My first live debate
So, I just finished my first online live debate with a Christian, and I gotta say, it was rather disappointing.
The victim was Youtube's TruthfulChristian. Some of you might know him. He's basically an evolution-bashing Christian creationist. Sort of like venomfangx.
Most of you probably know how excruciatingly painful it is to try to get any new knowledge into a creationist's head, and I actually started to doubt if he was being serious.
We began talking about why he believed in God. He used the Cosmological Argument, where he argues that every event has a cause, and since his second premise was the time is finite, there can not be an infinite string of events. Therefore, he concluded, that there must be a first cause. And that cause was, according to him, the Judeo-Christian God. There are many things here to refute, but I started with his premise that time is not infinite, and told him that he had no basis for that premise. While it is logical and comfortable to assume that time is finite, there really is no evidence to back that claim up. Of course, I couldn't knock sense into him.
Eventually, I agreed that time is finite, for the sake of argument, and that there was a fist cause. My following question was, "How do you know what that cause was?". He never really responded, but instead started reciting Genesis. When I made it clear that he was using circular logic to conclude what the first cause was, he took the natural next step of calling me stupid.
I told him that believing in God made just as much sense as believing in Zeus, Odin, Krishna, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He then again called me stupid, claiming that I believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Suddenly, he decided that he wasn't comfortable talking about cosmology anymore, and abruptly changed the subject to evolution. Now, I'm no expert on evolution, but I suspected that neither was he, and that he wouldn't present any argument that I hadn't heard before. What came out of his mouth from that point on, though, surprised me, to say the least.
He said that there hasn't been a single observed beneficial mutation. When I enlightened him about the fact that there were hundreds, just within the human race, he, well, just kinda ignored me.
After a while, he told me what I was already suspecting, that he was a biblical literalist. He based this on his belief that the Bible is scientifically correct as well as it contains prophesy.
One of his main arguments was that the Bible said the Earth was round in a time that people thought it was flat. Specifically, he pointed to the verse Isaiah 40:22, that says "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth". I pointed out that the Earth isn't circular, and he then did something that made me laugh out loud. He said that nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Earth is circular. I was stunned. How would anyone ignore the evidence that they, themselves have presented. Eventually though, he did admit that the Bible does say what he just said, and resorted to the common apology, "it's metaphorical". He didn't get time to explain what the metaphor was for before he suddenly left, but I'm sure it would have been pretty retarded.
I guess I just kinda wanted to get my frustration out there, to see if someone has had experience with someone that ignorant.
PS: There are probably a lot of errors in there, but I'm sure you understand the context.
The victim was Youtube's TruthfulChristian. Some of you might know him. He's basically an evolution-bashing Christian creationist. Sort of like venomfangx.
Most of you probably know how excruciatingly painful it is to try to get any new knowledge into a creationist's head, and I actually started to doubt if he was being serious.
We began talking about why he believed in God. He used the Cosmological Argument, where he argues that every event has a cause, and since his second premise was the time is finite, there can not be an infinite string of events. Therefore, he concluded, that there must be a first cause. And that cause was, according to him, the Judeo-Christian God. There are many things here to refute, but I started with his premise that time is not infinite, and told him that he had no basis for that premise. While it is logical and comfortable to assume that time is finite, there really is no evidence to back that claim up. Of course, I couldn't knock sense into him.
Eventually, I agreed that time is finite, for the sake of argument, and that there was a fist cause. My following question was, "How do you know what that cause was?". He never really responded, but instead started reciting Genesis. When I made it clear that he was using circular logic to conclude what the first cause was, he took the natural next step of calling me stupid.
I told him that believing in God made just as much sense as believing in Zeus, Odin, Krishna, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He then again called me stupid, claiming that I believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Suddenly, he decided that he wasn't comfortable talking about cosmology anymore, and abruptly changed the subject to evolution. Now, I'm no expert on evolution, but I suspected that neither was he, and that he wouldn't present any argument that I hadn't heard before. What came out of his mouth from that point on, though, surprised me, to say the least.
He said that there hasn't been a single observed beneficial mutation. When I enlightened him about the fact that there were hundreds, just within the human race, he, well, just kinda ignored me.
After a while, he told me what I was already suspecting, that he was a biblical literalist. He based this on his belief that the Bible is scientifically correct as well as it contains prophesy.
One of his main arguments was that the Bible said the Earth was round in a time that people thought it was flat. Specifically, he pointed to the verse Isaiah 40:22, that says "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth". I pointed out that the Earth isn't circular, and he then did something that made me laugh out loud. He said that nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Earth is circular. I was stunned. How would anyone ignore the evidence that they, themselves have presented. Eventually though, he did admit that the Bible does say what he just said, and resorted to the common apology, "it's metaphorical". He didn't get time to explain what the metaphor was for before he suddenly left, but I'm sure it would have been pretty retarded.
I guess I just kinda wanted to get my frustration out there, to see if someone has had experience with someone that ignorant.
PS: There are probably a lot of errors in there, but I'm sure you understand the context.
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Comment by James on June 5, 2010 at 11:29pm -
Sounds like you were debating a real 'winner' there. I'm pretty sure that most of us have run across varying degrees of that kind of believer before, so I can relate with your frustration. Where we may debate in order to learn or educate, the only thing he was interested was stating that he's right. No matter how compelling the argument or solid the evidence is, some people will simply ignore it in order to cling to their belief system. It's a pity really.
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Comment by Fancy Nancy on June 6, 2010 at 2:09am
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When you 'know' you are right then evidence or logic is unnecessary ... doh didn't you realise that ;)
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Comment by Reggie on June 6, 2010 at 2:38am -
Truthfulchristian? I saw a video of his the other day where he attacked science. It was terrible. He didn't understand any basic principles of science. He said there were three tiers of science; theory, law, and fact. Theory, according to him, was the weakest. He went on to mangle the rest. He then pretended to know what entropy meant and I was impelled to comment on his video that his extra long fingernails also broke entropy laws as he understood them.
That kid is a tool bag.
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Comment by Sebastian on June 10, 2010 at 11:17pm -
I had similar confrontation few days ago, which was triggered by something very silly but I just couldn't resist not to comment.
Malaysia has two weeks of school holidays and naturally, the malls are full, especially the one with restaurants. Malaysian culture revolve pretty much around food, due to huge multicultural mix and it's common for families to go out late at night (1am/3am) to hang out and snack...
Anyway, I arrived in a mall and had very hard time finding parking lot. Drove around for 30min, got fed up and decided to go back home. On my way out, to my luck I spotted a car coming out right in front of me so I took the lot... Done.
Went to my favorite hang out place where I smoke my cigars and complain to a friend who was already there, about the hassle and time wasted trying to park the damn car. Someone next to me, who I have seen there few times, but never really talked to, said to me: "I came an hour ago, and the moment I reached basement two, someone came out and I immediately got a lot....", followed by: "god works in mysterious ways". Wow. First as banal as it might be, I hate the hint that god would favor person over a parking lot, secondly, I hate when people feel so special and single out by God.
I think ZOMGitsCriss describe it best in her video, and I couldn't say it better myself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dyPiIcLK90
From there on we moved to argument over existence of god and naturally evolution. I spare you the details. What truly amazes me that those are, what it seem, quite intelligent and well educated people, and the inability to find some common sense with them, is just astonishing. I'm actually getting speechless in some cases. It's really scary what years of indoctrination can do to a healthy individual, and I can't imagine how difficult it must be to try to come to terms with other reality than the one they were thought. I'm not sure whether it's some kind of self preservation? People are just too desperate to admit that what they believe in and built an entire life based on, is total rubbish, as if they wasted their life on doing something what is now looking pretty stupid to them. Hence rather than disillusion, they chose to go back to what they know and stick to it. I really can't understand, how one with IQ higher than room temperature (in Celsius, not Fahrenheit) could possibly fall for the biggest con of the millennium.
But then again, I'm also curious why, despite growing in very religious family, my sister and myself were the only two who could never fall for that. Years on processions (bunch of people follow a guy in costume and a cross around town), Sunday masses, pilgrimages, religious classes and summer camps. Just felt way out of place and systematically get kicked out for questioning and ridiculing the priests. In fact I was not allowed to get my "Conformation", I had to move to another parish to get it done. Why is that that one has such resistance to assimilate? I haven't read about evolution back then, it just naturally did not feel right. Hence we were persist ant to refuse to acknowledge faith.
To be honest with you guys, I feel extremely fortunate looking on the world from different perspective.
Sorry to write so much, there are no many places for me to share personal experience. Living in Malaysia, highly Islamic country, it's hard to discuss such topics without literally getting in trouble with the authorities. And on top of it, people of that particular faith are much more indoctrinated than the Christians and conversations or confrontations can be quite hostile.
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