# Atheists, why debate christians? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681 "2011-08-30T21:49:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/401 "2011-09-03T21:50:06Z")
> [@enigmatic](#): > > If you think that “I am unwilling to reject the possibility that the universe was created” is an extreme position, I can only conclude you are new to this theology shit 😃 Oh I wish! In any case, the extreme position to which I referred was one that The Hamster King suggested (not one that he/she subscribed to I hasten to add) > [@](#): > > I have no intention to stifle debate on this stuff I’ll accept that you don’t, but as others have said…plenty of people do seek to do precisely that. They resort to meta-physical hand waving rather than speak plainly. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/402 "2011-09-04T00:01:45Z")
> [@Galileo](#): > > Something to contribute? Do you mean something about Daffy Duck, or some sweeping generalizations, or some comments about wasting everyone’s time? :rolleyes: > Mockery, ridicule, intimidation, hyperbole, and glib dismissals can be effective if the intent is to shut down discussion, but not if the intent is to engage someone in a meaningful debate. Humorous posts are never a waste of time. Especially when they make a point, like the Daffy section did. The point of Daffy, the IPU, the FSM, and similar is to point out that traditional god belief is a case of special pleading, where those who use proper logic to refute such entities refuse to use it on those they believe in. None of this is intended to shut down discussion - only force people to look at their beliefs in a slightly different way. > [@](#): > > The title of this thread and the OP suggest that this thread is a debate about debating. I am not viewing it as another opportunity to argue against those who believe in the existence of god. > > I think that you are one of the more reasonable debaters among the SDMB fraternity of atheists. You are intelligent, educated and you acknowledge your limitations, eg. that you are not an expert in Christian theology. But even you sometimes succumb to cheap rhetoric. (Hey, so do I, but I try to be aware of it when I do it.) > > Your statement about arguments for god being simple and easy to refute started with “All”. Generally, I am skeptical of claims that start with “All”. I asked you to support your statement. You presented two arguments and then a few words of refutation. Do you think that two is the same as all? And do you really think that you refuted the arguments with a few words? > > Then, after admittiing that another poster presented arguments that were not easy to refute, you went from “All arguments” to “All arguments around here”, suggesting recent posts on SDMB. I suppose this was your indirect acknowledgement that your initial statement was not true. Fine. I’ve seen a lot of arguments in 40 years. I’ve also read quite a few books, including those by believing philosophers. Given that I’d expect the good arguments to be more prevalent than the not so good ones, I stand by all - with the proviso that I have to be willing to consider the ones I’ve never heard of before. Which I am. It is just like gods. If I say I believe there are no gods, I’m clearly believing that a god I’ve never heard of does not exist. That is clearly provisional, but is good enough, since your average theist believes that no gods but his exist anyway. In the good old days, when there were fewer places to debate on-line, places like alt.atheism and talk.origins got a better class of theistic argument than we do here. Here, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, your average believer stops by, discovers that the irrefutable argument for Jesus he got from his church bulletin doesn’t work all that well, and then goes to boards where his certainties won’t be challenged. > [@](#): > > But, then, in your most recent response to me (which I quoted above) you try to shift the burden of proof by asking me to provide arguments that you can’t refute. I’m not the one who made the statement about refuting “all” arguments. Proving my statement would require finding and writing down every argument for Jesus, and I don’t have the time or the inclination to do that. I did give evidence of it, in my list of the top arguments and my refutations. My statement is open to falsification, unlike many god beliefs, which I invited you, or anyone, to do. I don’t expect anyone to take my statement as a theory, even, but if true I’d expect to get support, and I did, from Dio, who has probably seen more arguments for Jesus than I ever will. The best argument for Jesus I’ve seen, by the way, is that of personal experience of several people. However Jesus never told any of them anything you couldn’t get from a self-help book, so I’m less than convinced. > [@](#): > > Also, your statement implied that anyone who believes in God is irrational, and that anyone that believes in the Christian God is laughably irrational. Perhaps you disagree with this implication. In any case, it’s a naive, simplistic dismissal of religious beliefs. Yes, the arguments for god can be refuted but if the structure of religious beliefs is as fragile as some atheists think it is, it would have crumbled centuries ago. This old chestnut. No, we all hold irrational beliefs without being totally irrational. I’d also wager that the vast majority of Christians got their faith from their parents and from forced exposure as children, and do not come to it rationally at all. Look how many Americans believe in creationism, an even less rational belief. Are they all irrational? Would you call almost all Republican presidential candidates irrational. (Well, you got me there.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/403 "2011-09-04T00:09:23Z")
> [@enigmatic](#): > > If you think that “I am unwilling to reject the possibility that the universe was created” is an extreme position, I can only conclude you are new to this theology shit 😃 > > I have no intention to stifle debate on this stuff, I’m just somewhat bewildered at the level of vitriol people seem to direct at the suggestion we are allowed to even _consider_ the possibility of a creator. I’m perfectly happy to accept the possibility that the universe was created. I suspect that someday we will be able to create universes also. What I don’t see, which we should, is the creator interfering or being involved. If the universe was created, it seems far more likely that the creator is on the other side of the event horizon. He might have set the constants, and that is about it. Who knows, we may be the result of a graduate level physics lab. Don’t laugh - when I was in college DNA sequencing was done in a few labs and was highly controversial - my daughter did it in a freshman bio class 35 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/404 "2011-09-04T02:53:08Z")
**Voyager** , I suspect that the average believer at SDMB is not certain at all. The name of my Sunday School class is “Who Knows?” I haven’t been attending lately, but they are a congenial group who shrug a lot. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/405 "2011-09-05T20:24:55Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > In the good old days, when there were fewer places to debate on-line, places like alt.atheism and talk.origins got a better class of theistic argument than we do here. Here, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, your average believer stops by, discovers that the irrefutable argument for Jesus he got from his church bulletin doesn’t work all that well, and then goes to boards where his certainties won’t be challenged. This. I’m new to these boards so have been going over quite a few of the religion-atheism debates and the pattern of people running off once they can’t support the god position anymore really is quite evident. Any chance those debates with a ’ better class of theistic argument’ are available online? ---
**Author:** ![Galileo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Galileo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galileo)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/406 "2011-09-05T23:08:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Humorous posts are never a waste of time. Cite? 😉 **Voyager** , I’ve already identified some flaws in your assertions, and I’ve explained what I’ve told you, and then I’ve explained to you what I explained. As far as I can tell, you haven’t agreed that there’s been anything wrong with your assertions. I am going to give it one last shot in this post. Whether you get my points or not, I will not be contributing again to this thread. It’s unlikely that you will agree with everything that I say but I invite you take an inquiring look at what I say and to look for points that you agree with. I will focus on your most recent post to me, but some of the points will be about your other posts. First, I’ll summarize the context of your first sentence, which I quoted above. You said that burden of proof was on me to defend the arguments that you listed and that, if I’ve got nothing, I can stop wasting your and everyone else’s time. I pointed out that I didn’t have the burden of proof, given that it was you who made the claims. And, being amused as I was at your silly statement about wasting everyone’s time, I responded with a statement about how I didn’t realize that I have control over your time and everyone else’s, so I must be some kind of god, followed by wink smilie. You continued to try to shift the burden of proof by asking me to refute arguments that 1) I didn’t make; and 2) you said were all “fairly simple” to refute, or “laughably easy” to refute. Then you continued the intimidation tactics of your previous post by saying that when I actually have something to contribute, let us know (“us” I guess being the other posters in the thread even though the exchange was between you and me.) So, twice you accused me of not contributing anything of value (rather than just asking me to clarify my points) and you continued to refuse to acknowledge that you hadn’t provided support for your claims about “all attempt at rational arguments for any god”. Then I said: > [@](#): > > Something to contribute? Do you mean something about Daffy Duck, or some sweeping generalizations, or some comments about wasting everyone’s time? > > Mockery, ridicule, intimidation, hyperbole, and glib dismissals can be effective if the intent is to shut down discussion, but not if the intent is to engage someone in a meaningful debate. The first sentence of your reply was what I quoted above: “Humorous posts are never a waste of time.” Period, end of sentence. No qualifiers, no conditions. You didn’t say “Humorous posts are not a waste of time if they make a point”. Even though you quoted my post in which I mention mockery, ridicule, intimidation, hyperbole, and glib dismissals, you ignored those points and present a response about humorous posts, as if that’s relevant. Why bother quoting me if you’re going to ignore what I say? Your \*Straw Man \*argument disregarded key points that I made and instead presented a superficially similar, but distorted position, and then you countered this distorted position. I did not say that humorous posts are a waste of time, so why are you arguing that they’re not? Next, what is the relevance of humor? It seems like a _non sequitur_, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that there is connection between “humor” and “mockery” and “ridicule”, even though several dictionary definitions that I reviewed did not make a direct connection. So that just means that you committed the _Fallacy of Composition_. Even if mockery and ridicule are connected to humor, I was not addressing humor in general, so your statement about “humorous posts” was off the mark. It’s like saying “I don’t like [some type of] music” and you respond, “Music is a good thing”. I didn’t say that music is a bad thing – I identified a specific type of music and you distorted my statement to include all types of music. Also, do you really think that humorous posts are _never_ a waste of time or is this just another example of sloppy arguing based on unsupported hyperbole? You ignored my other points just like some Christians ignore the evidence that contradicts their beliefs. You made contrived connections just like Matthew did between Jesus and the Old Testament, and you extended what I said in a way that is similar to how Paul changed Judaism. Perhaps you are presenting a subtle parody of Christianity. 😉 And, finally on the point of humorous posts, what evidence do you have that they are effective in “forcing” people to look at their beliefs in a slightly different way? (BTW, why are you trying to force anyone, and why do you think that it involves a way of looking at things that is only “slightly different”?) Next: > [@](#): > > I’ve seen a lot of arguments in 40 years. What is the relevance of this declaration? If you’ve seen a lot of arguments, then you must have written down many of them, along with your refutations of them. Why offer only two of them when I asked you to defend your assertion about all of them? Over the past 40 years, have you not compiled a list, some reference source? Also, have you presented your arguments to your congressmen (I think that you are American) to remove “In God We Trust” as the national motto, and remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance? After all, the refutations are laughably easy. Seems to me that one reason that SDMB atheists debate here is that it is easier to do it here than it is against people in authority in the real world. > [@](#): > > Proving my statement would require finding and writing down every argument for Jesus, and I don’t have the time or the inclination to do that. Let me get this straight: You have time to make a sweeping statement about “all arguments” but you can’t be bothered to prove that statement? Seems like intellectual dishonesty. It’s to avoid such dishonesty that I first asked you to retract the statement, which you haven’t done. You can revise your statement to “As far as I can tell, all arguments for the Christian god can be refuted, some of them very easily, some them require more effort.” Can you live with that? Also, on the issue of “refute”, do you really think that you can refute a long-held belief with a couple of words? Your examples are bit like trying to refute various scientific concepts. Let’s see: 1. The Earth does not rotate. If it did, we would all fly off of it. 2. Evolution can’t be true. I’ve never seen a monkey give birth a human. 3. The speed of light is constant? That’s ridiculous! Motion is relative – it says so right in the name of the theory. A refutation is more than showing that one particular point is wrong, and it doesn’t happen in isolation of counterarguments to the counterarguments. Religious beliefs are complex and interconnected. You can refute specific claims but that doesn’t automatically refute the concept of God. You seem to be suggesting otherwise. > [@](#): > > My statement is open to falsification, unlike many god beliefs, which I invited you, or anyone, to do. Now you’ve moved the goal posts. It’s no longer “my statement is true and I can demonstrate that it’s true”; it’s now “it is open to falsification". But it’s not enough to say that your statement is open to falsification. You need to provide how it could be falsified. In case you’ve forgotten, here is your statement: _The arguments for the Christian god as a special case for a god are laughably easy to refute._ Please explain how the statement could be falsified. How do you determine that an argument has been refuted and how do you determine that the refutation is laughably easy? Also, why is falsifiability necessary? You’re jumping to a conclusion without identifying and justifying the intervening premises. You are taking it for granted that everyone will agree with the implicit premises. Fine if they indeed do agree. Not a good approach if you’re trying to build a strong case against a position held by someone who does not accept those underlying premises. > [@](#): > > This old chestnut. Really? Please provide many, many other instances (and many _old_ instances) of my point: “If the structure of religious beliefs is as fragile as some atheists think it is, it would have crumbled centuries ago.” In retrospect, this discussion might have been avoided if, instead of asking for support for your claim, I said something like: “I agree that arguments for God can be questioned and some can be refuted, but I disagree that all of the refutations are ‘fairly simple’ and the ones for the Christian god are ‘laughably easy’”. In other words, if instead of just putting you on the spot and trying to get you to retract your statement if you couldn’t support it, I agreed with parts of your statement and asked you to clarify the rest. But, I decided to go with the simplistic atheist mantra of “you have the burden of proof”. And, as I pointed out in my first post on the subject, many atheist posters seem to be oblivious to the fact that they make claims, and that if those claims are questioned, the burden of proof is with the person who makes the claim, namely, the atheist. It’s not as if the only claim that needs to supported is “God exists”. One more thing: Over the years, I have taken the time to read and view various formal debates between atheists and (typically Christian) theists. I was interested in the best arguments and the best debating techniques, but I have disappointed many times by how incredibly weak the atheist’s arguments were, even if the atheist was an “expert”. I’ve seen atheists practically eviscerated by theists who were much better prepared and who had a better grasp of formal logic. The worst performances were by arrogant atheists who thought that they had formulated a new killer argument against Christianity, and the Christian casually destroyed the argument. Another mistake that atheists would make was to introduce a number of claims that couldn’t be supported. I see similar mistakes by SDMB atheists except that the opposition is either not as well-prepared or just can’t be bothered to participate in a forum which seems to have little interest in actually discussing religion, and where the apparent intent is to silence opponents as quickly as possible, using whatever works to achieve that result. Here are my suggestions: 1. Stick to disputing specific claims by Christians. 2. As a start, take comments at face value. 3. Don’t introduce analogies and comparisons that you think are “dead on” but that Christians think are just silly, unless you want to preach to the godless choir … 4. Respect your opponent’s intelligence. 5. Spend more time addressing religious issues in the real world and less time debating them on SDMB. And spend some time evaluating your approach in debating theists. Cheers! ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/407 "2011-09-05T23:11:51Z")
The fact that you think there need to be “arguments for atheism” show that you don’t understand the argument at all. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/408 "2011-09-05T23:27:35Z")
> [@Galileo](#): > > One more thing: Over the years, I have taken the time to read and view various formal debates between atheists and (typically Christian) theists. I was interested in the best arguments and the best debating techniques, but I have disappointed many times by how incredibly weak the atheist’s arguments were, even if the atheist was an “expert”. I’ve seen atheists practically eviscerated by theists who were much better prepared and who had a better grasp of formal logic. Those theists must have mounted a pretty strong defense of Christianity. Can you recall the specifics of their arguments? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/409 "2011-09-05T23:53:20Z")
> [@Galileo](#): > > _The arguments for the Christian god as a special case for a god are laughably easy to refute._ > Please explain how the statement could be falsified. Easy; post such an argument that he can’t refute. Instead of trying to divert the argument from the baselessness of your beliefs by complaining about him, _produce some evidence!_ > [@Galileo](#): > > Also, why is falsifiability necessary? Because since you have no evidence then it’s just an empty claim indistinguishable from an infinity of such empty and mutually exclusive claims. If you can’t prove it, and no one can disprove it then there’s nothing to show that it’s any more likely than claiming that the invisible chinchillas playing four dimensional chess on the surface of the Sun are in fact the creators of the universe. > [@Galileo](#): > > Please provide many, many other instances (and many _old_ instances) of my point: “If the structure of religious beliefs is as fragile as some atheists think it is, it would have crumbled centuries ago.” Say what? Religious belief is irrational; the fact that it is blatantly baseless and stupid doesn’t destroy it because the people who buy into it are too irrational or too stupid to care. And people have believed blatantly wrong things for thousands of years because it suited them, even things that weren’t religious in nature; all sorts of claims about the inferiority of women, for example. > [@Galileo](#): > > 1. Stick to disputing specific claims by Christians. > 2. As a start, take comments at face value. Believers shift the goalposts a lot, as well as use rhetorical tricks and outright lie. So that doesn’t work. And since there’s an infinity of imaginable gods and claims about gods, your suggestion just means that atheists literally can’t ever actually argue for atheism since it would take an infinite amount of time to refute every single one, one at a time. How convenient for you. > [@Galileo](#): > > 1. Don’t introduce analogies and comparisons that you think are “dead on” but that Christians think are just silly, unless you want to preach to the godless choir … Any honest analogy is going to be silly and insulting, because _religion_ is silly and contemptible. Basically, you want us to lie to make you feel better about believing in something ridiculous. And you don’t want to have to show why your beliefs are less silly than believing in Santa Claus or Flying Spaghetti Monsters, _because you can’t_ - the comparisons are _fair_ ones. Christianity, and religion in general _really is_ that ridiculous. > [@Galileo](#): > > 1. Respect your opponent’s intelligence. Why? Believing in gods is not a position worthy of intellectual respect. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The fact that you think there need to be “arguments for atheism” show that you don’t understand the argument at all. Exactly. One more time. _Atheism is the logical default_. > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Those theists must have mounted a pretty strong defense of Christianity. Can you recall the specifics of their arguments? No doubt there will be some reason that he/she can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/410 "2011-09-06T01:29:28Z")
> [@Galileo](#): > > **Voyager** , I’ve already identified some flaws in your assertions, and I’ve explained what I’ve told you, and then I’ve explained to you what I explained. As far as I can tell, you haven’t agreed that there’s been anything wrong with your assertions. I am going to give it one last shot in this post. Whether you get my points or not, I will not be contributing again to this thread. It’s unlikely that you will agree with everything that I say but I invite you take an inquiring look at what I say and to look for points that you agree with. I will focus on your most recent post to me, but some of the points will be about your other posts. > > First, I’ll summarize the context of your first sentence, which I quoted above. > > You said that burden of proof was on me to defend the arguments that you listed and that, if I’ve got nothing, I can stop wasting your and everyone else’s time. Well, no, actually. If I said the burden of proof was on you to totally disprove my argument, from nothing, I would have been as wrong as those who claim that the burden is on atheist to disprove god. However, I gave some of the major arguments for Christianity, with a sketch of their refutations. And I never even put the burden of proof on you. I just requested that if these arguments were not a complete list, you give me some others to refute. I stand by the use of “all” since it seems likely that the arguments that are not as common are weaker than the common ones. > [@](#): > > You continued to try to shift the burden of proof by asking me to refute arguments that 1) I didn’t make; and 2) you said were all “fairly simple” to refute, or “laughably easy” to refute. Then you continued the intimidation tactics of your previous post by saying that when I actually have something to contribute, let us know (“us” I guess being the other posters in the thread even though the exchange was between you and me.) I’ve never asked you to refute anything, as far as I can recall. As I said, I wasn’t interested in discussing arguments about God, which have been discussed over and over again, but ones about Jesus, which get a lot less attention here. > [@](#): > > Then I said:The first sentence of your reply was what I quoted above: “Humorous posts are never a waste of time.” Period, end of sentence. No qualifiers, no conditions. You didn’t say “Humorous posts are not a waste of time if they make a point”. > > Even though you quoted my post in which I mention mockery, ridicule, intimidation, hyperbole, and glib dismissals, you ignored those points and present a response about humorous posts, as if that’s relevant. Why bother quoting me if you’re going to ignore what I say? Your \*Straw Man \*argument disregarded key points that I made and instead presented a superficially similar, but distorted position, and then you countered this distorted position. I did not say that humorous posts are a waste of time, so why are you arguing that they’re not > Next, what is the relevance of humor? It seems like a _non sequitur_, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that there is connection between “humor” and “mockery” and “ridicule”, even though several dictionary definitions that I reviewed did not make a direct connection. So that just means that you committed the _Fallacy of Composition_. Even if mockery and ridicule are connected to humor, I was not addressing humor in general, so your statement about “humorous posts” was off the mark. It’s like saying “I don’t like [some type of] music” and you respond, “Music is a good thing”. I didn’t say that music is a bad thing – I identified a specific type of music and you distorted my statement to include all types of music. For me at least humorous posts (which work, anyway) are always relevant since they add spice to what could be dry discussions. However in this case they were addressing special pleading, and thus were relevant as well as humorous. Theists (and not just rabid fundamentalists, moderates too) have a real problem with IPU type arguments. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it has something to do with how hard it is to defend faith. > [@](#): > > Also, do you really think that humorous posts are _never_ a waste of time or is this just another example of sloppy arguing based on unsupported hyperbole? No one is arguing that Daffy disproves God. Daffy and the IPU mirror many Christian arguments in an absurd way. Those who dislike this mockery should show why the situations are not similar, which goes beyond telling us that we don’t really mean it. > [@](#): > > You ignored my other points just like some Christians ignore the evidence that contradicts their beliefs. You made contrived connections just like Matthew did between Jesus and the Old Testament, and you extended what I said in a way that is similar to how Paul changed Judaism. Perhaps you are presenting a subtle parody of Christianity. 😉 Sorry, no time to respond to every word. But, are you implying that Matthew was correct? And Paul did nothing to change Judaism, having left it. > [@](#): > > And, finally on the point of humorous posts, what evidence do you have that they are effective in “forcing” people to look at their beliefs in a slightly different way? (BTW, why are you trying to force anyone, and why do you think that it involves a way of looking at things that is only “slightly different”?) Actually, I do. I was giving a talk about an engineering method which was quite popular, and which I had done work supporting. My talk was about how it was really not useful in most cases, and was thus quite controversial. I developed a joke which went to the heart of the problem, and took it on the road, since I had a chance to give this talk several times before the big conference. The joke worked. I mentioned to a friend of mine who was the major advocate of this method that I was surprised that I didn’t get pointed questions after the talk. He said that it was because the joke made people see the issue in a different way Humor is about surprise, an changing the view of something common. If telling someone a joke is forcing them to do something, then so be it. > [@](#): > > Next:What is the relevance of this declaration? If you’ve seen a lot of arguments, then you must have written down many of them, along with your refutations of them. Why offer only two of them when I asked you to defend your assertion about all of them? Over the past 40 years, have you not compiled a list, some reference source? Also, have you presented your arguments to your congressmen (I think that you are American) to remove “In God We Trust” as the national motto, and remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance? Why would I write them down? I’m not a professional philosopher. I live in a place where God is kept out of the schools, thanks to diversity, and my Congressman is an atheist, and even introduced Darwin Day, not that it got far. > [@](#): > > After all, the refutations are laughably easy. Seems to me that one reason that SDMB atheists debate here is that it is easier to do it here than it is against people in authority in the real world. Let me get this straight: You have time to make a sweeping statement about “all arguments” but you can’t be bothered to prove that statement? Seems like intellectual dishonesty. It’s to avoid such dishonesty that I first asked you to retract the statement, which you haven’t done. You can revise your statement to “As far as I can tell, all arguments for the Christian god can be refuted, some of them very easily, some them require more effort.” Can you live with that? First, do you really think most Christians in the US came to their belief through reason? Someone believing through tradition and faith is not going to be persuaded by logic. Which is true for a much wider range of beliefs. There are uncountably many arguments, just as there are uncountably many types of possible gods. All clearly means all I’ve seen. I’ll happily also agree to your wording, but that is a subset of mine. I’m sure there are arguments for god buried inside theological treatises which I have never come across - but my argument is that if they were any good, they’d have been broadcast further, so their refutation has been done by others. > [@](#): > > Also, on the issue of “refute”, do you really think that you can refute a long-held belief with a couple of words? Your examples are bit like trying to refute various scientific concepts. Let’s see: > > 1. The Earth does not rotate. If it did, we would all fly off of it. > 2. Evolution can’t be true. I’ve never seen a monkey give birth a human. > 3. The speed of light is constant? That’s ridiculous! Motion is relative – it says so right in the name of the theory. > > A refutation is more than showing that one particular point is wrong, and it doesn’t happen in isolation of counterarguments to the counterarguments. If I were claiming to have invented refutations, it would mean that I haven’t read the literature at all. I was sketching the actual refutations done by people centuries ago much smarter than me. > [@](#): > > Religious beliefs are complex and interconnected. You can refute specific claims but that doesn’t automatically refute the concept of God. You seem to be suggesting otherwise.Now you’ve moved the goal posts. It’s no longer “my statement is true and I can demonstrate that it’s true”; it’s now “it is open to falsification". But it’s not enough to say that your statement is open to falsification. You need to provide how it could be falsified. In case you’ve forgotten, here is your statement: > > _The arguments for the Christian god as a special case for a god are laughably easy to refute._ There are millions of concepts of god, there are many even of the Judeo-Christian God. I was also making a distinction between God and Christianity. I believed in God as a kid, I never believed in Jesus. I never got indoctrinated, and as I mentioned Christianity is about as reasonable as a cargo cult to me. None of the standard arguments for God in any way require Christianity to be true, so they can’t be said to be arguments for the Christian God. I doubt anyone brought up in Christianity can truly see how absurd the statement “the Creator of the Universe, omnipotent and omniscient, just can’t save souls except by creating and then sacrificing a son.” > [@](#): > > Please explain how the statement could be falsified. How do you determine that an argument has been refuted and how do you determine that the refutation is laughably easy? By introducing a new argument. I’ve already given examples of good ones (for God) that are not easy to refute, so I’m not denying the possibility of such. > [@](#): > > Also, why is falsifiability necessary? You’re jumping to a conclusion without identifying and justifying the intervening premises. You are taking it for granted that everyone will agree with the implicit premises. Fine if they indeed do agree. Not a good approach if you’re trying to build a strong case against a position held by someone who does not accept those underlying premises. You eliminate a hypothesis through falsification. I’ve given the hypothesis, I’ve given experimental evidence, as it were, now I’m opening it to falsification. The reason I’m here, as I said in the beginning of this thread, is to expose myself to good arguments. > [@](#): > > Really? Please provide many, many other instances (and many _old_ instances) of my point: “If the structure of religious beliefs is as fragile as some atheists think it is, it would have crumbled centuries ago.” I have no idea of what you thought your point was, but what you said was > [@](#): > > Also, your statement implied that anyone who believes in God is irrational, and that anyone that believes in the Christian God is laughably irrational. Your second point, about how long Christianity lasted, I had already dealt with by noting that contradictory religions have lasted just as long or longer. And of course religion was imposed not through logic but by force. > [@](#): > > But, I decided to go with the simplistic atheist mantra of “you have the burden of proof”. And, as I pointed out in my first post on the subject, many atheist posters seem to be oblivious to the fact that they make claims, and that if those claims are questioned, the burden of proof is with the person who makes the claim, namely, the atheist. It’s not as if the only claim that needs to supported is “God exists”. All addressed above. > [@](#): > > One more thing: Over the years, I have taken the time to read and view various formal debates between atheists and (typically Christian) theists. I was interested in the best arguments and the best debating techniques, but I have disappointed many times by how incredibly weak the atheist’s arguments were, even if the atheist was an “expert”. I’ve seen atheists practically eviscerated by theists who were much better prepared and who had a better grasp of formal logic. The worst performances were by arrogant atheists who thought that they had formulated a new killer argument against Christianity, and the Christian casually destroyed the argument. Another mistake that atheists would make was to introduce a number of claims that couldn’t be supported. I see similar mistakes by SDMB atheists except that the opposition is either not as well-prepared or just can’t be bothered to participate in a forum which seems to have little interest in actually discussing religion, and where the apparent intent is to silence opponents as quickly as possible, using whatever works to achieve that result. I won’t deny that the arguments of some atheists make me cringe. However, I am less than enamored of formal logic, Formal logic in the past effectively proved all sorts of scientific “facts” which turned out to be incorrect. Much depends on premises. If your premise is that all things have causes you will reach a different conclusion than what you get if you note that we have observed uncaused events. My statement about what I have noted of arguments for Christianity has little to do with the atheist argument. Even finding an argument that isn’t laughably easy to refute doesn’t mean it is right. > [@](#): > > Here are my suggestions: > > 1. Stick to disputing specific claims by Christians. > 2. As a start, take comments at face value. > 3. Don’t introduce analogies and comparisons that you think are “dead on” but that Christians think are just silly, unless you want to preach to the godless choir Long term posters here seldom start threads attacking religion. However, if I was limited to what I would write in a technical paper, the fun would go away. As for point 3, silly is not a refutation or a defense. You know the old Christian saying about the fool says in his heart there is no god? (Or something like that.) We’d be in sorry shape if we just said Christians shouldn’t say that instead of actually refuting it - or making fun of it. > [@](#): > > 1. Respect your opponent’s intelligence. > 2. Spend more time addressing religious issues in the real world and less time debating them on SDMB. I got myself on a biology textbook review committee in our district. Happily, the books selected were excellent. I have no religious problems. I’d be happy for people to believe all they want so long as it didn’t affect me. Even in cases of religiously inspired hatred, like Prop 8, religion per se is not the culprit, since believers are also on the right side of this issue. My town is chock full of dozens of religions living in harmony. That’s the way everyone should live. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2011, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/411 "2011-09-06T11:11:42Z")
So, Galileo, any thoughts on post #311? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/412 "2011-09-07T00:32:51Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > One could argue that according to the Big Bang Theory the universe “existed” before there was a time or place for it to exist in. The limitations we run into are more about our ability to conceive of and describe what a timeless spaceless existence (if “existence” is even the right word) would be like, than about the universe and/or God’s ability to do so under such theories. If it wasn’t (or isn’t) in existence it doesn’t exist,or didn’t exist! ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/413 "2011-09-07T09:18:32Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > If it wasn’t (or isn’t) in existence it doesn’t exist,or didn’t exist! 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/414 "2011-09-07T12:42:39Z")
There was no “before the Big Bang.” Space-time is a property of the universe itself. It doesn’t exist _in_ space-time, it _is_ space-time. There is no existence “before” the universe any more than there is existence “outside” it. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/415 "2011-09-07T12:43:24Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > 😕 To be something, it has to be in existence, if it doesn’t exist it is nothing. It is impossible for nothing to exist! I hope this helps. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/416 "2011-09-07T13:57:57Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > To be something, it has to be in existence, if it doesn’t exist it is nothing. It is impossible for nothing to exist! I hope this helps. I can’t tell whether you’re agreeing or disagreeing with what I said, but I agree with **Dio**. Whether existence occurs in a state of no time or space is debatable, and as I said the limitations are in part in our ability to consider and discuss such a state in any meaningful way. I would argue this further but the thought of engaging in an extended discussion of ontology makes my brain run in circles screaming. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/417 "2011-09-07T19:53:17Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > There was no “before the Big Bang.” Space-time is a property of the universe itself. It doesn’t exist _in_ space-time, it _is_ space-time. There is no existence “before” the universe any more than there is existence “outside” it. Well, no. According to some theories our universe is either embedded in some larger & older superuniverse, or budded off an earlier universe. We don’t know that the Big Bang was anything more than the beginning of our universe. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/418 "2011-09-07T20:20:34Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Well, no. According to some theories our universe is either embedded in some larger & older superuniverse, or budded off an earlier universe. We don’t know that the Big Bang was anything more than the beginning of our universe. My pet theory is that some wiseass in a previous universe figured out how to travel faster than the speed of light, and proceeded to do so without thinking of the consequences, thus creating the Big Bang. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/419 "2011-09-07T20:35:18Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > My pet theory is that some wiseass in a previous universe figured out how to travel faster than the speed of light, and proceeded to do so without thinking of the consequences, thus creating the Big Bang. The idea many universes including ours are the side effects of advanced technology has been bouncing around for a while; Ken MacLeod’s _Learning the World_ even had STL engines that created universes as a side effect. It’s a variation on the evolutionary view of universe creation; if universes spawn from older universes, and the spawned universes tend to have similar physical laws to the “mother universe”, and it is possible for intelligent beings to do things that make universes, then universes containing intelligent life will proliferate faster than those that don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681/420 "2011-09-07T21:06:58Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The idea many universes including ours are the side effects of advanced technology has been bouncing around for a while; Ken MacLeod’s _Learning the World_ even had STL engines that created universes as a side effect. It’s a variation on the evolutionary view of universe creation; if universes spawn from older universes, and the spawned universes tend to have similar physical laws to the “mother universe”, and it is possible for intelligent beings to do things that make universes, then universes containing intelligent life will proliferate faster than those that don’t. Different than my theory, which is that there is only one universe at a time, and that universe lasts until some jackass tries to travel at the speed of light, which uses up all the energy available in that universe at once. The result destroys the previous universe while at the same time creating the new one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-why-debate-christians/594681.md?page=22)