Life From Dirt?

[Brian2]

I don't believe the Bible is wrong based on mere faith. I believe it is wrong based on the numerous times I've read and studied its content, as well as many years of life experience, which has consistently demonstrated to me that it is wrong. I believe the Bible is inaccurate, misleading, and riddled with multiple contradictions because of these reasons. As I've previously stated on a similar topic (see here), I essentially studied my way out of believing in the Bible.

There are many things we can study which want to tell us the Bible is untrue. It certainly takes faith to believe and keep believing.

 

[Brian2]

...And some claim the Earth is flat.

So how do they assess reality; what tools do they use; how are conclusions verified?

I am talking about people who claim that unverifiable evidence is not evidence.
These people want verifiable evidence all the time to assess reality and test it, so reality for them is usually limited to this universe, but they also speculate about other possibilities but ignore the evidence for a designer and God who has revealed Himself to us because they don't like the idea of faith even if that faith is not blind faith.

 

[Brian2]

This is simply not true. The more science finds out, the more traditional underpinnings of religion are toppled. Phenomena previously attributed to God are discovered to be natural outcomes of unconscious physics and chemistry. Religious apologetics becomes more and more abstract, convoluted, and objectively unsupportable.

What God has said that He has done remains intact. People have claimed the hand of God for things where the mechanism was not know, and they had no right to do that. Then the mechanism is discovered and skeptics claim that God is being shown to be untrue,,,,,,,,,,, but really it is just the false claims about what God has done which have been shown to be untrue.

Few believe this universe has existed forever; certainly not most scientists.
It's the religious who argue for both the necessity of a creator and an uncreated creator.
The Kalam argument and an uncreated creator are contradictory. At best, it leads to an endless regression.

An endless regression is impossible imo since an infinite time into the past means we cannot be here yet.
The universe had a beginning but I think science postulates that the stuff of the universe has always existed in some form.
Actually it is hard to pin down what "science" as a being, believes about this, there seem to be various beliefs depending on why you listen to. It is all speculation.

"Goddit!" is a claim way beyond any argument from parsimony, it's a claim of magic, of effect without mechanism.

A claim of designer explains nothing, it merely asserts an agent. It does not address why, only who. It's an unnecessary special pleading.

Magic is just a way of saying we don't know the mechanism. Magic is just something skeptics like to say about God.
"Who" is arguably a more important question than "why" as it gives purpose for us and everything.
"Who" is not even a scientific question. If all you can see is science, chemistry, physics etc then that is all you will ever see.

Empiricism requires no faith, that's what makes it empirical.

Empiricism gets you nowhere in relation to God unless you think God is a part of the universe and can be tested.
Empiricism as a way to find God or if God exists requires faith.

No, there are clear, easily fact-checked falsehoods and contradictions in the Bible. No interpretation necessary.

No doubt that is true, but that does not mean that the Bible has been falsified,,,,,,,,,,,,,, that is taking it too far and requires faith.

Evidence is evidence. Evidence for you is merely a gut feeling, delusion or hallucination. There are plenty of those, but, inasmuch as they're all over the board, I consider "personal evidence" unreliable.

Why do you think that I don't think objective evidence is true. I do think it is true. I just go beyond the tool of science and what it can test, and believe other evidence also. It is a journey and so most peoples' personal evidence is not completely true even if it is part of the way there.

It is you making the God-claim. The burden of proof is on you. If you cannot meet your burden with reasonable and objective evidence, non-belief is the logical and rational default, no?

I can give reasonable evidence that everyone can see but that does not mean that people will agree or will want to agree.

What dogma do atheists and skeptics promote? Reason? Logic? Maths? Are these a dogma?
Were making no ontological claims. We're starting with a blank slate. All we need do is point out the errors in your own claims to establish non-belief as the rational default.

Reason, logic, maths are common for all people but reason and logic end up in different places for different people.
What are errors in my belief that you can point to and that show your lack of belief is a better option?

 

[shunyadragon]

Science is fine when it is not speculation about how nature did thing that God has said that He did.

It is not speculation. The research and discoveries is increasing scientific knowledge of abiogenesis over time. Like all sciences there remains unanswered questions, but science has determined many of the chemistry, environment and natural processes when and where abiogenesis took place, Yes in ancient tribal scriptures God said he did it by different names, but this is subjective belief with no science and provenance of claims.

Why do you think that science is 100% correct about these things when all science can do is look at chemistry and speculate about how nature did it?

Who said science is 100% correct? Though if you can understand science see Abiogenesis discoveries and research for the growing research and evidence for natural abiogenesis.

Of course He has a problem when people do evil in their life-time.

The claim that life and humans were perfect without evil

Evidence for the existence of a creator and designer is so strong that it is amazing that people want to close their eyes to it.

There is absolutely no objective evidence that Gods exist as described in the many different conflicting forms exists in different cultures.

 

[shunyadragon]

There are many things we can study which want to tell us the Bible is untrue. It certainly takes faith to believe and keep believing.

You do realize that @Sgt, Pepper believes in evolution.

 

[shunyadragon]

I am talking about people who claim that unverifiable evidence is not evidence.

This represents your claims of evidence for the existence of God. There is absolutely no objective evidence for the existence of God.

These people want verifiable evidence all the time to assess reality and test it, so reality for them is usually limited to this universe, but they also speculate about other possibilities but ignore the evidence for a designer and God who has revealed Himself to us because they don't like the idea of faith even if that faith is not blind faith.

Unverifiable evidence is not evidence as is the nature of your subjective claims.

The clinging to ancient tribal religions without science is based on blind faith.

 

[ratiocinator]

I am talking about people who claim that unverifiable evidence is not evidence.

Evidence is some actual fact that is consistent with the proposition it's supposed to support and inconsistent with other, alternative propositions. Even better is a prediction based on your proposition, that isn't predicted by alternatives, that can then be tested after you produced it.

What on earth do you think "unverifiable evidence" even means?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That's humanity, always wanting to reach higher and to know why and how.

Sure. That doesn't mean there are answers to those question or that the questions themselves are even valid.

You cannot go higher than the why answer being a how answer and that would be just speculation/hypothesis.

There is no reason to think that there is some other cosmic reason beyond the "how".

I have evidence for the undetectable

That is a contradiction in terms

but no evidence for the non existent.

That is nonsensical. The non-existent by definition won't have evidence.
As they saying goes: the undetectable and the non-existent, look very much alike

The evidence is not verifiable in any scientific way but is there nonetheless.

If it's not verifiable, it's not proper evidence. Then, at best, it's just another claim.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

We can't believe all the conclusions people come to about their experiences and what they are told they are caused by.

Correct. So what would you say would be needed for us to believe such a conclusion that people draw from their experiences?

That doe not mean that they do not have those experiences.

I don't think I have ever denied that people have experiences.
I think that for the most part, when people claim to have had an experience, they are sincere about it.
For example, people claiming to have been abducted by aliens. I don't doubt they had an experience. In fact, many of them will even pass lie detector tests. They aren't making them up. But that doesn't mean they were actually abducted by aliens.

There's a whole range of far more probable explanations, which don't require the extremely improbable and implausible advanced entities from other planets beaming up people to perform sex experiments on them on board of their flying saucers.

And without objective verifiable evidence of such, why on earth would you give preference for the least likely explanations?

In summary: I don't doubt people's experiences. I question their conclusions / beliefs about them.

Yes science is good like that, it just works for all of us thanks to God.

Of course it is evidence. Evidence is not proof. If you want to go further into scientology we can, based on that evidence.

Clearly you don't consider it very convincing evidence since you are not a scientologist.
If Tom Cruise were your flavor of christian, I'm sure you wouldn't hesitate for a second to make him your poster boy, holding him up as a prime example of evidence supporting your religion. Just like scientologists do.

It's sad that you don't see your double standard.
Meanwhile, you accuse me of holding a double standard and yet utterly fail to demonstrate it.

There are commonalities.

No, there aren't.
For starters, you need claims for there to be dogma. It's requirement number 1.
There are no claims in atheism. Theism is the claim. Atheism is what you default to when you don't buy the claims of theism.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

There are many things we can study which want to tell us the Bible is untrue. It certainly takes faith to believe and keep believing.

Simply believing in the Bible or God with mere faith isn't enough for me. As far as I'm concerned, I wasted forty years of my life putting my faith in God, only to discover the hard way that it was absolutely pointless. I felt like a fool for a long time as a result of it. I was a devout Christian for thirty years and had sincerely believed in God for ten years before that, and I had never seen, experienced, or interacted with him. It was a significant life-changing lesson that drastically transformed my perspective on spirituality and led me to become an agnostic. Sincerely believing in God by faith never worked out for me, nor did years of dedicated and earnest prayer to him. So I no longer accept the existence of any deity based on faith. Having said that, I'm not willing to entirely dismiss the existence of any deities because I believe in supernatural phenomena, and the existence of deities could be a possibility in this regard.

 

[SkepticThinker]

What you probably mean is that your interpretation of what the Bible means has been debunked. But that is OK. Your interpretation is wrong.

How do you know? How do we determine the "correct" interpretation? How did you determine that someone else's interpretation is "wrong?"

How about the flood story that you've interpreted as a "local" flood when clearly what is being described in that story is a global flood?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Something moving does not indicate life imo but the workings of cells and bodies, as discovered by science, is evidence of design imo.

How and why?

Design is evidence of life, the life of a designer.

How did you determine design in the first place?

 

[SkepticThinker]

That's humanity, always wanting to reach higher and to know why and how. You cannot go higher than the why answer being a how answer and that would be just speculation/hypothesis.



I have evidence for the undetectable but no evidence for the non existent. The evidence is not verifiable in any scientific way but is there nonetheless.

Then it's not evidence.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That just pushes the question of the creator further back.



It is just a furphy to think that there is no God just because no God can be found in this universe. The creator is not part of His creation.
So many in the West are deceived by a furphy because they believe the lie.
You have also been deceived if you think that science knows that the universe could assemble itself. It is also interesting that you want the creation to exist initially and to go from there.



A conscious source just explains the obvious design and the revelation from God or so called gods.
You have your exhaustive list of what you say are possibilities and seem to want to analyse them using science. But science cannot do that.
Personally I don't see that time goes back to infinity. Infinite time into the past means that we cannot be here yet.



I believe in the God who works in history and knew and told us of the Jews going back to the land they were given and being surrounded by enemies etc etc.



That is a silly thing to say when you also say that science does not prove anything.



That a day of creation is not a 24 hour day is not a new concept I hear.



I have experienced the swarming as if it is a team effort to overwhelm.



If the Bible had no answers then it would not have known about the future of Israel and the Jews.



Ignoring evidence does not make it go away.

There is no team effort to "swarm" and "overwhelm" you.
I'm just posting responses to arguments I see on the forum. I haven't teamed up with anyone to overwhelm you. I'm not interested in doing such things. I'm just here to debate and discuss a variety of topics and expose myself to different points of view.

Sounds like you've got a touch of persecution complex.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It's great that the further we look into the creation, the more obvious it is that it is the work of a living, intelligent God.

It is? How? Where? What evidence?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Science is a tool we use to discover how and cannot find things that are not part of the universe. It does not show that God is non existent.
Brahma is the Hindu God and elves are part of the creation if they exist, not the creator. The creator is not part of or governed by the creation. Agency is the only thing that gives a reason for why we are here and why anything is here. Arguably that is a more important answer than how things work.
All I want is evidence for God, and it does not matter if it is objective or not. I have that evidence in nature and in God's revelation to us.

Why are you so desperate to have some purpose imposed upon you from some outside agent?

I would argue how things work are the most important questions we can ask about the world around us.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yes religion is faith based and with subjective verifiability. (we test it ourselves)

Then it's not a reliable pathway to truth. Anything can be believed on faith.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I am talking about people who claim that unverifiable evidence is not evidence.

That's the only kind of reliable evidence there is. What good is it if it's not verifiable?

These people want verifiable evidence all the time to assess reality and test it, so reality for them is usually limited to this universe, but they also speculate about other possibilities but ignore the evidence for a designer and God who has revealed Himself to us because they don't like the idea of faith even if that faith is not blind faith.

Which god revelated itself to us and how do you know this?

You're right, I don't like faith because it's not a reliable pathway to truth. Anything can be (and is) believed on faith. It's not a reason for believing. It's an excuse to give when you don't have good reasons and good evidence for believing something, as you've demonstrated to us on many occasions.

 

[YoursTrue]

Simply believing in the Bible or God with mere faith isn't enough for me. As far as I'm concerned, I wasted forty years of my life putting my faith in God, only to discover the hard way that it was absolutely pointless. I felt like a fool for a long time as a result of it. I was a devout Christian for thirty years and had sincerely believed in God for ten years before that, and I had never seen, experienced, or interacted with him. It was a significant life-changing lesson that drastically transformed my perspective on spirituality and led me to become an agnostic. Sincerely believing in God by faith never worked out for me, nor did years of dedicated and earnest prayer to him. So I no longer accept the existence of any deity based on faith. Having said that, I'm not willing to entirely dismiss the existence of any deities because I believe in supernatural phenomena, and the existence of deities could be a possibility in this regard.

Things are getting worse in the world, not better EVEN THOUGH "science" has invented vaccines, etc, invented cars, have oil spills killing ocean life, etc. things like that. I TAKE VACCINES when I decide. And often I do. But this does not negate faith in the unseen. And if someone wants to argue that things are getting better in the world, despite what is apparent, best to them. Enjoy. I have come to realize by reading and understanding better the Bible that God is watching and interacting with mankind. I'm not here to argue about immediate response or any response. It took time and in my life, despite poor health, things are getting better. But that does not put aside what the future ON EARTH is going to bring. (Matthew 24:14)

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If science comes up with naturalistic answers for the origins of life and the universe how would it be anything other than speculation of what happened.

Science is more than speculation. When the science gets man to the moon and back or conquers polio, it has been confirmed as correct.

What's pure speculation are myths and unfalsifiable god claims.

The answers should be "If a creator/ God did not do it, then we think it might have happened this way".

We don't say that maybe biblical creationism is accurate, but if a god didn't create the kinds, maybe they evolved. We say that they evolved, and if there's a god, that how it did it.

What you probably mean is that your interpretation of what the Bible means has been debunked.

Yes, and all but biblical literalists agree that those myths have been falsified, although they eschew language like debunked, refuted, and error. They like to say allegory and metaphor, but myth is neither as I explained (you didn't comment): "Incidentally, a myth is not an allegory or metaphor. The latter are specific literary forms which myth doesn't meet. They include substituting symbols for known people, objects, and events. Myths don't. They attempt to explain the unknown with free speculation." When you ignore comments like that, I assume that you either couldn't understand them, never looked at the words, or felt that you couldn't offer a counterargument.

But that is OK. Your interpretation is wrong.

No, yours is, but that's understandable. You have chosen to believe falsehoods and feel the need to reconcile them with the science, which makes you a cut above the literalist who keeps insisting that there were six days of creation, a first two human beings created de novo, and a global flood. You're willing to agree that that didn't happen, that when the book says day, it meant some metaphorical use of the word rather than a literal day, which is clearly incorrect. The word was meant as a 24-hour period. The days of creation contain mornings and evenings unlike metaphorical days ("In my father's day, "). Also, the Hebrews clearly understood the seventh day to be a literal day that their god commanded them to emulate spending at rest.

Design is evidence of life, the life of a designer.

What design? Are you referring to the patterns in nature, like six-sided snowflakes, double helices, and spiral galaxies? You're playing a creationist word game wherein one tries to bootstrap his deity in using words like design for pattern and creation for nature. Design and creation imply a conscious designer and creator, but calling them patterns and nature doesn't invoke an intelligent agent. We don't think of a patterner or naturer when we see those words, so apologists prefer to use the tendentious ones.

a designer/creator is not postulated in science

By that, I presume that you mean a conscious agent responsible for the regular patterns found examining nature. No such thing is needed to account for any observation to date, so none is postulated.

PLUS there is evidence in human experience for God and spirits.

I don't consider these subjective reports interpreting experience as evidence of anything other than that people can have such experiences, but not evidence that understanding them as sensing something other than one's own mind is correct. I had experiences when I was a Christian that I routinely understood as the Holy Spirit communicating with me. Later, new evidence revealed to me that it was not that. If you're interested, I describe that here.

I have evidence for the undetectable but no evidence for the non existent.

They are indistinguishable. We decide that something exists when it is detected.

We can't believe all the conclusions people come to about their experiences and what they are told they are caused by. That doe not mean that they do not have those experiences.

Exactly. We shouldn't believe them just because they report experiencing a spiritual realm or a deity.

It is just a furphy to think that there is no God just because no God can be found in this universe.

There you go again with the unbelief/disbelief conflation. Will you NEVER grasp that that is NOT the claim of the agnostc atheist?

You have also been deceived if you think that science knows that the universe could assemble itself.

No, you've been deceived to think that we don't know how that happened. Yes, there are still unanswered questions, such as how and when the earliest stars and galaxies formed, but the order and timing of most of that story is understood and well established.

I wonder why you think you're qualified to make the comment you did. I'm pretty sure that you know very little of what the science explains and the evidence it offers in support of those claims. That history is known in tremendous detail. Do you understand this graphic?

Personally I don't see that time goes back to infinity. Infinite time into the past means that we cannot be here yet.

You're only looking at part of the problem. The alternative is equally counterintuitive - that time and existence had a beginning. As I see it, whatever the original substance of reality was, it either never began to exist or came into being uncaused from nothing. Unless you can think of another possibility, then whatever is the case, it seems that it must be one of these. Either by itself sounds ridiculous and fit to dismiss out of hand as you have done with one of them. But eliminating either without a sound argument generates a non sequitur, an unjustified leap of faith.

I believe in the God who works in history and knew and told us of the Jews going back to the land they were given and being surrounded by enemies etc etc.

That became a self-fulfilling prophecy when, in the 20th century, people made it happen knowing what was redicted.

That is a silly thing to say when you also say that science does not prove anything.

What I said is that empiricism is the only path to knowledge. Did you want to disagree? Maybe you don't mean what I do with the word knowledge.

I have experienced the swarming as if it is a team effort to overwhelm.

That's all you. You frame discussion as attack. You could learn a thing or two from those who you demean - from their demeanor. Nobody describes the faithful in such language, and we aren't offended by their beliefs or their disagreement with ours. When they get called out, it's for things like what you're doing here, and I will again now.

I've commented on your dehumanizing language, but as usual, there's no evidence you saw that - no comment on it, and no change in behavior. So, I guess you need to read this again: Using insect language is done specifically to dehumanize. It's what Hitler and now Trump have done with the use of the word vermin.

I've done it myself: "I wonder what insects that were in the shape of human beings and had the gift of language would do that the Republicans wouldn't do - a sort of a men-in-black scenario. What won't a MAGA Republican, which is 90% of them, do because it is immoral or un-American to him?"

And, I've referred to the Trump offspring as his larvae. My purpose in both cases was to demean these people and express moral outrage and contempt for who and what they are. How about you now?

There are many things we can study which want to tell us the Bible is untrue. It certainly takes faith to believe and keep believing.

You say that like it's a good thing. If something can only be believed by faith, it shouldn't be believed.