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Old 07-21-2014, 03:58 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,802 posts, read 13,341,895 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hd4me View Post
Before answering the above...
It is fine that this old thread has been resurrected and the discussion continued, but just so you know not to expect an answer from the OP, he died some time ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hd4me View Post
Science is possible because the physical world is orderly and the behavior of energy and matter is predictable and uniform within a given set of parameters.
Which tells us, precisely, that there are predictable ways in which energy and matter behave, at least under present and likely near future conditions. Hence we can make predictions, create hypothesis, and perform experiments to (in)validate those hypotheses.

My guess is that you're implying that it proves more than what it actually does, probably that without a creator all would be chaos and disorder. While that may seem intuitive, chaos theory and the study of fractals show how patterns can and do emerge from seemingly random interactions, and how complex systems can self-organize. As does, say, finite state automata research in computer science.

The basics can be found here:

Emergence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Old 07-22-2014, 09:23 PM
 
6,324 posts, read 4,304,802 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eusebius View Post
So where did all these particles and atoms originate?
We don't know for sure. No one does. Yet.

But to claim God did it gives us no useful information.

By and large, the reason why many creationists put forward the idea that God is responsible for the formation of the universe is to justify their belief in all of those crazy religious myths and to reinforce the veracity of their holy books. Given the staggeringly enormous emotional investment "true believers" (especially fundamentalist Biblical literalists) put into their religious beliefs, it's no wonder that any evidence to the contrary is summarily rejected.

Other than expletives that would result in lots of asterisks if I wrote them here, what do you suppose are the most common first words that are uttered (or screamed) by a person witnessing or experiencing something they desperately don't want to happen?

"Noooooooo! No, no, no! Noooooooooo!"

Denial is the first stage of the grieving process. Denial is the defense mechanism by which we protect ourselves from a sudden (often unexpected) traumatic event.

Thus creationists are in constant denial, a denial that they feed to each other, when their religious beliefs begin to crumble. Note, I said "religious beliefs," not their belief in God. That will likely never change. But for fundamentalists in particular, it seems that, for God to exist, the Bible has to be 100% true.

Last edited by Shirina; 07-22-2014 at 09:26 PM.. Reason: I said 'noooooooo!' until I finally got over my denial of a typo in the third paragraph.
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Old 07-23-2014, 12:47 AM
 
10,075 posts, read 5,701,394 times
Reputation: 2891
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
We don't know for sure. No one does. Yet.

But to claim God did it gives us no useful information.

By and large, the reason why many creationists put forward the idea that God is responsible for the formation of the universe is to justify their belief in all of those crazy religious myths and to reinforce the veracity of their holy books. Given the staggeringly enormous emotional investment "true believers" (especially fundamentalist Biblical literalists) put into their religious beliefs, it's no wonder that any evidence to the contrary is summarily rejected.

Other than expletives that would result in lots of asterisks if I wrote them here, what do you suppose are the most common first words that are uttered (or screamed) by a person witnessing or experiencing something they desperately don't want to happen?

"Noooooooo! No, no, no! Noooooooooo!"

Denial is the first stage of the grieving process. Denial is the defense mechanism by which we protect ourselves from a sudden (often unexpected) traumatic event.

Thus creationists are in constant denial, a denial that they feed to each other, when their religious beliefs begin to crumble. Note, I said "religious beliefs," not their belief in God. That will likely never change. But for fundamentalists in particular, it seems that, for God to exist, the Bible has to be 100% true.
I see it the other way around. Atheists are in denial. You put up fronts and walls so you can easily discount any possible evidence that supports Christianity. You read the Bible not for wisdom, but to prop up this illusion that God is evil and wicked as if that somehow validated your non-belief. The fact that I've had more than one atheist tell me that they rather burn in hell than worship the God of the Bible is quite revealing.
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Old 07-23-2014, 01:35 AM
 
7,801 posts, read 6,351,097 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
I see it the other way around. Atheists are in denial.
You would see it that way, because it allows you to not present any evidence. You give NO evidence for your claims, and that gives you the imagined ability to suggest atheists are simply ignoring the evidence.

It is a dishonest propaganda stunt you play on us in a canard that is as fetid as it is transparent. So long as you do not substantiate your views in any way, or even attempt to, you get to pretend no one is accepting the substantiation.

Yet in all the posts, on all the threads, you have tried this little linguistic stunt..... no one except for you appears to be buying it. Why do you think that is?

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
You put up fronts and walls so you can easily discount any possible evidence that supports Christianity.
Given you have not provided ANY such evidence, you simply are making things up when you say we "discount" it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
You read the Bible not for wisdom, but to prop up this illusion that God is evil and wicked
That is just a false and misrepresentative diatribe that you keep telling yourself. Actually many atheists read the Bible, such as the KJV version, because the language is beautiful, it gives us an insight into the mentality of bronze aged peasantry, and it is informative in massive ways on more contemporary literature from Shakespeare to Milton.... all of which one can appreciate without knowledge of the bible of course..... but yet a dimension of appreciation and understanding is missing.

But as usual you do not let facts get in the way of your misrepresentative diatribes against atheists which are designed to distract from one simple truth: You have consistently and meticulously avoided any and all attempts to even BEGIN to substantiate a single assertion you have made on this forum.
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Old 07-23-2014, 01:48 AM
 
6,324 posts, read 4,304,802 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
I see it the other way around. Atheists are in denial. You put up fronts and walls so you can easily discount any possible evidence that supports Christianity. You read the Bible not for wisdom, but to prop up this illusion that God is evil and wicked as if that somehow validated your non-belief. The fact that I've had more than one atheist tell me that they rather burn in hell than worship the God of the Bible is quite revealing.
Well, your assertion is rather ridiculous if you think about it. Atheists are grounded in -reality- and thus being in denial of Bronze Age mythology and the existence of desert tribal gods is borderline ludicrous.

There are -so- many reasons not to believe. So many. The fact that this sub-forum continues to hum with debate clearly shows this.

We don't put up walls. In fact, we put down the welcome mat. By all means, we would -welcome- evidence that supports Christianity. But the stuff you folks keep supplying - anecdotal stories, denying evolution, and Bible verses - do not constitute good enough evidence. And we've explained over and over again why that is. People have anecdotal stories about everything under the sun, from alien abductions to reincarnation. Bigfoot sightings, prophetic dreams, out-of-body experiences, sexual fantasies, and sheesh the list is virtually endless.

Are they ALL true simply because the experiencer says they are? Why should we give religion a free pass to skimp on evidence when we are so critical of -other- anecdotes? Millions of people have claimed to see a UFO, for instance, but most people still think aliens visiting earth is ridiculous.

Which I find odd given that there's nothing overly miraculous about a flesh-and-blood species using technology to visit this planet. THAT will be dismissed as crazy talk despite the anecdotes - then they'll go running to their churches to praise and glorify a desert tribal god for which there is no evidence (except anecdotal) of its existence. At least an alien can exist without breaking millions of natural laws.

And there is NO illusion that God is wicked. Sorry, but the Bible is filled to bursting with examples. The fact that a worrisome number of Christians have admitted they would happily murder their children if God told them to only illustrates the warped sense of morality that is derived from worshiping a God that Christians claim has the right to be immoral. That makes about as much sense as a book written in the Wing Dings font.

The fact that Christians can even deny what the Bible says, the fact that they can ignore the atrocities, the genocides, the infanticides, the war-mongering, and the flagrant injustice of Yahweh is proof positive that your side is the side in denial.

By the way - for some inexplicable reason, Christians seem to keep forgetting that the majority of atheists were once Christian and read the Bible for wisdom long before they became atheists. I have no idea why you think atheists have not read it in the same way you do. It's just that, for many of us atheists, we were not so completely and irrevokably blinded by religious fervor not to see the monumental depravity that takes place in some of these stories - and how hyperbole, statistical aberrations, and stylistic writing ideosyncracies give away the fact that the Bible is a story book.

Atheists simply went down a different path than you did - just like the Protestants went down a different path than the Catholics, just like the Methodists went down a different path than the Lutherans who went down a different path than the Amish. Our take on the Bible, religion, and God is no less valid than someone who is Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran, Methodist, or Amish.
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Old 07-23-2014, 02:28 AM
 
Location: Caverns measureless to man...
7,588 posts, read 6,594,399 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
I see it the other way around. Atheists are in denial. You put up fronts and walls so you can easily discount any possible evidence that supports Christianity.
I'm not an atheist, but as a non-Christian, I can answer to these questions.

I'll answer with a simple question - what evidence? I have yet to see a shred of it, and I've been looking for over a half century. Enlighten me.




Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
You read the Bible not for wisdom, but to prop up this illusion that God is evil and wicked as if that somehow validated your non-belief.
If that's what you need to tell yourself to wake up every morning and live your life by the tenets of this bizarre fantasy of Christianity, go ahead and keep telling yourself that. It's as intellectually dishonest as many of the other things you say in support of your religion, but if you even realize that, I doubt you care.

The sad truth is, many of us who reject Christianity read the bible because we're hoping to find some reason to take that silly book of fables seriously. And it's always in vain, because as a group, we apparently lack the capacity to cherry-pick that seems to be the key to making any sense out of the bible.



Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
The fact that I've had more than one atheist tell me that they rather burn in hell than worship the God of the Bible is quite revealing.
Again, I'm no atheist, but I would agree with that. Sadly, though, what it reveals about us is not what you seem to think it reveals. What it reveals is we would make any sacrifice rather than buy into your lunatic cult and endorse the sick, vengeful, sociopathic, barbarian tribal god that you embrace. It's not an indictment of us - it's an indictment of that twisted, primitive religion to which you belong.
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Old 07-24-2014, 11:16 AM
 
10,075 posts, read 5,701,394 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Albert_The_Crocodile View Post
I'm not an atheist, but as a non-Christian, I can answer to these questions.

I'll answer with a simple question - what evidence? I have yet to see a shred of it, and I've been looking for over a half century. Enlighten me.
Here are a few from a birds eye perspective:

fulfilled prophecy, documented miracle healings, the existence of evil, the real life consequences of sin, documented cases of the supernatural, biblical archaeology, the perfect design of heterosexual sex and intimacy, the consistency and behavior of a person who becomes born again....

As I have said before, these are evidences, not conclusive proof. There is still a degree of faith involved.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Albert_The_Crocodile View Post

If that's what you need to tell yourself to wake up every morning and live your life by the tenets of this bizarre fantasy of Christianity, go ahead and keep telling yourself that. It's as intellectually dishonest as many of the other things you say in support of your religion, but if you even realize that, I doubt you care.
I don't need to prop myself up with wishful thinking to have faith in Christ. If I have periods of doubt, I can always go back to the very real supernatural and spiritual experiences that my friends and I have encountered.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Albert_The_Crocodile View Post

The sad truth is, many of us who reject Christianity read the bible because we're hoping to find some reason to take that silly book of fables seriously. And it's always in vain, because as a group, we apparently lack the capacity to cherry-pick that seems to be the key to making any sense out of the bible.

You have never really read the Bible if you blow it off as being a silly book of fables.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Albert_The_Crocodile View Post

Again, I'm no atheist, but I would agree with that. Sadly, though, what it reveals about us is not what you seem to think it reveals. What it reveals is we would make any sacrifice rather than buy into your lunatic cult and endorse the sick, vengeful, sociopathic, barbarian tribal god that you embrace. It's not an indictment of us - it's an indictment of that twisted, primitive religion to which you belong.
No, it reveals that you rather throw your lot with the devil who is the real bad guy. For example whenever someone has thoughts of self-pity or low self-esteem, you can thank the devil and his minions for inputting those thoughts. He uses fear to paralyze people and keep them from doing the right thing. Yet you think God is the twisted one?
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Old 07-24-2014, 01:09 PM
 
Location: Florida
23,158 posts, read 26,101,649 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post

No, it reveals that you rather throw your lot with the devil who is the real bad guy. For example whenever someone has thoughts of self-pity or low self-esteem, you can thank the devil and his minions for inputting those thoughts. He uses fear to paralyze people and keep them from doing the right thing. Yet you think God is the twisted one?

Since he created everything, he created the devil, right? So now, who is it that's twisted?
(asked for the 1400th time)
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Old 07-24-2014, 01:17 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,802 posts, read 13,341,895 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina View Post
But for fundamentalists in particular, it seems that, for God to exist, the Bible has to be 100% true.
Hm. Maybe the irony here -- which I've never thought of before -- is that fundamentalists are actually more vulnerable to reason and skepticism which is why they have both reason and skepticism totally shut down with respect to their dogma. They do have (and I did have) an inordinate NEED for their beliefs to be incontrovertibly true. I was conditioned not to go to places in my thinking that would even slightly question the veracity of the Bible.

To this day I simply don't see the point in liberal Christianity, which in its extreme manifestations (e.g., Unitarianism) has almost no standard or litmus test for orthodoxy, which is to say in my mind that it doesn't have anything to say about god or right or wrong, which renders it nothing more than a secular social club with a patina of spiritual terminology sprinkled on it. Even milder forms (mainline denominations) seems to me strangely unconcerned about the Bible's accuracy and are even willing to admit that it is metaphors and parables and not to be taken literally. If so, then how is it substantively any different than being a fan of Homer's Iliad, or the writings of Plato?

I wonder how many fundamentalists become liberal Christians. Probably not many. With us fundies, it's all or nuthin' ... no halfway romance will do!
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Old 07-24-2014, 01:43 PM
 
10,075 posts, read 5,701,394 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by old_cold View Post
Since he created everything, he created the devil, right? So now, who is it that's twisted?
(asked for the 1400th time)

With that logic, the parents of a serial killer are the true guilty ones who should be punished.
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