asktheatheist.rationalresponders.comAsk the Atheist

Home Submit Question WHAT IS AN ATHEIST User login Username: * Password: * Request new password Navigation News aggregator Atheists beliefs Atheists morals Syndicate Popular content All time: Do Atheists believe in ghosts or spirits? You think we came from monkeys? How was the earth created? What do you do in a crisis if you don't believe in God? Where do atheists get their morals from ? Prove there are no gods. Would the apostles have died for a lie? What is an atheist ? Best Evidence For and Against A Young Earth? Secular response to a sneeze. Did Jesus really exist? The Great Big Arguments #3: Cosmological a question of logic what about NDE's? An Atheist's Faith Josephus on Jesus How do you explain creation? About How does science explain the human conscience? Adaptation VS Evolution Was it Common for Hellenistic Jews to Write Fiction? Social Contract? How to handle biblethumpers at the door. Christ a Fake First cause Argument Holiday Shopping via Amazon Please make your purchases by clicking any of these links and starting your Amazon shopping experience there. Å TV GPS MP3s Books Movies Computers Office Items Car Accessories Amazon Wireles s Amazon Kindle Fire Video Game Deals Page Samsung Galaxy Products 4 for 3 Promotion in Kitchen Audio and Home Theater Deals Consumer Electronics Deals Page New Video Game Downloads Releases Amazon Home Kitchen and Lawn Gift Guide Instant Video Movies Best Sellers on Amazon Amazon Tools - Get Up to 50 Off our Favorite Gifts Amazon Special Offers in Grocery and Gourmet Store |||||| |||||| Please click these links before going to Amazon.com to make any purchases! The archive is alive! Mon, 2009-11-09 21:48 — SmartLX Welcome to the restored archive of the original Ask The Atheist. Represented here are over two years' worth of articles and discussions. This site is fully moderated as always, and no new content or comments will be approved here. It's an archive . The current site is at the old URL, http://asktheatheist.com . Please submit all new questions to [email protected] , and they will be answered there. Thanks, and enjoy. - SmartLX Help me, I've been defeated by superior logic Tue, 2009-07-14 00:47 — Prichard Hotpocket Question:: God is love -- Love is blind -- Ray Charles is blind -- Therefore Ray Charles is God!!!!! Atheist Answer: Funny one-liner. At least it's mathematically correct if each noun (and the adjective "blind") serves as a variable. Ray Charles certainly qualifies in some musical circles as a god. The big problem is that this argument can be used to "prove" contratictory things, like that Ray Charles, Roy Orbison and Stevie Wonder are all God. "God is love" is used by Christians all along the spectrum, but for different reasons. - Some fundamentalists and evangelists like Benny Hinn say God is love to establish that God is the only possible source of love, and therefore since love exists, He does too and we need Him. - Some ultra-liberal Christians and some theologians say God is love as opposed to a bearded man in the sky. It's one way of making the concept of a god so nebulous that it's almost impossible to argue against it. They put God in poorly understood "places", such as emotions or fundamental physical laws, where it's hard to separate Him from what's real and observable. It's a defense mechanism. - Pretty much everyone who says it is looking to give people the religious ecstasy that often comes from surrendering completely to faith. The phrase is a part of the larger message, "Come to us. Unburden yourself of all your worries and critical thoughts. Relax, let us in and God will take care of you, because from Him all good things come." Once you obey that, for better or worse, you're in the power of whoever told it to you. "God is love" is a powerful phrase. Probably false in all respects, but powerful nonetheless. - SmartLX God is love Are you too easy on yourself? Mon, 2009-06-29 21:07 — SmartLX Question:: You've written some of the questions yourself. Are you throwing yourself softballs? Atheist Answer: I don't think so. I don't always feel like waiting for topics to come to me before I address them, but I can't address them properly if I haven't expressed them correctly in the first place. I do my best to avoid strawman versions of theist arguments, partly because many people like nothing better than to point these out. For questions where I take on arguments from elsewhere I try to quote them directly; I've quoted CARM, William Lane Craig, Ray Comfort and many others. When I have to paraphrase for length, I go as simple as I can to avoid muddying the issue. If people think I've excised something crucial, they're free to say so. I'll be making fewer of my own questions in future, but for a good reason. If I have a thought which is worth sharing but isn't worth making a whole Q&A, it will now be tweeted . My personal ATA Twitter is separate from Jake's Twitter shown on the right. Enjoy my new outlet. If you take issue with any of my tweets, bring it up back here and we'll talk about it. - SmartLX questions SmartLX Need help for Houston radio show Tue, 2009-06-23 18:30 — danvilleman Question:: I am going to be doing an Open Journal segment on KPFT radio and wanted some ideas and maybe a prominent local atheist to join me in the discussion on air. Does anyone have any ideas or contacts? Mark at [email protected] Thanks Atheist Answer: Not living anywhere near Houston I can't be of much help myself, but I'll do what I can starting with publishing this question. There, done. You might be able to connect with "prominent" atheists in your area by contacting local atheist groups. Failing that, those groups would all be glad of some publicity and could each supply very knowledgeable spokespeople. Check out the Houston Freethought Alliance , whose front page has links to all other such Houston groups I was able to find. If I were in your position, I'd do a piece on morality centred around the phrase, "You can be good without God." A lot of evangelists and other apologists argue that religion alone is holding society up with its moral guidelines, and that everything would collapse without it. This actually has no bearing on whether a god exists, but they use it anyway as an appeal to consequences. By outlining sensible secular systems of morals and ethics, you can help to dispel this idea. YouTube has a fair few recordings of Richard Dawkins holding forth on many American radio stations. Though many of the callers are attempting to attack evolution, given that it's him, these recordings will still give you some idea of what you'll get if you take callers. Good luck. Let us know what you do and how it goes. - SmartLX discussion topic prominent atheist public speaker First Cause Argument Fri, 2009-06-19 22:38 — Prichard Hotpocket Question:: Among the arguments for a god, the first cause argument stands out as one that seems to be more credible than any other arguments like the evolution denying argument for design. AKA "The eye was designed so people could see"...... Personally I would refute this by several routes. The first one would be that everything doesn't necessarily have a cause, like radioactive decay. Perhaps the acausal quantum fluctuations we see now had more of an effect in a singularity. The other argument I could propose would be that the universe is cyclic (big crunch, etc) but this doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps another similar idea would be that we are merely the offspring of a parent universe with wildly different variables that allows for a spontaneous increase in the amount of total energy/matter. Anyways, how do you deal with the first cause argument? Atheist Answer: Much the same way you do: by bringing up the other possibilities to beat the argument from ignorance. I go into a lot more detail in this earlier answer , and I've tackled it briefly in lots of others. The argument from design I've answered here for a start. - SmartLX The Jesus dvd and rationality...