How to argue against a particular delusion.
Hello everyone,
A friend of mine is a pretty die-hard Christian (shock horror, both of his parents are missionaries/vicars) and he often posts little sayings of some kind or another on Facebook, which I usually ignore. However, today he posted something that really irritated me for some reason:
"The more I look at science, the more in awe of God I become."
And just to make that worse, one of his Christian friends commented "Boom" as if he had made some kind of infallible argument. Somehow, I feel as though nothing I say will make any difference because they must be incredibly deluded already to believe that God just "invented" science. Basically, this is the guy who thinks he's a "modern and intelligent" Christian by saying that things like Noah's Ark are "just stories and aren't meant to be taken seriously by Christians". But if that is true, then why take ANY of the Bible seriously and where does he draw the line between stories and (what he believes is) the truth?
In the past I asked him and his friend where the evidence was. He claimed science (yes, seriously) helped prove Christianity and that Christianity was about "opening yourself" to it and believing, and then you "feel God" or whatever. How do you argue with someone like that??
What do you all say to religious people (not necessarily just Christians) who claim that science is just an invention of God? Is there a specific way to argue with someone who twists everything to awkwardly suit modern day thinking?
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Unseen on -
No God or angels? Please don't tell me there are no leprechauns, either! I so want that pot o' gold!
-
Permalink Reply by Karl Mugele on -
Would a child humourously dressed with a green hat and a ginger beard, and pot of gold paint do?
-
Permalink Reply by Karl Mugele on
-
@Richard Bohn
All gods can be disproven satisfactorily fir a law court. All gods are inherently impossible. Logic dictates that a negative cannot be proved...how would you prove absence? How could you prove missing DNA. In law we have the concept of innocence until guilt is proven to account for this disequilibrium. An unproven "god" may be considered innocent of creation until there is evidence to the contrary. Your incredulity and blind faith in what after all, is only one of 10s of thousands of gods understood to have somehow created man and the universe is evidence only for your wonder. Do you believe any others of those will equal vigour? What can be asserted with no evidence can equally be refuted with no evidence.
The only way to, in some way, prove a negative is to prove a mutually exclusive theory or find evidence that does not match your theory. Evolution is proven so disproves that any god directly created man and modern dating techniques disprove creationist timelines.
Your incredulityy at the wonder of variety and compexity of life and the universe is no evidence. Atheists experience this wonder without having to invoke an impossibility.
-
Permalink Reply by Karl Mugele on
-
Typing on a Galaxy does nit work on TA...grrrr...just lost a long post on the chicken and egg. Suffice it to say that this is a riddle that proves a lack of precision in natural language, not soeciation, which has been proven, e.g. domestic sheep cannot breed with wild sheep and laboratory bred flies have speciated. For larger animals it takes longer. Eggs existed long before avians, let alone chickens. Chicken eggs can only be laid by chickens but chickens can be born from eggs laid by a non-chicken.
-
Permalink Reply by kOrsan on -
Amusingly this thread is titled "How to argue against a particular delusion," and thanks to Richard, we have somewhat demonstrated the answer! You just rebuke, rebut and counter his fallacious "arguments" (or lack thereof), and then wait until he realizes his impotence within the intellectual realm and runs away cowering.
-
Permalink Reply by Richard Bohn on -
Touche'
-
Permalink Reply by James Cox on -
I think I had a math prof do the same thing with probability theory....
-
Permalink Reply by Unseen on
-
I wonder why he announced his exit instead of just disappearing POOF! in a cloud of smoke?
-
Permalink Reply by Gregg R Thomas on -
Ahem...(clears throat)
Alas, poor Yorick Richard! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a
thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it.Goodbye Fair Richard you will be missed, the brighness of my life diminished slightly by your passing this way never again, but fear not my friend some other christy foole will take your place and tickle my funny bone once more. :D
-
Permalink Reply by James Cox on
-
Dear Richard:
The deeper fates have received you, and off you go.
To serve in an abstract heaven, where strings of words are betrayed by silence?
We who lift the vail, can offer no tasty meal of certain truths, and can only show strings of symbols that do not include 'God' as a factor.
Is this the best of all possible universes, where 'God' is hardly more than a 'was once thought', footnote?
I wish you well.
In the vast web of 'data', will the appearence of 'God' reappear as that last decimal point? Will a vector resolve into a magnitude and direction, pointing to where 'God' must sit?
My hands seive not the deeper meanings at this moment, but if I sit quietly among the trees of deep time, will I perceive the great forest that surrounds the throne of 'God'?
What's new today
Events
Forum
Jesus died for our sins
Started by Simon Paynton in Religion and the Religious, Atheism and Atheists. Last reply by Misty: Baytheist Living! 8 minutes ago. 120 Replies 0 Likes
Blog Posts
Christian Man Claims Native American Statue On License Plate Violates His Freedom Of Religion, Sues Oklahoma
Posted by Rob Klaers on June 17, 2013 at 2:00am 6 Comments 3 Likes
Videos
Services we love
Check out our new mobile/tablet version of Think Atheist! www.ThinkAtheist.com/m
© 2013 Created by Morgan Matthew.
