And yet again.....

Came across these beauties at work the other day.  Enjoy.  http://emach.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/10-questions-every-intelligent-atheist-must-answer/

Are you a moral relativist, or do you believe in absolute morality? In other words, do you believe that cultures, or even individuals, can define their own rules on what is moral and what is not, or do you believe that every action has one unique, absolute, and true moral assessment?

Everyone is a moral relativist, some of us are just honest about it.  Did you cut off your right hand when it caused you to sin as Jesus commanded? Pluck out an eye after checking out some hot toddy across the room? I know nothing of an “absolute morality” wherein an action is always right or always wrong regardless of situation, time period in question, context or motivations and outcomes. Certain moral values are seen throughout humanity in every religion and even among other primates (Do not murder, do not steal, do not practice sexual infidelity). As Thunderfoot pointed out, even piranhas refrain from killing other piranhas. One of the best measures I can find to determining the morality of an action is whether or not the underlying assumptions behind the action are true or false. Take the Holocaust, for instance. The Nazis perpetrated the Holocaust because of two underlying assumptions: 1. minorities, “deviants” and handicapped people were not fully “human.” 2. The continued existence of these groups represented a clear and present danger to human civilization. Therefore, the logical outcome was the “final solution.” Clearly, this is a flawed conclusion because the first two premises are demonstrably false. Is this a perfect system? No. But it is a lot more honest an evaluation than doing something “Because __________ says to.”

Is your trust in science based on faith or based on science?

My “trust in science” is based on the fact that I don’t have to “trust" in science. 
Science demands evidence. 
Faith demands belief. 
Science demands fact-based, logically consistent answers. 
Faith demands belief despite the facts and despite logical inconsistencies. 
Science begs to be questioned. 
Faith begs the question. 
Science changes to account for new information. 
Faith ignores new information. 
Science screams “Here I am, come kick my ass, if you can!” 
Faith (in many cases) specifically forbids you from questioning it. 
Science takes nothing on faith, which is exactly why faith has nothing on science.

Unless you’ve observed something yourself, or observed and interpreted the evidence yourself and drew your own conclusions, you are just as guilty as faith as any religious person.

No. A religious person accepts claims made for which there is no evidence other than the claim itself OR no evidence other than being in agreement with an old book of such claims. To accept a scientific study as valid, all one need do is accept the validity of the scientific method. If you accept the validity of the process by which the conclusions were arrived at, then you know two things: 1. If the conclusions are in error, then the error will be exposed by further application of the scientific process. 2. Even if no error is present in the in the conclusions, the conclusions are still subject to change in light of new information. This is why all scientific knowledge is still referred to as “theory.”

Where does language, art, music, and religion come from?

The human brain.

Suppose, hypothetically, that you met with someone who knew nothing about you except your first name. And this person was able to accurately name deceased family members, discuss in detail how they died, and describe intimate personal details about your relationship with these people (including people you aren’t consciously thinking about). How would you explain this?

That would be a pretty remarkable occurrence indeed! However, it would also be suspicious. My first question would be this: How would I know that they didn’t know anything about me other than my first name? How do I know they’re not lying when they say that? What sort of control mechanism was in place to insure that they hadn’t done a little research on genealogy sites about me or knew and communicated with people that knew me?

You claim that you had such a thing happen to you and that you are smarter than the average person and therefore more difficult to fool and that we should take all of what you say as totally valid because of this. Well, I hate to point this out to such an obvious intellect such as yourself, but you have no way of showing what you claim to have happened actually happened the way you describe it. You claim to have heard tapes and that you know that the medium knew things he couldn’t possibly have known before hand and you have this mountain of evidence, but I’m unconvinced. What, other than your word, do we have, and why should we believe you? You say that scientific claims should not be regarded as valid unless “you have observed … or observed and interpreted the evidence for yourself” yet you expect us to accept as valid your claim because you heard a tape of something that sounded pretty convincing and you are (allegedly) smarter than the average person. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it.

Is absence of proof the proof of absence?

No, but if you are going to claim the existence of a god, goddess or hyper-intelligent shade of blue, then it is beholden unto you to back that claim up with something other than “I can’t show how this is true, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t.”

What does the atheist position offer people?

It offers nothing but honesty.  It takes nothing from you, requires nothing of you and places no burdens upon you. 

I admit that Christianity has been the cause of great suffering for many people over the years, I also believe that it has been the cause of great happiness for many people over the years.

So has Scientology. So has Buddhism. So has Taoism. So has Islam. So has Zoroastrianism. So has Hare Krishna. So has Wicca.  The ability to bring happiness into people's lives is not a testament to the veracity of the claims made.  

Heroin addiction causes suffering, but also brings happiness to the user.  Temporary and illusory happiness, but happiness just the same.  Same with alcoholism, crack addiction, and prescription drugs.  Would you "rather take the good with the bad than take nothing at all" in those cases as well? 

When you attempt to use logic to conclude facts about religion, are you starting at the conclusion (God is not real), or are you starting at true premises? Be honest. If you are starting at true premises, then what are they? And how are they true?

I start with the premise that we can know things. I go from there to the assumption that we can demonstrate and communicate what we know.  I will readily admit that either of these could be false...but we've gotten a helluva lot of stuff done by assuming that they are true.

If all Christians believed that the Bible was entirely allegorical, what would you argue in support of your position?

I would simply ask why this particular book of allegories should be believed and accepted as the “one true word of god” as opposed to the hundreds of other religious (and non-religious) allegorical texts out there.

Why is it important to you that everyone is an atheist?

It’s not. 
What is important to me is that our society prize real knowledge over ignorance that disguises itself as real knowledge. 
What is important to me is that our government enacts legislation based on something other than someone’s interpretation of an ancient book. 
What is important to me is that we spend our time and resources on things that benefit everyone as opposed to doing things that are either ineffective, dangerous or that strip people of their basic humanity because someone’s religion says to.

Do you believe in extra-terrestrials?

I have no evidence that they exist, but one can logically assume that they can.

If you are an atheist, I am going to require that you also do not believe in E.T.

By what right and under what authority do you require me or anyone else to believe or not believe anything?

And if you acknowledge that E.T. has not been observed but is likely to exist, I demand that you also acknowledge that God has not been observed but is likely to exist.

I don’t assert that ET is "likely" to exist because we simply don't know. ET could exist because if conditions conducive to life exist here and if life is a naturally occurring product of the universe, it is then reasonable to assume that if similar conditions exist elsewhere in the universe, then life can exist there as well.

Would you like me to assert that a god or gods could exist? Fine. A god or gods could exist, but I have found no good reason to believe that they do.  So by what reasoning do you conclude that a god can exist other than the plethora of wildly divergent claims of divine revelation and unverified (and unverifiable) claims of supernatural phenomena?

And if one god can exist, why not 20, or a hundred, or a billion?

As Christopher Hitchens once said, Even if you prove deism, that is the existence of a creator god, you still have all your work ahead of you.  You still have to prove theism, the existence of a personal god who cares about you and what you do.

Questions from the UK

• How do you account for the fine tuning of the universe from the big bang?

How are you coming to the conclusion that the universe is “finely-tuned?” “Finely-tuned” compared to what? Is there another universe that we don’t know about? How many universes were/are not “finely-tuned?”

• What caused this beginning (whatever has a beginning must have a cause)?

A cause would imply that there exists such a thing as “before” the big bang. This is impossible because “before” and “after” are functions of time.  Time did not exist until the big bang, therefore to assert that the universe “must have a cause” is begging the question.

• If an intelligent designer doesn't exist how did life, with all it's vast complexity, even get going in the first place?

No one knows for sure.  But it is irresponsible and dishonest to fill in the blank with our favorite deity or fairy story and call that an answer. 

• Do you really believe that non-living matter evolved and arranged itself into something living and self aware?

I believe that life came about through natural processes that we don’t have enough information to fully understand.  I believe this because this has been our experience.  A host of things that were once thought to be the work of magic, sorcery, or supernatural entities (floods, earthquakes, plagues, eclipses, comets, mental illnesses) turned out to have natural, scientifically valid explanations.  I see no reason to believe that the origin of life is any different…especially when religion has been so wrong about so many other things

• If we live in a purely material world then how do we account for the many supernatural experiences that people have, such as encounters with God, ghosts, spirits, etc (obviously, exactly what all of these encounters actually are are all interpreted by different people in different ways

Let me just stop you right there and say that you have almost answered your own question when you say “exactly what all of these encounters actually are are all interpreted by different people in different ways.”  Therein lies the problem with the reliability of such “encounters.”

• but the fact remains that people encounter things that do not fit a purely naturalistic world view).

No, people claim to encounter things that do not seem to fit a purely naturalistic worldview.  The only evidence we have of these claims are the claims themselves. 

• Are we really to conclude that all of these people are delusional, deceptive, or mad? Or could it be that people are having real encounters with real supernatural beings not explainable through purely scientific mediums?

If none of the people who have claimed to have had these experiences were deceptive, delusional or mad, and if there were an objective way to independently test these claims, you might have a case.  But the fact is this: All of these claims are anecdotal.  You have no way of testing these claims.  Furthermore, when considering even the sincerest of claims of honest people, neither you nor they are aware of the environmental or biochemical factors that may be coming into play, causing them to see or experience what they think they are seeing or experiencing. 

• Where does all of the incredibly complex information come from that is stored within DNA? 

An excellent question. And I say again, no one knows for sure.  But it is irresponsible and dishonest to fill in the blank with our favorite deity or fairy story and call that an answer.  But I have a feeling you're about to....

•  Information doesn’t just appear by itself.  Someone has to put it there.

And you there you went.

• Why does humanity seem to have an innate desire and need to worship something, or someone? Why is there such a universal religious sense within humanity?

The prevalence of religious belief does not represent “an innate desire and need to worship something or someone.”  Religions developed as a way to understand the world that primitive men lived in and as a way to codify (and justify) the prevalent customs, practices and our species’ morality.  This is why some aspects of religion are universal (the “golden rule,” provisions against murder), and some aspects are divergent (polytheism vs. monotheism, matriarchal vs. patriarchal, moody gods vs. ambivalent gods)

And it is in the divergence of these religions that makes them suspect as a source of true knowledge about anything.  Take near-death experiences, for instance.  People raised in Christian cultures claim to see Jesus or Hell.  Buddhists claim to see Buddha, Muslims claim to see Mohammed, while Jews claim to see Abraham.

• Isn’t it a bit extreme to assert "God does not exist"? To make such a statement you would have to have complete knowledge and to have been everywhere in the universe.

And that is exactly why I don’t assert that a god does not exist.  Atheism is not the denial of the existence of a god or gods, it is the disbelief of a theistic positive claim.  The theist claims that a god or gods exist while the atheist is unconvinced.

•  Maybe God dwells somewhere in the universe you don’t know of or have not been to? Is that possible? 

It is equally possible that griffins, Jedi Knights and sugarplum fairies exist somewhere in the universe I don’t know of or have not been to.  But that is not a reason to believe that these things do exist and certainly not a basis upon which to believe that these things care about me personally or that I should live my life according to their alleged “revealed knowledge.”

• What about the evidence of design in all of creation?

 "Appearance" of design is not "evidence" of design.  

• It is obvious that anything that is designed has to have an intelligent creator. 

Not necessarily.  You can have something poorly designed that is the product of an unintelligent creator.

• For example, a computer never came about by mere accident, but had to have been thought out and planned by an intelligent designer. It is the same with creation, and more so, as the natural world is far more complicated than anything humanity can create.

You're exactly right! And if computers occurred naturally, you'd have a checkmate...but.

Computers don't occur naturally.  We can see them conceptualized, designed, and built.  We can go to where they are manufactured and see how the process works.  We can talk to people who build them....and even build them ourselves.  This is what separates nature from the world of machines. We can tell machines are manufactured because we have unmanufactured nature to compare it to.

If you propose a designer, where is it? How does it "manufacture" nature? Once it does, how is it shipped here? Why did it design so many things that went extinct because they couldn't adapt to conditions here on Earth? And if this designer is so intelligent, and capable of so much, it too must be too complex to have just come about without an even greater and more intelligent designer designing it.

• Where does all the matter in the universe come from?

If you are referring to the elements, nuclear fusion.  If you are referring to sub-atomic particles, etc., then as I said previously:  No one knows for sure.  But it is irresponsible and dishonest to fill in the blank with our favorite deity or fairy story and call that an answer.  

•  Why exactly is there something rather than nothing? 

Atoms are comprised mostly of empty space....so everything is comprised mostly of nothing...so the something you speak of is mostly made up of the nothing you claim doesn't exist.

• How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with Jesus Christ?

I would imagine the same way that you would explain the "changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience" with Krishna, Buddha, Allah, Sun Myung Moon, Lao Tzu, Wicca, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard and Star Trek.

• How do we account for the historical Person of Jesus Christ? 

Considering there are no records written of him prior to 20 years after his alleged death (and those were  written by a man who claimed to have had a meeting with his ghost on the road to Damascus), and considering that the first alleged "eyewitness" account of his life doesn't appear until 60 years after his alleged death (ghost-written by someone who supposedly got the info from Jesus' buddy Mark), there really isn't much we can say about "the historical Person of Jesus Christ."...especially when you consider that the other biographies of his life not only came out around the year 100-150, but have all been edited for style and content for the last 1900 years or so

• He has made such an impact upon history that we even measure our calendar by Him.

Yeah, I'm sure that has absolutely *nothing* to do with the fact that Pope Gregory XIII is who set up the calendar we use today in 1562.  And i'm sure that Western Europe and America's domination of much of the world from 1600-1945 has nothing to do with it's widespread use either.  

By that logic, Odin and the gods of Scandinavia are real because we measure our week by them (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are all named after Norse deities). 

• 2000 years on and millions still follow Him.

If the age of a religion determines it's legitimacy, i've got some bad news for you.
Zoroastrianism (140,000-190,000 followers worldwide) has Christianity beat by at least 500 years (and bears a striking resemblance to christian theology).
Taoism (20-400 million followers worldwide) has Christianity beat by at least 400 years.Judaism (14.6 million followers worldwide) has Christianity beat by at least 1000 years. Now I know you guys claim lineage from the Jews, but even if I give you that.....
Hinduism (1 billion followers worldwide) has Christianity beat by about 2000 years.