RE: Conflicting statements in the bible
April 30, 2013 at 8:17 pm
(This post was last modified: April 30, 2013 at 8:22 pm by Ryantology.)
(April 30, 2013 at 5:53 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: And many people claim to have directly experienced the supernatural, how are you any different than they are? Additionally, I have never been to a manufacturing plant, are you really suggesting that I should not believe that cars are created until I fly to Japan and visit Toyota?
People who make supernatural claims conveniently frame them in such a way that they are in no way testable, reproducible, or observable by anyone else. Every single such claim can, in no way be distinguished, from a hallucination or a lie.
I am suggesting that you can believe in the existence of manufacturing plants because there are manifold independent ways to verify this. Going to visit one in person is only if you do not find the secondary sources acceptable. Furthermore, manufacturing plants are entirely rational ideas. Their existence does not conflict with what we know to be true about the universe.
Religious claims, on the other hand, fail on both accounts. The ideas are pure fantasy, and it is impossible to prove otherwise. You can't just go visit God and watch him make things. There are no independent sources to consult. You have set it up so that critical analysis is impossible. That's fine. An assertion which cannot be critically analyzed is worthless. An assertion which is specifically designed to be immune to critical analysis is certain to be a lie. Factor in the obvious agenda of the religious to make the assertion immune to criticism and the lie is obvious.
Quote:No it doesn’t, if we were able to synthesize life forms in the lab that does not prove that all life forms we observe were synthesized in the lab. It’s the old problem of reasoning from the particular to the general.
Yet, it strikes you as entirely acceptable to suggest that since we do not know exactly how life began, the answer must be the Christian God. "I don't know the answer, so here's the answer."
Quote:So you really are suggesting that a person cannot believe that their car was created merely because it is specifically complex and natural processes do not give rise to such systems? All people have to visit a manufacturing plant firsthand in order to logically believe their car was created? Really?
Obviously not, because that is your stupid logic at work, not mine.
It has to be possible to visit a manufacturing plant, firsthand, in order to logically believe their car was created. If someone claimed that cars come from a manufacturing plant which was was invisible and in no way detectable to anyone who didn't have faith in it, and there were explanations for the existence of cars which could be independently tested and verified, continuing to believe in the manufacturing plant would make you an idiot.