(no subject)
I think the reason informal atheist/theist debates fail is because they don't start out from a point of agreement and one or the other comes to the table with certainty.
If one party or both is unwilling to state at the outset that they may be wrong, then the discussion cannot progress. Certainty is the perpetual motion machine of an argument. Even when by all logic the machine should expend its energy and stop, it continues.
No theist appears to be able to explain what evidence would be needed to disbelieve in god (this is probably because for most theists, it would be an act of doubt unpermitted by god).
When offered this challenge, one very anonymous theist said:
When I am convinced of an atheistic argument, I will stop believing that God exists. I find many philosophical reasons to warrant my belief in God and have yet to find a sufficient atheistic refutation to convince me otherwise.
The problem here is that it deals with arguments, and not with evidence.
The point of agreement should be that each side may be wrong about their own arguments. From there, the debate is more likely to follow an objective line of reason.
If one party or both is unwilling to state at the outset that they may be wrong, then the discussion cannot progress. Certainty is the perpetual motion machine of an argument. Even when by all logic the machine should expend its energy and stop, it continues.
No theist appears to be able to explain what evidence would be needed to disbelieve in god (this is probably because for most theists, it would be an act of doubt unpermitted by god).
When offered this challenge, one very anonymous theist said:
When I am convinced of an atheistic argument, I will stop believing that God exists. I find many philosophical reasons to warrant my belief in God and have yet to find a sufficient atheistic refutation to convince me otherwise.
The problem here is that it deals with arguments, and not with evidence.
The point of agreement should be that each side may be wrong about their own arguments. From there, the debate is more likely to follow an objective line of reason.