Ultimately atheists are saying they don't find the truth claims about god by theists convincing. Atheists aren't making any truth claims of their own about the existence of god. Merely stating their lack of belief in the theist's claims about the existence of god.

The god of the bible is clearly fabricated nonsense.

If there is a "creator", whatever it is, it is complete beyond the processing power of the miniscule, insignificant hooman mind. Also, and this is a big also, IT DOESN'T NEED YOUR HELP WITH A FUCKING THING!

Why is this guy so obsessed with guys like Hitchens? Its not that he is an atheist authority like.....the Pope

(June 19, 2023 at 11:59 am)Deesse23 Wrote: Why is this guy so obsessed with guys like Hitchens? Its not that he is an atheist authority like.....the Pope

Because Hitchens, rightly, Exposed Mother Teresa for how horrible she was.

He's probably really still salty that he and Fry pummelled the church in their infamous debate.

(June 18, 2023 at 1:58 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote:

(June 18, 2023 at 11:35 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: To put the proper name on this thread: William Lame Craig.

Actually, his nickname is Low Bar Bill

LOL, if there's just one chance in a million that it might be true, shouldn't he send me $10 if I promise to multiply it a hundred thousand fold?

(June 19, 2023 at 11:59 am)Deesse23 Wrote: Why is this guy so obsessed with guys like Hitchens? Its not that he is an atheist authority like.....the Pope

For the same reason why one obsesses with a red herring, not because of the red herring, but because of what he hope to protect from scrutiny by his histrionic gesticulations in the direction of the red herring?

(June 19, 2023 at 12:53 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Hitchens also committed a blatant or elementary logical fallacy in the midst of the debate. Here are his words:

Hitchens: "There's no claim I know to make that "Atheism is True", because Atheism is the proposition that a certain proposition isn't True".

Let's say P is the proposition that "it is raining outside" and Q is the proposition that ["a certain proposition"] P isn't true, i.e. it is not raining outside.

P: "It is raining outside".
Q. "It is not raining outside".

Does it in any way follow that, because Q is the Proposition that P is not true, therefore Q cannot have a Truth Value itself? I mean, that's an elementary logical fallacy, a non sequitur. 

What really follows is that either P or Q must be true, they are mutually exclusive etc. Good reasons for P being true are good reasons Q is not (because one of them must be true), and so on.

Jesus Christ Himself, when it was necessary to establish to the Pharisees the Truth that Christ was the Son of God and a Divine King, and not a mere son of David or human king, as they thought, debated with the Pharisees to establish that Truth: "While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” They said to Him, “The Son of David.” He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool”? [Psa 110:1] If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He [just] his Son?” And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore." (Mat 22)

Whether it's the Pro-Life issue, or the God question, or other such matters, Christians engage in debate and discussion on those subjects because saving Lives or important Truths are at stake. 

If someone after diligently considering all the arguments is not convinced, ok, that's his or her prerogative. All Christians would do is amicably disagree. That debate took place in a Christian University, IIRC, Biola. Yet no one harassed or hassled Hitchens in the slightest, just responded to his arguments. Respectful disagreement is important. 

Why are there debates in most countries before elections? Because a proper ideology based on Truth and Righteousness should be able to defend and explain itself to the public when facing challenging questions.

If one is a public spokesman for Atheism, and has written books attacking Almighty God, as Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris et al did, then it is reasonable that Christians who are Professors or public speakers, like Craig and others are, are going to challenge that. Not only Craig, but others like Alvin Plantinga, J.P Moreland et al have done that. And if you want to challenge something in the Bible, or something about Christ, or something that Christian wrote, that's the place to do that also. Harris, Hitchens et al did do that with Craig. Dawkins didn't. But he did debate with lesser known Christian speakers. I'm sure there's a reason for that. Lol.

God Bless.

Hi, Nishant. Hitchens' mistake was stating that atheism is a proposition. It isn't, and neither is theism. They are states of mind. There is a God and there is no God are propositions, but most atheists (in my experience), don't go so far as to state that there is no God; most of us are content to state that we are not convinced there is a God; and are more or less confident in that depending on which God is being proposed.

Perhaps the Pharisees found Jesus incomprehensible; speaking from experience, it can be difficult to formulate a cogent response to incoherent statements.

On-stage debates aren't a good way to determine which speaker is correct, but it's an excellent way to determine which speaker is a better orator. I think email debates are more useful, because both sides have time to marshal their thoughts and information rather than depending on the facts they have to mind and their stage presence. There are numerous techniques a debater can use to stymie someone who is actually more correct, like the Gish Gallop (raise so many questions that your interlocutor can't address them all in the time they have). An email debate disable Gish Galloping nicely.

There are debates in most countries before elections because debates give each side the chance to show how their guy or gal does in a debate. It's better than nothing.

(June 19, 2023 at 1:21 am)Nishant Xavier Wrote: God Exists, Theism is True.
God does not Exist, Theism is not True.

The question is, does Q not have a Truth Value because it is a negation of P?

Because it's not possible at this time to verify either assertion, both have an indeterminate truth value.

Hi Mister Agenda. Thanks for the pleasant response.

To briefly address your points.

1. Propositions or States of Mind: You say Atheism and Theism are not strictly propositions, since Atheists have different degrees of confidence or certainty about them. But, the Truth value of a proposition is one thing, the probability of it being true is surely another?

So, for instance, some Agnostic or Atheist may be 80% convinced there is no God, but leaves open as a possibility or a 20% probability that there might be. Would you disagree with characterizing it that way? You said, "most of us are content to state that we are not convinced there is a God; and are more or less confident in that depending on which God is being proposed." I think that's what you're saying, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Let's just call Atheism being True (A) and Theism being True (T) for simplicity instead of P and Q:

So. A: There is no God. T: There is a God. If A is false, T is true. If T is true, A is false.

Now, one Atheist might estimate a prior probability, P(A)=60%; P(T)=40%, or something like that. And if you know Bayes' Theorem, Posterior Probability means Probabilities get revised in light of new data or fresh evidence. So, for e.g. if one finds the Contingency Argument more probable than not, one would revise the probability of A downward in light of that. And so on with every fresh argument for either side. In this way, a proposition would become or more certain, when all reasonably possible arguments for both sides have been heard, and a decision can be made.

2. Christ and the Pharisees. Well, Christ was presenting an argument from the Old Testament (which the Jews accept) for the Divinity of the Messiah. He was saying, David himself calls the Messiah, Lord. The Messiah is therefore not just a human prince, as they thought, but rather the Lord God. Only God in fact could have been the Savior of humanity, and there are in many passages Isaiah (e.g. 9:6) where the Divinity of the Messiah is also prophesied as well as passages where it says that God is the only Savior (43:11). The Jews knew the Messiah would be the Savior; but they didn't realize He would be God Himself.

3. Email vs in person debates: Email or correspondence debates are fine, and I guess what we're having here would broadly come under that. I'm certainly not opposed to those. But imo, there is an advantage in live in-person debates, when the persons best qualified to represent side can cross-question each other. I think Atheists could follow the same pattern Dr. Craig does, if they think it's just because of pattern or oration or something that he does well. They could do the same, "Here are Five Good Arguments to think a God is improbable"; and then they could give the problem of evil, or whatever else they personally find convincing. And then calmly respond to the objections, whether it is free will, two world theodicy, and so on, from the theistic size.

Not only on public policy matters, but that's how academic debates, even on other subjects, generally proceed, right? So not sure why the invitation to debate these ideas fairly and freely should be controversial. If Dawkins thinks this or that statement of Craig's or Christ's the Bible's is allegedly so blatantly incorrect or wrong that everybody would recognize it, then he should have leapt at the opportunity to prove that before a large debate audience at Oxford imo.

God Bless.

Edit: some typos.

I gave you a pleasant response too, You silly failure turtle