Questions About the Source of Your Faith

[Revelation1217]

To the original poster.

I would encourage you to check out the evidence for Christianity that is summarized in this thread:

http://christianforums.com/t6757915...en-it-comes-to-christianity.html#post42856773

 

[VCViking]

VCVIking,

I find your backpedaling quite comical.

The AiG, a leading proponant of creationism, website has an artical you should read entitled "Arguments Creationists Should Not Use". It spells out the reasons for not using certain false and dishonest arguments, so you don't have to get caught in them and embarassed by atheists like me. There is a section in that creationist article dedicated to using that exact quote, in the same way you did.



http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp

I also leave the possibility of gods existence open. I never said he doesn't exist. It cannot be proven either way, but this does not mean that the chances are 50-50. I'm quite certain that the chances are stacked against the existence of a god, so although in a very technical sense I am an agnostic, I label myself atheist.

And, it is very disrespectful to anyone who reads your post to propogate misunderstanding by misquoting out of context. I don't believe that you intended it in some benign way. As a matter of fact, I find it very hard to believe that you have ever read it in it's original context, The Origin of Species, and would bet that you gleaned it from another web site, completely unawair of what you were doing until I pointed it out. Of course I cannot prove it. Even if you intended it to lead to some round about, convoluted distinction between Darwin's agnosticism or atheism (which should be noted you made no mention of your original post), it is undeniably irrisponsible to misquote, out of context.

You owe an apology.

It's not my fault Darwin contradicts himself. He states he believes one thing and later believes the opposite. From AiG that you sourced:

"Citing his statement at face value is subtly out of context. Darwin was talking about its seeming absurdity but then said that after all it was quite easy to imagine that the eye could be built step-by-step (in his opinion, with which AiG obviously disagrees—see Darwin vs. The Eye and An eye for creation)."

So Darwin at first believes it to be "absurd in the highest degree" but then believes, Yeah, well, I guess it could be formed by natural selection. Whatever.

He can't make his mind up about the eye and neither can he about God.

"Had Darwin had the knowledge about the eye and its associated systems that man has today (which is a great deal more than what it was in his time), he may have given up his naturalistic theory on the origin of living things."

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i4/eye.asp

First you state you're an atheist, then an agnostic but call yourself an atheist. Who's being deceptive? You are an agnostic, not an atheist.

The only time I read Darwin's The Origin Of Species was in college some 15 yro ago when I was not a Christian. I most certainly do not remember much of it but I had enough sense not to believe it then and found it quite comical.

I'm not back pedaling, I'm not being comical, I'm not being sneaky, illogical, I'm not using false and dishonest arguments, I'm not being embarrassed, and I'm not being irresponsible, and I'm not being disrespectful, all things you stated I am being or doing. But you want me to make an apology? I'm not the one throwing mud and I find this so often true with so-called atheists.

No disrespect was intended. I only have passion for the lost.

So now I ask you, how many times have you read the Bible? How about just the New Testament?

 

[musicman30mm]

I went through Sunday school, and attended church every sunday for about the first ten years of my life. I have read the Bible and the Koran. I have also read Peter Pan, Of Mice and Men, The Magister Luidi, The Brothers Karamazov and many other great works of fiction.

But I havn't misquoted them.

The fact that you think Darwin was being duplicitious, or somehow inconsistant is hilarious. The sentence you quoted was a retorical question, to intice the reader to really think about the problem he was about to solve, not a statement of his personal beliefs. This is a common literairy device, the rhetorical question, that I learned about in 7th grade english class.

If you were thoughtful, you would be able to tell the difference between being absolutely uncertain about god, and being convinced enough that there isn't to call one's-self an atheist.

This failure to understand a simple literairy device, or the difference between absolutes and an analagous continuum between belef and disbelief is symptomatic of the same obtuse idiocy that leads you to reject an idea that is so majestically cojent like natural selection.

Religion encourages this type of irrational thought, even makes it out to be somehow nobel. This is the problem I find in religion, and why although I am 99% convinced that there is no creator at all, I am 100% convinced that if there is, Christians know nothing about it.

 

[Digit]

Hi musicman30mm,

I think you should give me your own ideas. Take your time.

I did in a very short summary thereafter. I can appreciate you would like a whole worldview presented, but I also specifically said I wanted to keep it short, for two reasons really: 1) It takes time to source material, and I think we are both aware that every source has a respetive counter or rebuttal and 2) By providing a complete picture, I will no doubt cover numerous things you disagree with, which will land us right back where we started in a sort of powder-keg post war. The material is certainly out there should we both wish to read it, and that is really the point of this, being exposed to different beliefs.

I read the argument though, and noticed that it is an arguement against the big bang, not an argument for God. There is a huge defference. This is truth by false dichotomy. Even if the big bang is totally disproven, that will not make any more likely, the existence of god.

Recall two things. First, we are talking about an intelligent designer, not specifically God. Secondly, the simplest explanation is likely the correct one. All one needs to do, really, is to show that the universe in it's current state is an impossibility - at least, it's probable but to the impossible degree. That everything within it functions so perfectly at such specific tasks and that in order for this universe to exist in this state, it was either an incredible set of chances or it was designed. The simplest explanation, is designed.

Either way, I think you should start a new thread, and actually make your own case for the existence of a creator. I also would like for you to specifically acknowledge that this creator argument, although vastly more reasonable, has nothing to do with the bible, and therefore no bearign on our previous conversation.

I rarely post in GA, as I find the people there unfriendly and not even remotely interested in finding the truth, just in being right. I appreciate you wish to pursue this, and this is as good a place as any as it keeps out third parties from posting.

Cheers!
Digit

 

[musicman30mm]

If you decline to rebut or even comment on my position, and don't wish to explain yours, we have no place to go from here.

 

[Digit]

Hi musicman30mm,

I think this is te third or fourth time you have made this claim without backing it up. The first time, I refuted it, and linked sources. Prayer has by no means been proven to cause healing.

Out of interest, if I show you an article and you have one that refutes it, what makes it more acceptable than my source? If the articles were reversed, then what? This is the specific reason I kept my post short on what I believe, and as light as possible else we get into these powder-keg arguemnts. If I see two groups of people, identical in the general sense of the word and the only difference between one and the other is their belief in God and they active prayer during the study, and the people who prayed had better results than those who did not, what do I conclude?

You're right. If I were to say that the biological diversity on Earth had no guided process, I would be claiming pure random chance. I'm not making that claim though, so you are building a straw man to argue against.

Natural selection isn't a guided process though. What is it guided by, what gives it direction? Nothing! Guided implies there is an end goal. God guides us, He has an end goal. Natural selection doesn't guide us, there is no end target, no end goal no intent.

It is quite ordered, but that doesn't have anything to do with god.

Natural selection is very ordered, but it is not guided and it is all based on chance mutations.

I know the intelligent design (creationism in a cheap suit) arguement. It doesn't hold water. You are saying that the probability of all this amazing complexity occuring through random chance is incredibly slim. You are right. But the way you use that to come to the god conclusion is flawed for three main reasons:

It's not about God remember, just an intelligence.

1) Statistical improbability is based on complexity and order. The more of each, the less probable. Since we are very complex and ordered, we are very improbable. Anything that could create the universe, would have to be very much less probably even than us. A god with a conscioness capable of planning the universe is just about the least statistically probable, very complex and ordered, thing you could imagine.

2) Intelligent design goes about "proving" god by attempting to disprove evolution.

It's by no means the only argument ID has, but it is one road they take - I don't think they claim that if evolution disappeared, then God would appear though. It doesn't work like that.

Disproving evolution does not prove god any more than having the wrong idea is better than having no idea.

Exactly.

The complexity demands a conscious creator theory doesn't disprove evolution at all. It's just bad logic.

We aren't trying to disprove evolution though, merely point to an intelligent force guiding it to a goal.

---a)There is very strong evidence that the universe has been around for billions of years and that there are zillions of planets. Let's make an analogy here. It would be rediculouse to bet that you will get dealt a royal flush if you only get one chance. But imagine a zillion poker players being dealt cards for billions of years straight and you're chances are almost certain.

That's incorrect, the other planets and galaxies are required for life on this planet. If the universe formed in any other way, it would comprise mainly of thermal radiation - or it would have collapsed in on itself.

---b)Life as we know it didn't spontaneously appear this way. That would be amazingly improbable. It first started with the vastly more probable accident, of bilipid molecules randomly forming around simple protines. Given a little time and the periodic table of elements this is not hard at all to imagine.

It's lovely to imagine, but it certainly hasn't ever been replicated, in fact, that's really the problem right there. We seemingly know how all these things happened, yet attempts to recreate 'life', have failed, utterly and wholly. Sure, we can work with what we already have, but we cannot create it at all.

Did you know that it has been estimated that the probability of life forming within our universe during its 13 or so billion years of existence (as you say) is about the same as the probability of a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a fully functional 757 aircraft in the process. To put that in perspective, that's one part in

1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000.

(That's 120 decimal places.)

This doesn't constitute life, but it is a self replicating molecule with heritable traits. Natural selection can happen here. So these molecules given just a few years could create uncountable numbers of themselves, each duplication a chance for natural selection to ad complexity, slowly gradually, each step a logically acceptable transition from the very simple to something slightly more complex. So you can see that the initial random leap from inanimate to replicating molecules is more like being dealt two-pair than the royal flush that a human is, but we still have zillions of players being dealt hands for billions of years. Each time a molecule replicates we get more and more players gradually and smoothly moving up the mountain of complexity.

Yes, and that's awesome. Again though, you argue things which have no bearing on God or an intelligent designer. Biology is fantastic, but the events that lead to these things happening are so minute, to make it all but an impossibility if not guided with intent.

I don't need to prove that the big bang theory is true, I'm just arguing that god isn't. You can disprove any popular theory you want; this doesn't mean that by defacto god must be the answer.

No it doesn't, but in the same vein it also puts a stick in the spoke of your argument that God, isn't.

Digit

 

[Digit]

If you decline to rebut or even comment on my position, and don't wish to explain yours, we have no place to go from here.

My argument is presented in a far better format with sources on any number of Christian theology and apologetic sites, why do you wish me to regurgitate it here.

Ultimately it comes down to presuppositions, as I said earlier. I don't accept that everything can be explained through naturalistic means, you do.

Thus, the problem. You know, this is just the tip of the iceberg, I hope you don't feel that just because there is a possibility for an intelligent designer to exist, that that is all there is here.

The reasons for belief are almost immeasurable:

Here's another good quote from that site:
"Evolutionary biology proposes that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors. If this is true then we are nothing more than glorified apes. However, compared to our closest "relatives", scientific research indicates that humans are unique on many fronts, including creativity, personality, abstract thinking, and moral judgment."

It's not just about personal experience. It's about answered prayer. Our morality and ethics, why are we so opposed to this world despite purportedly being a part of it. The complexity and improbability of our universe, the claims in the Bible, the truth people see in them and feel when reading them. Even the seemingly innocuous, I mean, have you ever stopped to wonder why horses are so good for riding? Why some animals are so perfect for us as companions, why we even enjoy the company of other animals, some have even been shown to improve our health and happiness. You are essentially saying that the world we live in, is a murderous and cruel world where one species would happily trounce another in natural selection, and we are a part of that world, yet for some reason, we oppose it and are so unique and different from every other creature in it - and that that, is all down to chance.

That seems like the most complicated and fanciful answer ever, compared to the simple truth laid out in the Bible.

Digit

 

[musicman30mm]

I was going to criticize your last post, as I'm sure was expected, but it seems a waste of both of our time.

I have come to a greater respect for how you have reached your conclusions. I think ultimately you have reached the wrong ones, but that is inconsequental. The important matter is that you have really searched yourself to find those answers. I will give you that, and hope that you see the same in me.

Before I close up, I would like to know how old you think the world is. I mean if you are really pressed to come up with a number, or at least ballpark figure, how many zeroes? I won't dispute it. I am just curious.

I have very much enjoyed this discussion, but I feel it is time for it to end. We will never agree, but we have at least learned about each other. You have humored my interrogatins, despite the fact that you truly believe logic cannot prove god and been rather skilled in your argumentation. I get the distinct impression that the conclsions you draw come down to that internal, emotional, intangeable place at the center of you. I think without that awe of nature and beauty, neither of us would be passionate about our sides of this god question. Weather or not we draw the same conclusions, we both have drawn reasons for those conclusions from the depths of who we are. I will leave it at that.

 

[Digit]

Hi musicman30mm,

I was going to criticize your last post, as I'm sure was expected, but it seems a waste of both of our time.

Oh, ok.

I have come to a greater respect for how you have reached your conclusions. I think ultimately you have reached the wrong ones, but that is inconsequental. The important matter is that you have really searched yourself to find those answers. I will give you that, and hope that you see the same in me.

Absolutely, I never doubted you had not searched a great deal yourself. Ultimately all is asked of me is that I defend God's word, which I try to do, sometimes I think I do well, other times I think not so well.

Before I close up, I would like to know how old you think the world is. I mean if you are really pressed to come up with a number, or at least ballpark figure, how many zeroes? I won't dispute it. I am just curious.

Honestly? No idea. There was a time when I thought it was under 10000 years, a time when I thought it was 4.5 billion years old and a time when I was somewhere inbetween. Currently I am leaning less towards the 10000 years, and more towards a greater number, what that is I am unsure however. The question, really is a monstrous one, at that.

I have very much enjoyed this discussion, but I feel it is time for it to end. We will never agree, but we have at least learned about each other. You have humored my interrogatins, despite the fact that you truly believe logic cannot prove god and been rather skilled in your argumentation. I get the distinct impression that the conclsions you draw come down to that internal, emotional, intangeable place at the center of you.

I think something that is true of any worldview, is that there is an emotional attachment to it. We don't like to admit it, but after I read a book recently, it seems impossible to deny (for me at least anyhow). I'm not about to point fingers at others and tell them likewise, but I certainly feel to a degree, we are all attached to our beliefs.

Bertran Russell said this once:
"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence."

I use it a lot here, because I think it sums up that without overwhelming evidence one way or another, our emotional attachment to our worldview will win out.

I think without that awe of nature and beauty, neither of us would be passionate about our sides of this god question. Weather or not we draw the same conclusions, we both have drawn reasons for those conclusions from the depths of who we are. I will leave it at that.

Thank you for this discussion. I will admit I learned that some things I thought are actually incorrect, and that pride got the better of me at few points, and that was my failing. I really enjoyed this and I would hope that you post more in this forum, perhaps with some easier questions though, or maybe not easier, but smaller. You have an absolute abundance of knowledge for one person, and I sincerely hope at some stage it will lead you God.

I don't think it's a switch that we can flick, I think it takes time. Look at Anthony Flew, he was a strong and almost militant Atheist for the majority of his life, and now, has done a 180 and believes in God. Here is a good report. He is not the first, and he most certainly won't be the last, but I think it illustrates that perhaps there is more to all of this than we are faced with, and that it may take time for all of us to find what that is and where it leads.

Anyhow, I'm waffling now. Thank you for the discussion and all the best, I do sincerely hope you hang around. This is one part of the forum where non-theists can get the sole and dedicated attention of Chrstians without interruption or risk of threads going off-topic.

In Christ,
Digit

 

[musicman30mm]

You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar!

 

[VCViking]

I went through Sunday school, and attended church every sunday for about the first ten years of my life. I have read the Bible...

That means nothing. I was forced to do the same until I was confirmed. I did not get saved until I was 25.

 

[VCViking]

And try reading the book of John.

 

[VCViking]

I find it amusing how you want to exit the thread that YOU started but feel it necessary to make a complaint and report my post for "Attempting to pass intentionally misleading information."

I'm not the one that was insulting. You insulted me in all your posts and insulted my faith by calling God's Word a work of fiction, yet you file a report about me. An accusation that has no merit except YOU do not like it.

I have not been intentionally misleading or insulting but you have. But I do not find it necessary to go cry and tell.

Your original post and those that followed are typical atheist responses full of disrespect, rudeness and a condescending attitude. But I'm used to it and expect it.

 

[VCViking]

And so I leave you with the Gospel message one more time.


It’s appointed to man once to die. If you die in your sins, God will be forced to give you justice, and His judgment is going to be so thorough, every idle word a man speaks he’ll give account thereof on the day of judgment; if you’ve lusted, you’ve committed adultery. If you’ve hated someone, you’ve committed murder. And Jesus warned that justice will be so thorough, the fist of eternal wrath will come upon you and [SMACK] grind you to powder.

Jesus' death on the cross satisfied the Law we so blatantly transgressed, and at the same time demonstrated how much God loves us "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." His shed blood on the cross can make you clean in the sight of a holy God...as though you have never sinned.


And now I wipe the dust off of my feet.