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Atheist 'Stumpers'...
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Atheist 'Stumpers'...(and their answers)
Many sites and forums present what theists consider 'stumpers'...questions they believe atheists have no answer for.
While they are right to a certain extent, there is likely no answer the questioner is likely to 'accept', they rarely present the question in such a way as to allow for rational feedback. (Defining away any potential answers up front as invalid, ignoring or perhaps even deleting answers they find threatening, etc).
Nevertheless, there are often very good answers out there.
To help you, and who knows, perhaps even a few practicing theists viewing the questioners forum or post, I'll attempt assemble as many of these 'stumpers', and their answers here.
In order to avoid seeming to presumptuous by pretending to have the best answers to these questions myself, all the answers listed below will be from popular, published authors like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, etc., and will consist of as succinct of a summary as I am able to find or prepare, a link to a full explanation and, where possible, links to any books or video I can find expanding on the subject.
Now, on to the questions...
- Science is just another religion...
- If you don't believe in god, why do you spend so much time arguing against religion...
- God is 'outside' of science...
- Why not at live as though god exists anyway...
- How can you say god doesn't exist, you can't prove that either...
- Science is just another religion, built on faith in it's basic list of beliefs
- A1 Science is the opposite of religion, allowing for direct manipulation of it's basic structure when called for
- A1b
- As an atheist, why do you spend so much time arguing against religion? You must know there's something to it if you spend so much time thinking about it...
- A1 Religion is bad, it causes bad things to happen, and in general wastes enourmous resources. If there was any other subject out there that caused so much general negativism, we should be rallying against that as well.
- A2b
- God is 'outside' of science and rational debate, so we don't need any scientific proof
- A3 This is just 'defining' away the problem. You might declare god outside of any of the sciences in particular, but nothing should be outside of the methodology of basing your belief on defendable precepts, and examining them in a logical and consistent manner. Religion doesn't even stand up to this basic manner of discussion.
- A3b
- Why not at live as though god exists. It's not like you have anything to lose
- Not really a stumper, more along the lines of the ?? wager...If he exists, you win in heaven, if he doesn't, you haven't lost anything. Not really in the league of 'stumpers', but the general obvious answer is that 'which god would you guess at?'. It would be a simple matter to use the more popular one in your neighborhood, but that's not really playing the odds very well, since the 'real' one could as easily be any of a hundred others.
- A4b
- You can't prove god doesn't exist using your 'science'.
- Not really a question here, but the general philophy is that 'atheism' isn't believing god doesn't exist, it's the lack of belief that he does. Admittedly this might be a little bit for theists to wrap their heads around, but it boils down to 'we don't shoulder the burden of proof here. You're the ones presenting an entity for others to believe in' (See Flying Spaghetti Monster or Invisible Pink Unicorn here)
- A5b
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- A6
- A6b
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- A7
- A7b
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- A8
- A8b
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- A9
- A9b
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- A10
- A10b
General Sources
wiki.ironchariots.org
talkorigins.org
freethoughtpedia.com
conversationalatheist.com