Shall we spark a civil Atheist vs Christian debate?

Question

I am a Christian and I believe it is more rational to believe an intelligent designer created our intelligently designed universe.

Okay. And your evidence for this?
Eleventy: The evidence is meaningless as it is subjective in this case. It is funny when worded like this, but, it is evident that order and intelligent design is evidence of an intelligent design, even though you may deny this evidence.

"Of course, an intelligently-designed universe has an intelligent designer."

This statement alone is evidence that you believe intelligent design is evidence of an intelligent designer. You state however, that we must need proof. No, we do not need proof to make a rational decision and proof does not equal evidence. We only need evidence to make a rational/sensible decision so that we are not taking a blind leap of faith.

*Evidence is not meaningless, it is just that when two people are confronted with the same type of evidence, the two might take the meaning of the evidence differently, like in the case of intelligent design.

Answer 1

Sounds interesting. What forum are you suggesting? I don't think that it would be suitable for Yahoo! Answers.
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Answer 2

Dr. Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Ge nome Project, a world's leading scientist and a Christian states "Intelligent Design (ID) fails in a way that should be ...a concern to the believer than to the hard-nose scientist. ID is a "God of the gaps" theory, inserting a supposition of the need for supernatural intervention in places that its proponents claim science cannot explain." He then goes on to state "Ultimately a "God of the gaps" religion runs a huge risk of simply discrediting faith."

Now....you have got to admit that this is a guy who really knows what he is talking about and prior to ascribing to a questionable theory (ID) and asking for a civil debate on faith or lack thereof one might want to start with at least a bedrock that is solid rather one that is made of quicksand.

Answer 3

By definition, faith requires belief without evidence, therefor it cant be backed by a rational argument. This is not a knock on religion, its just the way it is.

So, rational atheists won't respond to any argument made by religious people, and on the same token, since religious peoples beliefs are not based in reason and rationality, an atheists argument would not be very convincing to them.

Its really a pointless argument that will never be settled.

Answer 4

I would think an intelligent designer could come up with a much better design for humans. There are so many inherent flaws that it seems more of a rush design than a truly thought out one.

Answer 5

Where have you been, it has already been going on. You and your Christians are about to loose control of this Country. More and more people are waking up and seeing the truth. Religion is meant to keep us distracted and fighting amongst ourselves so we don't focus on the issues that are real and can be changed.

I say we atheists start a revolution and demand religion be taken away from every aspect of our society altogether. There will be less people in prison and maybe our schools test scores will come back up. No more hate crimes, discrimination or monumental greed by the churches, who are guilty of tax evasion.

Answer 6

I'll go with the word "designer" . How you can think of the suffering , starvation , murders , sickness , poverty , greed , hopelessness that we have in this world , and claim that it was designed intelligently is going way too far .
If anyone designed the misery of the world , he also designed the fires of hell , and that's where he belongs .

Answer 7

And on what basis do you assert that our universe is intelligently designed?

If all you have is 'the universe looks intelligently designed to me, therefore it is' then we can't really have a debate at all, civil or otherwise. You need arguments to have a debate, not gut feelings.

Answer 8

Okay. And your evidence for this?

Of course, an intelligently-designed universe has an intelligent designer. You need to prove, however, that the universe was intelligently designed.

Answer 9

If you think that it is rational to worship an invisible genocidal tyrant, that's fine with me, but I prefer facts.

A civil Atheist vs Christian debate could happen, one side has evidence (Atheists) that the other side would refuse to believe (Christians).

Answer 10

Well, you're wrong.

Of all the compelling arguments you can make for theism, rationality is not one of them. It is NOT more "rational." It's more resonant with your emotional hot spots.

Theism is "obscurum per obscurius" - which is fancy Latin for "an explanation of the obscure in terms of the even more obscure."

The universe is complicated. Far more complicated than the mind of man can comprehend. But to answer the question "How did this come to be?" with "God did it" is simply to dodge the question entirely. Instead of simply admitting that we don't know, we write "God" for "X" and call it a day.

Answer 11

I'm game but:

a) I'm an agnostic, not an atheist
b) Y!A is not the forum for this; it is clumsy for debates and it is a violation of the Q&A format of the site. Email is recommended.
c) I am generally very busy so my side of things will often come slowly.

Email me if you'd like.