Posted: Jun 09, 2012 1:21 pm
Twice at least refers to atheism as a "belief".
Plays the "random chance" canard all the way to the existence of humans.
Then he asks that we disregard "the gaps". In other words, we disregard the lack of evidence and that theists only invoke the unknown as "evidence".
Before he even gets to the questions, he makes it obvious he is not talking about Deism, the mere question of whether "God" exists in any way, shape or form or even theism but purely Christian theism.
1. What caused the universe to exist?
Assume it started, that the energy did not always exist in some form and ignore that there is actual scientific evidence that this may be true.
Play the "All things that had a beginning must have a cause" claim thereby bypassing it being pointed out that there own god fails the very premise of this argument.
Simply assert that your god made it all, ignore that you have no evidence at all for this and call it evidence.
Therefore, you win.
Atheism admits we don't know for sure.
Christian theism just makes up an answer.
Interestingly, he describes the universe as being billions of years old and reasonably describes the process by which it evolved (theism aside) which means he knows that it bears not the slightest resemblance to how the book of fables he believes in says it happened. Strange how he does not even mention that fact.
Dawkins once commented that he thought one could have a decent debate about Atheism vs. Deism. He said he does not buy into the Deist arguments but at least you could mount some argument for it. I'm sure others will have comments on many of the questions. The problem I have is, of course, this is not a Deist argument. This is an argument about Atheism versus a tribal war god that made the world six thousand years ago after he left the pantheon he previously belonged to and later was born as himself and alowed himself to be killed because he had to perform this magic ritual in order to save people from a curse he put on them to begin with when the talking snake convinced them to eat the magic fruit in the fantasy garden.
In other words, he's just playing the game of pretending the god he's talking about is overwhelming more sophisticated and overwhelmingly different than the god that is actually described in the holy book of mythology he believes in.
Plays the "random chance" canard all the way to the existence of humans.
Then he asks that we disregard "the gaps". In other words, we disregard the lack of evidence and that theists only invoke the unknown as "evidence".
Before he even gets to the questions, he makes it obvious he is not talking about Deism, the mere question of whether "God" exists in any way, shape or form or even theism but purely Christian theism.
1. What caused the universe to exist?
Assume it started, that the energy did not always exist in some form and ignore that there is actual scientific evidence that this may be true.
Play the "All things that had a beginning must have a cause" claim thereby bypassing it being pointed out that there own god fails the very premise of this argument.
Simply assert that your god made it all, ignore that you have no evidence at all for this and call it evidence.
Therefore, you win.
Atheism admits we don't know for sure.
Christian theism just makes up an answer.
Interestingly, he describes the universe as being billions of years old and reasonably describes the process by which it evolved (theism aside) which means he knows that it bears not the slightest resemblance to how the book of fables he believes in says it happened. Strange how he does not even mention that fact.
Dawkins once commented that he thought one could have a decent debate about Atheism vs. Deism. He said he does not buy into the Deist arguments but at least you could mount some argument for it. I'm sure others will have comments on many of the questions. The problem I have is, of course, this is not a Deist argument. This is an argument about Atheism versus a tribal war god that made the world six thousand years ago after he left the pantheon he previously belonged to and later was born as himself and alowed himself to be killed because he had to perform this magic ritual in order to save people from a curse he put on them to begin with when the talking snake convinced them to eat the magic fruit in the fantasy garden.
In other words, he's just playing the game of pretending the god he's talking about is overwhelming more sophisticated and overwhelmingly different than the god that is actually described in the holy book of mythology he believes in.