More Fundie Follies: Putting the Kaibosch on Atheism
This is what you've all been waiting for. The end of atheism for all time. Makes you wonder how it is that it took Christian apologists so long to come up with this absolutely devistating arguement.
Here it is:
The Atheist Challenge
If you are an atheists(sic) who has the courage to have your views challenged then this tract is for you.
WARNING: If you are one of those weak minded atheists who prefers laws suits and/or political attempts to silence opposing views because you realize that your belief system cannot stand any kind of scrutiny this tract may be very disturbing to you. The mere presence of someone handing you this literature may be more than your weak mind can handle, if that is the case we recommend you politely return the tract, give it to a stronger person, or discard it in a proper manner. Some weak minded atheists have felt so threatened by having their views challenged that they have responded by scoffing, cursing, tearing it up literature, breaking the law by throwing it on the ground, beginning a political crusade to abolish free speech, or some other kind of juvenile behavior which ultimately embarrasses not only them but also other atheists as well.
(Note: Emphasis mine)
--The Atheist Challenge Pt. I
Ummm... guys... do you think it's a real good idea to begin your presentation with all these ad hominems? Be that as it may, here's the "challenge".
Ten Questions for the Atheist to answer
1) If your existence, including your thoughts, is the out growth of a random process then what basis do you have for presuming that your thoughts are rational? (if you don’t believe your thoughts are rational, please keep them to yourself! )
This is question begging, pure and simple. Just because your existance may have been the outcome of a random process (and considering that it takes but a single sperm cell to fertilize an ovum, and that the average male ejaculate contains approximately 150 million sperm cells, well, processes don't get a whole helluvalot more random than that) it does not follow that your thoughts also result from a random process. We know but very little concerning how the brain processes information, so this is also a concealed "God of the Gaps" fallacy.
"...what basis do you have for presuming that your thoughts are rational?" I "presume" that since I am still alive to write this, that up till now at least, my thoughts have been processing reality in a reliable manner.
2) If you don't have a philosophical basis for believing your thoughts are rational then why should anyone listen to anything you have to say?
Red herring. I don't need any "philosophy" to know my thinking is rational. The fact that I'm alive and well is proof of that. If my thinking did not accurately reflect reality, that wouldn't be the case.
3) If your sense perception is the result of a random process then on what basis do you believe that it reflects reality?
Unwarranted assumption. Same answer: I'm still very much alive. A bird sees a reflection of the sky in a plate glass window, thinks it's flying into more sky, but that mistaken impression doesn't make that glass any less hard, now does it?
4) If there is no intelligence behind the formulation of the universe why would you expect to find any order in the universe?
This question actually inverts logic. If there were an all-powerful intelligence out there, then we'd expect that there would be no order, just devine whim. Indeed, it is this very assumption, that Allah is all-powerful and that nothing happens unless Allah wills it, that caused Arabic science and learning to stagnate for over 1400 years. We expect order in the universe since to be, to exist, is to exist as something. To have the characteristics of, let's say, a cat, excludes having the characteristics of a dog, or a theologian for that matter. We expect acorns to sprout oak trees, not wingnut Fundevangelicals™ The limits of characteristic puts limits on possible cause and effect interactions, hence order, and a predictable set of rules that may be deduced from empirical observation. This realization freed the mind from the grip of superstition -- the idea that there were mysterious, unseen intelligences -- and made science possible.
5) If you don't have any basis for expecting there to be order in the universe why would the atheist attempt to look for or find natural laws?
A tautology. Asked and answered.
6) Darwinian atheists often speak of the "survival of the fittest" but if the fittest is defined as that which survives then you have not done anything except renamed the things which survive. Can they define fittest in a meaningful way?
Another red herring. The term "survival of the fittest" does not come from Darwin or his evolutionary theory. This was a construct of a pseudoscientific, reactionary political ideology: Social Darwinism. Requires no answer.
7) If Darwinians define fittest as arrangements of matter which are more stable and durable then aren't non-living arrangements of matter more stable and durable than what we refer to as living arrangements of matter?
If "Darwinists" actually did such a thing, you might have had a point.
8. If everything is an outgrowth of a random process then on what basis do atheists talk about Good, Bad, Evil, Right, Wrong, Better, Best, Worse, Worst, Works, Doesn't Work etc.. Since all these words imply a universal value system which atheism has no basis for since in atheism there is only particulars and we know from logic you can never deduce universals from particulars?
Just because you say that the words listed above "imply" a "universal value system", doesn't make it so. Another bullshit red herring arguement that ethics and morals can come only from religious belief. We've seen the results of competing religions with vastly different ideas of good and evil" jihads, pogroms, inquisitions, and all sorts of unnecessary religious wars that have caused untold amounts of suffering and death -- all of it avoidable.
9) Why do atheists tell people that they "should", "ought", \"must", or "need to" do anything? since all these words imply a universal value system that the atheist does not have a philosophical basis for?
Red herring. People are always telling other people what to do, &c. Atheism means nothing more than the abscence of god-beliefs. It is not an ideology in its own right, therefore there is no should-ing, must-ing, &c.
10) Why do so many atheists insist that other people should be philosophically consistent while they go about making claims which are intrinsically inconsistent such as "There are no absolutes" (are you absolutely sure), "There is no right and wrong" (are you sure you are right)?
These are disingenuous word games that mimic logic. The answer "Are you absolutely sure?" to "There are no absolutes" is one of these. What does it mean, "absolute"? This means that that which is absolute applies for all time in all places regardless of whether there is an observer or not. If there is no observer, there can be no truth, or right and wrong as the truth value depends on the observation that what is proposed is consistent with reality. If there is no life, no observer, then nothing is right or wrong: everything just is. Would there be any right or wrong, truth or fallacy, in a universe that could not sustain life in any form?
Perhaps you have read all these questions, and don't have any good answers but want to remain an atheist. Fine at least don't be a hypocrite, don't tell anyone what they ought to do since you don't have a intellectual basis for oughtness, don't talk about anything being right, wrong, good, evil, bad, works or doesn't work etc.. since you have no intellectual basis for those concepts. If you keep using terminology that reflects a belief system which is philosophically inconsistent with your own then you are a living refutation of your own atheistic philosophy.
Perhaps after reading this you realize that you have been duped into believing a bunch of non-sense by idiots who on one hand are claiming to be geniuses and on the other hand professed that their thoughts were the outgrowth of a random process. Perhaps you see that there are tremendous philosophical problems with the atheist position. For years I have listened to atheists scoff at those who believed in God but I have never met one of them who could defend their position intellectually. Many atheists are morally predisposed to believing the "moral absolute" that "there are no moral absolutes" because that makes them feel better about all the wicked things they have done, are doing, or want to do. (You might say atheism is the opiate of the immoral and self righteous). After looking at these questions some atheists have realized that they were ideological hypocrites who claimed to reject other belief systems because they were "not logically consistent" but refused to reject their own belief system when it was shown to be thoroughly inconsistent with the assumptions they were compelled to make in their day to day lives.
More ad hominems, red herrings, straw dogs, and inversions of logic in the conclusion. "For years I have listened to atheists scoff at those who believed in God but I have never met one of them who could defend their position intellectually". Of course you haven't. The atheist is not obliged to prove a damn thing. Since you are the one here who's making a positive assertion that a god exists, the burden of proof is on you and you alone. If you fail to meet that burden of proof, I am not obliged to believe you. This is the central dillema that the apologist is constantly running from: he can't provide the slightest shread of evidence to back up his assertions.
Better luck next time.