Article: Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining

by BurnTheShips 55 Replies latest jw friends

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  Narkissos
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  Narkissos
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  Narkissos

  Oops. 5 posts for nothing, can't even edit one. Make it 6. Sorry.
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  snowbird

  What atheists don't seem to realize is that even for believers, faith is never easy in this world of injustice, pain and delusion ...

  The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  Sylvia
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  beksbks

  The article's author reminds me of Ann Coulter. Other than a few authors pushing thier books, how is it that Atheists are whiners? In my experience the only time the subject comes up is when some Christian is trying to push thier point of view.

  Burn that theory of hardship making for more believers is priceless. So only when selfish concerns are in question is god necessary? And just how does that juxtapose with "faith is never easy in a world of injustice, pain" etc.?
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  Spook

  I think the heart of this article is here:

  The problem with atheists -- and what makes them such excruciating snoozes -- is that few of them are interested in making serious metaphysical or epistemological arguments against God's existence, or in taking on the serious arguments that theologians have made attempting to reconcile, say, God's omniscience with free will or God's goodness with human suffering.

  This is where the article ceases becoming an "op-ed" and makes a real claim.

  Problems:

  1. What would a metaphysical argument against the existance of god look like? What of those who have a naturalism defesne? A composit view? This author has skirted a DIRTH of contemporary academic philosophical literature. That the general public is neither interested nor capable of understanding this literature does not equate to its non-existance.

  2. An epistemological argument is a little skewed, too. The theists have in general been the ones advancing new epistemologies for the last 100 years or so - in order to maintain a philosophical justification for their positions. In my understanding of the literature, epistemological debates are at more of a standstill than just about anything else. You have a limited selection of non-falsifiable theories to choose when contrasted with the older over-turned logical empiricism and verification theory.

  3. That atheists don't take theists' arguments seriously is sometimes (in the case of well read atheists) the fault of the theist. I have yet to see a theological argument that can use the common meaning of words to even convey the terms of the debate. I consider these arguments hogwash, yet am open to a new one or a better one if it can be delivered. Now who's whining? That an argument doesn't deserve to be taken seriously may mean that it isn't a serious argument. I don't take most of the arguments re-posted on this board seriously, not as an out of hand dismissal, but because they have been shown to be without any merit decades ago and have been abandoned by the philosophical theists still working in the field.

  4. Most importantly to me, when one fully chases the philosophical rabbit hole, I have found that the God theistic philosophers are defending is one who almost nobody believes in. And is certainly one who almost nobody believed in throughout the past.

  I never liked the incindiary "atheists are the biggest believers" kind of arguments, or BTS drop that atheists don't exist. I don't have a metaphysics and am a strict, but very complicated naturalist.

  Both sides can be a bit babyish. The truth seems to me to be that both sides are competing for control and pretending like they are not. I have no pretenses here. I want my world view to be better represented in the world I live in, and I will fight to achieve that.

  There is so much more to comment on here - I don't like the shell game going on in the article in general. Sometimes "anger" is justified, sometimes it's just natural...etc, etc.

  I'll conclude on this: Being taken seriously is not a right, it's the natural result of being persuasive. Not all the means of persuasion are patient, rational or fair.

  This is a typically bad op-ed, by which I mean it performs many of the same problems it is criticising.