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Props, Nerbly.

NerblyBear wrote: God and evolution are diametrically opposed, and I'm not going to play down my decision by giving credence to the god argument.

You've hit the nail on the head there NerblyBear. Science Academics refuse to engage Creationists in the debate because they know doing so would give their argument some credence. The christian 'think tank' which is pushing creationism have a manifesto and I believe getting scientists to debate woth them about it was higher up in the list of priorities than proving the intelligent design theory!

What does FYP mean?

clocker bob wrote:

NerblyBear wrote:The Bible is a myth and has no ground or evidence. Life is not teleological or designed. I just wanted to let everyone know this.

Whew.

Aren't you painting yourself into a corner by stating that 'there is no God'? It's so much easier to say, "I don't know how we got here- maybe there is a God." Leave your options open. We're never going to know, nor are we meant to know. You don't need to reject God to endorse evolution, unless I'm missing something.

noooooo! this has been done 100000 times before. it is much more better to say "there is no god" just as it is much better to say "dragons don't live on the dark side of the moon". the fact that most of the people thinks otherwise means that they are wrong, not that the existance of god or dragons is more plausible.

besides that, saying "there is no god" is ballsy. all the agnostic crap is there only in purpose to hide the fact that agnostics are pussies. "what if god exists and i say he doesn't, he is going to punish me, no? fuck! i better say i just don't know, cause, in fact, i don't know. i don't even know if this world is real" cause hey, do we know that this world is real? no, but why the fuck should we presume it is not? especially if there is no way to find out?
fuck that.
there is no god.


as for comparing god to dragons, it is fine. see the other thread, or earlier in this thread, or yet another thread. or the old thread.
this is puzzling me: why can't i just stop arguing? i bet everyone of us thinks "ohh here we go again" as soon as we see another thread with key words in the title of it (god, science, dawkins, evolution etc). and what do we do? go back to the same discussion within 4 pages, and beat the hell out of it on the next 30. it says something important about our nature, no?



as for god and evolution: this is pointless. we decide in which god we believe in so me might as well come up with a god who is responsible for evolution (roman cahtolics) or with a dude who created earth with dinosaurs bones in it (evangelical nuts). or any variations.

It's very simple. You can say that there is no God. I lean that way. But, because everyone knows that you can't prove a negative, it is both a matter of faith to say "There is a God" and a matter of faith to say "There isn't a God".

Because Science can prove much about evolution and Religion can prove nothing about creation, I reject all teaching of creationism or intelligent design, but I don't accept Science trying to exceed its jurisdiction to state "There is no God".

clocker bob wrote:It's very simple. You can say that there is no God. I lean that way. But, because everyone knows that you can't prove a negative, it is both a matter of faith to say "There is a God" and a matter of faith to say "There isn't a God".

No. The fundamental difference between the two assertions is that, while it is theoretically possible to prove a sentence such as "There isn't a god" to be untrue (namely, by finding this "god"), it is simply impossible to prove the falsehood of a statement like "There is a god." These are fundamentally different, incompatible statements.

As Steve pointed out before, the expression "There is no god" is an expression of confidence, while the expression "There is a god" is an expression of faith.

There you be, Karl 101.

sunlore wrote:
The fundamental difference between the two assertions is that, while it is theoretically possible to prove a sentence such as "There isn't a god" to be untrue (namely, by finding this "god"), it is simply impossible to prove the falsehood of a statement like "There is a god."

But the appearance of god will prove both the first assertion untrue, and prove the second assertion true. Here is the thing, though: There can be no confirmed existence of God ( because if a supreme being reveals himself to humans, he could be Satan, he could be an agent of God, he could be some other imposter ), and there can be no confirmed absence of God.

God is a product of human imagination, but that fact does not rule out the possibility that we humans have conceptualized a real entity. Any movement to stop imagining a God has no effect upon the actual likelihood that there is a God.

The most accurately worded position to hold is mine, and that is to say, "I do not know if there is a God". To claim nothing about the existence ( or absence ) of God means that I will always be right.

clocker bob wrote:

sunlore wrote:
The fundamental difference between the two assertions is that, while it is theoretically possible to prove a sentence such as "There isn't a god" to be untrue (namely, by finding this "god"), it is simply impossible to prove the falsehood of a statement like "There is a god."

But the appearance of god will prove both the first assertion untrue, and prove the second assertion true. Here is the thing, though: There can be no confirmed existence of God ( because if a supreme being reveals himself to humans, he could be Satan, he could be an agent of God, he could be some other imposter ), and there can be no confirmed absence of God.

God is a product of human imagination, but that fact does not rule out the possibility that we humans have conceptualized a real entity. Any movement to stop imagining a God has no effect upon the actual likelihood that there is a God.

The most accurately worded position to hold is mine, and that is to say, "I do not know if there is a God". To claim nothing about the existence ( or absence ) of God means that I will always be right.

do you apply this reasoning to every product of human imagination?

sunlore wrote:As Steve pointed out before, the expression "There is no god" is an expression of confidence, while the expression "There is a god" is an expression of faith.

Since when do atheists hold the patents on the definitions of 'confidence' and 'faith'? Both expressions are expressions of faith. They are pure opinion.

# Atheists are extremely self-aggrandizing people. They are less motivated by a genuine reverence for science ( if they were, they wouldn't mischaracterize illogical statements like "There is no god" as scientifically provable in our earthly realm ) than they are motivated by a contempt for religion, and they feel like they can make themselves appear superior by making religiously-oriented people appear inferior.

#God followers are extremely self-aggrandizing people. They are less motivated by a genuine distrust for science than they are enthusiastic about the license to spout unverifiable bullshit that is granted by membership in a group-think mystical cult.

Religions are sanctuaries for intellectually lazy bullshit artists, because the power of the group shields the logical failures of the individuals in the group, and severe religious infection results in the kind of sneering delusions of a Matthew or a George Bush, where belief in a supreme being completely short-circuits the moral compass, and a state of permissiveness to act and speak without a conscience results, because only the imaginary higher power ( invented by man ) controls the conscience, and what weak human can resist the temptation to stamp "Approved By God" on their every deranged outburst?

Both poles in this argument are crowded with petty and mean-spirited people. I don't have any real problem with Gramsci, but if being an atheist means that I have to wage an endless vendetta against people of faith, I want no part of it.

This discussion is full of arrogance and undeserved moral certainty. The logical position for all humans is to say that "I don't know if there is a God", because such a position acknowledges our inability to understand God or the origins of life. After a short time, any energy spent debating the existence of God is useless, because the evidence pro or con runs out very quickly.

clocker bob wrote:It's very simple. You can say that there is no God. I lean that way. But, because everyone knows that you can't prove a negative, it is both a matter of faith to say "There is a God" and a matter of faith to say "There isn't a God".

There isn't a tiger in my kitchen. I say that because it's ridiculously improbable and because I was in there five minutes ago and saw no striped mammals of the felidae family.

However, one could have walked in there just after I left.

So can I never honestly say that there isn't a tiger in my kitchen, unless I'm in there myself? You're arguing about language. To say you know something isn't true, in almost any circumstance, is simply a shortcut to say it's highly, ridiculously, insanely, alarmingly, shockingly, preposterously, undeniably improbable.

Move on.

emmanuelle cunt wrote:
do you apply this reasoning to every product of human imagination?

It's all contingent upon the available evidence. That determines how much imagination will need to be employed. To imagine God extends our imaginations beyond their limits, as does imagining any other explanation for the origins of the world.

Atheists are right to say that imagining God is pointless, but they are wrong to say that imagining God is an error.