That challenge is like AF. Every day. I can't wait for gods, I have at the moment, a daughter to raise. In 14 years, things might get worse. Right now, its mom.

Quote:Oh, gee, a guy who is championed by Deepak Chopra.  Excuse me if I'm unimpressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiU5ht5W_lk

In Julia Sweeney's monologue "Letting Go of God", she makes an interesting and funny comment reference Deepak Chopra.  Her monologue is the best account of a person's path to Atheism that I've ever heard.  It's really worth a listen for the humour and entertainment value alone...

(January 17, 2017 at 2:54 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(January 17, 2017 at 2:53 pm)Mathilda Wrote: They're only trying to convince themselves. They stop as soon as they satisfy all their own personal doubts. Which means that they stop questioning their own religion when they reach their own personal level of ignorance.

I was walking into town on Saturday and there was a preacher with a megaphone asking what came first, the chicken or the egg, what brought together all the elements etc. All the usual arguments from ignorance.

An excellent example was when I argued with my zealous brother at Christmas. We asked him why he didn't worship Zeus or Thor. He replied that he doesn't know anything about them. As if that was an adequate answer. His ignorance doesn't change the nature of reality, but it did allow him to believe in one fairy tale rather than another.

The egg came first.

. . . by millions and millions of years.

*Megaphone preacher's mind blown*

(January 17, 2017 at 2:25 pm)robvalue Wrote: We can never know what the "laws of nature" are. We just model them. If something doesn't fit our models, that doesn't mean it's breaking a law of nature. This equivocation seems to be more invulnerable than God. How is it a law, if something breaks it? It's just dumb word games.

People are just trying to say "it does impossible things".

I would claim that we have a reasonable understanding of the "Laws of Nature" as opposed to an absolute  understanding.  We can say with reasonable certainty that natural law tells us that a human cannot regrow a severed head.  "Absolute" certainty about anything is an intangible concept.   We cannot claim to be absolutely certain about anything.  However, claiming to be reasonably certain about natural law is a valid claim...

Sure, we can be reasonably certain. We're confident because we test it. But when something breaks our models, we can't be the slightest bit confident this is because this thing "breaks the law" rather than us simply not modeling the law correctly. What does it even mean, to break a law? It's a contradiction in terms. Science is right, but science is wrong.

The whole process of science is about refining models. If something is "supernatural" every time it falls outside our current understanding, we'd never get anywhere. No it fucking isn't, get back to work and improve the models. Oh no you're right, we understand it now. This distinction between natural and "supernatural" is entirely arbitrary, and no one except woo-peddlers feel the need to make it.

(January 17, 2017 at 12:37 am)The Gentleman Bastard Wrote:

(January 16, 2017 at 7:09 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: Wrong.

On what basis can you rule anything out if you don't know?

Say you haven't learn the concept of math, on what basis can you say 2+2= 4 is right or wrong if you don't know?

Here's a little better analogy than the crap you just spewed...

Let's say some guys wife is getting boned on the side. He can rule out huge numbers of people his wife might be fucking without ever figuring out who it really is. After all, King Henry the 8th isn't available for any afternoon delight. Neither is Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan swinging by to poke her pussy. He can scratch Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and President Obama from the list since they've never had the opportunity to dance the horizontal mambo with her. In fact, he can rule out quite literally billions of people with absolute certainty (or something so close as to make no difference) without even trying...

It is possible to know what the answer isn't even if you don't know what the answer is.

Besides, you give me four of something and I can certainly tell you I don't have ten of them (or 20, or 100, or 2048, or 243,985,243) without ever figuring 2+2=4.

Huggy has been told this endless times.

Hopefully your analogy will finally get him to see the error in his thinking. Although, I have my doubts.

Religitards never catch on.  They really think they can argue their silly shit into existence.

(January 17, 2017 at 4:37 pm)robvalue Wrote: Sure, we can be reasonably certain. We're confident because we test it. But when something breaks our models, we can't be the slightest bit confident this is because this thing "breaks the law" rather than us simply not modeling the law correctly. What does it even mean, to break a law? It's a contradiction in terms. Science is right, but science is wrong.

The whole process of science is about refining models. If something is "supernatural" every time it falls outside our current understanding, we'd never get anywhere. No it fucking isn't, get back to work and improve the models. Oh no you're right, we understand it now. This distinction between natural and "supernatural" is entirely arbitrary, and no one except woo-peddlers feel the need to make it.

Having holy scriptures inform us that Jesus was crucified on Thursday and Friday seems to transcend both the natural and supernatural and enters the realm of FUBAR.

(January 17, 2017 at 2:11 pm)Mathilda Wrote:

(January 16, 2017 at 8:22 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: However God is a spirit. A spirit does not exist within the laws of nature, it is a supernatural being, and therefore not affected by natural law, particles, fields, or time...

If your god is a spirit that does not exist within the laws of nature and is not affected by natural law, particles, fields, or time ... then nor can it interact with them making your god completely and utterly non-existent in this reality and irrelevant to your life.

Great, isn't it? First he proved, with his own argument, that whatever caused the universe couldn't have been supernatural. Now he's proved that his pet god doesn't exist. He'll have dismantled all religion by Friday.

(January 17, 2017 at 2:11 pm)Mathilda Wrote:

(January 16, 2017 at 8:22 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: However God is a spirit. A spirit does not exist within the laws of nature, it is a supernatural being, and therefore not affected by natural law, particles, fields, or time...

If your god is a spirit that does not exist within the laws of nature and is not affected by natural law, particles, fields, or time ... then nor can it interact with them making your god completely and utterly non-existent in this reality and irrelevant to your life.

Your logic kinda fails since he's the CREATOR of this reality, and why would the creator be affected by the creation or not be able to interact with it?