As Mr Lewontin and Mr Ruse pointed out, Creationists don't hold the monopoly in inflexibility. Absolutely nothing I wouldn't expect an indoctrinated evolutionist to say. Thank you for proving my point. This, my friend, could again be turned the other way. Whose to say the "Christians" that find "evidence" to support evolution are actually Christians? And if they were Christians, wouldn't you expect them to turn from Creationism after being indoctrinated for 12+ years by textbooks full of "Millions and millions of years ago, err .... Billions and billions of years ago, dinosaurs roamed . . . . " I wonder how many public school science textbooks still mention piltdown man.
My apologies. You seem intelligent, although slightly confused. I figured you could do it on your own. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=judas+contradiction
You had a point? You tried to have a point with the whole cutesy-poo Joseph Campbell thing, but that was pretty transparent. I don't know what you were trying to prove with the selective quotations. The "No True Scotsman" fallacy rides again! You're seriously a young-earth creationist? Wow. So, what's your explanation of the dinosaurs, again? Say "Paluxy River," it would make me smile, yes indeed. Quite a few - as an example of science being self-correcting. How many Bibles still have four-legged insects, a value of pi=3, and a geocentric universe?
Many christains (myself included) have no problem with the "millions or billions of years" history. The Bible says a day to God can be unfathomable to man. I also know that things have evolved. Darwin proved that with the finches (I think it was finches). But I can not leave God out of the equation. I don't believe we came from monkeys either. Never will. Man's wisdom is foolishness to God. God's wisdom is foolishness to man. None of these arguments are new. The increduality of people these days only serves to heighten my belief, because the Bible says that's exactly what will happen. Peopel will no longer beleive, will become apathetic, and have no faith. Prime example is found on these 28 pages of posts.
> My apologies. You seem intelligent, although > slightly confused. I figured you could do it on > your own. I didn't need the sites, I just thought it strange that you had not posted them. However, I did read some of these and let me just say: Oh My God they were funny. (By the way, atheists need an expression to take the place of "Oh My God". I notice they even use it in Star Trek, which is quite an atheistic show outside of Worf and the Bajorins.)
Have you ever just thought of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "la la la can't hear you, can't hear you" as that is about the level of your debate? Your argument is "the bible is right so anything that contradicts the bible must be wrong. End of argument". What I'd like to know is why you believe the bible implicitly. On what basis did you come to the conclusion that everything in the bible is right, other than just being brought up being told that is the case? It there anything in the bible that says that its stories, old testament especially, should be taken absolutely literally rather than allegorically? You don't believe there is any chance, given the age of these stories, that there has been any poor translation or any chinese whispers effect anywhere along the line?
Frankly, as far as semantics and expressions go, I'd start with the repulsive title of "a-theist". It's ridiculous that I should be defined using the very root word that describes a state of mind which I do not hold, and merely thows an "anti" in front. I am "anti-something-that-does-not-exist"?!? Someone who beleives in a god may well be called a theist, but to define me by something I do not believe in (i.e. [a]theist), is as silly as calling me an [a]flatworlder, or an [a]elvis-lives, or an [a]bush-is-a-genius.
Duly noted - please tell us what, if anything, you believe to be true, and that is how we will define you. I'm going to assume that "scientist" is not the correct label, because that ought to be reserved for people performing actual science rather than people developing a anti-theological philosophy based on a belief in the observable. An "observationist," perhaps?
Of course, I understand that creates a difficulty in defining the group with a reasonable title. Some might throw out "realist" or "freethinker" or "rationalist" ... I'm not sure whether any of those fit the bill, and I have no illusion that the term "atheist" will continue to be the sole moniker (until, of course, all belief in religion dies away and we're all atheists, at which time the label will die along with this thread!)
[pulling chain] I'd hardly call someone who doesn't hold out the possibility of God (no one's disproven him/her/it on this thread yet, right?) a "freethinker." But I'll credit you for being as open-minded as your average Christian. How's the label "irrelevantist" fit since life ultimately has no meaning? [/pulling chain]
It's a matter of faith. If you don't have it, you can't understand it. I can't make you believe the way I do. I can simply relate the facts as I see them. I won't bore you with my life story. All I can say is cross reference a Bible with the news of today. It's all there in b&w.
You could cross reference the plots of the star wars movies with the news of today, but I'm not going to start worshipping George Lucas.
To paraphrase some of the earliest posts trying to disprove god: How can an omnipotent and omniscient George allow Jar Jar Binks into the world? Oh, the horror ...
Conversely, I'm not gonna stop, no matter how many people think the new trilogy rots so far. The Force will be with me, always. EDIT: And a big, SAG-refugee welcome to DLR.
Cheers,Dan. I believe we both know that God exists.It was proved when Bishop Eddie Gay beat Dr. Tom Jack by two falls to a submission.
There's no such thing as an "Atheist." "Atheist" means to be without God. How can one be without something that does not exist? Most people that you label as "Atheists" are actually "nonbelievers" in the "proper" vernacular.
To all those who challenge anyone to disprove God's existence tell me, is there any piece of scientific evidence that could theoretically be produced that would give you even the tiniest doubt? Because if you are going to react to any proof with a dismissive "it's just a test from god" then there really is no point having this argument.
> There's no such thing as an "Atheist." "Atheist" > means to be without God. How can one be > without something that does not exist? I am without Santa Claus. Santa does not exist in the real world. However, he does exist in the realm of virtual, fictional characters, like God. I think atheist is a fine word. It is better than "nonbeliever" because it has fewer sylables, comes from the greek, and does not have that stupid "non" in the front of it.
But we had some fun along the way - besides, this seems to be the one thread going on religion, which ain't all to the bad.
Atheism is more rational? http://answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/negative9-5-2000.asp Atheism is more rational? I read with interest your article about atheism, … Which article? There are many articles on our website, so it’s useful to specify the URL. … in which you state it is self-refuting. It is in many ways, which will be shown below. In its basic form, atheism consists of the lack of belief in a God. This can hardly be deemed self refuting. Actually, this is a revisionist definition of atheism. In fact, atheism is an active belief that God doesn’t exist. The article ‘atheism’ in Encyclopædia Britannica 1:666, 1992, reflecting the usual definition in philosophy, begins: ‘Atheism, the critique or denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or spiritual beings. As such, it is the opposite of theism, which affirms the reality of the divine and seeks to demonstrate its existence. Atheism is to be distinguished from agnosticism, which leaves open the question of whether there is a god or not, professing to find the question unanswered or unanswerable; for the atheist, the nonexistence of God is a certainty.’ The entry on ‘atheism’ in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, probably the preeminent reference tool for philosophy, begins: ‘Atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. It proposes positive belief rather than mere suspension of disbelief.’ Furthermore, it is simple enough to demonstrate that belief in God is absurd and irrational. However, TB does not actually provide such a simple demonstration. From a logical point of view, how could God’s non-existence be proven? The atheist would need to have complete knowledge of all time and space, and all dimensions, to know for sure that God does not exist. However, an atheist with such properties would be virtually ‘divine’ himself. An atheist needs do no more. An atheist does not need to prove that God does not exist — the theist must demonstrate that God does exist. TB seems to be using the tactic of throwing the burden of proof on those asserting an affirmative proposition, e.g. ‘God exists’ as opposed to the negative preposition ‘God does not exist’. But then an example of self-refutation occurs: the proposition: ‘The burden of proof falls on the affirmative position’ is itself an affirmative proposition, so requires proof in itself! But this commonly overlooked point aside, as shown by the Encyclopædia Britannica, atheism is just as much an assertion as theism. Therefore the burden of proof falls equally, and a fairer debate question would be ‘Does God exist?’ Also, atheists assert many affirmative statements without proof, eg. that the universe is either eternal or came into existence uncaused, non-living matter evolved into living cells by pure undirected chemistry, complex specified information arose without intelligence, design features arose without a designer, moral sensibilities arose out of amoral matter, etc. Since this [proof of God’s existence] is not possible, … How would you know unless you’ve tried all possible proofs? Or can you prove that no proof is possible? What precisely would count as ‘proofs’? Perhaps you mean ‘valid arguments with true premises with the conclusion “God exists”’ [for information about logical terminology, see Loving God With All Your Mind: Logic and Creation]. We have presented such proofs on the website, and you have failed to refute these. Some of them are alluded to in the previous paragraph, for example: Everything which has a beginning has a cause. The universe has a beginning. Therefore the universe has a cause. This is explained further in the article If God created the universe, then who created God? And we often point out that the design in living organisms is evidence of an intelligent designer. If this is not evidence, then it’s worth asking: what evidence would convince you that anything has been intelligently designed, whether by human design or by any other intelligence? After all, archaeologists have criteria for deciding whether an artifact has been made by design, and the SETI project is based on discovering a signal from outer space that would be evidence of a message sender. So what are these criteria? Answer: complex specified information — see Refuting Evolution for an introduction, The Mystery of Life’s Origin for more technical detail, and for the most mathematically rigorous treatment, see Wm. Dembski’s book The Design Inference, Cambridge University Press, 1998. So this argument can be formulated: Complex specified information always requires an intelligent message sender. All living organisms have complex specified information. Therefore the complex specified information in living organisms requires an intelligent message sender. Another interesting argument comes from the leading philosopher and Christian, Alvin Plantinga — he asked, what evidence does anyone have for the existence of other people’s minds? He argued cogently that the evidence for God is just as good as the evidence for other minds; and conversely, if there isn’t any evidence for God, then there is also no evidence that other minds exist — see God and Other Minds, Cornell University Press, repr. 1990. … belief in God is irrational, … This presupposes that it is irrational to believe anything without proof. However, according to the fundamentals of basic logic, all belief systems start with axioms, which by definition are accepted to be true without proof. This applies to atheism, science, mathematics and propositional logic itself. And there are also many other propositions in everyday life that people believe without mathematically rigorous proof, e.g. that the sun will rise tomorrow, that a mother loves her child, etc. Therefore it is perfectly logical for Answers in Genesis to use the propositions of Scripture as axioms. This is our bottom line — although the above arguments for God’s existence can be helpful, we believe that the Scriptures are their own authority. We do not ultimately try to prove the Bible with science, for that would place science in authority. See Creation: ‘Where’s the Proof?’ The difference between the Christian’s axioms and the atheist’s is that ours are self-consistent, make good sense of the evidence, and are consistent with the arguments proposed above. Conversely, the atheist’s axioms are ultimately self-refuting — perhaps the greatest form of irrationality is to believe in rationality when that rationality was supposedly ultimately produced by non-rational random combinations of chemicals. The great English writer and converted atheist, C.S. Lewis, pointed this out — see quote. … particularly when no theist is capable of providing a coherent definition of what God is. On a logical level, how could you know unless you know the capabilities of all theists? And on a practical level, TB’s assertion and general approach seems to be modelled on the British 19th century radical and atheist Charles Bradlaugh, who wrote in his A Plea for Atheism: ‘The atheist does not say “there is no God”, but he says: “I know not what you mean by God; I am without an idea of God. … I do not deny, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception”.’ But despite what Bradlaugh and TB claim, most dictionaries that I’ve checked give a perfectly coherent definition consistent with what Christians mean, for example, ‘the supreme being who created the universe’. Standard works on Christian apologetics and our Answers Book, including some on our Q&A page also provide perfectly coherent definitions (look under Apologetics, God and Philosophy). The Apostle Paul preached Him to the Athenian philosophers as: ‘The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth’ (Acts 17:24) For you to prove a claim of incoherence, you must demonstrate a logical contradiction in the standard definitions, as opposed merely to asserting one. In conclusion, there are two main world views that are diametrically opposed: atheism and Christian theism. Evolution and creation science are really different interpretations of the same data because of the different axioms (and therefore biases) of these rival world views. In reality, the leading evolutionary propagandists chide creationists not for believing in different facts, but for not following their self-serving rules, i.e. materialism — see The Rules of the Game. It is vitally important to realise that neither side is neutral, and that both sides interpret the data according to their underlying presuppositions. Similarly, Christians should not meekly play by rules made up by atheists for debating the question: ‘Does God Exist?’