On YouTube, the Matt Powell OFFICIAL channel posted the vid “A Christian Response to Atheism” to which a certain @philwhitehouse4290 replied
If this presentation is genuinely directed at atheists, it is mostly an appeal to consequences rather than what’s true.
If you want to be taken seriously, you need to provide sources for your claims regarding drugs, alcohol etc. Is it worth me looking in the video description for the studies you have done on this and the papers you are citing? I expect not.
I, @kenammi355, replied
Well, you got ahead of yourself since you began with a jump to a conclusion of an assertion based on hidden assumptions.
The very first step is for you to justify demanding “provide sources…studies…papers.”
As for, “appeal to consequences rather than what’s true” you seem to only imply there’s something wrong with that but on didn’t say how or why, on your worldview and it may be that on your worldview “what’s true” is accidental.
@philwhitehouse4290
Nice try, Matt Powell is making the claim that alcoholism, drug abuse and taking your own life is more common amongst atheists than other demographics. I suspect he has produced these ‘facts’ from thin air. In his pinned comment he claims that the video contains some ‘hard facts’, I think it’s fair enough to ask where these hard facts come from. It’s standard practice to include sources in the video description when making such assertions.
I’m familiar with the presuppositionalist arguments which are mainly trotted out to shut down any dissenting voices, I won’t be playing along. Here’s an atheist cliche for you “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Do you think Mr Powell has any verifiable sources for his claims? I’ll be happy to withdraw my accusation if any such evidence is forthcoming.
Then @wet-read chimed in with
@philwhitehouse4290 Even if these allegations were true, it would still merely be correlation, not causation. Because atheism by itself has nothing to do with any of those things.
@kenammi355
@wet-read What Atheism has to do with them is that there’s literally nothing wrong with them on Atheism–nor wrong with anything else, of course, such as (supposedly) making (allegedly) erroneous claims without backing.
@wet-read
@kenammi355 Atheism isn’t about any of that stuff. It is just a lack of belief in God or the belief God does not exist. The likelihood, or intelligibility, or viability of anything else is outside of its domain.
@WhiteScorpio2 opined
@kenammi355 “there’s literally nothing wrong with them on Atheism”
Yes, because atheism isn’t a stance on ethics, but exclusively a stance on the existence of God.
@tye64 noted
@kenammi355 “there’s literally nothing wrong with them on Atheism” This is like saying people who don’t worship fairies can’t have an opinion on cooking techniques. Just because some people get all their cooking techniques from old fairy tales, doesn’t mean that people who don’t read those tales can’t develop cooking techniques of their own.
@kenammi355
@wet-read Why do Atheists typically not contemplate the implications of their worldview?
Granting that, “Atheism isn’t about any of that stuff. It is just a lack of belief in God…” then, by definition, “there’s literally nothing wrong with them on Atheism–nor wrong with anything else…”
But having had discussions with thousands of Atheists, I can tell you that they, just like you, demand that they are THE authority to define Atheism. Yet, you were myopic since, for example, you ignored the main and original modern denomination of Atheism which is the positive affirmation of God’s non-existence dogmatheism view.
Still, on your worldview there’s literally nothing wrong with misrepresenting Atheism.
@kenammi355
@WhiteScorpio2 See my reply to Wet since you fell into the same abyss as Wet did.
@kenammi355
@tye64 Oh my goodness, it’s not like that at all. It’s more like, “”there’s literally nothing wrong with them on Atheism” ergo, all you have is emotively subjective “opinion.” But just like I noted to the others, there’s literally nothing wrong, on Atheism, with misrepresenting Atheism.
@tye64
At this point, I’m just trying to figure out if you are just straight up dishonest or have significant difficulty with reading comprehension. Leaning towards dishonest as most theists have demonstrated a propensity to “lie for the truth”. Hoping that’s not the case, but not betting on it.
@kenammi355
I see that you’re incapable of dealing with the key issues so you’re opting to move the goalpost to your attempts at mind reading and personal attacks: Atheism 101 tactic I’ve seen 1,001 times.
On your worldview, there’s literally nothing wrong with an accidentally existing ape being (supposedly) straight up dishonest or (allegedly) have significant difficulty with reading comprehension.
So, you see, we’re just going in circles since the prior issue was, “there’s literally nothing wrong, on Atheism, with misrepresenting Atheism.”
This time around, there’s literally nothing with that (supposedly) “most,” please cite the research study, “theists have demonstrated a propensity to ‘lie for the truth.’”
I realize that Atheists have a love-hate relationship with Atheism: you love it for the consoling delusions that it offers you but utterly despise its implications which is why you run away from issues that are inconvenient to it.
But then again, why despise its implication since its implications are only applicable if you’re consistent and since on Atheism there’s no universal imperative to be consistent, Atheist are only ever consistently inconsistent and there’s nothing wrong with that, on Atheism.
@WhiteScorpio2
You’re just repeating the same thing, as if by poiinting out that athesim has nothing to do with ethics is some profound point.
You are aware that there are many more theories of ethics besides the divine command theory, right?
“all you have is emotively subjective “opinion.”
As oposed to your emotively subjective opinion?
@kenammi355
Wait a moment, have you read this thread? It’s the Atheists who are demanding that “athesim has nothing to do with ethics” or morals. But what, on your worldview, would be wrong with an accidentally existing ape repeating itself, being fallacious, only having emotively subjective opinion, etc.?
That brought the discussion to an end as no more replies were forthcoming.
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