5 bombshells some atheists are not aware of

[Whateverist]

5. Sir Isaac Newton had an interest in the occult, he studied alchemy and believed he would discover The Philosopher’s Stone, a material capable of turning base metal into gold. He also believed that metals ‘possessed a sort of life’.

Poked around in his own eye for god's sake.



[Sorry. I fucked these quote tags up so badly I don't even know how to fix them. Hope I've attributed the right poster.]

[Mr Greene]

[downbeatplumb]

1. Darwin never once uses either the word ‘ape’ or ‘apes’ in his work ‘On The Origin of Species’, so he could never have said Humans were descendants of or shared a common ancestor with apes.

I think it was a someone who was defending creationism that who said that.

Yes here we go.

The 1860 Oxford evolution debate took place at the Oxford University Museum in Oxford, England, on 30 June 1860, seven months after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.[1] Several prominent British scientists and philosophers participated, including Thomas Henry Huxley, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, Benjamin Brodie, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Robert FitzRoy.[1] The debate is best remembered today for a heated exchange in which Wilberforce supposedly asked Huxley whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Oxford...ion_debate

Huxley is said to have replied that he would not be ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth

[Anomalocaris]

1. Darwin never once uses either the word ‘ape’ or ‘apes’ in his work ‘On The Origin of Species’, so he could never have said Humans were descendants of or shared a common ancestor with apes.

Darwin explicitly said in the "origin of species" that he would treat the descent of men separately at a later date. It is small wonder why he may technically not have said explicitly in that book humans descended from ape or anything else.

But his implications from that book were so clear a large number of his perceptive contemporaries took it and ran with it. Indeed only a backward bent creationist could have imagined anything else from that fact Darwin himself didn't say it in print.

As to the separate book, it was published 10 years latr, to endorse what his contemporaries have read into his original "origin of species". That second book was called none other than "The descent of Men" to confound those who would claim Darwin didn't say anything about men descended from apes. In this book he not only argued men descended from a common ancesters, but treated with great prescience many seemingly large gaps between apes and humans could have been bridged by mechanism of evolution by natural selection.

[Rev. Rye]

1. Darwin never once uses either the word ‘ape’ or ‘apes’ in his work ‘On The Origin of Species’, so he could never have said Humans were descendants of or shared a common ancestor with apes.

Of course he didn't mention apes in The Origin of Species. He devoted another whole book to that.

2. Richard Dawkins has never called himself an atheist, he actually considers himself to be agnostic.

You are aware that atheism and agnosticism are two different beliefs covering two different things, and thus, not mutually exclusive, right?

3. Early on in Dawkins’ book, ‘The God Delusion’, he points out that no one can have total certainty that God does or does not exist.

Of course I'm aware of that. Also, see my last point.

4. Darwin had little faith in fossil records ever proving his theory of Evolution, he considered them too incomplete.

Bear in mind that A) He wrote in a time when the fossil record was, to say the least, small, and that B) In the 150 years since the writing of the Origin of Species, the fossil record's size has improved by leaps and bounds.

5. Sir Isaac Newton had an interest in the occult, he studied alchemy and believed he would discover The Philosopher’s Stone, a material capable of turning base metal into gold. He also believed that metals ‘possessed a sort of life’.

Well, I'll just let Joe E. Brown say it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLW5jzHsW7c

[Esquilax]

I'm kinda wondering what the point of these bombshells is? What Darwin, Dawkins or what have you said has no bearing on the truth of the matter; they aren't prophets and we're not honor bound to follow their words to the letter. What was your intended reaction to these things, OP?

[Rev. Rye]

I'm kinda wondering what the point of these bombshells is? What Darwin, Dawkins or what have you said has no bearing on the truth of the matter; they aren't prophets and we're not honor bound to follow their words to the letter. What was your intended reaction to these things, OP?

Well, it looks like the idea that who says something is ultimately second to what someone is actually saying is going to be as big a bombshell on this guy than he thought these 5 would be.

[ManMachine]

I'm kinda wondering what the point of these bombshells is? What Darwin, Dawkins or what have you said has no bearing on the truth of the matter; they aren't prophets and we're not honor bound to follow their words to the letter. What was your intended reaction to these things, OP?

Well, it looks like the idea that who says something is ultimately second to what someone is actually saying is going to be as big a bombshell on this guy than he thought these 5 would be.

I don't consider them 'bombshells' at all, that is a trope.

MM

[Rampant.A.I.]

Like "Five facts doctors don't want you to know" or "Man discovers one shocking thing: What happens next will BLOW YOUR MIND" or "Click to find out the truth of how clickbait works: You won't believe this is true!"

[ManMachine]

Like "Five facts doctors don't want you to know" or "Man discovers one shocking thing: What happens next will BLOW YOUR MIND" or "Click to find out the truth of how clickbait works: You won't believe this is true!"

Exactly, these bits of information while factual, make no difference whatsoever to an atheist viewpoint, and nor should they.

Yet, time and time again we see them being trotted out by Christians as an argument against atheism, and even some atheist argue them as if they matter to an atheist viewpoint (just see above). The reality is, they don't.

MM