Last argument standing
Offline I've been listening to a number of debates and there seems to be only one argument left to theists.
Best 5 arguments I see theist use:
1. Argument from morality (easily dismantled by showing morality changes with society)
2. Argument from design of life (easily refuted with some knowledge of evolutionary biology)
3. "From nothing, nothing comes" argument (easily dismantled by showing there is always "something" to begin with)
4. Argument from rules of logic (can be shown to be a consequence of the laws of the universe to which our brains are adapted)
5. Argument from design of constants in physics.
The answers to the last argument I heard are:
a) Multiverse theory combined with anthropic principle: there are many universes and we have to be in one that supports life;
b) There may be some, yet unknown, laws of nature that constrain the constants of physics to the values they have.
I don't see any evidence to back up any of these answers so I conclude that the honest answer is "We don't know, but we are working on it".And I can counter by saying this is an "argument from ignorance" as it's based on lack of knowledge.
What do you think?
A mystic is someone who wants to understand the universe, but is too lazy to study physics.
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The argument for morality is crap because each culture has different idea's of morality and different idea's of Gods. If you can get them to understand that concept that one fails.
The most common one I get is " What caused the big bang?, and who created the Atoms for the big bang?
Basically I have found that if you don't fully know the answer you can simply say you don't. I usually tell them that Just because science might not have all the answers, simply claiming "God did it" doesn't answer them either? If anything it prevents us from trying to learn more or search for more answers. And since there are so many different interpretations of what "God" is, how can we prove that one god is the "Creator" over another. We can't so they fail.
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yeah they fail, but the "sheep" want god. I think the atheist job is to redefine G_O_D for the sheep. This word >god< ain't going away soon ..... what to do ??? , with that word ???
Saying We, This, I ,You, All , is indeed god is helpful with the fundys I encounter.
Does "love the enemy" ring any bells ? Understand the sheep and change the world of sheep.
Simple words for simple minds, they want god, so give them god.
Geezz hell I tell them, the first commandment says no gods before you, YOU, .... YOU ARE GOD. Turning scripture back at them can be effective. Ye are gods, no Idols before you, I am one with the father , etc. Eastern ideas are also of immense help.
WTF, more WAR tomarrow, .... so embarrassing this earth life ..... focus on the sheep. Give them the attention and tools to laugh at the fundys. "Atheists for Love and GOD" . Atheist Bill boards across the world !
Atheism Books.
The last argument really is a argument from ignorance. ... or "I don't know, therefore my god did it"
The simple answer is that we don't know it all for sure, but we're working on it. Beyond that, we do know that many of the constants depend on each other so it's very likely that it's not 30 fine tuned values, but more like 3 as is currently proposed in string theory.
Plus theists when they use this argument say things like "if gravity was just .0000000001% different then there would be no life." This is basically an outright lie. No one knows what the universe would be like if we changed some of the values. They are assuming that the universe is fine tuned to life when in fact we observe that it is in fact the other way around.
If gravity had a different value it would probably be the case that life as we know it wouldn't be here, but that doesn't mean that no life would be here. In all likely hood, there would be a different kind of life that would be adapted to this different environement.
You can now change the title of the thread to "No arguements left standing"
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
"you are the puddle in the pothole, marvelling at how perfectly the pothole conforms to your shape."