
Graceful Athiest – What If I Grant You That? (2016) - logicprog
https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/what-if-i-grant-you-that/
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logicprog
I'm a Christian but this is a particularly well thought out and fair anti-
apologetic piece. I thought it would be interesting to see what HN thought of
it (as a long-time lurker :)

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microwavecamera
In fairness of disclosure I'm not a Christian or an Atheist but I think it's
ironic every Atheist's argument I've read so far uses the exact same dubious
logic, unscientific reasoning and cherry picking of facts that they criticize
Christians for.

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diehunde
argument for what?

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microwavecamera
Check out the article.

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diehunde
I did but you said every atheist, not the author. So what argument are you
talking about

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microwavecamera
I did not say every Atheist. I said every Atheist's arguments I've read so far
which, so far, fall victim to the same logical fallacies they argue against.
I'll try cover some of the broader points I keep seeing repeated without
writing a book here.

1\. Assuming all Christians believe the same thing.

I'm Irish-American, my father's side of the family are Catholic and my mother
side are Protestant. I can tell you from first hand experience "Christians"
don't agree on crap when it comes to Christianity. And the author leaves a
telling clue to this towards the end when they mention most of their
experience is with Evangelicalism. The Evangelicals are a small minority among
Christians worldwide, and most mainstream Christians think Evangelicalism is
way out in left field. The author makes no effort to address this issue but
instead builds their arguments off assumptive axioms without explanation or
clarification.

2\. Christians aren't the only people who believe in the Biblical "god"

The author again homes in on specific cherry picked tenants of Christianity,
specifically the question of the divinity of Jesus, as an argument against the
existence of God. Jews and Muslims don't share that belief. Hell, not even all
Christians agree on this point. In fact, the first schism of early Christian
church was over the question of the divinity of Jesus. Why is this never
addressed?

3\. Skepticism = Science

This is another common fallacy I keep coming across. Skepticism itself is
inherently unscientific and attempting to contort science to fit an opinion is
equally unscientific.

4\. Science is an opposing view to belief in "God"

The author attempts to make this same core argument I see used repeatedly.
That belief in "God" comes from ignorance of science and rejection of rational
thought therefor believing in "God" is unscientific and irrational. This
argument is just illogical. If this were true, we should be able to deduce
that most scientist are also Atheists but we know that's simply not true. Even
Einstein believed in God. One doesn't negate the other. Again this is never
addressed.

.....

You'll have to excuse me if that was disjointed and doesn't cover everything.
That's off the top of my head, I wasn't expecting to get into this today. And
look, as I mentioned before, I'm not a Christian or an Atheist and if you're
an Atheist, that's fine. I'm not criticizing you for what you think or
believe, but as an outside observer, I don't see much difference in the
arguments the author makes and the particular "Christians" they single out to
refute.

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diehunde
That's fine. But you know, Einstein didn't believe in god. That is a lie
spread out by Christians probably to refute the same point you're trying to
make. Also most of the modern scientists (the ones that know or knew about big
bang, evolution, etc) also don't believe in god. I bet they don't even call
themselves atheists. Today we are reaching a post-theistic stage in which
people don't want to waste their time thinking in religion or stuff like that.
I personally hate the "atheist" title. Is ridiculous, just like it would be
ridiculous to have a name for someone who doesn't believe in ghosts or
goblins.

Finally, any serious person that knows about science and philosophy of science
knows that religion and science have nothing to do with each other. You can
perfectly be both. What you can't do, is call yourself a person of science,
and don't accept scientific evidence for something that was scientifically
measured.

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microwavecamera
> Einstein didn't believe in god.

"I am not an atheist" \- Albert Einstein

> Also most of the modern scientists (the ones that know or knew about big
> bang, evolution, etc) also don't believe in god.

Who? Research it, their views pretty much run the gamut like anyone else's.
For example:

"Although I am now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own
field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious
thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind,
a part we shall have to give up from now on. Thus in the course of my life I
have repeatedly been compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two
regions of thought, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to
which they point."

\- Werner Heisenberg

Pascual Jordan was Christian, Enrico Fermi was Agnostic, Max Born was a Jewish
Lutheran but was just completely apathetic to organized religion while Niels
Bohr, Richard Feynman and John Bell were self avowed Atheists. Schrödinger
called himself an Atheist but had a strong affinity for Eastern spiritually
and Oppenheimer was into Hinduism. And if you want to get into some _really_
weird stuff, look up Jack Parsons, founder of JPL at NASA.

Scientists are just people like the rest of us and grapple with the same
questions in life all of us do.

