Religion Catch All

If you are saying there are some factual errors and contradictions in the Bible, I would agree with you. We talk about the Bible as it is a single book and it is, but it’s also many books, which in itself has a deeper meaning.
That does not mean it’s false, it depends on the context and the point of a particular parable or story. It may not be a factual account, but a story to illustrate a particular truth. I usually tell people, when they ask that the Bible is a book of truth, not a book of facts. It’s not a history book, or a math book,or a science book. The number of troops in the army of Judah are recounted differently by different authors, but the points are illustrating a ‘truth’. Also, many of the books were written accounts of oral tradition.
It’s a good question as to why they just didn’t write the shit down when it happened, I do not know the reason.

LOL! That’s a fair point too, or you can look at it as if there was no Savior, there would be no Bible. There are lots of intricacies to play with…
Good conversation, I appreciate it, I really do.
If I don’t answer for a while, I am not ignoring you, just off to do other things. I will get back to you…

All strong intellectuals… They certainly debunk the ‘dumb Christian’ myth. One may not agree with them, but they are damn sure not dumb.

1 Like

Hmm, I mean you’re right, heaven wasn’t specifically stated, but it’s a strange hill to die on, for me. Paradise, I would assume to be some form of heaven. Maybe he got an all expenses paid trip to Hawai’i?

1 Like

Do you take this verse to mean something other than heaven? It isn’t explicitly stated, but it does seem like logical conclusion to think that is what Jesus was implying.

1 Like

I don’t think they are dumb either. Let me ask this though. Am I right to assume you thought WLC beat Hitchens in the debate? I did not see it that way. I thought Hitchens pointed out a few assumptions by WLC that could not be proven to be true, and thus sunk his argument.

WLC keeps going and doing seminars, debates and such in which he uses these assumptions which he has been shown to be unsubstantiated, without telling the audience that they are unsubstantiated. I still think he is smart, but I think he needs to admit what he doesn’t know (I think he is being a bit dishonest).

Just a heads up @mnben87, pat has been down this road before. If you want entertainment this is the “philosophical” discussion that pat referenced, although it’s hard to read as it’s from the old forum format: Proof of God, Continued

This one is amusing where the confusion from pat was the difference between a negative number and a negative statement. Really entertaining at around 300 posts: What's Your Religion and Why? - #318 by pat

Anyway, not to take wind out of your sails if you want to continue, just giving you a heads up where it leads.

1 Like

That is indeed quite the read. I sure hope this doesn’t take 300 posts. I’ll most certainly give up by then. I do have trouble staying focused, and go on tangents.

LOL! If you want to read a 6 year old thread go ahead. This drew guy has some weird obsession with me. He’s followed me from thread to thread, just to drag me. And yep, I had a gotcha moment on me in that thread.
I still say I did pretty well considering I was on an opiate cocktail that could stop a charging rhino in it’s tracks after a major back surgery…

We were discussing PSR, if I remember correctly and I botched an argument. 1 mess up in many years is a pretty good track record, I think. I must have some celebrity status for it to still be remembered and apparently celebrated. Anyway, onward and upward…

I can tell your specifically why I think WLC won the debate. He stayed on topic, consistently hammered away at the points and Hitch had no answers.
Hitch was all over the place talking about the Bible or Mother Teresa, but he never really tackled the argument. I think Hitch would have conceded he lost that one, he gave up his last rebuttle opportunity. And that was the moment I thought he lost.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t like Hitchens, I actually liked him despite his atheism. He was a hell of an orator and writer and he made good points on lots of other things, too. He wasn’t a mean guy, his best friend was a baptist minister. He wasn’t militant like Dawkins. He actually butted heads with Dawkins quite a bit.

I can take you to meet him if you want and you can challenge him yourself. He teaches a class in Atlanta every week for free. Don’t think he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or what the pro’s and con’s of an argument is. He’s written extensively about that topic and he can defend his points, well, trust me. That’s what I got from challenging him.
Keep in mind, in a debate format, he’s there to win. If his opponent doesn’t force him to defend premises then he won’t bother. He doesn’t have to self-challenge on a debate stage, that’s what the opponent is supposed to do. Few have, which is why you won’t see him do it much in a debate. He did do it to the now disgraced, Prof. Kruass in the Australian series. It’s 3 days of debates. When they got to the definition of what “nothing” means is when they get to the nuts and bolts.

Agree here. He did have issues staying on topic, and IMO should have just stuck with flaws of the Kalam.

I would really like to see Dillahunty debate WLC. Dillahunty does better at staying on topic than Hitchens IMO, and is better at formal debate IMO. I guess WLC will not debate him though, so that is probably not going to happen.

Agree on this. His brother (Peter) is a Theist, and has debated Christopher. Hitchens was all for open debate, and seemed for the most part to respect his opponents. I think the respect for the opponent and openness to debate is true for Matt Dillahunty too.

As far as the Kalam, the issue I have is the assumption that everything that begins to exist has a cause. I don’t know if that is true or not. It is possible that somethings always were. That possibility destroys his argument. Hitchens should have just kept pointing out that Craig was talking about stuff he doesn’t know is true or not, and that he is assuming (which makes is argument invalid).

1 Like

Sorry I didn’t get this to you earlier. Here is a good link for you… Keep in mind it’s not my argument, I wish I had come up with it, but I didn’t. People have often referred to “your argument …”. It’s not mine, I just defend it. I don’t make it.

If you want to go strait to the argument, it’s at the top of the ‘Answer’ portion.

Ah, and that’s the meat of the question… Yes it’s possible for things to have ‘always been’ in a temporal sense. Math, for instance, (yes I use the example all the time) is eternal, it has no beginning and no end. But does it exist for no reason? That’s the sticky bit, because to say it does has vast implications. For instance, If math, why math? Why not English?
It all boils down from the most profound question ever asked, “Why does anything exist, instead of nothing?” Dead-man Liebiniz asked it and it’s a very good question.

We don’t know if matter always existed or not. Big Bang could have been a collapse of a universe, and then a rapid expansion. We just don’t know. I am not asserting that is what happened. Just that we have lots of possibilities.

So his second point about the universe having a beginning isn’t necessarily valid. If we don’t know if the premises are true, we can’t determine if the conclusion of the argument is correct or not.

That exists, but it was a panel with WLC, Dillahunty, Dawkins, Zacharias and a few others. It wasn’t a great format, though. The moderation was kinda terrible, but it exists if you want to see it.
It’s kinda ironic considering Dawkins was apparently terrified to debate WLC.
WLC would debate anyone anytime, it was kind of his trademark. But he is no spring chicken. He clearly has some ailments and he now wears a metal leg brace. It may be possible that his debate days are behind him. If a debate didn’t happen, it was because the opponent didn’t want to. He may have a couple more in him, but his tour de force is largely done.

They could pass for twins. Peter is just as sarcastic and pompous as his brother. I remember somebody asked him if him and Chris got along, the answer was short, “No!”. lol

Well science seems to think so, that the universe had a beginning. I am aware of Inflation Theory and the Multiverse theory. The multiverse theory, dare I say, does require a lot of faith. It’s hardly scientific, there is not a shred of evidence of it. It’s a mathematical possibility from an incomplete theory of inflation and nothing more.

And sure the universe could have always existed, temporally, but why? Does it exist for no reason? Did it pop into existence out of nothing and if so, how?

He didn’t prove God exists. He can’t prove God exists. So he can’t win a debate in which he needs to prove God exists. In fact, a Christian trying to prove God exists misses the whole point of what faith is.

I’ll google it. According to Dillahunty, WLC said he would not debate him because he didn’t have an appropriate degree. I am not sure why that would be relevant to a debate on the existence of God?

IMO, WLC likes to debate scientists, not so much professional debaters.

Agree. Also a creator requires faith. What doesn’t require faith is admitting we don’t actually know.

All possibilities again. We just don’t know. IMO, the chances of these are as likely as any specific God.

HItchens pointed that out in his opener. I still maintain Hitchens won. I do think he should have stuck to pointing out assumptions that were unfounded. He gets off track, and I think hitting the main point over and over would have served him better, but I don’t think Hitchens liked much to repeat himself.

Anyone would win, even my pet turtle, because the onus is on the other side to prove something which cannot be proven hence, faith.

The interesting thing is when people try to use science to prove God exists. If God exists, science does not exist so you would be using something that does not exist (science) to prove something exists (God). Why does science not exist? Because God defies scientific laws as we know them which means that they are not laws but conditions which exist according to his whim and which are mutable.

At the very least, you can’t use science to prove something, which does not obey the laws of science, exists.

Any pictures?

I agree. However, I am more coming from a convincing an audience perspective. WLC did not meet his goal, but you and I know he convinced many in the audience. This is why I think Hitchens should have stuck to the errors in the premises. Sure he states them, but then goes off on tangents.

Science is much more useful in proving things untrue than it is proving them true in general.

I’ll take your word for it. Or if I get up early enough to go to the class one day, I will just ask him. It isn’t relevant as far as I am concerned, because arguments don’t care about your rank. My impression is that WLC knows Dillahunty and is in fact friendly with him. Again, I don’t know for sure.

I don’t know what a professional debater is outside of politics. These debates do require subject matter experts. You cannot throw a professional debater, who doesn’t know the subject like the back of his hand, will get summarily destroyed. It’s a war out there and winning is the name of the game.

Well, that’s where we disagree. Why? Because the arguments say so. And contrary to the wishful thinking of many, the arguments have not been debunked. Questioning or finding an un-fully qualified premise is not a debunking. The arguments have to be proven false, not merely attacked. They can be attacked, but the attack has to work. The attack has to defeat the argument soundly and they haven’t.
Personally, I don’t see how they can be, but perhaps that’s my upper limit and I cannot see beyond. Even the Kalam argument is undefeated and it is the weakest and most problematic.
As an aside, I really hate that Kalam gets the credit, Aristotle did the first formulation of what became the Kalam Argument. Even if you prove that the universe did not begin, there is a whole list of other, similar, but better explored arguments waiting in the cue.
So in essence, there is actually more evidence of a Creator, if we want to use that term, than a multiverse. We have over 2000 years worth of philosophy backing the former.

You think they are all possible? So you think something can come from nothing? Can something exist for no reason?