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sounds like some atheist making atheism a religion again. I'll have to add it to the duck list. Just like with atheist retreats, meeting places, and listen people to speak about letting a statement of belief about god (here no god) run their lives.
sounds like some atheist making atheism a religion again. I'll have to add it to the duck list. Just like with atheist retreats, meeting places, and listen people to speak about letting a statement of belief about god (here no god) run their lives.
Na, no way are we acting like them ... to funny.
So you d9nt think that atheists can have an experience of what it is like living in a religious world or having very religious parents who do not accept a non belief in their children.
You really are a person with little understanding of others and lack both empathy and decency. I have listened t9 callers who were totally shunned by their parents and friends when they came out as atheists and are seeking help and advice from atheists who have had those experiences and you seem to think that these young people do not deserve to have others to help them out.
Guess you think breast cancer patients getting together is also a joke. If you are so perfect use two o in too funny.
It does make it look like 'We don't know what started it off, but it seems more likely to be a natural explanation (whatever it is) is the better option, simply because of the indirect evidence.
For clarification, what exactly is a "natural" explanation, Arq.
I’ve seen many of these shows. IMO, Matt is very fair and allows many callers nonsense longer than necessary. You can only listen to so much nonsense. Typically, he will expose their ill logic, provide reasoned examples as to why the Bible is not accurate or moral, and excuse the callers who blindly ignore rational discourse.
For clarification, what exactly is a "natural" explanation, Arq.
One that does not conflict with what we understand about the way the world works. And before you mention Quantum, that is still not understood as fitting in with classical Physics or even Einstein.
And i do hope that you are not, yet again, going to try to make some kind of semantic argument about the definition of 'natural' and 'supernatural'. It leads us nowhere.
Anyone catch a couple episodes ago with a closed mind prolifer called?
Tracy was very tolerable to this closed minded human.
I'm just surprised that this seems to be the only one after several years. Aren't there any other atheist TV shows in the US?
Still some links to Fave episodes might be posted. There are some shows that don't leave me too comfortable - too much slapping down or interrupting, some with the caller and the hosts trying to talk each other down, some where it just gets too convoluted and maybe off -track, and some where I don't agree with Matt's line (or one of the others), but there are some where I just have to smile - "Jeeeziz, he Nailed it there" Or She, as Tracie Harris is very good, too.
That's good comments. But really the Great Question isn't so terribly important. Of course, if there was Some Mind doing it all, and that was demonstrated, atheism would be over. Atheists would just be irreligious theists. The 'who made everything?' question is rather a springboard for the Leap of faith to Biblegod, and if, referencing the palaeontological evidence, you can take out Bible credibility, the Bible believer has nowhere to Land, so to speak.
The point of the argument is not so much to make a credible case for 'Something from nothing' (though an hypothesis is gradually forming up) but to demolish the idea that, if science can't produce a plausible 'something from nothing' hypothesis, Goddunnit has to be the explanation.
That's where defusing the ID argument for God's existence. If ID can not only be defused, but you can show that the universe doesn't look like the creation of a designing intelligence, then Go is rather removed as a possible hypothesis, as what sense does it make for a god to set the BigBang going and do nothing with it afterwards. It does make it look like 'We don't know what started it off, but it seems more likely to be a natural explanation (whatever it is) is the better option, simply because of the indirect evidence.
And those are good comments in return. Just to be clear, I personally buy all of that. In particular, I agree that a key point (goal, aspiration) is to "demolish the idea" that, just because science hasn't explained it all yet, doesn't mean Goddunnit is the logical explanation.
Having accepted that myself, my comments were aimed more at the caller to that particular episode, who I think is representative of many at some point in their journey. Having shed most or all of the "easy" stuff (6 day creation, global flood, talking snakes, Adam & Eve, resurrection, heaven & hell, etc, etc.), I think many grind to a halt when they work their way back to "the beginning of time." And then.... having had the answer to that dilemma drilled in since birth (God)... they fall back on that. The last domino to fall, so to speak.
In any case, I do think Atheist Experience serves a role. Just as this forum does!
Last edited by HeelaMonster; 10-19-2018 at 09:38 AM..
Very good. Yes, of course the great Question is the original and still the best of the Three Main Gaps For God. - "Who made everything, then?", "Evolution can't explain how Life started", and "science can't explain Consciousness".
The counters are really similar in each case: there are some good semi -explanations backed up by scientifically -validated evidence, some of it indirect. The Theist apologist cannot get on the same page as us, because they are AL:WAYS thinking from the assumption that Godunnit is the Default theory that must be taken as true until disproven down to the last nano -particle by science.
And that is not logically correct. The correct logic is that 'Nobody knows'. Thus God or Not are equally valid hypothetical claims. Neither of them are explanations. However, a god did it is a human instinctive stopgap explanation, and whichever god your culture teaches is the 'Only Explanation'.
But the sea - change (1) happened with Darwin, when all the Mechanics that were thought to be the design of God suddenly could be seen as the design of nature. Nature could 'design' evolving complex structures through natural physical processes, and God was not necessary.
What this means is that Goddunnit is being deisproved ( Freudian slip, there). Not only is there no need to suppose a god diddit but every reason to suppose a god didn't. Take for instance the extinctions - proof, really, that this was Just Chance, and not a Plan.
So Gaps for God are not the atheism - debunkers that Believers suppose them to be; they are the remaining unknowns where it can still be argued that a god could have had a hand in it.
I needn't go into all the irrational and denialist attempts to argue that a Natural explanation for Life, the Universe and everythinking is "Impossible", but point out that even hypothetical mechanisms or half explanations such as 'nothing with information is Universal building -blocks that doesn't Need to be created', plus a complex uncreated God is far less probable than something from 'Nothing', are better by far than no explanation at all with is what the magidword "Goddunnit" is. And it becomes clear that the goddless bastards are winning this one on all points, and all the Believers have if faith -based denial, the denial meaning of course, that they can't see that it's just denial.
(1) I have no idea what a sea -change actually is, but it sounds damned impressive.
(1) I have no idea what a sea -change actually is, but it sounds damned impressive.
Not sure either, but I keep hearing about a "Blue Wave" hitting our shores in November........
(Coincidentally, I am leaving just now for the early voting station)
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Freudian slip, there). Not only is there no need to suppose a god diddit but every reason to suppose a god didn't. Take for instance the extinctions - proof, really, that this was Just Chance, and not a Plan.
