8/21/09

New Atheism – Further Evidence of Its Deleterious Effects, part 2 of 2

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Posted by Ken
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 21, 2009 at 10:22 AM

    Who won that debate anyway?

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  2. AnonymousAugust 21, 2009 at 7:46 PM

    probably in this case Hitchens because of superior wit, rhetoric and literacy skills.
    Now when debating someone like William Lane Craig a vastly different story. Craig destroyed him.

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  3. AnonymousFebruary 1, 2010 at 7:03 PM

    Don't take this personally, but this is a really, REALLY poorly written and argued case for the existence of a (Christian, of course) god.
    You state:
    'Obviously, this means that if someone steals your car and runs someone over with it, your car was not designed by a beneficent engineer—right? Nay, rather this solidifies the doctrine of the fall'.
    The logic here escapes me. How does the fact that someone may do something improper and unjust (stealing a car) solidify 'the doctrine of the fall'? Where is the connection, direct or otherwise? Did it ever occur to you that there may be some other explanation for the fact that people sometimes do bad things? No?
    You state:
    'In fact, it is the very fields and methods of science that were established largely by believers in God that uncovered laws in the universe and the continuity to which they give rise'.
    Yes, it is true that certain truths were uncovered by believers in God (such as Isaac Newton), but it does not automatically follow that because of this fact that there must therefore be a God, Christian or other. This is a logical fallacy, argument from authority. So-and-so the scientist (and he's a very bright man) believed it, so it must be true. Wrong!
    You claim:
    'As far as we know, laws do not proceed forth from arbitrary collocations—from explosions'.
    Yes, this is true, as far as we know, but your so-called solution is to posit the existence of a causative factor (God) which is even more of a mystery than the problem we are trying to tackle. You are basically saying that if we don't have the answer to any given scientific problem, then the only reason for this is that God made it so. This is not a satisfactory answer, it just raises more problems than the one it was supposed to solve, and this is not a reasonable way of seeing the world.
    Your claim:
    'When continuity is broken, such as when a dead body rises, we can discern the possibility of a miracle'.
    I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, but why should anyone, for any reason, believe that corpses come back to life? Because the Bible says so, and therefore it simply MUST be true? The very definition of a miracle is an event, or series of events, that defy one or more of the known laws of nature. For this simple reason we should not believe in them. If you believe in miracles, then you need to present highly compelling evidence in support of such a view. Don't expect anyone to take anything on faith.
    You claim:
    'Jay Richards holds that the scientific evidence for a creator leads, eventually perhaps, to a chain of causation which concludes in the Bible’s theology'.
    How? Where? First of all, there is no, repeat NO, scientific evidence for a creator of any kind, never mind that psychopathic tyrant (El-Shaddai, the 'father' of the Canaanite trinity)that is found in the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua. Secondly, even if there were such evidence, where is the chain of causation that Jay Richards has supposedly found?
    One more:
    'The statement is that since the God of the Bible is like a mean spirited psychopath He cannot be a transcendent, eternal, personal being'.
    Are you saying here that a mean spirited psychopath in fact CAN be a transcendent one? One that we should grovel beneath and worship? One that we should hold up and admire as an exemplar of moral and ethical behaviour? A God that demands the liquidation of all and any potential opposition to the Israelite annexation of Canaan?
    Don't be ridiculous!

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