I Know That God Does Not Exist

Truly there is no scientific proof that any of the gods do not exist nor can there be.However! There is indeed proof that the YEC god does not exist! And it is offered to us by the YECs themselves!

If evolution is true, then God does not exist.

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If the earth is older than 10,000 years, then God does not exist.

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"If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning."
John Morris as reported at the 1986 International Conference on Creationism:
("The 1986 International Conference on Creationism" by Robert Schadewald, Creation/Evolution Newsletter, Volume 6, Number 5, September/October 1986, NCSE, pp 8-14.)

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Evolution (not the false YEC misrepresentation) does indeed happen and the earth is indeed far older than 10,000 years.QED

So then your religion has caused you to metamorphize into a troll serving a troll religion and worshiping a Troll God.My condolences. In a mid-80's presentation I heard, former fundamentalist preacher (born and raised in the faith) Dan Barker described the effects of fundamentalism as being "when your theology becomes your psychology". Since then I have encountered Christian therapists and have found that they operate rather differently then normal therapists. While both use some of the same ideas (eg, setting boundaries, choosing associations that are constructive instead of destructive), the Christian therapists always have to base everything on Jesus.When I started going through my divorce, a friend steered me to her church's (Saddleback) DivorceCare program -- mainly to keep me in her singles' ministry dance classes which had twice as many women than men. While that program did have some kernels to offer, those few kernels were buried under mountains of chaff. Then to top it off, the principal and primary lesson of that course was that it was impossible for us to ever recover from a divorce except through Jesus. Therefore, as a non-Christian I was screwed (to paraphrase slightly from Woody Allen's Love and Death). So whatever good I could have gotten from that course was completely wiped away, making it even worse than a total waste.Of course, those whose "theology had become their psychology" probably benefited, but that course would not benefit everybody. I later learned that the US Army requires that all soldiers going through divorce attend that course -- the fundamentalist push to take over the US military is fairly well known. For non-Christian soldiers to be required to go through that is cruel and unusual punishment.Also, members of the Saddleback Singles Ministry would attend a series of singles lectures at Mariner's by two Christian counselors. There again I observed how they would start out with some good ideas, mostly the same that secular counselors would present and use, but then they'd suddenly veer off into the weeds by injecting their religion into the mix (eg, why should you do anything that would improve your life and reduce your misery? Not because that would be a good thing in itself, but rather only because "that's what Jesus wants for you."). And in so doing, they made their whole presentation utterly worthless for any normals in the audience.So a secular counselor/psychologist/psychiatrist would probably be able to help you, but only by by-passing your theology. And whereas a Christian counselor would be able to approach your problems through your theological framework, there's also the danger of reinforcing your problems, possibly making them worse. Somewhere you mentioned that you are committed to black-and-white thinking despite your family members trying to in vain to get you to see the grey. Now I cannot find that, so I assume that it might have gotten edited out.The world is not black-and-white, but rather completely grey. Everything meaningful is in the grey, not in either extreme.Temperature extremes are at absolute zero and most extremely hot, neither of which we can survive in. Even if we restrict those extremes to the freezing and boiling points of water at 1 atmo. (0°C to 100°C), we cannot survive in shirt sleeves at either temperature, but rather around 22°C (about 72°F, in the comfort zone). Instead of wanting to live in the extremes, we seek to live well in the grey.The extremes of light are the total absence of light and blindingly bright. Again, trying to operate in the extremes is virtually impossible, but rather we seek to operate between the extremes, in the grey.I haven't learned yet just how digital TV works, but I used to rather well versed in analog TV. In analog TV, the picture would be painted by varying the intensity of the electron beam as it scanned across the phosphorescent screen. Then the beam would be blanked (switched off by turning the intensity down to zero) during the horizontal and vertical retrace intervals. The extremes of beam intensity would result in either blank screens or totally white screens. In either case, there would be absolutely no meaningful picture painted and the TV would be completely useless as anything except as a very expensive radio. The only way for TV to work is for it to operate in the grey. And even the sound only works when operating in the grey, since the black-and-white extremes there are total silence and ear-melting noise.I recommend that you read the first few chapters of Dan Barker's book, godless, in which he tells his story of growing up a fundamentalist, becoming a minister, and losing his faith.As a travelling preacher, he visited many fundamentalist churches, all of which held black-and-white beliefs as he did at the time. But the thing about black-and-white beliefs is that you draw a sharply delineated line between those extremes. Every single church he visited drew such a line, but every line was different from the others. Compare them all together and you find a wide band that they disagreed on; dare we call that band a "grey area"? That led to him thinking, which eventually led to him becoming an atheist and then "America's Leading Atheist."Reality is grey. Black-and-white is just BS.

Indeed DivorceCare is not suitable for everybody, but rather only for a narrow segment of the Protestant population which includes evangelicals and fundamentalists. I basically see those recommending it to everybody as an instance of ethnocentrism, ignoring ethnic differences and thinking that everybody else thinks as they do. Similar instances of such thinking would be falsely thinking that a "non-sectarian" prayer should end with "In Jesus' name we pray" or that you could claim to be an "absolutely non-sectarian organization" while enforcing very sectarian monotheistic religious requirements that are contrary to several religions that that organization claims to accept. For that last, that organization would appeal to the false belief, "Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists pray to the same God, although by different names" (despite the fact that Buddha warned against believing in gods since they would only hold you back from attaining Enlightenment) -- a 1991 AP article on a Barna Group poll cited that 65 percent of Americans agree with that same false belief; I provide that article on my page, Do We Understand What We Think We Believe In?.A side issue that has been brewing over the past few decades has been the fundamentalist campaign to infiltrate the Chaplain Corps of all branches of the military (Navy chaplains serve the Marines). The Air Force seemed to be hit particularly hard, especially the Air Force Academy (as examined in the documentary, Constantine's Sword), though a number of senior officers have reportedly abused their power in order to impose proselytizing on members under their command. There was even an instance of a tech sergeant not being allowed to reenlist because he didn't want to swear to God in the oath of enlistment.I bring up that side issue because of news that all US Army personnel going through marital problems including divorce are required to go through that same DivorceCare program that even you agree was not suitable for me and other non-Christians. Not that the existence of non-Christians would ever occur to many Christians. For example in basic training, our TI assigned leaders to march recruits to divine services, a Catholic to command the Catholics and a Protestant to command the Protestants. Then he asked the perfunctory question of whether there was anyone not covered and a solitary hand rose up. "What else could there possibly be?" "I'm Jewish."Here's my DivorceCare story. Jan was a member of Saddleback Church and organized dance classes for the "Fifty Plus" segment of their Singles Ministry (that entire ministry consisting of about 15,000 people divided sharply into different groups by age). At the time, I was using Lindy Hop and then later other dance classes to deal with my younger son's suicide (Don't you dare!) and the growing antipathy of my wife (basically, she was trying to use her friend's trick of making my life unbearable in order to drive me out while I was trying to be there for her to deal with my son's death which she indirectly caused) -- four hours of Lindy a week recharged my emotional batteries by making me focus on something else, plus there was the novelty of having half a room (ie, the women) who were happy to see me for a welcome change (sure couldn't get anything like that at home, except from the dog).So Jan was arranging to have our teacher teach Lindy at her church, but she still had a problem of 100 women attending the class with only 50 men -- that was the balance the first night, then each successive week fewer and fewer women would show up. So she went around in class trying to recruit men in an attempt to even the balance. At some point I let her know that I was an atheist and had been one for over 4 decades at that time (now for well over half a century) in case that could be an issue and she didn't care. I continued to participate in their dance classes.Then finally my wife realized that she couldn't drive me out (what kind of man would abandon his wife in such a time of need? -- so I was putting up with incredible amounts of shit on a daily basis), so she suddenly just filed for divorce. I look around for divorce programs and found only one, but it was on the same night as the dance classes. I informed Jan that I could no longer attend the classes and why, so she talked me into their DivorceCare program. That was a bit over 14 years ago and I haven't seen Jan since about 13 years ago. How it reads to me is that she was just wanting to keep as many guys in the class as possible (also, I've gotten feedback that I've always been considered one of the better leaders in the classes). I don't know if she had even given it any thought as to whether that course would be appropriate for me, nor do I know whether it would have ever occurred to her nor whether she would have even cared. Now for some fun. Rick Warren's mega-church, Saddleback Church, is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Baptists are infamous for being antipathetic towards activities like dancing; consider the standard joke:

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Why do Baptists disapprove of having sex while standing?

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Because they're afraid that it might lead to dancing.

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So how did it turn out that a Baptist mega-church would have dance classes? I don't think that that direction came from the top. Any sizable organization needs to have ... organization. So they have a hierarchy of pastors who implement and manage the various ministries within the mega-church. Social dancing and dance classes are beneficial for singles, especially for older singles, so I think that the impetus for creating those dance classes started with the low-level pastor who then may or may not have asked for permission from the higher ranks (a basic military lesson is that forgiveness is always easier to obtain than permission). And apparently the only reason those classes were considered OK was because all participants were single.Then something weird happened which seemed to prove that last point. Working with a local country radio station, Saddleback had a few country dances at the church. Upper management nearly had a fit. What they feared most was that such a dance would include married couples and singles, so there was the danger that single people might end up dancing with married people. Horror! So the top pastors laid down the law! There shalt not be any partner dancing at this dance, but solely line dancing! The dance organizers received that stupid edict and said, "OK", and then simply held a proper dance with both line and partner dancing and the top pastors never knew any different because they did not attend.Shortly after those events, I was Google'ing for something and found a link about those dances. It was on a Christian forum and consisted of extremely virulent flaming of Rick Warren for having committed the extremely evil sin of allowing dancing at his church. I was shocked at how vicious those attacks were.

That means nothing.Stephen Miller is Jewish and yet he stridently promotes a white-supremecist agenda in his mis-shaping of immigrant policy in this administration.An anti-Semitic Jew? They exist and have existed. So what the fuck are you?

Wikipedia's God of the gaps article presents the idea as being opposed by theologians and having been invented by theologians to serve explicitly as the bad example that Christians must avoid.IOW, GotG was invented by theologians in order to describe and criticize really bad ideas that constitute bad theology.Some quotes from that page (for those who insist on being spoon-fed):

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The concept, although not the exact wording, goes back to Henry Drummond, a 19th-century evangelist lecturer, from his Lowell Lectures on The Ascent of Man. He chastises those Christians who point to the things that science can not yet explain”"gaps which they will fill up with God"”and urges them to embrace all nature as God's, as the work of "an immanent God, which is the God of Evolution, is infinitely grander than the occasional wonder-worker, who is the God of an old theology."

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In 1933, Ernest Barnes, the Bishop of Birmingham, used the phrase in a discussion of general relativity's implication of a Big Bang:

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Must we then postulate Divine intervention? Are we to bring in God to create the first current of Laplace's nebula or to let off the cosmic firework of Lematre's imagination? I confess an unwillingness to bring God in this way upon the scene. The circumstances with thus seem to demand his presence are too remote and too obscure to afford me any true satisfaction. Men have thought to find God at the special creation of their own species, or active when mind or life first appeared on earth. They have made him God of the gaps in human knowledge. To me the God of the trigger is as little satisfying as the God of the gaps. It is because throughout the physical Universe I find thought and plan and power that behind it I see God as the creator.

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. . .

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In his 1955 book Science and Christian Belief Charles Alfred Coulson (1910’1974) wrote:

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There is no 'God of the gaps' to take over at those strategic places where science fails; and the reason is that gaps of this sort have the unpreventable habit of shrinking.

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and

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Either God is in the whole of Nature, with no gaps, or He's not there at all.

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Coulson was a mathematics professor at Oxford University as well as a Methodist church leader, often appearing in the religious programs of British Broadcasting Corporation. ... It is claimed that the actual phrase 'God of the gaps' was invented by Coulson.

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. . .

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Bube attributed modern crises in religious faith in part to the inexorable shrinking of the God-of-the-gaps as scientific knowledge progressed. As humans progressively increased their understanding of nature, the previous "realm" of God seemed to many persons and religions to be getting smaller and smaller by comparison. Bube maintained that Darwin's Origin of Species was the "death knell" of the God-of-the-gaps. Bube also maintained that the God-of-the-gaps was not the same as the God of the Bible (that is, he was not making an argument against God per se, but rather asserting there was a fundamental problem with the perception of God as existing in the gaps of present-day knowledge).

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. . .

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The term was invented as a criticism of people who perceive that God only acts in the gaps, and who restrict God's activity to such "gaps". It has also been argued that the God-of-the-gaps view is predicated on the assumption that any event which can be explained by science automatically excludes God; that if God did not do something via direct action, that he had no role in it at all.

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The "God of the gaps" argument, as traditionally advanced by scholarly Christians, was intended as a criticism against weak or tenuous faith, not as a statement against theism or belief in God.

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GotGs is bad and stoopid theology that I see being used by too many creationists.

No, they are not. Yet again you have hoisted yourself on the petard of your willful stoopidity. I know better than to ask when you will ever learn, because you work so diligently to prevent yourself from ever learning.We've been through this before. After Edwards v. Aguillard (1987 -- struck down the more evil twin of the infamous 1981 Arkansas law) set the legal precedence that "creation science" is indeed purely religious, creationists switched up their old game of "Hide of Bible" with a new game, "Hide the Creationism", for which they adopted ID and which brought ID to everyone's attention.Immediately, we were presented with ID's false and deceptive conflating of philosophical materialism/naturalism with the methodological naturalism of science. Philosophical materialism/naturalism is the philosophical position that the natural universe is all there is, that the supernatural does not exist. As such, it would properly serve the purpose of a position that is in opposition to theistic ideas. But that is not what ID is saying.Science does not employ nor does it in any way depend on philosophical materialism/naturalism. Instead, science employs methodological naturalism, which is not a philosophical position but rather a very practical consideration of the simple fact that science cannot deal with the supernatural and that the scientific method cannot make any use of supernatural hypotheses or other elements or considerations. That does not say that science denies and opposes the very idea of the existence of the supernatural, but rather that science realizes that it cannot deal with the supernatural and that the supernatural has no conceivable place in science. When you consider that it is beyond our ability to observe the supernatural or even detect its existence, the necessity of the practice of methodological naturalism in science is obvious -- and should be obvious even to you.But ID wants to go even further as evidence in their infamous Wedge Document, a multi-year plan to completely reform science to include supernaturalistic explanations, AKA "goddidit" (and indeed, this was where our criticisms of "goddidit" began). We even had a topic from 2007-Nov-27 to 2011-Jun-06, So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY), in which after nearly 400 messages posted over a period of nearly four years nobody could even begin to offer a reasonable suggestion of how science would be able to make constructive use of the supernatural -- one or two did make an honest effort, but still no cheroot. Taq summed it up nicely in the last message posted, Message 396: So shame on you for pushing ID's fundamental lie about science!Thuggee demonstrated in Message 1111 that he was at least aware of methodological naturalism, so he already knows more than you do.

Please refer to my reply to Faith, Message 1131, in which I explained the difference between Philosophical Naturalism (what science does not use but what ID is actually talking about) and Methodological Naturalism (which science does actually use and which is not at in the least the same thing as Philosophical Naturalism, but which ID conflates as being the same thing nonetheless). Since you still express confusion about the differences (despite knowing the term), reading that will hopefully clear things up for you.Part of the problem is that IDists are lying to you when they describe Methodological Naturalism as being the same as Philosophical Naturalism. Another part of the problem is that their published agenda, the infamous Wedge Document, presented a multi-year plan for public relations campaigns to completely reform science to include supernaturalistic explanations, AKA "goddidit" (and indeed, this was where our criticisms of "goddidit" began).In response to Beretta in the topic Why Creationism (actual title: should creationism be taught in schools?), I created a topic which I just referred to Faith, So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY) (2007-Nov-27 to 2011-Jun-06, 396 messages), in which my OP concluded thus:

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Now, an extremely valuable by-product of all this hypothesis building and testing is questions. In science, the really interesting and valuable discoveries are the ones that raise new questions. Because questions help to direct our research. Because by realizing what we don't know and what we need to find out, we know what to look for and we have some idea of where to find it. Without those questions, science loses its direction and gets stuck.

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Science cannot use supernaturalistic explanations, because they don't explain anything. We cannot observe the supernatural either directly or indirectly; we cannot even determine whether the supernatural even exists. Supernaturalistic explanations cannot be tested and hence cannot be evaluated nor discarded nor refined. They cannot produce predictions. They cannot be developed into a conceptual model that could even begin to attempt to descibe a natural phenomena nor how it works. And supernaturalistic explanations raise absolutely no questions and so provide absolutely no direction for further research. "Goddidit" explains nothing and closes all paths of investigation. Supernaturalistic explanations bring science to a grinding halt.

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In Message 245 I wrote:

And from what I understand of the Wedge Document, ID's goal is not really to "teach the controversy", but rather it is to eliminate evolution and to pervert science into their own image, effectively killing science as well.

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In Message 250, Beretta replied:

effectively killing science as well.

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Believing in ID cannot possibly kill science.

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I contend that Beretta is dead wrong. ID's goal is to reform science to be based on supernaturalistic explanations, or at the very least to include them. It is the inclusion of supernaturalistic explanations that will kill science.

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The task before Beretta and any other ID advocate is to prove that ID will not kill science. A required component of that proof is a detailed description of just how ID-based science is supposed to operate. Certainly their ID idols have already provided them the answer. And if even they haven't come up with a description of how their brave new science will function, then why not?

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In nearly 400 messages over nearly four years time, that challenge was not met (one or two actually made an honest effort, but no cheroot). Nobody could come up with a detailed description of just how ID-based science is supposed to operate. Back in Message 1110 you introduced a quote by a Discovery Institute member, Brian Miller, to which you muse: Well, that's part of their deception. It's just the same old hypocritical bullshirt "martyr complex" "everybody hates us Christians soooo much and persecutes us all the time" game that you (plural) "true Christians" keep playing and that we normals are fed up with and will no longer tolerate -- it's not because you're Christians (as you constantly complain) but because you're hypocritical arse-holes.And that is the exact same game that IDists are playing. They claim that scientists are involved in a conspiracy that follows a "molecules to man" philosophy tantamount to a religion which is Philosophical Naturalism, even though they misrepresent Methodological Naturalism as being that "religion" (the easier to deceive you when someone correctly points out that science uses Methodological Naturalism instead of the Philosophical Naturalism that ID is describing). Furthermore, they claim to be victims of persecution and censorship because of that philosophy -- eg, Ben Stein's movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, false claims about how some IDists have left their jobs. Just the same old tired hypocritical bullshirt.Are you beginning to understand Brian Miller's talk of a "'gospel' of materialism"?BTW, one of the big differences between ID and YEC is that ID's bullshirt is much stronger. YEC claims are so much easier to refute, because most YECs concoct and spread claims in fields that they know nothing about, so their lies are so much more apparent to anyone who knows anything about that field. IDs are generally better educated than YECs and they are much more likely to restrict themselves to subject matter that they do know something about. That way, in order to refute them you usually need to also have some expertise in their field. That is especially true when the ID starts throwing a lot of obtuse math at you.

Uh, still completely off the mark. You should have read what I had written!What ID calls "the Gospel of materialism" is Philosophical Materialism/Naturalism. That is a philosophical position that the natural universe is all that there is, that the supernatural does not exist. It has absolutely nothing to do with the naturalistic methods of science!What science uses is Methodological Naturalism. That takes no philosophical position concern the existence of the supernatural nor of any supernatural entities. Rather, it is the very practical realization that science cannot work with the supernatural. Period! That also means that supernaturalistic explanations cannot be used in science because there is no way to even begin to observe or test them.Now since you are going to continue to be willfully stoopid and refuse to read any more than one or two words, could somebody else please explain these very simple facts to this willfully stoopid ####?

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What science uses is Methodological Naturalism. That takes no philosophical position concern the existence of the supernatural nor of any supernatural entities. Rather, it is the very practical realization that science cannot work with the supernatural. Period! That also means that supernaturalistic explanations cannot be used in science because there is no way to even begin to observe or test them.

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Edited by AdminPhat, : No reason given.

Thuggee Admin:I still say that nobody could possibly be as utterly clueless and unaware as Faith pretends to be. She's putting on an act like a typical creationist troll.And I still maintain that she does not worship the Christian God but rather an evil god whom she serves through lies. Given her pretend theological bend, I would identify her god as the Lord of Lies, the Prince of Darkness. All the evidence points in that direction.And I still ask that somebody explain to her those extremely simple facts that she willfully refuses to understand.Edited by dwise1, : added to whom it may concern

Still nothing but a fucking id'iot troll, I see. Typical creationist.BTW, I did not write that, but because of your self-professed sub-basement IQ you wouldn't know that, of course.Edited by dwise1, : second paragraph

Quite a promotion indeed, since he could not even begin to approach the IQ requirements for the job which are so much higher than his own self-professed sub-sub-basement IQ that would just barely qualify him for the job of flatworm. One of ID's principal arguments against evolution is complexity, even approaching "irreducible complexity." Ironically, one of the highly distinguishing by-products of evolutionary processes is complexity, even approaching "irreducible complexity."One example is the use of evolutionary processes to program a specific field-programmable gate array (FPGA ... in our product line (I was a software engineer before I retired a year and a half ago) we made extensive use of FPGAs) that would function as an amplifier. The design that evolved was extremely complex and also irreducibly complex in that any change in it would render it inoperative. The complexity was such that it made use of the non-digital characteristics of the underlying electronics * to create the final evolved design.There is a Scientific American article about that experiment and I do have a Xerox'd copy of that article stored away somewhere, but I cannot find it right now.The bottom line is that evolution generates complexity, so when you see complexity that is evidence of evolution.  FOOTNOTE *:
Analog electronics operate within a narrow range of parameters which has its own special sets of issues. All voltage levels are used.Digital electronics have all the components operating at either one of two extremes, completely switched on or completely switched off. All voltage levels between completely switched on and completely switched off are the relatively wide Forbidden Zone in which all intermediate voltage levels are indeterminant.In electrical engineering, there is no completely pure component. All inductors (coils of wire) also have capacitances between those coiled wires. In bundles of wires, there are also capacitances and inductances between them that are minimized in various ways (eg, twisted pairs), but still present. It has been said that biology is messy, but so is EE (albeit not as much so).The simple fact is that all digital devices also have analog properties that are not normally utilized. But these evolutionary designs don't care and they will have not compunction against using analog or digital properties whenever they can.
What we see happening in this FPGA example is that the normal digital logic

According to the Naval Terminology Jargon and Slang FAQ (https://www.hazegray.org/faq/slang1.htm), we have BOHICA:

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BOHICA - Acronym for "Bend Over, Here It Comes Again."

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Hoo-rah!

Saint Joseph the Curly was the master of Nyuk-Nyuk, not Saint Moe.Far more miraculous was Saint Shemp the Howard, whose film career continued on for ten years after his death, hence the miracle (though saints need three, n'est pas?) (see here -- contracts do indeed carry on far beyond the grave).Oh! A wise guy, huh? Actually, yes, and I have the documentation to prove it.Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!------------------------------From memory and Christopher Titus' brilliant 2000 FOX sit-com, Titus (worst theme music ever, a car engine revving), Season 1 Episode 6, "Red Asphalt". He, his Northern Irish girlfriend Erin (she doesn't get mad; she just plants a bomb in your car), and his idjit half-brother Dave are driving home when they get caught in a road rage situation where the guy in the other car has a gun. Erin rummages through her purse and finds a fruit, but Chris stops her immediately, saying inside his neutral place (a common device in the show where he would step outside the action to discuss things with the audience) that there's nothing more dangerous than an Irish woman with a rock or piece of fruit in her hand. Then: BTW, idjit half-brother Dave was played by Zack Ward, now/then grown up, who in A Christmas Story had played the bully with yellow eyes ("Yes! He had yellow eyes!").Also BTW, being almost half Irish myself I enjoyed those Irish jokes.Edited by dwise1, : comment about contractsEdited by dwise1, : hence the miracle

Sadly typical of literalists.