drugs and prostitution

[Liberty]

I agree that if I want to convince you then the burden of proof is on me. Just as I would assert that if you want to insist to me that you know definitively there is no higher power then the burden of proof would be on you.

 

You can't prove a negative. The real, formal argument of atheists isn't really: "We know that no god(s) exists", it's "we don't see good reasons to believe in god(s), we looked at the supposed evidence and arguments in favor and found them lacking".

 

Religious people implicitly agree with this approach because they see no reason to believe in Zeus or Odin or Esege Malan or Kamuy and so they don't, they don't wait for proof that they don't exist. Atheists just go one god further.

 

I profess my ignorance from the rooftops. I strongly suspect that there is more to this existence then any of us are aware and I choose to live my life as such. I don't seek to convince you, I do hope to keep your mind open to the possiblity of something more however unlikely it strikes you.

 

As I said earlier, if some solid evidence for god(s) came up, I'd be the first one to change my mind. Same with alien abductions or whatever. So far I don't see good evidence, but if that changes, hey, that's fine. I want to be on the side of reality, believe in what's real. Believing in things for no good reason isn't a good thing to me. So far I see a lot of evidence for a mechanistic world, and nothing convincing for one with god(s). If that changes, I'll update.

[bizaro86]

Since belief doesn't cost anything in and of itself, and has the potential for significant intrapersonal/emotional value, you could make that case.

 

Of course, disbelief doesn't cost anything either, and people seem to be just as passionate about that...

 

There are definitely costs.

 

If reality is a certain way but your mental model of reality doesn't match it (nothing is 100% perfect, but you can be closer or farther away), you won't be thinking as effectively as you would if you had a more accurate map of the territory. Since all your choices and actions are derived from how you think, your whole life is changed. Religion has a cost, because if you really believe, you have to do and think what whatever religion you follow tells you to do, things you might not do otherwise. People who pray for a cure instead of going to the hospital might be dying because of their religion, for example. I, for one, am glad that engineers follow the laws of physics when designing something rather than leave it up to god to make it work (Inshallah, as the devout muslims say).

 

A religion that imposes not costs whatsoever (even if just in time and energy) on the follower is basically the same as no religion at all. Unless it's just a custom made up religion where the person just says that god wants whatever they want, which is another kind of problem... You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

I've done the odd engineering design, and have managed to follow the laws of physics. I would suggest that you have a false equivalency. A bridge design depends on Newton's laws and predicting the well understood modes of failure. (It also has a margin of safety).

 

A belief or disbelief in God is fundamentally different. As I posted above, one is verifiable, and one is based in uncertainty. They are at their core different types of decisions, which require a different mental model.

[writser]

You can't prove a negative. The real, formal argument of atheists isn't really: "We know that no god(s) exists", it's "we don't see good reasons to believe in god(s), we looked at the supposed evidence and arguments in favor and found them lacking".

 

To be fair, that's up for debate. Atheism can either mean 'a lack of belief in deities' or 'a belief in the lack of deities'. Bertrand Russell said about this:

 

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

 

I guess you're talking to the ordinary man :) .

[Liberty]

I've done the odd engineering design, and have managed to follow the laws of physics. I would suggest that you have a false equivalency. A bridge design depends on Newton's laws and predicting the well understood modes of failure. (It also has a margin of safety).

 

A belief or disbelief in God is fundamentally different. As I posted above, one is verifiable, and one is based in uncertainty. They are at their core different types of decisions, which require a different mental model.

 

Are you saying that as a religious person you've followed the laws of physics to build a bridge yet still believe? Because that's really not what I was talking about.

 

I was saying that people use one standard of evidence for their belief in how the universe works, and another one for other things, like building bridges or GPS satellite systems. But it should be the same.

 

There's a great anecdote about oil engineers working in the middle-east. They were doing maintenance on equipment, and realized that it had never been maintained until they came around. They asked some of the locals why, and they said "god willing, it'll keep working". They were basically saying that whether the machinery kept working was up to god, since god controls everything. That might seem ridiculous, but they were actually very consistent in their beliefs, even if they are wrong about how the world works. It's the religious people who use rational thought in some aspects of their lives but not in others that are inconsistent.

 

Almost everything is based on uncertainty when you get right down to it, but it's not because things are uncertain that the probabilities are 50/50 or anywhere near high enough to be worth taking it into account. Right now, what I know makes me think that the probabilities of god(s) is negligible. What I know makes me think that the probability of the earth orbiting the sun in an ellipse is very very high.

 

What are the reasons that make you think that the probabilities for deities are high enough to be worth seriously considering? Saying "it's uncertain" doesn't really mean much, and trying to deflect arguments with that uncertainty isn't something that follows logically. What makes you think that the chances that there's one or many gods are higher than the chances that dragons exist? Why are the chances high enough to be worth changing your behavior and thoughts?

 

If your beliefs aren't backed up with logic, facts and evidence, they're just made up and you are deluding yourself. Same for people who believe in alien abductions just because they really like that story despite the lack of good evidence.

[Liberty]

You can't prove a negative. The real, formal argument of atheists isn't really: "We know that no god(s) exists", it's "we don't see good reasons to believe in god(s), we looked at the supposed evidence and arguments in favor and found them lacking".

 

To be fair, that's up for debate. Atheism can either mean 'a lack of belief in deities' or 'a belief in the lack of deities'. Bertrand Russell said about this:

 

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

 

I guess you're talking to the ordinary man :) .

 

Yes, if I was to be very precise and formal about it, I would describe myself as an agnostic. Richard Dawkins said the same thing about himself.

 

But by that standard, I would also be agnostic about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and Leprechauns.

 

At some point, in ordinary discourse, you can just call yourself and atheist and say you don't believe in santa claus and people know what you mean :)

[writser]

Yeah, but I think it's useful to point out the distinction before people require you to come up with evidence that proves Santa doesn't exist.

[stahleyp]

Liberty, I agree with you that if a certain religion is accurate, the holy text would tend confirm what we know about science.

 

So why doesn't it?

 

I'll have to read the fine tuning argument in more detail. However, you comparing Higgs and the big bang is a bit insincere. One had a model and one didn't. However, like I stated before the supernatural does exist. I think all too often, in our bias, we automatically find "supernatural" as false but that's incredibly misleading.

 

We're fine tuned for the universe because we evolved in it, the universe isn't fine tuned for us. Religious people assume that humans couldn't have been otherwise, so earth must be made for us. But evolution has shown us that we could be different. If the universe was different, we'd be different, or we wouldn't exist. But since we do exist, it's the anthropic principle (we're here talking about it, so obviously we're in a universe where we can exist). There are an almost infinity of different stars and planets. What are the chances that none of them, over billions of years, had what happened on Earth happen? It would be more surprising to have no life anywhere (in fact, maybe life is common among galaxies, we just don't know, it's not like we've explored much of the universe)... So not so fine tuned...

 

Supernatural doesn't mean "hasn't been explained by science yet", it means "can't be explained by science". The prefix "super" means that it's above the natural world, out of it.

 

I don't understand what you mean about the Higgs Boson having a model. At some point no model for it existed. So? We must not confuse the map and the territory. At some point no model for the big bang existed either, and then we had a theoretical model for it, and then we found background microwave remains of the big bang (we have evidence for it, just like the Higgs Boson). There are other undiscovered things that we don't have a model for right now, and someday we'll have a model. Doesn't make them magic or evidence for anything. Just not yet known.

 

As for as why it doesn't match (assuming it's true) the only fairly reasonable idea I can come up with is that the scientific aspect doesn't really matter. Doing the "right" thing and leading a good life are much more important. That's why the books focus more on building character rather than building machines. God wants us to focus on knowing Him rather than science. Some would argue that the Quran actually has a lot of scientific information not known at the time of the writing.

 

Liberty, perhaps you have your own definition of "supernatural". However, from all the definitions I've read, you idea of the supernatural is incorrect. We're talking semantics here but for your convenience again:

 

of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe;

 

a ) departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature

 

b) attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

 

Or, if you'd prefer, the google definition:

 

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature

 

Does the big bang not appear to transcend the laws of nature? If not, which laws of nature does it follow?

 

Well, from all that I've read something has to exist outside our understanding of space and time. The universe had a beginning (coincidentally, a lot of scientists up until the past few decades thought it was eternal). What existed before that?

 

By the way, Liberty, if God (with evidence) existed, how would that affect your life and your decisions?

 

Oh and as far as dragon vs God existing, if you can tell me a book with multiple sources and some fair archaeological evidence showing these dragons probably existed, I may start believing. What frustrates me about your atheism though, Liberty, is that you haven't really explored the theism (from everything I gathered). There is pretty good historical evidence for Christ. As an example, there are many more writings based on this poor carpenter than Caesar at the time. The belief aspect comes in the Resurrection. I really fail to see why the Resurrection is hard to believe though. That seems way more probable than a universe popping out of no where for no apparent reason.

[Liberty]

???

[Mikenhe]

???

 

It'll feel better when you stop....

[stahleyp]

???

 

It'll feel better when you stop....

 

Yes, it's always good to stop once you don't have a decent answer.  ;)

 

 

[Hielko]

Almost everything is based on uncertainty when you get right down to it, but it's not because things are uncertain that the probabilities are 50/50 or anywhere near high enough to be worth taking it into account. Right now, what I know makes me think that the probabilities of god(s) is negligible. What I know makes me think that the probability of the earth orbiting the sun in an ellipse is very very high.

 

What are the reasons that make you think that the probabilities for deities are high enough to be worth seriously considering? Saying "it's uncertain" doesn't really mean much, and trying to deflect arguments with that uncertainty isn't something that follows logically. What makes you think that the chances that there's one or many gods are higher than the chances that dragons exist? Why are the chances high enough to be worth changing your behavior and thoughts?

Based on your beliefs a rational person should live as though god exists, at least according to Blaise Pascal: the guy who invented probability theory. His famous wager: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager

[Mikenhe]

???

 

It'll feel better when you stop....

 

Yes, it's always good to stop once you don't have a decent answer.  ;)

 

That’s an incredibly rude answer from the person who doesn’t have a shred of evidence for the “sky buddies” that you claim exist.

You have as much proof for God as there is for the Flying spaghetti monster.

 

And if, as you seemed to claim earlier, the bible is in anyway accurate then I don’t want to have anything to do with a God that did what he did to Job just to prove a point. Total scumbag.

 

[Liberty]

As for as why it doesn't match (assuming it's true) the only fairly reasonable idea I can come up with is that the scientific aspect doesn't really matter. Doing the "right" thing and leading a good life are much more important. That's why the books focus more on building character rather than building machines. God wants us to focus on knowing Him rather than science.

 

This is one of the most ridiculous cop outs I've ever seen. Oh, when science is against me, I simply brush aside science, the best system devised by humanity to figure out what is true and what is false, which obviously works... And building machines? Do you even know what science is? It's a way of testing hypotheses, simple as that. God is a hypothesis, and if there's no good evidence to support it, there's no reason to think its true.

 

 

Some would argue that the Quran actually has a lot of scientific information not known at the time of the writing.

 

Please tell us what.

 

Liberty, perhaps you have your own definition of "supernatural". However, from all the definitions I've read, you idea of the supernatural is incorrect. We're talking semantics here but for your convenience again:

 

of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe;

 

a ) departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature

 

b) attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

 

Or, if you'd prefer, the google definition:

 

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature

 

You are misreading it. Otherwise, the supernatural would include anything we don't understand. Was quantum mechanics supernatural before Niels Bohr came around?

 

What is meant instead is exactly what I said a few posts ago. The laws of nature are what they are regardless of whether we know them or not, so even 10,000 years ago, gravity wasn't supernatural. Don't confuse the map with the territory.

 

Does the big bang not appear to transcend the laws of nature? If not, which laws of nature does it follow?

 

As far as we understand it, it doesn't transcend the laws of nature, no. The laws of nature are what they are, and we are still discovering them, but we haven't found a message from a deity in the microwave background radiation or anything that doesn't add up like that.

 

Again: Not understanding something isn't evidence that it's magical. For magic to exist, you need evidence of magic, not just something you don't understand so people can pretend there's magic in there even if they have no evidence.

 

Well, from all that I've read something has to exist outside our understanding of space and time. The universe had a beginning (coincidentally, a lot of scientists up until the past few decades thought it was eternal). What existed before that?

 

You're using human intuition. It doesn't work on the cosmological scale. Our brains haven't evolved to deal with physics on that scale of time and space and energy. In the same way that quantum mechanics doesn't seem to make sense yet works and is provable by experiment, and that Einsteinian relativistic mechanics is also extremely unintuitive and still works (GPS systems use it every day), the big bang doesn't have to make sense to you. There doesn't need to be anything before or even time, though there might be. We're working on it, but nothing we've found about it is evidence of the supernatural. Big bang can be singular or cyclical, whatever, but like gravity before we understood it, that doesn't make them not part of nature.

 

If the last refuge of the religious is vaguely implying that not having an answer to every single thing that goes on in the universe means there's a god, it says more about their lack of credibility than anything else.

 

By the way, Liberty, if God (with evidence) existed, how would that affect your life and your decisions?

 

That would make the world totally different. But I'd have to figure out which god it is and what he wants based on whatever evidence made me believe. What if it's a malevolent god? What if he wants me to pray 5 times a day? What if he thinks women are inferior and slavery is ok?

 

Let me ask you this: What's falsifiable about your belief in god? What would be different in the world if there's no god?

 

Oh and as far as dragon vs God existing, if you can tell me a book with multiple sources and some fair archaeological evidence showing these dragons probably existed, I may start believing. What frustrates me about your atheism though, Liberty, is that you haven't really explored the theism (from everything I gathered). There is pretty good historical evidence for Christ. As an example, there are many more writings based on this poor carpenter than Caesar at the time. The belief aspect comes in the Resurrection. I really fail to see why the Resurrection is hard to believe though. That seems way more probable than a universe popping out of no where for no apparent reason.

 

I haven't explored it? I think I know more about it than you do, quite obviously.

 

Historical evidence that a guy existed has nothing to do with him being a god. How many times do we have to say that?

 

Oh, and it's funny how you even misunderstand the dragon analogy and took it so literally. I wasn't saying there's no evidence that a guy named jesus existed, or the many guys who wrote the bible decades later, filling it with attrocities and dubious morals (remember evilbible.com?). I'm saying there's no evidence that any of it is magical, supernatural, godlike, just like there's no evidence for dragons. You turned this into: "but there's evidence for a man named jesus" rather than "but there's evidence that he's a god".

 

And if you find the resurrection easy to believe without evidence of it, I still have that bridge for sale.

[Liberty]

Based on your beliefs a rational person should live as though god exists, at least according to Blaise Pascal: the guy who invented probability theory. His famous wager: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager

 

Ah, another classic. Incredibly flawed, of course:

 

http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/pascal.htm

 

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pascal's_wager

 

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Pascal%27s_Wager

 

http://infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/arguments.html#pascal

[Mikenhe]

Crap  - I’m getting dragged into an argument about nothing.

 

 

Prove that your nothing is actually substance and there might be a discussion to be had.

Until then, there is no God and religion is merely a tool for those that wish to manipulate others.

 

And that’s it.

 

[stahleyp]

???

 

It'll feel better when you stop....

 

Yes, it's always good to stop once you don't have a decent answer.  ;)

 

That’s an incredibly rude answer from the person who doesn’t have a shred of evidence for the “sky buddies” that you claim exist.

You have as much proof for God as there is for the Flying spaghetti monster.

 

And if, as you seemed to claim earlier, the bible is in anyway accurate then I don’t want to have anything to do with a God that did what he did to Job just to prove a point. Total scumbag.

 

Rude? How is that "rude?" After all, it's just my evolutionary instincts firing off. I can't actually control it. The same amount of evidence exists for God as the FSM, really? Can you show me a book that billions of people follow that discusses the FSM?

 

 

I don't think Job actually existed. It's more of a story or poem to teach a lesson - that one should always strive to do the right thing and follow God.

 

 

This was a while ago but a good read nonetheless. :)

 

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32

 

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/22/prominent-atheist-blogger-converts-to-catholicism/

 

 

[Liberty]

Rude? How is that "rude?" After all, it's just my evolutionary instincts firing off. I can't actually control it. The same amount of evidence exists for God as the FSM, really? Can you show me a book that billions of people follow that discusses the FSM?

 

http://hoydenabouttown.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/inigo-montoya_that-word.jpg

 

(Replace "word" by "argument"...)

[bizaro86]

Crap  - I’m getting dragged into an argument about nothing.

 

 

Prove that your nothing is actually substance and there might be a discussion to be had.

Until then, there is no God and religion is merely a tool for those that wish to manipulate others.

 

And that’s it.

 

Surely you don't believe that the existence of something is dependent on being able to prove the existence of that something?

 

Did black swans not exist until the Europeans sailed around the world and discovered them?

[stahleyp]

As for as why it doesn't match (assuming it's true) the only fairly reasonable idea I can come up with is that the scientific aspect doesn't really matter. Doing the "right" thing and leading a good life are much more important. That's why the books focus more on building character rather than building machines. God wants us to focus on knowing Him rather than science.

 

This is one of the most ridiculous cop outs I've ever seen. Oh, when science is against me, I simply brush aside science, the best system devised by humanity to figure out what is true and what is false, which obviously works... And building machines? Do you even know what science is? It's a way of testing hypotheses, simple as that. God is a hypothesis, and if there's no good evidence to support it, there's no reason to think its true.

 

 

Some would argue that the Quran actually has a lot of scientific information not known at the time of the writing.

 

Please tell us what.

 

Liberty, perhaps you have your own definition of "supernatural". However, from all the definitions I've read, you idea of the supernatural is incorrect. We're talking semantics here but for your convenience again:

 

of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe;

 

a ) departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature

 

b) attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

 

Or, if you'd prefer, the google definition:

 

(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature

 

You are misreading it. Otherwise, the supernatural would include anything we don't understand. Was quantum mechanics supernatural before Niels Bohr came around?

 

What is meant instead is exactly what I said a few posts ago. The laws of nature are what they are regardless of whether we know them or not, so even 10,000 years ago, gravity wasn't supernatural. Don't confuse the map with the territory.

 

Does the big bang not appear to transcend the laws of nature? If not, which laws of nature does it follow?

 

As far as we understand it, it doesn't transcend the laws of nature, no. The laws of nature are what they are, and we are still discovering them, but we haven't found a message from a deity in the microwave background radiation or anything that doesn't add up like that.

 

Again: Not understanding something isn't evidence that it's magical. For magic to exist, you need evidence of magic, not just something you don't understand so people can pretend there's magic in there even if they have no evidence.

 

Well, from all that I've read something has to exist outside our understanding of space and time. The universe had a beginning (coincidentally, a lot of scientists up until the past few decades thought it was eternal). What existed before that?

 

You're using human intuition. It doesn't work on the cosmological scale. Our brains haven't evolved to deal with physics on that scale of time and space and energy. In the same way that quantum mechanics doesn't seem to make sense yet works and is provable by experiment, and that Einsteinian relativistic mechanics is also extremely unintuitive and still works (GPS systems use it every day), the big bang doesn't have to make sense to you. There doesn't need to be anything before or even time, though there might be. We're working on it, but nothing we've found about it is evidence of the supernatural. Big bang can be singular or cyclical, whatever, but like gravity before we understood it, that doesn't make them not part of nature.

 

If the last refuge of the religious is vaguely implying that not having an answer to every single thing that goes on in the universe means there's a god, it says more about their lack of credibility than anything else.

 

By the way, Liberty, if God (with evidence) existed, how would that affect your life and your decisions?

 

That would make the world totally different. But I'd have to figure out which god it is and what he wants based on whatever evidence made me believe. What if it's a malevolent god? What if he wants me to pray 5 times a day? What if he thinks women are inferior and slavery is ok?

 

Let me ask you this: What's falsifiable about your belief in god? What would be different in the world if there's no god?

 

Oh and as far as dragon vs God existing, if you can tell me a book with multiple sources and some fair archaeological evidence showing these dragons probably existed, I may start believing. What frustrates me about your atheism though, Liberty, is that you haven't really explored the theism (from everything I gathered). There is pretty good historical evidence for Christ. As an example, there are many more writings based on this poor carpenter than Caesar at the time. The belief aspect comes in the Resurrection. I really fail to see why the Resurrection is hard to believe though. That seems way more probable than a universe popping out of no where for no apparent reason.

 

I haven't explored it? I think I know more about it than you do, quite obviously.

 

Historical evidence that a guy existed has nothing to do with him being a god. How many times do we have to say that?

 

Oh, and it's funny how you even misunderstand the dragon analogy and took it so literally. I wasn't saying there's no evidence that a guy named jesus existed, or the many guys who wrote the bible decades later, filling it with attrocities and dubious morals (remember evilbible.com?). I'm saying there's no evidence that any of it is magical, supernatural, godlike, just like there's no evidence for dragons. You turned this into: "but there's evidence for a man named jesus" rather than "but there's evidence that he's a god".

 

And if you find the resurrection easy to believe without evidence of it, I still have that bridge for sale.

 

I don't think that's much of a cop-out, honestly. For instance, let's say the God of the Bible is real. Does our knowledge of how gravity works make a difference if we're going to heaven or hell? Not in the slightest.

 

As far as the Quran goes, here is a link:

 

http://www.miraclesofthequran.com/scientific_index.html

 

Note: I've not gone through each of these. I just know the general idea.

 

The idea of magic though, that's the problem. Let's say we lived in a world with magic. It could never be proven because the answer would always be "we just don't know how it works, but it's natural." Magic could never win the argument...even if it existed! Even if something transcended the laws of nature, you would never know it. You'd simply say "we don't know yet."

 

You're right. Just because we don't understand the big bang doesn't mean it's not part of nature. The same could be said for God, too. Perhaps he's just at a higher level of science.

 

I would say that if I knew God didn't exist, I would do whatever I please - knowing that the "good" or "bad" feelings I had could be ignored and everything could be rationalized. Indeed, we couldn't even trust science.

 

You know more about the resurrection than I do? Perhaps, but you haven't listed any books you've read yet (unless I missed it) to show how educated you are on the topic.  The resurrection is reasonable for many reasons. 1) Christianity exists.  The very existence points (but does not prove) the event happened. 2) The witnesses were willing to die for their beliefs. We're not talking about a modern day person who thinks they know. These guys either died for a lie (that they knew was a lie) or died because they felt is was true. 3) Women were the first people to see Jesus after the resurrection. In those days, that was not considered good testimony. Further, CS Lewis (if you ever get around to reading the book) presents his trilemma. Jesus is either a liar, lunatic or lord. We can't say he's a "good moral teacher" since he'd be a liar. He didn't seem crazy based on what the gospels say. Now, one could say that he is a legend, but history doesn't back that up either.

 

Here's more if you are really interested:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E9yaLOtiJU

[Liberty]

I can't even begin to unravel the non-sequiturs. I think I'm done for now.

[writser]

I can't even begin to unravel the non-sequiturs. I think I'm done for now.

 

2 days max.

[Dorsia1]

You know more about the resurrection than I do? Perhaps, but you haven't listed any books you've read yet (unless I missed it) to show how educated you are on the topic. 

 

Christopher Hitchens was very well read and educated on this subject and absolutely destroyed this nonsense.

Please educate us all on how one can be educated in superstition.

[stahleyp]

Liberty and writser, thanks for the very thoughtful responses. Nice.

 

Dorsia,

 

Are you referring to a debate, talk or a book for Hitchens?

 

[Dorsia1]

stahleyp,

 

All of the above.

 

[stahleyp]

stahleyp,

 

All of the above.

 

Care to recommend one?

 

I've seen plenty of his debates (frankly, he's not a very good debater) and went through God is not great.