WTH we just had post after post after post arguing this point.
Question to athiests who say...
- Thread starter Lotus49
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WTH we just had post after post after post arguing this point.
Perfection
The Great Head.
Whoops, missed a spot!
(I'm trying to add a gate to the analogy but that would be silly)
The source of energy is a big yellow ball in the sky, the drain is the black part around it.
(I'm trying to add a gate to the analogy but that would be silly)
I think it's a semantic trick, because we're used to looking at a world using rather basics senses.
Edit: it was a response to the segment quoted below, but I got all crossposted to hell
Edit 2: to respond to what Perfection quoted. Firstly, I seriously doubt you can call life a form of energy, but even if you want to, energy can change form
Edit: it was a response to the segment quoted below, but I got all crossposted to hell
Edit 2: to respond to what Perfection quoted. Firstly, I seriously doubt you can call life a form of energy, but even if you want to, energy can change form
If you assume a prime mover, you cannot escape question, where does that prime mover come from? Just popped in from nowhere?
Always been there? Then why cannot we say that about the universe itself?
Perfection
The Great Head.
Yep!
Nope! It makes perfect sense when you realize that time isn't an unending arrow in one direction but a weird physics thing just like all the other weird physics things.
Chaos theory says nothing of the sort - not in the sense of "someone or something steering things" (and God would have to be a "someone", unless you are redefining "God" to mean any natural thing).
No, it suggests that we can affect the Universe with our consciousness - call that a "soul" if you like, but that's just a matter of word definitions. Whether atheists believe in souls or not depends on the definition - obviously we believe in consciousness.
A force implies no such thing. A force is just a force.
I think a lot of this looks like the common trick of switching word definitions - yes, you can use the word "God" to be a label for "the underlying pattern of the universe", "the origin of energy", or the word "soul" to mean "consciousness" - but let's face it, that's not what billions of theists on the planet when they talk about their God that they worship, or they talk of souls surviving after death. And that's what atheists mean when they don't believe in God (or when people say they don't believe in souls).
Who said atheists don't believe in a prime mover? We just don't believe that the prime mover is God. It could be the big bang. It could be something that caused that.
But yes, it's equally reasonable that there wasn't a first cause. And anyway, theists are the ones who often believe God "popped in from nowhere"....
Sorry, believe in God through faith all you like, but I fail to understand how people can't see the obvious flaws in centuries old "proofs" like the argument of first cause.
And as I said earlier, I also love it when people try to paint a strawman version of atheism, so they can say "Look! You're as bad as we are", as if that some how justifies an illogical position. Why not strive to be better? You won't catch many atheists saying "Well theists are illogical, therefore it's okay for me to believe in invisible elephants as that's no more or less illogical".
DJ Bonebraker
a.k.a Laura
Well, You claim to be much smarter than me just because you have a Physics degree, but you don't even know what are fairly basic EE concepts, so you're logic is loking a bit "holey" there (ok, bad pun, but I couldn't resist)...
I don't think I can guage you're actual intelligence that way, but my point is that some people are smarter in certain areas than others... You may be a whiz at Physics, Calculus and other stuff that gives me a severe headache (but I can understand the basic principles and even solve most of the equations in a Real-life ballpark manner), but you probably don't fully understand how your DVD player or telephone works...
I, on the other hand, don't have the philosophy background you do (and what I do have is entirely self-taught due to being born into destitute circumstances), or near the level of Math and physics (I hate math, but am actually good at it... Don't ask me to explain how that happened, because I'm not sure myself) education you do, but I have re-built two WWII-era field phones for use as desk phones (even went so far as to design and build a DTMF encoder from the ground-up so I could dial out on Touch Tone (tm) lines with these dinosaurs), and could go in-depth on how pretty much any electronic device works, and I can get a general idea of how a device where I have limited or no practical experience works, and how I could build one (providing I can get the parts). I have even troubleshot system faults for the radar I worked on via a nearly instinctive level (one such incident saved the American Taxpayer $72,000, BTW).
For a further example, my Division officer went to the most prestigious prep school in S. Ca, and graduated with a degree from Stanford, but didn't know what a simple O-ring was.
I have a 141 IQ, but I was born in some backwoods shanty-town, which means that I likely didn't have HALF the opportunities you did growing up. Just because I was poor (thanks to my Navy traning, I have a half-decent entry-level electronics job, but once I get my degree, I'll actually have a shot at working for NASA.... OK, the fact that one of my best friends is a mission controller there might factor into that, but even without inside help, I do have 6 years of Military experience, have actually launched rockets {of a different nature and shorter range than theirs, but its still the same principle}, and have a security clearance {currently inactive, but it can be activated at any time}).
The thing is, my parents are just as financially responsible as yours, but being that my father's family is poor, and my mom... well made some bad choices where education was concerned (can you say "It was the '60's"), and my father couldn't afford college (and he would have gone into the army to get money for college, but he didn't want to be sent to that meat-grinder known as Vietnam), we had less money to work with.... My one uncle was the first person in the entire history of my family to go to college, and he actually ran trap lines on campus and did all sorts of odd-jobs to get enough money to squeak by (Fur prices were pretty high back then, and he got almost enough to pay his tuition from that alone
)
Still, while that guy could have been a lucky guesser, I've never been wrong when my "spirit radar" has gone off. I suppose you could explain that with "Psychic Phenomenon" but that gets back to the whole "but what if psychic is actually spiritual debate" that tends to go round and round without proving anything....
I don't think I can guage you're actual intelligence that way, but my point is that some people are smarter in certain areas than others... You may be a whiz at Physics, Calculus and other stuff that gives me a severe headache (but I can understand the basic principles and even solve most of the equations in a Real-life ballpark manner), but you probably don't fully understand how your DVD player or telephone works...
I, on the other hand, don't have the philosophy background you do (and what I do have is entirely self-taught due to being born into destitute circumstances), or near the level of Math and physics (I hate math, but am actually good at it... Don't ask me to explain how that happened, because I'm not sure myself) education you do, but I have re-built two WWII-era field phones for use as desk phones (even went so far as to design and build a DTMF encoder from the ground-up so I could dial out on Touch Tone (tm) lines with these dinosaurs), and could go in-depth on how pretty much any electronic device works, and I can get a general idea of how a device where I have limited or no practical experience works, and how I could build one (providing I can get the parts). I have even troubleshot system faults for the radar I worked on via a nearly instinctive level (one such incident saved the American Taxpayer $72,000, BTW).
For a further example, my Division officer went to the most prestigious prep school in S. Ca, and graduated with a degree from Stanford, but didn't know what a simple O-ring was.
I have a 141 IQ, but I was born in some backwoods shanty-town, which means that I likely didn't have HALF the opportunities you did growing up. Just because I was poor (thanks to my Navy traning, I have a half-decent entry-level electronics job, but once I get my degree, I'll actually have a shot at working for NASA.... OK, the fact that one of my best friends is a mission controller there might factor into that, but even without inside help, I do have 6 years of Military experience, have actually launched rockets {of a different nature and shorter range than theirs, but its still the same principle}, and have a security clearance {currently inactive, but it can be activated at any time}).
The thing is, my parents are just as financially responsible as yours, but being that my father's family is poor, and my mom... well made some bad choices where education was concerned (can you say "It was the '60's"), and my father couldn't afford college (and he would have gone into the army to get money for college, but he didn't want to be sent to that meat-grinder known as Vietnam), we had less money to work with.... My one uncle was the first person in the entire history of my family to go to college, and he actually ran trap lines on campus and did all sorts of odd-jobs to get enough money to squeak by (Fur prices were pretty high back then, and he got almost enough to pay his tuition from that alone
)Still, while that guy could have been a lucky guesser, I've never been wrong when my "spirit radar" has gone off. I suppose you could explain that with "Psychic Phenomenon" but that gets back to the whole "but what if psychic is actually spiritual debate" that tends to go round and round without proving anything....
Berzerker
Deity
we could, but we dont know. That makes atheism untenable...
Berzerker
Deity
Not knowing how the universe came to be means atheism makes perfect sense?
Why, exactly?
Atheism means just that -- no evidence, no belief. You don't believe in Invisible Pink Unicorns, even if you don't know whether they exist, do you? I guess that makes you an 'a-unicornist'.
That's theism which is untenable, a belief in a personal God-Creator in the absence of any evidence/rational justification.
Perfection
The Great Head.
Whoop-de-do! You still can't make a decent argument and I'm still smarter then you.Well, You claim to be much smarter than me just because you have a Physics degree,...
BLAH BLAH BLAH
...sorts of odd-jobs to get enough money to squeak by (Fur prices were pretty high back then, and he got almost enough to pay his tuition from that alone
BTW, I do know basic EE stuff like transistors and pots and microcontollers n' crap just not the specialized crap used in high frequency radio/microwave stuff.
First off psychics are crap too. As for your "spirit radar" you're going to have to actually describe what it is for me what that is before I can help figure out where your thinking went off.
Perfection
The Great Head.
We know how it came to be, big bang. It's not my problem if you can't get past the fact that time has a beginning and nothing (including space and time) existed beforehand.
the spirit radar is this.
one christian meets another christian in a SECULAR area. they can immediately tell the other is a believer.
this is something i have heard believers talk about before. they can just sense another christian. they can also sense a non believer.
again, its not too difficult to get a read on people after interacting with them a bit. but if indeed this guy has had a 100% accuracy rating without needing to even talk to a person, that would be impressive. that would be a somewhat impressive proof - that could be put to scientific test. have a group of 100 people 50% xtians, 50% non xtians. He stays alone in a room. Each person walks in, without saying a word, wearing plain clothing. If he can guess with 75% or above accuracy who is who using his spirit radar, then that is some kind of evidence for kindred spirits.
one christian meets another christian in a SECULAR area. they can immediately tell the other is a believer.
this is something i have heard believers talk about before. they can just sense another christian. they can also sense a non believer.
again, its not too difficult to get a read on people after interacting with them a bit. but if indeed this guy has had a 100% accuracy rating without needing to even talk to a person, that would be impressive. that would be a somewhat impressive proof - that could be put to scientific test. have a group of 100 people 50% xtians, 50% non xtians. He stays alone in a room. Each person walks in, without saying a word, wearing plain clothing. If he can guess with 75% or above accuracy who is who using his spirit radar, then that is some kind of evidence for kindred spirits.
Dude, Perfection's major is EE, not Physics.
It's not a fact, really. The fact is our current physical theories (General Theory of Relativity) break down at certain point as we go back in time.
Huayna Capac357
Deity
Perfection
The Great Head.
You betcher booty it is! (or it's least a viable mainstream theory)
Cuz time before then didn't exist, it's like a temperature below absolute zero.
You don't object to thermodynamics because it doesn't have temperatures below absolute zero. In a similar manner you shouldn't object to big bang because it doesn't have time before the big bang.
The only problem is that some people can't seem to accept the clearly evident mathematical properties of time.
If you mean Hawking-Penrose, it is not a 'viable' theory. It assumes GToR must be correct all the way down to Singularity, however it breaks down at Plank's temperature shortly before.
If you go back in time (assuming Big Bang is correct), at certain point the matter becomes so hot as every elementary particle turns into a micro black hole. This is where GToR stops working.
This problem probably cannot be solved before a viable Grand Unified Theory is developed.
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