Pagans and Atheists

[ServantofTheOne]

Why?
To use an analogy, you can be very familiar with how an automobile works, but will that enable you to build one without the proper tools, and the training how to use those tools?
(That analogy strikes me because I'm at work right now, some 20 meters away from the next factory hall where the minivan "VW Touran" is being built... )

Back to the direct mode, why should science be able to do everything just because, to use your own words, "we are the product of random coincidence" (which isn't true anyway as I already stated)? That's a non sequitur to me.

Farfigneuton? i think thats what the commercials say. what does it mean.

automobiles aren't a product of coincidence, they are a product of consious design of human intellect. and we are able to reproduce given the right tools and know how.

to create an apparently less complex leaf should be a walk in the park if other leaves was put together by random coincidence.

 

[Lokisdottir]

produce a single leaf from non living matter. If it was indeed coincidence then it should be much easier with consious intention that you can put together all your atheist scientists together with their collective knowledge of science to produce a single leaf from non living matter.

Just because something has occurred by coincidence, doesn't necessarily mean it will be easy to make such a thing occur again with conscious effort. Take the Grand Canyon, for instance. That's a structure that formed naturally and by coincidence (unless you happen to think God himself sculpted it).

By your logic, we should be able to put a few people in the middle of the desert with some hammers and chisels, and have them build a perfect copy of it. But it wouldn't be possible with those tools. More advanced technology would be needed just to recreate something that happened naturally.

In the case of creating living matter from non-living matter, such technology hasn't been developed yet.

 

[ServantofTheOne]

In the case of creating living matter from non-living matter, such technology hasn't been developed yet.

yet it is believed that living matter developed from non living matter by random events while we are not intelligent enough to develop technology to reproduce what supposedly happened by itself.

we're talking about a leaf here, surely this is something simple.

"Take the Grand Canyon, for instance. That's a structure that formed naturally and by coincidence (unless you happen to think God himself sculpted it)."

grand canyon is not living, it can be reproduced in smaller scale, sort of like a model, but we are talking about a simple leaf here.

 

[Phred]

if we are the product of random coincidence, then it should be quite easy to consiously put together a condition where you can create a single leaf.

produce a single leaf from non living matter. If it was indeed coincidence then it should be much easier with consious intention that you can put together all your atheist scientists together with their collective knowledge of science to produce a single leaf from non living matter.

That's ridiculous. We're not products of random coincidence, as you well know but refuse to acknowledge.

Tell you what tho... you produce your deity and I'll have him whip up a leaf for ya.

.​

 

[ServantofTheOne]

That's ridiculous. We're not products of random coincidence, as you well know but refuse to acknowledge.

Tell you what tho... you produce your deity and I'll have him whip up a leaf for ya..

the Creator already whipped up hundreds of different types of leaves, and they are sustained without the need for any of man's technology. the challenge is for atheist scientist to whip one up if they believe it is the product of randomness.

"We're not products of random coincidences"

what are we the products of then. if you say abiogenesis/evolution, then you are choosing random coincidence as the driving factor.

 

[SquareC]

Farfigneuton? i think thats what the commercials say. what does it mean.

Farfegneugen (not spelled right I'm sure) is German. Not sure of the meaning of that one. Volkswagen means People's Car. The idea was to have a car that is cheap enough for the public to own one, but inexpensive to maintain.

the Creator already whipped up hundreds of different types of leaves, and they are sustained without the need for any of man's technology. the challenge is for atheist scientist to whip one up if they believe it is the product of randomness.

"We're not products of random coincidences"

what are we the products of then. if you say abiogenesis/evolution, then you are choosing random coincidence as the driving factor.

I do not believe in abiogenesis, so I can hardly defend that position.

I do believe in evolution, and I'll try to explain this.

Evolution doesn't deal with random coincidences. It is the gradual (as in over millions of years) change from one kind of creature to another. The way it works is based very much on "Survival of the Fittest" in that all creatures have a slightly different genome than all other creatures, even of the same kind. Some changes are beneficial, so they will be passed on to further generations and proliferate. Some changes are neutral, so make no difference one way or another and some will be passed on and some won't. Some changes are malignant, and so the creature is unlikely to survive to reproduce and the change will likely not be passed on to further generations. Enough of these very slight changes over a sufficiently long period of time will add up to a major change. These major changes are what causes speciation.

 

[Lokisdottir]

yet it is believed that living matter developed from non living matter by random events while we are not intelligent enough to develop technology to reproduce what supposedly happened by itself.

That's exactly my point. Just because something happened by coincidence doesn't mean it's possible for us to recreate it.

we're talking about a leaf here, surely this is something simple.

First you'd have to create the plant that the leaf comes from. A leaf, on its own, is not an organism.

grand canyon is not living, it can be reproduced in smaller scale, sort of like a model, but we are talking about a simple leaf here.

But it fits my example, as it is a thing that formed naturally, but is beyond our ability to recreate (unless we have some biiiig machinery).

 

[morningstar2651]

A product of random coincidence...

If you give typewriters to enough monkeys...will they eventually write out the works of Shakespeare?

Possible...but not inevitable.

 

[ServantofTheOne]

A product of random coincidence...

If you give typewriters to enough monkeys...will they eventually write out the works of Shakespeare?

Possible...but not inevitable.

and yet people base their life and belief or non belief on this faint "possible... but not inevitable" scenario.

 

[ServantofTheOne]

ok fine if a leaf is too complicated, then what about a single cell of a leaf??

if the hundreds of different types of leaves out there spontanously appeared then it should be quite easy to consiously put together one, but no one has yet attempted to answer why a single leaf cannot be created by all the atheist "genius" scientists.

ok lets make it more simple, a single cell of a leaf.

make a single cell of a leaf from non living matter if what you claim is true.

If you cannot do it, then please explain why.

 

[Charles Darwin]

ok fine if a leaf is too complicated, then what about a single cell of a leaf??

if the hundreds of different types of leaves out there spontanously appeared then it should be quite easy to consiously put together one,

the hundreds of different types of leaves out there did not spontaneously appear according to evolution so im not sure where you're getting that from. The wide range of leaves can be seen through gradual evolution in response to different environmental situations. As long as we're on the topic of making living things from nothing, spontaneous generation was believed centuries ago when it was commonly held that maggots grew from rotting meat. A scientist of the day (blanking on the name unfortunately) disproved it. 1 piece of rotten meat in a jar with no cover, gets maggots; the 1 in a covered jar in which flies cannot lay eggs gets no maggots. The question is then since life must have started from something did spontaneous generation occur at some point in time?

but no one has yet attempted to answer why a single leaf cannot be created by all the atheist "genius" scientists.

ok lets make it more simple, a single cell of a leaf.

make a single cell of a leaf from non living matter if what you claim is true.

If you cannot do it, then please explain why.

puzzling to be sure. the answer im affraid must come from someone a little more were versed in such matters than myself. but i ask you to show me how your deity created them all as well.

 

[ServantofTheOne]

the hundreds of different types of leaves out there did not spontaneously appear according to evolution so im not sure where you're getting that from. The wide range of leaves can be seen through gradual evolution in response to different environmental situations. As long as we're on the topic of making living things from nothing, spontaneous generation was believed centuries ago when it was commonly held that maggots grew from rotting meat. A scientist of the day (blanking on the name unfortunately) disproved it. 1 piece of rotten meat in a jar with no cover, gets maggots; the 1 in a covered jar in which flies cannot lay eggs gets no maggots. The question is then since life must have started from something did spontaneous generation occur at some point in time?

by spontaneous i mean just happening through random occurence or by itself without any outside influence.

since evolutionists/abiogenesists believe this to be the case then it should be quite easy to exert their influence to construct a single cell, i mean it supposedly happened on its own, so why not be able to enduce a duplication of that.

puzzling to be sure. the answer im affraid must come from someone a little more were versed in such matters than myself. but i ask you to show me how your deity created them all as well.

indeed it is puzzling.

an artist paints on his canvas, and with their imagination and talent they use varying colors and texture to create an image which at one time was just blank white canvas. If you see a painting on the wall, it would be ludicrous to think that paint fell upon it randomly and it produced the result that you see. a painting is nothing compared to the complexity of a single cell, yet people say that the cell arbitrarily occured due to external conditions.

the Creator's power is beyond our imagination, just look at what was created to get a bit of an idea of his power.

We believe the Creator created everything in the universe. It cannot be otherwise.

on the other hand those who reject the Creator choose to believe in the myth of random and arbitrary generation.

 

[SquareC]

by spontaneous i mean just happening through random occurence or by itself without any outside influence.

since evolutionists/abiogenesists believe this to be the case then it should be quite easy to exert their influence to construct a single cell, i mean it supposedly happened on its own, so why not be able to enduce a duplication of that.



indeed it is puzzling.

an artist paints on his canvas, and with their imagination and talent they use varying colors and texture to create an image which at one time was just blank white canvas. If you see a painting on the wall, it would be ludicrous to think that paint fell upon it randomly and it produced the result that you see. a painting is nothing compared to the complexity of a single cell, yet people say that the cell arbitrarily occured due to external conditions.

the Creator's power is beyond our imagination, just look at what was created to get a bit of an idea of his power.

We believe the Creator created everything in the universe. It cannot be otherwise.

on the other hand those who reject the Creator choose to believe in the myth of random and arbitrary generation.

I'm still not sure why you insist on putting abiogenesis and evolution together so firmly. One can believe in evolution without believing in abiogenesis. There is proof of evolution, there is only speculation on abiogenesis by those who do not believe in a Creator.

 

[ServantofTheOne]

I'm still not sure why you insist on putting abiogenesis and evolution together so firmly. One can believe in evolution without believing in abiogenesis. There is proof of evolution, there is only speculation on abiogenesis by those who do not believe in a Creator.

those who speculate that evolution is the cause or reason we exist in current form can not claim that the theory is wholely unattached to abiogenesis. It would be convenient to do so. But one must ask if evolution is true then we must have developed from some starting point. It is like saying that american history starts in 1776 anything before that is not part of american history.

This thread is directed towards those who reject the Creator. Most of them believe in the combination of abiogenisis and evolution as the explanation of the origin of life.

they claim to be rational and more intelligent than everyone else, yet they cannot reconcile the inconsistencies of their belief. They claim they are people of reason, yet what they espouse is nothing but unreasonable.

 

[SquareC]

those who speculate that evolution is the cause or reason we exist in current form can not claim that the theory is wholely unattached to abiogenesis. It would be convenient to do so. But one must ask if evolution is true then we must have developed from some starting point. It is like saying that american history starts in 1776 anything before that is not part of american history.

This thread is directed towards those who reject the Creator. Most of them believe in the combination of abiogenisis and evolution as the explanation of the origin of life.

they claim to be rational and more intelligent than everyone else, yet they cannot reconcile the inconsistencies of their belief. They claim they are people of reason, yet what they espouse is nothing but unreasonable.

One problem we run into here is that the Theory of Evolution says nothing about the Origins of Life. Only the development of life from one form to another. Another is that there are a vast number of people that believe in evolution that do not believe in abiogenesis. Ordinarily I'm having this discussion with Biblical Creationist Christians, and I don't know exactly what Muslims believe about the Creation. There are almost no Pagans that I know of who believe in abiogenesis, so your title is misleading. Those Pagans I know, believe in Evolutionary Creationism. That is, our Deity created the universe complete with all the Natural Laws, and then let those laws take their course. Atheists, naturally, do not believe in a Creator and so do believe in abiogenesis. Your premise is incorrect, and so is your analogy. I can state with absolute conviction, yes the Theory of Evolution is totally and completely unconnected to Abiogenesis.

 

[Charles Darwin]

the Creator's power is beyond our imagination, just look at what was created to get a bit of an idea of his power.

We believe the Creator created everything in the universe. It cannot be otherwise.

You say it cannot be otherwise as if you can prove that God did it. simply assuming you've proved one explination false (which you havnt) does not conclusively leave us with any more explanation than before.

on the other hand those who reject the Creator choose to believe in the myth of random and arbitrary generation.

as has been pointed out already, evolution says nothing as to the origins of life, just what happened once it existed, by whatever means you choose to belive.

 

[Norseman]

When I say "Pagan", I'm referring to those who identify themselves as such on these boards. Anyway, when I read the various posts, I happen to take note of some personal items the poster displays such as gender, religion, and age. It's just what I do. Anyway, what I noticed is that those who identify themselves as Atheists are always male. I've yet to see a female Atheist (or Agnostic, come to think of it). When it comes to Pagans, the vast majority seem to be female. So, to those Atheists on these boards, do you know many females who call themselves Atheists? For the Pagans on these forums, from what you've observed, would you say that the majority of those who share your religion are male or female?

I've noticed quite a few female atheists here, but I've also noticed most of them have a pretty low post count. I think that's probably the answer.

At IIDB, there's one female atheist to every two male atheists, although again, it tends to be the males who post the most (fortunately posting doesn't affect the polls).

 

[ServantofTheOne]

"evolution says nothing as to the origins of life, just what happened once it existed, by whatever means you choose to belive."

i have encountered this reaction to difficult questions regarding origin of life, they say that evolution doesn't address the beginning of life so we can still consider it a "science". Isn't darwin the father of evolutionary theory, let us see what he said:

In his work titled "The Origin of Species"
"these facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species- that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. "

"In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. Nevertheless, such a conclusion, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory, until it could be shown how the innumerable species inhabiting this world have been modified, so as to acquire that perfection of structure and coadaptation which justly excites our admiration."

as much as you would like to distance evolution from its underlying principle of it being an independent phenomena you cannot escape the fact that evolution depends on such a premise.

can anyone explain why the "genius" atheists cannot produce a single cell of a leaf.

 

[Road Virus]

Your questions might be better answered in the creation/evolution forum instead of here. Just a friendly suggestion.

 

[comana]

Well back to the OP.....

As you can see I am one of the mythical female athiests