McCulloch’s questions: Is there is a moral Zeitgeist that continually evolves in society, often in opposition to religious morality? Do believers really use the Bible as a source of their moral values? https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117859#p117859 Is there is a moral Zeitgeist that continually evolves in society, often in opposition to religious morality? Generally speaking, no, morality does …

Read more “Chapter 7 – The ‘Good’ Book and the Moral Zeitgeist”

McCulloch’s question: Does our morality have a Darwinian explanation? An additional question: What is meant by “good” and “moral sense”? https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=115484#p115484 QED wrote:You name a moral (or lack thereof) and I’ll bet we can explain it within a Darwininan framework. OK, I’ll name one example … Enron. QED wrote:This implies an absolute moral reference for …

Read more “Chapter 6 – The Roots of Morality: Why Are We Good?”

According to Dawkins, how did religion arise? McCulloch’s question: Is religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful? https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=114150#p114150 According to Dawkins, how did religion arise? Throughout the book, I am reminded of “for someone with a hammer, every problem is a nail.” Dawkins carries the hammer of natural selection and uses …

Read more “Chapter 5 – The Roots of Religion”

What arguments does Dawkins present that God does not exist? Are they valid arguments? McCulloch’s questions: Does evolution by natural selection demonstrate that the argument from design is wrong? He suggests that a hypothetical cosmic designer would require an even greater explanation than the phenomena that they intended to explain. https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=112138#p112138 He suggests that a …

Read more “Chapter 4 – Why There Almost Certainly Is No God”

Dawkins presents several arguments used to argue for God’s existence: – The Unmoved Mover – The Uncaused Cause – The Cosmological Argument – The Argument from Degree – The Argument from Design (Teleological Argument) – The Ontological Argument – The Argument from Beauty – The Argument from Personal Experience – The Argument from Scripture – …

Read more “Chapter 3 – Arguments for God’s Existence”

Not a whole lot of action in chapter 1 so far. So, I’ll go ahead and start up chapter 2. Discussions can still continue in chapter 1, but hopefully by starting chapter 2 more people will want to get involved. I’ll repost McCulloch’s proposed questions: – Is the God Hypothesis (“there exists a super-human, supernatural …

Read more “Chapter 2 – The God Hypothesis”

I’ll kick off the debate on chapter 1 with a few questions. Feel free to add more questions for us to debate. What does Dawkins mean by “deserved respect”? Does religion really have “undeserved respect”? https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=109944#p109944 FinalEnigma wrote:By deserved respect, I think Dawkins means respect and treatment that are properly reflective of the thing to …

Read more “Chapter 1 – A Deeply Religious Non-believer”