Creationists V Athiests

[1a2bcio8]

I do accept that we don't have all the answers, but your post could just as easily apply to creationists. Where the only answer is "God did it", where is the scope for a learning more? All we can do is base our opinions on observations around us. It has 4 wheels, it looks like a car. I am 99.9999% sure it is a car. Arguing over that 0.0001 % is pedantic?

Hah, I think I'm remembering having discussed this with you before, Tomm

First off, I was saying the same for both atheists and theists. Dogma with respect to any set of ideas inhibits intelligence and that is, I think, a good argument against dogmatism in any respect. Being as intelligent as we possibly can about life has to be of benefit? It's simply about acting in accord with the facts that we do have - we know this at present but as history demonstrates, we may know something else in the future, so there's no point being definite about it in the present - that is, I think, an accurate opinion of observance and one that is more weighty than the general absence of fact regarding God. This doesn't mean we can't act on a 99% probability because of the 1% potential against. It makes sense to act on what is most likely now but maintaining a modesty about our present view in light of the ever present 1% simply allows to consider and think about other options, which regardless of how unlikely, may turn out to be true. Being like this in respect to say God, also sets and underlying mentality which can be applied to other areas of life. It's essentially a general attitude that can useful. Otherwise we can end up like those stereotypical old people who bitch about everything that is new. Or, as we see in any area of academia, how older members often resist new ideas, despite the wealth of evidence that often follows it.

Ultimately it's a choice but I like to discuss it

Christian's only gave it the identity and wrote a book about it. Gods were a way of explaining away events in the world that weren't understood at the time. The Greeks obviously spring to mind with Thor being the God of thunder getting angry or whatever. Gods have always been a human creation to try and explain away what we don't understand. In the case of the major organised religions they've just been promoted by greed and exploitation of the weak which for some crazy reason has allowed them to endure. Unfortunately.

Argh, Dave.

You're lumping all the Christians in together. God means something very different for some Christians as I've tried explaing before. In fact the attitude of Jesus (who was a mystic) wasn't in line with common attitude of the Christians you like to bash God does not have to mean an entity but can mean the realisation of our fundamental nature, not in an intellectual way but more in the way of perception or attitude. It is true that many people misunderstand 'God' and shovel man made qualities into 'it', so to speak, but this is most likely against what God originally means.

Claiming this for all of Christianity is like saying because some dogs can give you rabis, all dogs can give you rabis. We need to differentiate between the parts which are different.

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

I just find it all (as I'm assuming you do ?) a bit far fetched ?

'A bit far fetched' is the understatement of the century in my case. The whole thing is 100% preposterous in my mind (good word, that) and I'm just disappointed that so many young people these days still believe it. My gran going to church is one thing but to have some dude (sorry to pick on you Mr O'Connor) who rides trials and listens to death metal telling me that everything in the bible is 100% accurate and it's all true because the bible says so just makes my heart sink at the ignorance.

[Pashley26]

'A bit far fetched' is the understatement of the century in my case. The whole thing is 100% preposterous in my mind (good word, that) and I'm just disappointed that so many young people these days still believe it.

Cockamamy is the word I like to use to describe the bible and the people who blindly follow it.

lolcats, when you type "cockamamy" into Google the first thing that comes up to describe it is -

pungent adjectives of disesteem; "gave me a cockamamie reason for not going"; "wore a goofy hat"; "a silly idea"; "some wacky plan for selling more books"

Edited September 16, 2009 by Pashley26

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

Argh, Dave.

You're lumping all the Christians in together. God means something very different for some Christians as I've tried explaing before. In fact the attitude of Jesus (who was a mystic) wasn't in line with common attitude of the Christians you like to bash God does not have to mean an entity but can mean the realisation of our fundamental nature, not in an intellectual way but more in the way of perception or attitude. It is true that many people misunderstand 'God' and shovel man made qualities into 'it', so to speak, but this is most likely against what God originally means.

Claiming this for all of Christianity is like saying because some dogs can give you rabis, all dogs can give you rabis. We need to differentiate between the parts which are different.

Sorry Ben! These threads always tend to become polar and people like Mr O'Connor stand out as the ones who I automatically pick up on as being living in a dream world. The differentiation between 'God' the Christian creation and God the random entity that may exist and may be the 'initial cause' or whatever is very different and I understand that. It's just difficult to remove the bible and Christianity from the abstract theory of God because the two are always so closely linked.

[Al_Fel]

I still don't understand how people can say if we are here then something must have created us. How can you say that? If that's how you think then surely something must have created God? If not then where did God come from?

[1a2bcio8]

Sorry Ben! These threads always tend to become polar and people like Mr O'Connor stand out as the ones who I automatically pick up on as being living in a dream world. The differentiation between 'God' the Christian creation and God the random entity that may exist and may be the 'initial cause' or whatever is very different and I understand that. It's just difficult to remove the bible and Christianity from the abstract theory of God because the two are always so closely linked.

Yeah fair enough. I was a bit reactionary there but I guess it dissapoints me slightly that religion is always debated on such literal terms.

And thanks for that piece on the formation of life. Interesting stuff that I had no idea about

[Deonn h]

If you still believe in an all powerful invisible man in the sky who created the human race by making a man magically appear on earth who then created a woman using only his

rib or any other similar story, it is safe to say you are genuinely retarded.

Thanks and good night.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Deonn h

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

And thanks for that piece on the formation of life. Interesting stuff that I had no idea about

I knew the FeS thing had some basis in science but had totally forgotten what!

[1a2bcio8]

I still don't understand how people can say if we are here then something must have created us. How can you say that? If that's how you think then surely something must have created God? If not then where did God come from?

I guess you can say that God has always been?

Personally I don't understand the need for anything to have been brought into existence. Why does something have to come into being? Instead, existence has always been and always will be. The only difference is in the way that existence is expressing itself - varying structures/organisations of planets, stars, molecules, life, etc. at given points of space-time.

[Al_Fel]

I guess you can say that God has always been?

Personally I don't understand the need for anything to have been brought into existence. Why does something have to come into being? Instead, existence has always been and always will be. The only difference is in the way that existence is expressing itself - varying structures/organisations of planets, stars, molecules, life, etc. at given points of space-time.

That doesn't work though when people like Ray Comfort say things like "If there is a painting there there must be a painter".

[Pashley26]

If you still believe in an all powerful invisible man in the sky who created the human race by making a man magically appear on earth who then created a woman using only his

rib or any other similar story, it is safe to say you are genuinely retarded.

Thanks and good night.

Ahhh yes, nothing like being narrow minded, stereotypical and abusive in one post.

You must have been reading through my warn log to get skills like that !

[Deonn h]

Ahhh yes, nothing like being narrow minded, stereotypical and abusive in one post.

You must have been reading through my warn log to get skills like that !

Im not being narrow minded, its just so true. I mean come on...

Im not against all the people who look to "god" for strength and things because sometimes, if you are so convinced something is true, the strength will come to you anyway.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Deonn h

[1a2bcio8]

That doesn't work though when people like Ray Comfort say things like "If there is a painting there there must be a painter".

i need to retype that, I completely lost my train of thought and ended up taking about a different subject

Edited September 16, 2009 by Ben Rowlands

[Hannah Shucksmith]

.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Hannah Shucksmith

[Al_Fel]

i need to retype that, I completely lost my train of thought and ended up taking about a different subject

.

Its pretty annoying when people delete what they have said and you never get to read it. lol

[1a2bcio8]

That doesn't work though when people like Ray Comfort say things like "If there is a painting there there must be a painter".

Well, that might be appropriate for the human realm whereby, by definition, a painting requires a painter but when we talk of existence, we are probably talking about the circumstances with different rules. An analogy might be that because i have to cycle my bike, that I have to cycle my cat but we can clearly understand that in the context of a bike, we cycle, in the context of a cat, we don't. The latter instruction doesn't really make much sense. Try to envisage cycling a cat. Now why is it appropriate to talk of existence being created because a painting is created? Well, the argument typically goes, by analogy, that the universe seems to possess a structure/orgnisation and the only time we see structure/oganisation being created, separate to 'natural' creation is by humans. Thus, we seemingly have evidence by analogy that what leads to structure/organisation is the actions of an entity operating upon something. The trouble is that we are probably projecting qualities appropriate to human activity into a realm for which they are not appropriate.

And I need to finish this at some other point because I'm past the point of being able to think.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Ben Rowlands

[Hannah Shucksmith]

Its pretty annoying when people delete what they have said and you never get to read it. lol

I was inserting an image, it didn't work

[MikeCottTrials]

hmmm

[nasheenofteeth]

Well this is kind a thread about evolution (although the title is technically wrong). Evolution is the process of how life came to be on this planet, not how the planet came to be or anything before.

I assume that your a Christian who believes the bible is 100% literal truth? If so, you're wrong. It's just that simple.

Specialization. This is where two species become so genetically different they cannot breed anymore. This is one of the reasons why we have so many clean cut different animals instead of pretty much every combination possible.

One certain creationist (who is now in jail for tax fraud) says this a lot. "Dogs give birth to dogs, when has that ever been any different". Well what he's not getting is that we just call them dogs. I have a papillion here and a big mutt. They wouldn't be able to breed due to specialization, but we still call them both dogs. This is because humans bread dogs, i'm sure if humans were intelligent enough when horses and zebras were evolving they'd be called the same thing.

You're thinking about this completely wrong, you're asking "How come we ended up on a planet so perfect for us".

Truth is, this planet is perfect for life, therefor life became on it.

You put and apple, a chunk of metal, and a house brick in the same warm room, and only mold grows on the apple. You're not going to say some god chose for the mold to be there because it's the best place. The mold grew there because mold can grow on an apple and not on a brick or a chunk of metal.

well to be honest you can assume what you want but to tell me that I'm wrong no one has the right to tell me that, that's if you assume that's what I believe, I didn't tell you that you were wrong, either way I don't care who you are if you look at the evidence there is reason to argue on both sides you just cant rule out one or the other.. this subject is just like politics is just pisses everyone off..

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

Ahhh yes, nothing like being narrow minded, stereotypical and abusive in one post.

He has got a point though .

if you look at the evidence there is reason to argue on both sides

There really isn't. If you look for evidence of the truth behind anything in the bible (and therefore creationism) I think you'll be sadly disappointed. The truth is the only evidence ever found has made the creation theory laughable. As far as I'm aware there is literally zero evidence for anything that occurs in the bible... that combined with the idea that the entire things was written by humans is enough, in my mind, to make the entire thing (christianity, creationism, the bible) a big pile of turd. Then people start saying 'ah, but the bible isn't meant to be taken literally'... that's just an excuse to try and make the drivel they spout make some kind of sense in our modern educated society.

I simply can't understand how any human with a brain could possibly accept the bibles version of the creation of the Universe. I'm with Deonn h on that one.

[JT!]

well to be honest you can assume what you want but to tell me that I'm wrong no one has the right to tell me that, that's if you assume that's what I believe, I didn't tell you that you were wrong, either way I don't care who you are if you look at the evidence there is reason to argue on both sides you just cant rule out one or the other.. this subject is just like politics is just pisses everyone off..

Like the above post said, there's no evidence for 98% of the bible, and less for God.

If i came on here posting about how the earth was flat I'd get called an idiot.

So yeah, you are wrong, becuase you are arguing (against evolution) which is a fact. You might as well be arguing that the sky isn't blue.

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

The sky isn't blue you fool.

[JT!]

The sky isn't blue you fool.

[monkeyseemonkeydo]

idiot.

[Matt Vandart]

I don't know if there is a "GOD" in the christian sense, but I can tell you something for a fact.

I died in a road accident and got the old electric shock treatment (defibrillator) and there was more than just nothing, can't tell you what mind but it wasn't a void.

Matt