The stumbling block for atheists.

[Radrook]

ID was invented as a way to sneak creationism into schools after creationism itself was banned.

One of the first ID school books (Of Pandas and People) was first written as a creationist book, and then "transformed" into an ID book by simply replacing every instance of the word creationism with intelligent design.

Well, as I said, there are those who do have that particular religious agenda. However, the atheist agenda behind abiogenesis is also camouflaged as being merely science when there is absolutely no evidence to support it and it has never been observed to occur nor can it be forced to occur. Yet the atheistic propaganda buttressed by this silly idea is enthusiastically propagated in public schools, universities, textbooks, films, and sci fi literature and by all means possible under the guise of science. That is hypocrisy par excellence. So as I said, you do not have the moral high ground of innocence in this area.

 

[Nithavela]

Well, as I said, there are those who do have that particular religious agenda. However, the atheist agenda behind abiogenesis is also camouflaged as being merely science when there is absolutely no evidence to support it and it has never been observed to occur nor can it be forced to occur. Yet the atheistic propaganda buttressed by this silly idea is enthusiastically propagated in public schools, universities, textbooks, films, and sci fi literature and by all means possible under the guise of science. That is hypocrisy par excellence. So as I said, you do not have the moral high ground of innocence in this area.

I would never claim any moral high ground (and I hope you don't think that science is about claiming any moral ground).

Doesn't change the fact that the entire premise of the thread is wrong.

 

[Radrook]

I would never claim any moral high ground (and I hope you don't think that science is about claiming any moral ground).

Doesn't change the fact that the entire premise of the thread is wrong.

I hope you don't think that science is about ignoring cogent reasoning when ignoring it becomes convenient.

 

[Freodin]

Wrong! The ID argument is an argument for Intelligent Design as manifested in nature which indicates a creative mind. What the nature of that mind is not part of the argument. True, there are those who might feign to be arguing non-religiously while their intention is religious. But that is just as true for atheists who push atheism via their propositions of a mindless abiogenesis while feigning to be defending science. So I really don't think that you can take the moral high ground in that area.

Happy Hanukkah!

"True, there are those who might feign to be arguing non-religously, while their intention is religious"

And these people are very vocal, and very "intent". There are the people that atheists are "averse" towards. And they are, by far, the majority of ID proponents. The Hovinds and Hams and Snellings... I think you know their names.
I would even go so far as to say that there is not a single one of all the ID types who doesn't, at some point, hold the position of "and that 'creative mind' that I totally non-religiously have proposed here is of course [my deity of choice]"

In contrast to that, I don't know of a single scientist who uses abiogenesis to "push atheism". But as you are the one who thinks that those who disagree with your positions are "anti-biblical, fanatically opposed", I think we can safely say that you are not arguing from a non-religious point... and dismiss your claim of an equal moral ground as pure wishful thinking.

Io Saturnalia!

 

[Freodin]

I would never claim any moral high ground...

I am not quite sure if that makes you a better person than me. I am not above claiming moral high ground over people who lie about my position.

(and I hope you don't think that science is about claiming any moral ground).

Luckily, I have also never claimed to be "science"... and so I can safely agree with you here and still keep to my moral high ground.

 

[Nithavela]

Personally, I think that the "stumbling block for atheists" is that they don't see enough evidence for the supernatural/gods/the christian god. The best many theists appear to have to offer are some voids of human knowledge (like the origin of life) and point at them while shouting the name of their respective god.

 

[Freodin]

Personally, I think that the "stumbling block for atheists" is that they don't see enough evidence for the supernatural/gods/the christian god. The best many theists appear to have to offer are some voids of human knowledge (like the origin of life) and point at them while shouting the name of their respective god.

Ah, but "seeing evidence" would refer to "be detected by the senses", wouldn't it? So if the atheist would admit that not everything can be detected by the senses, he would admit that the supernatural/gods/the Christian God, well, could exist. Right? So take that, atheists!

I am still not sure why this would mean that magical miracles and Creator Gods are in, but pink unicorns are out.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

This atheist simply has, to paraphrase Laplace, no need of the God hypothesis.

The suggestion in the OP that it has anything to do with Christianity, is depressingly typical of the self-centred nature of so much religious discussion.

 

[quatona]

I think I can understand why atheists are atheists. After all, professing Christians don't love each other as we should. We judge each other too harshly. We get hung up over all kinds of unimportant minutia. To the atheist, Christianity probably just looks like any other kooky cult because we generally don't accurately reflect the nature of our Creator.

If anything, that would be reason not to be a Christian (but not one to be an atheist) - albeit not a particularly good one.
In any case, it´s not part of my reasons.

But atheism has one fatal flaw. It assumes that the sum total of reality is what can be detected by the senses.

I´m not assuming this, and it´s not required for an atheist to assume this.

 

[quatona]

Their aversion to an ID is what I find to be their main stumbling block.

I have no aversion to it, I just don´t believe in it.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Their aversion to an ID is what I find to be their main stumbling block. Religious aversions stem from it.

Not really - ID is pseudoscience that claims to be independent of religion(s). Religious aversions stem from religions and the religious.

As soon as ID takes a scientific approach and produces some compelling evidence to support its claims, I'll take it seriously.

 

[quatona]

The stumbling block for theists is: They believe in a God.
So there.

 

[Shibolet]

The Stumbling Block for Atheists.

IMHO, the stumbling block for atheists is the concept of natural Causality. It is also called the thorn in their flesh.

 

[Speedwell]

IMHO, the stumbling block for atheists is the concept of natural Causality. It is also called the thorn in their flesh.

IHMO, the stumbling block for creationists is the concept of natural causality--and the notion that identifying a natural cause for a phenomenon denies the possibility of a simultaneous divine cause.

 

[paul becke]

Their aversion to an ID is what I find to be their main stumbling block. Religious aversions stem from it.

I think you are both wrong, actually, at least in terms of the more truculent atheists. They have an 'a priori' fear of its implications for them, personally. Implications of restraints on their personal conduct and life-style ; mostly, in terms of their sex life ; the Latin stem of 'religion' being, 'religere', 'to bind'.
Aldous Huxley confessed that that had been his motivation in his younger days, and that of most of his generation.

 

[Nithavela]

I think you are both wrong, actually, at least in terms of the more truculent atheists. They have an 'a priori' fear of its implications for them, personally. Implications of restraints on their personal conduct and life-style ; mostly, in terms of their sex life ; the Latin stem of 'religion' being, 'religere', 'to bind'.
Aldous Huxley confessed that that had been his motivation in his younger days, and that of most of his generation.

And here comes the next mistake: Atheists don't believe in god because they want to sin!

It's fascinating, really. Some christians seem to feel the need to act as if everyone obviously believes as they do (in their "heart of hearts"), but those that appear to believe differently are actually rejecting that belief.

Why do YOU not believe in the greek pantheon? Do you fear the punishment of not bringing enough sacrifices before zeus? Or is there another reason?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well, as I said, there are those who do have that particular religious agenda. However, the atheist agenda behind abiogenesis is also camouflaged as being merely science when there is absolutely no evidence to support it and it has never been observed to occur nor can it be forced to occur. Yet the atheistic propaganda buttressed by this silly idea is enthusiastically propagated in public schools, universities, textbooks, films, and sci fi literature and by all means possible under the guise of science. That is hypocrisy par excellence. So as I said, you do not have the moral high ground of innocence in this area.

Why do you keep making such obviously errant posts. First off many events are not directly observed in science, we can still see the effects of those events. It is a rather ridiculous demand to see abiogenesis again. It only shows that you have no understanding of it at all. Since life now exists, and exits everywhere on the surface of this planet, anywhere that the building blocks of life can be found you will also. find life, and existing life will consume any precursors to life long before they can become "life" today.

That means to duplicate abiogenesis man will have to do so in the laboratory. And many of the problems of abiogenesis, but not all, have been solved there. That makes your claim of "no evidence" one hundred percent wrong. In fact just last year one of the biggest problems may have been solved:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/03/researchers-may-have-solved-origin-life-conundrum

The origin of life on Earth is a set of paradoxes. In order for life to have gotten started, there must have been a genetic molecule—something like DNA or RNA—capable of passing along blueprints for making proteins, the workhorse molecules of life. But modern cells can’t copy DNA and RNA without the help of proteins themselves. To make matters more vexing, none of these molecules can do their jobs without fatty lipids, which provide the membranes that cells need to hold their contents inside. And in yet another chicken-and-egg complication, protein-based enzymes (encoded by genetic molecules) are needed to synthesize lipids.

Now, researchers say they may have solved these paradoxes. Chemists report today that a pair of simple compounds, which would have been abundant on early Earth, can give rise to a network of simple reactions that produce the three major classes of biomolecules—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—needed for the earliest form of life to get its start. Although the new work does not prove that this is how life started, it may eventually help explain one of the deepest mysteries in modern science.

“This is a very important paper,” says Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist and origin-of-life researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was not affiliated with the current research. “It proposes for the first time a scenario by which almost all of the essential building blocks for life could be assembled in one geological setting.”

Jack Szostak, who as you see was not involved with this particular paper, is perhaps the world's leading researcher on this topic. For more of his work you can check out this site:

Szostak Lab: Home

Abiogenesis would appear to merely follow existing chemical laws.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I think you are both wrong, actually, at least in terms of the more truculent atheists. They have an 'a priori' fear of its implications for them, personally. Implications of restraints on their personal conduct and life-style ; mostly, in terms of their sex life ; the Latin stem of 'religion' being, 'religere', 'to bind'.
Aldous Huxley confessed that that had been his motivation in his younger days, and that of most of his generation.

NO, just no. First off ID is not, I repeat not, science. Believers in it do not apply the scientific method. They do not publish their work in well respected peer reviewed journals, the first thing that any real scientist does. Most people that do not understand the sciences have no clue how important this first step is. In peer review a paper is submitted to a panel that looks to see if it has any obvious errors and if the work is original and interesting. Those are very low hurdles and ID advocates can't seem to do even that. Once a paper is published it is still not "accepted science" though it is a good first step. Now others in the field will look at it and try to refute it. That is if the paper is at all interesting. If no one cared it might be ignored. But an advocate for ID would not be ignored.

Until ID at least follows the basic rules of how science is done one cannot really say that it is scientific.

Nor is there any evidence for it, but we can get into that in another post.

 

[paul becke]

ID was invented as a way to sneak creationism into schools after creationism itself was banned.

One of the first ID school books (Of Pandas and People) was first written as a creationist book, and then "transformed" into an ID book by simply replacing every instance of the word creationism with intelligent design.

On the subject of ID, do you think the term, 'retro-engineering', should be abandoned, in favour of 'retro-happenstance' ? If not, why not, since 'engineering' in terms of all our physical human fabrications , necessarily implies (intelligent) design' All design is intelligent by definition, as are its synonyms, 'plan', scheme', etc.

I wonder you folk have the nerve to show up on Chrisian boards. There are so many 'slam dunk' proofs in modern physics of not just deism - but theism, most indisputably, the 'fine-tuning' of the universe, which finally persuaded very reluctant Anthony Flew, the Dawkins of his day - that some kind of deism must be responsible for the creation of the universe.

 

[Freodin]

And here comes the next mistake: Atheists don't believe in god because they want to sin!

It's fascinating, really. Some christians seem to feel the need to act as if everyone obviously believes as they do (in their "heart of hearts"), but those that appear to believe differently are actually rejecting that belief.

Why do YOU not believe in the greek pantheon? Do you fear the punishment of not bringing enough sacrifices before zeus? Or is there another reason?

Perhaps we should turn the table and present our "really true causes of why Christians attribite false motives to atheists".

Here's mine: Christians are deeply upset by the fact that none of their argument are convincing to rational people - so upset in fact that instead of blaming their arguments they have to blame the recipients