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Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians
#96
RE: Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians
(April 20, 2013 at 7:26 pm)smax Wrote: Nice try, but I never asserted #1 and, therefore, the premise of #2 is faulty.

Well you did assert that it must be verifiable, so how are you going to verify whether the supernatural exists or not?

Quote: I have said, and maintainted that it is unreasonable, and dangerous, to believe in the supernatural without verification.

There’s that word again, verification. If not firsthand experience then what are you meaning by verification?

Quote: I gave you a perfect example of verification with my discovery of bigfoot analogy. Once again, however, I guess I must clarify the obvious.

No, the discovery of a dead “squatch” is a firsthand experience and as you claimed above you are not talking about firsthand experience when you use the word verification; so I have every right to be a bit perplexed by what you are trying to say because it seems to be a bit contradictory.

Quote: The human mind can and does play tricks on people. That's why people see things that aren't there, hear voices, and imagine that they are capable of things that they clearly are not capable of.

Yes.

Quote: Clearly, however, you would be one that disagrees.

Where did I say anything about people doing what voices in their heads tell them to do? That’s quite the straw-man you’ve erected there.

Quote:


Since you have already established that sensory perception is not reliable, how do you know that everyone else is perceiving the lack of evidence for a burning car correctly and your neighbor was perceiving his visual evidence for a burning car incorrectly? Is this a majority rules type of situation? If the majority of the neighborhood believed they saw a burning car would that be enough evidence to believe one did in fact drive by?

Quote:I will very easily prove this entire theory of yours to be false:

Give it your best shot.

Quote:

Clearly this event never happened, and even a delussional spiritual person, with some limited capacity to reason, would have to concede this.

Ok, so that’s an assertion, we’ll see if you support it with anything.

Quote: This scripture assumes that the sun moves around the earth,

Where does scripture assume that? Simply because the verse uses geocentric language to describe the events that took place is somehow supposed to prove that the Bible assumes the Sun revolves around the Earth? The meteorologist on the local news did that last night when he told me what time the Sun rose and set yesterday, that in no way means that all (or any) meteorologists assume the Sun revolves around the Earth. This also seems to be ignoring the fact that absolute motion is a fiction, if someone wants to use the Earth as there reference frame for all motion they are certainly allowed to do that. When writing a book intended for an Earthly audience it makes complete sense to use geocentric descriptors. Not only this but the author of that passage obviously realized that Earth’s rotation was the cause of the sun and moon’s apparent movements around the Earth because even though the Israelites only needed for the Sun to stop moving the verses clearly states that both the Sun and Moon stopped moving which is consistent with a halting of the Earth’s rotation.

Quote: The story also fails to recognize the fact that the sun holding the same position in the sky would mean that the earth stopped spinning, and that would be cataclysmic.

I am sorry but that’s totally false. The Earth’s rotation slowing down uniformly in a matter of minutes would not be catastrophic for those on the Earth at all.

Quote: Now that we know for a fact that this event could never have happened, we can also conclude that this story was invented around the speculation that the earth was the center of the Universe, and that everything in the sky was merely there to complement earth.

You haven’t demonstrated anything even remotely close to this. There is no reason to believe that God could not have slowed the rotation of the Earth. Additionally there’s more historical support for the story- the Greeks have an account of a long day, the Maori people have an account of the sun being slowed before it rose, and the cultures of Mexico have an account of an extra-long night. These all add support to the story because cultures around the world would experience the single event differently based on their location.

Quote:Because he cannot be verified? How is that still a point drilling on the outside of your skull?

Sure He can.

Quote:Yeah, requiring proof is such a ridiculous standard to have.

No, but that’s not your position is it? You’re asking for “verification”, not “proof”, you’d have to be naïve to think those terms are synonymous.

I noticed you ignored my quite extensive list of things that I am sure you believe but cannot verify; that’s rather convenient.

Quote:Jesus "said" that he would return within a century.
He's 19 centuries overdue.
Jesus does not have the divine power he claimed to have.

Where did you get the idea that Jesus said he’d return within a century? I hope you are not confusing Jesus’ allusion to his transfiguration in Mark 9 with his future second coming… or are you referring to the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24?

Quote: Deductive:

The planet is 4.5 billion years old
The Bible proposes a world history of about 12000 years max.
Therefore, the god of the Bible is made up.

That’s your deductive proof?

1. Since you have claimed you only believe in what is verifiable, how is the age of the Earth and therefore premise 1 verifiable?
2. Premise 2 is not accurate; the Bible proposes a world history of around 6,000 years, not 12,000.
3. How does your conclusion logically follow from your two premises? Your syllogism is invalid because it introduces elements (God) that are not contained in either premise. That’s not allowed in logic, so you’re going to have to do some revision, we cannot determine if your syllogism is sound until it is first at least structurally valid.

Quote: We could go on and on with this, as the Bible, the stories within it, and indeed the Christian concept of god, are all outdated and proven to be lies and plagiarisms.

Truth doesn’t get “outdated”, that’s a fallacious appeal to novelty.

Quote:Says the guy who believes in Santa Clause... errr... I mean Jehova. Is it really your contention that praying to an invisible man isn't naive?

It’s Santa Claus not Santa Clause and Jehovah not Jehova; if you’re going to make fallacious appeals to ridicule at least take the time to spell correctly. God’s not a man either, so you also misrepresented my position by using a question begging epithet.

Quote:All non-sense. Not a single piece of sound logic in that entire assessment.

Really?

P1. Christians believe the claims made by scripture.
P2. Scripture claims that no neutral ground exists.
C. Therefore, Christians do not believe neutral ground exists.


P1. Christians do not believe neutral ground exists.
P2. Smax claims neutral ground exists.
C. Therefore smax is beginning with the position that Christians are wrong about the non-existence of neutrality.
P1. A person is neutral when they do not take a position ahead of time.
P2. Smax is taking a position ahead of time (namely that Christians (and scripture) are both wrong about the non-existence of neutrality.)
C. Therefore, smax is not being neutral.


Neutrality on this issue is logically impossible because one must take the position that scripture is fallible in order to assert neutrality is possible (because if scripture were infallible neutrality would be impossible because scripture claims it is impossible), which is taking a position on the issue and is by definition not being neutral!

Quote:Your faith, however, is loosely based on word of mouth and terribly inconsistent and impractical books.

No, it’s based on the infallible word of the creator God, I’ll take that faith any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Smile

Quote: Your faith is baseless. Mine is reasonable. Big difference.

I thought you said you didn’t believe in things that are not verifiable, so since you now say you believe that your daughter will do well in sports in the future, what are you using in the present to verify future events? Or are you going to have to alter your claim that you only believe that which is verifiable?

Quote:Rejoin, you mean, and that would be redundant. You, on the other hand, are well on your way to where I am. You invited that outcome the moment you thought it was a good idea to mix it up with Atheists.

I have been mixing It up with atheists for years, it’s only strengthened my faith in God.

Quote:To help you with your delussion, of course. Duh!

I was trying to help you with yours. Tongue
Reply



Messages In This Thread
Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians - by smax - April 3, 2013 at 5:19 pm
RE: Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians - by JDS - April 6, 2013 at 10:41 pm
RE: Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians - by smax - April 16, 2013 at 11:33 pm
RE: Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians - by Statler Waldorf - April 22, 2013 at 7:19 pm
RE: Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians - by smax - April 22, 2013 at 11:08 pm
RE: Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians - by smax - April 24, 2013 at 12:23 am
RE: Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians - by smax - April 25, 2013 at 10:47 pm

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