Faith?

[Violet]

Toxin has anything at all to do with one being sensitive to a substance?

So knives are a toxic reaction?

[theblindferrengi]

Toxicity has to do with one being sensitive to substances, whereas allergy deals with many being sensitive to one substance.

Knives are neither toxic nor are people allergic to them, as when you are stabbed, your body has a good response, as your body tries to heal the wound; you are allergic to certian knife-bearing people though.

[Violet]

[theblindferrengi]

allergy |ˈalərjē|
noun ( pl. -gies)
a damaging immune response by the body to a substance, esp. pollen, fur, a particular food, or dust, to which it has become hypersensitive.
• informal an antipathy : their allergy to free enterprise.

No, allergys are an error in the persons genes, a person who is allergic to peanuts, wich are not poisonous, eats a peanut, their body will attack the peanut and produce a reaction that is harmful to itself. when somebody else stabs you, the only adverse reaction to you is caused by the other person, your immune system produces a positive [b]not negative[b] response to being stabbed, as in it fixxes the damage.

I don't get it...

The response of your body to a pollen is no different [than being stabbed]: When one breaths it in, the body has a 'good' response to it, as it tries to remove the foreign substance.

The response of one's body to a knife is just as validly an allergy [definition removed] Due to the hypersensitivity we have to being stabbed, and that our body's bleeding can kill us (and if any organ was struck expect possible malfunction)... It is an allergic reaction. Maybe not a hugely bad one... but it is still bad enough to register, I think

No, not everyone is allergic to pollen, in most people the mucus membranes catch it, and you sneeze(not an allergic reaction) and the pollen is expelled; in people who are allergic to pollen, the bodys immune system reacts to the pollen, and the result is damage done to your body caused by your body in response to whatever you are allergic to. An allergy to knives would be some kind of mental disorder where upon seeing a knife near you, you get the uncontrollable urge to cut yourself with it.

"Due to the hypersensitivity we [the human race] have to being stabbed" this would be improper use of hypersensitive, as everyone is damaged by being stabed, it would be a sensitivity, as 'hypersensitive' deals with people in the population that have a worse sensitivity than normal (average).

Plus if knives are toxic, then what happens when you get stabbed in the kidneys?

[solarwave]

Words are defined by how people use them, and people dont says we have an allergy to knifes.

[fr0d0]

[Ryft]

theblindferrengi and fr0d0: I can't believe you guys are actually taking the time to explain that. Your patience is extraordinary.

And you would be justified in saying there really isn't a dragon in my garage because you can't verify for yourself, and you know I could also be lying or delusional.

When you see atheists making statements like this, solarwave, call them on it. It's really faulty reasoning, like nails down a blackboard to the critical thinker. To conclude that something is false ("there really isn't a dragon") because it has not been proven true is a case of the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. A lack of evidence for P does not establish ¬P.

Science proves there is no God? I would like to hear that.

Me too. The sycophantic fanboy mentality that Dawkins and Hitchens display about science is embarrassing. When people like them and Stenger claim that science shows "there most certainly is not a God," and a review of the scientific literature reveals no such thing, the claim qualifies as delusional—"a false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence." Have you read Why the Universe Is the Way It Is by Dr. Hugh Ross? It almost seems he had Stenger in mind when he wrote it (and in fact makes references to him).

As for the second book, I bet he doesn't take into account the good by religion as well.

Of course not. (I borrowed the book to read it, refusing to give that man so much as a dime.) Examining the sociological impact of religion with intellectual responsibility and integrity is anathema to his anti-religion bigotry, which he is by no means shy about. The idea is to vilify religion, not examine it honestly. He is a very gifted writer, to be sure, but eloquence is no substitute for scholarship.

The Problem of Evil is quite a big one, and not one I can answer at the moment.

I have yet to encounter a version of that argument that actually succeeds. If there is ANYONE here on this site who thinks the Problem of Evil argument can withstand the test of critical scrutiny (and I don't care whose version you employ), I would accept a formal debate challenge without a moment's hesitation. That is a permanently open invitation.

[Eilonnwy]

[downbeatplumb]

Arcanus seems to think the burdon of proof is with athiests, where it comes to the existance or not of god ,I beleive the reverse is true.

Please Arcanus, define for me exactly what this god thing is, I have heard many contraditory things said about it.

If you have time explain why the attributes you assign it cant be natural giving examples.

You seem like an intelligent and articulate fellow so you stand the best chance of explaining to me what this god thing is, because I JUST DONT GET IT.

[solarwave]

Arcanus: I've also come across a good defence against the problem of evil but I havn't exactly got it sorted out into a good arguement in my head yet to explain properly.

The Problem of Evil is a complicated subject, and unlike Arcanus, I've never seen it satisfactorily explained by a Theist. Maybe I'll take up Arcanus's challenge, to be perfectly honest I have too much on my plant right now to add another writing project to my schedule.

In short, Christianity asserts an all-loving and all-powerful god. For such evil to exist as it currently does, he cannot be both.

Love doesn't mean no pain, it means doing whats best.

What possible evidence could there be for a world beyond our own? Near Death Experiences: I dont mean the ones with fuzzy feelings, I mean the ones where someone is brain dead yet when they wake up know things that happened in the room when dead, or other things unknowable while dead.

The soul could be a mirror of the brain. A copy in spiritual form. Or the soul could be the soul be the explaination of consciousness or free will, but this depends upon whetherits possible for science to explain consciousness in the future. The soul isn't even necessary for life after death. God could recreate the body in spiritual form after death, which i acctually think makes sense with the christian idea of resurrection.

Near Death Experiences have been shot down. It's completely explainable as a phenomena of the brain dying and shooting off signals which cause these realistic feeling hallucinations. Funny how NDE's always have the experience relevant to their culteral/religious beliefs. Hmmm

Im not talking about fuzzy feelings, Im talking about NDE's where the dead person learns something that is true while dead that there is no way of them knowing.