Anyone know any definate ways to beat a christian in a debate over whether god exists?

You won't. I'm not saying they are right, but you will NOT beat them in a debate. They are just insane.

lol true. they have it so easy in a debate as they just resort to saying something like "it's all part of gods will" or "god plants evidence that makes it appear like he doesn't exist so that only true believers will believe" theyre a bunch of arsecandles.

quote:Originally posted by duck_dojo:

"it's all part of gods will"

"god plants evidence that makes it appear like he doesn't exist so that only true believers will believe"

I've never heard either of those before.

quote:Originally posted by duck_dojo:

lol true. they have it so easy in a debate as they just resort to saying something like "it's all part of gods will" or "god plants evidence that makes it appear like he doesn't exist so that only true believers will believe" theyre a bunch of arsecandles.



while it does happen that we do fall back on "God's Nature" as a response, most of the apologetics that i have read actually give answers... whether they are acceptable, debateable, or accurate is up to each individual to decide.

What i've noticed, both from my own growth and observation, is that many Christians have not studied much if any apologetics (before they attempt an answer). Why would they? They already believe, so they dont need to convince themselves.

I started with interest in apologetics to answer/understand things that i questioned. I dont think it was from doubting my Faith, but trying to make sense of my two great loves: love of God and love of science. Over the years, some of the answers that i thought were sufficient to me (i.e. both the examples that you gave, among others) have grown or changed.

I'm not saying that i even have a fraction of the answers, but i am still learning. And i would bet that the other Christian's here, not to mention professional apologetics scholars, would echo this sentiment.

Besides that, "because God dunnit that way" sometimes might be a valid answer.

Easy.



God is responsible for all the good in the world, therefor human existance on earth is a big joke in heaven.

http://www.pchorsepower.com/shock/lobby/

quote:Originally posted by duck_dojo:

Anyone know any definate ways to beat a christian in a debate over whether god exists?

If there was one there would not be Christians any more.

Ask them about that omnipotence/omnibenevolence thing Rust and them are always talking about. I can't remember the exact wording if I do i'll get back to ya.

on the link-funny how a lot of got decapitated and castrated with the pen0r in there mouf.

Modern Christians (and I assume that were talking about an evangelical here) depend on the salesman's approach of convincing you that you have something wrong with you (say armpit odor) to you will crave their cure (say deodorant). If you don't buy into their base assumption, they can't touch you.

Further, even if you do, say accept that you're a sinner and are going to hell, their clincher is that you can "beat the rap" by accepting Christ. I have fun telling them that as a sinner I want to go to hell. They can't say shit at that point.

its almost impossible to convince a christian that god doesn't exist as ,especially evangelical, christians feel they experience god's presence daily.

great personal tradegy is usually the only way to kill this feeling they have of their lord's

'agape'.

quote:Originally posted by jackketch:

great personal tradegy is usually the only way to kill this feeling they have of their lord's

'agape'.

or strengthen it greatly

^^^^^

Amen !

no one seeems to have come up with an explaination for the stars millions of light years away which imply that the universe is at least millions of years old. ask them how the stars got that far or in the case that god put them there, how the light got here so fast. and if someone s stupid enough to ask how you know that light travelled at the same speed in a vacuum all these years say something equally stupid like "i called 1800 GOD and asked" http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

quote:Originally posted by Sarith:

no one seeems to have come up with an explaination for the stars millions of light years away which imply that the universe is at least millions of years old. ask them how the stars got that far or in the case that god put them there, how the light got here so fast. and if someone s stupid enough to ask how you know that light travelled at the same speed in a vacuum all these years say something equally stupid like "i called 1800 GOD and asked" http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

Um... I prayed and prayed and prayed and when God didn't answer me I took that as a sign that he didn't want us to know just quite yet. http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

As they said, you can't disprove them completely.

If you want a question they cannot possibly answer successfully then:

If god is omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent, why does he allow suffering?

Their "answers" will be one of the following, or a combination of both:

1. He lets suffering happen because we have free will, and we freely choose to cause hurt.

2. Pain, suffering and punishment are sometimes good ways for us to learn lessons, etc.

Neither of those are successful answers because if he is omnipotent and omniscient he has the power to remove suffering while still keeping our free will, and still giving us other equally good (or better) tools to learn lessons, increase faith etc. That he does not do so means he deliberately chooses to allow suffering to continue even when he has the power to create other, better alternatives that do not rely on suffering. He therefore cannot be benevolent if he deliberately makes it so that we suffer when we do not have to.

A Christian is always beat in a debate, by default, seen as how a Christian, or a member of any other religion CANNOT be part of a debate. Proceed with physical attacks.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that God does exist.

If he is unable to help (put an end to suffering, poverty, disease, whathaveyou), he is not truly omnipotent. If he's willing, at least his heart's in the right place, eh?

If he is able to help but not willing, he is malevolent.

If he is neither willing nor able, he's not worth believing in anyway.

Maybe the god in the beginning ain't around anymore. Maybe he lost power and maybe a new god is elected every couple of million years or so.

Not necessarily, Toilets.

I as a christian believe in a rapture, in which the believers and I will be saved from suffering, death, ect. But I believe the idea is you have to prove yourself down here.

[This message has been edited by Beholder (edited 06-28-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by Beholder:

Not necessarily, Toilets.

I as a christian believe in a rapture, in which the believers and I will be saved from suffering, death, ect. But I believe the idea is you have to prove yourself down here.





How those one prove ones self?

If one is peaceful but fails to show a 'sufficent' ammont of faith is one going to die...

^that isn't correct at all.

One is saved by accepting Jesus Christ as one's personal savior.

quote:Originally posted by Beholder:

Not necessarily, Toilets.

I as a christian believe in a rapture, in which the believers and I will be saved from suffering, death, ect. But I believe the idea is you have to prove yourself down here.



Yes, necessarily. You aren't saved from earthly suffering with the rapture. That is, you can still suffer on earth before this magical raputure comes, so his point still stands.

The suffering described in the original post didn't include "only earthly suffering." I was talking about in general; saying essentially these things will not continue forever.

I honestly can't beleive that anyone even believes in God at all. An all powerful being that controls everything. What the fuck is wrong with your brain. The only purpose for god was to answer the questions that nobody knew so the rich and powerful could control the populous more efficiently. Now we are starting to realise the truth that there isn't a god but rather we are gods. We may not be immortal but our souls or the energy that is us is. Law of thermal dynamics. You know how I know this, nothing in my life has been effected by anything but my own choices or others choices. I can explain everything with scientific reasoning and experimentation. Everything happens for a reason and it can be explained rationally but most people are way too dumb to grasp it. I'm hoping that someday the populous will be smart enough to realize that they are childish and wake up to the oppression that is veiled by their faith. Let's see if your god saves your ass in a couple years when the downfall of the global economy starts world war. It won't be god that you'll see, it will be me kicking some retard ass and stomping the plague that got us into this shit. I'm not the bad guy, i'm the one that wasn't to fucking stupid to figure out what we are doing wrong and most importantly, how to remedy the problem. Greed and the persuit for power have made the population prosper rapidly but will also lead to our demise. The reason is that the earth only gathers so much energy from the sun and is then stored eventually as oil, gas, and other fossil fuels. See, we aren't smart. So we decide to just go wild and use it unwisely wasting our resources for gains in paper that will eventually be worthless from the end result of the wasting. We're about half out of resources at this point and here comes the demise. The people who own the last of the oil are going to start collecting the rest of the money for the cheap oil they sold us over the last hundred years making it so expensive that production of everything will cease to be affordable. I'm not just talking about consumer products, but food as well. We use more energy as humans in our bodies than the entire earth absorbs from the sun. See, the earth can only sustain about 1 billion people comfortably without any use of external energies from the sun. To keep it simple, some of you have to go, and soon. Economists here in Canada are already predicting a recession in 2 years. It might seem like no biggie to others but we are one of the worlds largest oil producing countries in the world. We're increasing drilling and pumping at the highest rates possible lately and our economy is soaring. The only reason that we could have a recession would be if oil became to expensive for everyone to afford. At first it will just be 3rd world countries then eventually 2nd, then even 1 st world countries will have upper middle class starving unles your government heavily subsidizes food. That subsidy money has to come from either taxes or banks which will always lead to bankruptcy. So when 90% of the population starves, or dies in war, will you say that it was gods plan? I say bull shit. I say it was the result of arrogant, greedy, stupid people much like most of you here that are at fault. Every action has a opposite and equal reaction. Acts of God aren't real, acts of stupidity are. A perfect example of stupidity is how many people will try and justify their stupid idea after it's been pointed out and proven stupid.

There is no way to prove existence or lack thereof. The best you can do is use an argument to counter the other's.

What facts are there that there is a god? I see no facts where the only answer is god? God is make belief. Gods were created so that there could be chosen ones and to explain things that know one knew about. People who wanted to rule used this made up shit to give themselves speacial privelage over everyone else by creating their own devine right. It was a con. People weren't that bright back then, or now, and the same con works time and time again. I figured this shit out in grade two man. I learned what a greek god was and we laughed at the idea of all their gods, then I realized that one god is just as stupid of an idea as 50. Nobody will listen to me anyhow since you've all been brainwashed to ridicule people such as me, because reason and logic have no place in gods world. I know the shit about the kings because i'm a descendent of one and my family hasn't gone to church in hundreds of years.

Ask them, "If every story in the bible is suppose to be the absolute truth, why are there 2 stories of creation? Was God doing the whole seven days thing when suddenly he realized that just creating 2 people and having them inbreed for the rest of eternity would be easier?"

Even then you will probably be unable to convince them of anything. Science is very weak in contrast to theologic loyalty.

[This message has been edited by 2D Shuffle (edited 06-29-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by xtreem5150ahm:

or strengthen it greatly



true. after my kid was born handicapped (he's a spastic) i went thru a crisis of faith but did come out stronger in belief in the end.

Science isn't weak, it's concrete or nothing. That's the whole point of science. I'm not talking so much about science, but rather basic logic that science was built on. I'll entertain the idea that there may be a god but logic tells me there isn't. I'm not your average person though and the complexicity of me explaining would most likely be lost on everyone except the one in a million exceptional people who are capable of comprehending such info. The explanation makes sense, but the average person isn't smart enough to get it. Here's an example of something you won't get.

The universe was never created, it's continuous. It's regulated by energy flow. It's continuousely decaying and rebuilding. The big bang theory is quite correct except that it isn't how the universe was created but how it restarts the cycle. Zero point energy is how you can measure the stage of decay in our solar system. As this dead energy builds up the speed of light slows down from the friction. Eventuall we will reach a breaking point where the light will be so red that nothing will grow and the planet will die. The sun will eventually burn out and create a black whole drawing all this energy in and our solar system will be reborn. Through mathematical reasoning, we've already lived this exact life as there is a limited number of combinations of paths that the universe can take and since it's been doing this continuousely, there is no reason to believe we haven't. I think the hardest thing for people to grasp is time. Time is a rule we created based on revolutions of earth on it's axis, and it's revolutions around the sun. This law doesn't apply to the universe as it doesn't age, it's immortal and doesn't revolve around anything.

Another thing that very few people can comprehend is that the universe is infinitely large to an infinite point, or vise versa.

Relativity is also a very important concept when understanding the universe.

If you ever learn what I know, you'll have a good laugh as well.

I always love having this debate with any religious acquaintances of mine. I always quote Mickael Bakunin and ask them If god created man, or man created god? They tend to sputter out that god created man, but that leaves alot of room for debate right there. Also, tell them that religion is the opium of the masses, and that it's simply a way to control the majority of the populace (theres a plethora of examples to choose from to highlight this last point so i wont bother listing them). Finally, tell them that if they choose to believe in an afterlife with God, that they are not living their lives on Earth to their fullest, because they expect that when this life ends, there is another one. Ask them how they would feel after they spend at least 11 YEARS of their life in church (if they live to be 80+ years old) only to discover that there is no second chance. If they start spewing swill about faith in God and the like, just call them pathetic, and unable to create a reasonable argument.

Go with Rust's idea.

quote:

I'm not your average person though and the complexicity of me explaining would most likely be lost on everyone except the one in a million exceptional people who are capable of comprehending such info.



I could understand everything you said. Stop being such a douchebag and try to be more modest next time.

God was created, specifically around the tigris and euphrates area, to create a purpose for living and create a general sense of stability. It was hard for a civilization in 4000 BC to function without a god for the reason that humans did not have the knowledge to make it function. Today we have the knowledge but cannot cast god away because god is the oldest and most long-standing tradition in the human race.

There's a chance you can beat a christian into renouncing their faith if they're a young christian and don't know a lot about the religion. But 2000 years is a long time to build upon a religion and a lerned christian knows most of the loop holes.

[This message has been edited by desktopmunchies (edited 06-30-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by Beholder:

The suffering described in the original post didn't include "only earthly suffering." I was talking about in general; saying essentially these things will not continue forever.

And he was seapking of the suffering we currently endure. See my point? Whether a raputre comes does nothing to refute his point.

you say shuddup gay ass christian you wanna fight

An AK-47.

The scientific method. If they are somewhat reasonable, ask them if they believe in elves or something. If they say no, ask them why not, and tell them that's the same reason you don't believe in god.

This wont win an arguement, but it can often make a christian think.

quote:Originally posted by Lou Reed:

Maybe the god in the beginning ain't around anymore. Maybe he lost power and maybe a new god is elected every couple of million years or so.

Hehe I hope this is a joke.

Someday the Athiest world will look back on christianity as we look back on the greek gods today... complete bullshit.

YOu really should have started by searching the forum, I can think of at least three other threads on this, all but one very good.

The thing about arguing with evangals is you can't just pull stuff off the top of your head, you have to be prepaired 110 percent.

Strategy 1. Point out contradictions in the bible. Point out weadnesses in god. Read "Things you won't hear in church", Which is an essay on totse about bible contradictions. Don't worry about how the universe was created. The best defence is a good offense. Ask how god was created.

Remember, the difference between science and religion is proof. Latly, some have gone and started looking for proof AGAINST evolution and big bang. These are dangerous people and tread carefully. Ask how the bible is more creadible than your science textbook. Point out how great hell would be if it existed, With all the alcochol, Marijuana, strippers, prostitutes, sluts, and the southpark characters (not to mention republican's so you don't loose your skills with your oozi) and whats heaven? An eternal church. As a teenager i couldn't take an hour of the shit. Whould an eternity be any better.

2. Just point out what bullshit it is.

Okay, so I kind of drifted...

quote:Originally posted by stealthweasle666_no_god:

Strategy 1. Point out contradictions in the bible. Point out weadnesses in god. Read "Things you won't hear in church", Which is an essay on totse about bible contradictions. Don't worry about how the universe was created. The best defence is a good offense. Ask how god was created.

Remember, the difference between science and religion is proof. Latly, some have gone and started looking for proof AGAINST evolution and big bang. These are dangerous people and tread carefully. Ask how the bible is more creadible than your science textbook. Point out how great hell would be if it existed, With all the alcochol, Marijuana, strippers, prostitutes, sluts, and the southpark characters (not to mention republican's so you don't loose your skills with your oozi) and whats heaven? An eternal church. As a teenager i couldn't take an hour of the shit. Whould an eternity be any better.



1. Indeed there are a lot of them. {SOURCE} (http://tinyurl.com/3fwye)

2. The debate between what created God and what created the universe is irrelevant as both sides can just claim that they've always been.

3. A) It's ok if they look for evidence against evolution that's one of its main strong points. Evolution can be tested.

B) You can simply explain to them that evolution doesn't rule out a creator. Only certain versions of said creator and what it did.

4. Comparing a Bible and a textbook is apples and oranges. One is based on faith another evidence.

5. I think you may have the wrong idea of Hell? It seems you simply stated your version of a paradise, albeit it was a good one, but irrelevant.

6. Heaven isn't an eternal church. Heaven is supposedly a utopia.





[This message has been edited by Paradise Lost (edited 07-02-2005).]

A utopia would be an eternal church. We spend the rest of eternity praising god. Once we are in his presence is will be all we want to do.



I just thought it was funny to listen to Baked goods tell me how there is no god, yet in other posts he propogates the belief that bush is the antichrist, and he's the son of the devil or some crap.

quote:Originally posted by Beholder:

A utopia would be an eternal church. We spend the rest of eternity praising god. Once we are in his presence is will be all we want to do.

That wouldn't be my utopia, therefore, that wouldn't be my Heaven. Is Heaven relative then?

[This message has been edited by Paradise Lost (edited 07-02-2005).]