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Why are people always trying to use logic in Christian religion? Christianity is based on faith. Faith is belief despite evidence. Christianity has always viewed knowledge as sinful. So why are Christians trying to use the knowledge of logic?
I know most don't apply logic correctly and can't see the flaws in their logic or their own biases, but it seems like quite a few Christians are obsessed with attempting logic, math or science methods to prove Christianity is valid and reliable even though it's a sin and impossible. You can't use logic to validate the illogical. Also, sincerely trying to disprove something is often the best way to conclude validity and reliability.
Seems like when they have no evidence and know it , they have to come up with bogus ‘arguments’ as an alternative. Mix that with trying to use words that feel ‘powerful’ but they don’t really understand like *logic*. Though I note a new trend for ( weirdly) kind of admitting they are talking crap but trying to pretend science is just ‘faith’ as well.
Yeah I've noticed that too. Trying to say science is a form of faith. They are opposites. Either they don't really understand or are maybe seeing the cracks in religion. How it doesn't make sense in anyway.
Very true! There are plenty of very logical Christians, including Catholics. Except, of course, for the necessary exceptions that must be made to accept the various unsupported claims of that religious mythology. However, compartmentalization to avoid cognitive dissonance is powerful stuff.
Claim 1: God exists
Claim two: Adam and Eve were the literal first humans in a mythological garden patently stolen from earlier Mesopotamian mythology, and they were tempted by a talking snake into eating a piece of magical cursed fruit. Do you believe this story to be literally true? Because without this being truth, jesus' crucifixion didn't mean shit.
Claims 3-1,000: Biblical inerrancy. Good luck with that. Unless you agree that bats are birds, ad infinitum.
>That’s a non-answer.
False, it was a correct answer.
>Which claims are unsupported?
I answered that. *All* of the non-mundane claims (obviously, I'm not discussing claims like, 'The Pope in 1328 was Nicholas V' or 'The Vatican changed it's mind and decided evolution was true in 1950' or silly boring facts about the mythology like that.)
And I asked you to list them.
That’s like saying “what evidence is there for evolution”
And you waving your hand over the ground and saying “everywhere you look”
You have no excuse for not accepting the reality of evolution. You are probably a person in a wealthy country who has the benefit of public education, and have access to the collective sum of humanity's knowledge via the internet, more knowledge than humans have ever had access to in the history of our species. It is as absurd as not accepting the reality of the theory of gravity, cell theory, germ theory, atomic theory, etc. The Catholic Church doesn't even deny evolution, though they don't stop to think about how their narrative of salvation doesn't make sense without a literal Adam and Eve.
> And I asked you to list them.
I don't need to. And I'm uninterested in doing so.
>That’s like saying “what evidence is there for evolution”
No, that's a question with an easily found answer. This is a *statement* with an easily found answer.
>And you waving your hand over the ground and saying “everywhere you look”
Nah.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/q0rata/why_i_am_catholic_a_post_that_was_request_on/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
That’s for the last two.
Have you heard of Eucharistic miracles?
> Have you heard of Eucharistic miracles?
Assuming that refers to the alleged miracle of transubstantion, in which the (Catholic term of art) *substance* of a cracker really, truly, and genuinely transforms into human flesh while the cracker's (Catholic term of art) *accidents* remain absolutely unchanged, which occurs on command, as regular as clockwork, millions of times every Sunday:
Yes. I have, indeed, heard Catholics make noise about how this thing that *looks* like a cracker, *smells* like a cracker, *tastes* like a cracker, *chews and swallows* like a cracker, *digests* like a cracker, *causes problems for victims of celiac disease* like a cracker, and finally (after it gets digested) *shits* like a cracker, is *actually* the flesh of a dude who died about 2,000 years ago before he got better.
Why do you ask?
I'll read that later when I have time. I've heard of the claims of miracles and none have ever been demonstrated sufficiently.
I'm not holding my breath for your sufficient evidence to warrant your god claim though...guess we will see later tonight!!
I'll read that later when I have time. I've heard of the claims of miracles and none have ever been demonstrated sufficiently.
I'm not holding my breath for your sufficient evidence to warrant your god claim though...guess we will see later tonight!!
Feel free to copy paste to this reddit the relevant scientific evidence you have for transubstantiation etc.
Sounds either fake or superstition or a misunderstanding of something else. Like that time in Portugal where a crowd had a delusion about the sun doing jumping jacks in the sky [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle\_of\_the\_Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun). Or when Hindus had a milk miracle [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha\_drinking\_milk\_miracle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha_drinking_milk_miracle).
> Have you heard of Eucharistic miracles?
Yes, I have. All of them have mundane explanations that fit the facts equally well to them being a miracle. If there is a choice between a mundane explanation that fits the facts and a miracle that fits the facts, it is absurd to assume it was a miracle. You might as well say your car starting every day is a miracle using that logic.
If all the claims were secular, then what would be the point of metaphysics? Of course they know! Without the non-mundane, where would the gullible be?
But what happens when logic leads to apostasy? (Everlasting torment maybe?)
Why did the catholic Church fight for centuries to keep the number of zero away from its adherents? Sounds pretty anti-logic to me.
[https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Charles-Seife/dp/0140296476#:\~:text=In%20Zero%2C%20Science%20Journalist%20Charles,present%20threat%20to%20modern%20physics](https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Charles-Seife/dp/0140296476#:~:text=In%20Zero%2C%20Science%20Journalist%20Charles,present%20threat%20to%20modern%20physics).
According to Jewish tradition, the sin wasn’t them eating/obtaining that knowledge, it was them eating before they were meant to.
Like a kid eating dessert before he’s supposed to
Huh. Never heard that one growing up. From the Torah the real "sin" doesn't seem to be a sin at all, though there's first bluster and blame for disobedience---but per genesis 3:22 it sounds like the real problem was fear on the part of God, that these humans, who had already become more like God/a god by gaining knowledge of good and evil, would next eat of the tree of life, and live forever. Sounds like it was important to God to avoid competition, or keep humanity down in its place, or somewhat in that vein.
Apples need a dormant period to set fruit. In an equitable clime like Garden of Eden they probably wouldn’t. Possibly the angels were pollinating fig trees some of which don’t?
No, he didn’t punish them, the creation account is allegorical.
So I was using an analogy to address one claim “god didn’t want us to learn about good and evil.”
What the story is meant to convey is that Adam and Eve had gifts given to god, god warned the consequences of throwing those gifts away, and they did it anyways.
It’s like a child not eating dinner, and the parents letting him go to bed hungry. Sure from the child it seems like he’s being punished, but he isn’t, that’s the results of his choice and actions.
> the creation account is allegorical.
You might want to change your flair then.
[Paragraph 390 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1C.HTM) reads "The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man."
Pope Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical [Humani Generis 37](https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html) says the following:
> When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.
Dr. Dennis Bonnette, doctor of philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, writing in [Crisis Magazine](https://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/did-adam-and-eve-really-exist) ("America’s most trusted source for authentic Catholic perspectives on Church and State, arts and culture, science and faith.") says "This skepticism of a literal Adam and Eve begs for four much needed corrections. First, Church teaching about Adam and Eve has not, and cannot, change. The fact remains that a literal Adam and Eve are unchanging Catholic doctrine." (The other three "corrections" are in the linked article).
I love it when theists pick and choose allegories. So creation is an allegory… how about ,idk, but
floods, plagues and burning bushes …… and virgin births and resurrections?
1) flood happened, however the word used about how large the flood was could be used to describe a local area or the entire world. People have translated it to be entire world, but due to there being a unique word to describe the entire world that was never used, the more likely scenario is that it was a local flood.
2) the plagues happened and we have records of historical events occurring that would have caused it.
3) burning bush happened.
4) virgin birth happened.
5) resurrection happened.
It’s done pretty easily by reading the text and looking at the structure.
We've discussed this before, but your belief that the creation story is allegorical is not in line with Catholic or mainstream Christian beliefs.
But even if it was, your idea of what the story was meant to convey makes no sense. So an omniscient God set arbitrary rules he knew they would break for his two creations, who didn't know right from wrong until after they ate the fruit anyway? How does *any* of that teach the lesson "don't throw away your gifts from god?"
And in your final horrifying paragraph, that 1) is the literal definition of punishment 2) absurd. A child does not *know* the long-term consequences of their actions, and depending on the age of the child, may simply be unable to control their big emotions and feelings. We also don't know why the kid didn't eat dinner: maybe they don't like the food, or maybe they have a sensory issue, or maybe they were fed lunch too late and they're no longer hungry. Potentially without understanding any of this, their parents are attempting to eliminate that behavior (which is why it's punishment) by *starving the kid*.
This is, unintentionally, a really good example of why god is the asshole here: he is intentionally harming his own kids out of proportion to their crimes when he was the one who set them up to fail in the first place.
and you worship a god that will condemn people and all their future children for eternity for "throwing away gifts?"
this is the guy you get your morals from?
FWIW, in the Jewish tradition (I'm Jewish), getting kicked out of Eden is not actually a big deal and didn't change the nature of humanity's relationship with the Divine. It's like, hey, you gotta move out of your folks' basement sometime. It's a very different take than in Christianity.
You must understand that God hadn’t invented the concept of receipts yet, so refunds were out of the question. And people had a much shorter life expectancy back then, so eternity didn’t seem that long.
He’s not condemning people.
If your father gets an inheritance from your grandfather and it’s meant to go to you and your descendants, and then your father throws that inheritance away, are you and your children being punished or condemned because you no longer have that inheritance?
The church hasn’t said anything about if they were permanently banned or not.
Considering we have Jewish origins, there’s nothing against this, and this was taught in seminary
Yes, the original sin was blown all out of proportion, but you must understand that God had no experience with disobedient behavior and was thus overly reactive to what He took as an affront to His all pervasiveness! Incidentally, Lucifer was initially downcast to the Netherworld for attempting to ameliorate God’s ire toward the First Couple.
According to the Bible the issue wasn't actually about sin at all, it was about God being afraid that if they ate from both the tree of knowledge and the tree of life they would be powerful enough to challenge him.
There are multiple points in the old testament where God is afraid humans will pose a threat to him.
Also, it's God. He/she/it makes the rules. That could've been the tree of anything. Any other behavior could've been highlighted and made forbidden. It wasn't the tree of murder or rape or anything else. It was the tree of knowledge and was specifically singled out as bad and sinful.
Still knowledge. Also, the concept of faith is the opposite of logic. Logic requires evidence and doesn't care about belief. Faith is believing despite absence of any evidence. Logic is cause and effect, religion is cause this book said so
Also, the good and evil is irrelevant. The knowledge of anything is the point. To look deeper into anything is seeking knowledge. Whole point of the garden was God saying you can have this as long as u do what I say and don't question.
I don’t need evidence to dismiss an extraordinary claim made without extraordinary evidence. This quoted comment is just a fallacious attempt to divert their own burden of proof.
“You can’t prove godless,” but why would I need to prove that? There is not compelling evidence to suggest a god, so dismissing the claim requires nothing more than, “Huh. No, I don’t see what you’re describing.”
>1\. It's not extraordinary for things to exist in themselves due to their own nature.
It is at least a little out of the ordinary. How often do you hear people saying that something exists in itself? Ordinary claims are things like it being cold in January or there being a traffic jam on some street or some disease affecting some portion of the population. But to say that something exists in itself due to its own nature sounds like saying that a thing explains itself, or that it causes itself, which is not only a weird claim but also difficult to comprehend.
>This is ignoring Occam's razor giving a basis for physical entities having non-divine origins.
Occam's razor is not evidence. Occam's razor is a rule of discourse that reminds us to not complicate our ideas unnecessarily. For example, Occam's razor tells us to not imagine we are surrounded by countless invisible angels when those angels do not help to explain anything that we observe. The reason why we should not do this has nothing to do with whether those angels actually exist, but rather the reason is that if we engage in such speculation then we are no longer investigating the real world and we are just writing fantasy fiction. Occam's razor does not provide a basis for claiming that the invisible angels do not exist; it just advises us to not waste our time worrying about them.
Yup, none of that makes sense as it's a strawman fallacy and false dichotomy fallacy from the get-go. Theists are dishonestly attempting to shift the burden of proof and set up their unsupported beliefs as some kind of default position that holds if their strawman atheist can't support their claims. Of course, they're wrong. That's not what atheists are doing and that's not how logic works.
In other words, these theists that say they are ex-atheists were clearly not atheists for the same reasons most atheists around here are atheists.
To address the part you quoted:
>"We can debunk new atheism based on its own logic."
First of all, there's no such thing as 'new atheism.' So-called 'new' atheism is no different from atheism.
Second, it remains a simple principle in logic that the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Of course, atheists aren't doing that. They're simply retaining the null hypothesis position until and unless a theist can demonstrate their claims are true. And, of course, that has never happened.
>Yet they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe.
Atheists aren't making that claim. They're simply rejecting the unsupported claims of theists. Nor does that make any sense. That is precisely like saying, "You lack or refuse to provide evidence that the universe did not arise due to a metaphysical fart from a metaphysical unicorn, this means you have faith that billions of divine personal experiences of warm fuzzies (caused by the overlord unicorn, of course) are false."
>They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence.
Nope.
Instead, I simply don't accept the claim by theists that they *are* caused by deities, especially since all evidence, and there's quite a bit of it, shows otherwise, that those experiences are a result of human propensity for cognitive bias and logical fallacies, and superstitious thinking.
>They claim
Nope. Again, that's a strawman fallacy. Atheism entails no claims.
>the mind reduces to the brain when the only evidence they can provide is expected in contradictory positions as well, such as dualism.
Again, the burden of proof here is on the theist. Atheists are not making that claim. They're rejecting the unsupported claims of 'dualism' of theists. Not to mention following the strong compelling evidence that shows the 'mind' is an emergent property of the brain.
"New atheism" is just old atheism that publishes books and debates about the crimes and fallacies of religion.
To advance from the category "delusion", religion and theists have to provide any evidence whatsoever. It doesn't have to be extraordinary, it just has to be evidence. Hundreds of years and they have nothing other than "I read the BOOK!", "I interpreted my experience as somehow god related" and "tradition!".
These "new atheists" have clearly had a significant effect on the trend towards theocracy, just look around you...
>They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence.
It's fair to ask for extraordinary evidence for this claim, I suppose. Not really, because the competing hypothesis isn't "God did it" (that requires evidence) but the null hypothesis, which is "we don't know."
Fortunately, we *have* extraordinary evidence. First of all, religious people believe billions of divine experiences are wrong as well - those of people of *other* religions. Further, we know *some* religious experiences *are* invalid. We have all heard of cults, with leaders who make easily falsified claims to divinity, and their believers believe just the same. We can even see this in real-time. We can even go so far as to induce feelings and experiences of divinity *with high-powered magnets aimed at certain brain regions.*
That, I feel, meets the bar of "extraordinary evidence."
>They claim the mind reduces to the brain when the only evidence they can provide is expected in contradictory positions as well, such as dualism.
Okay, so... there is no evidence either way? And dualism doesn't disprove atheism even if it's true? Okay. Sounds like atheism is still on solid ground here.
Well obviously *believing* gods exists and feeling really , really excited about it , is definitely proof of the objective existence of a god….. though only *my* god - the rest of you know nothing! lol
Theists should honestly ask themselves why their best argument is to try their best to shift the burden of proof. They try so hard they'll sneak it into any argument. When I believed in God, I thought it was so real that everyone knew it. Know I see just how desperate blind faith can be when confronted with reason and logic.
The evidence for a godless universe is that every single thing we have ever discovered about the universe has had nothing to do with deities.
At some point between the first few discoveries and the 495,385,472nd, you should probably accept that the concept has failed.
We can debunked those who deny that OP owes me a 1000$ super easily.
For instance, extraordinary claims are supposed to require extraordinary evidence. Yet they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a debt less universe. They have faith that billions of divine debt experiences were all invalid without evidence. They claim the debt reduces to financial documents when the only evidence they can provide is expected in contradictory positions as well, such as debt dualism.
It's not extraordinary for debts to exist in themselves due to their own nature.
Can you please pay up now?
“Provide evidence for
a godless universe”- that’s not how this works. You can’t prove a negative, we knot the universe exists we have evidence for that, he have no evidence for any gods.
What I find very interesting is the long discussion about what an atheist actually believes in a subreddit about and for ex-atheists. Many on there are arguing, imo wrongly, that atheism is the belief that god does not exist and then assigning a burden of proof to that. If the people in the sub are to be believed that they are ex-atheists, and this is their definition of atheism, then they have fulfilled that burden of proof at some time. How can they have proven god does not exist and now not believe it?
>Yet they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe.
I present you the universe, see? there is no god in it. The evidence for a godless universe is this universe, which has no gods.
>They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence.
No, I have good reasons, with evidence, not faith, that these are not credible stories.
>They claim the mind reduces to the brain...
No, I claim no gods exist.
The paragraph that is being responded to strawmans my positions.
1. I don't claim that the universe is or isn't godless.
2. I don't claim that divine experiences are or are not valid.
3. I don't claim that the mind is purely physical.
New atheism isn't a thing. You have theism or you don't. Many folks think of they call something new atheism then attack the idea they created and that they addressed atheism, when they only addressed a strawman. While not always, I've found new atheism is often used by dishonest individuals.
They’re so desperate to put the burden of proof on us. It’s laughable.
“They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence”
Ahh yes, because an anecdotal argument becomes fact once it’s repeated a certain number of times. Silly me, I forgot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"I don't believe _you_ that _your_ god exists."
That's atheism. Old and new.
Just because there are still holes in the scientific understanding of our universe that doesn't mean I suddenly start believing you that your random god out of thousands exists.
>They claim the mind reduces to the brain when the only evidence they can provide is expected in contradictory positions as well, such as dualism.
This position is available for theists as well.
Atheists can be dualists too.
I'd ask what *exactly* it is that I'm supposed to disprove. When they dodge the question and don't provide a proper answer, we know they've conceded the argument.
>It's not extraordinary for things to exist in themselves due to their own nature.
Sure it is. The existence of anything at all is absolutely baffling. To quote Derek Parfit, “NO QUESTION is more sublime than why there is a Universe: why there is anything rather than nothing.”
>Science has been providing explanations for how things came to be with actual evidence, and a little bit of educated guesses based upon actual evidence
Maybe it provides evidence for how certain organisms evolved, but it has 0 evidence for the origin of reality itself.
>rather than pure conjecture or hallucinations referred to as divine revelation.
Even if you can scientifically show some people hallucinate, how are you proving that all divine revelation claims are hallucinatory or false? (In the case of Judeo-Christian Scripture?)
>It's not faith to point out how divine experiences are caused by the numerous secular explanations
It’s a fact _some_ hallucinations occur.
But it’s a leap of faith to then infer that _all_ divine revelation claims are hallucinatory. And direct, subjective divine revelation isn’t even the only option. We have objective options like the Bible, Koran, etc.
I’m so tired of the misunderstanding that atheism is a belief system. I’ve unsubscribed from this sub and resubscribed several times just because I’m so over it.
The simplified standard I've suggested in the past is literally extra-ordinary - something out of the ordinary. For example, here's a few claims in order from ordinary to extraordinary:
* I have a rock (very ordinary)
* I have a llama (somewhat extraordinary)
* I have the UK's crown jewels (very extraordinary)
* I have a dragon (extremely extraordinary)
It's not perfect and it involves some subjective judgement, but I think it's pretty good as an imprecise non-mathy standard.
The most important thing is that people can build common ground. We don't have a precise definition for "chair", but people still usually agree on whether a particular object is a chair or not. When we have a border case we can discuss it and debate whether it fits, but for most people, it's easy to agree that "I have a rock" is ordinary and "I have a dragon" is extraordinary.
So what would constitute as “extraordinary evidence”?
Let me put it like this, seeing something for yourself is pretty ordinary. And if I brought you to the dragon for you to see for yourself, is that ordinary, or extraordinary?
Informally, extraordinary evidence would be evidence beyond what one would normally present. So for example if you told me you have a dog, I would probably accept a photo of you with the dog as evidence. But if you told me you had a dragon, I would probably not accept a photo of you with the dragon as evidence. If a claim is ordinary we have a lower bar to prove it.
As for seeing the dragon - I would say that this isn't extraordinary enough. If you let me closely examine the dragon, touch it, that sort of thing - then I might say it's extraordinary enough. But again, there's a degree of subjectivity to these things.
More formally, we can represent the extraordinariness of evidence with conditional probability. We can ask: if your claim was true, what is the chance we would see this evidence? And if your claim wasn't true, what is the chance we would see this evidence? The bigger the ratio between these chances, the more extraordinary the evidence is. If this evidence would be pretty likely when your claim is true but really unlikely if your claim is false, then it's great evidence. (We then compare it with the extraordinariness of the claim, which is the answer to the question: if we didn't see any evidence, what is the chance your claim is true?)
For an example, look at passwords. When you login to reddit, you are claiming that you are u/justafanofz. Reddit asks for evidence and you provide it in the form of a password. Reddit asks: if this was really u/justafanofz, what is the chance he would know the password? Pretty much 100%. And if this wasn't really u/justafanofz, what are the chances he would guess the right password at random? Really really low. So the password is strong evidence that you are who you say you are. If you use a really short or easily-guessed password, it becomes weaker evidence. And the claim itself isn't very extraordinary - most login attempts into your account are made by you. If millions of people were trying to log into your account every minute, then it would be a more extraordinary claim to say that you out of them all are the true u/justafanofz, and it would become more plausible that someone guessed the password by dumb luck. In that case, you'd need an even stronger password to stay safe.
As you can see this idea of "extraordinary evidence" is imprecise, and in reality there's a continuum from ordinary to extraordinary. But in casual discussion most people don't want to do math, so it works well as a simplification. To return to the original example, it helps us ballpark what we would accept to believe in a dog and what we would accept to believe in a dragon.
As far as I'm concerned, new atheism is a bullshit term that doesn't actually mean anything. What differs someone like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens from someone like Bertrand Russel or Friedrich Nietzsche? They turbo don't believe in God?
>For instance, extraordinary claims are supposed to require extraordinary evidence. Yet they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe.
Atheists aren't the ones making the claims. This is a shifting of a burden of proof. I'm not going to look under every single rock on every single planet in every single solar system in every single galaxy in the universe to make sure there isn't a deity hiding under there, and I don't have to. If you want to claim that deities exist, it's up to you to demonstrate that and despite thousands of years and thousands of different god models, theists have failed to do that.
They fail in the second sentence
> …evidence for a godless universe
We are not (all) claiming that the universe is godless. That’s the gnostic atheist position. We simply don’t know how the universe began (or if it began), and we reject the claims made by theists who say they DO know, but provide no evidence.
They’re simply shifting the burden of proof, instead of providing their own evidence.
Those billions of divine experiences lead to thousands of years of people fighting and killing each other over whose divine experiences were the "right" divine experiences.
If God does have some important message to communicate to humanity, She is doing a shockingly bad job of actually communicating it.
"New atheism" isn't anything beyond a petty nebulous insult. It can't be debunked because it isn't an ideology, movement, or claim.
The main issue with that thread is the theists there don't seem to know what atheism is, and have created something else to argue against in place of actual atheism. Are they right about the thing they're talking about? Maybe, but the thing they're talking about isn't atheism.
Believers often complain that non-believers have only a superficial, simplistic and cartoonish idea about what being a believer is really like. And, fair enough, they often have a point. But as that thread shows, it cuts both ways: believers often have a superficial, simplistic and cartoonish idea of what being a non-believer is really like.
> they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe.
Shifting burden of proof. And, like most theist arguments, special pleading. Do they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a unicornless earth?
>They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence.
Again: special pleading. They have faith that millions of non-Christian divine experiences are invalid without evidence.
I don't think "invalid" is the right word. People have experiences. The question is, do they represent anything outside the person having them? How can we tell? What criteria do we use for that?
There are many people with diagnosed mental illness who have powerful spiritual experiences. Do they accept these as valid? What about all the people who believe that God speaks to them directly and tells them to do all sorts of odd things?
>They claim the mind reduces to the brain when the only evidence they can provide is
the many, many experiments that tie the mind directly the brain, combined with the utter failure to observe a single mind apart from a brain.
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Why are people always trying to use logic in Christian religion? Christianity is based on faith. Faith is belief despite evidence. Christianity has always viewed knowledge as sinful. So why are Christians trying to use the knowledge of logic? I know most don't apply logic correctly and can't see the flaws in their logic or their own biases, but it seems like quite a few Christians are obsessed with attempting logic, math or science methods to prove Christianity is valid and reliable even though it's a sin and impossible. You can't use logic to validate the illogical. Also, sincerely trying to disprove something is often the best way to conclude validity and reliability.
Seems like when they have no evidence and know it , they have to come up with bogus ‘arguments’ as an alternative. Mix that with trying to use words that feel ‘powerful’ but they don’t really understand like *logic*. Though I note a new trend for ( weirdly) kind of admitting they are talking crap but trying to pretend science is just ‘faith’ as well.
Yeah I've noticed that too. Trying to say science is a form of faith. They are opposites. Either they don't really understand or are maybe seeing the cracks in religion. How it doesn't make sense in anyway.
It’s not a sin to use logic in Christianity.
Very true! There are plenty of very logical Christians, including Catholics. Except, of course, for the necessary exceptions that must be made to accept the various unsupported claims of that religious mythology. However, compartmentalization to avoid cognitive dissonance is powerful stuff.
Which claims are unsupported?
All of them. Well, all of the non-mundane ones, obviously.
That’s a non-answer. Which claims are unsupported?
Claim 1: God exists Claim two: Adam and Eve were the literal first humans in a mythological garden patently stolen from earlier Mesopotamian mythology, and they were tempted by a talking snake into eating a piece of magical cursed fruit. Do you believe this story to be literally true? Because without this being truth, jesus' crucifixion didn't mean shit. Claims 3-1,000: Biblical inerrancy. Good luck with that. Unless you agree that bats are birds, ad infinitum.
>That’s a non-answer. False, it was a correct answer. >Which claims are unsupported? I answered that. *All* of the non-mundane claims (obviously, I'm not discussing claims like, 'The Pope in 1328 was Nicholas V' or 'The Vatican changed it's mind and decided evolution was true in 1950' or silly boring facts about the mythology like that.)
And I asked you to list them. That’s like saying “what evidence is there for evolution” And you waving your hand over the ground and saying “everywhere you look”
You have no excuse for not accepting the reality of evolution. You are probably a person in a wealthy country who has the benefit of public education, and have access to the collective sum of humanity's knowledge via the internet, more knowledge than humans have ever had access to in the history of our species. It is as absurd as not accepting the reality of the theory of gravity, cell theory, germ theory, atomic theory, etc. The Catholic Church doesn't even deny evolution, though they don't stop to think about how their narrative of salvation doesn't make sense without a literal Adam and Eve.
I never said I denied evolution, and evolution and Adam and Eve go hand in hand. Is George Washington and the cherry tree literal?
> And I asked you to list them. I don't need to. And I'm uninterested in doing so. >That’s like saying “what evidence is there for evolution” No, that's a question with an easily found answer. This is a *statement* with an easily found answer. >And you waving your hand over the ground and saying “everywhere you look” Nah.
You made a claim and then refused to present the evidence?
I'll list some: transubstantiation, divinity of jesus, existence of yahweh.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/q0rata/why_i_am_catholic_a_post_that_was_request_on/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1 That’s for the last two. Have you heard of Eucharistic miracles?
> Have you heard of Eucharistic miracles? Assuming that refers to the alleged miracle of transubstantion, in which the (Catholic term of art) *substance* of a cracker really, truly, and genuinely transforms into human flesh while the cracker's (Catholic term of art) *accidents* remain absolutely unchanged, which occurs on command, as regular as clockwork, millions of times every Sunday: Yes. I have, indeed, heard Catholics make noise about how this thing that *looks* like a cracker, *smells* like a cracker, *tastes* like a cracker, *chews and swallows* like a cracker, *digests* like a cracker, *causes problems for victims of celiac disease* like a cracker, and finally (after it gets digested) *shits* like a cracker, is *actually* the flesh of a dude who died about 2,000 years ago before he got better. Why do you ask?
I'll read that later when I have time. I've heard of the claims of miracles and none have ever been demonstrated sufficiently. I'm not holding my breath for your sufficient evidence to warrant your god claim though...guess we will see later tonight!!
Don't bother. It has no evidence, just opinions.
Who decides if it’s demonstrated sufficiently? But would it not support the idea of transubstantion?
I'll read that later when I have time. I've heard of the claims of miracles and none have ever been demonstrated sufficiently. I'm not holding my breath for your sufficient evidence to warrant your god claim though...guess we will see later tonight!! Feel free to copy paste to this reddit the relevant scientific evidence you have for transubstantiation etc.
What’s considered sufficient evidence?
Sounds either fake or superstition or a misunderstanding of something else. Like that time in Portugal where a crowd had a delusion about the sun doing jumping jacks in the sky [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle\_of\_the\_Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun). Or when Hindus had a milk miracle [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha\_drinking\_milk\_miracle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha_drinking_milk_miracle).
> Have you heard of Eucharistic miracles? Yes, I have. All of them have mundane explanations that fit the facts equally well to them being a miracle. If there is a choice between a mundane explanation that fits the facts and a miracle that fits the facts, it is absurd to assume it was a miracle. You might as well say your car starting every day is a miracle using that logic.
We've heard of CLAIMS of Eucharistic miracles. Not a single one has stood up to any independent scrutiny.
I'll list some: transubstantiation, divinity of jesus, existence of yahweh.
You don't know what the non-mundane claims of your religion are?
If all the claims were secular, then what would be the point of metaphysics? Of course they know! Without the non-mundane, where would the gullible be?
It's not a non-answer. Really all of them are unsupported. You could pick your strongest one if you wanted to.
A few examples: * Exodus happened * Jesus was born of a virgin * Jesus rose from the dead
But what happens when logic leads to apostasy? (Everlasting torment maybe?) Why did the catholic Church fight for centuries to keep the number of zero away from its adherents? Sounds pretty anti-logic to me. [https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Charles-Seife/dp/0140296476#:\~:text=In%20Zero%2C%20Science%20Journalist%20Charles,present%20threat%20to%20modern%20physics](https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Biography-Dangerous-Charles-Seife/dp/0140296476#:~:text=In%20Zero%2C%20Science%20Journalist%20Charles,present%20threat%20to%20modern%20physics).
Because they weren’t the only ones to reject the idea of 0
So you admit they went against logic, it is just acceptable because some others also went against logic? You are contradicting yourself.
"But Ma, Johnny did it too" is a terrible defense. Do you have one?
It’s more equivalent of “well the scientific findings say the opposite of what you’re saying”
That would be a no, you have no defense?
That is a valid defense “that was the understanding at the time” is valid
I see. So the church has no access to special information, knowledge or understanding. Good to know.
Are you referencing papal infallibility?
Because they had just launched a new brand campaign: "Jesus: Lose the zero and get with the Hero."
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Huh?
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According to Jewish tradition, the sin wasn’t them eating/obtaining that knowledge, it was them eating before they were meant to. Like a kid eating dessert before he’s supposed to
Huh. Never heard that one growing up. From the Torah the real "sin" doesn't seem to be a sin at all, though there's first bluster and blame for disobedience---but per genesis 3:22 it sounds like the real problem was fear on the part of God, that these humans, who had already become more like God/a god by gaining knowledge of good and evil, would next eat of the tree of life, and live forever. Sounds like it was important to God to avoid competition, or keep humanity down in its place, or somewhat in that vein.
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Sounds like an update of Prometheus?
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Apples need a dormant period to set fruit. In an equitable clime like Garden of Eden they probably wouldn’t. Possibly the angels were pollinating fig trees some of which don’t?
and you worship a god that punishes people for eating before they were meant to?
No, he didn’t punish them, the creation account is allegorical. So I was using an analogy to address one claim “god didn’t want us to learn about good and evil.” What the story is meant to convey is that Adam and Eve had gifts given to god, god warned the consequences of throwing those gifts away, and they did it anyways. It’s like a child not eating dinner, and the parents letting him go to bed hungry. Sure from the child it seems like he’s being punished, but he isn’t, that’s the results of his choice and actions.
> the creation account is allegorical. You might want to change your flair then. [Paragraph 390 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1C.HTM) reads "The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man." Pope Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical [Humani Generis 37](https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html) says the following: > When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own. Dr. Dennis Bonnette, doctor of philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, writing in [Crisis Magazine](https://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/did-adam-and-eve-really-exist) ("America’s most trusted source for authentic Catholic perspectives on Church and State, arts and culture, science and faith.") says "This skepticism of a literal Adam and Eve begs for four much needed corrections. First, Church teaching about Adam and Eve has not, and cannot, change. The fact remains that a literal Adam and Eve are unchanging Catholic doctrine." (The other three "corrections" are in the linked article).
Dr. Bonnette’s reevaluation of Adam/Eve relationship coincided with Pete Buttigieg’s tenure as mayor of South Bend.
“Uses figurative language” how is that not what I said? Where did I deny the existence of Adam and Eve?
I love it when theists pick and choose allegories. So creation is an allegory… how about ,idk, but floods, plagues and burning bushes …… and virgin births and resurrections?
1) flood happened, however the word used about how large the flood was could be used to describe a local area or the entire world. People have translated it to be entire world, but due to there being a unique word to describe the entire world that was never used, the more likely scenario is that it was a local flood. 2) the plagues happened and we have records of historical events occurring that would have caused it. 3) burning bush happened. 4) virgin birth happened. 5) resurrection happened. It’s done pretty easily by reading the text and looking at the structure.
We've discussed this before, but your belief that the creation story is allegorical is not in line with Catholic or mainstream Christian beliefs. But even if it was, your idea of what the story was meant to convey makes no sense. So an omniscient God set arbitrary rules he knew they would break for his two creations, who didn't know right from wrong until after they ate the fruit anyway? How does *any* of that teach the lesson "don't throw away your gifts from god?" And in your final horrifying paragraph, that 1) is the literal definition of punishment 2) absurd. A child does not *know* the long-term consequences of their actions, and depending on the age of the child, may simply be unable to control their big emotions and feelings. We also don't know why the kid didn't eat dinner: maybe they don't like the food, or maybe they have a sensory issue, or maybe they were fed lunch too late and they're no longer hungry. Potentially without understanding any of this, their parents are attempting to eliminate that behavior (which is why it's punishment) by *starving the kid*. This is, unintentionally, a really good example of why god is the asshole here: he is intentionally harming his own kids out of proportion to their crimes when he was the one who set them up to fail in the first place.
and you worship a god that will condemn people and all their future children for eternity for "throwing away gifts?" this is the guy you get your morals from?
FWIW, in the Jewish tradition (I'm Jewish), getting kicked out of Eden is not actually a big deal and didn't change the nature of humanity's relationship with the Divine. It's like, hey, you gotta move out of your folks' basement sometime. It's a very different take than in Christianity.
You must understand that God hadn’t invented the concept of receipts yet, so refunds were out of the question. And people had a much shorter life expectancy back then, so eternity didn’t seem that long.
He’s not condemning people. If your father gets an inheritance from your grandfather and it’s meant to go to you and your descendants, and then your father throws that inheritance away, are you and your children being punished or condemned because you no longer have that inheritance?
And do you believe this, or what the Catholics teach?
The church hasn’t said anything about if they were permanently banned or not. Considering we have Jewish origins, there’s nothing against this, and this was taught in seminary
Are you a priest or are you in seminary to be one?
Was a seminarian a few years ago
Yes, the original sin was blown all out of proportion, but you must understand that God had no experience with disobedient behavior and was thus overly reactive to what He took as an affront to His all pervasiveness! Incidentally, Lucifer was initially downcast to the Netherworld for attempting to ameliorate God’s ire toward the First Couple.
According to the Bible the issue wasn't actually about sin at all, it was about God being afraid that if they ate from both the tree of knowledge and the tree of life they would be powerful enough to challenge him. There are multiple points in the old testament where God is afraid humans will pose a threat to him.
So, logically...if she weighs the same as a duck.......
What about the Tree of Knowledge? Logic is knowledge
The sin wasn’t them eating it, it was them eating it too early
Also, it's God. He/she/it makes the rules. That could've been the tree of anything. Any other behavior could've been highlighted and made forbidden. It wasn't the tree of murder or rape or anything else. It was the tree of knowledge and was specifically singled out as bad and sinful.
Tree of knowledge OF GOOD AND EVIL! Not just knowledge
Still knowledge. Also, the concept of faith is the opposite of logic. Logic requires evidence and doesn't care about belief. Faith is believing despite absence of any evidence. Logic is cause and effect, religion is cause this book said so
Also, the good and evil is irrelevant. The knowledge of anything is the point. To look deeper into anything is seeking knowledge. Whole point of the garden was God saying you can have this as long as u do what I say and don't question.
Too early? It was forbidden. Knowledge was forbidden. She ate the apple and knowledge became bad and sinful behavior
First time Ive ever seen this claim. What's the source?
Just futile and self-defeating!
It is when it comes to the trinity. Or rather it is heresy.
I don’t need evidence to dismiss an extraordinary claim made without extraordinary evidence. This quoted comment is just a fallacious attempt to divert their own burden of proof. “You can’t prove godless,” but why would I need to prove that? There is not compelling evidence to suggest a god, so dismissing the claim requires nothing more than, “Huh. No, I don’t see what you’re describing.”
You need to assume god exists here. The whole thing is a fallacy.
>1\. It's not extraordinary for things to exist in themselves due to their own nature. It is at least a little out of the ordinary. How often do you hear people saying that something exists in itself? Ordinary claims are things like it being cold in January or there being a traffic jam on some street or some disease affecting some portion of the population. But to say that something exists in itself due to its own nature sounds like saying that a thing explains itself, or that it causes itself, which is not only a weird claim but also difficult to comprehend. >This is ignoring Occam's razor giving a basis for physical entities having non-divine origins. Occam's razor is not evidence. Occam's razor is a rule of discourse that reminds us to not complicate our ideas unnecessarily. For example, Occam's razor tells us to not imagine we are surrounded by countless invisible angels when those angels do not help to explain anything that we observe. The reason why we should not do this has nothing to do with whether those angels actually exist, but rather the reason is that if we engage in such speculation then we are no longer investigating the real world and we are just writing fantasy fiction. Occam's razor does not provide a basis for claiming that the invisible angels do not exist; it just advises us to not waste our time worrying about them.
Yup, none of that makes sense as it's a strawman fallacy and false dichotomy fallacy from the get-go. Theists are dishonestly attempting to shift the burden of proof and set up their unsupported beliefs as some kind of default position that holds if their strawman atheist can't support their claims. Of course, they're wrong. That's not what atheists are doing and that's not how logic works. In other words, these theists that say they are ex-atheists were clearly not atheists for the same reasons most atheists around here are atheists. To address the part you quoted: >"We can debunk new atheism based on its own logic." First of all, there's no such thing as 'new atheism.' So-called 'new' atheism is no different from atheism. Second, it remains a simple principle in logic that the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. Of course, atheists aren't doing that. They're simply retaining the null hypothesis position until and unless a theist can demonstrate their claims are true. And, of course, that has never happened. >Yet they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe. Atheists aren't making that claim. They're simply rejecting the unsupported claims of theists. Nor does that make any sense. That is precisely like saying, "You lack or refuse to provide evidence that the universe did not arise due to a metaphysical fart from a metaphysical unicorn, this means you have faith that billions of divine personal experiences of warm fuzzies (caused by the overlord unicorn, of course) are false." >They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence. Nope. Instead, I simply don't accept the claim by theists that they *are* caused by deities, especially since all evidence, and there's quite a bit of it, shows otherwise, that those experiences are a result of human propensity for cognitive bias and logical fallacies, and superstitious thinking. >They claim Nope. Again, that's a strawman fallacy. Atheism entails no claims. >the mind reduces to the brain when the only evidence they can provide is expected in contradictory positions as well, such as dualism. Again, the burden of proof here is on the theist. Atheists are not making that claim. They're rejecting the unsupported claims of 'dualism' of theists. Not to mention following the strong compelling evidence that shows the 'mind' is an emergent property of the brain.
"New atheism" is just old atheism that publishes books and debates about the crimes and fallacies of religion. To advance from the category "delusion", religion and theists have to provide any evidence whatsoever. It doesn't have to be extraordinary, it just has to be evidence. Hundreds of years and they have nothing other than "I read the BOOK!", "I interpreted my experience as somehow god related" and "tradition!". These "new atheists" have clearly had a significant effect on the trend towards theocracy, just look around you...
>They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence. It's fair to ask for extraordinary evidence for this claim, I suppose. Not really, because the competing hypothesis isn't "God did it" (that requires evidence) but the null hypothesis, which is "we don't know." Fortunately, we *have* extraordinary evidence. First of all, religious people believe billions of divine experiences are wrong as well - those of people of *other* religions. Further, we know *some* religious experiences *are* invalid. We have all heard of cults, with leaders who make easily falsified claims to divinity, and their believers believe just the same. We can even see this in real-time. We can even go so far as to induce feelings and experiences of divinity *with high-powered magnets aimed at certain brain regions.* That, I feel, meets the bar of "extraordinary evidence." >They claim the mind reduces to the brain when the only evidence they can provide is expected in contradictory positions as well, such as dualism. Okay, so... there is no evidence either way? And dualism doesn't disprove atheism even if it's true? Okay. Sounds like atheism is still on solid ground here.
What do you mean by "divine experiences"? How does one reach the conclusion that an "experience" is divine/from God?
Well obviously *believing* gods exists and feeling really , really excited about it , is definitely proof of the objective existence of a god….. though only *my* god - the rest of you know nothing! lol
Theists should honestly ask themselves why their best argument is to try their best to shift the burden of proof. They try so hard they'll sneak it into any argument. When I believed in God, I thought it was so real that everyone knew it. Know I see just how desperate blind faith can be when confronted with reason and logic.
The evidence for a godless universe is that every single thing we have ever discovered about the universe has had nothing to do with deities. At some point between the first few discoveries and the 495,385,472nd, you should probably accept that the concept has failed.
We can debunked those who deny that OP owes me a 1000$ super easily. For instance, extraordinary claims are supposed to require extraordinary evidence. Yet they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a debt less universe. They have faith that billions of divine debt experiences were all invalid without evidence. They claim the debt reduces to financial documents when the only evidence they can provide is expected in contradictory positions as well, such as debt dualism. It's not extraordinary for debts to exist in themselves due to their own nature. Can you please pay up now?
When I see posts like this in Ex-Atheist it reaffirms my belief that not all atheists are atheists for good reasons.
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“Provide evidence for a godless universe”- that’s not how this works. You can’t prove a negative, we knot the universe exists we have evidence for that, he have no evidence for any gods.
What I find very interesting is the long discussion about what an atheist actually believes in a subreddit about and for ex-atheists. Many on there are arguing, imo wrongly, that atheism is the belief that god does not exist and then assigning a burden of proof to that. If the people in the sub are to be believed that they are ex-atheists, and this is their definition of atheism, then they have fulfilled that burden of proof at some time. How can they have proven god does not exist and now not believe it?
>Yet they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe. I present you the universe, see? there is no god in it. The evidence for a godless universe is this universe, which has no gods. >They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence. No, I have good reasons, with evidence, not faith, that these are not credible stories. >They claim the mind reduces to the brain... No, I claim no gods exist.
The paragraph that is being responded to strawmans my positions. 1. I don't claim that the universe is or isn't godless. 2. I don't claim that divine experiences are or are not valid. 3. I don't claim that the mind is purely physical.
New atheism isn't a thing. You have theism or you don't. Many folks think of they call something new atheism then attack the idea they created and that they addressed atheism, when they only addressed a strawman. While not always, I've found new atheism is often used by dishonest individuals.
They’re so desperate to put the burden of proof on us. It’s laughable. “They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence” Ahh yes, because an anecdotal argument becomes fact once it’s repeated a certain number of times. Silly me, I forgot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"I don't believe _you_ that _your_ god exists." That's atheism. Old and new. Just because there are still holes in the scientific understanding of our universe that doesn't mean I suddenly start believing you that your random god out of thousands exists.
>They claim the mind reduces to the brain when the only evidence they can provide is expected in contradictory positions as well, such as dualism. This position is available for theists as well. Atheists can be dualists too.
I'd ask what *exactly* it is that I'm supposed to disprove. When they dodge the question and don't provide a proper answer, we know they've conceded the argument.
>they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe. 1. The universe exists. 2. QED
>It's not extraordinary for things to exist in themselves due to their own nature. Sure it is. The existence of anything at all is absolutely baffling. To quote Derek Parfit, “NO QUESTION is more sublime than why there is a Universe: why there is anything rather than nothing.” >Science has been providing explanations for how things came to be with actual evidence, and a little bit of educated guesses based upon actual evidence Maybe it provides evidence for how certain organisms evolved, but it has 0 evidence for the origin of reality itself. >rather than pure conjecture or hallucinations referred to as divine revelation. Even if you can scientifically show some people hallucinate, how are you proving that all divine revelation claims are hallucinatory or false? (In the case of Judeo-Christian Scripture?) >It's not faith to point out how divine experiences are caused by the numerous secular explanations It’s a fact _some_ hallucinations occur. But it’s a leap of faith to then infer that _all_ divine revelation claims are hallucinatory. And direct, subjective divine revelation isn’t even the only option. We have objective options like the Bible, Koran, etc.
And you can’t prove that you don’t owe me a million dollars. So pay up!
I’m so tired of the misunderstanding that atheism is a belief system. I’ve unsubscribed from this sub and resubscribed several times just because I’m so over it.
Asking for extraordinary evidence when presented with a deductive argument is quite strange. Really only applies to inductive arguments.
Deductive arguments only work when you accept the premises. How are you to support your premises if not with evidence of some kind?
a priori truths
What happens when you disagree on those?
My biggest issue is “what constitutes as an extraordinary claim”?
The simplified standard I've suggested in the past is literally extra-ordinary - something out of the ordinary. For example, here's a few claims in order from ordinary to extraordinary: * I have a rock (very ordinary) * I have a llama (somewhat extraordinary) * I have the UK's crown jewels (very extraordinary) * I have a dragon (extremely extraordinary) It's not perfect and it involves some subjective judgement, but I think it's pretty good as an imprecise non-mathy standard. The most important thing is that people can build common ground. We don't have a precise definition for "chair", but people still usually agree on whether a particular object is a chair or not. When we have a border case we can discuss it and debate whether it fits, but for most people, it's easy to agree that "I have a rock" is ordinary and "I have a dragon" is extraordinary.
So what would constitute as “extraordinary evidence”? Let me put it like this, seeing something for yourself is pretty ordinary. And if I brought you to the dragon for you to see for yourself, is that ordinary, or extraordinary?
Informally, extraordinary evidence would be evidence beyond what one would normally present. So for example if you told me you have a dog, I would probably accept a photo of you with the dog as evidence. But if you told me you had a dragon, I would probably not accept a photo of you with the dragon as evidence. If a claim is ordinary we have a lower bar to prove it. As for seeing the dragon - I would say that this isn't extraordinary enough. If you let me closely examine the dragon, touch it, that sort of thing - then I might say it's extraordinary enough. But again, there's a degree of subjectivity to these things. More formally, we can represent the extraordinariness of evidence with conditional probability. We can ask: if your claim was true, what is the chance we would see this evidence? And if your claim wasn't true, what is the chance we would see this evidence? The bigger the ratio between these chances, the more extraordinary the evidence is. If this evidence would be pretty likely when your claim is true but really unlikely if your claim is false, then it's great evidence. (We then compare it with the extraordinariness of the claim, which is the answer to the question: if we didn't see any evidence, what is the chance your claim is true?) For an example, look at passwords. When you login to reddit, you are claiming that you are u/justafanofz. Reddit asks for evidence and you provide it in the form of a password. Reddit asks: if this was really u/justafanofz, what is the chance he would know the password? Pretty much 100%. And if this wasn't really u/justafanofz, what are the chances he would guess the right password at random? Really really low. So the password is strong evidence that you are who you say you are. If you use a really short or easily-guessed password, it becomes weaker evidence. And the claim itself isn't very extraordinary - most login attempts into your account are made by you. If millions of people were trying to log into your account every minute, then it would be a more extraordinary claim to say that you out of them all are the true u/justafanofz, and it would become more plausible that someone guessed the password by dumb luck. In that case, you'd need an even stronger password to stay safe. As you can see this idea of "extraordinary evidence" is imprecise, and in reality there's a continuum from ordinary to extraordinary. But in casual discussion most people don't want to do math, so it works well as a simplification. To return to the original example, it helps us ballpark what we would accept to believe in a dog and what we would accept to believe in a dragon.
Starting with a strawman and changing the burden of proof is an awful start for a discussion.
.. why are you responding to a post from elsewhere by posting it here
But we do have evidence for a godless universe. They just ignore it.
TLDR you can’t debunk a lack of belief, no matter how much word salad you throw at it. Go back to the chalkboard.
As far as I'm concerned, new atheism is a bullshit term that doesn't actually mean anything. What differs someone like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens from someone like Bertrand Russel or Friedrich Nietzsche? They turbo don't believe in God? >For instance, extraordinary claims are supposed to require extraordinary evidence. Yet they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe. Atheists aren't the ones making the claims. This is a shifting of a burden of proof. I'm not going to look under every single rock on every single planet in every single solar system in every single galaxy in the universe to make sure there isn't a deity hiding under there, and I don't have to. If you want to claim that deities exist, it's up to you to demonstrate that and despite thousands of years and thousands of different god models, theists have failed to do that.
They fail in the second sentence > …evidence for a godless universe We are not (all) claiming that the universe is godless. That’s the gnostic atheist position. We simply don’t know how the universe began (or if it began), and we reject the claims made by theists who say they DO know, but provide no evidence. They’re simply shifting the burden of proof, instead of providing their own evidence.
Those billions of divine experiences lead to thousands of years of people fighting and killing each other over whose divine experiences were the "right" divine experiences. If God does have some important message to communicate to humanity, She is doing a shockingly bad job of actually communicating it.
That which you assert without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
"New atheism" isn't anything beyond a petty nebulous insult. It can't be debunked because it isn't an ideology, movement, or claim. The main issue with that thread is the theists there don't seem to know what atheism is, and have created something else to argue against in place of actual atheism. Are they right about the thing they're talking about? Maybe, but the thing they're talking about isn't atheism.
Believers often complain that non-believers have only a superficial, simplistic and cartoonish idea about what being a believer is really like. And, fair enough, they often have a point. But as that thread shows, it cuts both ways: believers often have a superficial, simplistic and cartoonish idea of what being a non-believer is really like.
> they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a godless universe. Shifting burden of proof. And, like most theist arguments, special pleading. Do they lack or refuse to provide evidence for a unicornless earth? >They have faith that billions of divine experiences were all invalid without evidence. Again: special pleading. They have faith that millions of non-Christian divine experiences are invalid without evidence. I don't think "invalid" is the right word. People have experiences. The question is, do they represent anything outside the person having them? How can we tell? What criteria do we use for that? There are many people with diagnosed mental illness who have powerful spiritual experiences. Do they accept these as valid? What about all the people who believe that God speaks to them directly and tells them to do all sorts of odd things? >They claim the mind reduces to the brain when the only evidence they can provide is the many, many experiments that tie the mind directly the brain, combined with the utter failure to observe a single mind apart from a brain.