Upcoming Lecture and Debate next week:

[X]

Does anyone here know anything about the "Can an Engineer Believe in God?" lecture and the "Does God Exist?" Debate?

I know the CEBG is hosted by Campus Crusade for Christ (appearantly an Evangelical orginization, but OI don't know how conservative the local group is), and the lecturer for CEBG is the same individual who will be presenting the theistic side of the DGE debate.  Is CCFC hosting the debate, too?

Is anyone here going to be attending on or both?

More importantly: does anyone have access to a digital camcorder, so we can tape the presentation and debate and put them online (Google Video, maybe) for those who cannot attend both/any?

[brian]

They are both hosted by Crusade, and I will probably go to both, although I do not have a camera.

As an engineering student and an atheist, I was rather surprised at such a question.  Can an engineer believe in god?  Are there any arguments against theistic engineers?  Is he going to somehow flip it around to say atheists cant be engineers?  Isn't the answer automatically yes because Durston holds a B.Sc in Mechanical engineering and practiced engineering before he was doing tours with Crusade?

Personally, I don't care what imaginary friend you do or don't talk to, as long as you can design safe bridges.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if the proportion of atheists is higher among engineers, as it seems like the kind of qualities that are necessary in engineering are also the kind of qualities that a lot of atheists have (higher education, scientific literacy, analytical thinking skills, asking questions about how and why things work, reading more than one book, etc.).  On the other hand, a lot of engineering students seem to share a lot of negative traits with theists (sexism, homophobia, social conservatism, etc.), so you never know.  Maybe there is more to it than just the chauvinistic frat boy attitude and gang mentality promoted by our fucking wonderful (HEAVY sarcasm) student society.  The proportion of atheists in various occupations would be an intersting statistic to look up though... maybe I should check out that book by Altemeyer and the other guy and see if it is in there...


(interestingly if you google his name, you find out that Durston is a TOTAL FUCKING LOON who supports genocide, yet blames atheism for 50% of all killings in the history of mankind (if you don't count abortions?  Don't even get me started on pro-lifers) and considers atheism "the most dangerous philosophy ever embraced by humanity."  Really?  Which philosophy is more dangerous, atheism ("I don't believe in god") or fascism ("lets go kill a bunch of Jews!").  And Hitler was a Catholic, not an atheist as morons argue.  Apparently he also has no morals whatsoever, because the only thing stopping him from killing a bunch of people is Jesus... unless god tells him to)

[Steven]

The proportion of atheists in various occupations would be an intersting statistic to look up though... maybe I should check out that book by Altemeyer and the other guy and see if it is in there...

I flipped through it the other day at the Millennium Library but only had a few minutes so I couldn't read in depth (I work next door and was on a break). It seemed interesting though. The data seemed to come mostly from atheist organizations, the reason being that if you take a random sample of people, not many will be atheists.

[X]

They are both hosted by Crusade, and I will probably go to both, although I do not have a camera.

As an engineering student and an atheist, I was rather surprised at such a question.  Can an engineer believe in god?  Are there any arguments against theistic engineers?  Is he going to somehow flip it around to say atheists cant be engineers?  Isn't the answer automatically yes because Durston holds a B.Sc in Mechanical engineering and practiced engineering before he was doing tours with Crusade?

That occured to me, too.
I saw another poster asking "Should a scientist believe in God?" (in the tunnnel to U.C. just outide Armes)for the same lecture.  It's an entirely diiferent question, and the answer depends heavily on the context (i.e. Woods Hole Oceanographic institute firing a creatinist because, let's face it, a creationist isn't likely to be able to do a job that references evolutionary biology very well).

As for the fellow being an loon, well, it seems you might be right.
He appears to be an ID/Creationist.
This is the result of a quick Google on the fellow.

Does anyone know anything about Mr. Schroeder?  Best of luck to the guy, although if Mr. Durston starts ranting about genocide, atheist immorality and creationism, he might just discredit himself and leave Schroeder with not much of a challenge.

Maybe I'll cut class and go to both, just for a lark.

[brian]

So wait, are these separate events (one for engineers, one for science students, one for whoever else), or just one event with advertising targeting each building with the slogan "can a _______ believe in god?"?

[trevor]

This debate has happened for many years previous; from what I've head, CfC usually tapes it, though I'm not sure what we'd have to do to get our hands on that tape. I don't have a video camera either, unfortunately. I can record the audio I suppose...

Indeed, Kirk Durston has a pretty bad rep if you're just going on a google search - see 1, 2

Durston seems to do a lot of these kinds of debates and talks. Here are two reports of such debates: a detailed one from the Atheist Community of Austin and a short one from The Manitoban (in 1998). It will be interesting to see if he uses similar arguments.

Tim Shroeder got his PhD in philosophy from Stanford, so he gets props from me. The only info I could find on him was: 1, 2. I'm looking forward to hearing him speak.

[X]

So wait, are these separate events (one for engineers, one for science students, one for whoever else), or just one event with advertising targeting each building with the slogan "can a _______ believe in god?"?

Same lecture (Monday's).
Just marketing, I guess.

The debate on Friday should be a little less one-sided than Monday's talk, which, if Mr. Durston hold's true to his reputation, should be one long disingenuous vitriolic rant.

[trevor]

Debate's on Wednesday right? Indeed, the debate should be interesting; there's about an hour for questions, so we'll have to get in some good ones.

[X]

Did anyone go to the lecture?
I would have, but I felt my other class was more important than what promised to be a one-sided vitriolic display of bigotry.
I would not be surprised to hear that Durston followed his standard formula of atheism = immoral, and communists prove it.

(btw: For that to even be valid, he'd have to prove atheism was the cause behind the crimes of communism, and the only way to do that would be to prove that atheism leads to communism.  Of course, he can't do this.  He can only demonstrate that communism officially supported atheism, at which point the fact that the USSR was atheist has nothing to do with the tragedies done.)

As for the debate, I hope Tim Schroeder Googles his opponent.
The chances of Durston using his "70-bit information argument" are very very good.  1 hour on Google, and Tim woul have more than enough ammo to blow Durston out of the water.
We'll have to wait and see.

(I have discovered that Campus for Christ adores Durston.  Prepare for them to claim a solid victory and the proving of atheism to be immoral/deceptive.)

[brian]

I went to the lecture regarding engineers and, to quote the classic Adam Sandler movie Billy Madison, am now stupider for having heard it.

But seriously, this wasn't about engineering at all.  Using classic creationist tactics, they changed topics to a lecture on ID instead of about relating belief or nonbelief in deities to engineering.  I think I counted one reference to engineering, apart from the fact that it was in E3.  Although I felt I didn't know enough about biology to offer a complete refutation of his 45 minute bullshit biology lecture, I was happy to see that there was someone who I recognized from HAM challenge him (although I did have to leave before question period was done).

Also there were a couple Durston lunatic moments, such as:
Claiming that he had witnessed three miracles in 53 years.
Claiming that infinite justice (read: hell) is warranted because if we commit any immoral (in the eyes of a patriarchal celestial dictator) acts, we not only fuck up our universe, but fuck up shit beyond our universe and cause ripples into the supernatural universe (read: god) from the butterfly effect and therefore cause Jesus's (read: God's) crucifiction to be even worse and lasting forever (sorry, I can barely explain his lunacy)
Claiming that basically no matter what we do, due to the butterfly effect results in infinite evil.  Because if Winston Churchill's mom slept in a different position, there would be no Winston Churchill, and that would result in shit being so much worse.

I have to wish Tim Schroeder well, because Durston is quite good at presenting his case to people who haven't studied evolutionary biology in the short time frame allowed in debate format.  And I don't want to stereotype, but I worry that a philosopher might find himself over his head when it comes to proving Durston wrong on biology.  This is the sort of thing where it seems like atheists have to be a lot smarter than theists when it comes to a debating them.  We have to have the background (and keep current) in evolutionary biology, physics, astrophysics, and whatever Stephen Hawking does to refute random people who go to the simplest wrong answer of "god did it"

[Steven]

I think I'm going to have trouble not laughing my ass off tomorrow. Seriously I don't even know where to begin with those arguments. Let's hope Tim Schroeder is able to effectively challenge this guy's bullshit.

[X]

Well, the debate was dissapointing.

I don't think Tim Schroeder did well at all.

Durston mentioned a few proofs for god:

1)  fulfilled Bible prophecies (Durston got a bit angry when someone questioned Jesus' divinity).
2)  probablity of information in galaxy coupled
3)  the Kalam cosmological argument.
4)  objective morality, revisited  (because appearantly all good things prove god, and all bad things are either a) god allowing us free will, b) for the "greater good", or c) because of atheists).
3)  he's "experienced" god.

Durston spouted off many odd things during his presentations and the question period.
As I alluded to, he got a bit upset when one fellow questioned Jesus' divinity, but as the person had already asked a (related) question and time was short, his outburst was reduced to a brief squawk of outrage.
He managed not to mention Hitler in equivalence to atheism (which he's done in the past, despite Hitler being Catholic), but instead presented the death tolls of 5 communist countries, and said "Look!  Atheists have no moral guide!", but he did not show that the death tolls of communism were related to atheism.  There is a difference between a society being largely atheist and killing people, versus a society killing people because they're largely atheist.  His sole point is that if they weren't atheist, people wouldn't have died, because Christians don't do that kind of thing (*cough*HitlerCrusadesInquisititionRwandaetc*cough*).  It's sort of an elaborate No-True-Scottsman fallacy.
He also repeatedly stressed that these countries "taught the children atheism" from a young age.  I'll leave the indignation over the complete misrepresentaiton of atheism to you.
The information generation from randmoness and Kalam cosmological argument are not in my field of expertise, but I have read some very good rebuttals of them.  HIs whole premise for them was that the universe began, therefore it had a beginning, therefore it had a timeless, beginningless, uncaused creator to make it.  He accused scientists of circular logic for their position that "nature caused nature", but didn't see his own circular logic in that "universe had a creator, therefore was created by a creator".
He managed to avoid the hole infinitee regression problem of who created the creator by stipulating that since the creator existed before time (a dimension of our universe), it must be timeless and therfore had no creator.
I also noted that he never proved this "objective morality" even exists.  Indeed, I would argue it does not.  If it morality were indeed objective, different societies would have the same moral code despite completely seperate heritages.  This is not the case, and it is easy to see that morality and ethics are natural results of the soceity they are in.
In regards to the fullfilled biblical prohecies, he makes a few references, then assumes (for it's the only way his argument can stand) that all the texts concerned are literal acocunts and have never been altered or changed by intention or error.  Of course, theologians know this is not the case.  And how hard would it be for people documenting some obscure Jewish fellow from the Essenes sect to modify the exagerated retellings of his story so that it came into line with the biblical prophecies.  Heck, Durston believes in the virgin birth, despite the fact that the birth stories are, shall we say, unreliable at best.  And in the empty tomb, but don't ask the exact circumstances, as they change gospel to gospel.
And in regards to Brians mention of the "butterfly effect", during the debate Durston explained it as being an explanation of bad things.  God exists outside of time, and therefore sees all time equally.  So the things that happen have repurcussions in the unknowable (to us at the time) future.  But as god sees all time equally, the future is known to him, which is why he had Winston Churchill's wife sleep a certain way so that the right sperm impregnated the egg to create Churchill.  It's absurd, and only works if his particular definition of god is true.  And as his definition if borne out by false assumptions and errant scripture, well, you can guess the rest.

In short, Durston's whole argument rests on the existence of the Christan Godhead (father/son/spirit), and thus he succeeds in maligning every non-Christian, and even Christians who do not believe Durston's particular flavour of Christianity holds the ultimate objective truth.

After all, every religion that is now false was once true.  Heck, modern Christianity and the Christianity of a few hundred hyears ago (and a few hundred years before that, etc for 2000 years) would all consider each other to be false.


Tim Schroeder, on the other hand, mostly talked about why he fell away from religion.  Instead of rational arguments, most of his points were emotional and subjective pleas.  He, in my opinion, did very poorly at countering Durston's religious rhetoric.

A shame.


Durston's "proofs" were not even challenging to my lack of belief.  If anyone, as a result of that meeting, chooses to look into both sides of the issue, they will discover Durston's points are easily refuted, and that not all atheists are atheist because they percieved god as "doing a bad job".

As much as believe the guy's sincerity, I just can't bring myself to applaud Schroeder over his handling of the debate.

[brian]

I had to leave before the question period, but here's my thoughts.

Compared to Durston, Schroeder seemed ill prepared, and seemed to focus too much on his personal experiences.  It was bizarre to see the atheist talking about his personal experiences and the Christian trying to use logic.  And although I do identify with Star Trek references, I don't know if they were that helpful.  I think there were some points that he could have easily pounced on Durston in his rebuttal.  I also think Schroeder should have challenged Durston on morality.  It seemed like everyone took for granted the bullshit claim that we need god to have a system of morals. 

I also didn't like how Durston dismissed scholars who doubt the existence of Jesus by dismissing them all as like Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code.  Excuse me, but isn't the Da Vinci Code fiction and not serious scholarship?

Biggest WTF moment:  Durston's claim that the only thing Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and a couple other totalitarian communist leaders had in common was atheism, and therefore atheists have no morality.  They all also had penises, and more importantly, subscribed to totalitarian interpretations of communism.  What do 5 communists have in common?  Obviously not beliefs in communism.  I could (if I were a lunatic like Durston) make the same screwy argument:  Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, Pinochet, and Videla were all fascist dictators who killed a lot of people and were all Catholic.  Therefore Catholics have fucked up morals.

[brian]

Kirk Durston is an asstard.

So, I ran across these videos (http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/11/diexpelled-for.html) on the internet today.  Apparently what happened was William Dembski and the Discovery Institute ripped off a video from Harvard and a company named XVIVO that explained some of what goes on inside the cell, stripped it of the scientific narration and added narration to make it more like "ooh, look at that!  It's complex!" and show it to try to "prove" intelligent design.

And where do I recognize it from?  Kirk Durston's "Can an Engineer Believe in God?" lecture!  Which occurred a couple months after this controversy was brought to light.