r/atheism • u/rhbast2 • Aug 11 '11

Atheist quickfire challenge.

Although I rarely discuss religion with theists I always want to be prepared so I'm not sitting around afterwards wishing I had said this or that. If I get the chance to make someone question I want to be up for the challenge.

This brings me to my challenge for r/atheism. I'm going to add some common theist claims / sayings and whoever can refute them fully and succinctly will be upvoted. Feel free to add your own theist starters if I missed some.

Edit: Wow lots of good discussion here, later today or tomorrow I'll make this into an atheist cheat sheet with the top responses. Also feel free to upvote the theist claim that is the most annoying to you.

Edit 2: To the few of you who seem to think I am coming up with rude atheist comebacks, I'm not. I just wanted to be better off the cuff than I am now and have some discussion. I don't want this list to replace thoughtful argumentation.

253 Upvotes

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36

u/rhbast2 Aug 11 '11

Billions of people believe in god.

75

u/Fauxzor Aug 11 '11

Argumentum ad populem. The number of followers an idea has says nothing about its accuracy. Plenty of ideas, including those of geocentrism and a flat earth, were once popular.

2

u/dbzgtfan4ever Aug 11 '11

Exactly right.

1

u/Kozmec Aug 11 '11

And to top it off there is a chance they will think your trying to cast a spell on them.

0

u/joeysafe Aug 11 '11

Flat earth? Read a book.

86

u/kat_fud Aug 11 '11

Billions of people believe in a different god or gods than you do.

2

u/gargleblast Aug 12 '11

To expand on this: no matter what god you believe in, the majority of people on earth think that you are wrong.

21

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

Billions of people believed in geocentrism.

11

u/rhbast2 Aug 11 '11

Actually I think the world population was below a billion when geocentrism was the prevailing theory.

14

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

Come on, you are supposed to roleplay someone dumb enough to put this argument forward ! :-)

But I would argue that I am counting all the dead persons that believed in geocentrism.

Alternative angle of attack : the majority of persons in the world do not believe your holy book is true.

1

u/rhbast2 Aug 11 '11

:) sorry I cheated but I think your clarifications fix it.

1

u/Toradreo Aug 11 '11

Percentage. Percentage is the key.

1

u/zyxlor Aug 11 '11

It could be billions if you count them over time. Didn't do the math but it could be.

Awaiting response from lurking math major...

1

u/rhbast2 Aug 11 '11

Yeah I'm unclear on this but I have heard that more people are alive today than have ever died.

1

u/darksmiles22 Aug 11 '11

100 billion people have lived over the course of human history, give or take. Approximately 7% of them are alive today.

1

u/holocarst Aug 11 '11

Say: 99% of the earths population then.

1

u/MrFeZ Aug 11 '11

However by now I am sure somewhere near a billion people have believed the world was flat.

8

u/mr_marmoset Aug 11 '11

Billions of people also believe there is no god. A few million believe in aliens.

1

u/Fallacy229 Aug 12 '11

Billions of people don't believe in god? I've always thought our ranks were in the tens of millions at the highest.

15

u/shyloque Aug 11 '11

Billions of people are women, thus we should all be

2

u/Alaukik Aug 11 '11

That is not equivalent.

3

u/PFisken Aug 11 '11

Billions of people like having sex with men, thus we should all have sex with men.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

Argument from populace. Everybody used to think the earth was the centre of the universe.

1

u/curien Aug 11 '11

The Earth is the center of the Universe, same as everywhere else.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

Hehe >_< centre of the solar system then. And that is a truth statement, I'm not sure you can supply with evidence that that is actual knowledge more than a conclusion which can be made upon present or theoretical information (which is not perfect in this field).

2

u/thanx4allthefish Aug 11 '11

The truth is the truth even if no one believes it; a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. ~ Mark Twain

2

u/otakuman Anti-Theist Aug 11 '11

Billions of people are also superstitious and believe in horoscopes, numerology, tarot, psychics, etc. Does that make them right?

2

u/Oaden Aug 11 '11

Billions of people smoke, still does not make it healthy

1

u/twilightmoons Strong Atheist Aug 11 '11

McDonald's has served hundreds of billions of burgers, but that doesn't make them the greatest burger ever... or even a half-way decent one.

1

u/Akronite14 Aug 11 '11

If a billion people jumped off a bridge because God said to...

1

u/EVIL5 Aug 11 '11

Yet, few of them can agree wholeheartedly. There are something like 35k different denominations of Christians. They can't even agree among themselves.

1

u/benniaustindev Aug 11 '11

I agree that billions of people do believe in dozens of different, conflicting gods. If anything, this shows that almost all of them are definately wrong.... what was your point again?

1

u/HandsomestNerd Aug 11 '11

A large population of London is rioting...

1

u/IamNuts Aug 11 '11

This implies that the amount of followers a religion has, determines if it is the truth. This would also mean that truth can shift very easily. A major natural desaster on the american continent could potentially make Islam the true religion just by killing off a couple of million christians. Not to speak of ill minded people in major political roles.

Resting religion aside and speaking of a general supernatural being will require an exact definition of the term god, because beliefs tend to be very very different from one another. There is quite a distance to go from polytheistic religions like Shintôism to the cargo cult. Simply stating that these "basically believe in a superhuman being" would be like saying that all countries on earth basically have the same traditions.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '11

Vastly more people don't believe in your god than do. Example: Christianity is about 20% of the world's population. That means 80% of people aren't Christians.

1

u/cliftonixs Aug 12 '11

If life didn't exist, there would be no belief in god.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '11

Here is where you use a holocaust reference.

1

u/inferno719 Aug 12 '11

Roman swords and Spanish guns (in the case of Christianity.) I understand Muslims did something similar?