Debating religion why being unisulting

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm not sure why anyone would even give a shit starting from the point of the hateful and pyschotic garbage that falls from these peoples lips. This is nothing more than evil with a smiling face, a thin veneer of civility masking a monstrous undercurrent of indifference and callousness (and that's the absolute best of cases, the nicest of believers). I say fuck em. If they want to engage in a conversation free of invective then they should stop invoking their inner cosmic tyrant as though he were the good guy in the fairy tale. It's no different than bragging about a "close personal relationship" with Pol Pot, and how we all have him wrong, he's such a nice guy, and we owe everything to him after all. Fuck these people.

[Nine]

My mother keeps getting dangerously close to this kind of chat. Lucky for her I tend to be in a friendly mood when she spouts some bull about god and I let it go.

[Faith No More]

well is something they need to hear.

True, but my point was that it's nearly impossible to have a debate and not insult each other, and that shouldn't stop you from debating

[Orion3T]

As an aside, whenever anyone uses reference to the bible in their rebuttal they know they are losing ground. As someone pointed out, without first establishing the divinity of god AND that THEIR bible reflects his true nature, any biblical reference is a circular argument. This needs to be established from the outset, and if they don't accept that then there's absolutely no point debating them. Or you should instead simply debate with them why the bible cannot be used as evidence FOR god. Even if that's as far as you get, it's better than wasting time trying to reason only to have them quote scripture back at you: "Bible says you can't test god!!"

I suggest you watch the plentiful debates on God from YouTube and refine the rebuttals offered there?

I think if one can come up with good solid rebuttals for WLCs 'big 5' then you have very good grounds to at least convince some agnostic onlookers that you have the more reasonable claim. If you'd rather specialise (personally I'd be more competent on the science based claims than moral philosophy, as I'm a physicist) I can suggest a few in particular.

Note that you're never going to be able to give enough convincing evidence to 'convert' anyone in a short 1-2 hour debate - the issues are too scientifically complex and the theist can throw too many untenable but hard to debunk facts at you, which sound convincing and have very good rebuttals, but for which you just won't have time. A perfect example of that is Frank Turek's insistence on rattling off as many ridiculous claims as he can: "How do you explain the existence of maths?!?!?!". At least WLC does generally attempt to justify the claims he makes.

I think in this debate Dacey gives very good arguments for Atheism which Craig only superficially fobs off. His own rebuttals could have been better but that's the nature of trying to debunk ridiculous but complex and highly specific claims:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb1jWqTVtEo

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I am thinking that your babble Christian is the issue here...it is not viable evidence in fact it has been discredited by archaeology as being nothing more than a fairy story made up by desperate elitist men to support their murderous rampage in an age when this was the norm.


It has no bearing on reality nor on anything that is known to date.

Which archaeologist?

Here's TWO:

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

Israel Finkelstein & Neil Asher Siberman.


The full Wiki article is worth reading,but the book is better..

Methodology

The authors describe their approach as one "in which the Bible is one of the most important artifacts and cultural achievements [but] not the unquestioned narrative framework into which every archaeological find must be fit." Their main contention is that
“ ...an archaeological analysis of the patriarchal, conquest, judges, and United Monarchy narratives [shows] that while there is no compelling archaeological evidence for any of them, there is clear archaeological evidence that places the stories themselves in a late 7th-century BCE context. ”

On the basis of this evidence they propose
“ ...an archaeological reconstruction of the distinct histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, highlighting the largely neglected history of the Omride Dynasty and attempting to show how the influence of Assyrian imperialism in the region set in motion a chain of events that would eventually make the poorer, more remote, and more religiously conservative kingdom of Judah the belated center of the cultic and national hopes of all Israel. ”

As noted by a reviewer on Salon.com[2] the approach and conclusions of The Bible Unearthed are not particularly new. Ze'ev Herzog, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, wrote a cover story for Ha'aretz in 1999 in which he reached similar conclusions following the same methodology; Herzog noted also that some of these findings have been accepted by the majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists for years and even decades, even though they have only recently begun to make a dent in the awareness of the general public.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed


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IF you are genuinely interested in a rounded study of Christianity, I recommend Bart Ehrman.Eg: "Misqouting Jesus"

Bart D. Ehrman (born 1955) is an American New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ehrman writes about the early Christians, using the term "proto-orthodox" to describe the Christian traditions that would later be defined as orthodox.[1] He describes 1st- and 2nd-century Christians as not yet having a unified, orthodox tradition.[1] He is the author of a number of books in this area, including Misquoting Jesus (2005), God's Problem (2008), and Jesus, Interrupted (2009).

Misquoting Jesus:

Ehrman recounts his personal experience with the study of the Bible and textual criticism. He summarizes the history of textual criticism, from the works of Desiderius Erasmus to the present. The book describes an early Christian environment in which the books that would later compose the New Testament were copied by hand, mostly by Christian amateurs. Ehrman concludes that various early scribes altered the New Testament texts in order to deemphasize the role of women in the early church, to unify and harmonize the different portrayals of Jesus in the four gospels, and to oppose certain heresies (such as Adoptionism). Ehrman contends that certain widely-held Christian beliefs, such about the divinity of Jesus, are associated not with the original words of scripture but with these later alterations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misquoting_Jesus


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I have recently ordered "Paul: The Mind Of An Apostle" by A N Wilson. I will write brief review once I have read it.

[Minimalist]

Ehrman is not an archaeologist, fortunately, there are plenty.

http://www.amazon.com/Have-Archaeology-R...0802828523


Read it and weep.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Ehrman is not an archaeologist, fortunately, there are plenty.

http://www.amazon.com/Have-Archaeology-R...0802828523


Read it and weep.

Yes Min,I know. That's why I said here are TWO,(Finkelstein and Siberman) and why I separated the sections. Do keep up,there's a good chap.


On second thought probably a good thing you did expand. Might keep Drip from sticking his foot even further down his throat.I mean,if gets much further,it will meet his head coming up via his arse.

[KichigaiNeko]

Might keep Drip from sticking his foot even further down his throat.I mean,if gets much further,it will meet his head coming up via his arse

Yay. Colonoscopy AND Tonsillectomy all in one!! errr :S

[Minimalist]

Siberman

I never think of Silberman as the archaeologist in that pairing. Silberman's job is to keep Finkelstein from putting everyone to sleep with a less-that-riveting discussion of pottery shards and what they mean.

Their second book, David and Solomon is worth the read, too.