[_ Old Earth _] Origins - you may be a fundy atheist if...

[Barbarian]

He could have at least been a good sport about having the joke backfire on him.

It's not like it's the first time some fool made a list of accusations about people he didn't like, and included one that says any objections to his claims is proof they are right.

As you can see, the door swings both ways on things like that. Best thing to do is laugh it off like a good sport.

BTW, I haven't yet been called a fundy theist here, even though I'm a Christian.

 

[Pale^Rider**]

I just thought it was funny, captain....nothing more. I chuckled one time when rez made me seem foolish....i like all humor......

 

[Asimov]

I thought I was going to find proper, scientifically motivated debate of a rational kind here. Guess what? half-hearted stabs in the dark at each other. I haven't any idea what to reply. Except with my own half-hearted stabs in the dark:

Well, instead of criticizing everyone with your superiority complex, start a new thread which discusses things you want to talk about.

Not every thread is serious...and not every thread has to live up to your high standards of intellectual discussion, go join MENSA if this isn't good enoguh for you.

 

[ThinkerMan]

You see? To the atheist God is impossible.

Not true in the least. Rather God seems improbable, or more appropriately unnecessary.

For my part, God is simply unproven....much different than saying impossible.

Therefore the alternative, even if improbable, is reality. Their bias their right to be biased.

The idea of Santa is impossible...the friction associated with flying that fast around the earth would destroy him and reindeer....

However, by your logic, "the alternative", even if improbable, is reality.

Santa exists, as does every other "improbable" idea.

Who created God? - What sort of a God has to be created?? (That was precisely the Bible's argument against idols.)

Wrong, Yahweh's arguement is no idols (or false gods) because he is the one and only God.

or that man is the First Cause (typical ontology of modern quantum physics), are impossible.

I don't know of a single physicist who says man is first cause...cite please.

And don't tell me bias is bad - you're biased against bias! And if you believe that it is humanly possible to be unbiased you're biased for humanism, and if you believe that you can categorize between biased and unbiased and find one higher and one lower then you're biased towards logic versus intuitionism. XD

Yep...everyone is biased...such is life.

The best we can do is identify quantifyable facts and observations and information, have a lot of people look at them (peer review) and come up with the best explanation we can for them.

That is the attempt of science.....a fairly sucessful endeavor in the long-run, in my opinion.

so what now? have I beaten everyone? =D

That may just be your biased opinion...... :D

 

[ThinkerMan]

Darn...he deleted his post and ran away....

 

[shernren]

the reason I "deleted my post and ran away" was because that reply was for another thread. Sorry lah. =P but I can stay here and havoc some more if you all want!

thinkerman - that's an agnostic, not an atheist. Very different. though I'm really curious to know - what would the difference be between "God doesn't need to exist" and "God doesn't exist"?? ...hmm.

Ad hominem arguments are baaaddd... shake hands and say sorry!

 

[shernren]

Quote:
Therefore the alternative, even if improbable, is reality. Their bias their right to be biased.


The idea of Santa is impossible...the friction associated with flying that fast around the earth would destroy him and reindeer....

However, by your logic, "the alternative", even if improbable, is reality.

Santa exists, as does every other "improbable" idea.

That's why children believe in Santa - because it's impossible for him not to exist in their minds. I was just trying to make a point in my original quote that it may be impossible for us to understand, much less to debate, each others' viewpoints based on the pre-existing bias in our perception.

Quote:
Who created God? - What sort of a God has to be created?? (That was precisely the Bible's argument against idols.)


Wrong, Yahweh's arguement is no idols (or false gods) because he is the one and only God.

Well, there's that too, but refer Isaiah 40.

I don't know of a single physicist who says man is first cause...cite please.

Sorry, my inaccuracy - not man per se, but rather intelligent perception (which is right now limited in biological terms to man, no?) which collapses quantum probability wave-forms into discrete data every time an observation is made. It's not a far jump to say man creates the universe by looking at it. Gary Zukav (if I'm not mistaken), The Dancing Wu Li Masters - very good layman's intro to q.physics, although I'm sickened by that strange Zen Buddhist ontology he brings to bear.

Not every thread is serious...and not every thread has to live up to your high standards of intellectual discussion, go join MENSA if this isn't good enoguh for you.

Oh, I have joined MENSA. =D ... I do like serious threads; maybe i was a bit over-heavy in criticising things here.

Yep...everyone is biased...such is life.

Yeah, but when people start talking about "objectivity" and "scientific reason" I feel weird inside. Somehow most science is made from a atheistic viewpoint which most people don't seem very willing to draw out into the open. Agree?

On a related note, can someone explain how theistic evolution works? Maybe in other religions it could, but I really don't see how to reconcile it with Genesis 1's account of creation. I mean, trying to match evolution up to creation with "age-day" correspondence gives me a headache.

 

[Asimov]

Yeah, but when people start talking about "objectivity" and "scientific reason" I feel weird inside. Somehow most science is made from a atheistic viewpoint which most people don't seem very willing to draw out into the open. Agree?

I disagree. I agree that science is secular, and isn't biased towards or against any religion.

On a related note, can someone explain how theistic evolution works? Maybe in other religions it could, but I really don't see how to reconcile it with Genesis 1's account of creation. I mean, trying to match evolution up to creation with "age-day" correspondence gives me a headache.

haha...that's because it doesn't work. You don't have to accept a literal Genesis to be a Christian.