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At 2/20/04 01:15 AM, miket311 wrote:

At 2/19/04 08:33 PM, H-Dawg wrote:

At 2/19/04 07:49 PM, K-Rizl wrote:

church actually isnt that bad, depending on the church you may
1) feed the poor, give money to the poor
2) learn semi-valuable life lessons you dont seem capable of coming to on your own.
3) have additional drive or motivation in life

:: other guy - yada yada yada (standing for nothing that remotely points in the direction of a logically conclusion argument) Theist is: I guess i have to give this to you, you are arguing on a flash website so its not like it really matters but these are your opinions? You should learn some background before debating about the existance of god (eg. epistemology and common arguemnts for god (eg. god by design) ) Just read kids and you will actually have something insightful to say.

I've cut and pasted together the bits of your argument I am roughly responding to above: Well, if you want proof, and scholarly sources, look at the classic one: Nietzsche writing in 1873 or so: God is Dead. Now this is not just the obvious argument about a deity, it also is an argument about aesthetics, or Nietzsche's point that every concept or "truth" is written in a language, and there is no accesss to the "origin" of truth outside of language (even though phenomenologists, like Kant or Heidegger, base their whole arguments on a truth outside of human perception). For Nietzsche, God is the best example of one of these ungraspable "truths" or origins that human language hangs its concepts on. When he says that God is dead, he is saying that signified truth is dead, because we can never think outside of metaphorical language, which has no referents except more metaphorical language. SO - to tie this back in to the Atheist debate. Atheism, which I respect very much for its Nietzschean undertones, is basically a critique of Christianity, in that Atheism points out that Christianity has no God outside of its own metaphorical concept of God. There is no access to the real thing, since we are only human. And it would be supremely egocentric to say that you knew that your human concept of God was accurate, when there is no way of comparing the metaphore and the "real thing." NOw, you made another point about ethical virtues, like being kind to others, feeding the poor, yada yada yada. Do only Christians posess these virtues? Do these ethical criteria only have to do with religion? I'm not religious at all, and yet I believe in many of the ethics that you stated.

At 2/20/04 10:12 AM, H-Dawg wrote:

I've cut and pasted together the bits of your argument I am roughly responding to above: Well, if you want proof, and scholarly sources, look at the classic one: Nietzsche writing in 1873 or so: God is Dead. Now this is not just the obvious argument about a deity, it also is an argument about aesthetics, or Nietzsche's point that every concept or "truth" is written in a language, and there is no accesss to the "origin" of truth outside of language (even though phenomenologists, like Kant or Heidegger, base their whole arguments on a truth outside of human perception). For Nietzsche, God is the best example of one of these ungraspable "truths" or origins that human language hangs its concepts on. When he says that God is dead, he is saying that signified truth is dead, because we can never think outside of metaphorical language, which has no referents except more metaphorical language. SO - to tie this back in to the Atheist debate. Atheism, which I respect very much for its Nietzschean undertones, is basically a critique of Christianity, in that Atheism points out that Christianity has no God outside of its own metaphorical concept of God. There is no access to the real thing, since we are only human. And it would be supremely egocentric to say that you knew that your human concept of God was accurate, when there is no way of comparing the metaphore and the "real thing." NOw, you made another point about ethical virtues, like being kind to others, feeding the poor, yada yada yada. Do only Christians posess these virtues? Do these ethical criteria only have to do with religion? I'm not religious at all, and yet I believe in many of the ethics that you stated.

I agree with alot of what you said (there are some issues in the languistic argument) yes it is very egocentrice to believe your view of god is the correct one. No everyone should have these values but ive observed people and many dont contribute to causes like that outside of a church organization i was just pointing out that its common to speak out against religion but in its fundamentals at least it should be pointing some people in a positive direction. I am also non-religious if thats surprising or not it doesnt matter. And concerning atheists, yes that may its true origin but its often distorted by self-proclaimed atheists (if thats what they could be called) I already deleted some things above so i dont remember if you were talking about proving god by design if i remember correctly a teleological argument i also disagree with it. I wasnt trying to prove god just saying its difficult to disprove and has redemming values for people of questionable values (usually instilled by that good old capitalist ferver - or natural if you believe hobbes)

At 2/20/04 08:44 AM, shitt0r wrote:

At 2/20/04 07:21 AM, wickedhamo wrote: hu created the earth God did of course how else it couldn't just pop up from nowhere

Have you ever heard about the guy who argued his belief in the existence of God by saying if you found a pocketwatch in the middle of a field, in mint condition you would have to think that something must've made it, and it couldn't have just come from nowhere. WRONG!

So then who is to say that there are not infinate causes and no originator. Because he is arguing god by design that means there must be a beginning to everything. I dont know all the arguments for whether causes are in an infinate chain or not if someone could fill that in.

Another way to look at it
time 0 there was nothing
quantum mechanics believes they have proven that in absolute nothing something with become
therefore time zero there is something
(but it was caused by nothing)

I also think its a far strech to say that the beginning is god no matter what it was or to say that from nothing spawns an all powerful creator and maker.
And im really going on stuff that i dont know as much about as i should so it would be nice if someone could help it out a little.

You talk about atheists as if they are lacking something 'fundamental'. I've done some reading, and I'll have to agree that atheism is our default setting.

Having to say you're an atheist is like saying that you're a non-smoker.

Why do you smoke? Why do you believe in a god? Why do you wear pants? These aren't things that we slide-out knowing or caring about; they are learned through socialization ("brainwashing", if you will).

I'm a human, I don't know where we came from, and I couldn't possibly care less, and I'm not going to let someone's idea of why we are here dictate how I'm going to behave or if I'll be charitable.

At 2/20/04 12:29 PM, Kyle_22 wrote: You talk about atheists as if they are lacking something 'fundamental'. I've done some reading, and I'll have to agree that atheism is our default setting.

Having to say you're an atheist is like saying that you're a non-smoker.

Why do you smoke? Why do you believe in a god? Why do you wear pants? These aren't things that we slide-out knowing or caring about; they are learned through socialization ("brainwashing", if you will).

I'm a human, I don't know where we came from, and I couldn't possibly care less, and I'm not going to let someone's idea of why we are here dictate how I'm going to behave or if I'll be charitable.

I share that view, all upto the point where you say you don't care why you're here.

I know there's a reason out there why we're here and I'll continue to try to find it. I only know it's not in organized religion.

At 2/20/04 11:42 AM, miket311 wrote:

At 2/20/04 08:44 AM, shitt0r wrote:

At 2/20/04 07:21 AM, wickedhamo wrote:

Another way to look at it
time 0 there was nothing
quantum mechanics believes they have proven that in absolute nothing something with become
therefore time zero there is something
(but it was caused by nothing)

This argument is very much like Hegel's, which says that the conceptual nature of consciousness, or "Spirit," came from nothingness. However, by coming to consciousness, that nothing became conscious being, or a concept. The concept is always only just a concept, and thus never directly connected to its "origin," or truth. But, Hegel says that the fact that the concept came about in teh first place, there is no other reason for its existence except for the fact that there was a truth that formed it. This ontological proof Hegel calls "sense certainty." However, even for Hegel, this sense certainty of the truth of truth doesn't always hold, because consciousness can only exist in relation to another consciousness. Therefore, a pre-determined idea of truth can shape, or distort another "truth" that is trying to represent itself out of nothing. this inner struggle, that Hegel says is going on in every one of our consciousnesses, is called the Master-Slave dialectic. Of course, Karl Marx, who was one of the best critics of Hegel, tore this "idealist" argument apart, basically criticizing the fact that Hegel seemed to think that man had "magically" come to the most perfect idea of sense-certainty conveniently at around 1807 in Germany - thus he was being egocentric, and imposing his own concept of "Spirit" (or God) on everyone else.

Another way to look at it
time 0 there was nothing
quantum mechanics believes they have proven that in absolute nothing something with become
therefore time zero there is something
(but it was caused by nothing)

Ok just a friendly interjection from me the archbishop of the grand Church of Atheism. Dont try and use quantum physics in this kind of an argument.

As relevant as it may be, anything you people say about something this abstract is either repeated but not understood or so convulted and self contradictory its worthless. So drop the quantum stuff before you hurt your neural connections.

No offense but if you think you understand how something can be created from nothing without even the existance of time then you dont understand it at all.

Just a friendly reminder from your local offical of the atheist church, not to fry your puny little minds by attempting to comprehend something that the human brain is literally incapable of thinking about.

Have a nice day :)

At 2/21/04 01:33 AM, Locke666 wrote:

As relevant as it may be, anything you people say about something this abstract is either repeated but not understood or so convulted and self contradictory its worthless. So drop the quantum stuff before you hurt your neural connections.

No offense but if you think you understand how something can be created from nothing without even the existance of time then you dont understand it at all.

no actually i dont go about thinking i can prove or even fully comprehend this but the idea stands that other people much more involved in its study will probably prove most of this stuff worthless with findings like these. I wonder just how you conclude atheism without understanding the extremely complex issues debating causation, or do you just suppose and call it "personal" knowledge. To be fair you're probably just fucking around.

At 2/21/04 01:33 AM, Locke666 wrote:

Ok just a friendly interjection from me the archbishop of the grand Church of Atheism. Dont try and use quantum physics in this kind of an argument.

i just realized it good to attempt to understand things you cant understand it will help your brain function better if you make attempts to really think about something like that, or you have an aneurism, either way.

If you were talking to most people you would be right and i would just be fucking with you.

Unfortunately for you I have as much of an understanding of how an "origin" could take place as anybody you are ever going to run into.

Im going to try and explain void theory to you and we can see if you still feel like being a moron on the whole "well someone had to start it" thing. It is actually very simple, the universe,(well its not really a universe since it dosent actually exist but lets call it that anyway) is in a sort of quasi realness state before anything is made. There is no matter no space and no time which means that the closest descriptions humans could make for how it exists is either infinity or zero. Now since it dosent have time things like the odds that a universe will randomly be created out of nothing are either 100% or 0% and since we are quite obviously here it is evident that the void is quite capable of operating under laws that make that possible if a word like "law" can even be applied to something that dosent exist.

I have just given you an incredibly dumbed down version of void theory and I didn't even bother mentioning things like quantum observer laws and the anthropological theory.

So the only other thing you could even say (and which is quite common actually) is that god is the void, and that though quite possible would destroy any possible interaction between this "god" and the universe other than the essential creation.

Now would you like to continue saying I have no idea what im talking about or is their some other portion of creationism im going to have to disprove for you?

im agnostic. i find it ironic that atheists BELIEVE that there is nothing when they are bagging others for BELIEVING. . it takes just as much faith to believe there is a god than to bleievt here isn't.

At 2/21/04 04:02 AM, the_unknown_soldier wrote: it takes just as much faith to believe there is a god than to bleievt here isn't.

No, really, it doesn't. Bear in mind that whilst some Atheists dont believe there is a god, most atheists simply dont believe in god.

There's a difference.

At 2/21/04 04:02 AM, the_unknown_soldier wrote: im agnostic. i find it ironic that atheists BELIEVE that there is nothing when they are bagging others for BELIEVING. . it takes just as much faith to believe there is a god than to bleievt here isn't.

Unknown soldier, I've only seen two of your posts, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that you are an inspiration to botched lobotomy patients everywhere! /pointlessdig.exe

At 2/21/04 02:21 AM, Locke666 wrote: If you were talking to most people you would be right and i would just be fucking with you.

I said fucking around (about the atheist church thing, commenting about being an archbishop)

Unfortunately for you I have as much of an understanding of how an "origin" could take place as anybody you are ever going to run into.

Ok

Im going to try and explain void theory to you and we can see if you still feel like being a moron on the whole "well someone had to start it" thing.

Being a moron on the well someone had to start it? Thats rather interseting when i actually dont believe that but regardless i know i dont have as much knowledge supporting my view concerning causation as id like.

It is actually very simple, the universe,(well its not really a universe since it dosent actually exist but lets call it that anyway) is in a sort of quasi realness state before anything is made. There is no matter no space and no time which means that the closest descriptions humans could make for how it exists is either infinity or zero.

Sadly you dont like to give people the benefit of doubt but i actually was talking from the concept of relating zero and infinity.

Now since it dosent have time things like the odds that a universe will randomly be created out of nothing are either 100% or 0% and since we are quite obviously here it is evident that the void is quite capable of operating under laws that make that possible if a word like "law" can even be applied to something that dosent exist.

Well obviously we exist or each of us exist in and of ourselves (eg. its possible if you dont exist for my universe to still exist, it can obviously work the other way. Then again i dont know just how much people have proved descartes wrong.)

I have just given you an incredibly dumbed down version of void theory and I didn't even bother mentioning things like quantum observer laws and the anthropological theory.

Which i actually dont know about so if you could mantion those i would appreciate it. In the same thing i was trying to offer an extremely dumbed down version so i could at least place the potential into some peoples minds.

So the only other thing you could even say (and which is quite common actually) is that god is the void,

eg. which is what i say some christian philosophers use as a last resort in this line of logic for god by saying he is the universe, which would would be assumed as the "void" by your definition in your argument.

and that though quite possible would destroy any possible interaction between this "god" and the universe other than the essential creation.

yup, but still it would be held by people of gods existance as a creator that begs the question (not the philosophical term saying the argument is circular, because you seem a bit exacting for me not to include this) how would gods existance then be defined now that there is existance.

Now would you like to continue saying I have no idea what im talking about or is their some other portion of creationism im going to have to disprove for you?

I never said you had no idea......ass

At 2/21/04 07:19 PM, miket311 wrote: stuff

Well, someone sure likes to hear the sound of their own voice, yes? :)

At 2/21/04 08:08 PM, True-Lies wrote:
nothing contibuting to anything

yes

i know wat i said waz fuken dumb. but just because sum of u ppl don't belive in god doesn't mean u can bag me about mi point of view. so stop makin fuken weird points and leave me alone.

For those with an open mind (meaning you are actually willing to LISTEN to arguements of an oposing viewpoint), I strongly recommend the book The Case for Faith by Lee Stobel. It is a collection of interviews of top scholars regarding such objections to faith as "Since evolution explains life, God isn't needed" and "Since miracles contradict science, they cannot be true". The book is not too long, 250 or so pages, and is an easy read. I have found this book to be extremely helpful in countering atheistic arguements and such, it has really helped me ground my faith as a Christian in solid evidence.

At 3/5/04 05:53 AM, Ceris wrote: For those with an open mind (meaning you are actually willing to LISTEN to arguements of an oposing viewpoint), I strongly recommend the book The Case for Faith by Lee Stobel.

The book title itself suggests that the book is very much slanted toward Christianity, and therefore will be scrutinized heavily by it's none-Christian readers.

It is a collection of interviews of top scholars

Top scholars is too vague; tell me that Einstein believed in Jesus Christ, and I'll consider accepting him as my lord and savior :)

it has really helped me ground my faith as a Christian in solid evidence.

That's just it, faith is believeing in something without evidence that it really exists. Suffice it to say, there's no evidence you can give me that God really exists, and there's no evidence I can give you that God dosen't exist.

At 3/5/04 07:50 AM, True-Lies wrote: That's just it, faith is believeing in something without evidence that it really exists. Suffice it to say, there's no evidence you can give me that God really exists, and there's no evidence I can give you that God dosen't exist.

If I said "I have a dog," and you replied with "I doubt that you do," who would have to do the proving? Not you. I could come up to you with a leash and various dog toys, but that still wouldn't prove anything (aside from the fact that I am either a thief or wasteful with my money).

Alas, there really is no point in arguing. Some people believe, some people think they believe, and others have no reason to bother with any of it.

Lesson: Never try.

At 3/5/04 07:50 AM, True-Lies wrote: The book title itself suggests that the book is very much slanted toward Christianity, and therefore will be scrutinized heavily by it's none-Christian readers.

Aboviously it has a Christian slant, this is because it has a collection of argumentative interviews for faith in God. What I meant by open mind is people who would be willing to read such arguements without immediately brushing them off.

:: Top scholars is too vague; tell me that Einstein believed in Jesus Christ, and I'll consider accepting him as my lord and savior :)

Well, while I don't know about Einstein (I've heard arguements that he believed in God and arguements that he didn't), I can tell you that one of the chapters in the book deals with the theory of evolution, specifically the arguements for the origin of life. If you want, I can go through each of the main six or so arguments.

At 3/5/04 04:17 PM, Ceris wrote: If you want, I can go through each of the main six or so arguments.

Alright, hit me with your best stuff, just so I can see where I'm standing here...

havn't read this whole post but would jsut like to put in my $.02

this is coming from an agnostic, so biases are asumed...

atheists say they believe there is nothing out there. that is a belief, a faith.
and then they say how stupid christians are for having a faith!

atheism is a religion. and most atheism take the stance that religion is stupid.

hypocritical, and flawed in every way.

At 3/5/04 08:22 PM, the_unknown_soldier wrote: havn't read this whole post but would jsut like to put in my $.02

this is coming from an agnostic, so biases are asumed...

atheists say they believe there is nothing out there. that is a belief, a faith.
and then they say how stupid christians are for having a faith!

atheism is a religion. and most atheism take the stance that religion is stupid.

hypocritical, and flawed in every way.

If you think that 'Atheism' means that an atheist believes there is nothing out there, then your definition of 'Atheism' is flawed.

At 3/5/04 07:55 PM, True-Lies wrote:

At 3/5/04 04:17 PM, Ceris wrote: If you want, I can go through each of the main six or so arguments.

Alright, hit me with your best stuff, just so I can see where I'm standing here...

Here we go. And remember, I'm trying to condense an entire chapter here, so I won't be able to touch on everything. These are all based off an interview of Walter L. Bradley, a PhD professor at the novel The Mystery of Life's Origin. These are all arguments over the origin of life. I shall cover the six main origin of life theories.

Something to keep in mind is the complexity of modern living cells. Some problems for amino acids forming to become complex proteins, let alone living cells, is that amino acids do not readily act with one another, instead they prefer to bond with other molecules more readily. Also, half of amino acids are "right handed" and half are "left handed" and only left handed amino acids are in proteins in living organisms. Note: I do not know what left and right handed amino acids are, I assume it refers to chemical property that I do not know. All of what I have said is meant to point out the obstacles that come into the way of amino acids forming proteins. This is so you get an idea of how complex it really is. Now, onto the different theories.

Theory #1: Random chance.
The first idea that was proposed by scientists about the origin of life was that it was pure random chance, that if chemicals had enough time in "warm little ponds" life would come into existence as the first single celled organisms. This theory was first developed when the universe was thought to be infinitely old. Now thanks to modern methods, the best estimate we have of the earth's age is around 5 billion years old. One might think that this is enough time, but remember a lot of that time was need to cool down. (A billion or so years I think - this is as best as I can remember, I might be wrong.) The best fossil records we have indicate that life came into existence on earth only 400 million years after conditions were right (i.e. the earth had cooled down enough). This is simply not enough time for random chance. It was calculated that if you took all the carbon in the universe, put it on the face of the earth, and allowed it to react at the quickest rate possible, leaving it for 1 billion years, the odds that you would have just 1 single functioning protein are 1 in 1 X 10^60. Summary: even most scientists nowadays have given up on this theory.

Theory #2: Chemical Affinity
This theory states that there is possibly a chemical affinity that would case amino acids to link up in the proper order to create a protein. Recently the man whose interview I am basing this off of (Walter L. Bradley) was part of a team that wrote a computer program to analyze all 215 know amino acids for possible chemical affinities. The results: Amino acid sequencing in proteins has nothing to do with chemical affinity.

Theory #3: Self-Ordering Tendencies
This comes from non-equilibrium dynamics, a concept that basically says (I am quoting from the Case for Faith here) "that under certain circumstances, if energy is passed through a system at a fairly high rate, the system becomes unstable and will actually rearrange itself into an alternate and somewhat more complicated form." An example of this is when water drains out of a bathtub, it will become more orderly by forming a vortex (whirlpool). The Self-Ordering Tendencies theory suggests that this could be an analogy for how nature spontaneously organizes itself under certain circumstances. The problem with this is that the level of organization from spontaneity is really, really low. This is like writing "I love you" again and again and again in a book. It has a little order, but nothing compared to the complexity of a living cell, or even a single protein.

Theory #4: Molecules from Outer Space
I'm not kidding, this is an actual theory proposed by people like Crick (the co-discoverer of DNA as the information of life). This theory proposes that amino acids and/or proteins came to earth on meteorites, and that these fragile molecules would be protected by layer of graphite dust. There are two problems that make this theory a load of bull. One, the molecules would simply vaporize on impact. And two, this doesn’t solve the problem of the origin of life, it merely moves it to another planet.

Theory #5: Ocean Vents
I'm sure you all have heard of the underwater sea vents that allow for life to exist at the bottom of the sea. It has been proposed that this would provide a nice safe environment for molecules to gather and develop into amino acids and proteins. Now there are a few things wrong with this hypothesis, 1st it fails to address how amino acids might form into proteins in the first place. The 2nd problem is that it is now thought that the water near the vents is periodically recycled through the vents. Even if you were somehow able to get larger molecules nearing amino acids, they would fall apart under the extreme temperatures when they passed through the vents.

Theory #6: Life from Clay
A more recent hypothesis, this suggests that "life somehow arose on clays whose crystalline structure had enough complexity to somehow encourage prebiotic chemicals to assemble together." In one sense clay might help because molecules don't like to react in water and clay might provide them with a dryer environment. The main problem with this last theory, however, is that the crystalline form of clay is relatively simple. It’s the same problem as with the Self-Ordering Tendencies theory: It is just way too simple of a sequence compared to that of a single protein.

And that, is the counter argument to the top six origin of life theories today. As Klaus Dose (a biochemist who's considered one of the top experts in this area) has said,
"More than thirty years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity f the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather tan to its solution. At present all discussion on principle theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance."

As for me, when I see that we have exhausted all possible natural possibilities for the origin of life, I turn to supernatural ones.

Hmm... I'm not going to argue all those points, I'm no expert, but I'm confident that there's holes in all of them, either that or you're misrepresenting them.

but first, What is the probability that everything that happened yesterday happened. Think of all the variables. there are trillions of stars, each made of trillions of atoms, and then there's those subatomic particles that follow probabilistic rules.

If you do the math, you'll find out it's exactly equal to 1. Events that have already occurred have a 100% chance of happening.

Yes, obviously it happened. The question though, is did it happen because of natural or supernatural causes?

As for being confident there are holes in the arguements or that I am misrepresenting them in some way, I encourage anyone look into this matter, heaven forbid maybe even do a little research if you are interested enough. Also, if anyone has any questions or comments, you can also reach me at CerisRavalon@hotmail.com

At 3/6/04 02:42 AM, Ceris wrote: As for being confident there are holes in the arguements or that I am misrepresenting them in some way, I encourage anyone look into this matter, heaven forbid maybe even do a little research if you are interested enough.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but don't immediately judge all atheists to be closed-minded. Many of them are quite open to other possibilities, but none have really clicked, so they keep to their non-beleving ways. I'll recommend quite an interesting read to you as well, "Chariots of the Gods". It's an interesting read, to say the least... but I very much doubt anyone will really look into it, so I won't say much beyond that.

At 3/5/04 08:22 PM, the_unknown_soldier wrote: havn't read this whole post but would jsut like to put in my $.02

this is coming from an agnostic, so biases are asumed...

atheists say they believe there is nothing out there. that is a belief, a faith.
and then they say how stupid christians are for having a faith!

atheism is a religion. and most atheism take the stance that religion is stupid.

hypocritical, and flawed in every way.

Still haven't gotten that brain enema, eh?

Atheism isn't a belief, it's a lack there of. Most true atheists don't label themselves as such, because you're supposed to be about what you are, not what you aren't.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but don't immediately judge all atheists to be closed-minded. Many of them are quite open to other possibilities, but none have really clicked, so they keep to their non-beleving ways.

I wan't assuming aetheists in general to be closed-minded. Rather I meant to refer to (I might not have been explicit about this at the time) was the newgrounds people that appear to not even listen to others, or quote them only to insult them in some way.

At 3/6/04 03:31 AM, Ceris wrote: I meant to refer to (I might not have been explicit about this at the time) was the newgrounds people that appear to not even listen to others, or quote them only to insult them in some way.

Can't disagree with ya there :)