Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – yet one more list of questions for atheists that fails

This is a list of 29 (!) questions from a family of apologists that style themselves the AIIA Institute (such a lovely appeal to authority attempt. Anyone can start an “institute”).  I found out about them since they took out a full-page ad in Yankee Magazine (a regional tourism, etc magazine for the northeast US).  They are evangelical Christians and the typical sadistic beliefs about hell, etc.  They also believe that the bible is without error or fault.  Of course, that only holds up within their own claims of what the bible “really” means.

I’m really, really bored at work, waiting on a refit.  There is not one thing new here at all.  It is a decent list of just how incompetent apologists are.

Unsurprisingly, this starts out with the claim that these questions are only for “sincere” skeptics, which in evangel-speak, those who are going to agree with the Christian.  The rest of us are to be deemed insincere and thus untrustworthy since we dare not to agree with the particular version of Christianity presented. 

“1) What would it take to persuade you to become a believer?”

Evidence.  And do specify which version of Christianity I’m supposed to become a believer in. Oh and what would it take for you to become a Wicca (or insert any religion here)?

“2) If you could be persuaded that Christianity is true, would you become a Christian?”

Nope, the god described is ignorant and violent.  I have better standards than that.

“3) Do you believe that it’s absolutely true that all truth is relative, or that it’s only relatively true that absolute truth exists?”

A rather hilariously phrased question.  There are truths aka facts.  Nothing shows that any religion’s baseless claims are facts.

“4) On what ground do you (or anyone else) stand to object[1]ively answer the previous question?”

Facts existing.  If you don’t accept facts, do put your hand in some molten steel to check if reality is an opinion.

“5) Would you agree that one can be legitimately persuaded about what is true on the basis of a preponderance of evidence, not just on the basis of 100% empirical proof?”

Yep.  Nice admission that you have no evidence.

“6) Are you only skeptical about Christianity, or are you unsure about just how many gods you doubt, about the reality of knowledge itself, or about whether you even actually exist?”

Another hilariously phrased question by someone desperate to make a “gotcha” question.  There is no evidence for *any* god.  No reason to doubt reality (see molten steel point above) or my existence.  But nice try to find a gap for your god.  

“7) Is it possible that your skepticism is based on pride or on a lack of effort to resolve it?”

Nope.  I’m not the one who has made up a god in their image. What I have is self-respect and I don’t need to believe in a petty god.   

“8) Is it possible that your unbelief in a perfect God is the result of some negative experience that you’ve had with imperfect Christians?”

Nope, they were perfect Christians e.g. humans who think that some imaginary being agrees with them.  Some were nice, some weren’t.  Still no evidence for their versions, and your version, of a god.  

“9) If every effect has a cause, who or what caused the cosmos?”

Don’t know.  Still no evidence for your god.  

“10) From whence derives humanity’s universal moral sense?”

There is no such thing as “humanity’s universal moral sense”.  We do have some morals in common since they help civilization work.  And funny how Christians can’t agree what morals their god wants.  

“11) Please explain how personality could have evolved from impersonal matter, or how order and the irreducibly complex components of life could have resulted from chaos.”

 Don’t quite know yet.  Still no evidence for your god. 

“12) Are you able to live consistently and happily with every aspect of your present worldview and skepticism?”

Yep.  This is the common Christian attempt to claim that atheists *must* be nihilists.  Happily we aren’t, and Chritsianity has no lock on benevolence or humaneness.  

“13) Wouldn’t it make better sense to live as though the God of the Bible exists rather than to live as though He doesn’t, just in case He does?”

Nothing more than Pascal’s Wager.   Takes a stupid god to accept people who are believing “just in case”.

“14) In what sense was Jesus a ‘Good Man’ if He was lying in His claims to be God?”

Jesus is imaginary.  The unknown author was writing down baseless claims.  Just like any guy who wrote a myth down e.g. Hesiod, etc.

“15) Most people are unwilling to write off Jesus’ claims to be God as mere self-delusion, pathological lying, early-on rumors that got out of hand, or the idea that He was an alien first-century avatar. But if one of those postulates are realistic, how would you explain His claims?”

I do wonder, who the heck has said that Jesus was an alien?   This is a variant on the lord liar lunatic nonsense that forgets one “L”:  legend.  These weren’t JC’s claims; they were the unknown authors.  

“16) How do you explain how one man with no formal education, who was virtually untrav[1]eled, and died at age 33, is still today radically affecting lives and society?”

Hmmm, do you explain how one man with no formal education, who was virtually untraveled, and died at age 62, is still today radically affecting lives and society?   Oh yeah, that was Mohammed.  No evidence of JC at all. The answer, people are gullible. 

“17) If Jesus’ resurrection was faked, why would 11 intelligent middle-aged men (Jesus’ disciples) have willingly died for what they knew to be a lie?”

There is no evidence of apostles either.  All you have is a set of claims aka the bible.  Claims of martyrdom are baseless.  

18) Have you ever considered the fact that Christianity is the only religion whose leader is reported to have risen from the dead?

 Yes.  So?  No evidence of that at all.

19) How do you explain the empty tomb of Jesus given the fact that credentialed scholars have countered every single attempt to refute it, e.g. the swoon theory, hallucination theory, stolen body hypothesis, etc.?

Christians can’t agree on the tomb’s location, so no reason to think that one was ever full or emptied.  It’s a story.

“20) How can one realistically discount the eyewitness testimony of over 500 witnesses to a living Jesus following His crucifixion (see 1 Corinthians 15:6)?”

ROFL.  There is no such thing as eyewitness testimony of over 500 people. There is a claim of 500 unknown people seeing Jesus, written by an unknown author.   Nice try to lie about what the bible says: “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.”

“21) How do you explain David’s graphic portrayal of Jesus’ death by crucifixion in Psalm 22, written 600 years or more previous to crucifixion ever even being used as a form of capital punishment?”

Psalm 22 literally has not one mention of anything (the rest of the article about the psalm: 2nd part, 3rd part) like cruxifiction.  It does mention shriveled feet, and a lot about cows, and dogs and lions (but no tigers or bears).     

“22) Why does the Bible alone, of all of the world’s sacred literature, contain hundreds and hundreds of meticulously fulfilled prophecies?”

It doesn’t have “meticulously fulfilled prophecies” either.   Not one bit can be shown to be a coherent prophecy.

“23) How did 40 men of many varied professions, over a period of 1,500 years, and living on three separate continents, ever manage to author one unified message, i.e. the Bible?”

No evidence of any of these claims e.g. “40 men”, on separate “continents”, and over 1500 years.  As for a unified message?  ROFL.  Oh my.  The poor bible is a mash of contradicting messages.  How do we know?  It takes an entire industry of “apologetics” to try to make it make sense, and even apologists don’t agree.

“24) How is it reasonable to doubt the reliability of Scripture considering the fact that the number of copies of Bible manuscripts and their proximity to the original manuscripts far exceeds that of all other ancient literature?”

No “original manuscripts” so this claim is simply a lie from the start.   Add to that the number of copies or accuracy makes nothing true.  If this was the case, Dianetics is more true than the bible, and we’re all in danger of thetan infestation.

“25) How do you account for the vast ongoing archaeological documentation of the accuracy of Bible stories, places, and people?”

There is no “ongoing archaeological documentation of the accuracy of the bible”.  What we do find is that the claims of the bible are unsupported by archaeology e.g. the nonsense of “exodus” never happened.   

“26) Why were/are so many brilliant scientists, dead and alive, men and women of strong Christian faith?”

Argument from authority logical fallacy.  The Christian also fails to mention that the various people he is claiming were/are from vastly different versions of Christianity.   

“27) Because earth and life origins are observable, verifiable, or falsifiable, how does so-called historical science amount to anything more than just another faith system?”

“Historical science?”     

“28) How is the Second Law of Thermodynamics reconcilable with modern progress[1]ive naturalistic evolutionary theory?”

Again, the Christian demonstrates a complete ignorance of the laws of thermodynamics.  The poor dears can’t grasp that we are not in a closed system. 

“29) If you are nothing more than the random assembly of molecules over vast eons of time, and if you will therefore soon cease to exist, why care about anything? Why go on?”

Why not? I’m enjoying myself. Here the poor Christian is using the typical fear and ignorance his religion requires to exist.  He also tries to pretend that atheists have to be nihilists.  Happily, most of us aren’t. 

“Why oh why aren’t people flocking to Christianity anymore?” ask the believers.  Because apologetics fail.