I don’t want to pre-influence your thoughts, so I’ll embed the video (be sure to watch through the end because he gets asked a few questions at the end) and I’ll make further comments after the video.

I’m really interested to hear your own thoughts on the video, so leave a comments. I looked at a number of comments on the atheism sub-reddit, and the comments went in a number of directions.

Some people thought that Sam was flat out wrong. Others thought it was an amazing speech. Some thought that his arguments were addressed and dismissed by Hume hundreds of years ago.

My thoughts: To begin, I thought that every aspect of the delivery of the speech was amazing.

Second, I am a moral realist — in the sense that I think there exist moral facts. (I am aware that this puts me at odds with many of my fellow atheists). As such, I think I agree with the majority of Sam’s talk, although I’m not 100% sure on the specifics of what he means by human flourishing.

I think in almost all of the broad strokes, I’m sure we’d agree on what leads to human flourishing, but it gets trickier when you start saying things like brain states…

One interesting thing to me is that I often use analogies of nutrition to demonstrate a range of points in my day-to-day conversational atheism arguments.

I really liked the line about the Taliban’s ignorance on physics — and how their ignorance of human wellbeing being equally obvious.

Finally, did Sam have to use string theory? I think he should have picked something like General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics… string theory… ::eye roll::

Added as a new member to the blogroll: AiGBusted — which is not about the company, but Answers in Genesis. The blog is focused on debunking creationism as a whole and Answers in Genesis in particular.

I commented briefly on the Vox Day and Common Sense atheism debate — mostly analyzed the argument put forth by VD. Roughly: Christianity’s conception of evil, pain, suffering, injustice in the world is better than any other on offer.  Therefore, one ought to be a Christian.

The argument is essentially one premise and a conclusion. Two obvious methods of attack: contest the premise, or contest that the conclusion follows from the premise. My vote is to choose the second method — it does no harm to accept the premise even if you do not agree with it, the conclusion does not follow regardless.

———

Also, a friend of mine got in a discussion with a street preacher last night (and I wasn’t there). He picked up a large ( 9in by 20 in) paper photocopy of a  US $100 bill with a message on the back from Way of the Master (Ray Comfort) on the back.

I also have recently found some youtube videos of “open air preaching” — and I think I’m going to have to try and write up how I think it’s best to handle the street-preacher situation.

I’m talking about what to do when you get this kind of standard street preaching:

Notice that the username is “RationalResponder” — One of the most frequent objections that I hear to engaging in religious debates is something along the lines: “You can’t argue with reason against a position that isn’t based on reason.” Or some similar wording.

I understand the point that’s being made, but the main issue I have with that is: the people who you think are being ‘irrational’ — and they may well be — do not think that they are being irrational.

They will argue that they are being rational, and they often think they are being rational. This is a good thing; a person who shares rationality as a value has definite potential.

Think of it this way: if a Christian is offended by reading, ‘Christians are irrational’ — that leads to common ground that being rational is a good thing. If you think they are being irrational, point to where and what; he will have to try and respond how those beliefs/actions are rational. You both have a specific point to argue over; and you both agree on the values behind it.

What does it mean to have an ‘effective’ debate or conversation?

At minimum, an effective debate has to have actually engaged the real thoughts and beliefs of the participants. In what I’ve witnessed, most religious arguments fail at achieving even at this meager goal.

Beyond a minimal ‘meeting of the minds’ — an effective debate will involve real challenges to the real thoughts of the participants.

And, of course, the most effective argument or debate concludes with one side convincing the other of something they had not accepted before.

I have encountered many people who think that any kind of religious debate or conversation is a waste of time.

As I said before, I aim to make religious conversations between people as effective as possible. I am not expecting my ideas to become dogma — it is almost certain that I have not formulated the perfect recipe that yields the most effective conversations possible — and so I welcome suggestions, challenges, and improvements on all aspects of my approach.

Over the years, I have had hundreds of conversations with pleasant people from every faith — the ideas that I share come from my dissecting these conversations and thinking about what worked, and why; what didn’t work, and why.

Let me give you an example. Imagine two people, one a committed Christian, the other a committed atheist secular humanist. Let’s start with a plausible broadside from the secular humanist.

Atheist: “Why does God allow suffering?”

I have come to think that there are several reasons why this question is phrased terribly. First of all, the atheist is asking the Christian to explain God’s behavior. All other considerations aside, if every other piece of the ensuing argument completely destroys every possible reason that the Christian can think of for God allowing suffering there is a huge retreat still available. Namely, the ‘why should I know why God does that’ 0r some other variation.

Rule 1: Do not let your argument hinge on asking a Christian to explain something he could conceivably say, “I don’t know” as a legitimate answer to an argument.

So, how do you tweak the question to ask essentially the same thing, but to close the “I don’t know” loophole? Ask the slightly improved question:

Atheist: “Why do you worship a God that allows suffering?”

It’s still not great, but notice that answering, ‘why should I know why I do that’ is not a legitimate answer to the question. You may still hear that answer, but even the Christian will feel uncomfortable about such a lame answer.

In watching other people debate or talk, it’s much easier, of course, to be critical of a missed opportunity or a wrong step.

Let me quote the idea behind the idea:

Blasphemy Day International is a campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a day to promote free speech and to stand up in a show of solidarity for the freedom to challenge, criticize, and satirize religion without fear of murder, litigation, or reprisal. The event was created as a reaction against those who would seek to take away the right to satirize and criticize a particular set of beliefs that have been given a privileged status over other beliefs.

Blasphemy Day International is a volunteer-coordinated campaign administered by the Center for Inquiry as part of its Campaign for Free Expression. For more information, go to http://www.centerforinquiry.net/campaign_for_free_expression.

Many of the people who happen by my blog will have seen the news of this campaign already, which I clearly endorse — especially the emphasis on the freedom of speech.

I have a two news items that I wanted to share to help motivate the day.

First — Christopher Hitchens’ Slate article Yale Surrenders talks about how the Yale Press decided to not print the cartoons in an academic book about the cartoons.

Second — 20 years for blasphemy in Afghanistan (NY Times) — the plight of the 24 year old who was sentenced to death for downloading an article. His sentence was reduced from death to 20 years in prison.

The student, Parwiz Kambakhsh, 24, from northern Afghanistan, was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to death for blasphemy after accusations that he had written and distributed an article about the role of women in Islam. Mr. Kambakhsh has denied having written the article and said he had downloaded it from the Internet. His family and lawyers say he has been denied a fair trial.

In 2008, an appeals court in Kabul commuted the death sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment, a decision that was upheld by a tribunal of the Supreme Court last month.

No, it is not ok to sentence a person to 20 years for Blasphemy.

Help promote free speech in your own way every day, but especially today.

I got the booklet on Friday, and it’s long enough to warrant several entries. This entry is about the first chapter called: Society’s Dramatic Shift. You can read the text for this section here.

If I want any hope of finishing, I have to pick and choose the pieces I’ll go after.

Section: Human reproduction argues against evolution

“If human beings are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process, how is it that we have the disadvantage of requiring a member of the opposite sex to reproduce, when lower forms of life—such as bacteria, viruses and protozoa—are sexless and far more prolific? If they can reproduce by far simpler methods, why can’t we? If evolution is true, what went wrong?”

Let’s start with the hypothetical statement at the beginning: “If human beings are the pinnacle of the evolutionary process…”  You mean how evolution has been aiming for something that is the highest peak of awesome since the beginning of time — and that peak is humanity — right? It’s a nice thought, perhaps, but it’s not based off of the science of evolution. Now, I’m going to try and be careful, because I do not consider myself an expert on evolution. That being said, I think that I have a fair grasp of the basics (and gladly take correction if I make a misstep).

So, the condition statement is false — let’s analyze the consequent just for fun anyway. “… how is it that we have the disadvantage of requiring a member of the opposite sex to reproduce, when lower forms of life—such as bacteria, viruses and protozoa—are sexless and far more prolific?”

Good question. I recently read a book that addressed this topic specifically: The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley. I recommend the book if you are interested in the topic. I’d mention that I think Ridley does a fair job of being careful to separate the parts of the book that are well established from the more speculative parts. Another book that I recommend looks at human sexuality through an interesting conflict: Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles by Robin Baker. In any case, the question of why sex instead of sexless is an interesting one, and manifestly not necsessarily a disadvantage in general.

“Regrettably, such obvious flaws in the theory are too often overlooked.”

The book moves from asking questions, to assuming the questions are unanswerable and flaws of the theory of evolution. The questions are not asked because the authors are curious and want to know whether they have been answered (they have); they are being asked to score rhetorical points without a care to the truth of the matter.

Section: A worldview with far-reaching implications

Now, the implications of a worldview have nothing to do with the factual claims being made by or within a worldview. The fact of the matter is a separate issue from the consequences of those facts.

“Now, almost a century and a half after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, we can see where his thinking has led. In Europe in particular, belief in a personal God has plummeted.”

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Although I’ll give it to them, having a plausible naturalistic answer to the questions that previously had “god did it” as the most easily conceivable answer probably does play a role.

“In the United States, court decisions have interpreted constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion as freedom from religion—effectively banning public expression of religious beliefs and denying the country’s rich religious heritage.”

When I see statements like these in published works, I can’t decide if the writer is actively being deceptive, or if he is just a moron. It is a question for the ages.

Has the government shut down a church’s signs — effectively banning any church’s public expression of religious beliefs?

I would argue that the government should not be in the business of making theological decrees.

When the government started printing paper money with the words: In God We Trust on them for the first time in 1957, was the government acting within its rights to make a proclamation about God?

This question can go one of two ways: yes or no.

I would answer, no, the government was acting inappropriately by adding this proclamation.

If you would answer yes, then, they must not have a problem with the government changing the text in the future at some point to say, “God is Imaginary”.  A statement that I also think would be inappropriate to add to the currency. I’ve had interesting conversations where a person actually starts to see how, with every transaction, the US government taking the time to remind both parties that God is not real is odd, presumptive and inappropriate.  Often, the person has only considered just removing the words “In God We Trust” — and the government being neutral toward theological claims is interpreted as being pro-atheistic.

Truly pro-atheism slogans on money ought to make everyone as uncomfortable as pro-theism slogans on money.

“Meanwhile, the world languishes in the sorrow and suffering that results from rejecting absolute moral standards.”

Sigh. So many ways to respond to this one … how about I choose this way:

Absolute moral standards — all right, I’ll bite.

There are moral absolutes, like: genocide is wrong. I’m not some ‘moral relativist’. On this basis, I judge God to be immoral: 1 Sam. 15:2-3. If you are a Christian, do you condemn God as ordering immoral acts, or are you a ‘moral relativist’ that thinks that genocide is only sometimes wrong?

“What you believe does matter.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Supernatural faith-based religions create undue fears and worries in the minds of children and adults about terrors that don’t exist. Religion redirects time, money, resources and people wanting to do good into useless endeavors. Faith promotes magical and superstitious thinking. It gives respect and credence to religious leaders and religious ideas for no good reason other than blind faith – and often with terrible results.

It matters what you believe?

Yes, it is one of the main reasons why I engage in religious debate.

I’ll post about the later chapters in the coming weeks.

sigh

Steeple snaps, jabs church as storms rage into Salina

BY STAN FINGER  — The Wichita Eagle

“…no one heard the steeple snap off and stab the roof like a spear shortly after 10:30 a.m., Train said. The tip of the steeple pierced the sanctuary, protruding perhaps 6 feet past the ceiling tiles.”

Now that I have over 40 stories in my Zeus vs. Jesus reference.

I — so far — have no places of worship that were created by an Act of God. I’m looking for submissions if anyone comes across any. This list is getting to be embarrassing for Christians.

I have had interactions related to all of this with RD Rauser (a professor of historical theology) who claims that he had experiences that jive with Yahweh existing — like that time when he almost got into a bicycle accident, and only got slightly injured.

I grant him, perhaps his Yahweh exists. Perhaps Zeus exists.

Either way, it looks like Zeus is winning this battle.

Not believing in Zeus has been the cause of almost every single major atrocity of the past several thousand years.

Mass murder. Genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Wars. Bad behavior in general.

Witch trials — Azeusists.

Crusades — Azeusists.

Holocaust — Azeusists.

Hitler — Azeusist.

Stalin — Azeusist.

Mao — Azeusist.

Pol Pot — Azeusist.

Mastro Titta (executed 516 people … for the Catholic Pope.  Seriously.) — Azeusist.

Jim Jones — Azeusist.

Also, in modern times, almost every serial killer has been an Azeusist.

Jeffrey Dahmer — Azeusist.

It is patently ridiculous to split up the various atrocities into two camps; theist and atheist sponsored atrocities. Having Crusades on one side, and Stalin’s adventures on the other makes no sense when there is an obvious theory that explains both atrocities.

Why aren’t more editorials written into the newspapers with this kind of reasoning?

If not believing in god has caused a bunch of atrocities, some effort should be made to figure out which god that people don’t believe in has caused the most atrocities!

Personally, I think I make a rather strong case for Azeusism being the major cause of pain and suffering in this world.

As I mention in the new article here: If a person can discover exactly what’s wrong with this argument, he has discovered what is wrong with the “atheists have caused more murder than the Catholic church.”

And, of course, there are plenty of people very eager to let themselves be killed “for their savior” — I’m more interested in the answers to this question:

Believers who would die for your faith; would you let nonbelievers die for your faith as well?

In fact, I joined the website so that I could ask that question.

I will post a bit later after the question has had time to float for a bit.

Of course, to all the people would would let 2 nonbelievers be killed so that they could get by without renouncing their faith; I would like to ask a few further questions:

How high would that number have to be for you to renounce your faith?

If 100 nonbelievers were killed? 1000?

What if they were believers?

What if it was every human on the planet?

There comes a point where the answers to these questions become overwhelmingly disturbing…

I have posted a new essay that gives a response that is unique from the other criticisms of this rather lame argument. Let me add that there are tons of valid criticisms of this argument, but I hope that you find my version an interesting alternative.

Response to: Who would Die for a Lie? — A Christian cannot simultaneously claim to live in a world of demon possession and exorcisms; a world where angels proclaim messages to shepherds and disciples — and a world where naturalistic explanations are the only available ones to explain the behavior of people.

As always, I’m interested in knowing your thoughts on the essay!