Why Richard Dawkins should debate Christians

[Statler Waldorf]

It's not my views that have thoroughly defeated your position, it's the views of Atheists in general.

Like what?

Object to that conclusion all you want, but I did accuse you of having an imaginary friend, and you offered nothing more than a simple rejection of the notion as a counter.

You asserted it, but that doesn’t prove anything. You simply used the term imaginary friend in the assertion rather than God. In logic that’s known as a question-begging epithet and it’s a logical fallacy. I was obligated to point that out to you.

Pretty weak considering the fact that your delusionary state of mind fits the defintion:

Scripture says that you’re the one with the delusions, how do you know it’s wrong?

Imaginary friends are made often in childhood, sometimes in adolescence, and rarely in adulthood.

Well you just refuted your own position with that. If believing in a deity is having an imaginary friend then the vast majority of adults would have imaginary friends, and according to that text- imaginary friends are rarely believed in by adults. Oops!

There’s nothing imaginary about God’s existence.

Like it or, you got yourself an imaginary friend.

Not according to the text you cited; and how do you know God is imaginary?

…conveniently caters to all of your psychological insecurities, and acts as your own personal guardian (or tutelary).

Do you ever even read the Bible? None of that applies to the Christian God at all.

The fact that you are delusional, however, does not bother me half as much as the fact that you seem to have no desire whatsoever to discuss meaningful subject matter.

I’ll discuss whatever subject matter you like (as long as you can coherently present me with the material). Scripture says you’re the one who is delusional.

Just look at the last few pages of our discussion: nothing! There's nothing there. We aren't discussing anything because you refused to.

…and yet I have learned an awful lot about you from this discussion.

I know, I know, it's because I can't explain myself when I use quite obvious language and terms.

Apparently they’re not that obvious considering how difficult it is for you to even define them.

What is a magnificent claim?

That’s my question for you.

What does it mean to verify something?

I am still waiting for an answer to that one.

but we can't help wondering what's so magnificent about it and why it all needs to be verified.

Yes.

Can't we just accept it as a great and legitimate history book that's already met the burden of proof.

What burden of proof are you referring to? You seem to still be assuming that fictitious neutral ground exists.

Can't we just continue the debate with the agreed position that the Bible is the infallable word of god, which is 100 percent true? Is that really too much to ask?

Well that’s my position, why would you ask me to defend my position by giving up my position and taking up yours? That makes no sense at all.

I will say this, in this discussion, I feel you have proven the existence of the supernatural.

The existence of the supernatural was rather obvious before we even began this discussion.

And I pointed out these miracles are the same as and indistinguishable from magic.

But they’re not.

If you are unaware healing the sick is commonly done on god TV it is unclear where you are coming from.

Jesus did far more than heal the sick.

Unknown people of unknown character of unknown motivation. Do you paper over the obvious issues with faith?

They’re not unknown at all, we’re told who they were, and we’re also told of their origins.

The manner of creation is discredited. That ALL the animals were paraded through Eden to be named is absurd, particularly for the penguins.

The animals were created in the garden and dispersed after they were named; I thought that was obvious from the text.

That female humans did not exist until the rib event is absurd by inspection.

Inspection? Inspection of what?

I have yet to read you posting any physical evidence in support of your position. Perhaps you could repeat it just for me?

I do not need to; the concept of physical evidence assumes my position is correct ahead of time. So by appealing to physical evidence you too are assuming my position is correct.

By all the other stories which contain magic why would one presume one collection of unknown authorship to be authentic while other stories of known and unknown authorship are not correct.

Because that collection of stories (of known authorship) provides a view of reality that must necessarily be true, the others do not.

The default position regarding all claims is against the claim. That is only modified in favor of the claim based upon the physical evidence presented by the claimant.

Ok, so then the default position must also be against the claim “The default position regarding all claims is against the claim.” Since you said it’s against all claims. So where is your physical evidence to support the claim that the default position is against all claims without physical evidence? I think you painted yourself into a bit of a corner on that one.