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@EtrnlVw
Now I know you believe most of what I say is stupid but I'm just trying to help you connect the dots and understand what the hell all this is about.
Couldn't have said it better myself. WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR POST ABOUT? I'm kidding, relax.
I know you mean well, but that's just a bunch of gibberish to me. No one has ever demonstrated any life or plane or realm or whatever dimension except the one we currently live in. The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that everyone who's ever died is still dead, that's the fate that awaits us all, we march toward it inexorably with varying levels of bravura, and when it arrives, that's it. How that somehow robs life of meaning, rather than imbues it with meaning given that I'm the only one who'll ever get to live the life I live, or devalues morality somehow, is really just confusing.
Can you demonstrate ANY level of 'higher consciousness' in the context you're using?
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@Mopac
The religion I was most exposed to growing up was satanism, witchcraft, and the like. I grew up on the south side of Chicago in the ghetto. Yeah, some form of Christianity was there, but like the other stuff, it didn't appeal to me. I developed my own custom personal religion you could say. Just like you! I even debated online back then, but I was debating as an atheist. I thought I was pretty good too, because according to the handful off people who would vote, I was a winner and I became very popular.
I would say every sentence in this paragraph requires demonstration. These are extraordinary claims.
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@PGA2.0
I have to reiterate, take smaller bites, man. I don't want you to feel disrespected but I have to cut out most of what you post to get to your point.
You are welcome to go through life not making sense of things because you have a worldview that can't. It does not have what is necessary.
What exactly do you think my life is like without "making sense" of how the universe started? Do you imagine I can't figure ANYTHING out, like I leave my shower running all the time, I've used a clothes iron as a telephone? There is zero impact at all on my life outside of one simple question: do you believe in gods. The answer is no. Everything else I seem to have found my way.
The universe is evidence that something very significant happened that can't be adequately explained from a naturalist materialistic position (or inside the box, so to speak). If you think otherwise then please give the evidence that it can.
I'm not an astrophysicist. I don't know how the universe started. Neither do you.
As for the evidence of God, I see it in everything I look at in all the complexity and diversity of life. I see it in the laws of science, the starting point for morality,
You're putting it there. Demonstrate that any god is in any law of science. Morality...slippery slope considering the wide range of stuff that is considered immoral over time, and if morality were universal., we'd all agree on it. Any case, please demonstrate that this is so, that morality comes from any god.
So how does your fairy tale magically start?"Once upon a time, a long, long, time ago...nothing exploded into something (self-creation)...and that something acquired consciousness. We don't know how or why but it did and don't tell me God because God is not reasonable...."
Don't know how it started. I can't stress that enough. I know the evidence points to the big bang cosmological model. Not to Jesus. By the way, you're not 'making sense' of how anything started this way, what you're doing is called 'taking credit for' more accurately. Saying Jesus did anything or bible God or any god, doesn't EXPLAIN anything. It doesn't say "how", which is what you seem to be asking ME to do.
As for accepting the propositions, I would like you to explain how your worldview adequately explains my charges.
I don't understand this sentence. I'm an atheist, that means I don't believe in gods. What charges?
The information is contained in the Bible either through direct statements or from logical inference. Whether you accept the Bible as what it claims is another matter.
Claim =/= evidence. I knew this was coming. Please prove the bible true. Remember, it contains talking snakes, a global flood, a boat that held two of every species of animal, bird and insect for more than a month, angels, a man wrestling a god, and a magic horn that brings down fortress walls.
QUESTION: If you do not believe that God is then why would you come to Him to receive a rewarder of those who seek Him?
I don't know what this question means. I'm not going to god to receive a rewarder for those who seek him. And there's zero propositions that require me to believe they're true in order for them to be true...
Why a necessary being? Because you are not it. We derive our existence from something or someone.
Leap highlighted.
The universe doesn't care or have an answer to why this happens. Why do you care that it happens? You see, whether it is atheism or Christianity, each worldview has an explanation. Is that explanation satisfactory?
"Satisfactory," or "sufficient"? I have plenty of sufficient explanations for natural phenomena. You have..."wizard no one can confirm exists, via magic, until such time as magic is demonstrated to be natural, then wizard did the act using the natural means [THIS WIZARD IS NO LONGER NECESSARY IN THE EXPLANATION]." I don't need it to be satisfactory, any more than one true bit: shit happens. THat's how it works.
With the Christian worldview the problem is answered like this: If God is omniscient and omnibenevolent why is there evil in the world? The answer is that God allows it for a purpose. Earthquakes and floods are a result of original sin in which God placed restrictions on the universe (decay) and restrictions on humanity (death). He prevented them from living forever but gave only a limited amount of time to live. Since humanity in their federal head - Adam - rejected God He allowed them to live outside of His light and understanding (thus they lived and experienced the work of their own hands - evil). Some people look at this evil and look for a better way which is God and restoration to His light and understanding.
THis deserves its own topic, it's so senseless. In this story, did god know what Adam would do from the very beginning?
Yes, I understand you do not like me quoting Scripture but ask yourself why? Why do you take such offence that you try to inhibit my freedom of expression?
I'm not offended by it, nor do I want to limit your freedom of expression. All I said was quoting scripture in an attempt to prove scripture is using the claim as the evidence, which is not how evidence works. I don't believe the bible to be a true document, so whatever's in it (like talking donkeys or demons flying out of a pig's mouth or people coming back from the dead) is just a story and the lessons in it aren't even original or unique.
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@EtrnlVw
If by "undermine" you mean "interrogate," okay, but dont get all wadded up about it. Unless I missed it, this is DEBATEart.com. So I figure dissenting opinions are welcome, maybe I'm wrong. What I'm doing here is my business. You're free to drop out of this discussion.
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@EtrnlVw
So you want to use the following definition:
sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts
That doesn't imply in any way that conclusions and judgement reached solely on this basis are CORRECT, which is one problem, and the other problem is the last word in the definition. FACTS.
"I've never seen anything that didn't have a creator" is a fact...but "therefore everything in all of time an space is definitely created" is NOT a fact, and anything that follows it is faulty without demonstration, i.e. "and therefore a creator exists" nor is "and I know who that creator is." I've invited you, present FACTUAL EVIDENCE.
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@EtrnlVw
You say it as though I've never considered the possiblilty. I haven't always been an atheist, you know. And I disagree with this:
means ability to reach intelligent conclusions. sense implies a reliable ability to judge and decide with soundness, prudence, and intelligence.
This is not what I think common sense is. You're baking something in that doesn't belong: intelligence, reliability, prudence and soundness. It literally contains none of those implicitly. COmmon sense changes with what we know as a culture. It is no longer common sense that thunder is the voice of an angry unseen entity. It is no longer common sense that crop yields or communal prosperity are somehow affected by how many children are sacrificed. COmmon sense is not always sensible, but it is ALWAYS the easiest answer. That is rarely correct. Diseases are not caused by demonic possession once you realize that germs exist. Common sense certainly seems far worse than 50/50 to me.
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@EtrnlVw
I've already said that yes, it can be right. How can we be sure, one way or the other, if it's right or wrong, in any case? I'll give you an example.
A man comes home from work to find police tape around his house, a huge commotion of authorities, an ambulance...obviously something terrible has happened! He finds an officer, explains who he is, and the officer says "We found your wife, I'm sorry sir, she's committed suicide. She sat in her car with the motor running and the garage door closed, and died of CO poisoning. This concludes our investigation, as we have seen people kill themselves this way before, this is the most likely explanation and we aren't going to do any more investigating. After all, this is common sense." The officer might be right. He might be wrong. Would you advise the man to accept this common sense conclusion as absolute fact and never, ever question it, no matter what other information he might be able to find on his own? Or might have, like "she wasn't depressed," "there were no signs of this coming," "she was happy when I left," "there's a strange set of muddy bootprints outside the back door", "she's never home before me"...well, common sense says if she's dead in a running car in her garage, she killed herself. No need for a medical examiner or even a coroner.
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@EtrnlVw
Okay, then go back to what I wrote: CAN COMMON SENSE BE WRONG?
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@Mopac
The rest of your post is completely pointless, as there is literally no other proposition anyone needs to accept as true before they examine it, but I wanted to offer this: saying things this way is probably the main reason people around here react to your posts in the way they do. I know it's a big contributor for me, because you sound like a haughty asshole. I've made this suggestion before and you don't heed it, but still, a refresher is in order. Of course, even without this, you sound like an haughty asshole saying things that basically amount to "If you don't accept my definition of words, you're insane / stupid," but most people won't get that far. Either say "We believe" or "the Orthodox church," but "we in the orothodox church" or your usual "we orthodox" really are grating.We in the Orthodox Church know what we believe is true because ours is an experiential faith.
also, this is not true either. I don't have to accept proof in order for it to be proof. Proof is determined by demonstration, not by any one individual's acceptance of a demonstration. It doesn't matter if I accept, for example, that the sun affects most plant growth on earth. It does.
Something is only proof if it is accepted by the hearer, and that leads to a change of mind.
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@PGA2.0
Since you don't claim to make sense of it or are unable to how can you rule out God as the most reasonable answer to existence?
I don't rule it out. I haven't seen evidence to support it, and furthermore I've never seen convincing evidence of anything that is clearly supernatural. Without any supporting evidence for a claim, why would I keep including it as part of the "most likely" answer? It's exactly as likely to me as aliens or fairies or magic or in a giant's eye. I work from what I can see. If you'd like to present evidence, go ahead. You never do, because you want me to do what you do: accept the proposition and THEN build support underneath it. That's not how it works. You build supporting evidence to arrive at a conclusion, rather than look at a conclusion (as you have done, as EternlView does) and then work backwards to find "just so" support.
I'm willing for others to ask the tough questions and try to answer them. I do not see the same response from atheists, generally speaking.
You're willing to answer them so long as no one questions your answer: Jesus. Meaning of life? Jesus. Purpose of life? Jesus. Origin of life? Jesus. These aren't answers insomuch as they are guesses, because you cannot demonstrate them or prove them in any way, one, and two, "Jesus" isn't even answering the question. It's akin to "What's your favorite pizza topping?" "Star Wars." I don't speak for all atheists. I think I've shown I'm open to dialogue. What I'm not open to is you saying "The bible is true," then me saying "can you tell me how you know?" and you responding "BECAUSE THE BIBLE IS TRUE AND IT SAYS IT'S TRUE." That's not dialogue and it's not an honest engagement of the question.
From a necessary Being comes other beings.From personal, intelligent, mindful, logical, loving Being comes other beings of the same likeness.From a necessary moral Being comes other moral beings.
Demonstrate the first premise: why is a being necessary, start there.
Show me the evidence for such beings.
Not until you tell me you'll accept it as real. Frustrating, right? My evidence: earthquakes and hurricanes and tsunamis that kill indiscriminately, both christian and non christian, unpredictably and without explanation, are more easily explained by grecroman patheistic feuds than they are by a personal loving god who just wants to love up on everyone but accidentally maybe kill thousands of people or cripple their way of life, for not loving him even though he would have programmed them not to love him.
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@EtrnlVw
Can common sense be right? if common sense COULD be right, wouldn't that be the first step in accepting something? so if that's the case why do you dismiss it?
Please tell me you are not a trial lawyer. Actually, I know you're not a trial lawyer, that's said in jest.
You know it was common sense once that humans sneezing was in fact our bodies trying to expel demons, and common sense dictated that if you said "bless you" fast enough, the demon you just sneezed out couldn't get back in? My point is "it's common sense" is not in and of itself an argument. It's a place to start your hypothesis, and then you try to prove it wrong (NOT PROVE IT RIGHT). I don't outright dismiss common sense answers, like it's common sense that the GrecoRoman pantheon is clearly still operating the earth all the time. Otherwise why else would there be famines or floods? It's just common sense that Neptune didn't get his fair share of sacrifices from Sri Lanka through 2005, so, what else was he supposed to do? He sent a tsunami and killed 250K people. Common sense!
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@EtrnlVw
Can common sense be wrong?
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@EtrnlVw
Life developed and planets form is key right there, both those terms are an indicator of a Creator.
How? Let's see.
Planet forms and then life develops.....how does such a thing even occur without intelligence because again you're accepting that inanimate forces of nature somehow develop and form things just because lol, I mean come on Ludo....processes are associated with minds, with intelligence.
Oh, through the argument from incredulity and a dab of special pleading, got it. I'm sorry, but you're making a leap. This is the "everything has a beginning argument except the creator" argument.You then devolve into the god of the gaps argument, basically pushing god back as far as there is to go: the big bang. This argument is as bad as Mopac's ultimate reality: that anything exists is evidence of something outside of what we know exists is faulty. I also like that both you and PGA grant, graciously, that 'rational minds' would likely reject your reasoning :).
And I understand coming from somewhat of a rational point of view how you would dismiss it
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@PGA2.0
Your words at times appear open to evidence of God but then betray themselves by an unwillingness to take the bias somewhat out of your responses. They also display that you do not have the answers.
I don't claim to have the answers.
Obviously there is more to say than what I post but I want to challenge you to see that what you have incorporated into an explanation of existence cannot make sense of itself. That should speak volumes in itself. Do you realize the doubt and lack of faith you exhibit in your position response after response?
As I've already explained, your answer doesn't seem to "make sense" of any of that stuff either, it just sticks an answer in there and pretends it has to be correct, as far as I can see. I don't claim to "make sense of why man is here" or "Make sense of life" or "of origins." I'm not even sure the answers exist. I look at the evidence as to how life developed, how this planet formed, etc. etc. and make my assessments based on the inference from evidence. I've never seen compelling evidence for any god at all, and I certainly don't see any evidence for any SPECIFIC god. You don't have any to present, or you'd have done so before somehow invoking Nazi propaganda, culture shock, persecution complexes, etc (all distractions from this point). Of course I have doubts about my own positions! It's what keeps us curious and as a whole drives us toward solutions.
One last brief problem: "Making sense" is not the same thing as "true" or "correct." And "you're wrong" does not then default to "I'm right." Black holes don't 'make sense', subatomic particle behaviors don't 'make sense,' the distance between celestial objects doesn't 'make sense', but they're all true and real. I've used this example with you before: the Grecoroman pantheon of gods makes far more sense of the world than the Christian monotheistic view of an all loving super awesome god with a grand plan. You don't think they're real or true.
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@PGA2.0
Maybe take a smaller piece of what you want to respond to, these posts shouldn't take an hour of your time! I get it you have a lot to say, but what good's it do if it's too long to read? I post from work, so I don't have a ton of time anyway. Also, leave out the transcription of bible verses, the bible is just a book to me unless you can convince me otherwise, but you wouldn't need the bible to do the convincing. Just offering some friendly advice.
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@PGA2.0
I intended to establish a starting point for reasoning and claim the biblical God is the One who meets the criterion. I'm curious as to how any other worldview makes sense of starting points or first causes.
We've been through this already (I'm cutting out a bunch of stuff we've reviewed on other threads). Your proposition "God did it" doesn't "make sense" of anything either, and I'm not claiming to have an answer to "how did the universe get here." That has little to do with atheism at all, and honestly I don't care how it got here, that knowledge would in no way illuminate that way I live my life, because there is no evidence I see for any god. I'm ready to change my mind, but I need a reason to do so, and no god has ever given me one. Your insistence that your specific god did it relies on presupposition of such a character (Rather than demonstration of such a character: you are using the story about this character to support its veracity, this is the claim not the evidence, you refuse to understand or acknowledge this), special pleading (everything has a beginning therefore God started it, and god doesn't have a beginning, contradicting your reason for God to begin with) and a bunch of other distractions ("What's your worldiview, mine's truer, how do you make sense of morality, I make sense of the whys of life by adding santa claus to the mix and calling it an answer") from the crux of the matter: there is no demonstration of this character at all.
We just invent purposes to cope. We derive our existence from a mindless, meaningless universe that is without purpose and meaning.
Clearly this makes you uncomfortable. But this is what makes the most sense, I'm sorry.
What is the sufficient reason for the first cause? You don't have one. You can't say why something should exist. All you can say is that it does exist.
I don't have one, nor do I need one. And yes, it exists, it's the one thing we can agree on. That's all I can say, and all I care about. The life I have and what I do with it, it's only my responsibility and I'm not part of some giant plan that no one ever gets to see.
But, everywhere you look, you see meaning and purpose.
No, I specifically do not. I do not see "meaning" or "purpose" in the vastness of the universe. I see vastness and apparent unimaginable emptiness. I don't then observe that and say "Well, someone must have meant for it to be this way, so it was probably Jesus." I don't see meaning in famines, I don't see purpose in pediatric cancer, I don't see the capital W why in meteor showers. You do, and that reason? Jesus loves us all, so so much, especially the pastor in I think Kenya yesterday who stabbed himself and his wife on the altar of their church, and he loves us so much that he gives us school shootings to remind us. Oh, wait: the bad stuff isn't DIRECTLY done by Jesus even though he'd know they were going to happen, all that stuff, that's MAN doing it because we departed from Jesus...
I'm sorry, but none of that makes any "sense." Maybe I'm off topic here, I don't know.
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@Mopac
As I pointed out, gibberish is not legit speaking in tongues.
How do you identify legit speaking in tongues from sham speaking in tongues, exactly?
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Why is typing in tongues less impressive?
Ahomina shambalallifa follilca rhino bobiilin huffal puffal ssssssssssssssss.
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@Singularity
I think any church that wanted to make sure it had sincere followers would swear off recruiting children through the various methods used today. They'd tell parents not to bring children to church once they could understand stories, for example. There wouldn't be CCD (for Catholics) or any other rites of passage. The churches would then have to rely on convincing adults and adults only.
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@Singularity
No, as they are entirely unqualified to do so, like in every possible way. For pete's sake the Catholic church believes in actual ghosts. Would you want a mental health check from someone who believes in magic as a cure all?
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@Mopac
<br>Do you know The Way?The Way of Truth.The Way of Eternal Life.
Do you know The Way?
The Way of the Mandalore?
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@Mopac
Considering they were a bunch of orgy throwing butt lovers who sacrificed children and destroyed the Earth through their gluttony and greed, the world is probably a better place without them.
Bad job by god making people this way, then, no?
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@Alec
Maybe the best way to approach the question is to start not from a video debunking anything, but to ask yourself if any particular god were real, what would we expect that god's creation to be like? For example, if you were a god and were only going to create life on one planet, would you bother making a universe that is literally too big to be imagined? Why would you or wouldn't you?
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@PGA2.0
Either we are ultimately a creation of a personal God (who in the biblical case has revealed Himself that we can know) or are here because of random mindless chance. Thus, to make sense of life you have to do so using one or the other particular worldview
You haven't gotten from a god / superbeing who's just really into creating universes to biblical god. I know you don't do that by design, you simply shrug your shoulders and say "I presuppose him because everyone presupposes something" which isn't exactly true either. But you don't then "make sense" of life in any of what you state after this. Or maybe I misunderstand what you mean by 'make sense of': I thought you were going to say there was some useful knowledge or some unlocked level or something that only Christians or more broadly only the religious can access. What you seem to be saying in your paragraph about atheism (which doesn't deal with any of the stuff you then pin to it, really it's one answer to one question, and doesn't try to be more) is that since you think God's real, then that's why life is here. Not the PURPOSE of life, more the cause of it. I wouldn't say that's 'making sense' in the way I understood it. I thought you were talking more about the MEANING of life. Not how it got started.
There is no reason why our common ancestor or we would exist if life is materialistic and solely naturalistic. Thus, our existence is ultimately meaningless too. There is no ultimate purpose to it yet we invent purpose to give the meaningless meaning. When we die we return to the cosmic void where everything is once again meaningless.
This is what we can reasonably conclude, yes. Is it comforting? Not on its face, no. But it makes this life extremely valuable, and it's sure what facts look like. There's no demonstration of any supernatural anything, there's no demonstration that any of this is guided in any way, there's no ultimate meaning to life (you don't have one either, as far as I can see, "Love God" isn't a purpose or a meaning, it's a motto). And when we die, eventually the atoms that make up our bodies will indeed decompose and eventually be returned to the cosmos. You don't refute ANY of this, by the way. You simply seem to say "Loving god makes this better" but don't explain why.
The reason we exist is that God chose to create us, in His likeness, for a purpose to know Him and enjoy Him forever or to reject Him and live apart from Him forevermore. Thus, we have an ultimate purpose and meaningfulness that we can know and enjoy, not only in this lifetime but in eternity tocome. From a living, loving, logical, reasoning, personal Creator comes other living, loving, personal, logical, reasoning, creative beings. This is what we witness and experience. We derive our existence and attributes from our parents who are such beings.
This isn't really a reason for life, though. It would make some sense if everyone was somehow Christian. There's far fewer Christians than there are "others" on earth. According to you then, are those lives meaningless? The meaning of life is to "know God" isn't making sense of anything as I understand the term making sense. It ignores the truly meaningless things that happen all the time, to Christian people especially. I'm glad if this whole notion brings you comfort, but that doesn't make sense of anything. It doesn't make sense of why, for example, bad people have power in many places, can repent on their deathbeds and sail into the party in the sky, while children starve having never heard of Jesus, and thereby burn in hell. I bet your answer is "well, fall of man is why! / Sin is why! / man rejecting god is why," but that doesn't help. The all powerful creator being would be at fault for all of this, all the same, and would know it was going to happen, and would have then created people he knew would burn in hell for all eternity because, again, they never heard of him. Or he left no convincing evidence. That makes LESS sense.
Now, does it make more sense that we come from a necessary Being or from random chance happenstance?
I'm not sure these are the only options. And I'm not clear on what this being would be 'necessary' other than your defining it as such, and it's certainly not clear what connection this theoretical being would have to the bible. Because there's no demonstration of this being, but there is demonstration of (not PROOF of but a preponderance of evidence for) universal common descent and life replicating itself and making errors in that replication, it would seem more reasonable to believe what can be demonstrated rather than rely entirely on a book of mythology. The elements that life is composed of are plentiful here on earth, and probably elsewhere but we'll never know, and the laws of physics are the same across the universe as far as we can tell. That might make life the inevitable result of physics, but I don't know. Honestly I don't really care, because I'm not sure what affect such knowledge would even have on my life.
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@ethang5
I see you refuse to understand that you are confusing the definition of the word with the process by which it happens. And you don't understand what a logical fallacy is. THere's really no reason to continue this discussion with you then. That enumerated list you have there also demonstrates exactly what I described, that you have a massive misunderstanding about the universe and the speed of light and why that would be an incredibly limiting factor. Thanks though, happy holidays.
How did water get on Earth? Do you know that the Earth is unique not only in having life, but in having water?
I will field this one. I don't know to the first one, and the bit about water is demonstrably false even within our solar system. THere are several satellites in our solar system with confirmed liquid water under icy surfaces.
Why did those comets miss all the other planets?
Again, you demonstrate you have no idea how much space you're talking about, or how much time, or how many comets DIDN'T miss other planets. THe asteroid field between mars and the outer planets isn't like the one in Empire Strikes Back, either, I mean I hate to break it to you.
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@ethang5
@EtrnlVw
No not at all, you're aware of the processes that occur in creation/universe correct? if you are aware of those processes why are you calling them magic?We are correlating what takes place within the universe with the intelligence of the Creator, no magic needed. Processes are not magic my friend.
Yeah, I understand the processes broadly, sure. What I don't understand is if there's a process we can demonstrate in some way, like say the way gravity works on particles to form accretion disks and eventually planets, or stars form, I don't understand where you see the creator, definitively, as in why you're convinced besides "I just am." I'm not. There's no evidence for it.
How do you then explain 2 billion living people and billions more now passed on finding answers in it?
How do you explain the majority of people alive today not believing in what you believe, and the dozens of billions who've passed on never believing it? Answers to what? Is it 'life's big questions'? Far more people do not find these answers in your faith, dude, and far, far more died believing in some other version entirely. I'd explain it kind of the same way as a baby wants a pacifier when mom's breast isn't available. A baby wants comfort, wants to feel like things are okay. The pacifier sates that section of the child's brain, provided you're not talking about legitimate hunger. You can comfort a child this way, but that doesn't make a pacifier a real breast. Religion tries to answer questions that keep people feeling comfortable, like they're special and they know so much more than everyone else, which is part of our evolutionary success. Basically it's a trick we've played on ourselves.
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@EtrnlVw
THe post says "life can only come from prior life." It's pretty clear. Not "some forms of life come from prior life, as observed, others come from other life that isn't exactly like you think of life, but instead materialize out of a strange awareness no one has ever demonstrated, but I think it's there." The statement life comes only from life is extremely clear. If you want to say God is Life, cool...where'd that life come from, because now it's not coming from any prior life, as stated in the original proposition. It's coming from special pleading ("except when I bring in awareness which is life and that's eternal, and therefore no prior life is required.")
The problem is that if you're using the word life, we have a common meaning for this term, and I'm using it in that context. Life = organic matter. You seem to want to use it to substantiate something else entirely that it does NOT mean, commonly. As it exists with an unseen creator is meaningless, and then you switch to awareness and seem to say that life also means that, which it doesn't (trees are alive but not sentient). You're saying this version of life arose from something that always existed, which is special pleading and exactly my point: if life always existed, then it didn't always come from life. You're also adding something that's not demonstrated, a creator, to something that is demonstrated, that adds no value: if we can demonstrate BBC (through CMBR and other evidence), why is a creator necessary, what's it add? It doesn't answer any questions. You're not answering the question, you're moving it one step further back. For thousands and thousands of years people thought some deity or other created the world in front of their eyes, then we make discoveries and figure things out, and you end up with God of the Gaps ("God created the universe through the big bang even though nothing of that at all is mentioned in any writing about the character). And it doesn't connect to the biblical god at all. I know you have some nebulous amorphous belief system I can't figure out, so I'll chalk it up to that, but you offer no evidence either, I'm sorry.
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@PGA2.0
Explain the difference exactly. To me they're the same: anything that can be explained by "a god did this" is exactly as explicable saying "magic did this," or " a god did this using magic." You touch on it a little further down in your response: "Well, we don't see it as magic, we see it as God and he reveals the answers," to roughly paraphrase.I do not believe in magic; I believe in the supernatural God.
You say the magical ingredient is billions and billions of years, like that's magic...but we have evidence that this amount of time has passed. Unlike evidence for a supernatural being living outside of space and time and being totally undetectable.
Just as your position is unfalsifiable. Yet the biblical evidence forms a reasonable and logical faith, the atheist faith does not.
So you cannot prove Xenu didn't do this? Must be true then. I'm not going into the weird math conversion you do to make that one prophesy sort of work, we've had a long discussion on that already and you simply don't see it my way, which is based on facts and numbers being numbers, and Idon't see it your way, which is based on some weird conversion chart that isn't in the bible and a bunch of hebrew scholars making a mythological text seem like it worked in retrospect. It's not compelling and never will be. And you never explained why the Astros 2017 prediction was somehow less impressive in spite of being super specific and totally indepedenetly verifable, so I don't think you really have any interest in that discussion. Neither do I. This one though:
I claim hands down the Christian position is the one that has the ability to make sense of life's ultimate questions.
I am interested in. Please make sense of one of life's ultimate questions, whatever that is, without saying "because God is here." I have never understood how that 'makes sense' of life's ultimate questions, it just punctuates them and provides no real information.
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@Dr.Franklin
If an MGB(Maximally Great Being) could exist, then an MGB would have to exist because it is maximally great. The MGB here is God.
To me, this is the central problem with your argument. FIrst, that something COULD exist does not in any way mean it does exist. Second, and more importantly, you simply state that this being is somehow the god of the bible (capital G). There is no reason in this argumentation, even if it weren't flawed at the outset, to presume the character in the bible is the same one. Can you connect the two somehow? I mean this layout doesn't in any way approach what most people want to believe in, some being that's watching over them, that has plans for them, that's looking out for them and judging their actions and morals, it doesn't define punishment or reward, it doesn't touch an afterlife for humans, it simply doesn't advance the ball you want to advance. It only says "if some maximally powerful being could exists, then it exists." What's that have to do with the bible being true?
Unless that's not what you're implying, but this argument is used exclusively by Christians, and this one appears cribbed from William LAne Craig or Frank Turek. They don't ever answer this question either, don't feel bad. You're all saying the same thing: something created the universe, and then leaping for no demonstrated reason to "and therefore the bible is true, and all other religions who've made similar claims are false." Please show why.
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@ethang5
I did not say it cannot happen. I only know it has NEVER happened,
Walk me through this: if life can only come from prior life, according to you, and the above quote from you, that life coming from non-life NEVER happened, did life precede the big bang? It seems the only logical answer is yes. You aren't making guesses because you know your guess is a contradiction in terms: any answer that has life ONLY coming from life has to fall into an infinite regress. Until, of course, you stop it with "MAGIC," aka special pleading. Please demonstrate how you avoid this.
I'm stating to you the results of 2,000 years of scientific observation and experimentation. Life comes only from life. You act as if I'm stating my personal belief.
What year was the telescope invented? The microscope? What is the starting point of this 2000 years? This is yet another demonstration, one you don't recognize, of your incredible misunderstanding of time. I'll give you an example: it took something like 4000 years to go from the two wheeled chariot that led Egypt to a dominating empire, to the steam engine. It took one hundred or so years to go from the steam engine to a consumer automobile. It took eighty years to go from the gasoline engine to standing on the moon. Sixty years ago a computer was the size of a couple of tractor trailers. Now you can hold 20,000 books on something that's smaller than a notebook. Seventy years ago if your child was diagnosed with cancer, they died at about a rate of 80%. Now that same child has an 80% chance of survival into adulthood and being cancer free. The point you miss is that science accelerates, all the time. That's all it ever does. Science wasn't even being really done until about 1500, and we didn't discover a different planet existed, one different from the eight in our solar system, until less than fifty years ago (and now there are thousands confirmed). Combine this willful ignorance of yours with a drastic underestimation of the size of the universe and the speed of light and why that's important and you have what looks like a pretty big blind spot. What are you going to say if that water they just discovered an inch below Mars' surface, frozen water, contains the signature of life? That Jesus put it there?
But if there once wasn't life, and now there is, by definition, life came from non life, abiogenetically.This is a logical fallacy. It doesn't follow.
It's not a logical fallacy, and I'm not sure you know what that is, either. This is a simple definition of the term abiogenesis, which you seem to be confusing with "the process" by which life developed, abiogenetically or at all. I'll say it again. If you are going to say that at one time, life didn't exist, and we know today that there is life on our planet, somehow, then that life arose abiogenetically if you go back far enough (to the point where life didn't exist). Your only other option is to claim that life ALWAYS existed, even prior to the big bang somehow, which would be quite a bit less believable than "once all the elements we recognize as necessary for life existed, it apparently developed, but given that we do not have an experiment that can span a billion years to find out, we likely will never know how." To review:
If at point A, there was no life, and at point C there is life, then life came about abiogenetically by definition. You're saying it didn't because we've never seen it happen, I get that. But I'm saying what then is your alternative: life only comes from life? If so, where'd that life come from?
Yes, we've found 4000 planets. In the last forty years! And you apparently believe all of these planets have been thoroughly explored. What if life is at a cellular level? Do you figure it's easy to prove microbioitic life from a distance of 10 light years?
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@PGA2.0
First, two of every kind or two of every animal? Would you consider a dog a kind or a poodle, a wolf, an Alsatian, Doberman a kind? Second, would the size make a difference to space? If so, the young would reduce space...Second, who is to say what conditions existed that increased longevity or even if God designed that in humanity until the point where He reduced the lifespan. Some, like Henry Morris, have suggested the ultraviolet rays were blocked by the water in the atmosphere since the Bible explains it had not rained until the time of the Flood which could possibly affect their lifespan. Whether it was through supernatural means or natural means that they lived so long, we are not told. But God's existence grants the supernatural. You would try to explain everything through the natural if you did not believe in God.
I'd ask you how many animals "two of every kind" means in your view, because you'd still be talking well into the thousands, and what they ate, how they didn't blow the boat up with a thousand animal farts, etc, but I've highlighted the problem with your argument: you invoke magic as essentially the most probable explanation. You haven't proven magic exists (in fact you seem pretty sure Harry Potter isn't real). You see, you're essentially getting to an impossible position to hold based on what we know about the world around us, and then saying "Well, magic could be involved, you can't prove it isn't, which means it is likely." You even do it in the next section, where you talk about how god 'shortens' man's lifespan by a factor of 90%. And people live to more than eighty years, so...I guess that part's wrong? Or let me guess, it means "eighty and then whatever else you live to"?
As for animals talking, if God decided to make an animal talk how would that be hard for an almighty God?
Not hard at all, nor is it hard to do it by magic! I'd point out that your position here is unfalsifiable, that we've never seen an animal that communicates in to humans in human language without human training (ASL for apes, etc), but you somehow think that makes your argument stronger, not weaker. If you can't test it, it can be dismissed. Watch, I'll make you do it: "A trillion years ago, Xenu the Great forged the universe from a pile of his own hair." If you can't prove it wrong, it's probably right?
Sure it makes sense. He wanted His people to trust Him and His word. He wanted them to understand His power working in and with them.
So, making talking animals is super easy and likely happened. Making people trust him and his word requires those people, the ones he wants to understand him as the basis of all law and morality, to commit mass murder. WHY DIDN"T HE JUST MAGIC THEM SOME TRUST AND UNDERSTANDING?
Prophecy is not evidence, not when it isn't what was prophesized.
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@Alec
Should CHristians then tell each other the right road? It's a serious question. If you know the right road and don't tell, aren't you condemning others? Isn't this what evangelism is supposed to be about? Isn't it your duty?
You still haven't said how to figure out if it's the right road. The GPS analogy doesn't work, because there's only one road to heaven. Through Jesus. Sorry, muslims and hindus and jews! TOo bad you weren't born Christian, I guess you can burn for all eternity because you never heard of him.
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@PGA2.0
Again, you pick a highly fictitious work and compare it to the Bible. The analogy sucks.
THe bible contains a story about a boat that held two of every animal on the planet, and insect, and probably plant too, and they all survived for 40 days when the entire earth was covered with water. The boat was built by a guy who lived to be 600, and he built it by hand, and the animals didn't blow the boat up with farts or the literal tons of shit, or eat each other. How is this somehow less believable than Lord of the Rings? You saying the analogy sucks sounds kinda like you think so because you don't have a better argument. Oh, and your book features talking animals too. And giants. And also demons. Why are demons more real than orcs or ogres exactly?
Because God has given many convincing proofs. Not only that, the alternatives are inconsistent and make no sense. The tail chasing you have to go through for an atheistic belief is laughable to my eyes.
I'm glad my lack of belief is laughable, I don't care, but why are muslims' beliefs laughable? Why are they so much more convinced than you are? You say "they're inconsistent and make no sense." How, exactly? Because I can say the same thing about the bible. Like it makes no sense for God to tell anyone to go smite his enemies on his behalf, I mean he could just do it himself, he's way more powerful than armies. Also, why would god make people he ended up thinking were so shitty he had to bomb their town with brimstone and turn them into salt? I mean that seems a little strange to me, blaming his creation for being so shitty. It'd be like me building a tree house in such a way that I knew it would fall, then being mad at the tree house for falling. Right?
I could convince you for the simple fact is that you do not want to be convinced
I have asked you in this very thread, please present your extra-biblical (outside the bible) evidence for the truth of the entire bible. If the entire thing isn't true, how do I know which parts are and which parts aren't? If you cannot provide this, I would welcome any evidence that would definitively prove that any other world religion is demonstrably false. Just one.
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@ethang5
We know that life comes only from prior life. Every bit of scientific evidence to date confirms this.
Not true, but almost: we've never observed life arising spontaneously. That doesn't mean it can't happen. In fact, it must have happened, unless you're again claiming life perhaps happened at the exact moment of the big bang, You didn't answer that by the way, I noticed. This is called the Black Swan fallacy. We haven't observed it directly, that part is true. Science does not CONFIRM that this is the only way it can possibly happen. It merely says "We don't know how it happened, here's our theories, here's the evidence (all of which you will ignore), but we don't know for sure." This is not confirmation that life only comes from other life. By the way, you're laying yourself the usual infinite regress trap. If it only comes from other life, where did that life come from?
If there was no life, and there is life now, why is spontaneous life the only option?
No one's saying it is the only option. But if there once wasn't life, and now there is, by definition, life came from non life, abiogenetically. This is a simple conclusion and makes no claim about the process that resulted in it. You're looking at the final score of a football game: 27 - 10. You can conclude that one team won, but you don't know how they scored the points. Just because you don't know how they scored the points, that doesn't mean the team with 27 might not have won. They definitely won. it's the same with abiogenesis: at one point, the big bang and the billions of years after where there were no surfaces like stars or planets, as far as we can tell, there was no life. Now there is. It arose from something that was not life. I don't know how, I know it's here. Please explain how you cannot understand this is true, I've even given you your answer to help: you either eschew the big bang evidence, subscribe to a biblical creation account or some other version of creation, OR you believe in BBC and life was present when it happened. There aren't any other answers available.
Why is the universe not teeming with life? Why have we NEVER observed it on Earth? The dilemma is unresolved, it is NOT evidence for abiogenesis.
This has little to do with the topic, but, mr. I have such a great science background, how much of the universe do you think we've actually observed? And how many other planets have we explored? You are demonstrating a profound lack of understanding of the size of the universe, the speed of light, etc. It's sad.
I'll make it simpler.
If life only comes from life, was life as we know it extant at the very moment of the big bang? If so, where did that life come from?
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@ethang5
Where did Jesus say it's OK to pay taxes?
<br>
Didn't he say "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"? Was this a real question?
Edit: yeah, Matthew 22:21.
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@PGA2.0
So the gospels were actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Okay then, most modern scholarship on the bible would disagree, but to me "biblical scholarship' is a bit of a contradiction. It's like knowing Lord of the Rings REALLY REALLY REALLY well. GOod for them, but it doesn't make it true.I have very good reason to believe the authors are those mentioned.
Less likely to be true for the reason I stated earlier. Two beliefs that state opposites cannot both be true.
So how do you know yours isn't the belief that's false? Their holy book supports their beliefs too, you know.
Do you believe the disciples/apostles were radicalized?
I don't believe the stories in the bible are real factual accounts. You apparently believe them to be contemporaneous journalism. This question to me is the same as "Do you believe The Sparrows were radicalized" in the Song of Ice and Fire universe, or if I believe the oracle at Delphi was a real soothsayer, and not just high on weird fumes in her cave.
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@Alec
I think every Christian should be an independent Christian from a religious standpoint, so they can think for themselves on the bible.
Then what do they need to be Christians at all for, if they can think for themselves on the bible and decide what is right or wrong in it? I can think for myself on the bible, and I'm not a Christian. I'm curious why they'd need to call themselves Christian...also doesn't making your own rules and doing the a la carte Christianity almost certainly put you on a path to hell? I know priests who abuse kids go to heaven if they're really sorry about it, but me, a guy who doesn't believe in Jesus or heaven or hell or anything at all, but has never abused a child, according to most rules I'm going to hell if Christians are right.
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@ethang5
So is it fair to say then that you believe life ALWAYS existed? If you accept big bang cosmology, you believe life came into existence right at the very moment of the big bang? Not the elements of life, but actual life as we know it today?
If the answer is yes, that's what you believe, then please provide your own evidence, as not a single scientist in any field, anywhere, would tell you this is the case. The conditions of the big bang were far, far, far, far, far from conducive to the formation of life. Seeing as at the time of the big bang there were no planets or stars on which this life would somehow reside and develop (surely you cannot believe that at the big bang a person was present), this is going to be a tall order. It would be an outrageous claim, but you're saying you know a lot about science, so you must have some support for this unique "life existed as long as the universe itself existed" claim.
If the answer is no, life did not begin to exist at precisely the moment the big bang occurred, but life exists now, you understand that this is EXACTLY EVIDENCE FOR ABIOGENESIS, right? It did not exist then. It exists now. That's literally abiogenesis: no life at point A, life at point B. I believe your question more accurately is how did abiogenesis, which again, if you believe in big bang cosmology, HAD TO HAPPEN because you're alive, happen. Is that more accurate? And you believe the answer to be "Jesus," correct?
Abiogenesis is in no way a position taken on faith. It's a simple conclusion. Life at one point didn't exist. It does now. As of this moment, the mystery of abiogenesis, as in how it happened or why it occurs in some places and not others, are questions we don't have answers to. Seems like nothing makes a Christian more uncomfortable than answering honestly "I don't know."
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@Outplayz
Okay, but this is not what you described:But if i did hallucinate captain America, and he told me a specific person is going to die at a specific time at a specific place and i've never met this person or seen them... and it happens, it would be pretty significant in my opinion
I hallucinated a coworker talk to me and tell me "we could have been good friends" (with a somber tone). I felt a great connection with him in that moment but also a lot of sadness.
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@Outplayz
But aren't you ignoring all the ones we know happen all the time, like faulty memory, in favor of the stuff no one can prove, which is not as you state 'meaningful,' but rather 'supernatural and THEREFORE meaningful'? This is like when someone hallucinates Jesus and thinks that makes him real, rather than recognizes the totally natural and far more probable possibility that their brains have stored the iconography of this character and appropriated it into some totally natural brain misfire. If you hallucinated Captain America, that doesn't mean he's real.
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@drafterman
The bible seems to support abiogenesis, which simply means that life arose from non-life. Isn't that how Adam is created in the genesis account? He was at one point not alive and in the story, then he was crafted from mud. Strictly speaking, this is life from non-life. I would imagine the end to this argument is "Well, god always existed," which not only equates god with life as we know it even though there is no claim that he's anything like life as we know it, but also runs into the pesky problem of being indistinguishable from the theory that magical elves from another dimension did it.
Also, you're wasting your time. This is not a person with any intellectual integrity and an awful lot of time on his hands.
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@PGA2.0
Not so with the biblical accounts. These people went to their deaths believing they had seen the risen Messiah.
"Not so" refers to not knowing the authors of the biblical accounts as you do with JK Rowling...how's that bolster the case for your belief? You don't know who wrote them, so they're more likely true because (______________).
And the 9/11 hijackers went to their deaths believing they were going to be handsomely rewarded in Muslim Heaven. Do you think that makes their belief more or less likely to be true?
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@PGA2.0
Where did I assert that there is any evidence of them being true? All I said was your initial response, "no one believes those are true!", seems to leave unsaid that "people believe the bible's true." I don't believe any of them are true. I'm saying they have the same mythological elements. Can you prove that such creatures, planets and peoples DON'T exist? Because that's what you're asking me to do with the bible. I don't have any reason to believe any of them are real, and the only essential difference between them is age. That's all I said. I'm not bothering with your nonsense prohopecy claims because (a) they aren't in the book, (b), even if they were correct it wouldn't prove Jesus died and came back and (c) I've had this boring discussion with you where you don't understand the difference between a claim and evidence.You are asserting that the same kind of evidence is available in these accounts that are available in the biblical accounts. For one, where are the prophetic accounts and where do they relate to the historical evidence? For goodness sake, Star Wars is a fantasy set in the future. Where do you find evidence of such creatures, planets, peoples? We know the author and where does the author show his story-line corresponds to any facts about the future?
The rest of your post agrees with me (no, you wouldn't believe it if it were another religious text claiming that their hero was resurrected), followed by your usual "Random chance makes me uncomfortable so I choose to believe in something else." It's your right and you're not going to change your mind, so I don't care to go over it. AGAIN.
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@PGA2.0
When you compare Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Matrix to the Bible I challenge you on your assertions.
I didn't assert that these were true. I said the only material I see between these stories and the biblical story is age. You have not disputed that save by essentially saying "No one believes those are true." The majority of the planet does not believe the bible's true either.
Only the biblical account regarding the resurrection.
Exactly my point. You pick one that you believe, while eschewing any others that make the same claim because you recognize it as impossible in every other situation. It seems to me that it's on you to prove that it actually happened once, in the book of myths you choose, and never happened in any of the other myths / religions who make the same claim (resurrection). There must be some compelling reason.
"if someone had thought ow rite"Based on a true story" in front of the first Harry POtter book, you'd have to at least allow for the possibility that it's true."
Your main argument seems to be that "no one believes those are real / everyone knows those are stories." My point is that if someone had claimed them true, you'd see that as evidence that they were true.
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@PGA2.0
It's not on me to prove that a book wherein the entirety of earth's animal and insect populations were somehow herded two by two into a boat and survived for forty days is TRUE. As all scientific knowledge we have today would show this as impossible, it'd be on the person who says that no, it actually happened (this is you, now), to prove how this extraordinary claim is true. Is there any other book wherein someone comes back to life and you believe it's real, or is the bible the only one?Can you prove the Scriptures are fiction?
According to you and to EtnrlView, it seems if someone had thought ow rite"Based on a true story" in front of the first Harry POtter book, you'd have to at least allow for the possibility that it's true. That seems a dangerous way to go through life.
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@EtrnlVw
that comparing Hogwarts with the proposition of a Creator is comparable? that's childish and downright bias.
The only difference I can see is one is older than the other. If I proposed the spells in Harry Potter were real, if you only believed in them the right way, how is that different than the proposition in the bible exactly? Am I not allowed to believe Planetos exists, and the true gods are the old gods of the North? Or the many faced god? Would you ridicule me for that?
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@PGA2.0
<br>The Scriptures verify themselves to a great extent.
So does The Matrix, Star Wars and Harry Potter. That doesn't mean what they verify about themselves is real. We've had a very long discussion on claims versus evidence, specifically the problem with using the claim as the evidence. This is what you usually are doing, in my experience. If you have extra-biblical verification of any of the bible's supernatural claims, I'd be interested.
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@EtrnlVw
But does the Bible shed light on another possible reality?
Does Lord of the Rings also shed light on another possible reality? Song of Ice and Fire? Harry Potter? The Lion, The WItch, and the Wardrobe? Beowulf? The Greek or Roman Pantheistic Legends?
My answer is no. They're stories. What we draw from them is a reflection on the only demonstrable reality, ours, not "maybe Hogwarts is real."
Because if atheism is false then we need to become aware of what the alternative is.
Or what happens?
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@EtrnlVw
Of course of course, because it's all a big absurdity right Ludo? that we have to contort ourselves? how dare anyone conclude there is a Creator, when atheism is obviously the answer. How dumb of any Theist. And how dumb any religious forum exist for such a stupid proposition.
So you take this argumentative stance and then basically agree that there's no point to arguing the inaccuracies, inconsistencies or absurdities, but okay. THe bible doesn't argue for a creator. It argues for one specific version of the Creator. And the reason people like Stephen quibble with it is because at varying points it's described as the inerrant word of the perfectest perfecto and demand it's taken literally, at other points it's poetic and to be interpreted by whoever's reading it to make it fit with the rest of whatever they want it to fit with. That's why there's no point in arguing it. If I told you Dr. Doolittle was to be taken literally, you'd say ridiculous, that's a story about a guy who talks to animals. Except there's talking animals in the bible and somehow that's not ridiculous.
I'm not saying there's not good moral lessons in the bible. I'm saying the bible is far from the only source for moral lessons. I'd rather Aesop's Fables, they're more direct and feature less mass beheadings and daughters fucking their dads. And no one beats each other up over believing they're true, we all agree they're false but worthy.
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There really is very little point in arguing the obscurities and inconsistencies and sheer volume of dumb stuff in the bible with believers, you know, you're wasting your time. There's more than one believer here who can demonstrate just how contorted they can be in order to believe it's all actually true. My point is believers don't believe, in general, based on the bible, just as atheists don't disbelieve based on the bible.
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