davidylan:

Just look down at the roll-call of NL atheists reading this page. you wonder what draws them like nervous flies to a thread about "God" time and time and time again especially since they spend half the time blabbing about how God is supposedly non-existent. you would think they had something better to do than recycling the same tired arguments about why the pink tooth fairy could not possible be real.

Mr_Anony: Lol, how do you read?


True. . .but then logical evidence demands that each succeeding premise must follow from the previous and thereby providing the basis for the eventual proof. For instance, you can't proceed to prove that Logiboy built a house if your opponent will not even grant that the existence of a house itself is evidence of a builder especially without stating a definite reason how else a house can come about then we can weigh them side by side.
It is equally irrational to grant that a house was built by a person without granting that the house is evidence of a builder.

Mr_Anony:
Actually this example is a poor one because you are asking for proof of the very definition of something. Atheists by definition cannot hold that the spiritual exists and at the same time deny a spiritual being i.e. God. I don't need to provide proof for something that is part of the definition of a thing. Kinda like asking proof that a democrat(not the american political party) believes in voting

Mr_Anony:
True...Same for conclusions without basic premises

Mr_Anony:
They aren't and as far as I know, Dawkins has not requested it either.

Mr_Anony:
Actually no my friend that is inaccurate. The question was not edited out. Please watch the video. Again you are clutching on a strawman, I haven't claimed that that's what Dawkin's believes; I have made it clear however that he thinks intelligent design plausible. His only grouse is with the nature of the designer. That much is obvious

Mr_Anony:
I have told you before that intelligent design is not the same as creationism.

Mr_Anony:
No I obviously don't think it is an uncut video however I am contesting your suggestion that it was edited with the intent of undermining Dawkins that is what you have no evidence for. Dawkins answers to me already fits their "narrative" without much need for disingenious editing.

Mr_Anony:
Lol...at least one thing is clear Dawkins himself has said he was indeed talking about directed panspermia. (for the benefit of logicboy)

Mr_Anony:
2. Dawkins is here desperately trying to back away from his statements because it is obvious through the video that Dawkins has no problem with intelligent design just certain kinds of designers. He even makes a point of stressing what the designer cannot be.

3. Did you notice the "We Are The Light" song at the end?

Logicboy03:
Anonyism..............

Logicboy03:
Logical has more than one meaning. I dont mean the use of logic equations in philosophy. Garbage in garbage out. A premise can follow conclusions but faulty premises are normally put forward by your ilk.


So when your premise is "if God exist". I can dismiss whatever agrument that follows. There is no evidence for God

Atheism has only to do with God. Fail


Atheists can be spiritual. Depends on your spiritual. My gf that is a buddhist doesnt believe in god but she is spiritual because she beleives that it is respectful to pay your last respects every year at parents graves.

Mr_Anony:
Lol...at least one thing is clear Dawkins himself has said he was indeed talking about directed panspermia. (for the benefit of logicboy)

thehomer: Of course that is what he was talking about.

davidylan:

but you do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about this non-existent "God".

advocate666:
If god does actually exist, it resembles nothing to anything any of the world religion has shown us so far.

Mr_Anony: Lol....to claim that a premise is faulty, you must show what makes it faulty.

"If God exists" is actually a perfectly sound statement irrespective of whether there is actual evidence for God or not. To dismiss it prematurely shows irrationality on your part.


Nice bait and switch attempt there. Redefining spiritual now are we? Besides I think we've thrashed the issue of Buddhism is not atheist before so I won't waste my time going over it again.

thehomer:
Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't but the thing is that if they were trying to be honest, they would release it without waiting for him to request for it. It is like someone accusing another of being dishonest. If the accuser wished to show that they were honest, what they do is to present evidence nullifying the accusation especially if they hold all the cards.

I've watched the video and I'm pointing out to you that the part where he was asked if there was any other possible option out there was edited out. Maybe you should watch it and read his own response about the clip.

And I've told you that intelligent design is a form of creationism. The evidence also agrees with me.

So Dawkins' answers already fits their narrative? Really? So why did it come as a surprise to him that he was being portrayed as saying that he believed intelligent design was a serious consideration? When people are talking about hypotheticals and they say something is plausible, you say that it doesn't mean they believe it yet you say that his statements already fit their narrative. I think that is inconsistent.

thehomer:
Of course that is what he was talking about. The question is what was the context in which he was saying it?

Through which video? You see the problem is that you're refusing to accept that context matters. Since the recording of Ben Stein posing the question to him on any conceivable type of intelligent design wasn't in the clip you posted, it makes that clip and the voice overs dishonest. So he wasn't backing away from the statements, he was providing the context for his statement.

Mr_Anony:
True... but in other to know that it is not 10, you must know how multiplication works and know what a likely answer would look like. You didn't provide us even a vague idea of what the right answer might look like. It is irrational to oppose a position in a vacuum. In order to oppose a position properly, you must define a counter position based upon which you oppose it.

If you don't agree that precision and improbable complex order that characterizes our universe is evidence for a designer, then you must tell us what you think is most plausible upon which you base your disagreement. As I said earlier, you can't oppose a position in a vacuum

Inasmuch as it appears that you agree here, you also give no basis for your agreement and from your comment you are also not prepared to accept a series of preceding arguments so I really can't help you. Your request (especially how it is phrased) is irrational.

It is like me asking you to prove that the first comment you presumably typed on this thread was actually created by you (presumably a human person) and not something else ranging from humans to robots to cats walking along a keyboard to atoms randomly forming mass and depressing keys on a keyboard. . . .and no I will only accept "objective evidence" and not "philosophical ramblings".

Perhaps you have noticed how irrational the request I made above is. Perhaps you have also noticed that I haven't really defined anything upon which I based my above request.

In the same way you cannot disagree in a vacuum, you also can't agree in a vacuum. There must be a basis for every claim or counter-claim.

So once again, I ask: Do you agree that the precision and improbable complex order of the cosmos is evidence that it has an intelligent designer? If yes we continue and move past your atheism. If no, Why? specifically

Logicboy03:
If the toothfairy exists........

You wouldnt listen to anything following the above premise. Same for God. There is no evidence for both.

Let me give you a practical example- try making any argument for religion by sayin "if god exists" first.

Furthermore, you are a liar. How can one say that there are no atheist buddhists? What kind of statement is that?

There are many definitions of "spiritual". Very ambiguous word. To make the claim that atheists cant be spiritual would be to carry the problem of narrowly defining "spiritual". Spiritual for a buddhist is different from a christian spiritual.

mazaje:

Firstly the creation story in the bible(since we are talking about the bible god) does NOT agree with what we see around. . .It has no scientific backing. . .Even reputable christians and christian apologist like William Craig claim it is just an allegory. . .But i was not written ORIGINALY as an allegory. . .Example, the earth(with water in it) according to the myth was created before all the stars and the sun. . .

Why not designers?. . .

I can provide you such evidence. . .I can add you up on skype and show you via webcam as I login into NL, type my post and hit enter. . .It is something that I can do at this very moment if I want to, you will see me talk to you, log in and reply to your post in real time. You will be able to tell that it is not a robot or a cat. . .So my request is not irrational at all. . .You are making an extra ordinary claim and extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary evidence. . .

Ok, I agree. . .But why must it be ONLY a designer?. . .Why not designers. . .My computer is a very complex gadget and it was designed by many designers, so why must the universe have only a single designer and not many designers?. . .

Mr_Anony: Perhaps it is time to say what I think of the video:

Dawkins was asked what he thinks of the possibility that life was intelligently designed. He answered by citing the possibility that an alien intelligent life form could have seeded life on earth. He even suggests that we might see a signature for this designer in the complex mechanisms of molecular biology.....

...Now pause for a minute and let that sink in...

Dawkins makes it clear that a creator could exist but it would have most likely evolved in a Darwinian manner i.e. it must have a naturalistic explanation (notice how Richard paints everything with his Darwinian evolution brush).
Ben Stein notices this and points out that Dawkins doesn't really have a problem with a creator. He only insists that the creator must be naturalistic/material.

Ben goes on to press him on the question about the belief in any gods whatsoever to which he replies that such an assertion would contradict everything he has been saying (he completely forgot that he had just proposed physical gods from another planet)

Now to the problems with Dawkins' logic.

1. Dawkins accepts the possibility of an intelligent creator, he only insists that such a creator would have evolved as well as us. This doesn't help us at all because all it does is introduce an infinite regress of design and evolution. At some point you must end at a first intelligent life that did not evolve (The very kind of intelligent life Richard dawkins rejects). Puzzling isn't it?

2. Dawkins is right in deducing an intelligent designer as responsible for a complex life, but then there is no reason to insist that this intelligent life must have evolved. The only reason why Dawkins would think this is because of his bias emanating from a Darwinian/materialist worldview.

Conclusion:
Watching that video showed me something very important: It is not that the there is no evidence for God as the atheist would like to believe, It is just that the atheist is fanatically committed to a naturalistic worldview (which by the way, he has no justification for as it cannot explain all the aspects of his reality) and for that reason, even when he sees evidence for God staring him in the face, he refuses to acknowledge him.

The conclusion of that video was very telling: When Dawkins is asked what he will say to God after his death, Dawkins says he'll ask why God took so much pains to hide Himself.
Dawkins forgot that he had just suggested that "the details of molecular biology might hold the signature of a designer". Clearly the evidence of God lies before Dawkins. Pity he would rather it was aliens.

Mr_Anony:
Lol, why don't you start by making such an argument and then giving us a reason why a condition suddenly becomes irrelevant just because it is a condition. You really need to learn logic.

Mr_Anony:
Yawn....as I said what you did there was an exercise in bait and switch and now you are pressing for a tangential argument (peppered with baseless ad hominen as usual).

For instance I could bait you with the statement that "some atheists believe in gods" and when you say that they don't, I switch to "god is an ambiguous word, some football-loving atheists call Lionel Messi a god".

That's basically what your argument was. Bait and Switch is a very poor way to argue my friend.

jayriginal:
The matter seems clear to me.
Maybe you should have paused a little longer.
Also seems clear to me.
Now considering the bolded so far, is it really true that he "proposed"?

One one hand you say he "accepts the possibility" of an intelligent designer and on the other hand, you say he is right for "deducing an intelligent designer". Am I missing something ?
Before todays game I accepted the possibility that we would beat the Ivory Coast. I certainly did not deduce it. Since when have the terms become interchangeable ?

You arrived at that conclusion from one atheist ? One who you and others have thoroughly misconstrued. I shouldnt be surprised though. If one says "that isnt the default atheist position", another will find an opportunity to use it as an argument. It is quite common. There is no one position on atheism. It is the theists particularly that see Dawkins as the atheist figurehead/role model/leader or whatever.

I think I know why. Its not so much what he says or writes as the title he gave his book "The God Delusion".

Ouch!!

That must have hurt and he sold lots of copies. In that DeepSight is right. Controversy sells or at the least creates awareness (which is easily translated to sales). In any case, I'm sure that is what angers most.

Pebbles; mostly.

EDIT:
I have to say here that I didnt watch the video. I simply relied on your post which I have quoted here.

Logicboy03:

I am not a christian apologist nor a christian. You are a christian. Please make an argument for God. You have been doing this for over a year on NL, havent you?

So, why dont you put a good argument for god forward?

"If God exist........" <<<< complete the premise and conclusion


Rise up to the challenge, I have made my claims clear- once you start with god's existence as a solid premise, you will run into a messy argument that makes belief in god look silly.

I can prove it but I know you would claim that i put forward a faulty argument to strengthen my claim. This exercise is to prove to you on your won terms why my claims are true.

Fail. Fail. Epic fail.

"God" is not really ambiguous as regards to atheism. It is drawn down to a religious or creator god when talking about atheism. Whether it is Allah or Oodumare etc....it is very clear.

Spirituality is an ambiguous word in every case.


I did not bait and switch. I told you that you would fail in a formal debate if you made the statement that "atheists do not believe in the spiritual".

You foolishly went ahead to still repeat the claim as true. Now, you are caught in a web of hard debunkery and are trying to escape

Mr_Anony:
Not necessarily. They are under no obligation to provide raw footage to the public. There are many reasons why might want to retain the footage. The second part about your opinion of what an honest filmmaker ought to do goes both ways i.e. if Dawkins really had nothing to hide, he would have demanded the full clip be made public. Speculating over reasons lead us nowhere.

Mr_Anony:
See 3:12

Mr_Anony:
Lol.....a form of creationism...yeah right.

Mr_Anony:
But their narrative was NOT that he believed in intelligent design. Their narrative was that he thought it possible only he was against certain kinds of designers i.e God. You have given them a strawman narrative just to back up your bais.

Mr_Anony:
Good

Please watch the video again. See 3:12

Mr_Anony:
Lol, you are a funny chap. You have just told me that the syayement "if God exists..." is always followed by something illogical. I have asked you how this is so, instead of explaining why, you ask me to make a statement with it. Why should I? So you can just tell me it is illogical? You haven't still told us why and how an "if" statement can be illogical. This you must do before we begin to proceed to any examples.



yawn..



And I argued that you don't prove or disprove the very definition of a thing and by spiritual I was referring to the supernatural aspect of being.
You promptly switched the meaning of spiritual to a synonym that referred to emotion such as the feeling of respect (which by the way has little or nothing to do with the atheism definitive context).


Yes definitely bait and switch. I took your bait and you promptly switched the meaning. Funny how you call it "debunkery"

Congratulations - Yet another reason why I say you are irrational and your thinking ability is so poor that you cannot recognize it.

Mr_Anony:
Good so are you basing your counter on science?

Why designers? Why propose a more complex explanation when a much simpler one would suffice? Why assume multiple designers for one design when it could just as easily be one designer.

Kinda like coming upon a person who has been been killed by one stab wound to the heart and your first impression is that there are many killers instead of one. While it is very possible that many killers all held the knife together and delivered the blow, it is far less plausible than one killer. And it certainly is a weak counter argument to the person who starts by hypothesizing a single killer unless you are less interested in actually finding the killer an more interested in countering arguments.

I hope you know that the evidence I was asking for is the comment you have already typed not the one you will type later.

The same question I asked you above: Why start an investigation by assuming multiple designers for a singular design when a singular designer is a much simpler place to start from?

thehomer:
They owe it to themselves in order to be clear that they have nothing to hide. It is generally how honest people act in such a situation. What reason is more important than them here demonstrating their honesty? Dawkins isn't really in a position to make demands of them.

What do you think it shows? I ask because that is the point where the question actually posed was dishonestly edited.

Hey that's what the evidence shows.

That isn't their narrative. Their claim is that Dawkins thought that intelligent design by aliens was a serious contender. I haven't introduced anything that Stein himself wasn't attributing to Dawkins. Once again, I have to ask you if you think that when someone says something is possible, do you think they mean that it is a really a serious consideration?

BEN STEIN: What do you think is the possibility that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in Darwinian evolution?

DAWKINS: Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.

. . .BEN STEIN (Voice-over): Wait a second, Richard Dawkins thought intelligent design might be a legitimate pursuit?

....DAWKINS: And that Designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe. But that higher intelligence would itself have had to have come about by some explicable, or ultimately explicable process. It couldn't have just jumped into existence spontaneously. That's the point.

BEN STEIN (Voice-over): So Richard Dawkins was not against intelligent Design just certain types of designers such as God

.....

BEN STEIN: So you don't believe in any god anywhere?

DAWKINS: Any god anywhere will be completely incompatible with anything I've just said.

Richard Dawkins [RD]: Why were you dishonest about the film you were going to make?! We were lead to believe that you were going to present a fair account of evolution.

Mark Mathis [MM]: Mr. Dawkins, that’s precisely what we have done. We’ve presented a fair account of the academic persecution that goes on across America and indeed the world when a scientist dares to disagree with the Darwinian view.


RD: You were not forthcoming with me that you were making a film that involved people who claim they have been persecuted!

MM: Professor Dawkins, I contacted you by e-mail prior to our interview. You quizzed me on all of the questions in your backyard for a half hour before we sat down with the cameras. After the interview you signed our release and accepted a generous payment for your time. I think we were very fair with you.

By the way Mr. Dawkins, I want to tell you that what you said on Atheist Radio not long ago was completely untrue. You tried to take credit for setting up our second interview location at the British Museum of Natural History. I set up that location and it involved a tremendous amount of time and effort and a very large check.

You also claimed on Atheist radio that you expected me to be doing the interview and not Mr. Stein, that you were duped again. I have a long e-mail record of my communication with you, explaining that following the success of The God Delusion Mr. Stein wanted to interview you himself. I sent you a list of Mr. Stein’s broad range of accomplishments. I can accept this situation as perhaps a lapse of memory, but what you said was not true.

RD: Those are minor points.

MM: Not to me. You called me a liar on the radio.

RD: If that is the case then I offer you an apology.

MM: I accept.

I've seen it and that is one of the points where the dishonest editing took place. What do you think it shows?

Logicboy03:
Yawn.....you seem to have a knack of running away from me.


Goodbye.

mazaje:
I base my counter based on empirical evidence, and science has provided some. . .The creation story written in the bible just does not fit or agree with observable evidence. . .Even christian apologist have now discarded it as an allegory when it was not originally written as an allegory. . .

Nope, it is not one design, it is a very complex design, firstly many people that conclude that the universe was designed came to such a conclusion based on the fact that we as humans design complex things. . . .Most of the complex things we design as humans are always the work of many designers. . .So it follows that since the universe is very complex, its designers should be complex as well, since we judge the universe based on the way we expect our own human society to function. . .

Wrong analogy, when I see a complex structure like a an Air bus A380, I will not just conclude that it is a product of one designer, the possibility of it being is a product of many designers is also very high. . .The universe is very complex as such, since we base our conclusions based on how the human society function, it also follows that it is very possible that it has many designers, actually many people already believe that their many gods came together and created the universe. . .

I can still show you. . .I will hit the modify button, delete the first comment I typed and rewrite it again. . .So that you will see, that I wrote it. . .It can be done and you know that. . . .

Because it is a very complex design and if we are to go by what we know and what we see around us, complex designed often require a lot of designers. . .

thehomer:

Religion is not the issue to who? Do you see God coming down to kill homosexuals and blow up buildings? The fact that you think it is harmless, doesn't make it so as many religious people will show you if you push them to it. Period.

Mr_Anony:
Spot the contradiction in the bolded

Actually, most complex structures are designed by one designer. I am an architect by profession and I have worked in design teams and the procedure is usually one designer and many helpers. In fact I have never come across a situation where the concept is not the brainchild of one man. What usually happens in a design team is that all the other members of the team criticize the design and then gradually tweak it as they move along. As for the design itself, it is usually born from the mind of one person.

Lol and how will that prove that it was not your cat that typed it the first time?

Not necessarily.

mazaje:
Yeah, sorry, my bad. . .wanted to say it was complex and not simple. . .

Sure, I am a soft ware developer and system analyst as well. . .And i know how designs are made. . .People criticize and also offer their own opinions. . Over all, help mostly come from outside sources in one way or the other. . .

By login in with my user name and password, it shows you at least that I am the man behind the post. . .

Sure, not necessarily but possibly. . .

Mr_Anony:
For your information, almost every scientific theory there is that has not yet been proven is described as possibility. It doesn't mean it is not a proposed theory. You are just being petty over words here.

I cited one atheist as a case study but that doesn't mean I arrived at the conclusion based solely on Mr Dawkins.

Mr_Anony:
Conclusion:
Watching that video showed me something very important: It is not that the there is no evidence for God as the atheist would like to believe, It is just that the atheist is fanatically committed to a naturalistic worldview (which by the way, he has no justification for as it cannot explain all the aspects of his reality) and for that reason, even when he sees evidence for God staring him in the face, he refuses to acknowledge him.

By the way it is interesting how you say that "there is no one position in atheism". I thought atheism itself is the position that there is no God.

jayriginal:

I really dont see how you can accuse me of being petty over words. There is a clear difference between allowing for the possibility of something and deducing something.
I doubt you understand what you just wrote.

This is the part that really interests me because I have argued on this forum that this is incorrect. I have argued this with theists, deists, atheists and "agnostics". Its a common misconception. An atheist is one who does not believe in god. It is a very general term and not specific for those who declare that there is no god. So you guys are jubilating because Dawkins refused to declare god non existent when he is supposed to be an atheist. It shows you dont know what you are wrestling with.

This misconception leads to warped arguments all the time. Warped arguments and phantom chasing.

Mr_Anony:
Please try and watch the video.

Again the wordplay changes nothing. I see no difference between not believing that God exists and holding that God does not exist. But then perhaps there is something I am overlooking.

Please could you make clear to me the difference between not believing in God's existence and believing that there is no God?


EDIT: For instance if I say "I believe that Jayriginal is a girl", it follows that I should declare that "jayriginal is a girl" because that's what I am convinced you are.

What doesn't follow is if I say "I don't believe that jayriginal is a girl" only to follow up my statement with "I don't hold the position that jayriginal is not a girl". It makes absolutely no sense

Mr_Anony:
If I recall correctly, the phrase Stein used was "legitimate pursuit" Not "serious contender". You a loading their claim to make it sound like something else.

If a person says that something is possible he doesn't necessarily mean that such a thing is a 'serious contender' compared to another theory, but yes he definitely means that such a thing can be legitimately explored.