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Another apologist with his "clever" questions
#1
Another apologist with his "clever" questions
I am sure you are all well aware of religiously inspired (mostly Christian and sometimes Islamic) "ministries" that aim to preach and convert people... They have a new tactic called "apologetics" which in their deluded minds is how to attack atheists like us and convert us.
This Indian man came to America and now preaches to all denominations and attacks what he deems "naturalism", a code word for atheism.
His name is Ravi Zckerias. (http://rzim.org/media/questions-answers/)

He has a ministry and all.

You all love debating... here are his six questions from the website. He thinks these will convert any atheist:

1.    If there is no God, “the big questions” remain unanswered, so how do we answer the following questions: Why is there something rather than nothing?  This question was asked by Aristotle and Leibniz alike – albeit with differing answers.  But it is an historic concern.  Why is there conscious, intelligent life on this planet, and is there any meaning to this life?  If there is meaning, what kind of meaning and how is it found?  Does human history lead anywhere, or is it all in vain since death is merely the end?  How do you come to understand good and evil, right and wrong without a transcendent signifier?  If these concepts are merely social constructions, or human opinions, whose opinion does one trust in determining what is good or bad, right or wrong?  If you are content within atheism, what circumstances would serve to make you open to other answers?
2.    If we reject the existence of God, we are left with a crisis of meaning, so why don’t we see more atheists like Jean Paul Sartre, or Friedrich Nietzsche, or Michel Foucault?  These three philosophers, who also embraced atheism, recognized that in the absence of God, there was no transcendent meaning beyond one’s own self-interests, pleasures, or tastes.  The crisis of atheistic meaninglessness is depicted in Sartre’s book Nausea.  Without God, there is a crisis of meaning, and these three thinkers, among others, show us a world of just stuff, thrown out into space and time, going nowhere, meaning nothing.
3.    When people have embraced atheism, the historical results can be horrific, as in the regimes of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot who saw religion as the problem and worked to eradicate it?  In other words, what set of actions are consistent with particular belief commitments?  It could be argued, that these behaviors – of the regimes in question - are more consistent with the implications of atheism.  Though, I'm thankful that many of the atheists I know do not live the implications of these beliefs out for themselves like others did!  It could be argued that the socio-political ideologies could very well be the outworking of a particular set of beliefs – beliefs that posited the ideal state as an atheistic one.
4.    If there is no God, the problems of evil and suffering are in no way solved, so where is the hope of redemption, or meaning for those who suffer?  Suffering is just as tragic, if not more so, without God because there is no hope of ultimate justice, or of the suffering being rendered meaningful or transcendent, redemptive or redeemable.  It might be true that there is no God to blame now, but neither is there a God to reach out to for strength, transcendent meaning, or comfort.  Why would we seek the alleviation of suffering without objective morality grounded in a God of justice?
5.    If there is no God, we lose the very standard by which we critique religions and religious people, so whose opinion matters most?  Whose voice will be heard?  Whose tastes or preferences will be honored?  In the long run, human tastes and opinions have no more weight than we give them, and who are we to give them meaning anyway?  Who is to say that lying, or cheating or adultery or child molestation are wrong –really wrong?  Where do those standards come from?  Sure, our societies might make these things “illegal” and impose penalties or consequences for things that are not socially acceptable, but human cultures have at various times legally or socially disapproved of everything from believing in God to believing the world revolves around the sun; from slavery, to interracial marriage, from polygamy to monogamy.  Human taste, opinion law and culture are hardly dependable arbiters of Truth.
6.    If there is no God, we don’t make sense, so how do we explain human longings and desire for the transcendent?  How do we even explain human questions for meaning and purpose, or inner thoughts like, why do I feel unfulfilled or empty?  Why do we hunger for the spiritual, and how do we explain these longings if nothing can exist beyond the material world?
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#2
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
Ok, you're aware that apologetics isn't new, right?

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#3
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
1.  I'll take that over just making up answers to them.

2.  Appeal to consequences.

3. And the results of when people embrace God are any better?  Crusades anyone?  Catholic Church?
   Besides, those tragedies by embracing atheism were due to factors that go way beyond atheism.

4. If there is a God, the problems of evil and suffering are in no way solved.

5. False

6. Bare assertion.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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#4
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
Something happened when I tried to splice the quotes, and my replies were mostly overwritten. I don't know how to remove a post, so just ignore this.
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

10 Christ-like figures that predate Jesus. Link shortened to Chris ate Jesus for some reason...
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chris...ate-jesus/

Good video to watch, if you want to know how common the Jesus story really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88GTUXvp-50

A list of biblical contradictions from the infallible word of Yahweh.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_m...tions.html

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#5
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
Apologists are nothing new.  They are, as a group, the dumbest bunch of fucks around.
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#6
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
1 Blah
2 Blah
3 Blah
4 Blah
5 Blah
6 Blah

I done debating now.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem.
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#7
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
(October 14, 2016 at 6:10 pm)TheMonster Wrote: Without God, there is a crisis of meaning
And how does God gives meaning? What is the meaning of Rocky Mountains or cancer? How does god brings meaning to polio?

(October 14, 2016 at 6:10 pm)TheMonster Wrote: ...as in the regimes of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot
Same Stalin that reopened the churches in Russia during WWII? His genocide actions were causes of his politics, not his anti-theism. Russian Orthodox Church stayed staunchly in Stalin’s corner until the very end and supported his regime.
Stalin also exploited a very ingrained Russian belief that the czar is the mortal intermediate between heaven and earth, and conflicting spiritualities undermine that power if enough people believe in it. He yielded results in his government that were heralded—despite their scientific origins and medically devastating effects—as miracles, such as advancements in agricultural science.

And what about Christian leaders? We can say that american presidents have always been Christians and yet that Catholic JFK dropped Agent Orange on little kids - yikes!

(October 14, 2016 at 6:10 pm)TheMonster Wrote: Who is to say that lying, or cheating or adultery or child molestation are wrong –really wrong? Where do those standards come from?
They do come from secular philosophy and inborn morality and not from Quran or Bible.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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#8
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
I have never considered Ravi Zckerias a particularly compelling speaker. At the same time, I'm rather sympathetic to 1, 2, and 5.
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#9
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
The Mormons could use a good apologist.

And this time, they need to keep out of the goddam archives. Ain't no way to explain that shit, and looking into it just causes them to leave the church.
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#10
RE: Another apologist with his "clever" questions
(October 14, 2016 at 10:10 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: I have never considered Ravi Zckerias a particularly compelling speaker. At the same time, I'm rather sympathetic to 1, 2, and 5.

They are all nonsense questions. Just because a question can be asked does not mean it deserves an honest answer. It is a grade school lie that "there is no such thing as a stupid question".

Dawkins talks about them at length in many of his debates:
What is the colour of anger? What was Moses' iphone password?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZ_fsG5uMg
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