Thursday, January 06, 2011

God Questions: An Atheist & Christian Dialogue

God Questions is a record of debate arising out of a correspondence between American Atheist Professor Carl Stecher and English Philosopher Peter S. Williams in 2001-2002. It is reproduced at bethinking.org here, as edited by the authors. The table of contents is as follows:

Introduction
Morality and the Biblical God
The Problem of Evil
Cosmological and Design Arguments
Some Questions about Jesus
Desire & Religious Experience
Heaven and Hell
Closing Reflections

More Peter S. Williams resources here.
Enjoy

11 comments :

Anonymous said...

this looks great! after reading the opening statement of each I can not wait to explore this further. thanks Brian!

pds said...

Tasty! Can't wait to dig in!

Davitor said...

When they both come to the realization that their conclusions are wrong, then they will come closer to truth, for the truth will set you free. For the atheist who wants to believe that God = nothing, a conclusion that leaves no room for a never-ending imagination for nothing can never exist without a conscious awareness to confirm, and for the apologist who want to believe God = something, a conclusion that leaves no room for a never ending imagination that an individuality will never have.

Russell said...

Davitor,

In our previous dialogue, I got the impression that you did not believe in objective truth. So how are you able to make the claim that both the atheist and the Christian are wrong? Or is this just a subjective truth of yours?

Davitor said...

Hi Russell, you may not be understanding what I'm saying so I will say it with a story. For thousands of years man believed the earth was the center of our universe with the sun revolving around the earth as the Bible indicates but a man named Galileo became aware of a more realistic observation. The earth does not stay still but moves. For that his books were forbidden for they contradicted the Bible. But regardless of Galileo not being able to defend his belief which was forbidden at his time, the truth was revealed of it's own accord without Galileo having to defend. So again the truth I speak of does not need my defense for it will be revealed of it's own accord and one day we will all know that God is not something other than who I am.

Russell said...

Empirical evidence became available in Galileo's case. You evidence for Christianity being false is "a conclusion that leaves no room for a never ending imagination that an individuality will never have." How is this similar to Galileo's case?

You go on to say "the truth I speak of does not need my defense for it will be revealed of it's own accord and one day we will all know that God is not something other than who I am."

In that case, I am going to proclaim the truth to be that Christianity is true and pantheism is false. I am not going to defend this truth, but trust me it's true. For it will be revealed in time.

Davitor said...

Yes Russell, and if its true you are free from having to defend it, but if its false you are bound to defend it.

Russell said...

If that's the case, then why do you bother to comment on anything on this blog?

Also, I know I mentioned this in another topic, but I am still hoping for an actual definition of the word truth. The definition that I usually find is "conforming with fact or reality". Do you agree with this definition? I am not looking for an ambiguous analogy, but an actual definition.

Davitor said...

Do you wish me to stop, I don't mind.
As I explained before I speak of absolutes, things that don't need belief's to be validated.

Russell said...

Do you wish me to stop, I don't mind.

Of course not. I am just curious why you would if you felt no need to defend your beliefs and attempt to disprove others.

As I explained before I speak of absolutes, things that don't need belief's to be validated.

This is where I, and imagine others, see a problem. You are making claims about absolutes and truths, but you give no real reasons for anyone to believe that they are absolute or true. I just don't see how this sort of worldview can be tenable.

Davitor said...

Thank you Russell, may you find absolute and unconditional love which leads to empirical peace. :)
God Bless.

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