What Is Designed In the Universe? (holidays, miracles, procreation, demon)
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Dads, you are getting nowhere. Science discovered the laws of nature and science doesn't know everything. None of that does a single darn thing to make a case for a god or to disprove evolution.
Oh brother. I know plenty of blacks who are devoted Christians. Time for you to move on.
"The number of slaves today remains as high as 12 million[4] to 27 million" Wikipedia. My point was that if you say that humans are supposed to be on top of the food chain for their intelligence, self awareness and consciousness we are pretty low on the scale of morality and ethics aren't we. It just depends how you measure development. But let's give up this "line of inquiry" I don't remember how we got here.
Oh brother. I know plenty of blacks who are devoted Christians. Time for you to move on.
Definitely. This is about Intelligent Design. Your point was, I imagine that we had to be designed as we couldn't have evolved to the summit of creation. correct?
Says you. But the fact I have asked you on MANY threads now to present the FIRST shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning to substantiate this claim.... and you have not.... but instead have engaged in excuse making, personal ad hominem and cop outs.... kind of gives off the impression you are just making stuff up.
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Originally Posted by Vansdad
At least realize that human thinking is subject to human limitations and not be so arrogant in thinking you are right.
Yeah, the reason you have no evidence is because humans are limited. It is nothing to do with the fact you are just making stuff up and have no substantiation for them at all. Right.
I will tell you what is designed in the universe.....Cats will always go to the bathroom in a litter box.. even if it has been outside for the past 5 hours... it comes inside and goes to the litter box and uses it.. it has to be a design of a superior being...only a god with a humor would do such a thing.....
Wonderkid, your point is well proven here. Humans applying human standards and thinking they are absolute in their thinking.
You and all the other fundies certainly do. See your posts later on about the supposed superiority of us humans, who are simply a species en-route to being another species. After all ,we have all the necessary evidence that we came from lesser sub-species, which proves the directions of some of our evolutionary trends.
Soon the next species will be looking down on us just as you look down on everything you've been parrot-taught to be "lesser". And, you know, have dominion over. The hubris is truly smothering here!
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Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer
Two wrong-thinkers ganging up on me making each other feel supported. Oh no, what shall I do.
As we can see, gentlemen, Van and Wonder cannot produce actual evidence, and must then downgrade any possible evidence to the contrary, because they subconsciously see their own untenable positions. Nothing can invade their illusory space. They are crippled by an inability to cope with the chance that they have dedicated their lives to something that's obviously so false to others.
In such a position they reject science they know little to nothing about, though it pervades their lives and they don't realize it, and dodge and choke in debate because the dissonance gets in the way.
One even goes so far as to lie [by stating in what is a blatantly false manner that they are not religious], as if to remove the onus of very old, often repeated, very stereotypical failed arguments that have been thoroughly debunked. Repeated demands for evidences that have already been given, then total denial that any evidence is worthy; or the pretense that it was never given, or that they did not see it posted. It's all very common. And rather tragic, in adults.
Right on, well worth re-posting!
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Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
A common theist trick this one.
Rather than present any evidence what the theist does is paints people who agree with him in some positive light.
It is a linguistic propaganda trick you are pulling and no more and it is as transparent as the newly cleaned windows of the office I am sitting in.
They seem to forget that we, unlike them, have for the most part already experienced Christianity and have rejected it after careful consideration and a search for it's clearly absent resonance and relevance in our particular lives. Meantime, they completely lack any deep and intense evaluations or experiences as perhaps a professional scientist or other logic-based thinking adult, or of a philosopher willing to examine other religions or approaches to the curiosities in their lives.
So, they have only seen it from one side of the table, and they are regularly admonished against even peeking over to look-see what we've come to conclude and why. Instead, in the mutual head nodding clubs of their kin, they seek tacit approval and agreement only from their own "choir" as it were. How satisfying and self-assuring, huh?
It's far to frightening to honestly examine what the other side has to say, so it's Denigration and ad hominem Time as the only response to every single honest question we ask.
Well... Ba-Gawhk, I say. Ba-frickin'-Gawhk! (Q: what animal makes this sound?)
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Originally Posted by Wonderkid50
Golly, dont I wish I had as much free time to devote to this site as the atheist crowd.....are atheists often lottery winners, I wonder?
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Originally Posted by try_answering_the_questions_sez_rflmn
Actually, you seem to be on here a lot more than I am. You also do seem to be responding, no matter how acidly and off-topic, to each and every post that's tossed out at you. So why the pointless ad hominem? Oh yeah... I forgot: that's pretty much all you gotz, innitt sonny?
Well OK then: then press on. Your arguments are SO compelling!
The absolute fallacy here is that one must reject science to believe in g-d. What an absurd notion. The beauty and wonder of science provides all the more evidence that there is a creator.
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Originally Posted by chuckling_rflmn
Sorry, but that's exactly what logical rational thinking has disproven, time and again, unless you abandon the usual tenets of logic and The true SM approach. Else please allow me to ask you to answer a few specific questions, the answers to which ,if you can be honest briefly, would rather easily disprove the antics... oh sorry, I mean, "miracles" you so casually attribute to your God. And claim there's proof for... Sadly, they turn out to be things He could not have, and indeed did not, ever accomplish.
At least compared to just plain old blind luck that we are the beneficiaries of such wonder. You know, the odds of which make winning the multi state lotteries look easy.
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Originally Posted by faithful_rflmn
Again, you demonstrate a casual uneducated disrespect for fact, statistics and logic in your illiterate understanding of how the actual universe works. Blind luck has nothing to do with it; that's just your local "mindless minister" or "prattling priest" yammering away in his own sorry scientific ignorance.
That potential re-educational goal has been proven, at least to me, to be an impossibility; to get anything across to you hubris- and intransigence-soaked types, so it must indeed now become a labor of corrective love, purely in the hopes that at least one or two of you might see the light here.
We have actually achieved that in a few cases, and so, as they say, "if it saves the mind of just one befuddled fundy, it'll be worth it!"
Repeated DEMANDS? I'm sorry hoss, did someone grant you the authority to DEMAND anything of me or anyone else here? I sure didn't. I guess you know what you can do with your demands.
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Originally Posted by understanding_father_figure_rflmn
Ahh yes, re-directing a simple request for some proofs or for an answer to a simple question by calling it down as an unreasonable DEMAND and then feigning being all huffy and outraged. Why not just answer a question? OK; I get it: it's too much for you; I understand.
Any deflection in a storm, huh, my slippery friend? Why does this tactic not surprise any of us now?
Every Christian has doubts from time to time. The fact that you don't realize this shows a remarkable lack of comprehension of what really goes on in the hearts, minds and souls of those behind the heavy wooden doors you so abhor. Clearly your "knowledge" of Christianity is not based on a true understanding or familiarity with its essence. ignorance is not a position that one should argue from, hoss.
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Originally Posted by selective_drinking_rflmn
And yet again, so many of us have already been locked behind those doors, and we managed, mostly those of us in our intellectually awakening youth when we weren't yet totally brainwashed (see Jim Jones and The Kool-Aid Cult.. bet you guys would have felt right at home there, eh?)
What's tragic is the atheist belief in no god. They can't prove the lack of one, but CHOOSE to believe there isn't one.
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Originally Posted by rflmn
No, in fact we've most often come to that conclusion thorough something far more deep and intense than Casual Christian Conclusions. I.e.: our pathway is not at all like the knee-jerk rejectionism of fundies like yourself, who won't and can't accept simple logic and proofs, no matter how contemporaneous (meaning in his case, multiple but distinct scientific disciplines like geology and biochemistry and physics ,all coming to the same inescapable conclusions that all the GodTripeMythology is exactly that; ancient mythology unsupportable under modern blind-test scrutiny.) Iwill agree with you here though, that...
...Christians lack of courage to accept the truth. Not to mention not being afraid of being held accountable for their actions one day.
Oh spare me the Pascal's Stupidity Contest Wager again, OK?. BTW, If God saw fit to make me exactly who I am, and knew beforehand how it would all turn out, then it's She alone who is responsible. Or is She too cowardly to take responsibility for Her flakey actions?
I will have a cold beer with her and we'll discuss how I was able to so easily pull the strings and hackles of her less-well intellectually-endowed and Sheeplist subjects when I arrive in my Ferrari at the Pearly Gates. Hey; maybe I can take Her out on a Hot Date? Yah think? I mean, you guys have provben to be soooo bohhh-rinnngggg!
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Originally Posted by ArtieE
Never.
I can't speak for him but what drives me is trying to make the world a better place by trying to introduce logic, reason and common sense to Christians, especially fundamental Christians.
"The FBI gave the standard profile of a serial killer, He is a person with few friends. He became much more religious just before he started murdering people. After reading all the available studies I could find and studying all the articles in the newspapers for over 30 years, I find what is most outstanding is Serial killers were sexually inhibited by their strong religious upbringing." "On TV a woman said she had interviewed more serial killers, just after they were caught, than any other person. She said "when you ask a serial killer questions like "Why did you murder this moral, loving married person with children?" "Didn’t you think of how terrible this would be to her husband, her children, her parents?" Almost all serial killers start quoting one verse after another from the Christian Bible. This shows most serial killers had strong religious upbringing, have been studying the bible for years and were still very Christian religious when they were murdering."
Nearly all serial killers are very devout men who were raised by members of Pentecostal sects, fundamentalist Catholics or were 'hard-shell' Baptists and Methodists."
Yes of course we do. Do you choose not to believe in Santa Claus or fairies? If you choose not to believe in Santa Claus or fairies you're no different from atheists.
Nice! I do so love a good fact-filled story, complete with irrefutable facts, stuff that stabs at the hubris-soaked and holier-than-thou hearts of snobbista fundies! God: the hubris! It really gets pretty thick around here, don't it?
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Originally Posted by Vansdad
Try it. You might be surprised.
Already did! As noted above, and you guys so conveniently forget: most all of us atheists were once similarly little-minded and dependent Christians but we chose a higher path of unbridled understanding and open-minded learning, one that allows independent thinking and out-of-the-box conclusions. We're not threatened by tales of a proven-vengeful God who insists on stifling knowledge and thoughts. That's your self-imposed purview, not ours.
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Originally Posted by Vansdad
Oh the dreaded Santa approach from an atheist. Let's see...we all know we made that one up. Proof is simple, wait at your fireplace on Xmas eve. Problem solved. The beginning of the universe...not so simple.
Actually, while it's no so simple at least i's more logical an approach than "poof, the magic universe, "all fully completed!" Which, of course, it for sure is NOT! Why is it you nutz always claim our "out of nothing"" idea (which is not what science thinks at all, btw... but why listen to the facts, eh?) is different from your absolute "out of nothing!" God's Creepy Creation Concept? What, your minds only operate in one direction? You are all DC minds and we are both AC and DC-adaptable? Seems so.
And remember, far more children on this planet believe in the various versions of Santa than there are or ever will be Christians. But then when they mature and look at the obvious lack of evidence, they decide, rationally, to reject it. But by then, they've also been scared, right on schedule, by their Sunday School teacher, to fear God and Her holy retribution.
BTW, there's nothing scary about Santa, like: "If you don't believe in him, you'll have to go be a slave in his hellish toy factory! So now... sit there in the corner and don't come out until you profess your true and undying love of, and fealty to, Santa!"
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Originally Posted by Wonderkid50
Until you identify another species that exceeds the full extent of our capabilities, that position is quite tenable.
Oh yea, little green imaginary folks from some far away galaxy dont count.
Oh give me a break! I'm a professional wildlife biologist, with some additional studies in genetics, and frankly, I know far more about this than you. And you're categorically wrong. Yeah, so we have some unique capabilities. So do cheetahs and polar bears and starfish. One of ours is our ability to reason well, but we are sorely lacking in so many others where those "lesser" animals you clam to "have dominion over" can rather easily outdo us. And the predominant Christian sub-species does put the ability to soundly reason concept in serious doubt I must say... Thankfully I'm in that other hominid sub-species of the more capable of reasoning animals.
Be aware that mutational rates in our hominid DNA are not carved in stone, and that we are, in fact all transitionals; "missing links"as it were, between what we recently were genetically (Cro-Magnon, Neanderthal, etc.) and what we soon enough may be. Something that fits our ever-changing ecosystem and available niches, but which may be "lesser", even more worker-drone-like and less intelligent if that's the direction we evolve in.
Btw, little green men do count, esp. when they land here, perhaps next week! And won't you be surprised when they laugh about our silly God belief systems, and that we had to be alone in the quintazillions of billions of millions of galaxies and systems out there, that God did this just for us. Wow! What a fun Girl she is!
PS: their laughter will come just before they slaughter us for our carbon-molecules, since they will be non-carbon-or DNA based, and won't have been made by your God
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Originally Posted by ArtieE
Oh the arrogance to assume that human beings are the standard by which everything else is to be measured and compared with. You can try wrestling a gorilla and you'll soon find out the full extent of your capabilities.
Yeah, ain't it a hoot? It's just an integral part of The Greater Christian Hubris, that God made us in Her image, as some sort of achievement pinnacle of well... something, when we have so many obvious flaws and faults, including hubris, arrogance, snobbery and intransigence.
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Originally Posted by Vansdad
God created the laws of nature. Scientists still need to discover them.
Cop-out number (Oh heck: what number is it now?). When it's obvious that we're on a roll in accumulating hard-won but irrefutable hard evidence, they decide it was God's intention that we discover "stuff" all along!
How funny!
Scientists discoveries now predictably de-bunk the best that the God-makers had to offer. Their time as fantasy starters has come and gone, but I understand that there's that good old mental inertia effect to overcome.
After all, it takes a certain kind of open mind to accept that things are not as you've always been yelled at to believe, right? And that you won't be punished for coloring outside the box!
Soon enough...Soon enough. Then the air will finally be cleared of this intelletual smog bank...
Pardon if I don't copy Squirts post above. It was rather, ahmmmm, lengthy...
Whats really funny is your labelling of me as a fundie. Once again the rule of making assumptions proves at least half true . That, or more erroneous "logic" on display.
My own road to Christianity, just to clarify, began with being drug to church as a youth - not because my parents were religious, at all, but more out of need for community and the discipline of a Sunday morning activity, along with a good sermon, which I rarely took in at that age. From there I spent many years as a professed agnostic or semi atheist. Not aggressively so as the ones here. I did attend a Chris Hitchens debate, and have a signed copy of GING. Over the years I attended church on various holidays or other events, but never tried disabusing anyone of their beliefs. After all, what business was it of mine?
Eventually I found my own road to Christianity, after much research and investigation. Not at all through blind following or intellectual numbness, as the nastier posters here are constantly presuming and postulating out of an unending supply of hubris. I find it compliments science and other earthly knowledge quite well.
Just about any type of small Christian group I've been a part of has questionned g-d, amidst intense discussion and debate. This idea of intellectual laziness or lack of courage in examining their position among Christians is false and, once again, presumed, assumed and harrumphed out of atheistic hubris, not knowledge.
As far as miracles go, you are referring to the "big ones" - ignoring completely the small ones that happen everyday. You choose to forget when a patient recovers, inexplicably by medical science, from a terminal diagnosis. Ah, it's just stats again, or fortunate biology, eh?
The most significant point is your claim to "understand" the universe. Ha!
As far as miracles go, you are referring to the "big ones" - ignoring completely the small ones that happen everyday. You choose to forget when a patient recovers, inexplicably by medical science, from a terminal diagnosis. Ah, it's just stats again, or fortunate biology, eh?
"Strictly speaking a miracle is a supernatural event attributed to action by a deity, or a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader.
In everyday usage, any very beneficial event that is seen as very unlikely, although susceptible to explanation by non-supernatural means, may be described as a miracle, without attributing it to divine action. Examples include surviving a natural disaster, a life-threatening situation, or an illness diagnosed as terminal. Some coincidences may be seen as miracles.[1]" Wikipedia
Do you know of any miracles that has been conclusively shown to be caused by a deity? How would you even do that since there is no evidence that any deity exists?
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A few minor comments...
Sadly, they turn out to be things He could not have, and indeed did not, ever accomplish.
