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Bonky

Nonbeliever
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Everything posted by Bonky

  1. That same thought process is what led people to think various illnesses were the work of evil spirits. You don't solve mysteries by appealing to bigger mysteries.
  2. Except that you may be forgetting that I came out of Christianity given my upbringing. I didn't know any better but to believe. It wasn't forced on me in an abusive way but it's what I was taught since I was around 5 or so. I'm only responding to the claims I see the in the Bible and I hear Christians regularly make. So let's say someone has a faith paradigm that they can't be wrong about X. You think that's logical merely because they believe it is within their worldview? People can believe what they want, but when those people ask others to believe the same then I have every reason to press them for more details and give me confidence that they're on the right track. It makes no sense for me to promote something I can't defend. Do you also deny that the Bible states that I am w/o excuse? This isn't misguided Christians it's their scripture telling them that people are horrible and you can't trust them etc. I've spent too much time in the Bible and in church I know the talking points.
  3. Right so given the unverifiable claims in the past how did we get this confidence again? I guess we'll answer that below. That's nice for those special chosen ones but what about the rest of us lol. If I want a relationship with someone I don't play games. Relationships aren't hard...and considering what's at stake?
  4. Aren't we talking about something above and beyond confidence though? It's not like any of this is settled, far from it. We're talking about things that happened way in the past and much is relied on "eye witness" which you stated requires another level of faith. Doesn't sound like something people should hold dogmatic views on but that's just me. I agree. I feel that I have grown a lot in this area since 12 years ago when I started getting involved in these discussions. I used to be more dismissive of things but I realized that wasn't wise. I agree here too. Keep in mind now, I have often [and I mean often] heard from Christians that being a non believer must mean "I'm willfully ignorant", "too prideful", and that when this is all over I deserve to be tortured forever. It goes both ways. I haven't read his conversion article in years but if you search "Why I Left Young-Earth Creationism" by Glenn Morton he writes about it there.
  5. Except the person saying this has concluded that their initial assessment or guidance in these matters is spot on and is infallible. That wasn't the reason why I mentioned it. As a matter of fact, Glenn Morton didn't leave Christianity. He just stated that he could no longer accept young earth creationism based on his field work. I was just meaning to provide a real life example of someone who went through a fairly major change in religious views/interpretations due to what they viewed solid evidence for an opposing view. Some people would have kept their views in tact because they aren't open to such modifications in their theism.
  6. People such as William Lane Craig etc are able to see it that way. I lean towards the stardust idea. The building blocks of life are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Using spectroscopy a lot of data has been captured about the abundance of life building elements and they are more concentrated in the center of our galaxy than the outer regions. I don't think that's conclusive at all but it's certainly interesting.
  7. And that little word "dust" will be used in whatever way is convenient for the user. Without any hard work someone could propose that dust means the elements that we are composed of [created ex nihilo by God] and a theistic evolutionist could say it's referring to "star dust" which is what many scientists would say all earthly matter [source material for our bodies etc] came from.
  8. You started out ok but pulled a fast one at the end. Your first point sounds acceptable to me... 1. Humans are so feeble in their attempt to navigate reality with any kind of certainty, faith is ultimately deployed for the gaps we are missing. The 2nd not so much... 2. How has "faith" enabled humans to navigate territory that we couldn't navigate otherwise? If 10 people employ "faith" but believe things that are ultimately incompatible, who's "faith" is right?
  9. I guess it depends what you mean by "faith". There are some folks who have told me that they won't accept any conclusion that goes counter to scripture. That's not a scientific principle, but they don't care about that, they care about what scripture says as they believe it's inspired by God [and that their interpretation is spot on]. There are plenty of people who have modified their view of scripture based on evidence. One example is a geologist by the name of Glenn Morton I think [last name not sure] who was a young earth creationist but after he spend some time in the field he said he couldn't hold onto that view anymore. His philosophical framework appears to be compatible with opposing views based on evidence.
  10. What do you mean the bones are "fake"?
  11. Like One is suggesting often times they use other methods to help verify. Carbon dating is also but one method there are many using many different radio decay signatures etc. These methods do indeed work within margins of error and yes there is no time machine to go back and know for 100% sure.
  12. You don't carbon date living or recently dead things. If you purposely don't use tools properly why would you say "ah hah!" when the results are poor?
  13. I'm sure there are some in Congress [in the US] that have seen the last one.
  14. I wanted to get a telescope at some point, the problem is that I live in Pennsylvania....the night skies here aren't exactly clear. I lived in Arizona for about 12 years, now THAT is a place to own a telescope.
  15. I've found that the truth is stranger than fiction. We've discovered all kinds of things that would have been considered absurd prior to the discovery.
  16. I'm sure Enoch is a good person, but he appears to be defending a faith anchored by a person he seems to have ignored [considering how he deals with people].
  17. Find someone else to argue with Enoch, that's what you want...not discussion.
  18. I mistakenly assumed most would have figured this out w/o me drawing pictures. Then I'm not sure how I committed a fallacy accurately stating a claim of the Christian faith. Ok, but given the fact that I don't know which case it is, I'm not dogmatic about naturalism although it is my starting point and an assumption given what I know. Some people have humility in their beliefs.
  19. One was essentially saying "after a while don't you just give up and concede ground to the opposition". I don't think this is real hard Enoch. Based on what ONE was saying, I could say the same kind of thing to theists that keep waiting for Jesus even though he hasn't returned yet. I do NOT find this a compelling argument which is why I was giving it rhetorically. When I look at the definitions of religion I'm not seeing "belief w/o evidence" as the primary definition [or even secondary]: Christians don't have a personal relationship with God???? New concept??? If you think it's a new concept then you're pretty ill equipped to be a part of the conversation. Read up on the argument from reasonable nonbelief (or the argument from divine hiddenness) . If you go on pet definitions perhaps, I'm going by the standard dictionary and the normal usage of the word "religion" that I've been hearing for 45 years. I'll explain this more for you as it appears you're struggling. Going back to just moments ago when I said how I'm not dogmatic about "Matter/Energy is ALL that there is" would be the first clue.
  20. It would help if you looked at the context of WHY I was stating this. Hint, it was in response to something One Opinion said. Christianity has ALL the hallmarks of religion. Let me know if you're able to have a view that is different from what the Bible is telling you. Christianity has a supernatural entity that is worshiped by the adherents of it's sacred scriptures. Ironically Christianity will boast that it's different from other religions because it says people will have a personal "relationship" with God. I find that personally [my opinion] to be one of the grand failures of Christianity [divine hiddenness]. So is Christianity just like all the other religions in what it believes...no. Is it a religion? YES. Also my views on naturalism are not dogmatic. I am completely open to considering non-natural explanations. I just don't believe in accepting supernatural explanations because it's convenient. Isaac Newton went to "God does it" explanations when he couldn't figure out how the planets stayed in orbit, later on a french scholar [LaPlace] provided a natural explanation for why the planets stay in orbit. I look to the natural world for answers before I look to the supernatural, works pretty good.
  21. I'm not jumping on anything. I never stated what my confidence level is in string theory. I'll wager a lot of money I have less confidence in string theory than you do in Christ being the Son of God and I mean a lot less. I'm not even looking for empirical verification for theistic claims, how about just good reasons to believe it's true? Come on Tristen it says a heck of a lot more than that. It says the Creator is a personal God that wants a relationship and is able to communicate with humanity. Given this if you're saying we both have stories that are unverifiable that's embarrassing [or should be] that theism has nothing to offer above and beyond naturalism. So we're in agreement, saying life CAN'T arise naturally is not a sound statement. Naturalism doesn't provide secular stories, it states that natural laws and forces operate in the Universe and not spiritual or supernatural. Until there is sufficient evidence to believe there are other forces at play, I stick with the natural ones. If you want to say string theory is on par with God concepts I won't argue that. I also don't mind people suggesting supernatural forces but that isn't what theism is, it's presupposing a lot more than that and I don't see how it's warranted....especially with the confidence that theism demands. Even you don't show much confidence in supernatural claims as you stated you only view biblical claims as "authoritative". Well that's convenient considering we can't begin to investigate any of that. Do you have any doubt that in biblical times epilepsy could easily be "identified" as demon possession?
  22. Religion doesn't deal with falsifiable claims
  23. Just like at what point will theists admit Jesus isn't coming back, it's been 2000 years. Conspiracy theories are what they are. There are times when they have a good measure of truth but conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen.
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