Parsnips wrote: » Come on. Im using the Word "Mother Nature" purely to encompasse everything that goes on around us and within us. Millions of years of evolution and people just dismiss it to a story created by Monks. Its embarrasssing really. As someone said above... The Life of Brian was probably closer to what actually happened than what is taught in Catholic churches. Some lad got on a soap box and gained followers. the legend grew etc etc. "spare some sheckles for an old ex Leper"
Parsnips wrote: » Come on. Im using the Word "Mother Nature" purely to encompasse everything that goes on around us and within us. Millions of years of evolution and people just dismiss it to a story created by Monks. Its embarrasssing really.
antiskeptic wrote: » There is no proof that you need a proof to know something.
nthclare wrote: » Leave the gheyes alone lol Yes I'm a pagan and we're quite harmless we don't practice burning people in the wickerman or sarcrificial ceremonies in the solstice because our apple's failed.
nthclare wrote: » I've no fear of death, but I suppose I fear dying before I get to do a lot of things on my list, such as travelling to Iran because I love Persia, and I am still unsure how safe it is for westerners. But one of the Tennant's of Shia Muslims is to welcome people of all cultures and religions with open arms, which got lost somewhere over the last 20 year's.
AllForIt wrote: » I agree with you. But then in some ppl's minds some human behaviour is not 'natural', like homosexuality for example - it's not what 'mother nature' intended.
Cabaal wrote: » Grand so we agree then, with no proof what so ever you believe in the lord god Thor. Glad we agree on that.
Hotblack Desiato wrote: » Phew Thing is the Abhramaic cults are about sin and guilt (the popular joke is that guilt is a catholic thing, nope.) and controlling natural harmless urges. George Orwell in 1984 described the "Anti-Sex League", his book was mostly anti-Stalinist but that bit seemed to me a query on catholicism - if you can make people control the sexual urge you can control anything. The catholic church's veneration of virginity is a perversion of nature. But with the exception of priestly 'celibacy' it's female virginity which is venerated. There is no claim that Joseph was a virgin or that his father was conceived without sin. Actually afaik a non-virgin unmarried male can still be ordained as a priest, as long as he lets on he's sufficiently sorry about it. Not sure if that appiles to nuns. The whole shebang is so ridiculous it's a wonder that anyone in this day and age is willing to entertain it. But they still control 90% of our primary schools and try to infiltrate kids' brains with this harmful nonsense, for their own ends, at the expense of our taxes.
Plode wrote: » Oh, I used to think that. But then I actually read the Bible properly, and discovered some spooky things that I'd been thinking about for a very long time. If you're searching for meaning to this life, you should read it carefully. Don't wait as long as I did. By the way, a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaître, was the first to pose the idea of the Big Bang.
PHG wrote: » Spooky like what? I assume you have read all 12 gospels too, not just Matthew, Mark, Lake and John?
PHG wrote: » How does that fly or any different from me saying. I am a banana! You have no proof but I...AM...A...BANANA, even the God of Bananas. Again, you have no proof but I know it, so it must be true. If I ran around Grafton Street yelling that, then I would be hospitalised sharpish. Considering the Word or God was written a few hundreds years after Jesus' death, all stories are highly likely to be exaggerated or made of pure fiction. Chinese whispers are proof of that.
Akesh wrote: » Until we get to a point where we can ascertain how the universe came about there will always be questions of a God or creator. We will never answer all of the questions and therefore cannot rule out the possibility of a god or creator. There is no evidence there is no god and there is no evidence there is a god. I'm not sure what these protracted debates set to achieve as atheism is as much of a belief system as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism etc. are. We simply don't, and won't ever, have the answers.
karlitob wrote: » We do have answers. We have lots of answers and learning all the more. This argument is an infinitely evolving tautology as Christopher Hitchens puts it. When humans learn something new - earth around the sun, earth is round, DNA, Big Bang - well, all that proves is that god is more powerful and ingenious that we even knew. Believers often challenge atheists to explain what was before the Big Bang. How can something come from nothing? Yet never apply that same argument to their god. If there is a god - which there isn’t - who made him or when, why, by what process and who made that person, thing etc. There is no evidence to support the existence of the judeochristian god. There is same absence of evidence to support the existence of Thor, or pink unicorns. Humans have stopped believing in other gods, they’ll stop believing in this one I’m sure. So in the absence of extraordinary evidence for extra ordinary claims. I am happy to ‘rule out’ the existence of pink unicorns, or whatever made up creature people believe in.
Akesh wrote: » You can rule out pink unicorns all you want but that doesn't mean that at some point they didn't exist. Your beliefs aren't facts and that what you have done. You're wrong when you suggest we do have answers. The Big Bang Theory isn't a fact, it's a scientific theory. Obviously the argument of creationism has logical problems e.g. what created the 'creator', but until we know what happened, we can only speculate. What is extraordinary is trying to claim you have answers to questions that you don't understand. You ruling out something doesn't make it a fact.
karlitob wrote: » It’s just impossible to argue and reason with. You are literally suggesting that there is, or was, a possibility that pink unicorns exist or existed.
I didn’t put forward any beliefs. I don’t believe that there is a god, any god, and pink unicorns or that pigs can fly. Absence of belief is not belief.
I didn’t claim that we had all the answers to the Big Bang. I said that we do have answers, and we’re always learning more. Nothing wrong with that point. It’s nice that you’ve pointed out that there are ‘obvious’ problems with creationism but this, again, is a circular and flawed argument that really can’t be Reasoned with. Yes gravity is only a theory - yet you wouldn’t jump out of a window.
However, unlike those who believe words that men wrote in a book in a part the world 1500-2000 years ago based on alleged utterings of the uneducated and illiterate who quite frankly believe that they interlocute with a divine power, I don’t think I know it all and I will change my mind when the evidence says so. So if the theory of gravity was surpassed by another theory, then of course I would change my mind. Why would I continue to support a position with no evidence (this now false theory of gravity) rather than a new one which is proven to be right.
antiskeptic wrote: » None of that solves the original posters problem. Saying "there is no proof" says nothing about whether God exists or not. Not about likelyhood, not about reasonableness, not about fact of.. Nothing. Yet it is posited as saying something.
nthclare wrote: » What's the difference between saying you're a banana and people who say they're not the gender that's on their birth certificate ? Or one guy holding a lead and the other lad dressed as a dog and a dog's masks on his head, crawling on all fours in a fetish club ??? Should they be hospitalised sharply ?
Mellor wrote: » Except that's not really true is it. Scientist didn't discover fission and let engineers do with it what ever they liked. More than discovered, Scientists designed the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was a physicist, who became death, the destroyer of worlds.
Genesis as as much in common with the big bang, as a bunk bed instructions from Ikea.
Mellor wrote: » I don't believe in God, but a child getting cancer is not really evidence that God does or doesn't exist.
If you are going to ask "why would a good god do...ansything". First you should probably ask "Are humans good in the first place".
Akesh wrote: » Until we get to a point where we can ascertain how the universe came about there will always be questions of a God or creator.
We will never answer all of the questions and therefore cannot rule out the possibility of a god or creator.
I'm not sure what these protracted debates set to achieve as atheism is as much of a belief system as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism etc. are.
Akesh wrote: » You can rule out pink unicorns all you want but that doesn't mean that at some point they didn't exist.
Akesh wrote: » You suggested Pink Unicorns never existed. I said that you couldn't possibly state that as a fact, which is completely true. Let's at least get the basics right here... Sorry, what? That is a belief. You may want to consult a dictionary. You said we "do have answers", we don't. You can test the theory of gravity. What evidence is this? What is about as silly as those men believing warlords and the illiterate are those who dislike religious culture and then decide that because they can't prove their god exists that you believe there is no god at all. A leap of faith if I ever saw one.
antiskeptic wrote: » What makes a behaviour natural? The fact that folk engage in it? Or the mood of the times? Or something else
Akesh wrote: » The Big Bang Theory isn't a fact, it's a scientific theory.
You said we "do have answers", we don't. You can test the theory of gravity.
ILoveYourVibes wrote: » How do you in history? And how do you do it now? With all the evidence etc.
Hotblack Desiato wrote: » True, but he didn't make the decision to build a bomb or to drop it.
The engineering problems were far more difficult to overcome than the design problems. An undergraduate student can design a bomb - and did (OK he had the advantage of knowing it was possible...)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips
It's an argument that the 'all-loving' quality we keep hearing about of this supposed god does not exist - so what else are his supporters wrong about?
But surely a deity is better than humans? What's the point otherwise?
Hotblack Desiato wrote: » Not this fallacy again. Atheism is a belief system in the same sense that not playing tennis is a sport.
