Deist vs. Atheists
Offline By Deist I simply mean one who believes in the existance of a supreme being, in paticular, a creator who does NOT interfere in or with the universe. This will be my position in this thread. As 'the Creator' is a rather bland term and 'God' is a Christian name, I will use the name of Ned for the remainder of the thread when I am speaking of the supreme being or creator of the universe.
To begin with I will use Thomas Paine's arguement for the existance of Ned:
I did not create myself, yet I exist.Through my natural observation of the universe, I know that nothing within the universe can create itself, yet billions of things exist.Therefore, I conclude that something or someone outside the universe must be the catalyst for the universe and everything within the universe, and that catalyst I call Ned.
Given that the universe is not eternal as modern science shows it to be only some 14 billion years old, what is the atheist perspective on how the universe came to exist?
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Wow, thats some lovely, unfounded assuming you're doing there Kaparks.
I'm so glad that you've showed up on our forums to tell me all about how my brain works and in which ways I am capable of thinking.
I'm sorry that you're too stupid to realize that the analogy you presented is not an accurate depiction of the different schools of thought. You've strawmanned our posistion, and for an atheist to choose 'correctly' from your scenario would be to implicate ourselves.
Get off your sassy horse and realize that the only problem you and I have is my lack of patience for people like yourself.
http://atheismisrational.blogspot.com/
Ooh, what an articulate, well-reasoned, and creatively CAPITALIZED response.
Lets look at what you're claiming.
Ok, so there's no evidence of what occurred prior to the Big Bang. So, how do you think we should handle this situation?
Right, so we see that there is no evidence about what preceded the BB, and therefore we conclude that all the conjectures about it must be right since we can't disprove them. So, it was obviously the result of all of God, quantum fluctuations, quantum tunnelling, a Bang/Crunch cycle, magic, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Chronos, and or course Ned, just to name a few.
Or, perhaps there's a problem with the methodology. Perhaps science should require that a claim be proven before we accept it. Don't you think that sounds more reasonable?
As for all this Ned crap, it's a complete waste of time. You are naming something without knowing what it is, whether a god, or a totally natural process, and that is truly meaningless. Obviously, we know that something happened, but why on Earth should we call it Ned?
It's only the fairy tales they believe.
Jacob, Well almost, evolution is not actually the creator of life, actually I think it was this guy Sapient that said it was something like endo-somthing genesis? but the other things you mention occur within our universe and as such are confined to the laws of the universe. stars, elements, convection, life are all results of the same creator as they exist within the parameters of the universe. When we toss out ideas of the creator of the universe we are not limited to the same restains as a creator would obviously have to exist outside its creation, well, except for Gott's hypothesis, which is in itself cool but only works of there is nothing beyond the universe itself.
I am not really personifying your cause so much as I have not stated any characteristic of Ned, reread over the very first post I wrote and you will notice that I simply used Ned because creator is to sterile and God is to associated with the Christian god. If you have problems with benign monemtclature, perhaps you should rethink what sort of bias' you bring with you into your arguement.
As far as Ned goes, You wish to work from the standpoint of nothing and build up your ideas with evidence. I prefer to start with a broad guess and cut away with evidence. The result is the same, it is only the process that is different.
Before you freak out here, remember we are dealing with issues beyond the physical universe. This is not an evidence based discussion.
So lets start with atheism, what does atheism say about Ned? Well, not a whole lot, its still wating for some evidence.
Okay, lets try Christianity, they started with a broad stroke and science has cut out almost all of it.
Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Zorastorianism, Sufism, Shintoism all of these have been trimmed down significantly by modern science, but not enough to dismiss them entirely. There are parts that are very true and just as universal as any known physical law.
What I would like, is to be able to personify Ned, that would be very nice I think, to know there was a reason of some sort. But we are a long way from that, we are a long way from knowing anything about Ned other than Ned exists and for some reason, despite all the recent scientific data that has shown, including Dr. Gott's work, that everything within the universe was is and will be created, people, now more than ever in human history look at the evidence and think the exact opposite.
Kaparks, by calling the cause of the Universe Ned you are personifying it! That is what personification is. If I were to call the wind Robert I would be personifying the wind. It's a bit Roberty today. As well as this you use the word creator, another personification. As for the ability of atheists to think abstractly, we're as able as the next human being, we have imaginations too. I really have to go I will finish this later.
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Jacob, You are quite mistaken. Giving something a name does not personify it. You have to apply human characteristics. Just because I call water water does not mean I am personifying it. Just because I call a surface to air missle a sam does not mean I am personifying it, just becuase you have a buddy named Ned does not mean there is only one use of those three letters in that order. This is why you are an atheist I woould imagine, you have more fun talking about nothing than getting on to a point. How long are we going to argue semantics before you make some sort of point?
The Ned seems to be an incoherent term.
Acording to string theory, there are extra dimensional membranes on which the space-time exists on. These p-branes as they're called (p refers to the # of dimensions in which they exist p+0 is a point p+1 is a line ect.) are incredibly huge i hesitate to say infinite but they may be, anyway these p-branes are moving through space and every now and then collide. There is enough kinetic energy released when they collide to create 2 universes (this one and another on the other p-brane).
The semantics is the point, I'm showing that the only real difference between your argument and mine is semantics. Lets recap. You go to the cause of the universe and say it must have a creator, I ask, well surely a creator would have to have consciousness, and why should it, there are loads of causes within the universe that quite clearly are not conscious? And so you say that Ned doesn't need to be conscious but it is a creator. This is where you come undone. I agree there is a creator of the universe in the same way, I would just use the word cause, creator invokes consciousness, deliberate design, but you claim it has none of these things. So I asked you whether this in fact makes the cause of the universe any different from the cause of rain, or of life or whatever, it has no consciousness, there is no intelligent deliberate design. Right so what is there that actually makes this deism anymore and not atheism, well there's personification, but actually as you have well argued in my favour I realise now, there isn't even that! There is only a name, Ned/Creator, our only difference comes down to semantics.
You're basically conceding points to me one by one and gradually you're becoming homogenous to me but still unwilling to give up.
Your argument has pretty much failed to show anything different at all. You've pretty much reached atheism but refuse to accept it!!
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Maragon,
I am more than happy to point out your intellectual ineptitude if that is all you desire, I had hope that your were capable of an adult conversation but I see that I was mistaken. Well, when you finally get the courage of your convictions go ahead and try and explain yourself, I have all the patience in the word for slow folks such as yourself.
Rexlunae,
Why not call it Ned?
Give me a good reason other than your dumb ass opinion.
Your blatant use of ad hominem attacks only solidify my assertation that you truly have no intellectual points and simply seek to 'troll' on our forums.
I'm sorry that you are unable to see the incredibly flawed logic that has been pointed out to you by multiple people, but I fail to see how my showing you your own fallacies has any negative bearing on my intellectual capacity.
http://atheismisrational.blogspot.com/
Maragon,
Nice side step. But it was expected, okay well if you ever get the courage to try to explain yourself let me know.
Kaparks get over yourself!
Your arguments have been nothing more than blunt assertion with nothing to back them up, with base ad hominems. I suggest you go and push your head up your arse so far you can see daylight at the other end! It would be better than any argument you've presented us so far!
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What, no response to the main part of my post? Just a personal attack and a question I've already answered. As I said before, it's not appropriate to give something a specific name without knowing what it is, and as Jacob said, giving it the name of a person implies that it's a personality, despite your protestations that it does not.
[edit: clarity]
It's only the fairy tales they believe.
You're projecting your own stupidity and closed mind onto us. Typical theist. Probably aren't self aware enough to realize it either.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
You offer an unsupported description of an impersonal, possibly unconscious creator or event, that lost its relevance with the formation of the universe we live in. And you want what to happen from here?
And?
Wait... did time even exist before the big bang?
Do we? If “Ned” is good enough for you in the absence of any evidence, why not also believe in things that create themselves? We haven't successfully hunted down every single last particle in the universe, and interrogated it to make sure it didn't create itself. So how can we know?
A religion of one? All the imprecise dogma, none of the swap meets.
Stop drinking the bong water.
Easy, Tiger. That's not typical of the theists I know.
Oh and Cloud > Squall.
Freedom of religious belief is an inalienable right. Stuffing that belief down other people's throats is not.
I've just about had it with you, kaparks.
You are clearly violating rule 2.1 for Antagonism.
This is a formal warning.
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I think he's gone Suze.
I sure hope so.
That's what I get for being so far behind in getting all the posts read.
Man oh man, we really had an influx after the Nightline debate.
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It's typical of the theists I know.
Oh, and Squall > Tidus > Terra > Yuna > everyone else > Cloud. Whiny pussy.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.