Christianchat.com

[Spectrox]

I’ve just recently completed a bit of an epic debate on a Christian site (some might say “creative trolling”).

 

https://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/what-do-you-believe-and-why-do-you-believe-it.186444/

 

For the more seasoned among you there probably isn’t anything new but for the less experienced you might learn something from it. I’ve been debating Christians online since 2011 and I think I’ve reached a certain level of competency. I managed to stay on the site for 6 weeks before being banned. I did this by:

 

1. Not blatantly breaking any of their House Rules

2. Being fair and honest – admitting when I didn’t know something or acknowledging when a Christian at least attempted to make a decent argument.

3. Going for the ball not the player.

4. Trying a Socratic approach to questioning and gradually being more assertive.

5. Attempting to be as rational, logical and evidence-based as I could be.

6. Having good Biblical knowledge.

7. Not pushing things too much if I felt the Christian’s whole life would fall apart if they stopped having faith – that’s just mean.

 

The mistake I made was letting them know I would be leaving the country and therefore the thread at any moment – though in reality this has been postponed anyway – but I believe they used this as an excuse to get rid of me prematurely. I tried logging on on 11 September and a message popped up saying they no longer wanted to hear my atheistic, anti-Christian views and that my time was up. But I also noticed they left my status as “Active Member” when it should have said “Banned”. I think they wanted to be perceived as inclusive when in reality they couldn’t even ban me honestly.

 

I had quite an interesting discussion with “reneweddaybyday” who made me realise I couldn’t prove a contradiction in a couple of Bible passages, but then went on to say that this meant these passages were accurate (i.e. true accounts) which cannot be inferred from my admission. There is more consistency in the New Testament than I originally thought though this is mostly due to the fact that Matthew and Luke copied vast chunks from Mark.

 

There was also the usual Christian double negative argument from “posthuman” saying there is something wrong with the unbeliever, which is a shifting of the burden of proof.

 

Hopefully you’ll find it interesting – probably best to just to read my responses (and what I was responding to, contained within it). My icon is a masked Dr Who villain called Sharaz Jek, who is a villain you can sympathise with as he has been grievously wronged during a war over an elixir of life drug called Spectrox.

 

Let me know what you think. It starts to get going from page 7 (of 46 !).

 

[midniterider]

I am reading Maxwell's supposed 'logically coherent' defense here: (post #70)

https://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/what-do-you-believe-and-why-do-you-believe-it.186444/page-4

 

It may sound logical to a Christian to say , "I have experienced God in a direct and personal way" but replace the word God with 'Invisible Pink Unicorn' or "Zeus" and I bet the Christian will deny it. I would even bet that if a meme went viral that made the serious claim that Jesus Christ had lunch with me at Dennys, Christians themselves would deny it. It would be a fun experiment to watch.

 

Regarding his "Many many many many many..... MANY..... evidences for the existence of God, did he actually mention any in particular?"

 

edit.

 

Is that thread still open? 

 

Six weeks and 46 pages seems respectable to me. It's fair to give someone time to speak their peace, but at some point it becomes a waste of effort...Logical Fallacy's back and forth "Fuck you! No, Fuck YOU!" kind of situation.  

 

At least they left the thread up for Christians to read...and begin to doubt. woot!

[TABA]

Hi Spectrox!  I don’t believe I’ve seen any of your posts before and I’m glad to make your acquaintance.  Thanks for sharing your experience over there - I’m looking forward to reading all about it!  I really like the rules you set for yourself.  It’s important that believers see us as not conforming to their prejudice of atheists in particular.  My own deconversion began in earnest when I listened to a series of talks between a Christian and a respectful atheist.  His approach slowly opened me up to the possibility - and eventually the conviction - that he was right.  You never know the seeds you might sow...

[LogicalFallacy]

Two posts down and they are already committing the argument from incredulity fallacy:

 

"Secondly - Consider the evidence around you in Creation - what theory of beginning makes the most sense? Could a human person really come about by random, impersonal forces which came from a big bang explosion?"

[TABA]

22 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Two posts down and they are already committing the argument from incredulity fallacy:

 

"Secondly - Consider the evidence around you in Creation - what theory of beginning makes the most sense? Could a human person really come about by random, impersonal forces which came from a big bang explosion?"

 

I think we’re going to see a lot of drearily  familiar stuff from the Christians as we read on.  I shake my head when I think about how easily impressed I once was by some of these arguments.  So far I’m pretty impressed by how Spectrox is conducting himself.  I see the influence of Street Epistemology at work here , as taught by Peter Boghossian and Anthony Magnabosco.  Good stuff. 

[Joshpantera]

6 hours ago, Spectrox said:

For the more seasoned among you there probably isn’t anything new but for the less experienced you might learn something from it. I’ve been debating Christians online since 2011 and I think I’ve reached a certain level of competency. I managed to stay on the site for 6 weeks before being banned.

 

Hey Spectrox, I Joined here around the same time. But I had been running rogue debating christians online since around the early 2000's. I haven't seen you post much so I assume that you've running around rogue yourself. They do generally ban us. I'll read through and see how it went. 

[TABA]

I’m up to page 30 of 46 so far.  Given limited time, I had to skim through some parts, especially the scripture passages offered to you by the believers.  I have to say Well Done, Spectrox; I doubt that anybody could have done a better job than you did.  I admire the care, energy and time you took to read and respond to the great many posts, and your consistency in following your own rules of conduct.  I do think the people who hang out in those forums are the ones most resistant to any questioning of their beliefs, however, so I wonder how much good you were able to do.  I think the broader population of less committed theists would be much more inclined to listen to and think about objections to Christianity, especially when presented as politely and respectfully as you’ve done here.  If nothing else though, you gained the grudging respect of some of the Christians, possibly the first time some of them have had dialog with an atheist, and that helps all of us in some way. 

 

Anyway, good work and I look forward to reading the rest of it!

 

By the way, I hope you’ll engage with Christians in our Lions Den sometimes.  Not to deconvert them but rather to keep the arguments against Christianity front and center for our ever-present audience of lurkers. 

 

Cheers,

TABA

[Spectrox]

23 hours ago, midniterider said:

I am reading Maxwell's supposed 'logically coherent' defense here: (post #70)

https://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/what-do-you-believe-and-why-do-you-believe-it.186444/page-4

 

It may sound logical to a Christian to say , "I have experienced God in a direct and personal way" but replace the word God with 'Invisible Pink Unicorn' or "Zeus" and I bet the Christian will deny it. I would even bet that if a meme went viral that made the serious claim that Jesus Christ had lunch with me at Dennys, Christians themselves would deny it. It would be a fun experiment to watch.

 

Regarding his "Many many many many many..... MANY..... evidences for the existence of God, did he actually mention any in particular?"

 

edit.

 

Is that thread still open? 

 

Six weeks and 46 pages seems respectable to me. It's fair to give someone time to speak their peace, but at some point it becomes a waste of effort...Logical Fallacy's back and forth "Fuck you! No, Fuck YOU!" kind of situation.  

 

At least they left the thread up for Christians to read...and begin to doubt. woot!

Thanks for this. Yes the thread is still open. So you could if you wanted ask them why they banned me and yet kept my status as Active Member! Lol. I gave a rebuttal to Maxwell's cut and paste gibberish on post 208, page 11.

[Spectrox]

21 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Two posts down and they are already committing the argument from incredulity fallacy:

 

"Secondly - Consider the evidence around you in Creation - what theory of beginning makes the most sense? Could a human person really come about by random, impersonal forces which came from a big bang explosion?"

Exactly. Though I do have sympathy with the deist position but I don't see how they can link it to the Bible.

[Spectrox]

21 hours ago, TABA said:

 

I think we’re going to see a lot of drearily  familiar stuff from the Christians as we read on.  I shake my head when I think about how easily impressed I once was by some of these arguments.  So far I’m pretty impressed by how Spectrox is conducting himself.  I see the influence of Street Epistemology at work here , as taught by Peter Boghossian and Anthony Magnabosco.  Good stuff. 

I love Anthony Magnabosco! My other influences are Matt Dillahunty (my favourite atheist by a country mile), Tracie Harris, Theoretical Bullshit, Knownnomore and that young Alex fellow from the UK (forgotten his name).

[Spectrox]

17 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Hey Spectrox, I Joined here around the same time. But I had been running rogue debating christians online since around the early 2000's. I haven't seen you post much so I assume that you've running around rogue yourself. They do generally ban us. I'll read through and see how it went. 

I've actually not debated with Christians since 2014 but as it's been 25 years since my deconversion I thought I'd bring my Spectrox alter ego out of hibernation and test my debating skills. Also I'm not particularly attached to my atheism and with the right evidence would believe in God. But so far theistic arguments are so crap.

[LogicalFallacy]

5 minutes ago, Spectrox said:

I love Anthony Magnabosco! My other influences are Matt Dillahunty (my favourite atheist by a country mile), Tracie Harris, Theoretical Bullshit, Knownnomore and that young Alex fellow from the UK (forgotten his name).

 

Alex O'Connor (AKA Cosmic Skeptic) He's young but so good. Imagine him in a few years. He should be able to knock W L Craig out of the ball park.

 

Matt's great, so was Tracie before she left the ACA. Rationality Rules is good as well (Stephen Woodford - also from UK, friend of Alex) 

[Spectrox]

5 hours ago, TABA said:

I’m up to page 30 of 46 so far.  Given limited time, I had to skim through some parts, especially the scripture passages offered to you by the believers.  I have to say Well Done, Spectrox; I doubt that anybody could have done a better job than you did.  I admire the care, energy and time you took to read and respond to the great many posts, and your consistency in following your own rules of conduct.  I do think the people who hang out in those forums are the ones most resistant to any questioning of their beliefs, however, so I wonder how much good you were able to do.  I think the broader population of less committed theists would be much more inclined to listen to and think about objections to Christianity, especially when presented as politely and respectfully as you’ve done here.  If nothing else though, you gained the grudging respect of some of the Christians, possibly the first time some of them have had dialog with an atheist, and that helps all of us in some way. 

 

Anyway, good work and I look forward to reading the rest of it!

 

By the way, I hope you’ll engage with Christians in our Lions Den sometimes.  Not to deconvert them but rather to keep the arguments against Christianity front and center for our ever-present audience of lurkers. 

 

Cheers,

TABA

Yes. When debating I'm always conscious that there are probably lurkers who could be swayed.

I'm not sure I was that polite and respectful! Particularly towards the last half of the thread where I did tear some Christians a new one! Thank you for your kind words. Were all my arguments familiar to you or did you discover some new ones whilst reading the thread?

[Spectrox]

1 minute ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Alex O'Connor (AKA Cosmic Skeptic) He's young but so good. Imagine him in a few years. He should be able to knock W L Craig out of the ball park.

 

Matt's great, so was Tracie before she left the ACA. Rationality Rules is good as well (Stephen Woodford - also from UK, friend of Alex) 

Alex O'Connor! That's the chap. He is unbelievably good.

[Joshpantera]

On 9/24/2019 at 4:30 PM, Spectrox said:

I've actually not debated with Christians since 2014 but as it's been 25 years since my deconversion I thought I'd bring my Spectrox alter ego out of hibernation and test my debating skills. Also I'm not particularly attached to my atheism and with the right evidence would believe in God. But so far theistic arguments are so crap.

 

I got burned out and took a break too. It's always the same thing. Absolute truth claims based solely from a foundation of presupposition and apriori assumptions.

 

It can't be otherwise so the arguments always boil down to that no matter which direction the apologist takes. I've challenged them to substantiate Genesis as fact. They always fail of course. And it's as if they don't realize in advance how bad these truth and fact claims will fail. Probably because they either haven't debated the issues enough to know what's at the end of each popular rabbit hole, or they hear so much BS from preachers and online christian sources that they assume that other people have buttoned these arguments up and that they're standing on firm ground. 

 

When they get put on the spot it often seems to be a deer in the headlights event:

 

 

 

[Joshpantera]

On 9/23/2019 at 4:50 PM, midniterider said:

I am reading Maxwell's supposed 'logically coherent' defense here: (post #70)

https://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/what-do-you-believe-and-why-do-you-believe-it.186444/page-4

 

It may sound logical to a Christian to say , "I have experienced God in a direct and personal way" but replace the word God with 'Invisible Pink Unicorn' or "Zeus" and I bet the Christian will deny it. I would even bet that if a meme went viral that made the serious claim that Jesus Christ had lunch with me at Dennys, Christians themselves would deny it. It would be a fun experiment to watch.

 

Regarding his "Many many many many many..... MANY..... evidences for the existence of God, did he actually mention any in particular?"

 

 

Maxwell is nothing more than another LuthAMF. Full of claims, short of evidence and substantiation. He himself resting squarely on a foundation of presupposition and apriori assumption while trying to allege the same of atheists. It would be interesting to have Maxwell try and pick up the torch where LuthAMF ran out of rope. And then push Maxwell right out of rope behind him......

[midniterider]

4 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

Maxwell is nothing more than another LuthAMF. Full of claims, short of evidence and substantiation. He himself resting squarely on a foundation of presupposition and apriori assumption while trying to allege the same of atheists. It would be interesting to have Maxwell try and pick up the torch where LuthAMF ran out of rope. And then push Maxwell right out of rope behind him......

 

Christians will never admit they have zero evidence for Jesus. All they have is a warm fuzzy they create in their own head of their own accord. But they also fear this mental creation is real and might send them to hell for doubting it.

 

Not sure I'm interested in Luth 2.0, but of course I have no willpower to resist silly Christian arguments.  

 

Alrighty then, time to go create some warm fuzzy pagan beliefs in my head. haha

[florduh]

6 hours ago, midniterider said:

Christians will never admit they have zero evidence for Jesus.

I think it's just that their definition of evidence differs from ours.

[midniterider]

37 minutes ago, florduh said:

I think it's just that their definition of evidence differs from ours.

 

You make a good point there. Especially if you're told from birth that Jesus is real and is a feeling inside your head and is invisible and never speaks out loud or in person, it's really no different than any other bit of factual knowledge you are taught  to accept as truth. 

 

Until you start to encounter people who dont believe any of your faith based truth. Then you might think either that person's totally wrong...or you are. 

 

Christians probably shake their heads at how we could be so stupid as to not believe something as basic as Jesus Christ.

 

It kind of makes these debates pointless when you think about it. It's like two people from different planets trying to relate. 

 

[florduh]

59 minutes ago, midniterider said:

It kind of makes these debates pointless when you think about it. It's like two people from different planets trying to relate. 

 

No shit.

 

Evidence to a Christian is a Bible verse, a quote from a Christian author, or the fact that the sun rises and we have rainbows. 

[Insightful]

5 hours ago, florduh said:

we have rainbows. 

 

Rainbows used to mess with my head.  As a believer, i thought they were supposed to be a reminder of the promise that God wouldn't send another flood... But every time i saw them, i would think about how the prismatic effect of water on light is just its natural property.  It looks like magic when you dont understand it... But then i would feel anxious and guilty for doubting and worry i wasnt a real believer and pray for forgiveness.  All for doubting the supernatural origin of the rainbow...

 

Man i was messed up!

[TheRedneckProfessor]

3 hours ago, Insightful said:

 

Rainbows used to mess with my head.  As a believer, i thought they were supposed to be a reminder of the promise that God wouldn't send another flood... But every time i saw them, i would think about how the prismatic effect of water on light is just its natural property.  It looks like magic when you dont understand it... But then i would feel anxious and guilty for doubting and worry i wasnt a real believer and pray for forgiveness.  All for doubting the supernatural origin of the rainbow...

 

Man i was messed up!

We're humans not naturally inclined to fear, guilt, and shame, religion wouldn't exist.

[TABA]

On 9/24/2019 at 4:35 PM, Spectrox said:

Yes. When debating I'm always conscious that there are probably lurkers who could be swayed.

I'm not sure I was that polite and respectful! Particularly towards the last half of the thread where I did tear some Christians a new one! Thank you for your kind words. Were all my arguments familiar to you or did you discover some new ones whilst reading the thread?

 

I don’t think I saw any arguments that were new to me, but then I’ve encountered a LOT in the past six years or so, through my reading, podcasts and being around here.  Some arguments I was uncomfortably aware of even when I was a Christian.  I learned a lot more during my deconversion process, and still more since then.  All part of the process of gaining intellectual immunity to Christianity.  

 

I’ve wondered why they let you go on for so long, and then why they stopped you when they did.  I’m sure they were taking flak for allowing you on in the first place.  Maybe they thought God would give them the tools to reduce you to a slobbering mess, or to reconvert you, or at least make you go away.  The wide range of arguments that you presented must have been alarming.  Plus you didn’t fit the stereotype of the venom-spitting atheist.  I honestly can’t see the upside for them in allowing it.  Again, good work!

 

 

[Joshpantera]

19 hours ago, midniterider said:

Christians will never admit they have zero evidence for Jesus. All they have is a warm fuzzy they create in their own head of their own accord. But they also fear this mental creation is real and might send them to hell for doubting it.

 

Yes, Maxwell believes he has evidence and his attempt to shore up the faith was interesting. Tell everyone that they have a philosophical ground to stand on that can hold up to debate. But, as you roughly pointed out, the philosophical ground he speaks of is the same as trying to debate that you saw aliens, big foot, or anything similar. Ellen White, SDA leader claimed to have elaborate visions from god. She was also hit in the head with a rock as a child and suspected now of being a frontal lobe epileptic. An SDA can wage Maxwell's philosophical arguments in a debate.

 

But these are weak philosophical arguments easily demolished in the same said debate. And all serve to take the definition of "truth" down to low levels of stretching the word. If someone knows their own "truth," that they saw Nessy, how true does that actually turn out to be? True in the sense that someone believes that they saw something that they probably didn't? Or that a frontal lobe epileptic saw a vision in their head and believes that what they saw in their head is true? This leads to things like taking your own inner dialogue as divine communication and as a philosophically defensive "truth." Seems like Maxwell is another case of the "blind leading the blind." 

 

Big claims, no citations during the first several posts by Maxwell. He claims to his audience that atheists are often demolished in debate with christians. Citation please?

 

 

 

[Spectrox]

On 9/27/2019 at 11:25 AM, TABA said:

 

I don’t think I saw any arguments that were new to me, but then I’ve encountered a LOT in the past six years or so, through my reading, podcasts and being around here.  Some arguments I was uncomfortably aware of even when I was a Christian.  I learned a lot more during my deconversion process, and still more since then.  All part of the process of gaining intellectual immunity to Christianity.  

 

I’ve wondered why they let you go on for so long, and then why they stopped you when they did.  I’m sure they were taking flak for allowing you on in the first place.  Maybe they thought God would give them the tools to reduce you to a slobbering mess, or to reconvert you, or at least make you go away.  The wide range of arguments that you presented must have been alarming.  Plus you didn’t fit the stereotype of the venom-spitting atheist.  I honestly can’t see the upside for them in allowing it.  Again, good work!

 

 

Thanks Taba. And thanks for reading my thread. I hope you got something from it. X