The Atheist's Riddle

toiletduck

You know the banner ad that is always at the top of this forum which reads as

the atheist's riddle
so simple, any child can understand so complex, no atheist can solve

Well finally the curiosity got the better of me and I investigated. What was this miraculous miracle that has confounded every atheist? The link lead me to a page promising a "five-day series of emails" but I'd have to wait til day 4 :eek: No way could I do that! So off to google and my first link brought me here, a horrible little site which excuses Hitler as being better than atheists. At last though I finally had the riddle!

A RIDDLE FOR ATHEISTS

Johnny is 11. He is being taught the principles of the american constitution and its amendments by his atheistic parents. Recent lessons given him has focused on the first amendment.

The other day, Johnny's school teacher gave him some math problems for homework. When his teacher checked his homework the next day, she was astonished that Johnny gave everyone of the problems incorrect answers.

His teacher therefore called him to her desk and asked him had he forgotten how to solve such problems. But Johnny said to his teacher, "None of my answers are incorrect." His teacher asked him why did he say such, and he said, "Because the answers are the ones I believe them to be, and I have a constitutional right to my opinion. You have the opinion that the answers should be such and such, but I say differently. You cannot say my answers are wrong. I have the right to my opinion and you have the right to yours. If you are dogmatic that my answers should be the same as yours, that makes you self-righteous and a biggot. If you say my answers are wrong, you are judging me. Judge not lest you be judged. I deserve an 'A' like everyone else."

The riddle is this: Who is right, Johnny or his teacher? Is there an atheist who can solve this riddle?

I haven't been this disappointed since I watched Starship Troopers 2. So my heathen brethren, beware the banner ads of our little corner of boards. Anyone else followed up an ad here? We do tend to get... interesting ones.

pH

I'm a little confused as to why the 11 year old atheist switches to a biblical based argument halfway through.

AtomicHorror

A riddle so blatantly agenda-laden and essentially ironic that even a child could solve it. Is it any wonder such people would dismiss simple observation in favour of believing in a man who lives in the clouds?

Akrasia

toiletduck wrote: »

You know the banner ad that is always at the top of this forum which reads as



Well finally the curiosity got the better of me and I investigated. What was this miraculous miracle that has confounded every atheist? The link lead me to a page promising a "five-day series of emails" but I'd have to wait til day 4 :eek: No way could I do that! So off to google and my first link brought me here, a horrible little site which excuses Hitler as being better than atheists. At last though I finally had the riddle!



I haven't been this disappointed since I watched Starship Troopers 2. So my heathen brethren, beware the banner ads of our little corner of boards. Anyone else followed up an ad here? We do tend to get... interesting ones.

I don't get it

toiletduck

pH wrote: »

I'm a little confused as to why the 11 year old atheist switches to a biblical based argument halfway through.

I think that's the part we're not supposed to understand

AtomicHorror

pH wrote: »

I'm a little confused as to why the 11 year old atheist switches to a biblical based argument halfway through.

More "generically faith-based" rather than specifically biblical. The logical flaw in the "riddle" is so glaringly obvious as to make me feel a little embarrassed for whoever so smugly wrote it.

robindch

From his incisive grasp of logic, I'd say Johnny's been en-meme-ulated by Ken the Beard.

I'd also dock him a grade for calling his teacher a "bigot" with two g's.

.

Dave!

I'd just punch him in the face

iUseVi

toiletduck wrote: »

I haven't been this disappointed since I watched Starship Troopers 2.

There's a Starship Troopers 2?! :eek: Ye gods, I must watch it.

I clicked on this ad a while ago, I got emailed several times. (at one of my fake emails :rolleyes:)

There's a lot of extraneous rubbbish, but it seems to boil down to this argument:

Matter and energy have to come from somewhere. Everyone
can agree on that. But information has to come from somewhere,
too! Information is separate entity, fully on par with matter and
energy. And information can only come from a mind. If books
and poems and TV shows come from human intelligence, then all
living things inevitably came from a superintelligence.

Every word you hear, every sentence you speak, every
dog that barks, every song you sing, every email you read,
every packet of information that zings across the Internet,
is proof of the existence of God. Because information
and language always originate in a mind.

In the beginning were words and language.

In the Beginning was Information.

When we consider the mystery of life - where it came from
and how this miracle is possible - do we not at the same time
ask the question where it is going, and what its purpose is?

Basically seems to be a mixture of the argument from beauty and ID.

toiletduck

iUseVi wrote: »

There's a Starship Troopers 2?! :eek: Ye gods, I must watch it.

Yup, it's brutal. But I'm looking forward to the next one :pac:

pH

toiletduck wrote: »

I think that's the part we're not supposed to understand

Ahhh, I get it now

A RIDDLE FOR CHRISTIANS

Mary is a 5 year old girl, who has been rehearsing for her school nativity play with her mom. Her mom has been explaining the Immaculate conception of Mary, and how Jesus' birth fulfilled ancient Messianic prophecies.

The next day, as the play is presented, instead of following her lines, little Mary begins a 2 hour Heideggerian discourse on the nature of being, arguing that this interpretation of the nativity play in essence ignores pre-theoretical ways that Jesus came into being, and that it confuses Jesus' existence with our understanding of Jesus' existence.

The teacher is very cross, and demands an explanation for not following the correct script, to which Mary responds by asking the teacher if she's aware of Satre's thoughts on "reflective consciousness" and also arguing that EU directive 2000/78/EC covers the principle of equal treatment in the area of employment, covering disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.

The riddle is this: Who is right, Mary or her teacher? Is there a Christian who can solve this riddle?

robindch

pH wrote: »

Is there a Christian who can solve this riddle?

Experience makes me suspect that christians generally aren't much good at solving riddles, or even spotting them. But they are good at believing them -- maybe that's what you should look for?

pH

robindch wrote: »

Experience makes me suspect that christians generally aren't much good at solving riddles, or even spotting them. But they are good at believing them -- maybe that's what you should look for?

So maybe I should ask "Are there any Christians who can believe in this riddle for me?"

And on the topic of Christian riddles, what exactly does the phrase "Judge not lest ye be judged" actually mean. The quote in the OP uses it in a very literal sense, that any judging is wrong, which seems strange because I've never heard any Christian objections to Judges, trials and juries.

I'd always taken it to mean "like for like" judgement, i.e. don't accuse/judge others of doing things you do yourself (ie be a damned hypocrite) which makes sense to me, but the usage in the OP's quote doesn't make any.

Zillah

ERROR: DNC

Galvasean

We can't beat them with logic. Let's create a very nonsensical riddle which will stop them in their tracks... somehow.

Zillah

No really, the more I think about this the less I get whats going on. Is this some sort of witty satire or viral pro-secular marketing? They seem to be trying to inoculate people against that sort of ambivalent pseudo-intellectual reasoning, which is most often deployed by the religious.

pH

iUseVi wrote: »

Basically seems to be a mixture of the argument from beauty and ID.

Argument from insanity more like.

Mark Hamill

A RIDDLE FOR ATHEISTS

Johnny is 11. He is being taught the principles of the american constitution and its amendments by his atheistic parents. Recent lessons given him has focused on the first amendment.

The other day, Johnny's school teacher gave him some math problems for homework. When his teacher checked his homework the next day, she was astonished that Johnny gave everyone of the problems incorrect answers.

His teacher therefore called him to her desk and asked him had he forgotten how to solve such problems. But Johnny said to his teacher, "None of my answers are incorrect." His teacher asked him why did he say such, and he said, "Because the answers are the ones I believe them to be, and I have a constitutional right to my opinion. You have the opinion that the answers should be such and such, but I say differently. You cannot say my answers are wrong. I have the right to my opinion and you have the right to yours. If you are dogmatic that my answers should be the same as yours, that makes you self-righteous and a biggot. If you say my answers are wrong, you are judging me. Judge not lest you be judged. I deserve an 'A' like everyone else."

The riddle is this: Who is right, Johnny or his teacher? Is there an atheist who can solve this riddle?

Teacher is right. You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.

Matter and energy have to come from somewhere. Everyone
can agree on that. But information has to come from somewhere,
too! Information is separate entity, fully on par with matter and
energy. And information can only come from a mind. If books
and poems and TV shows come from human intelligence, then all
living things inevitably came from a superintelligence.

Every word you hear, every sentence you speak, every
dog that barks, every song you sing, every email you read,
every packet of information that zings across the Internet,
is proof of the existence of God. Because information
and language always originate in a mind.

In the beginning were words and language.

In the Beginning was Information.

When we consider the mystery of life - where it came from
and how this miracle is possible - do we not at the same time
ask the question where it is going, and what its purpose is?

Information is the interpretation of matter and energy. Interpretation of matter and energy is not a requirement for matter and energy to actually exist, just for humans to interact with it. In the beginning was matter and energy, then came humans who interpret it. If god exists because information exists, then god exists because humans created him.

Dades

toiletduck wrote: »

I haven't been this disappointed since I watched Starship Troopers 2.

You probably just saw it on TV recently - I wasted 4 quid renting it!

Zombrex

toiletduck wrote: »

A RIDDLE FOR ATHEISTS

Johnny is 11. He is being taught the principles of the american constitution and its amendments by his atheistic parents. Recent lessons given him has focused on the first amendment.

The other day, Johnny's school teacher gave him some math problems for homework. When his teacher checked his homework the next day, she was astonished that Johnny gave everyone of the problems incorrect answers.

His teacher therefore called him to her desk and asked him had he forgotten how to solve such problems. But Johnny said to his teacher, "None of my answers are incorrect." His teacher asked him why did he say such, and he said, "Because the answers are the ones I believe them to be, and I have a constitutional right to my opinion. You have the opinion that the answers should be such and such, but I say differently. You cannot say my answers are wrong. I have the right to my opinion and you have the right to yours. If you are dogmatic that my answers should be the same as yours, that makes you self-righteous and a biggot. If you say my answers are wrong, you are judging me. Judge not lest you be judged. I deserve an 'A' like everyone else."

The riddle is this: Who is right, Johnny or his teacher? Is there an atheist who can solve this riddle?

The bit I've highlighted is the bit that is the flaw in these types of arguments.

The teach can actually say little Johnny is wrong. He has the right to say 2+2=7 and the teacher has the right to mark that as wrong.

This is the weakness in the argument often put forward by religious types that if you remove the supreme authority of God from the issue of morality you can't saying something is morally wrong, just that you have a different opinion. The point they miss is that that is the same as saying something is morally wrong.

I think it was Wolfsbane who asked me a while ago in a discussion this topic, how can I say that raping children is wrong. A rapist says it is right. Surely without God his opinion is as valid as mine.

That works under the assumption that for some reason I have to respect the rapists opinion as much as I respect my own opinion simply because he holds it.

News flash, I don't, any more than the teacher in this example has to respect little Johnny's incorrect answer on these tests.

iUseVi

pH wrote: »

Argument from insanity more like.

LOL, yeah pretty much. I was trying to get some sense out of it....probably a big waste of time.

robindch

pH wrote: »

So maybe I should ask "Are there any Christians who can believe in this riddle for me?"

Yep

pH wrote: »

And on the topic of Christian riddles, what exactly does the phrase "Judge not lest ye be judged" actually mean. The quote in the OP uses it in a very literal sense, that any judging is wrong, which seems strange because I've never heard any Christian objections to Judges, trials and juries.

From usage around here and in Another Place, it seems to be used mostly by religious to legitimize their rejection of the judgments of others, rather than to place any serious limit on the amount of judgment they're doing themselves. I don't believe that too many religious people understand it in the fairly obvious primary sense of "don't judge others". Either way, it seems to be one of those biblical phrases, a bit like "beware of false prophets", whose main purpose seems to be self-justification/rejection of others.

btw, there's a reasonable amount of objection to judges in the USA, where the phrase "activist judge" to describe (generally) the kind of judge who hands down a judgment which is not sympathetic to the requirements of fundamentalist christianity (see, for example, conservapedia's bizarre entry on judicial activism, referenced here on the well-known Brown vs Board of Education case). All of which criticism seems rather hypocritical, given that Bush has stuffed SCOTUS with belly-aching conservatives.

fitz0

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Teacher is right. You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.



Information is the interpretation of matter and energy. Interpretation of matter and energy is not a requirement for matter and energy to actually exist, just for humans to interact with it. In the beginning was matter and energy, then came humans who interpret it. If god exists because information exists, then god exists because humans created him.

Touche! Very well phrased.

Phototoxin

i dont understand i think Mary is right, or ha a right to say it rather, and the American has a point but 2+2=4.

the rapist thing im not so sure. rape is wrong but why ? (assuming god doesnt say its wrong even tho im sure the bible condones it somewhere tho !)

Galvasean

Phototoxin wrote: »

the rapist thing im not so sure. rape is wrong but why ?

Because its detrimental to our society.
However cats seem to think its perfectly okay.

Zombrex

Phototoxin wrote: »

the rapist thing im not so sure. rape is wrong but why ? (assuming god doesnt say its wrong even tho im sure the bible condones it somewhere tho !)

Firstly, rape is wrong because it harms the person you are raping.

Secondly God not only approves of rape in certain circumstances, he actively encourages it.

disclaimer - Christians dispute this, they say that we don't know for sure that the female prisoners of war captured by the Hebrew soldiers to be take as wives and to have sex with after a month were not, all, willing to be used in this fashion after a suitable morning period :rolleyes: