Without God

[Dreadful Scathe]

According to Hitchens, morality is nothing but a chemical reaction in the brain

Does he really say that ? Surely age has something to do with it at least, a mature brain has different chemical reactions surely ?

If right and wrong is determined by instinct

Morality is based purely on instinct? That sounds like nonsense to me. "Morality" is surely our animal instincts combined with what we learn is acceptable from other people as we grow up and communicate.

Does it need to be any more complicated than that ?

than it means we're nothing more than genetic meat puppets dangling from the strings of our DNA!

even if the other things were true, that conclusion does not follow. We are not "nothing more than [something derogatory]"! we are unique individuals who can think for ourselves.

And if you accept that maybe you will start to appreciate the life you have and stop telling others how to live theirs

Accept what? Who stops telling who what to do what ?

[stewart38]

No, you don't.

From Stephen Hawkins I think




The Evidence is Very Simple
Just look around you and you will find the evidence everywhere. It is around you, within you, above you, below you, and even right there next to you. You say this is not evidence! If I showed you the simpliest man-made object, would you not immediately know it was made by man--an intelligent creature? So then, how is it that you do not recognize that objects, far more complicated than man can create, were created by God? If I showed you a robot, would you not know it was created by man? Then why is it that if I show you a human being, a far more complicated object than a robot, you do not know it was created by God? And why is it that man's inventions have resulted from a process of "evolution" guided by man's intellect but God could not have used this same "evolutionary" process in creating his inventions? If man can guide the "evolutionary process" from Thomas Edison's first primitive phonograph to today's DVD's, then why could God not have guided the "evolutionary process" from carbon to man? If I showed you a DVD player, you would reject , as nonsense, the notion that it was created by chance without the intervention of man, so why, then, do you not reject the notion that man, a far more sophisticated invention, was created by chance without the intervention of God?

You need no more evidence than seeing an invention created by man to know it was created by man, so why then do you need more evidence than seeing an invention created by God to know it was created by Him? If a simple DVD player could not have been created without the intervention of an intelligent being, then what makes you think a human could have been created without the intervention of an intelligent being? Since the nature of a simple DVD player is suficient evidence to prove the existence of an intelligent being, then why is the nature of a human being not sufficient evidence to prove the existence of a being of superior intelligence and ability?

[Dreadful Scathe]

From Stephen Hawkins I think

You got that from here it is nothing to do with Stephen Hawkins (or dawking or hawking)

Its also a poor argument, but fun to think about.

So then, how is it that you do not recognize that objects, far more complicated than man can create, were created by God?

To claim to know would be an assumption based on our current knowledge. You can be sure that an aeroplane flying over peoples heads in the 14th century would be taken as godly, it doesn't mean it is . its also slightly dishonourable to use such loaded language to coerce: "how is it that you do not recognize"...yes, you, you are STUPID. You stupido. You not recognise. We do. We smart. Ha. Can't we just settle for "we don't know" and take it from there

Then why is it that if I show you a human being, a far more complicated object than a robot, you do not know it was created by God?

by that logic, it would be equally valid to assume that man was created by "advanced man" who IS capable of creating man - just as we are capable of creating robots. Turnip man from years ago was only good at creating turnips.

so why, then, do you not reject the notion that man, a far more sophisticated invention, was created by chance without the intervention of God?

...but thats easy. No two random people on the planet can agree what "god" actually is 100% of the time. Also, no one, as far as i know has ever claimed "man" is down purely to "chance". So this is an attempt to pretend an answer is clear because the question is clear. Neither is clear

You need no more evidence than seeing an invention created by man to know it was created by man

Blatent nonsense. See "aeroplance" above. I also like Arthur C.Clarkes famous quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.". It still applies to the biological sciences too to some degree, simply becasue there IS so much we don't understand and the easy answers are...well...take them if you need them

[Will]

Phew. That was long.

I didn't see any flaws in the atheism. Most of what he said made absolute sense to me. Tho I hold my hand up and say I am an agnostic more than anything else. Any specific flaws you saw we can start a new thread about ?

On the other hand, D'Souza didn't really seem to have an argument other than 'science doesn't have all the answers so that makes religion right'.

Whilst I must admit that I can't understand how you couldn't have serious doubts about Atheism after watching a debate like that, I applaud you for at least watching it. Sadly, Barry's response of playing the man rather than the ball was as depressingly predictable as it was unjustified.

[Reklaw]

I presume most people on this thread will have contributed...

Justgiving - Atheist Bus Campaign

[stewart38]

Whilst I must admit that I can't understand how you couldn't have serious doubts about Atheism after watching a debate like that, I applaud you for at least watching it. Sadly, Barry's response of playing the man rather than the ball was as depressingly predictable as it was unjustified.

D'Sousa summary. I liked, ill put the miniute it appeared

If your a atheist why attack religion I thought was a good point (8 mins)

Measurement of value (11 mins)

Christian scientists from Kepler to Newton (14 mins)

Salem Witch trials 18 died Stalin etc 100,000,000 re atheist (17 mins)

Disliked

poor comments on matter (16 mins)

Hitchens

I liked

Immoral arguement (23 mins)

However he has no depth, very high level summary .

Got the impression hey this is all wrong come join my tribe

Tsunamis would be 'misterious event' a long time ago

My point what tribe survived the tsunamis in 2004 not the modern west but a old tribe that went to high ground before the waves came (28 mins)

D'Sousa coming back

Science guessing 31 mins (e.g speed of light elsewhere)

post 48mins it was all D'Sousa

by 53mins we have Hitchens going all about all the bad stuff thats happen

D S'sousa 54 mins good atheist , blame religion for its own mistakes and blame it for non religious miss stakes

etc etc
Does it add anything no , change my mind no

who wins this D'Sousa hands down and speaks a lot more !

Ps is Hitchens slightly drunk ?? Or is that his style ?

[bigdjiver]

...Then why is it that if I show you a human being, a far more complicated object than a robot, you do not know it was created by God?...

I am led to believe that man, and woman, were created by their parents. I have not seen any child that was absolutely identical to one of its parents. It is not difficult for me to move on from the child not being identical to its parent to it being better or worse at surving and procreating. I can accept that, on average, children are as good as their parents at survining and procreating. But if the better survive and procreate more than the worse it follows that children, on average, will tend to be different from their parents, and better at procreating. I believe that process exists across nature, and is what we call evolution.

All this DNA stuff is useful as an explanation of how, and all the fossils are useful evidence of how long, but a simple examination of the people around me is sufficient evidence, for me, that that is how things happen.

"In the beginning was the word ,,,". It is still possible that the laws that govern our universe were created by some divine force, it was before my time, but there is no place for a good divinity in my philosophy that would spend so much effort to lie to me by planting false evidence in the geology, whereas I am very ready to believe that the men that wrote the scriptures did not know everything, and were capable of invention and mistakes.

[Dreadful Scathe]

great, almost coherant summary Stewart

Ill try and actually watch the thing tonight. Im not familiar with either of the people involved.
But Im familiar with Will and I like him

If your a atheist why attack religion I thought was a good point (8 mins)

8 mins on that? Seems reasonable to "attack" something you feel is "bad" in some way. Every human does that to some degree.
Its quite clear only a small number of atheists do that sort of thing, but its also quite clear that there are religious people who "attack" other religions - should we ask them why they attack too ? Seems fairly futile to me and not worthy of an intellectual argument. Most people get by and get on Long live "most people".

Christian scientists from Kepler to Newton (14 mins)

A good scientist is not good just because of any religious beliefs so thats not worth spending 30 seconds over, never mind 14 mins.

Salem Witch trials 18 died Stalin etc 100,000,000 re atheist (17 mins)

What bizarrly unconnected events. But at second glance, they are the same - people in power controlling the population. Thats humans for you. Generally nasty the lot of 'em. (I'm not human ) I somehow doubt Stalin was trying to "advance atheism" with his...er..."close control" of the population. And the witch trials were people of the day acting in what they believed was the only logical way to act - lsd not being something covered in the bible.

by 53mins we have Hitchens going all about all the bad stuff thats happen

53 mins? - i think i'll have lost the will to live waaaay before then Bad stuff ? Whos to blame for that then ? Bad stuff happens all the time (i blame TV)

D S'sousa 54 mins good atheist , blame religion for its own mistakes

You can point some blame for certain events at any kind of dogma. But ultimately people act with or without the help of this dogma - whatever it may be.

who wins this D'Sousa hands down and speaks a lot more

ill have a look, assuming Americas Top Model isnt on tonight. Hey, this could be a theme - we'll find a youTube debate and then we'll vote on the winner. Not necessarily on religion of course.

[TA Guy]

Those are time points in the clip, not lengths

[Dreadful Scathe]

Those are time points in the clip, not lengths

aah now that you say that, it makes perfect sense. silly me. phew though

i was confused by Stewarts use of mins in brackets at the end AND as a timestamp at the beginning - "by 53mins " i understood

[stewart38]

aah now that you say that, it makes perfect sense. silly me. phew though

i was confused by Stewarts use of mins in brackets at the end AND as a timestamp at the beginning - "by 53mins " i understood

God works in misterious ways

I have no spell check today

Probably best to watch it rather then comment on my rant

Better still do my ironing and have it on in the back ground

[Barry Shnikov]

Sadly, Barry's response of playing the man rather than the ball was as depressingly predictable as it was unjustified.

That's untrue and unfair, Will. I didn't criticise him for having bad taste in food, or being tone deaf, or no dress sense, I criticised him for being a dishonest and inadequate debater. Since I already know that, from having seen - four? possibly five? - online clips of debates in which he has taken part, then it is an absolutely fair and reasonable thing to do in response to your invitation to watch another.

Shame on you.

[Barry Shnikov]

D'Sousa summary. I liked, ill put the miniute it appeared

If your a atheist why attack religion I thought was a good point (8 mins)

He's on stage debating the very same subject with an atheist. Presumably he has reasons to get involved in the debate, otherwise he'd be at home toasting marshmallows.

Christian scientists from Kepler to Newton (14 mins)

Complete sophistry. The question is not whether religious people can be scientists, but whether religion is inimical to science. How many christian scientists there are (not the Mary Baker Eddy kind) is irrelevant.

Salem Witch trials 18 died Stalin etc 100,000,000 re atheist (17 mins)

Another of D'Souza's favourite distortions. There are two problems.
First, Stalin slaughtered not because he was an atheist. He slaughtered because he was paranoid and power-crazed. People died not because they were religious but because Stalin saw them as dangerous or as obstacles to his consolidation of power and to his plans to industrialise Russia. Without straying from Russia, you can look at Catherine the Great and Ivan the Terrible who killed and slaughtered in great numbers and were not in the least atheist. It's a deflection tool, used because D'Souza, like Hitchens, knows full well that zealots will cheerfully kill whomever they cannot convert, whereas almost all atheists don't give a **** if people believe in god as long as they keep it to themselves.

Second, if anyone in D'Souza's position wishes to make an honest comparison, then what about the First Crusade, the Second Crusade, the Third Crusade, the Fourth Crusade (you get the picture), the Inquisition (not just the one in Spain, but the one that operated throughout Europe right the way from the twelfth century to the eighteenth; to that we have to add the jihadi wars of Islam from Mohammed to the present day, Hindu religious wars, religious wars and religiously inspired deaths in China, in Japan, in central and southern America. Then we may be getting something like a comparison.

Science guessing 31 mins (e.g speed of light elsewhere)

If this is what I think it is, then it is part of what I consider D'Souza's dishonest disingenuity. He knows - or he bloody well ought to - that science doesn't claim to have the full and complete answer. What it claims is that it will keep looking for the answer and applying the same test - does it work, does it make testable predictions that verify it, can the model be improved. The important difference is that religion says - "Don't worry. Be happy. God dunnit and writ in in his Book." It cannot make any progress in understanding the universe, because it is inextricably imprisoned within a 3,000 year old text.

S'sousa 54 mins good atheist , blame religion for its own mistakes and blame it for non religious miss stakes

That's a good pun - religious miss stakes, referring no doubt to Mayan sacrifices to the Sun God. Was it yours, Stewart, or D'Souza's?

who wins this D'Sousa hands down and speaks a lot more !

Only someone who cannot tell a good argument from bad, a dishonest argument from a true one, could reach that conclusion. Or someone who believes in god.

Ps is Hitchens slightly drunk ?? Or is that his style ?

In the Visual Dictionary there should be a picture of Hitchens next to the word 'dishevelled'. The person he most reminds me of is Sir Les Patterson. Still, mind like a steel trap, and all that.

[Will]

who wins this D'Sousa hands down and speaks a lot more !

Ps is Hitchens slightly drunk ?? Or is that his style ?

Whatever one may think about the militant atheistic views of Hitchens, I've seen a few of his debates and I think you have to admit that he has formidable debating skills. Indeed, didn't Dawkins say something along the lines of "If you're a Christian thinking about debating Christopher Hitchens, then don't!"

In this debate with D'Sousa, Hitchens starts off his usual confident and eloquent self, but contrast his smugness and confidence at the start of the debate to his entire demeanor and body language by the end of it. You can tell he knows he's been soundly defeated. Indeed there's a link to the same debate over on Dawkins' website and even some of the atheists there have posted comments admitting that Hitchens lost this one, and complaining about his poor performance (well they weren't going to admit that D'Souza was simply right were they).

[Will]

That's untrue and unfair, Will. I didn't criticise him for having bad taste in food, or being tone deaf, or no dress sense, I criticised him for being a dishonest and inadequate debater. Since I already know that, from having seen - four? possibly five? - online clips of debates in which he has taken part, then it is an absolutely fair and reasonable thing to do in response to your invitation to watch another.

Shame on you.

I'm sorry Barry, but all you've done is underlined the fact that you've played the ball not the man.

What I really like though is that fact that you as an Atheist think that anyone should feel shame. By what moral compass would that be? After all, what choice did I have in writing what I did? I'm just a product of that darned selfish gene

[stewart38]

8 mins on that? Seems reasonable to "attack" something you feel is "bad" in some way. Every human does that to some degree.
Its quite clear only a small number of atheists do that sort of thing, but its also quite clear that there are religious people who "attack" other religions - should we ask them why they attack too ? Seems fairly futile to me and not worthy of an intellectual argument. Most people get by and get on Long live "most people".

I think the point was

Atheists dont believe in God

Now he may not believe in the Green Goblin, would he go out of his way to convince people that did believe in Green Goblin,thats its wrong to believe in the Green Goblin of course not.

Of course 'most atheists dont' ie try and convince believers its wrong to believe , but just a interesting point

[TA Guy]

I think the point was

Atheists dont believe in God

Now he may not believe in the Green Goblin, would he go out of his way to convince people that did believe in Green Goblin,thats its wrong to believe in the Green Goblin of course not.

Of course 'most atheists dont' ie try and convince believers its wrong to believe , but just a interesting point

I would suspect the reason people/atheists do not attack Green Goblin believers is simply that there arn't any. No Green Goblin TV programs, or Green Goblin school lessons. Believe me, if a Green Goblin believer came to my front door, I would shut the door in their face the same as any other religious preacher.

Some people do attack religion on the other hand because A) They believe it to be a fundamental lie, and B) It's shoved in their faces in school lessons, in TV programs etc etc etc. It's impossible to escape from it.

[Dreadful Scathe]

I think the point was

Atheists dont believe in God

Now he may not believe in the Green Goblin, would he go out of his way to convince people that did believe in Green Goblin,thats its wrong to believe in the Green Goblin of course not.

Of course 'most atheists dont' ie try and convince believers its wrong to believe , but just a interesting point

It really isn't. He may not believe in a green goblin but he is not surrounded by people who do ; his society is not partly based around those beliefs, not to mention his government having laws about those beliefs or actually subscribing to them by... giving tax relief to green goblin buildings, having green goblin counselors in the armed forces. putting the green goblins name on currency, government seals, in the national anthem, and claiming that only people who believe in at least one colour of goblin should be considered "patriotic"

If atheism really meant "lack of belief in green goblins" ,a "militant atheist" simply could not exist - there would be no one claiming green goblins were important.

The comparison is obviously a silly one. Its a very poor point.

[Barry Shnikov]

You can tell he knows he's been soundly defeated. Indeed there's a link to the same debate over on Dawkins' website and even some of the atheists there have posted comments admitting that Hitchens lost this one, and complaining about his poor performance (well they weren't going to admit that D'Souza was simply right were they).

Um...you do realise that Hitchens losing the debate (if that is what happened) is not a sufficient condition to declare that D'Souza is right?

And of course, D'Souza is WRONG, because when push comes to shove he has to debate on the side of magic and spooks and spells and totally incomprehensible and laughably ridiculous theological absurdities (to see just a few of them presented in a neat package, see here) which is why he tries to dress it up with crud about how many people are killed by atheists and how many medieval scientists believed in god.

[Barry Shnikov]

I'm sorry Barry, but all you've done is underlined the fact that you've played the ball not the man.

What I really like though is that fact that you as an Atheist think that anyone should feel shame. By what moral compass would that be? After all, what choice did I have in writing what I did? I'm just a product of that darned selfish gene

You seem to be laughably misinformed as to what the phrase 'selfish gene' means, as well as what the theory states. I have therefore taken the liberty of finding the book on Amazon, so that you can read it and become better informed. It's available for as little as £3.72.

Do you know the word to use when someone bandies about scientific phrases without understanding them - especially when they do it sarcastically? It's a three-letter word, first letter 'd', third letter 'r', and rhymes with one of the presents brought by the three wise men.