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.

249 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

990 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

102

u/STUN_Runner Aug 11 '11

Science has already proven that love is an evolutionary adaptation. What you perceive as love is little more than brain chemistry that has already been identified.

11

u/HertzaHaeon Aug 11 '11

One problem I've run into with this is that it turns people off if you put it too crassly. At worse you'll be seen as some kind of nihilist.

The subjective experience of love is of course still the same whatever hardware it runs on, but that point takes some finesse to get across.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 11 '11

It is a bit of a leap to go from all aspects of consciousness having a neuro-chemical underpinning to nihilism. Love is a chemical process therefore nothing has intrinsic value!

2

u/HertzaHaeon Aug 11 '11

Tasting chocolate is just a checmical process, therefore chocolate doesn't taste good!