Rules for a God Debate

What a hoot!
The moderator could have also mentioned that any debater should not confuse subsequence with consequence. For example if someone prays for rain today and then it rains tomorrow, it doesn’t mean that the rain was caused by the prayer. All it means is that the prayer preceded the rain.

Hey Bertram, guess what?

We don’t want to force anyone to stop being religious, and we don’t want our country to become officially atheist.

Now kindly go back wherever you came from and stop making wildly ridiculous assumptions, okay? Seriously, you act like ANY criticism of the sort of nonsense we run into is identical to rounding people up into camps. Do you honestly have no concept of scale?

You literally did several of the things that NSC mentioned in this video – widely misrepresenting our views, playing the victim, etc.

Excellent video. I would love to have a debate on that ground. There would be much progress. As it stands I think almost all of the debates that are going on a rehashes. But it’s still important. Too many people have never heard the arguments.

Bertram, as for communism. There are two points to this. It’s totalitarian tendencies that justified the most horrible aspects of it was not derived from atheism. Let me quote the communist manifesto:

“When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.”

Marx and Engels were clear. The mandate for force came to allow equalization of the classes. Class struggle not atheism is the justification of violence.

Of course they were wrong. Any system that is sent as a detour through a one-party rule is bound to degrade into a dictatorship.

And transition does not inherently require mandates to “sweep away by force” the conditions of old conditions of production.

The communist manifesto promoted an aggressive and totalitarian path and claimed that historically the need for aggression and single-rule will naturally dissolve.

None of this is atheism at all. It is totalitarianism, it is classism, it is single-party system, it is class-santioned violence.

In any case virtually all atheists I know want a free pluralistic society with freedom of expression, freedom of religion and from religion.

@Nessa Great idea. I was thinking it would be funny to have the last remaining theist get up and pause and stammer before saying, “Yeah. I got nothin’.”

Nathan, clearly you haven’t watched the video or understood the debate rules.

My favorite rhetorical fallacy: intentional misstatements combined with totalizing exaggeration.

Here is how this works:

A- “Let’s not debate the claim that all swans are white because it has been shown that black swans were found”.

B- “Oh you just want to win the debate on any topic relating to swans, noone can disagree with you, your doctrines are right”

No, B does not follow from A.

But yes it does follow that in an honest debate things that have been proven false can no longer be entered. This says nothing about the rest of it all.

Valhar, Thanks for adding a new word to my vocabulary!

Nessa, step into TVTropes with care, for if you tread too far into that god-forsaken land you may never leave.

And then you will start to use their terms in normal conversation and people will think you’re weird.

Nessa said:
Valhar, Thanks for adding a new word to my vocabulary!

Heh. Follow the link Valhar posted. Dare ya.

Hope you’ve got lots of time on your hands, though.

Is there a transcript anywhere? I’d like to Instapaper it and read it offline.

Ben

I enjoyed some parts of that, but I’m not pleased to see the idea that evolution can explain morality trotted out again. This idea really spoiled my enjoyment of The God Delusion.

Evolution can explain why certain behaviors persist, but it cannot provide justification for them as moral (unless you find infanticide among gorillas or rape among orangutans morally righteous since those are also winning evolutionary strategies). I went into more detail in a post inspired by Terry Pratchett that I wrote here: http://www.unequally-yoked.com/2010/06/only-animals-cant-help-what-they-are.html

Heh. That was amusing.

Only I didn’t find it realistic that the Christians actually listened to those rules than got up and walked out instead of just ignoring them once debate began.

Randy;

I think you kind of missed the point of the video and didn’t read the responses to Nathan’s comment above. The debate was “won” because the ground rules laid out stated that neither side could employ logical fallacies. So often in debates of this type, the same old baseless, logically unsound bits of falderol are tossed about. It gets tiresome. Not to say that there aren’t competent xtain debaters–the point the video was trying to make is that so often, the same baseless claims are used ad nauseum and that no amount of refutation seems to end their use.

Please enlighten us: which of the conclusions made in this video were factually inacurate enough to call into question Hemant’s entire blog? Keep in mind that this video was not made by Hemant, simply posted by him. And how was this video dismissive? Keep in mind, quickly discarding logical falacies and claims not supported by evidence in a debate is not being disimissive or unfriendly, it’s good debate technique.

I can see the point of some of these. Others, not so much.

“Delusion” – how about as a rule, let’s not shelter people from testing labels as they are defined against categories that are usually sheltered from that label.

Believing in an invisible friend -> delusional.
Believing in an invisible god -> moral, good, right, proper.

Inherent conflict of science and religion, well indeed there may not be an inherent conflict, but it’s up to religions to decide this. If religions do make natural claims they inherently intrude on the domain of science. It’s exactly because religions do not obey the idea of non-overlapping magesteria, is why there is a problem of science needing to content with superstition.

I would agree on “everything” such as “god explains everything” and on anecdote “jesus resurrected from the grave” as data “hence christianity is true”.

On “shell game”, agreed except in epistemology. If a hypothesis is falsified, it is falsified and cannot be rescued by rewriting. A new one has to be formulated. And if the new one is related, the relation has to be explained.

On Stalin, well communist violence was justified in the communist manifesto because of class struggle, not atheism. So yes atheists are allowed to counter false claims about stalinism as if it was just degenerate atheism.

On the crusades, they were direct consequences of restorative fantasies of believers derived fron christianity. They are absolutely topic of debate, but the debate has to be factual.

I haven’t seen this before though: “We won’t mention Stalin if you won’t mention Crusades”.

A rather immoral proposition.

Hitchens would call this hucksterism of the worst kind. (“So I won’t tell the police about your dead bodies in the closet if you don’t mention mine, OK?”)

No we have to talk about both, but be honest about their historical and ideological contexts.

So the really good debate rules would be: No hiding historical facts or connections, no quoting out of context, no unfounded assumptions about ideologies and ideological ties.

Those would be good rules and basically remove the false “atheism lead to most of the 20th century atrocity” meme.

Randy, there is no evidence for your position, there is no evidence for any position in that regard. To simply state “we don’t know” is sufficient to describe what is going on.

The persecution thing is funny, when most universities have whole departments devoted to theology and religion. It’s even more funny when we have actual stories of attempts to force politicians out of office because they are atheists, but no such thing about believers. Where are the stories of school children getting bullied by an atheist mob, when you will find stories of atheist (and gay or other minority) children getting bullied and even expelled from school.

Persecution of believers? Wake up.

No, believers claim to be bullied when at a university they get critical questions. That’s about all there is to it.

“naturalistic assumptions that there will always be an naturalistic primogenitor is based on nothing but faith”

I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean, but I think it fairly falls under the “don’t misrepresent the other’s point of view” category.

You clearly don’t know what “theory” is. Look it up. Don’t waste our time, reexplaining it when it has been explained a gazillion times.

The problem with the “theory” argument is that people try to derive false equivalence between creationism as “theory” and evolution as “theory”. However, the value of a theory is measured by how much evidence supports it, if it has predictive power etc etc. But by the debate rules I would not have to reexplain this (and yes I have explained this many more times than should be necessary).

And no, don’t go on.

Fritzy asked what part was dismissive. “No, don’t go on is dismissive”

At GodvsnoGod.blogspot.com, we invite everyone to go on as long as they wish, and recognize that new folks may need a new explanation for old well discussed issues. Moreover, we may be talking passed one another on the issue of “theory.” I make no claim that creationism is at the point of theory.

And I have sadly been deprived of any kind of decent education so it is no wonder that I have such a poor understanding that I should just move on. Undergrad Psych BA at UCLA. JD at the same institution. 6 published books including Warner.

Moreover, my life experience is also troubling for many. Born into a Christian family, contemplated attending Clairmont School of Theology, left the church for 14 years and flirted with agnosticism, primarily on the basis of evolutionary claims, then returned to fundamentalism as claims of science became less trustworthy, and often manipulated by financial considerations (eg. fda, grants, global warming)

Hitch,

It’s an atheist website, and I guess you or somebody can make the rules here. Authority has weight in law and in life. You are not personally the final arbitrar on when a subject has been exhaustively debated and the winner determined. This seems to be a page from the Al Gore theory that the debate is over. Won’t wash.

I wouldn’t take that “ground rules” thing too seriously. I see it more as sarcasm. It does have a mocking undertone. He pretends to lay down some basic rules and then starts into this ever more elaborate preemptive debunking of potential arguments from the theists. But that’s exactly what it makes it funny to me.

As one who has been engaging in all kinds of formal and informal debates for over 40 years, it is always better to be in a position to make the rules and to determine the subject.

You may not take it seriously, but it would appear that your colleagues do.

Fritz,

Excuse me for the credential display, but the cartoon and other comments here and elsewhere in the atheist blog/forum world, make the assumption that those who argue “God did it, and is still involved,” are 6th grade dropouts who haven’t read the science or the leading work on the naturalistic side.

Your response to causes: If we leave the possibility of God out of the possibilities of causes, then we limit ourselves by definition. God is only supernatural by definition. In fact, God by Christian definition, would be the most natural element of nature. And regardless of your definition of evidence, God as creator is way beyond a guess.

As to evolution as theory or fact, we once again come down to definition. No Christian denies that many of the elements of evolution are fact, but I suspect that for some the fact of evolution would include lizards to birds, fish to mammals, and such.

Darwin himself said that his theory would fail if the fossil evidence did not find the famous missing links. They may still be found, but with the massive amount of fossil evidence having been assembled, it is amazing to not have any yet.

Moreover, if we find a few that seem more satisfying than the frauds that have appeared so far, this will only provide historical evidence, and will not provide the kind of testable approach that one would prefer for proof. We have had numerous laboratory proofs of things that couldn’t be replicated. I don’t think we will take a single fossil record as the lynch pin.

The basic premise of evolution with regard to adaptation to environment is not at issue. The causes (selfish genes, survival of the fittest, community survival genetics, are obviously still needing some research.

The inclination of some to use one or more of these suppositions as the basis for how society should act in order to reach scientific perfection is the most worrisome part.

Randy, there is much more known about evolution than your description lets on. Also by your use of certain phrases it’s quite clear that you don’t refer to Darwin (“survival of the fittest” for example) or to the nonemclature that scientific literature uses (“missing link”)

For a first start review the wikipedia articles on the matter. They give a first indication of the state of affairs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil

DNA based work has actually revealed a lot of information about gene evolution that gives very good indication about the transitions of the species. We know quite a bit about the relations of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens for example.

It is frankly silly to still consider Dawkin’s “missing link” concern to be anything of relevance today. We have amply knowledge of gene evolution, we have a much denser fossil record.

Finally you mix “social darwinism” with biological theory of evolution. These are separate topics.

I would suggest that you read up on the topic some more.

Randy, I hate to say it but this is how these debates go. We meet people with lots of confidence in their argument. When we point out that they are insufficiently prepared, we are charged to be obfuscators.

On social vs biological darwinism this is your sentence I read as mixing the two:

“The inclination of some to use one or more of these suppositions as the basis for how society should act in order to reach scientific perfection is the most worrisome part.”

Society acting is a social construct. Darwins theory is a biological one. I think my conclusion that you mixed the two is fair. I’ll take your word for it that you didn’t mean it that way.

Rather than charge me with obfuscation, why not read up on the exciting research of the relation of homo sapiens and neanderthals. Svante Paabo is the scientist who does some of the coolest work in the area.

Not only do we understand how genes evolve, we can learn from them how species migrated on the globe. Very cool stuff!

The theory of evolution has nothing to say about the existence of deities.

But for Christians, because evolution is by some perceived to contradict the story of Genesis, there is an issue. But that’s a specific problem for Abrahamic religions. Krishna or the Buddha couldn’t care less.

As for having read the bible, I’ll just say most of our horror movies owe greatly to the relevations of John.

I don’t want this to come off wrong, but believers often tell atheists to read the bible, the qur’an etc. In my experience it makes things worse.

NonStampCollector has a brilliant piece on that problem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk

@Randy Kirk:

“…famous missing links. They may still be found, but with the massive amount of fossil evidence having been assembled, it is amazing to not have any yet”

We have hundreds of transitional fossils–”missing links” if you will. You need to learn something about evolution if you’re going to discuss it.

“We have a man who claimed to be God. Others saw him do things that seemed to substantiate his claim. Many, many believed”

And so–? This sort of thing has happened throughout history, and continues to happen. People make claims, other people believe the claims. Hardly a convincing argument.

“His claims then fit hand-in-glove with a very long history of claims in [the Bible]“

Actually, they don’t. The evangelists certainly tried to make them fit the old Hebrew books retroactively, but they didn’t do a very good job of it. Notice the silliness of (Matthew, was it?) making Jesus literally ride two asses into Jerusalem in order to “fulfill” Zechariah 9:9 (clearly Matthew didn’t understand Hebrew poetics.)

Then there are those two contradictory birth narratives, Matthew and Luke. Each tries to get Mary to Bethlehem so that Jesus of Nazareth could be born there in order to fullfill Hebrew prophecies. Neither story is plausible, historically or otherwise.

“Folks who haven’t read more than a few pages, much less a book on anthropological, historical, or other proofs of the Bible.”

I know a lot more about the Bible than you do about evolutionary biology. I’ve read a lot of the Bible. I tried to understand it long before I became an atheist. I’ve read Biblical scholars. I know about textual criticism and what the historical record says about various biblical claims. And there are no “proofs of the Bible”, Randy. None, that is, that anyone other than fundamentalists take at all seriously.

Darwin himself said that his theory would fail if the fossil evidence did not find the famous missing links. They may still be found, but with the massive amount of fossil evidence having been assembled, it is amazing to not have any yet.

Darwin said no such thing. Darwin admitted at the time there was not enough evidence to call his hypothesis a theory. We have that evidence now. Evolution would not need the fossil record–there is plenty of other evidence to suport the theory of evolution–the fossil record is like a bonus. As far as there being no “missing link” which is a term no scientist worth his salt uses except in rebuttal to creationists, I have to ask, how many examples of “transitional” fossils must scientist provide before creationists will stop with this ridiculous argument? Scientists provide one example, then another then another and everytime the creationist responds with “but show an example of a trasitional species in the fossil record.”

Moreover, if we find a few that seem more satisfying than the frauds that have appeared so far, this will only provide historical evidence, and will not provide the kind of testable approach that one would prefer for proof. We have had numerous laboratory proofs of things that couldn’t be replicated. I don’t think we will take a single fossil record as the lynch pin.

Ah, Piltdown man. Scientists will never live that one down. And we don’t need the “linch-pin” of the fossil record–like I said before, there is plenty of other evidence to support evolution. Pick up any introductory text on the subject.

The inclination of some to use one or more of these suppositions as the basis for how society should act in order to reach scientific perfection is the most worrisome part.

Like Hitch pointed out, the only thing social Darwinism (a concept I personally find to be detestable pseudoscience) have in common is the word “Darwin.” And at any rate, the possible implications of Darwinian Evolutionary theory are ethical issue and have nothing to do with the validity of the scientific theory of evolution.

The universe and the things in it appear to have been the result of intelligent action, there is information and laws required to create and sustain all of matter and energy, and energy needs a source to keep from winding down. Just these four if found anywhere in nature would say “intelligent creator.” This is not proof, but it is evidence. Therefore, much more than a guess.

That just sounds like a fancy way of saying “God in the gaps.” If you’re looking for another possible explanation for why the laws of the universe are the way they are, look into multiverse theory. But saying, “well, it looks like you would need an intelligence to maintain these things” is not evidence; it is supposition.

We have a man who claimed to be God. Others saw him do things that seemed to substantiate his claim. Many, many believed. His claims then fit hand-in-glove with a very long history of claims in a document which is without peer in a host of ways. Both Jesus and the Bible have had a massive impact on human life beyond the impact of any other human or text. Both Jesus and the Bible declare there is a God who created everything. It is not proof, but it is evidence of the truth. It goes beyond a guess.

There are many men who have claimed to be god throughout history. As far as Jesus, there is no contemporary record of his existance–this among the Romans of the time who were known for being explicit and excuisite record keepers. And not one mention of Jesus or his miracles (please don’t bring up Josephus; we all know better.) The first of the four Gospels was not written until 30-50 years after his supposed death, so these can’t really be considered “reliable eye-witness accounts.” The impact of the Bible or of the apparently fictional Jesus says something only about the power of myths and speaks nothing to the actual existance of Jesus or any god(s). Jesus and the Bible making a claim that there is a god is not “evidence” of any god–it is a claim. When used as “evidence” it becomes a circular argument.

trix

You may be wrong about how much I know about evolutionary biology, but I won’t quibble. I’d love to know who your resources were for Biblical apologetics. You can nit pick away at the historical accounts of the Bible and of Jesus. Much greater minds than yours or mine have spent more time on this than either you or I will and have concluded that the Bible is a true account and has far more documentation than any similar text.

Hitch,

For one thing delusional is “loaded.” If you want to engage your opponent, it is usually better to stay away from loaded statements. I fail at this often, but I try.

Moreover, psychologically, I would come closer to calling a delusion the idea that in my finite and very limited scope of the universe, that I know anything at all. All of my knowledge is second hand at best and comes from folks that I choose to agree with.

Reality might be understanding that I am very finite and maybe something greater than me exists and was responsible for my creation.

You are right about the word “denial.”

I don’t think atheist is loaded for me. One of my best buddies for the past 35 years is an Objectivist in the Ayn Rand mold. We have probably spent 1000 hours in debate. Another of my long time associates is Michael Shermer (I knew him before he was an athest). We’ve also had a few long rounds. So, for me at least, atheism, naturalism is just another world view. As with most Christians I care because of our belief that there are eternal consequences for unbelievers. As a political junky, I care because I think that a Christian underpinning of society has huge beneficial consequences. But I live in West LA where almost all of my friends and neighbors are not sharing much of my POV.

Much greater minds than yours or mine have spent more time on this than either you or I will and have concluded that the Bible is a true account and has far more documentation than any similar text.

There’s that appeal to authority again. Nasty, nasty habit.

However, I can tell you that the truth claims of the Bible are played out daily in my life in profound ways. In that you do not make a practice of testing Biblical truth claims, you cannot say whether or not they would play out in your life.

I’m not sure how one is supposed to differentiate between this and a self-fulfilling prophesy. When reading anything esoteric, people often find the truths they are looking for. If you find truth in these passages, more power to you but many people find truths that “click” with them in other, non-xtian sources.

As for whether anyone here has made a practice of testing “biblical truth claims” existentially, I would be very careful when you claim anyone here has not attempted this. I personally spent many psychologically agonizing years of my life trying to see and feel these truths in my life and in my heart. Ultimately they all rang hollow, or were truths (such as charity, love, kindness, egalitarianism) that were better elaborated on in other traditions, many secular, ridding me of the need for all the woo-woo, as well as the more detestable parts (xenophobia, misogyny, being born into sin and homophobia for instance.)

Watch out when you attempt to tell someone else, particularly someone you don’t know very well, what their experiences have been. You are likely to get a resounding “F-you.”

@Randy Kirk:

I may not have put that well. What I meant to say is that few to no non-fundamentalist Christians would accept the proposition “that Christian theology is true” without being more specific. “Christian theology” is not a monolithic entity, and most debates about it happen within Christianity itself.

@Hitch:

No, Stalin and the Crusades are not parallels in what they are, but they are parallels in how they are often misused in debate.

Incidentally, there’s no sense in which invading other countries is “Christian ideology”. Jesus, as you may have noticed, was a dirty hippie.

@Pseudonym: I agree to that. I don’t think from a current day perspective discussion of either adds much. There is a point inside each that can be made in a current day context.

But you misunderstand what arguments people make. Jesus was definitely a hippie, in fact I think Jesus, taken as social philosopher had very interesting things to say.

The point is that religions (and other ideologies and identity formations) can be used to motivate people to do bad things. Not Jesus’ fault, but definitely the Catholic’s Church fault at the time. And the Bible does not help containing respective passages that are not Jesus, but old testament for example.

See if the council of Nicea had decided that the old testament is scrapped, the revelation goes into the dustbin and perhaps also nothing but the gospels on Jesus’s life were allowable, it’d be a better text.

But given that holy scripture is holy we get that whole problem.

Basically atheist’s criticism is usually (a) political and (b) structural, and by that I mean there is some real word thing that religion has a bad effect and the obstruction to overcoming that bad effect is structural within the religion.

So while Jesus may have been great, the bible can still be quoted quite sensibly to justify violence of all sorts of varietes. And by the bible being infallible there is a structural problem to those quotes and the justification that believers give.

I don’t think you’d get a lot of opposition if we were debating the social philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, the mortal fallible man. That is like discussing Socrates or Spinoza. We can have an opinion.

We don’t deal with opinion, even good opinion. We deal with Truth with a capital T.

Makes sense?