4 of 7: Using the Socratic Method with Christian Proselytizers (why *foreign faiths* are wrong)

This series is an overview of the approach I outline in my book, "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer" (a dialogue between a Christian proselytizer and a Socratic skeptic).

LINK TO CUSTOMER REVIEWS ON AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/review/product/1601450893/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?_enc...

Link to eBook: http://booklocker.com/books/2739.html

Link to free PDF excerpt: http://assets.booklocker.com/pdfs/2739s.pdf

An overview of whole series:

1 of 7: a brief overview of videos 2 through 7.

2 of 7: a description of the Socratic Method.

3 of 7: the ground premises that the skeptic needs to establish with the Christian in order to focus on the issue at hand, which is "Are there convincing reasons for me to believe that the Judeo-Christian Bible is the Word of God?"

4 of 7: the skeptic and the Christian read through scriptures and stories from non-Christian religions. Both agree that the following three characteristics are strong clues that a religion was not created by an Infallible Wisdom, but just made up by quite fallible humans: (1) when a religion a cluelessness about the layout of the universe (its stories describe stars as tiny, the moon as a light, the earth as flat, the sun as orbiting our planet, etc.) (2) it contains laws that are barbaric and reflect senseless prejudices (3) history reveals that the religion was pieced together from ideas and stories from pre-existing religions

5 of 7: the skeptic and the Christian read through the Judeo-Christian Bible, and examine it by the same critical light just held up to non-Christian religions.

5.1 through 5.5: Further details on the origins of the Judeo-Christian bible--how many of its ideas & stories can be found in religions that pre-date the bible by centuries.

5.1 explains why many of the baffling details within the tale of Noah & the Ark make sense once the story is read as a monotheistic version (in which God is said to be Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Benevolent) of a story that was originally polytheistic (in which the gods were none of the above).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9fxvJy9swk&feature=channel_page

5.2 discusses the pre-Christian religious stories from the Greeks, Romans, and Zoroastrians about unions between gods & mortals, miraculous virgin births, and offspring that were both human and god. It also covers the "Satanic pre-plagiarization" explanations from early Church Fathers Justin Martyr and Tertullian on how the pagans knew about these phenomena centuries before the time of Jesus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ymGDRZfOQ&feature=channel_page

5.3: Richard Dawkins refers to the Christian premises behind the belief that Jesus/God sacrificed Himself to appease Himself as "barking mad." This video looks at each of those premises--Divine Anger, the need for sacrifice, the use of a scapegoat--from the perspective of comparative mythology. The subtitle for this video is "Richard Dawkins meets Joseph Campbell."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDJ-azGoBt8&feature=channel

5.4: the evolution of the afterlife. Stage One - the 37 out of 39 Old Testament books that either don't mention, or even deny, an afterlife. Stage Two - the 2 Old Testament books that say there IS an afterlife. Stage Three - The New Testament, in which the afterlife, complete with Judgment Day & Heaven & Hell, becomes one of Christianity's main selling points.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6_XJjJiVAY&feature=channel_page

5.5: A discussion of the evidence that Christianity's "Satan" comes more from pagan religions than Judaism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYgNfKBg4H0&feature=channel_page

6 of 7: a review of some of the common counterarguments from Christian apologists

7 of 7: why I find the Christian apologist's answers unconvincing.

Related videos:
"An abbreviated version of using the Socratic Method with Christian Proselytizers": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaJwTvxAlBM

"Three advantages to questioning 'the Creator's Word' but not 'a Creator' (when speaking w/ theists)": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3lye16mJvQ

"When science contradicts Scripture: how theists cope": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py48Lb495ew


* * * * * * * * * *


My three YouTube channels:

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddGates - my musician channel

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddAllenGates - where I discuss the ideas in "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer"

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddAllenGates2 - where I discuss the ideas in my book "Hunting, Gathering, & Videogames" (such as "Why do we have to work?" and "Why do we have to use money?" and "How should we define 'success'?")

Category:

Education

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• atheism
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• apologetics
• comparative
• mythology
• Socratic
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• faith
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• proselytizer
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• Jesus
• Christ
• holy
• text
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• ToddAllenGates
• ToddGates
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[thisisacunt]

what does socratic dialogue mean

[ToddAllenGates]

1 of 2:

@thisisacunt

> what does socratic dialogue mean

Usually a conversation between a "teacher" and "student." The one in the Teacher role does not teach directly, but asks the Student questions in a way that the Student discovers truths, or at least discovers contradictions in his own thinking. For example:

S: Honesty is an absolute virtue.

T: Then under all circumstances, telling the truth is morally correct, and lying is immoral?

[ToddAllenGates]

2 of 2:

S: Yes

T: So if Nazis came to the door of those hiding Anne Frank's family and asked them "Seen any Jews lately?", it would be immoral to lie to the Nazis?

S: Well no . . .

T: Then is honesty really always an absolute virtue?

[thisisacunt]

@ToddAllenGates thanks for that dude i understand it now its like the way a wise person might speck to have the questioner discover the answer for themselfs thanks

[ToddAllenGates]

@thisisacunt

> it's like the way a wise person might speck to have the questioner discover the answer for themselves

Yes, exactly!

[Domzdream]

It's weird to me how people tend to follow religions which most show an extreme violence in them. They are always so extreme and severe. It's always rule of fear, ratehr than love.

And people tend to follw this closely. That's strange to me. And I cannot help but facepalm myself at the stupidity of man kind.

[ToddAllenGates]

@Domzdream

> It's always rule of fear, rather than love.

One of Machiavelli's lines from The Prince is "Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved"--the reason being that in times of trouble, people would disobey those they loved, but not those they feared ... I guess the gods, too, thought of fear as more reliable than love (thus the BIG STICK of hell).

[Edella]

@Armando7654

"But how will you go about arguing that [the Bible] is not God-inspired Todd?"

Did you not watch the video? Did you not see the subtitle(why *foreign faiths* are wrong)? Todd does little else than talk about what types of things (in Todd's own words: three characteristics that a religion is man made 1:01) found in so-called sacred literature said to be written by or inspired by a creator would give rise to serious doubts that this were indeed the case.

[ToddAllenGates]

@Armando7654

> Christianity is bullshit because Greek or Kenyan mythology is man-made?

No -- it's that *one* of the reasons we have good reason for suspecting that Greek/Kenyan/etc. mythology is man-made (a primitive's perspective on the universe) is also one of the reasons we have for suspecting that the Judeo-Christian Bible is man-made (that is, it contains the same perspective we find in all ancient mythology: the sun orbits a stationary planet, etc.)

[thisisacunt]

@ToddAllenGates lol nice one

[ToddAllenGates]

@gigantibyte

> was raised a Catholic, and even though they teach the trinity, Jesus was always demonstrated as a separate entity

The Nicene Creed itself is pretty wacky, at least when read fresh: it seems to insist that Jesus is both separate and At One, with the bizarre wordplay of "eternally begotten."

> crazy problems that creates

I talk about that more in my video "5.3 - God Sacrifices Self to Appease Self"

[gigantibyte]

@ToddAllenGates Interesting point. I was raised a Catholic, and even though they teach the trinity, Jesus was always demonstrated as a separate entity. It wasn't until I met other types of Christians that the idea of Jesus=God came to light. What a bunch of crazy problems that creates.