Via Triabolgue
I have to admit, this is one of the more clever putdowns of atheists I've read. And yet, it fails miserably at understanding even basic atheists arguments.
Atheists often argue that they don't "deny" or "reject" gods, they simply don't believe in them, just like most Christians simply don't believe in Zeus or Vishnu or Amun-Ra, etc. It's an attempt to counter strawman arguments about atheism as well as communicating to theists that the burden of proof is on them to explain why people should believe in their god, rather than on atheists to make the case that every god concept is false.
It's not complicated. It's not difficult. Any reasonably intelligent person could understand these concepts.
Yet, theists (and more specifically, Christian apologists) either genuinely don't understand this or are simply being dishonest and are intentionally mischaracterizing the position in order to curry Amens from their flocks. (which of course would be tantamount to lying and prohibited by their Ten Commandments)
They do things like quibble about whether or not babies are atheists, sometimes even going so far as to consider inanimate objects as atheists in the vain attempt to construe a simple, straightforward statement of disbelief into some absurd (and therefore false) conclusion. They often times don't realize that their logic inevitably caves in on itself. One could also argue about whether or not one's chair is an undecided voter or a neutral party in some war, but all that does is reveal the intellectual confusion of the author - it never negates the meaning of terms like undecided voter or neutral party.
Instead of pwning atheism, it's self-pwnage. It's declaring to the world that you don't have a clue what you're talking about and encouraging people not to take you seriously.
Friday, March 27, 2009
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BH, even sterling atheists of the order of Julian Baggini make errors at this level. His "A Short introduction to atheism" starts off by defining atheism as "a belief that god/ gods do not exist" WRONG!!!! There is no belief involved at all. I for one, have no "belief" that there is no God, I simply have no idea what the frick that means! Give me a definition of the G word (what the word means to you) and I will tell you whether I believe in it or not... Atheism is deeply misunderstood and I hate that very much, because it is so easy and natural.
Baggini's book is free in PDF format and I recommend it for all:
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=101653394
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