Crazy Arguments – Herrick Home Page

Stupid Argument #1: the consequences of atheism are depressing.

Atheism is sad or unfortunate or otherwise discouraging, or atheism declares that life is hopeless and meaningless.

This is like saying that the consequences of earthquakes and hurricanes are sad or unfortunate. Sure, the consequences of reality can be sad, but that doesn’t make them untrue. “Atheism is depressing; therefore, it’s false” is a childish way of looking at the world. A pat on the head might make us feel better, but are we not adults looking for the truth?

As for life being meaningless, I find no ultimate meaning, but then neither can the Christian. Atheists can find plenty of the ordinary kind of meaning. Look up the word in the dictionary—there is nothing about God or about ultimate or transcendental grounding. (More on objective truth here.)

Stupid Argument #2: I sense God’s presence; therefore, God exists.

The argument is more completely stated: If God existed, I would sense his presence; I sense God’s presence; therefore, God exists. This is the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent (formal version: if P then Q; Q; therefore P). I’ve discussed this in more detail here.

The point is that there could be lots of reasons why you sense God’s presence, God’s existing being only one of them (and the least likely). Maybe you were just raised that way and are a reflection of your culture. Maybe humans were programmed by evolution to err on the side of seeing an intelligence behind that rustling in the woods.

I can’t tell whether you’ve deluded yourself or whether you’re justified in believing in a supernatural experience. Nevertheless, your subjective personal experience may be convincing to you, but it won’t convince anyone else.

Stupid Argument #3: defending God’s immoral actions.

Christians might say that genocide or slavery was simply what they did back then, and God was working within the social framework of the time. Or they might say that God might have his own reasons that we mortals can’t understand.

This is just embarrassing. You’re seriously going to handwave away God’s being okay with slavery (discussed in detail here and here) and ordering genocide (here, here, and here)? If it’s wrong now, it was wrong then. How do you get past the fact that the Old Testament reads just like the blog of an early Iron Age tribe rather than the wisdom of the omniscient creator of the universe? And if you dismiss slavery as not that big a deal, would you accept Old Testament slavery in our own society? This reminds me of Abraham Lincoln’s comment, “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

As for God having his own unfathomable reasons for immoral actions, this is the Hypothetical God Fallacy. No, we don’t start with God and then fit the facts to support that presupposition; we follow the facts where they lead—whether toward God or not.

Stupid Argument #4: I’ll believe the first-century eyewitnesses over modern historians.

The Christian gives more weight to writings closer to the events.

It’s fair to be concerned about the accretion of layers of dogma or tradition over time, but don’t think that you’ve solved that problem by reading the Bible and the writings of the early church fathers. We don’t have what the original authors wrote; we have copies of what they wrote (and it’s debatable how good those copies were). Perhaps the Christian actually wants license to dismiss unwanted ideas from modern sources.

As for the “eyewitness” claim, this is often slipped in without justification. None of the gospels claim to be eyewitness accounts. We don’t even know who wrote them. That Matthew and Luke borrow heavily from Mark—often copying passages word for word—make clear that they’re not eyewitness accounts. And those gospels that do make the claim (the Gospel of Peter, for example) are rejected by the church. Show compelling evidence for the remarkable eyewitness claim before confidently tossing it out.

Of course, getting closer to the events is a good policy. The problem is that this doesn’t work to Christianity’s favor. We’re separated from both Islam and Mormonism by less time than from Christianity. Mormonism in particular fares much better than Christianity in a historical analysis (more here). This is an argument the Christian wants to avoid.

Stupid Argument #5: you can’t prove Christianity false.

You can’t know that God doesn’t exist unless you’re omniscient.

First off, don’t ask for proof. Proofs are for math and logic, not science or history. You can’t prove that God exists, and I won’t ask that of you; I simply want compelling evidence of your claim. And vice versa: ask for arguments and evidence from the atheist, not proof. If there is insufficient evidence to support the God hypothesis, you have no grounds for holding it. Belief in God is like belief in unicorns—don’t believe without sufficient evidence.

More important, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. I’ve made many positive arguments for atheism in posts at this blog, but the fundamental claim is made by the Christian that God exists. There would be nothing to talk about without this claim by the Christian. You’re making the claim, so it’s your burden. Don’t shirk it by demanding that the atheist prove Christianity false.

So many Christians want to dance away from this burden of proof that it’s almost like giving an answer to those who ask for the reason for the hope within them . . . is a burden.

Stupid Argument #6: Creationism.

Evolution is flawed. It isn’t repeatable, observable laboratory science; it’s only forensic science. And it makes no sense.

Evolution is the scientific consensus—deal with it (more here and here). You say your common sense is offended by the idea of evolution? Unless you have a doctorate in biology, you of all people should appreciate how meaningless this is. If common sense were the guide to science, no one would need to spend years getting a doctorate.

Science isn’t always right, but it’s the best means that we’ve got of finding out the truth about reality.

Ask yourself if you object to science in proportion to how much it steps on your ideological toes. Do you get in a lather about evolution, Big Bang, or climate change but ignore the conclusions of superconductivity, string theory, or the Millennium math problems? If you accept science according to how you’d like the world to be rather than follow the evidence, your biases are showing.

Another ridiculous tangent is to point to something controversial written by Charles Darwin. In the first place, most Creationist quotes of Darwin are misinterpreted. Before you make this argument, read Darwin’s words in context. Second, no one cares what Darwin said. Darwin’s work was hugely influential, but Darwin now resides solely in the History of Science domain. No one validates new ideas in biology by testing them against the great man’s writings.

And to those who say that evolution is “just a theory,” do some reading and then get back to me. (Slapping down Creationism isn’t the goal at this blog, but I do touch on that here.)

Stupid Argument #7: If you throw out the account of Jesus, you must discard the record of every other figure of history.

The quality of documentation of the gospel story is unprecedented.

The account of Jesus is primarily in the gospels, written decades after the events they claim to document. We have 25,000 copies (or fragments) of New Testament manuscripts, which is impressive, but that doesn’t turn out to be much of a plus for the apologetic argument.

The Christian wants to compare our evidence of Jesus with that of figures like Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great. But this confident comparison withers when we consider the coins and busts with the likeness of Julius Caesar. Or the more than a dozen cities across the Ancient Near East named after Alexander. We have nothing comparable for Jesus.

No, the evidence for the very existence of Jesus is paltry, let alone evidence for the incredible supernatural claims in the gospel story. More important, historians reject supernatural claims, including the many supernatural claims made about the great statesmen from 2000 years ago. Christians do themselves no favors by demanding a critique for the gospel story from an unbiased historian.

Stupid Argument #8: “One of the most important legal criteria . . . is that the accused and witnesses are innocent until proven guilty.”

This is an argument advanced by lawyer John Warwick Montgomery. He says that the gospels are the equivalent of witnesses and must initially be presumed accurate.

Let’s ignore that the presumption of innocence doesn’t apply to witnesses. Montgomery assumes the historicity of the story and that it was written by eyewitnesses (both of which must be demonstrated) and ignores how unreliable the New Testament books are. A document written 2000 years ago in Ancient Greek, for which our oldest fragment dates to two centuries after the original authorship (which is true for Mark), for example, is not equivalent to a living eyewitness who we can cross-examine.

Even ignoring all this, eyewitness testimony is unreliable (I’ve written about unreliable memory and thinking). Can Montgomery actually expect us to credulously accept claims from 2000 years ago for what might be the most remarkable supernatural claim imaginable? We’re comfortable with myth and legend, and that’s what the Bible looks like.

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent—
it says so right here on the label.
If you have a mind capable of believing
all three of these divine attributes simultaneously,
I have a wonderful bargain for you.
No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.
— Robert A. Heinlein

Stupid Argument #9a: Argument from silence.

The Jewish leaders would’ve been eager to shut down a rogue sect. If Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead, they would’ve pointed to the dead body. Faced with this refutation of their most important claim, early Christianity would’ve collapsed. And yet they didn’t produce the body—because they couldn’t!

This is the Naysayer Fallacy (discussed in detail here). What’s hard about imagining early Christianity withstanding contradicting information? Believers in lots of other religions haven’t let disquieting facts get in their way. Look at the historical errors in the Book of Mormon; they don’t sink Mormonism.

The Jewish leaders and the empty tomb are story elements in gospels written over forty years after the events they claim to describe. To say that Jewish leaders ought to have done this or that forty years earlier is like arguing with novelists that the characters in their stories ought to have done this or that. Characters are just pawns in a story, and they do what the authors make them do.

The Bible says that the early Christians didn’t go public until fifty days after the crucifixion. Even within the story, the Jewish leaders couldn’t/wouldn’t have produced that corpse.

Stupid Argument #9b: Demand for counter-evidence.

I’ve given you evidence (for the resurrection, say). You may not be impressed, but you’ve got to admit that it’s something. If you want to rebut that, you must provide contemporary counter-evidence. Gary Habermas said, “Skeptics must provide more than alternative theories to the Resurrection; they must provide first-century evidence for those theories.”

What’s that? You say you don’t have any first-century evidence against my argument? Well then I guess I win!

Nope, I don’t have first-century evidence of people arguing that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, and I’m sure I never will. Is that what you’d expect to see if the Jesus story got embellished with supernatural elements in the retelling—people preserving first-century letters that say that the Jesus story was nonsense?

Let’s imagine that demand in the case of Merlin the magician. The story goes that he was a shape shifter. Are we obliged to accept that as history unless we can find contemporary evidence against it? I propose instead that such a remarkable claim needs far more than just an old story to support it.

Ditto the Jesus story.

I turn this conversation around and demand evidence that George Washington didn’t fly with a jet pack here. Just like these Christians demanding contemporary evidence that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, I demand contemporary evidence that Washington didn’t fly with a jet pack. (Admittedly, my argument about Washington crumbles when we bring common sense into the discussion, but in that case, so do the miraculous claims for Jesus.)

Stupid Argument #10: Appeal to objective truth.

You can’t say that something is really wrong.

Really or truly, as qualifiers for some moral word (good, bad, right, wrong, and so on), are used to imagine some sort of objective morality grounded outside of humans. Apologist William Lane Craig defined objective morality as “moral values that are valid and binding whether anybody believes in them or not.”

No, Mr. Christian, I can’t say that something is objectively wrong, but then neither can you. I’ve explored claims of objective morality from a number of apologists (Greg Koukl, William Lane Craig, J. Warner Wallace, Frank Turek, and C.S. Lewis), and they do little more than make an appeal for it. The error they make is confusing universal moral truth (for which they give no evidence) with universally held moral programming (evidence of which is all around us). We’re all the same species, and it’s easy to see how we would share moral thinking.

Moral words like good, bad, and so on don’t need either objective grounding or God. Look them up in the dictionary and see for yourself.

Stupid Argument #11: Argument from accurate place names.

The Bible mentions names that archaeology has later validated—Jericho, for example. The Bible’s accurate historical track record where it could be substantiated means that unsubstantiated claims should be assumed to be accurate as well.

The Iliad also mentions names that archaeology has later validated—Troy, for example. That the Bible has confirmation on some of its names of people and places isn’t remarkable. Accurate names is the least we’d expect of a book that claims divine inspiration. More here.

Stupid Argument #12a: The Bible makes clear that God’s existence is plain for all to see.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20).

The Christian’s book says, “God exists; deal with it,” and that is supposed to mean something to an atheist? Let me respond with a quote of my own: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence” (Christopher Hitchens).

Stupid Argument #12b: The good in the world shows the hand of a loving god.

Think of the birth of a baby, sunsets and rainbows, or an unexpected remission of cancer. That’s the hand of God.

If desirable things point to a loving God, what do terrible things like smallpox, tsunamis, and birth defects point to?

Christians have a long history of handwaving away this Problem of Evil. The term for this discipline is theodicy. But a discipline that dates back to the early days of the church makes clear that this is no obvious matter. Apparently, this particular God is not “clearly seen,” so I have an excuse.

In a desperate move, one apologist attempted to argue that this is a two-edged sword, and evil is a problem for everyone, both the Christian and the atheist. That’s true, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about evil but the Problem of Evil, the riddle of how a good god could allow so much evil to exist. The atheist drops the god presupposition, and the problem vanishes completely. The Christian is still stuck with it. (More here.)

Why doesn’t God heal amputees?
Because they don’t deserve their arms, they deserve to die.
That’s what the Bible teaches.
Sorry if you don’t like that!
— VenomFangX

Stupid Argument #13: Pascal’s Wager.

Bet on God, and the upside is huge. Bet against God, and the downside is huge. Any questions?

The error is in imagining just two choices, Christianity and atheism. In reality, human societies have invented myriad choices, and Christianity is just one more. Christians are in the same spot they imagine for atheists. What if they bet wrong on the Hindu or Roman or Norse pantheons? Or on the Zoroastrian or Egyptian or Buddhist afterlife? Take a look at Buddhist hell in the image above—it ain’t pretty.

It also assumes that the deity will accept an ass-covering “bet on God” instead of authentic belief driven by conviction. Wouldn’t a god be smart enough to see through the insincerity?

In the gospel of John, we read, “[Peter] said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’ ” (John 21:17). Christians’ own Bible defeats Pascal’s Wager.

Finally, notice that Pascal does nothing to provide evidence for God’s existence. (More on Pascal’s wager here.)

Stupid Argument #14: You’ll be sorry!

Watch yourself, smart guy—you won’t be so cocky when you’re standing in judgment before the Creator. You’ll have an eternity in hell to repent your foolishness.

You’re really going to threaten atheists with something we don’t believe in? Why should we be any more concerned about Christian hell than you are about Buddhist hell? Let me again quote St. Christopher (Hitchens): “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

Even if you’re right, how heavenly will heaven be? Don’t you think the ongoing torment of billions of humans in hell—whose crime was nothing more than not getting it—will bother you after a while?

Imagine a different judgment scenario. You and I are standing in judgment before God. You’re feeling pretty smug since it’s clear that you guessed right. But then God turns to you and says, “So this is how you used your brain, my greatest gift to mankind? You just check it at the door and gullibly believe whatever your religious leader tells you? You weren’t supposed to return that brain with low mileage; you were supposed to use it!”

Guess who’s going to hell this time.

Stupid Argument #15: Citing Bible quotes.

We know that there is a Judgment Day. Jesus tells us, “Everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.”

As proof that the Bible makes a particular claim, Bible quotes are fine. I use them myself. But don’t cite a Bible quote as evidence of something important. You realize I don’t consider the Bible authoritative, right?

And if the issue is the Bible’s position on a certain topic, don’t simply show me a verse that supports your position. The Bible can be made to support just about any position—witness the thousands of sects of Christianity. Instead, show me how the Bible supports that position and only that position. The context is not just the surrounding verses but the entire Bible.

For example, I’ve read many apologetics for biblical slavery that cite the Bible’s indentured servitude for fellow Israelites but ignore that it elsewhere imposes slavery for life on foreigners. Or apologetics that pick and choose verses to create just one interpretation of the afterlife or the Trinity or the Second Coming.

Stupid Argument #16: Excusing God’s excesses.

You’ve got to understand that things were different back then. God supported slavery and ordered genocide in the Old Testament simply because he was working within the culture of the times. Israelite culture had to mature in the same way that a child must mature to properly understand morality.

The apologists making these arguments are fine with modern morality and would be as horrified to see Old Testament genocide and slavery in use today as any of us. But suggest that homosexuality is natural, and suddenly their hands are tied because the Old Testament is the immutable word of God. They grant themselves license to pick and choose the bits of the Old Testament that they like and discard the crazy baggage that comes along with it. They make the Bible into a sock puppet.

As for Israel maturing gradually like a child, remember that God imposed the Ten Commandments with no grace period. Israel didn’t get the chance to mature into these rules, and breaking most of them was a capital crime on Day 1. God was not squeamish about imposing morality, and he clearly didn’t care what social customs he swept away with new rules. God didn’t demand genocide and support slavery because his hands were tied but because he was okay with them.

These are the same Christians who demand to know how an atheist can reject the Holocaust without objective morality, not realizing that they do the Nazi two-step when apologizing for their god’s slavery and genocide.

Pofarmer’s Law: As an online discussion
between an atheist and a theist grows longer,
the probability of the theist threatening
the atheist with hell approaches 1.
— Commenter hector jones

Stupid Argument #17: Failure to acknowledge the incredibleness of the Christian claim.

So you think the Big Bang just happened? And you accept evolution saying we got here by chance and life came from nonlife? That’s crazy—I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist!

Correcting the many confidently asserted scientific errors isn’t our goal at the moment. The problem I’d like to focus on is apologists expressing doubt over a naturalistic explanation when their God hypothesis—that a supernatural being created the universe and came to earth as a human and that this was recorded in history—is perhaps the most incredible explanation imaginable.

That the conclusions of science offend their common sense is irrelevant and unsurprising. If science were nothing but common sense, no one would need to spend years getting a PhD. Unfortunately, none of these science skeptics seem motivated to end their perplexity by reading a textbook on the relevant subject.

Science has given us plenty of surprising explanations—the earth goes around the sun, germs cause disease, plate tectonics, quantum physics, and so on—that aren’t on Christians’ radar only because they don’t step on their theological toes.

And when apologists object to a natural explanation for some aspect of the Christian story (the resurrection, say) they ignore that not only is their supernatural explanation less likely than even an outlandish natural explanation, there isn’t even an accepted category of supernatural events that we can all agree to. Science has found the evidence to reject countless supernatural explanations in favor of natural ones, but the reverse has never been true, even once.

The plausible natural explanation always trumps the supernatural. (For a response to Geisler and Turek’s book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, click here and here.)

Stupid Argument #18: Christians are better people.

Christians give more to charity (or are nicer or have fewer divorces or have fewer abortions or are better looking or have fewer weeds in their yards or whatever).

In the first place, many of these proud claims wither under closer scrutiny.

Christians are not more generous.
Divorce rates for evangelicals and fundamentalists are the highest of any group.
Teen mothers disproportionately come from red states.
Red states consume the most antidepressants.
Atheists have better mental health than religious people.
Atheists know more about religion than Christians do.
Religious belief is even inversely proportional to innovation and intelligence.

A study by Gregory Paul compared 17 Western countries on social metrics (homicides, suicides, STDs, and so on). The U.S. came out at the bottom of this comparison of social metrics but on the top in religiosity (more). Proving a causal link is difficult, but Paul suggests that poor social conditions cause the high religiosity, and religion remains the opium of the masses, helping people deal with their pain.

I have no interest in getting into a citation war, where you show me studies that rebut any of the points above. Select any subset of the population, and you can probably find at least one thing on which they’re better than average. I’m confident we could find one or more positive traits that Christians have to a greater degree than atheists.

But so what? “Christian belief gives benefits; therefore God” is the pragmatic fallacy. This fallacy argues that if it is beneficial, it must be true.

Perhaps I’m just old fashioned, but I first want my beliefs to be true. I think I can handle the consequences of believing true things.

Stupid Argument #19a: God’s making himself plainly known would impose on your free will.

You couldn’t then make a free choice to follow him or not. As C.S. Lewis observed about God making himself known, “[God] cannot ravish; he can only woo.”

Knowing of the existence of no one else offends my free will; why should it be different for God? Satan knows about God in great detail, and he’s still free to not follow him.

The Bible record many instances of God imposing on people’s free will. “God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden” (Romans 9:18). He hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 9:12), for example, and he gave ungrateful humans over to “shameful lusts” (Rom. 1:26). “The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples” (Psalms 33:10). Following the Ten Commandments and the rest of the 613 Old Testament laws is mandatory, which was a substantial imposition on human free will.

And these Christians will be quick to say that belief is the work of the Holy Spirit, so even coming to belief is not something we do freely.

This is a pathetic attempt at avoiding the Problem of Divine Hiddenness and celebrating faith (that is, belief without sufficient evidence). Faith serves no purpose in any other part of life and is always the last resort. Defending an invisible God and celebrating faith is precisely what Christians would do if their religion were manmade (more).

More in response to this free will argument here and here.

Stupid Argument #19b: “All that are in Hell, choose it” (C.S. Lewis).

People send themselves to hell—don’t blame God. God is a gentleman, and he won’t impose himself on people. If they don’t want to be with him, he respects that. The gates of hell are locked from the inside.

Are we talking the same God who imposes genocide? Not much of a gentleman.

I understand the motivation to downplay the eternal torment that the loving God has planned for the majority of his greatest creation, as C.S. Lewis does with his quote above. There may be Bible verses by which liberal Christians imagine a kinder, gentler hell, but the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus gives the traditional view. When the rich man is sent to hell, he says, “I am in agony in this fire.”

That’s one person who wouldn’t be in hell if he could choose otherwise, and Lewis’s argument fails.

If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it,
however helpful it might be;
if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it,
even if it gives him no help at all.
— C.S. Lewis

Stupid Argument #20a: Science can’t explain everything; therefore, God.

The origin of life? Of consciousness? Of the universe? If you don’t have an answer, I do—God did it!

Science doesn’t have answers to some questions, and we’ll have to be patient. But some apologists seem desperate and insistent in their search for answers to life’s riddles. This is because they already have an answer. They started their investigation with an answer.

“Time’s up!” they say. “Pass your tests to the front.”

This apparent eagerness to understand reality is simply a smokescreen. They want to shoehorn in their answer for all puzzles, and science’s answers are irrelevant. If science did come up with a consensus view of a Christian’s puzzle du jour, our Christian would simply drop the resolved issue and find a new one.

This is like the Christian offering the following bet: “Let’s flip a coin over and over, and you give me a dollar every time I call it right.” This is the Christian putting forward some scientific puzzle, because as soon as science comes to a consensus on that question, he’ll just rummage around for another one.

Don’t tell me an issue is a big deal to you if it’s not. If your faith is built on science not having an answer to abiogenesis, say, then let’s talk about it. But if you have no skin in the game and you’re simply going to move the goalposts when you lose, it’s a waste of time.

Science is the only discipline that tells us new things about reality. As just one example of well-founded science, consider that we’re communicating with computers over the internet.

Stupid Argument #20b: Science has been wrong; therefore, God.

What about Piltdown Man? The steady-state universe? The origin of the moon? Science changes its mind all the time! What kind of a reliable foundation is this?

Remember what it was that uncovered the Piltdown Man hoax, discovered that the universe is expanding, and improved our understanding of the origin of the solar system—it was science every time, not the Bible and not theologians or philosophers. Science is imperfect but self-correcting. Science delivers.

And the idea of science changing its mind all the time isn’t the way it works. In well-established science, corrections tend to get smaller. Isaac Asimov said, “When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”

Stupid Argument #21a: Scientific illiteracy.

“Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.” — Bill O’Reilly

“How come I have two faucets? Hot comes out of one; cold comes out of the other. Never a miscommunication.” — Stephen Colbert

Actually, Bill, the big kids have understood for centuries how earth’s rotation and the gravitational effects of the sun and moon cause tides.

Another example of scientific cluelessness is Ray Comfort’s famous video where he holds up a banana and declares, “Behold the atheist’s nightmare!” No, Ray, the banana that God gave us was small, tasteless, and full of seeds. The sweet Cavendish banana that you held up is the result of thousands of years of human cultivation.

Ray’s “crocoduck” (his conclusion that since we don’t see a crocodile/duck hybrid, evolution is wrong) gets an honorable mention.

We all have to start somewhere. If you’re scientifically or mathematically undereducated, compensate with an open mind. Too often what I see instead is scientific illiteracy combined, not with open-mindedness, but with hubris. If your education came from the Discovery Institute, Answers in Genesis, or the Creation Research Institute, you’ve been poorly educated. Your confidence is misplaced.

Stupid Argument #21b: Mathematical illiteracy.

The life of Jesus fulfilled 300 prophecies! The probability of just eight of these coming true randomly—that is, without him being the real deal—is 1 in 10¹⁷. Cover the state of Texas in silver dollars two feet deep and find a particular one, blindfolded, by dumb luck—that’s the equivalent probability.

Whatcha gonna say against probability, right? Actually, a fair amount: I dismantle that ridiculous argument here.

We humans have a surprisingly poor native grasp of probability. Another helpful puzzle is the Monty Hall problem. Give it a try and see how you do.

Stupid Argument #22: Relying on the ignorance of your audience.

Put a single cell in a normal saline solution, and poke it with a needle. You’ve got all the elements of life, and yet you’ll never get life. Don’t tell me that evolution works!

I heard this while speaking to Intelligent Design proponent Jonathan Wells at a Discovery Institute book release event. I forgot what I asked to get this response, but it stopped me. I’d never heard this twist before and didn’t have anything to say in response.

But I do now. No biologist says that this was the step prior to this cell on its evolutionary progression, so the puzzle is meaningless. He’s right that you’ll never get life from that mixture, but no one said that you would. That cell came from another living cell and so on back through much speciation to the beginning of life on earth.

But, having a doctorate in molecular and cellular biology, Wells knew this. Why then pose this challenge? Why take advantage of my ignorance?

Here’s another example. I attended a presentation by Andrew Snelling (PhD in geology) of the Institute for Creation Research on radioisotope dating of Grand Canyon rocks (summary his argument here). He collected a number of samples of amphibolite. They were from a single layer and so were all the same age. He sent them to two laboratories for four kinds of radioisotope dating. The date results were all over the map. Conclusion: radioisotope dating is unreliable.

Only after I did some research did I discover that amphibolite is metamorphic rock and that only igneous rock can be reliably radioisotope dated.

So a geologist (who knows that radioisotope dating isn’t reliable on metamorphic rocks) gets some metamorphic rocks, has them dated, and then is shocked—shocked!—when the dates aren’t reliable. A “devastating failure for long-age geology,” as the subtitle suggests? Not quite.

Snelling counted on the ignorance of his audience, and he fooled me—at least until he could get out of the auditorium. I was not amused, and this did nothing to build support for his position.

I conclude [that this fallacious reasoning]
must be a product of a brain unsatisfied with doubt;
as nature abhors a vacuum,
so, too, does the brain abhor no explanation.
It therefore fills in one, no matter how unlikely.
— Michael Shermer

Stupid Argument #23: Atheism is an empty philosophy.

“There is no basis in atheism for morality. A consistent atheist would admit that the holocaust was not evil based on atheism. All that he can say is that stuff happens” (from commenter Al).

No basis in atheism for morality? There’s also none in chemistry, but so what? Atheism doesn’t propose to define or explain morality; it is simply the lack of god belief (or some close variant). That’s it. If you’re looking for a formalized approach to secular morality, consider the Humanist Manifesto or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Seriously, Christians, avoid this one. It invites a critique of your own worldview which, unlike atheism, does claim to provide moral guidelines. And they suck. With a God that commands genocide and condones slavery, your morality lives in a glass house.

Stupid Argument #24: You really believe in God.

You must just hate God. Or you’re an atheist because you are too proud to bend the knee. Or because you had a bad father. Or you don’t want to give up your hedonistic lifestyle. Or you had a bad experience with a religious person.

“You really believe in God, you just hate him” was the laughable punch line in the move God’s Not Dead. The mean professor, when a child, pleaded with God to not take away his mother, but she died anyway. (My review here.) Someone who believes in God is not an atheist. And not me.

Some Christians seem determined to begin with “all men are without excuse” from Romans 1:20. If there is no excuse, then atheists’ arguments must somehow be invalid, and they must actually be believers who willfully reject the truth.

I’ve responded to the weak “atheists must’ve had a bad father figure” argument here. The same kind of Freudian analysis by which some Christians imagine that atheists had a poor father figure (and so reject their supernatural father) just as easily argues that Christians who grew up with strong fathers invent a supernatural father to avoid the fear of being alone.

Here’s another angle on this idea that atheists are actually believers. From a pastor (quoted by Friendly Atheist):

How many atheists do you know that want to fuss and fight with you about trolls, and about Smurfs, and about fairies? None of them. They all want to fight about God. Why? Because you don’t fight stuff that’s non-existent. You fight stuff, that, in your conscience, you know is existing.

We push back against Christians because Christianity (at least conservative U.S. Christianity) is the bull in society’s china shop. Christianity supports hateful social policy and attacks the separation of church and state that protects both Christians and atheists.

Stupid Argument #25a: Rationalization.

“Life is . . . like a ray that starts with a point called birth and extends on into eternity. . . . That gives you a very different perspective on suffering, on evil, on anything bad that might happen to you in your life. . . . Any period of suffering . . . becomes smaller and smaller relative to eternity [as you proceed along the ray of life—it becomes] a quick, brief instant.” (from Christian podcaster J. Warner Wallace)

Any injustice you might experience in the world? Just shake it off because we should compare it relative to the all-you-can-eat buffet and bottomless coffee that is heaven. (And you thought Christians didn’t view moral arguments from a relativistic standpoint!)

The Bible puts it this way: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). This is analogous to punching someone and then giving them a million dollars in compensation. Yes, you’ve given compensation, but that doesn’t justify the injury! In the same way, “God compensates for the injustice in your life” doesn’t get God off the hook, since he still caused that suffering.

Rationalization has its place. If you have conflicting claims X and Y and you are certain that X is true, it makes sense to assume that Y fits in somehow. The problem is when X (for example, “God exists”) is assumed true with insufficient evidence.

C.S. Lewis’s rationalization for the Problem of Evil was, “Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” He can’t imagine a bungling god and he can’t imagine no god, so somehow evil must be there for a good reason. Here again we have the Hypothetical God Fallacy where God is presupposed so that we can imagine that omniscient God must have good reasons for things we just don’t understand.

The Bible itself has these rationalizations. Remember when Jesus predicted the imminent end? Rationalization becomes damage control when it doesn’t happen on schedule.

In the last days scoffers . . . will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” . . .

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:3–8).

So Jesus was wrong by 2000 years and counting? Well, yeah . . . but . . . but that must’ve been part of the Plan® all along. Yeah—that’s what it was! All along, God wanted to bring as many believers as possible to the Kingdom, so he’s just delaying the inevitable. So rationalize a catastrophe by assuming God’s plan is right on course.

Or take the embarrassing conquest of first Israel and then Judah. What happened to Yahweh’s protection? Was he weaker than the gods of the other countries? Well, you have to understand that Yahweh was just using the Assyrians and Babylonians to teach God’s people a lesson (Ezekiel 36:19, for example). Yep, he was in charge all along. No other option is conceivable.

(Ideas on avoiding rationalization here.)

Stupid Argument #25b: God as the unfalsifiable hypothesis.

“Should a conflict arise between the witness of the Holy Spirit to the fundamental truth of the Christian faith and beliefs based on argument and evidence, then it is the former which must take precedence over the latter” (Christian apologist William Lane Craig).

If prayer works, that’s because of God, and if it doesn’t work, that’s also because of God.

If good things happen, God is blessing you, and if bad things happen, God is testing you.

If God does something good, praise the Lord, and if God does something bad, you just misunderstand (because it was actually good).

Heads, God wins; tails, God still wins. For some people, nothing will falsify God belief. (I’ve written more here and here.)

Conclusion

Christians, get out of the echo chamber. These arguments sound good only before they’re tried out in the real world. Arming yourself with these arguments is like walking the Hollywood set of a Western town—everything is pretend.

But the good news is that now that we’ve gotten these bad arguments out in the open, no Christians reading this will use these useless and embarrassing arguments, right? Surely, that’s the last we’ll see of them.

Christian apologists might say that these 25 arguments (and the ones I’m sure to be blogging about in the future) are ridiculous. Who would use them? I’m afraid that I’ve seen these arguments and more. If you’re saying that these arguments are ridiculous, yes, that’s the point. Spread the word.

The chains men bear they forged themselves.
Strike off their chains and they will weep for their lost security.
— John Passmore

Stupid Argument #26: Deconstruct the atheist worldview.

If you atheists were consistent, you’d say: “Follow any morality that pleases you. Those pangs of conscience in your brain are just chemicals.” And what are wonder, love, courage, and other positive traits if they’re also nothing but chemicals?

Sure, we can explain much of how the brain works, but how does that dismiss morality, wonder, and so on? This is the genetic fallacy—discounting something because of where it came from.

It’s like seeing an answer of 849 on a calculator and thinking, “Oh, just ignore that value. Those digits are simply an illusion of numbers caused by electrons turning bits of liquid crystal dark or light.” It’s true that at a low level it’s all physics and semiconductors, but that’s just one way to explain it. At a higher level, it’s a math problem.

Another example: when you meet someone new and they say, “Tell me about yourself,” you don’t list your body parts.

Similarly, at a low level, the brain is just chemicals, synapses, and neurons, but at the high level, it’s morality or wonder or consciousness or emotions or whatever. Neither level denies the truth of the other, and we can explore the issue at whatever level makes sense.

Consider the wonder we get from Christianity. Its cramped and flawed view of reality is nothing compared to what science gives us. Science tells us of atoms and quarks, living cells and DNA, and black holes and the Big Bang, and it backs up its claims with evidence!

About the universe, the Bible tells us, “[God] also made the stars” (Genesis 1:16). In the original Hebrew, it’s a single word.

Richard Dawkins said this about the world that we see through science:

The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living.

Stupid Argument #27: Flawed claim to Argument from Authority fallacy.

Wait—did you just base your claim that evolution is correct on the scientific consensus? Gotcha—Argument from Authority fallacy! Just because smart people say it’s true doesn’t make it so.

Let’s first understand how to apply the Argument from Authority fallacy. Statements such as the following may fail because of this fallacy: “Dr. Jones says I’m right” or “PZ Myers, a biology professor, says I’m right” or even “many biologists say I’m right.” The Argument from Authority fallacy rejects an argument based on the statement of someone who is either not an expert in the relevant field or who should be ignored in favor of the consensus view of that discipline.

To avoid the fallacy, replace “PZ Myers says that evolution is correct, so therefore it is” with “The consensus within biology is that evolution is correct, so that’s the best explanation we have at the moment.” (More on the irresistibility of the scientific consensus here.)

Stupid Argument #28: Don’t be a hypocrite! You take stuff on faith, too!

Here is the view stated by a Christian commenter (slightly tweaked): “Until you can tell me that you were there from the beginning until now, you don’t really have facts of your own, do you? Neither do I; I just don’t proclaim it like you do.

“Faith boys, we all have faith; faith in what is up to you. I think I will stick with the gospel on this one.”

The Christian goal here is to insist that the positions of the atheist and Christian are symmetric—say what you will about faith; we’re all in the same boat. This fails for several reasons.

The Christian antagonist denigrates faith with this argument. A crude paraphrase might be, “You say I’m stupid for having faith? Well, you have faith too, so who’s stupid now??” Faith is no longer an honorable and valid route to truth but a crutch that atheists as well as Christians lean on. Ask yourself why the Christian response is never, “Good for you—now you’re getting it! You’re taking things on faith, just like you should.”
The definition of “faith” is curiously slippery, but in this context it’s used to mean belief based on insufficient or poor evidence. The Christian here charges the atheist with faith in science, but I have no use for that kind of faith. Instead, I trust science. That is, my belief is well supported by evidence and (here is the bit too often overlooked) if the evidence changes, my belief will change accordingly.
To go beyond a layman’s trust in science, science can explain the reasons why any particular claim is made. And explain the reasons behind those reasons, and so on. At some point, we get down to facts (results of experiments, say) or axioms (1 + 1 = 2, say). Even with axioms, there is no faith. Axioms are tested continually.

Don’t have anything to do
with foolish and stupid arguments,
because you know they produce quarrels.
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome
but must be kind to everyone,
able to teach, not resentful.
— 2 Timothy 2:23–4

Stupid Argument #29: America is a Christian nation

Remember what the Founding Founders said: “All men . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” The government back then wasn’t shy about declaring national days of thanksgiving or fasting. And look at their personal letters—they’re full of God references.

If you simply mean by “America is a Christian nation” that most Americans today are Christian, that’s true. But it’s obviously false to imagine Christianity as somehow part of the country’s governance.

That quote is from the Declaration of Independence, the document that also said, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from . . .” no, not God, but “the consent of the governed.” You’ll find deism there but not Christianity. But this is irrelevant. The Declaration of Independence doesn’t govern the United States, the Constitution does. And it’s one hundred percent secular. Indeed, it was the world’s first secular constitution, one of America’s greatest examples to the world.

The founding fathers could say whatever they wanted to in their letters. They could believe in God, pray to Jesus, or imagine getting strength from Christianity. None of that matters when an honest reading of the Constitution makes clear that America is defined to be secular, not Christian. If they had wanted explicit references to Yahweh or Jesus, they would have put them in. Reinterpreting history is popular among faux historians like David Barton, but the preferences of a gullible public aren’t the best guide to truth.

Stupid Argument #30: Atheists just had bad father figures

Psychology professor Paul Vitz makes a powerful case that the absence of a good father creates atheists. A poor relationship with one’s earthly father creates a poor relationship with the heavenly Father. Atheists are driven by psychology, not reason.

I analyze this in more detail, though it doesn’t deserve much. Vitz’s analysis is little more than cherry picking, with examples of famous Christians who had good fathers or father figures and atheists who had bad ones.

And, of course, you can find opposite examples. To take one, here’s what C. S. Lewis said about his father: “God forgive me, I thought Monday morning, when he went back to his work, the brightest jewel in the week.”

Imagine compiling the opposite list of atheists with good fathers and Christians with poor ones with the justification that Christians’ poor family life drew them to an (imaginary) celestial father to replace the flawed one they actually had. I’m sure Vitz would complain that it was a biased selection. And it would be, just like his own version.

Stupid Argument #31: Excusing Christian scandals

No one’s perfect. Don’t forget that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

No scandal with a Christian leader can be so great that they lose all of their flock. Consider rehabilitated televangelists like Jim Bakker (five years in prison for fraud), Peter Popoff (shown by James Randi to be using tricks to simulate miraculous knowledge), Ted Haggard (sex), and Jimmy Swaggart (sex). They’re all back preachin’ the Good News.

Or the scandals of pedophile priests and the Catholic leadership that hid and enabled their crimes.

Or the false prophecies of Harold Camping and Ronald Weinland (who both committed the sin of being precise and therefore testable) or Ray Comfort and John Hagee (whose baggy prophecies could fit just about any events).

If “don’t worry about that—they’re only human” applies when Christian leaders do bad things, why doesn’t it apply when they do good things? If God’s actions are visible through Christian leaders when you’re pleased with them, why not when you’re disappointed? Why would God not protect them from error—or if he did, why did he stop? Things are explained much better by dropping the God assumption.

Jonny Scaramanga of the “Leaving Fundamentalism” blog noted the double standard. Ex-addicts were quick to give Jesus the glory for their recovery. But “as soon as that televangelist fell from grace, it was all ‘Well, we all have a sin nature.’ Well, which one is it? Do we have a sin nature or are we transformed by the saving grace of the Holy Spirit?”

For every complex problem
there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
— H. L. Mencken

. Stupid Argument #32: Providing good evidence is hard!

Look—it’s not like we have photo, video, or audio recordings of the major events recorded in the gospels. You’ve got to make reasonable demands.

I agree that providing credible, high-quality evidence from the first century is hard, but so what? Are you saying that because it’s hard, I should drop my demand for good evidence?

Think of how that would sound if coming from another source. Suppose a Muslim argued that Mohammed’s Night Journey to heaven was historically true, but they didn’t have security cameras in Jerusalem then so we must accept Muslim tradition and holy books.

Or: doing a thorough search of Loch Ness is difficult, so we must accept the anecdotal evidence of Nessie’s existence.

Or: we can’t go back in time to see Xenu’s empire, so we must accept the Scientology mythology.

It doesn’t work that way. We demand evidence to back up the claims. If you make a remarkable claim, you must provide substantial evidence to back it up. The burden of proof is on the person claiming the supernatural, and if that burden isn’t met, we are obliged to reject the claim.

Stupid Argument #33: Hypothetical God Fallacy

“Just because something might seem pointless to us doesn’t mean God can’t have a morally justified reason for it. . . . The mere fact that I can’t figure out why God allows some of the things to happen that he does . . . is not warrant for the conclusion that he’s got no such reasons.”

(This quote is from a Christian argument that I analyze here.)

I don’t declare that God doesn’t exist or that, if he does, he couldn’t have good reasons for the nonsense in the world. But who starts by wondering about God’s actions rather than first demonstrating that God exists? Who, I mean, but someone with an agenda?

Starting with a presumption of God has it backwards. An honest seeker of the truth will follow the evidence, and that’s the power of the Problem of Evil, which this Christian apologist is trying to refute. The Problem of Evil looks at the problems in the world and considers the properties claimed for the Christian god—all-loving, omniscient, omnipotent. Does this look like a world with such a god?

The Christian response, “Ah, yes, but let’s imagine that God exists. Now how do things look??” is completely backwards. (More here.)

Stupid Argument #34: But I can’t reject Christianity now—I’ve invested so much!

If I rejected Christianity now, I’d be admitting that I’d backed the wrong horse for all these years. And what would that do to my reputation in my community?

This is the sunk-cost fallacy, which snares many financial investors. Suppose you invested in a stock that now is worth half what you paid for it. Consider two options. If an objective evaluation says that the stock should now rise substantially in value, you would be smart to hold the stock and maybe even invest more.

But what do you do if that optimistic evaluation is not justified? Instead of cutting their losses, some people buy more. They might rationalize that by buying more at this lower price, they’ve lowered their average purchase price. This is true but irrelevant; an investment should be considered on its own. If you wouldn’t invest if you didn’t own the stock, you shouldn’t double down when you do. Colloquially, we say that this is “throwing good money after bad.”

We see this in many other situations. Lyndon Johnson committed additional troops to the war in Vietnam after it was clear that it was unwinnable. The Concorde supersonic jet lost money, but the British and French governments continued to back it because they had already invested so much.

There are religious believers who don’t want to make an ego-less evaluation of the truth of their beliefs. They sacrifice intellectual integrity to soothe their sense of self-worth. For example, the Millerites sold everything to make themselves right with Jesus, who was to return to earth on October 22, 1844. After this prediction failed, many realized that they’d made a foolish mistake and walked away. But others in the group doubled down, ignoring this dramatic evidence that their beliefs were wrong and rationalized ways that they could still be right. Today’s Seventh-day Adventist Church is one outgrowth of the Great Disappointment of 1844.

A good illustration of how hard we’ll try to justify or recoup our sunk costs is the dollar auction. It’s a game in which both the auction winner and the second-place player must pay their final bids.

Two or more players are bidding to win a dollar. Let’s suppose that player #1 opens the bidding with 5¢. That sounds smart—if that bidder wins, their profit is 95¢. Now player #2 ups the bid to 10¢—that also seems to be a good move since a win at this stage will give a 90¢ profit. But here’s the problem: if player #1 lets it go at this point, he’s out 5¢, since as the second-place player, he’d be obliged to pay his final bid. So #1 bids 15¢.

And so it goes, with each one topping the other by 5¢, until player #2 bids $1. Game over? Not quite, since #1 would still have to pay his last bid of 95¢. Better to bid $1.05 and be down by only 5¢ than admit defeat and be down 95¢.

The game encourages irrational decisions, and the rational choice may be to avoid playing the game. This contains parallels with religion, where the smart decision for the doubting Christian may be to cut their losses and just get out.

Those who will not reason, are bigots,
those who cannot, are fools,
and those who dare not, are slaves.
― Lord Byron

· Stupid Argument #1: The consequences of atheism are depressing.

· Stupid Argument #2: I sense God’s presence; therefore, God exists.

· Stupid Argument #3: Defending God’s immoral actions.

· Stupid Argument #4: I’ll believe the first-century eyewitnesses over modern historians.

· Stupid Argument #5: You can’t prove Christianity false.

· Stupid Argument #6: Creationism.

· Stupid Argument #7: If you throw out the account of Jesus, you must discard the record of every other figure of history.

· Stupid Argument #8: Witnesses are innocent until proven guilty.

· Stupid Argument #9a: Argument from silence.

· Stupid Argument #9b: Demand for counter-evidence.

· Stupid Argument #10: Appeal to objective truth.