• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Atheist; wish I could believe

Erebus

Well-Known Member
- any thoughts from the theist side of the barricade?

To my mind, arguing whether or not deities can actually be said to exist is a largely pointless exercise. I place much more importance on whether a person finds the concept of a deity useful or not. Since you've indicated belief is something you want, I'd look for a god that better suits your personality. Not all gods need to be a supernatural creator.

You mentioned Pantheism. Do you feel a sense of awe when you look at the night sky? Does the thought of the vastness of the universe make you a bit dizzy with wonder? If so then to my mind you already have your god, you've just yet to apply the label to it.
If not Pantheism, why not the sun instead? Perhaps the moon? The big bang? How about the concept of life and death itself? Any and all of these can be deified if you so choose. Remember that not everybody has the right mindset for a supernatural deity, but that shouldn't be a barrier to theism if that's what you truly want.
 

lostwanderingsoul

Well-Known Member
the Bible says that no one can come to Jesus unless the Father calls him so all these people who have little or no religion are the ones God has rejected
 

pacifica

Member
First of all, being a rebellious teenager and challenging or mocking the establishment is hardly uncommon. Everyone wishes to draw attention to themselves and the girls love the rebel. So standing up to God and the adults who insist upon it has its benefits. Although I doubt any 16 year old could make a cogent argument that could stand the test of a calm voice from the other side.

Hah, I hardly was the teen boy looking for girl's appreciation you speak of, given that I'm a hetero girl :DI take exception to your claim that sixteen year olds are incapable of cogent arguments on faith and belief. This sounds funny because I was a teen myself not long ago, but: I've known lots of teens, in person and online, more than capable of convincingly explaining their dis-belief and leading their interlocutor at an impasse. I'm not the brightest bulb ever and I managed to do it often at the religious education classes in middle school and high school until I opted out of them. Not all voices from the other side, calm or otherwise, are intellectually qualified to defend the truth of theism. Also, I think it's really easy as an atheist to present your reasons - nonbelievers have an almost unfair advantage when it comes to their argument. It's way harder to argue for the actual existance of (a) God or a metaphysical realm without sliding into irrational or emotional propositions at some point (which I've since then come to appreciate in a new way, but the point still stands).

The question I often have for an atheist who says there is no evidence for God is “What would it take for you to concede evidence for the supernatural?” I find a number of instances where empirical evidence is presented, which at a minimum has not logical or probable natural explanation, and it all to often is dismissed or dismissed with “we just have not uncovered the answers to everything yet.”
Well, maybe. But if God were real and he did create some marvel to reassure us, I doubt they will ever find that reason that statue of Mary weeps tears of blood.

I do hear what you're saying.
 
Last edited:

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
I do. However in recent months I've accidentally stumbled upon a para-normal experience that has really intrigued and puzzled me and kind of opened me to the idea that maybe, just maybe, there is something more complex going on.
As one interested in serious study of so-called paranormal phenomena, I don't restrict my considerations to just experiences I personally have had. I consider the full body of serious study of these phenomena (the experiences of others). I study these things from all materialistic and super-materialistic sides and arguments. I believe that things definitely do occur that are antithetical to the materialist worldview. We live in a strange universe. I found these phenomena were just part and parcel of a more complex worldview of ancient Indian wisdom traditions. To my thinking the evidence from the paranormal dovetails nicely with a wisdom tradition initially foreign to me (raised Catholic turned atheist for a time).

To be honest I think that a deep enquire into this kind of experiences would be the only way for me to go honestly past the materialistic mindset.
Right, for me the materialistic viewpoint would rule if I was not convinced that things antithetical to the materialist worldview actually do occur.
As you said, the 'Does God exist?' rumination is noble but insoluble.
And actually I think the more central question to me is 'does our conscious survive death?'. My study of the paranormal and the spiritual teachers I have come to respect most, the answer for me is 'Yes'. If my conclusion was 'No', why would I even care if there was God that had no interaction with me. His existence or non-existence would be moot to me.

(fyi; I am a pantheist (non-dualism=God and creation are not-two)
 

pacifica

Member
If not Pantheism, why not the sun instead?

Thank you for your thoughts. This part here reminded me of an encounter I had some years ago. Middle of Sicily, sun-scorched town, pop. 680, in the middle of a stretch of Mediterranean arid flatland. In the town square around noon I meet this very old man relaxing outside a bar, only person aroud apart from the bar man inside. Me and my father got to talking with the guy and at some point the church bell tolled. We listened in silence until it stopped and then he said "I don't believe in that." Then he pointed at the sun, "That's what I believe in." And he wasn't talking figuratively; he really did, he did actually believe that the only God worth worshipping was the Sun because the Sun and its rays were everywhere, sustaining life and making it thrive and those were God's characteristics and roles, as far as he was concerned. It was pretty interesting to hear this old man in the middle of ultra-Catholic nowhere expousing his own personal and peculiar theology.

And actually I think the more central question to me is 'does our conscious survive death?'. My study of the paranormal and the spiritual teachers I have come to respect most, the answer for me is 'Yes'. If my conclusion was 'No', why would I even care if there was God that had no interaction with me. His existence or non-existence would be moot to me.

(fyi; I am a pantheist (non-dualism=God and creation are not-two)

I'm curious. Are you 'merely' pantheist or are you a Hinduist (apologies if I just said something very ignorant: I know very little about it) or Buddhist or other religion alongside your pantheist beliefs? Why do you think that Eastern thought better explains a more complex understanding of the universe instead of say, the Abrahamic religions?
 

Underhill

Well-Known Member
Hello! First post here. I am a woman, early twenties, atheist. It's been some time now, a couple of years maybe, that I've found myself in a weird situation that looks like it's shared by a number of people.

I was raised culturally Catholic by a vaguely observant mother and a non-observant, completely disinterested
father. I remember being bored and skeptic during religion class in elementary school already (also cracking
blasphemous jokes about The Jesus, which landed me in trouble in various occasions) and when I was about 11 I just declared I didn't believe in any of that stuff and that I was an atheist. My parents basically shrugged. I spent the following few years being the obnoxious atheist kid trying to 'convert' people to the brave new godless world I had discovered for myself. When I got to about 17 I had gotten all of the militant attitude out of my system and I just kept quiet about my lack of belief. It also became dramatically easier when everybody around me declared their atheism too. I'm not lying when I say that about eighty percent of people in my social circles are atheists or pretty hard agnostics (although ours is a historically deeply Catholic European country).

I've always been deeply interested about religion. At first in a combative, know-your-enemy way when I was twelve or thirteen, and later on from philosophical, historical, anthropological standpoints. It's been a couple of years now that I've found myself living the reluctant atheist paradox.

I believe that atheism has been wildly over-rated, as far as human happiness goes. I would gladly swap my sadly unwavering belief in science and rationality and Russell's teapot for the warm comfort of believing in some kind of higher power permeating all matter visible and invisible. I wish there was a Creator, and that I could believe in it, and pay tribute to it; but what I feel is also not about a personal God per se, if that makes any sense. I could be content, I think, even believing in a Spinozian God, the pantheist type. I feel actual longing for the ritualistic aspect of religion, the act of elevating every day to the divine through rites, and coming together with other people, sharing a community, a deeply felt idea, instead of just counting 'paper-thin' days down till the end, as a lone atom without any bonds to a higher, older, holier kind of community that predates my birth and will exist after me. I guess it's not even about the afterlife. I'm not afraid of death, the nothingness (although I do feel a bitter pang when I consider the annihilation without chance of return or reunion of everyone I love). I guess I just dearly wish there was more to this physical realm: sense, truth, some kind of reason for it all, or purpose, something under, between, the matter, a coherent principle; that I could believe in the existance of this principle, and that I could truthfully and joyfully pay my tributes to it.

There is also another level to my longing, in the sense that religion is just so damn fascinating and bizarre and beautiful. I can't help but be fascinated by the religious (and observant) mindset and envious, in some ways, of the richness, depths and beauty of its best manifestations (although that doesn't stop me from being annoyed and horrified by the horrors and backwardness inflicted on the rest of humankind by the fundamentalists).

The funny thing is that I think the turning point for me was watching a pretty popular movie, The Believer, the one with Ryan Gosling as a Nazi self-hating Jew. There's that part towards the end where Gosling's girlfriend, who is like the daughter of bonafide fascists, and who is sliding into Judaism for no logical reason other than an unexplicable urge, says something like 'What if surrendering to God is the best feeling we could ever have'. What if it is?

Every time I pass in front of the local synagogue [to be clear: there is no link between the movie's subject and my interest in Judaism] I get this nonsensical desire to just go inside and try with all my might to believe, to feel it, to lose myself into it. Or just go to a service and bask in the atmosphere. And then I remember I am an atheist, and feel like a weirdo and a fraud.

I am aware this is completely bizarre but some long Google searches have told me it's not really unheard of, so... I guess the questions are:

- am I, and the people who think like me, total loonies?
- does this make any sense to any of you? I guess this one is a question especially for the atheists who may be reading
- any thoughts from the theist side of the barricade?
- is this all a cry from a lost soul in the liquid world described by Zygmunt Bauman?

I was raised in a very christian home.

The only thing I miss is the sense of community that comes with church. We have tried to accomplish a similar thing in our atheist group with some success. But it isn't quite the same.
 

raph

Member
Maybe you should Start believing in God. Your current belief is unproven. Its not like something rational is stopping you from changing your unproven belief into another unproven belief (that you seem to prefer)

Whats stopping you are your unproven beliefs about atheism that you consider real. It is not real. There is no proof for it, like for gravity. Ask yourself, what you believe about atheism and see if it is real. You will find out that you dont know that God does not exist, you just believe it.

Theism is also not very real because it cant be proven. But my point is, that atheism and theism are on the same level. So there is no rational reason not to choose the belief that you like.
 

pacifica

Member
I was raised in a very christian home.

The only thing I miss is the sense of community that comes with church. We have tried to accomplish a similar thing in our atheist group with some success. But it isn't quite the same.

Why do you think it's not quite the same? I believe that humans have a psychological need for ritual/ceremony and of course community, but when I think about humanistic or atheist groups I feel like something is fundamentally amiss or wrong. Like, I get naming ceremonies instead of christenings or baptisms, but I just don't know what to think about 'atheist congregations' meeting regularly and kind of aping the real religious stuff.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
I'm curious. Are you 'merely' pantheist or are you a Hinduist (apologies if I just said something very ignorant: I know very little about it) or Buddhist or other religion alongside your pantheist beliefs?
I am Advaita which basically means non-dual in Sanskrit (God and creation are not-two). This viewpoint is basically associated with the Hindu tradition. The full Hindu tradition is vast and encompassing but I am concerned with just the niches that interest me. I prefer being more of a loaner in spiritual practice and I am the only Hindu I know personally.

Why do you think that Eastern thought better explains a more complex understanding of the universe instead of say, the Abrahamic religions?
Well, to me the Abrahamic religions have no clear understanding of the things beyond the physical world. Heaven? Hell? Reincarnation? Astral planes? What is a soul?, etc.. As these things are a keen interest of mine I believe certain eastern traditions better understand the super-physical and dovetail nicely with the real-world (paranormal) things I have studied. Plus several of the eastern teachers I have studied impressed me profoundly with their depth of understanding of the ultimate nature of reality. All said, I am still pro-Abrahamic religions that are not fundamentalist/fanatical.
 

thau

Well-Known Member
Hah, I hardly was the teen boy looking for girl's appreciation you speak of, given that I'm a hetero girl :DI take exception to your claim that sixteen year olds are incapable of cogent arguments on faith and belief. This sounds funny because I was a teen myself not long ago, but: I've known lots of teens, in person and online, more than capable of convincingly explaining their dis-belief and leading their interlocutor at an impasse. I'm not the brightest bulb ever and I managed to do it often at the religious education classes in middle school and high school until I opted out of them. Not all voices from the other side, calm or otherwise, are intellectually qualified to defend the truth of theism. Also, I think it's really easy as an atheist to present your reasons - nonbelievers have an almost unfair advantage when it comes to their argument. It's way harder to argue for the actual existance of (a) God or a metaphysical realm without sliding into irrational or emotional propositions at some point (which I've since then come to appreciate in a new way, but the point still stands).
I do hear what you're saying.

Well your subject material here is vast where many varied debates could arise.

But I would like to take just one. Richard Dawkins, surely as intelligent in his reasoning as some cocksure 16 year old boy or girl says the following in his book The Blind Watch Maker --- "Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a master watchmaker, impress us with the illusion of design and planning.”

“The illusion of design.” --- very convincing. Not really. That is scientific or logical? To expect some pile of rocks to arrange molecules to create DNA, a hyper complex life giving substance? And how many times is this performed by mindless energy in order to create a living cell? Then what? Then they go through some fantastic gymnastics to create mircro-organisms, and then far more complex plants and animals. And then these clueless beings decide it is time to create males and females, and organs and eyeballs all without any “purpose in view” according to Richard? And then some fish decides it is time to take a walk on the beach and become a walking air breathing instrument. And the lizards now want to grow feathers and wings so they can fly? This is not “survival of the fittest” this is inexplicable amazing supernatural feats of genius.

No, I can never accept evolution without an intelligent designer (read: God). It is void of logic and reason.

Beyond that, if godless evolution ever occurred the planet would be littered with billions of failed experiments in the fossil record and even crazy mutations all over the globe walking around today. But that is not what we have. We have separate species, fully formed, with nary one animal in ten billion showing the slightest inclination to develop into something far more creative than what it currently is. None of this adds up (for me) if mindless, non-ID evolution were the case.
 

dust1n

Zindīq
Beyond that, if godless evolution ever occurred the planet would be littered with billions of failed experiments in the fossil record and even crazy mutations all over the globe walking around today.

The fossil record is filled with failed experiments. When's the last time you've seen a dinosaur around here?

Similarly, there are crazy mutations all over the globe, but since the really, really crazy ones mutations tend to either kill you or prevent anyone from having children with you, it wouldn't make any sense to expect those sorts of mutations to be walking around.
 

thau

Well-Known Member
The fossil record is filled with failed experiments. When's the last time you've seen a dinosaur around here?

Similarly, there are crazy mutations all over the globe, but since the really, really crazy ones mutations tend to either kill you or prevent anyone from having children with you, it wouldn't make any sense to expect those sorts of mutations to be walking around.

We disagree. When I say failed experiments I am saying if natural selection is as mindless and without purpose as Richard Dawkins says, then there should have been billions of failed attempts to make eye balls, livers, lungs, wings, feathers, spleens, etc., etc., etc to the trillionth power. This is not demonstrated anywhere on that scale. A rare mutation does not prove anything close to what I am saying.

There is not even a fossil record showing a necessary progression of transitional fossils to get from various vertebrates to the next highest one. How many lizards should have been "in transition" to become flying birds? And yet all we see in text books is that one fabled road runner, archaeopteryx making his case. The fossil record is not your friend, imo.

Everything should be in transition, but it appears everything has totally stopped since man has been around to observe. No, I cannot in any way accept what so many want to believe. The dinosaur was not a failed experiment, it was a fully formed species like anything else. Extinction is not what I am talking about. I am asking how any mindless matter could decide "today is a good day to start growing a hyper-complex pancreas" when once there was none?
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Hello! First post here. I am a woman, early twenties, atheist. It's been some time now, a couple of years maybe, that I've found myself in a weird situation that looks like it's shared by a number of people.

I was raised culturally Catholic by a vaguely observant mother and a non-observant, completely disinterested
father. I remember being bored and skeptic during religion class in elementary school already (also cracking
blasphemous jokes about The Jesus, which landed me in trouble in various occasions) and when I was about 11 I just declared I didn't believe in any of that stuff and that I was an atheist. My parents basically shrugged. I spent the following few years being the obnoxious atheist kid trying to 'convert' people to the brave new godless world I had discovered for myself. When I got to about 17 I had gotten all of the militant attitude out of my system and I just kept quiet about my lack of belief. It also became dramatically easier when everybody around me declared their atheism too. I'm not lying when I say that about eighty percent of people in my social circles are atheists or pretty hard agnostics (although ours is a historically deeply Catholic European country).

I've always been deeply interested about religion. At first in a combative, know-your-enemy way when I was twelve or thirteen, and later on from philosophical, historical, anthropological standpoints. It's been a couple of years now that I've found myself living the reluctant atheist paradox.

I believe that atheism has been wildly over-rated, as far as human happiness goes. I would gladly swap my sadly unwavering belief in science and rationality and Russell's teapot for the warm comfort of believing in some kind of higher power permeating all matter visible and invisible. I wish there was a Creator, and that I could believe in it, and pay tribute to it; but what I feel is also not about a personal God per se, if that makes any sense. I could be content, I think, even believing in a Spinozian God, the pantheist type. I feel actual longing for the ritualistic aspect of religion, the act of elevating every day to the divine through rites, and coming together with other people, sharing a community, a deeply felt idea, instead of just counting 'paper-thin' days down till the end, as a lone atom without any bonds to a higher, older, holier kind of community that predates my birth and will exist after me. I guess it's not even about the afterlife. I'm not afraid of death, the nothingness (although I do feel a bitter pang when I consider the annihilation without chance of return or reunion of everyone I love). I guess I just dearly wish there was more to this physical realm: sense, truth, some kind of reason for it all, or purpose, something under, between, the matter, a coherent principle; that I could believe in the existance of this principle, and that I could truthfully and joyfully pay my tributes to it.

There is also another level to my longing, in the sense that religion is just so damn fascinating and bizarre and beautiful. I can't help but be fascinated by the religious (and observant) mindset and envious, in some ways, of the richness, depths and beauty of its best manifestations (although that doesn't stop me from being annoyed and horrified by the horrors and backwardness inflicted on the rest of humankind by the fundamentalists).

The funny thing is that I think the turning point for me was watching a pretty popular movie, The Believer, the one with Ryan Gosling as a Nazi self-hating Jew. There's that part towards the end where Gosling's girlfriend, who is like the daughter of bonafide fascists, and who is sliding into Judaism for no logical reason other than an unexplicable urge, says something like 'What if surrendering to God is the best feeling we could ever have'. What if it is?

Every time I pass in front of the local synagogue [to be clear: there is no link between the movie's subject and my interest in Judaism] I get this nonsensical desire to just go inside and try with all my might to believe, to feel it, to lose myself into it. Or just go to a service and bask in the atmosphere. And then I remember I am an atheist, and feel like a weirdo and a fraud.

I am aware this is completely bizarre but some long Google searches have told me it's not really unheard of, so... I guess the questions are:

- am I, and the people who think like me, total loonies?
- does this make any sense to any of you? I guess this one is a question especially for the atheists who may be reading
- any thoughts from the theist side of the barricade?
- is this all a cry from a lost soul in the liquid world described by Zygmunt Bauman?
Sounds like the grass just appears greener to you.
 

pacifica

Member
“The illusion of design.” --- very convincing. Not really. That is scientific or logical? To expect some pile of rocks to arrange molecules to create DNA, a hyper complex life giving substance? And how many times is this performed by mindless energy in order to create a living cell? Then what? Then they go through some fantastic gymnastics to create mircro-organisms, and then far more complex plants and animals. And then these clueless beings decide it is time to create males and females, and organs and eyeballs all without any “purpose in view” according to Richard? And then some fish decides it is time to take a walk on the beach and become a walking air breathing instrument. And the lizards now want to grow feathers and wings so they can fly? This is not “survival of the fittest” this is inexplicable amazing supernatural feats of genius.

No, I can never accept evolution without an intelligent designer (read: God). It is void of logic and reason.

Beyond that, if godless evolution ever occurred the planet would be littered with billions of failed experiments in the fossil record and even crazy mutations all over the globe walking around today. But that is not what we have. We have separate species, fully formed, with nary one animal in ten billion showing the slightest inclination to develop into something far more creative than what it currently is. None of this adds up (for me) if mindless, non-ID evolution were the case.

Well frankly the Intelligent Design argument won't shut up any 16 years old atheist smartass with some basic scientific knowledge. What your whole argument boils down to is the old 'It is just too improbable that all of this amazing complexity developed on its own; so, it must have been designed".

The fact is that evolution is not about one big improbable event happening on a single occasion (say, sprouting fully formed wings) but about millions of minuscule improbabilities adding up over the course of million of years. It's not so unfeasible to think that from humble beginnings, the prokaryote cell, in 3-4 BILLION years complex life forms have managed to emerge.

It looks to me like you believe that the mutations involved in the evolutionary process are something wildly creative and abrupt. It's not like one day one fish decided it wanted to breathe air and walk nor did a dinosaur hatch and lo and behold it had fully formed wings and started flying. I have no idea of the bird evolution timeline but I suspect the whole process took some hundred million years of tiny, tiny steps starting from your standard theropod and eventually resulting in a flight-adapted organism. Same thing for the fish-amphibian transition. The partially or completely unsuccessful products of these processes just disappeared from the gene pool eventually, while yeah, the fittest survived and passed on their genes. And so on and so forth. What you chalk up to "amazing supernatural feats of genius" is easily explainable without mentioning supernatural creators when you just consider the sheer quantity of time available for the process.

I'm no scientist either, but your assumption that the separate species are fully formed today is incorrect. Nature is full of imperfect adaptations (e.g. our eyes) which indicate that evolution is not some clean thing that's come to a halt, but an ongoing messy process of trial and error. Furthermore, you do see crazy mutations every single day in the natural world. But I suspect that the truly crazy ones just don't get passed on because they tend to be maladaptive, while it's the outwardly imperceptible ones that end up adding up and changing the face of a species.

Also, there's LOTS of 'transitional fossils'. Never understood that particular objection. Fossils are so rare that they're never going to map out the whole of animal evolution.

Really, I think ID is the worst way to try and argue for the existance of a Creator. In my opinion, the best way to shut up that pesky 16 yrs old is some subtle philosophy, not a battle of wits about actual science.
 

thau

Well-Known Member
Well frankly the Intelligent Design argument won't shut up any 16 years old atheist smartass with some basic scientific knowledge. What your whole argument boils down to is the old 'It is just too improbable that all of this amazing complexity developed on its own; so, it must have been designed".

The fact is that evolution is not about one big improbable event happening on a single occasion (say, sprouting fully formed wings) but about millions of minuscule improbabilities adding up over the course of million of years. It's not so unfeasible to think that from humble beginnings, the prokaryote cell, in 3-4 BILLION years complex life forms have managed to emerge.

It looks to me like you believe that the mutations involved in the evolutionary process are something wildly creative and abrupt. It's not like one day one fish decided it wanted to breathe air and walk nor did a dinosaur hatch and lo and behold it had fully formed wings and started flying. I have no idea of the bird evolution timeline but I suspect the whole process took some hundred million years of tiny, tiny steps starting from your standard theropod and eventually resulting in a flight-adapted organism. Same thing for the fish-amphibian transition. The partially or completely unsuccessful products of these processes just disappeared from the gene pool eventually, while yeah, the fittest survived and passed on their genes. And so on and so forth. What you chalk up to "amazing supernatural feats of genius" is easily explainable without mentioning supernatural creators when you just consider the sheer quantity of time available for the process.

I'm no scientist either, but your assumption that the separate species are fully formed today is incorrect. Nature is full of imperfect adaptations (e.g. our eyes) which indicate that evolution is not some clean thing that's come to a halt, but an ongoing messy process of trial and error. Furthermore, you do see crazy mutations every single day in the natural world. But I suspect that the truly crazy ones just don't get passed on because they tend to be maladaptive, while it's the outwardly imperceptible ones that end up adding up and changing the face of a species.

Also, there's LOTS of 'transitional fossils'. Never understood that particular objection. Fossils are so rare that they're never going to map out the whole of animal evolution.

Really, I think ID is the worst way to try and argue for the existance of a Creator. In my opinion, the best way to shut up that pesky 16 yrs old is some subtle philosophy, not a battle of wits about actual science.

Fine, we disagree. That may satisfy your curiosity but I find such suggestions to be utterly preposterous. And such enormous “leaps of faith” had to have happened a remarkable trillions of times over to create such complex organs and organism. To think, an unintelligent organism could somehow decide it needed a liver or a spleen when once there was none and then embark on creating such a masterpiece, it defies all logic and scientific observation. The same who will believe such incredible feats would still agree a simple mona lisa painting on a canvas could never have assembled itself in a trillion years without an intelligent designer. They did not have to witness its creation, simple logic and reason demands it be so.

The whole matter is utterly untenable for me. God is the only logical answer, but there surely appears to be a thousand reasons so many do not want to go there, and I really cannot believe it is because no intelligent designer makes more sense to them. I believe there are ulterior motives.

You can take this as an insult if you feel that way but I am just stating the obvious to me when G.K. Chesterton once remarked --- “When man stops believing in God he then does not believe in nothing, he will believe in anything.”
 

dust1n

Zindīq
We disagree. When I say failed experiments I am saying if natural selection is as mindless and without purpose as Richard Dawkins says, then there should have been billions of failed attempts to make eye balls, livers, lungs, wings, feathers, spleens, etc., etc., etc to the trillionth power.

Eye balls, just in humans:

"The genetics of inherited vision disorders — notably retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) — are an area of intense research. Numerous genes responsible for inherited retinopathies have been identified in the past ten years. At the time of writing, there are at least 242 different genetic disorders, with 202 different genes identified according to the Retinal Information Network (RetNet).

Retinal disorders exhibit an astonishing amount of genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity. Mutations in at least 23 different genes cause autosomal dominant RP, with nearly identical symptoms and disease course. The complexity works both ways: mutations in the ABCA4 gene can cause Stargardt’s disease, cone-rod dystrophy, or RP."

http://massgenomics.org/2013/07/genetics-of-blindness.html

Livers:

The two most common inherited liver diseases are hemochromatosis and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.

Hemochromatosis

Hemochromatosis is a disease in which deposits of iron collect in the liver and other organs. The primary form of this disease is one of the most common inherited diseases in the U.S. -- up to one in every 200 people has the disease, many unknowingly. When one family member has this disorder, siblings, parents, and children are also at risk.

A secondary form of hemochromatosis is not genetic and is caused by other diseases, such as thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder that causes anemia.

The iron overload associated with hemochromatosis affects men more often than it does women. Because women lose blood through menstruation, women are unlikely to show signs of iron overload until after menopause. Hemochromatosis is more common in people of Western European descent.

http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com...nherited-metabolic-liver-diseases/Default.htm

Lungs:

Hereditary lung diseases can affect the airways (asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis and primary ciliary dyskinesia), parenchyma (pulmonary fibrosis, Birt Hogg Dube syndrome and tuberous sclerosis) and vasculature (hereditary heamorrhagic telangiectasia) of the lung. Such conditions include simple monogenic disorders such as Kartagener syndrome and α1‐antitrypsin, wherein mutations of critical genes are sufficient to induce well‐defined disease phenotypes.

http://www.els.net/WileyCDA/ElsArticle/refId-a0005517.html

I don't understand what constitutes a failed attempt to you.

Does immediate death and failure to reproduce not count as a failure? Or do you ignore things like Tay-Sachs disease?

"Tay–Sachs disease (also known as GM2 gangliosidosis or hexosaminidase A deficiency) is a rare autosomal recessive genetic disorder. In its most common variant (known as infantile Tay–Sachs disease), it causes a progressive deterioration of nerve cells and of mental and physical abilities that begins around six months of age and usually results in death by the age of four.

Research in the late 20th century demonstrated that Tay–Sachs disease is caused by a genetic mutation in the HEXA gene on (human) chromosome 15. A large number of HEXA mutations have been discovered, and new ones are still being reported. These mutations reach significant frequencies in specific populations. French Canadians of southeastern Quebec have a carrier frequency similar to that seen in Ashkenazi Jews, but carry a different mutation. Cajuns of southern Louisiana carry the same mutation that is seen most commonly in Ashkenazi Jews. HEXA mutations are rare and are most seen in genetically isolated populations. Tay–Sachs can occur from the inheritance of either two similar, or two unrelated, causative mutations in the HEXA gene."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay-sachs_disease

This is not demonstrated anywhere on that scale. A rare mutation does not prove anything close to what I am saying.

Right. And given the fact the overwhelming majority of the species dug out of the fossil record no longer exist for some reason. I guess none of that constitutes as a failure.

There is not even a fossil record showing a necessary progression of transitional fossils to get from various vertebrates to the next highest one. How many lizards should have been "in transition" to become flying birds? And yet all we see in text books is that one fabled road runner, archaeopteryx making his case. The fossil record is not your friend, imo.

Archaeopteryx? From like a hundred and fifty years ago?

"Moreover, fossils of more than twenty species of dinosaur have been collected with preserved feathers. There are even very small dinosaurs, such as Microraptor and Anchiornis, which have long, vaned, arm and leg feathers forming wings. The Jurassic basal avialan Pedopenna also shows these long foot feathers. Witmer (2009) has concluded that this evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that avian evolution went through a four-winged stage.[2]

Fossil evidence also demonstrates that birds and dinosaurs shared features such as hollow, pneumatized bones, gastroliths in the digestive system, nest-building and brooding behaviors. The ground-breaking discovery of fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex soft tissue allowed a molecular comparison of cellular anatomy and protein sequencing of collagen tissue, both of which demonstrated that T. rex and birds are more closely related to each other than either is to Alligator.[3] A second molecular study robustly supported the relationship of birds to dinosaurs, though it did not place birds within Theropoda, as expected. This study utilized eight additional collagen sequences extracted from a femur of Brachylophosaurus canadensis, a hadrosaur.[4] A study comparing embryonic, juvenile and adult archosaur skulls concluded that bird skulls are derived from those of theropod dinosaurs by progenesis, a type of paedomorphic heterochrony, which resulted in retention of juvenile characteristics of their ancestors.[5]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds

Everything should be in transition,

It is. You ever notice how your kids looking slightly different from you, and their kids will look slightly different from them, and their kids will look slightly different from them, all the way to the point until they all stop reproducing?

but it appears everything has totally stopped since man has been around to observe.

It is a common misconception that humans have stopped evolving and current genetic changes are purely genetic drift. Although selection pressure on some traits has decreased in modern human life (for instance, we are no longer evolving to survive smallpox), humans are still undergoing natural selection for many other traits (for instance, menopause is evolving to occur later).[156]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution


No, I cannot in any way accept what so many want to believe.

Guess you'll be limited to accepting what you want to believe.

The dinosaur was not a failed experiment, it was a fully formed species like anything else. Extinction is not what I am talking about.

Than what do you mean by a failed experiment? If I look at the fossil record, how would I know I'm looking at a "failed experiment" as opposed to a "successful" one?

I am asking how any mindless matter could decide "today is a good day to start growing a hyper-complex pancreas" when once there was none?

Right, you are asking a question about how mindless matter could decide one today to start growing into a pancreas, despite the fact that no one who has ever supported evolution has ever made the claim that a lifeless mass could decide one today to start growing into a pancreas. First of all, it's a mindless matter, how could it "decide" anything. Secondly, if you want to know about evolution of the pancreas, just ask.

"The pancreas is an organ containing two distinct populations of cells, the exocrine cells that secrete enzymes into the digestive tract, and the endocrine cells that secrete hormones into the bloodstream. It arises from the endoderm as a dorsal and a ventral bud which fuse together to form the single organ. Mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have a pancreas with similar histology and mode of development, while in some fish, the islet cells are segregated as Brockmann bodies. Invertebrates do not have a pancreas, but comparable endocrine cells may be found in the gut or the brain.

The early pancreatic bud shows uniform expression of the homeobox gene IPF-1 (also known as IDX-1, STF-1 or PDX), which when mutated to inactivity leads to total absence of the organ."

http://dev.biologists.org/content/121/6/1569.full.pdf

But lastly, I'd like to ask how any God could decide "today is a good day to start growing a hyper-complex universe?" How does a god do that I wonder. Does he just clap his hands, and from that all the molecules that can be observed just magically started popping into existence?
 

RedDragon94

Love everyone, meditate often
Every time I pass in front of the local synagogue [to be clear: there is no link between the movie's subject and my interest in Judaism] I get this nonsensical desire to just go inside and try with all my might to believe, to feel it, to lose myself into it. Or just go to a service and bask in the atmosphere. And then I remember I am an atheist, and feel like a weirdo and a fraud.
When you think about it every moment we have is another one we can't get back. Therefore everything we do and everything we say has a certain amount of sacredness to it. The question is, how can I worship to the maximum in this moment? You don't even have to go to church to do that.
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
The fossil record is filled with failed experiments. When's the last time you've seen a dinosaur around here?

Similarly, there are crazy mutations all over the globe, but since the really, really crazy ones mutations tend to either kill you or prevent anyone from having children with you, it wouldn't make any sense to expect those sorts of mutations to be walking around.
sharks?....crocodiles?.....
and have you seen photos of deep sea creatures living way down in the dark?

and to consider what kind of God would create such things......
I can understand the knee jerk to step away and make denial....even the existence of God.

but the creatures of earth are testimony of God's handiwork.
including us.

and what kind of God would create...US?
 

dust1n

Zindīq
sharks?....crocodiles?.....
and have you seen photos of deep sea creatures living way down in the dark?

and to consider what kind of God would create such things......
I can understand the knee jerk to step away and make denial....even the existence of God.

but the creatures of earth are testimony of God's handiwork.
including us.

and what kind of God would create...US?

What are the sharks and crocodiles testimony to?
 
Top