atheism

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Originally posted by Punisher:
You are getting to the root of my question which is this: How can an evolutionist believe in the validity of reason? How can time and chance acting on matter produce reason? If you see a chemical reaction, it doesn't occur to you to say that it is true or false, it just is. So, my Christian/creation beliefs are just a complex chemical reaction in my head. And your beliefs are simply a different chemical reaction. So why do you think my chemical reaction is false and yours is true.

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Because my chemical reaction has a mountain of supporting evidence
and yours ahs NO supporting evidence.

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Originally posted by Punisher:

It appears that atheist evolutionists borrow reason from theism to argue their case. For those who do not believe in God, the only consistent position is nihlism.

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Please explain more fully.

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Originally posted by Punisher:

Basically, anything goes. If we are the process of chemical reactions, then the strongest survive and absolute standards of right and wrong do not exist. Right and wrong is in the eye of the beholder. So, your atheism must rest on an unsupported presuppostion, not on a claim to reason.

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Not sure how the last sentence follows from the rest, but, yes
atheism is unsupported ... in the same way that belief in the
One God is unsupported.Atheism is a belief system founded in the same judeo-christain
culture as christianity.However, the belief in atheism (strange way to put it perhaps) stems
from a RATIONAL theological investigation. Most atheists come to
that belief through study ... the vast majority of beleivers (and I
say majority ... I'm not intending to generalise) come to
their belief through their upbringing and a culture of not questioning
what they are taught by their ministers, parents, etc.

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Originally posted by Punisher:
1)How can an evolutionist believe in the validity of reason?

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2)How can time and chance acting on matter produce reason?

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3)If you see a chemical reaction, it doesn't occur to you to say that it is true or false, it just is.

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4)So, my Christian/creation beliefs are just a complex chemical reaction in my head. And your beliefs are simply a different chemical reaction. So why do you think my chemical reaction is false and yours is true.

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5)It appears that atheist evolutionists borrow reason from theism to argue their case.

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6)For those who do not believe in God, the only consistent position is nihlism. Basically, anything goes. If we are the process of chemical reactions, then the strongest survive and absolute standards of right and wrong do not exist. Right and wrong is in the eye of the beholder.

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7)So, your atheism must rest on an unsupported presuppostion, not on a claim to reason.

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1)Because we experience it and therefore have empirical evidence of its exsistence...2)Ahh the old pond sludge to philosophers routine...You neglected to mention selection for favourable traits (in this case intellect) in your straw man version of evolution...3)Yep....Of course a calculator could be built that said 1+1=3 and another would say 1+1=2 which do you think is right?In both cases there is a physical system that gives an answer, however they are not as a result of this similarity equally true, one is demonstrably false....4)Well lets see, would no evidence for your beliefs and plenty for the theorums that I accept count?5)What makes you think religion has a copyright on reason? From our perspective "reason" evolved because even the most rudimentary degree of sentinence is a huge boost to fitness, and the more of it you have the better...6)I hear that one a lot, and never from atheists but usually from rather over religious characters...It seems that they have never heard of humanism, doing right for others because it is the right thing to do, which as far as I can tell most atheists subscribe to....Absolute standards of right and wrong don`t exsist, here on these very boards we have the example of mother Theresa, Lee for example feels very strongly that she was a good person whose actions benefited those she sought to help, I would contend that while her intentions were exemplary a lot of those people would have been better served with chemical or barrier method birth control than with the "natural birth control" (control????) put forward by the catholic church, I also remember reading something about the nursing techniques used being increadibly dated. While mother Theresas intentions were exemplary the "benefit" of her undermining the introduction of modern birth control is disputable.....7)I could follow the rest of your post but WTF are you trying to say here?You gave no argument against the natural occurence of "reason" bar a weak venture into the "pond scum to philosopher" argument from incredulity, your statement of which was flawed by your exclusion of selection mechanisms....How is it unsupported, naturaly occuring "reason" is a logical consequence of the hypothesis "there is no God" supported by ample evidence for evolution, and a dearth of evidence for God....We base our result of there`s no God on evidence using our "reason" of unknown origin, then by elimination our "reason" is naturaly occuring....The origin of "reason" doesn`t play a part in our adoption of atheism....

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Originally posted by leekim:
---Although this is a tangent, I think your absurd commentary on Mother Teresa needs clarification. An "appalling person"?, "manipulated the poor and suffering"? "her own egoism and a misguided devotion to an institution"? This is one of the most entirely non-objective commentaries on a subject which you clearly have a biased and non-knowledgable of ...

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As this is a tangent I'll deal with it briefly - we should move it to the Coffee House if you like to take it further.My attention was first drawn to the nature of Mother Teresa's treatment of the sick by an Indian doctor at the Middlesex hospital in London who cold not contain her disgust at MT's attitude to the suffering in Bhopal after the chemical disaster there. I was taken aback as I thought of her as a saintly person at the time.Once I started to look at her work with a skeptical eye, I discovered there was very great unease about her, her attitutudes and her practices. Sadly much of this is unknown in the West, but here are some sites you might be interested in ... http://website.lineone.net/~bajuu/
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/shields_18_1.html
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hitchens_16_4.htmlNow I am sure you will find fault with some of these views, but I don't think the charge that I am biased or unknowledgeable quite sticks.By all means let's go over this in the Coffee House if you wish.

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Originally posted by Punisher:
A favorite yet weak argument. First, I won't mention the millions and millions that have been killed by atheist/evolutionist fueled beliefs (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot). Second, I challenge you to find Scriptural support for the inquistion and the crusades. Many ignoble things have been done in the name of "God" but that does not negate the Truths laid out in His word. That argument is like saying St. Andrews Cross is a symbol of racism simply because a group like the skinheads choose to wave it as their banner.

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What does the misapplication and distortion of a scientific theory by political players and idealogues have to do with the validity of the theory?If anything, capitalism much more closely resembles evolution than communism or fascism.

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Originally posted by Punisher:
I thought the topic was atheism. Sorry if I mis-read the subject line of the post. I am discussing the evidence in a number of threads.

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You are right. The topic is "Atheism'.I answered your questions and made comments; are you interested in replying?

No need to get short, I am involved in a number of threads, give me some time.

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What does the misapplication and distortion of a scientific theory by political players and idealogues have to do with the validity of the theory?

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Nothing, that was the point of my post. Someone mentioned the inquistion and the crusades in an attempt to invalidate Christianity.

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Originally posted by Punisher:
Nothing, that was the point of my post. Someone mentioned the inquistion and the crusades in an attempt to invalidate Christianity.

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It was Darwin Storm and to be fair it was part of a list following this statement:"Best not to go down the path of absolute "right and wrong", since christianity can't make the same claim either."IOW he was saying that mentioning any moral lapses committed by atheists can be met by reference to comparable non atheist inhumanities....Not trying to invalidate christianity, but any possible claims of moral superiority...

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[This message has been edited by joz, 03-11-2002]

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You are oversimplifying evolution to say that it is only 'time and chance acting on matter'. The big part you are leaving out is selection by the environment. Those individuals with a greater ability to reason would have been selected for if it was a reproductive advantage.

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Selected by whom? The environment? Could you be more specific? Isn’t that the same thing as saying time and chance?

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Post-modern relatavism?
Be careful, this will almost certainly backfire on you. If there is no objective reality and all perceptions are equally valid, then Satanism is just as "true" as Christianity.

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My example was from an atheistic standpoint. Am I correct in stating that our thought processes (according to your belief) are nothing but chemical reactions?

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OK, but what does this have to do with Biology and the ToE?

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I’m sorry; I honestly don’t understand the question.

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Originally posted by Punisher:
My example was from an atheistic standpoint. Am I correct in stating that our thought processes (according to your belief) are nothing but chemical reactions?

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As above:"Yep....However a calculator could be built that said 1+1=3 and another would say 1+1=2 which do you think is right?In both cases there is a physical system that gives an answer, however they are not as a result of this similarity equally true, one is demonstrably false....Our thoughts on a subject may be formed by common mechanism however this is no assurance of any sort of equivalence of validity....

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Originally posted by Cobra_snake:
Of course there are differences in opinion, but does opinion mean anything in relation to right and wrong? Should Hitlers views be regarded as the same as Mother Teresa's?

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Of course not. There are universal morals, whether or not an individual wants to recognize them makes no difference.

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Actually, I'd actaully consider killing someone as opposed to giving up all my worldy possesions on blind faith. No one actually knows whats right or wrong. Most of your veiws are somewhat of a collection of things you picked up from parents and adults in your life. Remember Hitler had more than a whole country and military support backing him.
Let me ask you to explain these....Why did indians have no problem with sacrificing themselves or others until white people (Who they thought were gods) told them it was bad?What's with slavery, huh a lot of people believed in that? And why the KKK is still a national organization?Even kids act against your morales of right snd wrong until parents tell them not to or punishthem for it. In a way somethings could be broken into a child like a common domestic animal. Obviously its not that big a deal now, but consider how much of the past has been so barvaric. How could morals differ so greatly from continents and time periods?------------------
"There is no true reality. Things are only as real as your mind says it is. You have to find something to believe in, something worth fighting for, and pass it on to future generations." ~~David Hayter

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[This message has been edited by Solid Snake, 03-11-2002]

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Originally posted by Cobra_snake:
Well, I suppose the main difference between myself and a duck is 800 million years of evolution.

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Also, I don't have a cold.

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Actually, ones a sick duck, and I can't remember how the rest of it goes so your mothers a whore.------------------
"There is no true reality. Things are only as real as your mind says it is. You have to find something to believe in, something worth fighting for, and pass it on to future generations." ~~David Hayter

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
thereis no luck in creationism. it happened and we know it happened. everything was given to us by god. evolution requires a lot of evidence to be proven, every step in the chain must be shown. Christianity wont give any evidence until its the apocalypse.

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I still don't get it. Just because you say it happened it happened?
Atleast theres enough evence to theorize about things like evolution.
You really have no authority to say what truly happened, just speculate in your limited imagination in some false hope your life is not meaningless. Atleast I keep an open mind, but there are other people who are so stubborn there stupid when it comes to faith and belief.

Did you bother to read the rules for this forum.....

Thats exactly my point. (Maybe not so much in this case). But rules are ussually crap. You ever buy something new and it comes with a whole bunch of stupid warnings and cautions. No one ever read those things, but they're there to cover someones butt. I really have better things to do with my time, than read " Caution: Coffee is hot" In 4 different languages. Oh and don't worry, I know some of the people personally on this board.