Atheism requires as much faith as religion?

[mtimber]

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>
Please notice the shift in language. You went from 'everything has a cause' to 'everything that is created, is created by an intelligence'.
The first, obvious problem is that you have to show that 'being caused' and 'being created' are the same thing. But this is clearly wrong. An ice crystal can be caused by a decrease in temperature, but that crystal need not be 'created by an intelligence'. For example, it can form outside when the temperature drops.
But even your second claim (that everything created is created by an intelligence) is clearly wrong. Consider an ant colony. It was clearly created by those ants, but ant are not typically said to have intelligence. In fact, the creation of the ant colony is an instinctual act, not an intelligent one. The same can be said for spider webs, for example.
Finally, even if your (faulty) assumption that all created things are created by intelligences, to get your argument off the ground you still need to show those intelligences are created. Otherwise, your regression stops with human creators.

Everything caused and everything created are the same thing...

I don't know what point you are trying to make there?

As to your main point, it is easy to see that intelligence was created, as intelligence is governed by transcendental laws and absolutes that are not derived from that intelligence...

They are absolute.

Which requires an absolute cause.

I.E. God.

[mtimber]

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>
You just have to love the circularity here. You assume there is a God that says this. And then you disbelieve the people who are right in front of you who say differently about themselves. Why should we believe you when you say there is a God?

Very simple.

I point to God as a basis for my absolute standard of morality.

And as He is eternal and all powerful, that makes perfect sense.

You however, claim you do not believe in absolute moral standards, so there is nothing to stop you from lying.

[Imhotep]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

.<quoted text>
Nice. I wanted a transcripts of the poem, and found it.If anybody else is interested, here it is:
Dear Allah
I hope you get this letter, as I’m in a great deal of doubt.
I don’t get your Divine Plan, what’s it all about?
There you are, before a creation to fill
Nothing but Allah, he, himself and his will,
Perhaps you were lonely, though even then you knew.
You’d create angels, to obey and worship you.
Maybe this wasn’t enough, you were not amused,
But why you created Satan, just leaves me bemused
You gave man a mind and a freewill to choose
Then demanded he believe in irrational, contradictory clues
While keeping yourself hidden from all verification
Threatening torture if we don’t prostrate in supplication
You sent prophets and books to a patch of land
And miracles galore to that sacred area of sand
But before man can scientifically record and corroborate
You decide communications must now mysteriously terminate
You say you are testing mankind — to see who is true
Though saint and sinner, you already knew
But worse than this is the consequence of this test
It’s results are iniquitous — perverse at best
Those, who accept on faith, myths handed down
Will enjoy eternal bliss and never have to frown
While those who insist on reasoning with their brain
Will be sent to the fire of Hell to suffer eternal pain
Dear Allah none of this makes sense to me
Please tell me if there is something I’ve failed to see
And I don’t understand when so many suffer and die
What is the reason — I cannot see why?
Was it a test for the baby, her father or mother
Or was she sacrificed to test someone other?
When you planned all this did you count every tear
Was your ultimate purpose that we tremble in fear
And when all are in Heaven or Hell — as dictated by fate
Will you sit back on your throne to shouts of “Allah is Great”?

Thank you, I found it poignant.

I treat each God with equal opportunity criticism.
Gods are welcome to complain at any time.

:)

[mtimber]

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>
This is false. Science is NOT built upon the first cause argument. Nor is it necessarily built on the concept that everything has a cause. It *is* built on the idea that we can make and test predictions based on our hypotheses.

All empirical observations are founded on the presupposition of the reliability of the laws of cause and effect.

I am not sure where you are going with this one.

Is this another attempt to deny the obvious?

[mtimber]

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>
Your inability to see moral reason outside of the belief in a deity is not our failing. Most atheists are atheists because they have a respect for truth. Most have searched for your God and have not found him, have read the Bible and found it repulsive, and have looked at the theological arguments and have found them wanting. Your refusal to take our lack of belief at face value shows a disrespect that make conversation difficult, if not impossible.
Finally, you have given us no reason as for why we should believe *you*. You claim to believe in a God, but cannot give us any evidence of this being. You say it is clear, but cannot provide anything in support of that clarity. And you claim your particular interpretation is correct without distinguishing it from all the others. I think you actually doubt the existence of God and are lying to us.

Atheists have a respect for truth?

How do you account for the concept of "truth" if there are no absolutes?

[KittenKoder]

mtimber wrote:

<quoted text>
You are an atheist.
You have no absolute standard of morality, so no absolute requirement to tell the truth.
You then say you do not lie.
Why should I believe you?
Taking your professed worldview into account, why should I believe you?

Well, because no one has yet to demonstrate that I lied. If you believe your christians don't lie, then you are more deluded than I once thought. You lie about having evidence all the time. As for absolute, even your morality is not absolute, you just pick and choose which parts of your spoonfed morals you want to follow, and ignore all the rest, it is you we cannot trust, because you profess an absolute when there is none, that is how people make excuses for bad behavior.

[mtimber]

Just Think wrote:

<quoted text>
LOL...Only a true fundie can say "I am very logical" and "Everything created has a cause" and then turn around and say...well, everything except god..
...and not see the irony.

You do not believe there was an eternal source for the universe?

It seems by your argument that you would ridicule such a notion.

Does that mean you also ridicule the atheistic arguments that also argue for an eternal cause for the universe?

I hope you see the irony...

[KittenKoder]

mtimber wrote:

<quoted text>
Just like Richard Dawkins.
Who makes it his purpose in life to persuade people there is no purpose...

You make your own purpose. Mine is to seek evidence. Since you present no evidence all your claims about your religion are dismissed as mythology.

[mtimber]

Just Think wrote:

<quoted text>
Because god isn't real and atheists are.
Glad to help.

And I know you are not lying because?

[It aint necessarily so]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

The physicists tell us that quantum events are uncaused, and there is good experimental evidence to support that claim.

mtimber wrote:

No they do not. Some physicists say that, not all of them. You have made a false appeal to authority.

What are you appealing to with that rebuttal?

Sorry, but the physics community has the final word on physics, not the Christian community, and the overwhelming majority say that quantum indeterminacy is a fact. Even if they are wrong, you are no position to contradict them and insist that all physical events are determinate (caused).

It aint necessarily so wrote:

Do you believe that there is free will? If you believe that any aspect of will is uncaused, then you just contradicted yourself. If you believe that every aspect of will and is determined by a cause, then you have ruled out the possibility of free will.

< crickets chirping >

Good answer.

[mtimber]

Imhotep wrote:

<quoted text>
Read your Bible
Ironically, the shallow nature of fundamentalist Christian talking points can be revealed by looking at the Bible, which is the very tool used to create the talking points in the first place.
According to fundamentalist Christians, the Bible is to be taken seriously as the authoritative word of a supreme, all powerful being.
And yet, the Bible does not confirm the talking points as being reliable or truthful.
One definition of a myth is as follows,
Myth:
A person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence
The key word here is unverifiable.
It cannot be established as reality, factual, or binding on others.
Some popular talking points are listed below, and all of them have more holes in them than a Swiss cheese.
Jesus was fully God and fully man.
Jesus is God, God is Triune, being composed of three co-eternal, co-equal persons.
This is the doctrine of the "Trinity", which is one of the most popular talking points and also one of the most convoluted, unsubstantiated claims in the Christian stable of theistic propaganda.
To be fully God and fully man at the same time is the theological equivalent of a shirt that is made out of 100% wool and 100% cotton.
A son by definition must also be younger than his father.
Christians parrot this "Trinity" canard constantly in an attempt to turn it into reality and a universal fact.
It is nothing of the sort.
The Athanasian Creed, which assertively sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity, also declares it to be incomprehensible.

So your argument against a God that is transcendent above all known knowledge, is that because you cannot understand everything about Him, He does not exist...

Interesting...

[Just Think]

mtimber wrote:

<quoted text>
And I know you are not lying because?

Because I can prove that atheists exist while neither you, nor anyone else on the planet, can prove god exists.

This isn't complicated...

[It aint necessarily so]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

He said less than a nanosecond.
It's actually, much, much, MUCH less than a nanosecond, perhaps as little as 5.4 x 10E-44 seconds, the Planck time.

mtimber wrote:

So what happened during this (rather inconvenient for atheism) nanosecond?

Didn't you read or understand what I wrote at all? It was much, much, MUCH less than a nanosecond

mtimber wrote:

You do not know?

The universe expanded and the laws of physics as we understand them came into being. What isn't known is what physical laws preceded them.

mtimber wrote:

So you accept that the origin of the universe was caused by something that you cannot explain or quantify.

Nope. I don't assume that the universe was caused. But just what happened is still unknown. There are many competing hypotheses for origins. Gods are only one of them.

mtimber wrote:

But you know it was not God.

I don't know that it wasn't a god or, more likely, gods. But I do know that if it was, it wasn't Jehovah-Jesus, which is what I assume you mean by "God."

[Just Think]

mtimber wrote:

<quoted text>
Very simple.
I point to God as a basis for my absolute standard of morality.
And as He is eternal and all powerful, that makes perfect sense.
You however, claim you do not believe in absolute moral standards, so there is nothing to stop you from lying.

The implication being then, that because you believe in a god, you never lie? Really?

[It aint necessarily so]

Aura Mytha wrote:

<quoted text>
Actually everything back to about 150 million to a billion years
after the the event is pretty much theoretical.
But is tested in those giant collider's to get ideas on how particles and the forces behave.
Here is the citation from Wiki, which is the very first thing it say's.
"All ideas concerning the very early universe (cosmogony) are speculative. No accelerator experiments have yet probed energies of sufficient magnitude to provide any experimental insight into the behavior of matter at the energy levels that prevailed during this period."
Then.
Early universe
Cosmic History After cosmic inflation ends, the universe is filled with a quark–gluon plasma. From this point onwards the physics of the early universe is better understood, and less speculative.
Quark epoch Between 10–12 seconds and 10–6 seconds after the Big Bang.
(((This is where we can be really sure experiments are showing a exact reflection of took place.))))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_th...
But even at 10-6 seconds it's a microsecond , and leaves little room for magic.

I don't think your citation supported your original claim that, "Actually everything back to about 150 million to a billion years
after the the event is pretty much theoretical."

The cosmic microwave background radiation was produced before the universe was a half million years old. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave... :

"As the universe expanded, adiabatic cooling caused the plasma to lose energy until it became favorable for electrons to combine with protons, forming hydrogen atoms. This recombination event happened when the temperature was around 3000 K or when the universe was approximately 379,000 years old. At this point, the photons no longer interacted with the now electrically neutral atoms and began to travel freely through space, resulting in the decoupling of matter and radiation."

And Big Bang nucleosynthesis was complete by about T = 1000 seconds. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleos... ;

"Big Bang nucleosynthesis ... began at temperatures of around 10 MeV and ended at temperatures below 100 keV. The corresponding time interval was from a few tenths of a second to up to 103 seconds."

Have you read The First Three Minutes by Weinberg?

[Imhotep]

mtimber wrote:

<quoted text>
So your argument against a God that is transcendent above all known knowledge, is that because you cannot understand everything about Him, He does not exist...
Interesting...

Fox News needs you!

Which God? is a good question to start.

You can easily DEFEAT all agnostics...

Provide 'verifiable' evidence you're God is the only true God in a way other cults cannot.

"May the Force be with you"

[Dave Nelson]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

<quoted text>
I don't think your citation supported your original claim that, "Actually everything back to about 150 million to a billion years
after the the event is pretty much theoretical."
The cosmic microwave background radiation was produced before the universe was a half million years old. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave... :
"As the universe expanded, adiabatic cooling caused the plasma to lose energy until it became favorable for electrons to combine with protons, forming hydrogen atoms. This recombination event happened when the temperature was around 3000 K or when the universe was approximately 379,000 years old. At this point, the photons no longer interacted with the now electrically neutral atoms and began to travel freely through space, resulting in the decoupling of matter and radiation."
And Big Bang nucleosynthesis was complete by about T = 1000 seconds. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleos... ;
"Big Bang nucleosynthesis ... began at temperatures of around 10 MeV and ended at temperatures below 100 keV. The corresponding time interval was from a few tenths of a second to up to 103 seconds."
Have you read The First Three Minutes by Weinberg?

You have run around that donut so many times you carved a rut higher than your head.

You ain't seeing things real good.

[It aint necessarily so]

KittenKoder wrote:

Science is correct in assuming that it is not required and therefore should progress as is, without any religious nonsense perverting it.

[QUOTE who="mtimber"]1. Science does not speak - fallacy of equivocation.

"Speaking" was your word, not Kitten's.

Besides, if one were claiming that science literally spoke as part of an argument, it would be a reification fallacy.
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skeptic...

This is a pqarticularly petty quibble on your part. Wouldyou have been happier if she has said "Scientists are correct." I trust that you are happy to hear - oops! I meant "read" - arguments of this degree of pettiness now yourself, as I certain that you would never offer an argument that you would reject yourself.

mtimber wrote:

2. Atheists presuppose God does not exist (publicly, in private they do know).

Your god can be ruled out on the evidence. There is no possible way that an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly loving god is involved in our lives. Epicurus understood this long before the Christian era:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

mtimber wrote:

3. There is no scientific data that can account for the origins of the temporal from the eternal, so to assume that this true is to presuppose it is true. Which is an act of blind faith and appeals to vicious circular reasoning.

What eternal? You seems to be prepresupposing that such a thing exists, an act of blind faith.

[It aint necessarily so]

mtimber wrote:

That the first cause is a conclusion of logic and reason and indeed science is built on that principle?

The first cause argument is not applicable to the universe as an entity. The idea of causality is derived from experience with objects much smaller than universes that are contained in them. You cannot extend the inductions (generalizations) derived from studying the whole and apply them to the parts. That one is called a fallacy of composition. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_compo... :

"The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. For example: "This fragment of metal cannot be fractured with a hammer, therefore the machine of which it is a part cannot be fractured with a hammer."

We don't have enough information about universes to generalize about them, and there is an excellent argument against anything existing before time. Causes imply a before state and an after state. The word "before" has no meaning until T = 0+.

There is no "before time" just as there is nothing on earth south of the South Pole. The phrase is meaningless, as is the claim of a first cause preceding time.

[Givemeliberty]

Ah so the forum punching bag has switched from stealing Eric Hovind's lame fail word for word and has loved on up to stealing William Lane Craig's Bullsht word for word! Hey! Maybe shock of god is next?

mtimber wrote:

<quoted text>
My argument is quite logical.
Everything created has a cause.
The first cause has to be by nature eternal.
To be eternal, the first cause has to operate outside of time.
The first cause has to be omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, all loving and eternal.
On the point of God being eternal.
He reveals the future consistently and accurately, therefore affirming He is outside of time and therefore the First Cause.