RESPONSES TO COMMON THEIST ARGUMENTS


This thread presents concise rebuttals to the most common arguments and
claims made by theists. It also includes a small number of points deal specifically with Christianity, however the vast majority are applicable to all forms of theism.

A religious person might say:


The Biblical God is real.

There is no evidence to support any of the claims made in the Bible concerning the existence of a god. Any ‘evidence’ proposed by theists to support the Bible’s various historical and supernatural claims is non-
existent at best, manufactured at
worst.

The Bible is not self-authenticating; it is simply one of many religious texts. Like those other texts, it itself constitutes no evidence for the existence of a god. Its florid prose and fanciful content do not legitimise it nor distinguish it from other ancient works of literature.

The Bible is historically inaccurate, factually incorrect, inconsistent
and contradictory. It was artificially constructed by a group of men in antiquity and is poorly translated, heavily altered and selectively interpreted. Entire sections of the text have been redacted over time.

A theist might say:

Biblical Jesus was real.

There is no contemporary evidence for Jesus’ existence or the Bible’s account of his life; no artefacts, dwellings, works of carpentry, self- written manuscripts, court records, eyewitness testimony, official diaries, birth records, reflections on his significance or written disputes about his teachings. Nothing survives from the time in which he is said to have lived.
All historical references to Jesus
derive from hearsay accounts written decades or centuries after his supposed death. These historical references generally refer to early Christians rather than a historical Jesus and, in some cases, directly contradict the Gospels or were deliberately manufactured. The Gospels themselves contradict one-another on many key events
and were constructed by unknown authors up to a century after the events they describe are said to have occurred.
They are not eyewitness accounts. The New Testament, as a whole, contains many internal inconsistencies as a result of its piecemeal construction and is factually incorrect on several historical claims, such as the early existence of Nazareth, the reign of Herod and the Roman census. Like the Old Testament, it too has had entire books and sections redacted.

The Biblical account of Jesus has striking similarities with other mythologies and texts and many of his supposed teachings existed prior to his time. It is likely the character was either partly or entirely invented by competing first century messianic cults from an amalgamation of Greco-Roman, Egyptian and Judeo-Apocalyptic myths and prophecies.
Even if Jesus’ existence could be
established, this would in no way
validate Christian theology or any
element of the story portrayed in the Bible, such as the performance of miracles or the resurrection. Simply because it is conceivable a heretical Jewish preacher named Yeshua lived circa 30 AD, had followers and was executed, does not imply the son of a god walked the Earth at that time. The motivation for belief in a divine,
salvational Jesus breaks down when you accept evolution:

Consider God’s existence from a practical perspective. All humans come and go; all humans die. Which intelligent species takes charge of everything if humans keep dying? Obviously God!

It seems there’s no God because evil still exists in today’s world. What’s happening is that there is a war between Good and evil behind the scenes. Good should just delete evil at the beginning, but strangely, evil has enough power to prevent its immediate death. No problem though, Goodness is stronger than evil; goodness will win the war after striking enough killer blows to evil.

The question: is are all humans evil? Why can’t anyone defeat death? Would a truly good being like an Angel, Saint or righteous man ever die? God is on his way to wiping away all evil and making existence perfect. Too bad mankind is too corrupt and evil.

Theist Might Say;

MIRACLES PROVE GOD EXIST.


Miracles have not been demonstrated to occur.
The existence of a miracle would pose logical problems for belief in a god which can supposedly see the future and began the universe with a set of predefined laws. Even if a ‘miracle’ could be demonstrated it would not immediately imply the existence of a god, much less any particular one, as unknown natural processes or agents could still be at work.

Most alleged miracles can be
explained as statistically unlikely
occurrences. For example, one child surviving a plane crash that kills two hundred others is not a miracle, just as one person winning the lottery is not. In the absence of any empirical evidence, all other claims can be dismissed as the result of magical thinking, misattribution, credulity, hearsay and anecdote. Eye-witness testimony and anecdotal accounts
are, by themselves, not reliable or
definitive forms of proof for such
extraordinary claims.

Divine intervention claims most often concern systems and events for which we have poor predictive
capabilities, for example, weather,
sports, health and social/economic
interactions. Such claims are rarely
made in relation to those things we can accurately predict and test e.g. the motion of celestial bodies, boiling point of water and pull of gravity. If a god is constantly intervening in the universe it supposedly created, then it is with such ambiguity as to appear completely indistinguishable from
normal background chance.

Note: Theists often fail to adequately apportion blame when claims of their particular god’s ‘infinite mercy’ or ‘omnibenevolence’ involve sparing a few lives in a disaster, or recovery from a debilitating disease – all of which their god would ultimately be responsible for inflicting if it existed.

theoriginalgood:
Consider God’s existence from a practical perspective. All humans come and go; all humans die. Which intelligent species takes charge of everything if humans keep dying? Obviously God!

It seems there’s no God because evil still exists in today’s world.

What a poor reasoning. No wonder religionist are chumps.

What’s happening is that there is a war between Good and evil behind the scenes. Good should just delete evil at the beginning, but strangely, evil has enough power to prevent its immediate death. No problem though, Goodness is stronger than evil; goodness will win the war after striking enough killer blows to evil.

The question: is are all humans evil? Why can’t anyone defeat death? Would a truly good being like an Angel, Saint or righteous man ever die? God is on his way to wiping away all evil and making existence perfect. Too bad mankind is too corrupt and evil.