Reply To: Reeling from Christian friend's bigotry
I think the purpose of these arguments is not to definitively disprove god, but rather to attempt to meet theists where they are in their thinking and to get them to recognize just one inconsistency in what they think. Many theists wear their delusional belief systems like a suit of armor, and arguments like the problem of evil or inconsistencies in the bible, etc. try to find the chink in that armor.
For myself, once I allowed myself to accept the obvious conclusion of one such argument all the rest of it quickly fell apart like a house of cards.
Having already gone through all that on my own journey those arguments don’t do much for me now, but I did need to go through that phase to get where I am now. Now, arguing over the behaviors of god is like arguing over whether vampires are afraid of garlic or sparkle in sunlight – nonsense.
I certainly agree…that from the perspective of an atheists discussing with a theists about their delusions…that taking on all of their flawed arguements and imploding them one after another is a good idea. However, from our perspective…when explaining why we reject the argument as presented that God exists to theists who won’t shut up…nothing more need be said than: LOL. F**k off. Come back when your theory is less ludicrous and when you have anything close to evidence.
I like to think of it this way. If a friend is trying to help another friend who is spending way too much money on…and making important personal decisions based on a sham psychic, I would personally (assuming they were really listening) deal with one arguement after another hoping the whole delusion would collapse.
However…if I was a professor of cosmology or physics or sociology and a representative of a wildly popular new age cult asked me why I stubbornly refuse to take their “everything is love…love moves objects and love explains even the quantum entanglement of [blah blah blah] and we know so because it was written in a Hindu book thousands of years ago when love was all that existed and why would they lie”? I would tell them their theory is preposterous, stupid, moronic and to go away and come back with better evidence.
This is what I meant.
