Well, I saw a distinguished-looking gent with a smooth British accent prop up a bunch of straw-men and set them on fire. I listened to him cite one authority figure after another. Has he never heard of
argumentum ad verecundiam? Does he not know the Ancient Greeks called bullshit on that logical fallacy 2,500 years ago?
What I did not hear was one piece of evidence, or one logical deduction based on evidence.
Ravi Zacharias wrote:Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence?
Has anyone provided
any evidence of your god’s existence, Ravi? You’re the one making the claims, you have to provide the evidence. You can’t just proclaim, ‘Magic exists and you can’t prove it doesn’t!’ like it means anything.
Argumentum ad ignorantiam is a low and deceitful tactic, but it’s what I’ve come to expect from those claiming that a bunch of old tales are Absolute Truth. I can play that game, too; has anyone provided a proof of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s non-existence? That one is called
reductio ad absurdum, by the way.
You really should take the trouble to learn some things that aren’t in that book of yours.
Ravi Zacharias wrote:The moment you claim a truth claim, you’re violating determinism.
OK, somebody tell me what that is supposed to mean, if anything. Tell me how it’s relevant to the arguments, and why anybody would believe it proves that religion is right, and science is wrong.
He goes on a lot about determinism. It seems to be one of his favorite straw-men, that science equals determinism. It’s like he’s unable to see any possibilities other than ‘Goddidit’ or a perfectly deterministic clockwork universe. As if without his god, no form of choice, chance or free will is possible. So, let's hang a false dichotomy around the straw-man's neck.
Quantum mechanics precludes any form of strict determinism. There can only be probabilistic determinism, which leaves plenty of room for choice and free will. Ravi has no excuse for being ignorant of these facts; Albert Einstein received a Nobel Prize in 1921 for using quantum theory to explain the photoelectric effect.
Ravi Zacharias wrote:Reality deals with metaphysics.
No, dude, reality deals with reality. Metaphysics deals with the unreal.
Ravi Zacharias wrote:If the scientific premises turn out to be true that we are the random collocation of atoms, of time plus matter plus chance, you will be left with no moral perspective on which to condemn anybody who chooses to behead someone in public and gloat over it, because those are moral issues we are dealing with and science doesn’t deal with morality, and if it talks about the evolution of morality then it is deterministic and if it is deterministic it is not making a true assertion and therefore if it says that morality is not true, the assertion itself either claims to be true or is not true, and if it claims to be true then it goes beyond science.
That’s his closing statement. Long-winded bugger, ain’t he? I would never allow such an atrocious run-on sentence to appear in any of my stories, much less say it in public.
Grammatical abuses aside, what we have here is a rather overcomplicated summary of the fundamental arrogance and stupidity of The Faithful — their unsupported claim that it is impossible for us to create a valid, fair and functional morality on our own. That it requires some sort of mystical intervention from The Great Ghu to tell us that wanton murder is wrong.
There is one aspect of morality that is indispensable to science — telling the truth. A dishonest scientist is a failure and an embarrassment. From there, how much of a stretch is it to apply honesty to your personal life?
Overall, he does little more than trot out a lot of tired old arguments that have already been debunked and discredited a thousand times over. Nothing new to see here.
That’s not really a surprise, is it? These religious types never have any new arguments, because they have to get everything from that same old collection of Bronze Age fairy tales. They’re like a group of stand-up comics who haven’t gotten any new material in 1,600 years. Of course we’ve heard all the jokes before!
———————————
Maybe The Faithful really do need some all-seeing, all-powerful, judgemental entity standing over them with a stick to tell them that murder is wrong. I don’t. I guess I’m just better than that.
———————————