15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

[Sherlock Holmes]

Also for years now Dawkins has steadfastly refused to engage in a debate about this with William Craig, this casts Dawkins in a bad light, he likely recognizes (but would never admit) that Craig will intellectually dominate him.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Also for years now Dawkins has steadfastly refused to engage in a debate about this with William Craig, this casts Dawkins in a bad light, he likely recognizes (but would never admit) that Craig will intellectually dominate him.

Notice you have to invent a lie. Why lie?

For the actual reasons, read this:

Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig | Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins: This Christian 'philosopher' is an apologist for genocide. I would rather leave an empty chair than share a platform with him

www.theguardian.com

 

[zaangalewa]

Evolution is just the atheist's explanation of life. Not terribly important.

Evolution says for example that you and the dogs you know are sisters and brothers. Same with the cats you know. They are also your sisters and brothers. But do not tell this your dogs.

Saint Francis spoke a lot about such themes and also Meister Eckhart spoke somehow about such themes - but in a totally other way.

Wenn das Leben fragte tausend Jahre lang: "Warum lebst du?", wenn es überhaupt antwortete, würde es nur sagen: "Ich lebe, um zu leben!" Das rührt daher, weil das Leben aus seinem eigenen Grunde lebt, aus seinem Eigenen quillt; darum lebt es ohne Warum: es lebt nur sich selber! Und fragte man einen wahrhaften Menschen, einen, der aus seinem eigenen Grunde wirkt: "Warum wirkst du deine Werke?", wenn er recht antwortete, würde er auch nur sagen: "Ich wirke, um zu wirken!"
Meister Eckhart
If life asked for a thousand years: “Why do you live?”, if it answered at all, it would only say: ”I live, to live!” This is because life lives from its own foundation from its own source; therefore it lives without a why: it lives only itself! And if you asked a true human being, someone who works from his own reason: “Why do you do your works?”, if he answered correctly, he would only say: “I work in order to work!”

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Evolution is just the atheist's explanation of life.

False.

It's the scientific explanation of how all species derived from a common ancestor.

Please get it straight.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Notice you have to invent a lie. Why lie?

For the actual reasons, read this:

Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig | Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins: This Christian 'philosopher' is an apologist for genocide. I would rather leave an empty chair than share a platform with him

www.theguardian.com

I suggest you look at the dictionary definition for "lie".

That Guardian article (which I read the day it was published twelve years ago) is the rationale given by Dawkins, (as I said above), I suspect the real reason is fear and (as I said above) he likely would never admit that.

A debate about "Does God exist" or "Was the universe created" has nothing to do with claims of genocide, with references to the Bible or anything like that, this is just Dawkins conflating things and he loves to paraphrase Craig too, which is a way of deflecting, actually a form of dishonesty.

Listen to the video I posted (which is much more recent than the Guardian article), Craig actually says this, and I quote (skip to 1:06)

People like William Craig, I've no time for him, he's got this sort of loud rather pompous voice, he says like 'Premise 1, deduction 2', and things like that and the audience is supposed to be impressed!

Here he's ridiculing logical reasoning, actually dismissing Craig on the basis that he has reasoned arguments underpinning his claims. I cannot respect Dawkins for refusing to debate a man on the basis that the man debates rationally, I mean it's laughable frankly.

As for "pompous" Dawkins is renowned for being supercilious and pompous himself, Craig is far from that, he's a reasonable person, never rude or disparaging of his opponents, Craig is above all else confident, that's not pomposity.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I suggest you look at the dictionary definition for "lie".

An adult making something up out of thin air to replace the facts works just fine.

"Lie" it is.

Here he's ridiculing logical reasoning,

False of course. He is ridiculing the presentation, which is intentionally ostentatious and designed to deceive via the appearance of lending extra credibility to arguments that don't stand well on their own.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

False.

It's the scientific explanation of how all species derived from a common ancestor.

Please get it straight.

Unfortunately it's not actually a scientific explanation. It masquerades as such but is actually a set of beliefs and justifications for an idealized explanation of the life we see on earth.

I was once a devoted and vocal proponent of evolution until my late twenties. Prior to that I was worse than Dawkins probably, cruelly ridiculing anyone who dared question evolution. But unlike the vast majority of devotees I undertook a detached examination of the hypothesis, actually looked at the scientific arguments against it and tried to be objective, that was hard believe me but worth it.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

An adult making something up out of thin air to replace the facts works just fine.

"Lie" it is.

No Sir, a lie carries a willful intent to deceive, misrepresent something known to be otherwise. My opinion on Dawkins is just my opinion, I believe what I say about him, I don't privately believe him and publicly claim not to.

False of course. He is ridiculing the presentation, which is intentionally ostentatious and designed to deceive via the appearance of lending extra credibility to arguments that don't stand well on their own.

Anyone who's studied philosophy and logical reasoning and mathematics would never describe these as "ostentatious", that is what a logical argument is, it is based on premises, deductions and conclusions, I mean that's what a debate is!

Dawkins relies on rhetoric not logic and that's why I dismiss him and his claims, Dawkins is basically stating here that he does not base his beliefs on rigor and logic, that's a pretty poor thing to be proud of no better than the worst religious fanatics which is frankly, what many atheists are.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Fort Fun Indiana

Here's a real debate between two genuine intellectuals, no ostentation here but hard, rigorous, sound reasoning, you'd never find Russell (the atheist) accusing his opponent of being ostentatious!



Unless your doing something like this, you're not really debating at all, just bickering and point scoring and ad hominem and all the rest that we see today from militant atheist dingbats, the whole point of a debate should be to help us get a truths not impose our views and beliefs on the audience.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Just found this, it's the converse Craig's opinion of Dawkins, again, very recent:

 

[Woodznutz]

False.

It's the scientific explanation of how all species derived from a common ancestor.

Please get it straight.

Most scientists are atheists. Just as you can't separate creationism from belief in the supernatural you can't separate evolution from atheism.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

False.

It's the scientific explanation of how all species derived from a common ancestor.

Please get it straight.

Consider the Cambrian explosion (a term introduced by biologists incidentally). The many diverse fossils of quite sophisticated organisms, representing highly differentiated arthropods for example, are presumed to have a common ancestor.

Well when we ask for evidence that this common ancestor actually did exist we are told that the diverse arthropods are that evidence.

That is we are told that the existence of these diversified arthropods is what we'd expect if there was a common ancestor and so therefore there was a common ancestor because clearly the evidence of diversified arthropods does exist.

This is a circular argument though, the proof of a common ancestor is in the diverse descendants but the only reason for believing that they had a common ancestor is the theory being proposed, so the evidence for the theory is the belief in the theory!

There is zero evidence that these arthropods (e.g. Anomalocaris (Dinocaridida) and Trilobites (Artiopoda)) actually had a common ancestor, no trace of one can be found in the fossil record but its existence in the past is taken as an unquestionable truth.

Now atheists are fond of saying things like "why believe in God when there's no evidence" but when a theist asks them the same question about common ancestor fossils they react with astonishment and say "but the diverse fossils are the evidence" missing the point that that statement is only true IF evolution is true, the very thing they are trying to prove.

Unless a plausible common ancestor for arthropods is proven to have existed then we have no empirical reason for claiming it did exist and if it did not exist then the Cambrian arthropod fossils did not evolve, some other process must have given rise to them.