I grew up atheist for 16 years. I had always kept an open mind towards religion, but never really felt a need to believe in it. My sister started going to a Wednesday night children's program at a church. Eventually, I was dragged into a Christmas Eve service. Scoffing, I reluctantly went, assuming that this was going to be a load of crap, but when I went, I felt something. Something that I've never felt before. I felt a sense of empowerment and a sense of calling. Jesus called upon my soul, just like he did with his disciples. he wanted me to follow him. Now, my life is being lived for Christ. He died on the cross for my sins, and the sins of everyone who believes in him. He was beaten, brutalized, struck with a whip 39 times, made to carry a cross up to the stage of his death. This I believe to be true, and I can never repay him for what he has done. I still have my struggles with Christianity, but I've found this bit of information most useful. Religion is not comprehensible in the human mind, because we cannot comprehend the idea of a perfect and supreme being, a God, but we can believe it in our heart, and that's the idea of faith. Faith is, even though everything rides against me believing in Jesus, I still believe in him because I know that it's true in my heart. I invite my fellow Brothers and sisters of the LORD to talk about how Jesus has helped you in your life. No atheists and no insults please
But now what's your theory since it had to come from somewhere, oh that's right, there is no God so there is no explanation since it wasn't created by a higher being and it didn't just appear.
There are more possibilities to explore than just God or poof. Since you seem to be claiming that something can't come from nothing, this leaves us to ask where your God came from. If your Go doesn't require this creation even, then why can we not just apply this to the matter/energy of our universe? Which would at least fit with what we know of the ability to create or destroy matter/energy.
Have you studied abiogenesis? Basically, what we can demonstrate at this point is that the building blocks of life, amino acids, can come from non-living material. So while we don't know exactly how life did form, we do know that it is possible for life to come from non-life.
I wonder if this is the theists simply not looking at things from the other side, if they aren't knowledgeable about the terms, or if it's that they simply don't care because they think they're right.
There is some effort to indoctrunate Christians into thinking atheists "defy logic and say everything came from nothing" or other definitions I've seen such as "don't want to believe God exists" (which is not necessarily the case). Others like myself (when I was a Christian) did understand the term enough to know that the only implication it came with was lack of belief in a god, nothing more, so I wouldn't bother asking since I was the one claiming there was a god. So basically, group 1 thinks atheist=stupid and evil, and there's no reason to investigate what they think any further. Group 2 understands what atheists are and doesn't need clarification.
Thanks for the link to talkorigins, Mage. I tried to bring that up but the page wasn't working when I made my post so I just left it out.
Didn't even have to read a paragraph in the first link to find an error. Hey said that cells had to much simpler, that is baseless to fit into their agenda. You still find single cell organisms but where do you find those much simpler cells? And since they decay there goes any sort of ancient evidence making it a baseless assumption.
Do you believe that there is this atheist conspiracy among scientists to pretend that things like evolution and abiogenesis are real to deconvert the theists? Because I can tell you that me and my evil atheist comrades are too busy silencing all the proofs of god like prayers being answered.
In all seriousness, even if all the scientific data today gets turned on its head and proven wrong tomorrow, that doesn't lend a shred of evidence to theism. Existence must be demonstrated before belief is justified. It's the same reason you stopped believing in Santa Clause: you weren't justified believing he existed. How do you explain the presents getting there without Santa? What's the point of being good if Santa doesn't exist? The same things can be said of god, and I apologize if it sounds insulting to compare God to Santa Clause, but the reality is that neither one of them has been demonstrated to exist so belief in either one of them is unjustified. Now, if you have justification for believing in God (evidence or proof FOR God, not AGAINST science), that's a different story, and if it is valid and sound, you may well convert me today.
I apologize if it sounds insulting to compare God to Santa Clause
Insulting to Santa Clause, maybe. Santa Clause isn't an egotistical supreme dictator, he just gives presents to good little boys and girls.
Hey said that cells had to much simpler, that is baseless to fit into their agenda.
Why is that baseless?
You still find single cell organisms but where do you find those much simpler cells?
Any of the "most simple" cells would have long since been outcompeted.
And since they decay there goes any sort of ancient evidence making it a baseless assumption.
Not really. As we've said before and have linked you to various things, it's been demonstrated that it's possible in the right conditions.
You really like the phrases, "guesswork" and "baseless assumption" but what you believe isn't even as founded as a simple guess or assumption. It's pure imagination with absolutely nothing backing it. Not a single shred of evidence for any claims regarding God are to be found, except in scripture. Anyone can write anything down, and since the claims are coming from the scripture, that can't be used as supporting evidence.
How about you actually give us a reason to accept that God isn't some fictional character?
No, attacking what we've said is not the same thing as supporting your claims. As BigP08 said, even if you did manage to disprove evolution, abiogenesis, and the big bang theory, that wouldn't make your claims any more validated.
So...proof for God please. (I don't even know how many times I've asked this question now...)
Hey said that cells had to much simpler, that is baseless to fit into their agenda. You still find single cell organisms but where do you find those much simpler cells?
Those simpler cells could exist in the conditions that occured early on on earth. Saying modern single celled organisms are too complex is not baseless, but logic, as they are already way too specialized to be the first cells. It does fit in the agenda as it links abiogenesis with evolution.
And since they decay there goes any sort of ancient evidence making it a baseless assumption.
Granted, abiogenesis will never be able to tell us how it actually happened, since we cannot travel back and it didn't leave any traces. But explaining how it could have happened is not baseless at all as it could very well have happened that way (looking at the conditions, there's even reasonable chances for it to have happened that way).
@ImTheMostManlyMan Which is more reasonable? Cells dividing to create other things, which can be observed constantly with the right equipment, or an omnipotent God creating everything in the universe in 6 days with any type of physical form which would be required to create such things? And to clarify, I'm an apatheist. An apatheist is someone who doesn't believe in God, but doesnt' claim that there is no possibility. However, apatheists want no part of God if he does exist. I've seen and been witness to way too many acts of cruelty and other things that make me not want to be part of a God who is so cruel if he exists.
Didn't even have to read a paragraph in the first link to find an error. Hey said that cells had to much simpler, that is baseless to fit into their agenda.
No it's not an error or an agenda, you're just too closed minded.
You still find single cell organisms but where do you find those much simpler cells? And since they decay there goes any sort of ancient evidence making it a baseless assumption.
Single celled organisms such as bacteria do fossilize. So yes we do have evidence of earlier more simplistic single celled organisms. Besides this we still find that the fossil record goes from more simplistic to more advanced in structure. So this also makes it a reasonable assumption to make.
I shall be spending my time elsewhere because I'm not budging and it's quite apparent non of you will.
If the proper evidence was presented I would budge. Please don't project your closed mindedness on the rest of us. There is a difference between refusing to accept facts and not accepting a baseless claim.
I shall be spending my time elsewhere because I'm not budging and it's quite apparent non of you will.
All you need to do is provide evidence (as [1 Peter 3:15] requires you to) for a supernatural, infinitely all-powerful (although there was one spot [Exodus 31:17] where the author (supposedly Moses himself) used the Hebrew word naphash meaning 'to refresh oneself, to take a breath,' in regard to His day of resting, implying that His power needed to be restored through respiration) infinite being.
I shall be spending my time elsewhere because I'm not budging and it's quite apparent non of you will.
That's fine, if you don't wanna debate that's cool. But as others have pointed out, it's not that we won't budge, it's that we haven't been presented with sufficient reason to change our positions. I can tell you personally that I used to have very similar positions with my proofs for god (argument from incredulity) so I understand where you're coming from. I guess all I would do is challenge you to understand where we're coming from, even if you completely disagree. Anyway, see ya around.
I shall be spending my time elsewhere because I'm not budging and it's quite apparent non of you will.
Second thread you've stated this on, and not once have you given any sort of proof for your claims. All you've done is criticize misconceptions about scientific theories.
It's not that we aren't budging, you're basically running up to us, screaming that we think 2+2=poof, and then mockingly say how what we say is just guesswork or assumptions without ever providing any kind of proof in turn for your own beliefs.
Do you really expect us to budge when you do that?
On the other hand, we have been addressing every single one of your points. We have explained the hows and whys of our own stances. We've even said that there are parts we simply don't know yet. We've provided evidence and logical reasoning as for why what we say is currently the most likely explanation from given data, and that we can apply said knowledge in other ways too.
You just keep saying "God did it" without giving any kind of proof or even logical reasoning. Any sort of reasoning you do make (some can't come from nothing) applies to your own beliefs as well, except you purposefully don't include God so that he can be the right answer.
