(December 4, 2013 at 10:36 pm)whateverist Wrote: I don't find this new guy DOS's posts at all compelling. He is welcome to his rude, poorly formed sentences .. whatever they may mean to him.

No comment. Bored now.

I have to say I haven't understood his intentions at all. To date he hasn't presented any kind of case. All we have so far is that there is no proof for either position.

Perhaps he'll come back with something today. I'm betting on a personal experience - how God saved me type of thing, unless he is just trying to convince himself.

So I have come to conclusion that the atheists:
1) Have no idea of whether the God, afterlife, soul exist.
2) They have a principal or a position unless it will be put an evidence to their face they will not accept that the afterlife exists and I am not sure whether it's even worth the position of the thinker or a philosopher, it puts them on the cockroach level, they have no clue about God either...so far so forth.

Now interesting read for today of the other great Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, for fun...

"I will tell you about myself. Nature has implanted in my breast an extraordinary faculty for belief. Whisper it not to the night, but half my life I was in the ranks of the Atheists and Nihilists, but there was not one hour in my life in which I ceased to believe. All talents, as a rule, show themselves in early childhood, and so my faculty showed itself when I could still walk upright under the table. My mother liked her children to eat a great deal, and when she gave me food she used to say: 'Eat! Soup is the great thing in life!' I believed, and ate the soup ten times a day, ate like a shark, ate till I was disgusted and stupefied. My nurse used to tell me fairy tales, and I believed in house-spirits, in wood-elves, and in goblins of all kinds. I used sometimes to steal corrosive sublimate from my father, sprinkle it on cakes, and carry them up to the attic that the house-spirits, you see, might eat them and be killed. And when I was taught to read and understand what I read, then there was a fine to-do. I ran away to America and went off to join the brigands, and wanted to go into a monastery, and hired boys to torture me for being a Christian. And note that my faith was always active, never dead. If I was running away to America I was not alone, but seduced someone else, as great a fool as I was, to go with me, and was delighted when I was nearly frozen outside the town gates and when I was thrashed; if I went to join the brigands I always came back with my face battered. A most restless childhood, I assure you! And when they sent me to the high school and pelted me with all sorts of truths -- that is, that the earth goes round the sun, or that white light is not white, but is made up of seven colours -- my poor little head began to go round! Everything was thrown into a whirl in me: Navin who made the sun stand still, and my mother who in the name of the Prophet Elijah disapproved of lightning conductors, and my father who was indifferent to the truths I had learned. My enlightenment inspired me. I wandered about the house and stables like one possessed, preaching my truths, was horrified by ignorance, glowed with hatred for anyone who saw in white light nothing but white light, . . . But all that's nonsense and childishness. Serious, so to speak, manly enthusiasms began only at the university. You have, no doubt, Madam, taken your degree somewhere?"

"I studied at Novotcherkask at the Don Institute."

"Then you have not been to a university? So you don't know what science means. All the sciences in the world have the same passport, without which they regard themselves as meaningless . . . the striving towards truth! Every one of them, even pharmacology, has for its aim not utility, not the alleviation of life, but truth. It's remarkable! When you set to work to study any science, what strikes you first of all is its beginning. I assure you there is nothing more attractive and grander, nothing is so staggering, nothing takes a man's breath away like the beginning of any science. From the first five or six lectures you are soaring on wings of the brightest hopes, you already seem to yourself to be welcoming truth with open arms. And I gave myself up to science, heart and soul, passionately, as to the woman one loves. I was its slave; I found it the sun of my existence, and asked for no other. I studied day and night without rest, ruined myself over books, wept when before my eyes men exploited science for their own personal ends. But my enthusiasm did not last long. The trouble is that every science has a beginning but not an end, like a recurring decimal. Zoology has discovered 35,000 kinds of insects, chemistry reckons 60 elements. If in time tens of noughts can be written after these figures, Zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as now, and all contemporary scientific work consists in increasing these numbers. I saw through this trick when I discovered the 35,001-st and felt no satisfaction. Well, I had no time to suffer from disillusionment, as I was soon possessed by a new faith. I plunged into Nihilism, with its manifestoes, its 'black divisions,' and all the rest of it...

Quote:They have a principal or a position unless it will be put an evidence to their face they will not accept that the afterlife exists and I am not sure whether it's even worth the position of the thinker or a philosopher, it puts them on the cockroach level, they have no clue about God either...so far so forth.

Cockroaches seem to lack the stupidity necessary to believe in things that aren't really there and behave accordingly. Perhaps that's part of why they thrive.

(December 5, 2013 at 12:17 pm)DOS Wrote: So I have come to conclusion that the atheists:

Something tells me that you "came to that conclusion" long before you signed up here.

How stupid of us silly atheists! Can you believe it?!? Only believing in things that have evidence to prove them! How stupid!

Somethings tell me he, Nineteen and Sleepy have much in common. But that is just me

OP, spell Fyodor's name right in your sig before getting all high and mighty on us atheists.

What is a Christian who goes to an Atheist forum and tries to convince the audience of the error of their ways? That was my first thought when reading your post.
We all get frustrated when others can't see what we see so clearly. What is clear to you is foggy to others.
Known this sir, I have not come to this point by being influenced by a virtual (define as you like) fundie.
Enlightenment comes when there is no need to convince or advance you point of view. Observation and calculation is much more efficient within the human condition.
Respond with dogma filter please.

(December 5, 2013 at 12:17 pm)DOS Wrote: So I have come to conclusion that the atheists:
1) Have no idea of whether the God, afterlife, soul exist.
2) They have a principal or a position unless it will be put an evidence to their face they will not accept that the afterlife exists and I am not sure whether it's even worth the position of the thinker or a philosopher, it puts them on the cockroach level, they have no clue about God either...so far so forth.

---

Now interesting read for today of the other great Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, for fun...

"I will tell you about myself. Nature has implanted in my breast an extraordinary faculty for belief. Whisper it not to the night, but half my life I was in the ranks of the Atheists and Nihilists, but there was not one hour in my life in which I ceased to believe. All talents, as a rule, show themselves in early childhood, and so my faculty showed itself when I could still walk upright under the table. My mother liked her children to eat a great deal, and when she gave me food she used to say: 'Eat! Soup is the great thing in life!' I believed, and ate the soup ten times a day, ate like a shark, ate till I was disgusted and stupefied. My nurse used to tell me fairy tales, and I believed in house-spirits, in wood-elves, and in goblins of all kinds. I used sometimes to steal corrosive sublimate from my father, sprinkle it on cakes, and carry them up to the attic that the house-spirits, you see, might eat them and be killed. And when I was taught to read and understand what I read, then there was a fine to-do. I ran away to America and went off to join the brigands, and wanted to go into a monastery, and hired boys to torture me for being a Christian. And note that my faith was always active, never dead. If I was running away to America I was not alone, but seduced someone else, as great a fool as I was, to go with me, and was delighted when I was nearly frozen outside the town gates and when I was thrashed; if I went to join the brigands I always came back with my face battered. A most restless childhood, I assure you! And when they sent me to the high school and pelted me with all sorts of truths -- that is, that the earth goes round the sun, or that white light is not white, but is made up of seven colours -- my poor little head began to go round! Everything was thrown into a whirl in me: Navin who made the sun stand still, and my mother who in the name of the Prophet Elijah disapproved of lightning conductors, and my father who was indifferent to the truths I had learned. My enlightenment inspired me. I wandered about the house and stables like one possessed, preaching my truths, was horrified by ignorance, glowed with hatred for anyone who saw in white light nothing but white light, . . . But all that's nonsense and childishness. Serious, so to speak, manly enthusiasms began only at the university. You have, no doubt, Madam, taken your degree somewhere?"

"I studied at Novotcherkask at the Don Institute."

"Then you have not been to a university? So you don't know what science means. All the sciences in the world have the same passport, without which they regard themselves as meaningless . . . the striving towards truth! Every one of them, even pharmacology, has for its aim not utility, not the alleviation of life, but truth. It's remarkable! When you set to work to study any science, what strikes you first of all is its beginning. I assure you there is nothing more attractive and grander, nothing is so staggering, nothing takes a man's breath away like the beginning of any science. From the first five or six lectures you are soaring on wings of the brightest hopes, you already seem to yourself to be welcoming truth with open arms. And I gave myself up to science, heart and soul, passionately, as to the woman one loves. I was its slave; I found it the sun of my existence, and asked for no other. I studied day and night without rest, ruined myself over books, wept when before my eyes men exploited science for their own personal ends. But my enthusiasm did not last long. The trouble is that every science has a beginning but not an end, like a recurring decimal. Zoology has discovered 35,000 kinds of insects, chemistry reckons 60 elements. If in time tens of noughts can be written after these figures, Zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as now, and all contemporary scientific work consists in increasing these numbers. I saw through this trick when I discovered the 35,001-st and felt no satisfaction. Well, I had no time to suffer from disillusionment, as I was soon possessed by a new faith. I plunged into Nihilism, with its manifestoes, its 'black divisions,' and all the rest of it...

---

The problem that you have is that all you have is literature to back up your position.

We cockroaches have more than that. Consider the following brief list for your designer God. I won't ask if you think him worthy of worship. I will ask if you would employ him.

Christianity is of the opinion that God created the entire universe for us and that Jesus is the culmination of that mission:

The Universe is 13.72 billion years old.
About 70% of it is dark matter, and about 30% dark energy.
1% is everything else (Galaxies, stars, planets etc.)
That 1% is made up of about 100 billion galaxies with around 100 billion stars per galaxy on average.
That's 10^23 stars in the known universe.
Would you employ this designer? None of the above is required for the purpose.

The earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
Life on earth started some 4 billion years ago.
Single cellular life held sway for about 3.5 billion years until multicellular creatures appeared some 575 million years ago.
For about 40 million years these creatures dominated the scene until they suddenly all went extinct.
New creatures appear, they too went extinct.
5 great extinction events are known throughout the history of the earth culminating in the end of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.
In each great extinction event 75-95% of all living things disappeared from the face of the earth.
For the next 65 million years the mammals held sway.
Throughout all of the above species after species have gone extinct outside of the great extinction events.
200,000 years ago an upright walking ape called Homo Sapiens walked out of Africa and started to spread over the planet.
70,000 years ago that species was on the brink of extinction itself - down to some 1,000 breeding pairs.
2,000 years ago - 198,000 years after our species first appeared - Jesus came to save us all.
As of today 98% of all the species that have ever lived have gone extinct.
Would you employ this designer?

We are very ill adapted to our upright posture.
We lose more days work to backache than any other cause.
Our bodies contain organs (spleen, appendix) we can live without but can kill us.
Nerves that control the larynx descend into the chest cavity from the brain to return back up into the neck.
We are prone to problems with most joints particularly those involved in locomotion (knees, hips, feet).
We suffer from innumerable ailments from headaches to bacterial and viral infections.
Our teeth are too big for our mouths.
Our main pleasure centre is right next to waste disposal.
Our eyes are designed with the supporting blood vessels in front of the retina (compare to crocodilians where this is not the case).
Would you employ this designer?

Many animals have better hearing than we do.
Many animals, from the eagle to the goldfish have better eyesight than we do.
Many animals are faster than we are.
Many animals are stronger than we are.
Our DNA is 90% vestigal junk.
We are prone to a variety of genetic disorders.
We contain billions of cells. The amoeba contains just one. Some amoeba have upto 100 times more DNA than our we do (why?).
Would you employ this designer?

I'll stop there - not that I have to - but I just needed to illustrate the point.

So. Are you that self-centred that you think the universe was built for us by an interested God? If you believe God did design the whole thing - what kind of moron do you think he is?

(December 5, 2013 at 12:56 pm)zenblaster Wrote: What is a Christian who goes to an Atheist forum and tries to convince the audience of the error of their ways?

It's the "If you saw a friend standing on train tracks wouldn't you want to warn them of the oncoming train?" idea. Many Christians actually believe that they're doing us a favor by gracing us with their presence and telling us how evil our heathen ways are.