Athiest's are wrong, God Exists, Science proves it

[Leumas]

If a believer "feels the presence of God," isn't that independent verification? What if two do, or a hundred? Surely a personal experience should have more heft than an article I read in Wikipedia about how lions mate. And yet, strangely, the believer's experiences are poo-pooed as being less worthwhile.

Be careful what you take your standard of proof to be - you might get it.

No...it is not... nor does it have ANY heft whatsoever.... because millions of fools are fooled all around the world every minute with all sorts of things not the least of which are self-delusions and hallucinations.

But...

Why did god choose to annul those people's free-will?

Why did god choose to present himself to those people while at the same time not bother to present himself to a priest about to bugger a little boy in the rectory, or to the rapist of a little girl, or to the BANKSTER (not banker.... bankster) about to pilfer the lifesavings of thousands of families?

What does "feel the presence of god" mean? Did they hear voices in their heads or a tingling on their skins or what?

How do they know it is not an ALIEN screwing around with them?

How can a person who "feels the presence of god" distinguish that from a hallucination or chemical imbalance in his body or brain? How does one know that the "presence" is not food poisoning or hunger or disease or illness or a virus?

 

[Leumas]

ETA: I just noticed a beautiful thing at that link. It says, "Christian Responses (none yet)." Isn't that reminiscent of when the Creationists post a video claiming something like, "10 things Evolutionists can't explain" and then disables comments? Yeah, it smells familiar, doesn't it?

Seriously???

One has disabled commentary.

The other is still waiting for some.

How can that be the same thing?

 

[tsig]

This is the fundamental misunderstanding that saturates this forum. You are not being asked to study theology to determine if it is correct, as you imply. NO ONE has said to do so in this thread, at least not in the past few pages. You are being asked to study theology so you know what the arguments for God are, and what the paradigm the folks you are talking to are working from within is. You are not being asked to agree with anything; you are being asked to UNDERSTAND THE OPPOPSITION.

Your argument is completely and utterly irrelevant to any of the calls to study theology that I've seen in this thread. It addresses an issue completely unrelated to those we have raised.

Why do you think no one understands what the arguments for god are?

If you have one that hasn't been dealt with then you have the obligation to post it and quit screaming at us that we don't understand.

 

[tsig]

I added it above, but here's an example: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/iron.html

It works a lot like the ol' crocoduck. First, you decide what you want to prove. Next, you shop around for some misunderstanding you can leverage into a proof that seems convincing on the surface. Last, you present your crocoduck as a powerful "gotcha" whenever an opening arises.

So, evolution cannot be true because... wait for it... crocoduck!
And, the bible can't be true because... don't wait this time... God isn't what I've decided He ought to be!

The problem with this stuff is not when it's dismissed, but when it works. If someone thinks crocoduck is a valid renunciation of evolution, they are set up for a big back-peddle once it is explained. So too if someone takes one of the God-gotchas as meaningful criticism, only to find out they've been misled.

ETA: I just noticed a beautiful thing at that link. It says, "Christian Responses (none yet)." Isn't that reminiscent of when the Creationists post a video claiming something like, "10 things Evolutionists can't explain" and then disables comments? Yeah, it smells familiar, doesn't it?

You're saying that a creationist using the crocoduck is the same a a skeptic using bible contradictions?

 

[Trakar]

By the time I went to parochial high school, they'd done away with the skirts, and our uniforms consisted of collared dress shirts and career-wear type black slacks, the kind without pockets. Perhaps someone got wise to the correlation you mentioned! The priesthood is ailing in numbers these days, I hear.

Perhaps, but I don't think it was as much the clothes as the curves, at least for most of the pubescent male classmates I knew.

As for the falling recruitment numbers for the priesthood, I don't think it has been an burgeoning career choice since the Middle Ages (maybe not even then).

 

[marplots]

No...it is not... nor does it have ANY heft whatsoever.... because millions of fools are fooled all around the world every minute with all sorts of things not the least of which are self-delusions and hallucinations.

But...

Why did god choose to annul those people's free-will?

Why did god choose to present himself to those people while at the same time not bother to present himself to a priest about to bugger a little boy in the rectory, or to the rapist of a little girl, or to the BANKSTER (not banker.... bankster) about to pilfer the lifesavings of thousands of families?

What does "feel the presence of god" mean? Did they hear voices in their heads or a tingling on their skins or what?

How do they know it is not an ALIEN screwing around with them?

How can a person who "feels the presence of god" distinguish that from a hallucination or chemical imbalance in his body or brain? How does one know that the "presence" is not food poisoning or hunger or disease or illness or a virus?

Those are all good questions. I hope you are able to find satisfactory answers for them.

 

[marplots]

Seriously???

One has disabled commentary.

The other is still waiting for some.

How can that be the same thing?

Because the "answer" is easy enough to pull up on Google?

Here, here's an example: http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/q16.htm

The ploy is the old, "They won't respond when I post my crap, therefore I must be right." Surely this is familiar enough when a truther or a footer does it? Why is it so hard to see when our own team does it?

 

[marplots]

You're saying that a creationist using the crocoduck is the same a a skeptic using bible contradictions?

Yes, that is what I am saying. They are exactly the same disingenuous technique, based on an unwillingness to understand the other's point of view.

 

[Trakar]

Because the "answer" is easy enough to pull up on Google?

Here, here's an example: http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/q16.htm

The ploy is the old, "They won't respond when I post my crap, therefore I must be right." Surely this is familiar enough when a truther or a footer does it? Why is it so hard to see when our own team does it?

(footer?)

 

[Slowvehicle]

(footer?)

A "big-foot" believer.

 

[Pup]

This is the fundamental misunderstanding that saturates this forum. You are not being asked to study theology to determine if it is correct, as you imply. NO ONE has said to do so in this thread, at least not in the past few pages. You are being asked to study theology so you know what the arguments for God are, and what the paradigm the folks you are talking to are working from within is. You are not being asked to agree with anything; you are being asked to UNDERSTAND THE OPPOPSITION.

So I've studied the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints pretty thoroughly and know most of their doctrine and beliefs. What good is that going to do me if I run into a Baptist or Methodist or a Catholic? There will be some overlap, but not a whole lot.

If I try to talk to a Catholic about the prophet in Salt Lake City having the power to receive modern-day revelation direct from God, I won't get very far, and that's just between two Christian religions (even though a lot of people don't consider either Christian) If I'm talking to a Hindu or Sikh or Jew, I'm going to have to spend a lot more hours studying what they believe.

I do agree that most questions have been asked and answered, for any religion that's managed to survive a few centuries. Arguing with a religious person is often a matter of going over a few rote questions to see if they know the standard apologetic answers for their religion. So what's the point? It's like religious people offering the standard challenges to evolution that they think are such gotchas, and being able to answer them with the standard come-backs.

 

[Leumas]

Because the "answer" is easy enough to pull up on Google?

Here, here's an example: http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/q16.htm

The ploy is the old, "They won't respond when I post my crap, therefore I must be right." Surely this is familiar enough when a truther or a footer does it? Why is it so hard to see when our own team does it?

How do you know that this is what he is thinking... are you a mind reader?

A guy posts on the internet something and is INVITING responses and is WAITING for responses.

Another person posts something on the internet and BLOCKS responses. He does not want any responses and disallows any.

Even if we grant you your mind reading ability and consider for argument's sake that the first guy is in fact gloating..... he is still not censoring opinions and is open to rebuttals.... but the other one is not open to any argument whatsoever.... so how can that be the same?

Just because the rebuttal has been made somewhere else by some person it does not mean that the guy should not have posted his argument.

He may very well be totally aware of that kind of casuistry and still does not agree with it and is inviting more open and wider discussion.

How do you know that he did not know that kind of apologetics already and may have even read the very same citation you give? More mind reading?

Much like you assumptions that I and others here have not read numerous and varied theological works and have not read all sorts of casuistry from all sorts of contemporary and historical works.

Why is it so hard to see when our own team does it?

Our???

 

[John Jones]

I added it above, but here's an example: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/iron.html

It works a lot like the ol' crocoduck. First, you decide what you want to prove. Next, you shop around for some misunderstanding you can leverage into a proof that seems convincing on the surface. Last, you present your crocoduck as a powerful "gotcha" whenever an opening arises.

So, evolution cannot be true because... wait for it... crocoduck!
[...]

This explanation makes no objective sense.

Creationists like Kirk Cameron and his buddy Ray Comfort claim that modern evolution theory predicts crocoducks, and use this ridiculous straw man as evidence that modern evolution theory is wrong.

Perhaps I misunderstood you.

 

[marplots]

This explanation makes no objective sense.

Creationists like Kirk Cameron and his buddy Ray Comfort claim that modern evolution theory predicts crocoducks, and use this ridiculous straw man as evidence that modern evolution theory is wrong.

Perhaps I misunderstood you.

That's the analogy I'm trying to make. Kirk is not interested in learning how evolution really works, what evolutionists think about it, nor why his example is crap. The crocoduck serves its purpose when preaching to the choir, and besides, from his perspective, evolution really is wrong. Now, I see this as disingenuous because I know how readily available the information is which shows why it's a bad example and a straw man.

Now, if (hypothetically) skeptics were to play the same way, wouldn't it show a similar level of disingenuous? Or, are we to be forgiven because we are right and believers are wrong?

I am not complaining about the ends here - after all, I'm an atheist - I'm bitching about the means.

 

[fuelair]

That's the analogy I'm trying to make. Kirk is not interested in learning how evolution really works, what evolutionists think about it, nor why his example is crap. The crocoduck serves its purpose when preaching to the choir, and besides, from his perspective, evolution really is wrong. Now, I see this as disingenuous because I know how readily available the information is which shows why it's a bad example and a straw man.

Now, if (hypothetically) skeptics were to play the same way, wouldn't it show a similar level of disingenuous? Or, are we to be forgiven because we are right and believers are wrong?

I am not complaining about the ends here - after all, I'm an atheist - I'm bitching about the means.

But, Kirk does appreciate god's perfect fruit (the banana he sayeth) up his fundamental.

 

[fuelair]

And, for the founder of the feast and possible supporters, Derek Lowe (my go-to chemistry/chemical science guy) pointing us to a great article on science fraud, stupidity and general silliness and summarizes it for the impatient. This latest of his columns directs you to it!!!!!: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2015/01/08/mountebanks_con_men_and_heretics.php

 

[tsig]

You're saying that a creationist using the crocoduck is the same a a skeptic using bible contradictions?

Yes, that is what I am saying. They are exactly the same disingenuous technique, based on an unwillingness to understand the other's point of view.

Creationist: Show me a crocoduck or evolution is false.

Atheist: Here is a contradiction in the bible.

These are not the same.

 

[marplots]

And, for the founder of the feast and possible supporters, Derek Lowe (my go-to chemistry/chemical science guy) pointing us to a great article on science fraud, stupidity and general silliness and summarizes it for the impatient. This latest of his columns directs you to it!!!!!: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2015/01/08/mountebanks_con_men_and_heretics.php

That's bizarre. I just read that because it's posted in another thread. Very good article. Three thumbs up (two of mine and one panda thumb).

 

[Slowvehicle]

That's the analogy I'm trying to make. Kirk is not interested in learning how evolution really works, what evolutionists think about it, nor why his example is crap. The crocoduck serves its purpose when preaching to the choir, and besides, from his perspective, evolution really is wrong. Now, I see this as disingenuous because I know how readily available the information is which shows why it's a bad example and a straw man.

Now, if (hypothetically) skeptics were to play the same way, wouldn't it show a similar level of disingenuous? Or, are we to be forgiven because we are right and believers are wrong?

I am not complaining about the ends here - after all, I'm an atheist - I'm bitching about the means.

Mighty big "if" there, and one (so far) unsupported by false equivalences.

 

[Leumas]

Those are all good questions. I hope you are able to find satisfactory answers for them.

But I am not the one who said

If a believer "feels the presence of God," isn't that independent verification? What if two do, or a hundred? Surely a personal experience should have more heft than an article I read in Wikipedia about how lions mate. And yet, strangely, the believer's experiences are poo-pooed as being less worthwhile.

YOU are the one who has to answer the very "good questions".

I posed the questions in response to your above speculations that "feeling the presence of god" by people holds more sway than objective verifiable science and that if many have that "feeling of the presence of god" then that lends it even more "heft".

So, my answer to the questions is irrelevant to the discussion....what is relevant is YOUR answer.

I personally have a very simple and logical as well as obvious answer that seems to fit the ABUNDANT evidence.

WARNING!!!!! not suitable for the young or depressed or people of a weak character.

There is no god that is worthy of the epithet in any meaningful or relevant way to reality and existence.

God is either dead or is a mumbling fool or an evil devil.... or very simply and more logically never existed.

It is all nothing but the invention of benighted, ignorant and clever hucksters to bamboozle the sheep. Much like all the other ruses discovered or invented by numerous bamboozlers throughout the ages and still being utilized even today despite all the available knowledge.

People are willing to delude themselves and let others delude them because mentally they are frightened pathetic wretched children.

They are quivering lumps of insignificant debris floating on the waves of space-time trying to construe by any self-delusion a significance for their fleeting moment of existence punctuated by terror, and injustice.

Impotent to exact justice or to stem the currents of time, they raise their arms up like children begging an imagined sky daddy to lift them up and give them a comforting hug and to beat up the neighboring children.