Ask the Atheist

[martino]

steveandersen:

Yes.
People just don’t propose stuff without data after all.

You mean besides the background radiation (which was found where theory predicted it)?

You would have to talk to a physicist. The evidence is there it is just beyond my expertise.

well its beyond mine too, especially considering that i have no expertise on the matter whatsoever!!!

i am only saying that with demonstrable evidence there would be no arguments among physicists would there? why is the Big Bang only a theory? im not arguing that it didnt happen, im just wondering why it is only one theory among others as to how the universe was created.

if there is demonstrable evidence for all the different theories then i am left to wonder what is the value of having demonstrable evidence to begin with if it does not lead us to anything but alternate theories.

 

[PLP]

TNT:

1. DOES SOMETHING COME FROM ABSOLUTELY NOTHING?

ANSWER: NO…SELF-EVIDENT.
This is foundational for all that follows

1. IF NOTHING COMES FROM ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THEN OF THE FOLLOWING ONE MUST BE TRUE TO THE EXCLUSION OF THE OTHER:

A. The eternity of Matter [EOM]
B. The eternity of an immaterial intelligence Who created matter. …Eternity of God. [EOG]

You have slipped in a subtle equivocation. You’ve assumed that matter “came to be” in an already existing time. But an already existing time is not “absolutely nothing”; time is something.

Even handwaving around your equivocation of “absolutely nothing”, your options are not mutually exclusive. Either matter existed eternally, or matter came to be from something else; there’s no logical requirement that the something else is intelligent or conscious.

Since objectively neither has been proved in the scientific sense, then whichever one chooses, is by FAITH.

Nor need one choose. One can choose agnosticism. One can choose apathy (not caring). One can (as I do) assert that your dichotomy is incoherent, and one can deny (as I do) that even granting sufficient assumptions to make your dichotomy coherent, it is not exhaustive.

Therefore the atheist has a Faith system the same as the theist.

If a statement and its inverse are identical, the statement lacks meaning. If atheism is just as much “faith” as theism, then the positions are identical and meaningless; we should turn our attention to more meaningful subjects.

Since one who is not agnostic (I don’t know, ie no faith in anything), has to have a religion: I simply chose the [EOG] religion since [EOM] religion appears to me to be much closer to irrational mental behavior.

You’re free to choose any religion you please, without regard to what I or anyone else believes to be rational or irrational.

 

[IanS]

PLP:

If it is true that matter (mass-energy) cannot be created, then it follows logically that matter was not in fact created, period. It just is. If matter cannot be created, then the assertion that God can create matter is logically contradictory. If, on the other hand, a God can create matter, then matter can be created. But if matter can be created, we have no grounds for introducing a god to create uncreatable matter.

**It just is! ** You mean like when God said to Moses, “I AM WHO AM.” Which means, “My very essence is to exist.” You’re not sounding very atheistic; agnostic maybe. Plus you’re just talking in circles. If matter wasn’t created the universe would just be a vacuum and science has yet to prove anything otherwise.

It is a matter of opinion whether the universe, DNA, etc. are “perfectly” ordered. If you just mean the universe, etc. is the way it is, then “perfectly ordered” is not really meaningful. If you have a more specific meaning in mind, you’ll have to describe it precisely.

Okay, for the sake of argument, It’s not perfect. Now what?

An infinitesimally small chance. Amazingly enough, we’ve never actually seen such a thing happen.

I wonder why not?

You’re not “supposed” to believe anything; you can believe anything you wish. Aside from the obvious exceptions, it’s no skin off my nose whatever you believe.

Nor any off mine about what you don’t believe. Remember, you came knocking on our door, we didn’t come knocking on yours. It’s certainly not my personal mission to convert you. No one has ever been shamed or argued into conversion with facts and figures, which is all you seem to be interested in. Only the Holy Spirit can convert a humble and contrite heart. I pray someday you will be humbled.

One great thing about what I believe is I win in the end no matter what. I can gain all the knowledge in the world and not give up one ounce of my faith. If I’m totally wrong, how am I any worse off than you? Will I be any more dead than you. I still will have lived a wonderful life and gained lots of knowledge without giving up anything. Now, what if I’m totally right?

If you wish to know what scientists actually do say about evolution and the history of the development of terrestrial organisms, I’d be happy to help out. I’ll give you one tip: Your clock analogy is completely inapt and has nothing whatsoever to do with evolutionary science.

I have studied it. Some interesting facts (yes, I said facts) and theories, but certainly not enough to rattle my faith.

 

[john_doran]

PLP:

Even handwaving around your equivocation of “absolutely nothing”, your options are not mutually exclusive. Either matter existed eternally, or matter came to be from something else; there’s no logical requirement that the something else is intelligent or conscious.

sure there is: if, arguendo, one concedes that the universe requires a cause because it is impossible that the universe have existed for an infinite amount of time, then the cause of the universe must not have caused the universe necessarily, but out of some kind of non-necessary act of causation which is most easily comprehensible as a kind of free will. if the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of the universe were mechanistic and deterministic and had been present from all eternity, then the universe would also have existed forever. which, ex hypothesi, it has not.

you may, of course, disagree with the kalam cosmological argument, but if you’re willing to stipulate the possibility of such an argument’s success, as you seem to have done in your post, then you need to accept the logical entailments of the reasoning.

 

[PLP]

martino:

I agree that its not necessary to know everyone’s name to determine that the athletes are not playing baseball, we dont need their names to determine anything…except for this…whether or not any of them is named John Smith.

If you really want to argue that:
an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God who created the universe, performed (at least metaphorically) the deeds attributed to Him in the Bible, including the begetting and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and commands all (or some) of the moral commandments of your scripture
is in the same epistemological ballpark (no pun intended!) as
someone named “John Smith” (or, perhaps, named “Throckmorton Xavier St.John-Pinkwattle III”) in a stadium full of people
you’re welcome to give it a go. Simply declaring the analogy apt is not very persuasive.

do we really have evidence that the Big Bang took place or what happened in the fraction of a second thereafter?

Yes, yes there is. But no…

what is the evidence?

…no I’m not going to try to recap an undergraduate course in basic astrophysics and cosmology on a message board. I’ll give you two clues to help you get started: The Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, and the expansion of the universe (per Hubble). Look in your library under Dewey Decimal categories 113 and 520.

without demonstrable evidence you would be forced to disbelieve the Big Bang theory and what happened immediately after…

Indeed. *Sans *evidence, I would not, in fact, believe the Big Bang to be correct cosmology. Happily, there is abundant evidence.

your reason for excluding them [theories of abiogenesis] would be the same reason to exclued God or design theories.

No. Towards theories that are demonstrable in principle, but for which no evidence yet exists, the evidence is equivocal, and I am agnostic.

There is good circumnstantial evidence (i.e. the last 500 years of science, and some solid work in biochemistry and biophysics) to warrant sufficient confidence that the origin of life will be solved scientifically.

i thought we were to exclude theories that are not supported by demonstrable evidence (Occams’s razor).

You read Occam’s Razor in a very different way than I do. Occam’s razor does not, to my reading, entail that theories for which there is yet little or no evidence are therefore false. Rather, Occam’s Razor entails that theories which cannot in principle be proven true or false are not meaningful.

before there was a requirement that demonstrable evidence be present or else the theory must be dispenced. why is there a different standard for these theories that attempt to explain how life began?

What evidence do we expect to see regarding theories about the origin of life? Have we looked and seen contradictory evidence? No. The evidence for any particular scientific theory about the origin of life is equivocal, and I am thus agnostic regarding them.

 

[john_doran]

PLP:

You read Occam’s Razor in a very different way than I do. Occam’s razor does not, to my reading, entail that theories for which there is yet little or no evidence are therefore false. Rather, Occam’s Razor entails that theories which cannot in principle be proven true or false are not meaningful.

just out of an interest in accuracy, occam’s razor in fact directs us not to multiply entities unnecessarily.

i’m not sure what your version of the razor actually is, but it sounds a lot like logical positivism’s principle of verification.

 

[PLP]

Gilbert Keith:

There being no God, your dilemma is that you can never be sure whether your moral code is right or wrong.

I don’t believe my own moral code is right or wrong. It just is what it is, a set of subjective beliefs.

That all Catholics do not obey is not proof that they do not have a final authority. The Church formally teaches that it is the final authority, regardless of what individual rebels in the Church may teach.

The final authority of the Church does not seem to be working out all that well. Contrast that to the final authority of experiment in science.

 

[PLP]

martino:

i am only saying that with demonstrable evidence there would be no arguments among physicists would there? why is the Big Bang only a theory? im not arguing that it didnt happen, im just wondering why it is only one theory among others as to how the universe was created.

No. There are no arguments among the vast preponderance of physicists as to the Big Bang. Only to the details of what specific kind of Big Bang there was.

if there is demonstrable evidence for all the different theories then i am left to wonder what is the value of having demonstrable evidence to begin with if it does not lead us to anything but alternate theories.

Scientists do not spend their time quibbling and rehashing old ground like theologians and philosophers. Scientists appear to always be disagreeing only because they all work at the frontiers of knowledge; once a question is settled, they quickly move on to something new. We “settlers”, i.e. engineers, realize more immediately how much science is definite and uncontroversial.

 

[PLP]

john doran:

just out of an interest in accuracy, occam’s razor in fact directs us not to multiply entities unnecessarily.

i’m not sure what your version of the razor actually is, but it sounds a lot like logical positivism’s principle of verification.

Indeed. You’re correct on both counts. I apply Occam’s Razor to ontology in a way similar to (but not identical with) logical positivism’s verification principle. I apply a strict criterion of meaning only to ontological statements (statements about existence) instead of all statements, and instead of verification I use falsification as the primary criterion of ontological meaning.

 

[martino]

PLP:

No. There are no arguments among the vast preponderance of physicists as to the Big Bang. Only to the details of what specific kind of Big Bang there was.
.

how would an atheist account for the Big Bang theory? was matter formed from nothing? im not trying to quibble or be argumentative but are you saying there is evidence that demonstrates that before the Big Bang there was “nothing”?

 

[martino]

PLP:

If you really want to argue that:an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God who created the universe, performed (at least metaphorically) the deeds attributed to Him in the Bible, including the begetting and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and commands all (or some) of the moral commandments of your scripture

is in the same epistemological ballpark (no pun intended!) assomeone named “John Smith” (or, perhaps, named “Throckmorton Xavier St.John-Pinkwattle III”) in a stadium full of people

you’re welcome to give it a go. Simply declaring the analogy apt is not very persuasive.

my analogy was only to demonstrate that you also have a burden of proof. im sticking with my analogy unless you can tell me how you could claim that there was no Johns Smith present without knowing everyones name. this analogy does not prove the existence of God and i never intended it to, but it does make your position a little more difficult to hold. its too easy for an atheist to rely upon an argument that can be stated this way…“you cant prove it!” i cant speak for everyone here but i have no problem admitting that i cannot scientifically prove the existence of God, but i believe He exists and there is no reason for me not to believe other than the fact that science doesnt prove it. But science cannot measure the supernatural, only the natural. If God could be found within the confines of nature then what kind of God would he be? to steal a line from you…what kind of evidence can you expect to find for a being that is beyond nature? if we are limited in our scientific studies to the “natural” elements; how can the lack of scientific proof for the “super-natural” be evidence of anything?
i would say that the lack of scientific explanations for certain things like the orgins of life is evidence of supernatural origins. if it were natural we would be able to detect it and measure it. we know that life exists but there is no natural explanation for it.

if you believe in miracles how would you expect to measure them, or if you dont believe in miracles how do you explain the miraculous?

one day a guy is dying of cancer and not expected to live more than a few days, then next day he is cured and there are no signs that cancer ever existed in him, all the while the doctors are perplexed because there is not scientific explanation for what has happened, it is beyond all human comprehension. how do we explain these things? let me know if you dont believe scenarios like the one i described really exist and i will gladly show you verifiable examples.

 

[TNT]

Originally Posted by PLP
You have slipped in a subtle equivocation. You’ve assumed that matter “came to be” in an already existing time.

Wrong. I made no such assumption nor did I even tangentially include time.
So, I’ll give my definition of time:
The measure of change.
That is, if there is no change, then time has no existence since there is

1. Nothing for it to either measure or act on.
2. If no matter, time is a meaningless proposal.

But an already existing time is not “absolutely nothing”; time is something.

Good. You see that far. And of course that is EXACTLY what I said. To wit:
Nothing can come from absolutely nothing.
I will now add for your incomplete acceptance of “absolutely nothing”:
This includes TIME. For Time is a dependency or contingent phenomenon…no matter, no time.
Time is something only in relation to change. Matter is its requirement. Just as Energy is dependent on matter [E=Matter x C x C]
All phenomena is dependent on matter. Unless their is an immaterial substance. But that puts us into [EOG] = not available to a true atheist.

Either matter existed eternally, or matter came to be from something else; there’s no logical requirement that the something else is intelligent or conscious.

Did you get that folks?
“Matter eternally existed” (admission of EOM) “OR
matter came to be from something else.”

But we all know that any material IS matter.

      What PLP is saying to us is:

"Matter eternally existed OR it came from… "…yep, MATTER! (aka “something”)
UNLESS, that something is IMMATERIAL. There is no other “something”. It’s matter or non-matter aka immaterial.

Nor need one choose. One can choose agnosticism. One can choose apathy (not caring).

I already covered that clearly in my previous post. I used the very word “agnostic”.
However, in your case it is not possible because the very name of you own thread is: “Ask the Atheist”

One can (as I do) assert that your dichotomy is incoherent,

Sure you can, and since that is no argument I or anyone else can with equal force and validity return with “is coherent”.
Such “comebacks” as that produce no more persuasive value than putting 2 !'s at the end of a sentence!!
Your declaration would only indicate that you might need a timeout to think.

and one can deny (as I do) that even granting sufficient assumptions to make your dichotomy coherent, it is not exhaustive.

Good. You may exhaust it any time you like. But until you do, it stands “exhaustive”.

If a statement and its inverse are identical, the statement lacks meaning. If atheism is just as much “faith” as theism, then the positions are identical and meaningless; we should turn our attention to more meaningful subjects.

Nice try. “the positions are identical” ?
I clearly stated that the difference is WHAT they have FAITH IN.

The similarity ends with FAITH. Both have it. The really HUGE NON-IDENTICAL position is:
Faith in [EOM] (atheist)
Faith in [EOG] (theist)

According to you the Catholic Faith would have to be “identical” to hinduism because, well, they both rely on Faith.
No. The identical part is, as I showed above, is that atheism and theism are both RELIGIONS that rely on Faith.
End of “identical”.

You’re free to choose any religion you please, without regard to what I or anyone else believes to be rational or irrational.

Freedom to choose anything does in no way create “right” to choose it.
I am free to choose to run over my neighbor’s dog.
I am free to choose to run stop signs.

Can you explain my right to do either?

 

[PLP]

martino:

my analogy was only to demonstrate that you also have a burden of proof.

Your analogy also establishes that I have a particular kind of burden. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t need the kind of burden you suggest (of knowing every conceivable fact) to determine that the players are not, in fact, playing baseball.

Since you seem to hold to a supernatural, metaphysical god (see below), the question is really irrelevant. A better analogy would be to ask me to prove that none of the attendees are Zombies*. Of course it cannot be done.

i cant speak for everyone here but i have no problem admitting that i cannot scientifically prove the existence of God, but i believe He exists and there is no reason for me not to believe other than the fact that science doesnt prove it. But science cannot measure the supernatural, only the natural. If God could be found within the confines of nature then what kind of God would he be? to steal a line from you…what kind of evidence can you expect to find for a being that is beyond nature? if we are limited in our scientific studies to the “natural” elements; how can the lack of scientific proof for the “super-natural” be evidence of anything?

Indeed. Science absolutely cannot disprove such a definition of god, a being entirely outside nature; by definition, science can only describe nature. Evidential arguments are entirely useless in either disproving or proving such a definition.

Given this basic definition, though, if you hold that God is *entirely *mysterious, that we cannot know anything at all about such a God, then, as David Hume noted in Dialogs Concerning Natural Religion, it is impossible to differentiate your position from mine. Purely mystical theism is atheism under a different name.

So you must assert that you do in fact know something about God. But if God is entirely outside nature, then I must wonder how precisely do you know what you claim to know about God. We’ve just established that you can’t know it scientifically. What other forms of knowledge are there?

You can, of course, say you have faith, that you believe without evidence, argument or proof. If it pleases you to have such faith, more power to you. I can say only that I myself do not have such faith; I don’t know anything about a god. I have no other choice but to call myself an atheist.

i would say that the lack of scientific explanations for certain things like the orgins of life is evidence of supernatural origins.

This is just a God of the Gaps argument. This is a poor argument, and (as I’m told) poor theology. If God is living in the gaps in our current scientific knowledge, then every time we gain new knowledge we diminish the God. At one point, God was necessary to keep the planets moving in their courses. Newton came along and there went that gap. God was necessary to form the Solar System. Laplace filled that gap, and God was out of yet another job. God was necessary to animate life; we invented biochemistry and God was diminished yet again.

The science of the origins of life is still a very young science. It definitely has not been demonstrated that we cannot figure out the origins of life. If you’re pinning your hopes on this gap remaining forever unfilled, history argues against you.

In a sense, your god of the gaps argument more directly fulfills your “John Smith in the Stadium” analogy: True but as yet undiscovered scientific theories are the attendees, and John Smith is the true scientific theory about the origin of life. Unless you know all true scientific theories, you cannot say with confidence that none of them explain the origins of life.

if it were natural we would be able to detect it and measure it. we know that life exists but there is no natural explanation for it.

If what specifically were natural? The origin of life is a theory, not a thing.

*(continued)
*A "Zombie"is a philosophical term for a person who does not have “consciousness” or “subjective experience” but is indististinguishable from a normal person.

 

[Sherlock]

PLP:

So you must assert that you do in fact know something about God. But if God is entirely outside nature, then I must wonder how precisely do you know what you claim to know about God. We’ve just established that you can’t know it scientifically. What other forms of knowledge are there?
.

Reason. Science is only one form of knowledge, not the only one.

 

[kamz]

from atheist to Catholic Christian:

chnetwork.org/seconv.htm

 

[martino]

PLP:

Your analogy also establishes that I have a particular kind of burden. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t need the kind of burden you suggest (of knowing every conceivable fact) to determine that the players are not, in fact, playing baseball.

i am not saying that you need to know every conceivable fact, only the names of those present. i know you are not buying my analogy, and im sure its not perfect, but you havent shown me how it is irrelevant to this discussion. the topic at hand is the presence of the person with the name Johns Smith (or existence of God), in order to claim he is not present we would first need to know the names of everyone there to determine that none of them are named John Smith. How else could you determine John Smith is not present?

Given this basic definition, though, if you hold that God is *entirely *mysterious, that we cannot know anything at all about such a God, then, as David Hume noted in Dialogs Concerning Natural Religion, it is impossible to differentiate your position from mine. Purely mystical theism is atheism under a different name.

i do not hold that God is entirely mysterious or that we cannot know anything about him. for instance i believe that God is a Triune God, that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Holy Trinity, and many other things that have been revealed through Divine Revelation. but these things are a matter of religious faith and that is why i do not bring them up in this discussion. although my belief in God is a matter of faith, it is also something that can be ascertained through reason.

This is just a God of the Gaps argument. This is a poor argument, and (as I’m told) poor theology. If God is living in the gaps in our current scientific knowledge, then every time we gain new knowledge we diminish the God. At one point, God was necessary to keep the planets moving in their courses. Newton came along and there went that gap. God was necessary to form the Solar System. Laplace filled that gap, and God was out of yet another job. God was necessary to animate life; we invented biochemistry and God was diminished yet again.

i do not buy your God in the gaps argument, you say that, not me. i believe science can help to undestand the natural world that God created but in no way can it disprove its creator. newton doesnt fill anything, he is not responsible for the planets nor their courses and Laplace may have observed the solar system but he is not responsible for it…who is? if God created a solar system then Laplace helped to point out what God had done, dont give to much credit to the observer and forget about the creator.

The science of the origins of life is still a very young science. It definitely has not been demonstrated that we cannot figure out the origins of life. If you’re pinning your hopes on this gap remaining forever unfilled, history argues against you.

well so far history has only proven that man cannot explain how he came to be. well at least so far he hasnt been able to, but how can you take this failure as a blow to my beliefs? you say that scientists settle and argument then move on to the next thing but thta is not true at all. there is no concensus in the scientific community as to how life began. our schools teach evolution in science and there isnt even a concensus on that!

 

[PLP]

TNT:

So, I’ll give my definition of time:
The measure of change.

Indeed. Change, though, is relative. You have to have something before and something after to have change. Matter cannot “come into existence” without something “before” the existence of the matter to have a change relationship with.

It is entirely possible that there’s an “earliest moment in time”. However, since there is nothing before that moment in time, it is not correct to say that everything came from anything, since there is nothing for it to come from.

Yours argument raises time and causality to logical principles. They are not. They are scientific principles that establish relationships between pieces of matter within the universe. If, in fact, the observable, material universe is everything that is, there is nothing with which the universe as a whole to have a temporal or causal relationship.

All phenomena is dependent on matter. Unless their is an immaterial substance. But that puts us into [EOG] = not available to a true atheist.

Atheism does not entail rejection of the immaterial. The atheist immaterialist just does not believe that the immaterial is conscious or intelligent.

Either matter existed eternally, or matter came to be from something else; there’s no logical requirement that the something else is intelligent or conscious.

Did you get that folks?
“Matter eternally existed” (admission of EOM) “OR
matter came to be from something else.”

The comment was, of course, stipulating that we could handwave around the earlier problems with your theory.

I already covered that clearly in my previous post. I used the very word “agnostic”.
However, in your case it is not possible because the very name of you own thread is: “Ask the Atheist”

I am merely pointing out that your argumentdoes not establish theism, even if it were successful, which it is not.

One can (as I do) assert that your dichotomy is incoherent,

Sure you can, and since that is no argument I or anyone else can with equal force and validity return with “is coherent”.
Such “comebacks” as that produce no more persuasive value than putting 2 !'s at the end of a sentence!!

Well, I actually argue that your dichotomy is incoherent only a few paragraphs earlier. But yes, I should have said “argue”, not “assert”.

Good. You may exhaust it any time you like. But until you do, it stands “exhaustive”.

I will be more explicit: The dichotomy between the eternal existence of matter and the existence of an immaterial intelligent and conscious entity is a false dichotomy. Even if it were established that matter did indeed come from something (by definition immaterial), that immaterial something else need not have been intelligent or conscious.

Nice try. “the positions are identical” ?
I clearly stated that the difference is WHAT they have FAITH IN.

Perhaps I misunderstood your argument. If there’s no possible way to know whether theism or atheism is true, if they are in fact both positions of faith, completely unprovable, then there’s no difference in the consequence of adopting them. If they are indeed both positions of faith (which is your argument, not mine) then the atheist universe is exactly the same as the theist universe. If they were different, then we could simply look and see: Is this an atheist or a theist universe?

According to you the Catholic Faith would have to be “identical” to hinduism because, well, they both rely on Faith.

The Catholic description of the universe, from any scientific perspective, is exactly the same as the Hindu universe. Same physical laws, same evidence, same phenomena. In some sense, yes, they are identical.

You’re free to choose any religion you please, without regard to what I or anyone else believes to be rational or irrational.

Freedom to choose anything does in no way create “right” to choose it.
I am free to choose to run over my neighbor’s dog.
I am free to choose to run stop signs.

Can you explain my right to do either?

What’s your argument here? That I do not have the right to be an atheist? That you are impugning that I assert you do not have the right to be a theist?

As far as political and social rights, which are established by mutual agreement, I definitely agree that you have the right to whatever religious belief you want, regardless of how I personally judge it, so long, of course, as you obey the same laws that I do.

 

[PLP]

Sherlock:

Reason. Science is only one form of knowledge, not the only one.

I personally don’t think that reason alone can grant knowledge.

 

[PLP]

martino:

if you believe in miracles how would you expect to measure them, or if you dont believe in miracles how do you explain the miraculous?

I’ve never been persuaded that anything truly miraculous or even paranormal has ever actually occurred, outside of phenomena that have led to new scientific theories.

one day a guy is dying of cancer and not expected to live more than a few days, then next day he is cured and there are no signs that cancer ever existed in him, all the while the doctors are perplexed because there is not scientific explanation for what has happened, it is beyond all human comprehension.

This sort of occurrence is well within human comprehension, and there are two rather prosaic explanation for the spontaneous remission of cancer. The first is that many people are misdiagnosed as having cancer in the first place. Having such cancers “go away” is hardly miraculous. Second, the human body has an immune system which ordinarily does fight cancer. Because of the way the immune system works (basically by trying every possible “key” which doesn’t fit the body’s own lock) it can take a bit of time for the immune system to kick in and start attacking a cancer.

It also often seems the case that it was the speaker’s aunt Sally’s cousin’s dentist’s girlfriend’s mother who had the “miraculous” cure. Snopes is full of such stores.

how do we explain these things? let me know if you dont believe scenarios like the one i described really exist and i will gladly show you verifiable examples.

Please do.

 

[Toni]

Just wanted to share this story.

The following is a true story that happened just a few years ago at USC.

STAND UP!!!

There was a professor of philosophy who was a deeply committed atheist. His primary goal for one required class was to spend the entire semester attempting to prove that God couldn’t exist. His students were always afraid to argue with him because of his impeccable logic. For twenty years, he had taught this class and no one had ever had the courage to go against him. Sure, some had argued in class at times, but no one had ever really gone against him because of his reputation. At the end of every semester on the last day, he would say to his class of 300 students, “If there is anyone here who still believes in Jesus, stand up!” In twenty years, no one had ever stood up. They knew what he was going to do next. He would say, “Because anyone who believes in God is a fool. If God existed, he could stop this piece of chalk from hitting the ground and breaking. Such a simple task to prove that He is God, and yet He can’t do it.” And every year, he would drop the chalk onto the tile floor of the classroom and it would shatter into a hundred pieces. All of the students would do nothing but stop and stare. Most of the students thought that God couldn’t exist. Certainly, a number of Christians had slipped through, but for 20 years, they had been too afraid to stand up.

Well, a few years ago there was a freshman who happened to enroll. He was a Christian, and had heard the stories about his professor. He was required to take the class for his major, and he was afraid. But for three months that semester, he prayed every morning that he would have the courage to stand up no matter what the professor said, or what the class thought. Nothing they said could ever shatter his faith…he hoped.

Finally, the day came. The professor said, " If there is anyone here who still believes in God, stand up!" The professor and the class of 300 people looked at him, shocked, as he stood up at the back of the classroom. The professor shouted, “You FOOL!!! If God existed, he would keep this piece of chalk from breaking when it hit the ground!” He proceeded to drop the chalk, but as he did, it slipped out of his fingers, off his shirt cuff, onto the pleat of his pants, down his leg, and off his shoe. As it hit the ground, it simply rolled away unbroken. The professor’s jaw dropped as he stared at the chalk. He looked up at the young man, and then ran out of the lecture hall. The young man who had stood, proceeded to walk to the front of the room and shared his faith in Jesus for the next half hour. 300 students stayed and listened as he told of God’s love for them and of His power through Jesus.