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Oh you fully intended to insult. There was no need to compare me to five year old. You see, unlike yourself, I don't need to have all the blanks filled in to know that God is real. But atheists act like just because I can't explain a young earth or Noah's ark then the whole house of cards must come down. Such an attitude actually goes against the nature of science which is suppose to be constantly renewing with new knowledge and discovery. Therefore, you don't just concrete something as scientific fact and say this can never be untrue. What if there is a discover in the future that completely rewrites evolutionary thought? For example, discovery and knowledge about infectious diseases completely rewrote long held scientific beliefs like the four humors. Hundred years from now, scientists will probably be laughing at how archaic beliefs today just like you laugh at what people believed in previous generations.
The hypocritical stance from atheists is that they demand Christians explain every possible question yet have no problem filling in the blanks with NO evidence to the countless holes in evolutionary theory. For example, how did man evolve to create language? As far as I know, we are the ONLY species that has multiple languages, accents and dialects. Why wasn't just one united language good enough? How did this happen exactly? Oh the atheist will give some impressive sounding answer, but it's still just an answer that they pulled out of their rear end. No concrete evidence.
When you proclaim that the Bible is the word of a tri-omni God, disproving only one phrase/story/statement in it discredits the claim. It was not us atheists who built this straw wall of perfection, but the fundamentalists. How many more times are you willing to be proven wrong before falling back to the ultimate defense of "its all about faith"? That would be the more time-effective solution for you.
When you proclaim that the Bible is the word of a tri-omni God, disproving only one phrase/story/statement in it discredits the claim. It was not us atheists who built this straw wall of perfection, but the fundamentalists. How many more times are you willing to be proven wrong before falling back to the ultimate defense of "its all about faith"? That would be the more time-effective solution for you.
It is all about faith. It's just that fundamentalists don't practice it.
just because I can't explain a young earth or Noah's ark then the whole house of cards must come down.
You can't explain it because it wasn't true.
There becomes a point where science and religion can get along. One of my best friends from high school is a conservative baptist and attended a private baptist school majoring in pre-med. In some of his advanced bio classes, he saw evolution first hand. He went from "The earth is 6000 years old" to "I'm not sure how old the Earth is, but evolution does make some interesting points"
Oh you fully intended to insult. There was no need to compare me to five year old. You see, unlike yourself, I don't need to have all the blanks filled in to know that God is real. But atheists act like just because I can't explain a young earth or Noah's ark then the whole house of cards must come down. Such an attitude actually goes against the nature of science which is suppose to be constantly renewing with new knowledge and discovery. Therefore, you don't just concrete something as scientific fact and say this can never be untrue. What if there is a discover in the future that completely rewrites evolutionary thought? For example, discovery and knowledge about infectious diseases completely rewrote long held scientific beliefs like the four humors. Hundred years from now, scientists will probably be laughing at how archaic beliefs today just like you laugh at what people believed in previous generations.
The hypocritical stance from atheists is that they demand Christians explain every possible question yet have no problem filling in the blanks with NO evidence to the countless holes in evolutionary theory. For example, how did man evolve to create language? As far as I know, we are the ONLY species that has multiple languages, accents and dialects. Why wasn't just one united language good enough? How did this happen exactly? Oh the atheist will give some impressive sounding answer, but it's still just an answer that they pulled out of their rear end. No concrete evidence.
You fail to take one thing into account that a large portion of atheists were once religious. Christians make up the ones I know.
Oh you fully intended to insult. There was no need to compare me to five year old. You see, unlike yourself, I don't need to have all the blanks filled in to know that God is real. But atheists act like just because I can't explain a young earth or Noah's ark then the whole house of cards must come down. Such an attitude actually goes against the nature of science which is suppose to be constantly renewing with new knowledge and discovery. Therefore, you don't just concrete something as scientific fact and say this can never be untrue. What if there is a discover in the future that completely rewrites evolutionary thought? For example, discovery and knowledge about infectious diseases completely rewrote long held scientific beliefs like the four humors. Hundred years from now, scientists will probably be laughing at how archaic beliefs today just like you laugh at what people believed in previous generations.
For the last 200,000 years, scientific discovery has invariably moved away from relying on gods, magic, the arcane, the mysterious, the supernatural, the mystical, and the mythical to explain our natural world. I've often asked believers to give us just one example where science had to completely reinvent itself because of a discovery that proved a religious myth about the supernatural was actually true - and demonstrably true. Perhaps the discovery of a species of talking snake or the remains of a manna machine would push religious explanations in the right direction - but if you're holding out hope that scientists are going to find some kind of divine "easter egg" hidden in our genetic code (and not those stupid molecule strands that, with a hefty imagination, looks like a cross) ... if you're expecting to find some hidden proof that God created us just like the Bible says, all I can say is please, do not go on a hunger strike until that evidence is found.
By the way, scientists of today rarely laugh at the scientists of yesteryear who got things wrong. No, instead they rightfully see their own modern work of today as "standing on the shoulders of giants." In other words, without the brilliance of people like Newton, Darwin, Ben Franklin, and a plethora of others, modern scientists wouldn't have the rock solid foundation upon which to expand our knowledge and understanding.
They may have been wrong about some of the things they thought were true - but that's what makes science superior to religion in terms of explaining our world. Science can admit when it's wrong and adjust its direction accordingly. Religion just keeps plodding forward, oblivious to the facts. It only took over 500 years for religion to officially acknowledge the earth orbited the sun, after all. Religion is essentially doing the same thing right now in regards to evolution - well, except the rather conservative Catholic Church, the only Christian branch of religion that seems to have learned its lesson.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
The hypocritical stance from atheists is that they demand Christians explain every possible question yet have no problem filling in the blanks with NO evidence to the countless holes in evolutionary theory.
It's quite extraordinary that we even need to have this discussion -- yet, here we are again. For one thing, Christians like you are the ones marching around claiming that the Bible is 100% true - every word, every event, every person in the Bible is a true historical account of what really happened, including the story of creation. It's all true. There is no possibility that any of it is wrong - and religious believers have a rationalization for everything, even when it comes to defending Christian pedophiles. Is it any wonder, then, why we atheists often ask for a bona-fide reason to believe in something that makes absolutely no sense? To believe in something that flies in the face of how reality actually works?
That's another huge difference between science and religion. Religion asks us to believe in some of the most absurd things, most of which we would laugh at were it not religious in nature and therefore sacred, sacrosanct, and holy. If talking serpents and virgin births were presented in a movie, a documentary, a cartoon, a YouTube video, even in a peer reviewed journal, you would laugh; you would admit to its absurdity and say, "Snakes can't talk. Virgins can't get pregnant." But because these absurdities were presented to you in the guise of religious claptrap, you believe it with a straight face.
Science doesn't ask anyone to believe in the completely absurd - magic, the supernatural, superstitions, miracles, and things with no explanation. People like you seem to forget that religious explanations are not real explanations. "God did it" is not an explanation. It would be like asking someone, "Wow, this house is beautiful. How was it built?" And you responding with, "Oh, Tom built it." Uh, sure, but how did Tom build it? How did God "create" the universe? All you're doing is explaining one unknown with another unknown. It is a patently useless response.
Our stance is not hypocritical. Yours is. Science has given you entire libraries explaining evolution and yet you still reject it because the Theory isn't yet 100% complete. Instead, you'll fall back to primitive superstition and Bronze Age mythologies to explain things, and religion explains things using metaphors and etiologies. These quaint little stories are so full of holes as to be worthless as anything other than a metaphor and an etiology yet you regard them as absolute, unadulterated, complete and utter FACT. You're essentially sailing on the Titanic and snickering at those taking a lifeboat with a few pin pricks in the hull.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
For example, how did man evolve to create language? As far as I know, we are the ONLY species that has multiple languages, accents and dialects. Why wasn't just one united language good enough? How did this happen exactly? Oh the atheist will give some impressive sounding answer, but it's still just an answer that they pulled out of their rear end. No concrete evidence.
Yeah, so instead, we should believe that our varying languages and dialects came about as the result of an angry god who cursed humanity because some people were trying to build a tower to Heaven. Uh huh. Yeah, that sounds soooooooooo much more reasonable than anything an atheist would say, right? Don't believe in anything the study of human migrations, etymology, demographics, and sociology has to say. Hell no! Instead, believe wholeheartedly in this silly little etiology found in a Bronze Age scroll filled to bursting with superstition, written by a desert tribe who knew literally nothing about the world in which they lived. Those people were practically considered scientific geniuses if they could understand that water is wet - and you want to take their word and their ludicrous story of angry gods and magical curses before you'll even consider a natural, scientific explanation.
I suppose therein lies the root of the problem. You've already rejected any possible scientific explanation because to do anything else would damage your faith. So much of your belief system hinges upon everything in the Bible being fact rather than metaphor; because of that it becomes necessary for you to pooh-pooh any scientific explanation and/or theory that challenges the scribblings of ancient desert tribesmen and Bedouins.
I have to admit, I do find that rather humorous - and also somewhat sad. Pitting 21st Century scientists against 30th Century B.C goat-herders and thinking there's actually a close contest between them is just too silly to take seriously.
"Oh no, decisions, decisions. Who do I believe? Who can I trust? Who has it right? Should I believe modern-day linguists and sociologists who have thousands of years of research and records to draw upon? Or should I believe fearful, ignorant ancient desert shepherds and their story of angry gods and magical curses? Oh golly gee, I just don't know!"
Oh, one final thing. Are you at all familiar with the evolution of "gangsta" speech? Some might call it ghetto talk, though that's somewhat pejorative. Ever wonder where it came from? It's not ancient. In fact, it doesn't go much further back than the 17th Century when African-Americans along the coast spoke a form the Gullah language found in the Bahamas. Strange, that ... because the Bahamian Islanders never built a tower to Heaven. Nor did the coastal "Freemen" living in the Carolinas. Nor did the "gangstas" and inner-city African-Americans of today. Somehow ... through some unfathomable, magic-less, godless reason, that language evolved so that the "inner-city" dialect often used by African-Americans is not all that similar to Gullah anymore. No magical curses. No towers to Heaven. No angry gods.
..........Oh the atheist will give some impressive sounding answer, but it's still just an answer that they pulled out of their rear end. .......
Jeffy! You're an expert on languages and linguists too? I'm surprised you've found the time considering your intensive study of homosexuality.... but.... my, my. Fascinating. So tell us.... are Christian linguists, who spend years studying the development of languages, pulling stuff out of their rears too?
Oh you fully intended to insult. There was no need to compare me to five year old. You see, unlike yourself, I don't need to have all the blanks filled in to know that God is real. But atheists act like just because I can't explain a young earth or Noah's ark then the whole house of cards must come down. Such an attitude actually goes against the nature of science which is suppose to be constantly renewing with new knowledge and discovery. Therefore, you don't just concrete something as scientific fact and say this can never be untrue. What if there is a discover in the future that completely rewrites evolutionary thought? For example, discovery and knowledge about infectious diseases completely rewrote long held scientific beliefs like the four humors. Hundred years from now, scientists will probably be laughing at how archaic beliefs today just like you laugh at what people believed in previous generations.
The hypocritical stance from atheists is that they demand Christians explain every possible question yet have no problem filling in the blanks with NO evidence to the countless holes in evolutionary theory. For example, how did man evolve to create language? As far as I know, we are the ONLY species that has multiple languages, accents and dialects. Why wasn't just one united language good enough? How did this happen exactly? Oh the atheist will give some impressive sounding answer, but it's still just an answer that they pulled out of their rear end. No concrete evidence.
Yet Christ followers have no need to answer every possible question--because they believe God will reveal the truth in His own good time--and is likely to use scientists, doctors, sociologists and others to do that.
It's only a false christianity that focuses on a rulebook and must insist on putting God in a box. The god you worship still has you trapped in the Judean desert.
That's why my God is so much bigger than yours!!! He has always used people to usher in new truths--and He's not done yet!!
Oh you fully intended to insult. There was no need to compare me to five year old. You see, unlike yourself, I don't need to have all the blanks filled in to know that God is real. But atheists act like just because I can't explain a young earth or Noah's ark then the whole house of cards must come down. Such an attitude actually goes against the nature of science which is suppose to be constantly renewing with new knowledge and discovery. Therefore, you don't just concrete something as scientific fact and say this can never be untrue. What if there is a discover in the future that completely rewrites evolutionary thought? For example, discovery and knowledge about infectious diseases completely rewrote long held scientific beliefs like the four humors. Hundred years from now, scientists will probably be laughing at how archaic beliefs today just like you laugh at what people believed in previous generations.
The hypocritical stance from atheists is that they demand Christians explain every possible question yet have no problem filling in the blanks with NO evidence to the countless holes in evolutionary theory. For example, how did man evolve to create language? As far as I know, we are the ONLY species that has multiple languages, accents and dialects. Why wasn't just one united language good enough? How did this happen exactly? Oh the atheist will give some impressive sounding answer, but it's still just an answer that they pulled out of their rear end. No concrete evidence.
Yet Christ followers have no need to answer every possible question--because they believe God will reveal the truth in His own good time--and is likely to use scientists, doctors, sociologists and others to do that.
It's only a false christianity that focuses on a rulebook and must insist on putting God in a box.
That's why my God is so much bigger than yours!!! He has always used people to usher in new truths, often the most unlikely people--like those atheists you despise--and He's not done yet!!
P.S. Marc Okrand invented Klingon and Game of Thrones has invented languages as well--and that was for entertainment purposes. Perhaps men could invent language to fit their own purposes as well.
Quote:
Peterson did not coin the word Khaleesi. It existed in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, along with a couple dozen others dreamed up by the author. But Thrones producers decided we needed to hear Drogo and his people speaking more extensively in their native language and searched for someone to flesh out a whole language, just as Marc Okrand did with Klingon and Paul Frommer did with Avatar’sNa’vi. Peterson, who has a masters in linguistics from the University of California–San Diego and founded the Language Creation Society, spent twelve to fourteen hours a day, every day, for two months working on the proposal that landed him the Thrones job. When he was finished, he had more than 300 pages of vocabulary and notes detailing how the Dothraki language would sound and function. “The application process favored those of us who were unemployed at the time, which I was,” Peterson laughed.
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