Kirk Cameron proved that God exists. Take that, atheists!

[Revtim]

http://www.slate.com/id/2165986?nav=tap3

In Cameron's introductory remarks at the debate—which can be seen at something like its full and numbing length at abcnews.go.com—he coolly claimed that "the existence of God can be proven 100 percent, absolutely without the use of faith." First, I grew excited at this promise, then began to wonder why no theologian, philosopher, or sitcom star in recorded history had done it before—Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Tina Yothers, whoever—and realized I was in for a letdown.

the God Squad had but three arguments on behalf of the big guy: All things have makers; the human conscience is evidence of a higher moral power; if you read the Gospel, then Christ will be revealed to you.

Man, and I thought the banana thing was convincing.....

[Tuckerfan]

You know, if he'd have gone the way of other child stars, with the drugs, orgies, and lavish lifestyle, before winding up in the gutter, or pimping himself in strange ways on "reality TV" like Danny Bonnaduce, I could feel sorry for the guy. Now, however, all I feel is something like contempt, mixed with the disgust you get when you find you've stepped in dog poop.

[glee]

All things have makers ... apart from God.

[Kneepants Erasmus, the Humanist]

Ah. That's always been my favorite argument. "God is real because it says so in the Bible."


If that's not proof I don't know what is.

[Subterraneanus]

Who the fuck is Kirk Cameron?

No, wait—I don't really want to know.

[Tuckerfan]

Originally Posted by Subterraneanus

Who the fuck is Kirk Cameron?

No, wait—I don't really want to know.

He's the nimrod who thinks that God designed bananas with a handy pull tab.

[The Librarian]

Originally Posted by Tuckerfan

He's the nimrod who thinks that God designed bananas with a handy pull tab.

Are these people able to go to the toilet unaided?

[Tuckerfan]

Originally Posted by The Librarian

Are these people able to go to the toilet unaided?

Yes, and even more frighteningly, many of them have spawned!

[The Librarian]

Go froth and..

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by Revtim

http://www.slate.com/id/2165986?nav=tap3

You think reading about it on Slate was bad. . . I actually saw part of the debate on Nightline. Oh my!

[BrainGlutton]

The most disturbing part is this:

In the other corner were two representatives of the Rational Response Squad, one operating under the nom de guerre Brian Sapient, the other introduced as "his colleague, known as Kelly." (The two have received enough death threats from the lambs of Jesus that they find it wise to obscure their surnames.)

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by The Librarian

Go froth and..

That sounds like a good idea, I think I'll have a cappuchino.

[Guinastasia]

Well, Kirk Cameron is proof that God wants to give us something to laugh at.

[zelie zelerton]

Take that, atheists!

Oh I feel so pwnzrd.

[tomndebb]

There is a long tradition among actors that it generally takes a fairly bright person to portray an idiot or a fool or a ditz. Gracie Allen, for example, is reputed to have been very smart. Of course, then you have the counter-examples where a complete idiot was simply typecast as a complete idiot: Kirk Cameron.

[TV time]

Originally Posted by Kneepants Erasmus, the Humanist

Ah. That's always been my favorite argument. "God is real because it says so in the Bible."


If that's not proof I don't know what is.

Well, It still doesn't answer why God spelled backwards is,...(wait for it) dog.

So, I'm not totally convinced - closer, to be sure, but not all the way there.

[ForumBot]

At one point, Cameron, mocking the theory of evolution, held up a photo-illustration of a duck with the head of crocodile.

Argh, my logical capabilities! They melt before the prowess of the crocoduck!

[Subterraneanus]

Originally Posted by ForumBot

Argh, my logical capabilities! They melt before the prowess of the crocoduck!

[asterion]

Originally Posted by ForumBot

Argh, my logical capabilities! They melt before the prowess of the crocoduck!

Isn't that one of the newest Pokemon?

[Ol'Gaffer]

Originally Posted by ForumBot

Argh, my logical capabilities! They melt before the prowess of the crocoduck!

I love it! Reminds of the Kids in the Hall and the spitty-slurpy sketch.

"Where's your science now?"

[Wile E]

At one point, Cameron, mocking the theory of evolution, held up a photo-illustration of a duck with the head of crocodile.

Originally Posted by ForumBot

Argh, my logical capabilities! They melt before the prowess of the crocoduck!

I've got the head of a crocodile
Body of a duck
and when I move my webbed feet
I just really suck
Oh I hate me, I hate me!
Oh I hate myself!
I've got the "I'm disproof of evolution" bluuuuueees!

[Little Nemo]

Atheists vs theists? That's no fun. They needed to throw in some other religions to mix it up.

Kirk: "All things have makers."
Abdul: "I agree."
Kirk: "The human conscience is evidence of a higher moral power."
Abdul: "Again, I agree."
Kirk: "And if you-"
Abdul: "If I may interrupt for a second, I just want to add that if you read the Koran, then Allah will be revealed to you. Now what where you saying, Kirk?"
Kirk: "Well, it's going to sound a lot less convincing now..."

[Chronos]

if you read the Gospel, then Christ will be revealed to you.

Y'know what's really funny? The only people I know who have read the entire Bible, are all atheists.

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Y'know what's really funny? The only people I know who have read the entire Bible, are all atheists.

It's not a bad read if you can get past all the begatting.

[Menocchio]

This is to the serious ontological arguments as The Chewbacca Defense is to serious law.

And I've never heard an ontological argument that I've found at all convincing.

"LOOK AT THE MONKEY! LOOK AT THE SILLY MONKEY!"

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Y'know what's really funny? The only people I know who have read the entire Bible, are all atheists.

"Know" people IRL, I presume, as there are a number of Christian posters on this board who have read the whole thing (along with several Jewish posters who have read the entire Tanakh.)

[Heffalump and Roo]

tomndebb,

OK, this may be a silly question, but it's not like I haven't asked those before. But I'm really curious about this. When Christians make poor arguments like the ones that Kirk Cameron made, how does it make you feel as a Christian? I think that if I called myself a Christian, I might feel embarrassed that other people thought that my position was so poorly supported. Oddly, I don't have that same feeling if I called myself an atheist/agnostic. But what are your thoughts (or any other Christian's) about this?

[Snarky_Kong]

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

tomndebb,

OK, this may be a silly question, but it's not like I haven't asked those before. But I'm really curious about this. When Christians make poor arguments like the ones that Kirk Cameron made, how does it make you feel as a Christian? I think that if I called myself a Christian, I might feel embarrassed that other people thought that my position was so poorly supported. Oddly, I don't have that same feeling if I called myself an atheist/agnostic. But what are your thoughts (or any other Christian's) about this?

Obviously I'm not tomndebb but I was just off looking at some of these types of videos on youtube. One of them was an atheist rebuttal, and they claimed that the big bad was when two giants "things" hit each other. So yeah, I was kind of embarrassed about it.

[wolf_meister]

Up until this thread, I thought I was an atheist.
Now after reading all this incontrovertible "proof" I better get myself to a church right away!!!

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by wolf_meister

Up until this thread, I thought I was an atheist.
Now after reading all this incontrovertible "proof" I better get myself to a church right away!!!

Well, if you had watched the debate on TV, you might not want to be either.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

When Christians make poor arguments like the ones that Kirk Cameron made, how does it make you feel as a Christian?

As, presumably, a supporter of representative democracy, how do you feel that over half of the people who bothered to vote in the last presidential election chose GWB, (or, alternatively, that nearly half of those who bothered to vote opposed him)?

The label "Christian" conveys a the idea of membership in a huge group based on a very limited number of criteria--at its broadest, simply thinking that a purported itenerant preacher in the first century Levant was a nice guy with some good thoughts about how people should live.

If I were going to be embarrased by someone else's behavior, I might decide that Bill Donohue, a college educated lay Catholic (as am I), casts a shadow on my life by his relentless foolishness in running the Catholic League (into the ground) making a profession of taking umbrage at jokes and irrelevant comments by other people. In point of fact, however, I have no control over the thoughts or actions of other persons who may share a few or even many of the same beliefs I do on particular topics. In the case of Cameron, our points of agreement are pretty narrow in scope (and we disagree pretty strongly regarding the meaning of even many of the beliefs that we purportedly share). If you look at the last three times I was Pitted, (coincidentally, I am sure, by unbelievers), you will find a significant number of posters who hold no religious beliefs distancing themselves from the people who launched the attacks. While i certainly appreciated those comments that supported me, it would have never occurred to me to presume that everyone whose belief was more similar to the Pitters also shared any deficits of character or intelligence with those posters who were angry at me.

Christians have been squabbling over belief since the time of Paul. Humans like to parse their beliefs (or lack) in hundreds of ways. I am not responsible for the beliefs held by another and I do not lump together as though they operated with Borg-like unity those who share beliefs that I do not.

Cameron's status as a Christian has no bearing on my beliefs (and, I suspect, his brand of Christianity may be one of those that claims I, as a Catholic, am not Christian, anyway), so his beliefs are pretty much irrelevant to me.

[Auntbeast]

*Mind Boggles*

How are catholics not considered christians? Am I missing something? I know you have Mary down pat...did ya'll some how lose Jesus at the local Wal-mart?

[Heffalump and Roo]

Thanks for your answer.

Originally Posted by tomndebb

As, presumably, a supporter of representative democracy, how do you feel that over half of the people who bothered to vote in the last presidential election chose GWB, (or, alternatively, that nearly half of those who bothered to vote opposed him)?

That's a great analogy because I've noticed over the past several years that many Americans on message boards have apologized to people of other countries for the embarrassment they felt over the actions of GWB.

And yet regardless of how outrageous the actions of *some* Christians ostensibly based on their beliefs (for instance, some Christians killing abortion doctors), almost every Christian that I've spoken with has this same reaction that you're expressing below.

Originally Posted by tomndebb

Cameron's status as a Christian has no bearing on my beliefs

Are there any groups which you belong to in which you'd be embarrassed if some member of your group did something you felt was wrong?

Does this feeling that you have extend to all groups or just your status as being a Christian? And is that just because membership is so open based on a potentially broad belief?

Do you feel embarrassment if someone of your race does something to someone of another race because of prejudice? Oddly, I do and that's not even a matter of choice.

[Chronos]

One of them was an atheist rebuttal, and they claimed that the big bad was when two giants "things" hit each other.

Assuming that "big bad" is a typo for "big bang", one model of the Big Bang which is currently in vogue does, in fact, involve a collision between two branes. There are still plenty of non-brane models out there, though, and I'm not sure what the relevance of the brane models is to metaphysical cosmogeny.

And I should have specified folks I know to have read the entire Bible. There are several folks I know, both here and offline, of whom I would not be surprised to learn that they've read the whole thing, but there are none of whom I specifically know that to be the case. Regardless, the point is that it's quite possible to read it without being convinced.

[Little Nemo]

How are catholics not considered christians? Am I missing something?

There are some fundamentalist Christians who will openly state that they do not consider Roman Catholics to be Christians. It's a doctrinal dispute - these Christians feel that only people who accept Jesus directly as their personal savior are true Christians. Catholics, who believe that there are intermediaries between God and most people (ie the Pope, the priesthood, saints, etc), are therefore not true Christians.

[Cervaise]

Originally Posted by Auntbeast

How are catholics not considered christians? Am I missing something?

Behold The Death Cookie.

[Rigamarole]

Originally Posted by Tuckerfan

He's the nimrod who thinks that God designed bananas with a handy pull tab.

But bananas do have a handy pull tab! I can't imagine any other explanation for it.

[Baraqiyal]

I just watched it. I'll bet that Kirk and Ray are going to report back to their viewers and proclaim that they “trounced” the atheists, making mincemeat out of their shallow arguments, or if they don't want to flat out lie, play the persecution card and state that the debate was rigged against them somehow.

The highlight was when Kirk pulled out the graphic of the duck with the crocodile head, and the atheist saying something like “Oh my god...”.

Another eye rolling moment is when Ray told the atheist not to put so much faith in history books and more faith in God. And all the times Kirk said to just open your heart to God. Isn't the existence of God what they were there to establish?

[betenoir]

Originally Posted by Rigamarole

But bananas do have a handy pull tab! I can't imagine any other explanation for it.

Then explain coconuts.

[Mangetout]

Universe means 'one spoken sentence', and that proves God spoke the universe into existence, because as everyone knows, God speaks English.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

Are there any groups which you belong to in which you'd be embarrassed if some member of your group did something you felt was wrong?

I'd have to think about that. For me to be embarrassed, I think I would have to have some control over how the group behaved and saw my control or persuasion as having failed.

Embarrassed because some white guy was racist? Why? How do I own his actions because of an accident of melanin in my skin? I certainly do not hold blacks to any guilt by association when a person of that birth (or cultural background) does something evil or foolish. Do I have to be embarrassed that Charles Whitman was white? Does every black person, (or even every black person in the U.S.) have to be embarrassed that John Allen Muhammad is black?

In thinking it over, I guess I might have been embarrassed if some kid at my 300 student high school had trashed some other school's property in an excessive display of "school spirit" or I would have probably been embarrassed when I worked at a small consulting firm if one of my co-workers had really hacked a project, because my name would have been intimately associated with their actions through our (relatively small) community. But had I gone to school at some university of 35,000 students, I cannot see how I would have been embarrassed if some kid from a distant department was caught cheating. (Have you ever been embarrassed to live in a large city because there were rapists, murderers, or child abusers in that city?)

My parish has over two thousand families (giving nearly 10,000 people). How am I supposed to be responsible for all of their actions?
My denomination has nearly a billion adherents.
Christianity makes up around one third of the world's population.
(Even atheism has a few wing-nuts; do SDMB atheists have to be embarrassed when one of them acts dumb?)

I find it difficult to see how anyone would choose to be embarrassed by some other person having some limited number of beliefs in common simply because at some level of human sorting, lumping, and splitting each of us has been thrown into a column with the same heading.

[Annie-Xmas]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

Universe means 'one spoken sentence', and that proves God spoke the universe into existence, because as everyone knows, God speaks English.

If English was good enough for Jesus

[VunderBob]

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

tomndebb,

OK, this may be a silly question, but it's not like I haven't asked those before. But I'm really curious about this. When Christians make poor arguments like the ones that Kirk Cameron made, how does it make you feel as a Christian? I think that if I called myself a Christian, I might feel embarrassed that other people thought that my position was so poorly supported. Oddly, I don't have that same feeling if I called myself an atheist/agnostic. But what are your thoughts (or any other Christian's) about this?

When something like this happens, I say this prayer:

Dear God,

I think you're pretty cool, but please Please PLEASE protect me from your fan club.

Amen

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Auntbeast

How are catholics not considered christians?

They can tell you better than I can. (Personally, I confess to being Christian.)
The Roman Catholic "Church" is Not Christian
5 Reasons Why Catholic is not Christian
10 Scriptural Reasons Roman Catholics are not Christian

[Sapo]

Originally Posted by betenoir

Then explain coconuts.

Made by Satan, of course.

[Sapo]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Y'know what's really funny? The only people I know who have read the entire Bible, are all atheists.

Do you mean "know" in a biblical sense?

[OneCentStamp]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

They can tell you better than I can. (Personally, I confess to being Christian.)
The Roman Catholic "Church" is Not Christian
5 Reasons Why Catholic is not Christian
10 Scriptural Reasons Roman Catholics are not Christian

Dude, the stupid is burning my hands when I try to open the links. I'm not saying the links are broken (I can't get close enough to click one them), only that they're very, very dangerous.

[ArizonaTeach]

Originally Posted by Wile E

It's not a bad read if you can get past all the begatting.

Well, if you skip that part, all you can really masturbate to is the illuminations, and there's really not enough skin.

Kirk Cameron must hate me so.

[Count Blucher]

Originally Posted by glee

All things have makers ... apart from God.

And if Kirk had bothered reading his mail, he wouldn't have missed his recall...

[Cervaise]

Originally Posted by glee

All things have makers ... apart from God.

And all makers have things... including God. Hung like a Titan, he is.