atheists help me undestand!?

Question

i am an atheist but have not been one for very long. im only 14 so of course i dont have the answers to everything but everyone is bombarding me with questions bc they dont agree with me. so could you please help me to understand so that i can answer their questions? i know that these questions are asked on here a lot and you answer them but i don't even know what they mean!
so really ony two questions: what is a foxhole? and what is the law of thermodinamics or whatever? and why do ppl use these to argue for god?

hey i do know why i am an atheist thank you very much. but i just do not understand every little detail about everything i didnt even know what these words meant it has nothing to do with being an atheist!!!

Answer 1

A foxhole is essentially a pit in which soldiers take cover. It's like a trench, but on a smaller scale (instead of a big line it's a hole). It's also typically hidden to allow for ambushes. The misconception here is that there are no atheists in foxholes, the idea being that atheists, when confronted with death, will convert to belief. This is not at all true, indeed there was a pretty sizable march called "the atheists in foxholes" rally in response to this nonsense, where hundreds of military atheists marched through Washington DC.

http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/


The second law of thermodynamics deals a lot with entropy and disorder. One of the aspects is that energy disperses over time, heat spreads out and eventually disappears. Christians mistakenly believe that this means everything must fall into disorder and that no structure can come from chaos. This is actually not true...

The second law of thermodynamics actually states that order must necessarily come from disorder. This is called Dissipated Systems and the man who proved it, Prigogine, actually won the nobel prize in 1977 for proving it. The fact is that the second law of thermodynamics requires order to come from chaos, and it requires a universe to form from a big bang. Christians who use this argument really don't understand physics, or even what they're talking about...

If you have more questions about atheists, you can feel free to ask here, but I'd really recommend these sources:

http://www.talkorigins.org/
http://www.Infidels.org especially the articles written by Richard Carrier, in particular you may like the "Why I'm not a christian" article.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/
http://www.evilbible.com

Also books such as the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and End of Faith by Sam Harris are good places to start.

Answer 2

In wars, soldiers in the field will dig a hole to climb into to be safe from bullets and bombs. This is an old fashioned idea of warfare, like was done in the Civil War and WWI. There's an old saying: "There are no atheists in foxholes" which mean people pray to God when they're really frightened, so even if they say they don't believe in God they really do.

The law of thermodynamics is a 'natural law' It is the basis of physical science, of everything we know about the universe. It's kind of complicated, but basically it says that there is only so much matter in the universe and only so much energy. You can change matter but not create or destroy it. You can convert energy from one form to another but you can't create or destroy that either. (Now this is not completely true, it's just the simplest way to express this idea.) So this idea tends to destroy the idea that God created the universe out of nothing, that he can create or destroy matter.

In the old days, people believed that the universe was made up of concentric balls, one inside another, like the layers of an onion. The earth was in the center, the moon was in the next sphere out, then the planets, each in their own sphere, then the sun, then the stars. This explained why the moon and planets and sun and stars all moved differently, and why the stars all seemed to move together. It sound stupid today but some really smart people did a lot of thinking about this model of the universe, it was very well thought-out. And nobody really knew any better until the telescope was invented.

People believed in those days that 'physical laws' like gravity, inertia, etc., were only in place on earth, that all the 'heavenly bodies' were moved by the hand of God. This was proof that God existed, and also taught people about God, what he was like.

By the early 1600s, enough data had been collected by telescopes and observation that Isaac Newton was able to determine that the planets moved around the sun by -gravity-. The same gravity as we have on earth! This was a very radical idea because it showed that God doesn't move -anything- in the universe, everything moves by the same physical laws as we have on earth. (Again, this is a highly simplified version of this idea. Feel free to write me if you'd like more details).

But this idea changed forever the way people thought about God. For instance, some people thought now that God had created the universe and then just stood back and let it run, rather than to be involved from day to day.

This period, when all these discoveries were made, was called The Enlightenment. It was the beginning of the modern world, the modern way of thinking. It was the start of what we call 'science'. At the end of the enlightenment, the US was founded, and our Declaration of Independance and Constitution were based on the ideas of the Enlightenment! (And, again, this is a bit complicated to explain in this little window! 8^) )

I am not an atheist. An atheist is one who believes there is no God. I would rather take the attitude that I don't know. Nobody really knows! And that makes me an agnostic.

Answer 3

The most common argument FOR atheism is that all the evidence ever collected by THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD points away from a creator and towards natural processes, such as evolution, tectonics and gravity. Throughout history, God(s) has been used to explain the gaps in our knowledge. As the gaps shrink, the idea of God becomes more and more distant and unnecessary.

Regarding the foxhole and thermodynamics...

Foxhole: A foxhole is a hole dug into the dirt during a war to avoid being shot by your enemies. Typically, people inside a foxhole have only a few minutes to live until a grenade is lobbed their way or they make a charge at the enemy and die in the process. The relevant saying is "there are no atheists in a foxhole." That means when people are scared of dying, they suddenly start praying to god, even when they are atheists. It's not entirely true, but certainly people do become more religious as they are about to die. Most sociologists and psychlogists agree this is a subconscious way to "hedge your bet" against the possibility of nothingness after you die.

Thermodynamics: The argument is that for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. In short, if something is moving, it means something must have moved it. Therefore, there must have been something (God?) to have given the universe the original "push." However, this argument does not prove God exists, it just reveals a gap in our scientific understanding of the universe. We do not know what caused the Big Bang.

A good way to put atheism in terms religious people can understand is to say this to them: "We are all atheists - I simply believe in one god fewer than you do. When you understand why you don't believe in all the other hundreds of gods worshipped in this world, you will understand why I don't believe in yours."

Answer 4

A foxhole is a pit or ditch that soldiers would dig so that they could hide in it when the bullets and bombs are flying in battle. "There are no atheists in foxholes" means that when someone is faced with death, they stop doubting the existence of God.

What's really funny about this is that it doesn't really prove anything even if it were universally true (which it isn't). All it would prove is that when people are very scared, they turn to religion. That doesn't prove that religion is true or that God exists. All that this proves is that people need the idea of someone out there to protect and comfort them regardless of whether or not this God exists.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics is about something called entropy. In general terms, it means that all the available, usable energy and order in the universe is slowly disappearing. (I'm not a scientist, so this is just a rough way of explaining it.) Theists will argue that because this is true, then evolution can't work because evolution talks about a general trend of more complex, higher growth which would require an increase of energy and order.

The problem with this argument is that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is talking about the general trend of things in the universe. There can still be certain areas in the universe where an increase in order and in energy is possible, because the universe isn't homogenous. Certain areas contain more available energy than others, and examples of an increase in order in a small area. In short, some theists just don't understand what the 2nd law really means. The 2nd law is about the overall picture as opposed to one small sector of the whole.

Why do people use these arguments? The real answer is because they need reasons to re-convince themselves that what they already believe is right.

Argue away. Sometimes it's fun. As someone who's argued about this stuff for awhile I'll tell you that a) you can never persuade or change the mind of a true believer no matter how good your reasons or arguments might be and b) in the end, all you have is your own intuitions and judgments. Learn, think, and debate, but you'll either end up adopting someone else's point of view, or you'll have to rely on your own.

Answer 5

The Foxhole one is simple. A foxhloe is a hole a soldier digs and crouches inside of to protect himself from getting blown up by cannons. The statement that there are no atheists in foxholes is meant by the christians to say that when things get dangerous everybody prays to God. There is an organization of ex-soldiers who are atheist who find it very insulting. The organization, Atheists in Foxholes, has demanded apologies from several politicians on it.
The second law of thermodynamics basicaly says that in a closed system everything run down to its least organized state. It is used as an argument to deny that life could exist on earth if it was not for God. The problem with that argument is that the Earth, the universe and everything is not a closed system so the law does not apply to the argument.
I hope this helps.

Answer 6

They are saying that if you were in a foxhole ( a hole you and other soldiers would be fighting from in a ground battle) you would not be an atheist because everyone becomes religious when death is near. The law of thermodynamics they are talking about is that matter cannot be created nor can it be destroyed or at least this cannot be explained by conventional science so something supernatural must have happened to create the matter in the first place. In the first place, not everyone becomes religious when death is near. That statement simply isn't true. They have a better point in saying that matter cannot be created, however the answer to that is that matter has an origin that we don't understand but that doesn't mean the invisible man in the sky created it.

Answer 7

Physics you will learn in school and it has very little to do with whether or not you are an Atheist. If you do not believe in god, the tooth fairy or any other kinds of woo woo, you are an Atheist. That's it. Simple.

Atheists are different from believers because we do not all think alike. Some of us are more scientifically minded than others. But most are just normal people, with no more interest in science than anyone else. We just know that there are no invisible flying creatures floating over our heads, watching our every move.

Answer 8

A foxhole is what you dig when you are on the battlefield and are trying to hide from enemy fire. People say there are no atheists in foxholes because when you are in a desperate situation you might have no alternative but to pray. Obviously that does not prove there is a God.

The laws of thermodynamics are based on science. They don't prove there is a God either. If anything, quite the opposite.

When people start telling you that the complexity of life and the universe and everything prove that there must be a creator, ask them where the creator came from, because He must be more complex even than what he created. So who created God? The answer of course is that we humans created this concept.

Answer 9

What you're asking isn't evolution, it's abiogenesis. Amino acids sort instead effectively, they are all over within the sun method, even in comets. From what we all know approximately the Earth's surroundings, they definitely would have shaped then as good. DNA is slightly trickier, however RNA just about definitely predated it. Nucleotides also are all over. Again, lipids are ubiquitous. Phospolipids spontaneously sort micelles in water. Enough of them make a bilayer, similar to a phone. As they develop, in addition they pinch off, like phone department. Additionally, they develop quicker if they have got solutes at the within. Since monomers can go via the instead leaky membrane, at the same time polymers are not able to, polymerization might be commonly desired. All that's wanted for "lifestyles" is for a randomly assembled molecule (RNA or one more nucleic acid) to be in a position to catalyzes its possess replication. From right here common determination and evolution take over and so it's not random.

Answer 10

There's an adage that there are no atheist in foxholes, trenches for protection against artillery barrages. It merely means that there is a fellowship among those whose lives are in danger. Some people treat it literally for no good reason.

The thermodynamic laws describe the behavior of systems. Without an input of energy, systems become disordered. Creationists, ever happy to promote their vision of God with flagrant lies, claim it makes evolution impossible. They ignore the fact that the Earth receives an enormous amount of energy in the form of sunlight, and that if the disorder occurred as they implied, life would also be impossible.