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Author Topic:   Top Ten Signs You're a Foolish Atheist
Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


(1)
Message 31 of 365 (651098)
02-04-2012 12:14 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Tangle
02-04-2012 11:46 AM


Is it my imagination or has Chuck become more and more desperate in defending his religious beliefs, by this portrayal of science and evolution and atheism as the same thing. It's like I expect his head to explode as he tries harder and harder to believe that his strawman really represents science or evolution or atheism.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(2)
Message 32 of 365 (651100)
02-04-2012 12:22 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Phat
02-04-2012 9:09 AM


believing in the absence of evidence
My question is...what does a "typical" atheist believe in? (as far as where everything came from)
What do you mean by everything?
If you mean 'the universe' then there are many possibilities, some more hopeful than others.
But if I was to propose say, a Brane World, as the origins for the universe you'd probably then ask 'But where did the Brane World come from?'
And so we find ourselves either at an infinite regress where every answer is simply responded to with 'but where did answer n come from?' or we must accept there is some brute fact or facts where there is no prior facts to explain or justify them.
Theists find themselves in exactly the same position when they bring this up.
The bottom line is, there is no better theory of how the universe came to be that has any bearing in reality than a Creator.
But that's not the bottom line at all, for a start 'A creator did it' is no theory at all - it explains nothing whatsoever. Furthermore, where did the Creator come from? If you insist that this is one of the brute facts mentioned above, then you should be able to see things from an atheist point of view:
Given the lack of evidence supporting one hypothetical brute fact over another, the atheist decides to not believe in any of them. Why commit? The atheist does not feel motivated to plug the gaps of knowledge by making leaps of faith to one proposed answer or another.
This is a difficult position for many theists to understand. As I infer from your statement
It may well be true that belief in God or gods is silly, ignorant, or foolish...but what do we have left? Certainly not chance.
It may be a brute fact that entropy increases, and as an inevitable consequence of that brute fact universes are created (a sort of Lawrence Krauss type position), or any other number of hypothetical brute facts one can dare to imagine.
But the thing is, an atheist may well have chosen to believe one or the other, they may just as easily have taken an agnostic approach: Withholding belief in any proposition. So if you were to ask them if they believe the God proposition, they'd say no - therefore atheist. But likewise if you asked them if they thought the atheistic idea above was true, they'd also answer 'no' - therefore perhaps being Akraussians).
On the whole, my experience is that plenty of atheists have their favourite notions about the nature of reality and its origins, but most will openly admit that even if they believe one idea or grouping of ideas, it is speculative.
The theist's belief is much more adamant, and often comes along with various random bits of culturally acquired dogma. The argument 'it must have come from somewhere - so why not a god?' does not get you to the theistic position, which almost always makes many further assertions. At best it gets you to deism, but really when closely examined it should lead to atheism. The answer to the question is:
I don't know, and neither do you.
Or less snappily: I don't believe things without evidence; there is no evidence supporting any claimant definitively (and some claimants are completely evidence free), therefore I don't believe in any proposition. The mere fact that this happens to include 'God' means I am often called an atheist.

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Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 33 of 365 (651101)
02-04-2012 12:24 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by Tanypteryx
02-04-2012 12:14 PM


Sure signs that the poster is a goof...
The post was, of course, meant to be funny. Most likely Chuck77 realizes that some of the statements were silly exaggerations.
But like all such posts, it provides great insight into the mind of a person who thinks such stupid stuff is the essence of wit? An atheist blames bad things on God? Sure, Chuck. Sure.
Edited by NoNukes, : title

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)

This message is a reply to:
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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 34 of 365 (651102)
02-04-2012 12:25 PM


NSFW?
i know that this thread is only six hours old, so this little poemlet is premature, but here it is anyway:
Where the fuck
Are you, Chuck?
Sorry. I realize that you will be back, Chuck. The Flying Spaghetti Monster made me do it.

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 35 of 365 (651106)
02-04-2012 12:34 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Chuck77
02-04-2012 6:01 AM


Troll alert
How about we just stop feeding this troll. He is only posting threads to coffee house because he knows all he has is crap and not worthy of non-coffee house forums.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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Replies to this message:
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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


(1)
Message 36 of 365 (651107)
02-04-2012 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by bluescat48
02-04-2012 12:08 PM


Act of God
bluescat48 writes:
I have yet to see an Atheist call any natural disaster an "Act of God" I leave that to the Fundies.
"Act of God" is a technical term. Roughly speaking, it means "not covered by insurance policies."

Jesus was a liberal hippie

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bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4190 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 37 of 365 (651108)
02-04-2012 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by nwr
02-04-2012 12:43 PM


Re: Act of God
Technical term or not, it is still an natural disaster not a supernatural one. The term , if technical, is stupid, it should be listed as a natural disaster.

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

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Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 38 of 365 (651126)
02-04-2012 4:04 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Theodoric
02-04-2012 12:34 PM


Why It's Not A Troll Tread
How about we just stop feeding this troll. He is only posting threads to coffee house because he knows all he has is crap and not worthy of non-coffee house forums.
Wrong, as usual. No. LoL. He's initiating them here because the most active of all three or four of the Biblical Christian Creationists are banned from the science threads. This thread would be even more lop-sided, were it not posted in a non-science forum .
Edited by Buzsaw, : Drop the "re" as suggested. It does not gramatically apply to this subtitle.

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.
Someone wisely said something ;ike, "Before fooling with a fool, make sure the fool is a fool."

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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 Message 40 by Theodoric, posted 02-04-2012 4:36 PM Buzsaw has seen this message but not replied
 Message 41 by Tanypteryx, posted 02-04-2012 4:40 PM Buzsaw has seen this message but not replied

  
Panda
Member (Idle past 3713 days)
Posts: 2688
From: UK
Joined: 10-04-2010


(3)
Message 39 of 365 (651130)
02-04-2012 4:35 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by Buzsaw
02-04-2012 4:04 PM


Re: Why It's Not A Troll Tread
Buzsaw writes:
He's initiating them here because the most active of all three or four of the Biblical Christian Creationists are banned from the science threads. This thread would be even more lop-sided, were it not posted in a non-science forum .
Yeah! Thank goodness he posted it in this thread!
Else he would not have had your vigorous and rigorous support.
I am sure he appreciates your posts defending his statements.
Oh...wait.
Nope. You have posted nothing.

If I were you
And I wish that I were you
All the things I'd do
To make myself turn blue

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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 40 of 365 (651131)
02-04-2012 4:36 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by Buzsaw
02-04-2012 4:04 PM


Yes it is
Do you even understand what Re: is? Just type in your new subtitle and drop the Re:.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

This message is a reply to:
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Tanypteryx
Member
Posts: 4344
From: Oregon, USA
Joined: 08-27-2006
Member Rating: 5.9


Message 41 of 365 (651132)
02-04-2012 4:40 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by Buzsaw
02-04-2012 4:04 PM


Re: Why It's Not A Troll Tread
Buzsaw writes:
This thread would be even more lop-sided, were it not posted in a non-science forum .
I guess you are saying more people would notice that what he posted is crap in a science forum, but only in your odd mind would lies about atheists be a subject for a science forum.

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Buzsaw
Inactive Member


Message 42 of 365 (651133)
02-04-2012 4:49 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Modulous
02-04-2012 12:22 PM


Re: believing in the absence of evidence
Modulous writes:
If you mean 'the universe' then there are many possibilities, some more hopeful than others.
But if I was to propose say, a Brane World, as the origins for the universe you'd probably then ask 'But where did the Brane World come from?'
And so we find ourselves either at an infinite regress where every answer is simply responded to with 'but where did answer n come from?' or we must accept there is some brute fact or facts where there is no prior facts to explain or justify them.
Theists find themselves in exactly the same position when they bring this up.
But that's not the bottom line at all, for a start 'A creator did it' is no theory at all - it explains nothing whatsoever. Furthermore, where did the Creator come from? If you insist that this is one of the brute facts mentioned above, then you should be able to see things from an atheist point of view:
Given the lack of evidence supporting one hypothetical brute fact over another, the atheist decides to not believe in any of them. Why commit? The atheist does not feel motivated to plug the gaps of knowledge by making leaps of faith to one proposed answer or another.
Your problem is that here at EvC if one is to participate in science, one must commit to your not empirical theories acceptable only by atheists, agnostics and evolutionist ceationists.
Modulous writes:
It may well be true that belief in God or gods is silly, ignorant, or foolish...but what do we have left? Certainly not chance.
It may be a brute fact that entropy increases, and as an inevitable consequence of that brute fact universes are created (a sort of Lawrence Krauss type position), or any other number of hypothetical brute facts one can dare to imagine.
But the thing is, an atheist may well have chosen to believe one or the other, they may just as easily have taken an agnostic approach: Withholding belief in any proposition. So if you were to ask them if they believe the God proposition, they'd say no - therefore atheist. But likewise if you asked them if they thought the atheistic idea above was true, they'd also answer 'no' - therefore perhaps being Akraussians).
On the whole, my experience is that plenty of atheists have their favourite notions about the nature of reality and its origins, but most will openly admit that even if they believe one idea or grouping of ideas, it is speculative.
The theist's belief is much more adamant, and often comes along with various random bits of culturally acquired dogma. The argument 'it must have come from somewhere - so why not a god?' does not get you to the theistic position, which almost always makes many further assertions. At best it gets you to deism, but really when closely examined it should lead to atheism. The answer to the question is:
I don't know, and neither do you.
Or less snappily: I don't believe things without evidence; there is no evidence supporting any claimant definitively (and some claimants are completely evidence free), therefore I don't believe in any proposition. The mere fact that this happens to include 'God' means I am often called an atheist.
Mmm, But the EvC science fora implies that you do have evidence and none other do.
Science alleges that Energy is eternal, having no beginning or ending according to 1LoT. Only an eternal operative source of energy explains it. It is further supported by observable phenomena relative to the existence of the supernatural as has been shown.
OTH, there is no physical scientific evidence of either the alleged singularity zero event emerging into the alleged expansion of alleged time/space.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.
Someone wisely said something ;ike, "Before fooling with a fool, make sure the fool is a fool."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Modulous, posted 02-04-2012 12:22 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
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Phat
Member
Posts: 18262
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


(1)
Message 43 of 365 (651134)
02-04-2012 5:08 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by Buzsaw
02-04-2012 4:49 PM


Re: believing in the absence of evidence
Buzsaw writes:
Science alleges that Energy is eternal, having no beginning or ending according to 1LoT. Only an eternal operative source of energy explains it. It is further supported by observable phenomena relative to the existence of the supernatural as has been shown.
OTH, there is no physical scientific evidence of either the alleged singularity zero event emerging into the alleged expansion of alleged time/space.
The only thing that strikes me as odd concerning rational thought, the singularity hypothesis(which I admit I dont fully understand) and God(which I also dont fully understand) is that we have this fact: A singular group of lifeforms(humans) on a virtual dustspeck of a planet among hundreds of billions of observable stars and galaxies has somehow made a theory as to the origin of all of this observable matter and declares this(or any) theory to be more sound than a belief in a Creator. Why is it so intellectually stunting to profess a belief? Granted we may not need a Creator to explain things for us, but as such a small yet defiant group of lifeforms in this vast universe, it seems to me to be a bit arrogant to profess that the understanding to be passed on to our offspring is that we are the only valid source(and content) of wisdom. Theory is not enough to pass on to the next generation. (of course, this also applies to religion, so I digress)

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 44 of 365 (651135)
02-04-2012 5:16 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by Buzsaw
02-04-2012 4:49 PM


Re: believing in the absence of evidence
Your problem is that here at EvC if one is to participate in science, one must commit to your not empirical theories acceptable only by atheists, agnostics and evolutionist ceationists.
Nobody is being forced to commit to any 'not empirical theories' in order to participate.
Mmm, But the EvC science fora implies that you do have evidence and none other do.
If you are advancing a position in the science fora you are fair game for people demanding evidence to support said position. I don't see why having evidence for one idea means to imply that nobody else has evidence in support of their position.
We are not in the science fora, and my entire point was about the problems in believing in speculative non-evidentially supported notions about the origins of everything - even atheistic ones.
Science alleges that Energy is eternal, having no beginning or ending according to 1LoT.
The first law of thermodynamics is basically the observation that within the observable universe energy is not created or destroyed. There is no evidence that this law applies to the universe itself. Maybe it does, but we don't really know, do we?
Only an eternal operative source of energy explains it.
I see no reason to accept your assertion, nor do I see how an 'eternal operative source of energy' explains anything. I refer you back to the Lawrence Krauss video I linked to if you want to learn about a non-religious explanation. (Abe: Actually I think I was thinking of This talk by Sean Caroll (That's the introduction, the meat of the talk is in part 2))
It is further supported by observable phenomena relative to the existence of the supernatural as has been shown.
If it has been shown, it wasn't to me.
there is no physical scientific evidence of either the alleged singularity zero event emerging into the alleged expansion of alleged time/space.
There is significant and overwhelming support for Relativity.
I'm wondering if you read anything that I wrote; since Relativity and the Big Bang were not really related to anything I said. I was talking about what atheists believe about where 'everything' comes from. I was not talking about the early stages of the observable universe. Maybe it turns out that the singularity is the brute fact of the universe, but personally I don't think that's the case and I don't think that is a consensus view among modern physicists; It's a consequence of purely relativistic thinking and we're fairly sure that Relativity doesn't describe all of reality.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 45 of 365 (651136)
02-04-2012 5:21 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Chuck77
02-04-2012 6:01 AM


Ten Signs You're A Foolish Christian
10. You pretend that atheists "blame God for all the "evils" in the world, all the natural disasters, and everything else under the sun that is wrong in modern society" even though you know that you're not telling the truth just as well as they do.
9. You pretend that atheists "feel insulted and "dehumanized" when creationists say that people were created in the image and likeness of God" even though you have never heard any atheist say anything remotely like that ever, and you pretend that evolutionists "claim that we all evolved from slime by a cosmic accident" even though you have never heard any atheist say anything remotely like that ever.
8. You pretend that atheists treat works of biology as though they were holy writ, because apparently the nastiest thing you can think of to say about them is that they resemble you in some way.
7. You can't seem to understand the similarity between the violence done in the name of Christianity and the violence done in the name of Islam. (Hint: holy wars look exactly the same no matter which imaginary being is claimed to approve of them.)
6. You claim that evolution is a "fairytale" despite the masses of evidence for it and its almost universal acceptance by scientists --- while putting your own faith in an unevidenced story with talking animals in it.
5. You pretend that "scientists have calculated the odds of life forming by natural processes to be estimated less than 1 chance in 10 to the 40,ooo power" even though (a) obviously they have performed no such calculation and (b) you have, therefore, obviously never seen such a calculation.
4. While your Dominionist co-religionists work towards bringing back the death penalty for premarital sex, Sabbath-breaking, and blasphemy, you complain that atheists are intolerant because sometimes they say mean (albeit completely accurate) things about theists.
3. You recite witless, fatuous nonsense about thermodynamics, a subject that even you must be dimly aware that you have never studied, and apparently you never wonder why you can't find one single professor of thermodynamics anywhere in the world who agrees with you.
2. You claim that "all evidence, logic and reasoning point to a Creator and absolute truth", when the amount of "evidence, logic, and reasoning" present in your posts would fit comfortably into a ladybug's shoe. You pretend that it is a weakness of the theory of evolution, a theory in biology, that it is not a theory of cosmology, something that we also have; and you pretend that evolution does not account for morality when whole books have been written explaining how it does.
1. You forget that the list was titled "Top Ten Signs You're a Foolish Atheist" and just degenerate into freeform whining and nonsense.
And one more as a bonus:
0. You are so pitifully ignorant of science that you might as well be living under a rock; and you are so dumb that you think that reciting falsehoods to atheists about what atheists think will convince them of anything except that you are either lying, mad, or at the very least grotesquely misinformed.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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