Took a little work, but the spark of human willpower was ultimately able to overcome the stubborn resistance of technology, and the video from our science/religion debate at Caltech on Sunday is finally up. Michael Shermer and I took on Dinesh D’Souza and Ian Hutchinson. Short version: we won, but judge for yourself if you want to sit through all two hours.
The Great Debate: "Has Science Refuted Religion?"
YouTube comments — always an enlightening read — seem to be mostly about Dawkins and Hitchens, although I don’t remember either of them being there.
I’m afraid not, sorry. Just too many other things to get done.
You see, it is completely pointless to debate such things, for the simple reason that you, Dinesh D’Souza, Ian Hutchinson, Francis Collins, and pretty much anyone else who is not an young earth creationist, are always talking about things that have absolutely nothing to do with Christianity then they turn around and say not only “Therefore God” but “Therefore Jesus Christ is our Lord Savior and we should be Christians”. But it simply does not follow. None of those arguments, irrespective of whether they actually are good arguments for the existence of a God (invariably, they aren’t, but we leave the door open for the appearance of good such arguments), relevant arguments in support of actual Christian beliefs
Because all those people are Christians and believe some very concrete things that define Christianity, yet all they talk about is fine-tuning, how science can not explain everything, how scientism is evil, how morality can not be explained by evolution, etc. etc. None of which has anything to do with Christianity….
At least the young earth crowd is honest about their motivations…
Thanks Beau, I agree 100% and need not to add any thing as it is all & well said in No.2 & 7.
D’Souza boasted that most religious believers are intellectually honest, recognize that faith falls short of knowledge, and so would readily admit they don’t know God exists. But he completely contradicted this claim later on in his snide little allegory.
He said that 95% of the villagers (i.e. theists) “know this guy Bill” (i.e. God). So D’Souza let slip in his example that he thinks God exists as clearly and obviously as a regular guy to the 95% of theists and the 2% of Bill deniers (i.e. atheists) are plainly fools.
One wonders if D’Souza could even be made aware of such massive piles of self-contradiction he puts forth, much less concede any of them. I doubt it.
To substantiate my previous post and before I delete them, here are the two time marks I didn’t get around to mentioning but will now since I went through the trouble of hunting them down.
1 hr. 5 min. mark
1 hr. 23 min. mark
Sean, we listened to the debate driving cross country. A delightful way to knock off 140 or so miles. My takeaway is your brilliant “instruction manual problem” bit, which I shall transcribe and memorize.
I do object to the inclusion of D’Souza. It sickened me to hear him he pretend to be civil while among a civil crowd. He’s proven himself to be at heart a knee-jerk right winger, using his overabundant vocabulary to make vicious, ridiculous (albeit fancy-sounding) assertions such as the “anti-colonial Kenyan mindset” attack on the president which another ridiculous politician has since adopted.
D’Souza was kind enough to warn us, however, that the moment he decides that gods do not exist, he’ll likely become a raping serial-killing toxic mortgage dealer.
One point I’d like to see addressed: isn’t the popular concept of “god” rather puny and unimaginitive considering the enormity and complexity of our universe?
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The cake is a lie.
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The live of the universe depends on the pudendum. As soon as the Word was made flesh, man was unable to be quiet, or work, or think until he had dropped his seed.
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