I'm on ur radio, debunking yr religion

[pw201]

Premier Christian Radio have put up the audio of the Unbelievable discussion programme I was on. You can download the MP3 from archive.org.

Here's my director's commentary track (except I wasn't a director, but you get the idea).

The first phone-in question from Steven Carr is a hard one for Christians. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus talks of God

Comments

[scribb1e]

Following up the post on the subject of the miraculous healing of the lady with uterine fibroids

[romex1nt]

On a related note, I am always wary of the term "anecdotal evidence". This phrase is usually used, in my experience, as an excuse to dismiss certain information as irrelevant, usually by someone who would not like the conclusions supported by that information. However, regardless of any dictionary definitions, the "anecdotal" label tends to be used to describe two very different things, depending on context: either a "sample of one" ("Well, in my case, this happened...") or information from an "indirect source" ("I once heard of a guy who...").

The second class tend to be unsubstantiated, and of course we must be wary of giving any weight to unsubstantiated hypotheticals. However, it is all too easy to generalise and write off any "anecdotal evidence" in this way. I find the argument that a sample of one is not completely representative and therefore irrelevant to be unsound. By that logic, since any sample that is not the entire population is unrepresentative to some extent, any incomplete sample is irrelevant. The difference is

[ex_robhu]

I have found that 100%* of people disagree with your reasoning.

* sample size 1

[scribb1e]

Sure, and right now that's not terribly convincing, because obviously at least one person aparently agrees with it, too. Of course, if 10 people came along and all of them disagreed with me, I might start to question the merit of my argument. If 100 came along and all of them disagreed, I'd have serious doubts. How many does it take before I should start assuming I've made a mistake and question the assumptions underlying the argument in my previous post?

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm well aware that my argument here is like asking when you stopped beating your wife. Also, as far as I know you don't know me, so I'll just tell you that I'm a mathematician by trade and have heard all the usual logical and statistical fallacies, and I am of course playing devil's advocate a bit in this discussion. That said, I do maintain that a lot of people place too much faith (no pun intended) in academic statistical methods without really thinking about what they represent and whether the underlying assumptions are valid. At the same time, those

[livredor]

Although I advised you not to go on this programme, my advice was wrong. The show as a whole was really cool, and you yourself did a great job. Kudos

[pw201]

The fact that these people have strong faith is not a reason for me to believe the same things they believe, but I do admire them.

I find I do admire them in some way, but when I think about it, I'm not sure why, given that I think they're wrong and illogical. I suppose I like to see people who have thought about this stuff at all, even if they reach a different conclusion from my own.

If you are absolutely determined in your atheism, then you could always point to another explanation for any miraculous or revelatory incident.

Yes. However, if enough things which you can't explain within your current model start happening, you'd hopefully become aware of the mental kludges you were having to put in to patch up the old system, and you'd eventually get a paradigm shift. robhu is right to say, as he does elsewhere in these comments, that no single thing would be convincing.

I think Pascal was partly right when he suggested that it is possible to take on a mental and spiritual discipline and train yourself to have faith even if you don't

[lisekit]

God wasn't so concerned with St Paul's free-will and autonomy that he could not knock him off his horse on the way to Damascus

Ah, but God knew that Paul wanted it really. They all want it. All of the time.

[pw201]

God is not SSC and therefore not a Twue Dominate.

[ex_robhu]

But God wasn't so concerned with St Paul's free-will and autonomy that he could not knock him off his horse on the way to Damascus, yet St Paul's sort of experience is rare.I find the argument that God does not make himself more obvious because it would conflict with our free will to choose him to be highly fishy. I have found Christians that make this argument think that we already have so much evidence that it is plain to us that God exists, and that by not becoming Christians we are choosing to reject God rather than choosing not to follow someone we don't think exists

[pw201]

There are more sane Christians though who would argue that God does not make his existence clear to everyone, only a few. This seems more reasonable to me - it allows some to have had this revelation while others of us are left in the cold.

Indeed. Although it'd then be fair to ask why some are left in the cold if God wants everyone to believe. I can see how a Calvinist might cope with that, but other sorts of Christian might have a problem.

Have you considered holding a more extended debate with Paul? I doubt he has the time (or perhaps the inclination) for such a debate, but I would personally find such a debate / discussion helpful. I've emailed St. Helens with the link to this page in the hope that he might appear and say interesting things.I'm not sure what the forum for such a debate would be. Paul did say that he doesn't really get into discussions on the Internet as he'd never get anything else done otherwise. I'd certainly continue the discussion if the option were available, because it was fun, but I wasn't under the

[ex_robhu]

Although it'd then be fair to ask why some are left in the cold if God wants everyone to believe.
If God wants A and God is omnipotent does that mean that A must occur? If God is bound by logical limitations it might be that God wants A and B but both cannot be achieved absolutely so God picks B and some of A. In other words maybe God wants everyone to believe but there are other factors, e.g. perhaps (as someone once suggested to me) God wants (nay deserves?) to be glorified and he is glorified when people are punished for their sin. If God wants redemption and punishment he can punish most and save a few.

I'd certainly continue the discussion if the option were available, because it was fun, but I wasn't under the illusion that we were convincing anyone of anything much :-)Well I was finding it convincing. I wouldn't say I've closed and sealed the door on even Evangelical Christianity but there is a dearth of intelligent argument on the subject. There are pat answers on both sides for most things but it doesn't go much beyond that

[ewx]

I find the argument that God does not make himself more obvious because it would conflict with our free will to choose him to be highly fishy.

Fishy indeed, given that he's supposedly done just that within the last couple of millenia. I suspect that if someone started performing the same kind of flashy miracles described in the gospels[1] today then (after, granted an initial period of skepticism) I imagine that many atheists would start to rethink.

[1] or perhaps those attributed to the saints, but they could more easily be dismissed as pious frauds, if necessary in order to maintain an argument about the invisibility of the Christian god.

[anonymous]

Well, I'd hate to disappoint by not being along to disagree