How to Shut Up an Atheist if You Must

[$$$]

Kind of related to shutting up atheists, I just read this stupid editorial:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=194951

"the very belief being attacked was absolutely and abundantly true. More than this, the reason it was under attack in the first place was precisely because it was true."

So atheists are proof of his god's existence...

"God makes himself just sufficiently evident to allow us freedom. If He were easy to find, we'd all believe and thus have no real choice."

hahaha, I don't know what to say, hahahahahahahaha

"absence of God could be an invention -- by scared and threatened people who are too weak to follow His laws and are terrified of judgement."

"Be careful with the notion that knowledge means wisdom. 1930s Germany was one of the most educated and sophisticated cultures in human history."

I'm guessing he has no knowledge of 1930s Germany. I've never heard such a statement, ever.

"Thanks for the non-believers, the God-haters, the atheists and all of their kind. Yes, the greatest joke of all. "

Kind of sounds like he is the one afraid.

[softwareNerd]

... [religious belief] was under attack ... precisely because it was true.

Yes, religious folk sometimes use this attack. For instance, some will say: "I don't see Dawkins getting all worked up about the tooth fairy and writing a book to show that the tooth fairy does not exist." Someone like Dinesh D'Souza will ask: "if religion is untrue, why do you atheists get so worked up about it all?" I can understand a religious lay-person saying that; but, I cannot believe that an intellectual can make that argument without some type of evasion going on (since the answer to it is so obvious).

Some people make this argument as a form of psychologizing (a kind of argument ad hominem). Decades ago, a relation of mine -- mildly religious, and not very intellectual -- unhappy about some anti-God lyrics in some song I was listening to, commented that it must mean the singer was actually obsessed about God. She figured that only strong emotional denial or purposeful rebellion could motivate a person to be so critical of religion.

[Ehre]

1. When the prissy anti-Christs tell you the Bible stands in the way of science, inform them that the greatest scientific geniuses in history were devout Christians—and scientists from Newton to Einstein insisted that biblical religion provided the key ideas from which experimental science could develop.

"I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

--Albert Einstein

"My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."

--Albert Einstein

"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

--Albert Einstein

While Albert Einstein didn't consider himself an Atheist, he sure as HELL wasn't a devout Christian . The same goes for Isaac Newton, who's religious views seemed to be close to those of a deists (I'm not sure what he exactly considered himself), and far from/contradicting to those of a "devout Christians".

[Edited to correct a grammatical error]

Edited December 25, 2007 by Ehre

[Clawg]

To convince Christians to become atheists the best way is to 'defeat' them on their home turf, i.e. the Bible itself.

Mark Allegro was one of the team of researchers who translated the "Dead-Sea scrolls". He was the only agnostic in a team of Catholic priests and put out a theory that connected drug use and star worship with the biblical story. A very comprehensive documentary on his (and other people's research who did take interest in this subject) research was recently published by gnosticmedia:

http://www.gnosticmedia.com/

[iGod]

1. When the prissy anti-Christs tell you the Bible stands in the way of science, inform them that the greatest scientific geniuses in history were devout Christians—and scientists from Newton to Einstein insisted that biblical religion provided the key ideas from which experimental science could develop.

Ok... but prey tell thee how this statement offers evidence to the existence of god. Citing that a scientist has a mistaken notion in no way validates the notion. Why not cite the EVIDENCE that Newton or Einstein brought out of their laboratories to the existence of God... back to square one.

2. When the pissy God haters tell you the Bible condones slavery, you can remind them that slavery was abolished only when devout Christians, inspired by the Bible, launched a campaign in the early 1800s to abolish the slave trade.

Ok... so some Christians made the first step towards something rational: They broke the laws of the book they cite as their guide to life. Good.

3. When the screechin’ teachers tell you the Bible has been proven false by archaeology, hark back and show them that each year a new archaeological discovery substantiates the existence of people, places and events we once knew solely from biblical sources, including the discovery of the Moabite stone in 1868, which mentions numerous places in the Bible, and the discovery of an inscription in 1961 that proves the existence of the biblical figure Pontius Pilate, just to name a few.

No one ever said that there is no truth in the Bible, just that most of the relevant things are impossible! Why doesn't the author point to the burning bush, or pictures of the sea splitting?