?

It's the association fallacy, a form of affirming the consequent. The standard Yahoo Answers christian argument goes something like this.

Stalin was an atheist

Stalin did evil things

Therefore, atheism is evil

Here's the problem, it makes no sense logically. Let's look at a baddie who was most definitely a Roman Catholic, note I'm not even talking about whether he was a "true Christian" whatever that means and he wasn't Hitler. Augusto Pinochet did most certainly do evil things, he locked up and tortured political opponents. Now look at the argument

Pinochet was a Catholic

Pinochet did evil things

Therefore the nice little old lady across the road who happens to be a Catholic is ineffably evil and is plotting to torture her political opponents in the bridge club

No, she's probably just a nice old lady/ You know what, lets make things even more absurd.

Oranges are fruit.

Oranges are citrus.

Therefore my apple is a citrus.

Stars are seen in the sky

I saw a seagull in the sky

It's clearly a star

Can you "Stalin was a bad atheist, therefore so are you" types admit that this particular gotcha argument makes absolutely zero sense?

I hear they grind up people's bones to make their bread!

And that the anti gay legislation Putin passed was backed by the Orthodox Church and American evangelicals?

Looking at you Kanon Hara!

A creationist poster recently revealed astonishingly that the bible describes abiogenesis.

https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20...

Lets have a look at this biblical account of abiogenesis in sequence.

Genesis 1:4-5 God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day', and called the darkness 'night'.

Genesis 1:11 And God said, 'Let the land produce seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees of every kind.

Genesis 1:14-19 Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night. And let them be signs to mark seasons, days, and years.' And it was so: God made the greater light to rule over the day. And God made the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day

Ok, I get that there is light to start with in this narrative-but you don't get heat until after all these animals and plants were created because there is no sun. So...how does this biblical abiogenesis work in conditions of absolute zero-because there's no sun when life is allegedly first put there?

The various heavens, hells and happy hunting grounds all picture the returned souls of the living doing something good or bad forever - and that's it.

The Vikings brawl, drink and wench in Valhalla, the Christians all praise their big daddy while their enemies get broiled alive and the Muslims get to chase around big-eyed Houri-forever.

Forever and ever and that's it!

No one argues, there are no power shifts or paradigm shifts, no innovations, revolutions, alterations and nothing fundamentally changes despite their being ample time for this to happen.

Afterlives are a bit like the credits at the end of a Disney princess movie, everybody lives happily ever after and that's that.

Can't someone please make up a religion where the afterlife finishes on a cliffhanger? It all looks like so much lazy writing!

The entire quote was "Christians don't lie. If they lie, they are by definition not a Christian."

Isn't this just a No True Scotsman fallacy by definition?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/No_True_Scotsman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Not only was he not a Darwinist, works by Darwin were banned in the Third Reich!

Lists of Banned Books, 1932-1939: Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279

"6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism"

http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbook...

This is in reference to this question :https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20...

(Atheists: would nazism have happened if the germans were more religious?)

Whenever the topic of Nazism is raised, Christians will often jump in to say that they weren't true Christians or even that they were atheists.

The truth is that the idea of a hierarchy of races, as well as anti semitism were both backed by Christians for centuries.

Christian colonists justified their activities with reference to Christianity, Martin Luther's cited the New Testament while decrying Jews and the Spanish Inquisition persecuted them for religious reasons. Jefferson Davis said that Slavery was decreed by "Almighty God" and the Australian government sent stolen "mixed race" Children to Christian missionaries in the first half of the twentieth century.

Anti semitism and racism were both practices that were enthusiastically adhered to by generations of Christians. Sorry if that makes modern Christians uncomfortable!

Use the Kalam cosmological argument if you like, even tell us that Satan planted the fossils for crying out loud.

Just quit it with your decidedly creepy descriptions of underage boys! People might "Judge" you harshly.

The term "missing link" comes from the notion of a "great chain of being" descending from God, through the various hierarchies of angels and down to "lower" animals.

Is this why some creationist types are fond of bringing it up, given that it has nothing to do with evolution or biology and everything to do with a distinctly Christian worldview?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil#M...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being

Clearly not all religious people are racist, most are not. So I'm not asking about all religious people.

But most racial supremacists have a set of religious beliefs that underscore their beliefs. For example the two black supremacists that asked these questions.

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201...

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201...

See also for reference white supremacist 'Christian Identity', the KKK, Nation of Islam, Nuwaubianism, Odinist Nazi's, etc.

Ok, exception to the rule-white power skinheads. Those guys adopted a style pioneered by British Jamaicans listening to Ska so they are just idiots!

Gravitational waves have been detected in the cosmic microwave background radiation. Scientists are citing the discovery as the best evidence yet for the Big Bang theory.

http://space.io9.com/have-physicists-detected-grav...

Wonder when the denialists will start getting cross about this one, and/or confusing it with Darwinism...somehow.

Greek mythology makes it perfectly clear that anyone who looks on her are turned to stone!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa

Seems to me this argument is raised when theists are asked for evidence of a god, the argument seems to be that if something is not physical then physical evidence cannot be found.

Unfortunately it's not helped that...

Vampires

Faeries

The King in Yellow

Thor

Daleks

Cthulhu

Invisible pink unicorns

Superman

Goblins

Gremlins

Ghosts

Ghasts

Ghouls

Bunyips

Wendigos

Penanggalans

Kappas

Dragons

and Leprachauns are all also arguably "non physical", as is Russell's teapot-at least until someone retrieves it from wherever it's hiding between Earth and Mars's orbit!

Why is salt and pepper so yummy?

Does this ever happen?

Ever?

Romano-Greek fascination with eternal torture meets severe Abrahamic monotheism sort of thing.

There isn't any precedent for eternal torture or even afterlife in the OT so is it likely that belief in hell comes from an intermixing of ancient cultures and customs?

Ingersoll asked how anyone could defend the bible, here's the quote in it's entirety.

"Ministers wonder how I can be wicked enough to attack the Bible. I will tell them: This book, the Bible, has persecuted, even unto death, the wisest and the best. This book stayed and stopped the onward movement of the human race. This book poisoned the fountains of learning and misdirected the energies of man.

This book is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery. This book sowed the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and impoverished the world. This book is the breastwork of kings and tyrants — the enslaver of women and children. This book has corrupted parliaments and courts. This book has made colleges and universities the teachers of error and the haters of science. This book has filled Christendom with hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects. This book taught men to kill their fellows for religion’s sake.

This book funded the Inquisition, invented the instruments of torture, built the dungeons in which the good and loving languished, forged the chains that rusted in their flesh, erected the scaffolds whereon they died. This book piled fagots about the feet of the just. This book drove reason from the minds of millions and filled the asylums with the insane.

This book has caused fathers and mothers to shed the blood of their babes. This book was the auction block on which the slave- mother stood when she was sold from her child. This book filled the sails of the slave-trader and made merchandise of human flesh. This book lighted the fires that burned “witches” and “wizards.” This book filled the darkness with ghouls and ghosts, and the bodies of men and women with devils. This book polluted the souls of men with the infamous dogma of eternal pain. This book made credulity the greatest of virtues, and investigation the greatest of crimes. This book filled nations with hermits, monks and nuns — with the pious and the useless. This book placed the ignorant and unclean saint above the philosopher and philanthropist. This book taught man to despise the joys of this life, that he might be happy in another — to waste this world for the sake of the next.

I attack this book because it is the enemy of human liberty — the greatest obstruction across the highway of human progress.

Let me ask the ministers one question: How can you be wicked enough to defend this book?"

Source: http://manybooks.net/titles/ingersolother08About_t...

...their god must be responsible for all those other religions they disagree with, atheism, gay people, heavy metal, premarital sex, contradictions in the bible (or koran, book of Mormon if that's your thing), evidence for evolution appearing in the natural world and no evidence whatsoever of themselves!

Discuss.