Best Religious/Nonreligious Debate Ever

[_Scottie]

LOL

I liked this one better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7P7uZF ... re=channel

[_MrStakhanovite]

Lostindc is mostly right. I don't agree with his characterization of Dawkins, but the actual arguments against God's existence does not pass muster with any atheological Philosophers that I know of. Dawkins has wrote some great stuff, but I think God Delusion is his worst work by far. His rabid fans are some of the most tedious people to ever deal with (in other forums we call them Dawkfags) and can easily be compared to religion.

[_Some Schmo]

I liked this one better...

That was hilarious.

Lostindc is mostly right. I don't agree with his characterization of Dawkins, but the actual arguments against God's existence does not pass muster with any atheological Philosophers that I know of. Dawkins has wrote some great stuff, but I think God Delusion is his worst work by far. His rabid fans are some of the most tedious people to ever deal with (in other forums we call them Dawkfags) and can easily be compared to religion.

While I doubt lostindc will accept the challenge, perhaps you will. Let me know what argument(s) you think are bad (I actually think a few arguments are weak as well, but I'd really love to hear lostindc's opinion... I bet he thinks certain arguments are bad for horrendous reasons).

But I don't think it was a terrible book. I think he makes several cogent points.

And really? Dawkfags? This name helps your side win arguments?

[_MrStakhanovite]

While I doubt lostindc will accept the challenge, perhaps you will. Let me know what argument(s) you think are bad (I actually think a few arguments are weak as well, but I'd really love to hear lostindc's opinion... I bet he thinks certain arguments are bad for horrendous reasons).

I'll PM you a PDF from a Philosophy Journal that covers it. If anyone else wants it, they need just to ask.

And really? Dawkfags? This name helps your side win arguments?

The term is used (rightly so) to mock and belittle them, not to win arguments. I don't know what my side is, but when people have secular baby naming ceremoniesin which the Arch-Bishop Dawkins helps administer, they are just asking to be made fun of. Guideparents instead of Godparents? Look at this blog entry about it:

Secular Student Alliance Advisory Board member Richard Dawkins also participated in the ceremony along with IHS President Larry Jones, IHS Legislative Liaison Jennifer Lange, Camp Quest Director Amanda Metskas, IHS Board Member Bobbie Krikhart, Camp Quest Co-founders Edwin and Helen Kagin, and Secular Student Alliance Executive Director August E. Brunsman IV. Shannon's mother also participated in the ceremony--to the best of our knowledge, she is not officially affiliated with any freethought organizations.

Do we really need to point out the mother is not part of any freethought organizations?


Dawkfags. All of them.

[_Some Schmo]

While I doubt lostindc will accept the challenge, perhaps you will. Let me know what argument(s) you think are bad (I actually think a few arguments are weak as well, but I'd really love to hear lostindc's opinion... I bet he thinks certain arguments are bad for horrendous reasons).

I'll PM you a PDF from a Philosophy Journal that covers it. If anyone else wants it, they need just to ask.

Thanks for sending. I just got about halfway through it and basically got to the meat of their (and apparently your) main objection. While I do agree that Dawkins could have been more specific in his definition of "complexity" (as in, god would have to be equally complex) and feel that it's one of the weaknesses of the book, I don't think the "you're not attacking the kind of god I believe in" counterargument is very good, and I certainly think the "God is beyond existence" argument by neo-religionists is among the dumbest BS arguments available, which is the flavor I started smelling in that article before coming to make this post (I had to write this while I was thinking about it).

It seems to me the new theist strategy is to move the goalposts on god, shift the definition every time the current one is debunked, so that you can never argue him out of existence. That's the convenient thing about an imaginary friend; he can be anything you want him to be, including purposefully above/beyond existence.

[_Chap]

And really? Dawkfags? This name helps your side win arguments?

The term is used (rightly so) to mock and belittle them, not to win arguments. I don't know what my side is, but when people have secular baby naming ceremoniesin which the Arch-Bishop Dawkins helps administer, they are just asking to be made fun of. Guideparents instead of Godparents? Look at this blog entry about it:

Secular Student Alliance Advisory Board member Richard Dawkins also participated in the ceremony along with IHS President Larry Jones, IHS Legislative Liaison Jennifer Lange, Camp Quest Director Amanda Metskas, IHS Board Member Bobbie Krikhart, Camp Quest Co-founders Edwin and Helen Kagin, and Secular Student Alliance Executive Director August E. Brunsman IV. Shannon's mother also participated in the ceremony--to the best of our knowledge, she is not officially affiliated with any freethought organizations.

Do we really need to point out the mother is not part of any freethought organizations?

Dawkfags. All of them.

MrStakhanovite may of course coin any terms he likes for people he disagrees with (see other posts by me elsewhere), though I am not quite sure why he thinks 'fag' is a good suffix in this case - does it not mislead people into thinking that supporters of Dawkins are alleged to be homosexual, which is clearly not the case? But that is not what I wanted to post about.

I have never taken part in an explicitly secular baby naming ceremony, though I have taken part in several nominally religious ones where I am pretty sure that the parents and 'godparents' had no actual religious belief, and just wanted to welcome the new arrival in a nice building and in a way that set the greeting apart from a mere 'Hi! what a lovely baby - what's his name?'.

However, thinking it over, if I compare these two hypothetical ceremonies:

(A) The parents and their friends take the baby into a building dedicated to calling upon a non-existent being and to paying that being extravagant compliments, and then formally name the child and ask that non-existent being to protect and guide him or her, while adults other than the parents promise on the infant's behalf that he or she will follow the supposed wishes of that non-existent being henceforth.

(B) The parents and their friends (having no belief in the existence of the being whose existence is supposed in ceremony A) meet in a place of their choosing, and in a mode of their choosing formally name the child and welcome him to the human community. Adults other than the parents promise to help the child in the life that lies ahead.

I fail to see that the ceremonial modes used in (A) have to be treated with respect, whatever they may be, while those in (B) deserve derision, whatever they may be, because no belief in an imaginary being is involved. Why does religious belief bring one these special privileges, I wonder?

(Of course it would see silly if Dawkins took part in such ceremonies bearing the title of Archbishop. But he doesn't: that is just a fantasy on MrStakhanovite's part and is irrelevant to serious discussion.)

[_Molok]

Lostindc is mostly right. I don't agree with his characterization of Dawkins, but the actual arguments against God's existence does not pass muster with any atheological Philosophers that I know of. Dawkins has wrote some great stuff, but I think God Delusion is his worst work by far. His rabid fans are some of the most tedious people to ever deal with (in other forums we call them Dawkfags) and can easily be compared to religion.

The other forum wouldn't happen to be 4chan, now would it?

[_MrStakhanovite]

My main objection would be from the book itself. On page 157, Dawkins lays out his argument:

This chapter has contained the central argument of my book, and so, at the risk of sounding repetitive, I shall summarize it as a series of six numbered points.

1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect… has been to explain how the
complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.

2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design
itself…

3. The temptation is a false one, because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer… It is obviously no solution to postulate something even more improbable [than the design itself]…

4. The most ingenious and powerful [explanation of complexity] so far discovered is
Darwinian evolution by natural selection…

5. We don’t yet have an equivalent [theory] for physics. Some kind of multiverse theory
could in principle do for physics the same explanatory work as Darwinism does for
biology…

6. We should not give up hope of a better [theory] arising in physics, something as
powerful as Darwinism is for biology…

With those 6 premises, he concludes thus:

If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion- the God Hypothesis- is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist.

You can't get 'God does not exist' from those 6 premises, it's totally invalid. The paper I sent you tried to fix this, but it still doesn't work.

I don't think the "you're not attacking the kind of god I believe in" counterargument is very good

The idea that the God of Christianity is transcendent has been around since the Middle Ages. Plato and Aristotle argued for something similar (their understanding of what is "divine" is a lot different then your classical Theists) so I don't think the response is Ad Hoc.

I fail to see that the ceremonial modes used in (A) have to be treated with respect, whatever they may be, while those in (B) deserve derision, whatever they may be, because no belief in an imaginary being is involved. Why does religious belief bring one these special privileges, I wonder?

Neither of them are to be treated with respect, but (B) was a faux-religious ceremony done at a atheist convention so big names could participate. Also at this same convention, they had "de-baptisms" where people where "blessed" with a blow dryer. If you make blogs, write books, and hold conventions to cry about religion, just so you can mimic and not even realize you have become the secular version of TBN, you deserve all the scorn, mocking, and insults that can be heaped on you.

[_MrStakhanovite]

The other forum wouldn't happen to be 4chan, now would it?

Don't think for a second I didn't see Moral Bear for what he was. I don't have the honor of being a /B/tard however.

[_Some Schmo]

I don't think the "you're not attacking the kind of god I believe in" counterargument is very good

The idea that the God of Christianity is transcendent has been around since the Middle Ages. Plato and Aristotle argued for something similar (their understanding of what is "divine" is a lot different then your classical Theists) so I don't think the response is Ad Hoc.

Well, first off, I highly doubt (although I could be wrong) that Plato and Aristotle meant that god was transcendent of existence itself (as though the very thought of existence was beneath him). "Yeah, I don't do existence. How passé, retro-beginning-of-time is that? Not for me, bubba!"

And secondly, I also highly doubt that you average theist thinks of god in the same terms as Plato and Aristotle. Dawkins wasn't arguing against some esoteric, philosophical god. He was arguing against your banal, joe church-goer god.

And the fact remains, there's a definition of god for every single person who believes in a god (that's what I now think of when I hear the term "personal god." Oh yeah, he's personal all right). If the objection is that Dawkins didn't cover every single god concept, well, that's not much of an criticism at all.

Neither of them are to be treated with respect, but (B) was a faux-religious ceremony done at a atheist convention so big names could participate. Also at this same convention, they had "de-baptisms" where people where "blessed" with a blow dryer. If you make blogs, write books, and hold conventions to cry about religion, just so you can mimic and not even realize you have become the secular version of TBN, you deserve all the scorn, mocking, and insults that can be heaped on you.

When South Park satirizes a drama, does it become a drama? If it makes fun of a religion, does it then become a religion?

Do you really think Dawkins and Co are unaware that these kinds of ceremonies could be construed as ritualistic? Do you really think they think of them as rituals? I think not understanding what they're doing deserves far more scorn, mocking, and insults than holding the silly "rituals" in the first place.

Look, it's one thing to criticize arguments and ideas, but it's not then fair to extrapolate from certain weak arguments that Dawkins is a complete idiot.