What are the strongest arguments for atheism?

[harvey1]

You know, come to think of it. I haven't seen any arguments that support the atheist claim that God doesn't exist. Why is that? So, let's turn the tables for a second, and ask, what are the strongest arguments in support of atheism?

Btw, don't bother answering if you either don't have an argument or don't feel that you are required to support your philosophical position.

[QED]

Hello DamarisE -- welcome to the DC&R forums I see you said earlier that your initial reaction was one of excitement on finding this topic. Sixty-pages is a lot of material to plough through to end up disappointed!

Strong atheism will always be constrained by the impossibility of being able to disprove the existence of something defined to be suitably invisible. Just how remote a God would theists feel comfortable with though? God, to be valuable to a theist must overlap with the world that can be experienced by anyone -- and here is where the strong position of "I believe your belief is false" may be upheld.

Someone should get around to summarizing reasons for believing various belief to be false and then you could check them off against your own beliefs.

[DamarisE]

I did not convert. I deconverted. I, like most {christians}, was born into christianity.

You cannot undo that which hasn't been yet done. I find the fact that you label yourself as a former Christian to be misleading, implying that in an earlier time you were a believer and now hold the position of an apostate. I think a better way to describe it would be 'former church-goer'

i was never 'born again' in Christ (whatever that means)

I may be wrong...but I think this was only meant to be sarcastic, either way:

I believe you are well aware of 'whatever that means' to Christians, the concept of being born again is clearly described in Scripture by Christ himself in John 3:1-20, during his conversation with Nicodemus.

Many years of meditation and self inquiry have lead me to the conclusion that the 'other' is in fact our own conscious self awareness. When we evolved enough in consciousness to be able to ask the question - "Who am I?" - gods were invented. This ability to ask the question is the loss of innocence that is the metaphor of the Fall in the Garden of Eden.

Your reasoning leads me to believe atheism is nothing more than a form of self-worship.

[Beto]

You cannot undo that which hasn't been yet done. I find the fact that you label yourself as a former Christian to be misleading, implying that in an earlier time you were a believer and now hold the position of an apostate. I think a better way to describe it would be 'former church-goer'.

Christians like to think one can ever stop being a Christian. They say "you were never a Christian in the first place". From that perspective, no one is ever a Christian. No one ever has all the knowledge concerning Christianity. To some, the knowledge they had wasn't enough to "convince" them. Is there a way you can explain to an atheist when someone stops being a "church-goer" and becomes a Christian? A "feeling" you get isn't a strong argument for Christianity.

Your reasoning leads me to believe atheism is nothing more than a form of self-worship.

Satanism is more along those lines, not atheism.

[DamarisE]

Christians like to think one can ever stop being a Christian. They say "you were never a Christian in the first place". From that perspective, no one is ever a Christian. No one ever has all the knowledge concerning Christianity. To some, the knowledge they had wasn't enough to "convince" them. Is there a way you can explain to an atheist when someone stops being a "church-goer" and becomes a Christian? A "feeling" you get isn't a strong argument for Christianity.

Bernee said he never converted to Christianity(not me). If he said "I thought God spoke to me and I believed and I accepted him as my savior and then I realized it was all in my head" then he could call himself a 'former Christian' and Christians could call him an apostate...but from what he said that was not the case.

A 'church-goer' goes to church for reasons other than their own belief in God. You stop being a 'church-goer' and become a Christian when you accept Jesus as your savior based on your own personal experience with God. But no one will believe in God through someone else's revelation, and that is not the argument I made for Christianity. In fact, I haven't made any.

Satanism is more along those lines, not atheism.

I cannot tell an atheist what they believe, they should know their own beliefs better than me. I can only share with them how I see it from the information they give me and I see it as a form of self-worship, they don't have to agree with me.

[DamarisE]

Hello DamarisE -- welcome to the DC&R forums

Hello!

Someone should get around to summarizing reasons for believing various belief to be false and then you could check them off against your own beliefs.

That would be interesting - But keep in mind that scholars, professors and writers such as C.S. Lewis, Dr. Frank Morrison, Dr. Simon Greenleaf, Josh McDowell, and General Lew Wallace all set out on a similar endeavor and became believers in the process.

[McCulloch]

Your reasoning leads me to believe atheism is nothing more than a form of self-worship.

This is interesting. From my perspective, theism is self-worship. There is no empirical evidence that God exists. The only knowledge of God, the only experience you can have of God, is subjective and internal. Yet you worship that subjective internal idea. Atheism, states that no matter how much we want there to be a supernatural being, without external validation of such a being, we cannot rationally hold that it exists. This is not self-worship, this is non-worship.

[Goat]

Christians like to think one can ever stop being a Christian. They say "you were never a Christian in the first place". From that perspective, no one is ever a Christian. No one ever has all the knowledge concerning Christianity. To some, the knowledge they had wasn't enough to "convince" them. Is there a way you can explain to an atheist when someone stops being a "church-goer" and becomes a Christian? A "feeling" you get isn't a strong argument for Christianity.

Bernee said he never converted to Christianity(not me). If he said "I thought God spoke to me and I believed and I accepted him as my savior and then I realized it was all in my head" then he could call himself a 'former Christian' and Christians could call him an apostate...but from what he said that was not the case.

No, but he did say he was brought UP in that religion. That seems to be a key point you wish to not acknowledge.

[DamarisE]

Christians like to think one can ever stop being a Christian. They say "you were never a Christian in the first place". From that perspective, no one is ever a Christian. No one ever has all the knowledge concerning Christianity. To some, the knowledge they had wasn't enough to "convince" them. Is there a way you can explain to an atheist when someone stops being a "church-goer" and becomes a Christian? A "feeling" you get isn't a strong argument for Christianity.

Bernee said he never converted to Christianity(not me). If he said "I thought God spoke to me and I believed and I accepted him as my savior and then I realized it was all in my head" then he could call himself a 'former Christian' and Christians could call him an apostate...but from what he said that was not the case.

No, but he did say he was brought UP in that religion. That seems to be a key point you wish to not acknowledge.[/quotte]

Actually, he said he was born into it. We can assume that he was brought up as a Christian, but I ask: How long can you be 'brought UP' into a religion? At what point/age do you decide what YOU want to believe? And when you reach that point, if you decide you don't believe...were you ever really a Christian? That answer would be subjective to one's own definition of what a Christian is.
My opinion is that you can't stop beliving in something you never believed in. So for me, the answer is no. I consider myself a Christian because I believe.

[QED]

Someone should get around to summarizing reasons for believing various belief to be false and then you could check them off against your own beliefs.

That would be interesting - But keep in mind that scholars, professors and writers such as C.S. Lewis, Dr. Frank Morrison, Dr. Simon Greenleaf, Josh McDowell, and General Lew Wallace all set out on a similar endeavor and became believers in the process.

Sure, and no doubt a few have gone the other way. I would like to point out that C.S.Lewis's argument about universal morality loses its clout in the light of Evolutionary Psychology and eyewitness testimony is technically hearsay and therefore Juridical apologetics operates in a very different way to regular Law Practice. Who is Dr. Frank Morrison BTW?

[Goat]

Someone should get around to summarizing reasons for believing various belief to be false and then you could check them off against your own beliefs.

That would be interesting - But keep in mind that scholars, professors and writers such as C.S. Lewis, Dr. Frank Morrison, Dr. Simon Greenleaf, Josh McDowell, and General Lew Wallace all set out on a similar endeavor and became believers in the process.

Sure, and no doubt a few have gone the other way. I would like to point out that C.S.Lewis's argument about universal morality loses its clout in the light of Evolutionary Psychology and eyewitness testimony is technically hearsay and therefore Juridical apologetics operates in a very different way to regular Law Practice. Who is Dr. Frank Morrison BTW?

The author of 'Who wrote the stone'. Although Many Christian apologists claim Dr Morrison was a British Lawyer, it actually was a pen name for Albert Henry Ross (1881-1950), who worked for an advertising firm in London. The book was written
in the 1930's.