Hi,

For some time I have been searching the Internet for information that provides a good argument in favor of atheism. You may not have time to answer my questions, and if not, thanks anyway.

“I do not have an argument for atheism because I don’t believe there needs to be one.”

Accepted. In my opinion everyone is free to believe what they want regardless of whether the belief is based on evidence or fantasy.

“I am an atheist because I have not seen compelling evidence that God exists, and I believe that the burden of proof is on theists.”

Agreed, a burden of proof that a god exists rests on the theist who claims a god exists, but my question is that shouldn’t a person have a valid reasoning to claim anything, including a claim that a god does not exist? I myself do not care about pushing my beliefs on the public, nor of my convincing anyone of anything, but rather what I want is to convince myself. If I were a theist I would demand of myself to possess evidence of a god, and with the same self-demanding logic I also require evidence that no god exists. Does such evidence exist?

I have read the endless authors who structure their atheism logic on the fallacies of religious books, but for myself I cannot find it logical that a book’s errors proves a thing to not exist. “Alice in Wonderland” is not a true history, but the falseness of the book does not necessitate that I must then believe that no girl named Alice can exist. Yes, religious books are incorrect, but an incorrect book proves nothing more than the book is incorrect.

I am hoping to find a valid reasoning that supports the conclusion that no god exists. Surely someone somewhere has presented a good sequencing of evidence that supports the conclusion that no god exists.

You argue well and, I think, correctly. If someone asserts that deities do not exist, then a valid argument for the non-existence of deities must be presented.

I have not seen an argument for the non-existence of all deities that I find compelling. I have seen excellent arguments refuting the existence of deities meeting certain criteria (because those criteria are ill defined or self contradictory, for example), but that does not prove that no deities exist. I have seen excellent arguments against the unreliability of certain religious texts but, as you point out, this does not prove that there are no deities, only that there is no deity who flawlessly created a certain religious text.

But most important of all, I have seen excellent, very compelling arguments against the necessity of any deity. That a deity is unnecessary does not prove that such an entity does not exist, but it puts the burden of proof very firmly on the shoulders of believers. For this reason, I do not assert that God does not exist but, as an atheist (someone without religion), I assert that the universe is sufficiently explainable without God.

Category: About atheism | Tags: | Be the First to Comment »

The Arguing Atheist

I’ve taken a lengthy break from this blog to finish revisions to my book 2Q, using all the wonderful comments I received from those of you who purchased the pre-release version. More than 120 pages have been added to the book so far, and with luck it should be available by mid-2009.

In the meantime, I’m experimenting with an online version of a manuscript I wrote about a decade ago. It’s a “choose your own adventure” style argument between a theist and an atheist. You can find it at www.arguingatheist.com.

I only made it live a few days ago and it still needs plenty of work, but I probably won’t be doing much with it until the book is done. (By the way, the first e-mail I received through that site read simply, “You are a g*y f*g f**k.” Things don’t change much, do they?)

I hope to start posting at least occasionally to this blog in the coming weeks, but most of my concentration is on the book at the moment. Thanks for your patience!

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: | Be the First to Comment »

Ignorance

I don’t understand why we are all so naive and confident as to assume that we must and do know everything right here, right now. You all have nice long rants about “Why we are” and “Scientists cannot replicate”: How “evolution fails” and “right from wrong”. Does anyone else (except myself, obviously) believe that we are all, in fact, ignorant? That evolution does not provide answers, but rather provides a question? That the idea of religion is close minded and stagnant, and the only refutation of evolution they provide is that it is changeable? And the evidence for evolution! Atheists shove “facts” into everyone’s faces, attempting time after time to disprove all Christianity in one final swoop, contradicting the very basis of itself, in that facts are never actually facts, and may never actually be facts, but are merely ideas that place hold for the next fact.

I’m an atheist, i agree with much of what some of you are saying. i still think you’re ignorant.

So far as your point is concerned, I think the big difference between religious people and atheists is that far more atheists will admit that they are ignorant. At least this has been my experience.

I would agree that there are far more questions in the universe than there are answers. That said, I think that science can help us march toward the truth in a way that faith cannot. While evolution does indeed seem to lead to more and more questions, those questions are part of a refining process of knowledge, not a sign of increasing ignorance (as you seem to be implying).

I agree that atheists who attempt to disprove Christianity by “shoving facts into everyone’s faces” may be misguided (and are, at lest, rude), but in those cases where Christians are making specific claims that can be tested, I do think that progress toward truth can be made by testing those claims.

Category: Criticism, Evolution | Tags: | 6 Comments »

God loves me

I am here to tell you that Jesus loves you. Christians are instructed to give the Good News to all…and that includes atheists.

I entered a website that said by having done so that meant that I was an atheist. I, of course, am not an atheist. I entered to tell you of God’s love for you.

Are you familiar with John 3: 16? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

You might want to study the New Testament of the Christian faith in depth sometime–especially the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There is a lot of love and truth to be found there.

God bless you.

I appreciate your concern on my behalf. You will, I hope, be happy to hear that I have read the Bible many times, as well as many books and magazines about the Bible. I also listen to a number of apologetics podcasts.

Oddly, it was after reading the Bible through for the first time that I started heading down the path to atheism.

Category: Bible, Personal question | Tags: | 6 Comments »

Hate Mail

Who are you voging for? You don’t know s**t so I bet you’re voting for your own a**hole.

Category: Hate mail | Tags: | 10 Comments »

Not even an atheist

Don’t believe in a God, but I do not answer to any tag like Atheist. Religion is rather like a hobby or pasttime, except some of those who practise it are so ‘mad’ that they believe they should force their values on the rest of us. If you don’t follow a sport like football are you are an afootballist? No, simply not interested! So why do we who are not into a religion have to assume some badge, if we do then we elevate religious beliefs to a more credible position than they deserve.

And another along the same lines…

Don’t know what’s so special about not worrying about weird outlandish things that it has even a separate name? I noticed that the label “religious” is not preferred by them but they take it as some kind of default that needs no name because everybody is like that anyway. Sorry but the “default” position is childhood, parents, powerlessness. Not that.

Add, hopefully, scientific morality taught be grown-ups when necessary.

I have received many e-mails from people who think that the word “atheist” should be avoided (or should not exist) because they think that having a word for lack of belief grants special status to religious thought. My feeling is that since the area of thought we refer to as “religion” exists and is discussed, there is nothing wrong with having words to describe people’s position on religion.

It’s true that we don’t have a word for someone who is not interested in football, but being not interested in football isn’t a position generally considered within the context of a discussion of football. Atheism, on the other hand, is a specific philosophical position with respect to religion, perhaps in the same way that “skeptic” is a specific philosophical position with respect to the supernatural.

This may be a trivial point, but English has many words that refer to a negative state of belief or behavior. For example, apolitical, amoral, anarchy, and apathy.

Category: Misc | Tags: | 5 Comments »

Atheism the default position?

You mention that the default position is atheistic, but that isn’t true. As a consequence of having social awareness humans are born with a default belief in supernatural powers (I read this in either a scientific american article or a times article). Most people begin by believing in religion and when they learn to question their beliefs they cast off their religion and become atheistic, but usually not the other way around.

I understand what you mean, but I still say that everyone begins as an atheist. Even if humans are born predisposed to believe in the supernatural, you are born with no knowledge of specific supernatural “facts”. A baby does not grow up to believe in God because it innately believes in God, but because it learned about God as part of learning culture, or concluded that God exists based on inadequate information. (And for those of you who say that one with adequate information can conclude that God exists, would you at least agree that a child is not intellectually rigorous enough to reach such a conclusion in a compelling way?)

But the human mind aside, atheism is the default position for science (just as disbelief in almost anything is the default position for science), and that is by far the more important point.

Category: About atheism | Tags: | 9 Comments »

Why not be against Satan?

First, thanks for your very quick response. You are true to your word about responding.

Second, I’m ok with you posting our correspondence under such a condition.

Now, let me get to a short response. I don’t think the burden of proof is on the theist alone. Anyone who makes a claim, whether “there is a God” or “there is know god,” should then be able to provide support for their position. Atheism by default is incorrect. Having a website named “Iamanatheist,com” is a claim and therefore some burden of proof does lie on you.

In truth, neither of us can say “I know there is or is no god.” That would require us to be all knowing. We can only say “I believe…” Belief only requires us to be more than half convinced our argument is true. I am more than half convinced there is a Creator and you are more than half convinced there is not.

If I may, let me provide a topic upon which you may respond. We can take turns providing, once we’ve explored a topic.

Topic: Christians claim man is “fallen”. What is stance and why?

I agree that anyone who claims that God does or does not exist has the burden of proof. However, I make neither claim, so the burden of proof is not on me. My claim is that I have seen no compelling evidence that deities exists.

I agree that I bear the burden of proof for my claim “I am an atheist,” but I’d say that is either a trivial item or an unprovable one. I am an atheist in the sense that I am not convinced that deities exist and therefore have no belief in God. I can’t prove to you that I have this belief (I could be lying), so you’ll have to take my word for it in the same way that I take your word when you say you are not an atheist.

I would disagree with the statement, “Atheism by default is incorrect.” My guess is that people generally are, by default, atheists until they are introduced to the concept of religion. I don’t know if this has been studied, however.

You say that neither of us can state with certainty that God does or does not exist (which makes you a theistic agnostic — one of the few that has written to me). Many theists would disagree with this point, as they believe there is solid proof that God exists. I agree that nobody can prove that God does not exist (although certain descriptions of God may be able to be proven to be impossible).

You are right that I am more than half convinced that God does not exist. To clarify, I currently believe the odds of a creator existing to be vanishingly small. If you would like to describe me as someone who does not believe that God exists, that’s fine with me — it’s still distinct from someone who claims that God definitely does not exist.

In my opinion, you give a false impression of our positions by saying that each of us is more than half convinced. It seems to me that it would take quite a bit of evidence to even half convince someone that a supreme being exists. On the other hand, no evidence is needed to not convince someone that a supreme being exists. If you have even half a belief that God exists, you should have a very compelling argument for the existence of God to offer me.

You end by asking, “What is stance and why?”. I’m afraid I don’t understand this question. Can you explain further?

Category: About atheism, Discussion | Tags: | 5 Comments »

Why not be against Satan?

Thanks for responding to my e-mail. Okay I understand that you probably are swamped by e-mails but I have to tell you that really I would hope that you would respond to me personally but that is up to you. I have given you my e-mail because I really cannot beg you to accept what I have said or will say but only to persuade you. It’s like trying to make someone love you when really that choice is up to them. I am only trying to persuade people about who Christ is not in my point of view but His and that I accepted it that way and it’s what I KNOW that this is the only way and I can either except what He says about it or I can reject Him. You see He has given us that choice and you believe the way you do because that is your choice. I am NOT trying to argue my point and that I am right. You are a person and you get up every morning and go to bed every night and have your own routine through out the day just like me. I don’t have a clue to who your are man or woman and not for my sake but yours only that I care that you would spend YOUR eternity with me and Christ. You said in your reply about atheist and agnostics and agree that they will spend eternity in the same place. But remember when I first responded I said that anyone who is an atheist, agnostic or believes in God WITHOUT believing what He did for them IS going to the same place. Okay this is going to sound ridiculous and a poor analogy but I like the show Reba. Ever watch it? Well in this particular episode Reba is upset with her son in law because he is questioning whether there is a God or not. Now as a christian I know that God in his wisdom when He wrote the Bible said that we must believe in Him and what He DID in order for Himself to accept US. If I believed that everyone is right about going to heaven in their own way then I would have to agree with what happened on the horrible day of September 11th. But I don’t. They believed in dying for their god but thankfully mine died for me. Anyways the point is that Reba’s character can believe in God without Jesus and Van her son-in-law not believe in God at all and both die and go to hell. So to you this does not matter because you do not believe in God who is Jesus or satan. But did you know that if you do not accept Him you ARE for satan? My husband has a friend who yes believes in God but was raised in a “religious” family. I am not religious at all. Did you know that God hates religion? Religion is what keeps man from God. Sounds a little contradicting doesn’t it? Choose ANY religion you want. Who started it, when it got started and it all ends up the same…… how good you can be to get to heaven. I have talked to alot of people about the Lord. And I never try to pressure them at least I hope. Anyways most people say “well as long as I am good”…… So what if you weren’t ? How good do you have to be to get to God? He doesn’t come down or yells from heaven and says to me hey you are doing good as long as you don’t do this….. or this….. This would be like trying to make a career by being a tight rope walker without a net. Funny thing is that I have never met someone who said to me I am so terrified because I don’t know how good to be. Alot of people say as long as I don’t murder, steal. etc…. I’ll be okay. And so if you did God’s grace is not bigger than your sin? Of course it is. Obviously you deserve punishment but the worst thing anyone can ever do is REJECT Him. Did you know that this is the worst thing anyone could ever do. Hard to believe. So I hope that Reba in real life believes in more that God but what He did for her too. He is not a respector of persons. You talk about morals. Where do we get our morals from? Why is it wrong to steal, lie, sleep around, etc….? Why should we even have such a thing as morals. By what standard or whose? Who are we committing crimes against? Why are we still living by standards that are written from a book called the Bible? Really think about this. Okay will you respond to this one. I think I stated this the first time I e-mailed you. But doesn’t it just peak your curosity why we take the name of God AND Jesus in vain. Especially when He tells us not to? See God wrote that before He was manifested in the flesh. He called Himself right there Christ. And we do say these TWO names. Interesting. So as I was saying before I went off on one of my bunny trails, that my husband has a friend who believes in a god and will not accept thee only God. He wants proof. He is very logical type of person. Really it is a failure for himself to accept how God sees him. Anyone that is a christian, saved, born again, salvation all the same thing believes this one pivotall point. They see/saw themselves as sinners and unworthy for Gods grace and yet knowing they cannot not do ANYTHING to EARN this they just simply accept it and accept Him. ANYONE who call themself a christian and believes none of this is simply not a christian. Proof is all around you. Please after reading this go to your window and look out all around you. Do you not see it. Life….people, animals, trees. Your breathing right. Pretty incredible. What are you breathing? Did you create that? Earth. Wow here is something pretty incredible and yet Job a book in the Bible Job the man,noted that the earth hangeth upon nothing. How would he know that? Or in the book of Isaiah how would he know that the earth was round? Please tell me this? Okay I could go on and it is getting pretty late at least for me this is late, I’m not so young any more. I don’t want you to be up for a challenge. I do want you when you go to bed(when the thought process is magnified, at least mine is) and say to yourself and really think to yourself I have really made this a joking matter in the first place for me and the other atheist and created a web site around it as well? As well as this lady is telling me that if I am atheist , agnostic or someone who believes in God without Christ are headed to the same place. And would you think that there could be a possibility of heaven and a hell? Also do you not think that when you established your web site that there would be people out in computer land that really care about being righteous and not right? I have met plenty of people that are moral and not saved(christian) who I would rather hang with than people who believe like me. A huge difference though is that we are seperated considerably by Gods view and I just couldn’t talk to them in a general way about Him because they would not understand. They would not understand the fact that He is my life and any time I mentioned Him they would be thinking I was preaching to them instead of just them understanding He is just my friend. And yes I am really going but I want to ask you two things. Don’t you want to rely on something better than yourself and your family and friends. And I am not saying that that is a bad thing by no means. But don’t you just get tired of depending on yourself and for you to sort our your problems. And the other question is are you afraid to respond to me personally? You will want to resist because satan will want you to. But you do have a choice to respond to me personally. And I have to tell you that one day you will die because that is what the Lord says. Don’t people die? All of these products to keep us young and live longer but you will die. So will you just please answer this question with a yes, no, or I don’t know above any question you could ask or answer of this e-mail. DO YOU KNOW FOR CERTAIN IOO% IF YOU DIED THAT THERE IS NOT A HEAVEN OR HELL, GOD OR SATAN? And do your REALLY want to know. It is so simple. You don’t have to pay any money, sign a contract or even have to get a loan. It is free. And you don’t even have to do anything for it because you never could. That is something religion doesn’t teach you.

Thanks for understanding about my e-mail situation. I will respond to your comments, but doing so in my blog allows my readers to share what both of us have to say.

I’d like to start by addressing your comment that I believe the way I do because it is my choice. I don’t see it that way, because I do not have the ability to believe or disbelieve facts at will. I can be convinced that something is true or untrue, but I can’t honestly believe just because I wish to believe. At best, I can trust that something is true, but doing so is admitting that I don’t know with certainty whether or not it is true, even if I am going to act as if it is true.

You say, “But did you know that if you do not accept Him you ARE for satan?” In what sense? In the sense that Satan would not want me to believe in God? To me, that sounds like an even more tenuous version of, “You’re not fighting the government conspiracy to create a police state, therefore you are part of that conspiracy.”

When you say you are not religious, I assume you mean that you are not part of any organized religion. There’s nothing wrong with that, but what do you mean when you say that “God hates religion”? The Old Testament doesn’t read like a book about a God that hates religion — in fact, he seemed to be encouraging it quite strongly.

You go on to talk about how all religions boil down to how good you can be to get to heaven. I disagree with you on this. Even if we stick to Christianity, Protestants specifically believe that you cannot “buy” your way into heaven with good works. To Protestants, salvation is available only through the acceptance of Jesus Christ.

You say that God doesn’t call down from Heaven and tell you what to do or not do in order to be good. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that God doesn’t tell us how good we need to be to get into Heaven. But the Bible addresses this point specifically, doesn’t it? All humans fall short of the glory of God. However, I’d argue that this does not imply that good works are meaningless, only that they are not sufficient.

You say that the largest sin is the rejection of God, and this agrees with the Bible. The problem here is how we define “reject.” If I am not convinced that God exists, then in what sense am I rejecting him. Would you permit me to describe you as someone who rejects my Uncle Walter because you don’t know if I have an Uncle Walter? I’d think not.

Where do we get our morals from. That is a large conversation, but in a nutshell I would say that my morals are logically required. Why do we have them? So that society can function and so that we can claim certain rights for ourselves. Who sets standards for morality? Any person who wishes to be logically consistent can develop a workable morality. Who are we committing crimes against? Other people, society, and ourselves. Why are we still living by the standards in the Bible? We aren’t. The Old Testament includes many acts that are blessed by God but that we would consider immoral (such as killing babies). The New Testament has a morality that is much more workable in the modern world, but its moral rules are generally pretty obvious, even to those who have not read the Bible (with obvious exceptions for its condemnation of certain victimless crimes).

I draw no philosophical conclusions from the fact that religious terms are used as curses. People were cursing in the names of gods long before monotheism. If you meant something else by this, please elaborate because the point is eluding me.

I certainly agree with you that life and nature are incredible, but I am not particularly impressed by scientific facts that are said to be found in the Bible. Job says that the earth hangs on nothing, but in the same chapter he says that God “hath compassed the waters with bounds” when the oceans of the world are not bounded. Isaiah speaks of Earth being round — not a sphere — and in any case, the Greeks considered the possibility that the planet was a sphere hundreds of years before Jesus was born, so the concept was not unheard of in the ancient world.

You ask if I think it is possible that there is a Heaven and a Hell. I’d say that it is possible, but that the possibility is extremely remote. I certainly agree that there are people who want to be righteous as opposed to wanting to be right.

You ask if I want to rely on more than just myself, my family, and my friends. Certainly, and I do rely on something more than this: I rely on reason, thought, and logic — not just my own, but that of many people. Would I like there to be a divine being that would take care of me? Sure, but my wishing does not make it so.

You also ask if I am afraid to respond to you personally. No, I’m not. But I told my readers that I would be responding to e-mail only on my blog from now on, and it wouldn’t be very honest of me to make an exception without an extraordinary reason to do so. Satan doesn’t enter into it.

Do I know 100% that there is no God/Satan/Heaven/Hell? No. Do I really want to know? Certainly. But you are wrong when you say that belief in such things is free. At this point, my belief would have to be based on my desire rather than on the facts, and if I did such a thing I would be giving up my intellectual integrity. That, to me, is too high a price to pay.

Category: Bible, Discussion | Tags: | 8 Comments »

Evidence for atheism

(This is my response to an e-mail from someone who asked not to be quoted online.)

At this point, because of the volume of e-mail I get, I no longer participate in debates that I can’t post on my blog. Sorry about that — it was eating all my time so I had to draw a line. I will answer your question about arguments for atheism by saying that I do not have an argument for atheism because I don’t believe there needs to be one. I am an atheist because I have not seen compelling evidence that God exists, and I believe that the burden of proof is on theists. Atheism is the default position. We can go into this further if you like, but only if you don’t mind my posting our correspondence to my blog (with any private info about you removed if you like, of course) so that all my readers may benefit.

Category: About atheism, Evidence | Tags: | 1 Comment »