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Reason : Debate Points : Archives

Here is a list of common debate points we will all most likely meet, either in a formal debate or casual setting. To participate, click on a debate point, and use the comment space below each point to write out your rebuttal. Let's try and be clear and concise, as if these were to be used in a real debate. Suggest new Debate Points here. Also see: AskTheAtheists.com

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Results 1 - 34 of 34 for All Months All Years in Reason : Debate Points

Document What are your qualifications to question religion anyway? Just who are you? • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document What is the role of free will to an atheist? • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document If you don't have religion, where do you find your sense of community? • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document People who've experienced God KNOW that God exists • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document What does atheism say about the purpose (or the meaning) of life? • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document Hinduism and Buddhism offer much more sophisticated worldviews (or philosophies) and I see nothing wrong with these religions. • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document Atheists are just as dogmatic as theists, and the only reasonable person is an agnostic. • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document Atheists only promote divisiveness, as any other separatist movement. • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document All worldviews are merely paradigms, narratives having no more inherent value than any other narrative. • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

All worldviews are merely paradigms, narratives having no more inherent value than any other narrative. (Postmodernist nonsense)

Document A universe that follows 'laws' implies a 'law giver' • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

A universe that follows "laws" implies a "law giver" and our ability to comprehend those laws is evidence of the divine purpose of the Universe. Or alternatively: A rational universe implies a creator.

Document How can the Earth be so perfectly suited for life by coincidence? • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document Why do atheists care about what others believe when it doesn't affect atheists? • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Why do atheists care about what others believe when it doesn't affect atheists? Or alternatively: Why do atheists care about something they claim not to believe in?

Document How do you explain the lack of transitional forms in nature, the gaps in the fossil record? • RichardDawkins.net • 13th Dec 2007

Document What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus? • RichardDawkins.net • 28th Oct 2007

Rhetorical questions like this are used as an attempt to poke holes in the evolutionary explanation of morality, in the same way creationists or ID-ists look for "irreducible complexity" in biology.

Document Atheists don't believe in anything • RichardDawkins.net • 25th Oct 2007

If you don't believe in God, you must not believe in anything.

Document Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody • RichardDawkins.net • 25th Oct 2007

The appeal that religion is generally moderate, and that it is only the extremists who are the problem.

Document Science owes its origins to Christianity or Religion • RichardDawkins.net • 25th Oct 2007

"Religion created science" or "Without religion we wouldn't have science" or something like that.

Document The US is a Christian Nation • RichardDawkins.net • 25th Oct 2007

"The US is (or was founded as) a Christian Nation." or a related point: "The idea of Church/State separation comes from Christianity"

Document Was religion beneficial to the development of society? Is it now? • RichardDawkins.net • 25th Oct 2007

This topic was covered in the Shermer vs D'Souza debate "Is Christianity Good For the World?".

Document The Transcendental Argument for God • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

Atheism is self-refuting because it asserts that everything in the universe, including the atheist's own reasoning, came about as a result of non-rational forces. If that is indeed the case, every argument employed by the atheist is, according to his own assertions, incoherent and meaningless. Only the theist is able to claim coherence and true logic in his arguments because those arguments are founded on the notion of an all-knowing being.

Document If you don't accept the supernatural, you obviously think life is depressing, meaningless and cold • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

Religionists like caricature non-believers as being unhappy, depressed, loveless, indifferent, etc. If you don't believe in God, then you must hate music, art, poetry, etc. As Hitchens has said, "distinguish the numinous from the supernatural."

Document Science can answer how questions but only religion can answer why questions • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

Science can't tell us why we're here or what is the meaning of our lives.

Document You can't prove that you love someone, so don't expect proof of God • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

It is common for the religious to ask you to prove that you love someone, as if this is an excuse for there being no evidence for God.

Document Arguments From Design, First Cause, Something Rather Than Nothing, Fundamental Constants • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

The Argument From Design can take many forms. Why is there something rather than nothing? What about the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants of the universe (The "Goldie Locks" proposition)? First Cause?

Document Pascal's Wager • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

Pascal's Wager can still show up in debates, be ready for it.

Document A Rational Universe Implies a Creator, Science points towards Theism • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

One emerging favourite of the theists is to argue that science points towards theism on the basis that a Universe that follows "laws" implies a "law giver", and our ability to comprehend those laws is further evidence of the divine purpose of the Universe.

Document Arguments Against Evolution • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

Weaknesses in evolution (gaps in fossil record, formation of the eye, bacteria with one protein taken out doesn't work, etc).

Document I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

Another common method of trying to use religion against the non-religious.

Document Science and Religion BOTH make faith claims • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

This is an argument meant to level the playing field between science and religion.

Document That's not MY God or Religion you're criticising • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

This is a common one, used as an evasive maneuver.

Document Atheism is a religion and you're as bad as the fundamentalists • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

Sometimes people claim that Atheism is its own religion, and that it is possible to be a "Fundementalist Atheist."

Document Religion is not incompatible with Science: 'Non-Overlapping Magisteria' • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

Use the comment space below the article to present your rebuttal. Let's try and be clear and concise, as if this were to be used in a debate.

Document You can't be moral without God! • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

A common debate point in religious debates is morality. We often meet the argument that you can't be moral without God.

Document Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that! • RichardDawkins.net • 24th Oct 2007

We've all heard this one. I'd even go so far as to say most of us have probably answered this one.

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