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<-the theistobot comes for you now.
I was sent to sunday school as a child by my Mother. (My Dad was an Atheist) I hated going and sometimes faked illness to get out of it. So I presume that that is where I learnt about Jesus. Latter on in life I became an alcoholic but was so heavily into drugs that you couldn't notice it. I "prayed" to Jesus one day to help and "something" did happen. From that day on I did not crave drugs or alcohol anymore. That was in 1977 and since then I have drunk a handful of times and "smoked up" maybe 3 times but never gone back to that life style.
I have put a challenge on this site for Atheists to give me there most damaging evidence against the claims of Christianity. I have been working my way through them and haven't found anything yet that can not be reasonably defended. Though I have not read all the posts yet. Actually I've kind of lost the thread but I'm sure someone will redirect me. All I need is one irrefutable piecfffffdfdfde of evidence. The longer it takes for said evidence to show up the stronger my faith grows. Thank you for your time.
Well, Shadow, it sounds like you don't believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Since you are an atheist with regard to His Noodliness please show me one piece of irrefutable evidence that He does not exist and I will believe you. Huh? Huh? The longer it takes you, the stronger my faith grows. Thank you for your time.
Snakes don't talk. At all.
Male and female genetic material are required for impregnation.
Miracles do not happen. Prayer doesn't work.
The Problem of Evil.
Evolution. Fossil evidence. Radiological decay evidence. Dinosaurs.
Dogs are more ethical than the god described in the Bible.
Well, since you by your own admission did not come by your faith for any rational reason, it would be pretty futile for us to present evidence to you, wouldn't it? It would be pearls before swine.
Actually, imagine an alcoholic on drugs.... there are a few ways to cure brains of such a person, and the psychological block like some religious taboo may work pretty well. It might not good at all for him to start asking questions because they may destroy the psychological blockade. In my opinion this is one of a few cases when religion can be beneficial to people if anything else fails to treat the illness. This is where I am FOR state/federal controlled churches, I can only dream of government multi-religion priests that will help mentally traumatized people to find the best curing religion or to cure them from religion and turn back to atheism.
Again, in this particular case, I don't think the person will benefit from learning.
I would say I believe largely due to my upbringing. It's extraordinarily difficult, for me at least, to shake the way I was raised--I first attended church the Sunday after I came home from the hospital, and went 'religiously' for 21 years. I'll be 31 this year, and haven't been an official church member for almost a decade. I still consider myself a believer of some sort; my family does not. What I am practicing now very well may not be religion or Christianity in any traditional or practical sense, as it is very private and as such meaningful to me.
Though, I suppose it was a done deal by age 6, right? It's also extraordinarily difficult to shake the foundations laid in those formative years.
A personal vision... I thought I had one of those the week after I turned 18. 1997, I was a senior in high school, and under an enormous amount of stress at home (parents divorced, dealing with step-parents--you get the point, I won't bore you). So that morning, like 6 am, I turn on the hot water in the shower, and as the water hits me...I dunno, it was like this complete inner experience for me. Everything started to make sense, the world, people, everything.
I mean, who knows? I valued the experience for quite some time, though it means considerably less to me now. Interpreted literally, the experience was most likely induced by the aforementioned stress coupled with my increasing interest in deep intellectual and emotional matters, and it all just came out sort of symbolically, like a washing away of the old me, a washing away of debris, falsehood, blindness, etc. I mean, philosophy is chock full of mythology (Cave Allegory, etc), right? This was my personal mythology.
Also, yes, it makes me feel good. It works for me. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Look, I don't know if God exists or what, obviously. For all I know, we very well may have reached the same conclusion concerning God's existence--that it is impossible for God to exist in any way that makes sense to humans. It's just that this conclusion probably means something different to you than it does to me.
Your almost there, what you describe of yourself makes you an agnostic. Maybe it is time to have your theist tag replaced. If you continue to rationalize your shower experience you will become a full blown rationalist. We are after all the RATIONAL RESPONSE squad NOT the atheist response squad.
"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?
Yeah, I've been agnostic for years. I mean, I think honest people are agnostic concerning lots of things besides God. Agnosticism merely describes my knowledge (or lack), not my belief.
So you are not sure if a god exists or not but you believe one does...
/scratches head
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
odd then that Jesus said, ".........heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons.........." to say nothing of Paul, Peter, etc. If your gonna believe the Bible, it's rational to believe ALL of it!
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
Nothing can manipulate itself, let alone something as elemental as energy. It would make more sense to claim that water can decide whethr to freeze or not.
Right, no evidence with any even partial degree of justification.
Quantum Theories strongly suggests that there is an irreducible level of 'uncertainty' about the state of anything, including 'free space', so the extension of this idea is that the lowest energy state possible still implies a finite possibility of something coming into existence from 'nothing', as long as it doesn't persist for more than a certain period of time.
One concept is that in such a backgound, tere is a small but finite possibility of something with enough energy of the right kind to trigger a Big Bang event to appear for long enough for the singularity to form, It would then promptly become enclosed in its own space-time and disappear from the background field, thus not violating the uncertainty principle from the perspectine of that 'enevironment'.
Forget about 'motion' as a separate pre-requisite. That betrays the source of your ideas in the profound misconceptions of medieval metaphysics. Motion is purely a manifestation of energy, which is all that is required. Once matter of some kind 'condenses' out of the energy, then we can have 'form'.
Irrational appeal to a set of totally irrational and unsupportable ideas, and rejection of the only epistemology which has any coherent level of justifiability.
Which makes him impossible, by definition. Thank you.
That phrase is a deeply intellectually dishonest idea, that merely defining something automatically gives it some right to be taken seriously - or that when a particular line of argument seems to be leading to an absurdity, you 'define' an entity with the required attributes into existence.
Reduction to reality, and the only basis we have for knowledge of any useful degree.
The ability of empirical investigation and theorizing to construct a plausible framework for the origin of the Universe, which bypasses the infinite-regress problem, without resorting to the special pleading that at least one entity greater than an elementary particle did not require some precursor state, demonstrates that the God hypothesis is no longer necessary.
Whatever philosophical doubts you can cast on empiricism, that it cannot be proved, you have certainly failed to disprove it.
I ask again, show me your alternative source of and justification for knowledge of such things.
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
sorry Bob. . ... skim read the post! Yes you're right, the last bit is mystical.......but after all, it is the basis of evolutionary theory. You'll say that is enviromental, to which I'd reply; you believe the environment manipulated itself.
Strictly speaking Bob, Christians would argue that the existence of the genetic code is just one example since codes do not create themselves so I have to fundamentally disagree..... having said that I'm disinclined to major on the issue because I think I should "make more space" for your atheistic presuppositions.......while DNA is a complex stable structure, I don't think the most fervent atheist would attribute consciousness to it but a code indicates distinct external "intentionality". My main argument is that you presuppose that empirical evidence is the only kind because you presuppose that the space-time framework is the only kind...... that's like Rome presupposing that Galileo was wrong simply because they weren't the ones with the telescope!
So you wish to drop the closed system of Newtonian physics and become metaphysical........ I suppose that is progress .....and in line with quantum mechanics . You still have to assume that zero-point energy is created ex nihilo.
I will assume you accept an open system from now on. I trust you will not be resorting to empiricism as your basis from hereon.
you are probably aware of the problems with BB without me listing them
it wasn't included as a pre-requisite, it was just there to cover the bases.
ie. having no empirical evidence within the space-time framework and given an unregenerate epistemology.
that's no different from Einstein's "spooky" comment regarding non-locality. The laws of logic which comprise your "rationalality" are adrift on an endless sea......... ever since you dumped Newton. You can't have it both ways!
see above....... we have moved beyond your epistemology.
see above - you no longer have grounds for asserting what is not possible - for instance in this case, you irrationally [given an open system] assert the universality of the space-time continuum by this statement.
no, I haven't purported to define God in two words!........just describe the particular aspect we were debating. Whether it should be "taken seriously" ie as a subject for rational conjecture........not on the basis of a two word proposition, no but ultimately I see no reason why not....... do you?
see above - I have to point out that it was your argument that empirical approximations are all there is to "evidence" which got us here. I accept an "open system"......it appears to concur with physics. You seemed to also........now you call it "absurd"!
for someone who can't pin down materiality and can't prove it philosophically, you have a lot of faith in the "working assumptions" of your finite Newtonian physics. Your "knowledge" is based on an unregenerate epistemology.......I had one of those once too.
I thought you'd just trashed, your finite empiricism. Plausibility is not synonymous with truth.
it's an old-fashioned and as you've demonstrated, unnecessary idea.
nothing is nothing is nothing is nothing........anything else begs the question. My case is that someone spoke.
I have no wish to dispense with the Laws of the Universe. Rationally they constitute evidence of a lawmaker. We have agreed that are finite, that is all.
if we conjecture in rational scientific fashion about the possibility of an infinite personal intelligence inhabiting other dimensions........[we already speculate regarding 11 or more - I suggest 12] who created, I fail to see why it should be held irrational that such a Being would communicate with his creation. If we set out to look for such communication we would expect it to answer all the philosophical issues and reflect our own rationality. In dealing with his creation we would not expect his actions to evince our own space-time, cause-effect finitude. It is not irrational to conjecture that the Bible represents such communication especially set against the alternatives. None of which is, of itself, proof.
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.
If you mean that something in the environment had an effect on something else that was also part of the same collection of 'things', well d'uh. 'Manipulated' could only apply to a purposeful being (in the most elementary sense such as maybe a bird building a nest, that is still not something manipulating itself. The environment affects the course of evolution of all creatures, whose successful reproduction can in turn have an effect on the ongoing state of the environment, but that is not 'manipulation', just 'blind' causation.
To partially retract, I will concede that sufficiently aware and resourceful beings, such as ourselves, can 'manipulate' themselves, by knowing what are our normal reactions, both physical and mental, to various actions, and so doing those things to ourselves.
What I was really thinking of was the all-too-common nonsensical comments from Theists about things 'creating' themselves.
That aside, any idea of self-manipulation is utterly foreign to evolutionary theory. It is the basic process of feed-back, one effect having some effect in turn back on what caused it, but only in the next 'cycle', ie not retrospectively. Thermostats are one of the most common everyday examples of consciously designed feed-back systems, where a rising temperature will cause a mechanical reaction which will move the control on an air-conditioner or heater in the direction to reduce the temperature.
Many examples occur in living populations, eg any increase in the population of predators in a region will reduce the prey population, which will in turn limit or reduce the growth of the predator population.
Within a certain temperature range, increasing sea-surface temperature will increase evaporation, cause more clouds to form, which will reflect more sunlight away from the surface, and limit the warming.
If you don't understand feed-back mechanisms, both negative as I just described, or postive, which tend to runaway effects, like melting snow in Global Warming, you are severely handicapped in understanding complex real-world phenomena.
I already know that many Christians are woefully ignorant on such topics, of course.
I will try and explain it to you, I guess, in simple terms.
DNA sequences can form in literally any sequence whatever. Those sequences which strongly and selectively tend to bind to particular peptides , and which are in turn enhance the synthesis of particular sequences of those peptides, AKA proteins, which enhance the process by which DNA strands are copied, will be selected for by the blind processes of natural selection. Since DNA strands can be quite long. the chances of such useful sequences arising is not all that low, and anything which encourages the replication of DNA in the its region of the strand will get into one of the positive feedback loops I mentioned above.
This is not like a code in the way we normally use the term, where relation between the particulars of the code and the information it represents is more-or-less arbitrary, and determined by our conscious decisions, whereas the association between DNA sequence and the protein it 'codes for' is determined by chemical affinity.
Of course not. No implications on Einsteinian Physics (Newton is a bit old hat), 'closed' or not.
Not 'created', that would be begging the question, just spontaneously appearing, and within very strict time and quantity constraints. And on a purely random timetable. IOW, no indication of any 'consious' intervention whatever.
Sticking to strict empiricism, as that is what gave us our counter-intuitive insights into the behaviour of the 'Quantum Realm'.
There have been proposals that those randomly appearing 'virtual' particles are manifestations of higher-dimensional particles temporarily changing state so as to mainfest in our context, which would negate the need to assume even this restricted form of 'ex-nihilo' appearance. This is plausible in abroad sense, as are many variations on such theories about the underlying 'mechanism' of Quantum effects. Much more research is needed to get some indication which direction future investigation should look, and things like the LHC are part of this search.
It seems pointless to go on until, if ever, you adjust your assumptions to be somewhat more in accord with reality, as empirically indicated.
Or do want to continue with your sustained demonstration of the total disconnect between your ideas and any meaningful understanding of reality?
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
If the best 'evidence' you can produce involves that collection of ancient, inconsistent, confused writings, and the presumption of an infinite sentient being, you have just experienced an epic fail.
It would be just barely rational to search for the existence of some non-random patterns in quantum and other phenomena, currently assumed to be essentially random or chaotic. Any such indications may be a pointer to some alien intelligence, either within our known universe or in some 'metaverse' or parallel universe.
This could be suggested by certain kinds of non-random patterns. If there was additionally some evidence of responsiveness to our personal thoughts and actions, this would be even more interesting, but would require very careful double-blind testing, at the very least.
Thank you for demonstrating by that response the total intellectual bankruptcy of your position. You have consistently failed to provide any counter to my account of the justification for having confidence in the adequacy of empirical knowledge. No 'proof' required, just a consistent set of arguments reinforcing our confidence in the conclusions.
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 think the phrase was inherited from the post you commented on. What I meant was that atheists resile from the notion of chance on the grounds that the environmentdidit and conveniently forget that in their view the evvironment was the product of chance too......but you are allowed some pedantry regarding "manipulate itself".
it's surprising how many times atheists use the phrase apparently without irony.
we all have our interests........many atheists are woefully ignorant of theology. I should be the one complaining here not you - arguably Christians should be equipped for apologetics.
Bob, you are not stupid.......a "code" which is "more or less arbitrary" is not a code........which of course is what you which to imply because codes imply a codifier. You know as well as I do that your phrase,"chemical affinity" is a semantic ploy which begs the question of who determined the "affinity". It is, at a technical level, a vast understatement. Biological information is not, as you also seek to imply, a "different" type of information. We find a unique coding system and definite syntax in every genome. There is no known process by which information arises spontaneously in dead matter. Which came first, the DNA or the protein motor? Which came first, the coding system or the cell's ability to interpret it?
so zero-point energy spontaneously appears.
and you think "spontaneously appearing" is not begging the question.
and who set these "very strict time and quantity constraints".......like every other instance of order in the universe , nothing could possibly constitute 'evidence'.
to indulge in a moment's pedantry - is there such a thing as a "random timetable"? No instance of order constitutes evidence but people complain if trains don't run on time!
if it was counter-intuitive it wasn't "empirical" furthermore, conceptual mathematics can hardly be described as "empirical" If it had been empirical, agreement would have been easy. It was the insights which confirmed the boundary of empiricism.
this only pushes the question back - and applies it to the, "higher-dimensional particles temporarily changing state so as to mainfest in our context"
see above.......no, it just confirms an open system.
this looks odd because I haven't employed assumptions, so we have a self-confessed science freak complaining that my agreement with physics that we have an open-system doesn't constitute a " meaningful understanding of reality" and insisting that empirical evidence is the only methodology when science itself operates conceptually and hopes to observe afterwards.........just like Christianity!
'It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man, than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others.' Francis Bacon.