Atheism & religion discussions you've had in real life

[Infinity Blade]

The title is self explanatory. Tell us about atheism and religion discussions you've had in person.

I'll start.

Today and last week, my pastor was talking to our Bible study class (he teaches ours in particular) about atheism. I wanted to share with you folks what he said and what your responses are. Now, I'm only human, and I may not have heard or construed everything correctly (whatever, he'll give us some physical paper summarizing all this stuff next week; I'll share it here if/when I ever get it), but nevertheless here's my memory's approximation (i.e. accurate enough) of his words.

- Agnostics may say that we cannot know if there is a god, but this is self-refuting; how do you know that?
- Atheists say "I believe in science". Their epistemology is neo-Darwinian evolution, that we all ultimately originate from bacteria (which came from something) that evolved through random mutations coupled with natural selection. But you cannot go and observe that this occurred, thus atheists don't believe in a science, they believe in a philosophy.
- Atheists have no basis for saying something is so (e.g. they have no basis for saying that something looks beautiful). They also don't have one for things such as morals. Christians know that it's wrong, for example, to kill and eat your neighbors because the Bible says things such as this. Atheists don't believe in the Bible, so they can't use that as a basis for believing things like murder, pedophilia, etc. are all wrong. The President of the Atheist Association(?), when asked by an apologist why he doesn't eat humans, responsed with "because they don't taste good and because it's not healthy", not because it's wrong. For them, there is no meaning to life, destiny, etc.

As much as I like and respect my pastor, I don't agree with some things he has said here. I say 'some' because I'm not sure what to think about others. Like I said, I'm probably going to get a hard copy of this stuff next week, so I'll have something better than my memory to share later. But for now, I wanted to hear what you guys think.

[creature386]

Here are some responses:
-This only applies for strong agnosticism, most agnostics come to the conclusion that we don't know if there is a God on the basis of what they perceive as insufficient evidence. I don't think even strong agnosticism is self-refuting, you could make arguments for it.
-I frankly find it sad that so many Christians seem to believe evolution is a philosophy. String theory cannot be tested, but that makes it neither a philosophy, nor a religion, nor an epistemology (how could evolution even possibly be an epistemology?). Besides, evolution obviously leaves fingerprints in the observable universe and is hence scientific.
-As for the basis to call something right or wrong, it's very easy: Define the terms and then apply your definition.

Regarding my own discussions, last year, I met with a friend of mine with whom I prepared a presentation for Latin. He briefly asked me if I believe in God and I think I gave a rather confusing answer (I don't remember it myself). He briefly mentioned that the universe is too complex to be an accident, that the lack of an afterlife would suck and that we don't know anything anyway. This was a very brief discussion, we had a much longer one about evolution. His arguments:
-Evolution is only a theory, as the name says (after I corrected him on that, he switched it to "It is also a theory in the colloquial sense of the word, since it lacks evidence")
-Why don't monkeys turn into humans today?
-There are renowned scientists (not just in the US, but also in Europe) who don't believe in evolution.
-Nobody in Turkey, India or the Arabic world believes in evolution.
While the first three are not worth discussing, since we heard them a lot, the fourth one is interesting. It is basically the argument from locality ("If you were born in India, you'd be a Hindu, if you were born in Saudi Arabia, you'd be a Muslim, if you were born in Israel, you'd be a Jew"), applied to evolution (i.e. "You only believe in evolution because you were born in Europe or North America"). It is not a very strong argument, but I heard it for the first time and I was caught off guard and I grew interested in the demographics of evolution acceptance.

The idea that evolution is a product of Western culture is very popular among Muslims and one of the reasons why they reject it. I once (like three years ago?) gave a Muslim girl some tutoring in mathematics as she had difficulties and we started talking about various staff (mainly, she held a long speech about the superiority of Arabs). She at some point began ranting about Western science and how Western scientists believe in evolution even though the Bible and the Quran don't mention it. I was more religious back then than I am today so I gave a response by citing Newton on how God gave us two books, the scriptures and nature, evolution is found in the latter.

I have to say that I find it very sad that people believe that something like "Western science" even exists. Reminds me of the rhetoric of homeopaths.

[Venomous Dragon]

Most of my religious discussions are with a Hindu man I work with and they mostly center around paganism and the many uncanny similarities between the gods of Hinduism and the varios kinds of European polytheism.
For instance the man in questions father if asked will say he worships Thor because he believes Thor and Hanuman to be the same being.

Although the bit you said above about someone arguing arab supremacy I find amusing, considering the western world could turn mecca into a glass floor with the push of a button if we so much as desired to.

[Infinity Blade]

So, we continued our discussion on atheism today, and while I didn't get a hard copy, we were told how a basic equation like 2+2=4 supposedly relates to Jesus Christ and goes against atheism. Again, this is from memory; hopefully I'll get a physical copy to make sure I'm not misinterpreting anything.

In summary, he told us that something as simple and true as 2+2=4 is a universality or universal law that presupposes that there was a law maker. And in the Christian worldview, that is God.

.....what do I think of this?.....

[creature386]

This is basically the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG), very popular among presuppositional apologists:
theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/1356/presuppositional-apologetics
It should be noted that math is basically logic, so if you have logic, you also have 2+2=4.

Your pastor seems to be a presuppositionalist, so I get what he is saying.

[Venomous Dragon]

Feb 13, 2017 0:12:15 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

So, we continued our discussion on atheism today, and while I didn't get a hard copy, we were told how a basic equation like 2+2=4 supposedly relates to Jesus Christ and goes against atheism. Again, this is from memory; hopefully I'll get a physical copy to make sure I'm not misinterpreting anything.

In summary, he told us that something as simple and true as 2+2=4 is a universality or universal law that presupposes that there was a law maker. And in the Christian worldview, that is God.

.....what do I think of this?.....

Doesn't this argument hinge on the perception that without a god the world would be chaotic nonsense?

[Infinity Blade]

Maybe? I might have to think about that more. Sounds like it.

What I do know is that it "presupposes that there was a law maker", or even that it necessarily has to be any sort of deity, is dubious.

[Infinity Blade]

Here's the hard copy mateys. Enjoy.






Also, he brought up the banana argument by Ray Comfort. I...really felt a tinge of disappointment upon hearing that.