Jump to content

Kevinb

Seeker
  • Posts

    423
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

70 Neutral

4 Followers

Recent Profile Visitors

1,946 profile views
  1. The 1st sentence sounds like we've no evidence. If we can't see God doing something how can we be rationally justified to say he does.
  2. Our environment is precious.. It's where we live. An atheist friend and I went to the beach today to pick up plastic. Big thing in the news here how we're polluting our oceans. Caught the news today on the British made satellite that's going to start mopping up our space debris. Not sure who Steven is... maybe pray for him☺
  3. Well i don't see how God will do anything. This is a calculation based on the laws of physics and speed and trajectory. Didn't the chinese do this before and let a satellite/craft break up in orbit? Now we've debris spread about our planet in high orbit. Even a fleck of paint doin 20k ish mph will cause damage up there. We're polluting our planet... now our orbit putting other craft at risk. Makes me sad... when will we learn to take care of the environment we inhabit
  4. Untrue. It's very accurate... only good for 50k ish years though. Carbon dating encounters problems in circumstances like mussels ingesting "old" carbon 14 that's decayed and locked into limestone for example. This then manifests in the result of said creature. This is very rare and well very understood in the radiometric dating. However YEC use these results to say yep... carbon 14 dating is nonsense... unreliable. It's either ignorant or dishonest.
  5. carbon dating is only good for 50k ish years and deals with half lives of carbon 14. There are dozens of radiometric dating techniques independent of each other that go into the millions and billions of years. They can be tested against each other in overlap and even give a margin of error. There are several non radiometric dating techniques also. As to those who think radiometric isotopes vary in decay rates... this is patently ridiculous... please demonstrate this and falsify our understanding and win a noble prize. Let's not forget this is based upon those who 1st presuppose the age being accurate by adding up the ages of people living to 100s of years old in a particular religious book....erm...
  6. But the Bible is clear there were no civilizations before Adam. Okay and indeed the bible may indicate this hmbld. So how do you prove the bible claim? Or are you happy to go with the bible claims are true coz they're in the bible? Kinda circular don't you think. The quran claims are true coz they're in the quran. This applies to all religious texts surely. What needs to be demonstrated is any theistic claims are true in reality. In this case Adam... so what's the evidence for Adam to corroborate the bible claim?
  7. Interesting. My position is we can choose what to do with our lives.. to a reasonable degree. What we believe in a sense of whats true about reality ie is there a god... then which God or are there no gods. This isn't a choice...i don't choose to not believe in any of a thousand gods. We don't all have our own truths on reality. We should be compelled to believe and follow the evidence. If we care about what's actually true then demonstrable levels of evidence must dictate our beliefs. Else it's picking what we like and want... what our particular local religion just so happens to be.. what religion we're grown up believing by our parents or indoctrinated into. The only default should be to not accept any claims until there's evidential warrant. Evidence should form beliefs not beliefs form our evidence.
  8. I'd want the things you outlined also. As a non believer I'd disagree with the only thing that makes life worth living is we'd be used by god to achieve this. We... society need to pull together... influence our governments to make the world a better place. I see no involvement by any God getting us there . Unless you've some evidence this has ever happened?
  9. 1st sentences... correct because there's no evidence or reason to take it into account. Presupposing this or accepting supernatural claims have added nothing in 500 years of science. Where has the supernatural added to our understanding of the universe above and beyond the testing of the natural?
  10. That may very well be true, but there is plenty of evidence from secular writers to accept that Jesus was a historical figure. You and I agree that majority opinion among experts is meaningful and it is true that most historians accept it. Claims that go beyond Jesus as historical figure are debated with more fervor, and there probably are threads already discussing them. I’ll see what I can find. The majority "experts" are Christians.. they've already accepted the proposition and base work on other Christians who've already accepted it. An issue for me is there are religions pre Christian that have sons of god...saviour gods..resurrections after 3 days even. Osiris of Egypt...Romulus of Roman tradition who even on top of this underwent a passion. More modern notions of Christianity were taken from pre-existing Persian after they invaded Judea... the Persian Zoroastrianism stuff added Good God vs evil...heaven and hell were adopted from the persians. I'd have to buy the Jesus stuff in christiantity is true... after the analogous pre dates it. Makes it look like God based the Jesus "truth" on pre existing fables and stories of other civilisations. OR has just been adopted from other cults with a saviour swapped for another.. this has happened often...pre Christian.
  11. Maybe start a thread for the evidence for Jesus if it starts there? Regarding fringe... most who write on this are Christians who start with the presupposition of accepting prior to writing. I know of little outside the bible to give evidence for the bible.
  12. There is no evidence life can't come from non life. Where are the peer reviewed tests of ALL variables and conditions of the early solar system that proves it's impossible? This is so far from having been done. This is the burden of proof you have when say this. Else it's an appeal to our ignorance. It's also a logical fallacy called an argument from ignorance to say when we don't know how thus far ergo God. Some of the building blocks and even some complicated chemistry has been discovered naturally... even in asteroids that have fallen to earth. We know prior to this stars make atoms as well. Let's not forget in 400 years of science so far we've only discovered natural laws without the requirement for any supernatural tinkering. So God involvement is now shifted back here? God of the gaps? Look at everything that was attributed to gods pre science... it just appeals to our ignorance unless you can prove God did it and one God over a 1000 others did it? Besides in the absence of evidence and causality of any problem or question the answer rationally is don't know.... not don't know therefore this... this or any other this must be demonstrated to avoid fallacious arguements.
  13. What religion and God or gods couldn't we believe on faith? Faith is the justification all theists give to accept their view. How is faith a reliable path to truth when it gets people to any of 1000 gods and religions. This is what happens when humanity doesn't have any good evidence of god or gods. All theists in the course of our history have believed their religious view to be correct... as an non believer it seems A God has done an awful job of announcing himself to the planet...it appears religious beliefs seem to be of local cultural notions based upon our lack of understanding of the world back then. God notions have evolved over time... now we're outside of the universe but that didn't use to be the case. Cultures have borrowed ideas off each other..tweaked and made it more personal to them. Resurrection and saviour gods... floods.. this isn't unique to christiantity and predates it.
  14. I've no doubt some scientists are this way... thankfully we've a plethora of scientists in all fields to peer review and hold them to account.. that's how it works right. Something doesn't become true because one scientist says it is... that needs to then be validated and falisified by his or her peers. This case from a singular authority without corroberative evidence and peer review isn't reliable... that's why we need peer review. The argument from authority stuff seems to be that of religions. It doesn't make sense to me when those who readily question authority when it occurs in the scientific but don't apply the same scepticism and reason when they look at religious books.
  15. Hi one. Been a while... hope you're well and having a good 2018 You and I agree on Darwinian evolution if I recall. How long did it take for humanity to come to understand evolution as explanation for diversity of life? We've certainly evidence of building blocks but a definitive actual answer as to how chemistry became life I'm not so sure. Some here say it's impossible... that would require knowledge and testing of all possible variables and conditions of the early solar system and maybe beyond. Clearly that's not been done. Not been done and therefore God is an argument from ignorance fallacy. The God and then a particular God needs to be demonstrated. Same as those who think aliens did it or we live in a matrix or anything else. The question itself is an immensely tough one to answer. Maybe we'll come up with a model or models of how it could happen.. maybe we'll be able to show it did happen a certain way. Say it takes 10 years or 100 years... does that not make it valid? Essentially don't know on any subject in our history remains don't know.
×
×
  • Create New...