Religion

[Bla]

That's just a sample and I don't have time to pick out all the statements made that are ignorant.

An argument from ignorance is not the same as an ignorant statement. An ignorant statement is a statement which is unaware of what we know, an argument from ignorance is the logical fallacy that says because something has not been proven false, it's true.
Don't try to run from your statement.

With that said, many of those statements aren't ignorant at all. Some of them I don't know the source behind, so I can't comment on all of them:

1. "and they are very near to understand how our universe is here."
Why is that ignorant? We have learned so much from science during the last few centuries, last century we found out about the Big Bang, and now scientists have begun making hypothesies about what caused the Big Bang, from a multiverse or even from nothing. It's true we can't be sure about what we will know in the future, but we're absolutely getting closer and closer all the time.

2. "Probably in 50 years (before my death... I hope...) we will create the first A.I. with the intelligence of a human brain."
That's not ignorant at all. Why shouldn't that be possible? Our computer power is increasing exponentially and in a few years, it is on the same level as the brain power of humans. All we have to do then is to make software capable of simulating the equivilant to human thoughts.
We already have AI in robots, in games, even though they're very different from the human mind. But why shouldn't it be possible to simulate the human mind, when we continue to learn more about it all the time?

3."Actually we are near to create life itself."
We have already created a virus, but not everyone define viruses as life. We know a lot about how cells work, so if we could assemble the molecules properly, why shouldn't that be possible? Here is an interesting video about how the first simple life could have arisen all the way until evolution takes over (just start at 2:47, where the important stuff starts if you're interested):
The Origin of Life - Abiogenesis - Dr. Jack Szostak

4."If a God(s) exists it couldn't be like the Christian one described in the Holy Bible " + 16
No it couldn't. Do you want to discuss the problem of evil? In that case, are you going to claim that it destroys free will?

5 + 13 + 14
How are they ignorant?

6."If I read a holy book, all I see is people getting killed because they carry sticks on sundays or people who get killed because they don't worship a god."
All is obviously an exaggeration, but The Bible does contain some very insane things in especially Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

7."And statistics show that there are more religious people who commit crime in percent than atheists.
There you go:
http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

And atheists don't divorce as often as religious people..."
There you go:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

8."About evolution: there are proofs that confirm it! An example? Dogs. Many races was created by crossing other dog races."
Proofs is not the right word to use here, evidence is, and I don't think crossing dog races is good evidence for evolution. Dogs are good evidence for the process of evolution by artificial selection (just like wheat, bananas and many other agricultural products), because it shows how powerful the selective force can be over just a few centuries or millennia. It should open people's eyes to what can happen in a few million years or billions of years, despite the fact that natural selection isn't as strong.
If you deny evolution, are you the kind of person who says "I believe in micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution"?

9."Some centuries ago (not millions of years) they weren't on this planet."
I don't know exactly what FGFG is referring to here. But obviously dogs have become very diverse since they were domesticated, which is visible on the shape of their cranium, as one example:

Figure 3: Principal component (PC) analysis for skull shape in the complete data set. A-C, Plots of the PC scores. D, Shape changes associated with the PC axes. For each PC, the shapes corresponding to the observed extremes in the positive and negative directions are shown as a warped surface of a wolf skull (Wiley et al. 2005).
It is from this text, which says some more on the subject:
http://www.flywings.org.uk/PDF%20files/AmNat2010.pdf

10."Abiogenesis"
Is it a joke? You just take one word, expect me to find the context and call it an argument from ignorance (or now it seems like you changed your mind to call it just an ignorant statement). Please explain.

11."the oceans contained a lot of molecules, very complex molecules."
It had been nice if you included some more, so that I could see it was the oceans 4.4 billion years ago. Anyway, I don't know what this is based on, as I didn't make the statement.

12."After a while some molecules entered the bubble and combined forming the first very simple organs."
Obviously he meant organells instead of organs. But again, I didn't make this statement, so I don't know what it's based on.

Please apply that same thinking to people in relation to your homophobic label.

The difference is first of all that you cannot just change/choose your sexuality. If you hear better arguments against some aspect of your religion, you will change opinion if you're open minded, that's the whole point of discussing it! But by critizising homosexuality, you effectively critizise everyone who is that, because all homosexuals have that thing in common. Not all people who are Christians have the aspect of Christianity I critizise in common, for example if I critizise the idea of a hell, many Christians might tell me they don't believe in that.

Don't confuse a declarative statement with evidence.  It's perfectly legitimate to point out that Science doesn't know something.

I'm just wondering why it stated it...

Then don't read it.  It's not like the material given is thousands of pages.

There are souce citations throughout each section, you must have missed them in all your non-reading.

Did you mean all the subpages at the bottom too, or just the main page you linked to?
I don't think the length has anything to do with the quality, though. So far I rate the quality terrible, because it's completely unsourced. It's the quality I reject.

About the "sources": I only see references to Bible verses, which are not scientific sources. You cannot prove The Bible using The Bible. If the idea on the site is based solely on The Bible and no evidence, it's simply useless, when there's no evidence that The Bible is actually true.

That's just silly.  You would know that if you read some.  Mr. Johnson has an interest in geology.
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?authorid=138170

I was just introducing the problem of evil.
I'd wish he had had the same interest in biology.

So.

Where do you get that idea from?

I assumed that you accepted the Big Bang theory, since you accepted the evidence for Earth's geologic history. But you rejected the history of life and think life was created a few thousand years ago (at least, that's the message I got from the site you linked to, that the mass extinctions it mentioned 10,000 to 12,000 years ago were not mass extinctions, but that life was created after that, and that Earth was simply completely ruined all the time before that. Which, when I think about it, actually goes against geologic evidence.).

Secondly, I thought you believed in natural solutions?

I absolutely do, I'm just questioning the site (which I assume you agree with, since you said "nor could I do a better job at explaining it.").

Third, What is time from the perspective of a god?

That depends completely on what attributes you gave the god when it was made. It could be pretty much anything you want it to.

Lastly, I gave one source that gives a clear argument that the Bible itself doesn't declare a 6,000 + year old earth and universe but rather a universe and earth that is very old.

If it still conflicts with evolution, it's still unscientific nonsense.

My point being that ignorance is used by atheists to argue against ignorance believed by some theists.

So, if we argue against some ignorant people, we're ignorant because we don't argue against those who aren't ignorant? Why should we ignore the ignorant people and only argue against those who are (according to you) not ignorant?
If you deny evolution, I think you're ignorant. Maybe some other Christian who accepts evolution, doesn't even beliefe in a god, will think you're ignorant too, and tell me that I'm ignorant because I argue with ignorant people like you. Don't you see how nonsensical that is? I think it's good to argue against ignorance, so it is exposed and people can avoid it. Arguing against it must be more like the opposite.

[karakris]

I believe in Many, Many Gods -

All the God which have EVER been believed in, by any Person, Creature, thinking Species
Everywhere -  in this and ever other Universe.

Belief has PSI implications  - SOMETHING comes into exitence in the other Realm, the one which is not physical - it grows, gains power, exists.
It can almost never be destroyed - becuase you can never UNBELIEVE in a God.

However - over and above all that, there are the true Creaters - the Forces which shaped the infinite Multiverse.
The ones who can NEVER directly intervene - expect in the absolutely broadest senses.
In the words of Michael Moorcock - the Forces of Chaos, the Forces of Order.
Or in other terms, Energy and Change, Mass and Inertia.
Somewhere in the middle lies that which is neither - once again in the words of Michael Moorcock -
The Cosmic Balance.
But also - Chance, the Fates, Providence - whatever.

I am a True Believer - and by inclination I would veer towards being a servant of Chaos.

However - I serve The Cosmic Balance - or I did.
A dispossed "Possessor".
A discarded Tool of Fate.
An Exile - Lost without Hope or Home.

And I DO believe in an Afterlife.

[atomic7732]

Can you show me one argument from ignorance made by a "militant atheist" in this thread?

About evolution: there are proofs that confirm it! An example? Dogs. Many races was created by crossing other dog races."
9."Some centuries ago (not millions of years) they weren't on this planet."
10."Abiogenesis"
11."the oceans contained a lot of molecules, very complex molecules."
12."After a while some molecules entered the bubble and combined forming the first very simple organs."

Ahhh... Evolution. Another controversial topic that involves Science vs Religion. I believe, although virtually impossible, never get Science mixed with Religion... One time we were studying evolution and one of my friends came over and told me something like... "This is really stupid. Why do we have to study this?" And he said a few religion-related words... I think faith was one of them. And I said something like "Really? This has nothing to do with religion. It's solid science." and then he realized that made sense. lol

[Darvince]

snip

I can barely read your posts.

[Naru523]

I can barely read your posts.

Lol'd.

[Bullethead]

My actual choice wasn't on the list so I picked "I'm not sure".

In actuality, I do have a firm set of beliefs:  I'm an animist but I'm not at all religious aobut it.  I have no rituals, no prayers, nor even faith.  I just perceive spirits in everything (animal, mineral, and vegitable) plus free-roaming ones.  It's not a matter of belief any more than I have to believe my keyboard here exists.  I see it and feel it beneath my fingers, so it's there.  Same with the spirits.  2nd sight runs in my family.

I don't hold these spirits in any degree of reverence.  They're just my fellow beings, the same as non-crazy people view each other.  Some spirits are friends, some are foes, some are casual acquaintances, most are neutral.  We move around each other just like pedestrians on a busy sidewalk.  Most are no smarter than the bodies or objects they inhabit, so I don't think I can converse with animals or mailboxes or anything.  I'm not THAT crazy 

Beyond the constant crowd of spirits around me, I neither know nor care.  I've never seen the creation of the universe as a religious question.  Maybe some Great Architect lit the fuze of the Big Bang, maybe not, and if there was a Great Architect, there's no requirement He/she/it has to be a god.  After all, according to some physicists, I can create a universe myself just by flipping a coin.  Maybe I myself created this one.  Either way, it's interesting to learn more about the process.  My own great hope is that eventually we'll find out our universe was mass-produced by a machine and is being used as a centerpiece on some alien's coffe table.  The alien is only interested in what it looks like on the outiside and neither knows nor cares what happens inside  .

Between cosmology and the crowd of spirits always around me, I admit the possibility that members of some advanced civilization periodically get their jollies by playing god to us pathetic humans.  Or maybe all our prophets were just crazier than I am. 

[karakris]

In actuality, I do have a firm set of beliefs:  I just perceive spirits in everything (animal, mineral, and vegitable) plus free-roaming ones.  It's not a matter of belief any more than I have to believe my keyboard here exists.  I see it and feel it beneath my fingers, so it's there.  Same with the spirits.  2nd sight runs in my family.

I don't hold these spirits in any degree of reverence.  They're just my fellow beings, the same as non-crazy people view each other.  Some spirits are friends, some are foes, some are casual acquaintances, most are neutral.  We move around each other just like pedestrians on a busy sidewalk.  Most are no smarter than the bodies or objects they inhabit, so I don't think I can converse with animals or mailboxes or anything.

Hmmm - I agree with what I have quoted - although I actually take it further.
Every Atom has a Spirit - the combinations of Atoms have a collective Spirit - but taking it further than you - There are Spirits of groups of creatures, Families, Packs, Species - groups of people - Families, Tribes, Cultures, Nations, Humanity.
The Earth has a Spirit - Gaia or Mother Nature.  The Sun and the Solar System have Spirits - the Galaxy has a Spirit, all Galaxies do - there must be a Spirit of The Universe.
I do NOT worship any of these Spirits - but I acknowledge that they exist, and Respect their existence.

[atomic7732]

Hmmm - I agree with what I have quoted - although I actually take it further.
Every Atom has a Spirit - the combinations of Atoms have a collective Spirit - but taking it further than you - There are Spirits of groups of creatures, Families, Packs, Species - groups of people - Families, Tribes, Cultures, Nations, Humanity.
The Earth has a Spirit - Gaia or Mother Nature.  The Sun and the Solar System have Spirits - the Galaxy has a Spirit, all Galaxies do - there must be a Spirit of The Universe.
I do NOT worship any of these Spirits - but I acknowledge that they exist, and Respect their existence.

That doesn't actually make much sense to me. In my opinion that's basically respecting the atoms and their existence, along with the systems in which they are embedded (Earth, galaxies, families, solar system). You're basically equating every definable object to being a spirit, so basically just "respect and acknowledge" that each of these things exist anyway. I do not mean to be offensive to anyone at all by saying this.

[karakris]

Hmmm - I agree with what I have quoted - although I actually take it further.
Every Atom has a Spirit - the combinations of Atoms have a collective Spirit - but taking it further than you - There are Spirits of groups of creatures, Families, Packs, Species - groups of people - Families, Tribes, Cultures, Nations, Humanity.
The Earth has a Spirit - Gaia or Mother Nature.  The Sun and the Solar System have Spirits - the Galaxy has a Spirit, all Galaxies do - there must be a Spirit of The Universe.
I do NOT worship any of these Spirits - but I acknowledge that they exist, and Respect their existence.

That doesn't actually make much sense to me. In my opinion that's basically respecting the atoms and their existence, along with the systems in which they are embedded (Earth, galaxies, families, solar system). You're basically equating every definable object to being a spirit, so basically just "respect and acknowledge" that each of these things exist anyway. I do not mean to be offensive to anyone at all by saying this.

Aye - No Problem
Just that I respect and acknowledge that they all have SPIRITS as well as a physical existence.

[Bla]

How am I doing that when I stated, "so that they would stop using arguments based on ignorance"?

Fair enough, it's not the same thing.

However, I still never asked for a collection of "ignorant statements". I think everyone make ignorant statements sometimes, and it's impossible not to be ignorant of some things - that would require knowing everything.
The problem arises when people make claims which contradict the knowledge we have already obtained. Then it is ignorance worth critizising.
Critizising something like "if an intelligence is needed to create the universe, a higher intelligence would ne needed to create the intelligence" for being ignorant seems a bit irrelevant, when nobody knows and the statement is based on some logic/reasoning and not knowledge (or lack of it).

We are not very near to understanding how the universe is here,

I gave an example of the advances we've made and keep making. Near is pretty much completely subjective when there's nothing to compare it to, so I don't think we can possibly agree on that.

we are not probably 50 years out from A.I. equivalent to a human being

I think we are, for the reasons I've stated.
One interesting example is the Blue Brain Project.
http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/
From the website (In Brief page):
"The computing power needed is considerable. Each simulated neuron requires the equivalent of a laptop computer. A model of the whole brain would have billions. Supercomputing technology is rapidly approaching a level where simulating the whole brain becomes a concrete possibility."

We've know that our computation power has doubled approximately every two years for more than half a century now. A simulated neuron requiring the power of a laptop now in 2011... That's more than a billion neurons on a laptop in 2050.
The number of neurons in the human brain is estimated to be 78 to 94.2 billion, according to this article (which requires login to access the full one, however):
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cne.21974/abstract
If those numbers are correct, we could easily simulate all the neurons within the human brain by 2050 on a super-computer, maybe even high-end desktop computers. Even if those numbers are off by 10 or 100 times, and even if we don't assume software improvements reducing the power needed to simulate each neuron, it would still be possible on super-computers.

and we are not near to creating life itself.

If creating a virus, which is on the edge of the definition of life, is not near to creating life itself, then what is?

4+16.  Every atheist I have debated in relation to the Christian religion has been ignorant of the subject and the statements written here are no different.  Atheists, like a lot of people, tend to define good and evil, along with other abstracts, from a flawed human perspective, a perspective that is extremely limited in relation to the perspective of a God.  To say that human beings have a myopic perspective, would be a huge understatement.  So, when atheists give arguments that there can not be a god like so because xyz wouldn't occur in the world...it's based on ignorance.  Human perspective is from a very limited past, one that isn't even accurate and is mainly based on the present experience of individuals.

From my "flawed human perspective" it is certainly evil to create a world with suffering when you are able to create one without suffering, and it is beyond me how you could think any "bigger perspective" could think otherwise if it is not evil itself. Evilness is exactly causing suffering, so a god capable of not doing that, but insisting on doing it, is evil. If you insist on using another definition of evilness, you must at least agree that a god capable of not causing harm, but choosing to, is still causing unneeded suffering. That is incompatible with being all-loving. Wrapping it up "god works in mysterious ways which we can't understand" doesn't change that fact.

If you can come with valid reasoning for why a god should choose suffering while capable of not choosing it, you're welcome. Until then, it simply seems like the "God works in myserious ways we can't understand"-argument. It's true that it would know much more than us (being omniscient), but that doesn't make all of our existing reasoning invalid or irrelevant.

5+13+14...Are you saying that you personally know?

No, I'm attempting to find out using logic.

7.  False, all anyone has to do is look at how many felons in prison "find" Jesus, Allah, etc.

Can you clarify "find"?

The amount of religious organizations that have prison outreach programs...how many atheist groups find the need to reach out to felons?

Why is it relevant? Do you think the prisoners are a bunch of atheists walking around doing crime, and then as they are locked up and religious organizations reach out to them, virtually all of them suddenly become convinced and religious so that they magically disappear on the statistics when asked?

9.  He said dogs were not present on the planet centuries ago...which is why I said it was ignorant.

"Many races was created by crossing other dog races. Some centuries ago (not millions of years) they weren't on this planet."
He said dog races.

Let us examine three recent statements by you:

All the Christianphobic people, i.e. militant atheists should read it as well so that they would stop using arguments based on ignorance....but my experience shows it probably won't occur.

So what?  Just because somebody criticizes something doesn't equate into having a phobia about it.

Don't you agree that it is homophobic to implement death penalty for gays?

I don't know their specific reasons but unless it's based on an irrational fear, the word is incorrect.

So, despite the irony in calling atheists merely critizising a religion "militant", when the word is normally used pretty differently about "militant Islamists", which actually are militant and not merely critizising, let's see how consistent your own "phobia" is.
Even if "militant atheists" were as militant as Stalin, would that automatically make them Christianophobic? I think your own quote just answered that.

Despite this, I can agree that homophobia is not very accurate. "Heterosexism" might be better, since it's as broad as racism and sexism in that it simply priviliges heterosexuality over anything else. It still lacks covering priviliging other sexualities, since sexism is already reserved for priviliging genders.

Considering an irrational fear of Christianity, and not the people, I think there's nothing irrational in fearing a religion which countless people have been killed in the name of and for many different reasons within the religion.
Fear of a group of people is irrational in cases like religion because not everyone in the group have a lot in common. If a religion was formed around Leviticus 20:13 only, it'd be very rational to fear them, but not when they're united by so many different things they can basically pick and choose from as they want. Then it would always turns into irrational generalizations.

Critizising homosexuality is as nonsensical as critizising being black. Some people like to claim it's a "lifestyle choise they disagree with". I'm wondering why anyone would choose that if it were a choise, considering the amount of bigotry they risk facing in some of the world, or even worse in societies where it's outlawed, in some countries even by death. And evidence supports that it's not a choise at all. Not only is it not a "developmental disorder", as many health organizations liked to claim before the 1970's and 80's, but evidence shows that genes play at least a very large role in it.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2881563
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9549243

As opposed to that, our ideas can only be improved if they are examined rationally, which includes critizising them.

[Bla]

Not true.
Here are some of the sources given starting from the beginning of the site's articles:
http://www.livescience.com/8550-star-super-hot-water-vapor-surprises-scientists.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/fossils/rocks-layers.html
http://www.kjvbible.org/greenland_ice_sheet.html   * multiple souces given
http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/deepsea/level-2/geology/vents.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/labrea.html
[1] Source: Discover Magazine April 2004, page 11, "What's in a Gallon of Gas?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_atmosphere
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090529-sun-stealing-atmosphere.html
http://www.hbot4u.com/hom.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/esa-rfw090210.php

There are other sources quoted with no website links and some sources given require a subscription to read the entier article, etc.  Point being, you are making a false statement...whether you are stating that out of ignorance of not reading or lying, is up to you to explain.

I read the main page you sent me, I have not read all the sub-pages, which I understood from what you wrote were not relevant. That's why I didn't find any sources.
I'm not yet sure if I'm goign to read them, simply because I'm not sure if I'm willing to spend that much time on it.
I stand by my statement that the main page/first page is poorly sourced, when it makes scientific claims but does not contain one single resource to any scientific work supporting the claims.

You see references to Bible sources because he is trying to give evidence of what is written in the Bible.  That should be a simple concept to understand and accept.

It is, it was more of a problem if there were only Bible references (as on the main page).

To these two statements:

His subject is about geology and the age of the earth in relation to what is written in the Bible.  His field of study is not biology but I don't see where it would be needed for what he was writing about.

That's not what I think or what the website asserts.  http://www.kjvbible.org/death_of_the_ancient_world.html

Because he touches biology many times. Here's one example from the very start of a page you linked to:

"The geologic and fossil records are the surviving evidence, written in stone, that testify to the truth that the Earth is very old and was populated long before the seven days of Genesis chapter one. But does that record provide evidence of the sudden end of the old world by a universal destructive event before the seven days and before Noah's flood?

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
(Genesis 1:2 KJV)

This certainly would appear to be the case."

It goes on to say:

"This little-known evidence ["animal-cemeteries" all over the planet indicating a global mass extinction a few thousand years ago] was documented by many back in the 19th century, but this evidence was mostly ignored by the leading scientists of the day because it did not fit into the prevailing scientific paradigm. This evidence is still mostly ignored today, although the Young Earth Creationists have seized upon it as proof of Noah's flood. It is actually proof of the flood which happened just before the time of Genesis 1:2, the time when all life on the surface of the Earth had been wiped out."

So life became completely extinct between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and then God created all of it again?
Then I don't really see the great thing about the creation event, if everything existed already for billions of years and God just exterminated it, just to create it all again shortly after.
I also notice how the length of the time gap has no basis in what The Bible itself says at all. This interpretation is really just one big ad hoc to "evidence" I have yet to read, but which I highly doubt at this point. In any case, even if the "evidence" said there was such an event, The Bible is still so vague that you could never conclude that from The Bible itself.

Sounds like dogma to me versus science.

Exactly... Denying molecular evidence - DNA data stored on computers, which forms nested hieracies exactly as we would suspect when life evolved from common ancestors, even despite the fact that the vast majority of the human genetic code is not used for making any proteins at all, and about 20% is never even transcribed into RNA. Any denial of this can hardly be based on anything else than dogma, just like the denial of vestigal organs - really, just what was God doing there?
http://oolon.awardspace.com/SMOGGM.htm
Or take a look at ring species, or the extensive fossil record which the site apparently doesn't deny. I have yet to read all of it to see how it makes sense out of accepting the fossil record but denying evolution, but maybe it'll be some good entertainment one day, even despite the fact that the fossil record is absolutely not the strongest evidence for evolution, which many young Earth creationists like to take on when pointing out all the "gaps", which they haven't realized the number of increases the more fossils we find.

I obviously didn't make myself clear.  Let me try again.  Ignorance of the Bible is the cause of some theist's assertion that the universe is 6,000+ years old to argue for...Ignorance of the Bible is the cause of why some atheists make the same assertion from which to argue against.  IOW, both groups are ignorant of what the Bible states is the age of the universe.

So what does The Bible say about the age of the universe? Does any verse say 13.7 billion years?
All those ad hoc "reasonings" trying to interpret vague Bible verses to make them sound like they support current science are pathetic. You can look up Genesis 1:2 and seeing that Earth "was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." You can then say that it clearly refers to x or y or z disaster in the past, but it is so vague that you can make it refer to pretty much anything you want.

It's not ignorance of The Bible, but ignorance of evidence which makes them believe that the universe is 6000 years old, deny evolution, geology, astronomy, etc.

And sorry about missing some of your posts.

Nothing new under the sun.

"Creationism is the religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being."
I said in most cases. If someone claims humanity and Earth were created by a god within the last 10000 years, I don't feel sorry for calling them stupid. Creationism in the broadest sense, as I see it, claims
a) the universe was created by a supernatural being 13.7 billion years ago in The Big Bang, which I have yet to see evidence for was caused by a god, but which I think people can believe without being stupid.
b) life was created by a supernatural being in its most simple form about 3.7 billion years ago. Considering we have a good understanding of how cells work and good explanations for how it could arise naturally (abiogenesis, chemistry is apparently "magic" compared to someone creating all the animals, and a woman from a rib), it seems completely redundant to include a god into this, but I still wouldn't go as far as to call people who think that stupid.
c) Earth was created by a supernatural being 4.5 billion years ago. Again, I think it formed naturally from a protoplanetary disc, but if people really insist on invoking magic here, I wouldn't go as far as to call all of them stupid.
d) humanity was created by a supernatural being. This is a denial of the history of life, and it is just plain stupid in my opinion. I don't feel the slightest sorry to say that.

So you think it's easier to justify the existence of a car versus the much more complicated Engineer?

No, because engineers are a product of evolution, which allows a slow, gradual accumulation of complexity over many generations. One thing I think is interesting about the idea of a multiverse is that the universes could undergo a similar process, like if they give birth to new universes (maybe by being cyclic for example). All of the universes could also be completely random, and we'd still end up with an infinite amount of habitable universes.

It's not impossible a god could be the product of a process equivilant to evolution, but until someone can come up with such a process which would make any sense, I think I'll stick to the multiverse idea and stand by my statement that it is harder to justify the existence of.

...still...simply moves the question "where did the multiverses come from?"

True. I think a likely explanation is quantum fluctuations, which is possible if the total energy is zero (as us the case in our universe, which is flat, according to WMAP with an error margin of 0,5%: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html).

The fact that any good god used physical laws like these instead of magic capable of giving us perfectly good and happy lives seems like a self-contradiction.

If abiogenesis isn't a bonafide example of magic, then nothing is.
http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/tis2/index.php/component/content/article/51.html

That article fails in its very first line:
"Charles Darwin recognised that a basic problem of his theory of evolution was to produce life itself."
No, his theory was a theory about how life evolves once it exists, not how it came into existence. The origin of life is irrelevant to evolution - whether the first cell was planted by a god or came about naturally, it could still evolve. It's like saying an umbrella doesn't work because it doesn't predict hurricanes, to quote cdk007 (whose video on abiogenesis I've linked to here several times).
Thus, it is complete nonsense to say "1953 was a landmark year for scientists researching an evolutionary explanation for the appearance of life.". Those who wrote that simply fail to understand what evolution is.
"But, we can ask whether the atmosphere proposed by Miller was likely to be stable."
...We could also ask if any source could produce significant amounts of such gases on the early, geologically very active Earth. Maybe they have heard of volcanos, which produce massive amounts of both ammonia, water vapor and methane.
And about the hydrogen, the decay rate might be overestimated...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050425165353.htm
So the atmosphere wasn't irrelevant.

"Where would the cooling systems have been that are needed to isolate the products and protect them from further reaction? What was the source of energy?"
I'm wondering if you even watched the video I liked to. It explains well how the most primitive cells could have used hydrothermal vents.

"Miller used electrical discharges and compared them to lightning. But the intensities required would be far greater than those experienced today."
Even if hydrothermal vents were not the source of energy, but lightning, this wrongly assumes that the intensity of lightning was the same on the young Earth as it is today.

"In any process that leads to complexity there must be an information source."
Just like in snowflakes.

"The problem is that enzymes are proteins themselves, and they need enzymes to  form themselves!"
I don't think early life started out with proteins either at all... Ribozymes are RNA, which can both store information and act as enzymes. A primitive version of them consisting of a few nucleotides could work well as a replacement for the earliest proteins. Anything acting as an enzyme which could increase the rate of any beneficial reaction would be selected for, whether it makes the reaction occur ten times faster or a billion times.

"Consider a cell containing just 124 proteins. Professor Morowitz has calculated that the chance of all these forming without information input is 1 in 10^100,000,000. One of the smallest known genomes is that of Mycoplasma genitalium which manufactures about 600 proteins, so what are the chances of that happening without intelligent input? Humans have about 100,000 proteins."
So what?

It mentions several calculations, one of them is about the formation of RNA. I did not find any source to those calculations else than names, but I'd like to know the details on those calculations.

"The first “ribo-organism� would need all the cell’s metabolic functions in order to survive and the is not evidence that such a range of functions is possible for RNA."
But if it is based on this ignorant assumption, never mind...

"The conclusion from these arguments presents the most serious obstacle, if indeed it is not fatal, to the theory of spontaneous generation."
Again a major flaw in this page... Confusing spontaneous generation with the modern hypothesis of abiogenesis. Spontaneous generation has been dead in the scientific community for centuries.

"Prof Francis Crick, who was a great believer in the accidental origin of life on Earth, said, “The origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions that had to be satisfied to get it going.�
And the useage of "accidental", which is a negative word, just points out how biased this "intelligent design" page is some more... I feel sorry for them if they don't consider the emergence of life a good thing, or at least just neutral.

Condemning abiogenesis as magic based on that site is also ignorant of all science after that experiment. Plenty of research has been done since, for example at the Szostak Laboratory:
http://genetics.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/index.html
I think denying abiogenesis on this attempt to refute this experiment is as stupid as denying that we could ever fly to the Moon based on the fact that the first aircraft couldn't do it.

[Bla]

Your point about the virus.  Did we create a virus out of nothing, from existing chemicals or did we just alter an existing virus? The scale of life creation going from actual, close to didn't occur.

The first virus made from scratch (de novo) was made in 2002, from existing chemicals, of course.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/297/5583/1016

You answer it yourself when you say, "unneeded" suffering. What is your criteria for needed and unneeded suffering?  Do you think perhaps that you would be at quite a disadvantage in comparison to an intelligence that is not limited by time and clarity? You do realize that if our existience had a purpose then it would be within a framework.  Look at your own life.  Would it make any logical sense for your parents to prevent you from experiencing anything negative?  No consequences?  Perhaps they never harmed you via discipline?

Perhaps you should rent, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.....and listen to some of the dialogue, especially from Kirk.  If atheists on the fictional Enterprise can figure it out, you should be able to.

All suffering is unneeded, since it can be avoided, if an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent god exists. It has pr. definition both the ability to prevent it and the knowledge to make the system it wants to without suffering. And since it's benevolent, it would want to minimize suffering.
You say I'm at a disadventage, but how can you then yourself state that "if our existence had a purpose, it would be given within a framework"? And how can you compare it to our parents - they aren't omnipotent/-scient/benevolent at all?

No, my parents never harmed me via discipline, as far as I can remember. Absolutely not if you mean corporal punishment. They may have harmed me by accident if they had to prevent me from doing something.
But if they were omnipotent, they could simply change my mind so that I wouldn't do what I shouldn't do. They could change my mind so I had no desire to do it at all, eliminating the need for consequences.

As for purpose, I don't think that has to be given already, as if we're test subjects having to go through life as True Christians to get to heaven and otherwise end up in hell (which certainly conflicts with benevolent, if you belive in that). I think people can find their own meaning in life, as in what they want to do with it.

Uh, no, that's not why I call some militant.  Criticising is one thing, but when you become an activist, are aggressive and treat a cause in a manner similar to warfare between opposing sides...it's militant.  You can't look across the aisle at theists and use terminology to describe their advocacy and ignore your own.

Militant islamists threaten opposing views by suicide bombings, militant Christians threaten opposing views by shooting people at abortion clinics... Yes, some atheists have an aim for a world without religion, but it doesn't mean they will do violence to obtain it - so they are not militant, not in any way in the sense of how the word was used about islamists etc.
I don't see how being verbally aggressive and threatening a cause by using words can be compared to using violence in any way.

Luke 19:27: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. - Jesus
Also, I think that the only rational response to that from atheists or any non-Christian would be to oppose such a cause.

From a naturalistic perspective can you even rationalize why homosexuality should be on an equal basis with heterosexuality?  I can see why homosexuals would have a problem with religion because from a moral aspect, their behaviour is not condoned...I find it bizzare that they would move so far in the other direction, to embrace materialism where nature itself declares the behaviour as being aberrant. Did nature choose homosexuality as the way to continue the species?  Is not anatomy evidence enough? Where is the vaulted atheist reasoning skills when it comes to this duplicity?  Do the blind and deaf go through life thinking that nature created their condition and therefore it's good...it's normal..it's something to embrace and celebrate? Should the world accept the condition of blindness as being equal to seeing just because it occurs?  If you were intellectually honest, you would take pause and think about this dilema.  I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you have thought about it a lot.  How do you reconcile?

Evolution might well have selected for it... It could easily be of benefit to a population to have a percentage of it which doesn't have children, but can spend their resources on helping the rest of their community. It could also be a secondary trait to some other evolutionary advantage for the species, evolution and genes aren't all-powerful and many of them often influence multiple things.
Here's an interesting (imo) blog post about it:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-intelligent-homosexuals-guide-t-2011-06-21
With that said, I don't think it matters in our society at all what the natural cause is. There's no reason to take the discrimination from nature into our societies, it's just an appeal to nature, which is obviously a fallacy.
Another thing is that nature doesn't declare it to be "abbarant". Humans aren't any special exception, homosexuality exists naturally in many other species:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals
Also, you say it's something we "embrace and celebrate". Some do, but you're really making a generalization here.

[atomic7732]

A debate sub-forum?

[atomic7732]

The "Everything Else" forum is for anything. We talk about other games, and randomly spam. Few users venture there. We've been stuck with about the same amount of people since it's creation

[Bla]

I kol'd. Especially because I've tried almost exactly what happened during a debate with a theist about a year ago (excluding the ending).
Can't Have It Both Ways

[Bla]

"When researchers created a synthetic genome (genetic map) of the virus and implanted it into a cell, the virus became "biologically active," meaning it went to work reproducing itself."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-11-13-new-life-usat_x.htm

I think it's misleading to state that they "created life" considering the above in bold.  So at this point I would still maintain my opinion that we are not near to creating life itself as was declared.

I never linked to that project about the bacteriophage either. The project I linked to made a poliovirus.

With that logic, all pleasure is unneeded since it too can be avoided.

Do you like suffering, and hate pleasure?

Let's get this out of the way, I don't accept the premise you have given in the first place.  YOU create false dilemmas by declaring what an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent entity should and should not do.

Your god has three attributes - omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence, so I'm not the one introducing black and white thinking here. You can always redefine what good is as whatever your god wants or simply ignore even thinking about what such an attribute would constitute. If we can't say anything about what omnibenevolence constitutes, it also seems pretty pointless to attribute it to a god.

Again, what is sufficient suffering?  What is too much?

Sufficient suffering would be none, because making people suffer while capable of avoiding it is inconsistent with being good.

You don't even think there is a purpose of suffering, pain, anything that would bring the slightest discomfort physically or mentally.

There is an evolutionary reason. Evolution is not omnipotent, it doesn't create the framework in which we need suffering. We need pain, fear and suffering to survive in the environment/framework we exist in, because it is effective at making us avoid doing things which are a threat to our survival. Where your god fails is when it decides to make this universe so that we need suffering to survive (if it existed).

Your viewpoint in a purely naturalistic world isn't even logical. I suppose the evolutionary process should have never developed the ability for humans to feel pain.

As I responded above... Also you're making a mistake comparing evolution to an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being - evolution has none of those attributes.

Physical and emotional negatives are just as important in existing for humanity as positives.

Assuming it is true, your god still chose it to be that way, and being omniscient and omnipotent, could have come up with a system where only the positives were important.

But...but...didn't they say "no" to you as a toddler?  So, no suffering for you I guess.

They did. If that's discipline, they did discipline me.
I don't see how it's related to deliberately creating a universe where such a thing as discipline is needed, and at the same time even allowing millions of people to starve to death, be tortured, killed, dying from diseases "god apparently created to "discipline" us", etc. You should try also to look outside the small ways of suffering.

Wow!...just wow.  So far, in your all-loving and perfect world, there can't be any "suffering" and human beings should just be automatons with no ability to make a choice. There would be no point of even having any intelligence.

You're inflating changing the mind here. We currently have natural desires and things we naturally avoid, like getting eaten, walking around on flames, we have things wired into our brain, like breathing, which we do unconsciously just like machines.
Giving us the right desires doesn't exclude us having thoughts. It changes our thoughts.

Do you believe in Hell?

And what's the point of having an intelligence according to you?

Sure thing, a person on death row can argue against the law by which the consequences of their actions occur.

Please clarify this and how it's relevant.

Really.  If it's such a easy scenario, without looking at the rest of life on the planet, show me historically where the proliferation of any human group relied on the sacrifice of homosexuals not having children.

The entire proliferation of a group doesn't have to rely on it, just as it doesn't have to rely on having a 5% bigger or smaller nose or other minor changes like that. It doesn't have to give that much of an advantage, it can still be selected for.
I gave it as a response to how I make sense of it. I think this explanation makes sense. It should be easy to see how it could benefit a population to have a group which doesn't have children (or has less).

Argument from ignorance.

Absolutely not. I did not claim anything to be true or false because it had not been disproved/proved, I simply gave possible explanations for the fact that homosexiality is at least partially genetic and I don't claim to know the origins of it at all.

Fair enough but on the same lines, homosexuals can not use the argument of "being born this way".

I provided evidence that homosexuality is genetic. I did not claim to know the origins or the reasons why it is genetic, but only gave some possible explanations. The fact that we don't know the origins doesn't disprove the fact that it's at least partially genetic.

Math doesn't lie.  In order for something to be considered a norm, it actually has to be a quantitative reality.  You are arguing the extreme exception, whether in the case of humanity or any other life form.

Abbarant has negative connotations, that's what I'm arguing against. You might as well have stated that "nature declares jews to be abbarant", because they're a minority in the human population. So my point was that nature doesn't declare homosexuality to be negative in any way.

I'm only talking about those that do,

Then please don't just use the word "homosexual" here, because then you're not saying what you mean, and you're just contributing to reinforcing stereotypes and generalizations.

like people with handicaps that have managed to delude themselves and attempt to create a delusion with outsiders as their condition should be viewed simply as a "challenge". (Granted, I think that originates more from loved ones around them versus internally.)

I think replacing "idiot" with "mentally challenged" and similar words weren't attempts to delude them, but to cut off the negative connotations other people had brought to the words like "idiot". Many people call other people "idiots" for being stupid, obviously mentally challenged and people who know them don't want the prejudice which the words have gathered to be attached to them.

Some homosexuals are just like some people with handicaps (or those loved ones around them) in that they want society to accept their condition as "normal" so as to limit the negative consequences of said condition.

I don't see why it has to be normal to be accepted, except in societies where diversity is automatically considered a bad thing which must be eliminated. Are you just creating a straw man from your own perception of some people? There are bound to be people belonging to any group who are wrong about some things in any case.

"We can do whatever you can do!"..."but we are going to have to make some modifications and exceptions....but you ignore that."

What are those modifications and exceptions?

P.S.  I am thinking I will phase out of these types of conversations since this forum really isn't the place for it and I would rather have discussions on this software and related, versus debates.  So, I will certainly respond to your next comments, which is fair...but again, I want to phase out of this.  Perhaps we can determine a better location for these types of issue.

I don't think this/other discussion topics have a big influence on how many products Dan manage to sell. In any case, without knowing it, I think he values free speech over profit, and that's one of the things I like so much about this forum. I can't stand the huge game corporation forums which don't allow us to discuss anything controversial, like religion, politics etc. I'll leave it to Dan to tell us if there's something we shouldn't discuss on his forums, and I'll continue to be active in the religion topic here.

blah, if I understand what you are trying to be unclear about,

It didn't seem entirely clear to me why you said that, but you're welcome to clarify if you want.

just pick another venue and we can continue the debate.

You can propose another venue if you want to, it's not me who wants to move the debate.

Other than that, you are just heckling from the sideline.

I like sharing content with other people in this topic when I find something I think is good on the subject. Just because I haven't given a reply to your message it doesn't mean I will cease to do anything else in the topic.

[Bla]

What do you mean by this "word"?

That I laughed.

What do you mean by this?

That a theist went on to explain how morals originate from The Bible, Jesus, the ten commandments, God etc., so it argued for an objective morality. Then went I pointed out that many of the things in The Bible (especially The Old Testament) aren't moral at all, the theist claimed that it was because it was "a different culture at the time".

[Bla]

Okay, no problem.

[atomic7732]

I really like this term: naturalist.

[FiahOwl]

This message is only viewable with Universe Sandbox Galaxy Edition. Access it and much more with promo-code '51505'.

[Bla]

I really like this term: naturalist.

Yes, covers anything from atheism to deism (in agnosticist units). Even though the word can mean multiple things, which is very annoying if you don't see it in a context where the meaning is clear.
I'm a naturalist.

Also, materialism
(But again it can be confused with materialism)

[vh]

*artificialist*

[Bla]

iKol

At the New Year celebration in New York, some stupid person who sang Imagine (by John Lennon) in front of the huge crowd just before 00:00 sang "and all religion's true" instead of the real lyrics, "and no religion too".
Not only doesn't it make any sense whatsoever (many religions are incompatible), but his ridiculous response was:
"Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that's all."
Being able to believe what you wanted to isn't the same as that it's true. And the original lyrics only implied that people didn't believe in it, not that they couldn't.

Oh, and btw, he sang so horribly that I have no idea exactly when in the video he sang the fake lyrics. Sorry.
His cuteness just fell to -1.8 Mikkels, and he is now -3.6 Dashes cool.

Fake lyrics from around 4:30:
Live - New Year Eve 2012
Real lyrics (1:12):
Imagine

[Bla]

Nice blan, actually. I shall paint any house/apartment I get fuchsia, and bring forth the end of the world.

How Gay Marriage Could End Humanity

[FiahOwl]

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[Bla]

[vh]

oh, kol.


http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/04/drunk-with-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html

[Desacabose]

Also why does such an omnipresent god let so much trouble be caused by a snake

[FiahOwl]

This message is only viewable with Universe Sandbox Galaxy Edition. Access it and much more with promo-code '69539'.

[Desacabose]

Most religions are followed under the:
Well my ancestors believed it so it must be right
Which is basically a guy that believes in aliens going