I don’t know the answer. This Christian dork kept popping up in my YouTube feed, making this claim that we shouldn’t take atheists seriously because there are so many great arguments for the existence of his god. I had to offer my short sweet response.
Not only are his arguments bad, but arguments are not evidence. I just had to get that off my chest.
Albert Einstein: ““Why 100? If I were wrong, one would have been enough. [In response to the book “Hundred Authors Against Einstein”]”
It’s not like apologists listen to rebuttals to their arguments, anyway. Frankly, I’m at the point that I think a lot of self-declared religious people don’t actually take religion seriously.
Shouldn’t that be “…argument for the existence of GODS”? I mean why one. Even the Bible is full of many gods. There was the “god of Israel” but every group had their god or gods. Even to this day the prejudice for a single god is a Christian/Muslim fetish, and the source of those religions, Judaism, didn’t get to monotheism immediately. Israel had more than one god…there was Ashram, gods consort, for example.
Frankly, I’ve lost interest in the arguments about gods. I enjoy listening to Dan McClellan take down another Christian (or even Mormon) sometimes but frankly I’ve got other and better things to do with my time.
Inane gets clicks.
Xian apologists are inane because the gods they believe in are inane.
I’m yet to beat “Yeah, nah” for succinctness.
[nostalgia]
We used to get apologists, right here.
Back in days of yore.
(sigh)
We used to get apologists, but then we scared them all away. Victory!
That has been my conclusion based on a few decades of observations.
I don’t believe most of the US fundie xians take their religion seriously at all.
They never walk their talk.
This is the group that is right now trying to destroy the USA and its democracy.
They are complicit in killing children and adults in many ways, the latest by trying to take away their access to medical care.
In Red fundie xian states, the average lifepan is shorter than in Blue states by a lot. The difference can be up to 6 years.
The three main sacraments of fundie xians are hate, lies, and hypocrisy.
If they don’t take their religion seriously, why should I take them seriously?
I don’t.
AFAICT, they don’t really believe in their religion.
It’s just an excuse to be horrible people.
@3,
“Frankly, I’ve lost interest in the arguments about gods.”
Same here. I can not muster any of the 2008 era energy to debate or argue with these people anymore, I just roll my eyes and move on. And I think they are annoyed by that, they still can do damage on some level, but most people simply don’t care enough anymore. Bad people like zionists will always use religion to justify atrocities (Amalek!), this won’t change anytime soon.
If I was to debate these people nowadays, I’d have to brush up on my Hitchens first lol, it’s been a while.
If there was evidence for the belief in God, it would not be belief anymore.
@11
Please go read a dictionary. To believe something is to hold it to be true. Whether that belief is based on faith or on solid evidence is a different question.
@Reginald Selkirk #12 – Please don’t be such a smartass. Words’ meanings are not fixed, and dictionaries are not the ultimate authority. You knew damn well what I meant. You even wrote it in your own reaction.
At least its not Kent again.. Seriously, there is at least “some” difference between people trying, and failing, to come up with coherent arguments, even bad ones, vs. the truly stupid ones, like Kent Hovind. His class of morons, and I do not use the term lightly, are notable in that they don’t just keep trotting out the same arguments, they keep repeating them, often in the literal same debate they are having with someone who just explained why the foundation of the argument is invalid, because they utterly failed to understand, or acknowledge, the evidence that debunks it. I.e., it not just a laundry list of BS arguments, which if arguments = evidence, might be useful, but arguments that literally fall into the category of, “A 4 year old, with no comprehension of how the universe works at all, might make that argument, but a grown adult would abandon it as useless, yet… here you are again, making the same argument, based on the same utter lack of knowledge, despite having had 40 people tell you, over at least as many years, why its stupid and what the real facts are that refute it.”
“Good” apologists are still making absurd attempts, but they are at least capable of learning (mostly), when the argument they where trying to make is simply not valid at all, based on the existing evidence outright refuting it. Their bread and butter is instead some variation of god of the gaps, or, “Well, my interpretation of history says it happened, even though its ridiculous, and you can’t say otherwise, because no one actually knows what happened.”, and other similar, “We have the same facts, mostly, but I think there are gaping holes in those facts, which my God can hide in, so Neh!!” Sill nonsense, but at least not openly, vehemently, and endlessly dishonest and delusional.
Gods exist – in human imaginations. They have clearly detectable influence and impact – indirectly. They have names, personalities, backstories, and other agreed-upon attributes, not to mention police forces and armies.
We really need words for this: “imaginary” doesn’t quite cover it.
The science of theology even has material evidence. I have a pile of same (not having found a recycler for it), because I live in the most lightning-prone region of the world: Thor hates modems!
Below each YouTube video, just to the right of the title, is a column of three dots. If you click on them a dropdown appears. One option on this dropdown, just before the very bottom and above the report flag is a Don’t Recommend Channel option. The symbol to the left of it looks like a stylized American ‘Do Not Enter’ road sign.
In my experience, this works. This is what it means to actively declare a video uninteresting. The ‘Not Interested’ button that is just above that that has the international circle with a slash symbol, this is a bit less useful. Because YouTube’s algorithm gets a chance to disbelieve you.
A quote from a Philip Dick novel.
“God is dead. They found his corpse near Alpha Centauri”.
.
I have also lost my initial interest in debunking religion. It is just the same old, same old.
The only interesting product of religion are those ‘so bad they are good’ religious films. Titles like The Bells of Innocence or International Guerrillas.
There you go, Birger. A hypothesis occurs to me.
Q: “Why are Xian apologists so inane?”
A: To make people lose their initial interest in debunking religion.
(It’s working!)
Hmm…