A discussion I've been having...

Complete tool posts:

If God really does exist and He created hell as home for sinners, then can you afford to be wrong about whether or not you will end up there? If one person believes in God and that He created hell as a home for sinners and is therefore terrified over the possibility of ending up there, and another person does not believe in God or hell and therefore lives comfortably, how can you tell which one is correct? Can you afford to be wrong? If God does exist and created hell as the destination for sinners, then not believing in Him or in hell has absolutely no effect on their existence. What if you are wrong? If a Christian is wrong, then they are wrong for their lifetime but if an atheist is wrong, then they are wrong for eternity. Are you willing to make that gamble? Are you willing to challenge the Creator of the Universe? Is it easier to believe that nothing created everything or that creation must have had a creator? You know that your house exists, it is a building and must have had a builder. Perhaps you were that builder. You know that the cars on the road exist, they too had a creator, Ford/Chevy/Dodge/Honda/etc. You know that sun exists, you can feel its warmth and see its light every day, it too was created. So is it really so hard to believe that God created everything? You know the answer.

I reasonably reply countering the standard absurdities of Pascal's wager:

Pascal's wager has never been a good case.

First of all, you have narrowed things down to only two possibilities ignoring all others. This is what is known as a false dilemma. What if the muslims are right? A muslim could present the exact same argument to you and you would think it absurd, would you not? But according to them you would be going to hell. Can you really afford that risk? Of course you can.

And this could go for any religion. Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Norse traditional, Roman pantheistic. In the end why is it your deity, of all those that have ever been created by man that would have to be right? WE skeptics and atheists believe that because there is no good evidence of deity, let alone the identity of which if any exist, why should we worship or follow any? If it is a just God then infinite punishment for temporal crimes is not reasonable, which makes an eternal Hell that much less believeable.

I have listened to and read many apologetics, but Pascal's wager is extremely weak. I would recommend building a foundation on something much more substantial than threat and intimidation, which believe it or not is exactly what the threat of hell is.

He irrelevantly retorts:

The "threat" of hell is a warning, much like road signs, it is meant to keep you from harm. I can think of no greater harm then to spend eternity seperated from all that is good. You can choose to ignore the warning signs and continue on your way, but sooner or later it will be too late and you fall off the cliff. So my question remains. How long are you willing to ignore the warnings? There was a man once who, during a massive flood, climbed up on his roof and decided to wait for a God to rescue him. After a short while, a boat came by and the occupants asked the man to come and join them and be safe from the flood. The man refused, saying that he was trusting God to save him and they went on by. After some more time passed, and the water has raised even higher, another boat happened by and again the occupants urged the man to join them and escape the flood. Again the man refused, insisting that God would save him. By now the water was almost over the roof and the man was getting nervous. Suddenly a helicopter came along but the man still refused to be rescued because he thought he would know when God would save him and a short time later, the man drowned. When he stood before the Lord, he asked, why did you not come and save me? The Lord answered, I sent you two boats and a helicopter, why did you not trust Me?

Eternal Critic said: If a muslim presented the same argument to you, you think it absurd would you not? and If it is a just God, then eternal punishment for temporal crimes is not reasonable which makes an eternal hell that much less believable.

First off, I would be completely contradicting my faith and message if I agreed with you and I do not agree. The message itself is valid and powerful no matter who presents it. Even for muslims, it is those who do not honor and worship God who are the infidels bound for hell. They honor and respect Christians and Jews, at least those who trully follow the Qu'ran and not the extremists who pervert it. My beliefs may differ slightly but I will still be going to heaven because I trust in and follow God.
Secondly, it is exactly because God is holy and just that He must punish sin and make no differenciation of it. Sin is sin and it must be punished. If you go before a judge, convicted of a crime and you say to the judge, jusdge, I know I have been found guilty but since you are a good and fair judge, I believe you should let me go, being that you are so good and fair. What do you suppose that judge would say to you? They might give a slight chuckle but they would likely say, "because I am a good and fair judge, I cannot let you go free. I must see that justice is served and if I let you go free it would show me to be corrupt." And that is based on our standards. God holds much higher standards than that because He is perfectly Holy and Just. You can claim that His ways are unfair and unreasonable all you want but it makes no difference. We are without excuse and will all have to face Him on judgment day, where He will test even our thoughts and seperate the goats from the lambs.

I reply once again:

You actually completely ignored the important part of the question. If a Muslim presented you with the argument: "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet. If you do not accept this and follow the tenets of Islam and submit to Allah's will you will be damned for eternity in Jahannam. If you do accept this you could spend all eternity in a heavenly paradise. What have you got to lose? If you choose not to believe, and are right, you lose nothing, but if wrong you lose everything! If you believe in Allah and his prophet and are wrong you lose nothing, but if you are right gain everything.

This is the exact same argument put from a Muslim's perspective. And because I know you won't accept that argument, why do you think someone should accept yours other than because that's what -you- believe? I'm not sure who taught you about Islam, but there is no ambiguity in Islam that you would be going to hell for not being a believer.

As for your claims of fair judgement you again avoid the actual question. How does one make eternal judgement on temporal crimes? If I stole a tee-shirt (random example) I would be punished based on the severity of the crime. If I steal a car, my punishment will be summarily more severe. Why would it be just to jusge a petty thief the same for all eternity as (forgive my Godwin) Hitler. Or, that being switched around, why should a great philanthropist who has contributed to the benefit of mankind and done many good works and little wrong (nobody being perfect) be punished for all time solely on not believing in something he has no good evidence for while a serial murderer in prison for multiple life sentences should be saved on the basis of one single belief in an ephemeral, unproven concept. If that's justice, any crime should be a capital crime punishable by execution.

He once again replies, hypocritcally this time, sure to point out that he is not a hypocrite despite the obvious hypocrisy of claiming Pascal's wager is gold for Christians but BS for Muslims:

In regards to Eternal Critic's comments: That is not what you said originally since you mentioned nothing of Allah or Muhammad which actually was not the basis of my original post to begin with. I will reitterate that if I rejected my argument because someone else made it, I would be a hypocrit and my argument invalid. But you are right in that I would not accept the argument as you presented it. As for your argument about fair judgment I would remind you to stop insisting on your own ideas about is fair. Sin is sin and has no place in the presence of God. HE does not tolerate sin no matter how small WE think it is, and no matter how unjust WE feel HE is. He is Holy and just and will punish ALL sin. As humans, we make our own judgments about making the punishment fit the crime but WE ARE NOT GOD!! He also gave us a precious free gift in that Christ died to take our punishment for us so that we would not have to spend eternity in hell seperated from HIM! This is GRACE and it is given to us by FAITH through CHRIST alone and not by works that any may boast but a free gift from God.
Think of it this way, if I am convicted of murdering someone for instance. The evidence is irrefutable and the case has been tried and I am found guilty. I know that I am guilty and so did the jury. The judge asks me if I have any last words before he passes my sentance. In a last ditch effect to appeal to his goodness, I say "judge, I know you to be a good and fair judge and I believe that because of that you should let me go since I have learned my lesson and it will never happen again. You are so good and fair so I think you will agree that I should be allowed to go free as this would show how good and fair you are. How do think that judge would respond? They would probably laugh at such audacity and then make it perfectly clear that it is because they are good and fair that they must see justice served. They would be corrupt if they let anyone go unpunished if they were guilty. The world seems to think that God is TOO GOOD to punish them for their sins but is exactly this,God's goodness, that will condemn them. Sin must be punished and the punishment is seperation in hell for eternity. Apart from trusting and following Christ as savior there is no escaping that punishment. But since Christ became that punishment for us and defeated death, we can go free in Him for He loved us so much.

Finally I give up, since this guy is clearly an idiot lacking any ability to reason.

Opine Silence

Interesting how quiet Opine Editorials has been about the whole Iowa deal. They must still be in a state of shock. I know -I'm- terribly amused by their silence.

Just a link this time

PZ Myers, still full of win.

Absurdities in Genesis Redux

You too can take your family on a creationist vacation!

"Deuteronomy 6:7 tells us we are to talk about God's Word everywhere we go. Vacations should be no exception. Opportunities to see and explore God's amazing creation abound, whether at a national park, a Christian-themed venue, or a natural history museum. Places with secular propaganda can easily be turned into learning opportunities, as we learn to separate truth from error. With some preparation, you and your family can enjoy a purpose-filled vacation as you gain a better appreciation for the Creator who made all things."

But let us look into this even deeper. I know we -all- want to obnoxiously chatter about Gawd all the time. Because who doesn't want to hear about the Word!? Well, according to Answers in Genesis(see map and list), apparently only people not living in two out of seven continents! You mean there's no creationist sites anywhere outside of the North America, Britain, an two locations off those continents? You can't even get a creationist friendly site in the middle east. This has to be the only group of fundy loonies that doesn't try and sell people on trips to Israel.

But here's the really fucked up part. Most of these sites are great sites. For rationalists and scientific minded people. La Brea tar pits for example are pretty amazing. But could you go anywhere that shows the age of this world more? Perhaps the Grand Canyon. But seriously, these guys never cease to amaze me with what they pull out of their collective asses.

Presuppositionalist Arguments

How do people deal with these kinds of arguments for God? I know the arguments are ridiculous because they make far too many assumptions about the necessity of deity, but how does one get that through the thick skull of a presuppositionalist? Or is it better to just ignore them?

Atheism is not Nihilism

How many times have we atheists heard it said that atheists do not believe in a purpose to life, or in any kind of moral code? In other words, those who so vehemently condemn atheism often believe that atheism and Nietzsche's vision of nihilism are basically the same thing. Here I will outline some key (and obvious) differences between the two "isms."

Nietzsche viewed nihilism primarily as a philosophy of hopelessness, despair, and complete apathy. In my opinion this is an oversimplification of nihilistic philosophy, but a decent rough approximation of some of the adherents of nihilism, and also of how atheists are viewed by many (particularly fundamentalist) theists.

Moral nihilism posits that morality is nonexistent. That there is no inherent good or evil and that actions are personal in nature and reflect individual preference rather than a common value set. Its easy to see where this can be construed as an anarchistic, or apathetic view. The writings go much deeper, but this is the most basic point. Let us compare that with an atheistic view of morality. It is similar, but not the same as the nihilistic one. Atheism is primarily an individualistic philosophy in regards to morality; it does not necessitate a nihilistic world view, neither does it preclude one. An atheist is above all an individual, and morally tend to largely reflect the society that they grew up in. I have often seen legalistic views, as well as views that are focused on the what is best for the society as a whole. That said, there is no defining aspect in atheism that decrees a particular world view.

Existential nihilism is a bit trickier. Existential nihilism at its most basic premise is that life has no purpose. Life is, in and of itself fairly meaningless, and worthless, lacking any inherent value. Here, atheism and nihilism almost always diverge. Atheists mostly believe that life does have value in what we do with it; that what we do in our lives determines its value, and that having only one life, it would be a shame to waste it in apathy or doing nothing of value. Neither philosophy takes a god-given goal for life as granted, but atheism takes its (individualistic) approach towards making the individual life meaningful to society and the world at large.

This view comes largely (in my opinion)from the early 20th century view that nihilism was the opposite of Christianity. By extension the common belief is that atheism, being a rejection of God (vainly assumed to be the Christian God) not only rejects the existence of God, but also rejects anything it stands for i.e morality, charity, etc (ignoring all the terrible things about God we also reject). Yes, atheism rejects the god hypothesis, but does not reject our humanity, ethics, or personal moral principles. This, I think is why so many atheists today like the terms "rationalist" or "free-Thinker"; it separates them from the label that is so commonly used as derogatory.

So, remember. An atheist who is not nihilistic is not one who lays in bed mourning over what a waste life is and how pointless existence is. If we were, we would not have such vocal proponents as we have today, nor would the advancement of science and humanity be such a common goal among us. So remember, while nihilism is almost always atheistic, the reverse is not the norm, or even common.

god is not Great chapter 8: For real this time.

In chapter 8, as noted in my previous post, Christopher Hitchens addresses the topic of the New Testament, and with it the issues of Christianity. Much like the previous chapter this does all seem somewhat abbreviated, but Hitchens nonetheless makes a good case against the veracity of the book.

The first problem, unsurprisingly is the inconsistencies in the principle documents: the gospels. He notes that they are contradictory on accounts of the virgin birth, the genealogy of Yeshua, the infanticide of Herod, etc. This alone is a huge argument against the truth and reliability of the gospels, but even moreso are historical inaccuracies like the governorship of Quirinius, the lack of evidence for a census; many things were fairly obviously hashed together after the fact to adhere to the Jewish messianic prophecies.

He does address the apocryphal and heretical and gnostic gospels in this chapter, but only briefly, but does make a good point about them. It would would have taken very little in the course of history, particular in the councils deciding what the canon would be, to have a completely different version of Jesus, and having no proof or evidence of who authored any of the texts, none is more reliable than another, especially given inaccuracies.

Later in the chapter he gives a cursory refutation of C.S Lewis' Lord, Lunatic, or Liar false trilemma for the divinity of Jesus.

That said, there's not alot to this chapter to support Hitchens' thesis overall, but he does make a good case against the accuracy of the New Testament. There's not much here to say religion poisons everything, however it gives a good picture at how well grounded the faith is, and how little it has to stand on in reality.

God is not great chapter 8: The New Testament.

Hitchens in this chapter covers the scriptures which form the basis for the true Christian faith. The most difficult part is that despite his purported upbringing reading the bible Hitchens seems to have no concept whatsoever regarding what He wants from his children.

The obvious truth of the resurrection, the empty tomb story, and all the clear proofs in the gospels that they were inspired and accurate accounts of the events is completely lost on Hitchens, who opts for an insulting and derogatory interpretation of the bible, twisting things out of context to make things seem inconsistent or downright ridiculous.

Do not be fooled! Hitchens is merely a charlatan. He preaches to his anti-theist audience denouncing hell, and calling into question the authority of the canonical gospels. He even brings up the Heretical gospels neglecting to recognize the inspiration of the church fathers who selected the canon with divine guidance. He delves into the heretical Gospel of Judas and even claims it to be MORE credible than the canon.

It is truly a testimony to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that even the best atheists have to offer have such little to defeat our united faith!