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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 12:19 am
(May 18, 2015 at 10:49 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: Oh yay. Another former atheist come here to impress us with arguments we've seen a thousand times.
(May 15, 2015 at 3:31 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I'm not saying that a theistic explanation is the only possible one. But theism does seem to accommodate a world view that encompasses more than just the natural world. Why must a world view encompass more than the natural world when there is precisely zero evidence(*) for anything beyond the natural?
(May 15, 2015 at 3:31 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: That was an important thing because I think that there is more to "reality" than just the physical stuff of nature. And, what evidence(*) leads you to believe there is anything beyond the natural?
*Evidence being that which is both testable and verifiable, and supports the claim you're trying to make.
What evidence leads me to believe there is anything beyond the physical stuff of nature? Well, although you will probably not accept my evidence as testable or verifiable, my evidence is moral absolutes, laws of nature, and laws of logic.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 12:36 am
= arguments from ignorance.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 12:38 am
(May 18, 2015 at 10:49 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: Oh yay. Another former atheist come here to impress us with arguments we've seen a thousand times.
Hi SnakeOilWarrior. I truly doubt that I'm going to impress anyone here. I'm a fairly illiterate guy. I got horrible grades in school and I just barely made it through high school. I have no doubt that you've seen every argument that theists have made! But my hope is that by discussing these things with all of you well educated people, I might actually learn some good things. That is my hope.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 12:44 am
(May 18, 2015 at 9:57 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I see what you're saying. Empathy is just one of many factors by which people form a consensus. But there is still something that is unclear to me in all of this. If the consensus here in the U.S. never changed, and it was still the consensus that Blacks are only 3/5 human, and that race-based slavery is OK, then what? Would that mean that Black Americans have no human rights?
It would mean that society as a meta-entity would not give them the rights that we give them today, and that would be considered moral in that society.
Who knows what the social struggle will be in 100 years? Who knows what practice that we consider completely normal and acceptable today will be the source of a cultural movement to abolish or augment then? For what practice will we be seen as barbaric?
That's the entire point. Cultures and tribes are a constantly shifting mass of mores. I just watched a documentary yesterday where Ugandans (thanks to your wonderful Christian™ brethren) have been whipped up into such a frenzy of hate for homosexuals that they will openly talk about raping women to "give them real sex" to change them, or the accepted practice is to take a gay man to the tallest building in the village and throw him off. If he survives he will be killed by the mob watching hungrily in the street. This is "moral" in that society.
The point is, your "objective morality" would be different had you been born 100 years ago, and would be different if you were born 100 years from now, or if you had been born in the jungle tribes of the Amazon.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 1:22 am
(May 19, 2015 at 12:19 am)Freedom4me Wrote: What evidence leads me to believe there is anything beyond the physical stuff of nature? Well, although you will probably not accept my evidence as testable or verifiable, my evidence is moral absolutes,
Ha ha, whoa: when did you establish the existence of moral absolutes?
Quote:laws of nature,
Why do descriptions of the consistent ways nature works require anything supernatural?
Quote:and laws of logic.
Same dilly-o, home slice.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 1:25 am
(May 19, 2015 at 1:22 am)Esquilax Wrote: Same dilly-o, home slice.
Honorary 'Murrican!
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 2:52 am
(This post was last modified: May 19, 2015 at 2:52 am by robvalue.)
If there were moral (biblical) absolutes, slavery would still be acceptable.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 3:09 am
(May 19, 2015 at 12:38 am)Freedom4me Wrote: (May 18, 2015 at 10:49 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote: Hi SnakeOilWarrior. I truly doubt that I'm going to impress anyone here. I'm a fairly illiterate guy. I got horrible grades in school and I just barely made it through high school. I have no doubt that you've seen every argument that theists have made! But my hope is that by discussing these things with all of you well educated people, I might actually learn some good things. That is my hope.
Stay here long enough and you WILL believe! I did.
You WILL believe all about evolution and genetics ... you just have to want to piss off all the woo ... hard at first, but the greatest thing you will accomplish.
Do you really think 99% of all the worlds scientists are lost souls who don't get it?
Maybe they don't believe for a really really good reason...
give it a go.
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 3:11 am
(This post was last modified: May 19, 2015 at 3:12 am by Silver.)
Freedom4me:
I'm a fairly illiterate guy.
Kitan:
That explains everything.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
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RE: Nature's Laws
May 19, 2015 at 3:12 am
(This post was last modified: May 19, 2015 at 3:14 am by robvalue.)
Evolution is good to go. The more you learn about it, the more it makes perfect sense.
Sadly many theists simply refuse to learn about it, instead "refuting" their utterly flawed idea of what evolution is. It's about as sad and ridiculous as me drawing God on a bit of cardboard, ripping up the cardboard then declaring God is dead and all religion must end.
Learn about evolution. It's absolutely fascinating. No one should be scared of the truth, wherever it may lie. I've yet to hear one single person who demonstrates they have a decent understanding of evolution but rejects it.
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