A qn from an atheist

last SG · 2007-10-23T15:55:01+00:00

The number 0 in mathematics has a similar case. How did the concept of zero meaning nothingness come about? You could have as many circular arguments as you...

jondizzle foshizzle SG

Please stop typing your posts as if it were poetry it's extremely annoying

AndrewPKYap SG

So where did you cut that from? Laughing

So now tell us what you said it was in the other thread... just before I awarded you the fireworks?

jondizzle foshizzle SG

I said an argument is a verbal disagreement. Anyone who disagrees either has no brain or is AndrewPKYap.

And like I said please stop posting your irrelevant sh*t here, I'm tired of arguing with the mentally handicapped.

noahnoah SG

poetry that dun read lor

i also never stated that you must read mah Laughing

AndrewPKYap SG

Are you suggesting that some people have?

stupidissmart SG

My understanding of how the universe cannot exist by itself:

Lets put the story in tis perspective.

The objective of the "universe" exercise is because no one really know wat started everything in the first place. Even if I can show big bang is true, and tat some other event caused the big bang, u will still keep asking wat create tat other event and so on and so forth it never end. In the end, we have to come out with the idea tat something is created out of nothing.

And wat does the christian do. They did not provide any answer how the universe is created or the mystery how everything started off. They just made a claim tat there is some being called god and it do not need to be created. It simply just avoid the question altogether by making an unsupported claim exploiting the word "definition" or "axiom" (which equal to assumption).

And claims r very cheap. I can also claim event (notbeing) Bangondadabo happened and tat event, by my definition, create the universe and is an uncaused cause. Tis argument carries as much water as the god argument and the only thing I do is just anyhow define another thing and give it a characteristic tat it do not need to be created and other hocus pocus. It is just naming and defining an imaginary unproven thing

In other words, tat does not answer the original question how the universe is created or how everything is created. It just name tat unknown event as "God" then totally ignore tat question and play with words

My faith cannot be man's interpretation and creativity because the very ideas it expounds are counter intuitive. Among the many others which i will not expound further are THe Beatitudes, some thing i believe if you are a serious investigator would have surely known about.

Another thing is (we've to include the authority of the bible here; something which i will discuss later) it would have been easier to say that Jesus resurrected in the spirit and not in the body. It would have been easier for the supposed person (s) manufacturing Christianity to say that Jesus rose in the spirit, rather than to say Jesus rose bodily. And guess what, people touched him and felt him and saw his nail marks. So there, the claims of Jesus' resurrection.

If I am not wrong, u read all of them from the bible isn't it ? The whole question is why do u believe the bible is right, and showing evidence from the bible is not convincing. If god wanna make it easier, christ just need to carry on living till now and I am sure everyone will believe in him. Why kill him and make everything so secretive tat no one really know wat christ even look like.

So, very briefly, i don't believe that man are stupid to create this kind of story which would be so hard to convince.

I heard of more stupid things like UFO and throwing aliens into volcanoes and their anguish spirit go to humans making them unhappy and frustrated which require some expensive holy items to expel them. Last time I heard they got a large following

Evolution. U make a very bold stand that there is "NO evidence" against evolution... care to back up your claim? The burden of proof is also upon u since u jus made this claim, since this is also something that "be seen or observed from a general point of view".

My god, u don't believe in evolution ? Even the pope believe in evolution and u don't ?

I can name a lot of things tat show evolution. Nylon eating bugs (nylon is man made), changes observed in domestic animals (they can not survive in the wild), new found strains of virus tat r more drug resistant (discovered in recent times only), changes in banana (banana originate from one source and require men to make it continue its species), observed fosils (gradual changes over time from ape to men)

I offer a challenge for u. Find me a website from a reputable scientific organisation tat reject evolution and support intelligent design. I offer tis challenge to many in the past and no one ever show me any before. I can show u many website if u like. Trust me, I have debated in tis topic for donkeys years and donkey times

1) If everything evolved from something, what was the first thing? And who put it there?

The scientific answer is some simple cell organism. No one put it there, it just occurs. We have very limited knowledge on it but those r safe assumption from evidence. Wat do u suggest ? Got evidence ?

2) Evolution works on an assumption of millions of years for its hypothesis to work. Without going into much details, isnt carbon dating faulty in itself? And makes lots of assumptions?

Carbon dating is found to be highly accurate and is still the method to date items. Furthermore, it do not need carbon dating to prove life begin long time ago. Tree rings (1 ring = 1 year ) have shown to prove life starts off much earlier than 6000 years. U got problem with tree ring ?

My point is i dont think evolution has tons of evidence to suggest it's true and that it is irrefutable. And of course, science, u say, has not reached maturity, yet u claim to believe something that is not conclusive, isnt that a faith then? Piltdown Hoax, as i raised, was an example that science is just that, unable to define truth and at the very very best, uncertain.

U r very deluded. I think of all the people here I can say tat. Evolution had reached maturity and evolution is considered a fact. If evolution is wrong, then the whole field of biology is wrong

Piltdown hoax is simply hoax made by malicious people but it is found to be wrong and corrected by scientific organisation. Same as the korean scientist tat fake scientific result. However for facts like evolution where it face scrutiny from many people, especially christians, and still hold, then it is a matured fact.

Ptolemy, this guy who lived in 2nd century and very much a scientist, said the planets revolved around the earth. It took mankind at least 11 centuries to refute that, when Copernicus and Gailileo came along. Yes, science really hasnt reached maturity.

He, like aristotle, r not scientist in the sense of the word because they do not use the scientific method.

stupidissmart, i think compared to Christianity, the atheistic system IS out of the ordinary. Not until Darwin and Huxley came along, did people formally refute the existence of God. Not until the Bastille came down, was the roots of atheism formalized. So compared to the study about the existence of GOd, atheism is the new kid on the block.

Com'on, if u think history is everything, then zorastrians or other form of idol worshipping r right. In fact, hinduism, buddhism or judaism have a much longer history than christianity. And during tat time, there r already people who do not believe in it and they r atheist in a sense. In fact, when a belief start, atheist is already present since there r people who refute tat belief. It is as old as mankind civilisation.

Who is the real new kid of the block ? Christianity ba. It is probably the youngest official religion (if u seperate catholic with christianity)

stupidissmart SG

Again you are wrong, Science does not make the monitor work. Like you said, electricity from dynamo, power transmission to home, etc. makes the monitor work. Science merely allows us to understand these elements and aids us in the harnessing of electricity to create the required components which causes the monitor to work. It is through, not because of, science that the monitor works and like I said, you are once again trying to seperate God from Science which you can't do.

Com'on, tat is really lame. Science tells us electricity come from dynamo, it is repeatable, it is tested, it is true and it works. And tat is how we got electricity. If science is not right, it won't work. Without science, we do not know wat is dynamo, we cannot generate electricity and we live in caves hunting rabbits. The study on natural phenomenon give us the ability to change our environment and make things work.

Why don't u just answer tis question

If man do not have science, do they have computer monitors ?

If u answer yes, then u r delusional and I guess any tom dick and harry can tell u tat

AndrewPKYap SG

Sure you can say that in the beginning was God.... where is the evidence of that and where is the evidence of God now?

So you see... you just want to make assertions after assertions and expect people to believe.

There is really not much point in going through the rest of what you had written because it is more of the same... assertions without proof and evidence.

You cannot have the cake and eat it. You cannot claim to be rational and logical and at the same time claim that you are a believer.

If you want to call yourself a believer, you have to accept that you are not rational and logical unless you can come up with the proof and evidence that God exists.

Nobody can force you to be rational and logical, but the more you try to try to use rational arguments and logic to bolster your case, the more you are saying that being rational and logical is the preferred method and therefore the more you put yourself in a bad light as a believer.

vince69 SG

Originally posted by stupidissmart:

Com'on, tat is really lame. Science tells us electricity come from dynamo, it is repeatable, it is tested, it is true and it works. And tat is how we got electricity. If science is not right, it won't work. Without science, we do not know wat is dynamo, we cannot generate electricity and we live in caves hunting rabbits. The study on natural phenomenon give us the ability to change our environment and make things work.

Why don't u just answer tis question

[b]If man do not have science, do they have computer monitors ?

If u answer yes, then u r delusional and I guess any tom dick and harry can tell u tat [/b]

you are one interesting person

electricity is the movement of electrons across a conductor element, dynamo if I not wrong, accelerate this movement and harness this 'power' for use.

Evolution is not repeatable, in that, once evolved its done, not going to happen again
Evolution cannot be tested, can't even recreate the cycle, it can only be obsevered (may take a long time to wait for it to be visible)
oh... unlike the popular saying that man evolve from Apes... the correct term should be homosepiens (can't remember the full scientific term), which incidentally is the ancestor of both Apes and Human and Monkeys came from.

IvanSong SG

I find your argument mildly amusing, in fact bordering on personal attack. Rolling Eyes
I hope like you said, this argument is for an expansion of ideas and not let it degenerate into some verbal thrashing.

I hope that readers of this thread can decide for themselves whose argument makes more sense. Up until now, i've waited for u to show me some of ur evidence to back up ur argument, but all i've heard is just ur viewpoint, backed up by nothing but urself.

Firstly, im curious about ur background as to how much you know about Protestant Christianity before you even slug it.

True, Protestants didnt come about until 1500s (official?) but we still hold to the authority of the Jewish Torah (i.e. Judaism) AKA first 5 books of bible, including Genesis. How the Church developed since the first century, i'll leave u to read it for urself if ur genuinely interested. But in that sense, Protestant Christianity can share its common history with Judaism (limited) and so, its beliefs are just as old as Judaism's.

Which incidentally, if u logically deduce, we believe in Genesis, i.e. to ask should that make us the oldest religion then? Notice i used the word "formalized" to describe atheism? I refer u to the easily accessible wikipedia (for lack of better resources to show u over the net) to define this word: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

[url]
Notice the line "first attested in about 1571" and subsequently, "Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Judeo-Christian God."

The concept of atheism has existed for a long time. But i brought up the topic of its formalization to argue against u saying that the existence of God is out of the ordinary. In actual fact, people have always believed in God for the past 10 over centuries (the intellectual atmosphere at that time plus it was usually the priests and monks who were the learned persons) until people came along to refute His existence.

So again, who's the new kid on the block?

Ptolemy: Laughing .. So i supposed there was no real scientist until 1833? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist
Read up on him first k and see if he's "scientific" enough for ur taste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy

Evolution ... ahh can never run away from it. I dont think by evolution alone being wrong, it can overturn a whole field of biology. It's really not so dichotomous. My point in bringing up the Piltdown hoax, if u read carefully, is to bring up the fact that science really isnt so mature as u "claim".

Carbon dating ... accurate? I dont think so.... http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible
And dont fault me for using this site... read on first..

Tree rings... nope .. dont work for me.. sounds like circular argument... then how are u certain that tree rings are accurate without a fault? http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ22.html

Simple cell ... "safe assumption from evidence"? where? which one? I think we're back where we're started. the first thing. who put it there? Circular again...

Pope and evolution ... haha.. u really dont know the first thing about Protestant Christianity. I dont even subscribe to the papal authority of the pope, what makes u think if he believes, i'll believe? Anyway, briefly, Catholics and Protestants hold to different beliefs.

The website i choose is answersingenesis: just google it. Show me some websites u read, or refer me some books. As to all the things that u've listed as examples, i'd like to read the research on those.

UFO... Scientologists... refer to argument abt pope, South Park offers quite a good parody of it too! Oh.. another thing too, doesnt mean there's a Church in their name means its Christian...

To be continued

IvanSong SG

Sure u dont wanna read thru? If u paid attention earlier, i've expressed why i think science is at best, uncertain about itself too. These are my thoughts.

Hey, since when did this argument / discussion become a dictatorship? See, that's what happens when u take religion out of the picture. Laughing

Why cant a believer be both rational and logical? Isnt that what the purpose of this argument? To show u that the Christian faith is a reasoned one (to the best of my ability that is)

Threadstarter, this is for u -->

Francis Schaeffer used this illustration:

Suppose u were to leave the room with 2 glasses on the table, Glass A and B. Glass A has 2 ounces of water in it, and Glass B is empty. When u return at the end of the day, Glass B now has water in it an Glass A is empty. You could assume that sm1 took the water from Glass A and put it into Glass B.

That, how ever doesnt fully explain the situation because u notice that Glass B has 4 ounces of water in it, whereas Glass A had only 2 ounces in it when u left in the morning.

U are confronted with a problem that at best has only a partial explanation. Whether the water from A was poured into B is debatable. But what is beyond debate is that all of the water in B could not have come from A. The additional 2 ounces had to come from somewhere else.

God has put enough into the world to make faith in him a most reasonable thing. and he has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason or observation alone. Science may be able to explain the 2 ounces in B. It cannot explain the 4 ounces in it.

The Christian worldview, biblically based, presents a powerful and unique explanation of these other "2 ounces".

Me: I dont deny science. I love science but from what i studied, it cannot adequately explain everything. There're many scientists in the world who are Christians and i respect that. But i've issues with people whose minds are Really close when they say its open.

leave with this quote by Founding director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies : Robert Jastrow

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

cloud210 SG

I dunno why he want to sacrifice, neither I do not accept him as my saviour. I don't need a saviour in my life I am my own saviour. Freethinker

What did you do to find out that you're an ant to him? Have you fought him and lost to him? Have you seen him casting a spell? Walking on water? Flying without wings? Did a judgement day?

This is exactly why I hate my christians friends.. Or maybe, I'm just down unlucky to have noob christians.

I think its kinda meaningless to debate which religion is the oldest. So what is christianity is the oldest? Does it mean christianity is right and those religions younger than it is wrong?

Originally posted by IvanSong:

Why cant a believer be both rational and logical? Isnt that what the purpose of this argument? To show u that the Christian faith is a reasoned one (to the best of my ability that is)

Suppose u were to leave the room with 2 glasses on the table, Glass A and B. Glass A has 2 ounces of water in it, and Glass B is empty. When u return at the end of the day, Glass B now has water in it an Glass A is empty. You could assume that sm1 took the water from Glass A and put it into Glass B.

That, how ever doesnt fully explain the situation because u notice that Glass B has 4 ounces of water in it, whereas Glass A had only 2 ounces in it when u left in the morning.

U are confronted with a problem that at best has only a partial explanation. Whether the water from A was poured into B is debatable. But what is beyond debate is that all of the water in B could not have come from A. The additional 2 ounces had to come from somewhere else.

So that somewhere else must be from god? Why must christians shove everything that is unable to be explained by science to be god's doing and furthermore, you can't prove the existence of god.

If I can assume that someone took the water from glass A and put it into Glass B, can I assume that the same person may have added 2 ounces to glass B? Could it be condensation on the water vapor in the air assuming glass B is rather cold? Could it be a combination of some1 pouring the 2 ounces of water in glass A into B and a condensation of water vapor into glass B? Why must it be specifically be god? If you're saying my point is wrong, den how is that your point that it is god's doing is right?

Sorry for my prejudice opinion against christianity, I just don't like the way they work. All I want is christians proving their god exists with proper evidence, and I'll gladly accept and apologise. Same goes to the other religions. I happy with them because they don't constantly bombard me with their bible is so damn right and motives when they ask me to go out or call me up.

IvanSong SG

Hmm... Im new to posting here so forgive me if i dont make sense in some arguments. But if u read only what i write, of course it wont make sense. You've to read the CONTEXT and see whether there is COHERENCE in what i say. Just like how we read the bible. Smile

So, regarding that response about which religion is oldest: no, i'm not saying that xtianity is the oldest thus the correct one or whatsoever. The person i was replying to (stupidissmart) said that Christianity was young, and i was just responding to that.

About my example, you dont have to analyze it too deeply. It was meant as an analogy, to speak metamorphorically. All i was trying to say was that in reality, science doesnt paint the complete picture. Neither does religion. in my limited understanding, i need the two to enrich my understanding of the other. Since when did i say God poured the water? haha..

I'm curious, if science cannot explain something, then what do u do? For e.g. how does science explain the existence of human morality? How do we determine what's right and wrong?

You've bad experiences with Christians i can understand, but doesnt mean all of them are like that rite. I've met irritating salesmen b4, doesnt make them bad or nasty. Consider the products they're selling. Be objective.

AndrewPKYap SG

Rolling Eyes Since when was science certain of itself?

Science is willing to say, being an honorable, honest discipline, that it is not certain. Science being an honorable, honest discipline, is willing to say, that whatever it knows at the moment is subject to change.

Are you willing to be honorable, and honest and say that whatever you know is even less certain than what science knows because all your assertions comes without the corresponding proof and evidence? At least science is not so stupid as to make assertions that do not come with proof and evidence.

If a believer is rational, logical, honorable, and honest, he will say, "of course I cannot say that God exists or that God created the world in seven days, because that is just my belief. I have no proof and evidence to back up what I believe."

AndrewPKYap SG

yeah right, of course you rather I stop exposing your gross stupidity... I asked to you show me where, in that thread, you made a cohesive argument and you asked me to find it for myself because have been doing that all over the thread and it turned out your definitions of a cohesive argument was: "a verbal disagreement". Laughing

Those two quotes above are just "samples". There are a lot more "samples' if you want. After my relentless Laughing at your gross stupidity, you finally manage to copy and paste something not so grossly stupid, and after how many days? Rolling Eyes

To the mods: I am trying to raise the standards of debate in your forum hor... and exposing the grossly stupid posts and it is not flaming because I back up my assertions fully with evidence.[/url]

stupidissmart SG

electricity is the movement of electrons across a conductor element, dynamo if I not wrong, accelerate this movement and harness this 'power' for use.

Evolution is not repeatable, in that, once evolved its done, not going to happen again

I am talking about the phenomenon of the working princicple of the dynamo. And ape is a classification of animal tat even include human and homosepiens

True, Protestants didnt come about until 1500s (official?) but we still hold to the authority of the Jewish Torah (i.e. Judaism) AKA first 5 books of bible, including Genesis. How the Church developed since the first century, i'll leave u to read it for urself if ur genuinely interested. But in that sense, Protestant Christianity can share its common history with Judaism (limited) and so, its beliefs are just as old as Judaism's.

I am pretty sure judaism and christianity is different because christianity has the New Testaments. It is the most important document in the scripture and tat is why there is the word "christ" in christainity. There is no christian in, lets say 20 years before christ because there is not christ then.

And atheism, using your link, show tat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

In early Ancient Greek, the adjective atheos meant "godless". The word began to indicate more-intentional, active godlessness in the 5th century BCE, acquiring definitions of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods, ungodly" instead of the earlier meaning or "impious".

There r atheists 500 years before christ. There r already people who r atheist while there r no people called christian then. It is already formalised then and is used as a term then. I don't see why u can say it never exist because as long as belief exist, there r people who do not believe in it and they r already atheists.

The concept of atheism has existed for a long time. But i brought up the topic of its formalization to argue against u saying that the existence of God is out of the ordinary. In actual fact, people have always believed in God for the past 10 over centuries (the intellectual atmosphere at that time plus it was usually the priests and monks who were the learned persons) until people came along to refute His existence.

Believed in god ? The china believed god is a giant and crack open an egg to form the sky and earth and die. They also believed in a kingdom full of deities and each have an assigned role and some of them r corrupted. The hindu believe in numerous deities tat have certain power and restriction. The monks believe in the practise to lead to nirvana, the japanese believe in thunder god and it look a bit like a demon, the maya believe in the sun god and they sacrifice thousands of humans to it and many small small tribes believed in tree spirits or volcano spirits and have to pay respect to them.

Isn't tat obvious tat a solo god is not a common thinking, not proven, not seen in everyday life, out of the ordinary and most of the people don't even think of tat. How can u say it is not a claim Rolling Eyes

Ptolemy: .. So i supposed there was no real scientist until 1833? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist
Read up on him first k and see if he's "scientific" enough for ur taste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy

Why don't u read up on scientific method ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

From Alhacen (Ibn Al-Haytham 965 1039, a pioneer of scientific method) to the present day, the emphasis has been on seeking truth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist

A scientist is a person who uses the scientific method to do research

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: after 83 161 AD) known in English as Ptolemy, was a Greek[1] or Egyptian[2] mathematician, geographer, astronomer, and astrologer who flourished in Alexandria, Roman Egypt.

Now look at the words in bold. Scientific method start at about year 1000, tis Ptolemy dies at 161m and scientist r people who use scientific method. SO how can he be considered a real scientist strictly to the sense of the word ?

Evolution ... ahh can never run away from it. I dont think by evolution alone being wrong, it can overturn a whole field of biology. It's really not so dichotomous. My point in bringing up the Piltdown hoax, if u read carefully, is to bring up the fact that science really isnt so mature as u "claim

So now u think evolution is right ? If u want to bring out shameful history, the christians r the one tat say the sun revolves around the earth and house arrest galileo for it

Carbon dating ... accurate? I dont think so.... http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible
And dont fault me for using this site... read on first..

U r talking about scientific issues right ? Use a scientific website. If u can only show a religious website, then u r being religious, not scientific.

Simple cell ... "safe assumption from evidence"? where? which one? I think we're back where we're started. the first thing. who put it there? Circular again...

Then u tell me, who put it there ? If u make a claim, back it with evidence.

Pope and evolution ... haha.. u really dont know the first thing about Protestant Christianity. I dont even subscribe to the papal authority of the pope, what makes u think if he believes, i'll believe? Anyway, briefly, Catholics and Protestants hold to different beliefs

So u do not believe in evolution ? Why don't u show an evidence tat prove evolution wrong ?

cloud210 SG

I'm just using your analogy, i'm lazy to pop up with one. If i present your analogy to my christian friends, 90% of them will say God poured the water to save mankind -.-

if science cannot explain something, if i'm a scientist, i will go research about it. Since i won't be a scientist, I'm going to leave it to the scientists to find out. At the mean time, I will not use anything to try to explain to others why this or that happened such as, "its god's will", "i think "

i've wikied human morality, from what i've read, it doesn't need science to prove its existence. From what I think, it is more like an ideal set of laws, like freedom has its boundaries. You can have freedom as long as what you do, does not affect others negatively. I also think that one should not only live for himself but for others too, giving a helping hand to those who need help. Its more like a principle of life thing. Its basically what you think should be the way of life.

I've accessed and deem christianity is not for me. I've made known to them but they keep either pestering me to join if not trying to show me that I'm so going to regret by not choosing jesus. -.- they certainly have no respect for other religions and other people outside their circle of religion.

My only wish is that the church do something about what I've encountered with christians. If they can't change these christians attitude, at least stop producing more of such christians. I don't expect immediate effect, at least show me they are doing something about it? the mega churches to me, its more of business than religion.

IvanSong SG

There are ways to know and there are ways to know...

Science is one of them. Theology is one of them. Philosophy is one of them.

To quote myself, "science is at best, uncertain about itself too" The word, "too", suggests that i have earlier compared it to something else, and that is, the knowledge of God. I cannot conclusively, by the ways of the world, PROVE the existence of God, but neither can you conclusively (using science) DISPROVE the existence of God. Even the best of scientists admit that, and you dont?

Point is, science cannot be used (as a discipline) to disprove or validate the existence of God. Remember u said so urself, it is "subject to change".

I dont deny the value of science in our modern world. It's good. Like i gave you earlier the example of the 2 Glasses by Francis Schaeffer, fact is reality impinges upon us in a multiplicity of ways, we need a paradigm / worldview that reasonably explains the realities of this world, so can i suggest a coherent worldview that includes 1) origin 2) destiny 3) morality 4) meaning

Thus, back to ur question, NO, i dont think what i know is less certain than science because i've seen science able to explain something, and unable to explain others.

As an atheist, i guess u hold onto the highest standards of science, that it can be "proven". My examples of Ptolemy and Piltdown Hoax, is to demonstrate that what was "proven" one day can be disproven the next. What we hold as "fact" today, as information comes in, as new research surfaces, need not be a "fact" anymore. Plus U said "since when was science certain of itself?"

Hmm... sounds to me ur holding onto a very slippery grasp of reality. Tell me then, how do u define truth?

"If a believer is rational, logical, honorable, and honest, he will say..."

So far, to me, all ur arguments have been very personal, attacking people's beliefs and character rather than discussing them. At best, ur enforcing some form of intellectual dictatorialism. Care to substantiate ur views more concretely?

God gave us the faculty of thinking, in the book of Isaiah, He says, "Come, let us reason..." He who has ears, let him hear.
[/quote]

stupidissmart SG

Suppose u were to leave the room with 2 glasses on the table, Glass A and B. Glass A has 2 ounces of water in it, and Glass B is empty. When u return at the end of the day, Glass B now has water in it an Glass A is empty. You could assume that sm1 took the water from Glass A and put it into Glass B.

That, how ever doesnt fully explain the situation because u notice that Glass B has 4 ounces of water in it, whereas Glass A had only 2 ounces in it when u left in the morning.

U are confronted with a problem that at best has only a partial explanation. Whether the water from A was poured into B is debatable. But what is beyond debate is that all of the water in B could not have come from A. The additional 2 ounces had to come from somewhere else.

God has put enough into the world to make faith in him a most reasonable thing. and he has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason or observation alone. Science may be able to explain the 2 ounces in B. It cannot explain the 4 ounces in it.

First, in the real world it is obvious tat someone had done something to the glasses. If u want to illustrate tat there r many unknowns in the world, u r right.

However just because there r many unknowns doesn't mean u can add in any stories u like and throw all the unknowns into tis story and claim it answer everything when in reality it doesn't answer any. Isn't tat how folktales come about ?

stupidissmart SG

Science is the best method for seeking truth. Can u reject tat statement ? I have already stated tat established science is seldom shown to be proven wrong, especially in recent times. Furthermore, I have already mentioned the burden of proving god lies on the believer. Tis is because u r making an extraordinary claim and u have to back it up with evidence. Otherwise it is just fiction. And the best of scientist cannot disprove the existence of Ju On or Star Wars or invisible unicorn or the flying sphegetti monster as well.

As an atheist, i guess u hold onto the highest standards of science, that it can be "proven". My examples of Ptolemy and Piltdown Hoax, is to demonstrate that what was "proven" one day can be disproven the next. What we hold as "fact" today, as information comes in, as new research surfaces, need not be a "fact" anymore. Plus U said "since when was science certain of itself?"

Ptolemy is not a scientist in the true sense of the word and piltdown hoax is a malicious act which is uncovered by scientist themselves. How about christianity ? They backtrack often as well. They start inquisition and backtrack, they start crusades then backtrack, they claim sun revolves around earth and backtrack, they even say earth is flat before and then backtrack, they support slavery before and then backtrack, they support Hitler before and then backtrack. If science is uncertain of itself, religion don't know anything for sure.

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