Worst Arguments For Christianity

[Esquilax]

Would you care to support that statement at all, rather than just asserting it?

I don’t need to. There’s this little thing called burden of proof. My point boils down to this: I see no evidence that physical processes alone are responsible for intentionality. If you have evidence for the positive claim that a purely physical process can have intentionality, then it’s on you.

Ah ha ha, no. See, you made the declarative statement, in the post I was responding to, that physical processes cannot support purposes and meanings. That's a positive claim on your part, which has its own burden of proof. For my part, I and the others here already have purposes they have self-determined, and meaning in their lives that is individual, yet still present. Therefore, physical processes are sufficient for meaning and purpose.

One response to that might be that those people aren't solely physical processes, that they have souls, and that is where their purpose comes from. I would expect that a man who just made an argument about the burden of proof would know better than to make an argument like that without first satisfying the burden of proof that souls exist, and that any given person has one... oh, and that this is the source of purpose and meaning. I don't think you're going to be able to do that, which leaves us with... physical processes, that are readily demonstrable to everyone.

Simply “seeing no reason” is not the same as coughing up a solution. It’s like me saying I see no reason why there cannot be a God, therefore God.

Hey, you're the one making a whole host of unsubstantiated assertions, it's not my problem that I can't fool myself into seeing them. Like I've pointed out earlier, I have meaning and purpose, I don't believe in a god, and the only demonstrable parts of me, and of any human being, are the physical processes that compose us. You're saying those aren't sufficient to establish purpose and meaning, and are hence claiming the existence of something else, which you haven't demonstrated to exist.

Remember what I said earlier about not covering for one assertion with a second assertion? Your entire position is based on doing exactly that.

You hating it when you think people put words in your mouth doesn’t seem to stop you from doing so yourself.

I was trying to cut out a poor argument early on, to save time. I wasn't telling you what your argument was going to be, I was predicting a potential rebuttal based on what I know of you and explaining why that won't work. Christian apologetics are terribly predictable; if you're going to make a different argument be my guest, but if you can't see the difference between "atheists believe X!" and "if you're thinking of using Y argument, don't because..." then that's your problem, not mine.

Apparently you cannot distinguish between artifacts and naturally occurring substances? Plus your example is impotent since the functions of artifacts are externally assigned.

What's the issue? Naturally occurring substances and artifacts both are objects that have been given multiple purposes based on their properties in the past, there's little need to distinguish between the two in this context. And wouldn't you then be implying that human beings are artifacts, given that your position hinges on the idea that their purpose is externally derived?