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The Forum > Article Comments > Atheism repels feeble Easter attacks > Comments

Atheism repels feeble Easter attacks : Comments

By David Swanton, published 15/4/2010

Atheists simply accept that there is no credible scientific or factually reliable evidence for the existence of a god, gods or the supernatural—no more, no less. There is no element of indoctrinated belief about atheism.

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Grateful -

"Now unless you want to argue that the experience of Chinese whispers is an exception and not the rule, you would have to agree that the probability of the message being passed on for over 1400 years without evidence of it becoming corrupted would be very small. Surely this would count as evidence in support of God (without claiming it to be conclusive evidence)".

Even if this is the only example of the flawless transfer of a document over 1400 years (I doubt it - I'm sure it's rare but...) it only proves the document was held to be significant enough to ensure it was reproduced faithfully over time - not that a god is protecting it from corruption. I don't think anyone is disputing that a lot of people over the last 1400 years held the Qur'aan in high enough regard to ensure its faithful reproduction. It COULD count as evidence in support of a god but only if you discount other infinitely more likely explanations first.

Ockham's razor...
Posted by Orange Donkey, Thursday, 22 April 2010 11:22:32 AM
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Grateful,

There are two points that discredit your arguments on this thread...

Firstly, in regards to the Qur’an - or the Bible for that matter - there are two possibilities: -

1. It is the divinely inspired word of God;
2. They are merely the musings of ignorant sand dwellers.

With the practical knowledge that we acquire from day-to-day living (or “common experience” as you had put it) we can safely say that it’s the latter. We have no reason to believe that any of the holy books are divinely inspired and this is why your “test” is fallacious and doesn’t work.

And secondly, you’re assuming that a god - if it indeed exists - necessarily has something to do with the religions of the world. There is nothing to suggest that this is the case. On the contrary, considering how ridiculous the religions of the world show themselves to be, and the continual flaws and inconsistencies in their doctrines, I’d say the exact opposite is the case.

This goes back to your point that atheists focus on Christianity and largely ignore Islam. As someone who used to be a Christian, I know Christianity back-to-front and in-side-out. That’s why I can counter the arguments of Christians so easily: I often know what they’re going to say in advance and simply sit back and wait for it.

I don’t know Islam or the Qur’an very well, but I don’t need to know them very well to know that it’s still a load of nonsense - just as I don’t need to know about the Greek gods to know that they are all nonsense. One does not have to study all religions to rationally form the belief that gods do not exist.

As for “Chinese whispers”, there’s a big difference between word of mouth (whispering) and tangible texts. Especially when those texts are held as sacred by entire cultures.

Your analogy there was flawed.

Continued...
Posted by AJ Philips, Thursday, 22 April 2010 3:36:10 PM
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...Continued

<<I'm sure if you found a passage in the the Qur’aan that stated the Sun actually orbited the earth, you would consider this to be highly relevent.>>

Holy books say a lot of things. The fact that some of the things said are going to, at least co-incidentally, be correct is nothing special. From what we can know - not just believe - it is more rational to conclude that it is simply a co-incidence rather than assume that it’s right because a god inspired it.

We know the Qur’an’s creation story didn’t really happen. Is that evidence that god doesn’t exist?

Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

<<i note you have nothing to say about my remarks about ibn Warraq or John Perkins.>>

I did. I said they were irrelevant.

The topic here is that atheists rely on evidence to determine whether or not they believe a god exists - not whether or not they employ rigorous enough research when critiquing religions.

As I’ve said above, even if a god does exist, there is nothing to suggest that it has anything to do with the religions of the world, so your points about Ibn Warraq and John Perkins are a merely red herrings.
Posted by AJ Philips, Thursday, 22 April 2010 3:36:16 PM
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George,

Why do you insist on misinterpreting me?

<<If this means you do not wish me to react again to your posts, you have my promise I won't.>>

I was referring to your over-sight and I believe I made that quite clear.

I’ll give you another example of the over-sight in case you’re still not sure about what I’m referring to...

You often express a desire to understand atheists. As admirable a notion as this is, it’s a little strange considering that implicit atheism is simply a lack of belief and explicit atheism is simply disbelief due to the total lack of evidence.

Your apparent desire to understand where atheists are coming from is a nice thought, but by assuming that there is anything more to understand other than a disbelief due to a lack of proof, you show that you mistakenly think that theism and atheism are equally opposing views when they’re not.

Now, atheists understanding theists - that’s a different story. That could take a lifetime and even then, it’s unlikely an understanding would ever be attained due to the complexity and subjectiveness of the belief and the variety of beliefs out there.

Hence my point that they are not equally opposing views. One is a claim, one is merely a response to that claim.
Posted by AJ Philips, Thursday, 22 April 2010 3:36:21 PM
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Orange Donkey you write:
QUOTE:
While irrelevant is arguably a little extreme, this is a long way from a proof of a god. The use of the scientific method was far from unheard of at the time the Qur'aan was written. If the Qur'aan gave Pythagoras' Theorem (for eg.) it would be staggeringly more likely that it had spread to the area from where it was discovered, rather than that it was handed to Mohammed by a god. Perhaps a little science was used to determine it? If I wrote a book now, I could include all kinds of facts taken from scientific discoveries in it - should people in 1400 years time see that as proof of everything I write in the same book?
UNQUOTE

O.K., the following verse should meet your objection. It describes the state of the unbeliever by way of analogy with a person looking up from the depths of the ocean:
“Or like darkness in the deep sea — there covers him a wave, above which is a wave, above which is a cloud — (layers of) darkness one above another — when he holds out his hand, he is almost unable to see it. And to whom Allah gives not light, he has no light.” (Qur’an 24:39-40, tp://www.ahmadiyya.org/english-quran/quran.htm)

The second part of the description describes layers of darkness. One could argue that this could easily have been deduced by observation. Fair enough.

However, consider the first part. It does NOT describe a person beneath the ocean covered by a wave and then a cloud BUT a person beneath the ocean covered by a wave, above which is a wave and then a cloud. We can infer the second wave is a surface wave, but how do we interpret the first wave? Is this evidence of error in the Qur’an?

1/2 cont...
Posted by grateful, Saturday, 24 April 2010 11:56:56 PM
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2/2 cont
No. The description turns out to be consistent with what scientists have discovered about “internal waves”. Here is a description from the Artic Region supercomputing Centre:

QUOTE
The ocean’s interior has its own weather and climate, much like some of the Earth’s highest mountain peaks. The weather of the ocean results from fluctuating currents (wind) and from waves similar to the waves on the surface of the ocean.

The rhythmic movement of the ocean, caused by the tidal cycle, creates internal waves. One important type of internal wave is called an internal tide. As the ocean sloshes back and forth, it flows over geographic variations in the bottom depths, such as seamounts. As a result, waves that are excited in the interior of the ocean radiate away. When these waves are generated by the tides, they are called internal tides. Internal tides fill the ocean’s interior with waves carrying energy from one part of the ocean to another. (http://www.arsc.edu/challenges/2004/oceans.html, ref from Wikipaedia: “Internal Tide”)
UNQUOTE

So Orange Monkey, how would Occam’s Razer be applied in this instance? It cannot be said that Muhammad, peace be upon him, or anyone else at the time, could have known about internal waves. Does this not constitute a piece of evidence in support of his claim that indeed he was a Prophet of God?

NOTE: I have deliberately taken an old translation of the Qur'an, that of Maulana Muhammad Ali (1874–1951) translated in 1917, to avoid any possibility that an 'extra wave' could have been inserted to conform to what we now know about the oceans. You’ll find similar translations in Marmaduke Pickthall, (1875 – 1936) translated 1930 or Yusuf Ali (1872 – 1953) translated 1934.

AJPhillips: I don’t see how you can say you KNOW the claims of Islam are wrong when you do not know the claims of Islam and you are simply assuming they are wrong. Also, can I ask how you “know” God did not create everything, including the laws that manifest themselves in the form of ‘causes' and 'effects’. Another assumption?
Posted by grateful, Sunday, 25 April 2010 12:09:14 AM
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