I am an atheist thread 3

[_A]

So then you make your government that rules over you a god, the ultimate law of the land. No better, still a bunch of humans.

I don’t know how to make a god. If you don’t kno whow to either, you might try phrasing this in a way that is more clear to me.

Sure I worship God, now we have the ability to participate in the creative process of perfecting ourselves by choosing good and avoiding evil, and doing all that with faith that it isn’t all for nothing.

Are you crying that you aren’t made a perfect robot or what? I thought atheists liked freewill and freethinking.

I do value freethinking. I just wonder why you would think that a being who tortures over six billion beings for the mistake of one man is worthy of worship.

For that matter, why would a supreme being want worship?

 

[FaithofAbraham]

I don’t know how to make a god. If you don’t kno whow to either, you might try phrasing this in a way that is more clear to me.

If you reject God then you have the next in line as ultimate ruler over you, either yourself or your government. It’s not rocket science.

I do value freethinking. I just wonder why you would think that a being who tortures over six billion beings for the mistake of one man is worthy of worship.

For that matter, why would a supreme being want worship?

God just wants some credit for your life. Heck if I do something for someone I want credit, or eventually I quit helping that person. Someone just takes and takes and never gives back. Forget it.

So are you saying your life is torture? Not sure what you mean by that.

 

[Pax]

…
…
…I just wonder why you would think that a being who tortures over six billion beings for the mistake of one man is worthy of worship.

For that matter, why would a supreme being want worship?

This is nonsense and it was answered in one of the earlier threads. I don’t understand why you bother to bring this kind of stuff up when it has been answered. The only thing I can assume is that you have a bias and animus toward religion.

 

[c659smith]

Evidence in its broadest sense includes anything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion(Source - Wiki)
Again, Wiki -Generally, a fact is defined as something that is the case, something that actually exists, or something that can be verified according to an established standard of evaluation.

Notice ‘standard of evaluation’.
Evidence does not bring about fact. This statement is not even ‘right’ enough to deserve to be called wrong.
I don’t believe. I know you find it difficult to understand, but I will try again.
An historic event, such as my Mother being born, for example. I accept that it must have happened, though I have no direct evidence. I have much to suggest that she was definitely born, the location has been named, too.
I have no reason not to accept that information, and use it in a regular, day to day way.
If it became a matter of life and death establishing where she was born, I would make much greater efforts to learn as certainly as I thought I could.
I once read that extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence. That puts it fairly clearly.

Exactly you would have to rely on testimonial evidence and follow that evidence for credibilty with additional testimonies that are in agreement with that testimony. You need non related data at the time of such an occurrence by the individuals giving testimony to prove they were at a paticular location at the time of the occurrence such as knowledge of geography (location) Other person(s) that may have seen them in that location, weather at time of occurrence. etc…

Any artifacts or material evidence

All this making that evidence beyond a reasonable doubt and turning such evidence into fact.

If we do not use this type of formula to gain knowledge and to place them as facts until proven wrong then civilizaton and history would fail to function or exist.

 

[Laurence_of_PA]

Lawrence of Pa

What if I say that you are nothing but a mass of cells as you are now. Nothing more greater than a malignant tumor… What would make my statement wrong following your logic.

For when you are asleep or uncconcious a state of being.

In a coma

no longer useful to society.

Atheimers

and the list goes on you are going down a very slippery slope .

You could go a step further and label me nothing more than some atoms that type, but, since you decided to use the word “malignant”, you have a little problem. Malignant basically means “bad”, but with the word “bad” we enter a whole new ballpark.

Now obviously, as a religious person you have *your *reasons for not putting a snake in my bedroom, yet even from a secular standpoint we can argue in favor of my existence.

I contribute to other people’s cogniscient well-being, and, I contribute to my *own * cogniscient well-being. And if you *really *want to think of it from the oh-so-cold secular standpoint, our awareness (cogniscience) and sense of well-being within that awareness is the *only *thing we really have , so, it’s even in secular-person’s best-interest that we preserve the cogniscient well-beings of other people, because logically we’d want them to do the same for us.

But if we’re talking about unaware, somewhat aloof (and dare I say dumb) beings who is unable to contribute to society’s total surplus of cogniscient well-being (or even its own for it is yet to exist), then there is no reason for it to be alive.

**A good reason against abortion from my cogniscient well-being perspective? Sure: Most abortions may cause harm to the mother herself – physically, emotionally, mentally, or even spiritually – and thus such decisions should involve a high level of prudence in determining whether an abortion will have an overall positive or (more likely) an overall negative effect on societal cogniscient well-being.

**Now like I said: Abortions, regardless of rational (good *or *bad) will *always *carry with them a host of problems, so it’s in all our best interests that abortions are decreased…

Just that I disagree about the proper way to go about doing that.

So, we get anywhere yet?

 

[c659smith]

Exactly you would have to rely on testimonial evidence and follow that evidence for credibilty with additional testimonies that are in agreement with that testimony. You need non related data at the time of such an occurrence by the individuals giving testimony to prove they were at a paticular location at the time of the occurrence such as knowledge of geography (location) Other person(s) that may have seen them in that location, weather at time of occurrence. etc…

Any artifacts or material evidence

All this making that evidence beyond a reasonable doubt and turning such evidence into fact.

If we do not use this type of formula to gain knowledge and to place them as facts until proven wrong then civilizaton and history would fail to function or exist.

My assertion is that the bible has done this.
Israel in the 1967 war used many of the maps and geographical landmarks in the bible to fight and win the war. (detail)

Rulers and Kings named in the bible uncorrelating withh the message.

witness testimonies.

The bible’s history matches up to any world history book published today in producing evidence beyond a reasonable doubt
making the bible fact unless it can be proven otherwise.

 

[c659smith]

You could go a step further and label me nothing more than some atoms that type, but, since you decided to use the word “malignant”, you have a little problem. Malignant basically means “bad”, but with the word “bad” we enter a whole new ballpark.

Now obviously, as a religious person you have *your *reasons for not putting a snake in my bedroom, yet even from a secular standpoint we can argue in favor of my existence.

I contribute to other people’s cogniscient well-being, and, I contribute to my *own * cogniscient well-being. And if you *really *want to think of it from the oh-so-cold secular standpoint, our awareness (cogniscience) and sense of well-being within that awareness is the *only *thing we really have , so, it’s even in secular-person’s best-interest that we preserve the cogniscient well-beings of other people, because logically we’d want them to do the same for us.

But if we’re talking about unaware, somewhat aloof (and dare I say dumb) beings who is unable to contribute to society’s total surplus of cogniscient well-being (or even its own for it is yet to exist), then there is no reason for it to be alive.

**A good reason *against ***abortion from my cogniscient well-being perspective? Sure: Most abortions may cause harm to the mother herself – physically, emotionally, mentally, or even spiritually – and thus such decisions should involve a high level of prudence in determining whether an abortion will have an overall positive or (more likely) an overall negative effect on societal cogniscient well-being.

**Now like I said: Abortions, regardless of rational (good *or ***bad) will *always *carry with them a host of problems, so it’s in *all *our best interests that abortions are decreased…

Just that I disagree about the proper way to go about doing that.

So, we get anywhere yet?

definitely we agree to agree.

 

[c659smith]

My assertion is that the bible has done this.
Israel in the 1967 war used many of the maps and geographical landmarks in the bible to fight and win the war. (detail)

Rulers and Kings named in the bible uncorrelating withh the message.

witness testimonies.

The bible’s history matches up to any world history book published today in producing evidence beyond a reasonable doubt
making the bible fact unless it can be proven otherwise.

For I do not have to prove a history book after this evidence has been collected as that is up to the one denying such evidence.

 

[c659smith]

For I do not have to prove a history book after this evidence has been collected as that is up to the one denying such evidence.

I hope my last several posts had better grammatical structure for you.

 

[Laurence_of_PA]

definitely we agree to agree.

Well, unless you mistyped or something: that’s great to hear.

With the exception of a handful of outspoken feminists, I’m sure most of the nation would like to see the number of abortions go down. I mean, those news reports of lower rates bring music to more ears than you would think.

To us, an abortion is sort of like an amputation (yes, I know you would disagree with the analogy, but bear with me):

We think it’s legal and necessary, but seriously, who wants one?

 

[phooney]

Phooney, are you running a marathon? You’re really going to make us work, aren’t you? …Sorting through your multi-poster, multi-quote posts trying to find the bits you have quoted from each of us so we can respond. Ah well, I like a good challenge every now and then!

Sorry, they wouldn’t need to be multi poster if there wasn’t a 5000 character limit! I also have tried not to take your quotes out of context if possible, so I hope you won’t have toooooo much trouble finding where I was quoting from.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

1 - A hypothesis with no experimental evidence can, at best, be regarded as potentially true.
2 - Not necessarily! Failure to confirm a prediction does not mean the prediction is invalid. This sort of failure was one of Galileo’s biggest problems. Heliocentrism made predictions that could not be verified (I don’t remember what it was - something about parallax of stars near the sun, but I’m afraid I’m confusing two issues). But the failure was in the quality of his experiments, not in his hypothesis.
3 - Correct, no one has produced DNA in a lab.

Does this prove that DNA cannot be produced naturally? Nope. The original process is believed to have taken billions of years. BILLIONS. Why should we expect to recreate it, with our best educated guesses of the prevailing conditions, in a couple decades or even centuries?
Note that scientists have created some impressive things in the lab, including simple self-replicating molecules.

NE:

What it does mean is that there is no scientific evidence (i.e., no results of scientific experimentation) that demonstrates that functioning DNA can be created by natural occurrences.

Since there is no proof that science can provide, then on what grounds should someone believe genetic code can be created by natural occurrences without the aid of an intelligent programmer?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

… Well, I haven’t answered yes to all three questions, but I’ll comment anyway. I don’t neccesarily hold that belief, because I am unaware of the precise process of how it may have occurred, but I do favour those hypotheses in the sense that they make testable claims. I already know that biological systems are made of perfectly normal elements found in abundance outside of biological systems and that even while part of a living organism, they obey the same laws. I know the chemical reactions of biological systems are replicable in the lab. I don’t know that an intelligent being had to have anything to do with it. So I will favour those hypotheses that cause me to make fewer assumptions, and have the benefits of being testable.

I appreciate your candor, and i must say that this discussion thread seems to be growing faster than cells divide!



I’m not much of a scientist, but from what i understand, scientists do not accept a hypothesis as true until there is scientific evidence to support it. With this in mind, i think it is reasonable to say there is no scientific grounds for believing functioning DNA can be created by random occurrences over time. This is because scientific grounds for believing a hypothesis to be true are based on the evidence of scientific experimentation. As you said, there is no such evidence in this case. The hypothesis has not been proven false, but there is no evidence that it is true, either.

Since there are no scientific grounds to explain the creation of genetic code, that leaves you and i with only a few possible grounds to explain its beginning:

1. 
   *]God
   *]Aliens
   *]Mystery
   That is, either a God created the first DNA that eventually evolved into the genetic code of the plethora of living organisms we have today, or aliens from another time or dimension introduced this DNA to our planet, or some great unknown is the cause.
   
   Which of these three do you think is the best explanation for the creation of genetic code?

 

[_A]

If you reject God then you have the next in line as ultimate ruler over you, either yourself or your government. It’s not rocket science.

If you are not fit to rule yourself then maybe it is best that you continue to believe. It sounds like, without your belief in your god, you would not be moral.
I am the way I am without a fear of a supreme being.

God just wants some credit for your life.

What for? What specifically did he do? I say even if he does exist, he hides his tracks so well it suggests that he definitely doesn’t want credit.

Heck if I do something for someone I want credit, or eventually I quit helping that person. Someone just takes and takes and never gives back. Forget it.

What I do for people, I do because I decided that I want to.

So are you saying your life is torture? Not sure what you mean by that.

I mean that, according to your mythos, Yahweh made everyone have sin as a punishment for this tiny infraction of Adam.
Sin is your gods temper tantrum for someone not listening to him thousands of years ago. I wonder if his message was vague and uncertain then, too.

 

[_A]

This is nonsense and it was answered in one of the earlier threads. I don’t understand why you bother to bring this kind of stuff up when it has been answered. The only thing I can assume is that you have a bias and animus toward religion.

Obviously it wasn’t answered to everyones satisfaction, Pax. Here it is in the conversation again.

If you still don’t have an answer, I understand.

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

Obviously it wasn’t answered to everyones satisfaction, Pax. Here it is in the conversation again.

If you still don’t have an answer, I understand.

As I recall, it was answered well enough for you to concede that “love me or burn” is not a fair summary of Catholic teaching. That was the first time you played your “You can’t trust the Catholic church, they have gasp money!” card. You yourself said that the Catholic teaching “sounds reasonable”, you simply proceeded to try to cast doubt on that teaching.

And yet here you are, still using the same “love me or burn”.

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

NE:

What it does mean is that there is no scientific evidence (i.e., no results of scientific experimentation) that demonstrates that functioning DNA can be created by natural occurrences.

Since there is no proof that science can provide, then on what grounds should someone believe genetic code can be created by natural occurrences without the aid of an intelligent programmer?

Five hundred years ago, there was no scientific evidence that objects of different masses fall at the same speed.
Two hundred years ago, there was no scientific evidence that matter was made of atoms.
One hundred years ago, there was no scientific evidence that atoms were made of smaller particles.

I could go on, but I trust you get the point. Every discovery that we take for granted had to pass through a phase where there was no evidence for it. Scientists worked on the problem and collected evidence. That’s how it works.

If it was possible to prove that DNA could not come about naturally, then you’d have grounds for objection. Michael Behe tried that route (not only with DNA, but also with simpler molecular assemblies). He wasn’t successful.

Obviously, before the conclusive evidence is gathered, you aren’t “obligated” to believe in abiogenesis. But you can’t fairly claim that abiogenesis is an illogical position, simply because it’s a work in progress.

 

[whatevergirl]

I am curious on something–I have read through this thread…and also have atheist family members, who seem to chant the same mantra…‘a loving God would not punish us.’ So, as a parent–do you let you child(ren) do whatever they like? Is that love? Do whatever you like, with no consequences? God actually doesn’t punish really–but there are natural consequences to doing the wrong things in life (sinning). If this is the typical argument for an atheist, which seems to be the trend here and offline–would an atheist believe in a god who just lets us do whatever we want–with no consequences? If I allowed my own children to run amuck, and just tell them I love them with no guidance or teaching of consequence…would that be loving? Is the issue of not believing in God, for an atheist, really about the inability to believe in a being who punishes for wrong doing?

 

[D_M]

I thought god was all-powerful and all-knowing? If he is those things, then he did create hell, and creates some souls just to go there. Unless of course you want to suggest that he could not live without evil.
What do men know of the intentions of your god? I say, if he is creating a hell, and creating sin, and planting sin into souls, then he is planning to place souls in hell.
What your god wants, he gets. He must have wanted hell and sin.
You try to say that hell is an absence of your god. It is a far cry from what is stated in the bible about a furnace of fire and gnashing of teeth. I submit that you do not understand hell the way that your lord describes it.
Should I put more stock into your words, or your lord?

You just don’t seem to be able get it… God did not create sin! He did not create death! Those were created by beings he created, it was not His intention that these things should exist.

He is not planting sin into souls, that is simply false, they do that themselves. I think you really do not know christianity as much as you seem to assume.

I typically look at the description of a furnace of fire and gnashing of teeth in the bible, the same way I look at descriptions of heaven as being the sky in the same text. I think these are useful descriptive devices which were meant to educate a religious meaning and not a scientific one.

I do understand hell the way the Lord describes it, it is a place of eternal misery, pain and gloom. It is such a place because it is filled with sin and God is not present. God does not intend that any person should go there… why is that so difficult to believe?

I would recommend (not that you would although you have now suggested it) you put greater stock in to the words of the Lord, but I do not think that what I have told you contradicts it, but is in fact in conformity with it.

Now… I’m trying to put some understanding to your argument that the existence of free will must necessarily mean that there is no God…

How do you come to this conclusion?

Why would it be impossible to think that God in fact tolerates the existence of things that he did not intend to exist?

 

[Pax]

Obviously it wasn’t answered to everyones satisfaction, Pax. Here it is in the conversation again.

If you still don’t have an answer, I understand.

You have been adamantly opposed to virtually everything presented to you. I agree…little or nothing has been answered to your satisfaction. I pointed out in thread #1 that the proof of God’s existence is not to be found in scientific proof. This is really a no brainer, yet you insist that everything must be proven to you by some scientific test or data.

I have been following the posts on this thread but have, for the most part, ceased making contributions because of the futility of doing so. It is not that arguments cannot be made. It is simply that I have, rightly or wrongly, come to the conclusion that no argument will ever satisfy you.

Perhaps you feel the same way toward me…just for the sake of argument, I will concede that to you. Given that point, it would still appear that your methods, standards, and openess are at least half the problem.