I am an atheist thread 2

[phooney]

@ Phooney

But don’t you see that that is only explanation for how everything came into being? That is the only non-deity-dependent explanation for how things came into being.

No, I don’t see that, this is a false dichotomy.

Evolution and the Big Bang Theory all rely on something that started it all… A huge cosmic explosion… A first common ancestor…

Agreed, but they don’t say what that ‘starter’ might be without evidence for it.

But where did that come from? Where did that mass of energy come from? Where did that first common ancestor come from? The scientists can’t produce an answer!

Actually, they can produce many answers, but in science they are called hypotheses. Many of the “pre” big-bang hypotheses are inherently better than “goddidit” because they are mathematically sound and accurate with what we can observe, but are still just hypotheses because there is not enough observational evidence to confirm them. This is an important difference to the conclusions that you have jumped to. I suggest you read this thread, and perhaps the previous one, as I’m at work at the moment and can’t go over all that again!

I would therefore argue that there must be a “god” who is the First, the Beginning, and the Creator of these secular explanations of the universe coming into being.

Well, I suppose that now you need to define what “god” you are referring to. If god is the universe, then ok, I believe in God. If god is this mug on my desk, again I believe in God.

To better explain myself I’d suggest you look over Question 2 of St. Thomas Aquinas. He makes the case that God’s existence can be proven in five different ways.

I’ll get back to this once I get home!

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

I believe you are mistaken.

In science, ever since I was a sqirmy little first grader, I’ve been taught that something is not produced from nothing.

The cosmos, I humbly submit to you, could not have been produced from nothing; God produced the cosmos.

St. Thomas Aquinas, baby, go-go-go!

That was some pretty good first grade science! I don’t think I did anything in first grade except plant seeds in a styrofoam cup.

Anyway, you’re mistaken. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (probably not covered in 1st grade ) tells us that energy (and therefore mass) can be produced out of nothing, for a relatively small amount of time.

There’s some more out there about how the universe has zero total energy, and therefore could pop into existence ex nihilo and persist for a very long time indeed. But it’s been too long since I read my Gribbins and Hawking. At a very quick glance, this link seems to have some good info:
braungardt.com/Physics/Vacuum%20Fluctuation.htm

God bless!

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

@Socrates4Jesus

Hi again!

“That of which i am speaking is not an absence of time but something beyond time, or what theologians refer to as eternity.”

At this point, I do not recognise “Theologians” as having any authority on matters of physics.

“We are getting into the realm of speculation, now. However, even though you or i might not be able to comprehend this, we might be able to apprehend it.”

Worthy goals!

“Now, it is not mere fantasy that there are dimensions beyond the four we experience. Einstein was one of the first to prove mathematically the likelihood of this. Physicists have discovered that there are many more dimensions beyond what we know and experience.”

Whoa back! Here is where you go beyond what the evidence dictates. At the moment, all that we have are the mathematically sound models that are consistent with observations (in our own 4 dimensions), which require that there be extra dimensions. At the moment these are only hypotheses, as there has been no evidence for the other dimensions as yet. The loop vortex theory and “ether” used to be such mathematically sound and consistent models as well, so I wouldn’t advise putting all your eggs in this kind of basket. I consider these kind of things inherently better than “Goddidit” hypotheses though, because while they don’t yet have evidence for them, they are at least mathematically sound, and that counts for something. They also make predictions that might be testable. To give a very vague example (because I can’t remember the details) M-Theory, one of the hypotheses that postulates 11 dimensions, could explain an observation of some kind of radiation from a star moving slower than expected, because in addition to going through our 3 known spatial dimensions, it is also going through the other 7 postulated by m-theory. I seem to recall there being not much confidence in this particular observation, so this is obviously pretty inconclusive, yet still interesting.

There are also mathematically consistent models that require completely different numbers of dimensions in order to work. The most recent one that I heard of has been postulated by a man named Garrett Lisi. His theory is getting a fair bit of attention because it is being hailed as an “exceptionaly simple” theory of everything and requires only the 4 dimensions already known to us. There has also been a lot of spin put on the story because he surfs in his free time.

“I suggest that if there is a God, he, she or it would exist in these dimensions”

Plausible of course.

“physicists know exist but cannot experience”

Physicists HYPOTHESISE exist and hope to test many of these with the large hadron collider, if it finishes on time (aka behind schedule) next year.

“Eternity, the Bible suggests, is not an absence of time but something beyond time. It is a more real way of experiencing time similar to living in three dimensions is a more real way of experiencing space.”

Unfortunately, this is vague to the point of incoherence.

“So, when i say time had a beginning, i’m not suggesting that before time there was no time; rather, what i’m implying is that before time there was still eternity, which is a more real way of experiencing time. This also makes sense, if we can believe those who know more about this than you or i could ever know - modern physicists.”

I didn’t say it was YOU saying there was no time before our time, that is simply the direct result of time being a dimension of our universe. Maybe there are other universes out there with their own time. Is there anything like time between universes or outside this one? I don’t know, we simply don’t have enough evidence yet to make that call, and there’s no reason to insert an arbitrary answer. What, if any, of our physical laws apply outside of the universe? Again, I don’t know, we simply don’t have enough evidence yet to make that call, and there’s no reason to insert an arbitrary answer as you do here and repeat in post 447 directed at A.

“C.S. Lewis - who was an extremely bright atheist until he became an even more brilliant Christian - used this metaphor: To God, all of time is like a time line on an open page in a book. He lives outside this time line, looking down on it, as if the time we experience was standing still. At any moment, he can reach out his hand and touch this time line, and alter the events of people’s lives.”

I can certainly appreciate that that is a nice metaphor, but under the poetry it is really just a bald assertion not backed up by anything.

Right, i was doing just a bit of fun “what ifs” but not trying to prove anything, here. I agree it’s a possibility, but not a certainty.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

continued @Socrates4Jesus

“Lets say, just for the sake of argument, that a copy of a book of the Bible is found today that predates any known copy of that book by a thousand years.”

But, wouldn’t that put them in completely the wrong time period?
…

Good question. I’d like to answer it, but first will you answer mine?

Since we do not have the original manuscripts MSS but only copies, the question is, “How good are the copies?” So, my question to you, Phooney, was this:

Lets say that

(1) A copy of the book of the Bible was found (lets say, a complete scroll of Isaiah)

(2) This discovered copy was one thousand years older than the oldest extant copy in existence today

(3) This discovered copy, after careful examination by scholars, was found to not have any significant changes to the text from the one that was penned 1,000 years after it

Question: Do you think this would be strong or weak evidence that this book of the Bible was copied carefully and accurately over that 1,000-year period?
I believe the answer is obvious, but i’m wondering if you see the answer as clearly as i do. I’m asking a “what if” to see how you will respond.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

…“Now, if you found something in the Bible that was not accurate about fishing, well, i’d certainly trust your opinion.”

You’d have to go to A for that, not me!
…

I have and he has not given me an answer, yet.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… “I’m still willing to look at any legitimate prophecy in the Bible you can find that is obviously false. I’ve been searching the text for many years and have found none. You would think that of all the hundreds of predictions in the Bible someone would be able to find at least one that is false, wouldn’t you?”

Well, the one regarding the pillars of the earth was clearly wrong, but you dismissed that as not a prophecy due to her not saying “thus saith the lord”, though I still think that many people would have claimed that this was a prophecy had it been true, even if the wording was the same.

Despite that, Job also mentions the pillars of the earth, as well as saying that the earth is suspended over nothing. Pillars of the earth don’t exist, the earth isn’t suspended (suspension implies an up or down in space), and spacetime is not nothing. Internally contradictory to itself and externally contradictory to reality. Perhaps this is poetry, perhaps this isn’t prophecy, perhaps this is divine allegory. Regardless, the bible doesn’t tell us which parts to take literally, and which parts not. …

I think we might be talking about apples and oranges, here. I’m not sure how you would define the word prophecy, but i would define it this way:

A biblical prophecy is:

(1) an actual prediction of an event in recorded history or recent times,

(2) spoken or written down by a person who claims to be a prophet of God,

(3) and that the person says consists not of his own words but the words that God gave to him,

(4) and that later (in some cases hundreds or thousands of years later) comes true,

(5) or that has yet to come true,

(6) but that has never been found to be a false prediction of events that had occurred after the words were spoken or written down

(7) and that consist of predictions that are reasonably specific and verifiable
Now, anyone in the Bible who says that God told him such and such was going to happen, is speaking a prophecy. There are many hundreds of such statements in the Bible spoken by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Ezekiel, Isiah, Jeremiah, Jesus, John the baptist, John the apostle of Jesus, and many others. It does not take much time to read and find several of them in one sitting.

This is that to which i’m referring when i say that i have yet to see evidence of even one prophecy of the Bible that has been shown to be untrue. It is one of the strongest reasons i know for believing that the Christian message is true.

 

[steve_b]

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle tells us thatenergy (and therefore mass) can be produced out of nothing, for a relatively small amount of time.

Yet the law of causality says every finite thing (i.e. not eternal) is caused by something. It can’t come from itself, and it can’t come from nothing.

Another law is that of thermodynamics which states that in a closed, isolated system (i.e. the universe) the amount of usable energy is continually decreasing (entropy). If the usable energy, in the universe is decreasing, the universe then is finite and not eternal, and so is energy, raising the same question for science, who/what started it all?
Natural:

There’s some more out there about how the universe has zero total energy, and therefore could pop into existence ex nihilo and persist for a very long time indeed. But it’s been too long since I read my Gribbins and Hawking. At a very quick glance, this link seems to have some good info:
braungardt.com/Physics/Vacuum%20Fluctuation.htm

God bless!

Re: Hawking,

Here is a series of lectures on these subjects

hawking.org.uk/text/public/bot.html

 

[mgrfin]

Good question. I’d like to answer it, but first will you answer mine?

Since we do not have the original manuscripts MSS but only copies, the question is, “How good are the copies?” So, my question to you, Phooney, was this:

Lets say that

(1) A copy of the book of the Bible was found (lets say, a complete scroll of Isaiah)

(2) This discovered copy was one thousand years older than the oldest extant copy in existence today

(3) This discovered copy, after careful examination by scholars, was found to not have any significant changes to the text from the one that was penned 1,000 years after it

Question: Do you think this would be strong or weak evidence that this book of the Bible was copied carefully and accurately over that 1,000-year period?
I believe the answer is obvious, but i’m wondering if you see the answer as clearly as i do. I’m asking a “what if” to see how you will respond.

My answer to your question is : “So What?”

You have to ask the right question(s), and you are not asking them with your post.

peace

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

My answer to your question is : “So What?”

You have to ask the right question(s), and you are not asking them with your post.

peace

An answer is not punctuated with a question mark, Fin! I believe you have not answered; instead, you have asked a question.



In regard to asking right questions, i have two questions for you:

(1) How can a question be wrong? I can see how an answer can be wrong, but not how a question can, unless, of course, you are saying my questions are morally wrong. In that case, i’d be interested in knowing what sin i have committed so that i might learn from my mistake and repent of it.

(2) If you are saying there are better, more worthy, or more useful questions to ask, please tell me what question i should ask Phooney (or ask you).

 

[ontologysue]

@ontologysue
I’m glad your strawman amuses you. I certainly didn’t say that animal communication was a less complex version of human language, but they undoubtably are at least examples of basic language. Also, as the chimp examples show, a basic form of human language is not above them, they have demonstrated a grasp approximately equivalent to a two-three year old human.

Since, serrendipitously, I have both a dog and a 2 year old grandson at the moment, I can assure you, there is no relation between the language/consciousness development of the dog and the human. The dog lives in a world of instinct and pavlovian behavior with a predictable “pack” relationship to humans. The human is already processing complex language/consciousness skills involving object, concept and meaning, all within the context of an existential experience.

I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying, Phooney, by continuing to use the term “immaterial.” I’m trying to demonstrate that some provable realities are not physical, therefore, not physically observable by the scientific method. For example, 2 + 2 = 4. This is true as a logical abstraction. To paraphrase Paul Tillich (theologian), there are 2 types of knowledge which are based on complete evidence and give complete certitude, one is immediate evidence of sense perception, the other is the formal & implicit rules of logic. 2 + 2 = 4 regardless of our experience.

There is a universal concept of a perfect isosoles triangle, the version a professor might draw on a blackboard is a symbol of that concept. It will be more or less exact, but that drawing, is not, in itself, the concept of an isosoles triangle. Both types of knowledge give certitude, both are not physical however.

The only reason the non-evolutionary explanation of language was pertinent was not because of a “God in the gap” argument, but simply to demonstrate that together with new discoveries in quantum theory and neuro-biology, a purely physical explanation of language is becoming less and less likely.

Stephen Pinker writes that the area of our brain has an equivalent in other higher primates, though it doesn’t appear to be used for language in them.

Your “buts” here make my point, “it doesn’t appear to be used for language,” etc.

I will read the sources you mention, “Shadows of our Forgotten Ancesters.” and the Bickerton piece on Darwin and Chomsky…looks interesting.

I just think a credible link is simply hypothesis, and highly unlikely, besides ,we know how you feel about “hypotheses!” (Is that the plural spelling?)

Now you show me a Scientist alive today who has used the scientific method to demonstrate the immaterial, not an abstraction, I look forward to that.

Well, I hope I explained above how the scientific method cannot be applied to logical (non-physical) abstract truths, ie mathematics.

I do have question for you however, as a “materialist.” Why is it you enjoy the repartee of debating ideas, since, as a materialist, you should depict thoughts as “irrational products” of electro-chemical process in the brain? The only true explantions are reductive. There is no meaning. As C.S. Lewis puts it in “The Abolition of Man,” (if a materialist)" wants to define a flower, he defines its cell structure, not its beauty." Or, as Leo Strauss describes moderist materialism, it’s an attempt to understand the higher in terms of the lower, the human in terms of the subhuman, the rational in terms of the subrational."

CS Lewis further argues that the modern repercussions of this philosophy, which by necessity denies objective truth,( since everything is a result of meaningless, random and blind evolution,)
is that, the only “value” becomes “power.” But, that’s more along the lines of a discussion I’ve been having with A.

It appears A is holding up the relativist petard while you are covering the materialist in this thread. Heave ho!

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… “Now, if you found something in the Bible that was not accurate about fishing, well, i’d certainly trust your opinion.”

You’d have to go to A for that, not me!
…

Sorry, Phooney, i forgot A was the fisherman, not you!



So, what do you do as a vocation or hobby?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… “If your point is that we disagree as to what the author’s true intentions were when he wrote the book of the Ezekiel, i would say that is a fair assumption, and we can agree to disagree. In this case, i hope you would appreciate that my interpretation is one that is not unreasonable.”

Agreed, as long as you can also agree that your interpretation isn’t persuasive for one that hasn’t presupposed God. …

Remember that you and i are trying to determine what Ezekiel meant by what he wrote. Do you think it is more reasonable to conclude that Ezekiel presupposed God or that he was an atheist like yourself?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… “If your point is that you have proven false a specific prediction of the prophet Ezekiel, i’d think it worthwhile to take another look at your arguments.”

I think it is too vague to prove really, and has thus been relieved of much prophetic power. You’ve put much stock in it becoming a place to spread fishnets and never being found, and being a bare rock. …

That in which i put the most stock are these words of Ezekiel:

They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses **and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea. **I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more.

(Ezekiel 26:12-13)
The amazing thing to me was Ezekiel’s prediction of how Alexander the Great would remove all of the rubble of the city on the coast of what today is Lebanon and dump it into the Mediterranean Sea.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… From post 867:

“the place where the ancient mainland city of Tyre once stood is today a bare rock where fishermen still dry their nets. There is nothing left standing of the ancient city on the coast for it was brought to a horrible end. All of the ruins of the city, even the dirt of the streets, were dumped into the sea by Alexander the Great’s army.”

I decided to have a quick look at this bare rock on google maps:

maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=33.270538,35.200131&spn=0.013168,0.019956&t=h&z=16&om=1

Here’s some smaller photos from different angles:
thebtr.com/pages/middleeast/cities/lebanon/tyre.jpg
geotimes.org/aug07/nn_sandbar1.jpg

This shows the peninsula that now connects the former island and the mainland, both the island and the former mainland area to the east of this point are very much built up at the moment. Look again at the picture, can you find a city?

“Today it is the fourth largest city in Lebanon” answers.com/topic/tyre-lebanon

“The location of the city of Tyre is not in doubt, for it exists to this day on the same spot and is known as Sur.” (Katzenstein, H.J., The History of Tyre, 1973, p9) …

Is the location of a thing the same thing as the thing itself?

If i moved my mobile home from Cleveland, Ohio to Chicago Illinois, would you stand in the empty lot where my mobile home once stood in Cleveland and say you found my mobile home? If you were to call me on your cell phone and say you found my home, would it be unreasonable for me to laugh and say you were wrong because i was at that moment sitting in my home now located in Chicago?

Ezekiel did not write that the location of the ancient city would never be found. He merely wrote that the city itself would be completely destroyed and dumped into the sea. He did not write that it would remain a bare rock forever, only that it would become one. Isn’t this exactly what happened more than 2,000 years ago?

 

[_A]

A, I think it might be a good idea, for the purpose of “constructive” debate to back up a little.

Great. I should say though, that being on vacation is really slowing my response time. I thank you all for your patience.

the only authentication possible is whether the individual becomes a better person, hence we’re now back to virtue and moral absolutes.

I am not convinced that there are ‘moral absolutes’. If there are, the catholic church certainly doesn’t have them figured out. They have changed too often for their stance on say, torturing witches to be a ‘moral absolute’.

Are there moral principles of behavior which stand the test of the eons of human history. Are there standards of right and wrong? Or, are moral standards completely random and relative as you are arguing.

Yup. We have a good set in my country now, but far from perfect. I think the word ‘better’ here is more useful than ‘good’, too.

It derives from the concept of “personhood” and the dignity of the “person”, which Judaism, itself, originated. Let’s take the concept of human rights, of “liberty,” “equality,” which even you concede in an earlier post are embedded in a “legal sense,” as moral standards. (I think that was the post where your font appreciatively enlarged!) There is, I argue, a moral logic behind these principles.

I enlarged the font there to remind someone that I had indeed answered them. The law also says that abortion is acceptable. I agree in that case, but that doesn’t mean that the law is always right.

A common refrain when one little boy usurps another’s marbles, “hey, that’s not fair, you stole my marbles.!”

So you think that this is an example of gods finger in our morals, and not what the kid soaked up through his environment? What of the kid who stole the marble? What of the aboriginals I know who take anything they want because they don’t have a real good idea of ownership?

Pope John Paul II states, "In this sense, it is a matter for serious concern that some people today deny the universality of human rights

That was also a guy who thought it was ok to forbid abortion. He was not big on the rights of women.

just as they deny that there is a human nature shared by everyone.

Tell me what bits of morals are shared by everyone. I have seen nothing that could not be explained by evolution and survival instincts.

if you don’t think the force of gravity is “true”, which really is a bad term, I would prefer to say, it’s a fact in the world we inhabit

I didn’t say I don’t think it is true, I said that I don’t believe it. That leaves me room to learn things contrary to that theory.

If you have not read much philosophy, then I suggest you start, it’s an enlightening experience.

I used the phrase ‘name-dropping’ and it sounded wrong (even when I read it later). I don’t know Kant, so I would rather we discuss without him. If you want to quote him, go ahead, but it is you I will be questioning if I have doubts about something. I appreciate your suggestion that I read philosophy, and I have (I think), but my reading list is long, and even if I decided to put it in there, it would be about 10 books down the list.

One “second final point,” these examples you mention of individuals, ie the witch burners in Salem, are “straw men” in the sense that, what a localized group of people or a single individual, imagine to be messages from God, to perform evil, has nothing to do with the values and “moral absolutes” that the long tradition of a religion, ie Christianity, enshrines in doctrine. Even, the Spanish Inquisition, an abysmal descent into pure evil, by a fragment of the Roman Catholic Church, in Spain, was not condoned by the whole church, in other locals, at the time, nor was it condoned “in toto”, including the Eastern Church, over time. Men, in certain times and places, including a few popes, have descended into grave and mortal sin, however, in time their deeds were condemned and their rationales shunned

This shows that the church (Pope Pious approved the torture of witches - HUMANS!) is wrong. A lot. I don’t believe that they are an authority. I think that they do much more harm than good.
The bible is a book - nothing more.
The gods described in the bible are horrific beasts which I would not want to be close to. Especially Yahweh (who changes his name once in awhile, but it’s the ‘guy in the sky’ of the KJV bible that I mean).

 

[_A]

Thank you again it is interesting how we read the same sentence and find 2 different meanings from that sentence.
It seems to me you are searching for a way not to needlessly kill this baby, but that contradicts the original authority of the pregnant woman. So to me it seems you are having a problem denying the morals god imposed on you. So what is the process you used to decide what should or should not be done?

I think if the woman wants to kill her baby there is nothing you or I can do to stop it. If there is an opportunity, I would save it, but would not enslave another to do it. Telling a woman that she must nurture a fetus is slavery, plain and simple.

 

[_A]

I believe, Mr. A, that you just made an argument in favor of there being a God who is not caused himself! Yes, not everything must have a cause; i’d have to agree with you. God, for one, must not have a cause. Indeed, i stand corrected.



Regarding cause and effect, i was unaware of anyone or anything else that is uncaused. Can you think of anything else, or anyone else, besides God that, or who, is not the effect of a cause? If you can, please show me.

Your god doesn’t exist except in the minds of believers, and in fiction books.

If you can offer evidence that he really exists, then go ahead. Better persons than you or I have failed utterly, throughout history.

 

[_A]

I believe you are mistaken.

In science, ever since I was a sqirmy little first grader, I’ve been taught that something is not produced from nothing.

The cosmos, I humbly submit to you, could not have been produced from nothing; God produced the cosmos.

St. Thomas Aquinas, baby, go-go-go!

If everything must have a cause, your god must have a cause. Where did you get the idea that the cosmos came from nothing?
The reason I say that ‘everything has a cause’ is a nonsense statement is that we don’t know everything yet. Your gods hide in the gaps in our knowledge. What a coincidence that every time we fill a gap, your gods move to another.

 

[_A]

Hello,
Its obvious you are experiencing a conversion and are discerning what is taking place in your heart. The very fact you have questioned the experiences of the faithful should reveal some of the answers you are looking for. I pray you continue seeking.
Pat

I doubt it. I still think the RC church is evil. I still see the pope as just some guy living off the avails of simony. I still say that the god of the OT is nothing more than a terrible invention of men.

Maybe the conversion you speak of is from atheist to anti-theist.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… I decided to have a quick look at this bare rock on google maps:

maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=33.270538,35.200131&spn=0.013168,0.019956&t=h&z=16&om=1

… According to Encyclopedia Brittanica “Excavations have uncovered remains of the Greco-Roman, Crusader, Arab, and Byzantine civilizations, but most of the remains of the Phoenician period lie BENEATH THE PRESENT TOWN.” britannica.com/eb/article-9074016/Tyre

But how is that possible if it was scraped down to bare rock?
…

Thank you for the link to the map, by the way. Yes, it is true that the island city remained inhabitted by Greeks, Romans, Crusaders, Arabs and Byzantines. However, the place where the ancient city on the coast used to be remained a fishing spot during all that time, however.

Here is a 19th century A.D. engraving of the site where the ancient city once stood:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

The source of the image is here: middleeast.com/tyre.htm