>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^A10anis:
I watched every religious debate Hitch had. And I waited, in anticipation, for someone to provide an argument which he could not refute. It never happened. Using logic, free thought, intellect, rationale and common sense - not to mention his acerbic wit - he demolished all the religious apologists who were unwise enough to take him on.

You must have missed this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8


Actually, no, I didn't. And, if you seriously think that Craig bested Hitch, you should watch it again. Craig, in every debate, simply uses pseudo babble with a liberal sprinkling of gospel. Never has Craig been able to back up his "argument" with anything but faith, and faith cannot be used as an argument. Hitch, on the other hand.... well, if you can't see it, sadly, you never will.

>> ^VIR:
Listening to him gives me the courage to face the fear of my death, and reminds me that death itself is as natural in our world as is birth. upvote.


Walking through a mine field, courage may get you to the other side, or it may get you blown to pieces. What is important is what the truth is. Is the path you're on leading you to disaster? Are there any live mines in your path? What you need is a map, and that doesn't come from man, it comes from God. The bible says it is appointed once for man to die, and then the judgment. Which means death may be natural, but it isn't the end. What you should fear is not when your life ends, but when you are standing before God on judgment day, with no forgiveness for your sins. You need the salvation of Jesus Christ so you can escape condemnation, and receive eternal life. That is what Jesus did for you on the cross. He took the punishment for your sins so that you can be forgiven.

You have faith that Christopher Hitchens is no more, but have you thought about the alternative? That right now, Christopher is well aware there is a God, and would do anything he could to take back what he said and repent while he was here? Unfortunately, it is too late for him, but it isn't for you. Turn from your sins and get right with God while you still have time. Don't put your eternal future at stake because of the choices someone else made. Seek God and hear what He has to say, because He wants to save you from Christophers fate.

>> ^A10anis:
I watched every religious debate Hitch had. And I waited, in anticipation, for someone to provide an argument which he could not refute. It never happened. Using logic, free thought, intellect, rationale and common sense - not to mention his acerbic wit - he demolished all the religious apologists who were unwise enough to take him on.


You must have missed this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

Your video, Tribute to Christopher Hitchens - 2012 Global Atheist Conven, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Christopher Hitchens explains monotheism (Hilarious). Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

I miss Christopher Hitchens Soooo much already.

Full debate: http://videosift.com/video/Christopher-Hitchens-and-Stephen-Fry-Debate-Catholics

>> ^shinyblurry:
Flim flam flooey, I'm irrational.

Look, I'm going to back slowly away from this conversation since it has become clear to me that you are not rational. You reject the concept of knowledge outright but then demand proofs, you throw out ridiculous terms like "irreducible complexity" (let me guess: eyes? flagellum?), and you don't hold yourself to the same standards of proof as you do your philosophical opponents. I'm sorry you didn't get to spring whatever rhetorical trap you had planned with the whole "if Jesus is god" thing, but I answered that question twice.

Anyway, have a good life, and for both our sakes I hope your worldview is not correct.

So I take this to mean that you are truly agnostic about all
non-Christian gods. You will refuse to state unequivocally that there
is a council of 5 supreme beings who created the universe.

No, I will state unequivocally that Jesus is God, and that anyone else claiming to be a god is a pretender to the throne.

You do have me on the trivializing part, because god and a teapot in
space mean about the same to me since there is the same amount of
evidence for both.

I'm looking at the same evidence you are. The difference is in the presuppositions of your worldview. If you took off those glasses then you might start to see what I am talking about. For instance, the Uniformity in nature, how do you explain it?

There is no appearance of design in biological
systems (we made great leaps in understanding biology in the last 100
years or so)

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.

Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker p.1

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.

Francis Crick Nobel Laureate
What Mad Pursuit p.138 1988

There certainty is the appearance of the design, and these systems were in fact designed, but you say it is simply chance that created these sophisticated and irreducibly complex systems. I say something irreducibly complex cannot have been evolved.

, and the "fine-tuning" of physical laws are easily
explained without a higher being, and so it is not necessary.

They are not easily explained away. It is virtually a mathematical impossibility for the laws to be tuned the way they are. Check this out:



(Any universe without those properties would make life impossible and so we
would never know it existed

If I stood in front of a firing squad of 100 highly trained marksmen and survived the execution without a scratch, I should not be shocked to find out they missed, since if they hadn't, I wouldn't be alive to know that they did. In the same manner, while we shouldn't be shocked we are alive in a life permitting Universe, it doesn't follow that we shouldn't be surprised the Universe in which we find ourselves is life permitting.

, we do not know how many universes exist,
have existed, or can exist, etc.

If there are multiple universes, it just makes the fine tuning problem worse. The fine tuning on the mechanism for the multiple Universe generator would be infinitely more improbable.

If you want to maintain a god of the
gaps you are welcome to, but the natural solutions to every mystery
ever make the future of such a worldview tenuous at best.)

It isn't the God of the gaps when God is the superior explantion for the evidence, such as the information in DNA.

The presence of a supernatural being is, by definition, unfalsifiable.
The concept of a supernatural being is literally meaningless, since
you can say anything about it and not be proven wrong (or right). It
cannot be measured

Is believing in the existence of the external world falsifiable? Is the idea that the Universe began 5 seconds ago and all of your memories are false falsifiable? Is the fact that you cannot falsify either of those ideas make your existence meaningless?

The non-existence of God certainly is falsifiable; He could show up, as in the second coming. God cannot be measured by emprical methodology because God is a Spirit. This doesn't prove He doesn't exist. I notice you didn't answer my question, which is basic..you say you have an open mind, so I ask, if Jesus is God, would you turn your life over to Him and follow Him?

>> ^botono9

>> ^shinyblurry:

There is no reason to believe there is a teapot floating in space, but there is reason to believe that the Universe was created by a supreme being. Could there be one in space unknown to all? Sure, and I wouldn't unequivicably state that there are not. Perhaps some astronauts were having a tea party in outer space one day and the teapot floated off. If I did unequivicably state there were none, I would have a burden of proof, and that is why Christopher had to explain himself.

So I take this to mean that you are truly agnostic about all non-Christian gods. You will refuse to state unequivocally that there is a council of 5 supreme beings who created the universe.

>> ^shinyblurry:
It is simply to try to trivialize the question to equate the idea of God, which can explain everything from the fine tuning of the physical laws, the appearance of design in biological systems, and the information in DNA, to teapots, unicorns, and fairies, which explain absolutely nothing.

You do have me on the trivializing part, because god and a teapot in space mean about the same to me since there is the same amount of evidence for both. There is no appearance of design in biological systems (we made great leaps in understanding biology in the last 100 years or so), and the "fine-tuning" of physical laws are easily explained without a higher being, and so it is not necessary. (Any universe without those properties would make life impossible and so we would never know it existed, we do not know how many universes exist, have existed, or can exist, etc. If you want to maintain a god of the gaps you are welcome to, but the natural solutions to every mystery ever make the future of such a worldview tenuous at best.)

The presence of a supernatural being is, by definition, unfalsifiable. The concept of a supernatural being is literally meaningless, since you can say anything about it and not be proven wrong (or right). It cannot be measured


>> ^shinyblurry:
So, you're an agnostic? I was once agnostic and did not see any evidence for God or Spirit, although I did not rule out His existence either. Let me ask you this..if Jesus is God, would you turn your life over to Him and follow Him?

I am an atheist, but I am not blind to evidence and so my position is capable of change.

The "explanatory power" of a teapot is irrelevant to my question. Do you believe in it or not? If not, why not? You are dodging the question, and it is painfully obvious why. You find yourself in the same position that Mr. Hitchens did, which is to prove a negative.

You can prove a negative. For instance, there are no US Senators who are muslims. Go to http://www.senate.gov/ to verify.

There is no reason to believe there is a teapot floating in space, but there is reason to believe that the Universe was created by a supreme being. Could there be one in space unknown to all? Sure, and I wouldn't unequivicably state that there are not. Perhaps some astronauts were having a tea party in outer space one day and the teapot floated off. If I did unequivicably state there were none, I would have a burden of proof, and that is why Christopher had to explain himself.

Explanatory power is entirely relevent to the question because you are trying to establish an equivilency between the question of Gods existence and the question of the existence of anything you can dream up in your mind. It is simply to try to trivialize the question to equate the idea of God, which can explain everything from the fine tuning of the physical laws, the appearance of design in biological systems, and the information in DNA, to teapots, unicorns, and fairies, which explain absolutely nothing.

When Christopher attested to the fact that he believes that God does not exist, the burden of proof was on him to prove that He does not. The reason he could not is because he had blind faith in this idea.

of all choices, atheism requires the greatest faith, as it demands that ones limited store of human knowledge is sufficient to exclude the possibility of God.

francis collins human genome project

I don't have faith in a self-creating universe, I just don't see evidence for an all powerful being. As soon as evidence for one appears, my views will change. This is not faith. It is, in fact, the opposite of faith.

So, you're an agnostic? I was once agnostic and did not see any evidence for God or Spirit, although I did not rule out His existence either. Let me ask you this..if Jesus is God, would you turn your life over to Him and follow Him?



>> ^botono9:
>> ^shinyblurry:
A flying teapot explains exactly nothing; it has no explanatory power. The idea of God does. Between evolution and special creation you have exausted all the possibilities. You have faith in a self-creating universe, I have faith that it was designed by an all powerful being. I see evidence of design, and since it is mathematically impossible it happened by chance, God is a far more plausible hypothesis according to the evidence
The "explanatory power" of a teapot is irrelevant to my question. Do you believe in it or not? If not, why not? You are dodging the question, and it is painfully obvious why. You find yourself in the same position that Mr. Hitchens did, which is to prove a negative.
I don't have faith in a self-creating universe, I just don't see evidence for an all powerful being. As soon as evidence for one appears, my views will change. This is not faith. It is, in fact, the opposite of faith.

>> ^shinyblurry:

A flying teapot explains exactly nothing; it has no explanatory power. The idea of God does. Between evolution and special creation you have exausted all the possibilities. You have faith in a self-creating universe, I have faith that it was designed by an all powerful being. I see evidence of design, and since it is mathematically impossible it happened by chance, God is a far more plausible hypothesis according to the evidence

The "explanatory power" of a teapot is irrelevant to my question. Do you believe in it or not? If not, why not? You are dodging the question, and it is painfully obvious why. You find yourself in the same position that Mr. Hitchens did, which is to prove a negative.

I don't have faith in a self-creating universe, I just don't see evidence for an all powerful being. As soon as evidence for one appears, my views will change. This is not faith. It is, in fact, the opposite of faith.

A flying teapot explains exactly nothing; it has no explanatory power. The idea of God does. Between evolution and special creation you have exausted all the possibilities. You have faith in a self-creating universe, I have faith that it was designed by an all powerful being. I see evidence of design, and since it is mathematically impossible it happened by chance, God is a far more plausible hypothesis according to the evidence.

>> ^botono9:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Yes, Hitchens tried to cloak himself in the vast and endless void of unbelief, yet Lane quickly cornered him and he was forced to admit that he did not in fact believe God exists, which is the assertion of atheism, regardless of how you try to game the definition. Did you miss that part? Of course he didn't have any arguments for this assertion. I think Hitchens fell far short of even the most objective measure of success here.
Do you believe there is a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Jupiter and Neptune? Please present your evidence for or against. Any refusal to present evidence will be taken as proof that you failed the debate.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Yes, Hitchens tried to cloak himself in the vast and endless void of unbelief, yet Lane quickly cornered him and he was forced to admit that he did not in fact believe God exists, which is the assertion of atheism, regardless of how you try to game the definition. Did you miss that part? Of course he didn't have any arguments for this assertion. I think Hitchens fell far short of even the most objective measure of success here.

Do you believe there is a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Jupiter and Neptune? Please present your evidence for or against. Any refusal to present evidence will be taken as proof that you failed the debate.

I love Tyson. Listening to him is like listening to a combination of my two favourite people, Richard Feynman and Christopher Hitchens.