@bhsbassdude07 if "nothing" is the absence of "everything", which would include any potential and any boundary, then I'd like to know a better definition than "an infinite void with zero potential". Feel free to let me know how you'd define "nothing", without that definition entailing the exclusion of potential or limit.
@bhsbassdude07"An infinite void with zero potential is NOT nothing, it is something. Namely, it is an infinite void of zero potential!"
"nothing" is not the negation of "something". It is the negation of "everything", including potential and boundaries. So, what was the potential prior to the big-bang singularity? If you argue that it was 0, then the universe cannot exist logically. If you concede that it was not 0, then prior to the big bang singularity, there was "something".
@bhsbassdude07 cont.. prior to the singularity because, for a singularity to come about, there must be potential for it to come about and by definition, "nothing" has no potential. This would also mean that there is a boundary to "nothing". Again, we're down to definitions. True "nothing" is the negation or the absence of "everything". If there is potential, then we're not talking about "nothing". If there is a limit or a boundary, then it is not "nothing". i.e. pre-singularity is not "nothing"
@bhsbassdude07 this is in danger of degenerating into semantics, but alas, we must be clear on definitions to continue. Space-time can only be said to not exist at the point of singularity in the same way that atoms didn't exist at the point where the big bang began and there was only a super hot dense plasma. Yet this contained within it all the potential to form atoms. Likewise, the singularity contained within it all the potential to form our universe. It cannot be false the anything existed
@Lichtspielhaus234 if you don't know how to look at "all comments" and find a response - that's not my problem. Now, like I told you already - f@#k off!
@Lichtspielhaus234 could it be because in the Bible it makes it clear that the sacrifice in question is a Holocaust? And that Holocaust translates as burnt offering? Could it also be that you have been told this before and ignored it? And would this make you dim, or a hypocrite ? Or both?
@Lichtspielhaus234 I don't have any arguments, therefore they cannot be weak. The text is plain and unambiguous. The Bible implies nothing, it is in black and white, that you choose to ignore it is your problem. And please stop shouting, it just makes you seem desperate and immature.
To me, there's no other reason to believe he exists except in imagination. I've heard this suggestion before that atheism is a fear based reaction to a conscience knowing that the Christian god is supposed to hold us accountable for our actions, but in my opinion the whole concept of the Christian god removes responsibility for our actions in the name of a higher power and atheism represents acceptance of responsibility, rather than pass the buck and to some imaginary divine responsibility.
@TheTexanCanadian Your imagination is strong I would say. Under Divine Command theory how is it you think Christians remove responsibility for actions if it is the very nature of the Higher Power of Goodness that we are held accountable too. There is no reason to have morals if no God. Why would you bother other then to think it is good when I steal or rape except when it happens to me. Objective means you don't have to like it but it still OUGHT to be done. Why are you really an atheist?
1) There is no reason to have morals if no god. This one is very simple. I agree with Harris, to reduce suffering for fellow sentient beings, and this is based on empathy and also verified through evolutionary biology. 2) Why would you other than to think it is good... As I believe gods reside in the imagination, the only other reason for the desire to behave morally is from the desire to belong to a community as well as empathy.
3) Objective means you don't have to like it... the "ought" can be explained based on acceptable behavior in the eyes of your culture and community, which is why it's ok for Muslims to mutilate young girls' genitalia, for the WBC to accept hate towards homosexuals as part of their dogma, and ancient Egyptians to bury slaves with their masters. Objective when applied to people and ONLY to people depends on the person perceiving objectivity from a subjective viewpoint.
4) Me, specifically, why am I an atheist? I have no emotional need for a higher power, and see no evidence of one which is strong enough to accept it as my version of reality. I was both lucky and unlucky enough to be raised in a military family and moved around too much to be indoctrinated by any communities, and my parents didn't indoctrinate me. My father taught me to value the ability to think critically, that's really all there is to it.
There is one point that I feel I must add. To admit that your god is the god of the bible is to accept that god in total, as described in the bible. To add to this definition of him in any way, or alter or IGNORE some aspects of the biblical god is to create a new god of your own and NOT to worship the god of the bible.
This is extremely important, as it explains why atheists get angry at atheism. Even though Christians say their god is only love, you cannot ignore all the rest.
@Lichtspielhaus234 Is this what you are looking for? "Whatever/whoever emerges and comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be God’s, and I shall sacrifice him/her/it as a holocaust." Judges 11:31 - a holocaust is a burnt offering). Black and white, no wiggle room, Next!
@Lichtspielhaus234 I've responded to this point 3 times now as anyone can clearly see. You're an utter arse, a blatant liar, incompetent, bitter cos you got schooled in bible matters, or some combination of the 4. Go and read my responses to you, then apologize. Otherwise just f#@k off! I have no patience for people whose sole purpose is to waste the time of other good honest folk. Anyone can read what it says in the bible about Jephthah and see's who's got the problem here. You dig?
@Lichtspielhaus234 As sam put it, if the worst charge against him is that he is "merely concerned with the well-being of conscious creatures", it is a charge for which he is more than willing to be found guilty. "One wonders what Professor Craig is concerned about." ~Harris
@Lichtspielhaus234 "No, what you did was give yourself an excuse for your morals." This is what is so pernicious about the religious notions of morality. If moving away from the worst possible misery for everyone is a mere "excuse", there is a problem with your view of what is good. Moreover, if the alternative that you hold is dependent upon the caprice of a morally questionable, arbitrarily defined, 'god', there is no guarantee that holding to this view will not result in utter misery.
@Lichtspielhaus234 You asked what would make me more moral than someone else. On Harris' view, it would DEPEND on my action's, compared to another's, EFFECTS on well-being. That was an epistemic issue that I assume we have resolved?
Now you ask 'What makes it true" referring to well-being being good. The idea is that there is a scale of experience, from the worst possible misery for everyone to unmitigated bliss for everyone, and moving away from the first and towards the second, is moral.
@Lichtspielhaus234 Look friend, either this stuff is the word of an omniscient deity OR it's not! From Pat Robertson to John Hagee to Ted Haggard to Benny Hinn to Fred Phelps to the crazy Quran burning kook down in Florida, Christians teach divisiveness & hatred and they'll perpetuate fraud across the the world as long as the gullible masses continue to buy into the mass psychosis of religions (like Christianity). We judge you to be terminally immoral, based on YOUR DOCTRINE & HISTORICAL ACTS!
Can someone please give me a coherent definition of "objective" as it pertains to morality. This entire debate hinges on what seems a semantic distinction.
For something to be objectively moral would it not be the case that morality itself, by that definition, be something that is completely separated from intent and consequences? For something to be objectively moral it must be true in EVERY possible universe, even one without any beings capable of moral action or with any preferences.
@FlakMeister well by your definition there is no "objective" in regard to anything, at least none that could be known to us. So in fact objectivity itself, as we understand it and practice it, requires axiomatic assumptions on our part. There is no escaping this. Yet we don't abandon logic, mathematics, science or medicine to relativism. Why should we do so with morality? Harris proposes we don't. Craig proposes that if there is no absolute morality as you define it, we can do nothing else.
@dj2baduk My contention is that when Harris and Craig speak of "moral facts" their usage of the term mean very different things. Craig refers to a objective morality that is as I previously described it whereas Harris' "moral landscape" is an objective conclusion to an inter-subjective definition of morality. In other words, IF we desire a society that maximises happiness, not condoning rape is conducive to achieving it. As it were, Craig is playing word games while Harris talks about morality.
@FlakMeister "Can someone please give me a coherent definition of "objective" as it pertains to morality. " It means whatever WLC wants it to mean, and can change to suit the situation.
Any moral person will abandon The Bible & it's teachings by age 10! The first time you read the family values on offer in The Good Book you'll realize it's immoral -- from Jephthah & his daughter to Abraham & Isaac and even Lott & his daughters. The Bible is PRO-slavery, PRO-genocide & the whole contraption is completely pinned in the idea of scapegoating sins away by means of child sacrifice, can you be any more immoral or unethical than that? Yet the faithful get giddy over "John 3:16"...
I gotta go here soon, but I will say that for the huge differences we have you have been free of the obnoxious kind of ridicule that we believers usually get. Yes I've heard the refutations and I don't think they carry much weight.
It seems to me that God can use angels and miracles and Virgin births and floods miracles and myths and stories and anything He chooses to tell us about Himself. Why should I assume that I know better? I mean He is talking about Himself, right? Start the refutation, this should be fun!
@TheTexanCanadian Literally the Word of God -- not literally the words of God. Written by people with pencils or something on scrolls, you know. Not fluttered down from heaven, you know.
That's fine and what I meant, thank you for answering me instead of dancing around, but I'm genuinely sorry to hear you say that.
As you believe it, however, despite the hundreds of videos on Youtube which refute it in every way it possibly can be refuted, I have to say that there's nothing I could say to you that would change your mind if you accept it as true. You've obviously heard very many arguments already and dismissed them, even though I would say they're sound.
@TheTexanCanadian It is up to you to show me how God is "specifically defined" in the Bible. Otherwise I have accepted your "refutation" without having heard it. You tell me how the Bible defines God, and I'll tell you whether I agree. Fair?
Omnipresent, omnipotent, omni-benevolent, bound to physical form in whatever way he wishes but only at such times as he wishes. That's what I would say defines his actual existence, not his stated character.
@TheTexanCanadian It is difficult to say much about God's ACTUAL existence, except perhaps as you say, it is as he wishes. By stated character do you mean as stated in the Bible? How is his character stated in the Bible, besides showing a deep concern for the affairs of humans?
There are too many contradictions for me to explain myself very well in a short time, and it'd just be tedious in 500 character segments. Honestly I don't want to be up until 6am again either. Thank you for the discussion.
You don't prefer to argue with the Bible? I beg to differ. It has been your main ploy. Have at it. I'll get the popcorn and get ready for the sure-to-be entertaining rant. Go!
Not at all. I have completely satisfied my curiosity with the bible, it is of no interest to me. I'd much prefer to have you show me just a little bit of the intellectual honesty I keep hoping for and admit that your god is not the one in the bible, or at least that he only has SOME of the characteristics of the biblical god.
@TheTexanCanadian Hold on. The Bible is of no interest to you? I smell a rat. That's all you've been interested in -- for refutation purposes only. I see the trap you are setting, but you yourself just fell into it. HA!
@TheTexanCanadian Why should I "admit" anything like that at the outset? It is your refutation. You are supposed to convince me that "my" God is not the God of the Bible. Go for it.
Wow really? Any competent dentist could open your mouth and determine that there is something wrong with your tooth. As someone else can verify your claim, it is not subjective.
@TheTexanCanadian VERY GOOD! That was just the point I was about to make. So why don't you do that very rational, natural thing --check it out , instead of pretending that being subjective, it isn't real?
@TheTexanCanadian Check out the truth of whether the Bible is true or not, of course. You might start by reading the Gospel of John and see what Jesus has to say FOR HIMSELF, rather than what you imagine he does? Why resist doing the investigation, if the truth is what you are really after. (I suspect its not.)
You assume I haven't read or even studied the bible. I probably know it better than you do. It's investigation of the bible that leads most atheists to abandon the silly concept of the god mentioned inside it.
Craig avoided it because it is irrelevant to the discussion -- as I said, you can refute ithe Bible to your hearts content, doesn't effect the evidence I gave and that you -- for unclear reasons of your own -- reject.
The bible is not irrelevant to the discussion, it IS the discussion, for without the bible, the Judeo-Christian god wouldn't exist. It invalidates the concept of god by its sheer ignorance, misinformation and contradictions, and Craig was smart enough to know that. He tries (and fails) to justify the existence of god based on logic and reason, not the bible. The reasons may be unclear to you, sadly, but they are not unclear to Craig or to me.
Slimy? Please. I don't "prefer" to argue with the bible, it is indefensible, and can't argue for itself, it's just a book. If you mean prefer to argue about the bible than about your beliefs, naturally.
I'd be careful if I were you. You define your god based on your own list of characteristics, and don't mention the long list of characteristics to be found in the bible for him. Are you saying your god is exactly the god of the bible or some different god?
@TheTexanCanadian As I said, argue with the Bible all you want. I gave you a few of my reasons for believing. If you think "refuting" the Bible history or Noah's ark or angels disproves God, I think you will find you are mistaken.
So you're saying, if I understand you correctly, that the bible is in error? That it does not accurately describe your god and that your god is therefore not the one in the bible?
"What makes you more moral than another?" On your philosophy, how close I adhere to the laws of the bible. On mine, whether my actions are more likely to increase the well-being of myself, my neighbors, and all conscious creatures that said actions affect. Are you one of those 'follow your intuition' christians, or 'follow the bible' christians? Let me guess, liberal theology is your bread and butter, yes? Take a bit here, leave that bit there, lovely menu you're ordering from.
Exactly, that's what bothers me the most about modern Christians. They pick and choose which parts of the bible are true and which aren't, but still fall back on the collective belief of their fellow Christians to prove those beliefs are true, even though when you get down to it, they all believe something completely different.
It's also no wonder Christianity is so popular in America. You can super-size and customize your order for everything, why not for your supreme beings? As morally repugnant as I find Islam, at least with their religion they follow the Qu'ran and don't try to whitewash the nasty parts out and pretend their god is ONLY loving.
"Question, what education do you have to validly interpret that he spoke of these laws???"
Sounds like: "what right do you have to interpret the bible as a layman (let the professionals handle it)" Aquinas, Augustine, how about Spinoza? Saint Thomas More? Which of these doesn't belong in the list, and why?
No, the fact that something unfalsifiable ALONE does not make something false. It just restricts you from proving that it is indeed false based on evidence alone. It then has to be compared to any related aspects of reality for cognitive falsification based on reasoning and logic, and equivocated against similar concepts.
I've never claimed that religion can be tested by science, because claims for the existence of a higher power are based on faith, not anything that can be verified to exist.
@TheTexanCanadian Good. So the statement "all babies are born atheists"-- is that a fasifiable theory? Can it be scientifically tested? It sounds logical and may very well be true, but how might science prove it false? If it cannot be scientifically tested, and I don't see how it can, then it becomes a statement of faith. It can be believed and wished to be true, but if it is not scientifically demonstrable it is not scientific knowledge, but a metaphysical assumption based on belief -- faith..
Yes, it can be falsified that babies are born atheists. Studying babies for knowledge of a SPECIFIC higher power is going to prove that they do not have faith in one. As faith is the only proof of a higher power, and babies don't possess that faith, they are atheists. Babies in Tanzania are not born believing in Vishnu and babies in Ireland are not born believing in Allah. The subjective opinion based on faith and nothing else is all that creates these beliefs in babies.
The easiest way would be to take very young children, just old enough to talk, and ask them questions about reality. You'd then see that they have no grasp of reality since their higher cognitive abilities have not developed.
Hypothesis: they should then be more likely to accept positive and negative reinforcement, as well as system of absolute values, if these systems are all they know, and the more exposure to one system the less likely they are to accept another.
Furthermore, when a child is raised to believe in, say, Yahweh, they don't say "this doesn't correspond with what I feel in my heart, the real god is Zeus." This is further falsification of the concept that babies are born with beliefs in a higher power. As they are not, then the impression/indoctrination of them by their communities is based on the subjective opinions of those around them.
@bhsbassdude07 According to modern science, space and time are part of the same thing, with 4 dimensions. Gravitational theory predicts that in the early universe they were so distorted by the extreme gravitational conditions that they formed a boundary, or a singularity, beyond which neither space or time can be said to have existed, but the stuff they're made of would have. I concede that physicist do use the term "pop into existence", but not from literally "nothing".
@Lichtspielhaus234 " Who invaded the U.S.??" um...no one. it was settled by christians. Some atheists deny objective morality, some advocate it. You can't be a christian without advocating objective morality. See the difference yet?
@Lichtspielhaus234 Well, he couldn't have been speaking about moses because most of the books attributed to this character couldn't have been written by him. He was speaking about the law. Old Testament law is pretty clear cut, which is why earlier you tried to say the OT isn't valid anymore.
First, Origin of Species is not treated like the bible. Much of what is in there has been revised to represent the current theory in biology (you know, facts?). Second, even if it was treated like the bible, social darwinism is not advocated in origin of species. That was, as you said, an 'inspiration', not a passage. The bible doesn't 'inspire' things like slavery, genocide, and the burning of heretics, it commands these things.
"I'm asking for their apology for their philosophy that Native Americans were mindless savages." Do you have to be european to hold this philosophy? Do you have to hold this philosophy if you are a european? If the answer is no to these questions, then you're just pulling at straws to square a circle.
"Atheism leads to a subjective moralism without truth" - I disagree, Sam Harris disagrees, thousands of atheists disagree, Sweden disagrees, The US Constitution disagrees. EVIDENCE please. :)
@Lichtspielhaus234 We're not going to forget what the church did while it was in power, what your book commands if the followers can achieve it, what limitless savagery can be justified by claiming "gott mit uns" (german for 'God on our side', standard issue nazi belt buckle). Its all there for the world to see, nothing has been revised, nothing updated, the evil that emerged once can emerge again, borne out of the very same passages. This is god's law, not god's recommendations...
@Lichtspielhaus234 "Oh hold the Church to the standard but not you?" The church has a book. They claim this book was written by the creator of the universe, and through them alone can it be understood. They have gone to every length to maintain this autonomy, and even today theologians and apologists claim the scriptures are just too complicated for the layman, leave it to the experts. The experts, while in power, gave us heresy hunts, and the TEXTS ARE THE SAME, you just ignore it now.
"there has been no apology for his atheism" - Just as you will get no apology for europeans for their europeanism. Atheism does not lead to nihilism as a logical necessity, as the video this comment is POSTED on can verify.
"I'm not referring to his ideas of agriculture." - Then perhaps his cultural revolution in response to dissent from his failed agricultural ideas? Which of these things is logically necessary on atheism, and how have the rest of us atheists escaped this 'binding' syllogism?
"What about the evils that the Europeans have done..." - There nothing logically necessary about being a European and doing nasty things to native americans. Thats the distinction.
"That's OT, New T states Love your enemies." - god is either changeless, or fickle, he can't be both. I would remind you that the 10 commandments are in the old testament, and Mark 5:18 belies the separation you wish to engineer between the old and new. If they weren't defending it, they'd be rid of it.
@bhsbassdude07 and I agree that the story of Jephthah's daughter is most likely a cautionary tale, but it was brought up in relation to the character of the biblical god. According to the story, Jephthah won the battles after swearing an oath to god. Whether god actually helped or not, whether the sacrifice promised was wanted or not, if anyone else in the role of god here kept quiet while all of this was going on, we'd consider it immoral. A girl was killed and burnt. He said nothing.
@bhsbassdude07 What cosmological model do you hold to that claims anything "came into existence" from literally nothing whilst holding true to the laws of physics? What experience can you cite of anything beginning to exist as opposed to it being pre-existing stuff changing form? You are making the claim that things "come into existence", so what's your evidence for that.
@bhsbassdude07 A pre-big bang singularity is a common component among most of the mainstream cosmological models. The point is none of these talk about ex-nihilo creation. Nothing, by definition, would be an infinite void with zero potential. If it had boundaries, it would not be nothing. If it had potential, it wouldn't be nothing. We exist so there must be a boundary between something and "nothing", which negates "nothing". The only logical conclusion is that "something" has alwasy existed.
The scientific evidence for evolution up to and including humans is not in question. Although we don't know for certain how life began on the planet, it has been demonstrated conclusively that live can come from non-living material. This possibility gives one explanation which does not require a supreme being's involvement. I have no 'faith" in this matter at all. It is just the best information available.
@TheTexanCanadian Evolution is a poor hypothesis that uses a lot of inference but the atheist has an unquestionable faith in this. Look at fascist efforts to attack Intelligent Design. Can you empirically prove the mechanism for new genetic information and features? Where is this evidence? If evolution is inferred as the means for all life then this mechanism needs to be demonstrable to show how we go from say a dog to something that is no longer a dog. NOT PROVEN YET = Hypothesis
"the atheist has an unquestionable faith in this."
Wrong, no atheist has unquestionable faith in evolution, none that I know anyway, and certainly not me. All evidence that I've seen proves that it is accurate.
As I am not an evolutionary biologist, only a layman, I can only point you to the same evidence that convinced me. Since you are now responding with arguments from the likes of such parodies of human intelligence as Ray Comfort, I don't know if that would even matter.
@TheTexanCanadian You trust godless evolution as truth then all you have is faith as faith is trust. The convincing power of evolution is more based on assumptions about the past rather then any hard evidence that new features and new genetic code is made by the ever so small steps that takes eons of time given the equilibrium of natural selection. See I too am an evolutionist in that natural selection is demonstrable and refereed to as micro evolution. But the atheist has faith in the macro
Wrong. You still don't understand. There are two explanations in modern society for how life as come to be. Evolution and religion. Religion is obviously false as it is unfalsifiable. Evolution, while not able to explain every aspect of the history of life, is consistent, testable, verifiable, falsifiable, and has yet to be disproven. So, while it is not absolute truth, it is the best explanation available. NO faith is involved. Ifa better explanation comes about, so be it.
@TheTexanCanadian Wrong. Christianity is not obviously false. The falsification idea can not be falsified so is self refuting. The induction used by evolution to guess what was in he past is not testable. Consistent? I understand the religious usage of evolution to deny God is a great consistency in the effort but this does not mean it is true. You may have a faith in a science of the gaps but there are some big gaps. Macro-evolution is yet to be proven so how can it be disproven?
"Macro-evolution is yet to be proven so how can it be disproven?"
This shows that you don't know anything about evolution. The information you're looking for is readily available, unfortunately theists end up looking for "crocoducks" instead of real transitional forms, of which there are plenty.
Even if evolution were proven to be mistaken it would not mean your god were real.
As you obviously don't know very much about evolution I won't bother responding to the rest.
@TheTexanCanadian As a former atheist I know more about it then you are willing to give me credit. It was a fine validation for atheism but if you rightly examine the real evidence it has some problems. Evolution is not a law and has not had all the gaps neatly filled like religious atheist would wish. Where is the proven information that things such as fruit fly's have evolved into something that is no longer a fruit fly. Also God could have used evolution so it does not prove atheism.
No, there are of course gaps in our knowledge about evolution. We cannot create fossils, we can only study what we find. But so far, nothing has come along to refute evolutionary theory.
"Also God could have used evolution so it does not prove atheism."
Of course not. I never suggested evolution and atheism were related. Atheism is a response to a claim. Evolution is a tested and reliable system of scientific theory and as I said has yet to be dispoven.
@TheTexanCanadian The atheist ideology of evolution can not be refuted as it has not been proven. Atheism is powerfully connected with evolution. Look at the atheist effort to ram it down the throats of those who don't believe in that brand of magic. Look at what happens to scientists who question evolution in the liberal halls of academia. You can't fool a former atheist like me but keep up the effort as it illustrates the atheist religious agenda to just make is so... by force if needed
You're doing it again. It's hilarious that you claimed that you're capable of critical thinking. It's not too late to overcome your fear of the imaginary hell and work your way back to objective reality.
You've definitely shown me the extent that a believer will go to avoid reality. Thank you for that.
@TheTexanCanadian Yes the precious godless claim on reality that the atheist does cling to is rather imaginary. So when the make the free will choice of the prison that hell is and the second death that is entailed it will be little comfort that they will know the conscious decision they have made. Again understand that Hell is not eternal life. God will only make us suffer the right portion of our sins and no more. But I am sorry that some Christians have taught it wrong.
@rusty2029 You're tansparent attempt at equating science and magic to put it on the same level that the mythology you believe in is hilarious... Be careful to the faries that operate your computer...
@Acrimonator I don't believe in magic. But to think of the impossible nature of the evolution effort to seek and explain all of the complexity in nature as some random chaotic process might as well be magic. To look at nature and all of it's beauty and say there is no God is to appeal to the magic of emergence. The magic of a complex information system like DNA needing no proscriptive cause. Yes magic in a universe that blooms from nothing without cause. There is no magic.
@rusty2029 Have you got soome problem making sense ?
You say "I don't believe in magic" and "To look at nature and all of it's beauty and say there is no God" AHsn't god used magic to create the world you believe is ?
And more important, science looks like magic only to those not understanding it, a little little when native americans first saw guns... Conclusion, you live in a backward fairytale.
@Acrimonator No I don't but I say that the atheist does. God is not a magician. God is the great I Am who is the most perfect being. (ontological argument) God is the Creator who understands all physical laws and constants as He is the cause of them so the law of causation points to God. God can augment physical properties so that one can walk on water or have the dead rise and become living. Science is a thumb so that we can use the fingers of the bible to grasp the majesty of creation.
@rusty2029 Ok, it's confirmed, you've got real understanding problems. God can change physical properties of reality but that is not magic ? Perhaps you'd like to read the definition of magic... BTW, have you got some evdidence for your claims ? I don't think so, but I know that your standard of evidence in favor of a deity is lower than for reality.
@Acrimonator What is confirmed is the mathematical improbability of things like the digital information system of DNA happening at random. Do you understand odds? The odds of life happening by random is greater then what is considered to be the probabilistic number of molecules in the universe. IE. If I toss five coins what are the odds of them all landing on edge rather then heads or tails? What if you need that to happen over 200 times in succession? Thus the magic of self ordering..
@rusty2029 Ok, so why don't you point me to these documents ? Surely because nobody ever said that DNA happened at random. Sorry for your strawman. And I wonder wich knowledge you have on the matter to spew such non sense. The only option is that you don't understand what you're talking about, so please take a course on molecular biology if you want to discusses a subject that you obviousely don't master as much as you'd like us to believe.
At lest before speaking of the bible, I've read it.
@TheTexanCanadian Archeopteryx is disputed and merely a bird with reptile like features. But if not for evolution the atheist would have little intellectual standing. Even Ricard Dawkins acknowledges this so you bet you can't separate atheism and how atheists use evolution as promotion of their ideology. My eyes have been opened to the ad-hoc efforts to make it as godless and designless as possible. It is sad really how I used to fall for it all of its tasty scientism goodness.
@TheTexanCanadian A theory that is unfasifiable does not make it "obviously" FALSE! (Think about it for a minute ...) OK? A theory that is unfalsifiable means it is a theory which is not "scientific" in the sense it can be scientifically tested. It doesn't mean that such a theory is illogical or impossible -- it just lies beyond the means of scientific investigation to confirm or deny. But don't you rather claim that "religion" can be tested by science? Which is it?
@GospelHouseKat No my claim is that the atheist makes a godless limited box that posits only the hegemony of empiricism then asserts no evidence for God can be found. A true free thinker knows that there is a variety of epistemological means for evidence even by logic and reason alone (ontology) So verisimilitude can be gained by testing mere facts given experience of how we know things. This is not about science but about testing truth. Example: Biblical prophecy that comes true
The scientific method REQUIRES that as little faith is used as possible. If something requires faith, it is studied until it is understood more. Nothing is off limits to enhance human knowledge.
@TheTexanCanadian --Nothing is off limits to enhance human knowledge. Then science is not the only method to find truth and gain knowledge. It may be true that as little faith is used as possible one could say that in hard methodological silence the only faith is that the conclusions are derived properly. This can be tested and corrected amiright? I say that for a fair minded atheist Christianity can be studied so as to be understood better but this is not the fact for the YT village atheist
I assure you, I'm as fair minded an atheist as you're going to find. I mean it 100% that if there were evidence supporting a supernatural creator like your god I would believe it. But I have no need of one, emotionally or intellectually.
Certainly science is not the only method to find truth and gain knowledge, but at the moment it is the most trustworthy.
Certainly faith can aid in discovering truth, but not when it requires dispensing with evidence gained by scientific means.
@TheTexanCanadian Again I see the inference that you think science can or has dis-proven God. There is a wealth of evidence given at Christian apologetic sites. There is a wealth of evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ and that His followers experienced the living Messiah after his death and resurrection. The case for Christ is one of the strongest of the points of evidence that the Christian has. Early Christians would not have suffered and died under the powerful hatred against them.
As your god is supernatural, technically it is impossible to prove that it doesn't exist except for pointing out the inconsistencies, contradictions, and fallacies of the model of the Christian god himself. Science can't do this, as science does not extend to the supernatural.
Even if Jesus really lived, there is no evidence that he was in any way supernatural or that he was resurrected. The gospels were written decades or even hundreds of years later, by word of mouth only.
I was going to make a large detailed counter-point against the uploader of the audio-feed. At this point (given some of the comments rusty has made) I would just feel naive. The best way to describe religion in my opinion is to call it an idea virus that eventually takes over the host and tears their honesty, decency, and self-respect away in service of furthering the idea. Rusty is a lost soul guys, I wouldn't waste my time on this one.
I've known plenty of believers who have become atheists by seeking truth. It's always possible in a discussion, so I don't stop trying to argue my points (so long as someone is civil) until it's obvious that they are incapable of reason and critical thinking. I completely agree with your description of religion. I look at it as a collective definition of subjective reality, and Christianity works so well because it makes the definition of the god completely customized.
@TheTexanCanadian The proscriptive design and nature of our minds to seek truth and have a criteria for testing truth even conceptually does seem to show a Higher Power at work. Critical thinking is a key for the intellectually fulfilled Christian to go out and defend what they believe. If logic and rationality are to be accepted as true then it is incorrigible and can't be further reduced or tested under methodological science. Science functions as a collective definition thus a religion???
@TheTexanCanadian My faith does not come from me but is a gift from God. The test of this is in the atheist who does not understand the definition of the word faith as trust. Does the atheist trust logic and reason? Given naturalism we should only Fight, Flight, Feed, and Reproduce. Atheist put their trust in naturalism thus have faith that there is no god as they have no empirical or scientific means to confirm atheism. Science is a religion IF viewed as the only means to knowledge.
Atheists understand trust, but trust requires two beings. I do not trust the green dodo under my desk because he doesn't exist. I do trust my mother, who does exist.
"Given naturalism we should only Fight, Flight, Feed, and Reproduce."
Only if we don't have the capacity to think, and since we do, this is an incorrect statement.
Atheists do not have faith that there is no god, as I've said I would believe if there were reason to believe.
@TheTexanCanadian Naturalism requires only instinct also known as determinism. The fact that you have a mind that can test truth shows the negation of naturalism as a true process. If naturalism is true then you are a programed meatpuppet. If determinism is true then you are just a robot to preexisting molecules in motion and nothing you do does not require a previous molecular action. So the faithless instinctive meatpuppet says what?? A mind was designed to know truth and about God.
You're just spouting the same unjustified faith-based claims over and over. There is no evidence that a mind is designed by anything other than DNA and natural processes. You're mistaking the IS (naturalism) for an OUGHT (appearance of design + your desire for your faith to be justified).
I see no evidence for a soul, so yes technically we are animals with highly developed brains. There is no evidence and no honest reason to think otherwise.
@TheTexanCanadian There is evidence and honest reason to think otherwise or I would not be a Christian. I know that you would like to take away my value as an adopted Child of God with your hypothesis that there is no God. It is scary for one to think that one will be held ultimately accountable. So as meat puppet cousins of monkeys we should just let life pass as ultimately valueless as any subjective value means the things you value go no father then the tip of your nose.... I get it.
Fear of the unknown, I've already stated, is my opinion for why religions exist at all. I have no fear of something when I have no reason to think it exists, any more than I fear ghosts or werewolves. I honestly, truly, think it's a figment of the imagination of Christians. To me there is no reason to believe any more than I would believe in Thor during a thunderstorm.
@TheTexanCanadian I was injured and was dead for a short time. I have powerful personal experiences that cause me to not even fear death. But I can turn your statement around and say that atheism is a fear based reaction to your own conscience knowing that God holds us accountable for our actions. When we stand before God in judgment we will be without excuse. You may have imagination as confirmation for atheism but my profound personal revelation of God is not a product of imagination.
@dmcgraye I base my inferences on logic and reason. You would have the burden to show this virus. Logic and reason is how we test honesty and also how we have a criteria for truth. Ad hominem attack on my person is not only a logical fallacy but a means to demonstrate the dishonesty of those who make such assertions. Besides if their is no God then I have no soul to lose thus the inference requires there to be a God to make such an assertion.
Any Christians who went to war based on their dreams would be justified, but a higher moral objectivity would exist which transcends their religion. Therefore, the moral objectivity of Christianity could be shown to be exclusive and subjective. Only the morality described by Harris comes close to true "objectivity."
@TheTexanCanadian No there is no justification to murder anybody. One can defend ones family from attack but what you are talking of can not be sanctioned by a dream or any deception you speak of. Love is our commandment and in love I would offer you a bible study so that you may understand this. God is the locus of all moral God as He is a God who loved us enough to come be with us in the person of Jesus Christ. Love relationships first above religion.
Conditional love is NOT love. Love is unconditional. The fact that your god does not demonstrate but we know this anyway proves that objective morality exists outside your god and the bible, or any religion.
@TheTexanCanadian God demonstrated His love by being with us in the person of Jesus Christ. God is one being in three persons and after Christ's sacrifice we have here with us the Holy Sprint to be a light upon our path. You have the conditional. You can accept God's love and sacrifice or reject it as it the right of every person who has free will. Remember this is about Love and relationships over any mere religion. This is well explained by WLC in Divine Command Theory.
It is a fact that everyone is born without any knowledge of a higher power of any kind, therefore everyone is born atheist. The Christian god does not reveal himself to newborns,and the subjective reality of others is provided to newborns as objective when in fact it is not.
Christian morality requires faith. For morality which is dependent on nothing but human existence and the greater good of our fellow sentient beings, nothing is required but life itself.
@TheTexanCanadian If atheism is a total ignorance of all things then you have a point. But once you are a thinking adult then God can reveal Himself to those who seek diligently. The faith of the bible is from God. God is the One who give us faith to hope and the evidence of things not seen. Faith is not from nothing if you understood Hebrews chapter 11. Life has no transcendent purpose or design if no God. Love has no reason under a godless construct that the atheist does cling to.
Ah, but babies have altruistic tendencies. Children raised with no concept of religion are capable of genuine love, compassion, and empathy even if they have not received it. Since they must be taught Christianity or any religion, the morality taught is subjective.
Godlessness is not a construct, it is in fact a default, as I've demonstrated, an can logically be considered objective reality.
@TheTexanCanadian If babies demonstrate an understanding of right and wrong the objective morals come from outside any one person. If love, compassion, guilt and empathy are a demonstrable component of what is considered a moral compass in a properly functioning human then there is a design inference for the human mind. This is demonstrable design to the human noetic effects infers a proscriptive purpose for our moral compass. The proscriptive moral designer is God.
As I've said, you show me ANY real evidence that your god exists and isn't just imaginary and I'll accept that your reality isn't subjective but objective. As things are, it requires a disconnect from reality to believe in a higher power. This is easier to accomplish with children, harder with adults, but necessary to become a believer. Faith is nothing more than the decision to accept someone else's subjective claims on reality.
@TheTexanCanadian What do you define as evidence? Evidence does have an empirical component but the hegemony of empiricism fails without the presupposition that the laws of logic are true. Some things are accepted as a properly basic belief. The law of non-contradiction for instance has no empirical means of proof thus empiricism is limited. Example: Does atheism stand on empirical proof and evidence?? Christianity can be tested for truth by logic and reason alone. atheism-analyzed . com
You ask what do I consider evidence, I would say that which is falsifiable, that which can be scientifically explained, and that which can be proven to occur or exist based on the disinterested affirmation of peers.
Atheism is not a stance. It is a response to a claim, and is based on the mind of the person performing the response.
Christianity can be tested for truth and logic, and has been, and that is why there are so many atheists.
@TheTexanCanadian ...and that is why there are so many atheists. Given that the atheist world view is roughly 10 percent of the population (in USA) I would say that fallacious thinking alone can account for it given the reliance atheists have for strawman argumentation. A parody religion can do that in fact atheism may be a parody religion. Atheists do love satirical assertions so may be the case.... BTW the idea of falsification can't be falsified thus is self refuting.
That sounds to me like you're making an argument based on how many people believe what you believe. The fact is, in other parts of the world, people follow religions with just as much sincerity as you follow yours, and can argue the validity of those religions with just as much evidence. You argue that evidence of your god can be found in prophecies which have come true, but Nostradamus did as well, it means nothing. Some will be true, some won't, that's the nature of guessing.
As I argued last night with Gospel, the default position can be shown quite easily as atheism. Babies are born atheists, and although their questions about things like where did we come from and what happens after we die, are the same questions that created religious beliefs in the first place, the subjective opinions of those who answer them end up determining their beliefs, and no other evidence is required. Atheism is still, and will always be, the default position.
@TheTexanCanadian DNA is an information code. Information codes to not happen from purely random or chaotic means. We interpret codes like the semiotics of this post to carry information. Information can only come from intelligent sources and can only be understood by an intelligent mind. So if our ought imperatives come from the information code of DNA this deductively requires an intelligent proscriptive design to that code. Logic dictates information is evidence of a Design = Designer
That is a possible explanation, sure. You'd have to show how it is impossible for DNA to have developed naturally for it to be the truth, and since science has shown that you're wrong, this is a non-issue.
You are using logic to follow what you would like to believe, avoiding possibilities which run counter to your faith. I admit it is a possibility that DNA was designed, but by who and when is unknown. Trying to say that logic can prove your god did it is a perversion of logic.
@TheTexanCanadian Science as not proven abiogenisis. Science is proving the opposite in that it is impossible for life to have come from non life. Science is also proving the edge of evolution in ability to cause specified complexities that would hider fitness of an organism if all the parts had not formed at once. A gestalt of parts that needed proscriptive design. I became an atheist about the same age that Dawkins did. But truth will set you free.
Again, you haven't done your research. Look up the Miller-Ure Experiment, in which they created amino acids in a laboratory in similar conditions to early Earth. Granted it was not the exact environment but the experiment proved that creating life from non-life is indeed possible.
Assumptions of design are just that, assumptions. Without evidence, they require faith, and are no better than thinking there is light coming from the moon because it shines.
@TheTexanCanadian Miller-Ure... You bet I know about that debunked experiment that did not truly emulate the proper early earth conditions. I am sorry but amino acids are but a component of life. You need the right proteins folded to make the DNA that folds the protein to build the DNA. The wealth of new information on DNA and the complexity of even the simplest of eukaryote cell is daunting to understand but the truth is coming out.
@TheTexanCanadian You mean scientists have actually synthesized non-living chemicals from non-living chemicals in a laboratory? My faith in God is ruined!
@TheTexanCanadian Perhaps not, but you should care about the vacuity of the "evidence" for atheism that you so far present. Tell me, what fact or set of facts do you have at your disposal, that I do not, which ought to convince me not just that God is unreasonable (well He may be) but that atheism is positively true? What research results are you aware of, that I am not, that causes you to be so completely convinced of this? Surely there is something? Or is your atheism something akin to faith?
I just had a several hour long conversation with rusty on here, which started yesterday evening and ended around 6am this morning eastern time. Any questions you have about the case for atheism are there. I really don't feel like retyping it all, and should you be interested in looking that far back, I've explained my thoughts on atheism and religion and a great many other things in detail.
@TheTexanCanadian I'll take that as a NO, then, that you have at hand, unknown to me, any scientific research that leads you to the inescapable conclusion that there is no God, and leave you to your faith-based arguments. Thanks.
I don't have any faith-based arguments, but thanks for playing. You don't even understand what the word faith means, or knowledge for that matter. I actually lol'ed just now.
@TheTexanCanadian I'm surpised then, if I am to believe that your opinions are not faith-based, that you won't supply the incontrovertibly conclusive research on which you base your purportedly SCIENTIFIC knowledge that there is no God. In the interest of fairness, if I had scientific proof that there IS a God I would feel obligated to supply it. Why keep me groping in the dark? If scientists somewhere have tested the God theory and found it to be false, why withhold the research results?
First, as there is no evidence that a god exists, it's impossible to prove that it doesn't exist. Please research Russell's Flying Teapot for more explanation.
Second, the only thing required to refute Christianity is to use critical thinking while reading the bible. Luckily, scientific discoveries of the last couple of hundred years, have provided explanations for even more reasons why the bible is inaccurate. As the bible is the only tangible "proof" of god, it is refuted.
@TheTexanCanadian Russell's Teapot is an "argument" unworthy of even sarcastic comment
Refute the Bible all you want. I am a Christian, but don't claim, or need to claim, the Bible contains a proven "scientific theory." That doesn't mean its claims are irrational or not TRUE by any means, as I thought our falsifiability discussion cleared up. You, on the other hand, are bound to show your SCIENTIFIC no-God theory IS falsifiable. Just how do you go about falsifying a negative proposition?
What exactly is a negative proposition? This is ultimately only about burden of proof. If a believer of a religion decides his or her religion and/or belief in god is reality and everyone else is wrong, that's fine, it's just their choice. If that believer decides to make a case for their version of reality being ultimate, objective reality, they must be prepared to defend that case against all arguments or keep their beliefs to themselves.
@TheTexanCanadian "It is not the case that X exists" is a negative proposition. Such are notoriously hard to prove, yet you seem to think yours is self-evident. It is not. "Everyone else?" I, along with millions of others, believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God -- therefore true. I am well-prepared to argue for that -- but not as an idle academic exercise with someone who's whole aim is not serious discussion, but refutation. That would be pointless, don't you think?
That which can be scientifically tested can be disproven, claims which cannot be scientifically tested cannot be disproven, as science can be used to examine anything related to objective reality. If something cannot be verified by scientific method it can only be proven as subjectively true. That is a positive statement that I will make.
You, like every other theist I've debated, are NOT for serious discussion, only justifying your belief system in the supernatural.
It is only pointless to discuss something if the person you're communicating with is incapable of being objective, as is the case with every theist I've ever talked to. You say you're well prepared to argue for the validity of your beliefs, but you cannot do so while restricting your claims to what can be shown to be objectively true.
@landonavary Science actually, the ONLY thing closest to any TRUTH.
jubinliam 9 months ago
@bhsbassdude07 if "nothing" is the absence of "everything", which would include any potential and any boundary, then I'd like to know a better definition than "an infinite void with zero potential". Feel free to let me know how you'd define "nothing", without that definition entailing the exclusion of potential or limit.
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@bhsbassdude07"An infinite void with zero potential is NOT nothing, it is something. Namely, it is an infinite void of zero potential!"
"nothing" is not the negation of "something". It is the negation of "everything", including potential and boundaries. So, what was the potential prior to the big-bang singularity? If you argue that it was 0, then the universe cannot exist logically. If you concede that it was not 0, then prior to the big bang singularity, there was "something".
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@bhsbassdude07 cont.. prior to the singularity because, for a singularity to come about, there must be potential for it to come about and by definition, "nothing" has no potential. This would also mean that there is a boundary to "nothing". Again, we're down to definitions. True "nothing" is the negation or the absence of "everything". If there is potential, then we're not talking about "nothing". If there is a limit or a boundary, then it is not "nothing". i.e. pre-singularity is not "nothing"
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@bhsbassdude07 this is in danger of degenerating into semantics, but alas, we must be clear on definitions to continue. Space-time can only be said to not exist at the point of singularity in the same way that atoms didn't exist at the point where the big bang began and there was only a super hot dense plasma. Yet this contained within it all the potential to form atoms. Likewise, the singularity contained within it all the potential to form our universe. It cannot be false the anything existed
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 if you don't know how to look at "all comments" and find a response - that's not my problem. Now, like I told you already - f@#k off!
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 could it be because in the Bible it makes it clear that the sacrifice in question is a Holocaust? And that Holocaust translates as burnt offering? Could it also be that you have been told this before and ignored it? And would this make you dim, or a hypocrite ? Or both?
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 I don't have any arguments, therefore they cannot be weak. The text is plain and unambiguous. The Bible implies nothing, it is in black and white, that you choose to ignore it is your problem. And please stop shouting, it just makes you seem desperate and immature.
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
*edit*
"... explains why atheists get angry at atheism" is a typo.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
To me, there's no other reason to believe he exists except in imagination. I've heard this suggestion before that atheism is a fear based reaction to a conscience knowing that the Christian god is supposed to hold us accountable for our actions, but in my opinion the whole concept of the Christian god removes responsibility for our actions in the name of a higher power and atheism represents acceptance of responsibility, rather than pass the buck and to some imaginary divine responsibility.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Your imagination is strong I would say. Under Divine Command theory how is it you think Christians remove responsibility for actions if it is the very nature of the Higher Power of Goodness that we are held accountable too. There is no reason to have morals if no God. Why would you bother other then to think it is good when I steal or rape except when it happens to me. Objective means you don't have to like it but it still OUGHT to be done. Why are you really an atheist?
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
I'll address your points in turn:
1) There is no reason to have morals if no god. This one is very simple. I agree with Harris, to reduce suffering for fellow sentient beings, and this is based on empathy and also verified through evolutionary biology. 2) Why would you other than to think it is good... As I believe gods reside in the imagination, the only other reason for the desire to behave morally is from the desire to belong to a community as well as empathy.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@rusty2029
3) Objective means you don't have to like it... the "ought" can be explained based on acceptable behavior in the eyes of your culture and community, which is why it's ok for Muslims to mutilate young girls' genitalia, for the WBC to accept hate towards homosexuals as part of their dogma, and ancient Egyptians to bury slaves with their masters. Objective when applied to people and ONLY to people depends on the person perceiving objectivity from a subjective viewpoint.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@rusty2029
4) Me, specifically, why am I an atheist? I have no emotional need for a higher power, and see no evidence of one which is strong enough to accept it as my version of reality. I was both lucky and unlucky enough to be raised in a military family and moved around too much to be indoctrinated by any communities, and my parents didn't indoctrinate me. My father taught me to value the ability to think critically, that's really all there is to it.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@rusty2029
There is one point that I feel I must add. To admit that your god is the god of the bible is to accept that god in total, as described in the bible. To add to this definition of him in any way, or alter or IGNORE some aspects of the biblical god is to create a new god of your own and NOT to worship the god of the bible.
This is extremely important, as it explains why atheists get angry at atheism. Even though Christians say their god is only love, you cannot ignore all the rest.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Lichtspielhaus234 Is this what you are looking for? "Whatever/whoever emerges and comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be God’s, and I shall sacrifice him/her/it as a holocaust." Judges 11:31 - a holocaust is a burnt offering). Black and white, no wiggle room, Next!
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 I've responded to this point 3 times now as anyone can clearly see. You're an utter arse, a blatant liar, incompetent, bitter cos you got schooled in bible matters, or some combination of the 4. Go and read my responses to you, then apologize. Otherwise just f#@k off! I have no patience for people whose sole purpose is to waste the time of other good honest folk. Anyone can read what it says in the bible about Jephthah and see's who's got the problem here. You dig?
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 As sam put it, if the worst charge against him is that he is "merely concerned with the well-being of conscious creatures", it is a charge for which he is more than willing to be found guilty. "One wonders what Professor Craig is concerned about." ~Harris
One wonders what you are concerned about.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 "No, what you did was give yourself an excuse for your morals." This is what is so pernicious about the religious notions of morality. If moving away from the worst possible misery for everyone is a mere "excuse", there is a problem with your view of what is good. Moreover, if the alternative that you hold is dependent upon the caprice of a morally questionable, arbitrarily defined, 'god', there is no guarantee that holding to this view will not result in utter misery.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 You asked what would make me more moral than someone else. On Harris' view, it would DEPEND on my action's, compared to another's, EFFECTS on well-being. That was an epistemic issue that I assume we have resolved?
Now you ask 'What makes it true" referring to well-being being good. The idea is that there is a scale of experience, from the worst possible misery for everyone to unmitigated bliss for everyone, and moving away from the first and towards the second, is moral.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 Look friend, either this stuff is the word of an omniscient deity OR it's not! From Pat Robertson to John Hagee to Ted Haggard to Benny Hinn to Fred Phelps to the crazy Quran burning kook down in Florida, Christians teach divisiveness & hatred and they'll perpetuate fraud across the the world as long as the gullible masses continue to buy into the mass psychosis of religions (like Christianity). We judge you to be terminally immoral, based on YOUR DOCTRINE & HISTORICAL ACTS!
TruthJockey 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 I answered the question already.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
Can someone please give me a coherent definition of "objective" as it pertains to morality. This entire debate hinges on what seems a semantic distinction.
For something to be objectively moral would it not be the case that morality itself, by that definition, be something that is completely separated from intent and consequences? For something to be objectively moral it must be true in EVERY possible universe, even one without any beings capable of moral action or with any preferences.
FlakMeister 10 months ago
@FlakMeister well by your definition there is no "objective" in regard to anything, at least none that could be known to us. So in fact objectivity itself, as we understand it and practice it, requires axiomatic assumptions on our part. There is no escaping this. Yet we don't abandon logic, mathematics, science or medicine to relativism. Why should we do so with morality? Harris proposes we don't. Craig proposes that if there is no absolute morality as you define it, we can do nothing else.
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@dj2baduk My contention is that when Harris and Craig speak of "moral facts" their usage of the term mean very different things. Craig refers to a objective morality that is as I previously described it whereas Harris' "moral landscape" is an objective conclusion to an inter-subjective definition of morality. In other words, IF we desire a society that maximises happiness, not condoning rape is conducive to achieving it. As it were, Craig is playing word games while Harris talks about morality.
FlakMeister 10 months ago
@FlakMeister I agree.
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@FlakMeister "Can someone please give me a coherent definition of "objective" as it pertains to morality. " It means whatever WLC wants it to mean, and can change to suit the situation.
TheTomtompiper 10 months ago
Any moral person will abandon The Bible & it's teachings by age 10! The first time you read the family values on offer in The Good Book you'll realize it's immoral -- from Jephthah & his daughter to Abraham & Isaac and even Lott & his daughters. The Bible is PRO-slavery, PRO-genocide & the whole contraption is completely pinned in the idea of scapegoating sins away by means of child sacrifice, can you be any more immoral or unethical than that? Yet the faithful get giddy over "John 3:16"...
TruthJockey 10 months ago
And thanks to you. You have been a good opponent, We'll talk again -- God willing! ;)
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
I gotta go here soon, but I will say that for the huge differences we have you have been free of the obnoxious kind of ridicule that we believers usually get. Yes I've heard the refutations and I don't think they carry much weight.
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
It seems to me that God can use angels and miracles and Virgin births and floods miracles and myths and stories and anything He chooses to tell us about Himself. Why should I assume that I know better? I mean He is talking about Himself, right? Start the refutation, this should be fun!
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
So you do admit that you accept the bible to be the literal word of your god, and that your god can be defined as specifically the one in the bible?
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Literally the Word of God -- not literally the words of God. Written by people with pencils or something on scrolls, you know. Not fluttered down from heaven, you know.
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
That's fine and what I meant, thank you for answering me instead of dancing around, but I'm genuinely sorry to hear you say that.
As you believe it, however, despite the hundreds of videos on Youtube which refute it in every way it possibly can be refuted, I have to say that there's nothing I could say to you that would change your mind if you accept it as true. You've obviously heard very many arguments already and dismissed them, even though I would say they're sound.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian It is up to you to show me how God is "specifically defined" in the Bible. Otherwise I have accepted your "refutation" without having heard it. You tell me how the Bible defines God, and I'll tell you whether I agree. Fair?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
Omnipresent, omnipotent, omni-benevolent, bound to physical form in whatever way he wishes but only at such times as he wishes. That's what I would say defines his actual existence, not his stated character.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian It is difficult to say much about God's ACTUAL existence, except perhaps as you say, it is as he wishes. By stated character do you mean as stated in the Bible? How is his character stated in the Bible, besides showing a deep concern for the affairs of humans?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
There are too many contradictions for me to explain myself very well in a short time, and it'd just be tedious in 500 character segments. Honestly I don't want to be up until 6am again either. Thank you for the discussion.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
You don't prefer to argue with the Bible? I beg to differ. It has been your main ploy. Have at it. I'll get the popcorn and get ready for the sure-to-be entertaining rant. Go!
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
Not at all. I have completely satisfied my curiosity with the bible, it is of no interest to me. I'd much prefer to have you show me just a little bit of the intellectual honesty I keep hoping for and admit that your god is not the one in the bible, or at least that he only has SOME of the characteristics of the biblical god.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Hold on. The Bible is of no interest to you? I smell a rat. That's all you've been interested in -- for refutation purposes only. I see the trap you are setting, but you yourself just fell into it. HA!
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@GospelHouseKat
You haven't answered my question.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Why should I "admit" anything like that at the outset? It is your refutation. You are supposed to convince me that "my" God is not the God of the Bible. Go for it.
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
Subjective reality is not real? I have a toothache, because it is a subjective claim, therefore has no reality? BIZARRE!
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
Wow really? Any competent dentist could open your mouth and determine that there is something wrong with your tooth. As someone else can verify your claim, it is not subjective.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian VERY GOOD! That was just the point I was about to make. So why don't you do that very rational, natural thing --check it out , instead of pretending that being subjective, it isn't real?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
Check what out, your tooth or the bible?
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Check out the truth of whether the Bible is true or not, of course. You might start by reading the Gospel of John and see what Jesus has to say FOR HIMSELF, rather than what you imagine he does? Why resist doing the investigation, if the truth is what you are really after. (I suspect its not.)
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
You assume I haven't read or even studied the bible. I probably know it better than you do. It's investigation of the bible that leads most atheists to abandon the silly concept of the god mentioned inside it.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
Craig avoided it because it is irrelevant to the discussion -- as I said, you can refute ithe Bible to your hearts content, doesn't effect the evidence I gave and that you -- for unclear reasons of your own -- reject.
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
The bible is not irrelevant to the discussion, it IS the discussion, for without the bible, the Judeo-Christian god wouldn't exist. It invalidates the concept of god by its sheer ignorance, misinformation and contradictions, and Craig was smart enough to know that. He tries (and fails) to justify the existence of god based on logic and reason, not the bible. The reasons may be unclear to you, sadly, but they are not unclear to Craig or to me.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Why do you prefer to argue with the Bible tha with me? Other than just slimy tactical reasons?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
Slimy? Please. I don't "prefer" to argue with the bible, it is indefensible, and can't argue for itself, it's just a book. If you mean prefer to argue about the bible than about your beliefs, naturally.
I'd be careful if I were you. You define your god based on your own list of characteristics, and don't mention the long list of characteristics to be found in the bible for him. Are you saying your god is exactly the god of the bible or some different god?
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian As I said, argue with the Bible all you want. I gave you a few of my reasons for believing. If you think "refuting" the Bible history or Noah's ark or angels disproves God, I think you will find you are mistaken.
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
So you're saying, if I understand you correctly, that the bible is in error? That it does not accurately describe your god and that your god is therefore not the one in the bible?
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
"What makes you more moral than another?" On your philosophy, how close I adhere to the laws of the bible. On mine, whether my actions are more likely to increase the well-being of myself, my neighbors, and all conscious creatures that said actions affect. Are you one of those 'follow your intuition' christians, or 'follow the bible' christians? Let me guess, liberal theology is your bread and butter, yes? Take a bit here, leave that bit there, lovely menu you're ordering from.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Reerrpad5515
Exactly, that's what bothers me the most about modern Christians. They pick and choose which parts of the bible are true and which aren't, but still fall back on the collective belief of their fellow Christians to prove those beliefs are true, even though when you get down to it, they all believe something completely different.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Hell of an epistemology they've got, no wonder Craig didn't want to defend it.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Reerrpad5515
It's also no wonder Christianity is so popular in America. You can super-size and customize your order for everything, why not for your supreme beings? As morally repugnant as I find Islam, at least with their religion they follow the Qu'ran and don't try to whitewash the nasty parts out and pretend their god is ONLY loving.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
"PROPHECIES were part of law"
Every jot and tittle of the law. try again.
"Question, what education do you have to validly interpret that he spoke of these laws???"
Sounds like: "what right do you have to interpret the bible as a layman (let the professionals handle it)" Aquinas, Augustine, how about Spinoza? Saint Thomas More? Which of these doesn't belong in the list, and why?
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
No, the fact that something unfalsifiable ALONE does not make something false. It just restricts you from proving that it is indeed false based on evidence alone. It then has to be compared to any related aspects of reality for cognitive falsification based on reasoning and logic, and equivocated against similar concepts.
I've never claimed that religion can be tested by science, because claims for the existence of a higher power are based on faith, not anything that can be verified to exist.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Good. So the statement "all babies are born atheists"-- is that a fasifiable theory? Can it be scientifically tested? It sounds logical and may very well be true, but how might science prove it false? If it cannot be scientifically tested, and I don't see how it can, then it becomes a statement of faith. It can be believed and wished to be true, but if it is not scientifically demonstrable it is not scientific knowledge, but a metaphysical assumption based on belief -- faith..
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
Yes, it can be falsified that babies are born atheists. Studying babies for knowledge of a SPECIFIC higher power is going to prove that they do not have faith in one. As faith is the only proof of a higher power, and babies don't possess that faith, they are atheists. Babies in Tanzania are not born believing in Vishnu and babies in Ireland are not born believing in Allah. The subjective opinion based on faith and nothing else is all that creates these beliefs in babies.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian How would this study be carried out, do you suppose?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
I'm not a scientist, but here are a couple of things I'd try.
1) Introduce groups of children from multiple religious communities to other religious values.
2) Introduce groups of children who have grown up as atheists to multiple religious value systems.
3) Introduce groups of children from multiple religious communities to atheist communities.
4) Teach both theist and atheist children about all religions instead of just one.
5) Teach them all how to think critically.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
The easiest way would be to take very young children, just old enough to talk, and ask them questions about reality. You'd then see that they have no grasp of reality since their higher cognitive abilities have not developed.
Hypothesis: they should then be more likely to accept positive and negative reinforcement, as well as system of absolute values, if these systems are all they know, and the more exposure to one system the less likely they are to accept another.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
Furthermore, when a child is raised to believe in, say, Yahweh, they don't say "this doesn't correspond with what I feel in my heart, the real god is Zeus." This is further falsification of the concept that babies are born with beliefs in a higher power. As they are not, then the impression/indoctrination of them by their communities is based on the subjective opinions of those around them.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@bhsbassdude07 According to modern science, space and time are part of the same thing, with 4 dimensions. Gravitational theory predicts that in the early universe they were so distorted by the extreme gravitational conditions that they formed a boundary, or a singularity, beyond which neither space or time can be said to have existed, but the stuff they're made of would have. I concede that physicist do use the term "pop into existence", but not from literally "nothing".
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 " Who invaded the U.S.??" um...no one. it was settled by christians. Some atheists deny objective morality, some advocate it. You can't be a christian without advocating objective morality. See the difference yet?
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 Well, he couldn't have been speaking about moses because most of the books attributed to this character couldn't have been written by him. He was speaking about the law. Old Testament law is pretty clear cut, which is why earlier you tried to say the OT isn't valid anymore.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
First, Origin of Species is not treated like the bible. Much of what is in there has been revised to represent the current theory in biology (you know, facts?). Second, even if it was treated like the bible, social darwinism is not advocated in origin of species. That was, as you said, an 'inspiration', not a passage. The bible doesn't 'inspire' things like slavery, genocide, and the burning of heretics, it commands these things.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
"I'm asking for their apology for their philosophy that Native Americans were mindless savages." Do you have to be european to hold this philosophy? Do you have to hold this philosophy if you are a european? If the answer is no to these questions, then you're just pulling at straws to square a circle.
"Atheism leads to a subjective moralism without truth" - I disagree, Sam Harris disagrees, thousands of atheists disagree, Sweden disagrees, The US Constitution disagrees. EVIDENCE please. :)
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 Sorry, that was Matthew 5:18.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 We're not going to forget what the church did while it was in power, what your book commands if the followers can achieve it, what limitless savagery can be justified by claiming "gott mit uns" (german for 'God on our side', standard issue nazi belt buckle). Its all there for the world to see, nothing has been revised, nothing updated, the evil that emerged once can emerge again, borne out of the very same passages. This is god's law, not god's recommendations...
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@Lichtspielhaus234 "Oh hold the Church to the standard but not you?" The church has a book. They claim this book was written by the creator of the universe, and through them alone can it be understood. They have gone to every length to maintain this autonomy, and even today theologians and apologists claim the scriptures are just too complicated for the layman, leave it to the experts. The experts, while in power, gave us heresy hunts, and the TEXTS ARE THE SAME, you just ignore it now.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
"there has been no apology for his atheism" - Just as you will get no apology for europeans for their europeanism. Atheism does not lead to nihilism as a logical necessity, as the video this comment is POSTED on can verify.
"I'm not referring to his ideas of agriculture." - Then perhaps his cultural revolution in response to dissent from his failed agricultural ideas? Which of these things is logically necessary on atheism, and how have the rest of us atheists escaped this 'binding' syllogism?
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
"What about the evils that the Europeans have done..." - There nothing logically necessary about being a European and doing nasty things to native americans. Thats the distinction.
"That's OT, New T states Love your enemies." - god is either changeless, or fickle, he can't be both. I would remind you that the 10 commandments are in the old testament, and Mark 5:18 belies the separation you wish to engineer between the old and new. If they weren't defending it, they'd be rid of it.
Reerrpad5515 10 months ago
@bhsbassdude07 and I agree that the story of Jephthah's daughter is most likely a cautionary tale, but it was brought up in relation to the character of the biblical god. According to the story, Jephthah won the battles after swearing an oath to god. Whether god actually helped or not, whether the sacrifice promised was wanted or not, if anyone else in the role of god here kept quiet while all of this was going on, we'd consider it immoral. A girl was killed and burnt. He said nothing.
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@bhsbassdude07 What cosmological model do you hold to that claims anything "came into existence" from literally nothing whilst holding true to the laws of physics? What experience can you cite of anything beginning to exist as opposed to it being pre-existing stuff changing form? You are making the claim that things "come into existence", so what's your evidence for that.
dj2baduk 10 months ago
@bhsbassdude07 A pre-big bang singularity is a common component among most of the mainstream cosmological models. The point is none of these talk about ex-nihilo creation. Nothing, by definition, would be an infinite void with zero potential. If it had boundaries, it would not be nothing. If it had potential, it wouldn't be nothing. We exist so there must be a boundary between something and "nothing", which negates "nothing". The only logical conclusion is that "something" has alwasy existed.
dj2baduk 10 months ago
And I say it again.......it is really sad and pathetic to see Harris actually try.
Phil5150rocker 10 months ago
The scientific evidence for evolution up to and including humans is not in question. Although we don't know for certain how life began on the planet, it has been demonstrated conclusively that live can come from non-living material. This possibility gives one explanation which does not require a supreme being's involvement. I have no 'faith" in this matter at all. It is just the best information available.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Evolution is a poor hypothesis that uses a lot of inference but the atheist has an unquestionable faith in this. Look at fascist efforts to attack Intelligent Design. Can you empirically prove the mechanism for new genetic information and features? Where is this evidence? If evolution is inferred as the means for all life then this mechanism needs to be demonstrable to show how we go from say a dog to something that is no longer a dog. NOT PROVEN YET = Hypothesis
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
"the atheist has an unquestionable faith in this."
Wrong, no atheist has unquestionable faith in evolution, none that I know anyway, and certainly not me. All evidence that I've seen proves that it is accurate.
As I am not an evolutionary biologist, only a layman, I can only point you to the same evidence that convinced me. Since you are now responding with arguments from the likes of such parodies of human intelligence as Ray Comfort, I don't know if that would even matter.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago 2
@TheTexanCanadian You trust godless evolution as truth then all you have is faith as faith is trust. The convincing power of evolution is more based on assumptions about the past rather then any hard evidence that new features and new genetic code is made by the ever so small steps that takes eons of time given the equilibrium of natural selection. See I too am an evolutionist in that natural selection is demonstrable and refereed to as micro evolution. But the atheist has faith in the macro
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
Wrong. You still don't understand. There are two explanations in modern society for how life as come to be. Evolution and religion. Religion is obviously false as it is unfalsifiable. Evolution, while not able to explain every aspect of the history of life, is consistent, testable, verifiable, falsifiable, and has yet to be disproven. So, while it is not absolute truth, it is the best explanation available. NO faith is involved. Ifa better explanation comes about, so be it.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago 2
@TheTexanCanadian Wrong. Christianity is not obviously false. The falsification idea can not be falsified so is self refuting. The induction used by evolution to guess what was in he past is not testable. Consistent? I understand the religious usage of evolution to deny God is a great consistency in the effort but this does not mean it is true. You may have a faith in a science of the gaps but there are some big gaps. Macro-evolution is yet to be proven so how can it be disproven?
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
"Macro-evolution is yet to be proven so how can it be disproven?"
This shows that you don't know anything about evolution. The information you're looking for is readily available, unfortunately theists end up looking for "crocoducks" instead of real transitional forms, of which there are plenty.
Even if evolution were proven to be mistaken it would not mean your god were real.
As you obviously don't know very much about evolution I won't bother responding to the rest.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian As a former atheist I know more about it then you are willing to give me credit. It was a fine validation for atheism but if you rightly examine the real evidence it has some problems. Evolution is not a law and has not had all the gaps neatly filled like religious atheist would wish. Where is the proven information that things such as fruit fly's have evolved into something that is no longer a fruit fly. Also God could have used evolution so it does not prove atheism.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
No, there are of course gaps in our knowledge about evolution. We cannot create fossils, we can only study what we find. But so far, nothing has come along to refute evolutionary theory.
"Also God could have used evolution so it does not prove atheism."
Of course not. I never suggested evolution and atheism were related. Atheism is a response to a claim. Evolution is a tested and reliable system of scientific theory and as I said has yet to be dispoven.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian The atheist ideology of evolution can not be refuted as it has not been proven. Atheism is powerfully connected with evolution. Look at the atheist effort to ram it down the throats of those who don't believe in that brand of magic. Look at what happens to scientists who question evolution in the liberal halls of academia. You can't fool a former atheist like me but keep up the effort as it illustrates the atheist religious agenda to just make is so... by force if needed
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
You're doing it again. It's hilarious that you claimed that you're capable of critical thinking. It's not too late to overcome your fear of the imaginary hell and work your way back to objective reality.
You've definitely shown me the extent that a believer will go to avoid reality. Thank you for that.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Yes the precious godless claim on reality that the atheist does cling to is rather imaginary. So when the make the free will choice of the prison that hell is and the second death that is entailed it will be little comfort that they will know the conscious decision they have made. Again understand that Hell is not eternal life. God will only make us suffer the right portion of our sins and no more. But I am sorry that some Christians have taught it wrong.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029 You're tansparent attempt at equating science and magic to put it on the same level that the mythology you believe in is hilarious... Be careful to the faries that operate your computer...
Thanks for the lulz...
Acrimonator 10 months ago
@Acrimonator I don't believe in magic. But to think of the impossible nature of the evolution effort to seek and explain all of the complexity in nature as some random chaotic process might as well be magic. To look at nature and all of it's beauty and say there is no God is to appeal to the magic of emergence. The magic of a complex information system like DNA needing no proscriptive cause. Yes magic in a universe that blooms from nothing without cause. There is no magic.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029 Have you got soome problem making sense ?
You say "I don't believe in magic" and "To look at nature and all of it's beauty and say there is no God" AHsn't god used magic to create the world you believe is ?
And more important, science looks like magic only to those not understanding it, a little little when native americans first saw guns... Conclusion, you live in a backward fairytale.
Acrimonator 10 months ago
@Acrimonator No I don't but I say that the atheist does. God is not a magician. God is the great I Am who is the most perfect being. (ontological argument) God is the Creator who understands all physical laws and constants as He is the cause of them so the law of causation points to God. God can augment physical properties so that one can walk on water or have the dead rise and become living. Science is a thumb so that we can use the fingers of the bible to grasp the majesty of creation.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029 Ok, it's confirmed, you've got real understanding problems. God can change physical properties of reality but that is not magic ? Perhaps you'd like to read the definition of magic... BTW, have you got some evdidence for your claims ? I don't think so, but I know that your standard of evidence in favor of a deity is lower than for reality.
Acrimonator 10 months ago
@Acrimonator What is confirmed is the mathematical improbability of things like the digital information system of DNA happening at random. Do you understand odds? The odds of life happening by random is greater then what is considered to be the probabilistic number of molecules in the universe. IE. If I toss five coins what are the odds of them all landing on edge rather then heads or tails? What if you need that to happen over 200 times in succession? Thus the magic of self ordering..
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029 Ok, so why don't you point me to these documents ? Surely because nobody ever said that DNA happened at random. Sorry for your strawman. And I wonder wich knowledge you have on the matter to spew such non sense. The only option is that you don't understand what you're talking about, so please take a course on molecular biology if you want to discusses a subject that you obviousely don't master as much as you'd like us to believe.
At lest before speaking of the bible, I've read it.
Acrimonator 10 months ago
@rusty2029
As for examples of transitional forms, here are a few:
Archaeopterix
Hesperornis
Compsognathus
Protoclepsydrops haplous
Procynosuchus
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Archeopteryx is disputed and merely a bird with reptile like features. But if not for evolution the atheist would have little intellectual standing. Even Ricard Dawkins acknowledges this so you bet you can't separate atheism and how atheists use evolution as promotion of their ideology. My eyes have been opened to the ad-hoc efforts to make it as godless and designless as possible. It is sad really how I used to fall for it all of its tasty scientism goodness.
rusty2029 10 months ago
Comment removed
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian A theory that is unfasifiable does not make it "obviously" FALSE! (Think about it for a minute ...) OK? A theory that is unfalsifiable means it is a theory which is not "scientific" in the sense it can be scientifically tested. It doesn't mean that such a theory is illogical or impossible -- it just lies beyond the means of scientific investigation to confirm or deny. But don't you rather claim that "religion" can be tested by science? Which is it?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat No my claim is that the atheist makes a godless limited box that posits only the hegemony of empiricism then asserts no evidence for God can be found. A true free thinker knows that there is a variety of epistemological means for evidence even by logic and reason alone (ontology) So verisimilitude can be gained by testing mere facts given experience of how we know things. This is not about science but about testing truth. Example: Biblical prophecy that comes true
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
The scientific method REQUIRES that as little faith is used as possible. If something requires faith, it is studied until it is understood more. Nothing is off limits to enhance human knowledge.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian --Nothing is off limits to enhance human knowledge. Then science is not the only method to find truth and gain knowledge. It may be true that as little faith is used as possible one could say that in hard methodological silence the only faith is that the conclusions are derived properly. This can be tested and corrected amiright? I say that for a fair minded atheist Christianity can be studied so as to be understood better but this is not the fact for the YT village atheist
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
I assure you, I'm as fair minded an atheist as you're going to find. I mean it 100% that if there were evidence supporting a supernatural creator like your god I would believe it. But I have no need of one, emotionally or intellectually.
Certainly science is not the only method to find truth and gain knowledge, but at the moment it is the most trustworthy.
Certainly faith can aid in discovering truth, but not when it requires dispensing with evidence gained by scientific means.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Again I see the inference that you think science can or has dis-proven God. There is a wealth of evidence given at Christian apologetic sites. There is a wealth of evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ and that His followers experienced the living Messiah after his death and resurrection. The case for Christ is one of the strongest of the points of evidence that the Christian has. Early Christians would not have suffered and died under the powerful hatred against them.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
As your god is supernatural, technically it is impossible to prove that it doesn't exist except for pointing out the inconsistencies, contradictions, and fallacies of the model of the Christian god himself. Science can't do this, as science does not extend to the supernatural.
Even if Jesus really lived, there is no evidence that he was in any way supernatural or that he was resurrected. The gospels were written decades or even hundreds of years later, by word of mouth only.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
I was going to make a large detailed counter-point against the uploader of the audio-feed. At this point (given some of the comments rusty has made) I would just feel naive. The best way to describe religion in my opinion is to call it an idea virus that eventually takes over the host and tears their honesty, decency, and self-respect away in service of furthering the idea. Rusty is a lost soul guys, I wouldn't waste my time on this one.
dmcgraye 10 months ago
@dmcgraye
I've known plenty of believers who have become atheists by seeking truth. It's always possible in a discussion, so I don't stop trying to argue my points (so long as someone is civil) until it's obvious that they are incapable of reason and critical thinking. I completely agree with your description of religion. I look at it as a collective definition of subjective reality, and Christianity works so well because it makes the definition of the god completely customized.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian The proscriptive design and nature of our minds to seek truth and have a criteria for testing truth even conceptually does seem to show a Higher Power at work. Critical thinking is a key for the intellectually fulfilled Christian to go out and defend what they believe. If logic and rationality are to be accepted as true then it is incorrigible and can't be further reduced or tested under methodological science. Science functions as a collective definition thus a religion???
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
"does seem to show..."
Seeming is not evidence. The moon "seems" to produce its own light.
"Critical thinking is a key for the intellectually fulfilled Christian..."
I would say that this is 100% inaccurate. Critical thinking leads one very quickly to atheism.
"Science functions as a collective definition thus a religion???"
As science is the evaluation and confirmation of evidence, it is not a religion, which is based on confirmation of faith and not evidence.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian My faith does not come from me but is a gift from God. The test of this is in the atheist who does not understand the definition of the word faith as trust. Does the atheist trust logic and reason? Given naturalism we should only Fight, Flight, Feed, and Reproduce. Atheist put their trust in naturalism thus have faith that there is no god as they have no empirical or scientific means to confirm atheism. Science is a religion IF viewed as the only means to knowledge.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
Atheists understand trust, but trust requires two beings. I do not trust the green dodo under my desk because he doesn't exist. I do trust my mother, who does exist.
"Given naturalism we should only Fight, Flight, Feed, and Reproduce."
Only if we don't have the capacity to think, and since we do, this is an incorrect statement.
Atheists do not have faith that there is no god, as I've said I would believe if there were reason to believe.
cont'd.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Naturalism requires only instinct also known as determinism. The fact that you have a mind that can test truth shows the negation of naturalism as a true process. If naturalism is true then you are a programed meatpuppet. If determinism is true then you are just a robot to preexisting molecules in motion and nothing you do does not require a previous molecular action. So the faithless instinctive meatpuppet says what?? A mind was designed to know truth and about God.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
You're just spouting the same unjustified faith-based claims over and over. There is no evidence that a mind is designed by anything other than DNA and natural processes. You're mistaking the IS (naturalism) for an OUGHT (appearance of design + your desire for your faith to be justified).
I see no evidence for a soul, so yes technically we are animals with highly developed brains. There is no evidence and no honest reason to think otherwise.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian There is evidence and honest reason to think otherwise or I would not be a Christian. I know that you would like to take away my value as an adopted Child of God with your hypothesis that there is no God. It is scary for one to think that one will be held ultimately accountable. So as meat puppet cousins of monkeys we should just let life pass as ultimately valueless as any subjective value means the things you value go no father then the tip of your nose.... I get it.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
Fear of the unknown, I've already stated, is my opinion for why religions exist at all. I have no fear of something when I have no reason to think it exists, any more than I fear ghosts or werewolves. I honestly, truly, think it's a figment of the imagination of Christians. To me there is no reason to believe any more than I would believe in Thor during a thunderstorm.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian I was injured and was dead for a short time. I have powerful personal experiences that cause me to not even fear death. But I can turn your statement around and say that atheism is a fear based reaction to your own conscience knowing that God holds us accountable for our actions. When we stand before God in judgment we will be without excuse. You may have imagination as confirmation for atheism but my profound personal revelation of God is not a product of imagination.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
"Science is a religion IF viewed as the only means to knowledge."
Science is not the only means to knowledge, it is, however, the most efficient and reliable.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@dmcgraye I base my inferences on logic and reason. You would have the burden to show this virus. Logic and reason is how we test honesty and also how we have a criteria for truth. Ad hominem attack on my person is not only a logical fallacy but a means to demonstrate the dishonesty of those who make such assertions. Besides if their is no God then I have no soul to lose thus the inference requires there to be a God to make such an assertion.
rusty2029 10 months ago
cont'd.
Any Christians who went to war based on their dreams would be justified, but a higher moral objectivity would exist which transcends their religion. Therefore, the moral objectivity of Christianity could be shown to be exclusive and subjective. Only the morality described by Harris comes close to true "objectivity."
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian No there is no justification to murder anybody. One can defend ones family from attack but what you are talking of can not be sanctioned by a dream or any deception you speak of. Love is our commandment and in love I would offer you a bible study so that you may understand this. God is the locus of all moral God as He is a God who loved us enough to come be with us in the person of Jesus Christ. Love relationships first above religion.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
Conditional love is NOT love. Love is unconditional. The fact that your god does not demonstrate but we know this anyway proves that objective morality exists outside your god and the bible, or any religion.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian God demonstrated His love by being with us in the person of Jesus Christ. God is one being in three persons and after Christ's sacrifice we have here with us the Holy Sprint to be a light upon our path. You have the conditional. You can accept God's love and sacrifice or reject it as it the right of every person who has free will. Remember this is about Love and relationships over any mere religion. This is well explained by WLC in Divine Command Theory.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
It is a fact that everyone is born without any knowledge of a higher power of any kind, therefore everyone is born atheist. The Christian god does not reveal himself to newborns,and the subjective reality of others is provided to newborns as objective when in fact it is not.
Christian morality requires faith. For morality which is dependent on nothing but human existence and the greater good of our fellow sentient beings, nothing is required but life itself.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian If atheism is a total ignorance of all things then you have a point. But once you are a thinking adult then God can reveal Himself to those who seek diligently. The faith of the bible is from God. God is the One who give us faith to hope and the evidence of things not seen. Faith is not from nothing if you understood Hebrews chapter 11. Life has no transcendent purpose or design if no God. Love has no reason under a godless construct that the atheist does cling to.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
Ah, but babies have altruistic tendencies. Children raised with no concept of religion are capable of genuine love, compassion, and empathy even if they have not received it. Since they must be taught Christianity or any religion, the morality taught is subjective.
Godlessness is not a construct, it is in fact a default, as I've demonstrated, an can logically be considered objective reality.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian If babies demonstrate an understanding of right and wrong the objective morals come from outside any one person. If love, compassion, guilt and empathy are a demonstrable component of what is considered a moral compass in a properly functioning human then there is a design inference for the human mind. This is demonstrable design to the human noetic effects infers a proscriptive purpose for our moral compass. The proscriptive moral designer is God.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
"The proscriptive moral designer is God."
As I've said, you show me ANY real evidence that your god exists and isn't just imaginary and I'll accept that your reality isn't subjective but objective. As things are, it requires a disconnect from reality to believe in a higher power. This is easier to accomplish with children, harder with adults, but necessary to become a believer. Faith is nothing more than the decision to accept someone else's subjective claims on reality.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian What do you define as evidence? Evidence does have an empirical component but the hegemony of empiricism fails without the presupposition that the laws of logic are true. Some things are accepted as a properly basic belief. The law of non-contradiction for instance has no empirical means of proof thus empiricism is limited. Example: Does atheism stand on empirical proof and evidence?? Christianity can be tested for truth by logic and reason alone. atheism-analyzed . com
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
You ask what do I consider evidence, I would say that which is falsifiable, that which can be scientifically explained, and that which can be proven to occur or exist based on the disinterested affirmation of peers.
Atheism is not a stance. It is a response to a claim, and is based on the mind of the person performing the response.
Christianity can be tested for truth and logic, and has been, and that is why there are so many atheists.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@TheTexanCanadian ...and that is why there are so many atheists. Given that the atheist world view is roughly 10 percent of the population (in USA) I would say that fallacious thinking alone can account for it given the reliance atheists have for strawman argumentation. A parody religion can do that in fact atheism may be a parody religion. Atheists do love satirical assertions so may be the case.... BTW the idea of falsification can't be falsified thus is self refuting.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
That sounds to me like you're making an argument based on how many people believe what you believe. The fact is, in other parts of the world, people follow religions with just as much sincerity as you follow yours, and can argue the validity of those religions with just as much evidence. You argue that evidence of your god can be found in prophecies which have come true, but Nostradamus did as well, it means nothing. Some will be true, some won't, that's the nature of guessing.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@rusty2029
As I argued last night with Gospel, the default position can be shown quite easily as atheism. Babies are born atheists, and although their questions about things like where did we come from and what happens after we die, are the same questions that created religious beliefs in the first place, the subjective opinions of those who answer them end up determining their beliefs, and no other evidence is required. Atheism is still, and will always be, the default position.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@rusty2029
"If babies demonstrate an understanding of right and wrong the objective morals come from outside any one person"
Wrong, objective morals come from inside EVERY person. It's called DNA.
"then there is a design inference for the human mind."
It's called DNA.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian DNA is an information code. Information codes to not happen from purely random or chaotic means. We interpret codes like the semiotics of this post to carry information. Information can only come from intelligent sources and can only be understood by an intelligent mind. So if our ought imperatives come from the information code of DNA this deductively requires an intelligent proscriptive design to that code. Logic dictates information is evidence of a Design = Designer
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
That is a possible explanation, sure. You'd have to show how it is impossible for DNA to have developed naturally for it to be the truth, and since science has shown that you're wrong, this is a non-issue.
You are using logic to follow what you would like to believe, avoiding possibilities which run counter to your faith. I admit it is a possibility that DNA was designed, but by who and when is unknown. Trying to say that logic can prove your god did it is a perversion of logic.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Science as not proven abiogenisis. Science is proving the opposite in that it is impossible for life to have come from non life. Science is also proving the edge of evolution in ability to cause specified complexities that would hider fitness of an organism if all the parts had not formed at once. A gestalt of parts that needed proscriptive design. I became an atheist about the same age that Dawkins did. But truth will set you free.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@rusty2029
Again, you haven't done your research. Look up the Miller-Ure Experiment, in which they created amino acids in a laboratory in similar conditions to early Earth. Granted it was not the exact environment but the experiment proved that creating life from non-life is indeed possible.
Assumptions of design are just that, assumptions. Without evidence, they require faith, and are no better than thinking there is light coming from the moon because it shines.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Miller-Ure... You bet I know about that debunked experiment that did not truly emulate the proper early earth conditions. I am sorry but amino acids are but a component of life. You need the right proteins folded to make the DNA that folds the protein to build the DNA. The wealth of new information on DNA and the complexity of even the simplest of eukaryote cell is daunting to understand but the truth is coming out.
rusty2029 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian You mean scientists have actually synthesized non-living chemicals from non-living chemicals in a laboratory? My faith in God is ruined!
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
I'm sure your faith would be intact no matter what, and I don't particularly care.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Perhaps not, but you should care about the vacuity of the "evidence" for atheism that you so far present. Tell me, what fact or set of facts do you have at your disposal, that I do not, which ought to convince me not just that God is unreasonable (well He may be) but that atheism is positively true? What research results are you aware of, that I am not, that causes you to be so completely convinced of this? Surely there is something? Or is your atheism something akin to faith?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
I just had a several hour long conversation with rusty on here, which started yesterday evening and ended around 6am this morning eastern time. Any questions you have about the case for atheism are there. I really don't feel like retyping it all, and should you be interested in looking that far back, I've explained my thoughts on atheism and religion and a great many other things in detail.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian I'll take that as a NO, then, that you have at hand, unknown to me, any scientific research that leads you to the inescapable conclusion that there is no God, and leave you to your faith-based arguments. Thanks.
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
I don't have any faith-based arguments, but thanks for playing. You don't even understand what the word faith means, or knowledge for that matter. I actually lol'ed just now.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian I'm surpised then, if I am to believe that your opinions are not faith-based, that you won't supply the incontrovertibly conclusive research on which you base your purportedly SCIENTIFIC knowledge that there is no God. In the interest of fairness, if I had scientific proof that there IS a God I would feel obligated to supply it. Why keep me groping in the dark? If scientists somewhere have tested the God theory and found it to be false, why withhold the research results?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
First, as there is no evidence that a god exists, it's impossible to prove that it doesn't exist. Please research Russell's Flying Teapot for more explanation.
Second, the only thing required to refute Christianity is to use critical thinking while reading the bible. Luckily, scientific discoveries of the last couple of hundred years, have provided explanations for even more reasons why the bible is inaccurate. As the bible is the only tangible "proof" of god, it is refuted.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian Russell's Teapot is an "argument" unworthy of even sarcastic comment
Refute the Bible all you want. I am a Christian, but don't claim, or need to claim, the Bible contains a proven "scientific theory." That doesn't mean its claims are irrational or not TRUE by any means, as I thought our falsifiability discussion cleared up. You, on the other hand, are bound to show your SCIENTIFIC no-God theory IS falsifiable. Just how do you go about falsifying a negative proposition?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
What exactly is a negative proposition? This is ultimately only about burden of proof. If a believer of a religion decides his or her religion and/or belief in god is reality and everyone else is wrong, that's fine, it's just their choice. If that believer decides to make a case for their version of reality being ultimate, objective reality, they must be prepared to defend that case against all arguments or keep their beliefs to themselves.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@TheTexanCanadian "It is not the case that X exists" is a negative proposition. Such are notoriously hard to prove, yet you seem to think yours is self-evident. It is not. "Everyone else?" I, along with millions of others, believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God -- therefore true. I am well-prepared to argue for that -- but not as an idle academic exercise with someone who's whole aim is not serious discussion, but refutation. That would be pointless, don't you think?
GospelHouseKat 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
That which can be scientifically tested can be disproven, claims which cannot be scientifically tested cannot be disproven, as science can be used to examine anything related to objective reality. If something cannot be verified by scientific method it can only be proven as subjectively true. That is a positive statement that I will make.
You, like every other theist I've debated, are NOT for serious discussion, only justifying your belief system in the supernatural.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago
@GospelHouseKat
It is only pointless to discuss something if the person you're communicating with is incapable of being objective, as is the case with every theist I've ever talked to. You say you're well prepared to argue for the validity of your beliefs, but you cannot do so while restricting your claims to what can be shown to be objectively true.
TheTexanCanadian 10 months ago