Quote:
Originally Posted by Vansdad
I am curious what an atheist "believes" is the way we came into existance. Either it all started somewhere or it has always existed. I'm not sure if there is anything in between. A lot of atheists claim that all the "right" conditions came together somehow from nothing and poof the universe magically began. Now the atheists are waiting for their messiah, the scientist who makes this maraculous discovery.
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Scientists involved in this sort of intense research in fact "believe" in various ideas and hypotheses, or better yet: "Theories", also known in their community as "fact", supportable "fact". (All within their
current non-ego-driven hypothesis, until those are carefully reviewed, re-tested, etc., and then possibly altered or rejected and then replaced with the idea that rejected it.)
(This process is called
Evolution of An Idea Or Concept, a process purposefully and completely alien to the IDTr* mindset)
And so, yes, we do indeed speculate that the right conditions came together in The BB. As for proof of
that, those conditions do
still exist in the universe as we speak. The HubbleScope and various other exploratory devices have shown this to be inarguably true, though of course you will argue them. Stars
are still forming out of unconsolidated gaseous clouds, and are thusly observed.
You CANNOT deny the observable,
VD. Oddly, you do, but still... you CAN'T.
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vansdad
I am quite familiar thank you. But as you know it says nothing about how it got here to expand. It sounds like you are saying the universe had a beginning? So the next question is how it all began...
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The current (there are several, btw...) theories of the BB do not require that we also provide for it's progenitors. You assiduously avoid the same question as regards not only your specific bored and lonely God, but His entire pre-lineage. What, "cat" got your tongue on
that one, or is it too much for you to handle? And yet you happily throw it into the faces of those who would step outside of your cloistered little world-view box.
Simple question
(NOTE: for future references, this will be Q#1, post No. 151: :
Where did your God come from, and what's He made of? If you can't answer this here and now, then, by your line of "reasoning", He also does not exist.
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vansdad
And so it is true of believers. We do not all believe in the "bible" or a "religion" We are all individual and have our own intepretations. We don't like to be painted with the same brush, as they say. At least I don't because I do not subscribe to those genres anyways.
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Oh but you DO have at least
some commonality of thoughts and beliefs, which are both intransigent and simultaneously laid down in the bible and a precious few other documents. Not to mention the predictable last-ditch cat-call of
"Well, until you've had the same experiences I've had with my God!...."
Yep: so easily said, but let's not dismiss the power of intention and faith here. It holds a lot of myths together. Perhaps I should say
"Well, but you haven't had the same talk with the aliens that I have. Yeah, I know... it was too bad my camera/tape recorder/witness friends were all unavailable, but you'll have to just believe me. After all, look at these odd burn marks on my head!" [actually from a trip&fall into a campfire, but it sure helps with the story!]
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vansdad
If you want to keep believing that there is no purpose than that is your belief. I cannot see life that way. That's all. And most of your rebuttal is pure speculation.
"And logically and demonstrably, in fact, that's exactly how we all got here. From bacteria [which mutate hourly to remain hard to treat...], to bats to bullfrogs to apes... to us"
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Hmmm... wonder which intellectual orifice you pulled I]that one[/i] out of... Q#2: post No. 151: Where have you read [links please!] that atheists
see and hold no purpose in life, or that the
only valid purposes are those that you define for us [also known as the ones your religion
has instructed you to re-parrot as the
sole allowed purposes in life?] .
As for our real bio-origins, what do
you make of the in-lab demos of evolutionary changes across species? Or have you also assiduously avoided
that information as well? Perhaps that could be Q#3? Nahhh. I don't want to overload your
search, read, learn and get back to us skills {
}
{Note to file, after a tiny little bit of search and read:
http://archaeology.mitrasites.com/hu...s-exhibit.html
Reading within this truly amazing site will open an interested person's mind... If that is, if it even wants to be opened...)
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vansdad
I'm sure there are even atheists who see a purpose to life.
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Each and every one of us, in our ways. It just doesn't involve mandatory weekly supplication in front of a wooden icon
{"Lest you go to hell! You better watch out! You WILL go to hell if I catch you disbelievin' around here! Careful! Or ELSE! I'm coming for you! Don't even think those sciencey {logical!} thoughts! Or Else. I'm warning You!" Blah Blah Blah Blah...}
Purposes like tithing 10%
{or more! I'm warning you!} one's income to support the high life styles of the senior church "administration", or the serial publication of those kids'
stupid color comix showing pet dinosaurs and lions licking lambs clean, and so on.
Nope: we atheists prefer to involve ourselves with such oddities as saving the earth's other creatures and plants from hominid-forced arrogance {mostly of religious origins, btw..} and thus extinction. Or the unveiling of the universe's vast store of secrets. Or in giving heart-felt help and spiritual succor to those in need but for whom God has truly let them down. Or, heaven forbid
{"Hey! This is God again! I'm warning you! It's hell for you if you open that latest edition Astronomy book!" Don't!! Don't Doonnnn....}... reading & learning
anything about discovery science!!!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dba07
...isn't the more prudent course of action to simply doubt things that have no evidence to support them? Why must I disprove god, unicorns, or bigfoot? This isnt a practical use of my time. Show me the evidence and I'll consider it.
Oh and I've seen fossils. And I've never seen an old dude in the clouds with a long beard. So there's your evidence right there.
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Oh
you! Such a doubter! Such selective disillusionizing! (I jest,
dba: your points are right on, but will,
natch, be ignored, with a predictability of 99% CI.)
Yeah, let's all play
Deny the Fossil Evidence, shall we? Lucy was just a God-plant after all!
http://anthropologynet.files.wordpre...ulls.jpg?w=450
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
It was pointed out in an Austin atheists' video that Creationists particularly deny primate evolution by saying that the fossils are either of apes or of humans. However, they cannot always agree on which is the ape and which is the human. That should be clear support for the case for transitionals being involved - in the one area that is must contentious in the evolution debate.
It is indeed something to ponder, Dads, and I wish you would ponder, research and check rather than present tired and debunked old canards like the 'No transitionals' claim.
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Butttt... why on this earth would he want to ponder that,
"ARE-Qeu"? It would inevitably lead to a hugely higher understanding of the obvious, which would bring on yet more of those {"I warned YOU!"} threats in his head, even despite the tinfoil hat he's taken to wearing.
http://fictionandeverythingelse.blog...infoil-hat.jpg
To ward off, you understand,
"The Evil Atheist™ TEA! The true
TEA Party unveiled!)
psycho-evilized™ invaginations!!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ArtieE
1. There are 8.7 million species on the Earth
2. There are 6.5 million species of land animals on Earth
3. The minimum number of animals needed of each species to have a chance of surviving in the wild over a long period of time is on the average 4000.
4. 6.5 million times 4000 is 26 000 million animals on the Ark. Plus food and water.
5. Either there were 26 000 million animals on the Ark. Plus food and water.
6. Or there were less animals on the Ark but then you would need evolution to produce the rest of the species.
7. What is it?
1. There were 8 people on the Ark.
2. The breeding population for humans to be able to repopulate the Earth is between 80 and 160 depending on the circumstances.
3. How did we get to six billion if the Ark scenario doesn't work and evolution is wrong?
Just a thought.
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Actually,
ArtieE, respectfully, it's even better
(or for defensive but factually "dense" theists, worse..) than that, since a
conservative estimate on the total number of current plus all the now-extinct species... is probably well over 100+M. As well, some dedicated scientists have more recently determined that there
may well be 100+ M species
currently on this spaceship Earth! Let's say a conservative 30+M at least shall we?
Meaning: Ark-wise, we have to include all those
sp. that have come and gone, {dinos, etc.} but according to The Noah Nonsense,
"They be No Damned Evolvin' allowed 'roun'heah!" signage on the boat's various (3? Only 3?) levels. Easily seen, so no excuses!
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Hey! No cross-species interplay, you guys down in the rodent section! Stay behind those yellow lines I so carefully painted there! Which means YOU! (Yes,
YOU 10,000 and rapidly multiplying LITTLE SQUIGGLING SQUEAKERS OVER IN THE CORNER UNDER THE
HUGE PILE OF ELEPHANT DUNG. 1000 ELEPHANTS LEAVE A LOT OF"STUFF!")
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And excluding such things as bacteria or viri, the
numbers of mobile big and upright species that would be
necessary to be successful upon demarcation from that rapidly sinking leaky old tub would have to be be in the order of at least 5000 - 10,000 of
each species, given sexual reproduction requirements (being able to resist predation or disease or natural disasters; volcanoes, earthqaukes, forest fires, and so on.
Example? j Here's just one of the thousands, incl. Bengal tigers, polar bears, lemurs, monkeys, the great apes, various birds, fish, sharks, whales, small rodents, and so on. Not to mention the threatened trees and shrubs and flowers! And SO ON! (btw,
all of them, down to each and every "kind", were
all killed off in a global inundation. No survivors AT ALL!)
The Cheetah, my
personal favorite and which is in fact one of my passionately pursued atheistic
purposes, is now in
serious danger, even though it's right in it's own habitat, where it evolved to fit a precise niche
{not up on Ararat in the middle of winter, @ the plant-less and prey-less 13,000 foot level! <Sigh>: such incredible technical stupidity on the part of Noah supporters to ignore these requirements...}
And,
heavens be, there's actually from 9,000 to 12,000 of them left, and yet they are in serious jeapardy. So OK, OK... let's put about 15,000 of them onto the Ark, shall we? Ditto for all those others. WOW! Gets awfully crowded... But still, Noah had lotsa freeze-dried food (Thx,
Eusebius, for
that comic relief option!)
So this puts the required number of animals, and plants (we can't hardly forget the plants, now can we?) at.. oh heavens...
tens of thousands of millions of organisms. On that one "boat". Best build it A LOT BIGGER, Noah old chep. Get up offa your arthritic joints and start sawing
{"Or, it's off to hell with you!"} Yeah OK, you can get help from your two sons.
Phunny stuff, that there are those here who wholeheartedly believe in this crap! ("Well, you haven't had the same personal GodTalk that I have!")
The endless
denials of all the existing and newly discovered facts around us; the unsupported
re-definitions of various things like Evolution (Well...
uhmmm.. So... why can't Evolution explain the Big Bang then?
Nyah nyah! Or: How'd it all come from nothing, just like God's version did. [Oh oooopss.... didn't mean to have that thought
{"Oh Yeah? I warned YOU, didn't I! Now you're really going to hell, unless you tithe me extra this next weekend! I warn YOU!"}
I admit: I gotta give you Christians some credit for your seeming bottomless stamina in the face of relentless truths and facts and better arguments and logic and all of us who have converted to truth-seeking!!
It must be a hard life: no
self-determined purposes,
nothing but sputtered God worship and fear-driven Adherence to the Mandates. It's either that or :
{"It's off to hell! I DID warn you, after all!"}
Me? Purposeless me? I prefer to perhaps go target shooting {@ 500 - 800 m no less!] with my friends, or to read up on the latest research efforts to get to "The Bigger Answers" Oh and a big [
Yes to the Mars Rover, aptly named
Curiosity!]. Always, we advance towards the closest we can get The Big Truth!
Or to raise and then send money to help the (my?) cheetahs! Saved from religious missionary cretins who have ruined Africa since Day One of their arrival!
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*IDTr: Intransigent Dogmo-Theist