Seven Common Misconceptions About Atheism

Keith M. Parsons

www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_parsons/misconceptions.html

I think the seven most common misconceptions about atheism are the following:

1) Atheism implies that life is absurd or meaningless.

2) Atheists, since they lack a conception of heaven or hell, have no motivation to be good.

3) Atheism is the claim that no gods exist. Atheism therefore must prove a negative, but it is impossible to prove a negative. Therefore, atheism is an impossible doctrine.

4) Atheists, agnostics, and other nonbelievers are a tiny minority, a "fringe group" within the overall population. Therefore, their interests and arguments can be largely ignored.

5) Atheists are intolerant. They are prejudiced against religious people.

6) Atheism undermines patriotism and good citizenship. America was founded on Christian principles, so atheism undercuts the very foundation of American civilization.

7) Atheists are guilty of scientism, the deification of science.

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There are no atheists in Foxholes?: www.infidels.org/library/modern/philip_paulson/foxhole.htmlfoxhole

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Is Atheism Presumptuous? A Reply to Paul Copan

Jeffery Jay Lowder

www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/copan.html

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Why I think atheists are every bit as silly as fundie religious nuts.

This message was written in response to "Two Ways of Proving Atheism" by Quentin Smith.]

The Gratuitous Evil section is less than worthless as scientific examination of facts, as you seem to be arguing against a deity of the Judeo-Christian tradition (i.e. all good). Did it ever occur to you that some supreme being does in fact exist, but simply doesn't give a rat's ass about us?

Your first section is far more compelling, but any decent statistician will tell you that any pre-event statistics (95% chance of the universe occurring) are totally devoid of meaning. The fact that the universe exists now shows that the p(universe created) = 1. If you dispute this, then I'll wager you $1,000,000, and what the hell, give you 40 to 1 odds, that the universe exists. That's $40,000,000 bucks if you show me that the universe does not exist.

Instead of trying to disprove the concept: "whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause", it may be turned against the theist as to "what created God?" which devolves into an infinite loop.

It seems that you do believe in a God, called Science, who by the way, only 100 years ago, did not know that there was a fundamental limit to the speed something may be accelerated to. Then, along come Lorentz and Einstein, and it's time to revise those "scientific facts". There's a reason why scientists label most things "theories"(Geez, they still call it the Theory of Relativity, though as far as I'm concerned, it's physical law). It's an acknowledgement that we don't know every damn thing, yet, and that it is still subject to exception, further revision, and scrutiny.

You have some interesting hypotheses that certainly help demonstrate the possible lack of a supreme creator entity, but to label it "proof" is quite premature.

I personally think a lot of what's in the Bible and other religious texts is a load of hooey (though there's some good pointers on how one should live, once you get past kids getting killed by wolves for teasing a bald-headed prophet. You don't even have to leave the Bible to show that the Judeo-Christian God isn't "all good"). I do not totally discount the possible existence of a supreme deity, though I don't live my life really any differently than most atheists do. Who knows, maybe I'm just an atheist without the courage of my convictions. :)

Loiking forward to hearing from you,

And another letter reads:

The knowledge of God is the beginning of wisdom. Why should I believe in the unproven miracle that chance and random selection have brought about the world that we see? Why should I believe in a chain of cause and effect that, by naturalistic standards, can have no initial cause? Why should I have faith in man whose mind, if evolution is true, was brought about by random chance events which result in random and therefore unreliable thought patterns? Why should I believe there are no absolutes and say everything is relative, thus making an absolute statement? How do we even begin to form an idea of absolutes?

I do not quite understand your point of view. Perhaps I never will, but it does present a challenge to me to make me think about what I believe and why I believe it.

Sincerely,

Internet Infidels' Response:

Atheism does not have as a logical consequence that there are no absolutes or that everything is relative. The question of whether or not there are objective or absolute moral standards is independent of whether God exists, and good arguments can be made that morality cannot be dependent upon God without morality being arbitrary or capricious.

Evolution does not say that life arose by "random chance," but rather by chance and natural selection, which is not a random process. Further, it does not follow from the presence a random element to the origin of life that thought is therefore random or unreliable. An element of randomness can enhance reliability and performance, for instance, in a computer program. What determines the reliability of human thoughts are the methods and processes instantiated in brains, which is independent of the way in which brains came to exist. It may be unlikely that chance could produce a sophisticated machine, but a machine produced by chance is exactly as reliable as the same machine produced by intelligent design. To maintain otherwise is a form of the genetic fallacy. Jim Lippard

RID’s response:

If God exists but as stated in the letter above “doesn’t give a rat’s ass about us” (the Deist position) then that God might as well not exist. Similarly the same could be said about statements like “we can’t know god” or “we can’t know that one exists or not.” These propositions are silly. So what if there may be a God. If we don’t know about It and It doesn’t care about us then what good is that God and what difference is there that a God with such an Impartial and/or unknowable nature exists…this kind of God might as well be dead (even if some people insist that one might live). Further, if we can’t know God then how and the hell can it be said that we know that a God might or does exist? In the reality that we know the arguments for God’s existence don’t hold water and in the reality that we know God is at the bottom of an abyss…dead.

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The message below was written in response to "The Trancendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God" by Michael Martin.

To whom it may concern,

I was just wondering why Mr. Martin cancelled his debate with Dr. Greg Bahnsen last year and instead waited until he was dead to respond to him. Just an observation.

Internet Infidels' Response:

Please read www.infidels.org/infidels/newsletter/1996/may.html Jeffery Jay Lowder

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