By ATHEISMO
Added: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:04:21 UTC

Hello,

I recently had a debate, via email, with an old Christian friend of mine. We're both 24 now but we've known each other since school ten years ago. Unfortunately he considers himself to be a rationalist but his responses show otherwise.

The problem is I agreed to go and stay at his flat in London (I live in Bristol) before we started the debate. Now I am thinking that he'll just bring up the debate again even though he doesn't admit that his arguments are completely irrational. I was wondering if anyone could point out and identify any of the fallacies he commits so that I can do so if he commits them again when I see him in person. And please also flag up any fallacies I commit in my responses to him so that I'll know better in the future. BTW the book we're talking about is 'Atheism' by Julian Baggini. And apologies for the long post!

Here is the debate:

His email: "I guess the most challenging aspect is the notion of proof and the idea of building a case for something (chapt 2). The fact is God does fit all of the proof that already exists, but yet cannot be proven because he can not be experimented upon. This fits my idea of God, because naturally a creator God would not create a race who could subdue him by experiments and "proof", God's essence would naturaly have to exist outside of the nature he created, even if his works exist within it, it's natural to be able to prove his works, such as the big bang, evolution etc, but not to be able to prove his essence, because we only have the means to prove that which is within our own nature. The challenging thing about this is that it fits perfectly in my eyes, but on the other hand it could simply be religion evolving to create a God who does, rather conveniently, lay in the realm where proof can't get its hands on him. This is a subject to which I will invest some thought!

I liked, and agreed with about 90% of the book. I.e you don't need religion for morality/ purpose etc. (however, I would argue you do need God for these things - but I would also argue you don't neccisarily need to believe in God for them. i.e Morality comes from Him, but can be accessed by those who don't believe in Him just as easily as those who do). I also really like the reversal of Pascal's wager - he's right, God isn't so bothered if people don't believe in Him (I would add that if someone has a love for truth,they unbeknowingly have a love for God, even if that love for truth does lead them to Atheism - which is after all a perfectly logical conclusion to make).

It was only the odd senence that annoyed me because they create an untrue and unfair portrait of my beliefs. For example, he makes comment that the Religious morality comes from their desire to be rewarded in the afterlife. I'm not sure I've met many Christian's who are good people for this purpose, I certainly see my good behaviour as something that benefits both me and others on this earth, not the next. He also mentions how believers take exception to God being likened to the tooth fairy when obviously thats a perfectly fine comparison to make. This, to me, is the rhetoric he complained about in the first chapters of the book. The fact is, the tooth fairy doesn't fit the proof we have of the way the world works, whereas God does (the only thing with God is that it is not possible to create conclusive new proofs to proove his existence.) Another example is when he accuses Jesus of Rhetoric by saying "you're either with me or against me", this was taken entirely out of the Biblical context. Jesus was talking to two faced Jewish teachers who wouldn't contradict him in public, nor condone him, because they were too concerend with public opinion. Jesus was forcing them to come out with what they really believed, it wasn't that they hadn't made their mind up, but rather that they had and simply wouldn't come out an be upfront about it. It was ludicrous to compare this with George Bush's statement of "you're either with the terrorists or with us". There are a number of other asides he makes which irritate me, because they are asides and not explored and qualified in detail. Having said this, that which he does explain in detail I do enjoy.

But over all it was a good, well written book, which portrays Atheism as a sensible, well thought out viewpoint, unlike many of the other discussions i've had with the more Dawkinesque Atheists."

My email: "Obviously I cannot agree with most of what you said in your last email. Since you wrote such a long email I think I owe you a response to some of your points.

You say that God fits all of the evidence that we have but I would put to you that the Flying Spaghetti Monster could also be defined in such a way that he does not contradict any known evidence. I think it isn't necessarily true that God would create beings that are unable to detect his existence through rational means. I think a truly wise God would allow his existence to be known rationally rather than through Chinese whispers passed down through the generations.

I don't think the concept that God exists outside of nature is entirely coherent. Nature can be defined as "all that exists" in which case it is impossible to be apart from it. Also, at least some aspects of nature that can be studied by physics must have already existed in order for God to have created a universe in the first place e.g. without Time there would not have existed any points in time prior to the existence of universe, therefore making any act of creation both impossible and redundant.

Also you assume the existence of God and that the big bang and evolution are his works while also admitting that there is no evidence to support any of this. If there is no evidence supporting the existence of God then how do you know that he does? How can belief be justified in the absence of evidence?

I've only been able to comment on your first paragraph here but I have to abruptly go as I'm at lunch. It's good to be able to have a reasoned debate; I don't get the chance very often!"

His email: "One thing I would like someone to explain to me is how the flying spaghetti monster can be defined in such a way that he does not contradict known evidence, I've heard pleanty of Atheists use this example, but not qualify it. And I think it is necissary that God would be such that the human race could not rationalise him to the point of proof, because prooving somehting gives humans the idea thet can control it. Rather, the rational side of belife comes from seeing God at work answering prayers etc. and yet not being able to control him by selling him to someone else. In other words, my rational proof for the existance of God is in the seeing of him acting in my life and in the world and interacting with my prayers, now no matter how hard i try i can't put God in a box and sell him to someone else because the kind of proof he allows me is good for only me, because only i have seen it and interacted with it. The idea that God would want to be mass proved is beyond my underatanding of God. And I have to take objection to "chinese wispers" as Rhetoric and a straw man, I have full confidence that the way God has revealed himself to the human race is the best way he could have possibly chosen to.

When we talk about "nature" I dont think we should jump to the conclusion that it does mean "all that exists" because we simply don't know if things exist outside of the nature that is bound by time, space, physics etc. I also don't see why physics needed to exist before God could create things, he could very well have created the rules of physics as well. We know so little about the nature of this universe that any discussion as to the nature of nature will always end in impossible questions.

As for your last point about belief being justifed without evidence, the evidence I find is in my day to day life with God which is more than just the "i simply know" feeling Baggini refutes, but a rational process as well by which I see prayers answered etc. The rationality of looking at known evidence and fitting God into it is simply an affermation that there's nothing with the wider scale of thought and science that contradicts my day to day interactions with what I call God.

It's good for me to have debate as well, I meet too few Atheists who are such because of reason rather than emotion."

My email: "If the Flying Spaghetti Monster or any other theoretical being is defined as being completely undetectable then it cannot contradict any evidence. But that doesn't mean that it is a good theory. A good theory is one that makes risky predictions about what we should observe in nature if the theory is correct. I don't think that the God-theory or the FSM-theory satisfy that requirement, they are merely compatible with the universe as we currently know it, as they are defined in such a way that their existence makes no discernible difference to observation.

I don't think that everything that can be proven can therefore be controlled. Scientists can continue defining the laws of physics with greater detail and accuracy but will always be aware that the laws cannot be changed. So I'm still not convinced that God wouldn't create beings that could discover him through rational means. If God existed would reason not be a blessing?

I think there's a contradiction between your point that there is evidence for God's existence in answered prayers and your other point that God's existence cannot be supported (highlighted in yellow below). Another requirement of a good theory is that the evidence is independently verifiable and therefore not based on taking someones word for it. It would not be rational for me to agree that you have observed evidence for God's existence if I could not verify it for myself; I would be little better than someone who follows a self-proclaimed prophet. I can, however, rationally agree with the scientific community on matters of the big bang or evolution without having access to particle accelerators or DNA databases with which to verify their claims for myself. This is because the verification has already been done on our behalf by experts with more education and funding than the average layperson.

I don't know how my use of the term "Chinese whispers" is a straw-man. By that I merely meant something like "the passing-down of beliefs with occasional modification". However, I concede that my use of the term is not entirely accurate as it implies that the belief-modification was largely random. I actually meant that such beliefs adapt to scientific discoveries in order to avoid refutation and that the trend that this has taken over the course of history is to gradually become more and more abstract.

To conclude that nature is all that exists is a smaller jump than you might think as everything that has been discovered in human history is of natural origin. My point about nature was that God isn't necessarily beyond the remit of science because there are physical properties that must, fundamentally, be beyond God's control. I used the example of time because any action or process requires time in order to take place. Therefore God wouldn't be able to act or proceed without the passage of time. If anything exists outside of time then it is not an acting-thing or a proceeding-thing (like an intelligent entity) but a static thing. All acting-things and proceeding-things, by definition, experience the passage of time.

I would hazard a guess that the people you said were atheists because of emotion probably don't know the first thing about naturalism, which is the more fundamental view that I hold to.

One of the points in your second-to-last email that I didn't have time to address is about morality and purpose. You disagree with Baggini's view that those things are independent of God. I think he makes a good case and I would like to read your counter-argument.

I agree with your point that God wouldn't necessarily care if people believed in him. In fact it's similar to one of my earlier points, that God might prefer rational belief in him rather than irrational belief.

You disagree with Baggini's point that religious morality is based on the expectation of "riches in Heaven" as it were. You cite the fact that you are moral because you consider the good of others as one of your reasons for this. However, the fact that a person can be both religious and moral does not necessarily mean that they are religiously-moral. A person can be religious and yet practice a morality that is based on their concern for others rather than their concern for religious doctrine.

Baggini claims that Jesus' statement is rhetorical because it is intended to sound convincing to unquestioning people. As you say Jesus is trying to call them out so that he can know where they stand. However, as Baggini points out, with or against are not the only options as it's possible to be neither. The with-or-against dilemma is a very common tool for luring people into conflict, as the Bush example shows.

I want to be sure that you see this as a healthy debate. I'm too used to people having hard feelings when I put forward a challenge to their beliefs."

His email: "First off, yeah I totally accept this is a mere rational debate - it takes a great deal more than doubting the existence of my God to get me emotional. Maybe if you killed Dafne, burnt my house down and made my dog eat my saxophone then you'd get a different response - but I never got these people who get upset when their views are challenged, just goes to show how insecure said belief must be in the first place. Me and my brother saw an argument in Leicester Square the other night between a Christian Preacher, and an Atheist preacher that had been going on for three hours. Eventually a universalist, a few more christians, a couple of atheists and a plethora of Muslims showed up and were all tearing shreds out of each other, all getting proper emotional because they all felt threatened by the others, me and my brother were in hysterics at how pathetic the whole scene was, but hey, that's London for you.

I see where you're coming with regarding the similarities between the FSM and God - it's hard to argue the FSM against God because we know little about the FSM other than he is a rhetoric invention to explain a point. Instead, if we compare God with other theoretical beings, Father Christmas, The Tooth fairy and Zeus, we see that God cannot be seriously be lumped in with such creations. Each of these creations, as the story of their existence expands, becomes less and less plausible, visitors to lapland never find Santa Clause, if a tooth is left alone it is never taken by tooth fairies and Zeus has never been found at the top of mount olympus -as their stories increase and are expanded they falle down because the evidence we have no longer covers them and they fade into insignificance. However, I would argue that the more that is written about God (and in my own view, especially the Christian God) the more he seems to naturally fit into any evidence we have. I would argue that in order for the FSM or indeed any other theoretical being to fit as God fits it would need to take on many of the same qualities of God i.e Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omnibenevolance, in which case the FSM would simply become another name for what we already call "God". - As for the "risky predictions " being a show of good proof, I completely agree, and have done in my first email, I can totally understand that God's fitting to the evidence we have makes the whole thing look very much like the evolution of religion, the tweaking of God to fit new evidence, and that is one thing I've conceded that I am thinking about at the moment (hence the reason I said it was the part of Baggini's book that challenged me). My answers to this would be firstly, that the tweaking has been minimal in the grand scheme of things. And secondly, the other point we've been discussing, that God doesn't care about providing wide scale conclusive proof.

I agree with you in that not everything that can be proven can be controlled, but that doesn't stop human's trying. For example, we've discovered that oil is good for fuel, yet have we learned to control it? Thousands of fish in the gulf of mexico would say no. Likewise with the atomic bomb. Human discoveries normally turn into human exploitations - and I cannot think of many instances when this has not happened. True humans cannot change the laws of physics, but theirs as much corruption in the world of science as anywhere else, people sacrificing true truth for fame, money, positions etc. For example, how many people that are attributed with inventions or discoveries actually invented/ discovered what they are attributed with, and how many stole the ideas from somewhere else. It would be exactly the same with God, as it has been throughout history. The second someone thinks they've found the secret to God then that secret is exploited for the human's own benefits, that's why the Bible contains so many stories about this happening - its the very centre message behind the story of Adam and Eve. This is why God is not concerned with widespread proof, but rather this individualistic proof i spoke of - and this is where reason does become a blessing.

This individualistic proof is not a contradiction, as you state, because its intention is not to convince you of God's existence, rather simply to affirm me in mine. This is the way God wants to be known - not in terms of wide corporate proof, but by the proof that comes to individual when God interacts with their lives. I have not (at least in the past year or so that we've been back in contact) nor will I ever try to convert you - least of all by using my own internal proofs, because as you say that is utterly un-verifiable to others, but completely verifiable to myself.

I also disagree that over history the God idea has become more abstract as it is tweaked to fit into current evidence (re: chinese whispers). If anything, the God concept, in my mind, has become more solidified and makes more sense now more than ever. To me, evidence and progressive understanding has clarified God's character more and has highlighted attributions that have been there from the beginning i.e, God's omnipresence/ omniscience/ omnipotence and omnibenevolance.

The idea that God must have been bound by the remit of science is not a given for me. The nature of God is that he created everything, and in this I would have to include the laws of physics. This is why I can attribute miracles to God, he exists both within and without our nature, and so is not bound by its laws (although he chooses to keep within them most of the time).

The people I said were atheists because of emotion not ration, a number of them are naturalists as well, but they were lead to rationalism by the emotionalism. A church let them down, a mosque abused them etc, or, they were merely pissed off by how irritating believers can be, so this negative emotion has lead them to rationalism, naturalism, and atheism, but the emotions lie deep within, unresolved, and are a spectacle to behold when they explode when pushed hard enough. I'm only talking about people I know, but it wouldn't surprise me, and I have my suspicions, that the likes of Dawkins fall into this category, otherwise why would you waste your life in prostilytizing people to Atheism? (I think the same of anyone who spends their time doing the same for a religion as well)

I actually agree with Baggini on his views that morality and purpose are achievable for the non believer because I believe that God set them in the human heart and rationality, rather than in a book, religion or moral theory. As Baggini says, each of the moral theories put forward by Kant, Mills and Aristotle have faults, its up to the human being to use these as guidelines. I would say that Morals come from the very fabric of humanity because God put them there. We don't kill people, not because Mills, kant or Aristotle said its wrong, but because we are rational and can work out that its not going to get us anywhere, and that I believe God put within us. So I totally agree that Atheists and Theists alike can understand morality apart from a knowledge of God.

However, I would still say that my morals are informed and helped by my faith also, the Bible challenges my morals and helps give me grouding for it, but I also understand that such morals can be picked up elsewhere as well. (In my eyes thats because God doesn't only speak through the Bible, but can use anything to speak - as actually, he's spoken to me through your words and Bagginis words - sorry if that upsets you. hehe).

And finally (hehe, every email gets longer!). I still refute the accusation that Jesus' words were rhetoric. It wasn't a case that Jesus was trying to find out where they stood, or trying to force them to stand somewhere when they hadn't made their mind up, he knew where they stood. He knew that they hated him, but he also knew that they would not come out and say it because the public loved him and they knew it would be politcial suicide for them to come out and say they hated him. Neither did they want to lie and say they loved him because then that would make him more powerful, instead they elected to be two faced, to scheme against him, but to pretend to respect him whilst all the time trying to trip him up. What Jesus is doing was exactly what we desperately try to do to politicians who give vague answers (and indeed what many Atheists rightly do to stumped religous folk) - to get a streight answer out of them! This to me isn't argumentative rhetoric, because all people had already made their minds up, this was political justice, forcing the corrupt officials to come clean. Geroge Bush was trying to manipulate people into believing what he believed - very very different.

Yeah you can come up the first, the only thing is that we have a meeting in our house on the 2nd quite early in the morning, so that would cut short your time if you were planning to have two days in London. If you wanted to spend 2 fuller days you'd be better off coming up on the 31st and leaving on the 1st. But which ever is preferable.

Good to have these conversations, and let me reiterate my total lack of hard feelings - I actually watched a video of the four horsemen talking about how uptight religious folk get, and just thought "give me a break", I've never got worked up over this stuff. Although I know plenty of Atheists who get pissed off when I call them religious evangelists or say that their beliefs need more faith than mine (not necessarily my belief, but it pisses them off good! hehe)"

My email: "I'd liked to have seen that argument going on in Leicester Square. Were the Muslims siding with the Christians or did they just shout at both?

The FSM isn't a rhetorical device but a reductio ad absurdum to show the consequences of believing in things just because they haven't been disproved. It's true that we know very little about the FSM (we know nothing in fact) but we also know nothing about God. Also, just as visitors to Lapland never find Santa, when we look for evidence of design in living things we find only bad design and evidence for evolution instead. You might respond by saying that the people looking for evidence of design were looking for the wrong kind of evidence but that would only be an ad hoc hypothesis that can also be applied to Santa. Someone could easily claim that Santa's home is impossible to find if you don't believe strong enough etc. And I completely agree with you that the more that is written about God the more compatible he becomes with our increasing scientific knowledge but, as I said, it's no more impressive than FSM or Santa if the theory cannot be used to make testable predictions.

I'm glad that you are thinking about the issue of tweaking a theory to fit evidence. I have a few points to make on your current answers to it though. First of all, I don't think that going from "God designed and created all living things" to "God just created life (because we don't understand abiogenesis fully yet) and then allowed evolution to take place (because we can't really deny that any more)" is a minimal tweak. And the second point that God doesn't care if his existence is proven is irrelevant to the issue of justifying belief in him. After all, evolution and the big bang don't care if we believe in them either.

How do you know that there's as much corruption in the scientific community as anywhere else? I'm not sure you can support that claim. As for the people that are given the credit for other's inventions I can only think of Alexander Graham Bell off the top of my head. I'm sure you could list more examples but it wouldn't cast any doubt on any well-established scientific theories.

If something cannot be independently verified but only verified to one person then how is that different from the "I simply know" feeling that Baggini refutes? You're claiming that you simply know that some of your experiences are evidence for the existence of God. Do you think that few people have the same experiences? Why do you think God provides you with evidence of his interventions but not someone who could really benefit from it e.g. a suicidal person?

God's attributes such as the omnis haven't been associated with God consistently since the beginning. They themselves are tweaks made by philosophers which contradict passages in the Bible such as Judges 1:19 which states that God couldn't stop some iron chariots. This passage is not the least bit challenging to a naturalist; the writers simply lacked imagination. It's like how Superman was originally portrayed as merely having the ability to "leap over tall buidings in a single bound" because that was incredibly impressive to readers all those decades ago. But now Superman is portrayed as having the ability to fly through space faster than light! This would have been over people's heads back when Superman first came out but the limitations of the original Superman just seem pathetic by today's standards. My point is that the writers of Judges probably didn't consider the inability to repel iron chariots to be such a pathetic limitation for a deity.

Do you see my point about the contradiction of anything happening without the passage of time?

The people you say are atheists because of emotion rather than reason. That's fair enough, I don't doubt you although I am surprised you say some of them are naturalists. It doesn't really matter though if emotion plays a role in someone becoming more rational-minded because they will be using reason rather than emotion from that point on. Religion can be an emotional issue because some versions of it can be threatening, some can be pleasant.

Okay so you agree that anyone can be moral regardless of their beliefs about God. Your claim that morality is set in the human mind by God hinges on his existence anyway so we'd might as well concentrate on that. That ought to lower the length of these emails a bit!

It doesn't upset me that you believe that God has spoken through me and Baggini but obviously I doubt it."

His email: "Wake up, take the dog for a walk, debate with an atheist, shower, breakfast, work - good start to the day! hehe.

No, noone sided with anyone, even the Christians argued against the Christians. They all went with the presumption that they were right and everyone else wasn't. One Christian even tried to convert me without even asking me what I believed.

OK, the FSM is a reductio ad absurdum (which can cointain as many difficulties as rhetoric anyway), but I would still argue it simply isn't useful comparing it to God. The belief in God has many many more factors than the FSM, I would say God fits the evidence a lot more easily and succsinctly than the FSM or santa. If we were emailing re: the existence of santa these emails would be a lot shorter. I think you also need to understand the mindset of the intelligent believer, the intelligent believer doesn't look for evidence of design, neither do they, when confronted with counter evidence make ad-hoc theories to weasle out of it. Rather, they look for the way things work (like scientists), then theorise regarding it (like scientists) in order to find out how God did it, they then experiment on it to prove theories (like scientists) - the only difference is (not the I believe scientists and believers are different entities at all) that they ultimately believe God is ultimately behind it, whereas other scientists may believe that what ultimately lays behind it (behind the evolution and the big bang) is yet to be descovered. We don't see science as a threat that we need to weasle our way around, but rather as a method of finding out more about God. So when we see evidence of "bad design", that doesn't tell us that God didn't design the world, but rather it tells us that perhaps God didn't design each creature individually, one by one, but rather that he put in place the laws of physics, biology and chemistry that eventually produce this wonderful (God-glorifying) system of Evolution.

This doesn't mean that I'm chaning my view from "God designed and created all living things", to "God just created life and let evolution take over", because, for starters, the second statement would need to be altered in a few years anyway when we descover and have a fuller knowledge of the origins of life etc. Rather, my belief, and the central, untweekable, belief is "all life comes from God", and we're just on the journey of finding out how God does it. I concede that if you look over the last few thousand years God has been "tweeked" loads - or rather, we have learned loads about him, but I would still argue that the central foundations remain the same. There have been minor tweeks in God's character, the major tweeks (or learning as I would call it) have come in what we see God doing, rather than what he is.

Bell, Galileo, Einstein, Flemming, Edison and Crapper (not that Crapper should be among this list hehe) are all people who have been accused of "borrowing" ideas from others and not attributing them. By mentioning that there is corruption in the scientific community I wasn't trying to cast doubt on the truth of the theories it produces, simply on what the knowledge then achieves. Fame is a corrupting thing, money and power are even more so - I mentioned to you my friend that is having his life saving work slowed down because of the ego of other scientists who are trying to steal it and take the credit. We also see the corruption in the scientific community by the HUGGE number of scientists involved in making weapons (I forget the percentage, its either 1 3rd or 2 3rds), by the number involved in the pharmisuticals world, not making health giving drugs, but making drugs that do the same as all the others but can simply be sold at a higher price. There are countless times when the scientic community acts just as corrupt as the political, educational, governmental and religious communities - why? It's made up of human beings who want to control things in order to gain power. This is why God refuses to become a widley proved theorum.

I would say my own experiences are different from the "I simply know" perspective Baggini refutes - they won't look different to you or Baggini, but to me it's not about "simply knowing", its about the feeling you get yes, but its also about seeing prayers answered and rationaly thinking, hmm, coincidence or not? I try to ground it in as many external observations as possible, afterall, I could be insane and the feeling could be psychosematic. So although it is not verifyable by anyone else (other than those who have similar expreience) I have no problem with that. It's difficult to say how many people have similar experiences. Some are happy to go with the just the feeling, some need the answered prayers to help prove to them, others dont rationalise at all. Its a matter of individuals. I think it's not so much that God doesn't reveal himself to others, such as the suicidal, but more that their mind isnt in a place to see him, just as other people in such a mindset think they see God, when perhaps they don't. One of the key messages of scripture is that of the fall of creation, that mankind has been seperated from God. In my view there will come a day when everyone will come face to face, those who couldnt find him through deep distress (such as suicide cases etc) will see him and the distress will turn to joy. Atheists (genuine truth seeking atheists) will see him and naturally believe, because that would be the rational thing to do. I don't think God's focus is on trying to snatch people up form this life in preperation for the next, I can only see a just God being one who would reveal himself to people once all the cloudy fog of this world has passed away, and he is able to re-create it as he planned.

Your example from Judges is a flawed in that the book of Judges is one of THE most "God is all powerful" books there is! That's the central theology of the book! It said that God was with the people of Judah, but God being with a group doesn't neccisarily mean he's going to help them in battle. Throughout the Bible he doesnt help his people in batrtle because he simply doesnt want to go into battle at that time. In judges he actually has a theme of not using armies to defeat enemies, but rather doing it in his own strength. He eventually defeats the iron chariots, but chooses not to use the men of Judah (strong fearce warriors) but uses Deorah (the bumble bee - and woman at that - seen as weak in these days), Barak (who's name Ironically means thunder - even though he was a scardy cat who went running to a woman) and Jael ("the goat") along with a rabble of unfit soldiers, coming up against the most fearful army at the time. Later in Judges he uses Gideon, from the weakest family in the weakest tribe, and he wittles down Gideon's army to only a few hundred men. He then uses Sampson who kills thousands of Philistines single handedly, even after he had lost his strength. Ehud killed a king singlehandedly, even though he was left handed (another sign of weakness in those days). Judges is all about God's omnis! But I take your point, the scriptures are bound by the culture in which they were written, and thus God is limited by their understanding, but the central things he communicates first to his people are his power and his love, he tries to get that over to them even before he communicates his monotheism. This is what tells me that this is central to who he is.

I see your point about nothing being able to happen outside of time, but I disagree with it. I simply believe God to be outside of time as well as within it. It's another point that hinges on the existence of God. To me, if God exists, then he would be outside of time and not limited by it.

Talking of peaople who are atheists because of emotion, it's human nature. We're not vulcans, one Atheist I'm in frequent conversations with has read all of the books, he proclaims naturalism and rationalism, but underneith is all the emotion. He is rational in theory, not in practice. Any position that you put your name to, whether Atheism, Naturalism, Christianity, whatever, you're going to have people who let the side down. I'm more of a rationalist than many of the Atheists I meet. And saying that religion can be threatening or pleasant i agree with, and I have no desire to defend religion because I find it to be as suseptable to corruption and evil as anything else (if anything I'm defending my belief in God, but even then I wouldnt say Im defending it, merely explaining it). But I would say wherever emotion/ greed/ etc. etc. becomes unbalanced from rationalism and morals, you end up with trouble. In the same way Baggini denounced the atheists of communism as not proper atheists in the sense of the way he understands it, so I would denounce Christians in the same way."

My email: "We might as well leave the debate there because you're keeping the most important point, of evidence for God's existence, safely away from where reason can touch it. The rest of the points pretty much fall down if the foundation isn't solid. It doesn't matter anyway; there's plenty of secular stuff in the world to talk about."

His email: "Hehe, I would say not out of the reach of reason, but out of the reach of widely accepted proof. My faith is firmly based on reason. But hey, what does it metter, I would say that by building a relationship with the love for truth you're unbeknowlingly building a relationship with God anyway, and I'm guessing you would think that as long as I'm not actually harming anyone then I'm aloud to be as dellusioned as I want. We agree on enough to be able to talk about aside from the existence of God, so we're sorted."

TAGGED: --, ATHEISM, CREATIONISM, CRITICAL THINKING, DEBATE POINTS, EVOLUTION, IRRATIONALITY, MORALITY, PHILOSOPHY, PHYSICS, REASON, RELIGION, RICHARD DAWKINS, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY

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