Debate Challenge

[downbeatplumb]

So it appears that I have to first define what God is in order to have a debate on his existence. That's fine. God is easy to define, and I'm not going to change anything from his traditional definition. You won't be surprised, because as I said before, I think we all know what God is, and I think this tactic of demanding a definition is just a typical dodge by atheists. But I will open a new topic so can define God and also lay out other terms for the debate.

I have no idea what you think god. From experience each believer has their own personal definition. We've had such treats as "The Universe begun. We call the thing that started the universe god" or god is a mixture of abstract concepts thrown together "god is love, god is truth, god is the source of morality, who exists outside of space and time". All of it utter shite. So what is your flavour of god and how does it work?

[bennyboy]

How do we go from this:

Hello. I have been engaging in debates with atheists on the existence of God for many years now, and I still have yet to find a worthy opponent who is capable of defeating me. I'm here to issue a challenge to any atheist with the guts to take me on. Would anyone be interested?

to this:
?

I'm not feeling the inspiring confidence anymore.  Seems like this is going to be like Harris with Islam: "I could totally refute all you guys with one hand tied behind my back, but I don't have time to prepare properly because I have exams" or whatever.  I think we should set up the debate right away (I still have my hand up "me me me") just so we can grab some



and see what he says.

[robvalue]

One convincing demonstration would be good.

Several fallacious arguments plastered together to try and make them add up to one good argument is what we usually get.

One of them will be the watchmaker analogy, of course. Then fine tuning, Kalam, and possibly some presuppositional nonsense about knowledge.

How's that for presuppositions

[Silver]

I have been absent from the site, mostly. Yeah, lynch me.

However, the original poster seems to have created this thread with the usual false bravado of most theists who think they have reason on their side, when the truth is that all they have on their side is faith.

[robvalue]

I also get the feeling they are labouring under the false impression that if they could convince us God is real, we'd be lining up to join the nearest available death cult.

I reckon sceptics would find it interesting, and would want to study it as much as possible. Not polish its ring hole.

[Edwardo Piet]

The difference is that I am not going around claiming that Buddhist meditation is ineffective or that some elaborate physical theory is wrong. I have invested the time and sought experts to understand Scholastic philosophy. My opinion of the 5W's veracity comes from a position of knowledge. When critics present straw man arguments, like they always do, then they profess to know (perfectly no less) what they do not actually understand. Such are the true hypocrites.

Already told you. The philosopher Immanuel Kant debunked Aquinas. Go and debunk Kant, quote his arguments and then come back and post them on a thread and show us how much more logical you are than Kant.

...or fail to do so and let us laugh

[Silver]

I found a couple articles where Aquinas was debunked. Of course, the Wooters thinks he is omniscient.

[robvalue]

Several people have debunked it on this very forum. I went through it on my apologetics open challenge thread in this post as well.

[Silver]

The problem with the Wooters is that he has created an emotional attachment to the author without separating that emotion in relation to reason. Theists seem to have the most problems in relation with separating emotional attachments toward reasonable outlooks. Emotion is not reasonable for it is subjective. Faith is a huge reliance upon emotion which makes it highly subjective.

[robvalue]

There are many people, some of which are on this forum, who seem to think that if their framework of fantasy was allowed to fold, they would be straight out on the street murdering and raping because they'd have nothing else stopping them. So I suppose I can understand that this would be a motivating factor. Unless they are actually psycopaths, which some of them could be I suppose, then they are likely very mistaken and this is all just part of the indoctrination. Even psycopaths generally understand that there are laws and punishment such as jail, though. Humans can't just not fuck each other over, there must be a magical reason why they don't.

That's why you can't go down the street without being skull fucked by at least 20 atheists.