Responses to a few common arguments

[ratcharmer]

Hello everyone,

This is probably going to be one of my more argumentative posts in this section.

Basically the reason I'm posting this is that in any discussion about religion you tend to see certain arguments (or types of arguments) over and over again, yet giving them the thorough response they deserve would drag the thread you encountered them in off-topic.

You can argue either in favor of or against any argument you post here, but try to stick to ones you've seen somewhere before. Otherwise it's all just straw-men

When/if you respond to this thread I will ask a couple things of you:
1) BE POLITE. Heated arguments only fuel animosity, they don't get us anywhere.
2) Be clear: explain which argument you're referring to, and try to explain your points clearly. I'm not going to be a grammar nazi, but if I can't understand you I can't address your concern. If you bring up a new argument, give it a title, and underline the title. Use the titles of arguments when referring back to them.
3)Try to use sources if you can. See my signature for a discussing on why citations are important. Be as detailed as possible.

That being said I'll list a couple to start things off:

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Burden of proof arguments
I've seen both theists and atheists use variations on this, and *gasp* I even used it myself before I knew better.

Essentially the person making the argument makes the claim that the other side must prove their case, and that their own side should be considered true by default unless it is conclusively proven otherwise.

In most cases this argument comes down to pure semantics, and there's nothing solid behind it.  Usually it takes  the form of something kludged together from "innocent until proven guilty" and academic debates over historical events. Occasionally people mix in elements of scientific proof into this.

Scientific proof in this case is unreasonable-unless someone designs an experiment that can conclusively prove things one way or the other all science can give us is that there are conflicting theories and no way to test between them.

Innocent until proven guilty is a convention used by many court systems, and it's used for a reason: namely, that it's generally better to let a few people get away with breaking the law then it is to allow the government to simply arrest anyone they like on whatever charges they like.

Historical proof is the closest to what we're trying to establish in a religious debate, and generally precedence is given to the older theory since it was closer to the events. But the problem here is that both theism and atheism are ancient. In fact, I'm fairly confident that they both predate recorded history.

Basically, to my knowledge "burden of proof" with regards to the existence of God has never been established, and there is no logical reason for it to go one way or another. There are many who would have you think otherwise though.

This argument does apply in the following cases:
a. If you are debating how/if a relevant historical event took place, the older record generally takes precedence.
b. If someone is accusing a person or group of a wrong doing burden of proof is generally placed on the accuser

Be careful of "gray areas" between these two: If you're arguing the crusades never happened the burden is on you for historical reasons, but if you're arguing the crusades were the fault of the church in Europe then you must also face the burden of proof, since you're making an accusation.

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It sounds ridiculous

I think it was iampostal who summarized Christianity as "a cosmic jewish zombie who is his own father" or something similar.

As a rebuttal, allow me to offer the following statements:
1) If something is small enough, it can move from one place to another without crossing the space in between
2) You age slower if you're moving really fast
3) Everything is made of particles, but the particles are also waves
4) Most of the universe is made of invisible stuff

Those sound pretty ridiculous, right? But what I just described was:
1) Quantum Teleportation
2) Relativity
3) Particle/Wave Duality
4) Dark Matter

No, my interpretations are not exactly accurate to the theories, but "a cosmic jewish zombie who is his own father" isn't an accurate description of Christianity either. The simple fact is that there are many things in this world that sound ridiculous at first glance, but have been proven true.

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Historical contradictions

On occasion people try to disprove a religious belief by pointing out a discrepancy between a religious text and other documentation of the events, saying that this proves the religious text is untrue.

First off, I'm not a fundamentalist, this means I don't ascribe to a literal interpretation of every sentence in the Bible. Even if you could somehow conclusively prove that Pharoh and Moses never actually met, that doesn't prove anything to me, beyond that Pharoh and Moses never met.

Secondly, I want you to do an experiment. Pick 5 to 10 of your coworkers/classmates. Pull each of them aside individually (so they can't check their stories versus one another) and ask each them to describe the same event from last week in as much detail as they can. An episonde of a TV show is a good choice for an event.

When you compare your friends accounts of the TV show you'll note that they don't match up very well.

In courts of law it is actually often taken as a sign someones lying if there aren't some discrepancies between multiple accounts of the same event, as this almost surely means the people being questioned have compared their stories to make sure they aren't contradicting one another.

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The Invisible Pink Unicorn

I borrowed the title for this one from Scaredgirl, and I hope that's okay.

The basic argument goes something like this: I can't see/hear/feel God, and God can't be verified independently . . . so I can make up any wacky thing I like, call it God, and there's nothing anyone can say do against that.

This is most often used when pointing out that a lot of religious beliefs are structured such that they can't be easily disproven, and that similar arguments could support some very strange things. It's also used to try to make theological discussions seem silly by arguing that people are spending time debating characteristics of an entity they cannot perceive, and haven't even established if it exists.

My initial response goes something like this: I'm sorry you can't see the unicorn, but the rest of us can.

That's sort of a silly way to phrase it, but in all seriousness a great many believers from a great many different faiths will tell you stories of the multitude of ways they have directly experienced God or gods. It's always sort of hard to talk about this with someone who hasn't experienced it. Almost like trying to describe your favorite painting to a bind person, it's difficult to find a basis to start from. If anyone really wants to hear my own accounts let me know and I'll PM you some of the stories.

As to the unicorn analogy, it's somewhat misleading. If someone approached me on the street and told me an invisible pink unicorn was following me, my reaction would probably be to step back out of their reach, in case they decided I was made of delicious candy and tried to eat me.

But one person approaching you on the street is not accurate to the situation. Consider this:

You take a random sample of 100 people from around the globe. They aren't given a chance to speak to each other before speaking to you, and each of them is given a lie detector test, so your 90% certain that they, at least, believe what they're telling you.

Out of that 100 people:
60 tell you there's an invisible pink unicorn following you
10 say it's an invisible purple unicorn
10 say it's an invisible pink pegasus
1 says it's an invisible blue rhinocerous
10 say they aren't sure if there's an invisible quadruped following you or not
9 say there is no invisible quadruped

Maybe this wouldn't convince me to go buy the unicorn a saddle, but it certainly isn't a strong argument against invisible unicorns.

Those figures roughly follow statistics taken from the pew test and a few other sources about worldwide belief in God. It's admittedly very difficult to find trustworthy data on this subject, and most sources disagree at least a little.

And as Artois points out here http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6523.0.html there are some rather remarkable similarities between many religions (hence unicorn vs. pegasus and not unicorn vs. salamander or goldfish). The resurrection motif is just one of many examples.

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If there's a specific argument you would like me to look at or if you would like to respond to one of my responses, please post away.

[Hamish MacWolf]

Sir, I just felt I had to post, after you had put in so much effort, and nobody seemed inclined to care!

It is rare to find well-balanced, coherent, structured thought on internet forums. In my opinion, this is an example of said thought, and I appreciate it.

Well done, you. Give yourself a sticker.

[BluePriest]

You touched on it a little bit with your Pink Unicorn argument, but I think this deserves its own area.

Similar Ideas = Copying = All are wrong

What Im talking about.
1)I see many people saying (and not just in this forum, but on real life as well) that a lot of ideas are the same. So they must have copied each other.
2)Because they are all similar, they must all be wrong.

1 thing I noticed a lot was pointing out that a lot of religions have great similarities. This doesnt mean that they copied though. I'll use elements as an example. Look at the deck ideas and the card ideas. Both of those sections have a lot of posts that are similar. You may find cards that do pretty much the same thing, only from separate elements, or they may be from the same element and do pretty much the same thing. Especially when you look at fg killing decks, you see a lot of similarities (of course you have a few that are completely different). This doesnt mean that the person looked at the deck, modified it a bit, and posted it as their own though. The ideas could very well be independent.

This brings me to the next point. an argument I occasionally see is that since they are all similar, they must all be wrong. Lets take a look at this through the elements spectrum again. There are a ton of entropybows and timebows. Does that mean none of them work though? No. Actually, all of them probably work to an extent. Now, I know this logic is flawed in the fact that with religion, not all of them can be right, but please try to understand what im trying to say. A better example would be with evolution. There have been a lot of ways evolution has been explained in the past. Just because people have a different way of explaining how it happens, it doesnt mean that all of them are wrong, and that evolution doesnt exist. Just like how people have different views of God. That doesnt mean that all the views are wrong, and that God doesnt exist.

[ratcharmer]

@Hamish: Hey thanks! I am now the proud owner of a sticker.

I'm honestly not that concerned about the lack of early response to this thread, it was made mostly as a go-to for when a side debate came up in one of the other threads that could drag the initial thread off-topic. If there aren't many posts here it could mean a number of things, anywhere from the people the listed debates are relevant to haven't stumbled across it yet, to people are have read it and want to respond, but are still thinking through their responses.

If people are taking their time to respond so they can have a well thought out response then, bravo! I'd rather they took their time and gave a thoughtful response then a knee-jerk reaction.

The length of the first post probably scared some people off as well.

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In response to Similar Ideas = Copying = All are wrong:

Yeah, this does deserve it's own topic. Well said and well reasoned.

Perhaps a closer analogy than elements decks would be a math test. Most student's work will look similar to one another, and many will have the same answer, but this doesn't mean that they all copied each other. This means that there is a generally accepted correct way to go about solving that problem. Many students will arrive at the same answer because that is the correct answer, and even those that get a problem wrong will usually have taken a similar approach to trying to solving it.

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And now to post yet another new argument:
Omnipotence Paradoxes

Okay, I've seen this a lot with people trying to argue that an omnipotent being could not exist. The basic form of the argument comes down to "God is defined as omnipotent, but God couldn't do X, therefore either God doesn't exist or He isn't omnipotent."

As an example, One of the first forms I encountered was "Could God build something even HE couldn't destroy?" The claim was that either a) God couldn't build it or b) He couldn't destroy it.

The problem here is that omnipotence means God can do anything, not just things that make logical sense. So yes, God could microwave a burrito so hot that not even He couldn't eat it--and then He could eat it.

There are several things that allow for the creation of a paradox, omnipotence is one of them.

[smuglapse]

You take a random sample of 100 people from around the globe. They aren't given a chance to speak to each other before speaking to you, and each of them is given a lie detector test, so your 90% certain that they, at least, believe what they're telling you.

Out of that 100 people:
60 tell you there's an invisible pink unicorn following you
10 say it's an invisible purple unicorn
10 say it's an invisible pink pegasus
1 says it's an invisible blue rhinocerous
10 say they aren't sure if there's an invisible quadruped following you or not
9 say there is no invisible quadruped

Maybe this would convince me to go buy the unicorn a saddle, but it certainly isn't a strong argument against invisible unicorns.

Those figures roughly follow statistics taken from the pew test and a few other sources about worldwide belief in God. It's admittedly very difficult to find trustworthy data on this subject, and most sources disagree at least a little.

And as Artois points out here http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6523.0.html there are some rather remarkable similarities between many religions (hence unicorn vs. pegasus and not unicorn vs. salamander or goldfish). The resurrection motif is just one of many examples.

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If there's a specific argument you would like me to look at or if you would like to respond to one of my responses, please post away.

Are you serious about buying the saddle?

What that study would tell me is that 81% of people have been lied to as part of their upbringing and have never bothered to face reality or were too scared to.

[ratcharmer]

Are you serious about buying the saddle?

What that study would tell me is that 81% of people have been lied to as part of their upbringing and have never bothered to face reality or were too scared to.

The bit about the saddle is actually a typo, it was meant to say wouldn't. Sorry about that. I corrected the typo in the first post.
(after all, it might really be a rhinoceros, and then wouldn't I look silly)

I would say it isn't lying if the parents genuinely believe what they're teaching their kids. Otherwise you get into all kinds of "how can I teach someone things I don't know myself" situations.

Keep in mind to that each of these is a response to a specific argument, not a general blanket statement.

[smuglapse]

I would say it isn't lying if the parents genuinely believe what they're teaching their kids. Otherwise you get into all kinds of "how can I teach someone things I don't know myself" situations.

Perhaps I was delving a little too much into the analogy.  If I were presented with such a study I would think I was being set up because I never heard of an actual Pink Unicorn religion.

But that portion of the rebuttal is not necessary.  I think you would agree that it doesn't matter how many people believe in something--that belief does not make something true or false.

You say in response to the general "invisible pink unicorn" argument that you have directly experienced something that has given you faith in whatever belief you have.  For someone who has never had such an experience, would you say that they could never rationally hold the same beliefs?

Thank you for your response.

[PuppyChow]

I just have a few things to add on:

Omnipotence Paradox
Yes, that's all well and good, but what if we define omnipotence not as being able to do ANYTHING (like Descartes said), but being able to do anything possible (like Aquinas said), which is the widely believed definition today.

Well, then there is still no trouble with that burrito so hot that God couldn't eat it. Using the Descartes definition, you can safely say yes, like you've already explained. And using the Aquinas definition, you can safely say no, because it's impossible for God to create a burrito so hot he can't eat it.

Similar Ideas = Copying = All are wrong
What you all said is true as well, but there's another way to look at it:

While some sections may seem copied (resurrection) it is so very different in other ways that if looked at as a whole it doesn't seem copied as well. It's like shuffling two decks of cards, and then claiming one copied the other because they both have an ace on top of the deck. Who cares about the rest of the deck?

Also of note is that many similarities are only similarities if you just look at the actions and not at any thing else like context (Greek gods fathering children with human women = virgin birth like God with Mary). When looked at superficially, they seem equivalent, but when you delve deeper into intentions behind them, and the basic makeup of Greek gods, they are entirely different. Not to mention, some similarities people claim are simply dead wrong and Horus didn't really become resurrected .

[ratcharmer]

Replying to discussion of Invisible Pink Unicorn 

Yes, it is possible for the majority of the human race to be wrong, but it is somewhat more difficult for them to be wrong about whether or not they experienced something.

It would be somewhat more difficult to maintain faith without ever experiencing the divine, but I would argue it's still possible to rationally come to the conclusion God exists without direct evidence.

I offer the following analogy:
My wife has a friend named Julia. I have never met Julia, but I have no doubt that she exists. If I ask different people about her I will get different responses, including "who?" from people who haven't heard of her. It is unlikely that any two people who have met Julia would give exactly the same account. It is always possible that I will meet Julia at some point in the future, but there is no way to guarantee that I will. Even if I knocked on her door, she might not be home.

However, if I do meet Julia, there can only be 2 possible truths to the situation 1) Julia is real 2) I'm schizophrenic. Given that I can also conclude that if I haven't met her but my wife says she has that either 1) Julia is real 2) my wife is crazy or 3) my wife is lying to me.

Considering the possibility that someone is crazy is generally not useful unless there is substantial supporting evidence, outside of the initial claim. The possibility of a liar is is quite possible in the case of an individual, but if you have a large population that all says the same thing this possibility becomes much more remote, almost to the point of non-existence.

Thus I am left with 2 possibilities concerning God 1) God exists, at least in some form or 2) half the human race has the same mental illness. Number 2 is actually possible, though  not very reassuring, generally I fall back on other arguments when discussing this possibility.

Granted, the analogy isn't perfect, since I already know that similar entities to Julia already exist (namely, people) but hopefully the analogy is good enough to get the point across.

I could however, easily understand how someone could also come to the opposite conclusion under some circumstances, particularly if they either haven't had much contact with religious persons or have had experience with dishonest or just plain loony religious figures, which is sadly not uncommon.

[smuglapse]

Replying to discussion of Invisible Pink Unicorn 

Yes, it is possible for the majority of the human race to be wrong, but it is somewhat more difficult for them to be wrong about whether or not they experienced something.

It would be somewhat more difficult to maintain faith without ever experiencing the divine, but I would argue it's still possible to rationally come to the conclusion God exists without direct evidence.

I offer the following analogy:
My wife has a friend named Julia. I have never met Julia, but I have no doubt that she exists. If I ask different people about her I will get different responses, including "who?" from people who haven't heard of her. It is unlikely that any two people who have met Julia would give exactly the same account. It is always possible that I will meet Julia at some point in the future, but there is no way to guarantee that I will. Even if I knocked on her door, she might not be home.

However, if I do meet Julia, there can only be 2 possible truths to the situation 1) Julia is real 2) I'm schizophrenic. Given that I can also conclude that if I haven't met her but my wife says she has that either 1) Julia is real 2) my wife is crazy or 3) my wife is lying to me.

Considering the possibility that someone is crazy is generally not useful unless there is substantial supporting evidence, outside of the initial claim. The possibility of a liar is is quite possible in the case of an individual, but if you have a large population that all says the same thing this possibility becomes much more remote, almost to the point of non-existence.

Whether an individual exists, or a certain trivia question is true is, of course, wholly different than the "big questions".  The truth of Julia's existence is not going to weigh in on how you should act (morals) or how you conceive of the universe working.  If it's your wife's imaginary friend and you find out, of course, you would change how you would act with your wife and be emotionally shocked, but if your local grocery clerk talked about imaginary Julia you may just humor her so you can be on your way.  Whether or not Liverpool is the capitol of the UK will have no bearing on how I live my life, just on where I may get my facts from.

Religion on the other hand dictates one's morals and one's perspective on life.  Accepting religious explanations at face value will narrow one's understanding of reality and keep an individual under the control of religious leaders.

Of course, this may not apply to you or anyone reading.  A lot of people draw a line between religion and spirituality and don't base their beliefs on tradition or culture.

My point is teaching someone (especially a child) that an invisible pink unicorn exists because the vast majority of society has the same beliefs is not the right thing to do.  The "big questions" deserve more critical thought.

Thus I am left with 2 possibilities concerning God 1) God exists, at least in some form or 2) half the human race has the same mental illness. Number 2 is actually possible, though  not very reassuring, generally I fall back on other arguments when discussing this possibility.

Whether its comforting or not, the human race has had a series of mental illnesses-war, slavery, tyrannical governments, genocide, child abuse, addiction, starvation, etc.  Luckily, with technology, reason, and discourse most of us don't have to live with those illnesses.  I consider all those disasters as resulting from delusions, so I don't consider it a far stretch for humanity to still be lost in other mental traps, myself not excluded.

[ratcharmer]

Invisible Pink Unicorn

For the lion's share of your post I'm in complete 100% agreement with you Smuglapse. In some ways I did read a little to far into things in that I tried to expand what was initially meant as a response to a very specific argument into a far-reaching statement.

The other thing, that in review I appear to  have neglected to mention entirely, that my previous analogy needs to work is trust.

Simply put, I trust my wife, and if she tells me that she had a profound religious experience then I am inclined to believe her. If, say, the leader of the Doomsday cult Aum Shinrikio were to tell me the same thing then I probably would not believe him. Both of these are quite rational decisions in my opinion.

The only point I would contend is this one:

Religion on the other hand dictates one's morals and one's perspective on life.  Accepting religious explanations at face value will narrow one's understanding of reality and keep an individual under the control of religious leaders.

Of course, this may not apply to you or anyone reading.  A lot of people draw a line between religion and spirituality and don't base their beliefs on tradition or culture.

I would argue that this only applies to dishonest or mislead religious leaders. Personally I think that the ideal religious leader is more like a professor than a dictator, someone who explains things and helps people gain more understanding of the world, often by encouraging his students to think things through for themselves.

Omnipotence Paradox
I honestly hadn't heard of the differing definitions of Descartes versus Aquinas. Apparently I should do some reading on the subject.

[Innominate]

It sounds ridiculous

To be fair, religion isn't just ridiculous on the surface; a thorough reading of their holy books will reveal just how bizarre they really are. I'm most familiar with the Bible, but the Qur'an, the Talmud, etc. all have similarly embarrassing stories. In the Bible, God is revealed to be unable to defeat an army because they have iron chariots, tells Isaiah to wander around naked for three years, mysteriously loses his omnipotence when the Israelites set up princes, threatens to spread dung on people's faces, smites people for doing exactly as he says, and more.

Historical contradictions

If something is contradicted by history, science or by itself then it is less than totally accurate. If something is flawed, how can it be trusted to be correct on other things for which there is no evidence?

The Invisible Pink Unicorn

Argument ad populum. People used to believe that the Earth was flat, that the sun went around the Earth, that eyes worked by shooting beams out rather than absorbing photons, that things increased in mass after being burned because something of negative mass was leaving, that coloured people were inferior, and many more idiotic things. There is so far no reason to believe that today's believers are more correct than today's flat earthers.