Richard Dawkins Explains Why He Doesn't Debate Young Earth Creationists

[Eudaimonist]

What have YOU done to ease the suffering of millions?
What have YOU done to teach people about Jesus and the Bible?
What have YOU done to make the world a better place?
How many sick have you healed?
How many homeless have you given homes?
How many downtrodden have you born up?

I don't understand this argument. All of those things have been done by countless human beings.

Blaming God for the failing of man is about as stupid an argument as I've ever heard.

That's not what he's saying. He's asking why an all-powerful being is inactive in the face of the situation. Yes, human beings do bad things, but God has the power to intervene, and the stakes are high.

Why is you think God should make earth a paradise? It isn't. It's a crucible.

And how is this a good God again? This gets back to the evil genetic engineer God who doesn't give a damn that millions of his genetic experiments will suffer horribly, and not always through their own fault.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I don't understand this argument. All of those things have been done by countless human beings.



That's not what he's saying. He's asking why an all-powerful being is inactive in the face of the situation. Yes, human beings do bad things, but God has the power to intervene, and the stakes are high.



And how is this a good God again? This gets back to the evil genetic engineer God who doesn't give a damn that millions of his genetic experiments will suffer horribly, and not always through their own fault.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Not just that, he created them knowing that they are destined for eternal damnation. How is that any different from creating them for eternal damnation?

 

[TheQuietRiot]

I answered you. Blaming God for evil is like blaming your campfire for the darkness that surrounds you when you wander away from it. Of course people do evil things to each other. They are inherently evil.

No you didn't.

There has been thousands of years of untold suffering that has been inflicted on the human race that happened long before Christinity existed. For over 100,000 years humans have suffered depredation by animals, starvation, death by simple diseases due to a lack of basic hygiene. And to top it all off, they had no chance at redemption. Millions of people who had never even heard of the gospel would be in hell because your God decided to wait until roughly 2000 years ago give mankind a chance at redemption by sacrificing himself to himself.

If you haven't accepted Christ as your personal savior you are unforgiven.
If you've ever taken anything without permission you're an unforgiven thief.
If you've ever had sex outside of marriage you're an unforgiven adulterer.
If you've ever said anything untrue you're an unforgiven liar.
If you've ever used the Lord's name in vain you're an unforgiven blasphemer.

I don't believe there exists a Christ/God who can forgive me. Therefore accepting him as my personal savior would be rather pointless waste of time.

I could go on but you get the point. You stand there putrefied by the contamination of your own sin and you chastise God because the world doesn't reach your standards of utopia?

The world he created. You know, the all powerful, all knowing being that can't even be bothered to stop the suffering of thousands of children who starve to death every day. Children who didn't even have a chance to commit sin. What evil exists in a 3 year old toddler?

These, by the way, are not insults but rather observations of fact. Christians aren't perfect, but we have a way for our sins to be forgiven. Your sins accumulate every day until at judgment God will be unable to tolerate your presence. That's what separates you from God for eternity; not any failing on God's part, but the contamination of your own unforgiven sin.

You think you do, but you don't. The trouble for you is that you will die thinking you are correct, and you will never realize that you are not because of the cease of brain functions. It puzzles me how grown adults can think that when they die they go to a nice fuzzy place in the sky, and all the people who do bad things go to a bad place and a punished, forever. It smacks of "too good to be true".

 

[KWCrazy]

I don't understand this argument. All of those things have been done by countless human beings.

But not by the poser, who finds it easy to sit behind a computer and blame God for changes he does work toward himself. If he had, he would have answers for those questions.

That's not what he's saying. He's asking why an all-powerful being is inactive in the face of the situation.

God is anything but inactive.

Yes, human beings do bad things, but God has the power to intervene, and the stakes are high.

When He intervenes, it's over. You don't get to take another breath. It could happen in our lifetime, and possibly even by the end of the day. If God returned this very instant, how would YOU fare in His final judgment?

And how is this a good God again? This gets back to the evil genetic engineer God who doesn't give a damn that millions of his genetic experiments will suffer horribly, and not always through their own fault.

An argument that people are good and God is evil is such blasphemy it deserves no reply.

 

[KWCrazy]

There has been thousands of years of untold suffering that has been inflicted on the human race that happened long before Christinity existed.

Before Christianity, but not before God.

For over 100,000 years humans have suffered depredation by animals, starvation, death by simple diseases due to a lack of basic hygiene.

False statement. Man isn't 100,000 years old.

And to top it all off, they had no chance at redemption.

False statement from ignorance. They had the law from the time of Adam. In the beginning, Adam only had one law.

Millions of people who had never even heard of the gospel would be in hell because your God decided to wait until roughly 2000 years ago give mankind a chance at redemption by sacrificing himself to himself.

This is one of the most profoundly unenlightened statements I've ever seen. Amazingly, atheists claim to know more about the Bible than the rest of us. Ever read Romans 2?

I don't believe there exists a Christ/God who can forgive me.

He could, but if you won't let Him, then you are condemned by your own actions, not His.

Therefore accepting him as my personal savior would be rather pointless waste of time.

Many are called, few are chosen. You have the free will to choose who you will serve. You've made your choice, apparently.

The world he created. You know, the all powerful, all knowing being that can't even be bothered to stop the suffering of thousands of children who starve to death every day.

Aren't you the one who says He doesn't exist? Then you're arguing about the natural of a God you know nothing about that you pretend doesn't exist, and you're basing what you think you know on a book you aren't capable of understanding?

The hubris of you atheists continues to amaze me!!

 

[TheQuietRiot]

Before Christianity, but not before God.

How could they be saved before Jesus came?

False statement. Man isn't 100,000 years old.

The fossil record shows modern humans originated in Africa around 195,000 years ago.

False statement from ignorance. They had the law from the time of Adam. In the beginning, Adam only had one law.

And as I have explained, humans have existed far longer than the Bible documents. Maybe it is your ignorance of this fact that is the problem.

This is one of the most profoundly unenlightened statements I've ever seen. Amazingly, atheists claim to know more about the Bible than the rest of us. Ever read Romans 2?

Can you show me where I made that claim? No? Didn't think so.

He could, but if you won't let Him, then you are condemned by your own actions, not His.

This means as much to me as the following does to you...

Well Zeus could, but if you won't let him, then you are condemned by your own actions, not his.

You see, we are both atheists. I have just gone one deity further than you have.

Many are called, few are chosen. You have the free will to choose who you will serve. You've made your choice, apparently.

I serve nobody. And never will, I'd rather die a free man then live as a serf.

Aren't you the one who says He doesn't exist? Then you're arguing about the natural of a God you know nothing about that you pretend doesn't exist, and you're basing what you think you know on a book you aren't capable of understanding?

The hubris of you atheists continues to amaze me!!

I thought you would have noticed I was being hypothetical. As an atheist it should be rather obvious that I don't really believe there is a god. But you do. How do you account for all the suffering of innocents in this world? Of the thousands of children who die of starvation and disease across the world for no good reason?

 

[KCfromNC]

Stating facts is having contempt?

When reality gets in the way of religious faith, guess which one is evil in the eyes of the believer...

 

[Archaeopteryx]

False statement from ignorance. They had the law from the time of Adam. In the beginning, Adam only had one law.

He created Adam and Eve without any concept of right or wrong, placed forbidden fruit within their reach, and then blamed them for partaking of it. The fruit, by the way, was knowledge of good and evil; the very knowledge they would have needed to morally understand his command to begin with.

If that were not enough, he then institutes a punishment grossly out of proportion with the so-called "sin" by punishing not only Adam and Eve, but all of their progeny, up to the present day. Then, roughly 2000 years ago, he is moved to "compassion" and sacrifices himself to himself to atone for a crime that he set up roughly 4000 years earlier. The "grace" procured by his atonement is made conditional on accepting his celestial tyranny and calling his maleficence 'good'.

As for those poor souls he created knowing that they would never have the opportunity to accept his grace because they were born in the wrong era or culture? He has prepared a place of eternal damnation for them. They have forever to contemplate their "mistake" of not worshiping a god they never even heard of.

Many are called, few are chosen. You have the free will to choose who you will serve. You've made your choice, apparently.

What a pathetic excuse. He created creatures in full knowledge that they are destined for eternal damnation. How is that any different from creating them for eternal damnation?

 

[Davian]

<snip>
False statement. Man isn't 100,000 years old.
<snip>

Noting the title of this thread, if you were on stage with Dawkins in a debate, what would you preset as robust, definitive, demonstrable evidence to support your claim of how long you think humans have been on this planet? Or would you just be wasting his time?

 

[KWCrazy]

How could they be saved before Jesus came?

Jesus assured in the New Covenant. There was the law before that. This guy named Moses had it all written down 'cause he knew how to read and write and all. Anyway, it seems that God used to talk to people like Adam and Noah and a whole bunch a them prophets. He done tol' 'em what ta do and what not ta do. Sometimes; perk near all the time, they done broke His laws and paid a price. They weren't all condemend, tho', 'cause they had the law and all them sacrifices an' stuff.

The fossil record shows modern humans originated in Africa around 195,000 years ago.

No. Somebody's interpretation of a few fossils coupled with his pre-conceived notion that the earth is millions of years let him come up with an idea that the fossil was 195,000 years old. You believed him.

And as I have explained, humans have existed far longer than the Bible documents. Maybe it is your ignorance of this fact that is the problem.

People like you have been making that claim for as long as I've lived. The trouble is, I've had personal experience with the supernatural so I know God is real. People like you deny that the supernatural exists, which makes you the dim bulb. All of your understanding of the world is based on the fact that the laws of nature create everything. That's why you cannot ever possibly embrace truth.

Can you show me where I made that claim? No? Didn't think so.

You're not the only atheist in this forum.

Speaking for myself, a thorough scholarly and historical review of the bible, is part of the reason I am no longer a christian....

Pew did a study last year, in which they assessed the religious knowledge of christians, other religious people and non-believers. You know who scored the highest in religious knowledge? Non-believers and christians finished dead last.

I serve nobody. And never will, I'd rather die a free man then live as a serf.

How, exactly, are you free? How would having an understanding of the supernatural world around you make you a serf?

How do you account for all the suffering of innocents in this world?

Children are hungry because their parents can't or won't care for them. Adults are hungry because they can't or won't take care of themselves. I think if I were starving in a desert I'd move to where there was water, but that's just me. Poverty and famine are part of a world removed from God. The further people remove themselves from Him, the more removed they are from His blessings. As to each case, the reasons could be different. The fact remains that if you have a child it isn't God's job to feed him, it's yours. If your child goes hungry it isn't God's fault, it's yours. People who can't feed themselves shouldn't have children. While that may sound harsh, the fact is that taking on the responsibility for a baby you can't care for is cruelty to the child.

 

[KWCrazy]

Noting the title of this thread, if you were on stage with Dawkins in a debate, what would you preset as robust, definitive, demonstrable evidence to support your claim of how long you think humans have been on this planet? Or would you just be wasting his time?

Very simply, if he wanted to limit the debate to proven science, I would first ask him to prove that the world was created in accordance with the laws of physics. He'd lose. There is no provable mechanism that accounts for the origination of the universe.

 

[Davian]

Very simply, if he wanted to limit the debate to proven science, I would first ask him to prove that the world was created in accordance with the laws of physics. He'd lose. There is no provable mechanism that accounts for the origination of the universe.

Evasion noted. I do not believe he claims to be an astrophysicist.

Again: if you were on stage with Dawkins in a debate, what would you preset as robust, definitive, demonstrable evidence to support your claim of how long you think humans have been on this planet? Or would you just be wasting his time?

 

[Eudaimonist]

If God returned this very instant, how would YOU fare in His final judgment?

Based on which God concept? If God is good, I would fare well. If God is evil, then I would hope that I wouldn't fare well, because I'd want nothing to do with an evil God. Either way, I win.

An argument that people are good and God is evil is such blasphemy it deserves no reply.

It may not deserve a reply, but it does deserve silent reflection.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[bhsmte]

If God really exists and is the creator of this world then why would he allow the suffering of untold millions the vast majority of which had never heard of Jesus/the bible and thus suffer further in hell as a result.

Why did he wait 100,000 years to intervene in our plight of predatiom, starvation, disease and death?

Is he cruel or incompetent?

Excellent question and one I have asked on CF several times.

Think about it, God sits and watches man suffer on earth for 100,000 years at a minimum (may be as long as 200,000) and does nothing. Then, he decides to send Jesus to be this; get out of jail free card, for anyone who agrees with the christian story and follows the rules. God doesn't send Jesus to all parts of the world so all of man can be exposed to him, he only limits him to a very small portion.

If this doesn't sound like a man made story, I don't know what does.

 

[bhsmte]

Not just that, he created them knowing that they are destined for eternal damnation. How is that any different from creating them for eternal damnation?

If an architect designs a house with a structural design flaw and it collapses, who's responsible for that? I say the dude who designed it.

 

[KWCrazy]

Evasion noted. I do not believe he claims to be an astrophysicist.

The he loses.

The entire basis of evolution is that everything evolved over time from a single cell that somehow contained the genetic information for everything that ever lived; plant or animal. This cell may have come about through the impossible process of abiogenesis or it could have come from outer space; though we deny that there IS other life in outer space. Regardless, the claim is that this cell which is introduced into what is probably a liquid environment somehow finds things to eat; that it somehow finds a way to reproduce; and that it somehow finds a way to escape the contained environment before it exhausts its food supply. With no natural predators and nothing to force adaptation, it somehow adapts anyway acquiring through some unknown magic process we call benevolent mutations all the genetic information required to go from being unicellular to becoming a sentient being able to concoct such a wild fabrication and call it science.

Add to this the requirement that he must prove conclusively that this mechanism is not only the best explanation for the origins of life, it is the ONLY mechanism to explain the origin of life. He must show that all the incredible organization and detail in the universe could somehow come about on its own without a designer. Beyond that, he must explain how millions of people could have supernatural encounters with a supernatural force that supposedly doesn't exist. If one is to argue using only natural laws, then one must first ascertain that natural law and ONLY natural law is the mechanism by which creation came about.

There is not one single theory of origination that can explain the origin of everything from nothingness. If God can create the universe, then He can do it as He said He did; in its mature form; ready to support life. To God, the universe could be created as easily as an artist creates a scene; painting in everything exactly as it must be. Then, being God, He brings His canvas to life; an entire global ecosystem functional immediately and created in its mature state. Science cannot refute this. Science does not and cannot validate or invalidate the existence of the supernatural. However, science can be used pretty effectively to prove the evolution is nothing more than fodder for the desperate minds of atheists who want so badly not to believe in God.

 

[TheQuietRiot]

Jesus assured in the New Covenant. There was the law before that. This guy named Moses had it all written down 'cause he knew how to read and write and all. Anyway, it seems that God used to talk to people like Adam and Noah and a whole bunch a them prophets. He done tol' 'em what ta do and what not ta do. Sometimes; perk near all the time, they done broke His laws and paid a price. They weren't all condemend, tho', 'cause they had the law and all them sacrifices an' stuff. No. Somebody's interpretation of a few fossils coupled with his pre-conceived notion that the earth is millions of years let him come up with an idea that the fossil was 195,000 years old. You believed him.

The earth is billions, not millions of years old. This is a scientific fact.

Let me guess, you think its around 6,000 years old?

People like you have been making that claim for as long as I've lived. The trouble is, I've had personal experience with the supernatural so I know God is real. People like you deny that the supernatural exists, which makes you the dim bulb. All of your understanding of the world is based on the fact that the laws of nature create everything. That's why you cannot ever possibly embrace truth.

I don't deny the existence of the supernatural. I simply haven't seen any evidence that has convinced me of its existence. Your personal experience means nothing to anyone beyond yourself. For every zealous Christian professing the truth of his religion their is a Muslim, Hindu or Jew doing the same. You can't all be right, but you can all be wrong.

You're not the only atheist in this forum.

Yup, and as the years go by you will find that more and more people throw off the shackles of bronze age mythology.

How, exactly, are you free? How would having an understanding of the supernatural world around you make you a serf?

I'm just as free to do as I decide as you are. The only difference is you behave in a such a manner as to appease an non existent deity. I don't consider being under the constant watch of a God who can punish you for thought crime to be "free".

Children are hungry because their parents can't or won't care for them. Adults are hungry because they can't or won't take care of themselves. I think if I were starving in a desert I'd move to where there was water, but that's just me. Poverty and famine are part of a world removed from God. The further people remove themselves from Him, the more removed they are from His blessings. As to each case, the reasons could be different. The fact remains that if you have a child it isn't God's job to feed him, it's yours. If your child goes hungry it isn't God's fault, it's yours. People who can't feed themselves shouldn't have children. While that may sound harsh, the fact is that taking on the responsibility for a baby you can't care for is cruelty to the child.

Ultimately, God created us knowing that people would cause suffering to their innocent children among many other things. He has either decided to let them suffer or does not care to do anything about it.

 

[Dusky Mouse]

If God really exists and is the creator of this world then why would he allow the suffering of untold millions the vast majority of which had never heard of Jesus/the bible and thus suffer further in hell as a result.

Why did he wait 100,000 years to intervene in our plight of predatiom, starvation, disease and death?

Is he cruel or incompetent?

Well, one thing for sure, given that scenario the faith of the atheists certainly does prove they believe in nothing and they've gotten all of it back.

The world is no better for faith in God? So the atheists are simply happy to go along with the decay and transgression because its all on them and all humans who participate in life.

 

[Davian]

The he loses.

The entire basis of evolution is that everything evolved over time from a single cell that somehow contained the genetic information for everything that ever lived; plant or animal. This cell may have come about through the impossible process of abiogenesis or it could have come from outer space; though we deny that there IS other life in outer space. Regardless, the claim is that this cell which is introduced into what is probably a liquid environment somehow finds things to eat; that it somehow finds a way to reproduce; and that it somehow finds a way to escape the contained environment before it exhausts its food supply. With no natural predators and nothing to force adaptation, it somehow adapts anyway acquiring through some unknown magic process we call benevolent mutations all the genetic information required to go from being unicellular to becoming a sentient being able to concoct such a wild fabrication and call it science.

Add to this the requirement that he must prove conclusively that this mechanism is not only the best explanation for the origins of life, it is the ONLY mechanism to explain the origin of life. He must show that all the incredible organization and detail in the universe could somehow come about on its own without a designer. Beyond that, he must explain how millions of people could have supernatural encounters with a supernatural force that supposedly doesn't exist. If one is to argue using only natural laws, then one must first ascertain that natural law and ONLY natural law is the mechanism by which creation came about.

There is not one single theory of origination that can explain the origin of everything from nothingness. If God can create the universe, then He can do it as He said He did; in its mature form; ready to support life. To God, the universe could be created as easily as an artist creates a scene; painting in everything exactly as it must be. Then, being God, He brings His canvas to life; an entire global ecosystem functional immediately and created in its mature state. Science cannot refute this. Science does not and cannot validate or invalidate the existence of the supernatural. However, science can be used pretty effectively to prove the evolution is nothing more than fodder for the desperate minds of atheists who want so badly not to believe in God.

More evasion. I did not ask about abiogenesis.

Pretend, for the moment, that the burden of evidence is on the one making the claim.

You said, "Man isn't 100,000 years old."

Now, you are on the stage with Dawkins, and everyone knows who you are, your education, and your credentials. You have just made this statement, what would you present as robust, definitive, demonstrable evidence to support your claim of how long you think humans have been on this planet? Is god-of-the-gaps all you have?

 

[KWCrazy]

The earth is billions, not millions of years old. This is a scientific fact.

The age of the earth is based on theory, not fact. It's been adjusted many times over the years. Facts don't change, but theories do.
...Simply put, it came from the Bible. Of course, the Bible doesn’t say explicitly anywhere, “The earth is 6,000 years old.” Good thing it doesn’t; otherwise it would be out of date the following year. But we wouldn’t expect an all-knowing God to make that kind of a mistake.

God gave us something better. In essence, He gave us a “birth certificate.” For example, using a personal birth certificate, a person can calculate how old he is at any point. It is similar with the earth. Genesis 1 says that the earth was created on the first day of creation (Genesis 1:1–5). From there, we can begin to calculate the age of the earth.

Let’s do a rough calculation to show how this works. The age of the earth can be estimated by taking the first five days of creation (from earth’s creation to Adam), then following the genealogies from Adam to Abraham in Genesis 5 and 11, then adding in the time from Abraham to today.

Adam was created on day 6, so there were five days before him. If we add up the dates from Adam to Abraham, we get about 2,000 years, using the Masoretic Hebrew text of Genesis 5 and 11.3 Whether Christian or secular, most scholars would agree that Abraham lived about 2,000 B.C. (4,000 years ago).
So a simple calculation is:
5 days
+ ~2,000 years
+ ~4,000 years
~6,000 years

....

...the idea of millions of years really took hold in geology when men like Abraham Werner, James Hutton, William Smith, Georges Cuvier, and Charles Lyell used their interpretations of geology as the standard, rather than the Bible. Werner estimated the age of the earth at about one million years. Smith and Cuvier believed untold ages were needed for the formation of rock layers. Hutton said he could see no geological evidence of a beginning of the earth; and building on Hutton’s thinking, Lyell advocated “millions of years.” ...

As you can see from table 6, uniformitarian maximum ages for the earth obtained from other methods are nowhere near the 4.5 billion years estimated by radiometric dating; of the other methods, only two calculated dates were as much as 500 million years.
The results from some radiometric dating methods completely undermine those from the other radiometric methods. One such example is carbon-14 (14C) dating. As long as an organism is alive, it takes in 14C and 12C from the atmosphere; however, when it dies, the carbon intake stops. Since 14C is radioactive (decays into 14N), the amount of 14C in a dead organism gets less and less over time. Carbon-14 dates are determined from the measured ratio of radioactive carbon-14 to normal carbon-12 (14C/12C). Used on samples that were once alive, such as wood or bone, the measured 14C/12C ratio is compared with the ratio in living things today.
Now, 14C has a derived half-life of 5,730 years, so the 14C in organic material supposedly 100,000 years old should all essentially have decayed into nitrogen.19 Some things, such as wood trapped in lava flows, said to be millions of years old by other radiometric dating methods, still have 14C in them.20 If the items were really millions of years old, then they shouldn’t have any traces of 14C. Coal and diamonds, which are found in or sandwiched between rock layers allegedly millions of years old, have been shown to have 14C ages of only tens of thousands of years.21 So which date, if any, is correct? The diamonds or coal can’t be millions of years old if they have any traces of 14C still in them. This shows that these dating methods are completely unreliable and indicates that the presumed assumptions in the methods are erroneous....
source

The bottom line is where you put your faith; whether you put it in the ever changing and self contradicting conclusions of "science" or in the word of God. Ultimately, since you can't prove any of it yourself, faith is all you have to go on.

I don't deny the existence of the supernatural. I simply haven't seen any evidence that has convinced me of its existence.

Perhaps there is some hope for you yet. If one of those supernatural entities happens to be God, then by definition He is omnipotent and capable of creating the entire universe exactly as He stated that He did.