What questions do non-believers hate being asked?

[richard_wang]

There is no DOGMA in science. Dogma only limits your understanding to a threshold that someone sets for you.
In Science, you can and do welcome critics.

No dogmas in science?

Welcoming of critics?

Try getting funding for intelligent design.

Try getting funding to refute the claims of man made climate change.

Try getting funding to research adult stem cells.

Try getting funding to research the adverse effects of abortion.

The notion that scientists care only about the fearless pursuit of truth and understanding and progress is nothing but myth cultivated since the enlightenment.

 

[kenofken]

No dogmas in science?

Welcoming of critics?

Try getting funding for intelligent design.

Try getting funding to refute the claims of man made climate change.

Try getting funding to research adult stem cells.

Try getting funding to research the adverse effects of abortion.

The notion that scientists care only about the fearless pursuit of truth and understanding and progress is nothing but myth cultivated since the enlightenment.

Science welcomes challenges to ideas (or at least tolerates them), provided they are also engaged in real scientific inquiry. Intelligent design at its root, is not a scientific discipline. You can’t get funding for scientific research in that area for the same reason NIS won’t fund poetry jams.

Climate research is a very contentious area. More than a few researchers with federal and university money question the premise of man made climate change. Generally you don’t get funding for a specific agenda (ie to 'refute"), but for specific proposals.

I know of no dearth of funding for adult stem cell research. In fact most of the exciting developments announced of late have involved adult cells.

What does funding “to research the adverse effects of abortion” mean? You can get funding to do research aimed at improving patient safety, cutting down complications etc., and I’m sure there are a number of studies out there looking at various aspects of what is a surgical procedure, and one that can be as dangerous as any other. If you set out with an obvious anti-abortion political agenda and design studies specifically to show that abortion is a horrifically dangerous procedure, no respectable funding agency will go for that because that’s not how science is supposed to be done. For the same reason, you won’t find any funded studies designed to show that abortion is good for you either.

 

[dcmission]

Again, I don’t know. There are scientists working on figuring out cosmic origins, so I would read some of their books to get an idea of the work that they are doing.

Learning about the physical beginning of physical existence will not tell us whether or not anything at all (including the “laws” of nature) needed to exist. The physical origins of physical existence will not tell us whether or not there was a possibility of the universe’s non-existence.

On what grounds do you make this claim? Either you are making this claim on the grounds of evidence, or you’re making it up.

I make the claim that the question of ultimate necessity is outside the realm of empirical science based upon reason. The same sort of reason that tells me you can’t cut open a man to find out if he is just.

The question of how the universe came to exist – including whether its existence is the inevitable outcome of some kind of cosmic law – falls sqaurely into the domain of science to answer.

This is really quite arrogant if you think about it. Our understanding of this life is so very limited. What we call “laws” are simply things that have been observed to happen consistently, but we have no absolute certainty that they will continue to happen. Therefore, we don’t really understand them in a true sense, we just know a little bit about what they look like. If we were to somehow determine that the existence of all physical reality is, as you suggest, “the inevitable outcome of some kind of cosmic law”, this would still not answer the ultimate questions. The very notion of a “cosmic law” itself points to a million loose ends. Did this law precede physical existence? What would be the purpose of a law governing physical existence if there did not exist such a thing as physical existence for it to govern?

Again, as I said earlier, questions about reality cannot be addressed by sitting in your chair and thinking hard. Questions about reality – if we want to be sure that we’re right – have to be answered by looking at the world around us.

Our intellect is what makes us unique as humans. Use of our intellect can be done quite well from a chair. Or do you not believe that our intellect gets us in touch with reality?

What you’re talking about is making up stories that seem to fit with what we see – and while you’re free to do that, there’s nothing that tells you that those stories are actually true.

Catholicism is the antithesis of making up stories. A Catholic looks outside himself for truth: the Church is what keeps us sane. If I were to make up a story and claim it is truth in a real sense, I would surely be excommunicated. Then I’d be free to believe my story all I wanted.

And you do know, of course, that the majority of professional philosophers are atheists, don’t you?

It is quite possible for a professional to be ignorant of their trade.

Atheism is, for a lot of us, anyway, based on evidence and reason. If you want to sway us, you’ll need something in that department.

Here’s the problem: there is no empirical evidence for atheism. Atheism is a belief, it is the rejection of any possibility of the existence of a Theological being. It is a dogmatic system with one infallible doctrine: God does not exist. If you believe that every single decision you make must be based on empirical evidence (which I know you don’t), then you could not be an atheist. At best, you could be an agnostic. I know you do not really operate this way, though. If you’ve ever recognized beauty, justice or wisdom, you implicitly realize that there is reality beyond what is physically testable. If you’ve ever felt the ache of the human condition, you know your existence has meaning beyond what you can see around you.

 

[Warrenton]

You are confused. The only “evidence” you have for your miracle-claims – things that have never been known to happen before in history – are texts written by anonymous people sometime within a century of the supposed events. This is not sufficient evidence.

The evidence that I have in favor of an incompetent person being elected to a political office – something known to have happen again and again in human history and not particularly surprising or unusual – is manifold: not just reports of “eyewitnesses,” but empirical evidence, including the actual election results and the concession of the politician’s opponent.

To try to suggest that the two scenarios are equivalent in any way or that the amount of evidence is equal in any way is to be completely dishonest.

I do not believe that you have seen the results. Nobody, in fact did, because the hanging chads were discarded. You don’t know who writes the news you watch. Even if you did, what would it matter: you know full well they lie, or that they report lies with no investigation, which is worse. Were there, or were there not, weapons of mass destruction?

You believe what you want, as long as it is convenient for you. Convenience is your sole measure of reliability.

You’re no more skeptical than a baby.

 

[AntiTheist]

The physical origins of physical existence will not tell us whether or not there was a possibility of the universe’s non-existence.

You are just asserting this. They might be able to tell us this, or, alternatively, we might never solve that question.

Our understanding of this life is so very limited.

I agree – and this fact makes any absolute assertions – like your absolute assertion that I quote above – ridiculous.

“the inevitable outcome of some kind of cosmic law”, this would still not answer the ultimate questions. The very notion of a “cosmic law” itself points to a million loose ends. Did this law precede physical existence? What would be the purpose of a law governing physical existence if there did not exist such a thing as physical existence for it to govern?

Well, I proposed the possible existence of a law that goverened universes coming into existence. “Laws of the universe” don’t have a “purpose” – they’re just descriptions of how things work.

Use of our intellect can be done quite well from a chair. Or do you not believe that our intellect gets us in touch with reality?

Well, of course we can use intellect from a chair. I could dream up all kinds of fantasies in a chair, all of them logically consistent. But it wouldn’t make my fantasies correct.

The intellect can tell us things about reality, but only if it begins from evidence gathered from reality.

If I were to make up a story and claim it is truth in a real sense, I would surely be excommunicated.

I meant that the Catholic religion – like all religions – is itself a made-up story. That it’s internally consistent doesn’t make it true.

Here’s the problem: there is no empirical evidence for atheism.

Nor is there empirical evidence for not-believing in leprehcauns.

Atheism is a belief

A non-belief, actually – the lack of a particular belief.

it is the rejection of any possibility of the existence of a Theological being.

No, it’s not. I accept that a god could exist, just as I accept that leprechauns could exist. I just don’t see any evidence that either of those beings do exist.

If you’ve ever recognized beauty, justice or wisdom, you implicitly realize that there is reality beyond what is physically testable.

“Beauty, justice, and wisdom” are labels that we put on things that we encounter in actual, physical experience. You’re just confused.

 

[AntiTheist]

I do not believe that you have seen the results. Nobody, in fact did, because the hanging chads were discarded.

There are two claims here you’re discussing. The first is the claim, “Bush was president of the United States” – this is an unquestionable claim that has mounds and mounds of evidence to support it.

The second claim is “Bush was properly elected as the president of the United States.” This second claim, as you note, is far more of a controversial claim, and I admit that there’s room to debate it. In fact, I’m sure that a number of political science students will be writing theses on exactly that question from now until the cows come home.

But their arguments will be based on evidence.

No, I didn’t personally observe all of the evidence with my own two eyes – only a simpleton thinks that skeptics claim that the only reliable evidence is that gathered with our own senses. Thankfully, the human race has bodies of experts on subjects who gather a lot of evidence and who check each other’s work. It’s the last part that makes the evidence they gather trustworthy. The history of such bodies of experts presenting evidence that is trustworthy is evidence that we can trust things they present.

Really, now, the claim, “Bush was president” – backed by mountains of evidence – couldn’t be any more different than “A magic man did miracles and rose from the dead” – backed by anonymous texts produced sometime within a hundred years of the supposed claim.

If all you’re going to do is continue to assert “Skeptics shouldn’t believe anything they don’t see with their own two eyes!” like a petulant child who doesn’t actually listen to a single thing that the adults are telling him, then you’re going to be treated like a petulant child.

 

[StrawberryJam]

No dogmas in science?

Welcoming of critics?

Try getting funding for intelligent design.

Try getting funding to refute the claims of man made climate change.

Try getting funding to research adult stem cells.

Try getting funding to research the adverse effects of abortion.

The notion that scientists care only about the fearless pursuit of truth and understanding and progress is nothing but myth cultivated since the enlightenment.

Where do you get the idea that funding any other pursuits are any easier?
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Your Church can fund these ideas if they wish.

 

[Warrenton]

There are two claims here you’re discussing. .If all you’re going to do is continue to assert “Skeptics shouldn’t believe anything they don’t see with their own two eyes!” like a petulant child who doesn’t actually listen to a single thing that the adults are telling him, then you’re going to be treated like a petulant child.

Anti, I read this post with delight, as I was starting to think we weren’t getting anywhere. But truly, we are making progress!

You are right that there are two questions for debate. One: was Bush was elected, and two: was he the legitimate president.

You have said that my refusal to believe the sources regarding the first question is myopic.

Let us apply your reasoning to the Christ debate.

There are two questions. Whether Jesus existed, and if he did, was he Christ?

Like the election that you pointed to, and the results which you swear can be verified, so I maintain that the existence of a man named Jesus bar Joseph existed. There is as much if not more evidence for his life than, say, the 300 Spartans.

Caveat: here you have an out: you may disblieve everything that is reported to have happened prior to 1500 on the basis of non-credible evidence. Prejudice against the dead is a strong bias; I cannot dispel it.

Assuming you plunge ahead, and are unwilling to deny that Caesar wrote The Gallic War, or Plutarch wrote “Lives of Eminent Greeks and Romans”, we come to the question whether this Jesus was the Christ.

Your own replies to me illustrate amply why we cannot prove the divinity of a man by trying to repeat his life: nothing historical can, strictly speaking, ever be repeated. “The hand of time hath writ, and moveth on.” I cannot get Christ to repeat his miracles any more than you can get Bush to repeat his election (it would perhaps be a more electrifying miracle than the ones I am discussing, if you could).

So we have to go on the strength of the testimony. By appealing to politicians, news reporters, and the television, you admit that under some circumstances you will take the word of liars, cheats and thieves. I admit that I will take the word of men long since turned to dust. Both our witnesses have certain liabilities; yours are here but they are incredible, mine are credible but cannot now be cross-examined.

You would be a poor lawyer if you tried to defend a man of murder on the ground that the prinicpal witness against him is dead. The jury would laugh you out of the courtroom, and your client would hang, if you proposed having him shoot someone else in order to prove whether the event could or could not happen as the detective said.

Clearly, between us the inquiry must proceed on different lines, because both of us petulantly refuse to believe the other’s witnesses.

have a question for you, do we agree that if there be no God, then we dwell in a universe that is by nature morally neutral?

 

[phoenixrrt62]

What questions to you ask non-believers, no I don’t mean Christians who are not Catholic. I mean the average guy on the street.

Like,

How do you account for the existence of the mankind?

Hum, that’s a good question. Generally, I don’t really hate any questions. I hate myself when I cannot answer them, especially when I know what I want to say, but I cannot articulate it.
-really frustrating-
I think the ONLY thing that annoys me no end is when someone wants to shove their religion down my or my son’s throat (my son is atheist, also-by his own choosing, mind). THEN I get really annoyed…

 

[AntiTheist]

Well, ok, since you wrote to me like an adult, I’ll address you like one, but I don’t know how long you can keep it up:

There are two questions. Whether Jesus existed, and if he did, was he Christ?

Yes, there are.

Now, did a person named Jesus exist – a popular moral teacher upon whom the Gospel stories, with their supernatural events, were based? I think it’s likely.

Did the events depicted in the Gospel occur as written, complete with supernatural events? I don’t think that the evidence that exists is sufficient for me to accept it.

I’ve used this analogy more than once: it’s thought by some historians that the King Arthur legends were based on a real king. But if they are based on a real person, it doesn’t make the supernatural parts of the story any more likely to be true.

In the same way, it’s probably that the Jesus stories were based on a real person, but that doesn’t make the supernatural parts of the stories any more likely to be true.

Caveat: here you have an out: you may disblieve everything that is reported to have happened prior to 1500 on the basis of non-credible evidence. Prejudice against the dead is a strong bias; I cannot dispel it.

You continue to confuse my position with one that you’ve invented out of thin air. I am not dismissing all testimonial evidence – I am claiming that testimonial evidence is insufficient to demonstrate the supernatural.

I’ll say it again since it’s important: I am not dismissing all testimonial evidence – I am claiming that testimonial evidence is insufficient to demonstrate the supernatural.

For example, you’ll find in ancient histories supernatural events reported as if they are fact. There are, for instance, in the lives of Roman generals descriptions of things like auguries and omens and various supernatural events. Generally speaking, we believe that the individuals really lived, but we do not accept that the supernatural events happened.

So we have to go on the strength of the testimony.

Yes, we do. And while testimony – especially lots of first-hand accounts recorded contemporaneous with the event, which you don’t have in the case of Jesus (you have anonymous texts written sometime in the first century) – can demonstrate a lot of things, it is insufficient to demonstrate the supernatural.

Now, come on. Let’s get serious. Are you actually proposing that we should accept wild, supernatural claims on the basis of a handful of anonymous texts written long after the supposed events happened? Is that really your standard for accepting a supernatural claim?

If so, then I have some magic power crystals to sell you. They increase the wearer’s luck, as the hundreds of testimonials affirm.

• have a question for you, do we agree that if there be no God, then we dwell in a universe that is by nature morally neutral?*What on earth? How did we get here?

Look, I’ll tell you what. If you want to concede the point about testimonial evidence that you’re very clumsily trying to make, I will be happy to move on to a different topic and explain morality to you.

But I’m not going to leave this topic with you until you concede the point.

 

[dcb188]

I ask non -believers, actually unbelievers, two questions, after stating to them that it takes much more faith to be a unbeliever than it does to be a believer.

1. How can anything come into existence on its own. Name one thing that ever did.
2. What FORCE KEEPS it in existence day by day? There is a force behind everything. Tell me the force that keeps everything going day by day.

Okay, no answer to the two questions? Then you, my friend, have just confessed that you have no idea how the universe came into being, and have no idea what keeps it going.
That is great faith, such as the world has not yet seen!!!

 

[Warrenton]

You continue to confuse my position with one that you’ve invented out of thin air. I am not dismissing all testimonial evidence

 

[StrawberryJam]

Objection,

Taking Anti Theist so out of context.

Can anyone address the concerns given or not? I am frankly getting really tired of the same old apologetics here.

 

[AntiTheist]

You will accept testimony even when it is blatantly self serving. That was the point of our discussion about GW, which I found amusing and you and other GW lovers found petulant.

In the first place, I am not a “GW lover” – I detest the man’s politics.

In the second place, I don’t believe that Bush was elected simply on the basis of testimonial evidence. If the only evidence that I had for the claim “Bush was president” was four anonymous texts authored some time within a hundred years of his election, then you would have good grounds for pointing out to me that my belief is not well-founded.

Of course, I’m not just taking some old book’s word for it. There are news reports from multiple, unconnected agencies, which have all proved themselves to be reliable reporters of election news in the past, all agreeing on the substantial points. There is data collected from the election – both exit polls and actual count results conducted by multiple, unconnected agencies and overseen by other unconnected groups – that anyone can go and look at. Further, there are recordings – from many different sources – of the concession speech of Bush’s opponent and Bush’s own victory speech. Further, there is my own personal experience…eight years’ worth…of seeing the man act in the capacity of president (and yes, I was seeing reports of him by multiple, unconnected news agencies, all of which have proved themselves to be reliable reporters of presidential news in the past, all agreeing on substantial points).

It’s a matter of weighing the evidence – and in the case of this claim, the evidence is overwhelming. There’s so much – and such varied – evidence for the claim that it would be silly not to accept it. Is it possible that there is a massive conspiracy that is so powerful that all of those very diverse pieces of evidence have been faked? Sure, I guess, but it’s so tremendously unlikely that it’s not worth even considering.

Now let’s look at the evidence of your claim, which is an incredible claim, the likes of which we’ve never seen before ever: a man doing supernatural feats and returning from the dead.

Wow, now that’s a claim! You probably must have some really, really incredible evidence in order to believe such an incredible claim, right?

No. You have four anonymous texts produced sometime within a hundred years of the event.

This is not sufficient to justify believing in supernatural claims, and you know it’s not. You obviously don’t accept the testimonial evidence for all the wacky supernatural claims in the world – things like psychics and power crystals and a million other dumb things. If you want to be consistent (which I realize that you don’t want to be), then you would have to reject the far less reliable testimony of anonymous stories written long after the supposed events.

If I were you, I would give up now before I make your arguments look even more foolish.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

Objection,

Taking Anti Theist so out of context.

Can anyone address the concerns given or not? I am frankly getting really tired of the same old apologetics here.

What, you’re tired of circular reasoning?

 

[ignatius777]

What in the world?

Look, a book and a car are both made of molecules, but they are still distinct things with different functions. Just because they’re both made of molecules doesn’t mean that they’re the same thing or that we should treat them as the same.

Similarly, a guy giving money to a beggar and a guy punching a beggar in the face for no reason are equally made of molecules, but they are still distinct things. Just because they’re both made of molecules doesn’t mean that they’re the same or that we should treat them the same.

We use language to label actions – there’s absolutely no contradiction for a materialist to call something good or bad or anything else. You’re just not making sense here.

I wouldn’t say “vexing” – I would say something more like “face-palm worthy.”

Physical laws, you know, are descriptive, not proscriptive. They’re not rules that molecules have to obey to avoid getting a ticket. They’re our descriptions of the way the universe works.

What you’re asking is “Why does the universe work the way the universe works?” It’s sort of like asking, “Why are rocks hard?” It’s just what the thing is. There’s no need for a further explanation.

Make a molecule

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

Make a molecule

That’s not really difficult.

 

[ignatius777]

That’s not really difficult.

Really? Well why dont you explain how you would create a molecule.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

Really? Well why dont you explain how you would create a molecule.

You know this is about the level of high school chemistry, right?

Well, ok.

YOU NEED:

Harry Potter’s spell book and wand, a pointy wizardy hat, a “fire stick” and a handful of brimstone.

Use the fire stick and the spell IGNITUM and touch it to the brimstone. It will burn. Let it. It will reek. That’s ok. You get:

S + O2 → SO2

And you have a created molecule of sulfur dioxide.

 

[Cat_Herder]

Science welcomes challenges to ideas (or at least tolerates them), provided they are also engaged in real scientific inquiry. Intelligent design at its root, is not a scientific discipline. You can’t get funding for scientific research in that area for the same reason NIS won’t fund poetry jams.

I’m sure they’ll fund chaos theory. Same thing.

What does funding “to research the adverse effects of abortion” mean? You can get funding to do research aimed at improving patient safety, cutting down complications etc.,

I think it is a reference to the correlation between abortion and cancer.