Apologist4Him
Puritan Board Freshman
The following is a copy of my response to an agnostic which has gone unanswered.
An agnostic started by claiming "We're All in the Same Boat".
Me: My first question for you is this: How do you KNOW "we're all in the same boat"?
Agnostic: My starting point is simply this, I
Me: Your starting point can be described as: autonomy, subjectivism, human reasoning.
Agnostic: look around at the reality before me
Me: My second question for you is this: How can you KNOW when you subjectively "look around", that what you're looking at is "reality"?
Agnostic: and I see no evidence of a supernatural being called God by any of the religions that claim a god or gods exist.
Me: My third quesiton for you is this: Where is the evidence for evidentialism, where is the evidence which demonstrates that you are approaching the issue with the correct method?
You assume before you're even presented "evidence" that a God has not revealed Himself. You assume naturalism is true, and thus the negation of supernaturalism before you're even presented with any "evidence". You also assume the law of causation, the reliability of sense perception, and the basic laws of logic, without being able to accout for an objective basis.
Agnostic: The natural world operates as it does without regard for human beings. We are products of the natural world and subject to it.
Me: You assume the world operates soley in a natural fashion, without acknowledging the problem of induction. You assume that you can know the world outside of your own existence objectively. Your worldview will not allow you to interpret the evidence in any other way than what you assume from the start.
Agnostic: I do not observe that one god based religion seems somehow divinely favored over another. For example, I've never observed "Man, it seems everything goes right for those Christians when they pray for something".
Me: LOL, so you reject the truth of Christianity on pragmatic terms? Whatever "works" is true eh?
Agnostic: Any "evidence" put forth for examples of miracles can be explained without resorting to supernatural explanation.
Me: Here again your bias crops it's ugly face from the cracks of your will.
Agnostic: Some god based religions claim that God loves human beings and the Earth (as his creation) very much, more than we can imagine, yet we are subject to all sorts of suffering, calamity and diseases. I see no evidence that a god steps in an alleviates any of this. Let's face it, the least a god could do, assuming he loves humans as much as people claim, is reduce the amount of suffering and other horrible things, if he doesn't see fit to eliminate it completely.
Me:You are assuming objective evil on the basis of what? What makes you an authority on morality, versus a Pantheist who denies the existence of suffering and evil?
Agnostic: Reality, the day to day world around me, is enough to strongly convince me there is no supernatural influence in this world. We're all in the same boat. Either a god or gods exist and they do not care to intervene in our world or no god or gods exist at all.
Me: So you reject Christianity on the basis of pragmatism, not whether it's true or not. How sad.
So how did I do? Ok, alright, fair?
An agnostic started by claiming "We're All in the Same Boat".
Me: My first question for you is this: How do you KNOW "we're all in the same boat"?
Agnostic: My starting point is simply this, I
Me: Your starting point can be described as: autonomy, subjectivism, human reasoning.
Agnostic: look around at the reality before me
Me: My second question for you is this: How can you KNOW when you subjectively "look around", that what you're looking at is "reality"?
Agnostic: and I see no evidence of a supernatural being called God by any of the religions that claim a god or gods exist.
Me: My third quesiton for you is this: Where is the evidence for evidentialism, where is the evidence which demonstrates that you are approaching the issue with the correct method?
You assume before you're even presented "evidence" that a God has not revealed Himself. You assume naturalism is true, and thus the negation of supernaturalism before you're even presented with any "evidence". You also assume the law of causation, the reliability of sense perception, and the basic laws of logic, without being able to accout for an objective basis.
Agnostic: The natural world operates as it does without regard for human beings. We are products of the natural world and subject to it.
Me: You assume the world operates soley in a natural fashion, without acknowledging the problem of induction. You assume that you can know the world outside of your own existence objectively. Your worldview will not allow you to interpret the evidence in any other way than what you assume from the start.
Agnostic: I do not observe that one god based religion seems somehow divinely favored over another. For example, I've never observed "Man, it seems everything goes right for those Christians when they pray for something".
Me: LOL, so you reject the truth of Christianity on pragmatic terms? Whatever "works" is true eh?
Agnostic: Any "evidence" put forth for examples of miracles can be explained without resorting to supernatural explanation.
Me: Here again your bias crops it's ugly face from the cracks of your will.
Agnostic: Some god based religions claim that God loves human beings and the Earth (as his creation) very much, more than we can imagine, yet we are subject to all sorts of suffering, calamity and diseases. I see no evidence that a god steps in an alleviates any of this. Let's face it, the least a god could do, assuming he loves humans as much as people claim, is reduce the amount of suffering and other horrible things, if he doesn't see fit to eliminate it completely.
Me:You are assuming objective evil on the basis of what? What makes you an authority on morality, versus a Pantheist who denies the existence of suffering and evil?
Agnostic: Reality, the day to day world around me, is enough to strongly convince me there is no supernatural influence in this world. We're all in the same boat. Either a god or gods exist and they do not care to intervene in our world or no god or gods exist at all.
Me: So you reject Christianity on the basis of pragmatism, not whether it's true or not. How sad.
So how did I do? Ok, alright, fair?