Christianity vs. atheism: which is more reasonable? -- Gregory vs. wiploc

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

This thread has been set up for a formal debate between Gregory and wiploc on the following topic:

Christianity vs. Atheism: which is more reasonable?

Gregory will argue the case for Christianity while wiploc will argue the case for atheism. The formal debate will use a special format, as agreed to from the parameters (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61810), with Gregory going first:

Set 1:

Round 1: Gregory affirms his best arguments for Christianity; wiploc rebuts
Round 2: Gregory defends; wiploc rebuts
Round 3: Gregory concludes

Set 2:

Round 1: wiploc affirms his best arguments for atheism; Gregory rebuts
Round 2: wiploc defends; Gregory rebuts
Round 3: wiploc concludes

Final Round: Gregory makes overall concluding statement; wiploc makes overall concluding statement

A Peanut Gallery (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=76378) thread is set up in the Existence of God(s) forum for the rest of us to comment on debate.

Enjoy the debate!

Jason

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Gregory and wiploc have agreed to push the start date to Saturday, February 14th. We apologize for the delay.

Jason

[Gregory]

I just wanted to say a few quick words before I jump into the debate. First, I would like to express my thanks to Nightshade and all those involved at the IIDB for hosting the debate. Also, I greatly appreciate Wiploc's willingness to explore his own worldview and mine in a friendly, yet serious discussion of this most crucial question of God's existence. Finally, although my comments will be directed to Wiploc, it is my hope that everyone following the debate will carefully consider the arguments presented for Christianity. Although I am not permitted to make any comments in the peanut gallery until after the debate, I am looking forward to discussing the content of the arguments with anyone who may be interested. All that being said, let's begin.

Wiploc,

The topic we have chosen to debate is: Christianity vs. atheism: Which is more reasonable? There seem to be many different criteria that we could use to determine which worldview is more reasonable. It seems to me that a worldview which can better explain various, important aspects of the universe would be superior and more reasonable than another. Such a worldview would then, consequently, be worthy of our belief. Thus, I will attempt to show Christianity as superior to atheism by comparing the explanations given for various phenomenon in our universe. It is my hope that upon taking an (as much as possible) objective look at the evidence, it will be clear that Christianity is much more reasonable than atheism, and the only question left is what to do with this conclusion.

Topic 1- How do we explain the origin of the universe?

There are basically two possible views one can hold on this question (within the parameters of this debate).

1) The universe has always existed and requires no explanation of its origin.
2) The universe came into existence a finite time ago.

Historically, atheists have held that the universe has just always existed. However, a little reflextion on this idea will hopefully show it to be absurd. First, if the universe has always existed, then the past is infinitely old (which means one could go back into the past forever and not come to an end). If this is the case, then that means we must have crossed over an infinite amount of successive points in time to get to the present moment. I hope the problem is already becoming apparent. It is simply impossible to ever traverse an infinite series of moments. Even given an infinite amount of time, the task could not be done. So, since the present moment has obviously arrived, then the universe could not be infinitely old. Secondly, the second law of thermodynamics says that the amount of energy available to do work in the universe is steadily decreasing and is being evenly distributed throughout the universe. If the universe was infinitely old, then it would have died a "heat death" long ago.

This leaves only one other solution: that the universe came into existence a finite time ago. This is precisely what Christianity teaches: that God the creator brought the world into existence from nothing. I will reserve comments on big bang cosmology until/or if they are brought up. Suffice it to say that it is plainly absurd for anything to spontaneously arise from nothing.

Topic 2- How do we explain the existence of an absolute, universal moral law?

I will take as an assumption, until challenged otherwise, that there is an absolute standard of morality that is binding to all people of all times. What I mean is that morality is not subjectively decided upon by individuals or societies. It is not wrong, just in our culture, to rape another person, and it is not wrong, just for me, to kill an innocent human being, but both of these things are wrong for all people at all times.

Now, if that is the case, then we must ask the question, where do these laws come from? Do they simply just exist? Were they the product of evolution over billions of years? I will leave it up to you to provide an alternative explanation from atheism rather than argue against straw men.

In Christianity, the moral laws are given by God and are rooted in His character. They are neither arbitrarily chosen nor are they recognized by God as a standard from which He must also be compared.

Topic 3- How do we explain the life of Jesus Christ?

In the New Testament, we have numerous examples of miraculous events in the life of Jesus. Not only did He heal the sick and blind, cast out demons, and raise others from the dead, but He culminated His ministry by His own death and resurrection from the tomb. Assuming just for a moment that the New Testament document that attest to these things are historically reliable, then one would have to come up with some pretty fantastic alternative explanations for an atheistic worldview to be considered reasonable. Contrast that to the Christian worldview that would make perfect sense of these events if Jesus was indeed God as He claimed to be. It would seem to follow that God would naturally have dominion over His creation.

Again, at this point, I would rather wait to see what problems, if any, you have with regarding the details of the life of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament as historically reliable.

Topic 4- What is the purpose of life?

I am not joking when I pose this question. Hear me out. It seems painfully clear to me that if God does not exist, then there is no objective meaning to the universe. If all we are is a random chance meeting of atoms over the course of billions of years, and when we die, we simply cease to exist, then it seems (following Camus) like the only question in life is whether or not to continue living. Since nothing we do really matters anyway, then what is the point in it all. Now, I am not suggesting that you have the definitive answer available for me now, but my point is that I don't think an objective answer is even possible in an atheistic worldview. It would be nothing more than how you personally give meaning to your existence.

Conversely, Christianity teaches that God has created humans for the purpose of knowing and glorifying Him forever. There is an objective purpose to life because we have been given one by the very One who created us. It seems to make sense that the One who created us would both know and make it be known what His creation was intended for.

Topic 5- How do you explain the presence of order in the universe?

Again, this argument seems to have two possible answers for the debate at hand.

1) The presence of order can be explained by scientific laws.
2) The presence of order can only be explained by a personal explanation.

There definitely appears to be in the universe ordered objects (such as a human body) and ordered laws (such as the law of gravity). I think that we would both agree that such things exist, and now the only question is what can account for these things? Now, in regards to the first possibility, it appears that science is completely incapable of ever answering this question. The reason for this is that science has to presuppose order before it can explain anything. This would lead to an infinite regress of explanation for the order in the universe. We would have to simply say that there is no reason- there is no explanation possible.

Christianity, on the other hand, makes total sense of the presence of order and design. God as creator has made the universe in a specific way, so that we would naturally assume to see some evidence of that.


There are some other arguments that I will unfold as the debate progresses, but for the sake of not getting overwhelmed by the scope, I will stop here for now. As I stated, most of the support for topics 2 and 3 will come out as the debate continues. I am interested to see what you think of the material so far. Perhaps it is not anything new to you, but then again, maybe it is.

Talk to you soon,

Gregory

[wiploc]

Christianity vs. Atheism, which is more reasonable.
Round 1, First Negative.


Topic 1- How do we explain the origin of the universe?

There are basically two possible views one can hold on this question (within the parameters of this debate).

1) The universe has always existed and requires no explanation of its origin.
2) The universe came into existence a finite time ago.

Let me introduce a basic rule for determining the strength of an argument. If an argument isn't any stronger than its opposite, then it is an argument of zero persuasiveness. To take the above example, if Christians believed the universe was unbegun, you would be saying that a universe of infinite duration makes sense, so a begun universe would be the one requiring an explanation. In other words, your argument so far is exactly as strong as the opposite argument, and is therefore totally unpersuasive.

And anyway, since you are arguing for a miracle-throwing god, it should be your position that either type universe is possible. Either one takes a miracle, and all either one takes is a miracle. The case for one is no stronger than the case for the other.



It is simply impossible to ever traverse an infinite series of moments. Even given an infinite amount of time, the task could not be done.

This is patently false. In ten minutes, ten minutes would be traversed. In six thousand years, six thousand years would be traversed. In an infinite amount of time, an infinite amount of time would be traversed.



So, since the present moment has obviously arrived, then the universe could not be infinitely old.

Do you mean it would take a miracle?

If the universe can't be infinitely old (so it must have a beginning), and can't have a beginning (so it must be infinitely old), how do you figure the case for one is stronger than the case for the other?



Secondly, the second law of thermodynamics says that the amount of energy available to do work in the universe is steadily decreasing and is being evenly distributed throughout the universe. If the universe was infinitely old, then it would have died a "heat death" long ago.

I will of course grant you that entropy has been increasing since shortly after the big bang, but I don't know what you hope to make of that.

Is it your position that time started at the big bang, and that nothing, not even time, existed before that? If so, then the universe (and everything in it, which includes god if god exists) had a beginning. If you don't want to say god had a beginning, you'd best go with the theory that the universe is infinitely old and unbegun.

Is it your position that causes precede effects? If so, then god could not create the universe without existing before it, which is a contradiction in terms. If you are going to say that god and time existed before the big bang, then the big bang cannot be taken as corroboration of your theory that the universe had a beginning.

On the other hand, if causes do not precede effects, then some future event may be the cause of the beginning. In which case, there is no need for miracles or gods to explain the beginning.

Either everything (including god) had a beginning, or we necessarily have an infinite regress. Pick one or the other, but don't switch back and forth.



This leaves only one other solution: that the universe came into existence a finite time ago.

Why is this easier to swallow than an infinitely old unbegun universe? It takes a miracle either way, right? So how can one be more plausible than the other?



This is precisely what Christianity teaches: that God the creator brought the world into existence from nothing.

Either there was nothing or there wasn't. If there was nothing, then there was no god to bring the universe into existence. If not, then the universe (defined as everything that exists) already existed.



I will reserve comments on big bang cosmology until/or if they are brought up. Suffice it to say that it is plainly absurd for anything to spontaneously arise from nothing.

On the one hand, quantum mechanics indicates that things really do arise from nothing. But, hey, I'll play in your arena. If it's your position that things don't arise from nothing, then you must conclude that the universe is infinitely old and unbegun. In which case, all of your talk about a beginning is off point.



Topic 2- How do we explain the existence of an absolute, universal moral law?

I will take as an assumption, until challenged otherwise, that there is an absolute standard of morality that is binding to all people of all times.

Christians often claim some relationship between god and morality. I have never seen one defend the claim. Having issued dozens of unanswered challenges, here (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65636) and elsewhere, I have concluded that the claim cannot be defended.



In Christianity, the moral laws are given by God and are rooted in His character. They are neither arbitrarily chosen nor are they recognized by God as a standard from which He must also be compared.

That doesn't make sense. You can't say, "None of the above," to a binary choice. Either there is something independently good about these rules, regardless of whether god exists, or else they're only good because god says so. If they are only good because god says so, then there's nothing actually good about them, no reason for us to go along with them. If god picked them because they are good, then he is not the author of morality. Pick one.



Topic 3- How do we explain the life of Jesus Christ?

Again, at this point, I would rather wait to see what problems, if any, you have with regarding the details of the life of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament as historically reliable.

First, the story is implausible. We reject other mythologies for similar implausibilities, why not this one? If we want to be consistent, we should either believe them all or reject them all. Second, we get the Jesus story from the bible, a source shot thru with errors, clearly unreliable. Conclusion: While there may have been a man named Jesus, and he may have been somehow associated with the origin of the Jesus myth, there is no reason to think the myth as a whole, or any particular part of it, is true.



Topic 4- What is the purpose of life?

I want to make two points. The first is that this is not an argument. What I mean is, even if you were right, it wouldn't help your case. Let's have an analogy: If a robber pointed his gun at you and demanded your money, and explained that he had a right to take your money because otherwise he shouldn't take your money, you wouldn't understand that to be enough of an argument to even need refutation. Your argument that if there is no god you won't see any purpose to the universe is analogous to, and exactly as strong as, the robber's argument.

Second, you aren't right. It is not true that a god could give the universe a more significant purpose than real people can. Try it yourself. Go ahead, say something like, "The purpose of the universe is that people get to eat a lot of peanut butter." That "purpose" changes nothing, which is exactly the same effect as would happen if a god declared a purpose.



<snip> my point is that I don't think an objective answer is even possible in an atheistic worldview.

In which case, neither is it possible in a theistic universe.



Conversely, Christianity teaches that God has created humans for the purpose of knowing and glorifying Him forever.

How is that supposed to be less painful, more meaningful, or more objective than the peanut butter explanation?



There is an objective purpose to life because we have been given one by the very One who created us.

How is that more objective or more purposeful than the peanut butter thing?



It seems to make sense that the One who created us would both know and make it be known what His creation was intended for.

If you take that position, then the Argument from non-belief becomes fatal to your cause: If a powerful god really wanted us to know about him, you would hardly wind up fronting for him with these unconvincing arguments.



Topic 5- How do you explain the presence of order in the universe?

Again, I have two points. The first is that you make the baseless assumption that disorder is normal, and therefore order needs accounting for. If you wanted to prove god in a disorderly universe, you would say order was normal and disorder needed accounting for. At best, your argument is no stronger than its opposite.

Second, order is inevitable. If everything were disorderly, that would itself be a pattern, a uniformity, a form of order. I want to thank you for calling this to my attention. I have never before been convinced that there was anything which the philosophers should call "necessary."



Christianity, on the other hand, makes total sense of the presence of order and design. God as creator has made the universe in a specific way, so that we would naturally assume to see some evidence of that.

This is not an explanation. Try it on anything else, and you will see that it is not an explanation. Why did you flunk your algebra final? "It was written. As god willed it, so it was done." Why did you steal money out of the till? "It was written. As god willed it, so it was done."



There are some other arguments that I will unfold as the debate progresses,

I'm not sure this is fair. You set up the debate format, and I am going along with it. The format is that you got to make your case, now I get to respond, and then you get to close for this part of the debate. Right now I'm responding only to what you said in your first post. The scope of your argument should be limited to what I've said about your opening post.

Not that I care. You can bring up new stuff if you want to. If you do, I'll respond to what you say, and I'll call that my affirmative case. So I'm not saying you shouldn't do it; I'm just saying that if you are going to do it, then I don't see why you set the debate up the way you did.

If you do bring up new arguments, it makes sense to me that you bring them up early. We're not likely to reach closure if we keep changing the topic.

Summary:

[list=1]
How do we explain the origin of the universe?

Here you attempted the first cause argument. The first cause argument never works. It is always based on violations of its own precepts. Either things need causes or they don’t. Either causes precede effects or they don't. The first cause argument always involves moves like, "Yes, things need causes --- only here's something that doesn't need a cause." The conclusion always violates the premises.

In your version, you argued that there can't be an infinite regress, which would logically lead you to the conclusion that god had a beginning. Then you say that things can't pop into existence uncaused, which would logically lead you to an infinite regress. Pick one.


How do we explain the existence of an absolute, universal moral law?

There are four possible moves by which the theists can try to defend the "absolute, universal moral" nature of divine fiat. You didn't offer even one of them. Here, I'll provide one just so that I'll have something to refute.

- Attempted Justification: God's rules should be obeyed because he has the power to punish you if you disobey.

- Refutation: Might doesn't make right. There are no examples of might making right. If might made right, the Jews should have worshipped Hitler. Anyone can give examples of right actions that were punished.

So what we have is your baldface claim that theists can account for morality better than atheists, but you gave no reason to believe it. I don’t know if you want to stick to the debate format, but if you do, you should not now introduce arguments in support of your claim --- because I’m not supposed to have an opportunity to respond in this section of the debate.


How do we explain the life of Jesus Christ?

It is fiction. If we disbelieve Norse Mythology and Mother Goose, we should disbelieve this story as well.

According to the debate format, if you were now to introduce an argument for believing in Jesus --- nuts, let's just scrap the format, shall we? If you agree to this, then I'll introduce an argument for atheism in my next post.


What is the purpose of life?

You claim that theists can justify a purpose better than atheists, but no theist has ever done so. Your glorification-is-the-purpose argument is exactly as strong as my peanut-butter-is-the-purpose argument.


How do you explain the presence of order in the universe?

My, "It must be natural," explanation is exactly as strong as your, "It must be magic," explanation. Neither is an explanation at all.
[/list=1]

Conclusion: You have made no point that you significantly defended.

crc

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

ADDENDUM:

According to a new agreement in FD(CS) thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61810), the debate will continue as normally planned, but no new arguments will be introduced after the opening or affirming statements from each set.

Carry on folks,

Jason

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Gregory,

Please note that the deadline for your next statement has passed. However, you'll be granted a grace period, extending the deadline to Wednesday, Feb. 25.

Thank you for your consideration,

Jason

[Gregory]

Nightshade,

I need to make a few comments before I begin. I may not be understanding the parameters for deadlines properly. I thought that I have one week after Wiploc's post to reply. If I'm not mistaken, that would have been the 23rd. But when I went to post, I saw that I was already given an extension (?). Anyway, it turns out that I needed it because when I submitted my reply on the 23rd, apparently I was no longer logged on, and when I re-logged, my entire post was gone!! As you may be aware by now, I am not the world's greatest computer wiz.

Wiploc,

Thanks for your response to my opening statement. Like we discussed in the parameter thread, I will stick to our original format and not introduce any new arguments such as the arguments from truth or religious experience. What I will do, however, is defend the five lines of argument that I began with.

I will attempt to do two things in this round. First, I will address the concerns you brought up so far. I will try to show why I think you are either misunderstanding a particular argument, or are just simply mistaken in some of your conclusions. Second, I will develop the arguments further by adding support and clarifying some of the statements.

Let's begin....

Let me introduce a basic rule for determining the strength of an argument. If an argument isn't any stronger than its opposite, then it is an argument of zero persuasiveness.

There is nothing wrong with the principle that you laid down. An argument is not persuasive if it is not any stronger than its opposite (although I would prefer to say its negation). The problem is in how you use that principle throughout the debate. You use straw man arguments that are not applicable to the Christian worldview and then try to argue that these are not persuasive. I will point this out as I go through your statements.

Topic 1- The origin of the universe

To take the above example, if Christians believed the universe was unbegun, you would be saying that a universe of infinite duration makes sense, so a begun universe would be the one requiring an explanation. In other words, your argument so far is exactly as strong as the opposite argument, and is therefore totally unpersuasive.

Here is a perfect example of what I am referring to. If Christianity taught that the universe was eternal, then the same argument I gave in round 1 would be a refutation of that. In fact, the point of the argument is that the negation of that is what we believe, namely, that the universe could not be eternal and therefore must have come into existence a finite time ago. Then, the only question remaining is whether or not anything could ever come into existence from nothing! We will deal with that in a moment.

And anyway, since you are arguing for a miracle-throwing god, it should be your position that either type universe is possible. Either one takes a miracle, and all either one takes is a miracle. The case for one is no stronger than the case for the other.

Here, we see another example of the straw man argument. It is definitely not part of the Christian worldview that God can do what is a logical contradiction such as making a square circle or creating an infinitely old universe. Something that has always existed cannot, by definition, be created.

This is patently false. In ten minutes, ten minutes would be traversed. In six thousand years, six thousand years would be traversed. In an infinite amount of time, an infinite amount of time would be traversed.

You are right when you say that in ten minutes, ten minutes would be traversed and likewise with six thousand (is this an unconscious jab at young-earth creationists?- just kidding) years. The problem lies in the fact that those are both finite amounts of time. By traversed, I mean to completely pass over and come to the end of. Hopefully, you can see that this is not logically possible with an actual infinite series of moments. You could continue along it forever, but you could absolutely never come to the end. For, by definition, it does not have one. Why is this important? Because we have come to an end of sorts: the present moment. So, if the past is infinitely old, then we would have had to traverse an infinite amount of moments to get here, and as we saw, that is impossible. Try to think of it as jumping out of a hole that has no bottom. It doesn't make any sense does it? You could never have a place to start from!

I will of course grant you that entropy has been increasing since shortly after the big bang, but I don't know what you hope to make of that.

Well, if you believe in the big bang, then my point has been made. The point is that the universe cannot be infinitely old, right? So, if entropy is increasing, then at some point the universe will reach an equilibrium and "die" from a "heat death". If the universe has always existed, then this would have happened long ago! You seem to agree that the universe has come into existence a finite time ago, so we can move on to part two.

Is it your position that time started at the big bang, and that nothing, not even time, existed before that? If so, then the universe (and everything in it, which includes god if god exists) had a beginning. If you don't want to say god had a beginning, you'd best go with the theory that the universe is infinitely old and unbegun.

Is it your position that causes precede effects? If so, then god could not create the universe without existing before it, which is a contradiction in terms. If you are going to say that god and time existed before the big bang, then the big bang cannot be taken as corroboration of your theory that the universe had a beginning.

You make a categorical error here by attributing a temporal designation to an infinite being. God did not exist "before" creation because there is no time without creation. God always exists. That is what it means to be infinite. In addition, like I said in the opening round, I do not use the big bang to argue for the finite existence of the universe like Craig or Moreland. The previous two defenses are sufficient for that.

On the one hand, quantum mechanics indicates that things really do arise from nothing. But, hey, I'll play in your arena. If it's your position that things don't arise from nothing, then you must conclude that the universe is infinitely old and unbegun. In which case, all of your talk about a beginning is off point.

Why must I conclude that? Since I have already rejected that the universe is infinitely old as an impossibility, then the only option is that it came into existence. But, I also see as an obvious fact that nothing cannot ever give rise to something. Therefore, the only option is that the universe was brought into existence by something! If, when you say "nothing" you mean "nothing material" , then you are begging the question by assuming what you are trying to prove, namely, that the material world is all that exists.

Summary:

We seem to agree that the universe did in fact come into existence a finite time ago. Therefore, the question seems to be: which worldview makes better sense of the universe coming into existence. Christianity teaches that God the creator brought it into existence from no previous thing (material). Atheism, on the other hand, has to give some other explantion, and all of them will have to assume that a universe could spontaneously come into being from non-being. I hope that it is clear to you and all reading this that the atheistic explanation is seriously problematic.

Topic 2-

Christians often claim some relationship between god and morality. I have never seen one defend the claim.

The claim is basically that, given the existence of an absolute moral law which is binding to all persons of all times, only Christianity, rather than atheism, can give an adequate explanation of its existence. In Christianity, we have been given a moral nature by God, and we should live according to that nature for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that to violate it merits punishment (Romans 6:23). In fact, the whole purpose of Jesus life and death was to redeem those who have transgressed the moral law (which is everyone- Romans 3:23). With atheism, however, it is difficult if not impossible to give not only an explanation for how morality arose, but why someone should even choose to be moral.

That doesn't make sense. You can't say, "None of the above," to a binary choice. Either there is something independently good about these rules, regardless of whether god exists, or else they're only good because god says so. If they are only good because god says so, then there's nothing actually good about them, no reason for us to go along with them. If god picked them because they are good, then he is not the author of morality. Pick one.

You most certainly can say none of the above to a choice with only two options. In philosophy, this is known as the fallacy of complex question. It occurs when an individual is presented with a false disjunctive, a choice with only two options presented when in fact more than two exist. For example, if I was to ask you if you are still beating your children, you would, upon reflecting on the two possible answers, protest. For if you say no, then that implies you were beating them, but if you say yes, then you are currently beating your kids. See the point? It leaves out the reality of the fact that you have never beat your children, or that you don't have kids in the first place. Historically, this is known as Euthyphro's dilemma. He was a character of Plato's who said that either God's moral commands are arbitrarily chosen or they are recognized from a source even He is subject to. But, neither choice is what Christianity teaches. Instead, the moral law is rooted in God's own character. He is the standard by which what is "good" and "evil" is determined. It is neither arbitrary and whimsical or derived from some outside standard.

Summary:

As we can see, Christianity presents an intellectually and emotionally satisfying explanation to the existence of an absolute moral law. How does atheism respond to this question? By saying that they simply developed in the natural course of evolution, or that they just "exist" and need no accounting for. Both of these historic answers are unsatisfactory to the thinking person.

Topic 3- The life of Jesus Christ

We reject other mythologies for similar implausibilities, why not this one? If we want to be consistent, we should either believe them all or reject them all.

You are exactly right! We should reject all mythologies as not being historically accurate. But the question is whether or not the New Testament is a myth or is it a historically reliable document?

First, the story is implausible.Second, we get the Jesus story from the bible, a source shot thru with errors, clearly unreliable. Conclusion: While there may have been a man named Jesus, and he may have been somehow associated with the origin of the Jesus myth, there is no reason to think the myth as a whole, or any particular part of it, is true.

Obviously we disagree as to the historical reliability of the New Testament documents. I will provide several reasons to give strong evidence that the NT is indeed accurate and trustworthy.

1) It passes the three main criteria for historical reliability (henceforth HR) with flying colors. This would include internal, external, and bibliographical tests. The internal test is to see whether or not the document makes the claim to be actual history written by eyewitnesses. Upon examining the NT writings, it is clear that the authors were claiming to be writing true accounts of real events they witnessed. The external test is to see if outside sources from the documents can confirm or deny any of it. Again, not only has there never been any information whatsoever to call the NT into question, but with many new archeological finds, many cities and people previously thought to be made up are found to have been very real. Finally, as many people know, there is absolutely no document from antiquity with more manuscript evidence than the NT. Not even close. If we accept the HR of the writings of Caesar, Plato, and Tacitus, then we should without reservation do the same for the NT.

2) The NT bears the marks of historicity. What do I mean by this? There are many strange features to the NT that would not be expected by those who were making up a myth. First, the NT is littered with embarrassing stories from the disciples own lives such as Peter's denial of Jesus and the disciples fleeing after Jesus crucifixion. Second, the NT had an amazingly radical view towards woman. In that culture, a woman's testimony was not even valid in a court of law. The first people to testify to Jesus' resurrection from the dead, however, were women, and the disciples, to their discredit once again, did not believe them.

3) Finally, there simply was not enough time for a "myth" of Jesus to begin. It is widely accepted that the gospels were written down before the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 AD., less than 40 years after Jesus' death. The very idea that the NT was simply made up is absurd when it is said to take several generations for a legend to develop about someone. Almost everyone who knows the truth has to die off in order for these false ideas to spread, and in Jesus case there were people still alive who actually saw Him much less new the truth about his life. In addition, the writings of Paul also indicate that he knew of the death and resurrection of Jesus only 2-3 years after it happened. Space does not permit to go to much more into this; suffice it to say that we could have an entire debate on this part alone.

Summary:

The question that jumps out at me is: how would an atheist account for these things? Why would all these men lie about what they had seen and then be willing to die for it? If it is reasonable to believe that they accurately recorded events in the life of Jesus, and we have accurate records of those writings today, then the life of Jesus is something that atheism simply cannot give a plausible explanation for.

Topic 4- The purpose of life

I want to make two points. The first is that this is not an argument.

The only way that this would not be an argument is if you claimed that there was no purpose to life. Then there would be nothing to give an explanation for. But, if you remember in my original post, I said that a worldview which could give a better explanation for something that we do find in our universe, then that worldview would be superior. So, if you agree that there is a transcendent purpose to the universe, then the question is: which worldview can better explain that? This is similar to the argument from an absolute moral law.

Second, you aren't right. It is not true that a god could give the universe a more significant purpose than real people can. Try it yourself. Go ahead, say something like, "The purpose of the universe is that people get to eat a lot of peanut butter."

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here. I hope you don't think "that the purpose of life is that you get to eat peanut butter" is a more significant purpose than to know and enjoy the creator of the universe for an eternity. But really, that is not even the point. The question is where could a transcendent purpose ever come from in a universe where we are just here for a short time by accident and then are no more?

Summary:

For anyone who would claim that there is a purpose to life, a natural question to ask is, "Hey, where did this purpose come from? Did I just make it up for myself or is it a by product of evolution?" In the former case, then purpose is just individually determined and an explanation is not necessary; however, if one says that it came about through evolutionary processes, then I must naturally ask, how? And for that matter, what would it possibly be? Contrastly, Christianity holds that we were made by God and get our value and purpose from the fact that He loves us.

Topic 5- Order in the universe

Again, I have two points. The first is that you make the baseless assumption that disorder is normal, and therefore order needs accounting for. If you wanted to prove god in a disorderly universe, you would say order was normal and disorder needed accounting for.

This is another example of what I was referring to at the beginning regarding straw man arguments. You are missing the point of the argument. I would not ever argue that disorder needs to be accounted for. It is only when we see order and design that we look to a designer. That would be like me walking into a random dirt lot and saying, "Hey, why is that rock over there, and look there's another one over there, what's going on here?" However, if I walked into the same lot and there was a collection of rocks that spelled out: Hello Greg, How are you doing?, I would immediately think that someone was playing a joke on me. The design present in the rocks led me to infer that they could not possibly have just happened to fall like that. The same holds true for the universe. When we see the complexity of the human body, intricate cosmic constants like gravity, and the infinite amount of necessary conditions for life to exist here on earth, we can naturally ask what the cause of all this was. Was it just a random blind chance occurence over billions of years, or should we infer a designer? From the example I gave of the rocks, I don't think anyone would accept the theory that they just happened to fall like that. Why would it be any different for the universe when the number of designs becomes infinitely more numerous to try to explain? The odds should be less likely for the universe. Incredibly less!

Summary:

I think that we would both agree that the universe exhibits order, regardless of the origin of it. So, the question once again is: does atheism or Christianity give a more plausible explanation for its presence? It seems clear to me that to believe these things could arise by chance takes the proverbial "leap of blind faith" that Christians are often accused of.

Conclusion:

Hopefully, I have been able to clear up any confusion about some of the arguments. I look forward to hearing your reply.

Gregory

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Originally posted by Gregory
Nightshade,

I need to make a few comments before I begin. I may not be understanding the parameters for deadlines properly. I thought that I have one week after Wiploc's post to reply. If I'm not mistaken, that would have been the 23rd. But when I went to post, I saw that I was already given an extension (?). Anyway, it turns out that I needed it because when I submitted my reply on the 23rd, apparently I was no longer logged on, and when I re-logged, my entire post was gone!! As you may be aware by now, I am not the world's greatest computer wiz.

Hello Gregory,

According to wiploc's statement, he submitted it on February 15, 2004 11:59 PM. You need to look at the bottom panel of wiploc's post. The Feb. 23rd date is from the bottom panel of my post. Also, when taking time to write long posts, I highly recommend that you write your material in MS Word first and then perform a copy and paste to the forum.

Anyways, I hope this clears things up. If you have any other questions or problems, please send me an email or post in Bugs, Problems & Complaints (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=16).

Jason

[wiploc]

Christianity vs. Atheism
Gregory vs. wiploc
Set one, Round 2, Second Negative


Topic 1- The origin of the universe
We seem to agree that the universe did in fact come into existence a finite time ago.

We have no agreement on this point. I'll play in your arena if you want to take this position, but if you take this position, then you have to agree that something can come from nothing. That's because if something can't come from nothing, then the universe can't have had a beginning.

If the universe (defined as "everything that exists") didn't exist, then nothing existed. Therefore, if the universe didn't exist, there was no god to create it. If there was a god to create the rest of the universe, then the universe (at least the god part of it) did exist.

Since the universe does now exist, it follows that one of these is true: Either the universe is unbegun, or something can come from nothing. Pick only one. Because you say nothing comes from nothing, you are estopped from saying the universe had a beginning.

And yet you do say that the universe had a beginning. By claiming both that the universe had a beginning and that nothing comes from nothing, you contradict yourself. Therefore, you are demonstrated to be wrong on the first issue, the origin of the universe.



If I had my way, we would stop here. I think we should leave the formal debate area, with its deadlines and post limits, and handle this one issue at a time, taking as many posts as we need to achieve resolution. But, since, for some reason, I can't PM you, and since I don't know how to find your email address, I will proceed as if you are going to turn me down on this offer.



Here, we see another example of the straw man argument. It is definitely not part of the Christian worldview that God can do what is a logical contradiction such as making a square circle

I never even suggested it.


Allow me to juxtapose two of your moves without comment:

Well, if you believe in the big bang, then my point has been made. The point is that the universe cannot be infinitely old, right?
and:
In addition, like I said in the opening round, I do not use the big bang to argue for the finite existence of the universe <snip>


You make a categorical error here by attributing a temporal designation to an infinite being.

How did you get from a first cause to an atemporal infinite being? If you can call god infinite, why can't I call the universe infinite?



God did not exist "before" creation because there is no time without creation.

Then if you want a created universe, you have to abandon the idea that causes precede effects. But if causes don't necessarily precede effects, then the universe doesn't need an outside cause. Some future event can cause the past—in which case, your god hypothesis becomes unnecessary. You would do better to say god is necessary because causes must precede effects. But, in that case, time has to precede the creation. I don't care which you choose, but you have to choose one or the other.



God always exists.

Now there's an ambiguous statement. Do you mean that he is infinitely old and unbegun, or do you just mean that he has been around for as long as time has?



That is what it means to be infinite.

It doesn't mean anything to say something is infinite unless you say what you are talking about. In this context, it sounds like you are saying god is infinitely old. But elsewhere you contradict that. Therefore, there is no apparent meaning to your claim that god is infinite. Perhaps you only mean he is omnipresent? In a finite universe, omnipresence falls infinitely short of infiniteness.



Topic 2- [The Moral Argument]
You most certainly can say none of the above to a choice with only two options. In philosophy, this is known as the fallacy of complex question. It occurs when an individual is presented with a false disjunctive, a choice with only two options presented when in fact more than two exist. For example, if I was to ask you if you are still beating your children, you would, upon reflecting on the two possible answers, protest. For if you say no, then that implies you were beating them, but if you say yes, then you are currently beating your kids. See the point?

Do you see my point? Either we are supposed to follow god's moral rules because they are good, inherently good, good independently of whether god agrees with them, or we are supposed to follow them because they are god's rules. Pick one.



Euthyphro's <snip> said that either God's moral commands are arbitrarily chosen or they are recognized from a source even He is subject to. But, neither choice is what Christianity teaches.

You say that the universe is either begun or infinitely old, but that's not necessarily true because it is not what I teach.



Instead, the moral law is rooted in God's own character. He is the standard by which what is "good" and "evil" is determined. It is neither arbitrary and whimsical or derived from some outside standard.

… The universe is the standard by which duration is determined. The universe is neither created nor uncreated, but of a duration rooted in its own character.




As we can see, Christianity presents an intellectually and emotionally satisfying explanation to the existence of an absolute moral law.

Until your "explanation" is more satisfying than my peanut butter explanation, you shouldn't say it is satisfying at all.



How does atheism respond to this question? By saying that they simply developed in the natural course of evolution, or that they just "exist" and need no accounting for. Both of these historic answers are unsatisfactory to the thinking person.

Ah, you want something satisfying to a thinking person. In that case, you should explain why we would want to obey god's moral code. So far you have only the might-makes-right theory, and the rooted-in-his-being theory. I'd like to hear a morally and intellectually satisfying explanation of why everyone should obey all rules that are rooted in something or that are propounded by someone strong enough to hurt you.




Topic 3- The life of Jesus Christ
Obviously we disagree as to the historical reliability of the New Testament documents. I will provide several reasons to give strong evidence that the NT is indeed accurate and trustworthy.

1) It passes the three main criteria for historical reliability (henceforth HR) with flying colors. This would include internal, external, and bibliographical tests. The internal test is to see whether or not the document makes the claim to be actual history written by eyewitnesses. Upon examining the NT writings, it is clear that the authors were claiming to be writing true accounts of real events they witnessed.

I could pass that test by claiming I know the bible is wrong because I was there and saw the events myself.



The external test is to see if outside sources from the documents can confirm or deny any of it. Again, not only has there never been any information whatsoever to call the NT into question

This is absurd. You know there are strong counter-arguments. The best coloration you can give your claim is that it was a reckless disregard for the truth.



, but with many new archeological finds, many cities and people previously thought to be made up are found to have been very real.

It is arbitrary and unreasonable to act like all of our historical findings support bible accuracy.



Finally, as many people know, there is absolutely no document from antiquity with more manuscript evidence than the NT. Not even close. If we accept the HR of the writings of Caesar, Plato, and Tacitus, then we should without reservation do the same for the NT.

Having a lot of copies of a document doesn't show that the document is accurate. Your premise is not related to your conclusion.





2) The NT bears the marks of historicity. What do I mean by this? There are many strange features to the NT that would not be expected by those who were making up a myth. First, the NT is littered with embarrassing stories from the disciples own lives such as Peter's denial of Jesus and the disciples fleeing after Jesus crucifixion. Second, the NT had an amazingly radical view towards woman. In that culture, a woman's testimony was not even valid in a court of law. The first people to testify to Jesus' resurrection from the dead, however, were women, and the disciples, to their discredit once again, did not believe them.

If that argument works, then this argument works:
I say that I am god. How do I know? Well, uh … I heard it from a wombat. Now it's really embarrassing to claim that I heard it from a wombat, so I must really be god.





3) The very idea that the NT was simply made up is absurd when it is said to take several generations for a legend to develop about someone.

You don't object to the idea of people being raised from the dead. You calmly accept a god who both can and can't be seen. You are untroubled by an absolute morality that isn't good for any particular reason. You don't mind the firmament or the flood or the making people out of dirt (no, ribs! no dirt!) or the conflicting stories about the ark. But you find it absurd that "they" might be wrong about how long it takes to make up a legend.

Did "they" consult the Dianetics people?




Topic 4- The purpose of life

For anyone who would claim that there is a purpose to life, a natural question to ask is, "Hey, where did this purpose come from?

Imagine a bone. Suppose my dog thinks the bone is for chewing; I think it is for making soup; and Jehovah thinks it is for me to wear as a hat. None of the purposes is privileged. There is no meaningful sense that one purpose is more "true" than the others. That's how purposes work.

Purposes don't "come from" anywhere; they are formed in situ, in the minds of willful creatures. There is nothing mysterious or unaccountable about this.



Christianity holds that we were made by God and get our value and purpose from the fact that He loves us.

You can take that as your purpose as you want. It would be an ugly purpose, much less appealing than the peanut butter purpose, but you can do it if you want. That still doesn't amount to a mystery that requires a miraculous explanation.




Topic 5- Order in the universe
When we see the complexity of the human body, intricate cosmic constants like gravity, and the infinite amount of necessary conditions for life to exist here on earth, we can naturally ask what the cause of all this was.

The human body evolved. The cosmic constants argument is a joke.

I feel like I'm giving these arguments short shrift—but then I notice that I have treated them at the same length you did.



Was it just a random blind chance occurence over billions of years, or should we infer a designer? From the example I gave of the rocks, I don't think anyone would accept the theory that they just happened to fall like that.

Granted, we have experience indicating that rock messages are caused by humans. But we have no experience indicating that universes are caused by eccentric gods.

crc


Edit: fixed VBB coding error - NS

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Gregory,

Please note that the 1 week deadline for your next statement has passed. However, you'll be granted a grace period, extending the deadline to Sunday, Mar. 7th.

Thank you for your consideration,

Jason

Edit: Due to technical difficulties, Gregory was not able to post his reply yesterday. Gregory has requested a day's extension and I've agreed to grant his request.

[Gregory]

By "technical difficulties" Nightshade is trying to cover up for the fact that I am retarded when it comes to computers, and I greatly appreciate that!

Wiploc,

In this final post for Part 1, I will answer your comments from the last post and then make some final conclusions.

We have no agreement on this point.

I thought from your earlier comment,

I will of course grant you that entropy has been increasing since shortly after the big bang, but I don't know what you hope to make of that.

that you were saying that you believed in the big bang, which would most likely mean that you do not think the universe is infinitely old. This was just a time-saving device so that we do not spend time on a point of mutual agreement.

I'll play in your arena if you want to take this position, but if you take this position, then you have to agree that something can come from nothing. That's because if something can't come from nothing, then the universe can't have had a beginning.

If the universe (defined as "everything that exists") didn't exist, then nothing existed. Therefore, if the universe didn't exist, there was no god to create it. If there was a god to create the rest of the universe, then the universe (at least the god part of it) did exist.

Since the universe does now exist, it follows that one of these is true: Either the universe is unbegun, or something can come from nothing. Pick only one. Because you say nothing comes from nothing, you are estopped from saying the universe had a beginning.

And yet you do say that the universe had a beginning. By claiming both that the universe had a beginning and that nothing comes from nothing, you contradict yourself. Therefore, you are demonstrated to be wrong on the first issue, the origin of the universe.

I think some clarification is needed here. By universe, I am referring to the physical universe that we both agree is real. There is no problem with saying that the universe cannot be infinitely old and that it cannot arise from nothing (and by "nothing" I mean not even God). Because there is a third option: the uiverse (physical) came into existence by God out of nothing (physical) prior to it. There is no contradiction here. You haven't yet given any explanation from an atheistic perspective for the existence of the universe. I'm not sure if you are waiting for part 2. At this point, it seems clear that you are either going to have to explain how the universe could be infinitely old, or else how the universe could simply pop into existence from nothing at all.

Allow me to juxtapose two of your moves without comment:

I am assuming that you believe I was making use of an argument that I claimed I would not. But this is just not the case. I was making use of the conclusion of that argument that you already seemed to agree with. This was, as I said earlier, just a way to keep from discussing things that we already agree upon. If you re-read my posts, you'll see that I was using other arguments to reach the same conclusion: that the universe could not be infinitely old.

Then if you want a created universe, you have to abandon the idea that causes precede effects. But if causes don't necessarily precede effects, then the universe doesn't need an outside cause. Some future event can cause the past—in which case, your god hypothesis becomes unnecessary. You would do better to say god is necessary because causes must precede effects. But, in that case, time has to precede the creation. I don't care which you choose, but you have to choose one or the other.

It doesn't mean anything to say something is infinite unless you say what you are talking about. In this context, it sounds like you are saying god is infinitely old. But elsewhere you contradict that. Therefore, there is no apparent meaning to your claim that god is infinite. Perhaps you only mean he is omnipresent? In a finite universe, omnipresence falls infinitely short of infiniteness.

You do not need to reject that all effects have causes to believe in a created universe. But, to say that something "preceded" the creation of the universe is to make the categorical error I was referring to. If time began with the first effect (the creation of the physical universe), then the idea that all effects require causes is perfectly in tact. This is precisely why God is necessary if the world is not infinite, because there must be some cause to any effect. God's infinite nature in this context has to do with His limitlessness in regards to time, not that He is infinitely old, but rather that He is beyond the bounds of time. There are some "in-house" debates among Christians regarding God's relation to time that go beyond the scope of this debate.

Either we are supposed to follow god's moral rules because they are good, inherently good, good independently of whether god agrees with them, or we are supposed to follow them because they are god's rules. Pick one.

Here, you are sort of getting off track of the discussion. The point I am making is that with the existence of an absolute moral law that transcends time and people groups, does atheism or Christianity give a better explanation for its existence? Setting aside for the moment why we should follow it, we are simply concerned with how it could ever come to be in an atheistic worldview. In regards to Christianity, you again put forth a false disjunctive. You say that God has either recognized a moral law outside of Himself, or that His commands are arbitrarily chosen and could have been otherwise. But this leaves out at least one other possibility (the one that Christianity holds to) that God could declare what is good and evil based on His own nature which could not be otherwise and is not outside Himself.

You say that the universe is either begun or infinitely old, but that's not necessarily true because it is not what I teach.

Here, you attempt to defend your critique by saying that it is the same as my disjunctive syllogism from the argument of the existence of the universe. But there is a crucial problem in your comment: mine is a true disjunctive while yours is a false disjunctive. Based on the laws of logic, more precisely the law of excluded middle, we know that something is either A or non-A, there is no middle ground. This is a true disjunctive. If there is another possibility, then it is a false disjunctive. When I said that the universe has either existed forever or it came into being, that is the same as saying the world had a beginning or it did not have a beginning. Those are the only two possibilities: it is a true disjunctive, and to prove it false you would only have to come up with another possibility. This is why your critique is not true. There is at least one other possibility. Euthyphro's dilemma is really no dilemma at all.

Until your "explanation" is more satisfying than my peanut butter explanation, you shouldn't say it is satisfying at all.

Ah, you want something satisfying to a thinking person. In that case, you should explain why we would want to obey god's moral code. So far you have only the might-makes-right theory, and the rooted-in-his-being theory. I'd like to hear a morally and intellectually satisfying explanation of why everyone should obey all rules that are rooted in something or that are propounded by someone strong enough to hurt you.

First, your "peanut butter" explanation was in reference to the purpose of life, not the existence of a moral law. Second, why we should obey the moral law is not the question at hand. I do think it is a good question and I think we may end up talking about it if you were to provide some other naturalistic explanation for the presence of the moral absolutes, but right now I am just making the point that atheism needs to give some account of how the moral law could even come into existence.

I could pass that test by claiming I know the bible is wrong because I was there and saw the events myself.

I debated whether or not to respond to this part. Either you are just being facetious, or you really don't understand this point. You would not pass this test because you would never even be considered. No one would believe that you were an eyewitness to events that happened two thousand years ago.

This is absurd. You know there are strong counter-arguments. The best coloration you can give your claim is that it was a reckless disregard for the truth.

It is arbitrary and unreasonable to act like all of our historical findings support bible accuracy.

I have never been shown anything that would be a serious challenge to the authenticity of the New Testament. That is your job in this part of the debate, or the next. Also, I did not say that all historical findings give positive support of the NT, but only that no historical findings give contradictions to it and many give support of it.

Having a lot of copies of a document doesn't show that the document is accurate. Your premise is not related to your conclusion.

If we have a great amount of manuscript evidence for a document from antiquity, then we can say with more certainty that the document we have now is a faithful representation of what was originally written by the authors. This does support the conclusion that if we can trust that other documents with many less copies are historically reliable account of what the authors wrote, then it would be much more so for the NT.

I say that I am god. How do I know? Well, uh … I heard it from a wombat. Now it's really embarrassing to claim that I heard it from a wombat, so I must really be god.

Again, I'm not really sure if I am suppose to repond to this or if it is just a joke. Either way, you miss the point of the claim. If the NT were just a bunch of writings by a group of men, then it would be absolutely bizarre that they would make up stories that make them out to be cowardly, unfaithful, weak, stupid, prideful, and self-centered. I know that if I were to make up some stories about myself, I would definitely try to paint myself in the best light possible while maybe even trying to include some made up "good" things.

But you find it absurd that "they" might be wrong about how long it takes to make up a legend.

I do not find it absurd that "they" might be wrong. But when I examine the evidence, I can confidently put my belief in something. The same is true about God creating man from dust or a person coming back from the dead. Granted, these things sound unusual, but that is because they are. The creation of man and Jesus coming back from the dead are special because they are not "usual" occurrences.

Imagine a bone. Suppose my dog thinks the bone is for chewing; I think it is for making soup; and Jehovah thinks it is for me to wear as a hat. None of the purposes is privileged. There is no meaningful sense that one purpose is more "true" than the others. That's how purposes work.

Purposes don't "come from" anywhere; they are formed in situ, in the minds of willful creatures. There is nothing mysterious or unaccountable about this.

I don't think that you really believe this. If you gave your girlfriend a diamond ring and she used it napkin ring, I think you would protest. And rightly so. A diamond ring should not be used as a napkin ring but rather worn on the hand and appreciated for its beauty or recognized as a symbol of your love for her. In this case, and numerous others I can formulate, the "privileged" purpose should be abundantly clear. In fact, the "privileged" purpose of things does not change because people fail to recognize it. A lawnmower does not fail to be primarily for cutting grass if people use it as a paper weight.

You can take that as your purpose as you want. It would be an ugly purpose, much less appealing than the peanut butter purpose, but you can do it if you want. That still doesn't amount to a mystery that requires a miraculous explanation.

I'm not sure why you would say that living with the God who created and loves us forever would be an "ugly" purpose, but I cannot fathom that you actually think that the purpose of life is that we "get to eat peanut butter" is more appealing than the Christian worldview. But again, this is not quite the point of the argument. I am asking how a transcendent purpose could come about in an atheistic worldview, and so far all you have given is a possible purpose to life, but not how it could have come about.

The human body evolved. The cosmic constants argument is a joke.

I feel like I'm giving these arguments short shrift—but then I notice that I have treated them at the same length you did.

First, the existence of cosmic constants like gravity is not an argument in itself, but rather one of the examples of order in the universe that needs to be accounted for, along with the complexity of the human body. You say that the human body evolved, but was that evolving the result of random chance? Even if I grant that humans have undergone macro evolutionary changes (which I do not), it would still need to be shown that the complexity necessary for that was a procuct of chance and not a designer, for there are Christians who believe that God used evolutionary processes to create man (although I am not one).

Second, I think I have put enough information out there to make the point. I'm sure you don't disagree that cosmic constants exist, and that the human body is complex, or that there are an amazing amount of complementary and independent factors necessary for life to exist on earth, so why do I need to go further into these? The only question left now is can Christianity or atheism give a more plausible explanation for the presence of this order? The Christian explanation is clear: the universe exhibits marks of design because it was designed by a personal being! You have not given any account of how atheism explains this.

Granted, we have experience indicating that rock messages are caused by humans. But we have no experience indicating that universes are caused by eccentric gods.

This is simply not true. I have never found a pile of rocks that spelled out a message. But if I ever did, then I would immediately infer that someone had made the message and not that the rocks just happened to fall like that. This is the point of the argument. Even if we don't have repeated experiences of something (which we obviously would not with the beginning of the universe), the argument still holds precisely because we always infer designer from design even if it is a new experience to us. This is why the teleological argument has historically had a profound impact on atheists who become Christians. This should be the case if indeed the apostle Paul was right when he said, " For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20)

Conclusion:

I began Part 1 by saying that if one worldview can give a better explanation for the various aspects of the universe we see than another one, then it would be more reasonable and therefore demand our belief. I presented five areas that I believe the Christian worldview can give not only a more reasonable answer, but in some cases, the only logically possible answer.

1) The origin of the universe- atheism must say that either the universe has always existed or that it could have somehow come into existence from nothing, both of which we saw are impossible. Christianity, on the other hand, teaches that God brought the universe into existence a finite time ago.

2) The existence of an absolute moral law- atheism must somehow give some explanation as to how a binding moral law could come about by evolutionary processes or perhaps some other way in a closed universe. Christianity makes perfect sense of a moral law found in all of us because we were all created by the same God who has placed it in us.

3) The life of Jesus Christ- here is a very problematic area for the atheistic worldview. If the New Testament documents are historically reliable, then atheism must somehow give a naturalistic account for the miraculous birth, life, and resurrection of Jesus. This would include the miracles of healing He performed on the sick as well as raising others from the dead! Of course, this is the cornerstone of Christianity, so it is not only going to fit into the worldview, but you could say that Jesus is the worldview!

4) The purpose of life- if life does indeed have some transcendent purpose, then atheism is going to have a tough time saying what it is given that we are just a huge cosmic accident from birth and just cease to exist after death. Christianity, in contrast, gives us not only a purpose (to know and enjoy God forever), but also makes sense of the existence of a purpose to begin with (because God made us and would naturally have some purpose for our lives).

5) The presence of order in the universe- whenever we come into contact with any sort of order or design, we naturally look for the designer behind it. This is no different when we look at the universe as a whole. Atheism has to posit that chance can account for the order that we see, but this is absurd as we saw from the rock example. Imagine that example extended to an unimaginable degree of complexity, such as a pile of rocks that spells out the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. This would still only be a portion of the order needed to be accounted for. On the other hand, if there were an omniscient designer behind the universe, then we would expect nothing less!

Here, we have several aspects of our universe that Christianity can give an excellent explantion for. Whereas atheism is devoid of any reasonable accounting for them. Therefore, it would seem to follow that Christianity is the more reasonable worldview and would demand our belief.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

We have now moved on to the next phase of the debate. wiploc will now present his best arguments for atheism.

Jason

[wiploc]

Christianity vs. Atheism
Gregory vs. Wiploc
Set 2; 1st Atheist Affirmative

There are many weird things we could believe—too many, in fact, for Believers to demand that we be scrupulously agnostic about all of them. It may be true that King Kong is real. Abraham Lincoln's body may be waiting to be discovered on Alpha Centari. A teacup may be in orbit around Pluto. There may be fairies, elves, gremlins, dragons, Martians. It may be that the Holocaust never happened. It may be that Colorado doesn't really exist (its apparent existence being due, in part, to a conspiracy of cartographers). Odin and the Easter Bunny may be playing checkers behind a sweater in my closet. Lee Harvey Oswald may have acted alone.

Shall I refuse to enter the dining room because there may be an angry rhino there? Shall I look for my socks in the oven since they may have teleported there? How can I check to see whether I am an android with implanted memories, created just five minutes ago?

Rational people will admit the possibility that any of these nutty things may be true; but that doesn't mean we don't get to assume they are false. It's okay to believe that Santa Claus, Jove, and Jehovah don't exist; such belief is the fruit of rational minds.

In rational minds, nutty theories are entitled to a presumption of falseness. I believe that there are no invisible rhinoceroses in my dining room. If you want to move me to agnosticism on that point, you must do some affirmative persuading --- because the default position is rhino-atheism.

What would count as good persuasive evidence? It depends on the specific claim. The weirder the claim, the better the evidence has to be. If a claim is totally weird, contradicting itself, violating logic, then no evidence can even tend to support the claim. Thus, we know for a fact, that there is no invisible pink unicorn, because it is logically contradictory to be both invisible and pink.*

The same applies to the traditional Christian god, who is perfect but allows suffering, who can be seen but can't be seen, who is omnipotent but can't defeat iron chariots, who is just but tortures people in eternal Hellfire, who is moral but ordered the slaughter of the Mideonites, who is wise but thinks sex is dirty, who is good, but said not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, who is rational but thinks he can't forgive us until he punishes himself.

Now I'll tell you something that does not count as persuasive evidence: persistent nagging. Christians come at us all our lives wielding only bad science, bogus logic, and self-defeating rhetoric. None of that is persuasive. None of that amounts to a claim on our belief. In fact, for logical people, that bolsters our disbelief. That's because people with good arguments don't use bad arguments. If you hear people making bad arguments for something, you can be fairly confident that they aren't going to come up with a good argument next. Since Christians keep using bad arguments, we can be confident they don't have good arguments. The fact that Christians don't have good arguments, combined with the nuttiness of what they ask us to believe, is excellent grounds for solid disbelief. Therefore, logical people are closer to agnosticism on the Easter Bunny than they are on the Christian god.

What if we were just talking about a god, any god, rather than the Christian god? Would atheism still be warranted? It would depend on what was meant by the word "god." To some people, the pharaohs were gods. To some people, the universe is god. To some people, little stacks of rocks are gods. I do not propose to argue against the existence of pharaohs, the universe, or rocks, but I do think it fair to point out that they are not what I mean by the word "god." I grew up in Kansas, a Christian-dominated culture, so for me the word god means something like the Christian god. For me, the more something is like the Christian god, the more it is suited to be labeled "god;" and the less it is like the Christian god, the less it is suited to that label.

But---once we adopt the convention that "god" means "like the Christian god," we notice an interesting correlation that should be pointed out: The more godlike something is, the less it is likely to exist; and the more likely something is to exist, the less godlike it is.

If Alonzo tells you he raised somebody from the dead last week, you'll dismiss his claim peremptorily. If I say I can walk on water, you'll assume I'm lying. If you say you are both visible and invisible, we will be appropriately dismissive. If Nightshade says he/she/it is one person but three persons, we'll know he is wrong. If Amos claims the power to do anything except violate logic, we'll know he has abandoned even logic. Each of these claims is entitled to presumptive disbelief in a rational mind, but none alone would be sufficient to establish godhood. No, it would take the accumulation of a huge pile of these patent absurdities to make somebody godlike; and to move a rational mind to agnosticism regarding a huge pile of absurdities would take the most extraordinary, and compelling evidence.

The case for atheism, then, is immensely strong. Atheism is rational; Christianity is irrational.

Since Christianity is irrational, why do people become Christians? They can't enter the Church by the door of logic, so they must enter by the door of faith. That is, they must, for some reason, want Christianity to be true.
They must want it so bad that they are willing to abandon logic to have their belief.

Why do they want Christianity to be true? This is a stumper to me. I don't get it. I don't see what is supposed to be attractive and appealing about eternal torment, guilty sex, and one eccentric's undemocratic decision that the "purpose" of the universe is for a few of us to bask in his eccentric "love."

So, Gregory, while I assume you'll offer some argument that we should logically believe in god, I'd like you to address the emotional side too: why should we want Christianity to be true? In what sense would the world be better if there were a god? Because it seems to me that Hellfire is the worst possible thing that could happen, and that therefore, if Christianity is true, we live in the worst of all possible worlds. I think any good person would give up a seat in Heaven in order to get even a stranger out of Hell. I think any decent person who believes in the efficacy of prayer should pray for Christianity to be false. I agree with Azrael, in the movie Dogma: if there really are people suffering in Hell, it would be better to unmake creation from the beginning than to continue as we are.

A world without Hell and god is so much better than a world with Hell and god that I don't see how any decent person could want god to exist. So tell me, Gregory, what am I missing? What is the appeal of Christianity? Even if god could exist without Hellfire, why would anybody want the powerful lunatic described by the Christians to be in charge of the universe?

Crc



Footnote:

* IPU believers, forgive me this blasphemy. Know that I only used this blatantly false tricksy-Hobbit argument to screw with my opponent's mind, dumbfounding him so that he cannot respond intelligently. The very concept of the IPU not existing is calculated to put his mind into arrest.

[Gregory]

Gregory

Wiploc,

As far as I can see, you have divided your post into two parts. The first is what appear to be your arguments for atheism, and the second is more like an emotional appeal (which there is nothing wrong with) against Christianity. So, I will address them accordingly.

Part 1- Your arguments for atheism

I have to be honest here, Wiploc, I have read and re-read your post, and I'm not really sure what to take from it. Basically, you say that we should not believe in contradictory or irrational things. But I fully agree with you here! The question for the debate is which worldview, Christianity or atheism, is more reasonable? Your argument appears to take the following form:

1) If Christianity is not rational, then we should be atheists
2) Christianity is not rational
3) Therefore, we should be atheists

There are two major problems with the way that you have gone about this argument.

The first is that even if we were to say that Christianity is not rational, that does not say anything about atheism! Atheism could also not be rational, maybe even less so than Christianity. You do not give any reasons why the atheistic worldview is rational. I can think of many reasons off the top of my head (many of which make up my arguments from part 1) that are seemingly absurd to the atheistic worldview. In addition to the arguments from part 1, I could include: why is there something at all instead of nothing?, how do we account for the human mind?, how do we account for abstract entities such as mathematics and truth?, why, if we evolved from lower forms life, do we not find transitional fossils of these movements?. I do not expect you to answer these questions now, because ,one, I did not bring them up in the first part of the debate, and, two, I did not even begin to try to explain them. However, I do expect you to give some reasons for us to think the atheistic worldview is rational, especially in light of some of the questions I brought up in part 1.

Secondly, and I find this even more disturbing, you give no support for the second premise. Over and over, you assert that the God of Christianity is self-contradictory, irrational, and no more believable than elves, martians, and the IPU. But this is the very question we are debating! You cannot support the idea that Christianity is irrational with the statement, "Christianity is irrational". You must give some reasons why you think this is so. To simply assert without any support is blatant question-begging. So, I really don't know what else to add here other than I do not see even one argument to support the claim that Christianity is irrational or one argument to advance the idea that atheism is rational.

Part 2- the emotional side of things

I was more intrigued with the second part or your post. You bring up the idea of why would anyone want Christianity to be true? There are many things that could be said about this.

First, it is certainly not true that I first, wanted Christianity to be true, and then, thought it was true. In fact, it was the opposite! First, I believed that Christianity was indeed true, and then, after growing in knowledge of what it teaches, I wanted it to be true(Why, will be covered in a minute). It seems obvious to me that we should all choose our worldviews like this. To believe simply what one wants to be true is the height of foolishness. So, as far as our debate goes, this is really the important part, whether Christianity or atheism is more reasonable.

Second, the same questions/objections could be raised against atheism. Why would anyone want atheism to be true? This seems like an even more incredible idea! To say that we are just accidents that happened to spring up in the universe and that when we die, that's it. We simply cease to be. To think that all of the injustice that takes place in this world will not be righted. That there will be no account given for all the moral wrongs committed by people. To have no purpose other than to live for a brief moment on this insignificant rock in space and then be gone. In light of all this, what does atheism have to offer (again I want to reiterate that I don't think we should believe or not believe something based on whether we want it to be true or not) ? Although, it seems that we as humans have an insatiable desire to give meaning to our lives. My question is, if that desire is real, then what worldview gives a better explanation of its presence: atheism, which says that, ultimately, there is no real purpose to life (at least not one that applies to all persons at all times) or Christianity which teaches that God created us for the purpose of knowing Him forever. This leads me to the final point, but first, just a thought. Perhaps it is you, the atheist, who is not willing to give an honest evaluation of the evidence simply because you don't want it to be true.

Finally, there are more reasons that I want Christianity to be true than I could possibly type out. Like I said, initially, I believed because I thought it was true. Eventhough some things I did not fully understand like why God did not want me to get drunk or have sex with a lot of woman. Or why God punished some people eternally. It seemed like God was some sort of cosmic killjoy not wanting me to have any fun. But, as I continued to grow in understanding and knowledge by studying the Bible, I began to see that God was not trying to spoil my good times. In fact, He invented all of the pleasures in the world. I just came to find out that I was misusing them to my own detriment. As far as the eternal punishment was concerned, I came to find out that God wills for all men to come to salvation and accept the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross for us, but many are not willing to receive this forgiveness. That is the most important reason I want Christianity to be true. I know that I am not a good man. I have done many wrong things in my short 27 years on earth. I know that when I die, there is a judgment to be given, and I stand condemned. The Bible teaches that this is why people fear death, not so much for the unknown, but for what is known. Namely, that there is judgment. And not one of us stands innocent. So, you ask why I want Christianity to be true, here's why. Because it says that two thousand years ago, a man lived here on earth that was no ordinary man, but was God Himself. And the sole reason that He came was to pay the penalty that I should rightly have to pay for my sin (wrongful acts). Although He was guilty of nothing, He willingly chose to take the punishment for me. The Bible also teaches that all men are guilty before God and that no one is righteous (holy or blameless). It is not as if there is some huge scale where we see if our good deeds outweigh our bad (although I wonder who could pass even if that were the case?). But instead, we must be absolutely perfect. As you can no doubt see, this is a problem. And Jesus is the solution. In fact, you could say that the entire Bible could be summed up with one idea: We are all sinners and rightly deserve punishment, but because of His love for us, God was willing to take the punishment for all who would accept the gift of salvation by putting their faith in Jesus' sacrifice as opposed to their own goodness.

This is the reason I spend time here at the IIDB. I hope and pray that everyone, yes, and that means you too Wiploc would also accept that forgiveness and become a follower of Jesus Christ.

Prayerfully,

Gregory

[wiploc]

Debate: Christianity vs. Atheism, which is more reasonable?
Gregory vs. wiploc
Set 2, 2nd Atheist Affirmative

As far as I can see, you have divided your post into two parts. The first is what appear to be your arguments for atheism, and the second is more like an emotional appeal (which there is nothing wrong with) against Christianity.

Yes.




Part 1- Your arguments for atheism

I have to be honest here, Wiploc, I have read and re-read your post, and I'm not really sure what to take from it. Basically, you say that we should not believe in contradictory or irrational things. But I fully agree with you here! The question for the debate is which worldview, Christianity or atheism, is more reasonable? Your argument appears to take the following form:

1) If Christianity is not rational, then we should be atheists
2) Christianity is not rational
3) Therefore, we should be atheists

There are two major problems with the way that you have gone about this argument.

The first is that even if we were to say that Christianity is not rational, that does not say anything about atheism!

I have established that disbelief is the default position. There may be an angry lion in your closet, but you open the closet door without the least hesitation. That's because you presumptively disbelieve weird things. That disbelief (called "atheism," when we are talking about religion) is a natural and reasonable position.

If you want to move someone from a-lionism-in-the-closetism, from a-Easter-bunnyism, or from a-Jehovaism, then you'd better come up with some good evidence, some reason to believe. Otherwise, reasonable people will remain in the default position.



Atheism could also not be rational, maybe even less so than Christianity. You do not give any reasons why the atheistic worldview is rational.

This is a strawman; there is no such thing as an atheist worldview. Atheism is the mere disbelief of religious absurdities.



I can think of many reasons off the top of my head (many of which make up my arguments from part 1)

These were all refuted.



that are seemingly absurd to the atheistic worldview.

You said stuff like if god did certain miracles, then how does the atheist square that with his disbelief in god, and if morality has a metaphysical basis then how does the materialist square that with his materialism. These are not significant arguments until you add reasons to believe that morality has a metaphysical basis and that god really did those miracles.

You raised no argument that was not soundly defeated on its own terms. And the fact that you raised only bad arguments is, as I have pointed out, inductive evidence that you don't have any good arguments. Since you have no good arguments, the presumption of atheist correctness remains a sound position.



In addition to the arguments from part 1, I could include: why is there something at all instead of nothing?, how do we account for the human mind?, how do we account for abstract entities such as mathematics and truth?,

Since neither of them is an explanation at all, "It must be magic," is not a better explanation than, "It must be natural." Therefore, you have not provided a better explanation than the atheist, and the presumption of atheist correctness remains unchallenged.



why, if we evolved from lower forms life, do we not find transitional fossils of these movements?.

First, even if we leave things like the eohippus and the australopithecines out of it, there are obvious transitionals. For instance, amphibians are transitional between fish and reptiles, and reptiles are transitional between amphibians and birds.

Second, this is a no-true-Scotsman type of keep-moving-the-goalposts argument: If the creationist asks why there is a gap between A and Q, and the scientist produces H, the creationist will say, "Now there are two gaps, one between A and H, and one between H and Q." If the scientist produces B to fill the gap between A and H, the creationist will say B is of the same type as A, not a true intermediary at all. Thus, the creationist denies the significance of every discovered intermediary by saying either that it isn't a separate species or by saying that its very existence creates an additional gap. For the reasoning mind, there is plenary evidence compelling the belief that new species have kept appearing during the history of the Earth; for the dogmatic deniers of evolution, no evidence is sufficient.

Third, this is a lawnmower argument. You can't prove that a science isn't on the right track by showing that there are things it still doesn't know. That's like claiming lawnmowers don't work because some grass still needs cutting. Science is about investigating things not-yet-understood. The existence of the not-yet-understood cannot reasonably be construed as evidence that science is wrong about the things it has figured out.



I do not expect you to answer these questions now, because ,one, I did not bring them up in the first part of the debate, and, two, I did not even begin to try to explain them. However, I do expect you to give some reasons for us to think the atheistic worldview is rational, especially in light of some of the questions I brought up in part 1.

I did that. I pointed out that you are (quite properly) an Easter bunny atheist, a rhino-in-the-dining room-atheist, and many many other kinds of atheist. As are all reasonable people. Atheism is the reasonable default position on this type of claim. To move rational people from disbelief on these issues, you are going to need to produce serious evidence, which you have not done.



Secondly, and I find this even more disturbing, you give no support for the second premise.

That's absurd. I gave many examples of extraordinary claims made by Christians, claims that inspire skepticism in rational people. To recount just two, there's the claim that Jehovah both can and can't be seen, which makes Jehovah less credible than Thor; and there's the claim that Jehovah is a just god who nonetheless tortures people eternally, which makes Jehovah exactly as likely as a square circle.



Over and over, you assert that the God of Christianity is self-contradictory, irrational, and no more believable than elves, martians, and the IPU. But this is the very question we are debating! You cannot support the idea that Christianity is irrational with the statement, "Christianity is irrational". You must give some reasons why you think this is so. To simply assert without any support is blatant question-begging. So, I really don't know what else to add here other than I do not see even one argument to support the claim that Christianity is irrational or one argument to advance the idea that atheism is rational.

You don't see even one argument? Did you learn your debating style from an ostrich?



Part 2- the emotional side of things

I was more intrigued with the second part or your post. You bring up the idea of why would anyone want Christianity to be true? There are many things that could be said about this.

First, it is certainly not true that I first, wanted Christianity to be true, and then, thought it was true. In fact, it was the opposite! First, I believed that Christianity was indeed true, and then, after growing in knowledge of what it teaches, I wanted it to be true(Why, will be covered in a minute). It seems obvious to me that we should all choose our worldviews like this.

I agree. We should go where the evidence leads.



To believe simply what one wants to be true is the height of foolishness. So, as far as our debate goes, this is really the important part, whether Christianity or atheism is more reasonable.

And yet, unless Christians offer a reason to think Christianity is true, it remains fair for us to suspect that their beliefs are emotion-based.



Second, the same questions/objections could be raised against atheism. Why would anyone want atheism to be true?

As opposed to Christianity? No Hellfire, no sin, no reprobates, no obligation to kill witches and adulteresses and people who invite us to other churches and homosexuals and Mideonites etcetera. No reason to have to keep twisting our moral senses around to accommodate atrocities. Not reason to make children stupid by telling them the First Cause argument makes sense. Atheists are not emotionally or intellectually conflicted when they hear of priests abusing children, or Jesus cursing an out of season fruit tree, or bears attacking little children for harassing a bald man, or the very existence of a bald man who believes in the efficacy of prayer. We get to go wherever the evidence leads. Morally, we get to be as nice as we want to be without checking to see how that would sit with prehistoric sheep herders. And we never have to worry about whether an invisible bogyman is mad at us. Face it, compared to Christianity, atheism is Heaven on Earth.



This seems like an even more incredible idea! To say that we are just accidents that happened to spring up in the universe and that when we die, that's it. We simply cease to be.

When we don't know something, saying, "I don't know," is better than making up stories and claiming they are true.



To think that all of the injustice that takes place in this world will not be righted.

It is not a supportable position to claim that Christians believe wrongs are righted. Christians say Eve's sin was visited on her descendents. They can call that justice but it is not justice. They say god had to be crucified to expunge our debt for the crime of being descended from Eve---and they have to call even that justice. They say believing in the existence and justice and goodness of a nonsensically-self-contradictory being whom they clearly describe as a monster is the only way to salvation, and they call that justice. They say god hardened Pharaos's heart so he couldn't believe, and then punished him for not believing, and they call that justice.

I reiterate: what could possibly be inviting about such blatant irrationality?



That there will be no account given for all the moral wrongs committed by people.

In the Christian mythology, the only things punished are being descended from Eve and failing to suck up. Being descended from Eve and failing to suck up are not moral wrongs. Actual moral wrongs, things like murder, theft, rape, dishonesty, cowardice, these are not punished in the afterlife if you suck up before you die. And those who don't suck up will be infinitely punished even they never do a thing wrong. It is entirely possible, according to Christian theology, that Hitler winds up in Heaven and Mother Teresa winds up in eternal Hellfire.

And yet you offer this as Christian justice. You think this makes Christianity appealing! Since you are actually willing to make an argument this outrageously bad, it is fair for us to infer that you have no good arguments.



To have no purpose other than to live for a brief moment on this insignificant rock in space and then be gone. In light of all this, what does atheism have to offer

Atheism offers rationality. We get to believe only things that seem to be true. We don't have to believe, for instance, that monstrous injustices are appealingly just.



(again I want to reiterate that I don't think we should believe or not believe something based on whether we want it to be true or not) ? Although, it seems that we as humans have an insatiable desire to give meaning to our lives.

I don't understand. I don't understand why you want a reason. I don't understand why you want to "give" the reason. I don't understand how you can be said to have given the reason if you really get it from someone else. I don't understand how you can get a reason from someone else, even if that someone else is a god. I don't understand why a silly reason is considered more fulfilling than no reason at all.



My question is, if that desire is real, then what worldview gives a better explanation of its presence: atheism, which says that, ultimately, there is no real purpose to life (at least not one that applies to all persons at all times) or Christianity which teaches that God created us for the purpose of knowing Him forever.

Even if theism were true, how would that affect our purpose?

Let me steal an argument from one GPLindsey and point out that if people can only have purposes if they were created by someone else, then it logically follows that god can't have a purpose unless he was created by someone else. This line of argument defeats itself.



This leads me to the final point, but first, just a thought. Perhaps it is you, the atheist, who is not willing to give an honest evaluation of the evidence simply because you don't want it to be true.

I will leave it to the readers to judge whose arguments stand up and whose collapse before the breath of reason.




Finally, there are more reasons that I want Christianity to be true than I could possibly type out.

I'd settle for one, if it made sense.



Like I said, initially, I believed because I thought it was true. Eventhough some things I did not fully understand like why God did not want me to get drunk or have sex with a lot of woman. Or why God punished some people eternally. It seemed like God was some sort of cosmic killjoy not wanting me to have any fun. But, as I continued to grow in understanding and knowledge by studying the Bible, I began to see that God was not trying to spoil my good times. In fact, He invented all of the pleasures in the world. I just came to find out that I was misusing them to my own detriment. As far as the eternal punishment was concerned, I came to find out that God wills for all men to come to salvation and accept the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross for us,

If an omnipotent god willed everybody to be saved, then everybody would be saved. It is not possible for an omnipotent omniscient god who wants everybody to be saved to create a world in which, woops! people just happen to go to Hell.



but many are not willing to receive this forgiveness.

You made that up.



That is the most important reason I want Christianity to be true. I know that I am not a good man. I have done many wrong things in my short 27 years on earth. I know that when I die, there is a judgment to be given, and I stand condemned. The Bible teaches that this is why people fear death, not so much for the unknown, but for what is known. Namely, that there is judgment. And not one of us stands innocent. So, you ask why I want Christianity to be true, here's why. Because it says that two thousand years ago, a man lived here on earth that was no ordinary man, but was God Himself. And the sole reason that He came was to pay the penalty that I should rightly have to pay for my sin (wrongful acts). Although He was guilty of nothing, He willingly chose to take the punishment for me. The Bible also teaches that all men are guilty before God and that no one is righteous (holy or blameless). It is not as if there is some huge scale where we see if our good deeds outweigh our bad (although I wonder who could pass even if that were the case?). But instead, we must be absolutely perfect. As you can no doubt see, this is a problem. And Jesus is the solution. In fact, you could say that the entire Bible could be summed up with one idea: We are all sinners and rightly deserve punishment, but because of His love for us, God was willing to take the punishment for all who would accept the gift of salvation by putting their faith in Jesus' sacrifice as opposed to their own goodness.


You aren't making sense. How would it be better to be reviled and forgiven by god than to not be reviled in the first place. You wish there was a god so he wouldn't hurt you if you pick the right religion? How is that more reasonable than wishing you were on fire so you could see if your fire extinguisher works?

If atheism is right, we are none of us are punished after death; if Christianity is right, some of us are not punished after death. It is clearly a better deal for atheism to be true than for Christianity to be true, so this cannot be the real reason you think Christianity is appealing.


Summation:

Disbelief of weird claims is clearly a rational default position.

Christianity makes really weird claims.

You have failed to raise evidence for the truth of Christianity. Your every argument for Christianity's reasonableness has been slam-dunked, shown to be unreasonable. Therefore, it seems likely that your real reason for believing must be emotional rather than logical.

Your every argument for the appeal of Christianity has been shown to not actually be appealing. Whatever your real reason for wishing Christianity were true, it is not one you have been able to share with us. Why do you think that is?

Gregory, you closed with a prayer that I would see the light and become Christian. Let me offer the hope that you will come to understand that your religion requires the distortion of both logic and esthetics. Perhaps this quote will help:

originally posted on 10 March 2004 in the Atheist's Testimony thread, by Brother Daniel:
An atheist friend could fire a devastating argument at me, and I wouldn't even know it was devastating. I would think only that he had hit on something that I had not yet learned to answer properly. I was confident that I would learn, or figure out, the answer eventually. And I would try to attack the heathen position from another angle, as if their point had not even been made.
<snip>
Despite all my conditioning, the "still, small voice" of reason could occasionally be heard through all the noise. When I was 17 or so, my girlfriend and I had a discussion about the doctrine of the Atonement. (We had met in church. She was only slightly more liberal than I in her beliefs, and much brighter than I. She would be a prime candidate for de-conversion.) Why, we both wondered, did Jesus have to die for us? How could that be connected to God's ability or willingness to forgive us? The idea that this sacrifice satisfied "justice" was monstrous.

crc

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Reluctantly, we have decided to conclude this formal debate. This is the third occasion that Gregory has missed the debate deadline (i.e. the maximum of 7 days past the last statement). We will not be granting a 3 day grace period. wiploc has also declined to making a concluding statement and will continue the discussion in the peanut gallery.

Nevertheless, we'd like to thank Gregory and wiploc for their participation. This thread is now closed.

Jason