ForumsWEPRA Debate/Challenge for all Atheist on AG

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redbedhead
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redbedhead
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Nomad

Now to start this off, I have but one request: I will respect you as an individual and as a human being as long as you will give me the same respect. Too many times have I debated over this topic in the past with atheists, and not to be bias but, most times in the PC world of today if you believe in theism or creationism you instantly become ridiculed for being an unintelligent imbecile. I took debate all four years of high school, throughout all of undergrad at KU, and I'm currently enrolled in Stanford for a double major in Law and Spanish. Now I have no degree directly in science but in no means am I unintelligent. I have studied this subject personally and have done my own research and have attended many seminars on the subject so I do know what I am talking about the subject. I do not want this to turn into a flame war of mind numbing mudslinging and dehumanizing of a person of an opposing view. So again I ask that this remains simply an intelligent debate over the topic.

Note:I wrote this all in Word then cut/pasted onto AG so if any format problems occur I apologize up front and I will try to edit and fix them as they arise.

Alright now for the exciting stuff. So here is the case.

How do you explain the beginning of a universe without intelligent design?

Alright now let me lay the foundation and boundaries for this case.
1. The most important out of all of these is what the case entitles. This is not a debate on if an INTELLIGENT DESIGNER exists at all (because there are plenty of threads on the forums that encompass this debate) , but how the universe came about in the first place WITHOUT intelligent design.
2. This being said it entitles that a world that was created by intelligent design is the status quo. Whether you believe it or not for the purposes of this debate it will remain the status quo making the defense against this case: the negative, and leaving the affirmative challengers with the burden of evidence.
3. If evidence is claimed be sure to back it up not using sole opinion and analytics to prove your point. (i.e. "Evidence proves that this happened!!" ....what evidence are you citing?)
4. Neither side can claim FIAT in any fashion. It either happens or it doesn't.
5. Keep it clean.
6. **IMPORTANT** To all mods reading this, as I said this is not a debate on rather or not an intelligent designer exists or not so this is not a repeat thread, rather a thread that is from a different point of view so please do not lock this thread for that purpose. Also I am aware (from a few years ago) that a majority of the mods are atheists and again I please ask that you do not use your power to make the debate unfair and you work with me to keep it on the right track as to not let it just become a giant hate flame war. I know mods in the past have, well to be blunt, have been flat out rude when it comes to topics like this which in turns creates an atmosphere for unintelligent debates. So let's just keep this one on the right path.

Alright now on to the second part of the resolution: To fully win this debate the following answers must be answered with compelling evidence or at least a substantial amount of them. I have made a wide scope of logical questions to be answered and I don't find a single one of them ridiculous even if you disagree they still must be negated.

1. Explain how some eternal random chance of quantum physics which would have to schematically predate time itself randomly burst forth such a force to create a start to everything out of nothing
2. How did we get something out of nothing
3. How did we get the carbon to form to start the building blocks of life
4. How did earth randomly become the only suitable place for a human being to live and how did it become so perfectly adapted to an orbit around a G2V superstar that would freeze us into an ice age if we were simply 1 or 2 light years further away or burn us to death if we were simply 1 or 2 light years closer.
5. How did the random chance of Earth being the only sustainable place for life occur, and if 6 billion years or more have passed why haven't we seen the same occurrence in other planets or at least the start of it?
6. How do you explain the beginning of time itself?
7. When, where, and how did the laws of the universe form and come about? (gravity, inertia, etc.)
8. Where did the matter come from to make life? How did life come to form from dead matter to living matter.
9. How did the matter get so perfectly organized and where did the energy come from to organize it?
10. What did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce? Since it would be asexual reproduction how do several single cell organisms develop into something completely different?
11. Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival according to Darwin's theory of natural selection.
12. Does the individual animal or plant have a drive to survive, or the species in whole? How is this explained?
13. Natural selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity in the genetic code that must have occurred if evolution were true?
14. When, where, why, and how did single-celled plants and animals become multi-celled? Where are the two-and three- celled intermediates? Where has the REAL missing link been found and not already disproven? Wouldn't there have to be several hundreds of missing links for each species to develop (from fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to birds or simians) and if there are so many that wouldn't it be simple to find at least a few?
15. When did eyes or ears evolve and from what did they evolve from?

Satirical humor might seem funny to you such as "Oh you are very smart aren't you! I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster/Invisible Pink Unicorn/Cold fire-breathing Garage Dragon too! It makes just as much sense as your invisible God! You're unintelligent and ignorant and I can't debate with someone as stupid and crazy as you because you believe differently than I do and I am significantly smarter than you." But the truth of the matter is; it's very offensive to me and I believe all the other Christians or theist on these forums that have to endure troll comments like this. I have not insulted you (maybe my views have) but I have not made fun of you or ridiculed you for your beliefs or commented on your intelligence. I hold myself to be a respectable man, and I won't stoop to the level of insulting a person for their beliefs. I am judging no one for their beliefs and I agree that every single individual is entitled to their own opinions and it does not make them any more unintelligible than me for believing something different. So making a remark about being a Pastatarian or challenging my intelligence is just rude and uncalled for and I hope no one will go to such lengths as being unprofessional over a complex debate.

As I am completely aware (being a Christian over the years) the biggest thing creationists are antagonized for is their "blind faith" for their religion of "gaps". I agree that I have much faith in God as a supernatural being that I cannot see who created everything we see today, but the evidence is purely in statistics and although this debate is not encompassing that directly; it's leading to my next point. That what it is that amazes me the most is the total denunciation of faith by the scientific community when they so do it themselves. How so? The fact that they try to just take it a step further past a divine creator, and look at the beginning of time an unanswerable question that just has to be assumed as a theorem. That alone, takes a great deal of faith to believe in something that honestly can't be proven or any logical argument would lead to an infinite loop that is really just not rational either. The argument will presumably take a turn to who created a creator which is not the main focus of this debate but to make this clear. The reason there is no need for a creator of the creator then the reason the creation needs a creator is like this example: Leonardo Da Vinci created the Mona Lisa in 1519. Yet according to this same exact theory, who created Da Vinci? So "let's just take it a step further and say" that the Mona Lisa created itself out of nothing. Whereas actually if we DO have evidence of design then it doesn't matter where did that object come from. Since we know that the Mona Lisa painting is designed and likewise we can't avoid the design inference by asking who made the painting. Similarly *IF* we can show that universe has design then you can't escape the inference by asking "Who made the designer?". Thus "who made god" may be a good counter to the cosmological argument but not so a good in the case of design arguments. Thus as stands a world created by intelligent design will remain the status quo for the entirety of this debate.

  • 159 Replies
redbedhead
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redbedhead
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Nomad

what i'm saying is saying that you have some degree that doesn't pertain to religion isn't necessary it only shows that you like telling people that you have a degree


I understand what your trying to say but I'm explaining to you as stated before since I do have a law degree (or at least working for one) is that I can debate and since I do have a degree in said field I'm not some random radical idiot trying to persuade people when I have no background knowledge whatsoever on the case.
JohnsBiggestFan
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JohnsBiggestFan
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Nomad

I dont blindly believe anything scientifically.
But religion is something different.

locoace3
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locoace3
15,053 posts
Nomad

yeh all i an say is it was there, you obviously can't start anything from nothing, but what grounds do you have to say there was nothing there in the first place?

redbedhead
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redbedhead
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Nomad

I actually acknowledge that I don't know where the matter came from, but that the big bang is the most likely case for what happened to that matter.


But you can't have the big bang without the matter. So that couldn't physically work until the explanation of where the matter came from is accounted for. Since you can't recall where the matter was from, you must simply believe as a theorem that it was always there? But beliefs without visual facts is what I believe is reffered to as "faith". So in essence you have faith that the matter was always there to help the Big Bang happen.
redbedhead
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redbedhead
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Nomad

I dont blindly believe anything scientifically.
But religion is something different.


Really? How so?

yeh all i an say is it was there, you obviously can't start anything from nothing, but what grounds do you have to say there was nothing there in the first place?


Because it is an impossible paradox that a natural process would process without having a beginning and when you can't specifically account for the beginning than it's simply mere believing the same way one would believe that God exists because you can't prove that something was always there to begin with.
locoace3
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locoace3
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Nomad

Really? How so?


your kidding me right? religion is always blindly followed take a peek at the medieval ages
Moe
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Moe
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Blacksmith

But you can't have the big bang without the matter. So that couldn't physically work until the explanation of where the matter came from is accounted for. Since you can't recall where the matter was from, you must simply believe as a theorem that it was always there? But beliefs without visual facts is what I believe is reffered to as "faith". So in essence you have faith that the matter was always there to help the Big Bang happen.


I don't have to say where the matter is from, nor how it got there, nor when it got there, nor anything about it other than it was there for the big bang to happen. I have no faith because I don't blindly believe. Also if you read closely I said that the big bang was the most likely, and all it requires is that the matter was there for a fraction of a second for it to happen, where said matter came from is totally immaterial.
redbedhead
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redbedhead
341 posts
Nomad

your kidding me right? religion is always blindly followed take a peek at the medieval ages


Yet you haven't answered a single one of the questions logically and everything you have just said proves that you "blindly follow" a theory because you can't account for the beginning of it, and without the uniqueness of the beginning your entire arguement is negated until you can solve for it.
redbedhead
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redbedhead
341 posts
Nomad

I don't have to say where the matter is from, nor how it got there, nor when it got there, nor anything about it other than it was there for the big bang to happen.


If you looked at the rules before you posted you would have realized no one side is allowed to claim FIAT, and understood if you don't know what that means is that you can't claim that the jurisdiction doesn't need to be solved for because the argument is simply &quoterceived to happen."
Simply put you can't just opt out of any of the questions simply because you feel that it will suffice to assume. When you can't account for the matter you are admitting that it had to come from somewhere. It is illogical to believe otherwise. Yet the argument "it was always there" is that not the same as saying, "well God was always there?"
It's the same argument in different words.

I have no faith because I don't blindly believe. Also if you read closely I said that the big bang was the most likely, and all it requires is that the matter was there for a fraction of a second for it to happen, where said matter came from is totally immaterial


Yes all that it requires is that the matter was there for a fraction of a second but your simply NOT accounting for where the matter came from in the first place. All your doing is simply dancing around the real question.
JohnsBiggestFan
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JohnsBiggestFan
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Nomad

Really? How so?

Religion is a personal belief.Science is not.
redbedhead
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redbedhead
341 posts
Nomad

Religion is a personal belief.Science is not.


Again how so? So you don't "believe" in science? You seem to be making the same arguments yet they relate directly to an exact disadvantage to science.
Moe
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Moe
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Blacksmith

I am not dancing around any questions, nor is my argument anywhere near saying something like God was always there. We have evidence for the big bang(which is how it became a theory)(and yes I realize its wikipedia, but it has real sources). With evidence for the after effects you can assume matter was there, how it got there and where it came from are immaterial to the big bang happening.

redbedhead
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redbedhead
341 posts
Nomad

I am not dancing around any questions, nor is my argument anywhere near saying something like God was always there. We have evidence for the big bang(which is how it became a theory)(and yes I realize its wikipedia, but it has real sources). With evidence for the after effects you can assume matter was there, how it got there and where it came from are immaterial to the big bang happening.


Well first off wikipedia is not a credible source as you said but I will still refute the argumentation you made. I'm well aware of what the Big Bang Theory states. Yet what you fail to see is yes you have "evidence" for IF the matter was there the Big Bang would be able to work. Yet since there is a LACK of evidence for the accounting of the matter forming in the first place the Big Bang theory can not be fully proven until the start of it. Thus relooping this circle that we have been going around. Where was the evidence conceived from and how was it proven may I ask?

Also going along the same theory that the big bang theory does, If I were to have an empty garage and left it alone for a million years, when I come back will I have found a BMW that has randomly been created from nothing? No? How about if I come back 6 billion years, or even 6 trillion years? Alright BMW is a manmade machine fair enough. So let's say I turn my garage into a vacuum devoid of all matter. If I were to come back 6 billion years or however many would I be able to find a single carbon molecule?

This links back to my first point where would that come from? Actually if you look at the complexity of perfectly forming a single molecule of carbon out of nothing is like me at the very LEAST writing a 1000 page novel, being generous and tearing three random pages out of it and telling you to perfectly reconstruct the exact same novel word for word allowing you all the time in the world (6 billion years perhaps)  Would you be able to do it? The statistics are just too staggering to be logical.
314d1
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314d1
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Nomad

Again how so? So you don't "believe" in science? You seem to be making the same arguments yet they relate directly to an exact disadvantage to science.


Science is the same for everyone, every time you do the same experiment. It does not change from personal preferences.

To prove it, lets try an experiment, as that is what you do in science. Take a ball and drop it to the floor. It falls down ward? Great. It did for me to. There. We have a scientific hypothesis. No matter who I go to, the ball will always fall. Now I bring in more proof, and essentially I have a theory "the ball will always fall".

Religion, however, doesn't work that way. It is different opinions on what the person's ideals would be, not what is actually there.
samy
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samy
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Nomad

Before I address your questions let me say that the scientific aspect of religion isn't my forte in the subject, rather, I prefer to debate various parts of the religion itself but I'm more than happy to try the challenge.

3. If evidence is claimed be sure to back it up not using sole opinion and analytics to prove your point.


I remind you that this rule applies to yourself as well, although as the affirmative in this case it's my job to present you with sources they never hurt when telling me when I'm wrong.

1. Explain how some eternal random chance of quantum physics which would have to schematically predate time itself randomly burst forth such a force to create a start to everything out of nothing


Personally, I don't know. However you are assuming here that time is an independent variable, perhaps time and space are dependent on one another. In this situation both would have begun with the big bang thus negating your point that it would have to predate time or perhaps time has no beginning or end again refuting your point that it predated time. As a response question how did your god predate time and burst forth from nothing?

2. How did we get something out of nothing


Something came from nothing otherwise how would we have anything? Did god come from something? If so wouldn't that make this something above god?

3. How did we get the carbon to form to start the building blocks of life


Carbon is formed in stars.

4. How did earth randomly become the only suitable place for a human being to live and how did it become so perfectly adapted to an orbit around a G2V superstar that would freeze us into an ice age if we were simply 1 or 2 light years further away or burn us to death if we were simply 1 or 2 light years closer.


Mathematically at least one of the trillions upon trillions of planets in the universe would have to be in the goldilocks zone, it just so happens that we inhabit this one.

5. How did the random chance of Earth being the only sustainable place for life occur, and if 6 billion years or more have passed why haven't we seen the same occurrence in other planets or at least the start of it?


The universe is quite large you know, just because none of the 400-600 planets we have proved to exist have shown signs of life doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Even of these planets we've no way of knowing if life does exist on them because we can't directly see some of them.

6. How do you explain the beginning of time itself?


See my answer to question 1.

7. When, where, and how did the laws of the universe form and come about? (gravity, inertia, etc.)


Most have to do with mass and energy, two things that have to exist for anything too. Gravity exists do to the pulling effect of objects with mass and inertia exists because of the mass of an object and its energy. As with anything the complex comes about because of the simple.

8. Where did the matter come from to make life? How did life come to form from dead matter to living matter.


Elements came from stars, life is made of elements, so the matter came from stars. Abiogenesis check it out.

9. How did the matter get so perfectly organized and where did the energy come from to organize it?


Electric attractions between particles? I don't know if I completely understand the question.

10. What did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce? Since it would be asexual reproduction how do several single cell organisms develop into something completely different?


Well, it probably reproduced an organism much like itself similar to what sexual organisms do today. Sexual reproduction isn't that much different than asexual, it only requires an exchange of DNA and the process of meiosis instead of mitosis.

11. Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival according to Darwin's theory of natural selection.
12. Does the individual animal or plant have a drive to survive, or the species in whole? How is this explained?


Natural selection occurs do to competition between organisms, populations, and different species. The main goal of a population is to reproduce more than other populations of the same species thus causing it to have a better chance to survive. Survival of the fittest is basically survival of those whom breed the most.

13. Natural selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity in the genetic code that must have occurred if evolution were true?


Mutation, seriously that's it.

14. When, where, why, and how did single-celled plants and animals become multi-celled? Where are the two-and three- celled intermediates? Where has the REAL missing link been found and not already disproven? Wouldn't there have to be several hundreds of missing links for each species to develop (from fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to birds or simians) and if there are so many that wouldn't it be simple to find at least a few?


A long time ago, probably Earth, in order to survive better, I would imagine the answer lies in mutualism although I'm not sure. Fossils are already incredibly rare so no it really wouldn't, also, the transition species would probably have more major differences in soft tissue and DNA that would not be preserved.

I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster/Invisible Pink Unicorn/Cold fire-breathing Garage Dragon too!


No offence meant here but what makes you god more practical than the FSM?

So making a remark about being a Pastatarian or challenging my intelligence is just rude and uncalled for and I hope no one will go to such lengths as being unprofessional over a complex debate.


I mean it as a challenge to your intelligence the same way this thread is meant as a challenge to mind, I completely respect your beliefs but that doesn't mean I wont ask hard questions.

That what it is that amazes me the most is the total denunciation of faith by the scientific community when they so do it themselves.


I'm an agnostic atheist, I love faith, hell I want mine back. Be careful with blanket statements.

The fact that they try to just take it a step further past a divine creator, and look at the beginning of time an unanswerable question that just has to be assumed as a theorem.


Being divine, and thus supernatural, makes it impossible for science to study god. They ignore god because god isn't scientific or empirical. The goal of science is to search for answers, although it's been perverted into somewhat of a religion lately, it doesn't exist to disprove god.

The reason there is no need for a creator of the creator then the reason the creation needs a creator is like this example: Leonardo Da Vinci created the Mona Lisa in 1519. Yet according to this same exact theory, who created Da Vinci?


Trace it back through millions of years of evolution and billions of years through elements to the big bang.

Honestly I don't get the point you're trying to make with this.

Anyway, hope my answers spur the debate on a little but I need to sleep. I'll reply tomorrow.
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