Does God Exist Debate at Durham College/UOIT Part 4

[dschroff70]

Jesus, when is this douche going to shut up? Where does he get off saying that logic and reasoning come from god? Says who?

[exmiranda]

what is the point of these debates...no conclusion will be made we will all just keep believing in what we believe unless there is a personal adaptation occurrence in that individual.JHUCR

[tinykicksass]

@exmiranda Well, if people who are questioning their beliefs decide to go to it, it might make or help them decide what to believe/not believe. It' also can be a good way for people to learn about other beliefs.

[scienquist]

His argument is purely geared towards the irrationality of atheism. I don't know why he doesn't give proofs that God exists.  Such as the origin of causality and motion as well as the necessity of a non-contingent being.

[jjmcowboy]

Joel Boot is only quote mining.. he's taking a small part of what Dawkins said and moulding it to his liking. Now that, Mr. Boot, is ridiculous.

With the theory of evolution as tried and true as it is today, in contrast to the bible's many inaccuracies and contradictions I'm surprised that individuals at a higher level of learning like university are still gullible enough to hold onto religion.

[scienquist]

@jjmcowboy That's a fairly ignorant position to hold. I don't understand why atheists believe that Darwinism eliminates the possibility of a God. I believe in God and evolution. Now prove me wrong.

[jjmcowboy]

It is simple. Evolution is a scientific theory - it has a large body of evidence to support it and it has been tested and tried to death.

You ask me to prove that a God doesn't exist. I can't deny the possibility 100%, naturally. But similarly, why don't you disprove the existence of unicorns? It's all trivial.

And you say, "A God". Do you believe in a specific God? I ask because it is contradictory to believe in the Christian God and support evolution at the same time.

[scienquist]

That's not true at all. I'd say most Catholics believe in evolution. And the Church completely allows this. There are a couple conditions to that belief however. One is that there had to be a monogenesis for the creation of man, one set of original parents. And biology supports this since all people have identical mitochondrial DNA, unlike almost every other species in the world.

[horosha]

Evolution and the bible cannot coexist. The bible is either the literal word of God, or it isn't. The bible says that life began in a garden and all life was made just so. Evolution says otherwise. If you say the garden is an allegory, then original sin is an allegory, and thus there's no reason for Jesus to be crucified. But if you accept original sin and the story of Adam and Eve, then you fly in the face of decades of scientific evidence. Parts of the bible can be reconciled, yes. But not all

[horosha]

Likewise, you're completely wrong about mitochondrial DNA. We do not all have the same mitochondrial DNA. Rather, in mammals, mitochondria DNA is passed down only through the maternal line and mutates at a specific rate. Geneticists have used this fact to determine roughly how far ago two people shared a common ancestor and in what population that ancestor lived based upon how much or little their mitochondrial DNA differs. This time scale is far greater than the bible's ~6000 years of history.

[scienquist]

Look not all Christians are young earth creationists. Catholics believe in the equality of faith and reason. I personally believe in evolution because the evidence is overwhelming. And it never says anywhere in the bible that the whole bible should be interpreted literally. The Genesis story is most likely symbolic. The Church has always supported science, and the Galileo trial was complicated (cause I know you'll bring that up), but a Catholic priest invented big bang theory.

[scienquist]

I did over simplify mitochondrial DNA. But all humans who are alive today share extremely similar mitochondrial DNA to a common female origin. There could very well have been many other humans alive at the same time as her.  But that's not science it's speculation. All we know is that all humans alive today descend from a common mother, which can't be said of any other animal. and to interprit scripture as an entirely literal historical book is a new idea since the Protestant reformation

[chessdawgz]

He took Dawkins' quote out of context, as did Ben Stein...

How fucking dishonest

[MassOwnageFalco]

His argument is that its impossible for their not to be something else out there. that we cant possibly live on facts, there has to be something supernatural around those facts. its ridiculous. he makes no sense, and has zero evidence for anythig except his lack of rationality

[Maphisto86]

Theists are afraid of the unknown and so invoke something based on faith to be able to rationalize anything based on fact. That is not compatible with empiricism that is modern science. As for morality, that will never be universal.

[Maphisto86]

Boot makes no sense. Im sorry, I try to be open minded but he still has not explained why there has to be a God to make sense of the universe or to create it. What if the universe just is? What if all existence follows certain physical laws of nature, physics, etc? Why does there have to be a creator? That begs the question . . . who created the creator?

[tinykicksass]

I don't claim to know everything about God. Most of what Boot says makes sense to me though. to that 'who created the creator' question i say 'how did whatever created/caused the universe to exist get created'? i guess that's where faith comes in... but if there wasn't God then the way i see it we'd have no reason to care about others we'd just all do whatever we want. that's just wat i think though like i said before i don't claim to know everything about this subject.

[MassOwnageFalco]

how do you figure? you cant just say that. its common sense not to kill each other, to steal from one another, or to harm others. Its not like chirstians or theists dont hurt people. its really an invalid point. its amazing that theists cant imagine a world wiithout god, like he is responsible for everything or whats the point? its crazy. whats the point? WERE ANIMALS. we eat, mate, and survive. just like any other species. were just much more advanced

[tinykicksass]

Ok, but how did common sense originally get formed? and u r right Christians and other theists do hurt people and steel and various other bad things, we are not perfect. But some of the very bad cases that I've heard about (like murder) involve the guilty person saying that they're Christian but they have never read the Bible or gone to church. So are they actually Christian then?

[horosha]

"Ok, but how did common sense originally get formed?"

First, a sense formed. Then, natural selection caused that sense to be common. You really do not need the supernatural to explain it. You might as well ask "But how does a spider know how to spin its web?" The obvious answer being that it doesn't; spinning its web is part of a behavior inscribed into its genes. All life share this concept in one way or another. In people, we evolved our morality. This is not inexplicable.

[tinykicksass]

Ok that just raises another question. how did that sense get formed? And how did the behavior get inscribed on their genes?

Ultimately, I guess there's no way to 100% prove any belief. with every new answer to a question seems to bring up other questions (that goes for religions too).

But please explain to me, how is common sense common? Everyone seems to have a different belief of what is common sense and what isn't.

[tinykicksass]

And yes, we are animals. There's nothing in the Bible that says that we aren't. Why some religious people believe we aren't, I have no idea.

[MassOwnageFalco]

common sense formed by people getting together and deciding it was probably a bad idea not to kill each other!!!! i have a hard time believing it was god coming down in a magical spirit and filling us in!! and your point about the murderers is so wrong. i can give you many examples of hardcore christians doing VERY VERY wrong.

[tinykicksass]

ok give me some. and also prove that they also understood the Bible.

[tinykicksass]

i'm not saying that people who don't believe in God don't care about other people... i just mean that way back at the beginning of time if there wasn't a God than the first people wouldn't have any guidelines of how to behave and then all there decendants probably wouldn't either.

[yeldarb04]

If you understand what reality must be if atheism is true, then you would understand that Boot has very clearly outlined the neccessity of God as a pre-condition for existence, if anything is indeed true/knowable.

[juggep80]

Boot has outlined magic as necessity.

Cosmological argument is used by fucktards mainly

[Maphisto86]

From what I can see, Rev. Boot is invoking a strawman. While he has identified philosophers who see no truth to this world because they throw out god, that does not speak for all atheistic philosophies. That would be like invoking Islamic arguments for Christian ones.