ABCNews Nightline Faceoff: Can Kirk Cameron Proove that God Exists?

[photon]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

On this board we respect the laws of thermodynamics

Lol.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by photon

Well mostly because people really in science won't lower themselves to this kind of debate, since it would in effect be saying that their position is legitimate. It's like getting a scientist to debate perpetual motion or debate the face on mars.

Just as most legitimate seekers of god won't debate with scientists as they don't see any conflict with science, only lifes interpretations. This seemed to me, from reading this forum, a debate between the god of evangelical christianity and the god of science. To me science isn't a god, it's only a tool.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Just as most legitimate seekers of god won't debate with scientists as they don't see any conflict with science, only lifes interpretations. This seemed to me, from reading this forum, a debate between the god of evangelical christianity and the god of science. To me science isn't a god, it's only a tool.

Well, that and you don't see scientists asking for debates with religious leaders.

I don't think science is tool, it's more than that. A tool is an object used to accomplish a goal, that's more what technology is. Science is the pursuit of understanding reality, the way that pursuit is done, and the way of understanding the results. Science is a way of thinking and understanding.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

obviously no one can prove God doesn't exist

Cowperson

Oh Yeah?

Paris Hilton.

I win.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Oh Yeah?

Paris Hilton.

I win.

You signed the "Free Paris" petition, didn't you?

Cowperson

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by photon

Well, that and you don't see scientists asking for debates with religious leaders.

I don't think science is tool, it's more than that. A tool is an object used to accomplish a goal, that's more what technology is. Science is the pursuit of understanding reality, the way that pursuit is done, and the way of understanding the results. Science is a way of thinking and understanding.

I'd say one of the words or ways to describe god is inspiration. To me inspiration comes from within and science can be used to achieve that inspiration but it isn't the inspiration. Inspiration is the drive behind the 'pursuit of understanding reality'.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I'd say one of the words or ways to describe god is inspiration. To me inspiration comes from within and science can be used to achieve that inspiration but it isn't the inspiration. Inspiration is the drive behind the 'pursuit of understanding reality'.

Stephen Jay Gould's 'NOMA' - 'non-overlapping magisteria'. Gould claimed that science and true religion never come into conflict because they exist in completely separate dimensions of discourse:

To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists.

This sounds terrific, right up until you give it a moment's thought.

Of course, this all presupposes that the God we are talking about is a personal intelligence such as Yahweh, Allah, Baal, Wotan, Zeus or Lord Krishna. If, by 'God', you mean love, nature, goodness, the universe, the laws of physics, the spirit of humanity, or Planck's constant, none of the above applies. An American student asked her professor whether he had a view about me. 'Sure,' he replied. 'He's positive science is incompatible with religion, but he waxes ecstatic about nature and the universe. To me, that is ¬religion!' Well, if that's what you choose to mean by religion, fine, that makes me a religious man. But if your God is a being who designs universes, listens to prayers, forgives sins, wreaks miracles, reads your thoughts, cares about your welfare and raises you from the dead, you are unlikely to be satisfied. As the distinguished American physicist Steven Weinberg said, "If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal." But don't expect congregations to flock to your church. - Dawkins

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I actually would have rather seen this the god side being debated by actual Theologists instead of a couple of evangalists, because they would have debated from the fact that there are only two truths when it comes to religeous studies 1. God Exists 2. I am not him.

Actually, legitimate theologians or biblical scholars would never be goaded into such a debate in the first place. Anyone who has any experience with critical religious scholarship will readily recognize the pratfalls of attempting to "prove" anything pertaining to religion. It is impossible to prove the existence of God.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by troutman

Stephen Jay Gould's 'NOMA' - 'non-overlapping magisteria'. Gould claimed that science and true religion never come into conflict because they exist in completely separate dimensions of discourse:

To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists.

This sounds terrific, right up until you give it a moment's thought.

Of course, this all presupposes that the God we are talking about is a personal intelligence such as Yahweh, Allah, Baal, Wotan, Zeus or Lord Krishna. If, by 'God', you mean love, nature, goodness, the universe, the laws of physics, the spirit of humanity, or Planck's constant, none of the above applies. An American student asked her professor whether he had a view about me. 'Sure,' he replied. 'He's positive science is incompatible with religion, but he waxes ecstatic about nature and the universe. To me, that is ¬religion!' Well, if that's what you choose to mean by religion, fine, that makes me a religious man. But if your God is a being who designs universes, listens to prayers, forgives sins, wreaks miracles, reads your thoughts, cares about your welfare and raises you from the dead, you are unlikely to be satisfied. As the distinguished American physicist Steven Weinberg said, "If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal." But don't expect congregations to flock to your church. - Dawkins

Please tell me you don't buy into his theory of "memes".

[Kool Keef]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Oh Yeah?

Paris Hilton.

I win.

Interesting take.

I thought her recent jail sentence was a small sign that there actually is a God.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

It is impossible to improve the existence of God.

Improve or prove? I quote Dawkins, because I'm working my way through his book now. I haven't thought it all through for myself, but he is arguing that we could scientifically prove/disprove the existence of God. Right now, we just don't have enough evidence to answer the question, but there is no reason to think this will always be the case.

To see the disingenuous hypocrisy of religious people who embrace NOMA, imagine that forensic archeologists, by some unlikely set of circumstances, discovered DNA evidence demonstrating that Jesus was born of a virgin mother and had no father. If NOMA enthusiasts were sincere, they should dismiss the archeologists' DNA out of hand: "Irrelevant. Scientific evidence has no bearing on theological questions. Wrong magisterium." Does anyone seriously imagine that they would say anything remotely like that? You can bet your boots that not just the fundamentalists but every professor of theology and every bishop in the land would trumpet the archeological evidence to the skies.

Either Jesus had a father or he didn't. The question is a scientific one, and scientific evidence, if any were available, would be used to settle it. The same is true of any miracle - and the deliberate and intentional creation of the universe would have to have been the mother and father of all miracles. Either it happened or it didn't. It is a fact, one way or the other, and in our state of uncertainty we can put a probability on it - an estimate that may change as more information comes in. Humanity's best estimate of the probability of divine creation dropped steeply in 1859 when The Origin of Species was published, and it has declined steadily during the subsequent decades, as evolution consolidated itself from plausible theory in the nineteenth century to established fact today.


Is Gould right? Or Dawkins? Why or why not?

Memes? I haven't thought about that for a while. If I did "buy into" a theory of memes, is that any less rational than a belief in a personal god?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by troutman

Stephen Jay Gould's 'NOMA' - 'non-overlapping magisteria'. Gould claimed that science and true religion never come into conflict because they exist in completely separate dimensions of discourse:

To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists.

This sounds terrific, right up until you give it a moment's thought.

Of course, this all presupposes that the God we are talking about is a personal intelligence such as Yahweh, Allah, Baal, Wotan, Zeus or Lord Krishna. If, by 'God', you mean love, nature, goodness, the universe, the laws of physics, the spirit of humanity, or Planck's constant, none of the above applies. An American student asked her professor whether he had a view about me. 'Sure,' he replied. 'He's positive science is incompatible with religion, but he waxes ecstatic about nature and the universe. To me, that is ¬religion!' Well, if that's what you choose to mean by religion, fine, that makes me a religious man. But if your God is a being who designs universes, listens to prayers, forgives sins, wreaks miracles, reads your thoughts, cares about your welfare and raises you from the dead, you are unlikely to be satisfied. As the distinguished American physicist Steven Weinberg said, "If you want to say that 'God is energy,' then you can find God in a lump of coal." But don't expect congregations to flock to your church. - Dawkins

I'm more inclined to say that god is energy and relying on miracles and such to try and re-enforce my belief in god is a fools game. I'm not saying it can't happen, but i'ts an unreliable and to me a kind of crass use of god. It's better to just get to the heart of the matter and ask for whatever word pertains. Satisfaction, peace, love or contentment is what I really want. If it also includes some toys, that's good too but to experience this energy inside is better then the finest Scotch, so if you can light that lump of coal, the ones looking for some warmth will flock to your church.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Personally, I don't think that there has to be absolute hard proof that god exists for people to believe in him.

There's an old line, that sometimes you just have to have faith.

then why is proof a prerequesite for everything else? why do you call a person who claims to be abducted by aliens crazy, while calling the person who said he spoke with god enlightened? it just boggles my mind that religion is somehow exempt from the rules that an otherwise rational and thoughtful person would have for their beliefs

[RougeUnderoos]

I'm much more impressed by the fact that some of you guys could suffer through that entire "debate" than I was by the debate itself. Those people were working from prepared notes (at least in the maybe 20 minutes I watched before I had to stop) and they still stumbled through everything they had and didn't do much convincing either way.

Although I must admit that that Comfort fellow did make an interesting argument that went something like: "God made this and I have incontrovertible proof that he did because God made it and God made it because I have incontrovertible proof that he did."

There are some holes in his argument, but I must admit that he really got me thinking about hitching my wagon to this Jesus fellow after hearing all that.

[Skyceman]

I thought the host did a pretty good job of being fair and unbiased to both sides and kept the debaters accountable to the actual point and not jumping on their own tangents and avoiding the direct questions.

I didn't appreciate Ray Comfort using the platform as a way to preach. I understand his intentions for doing it but that was not the right time or place for it and was a tad snakey. He made a huge claim and didn't come through - nor could anyone - about proving the existence of God using scientific evidence.

To my surprise, Kirk did a fair job and at least didn't constantly speak from a biblical perspective like Comfort did.

The Rational Response team or whatever they are called didn't do any better. They acted immaturely towards Kirk and Ray at times which was not necessary. Both pretty weak as I've seen much better arguments presented from both perspectives in other debates.

I don't think many would be swayed either way by this debate. Well maybe Rouge but thats it.

[sadora]

All I can say is that these two(evangelists) could not have failed more miserably in arguing towards God's existence. There were so many wholes in their argument that was delivered in a less than intelligent but rather in a preachy way. Especially their Intelligent Design arguments.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I'm much more impressed by the fact that some of you guys could suffer through that entire "debate" than I was by the debate itself. Those people were working from prepared notes (at least in the maybe 20 minutes I watched before I had to stop) and they still stumbled through everything they had and didn't do much convincing either way.

Although I must admit that that Comfort fellow did make an interesting argument that went something like: "God made this and I have incontrovertible proof that he did because God made it and God made it because I have incontrovertible proof that he did."

There are some holes in his argument, but I must admit that he really got me thinking about hitching my wagon to this Jesus fellow after hearing all that.

Arguing about whether god exists or not, is pretty much useless.

Some will say, well so and so says he exists and I trust him or it [eg.the bible] says it's so, it must be true. I don't buy that. If I'm being absolutely honest, I can't trust anything I haven't tried and experienced for myself, so being an agnostic, in that case, is the way to go.

Another argument, the atheist one, is if I can't find it or haven't been there, it doesn't exist, is pretty presumptious.

The final answer is if I have a personal experience, there is no debate. Words and thoughts can be twisted, arguments won and lost, but experience is king.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Eagle Eye

Wow some of those comments are hilarious

Like this one

"There is so much evidence that God exists that you would have to be insane not to see it. It is impossible to even imagine that this world in all its complexities one day was created from a dust particle and "bang" here we are. Is it a coincidence that we are the perfect distance from the sun that we may all survive? Come on... We were stratigically placed here by a loving God."

And I wonder if they believe God exists, how did he create us?

Poof, and we were here? Isn't that exactly that he is arguing against?

[SaskaBushFire]

I always thought that for something to be real you have to believe in it. So by people believing in God doesn't that make him real? Even if there isn't a God who who created the universe, can't there be a God who protects those who ask since they believe that he is? If it helps people get through their day who are we to tell them they are wrong?

I don't know... I am sort of on the fence on Religion, I honestly don't care either way, but I definately don't think that people should push their beliefs on others, especially not on national TV. This debate was in my mind stupid.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by SaskaBushFire

I always thought that for something to be real you have to believe in it. So by people believing in God doesn't that make him real? Even if there isn't a God who who created the universe, can't there be a God who protects those who ask since they believe that he is? If it helps people get through their day who are we to tell them they are wrong?

That's kind of a rediculous statement.
Below is a list of things that people used to not believe in:
Gravity
Atoms
A round world

Below is a list of things that people do believe in:
Unicorns
Herculese
The unrivaled greatness of the Oilers

Simply believeing in something doesn't make it exist.

Does that mean people can't derive great pleasure and comfort from believing in God? Not at all, but it certainly isn't proof that he exists. I'd put myself in the Agnostic category as well (should be pretty well documented around here), but I know what constitues good evidence and belief is not it.
That is what the difference between belief and proff really is. Once you have proof you don't have to believe in something. And if you don't have proof, you can choose to either believe or not.