Bryce1993 - convert to christianity

[Bryce1993]

MOD NOTE: Split from this parent thread

Originally Posted by Scienceisgolden

Hi Bryce,

this may seem a little random but I live close to Inaburra school and I wanted to send my kids to a private secondary school. Inaburra is the closest one to me, and the fees are far lower than the non-denominational private secondary schools. Being an atheist though, obviously I am a little concerned about how ingrained the Baptist faith is in the curriculum. I have a couple of Baptist friends who are lovely, but they are all creationists and very wrapped up in their faith. I was just wondering if you're still checking this thread, does Inaburra school teach creationism/intelligent design? How to they teach evolution? And do they put any pressure on students to get involved in Christianity?

I went to a Catholic school myself and it was fine, they didn't teach creationism and we weren't pressured to get involved in the religious stuff, but you did say your school was "quite severely" Anglican-Christian.

I thought it might be a bonus to not have to baptise my kids like many do to get their kids into a Christian school as Baptists believe in adult baptism when you are old enough to decide for yourself - heh.

Many thanks.

G'day. Inaburra is a superb school, I would say that Inaburra encourages thought about what your worldview is. The latest theology forum gave opportunity for any student to tell everyone what it is they believe, or think about the world/life.. So if you're mature enough not to care that we pray at assembly and have the occasional christian speaker, Inaburra is an awesome awesome awesome school, and I will be sad to leave.

On a side note, after months of deep thought, reading books, and asking questions to both Christians and atheists, I became a Christian on the 28th of Audgust. Best decision I ever made. John Lennox is a brilliant speaker and philosopher; tbh, after reading through the questions and arguements that are posted on this thread, I realise that they're all pretty shallow and crap. Some are paradoxical, others are impossible to answer, I believe, by design. God wants us to love him because of faith.
I am more significant than a random group of atoms. My DNA, all 3 billion characters of it, were designed for a purpose - (Lennox 'if you found your name written on a beach you would infer intelligence, yet our DNA is 3 billion characters long and people say random mutation'
God is good.

[ABridgeTooFar]

Lennox's whole argument is a no-true-scotsman fallacy.

[Xeno]

Originally Posted by Bryce1993

On a side note, after months of deep thought, reading books, and asking questions to both Christians and atheists, I became a Christian on the 28th of Audgust. Best decision I ever made.

Don't worry, there is a good chance you will get over it.

John Lennox is a brilliant speaker and philosopher;

Speaker, yes, philosopher, no. Many young people are influenced by good speakers/evangelists. I was for a while when I was very young and I know a family member who never grew out of it.

tbh, after reading through the questions and arguements that are posted on this thread, I realise that they're all pretty shallow and crap. Some are paradoxical, others are impossible to answer, I believe, by design.

None of the questions is impossible for an atheist, Bryce, although in some cases we dismiss them for erroneous assumptions. Your problem is that the questions expose the incoherence of your position. It is not sufficient to dislike a question. Take the crocodilemma, for example. Now that you are a good christian, would you kill for your god, yes or no? It is a perfectly serious question about the basis of your morality, and any atheist will answer no, or no god, in a flash. How is your new morality, Bryce? Let us find out.

God wants us to love him because of faith.

That was my own last stop before I gave up on the stupidity of christianity, Bryce. If you believe it simply because of faith, you have left yourself no differentiation from people who fly planes into buildings.

I am more significant than a random group of atoms. My DNA, all 3 billion characters of it, were designed for a purpose - (Lennox 'if you found your name written on a beach you would infer intelligence, yet our DNA is 3 billion characters long and people say random mutation'

Who says random mutation without natural selection, apart from believers trying hard to avoid reality? I could have many questions for you about animals, human evolution, souls your god and justice but for the moment please just answer the crocodilemma above.

God is good.

Well, you certainly set yourself apart there Bryce. Muslims say god is great. What is the difference, would you say?

[Goldenmane]

Originally Posted by Bryce1993

On a side note, after months of deep thought, reading books, and asking questions to both Christians and atheists, I became a Christian on the 28th of Audgust.

Audgust? Is that like Disgust or Datgust?

Best decision I ever made.

How so? What's your metric? I mean, you must have some way of measuring the level of bestestness of various decisions you've made, if you can confidently say this one is the Best.

John Lennox is a brilliant speaker and philosopher;

No he isn't. He's a reasonably competent speaker with a good line in confident delivery and a shockingly poor grasp of the notion of examination of premises. He's a fanboi, capable of creating glittering fantasies of superficial complexity based upon his own favourite fantasy, but apparently completely incapable of realising that his personal prejudices don't dictate anything about reality. Go hang out in a comic book store or table-top gaming store, and you'll come across plenty of similar examples. People who can (and will) explain in excruciating detail why Wolverine would defeat Hulk in a fight, why the What If? crossover got it wrong and should be considered non-canonical (and possibly heretical), and that they were talking about the green Hulk, not the grey or brown one... and so forth and so on.

All of which is fine, except when it turns out that the person in question actually thinks this shit has any bearing on reality, morality, or whether Wolverine actually exists.

This is the thing with Lennox. He thinks that his attachment to juvenile fantasies allows him authority to make proclamations about stuff that they are completely divorced from. Sadly, enough people are also attached to such juvenile fantasies that they encourage him to make a fool of himself. He travels around the world, feted and lauded for essentially saying things like, "Of course Wolverine exists. If he didn't exist, who would protect us from Sabretooth? And why would Professor X bother to talk about him to Beast? And if Wolverine didn't exist, then why did Storm and Cyclops have such a big problem over him?" Sure, he knows his bollocks, and will laugh at you if you suggest to him that by the same reasoning Firestorm (the original, not the later numpty version) must exist.

Actually, in light of that, yeah, Lennox is a great philosopher. Most philosophy is just complexified unsubstantiated wibble, and he's good at that.

tbh, after reading through the questions and arguements that are posted on this thread, I realise that they're all pretty shallow and crap. Some are paradoxical, others are impossible to answer, I believe, by design.

How about you show your work?

God wants us to love him because of faith.

How, one is drawn to ask, can you possibly know that?

I am more significant than a random group of atoms.

And yet you apparently don't know what 'random' means, or why this statement is absurd on the face of it.

My DNA, all 3 billion characters of it, were designed for a purpose - (Lennox 'if you found your name written on a beach you would infer intelligence, yet our DNA is 3 billion characters long and people say random mutation'

Oh, I see. Look, here's the thing: Lennox doesn't seem to have the faintest clue about information theory, or genetics. And neither does anyone who thinks that garbage is any more meaningful or intelligent than "my carbuncle lurks nerf small bernard cornwell". In short, you're arguing from a position of incompetence. This is not a personal slight, merely an observation. For a start, the statement 'our DNA is x characters long' is at best a deliberate misrepresentation, at worst a wonderful example of pure conceptual incompetence. I'd bet he even thinks DNA is a code.

God is good.

Really? Is that the extent of your definition of your god? Because:

1) It really doesn't say anything meaningful, and;
2) No version of the Christian God I've ever come across can actually be described as 'good' unless the definition of 'good' is 'he likes me better than you'.

Again, I'd like to see you show your work. You haven't actually demonstrated an understanding of the arguments you claim to be shallow and crap. If they are so, surely you can demonstrate this to us? We're not all thickos like me. Some people here are quite clever.

[Atheos]

Originally Posted by Bryce1993

G'day. Inaburra is a superb school, I would say that Inaburra encourages thought about what your worldview is. The latest theology forum gave opportunity for any student to tell everyone what it is they believe, or think about the world/life.. So if you're mature enough not to care that we pray at assembly and have the occasional christian speaker, Inaburra is an awesome awesome awesome school, and I will be sad to leave.

On a side note, after months of deep thought, reading books, and asking questions to both Christians and atheists, I became a Christian on the 28th of Audgust. Best decision I ever made. John Lennox is a brilliant speaker and philosopher; tbh, after reading through the questions and arguements that are posted on this thread, I realise that they're all pretty shallow and crap. Some are paradoxical, others are impossible to answer, I believe, by design. God wants us to love him because of faith.
I am more significant than a random group of atoms. My DNA, all 3 billion characters of it, were designed for a purpose - (Lennox 'if you found your name written on a beach you would infer intelligence, yet our DNA is 3 billion characters long and people say random mutation'
God is good.

I call bullshit on your whole story, other than maybe being a student at the high school, I contend that you were never an atheist [not that you specifically stated such, but you gave the impression that you were], that in fact you were a christian from your first post and well before, this "conversion" seems far to simple, the questions proffered to you in this thread are based in rational thought and you refer to them as "pretty shallow and crap, some are paradoxical, others impossible to answer", shows that they weren't even considered reasonably and rationally by you, just dismissed out of hand in true theist think.

[Mentally Saturated]

I have to admit, Atheos, I was thinking precisely the same thing..

I just this morning watched the Lennox vs Singer debate, recorded in Melbourne recently. I've now seen quite a few debates in which Lennox has been a participant, and I find my opinion of this man to be, quite deservedly, plummeting like an ailing airliner with an inflatable co-pilot (complete with attending distraction of naive air hostess, of course). If only the consequences of this man's actions were as comedic.

As I have no university qualifications, it makes me simply want to spit that this guy, capable debater that he appears to some, is able to so frequently get away with sheer, blatant intellectual dishonesty. Well, that, and I also get the feeling that as a mere enthusiast, that I seem to have a better understanding of scientific integrity than this pathetically falsely humble, self-aggrandising tool of an Irishman.

I think he's dishonest because I imagine he couldn't possibly receive the qualifications he's been given at various elite centres of learning without having an understanding of how honest scientific investigation works. He deliberately avoids answering the questions of his opponents, often deflecting such attacks with elephant-in-a-china-shoppe finesse by simply changing the subject, with the hope that nobody notices. And, as has been noted by many others before me, he's taking the use of logical fallacies and delusional assertions to a whole new level.

Australians can be ashamed of Ken Ham. Ireland can be ashamed of Lennox.

Gary

[Logic]

Originally Posted by Bryce1993

So if you're mature enough not to care that we pray at assembly and have the occasional christian speaker, Inaburra is an awesome awesome awesome school...

Why would not caring that you pray at your school make a person mature? I'd actually say it's more mature to care about it and not just blithely accept the 'norm'.

I am more significant than a random group of atoms.

No you're not. That's about it and what's wrong with that?

[Worldslaziestbusker]

Originally Posted by Bryce1993

G'day. Inaburra is a superb school, I would say that Inaburra encourages thought about what your worldview is. The latest theology forum gave opportunity for any student to tell everyone what it is they believe, or think about the world/life.. So if you're mature enough not to care that we pray at assembly and have the occasional christian speaker, Inaburra is an awesome awesome awesome school, and I will be sad to leave.

Who gave you authority to decide that not caring about involuntary prayer is a mark of maturity?
If the questions posed here were shallow, and recall they were specifically geared toward getting people to think within the limited confineds of a Q & A session, you should be able to answer them easily. Please do. I have more in depth questions for when you're done.

[Xeno]

@MenSat: To be a mathematician requires no specific knowledge or understanding of philosophy of science or scientific method, of which mathematics is a tool. It may be surprising that an intelligent person does not have some grasp of the field but not surprising that a mathematician would not, any more so than a lawyer or accountant. All of these require logic but that is not exactly the same thing, or not an equivalent application of it. I consider this is often misunderstood, especially by people like Lennox and abjohnoei.

[Goldenmane]

Originally Posted by Xeno

@MenSat: To be a mathematician requires no specific knowledge or understanding of philosophy of science or scientific method, of which mathematics is a tool. It may be surprising that an intelligent person does not have some grasp of the field but not surprising that a mathematician would not, any more so than a lawyer or accountant. All of these require logic but that is not exactly the same thing, or not an equivalent application of it. I consider this is often misunderstood, especially by people like Lennox and abjohnoei.

Not to mention that mathematics is just as capable of being used to build self-coherent castles in the fucking air as it is to build actual meaningful structures founded on solid ground. It doesn't matter how consistent the internal logic is; if your basic premises are bullshit, then so will everything constructed upon them be.