I love to debate. I enjoy the chance to have my beliefs and arguments critiqued because it allows me to see how realistic my beliefs are. If no facts can refute my arguments or beliefs then it follows that they are likely true. Debating is part of my own personal process of discovery and I often learn a lot in debates.
If you have read anything within these pages that you disagree with please bring it to my attention. But, please, leave out the insults, name calling, and put-downs. I've had to deal with that immature nonsense more than I'd care to remember and I will not take it. You will be warned and if the behavior continues you will be banned from commenting on my blog and everyone will know you for the coward you are.
If you believe you have the knowledge and facts* to refute my claims please contact me and we can set up a debate. I also keep an updated list of past debates if you’d care to take a look. It can be found here.
* By "knowledge and facts" I mean factual, scientific proof. No personal opinions, appeals to revelation, quoting the bible, no arguments purely from quoting an authority without actual evidence, personal/second-hand stories that cannot be confirmed, and no "philosophical bullshit.” **
** By "philosophical bullshit" I am referring to the fact that philosophy is not the most reliable method of getting at the truth. The sciences and empiricism are the most reliable methods of getting at the truth, not simple thought experiments, or philosophizing.
It seems silly to me that you are challenging theists to give you natural evidence of the supernatural??? is it just me or is there somthing wrong with that challenge.a If you want proof of God why dont you ask him??? I know what you are going to say...I have and nothing happend. So you are on the internet all day denying God and then at night you expect him to come to you. The day God revealed himself to me was exactly a year to the day of when I asked him to!! I prayed and humbled myself and he saw that I was serious. The one thing that atheists cant wrap their head around is the fact that true christians dont beilive in God,. they know Him and untill you humble yourself enough to have that he will never jsut come when you snap your fingers! Someday you will wake up maybe a month or ten years from now but someday you will get it. Deep down he is already there even though you wont admit it!!- BB
ReplyDeleteHello Mr./Ms. Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteFYI, I did ask god many times when I was younger for help and got no response. And at that time I did believe. There is no evidence of a god and you've yet to provide one shred of evidence against my challenge.
Arizona Athiest,
ReplyDeleteI will be the first to admit that there is no way to prove the existence of God or the supernatural. Nonetheless, I believe in the existence of God based on my own personal experiences which have led me to discover that a life serving God is the most satisfying. I wonder, though, if you believe that you can prove that the supernatural does not exist. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Nathan
Hi Nathan, thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteI understand yours and many others' experiences have lead to this feeling, but science has found evidence (please see the final section titled "Religious Experiences") that these experiences are nothing out of the ordinary and can be easily reproduced and induced by various means, such as through certain drugs and electrical stimulation of certain parts of the brain. For more evidence, please see this blog post as well.
Because it is the theists who make the claim that there is some kind of supernatural realm and there has yet to be any evidence of this, I think it is they who should have to prove there is one. All claims of the supernatural have been shown to be wrong. The more science learns about the brain and the world more and more of these "supernatural" experiences are being exposed as purely natural phenomenon or hoaxes. That is why I do not think there is any kind of supernatural realm. Due to the lack of evidence, I think that puts the burden of proof back on the person arguing there is such a thing.
What reasons do you have for your beliefs in the supernatural? What experiences have you had, if you don't mind my asking?
Thanks!
Hello there again,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I want you to know that I did not click on the "Want to Debate an Atheist?" challenge link or reply to your post in true interest in debate. To be honest, after looking through a few of your posts, I was merely fascinated by your incredibly vast pursuit of this subject.
I will not pretend to be nearly as well researched or factually knowledgeable on the subject as you are; I am simply intrigued by the prospect of brief conversation with you. I come, though, with only experience, a limited background of reading, and a lot of thought.
I cannot and will not claim that I can prove the existence of the supernatural - and least of all with my own experience. I believe it impossible to prove either the existence or absence of such a thing. If you are interested, though, I would love to share with you what I take to be the evidence the drives me to live my life based on the existence of a supernatural realm.
But I will not waste your time if this is not that for which you're looking.
Hi Mr./Ms. Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThat's perfectly fine if you don't wish to debate. You had asked why I disbelieve in the supernatural so I gave you my reasons, and yes I'd be very interested in hearing your experiences.
I think people would actually debate you if you didn't call them morons like you did with Marshall, or use words like as...... Maybe he was rude or something, but your comments about him are not good, even over the internet. That's the problem I find with atheists, because they always feel it's cool to swear and ridicule people. The idea is to ridicule people's ideals not their persona, so you would do good if you really cut down on name-calling or swearing. Then people would debate you, because they would know that it's not personal. No Christian wants to debate a person who's gonna bring up their mama into the debate, so you are not helping your cause for a healthy debate, unless your intention is to ridicule people.
ReplyDeleteSello Rasephei
http://burden4souls.wordpress.com
Hi, thanks for the comment. I know where you're coming from and I personally do not like to be lied about or insulted so I fire back. It's that simple. Some people like to take a more diplomatic approach, but those incidents of name calling of Marshall were after many months of putting up with his (and his cohorts') constant lies, insults, and attempts at character assassination at Amazon.com and I got sick and tired of it. As I told them over and over again, all I wanted was a straight up debate and I never got one. Just more of the same.
ReplyDeleteAs I can prove, I do not insult people who are kind to me and I love debate. Take for example my recent discussion with a christian about mind-brain dualism. That was a very nice discussion and he was a very nice guy. Or when I tried my hand at discussing some issues with author of The Making of an Atheist James Spiegel at his blog. Or what about this debate, which initially went well but afterwards he decided to smear me on his website over some stupid thing without even bothering to discuss the issue with me, which really made me mad so I went off on him - as I should have and had every right to. The same with the disrespectful individuals on Amazon.com in the comments section of my review of Answering the New Atheism. Which caused one commenter to write to me:
"Having read through every post in the comments section, I'd have to agree with your take on the situation. Not one single person who responded to you had any constructive critique of your review. Every single one was condescending from the beginning."
In that case I did not insult anyone, but was insulted and talked down to (not to mention smeared and lied about my Bruce Bain and David Marshall).
These rude individuals, in my mind, are like immature bullies who like to prey on people. They need to be put in their place once in a while and I see no problem with that. But I in no way initiate insults for no good reason. I never have. Ever. More often than not I hold my tongue even with those who throw out insults, but with some people people they rightfully deserve a good tongue lashing.
I don't understand why atheist reject philosophical, and logical, arguments for the existence of god. My study of philosophy has found it coherent, thought provoking, and convincing, on many things which defy your sacrosanct evidence. Perspectival variations tells us that our senses are not to be seen as infallible, and therefore our "evidence" should not be given absolute authority either.
ReplyDeletePhilosopher's Mess,
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks for the comment.
Atheists reject them because they are illogical and science contradicts most of the arguments. I would trust the scientific method over the humans' often inaccurate perceptions any day. Which leads me to your other comment about our senses being reliable. As much research has shown (see the 3rd chapter) our senses are not always to be relied upon to give us a completely accurate picture of the word, which is why science is such a benefit.
AA,
ReplyDeleteI'd be happy to take up the challenge.
Let's see.
From what I've read, what you've written interacting with scholars such as Bill Craig has been spotty. You've offered meager responses to his work and have ignored the vast amount of material he's written to deal with the very objections you've put up.
For instance, in dealing with his cosmological argument, you've written, to dispute the first premise that everything that begins to exist has a cause, "According to modern physics, however things can seemingly happen without cause. There are several things we observe that appear to have no cause."
This is just ignorant. You would seemingly claim that things, in this case, can come into existence uncaused out of nothing and that quantum physics has corroborated this. But this isn't the case at all. For starters, the quantum vacuum where these particles seemingly pop into existence is not nothing. This quantum vacuum is demonstrably not nothing. As Craig writes, "a quantum vacuum is a sea of continually forming and dissolving particles, which borrow energy from the vacuum for their brief existence. This is not "nothing," and hence, material particles do not come into being out of nothing. Popular presentations of these models often do not explain that they require a specially fine-tuned, background space-time on the analogy of a quantum mechanical vacuum. The origin of the observable universe from this wider space-time is not a free lunch at all. It requires an elaborately set table, which must be paid for," and, "a quantum vacuum...is a rich physical reality possessing physical properties: it is not creation from nothing."
That's not to mention the sketchy waters we get into with quantum vacuum models, since there are several that take the same data those who present this indeterministic model and develop deterministic models.
That's just one instance.
To respond to your questions here:
I welcome one and all to attempt to refute any argument I place on my blog
Ok. Please point me to one of your arguments for atheism. A refutation of an argument, which I've seen you have attempted quite a few of, is not an argument for your position. Could you give me a good positive argument that there is no God?
Do you think you can prove the existence of the supernatural
ReplyDeleteIt depends on what you mean by "prove." This word has become very vague since the epistemic systems like verificationism and logical positivism were introduced. It is near impossible to prove 100% much of anything. Can you prove to me that you're not a brain in a vat being stimulated to sense the external world? What kind of evidence could you give for that?
Now, I could give you some good reasons to think that there is a realm of supernatural activity, some would be philosophical arguments such as the cosmological or moral arguments. I could give you good reasons to think that the resurrection of Jesus was an historical event.
can you prove that atheism caused the atrocities by the communists
That's for historians to decide, I suppose. From my reading, most communists were atheists and their philosophical worldviews did lead them to do things those who look to a higher moral authority might not have otherwise done, but the question is ultimately uninteresting when it comes to the question of whether or not God exists.
do you think you can prove any god exists (the one exception being a Deistic god)
Again, depends on what you have in mind when you say "prove." Can you prove God doesn't exist?
**By "evidence" I mean factual, scientific proof
What do you mean by factual and scientific? I think there are truths that are untouchable by the scientific method that we can know to be true. Do you mean empirical evidence? How do you know empirical evidence is a good means of discovering truth? Empirical evidence is useless unless it is examined and interpreted. This seems like deck stacking, and it's not fair in a debate to set the boundaries to your presupposed epistemology.
I'll check back here to see if you've responded. Do you want to perform this debate in this combox? One of my comboxes? Between blogs?
bossmanham,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments, though it’s obvious you erected a strawman because regarding Craig’s first premise, that of everything needing a cause, I presented scientific evidence that this is not so. You attempt to counter this by going around my argument and claim that I’m arguing “ that things, in this case, can come into existence uncaused out of nothing and that quantum physics has corroborated this.” No, I’m only countering his first premise - that all things must have a cause for their existence and as I show this isn’t the case. After all, I was deputing Craig’s claim about causation, not existence.
“Now, I could give you some good reasons to think that there is a realm of supernatural activity, some would be philosophical arguments such as the cosmological or moral arguments. I could give you good reasons to think that the resurrection of Jesus was an historical event.”
I’ve already dealt with most of the common arguments in favor of the supernatural in the link above about the supernatural.
“That's for historians to decide, I suppose. From my reading, most communists were atheists and their philosophical worldviews did lead them to do things those who look to a higher moral authority might not have otherwise done, but the question is ultimately uninteresting when it comes to the question of whether or not God exists.”
The Communists did things that “those who look to a higher moral authority might not have otherwise done” is so historically inaccurate I’m shocked you wrote this sentence. The history of religion is covered with individuals and groups whose beliefs either inspired them or were used to justify horrible atrocities.
“Again, depends on what you have in mind when you say "prove." Can you prove God doesn't exist?”
There are degrees of truth and probability and the question of god, at least at this point in time, seems to be pretty much settled, unless more evidence turns up in the future. Though the fact that theists must still resort to hundreds of years old recycled theology I don’t see this happening. But the fact that naturalistic explanations do such a great job at explaining and deciphering the world (and are often verified by further observations and experiments) it’s more than likely that the supernatural is a figment of peoples’ imaginations, which would include god. This is not some conclusion that was developed because of some philosophical bias but because of the mere lack of evidence. See this discussion I had a while back. If god did exist, there would be some evidence of him since he is said to work within the world. Prayers would be answered (and I’m not talking about confirmation bias), among other things.
Cont.
“What do you mean by factual and scientific? I think there are truths that are untouchable by the scientific method that we can know to be true. Do you mean empirical evidence? How do you know empirical evidence is a good means of discovering truth? Empirical evidence is useless unless it is examined and interpreted. This seems like deck stacking, and it's not fair in a debate to set the boundaries to your presupposed epistemology.”
ReplyDeleteDeck stacking? Not at all. If someone comes to me and argues that prayer healed their cancer I’m going to want some evidence of this. I’m going to want a double blind study showing that prayer did something - something more than what a simple placebo already does in medical trials.
By evidence, as I said, I mean something that has been studied over a decent period of time, and has multiple double blind studies (when possible) confirming the original conclusion. And this is just one example. How do I know this method is good at discovering truth? Well, your computer works doesn’t it? Scientists are able to successfully predict things using this method, and it’s increased the human life span! I’d say these few things are proof positive that the scientific method works rather well. If science wasn’t discovering the truth (or at the very least peeling back layer upon layer and therefore getting closer to truth) these things would not work and their predictions would fail.
You failed to present a single argument in favor of your positions and you neglected to deal up front with the fact that things can happen without cause, which destroys Craig’s entire premise as I’ve explained.
Thanks.
*I’ve posted this response at your blog as well.
Since this post of yours is quite old, how about we just post everything at my blog in my combox?
ReplyDeleteSure, why not.
ReplyDeleteCannot prove the existence of God. It takes faith. We all have faith, what's yours?
ReplyDeleteI've heard Atheists are people who deeply study and accept the truth when they find it. They're not biased. So my request to you is, if you have not yet tried, please take out a copy of Quran and read it. with an honest attempt to understand it. you will, at first,likely to think that it's a book of tales only(that happenes with almost everybody who doesn't believe in the supernatural and reads this book for the first time), but don't just stop there, read the whole of it...i remember Dr jeffery Lang prof of mathematics, who was an atheist i guess, found his answers through this method and became a muslim...but this comes with only one condition, read it thoroughly and read the whole of it...don't just go all over one verse that you don't understand and start denying it...you guys are much fascinated by science and the scientific method right?..even better, you'll find evolution and the origins of life, big bang and inflation, internal waves inside the ocean, correct to the point embryology, geology, oceanology, and much more...i hope it will be a very positive experience...i repeat, read the whole of it first before you make a conclusion...just to give you a start...it is NOT an attempt to convert you into a muslim, but just to share some knowledge(http://www.quranandscience.com/earth.html)
ReplyDeletethankyou and may God be with you
I would like to post just some verses so that they might build some curiosity for you.
ReplyDelete"Or (the unbelievers’ state) is like the layers of darkness in a deep sea covered by waves topped by waves, topped by clouds: Layers of darkness, one above another. If a man stretches his hand, he can hardly see it. For any to whom Allah gives no light, there is no light.”(Quran 24: 40)
"Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before we clove them asunder? We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe? (The Noble Quran, 21:30)"
"We have constructed the heaven with might, and verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it"(51:47)
hope it helps:)thankyou
Thanks for the comments.
ReplyDeleteI actually have a copy of the quran and have read some of it but not much. Most of my focus has been on the christian bible (since it’s mostly fundamentalist christians I have to worry about in the U.S.) but from my brief studying of the quran it suffers from much the same fate as the bible. For those reasons, I don’t see the quran as anything special, but I thank you for your request and you’ve caused me to become more curious about the quran and I’ll begin reading it more fully once my schedule slows down a bit.
Could you update this page with an index of your past debates? You kind of link to some as examples, but I'd love to see a simple list with who the debate was with (perhaps linked to their site if they have one), what the subject matter was, etc. I think that would be a great addition to the page.
ReplyDeleteOr... perhaps I've just missed it! In that case, could you point out such a link? Thanks!
Hi Hendy. That's a good idea. I just added a link to a page with all of my past debates I have saved. I actually have a link to the page listing the debates on the side of the blog but I guess it's hard to see if you're not looking for it. I hope you find the debates interesting. Of course, not all of the pages linked to are debates per se. Some are cases where I responded to criticism but they didn’t respond for whatever reason. Maybe they didn’t know I responded or they just failed to respond.
ReplyDeleteAwesome -- thanks! I think I did skim the side, but didn't see it. Thanks for your writing!
ReplyDeleteJust re-looked and it's quite clearly there... doh! Now I see it :)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteMr/Ms. "Anonymous" here has spammed my blog twice now, stating how I'm supposedly an "unsophisticated" thinker and linking to Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition (I've linked to an interesting rebuttal), asking why I haven't set my sights on more robust targets such as Feser’s book. If this troll would have looked around my blog a bit he would have seen that I've refuted a pair of theologians Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker and their book Answering the New Atheism. Aren't they sophisticated enough?!
ReplyDeleteI deleted his comments because all he does is link to Feser’s book and complains how I’m not a “sophisticated” thinker. Well, Mr. "Anonymous" if you’d actually cite an actual argument instead of talking nonsense maybe I won’t delete your comments next time around.
FYI: I have actually considered writing a rebuttal to this book and may do so in the future but I’m still undecided.
I bet if you try challenging a theist, they'll pull the whole literal vs. non-literal bait and switch with you. It happened to me, by some fanatic named Bruce Bain on Amazon, so I just decided to ignore him and his stupid text wall of issues.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the proper way to respond to when a theist tells you you are not suppose to take a certain verse literally, especially in genesis!
I like to hear your thoughts on this "Don't take Genesis literally" crap that I hear from creationists....
Hi, thanks for the comment. Ah, yes, Bruce Bain. I can sympathize with you there. I have a long history with Bain on Amazon.com.
ReplyDeleteAs for the bible you have to remember that it's up to the Christian to tell you why their interpretation is correct. Also it's helpful to look up the context of the verse yourself. I like to use the New English version of the bible because it helps to put the passage in easy to understand language and often doesn't sugar coat it like other versions of the bible. I'd also recommend seeing what different biblical scholars have to say about the passage. Look up both "skeptical" scholars and mainstream ones to see experts' opinions on the issue.
But oftentimes just looking up the passage yourself can tell you whether or not the passage is literal or not. To give an example, I was debating a woman several years ago who argued that a murder by Moses was not literal, however I looked up the verse and it clearly was a literal murder. The verse was clear: Moses murdered a man - I believe it was an Egyptian - and he buried him in the sand. Now, how can that be anything but literal? It said he buried him in the sand! Can’t get any more literal than that. After I explained this, the woman seemed to back away from her spurious reading of the passage.
I hope these tips will help you. But yes, it's very frustrating sometimes when debating the bible because it can be interpreted in several different ways and if you're not very knowledgeable about it, sometimes it can be a bit confusing. But as I said, hopefully those tips will be useful. Good luck.
What's your position on antinatalism? I have an open debate on that topic on Argument Clinic right now. You seem like a reasonable enough fellow, and I would welcome the challenge. Since you are already strongly interested in the first two As (atheism, anarchism), I figured you might be interested in the third A (antinatalism).
ReplyDelete(funny how it's negation that is always the most intellectually honest and open- principled negation of all the bullshit seems to be absolutely necessary)
If you want, I'll even give you the best objections I've ever heard against antinatalism so you can start with something good. Granted, they still fail, but at least you can start with the best.
Without religion do we even know what a God is? What if we separate this so called God from religion? How can we provide evidence that nothing existed before the big bang theory? Are we taught to love people or is love just human instinct? I don't think anyone has an accurate answer for these things. This includes personal experience. Without the fake rules of asking for requests from this so called God and the practices of religion you have no real evidence that a higher power doesn't exist. All atheists are really agnostic because they really don't know anything but have a thirst for knowledge that is unattainable in this human body that we possess. True wisdom is knowing nothing thank you Socrates. Without our own death our own analysis of life will never be complete to back up our theories.
ReplyDeleteAA,
ReplyDeleteI'm not actually writing to debate with you since, like you, I'm an atheist and an anarchist. But I didn't see another method on the site to contact you so I hope it's ok to leave a note here.
I'm the lyricist for an anarchist band and we have just released our third album, Anarchitecture. I'm writing in hope that you'll run a review of it. I think you'd particularly enjoy 'Crime & Punishment' which is based on an inversion of Paradise lost in which the anti-christ is a hero fighting to free humanity from the tyranny of God. After all, a tyrant is a tyrant whether on earth or in "heaven".
You can listen to Anarchitecture online as streaming mp3s and read all the lyrics at http://beltainesfire.bandcamp.com/album/anarchitecture
we have pictures of the band on our website at http://beltainesfire.com
The album is $8+, sliding scale, and most of the money once we've covered our cost to create the album will be donated to anarchist groups and movements.
Thanks for your time, if this isn't interesting or relevant for you please feel free to delete my post and I apologize for the bother.
lynx,
ReplyDeleteI decided to write a post about your group and it will go live Sept. 2ed, 2011. I hope it gives you some more fans.
Hi again Arizona Atheist.
ReplyDeleteI have just the right kind of offer that you may or may not like to consider.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/09/debate-as-blood-sport.html
Ding ! ding !. Round two? :)
Anonymous,
ReplyDelete“Hi again Arizona Atheist?” Have we met before? “Round two?” When was the first round and who was my opponent? I've already dealt with all of the arguments for god, by one of the most well-known theologians and Christian apologists, and since I've written two thorough posts on the subject already I don't feel the need to argue about something that has no evidence for it in the first place.
Thanks for the offer, though.
Hello Arizona Atheist! I think Craig has made only one good claim in his life and it was something along the lines of his opponents "Richard Dawkins and Hitchens" are intelligent in their fields but when put in a philosophical environment they are lamens. (however thats spelled) You need to debate this guy! You counter his philosophical garbage appropriately. He should become a politician because hes proven hes good at twisting information in his favor!
ReplyDelete-Jake
Can everything that exists be proven by empiricism?
ReplyDeletetheAqCon,
ReplyDeleteEmpiricism has proven itself to be simply the most reliable method of getting to the truth. It's that simple. Because of science and its empirical method you're typing on that computer; you live a longer and healthier life; and we've discovered more about the world using this method than any other. Besides, what other method might you employ to discover facts about the world? There are only three ways to go about it: empiricism, prophesy (or revelation), and philosophy (or logic). The last two have been proven to be either entirely unreliable (as with revelation) or sometimes incorrect (as in the case with “every day” logic, the kind with which William Lane Craig employs for instance). The only method that has been the most reliable is empiricism and has given us the most successful results. If you have another, better method please share it.