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  1. ajarntham

    Dear Atheists, tell me what you DO believe

    I meant "extraordinary" in that (so far as we can tell) we have a much larger capacity for understanding the world, for having hopes and dreams, for making plans, for experiencing happiness and disappointment, etc., than other animals. And I'd think that any other animal (or alien, or android)...
  2. ajarntham

    Dear Atheists, tell me what you DO believe

    I believe all people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, by virtue of being the extraordinary kind of animal we are.
  3. ajarntham

    The theory of devolution.

    What does it mean to say that animals were "perfect, at the peak of their evolutionary potential"? If a perfect lion, at the peak of its potential to bring down prey, chases after a perfect antelope, at the peak of its potential to escape predators, what happens?
  4. ajarntham

    Isaac Newton's Views on Religion

    The passage quoted in the OP, with Newton warning "the worship which is due to this God we are to give to no other nor to ascribe anything absurd or contradictious to his nature or actions lest we be found to blaspheme him or to deny him or to make a step towards atheism or irreligion," might be...
  5. ajarntham

    Morphine for the Dying

    If this transition exists, it would seem that it's either a supernatural process or a natural one. If it's a supernatural process, I would expect that any supernatural power which was capable of giving you a second life would be capable of letting you overcome whatever effect the drugs had on...
  6. ajarntham

    The Definition of Morality

    I don't think that biology is at a point where it can talk about mechanisms, in the sense of particular mutations to particular genes, in trying to explain the development of mental abilities and tendencies. Maybe it never will be. I'm not sure whether this is entirely on-topic here, but I've...
  7. ajarntham

    The Definition of Morality

    OK, but then the quote does not seem so much a "definition of morality" (i.e., an analysis of what the word/concept "morality" means) as an explanation for how morality, a concept which we already pretty well understand and which needs no definition, came to be such a large part of human culture.
  8. ajarntham

    The Definition of Morality

    Interesting. That's a reductionist perspective, by which I don't mean anything disparaging; a reductionist explanation is often the proper goal of inquiry. For example, take the question, “what is 'heat'?” Well, it turns out that we now have a seemingly unassailable explanation for all phenomena...
  9. ajarntham

    God and the idea that he's timeless

    I haven't heard Craig try to make that case, but if it were agreed (at least for the sake of argument) that "our universe (and any others in the multiverse, if that exists) was generated by an entity which did not have a beginning in time," then to get from there to the God of the Bible, Craig...
  10. ajarntham

    God and the idea that he's timeless

    I think the hypothesis was that each world was created by some entity without a beginning (just as Craig argues), but that such an entity would not need to be godlike, or even sentient.
  11. ajarntham

    God and the idea that he's timeless

    I think some believers would deny that God experiences any sequence of thought. If God is absolutely perfect, and absolutely omniscient, then he would not have to consider between two alternatives (to create, or not to create, to penalize or not to penalize), the way we limited and imperfect...
  12. ajarntham

    What calculations makes you an atheist ?

    Again, "you may receive some benefit from your belief" does not imply "you came to this belief because you calculated the benefit." And it's doubly unconvincing to argue "they believe this because they want the reward" when they might not actually believe it; they might just be saying it...
  13. ajarntham

    What calculations makes you an atheist ?

    "People come to the conclusions they do, because those conclusions seem correct to them; afterwards, they sometimes get psychological rewards, in the form of approval from others, for expressing those conclusions" is not at all the same as, "People come to the conclusions they do, because they...
  14. ajarntham

    What calculations makes you an atheist ?

    What exactly is the "profit" to you here? Psychological? Is that actually the reason you became a believer in a spherical earth? Because you wanted to join the majority? (If there are any flat-earthers reading this thread, they'll be sure to make hay out of this confession that people only...
  15. ajarntham

    What calculations makes you an atheist ?

    Assuming you believe in a spherical earth, what profit have you seen in becoming a believer? (That's not to say I think theism is as absurd as flat-earth belief -- I don't -- but just to show why it isn't always a search for "profit" which guides our conclusions.)
  16. ajarntham

    Is God an Unnecessary Hypothesis?

    Inclined to agree, in large part because when I've heard God offered as an "explanation" for something, it generally does not seem actually to explain it. For example, I've heard people say that atheists can't explain or account for the existence of logic, whereas for believers, there's no...
  17. ajarntham

    Humanist and Personal Consciousness

    Yes, you can. The earliest known arguments for personal immortality -- those by Plato's Socrates, in Phaedo -- don't invoke gods. So the arguments were "atheistic," even if Plato wasn't an atheist, and there would be nothing contradictory in an atheist finding them convincing. A more modern...
  18. ajarntham

    The easiest religion to follow?

    Encylopedia of Ancient History's summary of Taoism: It emphasizes doing what is natural and "going with the flow" in accordance with the Tao (or Dao), a cosmic force which flows through all things and binds and releases them. Hard to beat that for "easiest/simplest."
  19. ajarntham

    Where is the "simple life", where are the "simple cells"?

    You are positing an environment which could not exist, given the initial hypothesis. All organisms would be predators, given that the Stage 1 organism basically consists entirely of organic molecules which would be food for them. How did it manage to escape to an environment where they didn't...
  20. ajarntham

    Where is the "simple life", where are the "simple cells"?

    You've been given reasons; I'm not going to keep repeating them. No, for reasons which have already been given and which I'm not going to keep repeating. There are always differences in conditions, environments, and organisms. You've been given arguments for why those differences could have...
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