A nagging question that I have had
Offline Listen, I am going to let you all know that I am a Christian, or Theist as you all like to refer to us as, just wanted to let everyone know where I was coming from. I came from atheism to God because of the evidence that I found to support the idea of God. Here is the one question that has never been answered for me, so maybe you guys will win me back, who knows.
How can you say with absolute certainty that there is no God. In my mind to assert that claim is to say that you personally know everything there is to know about everything scientific. I look at the number of species of animals that we continue to find at the bottom of the ocean, we never knew these creatures were there until just now. Plus than there is the theory of the big bang, how can we know? No one was there and there is no concrete evidence, there is evidence, but in my mind it seems way too much like a religion (there is a lot of faith required to believe it). Plus look at the difference between the science when Darwin made his assumptions until today there are huge differences. When was the last time we have ever seen an animal evolve into a completely new one? How do you explain the Cambrian explosion? These are all things that science doesn't dispute but hasn't given good account for.
As science progresses it seems to disprove the ideas that atheists try to hold on to so desperately; one of the leaders of your movement(?) admitted that life may have been "seeded" on this planet by beings with higher intelligence. By the way, that was said by Richard Dawkins on Ben Stein's documentary "Expelled No Intelligence Allowed". When I saw Richard Dawkins of all people say that that was a theory it sealed the deal for me, I was on my way to Christianity.
Let me close this short post by saying that I know I will be lambasted for my beliefs and my post. I only hope that someone will take the time to at least answer the glaring question, "How can you say with certainty there is no God without knowing everything about everything? How do you know that 10 or 20 years from know we will find "
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Without doubt I have never seen any evidence of any god. Do you have any evidence you think I should see or maybe you thik I haven't seen in 50+ years; show me!!!
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Based on this post if you say you were an "atheist" I am quite sure as your lack of knowledge shows, if you were, you most certainly were not an educated atheist.
I doubt you are applying "atheist" to yourself as we apply it to ourselves. I quite bet you had some emotional event where selective bias kicked and you falsely said to yourself, "This couldn't have happened if there were no god" And probably didn't take into account all the other times what happened to you happened to other people with far different outcomes.
What happened to you to leave your "atheism"?
Did you almost die? Did a loved one survive something seemingly impossible? Were you a problem teen? Were you a victim of the 12 step program?
But no educated atheist I know would pull the bullshit argument "you cant prove there is no god", which says to me you don't have any clue as to what is required to be an educated atheist. I simply think you want to believe that an atheist is someone who rejects the god you believe in.
NO, an atheist rejects any and all god claims and NOT for emotional reasons. There is only one reason to reject ANY CLAIM on any issue, even outside the issue of a god claim. EVIDENCE, nothing more, nothing less.
I have run into uneducated atheists. People who don't do any research into the history of logic, reason or science. Those atheists I call easy pickings for slick marketers of snake oil. But most of the time when someone says "I used to be an atheist", I end up finding out that the reason they convert is STUPID and nothing more than them falling prey to their emotions and wishful thinking.
And fyi, most of us here, INCLUDING a couple former preachers, used to believe.
Now, I will flat out cut to the chase and address two of the biggest bullshit stories in the bible to tell you WHY I don't believe.
1. It takes two sets of DNA to manifest into a zygote, thus making magic babies being born without two sets of DNA absurd.
2. Human flesh does not survive rigor mortis. Thus making claims of zombie gods rising from the dead absurd.
AND even before you get to those two absurd claims, you have to swallow the idea that there is a magical invisible non-material super brain that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time with magical super powers, who put us on this tiny dot in a the sea of the violent universe, on a planet full of disease, famine, crime and war, with no way to get off this rock.
I have emotional reactions to absurd claims, just like one would have emotional reactions to someone claiming the earth to be flat. But I have no hate for your God anymore than I have hate for Mickey Mouse.
I really get a lip twitch when someone says "I used to be an atheist" when what they really mean is, "I wasn't doing what God wants".
An atheist rejects any and all God/god/deity/disembodied brain claims. You were not an atheist. You are a Christians definition of an atheist, which is NOT what an atheist is.
Please be brave an tell us what your earth shattering epiphany was. I doubt seriously it will be anything new we haven't heard before.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
How can you say that there isn't an invisible pink unicorn in the trunk of my car?
Someone once said, "If horses had gods their gods would look like horses"
It is simple logic that causes me to reject any and all god claims, past and present.
We have absolutely no evidence that a thought can exist without a physical material process, which makes ANY claim of a disembodied brain NOT WORTH considering.
HOWEVER, we can find ample evidence of humans inventing all sorts of polytheistic and monotheistic god/s only later to be dumped into the graveyard of myth.
Which makes more sense?
1. There really is a magic invisible friend by any name?
2. People merely like the idea of a super hero and want the super hero to be real so bad they will make one up or ignore the glaring lack of evidence in order to swallow such garbage?
Think about all the other gods you reject and WHY you reject them and you should understand why we reject yours as well. If you can accept that Thor does not make lightening, then you should be able to accept that a GOD/deity/magic super brain BY ANY NAME, is not required to explain life or nature or the universe.
Super villains vs Super Heros, call the Allah, Yaheweh, Vishnu, Thor, Apollo are merely the same extension of anthropomorphic gods when humans believed volcanos, weather and migrating animals were gods.
If you want to know what you are doing to your own brain in allowing yourself to be sucked into this fairy tale, I'd suggest you read "The God Delusion" Richard Dawkins, and "The End of Faith" By Sam Harris for starters.
I'd also suggest you learn the following terms/arguments.
1. The fallacy of Pascal's Wager
2. The problem with infinite regress
3. Bentrand Russell's "teapot"
That's just a very short list.
If you insist on peddling your superstition, don't bring a knife to a gunfight. We are much more educated than your post reflects. We are not lost puppies in needing of saving. We are not out to take over the world or rape women. We don't want a lawless society. If you don't want to make the attempt to argue your position, you don't have to. And we most certainly DO NOT hate everyone who does believe, even if we hate the claim they make. But if you stay, do yourself a favor and DO not expect us to treat your claims with kid gloves. You are going to be miserable here if you take our objections and blasphemy personally.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
How do you "know" you will be lambasted? Have you been reading those stupid Chick cartoons?
What I can say with certainty is that there is no physical evidence for god/s/dess and there is no physical evidence of their influence or actions here in the reality I have to live in.
In my experience, god/s/dess believers are not more moral than anyone else. Miracles do not happen. Amputees do not regrow missing limbs. (Ever notice how faith healers never cure anything but invisible problems?)
Do I know everything? pffffttttt..........
Do scientists know everything? pffffftttttt...........
Do you know everything? pfffffffffftttttttttttttttt......................
And the evidence that god/s/dess knows everything? How about bats are birds? See Genesis. You would think an all knowing god/s/dess would be able to communicate the difference between mammals and birds to a bunch of goat herders.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Here is the deal fella's (Maybe ladies, just making an assumption). Let me go ahead and discuss these points one at a time, I really do appreciate the responses though.
I did not believe in God, and I thought that all science made it perfectly clear that God was dead so to speak. And it wasn't a "this couldn't happen without God moment", on the contrary, I was pissed at God. See at 16 years old I developed what the doctors later identified as RSD or CRPS. The cliff notes on the disease are that it destroys muscle tissue and makes your skin feel like it is burning. The slightest touch from anything, even the wind, would send you reeling. After suffering with this disease for 4 years I was at the point where I had decided that there is no way in hell that there could be a loving God that would put me through this, just no way. I will say that if you read the Bible without faith it is nothing more than a bunch of really really crazy stories, I get that and I thought that for years. Actually if you read the Bible without faith it is kind of an amusing story, Old Testament that is. Let me say this as well, years later I still suffer with the disease of RSD, I have found no miracle cure that has told me in big bold letters that this was from God, well not any signs that would be profitable to discuss in this forum. If you can look at things with the slightest bit of faith than maybe one day we will get there, but for the time being it is a moot point. The treatment course that I have gone through to keep the disease under control is the same for both believers in Christ and atheists alike. The problem that I have had is that things just didn't ever seem to add up for me when it came to atheism.
Let's move on to the next point shall we. The next major point is that atheism is based on evidence, and fact and no emotion what so ever, here is the problem I see with what you just said. There is not one single piece of evidence that says conclusively that there is no way for God to exist. Show me that sliver of evidence, you can't and really for two reasons. One, not everything is known about the universe, and our understanding of the complexities of life and the universe are going at a break neck pace. Still there is no way to say for certain that there is no God, because we just don't know everything. Look for instance of the scientist that discovered the cork cell, "This has to be as basic as it gets" he must have thought to himself. Scientists today would laugh if you posited such a claim. The second reason that you cannot claim that there is no God based solely on evidence is that, and this may be the same point rehashed so please excuse me if it is, it is impossible for us to obtain an infinite amount of wisdom. Let us assume that the universe is infinite and is always spawning more and something to do with strings and soup, regardless. How do you know that there isn't sitting outside of all of that is a guy with a white robe and a really sweet beard. For us to write off the existence of something because we cannot see it seems silly. You believe in gravity but cannot see it. I know that these are logical arguments but I like to make them, you guys like to throw them around so I use a couple every now and again.
Now on to the two biggest stories and reasons why you do not believe, my answer to this may surprise you.
1. It takes two sets of DNA to manifest into a zygote, thus making magic babies being born without two sets of DNA absurd. Ok let me say that as a Christian I would say that this is a real moot point because well, I believe in a God that can create an endless universe by speaking so creating man is really, pardon my pun, childs play. So I know thats not the answer that is going to resonate with you so let me pose it to you this way, explain to me how these two different sets of DNA came together to make man under your theory, because I would like to look at the logic and evidence behind that.
2. Human flesh does not survive rigor mortis. Thus making claims of zombie gods rising from the dead absurd. Again, God that creates universe by speaking, but moving on. I do realize that this is one of those things that is not able to be understood. Here is what I am going to tell you as the reasoning behind this and then you can right me off but hey I am giving you my honesty at least you can respect that I am not calling you stupid or something. When you look at the story of Easter you cannot look at it in light of modern science, you just cannot. I will tell you straight away that anyone who claims to be able to scientifically explain the raising of Christ from the dead is wrong. The evidence according to todays standards just isn't there and I do not want to insult everyones intelligence by saying that it does. Instead I posit it this way, if you examine God and this is your only hang up we can talk about faith, but until that point its like beating your head against the wall.
Guys, no one really answered my concern and that is what lead me Towards faith. See we cannot put our faith in anything scientific, or at least that was the conclusion that I arrived at, because we do not have all the facts. The thought process than became which seems more probable, and for me I choose faith. See the thing about this is that you are never going to be able to explain everything, be it science or faith. We are just not capable of doing that, show me where we can explain every little thing about everything with absolute certainty and I would love to sleep in again on Sunday mornings and have a little bit more cash in my pocket. I posit that it takes more faith to be an atheist than a Christian. You have to have faith that every single piece of science is dead on right, and we both know its not. I on the other hand need to believe that one thing is correct, That there is a God. While I am no longer a betting man, mostly because I always lost, I like the odds better.
Here is my questions again, answer them, by all means!
1). How can you say with certainty that there is no God without knowing everything about everything?
2). Explain the Cambrian explosion.
3). Explain to me why you, personally, believed but don't anymore. I would hazard a guess that it started with an "I cannot believe in a God that would do this to me moment".
If you think that you need absolute certainty for disbelief, why make such a fuss about god? Don't you believe in everything?
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
See I wasn't lambasted, and to be perfectly honest I really appreciate that. I have visited other sites and lets just say they were not nearly are nice as you folks are. Let me deal with these one at a time again.
1). Believers are not more moral than everyone else. I agree, and anyone who claims that they are a better person because of religion is full of something that stinks. There is no evidence that even in scripture that supports that notion. The idea of belief as I understand it is that we are redeemed from our sins, it doesn't mean we don't sin, and sin big. The idea is that we are trying to make ourselves better people which isn't going to come to pass until Christ returns, we don't have a leg to stand on, and we are no better than anyone else. I am a dirty rotten sinner and if "believers" that you speak to try to pull that I am sorry, thats not right. I never made that claim but I thought I would address it.
2). I like the fact that you claim that there is no physical evidence in the reality that you have to live in. Let us run with that idea, where is the physical evidence for the big bang in your reality. And if we want to get all kinds of philosophical maybe I have a different reality. Just for the record I hate debating about word choice but every once in awhile I cannot restrain myself. My point behind the bigger picture is that when my great great great great Grandfather there was no walking this earth there was no physical evidence that DNA existed. Just saying.
3). Do I/Scientists/You know everything. The answer you gave only serves to illustrate my point. Let me spell this out, I do not claim to know everything. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast, and I should not be used as the standard. The thing that I can say is that without having all the knowledge of everything I couldn't say that God doesn't exist and I think if you are honest with yourself neither can you. Now I know that the next point that you are going to make is that I don't know everything and thus I cannot say for certain that God exists. I have an answer for that; again my Christian mind says that I know the Alpha and Omega and thus I have all the knowledge that I need because I know God and God is everything. I know that that answer will not satisfy any of you so I will take it from this angle. Is pluto a planet or a really big asteroid? Now there are arguments on either side of that equation but does believing one thing versus another have anything to do with the truth that gravity exists. Because I believe in God doesn't mean I cannot believe in gravity, it just means I think that God is responsible for it. So think of God as gravity if that helps.
4). Yes, this is true, but here is where I have to stop you and ask a question because the Bible needs to be looked at in context and with faith. Is the Bible in your mind at least as credible as any other writing out there. See I don't want to get into this game where we spend all day discussing the minutia of a translation from greek or hebrew or whatever the passage is written in to english. Because if you want to look at words I don't really think that that is going to help us understand each other better. But if that is a stumbling block for you and you still want to talk about it I would love to work through that with you. I am by no means a biblical scholar and sadly I am not as knowledgeable about this particular argument, so if you would please give me the exact passage that you are referring to so that I can study it and provide you with a reasoned answer. I don't want to lie to you, that wouldn't be very Christlike.
Thanks! I'd love to keep this going, I'd love to learn more about the way you guys think.
Thank you for the reply Gauche, let me try and address this issue. You posted while I was penning my last response so I'm sorry if this is duplicative. My question is not that there is a need for absolute certainty to say that something exists, I am saying that there needs to be absolute certainty before we say that there is no way something can exist. I believe that you can prove something exists without having to prove that everything else doesn't. It's a fancy little word game I play but I think it's par for the course. For instance, you say that God doesn't exist, I say that he is sitting at the bottom of the ocean where no one has been able to see before. How can you tell me I am wrong, there are tons of fish that hang out down there that we are just now finding out about, what's to say that God's not down there too. You don't have to know everything to know that gravity exists same thing with God.
Ok I am open minded, I was unaware that that was the true context of Mr. Dawkins statements, and if that is the case than I would only ask that you send me a link so that I can see for myself. I am not an unreasonable person, but I heard what I heard and thats all there is to it. I would also like to see your proof that the cambrian explosion fits into evolution, because well I haven't ever seen that.
Responding to the rest of the post I don't think would be real profitable, but again I will say this. The point that I am making is how can you dismiss a theory, creationism is a scientific theory, without being able to directly disprove the possibility that God doesn't exist. How can you say that God isn't out there, do you know everything about everything, the answer is no. Why can't this God thing fit unto your world view. There is just as much evidence for God as there is for the Big Bang. What makes the Big Bang more accepted? More people say that it is true? People of faith far out number the people who say that God doesn't exist, you guys just have a louder microphone.
I will leave explaining the burden of proof to others... The point is, your God is a lot like Chuck Norris. I believe that Chuck Norris does not carry wristwatch, he determines what time it is. I believe Chuck Norris can stare into the sun and the sun will get blind. I believe that ghosts sit around a campfire and tell scary stories about Chuck Norris. I believe Chuck Norris died 20 years ago, but the Death didn't have courage to tell him.
Isn't Chuck Norris awesome? Give him due respect, or he will roundhouse-kick you into outer space, as I believe.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Listen I was never trying to claim that atheism was a belief of hate, nor was I trying to lay out the case that I have for Christ. Listen I can go just as hard, but all I wanted the answer to was one single question. How can you say that God doesn't exist without claiming that you have knowledge of EVERYTHING. The point is that in my mind you cannot, that is the point that I have gotten to in my life. Now I must say that turning the discussion from the actual question of how you can say that something doesn't exist without all knowledge to an attack is pretty telling.
Lets talk facts and just cut the crap. If you want me to honestly believe that the Big Bang theory has more value than that of Creation does you are going to have to SHOW me how that it is because I have not been able to come to that conclusion. SHOW me your logic flow so that I can understand. And here is something else, this forum is nothing more than a bunch of angry people sitting around attacking anyone who doesn't have the same world view. If you believe that you can say there is no God without disproving everything else show me how because my brain cannot see how that will work.
SHOW me evidence and not personal bias because I have my own and I promise I care more about my bias than yours.
Also I am not going to take it personally, why would I. I have my beliefs and you have yours. I ask you to explain yours and I could explain mine, the difference is that the "logic" is missing from mine, at least thats what I have been told. Thats because I believe in an "imaginary friend".
Listen I am not worried about getting my feelings hurt or anything like that, if I was it would be stupid to come into this forum and post what I did. So Show me. I may be stupid, but show me.
Double post sorry
Here is the thing, I appreciate you for being nice in your response.
I don't have any doubt that the DNA is combined inside the egg and all that fun stuff now. The issue at hand, as I believe it, was how was that DNA combined if God was responsible for the creation and God is only one person. So I want to be told how it was supposed to have happened scientifically. Believe what you want but show me the proof. Without proof you guys might as well believe what I do.
Look, we do NOT live in ancient times. We do not now live in an age of ignorance. I do not think even modern superstitions and conspiracies like Big Foot or Ouija boards need any consideration, much less gods concocted in an ignorant past.
There are lots of things we don't have any evidence of, yet you don't waste your entire life on those things.
What we do have are computers, medicine, telescopes and LABS that we CAN and do test our measurements of reality with.
How much time do you waste thinking about Thor making lightening?
Until you can empirically demonstrate HOW a thought can exist without material of any kind, postulating non material entities BY ANY NAME, is absurd. Considering that we have a continuing growing graveyard of god claims, and the fact that people make up and believe things that are false all the time, I do not think it is a bad bet at all to scrap ALL invisible friend claims.
The earth is not flat. We went to the moon. There is no Loc Ness Monster. Oswald acted alone. And fictional invisible friends are not needed to explain reality, nature or the universe.
You want to "warn us" about using file 13 (the trash can of bad claims). I believed in Santa when I was a kid. So because I have not lived my entire life, I cant say for certainty that Santa does not exist?
ABSURD USE OF LOGIC.
If you are going to use "you cant prove it isn't" then EVERYTHING by that logic is true, just by proxy of uttering it. If you want to let your brains fall out using bad logic, we wont stop you. Just don't ask us to.
A used car salesmen would love you, "Buy it, it is a pretty blue"
You, "but, can I have it checked out to make sure it runs good?"
Salesmen, "No, it's blue, that's all you need to know"
You, "Ok".
Now, here is how I would deal with that same car salesman,
Salesman, "Buy this car, it is a pretty blue"
Me, "Can I have it independently checked out to make sure it runs good"
Salesmen, "No, it's blue, that's all you need to know"
Me, "You just lost a potential sale idiot".
My point is just because someone likes what they claim, is completely independent from the separate subject of their ability to EMPIRICALLY demonstrate the credibility of their claim, and then have that claim independently tested. Just like you would OR SHOULD, have that used car independently checked out before buying it.
Argument from popularity is not a good argument.
Argument from tradition is not a good argument.
"It makes me feel good" is not a good argument.
"I cant explain it" is not a good argument.
If a claim cannot be independently kicked around and independently verified beyond all personal bias, it is a safe bet to leave it at mental masturbation. Humans make all sorts of wild claims and I cannot think of anything more absurd than a magical invisible super friend with super powers.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
How is that different from dragons? You wouldn't need to know everything to know that there are dragons but you would have to know everything to have absolute certainty there aren't any. So you believe in dragons.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Can't say that I don't. I also think that it is possible that the Yeti exists as well.
I can understand your position. My question was why do you care so much about gods. Shouldn't you be criticizing us for our general incredulity? I don't believe in dragons or yetis either.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
<quote>If a claim cannot be independently kicked around and independently verified beyond all personal bias, it is a safe bet to leave it at mental masturbation. Humans make all sorts of wild claims and I cannot think of anything more absurd than a magical invisible super friend with super powers.<\quote>
How about a flying spaghetti monster? That would look pretty crazy, although tasty...
Anyway the point that I was trying to get across is that the idea of creation is just as plausible as the big bang when you "kick the tires", so what is it about that theory over creation that allows us to dismiss the idea of God. The reason that you need to be able to know everything is because God is all encompassing. I suppose Christianity stacked the deck on that one. But what is it that makes creation and God unacceptable to science?
I never said you were stupid.
Smart people do believe it is possible, but that doesn't make the claim "virgin births" credible. I think it IS stupid to hold ANY unsubstantiated position.
But I do hold the position that it is STUPID to hold the position that virgins can magically have babies without a second set of DNA. That is patently stupid.
I am smart, but I have held stupid positions, and I have done stupid things. That doesn't make you or anyone a bad person, it just makes you human.
I once believed that babies came out of the ass. My reasoning was, when I was a kid, saw a nature film of a fawn being born. The shot was profile so it looked like the baby was coming out of her ass. I am glad I gave up that stupid position.
I will not apologize for calling virgin births a STUPID position to hold considering that we know what DNA is and HOW human evolution works.
If you want to buy that crap, I wont stop you, just don't ask me to buy it. I know better.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I was serious about the Yeti, that thing seems awesome!
Why would I criticize you for not believing what I believe. My question was how can you believe that an all encompassing X doesn't exist when you don't know every Y. My intention isn't to convert you it's to better understand. I don't want you guy's to go to hell, I don't want anything like that for anyone (and that is part of my belief system) but I think that unless I understand how you guys think and handle the objections that I have to believing there isn't a God I can't put forth logically based responses.
Let me also say that my intention is not to become the guy that tries to get you to change. I am just going to tell you what I believe and ask you for why you believe what you believe.
The media was selling that bullshit when I was a kid. It is a hoax. It is as much a hoax as the Loc Ness Monster and crap circles. You want to believe that crap that badly, you will.
Stop watching cable media for your education.
"I saw it on TV so it must be true" Yawn.
You might as well believe in vampires and unicorns if you believe in Big Foot.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Thanks for clearing that up. I thought you were referring to creation of Adam and Eve.
Yeah, I am not going to be able to scientifically prove that the virgin birth exists, because there is not one single piece of evidence on earth that will be able to support it. I think that regardless of your belief system creation or big bang it only gets you so far, the rest is no faith. I think that this is one of the things that you have to take with faith, because it doesn't happen daily, it was direct intervention from God, and for me that's faith for you that is an unsupportable claim. I get that I will admit that not everything I believe can be back up by science.
This isn't about your right to believe what you want. This is about the ABILITY.........LET ME REPEAT....ABILITY TO DEMONSTRATE the credibility of the words ON ANY TOPIC that come out of your mouth.
And seriously, if you believe in Yeti, then you seriously need to cut off your cable service and pick up a peer reviewed copy of a biology book that EXPLAINS EVOLUTION.
Don't worry, I wont, and you wont. Worrying about "hell" would be like worrying about Lex Luthor kicking my ass. Why should I be afraid of fictional places?
Are you afraid of Allah? Are you afraid of a Muslim hell? No. Now you understand why I am not afraid of your claim of hell either.
Why does it frighten you to think about this being all there is? Sometimes life is good and sometimes it sucks, but none of what happens between the time we are born to the time we die, needs fictional places or fictional super heros vs super villains to explain.
I am no more afraid of life after I am dead anymore than I would be afraid of life before I was born.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
What in life led you to believe in the god you currently believe in? I would assume you believe in the same god most people around you believe in.
As Brian mention, unicorns, you can't prove there are none and we can make up anything we like, write a book about it and say it's true with no evidence other than faith and desire.
We can't say there is no god but we can say the god of the bible is man made and we can do this based on common sense. It doesn't take a scholar or rocket scientist to figure out who wrote it and therefore who the god really is. We as a people have progressed, he doesn't he can only slowly lose attributes untill eventually "he" is less than the god of the gaps of which "he" has a very tenuous hold even now imo.
I pointed something out to a fb friend the other day. She posted a picture of a black jesus. Is it coincidence of some sort or perhaps clear evidence that jesus IS that person who has demonstrated clearly that they desire that he looked just like them? Of course she deleted my post.
We must not think. "nom nom braaaaaiiiinnns nom nom nom" /slurp
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
And that attitude of "I don't know, so I'll make shit up, because it sounds good", has consistently been a bane on our species history.
Imagine how much further the ancient Egyptians would have been, and humanity in general, if they hadn't stopped at "the sun is a god", and actually figured out what it actually was?
And fyi atheism is not a "belief system" anymore than "off" is a TV channel.
Why is it both you and I can post on our computers? Why is it both you and I can drive a car. I'll clue you in, because somebody didn't get stuck on fairy dust and actually got off their asses and tested shit.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Going to hell would suck I'm sure but you are also living as if potentially dangerous things do not exist without absolute certainty. We're not doing anything different from you.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
AND LET ME ADD,
Do not confuse atheism, which is a position on ONE subject, with the completely different subject of Scientific method, which is not a "belief system".
First of all "atheism" addresses is the position on the existence of a god. It is the "off" position, nothing more. Atheism does not address our political views, nor our class status, nor our hobbies, or likes or dislikes.
There ARE atheists here who vote republican and own guns. There are others who vote democrat. There are rich atheists (Bill Gates), (Angolina Jolie) and middle class atheists, and even poor atheists, like me.
We have no book we pray to. We do not assert a dogma. We are just as diverse in our lives as any other label of people.
AND
Scientific method is a tool, not a belief system. It is what scientists use, not "believe in". It is a process. Much like following assembly instructions for a bicycle or car engine.
First you do this. Then you do this. Then you do this. Then you do this. That is what scientific method is, in laymens terms.
Specifically it goes like this.
1. Collect data.
2. Formulate a model based on prior established scientific method.
3. Plug data into model
4. Test and falsify data and model.
5. Hand data and model over to people with no horse in the race and have them independently test and falsify your data and model. RINSE REPEAT, RINSE REPEAT.
IF IF IF IF IF IF IF, you do all this, and your data and model are thrashed about and STILL come out with flying colors, then you have something.
"I like what I believe" is not even remotely comparable .
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
ConfusedByThe Site,
The FACT that we cannot prove with absolute certainty that some kind of God does NOT exist, is of no more significance as to whether it is reasonable to believe it, than is the FACT that there are an infinite number of other not absolutely impossible ideas that may just possibly be true. You CANNOT rationally base any understanding of what IS on what you cannot prove IS NOT. There are just too many alternatives, too many alternative 'gods', even if you restrict the discussion to this topic.
We have to have at least some evidence FOR the existence of a thing, and it has to be reasonably consistent with what has already been shown to be highly likely to be true, before any rational, intellectually honest person can even begin to take it seriously.
The fact that you even expressed that idea means that you fundamentally do not understand where we are coming from, or anything about the nature of the real pursuit of truth.
Nothing beyond the two fundamental axioms of logic (and the systems of logic and math which follow from them), and 'cogito ergo sum' - "I think therefore I am", is provable with 100% certainty. Without basic logic, we can't even discuss anything about what is 'true' in any meaningful way, and we can't avoid the assumption that we are here discussing it.
Therefore we have to be able to assess plausibility, probability, likelihood, which is what science is all about, in addition to establishing ways to minimize the personal biases and prejudices of individuals.
And the FACT is that we are gradually building up a more coherent, consistent, and explanatory model of reality at all levels from the origins of matter and the universe, to the origin and evolution of life, and the way our own minds work.
The fact that you even mentioned the idea of 'When was the last time we have ever seen an animal evolve into a completely new one?" demonstrates you have no understanding of what evolution is about. That only happens over millions of generations, by very small steps, no larger that the maximum difference we would expect to see between one creature and its offspring. We do see the evidence of it happening, whenever we find a good series of related fossils. We also now have massive evidence of the relatedness of all life, from studies of DNA from many, many species.
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If there was a God who had anything worth calling 'love' for us, those disabilities, which amount to design faults, would not exist in the first place, just to afflict a few people for no vaild moral reason.
You do realize that the 'virgin birth' is a matter of dispute over translation? A crucial word could equally refer to 'young woman' as to 'virgin'.
Yes, Science has imperfect evidence, and it has had to continually adjust and refine its best estimates as to how things are, but the fact that we can now send spacecraft beyond the reach of the Sun, cure many of the diseases and disabilities which your God presumably inflicted us with, and that we can discuss these issues with each other across the world with our technology, is rather strong evidence that it works, and is revealing countless sufficiently accurate truths about reality for massive human progress.
Whereas religious belief is still stuck on the old, primitive fantasies which have nothing like as solid a basis behind them as the most speculative scientific hypothesis.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Yes we are doing something differently. We are swallowing one less fantastic claim than they do.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I don't.
I don't.
In brief, I don't say that there is 100% no god. I say that I don't see any reason to believe in a god.
Any other questions?
BobSpence1, I am glad that you mentioned the Cogito Ergo Sum. That is my opening to an interesting point. Specifically that there is a large intersection between the meditations and the Matrix.
@confusedbythesite: For your benefit, the point to the meditations is to establish with some certainty what we can reasonably know. Basically, it starts by positing that even reality as we know it is only a dream imposed on us by some horrible creature the existence of which we cannot know. Descartes used the term “demon” but it could just as easily be 'Agent Smith”.
Against that, what can we know? Well, we can know that we think or more specifically, I can know that I think. For all that I can reasonably determine, both you and bobSpence1 could be part of the matrix dream and neither of you really exist. I think, therefore I am.
Past that, you leave me with an interesting question. Specifically, why would you change your default position from one of not believing to one of believing? Seriously, you never really covered that at all.
Then too, what is it that you believe in? As you say, there are a good number of things that just don't really make a whole lot of sense (zomibe jesus comes to mind as one example). So perhaps you believe in something which actually does make at least enough sense that it can't be automatically refuted?
On that, what about the god of Spinoza? Pretty much that comes down to the idea that the universe is composed of the stuff that exists and the information that connects everything to everything else. The physical laws are part of god or possibly the whole of god with the actual stuff involved.
Or how about the other god that makes perfect sense but we don't know anything about that god because he is only known to the beings on the fourth planet from some star half way across the galaxy?
Really, it is fine to posit that something like a god might exist but then you have to add qualifiers to make the specific concept of god fit in with what is already known to be reasonable.
Also, You seem to have missed a fair bit of important details on the bog bang. Allow me to clue you in on that one.
Rewind to a hundred years ago. At that point, astronomers could measure the distance of stars out to about ten million light years. However, the most distant star that we could find was less than a hundred thousand light years away.
Albert Einstein realized that it was fundamentally stupid to think that the entire universe could exist in a finite volume and not be collapsing due to gravity but he kind of missed the now known fact of expansion of the universe. Don't worry about that very much.
About 1930, Edwin Hubble (the guy the space telescope is named for) found a star that we about two million light years away and associated with a kind of “cloud in the sky” known as the Andromeda Nebula. That turned out to be the Andromeda galaxy (M31 if you want to google it). Later on, he found that other nebulae also had stars that he could find and measure the distance to. Actually, he found a few ways of measuring the distance and they all agreed really well.
From that, it was clear that most of the galaxies were moving apart from each other at speeds proportional the the measured distance. That fact mostly fixes Einstein's bug about the universe not contracting (because it is clearly expanding).
So what are we to make of this? How about if the universe was smaller in the past? OK, that works well enough. But for how long has the universe existed?
At that point in time, one idea was that the universe had existed for an infinite time. Today, we know that that idea really makes no sense but in the 1950's, the evidence was not so clear.
Now, one of the “infinite past” astronomers was interviewed on the radio in the 50's. At one point, he derisively reffered to those who disagreed with him stating that the universe must have had a beginning “with a big bang”. Well, the name stuck and that is what we kind of have today.
Here is a critical point...
the big bang theory says absolutely nothing about creation. It only talks about how the universe has developed since whatever happened 17,600,000,000 years ago. It says nothing about what actually happened back then.
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No they are not. One is myth and the other is based on science.
If you don't know a damned thing about science, that is not my fault.
WILL YOU PLEASE READ .
Others have addressed the following:
The only way you can know that invisible pink unicorns do not exist is to know everything. Do you really need to know everything to know that pink unicorns do not exist? There are lots of things people go around claiming, so the fuck what? Claims are like assholes, everyone has one.
The big bang is not a claim. It is a scientific fact. It is backed up by the observation of microwave background radiation.
DO NOT try to compare ancient myth with modern science and stupidly try to equate them as 50-50 propositions.
Put down your book of myth, and pick up a science book.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Hello OP, welcome to this site.
I see that your misconceptions have been addressed quite eloquently by the previous posters. I don't like to be redundant unnecessarily so I will try to add this.
Let me give you a quick scenario of how your question sounds like to me. I approach you and tell you that if you hand me your watch and your ring that are worth $3000, all you have to do is close your eyes and count to 100 and I will give you $10,000 cash, that I have in my back pocket. Let's concentrate on the money for a second and ignore everything else. If you were to tell me that you don't believe I have 10K in my back pocket, it would be a reasonable and default position for you to be in, that of disbelief. What if my response would be to say that you don't know 100% that I don't have the money, therefore you have to give me your stuff. Would that be a reasonable position you think? and if not, why not?
I'll leave you with this little tidbit, remember, question everything, and extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. And if fear of hell is what makes you believe, what if the Muslims are right, and not Christians, you can be a perfectly devout Christian and still go to hell.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
My apologies for taking so long to reply, my internet connection was down.
I am not a dirty rotten sinner and neither are you. We are not perfect, but we are not sinners. And I had a shower this morning, so I am not dirty. And since I am still alive and kicking and I assume you are as well, we are not rotten or rotting. Why on earth would buying into the world view that people are "dirty rotten sinners" be considered a healthy and desirable view of life and living?
You have to go back a few more greats. There was evidence of DNA, just no tools to see, analyze or characterize DNA. See Gregor Mendel - born 1822, died 1884. And even the earliest agriculturalists and herders understood that you can breed for particular traits, and you would get those traits enhanced in future generations. A very superficial scan of the literature on domestication of plants and animals will verify that "primitive" peoples understood the principles of breeding for desired traits whatever they may have called it. And there was plenty of evidence for DNA, just inadequate lab equipment and method to properly study it.
As for the big bang, I am not a cosmologist or astrophysicist or any other specialist on that subject. No one can be an expert of everything. There is too much to be an expert of and not a long enough life span to study it all. So I assume the experts on this subject know what they are talking about.
The difference between that and "faith" is that I know if I wanted, I could become an expert and the physical evidence is there to be found, researched, and seen for myself. I could find this evidence in many places, through many avenues of investigation. The one and only piece of evidence for the christian god is the bible. Written by bronze/iron age goat herders. They didn't have any physical evidence for their beliefs or for their concepts of the world around them. Hence, bats mistaken as birds.
There still isn't any physical evidence for god/s/dess and a lot of people have searched for it for years.
IF god/s/dess exists, s/he/it/they are sadistic bastards. There is evidence of that all around us. And they are evidently ignorant as well. See bats are birds for a very simple example of their ignorance. How easy would it have been - when inspiring/dictating that bible - to correctly identify bats as mammals?
I can say with certainty that the god that most christians worship does not exist. There is plenty of evidence that if a god/s/dess does exist that entity(ies) is not particularly concerned or interested in people and their problems.
In 2009, a 5 year old girl was sold by her mother to a man who raped and strangled the baby. I will look up the news reports for you, if you think I am lying or exaggerating. If god/s/dess wanted that baby in heaven so bad, s/he/it/they could have stopped her heart in her sleep, they didn't have to have her tortured first. And being raped by an adult male was torture - never doubt it. And what possible lesson did that baby learn from her torture? What lesson did I learn? I was an atheist long before 2009, so this had no effect on my lack of faith. But I learned that the universe had better be random, because if god really existed, when I died I would cheerfully take the sonofabitch out and / or go to hell rather than spend eternity with an entity that could of stopped atrocities like this but didn't.
I am not interested in biblical scholarship. It is a book of myths, written by people who had no concept of science. For the bats classified as birds, it is in Genesis. Don't believe me, go look it up. Or that men must have one fewer rib than women because god made woman from man's rib. Not so, men and women have the same number of ribs.
I used to be christian - I went to church regularly, did bible study, and so on. Even when I was 6 years old, I didn't think the stories were literally true. I grew up in Arizona, and the Grand Canyon is an excellent example of why there has never been a world wide flood, for example. Even as a child, I didn't believe it was remotely possible the canyon was carved by one flood event.
So no, the bible is not credible. The only exception is for some historical events that are contemporary to the authors. Roughly between 900 BCE and 100 CE - and the accurate history is only for the time that particular section was written. Anywhere the authors were writing about events that happened in their past, they were largely inaccurate. Very few people of the time could read or write, and so their version of their own history is suspect.
So the bible is totally not credible. And people pick and choose verses based on their desired support for their world view. I gave up on invisible friends a long time ago (I really am an old woman). The way I think is to look - really look - at what is going on around me. And the world is not perfect, people are not perfect, our physical bodies are not perfect, we are not perfectly adapted to our environment, and neither is any other organism on this or any other planet. Reality. It is beautiful. In all its imperfections. I am glad to be alive and I have no fear of death or imaginary hells.
Try it sometime, it is truly peaceful when you can say with certainty that you are a good person and your life is worth living with those you love. No god/s/dess required.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Evolution is my thing. The "Cambrian Explosion" was so named when fossil hunting (and paleontology) was new. Only one fossil bed had been discovered of that era. We now have many examples of Cambrian and pre-Cambrian fossils. For an easy to read book with lots of pictures of fossils see,
Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters by Donald R Prothero and Carl Buell.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Say-Matters/dp/0231139624/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308332284&sr=8-1
My library had a copy, so if your library doesn't have one, you can get it through interlibrary loan and don't have to spend a penny on it. If you don't have a library card, shame on you. There are lots of popular science references available that are written by people who have made a career of studying the subject and have peer reviewed articles published elsewhere in ethical science publications. Books by lawyers and such don't cut it.
Any time you say "and then a miracle occurred", it is NOT science. Science doesn't "do" miracles. Therefore, creationism is not science. It isn't a theory or even a credible hypothesis. That you say it is a theory, just shows how ignorant you are. I am also inclined to say you are deliberately ignorant, since information on science is very available through the internet or your library. Hint: Stick with secular accredited universities for your information. Not cesspools of deliberate ignorance like the Discovery Institute.
edit: fixed quotes
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
My belief is Mary was screwing around on Joseph and came up with this story to keep from being thrown out of the house. I have as much evidence for this belief as you do for yours. None.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Indeed.
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And something just popped out at me in re-reading this post. You said that Dawkins called something a "theory" in regards to what a Christian was claiming.
Now I have NO DOUBT whatsoever, that what you saw/read was edited and taken out of context. We see this all the time. Dawkins would NEVER treat the word "theory" like a theist treats the word theory and he sure as hell does not believe in magical invisible super brains.
You are a fool if you think for one second Dawkins would lend any credibility to the "theory" of a believer.
A "theory" to a scientist is something that has tons of data and prior science pointing to it's support and backed up by testing and falsification.
A "theory" to a believer is nothing but wishful guessing and mental masturbation NOT backed up by any laboratory testing or falsification.
If Dawkins said "Since we don't know the future, monkeys could fly out of my butt", does that mean he literally means that?
I'd suggest you demand the source you got that from disclose the full context without any editing, AND don't cherry pick the full version to mine what you want to pull out of it.
Or, next time Dawkins has a trip to your town, get in his autograph line and ASK him directly what he meant in the context of that particular venue. If he doesn't laugh or scoff at you, or at a minimum give you a furrowed brow and look of pity, I'd be surprised.
How you can twist his words after The God Delusion AND The Greatest Show on Earth, is absurd.
"Belief" is a fact free zone. Knowledge is tested and proven and does not need "belief" to support it.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
The creation myth says god created the universe 6000 years ago and that all animals were created uniquely and separately, distinct kinds, like species in that they could not interbred. And yet we have lots of evidence of populations of the same "kind" separating and after many years could not interbred thus becoming separate "kinds". There are at least 10 million species alive today and this is only about 90% of all species that ever lived. Stick 10 million species on an ark for a year. Right! Bio-geography shows the Noah story as a myth. No evidence that kangaroos were every anywhere but Australia. How did they trek from Turkey to Australia without a boat and not leaving a single fossil anywhere or even any biblical mention.
Many science studies have found the universe is much older in the 4.5 billion year range. We see stars that are millions of light years away, some are exploding the closest is 165k light years ago. The creation myth says sin (death and destruction) entered 6k years ago. There is lots of more evidence but creation is not a scientific theory. It is a religious belief. You can have religion with out creationism, but you can never find creationism without religion. It is a bronze age view of the world just like believing in a god explain those things they could not understand. Mankind thought god was the one responsible for lightening and punished humans. It is in the Bible. But the lightening rod showed that wasn't true. It was thought god caused diseases punishing the evil doers, then science discovered micro-organisms. It was thought god caused earthquakes but then science saw that it was because of sudden shifts in the earth crust and we know where they will happen because of the faults. It was not for punishing evil doers or god would have to collect them on the faults. One thing after another attributed to a god science has found a natural cause for. It has always gone that way, NEVER the other way around. God keeps getting pushed further and further away. We don't need him to explain things. This is what Steven Hawkins has stated.
You god is one fantastic hide and go seek player.
Imaginary and non-existent things look a like.
Hopefully this addresses your question. This is the evidence that keeps pushing god further away from reality. I think sometimes you just see where it is going and stop fighting the obvious conclusion.
(and besides the god of the bible is one evil bastard and he gets a big fat F- in science)
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Yea, he did such a good job so we humans can suffer things like cancer and downs syndrome. That, or he didn't do anything because he doesn't exist . Evolution is not about reaching an apex or perfection. It is simply about getting to the next generation. If you die from cancer before you reproduce your genes do not move on. Children can and do get cancer way before they become sexually active.
You cannot explain the bad in life with a god. You can simply attribute the bad to nature. Just like you know a tornado doesn't think about which house it knocks down. Evolution and DNA are not the result of cognition or design.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
What you consider 'evidence' is distinctly different from what I consider 'evidence', which is to say there is no evidence.
There only exists 'conjecture'.
Why would someone need to be certain one way or the other?
That's nonsensical.
By that stream of logic, I couldn't be sure that monkeys couldn't fly out of someone's butt, unless I knew everything there is to know about everything 'scientific'.
That actually works against theists.
We might eventually discover other gods that Christains never knew about...
You need to do a bit more reading up on science.
We know a lot about the past in regards to the universe from 'Red Shift', and 'Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation'.
These put the nail in the coffin about the 'expansion' of time/space. There is no debate that the universe is expanding. It's a fact.
That never stopped the church from claiming it knew the 'truth' about how this universe formed, when they got all the other details about the 'universe' wrong for millenia...
How old are you?
Do you know anything about how 'concrete' red shift is?
That would be 'revolution', not 'evolution'.
But to answer your question, if you want to 'see' rapid 'evolution', you can study how butterflies morph from a completely different type of lethargic earthbound caterpillar into a rapid flying insect.
You can see how a flounder is born as a normal fish, with eyes on both sides of it's brain, swimming upright, before it morphs into a flatfish, with both eyes on one side of it's brain.
A small isolated population of Italian Wall Lizards displayed an incredibly 'rapid' evolution in a short period of time, in an incredible display of adaptation to a new environment.
It happened.
What about it?
Huh?
You're 'projecting'.
I don't care one way or the other how this universe was formed, or how life began and evolved.
But the church does care.
Desperately.
They need believers, to follow under their 'guidance'. Otherwise they're just be unemployed people who wear funny clothes, and would have to actually 'work' for a living, instead of being 'critics' of other peoples' sex habits.
Because they're claiming to 'know the truth', and that they're commanded by an ultimate authority, to tell 'me' and 'everyone' what's up, what's down, what's right, and what's wrong, because they're desperate to do so.
They're going to have to do a lot better than "This dude Abraham had this 'God' tell him to pass the word along..."
Even though I don't actually make the claim "There is no God" (because I'm indifferent as to how this universe formed).....One could make the claim (as legitimately) as someone who claims there is a god, as it IS a 50/50 proposition, for the reason that no human was there to witness the formation of the universe.
I have a pretty good idea that we'll know a ton more in less time than that, with the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, and with the advances in AI (artificial intelligence) helping science to a level of understanding that'll widen the gap between 'bright' informed individuals, and 'ignorant', in the 'dark' sheeple.
Religion is merely a preoccupation with supersitious bullshit. Much like astrology.
Only a few ignorant morons will bet their life on it, in the generations to come.
For some reason, Americans think that because there is a large body of water between them and hundreds of millions of atheists, that 'Christians' outnumber 'NonChristians', and somehow correlate that to "The Church must be tellin' us the truth, Ma!"
So, your whole 'reason' for coming to believe in Christianity seems to hinge on the church casting doubts on you, rather than any compelling reasons that the church may have given you to adopt their dogma.
If that's the case, can you scientifically explain Noah's Ark?
The zombie invasion?
How you think that an incantation was how the universe formed?
How breathing on some dirt was the beginning of the male of our species?
How come there's no bloodline from Jesus' siblings?
Why is there nothing written about them?
Why no 'accounts' from Jesus' own brothers and sisters, about him?
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Ah, welcome to the forum.
I don't say anything with absolute certainty except that which is logically necessitated and/or definitively true.
Define "God."
I don't believe in "God" because I have not been presented with sufficient to be convinced that whatever God is, exists. I do not "say" with "absolute certainty" that there is no 'God.'
I assume that everything you've written has already been addressed, but since this is your main question, which has "never been addressed," I'll add to it.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare