Us atheists really need to stop messing about, don’t we?. If there was a
court case on the issue of the existence of a 'God' it would be laughed
out of town, due to lack of evidence. So why do we put up with the
theory and all the divisive problems that come from it?.
The best way forward is militant atheism. This can be as simply as
making sure your kids get good science lessons and making sure they
realise that all theists are borderline mental cases. I was baptised a
catholic and confirmed a catholic and believed it for a long time until
I finally arrived in secondary education and was taught science. Now all
my children are all good atheists. This is progress. This is very simply
basic stuff though. The harder task is making ordinary theists see the
error of there ways.
I started to achieve this with a lady I worked with, a few weeks back.
She trotted the usual theist line about how the burden of proof was
apparently on us atheists: 'There is a God', 'No there isn't'. 'Prove
it'. ‘No you prove it'. So I said I thought she secretly fantasized
about her dog anally raping her. “I have no evidence to back this up, I
just believe it's true. Now you prove it isn't” Of course, she can't.
There is no evidence for it. Would I get away with going around and
saying she liked dog ***** in her arse?. Of course not. I would be taken
to court and would invariably lose the case because I no evidence for
making such absurd claims.
It slowly started to sink in and this lady conceded that I had a point
and was suggested that she wasn't really ever about it, so this actually
made her an agnostic. Debunking the agnostic idea, is one for another
day but it shows how progress can be made very easily, when you stumble
into a conversion on God with an ordinary theist. The way forward is to
engage these people in language they can easily understand.
So over the next few days, lets here and now, debunk some of the rubbish
these loons often come out with :
Argument from Design
Theists often claim that the universe and all living things were
designed. Since they were designed they must have had a designer, and
that designer is God. There are several things wrong with this argument.
First, it is not at all obvious that the universe or living things were
designed. Physics does a fine job of describing the universe with
intelligent design playing no role. Evolution, including speciation or
macro-evolution, is a directly observed empirical fact and, again,
intelligent design plays no role and Observed Instances of Speciation.
The second thing wrong with this argument is that it implies that God
must have had a designer; a meta-god. This is because God must be much
more complex than biological organisms, and if the complexity of
biological organisms implies a designer, then the complexity of God
implies a designer. But this contradicts the notion that God is a
fundamental being.
Perhaps the worst flaw in the argument is that it assumes that "God did
it" is the best explanation for the complexity observed in the natural
world. But, as discussed in Science and Religion, "God did it" has no
more explanatory power than the childish reply "just because". Moreover,
postulating an extremely complex god and saying that this explains the
origin of complexity is absurd. Any conceivable natural explanation is
superior to "God did it" because a natural explanation would 1) have at
least some explanatory power, and 2) not need to postulate an extremely
complex entity (remember Ockham's Razor). In order to have a chance at
constructing a successful Argument from Design, theists would have to
show that some phenomenon exists that is not even in principle
explainable in natural terms. And, of course, they have not done this.
A recent version of the Argument from Design is the notion that
biochemistry is "irreducibly complex". This argument is discussed, and
refuted, in Science, Complexity, and God. Another recent variant of the
Argument from Design is the Fine-Tuning Argument, which is discussed,
and refuted, in Science and Religion.
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