Atheists Unite!

last SG · 2006-11-27T11:43:47+00:00

is this about christians again? i read about them until v du lan liao. can change topic to what atheists actually believe?

Ito_^ SG

yeah i know about dat Laughing

ProudlySingaporean SG

lol...machiam like some coco crunch advert like that...haha

OO_OO_OO SG

i didnt say it must be a MUST.
different religions have different prophets explaining the creation/formation of things.
science doesnt offer a single explanation for it.

so of course it doesnt have a say in this area.

Ibram Gaunt SG

Taken from: An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science
http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/religion_science_collaboration.htm

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

It is not true that ALL religious people reject evolution.
In the website above, over 10,000 clergy members from various church denominations signed an open letter SUPPORTING evolution.
For far too long, strident voices, in the name of religion, have been claiming that people must choose between faith and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy have however already signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy.

One can be a religious person and yet see the truth of evolution. Not all religious people are anti-evolution and pro-creationism. A number of scientists are religious (not all science people are atheists) but yet have the moral courage to back the truth of evolution.

Ito_^ SG

Laughing bingo!

matrixeg SG

Laughing

SumOne SG

SO WHEN'S THE GATHERING?[/i]

[email protected] SG

Atheists rulz Exclamation

VivId CrItiQuE SG

i wish all atheist a final gd luck. i'm outta here. Exit

dumbdumb! SG

"I HAVE WON THE VICTORY"

God's Promise In The Empty Tomb

His Birth

The words of King Herod when told of the birth of Jesus.
"Kill him. There is room for only one king in this corner of the world."

The number of religious leaders who believed a messiah had been born in Bethlehem. Zero.

The type of people who did. Some stargazers, night-shift sheperds, and a couple of newlyweds who claimed to have more expereience giving birth than having sex.

The reward given to Joseph and Mary for bringing God into the world. Two years in exile, learning Egyptian.

This was the beginning of the Christian movement. (And these were the calm years.)

His Ministry

The word on the streets of Jesus' hometown when he claimed to be sent from God. Wierd family. Have you seen his cousin?

The reaction of the hometown folks. Stone him.

The opinion of his brothers. Lock him up.

The number of disciples Jesus recruited. Seventy.

The number of disciples who defended him to the authorities. Zero.

The assessment of Jesus' followers as found in the Jerusalem editorial page. A group of unemployed ne'er-do-wells recruited off the shipping docks and out of the red-light districts.

The numbers of lepers and blind and lame people Jesus healed. Too many to count.

The number of healed lepers and blind and lame people who defended Jesus on the day of his death. Zero.

His Execution

The popular opinion regarding Jesus before he cleansed the Temple. See if he'll run for office.

The popular opinion regarding Jesus after he cleansed the Temple. Let's see how fast he can run.

The decision of the Jewish council. Three spikes and a spear.

The talk on the streets of Jerusalem after Jesus died. He should've stayed in the furniture business.

The number of times Jesus prophesied that he would come back to life three days after his death. Three.

The number of apostles who heard the prophecy. All of them.

The number of apostles who waited at the tomb to see if he would do what he said. Zero.

The number of his followers who belierved in the resurrection before it occurred. You do the math.

The odds a street-corner bookie would've given the day after the crucifixion on the possibility that Jesus' name would be known in the year 2000. "I'll give you better odds that he'll rise from the dead."

His Movement

The official response of the Jewish leaders to the rumors of the resurrection. Of course they say he's alive. They have to. What else can they say?

The actual response of the Jewish leaders to the resurrection of Jesus. "A great number of the Jewish priests believed and obeyed" (Acts 6:7)

The decision of the Jewish leaders about the church. "If their plan comes from human authority, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them" (Acts 5:38-39)

The response of the church. "The number of followers was growing" (Acts 6:1)

The official response of the Jewish leaders to the conversion of Saul. Good riddance to the former Pharisee. Won't be months before he is in jail, and then what will he do? Write letters?

What Saul, turned Paul, understood that his former colleagues didn't. "God gave [Jesus] as a way to forgive sin" (Rom 3:25)

The Movement Continues

The belief of French philosopher Voltaire. The bible and Christianity would pass within a hundred years. He died in 1778. The movement continues.

The pronouncement of Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882. "God is dead." The dawn of science, he believed, would be the doom of faith. Science has dawned; the movement continues.

The way a Communist dictionary defined the Bible. "It is a collection of fantastic legends without any scientific support." Communism is diminishing; the movement continues.

The discovery made by every person who has tried to bury the faith. The same as the one made by those who tried to bury its Founder; He won't stay in the tomb.

The facts. The movement has never been stronger. Over one billion Catholics and nearly as many Protestants.

The question. How do we explain it? Jesus was a backwater peasant. He never wrote a book, never held an office. He never journeyed more than two hundred miles from his hometown. Friends left him. One betrayed him. Those he helped forgot him. Prior to his death, they abandoned him. But after his death they couldn't resist him. What made the difference?

The answer. His death and resurrection.

For when he died, so did your sin.

And when he rose, so did your hope.

For when he rose, your grave was changed from a final residence to temporary housing.

The reason he did it. The face in your mirror.

The verdict after two millenniums. Herod was right; there is room for only one King.[/b]

JansenX SG

Richard Dawkins:

"An atheist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles - except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural. As ever when we unweave a rainbow, it will not become less wonderful."

Modern science is heading this way Mr. Green

[email protected] SG

When the times come that science is able to prove the non-existence of god, these ppl will still stubbornly stick to their faiths and that’s blind faith.

OO_OO_OO SG

so i assume the contary is true?
when science proves the existance of an unexplained supernatural being, the atheists will stubbornly stick on to their believe that further studies will show otherwise?

Cystaire SG

As I mentioned earlier, we are talking about science, so I hope that you are getting your scientific information from reputable sources. So quoting your source will help convince me and other readers that you have credible data.

In addition, I am working hard to debate with you personally, so it's laziness on your part to paste other people's argument wholesale without even analyzing them.

Ibram Gaunt has already written well on the importance of evolutionary biology to science (see above).

I know you will not be convinced by whatever evidence I present here, but for the benefit of other readers I shall try to address your (actually other people's) criticisms.

1. Evolution is untestable? False.

J B Haldane once said that if you can find rabbit fossils in the Precambrian, it will help refute evolution. None have been found.

In addition to fossil evidence, modern genetics experiments also overwhelmingly support evolution. I have already mentioned experiments on flies, butterflies and chick that test evolutionary theory. Other models include zebrafish and mouse.

2. Irreducible complexity is pure bunk. Paley's brass watch and Behe's mousetrap are both terrible analogies of living systems. I have written a criticism of their analogies in this article.

http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html

3. The "increase in information" angle comes from Bill Dembski. In reality, new information enters genomes all the time. I have already mentioned polyploidy in plants. In addition to whole genome multiplications there are additional chromosomes, gene multiplications, lengthened genes, truncated genes, modified genes...many modes of increasing information.

4. Fossilization of organisms is rare, so it is unreasonable to expect all the transitory forms to be recorded in fossils. Palaeontologists can find dozens of transitory fossils per genus, but creationists are never satisfied. Do you know why?

If they can find one million transitory fossils, creationists will demand 2 million. If they can find 2 million, creationists will want 4 million. Where scientists build evidence, creationists always see gaps.

5. Abiogenesis is not part of evolutionary biology, and personally I think it is not as strongly supported as evolution. Still I should remind you that the definition of life (as an emergent trait) has always been controversial.

People (vitalists) once considered sub-cellular components such as "organic" chemicals (eg. urea) as alive. Today we can synthesize them chemically, so we don't consider them alive.

Since cells are made of non-living parts, how can cells be alive? We just accept this. So if it is easy to imagine life emerging from non-life spatially, we can also imagine life emerging from non-life in time.

Anyway even if life has always existed, it would not support special creation. In fact it would refute creationism, since life has always existed it would by definition not require any sort of creator.

6. Biological evolution is a non-random process, because it acts via natural selection. Also, since genes have organization, sequence changes can produce predictable effects.

Also, very low probability events are inevitable at evolutionary (geological) time scales.

As for that extra arm you were waiting for... someone someday will eventually sprout an extra arm.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2021142&page=1

7. "Microevolution" is just the creationist excuse to have their cake and eat it too. They know that bacteria and viruses mutate rapidly and display wildly different characteristics such as virulent, host jumping and multidrug resistance. So they say that microevolution can only occur below the species level.

But here's the trick: they don't accept the scientific definition of species (reproductive isolation) and use their own definition called "kinds". So no matter how much the descendant populations diverge they are still the same kind.

Using this word game no organism can ever evolve beyond the "kind" level! Monkeys evolving into other monkey species are still monkeys - only microevolution!

In reality there is no such barrier to evolution. Every speciation step is of course at the species level, but it does not magically stop at that level. Life continued to evolve until we have the full biodiversity we see today.

8. You say that since no human was around to record exactly what happened during the inception of life, everyone is only guessing and the origins must be taken on faith.

If all criminal investigators believe that, then murderers will never be convicted, because many murders occur without anyone else around. Also the data is usually incomplete. Even if caught on camera, video cameras have a 1/20 second gap between frames.

Yet the bloody shoe prints, knife in the sink with suspect's fingerprints and victim's blood, absence from usual routine during time of crime... various evidence using different approaches, demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the suspect is guilty.

Faith is not used to determine the truth here.

So why do you insist on using faith to refute something which already has so much supporting evidence???

Cystaire SG

Originally posted by dumbdumb!:
The verdict after two millenniums. Herod was right; there is room for only one King.

You have neglected to mention the other faiths that worship God(s). They still exist too and their followers are also in the billions.

Of course there are also non-religious people who don't believe in any sort of personal God. They number in the hundreds of millions, which is approximately a few hundred million more numerous than you.

Try convince all these people that yours is the only King.

dumbdumb! SG

i don't try to. =)

i'm just quoting a book which states how ridicuiously interesting this is.

a man who didn't travel much, had only 70 believers, had been crucified by thousands of people hating him. made lots of enemies ranging from rulers to scientists and philosophers,

how did christianity bloom despite so much opposition? =)

[email protected] SG

I can feel that christianity is going down the slope. If that's the case, according to them, hell will be overcrowded soon. Laughing

SumOne SG

As we know, what you feel and 'think' can be very wrong most of the time. You don't exactly have a very good track record where accuracy and credibility is concerned.

Cystaire SG

On a related note...

Three guys who were broke and created a company by working a few hours a week. They only had one venture capitalist firm who believed them. They made enemies among many powerful media companies.

In 20 months they attracted 80 million daily viewers to their website and sold their company to Google for US$1.65 billion.

WTF? Confused

Cystaire SG

Which is why we need data! Woo hoo!

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-10-europe-religion-cover_x.htm

As a double whammy this article also contains one reason why institutionalized religion have so much staying power.

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