Actually, that's exactly what I say, and average modern human morality is considerably superior to the filth that the biblical God advocates.

The moral standard of western civilization is founded upon judeo-christian beliefs. Read:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595555455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366921071&sr=8-1&keywords=book+that+made+your+world

Following the morality the biblical God advocates is the hardest thing you will ever do. The standard of today is a superficial, politically correct morality where you pretend to be nice to people but curse them when they aren't around. God requires a transformation on the inside where you have genuine love for your fellow man.

I am only saying that they are wrong by todays generally agreed upon moral standards. Some of these moral standards are extremely effective and have been around since very early human communities, so they only have the illusion of being absolute due to high adherence rate.

Are you saying nigh universal adherence to certain moral standards isn't evidence for an absolute standard of morality?

Murder, theft, oppression and incest are three fairly obvious examples. The evolutionarily advantageous trait of society building tends to list it's effectiveness when such things are widespread. But we have a very long human tradition of sanctioning and celebrating murder and theft as long as it occurs well outside our cohort. Killing other tribes is celebrated in the bible, as is stealing their possessions. Ethically justified slavery took another 4000 years to mostly get rid of, and hell, it was common practice to fuck your fifteen year old cousin all the way up to about the late 1800s here in the good old US of A as long as it was under the marital auspices of the church, of course.

Yep, but thank God that his just definition of morality - if we didn't have god's guidance through scripture, we'd probably do crazy shit!

You don't understand what God was doing in the Old Testament, or why He did it the way He did. It is morally consistent with His goodness and holiness, and there are logical reasons for why this is so. So far you are not interested in hearing them or discussing them. When you are let me know. In the end you don't have any excuse for suppressing the truth about Jesus, no matter what you think about how God acted in the Old Testament.

Using the word 'absolute' is a concession to brevity, but nice try - seriously dude, this is laughable and it wouldn't even stand up in Jr. High debate - absolutes do exist, they just need to be well justified, and yes if you want to be nitpicky about it there is an ever so remote chance that 1+1 is not equal to two in some distant corner of the universe. But as humans with an admittedly limited scope of understanding, we have to accept that level of certainty. If you want to relegate your theory to claiming its space somewhere in the possibility that we might be wrong about the whole 2+2=4 thing, go right on ahead.

There, that's what I meant by absolute. happy?

Basically, what you're saying is that because 2+2 probably equals four everywhere in the Universe, you are free to make absolute statements about morality? The fact is that your belief system leaves you with no justification for any absolute statement what so ever. Why should 2 + 2 always equal 4 in the first place? Can you tell me why the laws of physics should work in the same way 5 seconds from now without using circular reasoning?

Can you justify any piece of knowledge without God? If you can then tell me one thing you know and how you know it. Could you be wrong about everything you know?

Well then thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass in the whole god based morality thing. I prefer to have a really good reason to never slaughter innocent kids. But thanks for finally answering my question: there has been a good reason to butcher a toddler after all! Praise The Lord, for he is good!

It comes back to the same question: As the giver of life, and the adjudicator of His Creation, is it wrong for God to take life?

And here's another interesting brain tickler. If everything god commands is right, and god has a track record of testing his faithful with their willingness to commit infanticide, how can you say that this lady isn't moral?

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2001-08-17/news/0108170166_1_baby-s-death-baby-s-father-documents

The scripture is finished and anything which contradicts it is not of God.

Wrong, I know that things are wrong because humans and cultures have a long history of interacting with reality, and certain strategies have been more successful than others. You haven't spent one iota of your time discrediting this notion, whereas I have given you plenty of examples crediting mine and discrediting yours.

What I am supposed to be discrediting? You're asking me to nail jello to a wall. You have not even defined what "successful" is supposed to mean beyond pure survival. In that case, every civilization has been successful. Tell me what your definition of success is supposed to be.

For the millionth time, I have no hopes of convincing you of anything - you'll defend your stance against literally any proof. But you seem to come here on the sift with the intent of demonstrating to others that there is some logical basis for your beliefs.

What proof? The foundation of atheism stands upon the shifting sands of relative truth. You, the atheist, ultimately make yourself the measure of all truth. Because of that, you can't tell me a single fact about the world that you can justify.

Well you're failing miserably, mainly because you are only capable of restating the following sentence as if it is an agreed upon truth:

"Not only is the entire concept logically contradictory, but it doesn't match our experience, which is that some things are absolutely wrong. "

I don't expect you to have any good support for that, but the audience out there just waiting to be convinced, they will need at least something.

Torturing babies for fun; not absolutely wrong?

I'm still waiting for you to give Stalin some kind, any kind of argument as to why he should adopt your morality and abandon his own. If you can't tell Stalin why he is wrong, then you have no hope of escaping the charge of incoherency.

@shveddy As goodness itself, what is good or evil is defined by His nature. As our Lawgiver, something is moral or immoral because God says that it is. He gives us commands about how to behave and then we are obligated to obey those commands, and we are accountable for disobeying them. When God issued the command to wipe out Canaan, it would have been immoral for the Israelites to disobey Him. He used them as His instrument and therefore what they did was not immoral. It would have been immoral without Gods command to do so.

There is no absolute morality.

and there are literally no rules on what we can and cant try.

Do you see that these are absolute statements?

On what grounds do you say there is no absolute morality?

Saying there are no rules is a rule; this statement contradicts itself.

This goes to the root of the incoherence that the video, and I, are referring to. It is impossible to have moral relativism without absolute truth, because otherwise you have no grounds for your claim. But you have no grounds for absolute truth either, so therefore every claim to moral relativism contradicts itself.

You say this is reality, but it isn't coherent with reality. Not only is the entire concept logically contradictory, but it doesn't match our experience, which is that some things are absolutely wrong. If people rob and cheat you, you don't say that they are just executing their particular survival strategy, you say that those things are wrong. You know they are wrong because you have a God given conscience which tells you that they are. Therefore, you are living like a theist but denying it with your atheism.

Okay, I will answer it under those terms. I will say though that you're not taking any ground, and your inability to tell me why anything is wrong is consistent with Ravis claim that atheism is incoherent.

My claim is that God is the source of morality. He gave us commands as to what we should or shouldn't do, and that is what is constituted as moral or immoral. It is also important to note that it stands apart from all human opinion as to what it should or shouldn't be.

Your question essentially is, how is Gods command to wipe out the Canaanite civilization, including the children, not inconsistent with His nature. Well, you could ask the same question about Sodom and Gomorrah, or Tyre, and other cities that God wiped out because of their disobedience. You could ask the same question about the flood which wiped out everyone in the world, men women and children except 8 people. The real question is, is it a crime for God to take life? If it is not a crime, it is not inconsistent with His nature.

The first thing to consider is that God is the giver and sustainer of all life. He does not make any guarantees concerning this, whether it be the amount of time lived or the quality of the life; life is a gift from Him and He determines when it begins and when it ends. He doesn't owe us anything. This is what Job realized when he said "the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord"

If you were to create a sentient robot, would it be a crime for you to shut it off? Well, God doesn't shut anyone off, but He does bring them into judgment. Every day 100,000 people die and all of them are headed for Gods judgment. Why He chose to end their lives at that particular time, I couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is that it is His prerogative.

Even still, the judgment of God doesn't fall for no reason. God judges us because we are sinners. The moment any person commits a sin they are under judgment and facing eternal punishment unless they have their sins forgiven through Jesus Christ. Whichever lives God took which were morally accountable to Him was just; it is only Gods mercy that He allows someone to the time to repent after they have sinned.

2 Peter 3:9

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance

Now, even young children have sinned, but they are not morally accountable to God until they have reached a certain level of comprehension. However, whether they are morally accountable or not, or whether they have committed a crime or not, it is still Gods prerogative to take their life. Some children are born stillborn; why does God choose to take their life at that point? I couldn't tell you that, but I know that God has reasons for doing so.

We aren't always privy to those reasons. What we do know about Canaan is that He gave them 400 years to repent. The children who died which were morally accountable, if any, had a fair chance at receiving eternal life. Those who were not morally accountable will go to Heaven automatically. The conditions of this world are only temporary; the only way to gauge fairness is from the eternal perspective, and whether those involved had a chance to partake in eternal life or not.

Therefore from all of this I can conclude that it is not a crime for God to take life, and therefore His actions against the Canaanite civilization were not inconsistent with His nature.

I wouldn't say anything, I don't think that it would be particularly effective. We all have our own idea of what morality is, and Stalin's is a very complex result of innumerable factors like upbringing, disposition and circumstance, and it would be a bit self important of me to think that I could argue that out of him. He lived, acted, died and left his mark on history. The paremeters set forth by the physical world and the collective actions of everyone else who has lived either as a contemporary or since has judged which of those actions have value and will live on. It's a messy process, certainly, but it's just how things work.

In other words, you don't have any argument as to why Stalin should adopt your morality and abandon his own. If you do I invite you to post it here. How can you escape Ravi's charge that atheism is incoherent in the absence of any such argument?

Thankfully, we seem to be heading in a direction that diverges considerably from that Stalin would espouse. I think that a certain evolutionary tendency towards beneficial collectivism is responsible for that.

Mind you that I'm not arguing for a one world government here, but rather I think that a sense of connection and personal responsibility for the wellbeing of everything else on this planet, ecosystem and all, will bode well for how I and my descendants experience this thing we call life.

It's only one of many competing survival strategies, and nothing more.

So if Hitler had won and the world was in the grips of his totalitarian regime, this would just a particular evolutionary tendency playing out? What makes one better than the other?

"Do you believe that there has ever been a case where slavery has been justified, and do you believe that there has ever been a good reason for anyone to butcher a toddler with a sword?"

Why is it wrong to do either of those things?

I loved this game. I played it all in one night because I couldn't tear myself away from it. Its been a long time since a single player game did this for me.

Still, the ending did bother me slighty. From some reviewer,
"...these third act disclosures don’t render Infinite incoherent, they do take the story to a place where notions of coherency and consequence no longer seem to matter, before backtracking and then attempting to offer a finality that doesn’t make sense within the universe the game has created."
Pretty much exactly how I felt at the end. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it really made much sense.

I'm playing it through again on the 1999 mode and it impressive how much detail and foreshadowing there is. For example, the key you get at the start. Booker spins it so the that the bird on one side and the cage on the other sort of merge together as if they are in superposition. I may have not noticed the significance but I still think these little hints do sort of bury into your subconcious and generally improve your experience on the first playthrough.

Wrong, my question is in no way off topic and implying otherwise may be easier for you, but it won't do much to convince anyone. We are discussing the incoherence of atheism relative to the superior coherence of Christianity as it pertains to systems of morality. Therefore any question regarding the efficacy of a Judeo-Christian theistic moral compass is entirely relevant.

So my question remains, but I'll answer yours because it too is relevant:

I wouldn't say anything, I don't think that it would be particularly effective. We all have our own idea of what morality is, and Stalin's is a very complex result of innumerable factors like upbringing, disposition and circumstance, and it would be a bit self important of me to think that I could argue that out of him. He lived, acted, died and left his mark on history. The paremeters set forth by the physical world and the collective actions of everyone else who has lived either as a contemporary or since has judged which of those actions have value and will live on. It's a messy process, certainly, but it's just how things work.

Thankfully, we seem to be heading in a direction that diverges considerably from that Stalin would espouse. I think that a certain evolutionary tendency towards beneficial collectivism is responsible for that.

Mind you that I'm not arguing for a one world government here, but rather I think that a sense of connection and personal responsibility for the wellbeing of everything else on this planet, ecosystem and all, will bode well for how I and my descendants experience this thing we call life.

It's only one of many competing survival strategies, and nothing more.

I'm still waiting for you to answer my question

@alcom

I hear you shinyblurry, but I feel that your argument meanders back to the original appeal to authority that most believers resort to when justifying their positions. I also find that the related video links provided by TheGenk provide a valid refutation of the idea that God is The One who put values of good and evil inside each of us.

There is always an appeal to authority, either to God or to men. There are either objective moral values which are imposed by God, or morality is relative and determined by men. If morality is relative then there is no good or evil, and what is considered good today may be evil tomorrow. If it isn't absolutely wrong to murder indiscriminately, for instance, then if enough people agreed that it was right, it would be. Yet, this does not cohere with reality because we all know that murdering indiscriminately is absolutely wrong. The true test of a worldview is its coherence to reality and atheism is incoherent with our experience, whereas Christian theism describes it perfectly.

If you feel the videos provide a valid refutation, could you articulate the argument that they are using so we can discuss them here?

In my mind, Zacharias' incoherence with the atheist's ability to love and live morally is influenced by his own understanding of the source of moral truth. Because he defines the origin of pure love as Jesus' sacrifice on behalf of mankind, it is unfathomable to him that love could be found as a result of human survival/selection based of traits of cooperation, peace and mutual benefits of our social structure. His logic is therefore coloured and his mind is closed to certain ideas and possibilities.

The idea of agape love is a Christian idea, and agape love is unconditional love. You do not get agape love out of natural selection because it is sacrificial and sacrificing your well being or your life has a very negative impact on your chance to survive and pass on your genes. However, Christ provided the perfect example of agape love by sacrificing His life not only for His friends and family, but for people who hate and despise Him. In the natural sense, since Jesus failed to pass on His genes His traits should be selected out of the gene pool. Christ demonstrated a higher love that transcends the worldly idea of love. Often when the world speaks of love, it is speaking of eros love, which is love based on physical attraction, or philial love, which is brotherly love. The world knows very little of agape love outside of Christ. Christ taught agape love as the universal duty of men towards God:

Luke 6:27 "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
Luke 6:28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Luke 6:29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.
Luke 6:30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.
Luke 6:31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
Luke 6:32 "If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
Luke 6:33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
Luke 6:34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.
Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Luke 6:36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Indeed, moral foundations can and must change with the times. As our understanding of empathy, personal freedoms and the greater good of mankind develops with our societal and cultural evolution, so too must our standards of morality. This is most evident when concepts such as slavery and revenge (an eye for an eye) are seen as commonplace and acceptable throughout old scripture where modern society has evolved a greater understanding of the need for equality and basic human rights and policing and corrections as a measure of deterrence and rehabilitation for those individuals that stray from the path of greatest utility.

This is why slavery is no more, why racism is in decline and why eventually gay rights and green thought will be universal and our struggle to stifle the rights of gays and exploit the planet's resources to the point of our own self-extinction simply will be seen by future historians as sheer ignorance. Leviticus still pops up when people try to brand gays as deviant, even though most it is itself incoherent by today's standards. Remember that "defecating within the camp was unacceptable lest God step in it while walking in the evening." Well, today we just call that sewage management.

Some people, like Richard Dawkins, see infanticide as being the greatest utility. Some believe that to save the planet around 70 percent of the population must be exterminated. Green thought is to value the health of the planet above individual lives; to basically say that human lives are expendable to preserve the collective. This is why abortion is not questionable to many who hold these ideals; because human life isn't that valuable to them. I see many who have green thoughts contrast human beings to cattle or cockroaches. Utility is an insufficient moral standard because it is in the eye of the beholder.

In regards to the Levitical laws, those were given to the Jews and not the world, and for that time and place. God made a covenant with the Jewish people which they agreed to follow. The covenant God made with the world through Christ is different than the Mosaic law, and it makes those older laws irrelevant. If you would like to understand why God would give laws regarding slavery, or homosexuality, I can elucidate further.

In regards to your paraphrasing of Deuteronomy 23:13-14, this is really a classic example of how the scripture can be made to look like it is saying one thing, when it is actually saying something completely different. Did you read this scripture? It does not say that:

Deuteronomy 23:13 And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement.

Deuteronomy 23:14 Because the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

Gods home on Earth was in the tabernacle, and because God dwelled with His people, He exorted them to keep the camp holy out of reverence for Him.

The rules that God gave for cleanliness were 2500 years ahead of their time:

"In the Bible greater stress was placed upon prevention of disease than was given to the treatment of bodily ailments, and in this no race of people, before or since, has left us such a wealth of LAWS RELATIVE TO HYGIENE AND SANITATION as the Hebrews. These important laws, coming down through the ages, are still used to a marked degree in every country in the world sufficiently enlightened to observe them. One has but to read the book of Leviticus carefully and thoughtfully to conclude that the admonitions of Moses contained therein are, in fact, the groundwork of most of today's sanitary laws. As one closes the book, he must, regardless of his spiritual leanings, feel that the wisdom therein expressed regarding the rules to protect health are superior to any which then existed in the world and that to this day they have been little improved upon" (Magic, Myth and Medicine, Atkinson, p. 20). Dr. D. T. Atkinson

What's interesting about that is that Moses was trained in the knowledge of the Egyptians, the most advanced civilization in the world at that time. Yet you will not find even a shred of it in the bible. Their understanding of medicine at that time led to them doing things like rubbing feces into wounds; ie, it was completely primitive in comparison to the commands that God gave to Moses about cleanliness. Moses didn't know about germs but God did.

Paedophilia will never emerge as acceptable because it violates our basic understanding of human rights and the acceptable age of sexual consent. I know this is a common warning about the "slippery slope of a Godless definition of morality," but it's really a red herring. Do you honestly think society would someday deem that it carries a benefit to society? I just can't see it happening.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_Ancient_Greece

@shveddy First let me ask you a question, since we're discussing the incoherence of atheism: What argument would you give to Stalin as to why he should hold to your morality instead of his own?

I hear you shinyblurry, but I feel that your argument meanders back to the original appeal to authority that most believers resort to when justifying their positions. I also find that the related video links provided by TheGenk provide a valid refutation of the idea that God is The One who put values of good and evil inside each of us.

In my mind, Zacharias' incoherence with the atheist's ability to love and live morally is influenced by his own understanding of the source of moral truth. Because he defines the origin of pure love as Jesus' sacrifice on behalf of mankind, it is unfathomable to him that love could be found as a result of human survival/selection based of traits of cooperation, peace and mutual benefits of our social structure. His logic is therefore coloured and his mind is closed to certain ideas and possibilities.

Indeed, moral foundations can and must change with the times. As our understanding of empathy, personal freedoms and the greater good of mankind develops with our societal and cultural evolution, so too must our standards of morality. This is most evident when concepts such as slavery and revenge (an eye for an eye) are seen as commonplace and acceptable throughout old scripture where modern society has evolved a greater understanding of the need for equality and basic human rights and policing and corrections as a measure of deterrence and rehabilitation for those individuals that stray from the path of greatest utility.

This is why slavery is no more, why racism is in decline and why eventually gay rights and green thought will be universal and our struggle to stifle the rights of gays and exploit the planet's resources to the point of our own self-extinction simply will be seen by future historians as sheer ignorance. Leviticus still pops up when people try to brand gays as deviant, even though most it is itself incoherent by today's standards. Remember that "defecating within the camp was unacceptable lest God step in it while walking in the evening." Well, today we just call that sewage management.

Paedophilia will never emerge as acceptable because it violates our basic understanding of human rights and the acceptable age of sexual consent. I know this is a common warning about the "slippery slope of a Godless definition of morality," but it's really a red herring. Do you honestly think society would someday deem that it carries a benefit to society? I just can't see it happening.

God is clearly not a static foundation on which humanity bases their morals. Any cursory examination of Christian history shows that interpretations of what a Godly foundation for a life advicates have varied wildly at least from era to era, if not person to person.

There has not only overriding agreement of right and wrong between Christians throughout the ages, but also between cultures regardless of religion. Every culture has basically the same laws; don't lie, don't cheat, don't kill, don't steal etc. This is pointing to the fact that God didn't just tell us what is moral and immoral in the bible, He wrote it on our hearts. However, you are right in that actions speak louder than words. If you want to look at Christian history, it's very plain that calling yourself a Christian doesn't make you a moral person. Jesus said you will know a tree by its fruits, and a lot of Christian fruit in history has been rotten. There has also been quite a bit of good fruit as well. However, you can't pin down whether God gave a moral law to the actions of sinful human beings when the bible actually predicts the massive apostasy and moral inconsistency that you are describing. Take a look at Matthew 24, for instance.

Is there a foundation for static morality without a God to give it to you? Of course there isn't. And again I'll ask where or when we were guaranteed any such thing.

Well, it seems you agree with Ravi after all. This is exactly his point, and mine. There is no foundation for morality (or meaning, etc) without God and therefore atheism is incoherent. Atheism leads to nihilism which is inconsistent with your own experience.

But lets say that we do deserve such certainty, it still begs the question of why this foundation for morality of yours seems to have a curiously diverse array of outcomes in terms of moral norms over the millennia.

It has a diverse array of outcomes because human nature is corrupt and we can only imperfectly follow Gods laws. It also has nothing to do with what we deserve, but what is true.

Oh wait, I forgot. Your take on this whole thing is actually the only correct one, because of a personal relevation from God - of course. I guess we can now ignore all those other people who felt they had the same thing, because they just weren't lucky enough to benefit from the secure foundation of morality you have found.

It's not my take, it's what Jesus taught us:

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So your argument is with Jesus and not with me. You ask Him whether this is true or not.

And yes, spending 20 minutes detailing how Hitler and Stalin may have used certain limited aspects of atheistic thought processes to reach conclusions that are clearly not necessary outcomes of such premises, not by a long shot, and then using that to discredit an entire world view - is indeed Reducto ad Hitlerum in every possible sense of the term.

As TheGenk said, that's weak man.

Hitler is debatable but Stalins regime was atheistic at its core and that isn't debatable. Atheism wasn't peripheral to it, it was the foundation. Stalin brutally imposed atheism on the populace, and killed millions of Christians who refused to deny Christ. Don't take my word for it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union

The history of Christianity in the Soviet Union was not limited to repression and secularization. Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and the elimination of religion.[1]

The state was committed to the destruction of religion,[2][3] and destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with atheistic propaganda, and generally promoted 'scientific atheism' as the truth that society should accept.[4][5]

Religious beliefs and practices persisted among the majority of the population,[4] in the domestic and private spheres but also in the scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognised its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war.[2][6]

Hi Alcom. I agree with you that atheists are able to find value and meaning and beauty in life, but that is because we all intrinsically know that there is good and evil, and that life does have meaning, and things do have value, and there is such a thing as beauty and love. These values are ingrained into every single person who exists, because God put them there. The argument isn't that atheists don't appreciate these things, but that these values are inconsistent with their atheism. The argument is that atheists are living like theists but denying it with their atheism, thus the incoherence.

Utility isn't suitable for a foundation because the definitions are subject to change. What's good or useful today might be evil tomorrow depending on the majority opinion and conditions. Without God imposing a moral standard, there is no actual compelling reason why the morality of a pedophile is inferior to anyone elses idea of morality. If morality is just what we decide is true then any idea of right and wrong becomes meaningless because it is entirely arbitrary. Without any authority or true accountability behind it, what is moral and immoral blur into amorality.

I found Ravi's previous lecture much more compelling. The foundation of morality could certainly be defined simply by the UTILITY of peace and cooperation versus the anarchy that would result if atheists simply decided that all decisions should be based on purely on selfish motivations.

Atheists are perfectly able to find value and beauty in life, created, evolved or otherwise. I find his argument incoherent, circular and indefensible. Poetic, sure. But ultimately invalid.

lol I wasn't paying attention in a discrete math class one day and at the end there was a problem on the board for extra credit. Given a position in a series, find the number. I thought about it for about a week until I made the connection to Pascal's triangle. Wrote an equation 30 minutes before class, because it had been due the class before and as long as I got it in before the next class started it wasn't late. Just for good measure I inverted it and solved for the positon in the series given a number. Then I wrote a dumb, long rambling description of my thought process in deducing the answer. Rushed it to the professor's office and handed it to him just as he was getting ready to leave for class. I sat watching him silently reading it over until I felt compelled to apologize for the incoherent preface. He didn't answer and I excused myself and went to class feeling kind of dumb.

The professor showed up about 20 minutes late for class and explained how the assignment had been to create a simple formula to "aproximate" the position, something like, the number will be no higher than (x-1/y)(y/x-1) or some other nonsense. He hadn't ever seen an actual precise solution until that day.

Score 1 for not paying attention in class.

Skyfall was soooo boring, I could not understand what the fuss was about.
Also, Quantum of Solace is really underrated. Sure the name is ridiculous and the plot was incoherent, but at least it felt like it had a purpose and felt like a Bond film (and had some great action scenes). Skyfall didn't feel like a Bond film at all, no matter how many nods to the old days they jammed in it.

"At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."