Republicans are at it again, bashing Obama for something that they let slide under George W. Bush. This time it’s about Obama’s appointment of so-called czars to advise him on various policy issues.
The word czar originally meant an emperor, like Caesar, which is the term’s root. Russia was ruled by czars for centuries. But it is not at all affiliated with communism or socialism, which is what some Republicans want us to believe. Czarist Russia ended with the revolution of 1917 when socialism took over.
Regardless of its history, today’s use of czar in America was coined by the news media as a lazy way of saying policy advisor. In this day of fast a furious sound bites, it’s much easier to say “drug czar” than to say “the policy advisor on drugs.”
Every president has had czars, some more than the current president. George W. Bush had so many czars that he even had to appoint a czar to oversee his other czars. He had a czar czar.
Even Franklin D. Roosevelt had a czar, a rubber czar. No he didn’t have a crisis of condoms; it was about how to get enough rubber to make tires.
So why is there so much backlash over Obama’s use of policy czars? The short answer is that Republicans have no fresh ideas of their own on any matter of policy, so their strategy is to attack Obama on every single detail of his presidency, no matter how picayune.
If he did not appoint any policy advisors, they would condemn him for that. They would say he is an inexperienced leader who should be appointing as many advisors as he can.
In reality, Obama is doing as president as he did when he was running for office. He is surrounding himself with experts on specific aspects of his job so that they can advise him from a position of knowledge and intellect rather than from cronyism, which our former president was guilty of.
It has been more than 10 months since the election and eight months since Obama took office. But from all the Obama bashing that is going on these days, you would think the campaign was still going on. Former president Jimmy Carter got it right when he said that much of the brouhaha stems from racial prejudice. Nobody will admit it, of course. But it does play a role. Just look at the signs being held up at the so-called Tea Party events. They are blatantly racist.
Maybe the mainstream Republicans simply disagree on policy, but the fact that so few of them have publicly scorned the ultra-right-wing segment of their party simply gives the racist rhetoric tacit approval and provides its purveyors with legitimacy.
Everyone has a right to speak his mind in America, even if it is spoken in an inappropriate manner. But having that right doesn’t mean that those who are more moderate in their viewpoints shouldn’t take steps to rein in the more extreme elements in their party. Not doing so makes the right-wing extremists the party’s official voice. But if that’s the voice they want, then they may have to live with even more disappointment next November.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Obama to Indoctrinate Schoolkids into Communism?
Ever since Barack Obama was elected president, conservatives have been crying and bellyaching over one thing or another. I guess that’s normal in a two-party system. Democrats complained a lot when George W. Bush was president. But then so did many Republicans. After all, Bush was a blithering idiot.
Obama is an intellectual and is very charismatic. Outwardly, he is a lot more like Ronald Reagan, although with much different policies. But regardless of his charisma, or maybe partly because of it, reactionaries are faulting him for everything from the economy to the swine flu.
But over the past week, a new controversy has arisen. As off the wall and silly as some of his detractors have been up until now, this latest controversy has to be one of the most outlandish non-issues ever brought up in the name of partisan politics.
The president wants to speak to schoolchildren at a time when they have started classes again following their summer break. He wants to tell them that education is important to their future and to tell them it would be best for them to stay in school and try hard. He wants to tell them that it is possible to rise above hardship as he did to become whatever they want to be.
It is not the first time a president has addressed an audience of schoolchildren. Ronald Reagan did it. He talked about taxes for whatever reason. George H.W. Bush did it, too. And as we all know, George W. Bush was reading to kindergarteners at the moment of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. After being told of the attack, he just continued to read.
But now, Obama’s plan to speak to the kiddies has drawn fire from the conservatives who claim he only wants to indoctrinate them into some socialist agenda. Normally, such far-right propaganda would be ignored by all except their own kind. But for a reason that is beyond my comprehension, the extreme right seems to have the ear of the moderate audience these days.
The moderates have started to believe the wing nuts on the right when they make far-fetched claims about Obama’s health care plan or his economic recovery plan. And now, the claim that Obama is trying to brainwash the nation’s children and turn them into socialists or communists has gone viral.
Parents are threatening to keep their kids home on Tuesday after Labor Day instead of sending them to school to listen to their president tell them to get a good education. Even some school administrators have said they would screen, delay, or even edit the broadcast.
This is craziness gone amok. Who would have believed that a simple address by the president directed at school kids and on the topic of getting a better education would be the target of so much controversy? Some have said the speech comes with lesson plans. Well, so what? It’s a speech about education. Lesson plans seems like a logical inclusion. Teachers are not under any obligation to actually use them. But providing supplemental materials is a good idea.
Whether you agree with the president’s policies or not, whether you like Obama as a person or not, doesn’t change the fact that he is the elected president of this country, and as such, he has every right to address whatever audience he chooses. He did not obtain his position as leader of the free world through a coup. He was duly elected to the office by a popular majority and a sizeable electoral majority, larger than either of George W. Bush’s margins. In fact, Bush lost the popular vote in 2000.
It is a fact, not an opinion, that conservatives tend to have less formal education than those on the progressive end of the political spectrum. And it is these same conservatives who want to keep their kids out of school so they won’t be exposed to a speech by their duly-elected leader. Could it be that conservatives are afraid that if their kids listen to Obama, stay in school, and become more educated than their parents, that they will jump ship and become Democrats?
It sounds logical, which is probably why it isn’t true. After all, a logical conservative is an oxymoron. Most of the far-right nut jobs wouldn’t know logic if it crawled up their pant legs and bit them in the ass.
Obama is an intellectual and is very charismatic. Outwardly, he is a lot more like Ronald Reagan, although with much different policies. But regardless of his charisma, or maybe partly because of it, reactionaries are faulting him for everything from the economy to the swine flu.
But over the past week, a new controversy has arisen. As off the wall and silly as some of his detractors have been up until now, this latest controversy has to be one of the most outlandish non-issues ever brought up in the name of partisan politics.
The president wants to speak to schoolchildren at a time when they have started classes again following their summer break. He wants to tell them that education is important to their future and to tell them it would be best for them to stay in school and try hard. He wants to tell them that it is possible to rise above hardship as he did to become whatever they want to be.
It is not the first time a president has addressed an audience of schoolchildren. Ronald Reagan did it. He talked about taxes for whatever reason. George H.W. Bush did it, too. And as we all know, George W. Bush was reading to kindergarteners at the moment of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. After being told of the attack, he just continued to read.
But now, Obama’s plan to speak to the kiddies has drawn fire from the conservatives who claim he only wants to indoctrinate them into some socialist agenda. Normally, such far-right propaganda would be ignored by all except their own kind. But for a reason that is beyond my comprehension, the extreme right seems to have the ear of the moderate audience these days.
The moderates have started to believe the wing nuts on the right when they make far-fetched claims about Obama’s health care plan or his economic recovery plan. And now, the claim that Obama is trying to brainwash the nation’s children and turn them into socialists or communists has gone viral.
Parents are threatening to keep their kids home on Tuesday after Labor Day instead of sending them to school to listen to their president tell them to get a good education. Even some school administrators have said they would screen, delay, or even edit the broadcast.
This is craziness gone amok. Who would have believed that a simple address by the president directed at school kids and on the topic of getting a better education would be the target of so much controversy? Some have said the speech comes with lesson plans. Well, so what? It’s a speech about education. Lesson plans seems like a logical inclusion. Teachers are not under any obligation to actually use them. But providing supplemental materials is a good idea.
Whether you agree with the president’s policies or not, whether you like Obama as a person or not, doesn’t change the fact that he is the elected president of this country, and as such, he has every right to address whatever audience he chooses. He did not obtain his position as leader of the free world through a coup. He was duly elected to the office by a popular majority and a sizeable electoral majority, larger than either of George W. Bush’s margins. In fact, Bush lost the popular vote in 2000.
It is a fact, not an opinion, that conservatives tend to have less formal education than those on the progressive end of the political spectrum. And it is these same conservatives who want to keep their kids out of school so they won’t be exposed to a speech by their duly-elected leader. Could it be that conservatives are afraid that if their kids listen to Obama, stay in school, and become more educated than their parents, that they will jump ship and become Democrats?
It sounds logical, which is probably why it isn’t true. After all, a logical conservative is an oxymoron. Most of the far-right nut jobs wouldn’t know logic if it crawled up their pant legs and bit them in the ass.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
How to Debate a Christian
When I was a kid, I believed all the popular stories of the bible. I believed that Noah and his family really did build a big boat. I believed Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth. I believed that Eve spoke to a snake and that Jonah was eaten by a whale (although it turned out to be a big fish). The sad part is I believed most of these things at least a little all the way into my college years.
Lacking a single epiphany, I gradually started to question the literality of these biblical events. I was a science major in college. I knew that Noah could not have gotten a pair of all the world’s animals into a single boat. I knew Jonah could not have survived inside a giant fish for three days. But I was still open to the possibility of Adam and Eve, although I was dubious about the talking snake.
I also knew that the six days of Creation were not really six literal days. They were just the bible’s way of meaning periods of time. I certainly believed things evolved, because it’s hard to ignore scientific evidence if you’re not a fundamentalist. But I thought it was probably guided by God.
But when I was in my mid-40s, I did have a moment of epiphany. While talking to my pastor about a years-long crisis of faith, after spending 10 years going to church every week, reading the bible, praying, getting baptized, and trying to debate skeptics about the existence of God, it dawned on me that I was an agnostic. My pastor asked me what I believed, deep down. I replied I didn’t really know at that point. I told him I think God exists, but I know nothing at all about Him and I’m not sure how anyone else does either.
He told me I had stumbled on the right answer. I had been asked, and I had answered the $64,000 question. I was an agnostic who leaned toward believing. But if there actually is a god, nobody knows any more about what he is like or what he wants than I do. My pastor was, and is, a very smart man. Unlike many Christian leaders, he is open-minded and non-dogmatic.
Since then, my disbelief has grown as my belief has diminished. But I still do not call myself an atheist; that would mean I know too much about the God situation. It would mean, to me at least, that I know enough to know he does not exist. I don’t know that much yet. What I do know for sure is that I still know nothing at all about God or his existence. And I know enough to say for certain that nobody else knows either. I can say that because I do not have enough evidence to prove or disprove anything about God. And nobody has any more evidence than I do. Therefore, they can’t know either. Some only believe they know and they’re not shy about telling the world what they think they know.
So, over the past few years, and especially over the last few weeks, I have found myself in confrontational mode regarding religion. I was raised Christian and spent most of my adult life calling myself a Christian. Many of my family members are Christians. My mom is a Christian. Sometimes when we get together at family birthdays or holidays, a debate breaks out about religion. Sometimes it isn’t pretty.
I have found myself drawn into debates on Facebook, in the forums, about the existence of God, or whether the phrase “under God” should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, or whether “In God we trust” should be removed from our currency. I hear things like “This nation was founded on Christianity” all the time. I also seem to be the object of a lot of prayers from well-meaning but utterly self-righteous Christians.
Although I hold my own in these debates, I don’t really expect to win any converts. I am hopeful, however, that the lukewarm Christians or the fence-sitters will see the light of reason and not fall into the illogical abyss of Christianity.
Why do I care? I’ve been asked that a lot. I don’t really care what people I don’t even know believe. I respect their right to believe whatever kind of fairy tale they want, but don’t expect me to respect the belief itself. I care more what my family believes because I am close to them and I would like for them to be enlightened.
I’m a teacher. I can’t help but feel somehow threatened by ignorance. I can’t help but to try to correct people when they say something that is obviously incorrect, such as when they say this country was founded on Christianity. That is factually wrong. I teach science, so it bothers me that so many people prefer to believe the allegory in Genesis about God’s Creation instead of the evidence-based theory of evolution. It’s in my nature to try to set people straight, whether they want to be set straight or not.
So in an effort to make future debates easier, I have done some research. I’ve collected some counter arguments to some of the most popular claims of the evangelical Christians. I’ve produced some in-context quotes of our Founding Fathers proving that the U.S. is not really a Christian nation. And I’ve learned how to recognize straw-man arguments brought forth by Creationists and how to counter them with the truth.
It won’t make a bit of difference to the person I am debating. But, as I said, it might do those who have an open mind some good to read rational thoughts among the bible babble.
One thing I have noticed is that Christians love to quote the bible. They use it as their source of information and their one and only manual of attack. But what might not be so obvious to an innocent bystander is that almost all of their bible-based arguments are logically flawed.
For one thing, it is hard to take the bible seriously when it is so self-contradictory that you can use it to prove or disprove almost any contention. Here are just a few examples of how it is self-contradictory:
Take the first and second chapters of Genesis. They tell two completely different and mutually-exclusive stories of Creation. Fundamentalists often say that Chapter 1 gives a full account of Creation and Chapter 2 merely sums it up using different words, but that isn’t true. In Genesis 1:20 and 21 it says, “every living creature” is brought forth from the waters, including every winged fowl. But in Genesis 2:19 God brings forth “every beast of the field and every fowl of the air” from dry ground.
The order of Creation is completely different between the two biblical accounts, too. In Chapter 1, beasts were created before man; in Chapter 2, man was created before beasts. This may not seem too important a point, but it makes it difficult to reconcile obviously contradictory passages with the idea that the bible is literal and infallible. You can’t have it both ways.
The Genesis 1 and 2 contradictions are useful when debating a Creationist. But they are hardly the only biblical contradictions. There are contradictions within the Old Testament, contradictions within the New Testament, contradictions between the New and Old Testaments, even contradictions within the same book.
In Genesis, it tells us that God needed to rest on the seventh day of Creation. But Isaiah says that God “fainteth not, neither is (He) weary.” Matthew (19:26), “with God all things are possible.” But the Book of Judges (1:19), says that God could not drive out the inhabitants in the valley “because they had chariots of iron.” Apparently, God has trouble moving things made of iron.
When confronted with the fact that there is lots of evil in the world and God could do something about it if he wanted to, Christians are quick to point out that man has free will and that the devil makes evil. But God said (Isaiah 45:7) “I make peace and create evil.” So evil is God’s fault.
How about this one? “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matt.7:l). And yet others must be judged? (1Cor. 6:2-4). And, “God is love.” He is “the God of Peace” (Romans 15:33), but in Exodus 15:3, “the Lord is a man of war.” The sheer number of contradictions could fill a book.
Evangelicals love using what they believe is logic to argue their point. Creationists are fond of saying that scientists think that complex life “just happened” or “came together at random.” This is a straw-man argument, one which attempts to refute a sound contention by refuting an extreme version of the contention.
Take the very banal argument against evolution that if you put a monkey in front of a word processor and have him type randomly forever, he still won’t type out A Tale of Two Cities by accident. A novel implies a writer. But evolution does not happen by pure random chance. There are selective pressures at work.
If you put a monkey in front of a keyboard and have him type at random until he accidentally types out the word “it” and then save it in a file, then have him continue typing until he types out “was” and save it in the same file, and so on, the monkey would eventually type out the first sentence of the novel, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” It would take awhile, but the monkey would, indeed, eventually type out the entire novel.
Arguing by begging the question or using circular reasoning is another favorite weapon in the Christian arsenal. But it isn’t an effective one. “The bible is the absolute truth.” How do you know? “Because it is God’s word and God doesn’t lie.” How do you know it is God’s word? “Because it says so in the bible.” It’s amazing how many otherwise rational people don’t pick up on this.
Many Christians argue using false cause reasoning. For example, “Statistics show juvenile delinquency is rising. Therefore, we need to post the Ten Commandments in public schools.” It’s a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. There is no proof that having the Ten Commandments posted in school will result in less juvenile delinquency.
Then there are the slippery slope arguments. A conclusion is assumed based on the happening of a single event. “If we take ‘under God’ out of the Pledge, it will eventually lead us to be a Godless nation.” Christians also use this type of argument to conclude that atheists and agnostics have no sense of morality because they have nothing to base it on. They don’t seem to realize that morality pre-dated the invention of God. Our morality is an evolutionary adaptation that keeps us from killing off our own species.
In the poll forums on Facebook, there are often large majorities that support a pro-Christian question. So a lot of debaters use the argument of popular sentiment as proof that their side is right. But just because an opinion is popular doesn’t necessarily mean it is correct. A lot of people can be deluded. Slavery used to be popular. The only proof of an argument that is worth considering is empirical evidence.
And don’t forget that anecdotal evidence does not count. Evidence has to be repeatable and verifiable.
It is easy to stump a Christian with logic. But you probably will never change his or her mind. They are very good at cop-outs, such as “God works in mysterious ways,” or “God does things in his own time.” These are not proofs. When Christians start using these aphorisms, it means they have surrendered to logic; they just can’t admit it and still maintain their faith. But you will know that you have won the debate at that point.
There are many more types of fallacies that Christians often use to prove their point. All of them are flawed. An exhaustive list of fallacies can be found here. And a good source for bible contradictions is here. And you can find my assemblage of Founding Fathers quotes against religion here.
And, of course, if you are debating with a Creationist, some of your best sources of information are here.
Lacking a single epiphany, I gradually started to question the literality of these biblical events. I was a science major in college. I knew that Noah could not have gotten a pair of all the world’s animals into a single boat. I knew Jonah could not have survived inside a giant fish for three days. But I was still open to the possibility of Adam and Eve, although I was dubious about the talking snake.
I also knew that the six days of Creation were not really six literal days. They were just the bible’s way of meaning periods of time. I certainly believed things evolved, because it’s hard to ignore scientific evidence if you’re not a fundamentalist. But I thought it was probably guided by God.
But when I was in my mid-40s, I did have a moment of epiphany. While talking to my pastor about a years-long crisis of faith, after spending 10 years going to church every week, reading the bible, praying, getting baptized, and trying to debate skeptics about the existence of God, it dawned on me that I was an agnostic. My pastor asked me what I believed, deep down. I replied I didn’t really know at that point. I told him I think God exists, but I know nothing at all about Him and I’m not sure how anyone else does either.
He told me I had stumbled on the right answer. I had been asked, and I had answered the $64,000 question. I was an agnostic who leaned toward believing. But if there actually is a god, nobody knows any more about what he is like or what he wants than I do. My pastor was, and is, a very smart man. Unlike many Christian leaders, he is open-minded and non-dogmatic.
Since then, my disbelief has grown as my belief has diminished. But I still do not call myself an atheist; that would mean I know too much about the God situation. It would mean, to me at least, that I know enough to know he does not exist. I don’t know that much yet. What I do know for sure is that I still know nothing at all about God or his existence. And I know enough to say for certain that nobody else knows either. I can say that because I do not have enough evidence to prove or disprove anything about God. And nobody has any more evidence than I do. Therefore, they can’t know either. Some only believe they know and they’re not shy about telling the world what they think they know.
So, over the past few years, and especially over the last few weeks, I have found myself in confrontational mode regarding religion. I was raised Christian and spent most of my adult life calling myself a Christian. Many of my family members are Christians. My mom is a Christian. Sometimes when we get together at family birthdays or holidays, a debate breaks out about religion. Sometimes it isn’t pretty.
I have found myself drawn into debates on Facebook, in the forums, about the existence of God, or whether the phrase “under God” should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, or whether “In God we trust” should be removed from our currency. I hear things like “This nation was founded on Christianity” all the time. I also seem to be the object of a lot of prayers from well-meaning but utterly self-righteous Christians.
Although I hold my own in these debates, I don’t really expect to win any converts. I am hopeful, however, that the lukewarm Christians or the fence-sitters will see the light of reason and not fall into the illogical abyss of Christianity.
Why do I care? I’ve been asked that a lot. I don’t really care what people I don’t even know believe. I respect their right to believe whatever kind of fairy tale they want, but don’t expect me to respect the belief itself. I care more what my family believes because I am close to them and I would like for them to be enlightened.
I’m a teacher. I can’t help but feel somehow threatened by ignorance. I can’t help but to try to correct people when they say something that is obviously incorrect, such as when they say this country was founded on Christianity. That is factually wrong. I teach science, so it bothers me that so many people prefer to believe the allegory in Genesis about God’s Creation instead of the evidence-based theory of evolution. It’s in my nature to try to set people straight, whether they want to be set straight or not.
So in an effort to make future debates easier, I have done some research. I’ve collected some counter arguments to some of the most popular claims of the evangelical Christians. I’ve produced some in-context quotes of our Founding Fathers proving that the U.S. is not really a Christian nation. And I’ve learned how to recognize straw-man arguments brought forth by Creationists and how to counter them with the truth.
It won’t make a bit of difference to the person I am debating. But, as I said, it might do those who have an open mind some good to read rational thoughts among the bible babble.
One thing I have noticed is that Christians love to quote the bible. They use it as their source of information and their one and only manual of attack. But what might not be so obvious to an innocent bystander is that almost all of their bible-based arguments are logically flawed.
For one thing, it is hard to take the bible seriously when it is so self-contradictory that you can use it to prove or disprove almost any contention. Here are just a few examples of how it is self-contradictory:
Take the first and second chapters of Genesis. They tell two completely different and mutually-exclusive stories of Creation. Fundamentalists often say that Chapter 1 gives a full account of Creation and Chapter 2 merely sums it up using different words, but that isn’t true. In Genesis 1:20 and 21 it says, “every living creature” is brought forth from the waters, including every winged fowl. But in Genesis 2:19 God brings forth “every beast of the field and every fowl of the air” from dry ground.
The order of Creation is completely different between the two biblical accounts, too. In Chapter 1, beasts were created before man; in Chapter 2, man was created before beasts. This may not seem too important a point, but it makes it difficult to reconcile obviously contradictory passages with the idea that the bible is literal and infallible. You can’t have it both ways.
The Genesis 1 and 2 contradictions are useful when debating a Creationist. But they are hardly the only biblical contradictions. There are contradictions within the Old Testament, contradictions within the New Testament, contradictions between the New and Old Testaments, even contradictions within the same book.
In Genesis, it tells us that God needed to rest on the seventh day of Creation. But Isaiah says that God “fainteth not, neither is (He) weary.” Matthew (19:26), “with God all things are possible.” But the Book of Judges (1:19), says that God could not drive out the inhabitants in the valley “because they had chariots of iron.” Apparently, God has trouble moving things made of iron.
When confronted with the fact that there is lots of evil in the world and God could do something about it if he wanted to, Christians are quick to point out that man has free will and that the devil makes evil. But God said (Isaiah 45:7) “I make peace and create evil.” So evil is God’s fault.
How about this one? “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matt.7:l). And yet others must be judged? (1Cor. 6:2-4). And, “God is love.” He is “the God of Peace” (Romans 15:33), but in Exodus 15:3, “the Lord is a man of war.” The sheer number of contradictions could fill a book.
Evangelicals love using what they believe is logic to argue their point. Creationists are fond of saying that scientists think that complex life “just happened” or “came together at random.” This is a straw-man argument, one which attempts to refute a sound contention by refuting an extreme version of the contention.
Take the very banal argument against evolution that if you put a monkey in front of a word processor and have him type randomly forever, he still won’t type out A Tale of Two Cities by accident. A novel implies a writer. But evolution does not happen by pure random chance. There are selective pressures at work.
If you put a monkey in front of a keyboard and have him type at random until he accidentally types out the word “it” and then save it in a file, then have him continue typing until he types out “was” and save it in the same file, and so on, the monkey would eventually type out the first sentence of the novel, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” It would take awhile, but the monkey would, indeed, eventually type out the entire novel.
Arguing by begging the question or using circular reasoning is another favorite weapon in the Christian arsenal. But it isn’t an effective one. “The bible is the absolute truth.” How do you know? “Because it is God’s word and God doesn’t lie.” How do you know it is God’s word? “Because it says so in the bible.” It’s amazing how many otherwise rational people don’t pick up on this.
Many Christians argue using false cause reasoning. For example, “Statistics show juvenile delinquency is rising. Therefore, we need to post the Ten Commandments in public schools.” It’s a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. There is no proof that having the Ten Commandments posted in school will result in less juvenile delinquency.
Then there are the slippery slope arguments. A conclusion is assumed based on the happening of a single event. “If we take ‘under God’ out of the Pledge, it will eventually lead us to be a Godless nation.” Christians also use this type of argument to conclude that atheists and agnostics have no sense of morality because they have nothing to base it on. They don’t seem to realize that morality pre-dated the invention of God. Our morality is an evolutionary adaptation that keeps us from killing off our own species.
In the poll forums on Facebook, there are often large majorities that support a pro-Christian question. So a lot of debaters use the argument of popular sentiment as proof that their side is right. But just because an opinion is popular doesn’t necessarily mean it is correct. A lot of people can be deluded. Slavery used to be popular. The only proof of an argument that is worth considering is empirical evidence.
And don’t forget that anecdotal evidence does not count. Evidence has to be repeatable and verifiable.
It is easy to stump a Christian with logic. But you probably will never change his or her mind. They are very good at cop-outs, such as “God works in mysterious ways,” or “God does things in his own time.” These are not proofs. When Christians start using these aphorisms, it means they have surrendered to logic; they just can’t admit it and still maintain their faith. But you will know that you have won the debate at that point.
There are many more types of fallacies that Christians often use to prove their point. All of them are flawed. An exhaustive list of fallacies can be found here. And a good source for bible contradictions is here. And you can find my assemblage of Founding Fathers quotes against religion here.
And, of course, if you are debating with a Creationist, some of your best sources of information are here.
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