CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
So answering that question with "I know you are but what am I" is a mature response in what bizarre universe?
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Fundamentalist Atheists
- Thread starter 1137
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So answering that question with "I know you are but what am I" is a mature response in what bizarre universe?
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
I love how you can ignore the bulk of an argument and just respond to a single sentence, and still have an air of smug, intellectual superiority in your response.
Dawkins' response in the video I linked - which I can only assume you didn't watch - is definitely not "I know you are but what am I", and neither is the response to the question as I explained it. Please deal with the entirety of a person's argument in future, please, and don't just take one sentence out of context in order to avoid dealing with the arguments you are unable to refute.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Wow. So you really do believe that Dawkin's response was a intelligent response to what was basically Pascal's Wager. If you believe that responding to Pascal's Wager with "I know you are but what I am" is intelligent then you must indeed have a very low standard of what is intelligent.
I guess you also probably believe that Robot Chicken is intelligent high brow social satire in the likes of Moliere.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
I don't think there is such a thing as an "intelligent response" to a question which is, as I've stated, irrelevant and pointless to ask. The only reasonable response is to such a question is to point out how irrelevant and pointless it is to ask it - which is what Dawkins does.
Again, that was not Dawkins' response. Watch the video I posted.
Ad hominem attacks don't help you win a losing battle.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
So you are saying that Pascal's Wager an argument devised by super-genius Blaise Pascal does not deserve an intelligent response?
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Actually, for your benefit, I'm going to transcribe his response to the question from the video:
Question: "This is probably going to be the most simplest one for you to answer, but; what if you're wrong?"
Dawkins: "Well, what if I'm wrong? I mean, anybody could be wrong. We could all be wrong about the flying spaghetti monster and the pink unicorn and the flying teapot. Um, you happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in the Christian faith; you know what it's like not to believe in a particular faith, because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had been brought up in India, you would be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in - in - um, Denmark in the time of the Vikings you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in - in classical Greece, you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa, you' be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian God in which, by the sheerest accident, you happen to have been brought up and ask me the question 'what if I'm wrong'? What if YOU'RE wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea?"
It's not even remotely "I know you are but what am I".
Pascal's wager isn't just "what if you're wrong".
Pascal's wager is much more elaborate and makes a series of specific claims about the consequences of believing or not believing in God. And, frankly, I think the argument is extremely poor and crumbles at even the slightest attempt at refutation by anything other than an incredibly simplistic mind. I don't care if he happened to be a genius in some other aspects of his life - his wager is a poor, badly constructed argument.
Question: "This is probably going to be the most simplest one for you to answer, but; what if you're wrong?"
Dawkins: "Well, what if I'm wrong? I mean, anybody could be wrong. We could all be wrong about the flying spaghetti monster and the pink unicorn and the flying teapot. Um, you happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in the Christian faith; you know what it's like not to believe in a particular faith, because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had been brought up in India, you would be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in - in - um, Denmark in the time of the Vikings you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in - in classical Greece, you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa, you' be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian God in which, by the sheerest accident, you happen to have been brought up and ask me the question 'what if I'm wrong'? What if YOU'RE wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea?"
It's not even remotely "I know you are but what am I".
Pascal's wager isn't just "what if you're wrong".
Pascal's wager is much more elaborate and makes a series of specific claims about the consequences of believing or not believing in God. And, frankly, I think the argument is extremely poor and crumbles at even the slightest attempt at refutation by anything other than an incredibly simplistic mind. I don't care if he happened to be a genius in some other aspects of his life - his wager is a poor, badly constructed argument.
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CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Questioner "What if you are wrong"
Summary of Dawkin's smug and borderline racist little rant: "What if you are wrong..."
Sounds like "I know you are but what am I" to me.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
I predict this post will be ignored.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
If you can't respond intelligently, don't respond at all.
You really actually do believe that Dawkins responding to the question "What if you are wrong?" with "What if you are wrong..." is somehow intelligent?
Please explain.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
I've explained about three time already. If you cannot be bothered to read my posts, or respond to mine - or Dawkins' - arguments in their entirety, or show the intellectual honesty and decency to not result to ad hominem attacks against either of us, I don't see the point in trying to debate this or any other subject with you.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
I read your posts and they had no substance, just some crybabying at me about how I was being a big old meanie towards Dawkins and you're insistence that Dawkin's response must be substantial because Dawkin's said it, you believe it and that settles it. I am sorry but where I come from that is not a refutation.
I have seen this video before, and all I get out of it is nonsense of Dawkins. His refutation is basically him ranting about a person's birthplace, Thor and Zeus and some mildly racist comments which he ends with the somehow witty in your mind retort 'What if you are wrong..."
I still don't see how answering the question "What if you are wrong" with "What if you are wrong" is an intelligent response and you have yet to show me how such a response is intelligent, in fact you refuse too.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
And you call atheists smug?
Then you obviously aren't listening. I can elucidate his point, if you wish:
"What if you are wrong?" is a meaningless question to ask, because you can ask it with regards to any belief about anything. What if you are wrong about Islam? What if you are wrong about Zeus? What if you are wrong about pink unicorns? It's a question that can be asked of any position, because it isn't based on any kind of comprehension or understanding of the beliefs of the person being asked, but instead based entirely on the assumption that the person asking holds the only alternative belief. Dawkins illustrates how ludicrous this question is, because there are a multitude of Gods that neither he nor the person asking the question believe in, and they could both potentially be wrong about one, several, or all of them, producing any number of possible outcomes as a result. This is similar to the refutation of Pascal's wager, which asserts without basis the false dichotomy of "if God exists, we are rewarded for belief, but if God doesn't exist, nobody gets anything". While Pascal's wager makes specific claims that require specific refutation "What if you are wrong?" makes no actual claims whatsoever from which we can actually draw an meaningful conclusion about the question. Hence Dawkins' response "what if you are wrong about the great Juju in the ocean?"
And I still don't see how an argument I've already explained three times, transcribed in full, and contains more than just the five words you are selectively quoting continues to be completely ignored by you.
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
Even super geniuses make dumb arguments sometimes. Pascal's Wager is among the dumbest.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
But what if you're WRONG?!!!!
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
If you're seriously asking, which is a little hard to believe, I'll answer.
If I'm wrong about the Muslim hell, I guess I will end up there, along with you and all the other Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and assorted other folk in the world.
But what am I to do? You want me to embrace Mohammad on the chance that he might have been the one and only true prophet of God? But if I do that, then I will have to suffer the Christian hell, along with many other hells claimed by many other religions over the years.
What if I'm wrong? Hey, what if you're wrong?