Ask Me Help Desk - Atheists do not believe,How?

Haha this has been quite a topical debate :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by excon

Hello silent:

The big bang came from a singularity, not "gasses and whatever". The big bang and evolution have nothing to do with each other.

Criticism is fine, but base it on facts. Of course, that would involve study and you're probably not going to do that. Especially if you think it's ridiculous.

excon

Sorry, excon, but I'm not going to take your word for it. I've heard the "big bang" theory in many different versions and forms, one of which I mentioned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silentrascal

Basically "big bang" says that there was a big explosion from gases and whatever.......now how did those gases or materials come about? Were they simply always there? It offers no answers for that, just the blind conjecture that these things were there, they came together, and BANG. Evolution, depending on which person you're discussing it with, says that everyone came together after billions of years of being in some primordial soup......yet it doesn't explain where those elements came from, again assuming they were just always there. People put a lot of stock into these ridiculous theories and push and push and push them as fact simply because scientists word these things in a way so as to make them sound intelligent and plausible.

And the same can be said about religions,Who is pushing what?

By examination,study,factual evidence,and experiences in our lifetimes,documented and validated,even by the non scientific society, we can see evolution in process.Including the 'theory' looked at concerning the 'Big Bang'

Education and research are not 'ridiculous theories',they are based on fact, not concept.

To have bias towards the scientific community is shortsighted,not taking all possibilities into account,again, who is right? The creationist or the evolotionist,one is FACT, one is CONCEPT.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silentrascal

Yes it does. Go study it yourself.....and forget the discussion.

I have been studying it for the past 6 years. You're wrong, sorry. I knew that the opportunity for an intelligent discussion would be one that you would happily ignore.

This is getting fun now:):):)

Quote:

Originally Posted by KBC

And the same can be said about religions,Who is pushing what?

By examination,study,factual evidence,and experiences in our lifetimes,documented and validated,even by the non scientific society, we can see evolution in process.Including the 'theory' looked at concerning the 'Big Bang'

Education and research are not 'ridiculous theories',they are based on fact, not concept.

To have bias towards the scientific community is shortsighted,not taking all possibilities into account,again, who is right? the creationist or the evolotionist,one is FACT, one is CONCEPT.

I think you should realise that both evolution and creationism are theories. Just like Newtonian gravitation and General Relativity are both theories. Just that one fits the evidence more closely, makes more meaningful predictions etc than the other.

I completely agree :) You guys may have differing opinions but at least you have them. Many people don't

Quote:

Originally Posted by ordinaryguy

There you go again. You'd get a lot better reception for your ideas if you could just avoid that word "all" when referring to people. Stick with "I" or "some" and you'll be amazed at how much more receptive people will be. Try it. The next time you're tempted to write "we will all" or "we are all" or "we all have" such and such, just say "I" instead. What you believe goes for you, and those who agree with you. Nobody else.

Thank you for your fantastic insight about how to respond... obviously what I write is what I believe and I believe all will be judged by the one true and just God. I am not going to compromise the use of the word all to not offend you or someone else. That is what I believe and that is how I wanted it to come across. You or anyone else can receive me however they want to.:)

There is no need to be nasty to people is there? We're all good people and all deserve respect

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capuchin

I have been studying it for the past 6 years. You're wrong, sorry. I knew that the opportunity for an intelligent discussion would be one that you would happily ignore.

No, I'm not wrong, whether you think so or not. It makes no difference to me whether you studied it for 5 minutes, 6 years, or 30 years. Your condescending tone and arrogance do not lend an air of credibility to your statements. It appears you likewise ignore such opportunity for intelligent discussion.

Comment on Capuchin's post

You are full of good advice and your wife is so blessed to have a husband like you

Quote:

Originally Posted by silentrascal

No, I'm not wrong, whether you think so or not. It makes no difference to me whether you studied it for 5 minutes, 6 years, or 30 years. Your condescending tone and arrogance do not lend an air of credibility to your statements. It appears you likewise ignore such opportunity for intelligent discussion.

Do you have to turn everything into an argument

Quote:

Originally Posted by albear

do you have to turn everything into an argument

I'm sure that question is posed to the wrong individual. My responses are to the one(s) starting the argument.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silentrascal

No, I'm not wrong, whether you think so or not. It makes no difference to me whether you studied it for 5 minutes, 6 years, or 30 years. Your condescending tone and arrogance do not lend an air of credibility to your statements. It appears you likewise ignore such opportunity for intelligent discussion.

I'm not starting an argument, I just wanted to ascertain if you knew what you were talking about. Since you don't, we can't have an intelligent discussion about the issues, and so I'm done with you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capuchin

I'm not starting an argument, I just wanted to ascertain if you knew what you were talking about. Since you don't, we can't have an intelligent discussion about the issues, and so i'm done with you.

Apparently I'm not the one here who doesn't know what he's talking about. And again, you don't encourage anyone to want to discuss anything with you by your condescending and insulting tone. You may want to work on your people skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capuchin

I think you should realise that both evolution and creationism are theories. Just like Newtonian gravitation and General Relativity are both theories. Just that one fits the evidence more closely, makes more meaningful predictions etc than the other.

Hmm. I can't agree with that. Evolution, gravity, and relativity are scientific theories, based on loads of evidence (a coherent body of knowledge), whereas Creationism is not a scientific theory. In the Dover, Pennsylvania, intelligent design case, a federal judge (Judge Jones) listened to both sides and ruled that neither intelligent design nor creationism was science. Judge Jones himself is a conservative judge with religious beliefs, but he said that Intelligent Design was basically the same as Creationism and they are both religious.

There are a lot of people who accept evolution without fully understanding how it works. That is, they accept it on faith--just as I accept on faith that engineers know how to build bridges. Not everyone can know everything. But the important point is that engineers have a coherent body of facts and theories that help them understand how to build bridges strong enough to support cars, trucks, and even trains.

In the same way, biologists understand how species form and change over time. They have a coherent body of facts and theories that explain what actually happens and they can predict how living organisms will behave based on that knowledge. Just because a lot of Americans don't understand the science doesn't mean it doesn't exist. All of modern biology, including modern medicine, is based on our understanding that organisms change over time.

In contrast, there is no scientific evidence to support Creationism. Creationists have lots of questions about evolution and sometimes they are good questions (though often not), but their criticisms of evolutionary biology don't provide any facts that are evidence for Creationism. There are no scientific journals of creationism, no scientific papers on creationism, etc. Creationists only offer criticisms of evolution, and all of their criticisms are either wrong or picking at small details that don't affect the big picture. (It would be like arguing about what kind of paint to put on a bridge. The bridge is still strong enough to support a train.) Without studying evolution seriously, it's hard for the average person to see why the religious criticisms don't matter or are wrong. It would be as if a large group of people said that all of engineering theory was wrong. All the engineers can do is shrug and point to the bridges, because the math is hard to explain to someone who doesn't know anything about engineering. That's how biologists feel sometimes.

To my knowledge there are only two men with any serious training in biology who have supported Intelligent Design, out of hundreds of thousands of biologists. These are Michael Behe, who is a biochemist, whose latest book backs away from his earlier assertions because his ideas have been disproved. That is, he has all but given up attacking evolution. The other is Jonathan Wells who enrolled in graduate school and got a PhD in biology specifically so that he could use his knowledge to attack evolution. He has said that he planned to attack evolution even before he had studied it. Everything he learned about biology he has used to try to make evolution look untrue to people who don't know what he knows.

Evolution is a scientific theory, but creationism is a religious idea, not different from the virgin birth, the idea of hell, and so on.
Asking

Quote:

Originally Posted by silentrascal

Basically "big bang" says that there was a big explosion from gases and whatever.......now how did those gases or materials come about? Were they simply always there? It offers no answers for that, just the blind conjecture that these things were there, they came together, and BANG. Evolution, depending on which person you're discussing it with, says that everyone came together after billions of years of being in some primordial soup......yet it doesn't explain where those elements came from, again assuming they were just always there. People put a lot of stock into these ridiculous theories and push and push and push them as fact simply because scientists word these things in a way so as to make them sound intelligent and plausible.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...

If something doesn't come from nothing--where the heck did your God come from? YOUR theory doesn't explain where THAT element comes from! If something doesn't come from nothing, and your God is something--who created Him? He can't have ALWAYS been, not if thoses gases and stuff couldn't have ALWAYS been! NOTHING could have ALWAYS been!

So... using YOUR logic--where did your God come from? How can I possibly believe that he was always there, if nothing else was always there?

(psssst... the answer you're looking for here is "I take it on faith. I believe because I believe it, just like other people believe what they do because they have faith in it, whether it's God or Goddess or Flying Spaghetti Monster or primordial soup.")

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synnen

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait....

If something doesn't come from nothing--where the heck did your God come from? YOUR theory doesn't explain where THAT element comes from! If something doesn't come from nothing, and your God is something--who created Him? He can't have ALWAYS been, not if thoses gases and stuff couldn't have ALWAYS been! NOTHING could have ALWAYS been!

So...using YOUR logic--where did your God come from? How can I possibly believe that he was always there, if nothing else was always there?

(psssst....the answer you're looking for here is "I take it on faith. I believe because I believe it, just like other people believe what they do because they have faith in it, whether it's God or Goddess or Flying Spaghetti Monster or primordial soup.")

Why can't God have ALWAYS been? Is it because there is no "proof" or because human finite minds can't logical grasp "always" or for another reason?

Asking, you make an interesting point. I believe that every theory is entitled to some scientific investigation. It may well turn out that some theories are very obviously not fitting with the evidence, and some theories may blow open a whole new field of science, but both of these theories are, at the beginning, scientific and worthy of investigation.

For example, string theory, it fits no evidence and it makes no observable predictions, is this not a scientific theory?

I think you may be able to get me to agree with you on the falsifiability front, that the existence of a god is not falsifiable and so is not a scientific theory. But I'm not utterly convinced of that, at the moment, string theory is not falsifiable, although it may well be with the newer colliders coming in the next few years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountain_man

Why can't God have ALWAYS been? Is it because there is no "proof" or because human finite minds can't logical grasp "always" or for another reason?

If God can have always been, then why does he (and you) have an issue with these "gasses" having always been?