http://givemeananswer.org/

A video of the debate between Christian Evangelist Cliff Knechtle and Atheist Michael Newdow.

[This message has been edited by quasicurus (edited 10-16-2005).]

Hmm. Well the christian guy's story/parable/allegory/whatever at the beginning is completely ignorable, because it assumes the existance of a god to begin with.

Then he goes on to say that the evidence is that there is a god loves us - well, there are plenty of people for whom it would seem no metaphysical entity is protecting them. Also, this still assumes the existance of a god. It's not unreasonable to say that those of us who live happy lives do so because 1. we have evolved to be pleased mainly by the kinds of things that are good for us and that we can find around us and 2. we are powerful enough to get ourselves in a situation where we can administer these pleasures, whatever they are.

And he has the silly idea that we must have been designed because we live on the Earth and the Earth just happens to be where we have evolved to live. A quote from Richard Dawkins about Douglas Adams is in order here:

"To illustrate the vain conceit that the universe must be somehow pre-ordained for us, because we are so well-suited to live in it, he [Adams] mimed a wonderfully funny imitation of a puddle of water, fitting itself snugly into a depression in the ground, the depression uncannily being exactly the same shape as the puddle."

Oh, he's a creationist. That's bollocks and we know it.



Morality:

Oh, and he brings up the holocaust. How very non-emotive and reasonable.

Morality comes from humans needing to live together in large societies, in cities, to be civilized. It was traditionally enforced by appealing to the human tendancy to look for the divine when they can't sort their own problems out, which probably comes from our need to obey our elders if we want to survive. This sort of argument comes from the idea that every man is an island, that we don't need to stand on each others' shoulders if we are to reach the highest branches of the tree. This completely bizzarre capitalist idea that what's good for me is always good for us is contrary to the idea of 'morality is necessary for civilization', and therefore it must have come from On High.

"Love". He's wrong. Completely wrong. Mother Theresa was looking to promote her genes, because "love" and "caring" traditionally means others will love and care for you, that the tribe or whatever will look out for you when you need it, and therefore your genes will be passed on. So humans have this desire to love because, having evolved in very small communities, it would have been evolutionarily advantageous to all support each other, and our conscious minds need to be told this by our subconsciouses. Same goes for morality really.

"There is more to reality than matter and energy" - he asserts that our brains are too complex to have evolved but not complex enough to produce 'love', which is ultimately a desire like any other.

Reason - surely reason is just logic, is just cause and effect. I'd hardly say the natural world was 'irrational' as he describes it, I'd be very worried as a physics student if it was!

Why do I trust my rational mind? - because if my rational mind could not figure out the rational universe, it would not have survived past all those rational minds that could, and would not have passed on it's blueprint to the next generation of mind-supporting beings!

"To talk about meaning and purpose in life is a leap into lala land" - well put my friend!

Sure, we can't find meaning and we can't find an absolute good, but we find ourselves in (well, AS) these machines that are here to pass on their genes and we are compelled in the strongest sense of the word to do what it seems to us would ultimately result in us being most likely to pass on our genes. THAT is why we say the Russians shooting down that Korean air liner, that's because the Koreans are on OUR side, and the air liner was full of defenceless humans and we subconsciously want to seem to our peers as if we care about other humans, and we feel empathy for them because empathy is extremely important in human relations and we wouldn't be here if our ancestors were no good at human relations, etc etc etc

I'll watch the rest later, I have stuff to do...

[This message has been edited by sp0rkius (edited 10-16-2005).]

Didn't watch the video (slow connection) but as an atheist I would like to say Newdow is an Ass and should just stop talking on news stations relating himself to atheists.

There are some atheists that have got the speaking gene and others that don't, Newdow doesn't. Dawkins didn't either.

Now Adams, he did. Speaking of the puddle, if you google Adams and puddle you can find the speech he used that in, it's a good read.

I'd like to argue that a debate between an athiest/christian isn't a debate. An athiest can't disprove something that doesn't exist, and a Christian's only defence is a book that proves nothing. The key part of any successful religion is the impossibility to prove or disprove the god in question.

I use to use these kinds of mental tactics as a child to manipulate every other student for my personal gain. I got the best toys, my favourite desk, and ran the school yard. All I had to do is act like I had all the answers, and the niave believed it. One thing that religious poeple might find startling is that you are the easiest targets. Christian children never questioned my knowledge or power that was superior to theirs, just followed like good little robots.

Everyone uses this psychological warfare at some point in their lives. Psychological analysis is the key to psychological warfare. Getting inside a person's thought process can be learned and mastered. You analize your victim by dropping odd questions to get an answer profile going. Next you rip apart their exact answer to understand how they came to their conclusion. Eventually you'll start to see decision patterns and will ultimately develope a profile for this person. Before you know it, you'll already know what the person will say before they even say it.

The only way to thwart such a tactic is to think completely rational, which isn't possible for most.

I know longer use it to gain power over others because my understanding changed with wisdom, and I realize it's wrong. I only use it now to limit power of others over myself.

quote:Originally posted by Beta69:

Didn't watch the video (slow connection) but as an atheist I would like to say Newdow is an Ass and should just stop talking on news stations relating himself to atheists.

There are some atheists that have got the speaking gene and others that don't, Newdow doesn't. Dawkins didn't either.

Now Adams, he did. Speaking of the puddle, if you google Adams and puddle you can find the speech he used that in, it's a good read.

I know what you mean. This Newdow guy seems like he couldn't speak. In fact, he seems nervous to me, when he started the debate,

while the evangilist seems very friendly and approachable. Towards the end though, Newdow looked more at ease. But, I guess most people go by first impression. So, yeah, I think it really sucks to have this asshat Newdow to represent us.

That website is gay as shit.

That "debate" is terrible. I saw it satellite telecasted at a church a couple years ago.

Michael Newdow isn't even really an atheist, he's an agnostic leading an effort to seperate god from schools. He didn't come prepared to represent all the atheists of the world, which is what most of the crowd was expecting.

And the Christian just broadsided him pretty much. I don't think he made a very strong case, but Newdow didn't really put up a fight.

I don't like Michael Newdow's views, but i felt really bad for him.

The problem is he really isn't a very good speaker, yet he keeps putting himself in positions to speak.

I agree that christian, especially fundamentalist christianity doesn't have many good supporting arguments, but it does have some that sound good and there are many people that fall for them. Without proper knowledge of what they are and a friendly personality (so people don't just tune out the evil atheist) a debate could be a disaster.

quote:Originally posted by theBishop:

That "debate" is terrible. I saw it satellite telecasted at a church a couple years ago.

Michael Newdow isn't even really an atheist, he's an agnostic leading an effort to seperate god from schools. He didn't come prepared to represent all the atheists of the world, which is what most of the crowd was expecting.

And the Christian just broadsided him pretty much. I don't think he made a very strong case, but Newdow didn't really put up a fight.

I don't like Michael Newdow's views, but i felt really bad for him.

To be honest, I think Newdow was really bad and the other guy was clearly a hardy debater who'd prepared extensively, and I think Newdow was still more believable. Because religion is nuts. Problem is, he approached it in the wrong way, and if religious people want to start pretending they think they've got legitimate claims to believe what they do we have to meet them with logic too, rather than turning to reasons for belief like Newdow seemed to do. Even better, we should attack them in something less weighted to them than the arena of debating, and on issues they don't expect to have to deal with, but the thing is, real scientists never will because they (we? I don't know when I'm going to start counting as one) don't feel as if it matters what non-scientists believe - they don't HAVE to be in touch with reality because they spend their everyday lives dealing with other people, who are equally prone to seeing everything from a human perspective. As Adams' lovely speech puts foreward, perhaps God, or for those of us who don't believe, artificial versions of God, can actually be quite a good thing.

The problem I have with the recent re-rise of religion is, if this fundamentalism gets any worse (and it's looking like it will because there are a lot of idiots out there), we could see the end of the enlightenment and a descent into another dark age. Religion could begin to hurt science once more, and then we're screwed. You'd expect the age of reason to be a self-perpetuating thing, but I guess humans just aren't reasonable creatures.

In fact we're seeing the effects already with all the people who deny global warming like that excellent scene from the film Erik The Viking where the people of Hy-Brasil are cheerfully asserting "It's not happening! Not possible! We're fine!" as they sink below the waves.

[This message has been edited by sp0rkius (edited 10-17-2005).]

After analysing the debate, there is one thing from Cliffe's argument that Newdow and most atheists/agnosts cannot refute: FREE WILL.

Cliffe says that the reason why evil exists, is because of free-will. Man is given free will and man abuses it. Without free will, there can be no love. Because there is free will, there can be genuine love and therefore genuine hate.

If God made us all-loving, we would all just be like robots, forced to love, instead of being able to choose to love.

How to refute that?

If I were Newdow, I wouldn't have been able to refute that, but I would have asked if God really desired free-will, so why did He punish non-believers and reward believers? Wouldn't that the same to a man who pays a girl money to love him, and also threatens to kill her if sahe doesn't love him?



[This message has been edited by quasicurus (edited 10-18-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by quasicurus:

After analysing the debate, there is one thing from Cliffe's argument that Newdow and most atheists/agnosts cannot refute: FREE WILL.

What does free will have to do with an atheism vs religion debate?

quote:Originally posted by quasicurus:

If God made us all-loving, we would all just be like robots, forced to love, instead of being able to choose to love.

How to refute that?

Easily. If God is omnipotent he can do anything. IE - make us all loving whilst maintaining free will.

EDIT: Ugh, I don't want to get drawn into a long ass debate. http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

[This message has been edited by Paradise Lost (edited 10-18-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by Paradise Lost:

Easily. If God is omnipotent he can do anything. IE - make us all loving whilst maintaining free will.

EDIT: Ugh, I don't want to get drawn into a long ass debate. http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)



That's not the point.

The point is if everyone is made to be loving, how can true love arise?

quote:After analysing the debate, there is one thing from Cliffe's argument that Newdow and most atheists/agnosts cannot refute: FREE WILL.

Cliffe says that the reason why evil exists, is because of free-will. Man is given free will and man abuses it. Without free will, there can be no love. Because there is free will, there can be genuine love and therefore genuine hate.

If God made us all-loving, we would all just be like robots, forced to love, instead of being able to choose to love.

How to refute that?

You assume we have freewill - Whether God exists or not I still doubt we have true freewill due to determinism.

I know about determinism.

But, if because of determinism free-will does not exist, does that mean we are not responsible for any of our action?

quote:Originally posted by sp0rkius:

To be honest, I think Newdow was really bad and the other guy was clearly a hardy debater who'd prepared extensively, and I think Newdow was still more believable. Because religion is nuts. Problem is, he approached it in the wrong way, and if religious people want to start pretending they think they've got legitimate claims to believe what they do we have to meet them with logic too, rather than turning to reasons for belief like Newdow seemed to do. Even better, we should attack them in something less weighted to them than the arena of debating, and on issues they don't expect to have to deal with, but the thing is, real scientists never will because they (we? I don't know when I'm going to start counting as one) don't feel as if it matters what non-scientists believe - they don't HAVE to be in touch with reality because they spend their everyday lives dealing with other people, who are equally prone to seeing everything from a human perspective. As Adams' lovely speech puts foreward, perhaps God, or for those of us who don't believe, artificial versions of God, can actually be quite a good thing.

The problem I have with the recent re-rise of religion is, if this fundamentalism gets any worse (and it's looking like it will because there are a lot of idiots out there), we could see the end of the enlightenment and a descent into another dark age. Religion could begin to hurt science once more, and then we're screwed. You'd expect the age of reason to be a self-perpetuating thing, but I guess humans just aren't reasonable creatures.

In fact we're seeing the effects already with all the people who deny global warming like that excellent scene from the film Erik The Viking where the people of Hy-Brasil are cheerfully asserting "It's not happening! Not possible! We're fine!" as they sink below the waves.





I resent your conclusion that "religion is nuts", although at times, i can see your point. I'm a christian, but i am probably even more angry at the rise of "fundementalism" in American than you are.

That being said, i don't think science and religion have to have such an antagonistic relationship. The problem is atheists don't want to have anything to do with religion and so believers in turn take steps to denounce things like science, university education, political correctness, etc because they feel that those things represent some sort of agenda to remove religion from the public domain.

If you fear that this recent religious upsurgence could result in another dark age, then your best recourse is to take a more moderate approach in your treatment of religious people.

quote:I know about determinism.

But, if because of determinism free-will does not exist, does that mean we are not responsible for any of our action?

You are asking if we should remove any kind of liability or consequence for our actions? No.

Determinism is cause and effect - our choices are fully caused...

Now, if the causal chain of events that effects my life had led me to a 'choice' where a consequence of the 'choice' could be jail - then the possibility of jail becomes a cause for my actions and could possibly lead me down another path.

So we should still be held accountable for our actions, determinism should not be seen as a cop-out...