In my trawls around the Internet, I found this list of fifteen questions for atheists. Since these are no doubt sincerely meant questions that are in no way strawmanning, and also I’m procrastinating on an essay, I decided to answer them.

1. Why are atheists so obsessed with religion?

Not all atheists are obsessed with religion. In fact, in my experience, most atheists consider the question of religion to be approximately as interesting as the question of other people’s bowel movements: we’re glad you enjoy it, but we’d rather not hear about it. So it’s probably just that the atheists you talk to about religion are obsessed with religion. As to why they’re obsessed with it… well, why is anyone obsessed with anything?

2. Why are atheists so obsessed with monotheistic religions?

The most popular religions in Western culture are monotheistic. I presume Indian atheists talk about how wrong Hinduism is. 

3. How do atheists explain the beginning of the universe?

It’s probably because of physics, and it probably won’t be anything that you or I can understand. (Explain the difference between a kaon and a lambda. My point exactly.) So far, the God hypothesis has been 0 for eleventybillion in actually explaining things, so we’re betting that that trend will hold true. 

4. How do atheists explain away objective moral values?

There aren’t any. Many people. including me, happen to have the opinion that happiness is better than sadness, freedom is better than slavery, kindness is better than cruelty, etc., but that isn’t actually an objective trait of the actual world.  

Also, guilt is an emotion that evolved. Not murdering people works better for inclusive genetic fitness than murdering people in a social species. That doesn’t have anything to do with objective morality.

5. How do materialists justify immaterial realities?

Free will, human dignity, and morality don’t exist. Time is a physical reality, it’s one of the four dimensions. Saying time isn’t a physical reality is like saying that breadth isn’t a physical reality. Logic and math are empirically validated: I mean, if you have one apple and one apple then you have two apples, you can experimentally verify that shit. 

6. How do atheists explain the existence of the universe?

Physics. 

7. How do you explain away circumstantial evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?

The same way you explain away circumstantial evidence for the miraculous claims of every other religion. 

8. If the gospels are just pieces of historical fiction, why are there embarrassing details in there?

Because myths often contain embarrassing details. See also: Greek mythology. All of it.

9. If we are just matter, and not souls, why would some atheists support life-sentences?

See, I thought that this was about “why not just kill offenders?” but it turns out that this is actually about how come people are still the same person when their atoms get replaced. Jeez, you could have just asked that.

Because they still have the same memories and personality and have been continuously the same person, the same way that my computer is still my computer even though I’ve had to replace all the parts. Done. 

10. Why do so many atheists deny historical facts?

Because some atheists are not very good at being skeptical.

Also, the “is Jesus a historical figure?” question is still open. 

11. Why do most atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Denette, equivocate evolution with atheism?

It’s spelled Dennett.

Because without evolution we have that watchmaker problem, which is pretty good evidence FOR God. Evolution offered the potential to explain everything without the God hypothesis.

12. Why don’t atheists actually question everything?

Who says we don’t? A lot of atheists questioned atheism, we just came to the conclusion it’s true. 

13. Where do rights come from?

People made them up. I am not a hypocrite if I believe that it isn’t an objective truth that ice cream is good and still want ice cream. I am not a hypocrite if I believe that it isn’t an objective truth that people should be treated equally and still want people to be treated equally. 

14. How can there be no objective evil, but religion causes it?

There still isn’t objective evil. Atheists just happen to not like a lot of the things religious people do. 

15. Why are there no good reasons to believe atheism is true?
Because the burden of proof is on the religious people here. Y’all are making the claim. I can be like “look, there’s no good evidence that there ISN’T an undetectable unicorn in my chair” but that doesn’t mean you should join the Cult of the Unicorn. 
  1. ozyreads posted this