[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Dan and his faulty reasoning against the ‘Intelligent design’ model can suck my dick. [/quote]
Nothing says “debate over”, quite like offers of fellatio.
And you accuse me of being emotive!? LOL[/quote]
You got me there, I can be and am sometimes emotive, but it’s not the basis for my faith or the logic that backs it up. Rather than picking up on people who have an axe to grind with something, you need to go to sources that are without bias, that don’t have a horse in the race. People who know the subject matter rather than interested in an opinion piece.[/quote]
The atheist thinkers and authors in which I’ve read, I assure you, have a great understanding of MANY of the versions of the bible. I would also say that they have a great understanding of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, etc.; not just of Christianity. I would also bet that their knowledge of what’s written in the holy books of the worlds religions is of a greater understanding than 99% of the believers out their who subscribe to these religions.
These authors are not merely writing “opinion pieces”, as you say, but offer a genuine criticism for religions of all stripes, and an intelligent rebuttal to the false notion that we have any reason to believe that there’s a god.
Counseling me to find an unbiased source in the arena of religious writing? Well…you are an optimist.
[quote]Pat wrote:
You claim to search for truth, you haven’t even begun. You read a couple of highly biased books. Your thoughts on what religion is and what religion people are, is wrong. And your basis for your atheism is weak.[/quote]
I come from a childhood of serious religious upbringing, CCD classes, Sunday school, Awana’s, and the whole Catholic nine yards. While I will admit to not having read the bible from cover to cover, I’ve read quite a bit of it. I assure you, that I’ve had more than enough christian indoctrination and reading. I could swim in atheist teachings and books for the next 30 years and I’d only be catching up to the christian influence I’ve already been subjected to. No, I’ll say that I’m not wrong, I just see religion for what it is.
[quote]Pat wrote:
I can’t help it if you’ve already made up your mind, but you cannot claim to seek truth and fact when you lack them in so many facets.
The fact is this, I have an argument for God that has never been refuted and you damn sure haven’t even come close. It’s based on deduction, if you know about deduction it has two very specific things about it that make it rock ass solid. If the premises are correct, and the conclusion that is drawn from them is accurate according to the premises, then the conclusion is necessarily true.[/quote]
Your entire argument from contingency, and that of anyone who argues from contingency, is based on selective regression. You see, contingency argues for regression as well, yet for your faith based reasoning to work, you have to invoke god as a terminator to this regression. It simply fails to make proof of a god. In this discussion of ours, you’ve said a few times that you don’t care if the bible is wrong, and seem to be making less of an argument for theism, and more of an argument for deism. This is why I asked you earlier about how you view the nature of your god, because this is important. It’s this very nature of “god”, that forms the basis for religion. Physics may give us proof someday for the creation of the universe, and if that proof turns out to be something quite to the contrary of an omniscient, omnipotent god, who listens to prayers, watches over every soul, cares who you are screwing, whether or not you’ve confessed enough, etc.; what then for the believers?
Are you a deist, or a theist?
If you’re a theist, as you claim to be, then it will be very important for you to make a claim to a god resembling that which is found in the bible. A god that knows who you are, listens to your prayers, cares what food you stuff into your grocery hole, cares if you’ve confessed in the proper manner, cares who you go to bed with and what position you use with that partner, and even what you’re thinking (of which you may or may not be convicted of and sent to hell). To be a theist, you have to believe in these ridiculous claims; good luck with that.
At best, contingency can make a claim to deism…at best. But just because there may have been a first mover, that does not mean that this prime mover had any of the above attributes. None; no reason to believe this at all. To believe these things require a shit ton of religion and corresponding faith. So you see, you have absolutely ZERO proof of god. As Hitches has said, even Aquinas couldn’t make that jump from deism to theism. Dawkins by the way, tears into all five of Aquinas’s five “proofs”, and correctly points out that his first three are basically different ways of saying the same thing.
[quote]Pat wrote:
I have heard far better atheist counter arguments than you presented. You’d do far better studying guys like David Hume who were true geniuses, not drive by atheists who use the ‘God is a big meany in the bible argument’. Thinking he was mean doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. It’s a useless argument. Further it’s a misunderstand of scripture. Things written for 6th and 7th BC middle east uneducated nomads, is going to sound strange to a 21rst century American.
You can be atheist all you want, but don’t say your seeking truth. You’re merely seeking to ram you atheism down anybody’s throat who will lend you an ear. But as evidenced, it breaks down under scrutiny. [/quote]
Your god, as described in the bible, is indeed a big meany, and absolutely all of the things that Dawkins described him to be. Thankfully he is only a character of fiction. And yes, your religion was born out of a time, and in a region of the world, where sheer ignorance reigned. These are the people that gave you your religion; people who knew shit about nothing.
Fact is, neither of us can prove or disprove a creator. Oh, I enjoy telling people that “there is no god”, but you and I both know that I cannot disprove a creator anymore than you can provide proof of your god. Here’s the good news for me as an atheist, I don’t have to disprove something that there is no proof of! None, no proof. As an atheist, I simply have no reason to believe in god, and that’s the crux of it. I have NO reason to believe in any of the gods. It’s more reasonable for me to claim no reason to believe in a god, than it is for you to believe in a god. Your belief requires faith and plenty of it, mine requires none.
You make the claim to your god, you have the burden of proof.
[/quote]
Ill answer on pat’s behalf. Even though I have an exam tomorrow and the day after.
Of three of the four people you have quoted only one is a philosopher. Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” misrepresents Thomas Aquinas arguments so as to set up a strawman and in addition doesn’t have rudimentary understanding of logic so as to understand what he is putting forth is a fallacy. As for Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins advancing the charge that God is such a big meanie is their best case except that they are unknowledgeable that this argument was put forward in a much more succinct manner by Epicurus called the problem of evil and variants of it. Too bad the logical and evidential versions have been defeated.
As for Daniel Dennet though he has a better grasp on logic attacks a teleological argument that isn’t currently defended by theist. He would have to attack the one by Robbin Collins since all of the universal constants are preloaded in the beginning of our contingent existence. I can understand Pat’s frustration when promulgating straw men and fallacies from these men.
No he isn’t a deist but what the argument does give you is that there is one being from which everything else derives its existence. The explanation for why a contingent thing exist is that this being has a will that chose to bring it into existence and is not some abstract object. Why the Christian God instead of a deistic God who set the universe in motion and left it to its own devices. Well I guess Pat would also put forth the moral argument where goodness is embodied in the being of God, the ontological argument which covers a huge swath of his properties and perfections etc… which rules out all other Gods but the Christian one and finally it would rest on Jesus Christ, how he tied all of these things together, his impact on history and personal experience.
You posted a video of Dennett, here is a critic of him where Dennett answers.
Sorry if I won’t be able to answer sufficiently well until Wednesday.
