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What would you consider as evidence? No matter what we provide, no matter how we answer your questions, your insults to the profession of science, engineering or geology continue unabated, and you just dismiss what we say.
So; are you honestly asking, or just trolling and baiting?
If you do have an educated well-thought-out question, please post it here, and then be honest and polite enough to consider our answers thoughtfully. Then respond with a possible "You might have a point here!". Just once.
Or is everything we say and think automatically invalid and biased?
I hope this thread remains peaceful. I would like to see an honest, civil discussion between a creationist and you, Rifleman. I think you would win a debate like that if it remained honest and civil, but I have a feeling that eventually no one will win because... you know.
1) Fundamentalists who take the Bible/Quran/etc. as literally true, infallible, and devoid of internal contradictions. Unless they question the very foundation of their faith, no type or amount of scientific evidence that is at odds with their beliefs is going to sway them. The scientific evidence always will be either incorrect (the world is only 6,000 years old, and scientific methods of dating it as older are inaccurate), placed there by God to test our faith (God made the world appear to be billions of years old using some sort of divine antiquing process), or placed there by Satan to sway us from the path to salvation (the Devil created fossils and such using the aforementioned antiquing process). Using what you and I consider to be logic with them is an exercise in futility, because most of their logic is circular ("The Bible is true--see, these passages in the Bible say so.").
2) Open-minded non-fundamentalists who believe in the validity of scientific evidence (including the process of evolution and an old universe) but who believe that some higher power or intelligence must have created the universe and its laws. Nothing will convince them that there isn't a God, because each new scientific explanation only answers a previously unanswered question--often "moving the goal post backward," as it were--but it doesn't answer the ultimate question of why anything exists at all. Suppose science figures out how this universe was created--for example, from the implosion of a previous universe. That wouldn't settle the debate--it would only show that God created two (and probably more) universes--i.e., the multiverse. If science somehow proves that the mulitverse has no beginning and no end, that would only be seen as evidence that God does indeed exist outside of time.
So it comes down to...
Atheist: "Prove that God exists."
Theist: "Prove that he doesn't."
And then we get into the "Who has the burden of proof?" argument, which always goes around in as many circles as the "Does God exist?" argument.
To be fair, there are atheists on here who have said that no type or amount of evidence would convince them that there is a God, because we'd know by now if there were, the evidence has been moving in the other direction over time, and there could always be a possible alternative explanation (aliens, the mind playing tricks, etc.).
In other words, the C-D Religion and Philosophy forum is in no danger of closing down any time soon due to the major debates all having been settled.
Once you've experienced the power of God in your life, the "logic" of the atheist falls flat. It's hard to persuade someone who experiences God (and the supernatural) on a regular basis that God is not real.
Science merely discovers the secrets of creation. The evidence for God is there, but one can interpret it as not so. The theist looks at DNA and how it works. It behaviors follows laws that are testable and repeatable. Not exactly the stuff of chance. Where you have a laws, logic dictates one has a lawmaker. But consider that logic also dictaces that every effect has a cause. To say the universe just came to be is illogical. IMO the atheist tends to dismiss the evidence, because it can be explained away. (Not unlike Scrooge who dismisses the Ghost of Christmas as the result of something he ate.)
So experience and logic are the barriers that the atheist must overcome to convince the theist.
A final thought-I love my wife. Ask me to prove it in a verifiable and testable way and guess what? I can't and neither can you prove to me that you love your spouse/SO. We know love is real, but it is no more proveable than a religious experience. Yet we know love is real.
i just had a question, its kind of on the subject. anyways what do scientist or atheist, etc. say about miracles that happen today in society? like people who had cancer and then it just went away, or the average women that lift their car to get their child out from underneath. im just curious...
i just had a question, its kind of on the subject. anyways what do scientist or atheist, etc. say about miracles that happen today in society? like people who had cancer and then it just went away, or the average women that lift their car to get their child out from underneath. im just curious...
Is a "miracle" an unlikely event, or an impossible event? If it is unlikely, then we have miracles all the time just from pure number, a1 in a million event that would happen each day, will happen to over 6000 people each day.....
i just had a question, its kind of on the subject. anyways what do scientist or atheist, etc. say about miracles that happen today in society? like people who had cancer and then it just went away, or the average women that lift their car to get their child out from underneath. im just curious...
I did answer your thoughts on this in another thread this afternoon, sukrill. In fact, when carefully analyzed, no such miracles happen with any more frequency than they do for atheists. Praying Christians or supplicating Muslims get positive answers no more often than atheists (i.e.: both happen with the same frequency). Good luck befalls atheists just as often, proving it's all just chance, but as regards divorce or medical salvation, the religious are at a documented disadvantage, as opposed to what you suggest. Reason: they waste time praying or leaving it to faith, while the atheists get on with finding possible ways to just get the job done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr5150
I'll sum it up.
Once you've experienced the power of God in your life, the "logic" of the atheist falls flat. It's hard to persuade someone who experiences God (and the supernatural) on a regular basis that God is not real.
I'd agree, especially when those experiences, real or imagined, are powerful. The mind's ability to "realize" it's own imagination is startling.
Science merely discovers the secrets of creation. The evidence for God is there, but one can interpret it as not so.
Well... this is perhaps where logic parts company with fantasy, since in the opinions of many spiritual researchers, scientific or otherwise, the Christian "story" states, in absolute terms, that all events, all Creation in fact, and all we see, is the direct result of The Creator. No other processes possible. Which is where we atheists get a bit excited. After all, there's all those proofs we have!
Science has come along of late and systematically debunked most of those claims. After all, you'd have to agree, some of those claims are quite implausible, and are thus easily dismissed on their face. it doesn't take a lot of work to disprove, for instance, the rationality of Noah's Ark.
The theist looks at DNA and how it works. It behaviors follows laws that are testable and repeatable. Not exactly the stuff of chance. Where you have a laws, logic dictates one has a lawmaker. But consider that logic also dictaces that every effect has a cause. To say the universe just came to be is illogical. IMO the atheist tends to dismiss the evidence, because it can be explained away. (Not unlike Scrooge who dismisses the Ghost of Christmas as the result of something he ate.)
So if we accept that the universe, being here, is therefore the result of some creative process, that's OK. But the Creator myth is saddled with the very real limitations of the human imagination, and the prime story was also saddled with the fact that it's authors were, essentially, scientifically illiterate.
There may well be some larger force, some universal field, or something (as I suspect) that's simply too big for our little heads to wrap around. After all ,why settle for a decidedly hominid Supreme Entity, one equally saddled with our failings and the limits of our minds?
Because, as a direct consequence, these strictures, these limitations, and adherence to ancient writings as "literal", require the believer to persistently hold to potentially irrational denials of the obvious and proven. Such items as Evolution, a truly ancient universe, once thriving and now extinct dinosaurs, a quite likely Big Bang event (we do ,after all, see a predominance of predicted consequences of same as our study methods grow ever more sophisticated...) and so on.
So experience and logic are the barriers that the atheist must overcome to convince the theist.
I'd agree. If someone prayed they'd get a much-needed job, and then they did, this may be more than enough to forever convince them of a concerned God. This doesn't fly so well for the devout Christian patient who DOES succumb to pancreatic cancer. As well, the convinced believer then tends to read into everything as being of godly intervention, and thus their faith is bolstered by what are, in fact, non-theistic and quite likely chance events. Or things with a rather simple explanation.
Alternately, the theist should consider for a moment the possible incorporation of reality and reason, and of empirically proven evidence, into a perhaps modernized, rationalized spirituality. God started the whole DNA thing, but then stood back. Or God pulled the Big Lever that ignited the BB.
Else, is there some particularly good reason for hanging on so tightly to the least plausible, ancient literal versions, to the exclusion of any modern evidence? After all, the typical fundamentalist reaction is that not one iota of any of science's discoveries about the greater universe is true. All false, all made up, all a hoax.
Else, is there some particularly good reason for hanging on so tightly to the least plausible, ancient literal versions, to the exclusion of any modern evidence? After all, the typical fundamentalist reaction is that not one iota of any of science's discoveries about the greater universe is true. All false, all made up, all a hoax.
How rational or possible is that?
Uhh...yea, I guess.
Nice strawman.
With that said what of the other 90% of Christians who are not locked into your limited strawman example?
Oh and the other thing, atheists are the only folk who require that God answers all prayer in the affirmitive. Kinda funny when you think about it. Christians are cool with God anwsering with a NO. But it makes sense. Christians know how God works. If we die that's OK.
Atheists don't relate. Death for them is the end. You guys have no clue.
I think titling this "Question to Theists" makes this sound more overly broad than what you intend. I mean the recently deceased skeptic Martin Gardner at times called himself a "Philosophical Theist" and I'm sure he's not the kind of person you have in mind.
I think Creationists on the whole are not so much about evidence or reason. They feel a strong emotional connection, or love, for a religious system that requires Creationism. It's like asking them to find empirical evidence to justify their marriage. They may be able to try that, but ultimately it just isn't going to work.
I think titling this "Question to Theists" makes this sound more overly broad than what you intend. I mean the recently deceased skeptic Martin Gardner at times called himself a "Philosophical Theist" and I'm sure he's not the kind of person you have in mind.
I think Creationists on the whole are not so much about evidence or reason. They feel a strong emotional connection, or love, for a religious system that requires Creationism. It's like asking them to find empirical evidence to justify their marriage. They may be able to try that, but ultimately it just isn't going to work.
I don't think I'd call it an emotional connection or love....I'd call it indoctrination, programming, or perhaps simple brainwashing, but I do agree that it ain't gonna work....It takes an expert to deprogram indoctrination as strong as this....I don't think it can be done on a forum.
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