New Azura wrote:[
OOC: Forgive me, but this is a kind of lengthy rebuttal.
I'll say, it's amazing how much one can speak on a subject while simultaneously knowing nothing about it.
I'm a Christian apologist and a pastor in training; it's my business to understand how you guys tick.
Note the highlighted part, because you've already admitted your bias against what i'm going to tell you.
So its your business? Business must not be very good because you have started making absolutely false claims based nowhere in relaity. You are a pastor in training and suddenly you know what makes us tick? Well guess what, i'm an atheist and I am not only telling you that what you're saying is absolutely false, but that you are basically making stuff up? Where do you get your information?
Your business to understand how I tick? And why is that, so you can convert me? Good luck buddy, it would take someone a lot smarter than you are. I come from a Christian family and actively chose my own path in life based on the evidence available, I'm not about to be impressed by anything someone on the internet says out of complete ignorance.
An atheist would profess that there is no God, because there's no "evidence" to support such a claim.
Love the use of quotation marks, it's as if our definition if evidence somehow does not apply.
Real science would stick it to you right now; sensory perception is hardly the end-all/be-all for proofing, and even that doesn't take into account what experiencing God can actually mean. But let's simply rest on the sensory perception argument.
Just what is real science to you? The only proof that your god exists is in unverified texts and sources that are not credible.
Can the "big bang" theory be seen, heard, tasted, smelt, or felt? No, of course not,
Yes it actually can be heard. It was one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century actually. But see, since you are a pastor you obviously know more about science than someone who actually studies science so feel free to continue to lecture me out of ignorance.
but scientists can see the effects of a cosmic event through monitoring the cosmos, through such principles as red shift. Through indirect stimuli and processes, science has supposed a logically sound theorem. Even if you don't believe in the big bang theory, there's enough circumstantial evidence to bring the discussion to the table.
That is a little better than circumstantial evidence.
If you are looking for the evidence of God in the world, then you look to the external influences. Examine physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit, otherworldly occurrences that defy logical explanation.
You mean like fire and lightning? Oh wait, humanity eventually became educated enough to learn the meaning behind those phenomenons, and as we continue to learn and discover we will continue to find rational explanations.
View the cosmos at the molecular level, deciphering how universal gasses and the fundamental building blocks of life must be arranged in an exact manner to create life, in such a manner that random chance is astronomically impossible. You have many more “test-cases” for the existence of a Creator, just as there are more “test-cases” for the existence of a Big Bang at the formation of the universe. Both criteria, whether you shall admit so or not, require examination and proofing.
But see, where you immediately jump to the conclusion of a creator, people such as myself continue to work and find logical explanations.
Now, here’s the kicker. It’s up to you to determine what you believe.
And its up to people like you who determine my beliefs apparently, since you have such a warped view of what atheism actually is. But go on with your ranting and raving.
I understand that atheism is a belief, although I would argue at another point in time that it’s a flawed position, using much what I was starting to use above.
A person sees no evidence for a God, therefore they do not believe in a God. Where is the flaw in that logic? Your personal belief that I may be flawed does not definitively make it so.
Allow me simply to counter your position with my own: an atheist would profess that there is no supreme being, no Creator, no God in any manner of the usage of the word. Therefore, there exists no sentient being on the metaphysical level; rather, any concept of a “God” would rest on a conceptual level, in the same vein as ideas and thoughts. There would be no substance to the concept. The physical universe is the extent of the physical manifestations of life, in other words.
Wrong. There exists no PROOF of any sort of metaphysical sentient life. We do not claim there is no God simply because we do not believe. That is the lopsided logic some Christians most certainly use though. We do not believe in God because we see no proof. We do not believe in ghosts or spirits or otherworldly beings because there is no tangible evidence such things exist. None. People such as myself will not accept unverified stories from sources like the Bible which many Christians do not interpret completely literally (rightfully so, because some of the stuff in there does not make sense if used literally.)
If you believe in any other pattern, be it a “life force” or a sentient source where everything must come from, then you’re not a true atheist, you’re a deist or an agnostic.
I know what deism and agnosticism is. Don't act like i'm some sort of idiot, you're the one who thinks that atheism is some kind of human-worship.
Now, supposing you believe that life is a random occurrence in the cosmos, that there is nothing besides the physical, tangible existence we can experience, then mankind’s scope of the cosmos is limited to what he can find. If we cannot find it, then there is no substantive manner in which the hypothetical or the theoretical can be considered on the same plane as physical existence.
You presume that there is an existence beyond this. A true atheist does not believe that there is because evidence does not exist for any other form of existence.
As we noted earlier, you can formulate a hypothesis for the Big Bang using principles such as red shift; you can formulate hypotheses about the history of life on earth by examining the fossil record. But if there is no evidence of the event (cause), or no evidence of the end result (effects), then there is no discernable reason to believe that something can exist. This is the extent of the rational, thoughtful scientific process. This, at least, is how man would view the universe.
Let me guess. We follow this part of your rant with some raving about how we need to accept that Man is too ignorant to comprehend the universe and that we should blindly believe in the supernatural because some two-bit hack pastor on an internet forum told us to believe in it.
However, in using this proof, we open ourselves up to a very, very dangerous error. In scrapping all that cannot be seen or felt, nor observe the possible effects thereof to the heap of the theoretical and the conceptual, we are establishing man as a pertinent factor in what is and isn’t possible in the universe. Such reasoning is faulty, erroneous, and not the least bit arrogant. Mankind has not the moral, nor the physical authority to be the judge of what is and isn’t possible.
Here we go with more of the nonsense again. My favorite part is how you claim that humans lack some kind of authority to judge what is and isn't possible. See to someone such as myself you're basically saying that humans do not have the right to engage in free thinking. As a sentient being, humans most certainly have the ability and the right to think for themselves and make their own decisions. You say we haven't the moral and physical authority to judge, and the terms "authority" and "judge" are wildly inappropriate to use in this context. Attempting to learn more and make determinations about the universe around us is not akin to that of a trial judge making absolute decisions. We are thinking creatures capable of learning so much about the universe, and using that knowledge to paint a better picture of the world around us is not something we do to assert authority over the universe by any means.
At some point we learned that the Earth was round, at some point we learned the Sun did not revolve around the Earth, at some point we left our planet and started visiting other stellar bodies. Should we not have done this? Or do we need some kind of divine authority first? Humans are learners by nature, we make our own decisions based on the evidence life presents us with. Atheists have decided that we see no evidence of God. We do not do this to elevate our standing in the universe. I for one believe that human beings are a unique part of nature but still a part of nature.
To believe so is in error.
According to you anyway. But I forgot you're a pastor in training and know everything there is so let me be quiet and humbled.
To wit, we have basic laws and theorems that dictate the order of the universe. Things such as the speed of light and the force of gravity would seemingly remain constant. Yet up until the mid-20th century, scientists believed that the extreme cold of the Poles prevented bacterial life from occurring. We could not find it, nor evidence of it, therefore it did not exist. But bacteria does exist at the Poles, because we found it.
Yes, because WE FOUND TANGIBLE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE. Show me the tangible physical evidence of your God. Oh wait there is none! (Protip: Faith is not tangible, it is a feeling you carry inside of you, If I were to go around telling people that I still believed in Santa Claus because I felt he was real in my heart I wouldn't convert anyone.)
Now, say that a hypothetical planet exists some 200 Million light years from earth, in a binary star system. Can we conceptualize a world where the forces of gravity would allow for a living organism to develop suspended in nothing but air? Surely, though would modern scientific thought would tend to render such a scenario in the realm of science fiction.
Because according to our current knowledge it is highly unlikely. Of course if we discover this and it turns out we are wrong its because we find, y'know, physical evidence. You seem to think that scientific discovery is somehow a sign that Humans don't know anything, when it shows the complete opposite.
Yet mankind’s knowledge of the cosmos, comparative to its size and complexity is limited, extremely limited maybe. Can mankind reasonably make the claim that such a world does not, or cannot exist? This is bad science, any way you slice it. We have yet to fully understand the inner workings of the human body yet. How can man be so smug; nay, arrogant to claim that there is not a God? The same principle applies in both cases.
Here is where you really fail at Science 101. You continue to use these absolute claims like "scientist says this is impossible", when a real scientist will say "there is no evidence that this is possible." Note the phrasing of that statement because it means something entirely different.
But we don't claim to fully understand the workings of the human body, but Christians do claim there is a God, so the two situations are completely freaking different.
An atheist would fall back to the first argument; lack of discernable proof from our sensory perceptions. Yet I have attempted to demonstrate the fallacious nature of this technique.
And failed. Failed early to since you started off by saying there was no way we coulkd physically percieve the Big Bang Theory when HEARING IT is one of our species' greatest scientific accomplishments.
Ergo, an atheist who rejects deistic explanations for the order of the universe must in principle base your system on the extent of man’s knowledge of the cosmos, thus lifting mankind himself into the central proponent of any argument of life. We essentially become the Creator, for nothing can physically exist according to our sentient intelligence until we discover the event, or its effects on the universe.
Again I bring you back to where you fail Science 101.
In science, you do not prove or disprove anything. You provide evidence for or against. Atheists feel that insufficient evidence exists for the existence of God, therefore we do not believe. It's actually very simple.
I’ll make a religious analogy here (SNIPPED BY AUTHOR)
I'm not even going to bother reading it, because it's probably just more of the ignorant garbage you have been spewing throughout this thread.
Any questions?
How much crack do you smoke?
it is
