It read:
Dave,
I responded to your "A numbers game post" in the comment section. See: http://descentintonihilism.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-numbers-game.html
Are you up for a audio recorded debate on the 15 questions for evolutionists which will be distributed to 20,000 YouTube subscribers? See: http://creation.com/15-questions If so, please pick a debate partner. You will debate someone with post high school training in biology and the popular YouTube Christian Shockofgod.
Second, if you could show that global atheism/agnosticism are not shrinking and that global creationism is not on the rise without committing the fallacy of exclusion, it would be appreciated. Please utilize this data when responding: http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/06/down-with-evolutionary-belief-down-with.html
Today I on the blog, I posted a debate challenge to you.
Sincerely,
15 questions for evolutionists
Questions
Will atheist Dave take up the challenge? Will atheist Dave duck the debate and further demonstrate that the decline of global atheism and agnosticism and the rise of biblical creationism are good things and that the ideologies of atheism/agnosticism/evolutionism cannot withstand cross-examination?
Decline of global atheism video
Related resources:
Question Evolution! Campaign
15 questions for evolutionists
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 1 - Questions 1-3
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 4–8
Responses to the 15 Questions: part 2 - Questions 9-15
Graphic credits:
Gauntlet: http://www.clker.com/clipart-silver-gauntlet-no-splash.html
So the mighty Question Evolution! campaign is now reduced to "throwing down gauntlets" to random people on the internet? Yes, that's the way to overturn a well-supported scientific theory!
ReplyDeleteNobody in their right mind is going to debate on Shockofgod's chatroom, by the way, because they know that they'll just be banned by one of his idiot mods the moment they says something Shock can't answer. Which rarely takes long.
Fergus,
DeleteA few thoughts:
1. Please support your notion that the person was a "random person" on the internet. How would I recognize a random person for example? Do they move frequently and unpredictably for example?
2. I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on your notion that evolution is a scientific theory.
3. I do find it ironic and humorous that atheists often make unsupported claims. I have doubts that debaters against Shockofgod have been banned due to Shockofgod not being able to respond to their questions. Yesterday, Shockofgod said in his free chat room that he has done 60 debates with atheists/agnostics. If you go to his YouTube channel, there are a lot of recorded debates he has uploaded. He may have uploaded every debate to his YouTube channel. Shockofgod wins hands down every debate with atheists/agnostics and I will let readers judge if this is true by listening to the recorded debates on his YouTube channel. I also know he could win a debate against you quite easily. If your allegation is true, then why did all these atheists/agnostics debate him?
If you have proof and evidence of your allegation, please provide it.
Furthermore, given your allegation, I do find it humorous that you are not challenging Shockofgod to a debate at a mutually agreed upon internet forum. This seems very suspicious to me and an indication that you are merely a disgruntled atheists who is resentful that Christians win all the prominent debates with atheists and agnostics. No doubt that is why Richard Dawkins and the British Humanist Society were afraid to debate William Lane Craig.
4. Also, be aware that in order for your future comments to be approved, you will have to support your accusations and not merely toss them onto the internet like some greasy spoon short order cook.
Fergus,
DeleteYou made an unsupported claim in your most recent blog comment and ignored my reasonable request. As a result, your comment will never see the light of day at this blog.
By the way, your atheist evangelism reminds me of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXRH50fvHWA
Is it any wonder that when it comes to internet atheism the thrill is gone! as this article demonstrates: http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/05/internet-atheism-and-skepticism-thrill.html
You entirely missed the point of the article in question. You've repeatedly argued "Atheism is declining and Creationism is on the rise", to which Dave responded "even if that's true, the number of adherents a position has doesn't determine its truth value" to which you responded "yeah but I'm right about the numbers."
ReplyDeleteEven if you are right about the numbers, that doesn't mean that the numbers are right about creationism. Which metaphysical worldview has more subscribers and how human beings got here are two completely unrelated questions. The answer to one has nothing to do with the answer to the other. Have you not considered this?
Dave is also saying that if we're going to count numbers, we should count the numbers of experts. Even if your numbers about the growth of Christianity are accurate, the scientific consensus is undoubtedly that man evolved to his present form over the course of millions of years. Dave acknowledges that this is no guarantee of truth but argues that a head count of the experts at the top of the field has greater inductive soundness than a head count of average Americans. This is perfectly reasonable if you acknowledge what you're doing and see that there's room for error.
If I were to be frank I would say that this is unduly inflammatory and aggressive post. It makes you appear to be a zealot, and nobody would bother to debate a zealot.
Unknown,
DeleteWhy are you bothering to offer an illogical hodgepodge of lame commentary? I hope you don't hope to stop the global decline atheism and the global rise of creationism. I hope you are not hoping to ignite the first atheism/evolutionism revival.
A few points:
1. I clearly gave resources in the post thoroughly debunking the religions of atheism and evolutionism. Stop using the fallacy of exclusion.
2. Your appeal to authority combined with an appeal to popularity within expert communities remains unconvincing. For example, the economists in academia and mainstream economics publications did not see the financial crisis of 2008 coming although conservative free market economists did. You definitely need to study the history of science more as far as the social and physical sciences in order to have a deeper appreciation of how many times the consensus of scientists has been wrong due to adherence to outdated notions and outdated worldviews. Science often progresses when empirical science prevails over slavish adherence to consensus.
Next, there are numerous occasions where the scientific consensus was wrong and the Bible was right. See: http://creationwiki.org/Bible_scientific_foreknowledge
Lastly, we have challenged your blog community to a debate on the 15 questions for evolutionists with the debate being widely distributed and you have ducked the debate challenge. Stop being cowards and wasting our time via these small fry debates within this blog post comment area. If your community was confident in your purported beliefs and believed they could withstand cross-examination, you would welcome the debate challenge and even counter propose a series of debates. Atheism/agnosticism/evolution are worldviews filled with cowards and liars and we both know this. i laugh at your cowardice and it confirms that the evolutionary religion will be crushed like a tin can and thrown on the garbage heap of the foolish ideas of men.
I don't care about global atheism at all. I'm not looking to evangelize, that's your business. I don't view religion as a popularity contest.
DeleteAs for point 1, I included all the premises that are relevant to my argument. The fact that you consider atheism debunked doesn't matter to this point. Atheism is a purely metaphysical project. It cannot be proven right or wrong, because it is not a question of fact. And your arguments here are about its prevalence, not its validity. Further, the doctrine of exclusion applies only to deductive arguments, not inductive ones. But if you feel that I have failed to say anything I was in fact relying on you are free to point out my oversight.
As for point 2, the analogy between economics and scientific consensus isn't a strong one, and further you don't need to be convinced by an appeal to authority for it to be a good idea. What is important is that the scientific community is right about novel points far more often than either the man in the street or the Bible. If you have to appeal to authority, the best authority available on naturalistic questions is the consensus of natural science. For instance the bible didn't predict and can't offer any insight into other galaxies, black holes, nano-silicate crystals, quarks, Antarctica, or the element Curium. Natural science describes and explains these things in a reasonable, rational way. To drive the point home here is a list of scientific academies and societies that explicitly endorse evolution both factually and conceptually.
http://www.interacademies.net/File.aspx?id=6150
Even if the bible is later shown to be right and the scientific consensus is shown to be wrong it is still a better bet to side with the scientific consensus over the Bible until that happens.
As for the history of science, it always proceeds through the same process of theory, hypothesis, experiment, observation, and revision moving from one best guess to the next. Evolution as a theory is constantly revised, but until an observation it cannot explain comes about the program of science is to accept it as the best explanation available. Everyone recognizes that this does not mean evolution is for certain correct or could not be shown to be wrong later. However, it has the longest and most successful run of explaining phenomena. This doesn't mean science isn't open to changing its mind or its world view, it just has to be convinced first. Evolution has convinced it, and nothing has convinced it otherwise notwithstanding the best efforts of creationists. Even if you were correct you cannot skip a step in the process, which is my read of what you're endorsing.
Lastly, your debate challenge is addressed inappropriately. If you want to force evolution to stand up to cross examination then you should be talking to evolutionary biologists, not bloggers. However if you were to consider the history of science you would see that evolution has been successfully standing up to cross examination for the last century, which is why so many academic societies would so readily endorse such a strong statement about it.
And even then would I enter into a debate with you, because we disagree on fundamental premises that make such a forum impossible. You believe that science as an institution is a fraud to destroy the Bible, and you believe the Bible is infallibly and literally true. I believe that science is probably the safest best for an accurate description of the natural world, and that the Bible is meant to be a moral lesson, not a historical one.
Again with this "fallacy of exclusion" nonsense. That only applies if the information excluded is relevant to the point in question, which, in this case isn't, as you want to make it, "is atheism/evolution true", but is in fact "do the number of adherents of a belief system have any relation to the truth of said system"? All of your articles on atheism and evolution have no bearing at all on that question.
DeletePerivale
Perivale,
DeleteLet us know if you want to crawl out of your intellectual bunny hole and accept our debate offer: http://login.meetcheap.com/conference,89538844
Unknown,
ReplyDeleteLet us know if you want to crawl out of your intellectual bunny hole and accept our debate offer: http://login.meetcheap.com/conference,89538844