Oraclefornia

Just a quick question. Has Dan Barker ever debated Wm L. Craig on anything?

JerryM

[QUOTE][B]What would a logical person accept as proof of God? Would he require God Almighty to appear before him in order to acknowledge His existence? Would he apply this same criterion to everything else in life?


This person (I would like to think I'm logical) would settle for any positive evidence of the Bible's creation story. All we ever get are simplistic arguments against organic evolution. What evidence do they have for the following:
1) Light (and being a literalist, I mean the visible part of the EM spectrum) was the very first thing in the universe--and what's this about separating the light from the darkness? Isn't darkness just the absence of light?
2) The planet earth is apparently older than the sun, stars, and other heavenly bodies.
3) There were days and nights before there was a sun
4) Liquid water was present, also before there was a sun to warm things up
5) The grasses, trees, and plants existed before the sun

I won't ask for any proof of God's existence. Let's just see what evidence they have for the Genesis myth.

NearNihil Experience

I think there is an online resource here(secweb), around here somewhere. Check out Dr. Ted Drange's work for a thorough evaluation of the info you seek. His book, check on Google, and there's some notebeooks from some of his classes out there somewhere. I have a few, but only single copies. The book you'd find on Amazon(Evil and Non-Belief) would cover most of what is in those though. caution: dense and premise\ conclusion laden work, formal argumentation...needs some personality when slinging it at annoying evangelizers, but solid and has argument from both sides.
Also, J. L. Makie's book "Arguments for and against the existence of God) is chock full of good stuff too.

Sorry I can only recommend books, but I think a few here will glady fill in more than you could imagine, or want sometimes.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by AtomSmasher :

Yeah, they remind me of my days in alt.atheism and on IRC, debating philosophy of religion. They're really among the worst of the worst.

Make sure you mention that. They make real apologists look bad.

False dilemma.

Well, true so far, but...

What does this have to do with the 2nd Law? It's almost as if the author threw that in earlier just to try to lend some credibility to this. Anyway, the universe didn't appear suddenly out of nothing, because there was no time at which the universe didn't exist. And if "the answer is obvious," sure, I'll say it's something other than God. There; I've just proven that God doesn't exist.

That's not what evolution is. Plant and animal species don't "transmutate" into other ones. Their offspring are slightly different.

The fossil record is in fact packed with transitional forms, and their existence is much better explained by the theory of evolution than by God's existence. Further, even if the theory of evolution were found to be false tomorrow, that would provide no evidence for theism, because no one has established the dilemma "Either theism or the theory of evolution is true, but not both." See The Talk.Origins Archive.

Look in any modern college-level biology textbook and you'll probably find several. And again, this is no evidence for theism, only putative evidence against evolution.

The author obviously hasn't done any research into plausible abiogenesis scenarios, because no one thinks it happened by chance. Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker provided a compelling statement of where this goes wrong years ago, but fundamentalists prefer not to admit the existence of any cogent opposing viewpoints.

If God existed, the Bible would be better written. The Bible isn't better written than it is now. Therefore, God doesn't exist.

Non sequitur.



Upon careful(ish) analysis, I conclude that these proofs are indeed among the worst attempts at apologetics published. Unfortunately, to make such a determination is hard because of the vast amount of very poor apologetics. Were I a Christian, I would be ashamed and disappointed that God couldn't inspire His followers to be better thinkers.

sandlewood

Heh, heh. That entropy argument cracked me up because they didn’t even get their own argument right. They are suppose to claim that human beings are order that came from disorder, and since that contradicts the Second Law, then God must’ve created humans. But somehow the author just ran off on a tangent about how the Universe got created.

yguy

The idea of proving God's existence is preposterous at its root. To do so, you would need an objective truth more fundamental than God by which to determine His existence. He IS the objective Truth by which anything can be determined.

SanDiegoAtheist

Question begging anyone?

If God doesn't provide evidence, then he is either irrelevent or nonexistant - as if God acts in any way to influence the universe, that would qualify as evidence, and should be visible in some way.

After all, most Christians (and for that matter, most theists), argue that God has directly intervened before in human history in many quite visible and detectable ways. Problem is, apparently He/She/It has only acted in the distant past, and only in front of highly credulous and superstitious types. In modern times, it appears that he only interacts with those that ALREADY believe - something that I find highly suspicious.

Frankly, God could easily prove himself to anyones standards of evidence - that IS certainly a consequence of omnipotence and omniscience, no? The free will defense is hardly convincing, since proving to a given individual that God exists in no way would abrogate the free will of the individual to decide NOT to serve/obey/whatever God - it simply would clear up the question of existance. In point of fact, in every religion which HAS a God, He/She/It has done so before, according to their (dubious) holy writings.

The problem of unbelief is a very serious one for major religions - and is one of the more difficult ones for religions such as Xianity to answer, as they suppose a deity which actively DESIRES that we know him. The fact that many of us DON'T is pretty good evidence that He, in fact, does NOT exist.

Frankly, the idea of the Xian God is preposterous at it's root - as it clearly contradicts reality as we experience it.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

yguy

If you mean that I'm avoiding the question of how God's existence can be proven, you are correct. It's meaningless.

I can easily go with the former in your case. Considering God irrelevant is a God-given option.

Not to those who have no desire to see it.

Is there ever sufficient evidence for Holocaust revisionists to believe that Hitler intended to wipe out the Jews, for doubters of the reality of the Moon landing, or for the OJ jury to believe he murdered Nicole?

You want visible evidence? Try looking in the mirror.

I don't know where you get that idea. Claims of miracle healings abound to this day, though perhaps most are fraudulent.

Uh huh. They'd have to be, of course, to believe in miracles.

I don't suppose the term "circular logic" comes to mind?

I don't know where you get that idea. At the very least, He would have to give them the idea that something is wrong with a non-God-centered paradigm.

Sure, He could. Why should He?

To the person determined not to believe in Him, clearing up that question would be an instant death sentence.

He reveals Himself to those who are ready, to whatever degree they are ready.

That would be true only if He unfailingly enforced His will on humans.

And "reality as we experience it" should be considered a benchmark because...?

Hawkingfan

It is not preposterous to ask for evidence of god's existence. It is unreasonable to believe in something that cannot be proven to exist. There are already plenty of objective truths by which to determine his existence. If god is the truth by which everything else's existence was determined, then we would conclude that nothing exists. This is because it takes exactly the same amount of evidence to support the existence of god as it takes to support the existence of nothing.

Tabula_rasa

Let's turn on the way back machine 31 years ago when I still had the silly notion of a godhead.

(Fade to a twelve year old Christian boy looking for God...)

OK, God, I've gone through the entire Bible. I've had twelve years of church and I'm ready to believe! God? Are you there? Just give me a sign. Anything! No? (sigh) I guess it's just me then.

(Fade back to present...)

Go figure - there is no 'other' that exists. No imaginary playfriend who can make everything AOK in times of trouble. I later came to realize that I was just passing from childhood to adulthood, shaking off yet another myth like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

It's not a matter of being irrelevant... God plainly and simply does not exist. It is deeply troubling that otherwise biologically capable 'adults' are still stifled by their own childhood superstitions.

Tabula_rasa