I have been debating the subject of religion, Atheism and science on the internet for about a year now. While every conversation is different there are certain repetitive and annoying aspects, that I’ve noticed coming from the other side.
While you certainly can have rational debates with most Theists, especially Bible thumping fundamentalists seem to be rather fond of specific flaws in their reasoning and arguments and in some instances I suspect, it’s done on purpose.
The most often employed fallacy, that is used by fundamentalists, especially when discussing evolution is of course the good old Strawman fallacy. ” Nothing magically exploded to create everything.” or “you believe, that you came froma rock.” are just two of the most glaring ones they always come up with.
The next one, that I see way too often is the argument from personal incredulity. The Big Bang singularity for example seems highly, highly counterintuitive and since most creationists can’t seem to get their head around it, it must obviously be false. I’ve said it about a thousand times but here it goes again: Your personal incredulity is not evidence against a well substantiated theory with predictive capability!
the 3rd one of course would be the argument from ignorance. It has become so popular among theists, that it is often referred to as the “God of the gaps”. Basically what it boils down to is this: We have a gap in our knowledge, that science can’t explain yet, therefore a god specifically the God of the Bible is behind it. “Why is the universe fine tuned for life (I don’t think it is but that’s a subject for another day)?” Well we don’t know but that does not mean that God answers the question. It could’ve been a plethora of natural or supernatural entities. Gaps in our knowledge aren’t evidence for anything but the fact, that we need to work on some issues.
But the one aspect, that I find most annoying is a complete rejection of fallibalism. In their eyes it’s completely impossible for them to be wrong and nothing I or anyone else could say, would ever change their mind these issues.
I am not speaking for all or even most Christians but on the internet it seems there are way too many crazy people. When I ask them the old “Ken Ham question” point blank: “What, if anything could ever change your mind?” More often than not the response is nothing.
Not only is that kind of worldview beyond arrogant, the position that the Bible or the Qu’ran or whatever holy book is beyond fallibalism, that it is literally impossible for that book to be wrong is untenable. When you employ such a worldview, you’re determined a priori to reject everything, that might challenge you. You’re not open to change your mind, you’re not open to correction. I can only feel sorry for these people, because if I’m wrong now I at least try to zero in on the truth in my search for it but if they’re wrong now they always will be unless they start to doubt and investigate.
Goodbye from yours truly,
Rene von Boenninghausen @Renevelation
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