Atheist Fallacies

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03-09-2009, 04:15 PM
Churchwork

Atheist Fallacies

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Originally Posted by DD2104

Well I guess I am what you would call Anti - Religious. I believe in looking at the facts and not in blind faith. I left the Church because of many reasons but the big 3 I guess would be, (1) All the inconsistencies in the bible (2) Intolerance (3) The lack of Evidence for the existence of God. I really want to understand what drives people to believe the things that are in the bible, and in the people that teach them.

Think about this for a moment. Your opening statement is 100% false on all accounts so your rejecting God is baseless and based on your own internal lies, lying to yourself with and lying to others with. You claim to look at the facts and not have blind faith, but you don't look at the facts and you do have blind faith.

Fallacy #1 - Left the Church
You can't leave the Church, nor can you go to Church, for the Church is the body of Christ universally and locally. Where 2 or 3 are gathered in His name there is the Church and the Bible teaches once-saved-always-saved, so you were never in the Church to begin with. How can you leave that which you were never in to begin with? That is illogical.

Fallacy #2 Inerrancy is Needed
Even if there were inconsistencies in the Bible, inerrancy is not why a person believes in God, but it is the proof of the uncreated Creator and the proof of the resurrection of Jesus. You can't find a naturalistic explanation for the resurrection of Jesus admitting He is God. Furthermore, you can't find any contradictions either, so just saying you can doesn't mean you can. Historians don't do what you are doing. They don't reject everything Tacitus and Josephus said because they had some quirks. They are just men, but we can know somethings.

Fallacy #3 Atheists are More Tolerant than Christians
Non-Christians, atheists, are no less intolerant than Christians. Was Jesus intolerant? Knowing that God has chosen a people from out of the world, it would stand to reason a Christian should not engage in the world like a lover of the world does. We must maintain a certain distance from evil. You can't show Christians are intolerant, but you can show Christians are the most tolerant people in the world, by having the most charities in the world for all types of people. Atheists are one of the most selfish groups in the world with the least number of charities.

Fallacy #4 - Evidence for Atheism
There are trillions of things in the universe with causes but nothing shown to be without a cause, so it would seem to me the lack of evidence is for something happening all by itself.

Fallacy #5 - Atheists Want to Understand
You want to understand is not genuine. What drives people to receive Christ is His proof of Himself, knowing we are all sinners which leads to death, and a perfect sacrifice is needed to atone for those sins otherwise, you shall die on your sins. The universe needing a cause agrees with an Intelligent Designer and Savior, but a universe without a cause does not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXFur...eature=channel - Top Atheist Fallacy on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTYe_...eature=channel - 5 Questions Every Atheist Should Ask Himself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB96K...e=channel_page - 4 Atheist Fallacies that Plague Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE9w7...e=channel_page - 3 More Atheist Fallacies that Bombard Youtube

"And he said unto him, Though shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment" (Matt. 22.37,38).
03-11-2009, 02:52 PM
DD2014

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Fallacy #2 Inerrancy is Needed
Even if there were inconsistencies in the Bible, inerrancy is not why a person believes in God, but it is the proof of the uncreated Creator and the proof of the resurrection of Jesus. You can't find a naturalistic explanation for the resurrection of Jesus admitting He is God. Furthermore, you can't find any contradictions either, so just saying you can doesn't mean you can. Historians don't do what you are doing. They don't reject everything Tacitus and Josephus said because they had some quirks. They are just men, but we can know somethings.

But if the "Word of God" is flawed in oneway or another then why would you belive it? If God is allknowing and can't be wrong but his "Word" is then why would anyone still belive that it is the truth? To me that is a huge reason to doubt the Bible's credibility, because if we can dissprove that one or two accounts in the Bible did not happen then your faith is baced on things that are false. (please don't flame)

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Fallacy #3 Atheists are More Tolerant than Christians
Non-Christians, atheists, are no less intolerant than Christians. Was Jesus intolerant? Knowing that God has chosen a people from out of the world, it would stand to reason a Christian should not engage in the world like a lover of the world does. We must maintain a certain distance from evil. You can't show Christians are intolerant, but you can show Christians are the most tolerant people in the world, by having the most charities in the world for all types of people. Atheists are one of the most selfish groups in the world with the least number of charities.

I guess that everyones experiences with intolerance differ. In my case a lot of people in the church that I was a part of were hypocritical in what they would preach about love, forgivness and being judgemental about people that they did not know or care to know. I guess I did the same when I assumed that many Christians are that way. But you cannot deny that it happens. And when it does it make Christians look very bad, regardless of what charities they have.

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Fallacy #4 - Evidence for Atheism
There are trillions of things in the universe with causes but nothing shown to be without a cause, so it would seem to me the lack of evidence is for something happening all by itself.

I don't really understand what you are trying to say. Please explain in more detail...

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Fallacy #5 - Atheists Want to Understand
You want to understand is not genuine. What drives people to receive Christ is His proof of Himself, knowing we are all sinners which leads to death, and a perfect sacrifice is needed to atone for those sins otherwise, you shall die on your sins. The universe needing a cause agrees with an Intelligent Designer and Savior, but a universe without a cause does not.

I don't think you really understand my desire to understand. I have always loved science and psychology, I want to know why and how things work. I want to know why God chose the Jews as his people if he loves us all the same. Why he would destroy almost everything (Genesis 7, Genesis 19:24) but now when we are more violent then ever and are capable of destroying the Earth, he does nothing. Why even in Christianity the different denominations don't agree with each other even though they all follow the Bible. Why Jesus is basically the same person as Horus the son of The Egyptian God Osiris (1250 bc) or Mithra (500 bc, Persian, Indian), and no Christian really thinks that they had any influance on the story of Jesus in the new testament. I belive if I can fine the answers to these questions then I will be able to understand Christianity better. So my desire is genuine.

And if you guys could help me out with some of this stuff that would be wonderful!
03-11-2009, 04:49 PM
Churchwork

Quote:

Originally Posted by DD2014

But if the "Word of God" is flawed in oneway or another then why would you belive it? If God is allknowing and can't be wrong but his "Word" is then why would anyone still belive that it is the truth? To me that is a huge reason to doubt the Bible's credibility, because if we can dissprove that one or two accounts in the Bible did not happen then your faith is baced on things that are false. (please don't flame)

Don't confuse the Word of God which is Jesus Christ (John 1.1) with whether the Bible is inerrant or not. All your perceptions regarding Jesus have some mistaken assumption in them. Eventually you ought to pick up on this fact and respond to the gospel.

If the Bible is not completely true that doesn't do damage to the Word of God. So we can talk about inerrancy later after we determine if there is ample proof for the resurrection, for it is the resurrection that Jesus said would be the ultimate proof of Him being God. Similarly, we don't throw out a whole text by the Roman scholar Tacitus, because he may have erred on one point or another. Daniel B. Wallace, PH.D. in The Case for the Real Jesus talked about this with Lee Strobel, saying on page 75, "You've basically turned the Bible into the fourth person of the Trintiy.... Jesus is called the Word, the Bible is called the Word, so I worship the Bible. That's scary."

Please don't flame in response to your misunderstanding.

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I guess that everyones experiences with intolerance differ. In my case a lot of people in the church that I was a part of were hypocritical in what they would preach about love, forgivness and being judgemental about people that they did not know or care to know. I guess I did the same when I assumed that many Christians are that way. But you cannot deny that it happens. And when it does it make Christians look very bad, regardless of what charities they have.

There are several possibilities to your vagueness. If we get into the details we can discover more. Either (1) they were false Christian so you misperceived their actual condition. (2) They were keeping themselves from evil that was in you and that irks you. (3) You are just jealous so you bear false witness. (4) Doublestandard in which you don't apply this standard to your own self or others you favor. (5) You don't take the log out that is in your eye while looking for slivers in the eyes of others. (6) You are being intolerant because even Christians can sin from time to time or be selfish, but that is no reason to reject Jesus, especially since though we are regenerated we are not yet perfectly sinless yet. (7) A combination of the above reasons.

I need more information to determine by the Holy Spirit what your problem is. But we shall know them by their fruit and charities are something to take into consideration if you are keeping tabs. The number of charities in your faith are a minuscule fraction compared to Christian charities. And few of us believe the atheism that is communism is something good. God dismantled the USSR and blessed United States as the greatest nation that ever was that had Christian tendencies until they have fallen into their predicament they are in now.

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I don't really understand what you are trying to say. Please explain in more detail...

There are trillions of things in the universe with causes but nothing shown to be without a cause, so it would seem to me the lack of evidence is for something happening all by itself. Do you know what a cause is and an effect? If you drop a ball is it because of gravity? Think of it like a lottery. We have trillions of things with causes in nature, but nothing proven to be without a cause, so the probability of you being right is like playing the worse lottery ever known to mankind. Surely you will lose and go to Hell because you reject the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

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I don't think you really understand my desire to understand. I have always loved science and psychology, I want to know why and how things work. I want to know why God chose the Jews as his people if he loves us all the same.

I know that God says that if you search Him out with all your heart and soul you shall surely find Him. A loving God can make this promise. But you haven't found Him yet, so this must mean your heart is dishonest towards Him, yourself and others.

Why did God chose the Hebrews? Because no nation was in slavery for 430 years. They had a heart to listen at that point when no other nation as a whole would. God had to chose a nation to usher in the Messiah. He picked the perfect place to, because underneath Israel is biggest reservoir of water in the world turning a desert into green fields. Israel is the largest exporter of fruit in the world on that tiny little land.

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Why he would destroy almost everything (Genesis 7, Genesis 19:24) but now when we are more violent then ever and are capable of destroying the Earth, he does nothing. Why even in Christianity the different denominations don't agree with each other even though they all follow the Bible.

It was a local flood. The reason why He did this was because these people were irredeemable. God knew they would go through the rest of their lives never repenting of their sins so it was better to save those that would carry on His name and not punish them with the corruptness of the many. God is a merciful and gracious God to those who love Him. Also, ironically, realize you are actually accusing atheism as well, because these things nonetheless happened. You ought to treat others as you would like to be treated and not have a doublestandard.

Violence has decreased not increased. There has been an exponential progression of conscience. You might easily misperceive this only because the population at the time of Jesus was only about 200 million, whereas today it is almost 7 billion and you have greater access to information. God said He would never flood with a flood like that again. Why? Because of the exponential progression of conscience.

Why assume all denominations follow the Bible or that even denominations are Biblical? The Bible says don't say "I of Cephas" or "I of Apollos" telling us denominations are unBiblical.

Have you noticed you are always wrong yet in your thinking? How many more times do you have to be wrong before you give your life to Christ? After awhile it gets absurd don't you think? You have not been right even once related to faith, either your faith or faith in Christ. A reasoned person would conclude, indeed he is wrong and the Christian is right.

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Why Jesus is basically the same person as Horus the son of The Egyptian God Osiris (1250 bc) or Mithra (500 bc, Persian, Indian), and no Christian really thinks that they had any influance on the story of Jesus in the new testament. I belive if I can fine the answers to these questions then I will be able to understand Christianity better. So my desire is genuine.

Jesus claimed to be the uncreated Creator and proved it by His resurrection, whereas this is no such things occurred in the case for Horus or Osiris or Mithra, so how is that the same? Since you have no evidence for this allegation, why just assume it? That is illogical.

How can your desire be genuine if you make up untruths because of your bias? Humility demands you don't make false claims; only claim that which is true as you gather additional information. Can you do this? Are you willing to be like that?
03-11-2009, 05:03 PM
Churchwork

Fallacy #6 Being Anti-Religious
You said you were anti-religious in your profile. Why?

Religion is true, but of course it depends on what you mean by religion. The Bible defines religion as helping unwed mothers and fatherless children and the like (helping people in need). Are you against this religion? Jesus was against the religion of the Pharisees even though they accepted final judgment and resurrection, but they rejected Christ as their Messiah.

If by religion you mean an excuse to reject what Jesus did for you, so you create some religion or effectively have a religion around atheism as your idol or shut your mind down to God and His will and carry on in the world as though He does not exist, then that should be rejected also as false-religion.

It would seem to me what you are against is what you deem to be religion of receiving as a helpless sinner what Jesus did for you on the cross to pay for your sins to give eternal life. But there is no other name by which one can be saved; so therefore, you will be going to Hell.

These are words to impact your conscience and mistaken thinking to show you how you pride yourself on falsehoods to reject the greatest love ever known.
03-12-2009, 04:14 AM
DD2014

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Originally Posted by Churchwork

Please don't flame in response to your misunderstanding.

Lol I'll try:p

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Originally Posted by Churchwork

Don't confuse the Word of God which is Jesus Christ (John 1.1) with whether the Bible is inerrant or not. All your perceptions regarding Jesus have some mistaken assumption in them. Eventually you ought to pick up on this fact and respond to the gospel.

When I asked my pastor "who wrote the bible?" he told me that it is Gods word that he gave to man so that we could find salvation. All I know is that many Christians take the Bible to be the Word of God. No questions. What I am asking is where do you draw the line between something that did not happen, and what you put your faith on?

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If the Bible is not completely true that doesn't do damage to the Word of God. So we can talk about inerrancy later after we determine if there is ample proof for the resurrection,

How so? You don't have proof of any resurrection biblical or not. God left us a book that has a bunch of things that did not happen in it. That does not give God the reputation of being "right". If the only text he left for us is not 100% true (no one denies this), then what is true and what is not??? Lets say 97% is true. What parts are true??? What about the other 3%??? Who says what is true? What is false and why? No one can really say, because no one was alive 2000-10000 years ago.

And usually, a sacred text is required to be true before you live you whole life by it. Because otherwise you would be following untruths (or lies)

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Think of it like a lottery. We have trillions of things with causes in nature, but nothing proven to be without a cause, so the probability of you being right is like playing the worse lottery ever known to mankind

I'm sorry but that is like saying "You'll never win the lotto 'cause my number is more lucky then yours" If you are playing the same lotto and the person that told you what number to pick (God) in the book that he left you (which happens to have things in it that didn't happen in real life) but you still pick the number because of the one thing that he said that is yet to be disproved?

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Why did God chose the Hebrews? Because no nation was in slavery for 430 years.

What about African slaves?, They were traded as slaves between 1300 and 1800 and yet no one comes to feed 5000 of them with some bread and a few fish.

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Israel is the largest exporter of fruit in the world on that tiny little land.

And California feeds 1/5 of the world. What is your point?

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It was a local flood. The reason why He did this was because these people were irredeemable. God knew they would go through the rest of their lives never repenting of their sins so it was better to save those that would carry on His name and not punish them with the corruptness of the many. God is a merciful and gracious God to those who love Him. Also, ironically, realize you are actually accusing atheism as well, because these things nonetheless happened. You ought to treat others as you would like to be treated and not have a doublestandard.

But you did not answer my question. Why would God say he did destroy everything he had made, if he did not? Is this not a lie? If I told you that I messed up the picture you made, but I did not, that is a lie. If God can lie to you, what has he lied to you about in the past? And how does that matter when it cames to the Bible?

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Violence has decreased not increased.

Are you kidding? When we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with 2 bombs we destroyed 2 citys (Just like sodom and gomorrah) in half of one second. Where in history have humans had the power to do that??? Nowhere. Because that power is given only to God, but now we have the power to destroy earth, something God has not done. And you say we are less violent.
03-12-2009, 03:52 PM
Churchwork

We should distinguish between Jesus the Word and the Bible. Jesus never claimed to be written letters. God gave the Bible as intended, and man can make a copying mistake certainly, but don't you think it makes more sense to discuss the ultimate proof of God which is His resurrection before discussing a million and one other matters? So far from what I can tell you can find no naturalistic explanation for the resurrection that fits the data.

I have no reason to believe something in the Bible didn't happen, nor do you.

You're missing the point about the lottery. It's called preponderance of evidence. As the days and years go by we find more causes and still no reason to think something happens all by itself. The trend is away from something happening all by itself in nature. The lottery is not you being told what number to pick but observing trillions of scenarios we know of that have causes verses your faith in which you have no evidence for. We often know the cause. There are trillions of things in nature with a cause and nothing to be shown without a cause, so the odds are against you more than a trillion to one.

You want to compare if a particular nation in Africa was enslaved longer than Israel was of over 430 years? Go ahead find your evidence. The burden is on you, since you brought it up. At the time of God choosing a nation to usher in the Messiah, nobody prior to Israel's inception was enslaved longer.

The point about Israel is it has become quite fruitful, has vast unused reservoirs of water, surrounded by desert. Jesus is not going to reign from a desert. The location agrees in religio-historical context. California does not have this obvious context.

God speaks to people according their known world. That is perfectly reasonable as the flood. It's not that hard to understand. You are just placing an unethical legalism like you are a bad lawyer trying to get off on a loophole. That shows your heart is not being genuine to the time and place.

As a percentage of the population, the bombings in Japan did not eat away into the total population as a whole as much as did wars in the past. You're not thinking right. Look at the numbers of the total population.
03-12-2009, 04:47 PM
DD2014

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Originally Posted by Churchwork

He showed Himself to you by proof of the resurrection which you admit you can't find a naturalistic explanation that fits the data.

What data? where is your "data" that suggests that Jesus was resurrected??? Because I would love to see it.

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He says if He were to pop up in front of you, you would still find an excuse. Besides He is a realistic God and doesn't perform childish parlor tricks for your selfish demands. Think He would have to do that for everyone, therefore, that is unrealistic.

Unrealistic how? Didn't you say he is God? He can do anything? Why not just talk to everyone at the same time? Christians always say God can do anything, but he does nothing. If he created the universe then why can't he do alittle astral projection? I don't think that is unresonable if he really loves us and made the universe as a place for us to live like you Christians are always preaching, where is the logic in that? If he put all this effort into us why not just say "I'm God, if you accept me then you can go to heaven"

And I don't think wanting to know if someone that you are expected follow unquestionally actually exists is unresonable or selfish. I honestly think that if you live your life by what this person says, you better know WITHOUT A DOUBT that this person is real.

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You actually never believed in God because the Bible teaches once-saved-always-saved. Do you see the logic in that statement? Christianity has no assumptions, whereas science has some assumptions I agree. Christians have evidence by the resurrection which you are not abiding in that physical evidence of the eyewitness accounts. So you are not abiding in your own historicity and science.

Well if I belived once-saved-always-saved in the past, then I did belive once. Now that I know that it is not true I no longer belive it. So I did belive in God once.

If the physical evidence you are talking about are 4 eyewitnes accounts that were writen down 30-100 years after they happened then those are not credible accounts. So what you are trying to say is that you do not assume that those untimely accounts are true? Because that is what you are doing (or being doubleminded). And if you must put your faith on something that is baced on an assumption then you cannot know for 100% sure that is is true.

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p.s. Use the spell checker, don't be lazy.

I actually have been, but I don't get alot of sleep so sometimes I won't notice if I screw up. But I'll try harder
03-13-2009, 12:05 AM
Churchwork

There are 8 things about the resurrection claim of Jesus accepted by most skeptical scholars and 3 main responses usually given. Only the third choice makes any sense.

C. S. Lewis said God gives you ample evidence of proof of His existence and just enough obscurity so that you can reject Him. But if He came and coerced everyone into salvation, then where is the free will in that? Think of it from God's perspective. He wants your genuine choice, not a forced belief upon you. With Lazarus and the Rich Man, the Rich Man told Abraham to go tell his brothers about the bad side of Hades he was in to prevent them from going where he is at in that terrible place. Abraham responded by saying, they won't believe him if they don't even believe the prophets that warned about this. Likewise, Jesus said how can you accept Him if you can't even accept the prophets before who told about His coming? Do you really think performing parlor tricks for everyone in just the way they want to convince them is a righteous thing or proper realistic way for God's kingdom of born-again believers? Of course not. It's not real, but just coerced. God can't do anything, for He can't go against His righteous nature and perform unethical tricks like a dog for you. He already condescended Himself when He died on the cross. What more do you want? God will not give into your demands, but you have a choice to give into His mercy and grace.

Since Jesus came, walked the earth, ministered for 3 years and resurrected, what better proof is there than this? So to reject the ultimate proof would be selfish on your part, because you still can't find a naturalistic explanation to explain away the resurrection which can fit the above data.

You never believed in once-saved-always-saved otherwise you would abide in it forever. What you believe is called non-OSAS, but that is not Biblical. You may have apparently believed OSAS, but at the end of the day it was still misreading the Bible as ultimately non-OSAS, and you have not entered into the the salvation given in God's Word as OSAS.

By reading the 8 reasons above, you will see that the creeds are not later developments, but right on top of the events of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. To assume that they are written decades later is just assumed on your part. There is no reason to think these writings could not have been jotted down as soon as the events happened.

The intense persecution of Christians made it difficult to transmit documents. Watch the movie, Paul the Apostle to get a sense of how difficult it was. It's a miracle we have as many documents as we have. Even so, nobody is more well documented in antiquity than Jesus, so lack of information is no valid excuse. The documents and early parchments we still have are closer to the events of Christ than are for any other historical figure, so you can't use the excuse they are late dated. Nor do you have evidence for any such late datings. Why assume?
03-13-2009, 01:08 AM
DD2014

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He wants your genuine choice, not a forced belief upon you. Do you really think performing parlor tricks for everyone in just the way they want to convince them is a righteous thing or proper realistic way for God's kingdom of born-again believers? Of course not. It's not real, but just coerced. God can't do anything, for He can't go against His righteous nature and perform unethical tricks like a dog for you.

Honestly what you said in this quote makes more sense then anything that has been said to me in the last year or two.

I am not going to try to find any fault in this because your reasoning is rock hard and without error.

In this point I surrender to your logic and I will be thinking about this for some time.

Thanks for being tolerant of me and my beliefs. And I thank you even more for all your posts and answers to my questions

Hopefully your friend,
Robert...