To all Christians:
I have constructed the following as a guide to you to help you in your dialogues with nonbelievers. The following is a list of common fallacious arguments Christians use against atheists and agnostics. Moderators, I know this looks tongue-in-cheek and facetious at first glance, but I am seriously making an attempt to provide advice that will foster better dialogue between Christians and atheists. I am merely providing them a list of things NOT to say, lest they be dismissed by atheists entirely, normally for the realization that the Christian has no understanding of their actual beliefs and lack thereof. But please move this thread if it is in the wrong section. That being said, let's begin:
1. Do not misrepresent the atheist's worldview. For example, do not assert the old line that we automatically believe that we came from nothing, which demonstrates a profound ignorance of the actual tenets of Big Bang theory and evolutionary biology, concepts most atheists accept.
2. Do not play the victim card. In other words, do not assert that Christians are persecuted by atheists, the government, or general society. This is especially pungent to us atheists when your churches have taxation concessions and great influence over high-level politicians.
3. Do not make the claim that simply because science does not understand a particular concept yet, that it automatically means that a God is responsible. This is a false dichotomy and will cause most atheists to immediately dismiss your arguments. Besides, most of us will immediately wonder, ignoring the obvious bifurcation, what could possibly lead you to assume that it is the god of your particular religion.
4. Do not confuse the concept of a theory in the common vernacular and a scientific theory. The word "theory" has an entirely different meaning in science than it does in common discourse. For example, saying that evolution is "just a theory" will immediately cause us to assume that you were sleeping in high school science class.
5. Do not bring cosmology into a debate about evolutionary theory. The two are completely unrelated.
6. Do not assert that evolution provides no explanation for human morality... because...well... it actually does, based on the survival value of mutual cooperative groups. Read Richard Dawkins if you want the full story.
7. Do not argue that irreducable complexity is proof of creation. I won't go into the specifics of why that is false here, but read a book on evolutionary biology if you are interested in why that is tosh.
8. Do not claim that information cannot be added to a genome. Reading up on frame shift mutations in examples of gene duplication will provide insight as to why information can in fact be added to a genome, a whole new stretch of DNA with an entirely new protein coding function suddenly being introduced.
9. Do not claim that the universe is less than 10000 years old because science has proven in a multitude of ways that is demonstrably not true, most notably the distance of stars, the rate of expansion of the universe, and the rate of travel of light from distant stars that are well over 10000 light years away.
10. Do not use the Bible as a source of argument that the Biblical God is true. That is an entirely circular argument. Trying to do this would be like using a Star Trek movie to prove the existence of Scotty.
11. Do not accuse the atheist of having a culture of close-mindedness, especially because atheistic scientists embody humanity's endeavor to establish truth, to question everything, and to contribute to mankind an explanation and an understanding of reality through constant, unbiased, open, and transparent experimentation and discovery, in which falsifiability and replicability are highly valued and relied upon. This is the exact opposite of being close-minded.
12. Do not assert that science keeps "changing its mind". This statement would demonstrate a profound ignorance of the scientific method and will cause most atheists to immediately dismiss anything else you have to say about science. Like I said, science constantly revises its understanding of reality in light of new discoveries and data, which is decidedly not the same thing as flippantly "changing your mind". This is called progress, so you would be in effect denigrating the progress of which you presumably are a beneficiary, as you are viewing this via the Internet.
13. Do not claim that atheism is also a religion when it is in fact a rejection of religion. This is tantamount to saying that "off" is a TV channel. If the rejection of religion is religion, then not playing football is a sport. Atheism has no creed, no corollary obligations, no faith, no unproven propositions, no organization, no rules or rituals, and no affirmations. To reiterate, atheism is *not* a religion.
14. Do not claim that the mass-murderers of the 20th century such as Hitler and Stalin prove anything about a disbelief in God. There is no logical link between atheism and genocidal atrocities. To suggest otherwise is to make a massive causality error because you are ignoring the mass-murderers additional dogmatic adherence to communism, facism, collectivism, nationalism, and militarism, all of which have nothing to do with atheism, and do not reflect the more libertarian atheist modality as it exists today. Besides, Hitler believed in God, a fact noticably apparant by the fact that Nazi belt buckles were inscribed with, "God is with us"
15. Do not claim that the Founding Fathers of the United States were overtly Christian or that the United States was founded on Christian principles when in fact the truth is quite the opposite. You can easily see this by reading the founding documents, for instance the Treaty of Tripoli from 1796. Or the First Amendment's proclamation of freedom from religion. Or capitalism's direct defiance of the Tenth Commandment.
16. Do not assert that without religion, we would have no moral compass without providing any arguments. Western civilization decidedly does not get its morality from the Bible. And, to assert the need of religion for morality is to completely ignore the Humanist movement and evolutionary biology. Furthermore, you are making an appeal to consequence, a logical fallacy. Consequence has no objective impact on the veracity of a belief or non-belief.
17. Do not assert that any civilized legal system is based on the Ten Commandments. This is certainly not true in America, and could only be possible in a theocratic dictatorship. We all know someone who works on the Sabbath without killing or condemning them, instead paying them extra for doing so, so none of that. The Fifth Commandment here in America rather depends on how honorably one's parents have behaved themselves. The 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th are all good laws, although the punishments are not the same as in the Bible. As I said before, the 10th commandment prohibits the central mechanism of capitalism.
18. Do not assert that any criticism of Christianity that refers to the Old Testament is invalid, especially when you turn right around later and use the Old Testament as evidence that Christ's coming was foreshadowed. By doing this, you are trying to have it both ways, which is both disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
19. Do not use appeals to emotion or consequence of belief such as "Then what meaning does life have" or "Evolution tells us we're just an accident". Your emotions on the matter have no bearing on objective reality.
20. Do not use appeals to fear such as "You'll burn in Hell". We already don't believe in Hell and frankly will just laugh at you if you expect us to take you seriously when you theaten us. Threats only convince us further that your religion has little more to stand on than fear.
21. Do not use appeals to the majority such as "A billion people believe it, it must be right". I could say the same thing about atheism and Islam, and I'm pretty sure you and I are in agreement about Islam. Besides, many people believing something has no bearing on its objective truth. For example, the whole world used to believe that the earth was flat. Saying that now would earn you well-deserved ridicule.
22. Do not use appeals to antiquity. The age of a belief does not make it any more true than it was when it was new. If I believed that a triangle had four sides and lived to be a billion years old, I would be just as wrong as I was today if I still held the same belief.
23. Do not try to convince us using anecdotal evidence. Your personal story of how you converted and that feeling in your heart that you speak of are no more convincing to us than the Bible is. Of course, experience is evidence, but only if we can objectively verify your experience. Sorry, but only evidence counts as evidence.
24. Do not attempt to argue about the finer details of evolution unless you have actually read about evolution. I made this mistake when I was a creationist. You will likely just embarass yourself and discredit your position, making all Christians look bad. I don't pretend to know about the finer details of theology as I have not researched them in depth (yet); similarly, you should not attempt to confer with us on evolution if you have not actually read and understood evolution. If you use the argument, "then why are there still monkeys", "why don't monkeys give birth to humans", or pretty much any of the standard creationist monkey fare, you do not understand evolution in the slightest.
25. If you bring up anything from the Hovind "Theory", prepare to be immediately ridiculed. I could personally shred the Hovind Theory to bits here, as could anyone with a high school science education, but that's a post for another day. In fact, you're probably better off just not mentioning anything to do with Noah's Ark to us. Honestly, most of us are embarassed for you when we watch you try to prove that that story is literally true. I could also shred Noah's Ark, but that is also for another post on another forum where I won't get banned for it. I wonder if I'm going to get banned for this post itself anyway. Again, mods please move this if it is in the wrong section.
26. Do not try to convince us using Pascal's Wager. If you don't know what that is, look it up. We find this argument completely disingenuous and another thinly veiled appeal to fear of Hell. It is quite possibly the most horrible mangling of game theory I have yet to see. Apart from the thinly veiled threat, this belief is flawed because you are trying to convince us to change our belief out of fear rather than being convinced. Beliefs do not work this way. One cannot simply change his belief at will without being persuaded; doing otherwise is simply giving lip-service, which an omniscient God would see through. So, Pascal's Wager utterly and completely fails at being a compelling argument for belief in God, and also provides no real argument for God's objective existence, but is rather a "best to cover your behind" argument. It is widely considered by us to be the most pathetic and un-Christian argument for God aside from direct threats of hellfire.
I hope reading this will help all Christians promote better dialogue with atheists, and end some of the parroting of stale old arguments thoroughly debunked years ago. I would also like to see a similar list from a Christian some day as advice for atheists in dialogues =)
-Evan Williams
I have constructed the following as a guide to you to help you in your dialogues with nonbelievers. The following is a list of common fallacious arguments Christians use against atheists and agnostics. Moderators, I know this looks tongue-in-cheek and facetious at first glance, but I am seriously making an attempt to provide advice that will foster better dialogue between Christians and atheists. I am merely providing them a list of things NOT to say, lest they be dismissed by atheists entirely, normally for the realization that the Christian has no understanding of their actual beliefs and lack thereof. But please move this thread if it is in the wrong section. That being said, let's begin:
1. Do not misrepresent the atheist's worldview. For example, do not assert the old line that we automatically believe that we came from nothing, which demonstrates a profound ignorance of the actual tenets of Big Bang theory and evolutionary biology, concepts most atheists accept.
2. Do not play the victim card. In other words, do not assert that Christians are persecuted by atheists, the government, or general society. This is especially pungent to us atheists when your churches have taxation concessions and great influence over high-level politicians.
3. Do not make the claim that simply because science does not understand a particular concept yet, that it automatically means that a God is responsible. This is a false dichotomy and will cause most atheists to immediately dismiss your arguments. Besides, most of us will immediately wonder, ignoring the obvious bifurcation, what could possibly lead you to assume that it is the god of your particular religion.
4. Do not confuse the concept of a theory in the common vernacular and a scientific theory. The word "theory" has an entirely different meaning in science than it does in common discourse. For example, saying that evolution is "just a theory" will immediately cause us to assume that you were sleeping in high school science class.
5. Do not bring cosmology into a debate about evolutionary theory. The two are completely unrelated.
6. Do not assert that evolution provides no explanation for human morality... because...well... it actually does, based on the survival value of mutual cooperative groups. Read Richard Dawkins if you want the full story.
7. Do not argue that irreducable complexity is proof of creation. I won't go into the specifics of why that is false here, but read a book on evolutionary biology if you are interested in why that is tosh.
8. Do not claim that information cannot be added to a genome. Reading up on frame shift mutations in examples of gene duplication will provide insight as to why information can in fact be added to a genome, a whole new stretch of DNA with an entirely new protein coding function suddenly being introduced.
9. Do not claim that the universe is less than 10000 years old because science has proven in a multitude of ways that is demonstrably not true, most notably the distance of stars, the rate of expansion of the universe, and the rate of travel of light from distant stars that are well over 10000 light years away.
10. Do not use the Bible as a source of argument that the Biblical God is true. That is an entirely circular argument. Trying to do this would be like using a Star Trek movie to prove the existence of Scotty.
11. Do not accuse the atheist of having a culture of close-mindedness, especially because atheistic scientists embody humanity's endeavor to establish truth, to question everything, and to contribute to mankind an explanation and an understanding of reality through constant, unbiased, open, and transparent experimentation and discovery, in which falsifiability and replicability are highly valued and relied upon. This is the exact opposite of being close-minded.
12. Do not assert that science keeps "changing its mind". This statement would demonstrate a profound ignorance of the scientific method and will cause most atheists to immediately dismiss anything else you have to say about science. Like I said, science constantly revises its understanding of reality in light of new discoveries and data, which is decidedly not the same thing as flippantly "changing your mind". This is called progress, so you would be in effect denigrating the progress of which you presumably are a beneficiary, as you are viewing this via the Internet.
13. Do not claim that atheism is also a religion when it is in fact a rejection of religion. This is tantamount to saying that "off" is a TV channel. If the rejection of religion is religion, then not playing football is a sport. Atheism has no creed, no corollary obligations, no faith, no unproven propositions, no organization, no rules or rituals, and no affirmations. To reiterate, atheism is *not* a religion.
14. Do not claim that the mass-murderers of the 20th century such as Hitler and Stalin prove anything about a disbelief in God. There is no logical link between atheism and genocidal atrocities. To suggest otherwise is to make a massive causality error because you are ignoring the mass-murderers additional dogmatic adherence to communism, facism, collectivism, nationalism, and militarism, all of which have nothing to do with atheism, and do not reflect the more libertarian atheist modality as it exists today. Besides, Hitler believed in God, a fact noticably apparant by the fact that Nazi belt buckles were inscribed with, "God is with us"
15. Do not claim that the Founding Fathers of the United States were overtly Christian or that the United States was founded on Christian principles when in fact the truth is quite the opposite. You can easily see this by reading the founding documents, for instance the Treaty of Tripoli from 1796. Or the First Amendment's proclamation of freedom from religion. Or capitalism's direct defiance of the Tenth Commandment.
16. Do not assert that without religion, we would have no moral compass without providing any arguments. Western civilization decidedly does not get its morality from the Bible. And, to assert the need of religion for morality is to completely ignore the Humanist movement and evolutionary biology. Furthermore, you are making an appeal to consequence, a logical fallacy. Consequence has no objective impact on the veracity of a belief or non-belief.
17. Do not assert that any civilized legal system is based on the Ten Commandments. This is certainly not true in America, and could only be possible in a theocratic dictatorship. We all know someone who works on the Sabbath without killing or condemning them, instead paying them extra for doing so, so none of that. The Fifth Commandment here in America rather depends on how honorably one's parents have behaved themselves. The 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th are all good laws, although the punishments are not the same as in the Bible. As I said before, the 10th commandment prohibits the central mechanism of capitalism.
18. Do not assert that any criticism of Christianity that refers to the Old Testament is invalid, especially when you turn right around later and use the Old Testament as evidence that Christ's coming was foreshadowed. By doing this, you are trying to have it both ways, which is both disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
19. Do not use appeals to emotion or consequence of belief such as "Then what meaning does life have" or "Evolution tells us we're just an accident". Your emotions on the matter have no bearing on objective reality.
20. Do not use appeals to fear such as "You'll burn in Hell". We already don't believe in Hell and frankly will just laugh at you if you expect us to take you seriously when you theaten us. Threats only convince us further that your religion has little more to stand on than fear.
21. Do not use appeals to the majority such as "A billion people believe it, it must be right". I could say the same thing about atheism and Islam, and I'm pretty sure you and I are in agreement about Islam. Besides, many people believing something has no bearing on its objective truth. For example, the whole world used to believe that the earth was flat. Saying that now would earn you well-deserved ridicule.
22. Do not use appeals to antiquity. The age of a belief does not make it any more true than it was when it was new. If I believed that a triangle had four sides and lived to be a billion years old, I would be just as wrong as I was today if I still held the same belief.
23. Do not try to convince us using anecdotal evidence. Your personal story of how you converted and that feeling in your heart that you speak of are no more convincing to us than the Bible is. Of course, experience is evidence, but only if we can objectively verify your experience. Sorry, but only evidence counts as evidence.
24. Do not attempt to argue about the finer details of evolution unless you have actually read about evolution. I made this mistake when I was a creationist. You will likely just embarass yourself and discredit your position, making all Christians look bad. I don't pretend to know about the finer details of theology as I have not researched them in depth (yet); similarly, you should not attempt to confer with us on evolution if you have not actually read and understood evolution. If you use the argument, "then why are there still monkeys", "why don't monkeys give birth to humans", or pretty much any of the standard creationist monkey fare, you do not understand evolution in the slightest.
25. If you bring up anything from the Hovind "Theory", prepare to be immediately ridiculed. I could personally shred the Hovind Theory to bits here, as could anyone with a high school science education, but that's a post for another day. In fact, you're probably better off just not mentioning anything to do with Noah's Ark to us. Honestly, most of us are embarassed for you when we watch you try to prove that that story is literally true. I could also shred Noah's Ark, but that is also for another post on another forum where I won't get banned for it. I wonder if I'm going to get banned for this post itself anyway. Again, mods please move this if it is in the wrong section.
26. Do not try to convince us using Pascal's Wager. If you don't know what that is, look it up. We find this argument completely disingenuous and another thinly veiled appeal to fear of Hell. It is quite possibly the most horrible mangling of game theory I have yet to see. Apart from the thinly veiled threat, this belief is flawed because you are trying to convince us to change our belief out of fear rather than being convinced. Beliefs do not work this way. One cannot simply change his belief at will without being persuaded; doing otherwise is simply giving lip-service, which an omniscient God would see through. So, Pascal's Wager utterly and completely fails at being a compelling argument for belief in God, and also provides no real argument for God's objective existence, but is rather a "best to cover your behind" argument. It is widely considered by us to be the most pathetic and un-Christian argument for God aside from direct threats of hellfire.
I hope reading this will help all Christians promote better dialogue with atheists, and end some of the parroting of stale old arguments thoroughly debunked years ago. I would also like to see a similar list from a Christian some day as advice for atheists in dialogues =)
-Evan Williams
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