Apologies, there apperas to be a limit on the size of posts, so I’ve had to split this:
Here are some examples of “molecules in motion”:
A mother weeping at the death of her newborn, molecules in motion.
A newly married couple joyfully having sex lost in each other’s arms, molecules in motion.
A man on trial for murder, molecules in motion.
Tears running down a priest’s face at the Elevation, molecules in motion.
You, me, and everyone else typing at our computer keyboards, cell phones, iPods, Wiis, etc., molecules in motion.
I think you’re confusing emotion with inanimate reactions. I could care less about the molecules that were rearranged to allow you to read this. But I do care about music, love, hope, passion etc. Only a fool would think that someone who didn’t believe in a particular god could not care. Are you going to suggest that you love your children more than I love mine because I’m an atheist? If not, the point you just made is, well…pointless.
Evolution is materialistic and says that you and I are all “molecules in motion,” nothing more. This is why evolution is stupid. Minds do not exist, free will is an illusion, just the random firing of electrons in an advanced mammalian brain. Death is annihilation. Of course, we all know better, don’t we? If you doubt this, just consider the testimony of the late Pam Reynolds. Since consciousness can survive the death of a physical brain, such is testimonial evidence (the best kind of evidence) that the immaterial soul does exist, which Darwinian evolution could not have produced.
You’re repeating yourself. But one phrase is nearly correct: Evolution is stupid. It sounds like you do get it to a certain extent. There’s no intelligence behind it (maybe I should have used a capital ‘I’).
- Objective moral values do not exist.
If you mean that moral values change over time and in certain circumstances, then yes, you’d probably be right. If you mean that you and I couldn’t agree what we consider to be morally correct and morally wrong, then you are probably wrong. If you are suggesting that I can’t decide myself what is morally correct, then you are suggesting that you personally need to be told. Is it only your belief in God that stops you from doing bad things? I certainly hope not.
Rape is evolutionary advantageous – lions “do it,” so do tigers (what are left of them), and so do lots of other animals. It’s “wrong,” according to atheism, because the culture says so.
I’m sorry, I’m not sure of your point. Why do you put ‘wrong’ in inverted commas? I don’t think you’ll find many people who think it’s a good idea. And I don’t think you’ll find many people who think that it’s a bad idea because it’s culturally incorrect. I don’t know about you, but I base my ideas on what is morally acceptable not on whether the act, either by the act itself, or the omission of the act, causes harm to another person.
To that end, we, as a civilisation, have become more civilised. Quite possibly my great great etc grandfather went around with his mates raping women because they felt no empathy towards them. To that extent, morality is subjective.
Most academics and intellectuals in the days of Nazi Germany supported Hitler (as did scores of young women), but today academics disavow him, because he lost. Pope Pius XII, of course, commanded that Catholics pray for Hitler, and we know now that there was a reason for that.
Most people who supported Hitler were Catholic. And your comment re Pius XII is noted. But we now disavow Hitler because he lost? I know that victors generally get to write the history, but good grief. I thought that the fact that he laid Europe to waste and killed tens of millions of people might have something to do with him getting a bad press.
By the way, what else could the Pope do??.
You mean apart from pray for the guy? Maybe drop him a line suggesting that murdering millions of Jews was not such a good idea, perhaps.
I read Dawkins’ book The God Delusion several times.
I don’t believe you.
His whole argument is in a section called “The Poverty of Agnosticism” (pages 43 to 51) where he gives his 7-point scale of belief,
It’s not his whole argument and I’ll skip most of this in any case, thanks. Going into great detail about the odds of God’s existence is an exercise in futility. You seem, in any case, to be missing the point. Which is that Dawkins is arguing against certainty. As Voltaire said: Doubt is uncomfortable, but certainty is absurd. And Dawkins knows this full well – he’s a scientist. A scientist, by definition, and despite what you might believe, cannot say anything with 100% certainty. That’s almost one of the definitions of science.
So he will readily admit, as will I, that it is impossible to say that ‘God does not exist’ with 100% certainty. Hence his scale, (he used small numbers to not confuse people). I don’t think that he works it out each time. He’s picking a figure out of the air to represent his aversion to dogma.
Atheism only makes sense if you presume the existence of God.
I think it only makes sense if someone else presumes the existence of gods. Don’t be so self-centred. It’s not just your god in whom atheists don’t believe.
As Pam Reynold’s and many, many others’ testimonies of veridical life-after-death experiences teach us…
It’s funny that they never come back with some information that they could not have got any other way except by dying and coming back. Unless you know of some, perhaps?
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Because there is evil in the World, God does not exist, or so goes the “argument.”
It’s not one I’d use. I can’t see why, if He existed, He wouldn’t let us prove ourselves by eliminating it ourselves. I do know that there’s an argument that says that pain (in the world out there, beyond the camp fire) has got to be the cruellest way possible to set up a system of life. That almost every animal dies in terror and agony would be a black mark against any particular god that set it up that way.
Of course, with the Fall of Adam & Eve, death and suffering entered into the World for human beings.
I don’t think that even the Pope would put forward an argument for an actual Adam and Eve. Mitochondrial Eve and hermale counterpart didn’t even live at the same time. I can post you information on that if you like.
The probability that you should exist is infinitesimal, which means that in a finite universe, you must have been created. QED.
The only thing that that shows is that you don’t understand the concept of probability. Do you know the probability of someone winning a lottery that a million people have entered? It’s 1. But wait, you cry – someone has to win. Yeah, that’s right.
Get a pack of cards, shuffle them and deal 4 cards. Do you know the probability of you getting that exact sequence? It’s over 6.5 million to one. But wait, you cry - you have to nominate the cards before you deal. Yeah, that’s right.
I hope that helped.
