Challenging Atheism

Challenging Atheism
http://www.challenging-atheism.com
Now this guy is a rare and weird critter. On the surface he wants to debate design outside of the sphere of religion not wanting to reveal his obvious Christianity. He makes a myriad of logical and practical mistakes throughout his website, mistakes that forum members are constantly correcting. In fact most of the time the atheists on the forum are trying to correct the webmaster's mistaken definitions.

Disproving Atheism
Atheism is not a belief, it is the disbelief in worshiped beings called gods. Disproving a disbelief is a double negative leading to overly complicated and amusing results. Obviously the way you disprove a disbelief is by proving a belief - a Christian would prove Christianity, a Hindu would prove Hinduism - but the writer refuses to prove his specific religion, feeling that he need only tilt at the windmill of design to knock down that darned atheist.

DEFINITIONS:
Let's start with some definitions:

GOD
Andrew (The webmaster): A god is a transcendent personal agent who created the universe and us and is immanent in the world.

Dictionary: God.

• 1) A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
• 2) A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.

Who's right? Let's look above, what is a god but a supernatural, worshiped being. Belief in a being that exists outside a religion is NOT theism. If I believe that a trillion year old computer is responsible for all existence and yet I do not worship it and no one else does - that computer is NOT a god and I am NOT a theist. This also means that theism cannot exist outside a religion. A muslim is a theist and a Christian is a theist yet I contend that a theist cannot exist without belonging to a religion since believing in an unworshiped being is not theism. Also, using Andrew's NON-dictionary based definition Hinduists and Greeks could not be called theists since their gods are neither transcendent nor did they create the universe nor are they immanent in the world.

Atheism
In order to erect the atheist straw man that the writer desperately wants to knock down, the webmaster has chosen to create his own definition of atheist as someone who believes that the Universe could only have a known, natural cause. This is, of course, untrue and most atheists will tell you that they don't completely dismiss the existence or actions of unknown agents - they simply do not believe in gods. This makes sense: an atheist is someone who denies the existence of any kind of god. A god is, by definition, a worshiped being. An unknown causer, causers or agents is not a god since it (or they) is unknown and therefore unworshiped. As applicable to our lives and debates of origins; an unknown causer is effectively no different from a natural cause. The writer's fanatacism to knock down the big, bad atheist prevents him from allowing for this straight-from-the-dictionary definition so he regularly tries to correct atheists as to what they are allowed to believe.

PROVING DESIGN

Proving Design is Impossible
Imagine a tribe of pygmies sitting around discussing what earthquakes are all about. The Witch Doctor declares that his books state definitively that M'Pumba, the Hippo god, creates them when he walks. We know that things shudder only when large things walk so a large shuddering must come from a large walker! The pygmies don't have the science to explain what earthquakes are but does this make the Witch Doctor's explanation valid? We humans living in the 21st century simply do not have the science to definitively state what created life or the universe, this does not automatically mean that the "God did it" explanation is valid.

Proving Design DOES NOT Prove Jehovah
Imagine that in some far distant future with advanced, near godlike technology, we somehow prove design. So what? This changes almost NOTHING! Why should we automatically assume that Jehovah; the capricious, tribal god of the Hebrews is responsible? How about Horus, Odin, Zeus, Krishna, Allah, The Great Spirit, Apsu, Tiamat, the Anasazi, Quetzacoatl, Baal, Ashteroth, Samhein, Altjira, the Jade Emperor, Ilmatar, Jupiter, Inti... etc etc ad infinitum? Any one of thousands of earth gods could be responsible.

Proving Design DOES NOT Prove Theism
Theism is belief in a god, therefore a theist must have a religion as an unworshiped entity is not a god. If all of earth's religions are incorrect then the supreme, powerful, prime-mover is by definition not a god, it is an alien intelligence. This creature may not be omnipotent, omniscient or even benevolent. It may have little use for the human race and as such will be effectively no different from a natural event.

Proving Design DOES NOT Prove a Supreme Intelligence
Design does little more then prove... 'design'. Christians assume that we have two choices; belief in a grey-bearded, benevolent god or natural causes. What if we believed in...

• Eternal aliens of amazing power but not omnipotent or omniscient.
• A mass of living DNA at the center of the multiverse dispersing self-replicating, self-designing life.
• We are made of a sort of semi-sentient material that built us because it needs matter-based tool-builders to enter space.
• A trillion year old computer-like being sitting at the center of the multiverse that has been designing self-replicating, life-creating viruses which improve and design as they grow.
• We are a slave race engineered to serve the needs of a master that will harvest our distant descendents.
• We are escaped, engineered food for a giant, doomsday like creature.
• An insane being of limited but amazing power by our standards. This creature wanders into our time/space and we are its waste product like maggots in a dogpile.
• Our universe and life itself is a building process started by partially sentient, multi-dimensional mathematics?
• The universe itself is an eternal, sentient organism that we inhabit like fleas on a dog.
• The universe is little more than a factory built by an ancient race of energy beings to create matter levels necessary for technology in their civilization.
• Mice are really pandimensional creatures which contracted out the Earth from an ancient Planet Building company.

If Proving Design Proves NOTHING then Why Bother?
Why bother indeed! I must've asked this question at least a dozen times and none of the answers are satisfactory.

It proves that theism is more correct then atheism.
No, it proves that all forms of theism, with the possible exception of one, are as equally wrong as atheism. This just seems like a child wagging two hands attached to his ears while sticking out his tongue - other than that - what has it accomplished? If we somehow prove design and yet prove that all of earth's religions are myths - again, what have we accomplished?

Theism gives people a purpose.
There is no reason to believe that our creation is for a benevolent, loving reason. Maybe we'll just be food for a giant doomsday god. In fact theistic theories could be even more bleak and depressing than atheist theories.

Once we prove theism then it makes atheist's claims against religion moot.
This makes no sense - virtually no argument against religion has anything to do with design vs nature. Atheist arguments go right for the heart of the religion: belief, history, veracity and mythology. If we prove design then does that mean that claims against Reverend Moon are moot?

If there is a Creator of the universe all of the worlds religions could be true
With the exception of Buddhism and some other far eastern beliefs.. EVERY religion declares that it alone is the truth and all others are false. There is no way that all the world's religions can be correct - not only because each religion declares exclusivity but because they are all severely different in doctrine, salvation, prophets, history and behavior expected from adherents. Again, thinking that you have proven design leaves us with 10,000 warring doctrines each one declaring itself to be The Word of God - and that's only if we accept that ANY of them are true! Again, design doesn't necessarily prove theism - it just shows... design!

If a person decides the evidence warrants belief in theism then they have to choose what if any theistic belief is a revelation from the Creator.
Why do ANY of Earth's religions necessarily have it right? Proving design gets the pilgrim nowhere because he might as well have started with proving or discrediting the individual religions - they ALL could be wrong. Even if Big Bang is right - maybe one of the religions is right too. He would've just wasted all that time proving or disproving 'design'.

So What's the Point?
This Christian's pathological need to knock down the big-bad atheist has caused him to create a strawman atheist just so he can use the well-trodden arguments of design without opening his theology up to attack. This site is just an internet monument to the futility of the Design argument. Read the forum to watch participants trying desperately to argue with this person.

Answering his Challenge.. I'll be in parentheses....

The first logical mistake the writer makes is attempting to define "atheism" as a belief. Atheism is disbelief in a god. Every dictionary defines a "god" as a worshiped being. Therefore the only way to disprove the disbelief of atheism is to prove a positive. Prove that a worshiped being actually exists. Doing this however requries the writer to put forward his vulnerable theology which the average skeptic can rip through like a cat through a family of hamsters.

There is PLENTY of evidence to throw against Santa/Jehovah but every piece is instantly rationalized away. Christians can explain that Jesus didn't really say he was coming again in that generation. Jews can find some way to rationalize why the Bible claims that the World was made a few thousand years ago and placed on a solid foundation. Mormons can rationalize why Indians do not have Jewish DNA. There is as much rationalization as there is solid accusation. Generic God? Now onto the lynchpin of this "Christian-pretending-to-be-a-Theist"'s fallacy; You can no more disprove a non-defined, invisible being than you can disprove "Invisible Pink Unicorns" or Leprechauns. Trying to prove a negative here IS impossible as any book on logic in the civilized world will attest to.

There is at least that much evidence against Jehovah but the average Christian mind is immune to reason. There is no evidence against a generic "god" just as there is no evidence against "Invisible Pink Unicorns" or Leprechauns.

Children question the existence of Jehovah at pretty much the same time they question the existence of Santa. The difference is NOT the preponderance of the evidence as I'm certain few seven year olds do a masters thesis on comparative religions. The difference is the reaction of the parents which can be decidedly hysterical if the child questions their religion. The child will likely accept all of the religion's silly stories (as silly as any Christmas story) because of his survival instinct, fear of abandonment and trust of parents. The child has become indoctrinated and as it becomes an adult, its belief in these stories becomes immune to reason. Realize that this "Christian-pretending-to-be-a-Theist" would have to say that the preponderence of the evidence supports Hinduism, Mormonism, Taoism, Islam, Animism, Catholocism, Buddhism, Shintoism etc etc or else these religions wouldn't exist.

Believing in something even though there is no evidence to support it is called gullibility, stupidity or naivete. Allowing something to run your life, like religion, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support its veracity is self-destructive, insane and well... stupid.

This proves nothing. Every earth god's mythology is easily debunked and whether or not we believe that respiration/photosynthesis is too complex to be random means absolutely nothing if every one of earth's religions is a lie. Andrew doesn't understand this and will never understand this. Realize that an unknown causer is by definition NOT a god since it is not worshiped so the bizarre philotheology of Theism is NOT proven. Also allowing for the possibility of an unknown causer is functionally no different then believing in a natural event.

Well then I guess the writer should spend his days visiting colleges and erasing the well known logical fallacy "Argument from Ignorance" out of their text books. Can the writer disprove the existence of Leprechauns or Invisible Pink Unicorns? It is possible to falsify an ideology but only with sufficient evidence provided to falsify. Magical, invisible beings like Invisible Unicorns, Leprechauns and Gods leave no evidences (that cannot be rationalized away) and cannot be falsified. Asking someone to falsify something that is un-falsifiable is simple insanity.

Here is a link to Appeal to Ignorance

We have had a long track record of "Magic did it" explanations and have learned that these explanations are always wrong. Taking up a fervent, argumentative stance towards "Magic ABSOLUTELY did do it!" is obviously asinine for this very reason. As to a creator? Any of the world's gods make no sense if analyzed and an unknown creator is logistically no different from a natural event.

The reason our species beat out the Neanderthals is because we like to question and develop stories. It just drives us CRAZY when we don't know the answer to a question but sometimes there simply is NO answer. The problem is; Our species simply does not like the answer of "I don't know" and will instead cling to theory or religious delusion. Here again; The fervent, argumentative stance of "Magic did it!" makes no sense.

Let's get to the heart here: This guy is obviously a "Christian-pretending-to-be-a-Theist". Theism is NOTHING, it DOESN'T exist in this way! This is just a ruse created by Christians who are too scared to debate Christianity yet want to debate design. Deists believe that there is a creator that built our universe and moved on but this is just a form of atheism. The argument given at the beginning is thoroughly valid for real religions. A Christian dismisses all 9,999 religions other than his own - tell me why you dismiss these religions and I'll tell you why I dismiss yours.

This shows that the writer simply doesn't understand the question. The idea of an infinite god is as unlikely as the idea of an infinite universe. If a Christian declares that the universe is too complex to have arrived by chance then the logical response is ... God is too complex to have arrived by chance too; in other words "What created God?" The writer not understanding atheists or reason for that matter is a common problem on his website.

But the atheist has REASONS for not believing in a god and maybe he would like less people to be throwing away their lives on a fraud and indoctrinating the next generation into a fantasy.

Because a belief, as in the noun - Belief, requires real, positive beliefs and atheism only exists as an opinion on religion.

Yeah, it's called being sane in the 21st century and why we no longer throw salt over our shoulders or fear black cats.

This is so retarded that I shouldn't even have to respond to it. Using this logic; the belief that leprechauns don't exist can be rejected as well.

Let's get to the heart of the matter: the loosely defined philotheology of Theism is a sham created by a Christian so he can argue design without having to argue Christianity. A theist without a theology is functionally no different from any atheist. This type of debate is thoroughly pointless not only because origins is a topic that is impossible to debate at our level of scientific knowledge but because it gets us nowhere. What is the point of attempting to prove design if all religions are provable fictions? There IS no point!

Other than this fanatical need to stick his tongue out at something he has defined as 'atheism', a definition I do not accept, he accomplishes absolutely nothing; it changes no one's mind about anything. Why bother proving design if your own religion has been disproven?