neopolitan,
If you DONT want to defend any of those counter-premisses (because you don't hold those views) that's wonderful.
It is true that I don't hold straw positions. How about we avoid presuming that the other does. I think we can avoid accidentally accusing the other of holding what might perceived as straw man positions if we avoid galloping them all out together in one fell swoop. Try one at a time and test the water a bit.
I will take that as a win too because it means someone who I mistakenly thought was a hard atheist isnt quite as hard as I first thought. It's OK. They are very hard to defend even if you DID hold those views.
The positions you trotted out as straw men weren't the positions of a hard atheist. They were the positions of a moron. These are two, subtly different sets of position.
But you're right, your refusal to take up the cudgel doesn't necessarily imply that my premisses would prevail even if you had.
Very magnanimous of you, sir, very magnanimous indeed.
But by the same token, waving all of them away as irrelevant strawmen without clarifying what your alternative counter-premiss would be, in lieu of the ones I proposed, well that hardly covers you in glory. I thought you were playing for #team_atheism.
Not true (and no long quite so magnanimous). For the majority there is no counter-premise required. You haven't made a claim that is both relevant and contrary to the atheist position.
Let me reword your premises to what it appears you want say, and then I'll provide counter premises to those. If I've messed up, feel free to let me know. I'm trying my best but not claiming to
know that I am right about you are trying to say. (I'll fix your spelling while I am at it.)
Premise - Atheists claim that (some) effects don't have a cause.
Counter-premise - No they don't. But we do sometimes claim that effects have multiple causes.
Premise - Intelligent design (albeit old universe ID) is an accurate description of the universe
Counter-premise - So long as you keep modifying it to keep it up-to-date with latest findings, yes, it is and will be. But it's not science and it's not predictive (the science that keeps coming up with the findings is the predictive stuff). And it's not a proof of god, it's just what you have hanging around your neck if you insist on taking religion seriously.
Premise - The chance that higher life forms might have emerged (via cellular evolution) is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein. (Hoyle)
Counter-premise - as the late John Maynard Smith pointed out, "no biologist imagines that complex structures arise in a single step." The modern evolutionary synthesis explains how complex cellular structures evolved by analysing the intermediate steps required for pre-cellular life. It is these intermediate steps that are omitted in creationist arguments, which is the cause of their overestimating of the improbability of the entire process. (wikipedia)
Premise - in the order of an infinity of monkeys are required to tap on keyboards to type out the works of Shakespeare
Counter-premise (humorous) - no, we have the printing press now, which represents a significant saving on bananas
Counter-premise (actual) - Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins employs the typing monkey concept in his book The Blind Watchmaker to demonstrate the ability of natural selection to produce biological complexity out of random mutations. In a simulation experiment Dawkins has his weasel program produce the Hamlet phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. (wikipedia)
Premise - Atheists believe that the universe did not come into existence.
Counter-premise - Some believe that it could be eternal, some believe that it probably did come into existence while a small number (like me) take a complex but physically workable middle road. No-one is completely sure.
Premise - Objective moral values have a transcendent quality.
Counter-premise - Atheists often have no idea what you are talking about and wish you'd be less evasive in your answers.
Premise - I experienced what I interpreted as a supernatural event. Other humans have had similar experiences and interpretations.
Counter-premise - Yes, you probably did. Good on you. But all we have is your word for it and your interpretation seems to be, in large part, wish-fulfillment. And we can generate "supernatural" events in your brain anytime you like via natural processes.
Premiss - The bible records that Jesus appeared to have been resurrected. The bible further records that disciples were persecuted for their belief
Counter premiss - The bible records that the sun stopped in the sky when Jesus died, that different groups of women were present when the empty tomb was revealed and that they both did and did not convey messages from the glowing man (men?) present in the tomb. Paul talks very much in terms of relevation (vision) rather than actual earthly experience as the basis of his faith, and that of all of his colleagues. Mark gives strong hints that he's writing in a sort of double code. The stories of Jesus mirror those of similar cults at the time and in the recent past. The rise and success of Christianity, as a chimeraic religion, mirrors that of similar cults at the time. Humanifying gods was a common Hellenic trend at the time.
Actual history is shockingly silent on what would have been truly amazing events. Some of the mentions in history are blatant forgeries, which seems inconsistent with there being any true history of Jesus.
Please don't respond by asking "what do you mean by supernatural"
...when it's #team_atheism that argues against the supernatural.
(Do you really not know what it is you're debunking - miracle, angel, soul, afterlife, demons, God...)
There is more than one type of theist. The atheist often needs to calibrate for the theist in question. Are you including magick, witchcraft, shamanism, ghosts, pixies, faeries, unicorns, were-wolves, vampies, zombies, i ching, tarot cards, crystal balls, numerology, astrology, water divining, reincarnation, chakras and auras, crystal therapy, telepathy, telekenis and the invisible hand of the free market? If not, please indicate the subset that you are including together with an explanation as to why the rest are rejected.
You don't dispute the KCA by agreeing that yes, things DO have causes.
Agreed. It's the "first cause" that's the question. But the KCA is a purely logical argument. Without evidence involved it gets you nowhere (and Craig cheats with it anyway - via the bonus conclusion).
You don't debunk teleology or intelligent design by admitting that the intelligent designer also goes by another name 'evolution'. (Funny you can use terms like natural selection but you don't know what the term supernatural means.)
Hm, straw man again? I'll let you retract it.
I give you the Boeing 747 junkyard whirlwind analogy - which is very well known
Very magnanimous of you, sir, very magnanimous indeed.
and understood in relation to the probability factor in the fine tuning argument and the origin of life and yet you blatantly refuse to acknowledge it.
We were being kind. Or at least I was. It'd be condescending to explain to an intelligent person why this argument is mind-bogglingly stupid. Do you need more of an explanation?
You totally squibbed the cosmology premiss. It's as if you simply don't even want to know about counter-apologetic arguments based on the past-eternal universe/multiverse. And you can't have it both ways. You can't agree that yes, the universe came into existence...but not really because it already existed in another form.
Squibbed? You think I should be limited to existing counter-apologetic arguments? I thought you were on the side of (strong) free-will? But you expect me to react in a preset way to a preset stimulus. Curious. I'm not limited to the extent that you seem to think. Feel free to read my ponderings on the nature of time. When you've absorbed those, we can discuss your problems with eternity.
And to top it all off, your response to the moral argument premise was...what do you mean by objective morals?
Are you for real? It's one of the most widely debated arguments for/against God and you come so late to the party, that you have to ask for help understanding what it is we're talking about.
Again, there is more than one theist, but in this case I think the question is rhetorical in part. By "objective" you really mean "absolute". No atheist believes that absolute morality exists. Some will grant "objective morality" but they don't mean what you mean. You're clearly aware that it's still being debated, so it's not settled, is it? Why should I pretend that it is?
You don't understand basic terminology - what's supernatural? what are objective morals. What are these bizarre terms Lion IRC? We've never encountered them before
Ever heard of Socrates? We've heard of him. And Dunning-Kruger. In a discussion like this it's useful to make sure what we understand what the other means by the term. We ask in good faith and you have a hissy fit. Not particularly auspicious.
You don't want to defend classic counter-apologetic premisses - because they're 'strawmen'
No, we don't want to defend classic straw men. You claim that these are "our" arguments, we deny it and you stamp your little feet in frustration. We pity you and it doesn't appear to help. We try to clarify and you have another hissy-fit. Eventually, we give up because our opponents are incorrigibly irrational and you fist the air in jubilation because you've assumed that all the points available go to you. We shake our heads sadly.
You flatly reject the idea that the persuasive strength a premiss stands or falls on whether it is more plausible than its negation.
Um no. You give us some persuasive premises and a logical structure into which those premises fit nicely, and some actual evidence, and we'll be impressed. Surprised, perhaps even shocked after all these years of keeping it all under a bushel. But impressed.
So you of course you don't want to get bogged down in the plausibility or otherwise of 1000 monkeys accidently typing a Shakespearean Sonnet sometime in the next million years thereby proving that what The Bard wrote isn't all that special or intelligently designed.
I could have sworn it was me who was on the pain-killers. The longest living monkey has a life-expectancy of about 45 years (a capuchin). If your 1000 monkeys lived consecutively, they'd still be only on the job for 45,000 years. Perhaps enough to get a sonnet out, perhaps not. I really think they'd get bored of the task though and would spend most of their time scratching their bottoms.
Do you really expect me to be taking this seriously?
/thread bye
Oh and here's me putting in a lot of effort to respond to you. But you've stormed off. I will share any available points with whateverist.
Prepare the bunting, we gonna have ourselves a victory parade! (<--- that was sarcasm, you storming off does not convey a victory to anyone, other than a moral one.)
