One of the most braindead arguments (some) apologists present

Tim Allen, the famous actor, once said this in an interview:

"My older daughter is an atheist, and I said, well, philosophically there's an irony there too, because atheists don't believe in God. Well, there has to be a God to not believe in."

Some other Christian apologists sometimes present, in essence, this same argument, although they often don't say it so succinctly and in such a distilled manner, and instead try to dress up and masquerade it in a big amount of fancy words and complex arguments.

The distilled version that Tim Allen spouted immediately reveals the main problem with it: The fact that you could use the same argument to argue for the existence of anything. And that includes other non-Christian gods.

"You don't believe in Shiva? Well, there has to be a Shiva to not believe in."

"You don't believe in Allah? Well, there has to be an Allah to not believe in."

"You don't believe in magic unicorns? Well, there have to be magic unicorns to not believe in."

"You don't believe in bigfoot?" Well, there has to be a bigfoot to not believe in."

The funny thing is that Tim Allen clearly said it as if it was a big "gotcha!" moment for his daughter (and for all the atheists watching) that shut her up so effectively that she had no response.

Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Tim. 

The conversion of Alex O'Connor is a bit incomprehensible

Alex O'Connor was a quite long time atheist and skeptic who was active on YouTube, commenting and debating on the topic of religion, atheism and skepticism.

He has always been characterized as being extraordinarily calm, understanding and eloquent, always approaching these topics and these debates respectfully and in good faith, always trying to fully understand and acknowledge what the opposing arguments are, and what the other person in a debate is saying, without any judgment, without any distortions, without any unjustified assumptions, without any straw-manning, always understanding and acknowledging the argument, and giving a calm rational reasonable full response to it. I don't remember him ever saying anything belittling, disparaging, mocking or insulting to anybody, and always approached every person in an extremely respectful and amicable manner, and in good faith.

In other words, he always was pretty much the nicest skeptic debater out there. Someone who wanted to discuss these topics in a warm approachable manner with zero hostility or animosity, avoiding at all costs the other person feeling insulted, belittled or disrespected.

He became such a notorious "friendly skeptic" that he even got to have live debates with several big-name Christian apologists, like William Lane Craig.

Some time ago, however, for one reason or another he stopped being an atheist and became a deist, perhaps even an outright theist (although not a Christian.)

I honestly cannot comprehend why.

You can see a video where he explains a few of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God (or at least some kind of "god") here.

Not to belittle him, but his number one argument is not rational. Or, perhaps more precisely, he is jumping to a completely unjustified, and thus irrational, conclusion from the argument.

His number one argument is a form of "first cause" argument, although slightly different: Rather than arguing that the universe must have a "first cause" for its existence, he does so in another axis: He argues that every single thing is dependent on something else, usually a more fundamental thing. Something having the properties it does is caused by something more fundamental allowing it to have those properties. And that more fundamental phenomenon itself will have an even more fundamental underlying cause allowing it to exist, and so on. If we follow this chain all the way down we must inevitably end up in the most fundamental phenomenon that allows everything to be like it is, that allows everything to exist.

Even putting aside the subsequent conclusions for a bit, that notion is in itself not something that can be taken for granted. One of its biggest flaws is that it assumes one single fundamental phenomenon that allows everything in the universe to exist and be like it is. He dismisses the possibility of there being more than one independent phenomena, ie. that don't depend on each other, being at the "bottom" of this vertical causal chain, perhaps allowing separate things to exist as they are, or doing so for the same things in conjunction.

It also disregards the possibility of mutual dependence of two or more of these "most fundamental" phenomena. In other words, phenomenon A depends on phenomenon B, and vice-versa, and they together then allow everything else to exist.

Anyway, that's just a side point, not the main objection I have. The main objection is, rather obviously, that from "there must be a most-fundamental cause for everything to exist as it does" to "that something is (some kind of) God".

It's that jump in logic that I categorically do not accept, and it genuinely baffles my mind why he does.

Even if there is some "most-fundamental cause" that allows everything to exist as it is, there is no reason or justification to apply the label of "God" to it. That's because that name (with or without a capital G) carries a huge amount of assumptions and baggage with it, and labeling something unknown with it automatically applies all those assumptions and baggage to that unknown.

This "most fundamental cause", if one exists, could well be just a completely mindless natural phenomenon, just like electric charge or gravity.

In other words, it's disingenuous to apply the label of "God" to such an unknown. It is pretty much a perfect example of an argumentum ad ignorantiam (or, perhaps a bit more precisely, "assigning characteristics to an unknown (in a completely unjustified manner)".)

Outright becoming a theist, or even just a deist, because of this is irrational. Starting to believe in some kind of "higher power" that some religions (like Christianity) get at least half-right (as he states in the video), is completely unjustified. It's just not rational nor reasonable. You are assigning theistic characteristics to something we know nothing about.

And that's assuming that this "most fundamental cause" even exists in the first place, which in itself is not a self-evident fact.

I genuinely have a hard time understanding how a skeptic of the caliber of Alex O'Connor cannot comprehend this.

(I really have to wonder if the King of Sophistry himself, ie. William Lane Craig, somehow managed to mess up his thinking. Advanced sophistry can be a powerful tool against the unwary. Could it possibly be that, somewhat ironically, Alex was being a bit too "nice" and giving WLC's arguments a bit too much thought and respect, and this somehow messed up his thinking to the point of becoming irrational?)

The idea of Jesus being punished on your behalf is completely asinine

One of the core tenets and talking points of (most of) Christianity is that Jesus became a human and was punished on your behalf, for your sins. That he carried the burden, he received the punishment so that you could be saved. That instead of you being punished for your sins, he took it on himself instead, to save you from eternal damnation, the consequence of sin.

This is often depicted as a form of "sacrificing oneself to save others", like if Jesus did the ultimate sacrifice to give humanity the opportunity to be saved from certain damnation. The ultimate form of altruism, the ultimate form of self-sacrifice in order to help others.

However, this entire idea is not just a completely perverse form of "justice", it's outright asinine.

When we get down to it, as many of these Christian apologists and preachers explain it, it's like a weird form of "karma": It's as if every crime, every evil deed, has to be "counter-balanced" with a corresponding punishment.

Because you have sinned, there has to be some punishment. Apparently it's just how it is. Apparently it's just not possible to forgive and forget your sins, your evil deeds: They must be compensated with punishment.

Ok, fine: Every crime, every evil deed, requires a punishment. Perhaps a bit harsh (because the punishment is not proportional to the severity of the crime), but it makes sense. But that's not the egregious part about it. Apparently, it doesn't matter who that punishment is done to, as long as there is some punishment. Apparently it doesn't matter if the punishment is done to a completely innocent third-party who was in no way involved in your crimes: As long as someone is punished for your crimes, that's enough.

They literally talk as if crimes go to one container, and the punishments for those crimes go to another, and the delicate balance between the two has to always be maintained. And punishments don't need to be just and fair: As long as the punishment is done, doesn't matter who it's done to, that counts.

Thus, innocent people being punished for the crimes of the guilty brings balance to the system and absolves the guilty.

Rather obviously this is a completely perverted form of justice. But worse than that, it indeed seems to allude to some form of "karma", where evil deeds accumulate and "punishment" must be done to counter-balance them. Which makes no sense.

And the funny thing is that this is, from a logical point of view, completely unnecessary: The belief that "if you truly repent for your sins, truly feel regret for them, and you truly make a complete 180 and decide on not doing anything like that anymore, God will forgive you and absolve you from your crimes" would be enough and completely logical. The part where God's Son needs to come to Earth as a human and be punished for your crimes in order to make this deal possible could be completely skipped and removed from the formula, and it would only make the entire thing more logical, not less. Sure, there might still be some discussion to be had about what kind of justice system this is, but at least the most egregious part of it would have been removed, ie. the part where there just has to be a punishment and, most egregiously, an innocent person can be punished on your behalf.

Be careful with "shotgun" and "rapid-fire" arguments

Oftentimes when a skeptic has a discussion with someone, not even necessarily a Christian / religious person, but also for example with a conspiracy theorist, that other person may engage in "shotgun argumentation" and "rapid-fire argumentation", and this is something that many skeptics fail to stop, even though they really should.

"Shotgun argumentation" is when tons and tons of tiny claims are presented all at once, in rapid succession, defending or attacking some position. There are two main reasons for such a tactic:

1. Just the sheer amount of arguments may make the claims more credible. After all, if only two or three arguments are presented, then that might not convince many people, but present twenty or thirty, and suddenly you have a much weightier argument! After all, there's an "overwhelming amount" of arguments and "evidence" for the position, so clearly there's something legit going on.
2. The other distinct advantage of this tactic is that when you present dozens and dozens of arguments, the chances that the skeptic will not have a proper answer to at least one of them increases dramatically. Thus, you can present argument after argument after argument, rapidly moving from one to the next (ie. "rapid-fire argumentation"), and immediately when you arrive at one that the skeptic has no immediate good answer for you can immediately jump to the opportunity: "See? You have no answer! I win!"

When skeptics engage in conversation with such religious people or conspiracy theorists, they should really stop that kind of argumentation on its tracks.

If the other person just starts making argument after argument after argument in quick succession, by the third or fourth one, when it has become clear that he is just going to spout a flood of dozens of such arguments, the skeptic should just stop it: "Wait, wait. Instead of doing this whole shotgun-argumentation thingie, how about we discuss one argument at a time? Just present me with one argument and we can discuss it."

The other, closely related type of argumentation is one where the other person does indeed present an argument, allow the skeptic to answer it... but then immediately moves to the next argument without even acknowledging the answer. The goal is simple: Go through argument after argument until he stumbles across one that the skeptic has no good answer to, and then declare victory.

As a skeptic, don't just allow that to happen: After you have properly answered the very first argument, if the other person immediately jumps to another, don't allow him. "Wait, before we move to something else, do you accept my answer or do you have some objection to it? If you don't accept my answer, what is the problem in it?" Just don't simply allow the other person to move on until he has either acknowledged the validity of your answer, or clearly demonstrated that he is figuratively putting his fingers in his ears and doesn't want to even listen to nor acknowledge any answers.

In some cases you may even be able to flip the entire situation on its head this way. In other words, rather than you being overwhelmed by a barrage of arguments and getting stumped by one of them, it may well be the believer / conspiracy theorist who gets stumped because he is just unable to acknowledge the validity of your answers, and you are not letting him proceed without doing that, or presenting a valid response. The rapid-fire shotgun argumentation tactic doesn't work if you don't allow it. 

"Questions atheists can't answer" is a dumb argument

One of the most common forms of Christian argumentation, which you can find tons and tons of examples on websites and video sharing platforms, uses the form "X questions atheists can't answer".

For some reason many Christians and Christian apologists believe that not only is this a completely legit form of argumentation but that it is, in fact, some of the strongest proofs of God's existence (and, obviously, that it's the God of Christianity described in the Bible.)

Yet, it's one of the dumbest forms of argumentation. That's because it's a direct textbook example of straightforward argumentum ad ignorantiam, ie. argument from ignorance.

("Ignorance" in the name of the fallacy does not refer to the person making the argument being ignorant. It refers to "not knowing (something)". In other words, it's an argument of the form "if you don't know (this thing), then my claims are true.")

It doesn't even matter if those questions can actually be answered or not. Even putting aside that question, even assuming that those question legitimately cannot be answered, that "atheists" indeed "can't answer" those questions, that means absolutely nothing.

Your position doesn't somehow become valid because someone doesn't know the answer to some question. It doesn't even matter what the question is.

As an example, even if someone can't answer the question "where did the Universe come from?" that doesn't somehow make the assertion of "God did it" any more legit. It merely means that that person doesn't know the answer to that question.

The idea behind the argument is genuinely strange. It's like an answer, any answer, somehow becomes valid if others can't give an alternative answer. "If you can't give me an answer of your own, then my answer is correct." That's, rather obviously, not how it works, at any level.

There are still open questions in science, that's certain. However, the correct approach to studying those questions and trying to find out their answers is not to just jump to a completely asinine "God must have done it!" Even if some questions genuinely have no answer, that doesn't somehow justify religious beliefs. It simply means that we don't know.

(By the way, this is something that too few skeptics point out when presented these "questions they can't answer". They fall into the trap of trying to answer those questions. The problem with doing that is that it inadvertently legitimates the underlying argument, in other words, that if the skeptic indeed can't answer the questions then it somehow gives credibility to the God claim. Skeptics shouldn't start answering any questions without first making it clear that it doesn't matter if they can answer them or not. It's not a valid form of argumentation. It's an argumentative fallacy.) 

Papal infallibility

One big mistake that many people do when they try to argue against eg. a religious or scientific position, is that they completely fail to research and understand what exactly that position actually is, so that they can give a valid objection to it. A lot of times people just assume something about the position and object to it based on those assumptions. When those assumptions are wildly incorrect, this becomes in essence an inadvertent straw-man argument (the main difference to an actual straw-man argument being that the subject matter is not being deliberately and knowingly distorted in bad faith.)

There are countless examples of this that one could list with regard to creationist arguments against the theory of evolution. However, sometimes skeptics also inadvertently engage in this same mistake when trying to argue against religion, or Christianity, or a particular Christian denomination or teaching.

One of the most commonly misunderstood and often-criticized and even mocked Catholic teachings is that of Papal Infallibility.

I have myself seen first-hand someone say in all seriousness (ie. clearly not joking) the archetypal argument of the form "if the Pope is infallible, why doesn't he play the lottery? We'll see how 'infallible' he is."

This is a complete misunderstanding and research failure of what Papal Infallibility actually is, what the Catholic Church actually teaches about it, ie. what the official doctrine is.

It's not a good idea to argue against a position you have completely misunderstood. Even if inadvertently, that just becomes a full-on straw-man argument, and it's not very constructive nor useful.

Catholic doctrine does not teach that the Pope is always infallible, without error, without mistakes, without false statements, not even without sin. Official Catholic doctrine does teach that even the Pope himself is as much a sinner as anybody else, and is capable of committing sin (for which he does need to seek forgiveness and absolution), and is very much not always correct and infallible.

What the official Catholic doctrine teaches is that when the Pope makes a particular type of official declaration ex cathedra (ie. essentially "officially from his position as the Pope") that pertains to Church doctrine, then that declaration is to be considered from God himself, and thus infallible. This kind of proclamation uses a very particular context and wording, and is very unambiguously stated as such an official Papal proclamation, for the purposes of establishing Church doctrine and catechism.

Things that the Pope says otherwise, during interviews, during conversations, even outright during sermons and mass, is not this kind of infallible ex cathedra proclamation.

Also, the vast, vast majority of people have absolutely no idea how many such proclamations Catholic Popes have given.

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, ever since the doctrine of Papal infallibility was officially established in Church canon in 1870, it has been only used once. That's it. One single time.

There have been Catholic scholars and bishops who have attempted to retroactively assign official infallibility to statements made by popes prior to 1870, but there is no officially accepted list, only allegations. After the canonization of Papal infallibility in 1870 there has been only one such officially recognized "infallible" proclamation, made in 1950 by Pope Pius XII.

That being said, even approaching the subject matter with absolute understanding and accuracy, the whole concept is not without criticism.

Take that "infallible" 1950 Papal official proclamation for instance: Pius XII officially declared that the virgin Mary directly ascended to heaven, ie. experienced a so-called assumption (ie. was directly taken to heaven, in her spiritual body, at the moment of death, exactly like happened to Jesus according to the doctrine.)

One could ask: If that's true, why did it take almost two thousand years for God to suddenly reveal this truth? And why now?

Doesn't make much sense. It sounds a lot more plausible that Pius XII just wanted to make that common belief "official" and thus just declared it officially, in order to canonize it and make it an indisputable fact.

Same goes with the canonization of the concept of papal infallibility in itself: Only in 1870? Why did it take so long? Was God withholding this information for some reason? Why did he suddenly decide in 1870 to reveal such a fundamental doctrine?

The story of Moses on Mount Sinai is incongruent

One of the most archetypal and beloved stories of the Old Testament happens after Moses has led his people out of their captivity in Egypt, when they camp at the foot of Mount Sinai, and Moses ascends to the mountain in order to receive a big bunch of commandments (including the ten famous ones) directly from God himself.

In Christianity this is considered one of the key moments of not just the Biblical narrative, but the entirety of the religion, not just because of the Ten Commandments having been given to Moses (according to the narrative), but the overall significance of the event. It is also the immediate precursor of another key event in the story that happens at the end of it, ie. the infamous Golden Calf incident (one of the most referenced and painted of all Biblical events.) The entire story is full of memorable key events that shapes the entire Old Testament narrative.

This event is often narrated in sermons, Christian events (such as youth camps), and studied in Bible study groups. Christians marvel at the events, and the sheer power of God that's described in the text.

However, not many Christians ever stop to think about some of the most incongruent details of the story. These details are (for the most part) not incongruent within this particular portion of the text, but they are highly incongruent with the overall Christian theology and narrative.

Some of the incongruities in the story include:

1) In the story, God physically descends on top of the mountain. The text (Exodus 19:16-18) says:

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently.

This raises a question: If God is omnipotent and omnipresent, why does he need to physically descend on top of a mountain in order to personally meet with Moses, and what's with the light and smoke show?

It is implied (and in fact outright stated later) that God needs to surround himself in very thick clouds so that the people cannot see him, as directly seeing him would mean instantaneous death. And, thus, God needs to hide himself in the cloud to protect the people. It's also implied in the text above that he is so immensely powerful that his mere physical presence causes fire, lightning and violent trembling of the ground.

More curiously, this is literally the only place in the entire Bible where God is described like this, and does something like this, and is stated to need to "hide" himself in this manner to protect people from seeing him and immediately dying. Quite notably, there are other places where it is said that God personally visits someone without such a light, smoke and ground tremor show (the clearest and most prominent example of this being when God, personally, appeared to Abraham. Not through a messenger, but literally in person.)

One of the biggest problems with this story is that heavily and quite directly implies less-than-omnipotence from God: According to this particular story, if he appears in physical form somewhere, he cannot contain himself, his own power, and thus needs to cover his physical form with thick clouds so that his immense power does not destroy everybody who sees him directly.

Christian apologists usually rationalize this by claiming that it's just symbolic: God doesn't actually have the need to physically hide himself or else everybody who sees him dies. He did it here just to indicate his presence to the people and cause awe and reverence to them, and to stop them from rushing to climb the mountain.

However, there's nothing in the text that indicates this. There is no portion of the text that explains that God only did this for show, or to deter people from approaching, or anything of the sort. Most Christians love to claim that they only interpret the Bible literally, just what it says and nothing more, yet time and again they insert their own personal interpretations into the text, they constantly "read between the lines" things that aren't said there. 

2) In the same vein, at one point Moses asks God if he could see him. What follows is consistent with the above narrative, but makes it even more incongruent with Christian theology in general.

God tells Moses that he cannot show his face because that would cause Moses immediately to die (Exodus 33:19-20):

And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

Again: How come an omnipotent God cannot show his face to a human, or else the human will die?

Instead, God goes through this asinine routine where Moses hides behind a rock, God covers him with his hand (apparently god has hands), and then quickly passes by and allows Moses to see a glimpse of his back.

There's nothing in the text that would indicate this to be somehow metaphorical or figurative. It is quite clear from the text that the author literally meant that God himself was literally and physically present there, he literally has hands, a backside and a face, Moses literally hid behind a rock that had a cleft through which Moses could peek through, and God literally covered him with his hand, uncovering him only briefly while physically passing by with his literal back turned towards him.

Nothing in the text indicates this being something metaphorical, or a dream, or something like that. There's nothing indicating that this is some kind of symbolism. It's narrated as being exactly what physically happened, and that it was literally required for Moses to survive.

So it once again raises the question: Why would an omnipotent omnipresent God need these theatrics?

Christian apologists try to rationalize and explain this away, but the text itself is quite clear: It is what literally physically happened, there was no other way, and it was necessary. There's no indication that God was just showing off or doing some kind of symbolic demonstration to teach a lesson or something. It is written as if it was absolutely necessary to do it like that.

And also this, quite notably, is literally the only place in the entire Bible where this kind of thing is described. Nowhere else.

3) When the infamous Golden Calf incident happens, Moses quite famously destroys the two tablets that he had, containing the original Ten Commandments (given in Exodus 20, and it's implied that also a big bunch of other commandments were written on the tablets), and after the incident has been dealt with, Moses ascends to the mountain once again, and the text quite explicitly says (Exodus 34:1):

The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.”

The fact that these new tablets contained the famous Ten Commandments is extremely explicitly and unambiguously stated after them having been listed in that chapter, in Exodus 34:27-28:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

It couldn't be clearer than that. These are not just some random new commandments. These are the Ten Commandments, using "the words that were on the first tablets".

The problem?

The ten commandments listed between the first and 27th verses are completely different from the first Ten Commandments (the first set being the famous ones). A few of the commandments are somewhat similar to the first ones, using different wording, but the majority of them are completely different.

This is not denied by biblical scholars and most theologians, who call the first set the "Ethical Decalogue" and this second set the "Ritual Decalogue". However, the vast majority of Christian believers just ignore this contradiction.

In fact, the vast majority of Christians don't even know about this second set. There are literally people who have been avid practicing Christians for several decades who have never encountered this nor know about it. When they encounter it for the first time, they are invariably surprised. I'm not even kidding. (The most common reaction is to keep ignoring it, shoving it aside with a thought that there must be an explanation to it that they simply haven't heard.)

(Note: One could say that there's a contradiction in that chapter in that it starts with "I (ie. God) will write on them (ie. the tablets)", and ends with "Write (ie. you, Moses) down these words". However, since I'm not an expert in Hebrew, particularly not ancient Hebrew, I don't know if that first expression can actually mean effectively the same as "I will dictate" rather than "I will write". An ancient Hebrew expert would be more competent to comment on that.) 

The actual explanation, particularly to the two first points above, is that this is most likely yet again one of those independent orally transmitted myths that at some point got incorporated into the Jewish mythology and texts.

Taking into account the details of the story, and how incongruent and contradictory it is compared to the rest of Jewish and Christian theology, it's quite clear that it was most likely a myth from another religion, or some kind of "pseudo-Jewish" myth floating around (similarly to how the myth that people become angels is widespread, even though no Christian denomination actually teaches this), which was then reworded a bit and incorporated into the Jewish canon, either by directly adapting and writing it into the scripture, or it being first adapted and told as an oral myth as part of the Jewish religion and then later written down.