So I've just watched the YouTube rendition of Ray Comfort's ABC debate with a couple atheists. I'll admit I only watched part of it (I got too pissed off to finish the whole thing), but one question struck me pretty quickly: Why are the people we see arguing for Christianity on television always so stupid? I know at least a dozen people who could have done a better job than Mr. Comfort in that debate, and half of them aren't even really Christians. I should mention that I'm not too happy with the atheists either (although I think one of them was at least smarter than Ray), but the burden of proof was not on them, so all they had to do was find out how Ray screwed up... a much easier task.
What really gets me is that I think Ray started out with a good point; the idea that when we see a building, we know there was a builder - when we see a painting, we know there was a painter. And then he does something really stupid. He uses this to say that since we "prove" the existence of a painter from the existence of a painting, we can "prove" the existence of a Creator from the existence of Creation. This is where he pissed me off. The atheist on the other end of the debate made the point that we can call the builder or the painter, while we cannot call the Creator.
Almost a good point, but this doesn't really prove that the builder built this or the painter painted this. Now what Ray could have done is said that it is reasonable to believe that the painter and the builder are not lying to us, and whatever documentation exists is accurate. We therefore take it on faith that the builders and painters we call are not lying to us, and that the documentation was not forged. We cannot prove this; but it is reasonable to believe it. By the same token, you could say that it is reasonable to believe in a Creator. You could say that we take things on faith every day of our lives - why are we so opposed to taking something like the existence of God on faith? But Ray doesn't do that. He continues to pretend that he can prove scientifically the existence of God, when really it is impossible to prove almost anything at all. Scientific proofs are not about what it true anyway, they are about what it is reasonable to assume is true. If people could see this, then they could make much more intelligent arguments.
People like Ray's biggest problem in these debates is the burden of proof; if they would stop thinking of it as proof and start thinking of it as reasonable belief, maybe they'd get somewhere. Or maybe they still couldn't go anywhere with it. I don't know. They might not be smart enough to ever get anywhere. I just wish we could start finding real intellectuals to consider intellectual.
38 comments:
I think you may be getting to keen for your own good! (I personally met this criteria a few years back as well)
However, despite how mind-blowingly stupid some of these people may seem, I am often tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt.
So I'll ask you this: If you were to attempt to explain to a group of people that they should all give you 10 bucks, do you think you'd be better off catering to the small population of intelligent people, or perhaps the masses of the morons?
Is it possible this Ray guy has stumbled onto the answer?
Ray is excellent. You should watch his TV show. I especially like the parts where he ambushes people on the street, tries to get them to say that they are evil people who are going to hell, and then gets all offended and says THEY are rude.
I wonder what his success rate is: his preaching style appears to be a big hit with those who are already converted, but he does not seem to convince many people on the street.
Is Ray trying to convince people of anything? From what I've seen of his street evangelism he just asks people if they think are basically a good person or not. Then he moves on to how they would make such a determination. These are such simple questions yet people get so riled up over them. I wonder why that would be.
Perhaps they edit the TV show, making it seem like there are more people getting riled up than there actually are. This makes the 'good' people at home feel even better about what wonderous people they think they are. This in turn leads to more followers & bigger donations.
I have not seen his street evangelism, but in the debate I saw at least, his mission statement (as worded by himself) was to prove, scientifically and without the use of faith, the existence of God. Which, of course, is as impossible as proving that he does not exist.
I am reluctant to come to the conclusion that these evangelists are purposefully catering to the "masses of morons" in order to make more money, but that is certainly a possibility. And I suppose it would be a better idea, both financially and in terms of how many people you could "save."
Perhaps I am just too idealistic when it comes to figuring out why people do what they do. Normally I think of myself as a bit of a cynic, but it seems I have much to learn about cynicism before I can reach the level of the Capitalist here.
Wow! I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me! Thanks, I do my best!
It's a TV show, so we can be certain that it's edited. People who don't react the way the producers want never make it to screen.
I don't know if the editors prefer to show "bad" guys who aren't convinced or "good" guys who are converted there on the street, but I suspect that they like a healthy mix of the two.
I think Anonymous is purposely confused. Ray's asking simple questions, yes, but he's clearly trying to force people to say that they are evil and going to hell. The typical script goes sort of like this:
Do you think you're a good person?
Have you ever told a lie?
Be honest! Have you ever told a lie?
Do you think liars are good people?
Listen to me! Do you think liars are good people?
Do bad people go to heaven, or do they go to hell?
No, LISTEN TO ME!!! Do bad people go to heaven???
Now, why would anyone be offended when someone ambushes them and asks these questions with a camera running?
It's a TV show, so we can be certain that it's edited. People who don't react the way the producers want never make it to screen.
I don't know if the editors prefer to show "bad" guys who aren't convinced or "good" guys who are converted there on the street, but I suspect that they like a healthy mix of the two.
I think Anonymous is purposely confused. Ray's asking simple questions, yes, but he's clearly trying to force people to say that they are evil and going to hell. The typical script goes sort of like this:
Do you think you're a good person?
Have you ever told a lie?
Be honest! Have you ever told a lie?
Do you think liars are good people?
Listen to me! Do you think liars are good people?
Do bad people go to heaven, or do they go to hell?
No, LISTEN TO ME!!! Do bad people go to heaven???
Now, why would anyone be offended when someone ambushes them and asks these questions with a camera running?
Hmmm, double post. Not sure why that happened. And I didn't log in under my Blogger account, so I can't take it down. Sorry.
Steve & Megan
Your reproduction of Rays method is not how I recall it at all. You make it sound like he is yelling by using all the exclamation marks.
Lets look at the conversation again (I am granting you the wording although I'm not positive about that) but I think you concede the point when you said "the script sort of goes like this".
Do you think you are a good person? (A simple question that most people would say "yes" to.)
Have you ever told a lie? (Here we see that he is asking them to look a little deeper into what it means to be good. When they answer this they acknowledge a standard of goodness that they have most likely not met. A good starting point because who can say no? We all fall short. They can join the human race. How can Ray be so confident that he will receive the answer he is looking for? I would hazard a guess that he knows the answer from his own personal conviction of sin.)
Do you think liars are good people? (Here, if they are honest they must condenm themselves, unless of course they actually do think liars are good people.)
Listen to me! (I have never heard him speak like this. Although to someone who has a low tolerance for confrontation it might sound like it. I'm being gracious here.)
Do you think liars are good people? (Answer quickly, it is only what you think afterall.)
Do bad people go to heaven or do they go to hell? (If they answer this question they have agreed that there is a heaven and a hell. The surprising thing here is that most people actually do believe in a heaven and a hell. Also they really do care about which place they are going to.)
No, listen to me!!! (Again, never heard this.)
Do bad people go to heaven??? (It is an honest question. What is the difficulty here? It is a connect the dots kind of question. Then again, you use 3 question marks that do not add to the discussion but only serve to make him appear overbearing.)
I don't think he is trying to force people into anything but he is trying to lead people into taking the next step that logically follows in the belief system they already have.
Ya, I have a feeling if most people believe in a heaven & hell, they may have differing opinions on what heaven & hell are. In my heaven lying my get you a seat next to the messiah
I don't know anything about Ray (aside from a brief clip or two) but I would agree with Ben, hopefully he is a good person. Really, how would we KNOW. As far as Ray's argument goes I think Ben makes a good point, two actually. His first argument, the painting, makes it reasonable to believe that there is a painter, but not necessary. I think it's pretty interesting to hear people say that it is "unlikely" that God exists. It is incredibly "unlikely" that the universe should just happen to come together as it has! But this is not proof!
You can scientifically prove that God exists. If you are willing to believe in science, you are essentially agreeing to believe in cause and effect. If you believe in cause and effect Aquinas' logical proofs are pretty ironclad. I summarized the argument elsewhere. Would you like me to repeat it?
I am far from a scholar of Aquinas, and I don't believe I have ever read anything he himself has written. I have, however, read about some of what he has written, including his "Five ways" which I assume you are referencing. Three of them I believe I can dismiss offhand as making statements that are not, as far as I can see, true.
The remaining two (unmoved mover and uncaused cause) I had to think a bit longer about, but still, they do not seem precisely "iron-clad" to me. To start with, I don't think there is any basis to believe that an infinite regression of either movers or causers is impossible. Also, I think it would be more accurate to say that all things are moved/caused, rather than that some things are moved/caused. Correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot think of an effect that had no cause.
As I said, I know very little of Aquinas beyond what Wikipedia can tell me, so it is entirely possible that this filter is the main reason for my disagreements. Feel free to clarify.
If you were referring to something other than these five proofs, then yes, you will have to repeat it.
Aquinas was on the cutting edge in the 13th century. The problem is that he was preaching to the choir. Even if any of the things he's trying to prove actually exist, it's quite a leap to say that any of them are God. It's even more of a leap to suppose that the Christian God is the one that's being proved here.
Aquinas starts by assuming that God is wonderful, awesome, etc. He then sets up a bunch of proofs to prove that because God is so awesome, he must exist. These arguments work well with believers, but that's about all I can say about them. Even if you believe the proofs, there is no reason to think this "God" person is the Christian God.
Can't we just admit that there's no proof, but some people believe it anyway? Lots of people believe lots of crazy things. If I said that I thought an angel appeared to Joseph Smith and gave him a bag full of golden plates written in Egyptian that could be translated with a special stone, you wouldn't hesitate to call me a nutbar.
Hi Megan,
Your grammatical insights are great, but you are way off here.
"Aquinas was on the cutting edge in the 13th century": Theology and philosophy work by reason, and reason doesn't go out of style. Pyagoras was "cutting edge" then, and his geometry is still true today. Fashion has no legitimate role to play.
"It's even more of a leap to suppose that the Christian God is the one that's being proved here": God is the ultimate reality; logically there is only one ultimate reality. Aquinas makes a careful distinction between the knowledge of God we derive from philosophy, and the knowlege of God we learn from revelation. These are two sources of knowledge about one ultimate reality.
"Aquinas starts by assuming that God is wonderful, awesome, etc. He then sets up a bunch of proofs to prove that because God is so awesome, he must exist": Perhaps you are thinking of Anselm here; Aquinas didn't use this approach at all.
"Can't we just admit that there's no proof, but some people believe it anyway?": This statement trivializes both religion and philosophy. NO thinking religious person, and no philosopher would accept this statement.
Get thee to a nunnery.
I am willing to accept that some things MAY be un-provable, but fortunately this is not one of them. The fact of the matter is that you cannot prove anything to someone who is not willing to consider what you have to say. You cannot prove the theory of Gravity to anyone who won't listen to you or their own reason. If you demonstrate that 1+1=2 and I reply, "No, it makes 3!" then the conversation ends.
It is convenient for people to believe that this is something that we can have "an opinion" on the existence of God because that way they are not required to do any of the work. I would agree that the logical proofs do not prove the existence of a "Christian God," but as the Good Reverend has pointed out; ultimate reality is singular, we just have different interpretations as to the nature of ultimate reality.
I have also never suggested that anything I have said proves the existence of a "Christian" God. To date I have simply satisfied myself with proving that there is such a being. Perhaps I should discuss rival conceptions of God in my next Post.
- Sorry, I deleted that post. I noticed it was rife with Grammatical and Spelling errors. This MAY be better.
Call me cynical, but somehow I doubt that the participants in this discussion are hoping to prove that Zeus exists.
Proving the existence of Zeus would be a big step don't you think? I would certainly think that this is an improvement over simple atheism. Not quite right, but a great improvement.
You are assuming that I am trying to prove what I believe, when in fact I believe what I have proved. Newton had a pretty good idea of how gravity worked but we wouldn't think much of his theory if he couldn't prove it.
I am definitely sure that there is a "Creator" and have a good understanding of what Christians believe and why we believe it. It simply makes sense. This is why anyone believes something.
Of course not, but we only know that because we know who's talking. So far all logical arguments could prove Zeus as easily as the "Christian" God. You, in fact, were the one to bring Christianity into the picture. The fact that someone is Christian (or atheist, or any of the hundreds of other religions) has no bearing on what we should consider as the veracity of their statements.
I think that at this point, any discussion of Christianity would be quite premature, as the very existence of any form of supreme being is (as far as I can see anyway) still under debate.
Hi Ben. You said,
"So far all logical arguments could prove Zeus as easily as the "Christian" God":
This sort of statement won't really stand up to serious scrutiny. Any philosophical demonstration of God will bring you well beyond the sort of being represented by "Zeus". Philosophical demonstrations will lead, necessarily, to the monotheism of the great world religions.
There is a tactic, recently made popular by Richard Dawkins, to interject deities like Zeus or Posiedon (or Santa Claus) into the discussion of God, so as to trivialize the conversation. It is not philosphically serious.
Let me explain a bit more:
The demonstrations by St Thomas, or other philosophers, bring the mind to acknowledge the necessity of an ultimate reality, a ground for all reality. The God being demonsrated is not just some sort of supernatural power, like a rain god or a mermaid. That sort of "god" would just be another phenomenon in the world, rather that the source of the world.
In the end, as we explore the issue, I believe we will probably end with two alternatives: the Hindu concept of Atman, or the Creator of the Bible.
You are correct, I apologise for speaking carelessly. I merely meant to emphasize that the logical discussion had not yet reached the point of determining between any individual religion as we know them. Zeus was a poor choice; perhaps I should have said something like Ahura Mazda, the God of Zoroastrianism.
However, while I did speak carelessly, perhaps it was not such a bad thing - thinking of it now, I cannot see how anything that has been said would require a single God rather than two or two million. It might make sense for it to be only one, but I don't think it's provable - at least not from what I've heard so far.
Dad: I can appreciate the added clairity in your last post. The problem with using 'God' in statements arises from our perversion of the term 'god'. Granted it is meant to be an absolute, but most people have different concepts of this 'god'. I believe it arises in part due to this...
Matt: Great insight as always, but I am hesitant to say that what Christians believe "simply makes sense". Is this 'Ray' guy a christian? Doesn't being a christian require you to believe Christ was born from a virgin, came back to life after being dead, and floated up into the sky? Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I do want to be wrong here.
On another note and getting back to Ray... Perhaps he should be asked the simple questions "Are YOU a good person? Do you humiliate people on TV and profit from it? Do good people do that? etc, etc"
Valid point Capitalist. I would say that Ray probably thinks that the ends justify the means but I would certainly not take his line in any serious conversation about Religion.
Ben: I was responding directly to a sarcastic comment when I brought Christianity into the discussion. I might be off base but I am pretty sure that the comment, "Call me cynical, but somehow I doubt that the participants in this discussion are hoping to prove that Zeus exists," (steve & megan), was specifically directed at Christianity.
I would also agree that arriving at a Christian concept of God is premature at this point (I happen to agree with the Reverend about the most accurate description of God being the Christian one. I don't know enough about the Hindu to comment). A "creator" figure could as easily have created the universe for the sole purpose of actively torturing humans as for benign purposes. I happen to think that we can show that this is not the case but we surely have not gotten there yet!
The misinterpretation of the term God is certainly an issue in these discussions. This is the problem with having been brought up in a religious society. Much like I think the presence of guilt greatly impairs our ability to perform truly good deeds, I also think the presence of religion impairs our ability to rationally examine the existence of God. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing on the whole, but it certainly does cripple academic discussion.
When you start at the beginning with these logical proofs, I think you must think of God merely as a Creator figure - something outside the normal realm of matter that we experience. You can't assign properties to it yet other than existence and a separation from the observable world. It must be something beyond the world, not contained by it. Or beyond our perception of the world, anyway.
At least, that's how I see it. I've been wrong before; albeit rarely.
*grins* well we started this whole conversation with a discussion as to whether or not one COULD prove the existence of God rationally, so I feel this is a big improvement.
I am willing to stop there for just a bit so that this sinks in. I am going to take the time to re-post the proof that I find the most compelling on my blog.
It also turns out that you CAN say certain things about this Creator figure, but you have to do it very carefully to make sure that your assumptions don't jump in and color the picture. I won't rush into this conversation yet though.
I just found out that the Philosophical endeavor that we have engaged on is called Natural Theology. Cool eh?
The conversation here has been great, and I don't want to deflect it with secondary issues, but I want to stand up for Ray Comfort. The debate was a disaster; I admit. Ray is obviously not a strong debater, but he is a wonderful street preacher. His method is simply to help people realize the superficiality and complacency of their religious views, by the words that come out of their own mouths.
Nathan: Ray would most certainly admit that he is not a good person. This is the basis of his presentation: all of us believe we are good, because we haven't actually thought about the question.
See, I would say that good people DO lie, cheat, and steal.
'Strong' people may be able to bench 350 lbs... Just because 1 guy can't doesn't mean he isn't 'strong'
Capitalist - I don't think I understand what you mean. Are you saying that everyone is "strong" or "good" and that there is just some variation in how "strong" or "good" they are?
Or are you saying that it is good to lie, cheat, and steal?
The problem with the question of "do good people lie, cheat, and steal?" is that in the real world, we are often faced with choices that involve the lesser of two evils. In such a scenario, although a person might do something that is intrinsically evil, it is in fact the best they could do. Take Robin Hood, for example, or police officers, or soldiers.
To say that good people do not lie, cheat, or steal is to say that circumstances, not choices, dictate goodness.
Perhaps it would be better to acknowledge that no one is truly "good" and that we have all done things that are bad. I am not forwarding a theory of total depravity, but am allowing for human nature.
I'm afraid I have to press for more; it is not a matter of human nature. Human nature would imply that we all knowingly do bad things; given a choice between a good action and a bad action, we sometimes will choose the bad.
While this is true, it is not what I was getting at. My point is not that no one is perfect because of human nature, my point is that by absolute standards, no one is perfect because it is impossible.
Lying is not always a bad thing to do. Neither is cheating or stealing, or killing, or anything else that we consider to be bad. It would be preferable not to do any of these things, but that is not the way of the world. The choice is never between a good action and a bad action, it is between a bad action and a worse action.
In order to be good, you must do bad. Otherwise there is no real meaning to the term "good," because it does not exist.
Your post is not without validity. It is true that no one is perfectly good, and in the same way no one draws a perfect circle. However, that fact that a perfect circle (not the band) does not physically exist does not meant that circles do not exist. They exist conceptually. That concept of circle is what allows you to understand that the poorly drawn roundish object that you are being shown (although you know full well that it is not perfect) is supposed to be a circle and it is the CONCEPTUAL circle that we use in all our reasoning about math.
The same is true for right and wrong moral choices. Only one person in the entire history of humanity has EVER made all the correct moral choices, and that was Jesus. If you want to keep this conversation out of religious terminology and belief, we can simply agree that no one alive today is living a perfectly moral life. I am even willing to grant that all human action is bad (in the sense that it is not perfect) just as every circle we draw is bad. We still have to use the conceptual knowledge of "Circle" and "Ethics" as the basis of all our reasoning and action.
I also want to disagree with the statement that "In order to be good, you must do bad. Otherwise there is no real meaning to the term "good," because it does not exist." Good exists in the same sense as the circle exists. Bad is the absence of good (like black is the absence of light) and so does not really exist in the same sense. Good is in NO WAY conditional upon bad. You have confused the two terms; without good there is no bad.
As for thinking about your actions in the terms of bad and worse. This will be paralyzing for anyone truly concerned with ethics. Acknowledge you are not perfect and move on. If you wait for someone to show you a perfect circle you are going to paralyze your knowledge of mathematics too.
I am not certain to what extent we disagree. I am not saying that good itself does not exist, nor that it is subjective. I'm saying that it is a far more complicated concept than simply not lying, cheating, or stealing. Sometimes the best thing to do is to lie, cheat, or steal. The only good that exists is what we usually call the "greater good."
I am far from a scholar on the life of Jesus, but I do recall him trashing marketplaces on occasion. If we accept that good men do not do such things as lie, cheat, or steal, we must say that Jesus was not a good man, since he undoubtedly destroyed large quantities of material goods belonging to salesmen - some of whom likely did not eat that night because of the actions of Jesus. Surely that was not a "perfectly good" thing to do. It may, however, have been the best choice possible in that situation.
Using such rigid standards of goodness, the only way Jesus or anyone else could lead a perfectly good life is if circumstances conspired to never present them with a choice which involved a negative outcome. And then we would be idolizing people not for their moral character, but for their incredible luck.
Also, I am not insinuating in any way that I am not perfect. I am simply defining perfection in a different fashion than you are. You seem to be defining it as never committing a bad action, while I am defining it as always choosing the best (or least worse) action. I cannot agree with your definition because I do not believe that "perfectly good" actions exist. Everything anyone has ever done or will ever do (Jesus included) has had / will have bad consequences.
It is still entirely possible within this definition for someone to have lived a perfectly moral life, in the same way as it is possible to have a perfect circle. It is incredibly unlikely, but it is not impossible.
*nods thoughtfully* yes. There may be a time when you have to commit a moral "wrong" to prevent a worse moral "wrong." Hiding Jews from the Gestapo and lying about it for example. However, this does not mean that lying is right! It is simply the best thing to do in that situation.
However, I do not agree that the "greater good" is the only good that exists. This may just be that I have spent a little more time thinking about this issue though because there was a time when I agreed with it completely. There are a number of pretty clear demonstrations of why the "Greater Good" (which would be working out the most good for the most people) is not something that we should be working towards, but something higher.
I think I will write a short story and post it to my blog to illustrate my point. I started to write it here but it became too long.
dude, are you coming up for the 4th?
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