Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by noisician on August 18, 2009 at 10:19pm

it's going to be hard to debate a guy who is a professional speaker, debater, christian apologist, and apparently even a "scientist". it would be hard even for an experience atheist.

this guy already knows the arguments against him and is ready with at least a first round of responses. at worst, he'll be able to at least muddy the waters if you aren't prepared to counter his responses. he may also be good at not answering, twisting the meaning of your words, changing topics, and throwing out random bible verses to support his argument.

since you say you are inexperienced, i'd say concentrate on one good question. make sure you know how to deal with the typical apologist responses to your question and how to manage someone who tries to weasel out of questions.

fyi... here's another blog post about Harrub which might be interesting
http://iamtheblog.com/wordpress2/?p=725

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Morgan Matthew on August 19, 2009 at 2:07am

Hey Tiki

Check out this group on TA :]

Quick Arguments Against Religion
http://www.thinkatheist.com/group/qaar

That should get you going :]

Also this choppy video I quickly made showcases it


Hope that helps!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Happy Tikiman on August 19, 2009 at 5:04pm

Thanks morgan just what the doctor ordered :-D

and @ noisician I appreciate what you said it has certainly got me to sit back and think about my approach. I grew up with heavy christian culture and some times i get emotional and lash out which usually ends up with everyone just getting mad. It makes me glad there is a site like this that I can sort of vent on. It also helps ground my atheist perception of reality. thanks for getting me to think twice about this

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by iamtheblog on August 20, 2009 at 4:18am

I just attended two talks by Brad Harrub last weekend, and am coincidentally the person who writes the blog mentioned by noisician.

In my opinion, Dr. Harrud is a very smooth talker; if you were an unquestioning believer you would probably be duped by some of his points. I tried to document in my post what his claims were for the two talks I attended, but haven't had time yet to write detailed responses to them.

After I attended his seminar and wrote my post, I found audio of talks he has done before. He apparently gives more or less the same talks wherever he goes. Here's a link to talks he gave at another church; maybe this will also be helpful in knowing what to expect.

http://www.oldhamlane.org/harrub.php

I haven't listened to the audio on these files in their entirety, but they seem to cover more or less the same ground that he covered in the seminar in Tennessee last weekend. I'm not "out" as an atheist yet, so I didn't ask any questions myself, but there were a few other people there who did ask questions from the Memphis Freethought Alliance.

Here are two thread from their Google group which talk about Harrub's seminar

http://groups.google.com/group/memphisfreethoughtalliance/browse_th...

http://groups.google.com/group/memphisfreethoughtalliance/browse_th...

A lot of what Harrub says is ridiculous to someone who even has a passing acquaintance with science, but knowing how to counter what he says is not as easy as it might seem. Whether you decide to ask him a question or not, I hope this information helps so you know what's in store.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Happy Tikiman on August 23, 2009 at 11:02pm

damn that was depressing..... this is my update on what happened. I am pretty sure I was the only atheist attending so he had alot to say on the stupid questions asked by the 20 atheists that attended the last place he was at. which i think is the one you attended iamtheblog...... small world eh? He used the bible as his main reference point. I'm going to go over his main points here

after discussing the main christian argument (something from nothing) he pretty much zoomed through a bunch of photo-shopped pictures of space quoting bible verses.

then came the atheists are destroying america speech. how? by passing a law while most christians were asleep, that take away christian's free speech preventing them from preaching about gays and how they are destroying gods laws. Then he went into how Colorado passed a law requiring same sex bathrooms because of transgender people and that if you wanted to start a shop you would be required to have only a same sex bathroom that old men could go in after a 5 year old girl.

oh but it gets better, he goes off about the atheist's questions at his last seminar. to summarize he mentioned a question on where atheists get their morals, how he proved to one that god is real,which came with thunderous laughter and applause. and then how one said that if he would had heard about why god existed 20 years ago he would believe..... which sent him into the next thing

how for ever 4 parents only 1 child chooses to follow christ...... this then led to how christians need to out breed everyone and how horrible it is for christians to only have 2 children *face palm* more bible verses were read and it was time for the dawkins quote that pretty much states if you believe in religion your stupid and crazy. he then started to list every father of a science, and scientists born before the 20th century. stating that these people believed in god and were not stupid.......

he then went into the invitation saying you need jesus and all that.

after the last prayer for the evening was said he wanted to thank the elders of the church for giving the money to help get his book printed and that everyone in the church would get a copy of the book. so I'll have some reading material pretty soon when my parents get their copy.

There wasn't a Q&A session so I didn't get a chance to ask a question, however i realised earlier that it wouldn't be smart to ask any questions. especially with me trying to start a business in town (if word got out that i'm an atheist im pretty sure i would be ruined before I even got started.) hope you guys find this interesting.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by noisician on August 24, 2009 at 4:56pm

yeah, that was depressing. thanks a lot, Happy !

all these kinds of things keep pointing out how important it is that skeptics and rational people fight against this tide of intellectual dishonesty and ignorance.

weekly propaganda sessions are built into the believer lifestyle, along with having lots of kids and brainwashing them to further propagate the religion "virus". no wonder it's survived so long.

how can we fight against something so big and successful?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Happy Tikiman on August 24, 2009 at 11:26pm

I think the internet might be the key..... its what saved me from that life and it certainly has the potential to help others. besides christians tend to make fools of themselves when they start writing things down and when you can compare that with what atheists say it makes it all the more convincing.

there is far more atheist material on the internet that actually explains things then there is christian and it only takes an inquisitive mind to get the ball rolling. just keep making a presence on the internet and eventually we will see the tide turn. at least thats my 2 cents :-D

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Wassabi on September 2, 2009 at 10:20am

you really shouldn't get sucked up into these arguments because they're completely ridiculous it begin with.

but more to the point: instead of getting into a long debate with a creationist where you have to end up defending science (when you obviously don't have a degree in physics or biology- and you end up looking like an idiot), you only have to remember (and point out) one thing:

creationists will bend over backwards to show the gaps in science, while their own alternative is a fucking fairy tale!

They'll bring their "scientists" before you, who will speak to you in "rational" terms on why science is wrong when tested under their scrutiny. But when they'll finally start talking about their own alternative, scrutiny and critical thinking somehow get completely thrown out the door. "Evolution is wrong because the findings are bla bla bla- but talking snakes and magical apples make perfect scientific sense. Everyone knows snakes can talk..."

Please read my post on the subject:
http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/shutting-the-creationist...

Further more, despite what the apologists say- YOU CAN'T PROVE GOD.
and even if you could, you'd still have to prove Christianity, and debunk all other religions. because it's not just god- it's specifically Jesus.

And besides, why is it that every atheist has to become a freaking expert in physics, biology, astronomy, chemistry, history and so forth in order to answer every half wit theist who hears something from his pastor???

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dave G on September 7, 2009 at 12:39am

Mainly because compared to a lot of the people asking us questions, a basic college-level knowledge of the subject seems to be PhD-level expertise, so they assume that if we know some, we must know all, and when we don't, they instantly claim victory. Never mind that they know even less.

• ▶ Reply