Argument from incredulity

http://creationwiki.org/Argument_from_incredulity

Incredulity is an argument of scepticism about a certain point of view, and the evolutionist and atheist are not innocent of using such an argument. Incredulity, doubt and scepticism about God and special creation, are implicit in every naturalistic explanation they try to concoct about abiogenesis and many other facets of their "theory".
Incredulity is based on human experience and on what we actually know. For example, the belief in abiogenesis can be strongly doubted, one can be sceptical of it, because it has never been observed. What has been observed is biogenesis, life coming from life. What we know is that the complexity in the natural world of living organisms is similar to, in fact much greater than, the complexity of intelligently created devices, such as the clock or the computer. Atheists imply that incredulity is an unreasonable position, but it is in fact a foundation for all critical thought. Sensible people do not believe things without evidence. Consider the opposite, credulity; Considering what atheists are willing to believe, they, can indeed be classed as credulous.

elshamah888 wrote:Argument from incredulity

http://creationwiki.org/Argument_from_incredulity

Incredulity is an argument of scepticism about a certain point of view, and the evolutionist and atheist are not innocent of using such an argument. Incredulity, doubt and scepticism about God and special creation, are implicit in every naturalistic explanation they try to concoct about abiogenesis and many other facets of their "theory".
Incredulity is based on human experience and on what we actually know. For example, the belief in abiogenesis can be strongly doubted, one can be sceptical of it, because it has never been observed. What has been observed is biogenesis, life coming from life. What we know is that the complexity in the natural world of living organisms is similar to, in fact much greater than, the complexity of intelligently created devices, such as the clock or the computer. Atheists imply that incredulity is an unreasonable position, but it is in fact a foundation for all critical thought. Sensible people do not believe things without evidence. Consider the opposite, credulity; Considering what atheists are willing to believe, they, can indeed be classed as credulous.

Contrary to that website, incredulity is not an unreasonable position - the atheist is an atheist because of incredulity. Evolution and abiogenesis are well-evidenced explanations for how complex systems can naturally arise in the biological world. Thus, there is no credible reason to believe that there was a supernatural origin - atheists are incredulous to a divine creator.

That said, the Argument from Incredulity is something else entirely. It is of the form "I do not know how this could have happened, therefore God did it". It's the argument from personal incredulity. Atheists, by contrast, know that this is a fallacious argument: just because you personally don't know how something could exist without God, doesn't in the slightest mean that it therefore didn't. Moreover, atheists are overwhelmingly - if not entirely - evolutionists: they do know how biodiversity could have come about without God. Evolution and abiogenesis aren't specifically anti-god, of course, but they certainly offer god-free explanations for life.

Wiccan_Child wrote:
Contrary to that website, incredulity is not an unreasonable position - the atheist is an atheist because of incredulity. Evolution and abiogenesis are well-evidenced explanations for how complex systems can naturally arise in the biological world. Thus, there is no credible reason to believe that there was a supernatural origin - atheists are incredulous to a divine creator.

the text at creation wiki follows....

We are talking about evolution, a theory that tries to tell us what happened in an unseen, unobservable, unrepeatable past. The fact that someone invents a natural "explanation" for something that is unseen, unobserved — and hence unscientific — does not mean that that explanation has any basis in reality. Without supporting evidence, it is a mere suggestion, a speculation. The fact that someone can devise a natural explanation in the context of this "theory", which makes unscientific claims about a hidden past, says nothing about the truth.

That said, the Argument from Incredulity is something else entirely. It is of the form "I do not know how this could have happened, therefore God did it".

Incredulity is based on human experience and on what we actually know. For example, the belief in abiogenesis can be strongly doubted, one can be sceptical of it, because it has never been observed. What has been observed is biogenesis, life coming from life. What we know is that the complexity in the natural world of living organisms is similar to, in fact much greater than, the complexity of intelligently created devices, such as the clock or the computer.

elshamah888 wrote:the text at creation wiki follows....

To be fair, if I wanted to debate the editors of the Creation Wiki, I'd go to the Creation Wiki. I'd prefer to debate you yourself, not some proxy. Nevertheless...

elshamah888 wrote:
We are talking about evolution, a theory that tries to tell us what happened in an unseen, unobservable, unrepeatable past.

This is called 'history'. History is the study of what happened in the past, and is therefore unseen, unobservable, and unrepeatable.

elshamah888 wrote:The fact that someone invents a natural "explanation" for something that is unseen, unobserved — and hence unscientific — does not mean that that explanation has any basis in reality.

Agreed. The mere existence of an explanation does not prove it's true - there are many phenomena which have several plausible explanations, such as the origin of the Moon. That said, it's a Creationist myth that explanations of past events, or explanations of modern events that infer things about the past, are necessarily unscientific; this is simply not true. Since we can use the evidence to deduce things about the past, since we can make predictions about, and perform experiments on, the past, past events are scientific. Evolution is not made unscientific merely because it talks of past events.

elshamah888 wrote:Without supporting evidence, it is a mere suggestion, a speculation. The fact that someone can devise a natural explanation in the context of this "theory", which makes unscientific claims about a hidden past, says nothing about the truth.

A moot point, since evidence for the theory of common descent comes from all corners of science. It's one of the most well-evidenced theories known to man - we know evolution is true with more certainty than we know quantum mechanics is true, or even the existence of atoms.

elshamah888 wrote:Incredulity is based on human experience and on what we actually know. For example, the belief in abiogenesis can be strongly doubted, one can be sceptical of it, because it has never been observed.

The same could be said of Queen Victory: no one alive today has observed her, so, therefore, we can be secpitcal of her existence, right? Wrong: we have substantial evidence that she did indeed exist. Likewise, we can substantial evidence that evolution and abiogenesis are true. The fact that they describes things that happened in the past is utterly irrelevant: they are theories that explain how life came to be. As such, we can search for evidence for them - and, lo and behold, we find more evidence than we know what to do with.

elshamah888 wrote:What has been observed is biogenesis, life coming from life. What we know is that the complexity in the natural world of living organisms is similar to, in fact much greater than, the complexity of intelligently created devices, such as the clock or the computer.

We also know of a way by which the complexity of biological systems can arise without an intelligence, so the fallacy of "It's complex, therefore God did it" is readily apparent.

http://www.wikihow.com/Argue-That-God-Does-Not-Exist

Many zealots are very defensive concerning the nonexistence of god. Often times, an atheist will be verbally challenged simply because of their beliefs. It is at these times when one could raise these questions.

Steps

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Creationism is often the root of the opposing party's faith structure. With the wealth of reasonable evidence at your disposal concerning its unfeasibilty, you might include arguments concerning evolution, radiocarbon dating [as ridiculous as it may sound, many believe that the earth is 6000 years old], and asking for an admission where creationism is given some theoretical weight, besides the bible or similar religious text.
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The God Delusion
The God Delusion
Challenge their religion's roots. Examples of this might include [if challenged by a Christian] that the "devil" was not present in religious texts until the nomadic monotheists ran into polytheists and borrowed the idea.
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Point out that religion, throughout history, has been used to control the masses, rather than enlighten them. An example of this includes the Christian crusades, and the present day suicide bombings of Muslims. Are [insert faith here] really that different?
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Target the religious texts. In the case of the bible, often entire verses, stories, and anecdotes were falsified for the sake of making a point. Exploit the plot holes, inconsistencies and illogical and impossible things.
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Relate to your debating opponent. Ask them for a reason as to why they believe so strongly in their faith besides being raised in the dogma's environment. Be aware of the Hundreds of Proofs of God's existence[1] they may try to use.
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Demonstrate that people believe in whatever they're told to believe. Ask your debating opponent if he believes in a specific belief of another religion (for example, if he's Jewish you can ask him if he believes Jesus was the son of god). Assuming he would answer negatively, then ask him whether he thinks he would believe that if he were born in a Christian country to Christian parents...
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Religion has been often used to explain the unexplainable. The Greeks used Poseidon to explain how earthquakes happened (which we now know is due to the movement of tectonic plates). What happens when we can prove, and you can't deny, the Big Bang theory and Evolution, which both have such large amounts of logic behind them that it's hard to deny that they are true.
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What happens after death? Many Christians try to use this argument to trick you into thinking you have to go to heaven. However, try relating this to something that has already happened. What happened before you were born? Nothing in the bible says anything about this.
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Ask them if God could create a box which s/he couldn't look into. Most people who believe in God believe that, by definition, God is omniscient. There is no answer to this question that doesn't imply that there is something God cannot do.