My readers already know that this Tuesday Dinesh D'Souza and I will be debating. The official announcement with details can be found here. I am a bit silent on this Blog because of my preparations, but on Tuesday at 8 PM EST I have my opening statement scheduled to be published here at DC. So even though many of you cannot be there you can read it just after I speak it. Just so you know, here's why we're debating this particular topic:
I have just finished your chapter on "God and animals", and I must say that if this is the type of chapter that did not make it to the book (Christian Delusion) then the book is going to be [a] monster!!
I'm doing some preparation for my upcoming debate next Tuesday at the University of Illinois. What's interesting is that I've got to find a way to answer his arguments succinctly and in just a few sentences. While I have my own answers, how would you respond succinctly with an economy of words to the following types of claims?
If we adopt a skeptical approach, we are less likely to believe things that are false, but will also probably not believe many things that are true but for which evidence is lacking. If we take a credulous approach, by believing everything we may be certain that we have believed everything that is true, but we will inevitably believe many things that are false as well.
Which approach do you consider preferable? Is there any real way to find a middle ground between them? And for those whose religious standpoint leads them to believe that God prefers one or the other of these approaches (or looks favorably on humans who adopt one or the other), why do you think that might be the case?
A young Tony Hickman (8) of Andrew Falls, Michigan attended what could well have been his last day of school Monday at St. Rose Elementary. The second-grader, mute as the cameras rolled while being removed from school property by his parents, had no opinion except to say: “It was a drawing. I did not do nothing wrong.”
Christians claim that people who do horrendous evils simply refuse to change despite God's repeated attempts to help them see the error of their ways. If I were God I could change anyone’s mind if I chose to. I could harden a person's heart like the Pharaoh’s. I could speak audibly to them, appear to them, or do a wondrous deed for them. That’s anyone, as in ANYONE. That Christians refuse to acknowledge this tells me something about them. They do not believe after all. They only believe what is convenient to believe. ;-)
I'm amused most of the time at what it takes to defend the Christian faith. I am even more amused when a defender of the faith lacks the required thinking skills to do so, like Kirk. Remember, he's the one who assures us that it wasn't God's fault for the Haitian disaster. Nothing personal here, but with critical thinking skills like this no wonder he believes. Let's take a look:
I had previously wrote about Ruth Tucker's talk to the Freethought Association of West Michigan, in which she gave 5 myths about those who walk away from their faith. See here. Ken Pulliam recently mentioned this talk and highlighted the fact that Tucker went on to list the real reasons people give for leaving their faith:
I believe that Mr. Loftus was right to reject his beliefs. The former pastor did well to turn away from his god — because his god was not the real one. His view of God, as even my cursory reading made clear, was inconsistent with, and contradictory to, the view of God presented by Jesus in the Bible.
The god John Loftus renounced merited rejection. The God made known by Jesus merits devotion. The degree to which a person’s view of God conforms to reality will determine the degree of loyalty that person has to the faith. It is hard to remain true to an illusion. Link
I previously wrote: "We atheists do not revel in tragedy. We hate the fact that people suffer in this world as all people do. It's just that in times like these it's good to be an atheist. Earthquakes happen. That's all there is to it. What we revel in are attempts by Christians to justify God's actions. They are pathetic, all of them. And guess what? God isn't to blame for the Haitian disaster! Nope. God is completely good and loving towards us all. His ways are perfect. Atheists like myself and Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, and Valerie Tarico have had a heyday with Christian responses so far." Link. Peter Kirk showed up in the comments with some answers.
We atheists do not revel in tragedy. We hate the fact that people suffer in this world as all people do. It's just that in times like these it's good to be an atheist. Earthquakes happen. That's all there is to it. What we revel in are attempts by Christians to justify God's actions. They are pathetic, all of them. And guess what? God isn't to blame for the Haitian Disaster! Nope. God is completely good and loving towards us all. His ways are perfect. Atheists like myself and Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins and Valerie Tarico have had a heyday with Christian responses so far. Now there is another one.
When it comes to defending the faith even PhD's show they are ignorant. I'm not joking either and it should be obvious to see. I previously endorsed Richard Dawkins' column on Pat Robertson's comments about the Haitian disaster. Then comes Glenn Peoples who said of me:
This guy is wacko. But here's a problem as I see it. Christians believe because they claim to have experienced God, and yet most Christians in today's world do not accept a fire and brimstone hell. Many others argue for an annihilation view of hell. So, why do most Christians discount Bill Wiese's experience and yet trust their own experiences? Bill is so sure of what he experienced, you see. But it's ALL IN THE HEAD, all of it!
I'm carrying on an email exchange with an old friend who studied under Norman Geisler and did further Ph.D. work in philosophy. He had asked me about the SETI project and what it would take for me to accept that there might be extra-terrestrial life in the universe as a parallel to accepting the evidence that there might be a supernatural intelligent being, God. Here are my rambling thoughts on this:
I was asked to offer a critique of Open Theism. At one time I embraced it so I'm very familiar with it. But it seems to be an in house argument. Other Christians who are not open theists effectively criticize it. I try not to tell Christians what they should believe. If I spend time critiquing it then I have not debunked Christianity because other Christians would enjoy my critique. I try to offer a more fundamental critique of Christianity and everyone in it, especially conservatives. Conservatives as a whole are my target, not one branch of them.
I don't think those of us who live in the modern world quite understand the the power of dreams in the pre-scientific ancient world. Our brains need to dream while we sleep, and they do so as the imaginative side runs wild with our current thoughts. Some of our dreams seem very real and sometimes they're bizarre. You know what I'm talking about. But can you imagine a world where no one had a clue why they dreamed? That's why we find dreams figuring prominently in the Bible, from Pharaoh, to the dreams of the prophets, Nebuchadnezzar, and Pilate's wife. It was a mixed up superstitious world where they concluded dreams were sent from the gods as divine messages. This is something we can no longer accept and just one more reason why I reject the Bible as inspired by God since dreams were a major source of its inspiration. Even today people consider dreams as evidence of a spiritual world. Poppycock!
While Doctors without Borders was struggling to get anesthetics for amputations into Haiti, an Albuquerque group queued up aid of their own sort: 600 solar powered talking Bibles. Even now, food, water, and medicine are having trouble reaching Haitians because of damaged transportation facilities and supply lines, but the missionary group says some of their Bibles are on the way.
He is a 32 year old student minister, on a break, who is currently working on his Ph.D. in Family Science. This is his official announcement. You can find the DC Challenge right here. Don't accept any imitations. This is the real deal. Come on. Consider doing this yourself as others have. What do you have to lose?
As you know I recommend Luke's Blog Common Sense Atheism. He has a podcast that I also recommend where he interviews several top notch thinkers on both sides of our debates. Check it out. I heard from my friend Dr. James Sennett that Luke is planning on interviewing him sometime soon. I'm really interested in that one.
I'm posting this again to emphasize what a great program it is. In this must see BBC video (total 60 minutes)...
Iain Stewart tells the epic story of how the planet has shaped our history. With spectacular images, surprising stories and a compelling narrative, the series discovers the central role played in human history by four different planetary forces.
[Written by John W. Loftus] Jerald Dirks is a former minister (deacon) of the United Methodist Church. He holds a Master's degree in Divinity from Harvard University and a Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Denver. Here he is interviewed on The Deen Show sharing why he accepted Islam. I was only going to skim through his interview, but I found myself captivated by his story. His critique of Christianity is penetrating and well founded.
I have read your book trying to look for answers to my own questions regarding the Christian faith. I had only recently became a Christian about a year ago and now I am experiencing serious doubts if the Christian God is real.
I was thinking of doing my own post on this topic. I have heard Christians say Pat Robertson is a moron for suggesting the Haitian disaster was a divine judgment for too long now. No, they are the morons. Pat Robertson represents Christian tradition, not them, as Dawkins said in a Washington Post column:
Cole first arrived here at DC a few years back as a Christian under the name Calvin, and he was the answer man. He quoted the Bible. We argued against him. Finally I challenged him to read my book WIBA. Then a few weeks passed and he said he no longer believed. He changed his name to Cole and became an angry atheist for a while, a typical reaction for many ex-believers once they realize they were duped. But months passed and then he came back to DC as a Christian again by arguing in the same fashion as I originally saw him do. Just today he gave it up. He said: "I'm done with the Bible." And then "I'm tired of looking stupid by trying to defend the Bible." You can read the exchange I had with him right here. I'm glad for him. He did look stupid defending the Bible. Many Christians do. But Cole is not stupid at all. He was just deluded, and I wish him well. Finally, no more cognitive dissonance for him.
Several Christians have decided to take the DC challenge as I first wrote about here, including a master's degree student, a pastor, and others. Just today I heard from a fifteen year old named Kyle who has decided to do so (via email). The official DC challenge is to get and read the ten books I suggested in that link. Don't accept any imitations. This is the real deal. I also encourage believers to read both sides, but this is the official Debunking Christianity Challenge. ;-)
If you're interested in debates like I am, below you can watch an interesting one by two atheists. Yep, that's right, two atheists. Oh, I know that Mary Jo Sharp is a Christian apologist and that Ehteshaam Gulam is a Muslim apologist. But if you listen closely they are using atheist arguments against each other.
I have heard from several Christians who claim to have bit the bullet by admitting their faith should pass the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF), only to conclude that it does. Surprise! The fullest presentation of it online is to be found here. Having received this feedback I revisited the argument again in a chapter for The Christian Delusion. One of the many things I do in that chapter is to argue that Christians ought to be just as skeptical their own faith passes the OTF as they are when Mormons or Muslims claim the same thing. Why not, right? That's what outsiders do.
On Nov. 1, 1755—the feast of All Saint's Day—a terrifying combination of earthquake and tsunami shattered the Portuguese capital city of Lisbon. Numerous major churches were destroyed and many devout worshippers along with them. This cataclysmic event was a spur to two great enterprises: the European Enlightenment and the development of seismology. Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were only some of those who reasoned that no thinkable deity could have desired or ordained the obliteration of Catholic Lisbon, while other thinkers—Immanuel Kant among them—began to inquire into the possible natural causes of such events.
If God sent Jesus to save the world by dying on the cross for our sins (the greater deed) then he should at least be as passionate as Christians are to help people believe (the lesser deeds). Why would God do the greater deed and not also do the lesser deeds? This doesn't make sense of an omniscient, omnibenelovent, and omnipotent God. The excuses given for the paucity of evidence reveal that the Christian expects way too little from the God they believe in. [First posted 10/29/08]
246 comments later on this topic and I want to resurrect it. dguller has sufficiently defended an argument that I have not seen a proper rejoinder to about the possibility that a trickster god exists, rather than a good one, if one exists at all. I claimed that Based on This Argument Alone The Best Any Believer Can Claim is Agnosticism. Okay so far?
I am grateful to Kris Komarnitsky for sending me a copy of his book Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? For some, the title may seem appealing, while to others it may be disturbing, but when it comes to historical study, the simple fact is that there is no way for a historian not to doubt the resurrection - or to put it more precisely, a historian cannot but raise questions about the historical factuality of the early narratives that tell the resurrection story.
From time to time I'll tell you what to expect when I rule the world, if that should happen. The first thing I'll do is step down and institute a democracy where everyone's right to free speech is guaranteed. I'll leave other details of my regime for later, but for now I'd like to talk about supernatural adventures, thrillers, comedy's and such. In tonight's speech before the assembly I want to introduce before the body politic the movie Avatar as an example of something that is a potential threat to my atheist regime. ;-) <-----
This movie will be released tomorrow. From the trailer I saw on their website it looks very very good! I can't wait to see it myself. Check it out if you can.
It was the Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers student group at the University of Illinois that was approached to suggest someone to debate Dinesh D'Souza. I didn't know until now why they suggested me. In December one of them said he has been disappointed with the atheists who have debated recently:
I hope my readers visit ex-christian.net every so often. Here are three deconversion stories of interest: From Master's of Nothing, the Visible Atheist, and a person named Ryan. Enjoy. You know, in sales marketing it's hard enough to get new customers, so why does God allow the loss of his customers so often nowadays?