Quote:Except that you've provided a single piece of evidence- that life exists within a narrow band that is the only conditions that can support it- and you're wrong about that. Now, when we provide a counter argument to show you that you're balancing on an assumption that doesn't really hold up, you don't even consider it, you just shake your head and refuse hypothetical answers.
Because if we go down the hypothetical road we'll spend endless time swapping theories that amount to mere just so stories. Why would you be opposed to limiting the debate to established facts? Your attempting to rebut the line of evidence I submitted by offering a mere possibility.
Quote:But here's the critical issue: your narrow band argument is itself a hypothetical, because you can't for a moment prove that life couldn't have developed under a set of very different conditions.
You guys are comical, you are so duped into the atheist orythodoxy you've lost the ability to think critically. If I told you, you can't prove God doesn't exist you'd launch into a diatribe about how you can't prove a negative. Why would I have to prove something that we have no evidence exists, doesn't exist? Try getting off the script you have memorized and try to do some freethinking.
Quote:You've certainly asserted it, and backed it with some stuff, but you cannot prove it to the certainty you're claiming it is. Essentially what you're doing is favoring your own theory just because it's yours, and disregarding any others out of hand for no reason. This is not good science, and I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you don't actually want to have a debate at all, given how all you do is restate your original premise over and over without justifying it.
Boo hoo hoo...
Quote:Yep, and if you want to prove that a designer exists by way of this "it's such a small chance of happening!" argument, then you need to justify swapping out that 'as we know it' for an 'at all.' Because if life can evolve another way then it's a safe bet to say that it can evolve in many other ways, and by that point the chances of life arising, possibly in more hardy forms than are currently on earth, could actually be fairly large.
I don't have to account for what ifs, you can manufacture what ifs from now until eternity. What happened to the atheists who told me they are only persuaded by facts? They're hiding under their desks now until is safe to come out. Whenever I go to an atheist board I am always told atheists they don't believe a Creator exists or lack belief in a Creator because supposedly there is no evidence. Yet when I supply evidence, they immediately counter not with evidence, but with hypotheticals. They sometimes counter with hypotheticals they don't even think are true.
Quote:Then you need to actually argue that. Because all you've done is point to something that you claim is a small probability event, without providing sufficient evidence to believe even that claim, and gone "see? see?" as if that should prove your position. Your entire argument is an argument from personal incredulity: you can't believe that life could have arisen from a small chance event like this- never mind whether it is or isn't- therefore god.
Oh stop it with the incredulity bullshit. This is one among many reasons I and other theists think our existence and that of the universe is the result of a Creator. The theist-atheist debate is a two way street. For me to be an atheist, it isn't enough I simply 'lack belief in the existence of God'. If there is no God, no creator no designer, then I need good reason or evidence to believe that mindless forces without plan or design somehow belched a universe into existence with the right characteristics to cause planets, stars and galaxies and that life emerged from non-life and sentience emerged from non-sentience. I have to believe that mindless, lifeless forces created without plan or intent, to something totally unlike itself. Where is the preponderance of evidence that could or did happen? There isn't any its just theories and speculation. Atheists just assume nature must have done it somehow since we 'know' there isn't a Creator.
Quote:I think the idea is that a reasonable person can be swayed by a cogent argument. As an atheist, I'm invested only in the facts, so I would be. You'd just have to present a piece of evidence that is actually compelling first.
There is no evidence I can submit that you won't rebut with a hypothetical and then claim because I can't disprove your hypothetical (which isn't a fact to begin with) that the evidence I presented is therefore a hypothetical. You are heavily invested in hypotheticals and theories that if true support your point of view. But since you are already totally convinced your point of view is true, in your mind a theory or hypothetical that supports your belief is just as valid since you already 'know' there is no God or Creator. You are not a reasonable person, you're not an impartial reviewer of fact, you are a solid believer and advocate of atheism.
Quote:Yeah, I'm not actually obligated to follow a strict dictionary definition of things.
I know, you've entitiled yourself to make things up as you go along.
Quote:No, I'm very clear about what I think. It just doesn't fit into your neat little boxes, and therefore confuses you.
How can we communicate when you have entitiled yourself to make up your own meanings of words?
Quote:Do you still not get that we find your narrow band argument to be unconvincing, because you haven't proved the existence of a narrow band? Have you even read a single counterargument we've made?
Do you not get I don't give a rats ass what my opponent in a debate thinks of my arguments or evidence I present. Do you think if I was making a case in a courtroom I'd ask for my adversaries approval?
