brian and kelly and there failed arguments
Offline im just curious, how athiests defend this apparent contradiction that many so called intellectual athiests hold.
I watched the debate between kelly and brian and kirk cameron from a couple years back and i was overwhelmed by the utter lack of knowledge possesed by kelly and brian in terms of modern cosmology and physics and meta physics and in terms of being able to form strong logical arguments.
For example brian mentions the 3rd law of thermo dynamics as support for an eternal past and matter being an eternal being. This premise is only contigent in a post big bang universe according to all modern science so if we can prove that the universe came in to being which seems far more logical than this fallacy of an infinite number of past events that all but rendors that little argument useless.
Further more even if we permitted the argument based on his inaccurate depiction of the 3rd law of thermo dynamics wouldnt the second law of thermo dynamics form quite the conundrum for the athiest, specifically an athiest that holds to the eternal presence of the universe. The second law of thermo dynamics states that in a closed system( which is ultimately what an athiest/naturalist has to subscribe to) that all things eventually will lend to disorder and chaos, so if we have in fact had an infinite past would we already be destroyed by chaos and disorder? hmmm?
Additionally i was shocked at their lack of awareness of what the real question with respect to morals was. Brian and kelly were defending the epistimology of morals, which wasnt the problem.
I and many thiests can accept thiestic evolution and gauge that perhaps in Gods divine providence are knowledge of rights and wrongs could be a socially biological bi product. But that was not the question the question was whether objective rights and wrongs exist?
the athiest has 2 options he can take the utterly minescule minority of citizens and play the objective morals dont exist card or he can say objective morals do exist. Now if objective morals do not exist and everything we know to be right or wrong are merely biproducts of an evolutionary process which encourages human flourishment, then why is rape surely considered wrong?
I mean from a biological evolution processrape could be beneficial to human flourishment if the appropriate specimans were forced to breed? Interesting dichotomy the so called ethical athiets has himsefl in if he subscribes to subjectivity with respect to morals. Now if objective morals do exist, then why? Is the ethical athiest going to say that morals are some abstract objects that actually exist, hmm, sounds kind of irrational, because if " the good" existed " the good" itself could not be good because it is causally efete, wow were getting in to deeper and deeper athiest water, lol. How do we know things are really right or really wrong, these beliefs can only be placed by a transcendent being of which whom's nature is the good which this being evokes to us, and by the way that statement in and of itself eliminates the eurphphro dilemna.
I guess i could go on all night with this but i will leave you guys with this for now, hopefully i can get some truly rational reponses.
- Login to post comments
I'll let others take a stab at addressing my so called failures. I found it slightly ironic that you used the wrong "there" in your title, didn't capitalize any names, and failed to break your writing up into paragraphs. I guess nobody is perfect, eh?
I was there for one purpose and one purpose alone: Respond to any claims made by Ray and Kirk that attempted to prove God existed without using faith or the buybull. There wasn't much in that category on that night, the rest was just fluff to make ABC happy by filling up some dead time around their failed efforts.
Vote for Democrats to save us all from the anti-American Republican party!
Please become a Patron of Brian Sapient
Talk about jumping around. This guy makes Q-Bert look like a valium popper.
I love it when people bring in science and attack it at the same time.
You have no right attacking science or even trying to use it to prop up your myth.
Lets review some of the fantastic stories in your book of myth which only can be explained by you with "abracadabra" god did it.
1. Earth being created in 6 days.(The earth is 4 billion years old, the universe is 13 billion years old)
2. The sun and moon described as separate sources of light.(The moon bounces the sunlight off it's surface. thus ONE source of light being the sun)
3. Adult plants "poof" suddenly existing without the aid of photosynthesis
4. Adult humans magically popping out of dirt via "poof".
And Harry potter like stories exist just about on every page of this convoluted book. Not to mention the main super hero's biggest problem with modern science.
You probably thank DNA when you hear that a killer was convicted with that evidence. I do too. But yet you ignore the fact that it takes TWO sets of DNA to manifest into a zygote, thus blowing your godsperm theory out of the water.
And I would suggest you go look up the types of post mortum after death before you nakedly assert that your zombie god is real.
And as far as thermodynamics, there are more than one law and there is a difference between an open and closed system, and none of those laws constitute invisible non-material magical super brains with magical super powers.
Would you buy this argument if it were a Muslim arguing for Allah, or a Hindu arguing for Vishnu?
Here is the bottom line. You want your god to be real just like every other person in the past has who believed in their gods, and they all end up myths discarded by future cultures.
"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
Well, I have a couple of rebuttals to work on with that one. But, I'll start out with something that seems real simple to me :
The purpose of the debate was to prove that god exists, without the Bible.
Neither Kirk nor his pastor could do that.
The pastor uses the argument that buildings and cars did not get here by chance, therefore creation must have been formulated by God. A very silly argument, a god of the gaps argument, and as Brian pointed out : a totally useless one since designers of buildings and autos can be contacted.
The pastor then veers off into left field and starts talking about the Ten Commandments. Wait a minute, thought the whole purpose of the debate was to prove the existence of god without the Bible ? ? ? At that point, the reverend and Kirk Cameron had totally failed. The purpose was to talk WITHOUT mentioning the scripture. The debate more or less only got more embarassing from there.
Also, you contradicted yourself when you said that you can accept the idea of morals being a by product of "socially biological evolution" as you put it. But then you go on and on about objective morals and how you believe in objective morals. Wait a minute, first you can accept the notion that morals are a product of evolution but now you have a major problem with people that believe that morals are relative to society ? Which one is it ?
You jumped to a total conclusion and a god of the gaps argument, when you stated that the only way that we can know right or wrong, is from a "transcendent being" who as you put it "is nature is the good". First of all, where would it be written or proven, if this "transcendent being" existed, that it would be the God of the Bible ? Laws, Morals, and Codes of Conduct, as I have already pointed out on two different threads that neither theist on those threads will answer, PRE-DATES Christianity. Eastern Culture has never heard of Jesus or God and they had a far more advanced culture two thousand years ago, then their counterparts in the Middle East. Would you concede that Eastern Culture could be correct ? Although I have never understood why people want to give credence to superstition simply because it is "old" superstition. Where do you get the idea that your "transcendent being" is only good and wants only good ?A common theist argument that I get is "God is ALL" right beside "God is GOOD". Wait a minute, if God is ALL then that would mean good and evil included.Quite a bit of mankind has claimed to understand this "transcendent being" and it sure is funny how they always understand the infinite as something that thinks exactly like them. How did you come to know this "transcendent being" and the fact that it gave us right and wrong ? Did it tell you this ? What are your definitions of right and wrong and why do I have a feeling that your god thinks the same way that you do on this ?
The fact that society changes and morals change, something that you already said you believed in the possibility of, would sort of hint that morals are relative and ever changing to the society that people live in and not the by-product of a god.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
(I inserted a few line breaks in the OP to make it a bit easier to read.)
First, I think the First law is what was meant here, about matter/energy not being created or destroyed. The third law is about what happens if a system is cooled to absolute zero, where entropy is zero, a bit more exotic than that.
Current science strongly suggests that the net energy/matter content of our universe is zero, when the energy in the gravitational field is taken into account. This is because gravitational potential energy is notionally negative.
So there is no necessary violation of the first law in the Big Bang.
Here is a link to a discussion of this http://www.curtismenning.com/ZeroEnergyCalc.htm
Time:
The most that need be assumed to precede the Big Bang, and be consistent with Science, would be some absolutely minimal 'sea' of low-level energy, such as the suggested Quantum Foam, which would have a finite probability, according to Quantum Theory, of occasionally producing a large enough random 'twitch' to exceed some threshold and trigger a Big Bang event.
Such a state could persist indefinitely without any sort of violation of established science.
But some interpretations of the nature of space-time suggest that time as we know it actually started at the Big Bang.
Alternatively, it could be that the space-time matrix that encompasses our Universe is actually 'curved' within some extra dimension, or that in some way space-time itself is curved, in such a way as to form a closed geometry, such that time is finite in extent yet has no beginning or end, just as the 2 dimensional surface of a sphere is finite but has no boundary within its 2 dimensional extent.
That would make asking what went before the Big Bang singularity like asking what lies north of the North Pole.
So there is nothing intrinsically violating any logic or known science here.
The entropy of a system is tied to its volume, so the entropy of the singularity started at zero.
Entropy only changes when energy/heat flows from one state/temperature to another.
Nothing equivalent to heat flows would be occurring in some preceding ground state of next to zero energy density, so it could persist indefinitely with no entropy change.
Moral arguments for God are by far the weakest.
"Good' and 'evil' only have meaning with respect a particular society of interacting individuals, so the most that 'objective morality' could mean is to refer to some basic guidelines that need to be observed for a society to persist as a social group, such as sanctions about wanton killing, and the necessity for a minimal level of cooperation.
The evolution of a moral sense within social animals, including homo sapiens, is therefore entirely natural and inevitable. Minimal indications of this, such a sense of 'fairness', have been shown in several social animals, such as the higher primates, elephants, wolves and domestic dogs.
The 'ethical atheist' needs no more than this, that cooperation generally helps everyone, that we get positive feelings from friendship and the gratitude of people we help in some way, and so on. The basic guideline is to avoid subjecting others to unnecessary harm and distress. The negative Golden Rule is also a pretty good basis, altho not perfect: Do not do to others what you would not wish done to you.
There is no logical necessity for morality to exist in some 'absolute' sense apart from this. Atheists certainly don't believe in 'absolute morals' in any sense, AFAIK.
There is simply no problem here. Absolutely no need to introduce the edicts of an imaginary father-figure.
I am shocked at the OP's unawareness of this.
No serious arguments put forward so far.
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
i mean, he even spells "atheist" wrong in his fucking screenname!
fuck...
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Everyone so far has posted very rational responses. Even the tirade about spelling is basically rational if a little heated.
So I only have one small bit to add. Tit for Tat is the winning strategy. That is, I will cooperate with you as long as you cooperate with me. In other words, I won't lie, cheat, steal, murder or otherwise mess up your life as long as you leave mine alone. As I see it, christians have already violated that agreement by lying every chance they get. They lie about morals, science, society, and ethics. Makes them fair game in my book.
-- 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.
The Theist position is the one that has problems with morals.
The problem of evil, of course, why an omnipotent benevolent and just God would allow all the bad stuff to happen, especially all the stuff that can't be blamed on our own flaws, which he built into us , of course.
Why he is prepared to restrict the free will of a pharoah, but not that of a murderer.
How he can justify punishing someone and all their descendants for the victimless crime of disobedience.
How he can give us all a free pass just by a symbolic 'death', without even requiring a true 'atonement', as long as you massage his ego by worship.
How he can be both infinitely just and merciful.
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
This post, made years after the fact ...looks personal to me...
www.RichWoodsBlog.com
Welcome to the forum.
That's me.
I don't think it's objectively wrong. I just don't like it.
Oh, you mean why does everything despise rape if it can be beneficial?
Well, actually, this is exactly what we expect to see. People DO rape other people because they do get pass on their genes; that can be beneficial. However, I think it can also be detrimental because it damages the closeness of a social group.
Also, not everyone condemns rape, at least not to the extent that our society does (I assume you're American). Surely, you've heard of the atrocities committed against women in the Middle East, Africa, etc.
You can only be as certain about those beliefs as you are certain that this being exists and evoked those beliefs in the first place. Ultimately, you always have to begin with your own fallible ability to reason and perceive.
Also, I've seen that statement many times before, and I think it might escape Euthyphro's dillemma, but it doesn't really fix the problem. What is the justification that this being's nature is good? It is simply asserted as such. If God's nature is good no matter what, then anything he commands must be good, since his commands come from his assumedly good nature. I don't think it is much better than the two choices that Euthyphro presented.
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
when and where did i attack science, i appreciate science greatly and i just promote using science inteligently and acuurately and not misleading people with poor interpretations of science on public television, like brian and kelly did. Im just trying to educate and inform people about science, i have no disdain for science whatsoever, so i will take your little adhomenin remarks as a sign of defeat to all the many objections i posted
first of all i dont believe in moral evolution, i believe in moral progress, but furthermore i dont believe i worded my post properly with repect to morals. Im not saying humans can not be moral agents without belief in god, i know a great deal of athiests who are very sound moral people, but what im saying is objective morals do not exist if God does not exist, so pretty much there is no "right" or "wrong", we are all just advanced primates whose actions are biproducts of socio biological eveolution. The athiests dillemna here is that as a people i believe we do assert certain things to be really right or really wrong, like rape. Rape in terms of socio biological evolution could potentially be perverted to be beneficiall to human evolution ( alla eugenics) but we still as a people really believe rape is wrong, so why?
I would just like a rational response from an athiest as to what are objective morals are truly grounded in. If you do not believe in objective morals and are a moral relativist, then the problem of evil is a nonissue because according to moral relativism there is no evil or good, only what you personally to believe right or wrong, which subsequently differs for everyone. An athiest who is a moral relativist is a hypocrit to even mention the problem of evil
Jinn, is it you fucking babe?
Respectfully,
100%
I really think it's him.
first lets begin with your part about " time", first i have to state the theories you state are unpermeated conjectures scientists are trying to fathom to avoid using the dreaded " g" word. This idea of quantom foam is untestable and is idea placed to try to rationalize how our universe could come in to being with out the aid of a supernatural. Some people call some arguments for god, the god of the gaps arguments, i would call many of you arguments based on unsubstantiated claims the science of the gaps arguments, lets just fill in the many gaps in our theories with untestable conjectures. Secondly there is a difference between being causally prior to an event and temporally prior to an event, so that rendors that notion of the PROPOSED idea that the space time universe is curved with the POSSIBILITY of there being an extra dimension irrelevant. Howeever it is important to note that the ideas you mention in this part are not highly regarded by modern scientists and are merely ideas to fill in the gaps to maintain a presupposition of naturalism.
Next lets talk about the second law of thermo dynamics. Im not certain you understand the point im making there. If an athiest like some have suggested believes that the universe has existed for an eternity than that very notion logically contradicts the second law. I f the universe had an actual infinite past it is highly likely that the universe would have already been destroyed by now due to everything that exists in a closed system will lene to disorder and chaos with time, so if we have an infinite past, i would say the chances of the univers already being destroyed are overwhelming. I dont believe anything you have said refutes that likelhood.
The problem the athiest has with dismissing objective morals is, now you have lost your most serious argument against God, the problem of evil. If there are no real rights or wrongs just merely social conjectures than God has done nothing really wrong now has he? If you use the problem of evil as an argument you admit to there being objective morals implicitly and hence pass through the argument that God must exist due to there being objective rights and wrongs.
In conclusion i think its fair to say that much of your attempted refutation was conjecture based and hence does absolutely nothing to dismiss what i have said, i still believ the athiest has a real probelm with these isuues
First of all, you have not conclusively demonstrated, that the belief in God adequately explains the so-called problem of evil. You are making the assertion that the problem of evil or destructive behavior can not be addressed by someone that does not believe in total objective morals, hmm let's examine this :
You have once again contradicted yourself in previous posts, when you say that you believe in moral progress but then wish to say that you believe in objective morals. If morals are objective, as you are maintaining, then they would have to be the same, yesterday, today and until the end of time. That has not been the case in any given situation.
You mention rape. You mention that rape is considered wrong, and then you ask why ? Hmm, the Old Testament did not consider rape to be immoral. Raping a female of a conquered tribe constituted the same thing as a marriage contract. That's right, marriage shall be considered sacred between a man and his rape victim by old testament biblical standards. Just like not suffering a witch to live and allowing God to tell Moses to invade villages and kill every man, woman and child (Wait a minute, murder is one of those things that WE consider wrong, hmm I guess it was ok to break the Ten Commandment rule to kill if God told you to) was moral. So mass murder, rape and execution of people for trivial offenses was considered a moral thing, by Biblical standards.
So, if morals are given to us by the Creator, the creator that identifies himself as someone that can not forgive anyone. (If god could forgive, why would he have to send his son down to get nailed to a cross to accomplish an act that he simply could have wished by forgiving everyone ?). The creator that proclaims jealousy as one of his traits, the creator that proclaims eternal damnation for all eternity for any disbelief or disobedience, the creator that drowned the entire world in a fit of rage, the creator that murdered first born Egyptian children, the creator that taunted his first two creations into eating an apple, the creator that just decided on a bet with the devil to mess up Job's life, the creator that helped Samson destroy a whole city and much more, if morals are given to us by that, then I would have to maintain that anyone who is a moral objectivist and claims that morals comes from God is a hypocrite.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Why do you mention rape so much? Where is it specifically condemned in the Bible?
Why is it not in any version of the Ten Commandments?
Where is torture and slavery condemned?
How do we know they are wrong?
Why do we need 'objective' morals?
All we need are moral 'guidelines' which ensure the smooth functioning of our social group, maximizing the emotional and physical well-being of our society, and minimize unnecessary harm.
We do not need any outside help on formulating these.
In-built urges toward co-operation, such as have been demonstrated in both ourselves and many social animals, are the sort of things which would clearly be favoured by natural selection.
Any code of 'morals' has no meaning outside the context of a particular social group,
There are so many problems that are raised by the idea of God as a source of morals, that the issue of morals is far more problematic for the Christian than the non-believer.
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
Hmm total contradictions there. We as a people may believe rape is wrong, but God of the old testament sure didn't have a problem with it. Along with incest, deceit of parents, human sacrifice, burning people to death for working on the Sabbath, etc. etc. Yeah, no wonder evolution and the formation of society and how society forms it's ideas of harm make more sense than believing morals come from god.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
after rereading my post, i apologize for the crass antagonistic tone. I just would like to promote true science that isnt manipulated to promote an agenda, thats all. This was nothing personal, im really sorry if it came across that way, sometimes i can be a little smug, im trying to work on that, maybe my arguments can help you form stronger arguments for your side, or maybe they can help you reconsider your idealogy. Honestly i have not seen a single argument from athiesm that refutes any of those arguments properly and i think those are real issues athiest have to wrestle with. I just want to dismiss some of these silly notions that beliefs in God are anti intellectual and bad for society, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence in modern cosmology and physics, and philosophy supporting an inteligent designer. The argument from fine tuning, the kalam cosmological argument, the ontological argument etc etc. I still have not heard a convincing argument that disproves God's existence. I do feel most athiestic objections to a god are emotional and not intellectual. I think it is fair to say that athiestic objections arent rational for the most part. I dont know brian, maybe your mind is already closed to something that might challenge your current idealogy but i would hope you would give it some further investigation
By Islamic fundamentalists standards you are evil. They would tell you that they have the final say so on morality because it is plainly written in the Koran.
By the standards of some Eastern religions eating meat and killing a fly is a terrible sin. Do you think that they have addressed the problem of evil more than you have ?
By the standards of the Westboro Baptist Church, if you do not hate gay people and pray for more bloodshed to come to the countries that allow gay people to marry, you are evil.
By the standards of Christian Identity, if you are not a full blooded white person who despises anyone of Jewish descent, you are evil.
By the standards of Christian Science, if you go to a medical professional or take your children to a doctor, you have no faith and could be considered evil.
I can go on and on, with examples from the extreme to the mundane, so where has God solved the problem of absolute morals and properly addressed the question of evil ?
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
the question isnt whether we " need " objective morals, it is whether they are actually real and evident. I actually dont know many athiests that reject the ideas of objective morals existing. If you yourself are a moral relativist of sorts, then the major objection to God, the problem of evil, is gone because according to you evil doesnt exist. I think by clinging to moral relativism you have to give up, one of your major objections.
I use rape as an example because it is the perfect case of an event that i think most considered wrong that technically according to biological evolution could actually deemed beneficial to human evolution and flourishment. Rape in terms of right and wrong creates quite the conundrum for the athiest who holds that objective rights and wrongs do exist.
Promote true science ? Exactly what do you define as TRUE science ?
I could swap the argument over and say that I have not seen a single argument from the theist side that refutes atheism.
Show me some of this "overwhelming evidence" that supports intelligent design ?
I also feel that most theistic arguments FOR god are emotional, not at all intellectual, and not rational. Hmm, I guess I could say that you are guilty of all the things that your saying WE are guilty of.
If you wish to make the assertion that we are all irrational, that we are not logical, that you have "overwhelming evidence" and you can prove all of this through TRUE science, then by all means, please prove these assertions true. If you can not, then I say that you are the one who is being irrational.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
thank you for helping me make my point, so you recognize that all that stuff is actually wrong, right? I guess reall objective rights and wrongs do exist that we can recognize from an outside perspective. My point is knowledge of objective rights and wrongs cannot be configured from biological evolution only in a transcendent being whom himself is the definition of good. I f you admit that some things are really wrong objectively than God must exist
Well then, if you assert that something exists, then I say that it is up to you to prove that such a thing as objective morals actually exists.
Otherwise, your opinions about a moral relativist, is baseless.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Wow, look at this, another useless assumption. Are you going for a board record on how many assumptions you can fit in one thread ? Either way, I am done fooling with this troll.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
im not saying that athiestic people are irrational, im saying the arguments for athiesm are irrrational because there based in emotion aka the probelm of evil. the kalam cosmological argument or the teological argument have nothing to do with emotion what so ever. These are merely arguments that are based upon what modern science points out to us. My reference to irrationality was predicated behind this overwhelmingly arrogant assertion that beliefs in athiesm themselves are rational when in fact as far as i am aware of they are emotional. I wont deny that a personal religious experience someone could ascribe to as belief in God is emotional but i dont believe i have used that as evidence
thank you for the thought out emotionless rational response, i appreciate good arguments, not emotion filled rhetoric
Workable moral guidelines can clearly be derived without any reference beyond our own collective experience. There IS NO PROBLEM for secular morality, or at least far less than any attempt to get consistent and workable and justifiable morality from religion. This is all we can do, and all we need to.
We don't say 'evil', as a category of actions deliberate aimed at causing extreme harm and distress to other people, doesn't exist.
You cannot derive anything of certainty, whether of where the Universe and Life came from, or about morals, from a God belief, since even if there was a super-powerful sentient being, we would have no way to know with any confidence about its other attributes, or what its motives and ultimate intentions toward us are, if any.
You have nothing, nada, zero, zilch, but wishful thinking, AKA 'faith'.
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
i would just like to thank bob spence for the good back and forth, your reply where well thought out and interesting although i disagree with your conclusions, i think we can disagree without being disagreeable
unfortunately you are still missing the point, if objective morals do not exist than there is zero right or wrong, anything is permitted anything can be justified, so nothing God did is wrong, so you lose your main opposition to God by giving up objective morals, and by the way your statement is circutious because we cannot say anything in terms of absolute certainity about evolution actually explaining origin of life because that is unempirical we cannot say anything about evolution conditioning our morals becaue those are merely observational conjecture s and we cant even be sure to trust our own mental faculties, so your last argument may seem good but it is a nonstarter
ultimately in the end the athiest has just as much if not more faith than the thiest because you have to assume certain events happened billions of years ago that there is ABSOLUTELY NO, NADA, ZILCH, way of knowing with any kind of certainity merely conjectures to preserve a naturalistic worldview
i stand firm that belief in athiesm is not rational merely emotional, and most arguments are based upon presuppositions of naturalism which cannot be proven as the only realm and must be taken on FAITH
Evidence ? What evidence ? Are you stating that you have evidence to back up your claims ? Wonderful. Let's see the evidence.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
the kalam cosomological argument, the teological argument for the unfathomable fine tuning of our universe in its earliet conditions. The incredibly early well preserved multiply attested texts explaining jesus' crucifixion, the empty tomb, and post mortem appearences. Plus many more i could go on and on. All of your refutations are merely paradigm preserving conjectures with no textual or evidential support.
The 'problem of evil' follows logically, rationally, from the assertion of an omnipotent, benevolent God. It doesn't exist if you don't make the emotional, unwarranted assertion of the existence of such a God.
There are no logically valid arguments in favour of a God, certainly not any of the classic ones. They are all ultimately shallow, special-pleading, equivocating arguments from ignorance. They certainly do not point to a Christian God.
We don't 'believe' in atheism, we believe in a rational, empirical approach to understanding reality, which rather tends to point away from there being a God, and so tends toward atheism as a by-product.
Religion is pretty much entirely emotion based, it totally lacks objective support.
There are gaps in our understanding, but is extremely dishonest and/or ignorant to try and twist those gaps into pointing to one specific supernatural 'explanation' out of the virtual infinity of such ideas that could be imagined, and the probably greater number beyond our imagination.
You have things almost entirely backward.
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
The problem with this typical "thiestic" "logic" is that they do not understand physics and thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics states that any closed system tends to arrive to thermal equilibrium and that the entropy will tend to increase in this process. As an example, if you release a small cube of perfectly ordered gas molecules at ~0K and with very small entropy in a large room isolated from everything else, than over time the molecules will tend to uniformly spread over the room and the number of possibilities of the molecules to rearrange in the room (the entropy) will increase. There is nothing about chaos or destruction in the second law. It is just about ways to arrange things. If the room size is increasing (like the expansion of the universe) than the number of ways for the molecules to rearrange will increase more and more. So, in principle, the universe is not your typical classic closed system. Moreover, if you consider a selected part of space and place there a finite number of particles, they will reach thermal equilibrium in a finite time, BUT this does not mean that changes will not be allowed any more because: a) there can be a huge number of energetically equivalent states (the states with the same entropy, but with different arrangements of particles) and there will be fluctuation in entropy due to the interactions between particles. If you disagree, please explain in detail how you think a closed system will be destroyed after some long enough time.
Edit: People people. If this is not our Jean then I conclude that Jeans are multiplying and that Jean is contagious.
lets begin, with kca
anything that begins to exist, has a cause
the universe began to exist
the univers has a cause
The majority of modern science reports the universe having an absolute beginning in the finite past, where space time, matter and energy were formed. So in turn whatever caused the universe had to be timeless, spaceless, matter less entity, of which is awesomely powerful, the only thing i can think of to fit that description is what plato referred to as an unembodied mind, which conveniently is how the christian bible describes God, this is a deductive to argument so you have to refute the premises for the conclusion not to follow, i could go in to more detail but i will leave you with that for the KCA
the problem with athiestic knowledge is consistantly misinterpret context and mistate laws to preserve their own paradigms. The second law states with time everythind lends to disorder and all modern science agrees increase and entropy will ultimately lead to a heat death of the universe. mY argument was an infinite past is logically fallacious because if that were the case it would be highly likely that our universe would have already met its own heat death. Nothing you said accurately refuted that
The majority of modern science ? Links and sources please. Oh that's right, you have none.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Ok, fine. Let's assume that the universe had a cause and the beginning when the Big Bang happened, though I actually do not quite understand the concept of causality when out time is not define. But fine for now, let's not go into details. Then, what is a single evidence you can name to support your claim that the cause of the Big Bang was due to some conscious timeless all-mighty being??? Is it just because you like this idea? That's it?
ok everyone i will be back on tomorrow i will try to respnd some more
This is not what the second law states. Sorry.
Just remember to bring back some evidence of absolute morals, evidence that proves the question of evil is solved by god, evidence about the universe and how it had to be formed by a creator.
Hehehe, since your the one that states that you follow a "majority of modern science" I don't think that will prove to be too difficult.
If so, just pray for the right answers, I am sure they'll come.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
You still either have to assume that something could exist 'eternally', or that something could spontaneously come into existence. There is no logical implication that only certain things could satisfy either condition, that would require something that could reach back and 'cause itself'.
So it is up to the Theist to demonstrate that only a sentient infinite entity matching the particular account of God they accept could fulfil either condition.
Randomness of the ground state of reality, as demonstrated by Quantum Mechanics demolishes, the standard argument for the necessity of the first cause being conscious, with a will.
But there is no argument there which points to any 'first cause' being anything beyond the indefinite existence of something like a ''Quantum Foam", certainly nothing pointing to a conscious, infinite 'being'.
Also, since there is no logical requirement that a 'cause' must be 'greater' than its 'effect', and much evidence from observation that it may well be lesser by whatever measure you want, even an infinite convergent regress does not require an infinite time, so there is no logical need for a 'first cause', in fact.
The contrary assumption, that causes must be greater than their effect, leads to a truly impossible scenario, which the Theist has to try and short-circuit by the naked assertion that God does need a cause, which of course contradicts the initial assumption that 'everything' has a cause.
Yet another example, like the 'problem of evil', where introducing the idea of a God ultimately raises far more logical problems than it solves.
There is no logical need for the First cause to be 'infinite'.
So no argument from 'first cause' proves anything specifically about a God.
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
The 2LoT is not inconsistent with an infinite past, prior to the Big Bang, since all that is required to randomly generate a Big Bang singularity is reality being in the 'ground-state', as close to zero energy density as the Uncertainty Principle allows. Such a state would indeed be the ultimate state toward which entropy would lead, which could, as such, persist in that state indefinitely. A 'heat death' does not imply going out of existence.
A singularity itself would start with zero entropy. Modern science also shows that the net matter/energy of our universe is zero, when the standard assumption of gravitational energy as being negative is taken into account, so there is no necessary violation of the first law either.
A 'singularity' is, by definition, something which starts with everything reset.
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
It might make you feel better to pretend that we are faithful like you, but it's a lie.
I don't utilize faith ever, the whole notion of faith disgusts me. I don't assume anything as a certainty about the origins of our existence, nor do most of my friends and people I have met on these forums. Unlike you the Christians, we leave open the possibility that we could be wrong about any of our thoughts on the origins of our Universe. You are projecting your own inadequacies onto us, I think on a much higher level than you, you are merely insulting me and making your self look like a dishonest fool.
You also haven't grasped the spelling lesson yet. It's ATHEIST.
Vote for Democrats to save us all from the anti-American Republican party!
Please become a Patron of Brian Sapient
I suppose that you suppose that a god is the answer to this "why" question, but I have no reason to think that this is necessarily true....in fact I have every reason to think that the desire for objective morals just that -- a desire -- that this is just begging the question.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
The literary historical method can't be used to prove magic? Ok?
Given the unquestionable bias of the NT, I think we are obliged to turn to alternative texts to attempt to prove the veracity of the case for an actual Jesus. What do we have? Fabrications in Josephus and oblique references to some christians in Tacitus?
Not very convincing proof of the life and times of the son of god.
Yeah - I think this puts your position rather well.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Show me one single instance of the supernatural - just one single instance. When I see evidence of the supernatural, I'll consider it possible but at present I find your relentless assertions unthinkable.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck