RE: What are the evidence for no god?
October 18, 2015 at 9:36 pm
(This post was last modified: October 18, 2015 at 9:50 pm by TheRocketSurgeon.)
I'm back. Safe trip. Huzzah. One more task accomplished.
Blondie, I'll give you kudos and a rep point for your tenacity. Our group usually isn't this hostile to people in general, and I think they're being unusually and unnecessarily harsh to you, today. You happened to arrive at a bad time, at the end of a clash between us and a group of science-denying (in a very dishonest and aggressive way), anti-atheist bigots who have managed to inflame our emotions and put the group in a defensive and hostile posture. They are thus inclined to take anything you say in the worst light possible. I don't agree with the way this conversation has gone, but I do understand; I hope you can do the same, as I think you have the potential to be a contributing and valuable member of this community, even as a believer.
You've definitely got some bad ideas you'll need to personally work on expunging from your program, so to speak, but I think your heart's in the right place, overall.
Honest questions are encouraged, here... the problem is that theists like to come here and ask us questions that look like honest ones, but they're really just "bait", as given in the definition of trolling I mentioned earlier. It can be hard to tell whether you're trolling us or are genuinely asking, especially if people are already looking for and expecting the worst in you. For instance, when you ask us "Why are there no fossils?", and we tell you what the fossils are, a troll will just throw out another question as if we had not answered the first one-- they have no intent on changing their minds; they're just looking for one we don't personally happen to know the answer to, so they can say, "Ha! You atheists don't know anything! Science is all wrong!" They do this despite 20 previously-answered questions they posed as if those questions could not be answered, either, and they refuse to consider the implication of "I claimed science doesn't know this, but it does". Worse, some of them deliberately present mistaken/misleading fake arguments that science doesn't even make, and we're forced to spend all our time saying, "No, that's not what it says...", only to be ignored again and have more bullets fired our way.
It doesn't take long to get really angry at people who do this, and start assuming that the next person who asks a similar question is yet another troll. It's not fair, but it's understandable, as I said.
If you genuinely want to know the things you've been asking us, I'm glad to take the time to explain anything you want to know, as will Esquilax and a few others here who have some pretty good levels of knowledge in the field of evolutionary biology and/or cosmology.
I'm hoping that you do, because as you pointed out with the NCSE article, there's no real conflict between science and faith, except in the sense that the way the Bronze Age tribal sheepherders wrote the story was based on a clearly-wrong idea of how the world operates, and so much of the ideas of why God does this-or-that are provably incompatible with reality. Once a Christian lets go of the idea that the Bible is a history or science book, dictated directly from God to His Holy Secretaries, then it's not an issue... the people at the ICR are the type who just can't let go of the literalist version of the scriptures, and so they are willing to manipulate and lie in defense of that literalist approach, believing that they are serving a greater good by doing so.
Meanwhile, keep your mind open and your skin thick. In the words of Han Solo, "Good luck. You're gonna need it."
Blondie, I'll give you kudos and a rep point for your tenacity. Our group usually isn't this hostile to people in general, and I think they're being unusually and unnecessarily harsh to you, today. You happened to arrive at a bad time, at the end of a clash between us and a group of science-denying (in a very dishonest and aggressive way), anti-atheist bigots who have managed to inflame our emotions and put the group in a defensive and hostile posture. They are thus inclined to take anything you say in the worst light possible. I don't agree with the way this conversation has gone, but I do understand; I hope you can do the same, as I think you have the potential to be a contributing and valuable member of this community, even as a believer.
You've definitely got some bad ideas you'll need to personally work on expunging from your program, so to speak, but I think your heart's in the right place, overall.
Honest questions are encouraged, here... the problem is that theists like to come here and ask us questions that look like honest ones, but they're really just "bait", as given in the definition of trolling I mentioned earlier. It can be hard to tell whether you're trolling us or are genuinely asking, especially if people are already looking for and expecting the worst in you. For instance, when you ask us "Why are there no fossils?", and we tell you what the fossils are, a troll will just throw out another question as if we had not answered the first one-- they have no intent on changing their minds; they're just looking for one we don't personally happen to know the answer to, so they can say, "Ha! You atheists don't know anything! Science is all wrong!" They do this despite 20 previously-answered questions they posed as if those questions could not be answered, either, and they refuse to consider the implication of "I claimed science doesn't know this, but it does". Worse, some of them deliberately present mistaken/misleading fake arguments that science doesn't even make, and we're forced to spend all our time saying, "No, that's not what it says...", only to be ignored again and have more bullets fired our way.
It doesn't take long to get really angry at people who do this, and start assuming that the next person who asks a similar question is yet another troll. It's not fair, but it's understandable, as I said.
If you genuinely want to know the things you've been asking us, I'm glad to take the time to explain anything you want to know, as will Esquilax and a few others here who have some pretty good levels of knowledge in the field of evolutionary biology and/or cosmology.
I'm hoping that you do, because as you pointed out with the NCSE article, there's no real conflict between science and faith, except in the sense that the way the Bronze Age tribal sheepherders wrote the story was based on a clearly-wrong idea of how the world operates, and so much of the ideas of why God does this-or-that are provably incompatible with reality. Once a Christian lets go of the idea that the Bible is a history or science book, dictated directly from God to His Holy Secretaries, then it's not an issue... the people at the ICR are the type who just can't let go of the literalist version of the scriptures, and so they are willing to manipulate and lie in defense of that literalist approach, believing that they are serving a greater good by doing so.
Meanwhile, keep your mind open and your skin thick. In the words of Han Solo, "Good luck. You're gonna need it."
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
