If God's love encompasses the whole world and if everyone who does not believe in him will perish, then surely this question needs to be asked: When, after two thousand years, does God's plan kick in for the billion people he 'so loves' in China? Or for the 840 million in India? Or the millions in Japan, Afghanistan, Siberia, Egypt, Burma ·.. and on and on?
Why would a God who 'so loved the world' reveal his message only to a tiny minority of the people on earth, leaving the majority in ignorance? Is it possible to believe that the Father of all Mankind would select as his Chosen People a small Middle Eastern nation, Israel, reveal His will exclusively to them, fight alongside them in their battles to survive, and only after their failure to reach out to any other group, update His plan for the world's salvation by sending His 'only begotten son,' not to the world but, once again, exclusively to Israel?
Tags: thinking love world fight will atheism ignorance survival earth japan china question battle agnosticism israel india agnostic god-s-love middle-east love-of-god losing-faith good-question atheist-argument christian-criticism criticism-of-faith
Who gave the decisive deathblow to the argument from design on the basis of biological complexity? Both philosophers and biologists are divided on this point (Oppy 1996; Dawkins 1986; Sober 2008). Some have claimed that the biological design argument did not falter until Darwin provided a proper naturalistic explanation for adaptive complexity; others maintain that David Hume had already shattered the argument to pieces by sheer logical force several decades earlier, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Hume 2007 [1779]). Elliott Sober has been among the philosophers who maintain that, as Hume was not in a position to offer a serious alternative explanation of adaptive complexity, it is hardly surprising that 'intelligent people strongly favored the design hypothesis' (Sober 2000, 36). In his most recent book, however, Sober (2008) carefully develops what he thinks is the most charitable reconstruction of the design argument, and proceeds to show why it is defective for intrinsic reasons (for earlier version of this argument, see Sober 1999, 2002). Sober argues that the design argument can be rejected even without the need to consider alternative explanations for adaptive complexity (Sober 2008, 126): 'To see why the design argument is defective, there is no need to have a view as to whether Darwin’s theory of evolution is true' (Sober 2008, 154).
Maarten BoudryTags: science biology atheism complexity evolution charles-darwin darwin richard-dawkins dawkins david-hume biological-complexity graham-oppy theory-of-evolution argument-for-atheism argument-from-design-refuted atheistic-argument deathblow design-argument-refuted elliott-sober intelligent-design-refuted
If everything must have a cause, of course, this also applies to God; if God can exist in isolation, then why not the universe?
Etienne VermeerschTags: existence philosophy atheism universe atheist naturalism materialism infinite first-cause antitheism atheist-argument origin-of-the-universe origin-of-universe argument-against-theism first-cause-argument-debunked special-pleading special-pleading-fallacy
[On famous Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr]
[Niels] Bohr's sort of humor, use of parables and stories, tolerance, dependence on family, feelings of indebtedness, obligation, and guilt, and his sense of responsibility for science, community, and, ultimately, humankind in general, are common traits of the Jewish intellectual. So too is a well-fortified atheism. Bohr ended with no religious belief and a dislike of all religions that claimed to base their teachings on revelations.
Tags: humor science family stories atheism atheist responsibility teaching tolerance revelation community intellectual jewish humankind jew parables niels-bohr dislike-of-religion obligation-guilt
Injustice upon earth renders the justice of of heaven impossible.
Robert G. IngersollTags: injustice justice philosophy atheism heaven contradiction impossibility ingersoll problem-of-evil argument-from-problem-of-evil atheism-arguments
My method is atheism. I find the atheistic outlook provides a favourable background for cosmopolitan practices. Acceptance of atheism at once pulls down caste and religious barriers between man and man. There is no longer a Hindu, a Muslim or a Christian. All are human beings. Further, the atheistic outlook puts man on his legs. There is neither divine will nor fate to control his actions. The release of free will awakens Harijans [lowest caste] and the depressed classes from the stupor of inferiority into which they were pressed all these ages when they were made to believe that they were fated to be untouchables. So I find the atheistic outlook helpful for my work [helping people]. After all it is man that created god to make society moral and to silence restless inquisitiveness about the how and why of natural phenomena. Of course god was useful though a falsehood. But like all falsehoods, belief in god also gave rise to many evils in course of time and today it is not only useless but harmful to human progress. So I take to the propagation of atheism as an aid to my work. The results justify my choice.
Goparaju Ramachandra RaoTags: progress equality questions free-will morality humanity belief nature fate atheism atheist control naturalism materialism islam muslim hinduism cosmopolitan inferiority hindu useless aid harmful divine-will atheistic natural-phenomena atheistic-outlook caste-system man-created-god religious-barriers social-reformer untouchables
The Church being what she is cannot have the instincts of a gentleman.
George Everett MacdonaldTags: humor atheism funny criticism instinct the-church gentleman
When a mere girl, my mother offered me a dollar if I would read the Bible through; . . . . despairing of reconciling many of its absurd statements with even my childish philosophy, . . . I became a sceptic, doubter, and unbeliever, long ere the 'Good Book' was ended.
Elmina Drake SlenkerTags: philosophy youth atheism atheist girl absurdity young bible-study bible-absurdities doubter sceptic unbeliever
[Josiah P. Mendum memorial at Paine Hall]
[He turned] the strait-laced Boston of sixty years ago [into] the enlightened Hub of today, . . . to 'destroy bigotry and uproot the evils of superstition.
Tags: atheism superstition praise enlightenment bigotry boston memorial paine-hall
How I suffered when I had to preach to you those pious lies that I detest in my heart. What remorse your credulity caused me! A thousand times I was on the point of breaking out publicly and opening your eyes, but a fear stronger than myself held me back, and forced me to keep silence until my death.
Jean MeslierTags: fear lies death atheism atheist superstition credulity first-atheist pious-lies
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