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
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
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Farmer

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.


Since the Big Bang theory doesn't cover where the matter/energy came from, it doesn't require that we explain where it came from to validate the theory. Just like how we don't have to explain how life originated to validate the theory of evolution.

As I said I will negate all my own beliefs if the majority of the questions shared in the resolution would be solved for scientifically backed and different way than a creationist claims. (i.e. "the matter was always there" = "so was the creator" same argument different statement. You can argue all day that it's not the same argument but the faith value still factors in and the truth of the matter is that bluntly, it really does)


There are two main differences here. First applying it was always there to matter/energy is not an absolute statement as it is with a creator. it's only a hypothesis. Second if this attribute can be applied to either than applying it to a creator adds an extra step that is not needed.
BASHA
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BASHA
660 posts
Nomad

****, thats alot of long posts,definately not gonna read all that, but i will say that time might not be something with a beginning or an end. so nothing created the universe, because it has always been around, and always will be. never created, because its always been here, and always will be. you can't destroy matter, so you know.. andddddd just look at electrons, they don't make any sense at all! and if god is real, he/she either doesn't give a **** about earth, has been taking a reeeeeaaaaaalllllllyyyyyy long nap, or is just a fatty d bag.

MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
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Farmer

but i will say that time might not be something with a beginning or an end.


Given the evidence the universe did have a beginning (The Evidence For The Big Bang In 10 Little Minutes). That being the Big Bang.

Now some argue that the universe goes in cycles of expanding and collapsing again leading to no need for a beginning however given the universe is likely flat this scenario is not likely.

Now I have a question for those on the creationist side of the debate. How is God created the universe any different then something coming from nothing? When we create something all we are really doing is rearranging preexisting matter/energy into a specific form. However God making something seems to circumvent this requirement of preexisting matter/energy.
Efan
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Efan
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Nomad

I have some perhaps helpful to input towards any future comments: When any of you say that "science is wrong", you are being quite foolish as science is defined as factual truths about any subject. Please refer to it as debatable scientific theories with little or no evidence to support it. It gets on my nerves when people say "science is wrong".

driejen
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driejen
486 posts
Nomad

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.
An alternative is not necessary to disprove the unproven. One does not need to prove an atternative explanation for the universe to disprove intelligent design which has no proof itself. This is not a question of justifying the beliefs, or none thereof, of an atheist but rather a seeking knowledge you do not know or fully understand.

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.
One cannot assert the status quo. Asserting that inteligent design is the status quo does not shift the burden of proof. The burden of proof still lies on the positive. The negative requires dismissing the validity of the evidence supporting the positive, but there is no evidence supporting intelligent design in the first place. What is there to disprove? Unless you want people to ignore the flaw in intelligent design and prove everything else?

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.
None of the questions you presented are logical, they are mostly questions I find creationists around youtube ask. You are trying to argue through ignorance. If you really wanted to know, you can do your own research and find the answers yourself, I really can't be asked to do all the research for you. But hey, you're probably thinking, "You can't even be bothered to do research about atheism yet you believe in it". But no, atheism does not require the absolute or partial belief in any theories. Atheism is simply the unbelief in any religion. I don't believe in a god because there is no proof for its existence, I require no further justification.
Fluid
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Fluid
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Farmer

Okay, so basically, you're challenging atheists into proving something that can't be proven. I suppose your goal here is to prove existence of God by showing that the lack of his existence cannot be proven? You could &quotrove" the existence of fairies and unicorns much the same way.
I agree and have stated before that theories such as the Big Bang are nothing more than beliefs if they are taken as a fact. But only a fool would say "The universe was created by the Big Bang", for there is no way to be certain of that. It should be more like "Based on the various facts we are able to gather, we believe the universe..." blabla, the main word here is "believe". So I don't mind at all when someone says "Sorry, but I believe in God.". But saying stuff like "Sorry, but the universe WAS made by God." is as foolish as the Big Bang one.
Also, as much respect as I have for those who like to engage in scientific discussion of the creation of the universe, I'm not going to read through pages of speculations and theories that might make as much sense as geocentrism used to, and I mainly see these kinds of debates as a wasted effort. However, such "ground-breaking" topics are usually the most popular around here, which is really my main concern.

Atheists vs Theists < - It never ends.

Why can't people just say this

Guy 1: Is there a God?
Guy 2: Well we don't have the answer for that, and probably never will. Sorry, I guess you'll have to wait until you die.

Instead of.

Guy 3: REASONS WHY GOD EXISTS - > BLA BLA BLAH who created the universe?

Guy 4: BIG BANG BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH THIS AND THAT.

Oh well :/.


This gives me hope. As bluntly as it's put, I agree with it completely. Perhaps we should focus our energies on something more productive, like discussing the reasons of intolerance between atheists and theists, and between different theists as well. Though most reasons are obvious, through discussion some people might come to a conclusion that tolerance is the way to go, that we don't have to convert each other and should respect each others differences in opinion.

So, I beg you to stop this nonsense.
iko
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iko
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Nomad

Personally I think that, god is way to complex for humans to comprehend right now. I also think the internet is not really the best place for debates such as this

314d1
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314d1
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Nomad

Personally I think that, god is way to complex for humans to comprehend right now. I also think the internet is not really the best place for debates such as this


Why not? Arguments based sole on emotion can't compete here?

So you think there is a deity, that no one can understand, except apparently you who knows about this deity more than any other person on earth?
starcraftfan123
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starcraftfan123
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Nomad

i read most of your questions, and, being an athiest/loose buddhist, (well im trying to become buddhist, not to mention a freaking science fanatic, most-all of your questions can not be comprehended by the human mind as of press time. but, i have a question that is unconsciously checkmating god. If god is a human with otherworldly powers, than he must have a belly button, which disproves him being the first being of anything. same with Adam and eve. (this only makes sense if you know a little bit about female anatomy)

Fluid
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Fluid
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Farmer

Why not? Arguments based sole on emotion can't compete here?


You can't base arguments on emotions. You can't base decent arguments on anything that's completely subjective. It's like claiming something is right because it "feels right".

I also think the internet is not really the best place for debates such as this


I don't think there is any place for such "debates". Nothing to debate here, only to fight over.
314d1
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314d1
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Nomad

You can't base arguments on emotions. You can't base decent arguments on anything that's completely subjective. It's like claiming something is right because it "feels right".


Exactly.... What ain't you getting? Theist claim all the time that there right because they "feel right"...
Cinna
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Cinna
753 posts
Nomad

What ain't you getting?


coughgrammarnazicough
Fluid
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Fluid
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Farmer

Exactly.... What ain't you getting?


Perhaps I've mistranslated what you've said, but it seemed to me that your point was that internet should be a place for arguments based on emotion, and I tried to disprove that point.
MRWalker82
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MRWalker82
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Shepherd

So you believe that there is an eternal deity who made everything and predates and stands apart from natural laws. Yet you cannot comprehend that there are forces and matter which predate everything and define natural law. Am I the only one who sees a flaw in this?

Let me address some of your questions though.

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


Firstly, it's not an 'eternal random chance' if you understand QM, which most of us do not. The easiest way to explain it is that within the seemingly empty space between subatomic particles there are 'virtual particles' which are constantly popping in and out of existence on such a small scale in time and size that they are practically unnoticeable. These fluctuations can cause reactions with other, larger particles.

While this is not a profound event today in our expansive and cool universe, in a time in which matter was very condense and very hot these interactions could feasibly cause that matter to begin expanding.

2. How did we get something out of nothing


There is no such thing as 'nothing' in our current universe. As I noted in my previous post, even in areas we think of as empty space there are still particles coming in and out of existence. As to where this matter came from prior, we simply do not know. There are many hypothesis for this however none have any amount of supporting evidence which makes me confident enough to ascribe to any particular school of thought.

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


Carbon, and many of our other common elements, were formed through nuclear fusion in the hearts of stars. The heat and pressure within these massive gas furnaces caused atoms to separate and then combine with others which created our elements.

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.


Firstly, I really don't like the usage of the term 'randomly'. You use it as if you find every scientific claim to rely on 'random chance' which is simply not true. It isn't random because it relies on very well established physical laws.

If you want to know how the earth became where it is now, then that's gravity at work. And it's 'suited for life' because life evolved here. Furthermore, we have an extremely limited idea of what 'life' is and what is required for life to evolve. We have only examples from our planet, so to say that 'Earth is perfect for life' is a ridiculous assertion. Had we evolved on Jupiter, for example, we would be sitting here asking why Jupiter was perfect for life.

There are no simpler terms to explain these things, and the protracted explanations won't make sense.

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?


We haven't seen life anywhere else because we simply haven't looked very much. To give you an analogy: go out to a football field and place a quarter in the middle of the 50 yard line. That quarter is approximately how much of the universe we know of. The rest of the football field is about how big we believe the universe is, based on our most recent measurements. That is why we haven't found what you think we should have by now.

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


You really need to quantify what you mean by 'time'. Our best definition is that time is a measurement used to place events in a sequence of occurrence. Ergo, time 'began' when events began taking place. We do not fully know when this was, however, as we cannot measure or identify any events prior to 100,000 light years after the 'big bang' took place. However this question realistically has as much relevance as asking when inches began, or when the first mile happened.

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


Physical laws began when matter began interacting with eachother. No one fully understands why or how they came about, however, and perhaps we may never fully understand.

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


All of the matter which we now know to be necessary for the life we observe on our planet came from the 'big bang' and also from the fusion within stars. This is where almost all known elements were formed. As for how, this is a chemical process by which chemicals formed amino acids which were capable of self replication, initially through a cloning process.

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


Matter is 'erfectly organized'? You might want to elaborate on what you mean here. Sure, we see some organization in the universe, however we also see an awful lot of chaos.

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?


First cell capable of sexual reproduction? Well, prior to living organisms the earliest building blocks of life reproduced by cloning. After that we find that they had some form of asexual reproduction in which allele frequencies varied in successive generations.

Organisms evolve into different forms by variance in allele frequencies in each successive generation. Over vast amounts of time and generations these variations lead to traits being expressed differently.

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.


Actually you have natural selection a bit backward. Natural selection acts best on larger breeding populations. This means that larger, more stable populations of a species are better suited for survival, not the other way around.

12. Does the individual animal or plant have a drive to survive, or the species in whole? How is this explained?


A bit of both it seems. Our drive to reproduce ensures that our genetic information survives, however in social animals we begin to see individuals who will forgo personal gain for the betterment of their social group. This seems to be more related to the strength of a social group providing more security and increasing chances of survival than anything related to the drive to propagate.

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?


What is meant by "natural selection tends to only keep a species stable", and of course it only works with genetic information available as there is nothing else. As for the 'increasing complexity' I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

Natural selection only means that those traits which are of the greatest benefit within a species and geographic location will tend to be passed on because said species have the greatest chance to reproduce and survive. That's all it means.

As for 'increasing complexity' I'm going to assume that you mean the diversity of life we see. Well, life has been diverse for millions of years, and will continue to be diverse, because of evolution due to variations of allele frequencies which result in genes being expressed in different manners.

For example, we can use the same gene as a fruit fly to cause our cells to turn into an eye, yet our cells recognize, through our genes, that we need the type of eye we have now. This is an example of how an identical gene has varied it's expression in such a manner that it creates a vastly different organ.

14. When, where, why, and how did single-celled plants and animals become multi-celled? Where are the two-and three- celled intermediates?


Here's a good article on the phylogeny of Kingdom Animalia

Furthermore, there are no single-celled animals. None. As for 'intermediates' what are you looking for? You want fossilized remains of a three celled organism which is distinctly animal or plant? No such thing exists, nor would we find such a thing. You are asking for something which we could never find.

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?


Well, there is no 'missing link' just so you know. And we DO have literally thousands of transitional species, even by the strictest scientific definition of the word.

Transitional Species FAQs
Evolution and Phylogeny of H. Sapiens

I also suggest you watch the series on youtube by AronRa, an Earth Sciences major from University of Texas, entitled "Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism". He does an excellent job explaining cladistic phylogeny, evolution, transitional species, and exposing the logical fallacies propagated by Creationism, and indeed many religions.

15. When did eyes or ears evolve and from what did they evolve from?


The earliest eyes and ears were single cells which were able to either sense light or sound waves, as is applicable for each function. As these creatures evolved those who were better able to sense these things were at an advantage in their environment. Due to the laws of natural selection these traits flourished, and through evolution they gradually developed into more efficient and complex systems within the organism.

Evolution of the eye
Evolution of the ear
Freakenstein
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Freakenstein
9,504 posts
Jester

I may need to cite something. My wall o' text back there was The Origin of Life Made Easy by Potholer54 put into words. These are very informative videos that also make room for some slight humor to keep you entertained. So if there's anything that you don't understand or if you would like to learn more about certain things, I highly recommend watching these videos. I also highly suggest the OP participate, because it's evident that some of your ideas about certain topics are lacking or missing in full. If you're still around, that is

The Origin of Life Made Easy:

Natural Selection Made Easy:

The Theory of Evolution Made Easy:

Human Evolution Made Easy:

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