A great debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg. Rosenberg is an atheist and chair of the philosophy department at Duke.
Of course, I think that it was Bambi vrs Godzilla. Rosenberg merely regurgitated banal atheist boilerplate. Craig was masterful.
I'm an enormous fan of Craig. I must say though that my take on theology and philosophy is more Aristotelian/Thomist, as you already know.
One of the many strengths of Christian apologetics is that it succeeds from so many different perspectives, as you might expect with the truth.
Of course, I think that it was Bambi vrs Godzilla. Rosenberg merely regurgitated banal atheist boilerplate. Craig was masterful.
I'm an enormous fan of Craig. I must say though that my take on theology and philosophy is more Aristotelian/Thomist, as you already know.
One of the many strengths of Christian apologetics is that it succeeds from so many different perspectives, as you might expect with the truth.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteYou're right. It was Bambi versus Godzilla. Pity for you that William Lane Craig was Bambi.
I've heard his arguments many times in the past and he makes the same ones yet again. They can be summarized as 'Ignorance x 8'.
I didn't find them convincing before, and I still don't find them convincing at all now.
Agreed; if the resurrection of Jesus was historical, then other arguments would be completely unnecessary. The trouble is that Craig is telling an enormous lie when he claims that the death of Jesus is documented historically as well as the death of Caesar Augustus.
Not true. There are contemporary records of the life and death of Augustus. There are none for that of Jesus. Not for at least 30 years after his purported death.
I accept that Jesus did live, if only because the authors of Matthew and Luke (whoever they were) go to a lot of effort (and manage to contradict each other) to get Jesus born in Bethlehem (apparently to fulfill prophesy), but coming from Nazareth.
Luke by a fictional empire wide census requiring the population to return to the home town of their ancestors. Matthew by having Joseph and Mary living in Bethlehem, but having to flee to Nazareth via Egypt after King Herod ordered a fictional massacre of male children under the age of 2.
The accounts of his life and death are just fiction. There's no record of the events reported by Matthew at the time of the crucifixion. The miracles in the gospels are just bogus.
That your take on theology/ philosophy is more Aristolean/Thomistic is a surprise. Your theology is inconsistent and incoherent. In a comment on the previous thread you wrote:
'I don't take Adam and Eve literally, either, although I don't think the evidence is in. The parable of the Fall tells a deep truth about man. Whether it happened exactly as the Bible said, or the story is a parable, I don't know. It's one of the first questions I'll ask the Lord'.
Well, make up your mind. Is Genesis literally true or is it a parable? What evidence would ever be available? Thinking that you'll ever be able to ask God for the answer isn't Thomistic. Aquinas discusses his views of the properties of God over hundreds of pages in 'Summa Theologica' and insisted that ascribing human qualities to God is a metaphor, not reality. God being larger than the Universe and simple, without parts.
Hence, there's no personal entity of a God available for a person to engage in a person to person conversation or even a question and answer session.
All nonsense. But it's what Aquinas claimed.
I hadn't heard of Rosenberg before. Yet another book ('the Atheist's Guide to Reality') to read...
bachfiend: "I didn't find them convincing before, and I still don't find them convincing at all now."
DeleteHave you tried understanding them?
Atheists like to claim they use reason to support their worldview but they don't really know how to use it logically. This is why they always have their asses served to them in debates with theists.
I also predict that Darwinism, i.e. the belief that order comes from chaos and intelligence comes from non-intelligence, will be dead by 2020! Nails are being driven in Darwinism's coffin with every new advances in biology, the ENCODE project being a stellar example of this.
DeleteIt is really funny to see the Darwinists frantic reactions to these new evidences and it's going to get funnier!
Craig also hammered Lawrence Krauss when they debated "Is there Evidence for God?" on 3-30-2011 an NC State. Here's video, audio, and summary.
ReplyDeleteTo makes matters worse, Krauss had what could only be called a nervous breakdown after the debate. He ended up writing an ad-hominem-filled rebuttal to Craig kicking his ass, which Craig then responded to in a calm, cool, and collective manner, once again kicking Krauss' ass.
DeleteThis is the cream of the atheist crop, ladies and gentleman; the most intelligent atheists on the planet. It doesn't say much for atheism, does it?
When simpleminded liars like Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins are some of the icons of your worldview, it's probably time to start looking for a new worldview.
It's generally accepted, even by many atheists, that William Lane Craig is undefeated in his many debates against the cream of the atheist crop. Of course, they can't come out and admit the real reason for that, that he's arguing from a position of truth, so instead they ramble on about his rhetoric, lies, and ignorance (see above), all of which they can never seem to elaborate on (again, see above).
ReplyDeleteThe user Birdieupon has a great series of posts/videos on the Dawkins/Craig debate-that-was-not-to-be. Dawkins' blatant cowardice is a thing of beauty; never before has his insecurity in his own beliefs been so obvious. He knows everything he believes in is a farce, and he knows William Lane Craig would expose it to the world.
the a-atheism blog: The William Lane Craig vs (Not-) Richard Dawkins Saga Archive
Also, there's a video on YouTube where Dr. Craig destroys Christopher Hitchens' entire worldview in a matter of a few short minutes. It's well worth watching.
@Jared:
DeleteThanks for the link. I agree with you. Craig is a superb philosopher and theologian and a master debater, but his real advantage is that he's just telling the truth, which is always provides a rhetorical advantage.
Craig is an infantile clown and conman whose simplistic 'arguments' appeal to the unthinking believers who are afraid to face the reality of death.
DeleteWell troy, you claim "Craig is an infantile clown and conman whose simplistic 'arguments' appeal to the unthinking believers who are afraid to face the reality of death".
DeleteThis comes from one who is himself an unthinking believer in nothing, and who is terrified to face the reality of God and moral accountability.
You atheists are such incredibly bad thinkers I don't think you could reason your way in a debate on whether 1+1 = 2 or not.
I mean seriously, look at this standard atheist BS line of believers being afraid of death & so needing comfort!
This is one of the most idiotic pretentious falsehoods in all of atheism (right next to 'nothing created everything').
The worst is that it applies very nicely to atheism.
As Tom Stoppard said, "Atheism is 'sort of a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God'".
A short look through history shows this typical tripe to be absolutely wrong. Indeed, no one in history has shown more courage in the face of death than believers in God.
"Few men are so obstinate in their atheism, that a pressing danger will not compel them to acknowledgment of a divine power... No one ever dies an atheist..." - Plato
Worse, web atheist Paul Baird told me that mathematics, logic, morals etc. are not absolute.
Really? And can he prove this?
Well gee, not without first assuming that these things are indeed absolute!
rotfl
So go ahead, keep on pretending that "the spring rises higher than the source, the effect exists without the cause, life comes from a stone, blood from a turnip, a silk purse from a sow's ear, a Beethoven Symphony or a Bach Fugue from a kitten walking across the keys..."
Atheism is stunningly worthless.
"The habit of arguing in support of atheism, whether it be done from conviction or in pretense, is a wicked and impious practice." - Marcus Tullius Cicero 106–43 B.C. - DE NATURA DEORUM, II. Ixvii. p. 285
Need something more recent?
"The atheists are for the most part imprudent and misguided scholars who reason badly ...." - Voltaire: Philosophical Dictionary
Or perhaps way older than both?
"The fool has said in his heart, There is no God'. They are corrupt..."
More recent?
"God is dead" - F. Neitzche
"Neitzche is dead" - God
So much for troy's infantile clown and simplistic "rebuttal".
You've only conned yourself troy boy.
Now here's my favorite atheist quote: The Astonishing Hypothesis is that "You," your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing. (p. 3) -Francis Crick (1994) The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons
So troy, tell us -
Why should we give a crap what you, as a pack of neurons, thinks?
Why should anyone give a damn what electrochemical events in 3 lbs of meat (yer brain according to atheism) is doing?
So troy, tell us -
DeleteWhy should we give a crap what you, as a pack of neurons, thinks?
Why should anyone give a damn what electrochemical events in 3 lbs of meat (yer brain according to atheism) is doing?
Well, why should I give a crap what you, as an allegedly immaterial soul, thinks? What difference does it really make how the process of thinking is implemented? Do you think that your God is incapable of creating material brains that can think without some magic soul stuff? Do you have some logical proof that thinking is impossible by an entirely material entity?
[Do you have some logical proof that thinking is impossible by an entirely material entity?]
DeleteSure. Here's the proof (it's a couple thousand years old-- Aquinas used it as one of the proofs for the immateriality of the intellect).
Thinking involves universals-- the concept of men, love, truth, justice, beauty. Individual material things-- brain cells, etc-- can only be specific, this thing or that thing. No individual material thing can be a universal nor can it refer to a universal.
Therefore contemplation of universals cannot be entirely the result of a completely material entity.
QED.
Haha. You're trying to pull off one of Craig's question-begging scams of the form:
DeleteP1 According to materialism, X is impossible
P2 Here is an example of X
C Therefore materialism is false
Problem is, you haven't shown that P1 is true. Specifically, you haven't shown that material things cannot refer to universals. Therefore you are assuming your conclusion.
Try again.
^^
DeleteWhat dishonest fools_and_liars these pretend atheists are.
Mere matter cannot think. Mere matter cannot refer to anything else For, among other things, reference is an immaterial action -- what matter is a 'reference' made or composed of? does changing the matter of which a reference is composed change it to a reference to something else? what is the mass of a reference? what does a reference taste or smell like like? what is the shape of a reference? and so on and so on.
Further, Gary H has posted, in this very thread, a proof showing that thinking is impossible under materialism ... not that one ever expects these lying God-haters to admit to the truth of it.
a liar: "... Try again."
DeleteAlso, I urge others to not fall for this little trick; I call it "Deny and Demand" -- no matter what logical proofs anyone offers that atheism/materialism is false and necessarily false, these lying fools will deny that the proof's logic accomplished the task and then demand that you "Try again."
It is logically impossible, thus utterly impossible, to reason with a man who *will not* reason.
If you tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do [e.g. thinking], then I can always make a machine that can do just that.
Delete-- John von Neumann
Ilion:
Further, Gary H has posted, in this very thread, a proof showing that thinking is impossible under materialism
No he hasn't. All he has shown, and you have confirmed, is that religion rots the brain and tends to turn people into blathering idiots.
"One of the many strengths of Christian apologetics is that it succeeds from so many different perspectives, as you might expect with the truth."
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
One expects that, at least in the long run, adherence to truth will more likely, and more often, lead to "successful outcomes" that would adherence to non-truth.
Thus, if atheism (and/or Darwinism) were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, then one would expect societies made of atheists and/or DarwinDefenders) would, over time, be "more successful" than those made of, say, Christians (and/or DarwinDeniers).
Yet, in the real world, both atheism and Darwism lead to cultural/societal deal, frequently from suicide.
Craig comes off as a consummate, practised professional who not only knows his stuff and has a lot of charisma.
ReplyDeleteI actually felt bad for Rosenberg, who came off as as disorganized and dishevelled.
Almost as if he was under the influence of something or somehow unwell.
The worst moment for Rosenberg was when he declared that things just happen.
He went on about alpha particles and helium, and then posits it's all for 'no reason at all'.
Dr Rosenberg doesn't get out much or what?
My goodness!
What turned me of was Rosenberg constant "uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...
DeleteMaybe an MD can diagnose what is Rosenberg ailment.
LOL! Pépé
Deleteuh...uh...uh...uh...
I know, man. The guy came off as sick or drugged up. Should have been home in bed.
Ilion,
DeleteExactly right. Countries with a low index of religiosity actually do have a higher per capita income. It's a negative correlation. Poor countries tend to be more religious, perhaps to overcome the misery if only by the false consolation that a better existence will happen in the mythical afterlife.
Nothing is more reasonable than belief in a supreme being.
ReplyDeleteNothing is more unreasonable than atheism.
Atheism is a logical absurdity.
It is absurd because - according to atheists themselves, both amateur (and almost invariably extremely ignorant) web atheists, and the atheist philosophers- it cannot be proved to be true.
Therefore it must be based on blind faith alone.
Alert:
This is where the atheist chimes in with the standard bantha dung "arguments" :
-can't prove a negative (false),
-"we don't have any burden of proof" (false),
-Russell's foolish "orbiting teapot" (useless since the its an excellent example of a glaring category mistake)
-Atheism is just "lack of belief" (false)
Atheists are always ranting on about the support they have from science. Then whine and squeal over "anti-science" creationism!
Yet science not only gives no support whatsoever to atheism -either directly or by implication- it gives enormous evidence to theism!
Faith in a supreme being is the most reasonable, logically tenable position there is.
This is why the great majority of humans, since the beginning, have believed in some supernatural.
It is also why atheists have always been and still are a small minority of wishful, but poor, thinkers.
Oh and btw, according to atheist priest Sam Harris, free will doesn't exist, therefore to call atheists "free thinkers" is a major farce.
Since atheism necessarily leads to moral relativism, which is utterly useless, the consequences of atheism can and have brought about far more evils, wars, massacres, genocides, oppression, persecution etc. than any other religion in history.
Proof?
I give you the 20th century's well documented record of officially atheist governments that murdered over 140 million people in less than a century.
Atheism, and it's origins myth Darwinism, when taken to their obligatory logical conclusions, require belief that humans are just animals "sharing a common heritage with earthworms", that there is no soul or spirit, no afterlife, no purpose for the universe (and consequently for nothing in it) and that morals are mere evolutionary cultural illusions.
You will meet many unthinking, ignorant atheists that claim they don't believe those things. But that is precisely the point, they are unthinking. For, if they did think their atheism through, they would realize that -like all the atheists philosophers and many atheist scientists have said all along- that there is no real good or evil, no real right or wrong.
That is the only logical conclusion atheism can lead to. Just read Dawkins, Dennett, Ruse, Harris..... a long list of misguided "thinkers" who, at least on this subject, have come to the correct logical implications of atheism.
Atheism is nothing better than denial of reality.
Atheism sucks, to say the least, as a world view: nothing created everything for no reason & we'll end in eternal oblivion with nothing we've ever done have had any meaning whatsoever. Oh joy.
Craig wiped the floor with Rosenberg's failed inane philosophy.
I do hope bachfiend reads your comment and chokes on it!
Deletebachfiend enjoy having his ass served to him...
Gary,
DeleteYes, that's right. Humans are just animals sharing a heritage with earthworms, there is no soul or spirit, no afterlife, no purpose for the Universe (and consequently for nothing in it) and morals are mere evolutionary cultural illusions.
That's reality. Live with it. Pretending otherwise might be consoling, but the consolation will be gone when you've returned to the ashes you came from after you die.
If you want to believe that Craig won the debate. You can also believe that Romney won his debates with Obama. What's Romney doing nowadays?
Craig basically said 6 times; I don't understand this science stuff, therefore God is the best explanation. That's not science supporting theism. Science isn't concerned with 'explanations' (unless it's a direct causal mechanism). It's concerned with making predictions.
Explanations are just story telling. Explanations are no better than postdictions. Egnor wet his pants with excitement over the ENCODE study (in the process not understanding it), because he thought that if 20-80% of the human genome is functional (in being transcribed at least once per cell), then that must mean that almost all the human genome isn't junk DNA. And then claimed that ID predicted that junk DNA doesn't exist - although, in his confusion, in the very same thread he flip flops and claims that actually it was a postdiction anheist the best explanation.
"Humans are just animals sharing a heritage with earthworms, there is no soul or spirit, no afterlife, no purpose for the Universe (and consequently for nothing in it) and morals are mere evolutionary cultural illusions."
DeleteAnd you can prove all this right?
Didn't think so.
Furthermore, not only do you have absolutely ZERO evidence for this empty foolish assertion -based on nothing more than wishful thinking, really bad logic and pretentious arrogance- you have absolutely no reason for even being here making comments that, by your own judgment, are feckless, vain & futile since "there is purpose for the Universe (and consequently for nothing in it [including you]) and morals are mere evolutionary cultural illusions".
Here now, take this little RED PILL : "That's reality. Live with it. Pretending otherwise might be consoling, but the consolation will be gone when you've" gone to face eternity alone in thick tangible darkness "after you die".
Right back at ya.
Your self contradiction in this would be so easily shown by filming you when you get mad at anyone for anything they do to you - as though your self-righteous anger were actually more than "evolutionary cultural illusions".
You do this all the time and you know it.
You atheists always shoot yourselves with this simple singular point (not to mention so many others), but you're too blind and/or too hypocritical to admit it. Your theories on life the universe and everything are no better than 42.
Your own codswallop necessarily mean that you believe your own lives, your actions, debates, comments, ... everything utterly eternally vain.
So why the hell are you here?
Let me guess: to correct us theists from "lack of belief" in your incredibly stupid worldview?
But if the universe has no purpose, then your very presence & purpose here is ludicrous.
Go tell someone else that their lives have no meaning, life's a bitch and then you die.
Gary,
ReplyDeleteI'm here because I enjoy reading Egnor's batshit crazy take on science. And politics. And religion. And philosophy. I'm amazed that someone who must be intelligent could be just so stupid.
bach:
ReplyDelete"I'm here because I enjoy reading Egnor's batshit crazy take on "
1. Waiting for your proof of the inane claim to knowledge that "no soul or spirit, no afterlife, no purpose for the Universe (and consequently for nothing in it) and morals are mere evolutionary cultural illusions."
i.e. the standard atheist tripe.
Where is it the proof? I won't hold my breath.
2. You're here to read but also to comment with your own ideas on what is true or not.
Perhaps, commenting here provides you with some semblance of psychological strength to be able to maintain your untenable position. Perhaps you're preaching to yourself, trying to bolster confidence in your chosen beliefs.
The real problem is that if what you believe were true, then even that reason for being here would be just as utterly futile as everything else.
But then Harris et al. -your high priests- claim free will, like morals, is also an illusion.
But if so then you did not choose to believe as you do, and neither did Mike.
What you believe is encoded in your DNA and you "dance to its music". Like everyone else.
And thus how can anyone "change their mind"?
No free will = no change of mind possible, except by some involuntary event in 3 lbs of meat.
Atheism means its all determined by physics and chemistry and has nothing to do with choice of truth over lies.
Hence determinism.
Determinism, reductionism etc. - all the results of atheist logic.
But again, if that is true then intelligence and idiocy are equally illusory. For its the same genetics, the same electrical currents in meat, the environmental stimuli etc., that determine what you think -not "you" -for that IS you.
Therefore stupidity, intelligence, wisdom, etc are all illusions, just as much as morals are.
Please don't tell me you can't see the mutually exclusive results in your views here.
Why should IQ and beliefs be any different -anything more solid- than morals?
There is no reason.
You can't test your brain using your brain.
Indeed, reason itself, rationality itself, under atheism, is the results of non rational events -electrochemical events in 3 lbs of meat -therefore under the logic of atheism- your own doctrines are all self-defeating!
You didn't even select them freely by intelligent evaluation of facts vs non facts -they were all predetermined by the laws of physics and chemistry.
This conclusion is inescapable.
It thus becomes impossible to change ones own mind as well as the minds of others. And even if we think we change our own minds -its another illusion. And why try anyway? Its futile.
This is not hard.
Bach
ReplyDeleteAs for Mike's take on science - well under atheism, he didn't choose that view any more than you chose yours!
But his take is correct, thankfully yours is not.
In fact your take on a whole lot of things is seriously flawed. That's normal -seeing your worldview is flawed at the roots; the branches are thus equally crippled.
The "stupid" person here bach is you, not Dr. Egnor, who is light years ahead of you.
Atheism is a logical absurdity all by itself.
Until you can provide some support in empirical evidence for your evolutionary, genetically determined beliefs, you will remain in the dark, following others in the dark, all pretending to be in the light.
Atheists are all like blind men claiming color does not exist because they can't see it, or the deaf believing music is a delusion because they can't hear it.
Laughable and tragic to anyone with sight and hearing.
"The one that created the eye, does he not see?"
Why don't you start your own campaign to debunk Newton, Maxwell, Townes, Boyle, Kelvin, Pasteur, von Braun, Schroedinger, Heisenberg .... ??
They all believed very close to what Mike believes, and very very far from what you believe.
Therefore, they are all stupid too huh?
Only you aren't stupid huh?
Right, I'll pass on that one for now.
These are the founders of modern science -including the development of the scientific method- which you pretend lends support to your vain position, but rather refutes it everywhere.
So again, go tell somebody else that their lives have no meaning, life's a bitch and then you die. All is vanity and nothing matters.
Or repent.
bachfiend is a nihilist and what he thinks or says amounts to, well, next to nothing!
DeleteGary,
DeleteWhat can I write that will produce a dangerous rise in blood pressure and cause you to 'pop' your berry aneurysm?
OK, your life has no meaning (you'll be dead in a hundred years; hardly anyone remembers the Salzburg archbishop of Mozart, and he had political and religious power), life's a bitch (actually, it isn't, it's actually very good) and then you die (everyone dies - it's nothing to get upset about. As Mark Twain put it, we were dead billions of years before we were born and we'll be dead for billions of years after it).
And your allusion to Ecclesiastes is spot on.
Enjoy the rest of your life. There's nothing following.
Bach
ReplyDeleteI see. You have nothing to answer.
No evidence, no proof, just more empty assertions.
Life's good? Really?
What is good? Define good.
You don't even have any other answer for that than a slightly hidden epicurean style moral idiocy.
Good you say?
Tell that to the starving, tortured, raped, enslaved people of the world.
Tell it to the all the billions of children savagely torn to pieces in their own mothers' wombs -denied the right to see life and "good" at all.
Your materialist worldview is both illogical, vain and sick, leading to infinite evils as the world saw in the 20th century alone.
Your own pretense for your illusion of morality?
Like all "moral" atheists, its borrowed from the religion you so despise and so adamantly resist.
So you're a moral parasite, that's all.
The complete absence of any attempt at presenting evidence and reason for your position is proof enough that your position in feckless, empty of meaning.
Worse, its consequences -whenever that view is taken to the logical consequences you yourself have just admitted here -evil.
My advice: Turn or burn.
Truth is good. Truth is better than life.
Truth is what no atheist has.
troy says,
ReplyDelete"Well, why should I give a crap what you, as an allegedly immaterial soul, thinks?"
Because you are one yourself and ideas have consequences.
" What difference does it really make how the process of thinking is implemented?"
All the difference in the world.
The difference is as easy as mere electrical current with no meaning and absolutely no reason for its result to be called "true" or "false" vs something that has meaning, consequences, truth or falsehood, rightness or wrongness.
"Do you think that your God is incapable of creating material brains that can think without some magic soul stuff? Do you have some logical proof that thinking is impossible by an entirely material entity?
"
Mike answered this elegantly & adequately.
To add my little bit to that:
If God were to create such, it would be no more than a personal computer.
Think that over, you might see something you missed.
"No he hasn't. All he has shown, and you have confirmed, is that religion rots the brain and tends to turn people into blathering idiots."
LOL
This is so typical of atheist uh hum "thinking".
It amounts to:
Can't answer, don't know what to say?
Deep inside you see the truth of it but don't want to?
What to do what to do?!!?
Attack the person.
Thanks for revealing this once again dear troy.
How about a short and sweet demo of the self-defeating nature of atheist logic?
ReplyDeleteAtheism requires that no authentic good or evil exists. All morality is, as bachfiend has so kindly explained, illusion and subjective.
Evidence:
"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3)no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent." -William B. Provine, atheist professor of biology at Cornell University
"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; ... The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music."Richard Dawkins,Out of Eden,pg 133
Sam Harris says, "Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control" (So sam had no control in writing his book)
Michael Ruse says, "Morality is no more than an adaptation, and as such has the same status as such things as teeth and eyes and noses. ... [M]orality is a creation of the genes".
"Nature has no concern for good or bad, right or wrong... We cannot get behind ethics." - S. Blackburn, Prof Philosophy at Cambridge, 'Being Good:A Short Introduction to Ethics', pg 133
Ethics "is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate," and "the way our biology enforces its ends is by making us think that there is an objective higher code to which we are all subject." -Michael Ruse and evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson,'The Evolution of Ethics'
Wilson in 'Consilience' (1998) wrote:
"Either ethical precepts, such as justice and human rights, are independent of human experience or else they are human inventions."
Quite literally dozens and dozens if not 100's more could be cited.
Atheists also use an ancient argument, supposedly a real problem for theists, which is the problem of evil.
Epicurus was among the 1st to put it succinctly:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence comes evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"
Atheists have been parroting this statement ever since. Its virtually ubiquitous in atheist text books against theism, in seminars, forums ...
Now, look at this uncanny yet glaring contradiction.
First atheists says there is no good or evil, but then he argues against the existence of God by calling on the existence of evil (and suffering)!
Wow, brilliant!
Since there is no God, they say, there is no good or evil. So by the inverse, since there really is good & evil, there is a God.
If evil really exists its only explanation is found in the existence of God within whom good is absolutely defined.
Thus evil is also defined -by the inverse- as everything that contradicts that ultimate good.
Good is described in every human conscience -including the conscience of the atheist.
So in reality, the existence of evil proves the existence of an absolute good - God.
Otherwise, there is no good or evil as all the priests of atheism claim -all while contradicting themselves at every turn, every day in all that they do.
Under atheism there is no evil and therefore suffering isn't evil, it just is -like rocks- & like the universe, has no meaning.
God, the ultimate good, is thus a necessary existence for the ability to define evil.
Evil is thus whatever contradicts the moral character of God.
Gary,
DeleteOK, you've convinced me. There is a God. An Evil God, who only wants harm to befall us, but who has managed to fool us into thinking that the countless calamities afflicting us, such as plagues, hurricanes and tsunamis, are for our good.
The existence of Good in the world is proof of the existence of the Evil God.
Ah here we go again with our stubborn bachfiend friend (who is quite the opposite of Bach who was a theist in case thats the intended allusion).
DeleteWell I figured you or some other athie would say pretty much that in response.
So predictable.
You missed the point.
There is no evil bach, you said so yourself.
There is no meaning, you said so yourself. Suffering is just what happens in a purposeless universe -atheists all say so- all while contradicting themselves like you do.
You may want to re-think your logic there.
Worse, your response itself proves that you really do believe in a real right & wrong, a real good & evil.
Gary,
DeleteMy Lord and Master is PDQ Bach, not Johann Sebastian.
I was giving a parody of your argument. Because I don't think that your argument is valid. In the same way that Jonathan Swift did in his 'A Modest Proposal' in his parody of social values. But obviously not as well.
Bach
ReplyDeleteLord and Master? lol
Figures. Think you can stoop into foolishness any lower?
You're so lost. But then, you like being lost, so ...
In any case, your response was really lame. Almost as bad as your new one.
My argument is perfectly valid. Prove the contrary.
But then I wouldn't expect a man so fixed against truth and as stubborn as yourself to see the difference between valid arguments and the idiotic ones you believe in.
Haven't seen a single valid rebuttal to anything I or other theists here have said.
Just bitching against truth, empty assertions without a scrap of backup and much evidence that atheist's have been brainwashed and are in need of serious deprogramming.
"... perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
That pretty much describes you and your little false gods, lords and masters -which are many.