You are incredibly demanding of evidence and claim atheistic beliefs are magical. Where is your evidence? He was never losing the argument. Children are born atheist, it is up to you to give your beliefs substance over other religions and ideas.
That atheism is a belief? yes, genius, I said that in my first post. That you seem incapable of understanding that your ideas are nothing more than beliefs whilst insulting others for the exact same process shows how gullible you've been. Of course, the simple truth is I never said they exist. If you'd like to prove you're not a liar, please point out where I ever said they do. In your own time now. Haha Embarrass? I've had better arguments with first year philosophy students. You seem incapable of understanding the basis of scientific fact versus a belief. You operate on beliefs. So does religion. You seem to take particular pride insulting religious people for doing believing, and yet adhere to a belief yourself. Here, let me embarrass you. Are you claiming Santa is the same as God? And if so, some proof please.
Curtis children are neitehr born atheists or believers. I would expect my little nephew to ask these questions . The demanding one is the one who has a website insulting people of different faiths, yet lives in a world based on his faith that everything came about through a natural process. I dont know what is more crazy , your post claiming im demanding or Stoxs post about teh natural process creating all (with no proof again I might add), and he has yet again failed to answer my question about how the natural process itself was created? I knowwww, I have finally come up with an answer. Some guy was throwing leaves in the air and when they fell on the millionth throw they transformed into the natural process. I claim its true but I have no proof. Sounds familiar stox? Curtis the problem was he was flip flopping from one question to the other evading the truth and answering my question. A person that claims religious people are ignorant and backward shouldnt be afraid of answering one question. Watch now as stox comes up with a few colorful metaphors and other bs to deflect the question yet again. You will know that you won the debate when you ask the person a question and he comes back with either an answer of his own or an insult. I have this inner feeling that one day stox will be right there with me at church on sundays. The seed has been planted and as soon as he faces the question instead of changing the subject he will be forced to acknowledge the truth. Its ok if he doesnt because being set in your ways is comfortable but it doesnt give you room to grow as a person. The atheistic position is such a paper tiger one that stox has to keep changing subjects. But I guess thats what happens when you worship a guy like Christopher Hitchens who writes such sloppy books and cant even provide proof for his beliefs because he doesnt believe in footnotes, endnotes or citations. I guess thats where he gets his reasoning from
But your claim was that all beliefs are equal, whether that be that fairies exist or whether they don't exist, your entire argument is that all unprovable claims are equal on the grounds that they are unprovable... which is obviously utter bollocks. I never said you claimed that fairies existed, learn to read. I said that you claim all unprovable claims are equal. So all unprovable claims are equal regardless what the claim asserts... is that what you are saying? yes or no? i'll ask you again.... is the claim that santa exists equal to the claim that he doesn't? Go on, embarrass your self and destroy your integrity one more time.
Wrong. Again. I plainly said on a scientific basis all beliefs amount to nothing. Nada. Zilch. Religion in the eyes of science amounts to nothing. Atheism in the eyes of science amounts to nothing. There is no proof of either. Saying God exists and God does not exist is the exact same on the basis of scientific analysis. Reread my original statement. Well done Genius, even I'm cringing for you. Do you understand what proof is? What a scientific analysis entails? Can you tell the difference between a scientific fact and a belief? From you're writings you're confusing the two time and time again. Way out of your depth. And you're still wrong. I said all unproven claims are equal on a scientific basis. I don't know, maybe you just like to ignore everything to do with science because its blows every shallow argument you've put forth out of the water? Third time wrong in one post. Is this a record for you? Again, all BELIEFS are equal on a scientific basis. If you believe there is no planet 786-xygje in the 67fdbw4 constellation then on a scientific basis you're belief amounts to nothing. If you believe there is no God, on a scientific basis, your belief amounts to nothing. Is this really all that hard to grasp? I thought the difference between scientific fact and beliefs would have been obvious. I'll ask you once more to provide the basis for which Santa is equal to God. This is your second time refusing to do so and any first year philosophy student will tell you comparing Santa and God is a shallow and discredited argument. You're question equates a man made concept with with the source of all things - the alpha and omega. They are blatently two different concepts, but I'll indulge you anyway. It will be interesting and funny nonetheless to hear you attempt to equate the two. So please provide you reasoning for equating Santa with God, then I'll have no problem dismissing your fantasy argument.
Here's your original line: Your thoughts, and what religious people refer to as a soul really is just a nonstop flow of electrical currents inside your brain, and cells and blood flowing through your body. I'm asking you for proof that equates the concept of soul with your electrical currents. Given you're little rant above I presume you will have no trouble proving same. And winning a Nobel Prize in the process. See above. I await your proof with baited breath. It can't be prejudice if its true. 'Believing' to know is simply a belief. Kinda like atheists 'believing' to know God does not exist. Same thing. You're experience with whatever fundamentalist Christians you claim to have dealt with counts for nada I'm afraid. I can similarly tell you of numerous crackpot atheists I've met, but in the general scheme of things it makes no difference to the point at hand - the beliefs of God exists or God does not exist. We can all pick crackpots from both the religious and atheist ranks. For instance, I could tell you I've met Atheists that claimed to 'KNOW' that the universe was created from dark matter. Just don't ask for proof of their claims. Surely you'd be willing to acknowledge that your selective picking of a few Christians and my selective picking of a few Atheists produces an argument that very quickly gets lost in which one of us can find a more extreme exception to the rule at hand (the concept of God and belief of God's existence or otherwise). Idiotic point to have to make but seeing as assuming you're selective picking counts as some kind of backup.... Again, I'm awaiting your proof with baited breath. I'm waiting for you to provide the evidence for the statement you made above. You see fit to lecture me for lack of evidence, and yet have not yet produced your own. Let me put it this way to you - Go back and find where I ever claimed to have evidence. I've said numerous times beliefs are just that - beliefs. Do you know why they are beliefs? Because they don't have evidence! Duh. And yet you continue asking me for evidence. Oh dear. Anyway, lets see your evidence for your claim of the soul. And what would be very interesting is to hear you say what my religion is given you're assumptions above. And again, your ignorance is astounding. I never said a ball would never stop. But thank you for pointing out the bleeding obvious. Should I now say something equally mundane as 'An apple generally falls towards the ground on planet Earth' ?? I said the atheist claim of 'God does not exist' is a belief, rather than being a scientific fact. If you can prove otherwise, please go ahead. Oh and that evidence you have of the soul being electrical current sure would be interesting....In your own time now, because I don't want you looking too silly in public.
It's obvious you're making the rules up based on what you believe. You've already said earlier that the existence of god has not been proven. Yet here you try to use the "fact" that one is a man made concept while the other isn't, as a rule which should help frame the debate. Bogus.
Actually, hes not trying to prove anything logicflux, he has proven it, but then again someone who lists an athors book as factual without a doubt and this author doesnt have any citations or footnotes in his book, doesnt that say that the person who reads that authors book is just a bit biased. Imagine if that book was written by a theist? Imagine how stox would have clobbered the author and tore his book down. Like I have said all along his beliefs are based on faith. This is just another indicator of that faith. I myself believe " to each his own" because as we have proven time and time again atheists need to look inward at their own beliefs before they can judge others. Judge not lest ye be judged yourself for you shall be judged upon the standards that you apply to others. As you can see when people waste enough time to go through the position of the extremist atheist they can find so many holes in it its laughable. Chris Hitchens is the leader of this new age agreessive, non factual revolution. As I said many times I have many atheist friends but none of them speak like this. They actually do debate with common sense and they NEVER ever make an accusation unless they know they could back it up in reverse.
He hasn't proven anything except that he wants to elevate certain assertions to a certain status in order to frame the debate in a way that he feels is favorable to his position.
No actually , I have also continually asked stox about where the natural process came from, and yet again he switches the subject. It is stox who is making the accusations and when we come up with answers he flip flops into another area. Rockyg is asking very legitimate questions and he isnt claiming to be a theist either. This is about common sense. If common sense is believing an authors book is biblical law and the author has no facts himself what does that tell you. We are trying to keep thsi debate grounded on common sense and science and yet stox keeps trying to pull away from that . Stox's trump card when he cant come up with any answers at all is the magical old man in the sky routine. Its kind of getting old with the more reasonable posters here dont you think Logic?
Well, if I said that athlets can run better than most people I guess you would be less angry than if I say that scientists can think better? There is no theory of how everything was created from scratch. But, there is a very nice theory describing how the universe look like after its "creation", called "the big bang" theory. I bet you heard about it. It is not based on what our grand-grand-grand fathers told us on the dinner table, but on several facts and evidence (most famous one, a recap of others). The new humanity - where knowledge and logic speak instead of "the words of god", is 100 to 300 years old, depending on who you ask. There was no electricity in the streets until the beginning of the previous century. Give us some more time, would you? Thousands of years religion was not a "respect them but tell them to stay out of my life", as it is today in the good (US) case, and a bad joke in the worst (european) case. It was a policy maker. It did not bring the internet, but misery wars and ignorance. The too-late development of modern science is mainly due to the struggle of the church against it. Religious people don't like changes. It was not before 10 years ago until the church officially accepted that the world is not flat I dont believe in a piece of paper. It is just a piece of paper. I do believe on the other hand in the "superiority argument", as you call it. I have been studying and thinking in the recent 13 years EVERYDAY since I finished high-school. Thinking is what I do for a living. I don't need a permission from you to brag about, and I am also allowed to say that I do have better analytical and intellectual capabilities that most others -> simply because its true. And here's an example: and the award winning answer is: 1) The most important element in my argumentation is that scientists work in understanding how the world works. (=dentists know how teeth work). Your counter example does not serve as a counterargument. mechanics work in repairing cars, not understanding where they come from. + 2) A car can come from lots of places, but the electron and proton can have only 1 value for their mass. toothpaste X can be better than toothpaste Y, or vice versa. God can exist, or not exist. but no other options come in play. I see that you are having difficult time not to address me personally in your posts and instead to address my arguments and views. In light of this I will just (in an untypical manner) point out that this last paragraph of yours is showing a very poor logical thinking and debating abilities. sorry. Again, in previous posts I said: "based on my (superior, despite you don't like to hear that) knowledge of the natural world, close acquaintance with the creature driven by fear and ape instincts also called "humans", knowledge of history, and of everything else I know, I sum everything up and I have something like 1000 "con" arguments, and maybe 1 or 2 "pro" arguments. Hence, god is unlikely to exist" If you want to build a more constructive discussion, let me hear the reasons why you think that a god exists. What are the main factors that make you believe that it exists? think deep and give me your 3 best reasons. leave the atheists, my phD, and the mechanics aside.
I have told you time and time again that we don't currently know. I know how convenient it must be for you to ignore this fact, but if you don't start behaving with at least a modicum of honesty pong i'm going to have to ignore you. The fact that you are too dishonest to accept that an answer has been given doesn't negate the fact that you have been given one. Some "christian" you turned out to be, jesus would be ashamed of you if he existed, which it didn't. rockyg you keep pretending i have asked you a different question. I'll ask you it again, for a fourth time, lets see if you have developed the intellectual honesty to answer it. If two people came up to you and one stated that "fairies exist" while the other stated "fairies don't exist" would you treat both assertions as equally valid? I'm not asking you which is provable, i'm asking how you would see each of those assertions. ie, would believe they are equally likely and equally valid as you seem to think the same assertion referring to god is? Like pong i understand how convenient it must be for you to make it up as you go along pretending points haven't been made and inventing your own questions to answer, but lets try to develop a little intellectual courage and have a go at actually addressing the points people are actually making.
There are many occurring phenomena which all make up the "natural process" as you call it. Entropy is always around us - it too, along with chaos, is just as natural as so-called order. We have dark matter, and we have regular matter, and we have antimatter. We have chaos, we have entropy, and we have order. We have an understanding of how life began on this rock. We have an understanding of how our planet formed, and our sun formed. We have an understanding of how the galaxies form, and also how they can die with SMBH's and collisions. We understand much, and with the LHC back in commission by 2010, we will be able to understand up to the smallest increment of right after this universe began, and prove whether or not the big bang actually had a significantly likely chance of occurring, even though we know it probably did based on observation of our surroundings. No, you can not technically rule out a supreme being at the core, but in the same sense Santa Claus could have created the universe because he was lonely. Nothing can be assumed for the actual moment of the beginning - but we do have clues that there may be more universes, with different rules, and infinite variants of each kind. There may be more to this chaos than meets the eye - as only chaos could be found in infinity, with infinite chances for order being surrounded. When you flush a toilet or open a drain, does it not swirl around the center where all the matter is being pulled? Do we not swirl around our star? Does our star not swirl around the galaxy's massive black hole? It is because of this clumping that we have our so called order to begin with - but in the end all will die out to darkness, coldness, and there will be nothing left but blackened stars and dying black holes. Eventually it all just fades to nothing as current understanding postulates. Big Crunch got thrown out. Although there was a beginning for matter, there is an end for matter - however matter could be just another phase in a cycle of this universe. Perhaps, perhaps there are stages that occur, step by step, over quadrillions of quadrillions of years immersed in chaotic fits that eventually cycle through, where no two renditions are the same. And this may be happening infinitely across the entire planes of many different forms of existence, some universes may have rules that would be considered chaos to us, but order in its own way - while we are chaos to its rules. We will not know for a while, but until then, I am going to say there is no evidence to support that a supreme being has done anything for humanity, has done nothing for our galaxy, or for our universe. Therefore, like Santa being lonely, I will not be holding a belief in this kind of nonsense unless it is actually given any credibility - and not by humans with books that are packed with stories from dead cultures amassed into one. You could make a bible out of Shakespeare and people would believe it if you sold it right.
That was the first time, and stox you can ignore me if you want. It just shows me you know whose right, and please dont lecture me on jesus since you dont even have a clue about the guy. You dont know yet you said it is probably started by a natural selection. Probably is the keyword. and you dont even know how that natural selection was created(that means you have faith that it was just there). Thats right stox it was created. Its common sense to believe that everything had to have a beginning, but like i said , you would rather biasely believe a guy that wrote a hateful and defamatory book about one of teh most loved ladies in the world. You took the word of this biased hate monger despite his book being one of the most sloppily written books of all time. Even a 12 year old knows that if hes gonna accuse someone like mother teresa he should at least show footnotes, endnotes and citations., and when bill donahue pointed this out to him he was silent. Hitchens has been easily proven to be a scam and a fraud. Hes basically like the star magazine that prints up stuff that says the aliens are having tea with bus in the whitehouse and has no proof to back it up. Jackuul, everything has order in this universe. This is the exact reason why most theoretical physicists have a spiritual side to them as i have shown in my youtube video link. The universe didnt have to be this orderly, this symmetrical, thsi beautiful enough for even string theory to be put down on paper or einsteins theory of relativity. It just makes perfect common sense. The discussion has gone way beyond the bible Jackuul as we would then have to talk about every book of faith. What im focusing mopst on is something that all peopel of faith can talk about and that is the creation of everything, and that is something we can all come together on.
No pong i have said it many times and you know i have. You just reword the question to make it look like you have just asked me something different when you are actually just rehashing your same tired old shit. Oh so he would be for deceit and dishonesty? my mistake. Makes sense i guess, i mean, it would be difficult to defend such utter shit without being deceitful. Again you are confusing evolutionary biology with cosmology. Physics, the universe and the formation of our planet has nothing to do with natural selection.. So have another go at getting it completely wrong, it's hillarious. Everything? Or everything besides your god? See, like i have said countless times and you have ignored countless times, you commit logical suicide when your explanatory agent violates the very law that required it's invention. Do you not see how little sense it actually makes to say "everything needs a beginning, so god done it, oh, and god doesn't require a beginning because hes magic and shit"? i mean seriously pong, you are all over the place here. have a sit down, collect your "thoughts" and have another go at rationalising your funny little "belief". So what is your explanation for the fact that she opened nunneries in nearly every country using the billions of donated dollars but not one well equipped hospital? What is your explanation for her amassing billions of dollars but still "treating" very sick children is some squalid little rat infested shit hole with nothing more than prayer and damp rags? let's start with that one. The woman was a vicious old self obsessed hag who made a living from the suffering of children. She was one of the most wretched pieces of shit the church has ever highly regarded, and they have regarded highly some seriously wretched pieces of shit in their time. But you continue to tow the party line pong, don't ask yourself difficult questions, you might not like the conclusion you come to. just do as you are told and carry on defending someone who made money from the suffering of children, like a good "christian".
Where you see order, I see chaos, entropy, and then order. The shape of the universe is an outward explosion, and galaxies are just bands of stars circling black-hole drains, while each star is keeping its objects in check. We likely started out with more planets, but though chaotic processes (a bit too slow or fast) they were destroyed (Asteroid belt) or eaten by our young star. What was left were those that maintained an equilibrium. In the beginning there was chaos, however eventually chaos is eaten by that which has energy and gravity - but when the energy runs out, entropy will lead us back to chaos yet again. The first animals were chaotic, and some of their descendants live, without shapes in symmetry. Chaos is a good force, entropy is also good for change - order without either will lead to nothing.
Jackuul, 200 years back if you had told someone that you can fly they would laugh at both of us. They would think that flight is a scientific impossibility. If you had told people 500 years ago that we were comprised of tiny microscopic cells they would also laugh at us, but the more we knew about our world and the more our knowledge of the universae gained the more order we saw. Im sure one day humans will have a formula explanation for just about everything. The more we find out about the universe the more we see its complete order. There are a few physicists that even believe in the law of everthing. Im sure your aware of this as well as it seems you know a bit about this area. It just makes no sense to me to think order comes from chaos. everything needs a force to make it do something. The first celled organisms had a push to survive. Why does it have to be programmed into them to survive. Why didnt they just decide to whither away instead of choosing to become more complex multi celled creatures. One day im sure we will find out the formula that pushed them towards survival. What seems like chaos now to us im sure later one will be defined as we learn more. Entropy measures randomness I believe, but even if we find it now how do we know that we are measuring everything that is having an effect on the object that we are measuring the entropy for. So far scientifically speaking we just keep learning and learning and everything leads to one word and thats order.
So true. But does that "order" has anything to do with the "God" who is in existence only when humans were created? Why religious people think that Humans are so precious that they must be son/daughters of God? What about all that HUGE time before the creation of humans? Was that all crap? Why God created crap (if it was crap)? Oh, that wasn't crap, right. Then why don't we see so old Crocodiles (They are believed to be 200 million years old) writing Holy books and building churches/temples? I don't believe there's ANY God as described in ANY religion. That's all.
StOX has made up a rule/fact equating God with Santa. I'm simply asking for his logic in doing so - it will be funny to watch. He's blatently after making an assumption that cannot stand up to even the most basic scrutiny. The concept of God and Santa are two entirely different concepts and its a popular ruse of Atheism to attempt to equate the two. For instance, the leg of a table and the leg of a chair are similar. But just because they share a common trait, does not make them equal. Ditto with Santa and God. Just because they share a common trait (no proof) does not make them equal. So all I'm asking for is StOx's basis for equating the two. After all, not even a genuine atheist would equate the concept of Santa with the concept of God. Its quiet amateurish at the best, or profoundly ignorant at the most. However, maybe StOx has come up with something that the greatest atheists have failed to spot. So i'm simply asking him for his basis for equating the two. Quiet how you rant about me 'making up rules' when you're attempting to throw out the common concept of God and Santa makes no sense and shows the shallowness of your argument.
Still attempting the superiority argument I see. Of course that would be a better argument but that's not what you said. Scientists have not one fact or evidence of where the universe came from. They are exactly equal to a religious person in that regard -no proof for any theory in existence at the moment.They are therefore equal to joe soap. Sure, they might know more about evolution, but thats and entirely different concept to creationism. And I've said evolution is different from creationism. You're argument about the big bang shows you cannot provide any basis for where the big bang came from or what existed prior. Still feeling smugly superior? I never asked for anything. I simply pointed out Atheists of the 'God does not exist' variety are without scientific fact. Not one shred of evidence. thats all. Yet you've led everybody on a boring merry go round attempting to argue that your piece of phD paper somehow makes you more knowledgable than Joe Soap as to the origins of the universe. The best you can provide is that you know something about evolution. Whoohoo for you. Its akin to me saying I have a phD in Spanish, therefore I must know French. **coughs politely** Perhaps you can point out where religion ever said it would bring the internet? After all your lecturing about mixing religion and science, it seems you're first in line to break your own rules! WTF?! Science existed since man was born. Idiotic statement to make No. 1. You're rambling now. God and the Church are two entirely different items. And yet you seem to stick it into every post you make. MEanwhile, the rest of humankind have had their heads stuck in the sand refusing to engage brain. Idiotic statement No. 2 to make from you. You should re-evaluate your opinion of yourself. I've found your arguments to be incredibly shallow. Text book copy and paste. More shallow superiority argument from you. Do you understand the difference between 'works' and 'origins' ? Maybe when you look up the difference you might have some inkling as to why your 'belief' is no better than religious 'belief' on a scientific basis. And yet above you clearly state scientists know more about the origins than anybody else. But no evidence for the origins exist, yet somehow you seem to think you're better than others. Head. Sand. Stuck. You don't say Sherlock? Given your shallow arguments, I'm finding it hard to take you seriously at all. So far, the sum total of your reasoning can be given thus: 1. I have a phD 2. Most scientists I know are atheists. I cannot begin to describe to you how shallow those arguments are. If you cannot see that, then I cannot help you. And your 'superior' knowledge all counts for exactly diddly squat on a scientific basis. At best you're simply posting your own beliefs. Which is exactly what a religious person would do. And again, my original post equated atheistic belief with religious belief. The best you've done to disprove that statement is to state you have a phD. Great work. You definitely should leave the phD aside. I'm even cringing at this stage every time I see you mention it. I never said God exists. You can point out here where I said God exists if you wish. But given my previous requests for you to post statements you make and attribute to me, I won't hold my breath. I said the belief God exists and the belief God does not exist are equal on a scientific basis. i.e. that in the absence of proof both theories hold equal weight. All that you've done is hop on a merry go around, assumed I had evidence God existed when I blatently said otherwise, and attempted to impress everyone with your phD. As I've said the sum total of your argument is to continually state you have a phD and know some scientists. Whoopie do. I have this image of you being asked to prove gravity and showing the student your phD qualification.