Atheism is a religion. Atheists act like Dracula confronting a cross when faced with the fact that their beliefs rely solely on faith. They hate the word faith, even though it’s all they’ve got. They try to make the claim that their religion is based on science, although actual science doesn’t support their claims any more than science can prove the existence of God. When they are called out for having faith, they’ll say something like, “An absence of belief isn’t faith,” yet their claim of an absence of a belief is a lie.
Atheists most definitely have beliefs, such as life starting somehow out of no life. Basically there were rocks, then all of a sudden a single cell organism came to life out of nowhere. This is called abiogenesis. A spontaneous generation of life where there was none. They use fancy words, like “primordial soup,” yet have no scientific evidence that any such soup ever existed and have no idea what it would be composed of if it did. They try to steer the conversation away from abiogenesis, to evolution. They can’t stand the fact that their belief in abiogenesis is rooted entirely in faith. There isn’t the tiniest shred of evidence that abiogenesis ever occurred and even if it had, there could be no scientific way to prove that God wasn’t behind it. Some atheists, such as Richard Dawkins have made the foolhardy mistake of trying to avoid the topic of abiogenesis by making the claim that perhaps aliens seeded life on Earth. Fantastic! So how did abiogenesis create the aliens? It must be noted that a single cell is millions of times more complex than anything we have ever created as mankind. It would be far more likely for a Buick to appear on Mars than for a living cell to have suddenly been constructed out of primordial soup.
Afraid to even debate abiogenesis, atheists often try to steer a discussion into evolution, because many scientists agree that evolution has existed. The fossil record tends to show a progression of species, however the sciences of paleontology and geology are far from perfect. There are two types of evolution, micro and macro. Micro evolution can be seen. We breed different types of dogs. They’re still dogs, though. Macro evolution, would give us something other than a dog when breeding dogs, maybe a bear. Macro evolution has no proven evidence thus far. The fossil record fails to show any true evolution from one kind of animal to another. This isn’t to say that it couldn’t have happened. Christianity in particular wouldn’t be threatened if macro evolution were a proven fact. It’s a moot point. Christians would not mind seeing the evidence. Atheists on the other hand have firmly held beliefs in macro evolution with very poor evidence to go on. That’s called faith.
One other problem with the fossil record is that it is based on a geological assumption made by Nicolas Steno in 1669, which is that sedimentary layers must be older the further down you go. It’s a logical assumption to make, but an assumption all the same and it wasn’t until the past few decades that actual experimentation has been performed to study how layers are deposited. Oddly enough, in flood situations all of the layers are laid simultaneously. You can see this explained very well here, but be prepared for a somewhat dry video. Flood Geology and Stratification Experiments. Geology is still taught in colleges based on Steno’s assumptions.
Regardless of what is ever proven scientifically in the fossil record about evolution, it remains moot. A God who is powerful enough to create an entire universe and a planet teaming with life could have easily developed evolution as well. Evolution could never prove or disprove the existence of God. Atheists turn to this topic merely to try to claim that they have science on their side.
One thing that science has always shown to be true is that there can never be an effect without a cause. Atheists have a lot of faith in the Big Bang occurring without a cause. Scientists and mathematicians have worked long and hard to determine the nature of the universe before the Big Bang and the consensus is that there was nothing. It’s hard to imaging nothing. Nothing means no mass, no energy, no space and no time. We are expected to believe, as atheists do with much faith, that in total nothingness, without any time, that all of a sudden nothing exploded into a Big Bang and produced everything, including time. It’s very important to grasp the absence of time before the Big Bang. Without time, there could be no before or after. There were no ticks or tocks. It would be impossible for there to be an “all of a sudden.” Without a tick and a tock there can be no advancement from nothing to Bang! The lack of time would prevent any change whatsoever. This means that without question, the Big Bang was an effect without a cause. Or was it? If a Creator is eternal and lives without the limitations of space and time that we are accustomed to, perhaps He was the cause.
One simplistic way to think of it is to compare the Big Bang, Creation, and even Evolution to a video game like The Sims. If the game was far more advanced and the characters actually had consciousness, you as the player at the computer could pause the game. Then you could resume the game. The characters in the game would never notice the pause. Time for them is determined by when the player decides to allow the game to run. The characters in the game would find it very hard to contemplate your ability as the player to simply stop time in their world while you get up to grab a beer. It would probably never occur to them that you could also boot up the game on a different computer at the same time and instantly create an entirely new Sims universe that has a beginning, that you caused by booting it up, but the cause of which would not be discernible by characters in that game. There are actual scientific theories that propose that our universe is nothing more than a very advanced computer simulation and that we aren’t very far from having the technology to do something similar ourselves if we had almost unlimited resources such as RAM, and hard drive space. The amount of those which would be required are astronomical.
So, what we know about atheists is that they claim that science is on their side, which it is not and that their beliefs in the origins of the Universe and Life are completely based on faith. They will never admit this faith though, but it’s obvious, so their denials are laughable. Those of us with religious convictions, such as Christians admit our faith. We don’t try to claim that we can prove what we can’t. At least we aren’t disingenuous about having faith. Atheists are liars, because they deny the faith which makes up their core beliefs. At least agnostics aren’t liars. They admit they don’t know anything. Remember all of this next time a rabid atheist tries to evangelize. They evangelize a lot!
AMP (Anna Maria Perez)
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Flat Out Unconstitutional 
Logically speaking, I would say the same thing happened on other planets. Well, at least we can say what ‘Did not’ happen… Logic, Common sense, and reason has that part covered. But there is evidence and proof to say what ‘could have happened’
Makes sense?
Good day!
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[…] I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist! […]
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So since you asked me to debunk you. I did. Here is the debunk. Good luck with your 2nd hand arguments. https://cthulhusbf.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/athiesm-is-a-religion-says-this-one-person/
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ROFL! You said abiogenesis disproves an Abrahamic God. That alone negates anything you have to say, since an unproven myth can’t debunk anything.
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Funny, if you read. I said if it is proven. Never stated anything about it being proven. It has just been shown that it could happen. Now if it was proven to be true. Then the Abrahamic God is disproven, though it does not disprove a deity.
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You have proven nothing and therefore debunked nothing. But you’ve shown how much of a failure our public education system is in your blithering rant.
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Funny. I just corrected your insane ramblings.
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So instead of refuting anything I said. You choose to use Argumentum Ad Hominem in order to try discredit me? Funny. Please note the tip at the bottom of the explanation of the fallacy you just used. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/1/Ad-Hominem-Abusive
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My article stands uncorrected. Why should I refute anything you said? It’s all laughable at best and I already did refute several points, because it was hilarious to do so. Did you forget that you are the one claiming to be the refuter? Your mumbo jumbo didn’t even come close to addressing anything I wrote with contradictory evidence. You got mad, cussed, and made childish claims without any evidence. My God, learn what evidence means! You need to show me! Trying to impress people by saying “ad hominen” doesn’t work when you debate me. Congratulations on learning some words on Twitter. If you’re lucky you’ll get to say, “non sequitur” and mention a logical fallacy or two as well. Oh wait, you just tried that. Predictable. It’s all you people can ever do. Pretend to look smart with what you consider to be big words, so you can avoid actually addressing the issue with facts that support your beliefs. The truth is that you are a walking ad hominem. You are a childish, stupid, brain washed simpleton. You think that repeating what has been told to you is the equivalent of intelligence when it is nothing more than a parrot can do. Learn to actually think for yourself and question those who are supposedly educating you. Demand more evidence from those who regurgitate dogma at you and demand more skepticism from yourself.
You have an enormous amount of growing up to do. Your immaturity is eclipsed only by your craving to be part of a group that you think lends you intelligence just by belonging. That group being atheists. Instead of seeking the approval of other lowbrows who group up to form a consensus for their beliefs where evidence is lacking, actually do something that can improve yourself, so you stand above the rest and gain credible respect. Research things for yourself and question everything. Don’t be a rube.
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So what you are saying is, you just wanna bitch to bitch? You just choose to be ignorant, self loathing, and over all a frigid bitch?
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If all your going to do is complain and whine about “Oh your so wrong, but I wont say how” then you have admitted defeat. No go back to shilling your useless Ebook you hack. Get the fuck out of here you loon. Only kids believe in Fairy Tails.
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Ok, now you’re banned. You have nothing but whining, get called on it, then have nothing but repeating me by saying whining. Pretty much all of your insults have been variations of “I’m rubber you’re glue…” Since you can’t keep a grown up demeanor and keep your language clean, you are dismissed.
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Nice try at building a straw man though.
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Atheism is a religion? No.. Atheism is saying “Hey.. all those things you claim are true to “show” or gives you “knowledge” of your faith (AKA No Facts) are things that cannot be shown or tested” Atheism is not based on science. Yes, a lot of Atheist see science as it has been used to explain the world around us that were once thought to be a god. For example, the Sun, what causes rain, why volcanoes erupt. There are a lot of unexplained things in the Universe but Atheist do not accept any god claim as being true. Lying for Jesus is a common practice that I have seen a lot lately. Aramaic language within the coding of DNA (FALSE). Sounds of “hell” from a asteroid. “Near Death Experiences”.. Your religion has the same amount of evidence as any other religion or cult.. claims.. (not facts) are what you are left with. There are plenty of people out in the world that has offered lump sums of money for any type of evidence. If you want to present a piece of wood and claim that it is part of the crucifix that was used to “sacrifice” your god.. what would distinguish it from any other piece of wood from the same time and same place?
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[…] Hello everybody. This time I got directed to this blog by the writer. This is some Atheism 1.0 debunking shit right here. How ever I was told by the writer to try to debunk them. So I shall. Original post is here. […]
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LOL! What a stupid rebuttal. Can you write without cursing? No one ever said Dawkins claimed that aliens were the intelligent designers. That would be asinine. Who created the aliens? Notice that he does say, “if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.” You quoted him, not me. Your rebuttal debunked nothing. It was a raving lunacy of broken record talking points. No evidence. A master failure.
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[…] Atheism is a faith based religion. One of the tenets of this religion is abiogenesis, life beginning on it’s own. Another is evolution. It is difficult to get atheists to talk about abiogenesis, because of the inescapable requirement of faith it brings. Atheists will argue for evolution, but their material is very limited. If you discuss evolution with one atheist, you’ve discussed it with all of them. They use the same talking points, link the same web sites, and all seem oblivious to advances in science which have debunked many of their beliefs. They always cite archaeopteryx (a bird) and tiktaalik (a fish) as transitional fossils, yet both have been debunked due to the lack of evidence connecting them with any other species before or after them. We have a few fossil specimens of each and no observable signs of evolutionary change in either. It’s funny to point out that the coelacanth is a similar fish to the tiktaalik and was thought to have been extinct for 66 million years, until they were found happily swimming around off the coast of South Africa. Unchanged, not evolved, but alive. They go great with lemon and butter! […]
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[…] https://flatoutunconstitutional.com/2015/10/12/i-dont-have-enough-faith-to-be-an-atheist/ […]
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Hi Anna Maria (excuse my English),
I was raised in a Reformed family in a small country village in The Netherlands. As a result of a long and painful process, I lost my religion. Now, some five years later, it still is painful. Mainly because of the social interaction. I somehow wished I would still believe. It would make family relations a lot easier. Some family don´t really want to talk to me, although that is just a few. But even my own parents treat me different. I can´t explain to them that it´s not their or my fault that I don´t believe any more. I can´t explain to them, ¨That Jesus died for you´re sins, too¨ only has value if you believe it to be true. I wished I would still believe it. But it just doesn´t make any sense any more. Although some Bible stories are beautiful and got good moral lessons, in the end it just doesn´t ad up. And I think it´s unfair to blame me for it.
So far my recent history. For now: I live some 25 miles from my parents in a big city. In US scale I could be my parents neighbours, but over here it´s quit a gap on the map. I did high school and some courses, and that´s about how far my education goes. Call me stupid, but I never heard of abiogenetics before. (I now see that my freshly installed check spelling doesn´t know the word either.) I don’t know what started live, and I deny that it is of any importance in daily live. I believed, I had faith in it for many years, that I could give you the Truth about Who started it and about how long ago. It was important back then too. Why else would my parents talk about it on a daily base? Even go to church on Sundays twice to be told about it?
I know now, for a fact, that what I used to believe, is false. I also know now, that for me personally , the biggest non-issue in life is “Where We Came From And Where We Go After We Die”. It bothers my parents a lot that I don’t bother about it any more.That it is interesting for scientists to find out what started life seems normal to me. And that religious believers feel threatened by it, is somehow funny now, I think. I’ve felt threatened for many years while slowly loosing my faith in God, but in the end I’m a happier person now. Mainly if not solely for not bothering about non-issues any more.
So, could you explain to me why I have to care about what started life? And why I need to choose between you’re 2 options? I think you’re being unfair to let people not care about something.
Claiming to have faith in knowing where we came from, is only important for those who need a legitimation to believe in something for no good reason, it seems to me.
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Think about this. Martyrs happen all the time over faith. Heck, muslims will blow themselves up, because they believe. Belief can be a strong motivator. However, if people don’t believe, they aren’t going to risk their life over it. Jesus’s disciples suffered torture and death over their belief in the resurrection. Since they were the first hand accounts, if Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead and meet with them again, they would know it. No one would know better than them if they were just making things up, yet they were more than willing to lose their lives over what they believed in. They didn’t believe it because they were indoctrinated or taught by family. The believed because they were there. They didn’t need faith. No one told them that Jesus died for their sins and was resurrected. They would have known better if that were false. They would have never laid down their lives the way they did over a lie. Believe what you like, or not. It doesn’t matter to me. My only point is that atheists do believe something that requires faith, because it hasn’t been proven and can’t be. They believe that life started on its own.
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“They would have never laid down their lives the way they did over a lie.” That seems to be an unsupported assertion – the 909 people at Jonestown laid down their lives over a lie, didn’t they?
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You aren’t getting it. It went right over your head. Did the 909 people at Jonestown witness what they were told? No, the believed what they were told, something that was impossible for the Disciples. They weren’t TOLD that Jesus was resurrected, they were the original tellers. They either saw it or they didn’t. If they didn’t, dying as martyrs over it was pretty stupid. More likely they would have said, “Ok, ok, we were lying! We made it up! Let us go!” But no, they had a rock solid, unshakeable faith, that was not brought about by being told something. If this concept is too difficult for you to comprehend, I don’t know what else I can say to help you understand it. It’s easy to fall prey to what you are told. It’s not quite so easy to believe your own lie.
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Well, thanks for NOT answering my question. You seem to have a bad habit when it comes to not answering peoples question, reading all the comments. So ones more: Why do I HAVE to bother what started life? I Have “known” the “right” answer for many years, and now I deliberately don’t give the smallest bit about it any more.
Now a reply to you’re reaction, which I could have given 10 years ago: The Bible is a story book. Written, re-written, translated and re-written again. And that a few times over. The Catholic Bible doesn’t even have the same amount of books as the Protestant Bible. About the martyrs: It is a story and not a fact that it happened. I know the Bible, and I know the apologists defence mechanism. Hearing you talking, is like hearing family talking. But ones more: In the end it just doesn’t ad up. The Bible is written (and re-written) by people and any one can claim to be inspired by God. It took me many years, but I know how the systems works of fooling yourself. I speak first handed when it comes to that.
Right now I do consider myself an atheist. I am for sure not an anti-theist. I love my parents and rather don’t talk about religion with them. It brings tensions I’d rather avoid, as it doesn’t help any of us. I can’t be convinced any more, until God personally comes down. And if He does, I still have some question I want to be sorted out. All the contradictions in the Bible didn’t bother me, as I didn’t see them before until I started to think for myself. I rationalised the contradictions away by just simply thinking “they hate God” or “Gods wisdom goes beyond mine”. I really see it as being intellectually dishonest to yourself (and others) to “solve” these contradictions this way.
But back to the only question I’ve got: Why do I have to bother for something that, in the end, isn’t important in daily life any way?
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You just want me to agree with you or you’re mad. I don’t agree with you, because you’re wrong. Your question is answered in the article, you just weren’t paying attention or don’t comprehend it. I can only write it, I can’t understand it for you. You’re in a severe state of denial.
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It’s a pity you are intellectually to lazy to give an answer on a very simple question. Youre reaction “You just want me to agree with you or you’re mad. I don’t agree with you, because you’re wrong” does count for you, actually. You are blaming me exactly for what you are doing. I took the time to explain you some of my history, and why I don’t bother any more from where we came from. You’re reaction: “Nuh’uh, read again.”
Please, you think you are being fair? Or being honoust? Then show me where by quoting one sentence that you all ready answered and don’t torture me by having me read it for the fourth time. Show me where you explain why it mathers any way, and why I must hold a position. In every survey I ever heard of, you could choose for don’t know/don’t care. Why do you think you deserve an exception? Because you are that lazy that you don’t want to think at all?
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Your struggle is your own fault, or that of your parents. Here is your vapid and incoherent question. I have not altered the poor grammar. “So ones more: Why do I HAVE to bother what started life? I Have “known” the “right” answer for many years, and now I deliberately don’t give the smallest bit about it any more.” Ok, that was your question. If I am deciphering the blather in the way you intended it, then here is my answer. Cut directly from my article as you requested, because this is something you have NO CHOICE in. You believe life began, right? You don’t believe a creator had a hand in it, right? So this is the ONLY choice left to you. –> “Atheists most definitely have beliefs, such as life starting somehow out of no life. Basically there were rocks, then all of a sudden a single cell organism came to life out of nowhere. This is called abiogenesis. A spontaneous generation of life where there was none. They use fancy words, like “primordial soup,” yet have no scientific evidence that any such soup ever existed and have no idea what it would be composed of if it did. They try to steer the conversation away from abiogenesis, to evolution. They can’t stand the fact that their belief in abiogenesis is rooted entirely in faith.” There you go. Why you have faith. Because you have nothing else to support your beliefs. I know it makes you really, really sad. Too bad. You have to learn how to face facts if you want to pretend to care about science.
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“Your struggle is your own fault….”
I don’t have an struggle, rather the opposite, and that I lost my faith ain’t my or my parents fault. It’s the fault of the Bible, that hasn’t got an coherent story. Approximately five billion people see it that way, 2 billion don’t. To be clear: I’m not saying that those five billion people do have a coherent story. They just don’t agree with you that the Bible is true, or what ever you want to call it.
“I have not altered the poor grammar.”
The first thing I did after greeting you was excusing for my poor English. A spell checker finds faults, but not on the grammar part. I would like to see you do better explaining you’re point of view in a language that’s not you’re mother language. The heck, I actually think I’m doing quite an extinguish job for an hardly educated Dutch person(*). You taunting(**) me about my poor grammar tells more about you, then it tells about my level of English.
“If I am deciphering(**) the blather(**) in the way you intended it,…”
How convenient for you. Again you’re not answering my real question/you are missing the point and now you can hide because you claim I can’t clearly express myself. I tell you something again, as you keep giving clear examples of it: YOU ARE INTELLECTUALLY LAZY!!
“So this is the ONLY choice left to you.”
No. As is said before, I never heard of abiogenesis before. I don’t believe any more that the Christian God started it all, and how it began is not important at all in daily life. You could call me intellectually lazy for not “choosing sides”, but it just doesn’t matter to me at all. It’s you’re hobby-horse(**), not mine.
But, as I do want to have an conversation AND take the other side seriously in stead of you, I’ll try my best to give contentual(**) response:
“You believe life began, right?”
I know there is life. I don’t believe in The Matrix kind of stuff. I think that what we see, is mostly it.
“You don’t believe a creator had a hand in it, right?”
I’m not sure. Right now, I’m quite sure it wasn’t the Christian God though. Neither the Muslim Allah or any other Gods I heard of. I am still open for the idea though, but I doubt whether that God needs worshipping. An god could start episode “Milky Way” for it’s own fun, to see what happens. Including that abiogenesis and evolution of yours. As far as I’m concerned, for God 10 billion years still can happen in 10 hours. Or 10 minutes. It’s not that I oppose the idea of God, not at all. The only thing though, it’s for sure He/She/It doesn’t bother at all what is going on down here. Ignoring that and on the contrary claiming you (or some one else, for that matter) having an special relationship with God, is being arrogant. Pretentious beyond believe.
“So this is the ONLY choice left to you”
No.
“Atheists most definitely have beliefs, such as life starting somehow out of no life.”
I have to give you this: You did make me think about “it” for the first time in years again. But the only thing needed to be an atheist, is to not have faith in a religion. Again, the idea of a God is great, but having faith in it should contain some interaction. And that, let’s be honest, ain’t really there.
“primordial soup…”
I beg you a pardon?
“…yet have no scientific evidence that any such soup ever existed and have no idea what it would be composed of if it did.”
As far as I’m concerned, you are right.
“They…”
Who?
“..try to steer the conversation away from abiogenesis, to evolution.”
Ah, not me thank God.
“There you go. Why you have faith. Because you have nothing else to support your beliefs. I know it makes you really, really sad. Too bad.”
I don’t see where you see faith in my opinion. I know it makes you really, really sad. Too bad, hunny.
You and me are quite the same: We both don’t care how life started. The only difference is you still have faith the Chritian God started it all.
(*) “Verloren” seems Dutch as well, and his level of English in that high you don’t even notice it’s not his mother tongue. #Respect
(**) Words I needed a dictionary for
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So, you let a cat out of the bag here. It’s not the Bible that shook your belief, it’s math. Consensus in religion is what is important to you. 5 billion is more than 2 billion. Incapable of making critical thinking or deciding something so important for yourself, you leave it to the court of public opinion. And you call me intellectually lazy? You epitomize it. You will NEVER find any example of me relying on consensus to form a conclusion of my own. You have proven to be a mental sheep. Now, about your faith… The faith in your opinion (assuming you are an atheist and not an agnostic) is rooted in your undeniable requirement to believe that life began on its own. You have faith in that, as does every atheist. Come up with all of the excuses you want, but the only way to truthfully deny it is to declare yourself agnostic. And not some twisted combination. Those all sound fancy, but they don’t exist. You can’t be an agnostic atheist. You said you don’t know, so perhaps you are an agnostic. Now, why do you think having faith in God requires interaction? Do you know what faith means? If there were direct interaction with God, faith would not be required. God doesn’t owe you interaction. Assuming He does is presumptuous, pompous, and self righteous. Let’s put it this way, though. Not all of us require faith any longer. Do not assume that God doesn’t interact with people.
I didn’t know you were Dutch. Holland must be a severely Godless country. Well, except for your rise in sharia islam. Congratulations on embracing that evil with such open arms. I sure get a LOT of responses from Dutch atheists. I’d go as far as to say that the majority of non-American atheists I talk to are Dutch. Too bad you aren’t as rabidly against islam as you are against Christianity, because your country is in for a very bad time with your muslim population growing.
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“So, you let a cat out of the bag here. It’s not the Bible that shook your belief, it’s math.”
No. As I did say, it’s because The Bible doesn’t have a coherent story.
“And you call me intellectually lazy?”
Yes. Now you assume I lost my faith because of math, where I clearly stated it’s because the non-coherent story.
‘You will NEVER find any example of me relying on consensus to form a conclusion of my own.”
Good for you.
“You have proven to be a mental sheep.”
You have proven to not read what I say. Most clear example comes in the end.
“The faith in your opinion (assuming you are an atheist and not an agnostic) is rooted in your undeniable requirement to believe that life began on its own.”
I clearly stated that as far as I’m concerned, a God did started life. But you can’t read.
“Come up with all of the excuses you want, but the only way to truthfully deny it is to declare yourself agnostic.”
Ow, but i am agnostic. I don’t know, you see. I also don’t believe any of the religions I’ve heard of, so I am an atheist as well. That you can’t except facts, tells me you have a solid base to stay Christian.
“Now, why do you think having faith in God requires interaction?”
The Bible says so. You heard of praying before?
“If there were direct interaction with God, faith would not be required.”
Back in the days I did have interaction with God, I believed. Now I know it was more like an over-active fantasy.
“Assuming He does is presumptuous, pompous, and self righteous.”
I know a lot of Christians who are indeed.
“Do not assume that God doesn’t interact with people.”
I don’t assume, I know.
“I didn’t know you were Dutch.”
Okay, this is the most clear example. I all ready repeated the first things I did was greeting you and excusing for my poor English. Lets see what the third thing was, shall we?
“I was raised in a Reformed family in a small country village in The Netherlands.”
I can understand you didn’t know I was Dutch. I clearly was making a secret of it.
“Too bad you aren’t as rabidly against Islam as you are against Christianity,”
This is funny. The only thing I said concerning Muslims, is that I don’t believe Allah exists. How you come to you’re conclusion, is because you want to be hated, you want to pretend you are a martyr. I recognize it, but I’m not gonna acknowledge it.
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Look guy, I am not here to debate you. My article stands. You can’t prove a word of it wrong. You’re very sad, I understand that, but I don’t really care. PROVE me wrong or go away. Your sniveling blather is not enough to peak my interest.
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Every single person debunked you’re story. Sorry.
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Dear Joe,
It’s a shame that you don’t know English well enough to understand what Anna has written, or that Anna has not had this translated into your native language. If so you will see the ridiculousness of your assertion that you “know [the existence of God] to be false.” That exact thing is addressed an nauseum in her article. I will summarize: You don’t “know” that, because you CAN’T know that! You merely BELIEVE it because that’s what the Atheists have told you is true. She supports this by pointing out they have absolutely no proof of their position as well. I’m glad you are happier now. It proves the old adage that ignorance really is bliss. But stop lying to yourself and others. Your agnosticism is a myth. In fact it is a belief that requires faith that it is true. And this set of beliefs adhered to by a large group of people we call Atheists constitutes a Religion by definition.
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As long as amp1776 does not defend slavery, I don´t defend abiogenesis. I don´t think it´s fair she demands from atheists to have faith in science, as she doesn´t have faith in The Bible.
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I didn’t demand from atheists that they have faith in science. I pointed out that science actually doesn’t back up what atheists believe, but they try to act like it does. What does slavery have to do with any of this? If you are concerned about slavery, why aren’t you helping to stop it? There are more slaves in Africa right this minute than there ever were in America during our entire history. Put your money where your mouth is and do something.
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@Verloren
It is called Iatrogenesis – it is WELL studied.
I blogged on it here: https://luvsiesous.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/what-is-iatrogenesis-and-why-isnt-it-the-most-common-word-in-politics/
And here: https://thewordpressghost.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/aids-attacks-everyone/
Wayne
Luvsiesous
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I am willing to bet that regardless of how life started (except your specific god creating it) you would stick with that your god created it. Kind of like Ray Comfort and his banana deal. Once he found out how the modern banana was engineered through a selective process to give us something as we see today, he still turned around and claimed it was a god who gave us the understanding on how to do that.
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Prove otherwise.
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I would think you would understand about “moving the goal post”. Which is funny when I get to see people do that. So you continue to live in your world with your fable world of dragons and unicorns. I got rid of those chains of your myth long ago. There are plenty of things that have been shown in the past to push the “god did it” thinking to the side of the discussion to present actual facts that explain how something works. It’s typical that once that is done for someone like yourself to insist that just because “X” is explain does not mean that a certain god does not exist. Then it comes to light a further explanation on the same subject that removes the total concept of a god thought and yet, there is the person like you, like Ray Comfort, who will say “Well.. it was my god that not only started it all but gave man the ability to understand it.”
So let’s skip forward through any and all ignorance of the universe and just say that humans understand every aspect of everything. Then you get to say… (your god gave humans the ability to understand everything?)
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I read your post several times, and it makes no sense. Let me break it down for you:
1. Moving the goalpost – AMP never changed her stance, this is a failed strawman on your part.
2. Dragons and unicorns – You’re the first person I met that at one time believed in those, but OK for you.
3. Rest of the paragraph – You made no point, just commentary.
4. Final paragraph – More of the same, no point, just commentary from you.
I challenge you to state how AMP “moved the goalpost” as you state she did.
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The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voiceb goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
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I’ll explain why your argument that you require more faith for atheism is wrong. Lets do a “faith required” face off shall we, with the one scoring the most points being the winner of the ‘more faith required award’
1. EVOLUTION
SCIENCE: Archeology, paleontology, geology, biology, anthropology and genetics have confirmed evolution. I don’t need faith to believe it, the mountains of evidence these scientific fields have found each confirm the theory evolution as fact. Humans came from apes and DNA and fossil records prove this beyond a reasonable doubt
THEIST RESPONSE: Science is out to get religion, its all a conspiracy!
Massive win for theists, who are trying to hold onto the ‘Man made in God’s image’ nonsense from the Bible.
Theist: 1 Atheist: 0
2. ABIOGENESIS
SCIENCE: Abiogenesis is a theory brought forward for by science, evolution which has already been proven points to at one point in earths history that there is a common ancestor of all life on earth. Scientist theorise that DNA could have come from RNA, and Organic molecules, the building blocks of life have been found on comets. While the theory is still in its infancy the evidence is building to confirm abiogenesis.
THEIST RESPONSE: God did because the Bible said so. He just made plants on one day, animals on another, then humans on another day. Zero evidence for this wild fairy tale.
Some evidence vs no evidence, Again win for theists requirement of faith!
Theist: 1 Atheist: 0
3. FLOOD STORY
SCIENCE: No evidence has ever been found of a world wide flood. Geologists easily understand flood geology, I mean they study rocks so they should know. A world wide flood would leave massive evidence on all continents, yet nothing is found. Civilizations around the world seemed to have not been affected.
THEIST RESPONSE: It must have happened, it says so in the Bible!
Recurring theme here, no evidence for a world wide flood, with most of the world seemingly unaffected??? Again Theists faith wins out as evidence doesn’t count if it contradicts the bible.
Theist:1 Atheist: 0
Final score
Theists: 3 Atheist: 0
And the winner of the ‘faith required award’ is, with a unanimous victory is theists, who seems to avoid evidence, ignore it or just make it up to fit their theory. We all knew religion required faith and we can see why if you believe the stuff written 2000 years ago! Congratulations 🙂
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ROFL! No, evolution has not been “proven.” Nice try. Wonderful opinion. Also, I never said that science is out to get religion. See, there you go putting words in my mouth and trying to set the false premise that science proves atheism, i.e. that atheism and science are on the same side. You don’t get to use false premises with me. I also never said that anything had to have happened, because it said so in the Bible. You are the one bringing up the Bible, not me. Fail. Everything you are saying is grasping at straws in a frantic effort not to face the fact that your faith is the only thing you have to hang your atheist beliefs on.
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But isn’t the whole premise of the blog is you said you don’t have enough faith to be an atheist correct? but I’ve clearly shown being an theist requires substantially more faith. You have to believe in an all powerful God right? don’t you believe he did those things mentioned in the Bible? if you don’t believe in any of the crazy things he did in the bible, he’s not much of a God now is he? In fact he seems impotent and forgetful once the stuff in the Bible is accepted as just myth.
As an atheist I am not required to believe in any scientific theory, but science has evidence on its side, and continuing to develop theories. Its easy to have faith in science which has a proven track record of finding answers and coming up with predictive models. Religion on the other hand keeps getting it wrong, you need faith to believe in religion. I bring up the Bible because you believe in Christianity and its all about believing in the Bible. I don’t know what else it means to be a Christian, from memory as a former Christian I just had to have faith in the bible? but please correct me if I am wrong as I am no longer a Christian.
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Sloppy Logic and terrible Science.
1. NO realm of Science has proven Evolution. ALL areas of Evolution are THEORIES.
2. Life has NEVER been shown to start from anything other than life. EVER.
3. Flood … there is world wide evidence of a flood. Current Science indicates SEVERAL world wide catastrophic flood events.
https://luvsiesous.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/the-problem-with-noahs-flood/
https://luvsiesous.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/there-really-was-a-flood/
Wayne
Luvsiesous.com
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I take issue with your straw man of abiogensis. I will willingly admit I don’t have all the answers and , funny thing, so will notables like Dawkins. Simply, it is not faith. We search and postulate for answers. We’ve no infalliable religious text from which to assume answers. I don’t believe in god, nor do I believe in unicorns. The thing is the burden of proof does not lie with me. If you claim your a gazillionaire and I call bullshit I don’t need to prove that your not. Additionally, I don’t need sceintific evidence to be pretty damn sure your god does not exist. I need logic and resoning. I will flip your question on you. Where does your god come from? You sit so high upon your soap box, but you’ve no more answers than me. Difference is, I’m not willing to assume without evidence the answers.
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You just said it. You don’t believe in God. Therefore you DO believe that life began on it’s own without the hand of God bringing it forth. I don’t care how much you postulate or search. You have nothing. No evidence. Therefore your belief is faith based. Sorry, but even if that makes you seethe with anger, it is an unavoidable reality. Have fun with that. You can’t talk your way out of it. In answer to your last sentence, that is all you are doing; assuming without evidence. You know darn well that life does exist. You know darn well that it had to have begun. There are only two possible ways life could have begun. On its own or by a Creator. You’ve chosen which of the two you believe. Keep your faith!
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Oops; AMA. and “Now” where “not” is….My Bad
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“I told you, I don’t have to define atheist. That’s what dictionaries are for. No, the difference between religion and atheism is that atheists lie. They falsely claim the mantel of science as a support for their beliefs when it actually doesn’t. The refuse to admit that their belief is faith based when it is. Those of us who are religious make no such claims and we admit our beliefs are based on faith. Atheists have some kind of allergy to the word faith, yet you have nothing else to fall back on. It’s really rather funny. And yes, very dishonest.”
Sorry had to move the discussion, I had problem with the reply button.
For me atleast its good to clearly define what we are discussing so we know we are discussing the same thing. Just sounds like the best thing to do when debating don’t you agree?
As for atheists lie? how so? I may believe in the scientific method as proof but science has proven itself time and time again to be the best and most accurate way to understand the world around us. I think it is logical to put faith in the accuracy of science which has advanced human understanding.
I just want to ask, do you believe what is written in the Bible is historically accurate?
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I love your veiled implication that only atheists believe in the scientific method. The problem is that you throw the scientific method in the trash and only claim that science backs your beliefs, when it doesn’t. I wish you would use the scientific method. You really should google it, so you can remember what it includes. Also, my belief or not about what is written in the Bible is moot, as I have already admitted that all of my beliefs are based on faith.
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How do we not use the scientific method? Most atheists accept evolution (not required to be an atheist as I’ve mentioned before) which has scientifically proven the Biblical creation story is just myth. You would need faith to believe Genesis as it sounds like a childrens story, You just need to see the clear evidence to believe in Evolution. Its easy to see who requires faith more – the theist.
The whole scientific community, geology, astronomy, biology, archeology etc. has continued to destroy Biblical myths as science improves, stuff like:
– the Biblical flood
– 7 day creation
– The Exodus
Have all been proven wrong using all the scientific disciplines, yet religious people continue to ignore the evidence as it doesn’t fit their 2000 year book story. The only reason why they continue to ignore the mountains of evidence science provides is only because of their faith.
Indeed people do need faith in things they don’t understand, but Science has proven itself time and time again, and improves itself over and over so it doesn’t take much faith to believe in science. What has religion got right? it continues to be proven wrong continuosly as science has progressed, with believers forced to hold onto their faith ignoring the obvious inconsistancies their ‘god’ inspired book has.
Admit it, faith is all you have left if you want to believe the bible, as science or reality does not support it.
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Evolution hasn’t disproven the Biblical creation story. Evolution isn’t proven at all. It could never disprove the biblical creation story, because that story doesn’t say how God created anything. Evolution is a theory. A theory I am not afraid of, because it’s moot. I am just not ready to hang my hat on that theory until it is actually proven. You are just over eager for it to be true, because you think it supports atheism, when it doesn’t. Let go of your opinion when dealing with that which is scientific.
By the way, there is evidence of massive flooding in just about every ancient text and in geology. Also, if a creator is so powerful that He could create the entire universe, who are you to say he couldn’t do what you think is impossible, in 7 days. Read my article again. You are trying to put the restraints of time and space that we are constrained by on a Creator who may have created those restraints. When it comes to a being that powerful, assuming He exists and created the Universe, it’s laughable that you think your knowledge is sufficient to claim you know what limitations God has.
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ampl1776 – You must know what the word ‘theory’ actually means, that evolution is amongst the most tested and demonstrated theories we have, and that scientific theories are sufficiently complex that they can rarely if ever be said to be ‘proven’ in the way you suggest. So knowing all that, the fact that you deny something that is so demonstrably correctly means you’re relying on your faith rather than evidence. Your faith is just an assumption, and if your assumption is demonstrated to be wrong you need to get a new one. That’s OK – you’ve demonstrated here that assumptions such as your faith are no big deal.
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As I stated in my article, I couldn’t care less about evolution. It isn’t my point. I am not your personal tutor and I don’t feel that I need to read my article out loud for you, so you can understand it.
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Yes it has, evolution is proven through fossils which clearly show the tree of life. DNA testing has proven we share 96% with chimpanzees. Give me your reasoning why ‘God’ decided to make chimps 96% similar to humans? How does this support the Biblical creation theory that says
“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
So instead of being related to chimps and apes as evolution has shown, you should be 96% related to dust? I could go into more evidence for evolution but I’m interested to know how you explain this one thing. What you don’t get is evolution has already been proven, You can deny it, not believe it whatever you want, however its already scientific fact, up there with the theory of gravity and relativity. I guess you accept those theories because they don’t contradict your bible right?
Wrong there is no evidence for a world wide flood. There are many reasons why its bogus, lets see the pyramids seemed to not be affected by it, China seemed to not notice it neither did Japan. There are many civilizations that seemed to have been unaffected by the so called world wide flood. The typical creationist response is that they got their calenders wrong! And what about the animals? how did they get to all the right countries? How did they all fit in a boat? The flood story is so ludicrous to begin with I don’t even know why people are trying to prove it ever happened. The evidence is non existent, you just have Creationists trying to twist evidence to fit their theory, and it fails every time.
Problem is you put a constraint on everything, you believe something first, and then twist the evidence to fit your belief, that is Creationism 101. Creationism has been destroyed every time by the wider scientific community yet it holds on, trying to find even a tiny piece of evidence to support its claims. All I can say to those Creationists is they should instead look for golden pot at the end of the rainbow, as they’ll have more luck finding that than any evidence for their ridiculous theories.
Any way you forgot Exodus, zero evidence of the Jews leaving Egypt, I guess we’ll gloss over that since again its evidence against the historicity of the Bible right?
Seriously you have to take your biblical glasses off, the Bible is the sole evidence Christians use for the existence of God, and science is cutting it to shreds showing scientific and historical inaccuracies in something that is supposed to be the word of God. Did God make a mistake or something? not a good sign for this all powerful God of yours. But keep ignoring the evidence thats piling up as it doesn’t support what you’ve been told to believe.
OK now you are talking about a God, I’m glad you said ‘assuming he exists’ as clearly you have no evidence for his existence, in fact I’ll go so far as to say you haven’t had a personal conversation with him. Think about it you’ve been brought up to believe in a God, through powerful church indoctrination which uses the good old ‘carrot’ (Christians go to heaven) – and ‘stick’ (Non Christians go to hell) motivation. Fear is a powerful thing its a shame religions use these motivation techniques to convince people that some sort of God exists.
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So what? We share 50% of the DNA of a banana. No, evolution is not proven through fossils. Not even close. Paleontologists don’t even claim it is, but most atheists love when you run with that belief. It helps their cause. They love happily little rubes. What is proven is that you aren’t intelligent enough to grasp the point of my article and I don’t owe you a debate on the subject. Everything I had to say is in the article itself. I stand by every word unless anyone can provide a shred of EVIDENCE to prove me wrong. BYE.
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Yeah that supports the theory of evolution, were every form of life will, if you go far back enough will have a common ancestor, that goes for both plants and animals. DNA proves the theory of evolution, not the Biblical creation theory. Yes you may believe that a God did do evolution but thats again an assumption, and evolution doesn’t require it to work. Evolution just happens.
I do grasp the what your blog is about, but you still haven’t grasped where you went wrong with your article, atheism doesn’t require belief, it is lack of belief in a God. You wrongly assumed atheists need to believe abiogenesis and any other theory that goes against religious belief.
Its funny you are still waiting for evidence for evolution when their is mountains of fossil evidence that proves it, yet you are so quick to believe what your priest tells you is true based soley on his word and the Bible. Faith I guess…
Thanks for the discussion 🙂
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The biblical creation theory doesn’t say evolution couldn’t have been part if it. I don’t assume anything. You should stop lying. If you believe life started and you don’t believe a creator did it, you have no choice but to believe in abiogenesis. Sorry. Drop it now, because I am tired of repeating myself.
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But you’ve been told (also repeatedly) that it’s conceivable that life may have existed forever as part of a cyclical, ‘big bounce’ universe, meaning that abiogenesis is not required, and hence atheists don’t have to have faith in it.
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ROFL! That takes even more faith to believe in! Go start your own blog.
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And yet you believe that your god has existed forever. If believing in something that exists forever takes more faith than believing in abiogenesis then you clearly have enough faith to believe abiogenesis, and the thesis of your article is disproved. Congratulations, you too can be an atheist!
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You just assumed that a God who presumably created time is limited by time the same way we are. See how limited a grasp on this you have? I already told you my belief is based on faith.
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All the argument about whether it takes faith to accept one worldview or another is starting to be tiresome. The supernaturalists in this discussion readily admit they base their arguments on faith and in fact, appear quite proud of it. What it comes down to then, is whether naturalists (or as they say atheists) do need faith? Before we proceed, it makes sense to define what kind of faith we are talking about. I would guess that everyone is okay with the fact they rely on some faith in their everyday life. I have faith when waiting for the bus that it will turn up, even if it is late. I have faith that my kids will mostly do the right thing and that my co-workers are not out to get me. No problem there.
What the author and theists are talking about is religious faith: “strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence.” Belief in an all-powerful, supernatural being who created the whole universe and the people in it fits this definition perfectly.
The faith of the naturalist is, I would claim is of a much lesser degree than that of a theist. Much more like the everyday faith I illustrated above. First, there is no leap into the world of supernaturalism, which is completely unconstrained. Because there is no evidence or verifiable observation of supernatural phenomena, anything goes. Need an extraordinary boat to take thousands of people plus Jesus over to North America 2000 years ago? Sure, done! (Book of Mormon). Need to come back from the dead? Easy. (Christianity). Need a horse to fly you to heaven? No problem! (Islam). Religions are full of such leaps.
By staying within naturalism, the atheist can be comfortable with accepting the evolution of the universe as worked out by science since there is a massive amount of evidence supporting this explanation. Any scientist will gladly admit that we don’t know everything yet, and there is plenty of work going on to try to expand our knowledge. However, just because there are gaps in scientific understanding does not imply that the naturalist must have a level of faith more extreme than that of a theist.
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Ah, but you can’t prove that life beginning out of nowhere is natural, therefore you can’t say whether it is supernatural or not. You have faith that its not. As for the book of Mormon or the Bible, it seems that you’re the one referencing those, not I.
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“You just assumed that a God who presumably created time is limited by time the same way we are.” To use your own tactic, where did I do that? Quote the text where I say that. You can’t because I didn’t.
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You said that I believe God existed forever. Forever is only relevant in what we know as time. I think the concept of eternity escapes you, because you measure it by our standards of time. Go troll someone else.
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On the contrary, I think the concept of space-time escapes you. If you understand it (as I do, if only tentatively), then the idea of eternity is understandable (while still being amazing). But given our limited experience we literally don’t have words to describe it properly, hence my use of the word ‘forever’. I’m happy to say ‘eternity’ if you prefer, or whatever poor approximation English can throw up that you prefer. My point stands, I didn’t assume what you claimed.
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The concept of space time is moot to anyone who could create space time.
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Simplistic, dishonest, circular argument.
‘Atheists love science. If you like science, you’re an atheist lover”
Doing a great disservice to believers as well as an insult to the intelligence to everyone.
The repeated statement that atheists have to believe in science and abiogenisis is just pure nonsense. Simply dismissed by the fact that both my wife and her sister are atheists. Neither have any interest in science and I doubt if they’ve even heard of abiogenisis.
Some theists are not too worried about atheism as to them it’s a ‘I say/you say’ argument that can be ignored. But the fact that scientific research is inadvertently punching holes in their belief system, is a big concern. By ‘demonising’ it by trying to link it to atheism, they’re hoping to obscure the factual evidence.
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You put words in my mouth, so therefore your opinion is irrelevant.
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This seems to be written by someone whose entire understanding of opposing points of view (on both atheism and science) has been manufactured for him by his fellow apologists. The author actually writes:
“Macro evolution, would give us something other than a dog when breeding dogs, maybe a bear.”
That level of ignorance is astonishing. No person with even a vague understanding of evolution would make such an extraordinarily stupid declaration.
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Yet you somehow neglected to provide any substance to prove that my understanding is in the least bit ignorant. You are all great at throwing insults, but never good at providing any evidence. I scoff at you.
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Sure.. what you ask is for two dogs to have off spring that results in a bear. This is not how evolution works. And evolution has been proven. If you are looking for different “kinds” (I do believe that is what you apologist use as the word for species) then look no further than than a video with a cool atheist like Jaclyn Glenn. If you wish, you can skip forward to the 5 min mark to watch the explanation (or you can watch the whole thing to see how one of your apologist is taken down a notch). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0k9NyHh7TQ
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There is no proven evidence of macro evolution. Even archaeopteryx was debunked. That was the best possible evidence there was. There are always missing links. Never any links that connect into a chain.
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Who told you that archaeopteryx has been debunked? Whoever it was, they’re wrong. It also isn’t the best evidence there is/was – just in the line of the dinosaur to bird transition we have Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus, Ceratosaurus, Allosaurus, Compsognathus, Sinosauropteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, Velociraptor, Sinovenator, Beipiaosaurus, Sinornithosaurus, Microraptor, Archaeopteryx, Rahonavis, Confuciusornis, Sinornis, Patagopteryx, Hesperornis, Apsaravis, Ichthyornis, and Columba (with thanks to talkorigins for that admittedly incomplete list). Are you claiming that all of those have been debunked?
Further to your point here and in reply to me elsewhere, macroevolution has been ‘proven’ by the standards of a scientific theory. Unfortunately for everyone involved there isn’t a one-line proof, which makes it easy to claim it hasn’t been ‘proven’, but if you read through http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ you’ll find all the evidence an open mind could need. We’re still learning more, of course, and there are tweaks to many aspects of it happening almost constantly, but the basic theory is ‘proven’. It’s also trivially easy for creationists to disprove it by demonstrating the mechanism that stops one ‘kind’ of animal from evolving outside its boundary, but they haven’t been able to. That’s because such a mechanism doesn’t exist.
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There is no proof that it is in line between dinosaurs and birds. LOL!
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Language is tricky, isn’t it? Line isn’t the best word. Archaeopteryx is evidence of the transition from dinosaurs to birds (a transition, it’s worth pointing out, far more extensive than is required to demonstrate macroevolution). On its own it wouldn’t prove the link at all. But with the wealth of other evidence, of which the talkorigin link you haven’t read is just a small part, we meet the only reasonable standard of proof for a scientific theory: “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.”
And again, who told you that archaeopteryx has been debunked? If nothing else genuine fossils exist, unless you’ve proof that they’re forgeries (you don’t), then it can’t be debunked.
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Nope. Archaeopteryx is nothing more than an archaeopteryx. Nothing links it to anything else. Here you go. Have fun with this. I love how it compares a platypus to an archaeopteryx. It has a bill and lays eggs, must be a duck transition! LOL! http://www.newgeology.us/presentation32.html
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What a ludicrous source. To demonstrate just one of its lies, it says:
“All known mutations in animal and plant germ cells are neutral, harmful, or fatal”
And yet it’s easy to find a source that says:
“certain mutations can have beneficial outcomes, as experimental science has shown”
That puts me in the unlikely position of Answers in Genesis (https://answersingenesis.org/genetics/mutations/are-there-beneficial-mutations/) to prove your source untrustworthy.
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I am not the source. So any inconsistencies are moot. The point is the archaeopteryx. It’s not the only source that points out the folly for people to jump on that bandwagon, just because it looked like a cross between a dinosaur and a bird. Again, I point to the platypus. I guess you have to assume using the same logic that it’s an evolutionary link between a beaver and a duck.
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Archaeopteryx isn’t considered to be (a small) part of the evidence for macroevolution “just because it looked like a cross between a dinosaur and a bird”. You really need to stop listening to whoever is lying to you about this.
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Ok, I am not here to argue with you. My article stands. Until you can prove something in it is wrong, I’ll be taking me leave.
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I have proven that something in it is wrong, as have others here (and I’ve barely started on the inaccuracies. But that’s not what you mean. What you actually mean is until I can prove something wrong to your satisfaction, without requiring you to read or understand anything. And not forgetting that almost everything in the article is apparently not central to your point, and therefore can be rejected out of hand anyway.
So as you want to end the discussion, let’s summarize. Atheists must believe that life had a beginning, because all other options are silly, and that implies abiogenesis. There is no evidence sufficient to satisfy amp1776 that abiogenesis is plausible, therefore all atheists must take it on faith. Atheists misunderstand faith to mean a substantial belief without evidence, whereas faith is just an assumption that has no impact on everyday life. So atheists should just admit that they have faith in abiogenesis.
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No you haven’t. You have stated only opinions and gave links to more opinions.
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LOL.. and I think we just went past two end of the world predictions by two different Christian groups.. majority was saying around the blood moon time and I think the second one was the 7th of Oct.. But it’s “State sponsored science” that is predicting the sky is falling.. Ok .. you’re done. To much of a idiot for me to reply anymore.
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End of the world predictions are never Biblically based, because the Bible never says when the end of the world will be. Just because a lunatic is also a Christian doesn’t mean what he says is biblical. Thank you for no longer replying. My blog isn’t set up as a chat line to talk to you or any other state sponsored science believers.
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One more thing, this isn’t about opposing points of views. Your opinion on the matter is irrelevant. As is mine, honestly. I have merely pointed out a truth, but it is just one that you abhor facing the reality of. It goes against your grain. Things make me mad too, sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I deny them.
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Typical example of someone promoting their point of view at the expense of accuracy and a little fact checking.
A simple example. Both my wife and sister are atheist. Neither has the slightest interest in science and couldn’t begin to explain abiogenisis or macro/micro evolution.
They simply listened to what religion offered and decided it wasn’t for them.
It’s hardly a difficult concept that ‘one size doesn’t fit all’
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Your wife and sister have no choice but to believe that life exists. They have no choice but to believe that life began. They don’t believe a creator was involved, so they have no choice but to believe life happened out of nowhere on its own. That takes faith bud. That faith is unavoidable. Sorry. I know it might make you sad, but that’s all there is to it. Even if they are not curious enough to figure it out for themselves.
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Wow. Why look for empirical evidence of any natural processes when one can just make stuff up and then rant at all those who refuse to have any “faith” in your fictions. 1000s and 1000s of Gods, which ones to choose to have “faith” in? I’m going with a faith base system with Egyptian theological roots and Gods. I get to pick and choose the dogmas I like.
Hail to the Sun God
O what a Fun God
Ra, Ra, Ra.
Amen. (Another Egyptian God).
Now, Its time to leave Plato’s cave and learn to feed yourself.
A Monty Python song comes to mind on god and creating sung to a christian hymn.
Maybe I should take up Zen instead, no gods to muck with.
Price
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Oh, but you have faith and nothing you just said denies it. You make me laugh with your typical atheist talking points. Keep your faith!
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Whew! I’m a morning person, and this is something I should read early while my synapses are still firing. But you addressed several issues that bothered me about our origin and existence, and I have to say it had a positive effect. Well researched, and well done.
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One of the biggest fallacies Christians say is Atheism = belief in Evolution etc. Wrong, You don’t need to believe in evolution, abiogenesis or anything else to be an atheist, you just have to look at all the God claims, see theres no evidence other than testimony and reject it. That is it.
The problem with religions is that they provide no evidence other than their holy books written in the bronze age, and then expect you to believe them and have faith. Sorry there are hundreds of religions out there, which one should a believe? Until a religion can prove their God scientifically you are just assuming a God exists because someone told you to.
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Life exists. It had to begin. Therefore to claim you are an atheist who doesn’t believe in abiogenesis, is a lie. Just admit your faith. The rest of your arguments would actually have more credibility if you did.
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What someone wants to believe about how life began is irrelevant, you just need to look up what atheism means – which is a lack of belief in a supernatural God – Thats it, nothing more to it. Theres no atheist church to go to saying I must believe in abiogenesis, or holy book that says I must preach evolution, There is nothing like. Please tell me where you get the idea that Atheists must believe in these things? I am curious as theists always claim atheists must believe in these things.
As for admitting my faith, umm wrong I have a lack of faith. Heres how it works, a Christian will come up to me and say there God will do this and is almighty and powerful. As an atheist I will weigh up the evidence for this claim and seeing as there is no evidence, reject it. Were does belief in Abiogenesis and Evolution come into that equation? I’ll explain it to you – it doesn’t.
This is were theists get it wrong, they go after evolution thinking it is the basis of ‘atheism’ when it isn’t, but they don’t realise atheism is just rejecting religious claims of a God.
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Ok, so you believe in a non-supernatural god then? Oh, you believe in abiogenesis. You can’t be atheist without it. Sorry. It might make you sad to have to admit your faith. You would be the first to start jumping up and down and shouting about it if it were somehow proven that abiogenesis did occur without the hand of a creator being involved. You know it. Stop being disingenuous.
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Again you make a baseless assumption that ‘I must believe in abiogenesis to be an atheist’. You keep making claims on what atheism is, but you don’t seem to grasp its definition. Just so I can be sure were you are coming from, please explain to me what is required to be an atheist according to you?
As for me I’ll take my definition from a dictionary which says, atheism is “disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.” again please explain were is the necessity for belief of abiogenesis (or anything else for that matter) to be an atheist? You keep saying I lack credibility or I am disingenuous, yet you continue to push your false definition of atheism.
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It’s not an assumption. It’s a fact. Your denying it is a lie unless you contend that life has always existed and never began. Is that your contention?
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I’ll take it further, there are people who believe in God, that believe in abiogenesis and/or evolution, does that make them atheists now? Remember that when deciding what you believe atheism entails.
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So what? Obviously if there was a creator he could have created life using abiogenesis. That’s why even if abiogenesis is eventually proven to have happened, you still can’t disprove God’s existence with that evidence. Makes you angry, doesn’t it?
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Its funny you claim that your assumptions are fact, yet you won’t give everyone your definition of atheism. The atheism of definition is clear and its only you who can’t accept its definition.
I don’t need to disprove God’s existence, theres no evidence for a God. Its theists who require faith to believe everything claimed in the Bible or whatever religious text. Its funny God who meddled in the lives of bronze aged peasants (according to the Bible), has now refused to make himself known after thousands of years. Maybe he’s taking a break?
LOL do I sound angry to you? its you continue to avoid my questions while continuing to falsely claim what atheism is. Please I’m being civil, it would be nice if you would do the same.
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I don’t care what the definition of atheism is. That is moot. Being an atheist means that you must believe life started without a creator. Period. You can’t believe otherwise.
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No its not moot, if we can’t even work out what the definition of atheism is, how can we discuss what is and what is required to be considered one? You keep saying being an atheist means you must believe in this, and I have clearly proven those assumptions are incorrect. You’ve stated your assumptions are fact, but have not backed it up with any evidence.
Atheists don’t have to care how the universe started, why is it a necessity if you don’t believe in a God to have to know about how life started? As I stated before religious people make the claims for their gods, which atheists in turn reject due to lack of evidence. That is the definition of atheism. There could be new theories for how life started, but again that is irrelevant as it has nothing to do with rejecting a belief in a God. Some of my atheist friends don’t care less about science, how the world began, evolution etc, but they don’t believe what they were taught in church, and that alone is what defines them as being atheist.
Now that I’ve explained atheism for the millionth time, can you atleast concede your assumptions for atheism are incorrect. To deny it after I have provided clear evidence is for you to be lose all credibility.
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Because the definition of atheism leaves you no choice but to believe life came into existence on its own. It might make you seething with anger, but there you go. You can’t escape that truth. Keep your faith.
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Again I re-iterate, how the life came into existance has nothing to do with atheism. There are atheists who never have heard of abiogenesis but clearly reject all religious claims.
You continue to pursue your unfounded assumptions for atheists because you want to assume they must first have faith in other things, which is the basis of your blog. While your argument is well written, it is based on a false premise that atheism has some sort of tenants or beliefs that are required first, when that is as I’ve clearly shown not the case.
Theists want to claim atheism is some sort of religion in a funny way to discredit atheism, because they assume being an atheists must have some sort of beliefs, but I’ve clearly proven that atheism does not have any set beliefs. If you look at the definition of religion:
“A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence”.
As I asked you earlier I’m keen to know what these collection of beliefs that are required for someone to be classed as an atheist? I think you’ll find atheism clearly doesn’t qualify as a religion as its sole premise is to reject such beliefs. So to be clear, atheism does not require any beliefs, just a lack of belief in a supernatural God.
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I know. That’s all you atheists do is reiterate while never presenting any evidence. It’s old. No one is buying it anymore.
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Since you continue to not provide your definition of atheism, it is because you have conceded your assumptions are wrong.
Again you assume I am angry? why would I be angry? I think I’m responding in a clear manner, and I don’t rely on insults or anything. I think I’m being quite civil but its up to you what you want to believe…
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I haven’t defined atheism.
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Were did I make such a claim? Again how the world was created has nothing to do with a belief, or lack of a belief in a God. You’re the one starting off claiming atheists must believe in abiogenesis and or evolution. Regardless your theory, that God just made everything on earth in 7 days sounds more ridiculous and like a fairy tale then what the scientist theorise happened when life came into being. Either way neither you nor I can ever be sure what happened so indeed faith is required when it comes into believing what happened long ago.
The difference between atheism and your theism is your religion demands you believe those fairy tales. You are indoctrinated to believe those things. You have to go to church every week to ensure the religious indoctrination remains. Atheism on the other hand does no such thing. No weekly meeting, no book I must believe in. All it takes is for me to say, I don’t believe in your God, and thats all it takes. Now tell me I have to have faith? in what that a God doesn’t exist? he’s doing a pretty good job of not existing then.
You claim I’m not honest, how am I not? I’ve asked you time and time again to bring forward what you define an atheist is, yet you continue to dodge the question. Thats being dishonest, you refuse to answer as you know your blogs premise is wrong.
First I’m angry, now I’m crying? were do you come up with those assumptions? I mean I understand you’ve been assuming alot of things about atheists, but comeon how do you know how I’m reacting? I think if you ask anyone I’m answering in a calm and honest manner.
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I told you, I don’t have to define atheist. That’s what dictionaries are for. No, the difference between religion and atheism is that atheists lie. They falsely claim the mantel of science as a support for their beliefs when it actually doesn’t. The refuse to admit that their belief is faith based when it is. Those of us who are religious make no such claims and we admit our beliefs are based on faith. Atheists have some kind of allergy to the word faith, yet you have nothing else to fall back on. It’s really rather funny. And yes, very dishonest.
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Again you keep making claims as to what atheism is, yet you have yet to clearly define what atheism is. Are you avoiding the definition as you know it clearly destroys your premise that atheists need to believe in other things outside of a lack of a believe in a God?
I am not sure what the problem is, I believe I am discussing this with you in a calm, civil manner, yet you continue to claim I am angry, whining and now crying. What makes you assume such a thing?
The difference with theists and atheists is that theists have to believe in what their told to be considered part of the religion. atheists on the other hand don’t have doctrines, dogmas, religious text nothing, we just happily reject everyone’s religious claims.
And yes just about every atheist will agree we have no definitive evidence for abiogenesis, its the best theory that we have based on what is already proven – evolution. Since we can clearly demonstrate evolution is fact, it goes without saying if you go far back in history we will come to the common ancestor of all living things. How it was done is a mystery for now, but it doesn’t mean we won’t find out how it could happen.
It has more evidence then any religious belief, that God produced the world in 7 days… only the realm of fantasy does that make any sense. How about this all loving God, resorting to world wide genocide just to prove a point? or perhaps God slaughtering 40 children for insulting Elisha. Thats some pretty crazy faith you must have to believe something like that, and you say don’t have enough faith to be an atheist, you’ve got faith coming out of all your orifices ears if you believe those fairy tales. Seriously you believe that those tales in the bible are true?
As I have stated time and time again, what I believe in how the universe started has nothing to do with atheism, just not believing the nonsense from your Bible, or any other holy book and I qualifies me as an atheist 🙂
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You’re the one bringing up Bible stories now, not me. LOL! I told you, we admit our faith.
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What do I need to provide evidence for? I’m not making a claim. As far as the world is concerned, the realm of the supernatural has never been proven. It is the theists making the claims that their invisible God is all powerful, can send bad people to hell, and reward believers in Christianity eternal heaven. Do you deny these are claims your religion makes? if so prove they are true. Its not up to me as I didn’t make any claims.
As for not defining atheism? why haven’t you? do you still want to make assumptions as to what atheism is?
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You are making a claim if you are an atheist. You have no choice. Your claim is that life started without a creator. You can’t escape that. Stop whining about it. Just admit that you believe it and have no proof, so your belief is based on faith. There is no other option. Cry all you like about it.
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Oh, and I don’t require you to provide evidence. Just admit you have none and rely solely on faith to believe that life started out of nowhere with no help from a creator. Just be honest. Sheesh!
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There are no gods. This is it. Educate yourselves.
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ROFL! Are we to take your word on that? Educate ourselves? That’s your answer? You have nothing to actually present to support the notion that there is an education out there based on proven facts that could change our minds? Try very hard not to be a rube.
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Articles like this should cause people who are atheists to reconsider their identity. No, I don’t mean become a theist like the author. Why even bring theism in to it? Why tie your identity to people like this author.
Personally, I identify as a naturalist, one who draws understanding from science and reality.
The author here is clearly a supernatural is who is invoking faith in magical beings and ideas to make his point. The principle problem with supernatural explanations is there is no way to tell which ones are true. Was the universe formed from the burp of a giant green toad, or a human like being who uses telepathy to dictate “truths” to humans?
Who knows? And who cares?
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I never gave evidence of a supernatural explanation, nor did I suggest that I had anything beyond faith to base my beliefs on. My entire point is to shine the light of truth on atheists who also base their beliefs on faith, they just won’t admit it. Whether you care where the universe came from or not is moot.
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Of course, you gave no evidence of a supernatural explanation because there is none. An atheist, who does not believe in supernaturalism, relies only on scientific explanations that are well supported by evidence. Where the science is unclear or unknown, then fine, an atheist is happy to admit not knowing. Where does faith come into it? The great thing about science is that you don’t need any faith to acknowledge its truth. Does your cell phone work? How about those electromagnetic waves transmitting your data and writings over the internet? What about those antibiotics you took for that infection? Yep, they all work great. No faith required.
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You believe life began. You believe no creator had a hand in it. You have no proof. You have faith. It’s funny watching you flounder.
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I usually try to resist commenting on this kind of thing… but this was painful. Complex systems arising from simpler systems does not violate the laws of thermodynamics – simply because the earth is not a closed system. There’s a giant nuclear furnace above our heads pumping energy into the mix. I’m not even going to touch the rest, as I have no intent to write a book here. But I’ll say this; your article and comments make it very clear you have only used information from people with your same bias. Open your mind a little, and read something from a scientist explaining things clearly. You might learn something.
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I challenge you to actually post something scientific which disproves anything I have said in my article. You may notice that I never mentioned the laws of thermodynamics. As for the sun, I challenge you to prove that it could create life. I love how you atheists always demand that I go read something from a scientist, yet you never have any such thing to provide. Don’t go providing me theories and hypothesis, I want actual evidence to support your believe in abiogenesis or else you have no choice but to admit that your belief is faith based.
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“I challenge you to actually post something scientific which disproves anything I have said in my article.”
One example:
“Macro evolution, would give us something other than a dog when breeding dogs, maybe a bear.” Utterly wrong. There is no difference in the mechanisms between micro and macro evolution, only time scale; macro evolution is just micro evolution over long periods of time. So at no point would you breed two dogs together and expect to get a bear. What you might get is a very slightly unusual dog. Breed that and you might get a slightly more unusual dog. Repeat for many generations and you don’t suddenly get a bear, what you get is a new animal that cannot interbreed with the original dogs, which we define as a new species. That amount of time means it’s difficult to observe as humans (though we do sometimes, e.g. the goatsbeard flower example), but pretty common in the historical record (e.g whales)
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You can’t prove that time scale is the only difference between micro and macro evolution. Cool opinion though.
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I’m impressed at how much hate you harbor. I’m sure it’s what Jesus would do, right?
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Please elaborate. Explain how anything I said in my article is hateful. I doubt very seriously that Jesus has any qualms with my debunking the false premise that atheists present that science agrees with them.
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Abiogenesis is a small word to represent a big thing. No one has to ‘believe’ in it to accept that science has always delivered to humanity the best explanations of where life came from.
Further, when you use words like ‘single celled life spontaneously appeared’ you expose a lack of understanding of the idea. No one has ever reasonably suggested that a compelte living cell appeared out of thin air. Our best explanations for the origins of life will always be of a very slow, incremental process with one step taken at a time. The line between what is life, and what is just chemistry appears to be grater all the time. Is a virus alive? Is a chromosome? A protein? The differences come from many small differences that add up to something big.
Just because there is not clear and demonstrable explanation of how exactly life got stared does not mean there never will be. And even if there never will be, it does not say anything about the strength of other claims.
And I would be careful making fun of scientists by attacking the idea that life popped into existence. One, because no scientist would claim that, and two, that’s exactly the assertion of your religion.
We could have almost the same line is discussion on evolution. The question is really more about how much you are interested in trying to learn in detail what concepts like abiogenesis and evolution are built on, compared to your willingness to write half-baked posts the posit just how much smarter you are than everyone else. Do you realize that you are attempting to dismiss a couple of centuries of painstaking study and experimentation with nothing more than a few sheepskin scrolls and your emotional relflex to protect yourself from feeling like you may be wrong about science?
I suspect you don’t know that it’s okay to be wrong about things. It’s okay to not know everything. You don’t have to make things up to satisfy the urge to be right.
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Ah, yet here you are claiming knowledge in the same breath you’re saying it’s okay not to know everything. You are the one claiming that science has delivered the best explanation of where life began when it has done no such thing. Not even remotely. Try to actually disprove anything I have said in my article with actual science, not more unacknowledged faith.
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Is your argument seriously going to be that if you don’t know everything, then you don’t know anything?
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I suggest you read the article again, rather than trying to put words in my mouth. I never said anything even remotely close to that. I said that if you BELIEVE something and have no evidence, whether it is a belief in God or a belief that life started on its own, that belief is faith based. I know that the idea brings you close to popping a blood vessel, but tough. Until you have evidence, your beliefs are based on faith just like mine.
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Why does it matter to you theists how atheists think? Shouldn’t you be trying to evangelize us towards your deity as opposed to being prideful in “having truth” or pointing out our misgivings?
Why do you care if we’re lying to ourselves? I’m not saying we are but I want to know why it bothers you so much to think we are?
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Why do atheists hate God so much? Why do you constantly attack Christianity and keep removing any semblance of it removed from schools or public buildings when the Constitution allows for no such thing? Why do you care, if you don’t believe in God? Atheists are the ones on the attack. That isn’t even debatable. How about this, you go write your own blog and worry about what YOU want to say in it and stop worry about what other people say on theirs. Does that sound like a fair plan, Mr. Hall Monitor?
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Atheists as such, don’t hate God or Christians. They would be entirely happy to live-and-let-live with theists if theists kept their unsupported beliefs to themselves and didn’t try to infuse them into the body politic. Atheists are of the strong opinion that public policy should be based on the best available set of facts, coupled with logic-based analysis.
Case in point; a certain U.S. Senator has been given enormous power over whether or how the government should respond to global warning. That power came in no small part as a result of lobbying by the evangelical wing of the Republican Party. His refusal to act on global warming, he says, is based on his belief that man is unbelievably arrogant to imagine that he could in any way interfere with God’s perfect creation, therefore man-made global warming can’t be true.
If you take him at his word, his actions on behalf of the American people are driven to a large extent by his religious beliefs, which he cannot possibly justify. Given the potential disaster that awaits us if the scientific consensus is even half correct, atheists and anyone not in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry are deeply troubled by this situation. In any other country he would be laughed out of office or even prosecuted for treason.
Second case; Amp1776 has tried to make a case against evolution by throwing out a bunch of half truths, flat out lies and innuendo, all of which have many times been disproven. But little details like truth seem to matter not a whit to the creationist wing of Christianity. They think nothing of inculcating these falsehoods in intellectually defenseless children, and trying to squeeze creationism into the science classroom under one guise or another. (For a callout of their crass dishonesty, read Judge Richard Posner’s decision some years ago in the case involving a school and creationists attempt to pollute its science curriculum with their jumbo-jumbo.)
Those are some of the reasons that atheists push back at Christians. It’s not hate; it’s mostly disgust.
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You ranted on saying practically nothing all that time to only end up admitting disgust with Christians. I dare you to prove anything I said in my article is a lie or is in any way false. Evidence is something you seem to be in short supply of.
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I misunderstood, my bad. I agree that one good definition of faith is claiming knowledge without evidence.
I’ve been thinking about your point more trying to figure out exactly what you are trying to say to us. The point you make about abiogenesis being a ‘must belief’ for an atheist I’ve come to accept as true, based on reading your article and comments. I did not fully grasp this until I found your article. Yes, I accept that I do believe that the source of life is a natural one, that could be, but perhaps never will be, explainable through chemical and other natural processes.
So I guess where I’m at is ‘so what?’ I still don’t think the comparison between a divine source for life, and a natural one, are on the same plane.
Evidence for natural origins—-or with wording you many prefer—evidence for the likelihood of abiogenesis being true—at least exists in some form. At the very minimum evidence of the circumstantial type. We are made of he same ingredients as the universe. We have seen many other demonstrable types of evidence supporting natural processes that generated us—-Darwinian evolution. The arc of knowledge produced by a naturalistic worldview discovered through the scientific method gives us reasonable expectation that life itself arose from this same naturalistic framework.
Besides the Bible, what evidence do you provide, even of circumstantial, that life was divinely snapped into action? Remember, simply saying that because we don’t have a complete natural explanation today is evidence for the God of the bible is not a logical conclusion.
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You have surprised me by recognizing and admitting to much more of the truth than I ever expected. However, I never said that the absence of a natural explanation proves a biblical one. I base my biblical belief on faith.
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I still think that agnostic is a valid position here. There is no reason that someone has to take a position on the cause of every single effect. Do you? I know the whole premise of religion is that everyone is either in or out, so that might be why you demand everyone take a position.
Regardless, I still accept there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the likelihood of abiogenesis being true is very high, and the likelihood of a ‘first mover’ is lower. And the evidence for that first mover that caused the universe to be the same mover that prescribed the construction of the bible, and it’s corresponding religions, to be so short as for all practical purposes it can be dismissed.
I gotta admit, you are pretty good a trolling us atheists. But you are not making much progress on describing reasons for your belief outside of faith in the bible. The atheist is Iikely a rationalist, so changing minds requires logically sound support. Are you completely dismissive of every fact or observation that you are being presented with? I admit that amidst the noisy responses you are able to garner from the peanut gallery that these facts are hard to glean out. But they are there. Do you not see them? Does your presupposition of biblical inerrancy completely overtake any evidence that contradicts it? I don’t reject the biblical as a reliable source for understanding the origins of the universe because I chose to, or want them to be false. I do so because when they are tested against nature, they fail a large percent of the time.
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I never said that agnostics have faith. You have to believe something that cannot be proven in order to have faith. Agnostics don’t believe, they wonder.
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Oh, and oops, I forgot to ask. You said there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the likelihood of abiogenesis being true is very high. Present it. I have never seen any such evidence. I’ve never even heard that claim being made by any scientist. Also, I never claimed to have anything other than faith to believe in what I believe. Asking me to describe reasons I believe it is silly. I can present no reasons. Neither can you present any reasons why you believe in abiogenesis. Don’t claim to be using any more reason than I am, because you can’t demonstrate that as true.
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There are libraries of evidence of where the solar system came from, and how it was formed. There is even more evidence that all life evolved from a common ancestor. So we are just missing the part between the forming of the solar system, and from the point of our common ancestor.
There are many demonstrated chemical pathways that could explain some of the critical parts of how life got started. The ingredients between minerals and man are the same, even in similar ratios. There is not much reason to search for the first spark of life to go any further than the natural world. (Is it not strange that people only search for God to explain things that science hasn’t yet expained? And when science does explain it, isn’t it telling that the God-explanations are no longer told?)
You rightly demand evidence from me to support these statements. But I guess that you are aware that millions of scientists have invested centuries of research writing thousands of books describing the scientific support for both cosmic and human origins. Because you clearly do not accept this massive knowledge pool, I am guessing you have some sort of belief—or hope—that one day the tables will turn. I’m guessing you suspect there will be some evidence come out to disprove evolution and any semblance of a universe origin that does not include God.
I too used to yearn for this too, as I was a full-on biblical Christian for 35+ years. I’ve been there on your side, trying to explain away the evidence, and apologizing for the errors of my belief system. But I guess you think that in your mind you have solved some riddle that none of these scientists can grasp.
Its pretty arrogant, when you think about it, to just dismiss these troves of data and research by just asserting that you have found some logical loophole that makes it all invalid (or possibly just try put relgious explanations on equal term with scientific ones). I could begin to provide you sources of evidence, but you probably need to start with something like Plato to sharpen your grasp of logical fallacies, or perhaps re-read some middle school life science books to get a better handle on what the scientific process is, what it can and can’t do, and what we should do with this knowledge.
Good luck waiting on that breakthrough that disproves the bookends of science that are wrapped on either side of your ‘abiogenesis’ obession.
(p.s. If you ever did decide to accept a reality and evidence based perspective of the world a few things will happen. You will immediately notice that your brain will be much more relaxed as your cognifitive dissonance will dissolve. Secondly, you will being to appreciate every second you have enjoying nature and people more than you ever have. You will truly learn to love people for the first time)
I would love to meet you and buy you a beer.
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I don’t think you realize how complex a single cell is. I can say there are libraries of information and proof that aliens live in Hollow Earth. Does that make it so? What if I say that there are troves of data. More true now?
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Well, I read books. A lot of them. Here’s one I’d recommend for you. It gives a very healthy review of cell complexity and describes many of the pathways for how they got that way. It also spends considerable time describing the difference issues–and outright distortions—within the ‘irreducible complexity’ apologetic. All done by a Catholic who still finds God despite accepting science. He is not a layman, but an actual researcher. There are ‘troves’ more where this comes from.
I have a copy Id be glad to send you. You should be able to contact me through my wordpress account with s shipping address.
Could you send me a book about Hollow Earth?
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501
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Um… Every Christian I have ever known has found God and loves science. You act like one Catholic accepting science is an oddity.
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I had to point out that, while I did hope you were being intellectually honest, as I followed this thread, you exposed yourself when you claimed “I gotta admit, you are pretty good a[sic] trolling us atheists.”
The fact of the matter is that it is you who came to her blog to troll. She did not go to yours. Or am I at the wrong URL?
Try harder to hide your true motives next time; you are not the first atheist to pretend to ‘be looking’ for truth when you eventually reveal your agenda, as you did.
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I felt that KaPow through the floor!
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Hi Hugh,
There’s a good chance I didn’t use the right wording there. What I meant by ‘trolling’ was that the owner of this blog was pretty good at getting atheists to become argumentative and keep the conversation on their turf, and avoiding the line of reasoning that was being presented. Maybe what I should have said was he/she was good at getting *atheists* to *become* trolls! I stand by that!
To be honest, I meant it as a compliment….he/she was great at driving this to an emotional rather than rational discussion. I think every possible angle to think about ‘abiogensis’ and evolution was presented to the author, and dang near every time he/she found a technicality or other way to evade. To me it was impressive.
-Cody
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An Atheist is someone who does not accept the claims of Theist when it comes to their god/gods existence. That’s it.
You are attempting to mix words with belief = faith = religion. Evolution is a fact. The Theory of Evolution is based on facts. “Moving the goal post” is the thing that all religions do when it comes to proving (with facts) their claims.
Theist: “Do you believe in science?”
Me: “What do you mean by believe?”
Theist: “Do you accept the claims that science makes when it comes to theory’s”
Me: “Which Theory are you referring to? I guess I would since in science terminology, “Theory” is based on facts. When someone says they have a theory about something, they are actually saying they have a hypothesis about something when it comes to using science terminology. Everyday common language and scientific terms are not interchangeable”
Theist: “So you believe in science which means you have faith in science. Science is your religion.”
Me: “No.. that’s not how it works. You are playing word salad games.”
Why didn’t you just go with the tornado hitting a junk yard and making a Buick. Or the typical Watchmaker.. or every painting needs a painter..
There are no “theories” on life, the universe, or our existence being a computer simulation. You are dipping into philosophical (Metaphysics) discussions which can be counted as a hypothesis. There are some great philosophers of the past and present who present great arguments for a lot of different things.
As far as your most likely questions you will now try to ask me:
Abiogenesis: I don’t know
Where did everything come from: I don’t know
Why are we here: I don’t think I need a “why” but here I am so I will enjoy it.
Have a great day!
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I didn’t say you believe in science or have faith in science. I said you believe in abiogenesis, which science doesn’t support. See how you atheists twist things? You can’t deny believing in abiogenesis. Doing so is a lie. You can see that life exists, so it had to have begun. Also, I suggest you try a web site called Google and type in “Simulation Theory” or “Simulation Hypothesis.” It doesn’t help your credibility to deny the existence of something that not only exists, but has been talked about extensively in many main stream documentaries.
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I did not say that you said anything about me or anyone else “believing in science”. If you noticed by chance, I put “theist” not “amp1776”. It’s a approach that I have seen from debates. That’s all.
Abiogensis has to do with life spontaneously from inanimate matter/the theory that the earliest life forms on earth developed from nonliving matter(which you did point out in your blog and I am only just restating it once again as I agree which what you wrote). How can you say that I “can’t deny believing in abiogenesis”. I don’t know how life started. I don’t know where it started. I don’t know when it started. I don’t deny abiogensis but I don’t have a “faith” in it either. Since you like to use the word belief (believe) as faith. I am not going to sit here and tell you that scientist did it in a lab. Because I know they didn’t. They only caused some of the building blocks of life to come together. They did not create life nor did they cause atoms to appear out of no where.
You seem to have a real hate towards Atheist and maybe you have been in some pissing matches with some from how you write about them. Not all Atheist are alike. Keep in mind, the only thing that Atheist have in common is that they do no accept any claims of a supernatural explanation from any Theist (meaning all religions of the past and present). Maybe one day in the future, science will make sense of how things started. Currently research will continue to look for answers. For now, it’s only hypothesis.
Evolution: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php
Abiogenesis (wiki (I understand that wiki in itself is not reliable but the references are): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
I know how to research by using Google. Once again.. the Simulation Theory is not an actual scientific “theory”.. it is only a hypothesis. There are no facts that I know of that support the hypothesis. It is on the same level as any religious faith.
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There are no facts that support a lot of things people believe, abiogenesis being chief among them. I stand by the statement that you can’t deny believing in abiogenesis. You believe life exists. You believe it began. There are only two choices as to how. A creator created life, or life began on its own. So you believe one of those two, or you simply can not call yourself an atheist. Perhaps you are agnostic. Oh, and by the way, linking Berkeley & Wikipedia are surefire ways to show that you aren’t really interested in facts. You, like almost all atheists, seem to have an allergic reaction to the word faith. If you all embraced the fact that your belief is faith based and were just honest about it, your debates using logic where evidence is lacking, would be more credible. But you all start off with this outright lie and diminish your credibility on everything else. I’m not sure why most atheists don’t see this.
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“you all start off with this outright lie” What is my (our) outright lie? That we don’t accept the claims of Theist about the existence of a god/gods or the past or present?
“There are no facts that support a lot of things people believe” No.. that would actual be religions. Not just yours but any other religious claim of a god/gods.
“There are only two choices as to how..” “Only the Sith believe in absolutes” Obi Won Kenobi
Please show me in a definition of what an Atheist is and then what an Atheist “believe” when it comes to abiogensis.
I don’t have an “allergic” reaction to the word “faith”. Watch.. faith faith faith faith faith faith faith faith.. see.. No hives.. no anger.. no shortness of breath.. not seeing stars or about to pass out. You only say Atheist have faith because it’s another lie that the Creationist are throwing out for everyone to believe.
I pointed out to you about Wiki. It is only used as a general understanding. Stop avoiding what I wrote.. as if I didn’t write it.. It’s the reference sources from different subject areas. Berkely.. You know.. I went to try and find the simplest way for you to understand evolution. I know you said it does not matter about evolution. That you would in turn just accept that your specific god you believe in was there to control and guide it all. As far as an acceptable reference web site for you to go to that you would accept … I don’t think creationist web sites would be on that list that I would reference you to.
So, you have your specific religion and belief that you accept. That’s great. Continue writing.. awesome. Hand out leaflets or do whatever you would like when it comes to your religious practices. However, remember your religious freedom does not mean you get to take away from other citizens rights and you don’t get to get rid of other person’s religions.
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Correct, there are no facts that support a lot of things people believe, so they are believed on faith alone.
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you’re quite right, God could’ve created evolution, but we know he didn’t as there was no death before sin.
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Says who?
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my apologies, i should have made it clear—that comment was intended for other Christians
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I am Christian, but I’m not arguing based on my faith, which I fully admit. Atheists won’t take that argument as evidence of anything any more than I take their unproven arguments. So while Christians have faith that God created life and some Christians may believe or not in evolution, we can’t admit our faith and then try to use it as evidence to convince someone who doesn’t have the same faith. The Bible doesn’t say that God never created evolution, so I can’t even pretend to know whether He did or not. But I won’t take any evidence of evolution as evidence against God either.
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Ampy, from the Bible: What were Adam and Eve? And in whose image were they created? How did death enter into the world? Then, from a Darwinistic point-of-view, how would your answers to the same questions compare?
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Did I mention anything biblical as support for anything in my article?
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It takes a lot of faith to admit your entire existence is a mistake
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AMP, I’m not arguing at all. Your article stated that God could have used evolution. I agreed, then stated (for the benefit of Christians reading) that He didn’t. A rudimentary study of the scriptures reveals this stance, but this is not merely a faith-based understanding of mine—it is supported by sound science and sober thinking. Were I to list the scientific evidence in support of my stance I should need many volumes and just about a lifetime to do so. Fortunately for me there are already many good books written on the topic by great scientific minds from every field. One such book: In Six Days, Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation is worthwhile reading.
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Understood. I am not aware of any way the Bible says that God could not have used evolution, though. I know many pastors teach that, but can’t find any way that they Bible itself says anything about it in any way.
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Oh, and I should clarify, that I don’t believe in macro evolution. I am merely not afraid of the idea ever being proven somehow, because it wouldn’t have any bearing on my faith. It wouldn’t disprove the Bible.
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What utter nonsense! An atheist is simply someone who denies the existence of a God or gods, i.e. supernatural entities conjured out of nowhere to explain the universe, man, etc.
Someone who collects stamps is called a hobbyist. But not collecting stamps is clearly not a hobby. Likewise, atheism is not a religion.
Most if not all atheists also have beliefs of one sort or another. Some of those beliefs may underpin their atheism. Most atheists, I suspect, believe in Darwinian evolution as a far better and more likely true explanation for the diversity of life as compared to Biblical creationism. The evidence in favor of Darwinian evolution is far, far greater than the evidence required to convict a suspected murderer and sentence him to death in many states. Yet 40% or so of Americans deny evolution.
Those atheists who have studied evolution in some depth are also aware that it doesn’t answer the question as to how life got started on earth, but are inclined to think that the answer will be provided by scientific researchers some time in the not too distant future. If you want to call that a belief system just like your favourite religion, feel free. But it’s far less a belief than it is a reasonable expectation based on the success of the scientific enterprise to date, particularly so since there is no scientific law or laws that argue against that possibility. It most certainly is not a religion as that term is understood by just about everyone.
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You sure typed a lot to say nothing. A lot of talking points that atheists ALWAYS use. Now explain why you have faith in abiogenesis. I’ll wait.
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It wasn’t my comment, but as an atheist I’ll have a go:
I don’t have faith in abiogenesis. I don’t know how life on Earth (or anywhere else) started. I do know that it exists, because I’m here, and I know that the Earth hasn’t existed forever, therefore life must have started at some point. Fortunately my atheism doesn’t require me to take a position on how life started.
I do have faith in the scientific method however. It’s not perfect by any means, but over the long run it produces either the right answer, or at least approaches the right answer through increasingly useful and accurate approximations. Religion and the scientific method have gone up against each other dozens, possibly hundreds of times (e.g. planetary orbits) and in every case where we’ve been able to determine the right answer science has been right. So if we do ever find the answer to how life started on Earth I imagine science will be the source. Whether that will be abiogenesis, panspermia, or something as yet unthought of I don’t know. All my atheism tells me is that it’s incredibly unlikely to be because of a god.
Having made a fair effort to answer your question, I’ll ask one of you. Can you explain the biological mechanism that tells an animal that it has evolved far enough, because any further evolution would tip it over from ‘micro’ to ‘macro’ evolution? I believe that there is no such mechanism, and that successive generations of a particular species can accumulate non-lethal changes for long enough that we would eventually classify them as a new species.
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Actually, yes, your atheism must, without a doubt, take a position on how life started. Your position has to be that it started on its own with no creator having a hand in it. You can’t deny that, so you must take it on faith. As for your question, you answered it yourself. You said “I believe…” That’s right. You believe. You don’t know and have no evidence. I also don’t know, but I won’t pretend to either. Oh, regarding your religion and scientific method going up against each other, regarding planetary orbits, etc. you may find that this is not as true as you have been taught. More often than not the scientists who made discoveries were religious themselves. Copernicus was a Christian. Kepler who discovered the 3 laws of planetary motion, was a Christian. It will do you well to seek knowledge beyond that which you have been spoon fed.
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That’s quite the dense response, so I’ll break it down:
1. My *assumption* is that abiogenesis is how life started. It’s in no way an important assumption – at no point in my life have I ever hesitated as I was about to eat a donut or get my car serviced and thought “but what if life didn’t originate by abiogenesis?” – but it is definitely an assumption. But that doesn’t mean I have faith in that assumption. To demonstrate the difference, I assume that I will be employed tomorrow, and hence have made various arrangements for what I’ll be doing. But being employed tomorrow isn’t an article of faith for me; if it turns out that I’m fired at the end of the day my assumption will have been proven incorrect, but nothing about my faith will have changed. Similarly, I assume that abiogenesis is true, but if tomorrow we discover that the universe is infinitely cyclical and life survives through each cycle then my faith will not have changed, because I don’t have faith in abiogenesis. It’s worth noting there that I just posited an alternative to abiogenesis that doesn’t require a creator, so why *must* I have faith in abiogenesis?
2. You’re right, ‘believe’ was a poor choice of words. The evidence for the fact of evolution is overwhelming (the fossil record, genetic differences between related species, etc.), as is the evidence for the theory of evolution (biogeography, comparative embryology, etc.). I know it to be true, while acknowledging there are many details that have to be worked out, and even some pretty major questions need work (e.g. the relative importance of epigenetics). It is possible to be unconvinced by the evidence, but it requires an adherence to a faith that cannot accept facts that contradict it. I don’t have such a faith, you do.
3. Christians have indeed made many important contributions to science, particularly during the scientific revolution of the 16th-18th centuries. (It’s worth noting that Muslims did the same, particularly in the areas of chemistry and mathematics, in an earlier time, as did various polytheistic communities in India, Greece, and other countries). But that’s hardly surprising, because at the time most people in Europe, where the scientific revolution mainly happened for all sorts of historical reasons, were Christian. That doesn’t mean that their Christianity somehow pushed them to scientific advances, any more than it pushed the Spanish Conquistadors to butcher the native peoples of the Caribbean, or early US citizens to enslave Africans, or the British to enslave or desecrate pretty much anything they could find. The fact is the Church was happy to endorse scientific progress if it accorded with Church tenets, and if it didn’t it would be suppressed, sometimes brutally. Supporting only that which you already believe is a religious idea, antithetical to science.
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Your hesitation in daily life chores is moot. Your belief in abiogenesis is based on faith and you have no choice in that. As for evolution, I look forward to there being evidence of macro evolution in the fossil record, but so far there is none. You believe that too, based on faith. I don’t. But I am willing to see any evidence. Evolution would not disprove a creator. As for suppression of science, I think it’s dishonest to disregard the suppression among the scientific community. Take global warming, cooling, climate change. Give it a name. They do. They keep changing the name of this settled science every time they get debunked. There are political agendas in science as well as grants funding it, which have agendas behind them as well.
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If you’re saying that making assumptions is an act of faith, then sure, I’m absolutely awash with faith. That seems to rather devalue your faith, but that’s fine by me. But as I mentioned above, life *could* have always existed, rather than having a creation moment, and somehow manages to survive in a ‘Big Bounce’ universe. Now I don’t think that life has always existed, but it is an alternative to abiogenesis that doesn’t require a god, therefore your assertion that my atheism requires faith in abiogenesis is wrong.
Also, good job on lasting so long before mentioning global warming, that must have been tough. It doesn’t disprove anything I’ve said though – individual scientists can be corrupted all the time, just as individual Christians can be, but scientific inquiry progresses nonetheless.
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Doesn’t devalue anything. You admitted your faith, so thanks. You’re a first. I must congratulate you.
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If I’d realized how trivial faith is I would have agreed with you much earlier! I hope the other atheists here notice this thread – now that we know that your religious faith is just an assumption you’re making we should find it much easier to discuss it with you.
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ROFL! You will never get any other atheists to admit to having faith in abiogenesis or the Big Bang being caused by nothing.
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I think you underestimate at least some of them. Once they understand that religious faith is just an assumption, and there’s no basis in tax law to give organizations tax-exempt status based on assumptions, I think quite a few of them will get on board. Sure, there’ll be some stick-in-the-muds who think that faith has substance, but we know better, right?
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ROFL! So, it’s about taxes to you. Instead of trying to figure out who should pay more, why don’t we figure out who can pay less or none at all? Let’s repeal the 16th Amendment.
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No, not saying it’s about taxes at all. But the fact that churches would lose their tax exemption because it’s only based on an assumption seems like a way to lure atheists in. Expand that to being able to remove Christian prayer from schools and council meetings (because they’re based on an assumption with no more grounding than any other assumption, so why privilege them?), and the many other areas in which Christianity is privileged, and pretty soon atheists get what a lot of them want – a world in which religion takes its place as one assumption amongst many, which individuals are free to believe, but which has no privileged place in society.
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tldr
but re. para 1: you have conjured life out of nowhere and nothing
re. para 2: abiogenesis and evolution claim to be scientific, yet deny the laws of thermodynamics, rejects logic, ignores mathematical probability, a theory that has to scale mt. impossible infinity times… now if that ain’t faith!
it is held that information cannot come about from random processes. while this is not proven, it’s interesting to think that it one day might be
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What if I’m an atheist who doesn’t care about abiogenesis? My simple answer for the origination of knowledge is that I don’t know. I don’t assert that any credo is right or wrong, but I don’t believe in god (lower case g because there are many of them).
A set of beliefs does not make one religious. Foregoing critical faculties to believe a doctrine because it is inherently “right” is what makes one religious. And this applies to all religions, not just Christianity.
As atheists are famous for saying, you’re an atheist to Enlil, Zeus, Allah, YHWH (Christians are not Jews), Krishna, Guan Yin, and a myriad of other deities that humanity has worshipped. The difference between a self proclaimed atheist and any theist is that we just don’t believe in any god while you believe in whatever god you believe in. That’s it. End of story. All the other stuff like science and evolution are SEPARATE discussions.
But your opinion piece is fine. The rhetoric you have written in the article as well as the comments really highlight your religious indoctrinations and my point of what makes people religious. The arguments you make are not only repeateded scripts that have been spread by your ilk but also have been debunked repeatedly. But you have foregone your critical thinking skills to make your belief structures work.
Tell me why slavery is wrong according to the Bible, if you may. That is more important to me than how we all came here.
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You can’t be an atheist who doesn’t care about abiogenesis. You can lie about not caring about it, because you have no evidence, but I assure you, if evidence cropped up that abiogenesis occurred without any creator having a hand it in, you would be shouting it from the mountain tops. Don’t pretend you don’t care, just because it’s a flaw in your theory. You know darn well that life exists. It had to have a beginning. As an atheist you have no choice but to believe it came about on its own. You have faith in that. Just admit it.
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I don’t know that I am even thoroughly convinced life truly exists. For all I know Buddhism or Hinduism are true and life is merely illusory.
But I care about abiogenesis very very little. A passing interest in where existence came from. I would rather believe in panspermia but that’s just me. I am still awaiting an answer on slavery from you because that is something I actually care about.
As a person I have a choice to believe what I want, just like you do. Again, assuming Christian, you get to choose to believe that Jesus is the son of god. Or is of the same essence of god. Or…wait, are you trinitarian or non trinitarian? Do you believe that works are vital to salvation or is it merely the mistranslated name of Iasou that you care about? How is any person supposed to take Christianity seriously if over 30,000 variants exist? And that isn’t a Christian problem, that’s a fault of religion.
I know this probably isn’t going to change your view but be open minded enough to accept that I and many others don’t fit in your cookie cutter mold of atheists. I’m a proud paranormalist, UFO buff, and multidimensionalist but don’t feel a god, in the Christian sense, makes any sense to existence.
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Ok, so basically you are admitting to being confused. Got it.
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I’m not confused. I’m unsure. They’re two very different words with different connotations. I have very little knowledge on this topic and, as such, refuse to make a claim. I’m unsure because I’m apathetic. I don’t really care how life came to be or if it even exists. I’m sorry I don’t fit into your mold but that’s just the truth of who I am.
In all honesty, I don’t really care what you believe either. I just love poking at religious individuals who are so conditioned into a way of thinking that they’re unable to see anything other than the boxes they’ve created. You’re welcome to that view of the world but when you find something that’s not in a box, you have to make it fit into a box. So much so that you’ve resorted to calling me a liar, questioning my integrity as a person, and demeaning your integrity as a credible individual worthy of conversation.
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Then you’re an agnostic.
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And this is why definitions are so important. Here are the definitions I am employing:
Agnostic: I don’t have knowledge of a particular subject and, as such, don’t posit a claim. This is not in reference to anything. It literally is a fancy way of saying “I don’t know.”
Atheist: Has no proof to believe the god claim and, as such, does not believe in a god. This is not an assertion, this is the default human position.
Apathetic: Lack of interest. A fancy way of saying I don’t care.
Here it is in short. At the high level:
I’m an atheist because:
– I’m agnostic in that I don’t know if a god exists or not.
– I label myself as an atheist because, as I don’t know, I am in the default position that a god does not exist. This is the natural state of the human consciousness.
I don’t believe in abiogenesis because:
– I’m agnostic towards the origins (not creation as creation asserts a claim of creation and creator) of the universe
– I’m apathetic towards the origins of the universe because its impacts on my day-to-day life are minute and not worth my daily concern
Do you see how they’re two very different things?
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Do you believe that life began without the help of a creator? Yes or no?
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I don’t know and I don’t care.
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Then you aren’t an atheist.
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Could you please define for me what an atheist is, then?
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Try a dictionary. If you don’t believe in a creator then you have no choice but to believe that life started without the help of a creator. It goes without saying. Don’t go full retard and deny it.
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No, you need to understand that “I don’t know” means that I don’t know. It doesn’t mean I DON’T believe. It doesn’t mean I DO believe. It means I DON’T KNOW. And for purposes of ease, here is the definition of atheist: “a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.”
Could you highlight to me how that definition has ANYTHING to do with the origination of life?
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So you don’t believe that life ever started? Is that what you’re really saying? Or are you saying that you don’t know if a creator started it?
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Your attempts to back me into an assertion will not succeed on things I don’t wish to assert. I shall address your questions individually, though:
“So you don’t believe that life ever started?”
– I’m saying I don’t know that life is real. It’s as viable a possibility that life is real. As I am limited to my experiences, I am unable to speak outside of it. As such, what I perceive to be real may be entirely an illusion.
“Is that what you’re really saying?”
What I’m really saying is I don’t know. Though thank you for the hostility. 🙂
“Or are you saying that you don’t know if a creator started it?”
This is a separate question from the previous two. I’m saying I don’t know if a creator started it. Please note that a creator can be an alien, another human, a deity, a computer, or any entity with intelligence. I also don’t even know if life is a creation or a formation of natural processes. I just don’t know.
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You backed yourself into the assertions by trying to dance around the truth, because the truth makes you feel bad.
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Could you tell me what the truth is, then? You have filled in a lot of my words for me without me claiming a lot. And when I did state my position you said I was lying. Please tell me the truth and the reasons to believe it and we’ll see if they hold water.
What makes you think anything can exist outside of time and space? Creationists tend to use the argument that a creation needs a creator, so let’s expand from that. Every creator on earth creates within the same limitations their creation has. Even virtual worlds occupy the same principles that the physical world stands upon. So why does god get an exception? I have never heard a valid reason for this so I would be interested in knowing why god is not limited by time and space. And if god truly is transcendent of time and space, that still doesn’t answer where god came from. Regardless of transcendence there still must be an origination to god. But if god doesn’t have to have an origin, neither does existence, life, or anything.
You are criticizing me of being unwilling to see a creator as being trapped by space and time but you’re unwilling to think an illusion can exist without life. Just because your mind is unable to process it as a possibility does not rule it out as one. And it is just as evidentially possible as any deity existing.
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My answer is my article. Read it again.
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I do apologize. I didn’t realize I was speaking with the article writer directly. I will read the article again to better understand your position. Sorry about that!
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No problem. Understandable. 🙂
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I have reread the article but it is late where I am. I will respond more fully tomorrow. I hope you are enjoying this endless debate because I know I am, in all honesty! It is forcing me to keep my mind sharp and I dig it. 😀
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Also, here are some options other than life began with or without a creator:
1) Life always existed
2) Life is an illusion and there is no actual life
3) Existence is an illusion (see Vedantic Hinduism, Theravada Buddhism)
4) We’re programs in a computer and, as such, are not actually alive
5) We were created by aliens (note, aliens are NOT gods. I could be an atheist who believes in extraterrestrial panspermia)
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1: Impossible
2: Impossible
3: Impossible
4: Requires a creator
5: Who created the aliens?
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Ooo this is fun. Now my turn to ask questions!
My suggestion: Life always existed
Your response: Impossible
– Can you prove to me how this is impossible?
My suggestion: Life is an illusion and there is no actual life
Your response: Impossible
– Can you prove to me how this is impossible?
My suggestion: Existence is an illusion
Your response: Impossible
– Can you prove to me how this is impossible?
My suggestion:We’re programs in a computer and, as such, are not actually alive
You’re response: Requires a creator
– Doesn’t any god require a creator as well? If you are going to use that argument, then the argument of your posited creator requires a creator as well. Unless you’re going to admit that your creator is special but, then, I request an explanation of how your creator is somehow above all else.
My suggestion: We were created by aliens (note, aliens are NOT gods. I could be an atheist who believes in extraterrestrial panspermia)
Your response: Who created the aliens?
– I don’t know. See the above for the same question to any god.
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Ok, then you think the universe is static and never had a beginning. Got it. Ok, if you disagree with every atheist scientist out there about the big bang, then you can go on believing in life always existing. As for anything to do with illusions, they are impossible without someone actually having them. Who has the illusion? Someone alive. So life exists. Why would you assume a god requires a creator. Again you are entrapping yourself into thinking that a creator of space time is bound by the laws of space time. Ok, so you absolutely admit that your alien notion relies on your other 4 bogus notions, so it can be thrown out without hesitation.
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“Like”
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I was thinking about this, and while I accept that some atheists would certainly react as you suggest, it’s certainly not the default reaction I’d have, nor many other atheists. Mainly we’d be massively impressed by the scientific achievement. Then we’d add it to the list of reasons that having a god is unnecessary, a list already so full that a demonstration of abiogenesis wouldn’t actually make that much difference. And finally we’d set the stopwatches running to see how long it took for religious groups to explain how, despite their absolute assertions about how and when their god created life, this doesn’t actually mean anything.
So I’d certainly discuss it with friends, religious and atheist alike, but I’d leave the proclaiming from the mountain tops to the religious types who seem to specialize in it, and get upset when atheists take a page from their book.
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Oh, it’s most definitely the default reaction. All I have to do is tweet something that atheists don’t like on Twitter to be gang banged by hundreds of them at once. I’ve had to block thousands upon thousands of atheists who all sound like the same broken record, on Twitter.
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You assume that twitter responses are typical of atheists, or indeed of anything other than twitter users? That’s naive to say the least.
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Twitter is just as good a cross section of the populace as anything else. Whether it be Twitter, real life, or anywhere else, Atheists are almost all the same. Very bitter, brain washed, rubes speaking in rote talking points.
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Twitter is absolutely not as good a cross section of the populace as anything else – it’s entirely self-selecting, has a relatively small active/passive ratio, and skews in many unrepresentative ways.
I’ve met many atheists and theists, and never noticed any difference in their level of bitterness. Brainwashing seems almost entirely a religious phenomenon – atheists don’t have an organization to do brainwashing, and given that atheism only has one tenet (there is no god), there’s really not a lot to be brainwashed about. And as for rubes? Most of the atheists I’ve met live in cities, it’s the religious folk who are more easily characterized as ‘country bumpkins’.
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Ok guy. BYE.
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So why do faith based religions bother atheists so? Every day we read a new story about Atheists blocking prayer, or pulling down 10 Commandments Monuments. If they are so sure science has the answers they seek, why does religion offend them?
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They are bothered by state-sponsored religion, just as you would be if it was a religion different than your own.
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So you’re saying that State Sponsored Science is OK, but religion is verboten? How about State Sponsored Abortion (Murder) of 500,000 babies per year? Now that we have Obamacare, what about the approximately 750,000 State Sponsored Deaths due to Medical Mal-practice? Where does it end? Those religious folk bother me much less than folk that deny their faith, rather it be in Theology, Ideology, or Astrology, etc. Anna has an interesting point here. One I had never explored, but am open enough to gain an understanding. If you get the chance learn about “Entanglement.” Real Eye Opener…..
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What do you think ‘State Sponsored Science’ is?
Given that nobody knows how many people die of existing medical malpractice each year, how did you work out that 750,000 people will die from it now that coverage has been expanded?
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We all suffer from the onerous regulations and taxes that result from state sponsored science. Government grants are constantly given to use science to fraudulently present us with gloom and doom scenarios that we the people are then forced to pony up for in a fake effort to stave off these “sky is falling” crack pot theories.
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Verloren, those numbers were compiled from the ADA, and CDC. It was happening before Obamacare. The difference is, not it’s state sponsored.
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Greg – I don’t get your point: are you saying it’s ok for private companies to commit medical malpractice, but now it’s “state-sponsored” it’s evil?
I’d love to see the actual sources for this data. Right now it’s a meaningless figure because it doesn’t have a timeframe associated with it, but assuming it’s annual that would make medical malpractice the leading cause of death in the US, and twice as prevalent as previous studies have suggested. That’s not meant to challenge your assertion btw; if what you say is true that’s fascinating, and I’d really like to learn more about it.
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