I found a new blog with a pair of Christian gals who want to address us atheists, agnostics and non-christians. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be very aware of counter apologetics and may regret what they’ve started. They seem nice enough, but terribly ignorant. We’ll see how this goes.

Here’s a response to one of their posts. :

Sarah and Hannah, the burden of proof does lie with theists.  You all make the claim of some supernatural entity or entities existing.  You have no evidence that your particular god or gods exists.  You all use much the same arguments to try to convince others your particular god/gods exist.  Those arguments fail since they are too vague to be able to find your god.   You also insist that each other’s god or gods don’t exist, disbelieving in your own arguments if they are applied to another god. 

Yes, atheists do make good points for there being no god or gods.  You, as a fellow atheist, also do since I suspect that you would say you don’t believe in other gods since there is no evidence for them.  The argument from evil is potent but even more potent is that there is no actual evidence for these gods and the events they supposedly caused. 

That you don’t like the conclusion that there is no god or gods is immaterial to the fact that there is no evidence for them.  Humans do indeed like to try to pretend that something will take care of them, that they won’t have to die and end forever.  That doesn’t mean that any gods exist or they won’t cease to exist.  You offer the same “reason” to believe that other theists do again. 

The conclusion that there is no god is not there to give you peace or purpose.  That’s up to you to create for yourself.  The only part that you lose is the baseless belief that you are somehow special and important to some magical being.  There are plenty of worldviews that say slow down and listen and give peace.  I suggest Epicureanism or Stoicism.  Read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius for some rather startlingly good wisdom from a Stoic.   You can find it all over the internet since it is out of copyright 😊    Here are a few quotes from him:

“”Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill… I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together.” ~ Marcus Aurelius”

“”Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?” ~ Marcus Aurelius”

Having been a Christian I agree with you, Christian apologists are embarrassing, for their incoherence and their outright lies.  The first cause argument gets Christians nowhere, since there is no evidence a god of any kind is needed, and Christians can’t agree on the most basic things in their religion: what morals this god wants, what heaven and hell are, how to be saved, etc. 

I’ve read the bible in its entirety as a believer and as not.  The god in the bible is nothing more than a petty human writ large, just like every other god invented by bronze/iron age humans.  It is ignorant, violent, genocidal, kills children and has no problem with slavery.  I can get what little good is in the bible from other sources and don’t have to invent excuses why I should worship such a god. 

Do you want a god that kills a child for no fault of its own as part of your child’s life?  Your god, per the bible, kills David’s son for David’s actions. So much for free will or love.  Do you want a god that says slaves should never seek their freedom (1 Peter 2) in your child’s life?  How about a god that demands that young girls are kept for war booty and given as sex slaves to its temple and to its followers (Numbers 31)? 

There is much more to this world than suffering and its up to us humans to fix it.  We do not need failed prayers and victim blaming when this god does nothing.  You won’t see anyone again, but they will be still in your memories.  Your god, per the bible, doesn’t love each person as an individual.  It kills them and tortures them for eternity if they don’t agree with it.  That isn’t love.  There is no free will, aka “agency” in your bible since anytime it interferes with human action, free will disappears.  As soon as it mind controls someone to get its way, Exodus 4, Exodus 9 and Joshua 11, free will disappears.  Per both Jesus and Paul, this god has already chosen who it will allow to accept it, and then damns the rest for no fault of their own, to be used to keep the others in line (Matthew 13, Romans 9). 

Any set of myths present different characters, so there is nothing special about the bible in that way either.  Those stories also present the god I describe above, violent, ignorant, petty, and not even coming up to the half-decent description of love in 1 Corinthians.  No one needs such a petty tyrant as a god. 

I have no problem in knowing I’ll eventually die.  I don’t need a false story to make me feel better.  I prefer the truth.  The lack of a god is quite comprehensible and palatable, considering the nasty god of Christianity.  I don’t have to fear any sadistic fantasy of hell. That’s quite comforting.

There are many “god believers” who are hateful, who have committed suicide (despite the promise in the bible that this god will never leave someone alone), who don’t get up, who have no purpose in life.  And there are plenty of atheists, and non-Christians who are well-adjusted, get up everyday, have purpose in life and life for something greater than themselves.   

So, since other theists do exactly what you do, does this mean their gods are as real as yours?  Your own words say so, claiming that there is “empirical evidence” in the actions of believers.  Alas, there is nothing that shows that Christians’ lives are better, that they are better adjusted and that they alone give hope to those around them.  

That you try to claim that atheists, agnostics and non-christian theists can’t is rather pitiable that you need to make false claims to make yourself feel superior