Atheists praying

[element771]

Humanity as a whole is not special. I understand you didn't come up with that arrogance on your own, but so long as you're owning it, it belongs to you. I understand that you don't understand that.

I am glad that you teach math and not reading comprehension. I said God loves the entire creation.

Also...

Arthur Briggs said in 1945:

"A humanist is one who believes in man as centre of the universe"

Your fellow humanists may disagree with your assertion that humanity is not special.

Sure you do.

Also, what Roy said.

Not sure what Roy said but ok.

Homo homini deus est...didn't Feuerbach write that?

The guy who thinks he can shove words in our mouths and make us like it, while crying out how he's trying to avoid being salty.

There's a fairly basic principle of debate that says you need to be able to state your opponent's position well enough that they can agree that's their position. The Christian view is that the atheist view is that they are their own gods, because, hey, everybody's got to have a god, right? Christians think the human struggle has always been about finding the right god.

The atheist's view is that there are no gods. Full stop.

No shoving words, just reporting what has been said.

It's not a tough concept, and entirely coherent outside the Christian misrepresentation. Atheists don't believe there are any gods, and yes, that includes ourselves. We have no superpowers. We can't perform supernatural feats. We don't even think we're immortal.

You are not God, you only claim to be your own god (sans superpowers)

Mostly, I like Christians. But it's that sort of thing, where simply explaining why we don't buy into their god elicits a demonization, that kind of scares me about your sort. You never know when the guy across from you is going to lose track of your humanity.

Agreed and I like most Atheists but this cuts both ways. But when some of you louder proponents start talking about getting rid of religion or outlawing it...we already know how that went when Communism took over Russian and China.

To be clear here, before you go there again, I don't say this because I dislike him. I dislike him because he says this.

Fair enough

Another thing, if you're actually an omnibenevolence theist, (which is logically incoherent in any world with restricted resources), you should know that's not the usual Christian view. They reject it because they need the hell stick to go with the heaven carrot, and most folks understand sending folks to hell isn't benevolent.

I am an annihilationist. I believe that God essentially gives you what you want or believe. Don't believe there is an afterlife, thy will be done.

Try harder.

It is really hard....especially when I read some of your responses.

Pointing out someone else's arrogance is not itself an act of arrogance.

Again with the reading. I said that in response to your mockery about living forever. Mocking other people is arrogant.

And don't pretend to yourself that it's arrogance to believe I'm not going to live forever. Whatever. It's an atheist thing. You wouldn't understand.

By atheist thing, do you mean illogical? In that case, you are right.

I won't pretend that I am arrogant for believing that God will give you what you want. That is none of my business.

I assume that you mean "its not arrogance" but it still works either way.



Try this instead.

Me: ...is far out of proportion to his philosophical impact, something I've noted holds true for most Christian scientists and philosophers.

You: there are prominent scientists who are Christians

That being the actual order, except for the bit where I mentioned a prominent scientist who's a Christian. Sandwich that just ahead of your claim that there are prominent scientists who are Christians. The facepalm is optional.

Of course, most scientists don't advertise their religious beliefs, thank God. So you've still got room to regain your footing and push me into admitting "most" means "most of those who advertise themselves as scientists acting as apologists" and add in, mathematicians too.

Dembski, obviously, but don't even get me started on Lennox.

Are you aware that there are scientists who are Christians who also don't espouse ID and yet are great scientists?

So now you are shifting the goal posts.... Now we are only talking about apologists who claim to be scientists? What counts as an apologist?

He was a dentist. But he was promoted as a scientist, and accepted as a scientist, because he was a Christian, in the broadest sense, but especially because he was a Christian creationist. I'm fairly sure I could find the video again if I cared to spend the time, but we both know it happens regularly in AiG styled Christianity.

I would be highly critical of that. I can't stand when people pretend something is awesome just because it is Christian (see state of Christian rock).

You're responding to a bunch of posters, and obviously not following the conversations, so I'll be gentle with the misremembered order, but that doesn't excuse the miff above, where the existence of scientists who are Christians somehow responds to the charge that scientists who are Christians are over-celebrated.

It does work as a good excuse for not noticing the Christian I cited as a prominent scientist was also cited as an example of one who was not over-celebrated, a more serious gaffe.

I am taking things point by point. What misremembered order and what miff? Who is the prominent scientist? The dentist? If that is what cuts it as a scientist at a creation conference, I am glad I never had the urge to attend one.

If you're talking about the hundred years war of Christian creationists against Darwin's ghost, that makes you complicit. If you're talking about the celebration of Darwin, it makes you incoherent.

When I say I don't care, I meant that it doesn't bother me I just find it a bit odd.

Whatever it has, no matter what it is, seeing as you don't care about that, strikes you as odd, and an act of veneration.

You're phoning this in, right.

We don't worship presidents on Presidents day.

Apparently you don't live anywhere near the south or haven't been paying attention of the news lately.

You haven't studied Hinduism. Remember that bit where you pilloried Dawkins for going off on Christianity without studying it.

... and your consciousness is part of that world, then ...

That's the actual Hindu position.

My buddy who is a Hindu is not answering my text....do you have a link stating this?

I spoke with him about this before...IF i remember correctly there is a dualist interpretation and a non-dualist one, either way you are wrong. Either it is reality that is the illusion and God allows you to experience the illusion OR it is your sense of self is an illusion because you are ultimately a part of God. Either way, the ACTUAL perception is not what is illusory which is Dennetts position.

The cardinal of the real numbers, the continuum c, exists in theory and can correspond to reality. If you take one second, and cut it in half, and cut each of those halves in half, indefinitely, every endpoint will correspond to an actual moment in time.

There are 2^aleph-naught of them, and 2^aleph-naught = c.

On the other hand, you can have an apple, and you can have another apple, and you can identify them as being equal in order to say that you have two apples, but they're not equal, really, so you don't really have two apples, in the mathematical sense.

That's what Hilbert was saying about infinity.

I will take your word for most of stuff above (which I have not included in the quote) and appreciate the explanation. However, the 2 vs infinity thing still doesn't make sense. Your explanation doesn't make the problem go away, it only makes it worse. Your explanation basically says that mathematics cannot correspond to reality. In reality, I have two apples but in the mathematical sense I "don't really have two apples".

It wasn't a philosophy book. It was a book featuring a scientist laying out a scientific case for the non-existence of God, primarily by way of induction, the scientific method. McGrath, like most of his detractors, didn't recognize that.

Really? Now either you are phoning it in or those kids are even luckier than I thought with you sticking to math. What science was presented in the book? What I read was philosophy dressed up as science...kinda like the inverse of what Sam Harris does.

No, he was a non-scientist misrepresenting science as theology with pretensions of philosophy, because when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

You cannot be serious... Dude, come on.

McGrath is a theologian (someone who studies knowledge about God). The book is called the God Delusion.

It literally has God in the title of the book. Holy crap, I couldn't make this stuff up!!

Now what's this about people's atheism being volitional. I'm not going to try to pretend that has something to do with Nagel's outre ideas about what rightfully homeless communities should be housed in the science building.

First I don't think ID is science.

Second, Nagel says that he is an atheist because he doesn't want there to be a god. He thinks that many of his fellow atheists feel the same way.

Did you miss the part that Nagel does.

I don't think that he ever said that specifically. Do you have a quote?

I have seen him saying that he is sympathetic to the ID movement but not that it should be treated as legit science.

[shunyadragon]

PS - That site you are quoting from? Cosmicfingerprints.com is a creationist site. Just thought you would like to know. Your idiotic googling made you a laughing stock again.

No problem, because it demonstrates what I wanted regardless. Creationists on occasion can get things right, sort of. They did conclude rightly that genetic code and replication is fractal. One thing that they got wrong is they over reached their conclusion and made the bogus claim that evolution cannot take place.

Like weather, and radioactive decay, DNA replication individual mutations cannot be predicted, but the pattern, frequency over time can be predicted.

Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827821-000-the-chaos-theory-of-evolution/

The chaos theory of evolution

© Copyright Original Source

Read the whole thing for more stuff on fractal evolution.

[element771]

I cannot say I was convinced, for the reasons I cited. I don't think there is any way to reliably/reasonably make this comparison.



Or this one....for that matter.

I agree.

I think it will be a circle of that isn't really because of atheism..well I don't think that that war was because of religion.

[Tassman]

Most of those are not religious wars.

They were not wars in the name of religion, they were wars fought by religious people. My understanding is that religion supposedly has an impact on the behaviour of its adherents. Am I wrong?

[MaxVel]

They were not wars in the name of religion, they were wars fought by religious people. My understanding is that religion supposedly has an impact on the behaviour of its adherents. Am I wrong?

No, YOUR claim, back in post #119 was that religion had no impact. Not that you can support that claim, or even begin to address the objections against it.

[Tassman]

No, YOUR claim, back in post #119 was that religion had no impact.

But wars fought by religious people have impact.

Not that you can support that claim, or even begin to address the objections against it.

Either religion results in brutal wars OR religion has no impact upon its adherents, which is it?

[Roy]

I think the disconnect was the difference between discussing religious wars, and wars waged by religious or non-religious countries. Element explained it. But I am curious why this discussion is happening at all. What is the point being made?

That element's tally of deaths from non-religious societies was dishonest, and his suggestion that religious societies were not as bad was ignorant.

Note that he has not attempted to discuss the details of any of the wars he ignorantly claimed were not religious, nor has he attempted to justify his dishonest inclusion of Hitler's tally on the non-religious side.

[Juvenal]

Not sure what Roy said but ok.

Bovine faeces.

v.

The atheist's view is that there are no gods. Full stop.

Atheists don't believe there are any gods, and yes, that includes ourselves.

v.

You are not God, you only claim to be your own god (sans superpowers)

Liar.

Again with the reading.

What misremembered order and what miff?

Again with the reading.

Your explanation basically says that mathematics cannot correspond to reality.

Credit where it's due.

v.

Second, Nagel says that he is an atheist because he doesn't want there to be a god. He thinks that many of his fellow atheists feel the same way.

Again with the reading. And what Roy said.

I enjoy conversations online with those capable of bringing new thoughts to the table. Spending time with those incapable of following a conversation gets in the way of that.

Good luck with the living forever thing. I don't figure I've got that much time.

[Adrift]

I enjoy conversations online with those capable of bringing new thoughts to the table.

When exactly was the last time you enjoyed a conversation with someone you thought brought new thoughts to the table at TWeb?

[carpedm9587]

That element's tally of deaths from non-religious societies was dishonest, and his suggestion that religious societies were not as bad was ignorant.

Note that he has not attempted to discuss the details of any of the wars he ignorantly claimed were not religious, nor has he attempted to justify his dishonest inclusion of Hitler's tally on the non-religious side.

I see. Thanks for the clarification.

[element771]

I enjoy conversations online with those capable of bringing new thoughts to the table.

You only like new thoughts that agree with your old thoughts. And when your old thoughts can't counter new thoughts brought to the table, you make up some excuse to disengage from the conversation.

It seems the image that you have of yourself doesn't quite match with reality. If I didn't bring anything new or valuable to the table, you should be able to easily squash any of my points. But you can't, so you run and save your own self-image.

For all of the smugness in your rhetoric, you have little to no substance to back it up. Is that also an atheist thing?

[element771]

That element's tally of deaths from non-religious societies was dishonest, and his suggestion that religious societies were not as bad was ignorant.

Note that he has not attempted to discuss the details of any of the wars he ignorantly claimed were not religious, nor has he attempted to justify his dishonest inclusion of Hitler's tally on the non-religious side.

Roy,

I have not discussed details because I agreed with Carp that it is an exercise in futility. I also misstated my premise which would take a while to unpack. I have already apologized for that.

As far as the Hitler thing, this is a perfect example of why I stopped engaging on this issue. You will point to quotes and sources that say he was religious and I will counter those that say he wasn't. They we are just stuck. Same thing will happen for Russia / China / Spanish colonization / etc.

I also didn't mean to suggest that religious societies were not as bad. This is part of what I misstated and apologized for. My whole point was that secular societies were just as bad as religious. Not that religious ones were superior.

[Adrift]

Roy,

I have not discussed details because I agreed with Carp that it is an exercise in futility. I also misstated my premise which would take a while to unpack. I have already apologized for that.

As far as the Hitler thing, this is a perfect example of why I stopped engaging on this issue. You will point to quotes and sources that say he was religious and I will counter those that say he wasn't. They we are just stuck. Same thing will happen for Russia / China / Spanish colonization / etc.

I also didn't mean to suggest that religious societies were not as bad. This is part of what I misstated and apologized for. My whole point was that secular societies were just as bad as religious. Not that religious ones were superior.

[Juvenal]

When exactly was the last time you enjoyed a conversation with someone you thought brought new thoughts to the table at TWeb?

I'm not interested in constructing timelines, so you're not going to get the exact, last time, but many times with you, especially when you disagree with me, regularly with the piglet, who also disagrees with me regularly, and surprisingly, for me, in a recent exchange with MM.

[Juvenal]

You only like new thoughts that agree with your old thoughts.

What Roy said.