- Dec 3, 2006 - Tactics and Role Play
- Review the tactics
- Colombo
- Gain information
- Reverse burden of proof
- Learn their reasons
- "How did you come to that conclusion?"
- Exploit a weakness
- "Have you ever considered that.."
- Suicide
- Self-refuting claims
- Sibling rivalry
- Taking the Roof Off
- Reductio ad absurdam
- "Let's say what you believe is true.."
- Exercise
- Epistemology - The problem of religious language
- Spiel
- “Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, ‘Some gardener must tend this plot.’ The other disagrees, ‘There is no gardener.’ So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. ‘But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.’ So they set up a barbed-wire fenced. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the believer is not convinced. ‘But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensitive to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.’ At last the Sceptic despairs, ‘but what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?’”
- You see, religious language is just like that. You Christians say, "God loves me," but since there's no way to prove it, it's meaningless.
- Furthermore, if I were to probe with questions, you would likely qualify your original statement to the point of meaninglessness.
- What if I asked you, "What would constitute disproof of God loving you?"
- Responses
- Colombo
- What do you mean by disproof?
- How did you come to the conclusion that I need to be able to disprove it?
- Have you ever considered that this can apply to all basic assumptions in life, not just religious language?
- Taking the Roof Off
- Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. A man was there, pulling weeds, applying fertilizer, trimming branches. The man turned to the explorers and introduced himself as the royal gardener. One explorer shook his hand and exchanged pleasantries. The other ignored the gardener and turned away: “There can be no gardener in this part of the jungle,” he said; “this must be some trick. Someone is trying to discredit our previous findings.” They pitch camp. Every day the gardener arrives, tends the plot. Soon the plot is bursting with perfectly arranged blooms. “He's only doing it because we're here-to fool us into thinking this is a royal garden.” The gardener takes them to a royal palace, introduces the explorers to a score of officials who verify the gardener's status. Then the sceptic tries a last resort: “Our senses are deceiving us. There is no gardener, no blooms, no palace, no officials. It's still a hoax!” Finally the believer despairs: “But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does this mirage, as you call it, differ from a real gardener?”
- Metaphysics - Naturalism
- Spiel
- "The universe is all there is, or ever was, or ever will be." Carl Sagan
- Responses
- Colombo
- Taking the Roof Off
- Ethics - God's "irrational" command to Abraham
- Academic
- Spiel
- You Christians claim that one can't have a rational morality without God. But this God of your isn't even rational himself. Take for instance God's command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac: if it's immoral to kill, then why is He violating His own law?
- Responses
- Colombo
- What do you mean by kill/immoral?
- How did you come to the conclusion that killing is immoral?
- Have you ever considered that your definition of killing may be wrong?
- Taking the Roof Off
- Moral argument.. don't put God in the dock
- Emotional
- Spiel
- I can't believe how these Christians claim that I have to know Jesus in order to have a good life. My son just died in a car wreck.. how am I supposed to trust a God that commands one of his own people to sacrifice his own son?
- Responses
- Colombo
- Taking the Roof Off