If anything, this thread really highlights theists' discomfort with "I don't know." They demand all the answers to life, death, and everything in between in a nice, compact (if utterly nonsensical) package. Lack of certainty makes them incredibly uncomfortable, as witnessed by Huggy (either in this thread or another) going so far as implying that science's self-correcting mechanism is a flaw rather than a boon.

That's why they demand we come up with answers to all these things. They see atheism as a competing idea, and if it can't address all the things their religion addresses, then it's incomplete and therefore wrong. But that mentality simply illustrates that they don't really understand atheism at all. What it is, and, more importantly, what it isn't.

"I don't know" is a perfectly reasonable answer. And, frankly, no atheist needs to provide a counter explanation to whatever it is a religion claims. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods. It itself makes no claims about life or death or morality.

"I don't know..." is the first step to knowledge.

"...but I intend to find out" is the second.

"I already have the truth" is a giant step in the opposite direction.

(December 28, 2017 at 2:37 pm)Astreja Wrote: "I don't know..." is the first step to knowledge.

"...but I intend to find out" is the second.

"I already have the truth" is a giant step in the opposite direction.

And "I already have the truth and I want you to have my truth too" is a step right into a rabbit hole.

The religious wouldn't bother me if they didn't continually insist on trying to stuff their backwards way of thinking down my throat. But it seems like pushing belief on others is a top requirement for being "faithful".

-Teresa

(December 27, 2017 at 12:59 am)Astreja Wrote: From this point forward, the only science you're getting from me will be links to appropriate peer-reviewed journal articles. 

I would think you guys would start with such if you actually had some that supported your points.

(December 28, 2017 at 3:14 pm)alpha male Wrote:

(December 27, 2017 at 12:59 am)Astreja Wrote: From this point forward, the only science you're getting from me will be links to appropriate peer-reviewed journal articles. 

I would think you guys would start with such if you actually had some that supported your points.

We didn't think we would actually need them.  I, for one, was previously giving you the benefit of a doubt and simply enumerating known scientific facts, expecting you to either ask for clarification or produce contrary evidence for us to examine.  If you *want* me to roll up a journal article and whack you across the nose with it and scold "Bad theist! Bad theist!" then I guess that's where we're going with this.

(December 28, 2017 at 4:28 pm)Astreja Wrote: We didn't think we would actually need them.  I, for one, was previously giving you the benefit of a doubt and simply enumerating known scientific facts, expecting you to either ask for clarification or produce contrary evidence for us to examine.  If you *want* me to roll up a journal article and whack you across the nose with it and scold "Bad theist! Bad theist!" then I guess that's where we're going with this.

I missed the post where you enumerated known scientific facts. I just saw a mention of abiogenesis. Sure, post some papers.

Back in the Dilbert TV show, Dogbert said he had solid anecdotal evidence supporting his latest scam. Dilbert of course claimed that he didn't believe anecdotal evidence, he only believed scientific evidence. Dogbert said, No, you believe what the mass media tells you about scientific evidence. And that was correct. Few people read peer-reviewed journals. They're generally expensive, and frequently require quite a bit of education in the covered field just to understand the material. How many journals do you subscribe to? How frequently do you read more than an abstract - if even that? Do you actually get your science knowledge from popular sites and mass media?

Abiogenesis is plausible because life isnt a magical entity that just magically gets turned on/off. Its a gradual natural process. We see ourselves as living breathing moving eating beings, and biology defines us as such, but one can come up with a philosophy that we are nonliving beings who happen to have evolved through natural processes to move around a lot, breathing in O2 and breathing out CO2, with limbs that help you move around and make sense of the world around you, triggering changes in nervous system to account for newly learned information, which in turn changes how you react to things, and so on.

In summary, life is not some supernatural soul or some other magical entity.

(December 28, 2017 at 4:51 pm)alpha male Wrote: Few people read peer-reviewed journals. They're generally expensive, and frequently require quite a bit of education in the covered field just to understand the material. How many journals do you subscribe to? How frequently do you read more than an abstract - if even that? Do you actually get your science knowledge from popular sites and mass media?

I work in medicine, and regularly read abstracts when looking for information for correspondence I'm typing.  Sometimes I speed-read the whole paper.  There are also a few conditions where for my own interest I'm constantly on the lookout for new developments -- in particular, treatment of lymphedema and fibromyalgia.

It's comparatively easy for me to access journals without a personal subscription -- if I can't just pull them up on my browser at work, I can pop over to the local medical library and read them there.  (In fact, many years ago, I had a temporary position where I regularly pulled journal articles that my boss needed for her own research.  I know how to find these things.)

I only use "pop" science as a starting point.  If I have no need to dig deeper I just use those articles as mental bookmarks so that I can track down the good stuff later.  I have enough competence in the basic sciences to determine whether an article is a plausible new development, a rehash of something I was already aware of, or flat-out nonsense.

(December 28, 2017 at 4:28 pm)Astreja Wrote:

(December 28, 2017 at 3:14 pm)alpha male Wrote: I would think you guys would start with such if you actually had some that supported your points.

We didn't think we would actually need them.  I, for one, was previously giving you the benefit of a doubt and simply enumerating known scientific facts, expecting you to either ask for clarification or produce contrary evidence for us to examine.  If you *want* me to roll up a journal article and whack you across the nose with it and scold "Bad theist! Bad theist!" then I guess that's where we're going with this.

I'm a "Bad theist" and I need lickin's!

(December 21, 2017 at 3:20 am)ignoramus Wrote: (in no particular order)
Theists tell me, why is it that everything that God has provided, created and bestowed upon us, co-incidentally always seems to have
an alternate natural, more feasible explanation?

Why cannot science objectively find just one example out of trillions, where we can say, yeah, that thing right there, it shouldn't happen like that but it does, repeatedly.
That thing goes against what is logical or possible in our universe.
Example: People go back to Fatima, pray en masse for a sundance and on queue the Sun dances! For all the world to see?

Maybe it is the work of a God? They prayed to a God and a God responded... Makes logical sense.

But if God is going to act exactly like he doesn't exist in our universe, theists, why on earth do you even assume that he does?
What compels you to go against the grain of logic and common sense and dedicate your life to a particular myth from millions of other man made myths?

We just need one tiny example for God to show us something, but even that is asking too much for a non existent God.
Funny how everything in the world seems to make more sense when you take any extra unnecessary baggage out of the picture. (Occams)

Yeah, the world is a cruel place for the most part, but how is believing in something not real going to help anything or anyone.
Have we really reduced our species to relying on false hope to get by? We must have: 80% of the world does it.

(Even at the quantum level, weird shit happens, that isn't God! Why would the creator of the universe need to hide inside of atoms while we're all outside?
That's how our universe has been for 14 billion years, we're just discovering it now (last 100 years -through knowledge and technology.)

Belief in God does make logical sense to me though.