Any suggestions to refute atheism

[reggieM]

Not all the NT is fiction, things are rarely that simple,

That’s a modification of your earlier claim, so that is good.

Some of the letters of Paul were actually written by Paul, for example, and some of the things he described are also recorded elsewhere. The really fictional aspect is the total absence of any mention by Paul of the stories and characters in the Gospels. It is not plausible that Paul should take no notice at all of the earthly Jesus. The absence of any mention of these things anywhere else in the literate world at the relevant time is also strong evidence that they never happened.

What is the contrary evidence that you’ve considered?

It is not clear what you are asking for here. Why are you so keen to define what “science” is? I would say that “knowledge” which is not verifiable is not knowledge.

I was looking for the basis upon which you validate your conclusions. You’ve accepted a definition of “science” for some reason. I was just wondering how you accepted the definition. As I said, I think you accepted the definition that was told to you by scientists and didn’t test or validate whether the definition is true or not. What evidence would you use to test that? How could you verify the knowledge that “science requires emipirical evidence?”

What use is it to think that God will grant your prayers if you can’t rely on it?

This is an interesting and good question. I’ve been reading some philosophical letters by Cyril Joad and he asks something similar.

I would ask in reply however:

What use is it for a student to believe that his teacher will help him to succeed when thus far all he has done is fail? What use is it to trust your coach who says that some day you could run a mile when today you can only run a half a mile? What use is it for a man to think that his wife loves him when today she didn’t answer the phone?

Parents tell their child that they love him. Then the child asks something of his parents and is denied. The child then wonders what use it is to think his parents love him when he cannot rely on them giving him what he wants.

The requests of prayer are a two-way street. It’s a reflection on the person asking as much as the Giver, giving.

Our Lord asked his Father - “… let this cup pass from me.” That was a deep and heartfelt plea. He was more than worthy to have any prayer answered – there was no sin that would block a response from God the Father. But we know what happened. The Father did not answer that prayer.

That’s the dark night of the soul and we all have to pass through it on our way to God. It builds confidence and trust. It’s like the coach telling us that we can achieve something, even though it seems like we couldn’t do it. So, it’s persistence and sacrifice.

St. Thomas More prayed that he wouldn’t have to have a conflict with King Henry. But he had the faith to embrace death happily when he discovered that God wanted him to be a martyr.

 

[Sideline]

I personally perceive an eternal expanding universe, which could be wrong of course, by implementing an increasing time dilation factor as the universe becomes more and more closer to the point of singularity, and actually never reaches this point. I beleive the point of singularity would exist, but still outside of time.

Andre

I think… I might agree with you. But I’m not entirely sure.

It’s really early where I am, and I haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet. Understanding the nature of the universe is something I usually try to do after a cup of coffee.

 

[reggieM]

It’s really early where I am, and I haven’t had my first cup of coffee yet.

Where do the camus bulbs bloom?

 

[Sideline]

Where do the camus bulbs bloom?

This is really embarrassing, but until I read your post, I hadn’t realized that I really messed that up. It should be camas, and of course, bulbs don’t bloom. I’ve changed it to “Where the camas blooms” now.

But… to answer your question. Camas blooms all over the west coast, but if you ask me, it blooms the most beautifully on a small group of islands off the coast of BC.



Last minute addition: Early, in this case, was relative. When you go to sleep at 8, then 11 is early.

 

[reggieM]

Quite beautiful. The spelling didn’t matter to me because I didn’t know what camas was either.

 

[CWBetts]

This is really embarrassing, but until I read your post, I hadn’t realized that I really messed that up. It should be camas, and of course, bulbs don’t bloom. I’ve changed it to “Where the camas blooms” now.

But… to answer your question. Camas blooms all over the west coast, but if you ask me, it blooms the most beautifully on a small group of islands off the coast of BC.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3629/3443050408_da9050ecd4.jpg?v=0

Last minute addition: Early, in this case, was relative. When you go to sleep at 8, then 11 is early.

A beautiful example of God’s creative work. No way anything that beautiful could arise out of entropy.

 

[Sideline]

A beautiful example of God’s creative work. No way anything that beautiful could arise out of entropy.

Well, no, it wouldn’t arise out of entropy. It would arise out of a combination of evolution and cultivation by the native peoples in the area. You see, the white flowers used to be more common before the people in the area started using the bulbs as a food source. They cultivated the purple flowers so they would have more food. That’s why you find large fields of purple camas.

 

[CWBetts]

Well, no, it wouldn’t arise out of entropy. It would arise out of a combination of evolution and cultivation by the native peoples in the area. You see, the white flowers used to be more common before the people in the area started using the bulbs as a food source. They cultivated the purple flowers so they would have more food. That’s why you find large fields of purple camas.

I do believe in changes within a species…but the original had to come from somewhere, and according to evolutionary theory that would be a pile of disorganized goo…entropy

 

[mich2]

Interesing point. I was going to explain to Sideline also that his example conflates the two factors of time and distance.
In his case, there is an infinite number of points. That was used as a distance marker. But we could see the circle was small so thus the contradiction and it seemed to make sense that several universes could emerge from an “infinite” circle.
But it’s the question of time that is important. How much time does it take to traverse two points on the circle? It’s either a finite amount of time or infinite. If infinite, then the “next point” would never be reached.

In your example above, the universe would never get closer to the point of singularity. There would be no way to measure how close or far it was. Because the unit of measurement (point in time) is not fixed – it is “dilating” or slowing down.

So, this doesn’t solve the problem. If the unit of time is fixed, then you can measure how much time has passed and how close to the singularity you are. If the unit of time is like the “infinite points on the circle”, then it is not a fixed quality and cannot measure something consistently.

I understand your concern,reggieM. My thought was very much like that of Zeno’s paradox (Archilles and the turtle}. What Zeno needed for his paradox to work was specifically a dilation of time.
Now, along with this dilation of time, there would also be a contraction of measuring rods, so no matter how small the universe becomes, an observer would not experience a smaller universe. In fact, I believe, the universe in real time, which could be observed if the velocity of light was infinite, would, in my opinion, look static.
Now, a postulate could be applied from here. What if the parallel universes exist simply because of the velocity of light (including gravity as well) would be different in different universes. Such a difference in this constant would cause the different universes to develop differently…??? Just a thought that passed through my mind because I’ve heard the velocity of light was not always the constant that we know and love.

Andre

 

[Sideline]

I do believe in changes within a species…but the original had to come from somewhere, and according to evolutionary theory that would be a pile of disorganized goo…entropy

Do you know what entropy means?

Your sentence about doesn’t even make sense.

I am assuming that someone once told you that evolution couldn’t have happened because of entropy, and you just ran with it.

What you have written is the equivalent of me saying, God can’t exist because of immovable objects.

For a religion that claims to have the fullness of truth, a surprising number of its adherents don’t seem to care about getting the facts straight.

 

[CWBetts]

Do you know what entropy means?

Your sentence about doesn’t even make sense.

I am assuming that someone once told you that evolution couldn’t have happened because of entropy, and you just ran with it.

What you have written is the equivalent of me saying, God can’t exist because of immovable objects.

For a religion that claims to have the fullness of truth, a surprising number of its adherents don’t seem to care about getting the facts straight.

I’m not a scientist. Evolution claims evrything arose out of a chaotic goo. I have to say no to that one

 

[Sideline]

I’m not a scientist. Evolution claims evrything arose out of a chaotic goo. I have to say no to that one

Does it? Care to provide a credible source on that one?

The history of life on Earth is a fascinating story. You should try learning it.

Tell me, does this sound like an intelligent thing to say:
*
I don’t know anything about religion, but I do know they say all the bad stuff in the world happened because of apples and talking snakes. I have to say no to that one.*

 

[mich2]

Sorry Airliner; I just noticed your reply to me.

You trust that person because you know from past experience that they wouldn’t do that type of mischief (evidence). Better evidence would be to actually prove that he’s innocent.

I understand; this testifies that faith isn’t illogical.However, it remains to accept that it isn’t direct proof. The person might very well have been guilty of the mischief.

No wonder people don’t take Christianity seriously these days.

Well, actually, while I believe in God, Christ and the Church, I do understand the agnostic position. However,I would have a problem with the absolute atheist’s form of reasoning,.

That wasn’t really faith, you see to accept the other infinite division theory would be to accept an infinite regress, which is obviously less logical, hence the other option was more reasonable. No I don’t know if he even used that reasoning, nor did it prove without a doubt that atoms existed, but I’m showing that there does have to be reason supporting every truth. And if it isn’t blindly accepted then wouldn’t that be reason?

I may be wrong, but, it seems that the paradoxes which were introduced, such as the ones of Zeno, was maybe to show the absurdity of infinities. However, their logic was flawed.
We seem to have some particles which have a rest mass of 0. For such a mass to be given characteristics of particles may involve the idea of infinities eventually. So far, democritus’ atom, is supported, but not by our concept of the atom, since it can be divided into sub atomic particles, but Quantum Mechanics, which so far, shows a quantized universe, even spacetime might very well be quantized.

The Christian community offered very good and valid historical records. Why do you think no self respecting historian accepts the Jesus-myth theory? So if you come to the logical conclusion that God exists, then believing the resurrection story isn’t really unreasonable, just like trusting historians or the scientific community. They leave good and valid records too.

This is exactly how I see it as well.

Well, I’m doing that right now with the argument from consciousness.

I read through your posts, it seems interesting.

Andre

 

[CWBetts]

Does it? Care to provide a credible source on that one?

The history of life on Earth is a fascinating story. You should try learning it.

Tell me, does this sound like an intelligent thing to say:
*
I don’t know anything about religion, but I do know they say all the bad stuff in the world happened because of apples and talking snakes. I have to say no to that one.*

I have had my evolutionary indocrination at a public university. Physical Antropology, Introductory Biology, Human Biology. Science does not have all the answers. Unfortunately atheists think it does. And the Bible talks about these people:

“The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God,” Psalms 14:1, 53:1

“Claiming to become wise, they became fools” Romans 1:22

 

[Sideline]

I have had my evolutionary indocrination at a public university. Physical Antropology, Introductory Biology, Human Biology. Science does not have all the answers. Unfortunately atheists think it does. And the Bible talks about these people:

“The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God,” Psalms 14:1, 53:1

“Claiming to become wise, they became fools” Romans 1:22

That’s nice, you have a university education and are able to quote Bible verses.

Now, since neither of those two things answer the question, let’s try again.

Do you have any credible sources for the comment?

Evolution claims evrything arose out of a chaotic goo

If you really did study everything you claim to have studied, you should know that what you said is patently false.

For instance, a person as well-versed in the subject as you should know that evolution doesn’t deal with the origin of life. That the study of the origin of life is called abiogenesis, and that none of the current theories (for there are several) of abiogenesis say that everything arose out of a chaotic goo.

So either you are being deliberately dishonest about what you were taught, or you are falsifying your credentials, or you misunderstood what it was that you were taught, or you need to go back to the university and demand a refund because they obviously didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.

The good news is that you don’t need to retake an entire degree. Reading one high school level textbook on biology would be enough to explain where your argument went wrong.

 

[StAnastasia]

The good news is that you don’t need to retake an entire degree. Reading one high school level textbook on biology would be enough to explain where your argument went wrong.

Sideline, it’s not even necessary to go look for a biology book (good though that would be). UC Berkeley’s Understanding Evolution website is a phenomenal resource, to which I often send Catholic teachers for education on evolutionary biology: evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/tour.php

StAnastasia

 

[CWBetts]

That’s nice, you have a university education and are able to quote Bible verses.

Now, since neither of those two things answer the question, let’s try again.

Do you have any credible sources for the comment?

If you really did study everything you claim to have studied, you should know that what you said is patently false.

For instance, a person as well-versed in the subject as you should know that evolution doesn’t deal with the origin of life. That the study of the origin of life is called abiogenesis, and that none of the current theories (for there are several) of abiogenesis say that everything arose out of a chaotic goo.

So either you are being deliberately dishonest about what you were taught, or you are falsifying your credentials, or you misunderstood what it was that you were taught, or you need to go back to the university and demand a refund because they obviously didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.

The good news is that you don’t need to retake an entire degree. Reading one high school level textbook on biology would be enough to explain where your argument went wrong.

So we didn’t all evolve from single cell organisms thhat somehow just showed up. HMMMM not what I was taught

 

[Sideline]

So we didn’t all evolve from single cell organisms thhat somehow just showed up. HMMMM not what I was taught

Was your biology instructor Ben Stein? Well, not having attended any of the same lectures as you, I’m not sure whether you were taught by people who didn’t understand evolution themselves, or you interpreted them incorrectly, but no, what you describe above would be what those in the biology game call magic. It is also not what you claimed in your earlier post. In your earlier post, you claimed that evolution teaches that everything started in a puddle of chaotic goo. Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. The study of the origin of life is called abiogenesis.

But just for the sake of argument, let’s say you picked the right name for the theory, and claimed that abiogenesis claims that life arose out of a pile of chaotic goo, or that it suggests that life arose “just somehow”.

There is no way that I can cover all the work being done by biologists studying abiogenesis in one post, but I suggest that if you are at all interested in making true claims, you look to see what the scientists are actually claiming.

I think you would be fascinated to see just how well developed our understanding of the pre-biotic Earth is. For instance, did you know that non-living, organic compounds can form vesicles that have the ability to grow and reproduce themselves? You’ve no doubt heard of DNA and RNA, but did you know that in the pre-biotic Earth there were hundreds of other neucleotides, and some of them are capable of spontaneous polemerization? Do you know what any of that even means? If you don’t, you should learn before you write it off as “just happened somehow”.

 

[Sideline]

Sideline, it’s not even necessary to go look for a biology book (good though that would be). UC Berkeley’s Understanding Evolution website is a phenomenal resource, to which I often send Catholic teachers for education on evolutionary biology: evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/tour.php

StAnastasia

I just had a quick look at it. That really does look like a great resource. I was looking for something like this to point people to, so thank for drawing my attention to it!

The one thing I couldn’t find though, was a discussion of abiogenesis. I haven’t found a really good site that explains the basics. My experience has been that the two things people have the most trouble accepting when it comes to biology is that we evolved from a common primate ancestor, and abiogenesis.

 

[reggieM]

I understand your concern,reggieM. My thought was very much like that of Zeno’s paradox (Archilles and the turtle}. What Zeno needed for his paradox to work was specifically a dilation of time.
Now, along with this dilation of time, there would also be a contraction of measuring rods, so no matter how small the universe becomes, an observer would not experience a smaller universe. In fact, I believe, the universe in real time, which could be observed if the velocity of light was infinite, would, in my opinion, look static.
Now, a postulate could be applied from here. What if the parallel universes exist simply because of the velocity of light (including gravity as well) would be different in different universes. Such a difference in this constant would cause the different universes to develop differently…??? Just a thought that passed through my mind because I’ve heard the velocity of light was not always the constant that we know and love.

Andre

Interesting scenario, Andre. You could say that there was a circle with an infinite number of points and universes randomly generated off of those points. The universes would be of varying sizes, some larger some smaller. So, the speed of light and gravity, etc. would be different in each universe - thus, different cosmological constants. Eventually, one universe would have the fine-tuning that ours does and be capable of supporting a planet earth, as improbable as that would be otherwise. With the speed of light different and gravity different, then different kinds of planets and solar systems would emerge.

But I think the problem remains with the passage of time between universes. In this case, we have a circle of points. But the circle cannot complete itself unless the points are finite in size (as mentioned before). More importantly, if the “points” are units of time, then the circle could not complete itself for an infinite amount of time. Light and time move in a trajectory from past to future (those are the “rays” that Sideline explained). But with a circle it could not be movement from past to future, especially if the circle could complete itself (which only an infinite passage of time would allow) because the circle causes time to be re-lived. In an endless loop, the universes would have to replay themselves. That’s not an infinite string of random values but a looping string of repeated values.