Maybe. I think I'm more 'once bitten, twice shy', and just trying to help some people not get bitten.
Some people were totally open about their LSD experiences in the 60's-70's, and claimed it helped them in their fields. I can't find when Francis Crick is said to have admitted it, but it sounds like it was in the 70's if not earlier. As I see it, LSD was seen back then in near the same light DMT is today...relatively unstudied and often miss-used as an illicit hardcore 'recreational' drug.

FBI? Fairly Bothered by Intoxicants? Certainly not! Just extra wary of certain ones. ;-)

I'm sure there are people out there that have come up with software/technology from the influence of DMT, they just haven't come forth. I'd say that it has recognizably influenced ideas & thought - especially in the area of frequencies, energy, reality is a hologram sort of shit like that because the DMT experience is the frequency, mandala portal experience, lol! It's certainly influenced great art, look at Alex Grey. I've learned a lot of things that seem to not apply to this reality and the last time I took it, the only thing I learned was "GOOGLE", lol.

LSD on the otherhand has definitely influenced technology and science. My favorite LSD thought experiment become reality was Francis Crick's discovery of the DNA strand while on it.

"I'm still waiting for the insightful invention someone comes up with after one of these amazing 'conversations' with non-human beings. If this drug really did what those into it claim, you would expect most users to be incredible 'outside the box' inventors advancing science in ways normal people would never consider...but I have not heard of even a single instance of that kind of useful insight coming from DMT."

I cannot figure out what you are trying to debate? That there is no science behind DMT? That there is nothing to DMT? That "spiritual" does not exist? What is your point of this continued conversation? That you are scared of psychedelics? Why do you think such an experience would have been programmed into our head, the most powerful experience a person can have?

I have trouble understanding "spiritual" to be the same as "awesome" or "awe-inspiring", but if thats what you mean by "spiritual", I suppose we agree. I understand "spiritual" to mean "that which concerns the spirits or the spiritual world", ie something supernatural.

I suppose there is little point in continuing this debate, I get a little carried away.. My point ws only that it is unscientific and nonsensical to think that stimulating your brain with chemicals can help you discover some sor of spiritworld or some nonsense like that, the reason I KNOW this, as you put it, is what I've fruitlessly to express over several long comments. Basically, to repeat myself for like the 5th time, it has to do with basic facts of the origin of our brains and so forth, it is now established, beyond any reasonable doubt, that our brains evolved. If you understand what biological evolution is and how it works, you'd know it is the mindless reshuffling of nucleotides acted upon in populations of animals over countless generations, this produces amazing survival machines, and some of them develop brains, and some of those grow big brains.

How do you think DNA evolved over so many years,
DNA probably evolved after RNA, nobody knows exactly how replicating nucleotides started to replicate, it was probably a staggeringly unlikely event, but then there was literally all the time and space in the universe for it to happen..

you ever read Francis Cricks, who helped found DNA, Well, I've read The Double Helix, and I'm currently studying biology and genetics.
what his theory for DNA was? Panspermia. Yeah.
No,
It was speculation, probably tongue-in-cheek that he later regretted. In any case, the argument was based on the fact that the origin of DNA/RNA was an extremely unlikely event, and that if it didn't originate on earth, it could have been brought here from elsewhere. Both options are essentially saying the same thing, that abiogenesis happened and that it later evolved (either here on earth, like most scientist now think, or somewhere else.)

It doesnt really matter whether directed panspermia is true or not, DNA is still strings of molecules that abide by the laws of physics and chemistry. They are not some sort of magical quantum spirit crystals mind-controlled by aliens.
The Universe is a lot trickier than just our basic Science.
Whatever you say boss.

How do you KNOW?

Physics is something that is only beginning to be understood. The Laws of Physics are subjective to change. We will probably find out soon whether the speed of light is a constant it may be that the speed of light is not a constant.

My point is, is that we have barely even tipped our toes into the way everything works, while I trust science much more than any religion I am not arrogant enough to think that there are fundamental aspects of reality that we simply do not understand on any level.

Another point is, if you ever take DMT. Most people have no words to describe what they see. As stupid monkey humans we have defined vague terms to mean something. Even if someone thinks a DMT experience is spiritual, so what? Because it is chemicals in the brain? What basis do you have to say that having a spiritual experience is not considering it is based upon the science of the Universe? Spiritual, God, dark matter, death, even consciousness are terms that ill defined with monkey brains.

I think you believe that "spiritual" must mean dogmatic religion. Science in itself can be "spiritual", contemplating the Universe can be "spiritual". I repeat that term because at this point in our culture-less society that term is taboo. I know some people consider FUCKING to be "spiritual". I am not implying that I believe in any religion, I do not, at all. DMT is like experiencing the Universe in your own head. It is the one and only experience that is convincing enough to say that we know very little, it is the most humbling and powerful experience there is. And if there is one using endogenous chemicals, more powerful, I do not want to even know about it, myself.

I cannot figure out what you are trying to debate? That there is no science behind DMT? That there is nothing to DMT? That "spiritual" does not exist? What is your point of this continued conversation? That you are scared of psychedelics? Why do you think such an experience would have been programmed into our head, the most powerful experience a person can have? How do you think DNA evolved over so many years, you ever read Francis Cricks, who helped found DNA, what his theory for DNA was? Panspermia. Yeah. The Universe is a lot trickier than just our basic Science.

One thing is clear, you are never going to know what I am talking about until you have that experience. Why not? It has never killed anyone... you will think you have died because what you are witnessing is alien and defies explanation. It will be so awesome, that you will not even care that you died or think you have died. People should do it, even if it is just to be in awe of what your own vessel is capable of doing.

I would beg to differ on this sentiment. We have little knowledge of where we come from. Even Francis Crick, one of the founders of DNA suggested that we are on Earth through panspermia from another sentient race.

Then you have to ask who created them, and who created the creators, and so on. It becomes a chain of causality. You then have two options. Either, you have to believe that something came from nothing, or, there is an eternal first cause of everything that exists. I think something coming from nothing is impossible, so an eternal first cause is the only option left. If you agree, then we'll call that God.

Who knows? The Christian perception of god in reality is quite possibly unfathomably simple, that is to say that which is the creation of all existence. Listen, I want the truth just as much as you do, that is why I gone far out to experience mystical experiences that only prove to me that whatever this is, is far more complex and loving.

It's good to hear that you are pursuing the truth. That is something I greatly respect. My question to you is, if the truth is Jesus Christ, as He claims (I am the way, the *truth* and the life), would you turn your life over to Him?

The Christian conception of God is actually very complex in some ways, and simple in others. Complex, when you consider the Holy Trinity and the incarnation of Christ. Simple, when you consider the Fathers love for His children the sacrificial love of His Son. The theology also shares this dichotomy of depth and simplicity, and it is all knit together with sinews of love and unity into the mystical body of Christ. The Christian God is, like the Universe He created, both complex and simple.

I'm not sure what you mean by more loving. I'm going to need a definition and example of what you're talking about before I reply to that.

No one can prove Jesus was raised from the dead it is a phenomenon not widely occurring. I would never say that Jesus never existed but I think it is probable that Jesus existed in a much more humble way than what is described by his disciples. Therefore, I look at it as a book of tall tales. There is nothing wrong with that, I mean if you can accept it for what it really is... a book of Tall Tales.

Presumably, if Jesus is alive, He could prove it couldn't He?

Yes, I went to a Lutheran church every Sunday for eighteen years. Most of my parents community were involved with the church. They all know my feelings on the subject and over time I have seen their Christian foundations dissolve for better or worse. For me, it is undeniably a farce of divinity. I respect Christianity, probably without Christianity I would never had wanted to seek out the real, hard truths. Christianity spoke so much of honesty and truth. I adore those concepts and unfortunately Christianity does not hold a flame to what I now know.

You will find me very much in agreement with you when you say that dead religion is a farce of divinity. When it comes down to it, there are two types of Christians in this world. Those who have a religion, and those who have a relationship. Those who have a religion are those who follow the traditions of men, and believe that to follow God is to go to church, read the bible, and pray at the suitable times. Basically, if they follow their good and bad checklist well enough, some day they will make it to Heaven. Their faith is blind and based only on what they've read, but not what they've understood to be true from experience.

Those who have a relationship are those who have a personal, intimate, experiential relationship with the living God. They have the Holy Spirit living with them, who has supernaturally transformed them into new people. These people experience the presence of God in their daily lives, and are personally guided by God in everything they do. These people know the truth, experience it, and live it out every single day. It sounds to me that your experience had the character of the former and not the latter. I am not shocked at all that you left the church under those pretenses, and I would have too. It is a story I have heard many times in the past, that people who grew up with dead religion and never learned how to have a personal relationship with Christ, quickly abandoned the faith of their parents, because either they never really believed in the first place, or they had no foundation for their beliefs, and the world quickly converted them to its ways.

There is more to this story Shinyblurry, my spiritual quest started late, after I was free from the churches hold . I am not a liar, I have never purposefully stolen anything and I treat people with honesty and compassion. I may be very left leaning but I find myself to be much more ethical, non judgemental and compassionate than most

I appreciate that you're a relatively moral person. We as humans tend to judge ourselves based on a relative standard, based on how we line up to other people. Compared to rapists and pedophiles, we're both very upstanding citizens I am sure. Compared to Hitler, we are looking almost perfect. Yet, God doesn't judge on a sliding scale; He uses an absolute standard. Gods standard for good is moral perfection, and He considers anything short of that to be evil. That is why God is holy and we are not. So, for example, you say that you're not a liar, but if you've ever told even one lie then you are in fact a liar, as a liar is a person who has lied. If you've ever stolen *anything*, regardless of its value, you're a thief. If you've ever used Gods name in vain you are a blasphemer. Gods standards are even higher than this, though, in that He consider what you've thought in your heart. For example, if you've ever even looked at a woman with lust He considers you an adulterer at heart, and Jesus says if you've ever hated anyone you've murdered them in your heart. (full disclosure: I've done all of these things) So you can see that our relative standard doesn't cut it when it comes to what God considers good, and even one sin is too many. That's why Jesus died for our sins, because we cannot meet Gods holy standard on our own.

One night maybe ten years ago, for a few seconds, and then hours I thought God had contacted me and it was weirdest thing I have ever experienced. And it was real, I mean the experience. And so my quest began and I found a partial truth after many years of research...

Tell me more about your experience of God..why was it weird, and what partial truth did you find that seemed to confirm it?

and it only raises more questions on divinity, soul, morality, the mind, the universe. Thus is life. Keep asking questions. Keep thinking. Keep researching.

I respect your search for the truth, and I think it is a good thing. Scripture says, seek and you shall find. Ask and you shall be given. Knock, and the door will open. Do you believe that you have a soul?

The truth is out there, yet none of us know it yet. And I mean NO ONE.

I'll have to stop you here because you're making an absolute claim and this is self-contradictory. This is revealed by the question, "is it absolutely true that no one knows the truth?" The best you could say is that you don't know the truth, but you don't know what I know. How could you, if you don't know what the truth is?

Further, this ties into what we're discussing about the video. That there are only two routes to truth. Either you are omnipotent, or you get revelation from an omnipotent being. Since neither of us are omnipotent, there is only one possibility of either of us knowing the truth, which is an omnipotent being revealing it to us. I fully agree with you that outside of such revelation no one knows anything. But, if God gave me such revelation how would you know whether He did or not? You couldn't say no one knows the truth, because you don't know what God has or has not revealed. You only know what God has revealed to you, if anything.

and i'm pretty sure Obama is bright enough to understand that the drug war is a bust, and that many many brilliant minds including Sir Francis Crick (modeled DNA while on LSD) and Steve Jobs (acid head) have essentially used (to the great benefit of humanity) what amounts to "smart drugs"

but Obama is in the business of maintaining a vast Empire. This supersedes his tendencies towards logical policy.

Division is how the ruling elite maintains their order.
and Obama is the public representation of the ruling elite.

The solution remains in an informed populace.

I’m going to respond to your last comment in two parts. The first part regards the god argument in which you have mischaracterized me as being closed minded and of having a bias. I can easily show that I am neither and this is my view on the whole god thing so you can at least understand my view if for nothing else. The second part I will address my primary contention against your methods of argument.

I am willing to listen, however, on its face the statement "I don't care about the whole god argument" indicates both bias and closed-mindedness. It also shows an intellectual incuriousity.

I admit that I don’t believe in a god or gods, or even advanced aliens. I just don’t see any reason to believe any of it. This doesn’t mean that I am saying that god doesn’t exist; I’m saying “I don’t know, but I highly doubt it and I don’t buy it.” What do you find confusing about that?

We have no real reason to suppose from direct evidence that a god, or gods, exist. Do all effects have a cause? Do all causes have an effect? If yes, why do you suppose it’s a god who caused all of the effects that you attribute him to such as the “fine tuning” or “the appearance of design”, why can’t it be something else? By resting on a god hypothesis as the answer to mysterious phenomenon, you are precluding all other answers that are just as good as a god, that have the same amount of direct evidence.

Scientific evidence indicates that time, space, matter and energy all had a finite beginning, making the cause of the Universe timeless, spaceless, unimaginably powerful and transcendent. Those are all attributes of God, and fit an unembodied mind. The fine tuning, information in DNA and appearance of design all point to a creator. Logic itself tells us that the first cause of the Universe must be eternal because nothing comes from nothing and you can't have an infinite regress of causes. Frankly I think it is ridiculous to believe that Universes just happen by themselves, and especially, as the greatest minds of our time are suggesting, out of nothing. Can't you see that when someone says that, it means the emperor has no clothes?

Does the god that you believe in have a cause? If not, how so? By what mechanisms does your god exist but without having had a cause? How can your belief be proven and why should anyone believe it based on rational information? What evidence is there that compels you to believe that your god indeed doesn’t have a cause? These are the kinds of questions that I think you should be asking for yourself. If you resort to “just needing to have faith” as an answer then you are actively avoiding exercising critical thinking faculties.

God is eternal, and He has no beginning or end, so no He doesn't have a cause. A God that was caused by something else wouldn't be God. My evidence is from logic which demands an eternal first cause. Otherwise, you're left explaing how you get something from nothing, which is logically absurd.

Unlike you, I don’t see the appearance of design in the complexity of biological systems or in anything found in nature. I study evolutionary biology, astrophysics, and chemistry for myself because I find it the mechanisms fascinating, not because I’m trying to disprove god.

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.

Francis Crick Nobel Laureate
What Mad Pursuit p.138 1988

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.

Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker p.1

Even hardcore skeptics concede there is an appearance of design.

There is inherent beauty in all of it and it’s a shame that most people are ignorant of what we do actually know. While I’m open to the idea that a god designed the system then put it in motion, there just isn’t direct phenomenological evidence that suggest that’s what happened.

The information in DNA is direct evidence that a higher intelligence designed the system.

There is enough information that we do know about speciation to suggest that evolution through natural selection does happen, is happening, and will continue to happen. The genetic code is enough to suggest common ancestry between all living things in a tree like family lineage.

natural selection can weed out some of the complexity and so slow down the information decay that results in speciation. it may have a stabilizing effect, but it does not promote speciation. it is not a creative force as many people have suggested.

Roger Lewin Science magazine 1982

The genetic code also suggests a common designer. As far as your tree claim, you need to research the cambrian explosion. It is quite a let down for gradualists, unfortunately. All the major body types, including the phylum Chordata (thats our phylum), were there from the beginning. We actually have less diversity today, not more.

(on the cambrian explosion)
And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists.

Richard Dawkins - The Blind Watchmaker 1986 p.229

Certainly, we do not know yet exactly how the whole process of DNA or RNA reproduction started, but if we postulate that a god started the process without sufficient evidence, only on the basis that there is no better answer, then we can also postulate that it was an advanced inter-dimensional race of ancients who populate planets with the seed of genetic mechanisms. If we don’t have the answer to how the mechanism got the whole thing started, what’s the difference between those two different origin hypotheses?

I don't postulate that God 'started the process'. I postulate that God spontaneously created everything. You rule out God apriori and thus you accept this just-so story about how life got here. In your eyes, it must have happened. Interpreting the evidence to fit the conclusion isn't very scientific, is it?

Also unlike you, I don’t see what you call “fine tuning” and I also study all sorts of physics, my favorite being astrophysics personally. The term “fine tuning” implies that something above the system changed some dials to a perfect goldilocks range to support what we have right now. This is an interesting idea however I find it to be more prudent to see it the other way around; that what has formed, has only formed because the conditions allow for it, that the environment dictates what can exist. Wherever you look at an environment and find life, you find life that fits into that environment and we also see that when environments change, so to do species change to adapt to the new conditions. We never see an environment change to fit the species.

I don't think you're understanding the fine tuning argument. Many of those finely tuned values, if even moved an inch, would make life impossible in this Universe. Not just improbable, but impossible. The fine tuning is extremely fortuitous to an incomprehensible degree. The odds of these values randomly converging is virtually impossible. For instance, for physical life to exist, the mass density of the Universe must be fine tuned to better than one part in 10 to the 60th power. For space-energy density, it is 10 to the 120th power. That's just two out of dozens of values.

You claim that we haven’t seen macro-evolution taking place? Are you sure about that, how exactly do you know this is true, where did you read this? How do you know that what you are calling macro-evolution is the same thing as what evolutionary biologists call macro-evolution? The fact of the matter is that the fossil record has nothing to say about the most recent research on macro-evolution. It’s a fascinating material and I would suggest that you get out there and find it for yourself. Talk Origins has as list of the studies done on macro-evolution, you can start there if you like.

Yes, evolutionists are trying to dump the fossil record in favor of genetic evidence because the fossil record is actually evidence against their theories. As I've said, common genetics also indicate common designer.

Darwin made a great discovery, that creatures can adapt to environmental conditions. That's something that has hard scientific evidence. What didn't have any evidence was his extrapolation from that to the theory of all life having a common ancestor. He was counting on the fossil record to prove his case but it didn't, which is why he said this:

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

Here we are 150 years later with billions of fossils and there still isn't any evidence. If Darwin was right, we should have indisputable proof that one species changed into another, but we don't. All we have is a smattering of highly contested transitionals which are all "more or less" closely related, but no true ancestors. When the facts don't match the theory it is time to throw that theory away, but the theory of evolution is the cornerstone of the secular worldview, and it isn't going to die without a fight, no matter how loudly the facts cry out against it.

The question becomes, if there was/is a designer, what was designed first, the creature or the environment? To me, you are suggesting that humans were designed first in the mind of god, and then the environment was finely tuned in order to sustain the idea that god already had for us. Don’t you think this is a little bit too egotistical of a view? If that’s true, what makes everything else necessary? I don’t know if you study astrophysics or astronomy at all but there is a massive amount of stuff out there that has nothing to do with us and if we’re a part of god’s plan, he sure did create a lot of waste.

I'm saying He created all of it at the same time, in six days as Genesis describes. Why is the Universe so large? It could be for a number of reasons, such as that it gives us room to grow. If we were just hitting some sort of wall in space, it would also be a wall in knowledge that we could acquire. If it wasn't as large and complex as it is, we wouldn't be where we are today. Why are solid objects actually mostly composed of empty space? Isn't God wasting all of that space? Or is it integral to His design? Does the fact that almost everything is made up of empty space reduce the significance of solid objects? The size of the Universe doesn't say anything about our importance relative to it. The Heavens also declare the glory of God:

Psalm 19:1-2

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

To me, if the Christian beliefs are the most accurate representation of reality, god isn’t a very good designer. There millions of ways that he could have done a better job if he is all powerful. Of course, you can revert back to, “we can’t know the mind of god”, or “god works in mysterious ways”, but those aren’t answers, they are just ways of maintaining a pre-existing belief by silencing further inquisition.

Have you ever created a Universe? If not, how then would you know what a superior design would look like?

“Unless you can demonstrate a purely naturalistic origin of the Universe, you have no case against Agency.“

Agency needs to prove itself and so far it isn’t doing a very good job. Science as a whole isn’t making a case against agency and neither am I by suggesting that there are likely to be naturalistic causes. Agency simply isn’t necessary. That is what I think that you don’t understand. It’s that I don’t accept the case for agency until agency can be proven. A suspended judgment is better than an accepted unverifiable and untestable claim.

You can rule out the necessity of Agency when you can explain origins. To say that it is not necessary when you don't know what caused the Universe is not something you can determine.

If you are in any way the kind of person who culturally relates to Christianity then there is nothing that anyone can do for you. It is very difficult to have an intellectually honest conversation with someone whose basis for belief is deeply tied to a sense of culture or social belonging. Challenging your beliefs is synonymous to asking you to become someone else if your beliefs are tightly woven into your identity. The only thing I can ask of you is to ask yourself if what you believe determines how you will process new information that comes to you.

I'll give you a little background on me. I grew up without any religion, and until a few years ago, I was an agnostic materialist who didn't see any evidence for God or spirit. Growing up, I hoped to become an astronomer. I have studied all the things you have mentioned, and although I am just a layman, I know quite a bit about biology, astronomy, physics, etc. Like you, I assumed because of my indoctrination in school and society, that the theory of evolution and other metaphysical theories were well supported by hard evidence. When I became a Christian, I was willing to incorporate these theories into my worldview. It is only upon investigation of the actual facts that I was shocked to find there not only is there no real evidence, but that much of what I had been taught in school was either grossly inaccurate, intentionally misleading, or outright fradulent.

So, you're not dealing with someone who grew up outside of your worldview, who feels threatened by it and is trying to tear it down. You're talking with someone who was heavily invested in it, and even willing to compromise with it, and has turned away from it because of my research, not in spite of it. If it was true, I would want to know about it. Since it isn't, I don't believe in it.

At the very least, you can see now that I am not diametrically opposed to the idea of a creator or agency behind everything. The notion is interesting but I don’t believe that there is enough real credible information to suggest that it’s true.

You are more openminded than I originally gave you credit for, but you definitely have a huge evidence filter made out of your presuppositions.

There are enough logical arguments against the idea of a god or gods existing that the whole notion is worth dismissing.

The only logical argument of any value that the atheists have is the argument from evil, and that has been soundly debunked by plantigas free will defense. Feel free to bring one up though, because I have never seen an atheist offer any positive evidence for his position. "Worth dismissing" = close minded and biased, btw.

If there is as god or gods, they aren’t doing a very good job of making themselves known or knowable.

Do you think that is why 93 percent of the world believes that God exists?

The simple fact is that naturalistic explanations are more useful ideas than any god concept because they provide both predictions that we can verify and help us make decisions about where to study next. No god hypothesis has ever provided either, therefore, in the pursuit of knowledge; the idea of god is useless.

Did you know that the idea that we can suss out laws by investigating their secondary causes is a Christian idea, based on the premise that God created an orderly universe governed by laws? Did you know that modern science got its start in Christian europe? Doesn't seem so useless to me. Science now must assume a little thing called "uniformity in nature" to even do science without the belief that there is a Creator upholding these laws. How do you get absolute laws in an ever changing Universe? What is the evidence the future will be like the past? Can you explain it?

Now you see why naturalistic explanations are predominate in science as the default standard.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin, Harvard
New York Review of Books 1/9/97

No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.

Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182

I have faith and belief myself... I believe that nothing beyond those natural laws is needed. I have no evidence for this. It is simply what I have faith in and what I believe.

Isaac Asimov

I see why you say that, and now you know why you believe that, because those who teach you these ideas are doing exactly what I have been saying all along. Suppressing the truth.


>> ^IAmTheBlurr:

So I take this to mean that you are truly agnostic about all
non-Christian gods. You will refuse to state unequivocally that there
is a council of 5 supreme beings who created the universe.

No, I will state unequivocally that Jesus is God, and that anyone else claiming to be a god is a pretender to the throne.

You do have me on the trivializing part, because god and a teapot in
space mean about the same to me since there is the same amount of
evidence for both.

I'm looking at the same evidence you are. The difference is in the presuppositions of your worldview. If you took off those glasses then you might start to see what I am talking about. For instance, the Uniformity in nature, how do you explain it?

There is no appearance of design in biological
systems (we made great leaps in understanding biology in the last 100
years or so)

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.

Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker p.1

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.

Francis Crick Nobel Laureate
What Mad Pursuit p.138 1988

There certainty is the appearance of the design, and these systems were in fact designed, but you say it is simply chance that created these sophisticated and irreducibly complex systems. I say something irreducibly complex cannot have been evolved.

, and the "fine-tuning" of physical laws are easily
explained without a higher being, and so it is not necessary.

They are not easily explained away. It is virtually a mathematical impossibility for the laws to be tuned the way they are. Check this out:



(Any universe without those properties would make life impossible and so we
would never know it existed

If I stood in front of a firing squad of 100 highly trained marksmen and survived the execution without a scratch, I should not be shocked to find out they missed, since if they hadn't, I wouldn't be alive to know that they did. In the same manner, while we shouldn't be shocked we are alive in a life permitting Universe, it doesn't follow that we shouldn't be surprised the Universe in which we find ourselves is life permitting.

, we do not know how many universes exist,
have existed, or can exist, etc.

If there are multiple universes, it just makes the fine tuning problem worse. The fine tuning on the mechanism for the multiple Universe generator would be infinitely more improbable.

If you want to maintain a god of the
gaps you are welcome to, but the natural solutions to every mystery
ever make the future of such a worldview tenuous at best.)

It isn't the God of the gaps when God is the superior explantion for the evidence, such as the information in DNA.

The presence of a supernatural being is, by definition, unfalsifiable.
The concept of a supernatural being is literally meaningless, since
you can say anything about it and not be proven wrong (or right). It
cannot be measured

Is believing in the existence of the external world falsifiable? Is the idea that the Universe began 5 seconds ago and all of your memories are false falsifiable? Is the fact that you cannot falsify either of those ideas make your existence meaningless?

The non-existence of God certainly is falsifiable; He could show up, as in the second coming. God cannot be measured by emprical methodology because God is a Spirit. This doesn't prove He doesn't exist. I notice you didn't answer my question, which is basic..you say you have an open mind, so I ask, if Jesus is God, would you turn your life over to Him and follow Him?

>> ^botono9

It's natural that atheists proselytize, because atheism is a religion:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6034949/Atheism-Is-Protected-As-a-Religion-says-Court-

It has its own creation story:

"Thus, a century ago, [it was] Darwinism against Christian orthodoxy. To-day the tables are turned. The modified, but still characteristically Darwinian theory has itself become an orthodoxy, preached by its adherents with religious fervour, and doubted, they feel, only by a few muddlers imperfect in scientific faith."

Grene, Marjorie [Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of California, Davis], "The Faith of Darwinism," Encounter, Vol. 74, November 1959, pp.48-56, p.49

with its own miracles:

"Time is, in fact, the hero of the plot... given so much time the 'impossible' becomes possible, the possible probable and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs miracles."
George Wald, "The Origin of Life," Physics and Chemistry of Life, 1955, p. 12.

In which its adherants have total faith:

I have faith and belief myself... I believe that nothing beyond those natural laws is needed. I have no evidence for this. It is simply what I have faith in and what I believe.

Isaac Asimov
Counting the Eons P.10

I do not want to believe in God, therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible: spontaneous generation arising to evolution

George Wald - Harvard Professor
Nobel Laureate

They believe it even in the face of contradicting evidence

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved.

Francis Crick Nobel Laureate
What Mad Pursuit p.138 1988

Much evidence can be adduced in favor of the Theory of Evolution from Biology, Biogeography, and Paleontology, but I still think that to the unprejudiced the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation.

EJH Cornor, Cambridge
Contemporary Botanical Thought p.61

It provides a comprehensive belief system:

Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideaology, a secular religion- a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with its meaning and morality...

Michael Ruse Florida State University
National Post 5/13/00

Atheists know they are right no matter what:

No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.

Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182

Even if they have to suppress the truth to prove it:

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

Lewontin, Richard C. [Professor of Zoology and Biology, Harvard University], "Billions and Billions of Demons", Review of "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," by Carl Sagan, New York Review, January 9, 1997. (Emphasis in original)

"In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling."

Erasmus Darwin, in a letter to his brother Charles, after reading his new book, "The Origin of Species," in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life of Charles Darwin," [1902], Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p215.

They are true believers:

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

It won't be long before there are atheists churches and street preachers handing out tracks.

Yup, Doc Ellis took the acid.. So did Dan Rather, Cary Grant, Aldous Huxley, Francis Crick, Anais Nin, Bill Gates, the creators of South Park, and others.


Good thing it's finding its way back into clinical studies.

I would like to point out that Francis Crick was an agnostic with strong ties to atheism, not exactly an atheists. But whatever.
Hmmm. You know 75% percent of this nation (USA) probably does claim to be Christian, but as you can tell from TV and the way most of this country acts, most do no live like the belief in or care for God. Unfortunately, Christianity has become something of a joke in America, a novelty, if you will. It's pretty much the defult choice for a belief system and thus, many that claim to be a Christian do not live like one. I remember a quote from Billy Graham stating that he would be lucky if just have of the people that were "saved" at any of his crusades were indeed salvations. Anyhow, that is just food for thought next time someone uses stats regarding beliefs systems.

I noticed scripture in this video. Allow me to bring some things to light.

Psa 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good.
Psa 14:2 The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
Psa 14:3 They have all turned aside,They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.

1Cr 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1Cr 1:19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
1Cr 1:20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1Cr 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
1Cr 1:22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;
1Cr 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
1Cr 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1Cr 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1Cr 1:26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
1Cr 1:27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
1Cr 1:28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are,
1Cr 1:29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.
1Cr 1:30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption--
1Cr 1:31 that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.