I think this is a good debate starter. I for one expect Christians to make false claims. It's in their Dogma and they can not help it. Hit them with facts and we know they are going to fall back on "FAITH" and how we just do not understand.
What happens when you run across an atheist making ignorant claims. My favorites are, "I converted to Atheism." "I can prove God does not exist (without specifying which god)." And my new most recent favorite. "I can prove 100% that heaven does not exist. (Again, no specification on heaven one is referring to.) And then when you point out the fallacy of the claims, they just dig their heels in with assertions of faith and belief without facts or evidence?
I personally have higher expectations for anyone calling themselves an atheist and then making such false claims. I think it reflects poorly on atheism and lets face it. If they keep making absurd claims they are going to run into a slick Christian one day who is going to own them. That's never good.
So what are your thoughts? Any atheist is a good atheist or should we set higher standards for ourselves?
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I think both are equally open for ridicule. Anyone making a false claim should be ridiculed.
Weellll... Maybe not ridiculed, but asked to provide proof. Then if all they can do is present falsehoods and innuendos, then let ridicule begin.
In other words, give them a chance to provide proof, then let them have it.
rmfr
I guess I treat them the same,, but for some reason I am irked when professed atheists begin babbling nonsense that is easily debunked.
Cognostic @ I am irked when professed atheists begin babbling nonsense that is easily debunked @
I am fully on board with you. A big problem as I see it, is if atheists babble nonsense, or put up silly arguments that can easily be refuted, or perhaps even lie, obfuscate and so on, then the religious, it seems to me, are liable to bundle us all together as poor-thinking, and to become more assured that they have things right, and we atheists are clueless and WRONG.
I hope for all atheists to be well informed when they communicate, use sound logic, based on good evidence, and to aim for clarity of meaning and sincerity in their positions, and their statements about those positions.
Let us not, as adult people, metaphorically sh*t in our own beds, and then be surprised if "nanna" doesn't like it. :-}
Mutorc S'yriah
Most people, whether atheist or Christian or whatever, give you their opinion, and then when you disagree think that you are anti-fact because you are disagreeing with facts when i reality, you are disagreeing with their opinion. It's kinda annoying.
My opinion is that atheists are just as irrational and anti-fact as everyone else. After all, I remember how popular those Zeitgeist movies were about 10 years ago.
The difference between fact and opinion is that opinions are subject to one's perception and may vary from individual to individual; where as fact is independent of human perception and will remain the same regardless of what one's opinion is about it. You may reject facts, but that doesn't change them.
@ the OP
What he said ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Problem is there is nothing to defend as an atheist, debates would be pretty short tho if atheists just stated the fact that they don't hold a belief in X.
Everyone rejects fact they don't like. Even researchers who investigate this kind of thing admit they can't even see their own biases. There are two types of people in this world: 1) Those who sit up on their high horse totally ignorant of their own distortions of reality, and 2) those humble enough to admit that they too have a biased view of the world.
It's correlated to your need to survive. People have different biases and "truths" based on their level of security to survive.
It's no surprise that the most prosperous nations generate the endless multitude of biases and new ways to discriminate we see coming from the left with the various and exponentially growing branches of identity politics.
I find woeful argument and irrational claims, and most of all beliefs based on pure assumption as irksome in someone who happens not to believe in a deity or deities as I do in those who do believe in them. If I am ever guilty of such fallacious reasoning then I find it useful to have it demonstrated as such, so that I can avoid doing it again.
The problem is that religious apologetics by it's very nature is apt to rely on irrational and logically fallacious arguments. since they can't demonstrate any objective evidence for their beliefs that is perhaps to be expected. By comparison when debating against such arguments it is perhaps a little more surprising when atheists resort to fighting fire with fire as it were, since it isn't necessary. I don't find it any more annoying, and I usually try to understand why someone has made such an error, as I always do, in order to try my best to avoid making such errors in reasoning. We're none of us infallible after all, which is perhaps why I find the claim to know what an infallible deity wants, and thinks, quite annoying. Especially when they pretend they're being objective, since by definition personal experience cannot be objective, for this we need methods that control and test such experiences.
The best example of what I mean would be the fallacious selection bias using post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to claim intercessory prayer works. Then when we introduce objective methods to text it, and it failed not accept the objective results.
I think when discussing topics that are nothing to do with theism then some atheists are probably as capable of bias as anyone else. Though perhaps they'd have less reason to be so, since they are objecting to subjective bias and irrational argument from theists they should be able to spot when they are not applying rational standards to their own arguments.
In political arguments for instance most people have a preconceived idea of which direction they favour, left or right leaning. I am as guilty as the next man in that sense. Though I do try to remain as objective as that obvious bias allows.