The reply I was promised, never arrived, and there were no more requests for more time.
So I wrote NuclearX my closing comments based on some of his work that I found online.
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From: ilcunl@hotmail.com
To: Mozart533@aol.com
The deadline for your reply was Groundhog Day, February 2nd, at 6:00am Central Time. That was Monday morning, yesterday. Since you have so far exceeded that deadline by more than 30 hours, I doubt I shall ever hear from you again, and must assume that you have chosen to forfeit, like so many other creationists before you.
I am very disappointed that no creationist, including yourself, has ever accepted my challenge, even though your own website still claims that you have. I am also disappointed that you have done no better than any of your predecessors, all of whom have failed to answer any direct question, or to properly address even one point of evidence or logic pitted against them, and neither have you. All of you have failed with your very first reply.
And I am deeply concerned by your arguments against the use of logic and reason! Apparently, you do not realize that sanity is defined as the soundness of reason, or of being reasonable, and rational. If you are neither reasonable, nor logical, nor rational, then neither can you be sane. Reason and logic are what sanity is.
Logic may serve you, but isn't it all subjective?
No. It is not.
An atheist can "prove" logically that God does not exist, so how can you use something for both purposes? If you try to reason out the scriptures via logical means, instead of using scripture, what is the point? All you can do is prove God DOES exist to yourself by logic.
This doesn't make any sense. Scripture cannot prove the existence of God by any means of logic. That is a circular argument, and a conclusion that is pre-determined by rejecting logic (by your own admission) and by ignoring most of the scriptural content as well.
And you still don't realize what proof is, even though I have explained this to you before. If I could prove through some logical means that God does not exist, that would mean that you would then agree that God really doesn't exist, and you would be able to prove that to others as well, the same way. Once I prove he doesn't, then we both know he doesn't, and you can't turn around and prove he does. Likewise, if you prove God does exist, but only prove it to yourself, then that is indeed subjective, which of course means that you haven't really proven anything. If you can prove it to me however, then it is objective, and irreversible. If you prove to me that God does exist, then we would both know he does, and couldn't turn around and prove that he doesn't. Once something is proved, then the argument is over. The matter is settled, and the truth known to both parties.
An atheist will just prove that God DOESN'T exist by logical means. How is that on a par with the Bible?
It isn't. Its beyond the Bible. The Bible can't withstand any degree of logical analysis, and can't contest it. Many non-believers, (like myself for example) initially rejected the Bible based solely on the content of the Bible itself, and on no other factor. I found the Bible to be wholly immoral, internally inconsistent, inter-conflicting, immaterial, and quite literally un-believable. Not only that, but the vast majority of its content that can be proved one way or the other has already been proven wrong repeatedly in a series of critiques by Christians that began long before Darwin was ever born.
The Bible can't be used against itself, unlike logical reasoning.
What? Are you kidding? The Bible can only be used against itself. Its famous for that, even among Christians! It is one long string of absurdities, atrocities, logical fallacies, and contradictions. The Bible can be used to attack or defend any position simply because it is such a large compilation of dozens of books which were obviously compiled by different authors with noticeably inter-conflicting beliefs, and stemming from at least three distinctly different religions, which don't agree today because they didn't agree then, and that is evident in the Bible as well. The only thing that can defend the Bible is the Bible, and the worst enemy the Bible has is its own content! I have often said, "there are innumerable proofs against all "holy" scriptures, but all you really need to argue against the Bible is the Bible itself".
And it is logic that can't be used against itself. If two religious people disagree, they'll each say that God has given them the truth, and that the other is deceived, then they'' go off to separate corners and criticize each other from a distance, each protected by his own ignorance. There is no logic involved there.
But if two logical people disagree, they can sit down together and reason with each other until they both agree, even if they find they both have to change their minds to do it. And whatever they agree upon will be able to withstand scrutiny better than either of their original notions ever could have. That's how one seeks to discover the truth. You can't seek truth if you can't admit that you don't already know it. Reason, logic and debates such as I have challenged you to are the only way to determine what is really true! Faith is nothing but a self-deceptive shroud of enforced obstinate self-imposed ignorance incapable of discovering the truth about anything. Reason is required and cannot be tossed aside in favor of any silly notion that can't bear analysis on any level.
The Bible is infallible, unlike logical reasoning.
The Bible, and particularly Genesis, is demonstrably dead-wrong about damned-near everything back-to-front, and this is easily proved, or could be, if you were up to the challenge and willing to put your beliefs to the test. But that's the whole secret isn't it? Science must test itself in a perpetual battery of critical inquiry. But religious notions all warn that they must never be questioned. I wonder why it is then, that some creationists call themselves creation "scientists?" If they will not subject themselves to critical tesing in peer-review, then they are not practicing science by any definition of that word, and are only using that word, (along with their unrelated or even store-bought PhDs) in a deliberate facade of scientific authority which cannot really support their case.
The Bible is God's word, unlike logical reasoning.
Similarly, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Zend Avesta, the Q'ran, the Shaster, the Book of Mormon, and the sacred writings of Bahá'u'lláh all make the same claim as the Torah. They all say they are the "one true word of the one true God", when in fact, they are all no more than the man-made myths of mere fallible mortals, fumbling about without a clue, and boldly asserting with certainty things they know they really don't know.
God never wrote a word of any of these books, and you have no reason to assume any of them to be his word. Yet it can be accurately said that a vision of God was indeed the inspiration for all of them, even if no such deity really exists Unfortunately, they are all wrong, and still would be even if God were really real. The Bible is a work of man, and even it warns you not to worship the works of men over the work of God. That would be an act of idolatry. If God really does exist, and really gets upset about that sort of thing, then your worship of the Bible as his infallible word would doubtless raise his ire against you.
Fortunately for you, if there is a spiritual aspect to the universe, then Tao Te Ching of Lao Tsu would probably be much more accurate about the nature of such things than is the Bible, in which you and I and are still OK.
In fact, God is not even logical! How can you use Logic to explain God?
It would be easy if he were real. If God is not logical, then logic cannot explain him. But without any logical reason to believe he exists, there is no reason to assume he does, and certainly no reason to assume that the various human authors of the Bible knew any more about him than we do now, which is still nothing. God was made up, imagined out of whole cloth, and largely based on elder gods, which were synonymous with kings. Your god is mostly based on Gilgamesh, the king of Urok in about 2700 BCE. The reason I think so is because believers like you have only shown me your blindness, never any reason of any kind to ever consider your position. If he was really real, and the omnipresent uber-galatcic super-force you believe he is, then there would be some evidence of some kind somewhere, even if that were only an argument of logic or reasoning, both of which you say still don't apply. So why do you believe?
The reason your god is not logical is because you and your lot have been programmed to believe a collection of fables without question, and against all reason, under a penalty of a fate worse than death. Priests would insist on such absurd conditions, of course, but no real God who really existed would really demand or reward such insane gullibility.
Without reason, it is not possible to use logic.
This much is true. And for me, if there is no logic of any kind even remotely involved, then there is no reason to believe. Surely an intelligent god would know this too, right? A supreme being certainly would, and a forgiving one would have done something about that. Why didn't yours?
The Bible can explain God, but again, logic can't.
The Bible doesn't explain God in any way, nor does it make any attempt to. All it offers are contradictory descriptions of an anthropomorphic man-shaped being who uses magic words to tell the universe to exist and how to behave. Sounds rather like the Indian myths of Coyote to me. There certainly is no consistent description of what God is or how his magic works. The Bible explains God no better than the Twilight Zone explains little Anthony Freemont, a spoiled, vindictive, tyrannical, and yet insecure child full of unforgiving cruel rage, a character I see as almost exactly like the god in your Bible.
You should use scripture for everything, not just little snippets here and there. For example, if you were going to try and prove something about morality, you don't just go into long logical speculations about the matter. You should go straight to scripture, and see exactly what IT says, and then use it as support for whatever you have to say.
Then you will be forever misguided, and will never be able to make your point. Also your faith will doubtless prevent you from seeing that in the Bible, God is supposedly not able to lie, yet he not only condones lying but at one point at least he actually commands it! Not only that but he condones all sorts of other evil acts from pointless cruelty to animals to theft, pillage, vandalism, rape, abortion, the sexual molestation and murder of kidnapped children, and the use of witchcraft to cure infestations. Genocide is commonplace in God's agenda, usually as an expression of some petty human prejudice, like the death sentence against gays, for example, or the beating of slaves, or the decimation of the Canaanites to make way for the marauding Jewish thieves under Moses' command. And the people God prizes most are only those most devoid of family values, the ones who are willing to abuse, forsake, curse, kill, or screw their own children! Andrea Yates would have been God's kinda girl! Too bad she was "just" a woman, and therefore unclean in the lord's eyes. All the Biblical god cares about are thoughtless minions who will commit his violence without question. The Bible is not any kind of moral guide. If you're following the examples in the Bible, you should be removed from society!
God should be wiser than the rest of us, but the god in the Bible definitely ain't! He is filled with all the petty racism, sexism, logical fallacies, and barbaric cruelty that his marauding believers hoped to justify by associating him with them. Remember how perfection means an absence of sin? Remember also how vanity, jealousy, vengeance and wrath make up most of the deadly ones? Contradictions abound in a book written by many people who believe in different things at different times, and certainly don't believe the same way that later contributors believe!
The way I see it, there are only two explanations for God's infantile and insecure behavior in the Bible:
1. God exists, but is not what the Bible makes him out to be.
2. God does not exist, and was only promoted this way by priests who knew how to wield power through fear and superstition.
In either case, the Bible is no more accurate, and no more an authority than the Vedic or Shinto or any other scriptures.
I find it very sad that you must embrace such idolatry against all that is sane. I read some of the course material provided by Ace Paces, and I can't blame you entirely. The Ace Paces that you were "taught" from in your impressionable years outline an insidious methodological indoctrination specifically meant to sever you from your logic and deprive you of reason.
I see in this outline what I consider to be a great injustice in subjecting a child to this kind of crippling conditioning, but because you have already been conditioned by it since birth, you will probably never recover, or even recognize in these pages what was being done to you.
But at least I can tell by your statements above, and by your pitiful performance in our debate, that I have won yet again, always by default, but it still counts, especially since it seems that you know who the winner is as much as I do. You were unable to present any evidence in your favor or even to defend false statements you had made about being taught the Theory of creation when such has never existed. You demonstrated a typical gross misunderstanding of what it was that you were arguing against, and were incapable of defending your parody of my article or of critiquing any point in my article. In fact, you supported many of them without realizing it. So all my points have survived your feeble criticisms, and in six whole weeks, you have utterly failed to present any reason whatsoever to even consider any alternative explanation of our origins other than the only one backed by any kind of reasoning at all, and (again, by your admission) the only one with any demonstrable truth at all. Thus you have proved evolution to be the truest, best, and only scientific explanation for the origin of our species.
Once again it really is too bad that you would not accept my challenge. I read on your personal debate forum where you said:
"that evolution as presented to the public, and in most textbooks, is the impersonification of religious, false, indoctrinated, blind, and stupid assertions. I can back it up if you wish."
But I know you can't, and I think you know that too. So I would defy you to try.
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Of course there was no response. There never is. Every time I make this challenge, it is refused.
NuclearX had also promised to publish the entire debate on his own website whether he won or lost.
That hasn't happened either, and it probably never will, as long as he remains a creationist.
Some of us have a desperate need to believe, others have instead a desire to understand.
Creationists, it seems, have a desire to mis-understand, and are unable to question their own dogma,
which is why they must cower from sincere debate, shrinking vampire-like from the light of knowledge
on the excuse that cognitive reason itself is somehow disposable: The very definition of delusion.
This I take to be another indication that creationism is inherently, (and willfully) dishonest.
If any aspect of it were true, then there would be at least one honest proponant of it out there somewhere
who would have enough integrity to debate evolution or defend creationism on scientific terms
and be unafraid to challenge his faith to determine if some element of his belief holds any merit at all.
In fact, if creationism were really true, then most creationists would be willing to accept my challenge,
and there would be some reason behind their conclusions, or at least some logic to their arguments.
But to date, not one creationist has ever dared shine the light of reason on either of our perspectives.
It seems to me they are afraid to see what is really there.
As usual, no evidence from my side will ever be weighed by any of them. They must ignore it all.
And of course there still isn't any evidence for their side to talk about because their position is baseless.
Once again, my opponents claim that God is "beyond reality" (which technically means "unreal")
and that reason itself, as well as all forms of logic, must be rejected in order to believe.
By their own admission, creationism is therefore illogical, irrational, and unreasonable; insane.
There is still no reason to believe in any of it, and apparently there never will be.
But there are plenty of reasons to conclude that it just isn't true, and this debate is one of them.
