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.