OT 4 More Things Atheists Should Stop Saying

2) Nobody would argue that religions haven't done heinous things in the past. I wouldn't.

I don't belong to any organized religion. I'm religious. But --- my religious constitution is based on my Catholic upbringing. But combine that with my school and family education, I can decide what I believe independent of any organized religion.

Debating the value of religion is something I believe is important to do, because that is a starting point for the value of religion in general.

The only way to fight against specific bad acts or positions supported by any specific religion, is to first know what is good and bad about religion in general.

3) There are lots of reasons predominantly atheist countries have less social problems. The main reason is they are more socialist. That is a different discussion.

If you research religious doctrine, anti Semitism and child molestation are not supported by the Bible. Once again, you are confusing religion with what evil acts certain members and groups have committed.

2) I think it's worth asking yourself whether you'd consider yourself religious/Catholic without that upbringing. Probably my first step on my path to atheism was simply me asking myself whether I'd be religious if I hadn't been raised to believe in God. The next step was me educating myself in philosophy and epistemology and asking hard questions about how we can come to find truth, and whether or not there was good evidence to believe any religion. My answer was (and continues to be) "no, there isn't any good evidence to believe in any religions" or in god, in general. 

I don't mind debating the value of religion, but I think value is a more nebulous concept than truth. I'm primarily concerned with truth and the rationality we use to get there. As for value in religion, my biggest issue is whether or not that value is unique to religion so that we would lose that value without it. I honestly find it hard to find such values. Perhaps there are a handful of psychopaths that are better people only because they believe in a God that wants them to do good, but I think they're in the minority; and, as I've argued elsewhere, I think this is counterbalanced by those who use their religion to justify evil, so it's probably a wash. 

3) I'm not sure how it's a different discussion. The issue is if people need religion to learn morality then atheist countries should be more immoral and this should show up somehow in statistics related to violence and crime. The fact is it doesn't, so clearly such places aren't immoral hellholes due to a lack of religious belief. 

If you want to talk about evil things supported by The Bible that's not hard to find either; slavery being the obvious example. Exodus 21 is pretty repugnant: 20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property." 

2) Certainly one can have faith and still search for truth via science, but that's mostly because humans are good at compartmentalizing; but why should we compartmentalize? Why shouldn't faith be subject to the same efforts of empirical prediction/testing that other scientific hypotheses are? Like I said earlier, it's fine to formulate hypotheses to fill in the links between the known and unknown--in fact, science does this all the time--but to merely believe in those hypothesis without evidence is patently irrational because they're likely to be wrong. The entire reason science places so much important on prediction and empiricism is to prevent this error. 

Saying "nobody has proven God does or doesn't exist" ignores the more general question of why should we assume one exists to begin with. If you assume that about God, why not just assume it about any imagined beings? I do place huge importance on "how we get there" because without reliable methods we're going to be wrong most of the time. I'd even say that being rational is more important than being right on any given issue, if only because of the old "broken clock" aphorism. 

3) I don't know what makes you think that morality is a "proven benefit of religion." I don't devalue the efforts that religions have made to explain things or create codes of morality, but things have changed dramatically since most religions were written/invented. We know more now and society has changed enough where most religions' morality is no longer applicable beyond the most basic/universal things (like "don't murder/steal") that all cultures (religious or not) agree on. 

2) Errr, how do you figure? Compartmentalization is more of a defense mechanism to screen off certain beliefs we want to have from the kind of scrutiny we give to other beliefs we don't have emotional attachments to. This isn't sophisticated or a sign of intelligence, it's a sign of prioritizing emotions over truth. 

If something is intangible then how would ever know it exists and why is it rational to believe that it does? 

If you don't have a better theory then the best answer is "I don't know," not "I don't know, but I'll choose to believe this thing I made up but for which there is no evidence for." 

3) Right, they're so basic we didn't need religion to teach them, and I think most of the other commandments are BS. See George Carlin on the subject:

2) We're talking about different kinds of compartmentalization, and the kind that goes on mentally is very different from the kind that happens in science. 

Your thoughts and emotions aren't intangible: you experience them directly and they can be studied via neuroscience and manipulated with medicine. Others can't know what you're experiencing directly, but if I hooked your brain up to an imaging machine a capable neuroscientist would be able to reliably predict what emotions you were experiencing/expressing merely by seeing what parts of your brain lit up, because brain states are highly correlated with emotional states (almost certainly because emotions are merely our first-hand experience of such states). 

Also, saying "I don't know" is not a sign of stupidity but honesty. It's far more stupid to not know but believe answers you've made up but have no evidence for. 

3) Of course they had a reason to not do those things: to maintain a functioning society. The only motivation they need is the knowledge that if they do such things they'll be punished by other members of their society, and societies have always punished such behaviors. 

George Carlin was still right about the 10 Commandments. Many of them are BS and many could be consolidated into a more general command making most of them superfluous. 

2) I disagree. Mental compartmentaization is necessary to focus on different concepts that can be distracting from one another --- scientific proof and spiritual belief. Just like in science.

So, I can't believe you have thoughts and emotions unless I perform neurological tests? Don't be ridiculous.

And at the moment there are no scientific tests to prove, or disprove the existence of God.

Spiritual faith is a real thing. Just because you don't have any, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I understand you think it's stupid and illogical. But many people thought the same thing about the Earth being round, the Earth not being the center of the Universe, science being blasphemy, man ever flying or landing on the moon, etc. We all know what eventually happened to those opinions.

I never said "I don't know" was a sign of stupidity. I said "I don't know so I'll just be stupid" is a sign of stupidity. Or to further the concept "I don't know if "other planets" exist. So that is proof they don't. And anybody who believes otherwise is stupid, dumb and illogical".

Substitute "God" for "other planets" and you'll see what I mean.

3) Stupid, immature, and selfish people never do things for a functioning society. Smart people knew that would never work. But fear of God does.

I disagree with George Carlin.

"Fear of God is more effective with them."

Not only is there not data to show this, there's also data that contradicts this. Besides the afforementioned one about irrelgious nations having less crime, but also atheists make up a very small percentage of the prison population (it's overwhelmingly God believers). I think the idea of recipricotity ("I won't steal from someone because I wouldn't someone else stealing from me") is a much better way to instill morality rather than a magical sky being that has never been demonstrated to exist.

"2,000 years ago when the Bible was written, people were less educated. And less likely to realize the effects of immoral behavior on society.
"

I dunno what you mean by this, morality has changed considerably since then (slavery was acceptable, women were considered second class citizens, homosexuals were stoned to death, the concept of "rape" was almost nonexistant)

"It's to give believers a higher purpose than just making the most out of life on Earth. "

Don't you think this could lead to problems? If you buy into the  idea that life on Earth is just a "temporary realm" than that could lead to damaging effects on the planet and society? It's probably no coincidence so many religious people don't care about environmentalism, think COVID is either exagerrated or a hoax, and deny global warming.


" And to answer spiritual questions science can't. "

That's just God of the Gaps ("Science can't explain it, so let's just arbitrarily insert God/supernaturalism"). For a while people used to think the sun was God and mental disorders were caused by possesions.

1. Well yeah, people do this out of social cohesiveness, not because the morality is instilled us by religion. Again you can see this reciprocity in the animal kindgom (many animals tend to live in herds without generally attacking each other)

2.) Yes, but if you believe this is just a "temporary realm" then it's much easier to rationalize things like pollution and global warming denial ("Well even if global warming was true, it doesn't matter once the rapture happens!")


3) Well yeah, again that's just God of the Gaps, that kind of proves my point ("Science doesn't understand something, let's use mythological beings to and supernaturalism to explain it")