1. The coconut milk and flesh are so tasty because they marinate, if you will, inside a hard shell that enables them to travel across the oceans. Clear logic. Created by nature/natural selection.

2. Darwin’s writings explains logically how evolution happened – keeping in mind – the word “day” in Hebrew…. is a “period of time” – so evolution is fully supported in the Bible and Creationism, like Evolution, must be properly defined in order that evolution is applied – it’s fits perfectly when tested and validated logically.

3. The Heavens and the Earth – give that more thought…. In the beginning there was a void – God created the Heavens and the Earth…. not the Earth and the Heavens.

4. Fool. You are already watching God build – or perhaps you are not… get it?

5. part 1) Truth is that we have access and capability to an infinite amount of knowledge and grossly infinite understanding of the knowledge we do have at the moment…. 2) All that I need 3) I agree: You can’t prove that “God doesn’t exist” – However you can prove that He does (and you did that in test number 1).

I hope this sheds light on some gaps for you. Have you read the Bible cover to cover? (I already know the answer) Read it – if you apply logic, you will believe though you might not see – (you won’t have to see)…. but you will “see” (understand) – then maybe you’ll end up helping preachers to wake up and smell the rest of the coffee (or all of it). Test everything until you get a clearly valid answer by deductive reasoning. You would do very well to read the Bible and make refutations based on a contextual reading rather than what we hear in the bandstands…. In fact if you read it and understand it you might be surprised to find that Jesus actually condemns religiosity….(after all there are probably only 300 million people in the entire world who’ve read it cover to cover according to stats given the benefit of the doubt and even less who understand it…. so go for it – and prove the statements in as true or false – get in there… and besides according to logic based on what it actually does say in there – we can’t understand it without learning what it means with other people…..) And for you I’d recommend beginning with the Torah/first 5 books.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Dean

PS – What’s number 6?

‘I’ve never seen a single intelligent researcher who advanced through their studies and career using religion to discover new knowledge.’

- actually there’s been a long history of scientists who studied nature with a belief that better understanding of God’s work leads to wisdom.. and – it does, even when, unfortunately, you don’t attribute his work to him.

but anyway.. if there’s anything I’ve noticed since my change from an atheist to a believer a decade or so back.. it’s the general feeling of hostility and negativity that spews from the atheist community. Of course there are ‘happy atheists’.. I’m not saying there aren’t.. but the general ‘vibe’ I find in these discussions is so harsh and bleak – and basicly any other adjective similar.

The first question would be… why so much energy devoted to what you don’t believe in? So many different excuses are generally given: ‘religion is destructive!’… ahhh… so you do it because you are humanitarians! So glad you are all looking out for our greater good! Definitely proof that atheists truly are moral creatures.. – that’s sarcasm folks, obviously it isn’t out of your concern for mankind.

So many times the old ‘Spaghetti Monster’ is brought up… yet I don’t seem to see too many debates on it’s existence… only God’s. Why even call yourself an atheist? You’ve defined yourself by a negative… devote pages and pages of web content to a negative… In Hollywood terms.. your bad press would only give God more fame..

I at one point considered myself an atheist, although in light of the above statements.. agnostic is a better term, since ‘you can’t prove a negative’. As an agnostic I also was endlessly on the warpath vs. those foolish believers… so I am quite familiar with what fueled my debates — the fear of looking like a fool. I prided myself on my intellect, as does most likely anyone that considers it their strong suit. Part of that viewpoint meant that I didn’t want to be caught believing something which was bull… I embarrass easily when it comes to something like that.. I still do. Although I admit that there was a bigger problem for my belief.. or lack there of – it wasn’t JUST that I didn’t want to be the fool…. I also had the more serious issue of simply not believing it. You simply can’t believe what you don’t believe… no matter what… This is why Pascal’s wager is asinine in construction.. No matter how much you might like to believe something.. if you don’t.. you don’t. End of story.

I do believe now.. and it took a long chain of events to prove it to me.. and of course my subjective tale is useless on non-believers. It has to happen to you individually. But the real point here is.. now that I look at ‘skeptics’ posts.. and debates.. I find them to be like a sad cloud over hanging.. and as much as I’d like to debate the topic with them – It’s almost not worth the drudging through their toxic worldview… where the skeptics own pride and flawed reasoning is the pinnacle of existence. What skeptics view as damaging to the world, the so called ‘God Delusion’, is in my interpretation the precise opposite… what is damaging to the world in my view is their constant attempt to blot out others faith.. since it somehow seems to them to be an attack on their lack there of (how?)

With an open mind you will eventually find belief… without an open mind you won’t. Simple as that. I promise.

and with that skeptics.. I bid you goodbye.. it’s stifling in here – you are free to go back to arguing against what you don’t believe… for whatever reason one would do that.

1. RULES OF NATURE. “Rules presuppose order, repetition, and predictable relationships among things and events, among countless other things. I agree with you that there are rules; but in your worldview, there should be no rules. The very concept should be unintelligible — meaningless.”

Michael, you simply misunderstand the word being used. ‘Rules’ in the natural sense do not mean ‘playground rules’ that God made up for matter to obey. Rules are OBSERVED uniformity of behavior, revealed through empirical observation and testing -as you say, “relying on the past to prove what the future will be like.” Exactly. That’s exactly what natural rules are.

2. MORALITY. Pure and simple, morality is a human endeavor, with suffering and happiness as its metrics – these are the ‘universal standard’ which you seem so desperate to posit. What you and the Bible are more concerned with is better defined as righteousness, meaning ‘what God says.’ Well, in the OT, God and his Chosen say and do a lot of abhorrent, nasty, cruel, capricious, mean-spirited and definitively IMMORAL (but totally RIGHTEOUS) things. Lot’s own daughters seduce him and bear children, entire cultures are slaughtered, etc. Today we call that immoral. Morality is really the simplest of human problems, and it’s been demonstrated and observed that other primate and mammalian cultures exhibit basic ‘morality’ – they tend quite strongly to discourage theft, infidelity, and murder. And they mete out punishment accordingly, what we would call justice.

“God is just. He shall judge the alduterer, the liar, the murderer, not by imperfect human standards, but His perfectly holy standard. We all ought to tremble at that.”

Thank you for proving my point.

…

“But more fundamentally problematic for the evolutionist, the universe is a chance thing.”

This is not at all problematic. A better understanding of probability/time would serve you well.

“The God I serve lives and reigns, and He desires that all mankind should be saved.”

Man, for someone who rails against unfounded assertions, you sure can sling ‘em.

“All I have ever attempted to show is that if you reject the Christian worldview, you cannot make sense of anything.”

Believer, PLEASE. I think that it is you who do not like the answers. Hiding behind politeness cannot conceal the fact that, over the course of your discussion, you have progressed through and beyond semi-rational argument, only to fall back on proselytizing and faith claims.

“The gospel is not for the proud and self-righteous.”

Apparently, though, it is.

I’m not trying to dissuade anybody. While I think they are wrong, my motivation has nothing to do with getting the theist to change his or her mind. What am I interested in doing is challenging them to apply intellectual rigor to their system of thought, just as I would challenge you or myself. Just like the theist, the atheist/agnostic needs to be constantly applying validation mechanisms to their worldview, and by engaging in healthy debate we do this. There is nothing wrong with being forced to rethink one’s ideology, based on an argument presented by someone with whom you disagree. In the end, as I have said many times, the truth is the truth, wherever it comes from.

Having said that, wouldn’t’ you agree that anytime we ask for evidence or proof of the theist worldview, we are indeed trying to understand why they believe what they believe?

“(Realist)So, Michael, ty, why do you believe in a god who is not forgiving, but makes you beg for forgiveness; a god who creates an imperfect being, and then punishes the being for those imperfections; a god who knows not love or just, who would have you suffer for eternity for a so called crime that inflicts no harm (lust)?”

“(Realist)It’s kind of hard to swear my life to a god who’s less perfect than man and

You are stepping into the theist “trap”. I’m sure they would tell you that you err in your description of their God, and your lack of understanding is a reflection of your sinful nature and lack theological rigor. I’m guessing they would also tell you that you can’t presume to know the mind of God, and that any horrors that befall man or mankind are a result of free will and his (mankind’s) own choices and inherent sinful nature.

Though you clearly scoff at the idea of the Christian God, by presenting your argument in this way, you SEEM to give credence to the idea of SOME god (perhaps not the God of Christianity, but some deity) . It seems to me this is conceding a pretty important point. I doubt that was your intent, but of course I don’t know. The question for this debate is not why should we believe in some particular God…the real issue is why should we believe in ANY god?

I had not planned on remarking further after my previous remarks. I did want you to know that I appreciate your admonition that the exchange, if it would not be fruitless, must cultivate rigorous and rational dialogue while rejecting ad hominem.

You have spoken much about the need for evidence. I do not want you — or anyone here — to have the impression that the Christian’s approach to belief is fideistic, that he forsakes reason for a leap into darkness. To my mind, the Christian who holds that faith and reason are irreconcilable kings of separate domains holds a heresy.

What I have attempted to convey, inadequately perhaps, is that faith, it turns out, is the foundation of all sound reasoning. We exist. We take this for granted. Much as the naturalist would like the burden to be on the Christian to prove God exists, it lies just as heavily upon his shoulders to prove his worldview — that existence emerged from chance and is yet purposefully guided somehow by inanimate forces — is the correct one. I should also ask the naturalist how he would prove that he exists. Descartes cleverly proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am,” thinking the matter resolved. The problem, however, is that his premise started with “I,” betraying obvious question begging on his part.

So the philosopher is left with skepticism unless he embraces universals, a prioris, self-evident generalizations. Once he casts aside such universals, which permit categorization, predication, and the relating of facts to one another, he forfeits any claim to making sense of any fact in existence whatsoever. So we all accept that there are universals that help us to order and make sense of reality. The question must become: Which worldview can make universals intelligible, and hence lay claim to the ability to relate the facts to one another in an intelligible way, such that there is coherence in the human experience?

To do this, we must set the opposing worldviews beside each other and examine them upon their own foundations. We must examine their most foundational presuppositions and decide whether they can account for the things we take for granted in the human experience. My position has been that if I were to stand on the foundation of evolutionism and naturalism, I could not rationally interpret the human experience and all its incidents; I could not rationally account for universal invariants like laws of logic and all the rest.

But more fundamentally problematic for the evolutionist, the universe is a chance thing. Holding to this notion prevents even the acceptance of generally applicable universals, for all the facts in a chance universe must necessarily be brute facts (“Brute” here is a term of art, I suppose, and by it I mean simply that the facts cannot be related to each other in any rational way. They are pure particulars, existing in utter contingency). I have thus argued that systematic assessment and discovery (science) in such a universe lacks a rational foundation; it makes sense only if one assumes consistency, order, facts that are relatable, design . . .

Secondly, as I think I have implied, and think you would agree, it is crucial to understand that neutrality in the debate over conflicting worldviews is impossible; for the facts themselves are interpreted and evaluated by one’s worldview — by one’s theory of knowledge and metaphysic.

Thirdly, and I must stress, I have defended the Christian theistic worldview only. I reject all religions because they are ultimately arbitrary or inconsistent, or internally contradictory, their teachings and assertions reducing the human experience to absurdity. My defense has been of the God of the Bible. My defense has assumed that the Bible is authoritative on all matters to which it speaks, and that it speaks to all matters, implicitly if not explicitly.

Lastly, I do not categorically reject an evidential approach to Christian apologetics (giving an answer to the unbeliever for my hope, yet with gentleness and respect). Evidence testifies to what actually is the case. But as I want to stress, ultimately the evidence for or against a worldview is itself assessed and interpreted through the lens of one’s worldview. It is one’s most basic presuppositions that must be challenged if the evidence can ever be viewed as it should.

Tim, I respect you and your intellect, and consider that you might very well be more intelligent than I. When the Bible says, “The fool hath said in his heart ‘There is no God’”, it is not at all saying the unbeliever is unintelligent; it is saying that he forsakes the right use of his reason and intelligence by denying His Creator, and is made a fool in his thinking.

Before I take my leave, I wanted to thank you again for carrying on the dialogue. I also wanted to show you some scientific facts from the Bible, with this understanding: In the Christian worldview, everything that is evidences the God of the Scripture; nothing can be accounted for apart from him. The very concept “fact” is unintelligible if God be denied.

These facts, by the way, come from various literature and are recited in a multitude of websites, but I would encourage you to go right to the Bible, the very word of God, and see for yourself (I will provide the place where the passage is found).

The Bible speaks of the earth’s free float in space (Job 26:7), which science did not discover until 1650.

The Bible says that the visible things are made of invisible things — which today we call atoms (Hebrews 11:3).

The Bible reveals that the earth is round (Isaiah 40:22).

Psalm 8:8 refers to the “paths of the seas.” Matthew Maury, the father of oceanography, considered the words of Scripture and went looking for these paths. He discovered warm and cold continental currents.

The Bible says that the earth is wearing out (Isaiah 51:6; Psalm 102:25, 26; and Hebrews 1:11). Today we refer to this condition as the Law of Increasing Entropy (The Second Law of Thermodynamics).

The Bible explains the hydrologic cycle, which science discovered two thousand years later (Ecclesiastes 1:7, 11:3; Amos 9:6).

The Bible speaks of God’s creation as “finished” — once and for all (Genesis 2:1). This is what the First Law of Thermodynamics says (The Law of Conservation of Energy).

The Bible describes a “cycle” of air currents two thousand years before scientists discovered them (Ecclesiastes 1:6).

The Bible says that there is “a weight for the wind” (Job 28:25). Not until the sixteenth century was it recognized that the air had weight.

The Bible speaks of the rotation of the earth (“[The earth] is turned as clay to the seal” — like a clay vessel being turned upon a potter’s wheel). – Job 38:12,14.

The Bible speaks of “the springs of the sea” (Job 38:16).

The Bible tells us that the colors can be parted from the white light (Job 38:24), which science discovered in 1650.

The Bible and the universal flood: About 85 % of the rock surface around the world is made up of sedimentary rock, indicating that at some time in the past, water covered the world.

There are many more evidences . . .

Tim, I hope that God will bless you as He has me, and that the considerable powers of your intellect will one day be used to glorify God.

May God Bless,

Michael

Very well-put and eloquent. I agree completely with what you said.

Ni’s comment is also deleted. It’s fine (and expected) to disagree strongly, but personal attacks aren’t wanted here.

Andy

Ni, by name calling, you are engaging in a personal attack against someone who doesn’t share your world view, which in my opinion, has no place in rational debate. Michael is anything but an idiot. He is clearly well read, and his arguments are for the most part well stated and thought provoking. If anyone who reads his posts does not feel compelled to evaluate the source of his/her belief system, then I would argue that person is either being intellectually dishonest, or hasn’t understood what he wrote. I disagree with Michael…vehmently, but I respect him. He has forced me to think through many of my positions and evaluate my own biases. For that I am grateful. He has clearly come to his conclusions through much study and reflection. Most theists I have known, have nothing close to his level of understanding, in terms of either WHAT they believe or why they believe it. Give credit where credit is due

By engaging in ad hominem attacks, we reduce the debate from one of intellectual discourse to a one consisting of close minded “corner sitting”. In this way we become no better than the very people we accuse of thoughtless adherence to a system of beliefs for which we find no compelling evidence in a system.

No.

The proselytizing comment was deleted. It is off topic and adds no value to this conversation.

I’ve been monitoring this conversation silently for quite some time, and have been thrilled with everyone’s willingness to debate. While I personally don’t agree with Michael, I’m happy he’s taking the time to post his thoughts here. However, the rules exist for a reason – to keep the conversations on track and on topic.

Andy

Saying your message is not directed at me, is a cop out. I have admitted to you that am I willing to change my ideology in the presence of evidence that dictates I do so. Are you suggesting that your message is just intended for those who aren’t willing to push back on contentions that may defy the evidence in their present worldview? Is your message only directed at those who refuse to question? How nice for you…you don’t have to worry about the souls of those who don’t easily give up their natural and (I would contend) HEALTHY skepticism.
My skepticism is directed at anything that demands I believe regardless of a lack of evidence, or worse, contrary to the evidence that is placed in front of me. It doesn’t matter whether it’s religious dogma or new age charlatanism, or bad science. The fact that I ask questions doesn’t make me dogmatic; it makes me curious.

“(michael)But allow me to say this: You are no more neutral than I. You assume that human autonomy in reasoning is the ultimate predicate for all knowledge. Tell me, how will you prove that? How do you not beg the question? If you had read my previous remarks carefully, you would know that I believe circularity is unavoidable when debating what is the truth about ultimate reality. The difference between us is this: You claim man is the measure of all things. I claim God to be the measure of all things.”

I make no such assumption or contention. I will grant your assertion that I am not neutral. I do not give equal weight to arguments demanding faith vs. arguments which present evidence. Guildy as charged.. We are born with a certain intellectual capacity, which may or may not be enough to understand the reality we find ourselves in. But based on the evidence, it’s all we have. Mankind may not be smart enough to ultimately understand the universe completely. But all we have to go on is what we can process with our senses, what we can test, and ultimately what we can conclude. I would argue that this approach has worked pretty well for moving us from savages sitting around camp fires to thoughtful, civilized men sitting around our computers debating the issues. We can make predictions, test them, adjust our theories, make more predictions, and so on. I will agree with you in this regard; some circularity is unavoidable in that there are some postulates that we assume are true, a priori. But I’m arguing from the standpoint of understanding the nature of the evidence presented to me, and you seem to be arguing from the standpoint of having direct knowledge with no falsifiable evidence. Which is a more reasonable position? I’m willing to change my worldview based on new data; you seem much less inclined to do so. Who is the more dogmatic?

“(michael)Is all knowledge derived through the senses, such that it can be experimentally validated? Did you learn through your senses that all knowledge is derived through the senses? If not, how did you learn this? Your suggestion that your knowledge is not faith-based is disingenuous. You obviously have faith that the laws of physics will be tomorrow what they are today.”

Oh please. You know as well as I do that there is a difference between having a measure of rationally and logicall driven confidence in the scientific method, and having an emotionally driven, hopeful belief in something you can neither see nor touch. Don’t talk to me about being disingenuous when you’re very argument defines the word. The fact that I have a degree of certainty that the sun will come up tomorrow (tomorrow), is based on observation and some level of insight into the laws of physics, If you want to call that “faith” , then so be it. I would argue that there are qualitative differences in faith that defies evidence, and faith that is supported by evidence.

I would contend that knowledge isn’t derived from the senses, but that this is where the raw data comes from. Sensory data comes in; I process it; I draw conclusions; I test those conclusions and measure the results with my senses; I adust my conclusions accordingly; sensory data comes in, and so on. Is there knowledge that comes to us without sensory input? Possibly, although that is a contention that more likely springs from a lack of knowledge of how the brain works than anything. So?

“(michael)I have freely admitted that I presuppose the God of the Bible. The Bible says that if you deny God’s existence, you are made a fool. You claim that I beg the question. I do. But what you repeatedly neglect to grapple with is that my worldview — the Christian theistic worldview — can make sense of reality, while yours cannot.”

First of all, I have no problem “grappling” with the fact that your worldview can make sense of reality. I’m well aware of that fact. I even understand how it would. The idea of a caring and loving God, who watches over our every move and guides our path through life, who will forgive our every transgression, and who will welcome us with open arms forever and ever…well that’s pretty potent stuff to thoughtful beings who have a difficult time wrestling with their own mortality and who are tryng to make sense of man’s inhumanity to man. However, the fact that your worldview offers an explanation for reality, doesn’t make it correct. And without evidence, I’m unwilling to concede that it is. If by “making sense of reality” you mean explain reality, then I would strongly disagree with your contention that my worldview is not capable of meeting this challenge.

“(michael)Do you know whether the universe is finite or infinite? If it is finite, do you know how it began? If it is purely material in character, can you explain invariant, immaterial laws?”

No, of course I don’t. So what?…the fact that I can’t explain something means you are correct in your worldview? If you had asked the question if I could come up with a theory that is internally consistent and is untestable (i.e., it requires faith to believe in), then I would answer yes. But that wouldn’t make ME right, either. Bottom line is there ARE theories that have made this attempt and we are figuring out how to test them; they may be wrong. But the fact that I can come up with explanations, requiring no God and which are internally consistent compel me to ask the question “why should I believe one theory, without evidence, and not the other?

“(michael)They do have answers. You just don’t like them. Your bias dictates your rejection of the Christian theistic explanations. Otherwise, how can you say that the questions I have posed do not have answers? Do you know everything?”

Well ACTUALLY, I was talking about questions relating to explaining reality without a Christian god, which, if I understood correctly, YOU were contending didn’t have answers in the absence of said creator. I was simply conceding that RIGHT NOW, there are questions that we don’t have answers to, but which you assert Christian theology DOES have. I don’t have a particular bias against Christian theology; I have a bias against lack of evidence or proof. Secondly, you are assuming a response that is inaccurate. I neither like nor dislike the answers. The truth is the truth. And clearly if I have already conceded that there are questions for which we don’t have answers, I have admitted that we (and certainly I) don’t know everything. Sarcasm doesn’t become you.

“(michael)How did we test the validity of the scientific method for answering questions?”

We observe, we process, we theorize, we test, we revise. It’s just what people do as a natural part of their mental processing (some more than others). The scientific method simply put a more formalized process around this. Maybe there is a better process; I have no way of knowing, but I think we can both agree that over time the body of human knowledge ha grown, and that in large measure this is due to the process I just described.

“(michael)Tim, this is a statement of faith. You do not know what tomorrow will be like, and that fact alone ought to give you serious pause. Unless, of course, you assume the uniformity of nature, an assumption which your worldview defies. Your confidence therefore rests upon another worldview: the Biblical worldview that the sovereign God controls all things. Were this not assumed, science would be a futile undertaking. Men like Newton and Copernicus knew this. Hence they were able to apply science to the universe to discover its laws of operation. In your worldview, there is only chance. Mere probability does not comport with a chance universe, much less near certainty.”

Wow…that’s quite a leap. So the fact that I admit that I don’t know everything, that we don’t live in a completely deterministic universe, but which HAS obeyed the same physical laws out to our ability to test (which, by the way goes down below the level of the atom, and back billions of years), should compel me to embrace your argument, which offers no where near as much evidence as to it’s validity? And I should do this because…..??? Michael…I”ve never said you were wrong; I’ve just said “prove it” with REAL and compelling evidence.

“(michael)I would urge you to read what David Hume concluded about reality, induction, and the uniformity of nature. We assume uniformity and so unconsciously live our lives accordingly. Tim, I am asking you to think more consciously about your assumptions. From the unbeliever’s standpoint, all is ultimately uncertain; science, though it be done, makes no sense unless the Christian worldview be assumed. So you assume what you “must” — order, purpose, predictability, morality — from the Christian worldview, rejecting what you do not like — sin, righteousness, judgment, Hell, the just God of wrath. Your worldview is thus arbitrary.”

I haven’t read Hume, so can’t comment on either his conclusions or yours until I have a chance to gain an understanding of where you are coming from on this one.

“(michael)Then do not condemn the rapist or the murderer. Do not condemn Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot.
Were a criminal to hurt you or a loved one, would you not demand justice? What if the crime was carried out against your loved one in a country that merely fined rapists and murderers. If your loved one was raped or murdered, and the perpetrator was fined for it — say, a thousand dollars — then let go with the blessings of his society, what would you think of that country’s justice system? Of their moral code? Are some codes better than others? Do some mete out justice better than others? How can you answer “yes” without necessarily appealing to a universal standard by which all systems are judged

If natural selection and evolution create moral behavior, how can we punish anyone? Can evolution and natural selection instill free will in their creatures? This is a laughable dilemma for the evolutionist, who cannot have it both ways. Do not speak to the Christian about purposeful, or non-random evolution.”

The fact that morality, ethics, etc, don’t derive from a supreme being does not make them any less important to humans or the human condition. And the fact that we consider these things wrong, heinous, immoral, etc given that we have been raised in a cultural environment where that is so, doesn’t mean they are universal absolutes. It just means that over the course of time these “immoral” behaviors have not benefited the propagation of the species and have ultimately been codified in our standards of good behavior. Don’t get me wrong, I abhor these behaviors as much as you, and I would guess that you would be astounded at my level of conservatism given my postings. But the fact remains that you can offer no proof of the universality of moral absolutes, and arguing from an appeal to consequence is logically flawed. Just because we don’t like the answer, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Yes I would be outraged if the situation as you describe it existed. But that is completely beside the point.
In hindsight, of COURSE they would seem to be universal; but couldn’t it be because we’ve been conditioned to feel that way? The fact that I can’t imagine a society or a civilization where these would not be considered absolutes, does not mean that such a society could not exist, given different environmental, psychological, or sociological pressures.

(michael)As I have repeatedly argued, such questions presuppose the theistic Christian God. Your question is intelligible only within a Christian worldview. Again, I do not expect the Bible to make sense to you. No argument will persuade you because the facts themselves are interpreted in terms of presuppositions. All I have ever attempted to show is that if you reject the Christian worldview, you cannot make sense of anything. Were you to stand on my worldview, the questions you assume have not been answered would have answers after all. You do not like the answers, I am afraid, and that’s really what all unbelief comes down to.”

You evade my question. I have no difficulty making sense of the world, and it doesn’t require god for me to do so. Having said that, I will adjust my worldview according to wherever the evidence leads me. Would you do the same?

I have replied over and over again. I have said everything I am compelled to say on the matter.

You would rather engage in name-calling than get down to the crucial task of evaluating conflicting worldviews. I cannot oblige.

The gospel is not for the proud and self-righteous. God resists these, but gives grace to the humble.

My prayer is that the contrite, the humble, the broken — if there be even just one here — would know the joy of new life, that they would turn to Him and be healed. The proud insulter can go on his way. Having said what I must, so will I.

Michael

Do you believe in the existence of Unicorns? There are lots of stories about them, there are pictures drawn of them, there are sculptures of them, yet nobody but the most gullible of young children believe in their existence, and they, too, begin to understand that it’s a mythical creature. Why do we say that Unicorns don’t exist? Because nobody has seen them for real, there is no evidence of such a creature ever being in existence. My fellow Atheists will understand where I am going here. Michael will try to give the bible as evidence. The bible is a collective work of fiction, and having read it cover to cover (yes, true story. Both testaments) I can say that it’s not a very good work of fiction either. It’s dull, boring, repetitive, contradictory and the lead character is temperamental and has the personality of a hormonal drug-sniffing teenage girl on her period (you know the kind).

The God of the Bible (Yahweh, Jehovah, whatever…) is the ultimate villain. He is all powerful and makes people suffer for the smallest of mistakes. He is the kind of Villain Hannibal Lecter and Anton Chigurh want to be when they grow up. Forget about believing in him as real… Defending him in a court would prove to be impossible as well as immoral.

Now that I have blasphemed, let’s see god giving me his wrath. Ooooh, I am soooo scared….. NOT!

Michael, please tell us how to prove that your god exists (note the word ‘your’ here). I don’t think you can. Give us an experiment. No disclaimers like “God should not be tested” etc. That is unacceptable. What deadly sin do we do to see god punishing us? Can we have a double blind test? What do we use as a control? I know you are not a scientist, but you should know these terms, if you went to a school worth the land it’s built on.

Awaiting your reply.

Ni! (as in the Knights who say Ni!)

“So, Michael, ty, why do you believe in a god who is not forgiving, but makes you beg for forgiveness; a god who creates an imperfect being, and then punishes the being for those imperfections; a god who knows not love or just, who would have you suffer for eternity for a so called crime that inflicts no harm (lust)?

It’s kind of hard to swear my life to a god who’s less perfect than man and beast.”

It makes no sense to believe in something that is not true. What would it profit someone to believe a lie? He may feel better for a season, but his end is death. We must believe in the God who is, not in the god of our imagination.

God punishes man because he willfully defies God. Make no mistake in this: He punishes us for breaking His Law. To the unbeliever, He shall be the Supreme Judge who inflicts His wrath. To the broken and contrite believer, though Lord, He is also Father.

You say lust inflicts no harm. God thinks otherwise about lust. What matters is what God thinks. God would not be who He is if he condoned that which opposed his character, his holiness, righteousness, and goodness.

Lust is not love. It is wickedness to God. And it is by God’s standards that we shall be judged, not ours.

Who are we to challenge God about good and evil? He is the sovereign Creator, perfect in all His ways. Psalm 19:7 says His Law is perfect, converting the soul. God need not contend with any of us and could blot us out for all eternity this very instant if He chose. You are alive by God’s grace. It is His grace that strives with the defiance of those who repeatedly reject Him, if in time they might repent and turn to Him, but this only for a time.

God is just. He shall judge the alduterer, the liar, the murderer, not by imperfect human standards, but His perfectly holy standard. We all ought to tremble at that. I urge you to turn to Him today, because tomorrow is not promised to us.

Michael

My message was not for you. As I said, it is for those who are seeking peace with God, if there be any here; or is “skepticism” ever only directed one way — against faith? That would smack of the very dogmatism you charge me with.

But allow me to say this: You are no more neutral than I. You assume that human autonomy in reasoning is the ultimate predicate for all knowledge. Tell me, how will you prove that? How do you not beg the question? If you had read my previous remarks carefully, you would know that I believe circularity is unavoidable when debating what is the truth about ultimate reality. The difference between us is this: You claim man is the measure of all things. I claim God to be the measure of all things.

“ANY theory that purports to explain existence must stand up to experimental validation (it must be falsifiable). I am willing to agree that those theories which I currently believe to be correct, or mostly correct, are wrong, given the weight of scientific evidence. Are you willing to concede the same thing regarding your ideology?”

Is all knowledge derived through the senses, such that it can be experimentally validated? Did you learn through your senses that all knowledge is derived through the senses? If not, how did you learn this? Your suggestion that your knowledge is not faith-based is disingenuous. You obviously have faith that the laws of physics will be tomorrow what they are today.

I have freely admitted that I presuppose the God of the Bible. The Bible says that if you deny God’s existence, you are made a fool. You claim that I beg the question. I do. But what you repeatedly neglect to grapple with is that my worldview — the Christian theistic worldview — can make sense of reality, while yours cannot.

Do you know whether the universe is finite or infinite? If it is finite, do you know how it began? If it is purely material in character, can you explain invariant, immaterial laws?

“You ask questions that, in fairness, don’t have answers at present.”

They do have answers. You just don’t like them. Your bias dictates your rejection of the Christian theistic explanations. Otherwise, how can you say that the questions I have posed do not have answers? Do you know everything?

“But as time passed, we (humans) developed the scientific method for answering the questions that previously escaped us.”

How did we test the validity of the scientific method for answering questions?

“The universe adheres to physical laws, and to the extent that we have uncovered those laws (through falsifiable hypothesis), we have grown in our understanding of why things happen the way they do. And because those theories are so good at predicting what the outcome of those tests will be, and because those theories are so good at describing what has already occurred, we can have confidence that it will be that way tomorrow. No God required.”

Tim, this is a statement of faith. You do not know what tomorrow will be like, and that fact alone ought to give you serious pause. Unless, of course, you assume the uniformity of nature, an assumption which your worldview defies. Your confidence therefore rests upon another worldview: the Biblical worldview that the sovereign God controls all things. Were this not assumed, science would be a futile undertaking. Men like Newton and Copernicus knew this. Hence they were able to apply science to the universe to discover its laws of operation. In your worldview, there is only chance. Mere probability does not comport with a chance universe, much less near certainty.

I would urge you to read what David Hume concluded about reality, induction, and the uniformity of nature. We assume uniformity and so unconsciously live our lives accordingly. Tim, I am asking you to think more consciously about your assumptions. From the unbeliever’s standpoint, all is ultimately uncertain; science, though it be done, makes no sense unless the Christian worldview be assumed. So you assume what you “must” — order, purpose, predictability, morality — from the Christian worldview, rejecting what you do not like — sin, righteousness, judgment, Hell, the just God of wrath. Your worldview is thus arbitrary.

“Moral absolutes? What is your evidence that morality or ethical behavior are universal absolutes? I can’t even categorically state that this is the case on just THIS planet. The fact of the matter is we ARE starting to understand the evolutionary pressures (both biological and sociological) that have led us to where we are and why we behave the way we do. I’m not suggesting we have all of the answers; I’m just suggesting there are falsifiable theories that offer an explanation requiring no God.”

Then do not condemn the rapist or the murderer. Do not condemn Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot.

Were a criminal to hurt you or a loved one, would you not demand justice? What if the crime was carried out against your loved one in a country that merely fined rapists and murderers. If your loved one was raped or murdered, and the perpetrator was fined for it — say, a thousand dollars — then let go with the blessings of his society, what would you think of that country’s justice system? Of their moral code? Are some codes better than others? Do some mete out justice better than others? How can you answer “yes” without necessarily appealing to a universal standard by which all systems are judged?

If natural selection and evolution create moral behavior, how can we punish anyone? Can evolution and natural selection instill free will in their creatures? This is a laughable dilemma for the evolutionist, who cannot have it both ways. Do not speak to the Christian about purposeful, or non-random evolution.

“So in closing, I would lik to ask you a simple question….is there any possible argument (assuming it is stated in a clear and logical way) I could present to you that would move you from your dogmatic position of belief in a personal god?”

As I have repeatedly argued, such questions presuppose the theistic Christian God. Your question is intelligible only within a Christian worldview. Again, I do not expect the Bible to make sense to you. No argument will persuade you because the facts themselves are interpreted in terms of presuppositions. All I have ever attempted to show is that if you reject the Christian worldview, you cannot make sense of anything. Were you to stand on my worldview, the questions you assume have not been answered would have answers after all. You do not like the answers, I am afraid, and that’s really what all unbelief comes down to.

Michael

So, Michael, ty, why do you believe in a god who is not forgiving, but makes you beg for forgiveness; a god who creates an imperfect being, and then punishes the being for those imperfections; a god who knows not love or just, who would have you suffer for eternity for a so called crime that inflicts no harm (lust)?

It’s kind of hard to swear my life to a god who’s less perfect than man and beast.

Presenting biblical/Christian orthodoxy isn’t going to have much of an impact on a community that has rejected the premise that the bible is the inspired word of God. You have to know this.

Michael, You seem to believe that if you shout it from the rooftops loudly enough, we will believe. I can assure you, this is not the case (speaking for myself, and I would be willing to bet, most of the people reading this). I need evidence that doesn’t depend on the validity of that which it is trying to prove. This is an obvious cognitive bias which has no place in a rational debate.

I understand you have made the attempt to present arguments that do not rely on the inerrant accuracy of the bible. I have read your previous posts with regard to explaining a random universe, moral absolutes, etc, and I categorically reject your contention that the only explanation for these is your Christian God. Again, you display an obvious cognitive bias; it is a logical fallacy to conclude that just because other explanations fall short, yours is the correct one. ANY theory that purports to explain existence must stand up to experimental validation (it must be falsifiable). I am willing to agree that those theories which I currently believe to be correct, or mostly correct, are wrong, given the weight of scientific evidence. Are you willing to concede the same thing regarding your ideology?

You ask questions that, in fairness, don’t have answers at present. But that has always been true. 5000 years ago, human’s had no idea why the sun moved across the sky, or what the sun WAS…and so they attributed supernatural causes to those things which they could not explain. But as time passed, we (humans) developed the scientific method for answering the questions that previously escaped us. The need for God from a purely explanatory standpoint started to disappear.. There is really no philosophical difference between asking why does the Sun move across the sky vs. what caused the big bang to occur. We DO find answers to these questions; and the gaps filled in by your God get smaller and smaller

I think that science (whether evolutionary biology, cosmology, psychology, sociology, et. al. ) , HAS come up with rational, testable theories for the things you propose are unexplainable without the existence of God. The fact that YOU reject those theories out of your own biases doesn’t make them incorrect.

A random universe? Non-linear, chaotic behavior is not the same thing has random. The universe isn’t random in the sense that just anything can happen. The universe adheres to physical laws, and to the extent that we have uncovered those laws (through falsifiable hypothesis), we have grown in our understanding of why things happen the way they do. And because those theories are so good at predicting what the outcome of those tests will be, and because those theories are so good at describing what has already occurred, we can have confidence that it will be that way tomorrow. No God required.

Moral absolutes? What is your evidence that morality or ethical behavior are universal absolutes? I can’t even categorically state that this is the case on just THIS planet. The fact of the matter is we ARE starting to understand the evolutionary pressures (both biological and sociological) that have led us to where we are and why we behave the way we do. I’m not suggesting we have all of the answers; I’m just suggesting there are falsifiable theories that offer an explanation requiring no God.

So THIS is what you have to overcome, Michael. I wont be inspired into believing. I wont have an emotional or spiritual catharsis that causes me to fall on my knees and ask for god’s mercy and forgiveness. I am an open minded person. I seek the truth, wherever it comes from. I want to understand. It is that which defines me, more than any other thing. I am willing to listen to rational, cogent, testable, refutable and honest debate, free of dogma. My mind can be changed, but only in the presence of that which allows me to use the intellectual tools I was born with. So save the sermons…

So in closing, I would lik to ask you a simple question….is there any possible argument (assuming it is stated in a clear and logical way) I could present to you that would move you from your dogmatic position of belief in a personal god?

Has anyone told a lie? Has anyone been angry with or hated another in his heart? Has anyone lusted after another? Has anyone ever stolen something — anything? Has anyone spoken disrespectfully to his or her father or mother? Has anyone taken God’s name in vain?

We know that we must not commit adultery. Yet Jesus said that whosoever looks with lust upon a woman has committed adultery in his heart. We know that we must not murder. Yet God says that whosever hates another person is a murderer. Under the law, you are condemned. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” – Romans 3:20.

The fires of Hell await those who break God’s Commandments, for He loves justice and righteousness, and He cannot tolerate sin’s defilement. His holiness consumes sin and wickedness. To hate, to lie, to steal, to fornicate — these are detestable in the sight of God, and for these you are under His wrath. God says that you are not righteous (Psalm 143:2). You will perish in your sins, for God says that the wages of sin is death.

What will you say to God when you stand before His judgment seat? Have you perfectly obeyed His laws in your heart? If you say you have no sin, you are a liar.

How shall you escape the wrath of God and His righteous judgments? How, unless someone pay the penalty of sin for you? God paid the penalty of sin with the shedding of His blood at the Cross. He has satisfied God’s righteous judgment. But if you reject Christ, who paid the price of your sins, you are condemned already. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” – John 3:18. You are condemned because you shall be judged under the law; and you are a lawbreaker.

This message is for the spiritually broken, the oppressed, the poor, not the self-righteous. It is for those who desire to escape God’s wrath, which even now is being revealed against all unrighteousness.

To the broken, I want to repeat the words of God to the contrite: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” – Isaiah 1:18. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” – John 1:12. Seek the forgiveness of God, that He might show you His mercy in the day of judgment. Believe on Jesus Christ, who sacrificed Himself for us, paying the just penalty of sin.

God will not strive with you forever. Repent of your sin now, for tomorrow is promised to no one. To those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” – 2 Corinthians 6:2.

For those who would reject God, continue on your way. This is for the humble, the broken, the lost who are seeking peace with God.

Michael

I was thinking along the same line. Well put.

The theist argument always comes down to a question of belief, which is why it will never be possible for atheists to prove to theists that God doesn’t exist. They can always fall back on their position of faith, regardless of the evidence that is presented. I can never prove God’s non-existence (to a theist) if in presenting that proof (incomplete as it may be), I’m met with “But don’t you see, God made it that way to test our faith!” or, as in Ty’s case a complete dismal of the foundation of my explanation (I.e, the scientific method). There is absolutely no retort to that, and no foundation for a reasoned discussion. We (atheists and theists) just view the world from 2 completely different perspectives.

In my experience, the only way someone with a typical theist mindset will be convinced of the possibility of an alternate worldview, is through a self-motivated personal catharisis and an honest search for the truth, no mater where it comes from.

There are a couple of reasons that Atheists start from a position of assuming that god is not responsible for everything when they inquire into the workings of the natural world. One is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the assumption the he is, and the other is that if you conduct science with the assumption that god can work miracles outside the laws of nature then every tricky problem could be solved with something like the following mathematical formula:

12/34 X 3.11117 + (miraculous occurance) = 7

(p.s. why stop at declaring you know more about physics than the Stephen Hawkings and Albert Einsteins of the world? Maybe you know more about everything than any specialist in any field. After all everything in the world might be an illusion except for you.)

If, as a seeker of truth, I agree with data that strongly supports some theory explaining existence, I don’t need to prove God’s non-existence. The theory I have postulated is sufficient to explain the data and nothing further is needed.

Regarding the bullet points:

1)Ty, you lost me. I could not follow your chain of thinking here. I don’t know what you are trying to say. My point was that you had presented no evidence for your contention, and you still haven’t.

2)It’s not a philosophical discussion and I wasn’t postulating anything I don’t think its a particularly big leap to conclude that people who have devoted their professional lives to studying a particular scientific theory know more about it than you do. What point are you making in your reference to “magic time”. Do you mean ‘imaginary time”?

3)I made no claim to anything. You asked what physics theory I’m referring to, and I responded. Gravitational collapse is one of the solutions to the equations. By your comments I assume that you think GR is wrong. If you are willing to throw out any established theory in spite of the weight of evidence in its favor just because you think it’s so far out there, I don’t know how we can have a rational discussion.

5)Your point was anything but clear in your original statement. How did you arrive at this conclusion?

6)So let me summarize: you have thrown out the scientific method as an impractical fad, accepted and evidence supported scientific theories are BS propaganda and now all scientists are evil. Does that pretty much cover everything?

I think you are giving me way too much credit if you think I understand you, because Ty…I don’t have a f***ing clue.

You said, “That is not the atheist position. Atheists believe that god does not exist. Belief in “something else” is not part of atheism.”

I don’t claim to be an expert on atheism, I call myself one but I know of no structured rules or guidelines for being an atheist telling you what you must think of the world. Most atheists probably have a personal understanding of the word. But I do know this. I hate it when some non-atheist tells me what it is I believe based on some farcical distortion of what an atheist is. Atheists, as far as I can tell, do not have some religious belief that god doesn’t exist. They believe something else. That the world can be understood through rational investigation. So far nobody has found one shred of evidence supporting the notion of a sentient creator that watches over us all and knows when we are naughty and that he made a rib woman out of a dustman, or that any religion has the goods on any of it. If verifiable, repeatably testable evidence surfaces that any or all of that is true then we will adjust our view of the universe, but barring that we are more likely to pursue avenues of inquiry more likely to yield results. I’m sorry if you think this scientific viewpoint sends a chill through the research community and discourages people from investigating the notion of miraculous origins. I thought hundreds of thousands of churches already investigating that for a couple of thousand years would have been sufficient, but maybe we haven’t found the divine truth because we aren’t looking for it enough.

I’d write more but I’ve got to run.

“Therefore the burden on the Atheist/Agnostic is to prove that “something else”, whatever it is and NOT that God doesn’t exist”

That is not the atheist position. Atheists believe that god does not exist. Belief in “something else” is not part of atheism. It would seem to have to be the case because you’d have to take the next logical step, but it isn’t. Because atheism isn’t concerned with what caused anything, or any origins. It’s only the belief that god doesn’t exist.

Besides, your argument that they could find “something else” and that would be sufficient, is the same thing. Because if they found “something else” I’m assuming that means that they also as a corollary found out that god doesn’t exist (if that’s possible). And if it is possible then that’s nothing different from what I’m saying.

So “You originally said the theist needs to prove God exists and the atheist needs to prove God doesn’t exist.” is the same as “each needs to prove their case.” There is no difference.

1. Evidence:

“It’s amazing the big bang is taught in schools with a straight face as truth.”
Do you think the big bang is taught without even a shade of dogma in school? I knew five teachers in high school alone that let the students know that “it’s not wrapped up yet, but you can basically bank on the big bang”.

That’s one example but large parts of the post was that dogmatic teaching overrules science being forwarded. The whole point was it’s taught as dogma. At the very highest level is it taught as dogma? No but I’m not talking about that.

Your argument was that it’s not taught as truth and/or that I thought that science believes it is truth. I know science considers it an unworkable and incomplete theory at this stage but they might get somewhere later. I’m going to assume you can think of some examples of how the big bang is taught as dogma, and also how that could stop other people from thinking on this subject.

2. This is a philosophical discussion. You’d have to ask some questions. However, abstractions built on abstractions doesn’t mean they know more than me. You can’t be postulating magic time or something and claim you know more than me.

3. Don’t tell me you’ve resolved the theory of everything’s problem between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Also, you would be the last one on the boat if you believe in mass condensing to a nothingness in the fourth dimension with no time. The originator of the theory says it’s wrong. The thing is is when you read these theories, they are so far up in the sky that there’s no correlation with anything. If there’s something sound in general relativity than just say what it is.

5. You asked who is stopping people from doing the research. No one is. The context which I wrote it makes it clear that people aren’t interested in studying this stuff because of the self importance of charlatans. So when I said stop, if you read it over again, it means not physically stop them or something but deflecting their interest.

6. The point was that scientists are PRing their own doggedness to truth and in other areas eg. psych class they have cover to release BS in concert with special intrests. But yes scientists are very very evil.

What I believe varies. I just wanted a fight with someone who could understand me and provide a good argument and was willing to cede valid points and not get too emotional about it all and you’ve done a good job.

I do believe that science is fundamental to finding the truth, but I will concede that this is a different subject than who needs to prove what. However, my attention to that subject was driven by your posts, not a misunderstanding of what the discussion was about.

I did not say that theists were more married to their beliefs than atheists were. I said that Theists cared a lot more about their belief that God exists, than atheists cared that he doesn’t. It’s not the same thing. And the point was made in an attempt to illustrate to you why the atheist isn’t compelled to prove that negative. Since you originally made the statement that Atheist needed to prove God doesn’t exist, how is my response for why this isn’t the case a different subject? Also, I didn’t claim that the original argument was “what is the most productive way to arrive at the truth”. Again, I was responding to YOUR assertion that Atheists needed to prove that God doesn’t exist.

Regarding your second post (the big bang)

1)You’ve made an assertion without presenting any evidence.
2)I clearly can’t be sure, but if what you have stated is what you know, then yes, I’m sure
3)General Relativity…I would suggest you do the research
4)Because I’m not. I was being polite
5)here is the quote (yours) that I was responding to in this point:

“They are over the rainbow with naked faeries but acting like they’re close to some final solution all the time. I don’t even have a problem with charlatans, except when they stop others from further investigation because they “have it all under control”.

6)You’re right I missed your point. So, do you believe all science/scientists is/are corrupt?

So Ty….what is your bottom line? What do you believe? What point are you trying to make with all this?

Regarding “all science must be falsifiable” and why that’s a fad, I can’t follow what I wrote, that was a flash of brilliance or stupidity.

Are you for real, or are you just trying to be provocative? To the extent that I can follow your chain of thought:

1)No reputable scientist would present inflationary cosmology (what you are calling the big bang) as incontrovertible truth. It’s a well tested (falsifiable) theory of how the observable universe went from just AFTER it’s first fraction of a second to what we see today. It is well known to be incomplete, and reasonable people have divergent opinions as to its long term viability.

2)I’m pretty sure that the Stephen Hawkings, Roger Penroses, Andre Linde’s, Lisa Randalls, and Leonard Susskinds of the world have a better grasp on the theory than you, your statement notwithstanding.

3)A point is not a single dimension. It is dimensionless, and the condensation of matter into such a point is not in violation of known physics. It is in fact a predicted outcome under certain conditions of either cosmological or stellar evolution..the challenge is in developing a theory of quantum gravity which explains what is going on AT THAT POINT. A challenge that we have so far been unable to overcome, but on which there has been much work. There is a further challenge in understanding where the original point came from , and from whence the rules governing it’s expansion derived.

4)The expansion of the universe is not an expansion in the sense that the universe is expanding into anything…space is actually being created. The fact that you or I can’t picture how this could possibly be doesn’t make it invalid. It simply means that our powers of conceptualization are limited.

5)Who’s stopping whom from investigating other theories? You are correct, if you are asserting that there are theories that aren’t given the time of day, but this is the way science works. Not all theories are created equally, and you have to present a TESTABLE hypothesis before it sees the light of day in scientific circles. It SHOULD be hard to upset/change scientific orthodoxy. This mechanism has worked pretty well for the past 500 years, and I see no reason to throw it out now.

6)Scientists are addicted to truth…are you suggesting that this is a BAD thing?

If I didn’t know better, Ty, I would say that you have a metaphysical axe to grind…

You reduce all of the knowledge and experience and theories of thousands of astrophysicists to the most gross caricature which is now so absurd that you have no trouble swatting it away, and then try and pretend you should be debated on a serious level?

Tim has given a far more eloquent answer to your “what part of the scientific process don’t I understand?” question than I could, but he is having no better time understanding what your central premise is. From reading your posts I can’t really understand what you are for or against and if I copied and pasted all the contradictory and just plain incomprehensible nonsense I would be copying 2/3s of what you’ve written.

Re: You can’t figure out what my point was of the last post? It was an exact answer to all the points of your post that preceded mine. There was no deviation from answering you’re questions and statements exactly. Paste the confusing or off-topic quote from me and I’ll clarify.

Am I to understand that you consider a fundamental aspect of the scientific method (falsifiability) “a fad”, and that it is “wrong”? How did you come to that conclusion?

Maybe we should be clear on our terms here…falsifiability in the context of scientific proof means “testable”. If I can’t come up with a test for a theory, it isn’t a theory…it’s a guess. Without tests there is no experimentation; without experiments, there is no validation nor is there revision of theory, nor would there ever be any reason to discard it. This sounds oddly like faith to me. Now in reading through your post, you seem to be conclude that testing and validation are good things, so I see a bit of a contradiction here….but I will admit that I’m having a difficult time following your thinking in reading through your posts.

Regarding this comment:

“The other thing is, when you say you don’t feel compelled to defend god’s non-existence, a god believer could use the same tactic. I don’t have an assumption about atheist’s desire to prove themselves.”

So what”? I’m not sure what “tactic” you think I’m using. I’m making a rational argument for a more productive way to arrive at truth. If the believer doesn’t feel compelled to defend God’s existence, that changes nothing for me…I’m still going to be pursing evidence, conducting experiments, and adjusting my theory to fit the new evidence. That may at some point include a version of a supreme being (although I would be surprised if this were true). If the believer isn’t helping me get there, I really don’t care one way or the other.

I’m pretty sure physicists do have a better understanding of the processes of the universe than you outlined in two paragraphs. Notwithstanding that, you are quite right that there could be any number of possible explanations for why the universe is emanating from a single point. That is why scientists call it a theory not a fact. It is a theory which is supported by some evidence, but that evidence is not conclusive and no scientist claims that it is an incontrovertable fact.

(I think I’m responding to your comment, but now I’ve just reread what you wrote and apart from illustrating the fact that you have a very shaky understanding of the scientific process, I can’t figure out what your point was.).

re: Big bang
It’s amazing the big bang is taught in schools with a straight face as truth. We are taught by physics to believe that the universe is collapsible to a single dimension (impossible to conceive of and in violation of known physics laws). Also that space is expanding. Expanding into what? There’s no space for it to expand into. And there’s no time for it to expand either. But also no one has observed the outer edge of this expanding space. No one knows how big the universe is. Galaxies moving farther apart from each other could mean there’s some big cycle that happens of any kind that we’re unaware of, it could mean anything.

The crime is not that this theory is more right or wrong potentially, than any other, but that physics literally has no better grasp of this than I just explained to you.

They are over the rainbow with naked faeries but acting like they’re close to some final solution all the time. I don’t even have a problem with charlatans, except when they stop others from further investigation because they “have it all under control”.

The trick that modern science pulls is to take a very tested idea, like “mice responded to this bell a billion times by winking”. And then they release a report saying that “it appears, although we cannot confirm this positively, that mice will wink when we ring this bell, based on the billion tests”. That’s fine, if they want to be so cautious, kind of over cautious, but whatever.

But then they’ve got the public hooked on the scientist’s addiction to truth, which gives them COVER to come out with some BS story about whatever they want and claim they used the same level of absurd empiricism to conclude that we’re all basically pavlov’s dog or some crap. This is particularly bad in the psuedo sciences of the mind.

The Haida people think the Raven made everybody, I don’t know what their evidence is.

Addressing your other point about the did a “sentient being start it all” question, versus the scientific viewpoint, (i.e. Big Bang). The scientific viewpoint, in trying to discover the origin of everything notices that all planets and stars are moving outward from a single point and concludes that at some point in the past the whole universe was all located in the same tiny place. They have not as yet found any evidence to indicate what caused the rapid expansion of the universe so they have drawn no conclusions, merely speculation. Theists have also found no evidence to indicate how the universe came into being so they have concluded that it was done by a magic man.

I wouldn’t have to spend a lifetime proving unicorns don’t exist unless I said that they don’t.

But unicorns aren’t a good analogy because when you’re talking about god you’re talking about “did a sentient (aware of what’s going on) entity (thing) start things or not?”

It’s a totally different and more reasonable argument than “does a specific creature exist or not?”

For further research on past lives you can look up bridey murphy and also lots of good evidence from hypnotherapists. I believe good actions lead to increased survival potential but you’re blinded to that by not seeing a longer time frame than one life.

“If you know what I know about help you wouldn’t go a single meal without sharing it.”

“decay is inherent in all compound things but the truth remains forever. Seek out your salvation with diligence.”

Buddha
Second one was Buddhas last words.

Your thoughts are a bit tooincoherent to be certain of your point. But let me say this.

If I declare with absolute certainty that unicorns exist, is it your responsibility as a unicorn sceptic to prove that they don’t? You would probably think that spending a lifetime looking for evidence of something you are certain does not exist would be pointless, especially since I could easily settle the question by producing an actual unicorn, but inexplicably refuse to.

The other thing is, when you say you don’t feel compelled to defend god’s non-existence, a god believer could use the same tactic. I don’t have an assumption about atheist’s desire to prove themselves. I can understand a tendency to believe in god or not, but can’t understand someone completely believing one way or the other, so they must be lying or not smart.

As far as point 2 which was addressed to me, I’m in the same boat but my only disagreement with most people on this site is:
Why discount paranormal stuff offhand as non-testable? It’s not that I have a good experiment to prove ghosts or something, it’s that people’s critical thinking stops when you talk about trying to prove paranormal stuff. (i.e. it is NOT that people just can’t think of paranormal experiments and so discount it because they are such rational thinkers. There is an unwillingness there to look further.) They assume that no experiments can be thought up without trying. This is not scientific. A lot of the science community has these gaping assumption and/or non-interest in anything besides categorizing new beetle species.
Take the comments in the “the secret” page on this website. There is no reason to discount that offhand. People should find out how it COULD work possibly, not just how it doesn’t work at first try to win “another triumph for skeptics”.

“Why do we grieve the death of loved ones? Why do we care for the dying, raise and nurture the congenitally afflicted, and strive to lengthen the days of the terminally ill? Why do we have funerals?”

An excellent question. why? But in my experience these activities are for the living, not the dearly departed.
(I believe they know not, and care not)
We grieve for our loss.

The believers should rejoice, and try to get to this state of being sooner. (like JonesTown?) That is the true christian believer’s purpose in live is it not?

Why then do they care if Terry S has her life support removed. The believers should be pulling the plug and partying for her far far better existence and not fighting to save her merely mortal meat.

Funerals and other symbols are strictly for the living, not the omnipotent eyes in the sky.

The “all science must be falsifiable” fad is wrong. It’s totally impractical because there are no physics laws that science could establish because who knows, it could not work tomorrow.

People must always make assumptions then test them and if they come out with the same result a million times it can be put in textbooks.

Furthermore, is any claim falsifiable? God exist is able to be proven false if we find out the beginning of the beginning of everything and it turns out it wasn’t god. It’s your assumption that the beginning of everything couldn’t be found out, and not fact, if you believe otherwise.

I’m not sure on this point but I can’t think of something that could be called non-falsifiable if you bring it to extremes like this. But that’s my point is the falsifiablity argument is academic and impractical because you’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t make assumptions.

Atheist have an assertion that god doesn’t exist, so they need to show up with evidence that god doesn’t exist. They too are having to show evidence and are not neutral. But I think you sort of said this in a post addressed to Rob.

The statement “you can’t prove a negative” is a trite oversimplification of a philosophical position that I believe has some validity. When someone says they have proven a negative, my response would be to ask what were the parameters of the problem definition and to whom was it proven? There are certainly negative postulates that have the appearance of being proven in SOME context… examples previously given illustrate this. But I would argue that you HAVE to define the context as well as the boundaries of that which you are trying to “prove”, if it is to have even limited validity. To use Rob’s already stated example: When you say you have direct empirical evidence that Barack Obama is not sitting next to you, the context would be your directly experienced environment; you have proven it to yourself through your own sensory inputs. But to me, true proof implies a wider audience. Proving something to oneself, while possibly valuable in some personal existential context, is not the same as proving something in the general sense. You haven’t proven to ME that Barack Obama is not sitting next to you, because I don’t have access to the same experiential data that you do. You have proven it to yourself, but you are asking me to take it on “faith”. What if your sensory inputs are not functioning properly? What if you see things that aren’t there, or don’t see things that are? What if you are delusional? What if there is a set of as yet undiscovered physical principles that suggest he in fact IS there in some strange way (strange in the sense that quantum entanglement is strange), you just don’t have the ability to directly experience it? You see, I can broaden the context, or change the boundaries to the extent that you have no longer “proven the negative”. When we say we have proven a negative, it is my position that all we are really doing is providing some evidence (in many cases, compelling evidence) that something is not true, and then either consciously or unconsciously agreeing not to broaden the context so much that our proof becomes invalid. Here’s the challenge: We can never know for certain if a given context can be broadened enough to invalidate a negative proof, because we aren’t omniscient. I can’t know all things or circumstances, so I can’t know if there are exceptions. This is why I think the philosophical point is valid, and why I think the idea of “proving “ God doesn’t exist is wrong headed.

@Ty
When you say the burden falls equally on non-believers to prove that God doesn’t exist, it seems to me you are imputing the believers attachment to the idea of God (or in this case !God) on non-believers. I think this is incorrect. In my experience believers care that he DOES exist a LOT more than non-believers care that he doesn’t. As a non-believer, I don’t feel compelled to prove that non-existence. I take this position because 1)I don’t think it is possible to truly prove a negative…see my statements above; 2) I have a desire to seek out truth and understanding based on evidence, postulate, experiment, validation and revision; why should I spend my time trying to disprove someone else’s theory, when it is FAR more productive providing an alternate explanation for the same set of facts, then evaluating which theory best fits the data?

I think you have hardly proven your point. We are trying to prove the existence or non-existence of something in the vast (and quite possibly limitless) universe, not just in the chair beside you. If Obama is not in the chair beside you, all that proves is that he is not in the chair beside you. It does not prove whether or not he exists in the wider world. Right now for example there is not a flying cat in the chair next to me. What conclusions are you able to draw from that statement concerning the existence of flying cats?

To the person reading this: look to your left. Is Barrack Obama sitting beside you? Congratulations, you have just given demonstrated sufficiently that Barrack Obama does not exist BESIDE you. He may exist elsewhere, sure, but with finite, falsifiable claims like “Barrack Obama is in this room” it only takes a look around to draw the reasonable conclusion that he isn’t. The only way to deny this is to assert that your senses are lying to you. And they might be, but without reason to think that why do it?

Consider: look at the computer monitor sitting before you. Is it there? Why? Well, because there are certain sense data from which you infer the presence of a computer monitor. But your senses could be lying to you again, couldn’t they?

And so we see that proving negatives is every bit as permissible as proving positives. And, really, what more is a positive than a double negative? It really is that simple.

Now, certain existential claims are a little fuzzier. If you say, “God exists and is undetectable, directly or indirectly,” well, that IS a claim you can’t disprove. However, since it has been written such that absolutely NO positive reason or piece of evidence could have inspired it, it is completely- and necessarily- contrived. That is, made up entirely.

Such claims can be made increasingly falsifiable by amendments which permit God to interact with the physical world but, usually, still leave one foot in the room with Fairies and Unicorns.

I don’t believe in God. This is not because I have spent years studying the Bible and/or the arguments against it and have logically concluded that he (“He”) does not exist. I simply do not have any faith in God. I was raised Catholic, and I desperately wanted to believe in God, but I just plain did not. I never really did. I was always so angry with myself for not believing, because I thought I was doing something wrong that caused me to not believe. But now I am older, and in some ways wiser. And I feel no guilt for the death of Christ, that is, Jesus the historical figure or Jesus the religious icon. I feel no guilt for living my life without any God or gods in it. I feel no guilt for things like premarital sex, my same-sex attractions (I am a bisexual), the use of birth control, or a number of other things that the Bible or the vast majority of Catholic/Christian sects would condemn or suggest I should feel guilt for. What do I feel guilty for? Well, let’s see. I feel really bad when I’m tired or stressed out from school and work and I get short tempered with friends, family or my boyfriend. (I always apologize promptly and try to learn from these mistakes/make it up to the people I’ve offended.) I feel guilty when I’m running late in the morning and can’t take my dog for a long, leisurely walk, which is better for his health and seems to make him happy. On a larger scale, I feel guilty when I hear that there are bombs going off in the Middle East because of my country, the one I pay taxes to, and that the money I worked for is going to blow up people who are just like me but who perhaps speak a different language or believe something different. That’s what I feel guilty for. The things that happen in real time, right now, the things that have immediate consequences. Because it doesn’t matter, at the end of the day, how much or little “proof” or how sound an argument someone can provide for the existence or the denial of the existence of a God or gods. At the end of the day, I just plain do NOT have any belief in it. I don’t have the faith in it. I have faith in my family and friends and boyfriend being good people and doing the right thing when they can. I have faith in myself, to do the right thing when I can. I don’t believe in hurting living things when it can be avoided, I don’t believe in scaring people into accepting my beliefs. You can think of me as a sinner as you like; I know that I am no sinner. I am a good person who does her best to make the most of the time I have here, because I don’t believe there is an afterlife, and I’m okay with that. If I died right now, I wouldn’t go anywhere. It would be a shame, I believe I have more yet to do, but I have so far lived the best way I could, enjoying the good moments to the fullest, and surviving the bad moments with what lessons I could take from the experiences. I don’t believe in your God, or any god, and I’m not a sinner or any kind of bad person for it, I assure you. If you are right and I am wrong, and I find myself at the pearly gates awaiting my eternal fate, I would stand there confident in the knowledge that I lived my life in a good way, a moral way, and that I deserve no punishment, regardless of this missing faith that you seem to think no one is complete without. I am complete, Michael, if you read this. So don’t worry about my soul tonight, and I won’t either. Thank you and goodnight.

Leviticus 4:27-28
If a member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD’s commands, he is guilty. When he is made aware of the sin he committed, he must bring as his offering for the sin he committed a female goat without defect.

Leviticus 11:7-8
And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.

Leviticus 19:19
Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

Leviticus 24:19-21
If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.

As a Christian, do you honor and obey these decrees? What a loving and just god to require death over something so childish as a misuse of name. But that’s ok, because Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli forgives you for believing in a false god. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli is forgiving, and thus does not condemn you to an eternity of suffering for your crimes. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli is just and feels the punishment should not exceed or reproduce the crime. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli is loving and does not require the infliction of pain and suffering on those who are less than perfect.

Now, trying arguing against Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli without the arguments also holding true for Odin, Horus, Zeus, Molech, Vishnu, Saturn, Belial, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Yahweh, and Jesus.

G. Buddha (or Gautama Buddha) is the current (and most recent) of the 28 who have been known to exist (there might have been more, but only 28 are known). He did not go through a trip to his past lives under the tree. He merely figured it all out. (if you have read the HitchHiker’s guide to the galaxy series (So Long and thanks for all the fish), this is similar to what happened to Fenchurch, but I digress). He didn’t just figure it all out on his own, but had the help of a few people on the way who taught him different views of the world. After studying all that, he went into deep meditation where he figured out what all this is about.

The past lives stories were told later on (he did live for 80 years, 55 years after his enlightenment. He had to have something to tell the people) and my interpretation of this is that he was very good at storytelling. He would tell a story rather than state a fact, in order to put the point through. It was India 2500 years ago, so keeping the crowd captivated was the trick.

As for the life and death cycle, although there is some evidence to support that (in my family as well, but I don’t want to get into details of that), I don’t think it is something that can be proven scientifically because there are so many variables that makes it very difficult to do a scientific experiment. (For example, how do you test if and where you (Or a given subject) will be re-incarnated?)

The one thing that comes from all this (and Gautama Buddha put it in no uncertain terms) is that everything is due to cause and effect. If you commit a sin, it’s not a god that punishes you, but you yourself. It’s psychology. Of course some people never seem to get a break despite being good all the time. Even cases like this have been explained in Buddhism (for this, reincarnation has to be believed to exist).

All that chanting, all that offering flowers and incense and all that, is just made up stuff to keep the less intelligent happy. Buddhism is a philosophy for the wise. If you are not very wise, you would still understand it, but there is a tendency to veer off the true meaning of it, and since a group of people is only as smart as their dumbest member(s), this has happened a lot to Buddhism. There are some really dumb people out there. How else do you think Christianity exists in more than 33,000 different denominations? (that number itself shows you how man made it is)

If you thought this was random, it’s because I took more than 5 hours (from start to end) to write this (I am writing this during the precious few breaks that I get), so forgive me.

“You can’t prove a negative” is a simple enough concept. If I claim canaries that glow in the dark exist, I can prove it by showing up with one. If I claim they don’t exist, showing up without a glow in the dark canary is hardly proof of that claim.

Theists need to be able to show up with evidence of gods existence since Atheists can only show up with lack of evidence of Gods existence.

Also, I don’t understand “you can’t prove a negative”. This keeps coming up but isn’t explained. Does it mean science has nothing to do with truth or truth doesn’t exist? That’s the only conclusion I’ve come to but maybe I don’t have the right context.

Db skeptic I think you read someone else’s post and thought it was me, do you have any comments on my review of the five points?

Sorry about that. I did indeed misread the comment. I shouldn’t have included your name in my response. It should have been addressed to Christopher and Michael.

Andy

Thank you for the opportunity to have reasoned together. I respect each of you. I respect your intelligence. And I am grateful for your willingness to have considered the things discussed here.

The God I serve lives and reigns, and He desires that all mankind should be saved. My heart’s desire is that each of you would know the joy of salvation which God gives freely to all those who call on the name of Jesus Christ. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” – Acts 4:12.

We are all sinners before God. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” – Romans 3:23. But God entered space and time to reconcile us to Himself though we were enemies, demonstrating His unfathomable love. “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:6-8.

No matter what you have done, how awful your choices may have been, the guilt you bear — and we all bear guilt for the death of Christ, who is now seated at the Father’s right hand and will return in glory to judge the living and the dead — if you humble yourself, repent of your sins, and call upon God for forgiveness, He will forgive you. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” – Isaiah 1:18.

My prayer is that you might enter into the family of the one true living God, becoming His adopted sons and daughters. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” – John 1:12.

God will not strive with man forever. To those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” – 2 Corinthians 6:2.

May the God of all creation bless you according to the riches of His grace.

Michael

Thank you for your response. You ask, “How can you reject the mountains of corroborative and overwhelming evidence that (a) the earth is c 4.5 billion years old and (b) evolution is a fact of life?”

What is the evidence? Macroevolution is not a fact of life. It is an untestable hypothesis which requires far more faith than any I possess.

Michael

Thank you for responding to my remarks. I wanted to reply to some of yours.

“You make the argument that every action that we do is a part of natural selection, we are, with every movement and motion expressions of natural selection and evolution.”

This is not my assumption. I was assuming natural selection and evolutionism for sake of argument to show how it collapses into inconsistency and arbitrariness.

“Using this belief we can then state that the Nazis’ Final Solution – I must also advise you to look up Godwin’s Law at this point – is an example of an unsuccessful trait of humanity. The Nazis, along with their Final Solution were defeated by the Allied forces, who were also “matter in motion,” who obviously had more successful evolutionary traits than the Nazis.”

The questions again arise: What gave the Allies the right to kill Nazis? Do you believe the Allied response to Hitler was morally imperative? Was the Allied response determined by forces of nature? Are all human actions determined by nature? If so, how can we call any act evil?

“In fact we can categorically state that Hitler, being the leader of the Nazis displayed aweful evolutionary tactics as he died without children.”

How can we categorically state anything? Hitler was a product of evolution. How can a product of deterministic forces criticize the behavior of another product of deterministic forces?

“I think it would also be acceptable to postulate that had Nazi Germany conquered Europe then Europeans would believe eugenics to be a morally acceptable thing to do, you may claim this to be a result of gradual brainwashing through various techniques such as propaganda, but as you yourself argued, this would still be natural selection, and thus your example strengthens the idea that morality and evil as we know it are purely evolutionary traits.”

There is no such thing as “evil” in the naturalistic worldview. All human behavior results from deterministic natural forces. You have no right to condemn anything. I trust you abhor murder as I do; but in your worldview, the murderer is just doing what his atoms and molecules compel him to do.

“On a very different, but nonetheless important note, I would like to address you comment that “[you] have just stepped inside the atheistic worldview. It is a frightening place.” I am sorry, but I find this to be extremely objectionable. The atheistic worldview is frightening? What about a religious worldview? A worldview which discourages reason and rationality. A worldview which encourages blind obedience and subjugation. A worldview which promotes intolerence and violence. A worldview which we have had to suffer for thousands of years, leaving nought but death and destruction in its wake. I have seen a religious worldview. I have seen the scars that it has left on the world and the atrocities which it has committed, the atrocities which it has commmitted and my God is it a frightening place. All hail the divine dictatorship of our Lord and Father and eternal damnation to those who object. It is a frightening place, a very frightening place indeed.”

Both atheists and the religious are capable of, and commit, great evil. When the Christian does evil, he violates God’s law. We can go back and forth on the atrocities committed in the name of religion as well as in the name of the state. I need not remind you of the atrocities committed by Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin, to which the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition pale by comparison. But we should not stake the debate over the truth of a worldview to the behavior of some of its professed adherents.

Not all who profess to be Christians are Christians in fact. The behavior of false Christians purportedly committed in the name of Christianity, though grievous, is logically irrelevant to the issue of the truth or falsity of the Christian worldview.

But I can condemn as evil the act of a professing Christian that violates God’s law. In your worldview, nothing can be called evil.

Finally, I would refer you again to my questions posed to Spencer: How did we get from the inorganic to the organic, from pure matter to sentience, and from blind impersonal forces to self-consciousness? Why do we grieve the death of loved ones? Why do we care for the dying, raise and nurture the congenitally afflicted, and strive to lengthen the days of the terminally ill? Why do we have funerals?

Michael

Another small, but still relevant point. Hitler was a registered Roman Catholic. The Pope said prayers for him every year, as with all Catholic leaders, right up until his defeat. Actually all the leaders of the Third Reich were registered Roman Catholics, bar Goering who was excommunicated….for bigamy (he married a protestant). Just thought you should know that you had not even “stepped inside the atheistic worldview” but remained very much in the religious worldview.

Jack

Firstly, on the idea that without God there would be no moral absolutes, I do not think there is any evidence to confirm that there are any moral absolutes. Evolutionary biology makes a convincing argument that what we call sins were developed over time as evolutionary tactics, however as humanity has evolved, certain abilities, traits, skills became redundant, while others essential to survival. In this way there are no moral absolutes, only ever-changing traits in humanity to further our genes – do not confuse the idea of evolution and natural selection to be about an individuals survival, it is at the core about an individuals desire to continue their line of genes – and in actual fact the idea of sin and morality are very modern inventions based on which traits are favourable and which are not. For example, rape as a tactic of evolution is very successful and probably would have been used by very early humanity frequently, as it is with many creatures at present – in fact many female animals have developed anti-rape traits – however, in social creatures which survive as communities rapes are much less frequent as the individuals realise them to be detrimental to the community’s survival and hence their own survival. I do not feel that I have adequately explained this, I would advise you to read some literature on the subject which will undoubtedly do a better job at explaining this than I did; may I suggest a short essay by Frederick Robert Tennant entitled ‘Recent Reconstruction of the Doctrine of Sin’ which you should be able to find on JSTOR.

You make the argument that every action that we do is a part of natural selection, we are, with every movement and motion expressions of natural selection and evolution. Using this belief we can then state that the Nazis’ Final Solution – I must also advise you to look up Godwin’s Law at this point – is an example of an unsuccessful trait of humanity. The Nazis, along with their Final Solution were defeated by the Allied forces, who were also “matter in motion,” who obviously had more successful evolutionary traits than the Nazis. In fact we can categorically state that Hitler, being the leader of the Nazis displayed aweful evolutionary tactics as he died without children. Natural selection in the form of the Allied forces – using your definition of natural selection – showed that eugenics is not beneficial to an individual or society. I think it would also be acceptable to postulate that had Nazi Germany conquered Europe then Europeans would believe eugenics to be a morally acceptable thing to do, you may claim this to be a result of gradual brainwashing through various techniques such as propaganda, but as you yourself argued, this would still be natural selection, and thus your example strengthens the idea that morality and evil as we know it are purely evolutionary traits. Personally I agree with Spencer that removing members of your society, or stopping them from reproducing constitutes natural selection, but if we accept your opinion it still does not damage the idea that what we call sins or morals are the product of evolution and help or hinder the furthering of a species.

On a very different, but nonetheless important note, I would like to address you comment that “[you] have just stepped inside the atheistic worldview. It is a frightening place.” I am sorry, but I find this to be extremely objectionable. The atheistic worldview is frightening? What about a religious worldview? A worldview which discourages reason and rationality. A worldview which encourages blind obedience and subjugation. A worldview which promotes intolerence and violence. A worldview which we have had to suffer for thousands of years, leaving nought but death and destruction in its wake. I have seen a religious worldview. I have seen the scars that it has left on the world and the atrocities which it has committed, the atrocities which it has commmitted and my God is it a frightening place. All hail the divine dictatorship of our Lord and Father and eternal damnation to those who object. It is a frightening place, a very frightening place indeed.

Jack

“The backbone of evolution is the natural selection of the most viable genes in a population. The active ‘cleansing’ of “the infirm, the disabled, and the weak” hardly constitutes natural selection.”

Why not? As you say, we are products of natural selection. Whatever we do must therefore be explainable by natural selection unless we can somehow transcend it.

The murderer is no less a product of natural selection than you are. When he kills, he merely does what nature has determined he will do. He is pure matter in motion. Evolution is to blame, not him. It would not be fair to punish him unless he were free to choose one action over another. This requires abstract thinking. It requires immaterial mind. It requires apprehension of the immaterial concepts of right and wrong. How does naturalism account for these? How does a materialistic worldview account for ideas, communication, rationality, mind, love, justice, fairness, mercy, self-sacrifice, and free will?

Those skeptical of evolutionism might also ask: How did we get from the inorganic to the organic, from pure matter to sentience, and from blind impersonal forces to self-consciousness? Why do we grieve the death of loved ones? Why do we care for the dying, raise and nurture the congenitally afflicted, and strive to lengthen the days of the terminally ill? Why do we have funerals?

Michael

The bible belongs in the fiction section.

If you want a world view, read up on Buddhism, real Theravada Buddhism, not Mahayana or Zen Buddhism. It doesn’t use god to put people on the right path, does not order people around, does not try to control your sexual habits and there is no obligatory going to places of worship. (there are lots of interesting fables for you to read, some of which are famous even in the west, as Aesop’s fables. (Aesop didn’t create the fables, he just documented them))

If anyone here finds a flaw in the philosophy of Buddhism, please do go ahead and make your point.

Oh, and another thing about Buddhism is that it insists that it is not taken word for word because someone said it… Rather, it instructs you to think for yourself and then understand it, something the other religions don’t do.

Sorry I had to get this in this (Theism vs Atheism/Believers vs. Skeptics/The right vs. the wrong) forum, but from my point of view, it’s important. It’s not the compromise, but the alternative. Atheists agree with Buddhism as a philosophy in its pure sense. (without the re-incarnation myth and other small additions done to it later on)

I come from a country of Buddhists, and God has no dominance over the way the country is run, and has not been for more than 2500 years now.