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Friday, November 21, 2008

Science is AWESOME!

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7 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 22, 2008 at 12:10 AM

    You might be a fundyatheist if Y\you believe that if something cannot be touched, seen, heard, or measured in some way, then it must not exist, yet you fail to see the irony of your calling Christians "narrow-minded".

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  2. AnonymousNovember 22, 2008 at 12:15 AM

    You might be a fundyatheist if: As a member of the Skeptic's Society you pride yourself on being skeptical of extraordinary claims. You also pride yourself on silencing everyone who is skeptical of the extraordinary claims of evolution.

    You might be a fundyatheist if you think you can invalidate the whole bible by discrediting Genesis, since 'the whole bible either stands together or falls apart'. However, when a Creationist tries to invalidate the whole doctrine of naturalistic evolution by exposing the sheer improbability and lack of evidence of abiogenesis, you note this point as 'irrelevant'.

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  3. Dave The Happy SingerNovember 23, 2008 at 12:25 PM

    Trav, deary, I'd love to know what evolutionary claims you find extraordinary.

    Abiogenesis is not evolution. Evolution is evolution.

    And in what sense can something undetectable 'exist'? Why is your 'existent but undetectable' Yahweh different from nonexistent undetectable unicorns?

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  4. AnonymousNovember 23, 2008 at 12:29 PM

    For naturalistic evolution to be correct then abiogenesis must have happened naturally....

    Yahweh left the bible for us to learn about what he did throughout history. Yahweh sent his son to die on a cross and rise again. Yahweh actually claims to have created a fine tuned universe, and thousands of years later, the wonders of science confirm those claims.

    Where did your unicorns do the above or make the above claims?

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  5. AnonymousNovember 23, 2008 at 12:31 PM

    Dave, I think it's time I passed on some advice from Doug Eaton of godwardthoughts.blogspot.com.

    Pay particular attention to number one on the list.

    "Through countless discussions surrounding atheism, it has become apparent that someone must be feeding bad advice to atheists. Since the following errors are made repeatedly, this partial list has been populated to warn atheists of this underground movement in order for them to avoid these pitfalls. If you are an atheist and hear any of the following advice, realize that if used, it will be harmful to your cause.

    1. Assume that because you compare theism to believing in pink unicorns or fairy tales that you have made a good argument.

    2. Become hostile and use degrading vulgarities while maintaining that Christianity is an immoral religion.

    3. When you are having trouble answering an argument posed by a Christian theist, simply say, “well even if this were true, it doesn’t prove the existence of the ‘Christian’ God.”

    4. Assume that simply because you explain a phenomena from a naturalistic perspective that it constitutes an argument which must be true.

    5. When arguing against the Christian God, simply say that you only believe in “one less god” than most people, as if that does not require you to defend an atheistic understanding of cosmology, anthropology, ethics, philosophy of history, philosophy of politics, philosophy of science, and epistemology.

    6. Make metaphysical statements that suggest that metaphysics are a useless waste of time.

    7. Argue that we should only believe things proven by empirical evidence without proving it with empirical evidence.

    8. Use logic like it is a universal, transcendent, unchanging reality when atheistic naturalism cannot account for universal, transcendent, unchanging realities.

    9. Argue that there is no evidence to believe in the existence of God because all the evidence that is produced fails to pass the rules of evidence which have been constructed from the belief that God does not exist.

    10. Argue that human beings are robots, puppets, and machines programmed by natural selection in a closed system of cause and effect, and then argue for free thought and moral agency.

    11. Place your ultimate trust in human reason while believing that man’s mind evolved from lower animals such as monkeys and will continue to evolve until we become the monkeys from which the minds of the future will have evolved.

    Doug Eaton"

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  6. Dave The Happy SingerNovember 23, 2008 at 1:02 PM

    Abiogenesis did happen naturally. It's really not that implausible. At it's simplest it is just the emergence of a molecule that can replicate itself. Natural selection takes care of the rest and that is evolution.

    There is plenty we don't understand yet, but we certainly don't need to speculate about the supernatural, because there is still no evidence that anything supernatural happened!

    Pointing to things that you personally don't understand and saying 'so God did it' might satisfy you, but I'm a more than a little unimpressed, because it really doesn't explain a thing.

    "Yahweh left the bible for us to learn about what he did throughout history. Yahweh sent his son to die on a cross and rise again. Yahweh actually claims to have created a fine tuned universe, and thousands of years later, the wonders of science confirm those claims."

    This is almost all just bald assertion. I don't doubt your sincerity, but why should I believe it too?

    I say 'almost', because you correctly mention that science shows that a handful of constants appear to be 'just right' for us to be here. It's called the cosmological argument. It sucks, and we can go through it if you want, but I find it a bit boring.

    What interests me much more is the fact that you have so much respect for science when you think it supports your position, and yet you deny our evolutionary heritage out of hand, despite the mountains and mountains of converging evidence to support it.

    It seems you clearly recognise that science is the paramount way to discover what nature is like. So why deny it when it contradicts your beliefs? Why not just fix your beliefs?

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  7. Dave The Happy SingerNovember 23, 2008 at 1:06 PM

    Oh, and the Doug Eaton thing wasn't that good.

    If you want really good comedy, read Exodus.

    Could I give some advice to Mr Eaton?

    Here goes:

    If you've got a problem with my comparing your imaginary friend to an imaginary animal, tell me why. Don't just say I'm wrong and take your toys home.

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