|
Post by clusium on Jun 18, 2018 23:34:31 GMT
|
|
|
Post by goz on Jun 18, 2018 23:41:01 GMT
...more God of the Gaps crapola, though I haven't studied it carefully! Should I?
|
|
|
Post by clusium on Jun 19, 2018 0:00:05 GMT
...more God of the Gaps crapola, though I haven't studied it carefully! Should I? Sure why not...?
|
|
|
Post by captainbryce on Jun 19, 2018 1:24:56 GMT
How exactly would a non-atheist know what an atheist views on religion are? If I were to write an essay on the Christian view of anything, you’d have a rage fit. And yet you totally buy (without question or pause) a theists interpretation of an atheist’s view of religion. I find that very interesting.
|
|
|
Post by goz on Jun 19, 2018 1:30:41 GMT
...more God of the Gaps crapola, though I haven't studied it carefully! Should I? Sure why not...? With respect, I wanted your opinion, after I had a quick read. Is there anything new here? What is the most outstanding finding in your opinion?
|
|
|
Post by Arlon10 on Jun 19, 2018 1:34:50 GMT
How exactly would a non-atheist know what an atheist views on religion are? If I were to write an essay on the Christian view of anything, you’d have a rage fit. And yet you totally buy (without question or pause) a theists interpretation of an atheist’s view of religion. I find that very interesting. It's not like atheism or atheists are complicated or esoteric, is it?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
@Deleted
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2018 3:22:33 GMT
I stopped reading at "One of the strangest claims often made by purveyors and consumers of today’s popular atheism..."
|
|
|
Post by lowtacks86 on Jun 19, 2018 3:47:47 GMT
The article was a failure within the first few sentences when it described atheism as a "claim". This has already been thouroughly debunked. The rest of the article is just baseless assertions and "Like what is God exactly, man?" New Age mumbo jumbo.
|
|
|
Post by captainbryce on Jun 19, 2018 10:52:31 GMT
I stopped reading at "One of the strangest claims often made by purveyors and consumers of today’s popular atheism..." That’s exactly where I stopped. That sentence doesn’t even make any sense. Why should anyone invest further into the rest of the article?
|
|
|
Post by FilmFlaneur on Jun 19, 2018 11:42:02 GMT
Two quotes from the article:
Essentially Bailey seems to be separating out other possible gods from God in a way which suits his (Christian-centric) argument. But there is no logical reason why the god he prefers necessarily exists over all the other candidates just because he, and his culture, prefer a particular candidate - especially when the non-mythological evidence (or lack of it) is inconveniently the same for all. Despite his odd, forced separation, a god is a god is a god. It all seems just a case of confirmation bias.
Here Bailey rather longwindedly more or less asserts the usual trope that nature cannot be the cause of itself. And yet it is not clear why this is necessarily the case, especially when one removes a more complicated super reality from any first consideration of things. Then, (especially as we know that we don't know all there is about nature) nature therefore must be the cause of itself, of necessity. At that point we feel no need to reintroduce the magical. There is no logical reason why something permanent cannot exist in nature at a most basic level, just as it can argued for with the supernatural. It just needs less complexity, and certainly no deliberation, by the forces involved to work their effect.
|
|
|
Post by Arlon10 on Jun 19, 2018 11:58:13 GMT
1 ... there is no logical reason why the god he prefers necessarily exists over all the other candidates just because he and his culture prefers a particular candidate, especially when the non-mythlogical evidence (or lack of it) is the same for all. ... 2 ... There is no logical reason why something permanent cannot exist in nature at a most basic level just as it can argued for in the supernatural. ... 1 There is as much evidence for his god as there is for baseball. It is the center of a widespread, satisfying and cherished human activity. 2 The obvious irreversible bias of nature toward entropy challenges that belief. It does require something not known in nature, something not subject to entropy to rewind it.
|
|
|
Post by FilmFlaneur on Jun 19, 2018 13:08:23 GMT
1 There is as much evidence for his god as there is for baseball. It is the center of a widespread, satisfying and cherished human activity. And so the positive evidence for the Christian god, outside of personal credulity and the claims of scripture is.. oh that's right you never provide any. And I don't expect you will here either.
The pertinent Law of Thermodynamics to which your point refers, is about the incipient entropy of closed systems. But has has been patiently explained to you before, the (entire) universe is an isolated system. (The observable universe is an open system though, because the "boundary" of our observable universe is not actually a physical "boundary" in any possible meaning of the word, and both matter and energy can freely pass through it.) which is why, as Einstein said, energy is never really 'created' or 'destroyed'. The entire universe, meaning everything there is, including things we cannot see, is an isolated system because it has no "surroundings"; it's literally everything there is. Obviously, a system cannot exchange energy or matter with "surroundings" that do not exist**. And I think we are talking of overall creation here, that is of all there is. I hope that helps.
** I am ignoring the unknown characteristics wrought by the 'multiverse' theory here.
|
|
|
Post by Arlon10 on Jun 19, 2018 16:11:19 GMT
1 There is as much evidence for his god as there is for baseball. It is the center of a widespread, satisfying and cherished human activity. And so the positive evidence for the Christian god, outside of personal credulity and the claims of scripture is.. oh that's right you never provide any. And I don't expect you will here either. The pertinent Law of Thermodynamics to which your point refers, is about the incipient entropy of closed systems. But has has been patiently explained to you before, the (entire) universe is an isolated system. (The observable universe is an open system though, because the "boundary" of our observable universe is not actually a physical "boundary" in any possible meaning of the word, and both matter and energy can freely pass through it.) which is why, as Einstein said, energy is never really 'created' or 'destroyed'. The entire universe, meaning everything there is, including things we cannot see, is an isolated system because it has no "surroundings"; it's literally everything there is. Obviously, a system cannot exchange energy or matter with "surroundings" that do not exist**. And I think we are talking of overall creation here, that is of all there is. I hope that helps.
** I am ignoring the unknown characteristics wrought by the 'multiverse' theory here.
Your understanding of entropy is fraught with irrelevance. It is not relevant that you can imagine an eternal supply of energy. Life does not arise even given a source of energy like the sun. Although the energy of sunlight can reverse entropy on Earth, it cannot assemble life there. And now for the pièce de ré·sis·tance, you have lost the original intent of the argument. The original intent of the argument was that life could arise with only those materials and agencies known in the natural world, thus making unnecessary any other agency, such as a god. The original intent of the argument was to say that not just anything is possible. The original intent was to say that some things are not possible because the nature we know is limited does not allow them. What you have conceded by your flighty and expansive definitions of nature is that anything is possible. That you refuse to call these unlimited possibilities the work of a god has no relevance, anything is indeed possible by your own admission. You might as well admit that a god is possible if anything is. A convenient explanation for the origin of life is that it just always existed. That way you escape having to assemble it on Earth, you can just fly it in from somewhere else. Notice that is not the point of Darwin or evolution. In fact it is just another reason not teach Darwin or evolution in schools. Your incapacity to follow why things happen has been noted before and is also a serious problem for Wikipedia. You function at such an elementary level of understanding you simply copy information without question or understanding what the reasoning involved might be. That's why it escapes you that you have admitted anything is possible and have made the study of Darwin and evolution unnecessary.
|
|
|
Post by FilmFlaneur on Jun 20, 2018 10:17:13 GMT
Your understanding of entropy is fraught with irrelevance. It is not relevant that you can imagine an eternal supply of energy. Life does not arise even given a source of energy like the sun. Although the energy of sunlight can reverse entropy on Earth, it cannot assemble life there. All life needs energy Arlon. That's Biology 101. Even the god in Genesis sensibly created light before anything else. See how it works? And life clearly has arisen - while, as noted earlier, recently signs of organic matter have been confirmed on Mars - so it appears the building blocks are not even that rare. And the original reply still stands: that we both know that we do not know all there is about nature - and you still don't offer any positive evidence for any purported supernatural alternative. We at least have the natural before us and see it working. If you have such evidence, why not just pop it into the next reply? It is overdue. It is not a 'concession' to know, and readily admit, that one does not know everything, Arlon - especially when I have always argued just that. Indeed I do, and as a soft atheist I hardly say anything else. But not everything which is possible is likely. That which is completely without positive evidence for instance - outside that provided by credulity and the claims of ancient writers, of course - can be reasonably seen as being less likely, especially when it purports to be of the uniquely magical variety, accompanied by dollops of special pleading. Panspermia is indeed a respectable theory, but surely this demands that life (or its building blocks) has arisen more readily and widely thoughout the universe, i.e. without a special creation down here on earth. And unless creatures fell out of the skies fully-formed, then such a theory does not exclude the working of evolution on the initial 'seeding'. So I guess the modern evolutionary synthesis needs to be taught a little longer lol. I am surprised however you fall back on Panspermia here since, just as it happened on earth, life (or its building blocks and origins) would have had to spring at some time, somewhere, from a previously superheated universe - an idea which, in regards to primitive, molten earth, you usually rail against!
Just as has been your capacity for credulity and lack of scientific knowledge?
Does this mean, as with dictionaries, you argue with Wiki and win?
I see that we are back with the ad hominems lol, a sure sign of defensiveness - and which, oddly, always appear to relate back to how insightful you say you are, compared to the rest of us.
See above: what is possible is not always likely, while only a fundamentalist would write off the study of evolution as unnecessary. Perhaps then you can tell us what should replace it and on what scientific basis? Creationism, er, ID? That something admitted as being akin to astrology at the Dover trial? But then: "If 'A' is describing something to 'B' in a literal way then those two must already have an experience of it or something very similar to it. The less similar their experiences, the more symbolic, allegorical or less direct the explanation must be."
|
|
|
Post by johnblutarsky on Jun 21, 2018 16:05:12 GMT
1 There is as much evidence for his god as there is for baseball... This is a ridiculous comparison. You can see a baseball. Touch a baseball. Measure a baseball. etc. You can have a million people review the same baseball and report similar data. This is the exact opposite of the various gods that people believe in.
|
|
|
Post by goz on Jun 21, 2018 21:26:42 GMT
The Christian God, is just an ego representation of what is perceived as the higher self. God or the god force, IS the beyond being, which comes down to us, which is what we are. Thanks for that. Nice to have confirmed what I knew all along. I am God.
|
|
|
Post by Arlon10 on Jun 21, 2018 21:36:42 GMT
1 There is as much evidence for his god as there is for baseball... This is a ridiculous comparison. You can see a baseball. Touch a baseball. Measure a baseball. etc. You can have a million people review the same baseball and report similar data. This is the exact opposite of the various gods that people believe in. There is a "baseball" that is a ball a little less than three inches in diameter, then there is "baseball" the activity engrossing thousands of human beings. The activity or "sport" called baseball is indeed very comparable in many ways to religion, although it is obviously not the same thing, and the differences are important too. Just as you can "see" the stadium and all the people who fill it, you can "see" the synagogue, mosque, or church, and all the people who fill them.
|
|
|
Post by johnblutarsky on Jun 21, 2018 21:51:27 GMT
This is a ridiculous comparison. You can see a baseball. Touch a baseball. Measure a baseball. etc. You can have a million people review the same baseball and report similar data. This is the exact opposite of the various gods that people believe in. ...Just as you can "see" the stadium and all the people who fill it, you can "see" the synagogue, mosque, or church, and all the people who fill them. Still not a good comparison. Of course you can see the "people" (worshippers) who occupy a church, etc. It's the "main attraction" (god/gods) at the synagogue, mosque, church, etc. that I'm referring to. A stadium full of sports fans are watching ball players. The players (and the game they're playing) are the "main attraction" in this example. These players can be talked to, photographed, provide autographs, etc. When you're able to get an autograph from a god (any god), then your comparison might be more reasonable.
|
|
|
Post by Arlon10 on Jun 21, 2018 22:35:29 GMT
...Just as you can "see" the stadium and all the people who fill it, you can "see" the synagogue, mosque, or church, and all the people who fill them. Still not a good comparison. Of course you can see the "people" (worshippers) who occupy a church, etc. It's the "main attraction" (god/gods) at the synagogue, mosque, church, etc. that I'm referring to. A stadium full of sports fans are watching ball players. The players (and the game they're playing) are the "main attraction" in this example. These players can be talked to, photographed, provide autographs, etc. When you're able to get an autograph from a god (any god), then your comparison might be more reasonable. You can see material objects in religion just as much as you can see a baseball. There are tablets, crosses, books, highly artistic works and so on. The actual "god" is however perhaps better described as a "system of ethics" or among the "complex and nebulous forces in society and nature." Such things definitely exist beyond any reasonable doubt.
|
|
|
Post by johnblutarsky on Jun 24, 2018 18:27:16 GMT
Still not a good comparison. Of course you can see the "people" (worshippers) who occupy a church, etc. It's the "main attraction" (god/gods) at the synagogue, mosque, church, etc. that I'm referring to. A stadium full of sports fans are watching ball players. The players (and the game they're playing) are the "main attraction" in this example. These players can be talked to, photographed, provide autographs, etc. When you're able to get an autograph from a god (any god), then your comparison might be more reasonable. You can see material objects in religion just as much as you can see a baseball. There are tablets, crosses, books, highly artistic works and so on. The actual "god" is however perhaps better described as a "system of ethics" or among the "complex and nebulous forces in society and nature." Such things definitely exist beyond any reasonable doubt. I fully agree that items such as tablets, crosses, books, artistic works, etc. exist beyond a reasonable doubt. The (more than) reasonable doubt comes into play when a person references the god/gods that these artifacts are attributed/related to.
|
|