The Problem with Christians

[abaris]

Any ideas how sophisticated, self replicating DNA codes wrote themselves from a bunch of random chemicals?

No, but I leave that to the people actually doing the research to give a qualified answer. But what I do know is that they don't say, hey it's complicated, so it has to be god - my god.

[AJW333]

Last time you responded...you said dirt -included- all the things magic book left out. 

So the Bible doesn't list the periodic table. How is that relevant? The Bible talks about salt but doesn't call it NaCl. Does that mean it wasn't talking about salt?

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I'm not one of those who insists on a literal 6 day creation.

What a great concession,

So do I get some Kudos or what?

[abaris]

Is it ignorant to associate Islam with the mark of the beast?

No, it's not even on the level of ignorance, it's simply bigoted. Straight on the my god has the biggest dick line. Primitive on the side, but that usually goes hand in hand with bigotry.

Ignorant barges in with a vengeance, when you actually take an ambivalent phrase and turn it into a meaning of your liking. Thereby not only ignoring the history of the bible, such as when it actually was compiled.

Lastly, ignorance is also in play when you actually take the mark of the beast to be a real thiing. But I think, we established that already.

[AJW333]

Why should I pay you about 40% of my annual income to do something that'll cost you, roughly, a dollar?

Your answer to my challenge though is interesting enough. From it I can reasonably conclude that you've no degree in any field and are simply bullshitting us with lying credentialism. Nice to have proof that you're just another lying sack of shit whose only "learning" came from the bananaman himself, Ray Comfort.

I'm a reasonable man, how much would you like to wager?

[The Grand Nudger]

So the Bible doesn't list the periodic table. How is that relevant? The Bible talks about salt but doesn't call it NaCl. Does that mean it wasn't talking about salt?

Round and round we go.  Magic book says many things.  I've left it up to you to tell me to what those statements and claims refer, in reality.  Is it too much to ask that you be consistent, even if magic book is not?

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Deleted

[robvalue]

So, we're back to the argument from ignorance again?

We can't explain something (or we can but the person doesn't like the explanation), therefor they can make up anything they want.

Well, it's true. They can indeed make up anything they want. It just doesn't have any bearing on reality whatsoever, except to make them feel like they've somehow defended their beliefs.

[loganonekenobi]

My two cents.
the problem with the religious has always been the arrogant position that the non religious should consider their words but they should NEVER considers ours.
It is a fact that the bible says that non believers are fools (psalm 14 -1)
and so with this verse leading the way they can justify their close minded attitude towards any other way of thinking. This is never good for humanity.
I feel fortunate that I live in a time and place where i can express my anti theistic ideas and still live another day.
I thank the secular ideas of this country that allow me to do that.

[Esquilax]

When I use the term "free will" it is with the understanding that it relates to actions that are possible.

When god is the one that decides what is and is not possible- and when to suspend those decisions in the form of answered prayer or miracles- then we already have a god that is limiting free will. To claim that he's now suddenly unwilling to is an entirely arbitrary and self-serving rationalization.

 If free will doesn't necessitate that I be successful, then there's no reason at all for god to allow any form of human-imposed suffering, because that suffering could be freely chosen by those who wish to inflict it, without resulting in a successful end result for those people.

You may have to reword this as I don't follow the argument.

So, if free will concerns the ability to decide upon an action but not the ability to be automatically successful at it, then god can intervene at the acting stage, without infringing on free will at all. Rapists always get flacid, mass shooters find their bullets always miss, scams never work because bank accounts always mysteriously reverse any fraudulent deposits, that sort of thing. There is no sense in which free will excludes god from acting in the world in whatever way he wishes. That argument is a non-starter.

[Esquilax]

Any ideas how sophisticated, self replicating DNA codes wrote themselves from a bunch of random chemicals?

First off: if we can't explain it, does that mean we must default to your god did it?

Secondly, it happened through a series of cascading chemical events, from simple molecules up to modern DNA. It's very easy to make the process look impossible simply by focusing on the modern, sophisticated products of this, but to do so ignores the process, which is most likely made of many steps and occurred over millions of years. In fact, experimental data shows that the building blocks of DNA form naturally in certain circumstances: this is, you might notice, about one hundred percent more testable, repeatable evidence than there has ever been for any god.

Lastly, I'd like to pick up on your comment about reversing entropy, because I think you have a misunderstanding of that term. See, entropy applies to closed systems, and the Earth is not that. The Earth is within a closed system though, which is the universe, and taken on that scale, what we have is an extremely small incidence of an increase in localized order within a much larger system that doesn't decrease in entropy because of this. None of that is precluded within our understanding of entropy, and in fact it's even debatable whether life counts as a decrease in entropy anyway, given what life tends to do as it evolves in complexity. Look at our big-ass cities and tell me life hasn't resulted in disorder greater than would exist on Earth without it.