Why aren't you an Atheist?

by Bloody Hotdogs! 697 Replies latest jw friends

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  cofty

  Cofty, to be completely honest I have never read 1 book about evolution written by a Evolutionary Scientists. - Datadog

  At least you were honest about it.

  You continue to argue about a very difficult and technical subject that you admit you have chose to remain willfully ignorant about.

  Am we supposed to respect that position?

  The evidence that every living thing descended from a common ancestor is as certain as the fact that the earth revolves around the sun.

  Evolution is a fact; it cares nothing for your religious superstitions; get over it.

  Outlaw - I never took you for a pedantic, black-and-white sort of person. I'm surprised.
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  DATA-DOG

  King Solomon said " We saw the same thing recently with a neurosurgeon selling his book on NDE: same target market, different theme. Selling pseudo-science, telling the naive believers what they want to hear: it is a big business, making lots of $$ for some.... ".

  Yeah, just like Judge Rutherfords books and National Geographic mammal to dolphins stories... They are both written by people who are biased and are making money. None of what is written in them can be proven. To be honest I find Religious myths more insulting that scientific dogma. At least scientists are not hauling me into a star-chamber hearing and accusing me of deserving everlasting death. Adherents to both belief systems can't PROVE anything, and they are passionate and defensive. No one here can prove either issue. Every single one of us will keep learning new things until we die, and we will never get all the answers. No one here is superior to another. I don't really care what you believe as long as you are not a eliteist, hateful, condescending know-it-all who insults others.
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  jamesmahon

  So let me get this straight..

  I`m in a plane,I`m in the air..But..

  The plane might be parked at the moment..And..

  It`s the earth thats moving..

  You might not like it but the answer is there is no way to determine whether the plane is actually motionless and the earth is moving.

  As humans we process the world so it makes sense to us. One of the reasons we have succeded as a species is because we process the world in a way that links cause and effect and also puts us as individuals at the centre of our own little universe. We might not like it because it goes against our nature but to understand the universe we first have to leave all our preconceptions about how things work at the door and be prepared to not be able to comprehend what the evidence suggests. But that has always sounded more fun to me than keeping a human centric view that the proof of god is in the design of a tree or a personal revelation.

  Could in the end science lead to a 'proof' of an existence of god? I doubt it but that doesn't mean it couldn't. But I suspect that any god found would be so different from anything we can even begin to imagine that there is no point expending any energy believing.
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  OUTLAW

  Something like that: pilots are aware of the problem of experiencing a loss of situational awareness under IFR conditions (eg cloudy/night, etc),

  when they experience a disconnect between what their their proprioreceptors (inner ear) are telling them vs what their instruments say

  (can occur with groundspeed, orientation). Many pilots have died as a result of the disconnect between what their instruments

  are telling them and what their eyes/ears are telling them (and it's usually IFR illusion that kills them, not bad instruments).KS

  Something like That????..LOL!!..

  Come on man you can`t be serious..That is a Huge stretch on this topic..

  You want to compare things you can see and touch..Then bring in equipment failure..

  On a subject that can`t be seen or touched..God..

  You must have a lot of Faith in Atheism to go this far..

  

  ........................ ...OUTLAW
• 

  NomadSoul

  I'm an atheist, and it doesn't bother me if people say it's a type of faith.

  Just gives me a good chuckle.
• 

  King Solomon

  I didn't have much respect for the guy's command of logic, after reading his claims in a NY Times interview:

  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html?pagewanted=11&ei=5087%0A&em&en=166dbd9e75680e73&ex=1173243600

  Views on Evolution of Religious Belief

  Barrett is described in the New York Times as a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” [and] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.” He considers that “Christian theology teaches that people were crafted by God to be in a loving relationship with him and other people, Why wouldn’t God, then, design us in such a way as to find belief in divinity quite natural?”

  See a problem? He's offering a non-testable hypothesis, asking question of why God designed us a certain way when neither God OR us being "designed" is provable.

  But even tentatively accepting his assumptions, his question only leads to ANOTHER question:

  Then why didn't God create us so that we HAD to believe in him, just like we HAVE to breathe? Would THAT be more natural? Doesn't the existence of atheists indicate a problem with that hypothesis, indicating yet another design flaw?

  And if you're tempted to answer with the old "God made us with free will" argument, that should confirm that he's not offering any kind of scientific testable claim or understanding, but is back in Theologyland, with theology wrapped in the cloak of science. That IS pseudo-science mixed with theology.

  He continues:

  Having a scientific explanation for mental phenomena does not mean we should stop believing in them. Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me — should I then stop believing that she does? [3]

  So if we have a scientific explanation of the biochemical basis of say, schizophrenia, the schizophrenic should not abandon the hallucinations that he believes are real?

  Why would anyone believe in God

  In his book Why would anyone believe in God he suggests that "belief in God is an almost inevitable consequence of the kind of minds we have. Most of what we believe comes from mental tools working below our conscious awareness. And what we believe consciously is in large part driven by these unconscious beliefs." and "that beliefs in gods match up well with these automatic assumptions; beliefs in an all-knowing, all-powerful God match up even better." [4]

  Poetic stuff, but theological pesudo-science nonsense, nonetheless....

  ---

  But let's remember how we got here:

  CA, your claim was that newborns believe in God (that we weren't born atheists). M-kay, let's give you that point (which I don't agree with; but let's do it tentatively, to make a point).

  Your argument would boil down to saying that we should believe in God because BABIES do so?

  Should we all suck our thumbs, poop our pants, drool, etc?

  You haven't actually just invented a NEW and NOVEL logical fallacy, "appeal to practices of infants"?
• 

  OUTLAW

  Y

  ou might not like it but the answer is there is no way to determine whether

  the plane is actually motionless and the earth is moving.....Jamesmahon

  If thats the case I won`t bother driving to the General Store today for Supplies

  I`ll just wait until the General Store comes to Me..

  I can see I have a lot to learn about Faith..

  

  ........................ ...OUTLAW
• 

  cofty

  Tammy - Your logic is so odd its hard to know here to begin.

  You assert there is a whole other dimension which you call "spirit" which can't be detected by human senses or scientific investigation. An ultimate being exists in this other world who is intimately involved in everything that happens in this physical world, in fact he/she caused it all to come into being.

  I thoroughly investigate all sorts of versions of this claim and find the evidence to be unconvincing in the extreme and in response you assert that I must have as much faith as you.

  Can you tell me if I've missed something please?
• 

  Christ Alone

  I don't have to read every book on Intelligent Design to argue the concepts.

  I understood King Solomons point, NC. And I understand yours. But it's not that KS did not read ALL of the books on the subject. KS did not read a single SENTENCE of the book that he/she completely wrote off as fiction. I've gone to college and learned how to learn and think. I know that you cannot read every piece of every book, especially when you are researching. However, when you haven't read the book at all and then judge it's studies as wrong and the in between parts as poetic fluff....AND YOU HAVEN'T READ A SINGLE WORD OF IT...then I think it's silly and Watchtower-esqe.

  So maybe KS knows about the book through other avenues, that doesn't mean he doesn't know what's in there.

  Yes, but it was apparent that this was not the case. You guys asked me for proof that studies have been done that shows that children have a natural belief in God, even before being taught by parents. You laughed and said it was a silly comment and that no such studies would show that. I provided proof. KS said that he/she went on wikipedia and a NY Times review (and apparently researched it's peer reviews...all in 12 mins) and said it was false. KS did not know about the book before hand.
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  cofty

  James - good to see you back