Fine, GD it is. Let me know when you get 5 or 6 and I'll check it out of the library. Just don't say I didn't try.

One main reason I didn't want to do GD is I figured atheists would accuse me of being lazy and picking an easy target. I offered two guys who are much harder for Christians than this clown, Dawkins, but if that's what you want, you just made my life easier and a lot more fun. I've really enjoyed firing shots at Pope Dickie the last few years but have avoided a broadside because, well, I just don't like shooting fish in a barrel. But for Dickie boy I can make an exception.

qft

"fairly easy to debunk" was my fav

Why wait if it's going to be so much fun for you!

I suggest you start a thread titled, "Here's why Dawkins is a clown. (It's like shooting fish in a barrel)"

I would be willing to participate if the atheists here are actually willing to participate with a theist book. I suggest Greg Boyd's "Satan and the Problem of Evil". I would really like to see Madnak and OH read this book, and I would be willing to read whatever it took to get them to read this. If the God Delusion is what the atheists want, then that is fine.

I think reading Dawkins is good, considering he is like the atheist Pope and all.

This was the norm over in SMP for the atheist side, except atheists like to high five

Reading God Delusion is a bad idea if your reading it as "the atheist bible" As an atheist I feel like I learned quite a bit from it however a lot of the God Delusion is "I'm Dawkins and I'm smarter than this guy cuz this is what he says and this is what I say, the end of that discussion." So if your going to read it good but you can't nitpick and say "ok this is a weak point by Dawkins that ruins the entire books credibility." Because unlike the bible, nobody claims Dawkins to be writing w/ the inspired word of god. I found a lot of his sections frivolous, although there were a few excellent ones.

tldr: God Delusion is not the atheist bible.

lol. My comment about that really seemed to get to people. If you read it in context you will see you are taking it totally the wrong way.

Notready, what have you actually achieved on an academic level so far in your life? Have you recently written renowned best sellers? Have you ever made any serious contribution to science? Have you ever dispelled arguments within the God Delusion in a structured and logical fashion and if so LINK!?

What gives you the right to describe someone you have never met / know very little about personally a clown? Do you think I am a clown because of the points of view I hold? This is an ignorant and narrow minded way to conduct yourself in a public forum. I would hope that this petulant tone would not carry into any potential discussion of texts no matter how far you feel your levels of thinking and comprehension of the world are above them.

My suggestion is not God Delusion and I personally don't think it is an ideal text to start on as members of this forum have already dismissed selected arguments within it out of hand and the hype and hatred of the author would diminish any hope for reasonable debate on the book. I feel Bertrand Russell's "Religion and Science" would be a good starting point from the perspective of an atheist.

I would be happy to read anything put forward by any theist but please try to implement an element of quality control. Maybe you could PM each other and decide as a group which text would be a good starting point for non-believers. I will approach any serious work with an open mind as I honestly wish to understand better how you lot are so convinced this God fella exists/ has a positive effect the world and or you personally.

He's not very good.

highfive > backpat imo

lol. I know right. I brought it up at the latest meeting but got no support. Sometimes I think about converting just for the high fives.

Lol @ "atheist Bible", "pope of atheism", etc. WTF are you guys talking about?

Atheism is just a side effect of accepting that the world doesn't fit inside your little mind.

It's not a coincidence that 95% of the National Academy of Science are atheists. Or that great novelists, confronted with the treachery of human emotion, inevitably reject the simplicity of religion. Or that Buddhist arahants are the most completely atheistic beings alive.

It doesn't matter whether I even have a diploma - you're just indulging in a favorite SMP tactic called poisoning the well. I've commented on that enough in the past so nuff said.

I don't call Dawkins a clown as to his person or his academic accomplishments - in context I'm obviously referring to his entry into fields for which he has no qualifications or, judging from his words, no aptitude or understanding - philosophy and theology. Anyone who says "Theology is a subject about nothing" is a clown while making the statement. From what I've seen in reviews of his book he's worse than a clown, but I'm going to save that as ammo if we do the book.

Russell isn't my favorite author by a long way and if you had suggested "Why I Am Not a Christian" my reaction would have been similar to God Delusion, but I haven't read the book you suggest and if we go with it and it doesn't cost much, it might be interesting. I can't help wondering why all the atheists don't want to use books that are written by knowledgeable atheists who make tough arguments against Christianity - could it be no one has read them?

Whoa! Don't tell me you're going to link to christian websites that suggest Dawkins is a clown? That would most definitely PROVE that he is, in fact, a clown.

Bottom line is that if you had the ability to totally debunk what Dawkins says in TGD you would have already published it.

Why do you have to act so arrogant about this? You're acting like what Dawkins wrote is the same as saying 2+2=3.

Still waiting for your thread on why Dawkins is a clown. (like shooting fish in a barrel amirite)

I don't trust anyone who thinks there are metaphysical arguments to be made about religion. So I'm certainly not wasting my time reading them.

Dawkin's book is, as I've said before, purely a pragmatic appeal to the layman. It was not intended to say anything to the devout (they have no ears to hear, besides.)

I just posted this:


and this:


I'm waiting.

And BTW:

That's not too far off some of his comments.

You're avoiding the meat of what I said.

You claim to have the information needed to make Dawkins look like a clown (without having read the entire book we're talking about), so I'm asking you to post this information.

If this information is what you say it is, you should just save us all the trouble of reading the entire book. (I've read it; speaking of others)

I'm not going to do that if we're going to do a book study. If we do a study and GD isn't it and there's still interest I will post some of the fallacies Dawkins makes. But I'm not giving you my game plan in advance.

Edit: I already gave one instance which provoked a response from Malcolm that Craig is stupid which he didn't then support. Pretty much the way I expect the whole thing to go.

He said Craig is stupid, but didn't give solid reasoning.

You said Dawkins is a clown, but didn't give solid reasoning.

Craig did. I also gave some when I quoted D. on theology. You have to be a clown to make that statement.

The link you gave does not qualify as "solid reasoning"

Why is that 9 times out of 10 the theists are always the first to resort to name calling?

Why not?

Excellent question. A question I don't have the energy to tackle right now because it isn't as simple as writing out a sentence or two.

I could ask you, "why is it sound reasoning?", and I imagine you wouldn't want to answer that right now either because of the time it takes.

lol

Craig makes a case. I don't have to make a case that he makes a case. You have to make a case that he doesn't. At least to hold my interest.