After posting my last blog I started thinking about common theist arguments and how most are quite easily dismissed by people who know and recognize them. This got me to thinking that I don’t think I’ve seen them compiled before. I’ll do my best to remedy that here. This isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive list, numpties are coming up with new silly arguments daily. I just want to list some of the most common that you will all run across and perhaps equip you with the tools to easily rebut them. This way you won’t walk away and think, “oh man, I shoulda said __” I’m going to include the claim, the long answer, and the snarky twitter answer. All snarky twitter comments are mine unless otherwise credited.
“The bible/Quran/Torah/Book of Mormon says ______”
-Quite simply put, these and other “holy” books are not evidence for the existence of any god. They are the claim. If I am to accept a holy book as evidence then you must accept comic books as evidence that Superman exists.
Snarky twitter answer: “The bible is evidence that paper is flammable, not that gods exist.”
“You can’t prove my god doesn’t exist!”
-You’re right, I can’t, any more than you can prove that leprechauns and dragons don’t exist. Atheism is simply not believing your god claim. It isn’t making a claim that no gods can or ever existed. It is just me saying I don’t believe you.
Snarky twitter answer: “You can’t prove I didn’t ride a pink unicorn to work this morning!”
“The universe/earth/humans were obviously intelligently designed.”
-If the universe or even the earth were intelligently designed for us, god’s favorite creature, then why is 99.999999999% of the universe uninhabitable? Why is 2-thirds of the earth uninhabitable? Our sun gives us cancer and kills us, that’s intelligent? We breathe and eat through the same hole thereby guaranteeing a percentage of us will die eating. There is absolutely no shred of evidence that our bodies, our world, or our universe were created by any gods; intelligent or otherwise.
Snarky twitter answer: “Obviously some are more intelligent than others.”
“There are first hand accounts of miracles”
-Anecdotal at best. Kind of funny how these miracles are almost never witnessed by multiple people, and can always be just as possible to naturally occur without any gods’ intervention.
Snarky twitter answer: This picture (no idea who made it originally, sorry):
Funny how miracles stopped when the camera was invented
“Without my god there would be no morality and people could just run around raping and killing!”
-Gods aren’t required for there to be morality. Dr Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion posits that morality and social norms are hard wired into us through evolution. To put it as simply as I can, hunter/gatherers that worked together, had empathy, and treated other hunter/gatherers “morally” lived longer and therefore reproduced more, thereby passing on the trait to live morally. Hunter/gatherers that “run around raping and killing” were punished by death or kicked out of the tribe, thereby reducing their chances to reproduce and pass on their anti-social genes. So, morality is a social construct that requires empathy and ability to follow rules of society, not any gods.
Snarky twitter answer: “I rape and murder all I want to every day. And that number is 0.” Penn Jillette
“Atheism is just a religion/requires more faith/worships Satan!”
-No, it isn’t. There’s no dogma, no required meetings, no prayers, no deities, no membership fees/tithes, no required reading, no required anything. Atheism is just not believing any gods exist. And no, we don’t believe that Satan exists either…
Snarky twitter answer: “Don’t you find it ironic that you attempt to insult atheism by calling it a religion?”
“If I’m right I go to heaven and you go to hell but I don’t lose anything either way!”
-Ah, yes, good old Pascal’s Wager. Despite how foolish it is, I see this one a lot. There are several problems with it. My biggest two: 1. If your god is truly all-knowing than how is it that you think your belief-just-case is going to fool him? Surely he would know the difference between hedging your bets and true belief. 2. Pascal’s Wager does not provide any evidence. It’s just a silly “what if” question designed to play on the fears of the followers.
Snarky twitter answer: “Your all knowing god can’t tell the difference between true belief and ‘just-in-case? What good is he?”
“If we are able to conceive of a god then a god must exist….”
-No, hell no, what kind of psuedo-logic cosmic fuckwankery is this?! In my experience this kind of fake logic is only used by people that are either super dumb or fake and trolling. Statements like this are usually best dealt with by utilizing the mock and block tactic. Mock their idiocy, then just block them because nothing good will come from talking to them. This person will make up or parrot any silly psycho babble in order to prolong an argument.
Snarky twitter response: “Did you steal that from @DeepakChopra? #ColonicConsciousness” @francosoup
Anything ever said by @Joe Cienkowski
-Joe is a gold mine of lies and stupidity. It’s really hard to tell if he actually believes the stupid shit he says or if he’s just a really good troll. Regardless, this homophobic, hateful man is a shit stain on the underwear of life. Feel free to just mock him and block him. He will just lie no matter what you say or what evidence you present. If you show evidence of evolution he’ll claim it’s a “jew or fag” agenda and tell you that you can’t trust books, they are liberal propaganda, only the bible can be trusted. He’s a horrible human being. RUN!
Snarky twitter answer: “hahaha! You do know that @JoeCienkowski is mentally ill, right? :)” @MrOzAtheist
Of course there are other arguments you’ll get from theists, but as I said, this is just a list of some of the most common that I encounter. If you have any else that you feel need highlighting or that you don’t know how to answer, feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to help you out. The main point being that there are almost no original theistic arguments. Once you know what one theist is going to say, you’ve got all of them pegged. No matter what religion, they all use the same tired, un-evidenced arguments. The only “original” arguments you’ll find are usually so far out in left field and devoid of merit that you can’t tell if they are serious, trolling, or quoting Joe Cienkowski, the divorced, felon, liar.
JasonAlbama 
Reblogged this on thebraveatheist.
Thanks! Happy SacrilegeSunday to you!
Atheism is indeed 100% faith-based. Here is the logical proof given in only one sentence:
Since atheism cannot be proven and since faith is the belief in that which cannot be proven, atheism is a faith-based belief.
“Since atheism cannot be proven”
You obviously don’t understand what it is to be atheist. Atheism is the default stance that makes no claim about the existence of any gods. It is simply saying “I don’t believe your claim.”
Matt Dillahunty explains it this way: If I flip a coin and hide the result from you but tell you the coin landed heads up and that you’ll just have to take my word for it, will you believe me? Probably not. But does that mean that you believe the coin must then be tails? Of course not. I simply have not provided enough evidence for you to believe my claims of heads or tails.
There is no faith involved. Your problem is with the dictionary not with me.
“If you don’t believe in God, you need to be able to show or explain why, and you need to provide sufficient evidence for what you believe.”
Wrong. That’s not how the burden of proof works. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Since no actual evidence has been shown I have no reason to believe that a magic deity of any denomination exists. Feel free to provide actual evidence to the Nobel committee though, and earn your prize!
First, I appreciate you putting yourself out there in an admittedly hostile section of the country, particularly Alabama. I’ve experienced many people that call themselves Christians try to interact with Atheists and Agnostics, only for it to devolve into name calling and character assassination because they’re not able to speak intelligently about their faith. At the particularly low level, it’ll come down to “Well, my momma was a Christian, my daddy was a Christian, so I’m a Christian and you’re going to hell!” That’s not Christianity, that’s inherited moral deism.
With that being said, I like what you said about morality. In a debate with the archbishop of Sydney, Richard Dawkins stated that living by Darwinian ethics wouldn’t be pleasant, demonstrating the inconsistency and contradictory nature of those who claim there is no God and we are the product of blind forces:
“I very much hope that we don’t revert to the idea of survival of the fittest in planning our politics and our values and our way of life. I have often said that I am a very passionate Darwinian when it comes to explaining why we exist. It’s undoubtedly the reason why we’re here and why all living things are here. But to live our lives in a Darwinian way, to make a society a Darwinian society, that would be a very unpleasant sort of society in which to live.”
Another noted atheist, Jean-Paul Sartre, connected the absence of God with the absence of real moral foundations:
“Existentialists. . .find it extremely distressing that God no longer exists, for along with his disappearance goes the possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. . .Nowhere is it written that good exists, that we must be honest or must not lie, since we are on a plane shared only by men. Dostoyevsky once wrote: ‘If God does not exist, everything is permissible.'”
While in prison, Dostoyevsky read the New Testament and discovered the difference between a dead religion and relationship with Christ: “It is the belief that there is nothing finer, profounder, more attractive, more reasonable, more courageous, and more perfect than Christ, and not only is there not, but I tell myself with jealous love that there cannot be.”
I read your fist blog on why you became an atheist. After reading it, I understand why you are one. If I encountered the type of people you encountered claiming to be Christians, I would’ve become an atheist as well. The churches and people you encountered early in your life set the tone and framework for what you thought was Christianity. But it wasn’t. It was legalism and a moral deism that states doing good works finds favor with God, that God is some kind of big guy with a lightning bolt waiting to strike you down for any little thing you do. If that’s Christianity, then no one on this planet measures up. We will be weighed and measured and be found wanting.
Its true that doing good works is one of the mainstays of Christianity, but the motivation of doing good works is that of love, not fear. The same type of motivation that I do good things for my wife; because I love her, not because I’m afraid of her.
The fact is, man is searching for things bigger than himself. The reason there are over 3000 gods to choose from is the realization that man is in search of a higher presence and meaning in life. If I try to find higher purpose and meaning in myself, if I think that the apex of human existence is me, then I will constantly be disappointed. No one has lied to me, let me down more, disappointed me more than myself. Frankly, I would make a horrible God. 🙂
I hope you read this with an open heart and mind. At the very least, I hope its a better read than the normal “numptys (numpties, numpti?)” you encounter on Twitter. Oh, and I hope you feel better soon! 🙂
It is demonstrably false that any particular god is required in order for there to be morality. Likewise it is false that any particular deity is required for a person to have a purpose. I disagree with you that the reason behind so many different gods is the search of a higher presence or meaning. The reason there have been so many religions, why we continue to get so many new ones, including thousands of denominations of Christianity alone, is control. All throughout history leaders have played on the fears of followers to control them.
I’m not sure what your point is about anyone being the “apex of human existence” I never claimed anything like that. I’m not aware of anyone who has.
And finally, while I appreciate the empathy, you’re in no position to tell me who is or isn’t a true Christian and you obviously don’t understand why I’m an atheist. I’m an atheist because there is no evidence causing me to believe that any deity exists. Even if I spotted you A god existing, you’ve still got no reason for me to believe that it would be Yahweh.