Atheism is irrational

[Gilbert_Keith]

There are plenty of Christian denominations that state that faith alone is necessary in order to get into heaven. However, you appear to believe that only those who have the exact same beliefs as you do qualify as Christians. That is fine, but do not expect me to revise my definition of Christian just because you want to restrict it to exclude denominations you disagree with. As I have pointed out before, this is the no true Scotsman fallacy.

And as I have pointed out, Scriptures tell us that faith without works is dead. Jesus tells us that himself in Matthew 25. I don’t belong to many different faiths, so you cannot expect me to defend all those different faiths. Many of them teach partial truths, but if they believe works are not necessary, they directly contradict what Jesus tells us. That is their problem and yours too (since you are an atheist and also do not believe works are necessary to be a true Christian.

You have got to stop riding this hobby-horse about me versus the rest of Christendom. I’m not preaching Gilbert Keith. I’m following Jesus Christ with my remarks. If you want to knock somebody down, you really have to knock Jesus Christ down, which atheists like to do (in many cases even to the point of denying that he ever lived). Please answer Matthew 25, for example, which all Christians have to answer to since **all **versions of the Bible read essentially the same way. If you do not do works, you have rejected Jesus and defied him by pretending not to fear the consequences of your defiance. Hell is in the offing, a hell of our own making since we have been duly cautioned by our Lord himself to look not only after others, but after the fate of our own souls.

Again, the founder of Christianity has the right to say who is with him and whose faith is merely a whited sepulchre. He said so on many occasions.

No true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.

Read all of Matthew 25. I don’t think you have. Christ came to save. Nobody who calls himself a Christian can be saved if he defies the necessity of Christ’s call for works in Matthew 25. Therefore anyone who calls himself a Christian while defying Christ’s call for works is delusional.

Faith without works is dead. Read your Bible. *James 2:17-18 *

And yes, we are talking about Ben Franklin, because this thread is about whether atheism is rational. It is not rational for the reason that Franklin pointed out.

“If the world is so bad with religion, what would it be like without religion?”

If you don’t think the world would be bad without religion, go into any prison and find out how many of the men there even pretended to be Christian at the time they were arrested.

For the record, you keep mentioning that I did not answer earlier posts of Mirdath in which he cited “Christians” who had behaved poorly. I don’t doubt it. But do you want to start up again with HItler, Stalin, and Mao, atheists who behaved far more poorly than any “Christians” I can think of?

“If the world is so bad with religion, what would it be like without religion?” Benjamin Franklin

If you really want to know, read some history of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, who did everything they could to destroy religion of every kind.

And yes, I’ll keep bringing up the Terrible Trio of atheists as long as atheists keep bringing up the terrible deeds of so-called “Christians.”

Get used to it. The apologetics sword cuts both ways, but much deeper into atheism than into Christ.

 

[Hastrman]

Using an impossible alternative is not a satisfactory starting point as we are dealing with what actually is present and not what it could have been. It is, it exists and to use arguments that say it could be other is not really proving anything.

You didn’t understand me (of course–I don’t know why I even bother to talk philosophy with atheists).

What I meant, as every writer who’s ever made the point has always meant, is, the universe’s current configuration is not inherently necessary. That’s all I was arguing. I wasn’t arguing anything else from that, for instance saying the universe was actually different or some foolishness. But no, enjoy your argument with the words you put in my mouth. I think I’ll go argue with your advocacy of genocide (which you never said, either, but it’s the same method.)

The universe doesn’t have to be the way it is. This is just the one possibility that happens to have been actualized. It is not necessary that it be the way it is; other ways are conceivable. Have you read Stephen Hawking?

Of course, to refute my argument, you have to be competent to assess it. Which means philosophically literate. Which you’re not. Atheism is really not a worldview for grownups.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Suat

By the way, can anyone call himslef an atheist if he prays daily to Christ?

So how can one call himself a Christian if he behaves without works … as if the commands of Christ were meaningless to him?

 

[Hastrman]

Why? I know you are trying to create a philosophical argument following from a basic premise, but I think you have stepped off on the wrong foot. Using an impossible alternative is not a satisfactory starting point as we are dealing with what actually is present and not what it could have been.

I’m sorry, I thought I was writing for a grownup.

When I said, “The universe could be other than it is,” what I meant was “It doesn’t have to be the way it is–its current condition is not necessary.” Or in other words, it is a secondary and therefore a contingent thing, because its being different or even nonexistent is not a contradiction in terms.

That’s not using an impossible alternative. But thanks for putting words in my mouth, and then attacking your own hallucination of my point as a strawman. Your intellectual rigor is a model to us all.

 

[Aleii]

Gilbert,
Whether or not you agree with the ideas of different denominations of Christianity isn’t really relevant when you talk about what a Christian is, as that is just a definition. There are many people with varying beliefs who, by definition, fall under the category of “Christian”, and some of these people include those who consider salvation to be through faith alone. There are many other threads debating the scriptures and faith vs faith + works if you would like to debate that there. Call those who don’t follow a religion to the “T” ‘misguided’ if you want, but they are not atheists by definition. According to its definition, if someone professes a belief in God, they are not an atheist.

 

[Atreyu]

Suat, if I were to go to Scotland on holiday and call myself a Scot, would you believe me? Would the Scots believe me? Of course not. Now if I moved to Scotland and after a few years became a citizen, then I could call myself a Scot.

The reason I mention this is because you’re making it impossible for us to define any Scots (Christians). Whenever we make a definition of what it means to be a Christian, you can simply counter with the No True Scotsman fallacy. This is because there are thousands of crazy Christians out there who will believe in anything. There are even “Christian Atheists” as ribozyme has pointed out.

Now you have tried to use the argument that Christians would not need to pray - nor to do good works at all - to be a Christian, correct? Now (remembering that 75% of all statistics are made up on the spot) what if I told you that, out of all those who have called themselves Christians throughout history, more than 95% of those Christians have believed that you need to pray and to do good works to be Christian? Would you then accept the testimony of the vast majority of Christians? Or would you think that the tiny minority have figured out what everyone else has missed? Have you seen them explain the passage of James?

Now just a note about the figure I have used, I actually think it is probably even higher than 95%. This is because, not only do all of the Catholics and Orthodox believe that you need to pray and to do good works, but also the vast majority of Protestants believe the same thing. They may say sola fide as much as they like. But when pressed, they will concede that a Christian must pray and must do good works, otherwise they are not really a Christian (their faith is dead). The only real area of disagreement comes in when Catholics (+ Orthodox) say that your works justify you, whereas Protestants say that works come after you are “saved”.

Those who truly believe in “faith only” are called Antinomianists. So how many Antinomianists have there been throughout all of history? I would think that 5% of all Christians is probably a very generous estimate.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Aleii

There are many people with varying beliefs who, by definition, fall under the category of “Christian”, and some of these people include those who consider salvation to be through faith alone.

I’m sure they call themselves Christians. But it would be as if a person who is an atheist prayed daily to Christ. What would be the point of doing the opposite of what you say you believe?

It simply doesn’t make sense to call yourself a Christian and then defy the teachings of Christ … central to which is the performance of** works**, without which faith is dead.

Read Matthew 25. Note how often Jesus lays into the Pharisees because the say they have faith but do nothing to prove it.

A person can call himself a philosopher … that doesn’t mean he loves or owns wisdom. It can well mean that he is deluded into thinking he loves wisdom.

 

[Montalban]

Yes, but if I am not mistaken, those who believe in faith alone look to Peter and Paul’s works for scriptural support:

Rom 10:13
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Acts 2:21
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved…

Who is correct? I do not know, nor do I really care. I suspect neither. However, other Christian denomination read the same book and come to a different conclusion as to the need for faith vs works. Therefore, I do not think that you can define Christians based upon both faith and works. The majority of Christians are upstanding citizens and very moral. But that does not mean they are all. The same applies to every religious or non-religious group, including atheists.

The way to reconcile these passages is to know that it is implied “Whoever calls on Jesus (correctly) is saved”, else even a pagan just swearing “Jesus!” is evoking a prayer. Or, that the Dalai Lama, for simply believing that Jesus was a great sage, is a Christian.

Augustine said that the devils acknowledge Jesus is God. “For “the devils also believe and tremble,” as the Scripture tells us.”
Augustine - Homily X quoted at ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-06/npnf1-06-43.htm#P4186_1789723

And although Satan knows God, he hates God. He doesn’t believe in God, in the *right *way.

 

[Mirdath]

Ultimately, if there is no God (or a super-natural force), then all there is is the material. If there’s only this then you can’t have ‘free will’ in any absolute sense because your ‘free will’ is governed by the material.

Consciousness is in its own way ‘not natural/supernatural’; I know of nothing other than human beings who are self-aware and sentient. Maybe in a while chimpanzees will become ‘human’; I doubt I’ll be around for that, but seeing it would be pretty neat

Atheism and strict materialism don’t always go hand in hand. An atheist may believe in some supernatural phenomena – just not a deity or deities.
Gilbert Keith:

Oh, I see, atheists make better lovers!

You better believe it

So that must be why we have all these atheist hospitals tending to the sick and atheist food-drives for the hungry and atheist shelters for the homeless and atheist donations for the poor and atheist prison ministries.

There’s no global organization of atheists to set up such large-scale efforts. Many atheists work or participate in religion-run food drives, shelters, and charities fighting poverty.

 

[Hastrman]

Consciousness is in its own way ‘not natural/supernatural’; I know of nothing other than human beings who are self-aware and sentient. Maybe in a while chimpanzees will become ‘human’; I doubt I’ll be around for that, but seeing it would be pretty neat

Sapient, not sentient (sentient means has senses, not self-awareness). Just a little quibble, but chickens are sentient. They’re not sapient.

Atheism and strict materialism don’t always go hand in hand. An atheist may believe in some supernatural phenomena – just not a deity or deities.

By that logic, Shinto is atheist–no supreme being, and kami doesn’t exactly mean “god.” What you’re talking about isn’t atheism as such, but non-worship. Are you sure you’re not a Buddhist? “Gods are powerless to save anyone,” kind of a thing?

There’s no global organization of atheists to set up such large-scale efforts. Many atheists work or participate in religion-run food drives, shelters, and charities fighting poverty.

Well, unless you count the various communist conspiracies in the world–they’re atheists with an economic theory and a political ideology.

 

[Mirdath]

Sapient, not sentient (sentient means has senses, not self-awareness). Just a little quibble, but chickens are sentient. They’re not sapient.

Oops

By that logic, Shinto is atheist–no supreme being, and kami doesn’t exactly mean “god.” What you’re talking about isn’t atheism as such, but non-worship. Are you sure you’re not a Buddhist? “Gods are powerless to save anyone,” kind of a thing?

Actually, I’m agnostic, I just have a hard time resisting the temptation to play devil’s advocate in atheist threads here. There are vanishingly few threads about agnosticism

Well, unless you count the various communist conspiracies in the world–they’re atheists with an economic theory and a political ideology.

Economics and politics are their primary concerns, however. State-enforced atheism is only a consequence – such governments take the ‘no man may serve two masters’ line and run with it.

 

[rivertim]

I’m sorry, I thought I was writing for a grownup.

When I said, “The universe could be other than it is,” what I meant was “It doesn’t have to be the way it is–its current condition is not necessary.” Or in other words, it is a secondary and therefore a contingent thing, because its being different or even nonexistent is not a contradiction in terms.

That’s not using an impossible alternative. But thanks for putting words in my mouth, and then attacking your own hallucination of my point as a strawman. Your intellectual rigor is a model to us all.

Thanks for the harsh reply.
As your whole argument seemed to be based on the first premise, I thought it required some teasing out to see where you were coming from - that’s why I started with “Why?” !

When you say “it is a secondary and therefore a contingent thing” are you saying the universe is a contingent thing or its current condition?

What I was trying to say was why not use the universe as it is as your premise rather than possibilities of its condition or existence? You could say that humans could be other than they are but using that argument with the universe as a whole seems a little pointless.

 

[Montalban]

Mirdath:

Consciousness is in its own way ‘not natural/supernatural’; I know of nothing other than human beings who are self-aware and sentient. Maybe in a while chimpanzees will become ‘human’; I doubt I’ll be around for that, but seeing it would be pretty neat

A meterialist would say that the reason we’re aware is because our brains (a material structure) are more sophisticated. It could thus be (in theory) due to material means.

Mirdath:

Atheism and strict materialism don’t always go hand in hand. An atheist may believe in some supernatural phenomena – just not a deity or deities.

Such as?

 

[Mirdath]

A meterialist would say that the reason we’re aware is because our brains (a material structure) are more sophisticated. It could thus be (in theory) due to material means.

In theory, yes; we have yet to map out more than a tiny, tiny part of the brain though.

Such as?

Ghosts, for one.

 

[Montalban]

In theory, yes; we have yet to map out more than a tiny, tiny part of the brain though.

Indeed. It would be strange for a materialist to accept there’s non-material causes.

Ghosts, for one.

Ghosts? I’ve not heard of any atheist believing in something commonly associated with the after-life (a being trapped between this world and the next, as some like to believe).

Most atheists I know believe there’s nothing after death.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

Mirdath

There are vanishingly few threads about agnosticism

Why do you suppose that is so? Are agnostics uncertain about agnosticism too?

 

[Hastrman]

When you say “it is a secondary and therefore a contingent thing” are you saying the universe is a contingent thing or its current condition?

What I was trying to say was why not use the universe as it is as your premise rather than possibilities of its condition or existence? You could say that humans could be other than they are but using that argument with the universe as a whole seems a little pointless.

I am not using the possibilities as the premise, as you would know if you’d actually read my post (or at least if you could comprehend it).

I merely state that the way things did turn out is not the only way they could have, and the mere existence of other possibilities means the universe is not necessary. It is not a contradiction in terms for it not to exist, in other words. If its existence is not logically necessary (if it not existing would not be a contradiction in terms), it must be dependent for its existence on something that is logically necessary. That thing is the subsistent form of existence.

Those other possibilities, apart from their existence, are irrelevant to my argument–that there are other possibilities is what concerns me, not what those possibilities are or what makes them possible.

If you do not understand my argument now, I give up.

 

[Mirdath]

Most atheists I know believe there’s nothing after death.

Using ghosts as an example perhaps wasn’t the best one I could’ve come up with (it was late, and I’d had a very, very long day ). I’ve known atheists who believe in such things as ‘genius loci’ or spirits of places.
Gilbert Keith:

Why do you suppose that is so? Are agnostics uncertain about agnosticism too?

A few reasons. A lot of people lump all non-theists in with the atheists (and often assume that people like Richard Dawkins or Madalyn Murray O’Hair are representative of the whole lot of us).

Another is that it’s pretty hard to argue against the position of we don’t know, and it’s impossible to logically prove it one way or the other’.

A third is that agnostics generally aren’t very outspoken (how does one manage to get all fired up about ‘mh, no idea’?) and don’t exactly try to evangelize.

 

[Hastrman]

A few reasons. A lot of people lump all non-theists in with the atheists (and often assume that people like Richard Dawkins or Madalyn Murray O’Hair are representative of the whole lot of us).

Yeah, I’d get annoyed being lumped in with Dawkins, too. He’s the world’s smuggest really, really dumb guy.

 

[Suat]

Now you have tried to use the argument that Christians would not need to pray - nor to do good works at all - to be a Christian, correct?

No, I never claimed this. What I take issue with is the assumption that works alone can be used as a means judging whether or not a person is Christian. We know that Christians sin. According to Catholic belief, some of those sins are immoral enough to jeopardize a person’s position in heaven.

In my opinion, that points to the fact that Christians are human, like everyone else, and do not think about the effect that each and every action will have on their immortal soul prior to undertaking said action. Chances are that most sins are committed on impulse and sorrow is only felt after reflection. Why should we arbitrarily say that sins that land a person in jail show that the person is less likely to be Christian than the ones that cause them to go to confession? Perhaps I am misunderstanding Gilbert, however, he seems to be everyone who is not deeply religious into the non-religious category if they have been jailed, yet may not have bothered to do the same for the non-incarcerated population.

Perhaps what I should have done in the beginning was have Gilbert define Christian and then determine what percentage of both populations was Christian. I neglected to do this because even that is a too specific case; Gilbert is trying to show that people who are religious are less like to be jailed than those who are non-religious. However, they only way he can back that up right now is to use the strictest definition of religious, deeply religious Christians. How many people in whichever country he lives in fit that profile? And what percent of the prison population do they make up? He might know the answer to the first, but does not appear know the answer to the second. Stating that the non-religious make up the majority of the prison population is useless unless we can come to a conclusion as to what qualifies as non-religious.

Once he has defined Christian morals and the definition of Christian, then we could do the same for a common moral philosophy embraced by atheists. If you are opposed to grouping every Christian together, then I think that it is also unfair to group every non-religious person into the same group. They should be grouped according to what moral philosophy they hold, not according to their belief in God. That would allow us to take the people with the deepest held beliefs and compare their percentage in and out of prison. The same thing can be done with every belief system in between, from moderate Christians to Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and all the different flavors of religious or non-religious morals. I would bet that anyone with a deeply held moral philosophy is equally likely to end up in jail, regardless of whether or not they are Christian or religious.

That is why I am calling out the no true Scotsman fallacy. Gilbert is attempting to group all non-religious people together without any regard to their moral philosophy while at the same time using a strict definition of religious and/or Christian in order to show Christian superiority in terms of moral beliefs. This is not a valid comparison and quite dishonest.

Unfortunately, Gilbert seems only capable of quoting Ben Franklin ad nauseam.