Posts
This fab video demolishes an argument for the existence of deities which is particularly narcissistic and cruel.
Psycho Woman Throws Knives At Children
13 years ago
Incredible Video on the Selfishness And Insensitivity of Some Religious People
Saturday, November 13, 2010
HELL YEAH!
Unfortunately, this is the type of circular logic so often used by atheists. Although she claims theists are so narcissistic as to ignore the plights of other people, even fellow theists, she, in doing so, submits the age-old atheist argument: Since bad things happen to good people, there is no God.
She cannot on one hand dismiss the emotional arguments of some theists and then, in turn, offer an argument that commits the same logical fallacy. If you can't prove the existence of God by good things happening, you certainly can't prove a lack of existence by bad things happening.
Her argument fails.
Elliott: If she were referring to a generic deity, with all references or qualities of Christianity or the other dominant religions in Western societies removed, you might have a point about her position on metaphysics, but not about her position on the selfishness and insensitivity of many religious believers.
However, in Christianity and other similar religions, there is the claim that the deity is all knowing, all powerful, and all wise. For the Christian deity as described in that mythology, the existence of so much in the world that is horrible is a very logical, reasonable, and powerful argument against said deity's existence.
Christianity assumes a God that is all of those things, but it also assumes a God that is all-loving.
That being said, there's a misconception among atheists and agnostics that all-loving, all-anything must, by their own standards of love, mean a world that is all-good, all-wonderful, all-easy.
There are numerous problems with this argument. First of all, we're assuming our own definition of love. However, love at its most basic definition is a choice. God gave us free will, and with that free will came two options.
Secondly, nowhere in the Bible is a world of peace, unity, and love a requirement for the validity of God. What atheists are doing here is assuming that because God is Love, that his creation must also be happy all the time. However, that's not a loving creation. It's a robotic creation. To remove all the pain in the world would be to remove all free will.
Finally, the argument in question is arguing against a non-existent claim. Christians simply don't claim that the reason for their belief is solely due to good things happening, or a lack of bad things happening. The personal experience arena in Christendom is reserved for testimony, or supplement, rather than a full-fledged reason for belief.
Of course, we could go on like this for years, as so many have. That fact, of course, begs the question: Is it more likely that the existence of a Christian God could not be a disproved in a godless world, or is it more likely that the lack of his existence could be supported in a Christian world? The Christian world view says the latter by design. Fun times!
"Thank God for (smart) Little Girls".
Elliot: What a mess of an argument you present. I'll clean up some of the more basic problems with it.
1)When you talk about a "all-good, all-wonderful, all-easy" world, you are using a "straw man argument." The real argument that atheists are making is that there are things so horrible that they are incompatible with the existence of an all loving, all wise, and all powerful deity.
2) It isn't an issue of a particular atheist's or agnostic's particular view of love. The existence of so many horrific things in the world contradicts every definition of love that has had any prominence in the very Western Civilization in which Christianity originates and certainly contradicts every description of love by every Christian church throughout the world.
3) The question of free will has nothing to do with this. Free will and pain are completely separate and unrelated concepts.
4) It doesn't matter which claim Christians use to justify their religious beliefs once that religion has been disproved.