A Challenge to Richard Dawkins and the Atheists

[Rortabend]

Possibly relevant to this discussion. Dawkins (allegedly) bottles debate with American theologian William Lane Craig...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timst ... ane-craig/

[chaz wyman]

Possibly relevant to this discussion. Dawkins (allegedly) bottles debate with American theologian William Lane Craig...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timst ... ane-craig/

Craig has a way of setting an agenda that is hard to penetrate because he never attends to negative objections.
It's part of the problem for atheist who are charged with the impossible - to disprove a negative.
Such a debate would be meaningless.

[chaz wyman]

Yes Chaz , you don't have to convince me , I love my daughter , she's wonderful , but I don't agree with her and I give her an honest response to questions when discussing such matters .
Her mother convinced her there were ghosts in the house they lived in when she was 9 or 10 .
It's very hard to undue that .
I have to let my daughter find her way to reality in her own time .

That is sad. Kids are very impressionable. That's how religion works, and is reproduced through the millennia. Your daughter has drunk form a poisoned chalice.

[Godfree]

Indeed Chaz that is how religion works , which is why I worked on the anti smacking of children to stop the nasty christians beating their poor wee kiddies back into their child every time the adult emerged and challenged the stupidity of religion .
This is why it needed to stop , the christians were the main challenge to the bill but it passed anyway .
Amazing isn't it , in this day and age the christians are still the most violent and want to keep doing it legally , on children , the devil must be making them do it .
Chaz I was thinking of an Idea for a book , we could come up with a philosophy that didn't have god , just a devil , and if you were a believer you are being deceived by this devil into thinking it's god ,
do you think that might provoke a little thought on the subject.
I mean , how do they know what this thing is , if it's so powerful surely deceiving a few primitives would be easy

[Thundril]

I was thinking of an Idea for a book , we could come up with a philosophy that didn't have god , just a devil , and if you were a believer you are being deceived by this devil into thinking it's god ,

Intriguing idea, Godfree. Just a couple of points, though. If there's to be such a philosophy, (ie that there is a Devil pretending to be God) would you have some people actually believing this philosophy? Would they be the 'Undeceived'? How would the reader know whether the God believers or the 'Undeceived' were actually correct?
Getting really postmodern, would some of the characters in the story be allowed to think 'Godfree the Author' is the Creator of their entire Universe?
Would the people who believed that be the possessors of the real Truth?
.....

[Godfree]

Thundril , the point of the exercise would be to impress upon the "believers that they don't know to what if anything they are praying to believing in and are in general assuming it all with ZERO actual evidence to base any of it on .
there is just as much possibility/probability that the devil is the only one .
I give it ZERO probability for any god , but what do people actually base their model of god on ???
wishful thinking , mythology ,ignorance ,
Reality is they don't know either way , if any such thing existed it could be a ruthless evil monster ,
Would certainly explain why the world is so fucked up ,
I mean if gods in control it's pretty incompetant

[Thundril]

Well, you could write all of that as an essay, but it would have zero effect, on beleievers or unbelievers. It would achieve nothing.. Alternatively, you could build a story around some of the ideas, but there would have to be a story that captures the attention and holds it... Otherwise it would be just the zero-effect essay plus some waffle....

[chaz wyman]

Indeed Chaz that is how religion works , which is why I worked on the anti smacking of children to stop the nasty christians beating their poor wee kiddies back into their child every time the adult emerged and challenged the stupidity of religion .
This is why it needed to stop , the christians were the main challenge to the bill but it passed anyway .
Amazing isn't it , in this day and age the christians are still the most violent and want to keep doing it legally , on children , the devil must be making them do it .
Chaz I was thinking of an Idea for a book , we could come up with a philosophy that didn't have god , just a devil , and if you were a believer you are being deceived by this devil into thinking it's god ,
do you think that might provoke a little thought on the subject.
I mean , how do they know what this thing is , if it's so powerful surely deceiving a few primitives would be easy

I think the basic problem with this book is that you are using the same sort of mentality that the religious use. In asserting a 'devil' you are implicitly supporting a belief in a deity for which there is no more evidence than god. In fact you are making exactly the same mistake as religionists. It's like fighting for peace; of fucking for virginity; playing the game of your enemy.

As it is most christians don't mind the idea of a devil. It helps them explain everything that is bad about the world.

[Godfree]

Chaz, you can't see the logic,,??
I think it makes an excellent point .
God or devil , they don't know , it's blind faith , they don't get to see the thing they pray to , it's a stab in the dark , they have no idea what it is /could be ,there is zero proof either way .
So I think we could make a very strong case for the world being deceived by an evil god.
Why else would we have so much fighting and suffering .
Surely a god wouldn't cause such madness ,???

[chaz wyman]

Chaz, you can't see the logic,,??
I think it makes an excellent point .
God or devil , they don't know , it's blind faith , they don't get to see the thing they pray to , it's a stab in the dark , they have no idea what it is /could be ,there is zero proof either way .
So I think we could make a very strong case for the world being deceived by an evil god.
Why else would we have so much fighting and suffering .
Surely a god wouldn't cause such madness ,???

You still do not understand the meaning of the word LOGIC.

[Godfree]

Well Chaz , we have logic , and we have fuzzy logic ,
well now we also have godfree logic .
And were stuck with it , because godfree's not the slightest bit interested in changing his use or understanding of logic .
does this mean I have changed the world .
if the rest of the world adopts my version,
i think the people would make more sense of the world .
I think logic as I describe it is a very useful tool .

[chaz wyman]

Well Chaz , we have logic , and we have fuzzy logic ,
well now we also have godfree logic .
And were stuck with it , because godfree's not the slightest bit interested in changing his use or understanding of logic .
does this mean I have changed the world .
if the rest of the world adopts my version,
i think the people would make more sense of the world .
I think logic as I describe it is a very useful tool .

You are as useless, unmoving and blinkered as an old religious fart.
Are you really old or something?
You have not describes any version of logic. Don't flatter yourself.
Your problem is that you have an ignorant person's use of the term, with no philosophical understanding of the coining of the term and the work of philosophers to refine logic.

[Godfree]

I come at it from a very strong stance .
I know little of the spin and bullshit one has to digest in order to study such subjects in a main stream education institution. .
I am able to see it fresh and uncorrupted .
it is said about business that naive enthusiasm ,
gets results where informed general knowledge doesn't .

[chaz wyman]

I come at it from a very strong stance .
I know little of the spin and bullshit one has to digest in order to study such subjects in a main stream education institution. .
I am able to see it fresh and uncorrupted .
it is said about business that naive enthusiasm ,
gets results where informed general knowledge doesn't .

Without the education you have no means to criticise it.
Only people with such an education have the option to reject it.

[Godfree]

Oh really ,,and people who havn't read the bible can't rubbish it .
People who don't inject heroin can't criticize those who do .
I shouldn't knock suicide until I'v tried it ,Chaz