What a foolish reply. I just gave an example of evidence. Quit regurgitating nonsense. I'll proceed with this conversation if you can demonstrate that you even understand what constitutes evidence lest I find myself dealing with an emotionally ignorant person typing under the guise of reason.
You sound like you are making valid retorts to the various arguments stated by various atheists but as valid as you sound I believe that you fail in your intent. Your problem as a theist is that you only have one source of evidence (and use that term very loosely), the bible. This in itself is not good for the theist side of the argument. To believe in something that makes these kind of super natural claims that is supported by little or no evidence is I believe totally irrational.
@rattlehead890 One source of evidence? Pls no strawmen. It's not that anything is supported with little or no evidence, it's that there is none or not much evidence that the atheist will accept as such for the bible because they already predetermined that it is just another book that's not really true. For example, the majority of critics said David didn't exist. Then when a tablet was found about a king who was the son of David in an attacking nation, they changed their tone to say that . . .
@TruthUnadulterated . . . he did exist but didn't do what was written in the Bible of him. They say he just ruled a small band of people and was not a "king" in the popular way that we think of when we speak of kings. The same is true with all the scientific corroboration to the book of Genesis.
@TruthUnadulterated But you see, it is the fact that you have no evidence. But, I'm willing to give you a chance. All you have to do is give me your proof for the existence of god without referring to the bible. And please no "faith" explanations. Faith is not the path to truth, and never will be..... I look forward to your reply.
Excellent video. I might have included the canard that "atheism is a lack of belief" as one of the flaws in new atheist thinking. It is endlessly amusing the logical contortions atheists will wind themselves into in order to defend this!
you are an Idiot. Atheism is a negative assertion, In other words I do not Believe that god does not exist, rather I do not believe in the existence of god or a god. You are the one making the claim by being a Christian. Oh and please don't try to shift the burden f proof by using the argument from ignorance it turns out that it is a huge logical fallacy
For your third point, do you think that one needs to believe in absolute objective morality in order to even use the word "should?" Why would this be the case? Do I have to stop listening to music once I acknowledge that the music I like is not "intrinsically" good? Obviously not. We can still have values even if we don't think they are the "universe's" values, whatever that would even mean.
You trust a friend because you have experiences where your friend has proved him/herself trustworthy. For your belief in god to be an analogous form of trust, presumably you would have experiences or reasons to back this up. What are they?
@TheGMaster111 If it wasn't for the crusades, you would probably be strapping bombs around your waist and preparing for a suicide mission on behalf of Hamas or Hezbollah in a Muslim dominated Europe. No one follows the Bible literally "word for word". Context is important.
wonderful video!!! the new atheists don't really offer any real arguments of real substance. I want something I can sink my teeth into!! To be fair and in atheism's defence there are other atheist intellectuals who offer much more sophisticated critiques and perspectives.
And I was wondering if I was goint to go for an education in phiosopy in the future... but after seing the stupidity of this man I think reading books in logic and reason by aristoteles and others would give me more.
If faith means trust based on reason, the next question is what are the reasons for this trust? A book, two possible options of the begining of the universe, a personel experiance?
What is the reason? To believe because you want to believe, isnt a reason,
Thanks for the engaging debate, but our dialog is getting spread out among too many posts and it is hard to keep condensing ones talking points. Such discussion is better suited to forums.
You can tell yourself you won if you want to or just say it was a draw because of the restrictions on our comment length made the discussion unwieldy for both of us. I may have misunderstood some of what you said because of that. Perhaps we will meet again someday on a forum.
@Crosshair84 There's no "win" or "lose" - only persuasion. I agree that word limits inhibit serious debate.
I hope you have a better sense of the extent and quality of resources, especially on the Internet, which enable a close examination of important beliefs.
Google Scholar, Wikipedia and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (.iep.utm.edu/home/) are amazing resources for challenging popular but debatable ideas.
5How do you know there was no research and thought done? You also can't say that it was misinterpreted because you were not the original writer so you don't know what the original writer meant by the argument for gods existence. Also, just because one person got one thing wrong once doesn't mean everyone else who agrees with the OVERALL opinion gets the overall opinion wrong.
1is self contradictory. it also doesn't explain how not all faith in god is 'blind'
2Science is the study of new ideas and the search for evidence, therefore to say you need scientific data, while in itself is a philosophy, is also a scientific claim new ideas evidence and logic are the only way to rational thinking
3just doesn't make any sense
4Just because atheists say we evolved doesn't mean they say were machines with no freewill
Misrepresents the meaning of "Trust" and "Faith". If a child will die based on a ball falling to the ground or magically levitating to save the child, You can pray all you want to, have all the faith in God you want to, get the entire planet to pray to save the child by invoking an all powerful God to simply levitate the ball for 10 seconds, You may have faith in God, but I trust the ball will still fall.
1. Apparently one should "trust" in god. But what is the evidence there is any god to "trust". Should I trust that an invisible superbeing, exempt from all laws of physics, exists? Why?
2. No example of a non-factually based yet rational belief is offered. Williams merely asserts such beliefs can be justified.
3. Which atheist asserts there is a "moral" obligation to be rational? Strawman McAtheist?
4. Strawman argument.
5. What "reasoned" "rational" case for god's existence?
@DukeIrritable You ask what evidence is there? (Point 1) What about all the scientific evidence?
1. The fact that the universe began to exist from nothing.
2. The exquisite fine tuning of the physical constants and quantities of the universe to support life.
What is the best explanation? That someone created something from nothing and fine tuned it for life or that nothing created something from nothing and fine tuned it for life. This may not 100% prove god, but it suggests that he exists.
"all the scientific evidence"? You've advanced two baseless arguments, not facts.
1.The universe did not begin to exist from nothing. No reputable cosmologist or physicist claims this.
2.The universe is not "exquisitely fine-tuned to support life. The universe is overwhelmingly hostile to life. There is no evidence that Earth-like planetary surfaces are common in the universe. The Earth is an infinitesimal speck in space
What created your imaginary "someone", a prior sky fairy?
@DukeIrritable I mean no offence, but it is clear that you have done no reading and have no understanding of what science says about these things.
1. That is EXACTLY what modern Cosmology says. The best evidence says that time and space did not exist before the singularity of the Big Bang. Before that there was no time, no space, and no matter. The 2003 Borde Guth Vilenkin Theorem proves this by showing that any Universe that is on average in a state of expansion CANNOT be eternal in the past.
@Crosshair84 You need to do some serious reading and stop parroting Craig's disingenuous "interpretations" of scientific papers.
1. Current cosmology - post 2003 - states to the contrary. Quantum Loop Gravity, Ekpyrotic and Eternal Inflation models all indicate only that the inflation process (not the multiverse, or reality) had a beginning. See Guth (2007) Aguirre (2007) arXiv:0712.0571 and look up Ashteker, Pavlowski & Singh arXiv:gr-gc/06026v2; Gratten, Carrol and Chen and Roger Penrose.
@DukeIrritable You have linked to a paper theorizing on Quantum Loop Gravity theory. That is fine, but you neglect the fact that there are serious objections. Like the fact that they make far too many assumptions; that the metric tensor variable is the only major variable and is good at all distances, about how geometry behaves at very short distances, and makes very large assumptions about how Einstein's equations work in the Planck regime. Justification for these assumptions is weak to none.
But you rely on Borde, Guth & Vilenkin who theorize a bound on the integral of the Hubble parameter over a past-directed timeline or null geodesic!
Then, without any scientific qualifications you judge that LQG is based on unjustifiable assumptions. Eminent physicists disagree with you (eg. Ashtekakar, Smolin) and it's a leading candidate for a theory of Quantum Gravity.
Furthermore, you don't deny Guth & Velinkin's Eternal Inflation with multiverses, or the Ekpyrotic model.
2. You obviously do not understand the fine tuning argument. The "fine tuning" of the universe refers to over two dozen constants and quantities in the physical laws that govern our universe whose values are fine tuned for life to exist anywhere in the universe. For example, gravity is fine tuned to 1x10^40 out of all the possible values. Any stronger or weaker and no intelligent life could exist at all. Other constants and quantities are even more finely tuned.
2. I understand fine. I repeat: the universe is overwhelmingly hostile to life, not "exquisitely fine-tuned". The argument you meant to exhume is that 5 constants (not two dozen) make carbon chemistry possible. The short answer: living things are "finely tuned" to the environment which happens to exist, not vice-versa.
"Fine-tuning" is demolished in clear language for non-scientists by Professor Stenger at colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/ant_encyc.pdf.
@DukeIrritable So your "demolition" of fine tuning is a paper which delves into the WAP, SAP, and FAP Anthropic Principle, which says to the effect that the universe is fine tuned because otherwise we wouldn't be here to observe it?
First problem is that those ideas in the paper are philosophical, not scientific. They are not testable or falsifiable.
Second problem is that there are serious objections to such an interpretation. The "Firing Squad Objection" is just one.
Hang on, the Anthropic principle and Fine Tuning ARE philosophical speculations, not scientific theories.
Prof. Stenger and many others point to the obvious logical tautology. OF COURSE carbon chemistry will occur if it's possible for it to occur, and there is sufficient time and space for it to develop.
The 'firing squad' argument is pitiful. How can an incompetent firing squad be analogous to the mathematics of patterns of forces in a Universe or Multiverse?
@DukeIrritable As for your last bit, again, you are simply uninformed on the subject
Everything that exists either exists necessarily, it is impossible for it not to exist, or because it has a cause. For millenia, atheists claimed that the universe existed necessarily due to it's nature. Theists claimed that god existed necessarily due to his nature. Science has shown the atheist claim to be false. God is the uncased cause, he exists necessarily by his own nature and has no cause.
@DukeIrritable "A masterpiece of fatuous question-begging abandoned by credible mainstream philosophers."
Ad Homonim, is that all you've got? The Kalam argument does not beg the question, to think it does shows you don't understand what "question begging" means. All the Kalam points out is the modern scientific understanding that the universe began to exist.
"And BTW, Reality (aka the Universe) is not contingent. It's necessary."
Again this is proven false by mainstream modern cosmology.
@Crosshair84 You claim there IS *evidence* but so far offer two unconvincing *arguments*.
What's the source of your bizarre assertion that there are *unique things* which can't be measured, modelled, described, analysed or examined? Can you identify anything (not a metal concept) which actually exists but which can't be examined?
Or are you a loopy dualist?
Science shows that the magical entities which primitive people invent to explain the world breach immutable, measurable, physical laws.
@DukeIrritable And why exactly are those physical laws immutable? Bizarrely, atheists use the fact that science can describe the world as a mark in their column, when the very fact that the Universe is intelligible is an argument for the existence of a Creator!
Bizarrely, theists think that because observable consistencies between forces and particles exist throughout the universe, *Somebody* must have *written* those mathematical laws or relationships.
Why would any sensible adult think that?
That's just the way the world is.
Inventing an invisible superhuman Sky Fairy to *invent* those relationships is unnecessary and foolish.
@DukeIrritable The characterization of God as a "Sky Daddy" is completely inane… it has no basis in actual Christian beliefs. (I recently argued with an idiot who thought, based on Michelangelo paintings, that Christians actually think God is a man with a white beard in the sky!)
Here, I was responding to the (bogus) claim that natural laws prove that God couldn't exist. If natural laws are "just the way the world is", what's stopping them from being different every once in a while?
I said "Sky Fairy". A fairy is an imaginary creature.
And by the way, the Lord's prayer begins "... our Father" so don't pretend that most Christians don't characterise their deity as a father.
You invented the bogus argument that the laws of nature prove the non-existence of God, not me. I pointed out that those consistencies in nature made the invention Sky Fairies unnecessary.
And why do you suggest that these relationships ought to be variable?
@DukeIrritable Sky fairy, sky daddy... they're all interchangable expressions used by unimaginative atheists who think they sound smart parroting phrases like "bronze-age goat herders." (hur hur)
I never said they prove the existence of God, but I believe they strongly SUGGEST the existence of God. I'm not defending the "invention of Sky Fairies", so that entire sentence is irrelevant.
Why do you suggest these relationships ought NOT to be variable? See what I did there? Do you get it now?
Hypocrite - you were arguing that Christians didn't characterise god as a "father". You were caught out and now pathetically restate your position as a comment on "unimaginative" atheists.
How can the consistency of physical relationships in the universe possibly suggest the existence of your particular brand of Sky Fairy - ie the creator invented by Bronze Age goatherds?
As no variation in these relationships has been observed, why postulate that they may be variable?
@DukeIrritable 1) The inaccurate characterization is that God lives in the sky.
2) I never said they siggested the existence of the Christian God specifically- that's a different argument- only that they suggest the existence of a God.
3) As Bertrand Russell said, using past experience to validate the inductive principle ends up begging the question. Moron.
@DukeIrritable Russell said, "we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question." How is that substantially different than what I said?
Induction is typically referred to as a principle. More bluffing on your part?
The use of prior data is not begging the question, and I never said it was. You, however, said that the fact that things worked a certain way in the past is a reason why they *should* behave that way in the future, which is irrational.
Italian Ass - you may be shocked to know that Richard Dawkins isn't the source of most of the arguments in "The God Delusion". Many of those arguments have been unanswered by theists for decades if not centuries.
Particularly - "Extraordinary claims (eg a Sky Fairy who magically impregnates a carpenter's wife; Zombie Jesus) require extraordinary proof".
Where's your proof?
And why are you an atheist about Zeus, Wotan, Vishnu, Baal, Waaq, Amun-Ra, Aramazd and Quetzalcoatl?
@DukeIrritable Again, I don't know why you insist on using blasphemous, trivializing language. It undercuts your attempts to be taken seriously, it makes you look like every other angry atheist gamer geek out there.
The evidence for the resurrection IS extraordinary. Try actually reading a book on the subject!
I believe in God, ergo, I'm not an atheist in any sense of the world. My faith forbids belief in pagan gods, and I'm pretty sure thunderbolts aren't coming from Mt. Olympus!
@DukeIrritable This whole "why are you an atheist in Zeus" is a perfect example of a bad idea that atheists parrot while telling themselves what independent-minded freethinkers they are. Either you're an atheist or you're not. It's binary. There's no such thing as "Atheist in X". I am not an "atheist" in deity X if I have never considered the possibility of their existence at all!
This idea that "atheism is a lack of belief" flies in the face of the definition in just about every dictionary.
@DukeIrritable Wow, you can parrot Dawkins'a arguments withe be best of his fanboi sycophants! There is nothing *feigned* about my condescension to his army of neckbeards.
I'm amused to see your seething Christian hatred take control, you hypocritical deity worshipping loser.
BTW, you can't provide a citation for the alleged Betrand Russell quotation, can you, you faker. Russell never wrote those words: why? because they're meaningless (yet you don't realise it). Wanker.
So you see, it's not meaningless, you just have no idea what you're talking about. Are you ready to stop pretending you're smarter than you really are?
Amusingly, your ad hominem arguments against me ("don't understand" "uninformed" "no reading") - all disproved at this point - attain absurdity with your smear "you don't understand question begging".
Kalam is the classic question begging argument (see Paul Herrick, The Many Worlds of Logic. Oxford UP 2000).
Eg, two assumed conclusions: 1. Reality is contingent 2. There is an uncaused cause of reality.
Want more, or will you finally stop bluffing and read a real textbook or two?
@DukeIrritable "There is not a shred of evidence for your deity."
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Though I would argue that science shows plenty of evidence for for the existence of a creator.
"Science demonstrates the vast improbability of deities."
Science is incapable of that. It can only deal with things that are universal, dependable, and repeatable. One-time events cannot be so tested. The unique falls outside of natural science. Science is deaf and blind in such matters
@Crosshair84 For a very clear and fair laypersons summary of the "pre-Singularity" issues in cosmology see Andy Burke's useful article "Did the Universe come from Nothing" @12tuesday*com/did-the-universe-come-from-nothing). All cosmologists are clear that prior to inflation (either in our universe or in multiverses) there were quantum fields from which inflation developed. Most agree all positive & negative forces in this universe cancel to zero ie "nothing" + quantum foam. Read and learn!
Good try, but it's pure strawmen he's attacking, as well as holding up a standard for atheism that theists don't apply to their own beliefs.
Although, i do think he stumbles on something as far as the faith = trust idea goes.
To an extent, atheists (as well as theists) have faith in what they read about the way scientists describe the world. If one hasn't, say, done the experiments themselves, we're taking their data on faith. The difference is of couse, that we CAN do the experiments.
Boo! "Faith is more like trust, and trust might be based on good reasons." But it's not.
"If beliefs must be based on scientific evidence, what scientific evidence is there for THAT belief?" Hey, Dawkins doesn't care if you carry a vial of barf for good luck. The new atheists only care when unproved (and often ridiculous) religious beliefs "negatively" influence societies, legislation and science-teaching.
Here logic and reason are used to circumscribe logic and reason. Oops!
@AntiFaithNY If you call yourself AntiFaith, it's basically an admission that you start with a conclusion and look for ways to support it at any cost. That's not a word you want to use if you want to convince anyone.
@CarlosMarti123 I have not done any research on Julius Caesar but I would imagine that there are many independent historical accounts of his existence that are first hand accounts and have little contradictions. Anyway, I do not live any part of life according to what Julius Caesar said or did nor would I. So I could give a rats ass about proving whether he existed or not.
@TheDecembersun3 “Trusting in something that one can not prove would be faith. What an idiot.”
You have failed to prove the existence of Julius Caesar, hence believing in Julius Caesar is tantamount to “blind faith” according to your criteria. Have you noticed the flawed logic in your assertion?
@CarlosMarti123 Wow. Apparently you can't read very well. I don't place any trust into whether Julius Caesar existed or not and don't care. Let me ask you, do you think that I started researching Julius Caesar, which I won't because I have a job, I would be able to find multiple first hand historical accounts of him that were written in his life, possible writings in his own hand, and historical artifacts that he might have owned or related to him? This would be evidence of existence not faith
@CarlosMarti123 Hey there Mr. Harvard professor I would like you tell me where you found that most historians and non christian historians agree that the resurrection probably happened. As for Julius Caesar, for me to have blind faith in Julius Caesar I would have to have look for the evidence, not find enough of it to support my claim and then go around claiming that I know he was real. I don't know why you think someone could prove something of that nature in the comment box of youtube.
@TheDecembersun3 "Hey there Mr. Harvard professor I would like you tell me where you found that most historians and non christian historians agree that the resurrection probably happened."
*Sigh* See what happens when you don't read carefully?
"...concede is the best-ATTESTED miracle claim in history..."
I didn't say anything about whether they believed it probably happened or not.
@TheDecembersun3 "I don't place any trust into whether Julius Caesar existed or not."
That's not the issue. Believing Julius Caesar existed is “blind faith” according to your criteria. Would you place the same amount of objective consideration and evaluation for the historical evidence of the Resurrection (which non-Christian historians concede is the best-attested miracle claim in history)?
@TheDecembersun3 Here is what you said before: “Trusting in something that one can not prove would be faith. What an idiot.”
You have failed to prove the existence of Julius Caesar, hence believing in Julius Caesar is tantamount to “blind faith” according to your criteria. Have you already noticed the flawed logic contained in your assertion?
@CarlosMarti123 Hey I just thought of a way to prove Caesar existed! I saw is name in a old book so it must be true! That was easy! You saw that Jesus arose from the dead in a old book assembled from various writings dug up in the desert and compiled and translated by people with an agenda in mind a really long time ago! Wow, I never knew it was so easy to prove something!
putting aside whether or not faith and trust are the same thing, I'd be genuinely interested to know what the very good reasons are for having trust in God/Jesus. Also, what are the alternative reasons for believing things apart from evidence? I can think of maybe trying to convince yourself to believe something so you can join a club, or potentially to reduce cognitive dissonance if you can't change a situation you're in, but are there any healthy, authentic reasons?
@MsMeaningofLife Authentic reason: One might believe that the story of God/Jesus is the best representation of his/her perception of reality. Belief in an omnipotent agent/law giver (God) as focal point and guide for life. I think this is a perfectly authentic and genuine reason to believe.
@eskayp101 I can see your point, but then there'd be many different 'realities' and 'lawgivers' depending on where you were born. That doesn't seem like reality or truth in the way that 1+1=2. To me that's like believing the world is flat because its the best description of my reality, even though I know there's an alternative that deserves investigation. Belief because it feels right - no longer possible for me, but it seems to bring peace to others.
I agree with you. We just arent in a position to say what is truth. But our consciousness did emerge from somewhere or somehow, so I think that it is rational to have reasonable faith, since we arent the agents of our own being. I also think it's rational to not believe in God, but it's a matter of faith, not mathmatics.
@eskayp101 You are an idiot. Did you know Moses never existed It is not an opinion It is in fact... fact... No archeological or historical evidence has never shown a Moses as portrayed in the bible. Don't believe me? Look it the fuck up.
@pobloman1 Dude, why are you cursing at me? Study what the word 'fact' means and seriously consider taking an English writing class before you start attacking my positions, which you obviously don't understand.
@eskayp101@eskayp101 I knew what the word fact meant in fucking 2nd grade. I know your position as I was at one point in my life a christian. FACT = Something that can be shown to be true, to exist, or to have happened.
@pobloman1 It's hilarious how you start every comment with "You're an idiot" and then proceed to throw out completely unsubstantiated comments. Apparently you subscribe to the new atheist mentality that insults are more important than arguments, and that people will really believe you're smarter than them if you keep telling them you're smarter than them.
@stallion4life it is also hilarious how you are a brainwashed individual lead by a belief with no supporting evidence. Obviously you subscribe to a little something I like to call the new Christian mentality.
@pobloman1 It goes to show how closed-minded you are that you have to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as "brainwashed" (can you show me scientific evidence that explains that religious believers are "brainwashed", or that even quantifies what brainwashing is?) Also, I love how atheists claim to be open-minded to all new evidence, but have no problem proclaiming that there is no evidence for Christianity, presumably because they believe they are already in possession of all the evidence!
@stallion4life Atheist are atheists for a good reason, it usually involves looking at evidence in a scientific light. I am open minded to all evidence, I also apply the scientific method to evidence and analyze it, every person should do that. If you have evidence to plese provide it to me or someone.
@stallion4life By the way atheists don't have a problem proclaiming that there is no evidence for Christianity, presumably because they believe they are already in possession of all the evidence they have a problem proclaiming that there is no evidence for Christianity, presumably because they have not been shown any legit evidence. Like I said earlier, SHOW ME.
1: If you want to trust that silly stories are true you did that to yourself.
2: Rationality is a logical outcome, not a claim.
3: Morality is natural and easy to understand. Animals have morallty so why shouldn't we?
4: Free will is the response to the environment in the presence of instinct, health and memory.
5: Atheists don't have to prove whether god exists of not. They aren't the ones with the unlikely stories about raising the dead and the big flood etc.
Nicely produced, but the content was poorly argued. What struck me most about these arguments was how often terms were equivocated to fit the Christian mentality, when being used in its original form as a critique of atheist mentality. Also on two of the points raised, he tacitly admits argument from ignorance. I do not care to square circles he cannot conceive. Why would anyone square a circle anyway? With regard to no.5, I should imagine it is because Dawkins avoids quote-mining.
1. Faith would not be needed if there were evidence .. No ..trust is different than faith .. If you have trust in God .. then say trust .. when you say faith expect that response.. 2. Did you really just ask for evidence for the reliability of rationality? .. Really? What do you believe in besides god without evidence? 3. Look up Matt Dillahunty's argument for morality. 4. You don't understand the argument. 5. You sum all atheists as new and say they don't do their homework..Did you do yours?
but this cause was the cause for time and space; thus it should not be bounded by time nor space; thus it has to be timeless and spaceless or it has to be an eternal being.
also this cause was the cause for rules and orders since the universe has rules and orders (ie mathematical rules, gravity and etc.) thus this cause has to be a personal being rather than a random/chaos being.
so we have a personal eternal being who caused the universe
it's still a guess, ok i agree. (What isn't really.. ex. 'I and you had a father 10 generation before' is a guess) but we could choose to guess logically.
it has to be either
1. the universe had a cause, or
2. the universe came from nothing by nothing.
but there is no good reason to think that #2 is true whatsoever.
it is one of many reasons. if you want to be an atheist, you "HAVE TO" disprove this argument and give some arguments for the atheism.
many great atheist thinkers tried to disprove God. They all failed. Now these new athiests became lazy and stupid. There is no reason to think that atheism is true; so my friend, why do you belive in it?
Even though I'm not religous I completley agree. I would like to see the new-atheists actually repectfully and intelligently interact with arguments instead of mostly raving on about how much they dislike religion.
@funincluded It is true that Americans give legitimacy to people with British accents (much like how atheists give Dawkins much more legitimacy than he deserves, as well as Hitchens), but this guy is right on, that you atheists are utterly pathetic in your arguments trying to account for objective moral values in a naturalistic worldview. It was honestly embarrassing to watch Sam Harris in the Harris-Craig debate.
Most atheists that I have had contact with have had a complete misunderstanding of the word "evidence." When they should be saying, "there's no proof for God," instead they usually wind up saying falsely, "there's no evidence for God." Nothing could be further from the truth. While it's true, I can't prove God's existence, the evidence of and for God abounds. Cheers.
The gentlemen before me have answered your "concerns" in a proper manner so I'ld like to know what exactly makes you somebody we need to take serious?
No... seriously, your "concerns" seem to be coming from the same consistantly lame pile of bad logic as the other five we keep hearing over and over and over and over...
If this guy is a professor of philosophy then i'm Wittgenstein, Russell, Hegel, Kant, Spinoza and Hume. I left out the poststructuralists because they're nearly as full of shit as this guy.
2. Old chestnut. Proving empiricism with itself is redundant, because it is self evident.
3. Strawman argument and false dilemma. Much of what atheists describe in the Bible as immoral is reflected by a modern consensus, however relative morality is.
4. Another strawman argument. It's clear he hasn't read Dawkins.
5. Much like he has done throughout the entire video. Typical dishonest Christian hypocrite.
Your concerns are no concerns at all. Faith: strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof. ref: Oxford English Dictionary. What you say about Richard Dorkins is unfair...You clearly don't understand much outside the bible? You are the one who clearly has not done enough/any real research. Read his books before you comment.
#3 Euthyphro dilemma. Possible false equivocation or incoherent definition of "objective".
#4 Ideas and actions have consequences regardless of what caused or didn't cause them. We can influence other people's decisions precisely because they aren't free.
#5 You seem to be asserting that Thomas Aquinas' arguments are more than just mental masturbation. Yet you make no attempts to demonstrate this. You have no point.
@lenoka Good science must prove a theory before it builds another theory based on the first. Uniformitarianism has never been proven, naturalism has never been proven. Any non-empirical science is faith based. For that matter, any experience is "faith based" because we are trusting our senses and everything between the transmission and our final reception of reality. Are you afraid to be that skeptical?
@lenoka "Faith" is what people believe about anything that is BEYOND what's "empirically knowable". It's not the opposite of skepticism, it's what is BEYOND the reaches of logic. And if you think logic can answer everything, you should know that logic will NEVER extend beyond your perception and experience. Following logic to it's inevitable end will show you that. If you truly seek after God and honestly call out to Jesus in your heart, in time He will reveal Himself to you.
from 'you should know that logic will NEVER extend beyond your perception and experience.' to
'Following logic to it's inevitable end will show you that. If you truly seek after God and honestly call out to Jesus in your heart, in time He will reveal Himself to you.'
As usual, religious thinking is revealed as totally irrational. You say 'faith' doesn't mean what we all know it means, but rather it means 'confidence'. But to have faith in GOD means 'confidence' in a being the existence of which is not in evidence. You slip the irrational belief in by saying the word Faith doesn't contain it - yet there it is, in the object of your faith. These kinds of semantics games are a weak disguise for irrationality.
Hitchens, Dawkins and the other "New Atheists" in my opinion are just lazy, and only scratch the surface of things. I don't see how anyone can really use the words "good" and "evil" with any real justification if there isn't a divine being of some kind out there. I'm not talking about the God of the Bible, or the God of any of the other religions, but upon what basis do these atheists judge things as "good" or "bad"? Is their "moral sense" just part of an evolved brain?
#4 - Atheists do not claim free will doesn't exist as an entirely. Merely that it is influenced by one's genes. Genes do dictate if someone is predisposed to think more critically than others. But every single human being on Earth has the opportunity to make a conscious decision in the presence of logic and devoid of peer pressure or emotions.
#3 - We, as humans, do not base our morals and what is rational upon the same foundation.
What is moral is a subjective assessment of the actions to be done and the impact it will have on yourself and others. What is rational is based upon how close we can get to proving something to be true. Both are concepts that are heavily influenced by the society you live in, because we gather in communities like any animals and we form our own values and form what we believe makes sense based on consensus
@M1sterE321 If you grant that morality is subjective, then what basis do you have to claim that any action is wrong beyond your opinion. On what basis can you call raping children or genocide wrong? There is no objective right or wrong under atheism so any argument that religion is evil is self defeating (not that you make that argument, but many of the new atheists do)
#2 - This argument was anything but coherent. You contend that a purely philosophical claim needn't be grounded in reality to be rational? Get the F outta here with that nonsense.
@M1sterE321 Your understanding of the deep topic at hand doesn't seem to be that great. He is effectively saying "what evidence do we have of the physical world" none, because what we see is down the rabbit hole as well.
@M1sterE321 "You contend that a purely philosophical claim needn't be grounded in reality to be rational?"
He didn't say that, he said just because you can't prove something scientifically doesn't mean it isn't true. Just because you cannot prove God scientifically doesn't mean He doesn't exist.
I'm responding as I hear his points, point by point.
#1 - You're playing a semantics game here. Whether "faith" is defined as blind belief (which is inherently irrational) or simply trust, it is blind. Blind belief, blind trust. Which is better? Sounds about the same to me. Unfortunately christians have not brought to the table any sound secular evidence, so there are no real 'reasons' to base any of it upon. And by your own reasoning, if faith is blind it is irrational.
@M1sterE321 "Blind belief, blind trust. Which is better? Sounds about the same to me."
When did he call it "blind trust?" He just called it trust. The same way someone might say I have faith my wife won't cheat on me. You trust her. Faith does not mean no evidence.
All that being said, I agree that more serious and rational thought is in order, on everybody's part.
But the central point remains: Unless you provide empirically verifiable evidence, you cannot expect anybody to accept your truth claims at face value. And that's really what it all boils down to.
Point 5; Ah, St. Thomas Aquinas! This point, sadly, I'm less than equipped to tackle at this point since it's been some time since I've read his work. From what I recall, I agreed with his logic almost entirely, with the exception that I felt he made some base assumptions that simply were not true at the foundational level. That is, he assumed things about the nature of the universe (e.g. supernatural revelation) that simply cannot be proven.
Point 4: Even if everything we do is predetermined by our circumstances and brain chemistry, we don't have the perspective necessary to make such behavioral predictions. The question is fairly academic. Responsibility is as much a part of our 'programming' as our original behaviors are, we just can't see the mechanisms behind it. But you're claiming your deity really DOES have that perspective. The difference is, we can do something about what we perceive. What excuse does Yahweh have?
Point 1: Ah, good! You have some evidence to back up your position? Awesome! Let's hear it. ... Oh. You trust. And you have reasons to trust... Umm... OK, what evidence do you have to support why I should also TRUST this account? Wait, WTF? You're moving on to the next point? Umm... ok...
Point 2: Umm... OK... Nice video you made... On a computer... which is the product of purely empirical rationalist thought. Just sayin'
Point 3: No we're not. We just want evidence. Next!
You don't do a very good job of proving your point. For instance, you say "those are not the only ways to rationally know things" yet you don't actually state what any of them are. How can you convince me of your way of thinking if you don't give any alternatives?
Flaw in flaw 3. The New Atheists make moral critiques of Christians using the objective value system of Judeo-Christianity to expose the inherent hypocrisy.
Williams says he doesn't understand how atheists can make moral critiques despite not believing in an objective morality. This just illustrates that most people can't seem to wrap their heads around the very simple concept of consensus. For one thing, our modern values are mostly secular and it's the barbaric ideas like compulsory circumcision, draconian punishments for moral offenses, etc. that are religious. We're not making moral critiques, we're simply asking theists to live
consistently with their own morality, i.e. stone unruly children to death, stone people who work on saturday to death, refrain from practicing pagan traditions like decorating trees on saturnalia. I find it strange that so many of these christian apologists seem to vanish when pundits on television talk about how atheists are trying to destroy christmas. But the moment atheists open their mouths you can come up with 5 flaws. You're not simply an apologist, you're an enabler of
those christians who have the dumbest and most closed-minded attitudes because you do NOTHING to educate them at large and instead focus all your efforts on trying to poke holes in a philosophy that doesn't even make any positive claims. I might even prefer your strategy because if you can't learn to get a handle on your extremists then Gene Rodenberry's vision of an entirely atheist world will come to fruition even sooner than he imagined.
Also: Faith and trust — debating semantics is futile. The fact is that religious people believe in a deity based solely on belief. It's recursive. They do not base their faith on evidence. This is something which is promoted in mainstream popular media. Watch a few Hollywood films and you will see that the people who believe things in spite of evidence to the contrary are played as the heroes. Those who are rational are portrayed as the villains.
2. This person is confusing the many truths of postmodernity with the binary truth of science. Postmodernism only applies to cultural subjectives, not to things that exist independently of culture such as science.
1. The term 'New Atheist' is not one I've heard before. I would guess that this is one of the many examples of a term being invented to try and discredit its subject. Adding 'New' onto the start implies that atheism tried once and failed and had to adapt to become 'New Atheism'. This has happened many times historically — 'Neo-feminist' for example is a term invented to try and discredit the validity of feminist rhetoric.
@jamiewindsor when I hear someone say "new atheism" it gives the implication or suggestion that being an out (open/unafraid/unashamed) atheist who is willing to challenge religious views while having some understanding of logic and philosophy is somehow a "fad" or a passing phase that will die down after a while.
"New atheists" THINK??
Wow! I thought they just reacted, hated, misrepresented,
redefined and just basically "did the bigot thing."
I'd love to see that!
Christlovesanimals 2 weeks ago
What a foolish reply. I just gave an example of evidence. Quit regurgitating nonsense. I'll proceed with this conversation if you can demonstrate that you even understand what constitutes evidence lest I find myself dealing with an emotionally ignorant person typing under the guise of reason.
TruthUnadulterated 1 month ago
You sound like you are making valid retorts to the various arguments stated by various atheists but as valid as you sound I believe that you fail in your intent. Your problem as a theist is that you only have one source of evidence (and use that term very loosely), the bible. This in itself is not good for the theist side of the argument. To believe in something that makes these kind of super natural claims that is supported by little or no evidence is I believe totally irrational.
rattlehead890 1 month ago
@rattlehead890 One source of evidence? Pls no strawmen. It's not that anything is supported with little or no evidence, it's that there is none or not much evidence that the atheist will accept as such for the bible because they already predetermined that it is just another book that's not really true. For example, the majority of critics said David didn't exist. Then when a tablet was found about a king who was the son of David in an attacking nation, they changed their tone to say that . . .
TruthUnadulterated 1 month ago
@TruthUnadulterated . . . he did exist but didn't do what was written in the Bible of him. They say he just ruled a small band of people and was not a "king" in the popular way that we think of when we speak of kings. The same is true with all the scientific corroboration to the book of Genesis.
TruthUnadulterated 1 month ago
@TruthUnadulterated But you see, it is the fact that you have no evidence. But, I'm willing to give you a chance. All you have to do is give me your proof for the existence of god without referring to the bible. And please no "faith" explanations. Faith is not the path to truth, and never will be..... I look forward to your reply.
rattlehead890 1 month ago
Dawkins would destroy you in a debate fat man.
JonSabbath1 2 months ago
@JonSabbath1 Read a fucking book and stop being such a pathetic Dawkins fanboi. All of Dawkins' arguments are an embarrassment.
stallion4life 2 months ago
Excellent video. I might have included the canard that "atheism is a lack of belief" as one of the flaws in new atheist thinking. It is endlessly amusing the logical contortions atheists will wind themselves into in order to defend this!
stallion4life 2 months ago
Comment removed
pobloman1 2 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
you are an Idiot. Atheism is a negative assertion, In other words I do not Believe that god does not exist, rather I do not believe in the existence of god or a god. You are the one making the claim by being a Christian. Oh and please don't try to shift the burden f proof by using the argument from ignorance it turns out that it is a huge logical fallacy
pobloman1 2 months ago
what the fuck is he talking about ?
sinnieleeonUtube 2 months ago
@sinnieleeonUtube He's being rational. Sorry if you're not able to recognize it.
stallion4life 2 months ago
For your third point, do you think that one needs to believe in absolute objective morality in order to even use the word "should?" Why would this be the case? Do I have to stop listening to music once I acknowledge that the music I like is not "intrinsically" good? Obviously not. We can still have values even if we don't think they are the "universe's" values, whatever that would even mean.
dsaxton1 3 months ago
You trust a friend because you have experiences where your friend has proved him/herself trustworthy. For your belief in god to be an analogous form of trust, presumably you would have experiences or reasons to back this up. What are they?
dsaxton1 3 months ago
Very Good, Peter. Atheism dumb down.
Logosapologetica 4 months ago
Just shut up... Religion is stupid... GET OVER IT!
harleyadamson1 5 months ago
1. The bible is factually incorrect and contradictory an AWFUL lot.
2. If God is real, he is not a nice person.
3. If we were made in God's image, why is circumcision a thing?
4. Explain gays. Either God made them to be gay, or God made a mistake. The latter implying he isn't omnipotent
5. Christianity is responsible for a lot of suffering in the world (see crusades 1 - 9)
6. Following the bible word for word is ridiculous ("Passages telling you to gouge out your eyes for being aroused etc)"
TheGMaster111 5 months ago
@TheGMaster111 If it wasn't for the crusades, you would probably be strapping bombs around your waist and preparing for a suicide mission on behalf of Hamas or Hezbollah in a Muslim dominated Europe. No one follows the Bible literally "word for word". Context is important.
AtheismKills 3 months ago
wonderful video!!! the new atheists don't really offer any real arguments of real substance. I want something I can sink my teeth into!! To be fair and in atheism's defence there are other atheist intellectuals who offer much more sophisticated critiques and perspectives.
Sophiethefembot 5 months ago
And I was wondering if I was goint to go for an education in phiosopy in the future... but after seing the stupidity of this man I think reading books in logic and reason by aristoteles and others would give me more.
reanimated6 6 months ago
If faith means trust based on reason, the next question is what are the reasons for this trust? A book, two possible options of the begining of the universe, a personel experiance?
What is the reason? To believe because you want to believe, isnt a reason,
benaberry 6 months ago
Thanks for the engaging debate, but our dialog is getting spread out among too many posts and it is hard to keep condensing ones talking points. Such discussion is better suited to forums.
You can tell yourself you won if you want to or just say it was a draw because of the restrictions on our comment length made the discussion unwieldy for both of us. I may have misunderstood some of what you said because of that. Perhaps we will meet again someday on a forum.
Have a good day and god bless.
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84 There's no "win" or "lose" - only persuasion. I agree that word limits inhibit serious debate.
I hope you have a better sense of the extent and quality of resources, especially on the Internet, which enable a close examination of important beliefs.
Google Scholar, Wikipedia and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (.iep.utm.edu/home/) are amazing resources for challenging popular but debatable ideas.
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
Idiot
mitchbjones 6 months ago
Part 2
5How do you know there was no research and thought done? You also can't say that it was misinterpreted because you were not the original writer so you don't know what the original writer meant by the argument for gods existence. Also, just because one person got one thing wrong once doesn't mean everyone else who agrees with the OVERALL opinion gets the overall opinion wrong.
clubpenguinsux1 6 months ago
1is self contradictory. it also doesn't explain how not all faith in god is 'blind'
2Science is the study of new ideas and the search for evidence, therefore to say you need scientific data, while in itself is a philosophy, is also a scientific claim new ideas evidence and logic are the only way to rational thinking
3just doesn't make any sense
4Just because atheists say we evolved doesn't mean they say were machines with no freewill
NO.5 in next comment
clubpenguinsux1 6 months ago
Misrepresents the meaning of "Trust" and "Faith". If a child will die based on a ball falling to the ground or magically levitating to save the child, You can pray all you want to, have all the faith in God you want to, get the entire planet to pray to save the child by invoking an all powerful God to simply levitate the ball for 10 seconds, You may have faith in God, but I trust the ball will still fall.
coolgreyoneabby 7 months ago
Unpersuasive.
1. Apparently one should "trust" in god. But what is the evidence there is any god to "trust". Should I trust that an invisible superbeing, exempt from all laws of physics, exists? Why?
2. No example of a non-factually based yet rational belief is offered. Williams merely asserts such beliefs can be justified.
3. Which atheist asserts there is a "moral" obligation to be rational? Strawman McAtheist?
4. Strawman argument.
5. What "reasoned" "rational" case for god's existence?
DukeIrritable 7 months ago
@DukeIrritable You ask what evidence is there? (Point 1) What about all the scientific evidence?
1. The fact that the universe began to exist from nothing.
2. The exquisite fine tuning of the physical constants and quantities of the universe to support life.
What is the best explanation? That someone created something from nothing and fine tuned it for life or that nothing created something from nothing and fine tuned it for life. This may not 100% prove god, but it suggests that he exists.
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84
"all the scientific evidence"? You've advanced two baseless arguments, not facts.
1.The universe did not begin to exist from nothing. No reputable cosmologist or physicist claims this.
2.The universe is not "exquisitely fine-tuned to support life. The universe is overwhelmingly hostile to life. There is no evidence that Earth-like planetary surfaces are common in the universe. The Earth is an infinitesimal speck in space
What created your imaginary "someone", a prior sky fairy?
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
@DukeIrritable I mean no offence, but it is clear that you have done no reading and have no understanding of what science says about these things.
1. That is EXACTLY what modern Cosmology says. The best evidence says that time and space did not exist before the singularity of the Big Bang. Before that there was no time, no space, and no matter. The 2003 Borde Guth Vilenkin Theorem proves this by showing that any Universe that is on average in a state of expansion CANNOT be eternal in the past.
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84 You need to do some serious reading and stop parroting Craig's disingenuous "interpretations" of scientific papers.
1. Current cosmology - post 2003 - states to the contrary. Quantum Loop Gravity, Ekpyrotic and Eternal Inflation models all indicate only that the inflation process (not the multiverse, or reality) had a beginning. See Guth (2007) Aguirre (2007) arXiv:0712.0571 and look up Ashteker, Pavlowski & Singh arXiv:gr-gc/06026v2; Gratten, Carrol and Chen and Roger Penrose.
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
@DukeIrritable You have linked to a paper theorizing on Quantum Loop Gravity theory. That is fine, but you neglect the fact that there are serious objections. Like the fact that they make far too many assumptions; that the metric tensor variable is the only major variable and is good at all distances, about how geometry behaves at very short distances, and makes very large assumptions about how Einstein's equations work in the Planck regime. Justification for these assumptions is weak to none.
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84
But you rely on Borde, Guth & Vilenkin who theorize a bound on the integral of the Hubble parameter over a past-directed timeline or null geodesic!
Then, without any scientific qualifications you judge that LQG is based on unjustifiable assumptions. Eminent physicists disagree with you (eg. Ashtekakar, Smolin) and it's a leading candidate for a theory of Quantum Gravity.
Furthermore, you don't deny Guth & Velinkin's Eternal Inflation with multiverses, or the Ekpyrotic model.
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
@DukeIrritable
2. You obviously do not understand the fine tuning argument. The "fine tuning" of the universe refers to over two dozen constants and quantities in the physical laws that govern our universe whose values are fine tuned for life to exist anywhere in the universe. For example, gravity is fine tuned to 1x10^40 out of all the possible values. Any stronger or weaker and no intelligent life could exist at all. Other constants and quantities are even more finely tuned.
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84
2. I understand fine. I repeat: the universe is overwhelmingly hostile to life, not "exquisitely fine-tuned". The argument you meant to exhume is that 5 constants (not two dozen) make carbon chemistry possible. The short answer: living things are "finely tuned" to the environment which happens to exist, not vice-versa.
"Fine-tuning" is demolished in clear language for non-scientists by Professor Stenger at colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Cosmo/ant_encyc.pdf.
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
@DukeIrritable So your "demolition" of fine tuning is a paper which delves into the WAP, SAP, and FAP Anthropic Principle, which says to the effect that the universe is fine tuned because otherwise we wouldn't be here to observe it?
First problem is that those ideas in the paper are philosophical, not scientific. They are not testable or falsifiable.
Second problem is that there are serious objections to such an interpretation. The "Firing Squad Objection" is just one.
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84
Hang on, the Anthropic principle and Fine Tuning ARE philosophical speculations, not scientific theories.
Prof. Stenger and many others point to the obvious logical tautology. OF COURSE carbon chemistry will occur if it's possible for it to occur, and there is sufficient time and space for it to develop.
The 'firing squad' argument is pitiful. How can an incompetent firing squad be analogous to the mathematics of patterns of forces in a Universe or Multiverse?
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
@DukeIrritable As for your last bit, again, you are simply uninformed on the subject
Everything that exists either exists necessarily, it is impossible for it not to exist, or because it has a cause. For millenia, atheists claimed that the universe existed necessarily due to it's nature. Theists claimed that god existed necessarily due to his nature. Science has shown the atheist claim to be false. God is the uncased cause, he exists necessarily by his own nature and has no cause.
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84 Are you seriously citing the Kalam Cosmological Argument?
A masterpiece of fatuous question-begging abandoned by credible mainstream philosophers.
(I'll highlight the glaring defects if you insist).
And BTW, Reality (aka the Universe) is not contingent. It's necessary.
There is not a shred of evidence for your deity. Science demonstrates the vast improbability of deities.
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
@DukeIrritable "A masterpiece of fatuous question-begging abandoned by credible mainstream philosophers."
Ad Homonim, is that all you've got? The Kalam argument does not beg the question, to think it does shows you don't understand what "question begging" means. All the Kalam points out is the modern scientific understanding that the universe began to exist.
"And BTW, Reality (aka the Universe) is not contingent. It's necessary."
Again this is proven false by mainstream modern cosmology.
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84 You claim there IS *evidence* but so far offer two unconvincing *arguments*.
What's the source of your bizarre assertion that there are *unique things* which can't be measured, modelled, described, analysed or examined? Can you identify anything (not a metal concept) which actually exists but which can't be examined?
Or are you a loopy dualist?
Science shows that the magical entities which primitive people invent to explain the world breach immutable, measurable, physical laws.
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
@DukeIrritable And why exactly are those physical laws immutable? Bizarrely, atheists use the fact that science can describe the world as a mark in their column, when the very fact that the Universe is intelligible is an argument for the existence of a Creator!
stallion4life 2 months ago
@stallion4life
Bizarrely, theists think that because observable consistencies between forces and particles exist throughout the universe, *Somebody* must have *written* those mathematical laws or relationships.
Why would any sensible adult think that?
That's just the way the world is.
Inventing an invisible superhuman Sky Fairy to *invent* those relationships is unnecessary and foolish.
DukeIrritable 2 months ago
@DukeIrritable The characterization of God as a "Sky Daddy" is completely inane… it has no basis in actual Christian beliefs. (I recently argued with an idiot who thought, based on Michelangelo paintings, that Christians actually think God is a man with a white beard in the sky!)
Here, I was responding to the (bogus) claim that natural laws prove that God couldn't exist. If natural laws are "just the way the world is", what's stopping them from being different every once in a while?
stallion4life 2 months ago
@stallion4life
Can't you read?
I said "Sky Fairy". A fairy is an imaginary creature.
And by the way, the Lord's prayer begins "... our Father" so don't pretend that most Christians don't characterise their deity as a father.
You invented the bogus argument that the laws of nature prove the non-existence of God, not me. I pointed out that those consistencies in nature made the invention Sky Fairies unnecessary.
And why do you suggest that these relationships ought to be variable?
DukeIrritable 2 months ago
@DukeIrritable Sky fairy, sky daddy... they're all interchangable expressions used by unimaginative atheists who think they sound smart parroting phrases like "bronze-age goat herders." (hur hur)
I never said they prove the existence of God, but I believe they strongly SUGGEST the existence of God. I'm not defending the "invention of Sky Fairies", so that entire sentence is irrelevant.
Why do you suggest these relationships ought NOT to be variable? See what I did there? Do you get it now?
stallion4life 2 months ago
@stallion4life
Hypocrite - you were arguing that Christians didn't characterise god as a "father". You were caught out and now pathetically restate your position as a comment on "unimaginative" atheists.
How can the consistency of physical relationships in the universe possibly suggest the existence of your particular brand of Sky Fairy - ie the creator invented by Bronze Age goatherds?
As no variation in these relationships has been observed, why postulate that they may be variable?
Dunce.
DukeIrritable 2 months ago
@DukeIrritable 1) The inaccurate characterization is that God lives in the sky.
2) I never said they siggested the existence of the Christian God specifically- that's a different argument- only that they suggest the existence of a God.
3) As Bertrand Russell said, using past experience to validate the inductive principle ends up begging the question. Moron.
stallion4life 2 months ago
@stallion4life
Italian Donkey, as I predicted Russell didn't say "using past experience to validate the inductive principle ends up begging the question" [sic]
He understood induction - unlike you.
Induction is not a "principle" but a system of evidential support that extends deductive logic to less-than-certain inferences.
As a mode of argument it's not "validatable".
Nor is the use of prior data "begging the question".
Stop bluffing, halfwit. Admit you're just incurably superstitious .
DukeIrritable 1 month ago
@DukeIrritable Russell said, "we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question." How is that substantially different than what I said?
Induction is typically referred to as a principle. More bluffing on your part?
The use of prior data is not begging the question, and I never said it was. You, however, said that the fact that things worked a certain way in the past is a reason why they *should* behave that way in the future, which is irrational.
stallion4life 1 month ago
@stallion4life
Italian Ass - you may be shocked to know that Richard Dawkins isn't the source of most of the arguments in "The God Delusion". Many of those arguments have been unanswered by theists for decades if not centuries.
Particularly - "Extraordinary claims (eg a Sky Fairy who magically impregnates a carpenter's wife; Zombie Jesus) require extraordinary proof".
Where's your proof?
And why are you an atheist about Zeus, Wotan, Vishnu, Baal, Waaq, Amun-Ra, Aramazd and Quetzalcoatl?
DukeIrritable 1 month ago
@DukeIrritable Again, I don't know why you insist on using blasphemous, trivializing language. It undercuts your attempts to be taken seriously, it makes you look like every other angry atheist gamer geek out there.
The evidence for the resurrection IS extraordinary. Try actually reading a book on the subject!
I believe in God, ergo, I'm not an atheist in any sense of the world. My faith forbids belief in pagan gods, and I'm pretty sure thunderbolts aren't coming from Mt. Olympus!
stallion4life 1 month ago
@DukeIrritable This whole "why are you an atheist in Zeus" is a perfect example of a bad idea that atheists parrot while telling themselves what independent-minded freethinkers they are. Either you're an atheist or you're not. It's binary. There's no such thing as "Atheist in X". I am not an "atheist" in deity X if I have never considered the possibility of their existence at all!
This idea that "atheism is a lack of belief" flies in the face of the definition in just about every dictionary.
stallion4life 1 month ago
@stallion4life
And by the way - you're no doubt an atheist about Zeus, Wotan, Vishnu, Baal, Waaq, Amun-Ra, Aramazd and Quetzalcoatl.
Presumably on the bases that 1. you weren't brought up to believe in them and/or 2. there's no evidence to justify belief in them.
Which is the way western atheists consider your deity.
It follows that your feigned condescension to atheists is also hypocritical.
DukeIrritable 2 months ago
@DukeIrritable Wow, you can parrot Dawkins'a arguments withe be best of his fanboi sycophants! There is nothing *feigned* about my condescension to his army of neckbeards.
stallion4life 2 months ago
@stallion4life
I'm amused to see your seething Christian hatred take control, you hypocritical deity worshipping loser.
BTW, you can't provide a citation for the alleged Betrand Russell quotation, can you, you faker. Russell never wrote those words: why? because they're meaningless (yet you don't realise it). Wanker.
DukeIrritable 2 months ago
w w w . ditext.com/russell/rus6.html
So you see, it's not meaningless, you just have no idea what you're talking about. Are you ready to stop pretending you're smarter than you really are?
stallion4life 2 months ago
@Crosshair84
Amusingly, your ad hominem arguments against me ("don't understand" "uninformed" "no reading") - all disproved at this point - attain absurdity with your smear "you don't understand question begging".
Kalam is the classic question begging argument (see Paul Herrick, The Many Worlds of Logic. Oxford UP 2000).
Eg, two assumed conclusions: 1. Reality is contingent 2. There is an uncaused cause of reality.
Want more, or will you finally stop bluffing and read a real textbook or two?
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
@DukeIrritable "There is not a shred of evidence for your deity."
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Though I would argue that science shows plenty of evidence for for the existence of a creator.
"Science demonstrates the vast improbability of deities."
Science is incapable of that. It can only deal with things that are universal, dependable, and repeatable. One-time events cannot be so tested. The unique falls outside of natural science. Science is deaf and blind in such matters
Crosshair84 6 months ago
@Crosshair84 For a very clear and fair laypersons summary of the "pre-Singularity" issues in cosmology see Andy Burke's useful article "Did the Universe come from Nothing" @12tuesday*com/did-the-universe-come-from-nothing). All cosmologists are clear that prior to inflation (either in our universe or in multiverses) there were quantum fields from which inflation developed. Most agree all positive & negative forces in this universe cancel to zero ie "nothing" + quantum foam. Read and learn!
DukeIrritable 6 months ago
all you do is playing with word,
yet,Have religion ever re-done anything writtern in bible?
like dividing the sea?
science has,eventually,in times have ability to prove their own experiment
but for christians,they all like to play with word ,trust not equaled faith??
science has flaws but they're willing to change if proved wrong
y34r 7 months ago
Good try, but it's pure strawmen he's attacking, as well as holding up a standard for atheism that theists don't apply to their own beliefs.
Although, i do think he stumbles on something as far as the faith = trust idea goes.
To an extent, atheists (as well as theists) have faith in what they read about the way scientists describe the world. If one hasn't, say, done the experiments themselves, we're taking their data on faith. The difference is of couse, that we CAN do the experiments.
Wittgensteinism 7 months ago
Boo! "Faith is more like trust, and trust might be based on good reasons." But it's not.
"If beliefs must be based on scientific evidence, what scientific evidence is there for THAT belief?" Hey, Dawkins doesn't care if you carry a vial of barf for good luck. The new atheists only care when unproved (and often ridiculous) religious beliefs "negatively" influence societies, legislation and science-teaching.
Here logic and reason are used to circumscribe logic and reason. Oops!
DeaconVerter 7 months ago
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@kimboslice1821 Note the usage of the term *NEW* Atheists.
en(.)wikipedia(.)org/wiki/New_Atheism
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
@AntiFaithNY If you call yourself AntiFaith, it's basically an admission that you start with a conclusion and look for ways to support it at any cost. That's not a word you want to use if you want to convince anyone.
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
1 faith, Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. Trust is not the same word
2 "its only rational to believe things if you have scienticial evidence in its favor" So I guess he would believe in lepricons too
3 Religion is the last place you should get your morality from i.e the old testament is disgusting
4 Dawkins is saying that are DNA tells us how we will look, we can chose how to act
5 Some do, and some religious people havent read the bible. BOP is with religion.
ourworld287 8 months ago
Trusting in something that one can not prove would be faith. What an idiot.
TheDecembersun3 8 months ago
@TheDecembersun3 Can you prove Julius Caesar existed?
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
@CarlosMarti123 I have not done any research on Julius Caesar but I would imagine that there are many independent historical accounts of his existence that are first hand accounts and have little contradictions. Anyway, I do not live any part of life according to what Julius Caesar said or did nor would I. So I could give a rats ass about proving whether he existed or not.
TheDecembersun3 7 months ago
@TheDecembersun3 “Trusting in something that one can not prove would be faith. What an idiot.”
You have failed to prove the existence of Julius Caesar, hence believing in Julius Caesar is tantamount to “blind faith” according to your criteria. Have you noticed the flawed logic in your assertion?
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
@CarlosMarti123 Wow. Apparently you can't read very well. I don't place any trust into whether Julius Caesar existed or not and don't care. Let me ask you, do you think that I started researching Julius Caesar, which I won't because I have a job, I would be able to find multiple first hand historical accounts of him that were written in his life, possible writings in his own hand, and historical artifacts that he might have owned or related to him? This would be evidence of existence not faith
TheDecembersun3 7 months ago
@TheDecembersun3 "Wow. Apparently you can't read very well."
Highly doubt that. Perhaps it is you who can't read very well, or write very well?
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
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CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
@CarlosMarti123 Maybe your right because I feel like I am speaking German to a dog and expecting him to keep up.
TheDecembersun3 7 months ago
@TheDecembersun3 I feel like a Harvard professor talking to a gerbil :)
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
@CarlosMarti123 Hey there Mr. Harvard professor I would like you tell me where you found that most historians and non christian historians agree that the resurrection probably happened. As for Julius Caesar, for me to have blind faith in Julius Caesar I would have to have look for the evidence, not find enough of it to support my claim and then go around claiming that I know he was real. I don't know why you think someone could prove something of that nature in the comment box of youtube.
TheDecembersun3 7 months ago
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CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
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@TheDecembersun3 "Hey there Mr. Harvard professor I would like you tell me where you found that most historians and non christian historians agree that the resurrection probably happened."
*Sigh* See what happens when you don't read carefully?
"...concede is the best-ATTESTED miracle claim in history..."
I didn't say anything about whether they believed it probably happened or not.
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
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CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
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CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
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@TheDecembersun3 "I don't place any trust into whether Julius Caesar existed or not."
That's not the issue. Believing Julius Caesar existed is “blind faith” according to your criteria. Would you place the same amount of objective consideration and evaluation for the historical evidence of the Resurrection (which non-Christian historians concede is the best-attested miracle claim in history)?
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
@TheDecembersun3 Here is what you said before: “Trusting in something that one can not prove would be faith. What an idiot.”
You have failed to prove the existence of Julius Caesar, hence believing in Julius Caesar is tantamount to “blind faith” according to your criteria. Have you already noticed the flawed logic contained in your assertion?
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
@CarlosMarti123 Hey I just thought of a way to prove Caesar existed! I saw is name in a old book so it must be true! That was easy! You saw that Jesus arose from the dead in a old book assembled from various writings dug up in the desert and compiled and translated by people with an agenda in mind a really long time ago! Wow, I never knew it was so easy to prove something!
TheDecembersun3 7 months ago
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@TheDecembersun3 In other words, you failed to prove it.
See? That's how bad your logic is. Astounding stupidity.
CarlosMarti123 7 months ago
Very good comments on some of the philosophical blunders of the new atheists.
MindTheHeart 9 months ago
putting aside whether or not faith and trust are the same thing, I'd be genuinely interested to know what the very good reasons are for having trust in God/Jesus. Also, what are the alternative reasons for believing things apart from evidence? I can think of maybe trying to convince yourself to believe something so you can join a club, or potentially to reduce cognitive dissonance if you can't change a situation you're in, but are there any healthy, authentic reasons?
MsMeaningofLife 9 months ago 12
@MsMeaningofLife Authentic reason: One might believe that the story of God/Jesus is the best representation of his/her perception of reality. Belief in an omnipotent agent/law giver (God) as focal point and guide for life. I think this is a perfectly authentic and genuine reason to believe.
eskayp101 8 months ago 5
@eskayp101 I can see your point, but then there'd be many different 'realities' and 'lawgivers' depending on where you were born. That doesn't seem like reality or truth in the way that 1+1=2. To me that's like believing the world is flat because its the best description of my reality, even though I know there's an alternative that deserves investigation. Belief because it feels right - no longer possible for me, but it seems to bring peace to others.
MsMeaningofLife 7 months ago
I agree with you. We just arent in a position to say what is truth. But our consciousness did emerge from somewhere or somehow, so I think that it is rational to have reasonable faith, since we arent the agents of our own being. I also think it's rational to not believe in God, but it's a matter of faith, not mathmatics.
eskayp101 7 months ago
@eskayp101 fantastically well put
blackoutninja 5 months ago
@eskayp101 You are an idiot. Did you know Moses never existed It is not an opinion It is in fact... fact... No archeological or historical evidence has never shown a Moses as portrayed in the bible. Don't believe me? Look it the fuck up.
pobloman1 2 months ago
@pobloman1 Dude, why are you cursing at me? Study what the word 'fact' means and seriously consider taking an English writing class before you start attacking my positions, which you obviously don't understand.
eskayp101 2 months ago
@eskayp101 @eskayp101 I knew what the word fact meant in fucking 2nd grade. I know your position as I was at one point in my life a christian. FACT = Something that can be shown to be true, to exist, or to have happened.
pobloman1 2 months ago
@pobloman1 It's hilarious how you start every comment with "You're an idiot" and then proceed to throw out completely unsubstantiated comments. Apparently you subscribe to the new atheist mentality that insults are more important than arguments, and that people will really believe you're smarter than them if you keep telling them you're smarter than them.
stallion4life 2 months ago
@stallion4life it is also hilarious how you are a brainwashed individual lead by a belief with no supporting evidence. Obviously you subscribe to a little something I like to call the new Christian mentality.
pobloman1 2 months ago
@pobloman1 It goes to show how closed-minded you are that you have to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as "brainwashed" (can you show me scientific evidence that explains that religious believers are "brainwashed", or that even quantifies what brainwashing is?) Also, I love how atheists claim to be open-minded to all new evidence, but have no problem proclaiming that there is no evidence for Christianity, presumably because they believe they are already in possession of all the evidence!
stallion4life 2 months ago
@stallion4life Atheist are atheists for a good reason, it usually involves looking at evidence in a scientific light. I am open minded to all evidence, I also apply the scientific method to evidence and analyze it, every person should do that. If you have evidence to plese provide it to me or someone.
pobloman1 1 month ago
@stallion4life By the way atheists don't have a problem proclaiming that there is no evidence for Christianity, presumably because they believe they are already in possession of all the evidence they have a problem proclaiming that there is no evidence for Christianity, presumably because they have not been shown any legit evidence. Like I said earlier, SHOW ME.
pobloman1 1 month ago
1: If you want to trust that silly stories are true you did that to yourself.
2: Rationality is a logical outcome, not a claim.
3: Morality is natural and easy to understand. Animals have morallty so why shouldn't we?
4: Free will is the response to the environment in the presence of instinct, health and memory.
5: Atheists don't have to prove whether god exists of not. They aren't the ones with the unlikely stories about raising the dead and the big flood etc.
Thoughtland 9 months ago
@Thoughtland NUMBER 6 you need to study some more
brian3413 9 months ago
Nicely produced, but the content was poorly argued. What struck me most about these arguments was how often terms were equivocated to fit the Christian mentality, when being used in its original form as a critique of atheist mentality. Also on two of the points raised, he tacitly admits argument from ignorance. I do not care to square circles he cannot conceive. Why would anyone square a circle anyway? With regard to no.5, I should imagine it is because Dawkins avoids quote-mining.
mygodlesslife 9 months ago
1. Faith would not be needed if there were evidence .. No ..trust is different than faith .. If you have trust in God .. then say trust .. when you say faith expect that response.. 2. Did you really just ask for evidence for the reliability of rationality? .. Really? What do you believe in besides god without evidence? 3. Look up Matt Dillahunty's argument for morality. 4. You don't understand the argument. 5. You sum all atheists as new and say they don't do their homework..Did you do yours?
LukeTOK 9 months ago
@allibyx
ok so the universe had a cause you believe.
but this cause was the cause for time and space; thus it should not be bounded by time nor space; thus it has to be timeless and spaceless or it has to be an eternal being.
also this cause was the cause for rules and orders since the universe has rules and orders (ie mathematical rules, gravity and etc.) thus this cause has to be a personal being rather than a random/chaos being.
so we have a personal eternal being who caused the universe
eddiedko 9 months ago
@allibyx
it's still a guess, ok i agree. (What isn't really.. ex. 'I and you had a father 10 generation before' is a guess) but we could choose to guess logically.
it has to be either
1. the universe had a cause, or
2. the universe came from nothing by nothing.
but there is no good reason to think that #2 is true whatsoever.
Thus this argument favors the theism.
eddiedko 9 months ago
@allibyx
#1. cosmological argument.
a. whatever begins to exist has a cause
b. the universe began to exist
c. thus the universe had a cause.
it is one of many reasons. if you want to be an atheist, you "HAVE TO" disprove this argument and give some arguments for the atheism.
many great atheist thinkers tried to disprove God. They all failed. Now these new athiests became lazy and stupid. There is no reason to think that atheism is true; so my friend, why do you belive in it?
eddiedko 9 months ago
Even though I'm not religous I completley agree. I would like to see the new-atheists actually repectfully and intelligently interact with arguments instead of mostly raving on about how much they dislike religion.
106141214 9 months ago
Even this guy's accent can't save him. He's just as bad as all other Christian apologists.
funincluded 9 months ago
@funincluded It is true that Americans give legitimacy to people with British accents (much like how atheists give Dawkins much more legitimacy than he deserves, as well as Hitchens), but this guy is right on, that you atheists are utterly pathetic in your arguments trying to account for objective moral values in a naturalistic worldview. It was honestly embarrassing to watch Sam Harris in the Harris-Craig debate.
ebeatworld 9 months ago
@ebeatworld
I don't believe in objective morality, so you can go fuck your "you atheists" bullshit.
If there was however, Harris view would be the only way of getting there. "God says so" is a far less convincing argument, though.
funincluded 9 months ago
Most atheists that I have had contact with have had a complete misunderstanding of the word "evidence." When they should be saying, "there's no proof for God," instead they usually wind up saying falsely, "there's no evidence for God." Nothing could be further from the truth. While it's true, I can't prove God's existence, the evidence of and for God abounds. Cheers.
ZealfortheCross 9 months ago
@ZealfortheCross
I think you made that up just now, and rather the reverse is more likely true.
Do you define "evidence" as "that which doesn't contradict X's existence"
For example, "look at how beautiful Earth is!" would be evidence for God under that definition.
That is not a good definition.
funincluded 9 months ago
They be hatin!
tetrahydroscope 9 months ago
What exactly does a Christian philosopher do?
The gentlemen before me have answered your "concerns" in a proper manner so I'ld like to know what exactly makes you somebody we need to take serious?
No... seriously, your "concerns" seem to be coming from the same consistantly lame pile of bad logic as the other five we keep hearing over and over and over and over...
"Apologetic" is a correct term.
You better apologise for all that stupidity.
WishingForSerenity 9 months ago
@WishingForSerenity
Good
funincluded 9 months ago
1 - You trust in deities due to reasons? What are these good reasons? It is blind faith.
2 - So then to be rational, you do not have to have any actual evidence? Sounds good for you.
3 - There is no objective morality, when asked to live up to morality, it refers to the morality developed by man and society.
4 - We are machines for certain but our will is based upon what we are exposed to and our thoughts in respect to those things.
5 - This one seems like pure conjecture on your part.
Mirkwoods 9 months ago
If this guy is a professor of philosophy then i'm Wittgenstein, Russell, Hegel, Kant, Spinoza and Hume. I left out the poststructuralists because they're nearly as full of shit as this guy.
kitchenaut 9 months ago
Quick refutations of this simpleton logic.
1. What reasons?
2. Old chestnut. Proving empiricism with itself is redundant, because it is self evident.
3. Strawman argument and false dilemma. Much of what atheists describe in the Bible as immoral is reflected by a modern consensus, however relative morality is.
4. Another strawman argument. It's clear he hasn't read Dawkins.
5. Much like he has done throughout the entire video. Typical dishonest Christian hypocrite.
Laughable.
kitchenaut 9 months ago
You must rest now. Nurse will be round soon.
neighbour666 9 months ago
You're articulately ignorant.
redbreast3 9 months ago
Your sky god belief system ruled in Europe for nearly 2000 years and wasn't called the dark-ages for nothing.
TheNELIVE 9 months ago
Your concerns are no concerns at all. Faith: strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof. ref: Oxford English Dictionary. What you say about Richard Dorkins is unfair...You clearly don't understand much outside the bible? You are the one who clearly has not done enough/any real research. Read his books before you comment.
TheNELIVE 9 months ago
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TheNELIVE 9 months ago
#1 Semantics game.
#2 Science works, religion doesn't.
#3 Euthyphro dilemma. Possible false equivocation or incoherent definition of "objective".
#4 Ideas and actions have consequences regardless of what caused or didn't cause them. We can influence other people's decisions precisely because they aren't free.
#5 You seem to be asserting that Thomas Aquinas' arguments are more than just mental masturbation. Yet you make no attempts to demonstrate this. You have no point.
lenoka 10 months ago
@lenoka Good science must prove a theory before it builds another theory based on the first. Uniformitarianism has never been proven, naturalism has never been proven. Any non-empirical science is faith based. For that matter, any experience is "faith based" because we are trusting our senses and everything between the transmission and our final reception of reality. Are you afraid to be that skeptical?
SkullRocKetS 10 months ago
@lenoka "Faith" is what people believe about anything that is BEYOND what's "empirically knowable". It's not the opposite of skepticism, it's what is BEYOND the reaches of logic. And if you think logic can answer everything, you should know that logic will NEVER extend beyond your perception and experience. Following logic to it's inevitable end will show you that. If you truly seek after God and honestly call out to Jesus in your heart, in time He will reveal Himself to you.
SkullRocKetS 10 months ago
@SkullRocKetS Lies and deceit hidden behind pretty words. I hope nobody seriously falls for that.
jadencore 9 months ago
@SkullRocKetS
from 'you should know that logic will NEVER extend beyond your perception and experience.' to
'Following logic to it's inevitable end will show you that. If you truly seek after God and honestly call out to Jesus in your heart, in time He will reveal Himself to you.'
is a non-sequitir.
kitchenaut 9 months ago
Excellent critique.
Christlovesanimals 10 months ago
As usual, religious thinking is revealed as totally irrational. You say 'faith' doesn't mean what we all know it means, but rather it means 'confidence'. But to have faith in GOD means 'confidence' in a being the existence of which is not in evidence. You slip the irrational belief in by saying the word Faith doesn't contain it - yet there it is, in the object of your faith. These kinds of semantics games are a weak disguise for irrationality.
WalterLiddy 10 months ago
Hitchens, Dawkins and the other "New Atheists" in my opinion are just lazy, and only scratch the surface of things. I don't see how anyone can really use the words "good" and "evil" with any real justification if there isn't a divine being of some kind out there. I'm not talking about the God of the Bible, or the God of any of the other religions, but upon what basis do these atheists judge things as "good" or "bad"? Is their "moral sense" just part of an evolved brain?
franknhonest 10 months ago
@franknhonest Hey, I think you would be interested in a book called "the irrational atheist" by Vox Day.
SPR4GOD 10 months ago
#4 - Atheists do not claim free will doesn't exist as an entirely. Merely that it is influenced by one's genes. Genes do dictate if someone is predisposed to think more critically than others. But every single human being on Earth has the opportunity to make a conscious decision in the presence of logic and devoid of peer pressure or emotions.
M1sterE321 10 months ago
#3 - We, as humans, do not base our morals and what is rational upon the same foundation.
What is moral is a subjective assessment of the actions to be done and the impact it will have on yourself and others. What is rational is based upon how close we can get to proving something to be true. Both are concepts that are heavily influenced by the society you live in, because we gather in communities like any animals and we form our own values and form what we believe makes sense based on consensus
M1sterE321 10 months ago
@M1sterE321 If you grant that morality is subjective, then what basis do you have to claim that any action is wrong beyond your opinion. On what basis can you call raping children or genocide wrong? There is no objective right or wrong under atheism so any argument that religion is evil is self defeating (not that you make that argument, but many of the new atheists do)
98nafets 10 months ago
#2 - This argument was anything but coherent. You contend that a purely philosophical claim needn't be grounded in reality to be rational? Get the F outta here with that nonsense.
Onto the next point...
M1sterE321 10 months ago
@M1sterE321 Your understanding of the deep topic at hand doesn't seem to be that great. He is effectively saying "what evidence do we have of the physical world" none, because what we see is down the rabbit hole as well.
SPR4GOD 10 months ago
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@M1sterE321 "You contend that a purely philosophical claim needn't be grounded in reality to be rational?"
He didn't say that, he said just because you can't prove something scientifically doesn't mean it isn't true. Just because you cannot prove God scientifically doesn't mean He doesn't exist.
98nafets 10 months ago
I'm responding as I hear his points, point by point.
#1 - You're playing a semantics game here. Whether "faith" is defined as blind belief (which is inherently irrational) or simply trust, it is blind. Blind belief, blind trust. Which is better? Sounds about the same to me. Unfortunately christians have not brought to the table any sound secular evidence, so there are no real 'reasons' to base any of it upon. And by your own reasoning, if faith is blind it is irrational.
M1sterE321 10 months ago
@M1sterE321 Do you have any reason why "secular" evidence is better than evidence? Is it like Home brand cereals compared to froot loops?
SPR4GOD 10 months ago
@M1sterE321 "Blind belief, blind trust. Which is better? Sounds about the same to me."
When did he call it "blind trust?" He just called it trust. The same way someone might say I have faith my wife won't cheat on me. You trust her. Faith does not mean no evidence.
98nafets 10 months ago
All that being said, I agree that more serious and rational thought is in order, on everybody's part.
But the central point remains: Unless you provide empirically verifiable evidence, you cannot expect anybody to accept your truth claims at face value. And that's really what it all boils down to.
perspectivedetective 10 months ago
Point 5; Ah, St. Thomas Aquinas! This point, sadly, I'm less than equipped to tackle at this point since it's been some time since I've read his work. From what I recall, I agreed with his logic almost entirely, with the exception that I felt he made some base assumptions that simply were not true at the foundational level. That is, he assumed things about the nature of the universe (e.g. supernatural revelation) that simply cannot be proven.
perspectivedetective 10 months ago
Point 4: Even if everything we do is predetermined by our circumstances and brain chemistry, we don't have the perspective necessary to make such behavioral predictions. The question is fairly academic. Responsibility is as much a part of our 'programming' as our original behaviors are, we just can't see the mechanisms behind it. But you're claiming your deity really DOES have that perspective. The difference is, we can do something about what we perceive. What excuse does Yahweh have?
perspectivedetective 10 months ago
Point 1: Ah, good! You have some evidence to back up your position? Awesome! Let's hear it. ... Oh. You trust. And you have reasons to trust... Umm... OK, what evidence do you have to support why I should also TRUST this account? Wait, WTF? You're moving on to the next point? Umm... ok...
Point 2: Umm... OK... Nice video you made... On a computer... which is the product of purely empirical rationalist thought. Just sayin'
Point 3: No we're not. We just want evidence. Next!
perspectivedetective 10 months ago
You don't do a very good job of proving your point. For instance, you say "those are not the only ways to rationally know things" yet you don't actually state what any of them are. How can you convince me of your way of thinking if you don't give any alternatives?
gromm93 11 months ago
Flaw in flaw 3. The New Atheists make moral critiques of Christians using the objective value system of Judeo-Christianity to expose the inherent hypocrisy.
noctule 11 months ago
Williams says he doesn't understand how atheists can make moral critiques despite not believing in an objective morality. This just illustrates that most people can't seem to wrap their heads around the very simple concept of consensus. For one thing, our modern values are mostly secular and it's the barbaric ideas like compulsory circumcision, draconian punishments for moral offenses, etc. that are religious. We're not making moral critiques, we're simply asking theists to live
DeimosSaturn 1 year ago
consistently with their own morality, i.e. stone unruly children to death, stone people who work on saturday to death, refrain from practicing pagan traditions like decorating trees on saturnalia. I find it strange that so many of these christian apologists seem to vanish when pundits on television talk about how atheists are trying to destroy christmas. But the moment atheists open their mouths you can come up with 5 flaws. You're not simply an apologist, you're an enabler of
DeimosSaturn 1 year ago
those christians who have the dumbest and most closed-minded attitudes because you do NOTHING to educate them at large and instead focus all your efforts on trying to poke holes in a philosophy that doesn't even make any positive claims. I might even prefer your strategy because if you can't learn to get a handle on your extremists then Gene Rodenberry's vision of an entirely atheist world will come to fruition even sooner than he imagined.
DeimosSaturn 1 year ago
Also: Faith and trust — debating semantics is futile. The fact is that religious people believe in a deity based solely on belief. It's recursive. They do not base their faith on evidence. This is something which is promoted in mainstream popular media. Watch a few Hollywood films and you will see that the people who believe things in spite of evidence to the contrary are played as the heroes. Those who are rational are portrayed as the villains.
jamiewindsor 1 year ago
…
2. This person is confusing the many truths of postmodernity with the binary truth of science. Postmodernism only applies to cultural subjectives, not to things that exist independently of culture such as science.
jamiewindsor 1 year ago
2 points:
1. The term 'New Atheist' is not one I've heard before. I would guess that this is one of the many examples of a term being invented to try and discredit its subject. Adding 'New' onto the start implies that atheism tried once and failed and had to adapt to become 'New Atheism'. This has happened many times historically — 'Neo-feminist' for example is a term invented to try and discredit the validity of feminist rhetoric.
…
jamiewindsor 1 year ago
@jamiewindsor when I hear someone say "new atheism" it gives the implication or suggestion that being an out (open/unafraid/unashamed) atheist who is willing to challenge religious views while having some understanding of logic and philosophy is somehow a "fad" or a passing phase that will die down after a while.
DeimosSaturn 1 year ago
new atheists?
what is a new atheist vs a plain old atheist?
haz020190 1 year ago