Aron-Ra said:
I've been on usenet and boards like this since 1998, and no one NO ONE has ever been able to show me any evidence at all either that a god exists or that we even have a soul.
vossler said:
So in your opinion everyone who believes in God, knowingly doesn't really believe in anything, right?
Umm,. No. That didn’t make any sense. But believing something doesn’t make it true no matter how convinced of it you are. Don’t forget, there’s about 800 million Hindus out there who are just as convinced about experiencing their personal god as you are about yours.
So it turns out you don't have any evidence of souls after all, right?
There never was any logical evidence to believe, they just did???
Pretty much, yes. Faith is a firm, unwavering belief that is assumed for emotional reasons (independent of logic or evidence) and defended against all reason, as their written admissions of doctrinal obligations prove. But I never had faith. When I believed in god, it was because I was told that his existence was a “conclusively proven scientific fact.” I didn’t even know it was possible to question that. But later on, I found out there was never any evidence of any kind to go on. The only things anyone could claim to know about God either came from wildly conflicting subjective personal experiences (hallucinations) or they came from the various mutual-exclusive and contradictory scriptures all written by men who didn’t know any better yet who pretended to speak for their gods.
There isn't any physical evidence of God (think about how difficult that would be to produce), the evidence is primarily spiritual, although there are logical reasons to believe also.
Nope, there are niether. If God exists, it should be very very easy to show physical evidence of that. Anytime some supernatural anything reaches into the material plane to effect some physical change, its going to pull its arm out dripping with physics. Yet it is still impossible to discern anything supernatural from things imagined out of whole cloth.
I have a two hour DVD that will logically prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jesus rose from the dead. If you're interested I will make a copy and send it to you.
I’ve proabably already seen it. I’m sure I read about it. How many combined assumptions are required for this “proof”? And why is that Islam is the fastest-growing religion on Earth –with many more Christian converts every year, if this proof is out there? Why is it that the majority of scientists are unbelievers? Why is it so many of them complain that there isn’t any solid archaeological evidence that Jesus ever even existed –if all they had to do was to go down to Blockbuster and rent the proof for themselves?
Coincidentally, I’ve also seen a DVD that “conclusively proves” that the Earth is flat. I’m not kidding either. You see, that’s why you need to be a bit more skeptical, and seek peer reviewed literature instead of apologetics, and don’t believe everything you see on TV.
Not according to your bible. Because that says that without accepting Christ, I will not have everlasting life -of any kind.
I will ask you to provide the Scripture reference that says that.
Why is it creationists don’t know either side of this debate as well as evolutionists usually do? I thought all you Christians knew John 3:16 by heart. There is a , clarifying follow-up in verse 36 explaining that whoever believes in Jesus will have everlasting life, and whoever does not will not. That’s OK by me. Eternal life in your perspective would be pointless for me anyway. I would rather be reborn eternally, or have some potential for advancement over time or with each existence.
But something false isn't going to become true no matter how many people believe in it.
False in your opinion, not in millions of true believers.
I didn’t say false only in my opinion. I said if something is false, then having millions of people believe it still won’t make it true.
What you, someone who doesn't believe in prayer, says about it carries no weight, you don't practice it. Those who do, would say otherwise.
But that’s all they can do is say so. Not a one among them can substantiate it. So they never have more than empty assertions.
Prayer isn't some sort of car or appliance that we turn on and off.
Neither can it be verified to be effective to any degree whatsoever, and has a staggering failure rate –such that it can only be considered unreliable.
Prayer is a vehicle for man to align himself with the will of God. Prayer connects man with his maker and allows him to fellowship with Him. By doing this man will become better and better equipped to deal with all the calamities of life that stand before him, like some of those people you described.
Every religion has prayer. Does that mean that every religion offers a vehicle for man to connect with the various gods of those other faiths? Because they all claim the same thing you do. Ahura-Mazda, Guru Nanak, Vishnu and Krsna are all personal gods, and there are many others to whom believers can pray to and “know”. I have a dear old friend who worships Bast, the Egyptian cat-goddess. He testifies that he met her in person, that she made her manifest for him, visible, audible, even tangible when she asked him to be her devotee. It doesn’t matter what or who it is, once you start talking to any inivisible friend, you’d be surprised how fast they’ll seen to be really listening to you.
Fortunately, I don't know any of those people. But I have heard of a few who dropped thier belief in God specifically because those prayers weren't answered. Can you find me one person who's child was abducted, molested, tortured and murdered -who would say that God answered their prayers?
Fortunately I don't know any either, but I've read some of their stories and they do exist.
What parent prays for their child to be abducted, molested, tortured and murdered by a stranger who may never be found?
I'd like to quote you on that when they're rushing you into a trauma center.
Go right ahead, I don't fear death or anything else.
Neither do I. But then, for me its real. I guess you're conceding that you have a better chance with medical technology than with prayer.
So far, you and I have only discussed magic and opinions of fanciful imagination. These things are without substance. I’m only interested in subjects which have some degree of verifiable accuracy, so that they can be separated from mere opinion, hallucination, or things we just made up.
How about the more than 200 different distinct breeds of dogs recognized by the American Kennel Club?
I don't have a problem with that.
But you said there was nothing to indicate new descendant branches emerging from one ancestral line. Do you now agree that there is a bounty of such evidence? And that the whole definition of evolution is a fact after all?
Biological evolution is a process of varying genetic frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in their morphology, physiology, or developmental biology, -which (when compiled over successive generations) can increase biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.
Is there any part of this you still don’t accept as accurate?
Where I do is when we start getting into the bacteria to fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal to ape to man stuff.
Well, if you put each of these traditional stages into their cladistic definitions, it will all become obvious. Fish are chordates, amphibians are tetrapods, and reptiles are amniotes, etc. You are still an ape too, [Hominoid] according to all the criteria required of that clade. So I don’t what your problem with all this is. You’re skipping about a million steps here too, and have no idea how slight and incrimental all this is either. The more you know about it, the more detailed and fascinating it becomes. Would-be alternative notions really can’t compete, and are no more than mere surface illusions by comparison.
First of all, humans are apes by all the criteria required of that clade. But I would guess that by that word you mean something like one of the very few apes you've ever heard of, just the non-human great apes that are still alive today. The closest one in our ancestry to what you're thinking of would probably be Dryopithecus. If you want the half-way link between us and that, look at either Homo habilis or Kenyanthropus platyops. If you need another half way point between us and them, look at Homo ergester, or one of the many varieties of Homo erectus. If you want to go the other way and point out yet another transitional form between "apes" and men, you could look at Australopithecus afarensis or Ardipithecus ramidus. So far, we have fossil remains representing as many as 4,000 individuals from what are currently estimated to be more than a dozen species which are all definitely transitional between men and what you think of as apes. Of course that all depends on what an ape is, doesn't it? Be prepared to define that word -so that if we ever found a new kind of ape-like thing never seen before, we would have some way to tell whether it really was an ape or not.
Way over my head and beyond what I'm asking for. [/quote][/quote]You said there were no transitional species between [traditional] apes and man. I’m just pointing out that there are many of those.
I'd like to see how man was once a bateria. Show me concrete actual visual proof of this. Show it as you've shown other lines of evidence so that it is clear and complete.
OK. But we evolved from Eukarya, not bacteria. Part of the proof of that is the fact that you are still a eukaryote now. Your cells are metabolic, and (as opposed to Prokaryotes) all your cells have a nucleus. And there is a substantial, traceable orthologue in your genes linking you to every other animal form on earth. I have a DVD which conclusively proves that too, if you’re interested. Or you can read the peer-reviewed research verifying all this by looking up the
Shape of Life, the
Arizona Tree of Life Project, or the
National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Or you go through science journals for the articles related to the Human Genome Project. Here are the comments of one of the geneticists involved with that, -who also happens to be a Christian.
"The evidence of taxonomic relationships is overwhelming when you look at the comparisons between the genomic (DNA) sequences of both closely-related and even distantly-related species. The DNA of yeast and humans shares over 30% homology with regard to gene sequences. Comparison of the human and mouse genome shows that only 1% of the genes in either genome fails to have an orthologue ithe other genome. Comparison of non-gene sequences, on the other hand, shows a huge amount of divergence. This type of homology can be explained only from descent from a common ancestor. The probability of these things being a coincidence, which I guess would be the argument of creationism and intelligent design, is statistically so small as to be negligible."
--Jill Buettner, professor of Genetics and cellular biology at Richland College, Dallas, TX
Have you even discussed this with an evolutionist before? How could you have and not know better than what you just said?
Probably because I'm ignorant, shoot what else am I suppose to say?
Its not your fault. Creationism is built on lies. It really is. It depends on deceit, and is lead exclusively by deceivers spreading false claims. I could show you at least a hundred very clear examples that meet every criteria required of a transitional species. And I know many creationists who know that. They know and even adhere to the proper definition of that term, and they know what many of those examples are. But they still claim none exist knowing full well which ones do.
Obviously I'm not in the same taxon of the evolutionary tree as you, at least with regard to the capacity to assimilate and digest pertinent information. I'm as you say, ignorant, clueless, blinded, prone to believing fables, etc. I'm not a worthy subject for you. That's o.k. with me, I don't think I would have enjoyed this type of dialog either. I do want to thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts.
Hey, as I said, the creationist movement wants to keep you ignorant, and they misinform you on purpose. Not only that, but they condition you emotionally to execrate the evolutionist position automatically, as a knee-jerk reaction, -without consideration- often by misrepresenting science however they can; by linking it with atheism for example. And they have to do that, because once you start investigating it on your own, (and not just to evoke apologetics) then you begin to see all the deception and misrepresentation and indoctrination they’ve been feeding you all along. Liken it to an awakening, because that’s really what it is for most people.
