I'm not sure I get Dennis' argument about Collins. Am I supposed to accept Collins' assertion that he found a supreme diety in 3.1 billion letter instructions because he is smarter than me? Should I not ask him for his evidence and see it opened to debate by others, such as Harris or Richard Dawkins or other people who are also probably smarter than me?

If the proof of the existence of a supreme diety lies in these 3.1 billion letter instructions, I would gladly spend my time, energy and intellect in deciphering them. However, I am afraid that what Collins cites as proof is actually personal revelation and has nothing to do with the complex arrangement of the letters A, C, G and T in the human genome.

he is merely pointing out a prominent scientist who was converted based on his investigation into the genome.

i was trained as scientist as well and i see his point.

Scientists have come to belief in God through science, therefore there are scientific reasons to believe in God? No, no! That's not the point, that's silly!

Scientists (who, by virtue of that office alone, have more authority to pronounce on God's existence than you do) have concluded that God exists, therefore there are good reasons to believe in God? Yes!

If we admit this fallacy, then why should we not admit that the large number of actors who believe in Scientology prove that there are good reasons to believe in it too? Surely, actors have as much authority to pronounce on the right religion as scientists do the existence of God.

In truth, to say that the existence of God is a hypothesis open to scientific inquiry is to say that it is a question of truth and not a question of what one wants to believe. The standard of good science is usefulness of theory. That is, our confidence in the truth of a theory is proportional to how much use it gives us (in molding nature, for example). The fact that there is no possible standard (method) whereby to judge whether God exists or not precludes it from scientific inquiry, in the sense that science is concerned with observation, verification, and falsification.

Prager wasn't offerring proof of God so much as casting doubt on Collins' certitude that there is not God. If, as Collins claims, belief in God is childish, offering examples of very unchildish people who believe in God is appropriate. As for the actors, I don't think Tom Cruise ever led a great scientific project. He did participate in an investigation of future crime in "Minority Report" but only on the enforcement side.

Asymmetric

Easy tiger. Prager simply appealed to a particular scientist's belief as a counter to the cartoonish way in which Harris portrays people of faith. It is utterly legitimate to do so.

You shouldn't throw the word "stupid" around so freely and then make the following comment:
"Surely, actors have as much authority to pronounce on the right religion as scientists do the existence of God."

The fact that there are people who are members of a unique intellectual class called scientists and believe in God tells me (and you) much more than actors who make pronouncements about religion.

I find this a truly useless, if pretentiously erudite, discussion.

To start where we ought to begin, where in this discussion is it clear what anyone means by using the word "God?" Ah, Wittgenstein, where are you when we need you?

Where is the recognition that we don't have a debate in this or other countries about whether to believe in "a supreme being" but rather a debate over who gets to dictate what any putative supreme being has to say?

The debate about the existence of God is a non-starter due to lack of any evidence one way or another. All we have are some people's beliefs against others'.

However, a good discussion would be about whether we ought to accept or even allow any group's idea of how the word "God" should be used to determine the rights and behaviors of other people.

I had always been under the impression that, legally speaking, the authors of the United States Constitution had made that point rather clearly.

Long story short: stop wasting my time with spurious nonsense meant to sell books, Mr. Harris, and also with spurious nonsense meant to puff up your radio persona, Mr. Prager. I don't care what either of you believe or don't believe -- it is purely academic and all based on tautology.

What would not be a waste of my time would be a learned discussion of the consequences in practical terms of allowing religious belief to materially affect legal rights and general standards affecting behavior.

You see, whether or not I personally believe in God in the same way someone else may believe is beside the point. The point is whether you or I get to choose when to capitalize the letter G and what happens to those who disagree.

“Is it really reason and common sense that lead atheists to their certitude that…there is …. no God, no creator, no designer? Unlikely.”

-This is supposed to be an argument where you pick a side. You should be saying “definitely not”, and then proceed to provide evidence to prove it. By saying that it is “unlikely” you are admitting the possibility that Atheists are right, and that common sense and reason can lead to the relatively certain conclusion that God doesn’t exist in the form it is portrayed in monotheistic religions.

“Atheist certainty and religious certainty are both faith claims that transcend reason and common sense”

-you certainly are making this easy. Forget for a minute what you claim about atheism. Here you say that religious certainty “transcends reason and common sense”! I’m glad you are so honest! That takes care of that point. But as for the first part of your sentence, where you say that atheism is a faith claim; I beg to differ. It is a case, based upon science, logic and reasoning, that is based on philsophies and trial-and-error that go back thousands of years, and has an absolutely factual basis. Atheism does not make guesses, it says that a personal God is so unlikely as to be unreasonable. Untrue. Impossible? No. But more than likely, bunk. What facts do you base your claim upon? Where is it demonstrable that atheism transcends reason and common sense?

“I look at the unjust world God created, I have questions, sometimes even doubts…”

- we all started that way. Except those who became atheists had the intestinal fortitude to dig deep under the surface, and face those doubts. Instead, the religious of our country, and indeed all over the world wrap themselves in the warm blanket of religion, of certainty, when they have to face the cold reality that we are alone on the planet, and in our universe we have only each other, and nothing more. We are born alone, and die alone. A scary prospect, maybe, but true. We can fill our lives with good things, good people, and try to improve the lives of those around us, (indeed using many of the tenets that religion has come up with), but it does not mean we have to believe in god to be good to our fellow man. The ten commandments were not written by God, they were thought up by a man on a hill who claimed his ideas came from God. But they were his, and his alone.

“atheists…look at love and consciousness, at the grandeur of the universe, at the birth of a child, and they hear Bach’s music and conclude that all of this and everything else just came about by itself.”

- that is simply not true, and just something you are guessing. That is a mistake. Many atheists in fact look at the world that is, see the injustice, the pain, and wonder why the religious believe that there god is good, and “on their side”. Atheists see the good and the bad, and try to fit it into a way of living. They don’t depend on dogma to decide how to act. They only use it as a reference.

“It is an understatement to say that I do not find that position intellectually compelling. And when held with certitude, it borders arrogance”

-I agree, it is not intellectually compelling, and when held with certitude it borders on arrogance. But…you are the one who postulates that this is the position of atheists “like Sam”. You made up the claim so that you could righteously denounce it. Hardly intellectually compelling behaviour, especially from a “religious” man.

“The atheist says he knows, despite the fact that what he “knows” is unprovable.”

-this is actually the only point I whole heartedly agree with you on. I’m the type of Atheist that doesn’t claim to know that there is no God, but to look at the evidence (or lack of it) and base my belief on the extremely slim possibility of God. I say there is no God, but really, what I mean is “there is almost no way we can prove it, but there it is so unlikely as to border on the insane.” I assume you don’t agree with me there.

When quoting Collins: “I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

- could it be that Collins was being metaphorical? How do you know?

Prager did a fine job of attacking the character of Sam Harris, rather than responding to many of the points he made. Prager would rather take the easy way out in this, and I suspect he knows he will be cheered by the people who think as he does, that atheists are developmentally disabled in their religious views.

With the pomposity that he accuses Harris of, Prager appears filled with the certainty of Harris' low charachter, and the weak intellectual fiber of his views. Of course, prager did not offer any substance for his claim. Yet, what I find profoundly dishonest on Prager's part, more than his doing the very thing that he is accusing Harris of, is his comment that he has doubts about God . . . my experience of his radio show is quite different. Prager expresses moral "certainty" constantly in his show. He gets this moral clarity from among other things, his certain belief in God.

Again this exemplifies the utter arrogance in ignorance that is committed by atheists.

IF you were presented a code for software that you were completely ignorant of but could still ascertain it to fulfill a pattern, AND you acknowledged that the pattern fulfilled a purpose (i.e. software), THEN wouldn't reason dictate that the code was a PROGRAM that presupposes a PROGRAMMER as opposed to random chance?

That is what I believe that Collins and Prager are implying. Whereby Collins has a talent and skill to ascertain patterns better than you, Dawkins, Harris, or I.

Hence, respect and not ridicule is due to those scientists who are believers.

So, I hear the argument from incredulity (the appeal to love, consciousness, Bach's music, etc.) and the argument from authority (Francis Collins is a believer, and he knows more than you do.) And the Intelligent Design argument as well (the PROGRAMMER reference.) It should be obvious in the 21st century that none of these arguments carries any weight whatsoever. Even more, it should be obvious that anyone who dredges up these arguments doesn't have any real ones.

Try a little harder, Mr. Prager.

From the very beginning Prager sets up the straw man, then attacks it.

Evolution is not "sheer chance", and no scientist would describe it as such. So much for those "points" he went on to make...

He then falls back on the "intelligent design" mentality, which basically states that human ignorance is proof of a divine designer. Arguing that our lack of understanding of the human genome is proof for God is like cavemen believing that lightning was some sort of god. Just because we don't fully understand something doesn't mean we have to pull a god out of our arse to explain it. The only point that Prager is making is that ignorance leads to belief in myths, which we already know quite well.

A lot of the argument for the existence of a god centers on the need to make sense of the world - god is the cause in a world in which cause and effect hold sway. But one problem with this (and this is the problem I have with Collins and other "men of reason") is that they go way beyond speculation that supreme intelligence is behind eveything, and identify this intelligence with a particular version of the Christian god, replete with personality and set firmly in human history. Why isn't it enough to simply say we don't know how our universe came into being? Positing a supreme intelligence just begs the question of where IT came from, unless, like Collins, you do away with the notion of time and and say that god just is.

Prager is saying that faith is a feeling. Feelings are subjective, and therefore cannot be argued about or proven. Every time you accept religion as "real", you have to have competing doctrines. As soon as you have competing doctrines, you are discussing conditioning and taste. At that point, you simply give up reason entirely. Most people, including atheists, don't actually mind faith, either as someone feels it or as an experience, but faith is not the problem, religions are. Religions are instruments of social conformity and, often, social coercion. There are other forms of social coercion, but religion, historically, is the most powerful and full of righteousness because it is always based on the principal of the fetish (which is a form of intensive conditioning, and works the same for religion and sex). A fetish is always about power and hierarchy, and therefore dangerous. So, lets say that faith and love are feelings that understand themselves as subjective, and religions and lust as feelings that are projected outward as attempts to manipulate others. No one who argues for religion can, in the end, reasonably change another's mind. He has to use some form of manipulation and conditioning. I withthe religion people would realize this and shut up.

So Prager points out that there's a smart guy who believes in God. Big woop-di-do. That's the most inane, 8th grade argument strategy out there, since all I have to do is name one smart guy who DOESN'T believe in God and his argument is moot. And please stop it with the name calling. It just proves Harris' point...that you can't point out the silliness of believing in God without people like Prager comparing you to Stalin. Jeez.

Carey
Portland, OR

I think it's reasonable to come to the conclusion the scientist in question was using "God" as a metaphor for that which are feeble minds can comprehend. Sam Harris is belittling people who believe that there is a bearded ghostly ddud in a place called heaven who is busy directing traffic down here. The arrogance is to hold on to the belief that such a being exists.

Nevertheless, I am not as certain about God as you are about no-God. When I look at the unjust world God created, I have questions, sometimes even doubts. But not atheists like you, Sam. No, they look at love and consciousness, at the grandeur of the universe, at the birth of a child, and they hear Bach’s music and conclude that all of this and everything else just came about by itself.

So God made it - but then how did God come to be? Well God "just came about by itself" - If God can just come about by itself with no need for a prime mover - then why can't the universe do the same (it would seem God is even more amazing than the Universe)

You are adding in something thats not needed (God) and then you have to deal with the issue of an unjust world.

I don't really mind mysticism so much. Reality is a bit mystical if you really ponder it.

But when _humans_ claim that they know the will of God (imams, prophets, the pope) or in some way act as a 'broker' to the divine, we've got a very serious problem on our hands.

I don't really have much a problem with people believing in God. I'm a panthiest of a kind. But I have a HUGE problem with people thinking that they know the true will of God, and with people who buy into that 'true' way.

To summarize the debate so far:

(Initial question): Why are atheists angry?
Harris: Because atheists are scorned for being reasonable, while superstition is exalted.
Prager: But atheism isn't reasonable.

I have to ask now how Prager's reply is at all pertinent to the question. Surely an atheist's perception of who's being reasonable has more effect on his mood than your perception does. Quoting Francis Collins on the human genome may offer inspiration, but what exactly does it tell us about sources of anger?

It seems like we're getting sidetracked into a debate on whether God exists, which is only tangential to the question. Harris' point could be reformulated to answer the question without touching on this tangent at all. Why are atheists angry? Because atheists are scorned. This is a good answer, and nothing in Prager's reply addresses it.

Prager has debated Sam before, and "responded" to Sam's argument by citing traditional refutations of atheistic arguments, then saying, in effect, "You can't refute those arguments, because they're old and classic and therefore unassailable." Prager literally did say at the end of their exchange, "You're not smart enough."

This is his method: by dismissing atheistic arguments without addressing them, by adopting a tone of (as someone said, above, pompous) fatigue with them without responding to them, etc.

It would be nice, in this exchange, to have Prager describe exactly what he means by "God." Is He omniscient? Is He omnipresent? Is He all-loving? Is He a he? Does He have a personality? does He want things for "us" and does he get "angry" when we "disobey"? I guarantee you Prager would dodge every one of those questions, probably with "we don't know." Whereas the question is, But what do YOU believe, Dennis?

Scientists are of a unique intellectual class, granted. That their intellectual class gives them any insight into the existence of God is dubious. Why should it? Who can say what the existence of God would entail in the world? There are simply too many equal possibilities. No, the existence of God is not a hypothesis that is open to observation and verification; thus, science can neither demonstrate nor cast doubt on the existence of God, except insofar as God is a superfluous explanation where we have perfectly good scientific explanations.

All arguments by analogy of design to designer were destroyed by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. There is an inherent law of order in the world and it brings about design as well as the mind of man.

Furthermore, the analogy of design in no wise renders the existence of some ethereal mind any more probable than the emergence of order from the mere interaction of matter. Minds create order and disorder. Matter alone creates order and disorder. Why should we posit the existence of a mind, when the existence of matter is sufficient?

His point is clear. Believers are intellectually honest and atheists are not. Since neither side can prove their argument by physical evidence, the believer acknowledges that they have reached the limit of their understanding and chooses to believe—knowing that that belief is not based in "scientific fact." The atheist reaches that same limit and chooses not to believe but claims to have science on their side. That conclusion is unfortunate but it is not based in science. “If God existed it should be provable by the scientific process.” The problem with that logic is that there are an infinite number of facts that cannot be proven. This doesn't mean that there isn't a scientific explanation for these facts; it may mean that we don't possess the knowledge at this time. It may also mean the explanation transcends human knowledge. These limitations don't negate their existence or factuality. The atheist’s faith lies in the scientific process not in science itself. This process gives them a mechanism to conclude their beliefs. If a hypothesis can't be proven by this method it is then rejected. One of the problems with rejecting the existence of God is that the consequences are a lot greater than rejecting a currently unknown fact of the physical world.

Leighton Campbell

I stopped reading after day 1 (Dennis Prager) in 4th paragraph, I see little point in reading further, as the typical religious arguments have no basis in reality.

Point 1 - 'Is it really reason and common sense that lead atheists to their certitude that everything, all existence, came about by sheer chance?'

I know of no atheists, in fact anybody with common sense and some ability to reason that thinks everything happens by chance.

Point 2 - 'Atheist certainty and religious certainty are both faith claims that transcend reason and common sense.'

I'm not certain, however using my common sense I can arrive at an approximation of probablity, to the question. The more I learn about the world, how it works, how we interact, pushes the plausibility of there being gods to the point where it need not be entertained as a serious proposition. Hence I do not think that gods exist, for which you will call me an Atheist.

Dennis Prager, the great debater, uses false but self-serving definitions for ‘agnostic’ and ‘atheist’, so as to unfairly advance his warped understanding of the inconvenient reality out there.

The word ‘agnostic’ – composed of the prefix ‘a’ and the word ‘gnostic’ - simply denotes a person who is not a ‘gnostic’. Based on the meaning derived from the construction of the word, ‘agnostic’ is someone who claims that certain things are unknowable, such as ‘god’. An atheist, in a like manner, is someone who is not a theist. As such, an agnostic is an atheist. So is a two-month old baby, my cat and my retarded neighbor. Of course there are atheists who go further and make a positive claim that there is no god. But an atheist in its simplest form is someone who does not maintain the god-beliefs of a theist.

Having set a false but self-serving stage, Prager goes on the attack by a question:

“Is it really reason and common sense that lead atheists to their certitude that everything, all existence, came about by sheer chance?”

It is a frequent rhetorical disingenuity that religionists employ by posing a presumptuous question like the one quoted above. Prager’s question presumes that all existence came about somehow as if there was a time when it did not exist and thereafter somehow it came to exist later. He has not demonstrated in the first place whether there was a time that the universe did not exist. Dennis Prager is disingenuous in many ways, this being the least of them.

Notice that atheists do not have to claim anything of the sort Prager attributes to them in the preceding quote. Atheists claim and have demonstrated time and again that the theistic arguments, with or without their so-called evidences, fail to prove in any humanly reasonable way the existence of a god. That’s why that even to this late date religious folk ultimately ‘justify’ their belief by appealing to faith and not reason or evidence. So, the intellectually honest position to assume is that there is no rational basis to ‘believe’ in god(s). If there is an intellectual default position we automaticallyassume with respect to certain propositions, it is that of being neutral. This neutrality can be replaced one way or the oppositie way depending on the available evidence and accompanying reasoning. For as long as there is no sufficient evidence for the existence of god, it is only intellectually dishonest to claim that a god exists.

So, in response to Pragers’s question above, I would say that he is attacking a self-erected straw man by assuming that atheists are certain “that everything, all existence, came about by sheer chance?” No, this atheist does not fit nicely into Prager’s limited understanding of what an atheist is. I don’t have to claim anything of the sort. The onus of proof for the existence of god remains with him and his irrational ilk. But observe the impact of the words “sheer chance” in his quote above. This is a nice but decietful way to sway the unsuspecting reader to his side. The fact is that the world is way too big and far too complex for the human brain to readily comprehend. So, events or processes we can not predict or comprehend we attribute to chance or probability. Exactly how things happened in the universe’s deep past we may never know. We use notions of probability or chance to weigh our relative lack of knowledge and certainty with respect to the universe or subsets of it. Suppose that you lacked any knowledge of the kind of weather we’d have tomorrow but in contrast to you, I had accessed weather maps and conditions that help me predict tomorrow’s weather with greater knowledge. Although chance is operative in both of our cases, in my case it is much less operative than in yours. So, the same event is less chancy for me than it is for you. How come? So, the “sheer chance” device so deftly employed by the sly Prager is really a dud! He can fool himself, but not me. The universe has its own reasons – to phrase it anthropomorphically – why it operates the way it does. Our job as intellectually honest knowledge “constructors” is to discover the ways of the universe. Period.

So, what’s one to do? Accept who we are. Accept our limitations as well as our strengths. Accept that the universe does not reveal ‘her’ secrets so easily. Accept that we may never be able to fully comprehend her. Accept that our knowledge of the universe grows in bits and pieces, slowly but surely. Accept that all we can do is to opt for the best available understanding offered by the best available evidence. Accept the fact that religionists, past and present, all over the world, have failed miserably and hopelessly in their millenia of attempts to prove their case. Accept that by use of reason, logic, rationality and the scientific method (a deeply common-sensical method!) we can wade our way through the complexity of existence.

Notice the significance of the number 3.1 billion in the Times piece quoting Collins. Imagine if instead of 3.1 billiion, we just had 31. So, the quote would go something like this:

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 31–letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery …”

That wouldn’t sound too impressive, would it? The question is why should the number 3.1 billlion be so impressive? Should it? Yes, big large things relative to humans tend to be impressive. But this alone tells more about our human limitedness than about the existence of god. So, if Collins were studying the genome of a much simpler organism possessing much smaller number of letter instructions, he would presumably not be feeling the “awe”. Scientists are good at what they do, and they suck in many other things. Collins has to advance a well-reasoned argumentation for why there is a god – a feeling of awe is woefully insufficient. Where is Collins’s argumentation for the existence of god? Could it be possible that Collins like Enstein refers to god metaphorically, not actually existing?

If scientists' positions with respect to god would be acceptable reasons to believe or not to believe, then the religionists would lose instantly as more than some 75% world-class scientists are genuine unbeleivers in god.

I must admit that there are some problems with making an over-simplified definition of beliefs that are most certainly more nuanced as they are held by actual believers (in this case I am refering to Pragers generalization about atheistic beliefs). Nevertheless, I think the fine etymological discussion of the meaning of the terms agnostic and atheist do not suffice for the discussion.

By this claim, I mean that the above comment has broadened the definition of the terms beyond there common usage. I can claim no scientific data to back up my this claim, but suffice it to say I have yet to meet more than a handful of atheists who do not make positive assertions that God does not exist, and furthermore, I would argue that in the modern usage, English speakers use the term atheist only to describe just such people who make this positive assertion. Also, the term agnostic, while the above definition is without a doubt a correct one, we must confine the term to its usage, in which case it is merely a person who thinks the answer to the God question is unknowable or feels that they themselves at any rate do not know it.

I would argue that with the few exceptions, atheists and agnostics fit this modern usage, and atheists who make no positive claim against the existence of God were in no way attacked by Prager's claims because they belong in the category of agnostics by his usage.

I in no way feel that his definitions were developed clearly enough, but I think it is apparent that his definitions are simply a distillation of the popular usages of the terms.

Now assuming it is your way, than only the atheists with finely nuanced positions who make no positive assertions concerning the existence of God and the agnostics would have any amount of reason on which to base their beliefs. These people by popular usage would most likely all be considered agnostics; however, I am fairly familiar with the work of Sam Harris, having read "The End of Faith" and having seen several of his debates, and it appears that his convictions would not fall into so nuanced an atheistic position, which is more popularly referred to as agnostic.

It is quite clear to me that through Harris' self-proclaimed role as a spokesperson for the larger atheist community, he serves only to support Prager's definition, defining atheism repeatedly at every debate through the example of how modern religious people feel regarding the existence of ancient pagan gods and godesses. With such a definition, Harris certainly is defining atheism exactly as Prager did when he claims, "We all know what it feels like to be an atheist in relationship to Zeus." I ask you what do we all do with Zeus if not making a positive assertion that Zeus does not exist. So there you have Harris' definition, which should be the focus of Prager since Prager is debating Harris and not you.

I must concede that Harris does not deny spiritual experience, but he does obviously deny a creator or supreme being. Doing this though he proves Prager's arguments right that many atheists (and all by Harris' and Prager's definition) have beliefs that are implicitly unreasonable because they make positive assertion agains the existence of being for which there exists no evidence supporting or opposing their claims. And you can watch the smugness of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris acting as if they know there is no God at the Beyond Belief conference on religion this year, and see them flaunt unreasonableness as truth.

I am in no way certain there is a god, although I have without irrationaly maintained a belief in God, but for someone to be completely honest, he or she must concede that only people neutral on the question have any claim to rational argument for their position, and inept semantic games are irrelevant. I believe it is arrogant when the likes of these people like Hariss claim to know there is no God, while simultaneously criticizing the irrationality of belief in a supreme being. Honestly, both sides are wrong if they attempt to criticize one another on the basis of rationality. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Aside from remaining neutral on the issue of the existence of a supreme being, one must have drawn irrational conclusions in favor of or in opposition to the existence of God, and atheists (in the popular sense of the word) have no greater claim to reason than religious believers.

The real issue of the debate is that such atheists like Harris want so badly to have reason on there side in the debate, but the truth is, neither side does.

"
"Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I
care not who makes its laws or its songs either."

"There are those who scoff at the schoolboy,
calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was
the schoolboy who said, "Faith is believing what
you know ain't so."

Samuel Clemens

TOAOTH

It seems to me, that you're the one who is angry...who cares its not that serious. Happy Hilidays to all! Tiffany-Grace

Dear Atheist.

There is no purpose behind my post.

The words are merely the result of a random
and thoughtless arrangement of letters. There
is no meaning behind these words and it would
be pointless to try and find one.

This post is truly random and pointless. You
know this to be true because you have never seen
me. This fact alone is all you need to believe
that nothing caused the arrangement of the
letters in this way.

If you somehow do manage to find yourself
believing that in fact a conscious intelligence
arranged these letters in a purposeful way, then,
even though you have never seen me...

Congratulations...

You have discovered in yourself the ability to
believe in someone's existence even though you
have no evidence I ever lived.

 Dear JEWCY... please have a neutral moderator(s) next time to steer the conversation.  Books are written on these huge issues and I found the debate to be very shallow for lack of direction and focus.

The way this debate was set up made it nearly impossible for there to be decent discussion on the issue of atheism.  The debate was merely reactive and more focused on  tangential points relating to atheist and non-atheist thinkers instead of discussing atheism itself. 

As a result, Mr. Harris had the upper hand because he had the inherent advantage of setting the tone of the argument and to his credit, he tried a little more than Mr. Prager to bring the discussion to atheism and debate the issue on the merits.

 I don't believe Mr. Prager is at fault.  One only has to listen to his radio show (download the podcast... it's easy) to hear deep, clear, and convincing arguments for the belief in God.  But because the format of this debate had no moderator, it forced both parties into murky arguments.  

 Ruvin Spivak.

It's precisely the 'sophisticated believer' Prager speaks of that Harris most abhors, since they enable the perpetuation of many primitive beliefs.  Its obvious that Prager's worked long and hard at forumlating these areguments.  His equating the hyper devout with the militant secularists is effective -- what else would one call a Pol Pot, Mao or Lenin? Interesting how Prager turned 'faith' into a positive, reflecting humility in the face of the unknown.  But Dennis, its true: many many people blindly do think that the world is 5767 years old.  And fully expect the messiah to come and take us to Israel on the wongs of eagles. And that thw wprld was created in six days.  And that God actually listens to their prayers.  And that god would be angry if they stepped didnt step back three times properly before shmoneh esreh, and keep their feet together.  And that god would be really pissed if they uttered a word between washing, blessing and eating a piece of bread..

aaaaaPs.53:1 The fool says in his heart,"There is no God." They are are corrupt,and there ways are vvilevile; Check it out. Thompson Chain-Reference Bible pg.1477

As someone who vacillates between atheism and agnosticism (mind you, the accepted current definitions, not the "let's get down to the actual roots of the words" definitions as noted in a previous post which while being interesting, were not what the words mean in general use), I find myself asking the same question as Harris - why all the anger? I have an atheist songwriter friend who wrote a tune the other day in which it begins with the noble purpose of a Rodney King-like "Can't we just all get along" but eventually degenerates to a "stop trying to foist your ideas on me because God is stupid" mentality. I recently spent a little time looking at the main web site for Secular Humanism and it has many positive views about how man should be able to live with man in harmony...then if one reads deeper in the site, there are articles filled with biting anger and invective hurled at the religious.

Harris' point about not being able to speak without stepping on the toes of 90% of the populace is quite on the mark. I, personally, don't feel the need to try to argue with someone who is religious about the existence or non-existence of some God. The pointlessness of the effort is far too obvious to attempt it and if religion does something for them, more power to 'em, I figure. However, atheists everywhere seem to have a need to angrily discount all that is holy - perhaps it is because all that is holy tends to rob them of their voice.

Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason came to the conclusion that the existence or non-existence of God can not be arrived at by reason. If one accepts this, to argue God's existence or non-existence is folly. Why Prager chose to take this path, rather than to stay on the topic at hand, well, perhaps that shows one good reason why atheists are angry.

Collins recently published a book, "The Language of god - a scientist presents evidence for belief". Don't waste your money, there's no evidence there, just the plain old "life is too complicated to be random" . I was dissappointed. I used to be an atheist, but the smarter I get I realize how limited I am and that actually I am an agnostic. There's a simple thought experiment I would like all atheists to try: Imagine you were born 1000 years ago, and somebody would tell you that television, or radio, or telephone exist, anything to do with electricity/electromagnetism, which in no way you could imagine. And of course you would say loudly (you being a leading scientis of the time) that that is imposible, illogical, and in no way it could exist, how could images travel through air without you seeing them etc. That is an example of your brain not being able to understand something and deny it as impossible. Same happens with atheists ... and same with religious people who deny evolution, it doesn't mean that if something is too complicated for your brain to comprehend it doesn't exist :-)

The fact that Christianity is more popular in human history than Zeus-belief does not imply it's more true or more likely to be true. Billions of Christians (and others) have believed that, for example, Jews will all roast in Hell (except perhaps "Jews for Jesus"). This is just as irrational and lacking in evidentiary support as belief in Zeus.
Similarly, most people, even great geniuses, will adopt some of the conventional beliefs prevalent in their communities (geniuses will usually adopt fewer, though). There have been great pagan mathematicians (Archimedes) and artists (the men who created the Parthenon), as well as more modern scientists in Nazi Germany who understood very sophisticated concepts and yet also genuinely believed in the visionary moral perfection of their Fuhrer. The most important determinant in a person's religion is the religion of their parents. That John Doe's parents happen to hold a particular religion implies nothing about its truth.
So where, Mr. Prager, is your evidence that belief in Zeus is more ridiculous than belief in (say) Allah? Is it just "obvious" to you, as it was "obvious" to Isaac Newton that any religion that diverged in the minutest degree from his particular Arian brand of Christianity is ridiculous and wicked and that all who accepted such a religion would be roasted in hell forever?

If there is no God, how do you tell the diference between right from wrong?

If there IS God ,how do you tell the difference between right and wrong. It
is certainly not in the Bible.How did Aristotle knew it without Moses?
Just asking.

Maybe God is not the God of Moses ONLY, but Aristotle's, mine, yours, everybody's. Moreover, maybe God wanted to reveal Himself to everybody, so He chose Seth, Enos, Noe, Sem, Abraham, David, Lord Jesus and through Him he calls everyone of us to know Him by trusting and obeying. Nevertheless, what if some choose not to have God involved in their lives, does this change the reality of God? And if there is no God, how do you tell right from wrong.

If god wants us to beleive in him , should chose some more efficient way of communication than revelation. And why did he stopped doing even that 2000
years ago?

Maybe she didn't want to make it easy for us. I sure would have done better on my elementary school tests if my parents had told me all the answers in advance.

What an ignorant argument, Jonathan.At school you are told all the answers in advance,You just have to learn them and remember them when the exam comes.
If I want myself to be known to others, I go and introduce myself.Why is the big secrecy?

Anon at 1:40 am. Thnak you. It's been a while since I'v had an argument called ignorant. You've made my day.

You also missed my point. There are benefits to maintaining free will and struggle and tests in life and there are limits to human understanding.

It's not a question of secrecy, it's a question of what can humans understand about G-d.

I asked one question:
If there is no God, how do you tell right from wrong?????
And you "wise" people are going around, not even coming closer to answering to my question.
Answer this question and I will answer to your questions one by one.
If there is no God, how do you tell right from wrong????

Well, it looks to me like Prager is just as pissed off as Harris is, eh?

What Post?

"But at least religious believers have the intellectual honesty to admit theirs is a faith claim."

Well, many non believers like myself are not atheists and don't fit the straw man created by Dennis Prager whom I otherwise respect.

I don't know how it all came to be, or why anything exist which is why I need to rely on reason to search for an answer.

I have the same problem with atheists as I do with religious people: each thinks they have found the truth about the origin of existence.

My problem is that once you postulate a creator than all kinds of question come up about the imperfections in creation and if you postulate pure chance than the issue of laws of nature (as well as structure of mind), symmetrical patterns of nature (its aesthetics), and not least human moral conduct can't be explained.

Seeing faith as the answer creates many more questions than it answers and falling back on chance also makes us ask questions that cannot be answered by such a postulate.

"If there IS God ,how do you tell the difference between right and wrong. It
is certainly not in the Bible.How did Aristotle knew it without Moses?
Just asking."

Good point, also raised by Hitchens’ in his mediocre book on the subject.

I would say that there is a difference between right and wrong from a sociological point of view, which is to say from a pragmatic stance and good and evil from a universal or metaphysical point of view.

Aristotle as far as I know didn't deal with latter point of view.

The closest he came to asserting metaphysical goodness was by stating that the aim of existence is contemplation and not action.

If that is the case than there is no point intervening in day to day questions and hence it's better for the wise man to remove himself from society and contemplate existence all by himself.

The astonishing thing about the ancient Hebrews was that they did see the metaphysical issues of good and evil as an every day affair. Of course this leads to other questions and problems but it's not clear to me that we would be better off had we not been introduced to questions of metaphysical goodness not as some rarefied vision of existence but as something that touches us in our daily lives.

Collins was home schooled by his mother untill grade 6. He grew up on a small farm in VA. It's no wonder Collins believes in god despite his brilliant work on the Human Genome Project. A pefect example of human culture and tradition. Its quite possible to be very well educated and versed in the mechanical aspects of science, and still be ignorant to the philisophical implications these discoveries present. What seperates Sam Harris from a guy like Collins, is that Sam understands that these scientific discoveries unlock the explanations to our physical existence, all made possible by the little "nuts and bolts" work done by Collins. Sam knows this new knowledge begs philisophical reflection. As where Collins wouldn't even be able to get out of bed in the morning to do the work that he does, if he was stripped of his childhood belief in god.

This letter is like most of its type. It disagrees and claims science is on its side, and then stops there. Instead of citing evidence he mentions a scientist who happens to be a believer. Then he goes on to say that atheists are "arrogant" in coming to a logical conclusion and tries to put believers and atheists on even ground by claiming both are "faiths". The problem with this is pretty obvious. Atheists are simply looking at what's there, if evidence appears we will re-evaluate our position. The same can't be said for believers, at the end of the day they are the arrogant ones coming to grand and flattering conclusions without evidence.

Blah, Blah, Blah...Chumps

Losers