Reppert is a good guy, but as a defender of Natural Theology he just doesn't get it.
Just think, God could have foreseen this tragedy and miraculously averted the iceberg hours before the Titanic came into its path. If he had done this no one would be the wiser! He could have remained hidden if that's his goal. For believers to say God does this from time to time then his so-called "interventions" look indistinguishable from chance. In other words, there is no evidence that he intervenes at all. So having faith that God intervenes even once is exceedingly improbable.
The debate was held on April 12, 2012, at Iowa State University. Q & A below:
A wide diversity of theists such as found in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all argue to the existence of God using the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments. But these arguments are mistakenly thought by them all to show their own particular God exists. For instance, I once skimmed through a massive intelligent design book that argued for Allah’s existence.
The difference: Scientists eventually come to a consensus whereas religionists can only agree about what they've always agreed to, that supernatural beings and/or forces exist. Look at what science has accumulated by contrast:
Christian, let's recap what you need to do and see if you can do it based on faith:
That was thirty-nine years ago. 39 YEARS AGO! I have decided that unless something drastically happens to change my mind, this time next year I will quit what I'm doing. I only have one life. I think forty years spent on a delusion will have been enough. First I'll have to find something else to do that will annoy people, but what it is I haven't figured out yet. ;-)
This is interesting from the hand of
Ed Babinski.
Victor Reppert asked this, yet another spin on whether atheists should have to take the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF). But I want people to see the OTF as a solution to an incredible amount of religious diversity. This is a problem that needs a solution, you see. No other methods have worked before. The goal is to offer a fair test to find out which religion is true if there is one, and that means such a test should leave room for the possibility that no religion is true. If nothing else then, the OTF is a test for religion precisely because of religious diversity. If people cannot find solutions to problems within a business they hire solution specialists who offer ways to solve it. Mediators find ways to bring people together by offering ways they can see their differences in a better light. That's what the OTF does.
I'm progressing on my new book well enough to write my introduction to it. Here it is below:
As I'm writing my book on the Outsider Test for Faith let me put a question to my readers. It concerns the geographical distribution of atheism around the world.
Anthony Flew argued that believers in God have the burden of proof similar to the presumption of innocence found in our court systems. Given the extraordinary claims of religion and the fact of religious diversity the burden of proof is on the believer, just as it’s on the prosecutor in court room proceedings. [In God, Freedom, and Immortality: A Critical Analysis (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1984), which is an updated version found previously in The Presumption of Atheism (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1976)]
David Marshall continually says I must read up on world religions and the history of religions. But why? It's because he thinks it will help me to believe. So David, I'll grant that you have read more world literature than I have and that you have the benefit of world travel. But I think the brain is such that if I had your experiences and read only the works you have, I would agree with you and think like you. Our brains are like that. So in order to think like you I must be more like you (which also includes IQ, gender, race, sexuality, place and time of birth, and so forth--do you know that sociologists can identify different ideas held by people born in America during the 20's vs the 30's vs the 40's vs the 50's and so on?). BUT I AM NOT YOU! Nor can I ever be. The same thing goes in reverse for you. If you had my experiences and read only the works I have, you would agree with me and think like me. That is probably the major reason why I am a skeptic, because of this propensity of ours to believe and defend a host of ideas just because we were exposed to them, which is as obvious of an empirical fact as we can get. It's overwhelming that our respective cultures influence us, since that's what we're talking about. Just take four babies and raise one in China the other in Saudi Arabia the third in Kentucky and the fourth in Russia and you will see clearly how cultures influence us all. And it’s never more pronounced than when it comes to religion. Knowing this I must reject faith based reasoning of any kind. Knowing this I am skeptical of ideas that do not have sufficient evidence for them. Knowing this I try as best as I possibly can to only accept science based reasoning. Science is the only hope out of this epistemological morass. How can you possibly counter this? How can any believer counter this? Believers can only do so out of ignorance, pure ignorance, willful ignorance, a head-in-the-sand type of fear based ignorance.
The topic was
How Should Atheists Talk about Religion? Beginning around -42:11 PZ Myers has a string of invectives against faith. I'd like it if someone would type them out for us, as well as any other pithy comments of his (or Epstein's) in this lively debate. Myers is spot on about faith.
Why can't Christians agree? The following is from an older email exchange Dan and I had.
I recently saw a church sign that said, "Feed your faith and it will starve your doubts."
Take a look. Care to add your own?