We are dealing with your claim about what they believe. We are not dealing with whether their claim is correct or not.
I've told you how I arrived at the conclusion I did, namely, that Dawkins said it was "literally nothing". I hardly think I am to blame for his poor word choice which is altogether misleading.
You parroted it, it's your claim now, so you defend it.
Okay, if you want. When I called myself an atheists I didn't think much about how the universe came to exist at all. If you would have told me the origin of the universe was caused by God, I would have denied that. But then I started to actually think about the complexity of life and I thought to myself that it seems perfectly reasonable that due to the complexities of my own existence that there must be some manner of god or creator of things. So I was basically a pantheist at this time. I couldn't deny the plausibility that all this was created by a higher power. In fact, it was when I was reading secular scholars that I realized that there must be some kind of god. Then I became a Christian.
Sure, there are reasons for anyone to do anything. Are they good reasons? Sometimes. Are they bad reasons? Sometimes. Are there consequences? Always.
And my point is that if an atheist has no accountability [to God] then in situations where it is reasonable to lie, they will take that route more often than not.
There are reasons for Christians to lie out of self interest too. If you lie to get some money from someone, that's a reason to do it, you like buying stuff. If all that afterlife stuff is true, then the pros don't outweigh the cons, but that doesn't mean that you have "no reason" to lie.
Yeah, I think we are talking about different things here. ANYONE has reasons to lie given the right reasons, right? Well, that is when Christianity says not to lie because you will be held accountable to God for what you say.
That's because "self-interest" isn't the pertinent part. I'll rephrase to demonstrate that.
First you said there was "no reason to not lie out of self interest" now you say that there is "some reason to not lie out of self interest". The part you added later was the "pragmatic reasons". When you say "no reasons" you mean "no moral reasons, not counting pragmatic ones". But what you said was "no reasons." You didn't say what you really meant. You see how that diffuses any contention you had with Dawkins and Krauss and their use of the word "nothing", right? Of course not...
No, you said I said "no reason" with no qualifier. I never said it without a qualifier. Show my error to me if I did actually do that. Besides, I think we were talking about self-interest all along, so me saying "no reason" goes with the context of what we were discussing. Now, I know you are going to look at this and say, "See this is just like what you are accusing Dawkins of" but the difference is that I've actually made an effort to see if you care about bringing up the context of what Dawkins has said and you've shown you don't actually care about that.
I don't care if you understand the theory. It'd be swell if you learned to not just make stuff up about people you know nothing about, but I'm not holding my breath. That's sort of me trying to influence you. But really, I take these arguments to the bitter end for the lurkers. You see how posts just get random "likes" and "winners" and "agree" ratings from folks that aren't part of the conversation? That's because we have an audience. Folks who read all this out of boredom because it's sorta interesting.
I'm not "just making stuff up about people I know nothing about" I'm pulling from a direct quote by someone. Regardless of what Dawkins actually means when he says "nothing" I got the impression he meant nothing literally. That is hardly "just making stuff up about people".
So when folks lose a point so soundly, and then continue to fall all over themselves repeatedly trying to save face while refusing to admit a mistake, well, they're losing credibility. And the sort of folks that would do that don't deserve to be taken seriously when they make claims, so I like to let them carry on so anyone who might read other posts in other threads in the future know there isn't going to be a serious claim.
It should be VERY EASY to see where I got the idea that Dawkins said the universe came from "nothing". I have two sources that say atheists think the universe came from nothing.. one from J. Warner Wallace, one from Dawkins. You can't deny that on first blush it does appear that Dawkins is saying the universe came from nothing right? Like, it is not unreasonable to think Dawkins thinks the universe came from nothing right? Like, based on those videos, for example?
The cure for that is admitting mistakes. If folks know you'll admit when you've made a mistake, the likelihood that you've put some thought into your posts increases and folks take them more seriously. I know I only respect folks who own their mistakes.
That's all fine and well, but I think the only mistake I made was thinking Dawkins meant nothing when he said nothing. I can hardly see how you can fault me for that. Who expects someone to mean the exact opposite of what they are saying? Sure, you can say the video points to Dawkins saying it was both something and nothing, but that is where I would say where I originally got the idea, which is J. Warner Wallace when he gave his own perspective from when he was an atheist.
Then treat it like a hypothetical and answer it that way.
Why?
