Bigger, longer, uncut

I was sent this news story today, and was asked to comment on it.


My response was:

I don't support the idea that a parent has the right to mutilate their children's bodies without a solid reason for doing so.

From what I have heard and read (podcasts, books etc) the health claims made about circumcision are all either false, or negligable when compared to the possible defecits.

If a person chooses to get a circumcision for cosmetic or cultural reasons, I believe that they should be able to choose when they are capable of doing so, with all the relevant information at their disposal.

At the heart of it, circumcision is a cultural/religious practice which may have come from many ancient sources, including health, identifying races, and spiritual beliefs. The modern medical claims seem to be an attempt to justify the practice post hoc, and to me, that's not good enough.

I believe that laws protecting male children from circumcision are a good move, and may help to break down an outdated, irrational practice.

You can read a much better response to the circumcision debate by Harriet Hall, the Skepdoc here: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=269

Creationist Debate Featuring Paul Willis

Debate between Paul Willis from the show great science show Catalyst and Carl Wieland from Creation Ministries International. Looks like it should be a good one!

Panel Debate

A panel debate featuring William Lane Craig, Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Wilson, Lee Strobel and James Denison, moderated by Stan Guthrie. The topic is "Does the God of Christianity exist, and what difference does it make?"




(Or the link to the video is also here).


There is also an Mp3 of the debate here.

Via Apologia Podcast/Blog (One of the BEST podcasts out there for both theists and atheists),

Christopher Hitchens vs Dinesh D'Souza

Christopher Hitchens debates Dinesh D'Souza on the somewhat vague topic "What's so Great About God? Atheism vs Religion"

Enjoy!

Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza at CU Boulder from Justin Leddick on Vimeo.

Dr Michael Shermer vs John Lennox Sydney Debate

Back in August, we attended a debate between Dr Michael Shermer and John Lennox at the Wesley Centre in Sydney. The full video is now out on youtube for your viewing pleasure.

Part One




Part Two




Part Three




Part Four




Part Five




Part Six




Part Seven




Part Eight




Part Nine




Part Ten

Debate Video Online Now

The video from last Thursday's debate (more here & here) is now online.

Thanks again to everyone that came and showed support. I had a great time and enjoyed the experience. I hope to be able to get more involved in public discourse and feel that each time I jump into the ring, I finish up learning a whole lot more about what I'm doing.

So here's the video:

Which makes more sense: The Aftermath

I thought I'd give a bit of a rundown on the debate between myself and Mike Paget on 'Which makes more sense, atheism or Christianity?'


First of all, I'd like to thank the AFA for giving me the opportunity to represent them once again. To find out more about the AFA, you can check out their website or become a member.

In preparation, I had read some books by Michael Shermer, Christopher Hitchens etc. and was sent a link to a great archive of mp3s of debates, including William Lane Craig vs Robert Price, Vic Stenger, Paul Kurtz. Lennox vs Dawkins, Michael Licona vs Dan Barker, and heaps more.

But as for the debate itself, I think it was a good night and everyone that came would have been a little challenged. I was incredibly nervous before hand, especially when the seats had all been filled and there were just as many people standing as there were sitting. I couldn't estimate how many there were, but the theater was packed like sardines, with people sitting in the aisles and on the floor at the front, standing at the back and in the corridor. It was terrific to see so many people interested in thinking about these issues.


We will get video and audio of the debate up asap (they couldn't give us the MP3 afterwards as they had agreed to) as we had many Sydney Atheists members recording in various formats. It's now just a case of finding someone who captured the whole lot, (most people's devices failed in the last 10 minutes due to the presence of an interactionalist deity who must have thought it worth his time to turn up just in case Mike proved his existence, allowing him to finally come out of hiding... or through random chance operating against our favour) and making it available for download.

If you have recordings from the night, please contact me at criticalmass@live.com.au

I was much more nervous about the questions from the floor, and to make matters worse, it was ridiculously hot and I was sweating like a pig by the time they came around. The questions weren't too bad, but I don't think I answered them as well as I could have, had I been given some preparation time. I found question time to be the most challenging, as I prefer to think things out and prepare my arguments, rather than thinking on my feet, but having had the experience I will be working on building up my answers to the types of questions people are likely to ask.


Afterwards, there were heaps of people that came up and congratulated me, and a lot less that wanted to argue with me.

It was a terrific experience to be involved in this debate. Each time I get to do one of these things I feel terribly under-prepared, especially so as this was my first time speaking in front of a crowd, but pushing myself has the benefit of improving my knowledge on the subjects. I look forward to my next opportunity to do something, but for now I have a brand new puppy to play with...

Which makes more sense; Atheism or Christianity?

On Thursday (16/10/08) I will be debating Mike Paget on the subject 'Which makes more sense; Atheism or Christianity?' The debate will be at 6PM in The Theatre Lounge, Level 3 Tower, UTS, Sydney. It is being presented by Credo, a campus-based religious group, so I am expecting the audience to be a bit slanted towards belief and it might be a tough crowd.

Mike is the Anglican chaplain for UTS and is also the assistant minister for St Barnabas Broadway. He also writes a blog.Then there's me, I simply haven't seen any convincing, objectively verifiable evidence to prove the existence of a god, hence I am an atheist. I am also ordained, so 'Reverend Alan vs Reverend Mike' might be an appropriate subtitle for the debate.

You can see the promotional material here, here and here.

There are a few points to make about the flyer though:


'Atheism and Christianity are both very prominent beliefs in our society today '

Atheism is not a 'belief', but a lack of belief. Atheism is to belief as bald is to hair colour


'Atheism, which denies the existence of a God, gods or the supernatural...'

Atheism doesn't deny their existence, just finds no evidence and therefore no reason to believe in them. I think these people equate atheism with antitheism. An atheist can deny the existance of a god, but is not required to. It is a much more solid position to say 'until there is reasonable evidence, I will retain the null hypothesis that belief in god is unnecessary.'

On top of that, most of the atheists that I've heard talk on the subject would be welcoming of any decent evidence for the existance of a god. If it were to be found, it would expand our view of the universe and all that is exponentially.

I think it is a rather outdated concept that an atheist is a grumpy old scholar that rants on and on about the impossibility of a god. Atheists today seem more interested in the reasons that people choose to believe in something with no decent evidence for doing so and we are more than happy to run comprehensive experiments on any testable claim made by proponants of religion. If an interactionalist god did exist, it should leave testable traces in the physical world. So far, none have been found. The universe appears exactly as would be expected if there were no god, so it is unnecdessary to propose the existancwe of one.


'the Christian Bible and its belief in one God has remained unchanged for 2000 years.'

What? WHAT? UNCHANGED???!!!!! That has to be one of the most ignorant sentences I've read from a christian. It's so wrong, I don't know where to start... ummm addition of Jesus as God; Judaism > Christainity; Umpteen reinterpretations and rewritings of the bible; Mistranslations leading to major plot twists (Mary went from being a young girl to a virgin... shhh, don't tell the Catholics!)


I look forward to the debate and I think it is going to be very stimulating and should get the audience thinking about the basis of their religious position.

If you're in the area, come along!

I hope to see you there.

If you would like more info you can contact me at criticalmass@live.com.au

Michael Shermer's Adventures in Sydney- Friday 22/8

Now I've finally got the photos up, I can say a bit more about our wonderful weekend. Friday, we stated at an exclusive lunch at the American Club, where Michael Shermer and John Lennox held an informal debate on the topic of 'Has science buried God'.

There was a fair group from the Australian Skeptics there
(From left to right) Me, Frode, Barry Williams, Margaret, John, Rachel and John.

(L to R) Margaret, John, Barry, Michael, Jason

John Lennox was the first speaker. He argued using all of the same weak arguments that we've heard time and time again coming from the religious front, such as that science cannot deal with abstract concepts such as love, poetry, music; Darwinism implies atheism; atheism is a religion; atheism is a philosophy, not science, etc etc etc...


Lennox also posited that atheism and theism are worldviews and the question is with which of these science is closer related;
Christianity gave us science, therefore they must be inseparable;
the atheistic worldview tells us that consciousness is unguided, so why should we believe it?;
atheism undermines the basic rationality needed to explain science because information cannot be reduced to physics and chemistry.

He concluded with asserting that mind must precede matter, not matter before mind, and his closing statement was that either in the beginning were the particles and a cold process of gradual movement from simple to complex forms, or in the beginning was the word...

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Michael Shermer then took to the lectern. After a few jokes, including an anecdote about his past life as an evangelical door knocking christian which was followed by a period of militant atheism where he went around knocking on the same doors and taking it all back!

Shermer made the points that atheism only answers the question of belief in a god which makes no positive assertion about what an atheist believes. He also spoke about all of the other groups, such as agnostics, secular humanists, naturalists, brights etc that have tried to escape from the negative connotations associated with the term 'atheism'. He went on to explain that American religion is so virulent because of the separation of church and state, which means that the churches have to compete with each other for money, like businesses; and because of the poor social services by which religious groups are the safety net for those who don't get the care they need from the state, as happened during hurricane Katrina.


Shermer also spoke about the difference between a top-down or bottom-up view of nature. God represents a top-down process, whereas Darwin proposed a bottom-up process, the difference between them being the testability of their claims. Science and religion intersect where religion makes testable claims, which led to a discussion on the efficacy of prayer studies (1,2,3)

Shermer concluded by saying that even if there was evidence to support the existence of god, science would still want to know the process by which she stared it all off. There is nothing that intersects with the physical world that lies outside of the scope of science.

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There was then a break and Michael Shermer made a b-line for Rachel, remembering her from TAM (I didn't get recognised nearly as quickly, but then again, I'm not a pretty blonde!)


We had a chat with him and congratulated him on a great speech, before getting an obscene amount of photos. It was really good to see him, he is such a nice guy that has time for anyone who wants it. Before long, we were being called back to our seats for the QnA side of the luncheon.


The questions included "What about other gods?"
Shermer: The world of a deistic god is not as satisfying as a world where the god interacts in people's lives, so the theistic gods appeal to people much more than the deistic gods. The reason that these debates are about the judeo-christian god is that it is the god that our society mostly identifies as 'God'. It would be frivolous to debate the existence of a god that people don't believe in anymore.

Does god interact with the world and can we test it?
Lennox: The resurrection of Jesus Christ is history and enough to prove Christianity.

Has science buried god? Whatever the answer, who cares?
Shermer: The recent boon of interest in the subject of religious criticism shows that there are many people that seem to care.
Lennox: The question of if there is or is not a god has a huge significance either way. If atheism is true, no victim of terror will ever achieve justice.

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Concluding statements:

Shermer- If there is no god, justice must be carried out in the present. Furthermore, we need to concentrate on the present without wishful thinking of an afterlife for which there is no evidence. The naturalistic worldview gives much more importance to the here and now.

Lennox- Justice in this world is an important thing to have, but there is an ultimate justice that exists. If atheism is right, there is no hope of justice for so many people.

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Afterwards, we all mingled together. There were a few heated debates with Lennox and John Dixon

And a photo opportunity or two


(L to R) Margaret, John, John Lennox, Frode, Rachel, Me (Alan) and John.

And that was just the beginning... more posts coming soon!

What a massive day!

WOW! We have had such an unbelieveable day.

Michael Shermer is in town and it's been a non-stop day of activities and events.

We went to an invitation only lunch where Shermer and John Lennox held an informal debate on the topic 'Has science buried God?' During the break, Shermer recognised Rachel from TAM and came up and gave her a big hug. We had a big chat with him and got loads of photos. The debate was good (more on that to come) and the club was really nice.

We went to the Powerhouse Museum after lunch and decided to get a snack and a brew at a pub up the road and guess who strolls in?.... Michael Shermer, with Paul Willis, just there for a drink before their talk on the topic of genius. We had a real good time chatting to him about all manner of things, from cycling to god's exisance with a whole bunch of wheatgrass juice jokes.

Next on the to-do list was the 'Big night of science', with live jazz and winein between a variety of talks which included a hilarious mathematics olympian, a presentation on cochlear implants, Shermer and Willis chatting about a bunch of different topics, and Fred Watson, who spoke about the future of space tourism. In between topics we spent even more time chatting to Shermer and catching up with all the other people from the various groups (sceptics, atheists etc)

Shermer invited an entourage of about fifteen people to go to dinner with him after the talks and we all tramped over to chinatown and took over a sall restaraunt. We left the dinner at close to midnight absolutely buzzing from such an exciting day.

And there's still more to go! Tomorrow, we're having lunch with Shermer, then we'll hang out with our sceptical and atheist friends until the big debate between Shermer and Lennox, after which we'll be going for drinks with Shermer.

It's a non-stop joy ride!

We'll be posting more extensive notes on each of the events along with the pictures later this weekend.