Questions for Atheists

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Let's flip the question (s)..
How do you know all your religious gibberish isn't just made up shit to take your money and control you?

[Simon Moon]

I'll play...

-How do you explain the high degree of design and order in the universe if there is no God?

The universe has no design in the context you are referring to. It simply follows the physical laws.

Order is something our human minds project onto the actual chaos that is the universe. If you think there is order in the universe, talk to the quantum physicists, they'll set you straight.

-How do you account for the vast archaeological documentation of Biblical stories, places, and people?

Of course the Bible will relay stories that include real people and places of the time it was written. So what? So does every other religious text ever written. This does not offer a shred of evidence for any of the supernatural events also contained in the Bible.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey also contain stories of real people and places. Does that prove that Zeus existed?

- Why is there something instead of nothing?

Maybe a question that is never answered. So what?

The lack of an answer does not mean that 'god did it' becomes the best answer by default. That would be the fallacy of argument form ignorance.

- What caused the universe to exist?

The best current answer is a change of phase of the singularity.

- What do you think caused the Big Bang?

See above.

- on what basis can we make moral judgments? How do we know right from wrong?

A combination of our evolutionary past, culture, empathy, rationality.

- Why do human beings matter?

We matter to other human beings. The same goes for all social species and members of their own species.

If you mean why do we matter in some larger scheme, we don't. We could be annihilated by an asteroid tomorrow, and the universe will go on like nothing happened.

- How do we account for the almost universal belief in the supernatural?

Humans have pattern seeking brains. We try to find explanations for things, even if we have to fill in blanks with superstition.

- how do we account for the origin of 116 distinct language families?

Never studied linguistics.

But it doesn't seem linguists are throwing up their arms and saying "I can't explain this, Must be Gawd".

- Would you agree with me that just because we cannot see something with our eyes- such as our mind, gravity, magnetism, the wind- that does not mean it doesn't exist?

All those things manifest in reality in many other ways other than just sight. There are many other methods to detect their existence.

How does your god manifest in reality?

- would you also agree that just because we cannot see God with our eyes does not necessarily mean he doesn't exist?

Yes, just because we cannot see the invisible, transcendental, galactic penguin that craps out stars, does not necessarily mean it doesn't exist, right?

- If there is no God, we don't make sense, so how do we explain human longings and desire for the transcendent? How do we even explain human questions for meaning and purpose, or inner thoughts like, why do I fell unfulfilled or empty? Why do we hunger for the spiritual, and how do we explain these longings if nothing can exist beyond the material world?

Our evolved minds.

Pretty f'n amazing, huh?

[sualeos]

-How do you explain the high degree of design and order in the universe if there is no God?

Intelligent design is no longer a valid point for god. We don't completely understand something, or something is very complex means a magical man in the sky created it.. No, that's dumb. also, if something this universe is so complex and there is so much order & whatnot, i would say "god" would have to be very very complex..

-How do you account for the vast archaeological documentation of Biblical stories, places, and people?

It's not evidence for god, that's like saying i wrote a book that took place on Mount Everest and monster with 26 eyes and had a portal to an alternate universe lived on Mount Everest. Mount Everest is real, therefore the monster must be as well?

- Why is there something instead of nothing?

Define "nothing" i don't think there is really "nothing, but there always has been a vacuum outside of our universe where quantum fluctuations occur.

- What caused the universe to exist?

I choose to believe the big bang.

- What do you think caused the Big Bang?

Quantum Fluctuations in the "nothingness" before the big bang.

- on what basis can we make moral judgments? How do we know right from wrong?

Explain sociopaths, please. How do we know right from wrong? It has nothing to do with a magical fairy god, we as humans are just intelligent enough to know right from wrong, that's why most of us don't go on killing sprees.

- Why do human beings matter?

They don't, really.

- How do we account for the almost universal belief in the supernatural?

This is logical fallacy, just because a majority believes in something does not mean it's correct.

- how do we account for the origin of 116 distinct language families?

what does this have to do with god or atheists in any way?

- Would you agree with me that just because we cannot see something with our eyes- such as our mind, gravity, magnetism, the wind- that does not mean it doesn't exist?

no, there is evidence those things exist, there is no evidence for any of the hundreds of gods people believe in.. I don't dismiss god as false because i have never seen him/it, that's just silly.

- would you also agree that just because we cannot see God with our eyes does not necessarily mean he doesn't exist?

No, i would not agree with that, just because you can't see something does not mean it does not exist, but there is literally no evidence!

- If there is no God, we don't make sense, so how do we explain human longings and desire for the transcendent? How do we even explain human questions for meaning and purpose, or inner thoughts like, why do I fell unfulfilled or empty? Why do we hunger for the spiritual, and how do we explain these longings if nothing can exist beyond the material world?

I don't think you understand humans, one of the things that make us different is our curiosity, but just because we question these things (like if there is a heaven) doesn't mean they must be real

[Thumpalumpacus]

-How do you explain the high degree of design and order in the universe if there is no God?

The first half, in red, is begging the question, and therefore irrelevant.  The second question is easy: order can and does arise spontaneously, through the operation of physical laws.

-How do you account for the vast archaeological documentation of Biblical stories, places, and people?

No need to do so.  Simply because parts of a book are true doesn't mean that all of it is true. There are places called Moscow, and Washington, but there is no Jack Ryan; he was invented by Tom Clancy.

- Why is there something instead of nothing?

Because at the beginning of Planck Time there was a slight imbalance between matter and antimatter.

- What caused the universe to exist?

Special pleading, or, What caused your god to exist?

- What do you think caused the Big Bang?

I'm no cosmologist, but I think it may have been the other end of a wormhole, or perhaps a massive vacuum flux event.

- on what basis can we make moral judgments? How do we know right from wrong?

I use reason, cognition, and empathy.  I don't need a god to not be a murderer.

- Why do human beings matter?

Because each individual values him- or herself. The use of empathy extends that valuation, to a greater or lesser degree, to others.

- How do we account for the almost universal belief in the supernatural?

The pattern-seeking mind. See below for a fuller answwer.

- how do we account for the origin of 116 distinct language families?

Geography and time.

- Would you agree with me that just because we cannot see something with our eyes- such as our mind, gravity, magnetism, the wind- that does not mean it doesn't exist?

Of course.  It should be noted that we also cannot see pixies, tooth fairies, and Flying Spaghetti Monsters.  Do you credit them with the equal possibility of existence as you seem to credit god(s)?

- would you also agree that just because we cannot see God with our eyes does not necessarily mean he doesn't exist?

See the immediately preceding answer.

- If there is no God, we don't make sense, so how do we explain human longings and desire for the transcendent? How do we even explain human questions for meaning and purpose, or inner thoughts like, why do I fell unfulfilled or empty? Why do we hunger for the spiritual, and how do we explain these longings if nothing can exist beyond the material world?

The brain, and with it the mind, has evolved as an explanatory organ; it seeks explanations in order to understand phenomena. Humans are prone to seeing patterns and connections where none exist (in much the same way as you may hear a "song" in your mind's ear when you can only hear the slap-slap-slap of the windshield wipers on a rainy drive).  The urge to understand our environment was certainly an evolutionary benefit.

Begging the question is in red again.

These are a few questions and would like to see your opinions on some of them.

These are mine.

[Insult to Rocks]

- Would you agree with me that just because we cannot see something with our eyes- such as our mind, gravity, magnetism, the wind- that does not mean it doesn't exist?

- would you also agree that just because we cannot see God with our eyes does not necessarily mean he doesn't exist?

You are misunderstanding a fundamental rule of scientific inquiry. We do not have to see something to believe it exists, we have to observe it, which is different. We can observe that the force of gravity exists, but be cannot observe that any gods exist.

[sdelsolray]

The OP is merely demonstrating common theism.  He is infected with willful ignorance and religious wishful thinking (aka faith) and is addicted to use of informal logical fallacies.

Nothing new here.

[sdelsolray]

List of many questions.
...

You sure ask a lot of questions, yet you claim to have all the answers.

Why are you here on this forum?  What is your purpose?

[the_antithesis]

These questions are childish and so are you.

Grow up first.

[SGOS]

The OP is merely demonstrating common theism.  He is infected with willful ignorance and religious wishful thinking (aka faith) and is addicted to use of informal logical fallacies.

Nothing new here.

Various sites that publish lists of logical fallacies need to be removed from the internet or something.  Apparently, theists go read them, and then use them to make up their arguments.  Well, it seems that way most of the time.

[Atheon]

-How do you explain the high degree of design and order in the universe if there is no God?

There isn't. There's only a simulacrum of design, which results from the fundamental ways in which matter and energy behave.

-How do you account for the vast archaeological documentation of Biblical stories, places, and people?

In the same way that I can account for the existence of Paris and London in A Tale of Two Cities. It's historical fiction.

- Why is there something instead of nothing?

We don't know... yet. Some scientists think that it's impossible for nothing to exist. The matter is hardly settled, but research is ongoing.

- What caused the universe to exist?

The Big Bang.

- What do you think caused the Big Bang?

We don't know... yet. There are a number of competing hypotheses, like colliding branes in 11-space, but the matter is far from settled.

- on what basis can we make moral judgments? How do we know right from wrong?

Reason and logic.

- Why do human beings matter?

They matter because they are us.

- How do we account for the almost universal belief in the supernatural?

Ignorance, stupidity and indoctrination, which are sadly far too common.

- how do we account for the origin of 116 distinct language families?

Most of them are probably related, but given the passage of too much time, their roots are almost impossible to trace. As for the emergence of totally unrelated language families, this is possible, if, say, some tribe was almost completely wiped out, with only a few children surviving, and they had to come up with new ways of describing things as they built a new way of life. Perhaps some language groups developed because of human migration before fully developed languages came into existence. Humans have been for hundreds of thousands of years, and a lot can happen in that time. Linguists do not agree on whether there was a Proto-World language or not.

Nothing to do with atheism or even evolution, by the way.

- Would you agree with me that just because we cannot see something with our eyes- such as our mind, gravity, magnetism, the wind- that does not mean it doesn't exist?

Yes, but these things are objectively detectable and can be shown to exist.

- would you also agree that just because we cannot see God with our eyes does not necessarily mean he doesn't exist?

Nope. No god has been objectively detected or shown to exist.

- If there is no God, we don't make sense,...

Stop there. First demonstrate that claim before going on to the other statements.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Believer gets a list of questions and response to the atheist replies.
Believer posts list on atheist forum.
Atheists respond, but not according the script believer got from AiG or whatever.
Believer replies as if atheists had followed script.
Believer gets Heaven Points®, enough to guarantee believer will go to Heaven because believer has confounded atheists and probably converted a few to The One True Faith. [One True Faith extension not found.]

[The Skeletal Atheist]

-How do you explain the high degree of design and order in the universe if there is no God?

Highly intelligent bees.

-How do you account for the vast archaeological documentation of Biblical stories, places, and people?

Highly intelligent bees

- Why is there something instead of nothing?

Highly intelligent bees.

- What caused the universe to exist?

Highly intelligent bees.

- What do you think caused the Big Bang?

This one was actually the lizard people, much to the chagrin of the highly intelligent bees. The highly intelligent bees were fine with their singularity.

- on what basis can we make moral judgments? How do we know right from wrong?

We must do what we think the highly intelligent bees want.

- Why do human beings matter?

To propagate flowers for the highly intelligent bees.

- How do we account for the almost universal belief in the supernatural?

Highly intelligent bees.

- how do we account for the origin of 116 distinct language families?

The highly intelligent bees don't want us to join as a species lest we rise up.

- Would you agree with me that just because we cannot see something with our eyes- such as our mind, gravity, magnetism, the wind- that does not mean it doesn't exist?

We can measure the effects of these. Of course all of these are the result of microscopic highly intelligent bees.

- would you also agree that just because we cannot see God with our eyes does not necessarily mean he doesn't exist?

Would you agree that just because we have no evidence that highly intelligent bees control everything that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a ridiculous idea that no adult should believe in?

- If there is no God, we don't make sense, so how do we explain human longings and desire for the transcendent? How do we even explain human questions for meaning and purpose, or inner thoughts like, why do I fell unfulfilled or empty? Why do we hunger for the spiritual, and how do we explain these longings if nothing can exist beyond the material world?

The highly intelligent bees want us to be closer to them, more like them. That's why you feel that inner longing.

These are a few questions and would like to see your opinions on some of them.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Hydra009]

I knew it!

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Dem beez.

[Damarcus]

I for one welcome our new insect overlords...