I was saving this, but maybe it’s time everyone knew.
Chris is obnoxiously outspoken on the subject. I just don’t take him seriously because he always looks like he’s been drinking all day.
Bill’s sarcasm can be annoying at times but also really funny at times. He readily admits he doesn’t know if God exists or not. He mainly targets specific beliefs that he finds to be ,… religulous. He wants people to approach the question with intelligence and honesty about the facts.
Believers have a hard time seeing that the very nature of their beliefs, “we’re right, everyone else is wrong” or “God forgives me but you’re damed” is easily as offensive as many things atheists say.
Did you read some other article than the one linked to in the OP? I found it none of that. It’s basically a common sense guide and it really does aim to help Christians talk to atheists without being completely blown off in the first 2 seconds. Furthermore, the author isn’t being arrogant or nasty at all. If you found that article nasty or arrogant, you apparently have never been in an internet religious debate.
I love Hitchens. Even though (as with Dawkins and Maher), I think he goes too far in trying to draw sweeping sociological conclusions about religion as an institutions (they should all really just stick to refuting the metaphysical and historical claims for which religionists have no case. Claiming that religious instititions are innately dangerous and evil is basically off topic and plays into the religionist hands), but I appreciate that Hitchens doesn’t give a shit about the niceties and doesn’t have a problem telling religionist TV pundits how stupid their beliefs are.
If atheists are put off by the whole “I’m right and you’re scum for believing otherwise”, I don’t see why Hitchens would think Christians would go for it either. But then I suspect he rather enjoys having an excuse to feel superior and call other people names.
I think remaining factual is a good approach. If over time we can dispel certain myths by repeating the facts we might be able to encourage more people to think independently when looking for meaning or purpose.
Making claims that cannot be cleanly demonstrated with facts doesn’t help. How do you encourage someone to be more realistic and more concerned with evidence while making claims that are personal opinions and beliefs not based in hard evidence?
Hitchens at least has the advantage of actually BEING right. I don’t think he has any illusions about changing minds, though. I just enjoy seeing at least one atheist who can get on Fox News and tell Sean Hannity his beliefs are idiotic. Atheists get so demonized and marginalized by the media most of the time that Hitchens is a welcome vent. He would not be my choice to represnt atheists in a formal debate, but there’s no one better to go nose-to-nose with Bill O’Reilly.
I agree. I always think it’s a waste of time when prominent atheists sidetrack themselves into sociological protests against religion and I wish they’d stick to simply forcing religionist to try to prove their own metaphysical and historical assertions.
My affection for Hitchens is really about context and tone more than substance. Like I said, he’s the guy I like to see on Fox News calling Sean Hannity a moron. He’s not the guy I’d want to see in a serious, formal debate.
I’m not a Hitchens fan but I do see your point. I get irritated by the bad information that get’s repeated as fact over and over again. There are a lot of people out there who accept it because it was heard on TV a dozen times.
I’ve been watching a debate I got off Youtube. William Lane Craig, for Christianity and Frank Zindler, for atheism. I was disappointed that Zindler, in a huge packed church, couldn’t resist being sarcastic about certain beliefs. Craig, so far, gives a much better presentation even though I don’t agree with his conclusions.
I can has omnipotens?
I’m a little slow.
That speak usually gets on my nerves - but this made me laugh.
Ah Ha! I get it. Good one.
Do I detect a denigrating tone from a moderator? Was that some kind of personal attack to dismiss my argument without actually saying anything that may refute it?
I’ll admit it’s a bit of a stretch, but, if students in a lab experiment can influence particles in a computer, (a classic quantum mechanics example,) why can’t they influence particles in another person to, for instance, encourage healing?
Tell me if I’m imagining things, but these don’t seem like real questions, but ways to denigrate me. please correct me if you meant something else but, I’m reading these as put downs rather than arguments.
I couldn’t possibly prove to you that any particular one was a “truth,” as you put it. **That was the point **of my previous statement, that there exist true statements in the system that can’t be verified as true. and that logic and science can’t reach.
I can suggest something that might be a relevant example…
imaginary numbers, things created for mathematics as involving the square root of -1. Where do they exist? Don’t know if they do or not, but if you take their existence as an assumption… you come up with a branch of mathematics that have very relevent applications in electrical engineering.
And that’s one place where these “truths” may have their usefulness, as starting assumptions for useful logical progressions. Every logical statement starts with an assumption; something that you aren’t going to prove. Maybe you can’t. Maybe we just start there for sake of argument.
grumble, grumble, “I say there are truths that can’t be proven, he says show me one.” grumble…
Sorry, can’t prove it, can only prove that they exist.
Czarcasm correctly stated that you don’t seem to know what’s actually going on in the quantum mechanics example you described. Quantum mechanics does not state “belief can change the outcome of events.” It states that measuring an event changes its outcome. At issue is observation, not belief, so there’s no implication about prayer here.
I’m reading them as questions rather than put downs or arguments.
haha. I agree There are a lot of believers who haven’t thought these things through. They annoy me because they aren’t aren’t a very good example.
But I appreciate someone willing to understand the thought process of someone with a different opinion. Don’t see much of that either, even amongst people who came to their beliefs through a logical process. I don’t know how often I’ve seen, “I came to this conclusion. You’re an idiot for believing something else.” That’s forgetting that **everyone **starts from unproven assumptions. If I start from a different assumption, I’m likely to come to different conclusions.
(I emphasised correctly because I’m going to take issue with your use of it.)
Really??? The quantum effect I described is where participants are told to “make” a random number generator “produce” a particular outcome without touching the experiment. They are told to influence it to a particular result by thinking about it. How is that significantly different than thinking that you want someone to get well? (Other than the fact that we can’t seem to measure quantum effects on large scale objects? Which is why I said it was a stretch.)
Not only can you change the outcome by thinking about it, (the apparatus is designed to do the *“measurements,”) but you can do it on random numbers that were “generated” and “recorded,” (but not “looked at,”) weeks ago.
Yes. The *first *thing you learn about quantum mechanics is that observation changes outcome. But that wasn’t the example I used.
*measurement means something slightly different in quantum mechanics than what we normally think of. We think the apparatus does the measurement, quantum mechanics would say it’s done when the result is “looked at,” which is also defined differently.
Then let’s have a cite and you can show me where their hopes influenced the number generator. There have already been studies showing prayer does not improve healing.