Proving That Prayer is Superstition (Video)

By on November 15, 2011 in News 133

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  • http://www.facebook.com/truthactivist Arthur Em

    f you’re going to talk about the Bible at least know what it says. Check out Keith Thompson’s watch?v=c_CRWZNUkrk He gets into this false look at prayer and it’s misconceptions by using Joel Osteen as an example, touching on his many errors, this one included. This video is above (Proving that Prayer is Superstition) is simply a straw-man argument. I don’t mind an argument against prayer as long as it’s a ‘real’ argument and not some straw-man.

  • http://www.facebook.com/truthactivist Arthur Em

    Nope, try again. See Keith Thompson’s youtube film watch?v=c_CRWZNUkrk He touches on this topic in a comprehensive way, and after seeing the video linked you’ll see why this video above (Proving that Prayer is Superstition) is all based on a Straw-Man argument. If you’re going to look at anything like this, in this case it’s the Bible’s teaching on prayer,  you need to see both sides in order to know what you’re talking about, instead of dusting your hands off and saying “that’s that” then covering your ears and closing your eyes to everything else like a stubborn child. The scriptures used were not only taken out of context (read the verses that follow) but the “excuses” given by “Christians” further the straw-man. God is not a vending machine and the Bible never claims him to be. I do agree, however, that too many so called Christians act this way toward prayer but the authority on prayer isn’t the Christian, its the Bible, study what it says in regards to prayer & its easy to see that this video is clearly dissolved as a straw-man.

  • Malk

    This video covers 10% of the argument and claims to have covered 100%.
    Waste of time.

    I ate cheese once and it was gross = ALL CHEESE IS HORRIBLE!!
    small minded and petty.

    I, as one of the odd billions of people smarter than the creator of this video could go on and on but I’m sure someone is more interested in doing that than me.

  • http://www.facebook.com/truthactivist Arthur Em

    If you’re going to use the Bible as your bases to make this argument against the validity of prayer then you need to see what the Bible says since this video uses the Bible as it’s primary base of reference when it’s not referencing what random “christians” say. (See Keith Thompson’s youtube film watch?v=c_CRWZNUkrk). I’m not going to get into some whole thing on whether or not the Bible is authentic today as it was then and so on (although I could), simply because I don’t have to, it’s irrelevant at the moment since this video is taking the assumption (or the hypothetical) that it is, in order to make it’s point. Like I said before, it’s the video that uses the Bible as it’s premiss for this argument so the logical and only valid follow up to this would be to reference the Bible when making a response. And if you look at the follow up scriptures that are referenced in this video it’s clearly a straw-man argument being made here. God is not a vending machine and the Bible never claims him to be. PEACE! 

  • toxiczen

    not a christian, but i have seen results from sigil magic… methinks having that oft used word “faith” in the outcome, and gratitude for the outcome without being to precise or rigid in how it will play out (such as the dice roll method) yields the best results when it comes to will working.

  • http://freechristianrelationshipadvice.com Enid

    I feel bad for you.  If this is truly your belief system.  The truth is that you don’t get it.  Prayer has been proved by science over and over.  People are healed when doctors have no explaination.  I agree that people worship many things in this world that are silly.  But God is not one of them.  It is silly to put faith in your health(  I exercise everyday I have guaranteed my health. then you get hit by a bus.)  I have amassed great wealth .( Here comes Enron or the Federal government to relieve you of it)  Some people have faith in their own intellect.However they make that their god.  No argument can be given to them that can oppose their view, or they argue like a child”NU_UH.!”   

     God created the universe and watches over each person on this planet.  Do you really think comparing him to a horseshoe is logical?  Science have disproved evolution over and over.  I have read Darwin.  In his own writings he stated that his theory can be disproven, and it has been. But there are those who doggedly cling to it, because to give up on evolution means to face up to God.  And that scares them.

    If you are right, there is no God and prayer doesn’t work. The consiquence for me is what?  I have lived a happy life, am content in my circumstances and healthy,I believe a lie, then I die and am worm food.  If you are wrong, and God is real, you spend your life falsifing charges against him, diverting people and railing against the God who created you and loved you enough to sacrifice much for you.  Then you die and stand before him in the tattered rags that are your earthly accomplishments and are judged on your deeds.

    It seems to me that you have far more to lose than I.  God is real.  God loves you.  I hope that you will see that someday soon.

  • Anonymous

    This video assumes that prayer is a method of “getting stuff.”  And builds up many straw man arguments.

    However, I’ve found that with practice prayer can induce a mental state akin to a meditative trance.  Even if you don’t believe in an external God, I think that prayer can bring about a positive mental state, conducive to mystical workings.

  • TuStepp

    If I see God after I die, I cant wait to tell him how dumb he is.  Seriously, you pick some idiots in the middle east to be your followers and not tell anyone else? You expect us to believe in you, giving us no actual proof, instead, a book that is an abomination of literature? Your main goal is to make us good people but if we are and dont believe on you, we suffer until the end of time? What purpose is there for believing in you without proof? Gods methods make no sense. If you say that I dont understand them, please explain.

  • Anonymous

    You should really look in the dictionary for the word “real”. If the idea of god works for you, great, but that doesn’t make it real.

  • Malk

    you’re putting into text exactly what is wrong with this video. the belief that God has anything to do with Christianity is doomed to failure. Christianity is a man made creation like every other religion and has thousands of flaws amidst thousands of lessons.

    your questions in order: (“they” being Christians) that’s only what they say; that’s only what they say; that’s only what they say; there are mountains of proof if you have the intelligence and patience to look past the throngs of babbling atheists and ignore the ranting zealots at the same time; God’s methods make perfect sense to the learned, no sense to the ignorant:

    We live in a Universe built on rules, that we agree to abide and live by before we come into the physical world. God doesn’t sit in a big chair and pick out goodies and baddies like santa clause, karma is a system that you are stuck in and your constant wrong action, self-loathing, and misuse of power boomerangs back lessons of pain and suffering until you learn to shape up. The same is true for groups, countries, sexes, almost any “label” you can think of is part of a group that shares many levels of karmic energies which can make their life seem very unfair when only looked at individually.

    If anyone actually has a serious interest in the subject they read for decades and spend a lot of time looking within and without. The belief that anything outside ones experience must be impossible is one definition of a fool.

  • Malk

    just because you “believe” that God isn’t real doesn’t invalidated my personal experience that God is real. I can’t and don’t have any interest in trying to push my own experience (most would use the word “belief” again for arguments sake) onto you, but words are situational when brought into subject of this realm. Is the uncertainty principle “real”? Does that mean that atoms are only “real” when you look at them? There are many topics that trump the one word answer, God being on of them.

  • Anonymous

    Real is defined as “actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed:” Can you prove god is not imagined or supposed? Obviously you can’t. Then to you it is a mental construct, which is really fine and I respect that.

  • http://twitter.com/sifupeter sifupeter

    Prayer IS a meditative trance, in which you actively choose to reinforce a certain train of thought, thereby increasing your intention. This is what leads to results, not a god or the universe listening to you as an individual.

    Disclaimer: I agree with the video in the sense that prayer or a lucky horseshoe will not affect dice rolls. Why? Because who cares about a bunch of dice rolls? People pray most often (I hope) when the stakes are much higher, asking for things like “Please help my mother recover from this stroke”, or “Let me live through this “. This absolutely increases your intention, and more often than not, affects your immediate environment in a positive way, thereby bringing about results. In this sense I empathize with those that pray to a particular God. I personally refuse to anthropomorphize the force I consider closest to the image of most gods, which in my opinion simply transposes more of the negative and selfish qualities of humanity onto that image.

  • Malk

    Simply put: unimagined. To which myself and millions of others would agree and say yes, God is real. But if you need a blood sample or a handshake before you’re willing to consider something as unimagined, then you are lost, for the sake of this argument, for the time being. Proof that life has meaning with not be forthcoming, neither will proof that rape is bad, physical proof how memory works, or proof of what causes gravity, but I don’t call these things “imaginary” either.

  • Anonymous

    There is a lot of physical evidence of how memory works, or gravity, or even dreams… Just like god, meaning and moral are mental constructs that people usually need to diminish the anguish of the unknown. Again, have you ever found any proof outside of your own mind that god exists? It’s a simple question that requires a simple yes or no. If you answer yes please enlighten us.

  • BFFJudas

    I like turtles.

  • Shaneequa Sarkozy

    Please provide evidence for how science has proven prayer. You can’t just say things without backing them up.

    Also, if it weren’t for evolutionary theory, we would not even have a field of genetics or many of the medical breakthroughs of the past century. Why do you think they have to keep coming out with new flu vaccines every year? Because that shit EVOLVES to be immune to the previous vaccine.

    ” God created the universe and watches over each person on this planet.  Do you really think comparing him to a horseshoe is logical?”

    Do you really think the idea that some super-being shat out the whole universe and watches our every move is logical?

  • Erikprice070

    wow what a stupid video.  this is possibly the WORST representation of what prayer is.  a prayer without faith is just words.  i’ve prayed and seen many people physically healed, and have heard several stories of amputees being fully restored through prayer.  God is not a horseshoe, and speaking to Him is nothing like speaking to a horseshoe.

  • YouPeopleAreScaringMe

    Read Carl Sagan. That’s all.

  • Anonymous

    You can’t be serious? You’ve heard several stories of amputees being fully restored through prayer? And believed them? It’s probably time to switch the critical thinking part of your brain on friend.

    I’m an atheist but I’d be the first to admit I don’t know if God exists or not, although evidence suggests he doesn’t.

  • Anonymous

    Science has disproved evolution over and over? Is this what they tell you in church after they take your money?

  • Malk

    I’ve already said yes several times, but I cannot relay that experience onto you. I suppose I could say you’re taking the miracle of life for granted, assuming the big bang is some how “physically” possible, and considering love as just a chemical imbalance, but in the end it all comes down to you want your handshake and I can’t give that to you.
    We only have have the bi-products of gravity and dreams and lot of other things by the way, if you ask someone to explain fundamentally, at their most basic what makes them work, you will not find an answer. Gravity attracts, is easily calculated with a constant equation based on mass and distance, but why? Show me the energy. What is it that jumps through space from our Sun, grabs the planet and keeps us in orbit? No one has done that yet, but some day we will. No one has a picture of God yet, but some day we will; religions will crumble, science will embrace the concepts of love and the afterlife, and the world will progress in all kinds of ways most people can’t even imagine these days.

  • YO

    Science in nothing more then a refinement of everday thinking, it is practical and critical, but it hardly has the means to judge the scope of religion, since it treats a known and measurable dimension of reality, ie possibilities, as though they were imaginary. If you really want to know evidence that god does exists I suggest looking at the slight details he reveals himself in that we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.

  • fixed123

    “I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.” -Albert Einstein

  • chubby

    The Aquarian Age Gospel of Jesus, the Christ of the Piscean Age

  • chubby

    And…..Legends of the Jews….

  • Anonymous

    an amputee can be fully restored! you just have to turn them into a newt first!

  • http://hormeticminds.blogspot.com/ Chaorder Gradient

    I’m no proponent for prayer, but i will say this is the most asinine video i’ve seen in a long time. The snobby fo-intellectual way he presents his arguments. But i cannot really argue against (most) of the stuff that he talks about, but his style is so disgusting that it leads me to believe that even if everything he says is right, I would get along with a human that believes in prayer more than someone like this.

  • http://hormeticminds.blogspot.com/ Chaorder Gradient

    Do you hold the belief that all “mental constructs” should be destroyed? Or that they are not real?(somehow i doubt it) It seems your real beef is the belief systems’ insistence that its more than just a mental construct, where you say it isn’t. Is there such a think as “more” than a “mental construct”? If the answer is no, then I feel sorry for you; if the answer is yes, is it justifiable that this, whatever it is, would include a “mental construct” within it?

  • 314

    I pray to the flying spagetti monster, and find that my prayers are answered about half the time.

  • Anonymous

    Well hot damn that’s some god skills right there! That proves it, god does exist and he has more love and compassion for small amphibians than he does humans.

  • Anonymous

    Well hot damn that’s some god skills right there! That proves it, god does exist and he has more love and compassion for small amphibians than he does humans.

  • Tuna Ghost

    Science have disproved evolution over and over.

    Demonstrably false.  Evolution is treated as fact by the scientific community, because it has been proven repeatedly.  I can show you the proof, if you’d like.  Will you show me proof of your own claims?

    Also, Pascal’s Wager is an old gambit that doesn’t really have any tread left.  If God is real and he loves me, then I have nothing to worry about because anyone who knows anything about love knows that things like Hell and Eternal Damnation aren’t in love’s vocabulary.

  • Malk

    I’ve listened to some great talks on how atheism is just as faith based as christianity, not that that inherently has anything to do with science, but I wanted to add it in…
    In other words: give me proof that God doesn’t exist and I’ll check myself into a mental institute. Asking for the personal handshake of God just isn’t going to happen overnight, sadly, but there are plenty of ways to seek and find the truth.

    We must all strive to avoid our own ignorance, our own close-mindedness, for we are all alike in that we are young and stupid, albeit in a million different ways.

  • Malk

    HERETIC!!

  • Tuna Ghost

    what a shame, a simple Intro to Logic course at his local university would have told him what a Straw Man argument is.  I have no love for the Church, but this guy just does not have any idea what role prayer is supposed to play in a religion.  Granted, neither do most mainstream religions, but still.

  • Tuna Ghost

    give me proof that God doesn’t exist and I’ll check myself into a mental institute.

    Google “burden of proof”.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    Do you really think the idea that some super-being shat out the whole universe and watches our every move is logical?

    Yes.  Yes I do.  But in my theology the Creator is a fecalphiliac paranoid schiztophrenic with magic powers, so that is probably the least controversial belief in the canon

  • Tuna Ghost

    I asked my Dad for a car once and I didn’t get it.  Now I know the truth: there’s no such thing as Dads.

  • Tuna Ghost

    …and have heard several stories of amputees being fully restored through prayer.

    I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but those stories are quite simply not true.  

  • Big T

    Google “Cosmological argument.”

  • Big T

    Evolution has been proven over and over?  Is this what they tell you in college after they take your money?

  • Big T

    Depends on what your definition of evolution is…as there are many, particularly over where you can irresponsibly spread this theory into ridiculously inappropriate areas.  You might want to amend your statement and delete “proof” and replace with “evidence.” 

    If love was the only factor in God then you wouldn’t sound so fallacious.  What about Justice?

  • Big T

    Do you pray in binary code?

  • Big T

    Carl Sagan’s space aliens that seeded our planet originated from where?

  • Big T

    Carl Sagan’s space aliens that seeded our planet originated from where?

  • Big T

    Pretty “all inclusive” statement on your part, isn’t it?

  • Vigilantius

    I’m beginning to wonder about Disinfo and the content they are putting up.  I mean I know they put things up here to get people to think but I’m seeing a pro-atheist bias more and more on disinfo.com.  I know atheism is a concern for the future of mankind and needs to be dealt with by debate…but some of the pro-atheist stuff that has been put up here smacks of their weak, froth-flecked-lips, “i’m smart and you’re not” evangelism.

  • Vigilantius

    Do atheists not realize there are more religons than just the one that they don’t like?

  • SHBAS

    I believe prayer doesn’t work the way some people would like it to.    

    I also think science and spirituality are mutually exclusive now and that’s not how it once was. I strongly believe science and spirituality can be brought back together if we exclude are view of a purely material reality. 

    The idea of God is still somewhat disturbing to me though. It allows us to give up our responsibility and project it onto another. That just seems wrong, like a sort of defense against the overwhelming responsibility of being human and also the responsibility of dealing with human emotions. Plus I strongly believe science is limited on purpose, and we (humans) could have all the powers of Gods if we weren’t so limited by the people at the top. 

    But don’t listen to me, I’m crazy, because I subscribe to the theory that Aliens came here in the past and “fucked” with us. Which is why we called them Gods.

    Give me a time machine, contact lenses, flashlight, cattle prod (taser) and an iPad and you might see my name in the Bible instead of this Jesus character. Hell, I could even take over all of Rome with my Droid phone. Bow down, or feel the wrath of my sound grenade app! See my point? 

  • Simiantongue

    “However, I’ve found that with practice prayer can induce a mental state akin to a meditative trance.”

    Which is why we call that meditation, not prayer. Prayer is commonly known as a petition to gods or perhaps to an object of worship. A communion with a god/s or some object of worship in which one expresses adoration, thanks, supplication or confession. Doing so CAN bring about a variety of states like a meditative state or a state akin to this;

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmhZVjaqQo&feature=channel_video_title

    But prayer is not mediation strictly speaking in itself and equivocation doesn’t make it so. I don’t believe in gods and I do meditate, I think there is a difference in what I do and prayer anyhow. Most people acknowledge this. One can reach devout religious contemplation through mediation, no doubt, but that is entirely different than the purpose of prayer. Prayer is not so much about “getting stuff”, that’s true, and a bit of a simplistic way to describe it, but it is a petition.

    If you are actualizing thought in some sort of magick that is entirely something different than petitioning an authority. Equivocating those doesn’t do the idea of prayer much service, or meditation for that matter.

     Just so there is not misinterpretation of what I mean about petition.

    Petition- 1. A formally drawn request, often bearing the names of a number of those making the request, that is addressed to a person or group of persons in authority or power, soliciting some favor, right, mercy, or other benefit.

    2. A request made for something desired, especially a respectful or humble request, as to a superior or to one of those in authority; a supplication or prayer

    3. Something that is sought by request or entreaty.

  • Tuna Ghost

    It is no less true because of that.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    It’s not the only factor, but it’s certainly the primary one.  Unless all those churches I attended growing up were deliberately misleading me.  Is He a god of love, or isn’t He?  Where’s the justice you’re seeing in the notion of eternal torture for a comparatively microscopic amount of sin?  Is that what love does?  

  • Tuna Ghost

    The idea of a “first cause” is so full of holes I’m wondering if you’ve actually investigated it to any significant degree.  Simply put, it is not a proposition that those concerned with discovering the truth bother with any more.  Don’t get me wrong, some of my favorite philosophers were partial to it.  Leibniz, for instance.  But do bear in mind that Galileo had just been imprisoned by the Church for the crime of being right, so maybe it wasn’t an environment that fostered reason or intensive investigation.  

    So you admit, then, that the burden of proof is on believers rather than non-believers?  

  • Tuna Ghost

    I’m not usually one for promissory materialism, but do bear in mind that for centuries we thought we’d never solve (insert scientific mystery here), and then did exactly that.  Because we don’t know now doesn’t mean we’ll never know.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    Also: so you’re not going to show us any evidence of your claims of evolution being proven false?  You’re not going to be taken very seriously if you drop a bomb like that and then expect everyone to take you at your word.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    yes, but they do offer rather convincing evidence for the claim.  A lot of evidence, in fact.  Do you have evidence for your own claims?  Would you care to share it?  I’ve looked for it online, but have found nothing.  I’m beginning to think this is because (gasp) there is no such evidence.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    The Bible is the authority on prayer?  What about the several thousands of years of religious tradition that came before the Bible?  That doesn’t merit any attention?

  • Light Brigade

    This is nonsense. Explain the Placebo effect then, because prayer is basically the same thing. The mind is the most powerful tool in the world. Please don’t continue to think it is impossible to influence your reality for the better with your thoughts.

    I am disappointed in disinfo.com for this video. Even if prayer truly was scientifically proven to not work (which this video completely fails to do), would you really shun and insult someone who prays for the change and prosperity that everyone who visits this website wants to see in the world? Who cares how they express their wishes for the betterment of society and its people? The only important thing is that they do.

  • Malk

    isn’t that what I just said? >_>

  • Malk

    lol

  • nutjob

    I have the best-est imaginary friend, therefore I win. na na na na na.

  • nutjob

    I have the best-est imaginary friend, therefore I win. na na na na na.

  • YouPeopleAreScaringMe

    Noah’s Ark

  • chubby

    quick…..what was the movie with the monks praying over bottles of water and changing the crystalline structure depending on the kind of prayer performed? could only find this….
    http://www.unitedearth.com.au/watercrystals.html

  • Anonymous

    College? I’m guessing you’re American so you mean university. No I didn’t pay any money to learn that, through simple research and critical thinking I concluded that creationism is about as true as Zeus throwing a tantrum with thunder and lightning when not enough goats have been sacrificed in his name. The cost? Nothing! The gain? Real knowledge as to the functionality of the world we live in.

    Evolution has been proven over and over you idiot and is still being proven over and over. Spend your sundays learning facts instead of going to church, you might just learn the earth is round(ish) and there is no god.

  • Anonymous

    I would say god is a bondage fiend, he loves us, but he also wants to tie us up and watch us suffer for his own pleasure.

  • Anonymous

    What’s justice when a mass murdering rapist goes to heaven because he was a believer of christ when a nonbeliever who spent their life working for charities, donating what little wealth they had to a good cause spends all eternity burning  in hell? If that’s God then I want no part of “His” justice.

    It’s better to rein in hell than serve in heaven.

  • Big T

    Textbook attempt at meaningless ad hominem in the first sentence of your response.   As far as your “logical” conclusion that there is no creator, you violate the law of non-contradiction.  Something from nothing cannot be a logical conclusion.  Where I ask is this critical thinking your appealing too?  Functionality of the physical universe is in no way concluded by the belief that nothing produced everything.

    If Evolution had been “proven” if you claim (especially if it has been over and over again), then why is it still a theory?  Perhaps you want to amend your statement and say there is a lot of evidence.  Then you wrap up your response with the ludicrous straw man/ad hominem (again) about learning that the Earth is round and such.  Perhaps spend your Sundays reading up on logical discourse.

  • Anonymous

    Those people are all burning in hell right now. Oh no wait the Earth is only 6000 years old, so everyone was a believer, there was nothing before then, only god and his awesome creative skills. Well that’s what the bible says….

    Just remember the dinosaur fossils were put there by god to test our faith and don’t forget to get a good moment alone at night in prayer.

  • Tuna Ghost

    First off: that wasn’t an ad hominem.  If he stated that your conclusions are invalid and that you’re dumb because you said “college” instead of “university”, that is not an ad hominem.  If he stated that your conclusions were invalid because you’re dumb (as evidenced by you saying “college” instead of “university”), then that would be an ad hominem.

    Just so we’re clear.  

    Something from nothing cannot be a logical conclusion. 

    This is more of a metaphysical quandary.  Apparent logical contradictions abound in our lives.  For instance: I have a great vintage jacket that I bought a year ago.  Two buttons have fallen off and been replaced.  If one abides by the Indiscernability of Identicals, which states that if two objects share all the same properties (including location) then they cannot be discerned from one another, as well as the Identity of Indiscernables, which states that if two objects share all the same properties (again, including location) then they are in fact the same object, then we are left with the stunning conclusion that the vintage jacket I own now cannot be the same jacket that I bought a year ago.  

    And yet, this is plainly an affront to common sense.  Of course its the same jacket, I wrote my fucking name on it.  And yet it can’t be the same jacket, because to call it that is an affront to logic.  This appears to be a logical contradiction existing right in front of us.  Can it be resolved, or are we left with an unreasonable universe?  

    Of course it can be resolved.  Namely, with the Doctrine of Temporal Parts (google it).  It just requires a bit of outside the box thinking.  

    The same goes for your gross oversimplification of the Big Bang–something cannot come from nothing (which we know because of physics), and yet it appears that this is exactly what happened.  The problem is when you go back to the Big Bang, the laws of physics begin to break down–this is to be expected, as we’re dealing with a situation in which the laws of time and space were not as we know them today.  They were being created.  As such, there’s only so much Newtonian physics is going to be able to tell us about its own birth.  This does not mean there isn’t an explanation within our reach, just that we have to start thinking in new directions.  Unfortunately, this does not mean that the “first cause” theory is suddenly viable again–it has far too many holes to be of any use, which is why it was abandoned by people trying to figure out what the hell is going on centuries ago.  

  • Anonymous

    Where did the ”creator” come from? was he just “there” wherever “there” was if there was nothing? Something from nothing does nothing to validate a creator, it’s just a simple way of explaining that the “creator” “created” everything, which is just as ludicous as saying something came from nothing.

    I will concur Evolution is still a theory, but there is evidence that supports it. An old book isn’t evidence for a creator. Imagen writting an amazing story now and in 5000 years time someone uncovers it and decides that it is the Book of Truth written by “Big T” knower of all things? Does that mean you were the knower of all things? Or just an amazing novelist with a few great ideas?

    All in all nice response to my somewhat ignorant comment, it’s easier to vent opinions via the internet than to have proper debates.

  • Tuna Ghost

    I don’t think you’ve got a firm grasp on the Uncertainty Principle.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    It does not appear to be, no.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    Apparently the Babylonians were also put there to test our faith.  Must’ve been quite a shock to the poor guys.  

  • Big T

    There is evidence, even solid proof for natural selection, absolutely.  To take assumed transitional species and positive mutation in higher life forms as conclusive evidence is not necessary, it is assuming that the premise of evolution is correct before you arrive at the conclusion to do so.  The problem with the common societal use of the evolutionary theory is that they attempt to apply it in places it doesn’t belong, cosmology, ethics and morals and metaphysics in general.

    Another issue is life from non-life.  Even after you have matter, there is no logical reason to think that it would produce sentient living forms.  We cannot demonstrate that the conditions needed to bring spontaneous life have ever existed in the Universe.  My evidence is the anti-thesis to these issues, i.e. how did life come to be from non-life, how did the material caused universe arrive?  All of this leads to the logical conclusion that the material existence was brought about by an uncaused, nonmaterial entity which possesses the ability to cause all of this and bring it into existence.  These also happen to be the qualities that are assigned to God.  Why would there be material evidence for something that is not a material thing?

    There certainly is forms of evolution in lower life forms such as viruses, there are definitely changes in higher life forms but most of the demonstrable ones are negative to the survival of that form.  There is no reason to conclude that biological evolution is responsible being the predominant driving force that produced all the life we see, and in the end the biological evolution theory makes no claims to explain how life began, just what may have happened once you have life.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Splinterhood-Crab/100002240308584 Splinterhood Crab

    Cool, now I want to see him do a video about how you can prove that you know that you don’t know something.

  • Tuna Ghost

    The problem with the common societal use of the evolutionary theory is that they attempt to apply it in places it doesn’t belong, cosmology, ethics and morals and metaphysics in general.

    I’ll go along with this, simply because I hate how seriously and incorrectly some people take the phrase “Social Darwinism” and “survival of the fittest”.   And you’re correct in that evolution is not meant to explain the origin of life on earth.

    Another issue is life from non-life.  Even after you have matter, there is no logical reason to think that it would produce sentient living forms.

    Ah, but there is.  Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Esher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid addresses this very subject. To be brief (it is a very large book), even inorganic systems can and do develop self-reference all on their own. 

    My evidence is the anti-thesis to these issues, i.e. how did life come to be from non-life, how did the material caused universe arrive?

    As for the origin of life, there are several different theories, but what you don’t hear scientists saying is that it can’t happen or didn’t happen.  Regarding the Big Bang, see my earlier post.

  • Tuna Ghost

    To take assumed transitional species and positive mutation in higher life forms as conclusive evidence is not necessary, it is assuming that the premise of evolution is correct before you arrive at the conclusion to do so.

    Mmm, not really.  Discovering evidence of evolution over and over, evidence that backs up evolution (and by “evidence” I mean, to steal a phrase, “the sum total of the contemporary biological sciences”), is not Begging the Question.  Evolution has been treated like any other theory–either the evidence supports it, or it doesn’t.  All the evidence supports it.  Evolution has been observed, my friend.   Speciation events, in which a species evolves into another, have been observed.  That’s not even taking into account the many fossil records displaying transitional species.  For years some folks were saying birds were the last of the dinosaurs, but the old timers were having none of it until they found a well-preserved fossil of a dinosaur with fucking feathers.  We haven’t even gotten into chromosomal evidence, molecular evidence, DNA redundancy and all that jazz.  

    I’ll leave you with something a smart person once told me:  ’”Correct” in science has no meaning other than “best right now.” That’s how it works. Of course it’s conditional and limited and subject to revision, because all knowledge is inherently conditional and limited and subject to revision.’

  • Big T

    Perhaps you care to mention these many holes that you tort and we can examine them?

    “Simply put, it is not a proposition that those concerned with discovering the truth bother with any more.”
    Just a blatantly false statement due to you overgeneralizing those who are concerned with discovering truth.  Those whom you try to represent are a much larger and diverse group than you attempt to represent with your statement.

    Galileo was imprisoned by people who are long dead, I don’t understand the relevancy here.  If you are trying refute the argument not by addressing the argument itself but rather those who have used it, that is the fallacy of ad hominem.  Stick to the argument and it’s points.

    Non-believers approaching the cosmological argument are simply attesting that “they don’t know” which is not a claim at all concerning the validity of the issue.  The bottom line is that we know the Universe had a beginning, yet don’t know the cause.  The burden of non-believers (concerning the claim in a timeless uncaused explanation) is to bring forth an alternate claim, not just “I don’t know.”

  • Big T

    God’s love is not the primary aspect of his nature on this issue, it is God’s necessity to remain perfect and Holy.  This cannot be done without justice and to a perfect all powerful being, separating and punishing that which offends him is required to remain so.  Being truly sorry for ones offenses along with an atonement to plead to for forgiveness brings forth God’s ability to express his love by granting forgiveness and satisfying his justice requirement while maintaining his perfection.  If this was not explained in your Church then yes they did this issue a disservice, or perhaps they did and you just weren’t listening or contemplating what they were saying at the time.

  • Big T

    If a case could be produced where a service member had limbs removed in combat, then those limbs were re-attached and were successfully restored against what the medical consensus was saying was possible would you concede your statement?

  • Big T

    Side step.

  • Big T

    I must start by saying that we are getting very deep into it here and there is no way we can exhaust these issues in which libraries worth of material in a few paragraphs.  That being said I apologize if I don’t address every issue you raised to a comprehensive level.

    I will focus my concern on evolution to this issue.  There would necessarily be many billions of transitional states of species if it were the SOLE driving force for what we see as life on Earth.  Many scientists are not satisfied with the lack of transitional species that have been found.  Common DNA and its redundancy supports evolution yes, but it also supports the theistic view of the common designer.  We were designed to eat things to sustain ourselves, there were no redundancy in amino acids across the spectrum we would have to eat other humans to survive.  Molecular evidence starts to run into the problem of irreducible complexity.  As for a dinosaur with feathers, why do we not think that it was always as it was until it went extinct?  Why do you believe is was evolved from anything else?  Why do you believe that is produced anything other than other dinosaurs with feathers?  Who and when did we decide that feathers are isolated to birds, was it the Bible that did that?

    There may be theists who make claims (which are not in the Bible) that are proven wrong.  This just says that they are wrong, that doesn’t translate to culpability within what the Bible says.  If a theist changes his view on something that is not clearly stated in the Bible, why is he not granted the same progressive correctness defense that you claim in your last paragraph?  Lastly, if your last sentence is true, why do atheistic evolutionists pronounce so ardently that they are so certainly right about God not existing?

  • Big T

    The jacket analogy is simply a question of criteria for defining the essence of a temporal subject, as is nearly all the analogies for the temporal parts discussion.  If you cherished those buttons as the most valuable object on the jacket, then you would not consider it the same jacket.  If you frame it as a jacket which has buttons on it, and I own it then it is the same jacket.  A more profound analogy is that of the definition of a person, as cells and elements that make up that person change, why are they considered the same person?  It it settled by our definition, just as questions of the Trinity in Christendom.  Properly understood there is no contradiction there.

    Your last paragraph is hard to respond to since you don’t make any real substantive claims.  You say we may have an explanation within our reach and that we just need to look in new directions, but what is this new direction you assume is there and why do believe it is indeed there?  If your comment was directed solely at Newtonian classical mechanics then yes I agree.  “first cause theory suddenly viable again.” It has never stopped being a viable explanation, just because you or any other rejects it is not a statement of its viability.  It has not been refuted.

  • Big T

    The question of our temporal existence is a question of the closed system we call our Universe.  Addressing the fact that something outside of it brought it forth is the subject being addressed here.  We know that either our closed system came from nothing for no reason, or that something outside of our closed system brought it about (to include it’s space and time.)

    I am making statements regarding the existence of a God, I have not been discussing the matter of whether the Bible is revelation from that God or not.  That issue is a separate thread of discussion.

  • Deep7heaven

    Just wanted to say I’m happy with the quality of thinking on this topic.

  • Robin

    Why is it that Atheist think they have to try to prove to Christians that God doesn’t exist. I believe in God I believe in prayer and you just made me believe even more. Not all things can be explained just like how people with so little mind like yourselves can bend laws your way. Wise up learn to except or be lost.

  • Big T

    Hmmm, imagine that..a perfect being doesn’t consider our deeds good enough.  Replace that charity worker with someone who actually lived a perfect life and then was brutally murdered for no reason and you are starting to get how this whole atonement thing works.  You will have a part in his justice like it or not. 

  • Big T

    I will say if it had been proven false it wouldn’t be around now would it?  As I stated earlier there definitely are levels of evolution that exist.  The evidence  against it being the sole driving force behind the worlds living organisms is the lack of failed species in the fossil record, which Darwin himself said should be present.  It is the purported existence of millions of transitional species required for each of the separate living organisms today that we also don’t see in the fossil record.  Burden of proof is on you pal, its your theory.

  • Simiantongue

    “I feel bad for you, If this is truly your belief system”

    It’s not a belief system, this is not accepting a theistic belief system. Any “belief” an atheist has about the nature of the universe is actually a separate issue. This is some atheist saying they don’t believe theistic claims. If you said that you did not believe in Poseidon, that does not mean that not believing in Poseidon is your belief system. Most people are atheistic to some degree, many with the exception of only one god.

    “Prayer has been proved by science over and over”

    Not a very good idea to base faith on the scientific method. You’re going to be very disappointed I think. It is actually somewhat demeaning to faith to make that connection. Anyway instead of just telling us about how prayer has been proven by science, why not just provide the proof of such?

    “People are healed when doctors have no explaination”

    You still have all your work ahead of you. It isn’t simply “Doctors have no explanation, therefore prayer.” Or “Doctors have no explanation, therefore god”. Not only would doctors have no explanation, neither do you. It’s fallacious to infer that Doctors do not know therefore your hypothesis is correct. You’ve proven nothing.

    I’m not even going to go into the fact that you’re holding doctors as a somewhat omniscient authority. If doctors don’t know then it is unknowable. Which is not true at all. Often times the limitation of medical knowledge is restricted due to quite mundane reasons. One is resources, it simply takes a lot of resources to have a minute understanding of what was going on in someones body at the time they survived some viral infection. Another is time and access in a logistical sense. To have the resources and equipment readily available at the exact time of the occurrence. When this is not possible a best guess is all that’s possible, though it’s an educated guess, it’s a guess nonetheless. That’s why most medical study is done in strictly controlled environments. Where these factors can be managed effectively enough that objective conclusions can be drawn. It’s simply not tenable that we examine every inexplicable death or healing event.  Also there definite limits to present day medical science. It has come very far from the days of having to steal bodies from graveyards to gain a more complete understanding of human anatomy, at their own peril of being prosecuted by religious authority of the time I might add.  But medical science is by no means comprehensive, still in it’s infancy if you see it on a scale of what we could possibly know over time, if you ask me.

    “I agree that people worship many things in this world that are silly. But God is not one of them.”

    I don’t agree. The things that people worship may seem silly to you,  just as your worship of god may seem silly to them. You’re stating a very subjective opinion as fact. But I don’t accept that. It may be that I’m just smart enough to know what I don’t know. One thing I don’t know or understand might be the cultural relevance of some idea someone might worship. Just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s silly. To call other peoples belief that without understanding it first IS silly.

    “It is silly to put faith in your health(  I exercise everyday I have guaranteed my health. then you get hit by a bus.)”

    Of course it’s not silly. Plan for the best, expect the worst. Just because you may come to some unexpected demise doesn’t mean you should just give it all up and sit on the couch all day. If you take care of yourself at least there is a chance you can live a long fulfilling life. If you don’t then you’ve very little chance of that at all. Exercising is hedging your bets, it doesn’t mean you will live a long life but it certainly increases the likeliness of it.

    ” I have amassed great wealth .(Here comes Enron or the Federal government to relieve you of it)

    Personally I think using money to make money is probably one of the worst evils, there is no real purpose to it, other than the carnal want of more. On another note I’m not seeing your analogy here either, or it’s relevance.

    “Some people have faith in their own intellect.However they make that their god. No argument can be given to them that can oppose their view, or they argue like a child”NU_UH.!”

    We should be very careful to understand our cognitive biases. Such as egocentrism. Simply put it is mental inflexibility, inability understand that other people may have different opinions and beliefs from ourselves. When you say “they make that their god” you are simply practicing your own. The god lens is how you perceive the world, simplistically stating that is how atheists see the world also is very egocentric.

    As a matter of fact most atheists I know, which are a few, have no faith in their own intellect. At least where the understanding of the very nature of the universe is concerned. To accept that there is a god is to accept that you have some understanding or comprehension as to what such a thing would be. Which is the height of conceit if you ask me. Definitely such a person who makes any such claim, to have any type of understanding of such things as to what the nature of a god is, which by any means is totally unknowable, is the height of arrogance in believers own intellect. The atheists that I’m aware of, myself included, would never presume to know such things. As a matter of fact we don’t believe in whatever god you my put forward simply because we acknowledge that we don’t know, and neither do you.

    Theistic belief in whatever form is really just conceit. Whether you think god is Allah or just some amorphous intelligence that is the universe itself, I would ask, “Really is that god?” How very clever of you, to believe that you are able to explain the nature of the universe in so very few words, or however many words it would take for that matter. That you could possibly even contemplate such a thing is really the height of conceit. Most atheists are not of the opinion that “there is no god”. Very few make that claim, and I think that those who do, do such in very limited frame. As in “there is no such thing as the god you are claiming to have knowledge of”.  Atheists do make that claim that there is no “Christian god” or “Allah” or “Vishnu” or the claim that god is simply some amorphous intelligence that is the universe. I mean please, anthropomorphize much, it’s all so much self serving rubbish.

    These things are quite easy to dismiss, atheists simply claim that any notion of god that has ever been claimed or likely ever will be claimed by any human is not a representation of anything that might be considered godlike. Quite the contrary all claims to describe god are very provincial on the face of it. I’ve done a lot of reading about the subject and I can honestly say I’ve never come across any sufficient explanation of what a god might be that is at all a plausible explanation for the nature of the universe. I reject all definitions that I have studied so far, therefore I am an atheist. I am quite comfortable in saying I don’t know, I see no point in worshiping or believing in anything that has been put forward as a claim for god. I even go further and say that the whole concept as conceived by man is really untenable. If there were such a thing as the concept of god it will almost certainly be quite beyond our ability to properly understand it. I accept as an atheist that I have an infinitely less chance of understanding any concept of gods as an amoeba does of understanding the purpose of square dancing.

    So quite the contrary it’s not faith in ones own intellect that keeps atheists from believing in the christian god or whatever god you may proffer. It’s that we are just smart enough to know what we don’t know and can’t know. Which is very humbling indeed.

    “God created the universe and watches over each person on this planet.”

    See what I mean about being conceited? Do I accept that you’ve dissected the concept of god with that blunt instrument of theism? Not for a second. Any explanation you proffer of what god is, how it created the universe and how it watches over each person on this planet, I reject out of hand. That is not an accurate representation of the nature of the universe, it’s preposterous on the face of it. And further I’m humble enough to realize I don’t have to have an alternate explanation to fill it’s place. I simply do not know. We do have the scientific method and we are trying to find these things out. But it too is a blunt tool, it has however provided some very interesting answers to some questions. More than religion has anyhow, I think it’s worth further investigation.

    “Do you really think comparing him to a horseshoe is logical?

    Yes. The claims of a christian god are very comparable to superstition. The god that christains claim is in fact little more than superstition in most aspects. Theologians have a more nuanced understanding but it all boils down to a belief or a notion not based on reason or knowledge. Hence the faith aspect of religious belief. The whole idea that there are theologians kind of betrays the machinations of theistic belief in itself if you think about it. If there were such a thing as a christian god you wouldn’t need christian theologians in the first place. This existence would be readily apparent to everyone and you wouldn’t need an upper class lamenting in apologetics for millennia. The whole self serving structure of religion is blatantly obvious. How peoples fear of annihilation and insecurity is taken advantage of is quite reprehensible if you ask me and that goes for institutional religion as well as a personal belief. Developing over the course of human history exactly what thoughts stick and haunt people and those that don’t. Let’s not get too far astray of the subject though, this is long enough as it is.

    “Science have disproved evolution over and over”

    Has it really? Hmm interesting. I’m pretty up to date on the latest science in evolution, can’t say that I’ve heard that the Nobel prize was given out because some scientist had disproved that theory. They would have gotten it too, that would be kind of a big thing. There is no bigger accolades given in science than when some theory has been proven wrong. If some paleontologist had found a rabbit fossil in the Cambrian era for example.  I notice that when people make claims about science or whatever disproving some scientific theory, it’s not gravity, or calculus, or language structure. It’s always that whipping boy evolution. Strange that. Could it be because evolution challenges some preconceived notions about where humans came from? Would you object loudly if your particular religion had another explanation for gravity I wonder? What scientific theory might you find flawed then I’m left wondering. You don’t think the whole evolution is wrong trope betrays a self serving agenda?  I might point out that the greater majority of people are religious, also that most people think evolution is a sound theory. The majority of people who think evolution is a sound scientific theory are religious people. Many people at least realize that if you are going to make this a showdown between the truth of your religion and the fact of evolution, religion is going to come out on the short end of the stick. There are simply mountains of evidence pointing to the fact of evolution and none supporting the creation myth.

    “I have read Darwin, In his own writings he stated that his theory can be disproven, and it has been.

    Well at least you didn’t take the time to cherry pick the exact Darwin quote as many do. Then fail to quote his next paragraph, where he does say explicitly where his theory may be disproved, then goes on to show exactly why it’s not. Point of fact his theory has been revised over the years, he was quite mistaken about some aspects and conclusions about evolution. The theory has developed over time and I’m left wondering why you are still arguing against his theory of over 150 years ago instead of our present understanding of evolution. It’s quite easy for me to pick apart his idea of 150 years ago about the evolution of bears for example. We do have a much better understanding of the evolution of bears today. However his core theory still stands, the evolution of bears has happened.
     
    “But there are those who doggedly cling to it, because to give up on evolution means to face up to God. And that scares them.

    I think some say that the theory of evolution is still true because we continually find evidence that supports it. The last time some new field of science opened up, the study of genetics, this was a very important test of the theory of evolution. We have in genes the evidence of a genetic ladder. Would this disprove the theory of evolution? It did not. In fact it supported it in such a way that you can never again say evolution doesn’t occur. It’s shown in the genes of all species on Earth.

    Your whole assertion that giving up on evolution scares people is simply untrue. Like I said the greatest proportion of people who think evolution is a fact are also religious believers. These things are not mutually exclusive. And to atheists that is absurd, who fears what they don’t believe in. You think about a disbelief in god as a theist would then attribute that same fear you feel in the non-belief of gods to atheists. But it’s simply not a factor in how atheists think of gods. I have no more fear of not believing in your god, any more than you fear not believing in Wotan.

    “If you are right, there is no God and prayer doesn’t work, The consiquence for me is what? I have lived a happy life, and content in my circumstances and healthy,I believe a lie, then I die and am worm food. If you are worn, and God is real, you spend your life falsifing charges against him, diverting people and railing against the God who creaded you and loved you enough to sacrifice much for you. Then you die and stand before him in the tattered rags that are your earthly accomplishments and are judged on your deeds.”

    An articulation of Pascal’s wager. I counter with Voltaire, that it’s “indecent and childish… the interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.” For that matter I can argue that living in a land of lollipops and ice cream are infinitely desirable, therefore we will some day live in a land of lollipops and ice cream. My wanting such is no indication that it will be so and is no argument for the existence of such.

    Secondly lets give your argument all that we can. Let’s assume we do find ourselves in front of some god. As ridiculously simplistic as that sounds. Are you sure you’ve got the right one? I mean, the Christian god sounds pretty vindictive when it comes to worshiping other gods. A good portion of the commandments go toward warning you of that. What if you find yourself in front of a god as jealous, but is not the one in which you worshiped? And you’re absolutely sure that among the tens of thousands of gods men have imagined in it’s history and the infinity of possible gods that we haven’t imagined, you have chosen the right one. Hate to tell you but the odds are almost infinitely against you there. If we take your wager as true you’ll almost certainly lose also.

    Also how reprehensible it is to try and blackmail people into belief in gods through fear, as if one could just simply decide to, or not to, believe in gods anyway, by posing threats of eternal damnation. It’s one of those thoughts that the religious have found stick with people and use it to their advantage, no doubt about that. It makes one question also why you believe in your god. Is it simply out of fear of retribution. That’s what Pascal’s wager is in a nut shell. You believe because not to believe means punishment. That’s no moral code or argument, that’s blackmail. If you are wagering your belief you are simply believing for some sycophantic, self serving purpose, just to stay in gods good graces. I trust that an all knowing god would not be completely dim and would see through such apple-polishing, brown nosing, ass kissing, boot licking, grovelling, sucking up, toady yes men. Even if you were right about THE god being the Christian god, just going by what I’ve read about the christian god, he’s not going to be very happy with you. This type of wagered belief as you put forward is anathema to the true calling of the love of god, which I’ve read about in the Christian bible in fact. Based wholly on christian beliefs as I’ve read and understand them, I would call that type of proselytizing very underhanded and not very christian at all in fact.

    “It seems to me that you have far more to lose than I”

    I don’t know it seems to me you’ve painted yourself into quite the ideological corner. Your situation seems like a lose lose situation. It seems you’ve wasted at least a portion of your life on beliefs that can’t possibly be supported over any other. And those beliefs DO have real world consequences both for you and for the rest of us. We do share a common society. Even if you are somewhat correct in your wager I don’t see how you get around the fact that in a race of almost infinite horses you seem confident that you’ve put your money on the right one. As where I haven’t put my money on any. I still have the money from my wager and all you hold is a losing ticket stub. That gives me a decided advantage. The owners of the racetrack, or religion or whatever you’d like to call it, will undoubtedly and excitedly declare your choice to put your money down to be the wisest choice I’m sure. If religion isn’t simply the process monetizing belief then I don’t know what is. Of course convincing as many other people to do so also is advantageous to those who have already invested, that’s the hook. Once you put your money down then it’s in your own best interest to get as many others to do likewise. The advantages of doing so are legion. Pun intended christian soldiers.

  • Anonymous

    I’m going to say “not” purely because I don’t believe he exists in any form.

    If a charity worker was brutally murdered, that’s one thing, but does that charity worker go to heaven even if they weren’t a believer? Does the brutal murderer get to go to heaven because he was a believer? If doing good things during life amounts to nothing then whats the point of a believer having any sort of morals? Is that why the 10 commandments were written? To try keep immoral believers in check?

  • Big T

    Take a second and entertain the point of view that God is real and that he is perfect.  Then ask if someone who denies that he is even real should be allowed to spend eternity in his presence, also ask if he did that would he be perfect?  This believing in God does not get you to heaven, the is the act of repenting (turning away) from sin, asking forgiveness and being genuine about all of that.  This mass murdering psychopath that you keep bringing up has missed the whole repenting part.  I would also ask you, if that guy really believed that God was aware of his actions at all times and that he is going to stand before God to account for his actions how would he be able to rape and murder.  Again, he may lie all day long for many reasons by saying he believes in it.  Satan believes in God, believes in the atonement and knows what he is doing is wrong.  Why is he not going to heaven?  If you look at the book of Romans/Galatians it explains the law of God.  Basically, we are to try to follow the law of God, but knowing we are going to fall short, we are to look to God’s Son for our righteousness.  Anyway, hope that answers the question.  Ask yourself why you get so upset at the thought of this God you don’t believe exists.

  • Adam

    I concur.

  • Adam

    “Take a second and entertain the point of view that God is real and that
    he is perfect.  Then ask if someone who denies that he is even real
    should be allowed to spend eternity in his presence, also ask if he did
    that would he be perfect?”

    You don’t find the fact that a “perfect” being would deny Its (because would such a perfect being really have a identifiably human gender?) incomprehensible “love” to a lesser being It designed, due to a vague lack of belief on the lesser being’s part, as somewhat petty and childish?

  • Adam

    *an identifiably human gender – sorry.

    How I hate my neuroses.

  • Tuna Ghost

    Perhaps you care to mention these many holes that you tort and we can examine them?

    They can be found with even the lightest research, but whatever.  The first objection raised is why the “first cause” should be exempt from itself having a cause.  Saying “because it is God, He is exempt from causation” does not answer the question, it just avoids it.  There are others, but if I am going to give you an education in philosophy then you need to hand over a very large check.  

    Just a blatantly false statement due to you overgeneralizing those who are concerned with discovering truth.

    There is no respected philosopher alive today who attempts to use this metaphysical argument precisely because it is so full of holes.  I define “those concerned with discovering the truth” as “those who have made the effort to obtain an education in the fields associated with discovering the truth, and have put aside personal beliefs and wishes in an attempt to find it”.  I could give a longer definition based on Plato’s Phaedo, but like I said.  Big ol’ check for monies.  Simply thinking you’re interested in the truth does not put you in the category of one who is concerned with finding it.  Unless you put in the work, you’re all talk.

    Galileo was imprisoned by people who are long dead, I don’t understand the relevancy here.

    As noted earlier, some of my favorite philosophers were partial to the “First Cause” idea.  But they were publishing in an environment in which, if one did not mention god anywhere, there may be a prison cell with one’s name on it.  So perhaps their opinion on that subject is not to be trusted very much, hmmmm?  

    The burden of non-believers (concerning the claim in a timeless uncaused explanation) is to bring forth an alternate claim, not just “I don’t know.”

    This has nothing to do with the burden of proof.  I’m  not sure you understand that phrase.  Also, non-believer do not have a burden, since they are not trying to put forward a theory.  They are free to point out the errors in the idea of intelligent design without adding any of their own.  I don’t know why you think they are not.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    If you frame it as a jacket which has buttons on it, and I own it then it is the same jacket.

    How can it be?  It violates the law of identity of indiscernables.  That’s whole point of the exercise, guy.  The jacket you had is not the same as the jacket you own now.  Claiming it is the same is an affront to logic.  Please be aware that this is not just a matter of definitions.  That does not tackle the issue, it just avoids it.  Playing with definitions does not solve these issues, it lays a tarp over them.  People concerned with discovering the truth attempt the former, people who say they’re concerned with discovering the truth, but are really just interested in confirming their own biases, do the latter.  Which one are you, friend?

    And as for the trinity, you do realize that the Trinity is defined as an accepted mystery in a lot of Christian faiths, don’t you?  Catholicism, for instance?  Meaning there is no “official” resolution to the seeming contradiction?  Most of the explanations put forth today were called heresies by the Nicean Council.  Look up Monism, for instance.  

    “first cause theory suddenly viable again.” It has never stopped being a viable explanation, just because you or any other rejects it is not a statement of its viability.

    Actually, when it is rejected on the grounds of its inability to function as an explanation due to its logical invalidity, lack of explanatory power, and inclination toward infinite casual loops, then that is exactly what that means.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    According to the preachers and priests I’ve spoken with, God’s love is the primary aspect on all issues.  He is a god of Love.  It was Love that made Him come to earth in human form to save us, it was Love that made him die for us.  ”Faith, Hope, Love, and the greatest of these is Love”, etc. He is Love.  

    Simply put, there is no way one can reconcile Love with eternal torture.  If think there is, then you quite simply do not understand how love works.  And that’s not even going into the frankly batty notion of eternal torture for a comparitively microscopic amount of sin is any kind of “justice” at all.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    Not “no reason at all”, guy.  Sedition against Rome.  Give to Ceasar what is Ceasar’s, eh?  

  • Tuna Ghost

    If you look at the book of Romans/Galatians it explains the law of God.

    No, it explains the law of Paul.  The Paul who never knew Christ.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    The evidence  against it being the sole driving force behind the worlds living organisms is the lack of failed species in the fossil record, which Darwin himself said should be present.  It is the purported existence of millions of transitional species required for each of the separate living organisms today that we also don’t see in the fossil record.

    The first of those is not correct.  There are failed species in the fossil record.  Lots and lots of them.  The second is…also incorrect.  There does not need to be a transitional species for each species present today, since many species share a common ancestor.  Like I said, speciation has been observed.  Mutations leading to new species has been witnessed.  

    Another quote from a friend: “At this point, if someone doesn’t believe in evolution it’s because they really don’t want to, not because the evidence isn’t there.”

    I would like to add, however, that I’m glad we’ve remained relatively civil in all of this.  We’re taking shots at each other, but it hasn’t devolved (ha!  get it?) into name-calling or profanity, for which I am relieved.  I wish more conversations would go this way, and not just because I view myself as winning.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    Again: I’m glad we’re keeping this civil.  By all means let us imply that the other is silly or stupid for thinking the way they do, but I’m pleased we’ve thus far refrained from actually saying as much out loud and with four-letter words.  

  • Big T

    If you reject Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus then you would be right that he never knew Christ.  There is also the ability to know Christ through what he taught.  Paul had access to the other Apostles to gain this knowledge.  Paul addressed the law handed down to Moses, that is the law I was referring to.

  • Big T

    Christ being a male and part of the Trinity would lend a male nature.  Beyond the material reasons, God is addressed as the Father.  I don’t believe God the Father has any particular reproductive organs.  

  • Big T

    I will hand you a check if you can provide the credentials that qualify you as a professor on the subject.  I ask for examples to that I have something to respond to.  The non-believer is a deceiving term.  There are basically for explanations for the existence of matter in our closed system.  Illusion, self caused, self existent or it was caused by something self existent.  Which of these three presuppositions do you not agree to?  1) Law of non-contradiction 2) Cause and effect 3) Basic reliability of sense perception.  By simply stating that you believe nothing can produce something is dodgy.  You end up ignoring the basic premise that there needs to be a cause for an effect.  We know the Universe has a beginning so the position of a self existent universe is out.  We are left with everything not actually existing (I hope you don’t agree with this one.)  The Universe is then either caused by something that was itself caused, in which if we stop there is an incomplete theory, or if we go back far enough there needs to be something not caused that caused something.  This may be hard to accept, but it is better than thinking nothing produced something.  At least the self existent theory has an explanation for the effect.  The something from nothing theory falls short.

    I’m not really interested at this point about which philosopher agreed with what.  I am interested in the concepts.  It is only an assumption to think that those philosophers were not being honest and an unprovable one at that so there is no point in arguing over it, we will just have to agree to disagree.

    There are numerous philosophers who use the cosmological argument (Dr. William Lane Craig.)  I reject your idea of what a “respected” philosopher is, this is relative and usually means “they have to agree with me to be respected.”  The same argument is attempted by most atheists in regards to scientific theory.  Ravi Zacharias is a respected philosopher and he also stands behind the cosmological argument.

    I agree that I am enjoying this discussion and appreciate the emotional restraint that you speak of.

  • Tuna Ghost

    Ah, I was under the impression “full recovery” meant recovery of a truly “lost” limb, a la a newt or lizard or something.  Thank you for correcting that; for a minute several of us thought you might be operating under some very strange beliefs regarding human biology.  

    But still, no.  The studies that are often presented to show the effectiveness of prayer (the ones I have been presented with, at any rate) are full of bad science.  In the theoretical case you mention, the prayer aspect would be incidental to the amazing work of dedicated medical professionals, who deserve the real credit.  Although I suppose the subject deserves some credit too.  Regaining full use of one’s limbs after amputation and re-attachment is neither a quick process nor a fun one, but it is within the realm of medical science nonetheless.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    Ask yourself why you get so upset at the thought of this God you don’t believe exists.

    Actually, I’d like an answer to that as well.  Its a strange phenomenon I run into frequently.

  • Tuna Ghost

    I view Paul’s influence on the Church as too much and largely negative.  I don’t see the utility in letters he wrote to specific churches or people two thousand years ago, or any reason to apply them to one’s life these days.  The Gospels, I think, provide a clear enough view of Christ’s message, or at least as clear as we’re ever going to get.  As such, to no one’s great surprise I am suspicious of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.  

  • Tuna Ghost

    GET HIM

  • Tuna Ghost

    If you’re disappointed in Disinfo because of this video, why not post something you think is fitting for the website?  Its not hard to get an account.  They gave me one, and I’m a junkie scumbag.  

  • Big T

    All good points, no argument on that.

  • Big T

    Kinda off topic, but I have to ask what your background is concerning Christianity?  You discussion seems oddly intelligent and not the normal straw man garble.  Not usual around these parts…wish there were more like you here.

  • Big T

    I blame the liberty and superfluous exegesis of Paul’s epistles on the Catholic church oh around the council of Trent.  On that I would agree it is largely negative.  They are indeed not necessary for the message of Christ but do help in codifying certain doctrine.  The conversion of Paul from Jewish zealot who persecuted Christians to a man who was killed for his testimony is one decent reason to believe that he at least believed he saw Christ.  To go from super skeptic to martyr would require something very unusual.

  • Big T

    I agree that one has enough material evidence to believe in biological evolution and will hold the right not to have their IQ put into question.  But, there is still enough missing for someone to reject it as a complete solution and be permitted the same courtesy.  I am not aware of the addition of any new information bringing about any positive mutation, point one out if I have missed it. 

    Is there any case of a “failed” species that cannot be explained through natural selection (which does not require transitional information being added?)  Even with the common ancestor, all the branches sequencing off of that ancestor require untold numbers of failed species for this theory to be truly unguided and purely random. 

    The largest reasons for my rejecting it are not the material evidences or lack thereof, it is the areas of first cause that we have been discussing, as well as the issue or objective morality (not trying to open that can of worms now though.)  There are also plenty of uncertainties in science, dark matter, universal constants and speed of light now possibly in question that make me not so quick to conclude that the science is in on the transcendent.

    Maybe we cracked the code for the article you contributed some months back concerning how to do this in a civil matter!

  • Anonymous

    It clears it up abit yeahs thank you. I would like to raise another hypothetical situation; If you were a good person during your time on Earth but didn’t believe in God, but soon discovered that God did infact exist when you met him at the gate to heaven, would God forgive you if you begged his forgiveness?
    I get upset as you put it because of many reasons. 

  • Big T

    The real question as a matter of fact is what you include in the identification of a subject.  The reality is your jacket is a collection of fundamental particles, we decide based on typically arbitrary means how many and in what arrangement of those particles we give a certain name.

    Christians who have bothered to address this subject of Trinity have come to the basic explanation that God is one in essence and three in personage.  It is again a matter of what question you are asking which will produce a different answer.  There are three separate roles concerning this universe, but they operate under the same will and are all uncaused, timeless ect.  If you ask the question of what makes up God you have to include all three.  If you specify a particular event you may get a specified portion of God.  If you are a being that knows all and is omnipresent then it is possible.  We have issues because we try to rationalize it from a anthropocentric point of view which is incorrect.

  • Simiantongue

    :P heh

  • Tuna Ghost

    I was raised Catholic and went to southern protestant christian schools, which meant church at least three times a week.  I certainly don’t call myself a christian, but I’ve had both a secular and a faith-based Bible education.  Religion is a topic of interest to me for a number of reasons.

  • Big T

    There are two approaches two this question.  First is concerning someone who has been confronted by the truth of God and has denied it.  That person (if maintaining that denial to the death) will be immediately separated from God upon death.  They will be delivered up to face judgment at a later time, they will be brought before God and will acknowledge him, they will be presented with their denial and judged as so before being cast away again.  The point of this is that the separation is the punishment and it happens upon death.  God requires a choice in the matter of worshiping and having a relationship with him if it is to be perfect worship and relationship.  We wouldn’t consider someone forced to love us to be true love would we?  To be confronted directly with the proof of God’s existence, as we will be on the day of judgment, we cannot deny him and therefore there is no choice.  The worship is not perfect according to God.  This choice requires a certain amount of lack of knowledge combined with the antithetical existence to choosing God (we have to have a door B for door A to be a real choice)  this is the reason for the tree of knowledge in the garden, it is the reason for God’s allowing Satan to exist ect.  If I know that door A leads to everything that is good and door B leads to everything that is bad, I would never choose door B and therefore it is again not a real choice.  Door B has to be appealing to me in some fashion.  Door B cannot be appealing to me unless its appeal is a lie (which Satan provides because God cannot lie).  Point of all of this is to say that once we are confronted with the absolute undeniable knowledge of God’s existence we no longer qualify to make the choice, the choice has been made for us.

    We are presented with some level of evidence by simply witnessing God’s creation, using the logic he gave us as well as the inherent morality that we are born with.  All of these evidences can be influenced in the wrong direction by others as we grow up, but I truly believe that left alone all people will naturally assume God exists, at least the general version.  I think we have to be conditioned to ignore this.  Those who have never been confronted with the existence of Christ will only be judged according to what evidence they had.  For example, someone born in the jungles of Papa New Guinea and have no influence on these things realizes that there is a higher power responsible for the universe he witnesses.  This person also realizes that certain things they do are wrong and appeal to this basic God for forgiveness of those things.  I think they will be granted forgiveness and will not be separated from God upon death.

    I assume that you get upset because of historic actions of people who were either Christian or claiming to be so.  When addressing the idea of God’s existence I would just ask that you separate God from those people and consider God on his own.  God condemns all sin to include those committed by those who are Christian.  If you can think of something sinful a Christian has done, remember that God is just as disgusted by it.  Christ called his own disciple “you who are wicked,”  no Christian is perfect therefore the need for forgiveness in the first place.  Sorry for the lengthy response, but I am not very skilled at being succinct.

  • Big T

    I was actually raised in a very skeptical household and had a secular education, the exact opposite.  My guess is that you are a bit upset at those who taught you because they didn’t present the evidence for the other side correct?  Same with me, I was taught in school that all Theistic minded people lack logic and are willfully ignorant to science.  I had met many who reinforced that view.  When I finally got around to hearing a defense of the existence of God by the likes of RC Sproul, Ravi Zacharias, William Lane Craig, John Lennox, I realized that it is not true.

  • Big T

    I was actually raised in a very skeptical household and had a secular education, the exact opposite.  My guess is that you are a bit upset at those who taught you because they didn’t present the evidence for the other side correct?  Same with me, I was taught in school that all Theistic minded people lack logic and are willfully ignorant to science.  I had met many who reinforced that view.  When I finally got around to hearing a defense of the existence of God by the likes of RC Sproul, Ravi Zacharias, William Lane Craig, John Lennox, I realized that it is not true.

  • Big T

    I was actually raised in a very skeptical household and had a secular education, the exact opposite.  My guess is that you are a bit upset at those who taught you because they didn’t present the evidence for the other side correct?  Same with me, I was taught in school that all Theistic minded people lack logic and are willfully ignorant to science.  I had met many who reinforced that view.  When I finally got around to hearing a defense of the existence of God by the likes of RC Sproul, Ravi Zacharias, William Lane Craig, John Lennox, I realized that it is not true.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1050355547 Rafael Thethird

    LOL i love how you give that dice example of odds out of 1 out of 46,000
    but Evolutionist believe in superstitious non-sense like the universe
    spontaneously creating itself out of nothing, and second life spontaneously
    creating itself out of, get this, NOTHING! And people placed the odds of
    life starting on its own at 1 chance in 10^390. I think i’d take the
    lucky horse shoe over evolutionist superstition any day. Also God doesn’t just
    answer prayers at your will. at least not the God of the bible.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1050355547 Rafael Thethird

    LOL i love how you give that dice example of odds out of 1 out of 46,000
    but Evolutionist believe in superstitious non-sense like the universe
    spontaneously creating itself out of nothing, and second life spontaneously
    creating itself out of, get this, NOTHING! And people placed the odds of
    life starting on its own at 1 chance in 10^390. I think i’d take the
    lucky horse shoe over evolutionist superstition any day. Also God doesn’t just
    answer prayers at your will. at least not the God of the bible.

  • Big T

    It doesn’t end there.  Paul Davies calculated that the odds of conditions being suitable for star formation are 1 part in 1,000 billion billion at least.  Steven Hawking calculates that if within one second after the big bang the expansion rate had been weaker by 1 part in 100,000 million million it would have just collapsed back onto itself.  There are around 50 quantities and constants of this magnitude that one must accept in order to deny the first cause argument.  Anyone who believes this argument is just innumerate, any other purposal that claimed these statistics would certainly be rejected in a sound scientific environment. 

  • Big T

    I don’t agree, especially on your conclusion in paragraph 1,067.

  • Simiantongue

    You don’t agree that this is what an atheist might be thinking? That was the only purpose of my post really. I don’t usually get involved in these religious threads, they don’t hold much content of any value usually. But I thought it might be prudent to drop a line about what an actual atheist thinks, as opposed to a theist ruminating about what an atheist must be thinking. That at least might be of use to someone, only inasmuch as a comparative.

    Here we have Enid, who’s a theist, giving us some very dubious information about what’s running through an atheist’s mind. Well ok, I thought. Lets quickly jot down some of my thoughts here and see if Enid is close to what I’m thinking about this. For me that is succinct too, I could have droned on for much longer.

    The comparative is clear. If you want to know what an atheist is thinking, then ask one. Listening to people like Enid is useless. You might as well try asking Rush Limbaugh what liberals think, with the expectation of something realistic.

  • Big T

    If you were claiming Agnosticism I would agree that you presented a standard viewpoint.  The problem is to say you are Atheist is to make a definite statement about the existence of any transcendent divinity.  You are saying that it does not exist.  When making a statement like that there needs to be logic for doing so other than just saying “Theist or Deists aren’t convincing enough”  that is an agnostic view.  Additionally you seem to get pretty upset at the belief that God is real, why don’t you get upset like that about people who think Santa Clause is real?  

  • Simiantongue

    “If you were claiming Agnosticism I would agree that you presented a standard viewpoint.”

    I prefer atheist, it’s contrarian and sexy. Give me a god and I’ll lament about how much I don’t believe in it.

    “The problem is to say you are Atheist is to make a definite statement about the existence of any transcendent divinity.”

    It simply means that I don’t have sufficient reason to think there are transcendent divinities. Use trivalent logic instead of boolean logic here. You’re saying that since I haven’t been given sufficient reason to think the existence of any transcendent divinity is true, therefore I am making the positive assertion that there are no such thing as transcendental divinities. Very boolean, and incorrect also. If you use trivalent logic you’ll understand that there are three possible states, (1) true (2) false (3) unknown, irrelevant or both. My state of mind that it is unknown or irrelevant until I am given sufficient reason to think it’s true, that does not mean that the existence of transcendent divinity is a false claim. It simply means I don’t accept the claim, It’s unknown irrelevant or both. It still may be objectively true or not. There are three rational states at work here.

    I see what you’re getting at by reducing this to boolean logic. That I am making a positive claim, but that’s just disingenuous word play. It’s a very simple flip in language to turn “disbelief” into a positive assertion of a “belief”. But disbelief is not a positive assertion of a belief. It’s just a slippery convention of language that some can use to make it seem so.

    “You are saying that it does not exist.”

    There is a very big difference between saying something doesn’t exist and saying I don’t have a reason to think that something exists. It’s not the same claim at all, they are not mutually exclusive claims either. I can say that I haven’t sufficient reason to think a claim is true, and still, it may be true or not. I haven’t any reason to think there may a Dyson sphere two galaxies to the left of ours, and I don’t believe there is until I have been given sufficient reason to think there may be. I’m not saying there is or isn’t, I’m just saying it’s an unknown, irrelevant or both.

    “When making a statement like that there needs to be logic for doing so
    other than just saying “Theist or Deists aren’t convincing enough”  that
    is an agnostic view.”

    All that is required is that I don’t see any reason to think that claim is true. An atheist simply is someone who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being. Nothing more. I don’t see any reason to think that any god claims I’ve come across are true, I do not believe those claims. Splitting of definitive hairs aside, in popular culture the difference between an agnostic and an atheist, usually, is that an
    agnostic says “I don’t have sufficient reason to think a claim is true,
    but I accept it as such” and an atheist might say “I don’t have
    sufficient reason to think a claim is true, I don’t accept it as such”. I fall under the latter.

    Actually, I’ve contemplated the problem for quite some time and I think the problem isn’t that I haven’t come across an acceptable answer but that we as humans are completely incapable of framing the question in the first place. I find flaw in the basic god concept. Far too provincial a concept to begin with. If indeed there is something, and I use “something” very widely, I doubt very much that we could comprehend what that something is, never mind begin to assign our very provincial attributes to it as theists are wont to do. As I said before, an infinitely less chance of understanding that concept in any meaningful way than an amoeba has of understanding square dancing. I see little purpose in prostrate amoeba’s on dance floors.

    “Additionally you seem to get pretty upset at the belief that God is real”

    You’re just reading that into my post. I was a little bit amused actually, and bored at that moment, I thought Enid’s attempt at framing an atheist mindset was a little comical and ham handed. I’m a sucker for comedy, it’s a good way to entice me to post.

    I’ve also seen that canard played on the intertubes in some form or another from those who’s favorite pastime, pray tell not you, it is to argue about gods. Another trope is “You seem pretty upset with god for someone who doesn’t believe in him” etc. So much rhetorical garbage though, not much time for that. Foremost because there is nothing to indicate I could be upset in what I wrote, toward gods or belief therein. If you see any distress then you brought that preconceived notion with you into the discussion and read it as such, that’s all I can figure about that assumption.

    There is some advantage to making accusations like that. I suspect you only bring that up in order to frame the discussion a certain way. If I WERE so upset, that means that there just might be something about gods worth being upset about. Just a little conceit, framing the conversation with an excessively favorable opinion of a gods importance to an atheist, no? Propigating the faith as it were he he. Those angry atheists, they hate god! lol. Rhetorical machinations, good for a chuckle anyway.

    I can imagine that there could actually be atheists out there that find gods upsetting. Though I can’t recall ever meeting this elusive “they” that people speak about. “God upsets them” “They are upset by my belief” and so on. Nonetheless, people are able to hold conflicting ideas in their mind it’s called cognitive dissonance, so it’s within the realm of possibility. I don’t believe in god, but god upsets me. Meh I guess that’s possible. People aren’t perfectly rational at all times.

    “why don’t you get upset like that about people who think Santa Clause is real?”

    The assumption is that I’m upset with belief in god, I’m not, but just for the sake of argument well go with that assumption for a moment.

    People don’t think Santa Clause is real, specifically kids do, and generally they grow out of that illusion at a very young age, so there’s not much harm in that. Many assumptions about gods are a good deal less believable, to me at least, than a man flying around the planet in a deer powered sleigh in one night. If I thought that people were basing their daily lives, their participation in society on such vacuous beliefs as Santa Clause then, yes,  I think that would be a little cause for concern. How much concern? Well I don’t know, it depends, are you performing brain surgery on me or are you about to pump my gas?

    Now we’ll do away with your assumption again. No belief in gods doesn’t usually bother me in the least. I’ll admit there was a time when I was very young, about 12 or 13 or so, when I came to the realization that some people thought of certain beliefs in a much different way than, say they thought of Aesop’s Fables, of which I was very fond at the time. It took me some time to sort it out and in the manner of being young I worried over it quite a bit. I learned to live with it though and seldom give it much concern today. Unless I’ve read about people blowing things up for whatever reason, then yes I do think on what people believe, but that usually passes by the time I get to the comics page.

  • Big T

    You are still mixing some Agnostic statements and some Atheistic ones.  Again, to take the Atheist stance you need to provide reason and logic beyond that of the Deist.  Just saying “Deists and the like haven’t convinced me yet.”  Is an Agnostic stance, or one who takes the neutral approach arguing that we can’t decide either way.  Your race horse analogy fits such.  Agnostics can say that Deists are perhaps over zealous for concluding God, they do not claim to say God cannot exist.  You have provided no real tangibles for the Atheist stance, you seem to just present your opinions which lends to Agnostic.  In fact all three on the list of reasons are nearly a verbatim for Agnostic thinking.  The belief that there is no God is a positive statement, much different than, “I don’t know if there is a God.”  Not wordplay.  If you want to just say you are appealing to the contemporary slang for understanding the meaning of the Atheist, then that is all well and good.  There are official definitions pertaining to philosophy of these terms.

    “This type of wagered belief as you put forward is anathema to the true
    calling of the love of god, which I’ve read about in the Christian bible
    in fact. Based wholly on christian beliefs as I’ve read and understand
    them, I would call that type of proselytizing very underhanded and not
    very christian at all in fact.”

    Great to hear your opinion, but these types of statements provide no core logic.  You admit that in placing the qualifier “as I’ve read and understand them,”   You gave a rebuke to Enid for quote mining Darwin in the initial response, then make some very bold claims FOR Christians after admitting you aren’t really even a layman on the subject let alone an expert.  I suspect you haven’t a complete picture of the Biblical God, best not to dabble in those types of statements if you value the popular consensus of your ineligibility.  Stay in your lane and you’ll come out smelling like a rose, you seem genuinely reasonable and learned…don’t spoil that.

    “Those angry atheists, they hate god! lol. Rhetorical machinations, good for a chuckle anyway.”

    Run any real analysis of your specified vernacular and there are tell tale statements made to slight and personalize an otherwise general statement.  The brute psychology behind this methodology is certainly classified as purely and systemically emotional.  Given your britannica response demonstrates this as well.  Perhaps you took personal offense to the post you originally responded to?  That was what my guess would have been, you deny being upset though…okay got it.

     

  • Simiantongue

    “You are still mixing some Agnostic statements and some Atheistic ones.”

    There are inherent similarities in atheism and agnosticism, that’s unavoidable really. They both start with the same base knowledge, that there is not sufficient reason to think there  are gods one way or another. And through some cosmic kismet they come to different conclusions. The agnostic says I choose to act as if the claim may be true and the atheist doesn’t. That’s the only real difference between agnostics and atheists, where the dividing line distinguishes between the two that is. So some of my statements could be construed as agnostic statements that’s true, except I’m telling you I don’t act as if I think the claims are true, which definitively makes me an atheist.

    “Again, to take the Atheist stance you need to provide reason and logic
    beyond that of the Deist. 

    No I don’t. Atheism is not a stance, lack of a stance actually. I don’t accept the theistic stance, full stop. If I proffer some stance in it’s place then yes, I should provide reason and logic for that of course. My state of mind that theistic claims are not true does not mean that I am making an alternate claim that requires support.

    It’s really simple actually. Let’s imagine that I claim there is a thousand mile diamond at the center of the planet. I come up with all sorts of reasons to support this idea. But you think that none of my claims are supported by the evidence of such. Do you have to come up with reason and logic to support the idea that there is not a thousand mile diamond in the center of the planet or else there is one? Of course not.

    “Just saying “Deists and the like haven’t
    convinced me yet.”  Is an Agnostic stance, or one who takes the neutral
    approach arguing that we can’t decide either way.”

    That can be agnostic stance yes. But the agnostic conclusion is very different. Agnostics admit that we have no real rational reason to accept theistic claims, but choose to act as if they may be true anyway. I think agnostics are half rational, so to speak. Why do they come to a different conclusion? Who knows, a myriad of reasons I’m sure. People have their reasons and I don’t begrudge them those, to each their own.

    “Agnostics can say that Deists are perhaps over zealous for concluding God, they do not claim to say God cannot exist. ”

    Neither does an atheist, if they’re at all rational. Even Dawkins, a supposedly strident atheist, says that on a scale of 1 to 7.  1 being there absolutely is a god and 7 being there absolutely isn’t, he could only be at best a 6.9. No rational person deals in absolutes. Any atheists I know think the same. But again you seem to be confusing two different statements here. “I don’t think there are gods” and “There are no such thing as gods”.

    “You have provided no real tangibles for the Atheist stance, you seem to just present your opinions which lends to Agnostic.”

    Atheism makes no claims, it is not a stance. Then we get into the circle once again. “Atheism says there is not a god and that’s a positive claim”. But atheism says no such thing. Again that’s confusing those two statments I just mentioned. It can be hard but you should try and think outside of a theistic box on this. “If you don’t believe in gods then you must have something to put in the place of gods. Therefore you need to give reason and logic to support that claim” Is what I imagine is the thought process going on here. But there is no vacuum present that needs to be filled with something if you do not accept claims about the existence of gods. You would only need that gap filled if you were still of a theistic mindset. There are some very theistic assumptions being made about what atheistic rationality entails.

    “In fact all three on the list of reasons are nearly a verbatim for Agnostic thinking.”

    Some similarity yes. Much different conclusions though.

    “The belief that there is no God is a positive statement, much different than, “I don’t know if there is a God.”  Not wordplay.”

    Yes that’s wordplay. Here it is. You said “The belief that there is no god”. That is an agglomeration of two separate statements, as I said above. Atheism is not a “belief”, It is a disbelief, as in I disbelieve theistic claims. I can’t have a belief in disbelief. It’s flipping it to make disbelief into a positive assertion. It’s not, it’s simply not accepting the theistic positive assertion of belief in gods.

    Lets start with a state of no belief, which is represented as 0.

    Then someone makes a positive assertion of a belief in gods, represented as +1. Which brings theists to a belief state of 1.

    If we have someone who never accepted the positive assertion of +1, then they never left 0, never made a positive assertion. They remained at 0 the entire time, a state of no belief.

    Also if one of those theists who are in a belief state of 1 no longer accepts the positive assertion of +1, then they revert back to 0 too. This is not a positive assertion either, they are merely discarding the theistic positive assertion of 1. Making them 0 once again. Or bringing them back to a state of no belief.

    Being at 0 is not a positive assertion.

    If an atheist were to go beyond not accepting theism, if they were to go beyond saying “I don’t have any reason to think there are gods, therefore I don’t think there are” to “There are no such things as gods”. The former statement speaks to the subjective state of mind of the atheist. Which does not make any truth claims about theism as objectively true or false, the state of mind in the atheist is a third quantifier, that of unknown, irrelevant or both. The latter is a positive objective claim, which would need some rational support. I tried to point to this in the previous post and if this doesn’t get the idea that boolean logic simply doesn’t do he job then I don’t know what will.

    “If you want to just say you are appealing to the contemporary slang for
    understanding the meaning of the Atheist, then that is all well and
    good.  There are official definitions pertaining to philosophy of these
    terms.”

    I would argue with many official definitions. I’ve seen philosophers who are quite popular making just these sorts of distortions. Philosophy is a competitive sport which urges people to take liberty with core concepts and definitions. Pretty messy thinking if you ask me though, if you haven’t established your core concept accurately and precisely then the whole thought structure is fundamentally corrupted at it’s foundation. For instance if you assume atheism to be more than it is, as in a positive statement. Whatever conclusions one may come to about atheist logic is corrupted form the start. It would seem that the logic is corrupted, which I suppose is convenient for some if they are making the atheist argument absent any atheists to say differently. They could claim that atheism is inherently irrational and proclaim victory, if that’s important to them that is. I’ve seen atheists do the same for theism, pointless jabbering.

    “Great to hear your opinion, but these types of statements provide no
    core logic.  You admit that in placing the qualifier “as I’ve read and
    understand them,You gave a rebuke to Enid for quote mining Darwin in the initial
    response, then make some very bold claims FOR Christians after admitting
    you aren’t really even a layman on the subject let alone an expert. ”

    No I was not making very bold claims FOR Christians. I was clearly stating MY understanding of it. It’s an invitation, an opening to Enid for discussion. A polite one in fact. One doesn’t have to be an expert in order to discuss these things in a cool, collected, rational manner. I left quite a bit more openings than that for Enid too. Though my posts are verbose they do not comprehensively cover the entire subject. In polite conversation you do not lord over people in a bullying fashion, but invite discussion on the subject. An attempt to humble myself in order to extend an olive branch to Enid.

    I see you’ve taken the opportunity to use that to try and cut me down a few notches. Conversational machismo and posturing noted.

    “I suspect you haven’t a complete picture of the Biblical God, best not
    to dabble in those types of statements if you value the popular
    consensus of your ineligibility.”

    But you know so little about me? Ah I see, throwing down the gauntlet, “I challenge you to an internet discussion about my god!” perhaps? What conceit. If you don’t believe in my god it’s because you don’t know my god. heh. I don’t argue about such things it’s pointless, especially on the internet. I’m here to have my say just like everyone else. Take the machismo and blow.

    “Stay in your lane and you’ll come out smelling like a rose, you seem genuinely reasonable and learned…don’t spoil that.”

    You couldn’t be more wrong. I actually enjoy reading about beliefs different from my own. It’s the reason I come to Disinformation actually. If I wanted bleached and washed thought I could find that at some atheist site. There is nothing better than challenging ones preconceived notions. It’s a thrill. Now here is where I’m supposed to shoot back at you something like “You should try it”. If you knew me at all you’d know that’s not me at all. I see you don’t have any problems with keyboard skirmishes. That’s cool. Just not my thing really.

    “Run any real analysis of your specified vernacular and there are tell
    tale statements made to slight and personalize an otherwise general
    statement.  The brute psychology behind this methodology is certainly
    classified as purely and systemically emotional. ”

    It’s offensive. The last bastion of the theistic. If you don’t agree explicitly you offend my religious sensibilities. What would we do without that old canard. You’d have to have tissue thin skin to take offense at what I said.

    “Given your britannica response demonstrates this as well.”

    No I’m just naturally verbose. I can type lightning fast without too many typo’s too. Probably takes you longer to read than for my to type it. It’s a funny thing about this site. When I got about half way through this post it takes about 10 or so seconds for the screen type to catch up. I don’ t have the problem with most sites. It’s usually instantaneous. It’s as if there might be something else running on this site, like a keystroke monitor maybe?  ’0.o’

    “Perhaps you took personal offense to the post you originally responded to?”

    Nope just curiosity really, I was a little tickled by Enid’s post too. I actually went into this in the last post, I’m beginning to suspect you didn’t read it. Which is ok, I don’t post these for people to read really. Psst I’m at work and this is more interesting than what I’m supposed to be doing. Which is really demonstrative of just how mind blazingly boring my job is.  But I’m wondering then if you’re not interested enough to read what I’m saying then why respond at all? You have your reasons I’m sure. You don’t have to suppose or assume about things like that either, just ask and you’ll get several paragraphs as to why I chose to post originally if you like. As a matter of fact I’ll admit that I’ve been prolonging this post quite purposely because that’s the type of sense of humor I have. Idiosyncratic humor I know.

    “That was what my guess would have been, you deny being upset though…okay got it.”

    If you feel that you can know my state of mind better than I then I have no problem with you believing that. I’ll be damned if I can figure out a way to lengthen this at least another two minutes till break. But honestly I’m at a loss here. I could go back and proof read? But I hate pouring over what I’ve said, I always want to re-write something. So I suppose I’ll just hit “post as” and then sit here at my desk dawdling, looking like I’m doing something. Damn IT people went around and uninstalled freecell on every computer, can you believe that happy crappy?

  • Snoochdawg13

    SHUT UP! This video was annoying, as every “totally intelligent and better than everything ever done by religion” video is. I’m not religious, I don’t go to church, and I don’t believe what the bible says. I don’t call myself an atheist or agnostic either because it’s all arbitrary. What is the point to tell people they’re wrong. Is it because you’re clearly right and everyone else is stupid, or do you just have some kind of ridiculous superiority complex? If we could get over such bullshit arguments, we would be a much better world, but that will never happen because people have been arguing and killing over religious beliefs since the beginning of religion and we will keep doing it until we all die out(probably because of war caused by religion.)