Debate with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship: Questions

New Questions:

1. Do you think anecdotes are an acceptable form of evidence and why?
2. Why are other religions false?
3. Can you imagine a test that could potentially prove that God exists?
4. Can you conceive of any evidence that would cause you to not believe in your God any longer?
5. If you discovered that there were no God, would you still be moral?
6. Is there anything God could personally command you to do that you would chose not to do?
7. Is it possible that the Bible could exist without being divinely inspired?
8. When children are being raised, is it right for parents to indoctrinate them into their particular religion?
9. Why would god grant free-will if it's exercise is going to be punished?
10. Which is more likely, that Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin, or that she lied?

These are the old questions (these are just for reference):

Questions for Intervarsity:

1. There is no evidence for God, why believe in a God?
2. How do you know, out of all the religions and deities to choose from, which is the right one?
3. What's wrong with answering "I don't know [yet]?" It is sometimes the only honest answer.
4. Just because science doesn't know, what makes you think religion does?
5. Name a moral statement or action that has been made by a religious person that could not have been made or done by a nonreligious person.
6. When children are being raised, is it right for parents to indoctrinate them into their particular religion, even if they disagree with your beliefs?
7. If complexity can only be explained by an intelligent designer, then how do you explain the complexity of the designer?
8. Often, theists make the argument that everything requires a creator, so therefore the universe requires a creator. But then, one can ask who created God, but the common response is that he is outside of time or creation. If God is outside creation, why can't the universe be outside of creation instead?
9. If you discovered that there were no God, would you have any reason to be moral?
10. Can you present any historical evidence for the existence of Jesus?
11. Can you image a test that could potentially prove the God hypothesis.
12. Do you think there will ever be any compelling new evidence for your god(s)? For example, will there ever be new and scientifically documented miracles by your god(s)?
13. If there was absolute proof that God did not exist, would you become immoral because there is no one to punish you in the afterlife?
14. Can you conceive of any evidence that would cause you to not believe in your God any longer?
15. If prayer works and God can heal the sick, why is he biased against amputees?
16. Is there anything God could personally command you to do that you would not do?
17. Is persecution in the name of God or religion acceptable?
18. Why would you think that being without faith leads us to immorality, insanity, and purposelessness?
19. Why is faith in the supernatural required for morality, sanity, and purposefulness?
20. Why is there a need for moral absolutes? That is, why must there be somethings that are completely evil or completely good?
21. If you had the choice, would you rescue Jesus from dying on the cross?
22. Why doesn't every single being believe in God? oops!

Questions for The Skeptics (Good for the tryouts!):

1. What about Pascal's Wager?
2. Our universe is so specifically designed, especially the fundamental constants of the universe, doesn't this imply someone set it up this way? (Anthropic principal)
3. If you don't believe in God, then where does morality come from?
4. Can you refute Anselm's Ontological argument?
   1. God is, by definition, a being greater than which nothing can be
      conceived (imagined).
   2. Existence in reality is greater than existence in the mind.
   3. Therefore God must exist in reality.
5. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that an isolated system increases towards maximum entropy (i.e., losing energy), therefore the Universe is approaching a total loss of energy, winding down. Therefore, because it's winding down, it must've been wound up. Is this evidence for a creator, why or why not?
6. Why do Atheists band together? People who don't believe in unicorns don't band together.
7. Why does matter obey laws? Why does the electron know what to do?
8. Hitler, Stalin, and many other dictators and despots were atheists, what do you have to say about that?
9. If everyone completely passes out of existence when they die, what ultimate meaning has life? Even if a man's life is important because of his influence on others or by his effect on the course of history, of what ultimate significance is that if there is no immortality and all other lives, events, and even history itself is ultimately meaningless?
10. In a universe without God or immortality, how is mankind ultimately different from a swarm of mosquitoes or a barnyard of pigs?
11. If there is no absolute immortality, why shouldn't all things be permitted?
12. Where does all of the incredibly complex information come from that is stored within DNA? Information doesn’t just appear by itself. Someone has to put it there.
13. Where does all the matter in the universe come from?
14. Aren’t you afraid of eternal punishment? What makes you think you're right?
15. Did you have a bad experience with your former church or religion that caused you to reject it and become an atheist?
16. Do you consider the Bible and other holy books worthless?
17. Doesn't being an atheist require as much faith as a theist does?
18. Why does it seem that atheists are sometimes arrogant?
19. Are you a good person?
20. Wouldn't you want to believe that God exists and is helping you, and that you go to heaven with your family?

Questions for both groups:

1. Why is speaking about religion taboo?
2. Is there any intrinsic value to religion, even if it turns out not to be true?
3. Are science and religion in conflict?
4. Would the world be a better place if everyone had the same beliefs as you?

Opening Intro for debate

Good evening. If you don't get your question answered tonight, come up to us after the debate, or email it to us at info@ritskeptics.org. You are guaranteed a response and we might even use it on our podcast.

First, I would like to thank the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship for their cooperation in putting this event together. I would also like to thank Dr. Meredith for helping organize this debate, and for moderating. Also, our adviser Dr. Torcello for his help in preparing for the debate.

I would like to note that this debate is not in any way adversarial. We're here to promote open inquiry and mutual understanding.

We represent a group called the RIT Skeptics. We hold meetings, debates like this one, and outings related to unverified claims. We also hold a monthly podcast called Ask a Skeptic, where members of the RIT community can ask questions to our group.

But what is a skeptic? A skeptic is someone who requires a high standard of evidence, based on observations of the natural world. Our definition of evidence does not include personal testimony or anecdote. Evidence should be objective and verifiable externally. If there is no data to support a claim, belief should be withheld. Therefore, the more a claim conflicts with our prior experience of the natural world, the more evidence is required to confirm it.

There is also a need to clarify some terms. Atheism is the lack of belief in a omnipotent being. It is not a denial that God exists, but a denial that there is any compelling reason to believe in the existence of God. Agnosticism means that one cannot or does not know that a God exists. Atheism is also not a religion. We have no dogma or doctrines. Our position is merely that we require evidence.

Religions are groups of ideas. They are ideas passed from one generation to the next, changing constantly, competing, winning and losing believers, being fought over, and managing to be some of the most commonly believed ideas on the tiny pale blue dot Carl Sagan calls Earth. In our view, religion is like any other idea and has the potential to be right or wrong, or even somewhere in between. In fact, one religion being entirely true almost always precludes other religions from being true in whole.

How then, do we know which religion, if any, is true? For many religions, the supposed consequences of disbelief are dire. Surely the best way to choose is to evaluate the claims of each religion and choose the religion, if any, which is best supported by evidence. The process for evaluating the evidence for a religious belief should be no different than it is for any other belief. We grant no special passes to ideas, regardless of how attractive they might be.

In cases where an idea's effects should be measurable in reality, it must be possible to test that idea. If an idea's effects are not measurable in reality, then it is called a non-falsifiable claim. The philosopher of science Karl Popper said, “Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.” For example, if I claim that there is an invisible, intangible, odorless, elephant in the room, then there is no way to test the idea, because it has no measurable effect on reality. If this is the case, then the truth of my elephant claim is totally irrelevant to us humans. Now, even though we can't prove it either way with total certainty, it is still reasonable for me to doubt the existence of an elephant in the room and even to operate under the cautious belief that the elephant does not exist.

Likewise, god, similar to the magic elephant, is a non falsifiable claim. No experiment can give evidence for or against her existence. The definition that has been given to the term god precludes testing. It is very reasonable to operate cautiously as if God does not exist.

After examining the claims of religion, we find that their claims are exactly analogous to the claims of this intangible elephant: untestable, and therefore unwarranted until proven otherwise.

The question of this debate is if God exists. To quote a great skeptic, Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Without sufficient evidence, there is no reason to believe a claim. We hold that there is no evidence for God, and therefore have no reason to believe that she exists. There is no compelling reason to believe that any god is any more real than the invisible, intangible, odorless elephant. As Richard Dawkins would say: We agree with you on other religions: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, Raelianism, Scientology, the church of the Tin Vagabond, the Church of the Subgenius, MEGAGODonianism and the Church of the Intergalactic Superbeetle. Except one: yours.

Questions that need to be answered

Answers: Jon, Sean, David

I pulled these from ritdebate@gmail.com... I plan to answer as many as I can, but there are a lot so it might be a while before they all get an answer. Other skeptics feel free to contribute. InterVarsity also has a page up about this

What compelled you to become a skeptic? Is it a rebuke of religious upbringing or...?

In my case (Jon) I wasn't raised to be particularly religious. I toyed with religion a bit when I was seven, but rejected it at the same time because it seemed silly.

In my case (Sean) I have always been questioning religion. I was raised a Catholic, but didn't buy what they were telling me. By the time I was confirmed, I didn't believe at all. It's always been a part of me. However I was passive in my skepticism until very recently, because I really think it can help

I don't like being wrong. It's as simple as that. It's not enough for people to just think I'm right, I need to be right and for that I must be skeptical to avoid being wrong. As for religion, I'm not sure exactly how old I was when I stopped believing in my religion, it was definitely later than 13 as thats when I was baptized but the primary thing that pushed me away was hell. Supposedly God loves everyone but he would sentence you to an eternity in hell. Now I would sentence someone that killed my entire family to an eternity in hell. Maybe a couple hundred years but not an eternity. Not only that but its not like people have a choice in what they believe, they can only be convinced and there are people that will grow up in a predominantly hindu or shinto area and will never even get the chance to convert that will be sent to hell

For the skeptics ... If you could turn water into wine do you think you could make as many friends as jesus

This is not a particularly difficult magic trick to do.

sceptics If people evolved and were not created by god how do we have emotions critical thinking and love?

Emotions can also be felt by animals. In fact, there is some research that suggests that chimps have morals and empathy for their own. They can love each other and be angry with each other. Critical thinking is an interesting question, but this is what gave our ancestors the advantage over other humanoids: we could reason and think about the best ways to accomplish tasks.

This question goes for the skeptics. The topic for this debate is on the question of the existence of God. Why is that you all are challenging Christianity? Doesn't other religions have gods? Why don't you challenge other religions about the existence of their gods? If not, wouldn't the point of this debate be the question on the existence of Christianity? During your response to the question concerning miracles, you implied that you believe current gaps in what can be explained by science will one day be filled. Is that not a leap of faith with insufficient evidence to warrant belief?

We do challenge other religions. In our opening statement we said how we agree with theists on every single one of the worlds religions: that they're wrong, except one: yours. We think yours is wrong as well. And no, I don't think that's a leap of faith at all. Science is constantly moving forward. Think, 100 years ago, disease was hard to tackle, but today people need not die needlessly from simple diseases. In 100 years, who knows what we'll know.

Is there anything the skeptics can say they agree with on God?

I personally like the teachings of Jesus specifically and I think the world would be a better place if everyone followed them. Unfortunately, it seems to me that Christianity today is more concerned with discriminating against homosexuals and abortion and not poverty like Jesus was. There is also a group of people called Atheists for Jesus.

Will any skeptics be upset if thier future children choose to believe in god?

No. If they choose to believe in God or not to, it will be of their own choice. I personally would try not to indoctrinate my children (of course, that is a challenge of its own), but I will tell them why I chose not to believe in God. However, without the indoctrination as a child, I doubt that they will choose to believe.

There are three zones in the world, which are black, gray, and white. The black zone is the immoral and white zone is moral. In modern, there are gray zone. My question for skeptic is how would you define the zones?

Huh? I apologize, but your question isn't really coherent enough for me to form an answer. If the author reads this, could you write back and let me know what you mean in greater detail. ritskeptics@gmail.com

Skeptics how would you rebut the philosophy A causes b b to c something outside time and space had to cause A Or infinite regress

That the universe needs a cause isn't something we know. When dealing with something like a universe, it's natural to try to apply the normal human causal reasoning to a larger scale, but it doesn't necessarily work with something like the universe. Even if, without evidence, we accepted your premise to be true, then what? You can't say "everything needs a cause except for god," thats a logical fallacy called Special Pleading. The fact of the matter is that we don't have a time machine and we CAN'T go back and look at the universe's first moments... But we can observe the universe and based on the oberservations of the universe as it is, and light from the universe's past, make hypotheses and test them against our observations. Any question beyond our ability to observe becomes non-falsifiable and we take the default position of doubt. Why is there something and not nothing? Is a difficult question, and I look forward to finding out, if we ever can. Until then holding anything as true because there isn't a good explanation yet is another logical fallacy called "argument from ignorance"(IE we don't know herefore it must be god). We don't know, therefore: we don't know.

Do you believe the holocaust against the jews occured? This is for the skeptics.

Yes, we do. People who disbedteve this are called holocaust deniers, and represent one of the many forms of ignorance that we stand against.

To the skeptics: how do you define evidence? What is definitive evidence, how would you know it?

From our FAQ:

"This is a complicated question, because it depends on the claim. Certain claims, such as faith healing and talking to the dead (cold reading), require a large amount of evidence, because they make such extraordinary claims. However, we would accept a local news station's prediction of the weather without further consideration, because it is such a benign and simple claim. A good metric to try and evaluate the evidence is to use Occam's razor. Simply see which explanation of a claim is simplest (that is, requires the least amount of suppositions) and choose that one. Moving beyond that requires that evidence shows that the simplest explanation no longer fits."

if Christianity wasn't real, then how is that most people's values are similar to christian's value? Such as parents not liking their child's homosexuality, we thinking killing is wrong and such as that? Is it possible because our ancestors were christian but lost strength in faith but still carries values on via heart?

Morals and law existed before Christianity. The Code of Hammurabi predated all Abrahamic religions, and while not a secular work, shows that humanity had law before any of the modern religions existed. It is true that Christianity has had an enormous effect on our society, but that doesn't prove that it's true.

I think you have it backwards, or at the very least sideways. It is not the rest of the world that has similar morals to Christianity but the reverse. There is a concept called the Moral Zeitgeist which generally goes, as time progresses the morals of society change eg. slavery, rape, homosexuality, women(now being treated as equals). If you want to call Christianity the moral guide you must also accept the bibles moral commands on killing disobedient children, killing people that work on the sabbath, O.K. slavery etc. I realize this response is getting a little long but I know my mother(dads a little homophobic) would not care if I was homosexual. She is a believer by the way and is afraid to tell the other members of her church that at least half her friends are gay.

To skeptics: If you admit that we have value beyond the normal animals how could we have Been created and what would make us different

beside of lack of evidence, what's other reasons to not believe in deity? - DK

That's the best reason not to. I'm forced to stray to the side of evidence. Truth is important and if we cannot determine something to be true, then our belief should be withheld. It is arguable weather or not religious belief has detrimental effects-- war, intolerance, etc. There are in fact a number of arguements against belief, but the argument from lack of falsifiability is, I think, the strongest. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God#Arguments_against_belief_in_God

why isn't God defined as a mythical figure like zeus and others? – Paul

Perhaps she should be.

If there is no truth that the Bible should be followed, then why do you follow the scientific method, which was also written by man?

The scientific method is, to the best of our knowledge, the most effective method yet developed for determining truth from non truth. It is because of the effectiveness that we are willing to provisionally accept the scientific method. If a more effective method comes along, then we would use that, but there has been a lot of evidence to support the scientific method.

Explain the creation of the universe

We don't know the whole story yet, but hopefully we'll find out. The question isn't necessarily meaningful because we don't know what exactly "creation" means, or if can be applied to something like a universe.

science was defined by men, and its known fact that everybody dies. So why choose to believe lies from man over God? - DK

I would like to answer that in two parts. Part 1, indeed everybody lies, how is it that you can assume those that wrote your holy book weren't lying. Part 2, all science is discovered through the scientific method, ALL claims brought before the scientific community are peer reviewed and tested vigorously to ensure their correctness. If a test result is found that contradicts the hypothesis and it is confirmed the test was not faulty the hypothesis is ether scrapped or altered so that it fits the new evidence.

Who was the Indian guru you mentioned in the debate?

His name is Sathya Sai Baba. And here is a link to his alleged miracles.