Hello

[James924]

An action done by an atheist, and an action done by atheism, are two completely different things and should not be mixed up. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god. End of story. It is nothing, it’s just a lack of something.

Right, you should read the rest, friend. The point of that post was to point out that an argumentum ad hominem isn’t always wrong as long as it is only supplemental to an argument that focuses on truth value.
“An action done by an atheist, and an action done by atheism, are two completely different things?” Right, just like an action done by a religious person and a religion are two completely different things. That was the point I was making. How did you miss that? Read it again, maybe?

 

[James924]

Here is a list of scientists and professors (all doctorates) that are skeptical of macro-evolution and support the study and consideration of intelligent design theory:
discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

(about 17 pages of names)

 

[mrhenrik]

Here is a list of scientists and professors (all doctorates) that are skeptical of macro-evolution and support the study and consideration of intelligent design theory:
discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

(about 17 pages of names)

wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_list_of_scientists_who_support_creation_accurate
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution

Quotes from Wikipedia:
“In 1986, an amicus curiae brief asking the US Supreme Court to reject a Louisiana state law requiring the teaching of creationism in the case Edwards v. Aguillard[33] was signed by 72 US Nobel Prize winners, 17 state academies of science and 7 other scientific societies.[6]”

“There are many scientific and scholarly organizations from around the world that have issued statements in support of the theory of evolution.[34][35][36][37] The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society with more than 130,000 members and over 262 affiliated societies and academies of science including over 10 million individuals, has made several statements and issued several press releases in support of evolution.[19]”

“A 1991 Gallup poll of Americans found that about 5% of scientists (including those with training outside biology) identified themselves as creationists.[23][24]”

 

[James924]

Interesting…did you really think you needed to tell people that Scientists who believe in Intelligent Design (not creationists, btw, creationists believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis) are in the minority? You’re kidding right? Everyone knows that. But thank you for pointing out the obvious, friend. What people probably DIDN’T know was how widespread the skepticism of Darwinian Theory was within the scientific community.
Also, are you familiar with what a “straw man argument is?” Because thats what you made when you linked to a wikipedia article about scientists who believe in creationism… I said nothing in any of my posts about creationism (a literal interpretation of Genesis).
Also, the “Dissent from Darwin” list I provided, you’ll notice, isn’t mentioned on the article you posted. Why not? Because it doesn’t have scientists who’s credentials are “dubious” and because it, again, is not about creationism.
Way to go with the straw man argument, though.

 

[James924]

Wow! I can really have some fun with this wikianswers article you posted. You’ll notice that the individual (let me remind you wikianswers simply means an individual with his own bias and who knows how much or little integrity is answering your question) who answers this question is careful only to talk about biblical creationists, and doesnt even acknowledge the concept of intelligent design. He specifically chooses to use two very questionable (probably fundamentalist motivated) lists that have almost no PhDs on them…

Now look at the list I gave you…its almost entirely PhDs… Scientists in everything from micro-biology to mathematics. Its not associated with any Religious Organization.

I wonder why your wiki answerman chose not to acknowledge that list…selective hearing?

 

[CentralFLJames]

We all learn through trial and error. When you are a kid and touch the candle and it burns you, you know not to touch it again. Or, more appropriate, when you are taking a test and you are stuck on a question. You rule out everything that isn’t it until you find the answer. No one (and nothing) is infallible.If we prove god does not exist, you won’t accept it. How do you know your “god” is infallible?

Good, I think we have made some progress toward resolving some things in you admitting that no human being is infallable in all things. But notice something interesting here. If your statement about nothing being infallable is true then YOU have just made an infallable statement which directly contradicts your own assertion! How can this be that something can be both true and false at the same time?

I will withhold for the time being the clear possibility that in some matters humans or perhaps some few special humans can be at least episodically infallable and possibly within a specific domain and circumstance infallable for life.

Now for your question. “How do you know your “god” is infallable”?

You have couched your question in a very personal way which is not in standard form that conforms to an objective scientific standard or orthodox way of proposing theories or universal truths. Can we objectify the question and generalize and depersonalize it to say:
“How can anyone know if God is infallable”?

Afterall God, if he exists, must not God be universal and quite independent of His created creatures and not just available to specific instances created creatures?

Note too that right away in this question we have either an admission of the possibility God exists or a presupposition that God does in fact exist and we want to discern heuristically “what” is God and what are His attributes if God did exist. This is a good theory but we could be here for a long time trying to “walk the dog” around the moebius strip on this one. So let’s just abandon a circular sort of inside-out reasoning and just step away from it all and refine the question one more time to a more fundamental and concise question.

Maybe: “How can anyone know God is omniscient”?

Is that the same question?

The problem we have straight off here is that we are trying to limit God to a paradigm of a human - seeing and sensing and deciding. But these are physical concepts and Christians believe God is spirit and not in the physical world in the same way we are.

So maybe we should just get to the meat and potatoes of the matter and ask:

If God exists what attributes might He have that humans who have limited sensory perception can accept as evidence for Him?

Would this work?

James

 

[kalt]

I didn’t read the whole thread, and so have no idea how the evolution sub-topic got started.

There’s one problem that most people who believe that evolution is true and that it and relgiion are incompatible have, though I think most of them are unaware of it. Eternity.

They believe that evolution is a fact partly because something doesn’t come from nothiing. They realize that things don’t appear out of nothingness.

If they admit that something can’t come from nothing, then something has to be eternal.

What, then, is eternal? If you believe that it is a particle of some sort, how is it that it alone is eternal and disobeys the law that all other particles follow (that something can’t come from nothing.)

If you believe the eternal thing is some sort of “force”, what proof do you have that this force exists at all and that it is eternal?

 

[GraceDK]

No, and I do not recommend you saying that stuff( when talking to atheists) because it is offensive and annoying to people; that have struggled researching for truth and have came to the conclusion that there is no valid reason to believe in god, and that the theistic world view is very unlikely. Also it is an ad hominem.

It’s clear from your posts that you have read Richard Dawkins’ book: “The God Delusion”.
Maybe you would be interested in reading one of the books that was written as a response to Dawkin’s book? I have one called “Why There Almost Certainly Is a God. Doubting Dawkins” By Keith Ward… a brilliant mind who - sorry - rips Dawkin’s assumptions apart… It’s a worth-while read.

 

[Sinner82]

This thread is long! Finally! Guys please continue typing, I enjoy reading the different opinions.

 

[Annabea]

No, annabea, that’s not the question I asked. Do humans (as part of our nature) committ such vicious acts as we witness in the animal kingdom? And do animals love in the same capacity as humans? Yes or No.

Yes and no, depends on the situation. We have so much in this world now, that some people want it all.
Do animals love at the same capacity as humans? I already answered that, we do not know. It seems as though they do, and I gave the example of elephants who are social animals, and morn their loved ones. They bury their dead. They often sit by the grave for days to weeks blowing out of their trunks.

 

[aileron]

Here is a list of scientists and professors (all doctorates) that are skeptical of macro-evolution and support the study and consideration of intelligent design theory:
discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

(about 17 pages of names)

You do know that the Discovery Institute is not above pious fraud, right? Reporters contacted people on the list and many of them reported being misled as to the intent of the document and the mission of the Discovery Institute. Also, most of the people on the list are not research scientists and those that are are mostly in irrelevant disciplines.

 

[Annabea]

Annabea, I promise not to spit on your shoes. There are many types of people that don’t believe in God. But I’ll just focus on two categories of people. One is, the people that have had such an easy life of health and wealth that they have never had a single moment of dispair that they’re just too busy enjoying life to even think that a God could exist. The other group is at the opposite end of the spectrum. People that have had nothing but poverty, agony, loneliness, unanswered prayers, and sometimes tragedy that they feel either God doesn’t exist or he simply just does not love them. Now what I just did was unfairly lump people because of their financial position or lack there of into two biased categories. I know of many wealthy people that believe in God and attend Mass and other religious services. And many of the poorest of the poor in this world have an unshakable faith in God. To believe in God does not come from what someone types on this site or anywhere else, or what you see on tv. Believing in God starts small within you and grows over time till it fills every fiber of your being. Not from bunch of outside sources. Many people like to look up to the sky and yell “If there’s a God, give me a sign!” and expect a loud rumble of thunder and a crack of lightning on a sunny day. But your sign just might be seeing a beautiful newborn baby that completely melts you. Then you start to think to yourself, I know the biological reason for this baby’s existence, but how did people come into existence in the first place. The Atheist school of thought is, something was created out of nothing by no one. The God believing school of thought is something was created out of nothing by someone. Which one makes more sense to you? I hope your question was more of a “I don’t know God but would like learn about him” as opposed to “there ain’t no god and you can’t prove it”. If God could be proven by conventional means where would the joy of faith be? I lost my son due to a tragedy. Secular therapy did nothing to take away my agony. Attending Mass weekly and my reaffirmed belief in Christ Jesus greatly eased my pain. GOD IS REAL. Therapists are not. Just remember if you separate the “the” from the rest of the word therapists, that’s exactly what you get. Emotionally and financially.

There are all kinds of people that don’t believe in god. You left out the middle class people such as myself. You left our all the other religions in the whole world.If so you should have put GODS ARE REAL. Though this, also may be completely folly. And unless you are counting every other god in the world and putting them under one name. We are people just like you, we feel as you do, we know as you do. We have our ups and lows, we just don’t count on faith to give them to us.

 

[GraceDK]

s you are counting every other god in the world and putting them under one name. We are people just like you, we feel as you do, we know as you do. We have our ups and lows, we just don’t count on faith to give them to us.

Actually you have your faith too… and I have mine You have a world view and I have mine.
Atheists are often very condescending… just like your last line.
We are placed in this world… thrown into existence. Many of us believe because the proof of God has made it impossible for us to stay atheists or agnostics.
Our faith dont give us ups and lows… Our God gives us peace while we walk through the ups and downs of human life… He is our Peace.

 

[Annabea]

What would those look like? What is “good”? How is it defined? Should not a standard exist for this?

I have not finished catching up on the thread, so maybe you addressed this, but what interest do you have in “good Christians”? Did I not read that your parents are religious? Forgive me if I mixed up your post with someone elses.
Christians that ask intelligent questions, things we have to think about. Instead of just saying the same old thing, there is a god. Yes, my parents are religious, the do not go to church anymore, but they are religious.

No, Annabea, you have been misled by the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic faith is not a “religion of the book”. The Catholic faith is based upon a person, not a book.

Then what is the book to you?

Yes. It was with Him, in Palestine.

Is there any scripture or evidence of its first teachings?

You can’t have it both ways, Annabea. If you are going to discount scripture as a reliable source, then you can’t ask that it be used to substantiate the point.

 

[happilycatholic]

I’m sorry sir, I can’t put it any simpler to explain to you the difference between agnostic and atheist. I am sorry that it is confusing to you, let me try this route.

You are certain that god exists as such you are a theist. Personally you have adequate knowledge to ascertain that god exists, as such you are gnostic towards god. When we consider this, this makes you a |||Gnostic Theist|||. Now is the correlation any clearer?

Just because you put your belief into something doesn’t mean you are always 100% certain of it, I am not sure where you’re getting this from. I can honest to god say that yes it is possible that yahweh exists, in that same sense I can say it is equally as likely that any creature we consider mythical is just as likely to exist. I can’t disprove either so I can’t say for certain that they don’t exist. I don’t believe they do, but that doesn’t make it so.

As for my metaphor it pertains exactly to our argument, almost word for word. Simply exchange the words god with zeus, and (thunder and lightning) with love, it is completely irrelevant about the semantics of the metaphor, that is not the purpose of it. The purpose is to expose how infantile the argument you asserted was that since atheists can’t explain love they are not living up to their standards.

I believe you are getting to hung up on even metaphorically being compared to a pagan… this was not my intention in the slightest.

It’s ma’am. It’s your belief, call it what you want. I have heard this explained a million times. There are lots of ways to say, I don’t believe or I have no knowledge and therefor I don’t believe. Look up the definition of agnostic and atheist. You claim to be both and that contridicts the need for both. If there weren’t a line drawn with atheism, then everyone would be agnostic. I’ve even heard it said that Christians can actually be agnostic. However, I totally disagree with this because agnosticism deals with knowledge and I have first-hand knowlege that God truly exsists. If you don’t believe God absolutely truly exsists then you are not Christian. Same thing. You can’t have it both ways. It doesn’t have a thing to do with *seeing *Him in a human, earthly form. I see God all around me. So I KNOW God exsists and therefor I’m not constantly looking for proof and basing my belief on proof. So I’m NOT agnostic. It’s like saying you are a Jew who believes that Christ is the Messiah. I’m sorry, but you are as confused as those folks. You can’t have it both ways. You are just trying to leave yourself an ‘out’, which is what agnostics do. Also another reason I feel that very few atheists truly exsist because they always try to leave themselves a way to save themselves should they be wrong. Atheism is about belief and agnosticism is about proof. If you do not believe because there is no proof then you’ve just crossed over to agnosticism. Atheists could see God in the flesh and still not recognize Him as God. Period. Agnostics would believe He is God if they saw Him because all they lack is proof.

Hey, if you folks want to subdivide your unbelief that’s totally your choice. It seems pretty wishy-washy to me. I don’t mind one way or another, but make no mistake that you are not open to the possibility of God if you are calling yourself an atheist. And you’ve pretty much proven that here.

Look, I’m sorry you feel God hasn’t proven His presence in your life but God isn’t responsible for your blindness, you are. You are just plain anti Christian. You can label yourself till you’re blue but it all comes down to putting your soul in danger by denying God. Good luck with that.

 

[Annabea]

I think the first step is to find out whether you believe in a Soul.Do you believe that there is something in you that is not material that gives you freedom in your Mental processes and that you are governed by electrical impulses from your brain that drives you to do various fucntions as in Animals.We Catholics believe in a soul that is not material and that the sould will not die after death and will have eternal life and our faith is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ which have been testified by several of his Apostles and Disciples

I do not believe in the soul. I believe in the mind.

 

[Sean_O_L]

Hi, Annabea - from Australia!

It is not at all unusual for a person to “not believe” in something about which they know practically nothing at all about - not to describe themselves in some positive or negative way.

There is a very old saying something like “Whoever fails to learn the lessons of history are bound to fall into the same errors that have abounded throughout time.” And so you describe yourself as “atheist.”

There are today many websites catering to “atheists” and “agnostics”, some of which extoll the writings, essays and thoughts of a 19th century athiest, Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll - claiming that his criticisms of “god, religion the Church, etc.”
are irrefutable and have never been successfully been so refuted. He lived from 1833 to 1899.

In fact, his thoughts and opinions were VERY thoroughly refuted by a Catholic priest, Fr. George Northgraves in 1885 when he published:
MISTAKES of MODERN INFIDELS; or EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, COMPRISING A COMPLETE REFUTATION OF COLONEL INGERSOLL’S SO-CALLED MISTAKES OF MOSES, AND OF OBJECTIONS OF VOLTAIRE, PAINE, AND OTHERS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY.

BY REV. GEORGE R. NORTHGRAVES,

DIOCESE OF LONDON, ONT., CANADA.

God having spoken on divers occasions, and many ways, in times

times past, to the fathers by the prophets: last of all, in these

days, hath spoken to us, by His Son. St. Paul to the Hebrews, i, 1,2

DETROIT:

FREE PRESS PRINTING HOUSE

1885

LONDON, CANADA: W
CATHOLIC RECORD OFFICE.
1885.
36693

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 1886,
BY REV. GEORGE R. NORTHGRAVES,

In the Office of the Minister of Agriculture at Washington, D.C.

I have reproduced that document in WORD format, and you may download the document for viewing from jloughnan.tripod.com/ingrefut.doc

You will also find some very interesting further reading and links on the last two pages.

Good luck and may God bless you in your journey,

Sean O L

 

[happilycatholic]

Do you think there is a possibility that the tooth fairy exists beyond our ability to prove that it does?

If the tooth fairy were ever anything but a fairytale, maybe. So you equate God with a fairytale? You have a long way to go with research. There is a long history of God’s exsistance among mankind. We have the early scriptures as evidence that Christ walked the earth and was crucified and reserrected. Perfectly sane people doing good all over the world have witnessed Him. Just because you prefer to think of God as equal to a fairytale does not negate His presence throughout history.

Show me 2000 year old documents and 2000 years of history on the toothfairy and I just might believe. Show me a Church that has stood for 2000 years founded by the toothfairy and then we’ll talk about the toothfairy.

 

[Annabea]

Good, I think we have made some progress toward resolving some things in you admitting that no human being is infallable in all things. But notice something interesting here. If your statement about nothing being infallable is true then YOU have just made an infallable statement which directly contradicts your own assertion! How can this be that something can be both true and false at the same time?

What? What contradicts what? I have never said anything is all

I will withhold for the time being the clear possibility that in some matters humans or perhaps some few special humans can be at least episodically infallable and possibly within a specific domain and circumstance infallable for life.

Now for your question. “How do you know your “god” is infallable”?

You have couched your question in a very personal way which is not in standard form that conforms to an objective scientific standard or orthodox way of proposing theories or universal truths. Can we objectify the question and generalize and depersonalize it to say:
“How can anyone know if God is infallable”?

There are many gods, we are talking about the god you believe in, thats all I meant.

Afterall God, if he exists, must not God be universal and quite independent of His created creatures and not just available to specific instances created creatures?

Note too that right away in this question we have either an admission of the possibility God exists or a presupposition that God does in fact exist and we want to discern heuristically “what” is God and what are His attributes if God did exist. This is a good theory but we could be here for a long time trying to “walk the dog” around the moebius strip on this one. So let’s just abandon a circular sort of inside-out reasoning and just step away from it all and refine the question one more time to a more fundamental and concise question.

Maybe: “How can anyone know God is omniscient”?

Is that the same question?

The problem we have straight off here is that we are trying to limit God to a paradigm of a human - seeing and sensing and deciding. But these are physical concepts and Christians believe God is spirit and not in the physical world in the same way we are.

So maybe we should just get to the meat and potatoes of the matter and ask:

If God exists what attributes might He have that humans who have limited sensory perception can accept as evidence for Him?

Would this work?

Sure, it would work. But it would work too If I said all the same things you did and replaced it with the pink invisible unicorn. Or, if I made up some of my own.
I did not understand your statement fully.
And for the last question "
If God exists what attributes might He have that humans who have limited sensory perception can accept as evidence for Him?"
Whatever you think is. You guys don’t care, you call anything and everything miracles and take it as evidence.

 

[Annabea]

Hi, Annabea - from Australia!

It is not at all unusual for a person to “not believe” in something about which they know practically nothing at all about - not to describe themselves in some positive or negative way.

There is a very old saying something like “Whoever fails to learn the lessons of history are bound to fall into the same errors that have abounded throughout time.” And so you describe yourself as “atheist.”

There are today many websites catering to “atheists” and “agnostics”, some of which extoll the writings, essays and thoughts of a 19th century athiest, Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll - claiming that his criticisms of “god, religion the Church, etc.”
are irrefutable and have never been successfully been so refuted. He lived from 1833 to 1899.

In fact, his thoughts and opinions were VERY thoroughly refuted by a Catholic priest, Fr. George Northgraves in 1885 when he published:
MISTAKES of MODERN INFIDELS; or EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, COMPRISING A COMPLETE REFUTATION OF COLONEL INGERSOLL’S SO-CALLED MISTAKES OF MOSES, AND OF OBJECTIONS OF VOLTAIRE, PAINE, AND OTHERS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY.

BY REV. GEORGE R. NORTHGRAVES,

DIOCESE OF LONDON, ONT., CANADA.

God having spoken on divers occasions, and many ways, in times

times past, to the fathers by the prophets: last of all, in these

days, hath spoken to us, by His Son. St. Paul to the Hebrews, i, 1,2

DETROIT:

FREE PRESS PRINTING HOUSE

1885

LONDON, CANADA: W
CATHOLIC RECORD OFFICE.
1885.
36693

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year 1886,
BY REV. GEORGE R. NORTHGRAVES,

In the Office of the Minister of Agriculture at Washington, D.C.

I have reproduced that document in WORD format, and you may download the document for viewing from jloughnan.tripod.com/ingrefut.doc

You will also find some very interesting further reading and links on the last two pages.

Good luck and may God bless you in your journey,

Sean O L

What were you saying? Sorry, I don’t get what you are trying to say.