Logical Errors of Atheism

Here is a list of supposed logical errors, and responses to them.

Someone posted on Facebook this list of logical argument errors made by atheists, claiming that all atheists make one or more of these errors.  Some of these fallacies I hear often, but others quite frankly are not common at all. Here is my response to them.

1. Trying to apply empiricism to that which is beyond the flaws and limits of empiricism is the logical fallacy of dicto simpliciter.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: believing that there is a magic world beyond this one in the first place is the core fallacy.  There has never been any substantiation of this magical world by anyone ever.
• Support for Atheist position:  If the magic is real, then it will have an effect on the world, and that effect will constitute evidence.  If the magic does not have an effect on the world, then it has not effect on the world.  That is exactly the same as not existing.  Without evidence of some effect on the world, there is no real reason to to believe in magic.
• How common this mistake?:  “dicto simpliciter” is a fallacy of over-generalization, and claiming that magic is like the real world is in fact an over generalization.  Some atheists might leave themselves open to this attack by not choosing words clearly.  Atheists will say things like “this evidence proves that unicorns didn’t create the universe.” That is true only assuming that magic does not exist.  Magic does not exist, but no amount of empirical evidence will ever prove it, because magic can cover up all evidence of its working.  Magic does not follow any rules, and so you should not expect it to follow any rules.
• Advice: You can’t apply empirical evidence to disprove anything magical.  Magic is magic. However anything asserted (magic) without evidence, can be denied without evidence.  All you can do is say that (1) there is no evidence for magic, and (2) there is plenty of evidence that people enjoy making up stories about magic, and (3) the magic in the bible is most likely a story.
• Gullibility Angle: also point out that believing in things without evidence leaves you open to believing false things from false prophets.  Anyone who says “Thing X is True!” but offers no evidence could in fact be a charlatan trying to fool a gullible person.  Magic might be true, but believing what people tell you about it without evidence leave you open to being fooled, and loving god would never do that.

2. Citing examples of religious figures who commit dishonest or unethical deeds is the logical error of converse accident.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: Citing examples of secular figures who commit dishonest or unethical deeds is the logical error of converse accident.  However secular people don’t generally claim to be a moral authority, while Christians claim they are the only moral authority.
• How common this mistake? – I do see both sides citing anecdotes and examples, and then claiming that that generalizes to the entire population.  Using anecdotes in this way should not generalize to the population, however it does provide examples of exception.  The Christians claim that they are a moral authority and that their leaders are paragons of morality.  Since they make this claim, a single example would disprove that.
• Advice: Point out first that Christians claim to have exclusive access to morality.  If that was true, then every Christian leader would be an example of morality.  Since there exist leaders with poor morals, that defeats the position that Christians have exclusive access to morality.

3. Citing examples of natural catastrophes as “evidence” that God does not exist is the natural law logical fallacy.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy 1: Christians claim that good fortune is evidence that god does exist.  So many times I have heard: “god exists because my uncle had cancer, and then he recovered“.  Or “A tornado was headed straight toward my house and at the last minute changed course“.   Christians claims that the disaster avoided is evidence for god, but any disaster occurring would then argue against this.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy 2: Christians will claim that the presence of disasters is because “god works in mysterious ways” which is to say that goodness/badness can’t be uniformly good, and that if you made one disaster better, some other good thing would be worse.  God achieves some kind of net overall optimum which is not purely good, just the most good he could achieve.  That is to say, bluntly, that children get raped because if they weren’t something worse would happen to them (or to someone else).  That is to say onchocerciasis, the parasite that causes blindness in millions of children, must exist because if it didn’t something worse would happen.  This argument sidesteps the issue.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy 3: Further, Christian will claim that a natural disasters occur because the population had behaved badly, like Pat Robertson claiming that the Haiti earthquake was caused by gay sex in Haiti.  Claiming that everything happens for a (human relevant) purpose is just nonsense.

• Support for this argument: Christians claim that they have an omniscient loving God, and a disaster is at odds with that claim.  Discussion centers on what “loving” means, but we know what it means:  a mother’s love for a child is an example of love.  No mother ever would cause a natural disaster if she could prevent it.  Christians claim that god is omnipotent, and therefor could have stopped the disaster, but didn’t.  However this only shows that god is not loving in any real sense of the word “love”.

• How common this mistake? – I have seen it, and generally the meaning that god as describes as being omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent can not be true.

• Advice: Be more careful about wording.  Christians claim that avoiding a disaster is evidence for god, however they are inconsistent if they ignore disasters that do occur.  The claim that god is loving and protects believers from disasters is refuted by disasters that are not avoided.  Claiming that the world would be worse without that disaster is simply unfounded special pleading.

4. Claiming God to be an individualized entity is the logical fallacy of reification.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: Christians are the ones who claim that god has a real existence and that they have a “personal relationship” with it.  It is impossible to have a personal relationship with a nebulous unfocused force of nature.
• How common this mistake?: I have never seen this, however it seems that whoever wrote this has some kind of belief that God has no individual existence, but instead a more general nebulous existence, probably as a logical dodge against other lack of evidence for god.
• Advice: If a Christian claims that God has no individual existence, then point out that means no existence at all that can maintain a personal relationship with.

5. Citing long lists of famous people who are supposedly Atheist is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: the long list of famous Christians is the same fallacy.  I have heard Christians claim that christianity is superior because a majority of enlightenment era scientists were in fact Christian — without similarly acknowledging that professors were required to be Christian, and non-christians never were allowed to achieve anything.
• How common this mistake? – I don’t many atheists claiming that the number of atheists prove atheist right.  I have never seen this argument, but it might exist somewhere.

6. Claiming that Atheism is true because the number of Atheists is supposedly growing is the logical error of argumentum ad numerum.

• How common this mistake? – I have not seen people argue that the growth of nonbelief as proof in itself that atheism is true.  In fact, that would be the bandwagon fallacy, and that argument would lead the conclusion that Catholicism — the most numerous faith in the world — would be the truest.
• Support for this argument: There is plenty of evidence that over the course of history, mankind’s understanding of the world is getting better.  This trend is evidence that nonbelief is generally found to be more sound according to modern understanding of the world.  But this argument cuts both ways:  Most Christians (not all of them) believe that the world is getting worse and worse, and so escaping religion world be more evidence of that.
• Advice: There is no point in mentioning the number of people who are escaping their indoctrination, nor how this fraction of the population is growing.  Pentacostalism is growing even faster, and that is not evidence that Pentacostalism is true. Belief in a flat earth is growing, and that means nothing of importance.  These stats measure only the flow of opinion which is highly subject to marketing and propaganda.

7. Claiming religion is based on centuries old beliefs and customs while Atheism is the product of science, especially quantum science, is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad novitatem.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: the claim that something is right because it is old is the opposite fallacy.  The rejection of science is just the idea that new things are worse than old, and that we should stick to the old wisdom instead of exploring how things really work.
• Support for this argument – there is in fact evidence that over the course of history, our understanding of the world is better. All things being equal, a new explanation is more likely to be true than an old explanation.  I would say that the argument is on solid ground
• How common this argument? – I see the argument that atheism and science are connected coming mostly from the religious side.  Most atheists draw a distinction between science and atheism, one being about understanding the world, and the other about rejecting religion.  Atheists commonly hold these as distinct different ideas, while it is the Christians that claim that evolution and other scientific theories are atheistic.
• Advice: Any discussion about relative value of new and old must start by making the case that the world is better today than it was 2000 years ago.  While this is obvious true, many people have romantic ideas of what it was like 2000 years ago, and will argue that it was way better back then.  Objective measures of quality of life shows they are wrong.  Without establishing that the world gaining better understanding of the world, this argument will backfire.

8. Citing examples of some people or some sects that are mistaken in their beliefs as evidence that all religions are mistaken is the logical fallacy of converse accident.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: those other religions are bad, but my religion happens to be the one true one.  This is special pleading.
• Support for this argument: silly religious beliefs is in fact evidence that people in general are not good at choosing religions.  People have a natural tendency to believe in magic, and religions play on that, quite often convincing people of things that are very silly.  The hope is that Christian will see that there is really nothing special about their position — but as you plainly see, they all think their position is special.
• Advice: The argument is sound, but first you need to show that religions are chosen by the believers, and that on average people are bad at making such choices.  It needs to be clear that if people make mistakes for other religions, that these kinds of mistakes might extend to all people and all religions.  Unless that is established, this argument will have no effect.

9. The continuous repeating of the above nonsense is the aptly named logical fallacy of argumentum ad nauseam.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: the exact same thing from Christian apologists who recite the same argument year after year, and never responding to the readily available criticism of the argument.
• How common this argument? – I agree that atheists repeat the same argument far too often without relating it to the situation at hand.  I know — it is so frustrating responding to the same baseless claims over and over.  So much easier to cite an  argument and move on.
• Advice: use more of a ‘street epistemology’ approach to ask questions that are hard to explain otherwise.  Repeating the same thing is not effective.  Asking questions can be far more effective.

10. Claiming that religions/religionists perform the same negative actions or have the same negative thoughts as those which Atheism demonstrate is the logical fallacy of tu quoque, another form of the ad hom logical fallacy.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: reflexively the exact same thing from Christians
• How common this argument? – I agree it is too often, and we can do better.

11. And, of course, when faced with this evidence Atheists resort to various types of ad hominem attacks on the messenger.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: the exact same thing from Christians
• How common this problem? – I agree that ad hominem attacks on both sides are far too common.  To be honest, on the average the Christians are better behaved.
• Advice: When you find yourself feeling the need to insult the other side, remind yourself that every insult undoes 100 smart arguments.  I know it feels frustrating, but in fact lashing out ALWAYS hurts you more than it help.  Just say “Have a good day” and move on.  Or better: ask a question that requires thinking about the situation.  insulting someone is a weakness that we all need to rise above.  Learn how to behave.

12. Atheists believe that God, Allah, Nirguna Brahman, etc are individuated entities.

No major world religion makes this claim.

• Christians claim to have a personal relationship, and so there must be something individual that exists to have a relationship.  The claim that no major religion would do this is simply false.
• I think this argument is trying to say that all gods are the same god.  Doesn’t that just make your heart feel all cozy?  But religions are based on specific claims that are all different.  It does not really matter what god really is, atheists are rejecting what the religions say that god is, and that is that these are entities that are different.

13. Atheists insist on reading scripture literally. They are unaware that scripture contains historical data, cultural mores, and spiritual messages and that it is only the first two items that should taken literally. Spiritual messages, because they refer to the supranatural and due to the limits of language, are necessarily given in figurative language.

• Corresponding Christian Fallacy: claiming that the bible is special because it is divinely inspired.
• Support for the argument:  If there was an omniscient god, then that god would know how to communicate well.  If communicated well, then the bible should be taken literally. The argument that the bible needs to interpreted according to thousands of other sources is strong evidence that the bible is poorly written on any measure.   Even if interpretation is needed, there seems to be no reason that god would put objectively false statements into the bible.  There is no reason to say that bats are birds.  These mistakes go far beyond just not having the right words.   Such falsehoods are expected in an ancient book written by largely ignorant people, but it would not be expected in anything from a divine source.
• Advice: I have given up on the bible. If someone quotes the bible, I quote Harry Potter back.  If someone says that a bible quote proves something, I simply point out it is a book written by a people in a time when most people were ignorant.  Of course the bible is metaphor.  Of course it was written to be an explanation of metaphysics.  But it is just not a very good guide, and can not be a reliable guide for wisdom.  For the remainder of my life I hope to explore more meaningful sources of wisdom.

14. Atheists are unaware of the original Aramaic or Greek meanings of the Bible passages.

• In fact, polls by the Pew Foundation show that on the average atheists are better informed about the bible than the average Christian.  Still, there are many many passages in the bible, and undoubtedly people — even atheists — will make mistakes.
• Advice: Avoid citing or accepting citations from the bible.  It is just an old book with no particular relevance, so just ignore it.  People in ancient times were particularly bad at writing books: the craft of writing was not fully developed.  We know now how to write better, and we should expect better books to exist and follow, particularly ones that reject “intuition” as a source of knowledge, and rely instead on demonstrable evidence instead.

15. Atheists are locked into sense data with all of its flaws and limits. They are unaware of any methods for moving beyond their empirical limits.

• Advice: Argue instead that if god has an effect on the world, then that effect is empirical.  If there is absolutely not measurable effect on the world, then that is exactly like not existing.