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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 6, 2015 at 10:48 am
Apologist arguments only seem incoherent if evaluated under the belief that they are put forward with a sincere intention of finding or illuminating Truth (defined as correspondence with reality as far as it can be known.)
They make perfect sense in the context where the purpose of religion, no matter its professed intentions, is to maintain the social cohesion of the group and to maintain or expand its influence and extent.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? 
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 6, 2015 at 10:48 am
(February 6, 2015 at 10:29 am)RobbyPants Wrote: Cancers cells aren't "things"? What exactly are they, and where do they come from? What about viruses and bacteria? Can't you just picture god in his celestial laboratory, wringing his hands as he stands over a couple of spilled beakers and mumbling "fuck! fuck! fuuuuck!" under his breath?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 6, 2015 at 11:04 am
(February 6, 2015 at 10:48 am)Tonus Wrote: Can't you just picture god in his celestial laboratory, wringing his hands as he stands over a couple of spilled beakers and mumbling "fuck! fuck! fuuuuck!" under his breath? If we were to look at the design to try and understand the designer, I'd imagine him in something resembling a meth lab, probably in the back of a van beside an abandoned basketball court. "Yeah, man, this is gonna work. This is gonna be the shit."
"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." ~ Benjamin Franklin
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 6, 2015 at 11:24 am
If all this turned out to be god's acid trip gone bad, life would make a lot more sense.
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 6, 2015 at 12:11 pm
(February 6, 2015 at 11:24 am)robvalue Wrote: If all this turned out to be god's acid trip gone bad, life would make a lot more sense.
![[Image: mc92ew.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=oi62.tinypic.com%2Fmc92ew.jpg)
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 10, 2015 at 5:33 pm
(February 6, 2015 at 10:29 am)RobbyPants Wrote: ...
Why is it that the "best" apologetics rely on lines of thinking abandoned some time after the dark ages?
...
It is because Christianity is a primitive, medieval worldview. It is not compatible with science and reason. It isn't even good superstition. It is incoherent, inconsistent drivel.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 10, 2015 at 5:47 pm
(February 5, 2015 at 3:50 pm)FreeTony Wrote: Having a discussion on another forum, I am astounded at the following argument:
God created everything, but he didn't create diseases/cancer etc because these aren't "things".
So we end up with both the claim that everything must have been designed due to blah blah blah, followed by "except all the bad bits which weren't designed".
I thought at first this guy was just a moron, but this argument seems to not even come from him. It is in the form "evil is not a thing" which is slightly better until you try to insert real life examples in, after which it again fails.
When you get arguments like this, you realise they are just trying to say anything to avoid having to think about it and hope it goes away.
I think it helps to have a Buddhist background to explain this. By the laws of cause and effect or karma, we learn by experience. So things that are out of balance or unhealthy yield ills and disease/death, while choices that are more balanced and healthy promote healing and life.
So if you believe human nature is designed to learn by free will and reason, then both the good and bad consequences motivate us to study and understand the laws of nature so we seek what is healthy and balanced and avoid what causes pain suffering death and disease.
If Christians keep rejecting Buddhism and secular ways of explaining how laws of nature work, they can't answer their own questions.
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 10, 2015 at 5:53 pm
Viruses exist therefore they're a thing.
Stupid exists, as demonstrated by apologetics, therefore is a thing.
Playing Cluedo with my mum while I was at Uni:
"You did WHAT? With WHO? WHERE???"
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 10, 2015 at 6:49 pm
(February 5, 2015 at 4:48 pm)Alex K Wrote: But what about love?
Protip it doesn't exist its all a illusion.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization join today.
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RE: Brilliant new apologetic fact
February 11, 2015 at 5:08 am
(February 10, 2015 at 6:49 pm)dyresand Wrote: (February 5, 2015 at 4:48 pm)Alex K Wrote: But what about love?
Protip it doesn't exist its all a illusion.
That's not a very nice thing to say to someone.
Next thing you'll be telling me Internet is an illusion.
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