Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Big Questions: Is There Any Evidence For God?


Play all videos (2)
Aired June 20, 2010 on BBC One

42 comments:

  1. I think the reason people of no faith have worse health is because they have to endure religious reasoning.

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  2. Wow. Kill me now. I give up.

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  3. Short answer: No
    Long answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooo
    Tedious and bad reasoned theological answer full of the usual bad and ad infinitum refuted arguments: See video

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  4. Enough ! Bloody fuck - enough !
    I don't know about you guys, but I always thought that there are limits to human stupidity.
    Boy, I was wrong.

    PS: To Soren.
    I know what you mean. I have to take care of myself. No more watching these god-no god  videos. It has a devastating effect on my health. They are days that I wish that the fucking god ( any of them) show her face and said something and then, once for all, shut the fuck down those discussions. Forever.

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  5. So a student goes to a math teacher asking him about evolution, if that teacher failed to explain it then it means evolution is false?!!!

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  6. Fucking irritating self delusional shit.
    I still think that the flying teapot is the answer. Now lets see tham debate how you can prove that.

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  7. HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN SUCH-AND-SUCH, PROFESSOR? IT MUST HAVE ORIGINATED FROM MAGIC!

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  8. I'm gradually growing to love this show over time. It serves as my fortnightly reminder that, despite the steady stream of haughty self-satisfied ridicule for our innumerate religiots this side of the pond, Europe and Britain are just as brimming over with doddering pillocks (I will happily grant that your insults are clearly superior though) as anywhere else in world, maybe even the US.

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  9. Peter Atkins first answer was bad because it utterly ignored the terrible premise behind the question - that it's acceptable to argue using the premise that all things need a cause JUST long enough to presume a god exists and then that premise can be thrown away once that job is done because it's wrong to apply that premise to god itself.  That is the dishonest bait and switch on the part of believers (let's be brutally honest and stop calling them believers and start calling them liars, please people?).  His answer didn't attack that presumption, and so therefore nobody would pay attention to it.

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  10. The bishop was full of crap when he said that science owes its existence to religion.  What happened in the Age of Enlightenment is that religion finally stopped pursuing the line of argument that knowing about reality is the sin of hubris, and thus it finally exploded out from that point.  Sure it did so from religious institutes of learning, but what the bishop and every other similar liar gloss over is the fact that these very religious institutions were the reason it didn't start UNTIL then.  What the church did was not the addition of a positive drive FOR science that was missing before, but a removal of the negative suppression of it.

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  11. The stupid.  It hurts.   Is this show "The Big Questions" deliberately designed to have a format with the purpose of preventing any meaningful debate by bringing in entirely too many participants shouting all at once?  It's like the Jerry Springer show of debate formats.

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  12. Calling for respect from someone, and referring to them and their "ilk"...

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  13. Oh great FSM, they don't know that Dawkins doesn't assert that there is absolutely no god.
    That was absolutely painful to watch.

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  14. That was utterly painful. I can't believe I watched all of it. I love how believers begin their list of "evidence" and then give the standard "arguments."

    1) First Cause: Of course it doesn't even dawn on them that beggining of the universe could be of a non-divine nature that's just something we can never possibly know. 

    2) Fine tuning: This load of shit implies that we were the desired result, not a random byproduct. Of course, any result would be viewed as fine-tuned for after the fact.

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  15. Just assert 'God' and then pretend you don't have to explain anything, show anything, demonstrate amything. The stupidity is tiring.
    'The godshape' hole. What bullshit. Coming from a secular country I didn't even become aware of religion until seven years of age app. My worldview defaulted to godlessness, I remember well how I thought before I ever heard about 'god'. It is the default view. I suspect those indoctrinated from childhood simply can't break loose from their thinking.

    And then the drivel about 'militant' atheism. I don't think they know what 'militant' mean. But if they can't argue honestly thats the only recourse i guess.

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  16. Before we can discuss is there evidence for god?  We have to define what God is.  Now each religion defines god in diffrent ways, even diffrent people withing the same religion have diffrent definitions of god

    One good areticle on the existence and definition of God is found here : http://atheism.about.com/od/whatisgod/a/whydefinegod.htm 

    One of the attributes of god is ominipotence which again is a pradox as mentioned here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox

    Some may narrate the story of St. Augustine and the Boy at the Beach saying you cannot understand certain aspects of god.  To them my reply is, it is easier not to believe that to take their word of authority on what I cannot see or understand.  I am sure that they too could not have seen and understood the phenomenon and would have accepted somebody else's word of authority.

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  17. For people who are willing to con their own minds into believing them, there are lots of "reasons to believe"; there are books full of them. These people are practicing irrationalists and don't understand people who arn't. They don't distinguish between holy books/faith and reality/reason. They just don't get it and spend their lives trying to live according to absurd fantasies. IMO, unless atheists can inject an awareness of and respect for reality/reason into this culture, we'll not get very far in shutting down religion -- just as in the past.

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  18. Uising the arguments given here by the religious nuts, there is more evidence for astrology.

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  19. Instead of watching these videos, watch the music video for ICP's "Miracles." You'll get the same arguments.

    "Fucking magnets! How do they work?"

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  20. as for first cause- what "caused" god? and that retard ranting about love- did she even DO biology at school, actually did she go to school? probably homeschooled by mormons

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  21. love the guy who hypothesized "lets start from zero.  suppose there is no God, then bring me evidence.  to me that sounded mathematically, logically a good starting point.

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  22. did any of you notice, that in this debates, aside from one or two, there's always a bunch of believers, and one or two atheist? It's devastating! And the people in favor of religion always fail to argue critically or scientifically! These bishops etc. aren't trained or educated to discuss matters over and think about it, they are trained to persuade and decieve.... 

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  23. They don't understand their own arguments; if they did, they would'nt use them.

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  24. wtf is this debate im just pissed off- its like 10 idiots v 1 atheist wtfff!

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  25. lasers for eyes jacksonJune 21, 2010 at 11:15 AM

    Religion follows behind not just science, but common knowledge and inserts itself where ignorance is. When we knew nothing of the sky the gods walked on the clouds. We studied the skies, and decided they must be in space. We studied space and now they have retreated to another dimension. Religion will always escape to the furthermost reaches of human ignorance.

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  26. lasers for eyes jacksonJune 21, 2010 at 11:20 AM

    <span>No to mention. He said Christianity thought of a "rational world that could be studied." Besides being an idea that was expounded on more thoroughly by the Greeks, the christian notion is there is a God that can will the sun to stop in the sky, or a virgin to conceive, or pick your myth. The fact is Christianity promotes faith and not reason. Science moved forward in spite of religion.</span>

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  27. i just hate BBC... they always organise such debates with a biased participation.... just put a bunch of religious nuts against a single sensible atheist, and u get a BBC debate !

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  28. i just hate BBC... they always organise such debates with a biased participation.... just put a bunch of religious nuts against a single sensible atheist, and u get a BBC debate !

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  29. ow ow ow ow OW OW!!!!

    Note to self: Next time you watch this show, use restraints to prevent pummeling my face by constant /facepalm.

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  30. Replace the word "god" with "the Great Green Arkleseizure", and you can have the same discussion with the same rationalisations, and it would not be more insane than it is now.

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  31. Basically, conversations like this strip the term "debate" of any real meaning. Boring.

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  32. The video really ought to be called "Is there any evidence for the nonexistence of god, because that's the flawed viewpoint they take in the "debate".  

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  33. God shaped whole?  I guess this is what happens when you have seven religious people debate atheist.  They win by capitalizing air time.  Its their time honored method for winning debates.  Works everytime even if we all die a little each time it is used.

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  34. the ratio of religious to non believers in this debate was completely unfair.

    one thing that really made me irritated was the fact that they said atheist standpoint was a arrogant one. uhm excuse me, we don't claim to know who created us, what happens what you die ect ect!

    another was these cheap shoots points that was presented with imidiate aplause completely without time for a comeback... ex the world must have been created because it was created... well who created the creator??
    well love can't be explained yet, so that is good enough reason for me to believe in god??? what kind of minds are we dealing with here?? it is allways astounding to see how normal rational people can have this short sighted, arrogant view in only this aspect of their lives....

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  35. *lol* Is this the "Lets gang up on the Atheist show?" It was like around 14 Theists Vs. 1 Atheist

    They all just shouted all sorts of false assertions and let him answer only a little bit of it.

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  36. ManCreatedGodCreatedHellJune 23, 2010 at 1:47 AM

    The debate was not whether science assumes there are immutable laws or whether they got their ideas from religion! It is whether there is any evidence for god.

    People on this 20 minute waste of f**king time either did not address the question, or they did not understand what evidence is. 

    I have a big bruise on my head from banging it on the table.

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  37. Where do they get so many wacky religious people? I don't know any...still they find tens of them...I'll feel bad for Peter Atkins...

    ...ohhh...and the love theme...just makes me go nuts!!!

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  38. Yeah, the red woman's "ilk" comment was disgusting, and inappropriate for any debate. Every panel has a dick, but that panel had several. What are the odds?

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  39. And the retard ranting about love was also incredible smug.  If ever someone accuses atheists of being smug, I'll just forward them this video!

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  40. They are trained as used car salesmen.  
    Daniel Dennett has an interesting lecture where he explains a recent study that shows that what seminary really teaches priests is how to dodge critical thinking.

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  41. What a waste of bandwidth... I pay the licence fee for this???

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