Long term advice when debating theists.

[Brian37]

I have been online dealing with theists for 14 years and have run into this tactic a few times. Don't get distracted if they try to use science to debunk that or evolution or whatever. Here is a better way to counter their crap.


1. If they think Christianity is the only religion to try to debunk science with science they would be wrong.
2. If they think they are the only religion when they cant debunk science with science they try to use science to prop up their holy book. Other religions do that too.

I have run into Muslims, Jews, Hindus and even a Rastafarian who have either tried to debunk science with science, or tried to use science to prop up their books and god claims.

There is no Jesus law of thermodynamics. No Allah based DNA. No Yahweh based physics. Just like there is no Thor theory of lightening, no Poseidon theory of hurricanes, not even a Buddha theory of gravity. There is merely science. Science is not religion dependent, it never has been.

Ocham's razor stipulates that when you have competing claims as to what might fill in a gap, the one with the least superfluous baggage is going to be your most likely answer.

So, if one as these choices, which would be the most likely answer?

1. Religion and god/s are required to explain all this.

Or

2. Humans gap fill an religion is a result of their ignorance of scientific reality? Humans merely make them up as an emotional placebo to placate their own desires.

I don't even like the atheistic religions of the Orient and Asia, they are still full of ritual and superstition and set up social pecking orders based on their social norms.

The truth of all religions are that they are merely a placebo effect that has the real benefit of creating safety in numbers. The problem is that those groups can base that entire society on a false belief. Just like the ancient Egyptians were successful for 3,000 years falsely believing in their polytheistic gods.

The progression I mostly run into over the years looks something like this.

1. Theist will come in, claim science does not get it right.
2. Then claim they are only talking about science and not trying to prove a particular god.

Or,

Will come in trying to sell a god, but when they cant, they first try to debunk science. When they cant do that then they try to co opt science.

But it really is not unique to Christianity. It is merely that is what we mainly deal with in the west the most. You spend enough time exposing yourself to many religions, you will run into those tactics in every camp. They will dress the argument up in science and tradition, and quote their religious apologists and or religious scientists, but it still amounts to crap.

Bottom line is science does not favor any religion, it is why computers work no matter what country they are in. It is why planes fly no matter what boarders they fly over. It is why a cell phone will work in Iran the same way it will work in America.

Religion does not own a patent on science. Keep that in mind no matter what religion the person you are debating is defending. 

[dyresand]

I do not even like debating much a person on youtube was trying to convert me back into a christian and well i was like....
that would be pretty much impossible why are you trying please stop even if i were to say i believe in god/jesus/what ever i really
wouldn't mean it.

[Pizza]

I'd just point out that most arguments for theism don't support god of revealed religion even if I assume for the sake of argument mere theism.

Miracles and religious experience provide a starting point for another argument for a theistic God. It is supposed that miracles and religious experiences can only be explained by the postulation of a theistic God. Let us understand a miracle as a divine intervention in the natural course of events. Even if such events occur, they need not be understood in a theistic way for miracles could be interpreted in terms of polytheism or in terms of a finite God. Thus, the cure of Mr. Jones' cancer might be the result of the intervention of a finite God or of several gods. Even Jesus's resurrection and the virgin birth might result from the interventions of polytheistic gods or a finite God.
There is nothing about miracles per se that requires a theistic interpretation[10] and the same thing can be said of religious experience. Let us understand a religious experience as an experience of the immediate presence of a supernatural being. Even if one can eliminate all naturalistic explanations of such experiences, it does not follow that the only interpretation of them is a theistic one. Certainly experiences occurring in the context of nontheistic religious suggest other interpretations. But even experiences occurring in the context of theistic religions such as Christianity might be interpreted in other ways.[11] For example, was the Lady of the Grotto as seen by Bernadette the Virgin Mary or a finite God?

[The Reality Salesman01]

My advice for anyone debating a theist would be to keep in mind that you are very likely not debating the same thing. While you may have an understanding of the rules of rational discourse, not all people subscribe to those laws, and it's a good chance that they may be completely unaware of what constitutes a "good idea" from a "bad idea". In my experience, most theists that I find myself disagreeing with are not willing to place their beliefs under scrutiny. The willingness of a theist to participate in an argument is by no means an indication that they know how to argue properly. It's quite possible that they understand the word "argument" to be something that denotes a negative activity rather than a beneficial one. People who offer what they believe to be "gotcha arguments" are not interested in a mutual exchange of ideas in search of reliability; they are pseudo-intellectuals exercising cognitive defense mechanisms. Engaging in argument with an honest individual can be productive if both sides are truly interested in arriving at a mutual understanding of something reliable. Unfortunately, religious beliefs tend to be unique in the way one comes to have them; they are not founded by way of reason; and if one did not use reason to arrive at a conclusion, reason alone is not enough to persuade one away from it.

[Brian37]

Religion does not produce scrutiny of one's own claims. It produces a fishing expedition to find excuses to cling to a claim. 

[Hatshepsut]

...to debunk science with science...

I'm a bit unclear about what this term means. Is debunking the claims of others what science is supposed to do? Most scientists don't waste their time on the science/religion debates. These shouting matches will go on to kingdom come (pardon my choice of expression), and quite frankly science doesn't really have an opinion on many religious matters, including existence of deity.

For instance, that our planet's date of formation is >> 6 Kya is well known, and need be debated only in court in the event creationism is proposed for curriculum in public schools. I think this issue gets rowed over by the person on the street only because, while access to churches which teach creationism is easy, access to the methodology which establishes geologic time scales is harder to come by. Basic principles in the hard sciences require a lot of study and mathematical maturity to grasp. Evaluation of secondary sources for reliability is also subtler than it looks: Precisely why is Nature a better journal than Answers? The average person simply doesn't know until attending college and often not even then.

Therefore, the debating arena is condemned to remain as sterile as the surface of Venus. In other words,

... you are very likely not debating the same thing.

[Brian37]

"Debunk science with science" another way of putting it would be "cherry picking", "burning the candle at both ends", "moving the goal posts", "having it both ways", basically hypocrisy.

They accept science when they think it works to prop up their own claims, and reject it when it doesn't. Trying to use it and deny it when you call them out on it, is what I am talking about.

The idiot apologists who use the 2nd law argument are using it to lead you to their god. You debunk that then they hypocritically reject your argument. They don't want truth, they want an excuse to believe.

It is the same as when a theists claims they accept evolution, but cry like babies when you tell them evolution does not prop up any god claim. Easy way to demonstrate that is to ask them if they would buy Allah as the one true god if a Muslim said they accepted evolution but "Allah did it".

I have literally had a Jew quote her holy books claiming they match science. I have had Muslims quote the Koran to claim it matches science. And certainly many more Christians do the same over the years. It still amounts to cherry picking.

[henryp]

I've always thought the science/origin argument that usually results from the debate is a goofy one to partake in for the Atheist.  Because the atheist flat out doesn't know what happened, and the idea of something creating the universe just isn't absurd enough.  Similarly the idea that there is some order and purpose to the universe is also not that absurd.  
The harebrain schemes attached to said creator, however, with all the heaven/hell stuff just doesn't make any sense.  It doesn't make sense in so many ways, that it's really indefensible.  I suggest skipping the "How'd we all get here then!?!?!?! " And "Intelligent Design needs an Intelligent Designer!!!" because both of those are really irrelevant to religion, which is about what God wants us to do, not how the universe got here.

[Brian37]

I've always thought the science/origin argument that usually results from the debate is a goofy one to partake in for the Atheist.  Because the atheist flat out doesn't know what happened, and the idea of something creating the universe just isn't absurd enough.  Similarly the idea that there is some order and purpose to the universe is also not that absurd.  
The harebrain schemes attached to said creator, however, with all the heaven/hell stuff just doesn't make any sense.  It doesn't make sense in so many ways, that it's really indefensible.  I suggest skipping the "How'd we all get here then!?!?!?! " And "Intelligent Design needs an Intelligent Designer!!!" because both of those are really irrelevant to religion, which is about what God wants us to do, not how the universe got here.

You are stuck in your own well intended sense of fairness. 

No credible scientist would or should claim they know everything.

But in the history of claims, past present there is tons humans can throw in the trash can of bad claims and not lose any sleep. 

We no longer think the sun revolves around the earth. We no longer think the heart does the thinking, and humans literally thought it did. We no longer think blessing someone, outside of a hollow formality, that by doing that it will prevent your soul from escaping your body when you sneeze. 

We no longer think Ra controlled the sun. We no longer think Poseidon controlled the oceans. 

We have tons of dead myths of the past that humans no longer subscribe to. We literally know in a scientific sense why an amputee can falsely feel pain from a hand or foot they no longer have.

Scientists currently are not arguing finite or infinite, and either way the top scientists won't claim either. But what science IS pointing to is that none of this requires a cognition. Our cognition is really no different than accepting that it is complex do to long term building natural collections of events, and not a prime mover being a watchmaker at the start. 

What we know so far points to "all this" being a giant weather pattern. It looks like "all this" simply changes states without cognition, and our awareness is simply a blip much like most acorns rot and the adult trees you do end up seeing are the real minority.

[Jenny A]

My advice for anyone debating a theist would be to keep in mind that you are very likely not debating the same thing. While you may have an understanding of the rules of rational discourse, not all people subscribe to those laws, and it's a good chance that they may be completely unaware of what constitutes a "good idea" from a "bad idea". In my experience, most theists that I find myself disagreeing with are not willing to place their beliefs under scrutiny. The willingness of a theist to participate in an argument is by no means an indication that they know how to argue properly. It's quite possible that they understand the word "argument" to be something that denotes a negative activity rather than a beneficial one. People who offer what they believe to be "gotcha arguments" are not interested in a mutual exchange of ideas in search of reliability; they are pseudo-intellectuals exercising cognitive defense mechanisms. Engaging in argument with an honest individual can be productive if both sides are truly interested in arriving at a mutual understanding of something reliable. Unfortunately, religious beliefs tend to be unique in the way one comes to have them; they are not founded by way of reason; and if one did not use reason to arrive at a conclusion, reason alone is not enough to persuade one away from it.

It helps a little to talk about what constitutes evidence and rational discourse before getting into the specifics.  Often, once the rules are understood, there is no argument.  The Christian signs off with it's self-evident, or I just know.