What Is The Positive Evidence For Atheism?

Wait, wha'd I do wrong? Honestly. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic or something with that answer, just clarifying what my lack of apathy was referring to. I thought you had taken it to mean something negative toward them.

---

h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Was that meant to be an example of "debating like an adult"?

Well, at least you're intellectually honest.Now you know the true origin of ID. It started out as creationism. Then it evolved into ID. It took an investigator days of reading through thousands of pages of texts to discover the transitional missing link between the species creationist and species design proponent. Honestly, it blew my mind to find out they actually found a transitional species called cdesign proponentist.

---

Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

That's the trouble with these terms. You used the term creationism. Unless you know the hidden meaning you would assume that it just means that one believes that the world is created. The term should have nothing to do with a 6000 year old Earth. If you define it as YEC then it at least makes sense.With the literal meaning of the words I believe in both ID and creationism but I have no problem with evolution or any other form of science on religious grounds. The Bible is not a science text.

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Double Post.Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

In the UK?All of them.

A secular state building hospitals is not the same as an Atheist endowing a hospital as Larni obviously means, did you mean that Nye Bevan was an atheist? I mean nowadays you can hardly throw a brick in the house of commons without hitting someone wanting to talk about their faith, and certainly not if you aimed it at the cabinet benches.TTFN,WKP.S. I don't recommend throwing bricks in the house of commons, in todays troubled times you are likely to be shot.

I guess I would argue that the NHS is not a xian agency and infact a secular one which comissions the building of hospitals and medical centers.I reckon I still have a point; but I do take yours.Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

It is according to CFO -- anyone who doesn't agree with his literal interpretation of the Bible is an atheist, and it's his posts that are being responded to.

---

Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Now, let's be honest with yourself. Just how many everyday creationists do you know that (1) do not believe in a young Earth, (2) do not have at least a dozen misconceptions about evolution, and (3)do not believe the world was literally created in 6 days by the judeo-christian god? Again, let's be honest with yourself. How many everday creationists do you know of that do not have at least a dozen misconceptions about science in general and do not take the bible as a science text book?Even my PhD engineer brother-in-law is a young earth creationist. When he talks publically or to a lot of people, he never refers to himself as believing in the 6 day creation thing. I guess he caught on somewhere that it sounds silly. But I've known him long enough to know he actually believes that the Earth is only 6k years old and that all biologists, geologists, and physicists are dumbasses for believing in a much older universe.I'm wondering if it's the same case with you or not.

---

Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

Just to be sure that we are talking the same language here; when is use the term creationist I am only meaning it in the pure sense of the word.I have been involved in 3 churches, in 3 very different areas since I became a Christian. To be honest the subject doesn't come up a lot. A lot of the confusion comes from the fact that I accept the creation story as being truthful, I just don't accept that it was ever intended to be read literally. Essentially it tells us that we were created, live in a created universe and have been given the knowledge of good and evil and with that knowledge have turned the wrong way.Having said that I do believe that there is defined metaphor throughout the story, so if I were to be giving a talk on Genesis I would refer in a literal sense to the creation story. For example I might say; "so the snake said to Adam.......", knowing full well that the Moses meant the snake to be a metaphorical snake. Possibly this leads people to get the wrong impression about people's views in the Bible.Now to answer your question. First off, all non-scientists have misconceptions of science, so I'm sure that's true of many Christians as well. The question is, do these misconceptions come from their Christian faith. For the vast majority of Christians I have spoken to, which is a fairly large number, they do not read the creation story literally and see no contradiction between science and Christianity. That includes all of the pastors that I have spoken to about it as well as others.Arguably the greatest Christian apologist in the last century was CS Lewis and I've already given you a quote from him on the subject. In my view the greatest Christian scholar today is NT Wright who believes that reading the Bible in that light devalues it. Wright is not a liberal theologian. He is very much in debate with The Jesus Seminar.One other factor in all this is evolution itself. There are many Christians and secularists who have no understanding of biology or genetics that have trouble believing that we evolved from single celled animals, and again,this has nothing to do with religion. I fall into the category that doesn't understand, but I have faith that those that do understand know what they are talking about even if it does seem pretty far fetched. Because of this I believe that many who are Christians just go along with the YEC view because either position takes a stretch of the imagination and they just sorta go along without putting a lot of thought to it. (I realize that there are many who have thoughtfully come to this position as well.)The simple answer to all of this is that the great majority of Christians whose views I know do not believe in a 6000 year old Earth. Edited by GDR, : correct link

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Most of my Christian Friends hold the same views on the earth's age but they vary on evolution vs ID, about 50 50

Wouldn't you say though that this may stem from an misunderstanding of what ID is?. The ID "Movement" claims that ID is science and that the science disproves evolution. I think most people just see ID as saying that there is an intelligent designer.If given the choice between evolution and an Intelligent Designer with no middle ground I would probably opt for ID myself, but fortunately it isn't necessary to make that decision. I, and I believe most Christians, would say that if the Intelligent Designer, or even specifically the Christian God chose to create modern life through the evolutionary process then that wouldn't present any problems theologically.The problem is that we have this strawman set up as even epitomized by this forum of "Evolution vs Creationism". I think it would be more appropriate to call it "Evolution and/or Creationism". Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

But nobody cares about those people.EvC is only about the ones who want to pollute our children's education with "scientific creation" and/or "scientific design".

---

“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels

Fine, but for most who hear the term Intelligent Design that is what they would automatically think. That is where there is deception in the movement. The term sounds innocuous.Prior to finding this forum I assumed that's all it meant. (There was the odd person here who was more than happy to straighten me out. )However when they try to sell ID as an alternative to evolution it then is making a scientific statement which is something else altogether.So I go back to my original statement. I think that most people, (this forum not being representative of most people), would say that they agree with ID in the pure sense of the term and not understand that there was an underlying agenda.

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.