Battle Talk ~ Battle Royale VII

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quip

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Originally posted by Soulman

Consider, on the other hand, that millions upon millions upon billions of all manner of peoples from every conceivable culture throughout the history of the world, the vast majority of all humankind, have placed a very different bet........

We are spirit-mind and body. That’s what the vast majority of the human race has always intuitively believed.

Yet this "vast majority" have never agreed on a specific interpretation of origin in regard to this unprovable spirit-mind and body "reality"!

How do you know your intuitive interpretation for this incorporeal spirit world is anymore "valid" than Dave's intuition against it. Or for that matter……….. any other past or present, otherworldly
interpretation or explaination throughout "the history of the world"?
 
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One Eyed Jack

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Originally posted by Psycho Dave
I know. Those people tend to ignore the rest of the evidence that suggests evolution, though.

We're not ignoring any of the evidence. We just disagree with your interpretation of it.

Evidence like:
(1) The order fossils are found .

They aren't found in any particular order. This so-called 'order' is arbitrarily assigned in accordance with the geologic column.

(2) The fact that beneath geologic features whose age we know, are millions of other geologic features that come before them.

Huh? The fact that you've got more dirt beneath the dirt means... what exactly?

(3) The fact that not a single higher-level fossil is found predating fossil types that had to come before them (No mammals before fish, no reptiles before amphibians)

As long as they're dated by the geologic column, they won't be. It has nothing to do with the way they're actually found -- it's all in the interpretation.

(4) radioactive dating

They don't radiometrically date fossils.

(5) DNA, which, when examined and compared, validates assumptions of relatedness of various species.

It can just as easily validate the assumption of a common designer.

(6) Hominid fossils, which clearly show human features in fossils prior to fully human fossils.

Prior according to the geologic column, you mean. Truth of the matter is, some of these fossils are human, and some are just apes.
 

quip

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Originally posted by Psycho Dave

The majority of the human race once believed that the heart was the seat of the soul, of love, and intelligence. Read ancient literature. many people still use the heart as a symbol of love. Guess what. They were all wrong. The heart was just a blood pump, and love is what goes on in your brain.

You hopeless romantic types......!!! :princess:
 

LightSon

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solar system

solar system

Originally posted by Hank
Fair enough, then I'll ask the same question I asked before, why do you believe the earth rotates around the sun?
Is this a trick question? :confused: I feel like you are ready to pounce. When I answer you may say "HA, See there! evolution is true and God doesn't exist."

Nevertheless, I'll play. I believe the Earth moving around the sun is the best model we have. Copernicus proposed his system somewhere back in the 16th century. Various sciences purport to confirm this, not to mention recent empirical observations by astronauts and extraterristrial monitoring devices (satellites and telescopes, etc.) Did I miss anything?
 

Stratnerd

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We're not ignoring any of the evidence. We just disagree with your interpretation of it.

Read: evidence is irrelevent to us creationists, we just ad hoc stuff until it is acceptable. for example, we like tidal action to explain some stuff but ignore it in other cases, we have superspeciation rates, super tectonic activity, liquid nitrogen from outer space, super advancing and retreating ice sheets, super fossilization, super rates of rock formation, water vaopr canopies, vegetarian T. rex's... if you have a problem... we can make something up to fix it!

They aren't found in any particular order. This so-called 'order' is arbitrarily assigned in accordance with the geologic column.
really? so we do have mammals, trees, birds, in the lowest layers?

As long as they're dated by the geologic column, they won't be. It has nothing to do with the way they're actually found -- it's all in the interpretation.
you can radiometrically date layers associated with fossils

They don't radiometrically date fossils.
no but they can date layers above and below.

It can just as easily validate the assumption of a common designer.
that would be true if you knew a priori how God would design something. since you don't all you have is circular logic.

Prior according to the geologic column, you mean. Truth of the matter is, some of these fossils are human, and some are just apes.
you mean all the fossils today are either chimp, gorilla, or human, nothing in between?
 

One Eyed Jack

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Originally posted by Stratnerd
that would be true if you knew a priori how God would design something. since you don't all you have is circular logic.

As opposed to your... what?
 
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LightSon

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Originally posted by Psycho Dave
The majority of the human race once believed that the heart was the seat of the soul, of love, and intelligence. Read ancient literature. many people still use the heart as a symbol of love. Guess what. They were all wrong. The heart was just a blood pump, and love is what goes on in your brain.

Dear Psycho Dave,
The heart is still a symbol of love and the seat of emotion and will; don't you watch romance movies?. Your mocking is based upon the misapprehension of an equivocal term. The heart pumps blood. The heart is also deceitful. That which pumps blood is not deceitful.

Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" That is just as true today as it was when the prophet penned it.

If you don't believe how deceitful the heart is, consider that many on this board have more faith that man came from slime, than from the manifest creator Jehovah. Such great faith in a deception. Who can know it?
 

Psycho Dave

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One eyed Jack wrote:
We're not ignoring any of the evidence. We just disagree with your interpretation of it.
Yes, but your interpretation is based on ignorance of science.

The order of the fossils
They aren't found in any particular order. This so-called 'order' is arbitrarily assigned in accordance with the geologic column.
Fossils are found in a very predictable, regular order. The order, if you take te whole column into account, is simple organisms on the bottom, and a steady progression from fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal (and lots of other steps in between). We do not find mammal fossils before fish or reptile fossils before amphibians.

According to which scientific reference, did you get the notion that fossil order is "is arbitrarily assigned in accordance with the geologic column" ??? This is not how it is done in the real world. Fossils, upon discovery, are catalogued, documented, and sent to be radiometrically dated. Several samples are dated to double-check. The date from the tests is them checked with the position of the fossil in the geologic column. If you read otherwise, your information is not just outdated, but false.



The fact that beneath geologic features whose age we know, are millions of other geologic features that come before them.

Huh? The fact that you've got more dirt beneath the dirt means... what exactly?
Ah, yes. I should have guessed. It's far easier to attack something that you have no actual knowledge of by grossly oversimplifying it, and attacking it with something resembling a comic book.

But for your education, geology dictates that features in layers of rock directly correlate to the order in which those features occurred. until you read up on geology, and understand the geological meaning of terms like fault, fissure, subduction, intrusion, and extrusion, then you might understand. Earthquakes and volcanic activity leave certain physical traces inthe earth. These have been studied for quite some time. When earthquakes and volcanic activity are known to occur, and their marks in the earth are documented, we can have specific dates for those particular events. We have many such documented features from around the world, and some of them correspond to ancient events that we have data for. Well, guess what? Many of these events that we have dates for have long chains of features that suggests similar events occurred long before those did. A Volcanic intrusion that has an earthquake's fault scar through it tells us that the earthquake happened after the volcanic intrusion. If you need to know more, then I suggest you simply read up on a basic geology text -- unless you consider all school books to be part of a great conspiracy against Christianity, that is...

The fact that not a single higher-level fossil is found predating fossil types that had to come before them (No mammals before fish, no reptiles before amphibians)
As long as they're dated by the geologic column, they won't be. It has nothing to do with the way they're actually found -- it's all in the interpretation.
Yes, and as I explained earlier, you're totally wrong.

radioactive dating
They don't radiometrically date fossils.
Oh, really? So what did those machines I used to date fossils in college actually do, then?
I'm terribly sorry, but you do not know what you are talking about. I read Henry Morris's idiot book, Scientific Creationism. It's a book of nonsense for illiterate peasants. Here's what he says on radiometric dating:

rocks are ot dated radiometrically. Many people believe this to be true, but it isn't. The obvious proof that this is not how it is done is the fact that fossils were dated by their position in the geologic column years before anyone ever heard about radiometric dating.

If anyone doesnt' think that statement is stupid, consider what he is saying. Here is his logic applied to a more familiar subject:

Food is not cooked by microwave ovens. Many people believe this to be true, but it isn't. The obvious proof that this is not how it is done is the fact that food was cooked by fire long before anyone ever heard of microwave ovens.

Henry Morris knew that most people reading his book would have no idea how science actually worked, or be able to see his irrational, illogical mistakes. His book is not distributed to scientists or to colleges. It si given away at Bible studies and sold in religious bookstores, to people who generally are not educated in science.

DNA, which, when examined and compared, validates assumptions of relatedness of various species.
It can just as easily validate the assumption of a common designer.
Okay, why don't you give us your reasoning on that.


Hominid fossils, which clearly show human features in fossils prior to fully human fossils.
Prior according to the geologic column, you mean. Truth of the matter is, some of these fossils are human, and some are just apes.
Sure they are. I read what Zimmerman wrote about Lucy. He never actually saw the bones. He never saw pictures of the bones, and he never read actual detailed descriptions of them, yet somehow he KNEW that they were nothing more than chimpanzee bones. When you actually see pictures of chimpanzee, human, and Lucy (australoputhicus) bones side by side, it becomes clear that Zimmerman was simply making his answer up out of the blue. Australopithicus does not lok anything like a chimp by any stretch of the imagination. It looks like a small human skeleton, apart from a few obvious features, and shared almost nothing in common with a chimpanzee.

ut if you have some other proof, please share it with us. If you wish, I will look up the latest URL of the Lucy Test, which lets you decide for yourself with actual photos of the significant bones.
 

Psycho Dave

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Originally posted by LightSon
Dear Psycho Dave,
The heart is still a symbol of love and the seat of emotion and will; don't you watch romance movies?. Your mocking is based upon the misapprehension of an equivocal term. The heart pumps blood. The heart is also deceitful. That which pumps blood is not deceitful.

Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" That is just as true today as it was when the prophet penned it.

If you don't believe how deceitful the heart is, consider that many on this board have more faith that man came from slime, than from the manifest creator Jehovah. Such great faith in a deception. Who can know it?
I'm afraid that Jeremiah does not agree with the scientific facts.

As such, we have to conclude that the author of Jeramiah was not a scientist, and that the Bible is not exactly a good medical reference.
 

Aussie Thinker

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That latest post from Enyart was terrible.

He uses an old theist tactic or trying to make atheists seem immoral or lacking conscience.

Its so see through but I’m sure most of you wont notice it.

Any “absolute” moral standards are inventions of man. Our conscience has evolved from our self awareness which evolved from our intelligence. This self awareness allowed us to realise that what hurts us hurts others. That is the ONLY absolute moral standard there is.

But Enyart will lambast you for this as it opens the door for man to “justify” terrible things. Yet if we follow “god” pure morals this can’t happen. The massive Joke is God is made up and so are his “absolute” morals.. by .. you guessed it the great creator himself MAN !

So Enyarts deliverer of absolute morals is man himself anyway !.

The second thing that is patently ridiculous is he argues that the fact that we are conscious argues for a God.. the very same thing implies that God must have a God or he has no consciousness. Ahhh but God and his consciousness always were… well why not our or the existence of consciousness somewhere throughout the Universe ??

Its just adding a unnecessary layer of complexity.

It is always incredibly frustrating for atheists to hear theists spout about our “Man Made Morals” when theirs are too.. we are just honest about it !
 

ZroKewl

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Re: 382

Re: 382

Originally posted by Bob Enyart
Looking forward to reading your posts, -Bob Enyart
Pastor Bob - did you get a chance to read my post? If you have the time, I would really like if you could answer those questions (or let me know if and why you can't right now). I hope you can tell that these are honest and legitimate questions, as I truly do not understand the concept of "Absolute Right & Wrong". You have used this to prove that God exists. Perhaps you could help me and others understand this idea so we might better understand this point you made in the current debate.

Thank you.

--ZK
 

Aussie Thinker

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Psycho,

For some reason Jack refuses to be disabused of the idea that the fossil progression is made up by geological column dating only. He refuses to believe that many other independent methods have been used to corroborate the age of fossils.

I cannot understand why he has latched on to this one (fairly old now) misrepresentation of fossil dating and religiously sticks to regardless of science and new data.. It can only be a case of I heard what I want and for anything else.. fingers in ears and nyah nyah nyah can’t hear you !
 

Bob Enyart

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ZK: You guessed it, I don't have the time, but I do invite you to call your questions into the radio show any weeknight (but not on July 4th, we're re-airing our interview with Norma Rogers, the nurse who found Juanita Broaddrick sobbing shortly after she says she was raped.) -Bob E.
 

Aussie Thinker

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ZK,

Bob’s basic explanation for absolute right and wrong is the same as his explanation for God. It’s the same circuitous stuff you will always get and really pretty meaningless.

He just assumes there is an absolute right and wrong like he assumes there is a God. One of his assumptions justifies the other and vice versa.. it’s neat but dumb.

Absolute right and wrong is a human concept born from human intelligence.

They are only defined in human terms and forever remain a human invention… like God!
 

tenkeeper

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i kneel and give thanks
to the Highest Ranked
God be thanked
God be praised
i am raised and fed
i was once dead
when i spoke
but now i hope
in my Lord
Who gave me
a two-edged sword
so that i may fight
in the Spirit
sear it to my soul & brain
He did
and now He bids me
what i must do
so
i will do what i must
for i trust in my Lord & Master
Jesus Christ
 

Psycho Dave

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Originally posted by Aussie Thinker
Psycho,

For some reason Jack refuses to be disabused of the idea that the fossil progression is made up by geological column dating only. He refuses to believe that many other independent methods have been used to corroborate the age of fossils.

I cannot understand why he has latched on to this one (fairly old now) misrepresentation of fossil dating and religiously sticks to regardless of science and new data.. It can only be a case of I heard what I want and for anything else.. fingers in ears and nyah nyah nyah can’t hear you !

Well, there's always the possibility that he is just a troll, and sticks to the same outdated notions to see how much of a rise he can get.
 

heusdens

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Originally posted by Bob Enyart
ZK: You guessed it, I don't have the time, but I do invite you to call your questions into the radio show any weeknight (but not on July 4th, we're re-airing our interview with Norma Rogers, the nurse who found Juanita Broaddrick sobbing shortly after she says she was raped.) -Bob E.

Mr Bob Enyart, what about this "proof of God's existence" issue.
Why do you refer to this issue, when one asks a more preciese description of what God's existence is like, as "never mind".
Since you take the position in this battle of able of giving proof of the existence of God, don't you think an answer as "never mind" is less then adequate?

May I invite you to give a more satisfactory explenation for God's existence as "never mind", or make a more precise statement about what you mean with the existence of God?

Human history shows that we can only make a distinction between truth and falsehood in practice. Wether or not a human concept or idea applies to, and reflects correctly to reality, can be decided on ONLY through practice.

Human practice shows no indication for the existence of any Gods.
Which is an indication that the existence of such Gods may not be based on any reality, apart from, independend from and outside of the human mind.
To make a statement about Gods existence in a way in which God has existence apart from, independend of and outside the human mind, places the one making that statement of having the task of providing sufficient proof for that statement.
It makes no sense to base that assumption on the inability for the other one, to proof the opposite assumption (God is not existent).

In a satasfactoty and objective way, we may acknowledge that we can make a truthfull statement about God: "I don't know wether or not God exists, but I believe in one".
This position to be taken in, is something we can acknowledge as a truthfull statement, since it does not require us to actually be convinced that God exists, but neither it dispermits us to actually believe in Gods existence.
Science does not tell people what to believe or what not to believe. In fact the way we know through science how the brain works, we can work out a concept of "belief", and why this is a necessary part of our being. Nature provides us often with circumstances in which there is insufficient knowledge to base our actions on. But since the circumstances may be life threatening, our mind has to make some assumption on what is the case.
If our sensoray data and our memory and experience does not tell us in a sufficient way what to do, we are making an assumption, that is we interpret the situation in a certain way, and we can not logicaly explain what "caused" us to interpret the sitution. That is what believing is a about. It can be show that in such cases to believe something is better then not believing something, because it enables us to do something. If our internal logic would be wired up to not believe anything, unless we can be certain about it, this would lead to a "dead-lock" situation. We would become passive, instead of active. If nature would have provided such a deterministic way of decission making system, it would have already caused the human species to go extinct. We would never take any risks, we would not want to discover new horizons, etc. It would stop human progress all together.

This alltogther shows that the "belief system" itself, is an integral part of human nature. Believing, as in the situation in which we don't have any real knowledge or experience, to base our actions on, is therefore not something "wrong". On the contrary.

But because to believe in something is different from knowing something, which is to have actual and objective evidence for something, we should not intermix these two systems.
If we are confronted with a situation in which the actual circumstances do not enable us to have sufficient knowledge, we are entitled for believing in something, and as we don't have a logical reason to believe in something.
Any representation of a belief in something in a way, as would that reflect knowledge about the actual world, and not be just a guess which can neither be proven or disproven, is therefore a false statement. To belief in something is only possible in cases where neither a proof or a disproof exists. That's why it's a belief and not knowledge.

In regard to the topic on hand, the only possible position one can take is that we can show that in some cases, human knowledge is not able to make a statement about something, based on actual knowledge, observational evidence and prior experience.

But when a belief is presented in a way that it supercedes or merely replaces actual knowledge, or comes from ignorance (for instance not knowing how evolution works, or in general how science is performed), and is presented as a form of knowledge, we might become and should become suspicious. To believe in something is entirely different from knowledge. It's just because of the fact that we miss knowledge, that we can actually believe in something.

I am currently fourty years of age. I have no way of knowing how old I am gonna get. It might be today is my last day, and it might be I become a hundred years of age. Nevertheless I can make some reasonable assumptions about what my actual age is gonna be, based on available data. It might depend on for instance the energy I put in living a more healthy life, stopping the smoking habit, do some more body excercises, eat more healhy food, etc. In that way I can influence on the probability of me getting older. But there is no instance in which I can have actual prior knowledge about how old I am gonna get. So any statement I make about that, is residing on a belief. Some beliefs are more reasonable then others. Me believing that I am gonna be 200 years old, is something that is gonna raise suspicion, if I tell it to others. Actually, they will say that they don't believe that I myself believe that. But neither they can disproof that I might become 200, since for that they need to know my actual age I am gonna get, which is not known at this time. But they will doubt my belief nevertheless. And for good reasons, I suppose.

For this very same reason I realy doubt if people claim that they believe in God. Not that I can know, such a Deity does not exist, but nevertheless I am suspicious that one can actually belief that.
The reason why one should be supsicious is because even when we don't have actual knowledge to base our statements on, we do have a lot of experience in finding explenations for actual phenomena, which previously were explained as the "act of God".
We have thus far found a systematic and intrinsic order in the way how nature works, and found actual explenations based on physical phenomena, on how all kinds of phenomena work.
Even when there are still a lot of unexplained phenomena ahead of us, from prior experience I would assume we would not have to doubt the fact that we can find reasonable and sufficient explenations for such phenomena as well.
In this way the statement that there has been given no disproof of God, is not a satisfactoy answer. In the same way as nobody can proof that I am not gonna be 200 years of age, but still will be suspicious as to wether I realy can believe such a thing myself.

Given the way we already know how nature works and the way we eliminated any "supernatural forces", that there is not much room for any doubt on that part, that the rest of nature is explainable in a conceivable way also, without ever having to base ourselves on "supernatural forces".

A true believe can not be a true believe if we have knowledge which conflicts with our belief. Since human knowledge has so much knowledge already on so many phenomena of nature, conflicting with the possibility of there being any deities, this indicates that this belief conflicts with actual knowledge. One has to be either totally ignorant on this knowledge or stubborn, to pursue in believing in deities.

I grant anyone his or her personal beliefs, and neither any scientific knowledge should dispermit anyone to have one's own personal opions or beliefs. But this battle is not just about personal opinions, it is about stating and proving the existence of God beyond all reasonable doubt.

As might be expected, such proof beyond all reasonable doubt has not been given, which raises the question about the truthfullness of that belief in the first place.

It is perhaps due to this fact, that Mr Bob Enyart decided to play the "morality card". It causes him to make an untruthfull statement about the holocaust. His statements on the holocaust, which blame this human tragedy and most criminal act of all known history on the "a-morality" of atheism, is a shamefull statement. It's a shamefull fact to use this example, over the dead bodies of millions of people, to blame this whole tragedy on atheism.

Let us remind Mr Bob Enyard here that very soon after the nazi's ceased power, they were not aiming at destroying theistic institutions, churches and such. Instead, the nazi's were trying to erase there first and foremost enemies, communists, socialists, social-democratis, trade-unionists, anti-fascists and war resisters.
Which clearly means that the nazi ideology was not in conflict with any theist doctrine or theist institution, but in conflict with the atheist ideology, and especially that of socialism and communism.
The doctrines of the nazi's were anti-socialist and anti-jewish, and based on a racial ideology. The foundations for this ideology can be proven to be based on the influence and doctrines of theist institutions, like the catholic church. The catholic church survived this whole tragedy of WW 2 without any problem.
If the nazi ideology would in reality be in real conflict with theism, we would have expected the nazi's to have erased all those institutions, like they erased 6 million of jews, and killed 20 million russians, and many others.

I do not imply that amongst christians in general, there was not any resistance against the nazi's, and that also christians have become on a mass scale victims of the nazi regime. History shows that amongst the bravest resistance fighters against the nazi's during the nazi occupation we find both christian groups, communists, and people with other convictions/beliefs.

And even when we can show that nazi ideology (mis)used the doctrines of theism, that were spread throughout europe in the centuries before in order to create their criminal ideology, this does not mean that we should therefore blame theism as such for the occurence of the nazi-ideology and the mass murder on millions of people. This would be an a-historic interpretation of history, since it ignores the other imporant factors, which enabled the nazi's to cease power.

But at the very minimum it can be shown that neither atheism can be blamed for the nazi-ideology to cease power in Germany, and in fact the nazi ideology itself is not based on any atheist ideology at all. Especially the racial ideology, is in direct contradiction with evolution science.

Mr Bob Enyart therefore should therefore not have used that argument at all, and in the name of all victims of nazi terror, I think he should make a statement that he withdraws that conclusion.
 

Psycho Dave

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Arguments to Avoid

Arguments to Avoid

A Summary of arguments that should be avoided:

(1) "Milions of people all over the world believe in God. Are they all wrong?"

This argument is pure Argumentum Ad Populi. It says "If lots of people believe it, it has to

be true." The flaw in this argument is simple. Millions of people can, and have been wrong

about sincere beliefs they hold. Millions of people used to believe that it was impossible to

build a flying machine, or travel trough space, that the universe existed in a "steady

state", and other things now known to be false.

(2) "How do you explain (---- fill in the blank with unexplained phenomemon of your choice

---)???"

This is the classic Argumentum ad Ignorantium, or argument from ignorance. This is where you

point to something mysterious, and affirm that if the opponent cannto explain it, then your

explanation is the correct one, or only one. In many cases where this argument is used, the

person making the argument often speaks from their own ignorance, unaware that an answer

actually does exist outside of their knowledge. If an explanation is offered or even

documented, the arguer will simply move the point back to another point that is difficult to

explain. A perfect example of this was the discussion on Human Consciousness. Bob Enyart

asserted that we couldn't explain consciousness, but neurophysiologists have. So the

discussion was pushed back to "how do you explain the ORIGIN of consciousness?" or "At what

point does matter go from unconscious to conscious?" If there is an explanation for that, we

go back another step to "How do you explain how the first conscious life for evolved? This

constant jockying is not just annoying, it sounds more like the person is fishing for

something the opponent doesn't know, so that it can be exploited.

(3) "Without God, Logic is impossible..."

This argument is usually part of the Transcendental Argument for God, or TAG. TAG, in short

is an extended Argument from ignorance. It usually says that God is the source of all logic,

and matter, and that without God, nothing is possible, therefore logic is not possible,

therefore, if you do not believe in God, then you cannot use logic, because the use of logic

implies that you accept God's existence. Did you get that? Essentially, the person who uses

this argument is trying to tell you that you are not allowed to use classical logic, because

Christian thought has an exclusive claim to the origin of how logic works -- no God, no

logic. This is not something that the believer ever sets out to prove, mind you -- they just

keep asserting it and never back down. It can be easily shown that non-Christian,

non-theistic ancient Greek philosophers invented virtually all of what we take for granted in

classical logic (not here for reasons of brevity). When the theist gets down to the wire,

they ask to explain the origin of logic -- how was it created, and what caused it. Sonce most

people don't know, or haven't asked this question before, the theist jumps out and says "God

did it!", which is why this is an extended argument from ignorance more than anything.

(4) "Evolution is false..."

If we're talking about proof for God, the introduction of the subject of creationism serves

as nothing more than a red herring, to distract and divert the discussion. As I mentioned

before, creation versus Evolution discussions are never-ending shouting matches which are

never resolved, and which take up longer and longer message spaces. In such debates,

creationists NEVER provide positive proof for their God. All they do is go through a long

laundry-list of factoids that creationist books and websites have accumulated, and they ask

their opponents to explain everything. What this does is mire the opponent down with

busy-work, while the creationist just sits and picks a sentence or two to attack, never

offering anything positive on their end. It's a way to get rid of an opponent by creating too

much work for them, and as such, not only should people avoid the subject, but when you are

arguing against someone who brings it up, you should drop it, and tell them to move on.

(5) "What if you are wrong, and Christianity is right? You have everything to lose. But if

atheism is right, and Christianity is wrong, then I have nothing to gain."

Pascal's wager is one of the oldest and worst arguments to use, because it is fallacious. it

is a combination of Argumentum Ad Baculum (Appeal to force or threats) with the argument from

Ignorance. I basically says that the unbeliever should accept what the believer believes,

because the alternative is BURNING IN HELL FOREVER, and since we are not sure whether atheism

is true or not, doesn't it make sense to put your money on a better proposition? Sounds

appealing, but it is nothing more than a thinly veiled threat. Suppose you went to a south

pacific island for vacation, and heard frequent mention of a legend that went "There is an

ancient curse on anyone who takes parts of our heritage away from the island. anyone wo finds

an artifact must turn it in to authorities, or be struck by the curse!" There are then

anecdotes provided about people who took artifacts home, and died horrible deaths or had

horrible luck. Someone tells you "Maybe it's best to leave things alone, because we don't

know if the curse is real or not!" Sound familiar? That's Pascal's Wager in a nutshell. Of

course, the worst thing about Pascal's wager is "What is Islam is true, and Christianity is

wrong?"
 

Soulman

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Dave,

I said,

“There is nothing inherently 'illogical' about a Supreme Being creating the universe, or creating species to inhabit this universe, or creating a continuum of consciousness among the species, regulated by brain size and/or complexity.”

And you said,
Then you're arguing for the God of the Gaps, then.
I’m arguing for intellectual honesty. What is illogical, in theory, about a Supreme Being?

Soulman
 
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