http://www.truefreethinker/trackback/1562
Ok so I found this lovely write up on my debate I had months ago, last night. Hmm how many ways am i going to destroy this guy, Mariano Grinbank, its funny to read as its kind of cute in the toddler trying to figure things out kind of way. He actually thinks he's made a point. So let me post it and destroy it piece by piece ok:
Kerrigan Skelly vs. Erik Dickerson – Christian vs. Atheist debate on the existence of the God of the Bible
I don’t know.
You don’t know anything, it seems like.
I don’t know.
This is a very interesting debate and a case study in presuppositional apologetics/debate.
What this means is that, for example, Erik Dickerson condemns the God of the Bible for committing and allowing immorality yet, when challenged to provide a premise for his condemnation he simply has nothing to offer but further baseless condemnations. This alone discredits about 5 cubit tons of atheist literature.
So I think its quite telling that this guy starts right off supporting Mr Skelly's Red Herring argument. This was not the subject of the debate. For those who don't know what a red herring is here is a perfect example:
Kerrigan Skelly and this guy- Where do Erik Dickerson's morals come from? Or where do people's morals come from?
Actual topic of the debate- Does god exist?
See how they are using a subject to detract from the actual topic at hand. Thats what a red herring is, is simply a logical fallacy, based on using an argument attempting to detract from the original argument. Something tells me this is going to be like bad boxing and he's setting up the god of the gaps/argument from ignorance fallacy next, I know that's what Kerrigan did.
Now, be on the lookout for a favorite atheist debater’s tactic: peppered through Erik Dickerson’s statement is a very, very powerful lesson: since his statements are so very, very unfounded—by his own admission—he constantly seeks to prop them up by making emotive statements: rape, the Holocaust, murder, you name it.
That is to say; a debater will do this when they seek to get the audience on their side by bypassing their reasoning faculties and appealing directly to their emotions. Since emotions are actually felt and ideas are abstract, a debater can get the feelers in the audience on their side merely by pushing their buttons.
If you are not sidetracked by this tactic you will see that there is nothing upon which he bases his statements.
Kerrigan Skelly actually notes, “I wonder why Erik keeps give up time, because he really has nothing else to say…”
Hmm why did i give up my time, maybe cause i was there to debate the existence of god, and Kerrigan's assertion that morality makes god necessary was debunked many times by alternate ideas I had thrown out there. You know like societal influence mixed with other factors or even moral fairies or invisible pink unicorns. Hey if you're going to assert ridiculous supernatural beings like yahweh and zombie jesus why be prejudice against the IPU.
Next we look at what he is saying a little differently. I don't need to know where morality necessarily came from to know certain things it didn't come from. I can also very easily know that murder and genocide are terrible acts without knowing exactly why. I am using what people know is moral and showing god contradicts it, much like if a person didn't know what was the actual cause of something falling down instead of floating up, that person could easily understand its not a upward breeze.
It is particularly at t=52:58 that Erik Dickerson falls apart when his assertions are challenged and he is forced to admit that there is nothing supporting his claims.
On the issue of morality he ultimately states —when back into a corner by his own statements—that it is all about survival of the fittest. Yet, for example, he referred to that which is moral being based on whatever causes the longevity of society. But this is problematic since we know what was thought by Nazi society to provide for its longevity. Also, why is the longevity of society the standard? Well, because it is all about survival of the fittest. Fine but what if my society can survive as the fittest by exterminating other societies? See the problem?
See the blatant, i would dare say intentional ignorance here. How does nazi germany benefit the overall society of the world. HUH? Come on now this guy is quickly showing he's a jackass. I mean seriously does it benefit everyone to let other people go around exterminating other people who could potentially actually help out in some way. It is more beneficial for society to not worry about your race being exterminated and to actually work together as one. Doing a face palm right now as this dumbfounding ignorance.
Based on his baseless moral condemnations and survival of the fittest assertion he is asked about a particularly case in which a society is in dire shortage of women and whether it would be moral for (the majority) men to commit rape in such a case: at t=1:21:33 he affirms that in such a case he does not know if rape would be immoral thus, making rape only relatively immoral and also devastating his arguments about the God of the Bible allowing rape (even though the penalty for rape in the Bible is capital punishment Deuteronomy 22:25-27).
The point is that he knows that he can imagine a circumstance in which an immoral act could be moral. Now, if God is allowed the same standards the “problem of evil” is not problematic and shown to be an illogical assertion—see:
So far he has taken an extreme example here, that is highly unlikely and based everyday evils on it. This is a very poor way to argue. Does he really want to say that his god sitting around watching every child rape is like this example where there is a dire situation. Plus he missed the fact that, the problem of evil is actually just icing on the cake for the atheist argument. The failure of the theist to present evidence of their positive claim is the true reason to be atheist.
Was “the Problem of Evil” Solved Before it was Ever Proposed?
Does God Command You to Beat Your Slaves
Does the Bible and its God Condone Slavery?
Erik Dickerson made various references to supposed atrocities in the Bible. These mount to well-within-the-box-atheist-group-think-talking-points which I have responded to variously in essays such as Positive Atheism - Cliff Walker : Relative Ethics and Absolute Condemnations and within the section on rape and evilbible.com
As a side note: somehow Erik Dickerson concludes that in the Bible God causes 2.5 million deaths. The Bible covers a span of time reaching into the millennia (various millennia) and so it is interesting to think what a lightweight God is when we consider the fact that within the most secular and bloodiest century in human history atheists murdered millions upon millions and millions more people in a couple of years—see Adolf Hitler / Nazism / Communism.
So yes I stand by my words the bible is filled with atrocities carried out and supported by the evil sadistic god of the bible. If this guy even read it he would know that if god were on a dating site his favorite activities would be listed like this:
Likes: praising myself, good old genocide, slavery, child sacrifice.
I would love to see a logical flow chart that shows how some atheists being evil detract from gods actions being evil. Not even going to get into the ridiculousness of Hitler being atheist. I mean yeah if someone claimed Hitler was the source of morality this might be relevant. But, I fail to see in anyway how this was relevant to the debate topic, or the red herring argument Kerrigan engaged in.
For another atheist vs. Christian debate see Atheist vs. Christian debate - Morality: Natural or Supernatural?
A few words on the actual debate. So lets first just list the logical fallacies that Kerrigan used and this guy fell for. Right off the bat we get the false dichotomy, where kerrigan tries to rule out other gods or other explanations and make the source of morals and inductive reasoning god or nothing. In case you don't know what a false dichotomy is its when you eliminate other explanations with no reason and don't have all actual possibilities on the table. Its trickery, its like saying there is either shoes in the box under toms bed or nothing. That is simply not the case. He has special pleaded his god to be a better possibility then moral fairies or inductive reasoning fairies or the invisible pink unicorn. Are we seeing a trend in prejudice against her horniness.
So the next step he eliminates other possibilities is to assert his god. This, when referring to a god, is a god of the gaps fallacy, also known as a argument from ignorance. The basic concept is "well I can't think of anything better, so it must be god." We see how that worked for the greeks and other cultures asserting gods for the sun rising, thunder, the ocean tides. Not so well might we say.
So in closing his fallacies: Red Herring, argument from ignorance/god of the gaps, special pleading, and a false dichotomy.
I stand accused of appeal to emotion, because I dared to say that genocide and slavery was wrong. Hmm don't we all know that about morality by now.
