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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 26, 2014 at 4:59 pm
Well...
If anything, you can play a nice game of "Find the Fallacies".
Not that it will be a challenge, but it might help you get through it.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 26, 2014 at 5:06 pm
What Simon said. Get out a good logical dictionary, or just use the net and label the fallacies in the margin. If using the web, you can cite the page in the margin. Hand it back to dear sweet mum-in-law with notes. On the plus side, when you get through you'll have a lot of new, or newly reinforced vocabulary. On the downside, mum-in-law won't be happy.
If the book really is about converting atheists, don't worry about deconverting mum. Just tell her that belief depends on faith, and you don't have any. If she does, fine.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 26, 2014 at 5:11 pm
Yah, it kinda gets me up front that the core argument of the book is that it takes more faith to not believe in God than to believe (using a definition of atheist as someone certain there's no God), as though the ideal belief is the one which involves the least faith...which I kind of agree with; but whatever happened to faith being a virtue, I thought Christianity was all tied up with that idea. These guys are irritating to me not only as an atheist but as a former Christian, and I'm not even 30 pages in!
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 26, 2014 at 5:35 pm
Tell them that you didn't have enough faith to be a Christian, and that after reading the book you no longer have enough faith to be an Atheist.
So now you want to be a Muslim.
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 26, 2014 at 5:36 pm
(September 26, 2014 at 5:11 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Yah, it kinda gets me up front that the core argument of the book is that it takes more faith to not believe in God than to believe (using a definition of atheist as someone certain there's no God), as though the ideal belief is the one which involves the least faith...which I kind of agree with; but whatever happened to faith being a virtue, I thought Christianity was all tied up with that idea. These guys are irritating to me not only as an atheist but as a former Christian, and I'm not even 30 pages in!
Christians seem to be very uncomfortable with three little words: I don't know. Which is odd because they are very comfortable with three other words which mean much the same thing: It's a mystery.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 26, 2014 at 5:42 pm
This is a summary of Geisler's "system"; a guy with a doctorate in this crap:
Quote:1. Truth about reality is knowable (see TRUTH, NATURE OF; AGNOSTICISM).
2. Opposites cannot both be true (see FIRST PRINCIPLES; LOGIC).
3. The theistic (see THEISM) God exists (see GOD, EVIDENCE FOR).
4. Miracles are possible (see MIRACLE).
5. Miracles performed in connection with a truth claim are acts of God to confirm the truth of God through a messenger of God (see MIRACLES AS CONFIRMATION OF TRUTH; MIRACLES, APOLOGETIC VALUE OF).
6. The New Testament documents are reliable (see NEW TESTAMENT, DOCUMENTS, MANUSCRIPTS; NEW TESTAMENT, HISTORICITY OF; NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS).
7. As witnessed in the New Testament, Jesus claimed to be God (see CHRIST, DEITY OF).
8. Jesus’ claim to divinity was proven by an unique convergence of miracles (see MIRACLES IN THE BIBLE).
9. Therefore, Jesus was God in human flesh.
10. Whatever Jesus (who is God) affirmed as true, is true (see GOD, NATURE OF).
11. Jesus affirmed that the Bible is the Word of God (see BIBLE, EVIDENCE FOR; BIBLE, JESUS’ VIEW OF).
12. Therefore, it is true that the Bible is the Word of God and whatever is opposed to any biblical truth is false (see WORLD RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY; PLURALISM, RELIGIOUS).
The book sounds completely awful. Reading the above bilge was enough to send me off.
"GOD - SEE EVIDENCE FOR" - lol!
So apparently, they DO have evidence for old Sky Daddy, but are keeping it hidden?
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 26, 2014 at 5:49 pm
Just remember this dude tried to debate Christopher hitchens. And failed.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 27, 2014 at 12:49 pm
(September 26, 2014 at 5:49 pm)Lemonvariable72 Wrote: Just remember this dude tried to debate Christopher hitchens. And failed.
Well to be fair Hitchens at his best would defeat just about anyone.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 27, 2014 at 1:13 pm
Geisler. This is why Wiki sucks.
Quote:In 1981, Dr. Geisler testified in "the Scopes II trial" (McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education). Dr. Duane Gish remarked, "Geisler was. . . the lead witness for the creationist side and one of its most brilliant witnesses. His testimony, in my view (I was present during the entire trial), effectively demolished the most important thrust of the case by the ACLU."
Uh-huh. He was such an effective witness that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLean_v._Arkansas
Quote:McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1258-1264 (ED Ark. 1982), was a 1981 legal case in Arkansas.
A lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by various parents, religious groups and organizations, biologists, and others who argued that the Arkansas state law known as the Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act (Act 590), which mandated the teaching of "creation science" in Arkansas public schools, was unconstitutional because it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Judge William Overton handed down a decision on January 5, 1982, giving a clear, specific definition of science as a basis for ruling that creation science is religion and is simply not science. The ruling was not binding on schools outside the Eastern District of Arkansas but had considerable influence on subsequent rulings on the teaching of creationism
He was so effective that his side lost the case. Xtians are amazingly stupid.
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RE: I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist
September 27, 2014 at 2:59 pm
(September 26, 2014 at 5:49 pm)Lemonvariable72 Wrote: Just remember this dude tried to debate Christopher hitchens. And failed.
Yeah, Hitchens destroyed him. What I remember most about Turek was how angry he seemed throughout the debate, like he couldn't believe the insolence of someone who didn't just roll over and accept his sophistry and club-footed Bible thumping.
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