I did another Google Hangout! This time with Justin Schieber and Moonwalking Unicorn, so it was all atheists.
This was a ton of fun and I think we had some really good discussions going on. We started with a discussion on the types of atheistic arguments: Offensive vs. Defensive and then touched on some arguments that atheists can use that are as intuitively appealing as some theistic arguments.
Our Twitter Handles:
@Counterapologis
@doubtcast
@UnicornOnMoon
Our Blogs:
http://doubtcast.org/
http://unicornonmoon.blogspot.com/
Hi Counter-Apologist, I appreciate the respectful tone you have with respectful opponents and the fact you make the difference between genocide-endorsing apologists and Randal Rauser.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree we should be free to criticize whatever one wants. But I completely oppose the use of emotional bullying (whether by Antitheists or Christians) against nice people who just appear not to have the same worldview as yours.
What about believers who just believe that God is love, they might be deluded, but what is the point trying to deconvert them?
Given the fact that we know almost nothing in comparison to everything that exists (including all the types of parallel universes which may exist), asserting there are no gods, unicorns, fairies... is still a leap of faith.
And there is nothing absurd with the idea we live in a simulation.
So, Agnosticism seems to be the most reasonable position.
Lothars Sohn – Lothar’s son
http://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com
Thanks for the kind words.
DeleteI'm not sure I follow what you're saying wrt "emotional bullying"? Is using powerful arguments like the Problem of Evil or the Problem of Hell, and poking holes in the common responses to those arguments "emotional bullying?"
These are certainly problems for theists and if we are going to engage in debate then the issues should be brought up. I don't endorse being dishonest, but I don't see using those kinds of arguments as dishonest.
As far as your point about agnosticism, well I prefer agnosticism towards more abstract notions of a deity (ie. I'm agnostic towards Deism), but you're making an appeal to ignorance there. If you want to claim that it's "faith" to not believe in unicorns and fairies, well then I think you've watered down the word to the point where every living human has "faith" as you define it.
Hello CA.
ReplyDeleteUsing the problem of Hell or of Evil isn't in and of itself an emotional bullying, of course.
But it is the tone which can be quite problematic. I disagree with both Christian and Muslim fundamentalists but I always try to make it clear I respect them as persons, however disgusting some of their ideas might be. I try to understand them and recognize also the positive, beautiful aspects of their worldview.
I try to hate the sin while loving the sinner.
As I explain in a recent post about the "Absence of Evidence", I fail to see why there couldn't be fairies and unicorns somewhere in the Multiverse, so long as these beings are not defined in a self-contradictory way.
Kind regards from Germany.
Lothars Sohn – Lothar’s son
http://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com