The Debate Hall Social Thread

[Dre89]

They used to be 1v1 debates, I think often with people playing DA and arguing what they disagreed with.

It's funny because I represented atheism as DA but now I'd agree with most of those arguments.

I'm gonna start a new thread (not in there, just the regular board) when I get home and have access to my laptop. And no it's not a God/religion debate.

 

[_Keno_]

So is the point of the For/Against thread that we can make new threads based on diversity of an answer?

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I'm gonna start a new thread (not in there, just the regular board) when I get home and have access to my laptop. And no it's not a God/religion debate.

God bless you, Dre.

 

[GoldShadow]

The Debate With Your Power subforum is for "Debate With Your Power" contests, which like Dre said usually involved 1v1 debates. There's usually some sort of prize for the winner. The last DWYP we had was indeed a devil's advocate contest, where you selected from a list of topics that you were for and argued from the opposing viewpoint. Admittedly it wasn't set up very well, but not a bad learning experience.

We'll have to do another DWYP contest soon. It's been a long time since that last one. And set it up better this time.

So is the point of the For/Against thread that we can make new threads based on diversity of an answer?

Precisely.

 

[GoldShadow]

Speaking of DWYP, it's high time for another contest. Maybe that'll light a fire of activity under this room's ***.

 

[Aesir]

possible subject? Militarization of the Police force.

 

[Sieguest]

Funding for post-secondary education? o. o

 

[Aesir]

Going to mars

 

[Claire Diviner]

Going to mars

As in leaving Earth and colonizing and creating a civilization on Mars? I can get into that. Same for the militarization of the police force.

 

[Aesir]

I mean a manned space flight to mars.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Speaking of DWYP, it's high time for another contest. Maybe that'll light a fire of activity under this room's ***.

Dre. in a steel cage death match against Richard Dawkins.

 

[Dre89]

Dre. in a steel cage death match against Richard Dawkins.

To be honest as I've become more liberated I don't hate him as much, especially because he said he respects deism (or in my case dreism).

He just has no qualifications in any topic he speaks about except evolution, and in general makes atheists look bad. Evolution is the only thing I'd listen to him talk about, and maybe religious opression.

He had a debate with Cardinal George Pell recently in Australia. I didn't watch it because I knew it'd make me want to kill myself, and I was told by people that they were both terrible.

 

[GwJ]

The thing with atheistic speakers is we don't have any qualifications to be one, for good or for worse. You can't go to a university and get a doctorate in Atheism. As such, the people we naturally move towards are scientists because atheists such as myself embrace science extremely much (even to the point of it being weird).

Scientists like Dawkins are really our only choices for a spokesman because NOBODY is a qualified atheist.

 

[Claire Diviner]

I'd like to think of science as an unbiased medium. Scientists aren't exactly atheistic as they're constantly trying to find proof of some deity (which they may or may never find) or proof of some sort of afterlife. On that same token, they're not religious either, as science is comprised of a world of mostly skeptics trying to find proof of pretty much everything, on top of understanding how things work of course.

That said, there was an interesting program I've seen on television. I think it was on History 2, or some other Discovery-type network that goes over the possibility of reincarnation, and how there are thousands of documented cases involving children ages 2-5 that recall a "past life" of people they shouldn't have known about at all, just to find out the people in question actually existed, and everything about the people's life is somehow remember by said children, just for the memories of the previous life to be forgotten by age 7 and onward. I don't quite remember the name of the program, but it was very fascinating to me.

 

[Dre89]

But thinking that science proves atheism is exactly the problem.

The best atheist speakers I've heard were philosophers of religion. They actually realise that atheism is a philosophy and have much better arguments.

 

[GwJ]

Well, like I said, there's nobody who's a professor in atheism. Scientists aren't trying to "prove" atheism. What they do is they explain why the arguments given by theists don't scientifically make sense as proofs for supernatural. In a sense, they're good speakers for atheism because what kind of person does it take to debunk a supernatural claim? It takes a person who knows enough about the NATURAL world and its capabilities to decide if something truly is supernatural.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I'm reminded of the ever-classic "Courtier's Reply".

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.

Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.

Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.

Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

 

[Theftz22]

Well, like I said, there's nobody who's a professor in atheism.

Think the atheistic philosophers of religion. Graham Oppy, Jordan Howard Sobel, Michael Martin, Richard Gale, etc.

 

[rvkevin]

The best atheist speakers I've heard were philosophers of religion.

Could you give a few examples?

 

[Nicholas1024]

People seem to be looking for some super debater qualified to speak on every topic related to God, and I doubt they'll really find one. Rather than look at it as "Qualified Atheist" or "Qualified Christian", I'd rather look at the topic involved. So for instance, if the topic is evolution, you'd get the best debate via "Qualified biologist who's atheist vs qualified biologist who's Christian." Similarly, if it's on the historical evidence behind the New Testament, look for a historian who's atheist, and one who's Christian. (This is why I generally stay out of evolution debates these days. Although I've researched the new testament more than most, my grounding in biology is pretty much at a layperson's level.)

So, to respond to BPC's metaphor, although Dawkins is free to make comments on the existence of the Emperor's clothes, any comments on the supposed fashion of said clothes are out of his realm of expertise, and generally ignorant.

 

[GwJ]

I agree with what Nicholas said. As I was clicking this thread, I was thinking exactly what he said.

 

[Dre89]

You don't need to be a debater but you do need to be educated about it.

If my understanding of the God question was as limited as the scientist's (which is basically committing to meyaohysucsl positions without realising it) then I'd be a definite atheist too.

Could you give a few examples?

Theodore Drange, Austin Dacy, Michael Tooley to name a few. There'd be plenty more out there.

Gw- Science can only answer physical arguments, which is only half of the arguments for God.

Philodophy of religion is what 'professional atheists' study.

Lawrence Krauss' A Universe from Nothing is a classic example of a scientist not understanding the bigger picture.

He believes his cosmological model removes the need for God, but doesn't realise how many philosophical positions he has to commit to.

A couple of examples are brute facts, rejection of the principle of sufficient reason, belief that contingent properties were the original existences, belief that multiple parties co existed as the original existence, rejection of Plato's third man argument to name a few.

For his model to remove the need for God, he needs to justify all these positions. Funny thing is even he did, then virtually any cosmological model is compatible with that metaphysical framework.

 

[GwJ]

Science can only answer physical arguments, which is only half of the arguments for God.

Sort of. A lot of the claims theists make that scientists respond to are supernatural claims about things that can be naturally explained. That's what I was trying to say.

 

[Dre89]

Yeah but those are physical arguments.

For example ID is a physical argument. A physical argument is one bases on a specific type of existence. In the case of ID it's complexity. Had there been no complexity that argument wouldn't work.

Metaphysical arguments say that God is necessary for any existence.

Science can only address the former. Many strands of theism have similar metaphysical frameworks to atheism, that's why metaphysics isn't often debated.

It's also why think atheism is superior to any form of theism/deism apart from my own, because there is no reason to believe in a God given the metaphysics applied by most atheists theists, outside of things like theology.

 

[Claire Diviner]

The thing with theists/deists is that in most cases, they have a belief in a higher power, and their only explanation is that they have faith, where faith alone cannot win any argument nor can it prove anything. On the other hand, atheists do not have any means to disprove the existence of a higher being themselves, and this is where science comes in.

Scientists are still trying to uncover the mysteries of a possible afterlife, let alone a deity, and until they have undeniable proof of such, all that can be made are theories. The only people who really know for sure are those who have already passed on. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, dead men tell no tales.

 

[GwJ]

What most of the scientists do is use their findings that contradict religious belief as a way of arguing against theology. Evolution is a big one, because it causes problems with both young-earth creationists and creationists in general.

The whole Lawrence Krauss' Universe from Nothing lecture was to show that it is possible to have a universe without the creation of it from a deity.

They use their physical science to counteract religious peoples' supernatural claims for physical things.

 

[Claire Diviner]

What most of the scientists do is use their findings that contradict religious belief as a way of arguing against theology. Evolution is a big one, because it causes problems with both young-earth creationists and creationists in general.

That's because everything they do find seems to stray from the belief that there could ever be a deity of any kind, but it doesn't necessarily disproves it. I'm personally a huge believer and full supporter of the evolution argument myself, as there is in fact proof behind evolution. However, as long as the views of creationists/theist aren't fully disproved, there will always be debates about whether there is a god or not.

The whole Lawrence Krauss' Universe from Nothing lecture was to show that it is possible to have a universe without the creation of it from a deity.

Isn't The Big Bang Theory one of the possibilities? Regardless, a perfectly functioning universe, including a planet that can sustain life is something I believe to be fully possible, albeit with a lucky roll of the "cosmic dice". It is things like this that also brings up theories of a possible multiverse. More on that at a later point.

They use their physical science to counteract religious peoples' supernatural claims for physical things.

Isn't that because religion was first created as a means to explain things that couldn't be explained? For the longest time, the world was flat, the Earth was the center of the universe, the bubonic plague was God punishing the sinners, and crazed lunatics were possessed by the devil. Then science and intuition came in, evolved, and concluded that the world was round, the Earth was anything but the center of the universe, the bubonic plague was a disease from rats carrying infected fleas, and the possessed actually had a mental illness(es).

 

[Dre89]

Not every argument for God us from faith. Anyone who thinks that hasn't read any of the relevant literature.

Krauss' argument doesn't achieve that, for reasons I showed before.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Not every argument for God us from faith. Anyone who thinks that hasn't read any of the relevant literature.

Not every argument, but most of the time, faith seems to be a lot of the answer. Not to mention a huge majority of religious people - especially the hardcore and the extremists - will fall back completely on faith, logic or proof be damned.

 

[Dre89]

But we're not talking about the uneducated. A large amount of atheists will fall back on stupid reasoning.

Virtually the entire theistic contingent of philosophy of religion attempts to rationally justify belief in God. Most of these people using faith as a justification of beliefs is fallacious. That's an enormous body of literature.

 

[Claire Diviner]

What it boils down to is no matter what one side says to the other, no one is truly correct, as there has yet to be concrete proof of a higher power or a lack thereof. They can rationalize it, reason with the other side, debate them to death, or try to justify their beliefs or lack of beliefs. In the end, we very well may never know, at least in our lifetime. Until then, people will always argue over theistic views vs. atheistic views.

 

[Aesir]

Dennet is a pretty good speaker, he basically just regards religion as a social construct. The Atheist tapes are pretty interesting, I recommend that to any, just skip over the dawkins interview, you see one you seen them all.

 

[Dre89]

Sol- You're simplifying it again. You only value empirical evidence, which itself is a specific philosophy.

Aesir- I haven't too much of him, but I know he's not too popular with many educated atheists, none of the NA atheists really are.

The NA is basically just a simplification of atheism to cater to the public, which is why it has such a big backing.

 

[GwJ]

That's because everything they do find seems to stray from the belief that there could ever be a deity of any kind, but it doesn't necessarily disproves it. I'm personally a huge believer and full supporter of the evolution argument myself, as there is in fact proof behind evolution. However, as long as the views of creationists/theist aren't fully disproved, there will always be debates about whether there is a god or not.

Don't you think if anyone knew that it doesn't completely disprove a god, it'd be a scientist? They say there's "probably no god", because they know you can't disprove such a claim, because the premises made are not scientific. There's no way to verify, test, or measure them. They use what they're given.

Isn't The Big Bang Theory one of the possibilities? Regardless, a perfectly functioning universe, including a planet that can sustain life is something I believe to be fully possible, albeit with a lucky roll of the "cosmic dice". It is things like this that also brings up theories of a possible multiverse. More on that at a later point.

Well, yes. His lecture was about where the energy for the big bang happened, not an alternative beginning theory.

Isn't that because religion was first created as a means to explain things that couldn't be explained? For the longest time, the world was flat, the Earth was the center of the universe, the bubonic plague was God punishing the sinners, and crazed lunatics were possessed by the devil. Then science and intuition came in, evolved, and concluded that the world was round, the Earth was anything but the center of the universe, the bubonic plague was a disease from rats carrying infected fleas, and the possessed actually had a mental illness(es).

Pretty much. Those are the kinds of things scientists are qualified to argue with religion about.

But as Dre said, there are claims scientists who are JUST SCIENTISTS have no authority in addressing, and those are completely non-physical arguments. Of course, they still try sometimes, but it's useless because in those arguments, neither side can prove a thing really.

 

[Dre89]

No, things can be argued, it's just that they're not argued through scientific means. It's just that the current popular thinking is that if it can't be discussed scientifically then it's not intelligible, which is just flat out wrong. Of course, all the people who think that aren't educated in things like metaphysics.

God and religion are two different things. If you don't know about things like deism then you're probably nowhere near educated enough on the topic to say what should and shouldn't be argued.

 

[GwJ]

Keep in mind I have the supposition that we're talking about religion here, not individual god concepts. Scientists can take on religions for the reasons above, but wheni comes to the things you mentioned, Dre, then they start backing down.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Sol- You're simplifying it again. You only value empirical evidence, which itself is a specific philosophy.

Well, the way I see it, the only other way for scientists to explain anything without any evidence is through theories. I'm sure given enough time, they can eventually prove the existence of some form of afterlife, though goodness knows we won't be alive to see when they have that kind of tech and knowledge to do so. They have gotten rather close as far as researching reincarnation, but that's about it. Here's a link to what's arguably the best case of it. I can't remember the name of the video, but an article should suffice:

The Reincarnation Case of James Huston, Jr. | James Leininger

Don't you think if anyone knew that it doesn't completely disprove a god, it'd be a scientist? They say there's "probably no god", because they know you can't disprove such a claim, because the premises made are not scientific. There's no way to verify, test, or measure them. They use what they're given.

Yes, and while they can't prove or disprove the existence of a deity, they have disproved other things before, as I mentioned earlier, so what they have now will not be enough, but who's to say in a distant future (or a near future for that matter), they won't have the means to finally have the evidence to support or debunk the existence of a higher power?

No, things can be argued, it's just that they're not argued through scientific means. It's just that the current popular thinking is that if it can't be discussed scientifically then it's not intelligible, which is just flat out wrong. Of course, all the people who think that aren't educated in things like metaphysics.

Well it doesn't take half a brain to realize that seemingly non-scientific means can be debate intelligibly. This is where theories and philosophy come into play, which in turn, gives scientists something to research, whether it's space and time, theism and deism, determination and free will, mind and matter, etc..

God and religion are two different things. If you don't know about things like deism then you're probably nowhere near educated enough on the topic to say what should and shouldn't be argued.

Well, you cannot really measure one's education of the subject based on how well they understand deism or other related things. There's more to metaphysics than just deism/theism/atheism.

 

[Aesir]

Sol- You're simplifying it again. You only value empirical evidence, which itself is a specific philosophy.

Aesir- I haven't too much of him, but I know he's not too popular with many educated atheists, none of the NA atheists really are.

The NA is basically just a simplification of atheism to cater to the public, which is why it has such a big backing.

A lot of new atheists don't like him either. He's to "Nice" or something like that, same thing with Neil Degrass Tyson, though he doesn't really advocate Atheism he's focused on science education.

THis is probably the better interview in the documentary I listed.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7853929164413117774

You might enjoy it dre I dunno.

 

[GwJ]

I'm sure given enough time, they can eventually prove the existence of some form of afterlife.

Do we have any evidence the mind can survive without a brain? No. So why do you think that?

Yes, and while they can't prove or disprove the existence of a deity, they have disproved other things before, as I mentioned earlier, so what they have now will not be enough, but who's to say in a distant future (or a near future for that matter), they won't have the means to finally have the evidence to support or debunk the existence of a higher power?

Because the nature of this "higher power" means it cannot be observed or tested. It's out of the reigns of science.

Well it doesn't take half a brain to realize that seemingly non-scientific means can be debate intelligibly. This is where theories and philosophy come into play, which in turn, gives scientists something to research, whether it's space and time, theism and deism, determination and free will, mind and matter, etc..

The problem is that scientists have trained their mind to see everything empirically. So, if the scientist has also not trained himself in philosophy, he won't be able to metaphysicalize stuff.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Do we have any evidence the mind can survive without a brain? No. So why do you think that?

I'm not saying there's evidence, but that they could very well one day find proof of a possible afterlife, be it through spiritual forms, reincarnation, or other means. consciousness happens to be one subject that intrigues me the most. Plus, when we die, whether we simply rot in the ground or not, one thing that can be concluded is that the energy used for us to live doesn't fade away, since energy cannot be created or destroyed; it simply changes. Of course, that also raises the question of how the universe came to be in the first place, and trying to find the answer for that is probably the biggest wall for science to tackle, if it even can.

Because the nature of this "higher power" means it cannot be observed or tested. It's out of the reigns of science.

It's only out of the reigns now because science is currently limited and thus cannot understand the concept of a higher power. It's not like it's impossible for scientists to eventually come up with a conclusion backed up by facts in time. Will it ever happen? Who can say? If it does, it won't be while we're alive, that's for sure.

The problem is that scientists have trained their mind to see everything empirically. So, if the scientist has also not trained himself in philosophy, he won't be able to metaphysicalize stuff.

Wouldn't that be the job of metaphysicists? Where they philosophize, the scientists can try to research (keyword being "try"). Of course, if the metaphysicist him/herself is also a scientist, then they have the potential to find answers faster than your vanilla scientist, although they'd still be limited to whatever they can use, so their potential may not amount to much.