argument

I thought that maybe God needs a better champion than Yrreg. This argument does not seem to have been discussed here before, so I thought I would run it up the flagpole www.lastseminary.com/cosmological-argument/A%20New%20Cosmological%20Argument.pdf and see what people made of it. My...

What makes conspiracy theories so popular? I think this question has plagued all of us at one point or another- some of us may have an answer, others may not. I posed this question to an author I have been following for a while who writes on rhetoric and persuasion- Jay Heinrichs, aka...

Every so often, when someone is ranting about belief, intelligence, etc., and I point out that Newton was a pretty smart believer, I often get something like 'Most everyone believed back then. His belief was a product of his times.' So, when they then go on about smart atheists today, why do...

Mystery and Faith and Religion I have been trying to talk sense into an old friend who has a bad case of the religion virus. The really odd thing in his case is that it's not a straightforward belief - it's not a "literal bible" or "Catholic" case, it's not even a vanilla "Christianity" case...

How many people here actually believe there is a physical thing in the universe known as spacetime, which can bend, causing gravity?

Has anybody here ever heard an apologist use the argument that anybody living in the enviroment the gospels were written in, must have been mad to risk their lives like that?

This is an intentional post and run because I have absolutely no interest in debating what the word evidence "should" mean, but apparently some people do so I wanted to give them a place to have it. And I also wanted someplace to point people to when they insist on having it in other threads...

The idea of banning something because it offends religious sensibility is not confined to Islam; it's the basis for the law of blasphemy, which is popular among Christians as well. What distresses me is the feeble response of people in government. I just wish that some politician would have...

If Theists predominately believe what they do based on emotion rather than intellect, isn’t it doubtful that intellectual argument will encourage them to question or change their beliefs? Perhaps a more “touchy-feely” compassionate and sympathetic approach might work better. Any suggestions?

source: http://www.columbia.edu/~rcc20/christianity/whynotchristian.html What say you?

Sorry for spamming the JREF boards this morning, but I had a bunch of questions this weekend! Anyway, I was reading an essay by Richard Dawkins this weekend that started by showing this hypothetical letter: --------------------------------------------- Sir, You appeal for money to save the...

I have mentioned this before, but nobody seemed impressed by it. Either I didn't express myself clearly or it is something that is already obvious to most people or it could simply be not very interesting of intelligent observation. I have always thought that arguing the evidence with...

We have seen believers that found one or two studies that, apparently, show that PSI effects are real. We know that they will take any criticism with anger and will be reluctant to believe anything but that PSI is real. Well, instead of bringing results, which are always open to discussion (no...

Hi folks, long time no see. Here's the deal, I was speaking with a neighbour of mine, a intelligent fellow certainly, and quite commonsensical in most matters. The problem is his particular style of "argument". Have you ever spoken with someone who ends up ...I'm not sure if theres a formal...

The thing that bothers me most about the book is the amorality of the author’s argument. He basis his argument only on what is best for the US. He does not care about whether other democracies thrive or fail. He does not care whether hundreds of thousands of people die in Rwanda. According...

In Shadows of the Mind, Roger Penrose attempts to formalise Goedel's intuition about human knowledge and formal systems referred to in my previous post. Here is the argument: Now far be it from me to disagree with a genius, but I have problems with this. (1) Notice how some computations in...

With the public "debate" on science teaching standards in Kansas going on this week (and, ironically, this date in 1925 was when John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution) and much in the news, I'm trying to track down an article previously posted, I believe in this topic area, maybe 2...

As I haven't been following the Vatican politics, I can't make a justified guess on who will be the next pope. So, I'm forced to use a probabilistic analysis. First, note that there have been 23 popes called John before but only one Hilarius. So, it would seem that it is 23 times more likely...

This occured to me recently and thought maybe it was worth sharing. On the odd occasion when i find myself engaged in a dispute with a new age nincompoop, they start of with all these reasons why they must be in the right, after a short while the information speaks for itself and they are very...

Hey All. . . Can someone help me out with this argument for GD belief? <Begin Argument> 1. Back in the day, there were people that claimed stones came down from the sky. 2. The scientist back then asked for proof, a piece of the rock that came down, etc; but no one could manufacture such...

How would one respond to this argument. 1. Sceptic lists the history of the free energy debacle and how free energy idiots leech on to every kind of science that comes up (eg. electricity, magnetism, atomic energy, fusion etc.). 2. Sceptic notes that the machines have been universally derided...

I. Argument All that exists in Nature is contingent, since its non-existence doesn't imply any contradiction. However, if there is no Necessary Being (i.e., One whose inexistence would imply a contradiction), there wouldn't be any reason for Something to exist rather than Nothing, and nothing...

A great argument, and I'm wondering why this didn't appear in the Supreme Court discussion (although it may be in the briefs). If "Under God" is merely ceremonial, not divisive, falls below the radar, etc, ... What would be the objection to changing it to "Under Allah" for a year, and then...

I'm constantly hearing the argument from those who believe in an afterlife that since the body contains energy, when the body dies energy is released. Since this energy doesn't die, what becomes of it. To them, this is possible evidence that a "soul" or "spirit" survives the death of the...

In terms of advancing science, wouldn't the billions of dollars spent landing that thing on mars have been better served if distributed as research grants to medical-- and other-- researchers around the country? Could that money maybe have cured diabetes (for example?) Not that science won't...

1) God = greatest conceivable being 2) It is greater to exist in reality than just in the mind 3) God must exist in reality Firstly, why does Descartes say this argument only applies to a necessary being? Why is Gaunilo not right when he says that using this method we can define anything into...

Recently, I have encountered a particular argument in favor of God several times, once on this board, a couple of times away from it. This argument is the one that says, at its core, "God must exist because life would be meaningless if he didn't". I have also seen this argument used to justify...

What if scientists discovered that the simplest laws of our universe rely on a certain number of variables. They somehow find out that these variables are not dependent on anything and that if they were barely changed then our universe could not produce life. These scientists were also, some...

I was just thinking about the fact how believers may sometimes refer to atheism and sciences associated with it (as ridiculous as it may be) with moral decay. And of course how religious faith (thanks to "Finella" for infecting me with this meme) is sometimes associated with a tendency towards...