I am an atheist thread 2

[_A]

What about “Don’t want to come in? Don’t come in. Your call.”

Did you read anything I wrote about other opinions on the “burning”?

Yes.

You are suggesting that there is no penalty for ignoring your god - which is exactly what I have been saying all along.

The bible, however, suggests that there is a penalty, called hell.

 

[_A]

Yes it takes guts to be a believer in a supreme Being that cares about His creation!..

I think it takes more guts to face the reality that there is no evidence to support such a thing.

It is easy and soooo pc to be an agnostic and secular humanist…after all its these rapists,murderers,child molestors, rotten presidents

The current US president is bombing brown men for god. He is a self-professed christian, and I honestly think that the US would be better off with a secular leadership.

 

[_A]

@phooney

I like it when my friends don’t believe me. That is because among my friends that means that they go learn about the matter themselves. (well, often, anyway)

 

[steve_b]

Kinda jumping in media res here, but no. The more I hear about and from Padre Pio – from himself and from his devotees, at that! – the less respect it seems I am able to have for him. Some time ago, all I knew was that he was a mystic and a stigmatic, and was reputed to be a very holy man; and I was glad that people had a role model to look up to. Then I heard about his striking a woman who came to him for confession (from a Catholic poster here) and thought it odd; and now you proudly quote him denigrating the suffering and doubt of the very saints so many would see him placed with!

The investigation process for sainthood doesn’t even start until 5 years after their death.

1. 
   *]Everything in their life is investigated.
   *]Then if during the process, all looks good (saintly, holy life) and 1 miracle is attributed to them (fully investigated by science i.e. miraculous recovery occurs for someone who asked for his intercession to God, with results not possible from science and medicine) the miracle is approved and they advance to the blessed state.
   *]Then if during the investigation process a 2nd miracle happens due to the candidates intercession to God (fully investigated by science, medicine, and theologians) the miracle is approved, and the Church declares them a saint.
   This process could take decades. And Padre Pio made it through this process to sainthood.
   
   
   Mirdath:
   

   To doubt is not to insult. For a thing to be an insult, it must be intentional.

   I notice in your bio that you are an agnostic.
   
   With respect to God, how would a person know their doubt is un intentional vs intentional?
   
   
   Mirdath:
   

   Padre Pio may have had unshakable faith, and that’s all very well for him; but the rest of us mere mortals, the devout and the irreverent, the saintly and the worldly, cannot even be sure we will wake up tomorrow.

   True. that’s why we’re told to always be ready.
   
   
   Mirdath:
   

   To doubt is to be human.

   Here’s a list of definitions
   
   doubt
   self-doubt
   give sb the benefit of the doubt
   beyond reasonable doubt
   beyond a shadow of a doubt
   cast doubt on sth
   in doubt
   no doubt
   without (a) doubt
   room for doubt
   
   Scripture says God wants everyone to know Him.
   
   1 Tim 3:
   and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
   
   Do you think you’re excluded from this? Do you think God will sandbag you personally, not give you the resources in your life needed to know Him? If that’s what you think, God isn’t the one putting that there.
   
   IMO, Padre Pio was cutting to the chase. That’s why I like the quote, and that’s why I use it as a signature

 

[Armor_of_God]

You quoted a chunk of the bible which does nothing. Why not use your own words?
Love me or burn, is the message. How can you see it otherwise?

A, I asked for your opinion on the passage. I’m not going to tell you what I’m thinking, before you even have a chance to put your researched thoughts out there.

No, I don’t have a canned reply for you, and no, I’m not trying to effect a specific response from you. I am trying to understand you.

If you asked me what I thought of a certain chapter or passage in a science book, I would at least take the time to read it over and ponder it. I might read the entire book, to get some background information. Further, if I still didn’t understand and there were things that didn’t make sense to me, I would go to other sources and experts for explanation and clarification.

 

[_A]

A, I asked for your opinion on the passage. I’m not going to tell you what I’m thinking, before you even have a chance to put your researched thoughts out there.

No, I don’t have a canned reply for you, and no, I’m not trying to effect a specific response from you. I am trying to understand you.

If you asked me what I thought of a certain chapter or passage in a science book, I would at least take the time to read it over and ponder it. I might read the entire book, to get some background information. Further, if I still didn’t understand and there were things that didn’t make sense to me, I would go to other sources and experts for explanation and clarification.

Well, my opinion is that there are lots of beautiful bits in the bible, but that doesn’t change the fact that the gods described in there are overall not worth knowing.

When the book has chapters like Deuteronomy, how can you say things like ‘god is love’ with a straight face? Deuteronomy 20:9 has a loving way to deal with a child who curses a parent.
As dictated by a god. Also, this god is love (because he says so).

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

Yes.

You are suggesting that there is no penalty for ignoring your god - which is exactly what I have been saying all along.

The bible, however, suggests that there is a penalty, called hell.

I am not repeating what you have been saying all along. At all.

You are saying that there is no God, and therefore no penalty.

I am saying that there is a God, but there are theologically defensible Catholic positions that do not include eternal torment.

Understand the distinction? My point is, if this “love me or burn” quote is a stumbling block for you, you have legitimate grounds to hold a different opinion, without refusing to believe in God.

 

[phooney]

@Ontologysue

"Agreed. And now, we can agree that there are truths which do not require observable empirical testing. They are true in their inherent rationality.

I give more credit to our rational faculty than you do, Phooney. You only accept what you can prove has been demonstrated by whatever physical observable science is available at any given time. I say our rational faculty can lead us into higher truths."

This is very interesting. I will take some time at some stage to read up on tautologies in propositional logic.

I have already mentioned such things that are proven through retortion, like me saying “I exist”. The inherent truth of tautologies is something else that I am fine with. I think it is safe to say that yes tautologies are true by definition, but they don’t neccesarily have any correspondence reality or existence. Your unicorn tautology is a good example, just because a unicorn eats hay or it doesn’t, says nothing about whether unicorns exist. Also, while true, they are incoherent if you or nobody else knows what a unicorn is, with as much meaning to people as complete gibberish. Just as a logically sound argument is only true when the premises are true, despite being logically sound.

Are you saying “God exists” is a tautology or something?

“There are mathematical truths, for example, which cannot be tested empirically.”

Sure, such as we can say that the number 5,392,292,748,173,290,098,234,138,490,914,579,249,428,752,049,872,049,872,432,569,293,239,726,239,923^134,094,029 is a number, but nobody will ever count to it. Nobody can bring out some giant scales and weigh the earth. Luckily for us such mathematical truths are built on simpler proven concepts, that allow us to satisfactorily prove complicated concepts that we are, I agree, unable to test empirically.

"It is not uncommon for a physicist to say, “we know x is mathematically true, but we cannot prove it observably.”

Agreed. However, again, mathematically true and mathematically sound doesn’t automatically mean reality and existence. The example I have brought up earlier in this thread, and in the last one, was loop vortex theory, which was mathematically sound and matched observations, but has been proven to not be an accurate model of the universe.

The tautologies you’ve presented here aren’t rational justifications for belief in anything. You seem to be hell bent on arguing against what you perceive to be my materialist position, which I don’t think I fall into anyway.

Coincidentally, I requested and received a book for Christmas called “What we Believe but Cannot Prove: Science in the Age of Certainty” which I am looking forward to reading, but it is a few books down in the list at the moment.

“If you could BOLD or something my stuff or your stuff when you respond, I could get through it more quickly…”

Apologies for this. I was mauled as a small child by a website’s quote function and have avoided them ever since, I will try to use it from now on. I see by quote 669 that you have some problems with it as well!

Ditto to A’s opinion of your posts!!

Thanks to you as well. Rereading some of my posts I think some of my wording has seemed a bit on the harsh side towards you. Please put this down to, in one case, me being quite tired, and in
another case being in a bit of a rush. I have not intended to be spiteful to anybody here who was conversing intelligently.

You can see where I was going with the tautology by my shorter response and non-observable truths.

Yes indeed.

 

[Armor_of_God]

Love me or burn.
Reject me and burn.
Doesn’t sound like love to me.
And it certainly isn’t unconditional.

OK, I think I’m starting to understand you, A.
If you belittled your Mother, spat at her, called her down, took her money, trashed her house, used her car, took her food, cursed her, beat her other children - you would expect your full inheritance when she died.

 

[_A]

I am not repeating what you have been saying all along. At all.

You are saying that there is no God, and therefore no penalty.

I am saying that there is a God, but there are theologically defensible Catholic positions that do not include eternal torment.

Understand the distinction? My point is, if this “love me or burn” quote is a stumbling block for you, you have legitimate grounds to hold a different opinion, without refusing to believe in God.

Instead I should believe a ragingly wealthy business like the catholic church? Well, they couldn’t have a vested ($$) interest in making it sound reasonable, could they?

 

[phooney]

continued@ontologysue

My point in that post was that man, since he communicates, in what I would argue, is a singularly complex language, is conscious of a “self,” and is conscious that he is conscious of a “self,” thereby developing the concept of "personhood, "entirely unique to our species, is an existential being. This is THE salient fact of our existence. It is the fact which makes man a philosopher, artist, musician, mathematician, a lover of beauty and a poet

And what I would argue is the MOST complex language than the rest of the animal kingdom on earth, rather than the only language. As shown, chimps are clearly self conscious. I’m not sure what you mean, by “existential being” is it just a being that is aware that it exists? According to psychologist Gordon Gallup, we are conscious when we know that we exist, and have a mind when we monitor our own mental states. By these criteria, Gallup concludes that chimps, orangutangs and dolphins are conscious and have minds.(American Psychologist 32 (1977) pp. 329-338)

We are closest to apprehending the ONE who IS Intelligence, who IS Being itself, who IS Personhood itself, who is I AM, when we utilize our higher nature.

I have no problem agreeing that we are the most intelligent organisms on the planet, by our measurements, but you don’t have any evidence of the “ONE”, you are merely begging the question. Again.

Phooney, your evolutionary evidence, that chimps have been shown to use some of the language skills of a 2 or 3 year old human child, does not PROVE an evolutionary link. I appreciate the research you did, and as time allows, I will peruse your links, although I don’t see myself reading Pinker or Chomsky at the moment. Language scholars are writing on both (or more) sides of the language question, BECAUSE there is no consensus.

Nor does it need to, the evolutionary link between us and chimps is already proven, this additional similarity merely fits within established accepted theory. I agree that this is not a concensus, and I agree that there are people writing on both (or more) sides of this question. My examples have been mainly served to show that the natural evolution of language is perfectly credible, and that you have been a bit hasty when you have gone ahead of the evidence and attributed consciousness and language to some mysterious “infinite intelligence” that I don’t even think you have satisfactorily defined, which gives me the impression that you don’t understand what you’re talking about either.

And, by the way, I am so sick of people touting the fact that we share 96.9% or whatever, of our DNA with the Apes! That argument is worthless, since with the latest discoveries in DNA/RNA research, scientists have found that the DNA we share with apes is the “junk DNA.”

It’s 99.6%, not 96.9%. And I’m afraid you are wrong, this refers to the active genes. The inactive, or ‘junk’, DNA you are referring to differs more than that because it is not selected for or against in evolutionary timescales, it is free to mutate without restraint because it doesn’t express itself in our bodies at all. (M. Goodman, B. F. Koop, J. Czelusniak, D. H. A. Fitch, D. A. Tagle, and J. L. Slightom, “Molecular Phylogeny of the Family of Apes and Humans,” Genome 31 (1989), pp. 316-335.) Similar results are found from DNA hybridization studies: C. G. Sibley, J. A. Comstock and J. E. Ahlquist, “DNA Hybridization Evidence of Hominoid Phylogeny: AReanalysis of the Data,” Journal of Molecular Evolution 30 (1990) pp. 202-236). Here’s something a bit more recent that refines the comparison of the active genes to 99.5%. nature.com/news/2003/031208/full/news031208-15.html

We share DNA with a grasshopper too; do you want to argue for a direct link between the insect and ourselves?

Do I need to? That’s already been proven as well. I can’t remember, did I mention bees previously? They are able to find some nice patch of flowers, take some pollen back to the hive and communicate by a kind of dance to other members of the hive where to find it, is this basic language? It’s certainly not human language, nor would it need to be in order to be a valid language. I can’t believe this is really news to you, in this day and age, when you clearly are an intelligent person, and able to read. We also share DNA with plants and fungi as well, the common descent of all life, evolution, is about as well established as the fact that water is H2O.

 

[phooney]

Yet more continuation@ontologysue

Neither does someone’s Masters Thesis! Do you know how they go about finding subjects for a Masters Thesis? Basically obscurity in approach is preeminant.

Well, different universities will go about it differently of course. Perhaps there would be more writing on it, and hence it wouldn’t be so obscure, if credible linguists and evolutionary biologists made the claim that there is some evidence for a non-evolutionary mechanism for the beginning and development of language. But it is not a claim often made, because there isn’t any evidence backing it up.

Your own sources, Phooney, admit to the enigma language and self-consciousness presents to evolutionists and brain/mind scientists.

Actually, you were the first to bring up all of these sources. I have provided what seems to be a conflicting statement from Dawkins in The God Delusion, but I haven’t read the book your quote came from, so that is the best I can do for the time being. I examined the Pinker quote you provided from “How the mind works” and showed that, while he is apparently unaware of the precise origins of language, he considers your immaterial, or in his words “religious” explanations to be poor, only serving to complicate the question further.

I have not read Chomsky, but I have provided two sources we could both perhaps benefit from reading that claim to reconcile Chomsky’s work with evolutionary theory.

There are theories on both sides, no consensus, short of the fact that it remains a mystery.

But… that was MY argument! It is almost always irrational to believe on insufficient evidence. Perhaps you have completely mistaken my arguments because I have been arguing the side of the natural evolution of language and consciousness. I don’t believe I have shown you the origin of our language and consciousness, I wouldn’t be so unabashed as to say it was that simple.

However, it is safe to say that I DO favour the methodology that is able to be practiced on the hypotheses of that “side”. They are yielding progress, avenues for further investigation and verifiable, evidence-based, results. Not to mention all through history when “immaterial” has been shown to be lacking time and time again. The “side” you have been arguing seems to have no rational process by which to avoid error and verify facts. If they do have such things, you have not presented any, except for a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, physics, molecular biology and fundamental mathematics. I get the impression you have read more philosophy than I have, but this field is perhaps even more dynamic than the natural sciences! So, while I give them full credit for their ability to do much more than either of us with the body of knowledge available to them at the time, your appeals to their authority are not always exactly on the cutting edge.

(oooh, hope you don’t turn into a pumkin with the mention of THAT word!)

Que?

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

Instead I should believe a ragingly wealthy business like the catholic church? Well, they couldn’t have a vested ($$) interest in making it sound reasonable, could they?

They’re also among the most charitable organizations in the world. But leave that aside for the moment. I take it that you agree with me now that the Catholic position cannot be honestly reduced to “love me or burn”?

That’s really all I was trying to accomplish.

Have a nice day.

 

[phooney]

WRONG! I think the above quotes by your own sources, of which we must acknowledge neither of us have read fully, make my point.

If by ‘wrong’ you mean ‘correct’ then sure. If you’ll forget the all too common human arrogance I mentioned previously, and admit that (non-human) language exists in other animals and just because they aren’t using human syntax doesn’t support your argument at all. Syntax merely being a systematic orderly arrangement, it is clear from the examples I have given that there is SOME kind of syntax evident in animal communication, or the scenarios with the chimps and the directions given to other chimps regarding the location of food (including the lies) wouldn’t have happened. What this syntax is, I don’t know. Trade exists in non-humans, stable social structures exist in non-humans, co-operation, friendship, altruism, punishments, rudimentary culture, music, art, all in non-humans. Consciousness and self awareness, I have already given examples of. All these things have examples in different degrees in the animal kingdom.

The sources you are now for some reason trying to push of as ‘mine’ I have already dealt with.

About your diatribe regarding the implications of biological complexity etc., as nonsense, misguided, along with your quote from Stengar regarding quantum physics, if I may descend to your inarticulate level, BALONEY!

This isn’t an argument, this is purely ad hominem.

The Dover court case had only to do with the quandary over science and religion in the classroom. I’m afraid we can’t depend on lawyers to tell us whether or not there is a God, who by definition is intelligent, Phooney!

Well, as you say in your first sentence here, we don’t have to depend on lawyers to tell us if there is a god, that’s not what this was about. This was about intelligent design as a science, which has never been accepted as such by the scientific community itself. The cornerstone of intelligent design was irreducible complexity, and it’s main proponent was Michael Behe. All the court case was, was a stage to show how much of a moron Behe is in his disregard for evidence. As mentioned before in regards to the Discovery Institute, he has presupposed his conclusion and is doing his best to find evidence for it, instead of going wherever the evidence leads, even if he doesn’t like it.

Also, not all definitions of God indicate that he/she/it is intelligent.

It’s profound, it requires a change in paradigm. THOUGHT, it might all boil down to a thought. I AM.

This sounds like something that somebody came up with when they were drunk or stoned back in the 60s.

 

[phooney]

and more @ontologysue

Rather than continuing to knock down your “strawmen,” and thus engage in a tireless game of slaying phantoms over and over again, I will condense my point.

You appear to be subjectively involved in picking out bits of an argument, turning it’s interpretation slightly so that you can then attack it as a “strawman.” There seems to be more zealousness in the agenda than an honest confrontation with the argument.

You make a strawman arguement, I call you on it, you try to accuse me of it. Nice. If you think I have twisted an interpretation slightly, then please be more specific. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that you might be referring to here is when I took your post #295 to mean you were making a god of the gaps argument, and I thank you for your clarification on it, but lacking that clarification I still think my interpretation of it was perfectly reasonable. Your misunderstanding of modern science hasn’t done any slaying here.

C. S. Lewis’ point about what a materialist must confront by logical deduction is not a “strawman.” Lewis may have written the Tales of Narnia with a poetic spirit but he was a long time Oxford Professor. He knew what a “strawman” argument was. His point, which I was reiterating with you, was not a “strawman.”

Well, perhaps you reiterated it to me incorrectly, made many typos, that kind of thing. The strawman argument that C.S. Lewis ‘appears’ to make is that people who don’t believe in an immaterial soul have to believe that their mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms, and goes on to imply that this would mean that there’s no reason for the thought processes to be rational. Obviously our brains are made of atoms. We understand now through scanning techniques such as MRI, NMR, fMRi, PET, SPECT and EEG that thought processes are accompanied by localised physical activity in the brain. (Stenger, 2007, p83). We also have no evidence for the soul or life force (or infinite intelligence) that I think you may have been relying on to provide the spark of consciousness or rationality. Our brain has billions of neurons, each of which can function at many different levels other than on and off, and each of which is connected to about ten thousand other neurons. There have been studies done of complex systems that have revealed features of the systems as a whole that are not present in their various parts. This property is called “emergence”, in short the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Hydrogen isn’t wet, oxygen isn’t wet, get a lot of it all together between 0 and 100 degress celcius though, and you have “wetness” as an emergent property of the system. It is certainly possible, and studyable. Human, and animal, mental processes look just as they can be expected to look if there is no soul or other immaterial component. (Stenger, 2007, p106). Lewis’ argument, as I take it from the way you depict it, that reason and rationality cannot be products of a material brain, is pure non sequitor.

Everything you are unable to refute, Phooney, you label. You are the one showing arrogance blythely dismissing great minds because your subjective bias precludes your honestly engaging them

As you mentioned earlier, there are great minds arguing both (and many more) sides. I’ll go with where the evidence leads, thanks.

You show me an ape who can paint the Sistene Chapel like Michelangelo, who can compose Beethoven’s fifth symphony with the poignant pause following the first 4 notes, who can unleash emotion like Shakespear’s King Lear or create the “magnificent calligraphy” of the Tang dynasty scholars, or sculpt the Pieta, or write with the profundity of Dostoyevsky, and I will believe the difference between us is ONLY one of “degree.”

Well, it wouldn’t really be a “degree” then would it? This is all as meaningless as me asking you to show me a human who can fish termites out of a termite mound with a stick as well as a chimp, or who can imitate sounds like a lyre bird (nl.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y for those interested in hearing a lyre bird), or sing like a gibbon.

Show me a 2-3 year old who can do any of the things you mentioned. In fact, can YOU do any of the things you mentioned? Do you think there’s more than just a difference in degree between humans as well?

Contrary to inspiring “arrogance,” the standards of beauty, truth and ethics innate in man only serve to humble me.

Except that you seem to think that humans and everything we do is the ultimate goal of evolution, and are trying to deny links to the rest of the animal kingdom. That’s what it seems like anyway.

 

[phooney]

last little bit @ ontologysue

Awe, is the word, not arrogance. Where there is order there is rationality. Where there is rationality, there is purpose, and, inspite of your quixotic struggle wisping at windmills, where there is purpose, there is Intelligence, ie God.

Now how am I supposed to not accuse you of putting a God in perceived gaps when you keep saying things like this?

 

[_A]

OK, I think I’m starting to understand you, A.
If you belittled your Mother, spat at her, called her down, took her money, trashed her house, used her car, took her food, cursed her, beat her other children - you would expect your full inheritance when she died.

So you agree that your god’s love is quite conditional, then. Thanks.

 

[steve_b]

Well,

• I don’t know much about physics or cosmology, really.
• What I do know is that something having a beginning is not proof of god.

Your startements collide. If you don’t know the 1st, how do you propose knowing the second?
A:

If it were evidence of god, Mr. Hawkings would have said so - that would be big news. I suspect that the reason he makes no such claim in the links you provided is that he has no evidence pointing to a god.

You really didn’t read his lectures did you?

 

[Armor_of_God]

So you agree that your god’s love is quite conditional, then. Thanks.

His love is not conditional, but His justice is conditional on our actions and choices.

 

[ontologysue]

Omnipotence means that God has the power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not the intrinsically impossible.

God cannot give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it. The reason He cannot do this is because it is irrational nonsense, not because He lacks power.

Thomas Aquinas says, “Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God.”

All this from “The Problem of Pain,” C. S Lewis; surely you have read it, A.

You’re really taking easy “pot shots,” that aim at popular caricatures of Christianity, not at it’s true theology.