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Sam Harris' rebuttal in a debate with William Lane Craig. I think he raises some troubling issues for Christians and other theists. If you are an adult theist with reasonable intelligence, I don't see how you could look at the world and at not find it difficult to reconcile human and animal suffering with faith.
Sam Harris' rebuttal in a debate with William Lane Craig. I think he raises some troubling issues for Christians and other theists. If you are an adult theist with reasonable intelligence, I don't see how you could look at the world and at not find it difficult to reconcile human and animal suffering with faith.
Sam Harris' rebuttal in a debate with William Lane Craig. I think he raises some troubling issues for Christians and other theists. If you are an adult theist with reasonable intelligence, I don't see how you could look at the world and at not find it difficult to reconcile human and animal suffering with faith.
I think it is challenging to view this world and see the suffering within it and not question how this could all happen if a loving god existed.
Personally, I look at it like this. If there is a loving god, there will be an after life that will be much different than this life. While we can only think in terms of human perception of time, eternity will basically make the time we spent here so small. The pain we endure on this planet will be like the blink of an eyer after this world. Right now, suffering seems so great and so constant. But when we move on into eternity, the pain here will be comparable to stepping on a tiny thorn right before walking through the gates of an endless meadow of soft grass and flowers.
The slaves in the antebellum American South were Christianized so that they would be more accepting of haesh treatment in this life, with the promise of a heavenly afterlife in mind. If there were a truly loving god, it would not have us jump through hoops in order to attain happiness.
Personally, I look at it like this. If there is a loving god, there will be an after life that will be much different than this life. While we can only think in terms of human perception of time, eternity will basically make the time we spent here so small...
So just what are you saying, TX? Sounds like you didn't comprehend Sam Harris at all! Gotta go along with catman on this one... Come on, we're all thinking people and can think the unthinkable--and that is that "Yahweh" is a moral monster and that major Christian concepts of human suffering border on the psychotic. Welcome to the real world, everyone!!
I think this is an example of a "backhanded question" like asking a married man you just met "When did you stop beating your wife?" or an old woman at the store "At what age did you euthanize your mother?"
Granted I didn't listen to it all. For one I consider 11 minutes rather long to listen to someone I consider to be basically a goofy fringe figure and for another what I heard didn't sound interesting or compelling enough to make me want to hear more.
Last edited by Thomas R.; 05-29-2011 at 04:57 AM..
Sam Harris' rebuttal in a debate with William Lane Craig. I think he raises some troubling issues for Christians and other theists. If you are an adult theist with reasonable intelligence, I don't see how you could look at the world and at not find it difficult to reconcile human and animal suffering with faith.
Taken in complete context, Harris actually never made any rebuttal. While he and Craig both agree that objective moral imperatives do exist, Harris never explains how this is logically possible from an atheistic perspective. Instead, as illustrated by this short clip, he deflects to the question of evil. Completely off topic.
How is human and animal suffering to be recognized as evil without also acknowledging the existence of good? From an atheistic perspective, from whence does good and evil come?
Neither Harris nor any atheist/agnostic in this forum can answer...
Taken in complete context, Harris actually never made any rebuttal. While he and Craig both agree that objective moral imperatives do exist, Harris never explains how this is logically possible from an atheistic perspective. Instead, as illustrated by this short clip, he deflects to the question of evil. Completely off topic.
How is human and animal suffering to be recognized as evil without also acknowledging the existence of good? From an atheistic perspective, from whence does good and evil come?
Neither Harris nor any atheist/agnostic in this forum can answer...
"If there is no God, all things are permissible."
Was anything he said untrue. It was all true. Christianity cannot claim any moral because it's god is morally bankrupt.
I think this is an example of a "backhanded question" like asking a married man you just met "When did you stop beating your wife?" or an old woman at the store "At what age did you euthanize your mother?"
Granted I didn't listen to it all. For one I consider 11 minutes rather long to listen to someone I consider to be basically a goofy fringe figure and for another what I heard didn't sound interesting or compelling enough to make me want to hear more.
That's a good way to go through life. Just shut yourself off to dissent and label them "goofy fringe figures." What's goofy or fringe about Sam Harris? He's a very prominent atheist.
His line about reciting latin words over your pancakes was epic.
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