Posted on 01/26/2008 7:40:54 PM PST by MtnClimber
Not all atheists are supercilious, of course. Many are content to live and let live, and some even grant that religion (which, in America, basically means Christianity) does some good. But atheism as an organized, evangelizing movement has been on the offensive lately. Witness the "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, with their aggressive stance against God and their bestselling books attempting to debunk religion. So, assuming you are a theist, what do you say to the atheist who asks, "You don't (chuckle) actually believe in God, do you (snicker)?"
The natural response would be to start giving evidence for God: the origin of the universe in the Big Bang requires a cause that is beyond matter, energy, space and time, the design of life requires an intelligence to account for the information that it contains, the many accounts of miracles and the supernatural cannot all be fabrications, and so on. Entire libraries have been written on the evidence and arguments for God.
What's going on here? Does the atheist have superior insight that allows him to see the errors that invalidate the arguments for God that seem valid to us theists? Or is it the atheist who is missing something?
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Happy Ten Year Anniversary!
Here’s everything you need to know about philosophy -
Philosopher’s Song
Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.
Heideggar, Heideggar was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Schoppenhauer and Hegel. And Whittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There’s nothing Nieizsche couldn’t teach ‘ya ‘bout the raising of the wrist. Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stewart Mill, of his own free will On half a pint of shanty was particularly ill.
Plato they say could stick it away, Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, And Hoppes was fond of his dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart. “I drink, therefore I am.”
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed; A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he’s pissed.
Most excellent analogy!
I always thought that too. I remember seeing an atheist bumper sticker that said "I don't know and you don't either". I had to admit it's an honest position.
Well put.
“Antitheists”.
That one expends so much personal effort in denouncing something that allegedly doesn’t exist is simply insane. I mean really: subscriptions to magazines about the non-existence of God, writing/reading books on the notion, seminars, etc..... Even the real atheists I know just chuckle at the notion.
I’d settled on calling them “evangelical atheists”: the notion is indeed their religion, and they actively proselytize to that end. ...but there is no “end”.
The other half of this argument is that they don’t believe they deserve to be judged right or wrong on anything because since there is no God, there is no divine moral rights or wrongs, so there is only personal preferences, and they also believe they are intellectually superior to the 95% of people on the earth that believe in a Creator God.
Sometimes a good approach to an a-theist can be: “Which definition of God do you believe doesn’t exist?”
Quite often my response is: “Oh. Yeah, the big mean guy with the beard.. me neither - since about the the third grade.”
And then we can go from there.
‘Course sometimes the line from “City of Angels” is tempting:
“Some things are true whether you believe them or not.”
Someone once told me although he wasn’t necessarily talking about belief in life after death or religion. He said, “If you truly believe something bad is going to happen, with every inch of your being, you should do everything you can to warn those people who you love before it’s too late, EVEN IF they think your nuts.”
You’re*
Whose?
;-)
“what do you say to the atheist who asks, “You don’t (chuckle) actually believe in God, do you (snicker)?”
I say, “Every day we make a choice to either be a host of God or a hostage of ego.”
The atheist said to me “ I don’t believe in God and you waste your time in praying.”
I replied “ If you are right and there is no God, I have wasted a few minutes a day of my life. But if I am right..
I would not want to be YOU.
I know a lot of people who don’t own televisions, and I’m one myself. I don’t recall EVER having whined about it, thank you very much. But it DOES give a decent analogy to work from. I find proletyzing people irritating, regardless as to whether they own televisions or not. Someone constantly boasting about their 52-inch plasma-screen television is just as irritating as someone boasting about not owning one at all.
It is however fine by me if you don't give a rats rear ... I just found your post amusing, and fairly accurate of many atheists.
Take care.
Anyone who proselytizes a non-religion or a religion is simply a bore.
Pascal’s wager. If you believe and it turns out you’re wrong, you’ve lost nothing. If you don’t believe and you’re wrong you’ve lost everything. ...G don’t believe in little green men from mars but I don’t nef to write articles or read books about not believing in them. Methinks the gentlemen doth protest too much.
Militant Atheists are worthy of little more than contempt at the best of times.
Back in the mid-1980s, I was a member of SEA. The Society for Evangelical Agnostics. Really, there is (or was) such an organization.
Mark
"I'm reminded of the immortal words of Socrates: 'I drank what?'"
Mark
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