Two challenges

Dear Lord. To show my love for you, I am willing and able to sacrifice my son or brother for you. However, since I do not have a son or brother, I am praying to you that I can sacrifice Kent Hovind or Pat Robertson instead. However, I do have a question. Do I have to use a stone knife, like in the old days, or can I use my set of Ginsu's? If'n I don't hear from you by sundown, well I guess that means that you command me to just go right ahead with it then. Thanks you Lord, Amen!

Define God:
God is defined as the universal set.

Of course that means that one can't construct a logical framework that includes him. On this point i think me and a deist would agree.

Prove Your Faith Like Abraham Did!:
I already did this. I took my son up to a hill and waved a knife wildly at him. Then i stabbed a ram.

If'n I don't hear from you by sundown, well I guess that means that you command me to just go right ahead with it then

Now, now, no mistaking silence for consent.

Awesome - I've been telling people for years that the problem with ascribing too much meaning (or, 'heaven forfend', predictive or actionable information) to the concept of God is that the concept is extremely ill-posed, as a mathematician might say. Sure, we can't really disprove the existence of God in the most general sense of the word, but that's because nobody is quite sure what they're talking about.

Gosh Darn it Dianne, I was hoping nobody would notice that!Does that mean I don't get to use the Ginsu either?

"Does that mean I don't get to use the Ginsu either?"

Use the stone knives. At least that way, you get to take a knap first!

I was hoping nobody would notice that!Does that mean I don't get to use the Ginsu either?"

What about an experiment ? You will test your Ginsu on Pat, and god, if she doesn't like it, will resurrect him ?

Challenge #1. You will find it in Exodus. "I am Who Am." Further explication of this definition can be found in Anselm's "Proslogium", if you care to read it (Google it online), and Charles Hartshorne's 'Anselm's Discovery' which can explain it much better than Dawkin's illiterate misunderstanding of it.

Challenge #2: I have only daughters, so I don't have to.

Please take these answers with the same lack of seriousness with which you posed the questions.

;)

Asking a theist to "define God" is somewhat like asking an atheist to "define 'all' before the Big Bang" ... neither can define what cannot be defined. In the "Confessions" Augustine in the fourth century sort of answered both the theist and atheist question with: before God created the world there was no time and thus no "before." Yet without a good solid scientific provable answer, the theist still believes in a God that like a slippery fish refuses to be held, for the theist believes that God is 'outside' time or space or matter, therefore, exists in a separate reality from the 'creation' and so cannot be defined in terms of our reality; so too the atheist building an entire reality upon a not so solid foundation, for the foundation of science is all that came into being after the Big Bang, science cannot explain the genesis of the Big Bang, let alone all before the whole shebang, so the atheist scientist can only counter with "before the Big Bang was no time, for time was created by the Big Bang, so any talk of 'before' is nonsense." Which brings us back to Augustine, who said the same thing nearly two thousand years ago.

In other words, the cosmolgists stick to data and logic and don't arbitraily invent an ungraspable Invisible Pink Unicorn to fill the Before. Advantage: science.

So, basically, the atheist says "'before the Big Bang' is a nonsensical formulation" and the theist says "'before the Big Bang' is a nonsensical formulation and that's where God lives"?

I fear that many of the deluded will meet the second challenge by having sent their children to Iraq...

Disclaimer: I am not a theist.

Challenge 1: God is a human conception of a "higher power" employed to reduce one's fear of mortality, to justify dubious actions, or to promote harmony or obedience in a society.

Challenge 2: Hell no.

If'n I don't hear from you by sundown, well I guess that means that you command me to just go right ahead with it then

Homer to God: "In gratitude, I present you this offering of cookies and milk. If you want me to eat them for you, give me no sign. Thy will be done."

I think asking to define God is a little unreasonable. If God were to exist, it does not follow that we would know everything about him/her/it. That theists are unable to define the unknown shows nothing.

Science, though it cannot describe the unknown, can discover it through the scientific method. This is a clear difference between theism and science, and one worth emphasizing. But the presence or absence of a definition of God is irrelevant.

One of the biggest 'outs' a theist has when confronted with reality is to say 'oh, that doesn't conflict with my version of God, so I win.' This 'God' term has no meaning beyond 'stop confronting me with reality'.

Challenge #2 is, honestly, ridiculous. Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son to prove his loyalty. Showing one's faith and devotion by willingly sacrificing one's child, spurred on by nothing more than a stupid challenge on the Internet, is hardly equivalent to Abraham's dilemma. There are hundreds of potential challenges that are much more interesting and not as juvenile. Why not pick a couple of those instead?

On a semi-related note, for a bit of an alternative take on Abraham's dilemma, read Dan Simmons' Hyperion books.

Martin

Mike, asking for a definition of God is nothing more than saying, "When you speak of God, what exactly do you mean by that?" We can also define gravity, but we're also pretty sure that we don't know all there is to know about it. An incomplete definition is still a definition.

Martin

Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son to prove his loyalty.

you state that as if it were fact, rather than a story in a book.

shall we take the Iliad as entirely factual as well?

how do you know one tome is factual, and the other not?

Speaking of sacrifice, atheists in the 20th century were willing to sacrifice MILLIONS for their atheistic philosphy of dialectical materialim and the dream of the glorious classless society.

There has been no limit to what atheists are willing to do. Atheistic scientists(after all, Dawkins tells us most scientists are atheists) have provided nuclear weapons to every government that asked.

Atheist morality is an oxymoron.

Atheists have, historically, speaking, been quite willing to sacrifice...MILLIONS in fact...for the furtherance of their goals.

The atheistic dialectical materialist dream of a classless society.

The dream of filling the world with nuclear weapons. (After all, Dawkins tells us most scientists are atheists and the scientists design the weapons.)

All accomplished.

Abraham was commanded by God to sacrifice his son to prove his loyalty.

And what kind of evil being would command such a thing?

PZ - thank you for linking. To those that wondered why I posed the question 'Define God', it's simple. Because I'm tired of the cop out that one commenter already mentioned, and that's 'my god wouldn't do that' or 'that's not God' or whatever variation they will use. I realize that the likelihood of getting an actual answer on my post is between slim and none, but it's worth a shot, and if nothing else shows how theists really don't know what even THEY mean by God.

So far they've proven my point: I've gotten either vague responses that, when questioned, end up in the 'illogical' camp, or any number of variations of the form 'God is unknowable', to which I say: if God is unknowable, why is God constantly rammed down my throat?

Thanks for reading, and thanks again for the link.

-olly

the atheist scientist can only counter with "before the Big Bang was no time, for time was created by the Big Bang, so any talk of 'before' is nonsense."

And the theists give the nonsense a name and tell you that you shouldn't have gay sex because the nonsense says not to. I don't see any reason for them to be smug.

And what kind of evil being would command such a thing?

No one. But an ancient tribal elder might tell this story to induce loyalty to the god he is identified with, thereby tightening control over his people.

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

---Wilfred Owen, a few years back

Oh, Coragyps, thanks for that. I may have to go toss in Britten's War Requiem tonight. Especially after spending the week reading this series in the Boston Globe.

John Farrel,

Dont get it twisted, friend. Me and Olly are deadly serious in both of our challenges. And if you looked at the links you would notice that I said "child" not "son" in my challenge.

How is the sex of the child even relevant to the question anyway? Are you trying to duck the challenge with a pseudo-technicality?

What are you, a trial lawyer?

I guess you dont take your faith too seriously :P

Martin Christensen,

Challenge #2 is not ridiculous. There is nothing ridiculous about proving your loyalty to, and faith in, your God by obeying His command to sacrifice your child!

The only thing ridiculous is your inability to take the challenge seriously. Keep in mind that the story of Abraham is a very important and oft-cited lesson in sermons and Bible classes. I should know; I was taught the story at 7 years old and was even taught that Abrahams action was the correct, moral one.

What is ridiculous is for an Abrahamic theist to refuse to put himself/herself in Abrahams shoes and test his faith by answering whether or not he would do the same in that situation.

WWJD? How about What would Abraham do?

What would YOU do?

MAJeff: My "War Requiem" is on vinyl 500 miles from here - pretty astounding music. I recommend it to the rest of you Pharynguloids.
I'll read your link.... My son-in-law is an Army psychiatrist recently at Ft Hood and now just north of Baghdad. Those are the kids he deals with - as well as a general who came in at 3 AM under strictest secrecy.

Eric Blair,

You obviously havent read your history books too closely. Why did those atheists (Stalin, Mao, etc) kill millions?

They did so to support ANOTHER unjustifiable and illogical concept: the state. In fact, they promoted the state as a religion unto itself.

Both God and Government are immoral and unjustifiable propositions. And belief in either usually results in the deaths of millions.

Theists have killed in the name of God. Theists have killed in the name of the state. And atheists have also killed in the name of the state.

But what atheist, if any, has killed in the name of ATHEISM????

"Speaking of sacrifice, atheists in the 20th century were willing to sacrifice MILLIONS for their atheistic philosphy of dialectical materialim and the dream of the glorious classless society."

Oh, ghod. THAT old screed. They always seem to forget the mass slaughter conducted in the name of religion. I was just reading about the decimation of the Cathars in France ... now THAT is inspiring.

I've been married to the same man for twenty years. I've never committed a crime. I support the local food bank. But I have to be immoral because I'm an atheist?

Ah, religious logic. An oxymoron if I ever heard one.

Maybe I never really got the point of the story of Abraham and his son, but does it seem to anyone else that if Abraham had said to God, "Look, killing my little son is one of the most immoral things you could ask, so, no, I'm not gonna do it. If you want my son dead, YOU kill him."?

And since God is all-loving, all-knowing, all-wise and all-powerful, he'd congratulate Abraham for growing a spine and doing what HE WAS CERTAIN was the right thing to do?

This may seem like a trivial point, but things like this are what pushed me away from this ridiculous religion. It was a cumulative effect. There are other things as well.

The "Mystery of Faith", indeed.

I am an atheist and my wife is Jewish. Our Rabbi gave a sermon about the Abraham story recently in which one of her main points was that she would not have sacrificed her child. She would have argued with God. In the Jewish tradition (in my limited understanding) it is perfectly acceptable to argue with God. It is equally acceptable to argue about the nature of God. So the challenge to define God would not be seen as a problem for Judaism, but a part of it. Some even take this so far as to argue that you can be both Jewish and an Atheist as long as you are seriously considering the question of God. I don't buy that, and our Rabbi would not agree with the idea either. But Rabbis argue with each other all the time. They just tend not to burn each other at the stake about it.

God may be a collective manifest of a populus' superegos. (I wrote more on the site)

There has been no limit to what atheists are willing to do. Atheistic scientists(after all, Dawkins tells us most scientists are atheists) have provided nuclear weapons to every government that asked.

Atheist morality is an oxymoron

I'm pretty sure the Iranians who want nukes aren't atheists. Likewise when the USA developed our nukes I'm pretty sure it wasn't an atheist who chose to use it. Twice. But I guess you think killing with spears is preferable and many, many have done just that as well.

But don't let common sense stop you from you screed. You seem to think not believing in an invisible being makes one immoral, how odd.

Considering how much some people claim to know the will of their god, it's kinda funny that they can't provide any sort of definition, other than unknowable; which, IMO, seems to negate the idea of being able to know the will of their god!

I'm not a believer, but I think I have a definition, though it's not much more useful than "unknowable."

God: An amorphous being whose properties are different for each of its believers. Because it has separate properties for each believer, it has the ability to contain contradictory properties simultaneously. The only way to know the properties of a god for any one believer is to ask them.

Do I get a cookie?

"So, basically, the atheist says "'before the Big Bang' is a nonsensical formulation" and the theist says "'before the Big Bang' is a nonsensical formulation and that's where God lives"?"

So, we are on equal footing? And I would think "nonsensical" is not a bad word, it simply defines what our senses cannot detect, or by extension, what our created sensors cannot detect. But I would disagree with the "that's where God lives" part, I would think God is not encapsulated in any human imagined formulation, for that is the point, this entity that we name God is nonsense to the human sense.

Definition of God: an hypothetical being who offers you the possibilty of existing after your death, thereby satisfying your naturally selected-for desire to continue your existence.

So, we are on equal footing?

Sure -- you add zero more often to your sum describing events prior to the Big Bang, but the net result is the same in this instance.

Definition of God:
a way of saying, "I dunno." Then one worships that ignorance, feels superior for having it, and brags about it to others.

Man. I've turned all negative this evening.

I would think God is not encapsulated in any human imagined formulation, for that is the point, this entity that we name God is nonsense to the human sense.

Then how on Earth can you possibly pretend to know anything about this being? And in fact that is what you are doing is pretending.

So, we are on equal footing?

No. Not at all.

And I would think "nonsensical" is not a bad word, it simply defines what our senses cannot detect, or by extension, what our created sensors cannot detect.

no, nonsense is still a bad word. what you are reaching for is "asensical", which is kind of how I describe creationists who put there fingers in their ears, cover their eyes, and scream LALALALALA as loud as they can.

wow

I would think God is not encapsulated in any human imagined formulation, for that is the point, this entity that we name God is nonsense to the human sense.

This totally supports my first definition. It's Russell's paradox all over again.

I'm puzzled. The 'challenges' imply the sort of dichotomous thinking that I associate with fundementalists, not free thinkers. Whether or not I can conceptualize 'God' in an internally-consistent way does not, I think, have any bearing on the question on whether such an entity really exists, after all. Similarly, attempting to render some judgement as to the
OT god's character by imposing some Bronze Age crisis on our 'modern' sensibilities seems hopeless.

I mean, the questions are interesting and I have views like anyone else, but it's pretty clear that the point of the 'challenges' is to disabuse theists of their delusions on (essentially) aesthetic grounds: 'How can you believe in something that's (ugh) internally-inconsistent or (double-ugh) commands ritual murder?"

Believe it or not, many believers already know that the theologians themselves, when you press them, admit both internal inconsistency in the Bible and gaps in our understanding of what was and wasn't culturally proscribed in the days of the Patriarch. These non-fundamentalists are going to tend to evaluate question #2, in particular, in a total context that doesn't reify one source of Christian teachings (scripture) above and beyond experience, tradition or reason. It's not 'ducking the question' if you think the question is essentially loaded.

SH

Sorry if this has been pointed out before, but didn't Abraham act on a direct command from God?

It strikes me as a bit unfair to ask theists to recreate a specific order. You might as well ask them to start building arks and gathering 2 of every kind of animal.

The first challenge is more than fair, though.

If the concept of God is incoherent, then so is its negation. It is for this reason that I have come to believe, as a hard-core skeptic, that the word "atheist" actually concedes too much. The verbal construct ["a-"]+[descriptive term], as commonly used in any other context, refers in the negative to well-understood and well-defined reality. E.g., if you say something is asymmetric, it is assumed that you know full well what it would mean to say instead that it is symmetric. No such assurance is available to one who would describe himself as an atheist. (The term agnostic is obviously even less defensible.) The label of Atheist makes more sense as an epithet used by the religious, and to accept it as a valid description entails accepting their terms in the argument. Asked if I am an atheist, I always respond "What do you mean by that?" and if asked if I believe in God, I respond "You tell me what you mean by God and I'll tell you whether I think there could be any such thing."

BB:
"for the foundation of science is all that came into being after the Big Bang, science cannot explain the genesis of the Big Bang"

Obviously you haven't looked at the cosmologies that embeds big bang in a larger model, like eternal inflation. They are work in progress, but they questions both of your claims.

"atheist scientist can only counter with "before the Big Bang was no time, for time was created by the Big Bang, so any talk of 'before' is nonsense."

Not all cosmologists are atheists. There are several non-nonsensical answers to your questions what was before big bang and when did time start.

What was before big bang? Inflation universes such as the one we live in may start in a great number of ways: prespace, eternal inflation, brane collisions, boltzmann eras, ... Eternal inflation universes have these options too, and they also have the option to be infinitely old.

When did time start? Spacetime started after big bang, which is what I think you mean.

However, quantum mechanic time is different and it depends on the big bang model when it started, which in turn awaits a quantum gravity theory to be solvable if at all.

It is easy to see that semiclassical eternal inflation universas have lokal spacetimes for each pocket universa. In between pocket universas you have an inflating regime.

And then there are quantum eternal inflation models, which are different yet again. There spacetime depends on each observer, so the question becomes sort of meaningless. Not meaningless as in the before question, but meaningless in the what time do you mean sense.

IMO it is an interesting time to live in which raises such possibilities and have started to try to answer such questions. Brane models and cyclic cosmologies didn't look too god after the WMAP experiment's 1st and 2nd data release, and the coming Planck probe will give yet more data, and so will a number of other experiments thought up lately.

Of course, every time the questions and answers change as science progress, theists will point to a different chapter in some dusty book and say: "hear ye, we have always known it to be so, our god told us the unchanging truth long ago".

"And then there are quantum eternal inflation models"

Actually I think the arbitrariness of time is true for all quantum cosmologies.

Nobody expects the Atheist Inquisition!
You can all thank Eric Blair for that outburst.

I think the arbitrariness of time is true for all quantum cosmologies.

Yep, it is.

God: That unknowable thing that allows you to feel superior to those who don't believe in the unknowable because some literature which you deem holy writ says that the infidels go to a place you don't go (if you believe) once your life functions have ceased.

God also lets you judge other people at will, though his supposed son said don't. God lets you believe that atheists/agnostics cannot be "moral" within social constructs. Because they are infidels you get to judge at will. God said so. Or something.

#1. I'm the program, god is that which is stepping me through the debugger. At the moment, by bits are set so that I don't find such a deity worth worshipping.

#2. Hmmmmm... much more interesting challenge: "Sell everything you have and give the money to the poor." Now, who said that....

"Nobody expects the Atheist Inquisition!"

Yet.over a million babies have been murdered in the USA thanks to the abortion laws

Glad you're here, a. I want to ask you a question I've always wanted to ask right-to-lifers who claim to equate abortion with murder. If that equation holds, should not, in your opinion, both doctor and woman be convicted of first-degree murder (since the act clearly is premeditated) and, in death penalty states, executed? And are you working to bring this state of affairs about? If you do not favor this, then please explain what your actual position is and how it can be compatible with your rhetoric about "murder". I turn the floor back over to you- have at it.

" If that equation holds, should not, in your opinion, both doctor and woman be convicted of first-degree murder (since the act clearly is premeditated) and, in death penalty states, executed? "

Hey genius, if killing unborn children is murder, then obviously killing adults is also murder.

I'm against the death penalty.

About the abortion issue, check out photos of children who were burned (by sodium) in the womb (some are as old as 7-8 months post-conception). It's gruesome.
(you can find them here -- search for photos). Look at the photos then tell me what you think.

Hey genius, if killing unborn children is murder, then obviously killing adults is also murder.

So it's not manslaughter? Or justified homicide? Or negligence? Or war? It's always murder to kill an adult?

Note: OT God commands the deaths of many, many people, and the priests command the deaths of many, many people. All these deaths were murder. Also, murder is prohibited in the Ten Commandments.

http://www.priestsforlife.org/

This is the link missing from the post

Caledonian notice that Steve said "since the act clearly is premeditated"
Premeditated killing is murder not manslaughter

That question is an old one.

Q. "The Bible says that we shouldn't kill, but there were many wars in the Old Testament and today, what's the deal?"

A. Actually, there are three words for kill in the Hebrew language; Rashah - to murder; kill intentionally, Harag - to kill as in sacrificing animals, and Sarat - to slaughter, kill as in the mass killing of war. The Hebrew word used in Exodus 20:13 is "Rashah"; intentional, pre-meditated murder. Therefore the best translation into English is not, "you shall not kill", but "you shall not murder." The word used for the killings as of war in the Old Testament is "Sarat". Therefore the killing of war does not contradict the sixth commandment; "You shall not murder."

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/notkill.html

The commandment refers to unjust killing.

What about when God ordered Joshua and his people to kill every man, woman and child in Canaan?13 What crime could be so great that entire populations of cities were designated for destruction? God told Moses that the nations that the Hebrew were replacing were wicked.14 How "wicked" were these people? The text tells us that they were burning their own sons and daughters in sacrifices to their gods.15 So we see that these people were not really innocent. For these reasons (and others16), God ordered the destruction of the peoples whom the Israelites dispossessed.

John Farrell:
You state, "Challenge #2: I have only daughters, so I don't have to."
Then you can emulate Jephtath, who was forced by God to burn his daughter at the stake to keep an oath.

Chris:
How can you be an atheist and refer to "our Rabbi"?

photos of children who were burned (by sodium) in the womb

So, this is the preferred method of abortion, then?

"So, this is the preferred method of abortion, then?"

Apparently, yes. It is a commonly used method in the US.
See the link for photos and details.

The creature you know as God is not really as He appears, He is merely the protrusion into our universe of a vast hyper-intelligent, pan-dimensional being.

Also, humans are not descended from apes, they are descended from hair dressers, account executives and telephone sanitizers.

You're wrong. Suction abortion, where a fetus is removed using a manual syringe attached to a vacuum pump, is the most common method. Regardless, you and your bloody photos really mean nothing in terms of the question of female rights. What if we make abortion illegal, and women who don't want to carry a baby to term become desperate? What will the most common abortion procedure look like then? I doubt the fetus will look much better...and the women will be worse, since she is actually a fully-developed human being. Your argument is predicated on the idea that a clump of cells that cannot survive without feeding off a woman have rights that invalidate a woman's right to choose whether to give those nutrients to that clump of cells. Basically, you say that, because a woman has had sex, she no longer has body autonomy. Your argument works well for rape apologists too, and they use it all the time.

Anyway, this is a tangent, and I'm sorry for addressing the troll.

JackGoff wrote: " What if we make abortion illegal, and women who don't want to carry a baby to term become desperate? "

ANd your point is??? What if young mothers become desparate and decide to stuff their baby in the garbage? Would you argue (like you are here) that it is up to the mother to decide whether her child lives or dies?

"You're wrong. Suction abortion, where a fetus is removed using a manual syringe attached to a vacuum pump, is the most common method. "

I said "a commonly used method" NOT the most common method.

Also by your logic premature babies shouldn't be kept in incubators because they can't survive on their own. Also, humans can't survive on their own for a long time (how long can a baby go without food?) Your definition is flawed (and unscientific). At conception the baby has all the DNA it n eeds to be human.

'abortion photos' are the oldest, tiredest troll in the discussion.

Post the photo on your fridge at work and see how proud your co-workers are of your "progressive" view of abortion.

Are you honestly not disgusted by them? If not, I feel bad for your future wife.

Would you argue (like you are here) that it is up to the mother to decide whether her child lives or dies?

No I'm not, and you aren't reading my argument without your own bias.

Is her child born? That's the criterion I'm going on. That you don't recognize that shows you aren't willing to admit that a fetus after conception but before birth isn't a fully developed human being.

"'abortion photos' are the oldest, tiredest troll in the discussion."

As long as idiots like you keep dragging up the tired old look-at-how-many-people were killed-in-the-Inquistion shtick then the abortion photos (wow-look-at-how-moral- secularists-are) will surface.

"s her child born? That's the criterion I'm going on. "

That's an arbitrary (and unjustified) criterion.
What if the baby is half-way down the birth canal when the mother changes her mind and asks for an aboration. How much "born" is fully-born?

Post the photo on your fridge at work

Disgust over blood and bodily function is relevant. Would you post pictures of a miscarriage? Would you arrest women for a miscarriage? If God exists, why does he allow miscarriage to occur if he deems fetuses sacred? What about a menstrual cycle? Is this evil and immoral?

What if the baby is half-way down the birth canal when the mother changes her mind and asks for an aboration. How much "born" is fully-born?

Red herring. How often does this occur? How often is partial birth abortion used in cases not relating to saving the woman?

At conception the baby has all the DNA it n eeds to be human.

My skin flakes have all the DNA they need to be human. So do yours.

For that matter, do you consider harvesting the organs of brain-dead bodies to be murder?

That's an arbitrary (and unjustified) criterion.

How is it unjustified? How is "life at conception" justified?

If it's sperm magic, you miss the point of the establishment clause and you aren't addressing the core point that a fetus' rights do not, in any way, outweigh the body autonomy of a woman.

Disgust over blood and bodily function is relevant.

Should be "irrelevant"

At conception the baby has all the DNA it n eeds to be human.

So, if we take it out of the woman and set it ina an incubator, it will grow into a human being, right? Please. Learn biology first, then try to argue your point.

I will now attempt to predict the number people that 'a' has convinced that abortion is in principle wrong by linking to a string of emotive photos.
*clears throat*
*ponders*
Yes, I have it... Zero!
*applause from audience*
And for my next trick, I will attempt to convince 'a' that defaecation is sinful by linking to some pictures of diarrhoea.

I believe that challenge nr. 2 is already lost. Isn´t the sacrifice of Abraham (and of course the continual reenactment of caine and abel)what the american voters are performing daily in Iraq with their children in honor of their born again government?

Pro-life abortion is a strawman. Look at actual procedures instead.

For example, in Sweden we have free selective abortion rights up to week 18. For later selective abortion you need to apply for special permit, and abortion after week 28 is in principle not done due to ethical reasons. (The fetus may survive, but probably with damages, in an incubator.) Only therapeutic abortions (mother's health) may prompt such late abortions.

Medical abortion is used to week 9. First an anti-hormone pill, and two days later pills that provoke a bleeding.

Surgical abortion is used to week 12. Several methods with local or general anesthetic.

After week 12 a late abortion method is used. It is like the medical abortion above, but the second stage with stronger hormonal pills repeated until abortion and may need a scraping after the fetus is aborted.

"burned (by sodium)"

Crazy talk!

VERY ANNOYING.

I can't post to Aaron Kinney.

Can someone PLEASE try to pass the comment - below on to him?

As I think these challenges should also be posted:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Here are a couple more:

Detect "god"
I propose that "God" is undetectable - even if that "god" exists.
And therfore, since undetectable, we need not bother.

Find a religion that is not based on some combination of moral and physical blackmail.
It is cartain that christianity, islam, judaism and communism are all blackmail -are they not?

And of course I forgot the main point - the anti-hormonal pill is all that it takes to stop the pregnancy. Really.

Well, I can see that I have a retraction to make. :-)

Yesterday evening (+2 GMT) I called challenge #2 ridiculous on false grounds. For some reason, I read the challenge as, 'go ahead, kill your child to prove yourself', not 'if you were in Abraham's shoes, would you do it?' Apparently I was not the only one either. No, this challenge is not ridiculous. (What is ridiculous, however, is those immediately jumping to the conclusion that I must therefor be a believer.)

I'm wholly in agreement with MikeM when he states that Abraham should have argued with God, and in that he should have passed the test. Anyone who can read the story of Abraham, acknowledge the very obvious point that obedience is more important that doing the right thing and still call God benevolent has some very important wires crossed.

Martin

"Also by your logic premature babies shouldn't be kept in incubators because they can't survive on their own."

I'm not the person you asked, but it seems to me that this should be up to the parents with the advice of the relevant doctors.

Once again, with futility as I'm sure you've been told this before and either ignored or failed to comprehend it, the pro-choice position is not that every fetus ever should be aborted just because. We argue that abortion should be legal, not compulsory. Just like pregnancy.

Didn't JEWS write the Old Testament books?

What about when God ordered Joshua and his people to kill every man, woman and child in Canaan?13 What crime could be so great that entire populations of cities were designated for destruction? God told Moses that the nations that the Hebrew were replacing were wicked.14 How "wicked" were these people? The text tells us that they were burning their own sons and daughters in sacrifices to their gods.15 So we see that these people were not really innocent. For these reasons (and others16), God ordered the destruction of the peoples whom the Israelites dispossessed.

Let me get this straight. The Canaanites were murdering some of their children, and so God ordered Joshua to murder them...and all of the children?

Well, that certainly clears that up.

How "wicked" were these people? The text tells us that they were burning their own sons and daughters in sacrifices to their gods.15 So we see that these people were not really innocent. For these reasons (and others16), God ordered the destruction of the peoples whom the Israelites dispossessed.

Classic self-justification of a psychokiller from a bad horror movie. "They all were whores, they deserved it all for their wickedness"

Notice that a is engaging in the usual set of evasive actions. He has repeated his claim that abortion is "murder". Therefore, he claims to believe that many thousands of first-degree murders are being committed with impunity all around us. By his proclaimed lights this is quite an enormous atrocity. So, a, exactly what, other than bullshitting on the Web, are you doing to see that all these cold-blooded murderers are brought to justice?

This is not a "gotcha"- it's a very serious question. Do you in fact draw the obvious logical and moral consequences of what you claim to believe? If you don't, about such a patently serious matter, then frankly the rest of us are perfectly entitled to dismiss everything you say as pure bombast with no real conviction behind it. We will then seek to discuss the ethics of abortion with people who, unlike you, are serious.

gkru: I refer to her as "our Rabbi" because my wife and I are both members of the temple even though I am an Atheist. Ours is not the only "mixed marriage" in the temple. Real life gets complicated, but we can get along just fine if we are willing to make accommodations for each other. In my case, everyone at the temple who knows me personally knows I am an Atheist. None of them have ever pressed me to convert or even broached the subject. It would be considered rude - that sort of thing just isn't done.

What if the baby is half-way down the birth canal when the mother changes her mind and asks for an aboration.

If anyone actually did that, Junior, you'd have an argument. Now stop futzing around on the computer and get to class.

kyle: Warning - there are alternative set theories which do include a universal set.

MikeM: There are lots of stories which could be transformed to make better points, or even the same point stated stronger. (For example, suppose Beauty and the Beast is retold so that the bit about the beast being formerly a prince is in fact an uninformed rumour. Instead he is, actually, a horrible beast, but one with a few redeeming qualities. Having Belle learning to love such a creature and not having it "change" would be a much better lesson about acceptance, no?)

francis: Note that "do not kill unjustly" is of course a tautonomy (true by meanings of the words) and hence useless as a moral rule.

Ju:

Actually, there are three words for kill in the Hebrew language; Rashah - to murder; kill intentionally, Harag - to kill as in sacrificing animals, and Sarat - to slaughter, kill as in the mass killing of war. The Hebrew word used in Exodus 20:13 is "Rashah"; intentional, pre-meditated murder. Therefore the best translation into English is not, "you shall not kill", but "you shall not murder." The word used for the killings as of war in the Old Testament is "Sarat". Therefore the killing of war does not contradict the sixth commandment; "You shall not murder."

So, if I kill someone, all I have to do is say "it's OK. God told me to do it", and it changes from "Rashah" to "Harag", and I'm in the clear? I will have to remember that. Or how about if I was part of a "war on fœtuses"? Is that any more ridiculuous than a "war on drugs"? Could I morally kill babies, then?

Some people are willing to take the sacrifice challenge. Link

I've posted the first challenge (define "God") in my own words at Christian Forums. We'll see whether I get any takers.