1. Argumentum ad numerum - appeal to numbers. It is a logical fallacy to assume that because a large number of people hold a belief, it is therefore true.

Argumentum ad antiquitatem - appeal to age. It is a logical fallacy to assume that because a thing has been believed for a long time, it is therefore true.

Furthermore, it is precisely in the exaggeration of the details that stories grow from truth to myth, and that is precisely why they are false. Even if a man named Jesus existed, if he was nothing but a man, and the myth of Christianity grew up around him after his death, this only establishes the historicity of a man, not the truth of the religion.

2. Atheism is a lack of belief. It is not a positive belief. Atheism says, "I see no evidence for belief. If valid evidence is presented, then there would be a reason to believe."

For those atheists who claim certain knowledge that there is no god, they are, in fact, asserting something they cannot prove, and committing a number of logical fallacies. However, if you try to use that against them, you will be, too!

Argumentum ad logicam - a proposition is not necessarily false because of a fallacy in the argument. Fallacious arguments can sometimes produce true conclusions.

3. Evolution. Man is a social creature because, lacking survival skills of the solitary predators, he is dependent on strength in numbers. Those humans who were antisocial to the point of shunning all human contact died without reproducing, so that particular trait died as well. There is LOTS of material available on this subject. Just do a google search.

4. Would you like to present your peer reviewed research that proves that atheists call out to god in times of stress? I've had lots of really awful things happen in my life, and I've never turned to god. Why would I? I might as well cry out to Santa Clause. Your claim is fallacious. Anecdotal evidence is one of the most basic logical fallacies. Read any logic textbook.

5. This question demonstrates that you have a basic misunderstanding of the origins of life, and a rather severe misunderstanding of the laws of probability. Irreducible complexity is a myth that has been reduced to self-contradictory nonsense since about ten minutes after it was first proposed. Read this post:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/irreducible_complexity_reduced_to_absurdity

When you're done with that, research the anthropic principle. Again, a google search will probably get you a long way.

6. Again, you demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of natural selection. People are different because we are quite a bit smarter than the other animals. We have learned how to conceive abstractions. Other animals feel desire, affection (love, if you like) extreme dislike (hate, if you prefer) and quite a few other emotions. Have you never owned a dog?

7. I almost don't want to keep answering your questions, because it's obvious you've never read a single textbook on evolution. (at least not one written by a non-creationist!) Please spend a few hours in this thread:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/yellow_number_five/evolution_of_life/86

Once you can speak intelligently about the nature of the fossil record and the natural processes that lead to fossilization, perhaps you won't need to ask this kind of question any more.

8. This is becoming painful. There is no distinction between micro and macro evolution. Creationists made the distinction up. Macroevolution is the accumulation of microevolution. Please, please do yourself a favor and do some reading. Your ignorance is getting difficult to stomach.

9. This question is unanswerable, because you have not proven god exists, or demonstrated that he does reveal himself to non-believers. This is all speculation. The correct answer? Given the total lack of support for these propositions, God does not exist, and therefore, reveals himself to no one, and offers no choices.

10. Argumentum ad populum, argumentum ad ignorantium, anecdotal evidence, cum hoc ergo propter hoc, ignoratio elenchi. I'm not going to define these for you. Look them up. Learn from your mistakes, please.

11 Argumentum ad numerum, argumentum ad verecundiam. Appeal to numbers, appeal to authority.

12 Argumantum ad ignorantium, switching the burden of proof.

Dude, I don't even want to count the number of logical fallacies you made in that post. Add to this that I was only pointing out the ones I know well. I'm sure you committed some more that I missed.

Not one valid question out of 12. Please, please, please educate yourself before trying to enter another debate.

Man, I was all set to point out the underlying logical flaws in each point, but hambydammit beat me to it. Well said. *high five*

 And also - "Help me, Santa Claus!" That has a nice ring to it. I'll remember it next time in a crisis. I've never once called out to God. My standard cry during something bad happening (like the car accident I was in two weeks ago) is "FUCK!"

Holy_Spirit,

Under your interests you list "apolgetics". You must be very new to that interest because the arguements you listed are some of the most easily refuted as  Hamby has just illustrated.

Hi there Hamby! It is obvious that I have found a wealth of knowledge simply by reading your reply: it seems you could probably fluently speak the Latin language, you know all the right lingo that most people scratch their heads over, and you have done quite a bit of reading apparently.  I am not sure your communication skills are quite equally developed however; let me explain.

I would most assuredly be a fool to sign up to an atheist site and then as a lamb among wolves, attempt to start a debate, essentially all of you versus little ol' me. Accordingly, I asked questions which I would find perplexing if I were an atheist, hoping to get your answers. Instead of answers, or even answers as to which questions I ought to ask, I received ridicule.  What is the fancy Latin term for that?

For an organization whose goal is to spread atheism, it would seem most efficient to nurture an ignoramus like myself in patience, peace and guidance, but instead I was met with ridicule, a void of compassion, vulgarity and patronization. It seems obvious to me that there is a difference between good and evil, but for arguments sake I ask that if evil were to exist, aren't these its attributes, what you three have shown?

I read the articles behind the links you provided anyway, and I see conclusions like since a species now eats something else, it has evolved into a new one, or because a bird sings a different song. I also see an overwhelming amount of, well that is because it could have happened like this. Isn't this mere speculation? How can you use your speculation to prove your story but dismiss speculation which might involve a God as pure foolishness?

Obviously, if I want answers to questions that athiests would give, this is the place to do it, but your cooperation is still less than satisfactory.  Let's see how you do on round two. Thanks.

For Now, the Holy Spirit is still welcome in my house and life.

BGH, perhaps leave the talking to Hamby if all you have to say are things like this...though you started with an astoundingly keen observation, you made a catastrophic error is assuming that a person's interests are what he is good at.  You see, fluid dynamics, vector analysis, and acceleration also interest me, but neither am I theoretical physicist nor do I have a PhD in the subject. Accordingly pretty much anything can be an interest of mine, whether I am a pro at it or not, including apologetics.  In the future, would you perhaps consider taking an interest in not skipping over common courtesy to try to put up a strike on your score board of cool points which happens to interest no one but yourself?  Thank you.

Berlandk,

Yeah too bad you were a day late and a dollar short, that you couldn't have answered first, but don't feel left out...you too still have the oppritunity to offer your explanations of these several questions.

I see you too are full of belittling jokes.  I hope you understand that for me to consider that my faith is false is to abandon the one thing I trust most in...this is not taken lightly by me, and for you to jest about my sincere questions is barbaric, don't you think?

So have you had a son or daughter who prematurely lost his life? Have you been involved in a mis-hap which left you physically changed whereby most of your friends are embarrassed to be seen with you? Have you joined the military and fought on the front-line of a battle not knowing your next second of life is garanteed? Have you been the victim of a hijacking with a knife to your throat?  I also have been involved in a car accident and my immediate reaction was almost similar to yours.  That is human to react that way.  But for situations of internal pain, Santa Claus offers you no strength or hope, does he?

I remind you...I beg you...please take a moment to offer your answers to the above questions, or tell me what question I should be asking in its stead.

Thank you.

The Holy Spirit is welcome still. 

Even a mild interest in apologetics would illuminate the fact that the arguments you used are tired, faulty and have been refuted over and over and over again all throughout this very message board. You are not bringing any new insight to the discussion and are only rehashing statements made by others who felt they had some keen insight to prove god is true.

 In the future perhaps you might want to do a bit more reading before spewing out redundant arguments.

Thank you! 

Holy, I'm not quite sure what it is you want me to do on "round two." I'm sorry you aren't happy with my answers, but my answers are, I think, representative of the answers you will get from most atheists who have read and thought enough to answer your questions.

I'll try to answer a couple of your objections (which, by the way, are just that! Objections are, of course, not rebuttals.)

Actually, no, I don't speak latin. I have studied logic, and, in much the same way that musicians need to know quite a few Italian words, logicians need to know quite a few Latin words. It's just part of the lingo. Yes, I know quite a bit of logic. Yes, some people who don't know much about logic scratch their heads over it. Yes, I've done quite a bit of reading. Thanks for noticing.

Please do. I hope your explanation will be as concise and clear as my critique of your questions.

Perhaps. If your arguments are solid, it won't matter how many people try to refute them. Logic is logic, regardless of how many people disagree with it. (remember! appeal to masses is a logical fallacy!)

Sorry if you felt ridiculed. Most of your questions were ridiculous. My answers were correct. Holy, many questions don't have answers because they are meaningless. For instance, if I ask you, "How many square circles can a married bachelor juggle while using his pet gremlin to drive over the moon?" you can't very well answer it, can you? While your questions aren't so patently impossible, they are still flawed, and cannot be answered as you wrote them.

ad hominem.

Except that's not what I did. You wrote a bunch of very naive questions, and I showed you what was wrong with them. Review my post. I did not call you stupid. I didn't call you anything. I ridiculed your questions. I did say that you displayed a vast misunderstanding of science and logic, and I stand by that. Ignorance and stupidity are completely different. There are many things I'm ignorant of, and I'm a pretty smart dude. If you learn about evolution, you will no longer be ignorant of it.

Did I not provide you links to very good resources? Did I not direct you to a thread that specifically answered your question about irreducible complexity?

Again, holy, your questions were not good. I'm sorry you read malice into my answers, but it wasn't there. My critique was harsh, this is true. However, sometimes people need to just hear the truth, and I felt it was important to show you just how poor the questions were. Perhaps you'd be shocked to learn that many people have answered those questions as easily as I did. Maybe you'd set out on a quest to find out what is really true. My ultimate goal here IS to educate people. If I was just trying to make you look stupid, I wouldn't have provided resources for you to educate yourself.

ridicule, yes. Your questions were ridiculous.

void of compassion, no. As you can tell, I'm taking a good twenty minutes out of my life to respond to you and let you know that I do want you to learn.

Vulgarity? What?

Patronization... maybe a bit. You're probably the five hundredth theist who's asked the same questions. I'd say that four hundred and eighty of them were not interested in learning, they just wanted to prove how smart they were. If I was a bit patronizing, I do apologize.

huh? I don't think so... It would be rude of me to point out all the logical fallacies in this last question, wouldn't it? Ok... I won't, but I'll just tell you, you do need to work on your questions a bit. I'm going to try to help you with that if it's something you are interested in learning.

No, it isn't mere speculation, and you're reading seems to have missed some deeper points. First, evolution has been observed directly. Second, science is founded on uncertainty. Dogmatic certainty is the sole property of religion. Are we 100% certain that this bird evolved from that bird? No. However, we are 99.99% sure, and will only change our minds if some remarkable evidence presents itself. How do we know evolution exists? Because ALL the scientific data points to it. One thing doesn't prove evolution. Thousands of things that all point the same way prove evolution.

Science gathers data. The data points to a conclusion. Experimentation tries to prove the conclusion false. If, after rigorous experimentation, the data still holds up, we can assume it's true. It's logical, it's factual, and it's very, very, very likely to be true.

God, by definition, cannot exist. There are quite a few threads that have dealt with this, but if you like, we can start a new thread and discuss why this is so. God cannot exist in the same way that a square circle cannot exist.**

**It's important that you understand that when I'm saying God cannot exist, I mean the Christian God specifically. Again, atheists are not 100% certain there is no god whatsoever. We're 99.9999999999% certain.

Yes, this is a great place to get answers. I still fail to see why my cooperation was unsatisfactory. I hope you're more satisfied with my answers this time.

Stick around. We can fix that.

Holy, keep your eyes peeled for a new thread by me. I'm going to address the topic of "How to ask good questions." Hopefully this will give you some insight into how you can better search for answers about atheism.

Please do stick around and continue to contribute. If you take a few lumps, try not to take them as personal insults.