Tag: debating

Debating with Christians

“Why don’t we just start believing there’s a little green leprechaun on my lap waiting to grant my every wish while we’re at it?”

Question from Brian:
It’s me again. This Christian at my school is planning on debating me about religion this Monday. My problem isn’t really with the information, it’s just that people always think that I think I’m better than they are. What do you think?

Answer by Andrea:
Dear Brian,

First – Kudos to you for debating Christians! We need to have more of that in this country.

Regarding your question, during my college days, I would have said, of course I’m better and more rational than you, how can any sane person believe there’s an invisible wizard in the sky? Why don’t we just start believing there’s a little green leprechaun on my lap waiting to grant my every wish while we’re at it?

These days I’m more tactful, and in studying sociology and neurophysiology, I realize that people can genuinely believe they have had a supernatural experience, and not knowing brain neurophysiology, they attribute it to a supernatural force. Others don’t have the strength to handle life’s issues without a crutch, which can also result from improper upbringing in the formative years.

In answer to your question, however, I would touch on the following:

· Make it clear that everyone has a mixture of strengths and weaknesses including yourself, and no one is necessarily better than anyone else.

· Make people aware that you think they are entitled to believe whatever they want to as long as they don’t try to shove it down everyone’s throat.

· To bring people around to my way of thinking, or at least understanding it so they don’t fear it so much, I would mention some of the reasons why I don’t believe, which for me would be:
– Other than biblically-related writing, there is no secular proof of a man who could heal lepers, raise the dead or walk on water. There is also no proof of any apostles or most, if not all, the stories in the Bible (eg the great flood, etc.). There is secular proof of a King Herod, but he died 2 years before Christ was said to be born. There is also no proof of any mass slaughtering of male children.
– There is much proof that Christianity is merely a plagiarism of many mythologies preceding it (
see for instance “The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold and Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled at URL: www.truthbeknown.com/christ.htm)
– How can one believe religion is a good thing when secular societies are so much more societally healthy, while the US, the most religious country in the industrialized world, has the most societal dysfunction (i.e., highest rates of assaults, murder, imprisonment). The second most religious country, Portugal, is also second most dysfunctional. See also Phil Zuckerman and Gregory Paul for stats.
– Mention the contradictions found throughout the Bible. I think if more people actually read the Old Testament, more people would be atheists.


Try also Secular Student Alliance for answers to your question and for purposes of community.
Hope that helps.
Best,
Andrea

Bad Arguments Never Die

There seems to be no argument in favour of gods and religion, or against areas of science deemed incompatible with these, which has been entirely discarded by people of faith for its poor merit and performance.

Question I’ve been pondering:
There seems to be no argument in favour of gods and religion, or against areas of science deemed incompatible with these, which has been entirely discarded by people of faith for its poor merit and performance.

People are still proclaiming that the second law of thermodynamics prevents order and complexity from increasing at all without divine help, or that the continued existence of apes disproves the idea that we evolved from apes, or that we all ought to worship a particular god because the only alternative is that there are no gods.

Do these people not see or understand the counter-arguments? Are they preaching on auto-pilot?

Answer:
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

The hypotheses I’m about to put forward don’t only apply to religious people. Advocates of any position in any area (including my own positions) may have the same issues with their thinking. It’s just that working on the sites I do, I mostly see these in the context of religious and anti-atheist arguments.

Here are three reasons which together, I think, can fully account for the persistence of invalid or unsound arguments.

1. Ignorance
It’s an unpleasant word, but it’s not necessarily an insult. Ignorance simply means there’s something a person doesn’t know. Some people really think, for example, that evolution causes entire populations of one species to change en masse into another, leaving no precursors and no diversity. Thus if there are humans, supposedly there can be no remaining apes.

The reasons for ignorance can often be deduced when trying to inform people and reduce ignorance, because either they welcome new information or they don’t. They could be genuinely incapable of grasping the essential concepts in their current frame of mind and merely parroting the arguments, or they could be deliberately shielding themselves from dissent to preserve their own determination (e.g. standing “firmly in Christ”), or their mentors could be the ones doing the shielding (e.g. warning against “the devil’s words“).

2. Overconfidence
I came to this realisation only a few days ago. There are some people who presume that any argument in favour of their position, no matter how old, incomprehensible or well-refuted, must be perfectly sound and is therefore worth repeating and defending. They will not concede a single aspect of a single point to their opponents, so sure are they that every person who has ever argued alongside them was correct in every way. (It seems to follow often from the idea that gods don’t lead their own soldiers astray.) As opposed to not knowing or understanding enough to find the flaws in their arguments, they just never try.

3. Sophistry
This is broadly defined as using arguments which one knows are unsound, which is a dishonest practice at its core. One might know exactly why an argument doesn’t hold water, but if one’s objective is to convince as many people as possible then one can spread the argument far and wide regardless, aiming it at those who don’t yet know its flaws. It’s a way of exploiting the ignorance of one’s opponents or the public without attempting to inform or educate anybody. It’s a very self-serving approach, and I’m pretty sure it goes on all the time.

Sadly, thanks to the above three phenomena, bad arguments can still serve misguided or unscrupulous people, so they never go away. It’s worth trying to determine which of the three is responsible in a given case, because it will inform your response or reaction.

– SmartLX