The Problem with Christians

[robvalue]

Yeah, these word games are tiresome.

We all know where you're going with this, if you're even for real. We've seen it a million times. You're trying to establish a gap to squeeze your god into. Don't try to pretend you're doing anything else.

You can't talk god into existence.

[pocaracas]

Now, now abaris... be nice...

Shall we get dictionary definitions for a few more things?
- Ghosts
- Chupa-cabra
- Werewolf
- Fairy
- Orc
- Wizard
- Witch
- telekinesis


These exist in the dictionary... surely that means they're real, according to the logic that AJ seems to want to use. (please, AJ, show me wrong!)

[AJW333]

Do try to keep in mind that just because we humans haven't managed to explain a particular phenomenon, it doesn't mean that this phenomenon is magical.... it just means that its mechanism eludes us, for the time being.
There are even some phenomena that will likely forever elude us, such as the Big Bang, or the exact mechanism by which abiogenesis happened on this planet... but that does not mean, in the slightest, that those phenomena happened due to some magical force.

Not suggesting a "magical force." I'm trying to keep things from getting hyper spiritual. Just dealing with definitions, in particular that of the word "supernatural" which seems to be somewhat misrepresented on this thread. I'd like to stick to dictionary definitions rather than people's personal definitions.

If a person posits that there are no such things as supernatural occurrences, and that any unexplained phenomena must have purely naturalistic explanations, how is this any different from an individual making an arbitrary declaration that God exists?

---

Our current models are not "natural law". They are "models of natural law". Can you not understand the difference?

Do you have a reference book about the universe stating each and every natural law exactly and beyond question?

The particular example that I'm looking at is that of life being produced from life. Is it a law or a model? Given that there are no instances that have ever been observed of life coming from non-life, then I think it fair to say that it's more than just a model. 

If it is true that "all life always comes from life," then surely this qualifies as a law.T

[pocaracas]

Do try to keep in mind that just because we humans haven't managed to explain a particular phenomenon, it doesn't mean that this phenomenon is magical.... it just means that its mechanism eludes us, for the time being.
There are even some phenomena that will likely forever elude us, such as the Big Bang, or the exact mechanism by which abiogenesis happened on this planet... but that does not mean, in the slightest, that those phenomena happened due to some magical force.

Not suggesting a "magical force." I'm trying to keep things from getting hyper spiritual. Just dealing with definitions, in particular that of the word "supernatural" which seems to be somewhat misrepresented on this thread. I'd like to stick to dictionary definitions rather than people's personal definitions.

Ok.... let's play that game.

If a person posits that there are no such things as supernatural occurrences, and that any unexplained phenomena must have purely naturalistic explanations, how is this any different from an individual making an arbitrary declaration that God exists?

For starters, the claim that something exists requires something to back it up.
I can't just make up a thing and present it to people, claiming it exists... A claim, by itself, is meaningless.

The claim that something doesn't exist is almost impossible to maintain, in the absolute sense.
I cannot claim that there are no teapots outside the planet Earth. But I can claim that no teapots have been observed outside the planet Earth and, unless there is life somewhere out there with opposable thumbs, therefore it is unlikely to exist. (lets not discuss now the likelihood of life out there, ok? )

You seem to want to posit scientific ignorance - the ignorance of some mechanism by scientists - as a form of supernatural event. That is incorrect.
The "laws" of Nature, derived by science, are incomplete. Complex mechanisms are not easily modeled on the basis of the seemingly correct QCD, so coarser models are used and these have not managed to provide the full mechanism for a few events.... namely, abiogenesis.
Some good guesses have surfaced... some promising experiments have been made... but the exact mechanism is still not understood, not modeled.

But you can be pretty sure that it rests upon chemistry.... organic chemistry, how carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and a few other atoms have come together to form particularly complex structures. Chemistry rests upon Quantum Physics which seems well represented in the QCD formalism.

A supernatural event would go against QCD or would go against the 2nd Law of thermodynamics. If such events are not required to provide a tentative theoretical mechanism for abiogenesis.... why go there?
Supernatural events have never been observed.... Why posit them as possible? (tales of old mean little, remember)

[Joods]

I'm not going to apologize for seeing yet someone else on this forum picking apart words and playing the semantics game. So over that. Like yesterday.

[LastPoet]

If I had an euro for everytime the same arguments are refuted since I joined the forum...

[Angrboda]

If it is true that "all life always comes from life," then surely this qualifies as a law.T

Except that we don't know that this is true. Maybe yes, maybe no. That we can't explain something doesn't make it beyond the laws of physics. I can't explain how my keys ended up in my other pants. Doesn't make it supernatural.

[robvalue]

If something is true, then it is true, yes. That's called a tautology.

If the actual law of nature, and not just our model, was that life could only come from life then...

Life would only come from life.

But no one has established that is actually the case. In fact, I believe science is very close to understanding exactly why this is false.

Quick question: Who cares? Jumping ahead, I don't care. If scientific theories are wrong, I don't care, except for curiosity as to what new theories would replace them. If there's "a god", I don't care. If the christian god is real, I don't care.

And no amount of trashing science will produce evidence for any sort of "god", whatever that is.

[robvalue]

I ain't even mad.

I so ain't even mad that I made a video as Rob the "Angry Atheist" for yas. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5u5-Bg2ENQ

[AJW333]

Now, now abaris... be nice...

Shall we get dictionary definitions for a few more things?
- Ghosts
- Chupa-cabra
- Werewolf
- Fairy
- Orc
- Wizard
- Witch
- telekinesis


These exist in the dictionary... surely that means they're real, according to the logic that AJ seems to want to use. (please, AJ, show me wrong!)

The dictionary qualified some of the definitions with, " from folklore and superstition," for others that didn't have such a qualification, there remains the possibility that they exist.