"Does the Christian God Exist?" (page 2)

cofty

That's an outstanding introduction, sadly Dinesh De Souza is immune to reason.

I like the way he preempts the cosmological argument..

But just showing that something is consistent with his faith does not show his faith is probable. That’s a huge non-sequitur. For instance, even if Dinesh can successfully argue that our universe began to exist and that this is consistent with his belief that there is a creator, so what?

I hope somebody records the debate and posts it online

If the witnesses I have come to meet and, after all, love, had minds open enough to listen to me, I would like to tell them that where they see a fact, I don't see anything. If I had that opportunity, I would tell them that, for example, I don't believe that YHWH would create two classes of people and Jesus would be the mediator for one class of them only. I know they would shake their heads and would ask me to "be humble" and "not let Satan trick me into independent thinking". But I would insist that they see that my point is valid; it's a matter of having faith on something, or not, and no one can claim I'm blind just because I don't see what they see. Or that I'm bad and "bad association" just because I don't happen to believe in their organization. Or any other religion. I can't believe that Brahma grows on a lotus flower from Vishnu's navel, either.

I would also like to tell them that they, too, have the right to believe all they believe.

The problem begins when the right of people to think or believe differently is not accepted. Let us not believe, and let's respect Snowbird's right to believe.

The Scotsman

I believe in God - but not sure if I would describe him as only the christian God though.

Its a good question....

leavingwt

UPDATE: John W. Loftus is disappointed in his performance.

Skeptics who were in the audience for the debate are weighing in and they're all saying I lost miserably. This troubles and disheartens me since I thought I did well. I couldn't sleep and was even thinking of calling it quits. But then, what did they expect? Did they expect too much out of a debate? Why? I said the real debate takes place in our books. I even wondered if skeptics bought into the rhetoric of Dinesh. If rhetoric without substance is all it takes to win debates then Dinesh will win most of the time.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/02/initial-skeptical-reviews-of-my-debate.html

and more. . .

Some people say I lost the debate. Let me respond.

You'll be able to judge for yourselves of course, but keep in mind some things if you will. I gear my arguments to the Christian university student. If you do not fall into this target audience of mine you will probably not feel the force of my arguments. I do not direct my arguments to the skeptic. I do not preach to the choir. I know the mind of the believer and I gear my arguments to them on the level of the university student. That's why I'm interested in the results of the comment cards from Christian students in that audience, which were the overwhelming majority in attendance. I suspect I sowed plenty of doubt among these students.

Another thing. The moderator. A nice guy of course, but apparently it was the first time he had done something like this. While he did a good job keeping us on time he did not do a good job keeping us focused. He just let us talk back and forth during our one on one time. During the Q & A he was supposed to give us each a chance to respond to a particular question regardless of who was asked to respond. Dinesh was asked several questions and I was not given a chance to respond. I asked myself if it would be better to jump in and be rude or not respond, and I chose not to be rude. One must realize that there is no way to answer every argument that your opponent throws up.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-debate-with-dinesh.html

Terry

I would think the baddest cat in the Universe (baddest=goodest) would have some responsibility to assert existence beyond a very stale collection of badly collated books from a bygone era.

snowbird

I have no way of know how others felt, but the following paragraphs are what probably derailed him.

If only God had done this or that ... could've, should've ...

He sounds like a spoiled whiner, and nobody likes a whiner.

If God is perfectly good, all knowing, and all powerful, then the amount of massive suffering in this world is as close to an empirical refutation of the Christian concept of God as is possible. If God exists then like a good parent he would not allow us to abuse the freedom he gave us. The giver of a gift is blameworthy if he gives gifts to those whom he knows will terribly abuse those gifts. Any mother who gives a razor blade to a two-year-old is culpable if that child hurts himself or others with it. Good mothers only give their children more and more freedom to do what they want so long as they are responsible with their freedom. It’s that simple.

If God exists then the 2004 Indonesian tsunami that killed a quarter of a million people should never have occurred. If God had prevented it, none of us would even know he kept it from happening, precisely because it didn’t happen. This goes for the disaster in Haiti too. Furthermore, the amount of animal suffering is atrocious as they prey on one another to feed themselves when a good God could’ve created us all as vegetarians in the first place. God could’ve created all human beings with one color of skin too. Then there would be no racism or race based slavery. God could’ve created us with much stronger immune systems such that there would be no pandemics which have decimated whole populations of people.

Sylvia