This is a spinoff of Puzzleboy’s, “What if your wrong” thread. I didn’t want to hijack it but I thought I’d throw this out there. Anyone read about Lionel Luckhoo? He holds the record for most consecutive succesful defenses in muder cases at 245! He argues against atheism and here’s a link
I’ll warn you that it is a lot of info. But if you have time, please read this. I would be interested to hear rebuttle to this paper. Good luck!!!
:eek: Looks like an iteresting read! Thanks for the link!
:eek: indeed!
That sure convinced me. Gotta run off to church now.
OK, since this is Great Debates I would be happy to provide some rebuttal, if I saw something to rebut. Would you care to pick something that seems particularly persuasive to you that we can debate? I just don’t see anything there worth debating; just a bunch of presumed facts and circular reasoning.
Let me also add that yes, I also groaned at the sight of the floating cross. :rolleyes:
rsa, I would ask for your definition of “presumed facts” and “circular reading”. I’m not clear on that. I guess the synopsis of the whole thing is: God cannot be mathmatically proved. God can be proved through reason and circumstantial evidence. Luckhoo points to the intricacies of nature and our bodies. He points to the bible as being the only source that can back itself up. And he points to Jesus as being the only one to stand up under scrutiny. I guess I would ask for what you may see as ridiculous or full of holes. I could also ask this: Given Luckhoo’s 245 successful defenses, would this be no. 246? Would a jury buy this? Would you accept this (objectively) as a juror? I’m interested to hear.
Are you presuming that juries are somehow dispassionate and logical?
I just couldn’t get through the whole thing (Actually, I stopped at ‘The Brain’, so I skipped out quite early), but I’ll talk about what I did see (and about what you just said in reply to rsa).
The ‘presumed fact’ that seems to pervade his argument is: All things must be created by intelligent action. He talks about some wonder of nature, and then asks, “Who could have created this?” He doesn’t entertain the reasonable possibility that some things exist without being made by higher powers.
The ‘circular reading [sic]’ is: If you assume that something created Nature and that only God could do so, then you have proven that God created Nature. Pretty classic circularity.
By the way, you’re OP is incorrect when it describes Luckhoo’s argument as ‘against atheism’. It is actually an arguement against non-Christianism. He is saying that Muslims, Jews, and all other religions are factually flawed at the same time he says atheism is.
Sorry, had to head out to the store for a bit.
Why is it “incredible and far-fetched” to admit the possibility of embellishment concerning stories of Jesus? He’s not taking the stories about Mohammad at face value.
Assuming facts not in evidence. Aren’t there other religions that believe in rebirth?
I didn’t read the whole thing word for word, but it reminds me of a tape about science and religion that my mom sent me a couple of weeks ago. I started listening to it last night, but the tape was either bad or my tape deck needs cleaning. Anyway, I listened for a bit until I heard something like “we must accept the Lord our God”. If you are to make that assumption right off the bat, it just seems like preaching to the choir.
Honestly, it would take 10 pages to counter every point he makes, and the arguments are not that original.
Hardly a point in God’s favour ?
Ah, God of the Gaps - what we can’t explain must be God’s work. It used to be the weather that was unfathomable and thus had to be God’s handywork. Now it’s usually haemoglobine. Luckhoo’s examples seem somewhat outdated to me - when was this written ?
To take one of his statements: “Our world travels around the sun at 66,600 miles per hour. Where does the motive force come from to give this inert mass motive power?” The Earth’s behaviour is a consequence of the way it was formed. I have no idea what “motive power” is supposed to be - planets need no “motive power” to stay in orbit.
“If the world were nearer the sun we would burn up; further away, and we would die of cold. The world is just at the correct angle. What causes the world to go ‘round and round’ the sun?”
With a 100 billion billion stars to pick from, some would have planets at the right distance for life to develop. Pointing out that it’s unlikely that it happened here after the fact is somewhat disingenious. Old canard.
“You guess, I know.” I’m very happy he’s a lawyer and not a judge, if that’s the amount of evidence he needs to form an opinion.
It’s self-consistent, more or less. But a source can’t “back itself up” - other sources are needed. I’m sure someone better versed in the bible will appear with a list of inconsistencies.
And his dismissal of every other holy scripture is somewhat hasty, IMHO:
“Let us bear in mind that neither the Quran nor any other various Bibles have ever attempted to foretell the future at all and even the Pope of Rome has never ventured to claim supernatural knowledge.”
Ouch. The Quran is chock-full of prophecies. Even a heathen like me seems to recall a commandment about false witness - and he’s a lawyer, even ?
Using the “defense” angle is a cute move - as if the bible is accused and we have to prove it false beyond a reasonable doubt. The burden of proof is not on us, but on Luckhoo.
Would I accept it ? Not a chance. His using technical evidence that he either misrepresents or misunderstands hurts his case.
One more thing: In a court of law, the Bible would have to be considered hearsay. If you want to introduce statements from Jesus, he’ll have to appear in the witness stand (rather than just reading other peoples’ writings about him into the record).
He also relies heavily on Biblical prophecies coming true. Unfortunately, we just don’t have enough evidence that the predictions that are specific enough to be worthwhile actually were made before the events. Those that ‘occurred’ after Biblical times are not specific enough to have one meaning (“The Jews return to Palestine” as he quotes – wouldn’t this simply come true for more than one Jew returning to Palestine, ever? How is this specific? It would seem more likely for this to come true than otherwise).
He goes on extensively – in the section about how the Bible is different from other religious texts – that we know the Bible is old. Well, no kidding. We know the Koran is old, too.
I could tear apart this fellow’s arguments in an extended fashion, but between my two points and the other posts on the topic, it hardly seems that he’s left a legal case ‘without a reasonable doubt’.
Here is some of his “evidence irrefutable”:
“In nature snowfall is a natural. Take for example one single snow flake from the millions that fall in a snow storm; that single snowflake possesses the equivalent to 20 billion electrons. Yes, nature reveals God to us all of the time, and taking the example of a single snowflake, do you know that no snowflake is like any other snowflake? Each is different.”
This is his proof of God, even though a snowflake is made up of crystals? Here kiddies, you can play God at home.