in heaven? I don't know about you guys, but this is not what I would have written if I had made up the Bible!
• Paul Invented Christianity? Is the Founder of the Christian Religion Paul of Tarsus or Jesus of Nazareth? All Paul's core teachings were also taught by Jesus and the disciples, and are even found in the Old Testament.
• Misquoting Jesus: Does Bart Erhman Prove the New Testament is Corrupt? - Contrary to Erhman's claims, the New Testament canon was established in the early second century, and scribal errors/changes did not affect any significant Christian doctrine.
• The Christian Church Was Never Really Persecuted - Were all the reported persecutions of Christians were made up by the Christian church?
• The Bible Has Been Changed Over the Centuries From the Original? - Sorry, the manuscript evidence doesn't support this idea at all.
• Jesus Christ as God and the Trinity Was Not Invented Until the Fourth Century? Contrary to the claims of The Da Vinci Code, even secular sources indicate that Christians worshipped Jesus Christ as God no later than 113 A.D.
• This Joyful Eastertide: A Critical Review of The Empty Tomb (2006) - Has the resurrection been proven false? )
• The Universe Just Happened Without Any Need For a Designer - For all those who expect to win at lotto!
• There is No Evidence For the Fine Tuning of the Universe - The cosmological constant (dark energy) shows this belief to be false
• "The Lost Tomb of Jesus": Have the Bones of Jesus Christ Been Found? Only if Jesus had his ossuary inscribed when He was 2 years old!
• Omnipotence is Logically Impossible? Atheists attempt to define God out of existence through illogical arguments
• The Universe is Eternal - Contrary to atheist's claims, the majority of scientists state as fact that the universe had a beginning.
• Only Stupid People Believe in God - A large number of famous scientists believed in God, many being devout Christians
• The Roman Catholic Church's Condom Policy is Responsible For the Spread of HIV and the AIDS Crisis in Africa - Actually, HIV infection rates are lower in Catholic-dominated countries!
• The Myth of the Flat Earth by Jeffrey Burton Russell - The "history" that Christians taught a flat earth was not invented until the 19th century. (off site)
• People are Basically Good - Proof to the Contrary
• Jesus didn't really die on the Cross? - The old swoon theory doesn't hold up to historical/medical reality.
• Hitler was a Christian? - This seems like a no brainer, but there are free-thinkers who think he was. (off site)
• Jesus and Adolf Hitler - The new (and improved?) German Jesus (off site)
• Are Atheists and Theists Morally Equivalent? Aren't atheists morally superior to theists?
• Atheism Doesn't Lead to Immoral Behavior - Or Does It? In theory it doesn't, but in practice...
• Atheism and Humanism Provide Hope for the Future - The ultimate "hope" of atheism is eternal entropy as the universe loses all ability to perform work, and all life, consciousness, and knowledge is eternally destroyed.
• The Bible Teaches a Flat Earth Covered by a Solid Dome
• Teaching Religion to Children is a Form of Child Abuse? Dawkins's hypothesis is falsified.
• BLOODLINE: Serious Documentary or Hollywood Hoax? - by Gordon Franz MA
• Debunking Dawkins: The God Delusion
  • Debunking Dawkins: The God Delusion Chapter 1: A deeply religious non believer - Deception, lies, and misrepresentations.
  • Debunking Dawkins: The God Delusion Chapter 2: The God Hypothesis - Failure to support debunked assertions, quoting out-of-context, and a desire to escape moral accountability.
  • Debunking Dawkins: The God Delusion Chapter 4: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God - Richard Dawkins' Ultimate Boeing 747 argument is shown to be formally fallacious.
• The Universe Just Created Itself Out of Nothing - Why Stephen Hawking is wrong about God not creating the universe.
• Book Review: The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris - Sam Harris claims that science can determine human values, but just resorts to ranting about religion.

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

More Answers

• Answers for Atheists and Agnostics
  • Criticisms of God's Character from Atheists and Agnostics
  • Criticisms of God on the Basis of the Existence of Evil and Suffering
  • Religion is Stupid
  • Bad Christians
  • Bible and Science Criticisms
  • Answers to Bible Contradictions
  • Skeptics' Objections to Christianity
  • No Evidence of the Supernatural?

[grey_whiskers]

God is a Hilbert space?

(God knew every possible consequence of every possible combination of circumstances in advance).

Or, for a human analogy -- just because I know (from the look on my wife's face) that I'm gonna get lucky this evening, that knowledge is not itself what makes her pin me to the mattress.

Cheers!

[MHGinTN]

Lucky braggard

[grey_whiskers]

You might enjoy Darwin Central.

Many ex-Freepers there (and a disproportionate share of scientists, who have left FR, after various and sundry misadventures with Jim Robinson: he apparently without warning repeatedly removed the home page of a couple of them, which said homepage had a huge and authoritative list of pro-evolution links. Influential players there include, but are not limited to Patrick Henry (whose page was removed), Ichnuemon (a veritable treasure trove of detailed info on Evolutionary theory), RadioAstronomer (all around great guy), RightWingProfessor (real-life Harvard PhD in the hard sciences and a real professor at a legitimate University), and a host of others.)

They too, fear the left's attempted calumny that all conservatives are anti-scientific, and seek to uphold the standards that "We conservatives can be good intellectuals too, and we don't need the crutch of belief in God; though we magnanimously allow it to those weaker conservatives who can't get along without it, as long as they're not TOO loud, uncouth, or embarrassing."

(Exaggeration of their opinion for dramatic effect...and not all are atheists. But it *DOES* tend to be more scientifically focused, and generally more libertarian and less "conservative" than here.)

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Any sickness that results in seven days of illness, followed by death, is going to cause the innocent victim, suffering.

Are you an MD? Is that a categorical statement?

You made the assertion, YOU defend it.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

can a sadistic killing of David's innocent son be justice.

Whence the sadism? (= 'sexual pleasure in the observation or infliction of pain')

Stop the swashbuckling, you'll gain credibility.

[grey_whiskers]

Discussion:

Quoting these people and accepting there assertions implicitly give the appearace that you are skeptical toward anything except that which *favors* your preconceived notions.

Example:

Ghazali thought that it is at least theoretically possible for there to be an infinite regress,

Somebody I never heard of THOUGHT (not proved) that it is theoretically possible (NO evidence) for there to be an infinite regress (NOT defined; petitio principii)

But somehow, because it is stated in a condescending tone and juxtaposed with other unsubstantiated quotes from other unknowns, who attempt to borrow credibility by including ill-defined third-hand references to scientific buzzwords, this is implicitly claimed to be distinguished from, and superior, to "FAITH".

Translated to the vernacular: unless and until you can walk through these points in such a way that everyone can understand them, from first principles, they are not worth a plugged nickel.(*)

Cheers!

(*) The Christian author C.S. Lewis once said that unless you can translate your thought into one syllable words, you don't understand it yourself. Dick Feynmann said much the same thing (allowing for the mathematical sophistication necessary to understand physics) in saying that, unless you could describe a physics topic in such a way that college freshmen could follow it, you didn't understand it yourself.

Try doing more than cutting-and-pasting and beating your chest, Tarzan-style.

[Notary Sojac]

though we magnanimously allow it to those weaker conservatives who can't get along without it

Thank you for the suggestion, although I'm uncomfortable with the tone of the comment above and I would not go that far.

Here's a post I made to the American Spectator webpage, in response to an article titled "Can Civilization Survive Without God". It sums up many posts I've made to FR over the years.

I think it's safe to say that "civilization cannot survive without people who -believe- in God".

It's beyond questioning that the Western statesmen whose outlook was infused with the Judaeo-Christian worldview have been better stewards of liberty, even for unbelievers, than the criminal heads of state who rejected that worldview.

However, as one of those unbelievers, I separate the questions of "is Christianity beneficial?" from "is Christianity true?" and answer them differently.

[grey_whiskers]

And you, a God-fearing intellectual atheist, haven't heard of The Golden Bough?

C.S. Lewis's atheist tutor of his youth, "The Great Knock" practically worshipped at the shrine of that book, according to Lewis' autobiography?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

To insects gravity is about as much of reality as surface tension is to humans—negligible.

Is that why they still have to flap their wings?

[grey_whiskers]

We were created God’s image. Calling ourselves “he” is the reverse of anthropomorphism in this context. That is, we call ourselves he because God is the first He.

A more Chestertonian way of putting it would be to say:

We're not anthropomorphic. God is Theomorphic.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

and Kant trying to convince himself that reality is the creation of subjective mind.

Humor columnist Dave Barry of the Miami Herald put it better.

He said that

philosophy consists of proving that there is no such thing as reality, and then going to have lunch.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Great, here's the next question -- for those who claim "religion" confers "survival value".

Does "survival value" serve as (even an imperfect) indicator of "truth" ?

It's beyond questioning that the Western statesmen whose outlook was infused with the Judaeo-Christian worldview have been better stewards of liberty, even for unbelievers, than the criminal heads of state who rejected that worldview.

Why is liberty "better"? Or, going one step further, why does "survival" matter? What difference does it make to the universe if humans are free or enslaved, alive or extinct?

Why does one make liberty a desideratum?

Cheers!

[reasonisfaith]

God is Theomorphic. Well put.

Good to see you again, GW.

[reasonisfaith]

That’s a good one.

[Notary Sojac]

What difference does it make to the universe if humans are free or enslaved, alive or extinct?

It makes no difference to the universe whatsoever. Humans have not survived fractionally as long as the dinosaurs and I see no reason to predict that they will.

I advocate liberty because I desire liberty for me and mine, and the best way to guarantee that is a political system which is so structured so that liberty can not be taken from anyone.

[grey_whiskers]

I advocate liberty because I desire liberty for me and mine, and the best way to guarantee that is a political system which is so structured so that liberty can not be taken from anyone.

Maoists and other dictators advocate their systems because they desire power for themselves and for theirs, and the best way to guarantee that is a totalitarian state where they can enforce life and death for the individual, or for entire populations, merely upon their own whim, without recourse or the fear of reprisal.

It's an exact analogy.

What *objective* grounds do you have to advocate one over the other?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

We have teenagers: so we have to take our opportunities when they occur.

(We wuz arguing philosophy and such with one of the college-type cubs till 2:30 this morning. Must be why I found myself on a religion thread today.)

Cheers!

[reasonisfaith]

I’m going to speak straight with you because I believe sharing truth with a person is the best way to show them respect.

If you think you have the ability to understand adequately the questions brought by our discussion, you should know that it would include the ability to derive basic facts from general context. In other words, you need to possess, or try to acquire, the right amounts of intuition and common sense.

So you should be able to recognize that my comments establish the notion that acquisition of truth, while partially taking place in the academic arena, involves a realm beyond mere matters of sense perception as defined within that arena. Such as the Holy Spirit. One doesn’t need to integrate sensory data into his occipital cortex, conveying a concrete image of the Holy Spirit, in order to acquire knowledge of the existence of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s test the endurance in the logic of your particular questions. For example, in speaking of the God of Abraham—how much time should we waste on the assumption that man’s justice could be the same as God’s justice? (I don’t doubt that you have the mind to finish this one on your own.)

“You are using a book which you decided to believe is holy as ‘proof’ of what God is? Why should I believe you?”

Here is where you proceed on the most fundamental error in thinking by leftists (whether or not you are a leftist politically speaking). That is, you think verification of a particular truth in question is dependent first on something inherent to the individual proposing it.

“Not all agnostics or atheists are leftists. There are many believers, such as Nancy Pelosi, Joihn Kerry, Joe Biden, etc. who are leftist believers.”

Let’s clear this up right now. Doing so will demonstrate the fundamental illegitimacy of the Democrat strategy to gain political ground in the area of “faith and values.”

1)The leftist believes in Jesus Christ as “great teacher” whose contribution was the establishment of philanthropic principles.

2)The Christian believes in Jesus Christ as Divine Saviour, whose contribution was to reconcile sinful man with his supernatural Creator.

These two belief systems are so different they are essentially opposites. Are leftist “believers” closet atheists? I really don’t know.

“Einstein predicted the “gravitational lens” effect, i.e. the bending of light by gravity, without ever first observing it.”

It seems you’ve completely missed the point. I’m saying the legitimate search for truth is the way of Einstein or Newton—to accommodate ourselves to external reality by discovering true mathematical relationships which define that reality. Sure, this process requires imagination as both Einstein and Newton have shown, but imagination must be verified by external truths like mathematics—as Einstein’s has been—in order to be considered valid. My point was that too many scientists have fallen into the Kantian trap of thinking reality is dependent only our internal imagination.

“This is beginning to look more and more like any other ‘reasoned faith’ building a God in the image of man.”

Your point here is valid, but only in a very limited way. It appears that I was “building a God in the image of man” only because in trying to stimulate the atheist to think, I was trying to think like an atheist whose initial point of reference is himself.

Your last few paragraphs are an assertion of the most fundamental atheist principle which is a protest against “superstition.” But this fundamental atheist principle quickly falls under the scrutiny of rational imagination.

Here we go: superstition is defined as a belief in the supernatural, which is anything not explainable by conventional scientific thought. Atheism pretends to be dependent on science.

But conventional scientific thought tells us, in describing the event of the Big Bang, that conventional science is not all-inclusive. Because current laws of science are not applicable to phenomena having to do with the Big Bang. Therefore, the Big Bang itself is supernatural.

Your only choice here is to deny conventional science and the truth of the Big Bang, or to admit your belief in the supernatural.

[grey_whiskers]

However, as one of those unbelievers, I separate the questions of "is Christianity beneficial?" from "is Christianity true?" and answer them differently.

You're a different breed than some of the more militant atheists I've come across, who claim that religion has caused Most-o-The-World's-Suffering^TM, or even the trolls who claim "Hitler was a Christian, he said he was."

As an ex-atheist, I salute you.

Cheers!

[James C. Bennett]

Any sickness that results in seven days of illness, followed by death, is going to cause the innocent victim, suffering.

Are you an MD? Is that a categorical statement?

You made the assertion, YOU defend it.

Cheers!

 

HAHA, LOL!

I'll let you have the dubious pleasure of performing the mental / verbal gymnastics, autofellation (as you mentioned earlier) , etc. necessary to interpret the fatal illness inflicted upon a child by a supposed deity as an act of comforting the victim by that same deity. After all, you must have the necessary experience, going back to the other thread where you seemed to have convinced / fooled yourself into believing that the swords that struck down the Amalekite babies and children were acts of painless deliverance.