Scientific Athiest

[VRSpock]

Check out some of the atheist forums if you want to see good examples of people degrading each other.

Why would I follow this example.. why should she?

I'm not saying to follow it....just that I didn't see any harm in what she said. It was sarcasm in my eyes...nothing more.

[JesusisGod2]

Very interestin debate here and I have a question if you dont mind:

No. I didn't see man evolve from an ape, but I believe it happened. Why? Because I have evidence. As long as I have sufficient evidence, I do not require to see things with my own eyes.

And what evidence is that? now I don't mean theories which is what evolution is as well as the evolution of ape into man.

To me this takes more faith to believe in evolution than the faith it takes to believe in God. Of course God supplies us with the faith to believe in Him, but to believe in evolution takes many years of convincing the mind and heart that there is no God in order to believe in random selection.

[artsylady]

did you learn what the difference between being an atheist and not believing in God?

Most athiests pride themselves on their intellect. A Hindu may not believe in God, but not for the same reasons at all. Of course I didn't get my definition from Webster's dictionary, and it was meant to cause some discussion and it certainly did. It was meant to cause the athiests to think. I hope it did this.

Well of course not you to busy thinking of a witty remark to cut your brother down.. why thank you. I'm so glad I tried to save you from an image of being very angry at people who don't believe in the same thing you do, and also from appearing harsh in un-needed situations.

I was answering a question from someone who didn't know what an athiest is. Was it really that offensive to you? Why?

Instead let me appologise for suggesting you try and understand some one that isn't saved. please continue cutting down people in the name of Christ, because after all that will be sure to make people want to follow Him.

You took advantage of Nik. He kindly explained your questions when he didn't have to.. You saw his guard down and implied "he thinks he's to smart for God".

I didn't see his guard down actually. Maybe I'll relook at this thread but I didn't see it at the time. It wasn't meant so much as a cut-up as it was to provoke thought. I certainly didn't think it would cause anger. Wow.

1Co 3:18

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

Heres what paul said about the subject he may appear a fool to us.. but what does he see us as?

Think about it whens the last time you saw a dead guy rise from the dead. After Dying for sins (that he has no physical evidence for).... how does one die for others wrong doing?

Well, you could read the New Testament if you really want to find out.

Also even the Most scholarly men in the world admit that Jesus was Either the son of God or a complete maniac.. He believes Him to be a maniac. Thats understandable..  Once again I suggest you do some research.

Well now, that's just not true. I suggest you do some more research. Some of the greatest scientists who made the biggest contributions to science were God fearing men. MOST of the those who were considered 'the great philosophers' were also God-fearing men.

[Rerun]

C.S. Lewis, in is book Mere Christianity, says, "Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse."

But of course I am nothing.. why should I know something.

[artsylady]

C.S. Lewis, in is book Mere Christianity, says, "Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse."

You should read the whole book. CS Lewis was an athiest who turned Christian.

SA: You said you beleived in things you only see evidence for, yet you say you believe in abiogenesis. Was that a joke?

[Bread_of_Life]

JesusisGod2

And what evidence is that? now I don't mean theories which is what evolution is as well as the evolution of ape into man.

That's rather a large question - because there is a lot of evidence to explain - from the grouping of functionally unrelated characteristics, genetics, atavism, vestiges, fossils, embryology - evidence for evolution (and human evolution as a subset) is rather a large field. If you want to set up a thread on this, I'd be more than happy to respond, but it'd be wholly off topic on this thread.

[Bread_of_Life]

artsylady

SA: You said you beleived in things you only see evidence for, yet you say you believe in abiogenesis. Was that a joke?

Actually, I didn't ever say that I believed in abiogenesis, I said I believed in evolution. These are two rather different theories, one involves how life began, and one involves what happened after that (how species of life formed and adapted, the origin or species).

As a matter of fact, I do believe in abiogenesis, but not on the same basis as I believe in evolution. Allow me to explain.

For every problem there will be many possible solutions. Some of these solutions will naturally fall foul of the evidence - they will not be able to explain what is observed. In fact, most solutions will fall foul of the evidence, and more and more will do the more evidence is gathered.

However, in most cases, with most problems and most questions, we will be left with more the one possible solution. Let me give you an example:

Say a plane falls out of the sky, and crashes. We find the wreckage and the black box. The black box records a sudden failure in one engine, and the wing fragments suggests that the left wing then tore off. The black box recording also suggests extreme turbulence on the wing at the time - and the stress of the metal recovered from the wing suggests bending and breaking to extreme stress. Weather stations reported extreme weather conditions in the area, including gale force winds and sudden electrical storms in lower atmosphere where the plane was flying.

Now, what caused the plane crash? Well, one solution is that the sudden turbulence caused by the freak weather conditions caused such tensile stress in the wings that one literally ripped off, just after it's engine failed. All the evidence seems to fit with this hypothesis.

On the other hand, another hypothesis springs to mind. What if magical invisible storm leprechauns, wanting to cause their mischief, used the weather conditions as a cover for sabotaging the plane's engine and then used their mystical powers to seperate the wing from the plane causing it to crash land. As you can see, all the evidence seems to fit with this hypothesis also.

Indeed, evidentially speaking, it is impossible to differentiate between both hypotheses - they are both sufficient to explain the evidence. So how do we differentiate between them - how do we tell what hypothesis to choose, given that both explain the evidence equally well, both are sufficient to explain the evidence? Well, the answer is, in cases such as these we apply a philosophical tool called occam's razor. Occam's razor, simply stated, says that as well as a theory being sufficient to explain the evidence, the evidence should also, as much as possible, be sufficient to support the theory. In other words, the best theory should involve as few things as possible that we don't already know are true.

In the case above, we already know that there was freak weather, that a very bad storm and electrical activity could take out the engine on the wing, and also in extreme cases seperate the wing. In other words, nothing that we don't already know exists and is true needs to be accepted for the first hypothesis to hold. However, we do not already know that leprechauns exist, far less storm leprechauns. We have not ever verified the existence of magic (although it is possible). We have never tested or known of the motives of leprechauns, or whether they might be capable or willing to create a plane crash. We also have to accept that invisibility exists.

Therefore, occam's razor comes down strongly on the side of the first explanation. That doesn't mean that the second explanation cannot be true, it still could be - it just means it's substantially less probable since it relies on many rather outlandish things that we have yet to verify or test.

Now, back to abiogenesis. I wasn't there when it happened, and it has no left very many clues in the future for us to behold. There are also several theories on how it might have happened - and even if these theories prove feasible (that is, that they might have happened) - we'll never actually know which one really did happen, because there's no way of testing.

All we know is that life now exists, and that it evolved from very simple lifeforms in the long distant past. Since we assume causality, we assume that these lifeforms had to come from somewhere, hence the multitude of theories concerning abiogenesis. But we'll never know for certain which is true.

However, we can do several things in this situation. The first is to find out which ones can happen (whether they are feasible). This will eliminate many theories. The second might be to test if they do happen, or if components of them do happen in the lab (further feasibility). However, once we've done this, in order to decide which *did* really happen, we can only rely on the probabilistic analysis of occam's razor.

At the moment, as concerns abiogenesis, there are still various theories on how it might have happened, and they are at different stages in testing. Some we know may have happened (are feasible), some are still having their feasibility tested. We'll never know for sure which really did happen - but we can try to pick the most probable.

Of course, there is one other substantial theory - that abiogenesis didn't happen - that life didn't form itself but rather was formed by something, usually a God in most versions. Of course, this is a gross multiplication of objects, as occam would have put it - and that's why we don't automatically label everything we don't know "God did it".

Of course, it's possible that God really did do it, and if you already believe in a God for other reasons (which I don't) this might not seem like such a huge multiplication of objects as it does to me (it might not fail as badly by occam's razor, that is). However, as an atheist, the "God did it" explanation is rather a gross multiplication of objects compared to other explanations available. I would also suggest to you, as a Christian, not to jump too quickly on parts of science that we are unsure of for whatever reason, and come to the automatic conclusion that "God must've done it" - because if you do that, you'll never really come to many good scientific discoveries at all.

However, as you see from the length of my response, it was a good question. Abiogenesis is one of these areas where science meets general philosophy, and as you can see, I don't believe in one theory or another on abiogenesis, I think the jury is very much still out on how it's most probable that it happened. But I don't think that's a good enough reason to invoke a supernatural force, not nearly good enough, if that's what you're getting at.

[artsylady]

All I'm trying to figure out is how you can say you believe only in that which there is evidence for, yet you believe in abiogenesis. Doesn't make sense to me, even after your lengthy explanation.

Getting back to the original question on this thread. When you found out that Santa was not real, you said you were very upset with your parents lying to you, correct? At the same time you found disappointment in your earthly parents, you also decided to reject any idea of a heavenly father correct?

[Bread_of_Life]

Getting back to the original question on this thread. When you found out that Santa was not real, you said you were very upset with your parents lying to you, correct?

No, I didn't say I was "very upset". I cried for a while, was in a mood for a night, then basically got over it.

At the same time you found disappointment in your earthly parents, you also decided to reject any idea of a heavenly father correct?

No, not exactly at the same time, but around the same time that I stopped believing in Santa.

[chancer]

Dear ScientificAtheist,

The question concerning my father and my relationship......Well my father is so awesome to me.He is a man of God and he loves my family and I so much.He is a hard worker and he is strict but not mean in any way.We get along very well and rarely ever argue.Well I hope that answered your question.God Bless!

ur sis in Christ

Chancer