BYS has been having a monthly debate the last six months, and I am quite frankly getting frustrated by the weak arguments and preaching during these debates.
During the “Does god Exist” debate in October, the best Dave Penrose, one of the Christian debaters had come up with was that he could not imagine the big bang without a creator who was outside of space and time (how could ANYONE know this?) and a personal god, which means he has feelings and made the universe just for us. this is a perfect example of the argument from ignorance, and I’m surprised that he didn’t even know it.
Int he last debate in January, 2014, Doug Hamp, one of the Christian debaters and Biblical scholar, admitted that it was OK to kill babies during the Passover because it was God’s wish. There are so many things very wrong about his belief, including how his god “hardened the pharaoh’s heart”. But in the end, he stuck with the divine command theory and believes in infanticide. In the first debate in September of 2013, he said “sometimes people have to be killed”. What a cruel and unnecessary evil behavior his religion believes in.
In the December debate on “Does Prayer Work”, the best example the Christians Dave and Deborah came up with was that a computer was returned to them after being lost, and that a cold miraculously was healed overnight. Come on guys – can’t you do better than that? there have been 49 prayer studies the past 52 years (many by Christian groups) that resulted in no correlation between people praying and results being offset more than chance.
And here’s the big study, if conducted, that would prove it conclusively: Take 5 major religions and see of they patients that entered a hospital did better aver the patients, their family and friends prayed for them. Better yet, discount the prayer and just have a record of the patient’s religious beliefs. If their god is the only true god (pick one religion) they would be healed faster (or had a better survival rate) than all the other religions, of course accounting for the hospital’s care level and medically technical abilities. Just imagine if this study concluded that if you were a Hindu – or even a certain type of Christian sect, that you would get our of the hospital 30% faster than the all other patients who believed in another god or type of Christianity. How many billions would be put into research to find out why these people who believed in X religion did better? was it their food? Water? Genealogy? The culture habits? Exercise?
And here’s the real kicker: If they did find a natural solution, would it be a natural one that would be given too everyone to improve their quality of life? Could you imagine if the scientists can with that conclusion to the head(s) of that one ‘true’ religion and asked if they wanted to share this life-giving answer to the world? if they did, they would have to admit that it was NOT their religion which cured their people, but a natural one. Would they be selfish and, in wanted to prove that their were the true religion, keep it a secret to prove to the world that they were the only religion that has proof that it’s true? I wonder.
So far, I have not found and research on such a study. Sure would be nice to know what the results would be. it might indeed prove that there is a god, but I doubt it.