You're welcome, but I think you took a wrong turn somewhere when you followed that link, because Hitchens lost that debate pretty badly. Don't get me wrong, because I think Hitchens did win most of his debates, if only on his rhetorical abilities, but on that one he floundered..which is particularly clear when watching from 1:19:00 or so when he was subject to direct questioning by Craig.

In any case, the fallacious claims are all on your side, considering the rest of your post is nothing but a strawman argument. Congratulations, you defeated me in your imagination..did you get a boost of self-esteem? I also wonder how a self-described militant antitheist could escape the label of zealotry?

Let's say that I told you that I buried one million dollars somewhere in your neighborhood, and I gave you the GPS coordinates for its location. I also told you that if you didn't dig up the money within 48 hours, it would go back into my bank account. The GPS coordinates are very convenient to your location and are on public property. All you would have to do is go and check it out for yourself.

But, instead of going over to the location to dig, you start doing some research. You interview a lot of people in the neighborhood and you find out that no one actually saw me bury the money. You also find out that many other people have claimed to have buried treasure in the past, and many of those claims have turned out to be false. Further, on the basis of speculation as to what I was doing that day, you dig around many other locations where I was said to have been. After this, you finally come to the GPS location and look for forensic evidence, such as foot prints, that I was there. You test the malleability of the dirt at the location to see if it feels like it had been dug in recently. In that 48 hour time period, you do absolutely everything except putting your shovel into the ground and directly investigating the claim. At the end of the time period, you tell me that on the basis of your investigation, you have rejected my claim as false. I take you over to the location, dig up a suitcase and show you the money. It would have been yours if you had just taken a leap of faith and spent 5 minutes of your time investigating it.

Do you think the way you investigated this made any sense? If not, then why you do you think that the way you investigate the question of Jesus Christ makes any sense? You want to investigate it on your own terms, in your own way, stubbornly refusing to even consider the only actual way you would find evidence for the claim; the way that He told us to find Him. In all the time you have ever invested in this, you have refused to do the one thing that could yield up the truth. Does that make sense?

Jesus specifically said you wouldn't find any evidence for God any other way. He said He is the only way, and if you want to know God, you have to go through Him. Why are you so against actually testing His claim to see if it is true? Do you think the Lord of all Creation is incapable of proving His existence to you? Is it because you would feel silly? Isn't it worth feeling silly for a few minutes to potentially gain an eternal reward? Isn't it worth stepping outside your comfort zone for a few minutes to potentially avoid an eternal consequence? The only thing which is stopping you is pride.

I wasn't spoon fed anything; I was agnostic for most of my life. I had no predisposition towards Christianity, and actually many against it. I was opposed to religion in general, and the claims of Christianity in particular. I did just what you're doing; I dismissed it, thinking I knew enough about it to rule it out, when it was all just based on my superficial understanding. My proof constituted a few verses taken out of context, my rejection of any judgment for my sins, and the hypocripsy I had seen in Christians in general. Yet, it wasn't evidence at all, it was simply what I preferred to be true.

Yet, God was merciful to me. He drew me near to His Son, and when I finally gave my life to Him, Jesus revealed Himself to me. He will do the same for you, if you came to Him in humility and asked Him into your life. If you just asked Him what the real truth is, instead of arrogantly believing that you have it all figured out, He would show it to you. He makes it plain to everyone that He exists, it's just that people write these things off or deny them to themselves because they don't want to submit to God. They don't want to believe it is true.

Only God can reveal Himself to someone; I can only point to Him. No amount of argument is going to give you faith. You have to choose to want to know Him, to want to know what the actual truth is. It's something that happens in your heart, when you desire to know the love of God, and you simply do not have any idea how much He loves you. It is what you are here on Earth for, to know that love of His; to be in relationship with your Creator.

I pray that you learn that and understand that. You have to realize that you don't actually know either way. Step outside your comfort zone and listen to your conscience, because it witnesses against you that you have sinned against a holy God. There is forgiveness for you, but it is your choice to receive it or not.

>> ^SpaceGirlSpiff:
I honestly don't know why I bother... oh well, here goes.
First off, thank you for the Hitchens video, I don't think I had see that one yet. Now I've seen it though, I see that Hitchens once again quite successfully defends against the vapid, circle jerk arguments which assert proof without evidence. In fact a Hitchensism comes to mind that I quite enjoy, which states that, "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." Good stuff. Simple. Easy to put to use.
Take for example Shiny's ridiculous assertion about Hitchens being in his make-believe after life.
Shiny: Oh no, the after life is real and you're going to burn in hell fire. I know it's real because the bible says it's so and the bible is the truth.
Inquiry: How do you know it's the truth?
Shiny: Because the bible says it's the truth.
Inquiry: What evidence do you have that it's the truth?
Shiny: The bible says it's the truth.
No evidence. Fallacious claim dismissed.
You may choose different words to express yourself, but this is the very essence of your circle jerk argument and like all other apologists and zealots, it proves nothing except your willingness to accept something without evidence.
You contribute nothing.
You advance nothing.
Your words are empty.
You merely wretch up that which was fed to you...
...and I have no appetite for your absurdly limited menu.

No, this is not true. If we are to believe our models of the big bang are correct (and you'd be a fucking idiot not to) then we say "god created the big bang". But then you must ask the question "where did god come from?" And the answer to that question requires more faith than the opinion of not needing a god for the universe to exist.

Well God didn't come from nowhere, He has simply always existed. Sussing this out, if the Universe began to exist, it has a cause. So, unless you're saying that something came from nothing, your other choice is an uncaused eternal first cause of the Universe. It's widely accepted in big bang cosmology that time, space, matter and energy had a finite beginning, which makes the cause of the Universe timeless, spaceless, unimaginably powerful and transcendent. You can make some further deductions about this, but that is sounding a lot like God already.

But also even just in the creation of humans, when you get to the circular "Why are we here?", "God made us", "How do you know?", "Because god says he's always right, and he says he made us", you are asking for a complete leap of faith based on nothing.

We know God through faith, but it isn't blind faith. To know God is to know Him personally. I know Jesus is God because I received the Holy Spirit. That proves what scripture says is true.

On the other hand, if we are to decide that humans were created by certain atoms colliding or reacting with certain other atoms, and various conditions being perfect. And even if it's got a one in a billion to the power a billion chance of happening, we just need to wait for the odds to come up, and we're not exactly short on time on the scale of the universe.

You have to consider the finely tuned physical laws that govern the Universe if you want to discuss odds. And the controvery is not that they are fine tuned for life, because they are. The controversy is that there is a fine tuner. Consider that the odds for just one of these laws (the cosmological constant) being set the way it is, let alone the dozens of other laws, is greater than 1 part in 10 to the 120th power. That's a number greater than the number of particles in the Universe. Your odds would be better winning the powerball 100 times in a row. We're dealing with a virtual impossibility here.

Human emotion is irrational, and believing in god is an emotional choice. I respect the choice, but it cannot be correctly claimed that it makes more sense to believe in god based on any logical argument or physical evidence; you have your own reasons and that's fine by me.

It wasn't an emotional choice for me. I was strictly a materialist before I came to faith, and that because God shook me from my agnosticism and woke me up to the spiritual reality of which the material reality is only a veil. I have no choice in believing in God because it is plainly obvious to me that He exists, not to mention that He makes it known to me every single day. It is not something I could for a moment deny.

However, i think you understand atheism differently to the meaning i've always known. Accepting god requires faith. The faith to accept something you aren't certain of. You have faith that god is real. Now i can't make that leap; our chemistry is different and i can't accept something that i haven't got evidence for. Now, if i refuse your proposal of how the world, the universe exists, then i must form my own opinions on the evidence that i am presented. That is not a faith, not a belief in something, it is something that i can work out and solve for myself. If you follow the science, it makes sense, and i don't need ANY faith for that; my atheism drops right out of the undeniable logic of maths, and i don't have to keep believing in it for it to be true (in your case, you do).

Science doesn't have any information on whether God exists or not. Science strictly deals with empirical evidence, and God is a Spirit, and spirit is immaterial. In regards to logic, where do the laws of logic come from? What place do absolute laws have in a material universe that is always changing?

Faith isn't something you believe without certainty. This is what scripture says about faith:

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is the substance, or foundation for the hope that I have in Christ. It is not something I hope is true, it is something I know is true, in which I place my hope. I cannot see God at the moment, and neither are all of His promises of the future yet actualized, but I have faith that He is there, not because of wishful thinking, but because I have a tangible, experiential relationship with Him. Even though Jesus is not in the room with me, He is always with me through the Holy Spirit. His is a peace beyond words. The promises have not all yet manifested, but my faith is that they will be manifested, because of the hope I have in Jesus Christ, hope that is well founded.

I understand that you are simply trying to evaluate evidence and postulate the most likely scenerio. The quote is simply saying that it is a large leap for a finite being to make. I am praying for you to receive a sign and the gift of faith (because it is a gift). What is true is that no one comes to the Son unless the Father draws Him near. If you are open to the truth, regardless of what it might be, and if what is actually true is important to you, then you could know God is real. God will lead you if you love the truth.

>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^shinyblurry:

of all choices, atheism requires the greatest faith, as it demands that ones limited store of human knowledge is sufficient to exclude the possibility of God.
francis collins human genome project


No, this is not true. If we are to believe our models of the big bang are correct (and you'd be a fucking idiot not to) then we say "god created the big bang". But then you must ask the question "where did god come from?" And the answer to that question requires more faith than the opinion of not needing a god for the universe to exist.

But also even just in the creation of humans, when you get to the circular "Why are we here?", "God made us", "How do you know?", "Because god says he's always right, and he says he made us", you are asking for a complete leap of faith based on nothing.

On the other hand, if we are to decide that humans were created by certain atoms colliding or reacting with certain other atoms, and various conditions being perfect. And even if it's got a one in a billion to the power a billion chance of happening, we just need to wait for the odds to come up, and we're not exactly short on time on the scale of the universe.

Human emotion is irrational, and believing in god is an emotional choice. I respect the choice, but it cannot be correctly claimed that it makes more sense to believe in god based on any logical argument or physical evidence; you have your own reasons and that's fine by me.

However, i think you understand atheism differently to the meaning i've always known. Accepting god requires faith. The faith to accept something you aren't certain of. You have faith that god is real. Now i can't make that leap; our chemistry is different and i can't accept something that i haven't got evidence for. Now, if i refuse your proposal of how the world, the universe exists, then i must form my own opinions on the evidence that i am presented. That is not a faith, not a belief in something, it is something that i can work out and solve for myself. If you follow the science, it makes sense, and i don't need ANY faith for that; my atheism drops right out of the undeniable logic of maths, and i don't have to keep believing in it for it to be true (in your case, you do).

You quote The Blind Watchmaker and The Origin of Species but I highly doubt that you’ve read them yourself. If you haven’t then you’re not better than someone who is contesting the bible without having read it. You quote a LOT of scientists that you say are hostile to your position but again, have you actually read the works that you’re quoting from in their entirety? I doubt it.

Well, I have read them and I think it's fairly obvious that I understand the subject matter.

Here are just two things that I read recently that I think are worth repeating:

...degree of thermodynamic disorder is measured by an entity called "entropy." There is a mathematical correlation between entropy increase and an increase in disorder. The overall entropy of an isolated system can never decrease. However, the entropy of some parts of the system can spontaneously decrease at the expense of an even greater increase of other parts of the system. When heat flows spontaneously from a hot part of a system to a colder part of the system, the entropy of the hot area spontaneously decreases! The ICR (Institute for Creation Research)...

....illustrate a fact, but they are not the fact itself. One thing is certain: metaphors are completely useless when it comes to the thermodynamics of calculating the efficiency of a heat engine, or the entropy change of free expansion of a gas, or the power required to operate a compressor. This can only be done with mathematics, not metaphors. Creationists have created a "voodoo" thermodynamics....

I never made the argument that entropy can never decrease in a system. I made the argument that even if you want to use the energy of the sun to explain why life is becoming more complex, you haven't explained the information that makes that possible. More energy does not equal more order. I also don't know why you keep bringing up articles from the institution of creation research and expect me to defend them. I am more than willing to admit that there are some terrible theories by creationists out there, just as there are terrible theories by secular scientists.

For myself, I am only a materialist because there isn’t any demonstrable, non-anecdotal, reproducible evidence for the existence of anything non-material. I hope you can understand that. There is the appearance of design and there is DNA, and we don’t know how everything got started but that’s not good enough for me to believe that it was designed, I need something more concrete because that is the criteria for which I will justify something as believable. I’d be very interested in some sort of evidence like that but it hasn’t happened yet and conjecture just doesn’t work for me so I’ll reserve judgment but maintain doubt and that’s all there is to it.

I can understand your position as a materialist, having formally been one. I did not see any evidence for God or spirit either, and it really rocked my world to discover that there was more, and that material reality is only a veil to a larger reality. It is mind blowing to discover that everything that you know is in some way, wrong.

I think there is some very good evidence pointing towards a Creator, but that isn't going to get you there necessarily. It seems to me though, after talking with you a bit, that if there is a God, you would want to know about it. Maybe you're not terribly interested in pursuing the subject at the moment but you now strike me as someone who is open to the truth. If He does exist, would you want to hear from Him? If He let you know, would you follow Him?

On the scope of evidence, I think the two of the most powerful arguments are the information in DNA and the fine-tuning of physical laws. There is no naturalistic process which can produce a code, and that is what DNA is. It is a digital code which stores information and is vastly superior to anything we have ever designed. It is a genetic language which has its own alphabet, grammar, syntax, and meaning. It has redudancy and error correction, and it is an encoding and decoding mechanism to transmit information about an organism. Biologists actually use linguistic analysis to decode its functions. You also have to realize that the message is not the medium. In that, like all information, you can copy the information in DNA to storage device like a hard drive, and then recode it later with no loss in information. This is a pretty good article on the information in DNA:

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/read-prove-god-exists/language-dna-intelligent-design/

The fine tuning evidence is also very powerfully because it is virtually impossible for the laws to have come about by chance. It's important to understand what fine tuning actually means. I'll quote Dr Craig:

"That the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life is a pretty solidly established fact and ought not to be a subject of controversy. By “fine-tuning” one does not mean “designed” but simply that the fundamental constants and quantities of nature fall into an exquisitely narrow range of values which render our universe life-permitting. Were these constants and quantities to be altered by even a hair’s breadth, the delicate balance would be upset and life could not exist."

So it's not a question whether the Universe itself is finely tuned for life, it is a question of how it got that way. In actuality, the odds of it happening are far worse than winning the powerball lottery over 100 times in a row. Random chance simply cannot account for it because there are dozens of values that must be precisely calibrated, and the odds for some of these values happening by chance is greater than the number of particles in the Universe! For instance, the space-energy density must be fine tuned to one part in 10 to the 120th power, an inconceivably huge number. That's just one value out of dozens. Many scientists understand this.

Here are some quotes from some agnostic scientists, which a couple of Christians thrown in:

Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

George Ellis (British astrophysicist): "Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word."

Paul Davies (British astrophysicist): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".

Paul Davies: "The laws [of physics] ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose".

Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy): "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing."

John O'Keefe (astronomer at NASA): "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in."

George Greenstein (astronomer): "As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?"

Arthur Eddington (astrophysicist): "The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory."

Arno Penzias (Nobel prize in physics): "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan."
Roger Penrose (mathematician and author): "I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance."

Tony Rothman (physicist): "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it."

Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist): "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."

Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): "When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics." Note: Tipler since has actually converted to Christianity, hence his latest book, The Physics Of Christianity.

Just because the universe and life might have the appearance of design doesn’t mean it was designed. After all, we might all be brains in vats being experimented on by hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings and all of this is simply like the matrix. Maybe Déjà vu is evidence that it’s true but there simply isn’t any reason to believe it just like there isn’t any reason to believe in any gods.

But if that were true then the Universe is designed, and this is simply some kind of computer program. In any case, although we could imagine many scenerios I am talking about something very specific; That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He rose from the dead. Moreover, that you can know Him personally, today.

All of the concepts of god and gods have been moved back every time we discover naturalistic explanations where once those gods were accredited. What makes you think that it’s any different with these things? Just because we don’t know what’s behind the veil doesn’t mean that the idea of someone pulling the levers is a better explanation than a currently unknown natural, non-agency explanation. If we don’t know, then we don’t know and putting a god in the place of “we don’t know” isn't a good way of helping us learn more about our universe

The primary question is whether the Universe has an intelligent causation. You believe that Universes, especially precisely calibrated and well-ordered ones just happen by themselves. I happen to think that this is implausible to say the least. You're acting like it's not a valid question, and because we can describe some of the mechanisms we see that we can rule out an intelligent cause, which is simply untrue. You could describe every single mechanism there is in the Universe, but until you explain how it got here, you haven't explained anything. The real question is not how they work but why they work and that question can only be answered by answering why they exist in the first place.

It is also just a fallacy to say that because some peoples beliefs about God have been proven false, that means all beliefs about God are false. Scientists used to believe that there were only seven planets and that the Earth was flat. Does that mean that all ideas scientists have are false? No, and neither does it mean that all beliefs about God are false because people have had ridiculous beliefs about God.

The God I believe in is not ridiculous, and the belief in His existence has led to ideas that formed western civilization and propelled modern science itself. The idea that we can suss out Universal laws by investigating secondary causes is a Christian one, that came from the belief that God created an orderly Universe based on laws.

It is also not a brake to doing science to believe that God created the Universe. Some of the greatest scientists who have ever lived believed in God. People like Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Max Planck, Mendel and Einstein. It certainly didn't stop them from doing great science.

Also, as I have explained, it is not a God of the gaps argument when God is a better explanation for the evidence.

We know that the universe, space-time, matter had a finite beginning but we can’t say anything at all about that beginning with any certainty. We can’t even say that whatever was that caused the universe is spaceless, or timeless. We just don’t know. This is the god of the gaps argument that started this whole thing. You’re putting a god in as the explanation for what is effectively a gap in our knowledge without anything solid to go off of. It would not be a god of the gaps argument if we eventually could know with a high degree of certainty that there is a god there fiddling with the controls but we don’t. That is the crux of this whole debate. That is why “I don’t know” is a better answer than “A god did it” because it’s absolutely verifiably true where as a god is not.

The ultimate cause of the Universe must be timeless because it must be beginningless, according to logic. I'll explain. You cannot get something from nothing, I think we both agree on that. So if the Universe has a cause, it must be an eternal cause, since you cannot have an infinite regress of causes for the Universe. The buck has to stop somewhere. This points to an eternal first cause, which means that cause is timeless. If it is timeless it is also changeless because change is a property of time. If it is changeless it is also spaceless, because anything which exists in space must be temporal, since it is always finitely changing relation to the things around it. It's timelessness and spacelessness makes it immaterial, and this also makes it transcendent. I think it is obvious that whatever created the Universe must be unimaginably powerful. So we have something which already closely describes the God of the bible, and we can deduct these things by using logic alone.

We just don’t know if the universe is entirely regressable into some sort of endless loop which folds in on itself, or something else, or even if there is a god or not. Furthermore, I hope you look into what physicist mean by “out of nothing” because it doesn’t mean what I think you think it means. It took me a while to understand what it meant and to be honest, it is a bit of a deceptive word play but it’s only that way because there isn’t another way to describe it. I don't actually believe that the universe came from "nothing". I don't know how it all started, so therefore, I have no belief. I don't need an answer to the big questions. I can say "I don't know" just fine and leave it at that.

“A proponent of the Big Bang Theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing.” Anthony Kenny

British physicist P.C.W. Davies writes, “The coming-into-being of the universe as discussed in modern science…is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization or structure upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming-into-being of all physical things from nothing.”

Physicist Victor Stenger says “the universe exploded out of nothingness the observable universe could have evolved from an infinitesimal region. its then tempting to go one step further and speculate that the entire universe evolved from literally nothing.

In the realm of the universe, nothing really means nothing. Not only matter and energy would disappear, but also space and time. However, physicists theorize that from this state of nothingness, the universe began in a gigantic explosion about 16.5 billion years ago.

HBJ General Science 1983 Page 362

the universe burst into something from absolutely nothing - zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere. How is that possible? Ask Alan Guth. His theory of inflation helps explain everything.

discover April 2002

I think we can both agree that it is better to know than not to know. That's been one of your primary arguments against the existence of God, that we simply cannot rest of the laurels of God being the Creator because that will lead to ignorance. I have already demonstrated that there is no actual conflict with belief in God and doing good science, so your argument is invalid, but I think it's ironic that on the other side of it, you are arguing that ignorance is a good thing and leads to better science. That you're even intellectually satisified with not knowing. I hope you can see the contradiction here.

The reason why I personally don’t find the whole god argument all that interesting, and the reason why I don’t actually care about it, is because it makes a heck of a lot of claims regarding the nature of god and it’s properties which just can’t be verified. There is nothing that we can concretely discover about god and no predictions that we can make which could eventually be verified meaningfully. How can we possibly know if creator is timeless, or spaceless, unimaginably powerful, transcendent, unembodied, etc? Is it rational to believe that; do you have an equal ratio of evidence to belief? What predictions can we actually make about this god(s). All we have are books and stories written and passed down throughout history. Everything else is just unjustified belief to me.

As I explained above, we can make several predictions about God based on the evidence. Belief in God is rational and can be justified. However, I understand that until you have a personal experience, it is probably going to be unconvincing to you, since this is way you see the world. You demand evidence, and lucky for you, God provides evidence. If you asked Him to come into your life, He would demonstrate it to you. He provided evidence to me, and I know you He will provide to you, especially if you take a leap of faith ask Him for it.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr:

There were newsletters with articles written by Ron Paul.

He knew there were newsletters, he knew the people who put them out.

He took responsibility and confused everyone by doing something no one does -- taking responsibilty... and if that costs him votes, so be it.

I'm not willing to take such a huge leap of faith when there is so much reasonable doubt here, and say he is a racist bigot.

Ron Paul's words and actions speak for themselves. Find HIM actually saying something bigoted, and provide the full source.

You can't do it. I find that interesting. I, however, easily found things that prove there is more here than "Ron Paul is a racist".


You know what? He can answer this question to everyone's satisfaction about as much as Obama and his birth certificate. It's a red herring. It's swiftboating.

How can you not see the flaw in this logic? Atheists do not make claims for which evidence must be provided, there is no point in trying to "DISPROVE" god, or any other imaginary entity. the "evidence that god doesnt exist" is that there is no evidence that god does exist.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It most certainly is a leap of faith to say that there is no God, since you cannot disprove God. You have no evidence that God doesn't exist..



As an excercise in futility, please explain the difference:

>> ^shinyblurry:

It most certainly is a leap of faith to say that there is no Santa Clause on a flying donkey, since you cannot disprove Santa Clause on a flying donkey. You have no evidence that Santa Clause on a flying donkey doesn't exist..

No one here can disprove I have routinely entered shinyblurry's home and wanked off in their toilet, therefore, I have. To prove this however, I need to get together a few people to add it to Wikipedia, then, in a couple thousand years, it will be believed by millions because all the eyewitnesses would be dead and impossible to discredit. Anyone trying to prove otherwise will just have to take a leap of faith that I didn't.

They're not 'difficult' to answer. They're impossible to answer because they don't actually make logical sense. The fact that you think they do make sense is actually kind of disturbing.

They're very simple questions. How do you account for the laws of logic, which are immaterial, unchanging and absolute, in a material universe which is always changing?

How do you account for the uniformity in nature? How do you know the future will be like the past?

It is not a 'leap of faith' to disbelieve that which cannot be proved. If you'd paid attention before (I know it's hard, but try) you'd have realized that your argument leads to madness. If you insist on believing in God, and your sole argument is that the existence of God cannot be disproved, then you should, by all right believe in every single bit of nonsensical information which comes along. Why do you take the stairs out from your apartment building instead of flying out the window? You can't prove that you cannot fly to work by flapping your arms (or, you can, but only if you try). You cannot prove that bashing your head with a hammer is bad for your health (again, not without trying it). The list of things you cannot disprove is infinite. Why choose that one and reject all the others?

You seem to have trouble following the conversation. My sole argument for God isn't that He cannot be disproved, my evidence for your faith in atheism is that He cannot be disproved. You outright deny God exists and you have no evidence for it, therefore it is a leap of faith.

You have not proved your case, no matter what you seem to think, and no amount of word salad will help you.

Unless you have something cogent and substantive to add I am done. Go hit yourself in the head with a hammer if you want to prove me wrong.

You've proven my case for me. You've admitted yout blind faith in atheism, and then you try to justify it by conflating the issue by saying belief in God is equivilent to belief in fairies, which is false. God has explanatory power, fairies explain exactly nothing. Then you try to trivilaize the question by equating it with any number of meaningless statements, which is also false. To ask whether the Universe has an intelligent causation is a legitimate question, and God is a legitimate answer to that question.

>> ^Drachen_Jager

>> ^shinyblurry:

So in other words, you have no evidence that God doesn't exist so it is a leap of faith. I appreciate your candor. I also appreciate that you were unable to answer of my questions. They're very difficult questions for someone who has worldview founded on blind faith.

They're not 'difficult' to answer. They're impossible to answer because they don't actually make logical sense. The fact that you think they do make sense is actually kind of disturbing.

It is not a 'leap of faith' to disbelieve that which cannot be proved. If you'd paid attention before (I know it's hard, but try) you'd have realized that your argument leads to madness. If you insist on believing in God, and your sole argument is that the existence of God cannot be disproved, then you should, by all right believe in every single bit of nonsensical information which comes along. Why do you take the stairs out from your apartment building instead of flying out the window? You can't prove that you cannot fly to work by flapping your arms (or, you can, but only if you try). You cannot prove that bashing your head with a hammer is bad for your health (again, not without trying it). The list of things you cannot disprove is infinite. Why choose that one and reject all the others?

You have not proved your case, no matter what you seem to think, and no amount of word salad will help you.

Unless you have something cogent and substantive to add I am done. Go hit yourself in the head with a hammer if you want to prove me wrong.

So in other words, you have no evidence that God doesn't exist so it is a leap of faith. I appreciate your candor. I also appreciate that you were unable to answer any of my questions. They're very difficult questions for someone who has worldview founded on blind faith.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
>> ^shinyblurry:
It most certainly is a leap of faith to say that there is no God, since you cannot disprove God. You have no evidence that God doesn't exist.
Likewise you cannot disprove that your entire universe is a Matrix, lived inside a giant computer. You cannot disprove that you are insane, and everything you think is happening is actually a figment of your imagination. You cannot disprove that God is actually an evil being who wants to create conflict among humans.
The list of propositions you cannot quantitatively disprove is unlimited. Why choose this one in particular to believe?
P.S. I deleted the rest of your response because there were a lot of words you didn't use correctly which made your sentences nonsensical. I suppose if that's you debate method it's probably effective, but only from the 'drag them down to your level and beat them with experience' method.
P.P.S. I find it amusing that you use an argument about uniformity and continuity which, if applied to God, would actually prove yourself wrong.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It most certainly is a leap of faith to say that there is no God, since you cannot disprove God. You have no evidence that God doesn't exist.

Likewise you cannot disprove that your entire universe is a Matrix, lived inside a giant computer. You cannot disprove that you are insane, and everything you think is happening is actually a figment of your imagination. You cannot disprove that God is actually an evil being who wants to create conflict among humans.

The list of propositions you cannot quantitatively disprove is unlimited. Why choose this one in particular to believe?

P.S. I deleted the rest of your response because there were a lot of words you didn't use correctly which made your sentences nonsensical. I suppose if that's you debate method it's probably effective, but only from the 'drag them down to your level and beat them with experience' method.

P.P.S. I find it amusing that you use an argument about uniformity and continuity which, if applied to God, would actually prove yourself wrong.

It most certainly is a leap of faith to say that there is no God, since you cannot disprove God. You have no evidence that God doesn't exist.

Since you say that you're using logic, and presumably you're a materialist, how do you account for the laws of logic in nature? Could you point to them for me? How do you account for the laws of logic in your worldview?

As far as science goes, why should we prefer empirical evidence as the best way of discovering truth? For science to be done, it must assume a little thing called the uniformity of nature. This is to say that the future will be like the past. Of course, there is nothing to guarantee this will be true even five minutes from now. The only way to justify this is by circular reasoning. It is no better than saying that God justifies God.

I can account for the laws of logic and uniformity in nature in my theistic worldview, how do you account for them in yours? The idea of the Uniformity of nature was a Christian idea which was that God made an orderly universe based on univeral laws and that we could investigate secondary causes to determine what those laws are. That is how science really got its start in Christian europe. You're welcome.






>> ^Drachen_Jager:
>> ^shinyblurry:
of all choices, atheism requires the greatest faith, as it demands that ones limited store of human knowledge is sufficient to exclude the possibility of God.
francis collins human genome project
Complete and utter B.S.
Everything we know about the Universe has been learned through the rigorous application of logic.
There is nothing. Literally nothing that we have gained any other way.
Now you're trying to tell me, that because I am using the deductive tools by which 100% of substantive knowledge has been derived I am the one using faith? Atheism requires no leap of faith. Only the rigorous application of the scientific method, intelligence and logic. Just because you cannot manage some, or all of the skills required to arrive at the correct conclusion does not preclude others from doing so. To believe such would be the worst kind of hubris.
I repeat, total and utter B.S. Shame on you for even mentioning it.

>> ^shinyblurry:

of all choices, atheism requires the greatest faith, as it demands that ones limited store of human knowledge is sufficient to exclude the possibility of God.
francis collins human genome project

Complete and utter B.S.

Everything we know about the Universe has been learned through the rigorous application of logic.

There is nothing. Literally nothing that we have gained any other way.

Now you're trying to tell me, that because I am using the deductive tools by which 100% of substantive knowledge has been derived *I* am the one using faith? Atheism requires no leap of faith. Only the rigorous application of the scientific method, intelligence and logic. Just because you cannot manage some, or all of the skills required to arrive at the correct conclusion does not preclude others from doing so. To believe such would be the worst kind of hubris.

I repeat, total and utter B.S. Shame on you for even mentioning it.

I'm a "just born once" atheist. I lack any form of faith in any creator gods, interfering gods or any other so-called "supernatural beings". There are things I do not understand, but I live my life based on what I think is likely, what I can prove myself (or demonstrate) and what I otherwise can observe in nature.

The central claim of the Christian faith is something that you can prove to yourself. If you believe Gods testimony that He raised His Son from the dead and you confess Jesus is Lord, you will be born again and receive the Holy Spirit. It is tangible and experiential. To know God is to know Him personally, and He gives you the evidence.

Gravity, I can prove myself - to a certain degree, and when testing it, the current theory does predict the result, so I think it's true.

You can think about morality this way. If you take a look at your life, you will probably see that you live as if there is good and evil, that an absolute moral law exists. Your conscience will tell you that much, before intellect even comes into it. Some things are right and some things are wrong. The whole world acknowledges this, and this points to an absolute moral law, which in turn points to a moral lawgiver.

Evolution is a little more tricky, because I can prove micro evolution myself with fish, and with basically all the animals we have bred artificially, cats, dogs, cows, chickens etc. Macroevolution is harder, for me as a layman, but I think it is likely, because it explains so much very neatly, and it predicts how things are now, it is also the natural conclusion of micro evolution.

This is what Darwin believed, and he expected to find the evidence for it in the fossil record. Except it wasn't there:

innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ..why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?

Geologoy assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Charles Darwin
Origin of the Species

150 years later and it still hasn't appeared. You see, if you assume that all life has a common ancestor, then you have to believe that micro-evolution leads to macro. It's a just-so story. Darwin made a quantum leap of assumption when he extrapolated micro evolution to a common ancestor. He made a great discovery, but one doesn't necessarily lead to the other. The model of micro evolution is also compatible with special creation. Why should one be preferred when there is absolutely no evidence for macro evolution? Micro has even been demonstrated not to lead to macro:

natural selection, long viewed as the process guiding evolutionary change, cannot play a significant role in determining the overall course of evolution. Micro evolution is decoupled from macro evolution.

SM Stanley Johns Hopkins University
Proceedings, National Science Academy Science
Vol.72 p.648

They have been breeding thousands of generations of fruitflies and millions of generations of bacteria and never once have they created a new species. If macro is true, you have to ask yourself why there are limits they are unable to cross. Living fossils are another problem, creatures supposedly hundreds of millions of years old, and no change at all. They found a blue green bacteria (supposedly) over 1 billion years old, and it is exactly the same as it is today. The evidence all points away from macro. Fossils enter the record in stasis; they don't change.

God can't be observed, can't even be tested for. God also have no direct impact on the world, other than through his followers, and since he (she/it) is not his followers, the conclusion is that he probably doesn't exist.

If you can't even see the operations of atoms in the world, why would you expect to see the operations of God? The bible says that in God all things live and move and have their being. How could you observe that?

It is not that I have faith that he doesn't exist, it's just that I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise. I have the same attitude towards Ghosts, Zombies and Unicorns. I would have had the same attitude towards Dinosaurs, because, come on, they're huge lizards, no way they exist! But the evidence suggest otherwise, fossils are real, they actually did exist, but not anymore, thus my earlier theory is demolished by the evidence, and a new hypothesis is formed, one backed by evidence.

It's good that you have an open mind. That's a rare thing in this world. If you don't prefer any evidence, but just want the actual truth, no matter what it is, then all is open to you. Jesus said, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will open. Take a leap of faith and ask Him what the truth is..ask Him for revelation. If He can't hear you, all you will have done is wasted a few minutes of your life.

>> ^gwiz665

Semantically this doesn't contradict the possibility of OMVs, but doesn't logically prove anything either. So Premise 2 remains unproven. As long as it's unproven, Craig cannot claim his conclusion proven, even if you both know in your minds that it's true. Even if you're right in your knowledge that god is real, you have to admit that this particular formulation of the argument fails to prove it.

The argument does not just rest upon the fact that there are UMVs, although their existence is actually positive evidence for OMVs. The reason being, UMVs are exactly what you should expect to find if OMVs do exist. You're acting like OMVs are removed from human experience, and that is not true; although they are objectively determined (by God), they are subjectively experienced. They would be in fact ingrained into human beings. Which leads to the other part of the argument, which is that we all have an innate sense of right and wrong. I apprehend an objective moral realm which imposes itself upon my moral choices. It tells me that some things are absolutely wrong, and this sense precedes my opinions. So the reason why there are UMVs is because of this innate sense of right and wrong that everyone has, which aren't determined by mere opinion. This is sufficient evidence in my opinion to establish that UMVs are OMVs, in which case premise 2 stands.

You've misread my statements. I first said that disproven beliefs/theories are not on par with unproven beliefs/theories. Demonstrating that my theories aren't proven (or even provable) doesn't make them equal with beliefs that cannot be rationally held. Then I said that many believers annoyingly think it's a victory to point out that my beliefs aren't provable in response to my doing the same to theirs, when I had never made any claim that mine were absolutely true, but they had.

This isn't a relevant issue in this discussion. I have good reasons for what I believe, which I can sufficiently demonstrate. Remember, I used to hold the same beliefs you do, or near to them, about origins and so forth. And when I became a Christian, I was willing to integrate them into my faith. I was convinced to change my mind based on the shockingly weak evidence they are founded on, not because of a leap of faith.

And by "evidence", I'm going to infer from the context that you mean "proof". Scientific theories are not proven, and most are unprovable, but there's mountains of objective evidence that "suggests" scientific theories are true, but none whatsoever to suggest any single religious belief is true. Sometimes the theories change too as their early incarnations are proven incorrect or incomplete, as Einstein did to Newton, and as the folks at CERN may be doing to Einstein right now. That's the way of science, and it's the strength of science, not the weakenss. What I'm not comfortable with is religious beliefs/theories that are internally unchallengeable due to a part of the theory itself -- it's own infallibility. Imagine if science was based on the premise that by definition none of it's theories are false. Laughable, right? That's what I think of religion.

There is plenty of evidence which suggests that God created the universe. Before the big bang theory, scientists believed in the steady state theory which postulated a static and eternal universe. Because it was accepted as fact, they would use it to scoff and ridicule anyone who dared to suggest the Universe had a beginning. Yet, they were all wrong and the creationists were right. If they had listened to them, they would have made the discovery much earlier. Robert Wilson, one of people who discovered the CMBR that confirmed the theory, said this:

"Certainly there was something that set it all off. Certainly, if you are religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis"

This isn't science evidence and creation evidence. It's all the same evidence. The difference is that we are interpreting it differently, and that is through the lens of our respective worldviews.

You also miss out on the fact that the ultimate goal of science is to discover a theory of everything. It is seeking towards that very notion of infallibility that you are scoffing at. That Christians already claim to have it is no mark against Christianity; it would only actually be evidence of the superiority of its truth, or not. Consider this quote by Robert Jastrow, a noted Astronomer:

"Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world....the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same. Consider the enormousness of the problem : Science has proved that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks: 'What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter or energy into the universe?' And science cannot answer these questions. "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Your beliefs lack proof. But you claim yours have proof. I claim yours don't. This is the main issue raised by this video, and the only one I'm interested in laying to rest. Everything else in the other several comment threads you and I have going is just conjecture, an exchange of ideas. It's not logically sound of me to say that your beliefs are unproven simply because I have different ones. Mine might be total crap and not stand up to any scrutiny, so I don't present them here.

Well, I am sure we will come to your beliefs eventually. In the meantime, I am happy to provide evidence for what I believe, and you can evaluate it as we go along.

>>

>> ^messenger>> ^shinyblurry:
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