Richard Dawkins vs William Lane Craig: Not Happening (YAY)

Richard Dawkins has decided not to debate William Lane Faith-is-properly-basic Craig, and good for him.  Of course, Christians are taking this as a sign of weakness:

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/9901617876.html

Craig, one of the nation's leading Christian apologists, has debated many atheists on the rationality of faith and the existence of God including Sam Harris, Bart Ehrman and Richard Taylor. His upcoming United Kingdom tour has evidently intimidated Richard Dawkins as he has continually refused to debate Craig when he visits his home turf this October.

Recently, Polly Toynbee, president of the British Humanist Association, also pulled out of a scheduled debate with Craig on the existence of God. A war of words has broken out between Dawkins and his critics, who see his refusal to take on the American academic as a sign that he may be losing his nerve.

Famous atheist Sam Harris once described Craig as "the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists."

Dawkins has already shot WLC down:





I agree completely not just about WLC, but about the average believer: it's an emotional cause for them, not rational at all and therefore, not subject to debate or rational discourse of any kind.  They appeal to emotion at every turn.  In essence they believe because it fulfills an emotional need for them, and they don't want people saying their fairy tales are false.

I first heard of WLC at the blog of Randall Rauser, who has an advanced degree in bullshit apologetics, and seemed to think that his vapid responses to his atheist responders actually had merit.  Failing to convince us that love of poetry, love of love, and nice feelings in general are sufficient to justify faith in his deity, he would cite William Lane Craig and another loser by the name of Alvin Plantinga.

Their main argument seems to be, it's nice to believe in something nice, so it is therefore true.  Of course, I got that second-hand because if their fanboy, Randy, couldn't sell them to me I didn't think it was worth reading their stuff.  I did watch some of WLC's speeches and debates on youtube and I just came away shaking my head.  He really sounds like a boxer on the ropes, defending religion on the basis of intuition, and yet people say he's a great debater.

About debates... apparently you can win or lose debates based on parrying and thrusts of a verbal sort, kind of.  So if you throw out a bunch of thrusts and your opponent only handles a few of them and sidesteps the rest in the interest of time, that is apparently a "victory."  Waving your sword in air and never actually nicking or stabbing your opponent somehow makes points. 

I think the wins and losses of debates should depend on the number of onlookers whose minds have been changed.  You could do before and after surveys of the audience, and any nudge in the average score would determine the victor.  What seems to be going on in the theist-atheist debate scoring is that people who belonged to debate clubs in high school extrapolate their useless exercises into the adult world of deciding what to believe. This goes for partisans on both sides, most of whom coincidentally give the "win" to their side but who sometimes give it to the other side.  If you are an atheist, and you watch a debate between an atheist & a theist and you are still an atheist at the end of it, the theist loses!  It doesn't matter if someone lost 'points.'

Dawkins going to an evangelical college to debate during an evangelical convention against their biggest idol would indeed be a waste of time due to cognitive dissonance.  The audience would be packed with people who have made it their life's work to bullshit themselves into believing that believing is good (forget whether it's true).  Cognitive dissonance goes like this:  I invested a helluva lot into this Christianity thing, so it has to be true, or else I've wasted my life. 

I squish them to
give them a
second chance

Atheists, even activist atheists, have much less investment.  For one, we haven't had to lie to ourselves.  For another, we haven't traded a boring life in the here-and-now for an even more boring life in the hereafter.  If we're wrong, the odds of which are seriously low, there's no particular guarantee that there's an afterlife or that the Christian version is correct.  WE haven't thrown in our lot with one fairy tale over all others.  Most of us are familiar with several fairy tales.  Losing out on the Christian one is a one-in-several shot, versus the Christian wager which is all-or-nothing.  I've led a relatively good life, so if Buddhism is true, I might come back as a richer, whiter, beautiful woman with a kickin body. 



Christians, on the other hand, have been arrogant in believing their selfish theology is correct, so they might come back as cockroaches or tsetse flies.

Back to the "properly basic" idea.  WLC says that belief in a god is "properly basic," which in philosophical terms basically means it gets a pass.  These beliefs don't need evidence, but they do.  And they're valid unless they're not.  Grab some dramamine and check out his podcast on "properly basic" crap:

   

Gideon Bibles in the Doctor's Office Waiting Room

Yes.  There were Gideon Bibles on the waiting room side tables at my doctor's office.  My doctor is leaving this practice and I am following him to his new practice, but I've been sick for a few days and I really needed to see him today.

But since I didn't plan to stay with the practice I didn't mind being seen to open the Bibles and write in them. But since I didn't have to wait very long I only had time to write under the Gideon imprint:

"Purveyors of Bullshit"

When I find them in hotel rooms I have more fun with them, but I had to settle for this.

But seriously, WTF?  Why would they allow this?  It's a general practice, not an emergency room!

Oh yeah, because this is fucking Indiana.  Fucking insane.

farts you can't trust them

"farts you can't trust them"

This came up as a search that brought someone to this blog.  I don't know what this person was looking for, but I can say this:  if you live with dogs, you will often think you have a doggy pile to clean up, then upon investigation you realize it was just a fart.

The Selfishness of Christianity

One of the defenses we often hear about Christianity is how many good works have been done in Christ's name.  Of course, they dismiss the evil done in Christ's name because the perpetrators were not "true" Christians, or because it was so long ago it doesn't matter anymore.  Still, the generosity and good works of Christianity have indeed enriched the world.

I'll grant that hospitals, programs for the poor, and other social services are good deeds... as long as prosletyzing isn't the price the recipients have to pay and the good works really are good (More about Mother Teresa in another post)

At the root of these good works, though, is selfishness.  The motive isn't true empathy for suffering but a guarantee of a place in Heaven.  A secondary though possibly more powerful motive is to be seen to be doing good works.  If you're doing good things you must be a good person, right?  And if you do it in a group and happen to have an enjoyable time with your friends-in-Christ well that's just icing on the cake.  You'd work on a Habitat for Humanity house in a crappy neighborhood on your own, wouldn't you?  You don't need a church bus to take you there.  And then there is the whole doing-what-Jesus-says line.  Jesus said feed the poor, so obedient Christians will do it because he says to do it.  That's hardly an unselfish reason.  Getting in good with your savior, whose blessing will keep you out of hell.  Very nice.

The worst example of selfishness, I think, is prayer for some earthly benefit for oneself or one's loved ones.  A friend from Houston recently posted to Facebook thanking friends for their prayers.  They finally had rain.  Hallelujah! 

Rather than forward her selfish post to my friend from nearby Bastrop, who continues to be traumatized by the huge fire there, I sent a PM with a general skeptical view of prayer.  I also pointed out that if God was so good, why not send the recent hurricane that was a near miss all the way over to Bastrop to put out or prevent that fire?  Not to mention, why did God allow Texas to endure such a dreadful drought in the first place?  And why did he ignore Perry's prayers and that big prayer hoopla thing in Houston, but answer the prayers of my friend's friends around the country?  Why did God wait so long?  And speaking of timing, July & August are usually the dryest months in Texas, and coincidentally, God answered her friends' prayers in September, when it's much more likely for Texas to receive rain.

Well, I did make some of those points in our exchange but what I bit my tongue about was the utter selfishness of believing that God will answer prayers for better weather just for her.  Apparently none of the people who lost everything in the Bastrop fire had any friends who prayed for them, or else their homes would have been spared.

Chrisitans are also selfish in their entire theology of redemption.  In theory, you just have to be a believer to be spared the punishment of Hell.  This in itself is supremely selfish.  Character doesn't really matter if being "born again" or "saved" or baptized is all it takes.  Too often they write off the other Christians who don't live up to charitable or even moral standards as not true Christians, but then if pressed they have to admit that the standards for who can be called a Christian are very low.

John 3:16 makes it pretty clear:  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

How nice for them.  That's all they have to do, just believe.  Fuck everyone else, and fuck the people who didn't get rain this month.  They didn't deserve it anyway.

Evangelicals have a bit of a claim in wanting everyone to be saved, but salvation is still a selfish concept.  What about "Do some charitable things and you'll be repaid with thanks from the people you help?"  If that's all there is to missionary work, some might do it anyway.  That's because unselfishness is as much a part of human nature as selfishness is.  This is why they fear evolution -- it might show that living in a community requires a quotient of unselfishness from every member, or at least a big enough plurality to keep the community going.  And if humans are capable of being generous, kind, and helpful without a God to tell them to do it, what do they need God for?  And if rain happens whether you pray or not, why pray?

The answer is: selfishness.  They may even know their prayers are worthless, but they do it to remind themselves how special they are compared to everyone else.  It's sickening.

My Kindle Book List

I just got a Kindle for my birthday.  Wheee!  I'm saving my pennies though so instead of buying books I'm looking for good free reads.  I will consider all suggestions (except those from trolls of course)

I've already downloaded three books by Darwin, Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian, Payne's Age of Reason, and some fiction.  I'm also storing up some non-Christian religious texts, like the Bhagadvita and the Tao Te Ching, and a book on Roman & Greek mythology.  (why their beliefs are 'myths' and everyone else's count as "religious texts" doesn't make sense to me)

For future reference I'd consider suggestions for books I'd have to pay for, but I won't buy them for awhile.

Well? Suggestions anyone?

"Charity" loses USDA food for refusing to stop prayers

http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/7638940-452/kadner-state-cuts-off-food-to-crestwood-pantry-over-prayers.html

The State of Illinois insisted on compliance with the Constitution and they didn't back down.  Good for them!  If this religious organization wants to continue forcing hungry people to be subjected to prayer in exchange for food distribution that's their right, but the government doesn't have to pay for it.

Christianity and Gullibility Go Together

Michele Bachmann's attack on the HPV vaccine was probably politically motivated but there's an outside chance she may really mean what she says.  After all, she married an idiot who believes homosexuality is a mental illness that can be 'cured.'

OTOH she may be stupid like a fox.  The Tea Partiers would have been satisfied with a libertarian attack on Perry's order to have all 12-year-old girls vaccinated against the cancer-causing virus, but Bachmann's rhetoric in an interview after the debate took things to a whole 'nother level of dishonesty:

Yes, of course it violates liberty, when you have innocent little 12-year-old girls that are being forced to have a government injection into their body. This is a liberty interest that violates the most deepest personal part of a little child. And it violates the parental rights, because what we understand is, again, this was an executive order that mandated that every little 12-year- old girl had to have this vaccination. And then you'd have to opt out.

...The problem is, again, a little girl doesn't get a do over. Once they have that vaccination in their body, once it causes its damage, that little girl doesn't have a chance to go back. So you can't just say you're sorry.

Sounds a lot like rape doesn't it?  She makes it sound like the vaccine is intra-vaginal and breaks the hymen.   It's government rape of virgin girls!!!!!!

What a dishonest whore, and I have not seen any outcry about this. As a woman I'm offended that she feels that the STD nature of the virus has given her the right to couch her statements in these terms.  Does she think that all the little boys and girls who got the measles vaccine were also violated in "the most deepest personal part" of a child? The injections are given to the same part of the body.

There's lots of attention to a claim that the HPV vaccine caused mental retardation... a claim made by a stranger and never backed up.  Her claim has about as much merit as any other anecdotal claim, and any parent who makes a post hoc claim should be presumed to be in error until proved otherwise.  This is the same post hoc error made when parents linked vaccination to autism diagnosis.  Besides the original "study" being discredited, autism diagnosis can be made earlier than the scheduled vaccination that had been blamed.  So I guess now we blame other conditions on it.

I can see why a parent might opt out from a vaccine that's a private health risk rather than a public risk.  And of course all parents believe their children will be virgins until marriage.  (Those are the kids most likely to get pregnant at 15 of course)

The pundits are attacking her insane claim that mental retardation could result rather than her sly sexualization of a sound preventative health measure.  She probably has her feet up on a coffee table somewhere, and she's laughing her ass off because she knows that the response of smart people who paid attention is completely irrelevant.  Her target audience is too stupid to know whether she's being attacked fairly or unfairly.  They live a life of willing gullibility when it comes to claims without evidence and an instinctive mistrust of smart people.   Her audience isn't watching pundit shows, except maybe Bill O'Reilly.  No, they'll be tuned in to NASCAR news or perhaps they'll check in on "Teen Mom" to see if anyone they know is on it.