If you are going to argue for the Christian god, first make an argument for the Bible being true.

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If you are going to argue for the Christian god, first make an argument for the Bible being true.

I keep running into Christians taking this top down approach of arguing for a first cause or fine tuning. Let me tell you why this wont work(for me at least).

Let's say I grant you that some deity created the universe. What does that have to do with us? All you have convinced me of if deism. Am I then supposed to swallow ridiculous stories like Adam and Eve, Noah's Flood, Jesus actually existing?

 


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This is known as the logic

This is known as the logic jump. The various a posterioris and a prioris for God's existence have no meaning nor give any merit to any religion unless you follow it with an absurd series of non sequiters.

I had the same line of thought here:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/sapient/philosophy_and_psychology_with_chaoslord_and_todangst/5652 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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Suppose we do assume there

Suppose we do assume there is a supernatural creator of some sort.  Let's suppose one additional thing: that we would like to know as much as possible about this supernatural entity.  Where might we start looking?

"The map appears more real to us than the land." - Lawrence


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How do you know it isn't

How do you know it isn't Allah or Vishnu or Zues or Odin or the Flying Spaghetti Monster - or some God that literally no religion has come anywhere close to getting right? And why SHOULD we ASS U ME there is a supernatural creator without any evidence for such?

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The OP sums up exactly why

The OP sums up exactly why I am scaling back on this board a bit and not trying to enter into any more debates just yet.  I have learned one thing that I should have known all along: I don't understand the atheistic worldview.  Any Christian who tries to argue from Biblical inerrancy with someone on this board doesn't understand your worldview, either.

That is why I'm going to study a little bit harder before I engage anyone seriously.  Something tells me it won't glorify God to have my ass handed to me in a debate.  And you don't have to be a theist to at least concede that last point to me!  Cool

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei


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JHenson wrote: Suppose we

JHenson wrote:

Suppose we do assume there is a supernatural creator of some sort. Let's suppose one additional thing: that we would like to know as much as possible about this supernatural entity. Where might we start looking?

 

What is the worth of assuming a supernatural creator, of any sort?  What is the point of assuming the existence of anything without evidence, then setting off in pursuit of it?  

I'm not strictly opposed to wasting time, but there are much more enjoyable ways to do it. 

There are no theists on operating tables.

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JHenson wrote: Suppose we

JHenson wrote:

Suppose we do assume there is a supernatural creator of some sort. Let's suppose one additional thing: that we would like to know as much as possible about this supernatural entity. Where might we start looking?

Why not creation itself?  The variety of plants, animals, and human personalities shows the Creator is very creative.  The similarities right up the line show that He employs a common design aspect to His work (in other words, He finds something that works and sticks with it).  So He is therefore unyeilding.  The fact that you can see layers at work--lower orders to higher orders--show that He is in pursuit of excellence in His creation.  That every living thing seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that He possesses suberb attention to detail.  The fact that humans have in them a desire to know the truth around them (we're natural scientists with great curiosity) suggests that He wants us to know Him, and  that He is therefore personal.

All logic based, not Bible based.  All I did was list attributes based on Creation. 

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei


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Colby,

Quote:
Colby,

Thank you for that acknowledgement. I for one have found it a continuing frustration how many christians simply argue from the bible, but won't tolerate that same method of citation from the texts of other religions.

It is commendable that you wish to debate with an informed mind rather than simply from faith. If you have any questions about non-believers, I for one am more than happy to field them, as I am sure many others are.

Hope to hear from you



I had just written that, then saw your latest post, so I'll respond to that.
Colby wrote:

Why not creation itself? The variety of plants, animals, and human personalities shows the Creator is very creative.

Or rather they show the fecundity of life, and the diversity that results as organisms adapt to their environments. There is also a wondrous array of microbes with a wondrous ability to become resistant to antibiotics -- but I don't imagine you see any reason to praise the creator for that.

Colby wrote:

The similarities right up the line show that He employs a common design aspect to His work (in other words, He finds something that works and sticks with it).

And along the way has permitted the majority of species to go extinct. he has to "find something that works"? Through experimentation over the course of billions of years?  Does that not betray his omniscience?

Colby wrote:

So He is therefore unyeilding. The fact that you can see layers at work--lower orders to higher orders--show that He is in pursuit of excellence in His creation.

By any standard, the cockroach is the most excellent species. It can survive on almost any substance, reproduces prolifically, is impervious to all our attempts to exterminate it, and will be here long after we have bombed/overpopulated/poisoned our way out of existence.

Colby wrote:

That every living thing seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that He possesses suberb attention to detail.

No, Colby. Any living thing that seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that it has adapted to its environment.

Colby wrote:

The fact that humans have in them a desire to know the truth around them (we're natural scientists with great curiosity) suggests that He wants us to know Him, and that He is therefore personal.

And the more we have searched, less and less do we see a need for a creator.

There are no theists on operating tables.

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Quote:

Quote:
What is the worth of assuming a supernatural creator, of any sort? What is the point of assuming the existence of anything without evidence, then setting off in pursuit of it?

The OP suggested we might begin by supposing there was a creator, and that such an assumption does not inherently support the Bible (and I would go on to add any other religious theology to that).

Quote:
How do you know it isn't Allah or Vishnu or Zues or Odin or the Flying Spaghetti Monster - or some God that literally no religion has come anywhere close to getting right? And why SHOULD we ASS U ME there is a supernatural creator without any evidence for such?

How indeed? That's why I posed the question. How might we go about investigating the nature of a supernatural creator, if we were to start by assuming there was one?

Quote:
The OP sums up exactly why I am scaling back on this board a bit and not trying to enter into any more debates just yet. I have learned one thing that I should have known all along: I don't understand the atheistic worldview. Any Christian who tries to argue from Biblical inerrancy with someone on this board doesn't understand your worldview, either.

This is wisdom. I will confess I'm a Christian myself, but I don't want to try diving into talking with people that don't share my views by spouting them and thumping on the book I got them from. It would be like dropping by a forum for democracy and talking all about how great Marx is, citing the Communist Manifesto as your sole reference.

"The map appears more real to us than the land." - Lawrence


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Ig wrote:I keep running

Ig wrote:

I keep running into Christians taking this top down approach of arguing for a first cause or fine tuning. Let me tell you why this wont work(for me at least).

Let's say I grant you that some deity created the universe. What does that have to do with us? All you have convinced me of if deism. Am I then supposed to swallow ridiculous stories like Adam and Eve, Noah's Flood, Jesus actually existing?

 

I agree that theists too often assume that once they have proven the existence of god they have proven their particular sect, but I actually think it would be better for them to take a two-stage approach, first proving the existence of a god, and then connecting that god to their sect. I don't think they'll ever do that, but that seems the most reasonable approach.

@JHensen, Cory T, and any lurking theists
Lesson 1: Atheism isn't a world view per se. It is a lack of certain classes of world views. As someone once said, when you understand why you reject other religions, you'll understand why I reject yours.

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Quote: Lesson 1: Atheism

Quote:
Lesson 1: Atheism isn't a world view per se. It is a lack of certain classes of world views. As someone once said, when you understand why you reject other religions, you'll understand why I reject yours.

That is a lesson that probably bears constant repeating, and particularly well-stated here.  I have tried to keep it in mind since I started posting here.  My initial interest isn't why anyone might reject mine (there are a plethora of reasons), but why someone would subscribe very actively to athiesm.  It is one thing to disregard an idea, but quite another to vocally oppose it.

"The map appears more real to us than the land." - Lawrence


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JHenson wrote: ...but why

JHenson wrote:

...but why someone would subscribe very actively to athiesm.  It is one thing to disregard an idea, but quite another to vocally oppose it.

 

Because, at least in the United States, we're in a tiny minority, and the religious majority is gaining power in the government. They are trying to add more religion into our government, which is unacceptable to any reasoning atheist.

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My initial interest isn't

My initial interest isn't why anyone might reject mine (there are a plethora of reasons), but why someone would subscribe very actively to athiesm.  It is one thing to disregard an idea, but quite another to vocally oppose it.

 

 

I can answer that with a section of an essay I wrote called: A discourse of survival, the nonsenical notion of atheist extremism.

I think in this regard, people are confusing  extremism with passion. An atheist cannot really be extreme in their beliefs because there is no doctrine to adopt an extreme stance to! The test, then, for someone to determine whether an atheist is “extremist” or not, is how outspoken they are on religion. This is hardly a fair stance.

 

The other objection is another arm of the attack, namely that outspoken atheists are “extremists”. If someone says this, they are essentially defeating their own argument because they are freely admitting to the disgraceful public shields around sane discourse of religion. Political debates have no limit of epitaphs to hurl, in academia a researcher can be disgraced for a ridiculous publishing. But in religion, open your mouth to criticize and you are shouted down as an atheist extremist.

 

From this, we can deduce why atheist fundamentalism is ridiculous. There is no doctrine for which to subscribe. There are no Holy Books for atheist philosophers to bend their backs over. There are no schools of theocratic law for atheists to butcher each other over (a mocking of the Four schools of Islamic Shar’ia) and there are no compilations of ancient documents for atheists to squabble over. Quite simply, an atheist cannot be a fundamentalist because there is no doctrine for an atheist to subscribe a fundamentalist stance to.

And as to why I am opposed to religion? Well, quite simply it is treated with respect when it should be treated with contempt. In 7,000 years it has never given us tangible results, in fact, religion per se does not do anything useful. If any other human endeavor were like this, it would be thrown out. Religion breeds extremism and mutually exclusive hatred. It holds deep within it a terrible crime, namely that it is based on fear. I once advocated that bringing up your children by telling them they will go to hell unless they believe in God is child abuse therefore a federal crime that should be punishable by prison time. 

 

 

 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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JHenson wrote: Suppose we

JHenson wrote:

Suppose we do assume there is a supernatural creator of some sort. Let's suppose one additional thing: that we would like to know as much as possible about this supernatural entity. Where might we start looking?

It would be irrelevant so why bother looking? 


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zarathustra

zarathustra wrote:

Quote:
Colby,

Thank you for that acknowledgement. I for one have found it a continuing frustration how many christians simply argue from the bible, but won't tolerate that same method of citation from the texts of other religions.

It is commendable that you wish to debate with an informed mind rather than simply from faith. If you have any questions about non-believers, I for one am more than happy to field them, as I am sure many others are.

Hope to hear from you



I had just written that, then saw your latest post, so I'll respond to that.
Colby wrote:

Why not creation itself? The variety of plants, animals, and human personalities shows the Creator is very creative.

Or rather they show the fecundity of life, and the diversity that results as organisms adapt to their environments. There is also a wondrous array of microbes with a wondrous ability to become resistant to antibiotics -- but I don't imagine you see any reason to praise the creator for that.

Colby wrote:

The similarities right up the line show that He employs a common design aspect to His work (in other words, He finds something that works and sticks with it).

And along the way has permitted the majority of species to go extinct. he has to "find something that works"? Through experimentation over the course of billions of years? Does that not betray his omniscience?

Colby wrote:

So He is therefore unyeilding. The fact that you can see layers at work--lower orders to higher orders--show that He is in pursuit of excellence in His creation.

By any standard, the cockroach is the most excellent species. It can survive on almost any substance, reproduces prolifically, is impervious to all our attempts to exterminate it, and will be here long after we have bombed/overpopulated/poisoned our way out of existence.

Colby wrote:

That every living thing seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that He possesses suberb attention to detail.

No, Colby. Any living thing that seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that it has adapted to its environment.

Colby wrote:

The fact that humans have in them a desire to know the truth around them (we're natural scientists with great curiosity) suggests that He wants us to know Him, and that He is therefore personal.

And the more we have searched, less and less do we see a need for a creator.

First of all, Colby?  Am I cheese?  Admittedly, my humor can be really cheesy, but that's beside the point.

I'm glad you posted that, because it demonstrates exactly what I'm talking about regarding worldviews.  We start with different presuppositions--me from God, you from nature--and we look at the exact same details of the world, and arrive at vastly different conclusions.  Where I see a God who loves us and desires us to know Him through Creation, you see an accident of evolution that could have happened any of 1000 or more different ways.

Right now, I'm not here to debate that.  I'm enjoying the learning experience of how the world is viewed through atheistic goggles, since I've only personally viewed it through Christian goggles and briefly through New Age goggles. 

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei


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Cory T wrote:

Cory T wrote:
JHenson wrote:

Suppose we do assume there is a supernatural creator of some sort. Let's suppose one additional thing: that we would like to know as much as possible about this supernatural entity. Where might we start looking?

Why not creation itself? The variety of plants, animals, and human personalities shows the Creator is very creative. The similarities right up the line show that He employs a common design aspect to His work (in other words, He finds something that works and sticks with it). So He is therefore unyeilding. The fact that you can see layers at work--lower orders to higher orders--show that He is in pursuit of excellence in His creation. That every living thing seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that He possesses suberb attention to detail. The fact that humans have in them a desire to know the truth around them (we're natural scientists with great curiosity) suggests that He wants us to know Him, and that He is therefore personal.

All logic based, not Bible based. All I did was list attributes based on Creation.

You are already making a huge leap. From setting the universe in motion to creating life on earth.

I presume next you are going to want another huge leap. He created life for human beings. Then another huge leap. He wrote one of our books in which states that you get tortured for not accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savious.


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Why not creation itself?

Why not creation itself? The variety of plants, animals, and human personalities shows the Creator is very creative.

LOL. When it comes to genius, I would put my money on evolution, not God. The variety of plants and animals means nothing because it is empirically demonstratable that these come from common descent, which I show here:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/sapient/atheist_vs_theist/5465 

 The similarities right up the line show that He employs a common design aspect to His work (in other words, He finds something that works and sticks with it)

No, it shows that life is descended from the same basic set of primordial chemistry. He "finds something to work" is a logical contradiction, because God is omnipotent, such a task should be unnecessary.

 he fact that you can see layers at work--lower orders to higher orders--show that He is in pursuit of excellence in His creation

LOL. 99% of all species have gone extinct. His record for good design is terrible. And 99% of the species that are still here are prokaryotic bacteria, very basic life forms. The domain of the Eukaryota make up a tiny fraction of the ecosystem. Archaea/prokarytoa reign supreme.

That every living thing seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that He possesses suberb attention to detail. 

 As Zarathrustra pointed out, this proves nothing except that evolution works very well at fine-tuning adaptation.

 . The fact that humans have in them a desire to know the truth around them (we're natural scientists with great curiosity) suggests that He wants us to know Him, and that He is therefore personal.

 No it doesn't. It shows that there is an evolutionary advantage to Hominidae higher cognition.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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Ig wrote: Cory T

Ig wrote:
Cory T wrote:
JHenson wrote:

Suppose we do assume there is a supernatural creator of some sort. Let's suppose one additional thing: that we would like to know as much as possible about this supernatural entity. Where might we start looking?

Why not creation itself? The variety of plants, animals, and human personalities shows the Creator is very creative. The similarities right up the line show that He employs a common design aspect to His work (in other words, He finds something that works and sticks with it). So He is therefore unyeilding. The fact that you can see layers at work--lower orders to higher orders--show that He is in pursuit of excellence in His creation. That every living thing seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that He possesses suberb attention to detail. The fact that humans have in them a desire to know the truth around them (we're natural scientists with great curiosity) suggests that He wants us to know Him, and that He is therefore personal.

All logic based, not Bible based. All I did was list attributes based on Creation.

You are already making a huge leap. From setting the universe in motion to creating life on earth.

Not so!  JHenson wants to START from the assumption that there IS a Creator.  I'm just surmising His attributes from His Creation.  I'm not taking any leaps of logic that so often appear in theist arguments.

BTW, deludedgod: Do you have a collection or a website with your essays on it?  I'd be interested in reading some more. 

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei


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you see an accident of

you see an accident of evolution that could have happened any of 1000 or more different ways

The accident of evolution? You truly have a great deal to learn. Evolution plays with no chance. By rigidly enforced mathematical axioms and ruthless natural selection, the progress up towards higher life is inevitable and mathematical. 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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BTW, deludedgod: Do you

BTW, deludedgod: Do you have a collection or a website with your essays on it? I'd be interested in reading some more.

Not yet. When I write enough, I'll lobby to get my own section of the site like todangst does. Which one interested you, the science one or the logic one or the atheism extremism one?

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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To me, to argue the

To me, to argue the establishment the Bible as true is the same as to argue the establishment of interpersonal reality as true.

I do not believe it can be done outside of an individual choice to accept something based on personal, individual, experience.

Some people may disagree.. I do not pretend to know everything.  I'm just a fool. 


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JHenson wrote:

JHenson wrote:

It is one thing to disregard an idea, but quite another to vocally oppose it.

One reason, which is my main one, for becoming active is I see real danger in religion. I'm with Sam Harris on this. 21st Century technology and religion are a recipe for disaster. I think Christianity will be basically dead in a few generations.

Don't know what we are going to do about Islam. That's going to be a tough nut to crack. We gotta try though.


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Don't know what we are

Don't know what we are going to do about Islam. That's going to be a tough nut to crack. We gotta try though.

There is an interesting essay I wrote. The very last submission in "write a letter to someone with a theistic worldview called "the disaster of Islam". The content of this essay is horrifiying, but necessary. I am particularly dissapointed by Iran's fall to Islam. The Arabs, I can understand, but the Persians have always been far more cultured and sophisticated.

Nonetheless, my hopes are high. The only reason Islam has any power or voice is oil. No oil, no fundamentalist Islam.  

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

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deludedgod wrote: Why not

deludedgod wrote:

Why not creation itself? The variety of plants, animals, and human personalities shows the Creator is very creative.

LOL. When it comes to genius, I would put my money on evolution, not God. The variety of plants and animals means nothing because it is empirically demonstratable that these come from common descent, which I show here:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/sapient/atheist_vs_theist/5465

Of course, where you see common descent, I see a common design.  The two are almost identical in every way, except with common design, a supernatural Creator is present.  Evolution is purposeless and accidental.

deludedgod wrote:
 

The similarities right up the line show that He employs a common design aspect to His work (in other words, He finds something that works and sticks with it)

No, it shows that life is descended from the same basic set of primordial chemistry. He "finds something to work" is a logical contradiction, because God is omnipotent, such a task should be unnecessary.

You said, "should."  It should also be unecessary to test us, since He already knows the outcome, yet He does exactly that in the Bible.  Sorry to bring that up.  Don't flame me!

deludedgod wrote:
 

he fact that you can see layers at work--lower orders to higher orders--show that He is in pursuit of excellence in His creation

LOL. 99% of all species have gone extinct. His record for good design is terrible. And 99% of the species that are still here are prokaryotic bacteria, very basic life forms. The domain of the Eukaryota make up a tiny fraction of the ecosystem. Archaea/prokarytoa reign supreme.

Single celled organisms that can (presumably) survive in water--even in FLOOD WATERS--not go extinct?  Shocking.

deludedgod wrote:
 

That every living thing seems to fill a niche within its environment shows that He possesses suberb attention to detail.

As Zarathrustra pointed out, this proves nothing except that evolution works very well at fine-tuning adaptation.

A purposeless, unguided process with no intelligence behind it can somehow select and fine tune an organism for its environment?  My money is on the Creator.

deludedgod wrote:
 

. The fact that humans have in them a desire to know the truth around them (we're natural scientists with great curiosity) suggests that He wants us to know Him, and that He is therefore personal.

No it doesn't. It shows that there is an evolutionary advantage to Hominidae higher cognition.

It's so tempting to answer that by saying "Obviously not on this discussion board," because I haven't gone for a cheap laugh in a while, because it's late and I should be in bed, and because I'm very slap happy right now.  But that comment could easily be turned back on me, since I post here too!  Smiling

Instead, since I don't have anything better, I will point to the usual theist arguments.  Intelligence should have a source, which could be inferred as a higher intelligence, again pointing to a Creator.

Same evidence, different answers for it. 

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei


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The problem is.. if the

The problem is.. if the belief in God is merely the means by which to explain the unexplainable, an evolutionary beneficial phenamona, then such belief systems will continue to arrise until everything is explained.. which.. well, whether I was atheist or theist, would still be 'point never'.

Hopefully future methods by which to explain the unexplainable will have less inherent danger. 


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deludedgod wrote: BTW,

deludedgod wrote:

BTW, deludedgod: Do you have a collection or a website with your essays on it? I'd be interested in reading some more.

Not yet. When I write enough, I'll lobby to get my own section of the site like todangst does. Which one interested you, the science one or the logic one or the atheism extremism one?

Morality without God... I have a copy saved for later reading.  Right now, I have two big projects that I'm trying to finish before Easter (although I'd be happy with just one), and another essay that I've started but haven't been able to finish.  The Atheist Extremeism looked really interesting, too.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. --Galileo Galilei


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Of course, where you see

Of course, where you see common descent, I see a common design.  The two are almost identical in every way, except with common design, a supernatural Creator is present.  Evolution is purposeless and accidental.

But the link I posted is clear evidence for common descent! To my knowledge no IDT proponent has ever given a sound rebuttal to ERV or mtDNA.

 You said, "should."  It should also be unecessary to test us, since He already knows the outcome, yet He does exactly that in the Bible.  Sorry to bring that up.  Don't flame me!

I don't like that comparison. If I believed in God, I could understand why he would test us, even if I think the ways he did it in the Bible were cruel and barbaric. However, I don't see the need for Him to toy with nucleotide formation.

 Single celled organisms that can (presumably) survive in water--even in FLOOD WATERS--not go extinct?  Shocking.

You're a young Earth creationist? shit. Arguing with those people is like bleeding a rock. Actually, a huge number of species that  went extinct were marine life. 

 A purposeless, unguided process with no intelligence behind it can somehow select and fine tune an organism for its environment?  My money is on the Creator.

OK. Now you are embarrasing yourself. I thought you were scientific minded? I wrote a long article to debunk this. Here is a piece:

 

Evolution is a carefully guided process.

Organisms adapt to their environment through natural selection, meaning that the environmental factors both cull the herd and remove organisms with unfavorable traits, and propagate those with favorable traits. The mechanism for this is the second rule of evolution: Evolution is brought about by genetic mutation. An organism cannot adapt to its environment per se. It is the genes that must adapt, and that process takes millions of years.

The next rule is that the determinate of what constitutes an advantage is the environment. The rest of it is really simple, Evolutionary models study this axiom because it is complex. An environment includes lots of factors like other animals, temperature, gas concentration, climate etc. etc. This axiom is the driver of evolution, the guide, Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Genetic mutation is random. It is up to the environment to nurture useful genes and ensure they get passed on, and to eliminate poor genes. This is the fundamental rule of natural selection.

This incredibly ridiculous error, to state that evolution is luck, is a confusion of genetic mutation which is luck, and evolution which is the process that selects the genes and makes sense of the randomness of mutation.

 Same evidence, different answers for it.

Where is the evidence for design, an untested hypothesis, that evolution, a tested theory, cannot explain? 

 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Morality without God... I

Morality without God... I have a copy saved for later reading.  Right now, I have two big projects that I'm trying to finish before Easter (although I'd be happy with just one), and another essay that I've started but haven't been able to finish.  The Atheist Extremeism looked really interesting, too.

Ah, I liked that one. Although I did a major renovation to it a few days ago so you might want to grab the latest version. 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Cory, what are your views

Cory, what are your views on Evolution and the age of the Universe? Just a short answer will do. YEC? OEC? ID?

I dont want to get into a debate over it right now...just curious. My head can only take so much pounding against a wall. Eye-wink


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Oh, and btw Cory, I just

Oh, and btw Cory, I just want to apologize 4 the abstinence comment I made on the other forum if you are reading this. I was so flipped out I didn't read it properly. The reason I was flipped out is because my parents are infectious disease specialists who saw HIV in the days before Class IV Protease inhibitors and antiretrovirals. They were in Toronto, when the first cases of homosexual men were coming in. They had never seen it, there was nothing they could do. they just watched these guys dissolve in their beds. It was fucking insane. And after hearing and seeing for myself what immunodeficiency and T-Cell lympthocyte destroying reverse transcriptors can do with my own eyes, I get really pissed off when I hear what I percieve to be this ridiculous nonsense about "Christian methods of stopping HIV".

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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