Yeah I did not agree with what Brian said. The painting does prove the existance of the artist. But that only proves that Leonardo DaVinci existed. Just as the book of Mark proves there was a person named Mark who wrote the book, and the books of John, Luke, and Matthew were written by men with those names.

But to say that by putting those books together and saying that the Bible was written by god and that the existance of the book is proof there is a god is like saying that they Mona Lisa proves there was a model named Mona Lisa who looks just like the woman in the painting ever existed. In fact no one knows if Leonardo used a model for that painting or not. Even if it did however that would simply mean that a real live human being existed. Not a god.

The Bible only proves that in the days of the writters of the books of the bible that there were people who believed in the christian religion.

As I stated in my previous post. In 2000 years L. Ron Hubbard will probably be worshipped as a god by Scientologists and they too will say that he must be a God simply because people have believed it for so long.

That would be just as absurd as saying the bible is fact because it's a really old book.

Long time reader, first time poster....

I was going to write a long reply, but then I read nncarroll's post above and it pretty much covered everything I was planning on writing. So, I will just say that, based on what I watched this afternoon on the ABC website, you guys did a great job with the debate. I was really looking forward to getting a little more on Nightline, but with their hack-job of a cut, I was very disappointed. However, the highlight of the Nightline show for me was the look on Sapient's face when Kirk pulled out his evolution pictures....

I haven't seen Nightline but I'm disheartened to hear that the editing has been biased towards Ray and Cameron.  But it does show they're scared if they feel they have to present the Christian side in a good light.

Re. the painting argument (or watch or car etc).  Is it logical to compare the creation of a manmade object to something that occurs in nature?

I'd first like to say I love the intro you got there, but you're scaring the republican and democrats. You know the ones I mean <_<

I just watched the nightline show and because the theists where, to me, having such a hard time I thought I'd help them.

I also hope to get my hands on the full debate, but what I've seen so far seems like it went well in person.

I watched up to the point when Kirk decided he didn't want to respond, that "I think people will figure it out". Followed by a bunch of not knowing where to go afterwards. A concession of defeat less than 20 minutes in.

Good job Brian and Kelly. Small weaknesses you may have shown, but even the weakened fort bounced the formerly confident theists without trembling. They just couldn't handle it.

Sorry this is not in any way “equally plausible” because you are the one asserting that 1) a god exists outside of the universe and its laws; 2) this god has the ability to speak to us on this speck of a planet (innately or otherwise); and 3) we have the capacity to interpret this omni message and understand it. Mind you, the message itself and the conduit of communication have to cross a celestial boundary we don’t even know exists. Rather presumptuous of you on quite a few levels.

It is far more likely that the only gods that “exist” are those born of human intellect and not of some innate transistor receiving process that gives us “the truth from somewhere out there.” As others have alluded to, gods are probably the product of our desire not to die, which has whipped itself up into dogmas that allow people to reconfigure dreams, NDE’s, weather patterns and abstract shapes on tortillas into “innate” messages from gods. Throw in some drugs smoked at the campfire, a rudimentary spoken-written language, and later political interests, and you can make god be whatever you want. Sound familiar?

What would provide evidence to this earthly explanation of how gods could be? Well, it would help a lot if humanity created a bunch of gods over time that reflect the needs, worries, and desires of cultural specific places on the planet. This would establish a cognitive process inherent to humans regardless of where they are as well as a traceable desire of humanity to feel better about their unknown station on the planet, not to mention the universe. Put a check in the box for that one too. We’ve got loads of evidence for this very process.

It would also help if oral traditions and historical texts used to propagate religions were traceable to plagiarisms, interpolations, changing godly attributes and then of course the encompassing of traditions (Halloween, snake charming). Also, we would need to see the removal of undesirable traditions or texts from specific canons based on human agendas over time which would come about by wars and power shifts. Yep, that’s there too, another tick in the box.

It would even help more if the “popular” gods we have today were in fact so diluted as entities by the process of secularization that believers in them with a more sophisticated arsenal of propaganda could squeeze the shrinking gods into any gap left by logic, reason, and science. Then like little chipmunks the believers could pull out these nuts of “evidence” and claim that they measure up to actual science. Hmm, that seems to be the case also.

Or we could not interject any of this BS at all and leave it at that. This latter possibility would allow us to use actual evidence right here on earth and within the universe. Books have been written on the process of human knowledge and the conclusions we’ve achieved despite religious influence, testable in all their glory for anyone to read and confirm on their own. I suspect Sam Harris is going to be huge in this area given time.

History bears this process out over and over and over again in many fields of study. This holds for scholarly work in religious ideology as well for those willing enough to see it for what it is.

The dilemma you have is the same one that every theist has, and it can be represented in an algebraic analogy. The wiggle room granted to you to point to the “possibility that a god exists” (we can’t disprove it after all) validates a faceless, nameless, shapeless nothing neither inside nor outside of the universe we know, one that rests on a point along a Y axis stretching into oblivion. As soon as you give this god a face, a disposition, and omni anything (namely the ability to be known “innately” for whatever it is), the merit in that wiggle room wanes proportionately as if slipping along an imaginary X axis toward another oblivion. With each assertion that a god exists, a dot pops up on the Y axis. As the human creators of this god flavor it with characteristics, the god becomes smaller along the X axis, right along with every other possibility for all the god’s humanity can dream up and name. Either the god sits inanimately on the Y axis basking in “it’s possible” stew or it becomes more complex and simultaneously more ridiculous at one and the same time with each and every asserted characteristic.

Logically speaking, any god asserted must by its known nature have, practically speaking, no actual nature. Giving it the qualities you do, what all theists do with their pet gods, shows why your premise does not hold up in the same way the scientific laws and the theories born of them do. It sucks to be a theist, what can I say? The alternative, of course, is to say we do not know what we do not know. Then we can get to trying to find out what we can by postulating theories (not asserting them) such as multi-verses and then hope to test them when the time and technology allow. This is a fundamental difference that you seem to miss in your asserted propriety.

Cheers!

Yeah, great job with the argument. I saw this Nightline episode by chance, I had left my TV on after watching Lost (yes...I know, I'm pathetic) and I was on my computer talking with a friend and I perked up when I heard they were going to go through a debate between Atheists and Christians. I expected it to be the stupid generic metaphors from both sides (which unsurprisingly, the Christians resorted to pretty much). I decided I had to look into this further and I am happy I found this site. Do you guys have a Canadian chapter or plan on it?

I'll take a shot at this. 

 It still comes back to the horrible loop of 'where did this complicated being come from that created everything?' On the other hand, it seems more likely that all the energy we know of has always been around somewhere if not in this universe then in another. Multiverse begets multiverse, and since all things are is insubstantial information configured in various ways it also fits into probability. 

One way to see how this works is through the infinite hotel thought experiment. In an infinite hotel with infinite guests, you can never run out of rooms even though the rooms are full. If you want to add an infinite number of guests to the infinite hotel, you simply have every guest move into the room number equal to double their current room number. Nevermind that there are so many impossibilities in this (time, space, etc.), probabalistically there is always room in infinity for jello.

 On an infinite time scale (being that in the "beginning" there is no time), the probability of something happening is 1. Since time is simply the sequence of events it is just another informational value created by the illusion that things are happening in order when in fact things happening here occur at a different rate than elsewhere.

God - Omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omnipresent.

Multiverse - Hypothetical explanation for some of the phenomena related to wave-function collapse.

God - Untestable.

Multiverse - Testable via very complicated experiments, one of which is starting up in November.

 God is pretty complicated. Complication usually refers to the difficulty in trying to figure out how something works. Since "God works in mysterious (and blindingly inefficient) ways," I would say that God is more complicated than even the most convoluded quantum physics paper.

The universe, to me, likely arose from another universe. As a whole, the multiverse did not arise any more going north of the north pole takes you further north. Another way to look at it would be like this: there always has been "something," even counting nothing since nothing is still a quantifiable "thing." So if you have less than nothing, you still have something.

You mention the existance of personal beings as evidence. By the very same logic, there must be a prime decider who moves cards around in a deck so that you choose precisely the right one since the chances of you drawing any particular hand are so small that you will never in your lifetime draw the same order of cards twice.

 It's an oversimplification, but you're more or less right. In essence, everything is made of information. There can never be an absence of information, since that would still be a form of information. Anything you can express is information. Further refined, all things exist including those things which you cannot imagine. That infinitely more things exist which cannot be represented in  material is still not evidence of god, only more information. If there were a god, things would be much simpler.

 What would you propose in opposition to the idea that everything is made of something (materialism)?

We're not assuming that, you are. You're saying that this universe begins and ends, and that's all there is as far as we can know from realistic observation. 

 Personal and impersonal are labels we created. We seek to interrelate based on what our genes have learned, which is survival and replication. Comeradery makes a more fit beast than lone survival. However, what we have become because of the machine that produced us is more than the machine itself. Individually we can imagine whole worlds of fantasy, something which only a few other species we know of can do and not nearly as well as we. Cats cannot imagine flight, even though they know of the concept. The meaning of life is a personal thing, something to be decided by the individual and not some sadistic father figure.

 Looking forward to it.

It's about time atheism receive media attention beyond the name calling and one-sided presentations we typically see. To call any of it "journalism" is to disparage the word.

Congrats to te RRS team for having the wherewithall to go onto an internationally broadcast show and dish out a few well placed blows to the fundamentalist structure. Granted the opposition wasn't much, but it's an opportunity to get your feet wet for bigger and better contests in the future.

While all this was going on down in the States, we up here in Canada were enjoying our own atheistic presentation with Richard Dawkins on "The Hour", a CBC televisions show geared towards a younger, hipper, more urban demographic. There are two clips in the blog Cosmic Afterthoughts that you must see. It's a great interview with Dawkins by George Strombolopoulos. http://cosmicafterthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/05/richard-dawkins-on-hour.html

First off well done on a great job.  There was some very uncomfortable silences from the WOTM camp, which showed an interesting point.

I notice a few comment about how Kirk & crew were more polished, but i have to disagree, they were very good at preaching uninterrupted, but fell apart when having to answer anything outside of their 'comfort' zone. Whereas you guys took each questions without hesitate or embarrassing stares at each other like Kirk and ray did.

They failed on the challenged about providing scientific evidence for God's existence( what a surprise), its funny, i actually watched it hoping that there was going to be some new line or argument from the theists, something new to answer, but alas the same old same old.

So for all the criticism, you guys did a great job of dismantling and making Kirk and Ray look very foolish.

Well done to the both of you. Now lets get some more debates on TV.

I'm sorry, but that's the very definition of beating around the bush. It was a very emotional answer, and I appreciate your honesty, but your answer amounts to this: 'I don't know'. And that's fine, but it would be better if you just said that. My point is exactly that I believe information itself, its existence, is a fairly strong argument for the existence of a source of original information. Finding Egyptian hieroglypics and being able to understand them as a language indicates to me an intelligent source behind them. It may not to you, and you can say that in rebuttal, but I would say most scientists would agree here that there was a source of information, namely, a human being who wrote these things.There is information to be transferred by them, and thus there was a 'sender' who input this information using a code. And the kind of information contained in living systems, in my thinking, would not likely have come from any act of the systems themselves, and thus must have come from outside of themselves. Therefore, I am suggesting an intelligent source outside of the living systems that we see today. I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others.

 C'mon...It didn't deal with anything in any productive manner.

Do you really think that Cameron was attempting to provide an accurate portrayal of transitional forms...or was it just sarcasm based on the gross lack of transitional forms as evidence?  (answer is most intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers)

 The Nightline edit was not good for RSS. It highlighted the unprofessional aspects of the RSS presenters ("numbnuts", the Al Gore like huffing, and so forth). Kelly was extremely screechy.

Sapient really missed on the painter analogy. It is obvious, just by looking at it, without doing any further research, that a painter painted the painting...phone calls to the painter and paint shops are not necessary. It is obvious from the painting that a painter exists.

And Kelly was flat out wrong about Josephus and there being no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus (Tacitus, the Gospels themselves, etc.).

RSS's claims about the pre-edit debate were inflated and the post edit debate just makes them look silly. 

While I do support your efforts, I wish you would take a rather more refined tack when debating in such a public arena. For example, you just had to insert "The popes, who have the blood of millions on their hands", and a diatribe about how fear-driven christianity is. You could have more easily stuck firmly to the premise: scientific demonstration of a creator. Inserting little jabs at christianity, or mocking religion in general, really detracts from your message. As fun as it may be, it makes you look like a bitter wanna-be revolutionary and gives opponents the opportunity to dissmiss you as the much-maligned 'angry athiest'. Aslo, rather than engage Comfort in a huge non sequiter by debating the content of the bible, you'd have been much better off simply calling him on his non sequiter and his attempt at entering 'faith' and the bible.

Additionally, it would help if you would bone up on your cosmology and other topics to be debated.

Kelly looked bretty damn good though. 

Cory, you realize Comforts painting didn't have a painter?  In fact it was made by a machine.

 Another problem with this argument in my opinion is that when you look at the entire universe, it's not really optimized just for us. The amount of space we take up approaches zero in comparision to the total space in the universe.

 It's almost like a single bacterial cell declaring that the city it lives in was created just for it.

Also, if anything the universe seems finely tuned for creating black holes.

And that art historians can't agree whether the woman portrayed in the original painting was an actual person, compilation or a modified self portrait.

He should have picked a better print. Maybe a portrait of Jesus.

Zombie210 just formed RRS Ontario.  I'll ask him to visit this thread. 

Our purpose there was to rebut their claims -- if they had stuck to science (or had any to begin with), then we would have countered in that fashion. We did point that out at the beginning and Brian specifically stated that Ray's use of the bible as proof was a violation of the rules of the debate. Considering how much of their argumentation was based on fear and just the public perception of religion in general are good enough reasons to put that concept out there into the public sphere.

As far as the cosmology goes, we both wish that we had more specific knowledge in that area, but it was an angle that we weren't prepared for in which neither of us specialize. We will be studying up on that before the next debate, though.

Thanks,

Kelly 

 Josephus (the Arabic version, according to the experts, probably contains what Josepus actually wrote about the historical Jesus).

Every fossil is not a known "transitional" in the sense that a "transitional" is direct evidence of a species to new species transformation. These don't exist (but they are assumed).

The painter is obvious without knowing the process. If not, how did the painting come about...chance? What are the alternative explanations for the painting besides the painter? 

You guys both did a fantastic job.  Thank you so much for the effort and preparation - thank you for taking this seriously.  I don't know whether Ray and Kirk didn't take the "rules" seriously (to not invoke the Bible or faith) or whether they truly believe that they followed the rules - but either way, they FAILED.  I actually found myself squirming for them, they did so poorly.  And I really was hoping that they'd bring some new "evidence" to the table that we haven't already seen from theists.

I watched the first 45 minutes of the debate on ABCnews.com and loved it.  I was so eager to see the Nightline recap.  I was quite disappointed that they edited it down so severely when it's obviously been so popular a subject on their web site for days.  But it is the first FACEOFF ever, so hopefully they'll be able to secure longer spots for future debates.  I hope that they revisit "Does God exist?" but this time with competent defenders on God's side.  Well...as competent as one can be when arguing in support of an imaginary friend.

Brian, your speaking was inspiring.  Your comments about terrorism were gorgeous.  I hope that opened a few eyes in the auditorium.  You were composed and for the most part (from what I've seen so far) as polite and respectful as one could expect a person to be who's arguing with Mike Seevers over whether some dude in the sky is waiting to set you on fire for not believing in him.

Kelly, your biting sarcasm (which I can only assume is natural) was so appropriate to the ridiculous claims Kirk and Ray were trying to pawn off as "scientific proof."  You spoke with authority and confidence when you talked about science, and your straightforward approach was so refreshing.

That one moment where Kirk and Ray squeaked out that they didn't want to respond...oof.  I could almost believe I saw a little bit of doubt cross their faces.  That must have been when you noted that you thought they needed a hug.  I think they needed a hug, too.  Martin Bashere was right in the recap - they did appear "visibly shaken by the experience."  It's probably too much to hope that you've planted the seeds of reason in their brains, but you never know what can happen.

Thanks again - you guys are amazing.  You are my heroes today.  Also, Kelly, you are gorgeous and I marvel that you can keep your boobies up in that dress. 

What keeps these religious people in power is the respect people like you give to their irrational beliefs. You would not give this same glow of respect towards outrageous claims outside of religion. If a doctor getting a medical degree claims in all seriousness that voodoo magic is a good substitute for chemotherapy, not only is he not getting a degree, he is going to be laughed out of the room. People's lives depend on this happening. Yet with religion, you can claim to hear voices in your head and still be president. It's your respect towards irrationality that protects religion from receiving the criticism it needs to end once and for all. It IS a mind disorder and people like you make it taboo to call a spade a spade.

The skeptic doesn't bear the burden of proof. The concept of an invisible meteor about to hit the earth is unfalsifiable, but we don't lend it any credence until there is good evidence. Just imagine the consequences of believing in this anyways. People would spend millions on bomb shelters and elect politicians who want to spend even more money on anti-meteorite weapons. Being an environmentalist would be a joke (as it is to rapture believers). These believers in the meteorite will organize and proselytize to others warning them of imminent death. Then there would be rational people telling these meteorite believers that threre is no meteorite. Then people like you will butt in and say "you're not doing any good engaging these people in a debate. How dare you call them illogical! You can't disprove the meteorite!" There will also be people saying "I don't believe that there's a meteorite coming, but we shouldn't tell believers what we think. We would just be a mirror image of the proselytizing meteorite believers!". And then in order to respect the meteorite believers, it will become taboo to criticize their beliefs. They will grow in number and soon control the government. These people in power will make legislation based on belief in meteorite. A great debate will take place if we should allow meteorite education in schools and so on.

Specific knowledge in a specific field is not required to believe that it is true or not true. Theology is not required to realize that the bible is full of shit in the same way fairyology is not required to realize that fairies are fake. I don't need a degree in physics to know that the theory of gravity isn't a hoax.

The goal is not to disprove theism. It is impossible to disprove an infinite number of things. The goal is to prove that there is no good reason to believe in such a thing. This is why sites like this exist.

Wait a minute, isn't "showing that there is no reason to assume a higher power exists" exactly what the rational responders are doing? Doesn't that go against what you've said earlier? Or did you mean "keep to ourselves" instead of "show"?

This coming from someone who thinks it's obvious that god exists?  I rest on my previous post, the painting was made by a machine, not a painter.  Don't be so callous with your science. 

See these threads

A thorough examination of the evidence for Jesus by Rook Hawkins 

Tacitus, Lucian, and Josephus by Todangst

Video from Rook outlining the basics of Jesus Mythicism 

I suggest you re-read my post and do some research then come back and respond. It's clear that you did not bother to do at least one of those two things for the following reasons:

Even if Josephus' Testimonium was accurate and reliable, it still would not have been contemporaneous.

A transitional fossil by your definition will never be found because evolution doesn't promote the half-this/half-that type of trajectory that you are proposing it should. Small changes over large time spans. No crocoducks. Not to mention that species delineation is man-made for the ease of communication and classification. We have designated these groups to include what they include based on similar characteristics, mating patterns, etc. In reality, there are often not many visible and apparent breaking points and more of a smooth progression between a lot of species groups. (At least this is my understanding of it, but I'll be the first to admit that I am a biological dilettante.)

The painting is a metaphor. Get it? Like I said, substitute something with which you have no knowledge of the process by which it is created and see if your hypothesis that it is self-evident still works. We know nothing of universe creation; therefore, it is a false analogy to begin with. The use of god in hypothetical universe creation is an unnecessary complication as well. There are many other theories of how everything got here, some silly and some not, but none of them necessarily infer god's existence--and particularly not that of your particular god.

That painting, used in the debate, literally came from a machine...okay you "win" (on some absurd level). The original painting was not shown but a mass produced likeness was. Maybe they can bring an original to the next debate.

But now...address the point actually being made by the analogy. Where did the original painting come from? What are possible explanations for the origin of the painting?

Josephus, according to the experts, wrote about a historical Jesus. The Arabic version is considered to be the accurate content related to Josephus's reference to Jesus. Why do you completely discount/ignore the experts on this matter? 

Why is Rook considered an expert in languages and so forth? What are his qualifications?. I watched the video on mythicism. He was blatantly inaccurate about the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul specifically writes about the "flesh and blood" Jesus Christ.

Any thoughts?